CHAPTER IV

EGYPT :

A SECULARIST MODEL

CHAPTER IV

EGYPT A SECULARIST MODEL

The political resurgence of Islam highlights the problem

of the relationship of religion to the state. The classical

Islamic doctrine assigns the function of "those in authority"

to the protection of Dar-ul-Islam and to wage a constant war­

fare against Dar-ul-Harb. The doctrine has retained its

validity at theoretical level, it is no more valid in modern

context where the World of Islam itself has disintegrated

into many conflicting individual nation states and in which

Islam is used by successive regimes whether monarchial,

semi-secular or theocratic to further their own narrow

national interest, to consolidate their position and to

legitimise policies and to oppose, isolate and eliminate the

political enemies. Egypt has not been an exception to this

tendency and· its rulers of recent times, including Gamal

Abdel Nasser have used religion principally to undermine the

position of political rivals like the Muslim Brotherhood. By

contrast, President Sadat used Muslim Brotherhood to

eliminate the Nasserite and the leftist forces in the

country. Today President Hosni Mubarak is faced with the

challenge of containing the forces unleashed during the

previous regime.

Literature on the political resurgence of Islam in Egypt

has traditionally focussed upon either the theme of 'role of

official IsY~m' or on the 'ulama's reaction to the

secularizing influence' or the 'growth of militant, Islamic

95 .

organizations/groups'. Little attention has been paid to the

political use by successive regimes of religious institutions

like AI-Azhar, Wagf, Mosque, religious organization like

Sufi orders and various voluntary benevolent societies and

religio-political organizations like Ikhwan and various other

Islamic groups or of their attempt to control through legal

administrative structure, by the state.

States have often made political use of religious

organizations and of religion per se. In fact throughout the

history of Islam, atleast since the Abbasid period, state has

directly or indirectly been engaged in the ' official

patronage and promotion of Islam'. This speaks of the

continuation of the process of Islamization- despite the loud

claim of the ascendancy of secularism during fifties and the

sixties - which could be defined in Antoun's words as lithe

process of institutionalization,

differentiation

systematization

of

of

roles,

doctrine". 1

social organization,

proselytization, and

He concluded that

Islamization was, is and will be a basic and ongoing process

in the Muslim World, apart from the rise and fall of

fundamentalist movements or Islamic revival. 2

Before dwelling in length on the complex relationship

between the political regimes and totality of religious

1. Richard T. Antoun, Muslim Preacher in the Modern World ; A Jordanian Case Study in Comparative Perspective (Princeibn, 1989), p. 242.

2. ibid.

96

forces in contemporary Egypt (i.e. since Nasser's period), a

brief sketch of historical pattern of relationship between

the two, atleast since Mehmet Ali's period is re~ired.

The role of religion varies in different historical

epoch. The variation in the role of religion depends upon the

kind of the socio-economic formation of the society and its

political system, the ideological character of the regime,

the doctrinal resources of the religious elite and its socio­

economic standing in the society. Thus, notwithstanding the,

historic tendency of ulama's submission to authority in Sunni

Islam based on the Quranic injunction, "Oh believers, obey

God, and obey the Messenger and those in authority among

you" ... , and rationalized in terms of Hobbesian choice of

Anarchy Vs O~der during the medieval period, one finds more

assertive role of religious forces (i. e., ulama) and a

greater say in state's activity in pre-Mehmet Ali period than

in the post-Mehmet Ali period. This was partly due to' the

ulama's strong socio-economic position in the then existing

society, secured through the system of ilitizam (tax-farmer),

control over the administration of awagf, various gifts from

royal palace, close association with the merchant class, i. e .

guilds, virtual immunity from subject ~o taxation and

confiscation of their property by the royal authority and

partly due to their role as natural leader of the masses,

keeper of law, order and peace in the society, a source of

advice and consultation to royal authority, a channel of ,',

comrnunicat'i'on between the ruler and the ruled and vice versa

and as a manipulator of public opinion by virtue of their

97

the logic and necessity of consolidating the state power and

centralizing its administration to implement his modernizing

schemes, based on European models, forced him to erode the

pre-iminent position of the ulama in the society.Having

etiminated the threat of Mamluks, Mehmet Ali, in the most

Machaivellian fashion, taking advantage of the internal feud

among the ulama and playing off, powerful ulama against each

other, first broke the personal power of the ulama and then

moved against the wealth of the entire religious

establishment. He abolished the system of ilitizam, thereby

taking from the higher ulama an important source of personal

wealth, subje.cted the ulama in general to land taxation and

seized the revenues of the lucrative and extensive awgaf

khairiya of the religious community, giving in its place a

fixed stipend that was sufficient only to keep the largest

mosque~ and schools from falling into total ruin. S While he

sought to destroy the financial base of higher ulama, Mehmet

Ali patronized a section of higher ulama to lend legitimacy

to his rule and policies. He granted them lands, endowed,

wagfs, and·honoured them on feast days and gave .gifts,

increased their salaries, made them members of his Dewan and

also used them as official historian and propagandi$ts of the

regime. This policy of 'selective patronage and subjugation'

continued throughout the reign of Mehmet Ali and even during

his su~cessor's period.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the development of

5. Crecelius, n. 3(f) ,p. 182.

99

modern educational, legal and conunercial system caused the

increasing marginalization of the traditional religious

elite, the ulama. 6 The modernizing state tended to assume

many of the socio-economic, legal and educational functions

of the traditional ulama. The ulama's role as "natural"

leader of the masses in the past was also seriously

undermined with the development of various political parties

and competing socio-economic and political elite.

According to Nadav Safran these overall socio-economic,

political, legal and educational change during the nineteenth

century led to a complete transformation of the basic

character of the life and organization of Egyptian society.7

However, Gabriel Baer has argued that "Notwithstanding the

dissolution of the tribal and the village conununity, the

disappearance of the guilds and the abolition of slavery,

economic and administative development and contact with

Europe during the 19th century, the traditional family and

religious conununity remained intact, and the position of

women in society did not change. Neither wealthy Egyptian nor

the' lower classes acquired the mentality of an industrial

society. The 19th century development partly changed the life

and organization of Egyptian society".8

Indeed the nineteenth century state sponsored reforms

6. Ibid, pp. 167-210, also, Marsot, n. 3(g), pp. 149-66.

7. Nadav Safran, Egypt in Search of Political Conununity (London.,'" 1961), p. 8.

8. Baer, n.3(d), p. 228.

100

r •

and its attempt to dominate over religious establishment

though reduced the political influence of religious

establishment but that did not eliminate the influence of

religion over the psyche of common masses. Islam remained a

basic organizing unit of social life in the Egyptian society.

Its capacity of mass-mobilization was used by all shades of

politicians - religious, semi-secular and secular during the

anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle.

Hence successive rulers and regimes realized the value

of the ulama as a tool of government because of their

influence on the population and on the manipulation and

creation of public opinion and continued their amicable

relationship. They continued to use religion for political

purposes, either in order to legitimize their actions and

policies or to compete for power symbolically or

apologetically in the face of adversity. Thus there was the

bitter political struggle between the monarchy and the

parliament over the issue of ~ reform and reform of AI-

Azhar and its institutions during the period of the

Constitutional Monarchy (1923-52). King Farouq's regime

backed by the traditional ulama, vehemently opposed the move

of the parliament aimed to control the nazirship (i.e.

administration) of wagf khayri and to bring change in the

status of AI-Azhar. 9 Commenting on the political motives

behind King Farouq's opposition, Crecelius remarked "like his

9. On the' "controversy surrounding the reform of Awgaf, see, Baer n. 3 (d), Ch. 5, and on the reform of AI­Azhar, see, Crecelius, n. 3(f),pp. 195-204.

101

father, he had found that AI-Azhar was one of the few

elements he could counterpose to the British and to

Parliament and demanded its support in return for the favours

he showed it. He protected the ulama against the designs of

parliament, created five new religious institutions, opened

his pJ;"ivate treasury to grant Al-Azhar funds withheld by

parliament and raised the religious budget from

900,700 during his reign. 1110

324,000 to

With Jamal Abdel aI-Nasser began a new phase in the

relationship of Islam with the state which was qualitatively

different from the past in terms of seeking total domination

of state authority over the religious establishment. Whatever

autonomy was retained by the various religious. institutions

since the period of Mehmet Ali came to an end with the

nationalization or total state control over the ~ and AI­

Azhar, abolition of·Sharia court and with the establishment

of politico-administrative control over the ~ orders, many

voluntary benevolent societies and mosques. In short, Nasser

nationalized the Islamic institutions.

It was this attempt at total political domination

over religious sphere that led many Western as well as

Oriental scholars to identify his era (1952-1969) with the

, triumph of secularism over Islam'. Hisham Sharabi, in an

article published in 1966 under the title ' Islam and

modernization in the Arab world' stated that Islamic world

10. Crecelius, n. 3(f), p. 203.

102

stated that Islamic revivalism by the Wahhabiyya in Saudi

Arabia or the Muslim Brethren in Egypt came too late to stem

the tide of secularism, and its fate was sealed with the

triumph of Abdel Nasser's secular revolution" .11 In similar

fashion, Daniel Lerner declared, "Whether From East or West,

modernization poses the same basic challenge - the infusion

of a rationalist and positivist spirit against which Islam is

absolutely defenceless. 12 Moore Berger, however, cautioned

against the euphoria of victory of secularism and said that

"the military regime's denial of political influence to the

ulama is not secularism ... it does not call for the state's

control of the intimate details of religious teaching or the

harnessing of religion to the purposes of the government of

the day. 13 Malcom Kerr al so noted that "the dominant,

explicitly political movements of the twentieth century in

the Arab World - nationalism and socialism, eventually

personified by Nasser have not been al together secular

phenomena, even when their appeals and discussions leave

religious terminology behind. Rather there has been a

transposition of religious symbols into secular ones,

concealing an underlying continuity of psychological concerns

11. In J . H. Thompson and R. D. Reischau.er, ed. ; Modernization of the Arab World (Princeton, 1966), p. 31.

12. In his, The Passing of Traditional Society (U. S . A. , 1958), p. 45.

13. Mooro~",'Berger, Islam in Egypt Todav: Social and Politic'al Aspects of Popular Religion (London, 1970), p. 128.

103

and cultural issues. 14

Whether Nasserite regime be characterized as "neo­

patrimonialism,,15 or "stratiotocracy,,16 or more general as

'military-bureaucratic regime', a searching and critical

enquiry into his regime reveals the fact that while seeking

to eliminate traditional religious elite, he nonetheless

tried his best to use Islam for the political purposes both

at domestic as well as foreign level and towards that end

tried to put both the official Islam (i.e. AI-Azhar and Wagf)

and the popular Islam (i.e., ~ orders and mosques) at the

disposal of state's services. Vatikiotis called it as "the

soldiers regimented religion and its institutions more

effectively in the service of their autocracy" .17 Himself a

practicing Muslim, Nasser made political use of Islam

essentially to neutralize the political threat of Muslim

Brotherhood, to endow his regime with Islamic legitimacy and

to 'modernize' the Egyptian society on the basis of

progressive interpretation of the themes of Islamic doctrine

14. Malcom Kerr, "The Political Outlook in the Local Area", in Abraham S.Becker ed., The Economics and Politics of the Middle East (New York, 1975), p. 44.

