Muslim Identities and Modernity: The Transformation of Egyptian Culture, Thought and Literature 9781350987265, 9780857728012

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Maha F. Habib is currently Assistant Professor at Khalifa University and was previously Instructor at the University of Waterloo in Canada. She holds a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter.

‘Most of the books written on the topic take for granted a positive modern influence on this literature, and review tradition, Islam and history as regressive forces. Maha very delicately in her book attempts another approach by which Western influence was not always progressive and, more importantly, shows that the linearity that is suggested by most historians, namely that literature became more Westernized and hence modern with time, neglected the very important debates in that literature that represented both sides, and maybe even a third side, of the argument.’ Professor Ilan Pappe´, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter ‘At a time when Egypt is once more facing questions regarding its identity, perhaps in a more radical way than at any time during the last half century, with society violently polarised not just between secularisation and religion, but also democracy and authoritarianism, conflicting binaries that have afflicted the country since its first encounter with modernity through Napoleon’s invasion – at such a time there cannot be a more opportune moment for a study that digs at the cultural and intellectual roots of today’s crisis of identity.’ Professor Rasheed El-Enany, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

MUSLIM IDENTITIES AND MODERNITY

The Transformation of Egyptian Culture, Thought and Literature

MAHA F. HABIB

Published in 2016 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright q 2016 Maha F. Habib The right of Maha F. Habib to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 171 ISBN: 978 1 78453 219 2 eISBN: 978 0 85772 998 9 ePDF: 978 0 85772 801 2 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

To my father and mother for their love, dedication and support. To my family for encouraging me in difficult times. And, most importantly, to The One, without whom nothing would be possible. Forever grateful and in debt.

CONTENTS

Introduction Part I Secularization, Islam and the Predicament of Identity 1. The Enlightenment Project and Secularization in the West 2. Modernity and Islam in Egypt: The Struggle for Self-Representation and the Problem of Orientation (Late Nineteenth Century – Early Twentieth Century) 3. Islam and Modernity: The Predicament of Identity (Early Twentieth Century –Present) 4. Narrating Islam, Modernity and Muslim Identity (Mid-Twentieth Century –Present)

1 23 29

43 68 84

Part II States of Cultural Contestation and the Struggle for Self-Definition (Early Twentieth Century– Mid-Twentieth Century) 105 5. Narrating the Nation: The Rise of Egyptian (Territorial) Nationalism (1900– 1930s) 109 6. The Rise of Easternism and National Redefinition (1930s–1950s) 151

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Part III States of Ambivalence (Mid-Twentieth Century– Present) 7. From Sacred to Secular: Time and Space, Alienation and Exile 8. The Transformation of Social Formations 9. The Plight of Women 10. Ambivalent Identities and the Sacred

199 208 225 234

Conclusions and Recommendations

265

Notes Bibliography Index

271 314 329

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INTRODUCTION

The Question of Muslim Identity The question of Islam and Muslim identity has become all too important and difficult to ignore in an age of engaging, and at times worrying, politics with regard to Islam, Muslims, and their representation and positionality in the world. Islam’s existence or lack thereof on an official level has been a topic of controversy, and its existence or lack thereof on a popular level has been the source of important study. The current atmosphere begs questions that surpass the far too simplistic and unconcerned questioning of what Islam is; it begs questions to do with the current Muslim condition. An attempt to understand Islam ultimately leads to an interest in understanding Islam in the life of Muslims in the modern period. This type of inquisition, this search for answers, leads to even more defining questions: where and how does Islam exist in relation to modernity, how and in what ways does it function to move and shape the nations and identities of the Arab East, and to what extent? Among the many perplexing representations of and observations on Muslims in the Arab East is that beyond the manifestations of religiosity within the social scene, one finds disturbance, imbalance, contradiction and a sense of chaos and crisis. This sense of chaos and crisis can be observed and attested within the Muslim Egyptian reality and experience. Muslim Egyptian social reality can be characterized by a crisis of narratives that has manifested in a crisis of civilization, of society and of identities. This crisis is amply covered, portrayed and discussed

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by cultural critics, intellectuals, religious figures and artistic writers in Egypt. It has been equally noted by international authors and thinkers. A crisis of this magnitude and of this importance thus requires a delineation of sources, reasons and remedies. Egyptian history within the modern period has been unquestionably entangled with the politics of the contact with the West, colonial and ‘postcolonial’. This contact has had an unrelenting impact on Muslim Egyptian culture, society and subjectivity; one that is deeply embedded. The avenues towards social, cultural and identity-based change, progress and modernization of various forms are intimately connected to and implicated by such a history, and such a historical progression/cultural regression. The Muslim Egyptian crisis, thus, can be sourced to mistaken cultural development. As such, the intention here is to build a cultural critique that highlights mistaken cultural aims that are entangled with and implicated by a history of uneven cultural contact. The critique is one of mistaken routes to progress, a critique of accepting and applying Western ideologies and notions of modernization (secularism, and modernity as a realization of Western conceptions of social organization and thought, culture and identity), without a due consideration for the place of indigenous and nativist forms of knowledge, without consideration for the religious, as a means to progress. The intention is to draw out the complexities that this mistaken approach has engendered, mainly in relation to the development of a secure or balanced sense of Muslim identity. In the process an enlightened and informed understanding of the tension between Islam and modernity, and a detailed discovery of the predicament of Muslim identity and the subsequent effects on religiosity, is to be achieved. This investigation will essentially locate and situate Islam within modern Egypt for Muslims, and in relation to or amidst various other frameworks or ideologies. Central to this research are questions leading to deepened understandings of the general Muslim condition. What have the discourses of modernity and secularization meant for a Muslim conception of change and articulations of religion, culture and society? What have these conceptions engendered in terms of alterations to the Islamic worldview, Islamic discourse, and Muslim self-perception and understanding of religious meaning? How and in what ways are identity and individual religiosity problematized by the forces of change: colonialism, modernization and globalization? How do Muslims assess religion and

