Mount Sinai Ka’bah shrine suggested by Egyptian writer
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Progressive thinker, controversial figure and award-winning Egyptian writer Sayyed al-Qimni suggested in an interview with an Egyptian television listings magazine that a religious shrine on Mount Sinai would provide an affordable alternative destination for poor pilgrims as well as generating an income of more than £3bn for his country.
He also said it could improve relations between the three Abrahamic faiths because Mount Sinai is significant in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Qimni is a divisive figure in his home country, attracting opprobrium and sometimes death threats for his views. But it is his comments about the Ka’bah, said to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, that have inflamed opinion outside Egypt.
Qimni sought to defuse the anger by insisting he was talking about a place of worship and spirituality that all three religions could benefit from, rather than a substitute for the Islamic site, and that he had used the word Ka’bah because of its immediate religious connotations.
He said: “What I thought about was religious tourism”.
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