Islam's prestigious Al-Azhar university yesterday welcomed the shutdown of an Internet Website which had propagated parodies of Koranic suras, or verses.

"We don't want any apologies or anything of that sort. We're just happy it's been closed," said Al-Azhar spokesman Sheikh Omar el-Bastawisy. "The media certainly helped us."

Internet provider America Online (AOL) said on Wednesday it had closed the Suralikeit site because it violated its terms of service by carrying material offensive to Muslims. The provider had received several complaints about the site, an AOL spokeswoman said.

Scholars at al-Azhar University in Cairo had protested over the site and threatened to sue AOL for hosting it.

Suralikeit's mockery of the Koran, which Muslims believe Allah revealed to the Prophet Mohammad in the seventh century, had stirred up a media storm in Egypt.