Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi obituary

Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, who has died aged 81 of a heart attack while in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, used his position as one of Islam's leading spiritual authorities to champion Islamic moderation worldwide. In 1996, the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, had appointed Tantawi grand imam of the Al-Azhar mosque and head of the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Sunni Islam's pre-eminent centre of learning, a position he held until his death. He shared platforms with the Prince of Wales and, in 2008, spoke at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies on the value of dialogue between civilisations.

At the same time, he provoked a fierce backlash from Islamic hardliners, not least for his condemnation of the niqab, or full-face veil, a position he broadcast widely last year during the debate over its prohibition in France. In 2009, he banned women wearing the full veil from entering Al-Azhar's campus.

Crucially, he described the 9/11 attacks as "acts of terror directed against innocent people", and went further. Countries harbouring terrorists, he insisted, should be "punished and held in contempt". He told a conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2003: "Extremism is the enemy of Islam." He condemned suicide bombings, telling the press: "If it is against... women, children and old men, then it is not resistance but infidelity."

In November 2008, there were calls in Egypt for his resignation after he shook hands with Israel's president, Shimon Peres, at a UN-sponsored interfaith conference in New York. He initially astonished reporters by claiming that he was unaware that it was Peres approaching him with outstretched hand. Subsequently, he accused those who published the pictures of the handshake as being a group of lunatics. He then fanned the controversy by saying that if any Israeli officials wanted to visit Al-Azhar, he would welcome them.

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