Several months before the outbreak of the October 1973 war, the date of the war had not yet been set, and the Egyptian President at the time, "Mohamed Anwar Sadat", was keen to spread some news about the lack of any Egyptian intention to enter into a comprehensive war of liberation with the Zionist forces stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, and at that time specifically the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, "Abdel Halim Mahmoud" told Sadat that he saw in a dream that the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - crosses the Suez Canal with Muslim scholars and the Egyptian army, namely A vision that the Imam considered good news for victory, and suggested to Sadat that he make the decision to war reassured of victory.
This story, whose accuracy we cannot independently confirm, and which was circulated by a number of Egyptian newspapers quoting some of the sheikh's contemporaries, gives one hint of Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud, who held the sheikhdom of Al-Azhar between March 1973 and his death in 1978, and that of Sheikh "Al-Arif", who was called the "father of the Sufis". The fame of the imam reached the horizons, and his influence reached an unprecedented degree, so that kings and presidents rushed to respond to his invitation, and he was invited to give a lecture at the United Nations building in New York City in 1977, but on the other side there is a different image of Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud, whose relationship with the regime exceeded his heralding of the October victory, and involved many clashes in subsequent years, which prompted some to consider him a "conservative" Islamic sheikh, especially because of his position on the personal status law.
However, both previous images ignore the real project of Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud, as the Sheikh led from his position in the sheikhdom of Al-Azhar a sharp attack, not only on the core of the Egyptian state and its foundation, which is "positive law", but on the entire Western culture that penetrated Egypt more and more during the era of openness launched by Sadat since 1974. Despite the influence that the imam enjoyed that made him stand as a match for the president of the republic, who twice retreated before the imam, nothing was achieved from his project in the end except to amend the second article of the constitution so that Islamic Sharia would become the main source of legislation, a year and a half after his death.
However, the project presented by the imam quickly had a significant impact on the debate over the "application of Sharia", as calls and pressures poured on the Egyptian system, governments and judicial system since the eighties of the last century to apply Sharia, so who is Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud? What project did it aim to change the Egyptian state and its legal structure? And why did his project to "Islamize the state" ultimately fail?
Getting rid of the shackles of the sixties
Abdel Nasser and Sheikh Shaltout. (Social Media)
Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud took over the sheikhdom of Al-Azhar a decade after the issuance of the Al-Azhar law in 1961, which effectively torpedoed the independence of Al-Azhar scholars in Egyptian society, and overwhelmed Al-Azhar's hand in managing its affairs in favor of the Ministry of Awqaf, which was objected to by the Sheikh of Al-Azhar at the time, "Mahmoud Shaltout", who was a student of Abdel Halim Mahmoud at his hands and was affected by it, and Shaltout's objection to the law led to a violent clash between him and his student, Dr. "Muhammad Al-Bahi", who assumed the position of the Ministry of Awqaf At that time, despite this clash, all attempts by Shaltout to regain his powers or restore Al-Azhar's independence failed.
Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud was a witness to those events, and to the tremendous changes inflicted on the institution of Al-Azhar, as he had then moved from the position of professor of psychology at the Faculty of Arabic Language to the position of professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion, which will become its dean in 1964, has the changes witnessed by the institution of Al-Azhar in the sixties of the last century what went to Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud in his note written in 1945 after his return from France entitled "Al-Azhar in the dying phase" , for which the Supreme Council of Al-Azhar met on January 28, 1945, and decided to refer Sheikh Abd al-Halim for investigation. (1)
Grand Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud. (Social Media)
However, the memorandum and the investigation did not affect the career of the Sheikh, only 4 years after his promotion to the position of Dean of the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion, he was appointed Secretary-General of the Islamic Research Academy, which was founded in 1961 to replace the Council of Senior Scholars, but the Academy could not play its role, and its activity remained limited and vague, and after Sheikh Abdul Halim Mahmoud assumed the secretariat of the Research Academy, he reconstituted his technical, administrative and academic apparatus, and also equipped it with a huge scientific library that took advantage of its friendships and links with senior authors and researchers. During his reign, the Islamic Research Academy Conference was held regularly, and the Sheikh persuaded officials to allocate a spacious plot of land in Nasr City to include the Academy and its scientific and administrative equipment. (2)
But all this was only a prelude to the most important shift made by the Sheikh, which is the restoration of the role of scholars and Sharia in society, he began to form committees aimed at extracting codifications derived from the four basic schools of Islamic law, to serve as the first step to develop a draft "Islamic constitution", and the Sheikh used senior scholars and jurists, and contributed to the establishment of the Holy Quran Radio in 1964, and was a regular guest on the program "Morning Talk", which is the first program broadcast by the radio, although Being a short program that did not exceed 7 minutes, it motivated Al-Azhar scholars at the time to give short and simplified lectures over the air, and when Sheikh Abdel Halim was appointed agent of Al-Azhar, he paid attention to the Great Al-Azhar Library and to the reconstruction and restoration of mosques, and due to his activity and fame, the Sheikh took over the Ministry of Awqaf in 1971, which enabled him to rid Al-Azhar permanently of the restrictions of the Al-Azhar law developed by the Nasserist regime, in preparation for his project on the Islamization of the state and society.
Al-Azhar from dying to prosperity
After the appointment of Sheikh Abdel Halim as Minister of Awqaf, he allocated the necessary funds to build mosques and new religious and educational institutions, and the change in the compass of the regime in Egypt under Sadat allowed the Sheikh to lead a huge donation campaign throughout the Islamic world, especially in Saudi Arabia, which donated $ 3 million, and Professor "Yoram Mittal" stated in a study that King Faisal provided in 1971 a larger amount for Sheikh Mahmoud's campaign against communism and atheism, and invested this amount in expanding the campus of Al-Azhar And its branches throughout Egypt, in addition to increasing the salaries of workers and improving services in Al-Azhar buildings and institutions, so when Sheikh Abdel Halim took over the sheikhdom of Al-Azhar in March 1973, the financial situation of Al-Azhar was at its best, which allowed him to open primary and secondary schools for new sectors of society, especially in Upper Egypt, and during his reign the number of primary educational institutions Al-Azhar jumped from 212 to 1273, and the number of students reached 89744, and thanks to those new schools the number of students enrolled in Al-Azhar exceeded 300 A thousand students by the early eighties. (3)
(Al Jazeera)
The Sheikh, like Sheikh "Muhammad Abdo", who was discipled by Mahmoud by his students such as Sheikh "Mustafa Al-Maraghi" and Sheikh "Ibrahim Al-Jabali", believed in the importance of modern sciences and the need to integrate them into the Azhar education system, and the Sheikh was strongly connected to the modern and Western scientific and cultural field, especially after his return from Paris after an eight-year trip between 1932-1940, during which he obtained a doctorate at the Sorbonne University, and the famous French orientalist "Louis Massignon" supervised his thesis on the imam of the jurist The Sufi "Al-Harith bin Asad bin Abdullah Al-Muhasabi Al-Basri", Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud was not isolated from the cultural community in Cairo, but was on good terms with the Egyptian cultural reality, and wrote in many cultural magazines, but took over the translation of a science fiction story from French from the novel "Balance of Souls" authored by "André Maurois" in 1946, and published by the Egyptian Book House and was on good terms with Taha Hussein. (4)
At the same time, Sheikh Mahmoud had a good relationship with the Muslim Youth Association, and he continued to lecture Dr. "Ahmed Muhammad Al-Ghamrawi" in it, and he also frequented the Islamic Al-Hidaya Association headed by Imam "Muhammad Al-Khidr Hussein", as well as getting to know Professor "Muhammad Farid Wagdy", who confronted at the time the tendencies of atheism and materialism, and with those multiple and close relations with the Egyptian cultural milieu, Abdel Halim Mahmoud was a member of the Shadhili Sufi order, and participated in its meetings, conferences and rituals, which left a clear impact on his thought and vision of life.
