Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy
محمد سيد طنطاوي |
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| Grand Imam of Al-Azhar | |
| In office 27 March 1996 – 10 March 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Gad el-Haq Ali Gad el-Haq |
| Succeeded by | Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb |
| Grand Mufti of Egypt | |
| In office 28 October 1986 – 27 March 1996 |
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| Preceded by | Abd al-Latif Abd al-Ghani Hamzah |
| Succeeded by | Nasr Farid Wasil |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 October 1928 Sohag, Egypt |
| Died | 10 March 2010 (aged 81) Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Alma mater | Al-Azhar University |
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy (Arabic: محمد سيد طنطاوي; 28 October 1928 – 10 March 2010), also referred to as Tantawi, was an influential Islamic scholar in Egypt. From 1986 to 1996, he was the Grand Mufti of Egypt. In 1996, president Hosni Mubarak appointed him as the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, a position he retained until his death in 2010.
Contents
Early life
Tantawy born on 28 October 1928 in the village of Selim ash-Sharqiyah in the municipality of Tama, Sohag in Egypt. He joined the Alexandria Religious Institute in 1944. He graduated from Al-Azhar's faculty of religious studies in 1958 and went on to teach. In 1966, he was awarded a PhD in Hadith and Tafsir, exegesis of the Qur'an. He became a member of the faculty of Ausol Aldeen in 1968 and a member of the faculty of Arabic & Islamic Studies at the Islamic University of Libya in 1972. In 1980 he moved to Saudi Arabia, where he became chief of the Tafsir branch of the Postgraduate studies branch at the Islamic University of Madinah. He returned to Egypt in 1985, when he became Dean of the Faculty of Ausol Aldeen at the prestigious Alexandria Religious Institute.
Education
He obtained his first degree with honours, his master's degree in education in 1959 and his PhD in 1966. His doctoral thesis was on the children of Israel in the al-Quran and al-Sunnah.
Work
In 1986, Tantawy was appointed as Grand Mufti of Egypt on his 58th birthday, 28 October 1986. He held this position for almost ten years, until he was appointed Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University by the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, on 27 March 1996. The Al-Azhar Mosque is one of the most influential and important Sunni Muslim institutions.
Tantawy completed a seven thousand page exegesis of the Qur'an (Al-tafser al-waset). This Tafsir took over ten years to complete.
Tantawy led the funeral prayers at the funeral of Yasser Arafat in 2004, during which he said that "Arafat has done his duty as a defender of the Palestinian cause, with courage and honesty".
Views and fatwas
Charging interest on loans
In 1989 the Egyptian government's support for Western-style, interest-based banks (long considered anathema by Muslim scholars as usury, or riba) was under siege by the expanding Islamic finance movement. In response to a government request for a ruling, Tantawy (then Grand Mufti of Egypt) issued a fatwa that described some forms of financial interest as tolerable- among them, those paid by government bonds and those on ordinary savings accounts. He declared that charging interest on such bank loans was in fact ribh, or just gaining profit, which was allowable. This eventually allowed the development of a mortgage industry. However, his ruling did not issue as an effectual decree. Tantawy's rationale was based on an interpretation of the Islamic sources as banning usury (an extreme and manipulative form of interest-taking) but not any and all comparable forms of gain.
His views on this issue have been very controversial among his fellow Muslim scholars. Despite years of friendship with Tantawy, well-known Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi has sharply criticized his position on interest.
Female imams
Tantawy opposed women as Imams in mixed congregations during Friday prayers (Jumu'ah), saying when "A woman's body is private. When she leads men in prayer, in this case, it is not proper for them to look at the woman whose body is in front of them. Even if they see it in their daily life, it should not be in situations of worship, where the main point is humility and modesty." He also called Haidar Haidar's book, Feast for Seaweed, blasphemous.
Reaction to 9/11 attacks
Speaking after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Tantawy said "It's not courage in any way to kill an innocent person, or to kill thousands of people, including men and women and children." He said that Osama bin Laden's call for a Jihad against the west was "invalid and not binding on Muslims", adding "Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve". He said the Qur'an "specifically forbids the kinds of things the Taliban and al-Qaeda are guilty of".
Jews
In the 1960s Tantawy wrote a 700-page treatise on the children of Israel in the Quran and Sunnah (Jews in the Qur'an and the Traditions), in which he summarized:
"[The] Qur'an describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness ... only a minority of the Jews keep their word. ... [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not."
Tantawi also denied that the Western Wall had any Jewish significance and anachronistically claimed, "All of the figures from the [Hebrew] Bible were Muslims."
Saudi Arabia
Tantawy believes that Saudi Arabia is the model country for respecting human rights stating in June 2000: "Saudi Arabia leads the world in the protection of human rights because it protects them according to the shari'a of God...Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia is the leading country for the application of human rights in Islam in a just and objective fashion, with no aggression and no prejudice."
Sex reassignment surgery
In 1988, Tantawy issued a fatwa regarding the sex reassignment surgery of Egyptian woman Sally Mursi. The statement summary is translated: "It is permissible to perform the operation in order to reveal what was hidden of male or female organs. Indeed, it is obligatory to do so on the grounds that it must be considered a treatment, when a trustworthy doctor advises it. It is, however, not permissible to do it at the mere wish to change sex from woman to man, or vice versa." The fatwa has been interpreted both as in favor and also in rejection of sex reassignment operations.
Death
Tantawy died on the morning of 10 March 2010, at the age of 81, as result of a heart attack during a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Tantawy died as he was about to board his return flight to Egypt at Riyadh's King Khaled International Airport. His heart attack came just after he fell whilst boarding the plane. Tantawy had just attended the prize-giving ceremony for the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam. He was officially pronounced dead at the Amir Sultan hospital.
Tantawy's death was unexpected and he was described as being in "excellent shape and health" prior to his trip. Egyptian authorities stated that, at his family's request, he would be buried in Medina in Saudi Arabia, which is also the burial place of Mohammed. His burial at the Jannatul Baqee cemetery took place after funeral prayers were held at the Prophet's Mosque. Tantawy's deputy, Mohamed Wasel, took over his duties until then President Mubarak appointed a replacement, Ahmad at-Tayyeb, as the new rector of Al Azhar.
Condolences
Condolences were sent to the Egyptian government by several national leaders and scholars. These included Pope Benedict XVI, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; the Islamic Development Department of Malaysia (Jakim); King Mohammed VI of Morocco; King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
