Egyptian landlords 'prohibited' from leasing to Muslim Brotherhood members

Egypt's religious endowment minister, Mohammed Mokhtar Gomaa, has issued a religious ruling prohibiting landlords in Egypt from leasing properties to members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Gomaa urged citizens across all Egyptian governorates to refuse to house members of the group who allegedly use furnished properties to prepare for "terrorist attacks" and operations against the government.

"Their hearts are darkened by [...] their hatred of society," Gomaa said, "Housing them is giving cover to their criminal activity and is a betrayal to religion and to our nation."

Gomaa's comments came against the backdrop of an escalation of attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood from both the state media and state security services.

A series of religious endowments directives hostile towards the Muslim Brotherhood have been issued, including urging men married to supporters of the Brotherhood to divorce their spouses.

The preacher at the Omar Makram mosque in Tahrir Square, Mazhar Shahin, called on men to divorce their wives if they had shown any affiliation with the banned party.

"So there's a sleeper cell in your house, a housewife sleeping with you in your bedroom," Makram said, "There are priorities, we call these [Islamic] jurisprudential priorities.

"Should I sacrifice my wife or Egypt? My wife, in the end, is just a person..." Makram said, "But when I say sacrifice, I don't mean kill her. I mean that I divorce her and I give her all her rights, and I protect my country and my patriotism."

Similarly, al-Azhar University professor Suad Saleh said it was permissible for a man to leave his fiancee if she belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, "under the pretext of maintaining his religion and the interest of his nation."

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in Egypt following a military coup against its elected leader Mohammad Morsi in 2013.

Morsi, along with many Brotherhood leading figures, are currently being tried on multiple terror-related charges.

Thousands of supporters of the Brotherhood face arrest and imprisonment amid a brutal crackdown against the Islamists and liberal activists since the military coup three years ago.