A few days ago, the

president of the American University in Cairo (AUC), David

Arnold, decided to remove Islamic and Arabic contents

from a number of AUC textbooks, including syllabi in

Islamic history, Arabic literature and social sciences. A

large number of the university’s staff has

protested against this decision, making formal complaints to the

university’s president and the grand

imām of the Azhar, Shaykh Muhammad Sayyid

Tantāwī who argued that the decision

“contradicts the cultural agreement, signed by the university

and the Egyptian Ministry of Education,

stipulating that the AUC curricula should provide a mix of Arab and Western

cultures.”