Egypt TV host sparks outrage with controversial plan to turn mosques into schools

Controversial Egyptian television presenter Ibrahim Eissa has sparked outrage after calling for mosques to be turned into schools during the daytime.

During an episode of the programme Talk of Cairo, Eissa said that there were 150,000 mosques in Egypt and that it would be better to turn them into schools to prevent overcrowding in classrooms.

Egypt has had a problem with classroom overcrowding and a lack of facilities for pupils and students for many years.

Eissa proposed that pupils using a mosque as a school could take a break when it was time for Muslim Dhuhr (noon) prayers and could finish for the day before Asr (afternoon) prayers.

Many took to social media to slam Eissa’s comments, saying that he was proposing unworkable ideas simply to "provoke the majority of the population".

Some social media users said that his proposed plan would "backfire on him", pointing out that if pupils went to a mosque every day they would become more attached to it and more religious.

#عمل
الحكمة ضالة المؤمن !!
مقترح #إبراهيم_عيسى استخدام المساجد في عملية التعليم مقترح مهم وله فوائد كثيرة؛ وليس بالضرورة الاستفادة من كل المساجد بل المناسب منها فقط .. شرط الحفاظ على نظافة ونظام وآداب المسجد.

منذ مدة وأنا أكتب أفكار مشاريع سكنية واجتماعية وسياحية واقتصادية… pic.twitter.com/4AZAcVXwN3

— محمود فتحي - Mahmoud Fathy (@MMFathy01) June 14, 2023

Eissa, an outspoken secularist, has a history of criticising religious Muslims and Islamist movements as well as some aspects of the Islamic faith, often provoking outrage.

He has called the Prophet Muhammad’s ascension to the heavens – accepted by most Muslims as an article of faith - "a completely delusional story", advocated "by Salafist preachers".

Although generally supportive of the Egyptian government, he has previously accused Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of presiding over a “theocracy” despite the fact that Sisi overthrew a democratically elected Islamist-led government in a 2013 military coup.