15. See, Shahrough Akhavi, "Egypt: Neo Patrimonial Elite", in Frank T a c h au, ::=-P-:"o~l-=-=i .... t::..:~=-· .=c"",ao..::l==--~Ec.::l:....:~=-· t""-'=e:..os'"---"'a:.:.n..,d::::......--""P .... o~l"'-"=i .... t:....:i=-c=a:..:::.l Development in the Middle East (New York, 1975), pp.69-112.

16. P.J. Vatikiotis, "Some Political Consequence of the 1952 Revolution in Egypt" in P.M. Holt, ed., Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt (London, 1968), pp. 369-70.

17. P.J. Vatikiotis, " Religion and State" in Gabriel R.Warburg and Uri M. Kuperschmidt, ed; Islam. Nationalism and Radicalism in Egypt and the Sudan (New York, 1988), p. 61.

104

and its history. It is notable that only when he had secured

his position firmly and had done away with the 'political

Since Muslim Brotherhood remained 'Key factor' in the

threat' of Muslim Brethren in 1954, that he could embark on

the 'reform' of religious establishment.

Since Muslim Brotherhood remained 'Key factor' in the

shaping of Nasser's policy towards the 'official Islam' and

the popular Islam, hence a brief historical sketch of the

development of 'Ikhwan' and its relation with Free officer is

required. The Society of Muslim Brothers (known as the Muslim

Brotherhood or the Ikhwan), perhaps the first militant at:ld

activist religio-political movement in the history of modern

Egypt, was founded by Hasan-al Banna in 1928 in the Suez

Canal Zone city of Ismailiya, along with the six members of

British camp labour who came to him having feeling of

resentment at their inferior cultural, social and economic

position as compared to Britishers. 18 The motive behind the

establishment of Ikhwan was to create an "Islamic Order"

based upon the following three principles:

1. Islam complete unto itself and as the final arbiter of

life in all its categories,

2. an Islam formulated from and based on its two primary

sources - the revelation in the Quran and the wisdom of the

Prophet in the Sunna;

3. an Islam applicable to all times and to all places. 19

18. Richard' P. Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers, (London, 1969), p. 222.

19. Ibid, p. 14.

105

Taking the benefit of the 'ideological vaccum' created

by the collapse of Western-liberal-democratic model in late

thirties and early forties due to the corruption and

political compromises made by the Wafd Party, as well as due

to socio-economic crises accentuated by the economic

depression and the factor of 'Zionist threat to Islam' and

British colonialism, the Ikhwan spread very rapidly allover

Egypt. Local branches increased from 4 in the 1929 to 2,000

in 1949 and membership rose upto 600,000 in the period of

1946-48. 20 As the Ikhwan spread its influence and as it came

into conflict with other political forces in the country, it

moved towards growing militancy and political action. Indeed,

by the end of forties the Brotherhood emerged as a powerful

contender for political power and posed a serious challenge

to the monarchial regime. Fearful of the possible coup d'etat

by the Ikhwan, the government not only dissolved the Society

of Muslim Brothers in December 1948 on the charge of

conspiracy against the state as evident by the assassination

of Judge Khazindar in March, the confiscation of arms on

Fraghali' s- izba and other violent activities. It also

restored to extra legal means by assassinating Hasan-al

Banna, the founder of Muslim Brotherhood, in 1949. Commenting

on the event of dissolution, the organ of the Sa'dist

government, Akhirsa'a said that "the government had regarded

the Society as its strongest opponent. It was not just a

party but rather resembled a state with its armies,

20. Ibid, p. 328.

106

hospitals, school, factories and companies.,,21

After the assassination of Hasan al-Banna in 1949, the

moderate wing of the society tried to retrieve its legal

status by electing as its leader Hasan Ismail Hudaybi -- a

man of aristocratic origin and a judge of a more than twenty

years standing, having a soft corner towards the Royal House

and an outspoken opponent of violence and terrorism and who

disliked the 'secret apparatus' of the organization. It is

notable that king Farouq played a crucial role in getting him

elected as the General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. 22

Hudaybi too maintained a cordial relation with the palace

till its abolition by the Free Officers. The court restored

the legal status to the Society and on the 18th December 1951

the government released its confiscated property including

its press and all building. 23 The aristocratic background of

Hudaybi and his hobnobbing with the monarchy and later on

with Gen Naguib, 24 was to become an additional factor,

(apart from the inevitable clash for the control of social

base between the two, both the Free Officers and Muslim

Brotherhood had their base among industrial labourers,

peasants, and urban middle class) in making Nasser suspicious

of the. political design of the Brotherhood.

21. Ibid, p. 67.

22. See, Zohurul Bari, Re-emergence of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt (New Delhi, 1995), p. 41-42.

23. Mitchell, n. 18, p. 84 .

24. . . ',

Joel Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Officers and the July Revolution (Oxford, 1992), 184-5.

107

Free pp.

Ini tially Brotherhood supported the Free Off icer' s

revolution and termed it as 'Blessed Movement', hoping that

they would transform the 'Islamic ideal' into

reality. Earlier, they had interacted with each other at the

Battle ~f Faluzah where the Brothers helped to indoctrinate

the Free Officers and the latter helped the Brothers with

military training. 25 A number of Free Officers, espe~ially

Anwar-el-Sadat, had a close relation with the Muslim

Brethren. A more recent work by Dr. Bari throws light on

Nasser being a close associate of Muslim Brethren and even a

member of their secret apparatus in the pre-revolutionary

days.26 However, the honeymoon between the two could not

last long. Nasser's rejection of the demand of Brotherhood's

two nominee (Hasan al-Ashmawi and Munir al-Dilla) as

representatives in the revolutionary government and Islam -

based constitution, and the growing use of Islam by Free

officers to legitimise their policies alienated the

Brotherhood and pushed them into vocal opposition of the

military regime. On the other hand, the R.C.C. (Revolutionary

Command Council) did not like the presentation by Muslim

Brothers of their programme of radical socio-economic and

agrarian reform to the people - chiefly aimed at undermining

25. Mitchell, n. 18, pp. 89, 99, also Anwar-el SadatIn Search of Identity (London, 1978), pp. 22-24.

26. For Free Officers - Brothers relation in details, see, Mitchell, n. 18, pp. 105-62, (b) Ishak Musa Husaini Muslim' Brethren: The Greatest of the Modern Islamic Movemen"t (Beirut, 1956) ,pp. 1.25-48, (c) Christina P. Harris, Nationalism and Revolution in Egypt; The Role of the Muslim Brotherhood (The Hague, 1.964) ,pp. 195-237, also, Bari, n. 22, pp. 7-1.7.

108

the young revolution's popularity. Indeed, the Brother's

reformist programme was almost similar to the reforms

undertaken in later years by Nasser's regime. 27

The First military crackdown on the Muslim Brethren took

place in January 1954 when Hudayabi, the General Guide,

refused to commit himself to disband the secret apparatus of

the Brotherhood, especially in the army, as demanded by

Nasser in a meeting with the Guide. 28 However, officially, a

large number of Muslim Brothers including Hudayabi were

arrested on the charge of holding rally in association with

Fidaiyan-i-Islam, - the Iranian radical Islamic Organisation,

which had been involved in the assassination of General

Razmara 29 The arrest evoked the country-wide criticism

including one from Gen Naguib himself.As a result Gen Naguib

was sacked by the military regime which also imposed curbs on

the freedom of expression. Naguib's removal evoked a nation-

wide protest. Large scale demonstrations took place demanding

his reinstatement and the release of political prisoners. The

opposition of all shades the Muslim Brothers, the

socialist, and the Wafdists got united to demand the

immediate 'restoration of democracy' with Naguib as President

and arrest of Nasser and Salah Salim. 30 Commenting on the

27. Harris, n. 26(c), pp. 195-203.

28. Gabriel R. Warburg, Egyopt and the Sudan ; Studies in History and Politics (London, 1985), p. 213.

29. Harris, n. 26(c), pp. 213-16.

30. On the Power Struggle between R.C.C, Naguib and the Muslim Brotherhood, see, Gordon, n.24, pp. 175-190.

109

political motive behind Muslim Brother's call for

'restoration of democracy' Warburg remarked, "They (Muslim

Brothers) had allied themselves previously, first with king

Farouq, and later with the Free officers, since they regarded

democracy, secular constitutions, liberal political parties

and communism as anathema to Islam.The Brother's leadership

was thus not really fighting to restore democracy but rather

attempting to curb the R.C.C.'s exaggerated powers. 31 Sensing

the popular mood of the country, the military junata by 25

March 1955 released all the political prisoner and announced

its decision to restore democratic rights, to allow the

establishment of political parties and to hold free elections

and to dissolve itself on 24 July and to transfer power to

people's representation.

