Cairo: Less than a week after Egyptian banks launched investment certificates for funding a new waterway, religious authorities and radical Muslim clerics are engaged in a war of fatwas (religious edicts) over Islam’s view of this financing tool

Al Azhar, Egypt’s prestigious institution of Sunni Islam, has blessed the investment certificates offered by the government of recently elected President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi to finance the building of a 72-kilometre-long waterway parallel to the existing Suez Canal.

The certificates are offered at an annual interest rate of 12 per cent and are valid for five years. The dividends are cashed every three months, with holders having the right to get loans for up to 90 per cent of the value of the certificates. The widely hyped certificates, available only for Egyptians for national security reasons, have generated a high turnout at branches of the four state-owned banks in charge of selling them.

Certificates worth 28 billion Egyptian pounds (around Dh14 billion) have been sold in the first four days of their public offering, according to the Central Bank of Egypt Governor Hesham Ramez. He added that 60 billion Egyptian pounds (the estimated cost of the new canal) is targeted to be collected from the certificate sales.

Several ultra-conservative Salafists are critical of the funding tool for the channel, part of a larger project designed to develop the Suez Canal zone and establish Egypt as a global logistics and trade hub. “From the perspective of Sharia [Islamic law], these investment certificates are usury, which is impermissible in Islam,” Abu Ishaq Al Heweini, a leading Salafist, said.

“Dealings in Islam are based on gains and losses,” said Ala’a Shehtu, a member of the Salafist Al Nour Party. “So, dealings that get profits only are considered usurious and are prohibited in Islam. This applies to the Suez Canal certificates.”

Their opinions have been echoed by other clerics in their mosque sermons, prompting the Ministry of Waqf (religious affairs) to bring more Salafist-controlled mosques under the state oversight. Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country where religion is deeply linked to

people’s lives.

“The Suez Canal project is a national project, which will benefit the country and humanity as a whole,” Minister of Waqf Mohammad Juma said. He said that agencies affiliated to Al Azhar and the Ministry of Waqfs have already subscribed to the project by buying certificates worth 650 million Egyptian pounds. “This is a practical fatwa that these certificates comply with the Sharia.”

Several pre-eminent pro-government clergymen have recently visited the site of the new canal, expected to be completed by next August, and praised it.

Dar Al Ifta, Egypt’s top religious authority advising Muslims on religious and life issues, has released a fatwa saying that the Suez Canal investment certificates are Sharia-compliant.

“The dividends offered on these certificates are aimed at encouraging individuals to subscribe to the project so that the state can face challenges, overcome [financial] hardships and push forward development in a wise way,” the state-run institution added. “The Sharia allows the innovation of new contracts.”

Egypt’s economy has been in the doldrums for nearly four years due to political and street turmoil, which hit the country in the wake of a 2011 uprising that forced long-time president Hosni Mubarak out of power.

Al Sissi, an ex-army chief who took office in June, has vowed to re-establish security and reinvigorate the economy.