The Sheikh of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, Mohamed Sayid Tantawi, passed away on March 10th while on a trip to Saudi Arabia.I had no intention of writing an obituary of Sheikh Tantawi, but I do feel the need to comment on the different obituaries written by various media outlets. Usually, when dealing with people of note, there is a common consensus on the things for which those people will be remembered. This is even true of controversial figures, where the disagreement is not on what issues defined the person's career, but rather whether the person will be remembered positively or negatively in light of those issues (eg: George Bush will be remembered for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the controversies surrounding both of those wars, the Dalai Lama will be remembered for his campaign to free Tibet and for his books promoting Buddhism, etc.).
But in the case of Tantawi, you get very different impressions of what his career was about depending on which obituary you read. Let's start by dismissing the blatantly inaccurate, in this case CNN:
He played a similar role in the Sunni Muslim world as the pope does for Catholics, involving life issues.
[...]
Although appointed by the Government, Tantawi was regarded as the spiritual leader of about one billion Sunni Muslims worldwide.It is a gross misrepresentation to say that the Sheikh of Al-Azhar is similar to the Pope. Whereas the Pope sits atop the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and so can speak for the Church as a whole, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar ultimately speaks for just one Sunni institution (albeit the most historically revered one) among many. Most of the "one billion Sunni Muslims worldwide" would be very surprised to be told that Tantawi was their spiritual leader.
The Egyptian state-run Al-Ahram naturally does not mention any of the controversies that surrounded Tantawi's tenure as Sheikh of Al-Azhar. The only part of his record which they emphasize is his positive relationship with the leadership of Egypt's Christian community. Needless to say, any role that Tantawi played towards nurturing religious harmony in Egypt is to be lauded, but his record is much broader than this one area.
The BBC was almost as selective in its discussion of Tantawi's record. They make a vague reference to the fact that "he was always forced to negotiate a careful path between his religious imperatives and his government position" without talking about how or why this was the case. Instead, they just run through a short list of the religious opinions which garnered the most attention in the West, almost all of which were of course on women's issues (circumcision, hijab, and niqab). All these issues are surely important, but again they only constitute one part of the picture.
The CBC also considers his positions on women's issues to be the most significant part of Tantawi's legacy, but they do a much better job in offering a more extensive account of his personality and his positions on a number of other issues. Both outlets, though, assess Tantawi through a simple moderate-vs-extremist world view.
If you read his obituary on Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, you would think that Tantawi would be remembered almost solely for being friendly to Israel over the Palestinians.
It is only by going to the non-state Egyptian media that you really begin to understand what some of the other outlets merely hinted at: the main question regarding Tantawi is not the degree of his moderation or extremism, or whose side he was really on in the conflicts of our day, but rather the extent to which he was an independent scholar. Ad-Dostoor's obituary, while comprehensive, drips anti-Tantawi bias. To their credit, though, they are the only ones who make mention of two of the Sheikh's most problematic domestic fatwas. The first of these was his call for writers who publicly discussed president Mubarak's health to be flogged (Ad-Dostoor's editor Ibrahim Isa was one such writer; the floggings never happened, though there were trials and imprisonments followed by a presidential pardon). The second was his religious interjection in the debate over the regime's referendum to change the constitution so as to weaken the viability of electoral opposition, where he publicly condemned as "sinful" those who tried to organize a boycott of the referendum.
While they do not mention these two problematic edicts, The Daily News Egypt and Al Masry Al Youm have the best overall obituaries, discussing Tantawi's biography, the role and significance of the institute he headed, his relationship to Egypt's political leadership as a presidential appointee, and the broad range of domestic and international issues on which he generated controversy. Tantawi's history should be remembered fully. It is only by avoiding the temptation to reduce people to one "camp" or another (whether that camp is "moderate vs extremist", "pro-Arab vs pro-West", etc) that we can begin to understand and discuss the complex interplay of power, politics, bureaucracy, culture, and religion in the Middle East.
Finally, however the Sheikh's legacy is judged, may he rest in peace, and may the family who survived him find patience after his passing.
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