However, the 'Manshiya incident' 26 Oct 1954 (called .' " .............

after the name of ~ite in Alexandra - in which one Mahumud

'Abd aI-Latif', a brother and member of the ' secret

organization' attempted to assassinate Nasser while he was

addressing some 10,000 workers in Alexandria) provided a

golden opportunity to RCC to deal severely with Muslim

Brotherhood. That incident also marked the emergence of

Nasser as the strongman within RCC and provided an occasion

to finally do away with Muhammad Naguib. Nasser exploited the

incident to the fullest extent and dealt a severe blow to the

existence of Muslim Brotherhood. Alongwith the dissolution of

the Society, several of its leaders and active members were

31. Warburg, n. 28, p. 213.

110

executed and many condemned to long terms of imprisonment. 32

While dismantling the Brothers' arumed threat the regime also

moved to undermine its grass-root support. On 10 December,

1954 the day after the six Brothers were hanged, the social

Affairs Ministry assumed administrative control of the

Brotherhood welfare centers on the pretext that they were a

front for clandestine activity.33

Immediately after Manshiya incident, a combination of

factors brought successive victories to the Free Officers in

their war against the Brotherhood. While a quick

implementation of some policies related to social justice and

land reforms further isolated the Brotherhood, the

nationalization of the Suez Canal and his defiant anti-

imperialist posture made Nasser the 'hero' of the whole Arab

World. If Manshiya incident strnegthened and consolidated his

position,_ the Suez crisis endowed him with ' Charisma' . --.

Dr.Bari has rightly observed that "so d~cidedly had the

social bases of. the Brotherhood slipped towards the side of

the Free Officers in the course of two years, that when

Nasser finally struck at the Brotherhood, no demonstration of

public support in their favour took place in marked departure

from the experience through most of' the 1940' s and early

1950s".34

32. For details, see, Mitcheel, n. 18, pp. 151-62.

33. Gordon, n. 24, p. 184.

34. Bari, n. 22, p. 17.

'111

with the newly found charisma and having eliminated the

political threat of Brotherhood, Nasser now turned towards

the "reform" of religious establishment and utilize them to

serve as the ideological - political instrument of state's

regime to propagate and justify the latter's socio-economic

and religious policies. Unlike the past, now it was the

modern Islam of the rulers that was to be propagated and

enforced, not the more traditional Islam of the ulama. 35

The ~, amounting to 11% of whole of cultivable lands

in Bgypt, were the first semi-autonomous religious

institutions to be brought under state control. According to

Baer, on the eve of reform the ~ property constituted

600,000 feddans. 36 As a part of land reform programme, all

types of wagf (personal, public and mixed) were either

abolished or nationalized or brought under the control of the

Ministry ~'f Awgaf. 37 Already, the Sharia court was abolished

in January 1956, thereby undermining the economic basis of

Islamic establishment. Usually attached with state's

agricultural lands, the ~ has been the most important

sources of financial stability of the ulama in the past.

According to CUno, who quoted Jabarti, "the Wagf i~ 1813

constituted 600,000 faddans mostly confined to upper Bgypt

and the Cairo vicinity which amounted to 20% of all of

35. Daniel Crecelius "The Course of Secularization in Modern Egypt", in John L. Esposito, ed; Islam and Development ; Religion and Socio-Political Change (New York, 1980), pp. 68-73.

36. Baer,n. 3d, p. 80.

37. ibid, pp. 88-92.

112

Egypt's then cultivated land. 38 It also served as a political

instrument into the hands of state's regime to control the

religious dignitaries, for the state maintained its monopoly

of conferring the post of nazirship (supervisor or

administrator) of the public wagf. Indeed, because of its

financial importance, the past history of Islamic world has

witnessed the innumerable political struggle among the ruling

elites to control the important wagf. Gibb and Bowen noted

"every student of the period will be struck by the large

numbers of wagfs held by the wealthy families, not only of

the religious classes but also of civil and military

officers. There was keen competition for the control more

especially of the larger wagfs, with all the resulting

intrigues bribery and other abuses". 39 Moreover, there has

been tendency to convert the public ~ into family (or

private) .~ in order to escape the confiscation of the

property by state authorities. On theother hand, the

successive rulers, impelled by their financial needs, have

sought ~o exercise personal control/supervision over the

large public ~. Egypt has not been an exception to these

tendencies with regard to wagf. Baer noted "throughout. the

nineteenth and, with even greater impetus in -the twentieth

century, new wagfs were created by landowners in order to

perpetuate their family's name and to consolidate its

38. Kenneth M. CUnno, "The Origin of Private Ownership of Land in Egypt: Reppraisal", in Albert Hourani, Philip S. Khoury and Mary C. Wilson ed., The Modern Middle East (London, & Nw York, 1991), p. 203.

39. Gibb & Bow~n, n. 3a, p. 174.

113

influence, to guard the property against confiscation by the

ruler and splitting up through inheritance and particularly

against seizure for non-payment of debts". 40 While each of

the rulers from Ismail to Farouq transferred the nizara (and

the revenues) of extensive agricultural lands and urban

properties from the Ministry of Awgaf to the Royal Wagf

office. 41 In fact the period of constitutional Monarchy

(1923-1952) witnessed a bitter struggle between the monarchy

and the secular nationalist to control the large public

~.42

Al-Azhar gained in importance especially after the clash

with the Muslim Brethren, in October 1954. In crushing the

1,700 cells which the Brethren claimed to have had in the

Egyptian countryside, Nasser and his colleagues needed the

blessings of the ulama and their cooperation both at the

centre' of". government and in helping to mobilize the local

Imams and Kbattib teachers to the support of the regimes. 43

Nasser and other members of R.C.C. paid frequent visits to

the Sheikh .(Rector) Al Azhar and no less frequently attended

the Al-Azhar Friday prayers. 44 Indeed the council of ulama of

40. Baer, n. 3d, p. 79.

41. Daniel Crecelius, "The Waqf of Muhammad Bey Abu al­Dhahabin Historical Perspective", International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (London), Vol. 23 (1991),p.71. ,

42. Baer, n. 3(d), pp.83-88.

43. Warburg, n. 28, p. 198.

44. D. Creecllius "AI-Azhar in Revolution", Journal (Washington D. C.) Vol. 20, no. .1966), p. 34.

114

Middle East 4 (Winter,

Al-Azhar endorsed the regime's suppression of Brotherhood by

"denouncing the Brethren for 'deviating from the teachings of

Islam' and declared that any Muslim plotting against the

legitimate rulers of the Egyptian peoples namely the Free

officers, were guilty of hersey.45 On a few occassions of

national crisis, like the Suez crisis of 1956, Nasser himself

even ascended the pulpit and delivered the Sermon. His choice

of time and place was sufficient to identify him as defender

of the nation and the faith. 46

'The reform of 1961 placed Al-Azhar's various

departments and administration under the men from outside the

ranks of the ulama, reformed its curriculum and reduced the

rector, Sheikh Al-Azhar, to the position of a figurehead. In

short, AI-Azhar had been nationalized. 47 It was directly

attached to the President's office and was put under the

charge of a Minister of AI-Azhar Affairs. With this measure

the conservative ulama lost their only remaining autonomous

instititions. 48 AI-Azhar was now called on to provide Islamic

justification to Nasser's socialist measures and to his

ideological war-fare against the monarchial conservative Arab

states led by Saudi Arabia. Indeed, under the ove"rall

45. Harris, n. 26(c), pp. 222-3.

46. Bruce M. Borthwick, "The Islamic Sermon As a Channel of Political Communication" Middle East Journal, vol. 21, n. 3, (Summer 1967), p. 305.

47. For details see, Crecelius, n. 44, pp. 31-49.

48. A al-Moneim S. Aly and M. W. Wenner, "Modern Islamic Reform Movements: The Muslim Brotherhood in Contemporary Egypt", The Middle East Journal, Vol. 36, no . 3 , (Summer, 1982)., pp . 343 - 4 .

115

supervision of the President's office, it emerged as a major

channel of communication between Egypt and the Arab and

Muslim world and as the leading Muslim interpreter of

Nasser's revolution. 49 Thus, the National charter of 1962 was

justified by Sheikh al Azhar as in conformity with the

principles of Islam. 50 Other scholars from Al-Azhar like

Muhammad al-Bahi, one time chancellor of Al-Azhar and Ahmad

Hasan al Zayyat, the editor of MajallatAl-Azhar came out in

support of Nasser's Pan-Arabism and socialism, justifying

them as in conformity with Islamic values and doctrines. Al-

Azhar produced number of works on Islam and socialism.

Publications such as the Islamic Forum, Islamic youth and

Islamic Affairs took the same line. 5l Mustafa al-Sibai wrote

a comprehensive treatise entitled 'Socialism of Islam' which

was prescribed in the text books of high schools. 52 It was

against this background of Islamic legitimization of Nasser's

policies that a French scholar, Oliver Carre, dubbed it as

"Muslim Theology of Socialism".53

Nasser clearly visualised the political role of Islam in

49. Warburg, n. 28, p. 199.

50. Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, "Official Islam And Political Legitimation in Arab World", in Freyer Barbara Stowasser, ed. , Islamic Impulse, (London, 1987), p. 137, quoting Al-Ahram, June 14, 1062.

51. For details, see, Sami Hanna and George H. Gardner ~ Socialism (Leiden, 1969), pp. 64-79, 149-71.

52. For details, see, Hamid Enayat Modern Islamic Political Thought (London, 1982), pp. 139-149.

53. In Bruce M. Brothwick, "Religion and Politics in Israel and Bgypt", Middle East Journal, vol. 33, no. 4 (1979), p. 160.

