Mohamed Sayed Tantawi was the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University.
Tantawi joined the Alexandria Religious Institute in 1944, and became a member of the faculty of Ausol Aldeen in 1968. In 1972 he became a member of the faculty of Arabic & Islamic Studies at the Islamic University of Libya. In 1980 he moved to Saudi Arabia, where he became chief of the Tafsir branch of the Postgraduate studies branch at the Islamic University of Madinah. He returned to Egypt in 1985, when he became Dean of the Faculty of Ausol Aldeen at the prestigious Alexandria Religious Institute.
In 1986 Tantawi was appointed as Grand Mufti of Egypt on his 58th birthday, 28 October 1986. He held this position for almost ten years, until he was appointed Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University by the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, on 27 March 1996. The Al-Azhar Mosque is one of the most influential and important Sunni Muslim institutions.
Tantawi completed a seven thousand page exegesis of the Qur'an (Al-tafser al-waset). This Tafsir took over ten years to complete. He has also written Bano Israel (The Children of Israel) and Muamlat Al-bank (Bank's Dealings)
Tantawi led the funeral prayers at the funeral of Yasser Arafat in 2004, during which he said that "Arafat has done his duty as a defender of the Palestinian cause, with courage and honesty".
During the controversy of the French headscarf ban in schools, he issued a fatwa allowing Muslim girls to take off their headscarves while attending school, using the lesser of two evils principle.
He has issued a fatwa which allowed abortion in cases, where a woman had become pregnant as a result of rape, though this created controversy and Mufti Ali Gomaa said Tantawy was wrong, and that irrespective of how the life was created, after 120 days an abortion becomes haram, forbidden.
Tantawi opposes female circumcision calling it unislamic, especially in 1997, when he said "The ulema (theologians) of Islam are unanimous in agreeing that female circumcision has nothing to do with religion" and revealed his own daughter had not been circumcised.
Tantawi has taken a line against suicide bombings, and unlike his compatriot Yusuf al-Qaradawi, he has condemned the use of suicide bombings against Israelis, rejecting the argument that all Israelis were legitimate targets, because at some stage they would all carry a gun. In 2003 he called suicide bombers "enemies of Islam", adding "people of different beliefs should co-operate and not get into senseless conflicts and animosity. Extremism is the enemy of Islam, whereas, jihad is allowed in Islam to defend one's land and to help the oppressed. The difference between jihad in Islam and extremism is like the earth and the sky"
According to new historian, Benny Morris, Tantawy's interpretation of the Qur'an's attitude towards Jews is: "The Qur'an describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e., killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people's wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness ... only a minority of Jews keep their word.... [But] not all Jews are the same. The good ones become Muslims."
Tantawi takes an orthodox stance on women's place in Islam, opposing women as Imams in mixed congregations during Friday prayers (Jumu'ah), saying when a woman "leads men in prayer ... it is not proper for them to look at the woman whose body is in front of them," Sayed Tantawi. He also called Haydar Haydar's book, ''Feast for Seaweed'', blasphemous. In 2001 he issued a fatwa banning women from acting as surrogate mothers or from receiving frozen sperm from dead husbands.
In response to the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy, he stated "We have no objection if the Pope holds another speech and declares publicly that what the Byzantine emperor had said was wrong. At the same time, the Pope has to apologize frankly and justify what he said".
Speaking after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Tantawy said "It's not courage in any way to kill an innocent person, or to kill thousands of people, including men and women and children." He said that Osama bin Laden's call for a Jihad against the west was "invalid and not binding on Muslims", adding "Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve". He said the Qur'an "specifically forbids the kinds of things the Taliban and al-Qaida are guilty of".
Tantawi passed away Wednesday morning on March 10, 2010 as result of a heart attack during a visit to Saudi Arabia. He was 81 years old.
Ref: www.wikipedia.org