The Entangled Concept of Manhaj Al-Azhar in 21st-Century Egypt

In 2015, the social media team of the former grand mufti of Egypt, Ali Juma (1952-), uploaded a YouTube video titled, “What are the characteristics of the manhaj al-Azhar?” In the video, Juma sits on a low wooden chair in a mosque as he explains the components of the manhaj al-Azhar, or the methodology of al-Azhar, to a group of students assembled at his feet. In the last decade, manhaj al-Azhar has become a key concept for the Muslim religious scholars of al-Azhar, the preeminent institution of Sunni learning, as evidenced by the dissemination of numerous articles, YouTube videos, and public lectures delineating the concept and its importance. In their statements and writings, the manhaj al-Azhar is a panacea, representing not only “true” Islam, but also the solution to contemporary social ills like religious extremism.

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.