Abd Allah al-Sharqawi

Abd Allah al-Sharqawi (1737–1812), in full Abd Allah ibn Hijazi ibn Ibrahim al-Sharqawi, was an Egyptian scholar who became Grand Imam of al-Azhar in 1208 AH on the death of Shaykh Ahmad al-Arusi and held the rectorship until his own death. He was the leading Shafi'i scholar and mufti of his era in Egypt and a shaykh of the Khalwatiyya Sufi order, combining jurisprudence, Sufism and popular leadership in a turbulent period of Egyptian history. ^{1 2}

He was born at al-Tawila, a village in al-Sharqiyya near Bilbays, memorised the Qur'an at al-Qurin, and then went to al-Azhar, where he studied under its scholars. He took the Khalwatiyya from al-Hifni first and then from Mahmud al-Kurdi, and he excelled in Shafi'i fiqh, language and logic until he became the reference point of Egypt's Shafi'is. ^{1 3}

He assumed the rectorship of al-Azhar in 1208 AH (1793/94). His public role had already come to the fore in the Bilbays affair of July 1795, when conflict between the population and the Mamluks over taxation and oppression drew the scholars into action. His standing grew with the prominence of al-Azhar and its ulama in Egyptian public life in those years. ^{1 4}

When the French expedition occupied Egypt in 1798, al-Sharqawi was Grand Imam, and Napoleon formed a council (diwan) to govern Cairo of nine shaykhs under his chairmanship; the English article notes that Napoleon, writing in exile at St Helena, ranked al-Azhar as equal if not superior to the Sorbonne. Yet the same article also names him one of the leaders of the resistance to the French occupation — a dual picture that reflects the complicated position of al-Azhar's scholars, administering the capital under occupation while remaining leaders of its people. ^{2 1}

After the French evacuation and the ensuing disorder, al-Sharqawi stood with Umar Makram and the other popular leaders who acclaimed Muhammad Ali as ruler of Egypt in 1805, in a famous episode that showed the power of the ulama and the popular leadership. Relations with Muhammad Ali later soured: he was placed under house arrest for a time and then released, remaining Grand Imam until his death. ^{2 1}

He died in Cairo on Thursday 2 Shawwal 1227 AH (1812), as al-Jabarti records, and was buried in the tomb he had built for himself beside the mosque he raised on the ruined endowment land in the desert cemetery. His works include al-Tuhfa al-Bahiyya fi Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya (The Splendid Gift, on the generations of the Shafi'is) and a hashiya (gloss) on Sharh al-Tahrir in Shafi'i fiqh, together with the gloss on Tahrir Tanqih al-Lubab that his biographers list among his legal writings. Among his students was Muhammad al-Dawakhli, who took the fiqh of his school from him. ^{1 3}