Western commentators on Islam and the Middle East often overstate the importance of al-Azhar University in Cairo. The oldest educational institution in Islam and throughout the world, and the most authoritative voice in Sunni Islam is indeed significant in Islamic jurisprudence but not sacrosanct. In otherwise: al-Azhar is no Vatican.

No one, neither the Grand Mufti nor any fatwa-issuing jurist is infallible unlike the Pope. al-Azhar has weight for pious Muslims, but in reality most Muslims, even those who pray daily, concern themselves very little with the doings of al-Azhar. The institution simply has little bearing on the lives of today’s Muslims.

This is due to two related factors. First, al-Azhar is simply too conservative for the average Arab and Muslim and its fatwas are often laughable. Second, al-Azhar is known not to be an independent institution but one subservient to the authoritative Mubarak regime. This has tainted the university as it often appears to be a corrupt tool of a reigning dictator. Mubarak is not the first, and there lies the conservatism. Under Jamal Abdel Nasser in the age of secular, Pan-Arab nationalism al-Azhar was a lot more liberal: it supported some degree of secularism and even feminism. But the rise of the oil-rich, extreme conservative Saudi Arabia and the efforts of the Mubarak regime to placate the Muslim Brotherhood to stay in power has lead to the rise of a conservative school in the university. A free Egypt where the regime did not have to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood since the secular establishment would have legitimacy as democratically elected, and an Egypt where Saudi money did not flow into Islam’s preeminent institution of judicial learning out certainly see a different al-Azhar.

Arabs and Muslims know this, and thus az-Azhar has history worthy of respect and the institution is still worthy of some regard but all the while Arabs and Muslims know that al-Azhar is far from perfect and thus pay only so much intention.

Unfortunately for al-Azhar, its Grand Mufti is the region’s “Buffoon.” Shaykh Muhammad Sayid Tantawi is senile and a demagogue who toes the Mubarak line.

The list of outrages this man has committed is too long, but here are the gems.

- He threw an ashtray at an Egyptian female journalist because she dared to ask him a question he didn’t like.

- He shook the hands of Israeli President Shimon Peres at the United Nations, then claimed he did not know it was him. And a few weeks later he broke off his love affair with Peres and stated that he wished his former lover would be “damned to the Day of Judgment.”

- He recently visited a school in Egypt and yelled at a girl for wearing the niqab (face covering) telling her to remove it. When the teacher stepped in he yelled at her too and essential told her to butt out because he understood religion better than she. When the girl removed her face covering he asked her, “And what would you have done if you were a bit pretty?” Thereby, implying she only wears it because she is ugly. A week later (today, later) he stated that the niqab is permissible to wear and instead of leaving it there this idiot added that the niqab is okay whether “she is pretty or ugly.” Thus instead of letting his implication remain somewhat ambiguous and leaving himself room to deny such a cruel remark, he made it clear that he was commenting on the poor girl’s appearance. al-Azhar recently banned the niqab on campus, a good move (one of the better things the place has done in recent years) that should lead to the end of this very unfortunate, extreme covering that has no basis in Islam and no basis in history expect in the deranged mind of fundamentalists.

This guy really has lost it. And he presides over an institution that has long put aside serious discussion and know just relishes in conservative dogma, book banning and issuing kooky fatwas. One of their most recent fatwas suggested that female employees should breastfeed their male colleagues in order to bequeath a motherly relationship to thus break the so-called sexual tension. Yeah, that would work. And it says nothing about persecution of innocent Egyptians under Mubarak’s thuggish secret police. Forgive them, they are too busy with “bad” books (which sometimes just means criticism of Mubarak).

Few Muslims have little regard for the Mufti and when it met with Peres, many Egyptians protested and called for his resignation.

I note all this just to provide, alas, a note on the role of az-Azhar in contemporary Islam, which is often misunderstood. az-Azhar needs to be understood in context, and that it does not speak for Muslims beyond those whom work there. az-Azhar is not infallible, it is important but not beyond criticism and mockery. And its leadership may often be laughable. But it has a glorious history which needs to be revived.