What Is Al-Azhar University? In 1970, Egypt celebrated the 1000th year of Al-Azhar (Arabic for “splendid”), the nation’s oldest, and the Muslim world’s most renowned, Islamic university. Only al-Qarawiyyin in Morocco was founded earlier (859 AD). Founded in Cairo as a Shia school, Al-Azhar has become the Sunni leader in the study of literature, Sharia law, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, and Islamic philosophy. Saladin, the sultan who re-took Jerusalem from the Crusaders, forced it to become Sunni. When the Mongols savagely destroyed Baghdad and Spanish armies re-conquered Andalusia, Sunni scholars fled to Al-Azhar. It grew into the leading Sunni voice in the world under the Mamluk sultans (1250-1517).
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Al-Azhar on the Prayercast website.
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This product was added to our catalog on Monday 19 April, 2021.