This combination of culture, mysticism, Islamic values and national feelings made him very close to the concept of patriotism when "Hassan al-Banna", the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, as Yoram Mital argues, as the Sheikh redefined in his writings and lectures the definition of national identity in an Islamic definition that does not contradict with "faith", but rather makes faith the basis of patriotism, and Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud presented a critical definition of modernity, influenced by a number of his professors, the most important of which are Sheikh "Hamid Hassan", Sheikh "Suleiman Nawar", and Dr. "Muhammad Abdullah". Draz, Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Latif Draz, and Sheikh Zankloni, Sheikh Mahmoud endorsed modern "secular knowledge" by defining it as part of the heritage of Islam, but this knowledge must remain under the guidance of Islamic values that form the basis of the comprehensive knowledge system, according to his vision. (5)
The book "The Case of Sufism - the Savior from Delusion" (Social Media)
However, this comprehensive system of Islam, according to Sheikh Mahmoud's description, can only be achieved under an Islamic state subject to the "Sharia of God", and therefore during his tenure as Minister of Awqaf and Deputy Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Abdel Halim called on the political leadership to re-establish Egypt to become an Islamic state, stressing that the conditions prevailing in Egypt were ripe for this step at the time, and in a fatwa entitled "In the rule of the Muslim state that does not rule by the Qur'an and the rule of the people of that government." Sheikh wrote: "In fact, the Islamic countries in the past period were shackled by the shackles of colonialism, and their people were overwhelmed, and colonialism imposed on them laws that have nothing to do with their religion, and imposed on them Western social systems, so they could not legislate for themselves, but the Islamic nations now, praise be to God, have shaken off the abomination of colonialism from their shoulders and have become self-governing, and for that the reformers began to call for a return to their spiritual atmosphere and religious environment." (5)
Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud wrote those words before the ratification of the new Egyptian constitution on September 11, 1971, so his tone came optimistic, but the Sheikh's confidence in achieving his vision about the application of Islamic law quickly faded, and was replaced by an explicit criticism of the Egyptian regime, its president and parliament, but rolled calls and messages of the Imam to apply Sharia, and then turned his calls into warnings of the sinking of Egyptian society in material and exploitative behaviors and the general corruption and the disintegration of society, until the clash between him and the regime eventually.
Road of clashes
In April 1974, an armed group occupied the Military Technical College as part of a scheme to seize power and overthrow the government, and despite the failure of the scheme, the incident caused a strong shock to the Sadat regime, which faced for the first time a coup attempt of this kind, and in order to curb the religious current, Sadat issued a decree in July 1974 to put an end to the influence of Al-Azhar, where he gave all the powers of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar to the Minister of Awqaf, but the decree caused a severe crisis, as Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud submitted his resignation From the sheikhdom objection, which sparked a huge wave of discussions opposing Sadat's decision, but some of the Sheikh's supporters filed a lawsuit against Sadat and the Minister of Awqaf to cancel the decree, Sadat was forced to retreat from his decision in the end, but the Sheikh refused to return (5), and after mediating a number of personalities, and inviting Sadat Sheikh to meet him, the Sheikh stipulated that the Sheikh of Al-Azhar with the rank of Vice President of the Republic, Sadat agreed, and thus Sheikh Abdel Halim enjoyed unprecedented influence, and exploited it in achieving his project, which called Since assuming the Ministry of Awqaf (application of Islamic law).
