Kenney Islamism and Secular Nationalism Egypt

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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341234

Numen 59 (2012) 427–455 brill.com/nu

Millennial Politics in Modern Egypt:Islamism and Secular Nationalism in

Context and Contest

Jeffrey . Kenney Department of Religious Studies, DePauw University

7 E. Larabee St., Greencastle, IN 46135, USA [email protected]

Abstract As a type often linked to societies in transition, millennialism provides a useful framework of analysis to understand the contestation between the two movements thatshaped Egypt’s modern identity: Islamism and secular nationalism. Both movementsblended political and religious form and content as they strove to unite people in a

collectivist effort to create an ideal society that addressed the nation’s material andcultural needs. Indeed, millennial discourse provided a medium through which Egyp-tians worked out their nationalist aspirations in a religious key and envisioned theirreligious values and identity in nationalist form. Te volatile, irrational character of millennial movements made Egypt’s postcolonial transition to modern politics fraughtand uncertain. And the authoritarian trend among Egypt’s ruling secular nationalistsexacerbated the situation. In the end, Egypt’s seminal Islamist movement, the MuslimBrotherhood, proved capable of reorienting itself, downplaying its millennial claims,and espousing a rational politics. Its evolution speaks to the capacity of millennialmovements to transform themselves and the societies of which they are a part.

Keywordsmillennialism, Islamism, secular nationalism, Egypt, modernization

Te prominence of Islamist movements in modern Muslim societieshas long drawn the interest of scholars. Events surrounding the Arabspring of 2011 have shifted interest in Islamism beyond the academy and into the popular media as Islamist activists, primarily in unisia

and Egypt, negotiate the political hurdles of more open societies and



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politics. Te questions on many people’s minds, in both the West andthe Muslim world, are whether Islamists are capable of working within

a democratic framework, whether they will find a way to uphold bothequal treatment of all citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims, and whetherthe traditional Islamic ideals that Islamists have long asserted willimprove the modern Muslim condition. Heated debates about thenation’s future political culture have already emerged in unisia andEgypt, where Islamists won early victories at the polls.1 Secularists haveexpressed fears that Islamists are Janus-faced, outwardly espousing theircommitment to democracy and tolerance but secretly waiting to impose

their fundamentalist views, which will divide society, jeopardize rela-tions with the West, and stunt economic growth. Islamists retort thatsecularists constitute a Westernized elite whose liberal values do notrepresent the Muslim masses and who at times have been willing tosubvert democracy simply to prevent Islamists from coming to power.

Te potential of Islamists to lead a nation as Islamists will hinge, inpart, on their ability to reinterpret and integrate their ideals within theframework of practical governance.2 In short, they must adapt andchange, even as they maintain their Islamist identity and integrity. Techallenges that lie ahead for Islamists, and for all citizens in the region,are significant. Just as significant are the challenges for students of theregion, especially students of modern Islam, to get the story of thishistoric period of transition right. How one frames Islamism and Isla-mist movements matters, because it will determine whether the story istold accurately and fairly.

In the Western academy, analyzing and typing Islamist movementshave proven difficult for two interrelated reasons: the critical limitations

1) At the time of writing, November 2011, the Islamist Nahda party won some 41%of the seats in unisia’s constituent assembly, empowering it to form a government;see “Islamists and secularists at one,” Te Economist , November 26, 2011, 58. InEgypt, the Brotherhood party, the Freedom and Justice Party, gained around 40% of the vote in the first round of parliamentary elections; Salafist parties won around25% of the vote, making an Islamist dominated government likely; see David D.Kirkpatrick, “Voting in Egypt Shows Mandate for Islamists,” Te New York imes ,December 1, 2011, A1.2)

Te case of urkey under the leadership of Erdogan and the AK party might suggestthat this issue has been resolved, but Islamists in urkey came to power by distancing themselves from an overt Islamist agenda and embracing secularism.



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of tools of analysis derived originally from case examples in Westernsocieties and the tendency to misread — if not assume the worst of —

religio-political interaction in Muslim societies. For some scholars,fundamentalism proved a useful tool of analysis, once the characteris-tics of the typology were expanded beyond the narrow particulars of the

American Christian experience (Lawrence 1989; Riesebrodt 1993).One of the limitations of fundamentalism, however, has been the ten-dency to view it as a static type. People seemingly become fundamen-talist, either as a response to modernity or dramatic historical change,and they remain “in the type,” as it were, abiding in the solace offered

by the characteristics of the worldview and lifestyle. It is this fixed iden-tity response that made fundamentalism little more than a religiousstereotype in popular discourse and some comparative academic studies(Kenney 2005). Tis article focuses on the insights provided by millen-nialism as a typology for analyzing Islamism in Egypt, in particularthe Society of Muslim Brothers. It argues that Islamism and the firstinstantiation of secular Egyptian nationalism, Nasserism, were bothmillennial in character, and that the dominance and eventual failure of Nasser’s secular revolutionary millennialism facilitated Islamism’s long-term success in Egypt.

As a type often linked to societies in transition, millennialism provesparticularly helpful for understanding modern Egypt, because it assumesthat the social movement of Islamism is engaged in a shifting environ-ment and is itself subject to change. Moreover, millennialism consti-tutes a type whose characteristics easily infuse both religious andpolitical movements (Lanternari 1963; almon 1968). In Egypt, bothIslamism and Nasser’s secular nationalism blended political and reli-

gious form and content as they strove to unite people in a collectivisteffort to create an ideal society that addressed the nation’s material andspiritual needs. Indeed, millennial discourse, as will be argued, pro-vided a medium through which Egyptians could work out their nation-alist aspirations in a religious key and envision their religious values andidentity in nationalist form. Millennialism, then, was more than just a movement in modern Egypt; it was a broad national mindset that facil-itated social transformation — from traditional to modern, from pre-

political to political — and cultural authenticity. Tat millennialismhad such a potential was not readily recognized by early critics of theSociety of Muslim Brothers (hereafter Muslim Brotherhood).



