Fatwa sullo sciismo di al-Azhar

La Fatwa sullo sciismo di al-Azhar in arabo فتوى شلتوت‎^?, Fatwa al-Shaltut, ossia "La fatwa di Shaltut") è una fatwa emessa nel 1959 a proposito delle relazioni tra sunnismo e scismo dal Grande Imam di al-Azhar [[Mahmud Shaltut). | deadurl= no}}</ref> However, despite the ecumenical fatwa, while Shaltoot was Grand Imam of Al-Azhar he refused to establish an independent Shia chair at the University, which was one of the greatest aspirations, especially, of the Shia members of the Dar al-Taqreeb.^[1]

This rare fatwa, which admits Shia Muslims, Alawites, and Druze into mainstream Islam who had been considered heretics and idolaters for hundreds of years, has been viewed as being inspired by the then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.^[2] Nasser saw it as a tool to spread his appeal and influence across the entire Arab world.^[3]

In 2012, due to drift towards Salafism in Al-Azhar, the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Al-Azhar issued a fatwa strongly opposed to the 1959 fatwa. It forbade worship according to the Shia tradition and condemned as heretics anyone who insulted the wives or companions of Muhammad. Al-Azhar also published a book condemning the Shia.^[4]

See also

• Sunni fatwas on Shias

References

1. ^ Islamic Ecumenism In The 20th Century: The Azhar And Shiism Between Rapprochement And Restraint, revised, Brill, 2004, p. 301, ISBN 9789004125483.
2. ^ Saïd K. Aburish, Nasser: the last Arab, illustrated, Duckworth, 2004, pp. 200–201, ISBN 9780715633007.
   
   «But perhaps the most far reaching change [initiated by Nasser’s guidance] was the fatwa commanding the readmission to mainstream Islam of the Shia, Alawis, and Druze. They had been considered heretics and idolaters for hundreds of years, but Nasser put an end to this for once and for all. While endearing himself to the majority Shia of Iraq and undermining Kassem [the communist ruler of Iraq at the time] might have played a part in that decision, there is no doubting the liberalism of the man in this regard.»
3. ^ Nikki R Keddie, Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, illustrated, University of Washington Press, 2002, p. 306, ISBN 9780295982069.
4. ^ Mohamed Al-Araby, Identity politics, Egypt and the Shia, in Al-Ahram Weekly, 25 April 2013. URL consultato il 20 April 2014.

External links

• Copy of exchanges between the Sunni scholarship and the Shia scholarship
• The Origins of the Sunni/Shia Split in Islam

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