Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi told attendees at Davos that Islam was in need of a “religious revolution.”

The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowment shuttered 27,000 local mosques under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
Al-Monitor reported:

The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowment has shuttered 27,000 local places of worship under the pretext of fighting terrorism, while awarding 400 preaching permits to Salafists**.

An Egyptian administrative court on Feb. 18 upheld the Ministry of Religious Endowments’ decision issued in September 2013 to close down neighborhood places of worship of less than 80 square meters (861 square feet), a move intended to protect young people from the militancy and extremism that can prevail in such places, which lack the legal standing to hold Friday prayers.

This move sets a precedent that raises many questions about the fate of mosques in many Egyptian villages, the grounds of which are usually less than 80 square meters. In reply, opponents of the decision such as the Salafist Nour Party claimed that closing down places of worship without providing a larger alternative serves to further bolster extremist ideology, considering that the larger existing mosques cannot accommodate Friday worshippers who line surrounding streets to pray. On the opposite end of the spectrum, supporters of the decision such as intellectuals and scholars say that those mosques are time bombs that threaten national security, as they fall outside the purview of the Ministry of Religious Endowments and are used to spread subversive ideologies.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama will not even utter the words “Islamic terrorism.”

**Salafists:

Salafi movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Salaf.

The Salafist movement, also known as the Salafi movement, is a movement within Islam that references the Salafist doctrine known as Salafism. Many Muslims in Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia identify as Salafists:[1] 46.87% in Qatar,[1] 44.8% in UAE,[1] 5.7% in Bahrain and 2.17% in Kuwait.[1]

Salafis are the “dominant minority” in Saudi Arabia.[2] There are 4 million Saudi Salafis, with that country’s population being described as 22.9% Salafis while most of the rest are Wahhabi.[1][3] The Salafi movement is often described as synonymous with Wahhabism, but Salafists consider the term “Wahhabi” derogatory.[4] Observers differ over whether Salafi are the same as Wahhabis or not. At other times, Salafism has been described as a hybrid of Wahhabism and other post-1960s movements.[5] Salafism has become associated with literalist, strict and puritanical approaches to Islam – and, particularly in the West, with the Salafi Jihadis who espouse offensive jihad against those they deem to be enemies of Islam as a legitimate expression of Islam.[6]

Academics and historians have used the term “Salafism” to denote “a school of thought which surfaced in the second half of the 19th century as a reaction to the spread of European ideas” and “sought to expose the roots of modernity within Muslim civilization.”[7][8] However contemporary Salafis follow “literal, traditional … injunctions of the sacred texts”, looking to Ibn Taymiyyah rather than the “somewhat freewheeling interpretation” of 19th century figures Muhammad Abduh, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Rashid Rida.[9][10] The Muslim Brotherhood is often differentiated from Salafi, although the group did include the term in the “About Us” section of its website.[11]

It is often reported from various sources, including the German domestic intelligence service, that Salafism is the fastest-growing Islamic movement in the world.[12][13][14][15]

In legal matters, Salafis are divided between those who, in the name of independent legal judgement (ijtihad), reject strict adherence (taqlid) to the four schools of law (madhahib) and others who remain faithful to these.