”Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism _ it is an important part of promoting peace,” Obama said in a widely anticipated speech in (Cairo) Egypt one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, an address designed to reframe relations after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq.
”This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” Obama said in a widely anticipated speech in one of the world’s largest Muslim countries, an address designed to reframe relations after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq.
Though the speech was co-sponsored by al-Azhar University, which has taught science and Quranic scripture here for nearly a millennium, the actual venue was the more modern and secular Cairo University. The lectern was set up in the domed main auditorium on a stage dominated by a picture of Mubarak.
The university’s alumni are among the Arab world’s most famous _ and notorious. They include the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfuz. Saddam Hussein studied law in the ’60s but did not graduate. And al-Qaida second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri earned a medical degree.