Cairo: Egyptian authorities have confiscated hundreds of books from mosques across the mostly Muslim country as part of a crackdown targeting writings by the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and radical allies, religious sources said on Thursday.
The clampdown by the Ministry of Waqf (religious endowments) is based on information from security agencies that libraries of several mosques include books by the Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan Al Banna, the movement’s late ideologue Sayyid Qutb, and Yousuf Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born Qatari cleric recently sentenced to death by an Egyptian court, the sources added.
Some of the seized books are also written by members of the hardline Al Jamaa Al Islamia (Islamic Group), a Brotherhood ally.
A campaign led by senior officials in the Ministry of Waqfs on Wednesday confiscated some 2,000 books by “militant” clerics at a major mosque in Cairo, local media reported.
“There are strict instructions from Minister of Waqf Mohammad Juma to check libraries of all mosques to cleanse them of books disseminating extremist ideas,” Ashraf Fahmi, an inspection director at the Waqf Ministry, said.
“The ministry will not allow the propagation of any thought alien to the moderate course of Al Azhar,” he added, referring to Sunni Islam’s prestigious seat of learning.
The move is part of an inexorable clampdown that has targeted the Brotherhood since the army toppled Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in 2013 following enormous protests against his one-year rule.
Thousands of followers of the 87-year-old group, from which Mursi hails, have since been detained and given heavy-handed sentences including death penalties.
The Egyptian government has in recent months tightened its grip on mosques, denying the Brotherhood and allied groups a major forum to influence devout Muslims.
