November 4, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 8, 1424

CAIRO, Nov 3: Sunni Islam’s highest authority, Al-Azhar university, has blacklisted a book of love poetry by an Egyptian writer even though it was approved for sale by the Egyptian government earlier this year, a senior religious leader said on Monday.

The university’s Centre of Islamic Research found that Ahmed al-Shahawi’s book ‘Commandments on Women’s Love’ “used sayings of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) out of context to call on women to love without reservation,” Sheikh Saber Thaalab said.

The book “contains commandments calling on women to surrender themselves to passion, give themselves up absolutely and without shame, and parade naked before their lovers. It glorifies carnal pleasure, that’s why we’ve decided to ban it,” the cleric said.

But a culture ministry official said that Al-Azhar had “no right to ban books” without a court ruling. Any opponent of a book “must take recourse to the justice system, which is the only party entitled to decide”, said the head of the government-run General Publishing Authority, Samir Sarhan.

Only two months ago, Egyptian authorities approved the book for sale despite pressure from an MP affiliated to the banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa Mohammed Mustafa.

Sarhan is on record as saying Shahawi’s book was a “high quality work by a recognized poet who is also a responsible journalist with a national press organisation.”

It is unusual for the Al-Azhar to go against a decision of the Egyptian state. Its head, currently Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, is chosen with the approval of the authorities.—AFP