Al-Azhar University Professor Saad Al-Din Al-Hilali: Human Life Is More Important than the Al-Aqsa Mosque

In a recent TV interview, Al-Azhar University Professor Saad Al-Din Al-Hilali said that human life was more important than anything else, adding that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was in the hands of non-Muslims on the day the Prophet Muhammad died. "These people are dying for the sake of turning the war into a religious war," said Al-Hilali, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University. The interview aired on Al-Youm TV on September 16, 2015.

Following are excerpts:

Saad Al-Din Al-Hilali: Peddling religion is the greatest crime of all, and I have vowed to dedicate my life to fighting this.

[…]

What is more important – people or buildings, no matter how important the building is, even if it is the holy Kaaba? Which of the two is more important to Allah?

Interviewer: People of course.

Did the Prophet Muhammad not say to the Kaaba: "Indeed, you are great, but the holiness of a Muslim is greater in the eyes of Allah"?

Interviewer: [So] you oppose those who say that we must go and fight for the Al-Aqsa Mosque?

Saad Al-Din Al-Hilali: No, I said that we must fight for what is right. I said that we must fight for what is rightly ours.

Interviewer: This means that human lives are more important than the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Saad Al-Din Al-Hilali: No, let me say something more important. Human life is more important than anything else. No matter what people say, human life is more important than everything.

[…]

These people are dying for the sake of turning the war into a religious war. They are always [crying] about how Al-Aqsa is being sacrificed… On the day our Prophet Muhammad died, wasn't Al-Aqsa in the hands of non-Muslims? Did the Prophet instruct to conquer it? Did the Prophet say: "Don't you dare leave it in the hands of [non-Muslims]"? Are you saying, God forbid, that the Prophet was remiss, because he could not liberate Jerusalem? In addition, wasn't the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca when he accepted his mission at the age of 40, and didn't he stay in Mecca for 13 years, while the Kaaba and the entire city were in the hands of non-Muslims? Did he make a big deal out of it? Allah said: "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from Al-Haram Mosque to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whose surroundings I have blessed." I ask all Muslims with a conscience: On the day that Allah honored our Prophet Muhammad, and took him by night from the Al-Haram Mosque to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, were either of these mosques in the hands of the Muslims?

[…]