Al-Azhar University: the Shiite edifice that Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi turned into a beacon for the Sunnis

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It was founded by Jawhar al-Siqilli when he founded the city of Cairo, and with time it became a university for teaching the mystical Shiite doctrine until Salah al-Din came and liberated it to become the beacon of the Sunni doctrine in the world.

Perhaps many of us do not know that the Al-Azhar Mosque, as it is now a beacon of the Sunni sect, defending the Ash’aris and Maturidis, was previously a beacon of the Shi’ite sect. The oldest university in the world, and some consider it the first university in the world in terms of the organization of the study and scientific disciplines. In this article, we accompany you in an article throughout history to tell you the story of the establishment of the Al-Azhar Mosque.

The Fatimids found Cairo and its mosque

The Fatimid Caliphate was established in North Africa, in Tunisia, parts of Libya, and parts of Algeria. It was founded at the beginning of the tenth century AD, but it remained a country far from the center of events in the Islamic East. The Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad was the center of Islamic rule.

The Fatimids marched into Egypt, from where they could compete with the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. Egypt was under the rule of Kafur Al-Ikhshidi, and upon his death, the state in Egypt entered a phase of weakness, lack of cohesion, and collapse. When the Fatimid leader Jawhar al-Siqilli came to Egypt, he found it as a flower waiting to be picked.

Jawhar al-Siqilli entered Egypt in 969 and established the pillars of the state for his master, the Fatimid Caliph al-Mu’izz Lidin Allah, who was still in North Africa. As soon as the matter became clear to him, he built a capital for his master to be his headquarters when he came to it, so he built the city of Cairo, and during its construction, he began to build a large one is a central mosque in it, in which the Friday sermon is delivered, and the Caliph prays there.

The construction of the Cairo Mosque began in 970, and construction continued for 27 months until it was inaugurated in Ramadan on June 22, 972.

Al-Azhar Mosque was known at the time as “Cairo Mosque”, then it was later called “Al-Azhar Mosque” after Lady Fatima al-Zahra, to whom the Fatimids belonged by lineage, and this is according to the most popular accounts, but the name “Al-Azhar” did not adhere to the mosque until many years later, and  Al-Azhar’s word means “lighting”.

Although the current Al-Azhar Mosque has undergone many improvements, constructions, and developments that changed its first state, it is considered the oldest Fatimid monument in Egypt. The age of the Al-Azhar Mosque until the date of writing this article is 1050 years.

Al-Azhar Mosque..a beacon for spreading the Shiite doctrine for two and a half centuries

This historical fact may be somewhat strange, as we all know Al-Azhar Mosque as a beacon of the Sunni sect in the Islamic world, but the historical fact says that its establishment was primarily to be a base for spreading the Ismaili Shiite sect in Egypt and the Islamic world.

When Al-Mu’izz Li-Din Allah the Fatimid arrived in Cairo in 972, he quickly used the Al-Azhar Mosque and turned it into an educational center, as official statements were issued and court sessions were held there. It was perhaps the first time that the teachings of the Ismaili Shi’a sect became publicly available in the Al-Azhar mosque.

Thus, Al-Azhar Mosque became a major center for education, and perhaps the idea of ​​transforming Al-Azhar Mosque into something similar to a “university” was an idea that the Fatimids brought with them from Morocco, especially since the Mosque and the University of Kairouan were in Tunisia, where the Fatimid rule extended for many years. Thus, Al-Azhar Mosque became the second university in the world. While the official website of Al-Azhar considers it “the oldest integrated global university”.

In the early years of the transformation of the Al-Azhar Mosque in this way into a major center for teaching Islamic law, 45 scholars were employed to give lessons, thus turning the mosque into a real university. Al-Azhar Mosque was the mosque “the mosque” in the city of Cairo, in which the Friday sermons were delivered, and in it, the Caliph addressed the people. Until the ruler by the command of Allah came, who built a mosque in his name, so it became the one in which Friday was held and the ruler addressed it but soon returned to the Al-Azhar Mosque after the death of the ruler. A huge library belonging to Al-Azhar was established.

Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi and Al-Azhar Mosque

After nearly two hundred years of Shiite Fatimid rule in Cairo, Salah al-Din ended the Fatimid caliphate for good in 1171, when he became the vizier of the last Fatimid caliph, the patron of Allah’s religion, who died young at the age of twenty. With his death and the absence of a crown prince, Salah al-Din assumed the rule of Egypt and attached it to the Abbasid Caliph, who was his vassal.

With time, Salah al-Din decided to close the Al-Azhar Mosque, that Fatimid institution whose role was to teach and spread the Ismaili Shiite doctrine, and thus prayer was prohibited in the Al-Azhar Mosque, and it was completely neglected during the Ayyubid period. Al-Azhar Mosque was no longer an educational center as it was in the Fatimid era, but its status was restored about a hundred years later by Sultan Al-Zahir Baybars, the most powerful of the Mamluk sultans in Egypt and the Levant.

Since then, the Al-Azhar Mosque has enjoyed a scientific centrality, not only in Egypt but in the Islamic world as the most prominent beacon of the teachings of the Sunni sect in its branches.

The Mamluks were interested in the expansion and restoration of the Al-Azhar Mosque, and one of the well-established traditions that remained for centuries in the Al-Azhar Mosque became the tradition of “the corridors.” Each of the people of one of the Islamic regions has a hall in the Al-Azhar Mosque, where they come from their country and live in it free of charge throughout the study period.

The most prominent of these arcades is the arcade of the Turks, which is dedicated to the sons of the Turkish race coming to Egypt to learn in the Al-Azhar Mosque. Algebra for those coming from Ethiopia and the coasts of the Red Sea and other corridors.

There were also corridors for the Egyptians as well, there is the Sa’ida corridor for the people of Upper Egypt, and the Sharkawa corridor for the people of Sharkia Governorate, and the Baharwa corridor for the people of the lake, and other corridors.

Al-Azhar Mosque had a greater role than being a beacon of science only. The scholars had a great interest in the Islamic world in general, and thus it was natural for the scholars of Al-Azhar Mosque to enjoy great influence with the authorities, and great popularity with the people, and that is why their role emerged in resisting the French during the French invasion for Egypt.

When Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, he established a bureau, most of which was from Al-Azhar scholars, to serve as an advisory council for him. This step was to absorb popular anger at the French presence in Egypt, but the first Cairo revolution that broke out against him after months of the French presence in Egypt was led by Al-Azhar men, financed by Egyptian merchants.

Napoleon faced the first Cairo revolution with violence and cruelty, and his cannons bombed the neighborhoods of Cairo and the Al-Azhar Mosque, and his soldiers entered the Al-Azhar Mosque and desecrated it with their beasts.

The first Cairo revolution did not succeed, and its results were the execution of 6 of Al-Azhar’s Sheikhs, and this is a great indication, as Al-Azhar Mosque was the religious center and cultural symbol, and its sheikhs had an audible and significant word.