Overheard at al-Azhar

I'm leaving tonight for Ethiopia, but before I start telling tales of Africa, I wanted to write about a few things I saw and heard in the last few days as I sat sketching or just bumming around al-Azhar Mosque. Al-Azhar is one of the oldest mosques in Egypt and is one of the contenders for oldest continuously-functioning university, having been established by the Shia' Fatimid dynasty, which ruled Egypt around the turn of the last millenium. In addition to that, the curriculum today is still roughly the same as when it was established 1000 years ago.

Young Muslim men come from around the world to study Islam and Islamic Law there tuition-free, with notable contingents from West Africa, Malaysia, and Indonesia in addition to Arab countries. One of my friends from my time in Syria in 2008 took his "imam exams" at al-Azhar. So it's a pretty big deal worldwide.

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As I sat quietly sketching two of the minarets, an old shaykh sat with some contemporaries and a little boy who was presumably his grandson. As the toddler wandered off, the shaykh would yank him back with his cane and give him an intense raspberry on his stomach. So I can check that off the list of things I didn't expect to see in a medieval mosque.

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A few Nigerian guys came over to see my drawing (nobody draws in public here, so I'm often a spectacle). "Wallahi, you should sell that to the Islamic Art Museum for a 1000 pounds!" [sidenote: Egypt is definitely an unexploited market for crappy art.]

I wanted to talk to them about studying Iearning Arabic while in intense religious study. However, because they are 20-something men, the conversation immediately shifted to Drogba, the English Premier League, and the World Cup. Again, in the most important mosque in Egypt.

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The third day I was there, I saw a young woman approach an older man. Words were exchanged, and the old man went off to get the shaykh, who was a younger guy. From my eaves-dropping, I gathered that the woman wanted to attend the lectures at al-Azhar, but they are held in the sanctuary, which is closed to women.

The young shaykh was dismissive, saying things like "it's not appropriate," "suitable," "against tradition." He addresses her as "girl" despite being about the same age, and suggested, essentially, that she be a nice little Muslima and go read the books in the women's area. He raised his hand to signal the conversation was finished and hurried off. She just stood there with a "well, shit." expression on her face.

While it was discouraging to see the shaykh's response, I came away with a lot of respect for that woman and the courage it took to stand up to the shaykh's authority, especially at al-Azhar. It gave me hope that more women will be asking that question soon. And we might well see female imams (some exist in secret already) before female priests in Catholicism.

[Maybe that Beyonce concert in Egypt, which my friend Mike wrote about on his blog "The Passive Observer," did have a positive impact.]