the 500 most influential muslims - The Royal Islamic Strategic ...

25
HIS EMINENCE PROFESSOR DR SHEIKH
AHMAD MUHAMMAD AL TAYEB
President of Al Azhar University
Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad al Tayeb is the president
of Al Azhar University. Prior to being appointed
president of Al Azhar University in Cairo, al Tayeb
was the most powerful cleric in Egypt as its Grand
Mufti for two years before the appointment of the
incumbent Sheikh Ali Goma'a.
His scholarly influence as a leading intellectual of
Sunni Islam spans the globe. He has served as the
dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Aswan,
and the theology faculty of the International Islamic
Country: Egypt
Date of Birth: 1946
Source of Influence:
Administrative
Influence: Runs the foremost
Sunni Islamic university with
close to 300,000 students
School of Thought: Traditional
Sunni
University in Pakistan. He has also taught in universities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates.
Runs the Premier University for Sunni Islam
Since 2003 al Tayeb has held the position of president of Al Azhar University in Cairo. He
leads the second-oldest university in the world, where teaching has continued without
interruption since 975 CE. Al Azhar represents the center of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence.
It is a key institution that issues authoritative religious rulings and has provided extensive
Islamic education to Egyptian and international students since its inception over a
millennium ago. This history makes it a bastion of Sunni traditionalism. The university
is considered one of the most prominent Islamic educational institutions, and the foremost
center of Sunni Muslim scholarship worldwide.
Administers the Al Azhar Education Network
Al Azhar is the second oldest and currently the largest university in the world, having risen
from a group of three schools in the 1950s to its current state with 72 feeder schools, and
close to 300,000 students studying there at any one time—if one includes all of its colleges.
If you include the entire network of schools internationally, as part of the university's waqf
efforts there are close to 2 million students. In spite of his huge workload as president, al
Tayeb publishes regularly in numerous academic journals, dealing particularly with the
reception of Islamic culture and philosophy in the Western world.
Al Tayeb is also a member of the Egyptian Society of Philosophy, the Supreme Court of
Islamic Affairs and is the head of the Religious Committee at the Egyptian Radio and
Television Union.
70