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“A thousand and ninety-nine years” has written a timeless history whose memory has not ended until now .. It is the memory of the founding of the Al-Azhar Mosque, whose pillars have been pronounced and its pillars witnessed stances and championships recorded by evident scholars over the ages and presented to the world the true of this religion as God wanted it without excess or negligence.
This mosque was not just a physical building, but was and still is a moral building from which everyone draws the spirit of moderation and curses the smell of victories from its square, its scene witnessed many battles and many nations tried to defeat its history, but it stood and stood in the face of it.
Since its inception in the year 972 AD – 361 AH, students of science spread between its corridors as a mosque and a university established by the essence of the Sicilian when Cairo was opened in 970 CE, by order of the goats to the religion of God, the first Fatimid caliphs in Egypt, and after he established the city of Cairo, he set out to establish the Al-Azhar Mosque , The Caliph al-Mu’izz of the Religion of God laid the foundation stone for Al-Azhar Mosque on 14 Ramadan, 359 AH – 970 CE, and the mosque was built in the month of Ramadan 361 AH – 972 CE, to be the first mosque established in Cairo, the city that gained the title of the city of a thousand minarets, and it is considered the oldest Fatimid trail standing in Egypt.
Although historians differ on the origin of the name of this mosque, it is more likely that the Fatimids called it Al-Azhar, after Fatimah Al-Zahra, the daughter of our master Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and a tribute to her memory.
Since the dawn of the birth of this great historical edifice, science sessions have not ceased from it. After its completion and opening in 972 AD, the ruling authorities at that time employed about 35 scientists in it. They welcomed students of knowledge from all sides and towards the mosque becoming the second oldest continuously established university in the world After the University of Al-Qarawiyyin, until Al-Azhar University was established as the first in the Islamic world to study Sunni school and Sharia, or Islamic law.
The Mosque of Al-Azhar did not receive similar attention throughout the ages and times. During the reign of Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi and the Sunni Ayyubid Sultans who came after him, they avoided Al-Azhar over a long history, and the mosque was alternately and largely neglected because it was established as an institution for the propagation of the Ismaili school of thought, and its status as a Shi’a mosque was removed Students and teachers at Al-Jami School were denied salaries.
Al-Azhar Mosque witnessed the first educational lesson episode when Judge Judge Abu Al-Hassan Ali bin Al-Numan (Safar 365 / October 975 CE) sat to read his father’s brief in the jurisprudence of the Al-Bayt family, then Minister Ya’qub bin Kals Al-Fatimi appointed a group of jurists to teach and gave them generous salaries, And he established a housing role for them next to the mosque, and they were called by the neighbors, and thus Al-Azhar acquired for the first time its scientific characteristic as an institute for organized study, and Al-Azhar remained in this way from the teaching of Shiite jurisprudence and teaching and qualifying the preachers of the Fatimid school, until the study was completely stopped in the Ayyubid era because the Ayyubids were working On the abolition of Shiite doctrine, and Strengthening the Sunni school of thought by establishing schools to teach hadith and jurisprudence, as was the case in the Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque in Al-Fustat during the Fatimids.
The matter differed during the reign of the Mamluk Sultanate, where the interest in Al-Azhar and its mosque in this era reached its climax, and that was like the golden age of Al-Azhar and its university, when the authority at this time made many expansions and renewals that took place on the infrastructure of the mosque, as rulers showed later in the Egypt has to varying degrees a lot of interest and respect for the mosque, and has provided widely varying levels of financial assistance, both to school and to mosque maintenance.
After Salah al-Din assumed the Sultanate of Egypt, he prohibited the establishment of Friday prayers and making it a Sunni mosque, and he endowed the endowments for him and opened all learners from all parts of the Islamic world, and he used to spend on them and provide them with housing and know-how from the proceeds of his endowments, and the study and residence there was free of charge.
On December 17, 1267, Friday prayers were held for the first time at the Al-Azhar Mosque during the reign of Al-Zahir Baybars, the Sultan of Egypt, after it was interrupted about a century ago by Salah al-Din, who nullified the sermon at the Al-Azhar Mosque, where it was a stronghold of the Ismaili Shiites.
Although the Ottoman era did not reach in its interest in the Al-Azhar Mosque what the Mamluk era reached, the Sultans of the Othman showed great respect for the mosque and its people despite their resistance to them and their standing with the Mamluks during their war with the Ottomans, but this respect did not translate practically in the form of care and attention With its architecture or spending on its elders and students, but the mosque during that period has become the best place for all Egyptians and the first to receive science and understanding in religion through it, and it has become a center for the largest gathering of Egyptian scholars as scientists began teaching some of the science of philosophy and logic for the first time.
