American Journal of Islam and Society Vol 40 No 3-4.indb 41 Ideals and Interests in Intellectuals’ Political Deliberations: The Arab Spring and the Divergent Paths of Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib and Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa M U H A M M A D A M A S H A Abstract The academic literature equates the Arab Spring politics of Egypt’s two highest official religious figures – the Shaykh Muhammad Amasha is a Sociology PhD student at Yale University with aca- demic interests in the sociology of culture, politics, intellectuals, religion, and music. He obtained a BA in political science from Istanbul Şehir University (ŞEHİR) and an MA in sociology at ŞEHİR and Marmara University. Some of his works have appeared in Jadaliyya, Maydan, and Middle East Eye. I want to thank Julia Adams, Jonathan Wyrtzen, and the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on this article. I also want to thank Nurullah Ar- dıç, Usaama al-Azami, Mazen Hashem, and Mehmet Akif Kayapınar for their feedback on earlier drafts of this project. Amasha, Muhammad. 2023. “Ideals and Interests in Intellectuals’ Political Deliberations: The Arab Spring and the Divergent Paths of Egypt’s Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib and Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa.” American Journal of Islam and Society 40, nos. 3-4: 41–76 • doi: 10.35632/ajis.v40i3-4.3280 Copyright © 2023 International Institute of Islamic Thought 42  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib and Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa—as “anti-revolutionary.” This article argues that al-Tayyib and Gomaa’s politics are fundamentally different. While Gomaa’s politics are submissive to the state, al-Tayyib’s politics are a nego- tation without confrontation. I explain the former by Gomaa’s struggle for religious authority either by seeking official posi- tions or obstructing the revealing of information harmful to his religious legitimacy. The statist legitimacy threat against Gomaa is central to understanding his politics. Defending al-Azhar, on the other hand, is what explains al-Tayyib’s fluctuating politics. Theoretically, I advocate that explaining intellectuals’ politics requires focusing on their political deliberation. Only with a methodologically rigorous reconstruction of the intellectuals’ political deliberation and its context, can we decide the relative relevance of factors like ideals, interests, and structures (e.g., the state). I establish this with more than a thousand chronologically ordered primary sources and twenty interviews with people in Gomaa and al-Tayyib’s circles. Keywords: Sociology of intellectuals, cultural sociology, Islam and politics, Arab Spring, Egypt, Ulama, al-Azhar Introduction One day before the outbreak of the 2011 Egyptian Uprising, the newly appointed Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib held a conference titled “Sunni Islam: A Call for Unity and Tolerance ….”1 Ironically, this call for unity would be immediately followed by bitter disputes and diver- gence among the attending ʿ ulamaʾ (religious scholars of Islam) regarding the Egyptian Uprising. These divides would only grow deeper over the course of the rest of the 2011 Arab Uprisings and the July 2013 Egyptian Coup against the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, who was affiliated with the Muslim Brothers (MB).2 The ʿulamaʾ’s active role during the Arab Spring affirmed research countering once prevailing assumptions about ʿulamaʾ’s irrelevance A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  43 to modern life.3 With that active role, the last decade has witnessed a growing literature attempting to make sense of the ʿulamaʾ’s diver- gent politics.4 The Egyptian ʿulamaʾ were at the heart of this debate, especially their stances on the Egyptian Coup.5 More specifically, the debate centered on comparing the “Global Mufti” Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s “pro-revolutionary stances” and the “anti-revolutionary approach” of the former Grand Mufti of Egypt (2003-2013), Ali Gomaa, given his puzzling support for the military’s massacres.6 The Shaykh al-Azhar (since 2010), former Rector of al-Azhar University (2003-2010), and former Grand Mufti (2002-2003), Ahmed Al-Tayyib was not totally absent from these accounts, but he was treated as a secondary example of Gomaa’s politics. This article submits that comparing al-Tayyib and Gomaa is as fruitful for understanding ʿ ulamaʾ’s politics as comparing Gomaa and al-Qaradawi, arguing that al-Tayyib’s politics are qualitatively different from Gomaa’s. Theoretically, unlike macro structuralist approaches, this article argues that understanding intellectuals’ politics requires due attention to their political deliberations. Only then, we can appreciate the com- plexity and contingency of their eventual political stances, since their deliberations navigate among morally compelling ideals and power- ful pressures and threats to their interests. Only after undertaking a detailed empirical examination of their deliberations, can we construct theories of when intellectuals’ interests or ideals play greater roles. The cases here suggest that intellectuals concentrate more on interest (espe- cially potential harm) in threatening political environments. But, while al-Tayyib’s stances merged idealist and (for him) morally approved interest- oriented actions, Gomaa’s politics were puzzlingly self-seeking. An important aspect of why this was the case, I will argue, is the kind of political threat to which Gomaa was subject: a statist legitimacy threat that could have destroyed his credibility as an ʿ ālim (singular of ʿ ulamaʾ). In the concluding section of the paper, therefore, I contend that Gomaa’s politics should be understood as strategies to attain higher religious authority or avoid statist threats that might destroy his moral legitimacy by revealing private information. On the other hand, protecting al-Azhar and its traditionalism was the central concern that consistently explains al-Tayyib’s politics. 44  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 In what follows, I first present my theoretical and methodological approach to studying intellectuals’ politics, followed by a brief over- view of Islam and politics in Egypt. The following two sections provide empirical evidence that problematizes the dominant explanations of the ʿulamaʾ’s Arab Spring politics. The first argues that political theol- ogy is not sufficient for understanding Gomaa and al-Tayyib’s politics. This section will also establish a clear difference between al-Tayyib and Gomaa in their relation to the state and its violence. Next, I show that the argument that both ʿulamaʾ’s political stances stem from a moral urge to protect “True Islam” (what each ʿālim believes to be the true interpretation of Islam) is not true for Gomaa, whose competitive stance extends to those adopting the same interpretation. This is in contrast to al-Tayyib, for whom defending al-Azhar traditionalism is central, yet who generally maintains a tolerant approach to others holding compet- ing interpretations. Intellectuals’ Politics: Theory and Methods Some sociologists of intellectuals take a resolutely macro view of intel- lectuals’ actions, emphasizing the role of structural conditions (e.g., market relations and government type) on intellectuals’ politics.7 A similar structuralist approach is adopted by an account that explains the different politics of Gomaa and al-Tayyib by state manipulation: by making prominent ʿulamaʾ like Gomaa take extreme pro-regime posi- tions, the state ensures the Shaykh al-Azhar’s (al-Tayyib’s) popular moral legitimacy, which is necessary for the regime’s own legitimacy.8 Such an approach, however, disregards a core aspect of intellectuals’ lives: deliberation. This is not to say that social structures “predict neither the con- tent of intellectual ideas nor the process of intellectual action.” 9 Indeed, both cases under examination show how changes in the political struc- ture (from authoritarianism to a revolutionary democratic transition to bloody counter-revolutionary authoritarianism) led to changes in the ʿulamaʾ’s political ideas and actions. However, when it comes to state manipulation, I do not consider it to be the case that intellectuals have A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  45 no agency or autonomy except “within a framework whose limits are defined ultimately by the state.”10 Instead, I adopt a cultural interpretive approach that attends to the intellectuals’ political deliberation, where intellectuals interpret the changing political circumstances before acting: thinking about which course of action to follow, consulting ideals, and calculating interests (potential threats and benefits). Many sociologists argue that interests, conscious or not, are cen- tral to intellectuals’ politics.11 Yet, others insist that ideals, not interests, motivate intellectuals’ acts.12 Most accounts of the ʿulamaʾ share the lat- ter’s idealist conception, as seen in their emphasis on political theology and “true Islam.” Such dichotomous generalizations, as I show below, are not empirically accurate, for both ideals and interests were relevant to al-Tayyib, while Gomaa’s politics were more interest-oriented. The relevance of ideals and interests is to be determined empirically, case by case. Hence, the fact that Hasan al-Shafiʿi—the senior Azharite ʿālim and al-Tayyib’s senior advisor then—had no interest in opposing the Coup does not mean that all ʿulamaʾ have no interest in their political stances, as some argue.13 Only with such empirical rigor can we develop cultural theories on “when interest-oriented action dominates nonstra- tegic action orientations.”14 The cases below suggest that intellectuals’ idealist deliberation and actions are curtailed in threatening environments like authori- tarian regimes. Living under statist threats, intellectuals’ deliberation becomes occupied with how to navigate the potentially serious harms they expect if they act idealistically, including in defiance of the state. Interest calculation becomes more salient in their deliberation. But statist threats and interest calculation do not necessitate eventual sub- mission to the state, as intellectuals may decide to hold on to their ideals and resist despite the cost.15 Indeed, al-Tayyib never legitimized state violence and vocally criticized it during the Coup. However, he also did not abide by his revolutionary democratic ideals when the Coup made them very costly. But while al-Tayyib was primarily occupied by al-Azhar’s interest (an interest approved by his ideals), Gomaa was