A Revival of Al-Azhar

A revival of Al-Azhar

There have been many signs of the revival of Al-Azhar, the Sunni world's most important seat of learning, most recently with the appointment of Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb as the institution's rector, writes Hossam Tamam*

Click to view caption Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb

The declining impact of the official religious establishment, made up of Al-Azhar and its fatwa and waqf foundation offices, on religious affairs has been the most salient feature of the evolution of religious life in Egypt over the past three decades. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that we have reached a turning point where it is now possible to envision a revival of this institution as a central and effective player in the management and guidance of religious affairs, not only in Egypt but throughout the Islamic world.

To speak of the decline of Al-Azhar does not necessarily imply criticism or diminish its importance. This decline stems from many interrelated factors, some connected to developments that have affected religious beliefs themselves and others to the institution itself, as it has functioned within a particular historical context. In general, there has been a strong trend away from institutionalised religion in the world as a whole in structural/hierarchical and spiritual/doctrinal terms, and this has affected the Islamic religious establishment along with others.

However, there have of course also been local religious and political circumstances that have worked to reduce the influence of Al-Azhar and contribute to its decline.

This process began more than half a century ago, when Al-Azhar was annexed by the modern state. The latter looked on Al-Azhar either as an adversary deserving of having its wings clipped or as a subsidiary branch of government that could be wielded as a religious tool or shield in the service of the state and its political projects.

While president Gamal Abdel-Nasser first annexed and began the utilisation of Al-Azhar in this manner following the 1952 Revolution, the co-optation picked up pace under Anwar El-Sadat and moved into higher gear during the later Hosni Mubarak era. Under Nasser, Al-Azhar remained a powerful force in its own right and an active player whose efficacy was linked to that of Egypt as the leader of the Arab nation and a pivotal regional power.

Although that role vanished under Sadat, the state continued its process of the annexation and utilisation of Al-Azhar. At the same time, however, it opened the door to new religious actors in the shape of Islamist groups influenced by the powerful surge of Wahabi religious feeling backed by the rising power of Saudi Arabia on the crest of a huge oil boom. It was these ideological newcomers that delivered the most debilitating blow to the religious foundations of Al-Azhar, the ancient and long pre-eminent Sunni religious establishment whose Ashari theological traditions are famously open to multiple views of Islamic law and are tolerant of Sufism.

As a result, the real decline of Al-Azhar dates to the early 1970s when it began to lose ideological influence in the face of the Wahabi tide, the clearest expression of which is to be found in the radical Islamist groups. Al-Azhar probably would not have withstood this onslaught for long had it not been for its own institutional strength and the powerful presence of some of its leaders, most notably Sheikh Abdel-Halim Mahmoud who served as grand imam of Al-Azhar from 1973 to his death in 1978 and who was also a prolific writer on Sufism. He was probably the last rector of Al-Azhar to have had a vision of the integration of the exoteric and esoteric aspects of Islam before that of the institution's current rector, Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb.

In the 1980s, Al-Azhar's standing and influence began to crumble at an unprecedented rate in the face of the influx of political Islamism into the religious realm. Islamist groups secured a foothold and expanded their influence in this realm, as well as, of course, in the political sphere itself, by questioning the authority and legitimacy of Al-Azhar on the grounds that it was a representative and religious emblem of the regime.

As for the regime itself, in the absence of a political project this was forced to expand its annexation and utilisation of the religious establishment in order to counter the mounting influence of the Islamist groups. However, the effect of this was to confirm the propaganda of these groups and to further weaken the legitimacy of Al-Azhar and its ability to lead in the religious domain.

One of the effects of the confrontation between the regime and the Islamist groups was that it obscured the rapid erosion of Al-Azhar's religious views beneath the wave of Wahabism, which soon permeated even the centre of the Al-Azhar establishment. Al-Azhar and, more specifically, Al-Azhar University, became bastions of Salafism. Once only a fringe movement in Al-Azhar, Salafism became the most dynamic and influential ideological and doctrinal force in the institution.

As has generally been its custom, for its part the regime was more concerned with keeping the religious establishment under its control and using it for its purposes than it was with strengthening it as a centre of spiritual leadership and religious moderation, which had always been Al-Azhar's leading features. Under the conditions of deterioration and collapse, the regime would naturally be unlikely to have the kind of awareness that could enable it to comprehend the complicated terrain of religion. As a result, the regime's decisions on religious matters tended to be haphazard and lacking in strategic cohesion. Its need for immediate religious support was greater than any long-term or higher interests.

The period of Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi was one of crisis for the religious establishment in Egypt. Sheikh Tantawi served as mufti from 1986 to 1996, and he was elevated to the position of grand imam in 1996, a position he retained until his death in 2010. During this quarter of a century enormous damage was visited on Al-Azhar's image and leadership in Egypt and abroad. Under Sheikh Tantawi's leadership, the religious establishment had no clear perception of its role and nature or of its relationships with the state or other actors in the religious sphere. It was an era that reflected the arbitrariness that now pervades the Egyptian state.

The status of Al-Azhar and the office of the grand mufti in particular suffered under Sheikh Tantawi because he saw himself as a government employee and a civil servant, almost in the literal sense of the term. This outlook deprived him of any broader horizons and meant that Al-Azhar fell short of the expectations that the world had of the institution. Because he paid little attention to the aspirations of the Islamic world as a whole, Sheikh Tantawi failed to meet the Islamic world's need for overarching religious leadership, particularly the need of the Sunni component of that world. At a time when the West was complaining of religious extremism and radicalism and was looking to Al-Azhar to serve as a beacon of moderation, Sheikh Tantawi insisted on restricting Al-Azhar's scope to the domestic domain.

His relationship with other religious actors was not much better, characterised as it was by petty theological arguments with political overtones. In these Sheikh Tantawi sided with the authorities, but by doing so he ended up benefiting their adversaries, with the result that under his leadership Al-Azhar was swept by the biggest wave of fundamentalism and political Islamism in its history. Indeed, following the end of the period of Sheikh Abdel-Halim Mahmoud's leadership, Al-Azhar's ideological and doctrinal foundations underwent an almost total upheaval.

It is impossible to go into detail here regarding the factors that favoured the selection of El-Tayeb as the successor of Sheikh Tantawi as grand imam of Al-Azhar, important as such considerations are in understanding the internal workings and current state of the religious establishment. What is certain, however, is that this choice raises hopes of major changes in the management of religious affairs and of the powerful revival of the Al-Azhar establishment.

Several significant indicators already support this analysis. One is the palpable ebb of political Islamism in both its jihadist and non-violent incarnations. The ideological retractions made by jihadist leaders and Islamist politicians strongly suggest that political Islamism has lost its hold on religious action and influence in Egypt. The Salafist tide that once swept the religious sphere has led to the rise of a counter- movement that can gather in an establishment such as Al-Azhar, which still poses an alternative.

Thanks to its Al-Ashari theology, its traditions of Sufism, and its openness to diverse interpretations of Islamic law, Al-Azhar can pose the strongest and most cohesive challenge to Salafism in the Sunni community. Al-Azhar's natural candidacy for this function is also strengthened by the backdrop of theological and spiritual chaos sewn, for example, by the recent proliferation of religious satellite television channels, which only augments the need for an institution that can serve as an ideological regulator, arbitrator and authority.

Indeed, we have arrived at a moment when the return of Al-Azhar to ideological predominance is not only needed by society in general, but is also needed by the religious actors themselves, as well as by the state. The latter seems to include officials who have now realised that state policies of co-opting Al-Azhar have backfired, especially now that the decline of Al-Azhar is almost equated with the decline of the state itself.