Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-15836-6
Ph.D.
History
Columbia University
2014
Founded by the Fatimids in 970 A.D., al-Azhar has been described variously as 'the great mosque of Islam,' 'the brilliant one,' 'a great seat of learning...whose light was dimmed.' Yet despite its assumed centrality, the illustrious mosque-seminary has elicited little critical study. The existing historiography largely relies on colonial-nationalist teleologies that are grounded in a strong centrifugal essentialism: positioning Cairo (and al-Azhar) at a center, around which faithfully revolve concentric peripheries.