The Al-Azhar mosque did not have only scientific roles, but also had other roles and stable positions in defending the homelands and rejecting every aggressor. During the French campaign against Egypt, Al-Azhar was a center of resistance and in its reigns its scholars planned and advocated the first Cairo revolution, and they endured its scourges and insulted its sanctity, and in the wake of the Cairo revolution The second was the exposure of the greatest scholars of Al-Azhar to the harshest types of torture and pain, and heavy fines were imposed on them, and their properties were sold and their golden jewelry was fulfilled, and after the killing of Clipper, Al-Azhar was traumatized by some of his students, particularly Suleiman Al-Halabi, while the French occupation was breathing its last until the first issued He ordered the arrest of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sharqawi, and thus remained a cloud of distrust between Al-Azhar and the French occupation authorities until his last days and his departure from the country.
The stage of the French occupation of Egypt was one of the harshest stages that the Al-Azhar Mosque went through, so after the French withdrew from the country, the Al-Azhar mosque regained its status once again, where Muhammad Ali Pasha appointed himself governor of Egypt in response to the people, where he is considered the founder of the Alevi family that ruled Egypt from 1805 to In 1952, he sought to consolidate his rule by approaching the scholars of Al-Azhar, and his children and grandchildren followed his approach, the last of which was King Farouk, who abdicated the royal throne because of the 1952 revolution, and in the aftermath of that and in 1961, according to the law issued in the same year, a university was declared Al-Azhar officially established many colleges.
Al-Azhar Mosque has a great advantage in preserving the Arab heritage after the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and the Arabic language from the Turkish and Turkish language during the Ottoman occupation of Egypt in 1517 AD and the days of Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1805 AD, where Al-Azhar had its attested positions in addressing the oppression of the Mamluk rulers and sultans because its scholars were the people of The solution and the contract is the days of the Mamluks. In the year 1209 AH / 1795, Al-Jabarti narrates in his diaries that the Mamluk princes assaulted some of the farmers of the city of Bilbeis, so a delegation of them came to Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sharqawi and was the sheikh of Al-Azhar at the time, and they submitted his complaint to him to remove the injustice, so he got angry and went to the Al-Azhar Mosque, and collected The walkers X, and closed the doors of the mosque, and instructed people to leave the markets and shops, and crowds angry with the people, and Ibrahim sent the Sheikh of the country to them, Ayoub Bey, the notebook, and asked them about their matter. They said: We want justice, the lifting of injustice and injustice, the establishment of Sharia, and the annulment of accidents and excuses (taxes).
At the same time, he was sent to Murad, who warned him of the consequences of the revolution, and Murad Bey surrendered and returned the money he raped, and he satisfied the souls of the oppressed. But the scholars demanded that a system be set up to prevent injustice and repel aggression, and the princes met with scholars. Among them were Sheikh Al-Sadat, Mr. Omar Makram, Sheikh Al-Sharqawi, Sheikh Al-Bakri and Sheikh Al-Amir, and the oppressors announced that they repented and abided by what the scholars stipulated for them, as they announced that they would nullify grievances and taxes, stop stealing people’s money, and commit to sending a bundle of funds of the endowments of the Two Holy Mosques and the revenues set forth to them and were looting them, The judge was present, and he wrote to the princes a document signed by the Ottoman governor, Ibrahim Bey, and Murad Bey, the sheikhs of the country.
His scholars and Khalid’s history
Al – Azhar Mosque contained among its flanks many evident scholars who wrote an immortal history and presented to humanity a memorial that has immortalized its memory to this day so that the East, West, North, and South came from it. Al-Qalqashandi, and other scholars.
Years pass and one kingdom passes after another, and the Al-Azhar Mosque remains the kiss of students of science and the focus of attention of rulers and governments of various degrees to the extent of their awareness of this great historical and scientific edifice.
Al-Azhar and its university are still an institution that has a profound impact on Egyptian society and one of the symbols of Islamic Egypt, and the most trusted source for receiving Sharia sciences worldwide, as science students from more than one hundred and forty countries come to it.
Although Al-Azhar Al-Sharif possesses many institutions specialized in education and scientific research, the Al-Azhar mosque still retains its place in the hearts of Muslims, insulting in it the fragrant history, and they find in it the lessons of senior Al-Azhar scholars who appear in a similar scene to their predecessors, who declare the value of what they provided of science next to These pillars taught many students who spread throughout the earth spreading the true religion among people and pass on the message of moderation among them to announce to the world that the honorable Al-Azhar with its great men will remain a radiant source of enlightenment and spread peace among people and establish a culture of proper understanding of the legal texts away from a Stresses and over.
