CAIRO/ BAGHDAD, 28 August 2003 — Senior clerics at Al-Azhar, the most respected seat of Islamic learning, have issued a religious edict calling Iraq’s US-appointed governing body illegitimate and saying it served God’s “enemies”.

But Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the state-appointed grand sheikh of Al-Azhar Mosque and university, said yesterday the committee that issued the “fatwa” had no right to make such judgments and would be brought to account.

The edict, quoted by an opposition daily, said: “The governing council in Iraq is devoid of religious and secular legitimacy because it is established in opposition to the principle of consultation and because it was imposed on the Iraqis by forces of occupation to be loyal to the enemies of God.”

Many Muslims use such religious edicts from Al-Azhar as a moral guide. The ruling also said Arab and Muslim states should not support or deal with the council, some of whose leading members recently met senior Arab officials in countries including Egypt. It said Muslims should sideline countries, which work with the US-appointed body.

“If (the states) respond (to this warning), then that’s acceptable. If they do not respond, then it is not possible to deal with them until they come back to their senses,” Al-Wafd newspaper quoted the fatwa as saying.

But Tantawi told Reuters the clerics would be called to task for issuing the unauthorized ruling.

“The Fatwa Committee is not authorized to issue judgments about another country... We will summon the Fatwa Committee to see who said this and bring them to account,” he said.

The Iraqi Governing Council has failed to win outright Arab backing, although a group of Arab foreign ministers meeting at the Arab League in August called it a step in the right direction towards an elected government.

Meanwhile, the council has decided to divide up the key ministries in a new Cabinet being formed among the major communities in the country, a council member said yesterday. Muwaffak Al-Rubai told AFP that the oil portfolio will go to a member of the majority Shiite Muslim community, the Finance Ministry to a Sunni Muslim and the Foreign Ministry to a Kurd.

“In all probability, the oil and interior ministries will go to the Shiites, finance to the Sunni and foreign affairs to the Kurds,” he said.