CAIRO: Al-Azhar condemned Wednesday’s partial demolition of a Sunni prayer hall in Tehran, after it was ordered closed in January, according to a Friday statement by Al-Azhar.
The most prestigious Sunni institution, based in Egypt, called on the Iranian authorities to “clarify the incident,” as the hall served as the city’s only Sunni mosque in Tehran.
Such actions violate the Sharia law, “ethics and civilized values and stir sectarian sedition, extremism, violence and terrorism,” Al-Azhar said.
Around 5-10 percent of Iranians are Sunni; one million of them live in Tehran. Al-Azhar has occasionally condemned the “persecution” of Sunnis in Shia-majority Iran, as well as alleged violations committed by the Iraqi military against Sunni citizens under the pretext that they belong to the Islamic State group, but both Iran and Iraq have rejected Al-Azhar’s stances.