Word: al-azhar
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Perhaps the most powerful religious force working for Nasser is Cairo's 1,000-year-old al-Azhar University, greatest center of higher learning in the Islamic world and seat of an "Islamic Missions City" that attracts students from every Moslem land. Recently, one Omar Salah walked all the way from Ghana to enroll at al-Azhar. It is some measure of Nasser's expectations that al-Azhar has already awarded scholarships to 2,000 Africans-as many Africans as are now studying in the whole...
...theological split has long kept Shiite Iraq, Iran and Yemen apart from the rest of the Moslem world, which generally adheres to Sunnite doctrine. Last week Sheik Mahmoud Chaltout, 66, Nasser-appointed rector of Cairo's revered al-Azhar University (TIME, May 11), was dramatically pressing a drive to reconcile the two sects. Sheik Chaltout years ago began wooing ulamas (Koranic scholars) of both sides with learned societies and a liberal theological monthly that is still going strong. Striking now with Nasser's support at the very root of the schism-the university itself, which for centuries condemned...
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...
...Provides professors and graduate students for understaffed schools in other Arab countries. Some 300 al-Azhar scholars are teaching in Kuwait alone...
...Operates International lecture tours to non-Islamic nations. Currently, 75 al-Azhar missionaries are in Latin America...