occupied by his own interest with no trace of idealism. I argue that the statist threat to Gomaa appeared to be so strong that he 46  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 eventually decided to submit to it. The statist threat here was not one generally understood in political sociology—a security threat to one’s body, wealth, or family.16 Rather it was a legitimacy threat—a threat to one’s moral authority as an intellectual. The state surveils intellectuals to find in their private lives issues that would destroy their credibility if revealed, and uses them to bring intellectuals to their knees. My analysis shows that Gomaa was a target of such a state legitimacy threat, which nudged Gomaa to prefer legitimizing massacres, and therefore losing only some legitimacy, over exposing what might well have caused a complete loss of legitimacy. Unlike the assertion that “it is too easy to dismiss [Gomaa’s] pro-mili- tary position as simply that of a sycophant or a hypocrite ready to exploit religious doctrine to support his political master,”17 such an argument requires a diligent study that exhausts all possibilities of moral motiva- tions, especially when talking about ʿ ulamaʾ immersed in moral education. Methodologically, I study patterns in the ʿulamaʾ’s politics to capture the moral dimension: Is there any moral principle that seems consistently pres- ent in the intellectual’s most political stances? Another strategy I employ is critical discourse analysis18 via a close reading of how intellectuals talk about politics, reply to accusations, and navigate pressures: Do they, for example, contradict themselves, turn red when asked hard questions, feel like faking a reaction, take time to think in a way suggesting strategizing, give ambiguous answers, or frequently lie? These cultural signs of “authen- ticity” or “sincerity” are inevitably subject to researchers’ interpretations. Researchers’ bias can be countered by empirical saturation, which can be judged through empirical evidence. My findings are based on more than a thousand (chronologically ordered) primary sources (e.g., news reports, official statements, books, memoirs, and videos) about al-Tayyib, Gomaa, the Egyptian religious field, and a careful reconstruction of the political context. These sources encompass almost all that is publicly available online on these ʿulamaʾ until the end of August 2013, the month of the massacre at Rabaa that came to signify the end of the Arab Spring in Egypt. To ensure that I had as complete a picture as possible about these ʿulamaʾ, I also interviewed twenty people who were close to them or in their circles. A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  47 Islam and Politics in Egypt: An Overview The efforts to centralize the Egyptian state that began in the early nine- teenth century partially stripped al-Azhar, the Islamic scholarly institution founded in the tenth century, of its economic independence by putting part of its endowment under state control. This reduced al-Azhar graduates’ employment prospects by establishing separate secular education and judi- ciary systems. The state tightened its control over al-Azhar even more in the second half of the twentieth century with the Nasser regime’s religious policies that placed all endowments under state control, ended the reli- gious judiciary system, made the Shaykh al-Azhar a position presidentially appointed, restructured al-Azhar to increase government representatives in its administration, gradually purged most Azharite faculty that voiced any opposition, and increased state control over mosques by replacing local economic support and appointing imams.19 Yet, these policies also granted al-Azhar financial, human, and symbolic resources as the govern- ment increased al-Azhar’s budget, opened new non-religious departments in al-Azhar University, increased its pre-college education institutions, and considered al-Azhar the only legitimate representative of Islam.20 However, as al-Azhar functioned as a religious legitimizer of an oppressive regime that was eventually defeated in the 1967 War (al-naksa), al-Azhar’s legitimacy eroded for many Egyptians, who found their way to the few apolitical Salafi groups tolerated under Nasser. The 1970s witnessed the Islamic Revival, with a Salafi orientation and a strong presence in universities. This was coupled with the new president Anwar al-Sadat’s political opening. Political prisoners were released, allowing the MB to return to public life and recruit many of those university stu- dents. The MB integrated democratic principles into its discourse and ran syndicate and parliament elections, becoming the strongest political opposition group in pre-Uprising Egypt. Meanwhile, other Salafi student groups and religious activists either preferred to stay away from politics or to turn to armed insurgency against the regime. To grant al-Azhar legitimacy vis-à-vis radical opponents, the regime allowed al-Azhar a larger margin of freedom, an opportunity that al-Azhar took advantage of, opposing some state policies. This 48  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 relative independence ended with the appointment of Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi as Shaykh al-Azhar in 1996 until his death in 2010, to be replaced by Ahmad al-Tayyib. In the context of the 1970s Islamic Revival’s critical stance in relation to the regime, a scholarly milieu known as Civilizational Islam emerged to provide democratic, anti-au- thoritarian, and non-violent Islamic interpretations, presenting itself as a moderate Islam – an interpretation the MB came to adopt. Ali Gomaa was part of this milieu until he became Egypt’s Grand Mufti in 2003, an office that brought him a transnational following. As the Egyptian Uprising erupted, Civilizational Islam scholars, the MB, and activist Salafis supported the uprising. Al-Tayyib tried to take a balanced position that was more on the side of the regime, while Gomaa was unequivocal in its pro-regime rhetoric. With the regime’s fall, al-Tayyib and Gomaa were criticized by the revolutionaries. Al-Tayyib adopted a revolutionary line and presented al-Azhar as an impartial political actor. Gomaa also tried to navigate pressures with ambivalent messages. Meanwhile, the MB and the Salafis dominated all elections and referenda, including the MB-won presidential election. After a year in power, anti-MB campaigns culminated in wide protests, followed by a bloody military coup that was strongly endorsed by Gomaa, and less so by al-Tayyib. Political Theology is Not Enough The current literature on Gomaa and al-Tayyib mainly focuses on why they supported Egypt’s 2013 Military Coup. One explanation is their adoption of medieval political theology, where “it is prudent to give loyalty to whoever commands overwhelming authority (shawka).”21 This theology built political legitimacy on the effective ability to rule and forbade rebellion, as the traumas of violence in early Islamic history persuaded medieval jurists to privilege stability over other sociopolitical values. This view is captured in al-Tayyib’s coup statement, where he considered intra-Egyptian clashes and bloodshed the “lesser of two evils,” and in Gomaa’s remark that Morsi is a “detained ruler” (imām maḥjūr) who had lost the ability to rule.22 A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  49 But this reading does not capture the complexity of these ʿ ulamaʾ’s politics. There are instances where these same people disregarded that pragmatic medieval theology for a revolutionary political theology. Namely, in 2011, al-Tayyib supported the Libyan, Yemeni, and Syrian Uprisings and considered a regime’s use of violence against peaceful protestors sufficient to end its legitimacy “despite the pretexts made for stability or confronting disturbance and conspiracy.”23 Gomaa even signed a statement in support of the Syrian Free Army against Assad’s regime, leaving no space for medieval theology, which some contem- porary ʿulamaʾ argue forbids only militant rebellion, not peaceful protests.24 More importantly for Gomaa, Muhamad Muzakkir notes that “it is clear that the logic behind the classical jurists’ discourse is avoid- ing bloodshed (fitnah) at the expense of having an accountable political system … In contrast, [Gomaa] neither avoided fitnah nor built a system. He even formulated a discourse that sanctioned massacre and human rights violations by the Egyptian government.”25 During the anti-Mubarak Uprising, Gomaa cited a hadith that prescribes the killing of whomever rebels (yakhruj) against a ruler accepted by all, though he followed, “we do not want to prescribe [the killing of rebels] in these times of turmoil (fitan) because [the prophet] also forbade us to kill.”26 This caveat was missing in his leaked lectures to the military during the Coup, in which his legitimization of the state’s violence against protestors was blunt and unprecedented.27 While Gomaa inserted a few ethical boundaries for killing (e.g., gradual violence, not to kill the wounded but to arrest them after being treated), such boundaries were neither emphasized nor clarified. They remained mostly lip service and were lost within more emphasized generalizations of the Egyptian army’s religious virtue and the permissibility of killing the anti-military “Kharijites.” These remarks were so extreme that he, when the videos were leaked, claimed they were only referring to militants in Sinai, not anti-Coup protestors.28 Yet his direct references to anti-Coup protests make this claim hard to sustain. This adoption of bloodshed sets Gomaa in stark contrast to al-Tayyib’s consistent criticism of bloodshed, discussed below, which seemed more in line with medieval jurists’ concerns. 