Shaykh Hasan al-Attar (Arabic: حسن العطار; 1766–1835)[1] was a Sunni Shafi'i scholar,[2] Grand Imam of al-Azhar from 1830 to 1835.
[4] Hassan al-Attar was appointed Sheikh of al-Azhar in 1830 and became one of the earliest reformist clerics in Ottoman Egypt.
[5] He was a forerunner of Egypt's national revival, and his legacy was a generation of Egyptian modernists like his disciple Rifa al-Tahtawi.
While he was a successful lecturer at al-Azhar University, his time there was marked by continual conflict with un-Westernized (?)
[7] According to Peter Gran, professor of history at Temple University, his first phase, as an Ash'ari, ended early in his stay in Turkey.