Al-Azhar Mosque

The spiritual centre of Cairo and one of the most important institutions in the Sunni world. Al-Azhar is a working mosque, a school and a place people simply sit — the courtyard is usually full of students reading, families resting and men asleep in the shade of the arcades.

Because it has been added to for a thousand years, it is a catalogue of Egyptian architecture in one building. Five minarets rise from different periods and none of them match. The courtyard is Fatimid, the arcades around it Mamluk, the main entrance Ottoman-era, and the marble floors modern.

Visiting

Non-Muslim visitors are welcome outside prayer times. Remove shoes at the entrance, dress modestly, and expect to be shown around by someone friendly. Avoid Friday midday. The courtyard at late afternoon, when the light comes in low along the arcades, is the moment to be there.

The mosque sits at the southern end of the Khan el-Khalili area, so it pairs naturally with the bazaar and Al-Muizz Street.

Al-Azhar was founded in 970 CE, immediately after the Fatimids conquered Egypt and founded Cairo, and it was built to teach Shia doctrine — the Fatimids were an Ismaili Shia dynasty, and the mosque was the intellectual engine of their state.

Two centuries later Saladin ended Fatimid rule, and Al-Azhar was converted wholesale into a Sunni institution. It has been one ever since. The building that now defines Sunni orthodoxy was purpose-built to argue the opposite case.

The oldest university, more or less

Teaching began here in 975 and has continued, with interruptions, ever since — which gives Al-Azhar a claim to being the oldest continuously operating degree-granting institution in the world. The claim is contested, mainly by al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, and depends on what you count as a university. Either way it has been teaching for over a thousand years.

Students traditionally sat in circles around a teacher against a specific column, each column associated with a subject or a regional group, and residential quarters were maintained for students from different countries.

A political voice

Al-Azhar has never been only academic. Its scholars have issued rulings that shaped Egyptian public life for centuries — including during the French occupation, when the mosque became a centre of resistance and Napoleon's troops stormed it, an act still remembered.