Sadat and Grand Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud (social media)
The political reality of the seventies was far from everything that Sheikh Abdel Halim sought to achieve, in the era of openness inaugurated by Sadat, Cairo was gradually filled with hotels and nightclubs and flooded markets with alcohol, and the impact of those transformations extended to the parliament, which some of its members sought to enact laws licensing "gambling casinos" and regulate the sale of alcohol, which was done by the Sheikh, appealing to public figures in parliament and the government to exercise their legitimate powers to prevent those "taboos", impose the application of Islamic law, and "prevent the infiltration of secular customs to community". (6)
At that time, what made the remaining years of the life of the Grand Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud years of Saddam and the conflict with the Egyptian regime and the president, and even with the wife of President "Jihan Sadat", as the Minister of Social Affairs at the time, "Aisha Rateb" proposed on March 26, 1974, a new draft law on personal status, and stood behind her proposal many voices in parliament and the ministry, and "Jihan Sadat" herself sought diligently to pass the proposed bill through parliament.
The controversial law contained several provisions that Sheikh Abdel Halim and Al-Azhar scholars considered explicitly contrary to Islamic law, foremost of which is that a husband can only divorce his wife before a judge who tries to reconcile between the two parties, prohibits polygamy without the consent of the judge, who must investigate the existence of a convincing justification, and the extent to which a man is able to meet the requirements for polygamy, and the law also places restrictions on the custody of their children by parents after divorce.
Sheikh Mahmoud saw in the new law a pure prolongation and a new assault on Islamic law first, and then on his position as Sheikh of Al-Azhar, so he headed a coalition of senior religious figures to abort this initiative, despite its sponsorship by the president's wife, and the Sheikh used the influence of the Office of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar in this confrontation, where he issued 68 legal fatwas on the Personal Status Law, and 29 fatwas on the legitimate duties of the Muslim wife towards her family and society, and the essence of the imam's argument was that the sources of the current law are settled and not amenable For controversy, and since Sharia is based on the Holy Qur'an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and the interpretations of the four schools of thought, any amendment to the law must go through the stages of ijtihad and then discussion and deliberation among scholars, as the Grand Imam believed that the parliament lacks the necessary knowledge of Islamic law to draft a law in this regard, and therefore the field of personal status and family values must be the exclusive competence of Al-Azhar. (6)
Despite the continuation of the debate on the law, Sheikh Mahmoud did not stop at the Personal Status Law, but began to use the weapon of fatwas to publicly and directly pressure for the application of Islamic law, and in an unusually long fatwa, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar publicly challenged the president and the ruling party when he explained the huge gap between the political slogans of the leadership "the state of science and faith" and the "believing president", and the social and legal reality, the imam sent an open letter to the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament entitled "From the Grand Imam to the Speaker of the People's Assembly." and the Prime Minister" published in Al-Azhar magazine in August 1976, in which the Sheikh called for the abolition of secular legislation, and criticized the entire positive legal system, saying: "The system on which the faculties of law are running is the same system imposed by colonialism, and this colonialism has disappeared, so these faculties, which are famous for liberation, had to be free from the effects of colonialism, and to reconsider their curricula and programs that declare that colonialism remains in one of the most dangerous corners of society, which is the corner of the judiciary and justice." (6)
In a similar context, Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud entered into a confrontation with Pope Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria, after the Pope proposed to write unified religious books for Muslim and Christian students in which common moral values are taught, and be an alternative to religious education, and when Dr. Mustafa Helmy, Minister of Education at the time, the Grand Imam to poll his opinion on the matter, he became very angry and threatened to resign, which caused the proposal to be killed early.
Based on those calls launched by Sheikh Mahmoud, MP Dr. "Ismail Maatouk" submitted in February 1976 a draft law to amend 56 items in the Penal Code, to be consistent with Islamic law, and Ma'touq's reform included amputating the hand of the thief, flogging citizens convicted of committing immoral behaviors (of gender), and hanging or stoning to death for the perpetrators of adultery from married, murderers and apostates from Islam, but the discussion of the law in the Egyptian parliament at the time did not exceed the rhetorical bidding, which prompted the Sheikh Abdel Halim sent a strongly worded letter to the speaker of the People's Assembly at the time, Sayed Merhi, and the head of the Socialist Union, calling on them to immediately approve the draft law, as "the legislation of Islam cannot be subject to democratic deliberations," and the imam explained that the Maatouk law represents the original aspirations of the Egyptian people.
