When 70 graduating students at Al-Azhar university in Cairo, dressed in the traditional robes of Muslim religious scholars, mounted a stage to receive their English-language certificates, they were marking a first.
Al-Azhar is the oldest and most prestigious institution of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world, but these students were the first to be proficient in English.
An English language centre at the Egyptian university, established with British support, offers tuition to students in all five departments of the Faculty of Islamic Studies. This forms the centrepiece of a partnership between Britain and Al-Azhar, aimed at bolstering the university’s international reach and reinforcing its moderate interpretation of Islam.
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