Word: mamoun
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Islam's oldest university has a new rector. Ending a seven month search Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser picked Sheikh Hassan Mamoun, 70, to head Cairo's Al Azhar ("The Resplendent") University, for 1,000 years the most renowned center of Moslem learning...
...Mamoun, a lifetime judge and political power in Nasser's Arab Socialist Union, came out of retirement to take the job. As Grand Mufti of Egypt from 1955 until 1961, he issued thousands of rulings and interpretations on religious matters. As the 39th rector of Al Azhar, Mamoun's responsibilities are even more impressive. The post carries with it the titles of Grand Imam and Sheikh of Islam, which makes Mamoun the nearest thing to a Moslem pope. Yet with Egypt struggling to slough off its feudal ways, he must also guide the university toward turning...
...school, mired for centuries in rote teaching of the Koran, is already in the midst of a thriving renaissance. Mamoun's predecessor, Sheikh Mahmoud Chaltout, a leading scholar of the Koran who died in December, opened a school of commerce, made the study of English compulsory, revised the medieval law curriculum, established a separate college for girls. The government built an ultramodern "City of Islamic Missions" where Al Azhar's 3,600 foreign students, including six Americans, live in national dormitories with their own kitchens and common rooms...
Chaltout's changes aimed at making Al Azhar into a new university, while preserving its ancient eminence as a religious center. Mamoun intends to keep the combination. This fall, Al Azhar opens three new faculties of medicine, engineering and agriculture. And the three towering minarets that once cast their shadows on a courtyard of ragged students kneeling on straw mats now look down on modern classrooms and a swimming pool...
...rally outside support, and snipe at Nasser, Premier Mamoun Kuzbari proposed a new federation of Arab states in which, by contrast with the last U.A.R.. member nations would retain full internal and international sovereignty...