The death of the Sheikh and the end of the epic
In the August 1976 issue, Al-Azhar magazine published an open letter from Sheikh Abd al-Halim Mahmoud to the speaker of parliament and the prime minister in which he reiterated his position on Islamic law, saying, "Our God-fearing people chose the Islamic faith, and any damage to Islamic jurisprudence falls directly under the responsibility of Islamic judicial institutions and under the responsibility of anyone who has the ability to carry out God's commands, and no one has the right to use his authority in the event of a legal text or to raise his voice above the voice of the Prophet. We followed the deliberations that took place in Parliament on the sale of alcohol, and we were shocked by the words we read on this issue, despite the existence of solid evidence from the Qur'an, and then we were shocked to see a proposal to ban the practice of gambling in one currency and allow it in another currency, and in addition we followed what the newspapers publish, and we saw how false stories are published claiming that Islamic jurisprudence was valid for a specific historical era only, Al-Azhar has always affirmed that those deputies who call for equality, freedom, dignity, justice, knowledge, culture and morals In parliament they will sin when they deliberately oppose the application of God's law."
The campaign led by the Sheikh and his scholars and Islamic figures, most notably Sheikh "Salah Abu Ismail", resulted in a new decline for Sadat, on August 10, 1976 Parliament received a revised draft law on personal status from which most of the items contained in the proposal of "Aisha Rateb" were deleted, and despite this defeat the "liberal lobby" refused to surrender, after about a year and a half the president issued a decree that included expanding the ability of women to request divorce, and put some restrictions on polygamy, and then the debate was raised At the end of that year, on October 17, 1978, Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud died of complications from surgery, and more than 50,6 Egyptians of various ideological orientations attended his funeral. (<>)
Despite the efforts made by the Imam in attempts to apply Islamic law, all these efforts only resulted in changing the second article of the Egyptian constitution on May 22, 1980, a year and a half after the death of the sheikh, so that "Islam became the religion of the state and the principles of Sharia are the main source of legislation," but the Sheikh left behind a huge scientific legacy and a political march that many followed after him, as his books amounted to about 100 books authored, investigated and translated, and he wrote many books in Sufism and the biography of the Prophet, and also has several books on ethics and Islamic and Greek philosophy, has lamented many scientists and personalities around the world, including Professor "Mustafa Amin" who wrote: "I knew the late Sheikh Dr. Abdel Halim Mahmoud Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mosque brave not afraid, bold does not hesitate, I lived with him a lot of crises, I saw him collide with governments and refuses to retreat, and says his opinion and does not care if satisfied or angry, and had opinions do not agree with, but I liked it that he does not bow He did not bend, he was very proud of his dignity, he said that he could humble himself, but the religious position he occupied could not humble."
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Sources
1- Dr. Abdel Halim Mahmoud Sheikh Anwar in the time of Al-Azhar
2- Muhyi al-Din al-Taami, The Aortic Light in the Layers of the Sheikhs of Al-Azhar Mosque, Beirut: Dar Al-Jeel, 1412 AH / 1992 AD.
3- Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud challenges Sadat and regains the independence of Al-Azhar, Professor Yoram Mittal, published in the book "Al-Azhar and Politics" edited by Professor Malika Al-Zaghal.
4- Toka Khaled Abdel Qader, The Sufi Approach in the Thought of Imam Abdel Halim Mahmoud: Features and Steps, Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Suez Canal University, No. 2 (28), pp. 320-340.
5- Abdel Halim Mahmoud, Praise be to God, This is My Life, Cairo: Dar Al-Maaref, 1421 AH / 2001 AD.
6- Sheikh Abdel Halim Mahmoud challenges Sadat and regains the independence of Al-Azhar, Professor Yoram Mittal, published in the book "Al-Azhar and Politics" edited by Professor Malika Al-Zaghal.