Al-Azhar Mosque
After the fall of the Turkic mamluk Sunni dynasty known as the Ikhshidids (mid-10th century), another Islamic dynasty known as the Shia Fatimids moved into Egypt, originating from North Africa. This is a huge event because it solidifies a strong dynasty that will last for hundreds of years. It will also spur Christians from both east and west to take the ultimate pilgrimage of Crusade. It is the Fatimids who take Jerusalem more than once, and it is the Fatimid general Jawhar who took Egypt and commanded that the great Al-Azhar Mosque be built in what is now modern-day Cairo. The establishment of this mosque, along with other important fortifications and port cities along the Nile, solidified Fatimid control of Egypt and the Levant.
Of course, this famous mosque was also a university that specialized in the most important of subjects - Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, Islamic philosophy, and logic. The Fatimid madrasa, or loosely translated as "university", within and a part of the mosque was famous worldwide as a place where not only Islamic law was taught but the previously secretive teachings of the Ismāʿīli madhhab (school of law) were made available to the general public. They were more open than most Islamic Caliphates of the time, giving attention to philosophical studies at the time when rulers in other countries declared philosophical pursuers apostates and heretics. The Greek thought found a warm reception with the Fatimids who expanded the boundaries of such studies.
This great mosque is synonymous with the law courts in the world Syres inhabits, as the 12th-century ruler and founder of another, this time Sunni dynasty, conquers Egypt. The famous Saladin, from the Third Crusade and the conqueror of Egypt, N. Africa, and The Levant/Syria rules Cairo when Syres turns up on the Nile from The Red Sea port of Aydhab. He quickly becomes requisitioned by an army "colonel" to translate Coptic, Greek, Latin, and Hindi correspondence for the great Saladin. This is where he begins his studies at the great Al Azhar in Cairo and it is where he learns more about the dessert bedouins and pagan shamans who had raided his village all those years ago. He hopes he is getting closer to his mortality but is unfortunately carried off on the conquest of Jerusalem against the "Latin" or European knights and everyday citizens in the city.
Saladin does not support the mosque and its Shia teachings and laws and so takes several sacred items. In addition to stripping al-Azhar of its status as a congregational mosque, Saladin also ordered the removal from the mihrab of the mosque a silver band on which the names of the Fatimid caliphs had been inscribed. The Third Crusades approach fast and soon Syres will meet another influential, volatile, and prideful descendant of his Norman friends. As usual, Syres is not surprised by the similarities between the prideful Richard of the 12th century and the fearless Richard of the 10th.
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