Girls at al-Azhar

A correspondent of the magazine al-Ithnayn asked the Grand Sheikh Mustafa Abd al-Raziq, Sheikh of al-Azhar: "What do you say to girls enrolling at al-Azhar?" He said:

The pursuit of learning at al-Azhar is nothing new for the Muslim woman; many virtuous women — especially those deprived of sight — have received instruction there in the past... Some of them continued their studies at the Ahmadi Mosque in Tanta until they reached its final stage. "And if it is not recorded that any one of them obtained this certificate, it is enough what has been set down of the genius and excellence of some of them in the various Azhari sciences and arts — such as the accomplished woman of letters Mrs. Aisha al-Taymuriyya, who studied grammar, morphology, and prosody under two Azhari women teachers, Mrs. Fatima al-Azhariyya and Mrs. Stita al-Tablawiyya. And the day a firm desire exists among a company of our well-bred girls to study the religious sciences and the branches of culture connected with them, I shall not hesitate to open special classes for them at al-Azhar, or to establish a women's institute attached to it. Moreover, the true faith has enjoined the duty of educating the girl and furnishing her with the culture suited to her faculties; the righteous forebears took care to realize this idea, and we today are no less eager than they to discharge this weighty duty."