Al-Azhar Mosque

The al -Azhar Mosque (Arabic جامع الأزهر, DMG Gāma ʿ al -Azhar, Mosque of the brightest ') is a mosque in the Islamic city center of the Egyptian capital Cairo. Mu ʿ izz al- Dīn Allāh - li, Caliph of the Fatimids, commissioned its construction in the year 970 for the new capital in order. It was the first mosque built in Cairo, a city which has since received the nickname " city of a thousand minarets ".

Historical Overview

The inauguration took place in 972, and with the hiring of 35 scholars in 989, the mosque slowly developed into the now world's second oldest continuously operated university after al - Qarawiyin. The al -Azhar University has long been regarded as a leading institution in the Islamic world for the study of Sunni theology and sharia, Islamic law. The University, since its inception integrated into the mosque, was nationalized in 1961 and officially appointed as an independent university, following on from the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

During its more than thousand years of history, it was alternately neglected and highly regarded. Initially founded as an institution of the Ismaili Muslims, she was shunned by Saladin and the Sunni Ayyubid founded by him; they raised their status as a community mosque and denied in the corresponding school students and teachers the scholarships. These steps were under the Mamluk Sultanate undone, under whose reign took place, numerous extensions and alterations to the building. Later rulers of Egypt showed opposite the mosque varying degrees of deference, and each set varying amounts of financial support available to entertain school and mosque.

Given its history, the al -Azhar mosque remains a highly influential institution in Egyptian society as well as a symbol of Islamic Egypt.

Name

The city of Cairo was founded by Jawhar as- Siqilli, the Fatimid general of Greek origin from Sicily. He called this originally al - Mansuriyya ( المنصوريه ), after the former seat of the Fatimid Caliphate, al - Mansuriya in Tunisia. The mosque, first used in the year 971, could initially Jāmi 'al- Mansuriyya ( جامع المنصوريه, The Mosque of Mansuriyya ') have been called, as it was common practice at the time. It was Caliph al- li -Din Allah Mu'izz, the city in al - Qāhira ( القاهرة, " Cairo ", what that means Strong ') renamed. The name of the mosque was therefore to Jāmi 'al- Qāhira ( جامع القاهرة, the mosque of Cairo ' ), the first name of the mosque, which was translated from Arabic sources.

The church gained its current name al -Azhar sometime between the caliphate of al -Mu'izz and the end of the reign of the Fatimid Caliph second in Egypt, al - Aziz Billah. Azhar is the masculine form of Zahra, what, the Magnificent 'or' the brightest ' means. Zahra is an epithet that refers to Fatima, Muhammad's daughter from his first wife Khadijah. Fatima, the wife of the caliph ʿ Alī ibn Abī Taalib, is regarded as ancestress of al - li -Din Allah Mu'izz and the Imams of the Fatimid dynasty; you believe in general that the name of the mosque is related to it.

The word Jāmi ' is derived from the Arabic root word jāmaʕa what, gather ' means. The word is used in connection with large community mosques. While in classical Arabic the name of al -Azhar Jāmi to Gāma ʿ 'al- Azhar remains, the pronunciation of the word Jāmi changed ' in Egyptian Arabic.