September 2001 At a press conference shortly after 9/11, Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayed Tantawi denounced the attacks on the US, describing them as acts of terror directed against innocent people What happened in the US was aggression against innocent children, men and women. It was a mean and hideous act. It is the right of any country, Muslim or non-Muslim, to defend itself against such aggression.

December 2001 In an interview with BBC News, Tantawi states that Islam condemns terrorism in all forms. Islam considers anyone who kills an innocent person as killing the whole of humanity. In the name of Islamic law, I reject and condemn aggression against innocent civilian people, regardless of the sect or the country the aggression comes from. He went as far as to state that he disagreed with the view held by some Muslims that all Israelis were fair game because they must all serve in the military at one point or another and therefore cannot be considered civilians.

April 2002 On lailatalqadr.com, an Islamic website with links to Al-Azhar, Tantawi declares that martyrdom operations are permitted acts according to the Quran and that more such attacks should be carried out. He called for an intensification of the martyrdom operations against the Zionist enemy, describing suicide bombings in Israel as the highest form of jihad operations. The young people executing these attacks have sold Allah the most precious thing of all.

April 2003 At a press conference in Cairo, Tantawi called on the Iraqis to maintain their jihad in defense of religion, faith, honor, and property because jihad is a religious law of Islam aimed at opposing aggressors. It is the right of the Iraqis to carry out any operation in defense of their homeland, whether martyrdom operations or [by] any other means. Martyrdom operations carried out against invading troops are permitted by Islamic religious law.

July 2003 Speaking at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Tantawi again publicly condemns suicide bombings. Groups who carry out suicide bombings are the enemies of Islam. Extremist Islamic groups have appropriated Islam and its notion of jihad for their own ends. Muslim suicide attacks, including those against Israelis, are wrong and cannot be justified.

May 2004 At a seminar on The Difference between Jihad and Terrorism, Tantawi delivered a lengthy discourse between the two primary forms of jihad (jihad al-nafs, the greater jihad or struggle against ones own failings and to become closer to God; and jihad fi sabeel Allah, the minor jihad in Name of God in the form of a defensive armed struggle against aggression). While he noted that terrorism and jihad are worlds apart because terrorism is aggression that must be resisted, Tantawi went on to note that anyone who blows himself up to kill aggressors while defending his faith dies a martyr. Israels ongoing operations against Palestinians, he said, makes Israelis legitimate targets.