At a meeting with university graduates at the Helwan Leadership Institute on Monday, former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said a survey conducted by Al-Azhar on a sample of 6,000 young people showed that 12.3 percent of them were atheists.
The study attributed this to 56 reasons, the most important of which was because they were angry with God.
“They do not know that God is merciful,” he said.
Gomma blamed the negligence of Al-Azhar for that phenomenon although he said it has succeeded in persuading 10 percent of them to go back to religion. “Still there is a long way to go,” he said.
The vast majority of Egyptians are Muslims, the official religion of the state, while there are no official statistics about the exact number of Christians.
The promotion of atheism is reason for arrest in Egypt on charges of contempt of religions.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
