Like its private predecessor, the state-run Egyptian University defined its mission partly in relation to its great rival, al-Azhar. To most people the Egyptian University stood for the modern, the secular, and the Western, and al-Azhar for the traditional, the Islamic, and the indigenous. There was truth in these images, though both institutions fell short of their ideal types and came to have more in common than they cared to admit. Religion was never absent from Cairo University, and secular Western influences penetrated al-Azhar.

One secular-religious conflict rose over the right to train Arabic language teachers for the state schools. The Egyptian University, al-Azhar, and Dar al-Ulum each claimed the right exclusively. Fighting off al-Azhar's attempts to swallow it, Dar al-Ulum eventually joined Cairo University. Losing a similar battle, the School for Qadis was enfolded back into al-Azhar. Secular-religious tensions also showed up in the sometimes awkward position of Copts at the university. The influence of European orientalists at the university and the Khalaf Allah affair of 1947 illuminate other aspects of the issue.

The Egyptian University and al-Azhar's job blight

The university that “had no religion but knowledge” offended Azharis for whom knowledge, society, and life itself were a seamless Islamic web.