50  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 Usaama al-Azami does not consider that contrast stark enough, however: “With [al-Tayyib], while his support had its limits, we saw his commitment to autocratic Islam in his legitimation of the military coup—an armed rebellion against a Muslim ruler that he and Gomaa actively legitimated rather than simply acquiesced to, as might be expected in premodern Sunnism.”29 For him, both ʿulamaʾ supported the Coup because they adopted “autocratic Islam” where absolute fealty to modern authoritarian states is central. But again, how to reconcile these ʿ ulamaʾ’s “autocratic Islam” with their support of some other Arab uprisings against authoritarian regimes? Even if we limit the discussion to Egypt, Gomaa asserted, a few months after the revolution, that shūra (consultation, as practiced in parliamentarian elections) and enjoining the ruler to do good and forbidding him to do bad (speaking truth to power) are “political rights in Islam.”30 Also during anti-Morsi protests in November 2012, he issued a fatwa permitting protests and sit-ins.31 That said, I agree with al-Azami’s observation on Gomaa’s commitment to the Egyptian army. Overall, I found no single public remark explic- itly criticizing anyone in power, including Morsi. During Morsi’s year, for example, his only public comment on a particular political event, rather than general remarks, was a statement that Islamically legitimized Morsi’s plan to take IMF loans that some Islamically-minded parties deemed forbidden.32 To be sure, Gomaa implicitly and privately was not supporting Morsi, as seen in his above-mentioned fatwa allowing protest during his reign or in his students’ remarks critical of Morsi. But Gomaa never expressed that publicly and did not criticize Morsi for anything he did. In contrast, al-Tayyib’s stance toward the state is generally ambigu- ous, not submissive, but never confrontational. He grants those in power discursive legitimacy while keeping a distance from (and sometimes criticizing) that of which he does not approve. His politics may be termed a negotiation without confrontation. For example, though al-Tayyib’s critical stance toward the regime was less before the Uprising, he threat- ened to resign from the al-Azhar University Rectorate during Mubarak’s reign when the State Security wanted to interrogate al-Qaradawi, whom al-Tayyib had invited for an event.33 He similarly threatened to resign A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  51 from the al-Azhar Shaykhdom if Morsi’s government did not approve of the names he assigned as deputies of the al-Azhar University Rector.34 Even in post-Coup Egypt, where any deviation from the state’s line is punished, al-Tayyib’s resistance to some of al-Sisi’s demands is evident.35 These negotiations, however, are always foiled with a public discourse that addresses those in power (Mubarak, the military, Morsi, or al-Sisi) with the utmost respect and never challenges their sincerity and legiti- macy when in power. That does not mean that al-Tayyib never vocally criticized those in power. He did do so, especially with respect to bloodshed. During the Egyptian Uprising, while he was asserting that maintaining order has priority over freedom of speech, he considered the protestors’ call for “freedom, justice, and fighting poverty, unemployment, and economic recession” as “just demands,” expressing his “extreme sorrow and pain for the bloodshed and the violations committed by elements that do not fear God nor preserve the homeland’s sanctity.”36 Indeed, al-Tayyib’s critique of the Coup’s human rights violations was notable. Between July 4-August 17, al-Azhar issued almost twenty statements engaging with the events, most of which are overlooked in the English-language literature on the topic. Overall, al-Tayyib seemed dissatisfied with the post-Coup devel- opments, which he implicitly considered to be in contradiction with why he joined the July 3 meeting.37 Condemning bloodshed was the most insistent and consistent message from al-Tayyib, threatening to home-isolate in protest and calling to immediately punish the “crim- inals” committing these “bloody acts” after the July 27 (al-minaṣṣa) massacre.38 Three days after the Coup, he openly called on the state to protect the right to peaceful protests, release political prisoners, and shorten and clarify the transitory period leading to a democratic election.39 In that statement, al-Tayyib implicitly threatened the new regime that they should keep in mind that “our Revolution broke the fear barrier” in the pursuit of freedom and democracy and hinted that the military should stay away from politics. Meanwhile, he always addressed the military (and police) very respectfully. Pressured by both camps, al-Azhar’s discourse seemed very carefully crafted to 52  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 preserve an impartial image, refusing to name June 30 as a “coup” or “revolution,” criticizing anti-Coup critics of al-Tayyib and the coupists’ attempts to “politicize” or instrumentalize al-Azhar in the conflict.40 The stark difference between al-Tayyib and Gomaa sheds doubt on the sufficiency of David Warren’s account of Gomaa. For Warren, the support given to the Coup’s massacres by Gomaa, who is part of the state’s bureaucracy, should be read as a result of his authoritarian nationalist worldview in which the impersonal nature of state-bureau- cratic logic deems “massacres … necessary for the good of the nation.”41 Warren’s argument is not necessarily wrong, but it is insufficient: it is built on the fact that Gomaa has a nationalist imagination and is part of the bureaucracy, two characteristics shared by al-Tayyib, who took a divergent path on bloodshed. To summarize, it is hard to maintain that the politics of al-Tayyib or Gomaa consistently follow one political theology (pragmatic, auto- cratic, or nationalist), especially considering their positions on other Arab uprisings. Al-Tayyib’s politics within Egypt, however, seem more aligned with medieval pragmatic theology, unlike Gomaa. Both ʿulamaʾ diverge in their stances toward bloodshed and the state significantly. Gomaa showed little restraint when it came to supporting bloodshed, while al-Tayyib never did and, sometimes, vocally criticized it. Also, while Gomaa never publicly criticized those in power (at least) since he became Grand Mufti, al-Tayyib’s approach ambiguously mixes legiti- mation and criticism. Defending “True Islam”? Not Gomaa To explain al-Tayyib and Gomaa’s support for the Coup, some accounts refer to ideological competition with the MB or secularists in the Egyptian public sphere. Many of these accounts stress that this competition is not merely egoistic but seeks to protect what the ʿulamaʾ’s view as “True Islam.” For Mohammad Fadel, the religious pluralism resulting from the post-Uprising intellectual freedom has alarmed the “authoritarian ʿulamaʾ” who, drawing on medieval jurists, emphasized the state’s role A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  53 in preserving the religious “orthodoxy.” 42 Hence, Gomaa and other tradi- tionalist ʿ ulamaʾ supported the Coup to protect the Azharite “orthodoxy” from the “chaos in religious discourse.” Masooda Bano also suggests that contestation over the interpretation of Islam partially got al-Azhar (including al-Tayyib and Gomaa) to take a position against the MB that holds a different interpretation.43 It is hard to know exactly the content of the “orthodoxy,” or “True Islam” suggested in these accounts, which is necessary to study whether the ʿulamaʾ are really committed to such ideals. What is clear in these accounts is that al-Tayyib and Gomaa share the same version of an Azharite, traditionalist “True Islam.” But what if we know that Gomaa’s competition extends to those who share the same interpretation of this orthodoxy? The tension between Gomaa and al-Tayyib is well-known in al-Azhar circles. Elston captures this in passing in her ethnography, and many of my interviewees confirm this.44 Indeed, after the Coup, when Gomaa defended al-Tayyib against international anti-Coup critics, one of Gomaa’s close students who was disappointed by his politics wrote on social media about how inappropriately Gomaa speaks of al-Tayyib in private settings.45 Though I initially found such reports hard to believe, different data sources triangulate the possibility of such extremity in Gomaa’s practice. Another similar example is Gomaa’s remarks regarding Emad Effat, his student that became a revolutionary icon after being killed by the mili- tary while in protest. In public, Gomaa spoke very highly of Effat whom he called “his son,” led his funeral prayer, and expressed deep sorrow at his loss (though without criticizing the military).46 Yet, Elston writes that Effat’s murder was a turning point that made many of Gomaa’s students become disillusioned with him.47 Interviewees in these circles told me this happened because Gomaa’s students “realized this person is double-faced. In public, ‘they killed my son;’ but in private, [they] found his estrangement from Shaykh Emad.” But if we return to whether defending “True Islam” is the real moti- vation of these ʿulamaʾ’s politics, al-Azami provides what he means by “True Islam” for Gomaa and al-Tayyib—“autocratic Islam.” I have estab- lished above that al-Tayyib can hardly fit this category. I have also shown 54  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 that Gomaa took positions that contradicted this view. But there is stron- ger evidence that “autocratic Islam” is not really a morally compelling intellectual position for Gomaa. A day after the July 8, 2013 (al-ḥaras al-jumhūrī) massacre, Gomaa participated in a reconciliation initiative, asserting the permissibility of peaceful protests and the sanctity of blood.48 At the same time, Gomaa was recording his first leaked lecture to the military. In this leak, how- ever, he considers protestors’ praying in the streets or protesting in front of military institutions outside the scope of “peacefulness” and, therefore, must be dealt with by force.49 In other words, Gomaa’s public or private discourse assumed the legitimacy of peaceful protests during the Coup, despite what is suggested by “autocratic Islam.” Gomaa legitimized mas- sacres by stripping the “peacefulness” from the anti-Coup protestors and recast them as Kharijites deserving of death. As the military consolidated its power, though, Gomaa gave more weight to absolute obedience to oppressive rulers.50 Along with the accounts discussed above, Basma Abdel Aziz holds that al-Tayyib’s decision to join the Coup was to monopolize the right to speak in the name of Islam, which was contested by the MB and Salafis.51 While partially true, the issue of “monopoly” is doubtful, given al-Tayyib’s insistence on these groups’ political rights after the Coup. He consistently insisted that only inclusive dialogue—his second most repeated message during the Coup—could be the solution, asserting that the MB should not be excluded from political life. “Al-Azhar condemns shutting down some TV channels, religious [Salafi] and others [MB], despite our disagreement with their discourse,” al-Tayyib wrote three days after the Coup.52 Overall, al-Tayyib seems tolerant of those holding different views. He refused to accept the resignation of al-Azhar’s spokesperson, Muhammad al-Tahtawi, when the latter publicly declared his partici- pation in the Uprising against Mubarak.53 Al-Tayyib also defended his colleagues who publicly opposed the Coup, like Hasan al-Shafiʿi and Muhammad ʿImara, who continued to be part of al-Azhar’s leadership (Al-Azhar Senior Scholars