116

Egypt's foreign policy. He stated as early 1954, liAs I stood

before the Kaba. . .. I fully recognized the need for a

radical change of our conception of the pilgrimage... the

pilgrimage should have a potential political power. 54 He

envisioned an II Islamic Circle II , which came third after Arab

and Africa 6nes, to be composed of II those hundreds of

millions of Muslims, all wedded into a homogenous whole by

the same faith and whose cooperation would ensure for them

and their brethren in Islam unlimited power". 55 Thus, as

early as in 1955, Nasser alongwith king Saud and Ghulam

Muhammad, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, created an Islamic

Congress with headquarter at Cairo and whose obj ective

according to Sadat (who served as the first secretary general

of the congress) was lito work for closer links between Arab

and Muslim countries as well as for certain foreign policy

objectives of Egypt such as frustrating the Baghdad Pact". 56

Another Islamic body, created within the Ministry of Awgaf in

1960, was· the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs whose aim

was to "extend Islam's brilliant rays of light from the

United Arab Republic to all quarters of the World, East and

West equally regardless of race and colour. 57 The council

published numerous books and pamphlets on Islamic themes and

54. Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, liThe Limits of Instrumentalism: Islam in Egypt's Foreign Policyll, in Adeed Dawisha, ed; Islam in Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 1983), p. 86.

55. Gamal Abd al Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution, Dorothy Thompson, Trans. (Cairo, n.d), p. 69.

56. Anwar al Sadat, n. 25, p. 136.

57. Berger, n. 13, p. 48.

117

distributed them throughout the Muslim and Arab world. 58

These and many other Islamic organisations were created with

the aim of securing the support of ulama to enhance the

regime's legitimacy and to isolate the Muslim Brotherhood

politically and to project Nasser's Egypt as "the model of

regenerated Islam and the harbinger of another Islamic

Age".59

AI-Azhars role in Egypt's foreign policy was clearly

recognized by the Nasser regime, especially during the Arab

Cold War of the sixties. Article 2 of 1961 law states, "AI­

Azhar carries the burden of Islamic mission to all nations. 60

In March 1964 AI-Azhar sponsored the first Afro-Asian Islamic

Conference which was attended by 44 countries. It discussed

religious aspects of the struggle against imperialism. The

same year, an Academy of Islamic Research was convened at

Cairo to combat the Saudi-sponsored World Muslim League which

aimed at isolating Nasser. 61 The budget for scholarship to

foreign students to enable them to attend AI-Azhar increased

from 15,000 in 1952 to 375,000 in 1963 and by 1964 AI-Azhar

had more than 200 ulama allover the World. 62 Also in 1964,

AI-Azhar establsihed daily 13-hour radio programme, 'The

58. Ibid, pp. 41-49.

59. P. J. Vatikiotis, "Islam and the Foreign Policy of· Egypt" in Harris Proctor, ed; Islam and International Relations (New York, 1965), pp. 122, 128.

60. Dessouki, n. 54, p. 87.

61. Warburg, n. 28, p. 206.

62. Dessouki, n. 54, p. 88.

118

Voice of Islam', for reciting the Quran and a year later the

programme was expanded throughout Africa and included

broadcasts in many indigenous languages. Islamic cultural

centre~ sponsored by Egypt were established in many of the

African Muslim countries. 63

The hightended Islamic Political propaganda in early

60's on the part of Nasser should be seen in the context of

Yemen civil War (1964-65) where Nasserite forces were waging

war against the Saudi-backed Yemini monarchy. Islam during

the phase of Arab cold war was identified with anti-

imperialism and served as political instrument in Nasser's

struggle for hegemony and leadership in Muslim Arab

countries.

The regime's control or supervision over mosque also

came into the background of neutralising the political

influence of Brotherhood. A Mosque is an old Islamic

~nstitution with a hi9? degree of legitimacy among the Muslim

people. The institution of Friday sermon (Khutba) has

historically served as a channel of political communication

whereby- the ruling elite informed the public of its po-licies,

programmes and ideas. Though by far the most important

legitimising instruments in the hands state's regime, the

mosque has also been utilised for opposing the regime. Its

role as a centre of political mobilization has been

testified, in recent years, by the Iranian revolution (1979),

63. For the use of Islam in Egypt's Africa Policy, see, Tareq Ismael, The UAR in Africa: Egypt's Policy Under Nasser (Evanston, 1971), pp. 142-53.

119

More precisely, mosque is an another location of power

outside the governmental sphere, apart from the variety of

religio-cultural functions it performs. Hence, over the

centuries governments in Islamic countries have had control

over mosques, especially over the Imam and the preacher

(Khattib), located in capital cities or principal towns.

Therefore, one finds two kinds of mosque in a Muslim country

- the government controlled (called public) and the private

mosque. The former's staff are paid and the content of its

Friday Sermon is controlled by the government. The latter is

manage~ by people themselves on charitable basis and does not

necessar'ily follow the governmental. instruction. 64 In the

twentieth century the Egyptian government followed the same

policy towards the mosque. Thus under the old regime which

was overthrown in 1952, the government controlled the content

of the sermons, and conf ined the topics to loyal ty to the '.

existing order, satisfaction with one's lot, the sacre~ess

of property, and the defense of capitalism, "in order to give

the people, the idea that the huge differences between the

classes were sanctioned by Allah. 65

The Free officers soon learned to copy the techniques so

successfully used by Brethr~n, of· having their Friday sermons

64. For details, see, ch. "Masjid", in The Encyclopaedia of Islam (London, 1960), Vol. 3, Gibb and Bowen, n, 3 (a) , pp. 92-96, Reuben Levy, The Social Structure of Islam' (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 153-56,also, Borthwick, n. 46,pp. 299-313.

65. See, James Jeyworth Dunne, Religious and Political Trends in Modern Egypt, (Washington, 1950), pp.50-51.

120

preached in the village throughout Egypt. 66 Muslim Brethren

used the sermon to attack Nasser. 67 To check that the

Nasserite regime placed all kinds of mosques - public,

annexed and private - under the supervision of the Ministry

ofAwgaf. Since 1960, the government sought more conversion of

private mosques into governmental ones. 68 In 1964 the

Ministry.spoke primarily of the role of the large number of

private mosques in "national orientation and dissemination of

Islamic teachings and the foundations of Islamic

socialism" .69 Further the Ministry suggested, for those not

yet annexed, an interim measures -. the creation of

administrative councils to guide them and to reform their

lectures and sermons. 70 Between 1952 and 1964 the Ministry

itself built 78 new mosques at an average cost of 18,000 and

contributed 1,235,000 towards the completion of 1,560

private mosques. 71 In 1962 there were 3,006 governmental

mosques of· which 1,300 were added. during 1952-62, and 14,212

private mosques. 72 The total number of employees and

officials in all governmental mosques increased from 6,919 in

66. J .B.· Mayfield, Rural Politics in Nasser's Egypt (Austin,· 1971), pp. 53-54.

67. Borthwick, n. 46, p. 312.

68. Berger, n. 13, pp. 15, 53.

69. Ibid, pp. 54-55.

70. Ibid, p. 55.

71. Ibid, pp. 15, 56.

72. Ibid, pp. 17-18.

121

1951 to 12,357 in 1963. 73 Of all the mosque personnel, the

biggest increase was in the number of imams (more than

doubled) i.e. preacher whose task, according to Warburg, was

'to spread the messianic gospel of Nasserism throughout

Egypt' .74 Indeed, the government used religious preachings

and Friday' sermons in these mosques to justify its socio­

economic as well as its religious policies. Every week each

preacher received a written directive from the Ministry of

Religious Affair's suggesting the topic of week's sermon. He

could either write his own sermon or use the script provided

by the Ministry.75

The military regime's political interference in Sufi

orders began in 1955 with the realization that the

administrative organization of the ~ orders could be used

to combat the opposition of the Brotherhood as well as to

strengthen and widen its own base of support by stimulating

and favouring the adherents of conceptions of Islam that were

rooted in and partly identical with some of the central

conceptions in popular Islam. 76 Thus the SY.ti orders known

"for its affiliation with members of Brotherhood or Royal

Palace faced the wrath of Nasser's regime while ~ order

73. Ibid, p. 44.

74. Warburg, n. 28, p. 200.

75. Borthwick, n. 46, p. 305.

76. Fred De Jong "Aspects of the Political Involvement of Sufi. Orders in Twentieth Century Egypt (1907-1970) An Exploratory Stock Taking", in Warburg and Kuperschmidt,n. 17, p. 196.

