OnIslam.net

Heneghan’s note: Following are lightly edited excerpts from my conversations in Cairo with two senior officials of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Cairo mosque and university that has been the center of Sunni Islamic learning for over 1,000 years. I quoted both of them yesterday in my story Egypt’s al-Azhar to preach Islamic message on satellite TV.

Part One: Interview with Ibrahim Negm, December 12:

Ibrahim Negm is senior adviser to Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, Egypt’s second-highest religious authority who is responsible for the Dar Al-Ifta office that issues fatwas. Mahmoud Azab is the adviser on dialogue to Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar and top Islamic authority for many of the world’s Sunni Muslims.

Heneghan: Where does Al-Azhar stand amid all the changes in Egypt?

Negm: Al-Azhar is in a historic situation to upgrade itself and not just be content with speaking through the media. The people voted for the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis because they know them. We need to break the thick layers of barriers that have been built over the past three decades between the religious establishment and the people.

We have to upgrade our Islamic discourse by talking about the simple concerns of the people; the issues that they have been battling with, the issues that the other camp has succeeded in addressing people. Those are issues relating to behaviors, dress, rituals, and day-to-day dealings.

For example, they have managed to tell the people that to be a good Muslim; you have to wear a beard. That restricts the meaning of Islam to formal looks.

The religious establishment has not explained to people what Islam really means, that Islam goes beyond the outer looks; that Islam is all about values we need to inculcate. It doesn’t matter so much to wear a beard or full veil while you have problems with your neighbor. They have managed to get the people preoccupied with these kinds of issues. The result is that people basically have a crooked understanding of what it means to be religious nowadays.

Heneghan: What was Al-Azhar doing these past three decades?

Negm: Al-Azhar has been doing its job. But when satellite television was invented, when the Internet was introduced in Egypt, al-Azhar did not cope adequately with the modern means of communications.

These voices have managed to talk to people in the privacy of their own homes. So far, al-Azhar does not have a single satellite television, not even one. The Salafis have eight, from all over the region. Al-Azhar has just a couple of websites while the other ones have hundreds of websites.

Also, in terms of literature, we don’t put out much literature while you have thousands and thousands of pieces of literature from the other camp. They’ve been very active running popular religious programs in the suburbs and in the countryside that have been raising awareness. They have managed to go to these places and preach to them.

We’ve just realized this, so we have started to awaken. It’s not too late.

To me, extremism is a short-lived phenomenon. The Egyptian community has resisted this phenomenon throughout its long history. It didn’t exist like this before.

Recently both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis have declared that al-Azhar is their religious frame of reference. This is a very good step. They will have to sort out so many issues that have been sorted out already by al-Azhar, issues relating to international affairs, the economy, tourism, even to the political understanding of sharia. This is a long heritage that they cannot do without. So I think it’s a positive sign that, through their leadership, they have reiterated the importance of al-Azhar as a frame of reference.

We are there and we will be there to help Egyptians, to help governments, to help people seeking a moderate interpretation of Islam that is both faithful to the principles of our faith and also echoes the modern needs of the people.

A lot of people come to us to guide them. Elites, normal people, media people, everybody – we have been receiving a lot of requests, especially in the past two weeks. I find it amazing. There is news every day about Al-Azhar in the media. Just yesterday, we had almost 90 news items about our establishment Dar Al-Ifta, which is just a branch of al-Azhar.  Today there were about 45-50 news items about it in the Egyptian media. This is something very profound. Before, we had 5 or 6 news items a day.

People are coming to us looking for guidance. The same goes for the other establishments within al-Azhar. We offer an interpretation that is both faithful to the tradition but has an eye on the modern needs and challenges facing us. The other camp might go by the tradition, but might miss the modern or contemporary needs of the people. You cannot just go by the tradition by itself. You have to understand the lived reality around us so you can offer the best prescription.

Al-Azhar is in a historic situation to upgrade itself and not just be content with speaking through the media.

When it comes to engagement in politics, we make a crystal clear difference between politics and polity. Polity is those overall guidelines that regulate and organize the relationship between the people and the government and parliament and the difference between the executive authorities and the legislative authorities.

We tell the people that it is important for them to vote. We tell the people the criteria for choosing your representative should be honesty, the one who has a good program, the one who has a good record of success in his or her field. We tell people they cannot choose people on the basis of their looks.

We tell the people that it is absolutely permissible to choose a Christian nominee for the parliament, as long as he’s the best one suited for the job. We tell them that man and woman are equal representatives before the law and so it is absolutely OK to choose a woman over a man, as long as she is the best one to do the job. But we never tell the people to choose a particular political party.

We have almost 60,000 imams employed all over Egypt. That’s practically in every village. We have 8,000 religious institutes – elementary, preparatory and secondary – affiliated with al-Azhar that have almost two million students. Al-Azhar University has almost half a million students spread in 65 different colleges all over Egypt. So we have strength.

We are about to launch two, if not three satellite television channels that will speak in the name of the institution. This should be early 2012.

The ball has started rolling now in the right direction. Dar Al-Ifta is going to launch a portal for news and stories about our activities. We already have a website, but this will be something like a gateway for news related to the religious establishments and activities of our institution.

Heneghan: Why didn’t all these imams make more contact before?

Negm: There is a difference between a job and a mission. They were doing a job but they were not on a mission. It’s a question of direction, vision, enthusiasm, monetary compensation, guidance – all of these tools were absent. It was not a political problem. It was lack of vision. To some extent, we were successful, but we did not utilize some means and tools to upgrade and to engage more with the people. It doesn’t mean they were complete failures. They did their job. But they could have done more.

One thing that will make a real difference is that we will engage with people directly. People should find us everywhere, extending our hands for help and guidance. This is the most effective way. We will try to spread our message with a mass production of CDs, audio tapes, handouts, brochures and simple leaflets.

The Muslim Brotherhood has changed their discourse. They have put together an initiative for the marketing of tourism. This is something they have come a long way on, to bring their discourse to a mainstream inclusive discourse acceptable to all Egyptians.