Authority [ASSA]).54 Despite al-Qaradawi’s criticism of al-Tayyib during and after the Uprising, al-Tayyib did not A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  55 openly respond and still included al-Qaradawi, his senior colleague, in the ASSA. Only after al-Qaradawi’s harsh criticism of al-Tayyib’s Coup stance, did al-Azhar issue a statement considering al-Qaradawi’s remarks unfair.55 A month later, al-Tayyib refused demands to strip al-Qaradawi from the ASSA’s membership.56 After al-Qaradawi’s public resignation from the ASSA, demands to officially dismiss al-Qaradawi continued. While al-Tayyib refused to vote for or against, Gomaa, an ASSA member, actively advocated dismissing al-Qaradawi.57 Indeed, since the Coup, Gomaa has been using degrading language while talking about al-Qaradawi and claimed that al-Qaradawi ordered his assassination.58 Gomaa had already considered al-Qaradawi a seeker of fake her- oism when the latter harshly criticized the former’s endorsement of Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, Ahmad Shafiq, against Morsi in the 2012 presidential election.59 This seems in line with Gomaa’s truculent engagements with his critics, like journalists with whom he had a his- tory of tensions under Mubarak.60 His quarrels with the Salafis are also well known.61 But such aggressive reactions were also directed at his close fellows, who took different political stances. Saif Abdelfattah, the political theorist who was close to Gomaa and co-authored books with him, reports that when he sent Gomaa an SMS criticizing his leaked remarks, Gomaa’s reply was, “You accepted [for yourself] to be from the Kharijite dogs.”62 When I asked another person about Gomaa’s reaction to his students’ political criticism, he said that Gomaa did not care and considered them misguided. As for the MB, Gomaa avoided openly criticizing the MB directly after the Coup, refusing to equate them to the “extremist” Salafis.63 Yet, as al-Azami shows, Gomaa was engaging in double-dealing as he harshly criticized them in private sermons.64 After the Coup consolidated its power, the MB and its lead- ers took their place on Gomaa’s list of those that he ridicules and lambasts in his sermons and TV shows.65 Gomaa even gloats over the military oppression of the MB-minded ʿ ulamaʾ, who had criticized him before.66 Observing this difference in al-Tayyib and Gomaa’s politics, Bano and Benadi explain al-Tayyib’s moderation by the state’s manipulation 56  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 of the three state religious institutions (al-Azhar, Dar al-Iftaʾ, and the Ministry of Awqaf). The Dar al-Iftaʾ and Ministry of Awqaf were pushed to take extreme positions to help al-Azhar retain its legitimacy and mod- erate image.67 The state is definitely an important actor, but I find no empirical evidence that the state is happy with al-Tayyib’s criticism for the sake of retaining al-Azhar’s legitimacy. Al-Sisi’s government is doing its best to limit al-Tayyib’s power by taking back the right to choose the Grand Mufti from al-Azhar and refusing to renew the tenure of some of his associates.68 Also, deemphasizing the ʿulamaʾ’s agency here does not help explain, for example, Gomaa’s extremeness compared to his students aligned with him politically, like al-Habib Ali al-Jifri. Though al-Jifri openly supports the Egyptian army and opposes the MB, his comments on the military massacres were less inciting and more reconciliatory and nuanced.69 Indeed, he insisted that Gomaa did not mean peaceful protestors by his remarks, probably because that extreme position is hard to justify as stemming from a scholar as erudite as his teacher, Gomaa.70 Below, I provide an explanation of why Gomaa took such extreme positions. To summarize, the stark contradictions between Gomaa’s private and public political stances suggest that these were strategies care- fully crafted rather than morally compelling intellectual positions. His competition with other ʿulamaʾ holding to the same “True Islam” also makes the moral explanation less likely. This is not the case for al-Tayyib, as I show below. Here, I showed that al-Tayyib is even politically tolerant of his competitors who hold different interpreta- tions of Islam. Compared to al-Tayyib, Gomaa seems more discursively aggressive against his competitors and content with their political suppression. Alternative Account: The ʿUlamaʾ’s Politics Explained Gomaa: Whatever it takes for Religious Authority Just as the strong academic interest in explaining Gomaa’s puzzlingly extreme support for the military massacres against anti-Coup protestors, answering that question concerned many of his colleagues who worked A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  57 with him for decades. There was a central theme in these accounts, which aligned with my own analysis of his political history: Gomaa’s extreme commitment to the Coup is a self-seeking strategy, not an idealist posi- tion. In the previous sections, I established this by showing that Gomaa’s political stances have no consistent intellectual or moral backing, even that of “autocratic Islam.” This conclusion was also supported by the contradictions between his public and private remarks, which can be hardly interpreted but as conscious strategies. The question that is to be answered here, however, is: why did he need to be that extreme in supporting those in power, given that many other state-supporting ʿ ulamaʾ did not need to be that extreme, including some of his followers? There are two explanations: he deeply wanted something that only the state could provide, or he was afraid that departing from the state line would immensely harm him. The first explanation is present in the public remarks of two of Gomaa’s colleagues: Muhammad ʿ Imara and Nadia Mustafa, whose close relationship with Gomaa goes back at least to the mid-1980s. They were part of the same scholarly milieu of Civilizational Islam, with strong connections to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and its associated centers, the Center for Epistemological Studies that Gomaa managed for a while, and Civilization Center headed by Mustafa, the political science professor at Cairo University. In that milieu, Gomaa was part of cooperative research projects with these scholars and, as a mufti, he had the Civilization Center’s social scientists train Dar al-Ifta’s religiously educated researchers.71 Commenting on Gomaa’s first leak for Al-Jazeera, ʿImara, also an ASSA member, says, I call upon those who aspire for positions, those attached to posi- tions, those attached to the shoes of those in power to be careful about their religion by fearing God and not to get people in this dark tunnel of dark and unfair fatwas. I don’t know whether Dr. Ali Gomaa said these remarks or not, or that X or Y person said that or not, but I am speaking in general. Dr. Ali Gomaa is an erudite ʿālim and I have a strong friendship with him. But 58  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 I am speaking objectively about the current conflict that is going on now in Egypt.72 (emphasis added) Similarly, in her essay commenting on Gomaa’s coup remarks and leaks, Mustafa writes, [Gomaa’s religious cover for his political position] led to con- demning reactions from many scholars that he came to clash with, to the extent of insulting and offending some of them… Regardless of [Gomaa’s] intentions and position currently, he recalls religion to take a partisan position. The erudite scholar and the former mufti with an ever-lasting aspiration for the al-Azhar Shaykhdom presents political opinions instead of pro- fessional fatwas … What is terrifying in Dr. Ali Gomaa’s recent remarks is not just the content but also the manner that contrasts with all that I knew of the values and etiquette of Dr. Ali Gomaa with whom I studied for an extended period between 1986 and 2002. Manners lacking mercy and tolerance and full of mutter and foul language… I apologize to God Almighty for saying this about one of Egypt’s leading imams and ʿulamaʾ, who was my teacher, but this is not Dr. Ali Gomaa I knew, or I thought I knew.73 (emphasis added) These two colleagues of Gomaa seem to suggest that Gomaa’s poli- tics is an egoist strategy to attain lofty positions, especially the al-Azhar Shaykhdom. It is important to see how reluctant they were about making these remarks. They did not do that because they hated Gomaa or even because they had nothing to lose by criticizing him. These people always spoke very highly of Gomaa.74 Aspiring to the al-Azhar Shaykhdom was also iterated by two other interviewees who were as close to Gomaa. One of them mentioned that it is known within Gomaa’s circle that he is (mystically) promised by his teachers to be the Shaykh al-Azhar. Gomaa’s “clinging to positions” was brought up in my interviews also in the context of Dar al-Iftaʾ. An inter- viewee from Gomaa’s inner circle said that Gomaa, through a mediator, A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  59 asked Morsi to renew his post in the office when his retirement age came. Interestingly, Gomaa’s students campaigned for that online, sharing pictures of Gomaa’s friendly visit to MB leaders after Mubarak’s fall.75 Another interviewee, an official in Morsi’s government, interpreted his firsthand observation of Gomaa’s “sycophancy” toward Morsi to be about Gomaa’s desire to continue as a mufti. This witness recalled an incident where he, Gomaa, and other officials were at an event with President Morsi. While waiting for Morsi to come, no one talked except Gomaa, who praised Morsi to a shocking extent for my interviewee. But the real shock happened when Morsi arrived: Gomaa attempted to kiss Morsi’s hand, but Morsi did not accept. Regardless of the narration’s validity, after hearing this, I found it easier to accept another interviewee’s report that Gomaa said that Morsi was a friend of God (waliyy). Despite all this, Morsi deferred the decision of choosing the Grand Mufti to al-Azhar’s ASSA, which eventually elected another mufti. Gomaa’s later establishment of a Sufi order he heads can be interpreted in line with this “clinging to positions” explanation.76 With that, he institutionalized his Sufi spiritual authority among his followers, some of whom see him as the saint of our time (quṭb), as I was told by an interviewee. Even though this “clinging to positions” seems to have significant explanatory power, given the diversity and quality of empirical evidence, I still find it hard to accept that Gomaa supported killing people merely to attain a higher position, especially if that support can destroy his legitimacy among many of his collogues and followers—a legitimacy