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Modern Politics and the Perceived Treat of Irrational Religion

Critics of the Muslim Brotherhood were typically concerned aboutthree interrelated characteristics exhibited by the movement: its rejec-tion of Western political liberalism, its assertion of Islam’s capacity toaddress all the developmental needs of modern Muslim societies, andits willingness to advocate violence to bring about Islamist goals. Forsome students of the modern Middle East, these very characteristics

were reminders of a dangerous trend inherent in the Islamic traditionfrom its inception, the Mahdist ideal of restoring Islam and Muslimsociety to their perfected form through the cleansing force of god-

ordained violence.3 In Islamic tradition, the Mahdi or “rightly-guided one” is linked to a

host of messianic, eschatological expectations, in both the Sunni andShi‘i branches. Te Mahdi’s appearance, according to the standard nar-rative, marks the end of a period of social discord and chaos, when

justice will be reestablished and the world restored to its natural order.Te Mahdi’s reign was never thought to last a thousand years, but thehope generated by his promised coming proved as inspiring to Muslims

as the Messiah’s millennial reign did for Christians. Claimants to theMahdist mantel of authority emerged throughout Islamic history andacross the expanse of the Muslim world. A number of modern uprisingsin Africa tapped into the Mahdist legacy. In the region of Hausaland(modern Nigeria), ‘Uthman Dan Fodio (1754‒1817), casting himself in the traditional role of mujadid or renewer of the faith, established theCaliphate of Sokoto and named himself the Caliph. In North Africa (Cyrenaica), Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Sanusi (1787‒1859) founded a Sufibrotherhood, the Sanusiyya, that spread throughout the region, foster-ing his ideas of piety, asceticism, and Islamic renewal in the face of European incursion. In the Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad (1848‒1885)declared himself the Mahdi and led a revolt that gave rise to a multi-generational movement — the Mahdiyya — and an organized territo-rial state (Lapidus 1988:512–514, 854–859).

Tese figures were part of a larger Islamic revivalism that sweptMuslim societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as Muslims

3) Mahdism is the closest term in the Islamic tradition that relates to the broader,inter-religious categories of messianism, millenarianism, and millennialism.



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responded to the social and cultural challenges of Western colonialismand modernization. Te well-known reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani

(1838‒1897) and Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849‒1905) were part of this revivalist spirit; concerned about the decline of Islam and the weak-ness of Muslim peoples, they attempted to highlight the tradition’slongstanding embrace of science and reason, the twin forces that

were thought to account for the West’s power advantage. MuslimBrotherhood thinkers were intellectual heirs to the reformers, butthey also adopted an activist approach to transforming society, like theMahdist-inspired movements in Africa. Mahdism, however, was never

an identified source of inspiration for the Brothers. Indeed, Hasan al-Banna (1906‒1949), who founded the organization in 1928, eschewedattempts by some of his followers to cast him as a charismatic, spiritualfigure (Lia 1998:114–115).

So why did some Western scholars tie the Muslim Brotherhood andHasan al-Banna to Mahdism? Te answer lies less in the clear millennialsigns that the Brotherhood evinced than the secular sign of the timesthat Western critics wished to promote in Muslim societies. Writing atthe midpoint of the twentieth century, when Egypt and other MiddleEastern countries had gained their independence and adopted formsof secular nationalism, these critics sought to stigmatize the Brother-hood as an aberrant form of modern politics. In his Haskell lectures,delivered at the University of Chicago in 1945, H. A. R. Gibb listedMahdism as one of the three interpretive forces at work among Muslimthinkers — the other two being secularism and neo-Mu‘tazilism4 —threatening the survival of the Islamic tradition: “Te heresy of Mahdism is its belief not only that the minds and wills of men can be

dominated by force but that truth can be demonstrated by the edge of the sword” (Gibb 1972:121).5 For Gibb, Mahdism proved the most

4) Te Mu‘tazilites were a classical theological-philosophical sect that highlighted theimportance of reason and justice in their conceptualizations of god, to such an extentthat they claimed that god, bound by the dictates of reason, must be just. Orthodox Sunnism, in the classical period, came to reject Mu‘atazilite views because they placedlimits on god’s power to determine the nature of good and evil. Neo-Mu‘atazilism issometimes used to denote modern interpretive ideas that favor reason above tradi-tional, literal understandings of sacred sources.5) Gibb identified two modern examples of revolutionary Mahdism, the MuslimBrothers in Egypt and the Khaksars in India (1972:136 n.5).



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dangerous of these forces, because the other two were unlikely to appealto the Muslim masses; and if “orthodox leaders” were unable to recon-

cile traditional doctrine and modern social realities, Mahdism was likely to win out.

Other scholars expressed much the same concern about the dangerposed by the Muslim Brotherhood to Egypt’s political future. One of Gibb’s students at Harvard University, Nadav Safran, entitled a chapterin his study of Egypt “Te Ideology and Mentality of Mahdism” (Safran1961). Like Gibb, Safran viewed the Brotherhood’s revolutionary vio-lence as worrying, but he was more troubled by the failure of the Broth-

erhood to provide a meaningful ideology to justify violence and uniteEgyptians. Instead of an ideology, according to Safran, the Brother-hood offered a “simple creed,” and one “grounded more on faith thansystematic thought” (1961:231). For Safran, the very fact that theBrotherhood could not articulate a modern political program, that they relied on pious pronouncements and vague statements about Islam’scapacity to govern a modern state, demonstrated its “messianic ten-dency” (1961:239–242). Safran viewed the Brotherhood’s messianismas part of a larger cultural pushback in Egypt against the progressiveefforts of Muslim reformers and liberal nationalists. And the questionthat lay ahead for the nation, as he saw it, was whether Egypt’s national-ist leaders would “control the religious impulse that moves the masses”or cynically play to these impulses and chart a dangerous anti-Western,anti-modernist course. Would Egypt remain bound to the romantic,emotional religious sentiment infusing nationalism in much of theMiddle East, or would it orient itself toward the West, as Kemal Atat-urk had with urkey?

