Ahmad al-Tayyeb


Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed al-Tayeb is the current Grand Imam of al-Azhar and former president of al-Azhar University. He was appointed by the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, following the death of Mohamed Sayed Tantawy in 2010. He is from Kurna, Luxor Governorate in Upper Egypt, and he belongs to a Sufi family.

Education

Al-Tayeb studied Doctrine and Philosophy at Al-Azhar University, where he graduated in 1969, after that he had a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Islamic philosophy in 1971 and 1977 respectively. Later on, he went to study at the University of Paris for six months, from December 1977 to 1978. Afterwards, he held academic posts at Al-Azhar University, then administrative roles in Qena and Aswan, and he even worked at the International Islamic University, Islamabad in Pakistan in 1999–2000.
Between 2002 and 2003, al-Tayeb served as Grand Mufti of Egypt. Al-Tayeb is a hereditary Sufi shaykh from Upper Egypt and has expressed support for a global Sufi league. He has been president of Al-Azhar University from 2003 until 2010.
As Grand Imam of al-Azhar, al-Tayeb intervened to reverse a decision by al-Azhar disciplinary board to expel a female student for "hugging" a male student at Al-Azhar university.

Political Party (Past)

Prior to his appointment as the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and president of al-Azhar University, he was a member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party's Policies Committee. He initially refused to resign from his position in the National Democratic Party by saying that there was no conflict between his role at Al-Azhar and membership in the party.
In April 2010, he resigned from his post in the party.

Views

Muslim Brotherhood

In an article published shortly after his appointment as president of Al-Azhar University, he was described as "a regime loyalist and member of Mr Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party takes a firm stance against the Muslim Brotherhood".
Tayeb was quoted as saying that Al-Azhar University would "never be an open field for the Brotherhood".
The same article reported that the Muslim Brotherhood's leader, Mohammed Badie, had congratulated Tayeb on his appointment. At the same time, the Brotherhood senior member, Sheikh Sayed Askar, also an Azharite, accused the government of "promoting one of its own at the expense of people better suited to the post".
Criticism of intensified after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Some Muslim Brotherhood members accused him of being "a remnant of the ousted Mubarak regime and National Democratic Party".
In 2011, following the Egyptian revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood held a rally at the Al-Azhar mosque to oppose what it described as the Judaization of Jerusalem. He said at the rally that "the al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews" and "we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds ". He also alleged that Jews around the world were trying to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity. The rally was criticized by the New York Daily News as anti-Semitic.
He backed the military coup against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Apostasy

In 2016 al-Tayeb, said that leaving Islam is punishable by death. In his view, crimes, assault and treason are forms of apostasy and must be punished. Apostates must rejoin Islam or be killed.

Opposition to sectarianism

He has strongly rebuked the Sunni anti-Alawite preaching, which has increased since the Assad government, dominated by Alawites, cracked down on the Islamist rebels and Sunni population in the Syrian Civil War.

Jews

In an interview which aired on Egypt's Channel 1 on 25 October 2013, al-Tayeb stated, "Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. This is a cause of great distress for the Muslims.".
He also argued that "the Quran said it and history has proven it: 'You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists'". He also claimed that Jews consider non-Jews to be "extremely inferior" and that Jews "practice a terrible hierarchy, and they are not ashamed to admit it, because it is written in the Torah – with regard to killing, enslavement, and so on".

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

He has strongly condemned the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and stated that it is acting "under the guise of this holy religion and have given themselves the name 'Islamic State' in an attempt to export their false Islam" and.
"The punishment for those who wage war against God and his Prophet and who strive to sow corruption on earth is death, crucifixion, the severing of hands and feet on opposite sides or banishment from the land. This is the disgrace for them in this world and in the hereafter they will receive grievous torment".
He has been criticized for not expressly stating that Islamic State was heretical. The Ash'ari school of Islamic theology - to which El-Tayeb belongs - does not allow calling a person who follows the shahada an apostate.
Al-Tayeb has strongly come out against the practice of takfirism, declaring a Muslim an apostate, which is used by Islamic State to "judge and accuse anyone who doesn't toe their line with apostasy and outside the realm of the faith" and declares "jihad on peaceful Muslims" by using "flawed interpretations of some Qur'anic texts, the prophet's Sunna, and the Imams' views, believing incorrectly that they are leaders of Muslim armies fighting infidel peoples in unbelieving lands".

Wahhabism and Salafism

In late 2016, at a conference of over a hundred Sunni scholars in Chechnya, al-Tayeb defined orthodox Sunnism as "the Ash'arites and Maturidites ... followers of any of the four schools of thought and... also the followers of the Sufism of Imam Junaid al-Baghdadi in doctrines, manners and purification." Having said that, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb excluded the “Salafis” from the term of Ahluls Sunna stating that Salafis – also known as Wahhabis – are not from among the Sunnis. The conference was believed to have been designed to take an "uncompromising stand against the growing Takfiri terrorism that is playing havoc across the world."

Shia Islam

In 2016, he reissued the fatwa on Shia Muslims, calling Shia the fifth school of Islam and seeing no problem with conversions from Sunni to Shia Islam.

Awards

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