President Mohamed Mursi has said he supports the election of the grand imam of Al-Azhar. Gihan Shahine assesses the move's significance Inaugurating the first congress of student union federations at Al-Azhar University last week, President Mohamed Mursi said that he approved the election of the grand imam of Al-Azhar as well as of university leaderships. The reshuffle of the leadership at Al-Azhar is already happening, and Mursi said that other universities would be reshuffled soon. Calls for changes at Al-Azhar would be met, he said, but this "should take place via practical and well-studied steps." Mursi's support for the election of the Al-Azhar grand imam by a senior clergy authority, and not his appointment by presidential decree, appears to be in answer to calls from religious scholars and intellectuals to reinstate the centuries-old institution's independence from the state. Critics, however, charge that the Islamist president's hints at reshuffling the leadership at Al-Azhar is perhaps an attempt on the part of the Brotherhood "to extend its hegemony" to the prestigious institution, a claim that Brotherhood members vehemently deny. Liberal intellectual and writer Gamal El-Ghitani was among the supporters of electing the grand imam and reestablishing the institution's independence. El-Ghitani, however, is also a staunch critic of the Brotherhood, and as such he suspects that Mursi's words at Al-Azhar University are not what they seem. "The Brotherhood will probably attempt to impose its hegemony on Al-Azhar, as it has at other state institutions," El-Ghitani said. Ashraf Badreddin, a member of the supreme committee of the Brotherhood's political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), countered that "had the president any intention to seize control over Al-Azhar, he would have condoned the appointment of the Grand Imam by virtue of a presidential decree." Instead, Badreddin argued, his support for the electoral system meant that the president would have no authority over the choice of the grand imam, who will be chosen by a senior clergy authority that in its current form hardly includes any Brotherhood members. Badreddin, however, did not rule out the possibility that some members of the authority may have hidden sympathies with the Brotherhood, since "after all the group adopts more or less the same moderate Islamic discourse as Al-Azhar." Badreddin insisted that the president respected Al-Azhar as "the main and only guardian of moderate Islam" and that the Brotherhood wanted the institution to remain "the Sunni world's most prestigious seat of learning". The grand imam was elected before 1961, when former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser abrogated the senior clergy authority and replaced it with the state-controlled Islamic Research Academy in an attempt to bring the religious establishment under state control. The grand imam of Al-Azhar has since been appointed by virtue of a presidential decree and remains in office for life. The nature of the appointment means that he has little genuine independence, resulting in a loss of Al-Azhar's credibility. In the meantime, Al-Azhar has also been financially dependent on the state since the 1952 Revolution. That has meant that Al-Azhar's staff, including its grand imam, have been government employees, with the grand imam holding a rank analogous to that of prime minister. Sometimes seen as being little more than a mouthpiece for the government, there is almost a consensus among analysts that Al-Azhar will not be able to restore its former prestige unless it regains its independence from the state and its grand imam is elected by a committee of senior clergy and does not remain in office for life. Perhaps in response to such calls, a law regulating Al-Azhar and stipulating the election of its Grand Imam was endorsed earlier this year by the former ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The law stirred controversy at the time because it had been kept under wraps and hurriedly endorsed by the SCAF only four days before the now-dismantled parliament convened its first session. This law, designed by Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb, will probably be subject to scrutiny, perhaps amendment, by the upcoming parliament, which will be elected in November. Critics already charge that the new law has been tailored to help current officials remain in place, arguing that it does not give Al-Azhar financial independence from the state and ignores calls that the institution should regain the control over religious endowments that it had in the past. One catch in the new law is that it stipulates that the current grand imam selects the members of the senior scholars authority that will elect the next one. The law in its current form also maintains a previous controversial article stipulating that the grand imam remains in office for life. "There should be major changes in the laws regulating Al-Azhar, and these changes should take into consideration the unique status of Al-Azhar, which is different from all other academic institutions," said Gamal Qotb, former head