In his highly-regarded Rand Corporation study of political and socialchange in the Middle East and North Africa, Manfred Halpern pre-sented the choice facing Muslims — between secular modernity andregressive Islamist millennialism — in even starker terms than Safran(Halpern 1963). Te Muslim Brotherhood, and all Islamist move-ments, according to Halpern, were totalitarian and fascist, bent on“mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the power of their charis-matic leader and the solidarity of the movement” (1963:135). Drawing

on Norman Cohn’s then recently-published research on Europeanmillennial movements in the Middle Ages, Halpern saw important



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comparisons between pre-modern European fascism and modernIslamism:

In the fifteenth century in Europe, as in modern Islam, groups arose which joinedin the call for a religious Reformation, but opposed the alliance of the leading reformers with established secular authority. Instead, they adopted a militantsocial chiliasm — that is, they organized themselves for an immediate leap intothe promised millennium. (1963:136)

And the willingness of Muslims to make such a leap, according to Halp-ern, was inherent in the Islamic tradition:

Moslems have been perennially ready for the mahdi, the messenger of God, who would lead the community in a religio-political leap into the immediate fulfill-ment of all spiritual and material needs even before judgment day. Te recon-struction of society through the ‘spiritualization of politics’ has been a permanenttheme of opposition politics in Islam. While European fascism was compelled topropagandize myths that were new to the majority of the population, neo-Islamictotalitarianism simply exploits the tradition of converting Islam in times of crisisinto an apocalyptic vision of spiritual and political redemption. (1963:136)

For Halpern, Islamist millennialism was a symptom of the failure toaccept the necessary cultural and social changes that modernity hadbrought in its wake — changes that secularists in Egypt and other Mus-lim-majority nations had accepted; millennial movements like theMuslim Brotherhood held onto traditional, dying forms of identity that prevented them from appreciating the “normalness of modernsecular life” (1963:142). And this normalness included the recognition

and embrace of social dislocation and constant change. Te MuslimBrotherhood, according to Halpern, could not adapt to this moderncondition, though their totalitarianism was a product of it: “Te Broth-erhood is itself a symptom of uprootedness, yet cannot accept modernuprootedness as the precondition of modern liberation” (1963:138).

Te point in singling out these scholars is not to discredit theirresearch, for each has made seminal contributions that have stood thetest of time in our understanding of modern Muslim societies. Rather,the intent is to focus on their particular understanding of millennialismand its application to the Muslim Brotherhood in the context of Egypt’s



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social and political transformation. For these authors, Islamist millen-nialism represented a choice facing modern Egyptians, but it was a mis-

guided one because it was not a modern one. Tey wished to see a progressive, liberal nationalism take root in Egypt, very much like thenationalisms in place in the West; and they could not imagine how a movement that wished to see religion taken seriously in both society and politics, like the Muslim Brotherhood, could lead modern Egypt.

A modern nation required a modern ideology, and religion in the struc-ture of modern societies played a minor cultural role, not a major ideo-logical one. Labeling the Brotherhood as Mahdist, messianist, or

millennialist was a means of judging the movement’s religious politicsas antithetical to modern nationalism. Te Muslim Brotherhood, then,in their estimation, constituted a throwback to a retrograde andunchanging form of social and political organization — one thatdepended on passion, not reason; groupthink, not individualism; vio-lent revolution, not rational change; religious totalism, not secularism.

wo problems, however, arise from these attempts to anathematizethe Muslim Brotherhood as a millennial or Mahdist movement thatthreatened Egypt’s future orderly politics. First, at the midpoint of thetwentieth century, Egyptians did not actually have the choice betweenorderly politics and millennialism. Instead, they were choosing betweentwo competing millennialisms: the Islamism of the Muslim Brother-hood and the nationalism of Gamal Abd al-Nasser. Second, while mil-lennialism has an ancient history, with recurring patterns, the beliefsassociated with it do not lead inexorably to the disastrous politicalresults claimed by the abovementioned critics. Like any revitalizationmovement, millennialism has the capacity to unite people under a ban-

ner of salvation that sacrifices rationality and individualism. But suchmovements also have the potential, as Vittorio Lanternari has noted, toserve as vehicles of larger social change:

All messianic movements . . . serve to implement the popular awareness of theneed for change in the religious life, and, in so doing, pave the way for reform inthe cultural, political, and social structure of secular society. (1963:321–322)

Whether this potential is realized depends on historical factors, not

the inherent nature of millennialism, which is to say that the futurevalue or danger of a movement is not predictable before it has run its



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historical course.6 Islamism in Egypt had not run its course when thesecritics were predicting its inherent danger to rational politics. And

Nasser’s secular nationalism had not yet shown its own millennial colors when the same critics embraced it as Egypt’s optimal political future.

Egypt’s Secular Millennium: Nasser’s Revolutionary Nationalism

Modern national consciousness took root in Egypt in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but a nationalist movement — and competing nationalisms, including Islamism — did not emerge until the first half

of the twentieth (Gershoni and Jankowski 1986). Te most intenseperiod of nationalist ferment occurred between the first phase of Egyptian independence from British colonial rule in 1922 and the FreeOfficers revolution of 1952. Tis period, known as the “liberal experi-ment,” stands out in modern Egyptian history as a time of heightenedpolitical awareness, party formation, anti-colonial activity, and opendebate (Marsot 1977). Te 1952 revolution effectively put an end toBritish rule and empowered the Free Officers, under the leadership of

Nasser, to search for a viable political and economic system of gover-nance. Tis search resulted, after several dilatory years, in the establish-ment of a corporatist state, under the banner of Arab socialism. It wasnot, however, the ideological content of Nasser’s rule that warrantscomparisons with millennialism. Rather, it was his charismatic style of rule and his exercise of state power to bend the nation to his will. WhileEgypt’s revolution was clearly motivated by secular reasoning and forces,its shift in the direction of millennialism blurred the distinction betweensecular and religious. Indeed, millennialism’s capacity to accommodate,and interweave, secular and religious revolutionary content made it anideal instrument of change for Egypt’s traditional society.

At the time of the revolution, Egypt embodied in many ways thepolitical, social, and economic conditions that have historically givenrise to millenarian/millennial movements, whether of a religious orsecular variety. Development policies, begun initially in the nineteenth

6)

almon makes the important point that the evaluation of millennial movements inacademic literature — even the way cases are selected for study — “reflects valuepremises” about the efficacy of gradual and radical social change (1968:360).



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century, had transformed the organizational power of the state, intro-duced dramatic changes in daily life, and heightened social expecta-

tions. Economic disparities — between rural and urban, landownersand fellah (peasants) — alienated large segments of the population andcreated social unrest. British colonial policies, which fostered nativedependence and weakness, thwarted attempts by Egyptians to grow industries, improve education, and implement self-rule. Moreover,exposure to Western values, education, and lifestyles had created a crisisof cultural orientation that sometimes pitted a native Westernizing eliteover and against the masses (Hopwood 1982; Marsot 1977). aken

together, these conditions set the stage for the revolution, but they donot account for the millennial direction of post-revolutionary Egypt. Yonina almon identifies five characteristics of millenarian move-

ments that provide a useful comparative framework for analyzing thesimilarities between Nasserism and Islamism in Egypt: “the quest fortotal, imminent, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation” (1968:351).

