In a televised address marking the religious occasion of Laylat Al Qadr (the Night of Destiny) on Wednesday, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi reiterated his call for Muslims “to set aside their differences and unite at a time when the Ummah (Islamic community) is facing unprecedented challenges that threaten its very existence.” He also repeated his earlier call for “purging religious discourse of extremism,” urging imams (Muslim clerics) to take the lead in the reform process by spreading the Islamic values of tolerance and compassion. Al-Sisi’s address was reminiscent of earlier speeches he made in early 2015 calling for “a religious revolution” and warning that “extremist ideas of intolerance and violence were fueling extremist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.” On New Year’s Day 2015, Sisi had also told an assemblage of Al-Azhar clerics celebrating the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohamed that Islamist thinking was antagonizing the rest of the world, pitting the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims against non-Muslims.” His bold calls for reform in Islamic thinking had made international headlines, earning him praise in Western media. In contrast, there were no plaudits for Sisi’s latest speech, which was ignored by…