necessary to be a successful Shaykh of al-Azhar. In other words, Gomaa’s anti-Coup Civilizational Islam circle must have made it hard for him to support the massacres, given that this circle had granted him a neces- sary extra-state legitimacy in the cultural field. Most intellectuals in this milieu are known for their criticism of the regime and opposition to the Coup: ʿImara, Mustafa, al-Shafiʿi, Muhammad Salim al-ʿAwwa, Tariq al-Bishri, and Saif Abdelfattah, among others. Indeed, Gomaa was aware of that and denied the accusations that he legitimized killing the protes- tors.77 It is only with the leaks that Gomaa started publicly expressing that the protestors were not peaceful and deserved killing, even if he still stressed that he meant violent protestors and “terrorists in Sinai.”78 60  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 This leads to the second explanation that can complement the first one: Gomaa did what he did because the state holds that which could destroy his legitimacy for everyone, not just opponents of the Coup. Two issues are relevant here: his multiple secret marriages and his past with Islamist political groups. I came across the former in an interview with a close associate of Gomaa, who expressed how he was shocked when a first-hand witness confirmed this information. Gomaa’s mar- riages were widely discussed in newspapers when revolutionaries broke into the State Security headquarters after Mubarak’s fall, leaking many secret documents about many Egyptian public figures.79 One leaked “top secret” document, dated in 2006, confirms rumors that Gomaa had mul- tiple polygamous relationships by finding the civil servant who made the marriage contract (maʾdhūn) and one of his former secret wives who also reported about ten other secret marriages that Gomaa had; State Security could find a few of these marriages in the Civil Status Authority’s archives, dating to the 1990s.80 When asked by journalists, Gomaa said, “I absolutely do not pay attention to this as long as I did my duty in a way pleasing God and His Prophet. Thus, every morning, I forgive those who make accusa- tions about my chastity”—an ambiguous answer that condemns the leaks but without denying it.81 Note that this leak does not speak of any act contradicting Islamic or Egyptian law formally. Gomaa approves of non-conventional (ʿurfī or misyār) marriages.82 Still, “ten secret mar- riages” could be a serious blow to Gomaa’s moral legitimacy as a religious scholar, but especially as a Sufi (ascetic) shaykh or modern religious intellectual, the two images his legitimacy depended on for many of his followers. While multiple polygamous marriages might be normatively approved in certain communities, there are examples showing that this is not the case among many Egyptians.83 Other interviewees talked about another issue regarding Gomaa’s past. His early connections with “extremists” might be another issue that the state can use against Gomaa, whose career is built on counter- ing “extremism,” which, for him, includes the Jihadis, Salafis, and, after the Coup, the MB. Almost all interviewees in Gomaa’s circles spoke of Gomaa’s intellectual transformation to the “Azharite way” (al-manhaj A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  61 al-Azharī) after being with a political Islamist group: Jihadis, Salafis, Hizb al-Tahrir, or the MB. The fact that he was arrested during that time is also widely reported. Some of my interviewees interpret these facts in a conspiratorial way: Gomaa became an agent working for Egyptian intelligence at that time. There is no way to verify these claims, however. But Gomaa himself reported, in his 2015 “The Extremists” TV program, that he knew Shukri Mustafa, the head of the jihadist group pejora- tively known as al-Takfir wa-l-Hijra.84 While Gomaa frames his talks with Mustafa as a debate between opponents, an interviewee told me that Gomaa had told them that he advised Mustafa to escape when the secu- rity services were searching for Mustafa and that a journalist published Gomaa’s name with a list of people described as terrorists or extremists. Gomaa’s narrations from his youth also show his sincere engage- ment with the thought of Sayyid Qutb, the MB intellectual generally accused of providing the intellectual basis of modern jihadism. Gomaa asked his teachers about Qutb, and he met Qutb’s disciples who embraced his ideas.85 But Gomaa’s association with the MB, beyond Qutb, is also well documented. The best example is his intimate connection with IIIT, which “was established under the tent of the MB,” as Gomaa states, because some of its active members in Egypt were associated with the MB.86 Gomaa was brought to IIIT by Jamal al-Din ʿAtiyya, an MB intel- lectual, while Muhammad al-Ghazali, the former MB member and senior Azharite ʿ ālim, was central to IIIT in Egypt. Gomaa is currently the editor of Al-Muslim Al-Muʿāṣir, the journal that ʿAtiyya started in the 1970s and had many MB-minded authors, like al-Qaradawi.87 Gomaa also edited a book written by the MB’s Supreme Guide, ʿUmar al-Tilmisani, in the early 1970s; he also met another Supreme Guide, Mustafa Mashhur.88 More telling, a non-Egyptian student of Gomaa in the late 1980s told me that Gomaa used to talk to them about Hasan al-Banna, the MB founder whom Gomaa currently rebukes, to the extent that Gomaa took them to visit his grave. While post-Coup Gomaa frames his connection with senior MB members in a way that denies any sympathy, Gomaa’s official biography still lists MB-affiliated ʿulamaʾ as Gomaa’s teachers like Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, a Syrian MB leader, who is at the top of the list along with Gomaa’s Sufi Shaykh, 62  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 and Abdullah ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari, the Moroccan scholar who spent eleven years in Nasser’s prisons during the crackdown on the MB.89 Gomaa also used to speak with fascination about Abdulhamid Kishk, the preacher famous for his anti-regime rhetoric.90 Given this history, it is possible that Gomaa, after the Coup, did not want the state to use his past against him at a time when the military took no-tolerance measures against its opponents, using the “terrorism” trope. It is possible that Gomaa is aware of other sensitive information that the state holds against him. Indeed, when Gomaa’s remarks deviated from the Coup by denying his legitimization of killing the protestors, the state probably warned him by leaking his video directly the following day.91 When he insisted that his remarks in the first leak were not about peaceful protests, his post-Rabaa lecture was also leaked, leaving no room for him to distance himself from the coup. He probably had two choices: either to support the Coup or openly oppose it. All in all, two issues seem central to explaining Gomaa’s pro-blood- shed extremism: his aspiration for religious leadership and his fear of the state’s ability to destroy his religious legitimacy, both of which are connected. Gomaa’s colleagues’ repeated assertions regarding his dream to become the Shaykh al-Azahr can explain why Gomaa would side with the military, which renewed his post as a mufti in 2012, over the MB, many of whose members were critical of him, protested to depose him, and finally did not accept renewing his post as a mufti.92 Gomaa’s extreme pro-state stances, including supporting its massacres, could be understood as strategies to avoid revealing what could threaten his religious reputation. Al-tayyib: defending al-Azhar An emphasis on “Competing for True Islam” in the literature is relevant to al-Tayyib’s politics. I argue that al-Tayyib’s defense of al-Azhar and its traditionalism, his “True Islam,” influences his political theology and practice. I have shown that al-Tayyib sometimes prioritized order and pragmatism over justice and speaking truth to power, and other times vice versa. This is understandable given Islamic law’s diversity A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  63 of opinions on these political issues, a manifestation of its culture of ambiguity.93 The question, then, is: What made him choose one position over the other? Two issues are relevant: his assessment of his ability to influence those in power to abide by ideals of justice and freedom and his political stances’ potential impact on al-Azhar. The fluctuation in al-Tayyib’s critical tone toward the state seems to depend on his experience-based assessment of his own power: a very conservative “sense of limits” under Mubarak, a very broad “sense of limits” after the Uprising, and an increasingly tighter “sense of limits” after the Coup. Before becoming Shaykh al-Azhar, al-Tayyib was aware that al-Azhar was weak, not just vis-à-vis other religious currents but also the state. He knows this first-hand since his student years under Nasser and his experiences under Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, who seemed weak vis-à-vis the regime.94 When al-Tayyib was asked whether al-Azhar or Mubarak’s party was more important for Egypt, al-Tayyib refused to prioritize any of them, “for both can benefit each other,” con- sidering al-Azhar was the main beneficiary from its relationship with the party.95 Mubarak’s fall and the military’s initial strategy to adopt a revolutionary facade was a real surprise for many actors, including al-Tayyib, whose experiences considered this unlikely, as seen in his remarks during the Uprising. The Uprising granted al-Azhar unprecedented power in modern times, given that all parties supported al-Azhar for different reasons: support from the military against the revolutionaries (including the MB) and by secularists and Islamists against each other—an equation al-Tayyib utilized to the maximum for al-Azhar’s independence.96 Such experience of power can help us read al-Tayyib’s highly critical tone during the Coup’s early days. However, this conviction regarding his influence over those in power gradually waned as his reconciliation ini- tiatives failed and massacres continued, especially the Rabaa Massacre, to which his response was less aggressive despite the rise in brutality.97 Al-Tayyib’s concern for preserving and maximizing al-Azhar’s power seems to be at the core of his political deliberation and stances. This claim is not just based on al-Tayyib’s repeated emphasis on reviv- ing al-Azhar’s authority domestically and globally, but also on his 64  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 performance throughout the years.98 Before the Uprising, al-Tayyib’s strategy was to improve al-Azhar’s education and establish a global Azharite network (like the World Association for al-Azhar Graduates). After the