As a distinct style of rule, Nasserism was slow in the making, a productof the Free Officers assessing Egypt’s capacity for fast-paced revolution-ary change and coming to two main conclusions about what the nationrequired: strong leadership and a clear-cut ideological course with nodistracting opposition. Elements of this thinking were evident in Nass-er’s own published assessment of the causes of revolution, where he

wrote of Egyptians’ inability to assert themselves politically and thecountry’s need for a heroic figure to take charge (Nasser 1955). Egypt,according to Nasser, had arrived at a dramatic historical moment, whenit was finally prepared to take its place among the great nations of the

world. And Nasser cast himself in the heroic role of shepherding Egypt

to its this-worldly salvation, to dramatic transformations in education,communication, transportation, industry, economic equality, social

justice, and international leadership. Tis was to be accomplishedthrough a collectivist effort, by focusing the energies of all citizens andbringing all the nation’s resources to bear upon identified problems.

Immediately following the revolution, all political parties were elim-inated except for the Muslim Brotherhood, and within two years eventhe Brotherhood ran afoul of the regime and was declared illegal. A

series of single-party institutions — first the Liberation Rally, then theNational Union, and finally the Arab Socialist Union — evolved to



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implement government policies, inspire the populace, and controlopposition (Hopwood 1982:84–97). While these institutions were

alleged to represent the masses, Nasser maintained ultimate power andeffectively undermined any potential political challenges to his author-ity, real or imagined, within the regime. As one author has noted, noneof these institutions was “meant to be an active institution with deci-sion-making powers, but was conceived basically as a civic associationto mobilize the people” (Dessouki 1983:15). Economically, Nasserembarked on course of nationalization that eventually brought manu-facturing, utilities, banks, communications, transportation, and unions

under state control. Even al-Azhar, the oldest and most prestigious cen-ter of Islamic learning in the Muslim world, was incorporated into thearray of state ministries and exploited to provide religious legitimacy for state policies (Hopwood 1982:95–97).

Nasserism, like millennialism in general, erased the distinctionbetween private and public, between the interests of the individual andthose of the group. As Nasser’s corporatist policies began to take hold,associational life constricted and became another instrument of statepower (Bianchi 1989). A series of associational laws were passed to limitthe ability of civic groups to form and operate without governmentpermission. Te Ministry of Social Affairs, whose task it was to overseecivil society, denied permits to any organization with an explicit orimplicit political agenda; it also set restrictions on private money fund-ing charitable activities. Longstanding civic groups that the state founddifficult to eliminate, such as labor organizations and professional syn-dicates, were forced to adopt membership rules that subverted theirpotential political opposition (Kassem 2004:88–99). Nasser attempted

to co-opt political opposition whenever possible. But he also employedthe prerogatives of authoritarian regimes everywhere: the creation of self-serving laws to undermine opponents and empower state authority,the resort to security forces to suppress threats, and an effective propa-ganda machine. Egypt’s prisons during Nasser’s rule housed a range of political opponents — Wafdists, communists, Islamists — most jailed

without trial and subjected to harsh treatment. When Anwar Sadat,Nasser’s successor, eventually freed many of those imprisoned under

Nasser, a genre of prison literature emerged, attesting to the formerpresident’s depraved treatment of political opponents. Sadat, in fact,



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tried to distance himself from the “violations of human rights” andthe “colossal mistakes” that occurred during his predecessor’s rule

(Sadat 1977:209–210).7 Nasser’s revolutionary nationalism fused state and society, and cre-

ated a totalizing world view that elevated both the state and its charis-matic leader to a cult-like status. In many ways, the Nasserist state,despite its secular objectives, took on the style and function of a reli-gion, following a pattern of development in newly independent nationsin Africa and Asia that David Apter has termed “political religion”(1963). Political religion, according to Apter, is a mobilization system

adopted by nations that wish to modernize at a rapid pace but lack thebasic material and social infrastructure to facilitate such a transforma-tion. In such circumstances, some “political leaders tend to use force inorder to retain authority and instill in the citizens attitudes of respectand devotion to the regime” (1963:61). In place of reasoned debate andconsultative politics, the state substitutes emotional appeals to themasses, a forced politicization of all aspects of life, and unquestionedloyalty. As a result,

Te state becomes a total system of meaning that dominates and informs all levelsand spheres of society. Like religion, political religion lends participants a degreeof meaning and importance unparalleled in normal political circumstances. Tatimportance is derived from faith in the state’s myth of origin and greatness; andfrom submission in, and submission to, its greater purpose. Te individual andstate are thus joined into a mystical union of sorts, sharing the same mission inthis life and destiny in the historical hereafter. (Kenney 2006:62–63)

For Apter, there is a clear distinction between political religion and

religion, between systems that promise this-worldly meaning andrewards and those that promise transcendent meaning and rewards inthe world to come. But because his focus is solely on the political field,he misses the parallel transformations traditional religions undergo indeveloping societies. For if political nationalism can take religious form(i.e., political religion) in a country like Egypt, it is also the case thatreligion can take political form, that religious leaders and movements

7) Sadat cast his own attempt to shape a post-Nasser path of development in Egypt asthe “second revolution;” see chapter 8 of Sadat 1977.





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see, Egypt had not absorbed the blessings of modernization promisedby Nasser. Te nation’s military proved incapable of defending its peo-

ple and territory; its industries produced substandard goods availabledomestically but not competitive in global markets; and its economy remained stagnant and dependent on state intervention. 1967 was a turning point for Egypt and the entire Arab world, ushering in a periodof cultural crisis and self-criticism (Ajami 1981).

