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CAIRO — Egypt’s president named a moderate, Western- educated Islamic scholar as the country’s new top cleric Friday, the state news agency reported.
The appointment makes Ahmed el-Tayeb the grand sheik of Cairo’s Al-Azhar, the pre-eminent theological institute of Sunni Islam, the faith’s majority sect.
He takes over from Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, who died of a heart attack last week.
The French-educated el-Tayeb, 64, previously served as Egypt’s Mufti, the nation’s top religious law expert, for a brief stint before stepping down in 2003 to head Cairo’s Al-Azhar University.
