His eminence Prof. Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayyib, Al-Azhar Grand Imam and the Head of the Muslim Council of Elders delivered a lecture at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif Mosque in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta in which he advised students to firmly adhere to the middle course of Islam embodied in the message of Al-Azhar’s Mosque and University.
His eminence the Grand Imam added, “For more than one thousand years, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif is the trustworthy guard that protects the culture and the creed of the Ummah.” The Grand Imam went on, “The secret behind the existence of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif up till now is that it gathers Muslim together and thus Muslims all over the World paid their great and utmost respect to Al-Azhar Al-Sharif.”
Referring to the unity of the Muslim Ummah, Al-Tayyib said, “Al-Azhar Al-Sharif permanently takes into account the unity of the Muslim Ummah as its ultimate goal. It thus does not to restrict its message to a particular group of people. It rather calls for love and co-existence among all Muslims. In fact, Al-Azhar was and still is trying to gather Muslim together on one particular goal. Muslims’ abilities are not less than those of the members of the EU that gathered on particular goals and interests in spite of their different languages and creeds, etc. So, we, Muslims, are in need of achieving unity on one particular goal, to present a perfect example in joint co-operation.
His eminence the Grand Imam wished that this mosque named after Egypt’s Al-Azhar Al-Sharif would follow the same message of the mother mosque in Egypt in calling for Allah with sure knowledge and in disseminating the fiqh of peaceful co-existence among the citizens of Indonesia who, the Grand Imam praises Allah, are peaceful and kind, and who offered a good example for how the contemporary Muslim should be. His eminence furthermore praised the Indonesians, saying, “Firmly adhering to religion, People of Indonesia coherently gathered between originality and modernism.”
In the same vein, his eminence the Grand Imam suggested the establishment of various porticos to teach the Sharia sciences, as follows: - one portico for teaching Imam Malik’s Fiqh; another portico for teaching Imam Al-Shafe‘i’s Fiqh; a third one teaching Imam AbiHanifa’sFiqh, and a fourth for teaching Imam Ahmed’s Fiqh. As well, he advised the establishment of one portico for reading Imam Al-Bukhari’sShaih and another one for teaching the Sirah (biography) of the Prophet. His eminence the Grand Imam further promised the officials of the Mosque that he would provide them with the specialized teachers to teach in these porticos that will, if Allah so willed, preserve the creeds of the People of the Sunnah and Congregation in the south-east Asia and fortify the Ummah from all the destructive ideologies.