In the immediate aftermath of the war, Egyptians rallied in supportof Nasser when he tried to resign. For the masses, it seemed as if “Egypt

without Nasser was unthinkable” (Hopwood 1982:77). But the millen-

nial expectations associated with Nasser’s secular nationalism waneddramatically in the 1970s, in large part because Anwar Sadat, Nasser’ssuccessor, embarked on a de-Nasserization campaign (Ansari 1986;Hopwood 1982; Ajami 1981:95–96). Sadat steered Egypt’s domesticpolitics and economy, along with the nation’s international relations, ina new direction. Open-markets, peace with Israel, and good relations

with the West were the order of the day. But both Sadat and his succes-sor Hosni Mubarak maintained Nasser’s preference for authoritarian-ism, though theirs was of a more mundane variety. Gone was the massrally, hyping a grandiose vision of Egypt’s future; gone too was themystagogic aura of political religion. Instead, Egypt’s post-Nasserist,post-millennial narrative increasingly focused on carving out a non-revolutionary space in a late- and then post-Cold War internationalenvironment, dominated by neo-liberal capitalism, which has itself taken on millennial qualities (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000). Telong-term pressure on a receding and weakening Egyptian state made itdifficult for the regime to rule effectively. Under Sadat and then Muba-

rak, the state pulled back from the social commitments made underNasser, adopting neo-liberal economic policies demanded by Westernpowers and institutions like the World Bank and International Mone-tary Fund, and relying more and more on authoritarian measures toassert itself; and neither leader managed to replace Nasser’s tacit socialand political contract with a viable one of his own. Tus, the long-termlegacy of Nasserist millennialism resulted not in a transition to orderly politics but, rather, in an authoritarian cul-de-sac of stalled develop-

ment, intrusive global capitalism, and growing disparities between richand poor. Islamism’s legacy was quite different.



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Te Muslim Brotherhood: A Millennial Movement in ransition

On the eve of the revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood had been oper-ating for almost a quarter of a century. By 1953, some 1,500 branchesof the movement existed throughout Egypt, and membership was esti-mated between 200,000 and 300,000 (Mitchell 1969:328). Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, was assassinated in 1949, butbefore his death he had, through speeches and publications, laid theintellectual groundwork for Islamism in Egypt. Just as important, hehad overseen the establishment of an array of educational, business, and

charitable activities. Te Brotherhood, then, constituted a significantgrass-roots movement that had integrated itself into the deep tissue of Egyptian society. It was this very organizational strength that made themovement attractive to the Free Officers who, immediately before andafter the revolution, hoped to use its structure and mass appeal as a basis for promoting their own power and agenda. Te falling outbetween the Brotherhood and Free Officers occurred rather early, afterit became clear to the Brotherhood that the Free Officers did not takeIslam seriously as a viable modern ideology. An assassination attempt

on Nasser, carried out by members of the Brotherhood’s Secret Appara-tus, provided the regime with a reason to crush the movement(Mitchell 1969:105–162). With the Brotherhood eliminated as theonly remaining political competition to the Free Officers, Nasser pro-ceeded to map out his own political strategy. Tus, Nasser’s revolution-ary millennialism emerged against the backdrop of an existing Islamistmillennialism — one forced to operate underground, awaiting theopportunity to prove its capacity to lead Egypt. Tis underground sta-

tus was key to the continued survival of the Islamist ideal as an alterna-tive, if untested, option to secular nationalism and rule.

Tis same status also impacts the way almon’s five characteristicsmap onto the Brotherhood millennialism. Lacking state control or sup-port, the Brothers’ ideology never informed a ruling government inEgypt. Tey were always a movement in search of power, and thus theirintellectual critique of existing society contains some of the best insightsinto their millennial character. Like other voices in the nationalistmovement, the Brothers combined nativist self-assertion and callsfor modernization. But the rhetorical turn of Brotherhood discourse



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constantly highlighted the differences between Islamism and othermodern “isms,” and the uniqueness of Islamism’s capacity to address

the needs of Muslims in a world dominated by Western norms andnations. Hasan al-Banna expressed this uniqueness in one of his early seminal writings:

Brethren, you are not a benevolent organization, nor a political party, nor a localassociation with strictly limited aims. Rather you are a new spirit making its way into the heart of this nation and reviving it through the Qur’an; a new light dawn-ing and scattering the darkness of materialism through the knowledge of God; a resounding voice rising and echoing the message of the Apostle . . . It is simply the

truth, and no exaggeration, that you know that you are bearing the burden afterthe rest of mankind has shunted it off. If someone should ask you: o what end isyour appeal made?, say: We are calling people to Islam, which was brought by Muhammad . . . government is part of it, and freedom is one of its religious duties.If someone should say to you: Tis is politics!, say: Tis is Islam, and we do notrecognize such divisions. If someone should say to you: You are agents of revolu-tion!, say: We are agents of truth and of peace in which we believe and which weexalt. (al-Banna 1978:36)

Here the words reflect the millennial claims of ultimate and total trans-formation: Islamism reaches beyond the everyday structure of life toencompass a larger reality — a reality no longer relevant to Westernpolitical systems. Islamism addresses both the material and spiritualaspects of life. In fact, it is both political and, at the same time, beyondpolitics because of its higher purpose, its higher calling. It is both revo-lutionary and beyond revolutions because of its ultimate hold on truth.

And the Islam of al-Banna’s conception is a total system of meaning that denies modern divisions — between religion and politics, public

and private — recognized by the West, and that fulfills all the needs of humankind:

If you examine the teaching of Islam, you will find that it promulgates the sound-est principles, the most suitable regulations, and the most precise laws for the lifeof the individual, man or woman, for the life of the family both during its forma-tion and its dissolution, and for the life of nations during their growth, theirstrength, and their weakness, and sanctions ideas before which even reformers andleaders of nations have stood hesitant. (al-Banna 1978:87)



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It was precisely this kind of amorphous language that frustrated criticsof the Brotherhood in Egypt and beyond. But in the context of Egypt’s

debates about nationalism, which were dominated by Western idealsand models, the Brotherhood adopted such language to position itself as an alternative voice, the only true Islamic voice. Te majority of Egyptians active in the nationalist movement denounced the Britishoccupation, fought for independence, and called for national unity, butthey also envisioned a future Egyptian nationalism defined by the samecharacteristics that shaped national identity in the West: people, land,language, culture, history, and religion. Te Brotherhood, however,

took a different tack: it defined everything in terms of Islam and the willingness of people to adhere to its dictates. Its nationalism was a col-lective bond of faith and its politics an implementation of God’s divineplan. Te only meaningful division of modern identity which the orga-nization recognized was one between believers and non-believers:

