 Over the course of its over a millennium @-@ long history , the mosque has been alternately neglected and highly regarded . Because it was founded as a Shiite Ismaili institution , Saladin and the Sunni Ayyubid dynasty that he founded shunned al @-@ Azhar , removing its status as a congregational mosque and denying stipends to students and teachers at its school . These moves were reversed under the Mamluk Sultanate , under whose rule numerous expansions and renovations took place . Later rulers of Egypt showed differing degrees of deference to the mosque and provided widely varying levels of financial assistance , both to the school and to the upkeep of the mosque . Today , al @-@ Azhar remains a deeply influential institution in Egyptian society that is highly revered in the Sunni Muslim world and a symbol of Islamic Egypt . 
