Al-Azhar Mosque

Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo was founded by the Fatimids as a mosque for their mission. In 378 AH the vizier Yaqub ibn Killis turned it into a university where the sciences and literature were taught. ¹

The mosque was at first limited to hosting the Fatimid mission. It later became one of the most important centres of culture in Egypt, alongside the mosques of Amr, Ibn Tulun and al-Hakim. ¹

Al-Maqrizi says the mosque was also called "Jami' al-Qahira" and "al-Azhar", and that the two Fatimid palaces together were called "the Splendid Palaces". ²

Al-Musabbihi, describing the sessions of the chief da'i, says that a session was set aside for women in the mosque of Cairo known as al-Azhar. ³

On the day of the Prophet ﷺ's birth, the preacher of al-Azhar preached after the preacher of the Anwar mosque, known as the mosque of al-Hakim, and before the preacher of al-Aqmar. ⁴

This page does not date the founding of the mosque: no passage giving its building year was found in the local copy of the Khitat. The year 378 AH rests on Hasan Ibrahim Hasan's book alone.

The mosque of al-Azhar is one of the principal mosques of present-day Cairo and was, from the eighteenth century, the principal religious university of the Islamic world. The name may allude to Fatima al-Zahra', although no ancient document confirms it. It was founded by the general Jawhar al-Katib al-Siqilli for the Fatimid Caliph al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah, whose court and troops were to live in the new city of al-Qahira. Building began on 24 Jumada I 359 AH (4 April 970) and lasted two years; the mosque was inaugurated on 7 Ramadan 361 AH (22 June 972). ⁵

Like the mosques of 'Amr at Fustat and of Ibn Tulun, al-Azhar was a religious centre of its own quarter, and the Friday prayer was held there; after 380/990 the al-Hakimi mosque enjoyed the same privileges. Several Fatimid caliphs enlarged it, including al-'Aziz (365-386/976-996), who added the north and south lateral liwans, and al-Hakim (386-411/996-1020). A wakf deed of 400/1009-10 describes its personnel and worship, though not its teaching. The vast central courtyard with its porticos, the five-bay prayer hall on the qibla wall, and the brick walls with plaster decoration date from this period. Under the Ayyubids, Salah al-Din had the silver band of the mihrab removed, took over the khutba and restored the al-Hakimi mosque to Muslim use after the Franks had used it as a church; al-Azhar declined, and its buildings were neglected. ⁶

With the Mamluk sultans the situation changed. The amir 'Izz al-Din Aydimur al-Hilli had the mosque restored with the help of Sultan Baybars, who also allowed the khutba to be read there. Some wakfs supported teachers. The earthquake of 702/1302-3 damaged it, and it was restored by the amir Salar. Three new madrasas were built against its exterior: that of the amir Baybars (709/1309), that of the amir Akbugha 'Abd al-Wahid (740/1339-40), and the madrasa of the eunuch Jawhar al-Kankabai (buried here in 844/1440-1). Minarets that leaned dangerously were rebuilt several times. Under the Ottomans its teaching declined, while the Sufi khanqahs spread; under Muhammad 'Ali the wakfs were misused, and the mosque suffered in the bombardment of Cairo. In the late eighteenth century the Katkhuda 'Abd al-Rahman built a minbar, a cistern and a school for children; in the nineteenth century the courtyard and porticos were rebuilt in 1890-2, and 'Abbas Hilmi built the riwaq that bears his name, inaugurated in 1315/1898. ⁷

Like all mosques, al-Azhar was a sanctuary. People gathered there in times of plague, famine or war to call upon God, and it was a refuge for the poor, who slept there; its wakfs supported pilgrims passing through Cairo. Sufis also met there, and 'Umar b. al-Farid lived there towards the end of his life. In the modern period it was a place for national gatherings: in 1919 and during the struggle against the British in the Suez Canal zone in 1951-2. ⁸

Under the Fatimids the Ismaili teacher 'Ali b. al-Qadi al-Nu'man taught Ismaili law at al-Azhar. Under the Ayyubids Shiite teaching was swept away, and under the Mamluks al-Azhar regained its place. In 665/1266 Bilbak al-Khazindar founded a large maqsura where a group of jurists taught Shafi'i law; in 761/1359-60 a course in Hanafi law was started, together with a Qur'an school for orphans. In 818/1415-6 al-Maqrizi counted 750 students, provincial and foreign, from Maghribis to Persians, living in the mosque in riwaqs, studying law, hadith, Qur'an commentary, grammar and preaching. Al-Azhar was one important centre among many in the Mamluk Cairo, which had more than seventy madrasas. The Ottoman period was one of decadence for learning in Cairo; the causes were economic, the decline of the wakfs and the triumph of the Sufi khanqahs, and scholarship consisted of learning by heart the manuals, the commentaries and the glosses. ⁹

