Egypt appoints 4 members to Al-Azhar senior scholars

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi yesterday issued a decree appointing four new members to the country’s Al-Azhar Council of Senior Scholars, which provides theological and legal opinion on Muslim issues around the world.

Local media reported that the decision had included both Mahmoud Tawfik Mohamed Saad, professor of Rhetoric and Criticism at Al-Azhar’s Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Girls, Mohamed Hosni Ibrahim Salim, professor of Emerging Comparative Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Sharia and Law, Al-Said Al-Sayed Al-Sayed Obada, professor of Criticism and Literature at the Faculty of Arabic Language, and Hassan Ahmed Mohamed Gabr, professor of Interpretation at the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion and Advocacy.

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Sisi’s decision came days after the death of the prominent former member of the Al-Azhar senior scholars’ council, Mohamed Amara, who died at the age of 89 years old.

In 2012, Al-Azhar’s Grand Sheikh, Ahmad Al-Tayeb, restructured the council to carry out several specialisations, most prominently the representation of jurisprudential and legal opinion on the global Muslim issues.

The Council of Senior Scholars consists of almost forty members of the greatest scholars of Al-Azhar from all the four schools of jurisprudence.

Al-Azhar is Egypt’s highest Islamic authority.