of the Al-Azhar fatwa council. "The grand imam should not remain in post for life," Qotb said, also suggesting that the senior clergy authority should be elected and not appointed by the current grand imam and that nominees should include distinguished mosque preachers and those teaching in Al-Azhar institutes and not just university professors. "That would mean that a larger number of Al-Azhar scholars would be eligible for membership in the authority tasked to elect the coming grand imam," Qotb explained. "Having members from outside the circle of university professors, many of whom have been sent to teach in the Gulf where they have been influenced by Salafist thought, would reduce the external influences over the old university." The Brotherhood, in Qotb's view, does not constitute a threat to Al-Azhar as the ultra-conservative Salafis do, since "the Brotherhood does not have a unique school of thought or a university teaching that thought." Although Al-Azhar scholars may include sympathisers with the Brotherhood, Qotb is not worried about Brotherhood hegemony, insisting that "Al-Azhar will always retain its identity and its school of thought." Yet, El-Ghitani remains sceptical. He suspects that Mursi may try to "get rid of the current imam, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, because he is an enlightened scholar whose moderate views and strong personality have regained much of Al-Azhar's prestige, lost over past decades by his [El-Tayeb's] predecessor." At a time when Egypt's political elite had got bogged down in debates over the Islamic-versus liberal identity of post-revolutionary Egypt, Al-Azhar stepped into the fray as perhaps the only universally respected institution capable of bringing about national unity, or at least dialogue, among the different views. This national dialogue resulted in the production of at least three important documents that many observers regard as possibly providing guidelines for the drafting of Egypt's new post-revolutionary constitution. The documents, which also reiterate the institution's support for the freedom of religious affiliation, expression and belief, have also been seen in the context of Al-Azhar's attempt to reassert itself as the guardian of moderate Islam. "The Brothers simply do not want to have any strong institution stand in their way," El-Ghitani commented "They will try to institute their members, or at least their sympathisers, in leading positions at Al-Azhar in order to seize power in the old university." El-Tayeb was previously known for his hardline stance against the Muslim Brotherhood when it was still an outlawed opposition group. In 2006, El-Tayeb, a former member of the now-dismantled National Democratic Party (NDP), condemned a military-style parade by Brotherhood students on campus in his capacity as the then president of Al-Azhar University, charging that they had worn black facemasks "like Hamas, Hizbullah and the Republican Guard in Iran." El-Tayeb had previously angered some conservative Muslims for being a critic of outward manifestations of piety, such as the veil or the wearing of beards, which he has described as possibly coming at the expense of true spiritual development. He supported his predecessor's ban on the niqab, or full face veil, among female Al-Azhar students on the grounds that it was not a religious obligation in Islam. Recently, El-Tayeb also angered some Salafist party members for not answering their calls for the addition of a phrase stipulating that Al-Azhar be the only reference for the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in the new constitution. The FJP, however, condoned El-Tayeb's suggestions that Article 2 of the constitution remain unchanged. El-Ghitani referred to the incident when El-Tayeb was seated in the back during Mursi's inauguration ceremony at Cairo University as a case of "the Brothers' intended disrespect for the grand imam." The grand imam walked out of the ceremony, but it was later made clear that the seating had been an organisational error and not an insult. President Mursi was said to have extended an apology to the grand imam for "the lack of organisation that left him seated in the back of the room." Badreddin insists that "neither the president nor the Brotherhood are in conflict with Al-Azhar scholars, and definitely not with El-Tayeb, for whom they have deep respect." This respect for Al-Azhar, according to Badreddin, has been reflected in Mursi's discourse and attitude in more than one incident. One case in point is that Mursi chose to perform his first Friday prayers at the Al-Azhar Mosque on the eve of his inauguration as Egypt's first Islamist president. By doing that, Bareddin said, Mursi had "meant to send a message that Al-Azhar will remain the only pillar of moderate Islam." "He [Mursi] also insisted that he take the initiative when entering the mosque and shaking hands with the grand imam and other scholars, breaking the protocol that sheikhs should turn out to greet the president, in respect of the high-ranking position of scholars who, he has said, should be attended to, rather than attend to the people."
