Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad Al-Tayyeb was appointed as Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar in March 2010, after the passing of his predecessor, Dr Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. Al-Tayyeb was formerly the president of Al-Azhar for seven years and, prior to that, served for two years as the most powerful cleric in Egypt as its Grand Mufti.
Birth: 6 January 1946 (Age: 79)
Source of Influence: Administration of Religious Affairs
Influence: Highest scholarly authority for the majority of Sunni Muslims, runs the foremost and largest Sunni Islamic university
School of Thought: Sunni, Traditional Sunni
Status: Featured in current year
Sheikh Ahmad Muhammad Al-Tayyeb was appointed as Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar in March 2010, after the passing of his predecessor, Dr Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. Al-Tayyeb was formerly the president of Al-Azhar for seven years and, prior to that, served for two years as the most powerful cleric in Egypt as its Grand Mufti.
Leader of Al-Azhar University: Sheikh Al-Tayyeb leads the second-oldest university in the world, where teaching has continued without interruption since 975 CE. Al-Azhar represents the centre of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. It is a key institution that issues authoritative religious rulings and has provided extensive Islamic education to Egyptian and international students since its inception over a millennium ago. This history makes it a bastion of Sunni traditionalism. The university is considered one of the most prominent Islamic educational institutions and the foremost centre of Sunni Muslim scholarship worldwide.
Administers Al-Azhar Education Network: Al-Azhar is currently the largest university in the world, having risen from a group of three schools in the 1950s to its current state with 72 feeder schools, with close to 300,000 students studying there at any one time. Including schools that are part of Al-Azhar waqf initiatives, there are close to 2 million students. The graduates of Al-Azhar inspire great respect as religious leaders within the Muslim community, and it enjoys a powerful alumni organization, which makes the head of Al-Azhar an extraordinarily powerful and influential person.
Scholarly Influence: His scholarly influence as a leading intellectual of Sunni Islam spans the globe. He has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Aswan, and the theology faculty of the International Islamic University in Pakistan. He has also taught in universities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This influence is disseminated popularly through his online presence, with over 20 million followers on social media.
Advocate of Traditional Islam: Sheikh Al-Tayyeb has emphasised his mission to promote traditional Islam since becoming Grand Sheikh. He has stressed the importance of teaching students about Islamic heritage—considering Al-Azhar graduates as ambassadors of Islam to the world. In an age where claimants to authoritative Islam seem to be on every corner, Sheikh Al-Tayyeb has both the institute and the personal skills to authentically claim to be a representative of traditional Islam—Islam as practised by the majority of Muslims throughout the ages. Sheikh Al-Tayyeb has defined the Sunni community (Ahl Al-Sunnah wa Al-Jama’ah) as those who follow Imam Abul-Hasan Al-Ash’ari and Imam Abu Mansur Al-Maturidi and the scholars of Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i jurisprudence, as well as the moderate scholars of the Hanbali school. He also included the Sufis following the way of Imam Al-Junayd.
Interfaith Initiative: The International Day of Human Fraternity is an annual UN-designated celebration of interfaith and multicultural understanding which was established by Pope Francis and Sheikh Al-Tayyeb in 2020. He subsequently visited the Vatican in 2022.
“The tolerant teachings of Islam honored man, preserved women’s rights, criminalized extremism and racism, and established the values of mutual respect and coexistence among all human beings.”
2 million Al-Azhar students in Egypt
970CE the year Al-Azhar University was founded.