122

having pro-regime outlook were promoted and benefited using

its promixty to the governmental authority.77 Muhammad Mahmud

Ilwan, the head of al-Ilwaniyya al-Khalwatiyy Sufi order and

a close friend of Abd aI-Hakim Amir, an R.C.C. member charged

with the supervision and reform of Sufi orders became the

head of the Supreme Sufi Council (S.S.C.) in 1957. It is the

highest body of all Sufi orders which regulates the

activities of ~ orders and its decision are binding over

them. The becoming of Ilwan as head of S.S.C. marked the

revival of organized Islamic mysticism in Egypt. This could

be seen in the appearance of an official ~ periodical, ~

Islam wal tasawwuf, official recognition of several ~

orders, an increase in their membership and an increase in

the number of mawalid's (saint's birthday) celebrations. 78

The Guide to Sufism published in 1958 by the S.S.C. thus

hailed the 'blessed revolution' of 1952 as the great hope for

I the' nation and claimed that Sufism continued to flourish in

Bgypt due to "God's blessing and support and to the

encouragement and help of the Revolution and its great

leader".79 In 1965, S.S.C attacked the Muslim Brotherhood and

accused it of a terrorist conspiracy against the regime. 80 In

fact, the S.S.C, under the leadership of Ilwan, was

.increasingly used by the A. S. U. (Arab Socialist Union) to

77. Ibid, pp. 198-200.

78. Ibid, p. 196, also, Warburg, n. 28, p. 200.

79. Berger, n. 13, pp. 70-71.

80. Ibid.

123

distribute its ideological propaganda throughout Egypt. Since

its in~eption in 1961, the A.S.U. was involved in organizing

the mawalid, who were used for making propaganda for the

regime by means of pamphlets, banners, and public speeches. 81

Moreover, the staging of the hadras in mosques was made

subject to permission from the Ministry of Awgaf. 82

The Muslim Brethren could resume political activities on

full scale only in the wake of the release of Sayyid Qutub in

1964 -- the radical ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood who

was elected to the Brethren's leadership council in 1952 and

namec;l as the head of the department of the Propagation of

Islam. 83 Sayyid Qutub bitterly denounced the Nasserite regime

as 'un-Islamic' and attacked the very ideological foundation

of political system. He stated that Arab socialism and

solidarity based on clan, tribe, nation, race, colour and

land were-"~rotten", according to the. Prophet. 84 In fact, by

extending Maududi notion of· Jahiliyya (description of the

ignorance and paganism of pre- Islami~ society) to all the

existing regimes - Muslim or non-Muslim - Qutub equated the

Nasser~st state with pre-Islamic barbarism - thereby placing

the regime beyond the bounds of Islam. 8S

It was in the light of this background, that the

81. Jong, n. 76, p. 196.

82. Ibid, p. 197.

83. Gills Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharoah (London, 1985), p. 41.

84. Warburg, n. 28, p. 215.

85. Kepel, n. 83, p. 37.

124

, Nasserite regime accused the Brethren of once again plotting

to assassinate Nasser and to overthrow the regime, and came

down heavily upon the Brethren in 1965-66, leading to the

execution of three leaders including Sayyid Qutub. Thousands

were arrested and twenty six were reportedly tortured to

death. According to Kepel to the motive behind the creackdown

was, "with the fiasco of the Yemen expedition and the

bulimia of a state bureaucracy that devoured everything in

sight and succeeded only in reproducing itself the new

conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood offered an ideal

scapegoat that would enable the leader to reunite the people

behind them. 86

It was such an extensive use of Islam by the military

regime at both domestic as well as foreign level which led a

scholar to remark, "the military leaders were moving toward a

religious solution which had eluded the ulama, Islamic

reformers' 'such as Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, the Ikhwan

and the secular - liberal nationalist. The state itself would

assume'responsibility for the revival of Islam. 87

The Sadat Reg~e: The overall control of Nasserite state over

both the official Islam and popular Islam was also maintained

during Sadat' s regime. Like Nasser, Sadat also used Islam

extensively in domestic as well as foreign spheres, but with

a different set of politico-economic objetives. While Islam

in the hands of Nasser was a tool to enhance his political

86. Ibid, pp. 31-32.

87. Crecelius, n.35, p.65.

125

legitimacy, to isolate the Brotherhood, to provide

ideological support to Pan-Arabism and his fight against

imperialism and its stooges in the Arab World and to

legitimise his socio-economic measures, Sadat used it apart

from enha~cing his legitimacy to eliminate the Nasserite and

the leftist forces and to justify the new policy of open

market, economy called infitah to dove tail Egypts policy with

that of America and its allies in the region. The two

principal instruments to secure these objectives were AI­

Azhar and the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

With these objectives in mind, regligion was given a

more prominent role to play during Sadat's regime - what he

called the 'State of Science and Faith'. Sadat relaxed state

control over activities of religious organizations which were

allowed to operate more freely than was the case during

Nasser,' se,ra. The enhanced role of religion could be seen

from the position accorded to Islam in the new constitution.

While the Constitution of 1954 and the National Charter of

1962 could not go beyond the recognition of Islam as the

state religion, the 1971 constitution declared Sharia "a"

major source of legislation (Art 2) which was further amended

and underlined as "the" major source when Art. 2 was amended

in 1980. Also art 19 prescribes religious instruction in the

school .

Lacking in charisma and legitimacy, Sadat resorted more

frequently to religious symbolism. This was evident from his

conscious projection of himself as a "believing" President,

seeking,the wide media - coverage while performing "namaz" in

126

important public mosques, often finishing speech with the

Ouranic quotation, visiting even important ~ tombs on the

occasion of mawlid, naming the October war (1973) as battle

of 'Badr', declaring himself once as a 'Muslim President of

an Islamic State' and justifying his actions as his duty as a

Muslim leader. The use of religious symbols were aimed at

creation of his own 'seperate identity' and to enhance his

political legitimacy in the country.

Sadat needed the support of religious establishment in

his fight against the Nasserite and conununist opposition.

Thus on one hand in 1971 while he threw the issue of

inclusion of Sharia within the constitution (1971) to public

debate,88 On the other in the very same year (on 14 May) he

carried out his so-called "corrective revolution" purging

maj or pro-Nasser groups from government sector, especially

the one led by Ali Sabri. The crackdown on Muslim Brethren in

1965 also served the A.S.U. in its attempt to mobilize waning

'public support for Nasser's Arab socialism. The A.S.U. under

AI-Sabri, its new Secretary General, soon enabled the regime

to build up the cadres of the organization and to mount a

crusade against the Islamic and conservative opposition to

Nasser's ·policies. In accordance with these objectives, the

conununist movement in Egypt in 1965 declared its voluntary

dissolution, in order to inflitrate into the political

88. Joseph P.O. Kane, "Islam in the New Egyptian Constitution: Some Discussion in al-Ahram", Middle East Journal, vol.26,no.2, (1972), pp. 137-48.

127

institution of the regime, and especially the A.S.u. 89

Muhammad Hassnain Haykel, the influential editor of AI-Ahram,

an ideologue of pan-Arabism and a close confident of Nasser,

was replaced by a rightwing journalist, Ali Amin.

In 1973 Sadat appointed Dr. Abd al-Halim Mahmud, a Sufi,

theologian of considerable prestige in both Sufi circles and

among theologians, as Sheikh AI-Azhar. He was known for his

bitter opposition to socialism and of the left and was

alleged to have a close association with the Saudi

authority. 90 Seen in this background, his appointment was

not just a coincidence but a well calculated move on the part

of Sadat to secure the political and ideological support of

Saudi regime and the Islamic establishment to his Open door

policy' - launched in the aftermath of the October War

(1973). It was then claimed that the Egyptian Ulama were

again endeavouring to take a more active role in keeping the

country on the "right path". 91 In fact,· there was a

tremendous growth in the activities of "official Islam"

during the Sadat era. A large number of new Azharite

89. See, S. Shamir, "The Marxists in Egypt: The Licensed Infiltration", in M. Confino and S. Shamir ed., The U.S.S.R. and the Middle East (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 293-317..

90 . Foud Aj ami, " In the Pharaoh's Shadow: ReI igion and Authority in Egypt" in James P. Piscatori, ed; Islam in the Political Process (Cambridge, 1.983), pp. 1.1.3-1.5, also,Ibrahim Ibrahim "Religion and Politics Under Nasser and Sadat", in Stowasser n. 50, p. 127.

91.. R.D. McLauri, M. Mughisuddin, and A.R. Wagner, Foreign Policy Making in the Middle East, (New York, 1.977), p. 56.

1.28

institutions of all levels were establsihed in the province,

and Al Azhar was asked to participate in the formulation of

religious course for Egyptian university.92 A new campus of

AI-Azhar University in Nasser city was built, whose budget,

it is claimed, was underwritten by the Saudi government. 93

The state-supported mosques have more than doubled their

number of religious educational insti tutions and their

student intake has more than tripled. Publications issued by

AI-Azhar, MRE and the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs

(SCIA)", which affirm the officially approved version of

Islam, have also increased four-fold. The number of radio and

television hours of religious programmes have quadrupled

during this period. 94 This increase in the role of Al-Azhar

and other Islamic institutions of "official Islam" was aimed

initially at curtailing the power of Nasserist and communist

opposition95 and later on to "counterbalance the upsurge in

the 'activist Islam''', 96 but subsequeI70tly developed a

momentum of its own which the government that had initiated

it failed to contain.

Despite the" considerable tension between the Islamic

92. Bari, n. 22, p.68, June 1977.'

quoting al Ahram, 26 January and 5

93. Louis, J. Contori, "Religion and Politics in Egypt" in Michael CUrtis, Religion and Politics in the Middle East (Boulder, 1982), p. 82.

94. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Egypt Islamic World Quarterly (London), Vol. 1, n. 637.

95. Warburg, n. 28, p. 202.

96. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, n. 94, p. 637.

129

Activism", Third 1-2, (1988), p.

establsihment and the regime over the issue of implementation

of the Sharia, Sadat continued to receive the full backing of

the ulama in his drive against the left. During the October

1976 elections muftis and ulama openly suppoprted Sadat' s

centrist platform and denounced Khaled Muhyi aI-Din' s

socialist platform as irreligious. 97 During the food riots of

1977, trigered due to withdrawal of government subsidies on

staple food commodities, AI-Azhar took the same stand as that

of the government, accusing the Marxists and the Nasserites

for the trouble despite the fact that various Islamic groups

were equally vehement in their criticism of the government's

"Open door policy". The Rector of AI-Azhar, Dr. Abd-al-Halim

Mahmud, appealed on Radio Cairo to all Muslims, denouncing

the riots as ' the lowest the humanity could stoop to and

declaring that they were organized by 'the enemy (communists)

lying in wait to destroy all our aspirations,.98

The most powerful ideological support to Sadat's policy

of infitah came from Sheikh AI-Azhar, Dr. Mahmud himself. He

termed "crypto-communists" all those who advocated state

intervention to promote egalitarian redistribution. His book,

Fatwa'an al-Shuyuivva (Fatwas on Communism), published in

1976, was nothing but an attempt at providing the Islamic

justification for private property the pul se of market

economy. According to the Sheikh, "communism is heresy, for

97. R.M. Burell and A.R. Kelidar, Egypt. The Dilemma of a Nation: 1970-77 (London, 1977), p. 43.

98. Warburg, n. 28, p. 203, quoting FBIS-MEA V. 216.

130

among other things, it attacks private property, whereas

Islam sanctions property and opens before the individual the

path to wealth and prosperity.99 He further said, "Islam not

only accepts and facilitates private property; it also

surrounds it with 'mighty protection and imposes penalty on

those who transgress on this property whatever the forms of

their violations.... He who tampers with the right of

ownership, particularly ownership of land, will sooner or

later meet with the wrath of God. 100 It should be noted that

among the many scheme of infitah, Sadat also enacted de-

sequestration measure aimed at restoring the property and

land to their original owners. 101

Although Sadat had purged major pro-Nasser power blocks

from governmental sector in May 1971 itself, he still needed

a political ally to combat them at the ground level. The

Brethren, with their bitter memories of Nasser and his

clique, were ideal partners in Sadat's search for mass

support in universities, industry and the overpopulated urban

areas. 102 With this objective, Sadat resorted to "selective"

releasing.of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a process

said to have been completed by March 1975. Each released

99. Ajami, n. 90, p. 14.

100. Ibid., p. 4, quoting Mahmud's Fatwa on Communism.

101 . See, Ha mi d An s a r i , =E!.:;q,..V~D~t,-,:,---"",T .... h",-,e=-------"S<...lt=.;a~l...:!l~e=:.;d~---,S"",o=c,-,,i~e::..t~y (Albaney,1986), pp. 179-84.

