The Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the great Imam Ahmad al-Tayeb, sparked a heated debate on social networking sites about polygamous marriages, and that the issue is unfairly witnessed by women and children in many cases.
Al-Azhar Sheikh stressed that polygamy is "an injustice to women" and not "origin" in Islam and that it is conditional and restricted, which has provoked widespread debate in Egypt.
"The first issues of heritage that need to be renewed are women's issues, because women are half the society, and the lack of interest in them makes us walk as if we were walking on one leg," Sheikh Al-Tayeb said in remarks published yesterday by Al-Azhar.
He stressed that "the issue of polygamy is unjustly witnessed by women and children in many cases, which is a distortion of the correct understanding of the Koran and the Sunna."
"Those who say that the origin of marriage is plural are mistaken, and my full responsibility," Tayeb said in a weekly program on the official satellite channel. "The original in the Koran is, 'If you are comfortable, do not change one'.
"We have to read the verse in which the question of polygamy is fully included. Some read" two, three and four, "and this is part of the verse, not the whole verse, there is what precedes it and beyond."
"Is it permissible for a Muslim to marry a second, third and fourth wife on his first wife, or is this freedom restricted by conditions?" In other words, polygamy is a restricted right, or we can say that it is a license. .
He considered that "pluralism is conditional on justice, and if there is no justice, it is forbidden to multiply."
He stressed that justice is not subject to experience in the sense that a person marries a second, if the amendment continues and if not changed and starting, but simply fear of injustice is forbidden pluralism Koran says, "If you do not modify one."
On social networks, Shaykh al-Tayyib's position has provoked many reactions and comments, some strongly supportive and others strongly opposed.
The position of Sheikh Al-Azhar was immediately welcomed by the National Council of Women, whose president Maya Morsi said in a statement today, "I deeply appreciate and thank the Imam of Al-Azhar for his statement of truth, not for any purpose but for enlightening minds and showing the truth. And gave them many rights did not exist before ».
It is not the first time that Sheikh Al-Azhar has made a statement on the issue of polygamy since he took office in 2010 and made some statements in 2016, especially after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for renewal of religious discourse after he took power in 2014.
But it is the first time that the pluralism (unconditional) is described as "injustice".