Moreover the
Azhar mosque of Cairo is the great university of Arabic-speaking races,
and its Ulema have the highest reputation of any in Islam. Egyptian
influence, therefore, must be reckoned as an important element in the
forces which make up Mohammedan opinion. The late Khedive, it is true,
did much to impair this by his infidelity and his coquetteries with
Europe, and under his reign the Egyptian Haj fell to a low level; but
Mohammed Towfik, who is a sincere, though liberal Mussulman, has already
restored much of his country's prestige at Mecca, and it is not unlikely
that in time to come Egypt, grown materially prosperous, may once more
take a leading part in the politics of Islam.[3] But of this later.
All three schools of theology are taught in the Azhar mosque, and
Egyptians are divided, according to their class, between them. The
Viceroy and the ruling clique, men of Ottoman origin, are Hanefites, and
so too are the descendants of the Circassian Beys, but the leading
merchants of Cairo and the common people of that city are Shafites,
while the fellahin of the Delta are almost entirely Malekite. Malekite,
too, are the tribes west of the Nile, following the general rule of the
population of Africa.
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