CAIRO, Egypt: Egypt's religious authorities have banned a book about a puritanical brand of Islam on the grounds that it is offensive to the faith, the university co-publishing the work said last week.

Tim Sullivan, provost of the American University in Cairo (AUC), said the decision by al-Azhar, historic center 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 said. "They just say 'No'. They don't really justify it or explain it or go into detail."

The state-owned newspaper al-Gomhuria reported that al-Azhar said the book was "packed with mistakes, full of hatred towards Islam and discredited the Koran".

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.

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 one thousand 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."