Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has raised controversy once again by calling for new legislation to annul verbal divorce in Egypt. During a Jan. 24 ceremony marking National Police Day, Sisi said, “I have asked the head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) about marriages in Egypt. He said 40% of the 900,000 marriage unions this year [will] end up in divorce within five years.”

In July 2016, Sisi had raised the ire of Egyptian citizens and clergy when he issued a decision to introduce a unified written Friday sermon. But with his latest comments, the president crossed a red line by discussing a doctrinal issue. Directing his Jan. 24 speech to Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb, Sisi said, "We need a law to deal with divorce issues before the ‘maazoun’ [a government-authorized cleric who administers marriage and divorce] instead of verbal divorces, so that people will have the time to consider their decision of divorce.” This would mean that divorce could only occur in the presence of a legal maazoun, which many Egyptian religious authorities see as contrary to Islam.

Some saw that with this call, Sisi was turning a blind eye to Egypt's severe economic crisis and was instead addressing a religious issue that had been dealt with the previous year by Al-Azhar's Council of Senior Scholars. In March 2016, when Saad al-Din al-Hilali, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, called for legislation to annul verbal divorce, it was considered controversial and not implemented by the council, which, as Al-Azhar's highest religious authority, is in charge of issuing fatwas and legislation on such matters.

Sisi's comments provoked anger among young Egyptians, as many continue to suffer from rampant poverty and widespread unemployment. One young Egyptian posted to Twitter: “People are committing suicide because of the financial crises and dying because of medical negligence, lack of medicine and all the president is interested in is marriage and divorce.”