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“I am tired of you, Imam,” with these words, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi directed his speech to Sheikh Al-Azhar Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb on the 65th anniversary of the Egyptian Police Day celebrations in January last year 2017, in the context of Sisi’s request that divorce be recognized only with a document Formal without regard to oral divorce, and Sisi’s statement to the Grand Imam meant that Al-Azhar did not accept some of Sisi's dictates, which the latter described as “tired”.
This case of public clash between the two men was not the first of its kind. Sisi has always used religious occasions to attack Islamic and Muslim thought alike, and blames it on stagnation - as he sees it - a stalemate that he attributed to the largest religious establishment in Egypt for a thousand years. From its history, which is the Al-Azhar Foundation.
Rather, the matter has evolved into demanding the Egyptian president explicitly and through his media arms to not observe the old concepts of the Sunnah of the Prophet and to be satisfied with the Noble Qur’an in legislation and gratitude; With the excuse that the image of Muslims has become bad around the world, which he has repeatedly repeated with a grim - for strangeness - in a number of his words on various Islamic religious occasions, it appears that this transgression of what Islamic scholars considered throughout their history of the red lines that constitute the meaning of Islam and its structure is what drove Sheikh Al-Azhar in the recent celebration of the birth of the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - to call on Muslims to "take pride in the year of their prophet", and attack the claims of the boasted of this year from the ancient Orientalists and their new tails, which was considered by a number of observers as a confrontation that moved between Sisi and Sheikh Al-Azhar from the secret to Publicly after three years of Sisi's repeated and blame at the same time.
It is striking that this confrontation was not the first in the history of Al-Azhar since its establishment and its involvement at the scientific and political levels in Egypt alike, as long as Al-Azhar sheikhs were implicated in political life, either by confronting with the authoritarian authority and adhering to people's issues and concerns, or by mediating reconciliation between the conflicting parties, but how Were the features of this long history spanning more than a thousand years between the Al-Azhar Foundation and the authority in Egypt? Was the relationship based on affection and recognition thanks to these scholars and their place? Or did Al-Azhar force this authority to abide by its desires and conditions during times of clash and revolutions? Was Al-Azhar forced to obey the authority's opinion, its power, and its gun ?!
This is something that calls us to look back and consider the history of Al-Azhar, and reflect on its behavior with power, the nature of its formation and its continuity amid the dynamism of political and social life in Egypt through that long history; The establishment of Al-Azhar was originally to serve the Fatimite Ismaili Shi'a project, as the mosque was built in the center of Fatimid Cairo to be the center of Shi'a da`wa in Egypt, North Africa, and possibly the entire Arab region, and its inauguration in the year 362 AH / 973 CE was a service for this purpose, and a base by which the Sunni project competing Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasids carrying its banner.
But little by little, the Sunni scholars in Egypt were able to enter the mosque, and they had episodes of knowledge, disciples and disciples, and it seemed that Al-Azhar became a university for both Sunni and Shiite schools of thought in that era, but that was progressive, and under the eye of Fatimid authority and its constant and careful observation, and when Salah al-Din came to Egypt, eliminating Fatimid influence. Al-Azhar was at the forefront of the institutions that cause him an obstacle to the project of restoring Egypt to Sunni Islam again. He succeeded when he issued his decision to close Al-Azhar, and it remained closed for a full hundred years. The Ayyubids and Mamluks subsequently established in the country tens of The scientific complexes that used to collect both schools and mosques, and Al-Azhar became in the era of the Mamluks not much distinguished from the other schools [1], especially the Sultans ’schools such as the Sala’i School built by Salah al-Din, the Kamiliyya School built by Sultan al-Kamil, and the Salihia Star School built by the Sultan Najm al-Din Ayoub and others.
When the Ottomans entered Egypt and condemned them during the time of Sultan Selim I in the year 923 AH / 1517AD, this entry was accompanied by a large movement of resistance, and the Ottomans plundered many of the Cairo libraries and the libraries of the Mamluk schools, so these schools hit a kind of delay and return, and Al-Azhar started because of its centralization in the heart of Cairo In terms of geography and breadth, he began to embrace many scholars coming from other schools, and gradually became the mosque and the private university that reflects the state of science and knowledge and the concerns of Egyptian society.
In view of this essential position of the Al-Azhar Mosque and its affiliates, the scholars of Al-Azhar were only mentioned before the title of "Our Sadat", so it is said: "Our masters of scholars", just as the students of science adjacent to Al-Azhar were only mentioned as preceded by the title of "masters", so it is said: "The masters who are adjacent to the mosque" Al-Azhar. " These two surnames came in official decrees and letters, as noted in the Emiri and Shariah records, as stated in the publication of the Judge of Egypt’s Judges on 5 Dhu al-Qi'dah 973 AH / May 1566AD that the major ones in Egypt are two classes; The Ulema, the Sanjak and the Princes, and the Judge in his publication presented scholars to the princes [2].