Uprising, al-Tayyib utilized the abovementioned centrality of al-Azhar to all political actors. Reviving the ASSA and electing the Shaykh al-Azhar was not absent in al-Tayyib’s pre-Uprising discourse, but the Uprising seemed a perfect opportunity to implement it assert- ively.99 Al-Tayyib revived the ASSA, chose its members, granted it the right to elect the Shaykh al-Azhar and the Grand Mufti, and got the 2012 Constitution to mention al-Azhar in the preamble, protect the Shaykh al-Azhar from dismissal, and grant al-Azhar the authority over religious affairs. This concern over al-Azhar’s power is probably crucial to understanding al-Tayyib’s ambivalent politics: antagonizing the state jeopardizes al-Azhar’s resources, while complicity in the state’s crimes jeopardizes al-Azhar’s moral authority.100 Joining the Coup, in contradiction to the al-Azhar Declaration’s emphasis on the ballot box, was a difficult decision. This is especially the case in light of al-Tayyib’s anti-Coup colleagues’ arguments during the deliberation process, and the fatwa al-Tayyib had just released for- bidding militant revolts against a legitimate ruler.101 Al-Tayyib, however, most probably believed that the Coup would succeed, given the military’s backing, regional support, participation of representatives of diverse sectors of the society, and the rising anti-MB public opinion encouraged by all those actors. Antagonizing the Coup (self-described as a revo- lution), he might have reasoned, could result in aggressive measures against al-Azhar, similar to the reforms introduced by Nasser’s 1952 Coup/Revolution, curtailing al-Azhar’s resources and independence.102 Indeed, al-Tayyib repeatedly attributed al-Azhar’s weakness to Nasser’s reforms.103 In addition to al-Tayyib’s old tensions with the Salafis and MB, al-Azhar’s conditions under the 2011-2012 interim military rule and 2012-2013 Morsi’s year might have prompted him to prefer the Coup over Morsi’s camp.104 That is because al-Tayyib perceived the MB and Salafis as competitors who tried to infiltrate al-Azhar. Indeed, a few weeks after Mubarak’s fall, al-Tayyib created a group of Azharites to A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  65 counter the anticipated “rise of Islamists,” according to an interviewee invited to join the initial phase of these efforts. These efforts mostly culminated in creating the Office of al-Azhar Message, which aimed to create an Azharite network across Egypt and reach all sectors of society.105 On the other hand, the military was willing to grant al-Azhar all the independence it wanted to counter the new rising political power, the MB. One day before the first convening of the MB- and Salafi-dominated 2012 Parliament, the military issued the new al-Azhar Law that revived the ASSA.106 The ASSA members that al-Tayyib chose were approved by the government one day before declaring Morsi a president.107 Al-Azhar also had gained support from the pro-Coup secularists whose anti-MB orientation caused them to view al-Azhar as representing “moderate Islam” vis-à-vis the “extremist” MB or Salafis.108 To be sure, the MB- and Salafi-dominated (second) constituent assembly consolidated the gains of al-Azhar by considering it “an encom- passing independent Islamic institution, with exclusive competence over its own affairs” and protecting its Shaykh from dismissal.109 However, that was after heated discussions where al-Azhar representatives were assertive and refused to compromise.110 Al-Azhar was actually granted only one seat in the first constituent assembly, which caused al-Azhar’s withdrawal in protest.111 The al-Tayyib-Morsi tensions are also relevant here (e.g., Morsi’s plan to choose an Azharite Salafi as the Minister of Awqaf, the ṣukūk controversy, and the Rector Deputies dispute).112 Dismissing al-Tayyib himself was even on the agenda of some Salafi and MB ʿulamaʾ —a demand that was strongly voiced after an incident in al-Azhar University two months before the Coup.113 Also, two weeks before the Coup, a heated quarrel erupted between al-Tayyib and the pro- Morsi ʿālim Safwat Hijazi, who considered al-Tayyib’s fatwa permitting peaceful protests in the context of anti-Morsi June 30 protests proof of al-Tayyib’s allegiance to Mubarak’s regime.114 Finally, al-Tayyib’s support for other Arab uprisings should be read from the same perspective. He probably believed that since the Tunisian and the Egyptian Uprisings succeeded, other uprisings could too. In a context where al-Azhar’s moral authority was questioned because 66  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 of al-Tayyib’s remarks during the Egyptian Uprising, supporting these Uprisings consolidates al-Tayyib’s claims that al-Azhar supports the people and, therefore, ensures its legitimacy at home and beyond. To summarize, al-Tayyib’s political stances primarily depended on his assessment of different political stances’ impact on al-Azhar’s power. Conclusion Accounts of Egyptian ʿulamaʾ rightly recognize the stark difference between the Arab Spring politics of al-Qaradawi and Gomaa. Yet many internalized a categorical reading of the ʿ ulamaʾ’s positions (either pro-rev- olution or pro-regime) rather than a continuum of political stances, and al-Tayyib’s politics were equated with Gomaa’s. This article establishes a critical qualitative difference between al-Tayyib and Gomaa regarding their relation to the state, non-state competitors, bloodshed, and moral motivation. Gomaa’s Arab Spring politics can be seen as an effort to cater to those in power to protect his religious authority, either through struggles to attain official religious positions or by obstructing revealing information harmful to his religious legitimacy. On the other hand, pro- tecting al-Azhar seemed central to al-Tayyib’s Arab Spring politics, which fluctuated between accepting the status quo and being critical of those in power. These conclusions are based on a careful reconstruction of the religiopolitical context to which the ʿulamaʾ were responding, chrono- logically recording their stances day by day during the Revolution’s two years. Only with such meticulous empirical reconstruction can we appreciate the indeterminacy and critical nature of intellectuals’ political deliberation, avoiding macrostructuralist explanations that reduce intel- lectuals’ politics to structures (like the state) or inaccurate generalizations that deem intellectuals necessarily either idealist or interest-seeking beings. The two cases show how oppressive regimes infuse intellectu- als’ political deliberations with risk assessment. Yet responding to this risk (or statist threat) depends on each intellectual’s moral conclusions. Al-Tayyib’s response was more idealistic in its commitment against state violence and in defending his “True Islam” (al-Azhar’s traditionalism), A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  67 which led him to compromise his political ideals of freedom and resis- tance. Gomaa’s response, on the other hand, was interest-oriented. Understanding this, I have argued, requires knowing the type of statist threats on which Gomaa has been deliberating: rather than a security threat (e.g., arrest), he faced a statist legitimacy threat that could destroy his credibility as an ʿālim. Gomaa eventually followed the state line. My findings regarding Gomaa may appear extreme, as extreme as his politics have proved to be. Yet these “extreme” findings are charac- teristic of politically oppressive contexts in which everyday threats are imposed on intellectuals. The contemporary Egyptian state is accus- tomed to using people’s private lives to “control” them, like punishing the Egyptian director Khaled Youssef’s critical stance on the 2019 consti- tutional amendments by leaking videos regarding his private life.115 The makers of the recent Cairo Conspiracy movie, which tackles al-Azhar- state relations, reached a similar conclusion. Detailing such findings concerning Gomaa is not an easy task, how- ever. Politically, an author or filmmaker can be subject to serious state repression transnationally or within borders by the regimes with which Gomaa allies himself. The ethical dilemmas are also challenging since an honest explanation of some intellectuals’ politics requires discussing information about their private lives that will never be empty of con- tradictions—contradictions that should have remained private without having been weaponized against them by the state in the first place. Intellectuals are under serious threats, which prompts us to consider the state of freedom of speech in our times. The threats are both security threats, like Jamal Khashoggi’s assasination, and legitimacy threats, that may lead to a a moral assasination likened to social death.116 68  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 Endnotes 1 Luʾay ʿAli, “Al-Liqaʾ al-Tahdiri Li-l-Muʾtamar al-Sadis Li-Rabitat Khirriji al-Azhar… Al-Tayyib: Aʿdaʾ al-Islam Yattakhizun Khilafatina Waqudan Li-Tahqiq Mukhattatatihim… Al-Qaradawi: Akhtar Ma Yudʿifuna Huwa al-Tanahur Hawl Tawafih al-Umur,” Youm7, January 25, 2011, http://www.youm7.com/343425. 2 Among the attendees are ʿulamaʾ representing different poles in the Arab Spring debates: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa, Abdullah bin Bayyah, and Muhammad Ramadan al-Buti. Note that I use the commonly used transliterations for names (e.g., Gomaa). 3 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). 4 See Nathan J. Brown, Arguing Islam after the Revival of Arab Politics (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016). 5 For non-Egyptian cases, see Thomas Pierret, Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Walaa Quisay, Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality, and Politics (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2023); Usaama Al-Azami, “‘Abdullāh Bin Bayyah and the Arab Revolutions: Counter‐revolutionary Neo‐tra- ditionalism’s Ideological Struggle against Islamism,” The Muslim World 109, no. 3 (July 2019): 343–61, doi:10.1111/muwo.12297; David H. Warren, Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis (Milton, UK: Routledge, 2021). 6 On al-Qaradawi, see David H. Warren, “The ʿUlamāʾ and the Arab Uprisings 2011-13: Considering Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the ‘Global Mufti,’ between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Legal Tradition, and Qatari Foreign Policy,” New Middle Eastern Studies, March 21, 2014. 7 Jerome Karabel, “Towards a Theory of Intellectuals and Politics,” Theory and Society 25, no. 2 (1996): 205–33. 8 Masooda Bano and Hanane Benadi, “Regulating Religious Authority for Political Gains: Al-Sisi’s Manipulation of al-Azhar in Egypt,” Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8 (2017): 1604–21, doi:10.1080/01436597.2017.1369031. 