“I declare before God almighty that I separate myself and the precepts of the Islamic religion and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad from this sinful criminal act and from all who follow this perverse and false ideology,” he said, in a message read at a Meeting for Peace in Rome, in which he did not participate physically.
The imam thus condemned the beheading, last Friday in Paris, of Professor Samuel Paty, for showing cartoons of Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression.
His words were read by the secretary general of the Superior Committee of the Human Fraternity, Mogamed Abdelsalam Adbellatif, during a Prayer Meeting for Peace in Rome, where religious representatives were present, including Pope Francis.
However, at the same time he criticized religion for being offended.
“Insulting and abusing sacred symbols under the slogan of freedom of expression represents a form of intellectual ambiguity and an explicit act of immorality,” said Ahmed al Tayeb.
“This terrorist and his people do not represent the religion of Muhammad, in the same way that the New Zealand terrorist who murdered Muslims in the mosque does not represent the religion of Jesus,” he pointed out, in a reference to the terrorist attack in March 2019.
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