102. For details, see, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "An Islamic alternative in Egypt The Muslim Brotherhood and Sadat", Arab Studies Quarterly (Beimont, USA), Vol. 4, no. 2 (Spring 1982), pp.221-42, also, Warburg, no. 28, p. 216.

131

batch of Muslim Brotherhood was given wide media publicity

including their torture in the jail in order to project the

. f f N . state .103 W;th the brutal and negat~ve ace 0 asser~te .A-

political support of Sadat's regime and the financial backing

of Saudi government104 the Brotherhood under the charismatic

suprem~ Guide, Omar Telmisani, soon re-emerged as a powerful

political force in mid 70's. Sadat allowed the pro-

2Brotherhood students to group under the vague banner of

Jamaa'at al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Associations) which swept

the student's union election in most of the Egyptian

Universities in 1977 and 1978. An important reason for the

victory of Jamaa' at was the suppression of communists,

Marxists and Nasserists on the campus after the January 1977

riots .105 In return for these political favours, the

BrotheFhood, initially, cooperated with the government. Not

only the Brotherhood opposed the anti-regime violence of the

militant Islamic groups but also provided Islamic

justification for the regime's denunciation of pan-Arabism

and socialism. The Brethren claimed that history textbooks

taught in Egyptian, Syrian and other Arab schools were. in

103. Bari~ n. 22, p. 71.

104. Following Nasser's crackdown on the organization in 1950's & 60's the regime in Riyadh had provided refuge find financial assistance to them. Daniel Pipes has claimed that the Saudis gave Muslim Brethren $100,000 in early 1979, extensibly for building mosques. See Pipes,o "Oil Wealt.h and Islamic Resurgence" in Ali E. Hil1a1 . Oessouki, ed., Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World, {USA, 1982),p. 48.

105. Warburg, n. 28, p. 217.

132

fact a war against Islam. Arabism had replaced Islam in these

textbooks, while the pre-Islamic ;ahiliyya was being extolled

because of its Arabism, despite its barbaric and anti-Muslim

nature. 106 But as Western penetration, the American alliance

and Sadat's accomodation with Israel became more overt,

regime 1 s relation with the Islamic movement soured. The peace

treaty with Israel following the Camp David Agreement of 1978

and the break with Saudi Arabi~ that followed the Baghdad

summit of 1979 marked a watershed in the development of

antagonist relationship between the regime and the Islamic

movement. 107 In fact, Sadat aware of the political ambition

of the Brotherhood, wanted to use and limit the operation of

Brotherhood to only those sections of society where the

leftists and Nasserists were posing an organized threat.

Hence, though he legalized the publication of AI-Dawe the

mouthpiece. of Ikhwan, in 1976 he was careful enough not to

.give the organizatio~ the legal recognition to operate in the

society.

During the Sadat era (as per 1980) the number of

government mosque rose to 7,000 while private mosque

accounted for a little more than 20,000. 108 In view of lack

of data it is difficult to say that as to how many of the

106. E. Sivan, "How Fares Islam?" The Jerusalem Quarterly '(Jerusalem) no .3, (Fall 1979), pp. 39-40.

107. Israel Altman, "Islamic Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 10,

Movement in Egypt" (Winter 1979), p. 88.

108. Ibrahim, n. 94, p. 643, quoting Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMS), titled Imams and Preachers in the Arab Republic of Egypt (Cairo, 1984).

133

7,000 governmental mosques were originally constructed by the

government and how many were 'annexed' subsequently, though

the general policy has been to incorporate those that are

physically best established and most heavily useq than

resorting to the original construction. Neither the increase

in the percentage of the total number of imams and preachers

can be calculated, compared to the previous regime. However,

the Sadat regime gave official encouragement to establish

mosques as centres of socio-religious activities. In line

with the official position, the Friday sermon of governmental

mosques often dwelt on non-political issues - such as zakat,

family planning, peace, stability, security etc. and

emphasized the virtues of private initiative and ownership,

individual entrepreneurship, and so on. 109 The regimes also

tried to win over certain popular individual preachers by

offering them favours. For instance, Hafiz Salama. Head of

the Islami~ Guidance Society, a local re~igious body in the

Suez city and a leader of the popular resistance against the

Israeli attack on the city during Egypt Israel war of

attrition (1973), was generously helped by the government

agencies in the completion of his 'Islamic Complex' in

Abbasiya, c9stin9 three million E$. The governorate of Cairo

donated the land. 110 Similarly in the early seventies, the

109.. See, Patrick D. Gaffiney, "Authority and the Mosque in Upper Egypt: The Islamic Preacher as Image and Actor" in William R .. Roff, Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse (London & Sydney, 1987), pp. 209-224.

110. Bari, n. 22, p. 101.

134

Ministry of Awqaf built several annexes to the Spring of Life

Mosque - populary known as Sheikh Kishk's (an ex-Brethren who

was imprisoned in 1965 and an imam of that mosque) mosque to

accomodate the consistently increasing throngs of

worshippers. 111 However, the government's failure to

implement the Shaira and the signing of the Peace Treaty with

Israel drove both of them into the opposition of the regime.

Indeed, in the post-Camp David period Sadat's regime sought

to increase the overall control and supervision over the

mosques, especially the private ones, because many of them

were emerging as 'main centres' of the radical Islamic

opposition to the regime. In this regard, the government's

suggestion to create a "unified supervisory board" for

Islamic preaching was essentially directed at controlling the

activist Islamic groups.112 As a follow-up action programme

to this suggestion, the Ministry of Awqaf in 1979, announced

an ambitious plan costing E$2~ million, which was officially

to 'cover the work of Islamic preaching at national and

international levels' but essentially, according to the

minister, to create "correct religious awareness" among

different

mosques,

sections of the people and to attach all private

numbering over 20,000 to the Minis~ry .113 To

compete with the Islamic groups, the plan also envisaged the

provision of "medical clinic, creche and free tuitions at all

111. Ibid, p. 102.

112. Ibid, p. 97.

113. Ibid, p. 98.

135

levels of education", besides other facilities which mosque

normally provided. 114

Nothing much is available on the political role of Sufi

orders during Sadat's regime. But it can be definitely said

that there was tremendous growth in the number of Sufi orders

Quring that period. The total number of registered Sufi

orders had grown from 21 in 1960 to 60 in 1985 and the

members who have registered with the S. C. S. O. and have the

privilege of participating in the annual parades have tripled

between 1970 and 1980. 115

In the realm of foreign policy, Islam served as a ready­

made instrument to justify Egypt's alignment with the U.S.A

and the conservative Muslim states (i.e. Saudi Arabia,

Jordan, Morroco etc.) against the then communist Russia.

Sadat employed Islam against the Soviet backed Ethiopians,

denouncing their fighting in Eritrea and the Ogaden desert l16

and propagated the Afgh~nistan crisis as 'Islamic-Soviet

Conflict' .117 On the other side, Sadat believed in the

commonality of interest between the Islamic states; oil in

exchange for technology and the common interest against the

Soviet threat. 118 He said, that "Egypt would play a focal

role by providing the U.S. with military facilities to defend

114. Ibid.

115. Ibrahim, n. 94, p. 639.

116. Warburg, n. 28, p. 209.

117. Dessouki, n.54, p. 9l.

118. Ibid.

136

all Arab and Islamic states as far as Indonesia from the

"communist" threat of the Soviet Union. 119 However, his

Islamic rhetoric did not prevent him from criticising the

Islamic revolution in Iran "What happens in Iran is a

disgrace to Islam, to humanity and to human dignity", he

said. 120

Sadat's 'Egypt first' approach drove him to initiate

peace process with Israel and he finally concluded a seperate

PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP TREATY with Israel. The process was

initiated in 1975 with the signing of the second

disengagement agreement, taken further by the Camp David

Accord of 1978 and finalized as peace treaty in 1979. It

invited Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League and all major

international Islamic organizations. Sadat, perhaps more than

ever, needed the support of the ulama to justify this treaty.