9 Jeffrey C. Alexander, “Dramatic Intellectuals,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 29, no. 4 (December 2016): 343, doi:10.1007/s10767-016-9240-8. 10 Bano and Benadi, “Regulating,” 13. 11 Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, trans. Peter Collier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); Ivan Szelenyi and Bill Martin, “The Three Waves of New Class Theories,” Theory and Society 17, no. 5, (1988): 645–67. 12 Jeffrey C. Alexander, The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  69 13 Amr Osman, “Past Contradictions, Contemporary Dilemmas: Egypt’s 2013 Coup and Early Islamic History,” Digest of Middle East Studies 24, no. 2 (September 2015): 307, doi:10.1111/dome.12071. 14 Lyn Spillman and Michael Strand, “Interest-Oriented Action,” Annual Review of Sociology 39 (2013): 98, doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-081309-150019. 15 Ivan Ermakoff, Ruling Oneself Out: A Theory of Collective Abdications, Politics, History, and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). 16 C. Wright Mills, “The Powerless People: The Social Rôle of the Intellectual,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 31, no. 2 (1945): 231, doi:10.2307/40221218. 17 Mohammad Fadel, “Islamic Law and Constitution-Making: The Authoritarian Temptation and the Arab Spring,” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 53, no. 2 (2016): 498, doi:10.2139/ssrn.2711859. 18 Teun A. van Dijk, “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis,” Discourse & Society 4, no. 2 (April 1993): 249–83, doi:10.1177/0957926593004002006. 19 Tamir Moustafa, “Conflict and Cooperation between the State and Religious Institutions in Contemporary Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 1 (2000): 3–22. 20 Malika Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952-94),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31, no. 3 (1999): 371–99. 21 Ebrahim Moosa, “Political Theology in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring,” in The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring, ed. Charles Villa-Vicencio, Erik Doxtader, and Ebrahim Moosa (Georgetown University Press, 2015), 114–16; Osman, “Contradictions”; Mutaz Al-Khatib, “Al-Faqih wa-l-Dawla fi al-Thawarat al-ʿArabiyya: Muʿdilat al-Faqih fī Zil al-Dawla al-Wataniyya al-Haditha,” Tabayyun 3, no. 9 (2014): 63–84. 22 Kalimat Shaykh Al-Azhar al-Imam al-Akbar Ahmad al-Tayyib Li-l-Shaʿb al-Misri, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWcU9qTKXo4; Hani Dawah, “Al-Fidyu al-Kamil Li-Kalimat al-Shaykh Ali Gomaa Amam al-Sisi Wa-Qiyadat al-Jaysh,” YouTube, October 10, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gxm8w-yVyH8. 23 Ahmad Al-Tayyib, “Al-Azhar Declaration in Support of the Arab People,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, October 30, 2011, https://www.azhar.eg/en/Islam/Worship/details2/ ArtMID/12191/ArticleID/45913/Support-of-the-Arab-People. 24 Muhammad Waʾil, “107 Min Ulama Al-Umma Yusdirun Bayanan Wa-Fatwa Bi-Shaʾn Ahdath Suriya,” Islam Today, February 7, 2012, https://bit.ly/40BpAhj. 25 Muhamad Rofiq Muzakkir, “Understanding the Discourse of ‘Alī Jum’Ah on the Military Coup during the Arab Spring in Egypt,” Ilahiyat Studies 10, no. 2 (December 31, 2019): 229–63, doi:10.12730/13091719.2019.102.196. 70  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 26 R0llanza, “Al-Mufti ʿAli Gomaa Yuharrid ʿala Qatl al-Thuwwar,” YouTube, October 21, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiCG2Ra_b4Y&t=2s. 27 Hani Dawah, “Al-Fidyu”; On the Arab Revolutions, “’Ali Gomaa’s Message to Egyptian Security Forces Delivered Prior the 2013 Rabaa Massacre Part 1 of 2,” YouTube, September 21, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQqrryBy1E; On the Arab Revolutions, “‘Ali Gomaa’s Message to Egyptian Security Forces Delivered Prior the 2013 Rabaa Massacre Part 2 of 2,” YouTube, September 21, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIGYRu6thyg. 28 Al-Jazeera, “Ali Gomaa Yanfi Tawjih Kalamuh li-l-Ikhwan,” October 11, 2013, https:// bit.ly/3p7KxTI. 29 Usaama Al-Azami, Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2021), 232. 30 Ali Gomaa, “Al-Huquq al-Siyasiyya fi al-Islam,” Al-Masry al-Youm, July 7, 2011, https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/208988. 31 Ali Gomaa, “Hukm al-Muzaharat wa-l-Iʿtisamat,” Dr Ali Gomaa, 2016, https://bit. ly/2Qe6KOS; Dar al-Iftaʾ al-Misriyya, “Ma Al-Hukm al-Sharʿi Fi al-Muzaharat Wa-l- Ihtijajat Wa-l-Iʿtisamat?,” Facebook, November 27, 2012, https://archive.org/details/ 20210512_20210512_1153. 32 MENA, “Ali Gomaa: Rafd al-Ahzab al-Islamiyya Qard al-Naqd al-Dawli ‘lays lah ma Yubariruh,’” Al-Masry al-Youm, September 13, 2012, https://www.almasryalyoum. com/news/details/163359. 33 Muhammad ʿAbd al-Khaliq, “Al-Tahtawi: Shaykh al-Azhar Haddad Bi-l-Istiqala Iza Taʿarrad Amn al-Dawla Li-l-Qaradawi,” Al-Ahram Gate, February 16, 2011, https://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/40717.aspx. The State Security Investigative Service (known as State Security or Amn al-Dawla) is an intelligence organization tied to the Egyptian Interior Ministry, known for violations of human rights. 34 ʿImad al-Din Husayn, “Shaykh al-Azhar Yakshif Hakikat Maʿarikih maʿ al-Jamaʿa: Istiqalati Kanat fi Jaybi Tuwal ʿ Ahd al-Ikhwan,” Shorouk, December 31, 2014, https:// bit.ly/3rmYgkW. 35 Raihan Ismail, “The Shaykh and the President: The Political Contest over Egypt’s Religious Sphere,” Opinion, ABC Religion & Ethics, (September 8, 2020), https://www. abc.net.au/religion/political-contest-over-egypt-religious-sphere/12641376. 36 TNA, “Shaykh al-Azhar: Al-Matalib al-ʿAdila La Tubarrir al-Fawda,” January 31, 2011, http://www.taghribnews.com/vdciuwap.t1avz2csct.html. 37 Shakhsiyyat Misr, “Bayan Shaykh Al-Azhar ʿan Ahdath al-Haras al-Jumhuri,” YouTube, September 25, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMKpwTo86F8. 38 Ahmad Al-Tayyib, “Shaykh Al-Azhar Yastankir Wa-Bishidda Suqut Aʿdad Min al-Shuhadaʿ Dahaya Ahdath al-Manassa,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, July 27, 2013, https:// bit.ly/3O3jRL9. A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  71 39 Al-Azhar, “Bayan Al-Azhar al-Sharif Hawl al-Wadʿ al-Rahin,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, July 6, 2013, https://bit.ly/3O3k8xF. 40 Ahmad Al-Bihiri, “Bayan li-”al-Azhar”: ‘Al-Tayyib’ Lam Yatatarrak li-Tawsif ‘30 Yunyu’ fi Liqaʾih Wafdan min al-Shabab,” Al-Masry al-Youm, July 23, 2013, https:// www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/239559; Al-Azhar, “Nass Fadilat Al-Imam al-Akbar Hawl al-Ahdath al-Jariya Bi-Tarikh 17 Aghustus 2013,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, August 18, 2013, https://bit.ly/3xCbHUC. 41 David H. Warren, “Cleansing the Nation of the ‘Dogs of Hell’: ʿ Ali Jumʿa’s Nationalist Legal Reasoning in Support of the 2013 Egyptian Coup and Its Bloody Aftermath,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 49, no. 03 (August 2017): 469, doi:10.1017/ S0020743817000332. 42 Fadel, “Constitution-Making.” 43 Masooda Bano, “At the Tipping Point? Al-Azhar’s Growing Crisis of Moral Authority,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50, no. 4 (November 2018): 715–34, doi:10.1017/S0020743818000867. 44 Mary Beinecke Elston, “Reviving Turāth: Islamic Education in Modern Egypt” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2020), 259, https://dash.harvard.edu/ handle/1/37365713. 45 The post is no longer available online and I obtained this information from an inter- viewee who saw the post and was so close to these circles. What confirms this, however, is a post on Gomaa’s official page that asked people not to believe that student. 46 Taʾbin Al-Shahid Emad Effat Min al-Jamiʾ al-Azhar, 2011, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=3NND0IEJvGs. 47 Elston, “Turāth,” 243. 48 May Fahmi, “Bi-l-Fidyu Wa-l-Suwar Ali Gomaa Yusharik Fi Mubadarat ‘Lamm al-Shaml’.. Wa-Yuʾakkid Ann al-Damm Kullah Haram,” Sada Elbalad, July 9, 2013, https://www.elbalad.news/551173; Ali Gomaa Yuwajjih Risala Li-Jamaʿat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4UTYkHGnvo. 49 On the Arab Revolutions, “Part 2 of 2.” 50 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Yuqal Annak Abaht Dimaʾ Al-Mutazahrin Wa-Talabt al-Jaysh al-Misri Bi-Dhalik Fa-Qult Lahum ‘Idrab Fi-l-Malyan’ U.D\ Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, March 4, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNprN6ddA8Y. 51 Basma Abdel Aziz, Satwat al-Nass: Khitab al-Azhar wa-Azmat al-Hukm, Kindle (Giza, Egypt: Sefsafa Publishing House, 2016). 52 Al-Azhar, “Al-Wadʿ.” 53 CNN, “Al-Natiq b-Ism al-Azhar wa-ʿAmr Musa bi-Maydan al-Tahrir,” AlMasdar Online, February 4, 2011, https://almasdaronline.com/articles/60079. 54 Husayn, “Yakshif.” 72  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 55 Al-Azhar, “Tawdih Al-Markaz al-Iʿlami Bi-l-Azhar al-Sharif Taʿliqan ʿala Fatwa D. Yusuf al-Qaradawi,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, July 9, 2013, https://bit.ly/3mwuHNZ. 56 Al-Azhar, “Al-Azhar Yarfud Isqat ʿUdwiyyat al-Qaradawi Min Hayʾat Kibar al-ʿU- lama,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, August 4, 2013, https://bit.ly/3HbaW8f. 57 Walid ʿ Abd al-Rahman, “Al-Azhar Yuqil al-Qaradawi min “Hayʾat Kibar al-ʿUlamaʾ,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 11, 2013, https://aawsat.com/home/article/12703. 58 WAllah A3lm, “Wa-Allah Aʿlam | Al-Duktur Ali Gomaa Yatahaddth ʿan Fadl Thawrat 30 Yunuyu Wa-Yatanabbaʾ Bi-Suqut al-Ikhwan | al-Juzʾ al-Awwal,” YouTube, June 30, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlf-sNOFESA; eXtra news, “Hiwar Maʿ Fadilat Al-Duktur Ali Gomaa Wa-Shahadatuh ʿan al-Ikhwan Khilal 30 Yunyu Fi-al-Shahid-al-Juzʾ al-Thani,” accessed June 21, 2023, https://youtu. be/7iKOqqV3nAc. 59 Walid ʿAbd al-Rahman, “Talasun Bayn Mufti Masr Wa-Raʾis Ittihad al- Muslimin Hawl Murashshahi al-Riʾasa,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 16, 2012, https:// bit.ly/3xk9tb5. 60 Wahid Raʾfat, “Ali Gomaa Mufti Al-Diyar al-Misriyya Abah al-Sala Bi-Badlat al-Raqs Wa-l-Istihmam Bi-l-Laban,” Al-Maydan, March 23, 2006, https://bit.ly/2Rljzr4. 61 Houjazkarr, “Kayf Tusbih ʿ Aliman ʿ ala Al-Tariqa al-Wahhabiyya ? (Al-Amr Basit Li-l- Ghaya),” YouTube, July 28, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJrvzfZzWZg. 62 Saif Abdelfattah, “Shuyukh al-Sultan Lisan al-Tughyan.. Mafahim Multabisa (56),” Arabi 21, June 20, 2023, https://arabi21.com/story/1519748/. 63 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-Juzʾ al-Thani Min Birnamij al-ʿAsima,” YouTube, August 12, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmgdSq8X9s. 64 Al-Azami, Revolutions, 137. 