Head of Egypt's Al-Azhar Cuts Political Ties

On Wednesday, IPS reported that the new head of Al-Azhar, Egypt's premier center of Islamic learning, has resigned from President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party in order to avoid charges that the government is mixing religion and politics. On April 11, Mubarak accepted the resignation of Grand Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb who had been a member of the group that draws up NDP party policy. The resignation was motivated by the fact that NDP often charges its chief opposition-- the Muslim Brotherhood-- with exactly that kind of mixing of religion and politics. (See prior related posting.)