Al-Tahrīr described the attack on four Shī’ah leaders as “horrible” and the first of its kind in Egypt’s modern history, and angered the Azhar scholars and Azhar Senior Scholars. Dr. Muhammad Ra’fat 'Uthmān said the incident was committed in order to intensify sectarian differences amongst Egyptians. He said criminal acts like this are most evil crime against Islam, and it is a crime of religious ignorance. Dr. Muhammad al-Shahāt al-Jindī, a member of the Islamic Research Academy, said the incident stems from ignorance and backwardness, and the increase of people's exposure to Islamic groups, like the Salafīs, who practice sectarian agitation all the time. Dr. 'Abdullah al-Najār, a leading academic, heavily condemned the incident and said that the instigators should be penalized like murderers, because they are the main cause of the incident, which is also a product of religious manipulation. Shaykh 'Abd al-Ghanī Hindī, general coordinator of the public movement for the Azhar’s independency, said the incident was a great crime, which proves the existence of ignorance and mixing politics with religion throughout the country. He said thanks to the rule of the MB, Egypt is now witnessing incidents it has never seen before, the ignition of religious conflict (al-Shaymā’ 'Abd al-Latīf, al-Tahrīr, June 25, p. 7). Read original text in Arabic.
(Author’s note: a report of the same content came in al-Tahrīr, June 25, p. 6). The article has no link online.