http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1012/focus.htm
19 - 25 August 2010
Issue No. 1012
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
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*
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Click to view caption
Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb (more photos...)
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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.
Another significant indicator of change came with the appointment of Sheikh Ali
Gomaa as grand mufti in 2003. On this occasion, the regime acted contrary to
its usual practice of selecting individuals who are close to being religious
technocrats, if not religious civil servants. Instead, the appointment of
Sheikh Gomaa reflected an awareness of the need to restructure and rehabilitate
the fatwa institution, even if that involved giving it a greater degree of
autonomy. Sheikh Gomaa has performed this task admirably, thus benefiting the
state while not embroiling himself or the office he represents in the logic of
political co-optation, the disadvantages of which have been shown to outweigh
the advantages.
Sheikh Gomaa's reforms of the Dar Al-Iftaa have helped to disassociate that
institution from the bureaucratic inefficiency and stagnation that plague many
other governmental institutions. In this, Sheikh Gomaa, once looked on as an
outsider by those in the religious establishment who saw themselves as being
more authentic Azharites, has succeeded where his predecessors failed. The new
decision-making structure, system of training, and methodology he has
introduced into the Dar Al-Iftaa have given the institution a huge boost,
modernising it and enabling it to cope with new challenges. These reforms have
also distanced it from any accusations of arbitrariness or personal whim,
sometimes seen as traits of the fatwa process.
Sheikh Gomaa has thus been able to rescue the prestige of the institution from
almost total loss. He has been aided by a theological and general erudition
rare among Muslim scholars these days, as well as by a prolific output in
jurisprudence and nearly four decades of experience and expertise in Islamic
cultural and religious affairs.
The appointment of El-Tayeb as rector of Al-Azhar is a sign that the state has
grasped the lessons of the reform of Dar Al-Iftaa and that it is now prepared
to apply these on a broader and deeper scale. It is no idle flattery to say
that Sheikh El-Tayeb is the man needed in the position of rector of Al-Azhar at
this time. A respected scholar and a professor of Islamic theology and
philosophy, he will be able to impart a more serious and judicious image to his
office, which will also be one more suited to the modern world as Sheikh
El-Tayeb has a record of openness to the West since the days when he was
studying and working in France.
In fact, Sheikh El-Tayeb continues to translate works from French into Arabic,
and he is also fluent in English. Yet, his is a balanced and rational openness
that has not distorted his ability to understand the issues and complexities of
society. This is in contrast to Hamdi Zaqzouq, who entered the Ministry of Waqf
from a background in German orientalism, with the result that he is still
engaged in fighting windmills, wasting much of his term in office on a project
to unify the call to prayer. This epitomises the shallowness of an elitist
vision of religious reform.
Sheikh El-Tayeb, born in 1946, comes from a prominent family hailing from Luxor
in Upper Egypt and having a history of religious learning and leadership in a
traditional society. He has striven to keep that tradition alive, and he still
attends family assemblies in order to listen to and attempt to resolve the
problems of family members, people from his home town and members of his Sufi
order. Continuity of this sort lends substance to Sheikh El-Tayeb's openness,
and it is an extension of that of many like-minded Al-Azhar sheikhs and
scholars, notable examples of which have included Sheikh Mohamed Abdallah Draz,
who wrote his most important works in French, and grand imam Abdel-Halim
Mahmoud.
Yet, what most qualifies Sheikh El-Tayeb for his present post is the fact that
he is not an Al-Azhar technocrat. Instead, having been affiliated with Al-Azhar
since the age of 10, he is an Azharite to the core and is deeply loyal to the
institution. It appears that he has a clear perception of its position and
functions and a project for reviving it as a centre of religious moderation and
spiritual leadership. Having only been in office for a few months since March
2010, Sheikh El-Tayeb is naturally still feeling his way. However, it is
possible to get a sense of where he is headed from the steps he has taken
towards redrawing the lines of the relationships between Al-Azhar and the
regime, between Al-Azhar and other religious actors and between Al-Azhar and
the world as a whole.
