Islam's University

Wearing scarlet caps and traditional flowing robes, some 400 imams one day last week left al-Azhar, Islam's oldest university, and fanned out through the streets of Cairo to spread a new-style gospel. The preachers had just completed a two-week course designed to align their ancient faith with the facts of modern life.

The imams heard Sociologist Ali Abdel Wahad tell them that suppression of women in the Arab world is a distortion of the Koran's teaching. They heard Mohamed Madani, dean of the Islamic Law Faculty, declare that "not a single phrase in the Koran is against science." To this tradition-bound university, such lectures are unprecedented. Al-Azhar, in many ways the spiritual center of the Mohammedan world, is in the midst of the most drastic renaissance in its long history.

The three tall, sand-colored towers of the Mosque of al-Azhar dominate the university, which was built in 972, only three years after Cairo was founded. A few years later the mosque became the classroom for Koranic law courses, and thus Islam's most famous center of learning was born. Al-Azhar weathered the crusades, but fell into academic stagnation after the Ottoman Turks occupied Egypt in 1517. For three centuries it knew no other role than to be the official interpreter of the Koran. There was no curriculum; a sheik simply sat by his favorite pillar and waited for students. If none showed up, he moved on.

Out of the Past. The 19th and early 20th centuries brought many modernizing attempts; schools of medicine and engineering were added, admission and teaching requirements were set up, class attendance became obligatory. But al-Azhar remained engulfed in the past. As World War II, the Palestine war, and revolution forced Egypt toward the modern era, al-Azhar began to lose its universal respect.

Late last year, Nasser appointed a new rector: Sheik Mahmoud Chaltout, 66, himself a product of al-Azhar and a top Koranic scholar, who has long preached the need for Islam's religious awakening. In weekly radio talks, he demanded reform, urged that Arab countries give women an education. "It is written that women used to argue with the Prophet," he explains. "God heard those arguments and approved them." Long an antiCommunist, Chaltout last month appealed to his vast radio audience "in the name of the religion of Allah, to give serious thought to the danger which threatens to push Moslems into atheism."

Into the World. Hoping to put al-Azhar on a par with modern universities, Chaltout stepped up a foreign-language program, made English a compulsory course, reorganized the library. Above all, Rector Chaltout accelerated al-Azhar's ancient work of propagating the faith. Under this program, the university:

P:Sends teachers to other Moslem countries where the Koran is poorly studied. Last year 27 teaching missions fanned out as far as Indonesia.

P:Provides professors and graduate students for understaffed schools in other Arab countries. Some 300 al-Azhar scholars are teaching in Kuwait alone.

P:Operates International lecture tours to non-Islamic nations. Currently, 75 al-Azhar missionaries are in Latin America.

Said one Western scholar last week: "As pious Moslems, al-Azhar men don't drink, smoke or go out with loose women. And they are content with low pay." Says Rector Chaltout: "For ten centuries, al-Azhar has interpreted the Koran and taught its language. Now it will widen the Scope and knowledge of its graduates so that they may paint a true picture of Islam wherever they travel."

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