U.S. denies entry to four Al Azhar scholars
U.S. authorities have denied entry to four Egyptian Muslim clerics sent to Florida as part of an annual program organized by Cairo-based Al Azhar University, considered by most Sunni Muslims to be the world's most prestigious school of Islamic learning.
September 23, 2006

Courtyard of Al Azhar University Mosque, Cairo

According to Cairo airport officials, Zain el-Abdin Mohamed el-Sayed, returned to Cairo on Friday after he was denied entry by the U.S. immigration authorities. The other three scholars, all with valid U.S. visas, flew home over the past two days, officials added.

American Muslim community leader Sofian Abdelaziz was quoted by the South Florida Sun Sentinel as stating that the clerics were held by the immigration officials for 24 hours without access to phones before they deported them without providing them with any explanation or answers to their inquiries about why they were denied entry to the U.S.

"I consider this a big disaster for our community this year," said Abdelaziz, director of the American Muslim Association of North America in Miami.

"We are against extremism and we are not dealing with sheikhs and imams who have a policy to teach extremism ... We lost four good educators," he added.

Al-Azhar is run by a Supreme Council forming general policy, headed by a Grand Imam, known as "Sheikh Al-Azhar",  and in 1961, Al-Azhar was reorganized by the Nasser Government and several secular faculties were added to the university, such as medicine, engineering, agriculture, as well as an Islamic women's faculty.