Special to WorldTribune.com

Abraham Rabinovich, Washington Free Beacon

JERUSALEM—In a speech on New Year’s day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a “religious revolution” in Islam that would displace violent jihad from the center of Muslim discourse.

“Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims worldwide) should want to kill the rest of the world’s population — that is, 7 billion people — so that they themselves may live?” he asked. “Impossible.”

Speaking to an audience of religious scholars celebrating the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, he called on the religious establishment to lead the fight for moderation in the Muslim world. “You imams (prayer leaders) are responsible before Allah. The entire world — I say it again, the entire world — is waiting for your next move because this umma (a word that can refer either to the Egyptian nation or the entire Muslim world) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands.”

He was speaking in Al-Azhar University in Cairo, widely regarded as the leading world center for Islamic learning. …

Sisi was a little known general when he was appointed over the heads of fellow officers in 2012 as commander of the Egyptian army by then President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The religiosity of Sisi was said then to have been one of the reasons for the choice. However, when a popular uprising broke out the following year, Sisi swiftly ousted Morsi from power and brought charges against him, including conspiring to commit terrorist acts together with Hamas and other Islamic groups. The Muslim Brotherhood itself was banned. When new elections were held last May, Sisi, now a civilian, won a resounding victory.

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