Al-Azhar University has previously backed Islamic suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

(Reuters) – Al-Azhar, the centre of Islamic learning in Egypt, on Thursday condemned the killings of three young Muslims by a gunman in the United States as a “terrorist and racist” act.

A man who had posted anti-religious messages on Facebook and quarrelled with neighbours has been charged with the shootings.

Muslim activists in the United States and around the world have demanded authorities investigate a possible motive of religious hatred. Police said on Wednesday the case involved a dispute over parking and possibly a hate crime.

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, a full-time paralegal student from Chapel Hill, was charged with first-degree murder in Tuesday’s killings two miles (three km) from the University of North Carolina campus.

However, the day after the attack, the pre-eminent institute of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world, al-Azhar, described the murders as a “cowardly terrorist act.”

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Al-Azhar, which is based in Cairo, said it was deeply concerned that the killings appeared to have been prompted by “racism and Islamophobia.”

Similarly, the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s largest bloc of Muslim countries, said the murders heightened international concerns about “rising anti-Muslim sentiments and Islamophobic acts” in the United States.