[K]now that the Muslim Brotherhood regard mankind as divided into two campsvis-à-vis themselves: one, believing as they believe, in God’s religion and HisBook, and in the mission of His Apostle and what he brought with him. Tese are

attached to us by the most hallowed of bonds, the bonds of creedal doctrine, which is to us holier than the bond of blood or soil. Tese are our closest relativesamong the peoples: we feel sympathy toward them, we work on their behalf, wedefend them and we sacrifice ourselves and our wealth for them in whatever landthey may be, or from whatever origin they may spring. (al-Banna 1978:55–56)

Te Muslim Brotherhood, then, offered its followers a nationalism that was a counter-nationalism, a politics that was a counter-politics, and a modernity that was a counter-modernity. Te most obvious influence

that the Brotherhood hoped to counter was that of the West, but the West, because of the history of colonialism, was not simply a foreignpresence that could easily be removed. Te West had invaded the heartsand minds of fellow Egyptians, fellow Muslims. Not only, then, did theBrothers not share a bond of faith with the secular West; they also didnot share a bond of faith with those Muslims who, having adopted

Western values and mentality, did not agree with their understanding of Islam’s ideological potential. With faith so defined, interactions withpeople outside the movement always carried the potential for conflict,ideological and physical:



444 J. . Kenney / Numen 59 (2012) 427–455

As for other people with whom we do not yet share this bond, we will be at peace with them as long as they refrain from aggression against us. We believe, however,

that a bond does exist between us and them — the bond of our mission — andthat it is our duty to invite them to what we adhere to because it is the best thathumanity has to offer, and to employ such ways and means to succeed in this mis-sion as our faith has designated for that end. As for those of them who show hostility toward us, we shall repel their aggression by the most virtuous meansthrough which such hostility may be repelled. (al-Banna 1978:56)

Despite the potential for conflict, the Brotherhood did not engage inviolent attacks on either the Egyptian state or fellow citizens during its

early phase of development. And the violence that was attributed tothe organization “had much in common with the violence of otherEgyptians,” with the patterns of political and social violence that sweptEgypt as parties and groups negotiated the nation’s future in thestreets (Mitchell 1969:322). Te Brotherhood’s ultimate millennialgoal — of establishing an Islamic order, ruled over by an Islamic statethat implements Islamic law (shari‘a ) and adopts the Qur’an as its con-stitution — differed markedly from other nationalist movements.But members relied on the means of mainstream civil society to com-

municate their ideal: preaching, teaching, social activism, and philan-thropy. Violence only emerged as a prominent feature of Brotherhoodactivities after the Nasserist state eliminated political opposition,severely curtailed civil society, and drove the movement underground.Tis historical shift in method of activism reflects a general patternthat has been observed in millennial movements and their historicaltrajectories: “When a group is relatively comfortable in society andthey achieve some success in building their millennial kingdom, pro-

gressive themes may be highlighted. When disaster, opposition, or per-secution is encountered, catastrophic themes will receive prominence”(Wessinger 2000:8).

Te Brotherhood had, by any measure, achieved a great deal of suc-cess in Egyptian society by the time of the revolution, and it saw thissuccess undermined by an authoritarian regime unwilling to toleratemeaningful political opposition and bent on controlling civil society for its own purposes. Teir this-worldly ambitions in ruins, membersfound themselves working out the fate of the movement while operat-ing underground and in Nasser’s prisons. Indeed, the prison experience



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proved a decisive turning point in the evolution of the millennial char-acter of Islamism in Egypt, as the prison transformation of Sayyid

Qutb, a leading Brotherhood ideologue, makes clear (Kepel 2003:26–35; Kenney 2011:692–693).9 Jailed in 1954, along with thousands of other Brotherhood members, Qutb witnessed first-hand the abuse,humiliation, and torture inflicted on fellow Muslims by what he viewedas a depraved regime; and he expressed the anger and frustration of thisexperience in his now famous radical primer Ma‘alam fi’l-tariq (Sign-

posts Along the Way , also translated as Milestones ), which he penned inprison. What is most striking about this work is not the oblique invec-

tive directed against Nasser and the secular state — something that onemight readily expect;10 rather, it is the seeming hopelessness that infusesthe writing. Unlike Qutb’s pre-prison writings, which call upon believ-ers to work to improve society along Islamist lines, Ma‘alam fi’l-tariq advises believers to expect the worst, to suffer and die a martyr’s deathfor the faith (Qutb 1987:188–202). When Qutb determines that theBrotherhood is no longer able to carry out its mission in society, “toachieve some success” in a progressive millennial manner, he reinter-prets success for the Brothers in catastrophic millennial terms: “Tehighest form of triumph is the victory of soul over matter, the victory of belief over pain, and the victory of faith over persecution” (Qutb1987:191, 1993:131).

Qutb’s own life and writings trace out the Islamist transformation inEgypt from mainstream to radical Islamism and testify to the context-specific history that led to this transformation. Radicalism, however,never became the defining feature of either the Brotherhood or Islam-ism in Egypt. Te prison experience gave rise to a general debate among

Islamists about how to survive in the authoritarian environment, anddifferences of opinion led to splits among Islamists. Some rejected theuse of violence to achieve their goals, while others, following Qutb’sinterpretive lead, decided that force was a necessary means of dealing

9) For an insightful analysis of how the prison experience led Qutb to reframe andrework a previous piece of writing, see Shephard 1996.10) Qutb never mentions Nasser by name in Signposts , nor does he speak directly about

Egyptian society or the Muslim Brothers; instead, he adopts thinly-veiled referencesthat readers easily recognized.



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with an oppressive, sinful regime. In the fallout of the debate, theMuslim Brotherhood became the representative of nonviolence, of

social activism within whatever limited space the state permitted; andradical offshoot groups emerged during the 1970s and 1980s to takeup a path of direct confrontation (Kepel 2003). Sadat and Mubarak tolerated the Brotherhood as an unofficial opposition, though the orga-nization remained officially outlawed. Its capacity to operate openly,however, always depended on playing within certain rules of the game,

which included an avoidance of overt political activism and a willing-ness to denounce militant Islamist outbursts.

