Egypt's top Muslim authorities condemned on Friday the "vile" and "ugly" mass killings in the French resort city of Nice a day earlier, urging unity to combat terrorism.

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning, said such "vile terrorist attacks contradict Islamic teachings."

"Al-Azhar... affirms the importance of uniting efforts to eliminate terrorism and rid the world of its evil," the Islamic authority said in a statement Friday, a day after a gunman ploughed a heavy truck into crowds celebrating France's national holiday in the Mediterranean city, killing at least 84 revellers.

Shawki Allam, the country's official interpreter of Islamic law, said that people who commit such ugly crimes "are corrupt of the earth and follow in the footsteps of the devil... and are cursed in life and in the hereafter."

"Islam never called for shedding blood," Allam, who is currently in Germany, said in a statement carried by Dar Al-Ifta, the main authority responsible for issuing religious edicts.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/233243.aspx