Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi

Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (28 October 1928 – 10 March 2010) was an Egyptian scholar who served as Grand Mufti of Egypt from 1986 to 1996, then as Grand Imam of al-Azhar from 1996 until his death in 2010. ^{1 2}

Tantawi completed a commentary of the entire Quran in seven thousand pages (Al-Tafsir al-Wasit), which took over ten years to complete. The Arabic article describes him as viewed by many Muslims around the world as a revered figure, a moderate scholar and a supporter of women's causes, while others considered that some of his political positions were not successful and outweighed the scholarly side of his life. ^{1 2}

Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi was born on 28 October 1928 (14 Jumada al-awwal 1347 AH) in the village of Selim el-Sharqiyah, in the district of Tama, Sohag Governorate, Egypt. He received his early education in his village, memorised the Quran, and joined the Religious Institute of Alexandria in 1944. ^{1 2}

He enrolled in the Faculty of Religious Studies (Usul al-Din) at al-Azhar University and graduated in 1958, obtained his master's degree in education (teaching specialisation) in 1959, and received his doctorate in Hadith and Tafsir with excellent grade on 5 September 1966; his thesis was on the children of Israel in the Quran and the Sunna. ^{1 2}

Tantawi worked as imam, khateeb and teacher at the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) from 1960, and as a teaching assistant/lecturer at the Faculty of Usul al-Din from 1968. He was seconded to Libya to teach for four years, working at the Faculty of Arabic & Islamic Studies of the Islamic University of Libya from 1972, and was professor of Tafsir at the Faculty of Usul al-Din in Assiut and its dean in 1976. ^{2 1}

In 1980 he moved to Saudi Arabia, where he became chief of the Tafsir branch of the graduate programme at the Islamic University of Madinah; he returned to Egypt in 1985 as Dean of the Faculty of Usul al-Din at the Religious Institute of Alexandria. ^{1 2}

Tantawi was appointed Grand Mufti of Egypt on 28 October 1986, his 58th birthday — unusually, every mufti before him had risen through the sharia judiciary — and remained in the post for almost ten years. ^{1 2} President Hosni Mubarak then appointed him Grand Imam of al-Azhar on 27 March 1996; the article describes al-Azhar as one of the most influential and important Sunni Muslim institutions in the Islamic world. ¹

Tantawi's public work was the work of an official mufti continuously addressing the questions of his era — banking, circumcision, the niqab and world events — with his fatwas and statements carried in the press and on television. In 2004 he led the funeral prayers for Yasser Arafat, saying that "Arafat has done his duty to defend the Palestinian cause in a brave and honest way". ¹

This section should be read as a presentation of differing positions reported in the sources, not as the museum's verdict on them.

Interest and banking: In 1989, as Grand Mufti, Tantawi issued a fatwa — in response to a government request for an opinion — holding that some forms of interest on financial investments were tolerable, including government bonds and ordinary savings accounts, distinguishing prohibited riba, which he defined as manipulative, extreme exploitation, from legitimate ribh (gain). The ruling in effect allowed the development of a mortgage industry in Egypt. ¹ His views on the question were highly controversial among his fellow scholars; his friend of many years Yusuf al-Qaradawi sharply criticised his stance. ¹

Female genital mutilation: Tantawi opposed female genital mutilation and called it un-Islamic. In 1997 he said that "the ulema (theologians) of Islam are unanimous in viewing female circumcision as having nothing to do with religion", and he revealed that his own daughter had not been circumcised. ¹

Suicide bombings and September 11: Tantawi condemned the September 11 attacks, saying that killing innocent people is "a horrible, heinous act which no religion can approve", and that Osama bin Laden's call to jihad against the West was "invalid and not binding on Muslims". ¹ He had taken a line against suicide attacks, and said in 2003 that those who carry them out are "enemies of Islam"; later the same year he said that one who blows himself up while confronting the occupiers of his land is a martyr, stressing that Islam does not allow the killing of innocent civilians and children, only occupiers and aggressors. ¹

The niqab: In October 2009 Tantawi launched a campaign against the niqab in al-Azhar schools: during a visit to an al-Azhar girls' school in Madinet Nasr, Cairo, he personally removed the niqab of a teenage pupil and told her "The niqab is a tradition, it has no connection with religion", and promised fatwas against wearing it in schools; the Islamic Research Academy officially backed banning the niqab inside Azhar institutes' classrooms, examination halls and hostels. ^{1 2} He later said the niqab is a matter of personal freedom, but merely a custom. ²

Political criticism: On 30 December 2003 Tantawi received French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy at al-Azhar and stated that French officials had the right to pass a law banning the hijab in their schools and government institutions as an internal French matter; the statement drew sharp criticism from Islamic groups and scholars, from the European Council for Fatwa and Research and from the Muslim Brotherhood. ² In 2007 his fatwa calling for the flogging of journalists who published reports about President Mubarak's illness provoked wide anger among journalists and the public. ² In November 2008 he faced parliamentary questioning and demands for an apology after shaking hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres at a UN-organised interfaith conference in New York; he explained that he had not recognised Peres, while Israeli newspapers reported that he had initiated the handshake. ²

His treatise on the children of Israel: The English article summarises Tantawi's treatise, written in the 1960s in some 700 pages, on the children of Israel in the Quran and the Sunna, in which he describes the Jews in harsh terms as the article reports them, and denies any Jewish significance to the Western Wall. ¹

His public image: Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, wrote that Tantawi "was not only pro-Western but also generally pro-authority and bent over backwards to please it", and that "his fatwas are not often carefully argued and considered". ¹ By contrast, the Arabic article describes him as revered by many Muslims, whose fatwas had a great impact. ²

Tantawi's works include Al-Tafsir al-Wasit li-l-Quran al-Karim, a seven-thousand-page commentary completed over more than ten years; his doctoral thesis on the children of Israel in the Quran and the Sunna; and Mu'amalat al-Bunuk wa-Ahkamuha al-Shar'iyya ("Banking Transactions and their Sharia Rulings", Dar Nahdat Misr, 1998). ¹

The two articles give no extensive family detail about Tantawi beyond what he himself stated in the context of his fatwas, and the museum does not publish family detail beyond what understanding his work requires. ¹

Tantawi died on the morning of 10 March 2010 (24 Rabi' al-awwal 1431 AH) of a heart attack in Riyadh, while visiting to attend the King Faisal Prize for Service to Islam award ceremony and about to board his flight back to Egypt. ^{1 2} His body was flown to Medina, where funeral prayers were held for him at the Prophet ﷺ's Mosque and he was buried in the al-Baqi' cemetery; the Egyptian authorities said this was at his family's request. ¹ Condolences were sent to the Egyptian government by leaders and scholars including Pope Benedict XVI, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, King Mohammed VI of Morocco and King Abdullah II of Jordan. ¹ His deputy, Mohamed Wasel, acted in his place until President Mubarak appointed Ahmed el-Tayeb as his successor. ¹

• The defined sources cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Later translations and edits of this article require periodic review with clear update dates.