 During his tenure as Prime Minister , and later President , Nasser continued the efforts to limit the power of the ulema of al @-@ Azhar and to use its influence to his advantage . In 1952 , the waqfs were nationalized and placed under the authority of the newly created Ministry of Religious Endowments , cutting off the ability of the mosque to control its financial affairs . He abolished the sharia courts , merging religious courts with the state judicial system in 1955 , severely limiting the independence of the ulema . The 1961 reform law , which invalidated an earlier law passed in 1936 that had guaranteed the independence of al @-@ Azhar , gave the President of Egypt the authority to appoint the sheikh al @-@ Azhar , a position first created during Ottoman rule and chosen from and by the ulema since its inception . Al @-@ Azhar , which remained a symbol of the Islamic character of both the nation and the state , continued to influence the population while being unable to exert its will over the state . Al @-@ Azhar became increasingly co @-@ opted into the state bureaucracy after the revolution — independence of its curriculum and its function as a mosque ceased . The authority of the ulema were further weakened by the creation of government agencies responsible for providing interpretations of religious laws . While these reforms dramatically curtailed the independence of the ulema , they also had the effect of reestablishing their influence by integrating them further into the state apparatus . The 1961 reform law also provided the ulema with the resources of the state , though the purse strings were outside of their control . While Nasser sought to subjugate the ulema beneath the state , he did not allow more extreme proposals to limit the influence of al @-@ Azhar . One such proposal was made by Taha Hussein in 1955 . Hussein sought to dismantle the Azharite primary and secondary educational system and transform the university into a faculty of theology which would be included within the modern , secular , collegiate educational system . The ulema opposed this plan , though Nasser 's choice of maintaining al @-@ Azhar 's status was due more to personal political considerations , such as the use of al @-@ Azhar to grant legitimacy to the regime , than on the opposition of the ulema . 
