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Entry 113 of 240Reform

Cairo and Al-Azhar

969 CE/Near East/Fatimid Caliphate
Today Cairo, EgyptSpan Fatimid Caliphate · 909–1171 CE

The Fatimids, a Shia dynasty, took Egypt and founded Cairo as a rival capital to Sunni Baghdad, complete with its own caliph. They built al-Azhar as a mosque and teaching institution in 970; it has taught continuously ever since and is often called the oldest running university on earth. Fatimid Cairo grew rich on Red Sea and Mediterranean trade and was notably tolerant of its Christian and Jewish populations. The Sunni–Shia split had produced two competing centres of the Islamic world, each claiming to be the legitimate one.

◆ Worth knowingWhen Saladin later took Cairo for the Sunnis, al-Azhar was simply converted and kept teaching. It has now been running for over a thousand years, through Shia founders, Sunni conquerors, Ottomans, Napoleon, and the British.
◆ The mechanismIdeological movement

A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Also: State formation & institutional founding · Trade-route shift · Information-medium revolution

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