In that era, the Ottomans ruled the country by a ruler on their part as well as some of the military “sanjaks” that were supporting its position, but the greatest power was the Mamluks, who became divided into Qasimid and vertebrate Mamlukes, and there were often differences between the two sides calling for the Ottomans to interfere in Cases of power, for example in the year 1071 AH / 1660 CE, the vertebrate Mamluks were forced to resort to Al-Azhar for fear of themselves, and the Sheikhs of Al-Azhar were mediated by the Ottoman governor Ibrahim Pasha to pardon them, and he issued an amnesty already, saying:
“The pardon of the pardon was issued in compliance with what the honorable scholars saw.” [3]
Rather, the area of the Al-Azhar Mosque doubled in the time of the Ottomans and their rule of Egypt. In the year 1167 AH / 1754 AD, Prince Abdul-Rahman Ktkhuda al-Qazugli decided to expand the mosque as it is now, as it was smaller than that in terms of area [4].
At the end of the seventeenth century, Al-Azhar had a sheikh who presided over his affairs and looked after his interests, and this sheikh was often chosen by the most prominent scholars and jurists, and the first person in charge of this position was Sheikh Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Kharashi who died in the year 1101 AH / 1690 CE and was succeeded by Sheikh Muhammad Al-Nasharti. The first five of the noble Al-Azhar were from the Malikis and then became monopolized by the Shafi’i [5], but there are some recent studies confirming that the position of Sheikh Al-Azhar dates back to the sixteenth century AD with the beginnings of the Ottoman entry into Egypt, and with the time the Sheikh of Al-Azhar became a powerful influence feared by the princes in Egypt in various Their sects and ethnicities.
Indeed, the influence of Al-Azhar was strong due to the increasing number of associate students and elders during the Ottoman era, as Al-Azhar's corridors became a place for all coming from all parts of the world. Moroccan Moroccans were coming from the countries of the Arab Maghreb and West Africa, and the upper and eastern galleries, and the Turkish gallery for those coming from the Ottoman Empire and Anatolia.
The other thing that strengthened Al-Azhar’s influence and its religious and political standing throughout that long history was the independence of the financial disclosure of Al-Azhar through endowments, trusts, and friendships that were being heaped upon his students and elders, and for which many became the original resource that Al-Azhar depended on spending on themselves and their sciences, without the need for Politicians and Power.
The truth is that the Fatimids, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans did not dare to reduce the financial disclosure of Al-Azhar throughout that history, but rather added to it from their alms and endowments, and supported it by renewing it and adding libraries and books in order to facilitate the knowledge students, and some of them contributed to the creation of new corridors such as the Yemeni Gallery, and the Hanafi Gallery for the students of the sect. Al-Hanafi, which is the portico created by the Ottoman Minister Hassan Pasha, built several cabinets for the neighbors to keep their belongings and their grounds, and he also renovated the nave of the Al-Azhar Mosque [6].
Through the elements of the internal organization of Al-Azhar, and its scientific, financial and religious independence, his social influence doubled in Cairo, but in all Arab countries, and Al-Azhar became the true representative of the masses of the Egyptians in the calamities and calamities, and the sources of history in that era give us countless examples of the mass uprisings against The injustice of governors and princes, and how the noble Al-Azhar, its elders, students and scholars stood among the people when these calamities occurred.
In the year 1200 AH / 1786 AD, one of the princes whose name was Hussein Bey and his soldiers plundered a house of a Husaynid family north of Cairo called Ahmed Salem Al-Jazzar in public during the day, unjustly and aggressively, so the people revolted, and they consulted about what they should do, and finally agreed to resort to the strongest personal scholars, and expand them Influential, but they found nothing but Al-Azhar and its imam Al-Dardeer, so the people met on the day after the accident, and they fulfilled the part of the mosque, and they went to the sheikh and told him, so he got angry at the negligence and abuse of the princes. Our homes, martyrs die or God supports us, and the sheikh ordered the drums to be beamed to the beacons to mark the readiness to fight, then the people of Cairo flocked from all sides to participate in the upcoming battle.
At that time, the news reached the chief of the Mamluk princes Ibrahim Bey, and he reached the determination of Imam Al-Dardeer to lead the people against the princes, and he knew the amount of influence and status of the Sheikh on the people, and he was afraid that the matter would become worse and lead to the loss of his authority in Egypt, so he sent his deputy and one of the princes to the Sheikh The dirder, and apologized to him for what happened, and promised to stop the hands of the princes from the people, as he decided to reprimand Hassan Bek for his work, and asked him for a list of all what he had looted to order him to return it to its owner [7].