AI-Azhar despite its initial hesitation, finally capitulated

before the state authority. Citing the precedent of

Hudaybiyya treaty of 628 A.D, AI-Azhar issued a fatwa (i.e.

legal opinion) on 10 May, 1979 endorsing the Islamic legality

of treaty and stated that the Egyptian-Israeli treaty is in

harmony with Islamic law. It was concluded from a position of

strength after the battle of the jihad (holy 'struggle) and

the victory realized by Egypt on the tenth of Ramdan of the

year 1393 (6 October 1973) .121 It further stated, "affairs of

119. Ibid., quoting Sadat's address on 26 March 1980, and 2 October 1980, p. 92.

120. Ibid., p. 90.

121. Foud Ajami, n. 90, p. 16, quoting Al-Ahram 10 May 1979.

137

war and peace are the responsibility of the ruler (Wali al

amr) that the Quran ordered us to make Sulh (to end a dispute

or conflict) with the enemy if the Imam considered this to be

in accord with Muslim interests, and that the Egyptian

Israeli treaty is within Islamic bounds. 122

It is interesting to note that this fatwa of AI-Azhar

nullified its own fatwa issued some fifteen years ago stating

that "recognition to and cooperation with the state of ~srael

is not Islamically permissible" .123 Likewise, Sadat secured

the support of ulama when he visited Jerusalem in 1977. Those

supporting this historic act included the Rector of AI-Azhar,

the Presidents of Egyptian university student unions and the

Muslim Youth Association. 124 Sadat himself continuously

emphasized the religious aspects of his peace mission. While

addressing the Knesset he stressed the historic ties between

Islam and Judaism and stated that it was the Prophet Muhammad

who had ordered the people of Yathrab - Jews and Muslims - to

form one nation and to practice their respective religion in

peace and harmony.125

In view of growing domestic criticism and Egypt's

isolation following the Camp David Agreement and the Peace

Treaty, Sad-at employed more Islamic symbolism. He retorted

back to the Egypt's expulsion from the Arab league and

122. Dessouki, n. 50, p. 138, quoting AI-Ahram May 10, 1979.

123. Ibid.

124. Warburg, n. 28, p. 210.

125. Ibid.

138

organization of Islamic Conference by saying IIcan it obscure

Egypt's Islamic responsibility' ?126 Similarly, when Islamic

meeting decided to consider Egypt's suspension from

membership, Hasan al-Tuhami, Egypt's deputy Prime Minister,

denounced it as illegal. Claming that Egypt was not only one

of the most important pillars of Islam but had also

contributed most to the preservation of Islamic heritage. 127

Reacting to the Arab League summit held in Tunisia in

November 1979, Sadat said, II the latest comedy in Arab

solidarity has ended .... This new Arab League has ended, and

it had to end. There will be no Arab League, but there must

be a wider and greater Islamic League ll .128 The editor of

October, Anis Mansur, called on all Muslims to establish an

Islamic People's league to confront the enemies of Islam and

rise from the abyss of Arab policy to the glory of Islam. 129

And, finally, Sadat created 'the League of Arab and Islamic

Peoples' in 1980, essentially to counter Egupt' s isolation

from Arab and Islamic councils in the post-Camp David period.

At domestic level, criticism was growing against

Sadat's policy of infitah and his failure to implement the

Sharia. The Western consumerism and the inequality spurred by

infitah were perceived as threat to Islamic values and

Islamic social justice. During the mid 70' s Sadat faced a

126. Bari, n. 22, p. 97.

127. Warburg, n. 28, p. 209.

128. Ibid, p. 211.

129. Ibid.

139

severe challenge to his authority from a number of militant

Islamic groups; notable among them were Muhammed Youth (Saleh

Sariya's group which attacked the Military. Technical College

in April 1974), the Repentance and Holy Flight Group (the

group led by Shukri Mustafa, responsible for the kidnapping

and assassination of Sheikh Husayn al-Dhahabi, the' former

minister of wagf;) and aI-Jihad (originally recognized in

1978 and responsible for the assassination of Sadat) .

The Sadat government had, by then, secured the

cooperation of Islamic establishment and the Muslim

Brotherhood, while suppressing the militant Islamic groups.

The AI-Azhar, the official-legal interpreter of Islamic law;

in its most characteristic manner; branded the radical

Islamic groups as 'kharizite', 'deviant', 'fanatic', etc. and

justified the government's crackdown on them, while

Brotherhood criticized them fo. their "mindless - violence".

Moreover ,the government policy was to use the Brethren to ,

placate fundamentalist sentiments by favouring one such

selectively moderate groups.

The peace treaty with Israel ended the Brotherhood's

voluntary cooperation with the government. Disenchanted with

government's non-imp1ementation of Sharia, but more

specifically, the government's refusal to allow them to form

a political party, the Brotherhood came into increasingly

open confrontation with the Sadat regime in the post-Camp

David period. While Al-Azhar was backing Sadat's policy, the

Brotherhood was increasingly becoming vocal in criticisms.

Omar a1-Telmisani, the supreme Guide of Brotherhood and the

l.40

editor of AI-Dawe, denounced the agreement as it did not

explicitly compel Israel to withdraw from Muslim Jerusalem

and according to Islamic law, it was a sin to leave any

Muslim land in the hands of usurpers. 130 Announcing the

incompatibility of peace treaty with the Quran, the

Brotherhood declared - "Islamic history would pass the

judgement on those who were willing to sell their dignity and

beliefs for questionable materials" .131 AI-Dawe, the organ

of Muslim Brotherhood and which was establishing itself .as a

journal of opposition, in January 1979 openly accused Sadat

of collaborating with the United States and Israel against

all Muslim movements including first and foremost the

Brethren themselves and alleged that Sadat had decided to

implement a secret report, prepared by Dr. Richard Mitchell

of C. I.A, which aimed at liquidation of leaders of Muslim

movement. 132 The government vehemently denied the allegation,

ordered the closure of AI-Dawe and accused the Muslim.

Brotherhood of 'creating' a state within a state'.

Even the docile Azharite establishment tried to assert

its independence and criticized some of the policies of

Sadat's regime - in the aftermath of Camp David Treaty. It

iS'important to note that the fatwa ratifying the treaty was

issued 18 months after the conclusion of the treaty. The

130. Ibid, p. 221.

131. Ibid.

132. Kepel, n. 83, p. 118.

141

Sheikh AI-Azhar, Abdel Halim Mahmud vehemently opposed the

government's measures relating to Family planning and

amendments in Muslim Personal Law. He also indirectly

indicted the government for its failure to implement the

Sharia. 133

Faced with the combined Islamic opposition ranging from

the moderate Brotherhood to militant Islamic groups, Sadat

employed even more overt Islamic symbolism (despite his

consistent advocacy of 'no religion in politics and no

politics in religion)' on the one hand and the use of

coercive measures on the other hand. To get the support of

the Azharite establishment he, in early 1979, enacted bill

which sought to make the Sheikh AI-Azhar equal in status to

the Prime Minister of the country.134 In November 1979 Sadat

created an Islamic body called 'Supreme Muslim Council'. The

Council headed by Sheikh AI-Azhar was to be composed of fifty

members representing ulama, ~ sheikhs, leaders of Islamic

associations and government representatives. The council,

fully financed by the state, was entrusted with the

'supervision and integration' of all Muslim associations and

institutions and their activities, and was expected to

"overcome the growing opposition to Sadat w~ich had begun to

raise its head among the Muslim Brethren and other extremist,

religious and subversive groups.135 In order to show that the

133. Bari, n. 22, p. 102.

134. Ibid, p. 103.

135. Warburg, n. 28, p. 204.

142

government was serious to implement the sharia, the Committee

on Civil Law in December 1979 announced, "it had codified new

laws which were derived from the Quran, the Sunna, consensus

of early Islamic jurists, and what suited the Egyptian

conditions without contradicting the rules of Islamic

Sharia" . 13'6 In 1980 the government moved an amendment to Art

2 which now stated that "The principle of the Islamic Sharia

are 'the' principal source of legislation". And perhaps, most

astonishingly, Sadat on 14 May 1980, while commemorating the

May 14th 1971 "Corrective Revolution", in response to the

organized Coptic opposition to the amendments of Art 2 said,

"well, if Art 2 is the reason'for all this, then I tell my

Coptic sons who are hearing me now, and I tell you and our

people that since I assumed power in Egypt. I have been

ruling as a Muslim President of an Islamic state. 137

However, the political use of religious symbols could

not help the regime in containing the 'political threat' of

the opposition the Islamic opposition continued to grow. In

fact the more Sadat sought to legitimize his policies in

Islamic terms the more vulnerable he became to this kind of

criticism. Finally he had to resort to coercive methods in

order to deal with the growing opposition. In 1980, Sadat

suspended all Islamic associations in the universities,

accusing them of promoting religious fanaticism, extremism

136. Bari, n. 22, p. 99, quoting AI-Ahram, 7 December, 1979.

137. Louis J. Cantori, n. 93, p. 86.

143

and communal unrest. 138 In September 1981, Sadat attacked the

Muslim Brothers and other Islamic associations and accused

them of collaborating with opposition groups in order to

bring down his regime. The crackdown involved the arrest of

some 1,536 persons, including some imams of mosques, the

closing down of two Islamic journals, and the seizure of the

Brothers' funds and assets. All private mosques were to be

administered by the Ministry of Religious Endowments. 139

To conclude, the reliance on religion, on the religious

hierarchy and on the variuous Muslim groups, in the battle

against the leftists and the Nasserists, was not without

repurcussion. Once religion had become a "legitimate

political force, even if in the service of the regime, it was

not before that these same groups exploited religion in order

to criticize and even attack Sadat' s own policies. In the

end, Sadat himself became a victim of a militant religious

,group called AI-Jihad.

Policy Under President Hubarak:

With the ascendency of Hosni Mubarak as the President of

Egypt, the nature of relationship between the regime and the

Islamic mass movement entered into a new phase characterized

by greater tolerance of Islamic criticism and Ikhwan's

accomodation within the Egyptian political system. Though

138. Dessoaiki, n. 54, p. 92.

139. Ibid.

144

continuing Sadat's policy of infitah, peace with Israel and

closer alliance with the United States. Mubarak adopted

different political tactics from those employed during

Sadat's presidency in his dealing with the various moderate

and radical Islamic groups. Thus, whereas his predecessor,

'the believing president', had muzzled all political

expressions while giving full rein to Islamic groups,

especially in the universities, in order to confront the

Nasserist. left on the campus and elsewhere and to force it

into silence, Mubarak encouraged political debate,

authorizing opposition parties and press which led one

scholar to remark that by the middle of the 1980' s Cairo

could claim that given the destruction of Beirut and

excluding the 'offshore' Arab press produced in Europe, it

had the liveliest and most varied press in the Arab world. 140

It is because of his limited political liberalization

measures that besides the semi-official press .Al-Ahram, AI-

Akbar and AI-Gumhouriya, several oppositional press including

Al-Liwa AI-Islami; AI-Mukhtar Al-Islami, Al-Itisam and Al-Nur

resurfaced on .the national scene. AI-Nur became the virulent

ehampion of the Islamisation of practices and mores. However,

the ban on AI-'Dawe has not been lifted so far. In fact

political freedom enjoyed by the press was confined to the

free debate and discussion over the relevance of Islamic

social custom - a policy which regime hoped would lead to

divisions within the Islamic ranks.

