Tim Sullivan, provost of the American University in Cairo (AUC), said the decision by al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's historic centre of learning, to ban "Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad" was an infringement of academic freedom.
"They just say this is offensive to Islam," he told Reuters. "They just say 'No'. They don't really justify it or explain it or go into detail." The state-owned newspaper al-Gomhuria reported on Thursday that al-Azhar said the book was "packed with mistakes, full of hatred towards Islam and discredited the Quran".
Sullivan said official censors had passed the decision on to al-Azhar because the book dealt with religion. Al-Azhar is a Sunni Islam seat of learning whose grand sheikh is appointed by the state.
The book, by Natana J. Delong-Bas, is largely based on analysis of the writings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who founded an austere brand of Islam in 18th-century Arabia.
"The book essentially argues that Wahhabism has been hijacked by the jihadists," Sullivan said. A reviewer specialising in the subject had "recommended enthusiastically that it be published", he said.
Sullivan said the AUC was co-publishing the book regionally with the Oxford University Press and I.B. Tauris, which together published it in other countries last year. The authorities had impounded 1,000 copies being imported for sale in Egypt.
"The censor of al-Azhar apparently reviewed it twice and concluded that they didn't want to let it in the country," Sullivan said.
"This is the first time there's ever been a book published by the AUC press that has been censored."
He said the decision could be linked to forthcoming parliamentary elections in Egypt, whose society is religiously conservative and more than 90 percent Muslim.
The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to pose the most serious challenge to the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak in the elections, beginning in November. "Anything pertaining to religion is touchy and sensitive and we are in the election season and that could well have something to do with it," Sullivan said.