Over time, the secular state and the Brotherhood reached a modus vivendi of sorts, but it was always a tenuous one at best (Auda 1994). Itlasted for approximately forty years, from the early 1970s to the Arabspring of 2011, because 1) the Muslim Brothers lacked the capacity tofoment a popular revolution on their own, and 2) the state’s authority could not withstand the popular backlash that would surely haveoccurred if it tried to eliminate a movement long known for its effortson behalf of the poor and would-be middle class. During this period,the Brotherhood’s stock rose and fell according to levels of Islamist vio-lence; but the state’s popularity rose and fell also, usually according toshifts in economic stability, growing disparity between rich and poor,government corruption, and perceptions of the regime’s subservience to

Western political needs and pressure. In the end, Egypt’s ruling eliteheld on to power through a combination of authoritarianism, crony capitalism, and support from Western nations fearful, especially after9/11, of an Islamist takeover.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood waited in the political wings. Having

established its ideological differences with the secular state in mid-century, the movement continued to play the role of spoiler, promising Islamic solutions to this-worldly problems, symbolized by the slogan“Islam is the answer.” But unlike Egypt’s secular elite, whose income,education, and lifestyle distanced them from the masses, Islamists con-tinued to engage fellow Egyptians, to build organizational networksand to spread their message. And their efforts paid off, for “by the mid-1980s the Brotherhood emerged as the only opposition movement . . .

capable of mobilizing substantial popular support for an ideological pro-gram distinct from that of the Mubarak regime” (Wickham 2002:92).



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In addition, starting in the 1980s, a breed of “new Islamists” began totake shape out of the Brotherhood, thinkers capable of both criticizing

aspects of past Brotherhood ideology and activism and laying thegroundwork for a more centrist, pragmatic role for Islamists in a plural-istic political setting (Baker 2003). In short, Egyptian Islamists grew more complex and less easy to categorize, and a prominent faction of them came to eschew the millennial claims that defined the first gen-eration of Islamists. Tus the Muslim Brotherhood managed to adopta more rational politics during the Mubarak years, even if it had littleopportunity to benefit directly in the political sphere from this shift.11

From Millennial Movement to Political Participation and Beyond

Te events of the Arab spring in Egypt have brought the millennialpath of the Muslim Brotherhood into high relief. With the overthrow of Mubarak in January 2011 and the opening of the political field, theMuslim Brotherhood formed a political party, the Freedom and JusticeParty, and began to capitalize on its organizational strength in the

build-up to announced elections. In fall 2011, the Freedom and JusticeParty claimed victory after the early round of parliamentary electionsand was positioned to form what will be the first democratically-electedgovernment in modern Egypt.12 Given the evolution of the Brother-hood’s ideology and activism, it is clear that the Muslim Brotherhoodhas emerged as a case of a millennial movement that has made a suc-cessful transition from millennial or revolutionary politics to orderly politics — a movement that has served as a bridge during a period of national development and awakening (almon 1968; Barkun 1974).

And this success is tied, historically, to a failure of secular politics toserve as a vehicle for Egypt’s political modernization. Fouad Ajamiaddressed this problem thirty years ago in his assessment of Arab poli-tics after the 1967 defeat:

11) Te various ways in which the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in political activism without participating in formal politics have been treated by Wickham 2002 and Abdo 2000.12) See note 1.



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Were Sadat to offer a viable parliamentary option, there would be a more bal-anced duel between orderly politics and millenarianism. His failure to do so, part

of the broader failure to solve the question of political participation in Arab soci-ety, leaves the fundamentalists [i.e., Islamists] with ample room for maneuver.Politics have been driven into the mosque and the symbols of opposition havebecome avowedly religious, because the ruling elites remain bent on monopoliz-ing political power. (Ajami 1981:181)

What Ajami could not predict was that, long-term, Islamists would bepart of the solution to the problem of political participation in Egypt,and Islamist millennialism would lead eventually to broader national

interests and party politics. Scholars who did recognize the historicalcontinuity between millennialism and nationalism typically understoodthe reformative end of the movement’s activism to be secular society and politics (Lanternari 1963; Worsley 1968; Barkun 1974). Tis per-ception is in keeping with representations of nationalism as a modernpolitical identity shorn of its religious origins, no matter the religiousculture or particular national history:

Even where religion was a crucial factor in the development of nationalism and a

source of its initial legitimacy . . ., even where it played midwife at the birth of nationalism and protected it in its infancy, religion was reduced to the role of a handmaiden, an occasionally used tool, and came to exist on nationalism’s suffer-ance . . . What needs to be kept in mind is that the nature of nationalism is neverdetermined by the religious context in which it may grow, and though oftenaffected by this context to an extent, it is ultimately defined by the constraints of the immediate situations faced by the social groups actively involved in the forma-tion of the national consciousness. Tese constraints are emphatically secular.Tey are generated not by the exigencies of salvation and the responsibility beforehis Creator that each man must meet alone, but by the tensions in men’s socialrelations, which agitate peculiarly social passions and anxieties — status anxiety,the concern for dignity, recognition, and one’s place among others — all that, inshort, which religion dismisses as vanity. (Greenfeld 1996:181–182)

Of course, neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor the majority of Egyp-tian citizens ever regarded the nation in such stark secular terms. Indeed,the word secular (‘ilmani ) among Egyptians has often been associated

with godlessness, immorality, and the West.13 Tis attitude is hardly

13) For insight into Egyptian attitudes toward secularism in the post-Arab spring polit-ical climate, see Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Activists in Islamic





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an Islamic frame of reference what the early critics of the Brotherhoodthought only secularists could accomplish. Sami Zubaida has called the

kind of interpretive process engaged in by the new Islamists “spray-onIslam,” because it supposedly simply covers a secular structure with a religious gloss (Zubaida 2011:4). Te importance of such a gloss, how-ever, should not be underestimated, especially if it facilitates the accep-tance of institutions and structures that would otherwise be viewed

with suspicion by the masses. Moreover, whatever truth there is to thenotion of “spray-on Islam” within Islamism and in religious discourseon modernization more broadly speaking, there is nothing superficial

about the extent to which Muslim Brotherhood thinking had to changeto accommodate the two realities mentioned above. Indeed, somescholars have described this new thinking as “post-Islamism,” which

Asef Bayat defines as

. . . a project, a conscious attempt to conceptualize and strategize the rationale andmodalities of transcending Islamism in social, political, and intellectual domains.