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religiosity given the muddled discourse on representation? What complexities in the realization of religiosity, and what ambiguities in understanding and applying religious meaning arise? How do Muslims respond to and attempt to construct religious meaning and religious identity given a conflated ideological terrain and a complex modern reality within Egypt? Finally, is reconciliation possible, without a forfeiting of religious identity and of religiosity?

The Means of Charting Muslim Identity I. Mapping Muslim Identity in Egypt The importance of this endeavour can be charted throughout the Arab Middle East for the purpose of mapping postcolonial/modern experiences in connection with Muslim identity and religiosity. However, this task, thus defined, would be ineffectual and daunting. The Arab world cannot be seen holistically, as it can be segmented and differentiated in terms of the postcolonial historical experience. Neither can Muslim identity be defined using such an expansive scope. The development of religious ideology and the history of religion-based response to the West have taken different forms. Egypt was selected for several reasons: (1) It was a centre of gravity for intellectual thought for the Arab world during the nineteenth century. (2) Egypt has been since the nineteenth century a cultural ferment of both nationalist and religious discourse. (3) Egypt has been a relatively open society to intercultural exchange. The focus of this research is the modern period; texts written by Muslim Egyptians within the modern period, from the nineteenth century to the present, are analysed. The question of whether Egypt is experiencing a modern epoch or a postmodern epoch is a crucial one. However, it is difficult to designate a modern versus a postmodern moment or time frame for Egypt; these definitions in cultural terms, and therefore in time frames, are nebulous. A postmodern moment for Egypt cannot be verified in historical or cultural terms, and remains in the making; Egypt remains engaged with the complexities of modernity and of postcoloniality, and the difficulties such experiences have presented. The inability to engage in

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a constructive forward-moving and indigenously cultivated progress and modernization has stalled a realization of a postmodern moment in social, cultural and historical terms.

II. Sample Selection Thus, primary material for analysis from the modern period has been selected after a search and review of writing produced within the Arab world. Certain texts were approached for the understanding of the breadth within Egypt and for thematic concerns; the texts of Rasheed El-Enany, of Roger Allen, of M. Badawi, of Jasem al-Musawi, of Sabry Hafez and of Issa Boullata. With a focus on religion and religious concerns a list of texts was constructed. Theoretical categories on the basis of religious themes were then constructed, and a list of primary sources was selected from different time frames to ensure a historical continuity in coverage and in delineating causes and manifestations of the predicament of religious identity. The selection reflects a historical continuity in coverage and analysis, whilst showcasing continuity in the thematic concern through the analysis of a range of writers and figures: the religious, the academic, the cultural critic, the artistic and the politically inclined. From the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, key intellectual figures were selected from the Islamic and secular trends to showcase and analyse the contestation over integral issues in defining self and nation, and to delineate causes leading to a contemporary predicament in identity. Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905), and Qasim Amin (1863–1908) as representatives of the Islamic trend, and Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872–1963), Muhammad Husayn Hayakl (1888–1956) and Taha Hussein (1889–1973) as representatives of the secular trend. From the early twentieth century to the mid-twentieth century, texts of key authors were selected to reflect once again the two intellectual trends and their articulations of identity, ˙ usayn Haykal’s modernization and means to progress: Muh˙ammad H Zaynab (1914), Tawfik al-Hakı¯m’s (1898–1987) Return of the Spirit ˙ (1933), Taha Hussein’s The Future of Culture in Egypt (1938), Ah˙mad Amı¯n’s (1872–1954) ’Asharq wa al-Gharb (1955) and a series of al‘Aqqa¯d’s (1889–1964) works (1946–1962). From the mid-twentieth century to the present, literary texts were selected that reflect current concerns, the shifting place of the sacred and