140. Anthony Mcdermotl, Egypt: Flawed Revolution (London,

145

From Nasser to Mubarak: 1988), p. 76.

A

Having set Islamic discourse in the midst of "controlled

pluralism", the regime strove to divide Islamic ranks by

isolating the extremists from the moderate and by encouraging

the exPression of certain of its leaders in various organs of

the press. In fact, the policy of isolating the radical

militant Islamic organizations, whom Mubarak dubbed as

"terrorist extremism", has been the hall mark of Mubarak~ s

regime throughout the eighties and even in nineties. In his

meeting with Khaled Mohammaddin, Head of Marxist Nasserists

Party (NPUP), Mubarak said, "The Fundamentalist will Kill you

before they kill me" stressing the conunon interest in

combating the militant Islamic threat .141 In January 1990,

while speaking on the occasion of Police day at the Police

Academy in Abassiya, Mubarak cautioned the people against the

threat posed by "terrorist extremism" to the stability and

the social fabric of the country and appealed to all the

national political parties to fight against t~e threat of

terrorist extremism. 142 With this objective, he released many

political elites detained earlier, including such figures as,

Hasanain Heikal, the old Wafdist leader Fuad Siraj aI-Din

eleven members of the Progressive Unionist Rally, the Marxist

economist Ismail Sabri Abdallah, the 'Ikhwan leader Omar

Telmisani, the owner of magazine AI-Dawe, Sahih Ashmawi and

Sheikh Kishk, the blind ~ of the Cairo Mosque.

141. Mohammad Sid Ahmad, "Egypt, the Islamic Issue", Foreign Policy (Washington D.C.), no. 69, (Winter 1987-1988), p. 23.

142. Egyptian Gazette, 26 January 1970.

146

However, factors such as 'Peace with Israel" ,

, Americanization of Egypt' and the cultural and economic

consequences of the infitah continued to provide the

environment which wo:s conducive to arouse the Islamic

opposition to Mubarak's regime. Indeed in many demonstrations

against the Mubarak regime, the slogan such as 'Sadat's

Mafia', or 'Mubarak is Sadat' sums up the prevailing

antagonistic state of affairs in Egypt.

Despite the heavy repression of Islamic movement in the

autumn of 1981, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to emerge as

the' 'main opposition to Mubarak's regime. Encouraged by the

conciliatory attitudes of the ruling regime,

the Brotherhood under the leadership of Omar Telmisani

increased its membership and opted for political pluralism

and parliamentary democracy as the road to achieve their

idea~ goal of establishment of ' Islamic Order', discarding

the path'of violence. In 1984 the Brethren formed an alliance

with the ~, - a liberal and semi-secular party of Egypt,

and won 65 seats out of 450. It came second only to Mubarak's

National Democratic Party (NDP) and thus served as the major

opposition in the People's Assembly (Egyptian Parliament),

for three years. In March 1986 the,Brethren showed that they

were not just a formidable minority when more than 100

members of People'S Assembly defied party boundaries to sign

a petition calling on the government to honour its pledge to

pursue further the issue of making the Sharia the sole and

binding source of law for the country. The growing pressure

of pro-Islamic force in the parliament resulted in the

147

abolition of Women's Right law (also called Jihan's law) of

1979 in May 1985 which declared that Polygamy was legally

harmful to the first wife and automatically gave her the

right to divorce her husband. 143 Perhaps, this concession

was a build up to a calculated end to four years of

relatively benevolence by the government towards outspoken

religious opposition.

Though the government conceded the demand for the

aboli tion of Jihan' slaw, essenti~ly to placate the

sentiment of moderate Islamic groups, it refused to commit

himself on the implementation of Shari a in May 1985. The

government's postponment of implementation of Sharia provoked

the strongest criticism from various individual preachers and

Islamic groups. Among the individual preachers, the two most

important figures were Sheikh Ahmad al Mahallawi, the Imam of

Qaid Ibrahim mosque in Alexandria and Sheikh Hafiz Salama.

However, it was the latter who embodied the Islamicist

confrontation with the regime during the mid eighties.

Speaking from Al-Nur mosque in Abbassiya, Cairo, which had

become the prime Islamic stronghold and a centre of pro­

Islamic pronouncements and criticism of the government,

Salama announced in June the .plan of "Green March" at the

Presidential residence to make certain the implementation of

Sharia. However, the proposed march was called off in the

face of strong security deployment. Salama was arrested but

143. Mecdermott, n. 140, p. 200.

148

was soon released on the occasion of the annual pilgrimage to

Mecca.

It was against this background of rising Islamic

opposi~ion forces that the government issued a decree placing

some 60,000 (almost all the private mosques in Egypt) under

the supervision of the Ministry of Awgaf which was also to

supply the Imams to preach more orthodox Friday sermons than

the politically inclined versions which had been purveyed

hitherto. 144

In the 1987 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood

shifted its alliance from Wafd to two small parties - the

Socialist Labour Party (SLP) and the Liberal Party (LP) and

formed a new coalition called Islamic Alliance (IA). With the

slogan 'Islam is the solution', the IA won about 60 seats and

came second only to the pro-govenment NDP. The Brotherhood

increased its number of seats from seven to thirty- eight. As

a dominant partner in the IA the Muslim Brotherhood emerged

as the single largest legal opposition to the Mubarak regime.

For purposes of 'democratic' participation they continued to

express support for the path of moderation, gradualism, and

constitutionalism to realize their goal of ' application of

Sharia' and the creation of ' Islamic Order'. By the same

token, the Brotherhood has painstakingly distanced itself

from the violence and Holy Flight (al-Takfir Wa-al-Hiira) and

Holy war (aI-Jihad) groups. However, they never fail to point

144. Kepel, n. 83, p.256.also, Medermott, n. 140, pp. 93, 210.

149

out that had the state allowed its own organisation political

rights these fanatic groups would not have flourished

underground.

Another Islamic phenomena which has rocked Mubarak' s

administration is the emergence of a host of Islamic economic

enterprises like Islamic banks, investment companies,

factories, large-scale farming, agro-business and ·so on. In

keeping with Brotherhood's tradition, most of these economic

enterprises were started by the original Muslim Brother's

themselves in the 1970's with the objective of establishing

concrete Islamic alternatives to the socio-economic

institutions of the state and the capitalist sector. In the

1980's, these enterprises, particularly the Islamic

investment companies like Al-Rayyan, came to dominate the

Egyptian economy so much so that the IMF warned the

government that "any rescheduling of Egypt's. debt would be

contingent on the government's ability to control the Islamic

companies whose assets was estimated by The Middle East Times

at $20 billion and by AI-Ahali at $60 billion. 145

It is alleged that the power of Ikhwan lies in its

support from these fundamentalist financial sources and the

Ikhwan'S success in 1987 parliamentary election owes much to

the rise of "petro- Islam" , i. e. the Saudi-backed Islamic

companies .146 Since direct confrontation is too risky,

145. Richard U Moench, "Oil, Ideology and State Autonomy in Egypt", The Arab Studies Ouarterly, Vol. 10, no. 2 (Spring 1988), p. 179.

146. Ibid, pp. 184-87, 190.

150

Mubarak has chosen the strategy of publicising at every

occasion the companies financial manipulations and ridiculing

their pretence to being Islamic.

The Islamic militant groups remain outside the Egyptian

political system and still possess the biggest threat to the

stability of the Mubarak regime. Even though the regime tried

its level best to control the violence of 'the Islamic

radicals by implementing the emergency laws and other harsh

measures, including mass arrest, imprisonment and torture,

yet several militant groups including al-Jihad managed to

resurface on national scene in the middle of 1980' sand

started putting pressure through the act of defiance and

violence. The militant Islamic groups remained powerful in

university campuses. In the student elections of November

1985 at Cairo University, candidates from "Islamic Societies"

won over 80% of the contested seats in the Law School, 70% of

the seats in the School of Information Services, and 70% in

the School of Arts and Letters. 147 The increase in militant

activities could be seen in the killing of an Israeli

diplomat in Cairo and of several Israeli tourists in Sinai in

1985 and the assassination attempts on the lives of two

former .. minister.s of the interior, Hasan Abu Pasha and El-

Nabawy Ismael and leading journalist Makram M. Ahmad in 1987.

In May 1988, the militants attacked the car of two American

diplomats - Dennis William, the US Embassy Security Chief and

147. Henry Munson Jr, Islam and Revolution in the Middle East (London, 1988), p. 82.

151

deputy, John Huckel. In October 1986, the security authority

claimed to foil a militant plot to storm the state radio

station in Alexandaria and on 1 December 1986 the government

accused 33 Muslim extremists of overthrowing the state.

Moreover, the report of attacks and bombing incidents against

night clubs, belly dancing, video clubs, video shops,

alchohol stores etc. continued to figure in the media. The

government resorts to repression and mass arrest to deal with

the 'politico-military threat' of the radical Islamic groups.

Despite the government's crackdown on militants, they are

still in a position to rock the administration by isolated

violent incidents. The recent attack on Mubarak's life at

Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethopia, alleged to be carried

out by one radical Islamic group called Talaeh al-Fatah148

clearly indicates the potential of Islamic militant groups to

challenge the secularist regime in Egypt . However, it seems

that they are in a less powerful position than in the years

preceeding the assassination of Sadat.

148. Times of India, 29th June 1995.

152