And when the princes at that time objected to the rulings of the sheikhs and judges of Al-Azhar, the revolt of Al-Azhar was based on this daring of Sharia without his family, and the historian of that period Al-Jabriya told us a number of tales on that, it was agreed that a man called Sheikh Abdul Baqi divorced his niece from Her husband, in absentia, at the hands of Sheikh Hassan Al-Jeddawi from the sheikhs and jurists of Al-Malikiyah for her husband’s long travel, and she married another.
When the first husband returned from Faiyum, and he went to one of the most powerful and influential Mamluk princes at that time, Prince Yusuf Bey, the Great, and he was one of the most vocal opponents of the growing influence of Al-Azhar and its elders, he took advantage of what he considered to be an unjust ruling, so how can a woman divorce her husband and wife who have enough of her Money and food, and if you need an existing agent, you can take from him. Then the Mamluk emir sent to the wife's uncle, Sheikh Abdul Baqi, beat him, put him in the iron, and imprisoned him in a crime prison.
When the Sheikhs of Al-Azhar knew what happened, they rode Sheikh Ali Al-Saidi and Al-Adawi and Sheikh Al-Jeddawi and a large group of generalized people and went to the Prince, and Sheikh Al-Saidi addressed him and said to him: “This is a saying in the doctrine of the Malikis that is in effect. The Prince said: Who says that a woman divorces her husband if he is absent from her? And then what she spends and what he behaves and his agent gives her what she requests and then comes from his absence and finds it with others. Then they said to him: We know the legal rulings. He said: If I see the sheikh who annulled the marriage, then the sheikh Al-Jeddawi said: I am the one who canceled the marriage on the basis of my sect. On his feet, he cried and said: God break your head. Sheikh Ali Al-Saidi cried and insulted him and said to him: God cursed you and cursed the Sergey who came to you and whoever sold you and who made you and who made you a prince. Then mediated among them those present from the princes inhabited his sharpness and unity, and they brought Sheikh Abdul Baqi from confinement and took him and came out while they They insult him while he hears them "[8].
This amazing and unusual position in the modern era that Al-Jabarti recounted in the relationship between power and the cleric could not have been imagined like this, where the Al-Azhar men forced the arrogant prince of power, money, and the military to break the families of the oppressed man, and even insulted him in his own home, and censored him in the status of his origin as a slave And cursing whoever bought it and who sold it, all of which directly touches the rest of the princes present, without moving a finger to know and certain of the true strength that the men of Al-Azhar possessed, but rather the other princes intervene to calm the men of Al-Azhar until they return their stairs.
When Napoleon Bonaparte with his French invading power entered Egypt, the country revolted in Lower and Lower Egypt with all its layers and classes to resist this occupied invader, and despite the apparent reforms referred to by some pro-Western historians, who consider the French campaign against Egypt the opening of the Enlightenment and civilization, the truth recorded by a historian In the Algebraic era and elsewhere, the Egyptians, headed by the elders of Al-Azhar, were fully aware that this occupation had very clear religious and colonial purposes.
Therefore, Al-Azhar was at the heart of the first Cairo revolutions of 1798 AD and the second in the year 1800 AD against Napoleon and his armies. Rather, the men of Al-Azhar were able to form a secret organization that the French did not notice before the rise of their revolt against the French, to be at the forefront in moving the nation and spread the spirit of resistance in it against the occupier, says Nicola The Turk, who is the contemporary of these events: "On the day of the day of Sunday, another twenty spring, one of the small sheikhs came down and was one of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, and he began calling in the city that every believer united in God be upon him at the mosque of Al-Azhar, because today we should be conquered in the infidels, and most of the people of the country They have the exponent (the secret) with that, while the French were oblivious to that. [9]
When Napoleon Bonaparte entered Cairo he established a bureau that included a group of leading scholars and agents, including the Sheikhs of Al-Azhar, including Sheikh Sadat, Napoleon was forcing them to attend and discuss, and trying to subjugate them with their apparent participation of the French in managing the affairs of the country, but Sheikh Sadat from the other side had established a secret organization to manage the resistance of the occupier The French.
And when the first Cairo revolution occurred in October 1798 AD, it was a sudden and well-prepared revolution, and Napoleon Bonaparte took it by surprise; So, "Bonaparte got angry when he was at his headquarters in the Millennium Palace, so he ordered the fortified artillery of the fortress with howitzers and mortars to pay the cannons to the Al-Azhar Mosque and the surrounding neighborhoods that are the center of the revolution" [10].
Napoleon was aware that the center of the revolution was the Al-Azhar Mosque and its sheikhs, and he continued hitting the mosque with bombs from noon until the evening, but Napoleon ordered that "exterminate everyone in the mosque", but the leaders of Al-Azhar saw that they deceive Napoleon and ride to it "to remove them from this descending, and prevent its soldiers Of continuous throwing, and he stops them as the Muslims have ceased fighting, war is a hoax and a quarrel "[11].
