Al-Azhar University

The Grand Imam of the influential Sunni institution Al Azhar Ahmed at Taeeb met in Rome with Pope Francis and pledged his co-operation in the fight against terrorism, the France press reported.

Pope Francis landed in the Egyptian capital on April 28 to promote "unity and fraternity" with Muslims and Christians, who have suffered a series of jihadist attacks.

The visit is a "voyage of unity and fraternity," the pontiff told reporters before he disembarked in Cairo airport to be greeted by Catholic priests and Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail.

Egyptian clerics, particularly during the Gezi protests of 2013, were the inevitable darlings of Turkey's Islamists. Remember Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the president of the Association of Muslim Scholars and the ideological leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who decreed in June 2013 that the Gezi protesters were "acting against Allah's will." The Turkish clergy never objected to that fatwa. 

A prominent Muslim cleric said on Dec. 3 the U.S.-led coalition carrying out air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) should widen its scope to include all other militant groups that were "tarnishing Islam."