INTRODUCTION

It was in the tenth century that the Ismaili Shici Fatimid dynasty laid the foundation of the al-Azhar Mosque; its endowment, shortly afterwards, with a number of teaching positions marked the birth of the centre of Islamic learning that was to become al-Azhar University. Few people, and certainly not its founding dynasty, would have envisioned that this institution would one day become the leading authority in the world of Sunni Islam. This mixed origin, along with a range of other factors – such as Egypt's strong tradition of cultural pluralism; the geopolitical developments that led to Cairo becoming the geographical centre for convergence of Muslim scholars between the ninth and the eleventh centuries; and the controversial, but decisive, twentieth-century stateled reforms of al-Azhar – have all played important roles in the rise of al-Azhar's “al-Wasatiyya” Islam. This “middle-way” Islam is central to al-Azhar's positioning within the spectrum of Muslim institutions speaking on behalf of Islam today. The university's current leadership is very conscious of its international stature as a “tolerant voice of Islam”, providing Sunni Muslims across the globe, and increasingly even within Egypt, with an alternative to the exclusionary tendencies and the rigidity associated with Wahhabi-inspired Salafism, as well as the orthodoxy and armed militancy at times associated with movements representing political Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Every year, al-Azhar attracts over 30,000 students from around one hundred countries, many sponsored by their national governments. The university's fatwas draw the attention of Muslim scholars and ordinary believers alike from all over the world; it is approached by Western heads of states to galvanise support for their policies vis-a-vis Muslim communities at home; and its curriculum has been adopted by Islamic institutions – and in the case of Malaysia by the state (see Chapter 8) – in many countries. This chapter documents how the pursuit of al-Wasatiyya Islam has been important in shaping al-Azhar's global following, and tries to explain what has enabled al-Azhar to stay steadfast in this pursuit. First, the chapter defines what al-Wasatiyya Islam means to scholars inside al-Azhar, as well as to its wider following.