Sufi mosque attack in Egypt elicits condemnations, creates new alliances
Even al-Qaeda supporters criticized the killing of more than 300 people at Friday prayers.
(The Christian Science Monitor) The militants who attacked an Egyptian mosque frequented by Sufi Muslims may have alienated the people they were trying to recruit, according to analysts.
The self-described Islamic State and its affiliates are the leading suspects in the deadliest act of terrorism in Egypt’s history, which killed more than 300 people on November 24 and put a conflict between Islamic ultraconservatives and mystics front and center. By waging war on a centuries-old Islamic order and attacking a common ritual of Muslim life—Friday prayers—the perpetrators of the attack on the Al Rawda mosque are turning parties that were neutral toward them into their enemies.
The attack has led to widespread condemnation of the persecution of Sufis. It may have been an attempt to rally citizens in a Sunni-majority state, similar to the way ISIS has enflamed sectarian tensions in Shi’ite-Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria. ISIS has frequently listed Sufis among “heretics” and “soothsayers.” In 2016, the group executed a 97-year-old Sufi cleric in Sinai and listed the Al Rawda mosque among Sufi places of worship to be targeted.
