Abstracting: The Role of Al-Azhar in Post-Revolutionary Egypt

A Carnegie Endowment for Peace Paper by Nathan J. Brown:

All political forces in Egypt seem to agree: The country’s premier religious institution, al-Azhar, must be made more independent from the regime. But that agreement is deeply misleading; it masks a struggle within al-Azhar and among leading political forces over its role in Egyptian society. Part mosque, part university, part center of religious research and knowledge, al-Azhar is perhaps the central—and certainly the most prestigious—element in the state–religion complex in Egypt.