Although Muslim scholars like Juma claim the manhaj al-Azhar represents a continuation of premodern practices and discourses of Islamic knowledge transmission, this paper demonstrates that in both form and content, the concept is of recent vintage. Drawing on the theories and methods of conceptual history, this paper analyzes the concept of manhaj al-Azhar in the writings of Juma and his colleague and former student, Usama Sayyid al-Azhari (1971-). The paper demonstrates that the concept is entangled in several kinds of intellectual and political discourses, such as the efforts of the Egyptian state to counter Islamism, late-twentieth-century Islamist writings on Muslim politics, and mid-twentieth-century leftist debates about decolonization. The paper shows how conceptual history can broaden scholarly understandings of Muslim religious scholars and their efforts to bolster their religious authority. In their appropriation and articulation of key political concepts like manhaj, Muslim scholars implicitly situate themselves in relation to a range of intellectual, political, and religious discourses.
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