(Photo by Amany Kamal)
The Ministry of Religious Endowments said on Tuesday it will work on training moderate female religious scholars to advocate women’s and children’s rights from a modern religious perspective.
The decision is one of many recommendations the ministry drafted with other religious scholars and ministers on Monday during a religious discourse forum.
The Ministry of Religious Endowments held a forum for renewing religious discourse in Egypt on Monday in downtown Cairo. The forum witnessed a large turnout including Culture Minister Abdel Wahed Al-Nabawy, Sports Minister Khaled Abdel-Aziz, religious scholars, and professors.
“This decision will save women from falling in the realm of extremism”, the ministry said in an official statement. The statement also listed part of the forum main recommendations, while others are still pending.
The ministry will also update the religious discourse inside mosques by collaborating with different sectors in the government, such as the culture and youth sectors. It will also give training and mentorship to its scholars, and update the religious subject syllabus inside schools.
“We will reap what we harvest,” said Amr Fahmy, a scholar who attended the religious discourse forum. “If we educated our younger age Muslims properly we will have positive change-makers in the future.”
Through organising two general sessions and a workshop, the ministry aims through this forum to research and discuss new tools for spreading religious speeches in Egypt. It is part of many steps it has undertaken over the past two years to counter “extreme Islamists”.
