Lockers originated in al-Azhar as informal congeries of trunks and chests in 1359-60 (al-Maqrizi). Attempts by Mamluk authorities to ban these unseemly objects failed, and the mosque developed into a lived social space. Under Ottoman administration, this improvised storage arrangement developed into an uneven locker system. Lockers surfaced in al-Azhar’s courtyard and interior, in fraternities (riwaqs), and neighborhoods (haras). By 1672, Evliya Çelebi reported over 2,000 lockers in al-Azhar, arranged in six- or seven-tiers, each tier the height of two men. The basis for this transformation was legal recognition of the usufructuary possession of lockers by Ottoman judges. Ottoman sijill records from 1530 to 1650 show that usufruct rights to lockers passed through family networks and circulated beyond those directly associated with al-Azhar. Indeed, some owners were women. Lockers were central to the quotidian functioning of al-Azhar as a center of Islamic teaching and learning. Students and scholars used lockers to store quires, codices, writing materials and instruments, vessels, kettles, utensils, bread, bedding, clothing, headgear, and valuables. Over time, lockers took the form of capital, which, if inherited or purchased, could be parlayed into financial gain, and, occasionally, into locker empires (shares in multiple lockers). When Shaykh Ahmad al-Ghunaymi al-Ansari died in 1634-5, the renowned Arabic grammarian and scholar of dialectical theology (kalam) had built a locker empire at al-Azhar; at the age of 80, he held usufruct rights to eight lockers in the Fuwwat fraternity. This paper studies the social lives of Ahmad’s lockers following his death, the reallocation of three lockers to students and scholars of al-Azhar, and the inheritance and sale of five lockers by his son Kamal al-Din and widow Kulthum. This paper builds on the insights of Arjun Appadurai, Celia Lury, and Igor Kopytoff, who demonstrate that a biographical approach to material objects, for example, the study of ‘paths’ and ‘life histories’ of objects, can illuminate their human and social context. This approach, when applied to al-Azhar’s lockers, can offer insight into the everyday lives of Muslim educational institutions, and the values of the men and women connected to them. It contributes to previous material histories of al-Azhar, which privilege its built environment, e.g., reused pre-Islamic columns with Corinthian capitals, Fatimid stucco, and Mamluk revival mosaics (Barrucand, Behrens-Abouseif).