Before it was postponed to the next session, the draft law on “regulating the Fatwa House” became a fertile topic for the Qatari media and fundamentalist universities to create new religious wars in the heart of the Egyptian street. These merchants – merchants of strife – did not stop describing the law as a war on religion and a demolition of the Al-Azhar institution, trying Thus, inciting the Egyptian people and charging them against the Egyptian state, which is striving for true religious reform that would eradicate terrorist ideas from their roots that strike all religious institutions. After postponing the law, we found daily celebrations of what is considered a victory for Al-Azhar against the control of the Egyptian state.
Is it normal for Al-Azhar to be independent from the state?
These fools who bless the independence of Al-Azhar from the state do not know what the state means in the first place. If the state does not have authority over all its institutions, then we are creating parallel entities that compete with the state in its authority, and such independence that is not defined by restrictions or conditions may cause the state to lose its most important elements, which are Monopoly of force, and force is not only the force of weapons, but rather the force of the word that does what weapons cannot do, especially if this word is of a religious nature such as a fatwa that can move entire peoples forward or push them towards the abyss.
Therefore, the isolation of any institution from the state amounts to a division and waste of the state’s powers. It is absolutely unreasonable for the Sheikh of Al-Azhar to have absolute, eternal authority that exceeds the authority of the President of the Republic who is re-elected so that he remains in office. Any logic says that the Sheikh of Al-Azhar or anyone else should have a lifelong guarantee. This enables him to remain in his position even if he does not achieve the purpose of this position, which is to correct false religious ideas, meet the needs of the times, and fight extremism and terrorism that are taking root in all Arab lands!
Why does Al-Azhar need reform?
Al-Azhar is in dire need of radical reforms that will enable it to remain strong and carry out its tasks, which we all need. The state needs Al-Azhar to play an internal role in directing people towards what benefits them and externally to assume the role of reform and leadership towards Arab countries that are less divided and better off. We We all want to reform Al-Azhar and do not want it to disappear, but the institution must be aware of this and help by accepting these reforms that will preserve Al-Azhar without us being forced once again to present the Dar Al-Iftaa law. We do not want the solution to be to create a parallel entity to Al-Azhar that competes with it in its work, even if This was not a shame because when we talk about the Fatwa House, we are talking about a great religious edifice that can perform this task perfectly, but in any case, reforming Al-Azhar and its unity is better than having a parallel entity with which it shares the issuance of fatwas.
Is Dar Al-Iftaa’s subordination to the Council of Ministers considered a political monopoly on fatwas, or is it a liberation from the authority of consensus and Al-Azhar’s monopoly on religion!!
The truth is that we still need to answer this question. If this religious monopoly continues and no opinion is accepted from outside the institution in addition to the eternal authorities of Al-Azhar and its Sheikh, is the independence of the Fatwa House from Al-Azhar considered a crime in this case?
Extremist groups began to raise several fallacies, the first of which is that the subordination of the Fatwa House to the Council of Ministers is considered a political monopoly on fatwas, and thus it contradicts its literature first and foremost, as Islamic groups seek to control through the political process over religious institutions to establish Sharia as they express it, and in doing so they are It is seeking what the Egyptian state is falsely accused of, which is that it wants to politicize religious fatwas. In principle, and before clarifying the fallacy, religious groups have only now believed in separating politics from religion temporarily, so that they can gain power and mix them later.
The truth is that this law is not considered a political monopoly on fatwas, but rather a liberation of it from the authority of consensus, and a guarantee of its independence from any monopolistic practices that place the entire religion in the control of one institution. The state does not want to play the role of the revelation or even the sheikh, but rather it wants a cleric who is not driven by consensus regardless of Regardless of reason, even if Parliament is forced to do so, it only wants reform. As for talking about the politicization of fatwas, it is a phrase used to intimidate people from using their minds or to make them believe that jurisprudence is fixed and cannot be renewed or developed with the progress of time.
Jurisprudence is based on meeting people’s needs and taking into account the nature of the times. Therefore, one of the most important requirements for a jurist is that he possesses the ability to perform ijtihad and review, and ijtihad in its definition is creativity and freedom of thought. Therefore, the so-called consensus and the sayings of the predecessors that are considered absolute texts cannot be reviewed or modified. These are matters that completely negate any diligence.
All religious groups claim that they accept ijtihad in matters of jurisprudence, then you find them setting impossible conditions, such as that ijtihad must not contradict consensus, and that the mujtahid must be a man among them whose religion they satisfy, and thus they only truly believe in exercising monopoly and appointing themselves as judges over the people. In the name of religion.
Hence this exaggerated feeling of victory, because they want the situation to continue as it is.
Those who reject the Dar al-Iftaa law and celebrate its postponement, if they are not among those demanding the reform of Al-Azhar, are in fact rejecting everything that removes from them this idolatry that they have obtained over the previous decades and the privileges that made them speak as agents of this religion.