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

Document Type : Original Article

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.
 

Keywords

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