Fact About Al Azhar Mosque
The Fatimid commander Gohar al-Saqali began building the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo one year after the establishment of the Fatimid capital to be the first mosque built during the Fatimid state in Egypt, and al-Saqali chose to name his new mosque that he built in the new capital after the Lady of the Women of the World, Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
Its construction dates back to the beginning of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, in 361 AH/972 AD. Al-Azhar Mosque was originally built for the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mu'izz to pray in. It was founded by the Fatimid commander Jawhar al-Suqali.
At the time, the mosque was intended to be an educational institute to teach and spread the Shiite doctrine.
During the reign of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, who aimed to fight the Shiite doctrine and support the Sunni doctrine, the sermon was canceled, and it remained inactive for a hundred years.
Al-Azhar lost interest throughout the Ayyubid dynasty (567-648 AH) since the days of its founder, Commander Salah al-Din, although Sunni seminars continued to be held there.
Then Al-Azhar was restored to its scientific activity during the Mamluk era in 665 AH during the days of Sultan Al-Zahir Baybars, after changing its jurisprudential and scientific direction to become a beacon for Sunnis, as the interest in its architecture reached its peak, which was the golden age for it, then the Ottomans after them carried out many expansions and renovations to the mosque and its annexes, and established the system of “the sheikhdom of Al-Azhar” in it.
Al-Azhar played a great national role against occupation throughout its history, and led the popular resistance against the 1798 French campaign led by Napoleon Bonaparte, which prompted the French to desecrate the Al-Azhar Mosque with their horses and weapons, then ordered its closure until they were expelled in 1801, and the Syrian Azharite student Suleiman Al-Halabi succeeded in assassinating Kleber, Bonaparte's successor in commanding the French occupation army.
In 1908, a high council was established to manage Al-Azhar, chaired by the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, with members including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, sheikhs of the four madhhabs (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali), and two employees. The study was divided into three stages: primary, secondary and higher education, each of which lasts for four years, and the successful student is awarded a certificate of completion of each stage.
Then there is a two-year vocational specialization in Sharia judiciary and fatwa, in preaching and guidance, in teaching, and a five-year subject specialization that qualifies the successful to obtain the international degree with the degree of professor, which was a prelude to the birth of Al-Azhar University, which now exists under Law 103 of 1961.
Al-Azhar University became a body of Al-Azhar that specializes in higher education, along with other bodies for pre-university education, another for the Supreme Council of Al-Azhar, and a third for the Islamic Research Academy, which specializes in the dissemination of Islamic culture and heritage books, as well as the affairs of dawa and student delegations in the outside world and their sustenance.
Al-Azhar expanded the types and specializations of education and scientific research for both boys and girls, and added to the Sharia and Arabic faculties faculties faculties of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, science, education, engineering, administration and transactions, languages and translation. Most of the faculties moved to the Nasr City area, after being located in the Al-Azhar area in central Cairo.
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