Mohamed Alaa Eddin Abul Azayem, leader of the Sufi Azmeyya Order, said in an interview Sunday that President Mohamed Morsy and his administration are working “to Brotherhoodize the state with the help of a failed Cabinet and ministers."
He ruled out, however, the possibility of confrontation between the Sufi orders and the Muslim Brotherhood, saying, “Sufis do not have weapons, unlike the Brotherhood, who have been trained to use weapons.”
In an interview on the Saudi satellite channel Al Arabiya, Azayem added that former President Anwar Sadat appointed independent political figure Mahmoud Fawzy as prime minister, which won him the love of Egyptians, while Morsy has appointed a prime minister from the group to which he belongs, the Brotherhood.
He also said that the Brotherhood's history has been "bloody” ever since its formation and that members of the Brotherhood never own up to their mistakes, accusing the group's members of being loyal to the group and not to Egypt.
Azayem added that he voted for Ahmed Shafiq in presidential elections last year, saying, "Shafiq learned a lesson from what happened to Hosni Mubarak, and would have never repeated his mistakes, or bragged about the legitimacy of the ballot box's results like Morsy does."
Azayem also claimed that Sufi orders in Egypt have 3 million members, saying that the number could rise to 20 million when sympathizers are included. He said that there are 100 Sufi Orders, of which 78 are registered, and that they do not receive funding from abroad.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
