The new Egyptian constitution has created a variety of new institutions within the Egyptian state and also created new channels for existing institutional actors to express their views on policy and legislation. Additionally it has created new grounds for legal action against legislative and executive acts. These will have profound effects on many aspects of Egyptian politics and on the entire institutional structure of the Egyptian state. Article 4 provides that the legislature must listen to the opinion of the Higher Ulama Council of the Azhar on issues that affect Islamic shariah and Article 219 provides a fuller definition of the sources of the principles of Islamic shariah than did the previous constitution. The Azhar does not have a veto over legislation but neither is its opinion now simply that of one among many interest groups. There is, in addition, a significant jurisprudential literature on what it means, in Egyptian law, to take the opinion of a body. Thus this new provision will create the possibility of additional conflict over a variety of legislative acts that can be construed as affecting or being affected by Islamic shariah. The beginnings of this conflict can be seen in the difficulties an Islamist government had in passing legislation establishing Islamic sukuk as a funding mechanism for the government given Azhari opposition. Article 219 is less likely to have an impact on legislation than on providing additional grounds on which to challenge existing legislative or executive acts. The Supreme Constitutional Court had, under the old constitution, limited the meaning of principles of Islamic shariah. The new constitution seeks to expand them and in the process will provide litigants with additional textual resources. Egypt has not become a religious state in the way that Iran is, but its new constitution does go a long way toward making the Azhari ulama and the Azhar as an institution more involved in the unpleasant conflicts of everyday politics and will provide an example of what happens when extra-legislative institutions are involved directly in the process of legislation.