1.
Al-Azhar University
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Al-Azhar University is a university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Mosque in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypts oldest degree-granting university and is renowned as Sunni Islam’s most prestigious university, in addition to higher education, Al-Azhar oversees a national network of schools with approximately two million students. As of 1996, over 4000 teaching institutes in Egypt were affiliated with the University and it was one of the first universities in the world, and the only one in the Arabic world to survive as a modern university including secular subjects in the curriculum. Today it is the centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. In 1961 additional non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum and its mission is to propagate Islam and Islamic culture. To this end, its Islamic scholars render edicts on disputes submitted to them all over the Sunni Islamic world regarding proper conduct for Muslim individuals. Al-Azhar also trains Egyptian government-appointed preachers in proselytization and its library is considered second in importance in Egypt only to the Egyptian National Library and Archives. Fatimah, was called Al-Zahra, and it was named in her honor and it was founded as mosque by the Fatimid commander Jawhar at the orders of the Caliph and Ismaili Imam Al-Muizz as he founded the city for Cairo. It was in Jamadi al-Awwal in the year 359 A. H and its building was completed on the 9th of Ramadan in the year 361 A. H. Both Al-Aziz Billah and Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah added to its premises and it was further repaired, renovated and extended by Al-Mustansir Billah and Al-Hafiz Li-Din-illah. Studies began at Al-Azhar in the month of Ramadan,975, according to Syed Farid Alatas, the Jamiah had faculties in Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, Islamic philosophy, and logic. The Fatimids gave attention to the studies at the time when rulers in other countries declared those who were engaged in philosophical pursuits as apostates. The Greek thought found a reception with the Fatimids who expanded the boundaries of such studies. They paid much attention to philosophy and gave support to everyone who was known for being engaged in the study of any branch of philosophy and these books were destroyed by Salah-ud-Din Ayyubi. An Islamic womens faculty was added in the same year. Al-Azhar has a membership that represents the schools of Al-Ashari and Al-Maturidi, the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. Al-Azhar has had a relationship with Wahhabism and Salafism. Although al-Azhar is not monolithic, its identity has been associated with Sufism
2.
Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt. Cairo has long been a center of the political and cultural life. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the worlds second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, with a population of 6.76 million spread over 453 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution, Cairos metro, one of only two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the citys importance for the country. In Coptic the city is known as Kahire, meaning Place of the Sun, possibly referring to the ancient city of Heliopolis, the location of the ancient city is the suburb of Ain Shams. The ancient Egyptian name for the area is thought to be Khere-Ohe, The Place of Combat, sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro. The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance and this fortress, known as Babylon, remained the nucleus of the Roman, and, later, the Byzantine, city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is also situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, many of Cairos oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo. Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area became known as al-Fustat. Originally a tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt, in 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp, a rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government. This was al-Qattai, to the north of Fustat and closer to the river, Al Qattai was centred around a palace and ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905 the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their returned to Fustat
3.
Omar Abdel-Rahman
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Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy, which requires only that a crime be planned, not that it necessarily be attempted. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman was accused of being the leader of Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group was responsible for acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists. Abdel-Rahman was born in the city of al-Gamalia, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt and he lost his eyesight when he was 10 months old. He studied a Braille version of the Quran as a child, had it memorized by age 11 and was sent to an Islamic boarding school and he developed an interest in the works of the Islamic radical reformists Ibn Taymiyah and Sayyid Qutb. He studied at Cairo Universitys School of Theology and later earned a Doctorate in Tafsir from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, soon after leaving university, Abdel-Rahman began preaching against the secular regime of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Abdel-Rahman became one of the most prominent and outspoken Muslim clerics to denounce Egypt’s secularism, Omar Abdel-Rahman had two wives, who bore him 10 children, Aisha Hassan Gouda, and Aisha Zohdi. His sons include Ahmed, Mohammed and Asim, Ahmed was killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan in 2011. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and he was later extradited to Egypt and released in 2010. Asim was an associate of Osama bin Laden following the September 11th attacks. During the 1970s, Abdel-Rahman developed close ties with two of Egypt’s most militant organizations, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, Abdel-Rahman spent three years in Egyptian jails while awaiting trial on charges of issuing a fatwa resulting in the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Although Abdel-Rahman was not convicted of conspiracy in the Sadat assassination and he made his way to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, where he contacted his former professor, Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of Maktab al-Khadamat along with Osama bin Laden. Abdel-Rahman built a rapport with bin Laden during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and, following Azzam’s murder in 1989. In July 1990, Abdel-Rahman traveled to New York City to gain control of MAK’s financial and organizational infrastructure in the United States, Abdel-Rahman entered the United States in July 1990 via Saudi Arabia, Peshawar, and Sudan. The State Department revoked his tourist visa on 17 November, despite this, in April 1991, he obtained a green card from the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Newark, New Jersey. After leaving the U. S. to go on an overseas trip, at that point, U. S. officials recognized that he was on the lookout list, and began the procedure to revoke his permanent resident status. The U. S. government still allowed him to enter the country, Abdel-Rahman failed to appeal the decision, and on 6 March 1992, the U. S. government revoked his green card. A hearing on that matter was held on 20 January 1993 and it was later revealed that Abdel-Rahman was given most of his visa approvals by the CIA. Egyptian officials have testified that the CIA was actively assisting him in entering the US
4.
Muhammad Abduh
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He broke the rigidity of the Muslim ritual, dogma, and family ties. He also wrote, among other things, Treatise on the Oneness of God, Abduh was a Freemason and had a close relationship with the Baháí Faith. Muhammad Abduh was born in 1849 to a Turkish father and Arab mother in Lower Egypt and his family was of the Egyptian elite. His father was part of the Umad, or the ruling elite. His mother was part of the Ashraf and he was educated in Tanta at a private school. When he turned thirteen, he was sent to the Aḥmadī mosque, a while later Abduh ran away from school and got married. He enrolled at al-Azhar University in 1866, Abduh studied logic, philosophy and Islamic mysticism at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He was a student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a philosopher, under al-Afghanis influence, Abduh combined journalism, politics, and his own fascination in Islamic mystical spirituality. Al-Afghani taught Abduh about the problems of Egypt and the Islamic world, in 1877, Abduh was granted the degree of Alim and he started to teach logic, theology and ethics at al-Azhar. In 1878, he was appointed professor of history at Cairos teachers training college Dar al-Ulum and he was also appointed to teach Arabic at the Khedivial School of Languages. Abduh was appointed editor and chief of al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyya, the state newspaper. He was dedicated to reforming all aspects of Egyptian society and believed that education was the best way to achieve this goal. He was in favor of a religious education, which would strengthen a child’s morals, and a scientific education. In his articles he criticized corruption, superstition, and the lives of the rich. In 1879, due to his activity, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani was exiled. The following year he was granted control of the national gazette and used this as a means to spread his ideas. He was exiled from Egypt by the British in 1882 for six years and he had stated that every society should be allowed to choose a suitable form of government based on its history and its present circumstances. Abduh spent several years in Ottoman Lebanon, where he helped establish an Islamic educational system, in 1884 he moved to Paris, France where he joined al-Afghani in publishing The Firmest Bond, an Islamic revolutionary journal that promoted anti-British views
