A prominent Egyptian Muslim cleric says it is legal to build churches in Muslim countries."It is legal to construct churches in Muslim countries, but only under certain conditions," said Yusuf Qaradawi, noted Islamic cleric and a television preacher on the Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera.
Qaradawi was responding to a question put to him on his website. The issue was the subject of a debate on Thursday in the newspaper Ennahar, in response to a decision by the Algerian authorities to impose a limit on the number of churches in the country.
After the news that an Algerian woman could face up to three years in jail for converting from Islam to Christianity, Algerians began posing more questions about Christians and Muslims living side by side in Algeria.
Qaradawi said that "it is possible to build a church in a Muslim country for Christians who visit the country or reside there."
"There has to be a real necessity for the church and it has to be built with the permission of the local authorities," he said.
"If there really is a certain number of Christians in a specific area and there is the authorities' consent, it is the duty to ensure that they have the possibility to practise their faith."
Qaradawi then also made reference to a request often made by Western politicians for reciprocity in building places of worship.
"There are many foreigners who go to Muslim countries to work. In this way they increase the number of Christian residents," he said.
"There is therefore a real need for a church and it should be taken into account that they [Christian leaders] allow Muslim residents in their countries to open mosques so that they can pray."
The Union of the Muslim Ulema used the same reason to justify the decision of the Qatari government to allow a Catholic church to be built in their country.
The church in Doha was inaugurated in March this year and caters mainly to its large community of Catholic foreign workers.
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