Where people pray for Eid

In keeping with an Egyptian morning news tradition on the first day of Eid, Mada Masr skimmed through content about where the country's leaders are conducting Eid prayers on Tuesday. 

We found that all top leaders, Interim President Adly Mansour, Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi and Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim conducted Eid prayers in an air force mosque in Nasr City. 

According to privately-owned daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, former Minister of Religious Endowments Al-Ahmady Aboul Nour gave a sermon during the prayers, in which he celebrated the role of the military in protecting the country and its national security. 

But while these leaders prayed in the mosque in the presence of other leaders, mosques and Eid prayers elsewhere also carried traces of the country's political instability since the ouster of President and Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Mohamed Morsi in July. 

The partisan Al-Wafd daily reported that Al-Fath and Rabea al-Adaweya mosques, both sites of gruesome violence in August between the Muslim Brotherhood and security forces, have been closed off as no prayers were conducted there. Both mosques are still being renovated. 

Elsewhere, mosques became an embattled site between the government, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups. 

According to local newspapers, the Ministry of Religious Endowments has specified which mosques can conduct Eid prayers, but that didn't prevent Muslim Brotherhood members from organizing Eid prayers in smaller mosques and other public spaces, as reported by the group's Freedom and Justice portal. The portal said that Eid prayers were for example organized in a youth center in Maadi, despite strong security presence around the place. 

Al-Arabiya news website also reported that Salafi groups managed to partake in the Eid prayers bid by organizing prayers in a number of mosques specially in Alexandria. 

At Al-Azhar mosque, meanwhile, thousands prayed and shortly after chanted for Sisi, as they carried anti-Brotherhood signs, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. 

Meanwhile, Tahrir Square, the symbolic cradle of the Egyptian revolution, was closed off with tanks and prayer there was limited to soldiers, as reported by several local newspapers.