Azhar supports Africa's 'Silencing the Guns by 2020' initiative
Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El Tayyeb on Saturday expressed the
top Islamic institution's full support to the "Silencing the Guns by
2020" initiative, launched by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the 2019
chairman of the African Union.
In a statement marking Africa Day 2019, Tayyeb said Al Azhar
has played a leading role in the regard by exerting efforts to settle conflicts
in the Central African Republic.
It also has a leading and developing role in the African
continent through more than 5,0000 African students from 46 African countries
studying in Al Azhar, he added.
Al Azhar has launched an action plan to move in Africa by
form a specialized committee on African affairs on the occasion of Egypt's 2019
AU chairmanship.
The plan includes doubling scholarships offered to African
students, increasing the number of African imams enjoying Azhar training
programs, spreading the true teachings of Islam, expanding medical and relief
convoys, sending more envoys to Africa and intensifying efforts exerted by Al
Azhar University's International Islamic Center for Population Studies and
Research in the African continent.
Sixteen Azharite
institutes have been also established in Somalia, Tanzania, South Africa, Chad,
Nigeria, Niger and Uganda, according to protocols of cooperation.
Silencing the Guns by
2020 is an African initiative aiming at ending all wars, civil conflicts,
gender-based violence, violent conflicts and preventing genocide in the
continent by 2020.
