Egypt’s presidency has pressed Al-Azhar, the leading authority in Sunni Islam, to publicly back the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states in their confrontation with Iran, security sources and sources close to the institution’s grand imam said.

The Cairo-based seat of Sunni learning has issued four statements since the start of the current war, including one that condemned Iranian strikes on the UAE as “the aggression of the Islamic Republic of Iran against its Muslim neighbour, the United Arab Emirates”.

Al-Azhar has not condemned American or Israeli strikes on Iran in any of its statements, a shift from its position during last year’s war, when it described that conflict as “the aggression of the occupying entity against the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

The earlier stance had angered the UAE, the sources said, although Gulf territory had not then come under attack. The Emirati newspaper Al-Khaleej criticised Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb’s position at the time.

At the outset of the current war, state agencies demanded that Al-Azhar align unambiguously with Gulf states and avoid any mention of US and Israeli strikes, sources within the institution’s leadership told Middle East Eye.