Word: azhar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Loosely organized, Islam is the religion of a people separated by deserts and living in hard climates. Without a head prelate, a religious hierarchy or even an ordained priesthood, it has its center of activity at El Azhar University in Cairo (enrollment: 15,000). El Azhar, the largest Moslem university in the world, .draws students who walk there from as far as Addis Ababa; its graduates have vast prestige among Moslems in their own countries...
...start of World War II, fat, frisky young King Farouk I of Egypt suffered from nightmares in which he was chased by an angry lion. Haggard from loss of sleep, Farouk sought counsel of crabbed, pro-Axis Sheik Mustafa El-Maraghi, rector of the ancient Moslem University of El-Azhar. "You will not rest until you have shot a lion," said El-Maraghi. Thereupon the king went to the zoo and shot two lions in their cage. The nightmares continued. "Young fool," said El-Maraghi, "I spoke in symbols-the lion that has been chasing you is Britain...
...this story explains why Farouk has no love for the British, why last week pro-British Prime Minister Sirry Pasha was ousted and the Government turned over to Farouk's old enemy. Nahas Pasha, and his rabidly nationalistic WAFD Party. Officially the crisis was caused by El-Azhar University student riots (and Farouk's anger at not being informed) when diplomatic relations were broken with Vichy. But the basic causes for the changes in the Government were more deeply rooted...
Both Cairo and Rome are sprinkled with places of worship. Cairo's Citadel, the stateliest group of mosques in the city, is to Moslems what Rome's St. Peter's is to Christians. El Azhar, the chief theological seminary of the Islamic world, is about the counterpart of the Vatican...
...Maher, held out for unconditional dissolution and partisans of Farouk took to the streets to fight it out with adherents of Premier Nahas and the Wafdists. At week's end both combatants were stubbornly holding out on a decision as 11,000 pro-Farouk students at El-Azhar university, chief Moslem theological school, went on a mass sit-down strike to back up the young monarch...