The Islamic religious establishment has always played a crucial role in preserving the legitimacy and the continuity of the Ottoman Empire throughout its centuries of rule. In Istanbul and all other provinces of the empire, the ‘ulema served as religious clerks, teachers, Judges, and Jurists. They were perceived as the foremost element among the constituents of the Ottoman community. They were organized through a firm hierarchy with strict rules that regulated promotion and power. However, patronage, favoritism, familial links, and levels of social status were elements that led to the stratification of the corps where certain families dominated the leadership of the religious institution. Yet, this was not the case in Egypt’s highest religious institution, Al-Azhar. Although a lot has been written about al-Azhar and its ‘ulema, little work has been written about the institution within its larger Ottoman context. Most researchers either revolved around the modernization of the institution’s educational process during Mehmed ‘Ali or focused on the lives and activities of prominent ‘ulema like Shaykh Rifa’a al-Tahtawi and Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh. In this paper, I attempt to situate the religious establishment of Egypt within the broader context of the Ottoman Empire with a special focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Arguing against the commonly accepted claim that al-Azhar declined under the Ottoman rule, I explain that it was under the Turks that al-Azhar became Egypt’s top religious institution with a semi-independent leadership, namely Shaykh al-Azhar. Moreover, the institution and its ‘ulema had an exclusive status and character that distinguished it from its counterparts in the empire, which includes the official religious establishment in Istanbul (Ilmiye) or other major mosques in the Arab provinces, like the Umayyad in Syria. Despite being an inherent part of the Ottoman Empire, al-Azhar and its ‘ulema functioned within a semi-independent orbit based on a bottom-up method of recruitment that differed from that of Istanbul and other provinces. This exclusive status and distinguishing characteristics were instrumental in paving the way for a distinct political, financial, and social power for al-Azhar and its ‘ulema, especially in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.