[p.103]Each one is provided with bread, in a quantity determined by the amount of endowment, at the Riwak set apart for his nation,[FN#23] with some article of clothing on festival days, and a few piastres once a year.  The professors, who are about 150 in number, may not take fees from their pupils; some lecture on account of the religious merit of the action, others to gain the high title of “Teacher in Al Azhar.[FN#24]” Six officials receive stipends from the government,-the Shaykh al-Jami’ or dean, the Shaykh al-Sakka, who regulates the provision of water for ablution, and others that may be called heads of departments.

The following is the course of study in the Azhar.  The school-boy of four or five years’ standing has been taught, by a liberal application of the maxim “the Green Rod is of the Trees of Paradise,” to chant the Koran without understanding it, the elementary rules of arithmetic, and, if he is destined to be a learned man, the art of writing.[FN#25] He then registers his name in Al-Azhar, and applies

[p.104]himself to the branches of study most cultivated in Al-Islam, namely Nahw (syntax), Fikh (the law), Hadis (the traditions of the Prophet), and Tafsir, or Exposition of the Koran.

The young Egyptian reads at the same time Sarf, or Inflexion, and Nahw (syntax).  But as Arabic is his mother-tongue, he is not required to study the former so deeply as are the Turks, the Persians, and the Indians.  If he desire, however, to be a proficient, he must carefully peruse five books in Sarf,[FN#26] and six in Nahw.[FN#27]

[p.105]Master of grammar, our student now applies himself to its proper end and purpose, Divinity.  Of the four schools those of Abu Hanifah and Al-Shafe’i are most common in Cairo; the followers of Ibn Malik abound only in Southern Egypt and the Berberah country, and the Hanbali is almost unknown.  The theologian begins with what is called a Matn or text, a short, dry, and often obscure treatise, a mere string of precepts; in fact, the skeleton of the subject.  This he learns by repeated perusal, till he can quote almost every passage literatim.  He then passes to its “Sharh,” or commentary, generally the work of some other savant, who explains the difficulty of the text, amplifies its Laconicisms, enters into exceptional cases, and deals with principles and reasons, as well as with mere precept.  A difficult work will sometimes require “Hashiyah,” or “marginal notes”; but this aid has a bad name:-

“Who readeth with note,
But learneth by rote,”

says a popular doggrel.  The reason is, that the student’s reasoning powers being little exercised, he learns to depend upon the dixit of a master rather than to think for himself.  It also leads to the neglect of another practice, highly advocated by the Eastern pedagogue.

“The lecture is one. 
The dispute (upon the subject of the lecture) is one thousand.”

In order to become a Fakih, or divine of distinguished fame, the follower of Abu Hanifah must peruse about ten volumes,[FN#28] some of huge size, written in a diffuse style;