However, Napoleon took advantage of this calm and sought reconciliation from the Sheikhs, and continued to strike Al-Azhar with his artillery, and when the night came, the French besieged Al-Azhar with three heavily armed military divisions, and the revolution had subsided because of the French military superiority with modern bombs and rifles, and they were able to finally enter Al-Azhar, the stronghold of the revolution.
Al-Jabarti says: “Then they entered the Al-Azhar Mosque, riding horses, including pedestrians, like horses, and dispersed with its plate and chains, tied their horses with its kiss, and wreaked galleries and lanes, broke jellyfish and candles, and broke into the treasures of students, neighbors, and scribes, and plundered what they found of goods, vessels, and vessels. And they searched the books and the Qur’ans, and on the ground they threw them, and with their feet and their soles they trampled them, and they put on it and shrouded and pitted and mingled, and drank the drink and broke its vessels, and threw it with its plate and its aspects, and all who came across it with its nakedness and from its garments, they took it out ”[12].
This incident was one of the most dangerous incidents in the history of Al-Azhar. Rather, it insulted in insulting Napoleon refusing to leave the mosque had it not been for the intercession of one of the mosque's greatest sheikhs, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Gohary.
This incident had forged the falsehood mask from the French occupier, and Napoleon ordered the execution of six of the Al-Azhar sheikhs who planned and led the revolution, and thus the leadership of Al-Azhar and its elders continued to resist Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces until he was forced from Egypt, and was succeeded by Clipper who was killed by an Azhar student coming from Aleppo is called Suleiman al-Halabi, until the French eventually evacuated Egypt.
Al-Azhar and its sheikhs were not absent from the post-French scene, as the Mamluks and Ottomans returned fighting among themselves, and meanwhile, the figure of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the leader of the next Arnaut squad with the Ottoman forces, appeared to resist the French with the Egyptians, and the popular and Azhar leadership led by Sheikh Sharqawi and Sheikh Omar Makram, Captain of Al-Ashraf and others, is an honest person whose hands were not contaminated with the blood of the Egyptians or the looting and plundering of which the Ottoman and Mamluks were known at the time, so the Egyptians pledged allegiance to them, headed by Sheikh Omar Makram, provided that their command was obeyed, and under their advice, which was something that Muhammad Ali accepted deceitfully and deceitfully. .
Muhammad Ali saw that the real power in Egypt is represented by Al-Azhar and its elders, so the dispute between them occurs, and turns them on each other, and brings a team of them greedy for positions and funds at the expense of another team that was standing with the truth and the masses, headed by Sheikh Omar Makram, until it was done to him at the end The matter banished him from Cairo, then reduced and dwarfed him to the role of the remaining Al-Azhar sheikhs, but his thinking guided him further than that in order to secure the Al-Azhar revolution when he seized the endowments of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif [13].
There is no doubt that Muhammad Ali, when he undermined the position of the honorable Al-Azhar, had helped the British seventy years later to easily and easily occupy Egypt, as he wiped out the real strengths in the Egyptian nation, the power of scholars, the strength of Al-Azhar and the power of endowments, as well as the power of the public when he made it all in one hand It is the ruler's hand, yet Al-Azhar had its role in resisting the English occupier and in the revolution of 1919 AD and throughout the twentieth century, and despite the stoning of it by successive laws, especially the law of Al-Azhar in the era of Nasser that crushed Al-Azhar’s power and threw it into the abyss, the religious status of Al-Azhar remained in The Arab and Islamic worlds, as a soft and moving force, as well as its role in preserving, disseminating and advocating Islam.
However, the risk now is that Al-Sisi is above what Muhammad Ali and Jamal Abdel Nasser wanted to undermine his religious role in spreading Islam, and in restricting the position of the Sunnis, and in at least two interviews Al-Sisi stated: “There is no need for a name called religious leadership that exists because it is assumed that The head of state is responsible for every need in her even her religion (echoing) until her religion. ”[14], prior to his election to the presidency in May 2014, and again in the presence of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar himself in the year following his election, stressing the same meaning.
The battle between Al-Sisi and Al-Tayyib is not between a man who wants to exclude another, in order for him to be free of competing leaderships. In fact, it seems deeper than that. It is a battle to undermine the influence of Al-Azhar’s religious affairs in internal and external affairs alike, even at the educational and value levels through the interference of power. Roughness in what must be taught from the legal sciences, and even more so in how to understand the sacred religious text, an understanding that has its origins, rules and methodological sciences known for hundreds of years, which was never happened in the history of Al-Azhar as well as all Islamic history, did not dare or Sultan or President throughout that history, and that is a battle greater and greater than all the battles that Al-Azhar entered through its history that passed through us, it is in fact the last battle of Al-Azhar!