In an urgent statement after Friday prayers...
Al-Azhar's Grand Imam to the people of Jerusalem:
"Let your uprising be as much as your faith in your cause and your love for your country … We are with you and will not let you down."
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Al-Azhar Al-Sharif angrily rejects and denounces the American administration's declaration of the city of Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem) as the capital of the occupying Zionist entity in an unprecedented step and in a flagrant defiance of the international conventions and the sentiments of more than 1.5 billion Muslims around the world and the sentiments of millions of the Arab Christians who, throughout history, have been brought together with their Muslim brothers by the mosques and churches of the old-standing Jerusalem.
We at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, and in the name of the Islamic world as a whole, affirm our categorical rejection of this reckless and illegitimate step. We also affirm that it is a blatant and unacceptable forgery of history and tampering with the future of the peoples, to which Muslims will never remain silent as long as they have beating hearts.
Everyone must know that Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state occupied by the occupying Zionist entity, and it shall never be otherwise, and any movement that contradicts this is unacceptable and will have its grave consequences.
We warn in all seriousness against their insistence on upholding this false decision, which ignites the flames of hatred in the hearts of all Muslims and the hearts of all peace-loving people in the world and constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security.
Let the American decision makers know that their double standard policy, blatant support for the Zionist occupying power and infringement of peoples' rights and cultures are uncivilized policies which shall come to an end, sooner or later. The Arabism of Jerusalem remains the foremost affair of the Arabs and Muslims, and shall remain so forever.
From here, from Egypt; the Arab and Muslim country of Al-Azhar, we call upon the leaders and governments of the Muslim world, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the United Nations to take immediate and serious steps to halt the implementation of this decision and put an end to it.
Also, we call upon all the peace-loving international powers and organizations, which resist the abominable colonization policies, to take actions in order to prevent this international and humanity crisis that befalls our world.
Further, we call upon the peoples of the Arab and Islamic worlds to reject these vicious Zionist and American schemes and raise the awareness among the Arabs and Muslims of the crisis of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslims' first Qiblah (direction towards which Muslims directs themselves in prayers), the third holy mosque and the place from which Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to the Heaven in the Night Journey.
To conclude, we say to our fellow Muslims in the occupied Jerusalem, “We salute your brave resistance and fully support you. Let your third uprising be as strong as your belief in your cause and your love for your country. We are all with you and will not fail you. Allah, the Almighty says, "Allah always prevails in His purpose, but most people do not realize it."
And He, the Almighty, says, "So when the second warning was fulfilled (We raised another people) that they may bring you to grief and that they may enter the mosque as they entered it the first time, and that they might destroy whatever fell into their power." (The Qur'an, 17:7).