Since 9/11 the vast majority of scholarship on Islam has focused on analyzing how religion is used by different militant groups and social movements on the international level. However, less attention has been given to the role governments and state institutions play in utilizing religion internationally. My paper joins an emerging scholarship that seeks to analyze how governments, especially in the Middle East, use religion and its institutions as a strategic asset to promote their foreign agenda. My paper explores the relationship between religion, politics and international relations in Egypt (1950-1970) by focusing on Nasser’s al-Azhar and its role in the country’s foreign policy. It sheds light on the transnational reach of Egypt’s religious policies by analyzing the transnational network of Nasser’s Islam in Africa and the Arab countries. Although several scholars have previously discussed the extension of al-Azhar’s reach beyond the Egyptian scene through its foreign students (Abaza 1994, ‘Abd al-Rahman 2004) and missionary activities (Zeghal 2007, Burner 2004, Riyad 2006), they have overlooked the state’s instrumentalization of al-Azhar’s transnational power, especially during the Nasser period. Using unpublished documents from both the Egyptian and British National Archives, Majallat al-Azhar, and drawing on personal interviews with Azhari Shaykhs who served under the Nasser regime and their memoirs, I provide an empirical account of transnational Azhari circuits and the role they played in the cross-border dissemination of religious and political ideas. By exploring the Egyptian state’s policy of sending Azhari missions to different Arab and African countries, I trace the role Islam and its institutions played in supporting and expanding Nasser’s regional aspirations in countries like Zanzibar, Chad and Libya. Furthermore, I highlight the role Islam and al-Azhar played in Nasser’s fight against Saudi Arabia in the Arab Cold War. I explain that Nasser did not only fight for the mantel of Islam domestically, against the Muslim Brothers, but also internationally, against Saudi Arabia. I argue that Nasser, supported by al-Azhar, adopted an Islamic rhetoric in his struggle against Saudi Arabia on two different levels: undermining their religious authority, and Islamizing Arab-Socialism and pan-Arabism. This paper, therefore, sheds light on an overlooked aspect in the historiography of Nasserism and highlights the important role religion and its official institutions can play in a country’s foreign policy.