Scholarship in the later Ottoman period consisted of learning by heart a traditional corpus, with no pedagogical method and little general culture; arithmetic was limited to the apportioning of inheritances, and astronomy to fixing prayer times. In the Middle Ages the superintendent (nazir) of al-Azhar was a person of high rank; each riwaq and each faculty had its own head (shaykh or naqib). From Ottoman times the rector (shaykh al-Azhar) headed the institution and was responsible to the government. Mubarak's description of 1875 shows the old customs: students sat in halqas on the mats around a teacher seated on a low armchair at a pillar, each pillar having its accredited holder and, until 1872, belonging to one school of law. Students lived meagrely on their regular rations, often earned money by reading the Qur'an or copying manuscripts, and left with an ijaza, a certificate from the teacher, since there was no final examination. In 1293 AH (1876) the 361 teachers and 10,780 students were distributed among the Shafi'is (147 teachers, 5,651 students), the Malikis (99 and 3,826), the Hanafis (76 and 1,278) and the Hanbalis (3 and 25). ¹⁰

The shock of Bonaparte's expedition and the modernising efforts of Muhammad 'Ali left al-Azhar indifferent or hostile, though its traditionalists could not avoid the activist element of the new Egypt, which was recruited from the Azharis, among them Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Sa'd Zaghlul and Muhammad 'Abduh. The reform needed the full Khedival, and later royal, power to impose it. Its stages were: a diploma at the end of the course in 1872, a school of Dar al-'Ulum in 1872 for future teachers of the new schools, an advisory council in 1895 on which Muhammad 'Abduh was the inspiration, and the affiliation of several institutes in 1895. The law of 20 Muharram 1314 (1 July 1896) created a council of thirty chief 'ulama in place of the Free University. The law of 1930 gave the chief 'ulama's tribunal the power to judge the conduct of 'ulama, enlarged the council, set the course lengths (four years primary, five secondary, four higher, in three faculties: shari'a, usul al-din and Arabic), and admitted foreigners who were exempted from knowing the Qur'an by heart. The law of 1936 remained the charter of teaching in the 1950s, with English or French compulsory in the faculty of usul al-din, and modern subjects such as logic, medicine, chemistry, zoology, botany, history and geography. In 1945 the Dar al-'Ulum became a faculty of the University of Cairo; in 1952 it admitted candidates from government schools; a women's section was opened in 1954, and in 1955 the abolition of the shari'a courts removed the chief outlet of the shari'a faculty. ¹¹

In 1953 the faculties had 1,603 sharia, 1,655 Arabic and 707 usul al-din students; the institutes had 12,398 primary, 6,559 secondary and 3,703 in the attached sections, and the free institutes 2,458. Foreign students numbered 4,586 that year, most from the Sudan (2,634), then Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine (724), North Africa and Libya (267), and the Horn of Africa (309). Until Law 15 of 1927 al-Azhar answered directly to the King; its budget rose from £E 136,000 in 1919 to £E 1,617,200 in 1954, of which only £E 94,380 came from the wakfs. Students were given food and lodging allowances, which made al-Azhar the only place of higher study open to poor families. The mosque library had more than 20,000 manuscripts, and a monthly review, al-Azhar's organ, was founded in 1930. ¹²

The chronicle of al-Jabarti preserves the names of the rectors (mashayikh) from 1100 AH (1690) on. The post was contested between the schools and was held by men from the land-owning class, by copyists who had earned their living, and by scholars who wrote commentaries. Among the rectors were 'Abd al-Baqi al-Kalini, whose appointment was the occasion of a battle inside the mosque; Hasan al-'Attar, who had associated with Bonaparte's French and supported the reforms; Hassuna al-Nawawi, who presided over the reform of 1896 and resigned in 1899; Salim al-Bishri, the last of the muhaddithun, who opposed Muhammad 'Abduh and the reforms; and, after the revolution, a series of short rectorships under the Canal Zone and the 1952 coup, the last being 'Abd al-Rahman Tadi (as printed), nominated in January 1954. ¹³

The article gives a mixed verdict. The reforms raised the standard of the faculties and of the foreign students; but Azharis still send their sons to government schools, are denied equality with state university teachers, and lost the shari'a courts as an outlet; study remains mainly the learning by heart of texts, and the modern subjects take a secondary place. Its defenders stress its service to the faith in traditional circles and its prestige abroad, where for many Muslims al-Azhar is Egypt; its critics, including some Muslim reformers, ask whether its teaching answers the needs of the twentieth century. The article is a study of 1955-1957, and the situation it describes is that of that time. ¹⁴