Al-Azhar in a message lauded the scholar for his services to the Quran and efforts to promote Islamic teachings among non-Arabs.
Muhammad Abu Layla, who was the head of the English Department at Al-Azhar’s Faculty of Languages and Translation, died this week at the age of 79.
He was born in 1942 in Qalyubia Governorate, north of Egypt.
A PhD graduate of the University of Exeter in the UK, Abu Layla translated the Quran into English.
He also was a member of the Supreme Islamic Council of Egypt and used to head the Islamic Studies Department at the American University in Cairo.