Dead migrants 'not martyrs'
2007-11-09 08:18
Cairo - Egypt's top religious advisor has sparked a fierce debate by saying that 26 illegal immigrants who drowned off the Italian coast are not martyrs, as their bodies began arriving back home.
The announcement by the state-appointed Sheikh Ali Gomaa came as weeping relatives waited at Cairo Airport to receive the bodies of five migrants among the 184 Egyptians whose boats sank off Italy on Sunday.
Gomaa said that those who died were not martyrs assured a direct route to Paradise "because they put themselves in danger and the aim of their journey was not given over to service to God".
Gomaa was quoted as saying: "If we look at the motives that pushed them to travel, we see that they are after money because each of them paid 25 000 (Egyptian) pounds (about $4 500) to leave, which means they are not poor.
"They could have stayed at home and invested this money in a commercial project instead of leaving."
Dead 'went straight to Paradise'
With only 37 rescued alive - currently being held in Italy awaiting deportation back to Egypt - and 26 bodies recovered, the remaining 121 migrants might or might not have made it to shore.
Family members said that their loved ones had set off for Europe in search of work, having paid human traffickers 30 000 Egyptian pounds (about $5 500).
Egyptian religious authorities, including Gomaa, had said in the past that those who died in accidents were martyrs and therefore went straight to Paradise, in accordance with Muslim belief.
But the newspaper said on Thursday that Gomaa's declaration had "caused a shock" at Al-Azhar, the Cairo-based highest religious authority of Sunni Islam.
The head of the Fatwa Committee that issued religious edicts, Sheikh Abdel Hamid al-Atrash, said that the dead immigrants "were martyrs because God told us to travel the world in search of a living and anyone who dies doing this is a martyr".
400 000 new jobs created
Suad Saleh, a professor of comparative religion at Al-Azhar University instead called on the mufti to "oppose the corruption and corrupt people who, by their practices, forced these young people to leave their country and sell everything they own to cover the costs of the journey".
Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and widely seen as his heir, said the boats' sinking was "painful and regrettable", while nevertheless refusing to link their ordeal to Egypt's economic woes.
He pointed out that 400 000 new jobs had been created in Egypt in the last two years. About 44% of Egypt's 76 million inhabitants lived on less than two dollars a day, according to the World Bank.
Nevertheless, economic reforms had led to growth rates of about seven percent, accompanied by sharp rises in inflation that hit the poor the most.
Egypt had seen a sharp upturn in immigrants fleeing toward Europe in recent months.