65 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Yuqal.” 66 Dr Ali Gomaa, “U.D Ali Gomaa Yakshif Li-Awwal Marra ʿan Kawalis Ziyaratihi Li-l-Quds al-Sharif,” YouTube, July 22, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=udWvTc_P0qQ. 67 Bano and Benadi, “Regulating.” 68 Asmahan Soliman, “How Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam Survived the Constitutional Amendments,” Mada Masr, April 11, 2019, https://bit.ly/3KZBtry; Al-Araby, “Al-Sisi Yusdir Qarar Yamnahuhu Salahiyyat Ikhtiyar al-Mufti Munfaridan,” August 11, 2021, https://bit.ly/3HcvQVF. 69 Tanweer Clips, “Awwal Marra Al-Jifri Yatakallam Bi-l-Tafsil ʿan al-Ikhwan Wa-Qatla Rabaa Wa-Khuruj Mursi,” YouTube, March 2, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pLTdeq61gr4. 70 Alhabib Ali Al-Jifri, “Marra Ukhra Hawl Fatwa Shaykhina Fadilat Al-Allama Ali Gomaa Hafizah Allah,” Facebook, August 26, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/ alhabibali/photos/a.222106194496035/618636441509673. A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  73 71 Nadia Mahmoud Mustafa, ed., Al-Dawla al-Amawiyya.. Dawlat al-Futuhat (Cairo: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1996); Ali Gomaa, ed., Haqaʾiq Al-Islam Fi Muwajahat Shubuhat al-Mushakkikin (Egypt: Al-Ahram, 2002). 72 Minya Online, “D.Muhammad ʿImara Yufhim Ali Gomaa Wa-Fatwa Qatl al-Mutazahirin,” YouTube, August 25, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lT_Fu_NfzPQ&t=393s. 73 Nadia Mustafa, “Man alladhi Yuwazzif al-Din fi al-Siyasa?,” RNN, September 26, 2013, https://rassd.news/72923.htm. 74 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Film Al-Mishwar | Hawl Fadilat U.D. Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, May 18, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvxSK5-LDeo. 75 AlMasry AlYoum, “Iftar Al-Ikhwan.. Al-Furaqaʾ Hawl Maʾida Wahida,” YouTube, August 7, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAplMCNVi50; ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Jawwad, “Munasirun li-l-Mufti Gomaa Yudashshinun Hamla ʿala ‘Facebook’ li-l-Tamdid lah,” Alrai Media, December 22, 2012, https://www.alraimedia.com/ article/369971. 76 “Al-Siddiqiyya al-Shadhuliyya,” n.d., https://siddiqiya.com. 77 Dr Ali Gomaa, “U.D. Ali Gomaa Mufti Misr al-Sabiq Yanfi Iftaʾah Bi-Qatl al-Mu- tazahirin,” Facebook, August 22, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/DrAliGomaa/ photos/a.10151817027930144/10153132941590144/. 78 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Yuqal.” 79 Muhammad al-Ibyari, “Taqarir al-Zawaj al-Sirri li-l-Mufti wa-Tahdidat li-Muna al-Shadhli wa-Nusus Mukalamat Zawjat al-Muʿaridin,” Youm7, March 10, 2011, https://www.youm7.com/367013. 80 Dunya al-Watan, “Wathaʾiq Amn al-Dawla: Mufti Misr Mutawarrit fi 10 Zijat Sirriyya,” March 6, 2011, https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2011/03/06/170572. html. 81 Luʾay ʿAli, “Al-Duktur Ali Gomaa Mufti al-Jumhuriyya: Al-Dawla al-Madaniyya Hiya Allati Tatawafaq Maʿ al-Shariʿa al-Islamiyya.. Wa-l-Islam Lam Yaʿrif al-Dawla al-Diniyya,” Youm7, April 29, 2011, http://www.youm7.com/400443. 82 Mufti Egypt, “Mesyar Dr Ali Gomma 0001,” YouTube, June 17, 2009, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=mrcWkwk9fJ8; Abdulrhman Elhadi, “Al-Halaqa al-Tham- ina ʿAshar al-Zawaj al-ʿUrfi Min Birnamaj Nur al-Haq Maʿ al-Shaykh Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, January 8, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibh5MDd8m80. 83 Ahmed Hafiz, “Moez Masoud Daʿiya Misriyy Tutariduh Laʿanat al-Izdiwajiyya wa-l-Masalih al-Shakhsiyya,” Al-Arab, July 28, 2018, https://bit.ly/42hdH0S; Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-Mishwar.” 84 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-Mutashaddidun | H38 | Al-Jamaʿat al-Mutatarrifa Allati Tawaladat ʿan Jamaʿat al-Ikhwan J1 | U.D. Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, September 3, 2015, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dtr_FajPk. 74  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 85 Ibid.; Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-Mutashaddidun | H15 | Sayyid Qutb Ma Lahu Wa-Ma ʿalayh J2 | U.D Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, April 2, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qGK9EEVbOnc. 86 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-Mutashaddidun | H16 | Sayyid Qutb Ma Lah Wa-Ma ʿalayh J3 | U.D Ali Gomaa,” YouTube, April 3, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=hTI-IB_JP9U. 87 “Hayʾat Tahrir al-Majalla,” Al-Muslim al-Muʿasir, 2020, https://shorturl.at/giWY4. 88 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Qissa ʿan ʿUmar Al-Tilmisani,” YouTube, January 3, 2019, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVHtPXw1U4w; Dr Ali Gomaa, “H16.” 89 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Ihtifal Al-Tariqa al-Shadhuliyya Bi-Hawliyyat al-Imam al-Mu- haddith Abdullah Ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari,” November 11, 2020, https://youtu. be/Sy7Dk-WiQ1U; Dr Ali Gomaa, “Al-ʿUlamaʾ wa-l-Asatidha,” December 19, 2014, https://bit.ly/44U0q0r. 90 Alhabib ali al jifri, “Halaqa 19: Al-Khitab al-Dini Juzʾ 2|Amant Bi-Allah|Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri,” August 19, 2011, https://youtu.be/j9bdLiIdOsg. 91 Dr Ali Gomaa, “Yanfi.” 92 DW, “‘Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun’ Tutalib bi-Damm Dar al-Iftaʾ ila al-Azhar wa-In- tikhab al-Mufti,” Al-Ahram Gate, February 23, 2012, https://gate.ahram.org.eg/ News/176075.aspx. 93 Thomas Bauer, A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam, trans. Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Tricia Tunstall (Columbia University Press, 2021); Ovamir Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 94 Mohamed Mattawa, “Awwal Liqaʾ l.D.Ahmad al-Tayyib Baʿd Twalli Mashyakhat al-Azhar J1,” YouTube, March 22, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN- 9pHZM9TKo; Hussam Tammam, “Hal Yuʿid Al-Shaykh al-Tayyib Zaman al-Azhar al-Sharif,” Tammam.Org, August 25, 2010, https://bit.ly/3zDNDSX. 95 Al-Tayyib: Al-Azhar Wa-l-Hizb al-Watani Ka-l-Shams Wa-l-Qamar, 2013, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QUmOFYqiM. 96 See Nathan J Brown and Ahmed Morsy, “Egypt’s al-Azhar Steps Forward” (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 7, 2013), https://bit.ly/3NJh9dS. 97 Al-Azhar, “Bayan ʿ Ajil Li-l-Azhar al-Sharif Bi-Khusus Fad Iʿtisamay Rabaa al-ʿAdaw- iyya Wa-Nahdat Misr,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, August 14, 2013, https://bit.ly/3O1Kccq. 98 Birnamaj Wijhat Nazar Bi-Tarikh 21/3/2010 al-Juzʾ al-Sadis, 2010, https://www.you- tube.com/watch?v=lWKmSuhFORE&t=17s. 99 BBC News ʿArabi, “Birnamaj Fi-l-Samim Maʿ al-Duktur Ahmad al-Tayyib Shaykh al-Azhar,” YouTube, April 13, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=S1T7kxljT2Q. 100 See Zeghal, “Al-Azhar.” A M A S H A : i N t E L L E C t UA L S ’ P O L i t i C A L d E L i BE R At i O N S  75 101 Ahmad Al-Tayyib, “Bayan Ham Min Al-Azhar al-Sharif Bi-Shaʾn Takfir al-Mus- limin,” Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, July 1, 2013, https://bit.ly/3Mwx6Tq. 102 See Daniel Crecelius, “Al-Azhar in the Revolution,” Middle East Journal 20, no. 1 (1966): 31–49; Zeghal, “Al-Azhar.” 103 Mohamed Mattawa, “Awwal.” 104 Huda Abu Bakr, “Al-Talaba al-Mafsulun Min al-Azhar: Raʾis al-Jamiʿa Ahmad al-Tayyib Qal Lana: Law al-Amn Has in Ana Shakhsiyyan Khatar Hayshilni Min Makani,” Sawt Al-Umma, March 12, 2007, https://bit.ly/3g4Xci1; Egynews, “Wijhat Nazar 21/3/2010- al-Duktur\ Ahmad al-Tayyib-al-Juzʾ al-Rabiʾ,” YouTube, March 21, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-MgTLd_Yj0. 105 Muhammad Al-Bidiwi, “Al-Shaykh Usama al-Azhary: Nurid Ihyaʾ al-Man- haj al-Azhari Wa-Iʿadat Taʾhil al-Khitab al-Daʿawi Fi al-Masajid.. Wa-Misr Baʿd al-Thawra Fi Halat Suyula.. Wa-Yajib Mudaʿafat Tamwil al-Azhar Li-40 Milyar,” Youm7, October 6, 2011, http://www.youm7.com/507153. 106 Fahmi Huwaidi, “Matlub Tahqiq,” Al-Sharq, January 26, 2012, https://bit.ly/3tu- Wcsb; Official Gazette, “Taʿdil Baʿd Ahkam Al-Qanun Raqm 103 Li-Sanat 1961 Iʿadat Tanzim al-Azhar Wa-l-Hayʾat Allati Yashmaluha,” January 19, 2012, https:// bit.ly/3aH6Fgv. 107 Haytham Saʿd al-Din, “Nanfarid Bi-Nashr al-Nas al-Kamil Li-Mashruʿ Qarar Li-l- ʿAskari Bi-Tashkil Hayʾat Kibar al-ʿUlamaʾ,” Ahram Gate, June 27, 2012, https://gate. ahram.org.eg/News/225126.aspx. 108 Luiz Sanchez, “Free Egyptians Party Support Al-Azhar Defence Front,” Daily News Egypt, January 22, 2013, https://bit.ly/3zAyKkh. 109 Egyptian Constitution, 2012, https://bit.ly/3xEsd6y. 110 123mosol, “Borhamy Azhar,” YouTube, April 27, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=kRTvPXzBvjU. 111 BBC, “Al-Azhar Yansahib min Lajnat Wadʾ al-Dustur al-Misri,” March 29, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast/2012/03/120329_egypt_azhar_withdraws. 112 Luʾay ʿ Ali, “Ghadab Azhari Min Tarashih ‘Muhammad Yusri’ Li-Haqibat al-Awqaf.. Niqabat al-Aʾimma: Tawajjuhuh Salafi Yukhalif Manhaj al-Azhar.. Wa-Sabaq An Ittaham al-Muʾassasa al-Diniyya Bi-l-Fasad..Wa-Bisababih Istaqal Farid Wasil Min Jamʿiyyat al-Huquq Wa-l-Islah,” Youm7, July 29, 2012, http://www.youm7. com/743803; Gianluca P. Parolin, “Shall We Ask Al-Azhar? Maybe Not: Lessons from the Ṣukūk Bill Incident,” Middle East Law and Governance 7, no. 2 (August 31, 2015): 212–35, doi:10.1163/18763375-00702002; Husayn, “Yakshif.” 113 123mosol, “Borhamy”; Qanat Salim ʿAzzuz, “Al-Shaykh ʿIsam Talima4-4: Khutabaʾ al-Masajid Bi-Madinat Nasr Man Zakku al-Sisi.. Kan Yusalli Khalfahum,” YouTube, April 17, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMgFSk2vbi0; Ranya Rabiʿ Al-ʿAbd, “Mutalabat bi-Iqalat Shaykh al-Azhar baʿd Isabat Miʾat min Tullabih bi-l-Tasammum,” Al-Akhbar, April 3, 2013, https://al-akhbar.com/Arab/48742. 76  A M E R i C A N J O U R N A L O F i S L A M A N d S O C i E t Y 4 0 : 3 - 4 114 Luʾay ʿAli, “‘Al-Azhar’ Yarudd ʿala ‘Safwat Hijazi’: Allahum La Tuʾakhidhna Bi-Ma Faʿal al-Sufahaʾ Minna.. Wa-Yasifuh Bi-”Mutamassih Bi-l-Thawra Wa-Mutallawin”.. Wa-Yushaddid ʿala Wujub al-Tasaddi Li-Man Yastakhdim al-ʿUnf Fi al-Muʿarada.. Wa-l-Azhar Awwal Man Qal an Dahaya al-Thawra Shuhadaʾ,” Youm7, June 23, 2013, https://bit.ly/2PggN5v; Sada Elbalad, “Safwat Hijazi: Shaykh al-Azhar Huwa Min Aham Aʿdaʾ al-Thawra,” YouTube, June 25, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pFjjP6HpXD4. 115 Al-Araby, “‘Tasrib Fidyu Ibahi’… Hall Yuʿaqib al-Nizam al-Misri Khaled Youssef?,” January 15, 2019, https://bit.ly/3LRthtP. 116 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Harvard University Press, 1982).