Following are excerpts from an interview with the Sheik of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, which aired on Dream 2 TV on January 4, 2011:
Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: The division of the Arab world is a goal set [by foreigners]. This wretched scheme has begun to be implemented. Look at what is happening in Iraq, for example, and how they want to divide it into three or four countries. For the sake of this plan...
Interviewer: Sudan as well...
Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: That was my next point.
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The partitioning of Iraq has begun, and so has the partitioning of Sudan, and in two or three days, we will see what will become of it. There are similar efforts in Yemen. Look what things have come to in Egypt. They want Egypt to disintegrate as well. I have recently read that the global world order – or Israel – does not want [Israel] to be a tiny entity, or a minority, in the midst of large entitles in the Arab world. They want there to be only minorities, so that Israel can live peacefully. These things, which I have read, were written by non-Muslims. These things were written by Copts and other Christians. It is well known that if Egypt disintegrates, it will become easy to disintegrate the rest of the Arab world.
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The subsequent step will be the disintegration of the Muslims.
Interviewer: How?
Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: By dividing the Muslims, into Shiites and Sunnis, for example. They have already begun to prepare the Shiite infrastructure. After a while, they will start attacking a mosque here and a mosque there, just like you have seen in...
Interviewer: In Iraq.
Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: Not in Iraq, in Alexandria.
Interviewer: Ah, I mean the Iraqi scenario...
Sheik Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: The Iraqi scenario will continue. This is the beginning of the implementation of the Iraqi scenario in Egypt.
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I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I really don't. But believe me, there are dark, high-ranking, and powerful hands behind this, because it is inconceivable that the Islamic nation would have reached such a degree of naïveté and stupidity. Impossible!
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I said that the Pope's statement was intervention in Egypt's domestic affairs. We have read similar statements by the Pope many times in the past... I am trying to choose my words carefully. The Pope is not bothered when millions of Muslims are killed. In Iraq, for example, he was not bothered, and did not call upon the US or the world to intervene immediately, in order to save Muslim blood, even though this should be his mission.
If he is, indeed, a man of religion, a pope, he must prevent the shedding of anybody's blood. When it had to do with Christian blood – albeit a small number of casualties – the Pope said that Christians are being persecuted in the East, and that they must be protected, and so on. In addition, when the Pope visited Israel, he did not visit Palestine, and did not talk about the blood being shed every day in Palestine.
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