Cairo: Egypt's top comedian Adel Imam, widely known across the Arab world as the leader, is locked in a sharp spat with a celebrated Muslim preacher, who accuses Imam of degrading Muslim clerics in his movies.
"Imam mocks preachers, including me," Khalid Al Guindy, a prominent Muslim televangelist said on Azhari, a private religious TV station, which he manages.
"I have asked Imam more than once to stop making fun of Islamic figures, but to no avail.
"He casts Muslims in an unfavourable light by portraying the Muslims wearing the jallabia (flowing garments) and sporting beards as terrorists. He is a mere actor, who calls himself a leader. He is the leader of himself. My leader is (President) Hosni Mubarak."
The spat, which has made local headlines and generated commentaries in this predominantly Muslim country, was ignited by a report in a private newspaper that Imam had turned down a blank cheque from Al Guindy to star in an "Islamic" film. The newspaper quoted Imam, one of Egypt's most popular actor over the past 30 years, as saying at a press conference in Jordan that his films are not just for Muslims.
Distressed
Imam, who portrayed a militant in a hit film called The Terrorist, denied the report.
"I have always been the target of insults from others. But this time I feel distressed because my detractor is a Muslim preacher, who said I am a mere actor," Imam said in a call to the private television Al Hayat channel. "I ask God to forgive him for what he said against me."
Earlier this year, a fundamentalist in Algeria had reportedly passed a fatwa (a religious edict) on shedding the blood of Imam for criticising the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas for triggering a devastating Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip.
"What strikes attention is that attacks against Adel Imam have picked pace," wrote Ahmad Al Najmi in the pro-government magazine Al Musawwar last week. "Less than a year after the death fatwa against Imam, Khalid Al Guindy tries to undermine Imam's popularity."
According to Al Najmi, Imam, now in his 60s, is targeted by terrorists and the corrupt entrepreneurs "for unmasking them on the screen".
In the 1990s, when Egypt was the scene of a series of terror attacks, especially in the poor southern parts, Imam took the risk of performing in a hit show in Assiut in southern Egypt.
