As the most populous Arab country and the seat of a prestigious center of Islamic learning and scholarship known as Al-Azhar, Egypt’s public order has long been intertwined with perceptions of Islamic legitimacy.

Critics are challenging Egypt’s official reporting of its coronavirus cases, though authorities say their statistics are accurate and other statistics can’t be trusted.

The Working Group on Egypt* calls on the U.S. government to seek the immediate release of American citizens and permanent residents wrongfully detained in Egypt, who are now in imminent danger due to COVID-19. The United States should also call for the release of the tens of thousands of Egyptians …

Egypt on Saturday ordered its mosques and churches to shut their doors to worshippers in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, after calls for the government to follow other neighbouring Muslim countries.

Egypt has withdrawn the licence of a correspondent for the Guardian newspaper after a report suggested that cases of coronavirus in the country are likely much higher than official statistics.

An official at the Egyptian heath ministry yesterday denied recent reports by the Guardian and the New York Times that thousands of people have been infected by the novel coronavirus in the country.

Egypt is likely grappling with a higher rate of coronavirus infections than official figures, according to research by Canadian disease specialists and increasing infection among tourists who departed in recent weeks.

Egypt said it would shut down all schools and universities to fight the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus as the country continues to register more cases.

“We buy weapons to kill each other, we buy death with our money,” Shaykh al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyib, said, as he came to the end of his intervention during a very public conference in Cairo, entitled “Al-Azhar International Conference on the Rejuvenation of Islamic Thought”.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi yesterday issued a decree appointing four new members to the country’s Al-Azhar Council of Senior Scholars, which provides theological and legal opinion on Muslim issues around the world.