In an interview on Al-Arabiya TV, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr.Shawki 'Allam, confirmed that the approach followed by QSIS (Qa'ida Separatists in Iraq and Syria) is completely irrelevant to the Egyptians' nature, because the noble Azhar, with all its institutions, stand as a trustworthy guard in face of every extremist ideologies. Adding, Egyptians, by nature, reject such acts which contradict the Islamic Shari'ah and natural human disposition.

The Grand Mufti clarified that "Jihad" is a noble term in the Shari'ah, and it is mandatory to clear the doubts and elucidate its true meaning. Jihad must be carried out under the supervision of the country ruler while abiding by all the ethics the Prophet (pbuh) has laid down in order to protect the souls and entire humanity. The Prophet (pbuh) commanded, upon meeting the enemies, not to kill the armless people, the elderly, women, children, monastic and farmers. Likewise, the Prophet prohibited demolishing churches, monasteries, buildings or cut off the trees.

The Grand Mufti illustrated that the acts committed by such terrorist groups in the name of Jihad is totally irrelevant to its true meaning, since the religion of Islam has never called for killing, demolishing or destruction. In this regard, Dar al-Ifaa denied naming this terrorist groups as "Islamic State" in media, and called upon replacing it with the acronym QSIS "Qa'ida Separatists in Iraq and Syria". He mentioned that Egypt's Dar al-Iftaa has observed and responded to such extremist thoughts through its observatory which dealt with and responded to 150 extremist fatwas over the last three months.

The Grand Mufti greatly appreciated the initiative launched by the Saudi King Abduallah ibn Abd al-Aziz to establish an international center for fighting terrorism, confirming that Egypt's Dar al-Iftaa contributes by all possible means to serve this important entity.

In addition, he mentioned that Egypt's Dar al-Ifta' receives and responds to the fatwas from worldwide in ten languages, the recent of which is Swahili. This is in addition to receiving 1500 fatwas on a daily basis inside Egypt, which attests to the great confidence people place in the Dar, on both the national and international levels.

The Grand Mufti asserted that the Dar provides different facilities for fatwa inquirers, either through coming in person to the Dar's premises, e-mail, telephone or any other available means.

The Grand Mufti pointed out that raising such baseless issues which arouse turmoil and doubts around the fundamentals of the religion, especially at the time, is done on purpose, only to distract the community from development and construction.

As for the role of Mufti and Egypt's Dar al-Ifta regarding death penalties, the Grand Mufti stressed that it is mandatory to foster the culture of respecting Judicial rulings, pointing out that the Dar is nothing but a cycle in the judiciary process and the Mufti's final decision is highly confidential. He added, the role of the Mufti is to examine death penalties only through the Shari'ah perspective, regardless of the convicted personality.