22 January 2015

Egyptian President Sisi: Muslims Need To Reform Their Religious Discourse

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said Thursday that Muslims need to adapt their religious discourse to the present and eliminate elements of their rhetoric that could foster violence.

“Islam is a tolerant religion, but this wasn’t always clear to the rest of the world during the last 20 or 30 years,” Sisi said during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The terrible terrorist attacks and this terrible image of Muslims led us to think that we must stop and think and change the religious discourse and remove from it things that have led to violence and extremism.”

The Egyptian leader's comments likely referred in part to Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French newspaper whose Paris offices were recently attacked by Islamist extremists, though Sisi did not specifically mention the terrorist attack. [The Huffington Post] Read more