Yet, Post-Islamism is neither anti-Islamic nor un-Islamic nor secular. Rather itrepresents an endeavor to fuse religiosity and rights, faith and freedom, Islam and

liberty. It is an attempt to turn the underlying principles of Islamism on its headby emphasizing rights instead of duties, plurality in place of singular authoritativevoice, historicity rather than fixed scripture, and the future instead of the past . . .Post-Islamism is expressed in acknowledging secular exigencies, in freedom fromrigidity, in breaking down the monopoly of truth. In short, whereas Islamism isdefined by the fusion of religion and responsibility, post-Islamism emphasizesreligiosity and rights. (Bayat 2007:11)

Te “post” in post-Islamism suggests that Islamism has reinvented itself,

either willingly, out of necessity, or something of both, and the logicalquestion that arises is: Reinvented into what? If Islamism is, as Bayatnotes, “neither anti-Islamic nor un-Islamic nor secular,” how does oneclassify it? Te current political field in Egypt indicates that Islamistshave become, in short order, savvy political party activists. But is theendpoint of Islamist millennialism, of the Muslim Brotherhood in par-ticular, simply party politics? Is the future course of the Brotherhood’sFreedom and Justice Party like that of the Christian Democratic Unionin Germany — a religiously-grounded party that, over time, sheds itsreligious roots and differs little from other secular parties? And what of



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the millennial rhetoric that, though toned down and reformulated,informed and sustained the Muslim Brotherhood all those years in the

political wilderness, the rhetoric that envisioned a total Islamic order,manifesting itself in an Islamic state, governed by Islamic law, with theQur’an as the constitution? In a Western sociological context, a revolu-tionary millennial movement might follow a set path, and one thatdistinguishes between politics and religion: “When a revolution takespower, the millenarian rhetoric survives, just as, on the religious level,millenarian doctrines survive the transition from sect to church”(Barkun 1974:133). But there is no “church” in Islam, and the trans-

formed “sect,” the Muslim Brotherhood, is on the verge of taking powerin Egypt.One possible outcome of the current situation is that the Muslim

Brotherhood will eventually facilitate the emergence of a civil Islam inEgypt, an open society that respects difference, nurtures civic engage-ment, and builds a healthy political culture — all undergirded by widely accepted norms and values drawn from Islamic tradition. As RobertHefner has noted, there is not one civil Islam but many variations:“Most versions begin, however, by denying the wisdom of a monolithic‘Islamic’ state and instead affirming democracy, voluntarism, and a bal-ance of countervailing powers in a state and society” (Hefner 2000:12–13). Te rhetoric of the new Islamists in Egypt, along with the currentstatements of Muslim Brotherhood political leadership, resonates withsuch a result. But much depends on the mechanisms for achieving it,

which is another way of saying that Islamism in Egypt is in motionbecause the political endgame is still being negotiated, both in the vot-ing booth and on the streets. A civil Islam can only emerge where con-

ditions are right, for “[a] healthy civil society requires a civilized state”(Baker 2003:20).

If millennialism is no longer driving Muslim Brotherhood activism,it has not disappeared from the Islamist scene in Egypt. Te Salafis haveinherited aspects of earlier Muslim Brotherhood millennialism — itsaggressive, judgmental, self-righteous claims about what constitutestrue Islam and a true Muslim life, along with occasional calls for vio-lence against enemies of Islam (Gauvain 2010). In the current political

moment, Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi political parties are compet-ing with one another, and the Brotherhood’s public pronouncements



452 J. . Kenney / Numen 59 (2012) 427–455

have contrasted its own progressive notions of Islam with the foreign Wahhabi-fundamentalism of the Salafis. In one of those ironic turns of

history, the Muslim Brotherhood, once accused of irrational politicsand backward social policies, is now leveling the same accusationsagainst Salafis.

Conclusion

Te evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood speaks to the potential of millennial movements to both transform themselves and the societies

of which they are a part. Te Brotherhood’s long history of operating inthe authoritarian netherworld of illegality, repression, and restrictedparticipation in civil society provided the movement with sufficienttime to reflect and to begin to articulate a more mainstream set of ideasthat resonated with the Egyptian populace. In post-colonial contexts,millennial movements are “born out of the search for a tolerably coher-ent system of values, a new cultural identity, and a regained sense of self-respect” (almon 1968:355). Tat search in Egypt generated two

millennial movements whose competing systems of values and culturalidentity served as counterpoints for debates about how to be modern.

While the moderate Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood has capturedEgypt’s cultural center, the debate has not ended, and neither has thepotential for millennialism to affect future Egyptian politics. Indeed,millennialism in Egypt has much the same potential as it does in theUnited States, another highly religious nation with a population primedto read its present and future in mythic terms.14

Tis same millennial potential contributes to the uneasy place of secularism in Egyptian and American political culture. Millennialism,in its progressive and catastrophic forms, quickens politics, infusing it

with a passion and purpose beyond what one of the early critics of theMuslim Brotherhood called the “normalness of modern secular life”(Halpern 1963:142). Secular politics is mundane politics; millennialpolitics is perfected politics, the politics of bringing heaven to earth.Tat religious people will strive, at times, for perfected politics is a

14) Here it should be noted that Egypt, unlike the United States, has limited capacity to project an apocalyptic politics outside its own borders; for an analysis of UnitesStates’ apocalyptic politics after 9/11, see Gray 2007.



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given. Te manner in which they strive for such a politics, however,depends on historical conditions. In early American history, millennial

movements and discourse proved key to the democratization of American Christianity:

American popular culture allowed self-educated people to espouse millennialhopes, hopes rife with the conviction that a novus ordo seculorum was unfolding.Common folk could, in this culture, challenge their betters; democracy was thecause of God . . . Even when political and social realities seemed to defy demo-cratic standards, populist preachers vied with elites for the birthright of the nation.Tey called America back to roots that had much to do with popular sovereignty

and the right to think for oneself. (Hatch 1989:188)

Tus not all those who pursue millennial dreams follow the path, nota-bly outlined by Cohn, of delusion, paranoia and death. Te Islamistmillennialism of the Brotherhood has proven a direct contributor tothe democratization of Islam in Egypt. Whether this cultural evolution

will enable a deeper structural transformation to take root in Egyptianpolitics remains to be seen.

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Documents

Kenney Islamism and Secular Nationalism Egypt