With the revolution of January 25, 2011, al-Azhar has seized the opportunity to participate in the political debates that began in the winter of this year, in particular on the nature of the new regime, its relationship with religion, and relationships between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. It is striking that al-Azhar has done so not only through its peripheral ulama, who are often immersing themselves in political and moral public debates, but particularly through the voice of its head, the Grand Imam, shaykh Ahmad al-Tayyib.

The “Al-Azhar document around the future of Egypt,” an 11-clause declaration read on national television on June 20, 2011 (see above) by shaykh al-Tayyib himself is significant. It signals the engagement of al-Azhar with post-Moubarak Egyptian politics. The text is the result of the consultations between the Grand Imam and “Egyptian intellectuals from diverse intellectual trends and religious affiliations, as well as important ulama and thinkers from al-Azhar.” It is striking that al-Azhar as an institution would associate itself with intellectual and religious authorities beyond its own circles and produce a public document on such a general and crucial theme as “the future of Egypt.” After having been criticized for its quietism before as well as during the revolution (see my piece in The University of Chicago Divinity School’s sightings here), al-Azhar certainly needed to show that it was on the right side of history and to clarify its own role as a religious authority after the revolution. With so many religious actors of all stripes present in the public arena, from the Muslim Brothers, to their newly formed political party “Fredom and Justice,” to the Salafis and all the mosaic of religious authorities expressing themselves in mosques and beyond, there certainly was also a need to reassert al-Azhar’s central position and to make alliances with religious and intellectual trends that could gather around it and defend the role of the thousand year religious institution. The project supported by al-Tayyeb to revive the hay’at kibār al-‘ulamā’ –the old high council of scholars– that would elect the head of al-Azhar is one way to reclaim a lost independence and boost the institution’s legitimacy.

In the continuity of the traditional narratives that have been used by the official authorities of al-Azhar in the last 50 years or so, the “Al-Azhar Document” recognizes al-Azhar as representative of the “Islamic thought of the middle,” and as the institution Egyptians must refer to “in order to define the way in which the state relates to religion (taḥdīd ‘alāqat al-dawla bi’l-dīn) and to clarify the foundations of the correct siyāsa shar‘iyya that it is necessary to pursue.” It is noteworthy that the al-Azhar Document does not use the phrase “Islamic state.” The concept of siyāsa shar‘iyya can be read merely as “legitimate/legal politics,” but should also be interpreted as a reference to the concept as developed by the Muslim tradition, that is the effort to make governmental politics converge with and be animated by Islamic law. The document demands “the establishment of a national, constitutional, democratic and modern state, founded on a constitution approved by the nation,” the separation of powers, guarantees for human rights, the power to legislate given to the elected representatives of the people “in accordance with the correct Islamic understanding.” The principle of “politics according to sharia” is hence merely defined by the convergence between the principles at play in governance and in the Islamic tradition. Indeed, adds the document, there is no “religious state” in Islam, be it in its history, its legislation, or in its “civilization.” Islam has left to people “the administration of their society and the choice of the tools and of the institutions that realize their interests, with the condition that the comprehensive principles of the Islamic sharia be the main source of legislation, and as long as those who follow other revealed religions may refer to their own religious principles (sharā’i‘ dīniyya) to deal with their affairs of personal status.”

If there is no mention, however, of an “Islamic” or “Muslim state,” the document does not speak of a “civil state” (dawla madaniyya) either, because the adjective “civil” was interpreted by those who participated in the drafting of the al-Azhar document as evoking the possibility of a “secular” state (see the discussion of the al-Azhar document on al-Jazeera). The avoidance of the two adjectives “religious” and “civil” is also a way for al-Azhar to position itself outside of the polarizing debate between Islamists who want an “Islamic state” and the secularists who insist on the necessity of a “civil state.” Al-Azhar ended up describing the future state as “national,” “constitutional,” “democratic” and “modern” (dawla waṭaniyya, dustūriyya, dimuqrāṭiyya  ḥadītha).” In the end, these adjectives make al-Azhar’s perspective on the state not so different from the one laid out in the Muslim Brother’s Party (“Freedom and Justice”) platform, except that the latter uses the concept of a “civil state.”

The al-Azhar Document is much more vague than what the Freedom and Justice Party proposes. What exactly will be defined as “sharia,” and who will control the laws’ compliance to sharia? If it is the Supreme Constitutional Court, as it has been the case up to now, what role can al-Azhar play in this control? These questions are not answered in the document. The vagueness around the question of sharia also made the document come under the critique of some salafis, of members of the jamaa islamiyya, as well as of secularists. However, we should not expect  specific responses from al-Azhar: indeed, al-Azhar is keeping true to its traditional role, which is to provide a narrative under which most of the existing religious interpretations will converge, precisely the language of the “Islamic thought of the middle way” that the document expounds. If al-Azhar is ready to play a central role politically, it seems that it is more as a national institution rallying political actors around broad values, than as a political actor interested in the day-to-day governance and judicial power.