The proposed efforts to reorganize how Al Azhar is governed were designed not just to change things at senior levels, but were more audacious and aimed “to reach deep into its functioning,” Nathan Brown and Mariam Ghanem write in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The proposed amendments would have restricted the tenure of Al Azhar’s Grand Imam to 12 years, allowed for a committee to investigate him in cases of misconduct, introduced a process to remove him, changed how he is chosen, and added members with secular expertise to the Body of Senior Scholars, among other changes. The draft would have also called for the separation of literary and scientific colleges from Al Azhar University. Brown and Ghanem say Al Azhar was more successful than the judiciary in fighting law that would have changed how it operates.

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