A Glimpse into the Analysis of Religious Discourse and Islamic Identity in Sheikh Al-Azhar Dr Ahmed Al-Tayeb's Sermon on the Occasion of the Prophet's Birth

Abstract
Dr Ahmed Eltayeb – the head of Alazhar institution - is renounced for wisdom and mediation in religious aspects. His final speech in the ceremony of Almawlad Elnabawy; the anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohamed PBH) has a great impact on attracting others' vision of Islam and Islamic life. The importance of this speech comes from its coinciding with the movements calling to leave Prophet's Sunna (PBH) and adhere only to the book of God (Qur'aan ). The main aim of the current study is to clarify the extent to which the speaker managed to formulate the essence of ideal Islam and unity of its elements as one body. Islam as a moderate central thought comes only from adhering to this religious aspects and being away from distortion and extremism, at a time when Islam is accused of terrorism. Thus, the current study sheds light on the recent social religious discourse, and how the speaker reformulates Islamic identity within his speech through linguistic discourse analysis for his talk. The research theoretical framework is based on Halliday and Matthiessen 's (2014) Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) approach that presents a theory of language based on purpose and choice that it is concerned with what speakers are doing when they use language and why on particular occasions of use they formulate their utterances in the way they do.