Formerly a member of the policies committee of the ruling National Democratic
Party (NDP), Sheikh El-Tayeb resigned from the committee immediately upon his
appointment as rector, being aware that he could not be rector of Al-Azhar and
an NDP official at the same time. He would have felt that it was important to
set a boundary between his office and the party, not with the intention of
setting Al-Azhar against the regime, but rather with the idea of setting it
apart as a distinct institution, which, though always an integral part of the
Egyptian state, needs to resist the mechanisms of political co-optation.
Sheikh El-Tayeb's vision has shown itself in the positions he has taken. He has
refused, for example, to issue a fatwa on the issue of the border fence with
Gaza, which was the source of a political skirmish between Sheikh Youssef
El-Qaradawi and Sheikh Tantawi, who responded by giving his blessing to the
border fence. By contrast, Sheikh El-Tayeb has held that this is a matter that
cannot be determined by a religious jurist, who lacks the military, strategic
and political information necessary to issue a ruling. His position is a
significant one in that it re-establishes the distinction between the political
and religious spheres by drawing upon the history of Sunni discourse and its
legacy of Islamic jurisprudence, rather than on the secularist logic that sees
a separation between religion and politics.
In Sheikh El-Tayeb's view, Al-Azhar can enter the political domain, but only as
a unifier and a champion on issues on which there is consensus among the Muslim
community. He therefore opposes normalisation with Israel, but refuses to get
involved in details, such as whether or not one is warranted in visiting
Jerusalem on an Israeli visa, or meeting with Israeli officials. The same
approach applies in Sheikh El-Tayeb's views on the Palestinian cause. Here, he
supports the cause, but he will not issue fatwas that could be interpreted as
being more favourable to one faction than another.
Sheikh El-Tayeb has been taking bold and confident steps in reordering
relationships with the world abroad, with an eye to enhancing Al-Azhar's
academic and scientific standards and boosting its capacity to contribute to
the contemporary age, thereby seizing all available opportunities to
disseminate Al-Azhar's moderate discourse. Sheikh El-Tayeb is confident that he
is approaching such steps from a position of strength, since the declining
influence of Islamist radicalism and the assimilation of Muslim communities
abroad have created the potential for reciprocity.
Many political, cultural and academic circles in the West now look towards
Al-Azhar as a centre of religious moderation and one that can offset the
influence of religious extremism. In this regard, Sheikh El-Tayeb sponsored a
project in collaboration with the British Council to found an English-language
training centre, and he remains a strong advocate of cooperation with the UK on
mutually beneficial cultural and educational matters of this sort that involve
a religious dimension.
With respect to other stakeholders in the religious domain, Sheikh El-Tayeb's
relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood has long since overcome the Al-Azhar
student militia crisis that erupted when he was president of Al-Azhar
University. His position at that time was firm. He succeeded in containing a
broad front of Al-Azhar scholars who were dissatisfied at Sheikh Tantawi's
handling of the crisis, and he pushed for the compromise solution of dismissing
various leaders of the student demonstrations. His success won him the support
of a broad front of Al-Azhar scholars.
In like manner, Sheikh El-Tayeb's position towards Sheikh El-Qaradawi, the most
important Sunni authority outside Al-Azhar, has been equally sagacious. Sheikh
El-Tayeb's qualified endorsement of El-Qaradawi following the latter's
dismissal from the Qatari-based forum Islamonline.net strengthened the prestige
and dignity of his own office without in any way altering his or Al-Azhar's
intellectual and doctrinal position as an Ashari institution that represents
Egyptian Islam.
There are further propitious signs for the revival of Al-Azhar. However, this
will also be contingent on the success of the struggle to reset the mainstream
course of action and belief in the religious domain. The major thrust of this
will be against the Wahabist tide, which has now reached its height, and its
results will not only determine the fate of religious affairs in Egypt, but
will also affect those elsewhere in the Sunni world, most notably in such
historical centres of the Sunni creed as Morocco, Syria, Turkey and India.
Awareness of this fact was reflected in the international conference on Imam
Abul-Hassan Al-Ashari that was sponsored by Sheikh El-Tayeb in April this year
and attended by prominent critics of the Salafist tide in the Sunni Islamic
world. The true revival of Al-Azhar entails the rejuvenation of its
characteristic ideological and doctrinal outlook, and this will inevitably
court a clash with Salafism, recently the more influential and active trend.
* The writer is an expert in Islamist movements.
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