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the resulting predicament of religious identity and religiosity. These are: Yahya Hakki’s (1905– 92) The Lamp of Umm Hashim (1944); Tawfı¯k ˙ akı¯m’s ’Arinı¯ Allah (1953); Naguib Mahfouz’s (1911– 2006) The al-H Cairo Trilogy (1956– 57), Adrift on the Nile (1966), Midaq Alley (1966) and Ibn Fattouma (1983); Latifa al-Zayyat’s (1923–96) The Open Door (1960); Abdel Hakim Qassim’s (1934–90) The Seven Days of Man (1969) and Good News from the Afterlife (1984); Salwa¯ Bakr’s The Golden Chariot (1990); Baha Tahir’s Love in Exile (1995); and, finally, al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building (2002). These texts were mainly read in translation, subject to availability. In the cases where the texts were unavailable in translation, an Arabic copy was used. These constituted the texts written by the authors selected for the early-twentieth century to mid-twentieth century period, the only exception being Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the Spirit. ˙ All texts from the mid-twentieth century to the present were read in English translation, with the exception of Tawfı¯k al-Hakı¯m’s ’Arinı¯ ˙ Allah. In transliteration, the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) transliteration system was used. Works read in Arabic were transliterated and were followed by an English translation of the title. The names of the authors of these works are also transliterated, while works read in translation are not. Some Arabic words and names are also transliterated.

III. Cultural and Literary Mapping: Egyptian Intellectual Thought and Cultural Progress It is clear from the selections made that Islam, and Islamic or Muslim identity, with all that it entails, is a thread that runs through Egyptian writing reflecting the dilemmas of their ‘modern’ world. These writings are textual attempts at dealing with the presented dichotomies of religion/secularism and tradition/modernity. Existential issues are at the centre of such discussions, or narrations as struggles for certainty and for self-representation with regard to issues of concern. Thus, the purpose is to trace religious significations within this writing. Tracing the religious entails the following: (1) to trace the ways in which cultural production was constructed in an attempt to understand the ‘self’: the articulation of the self, and a criticism of it;

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(2) to trace the ways in which the ‘self’ is reinvented: the construction of new ideologies, and the dynamics of such ideologies; (3) finally, to trace the ways in which the ‘self’ is presented: the dissemination and presentation of certain opinions or beliefs, in desperate attempts to conjoin or deal with the ‘modern’. Tracing the sacred within modern Egyptian writing presents deep insights into the struggle for individualism and representation. These narratives act as sites of expression of cultural contestation, and the struggle for self-definition, mirroring one that is pre-existing in Egyptian society. These texts as sites of expression and contestation are evidence of: (1) (2) (3) (4)

social and cultural self-awareness; an engagement with and a response to ‘other’ narratives; an attempt to search for an ‘authentic’ self-sufficient discourse; an attempt to conjure up viable options for sustainability.

In looking at Egyptian literature particularly one can trace the sacred through a reflection on and analysis of the place it occupies in writing. Scott in his introduction to Mapping the Sacred theorizes that the tracing or mapping of the sacred can be understood as the tracing or mapping of human geography. Human geographies in this sense can be seen as landscapes of existence: spaces concerned with existential predicaments as they are expressed in various places. Scott clarifies three approaches that have been used to map the sacred, to map human geography, one of which is of crucial importance to the analysis of Egyptian texts. It is an approach that permits an analysis of the place of religion within human geographies and its effect upon the existential presence of these geographies; it permits an analysis of religion within the human environment. This view prompts an understanding of Islam and Islamic culture, manifested in religiosity, within human geographies as one of a ‘deterministic, almost self-existent, ontological status’.1 Islam and Islamic culture can be understood to occupy an ontological status in the lives of Muslims. It expresses itself in their lives, it determines their social and cultural practices, and informs their view of the world. The

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Qur’an and the Islamic tradition are pivotal social and cultural standards by which Muslims are informed, and by which they measure their actions. Essentially this is textual content that can be mapped. Mapping is further defined as ‘charting the ways in which contemporary writers represent [. . .] “sacred space” – a phrase capturing the sense of spiritual significance associated with those concrete locations in which adherents to different religious traditions, past and present, maintain a ritual sense of the sanctity of life and its cycles’.2 The mapping of the sacred, then, includes a conception and a concern for issues of space and place in the reading of contemporary literature. If the sacred is a conception of the transcendent and its symbolic or concrete presence in the lives of adherents, then one can map the representation and expression of meaning associated with spaces, places, with experience, events, with thought and actions, with life itself as they play the defining role in identity construction and constitution, and in the constitution of individual lives. For the sake of specificity, one can map the sacred as a ‘place where, a higher reality has been manifested or grasped, especially a higher reality that has significantly affected [. . .] identity and life’.3 As the sacred constitutes its sacredness through its connection to the transcendental, sacred spaces achieve and constitute their sacredness through both the connection with the concept of the sacred and with the connection to human history, belief, and social and cultural ritual and practice. A Hajj pilgrimage can be read as a journey towards self-realization, self-salvation; it is a closeness with the transcendental, in a state of powerlessness, in an attempt to salvage and heal the human spirit. How Muslims articulate and re-articulate this religious requirement and this journey is a subject for analysis. Egyptian writing is thus approached with an awareness of the various levels of meaning it expresses. In the process, the analysis is conscious of and focused on the individual attempts to express a sensibility that is of spiritual, intellectual and cultural form and nature in a desire for wholeness, for clarity, and for a sense of certainty.4 Egyptian writing expresses, and can be mapped for, a series of concerns that articulate these attempts. The first concern is the ontological claims to meaning and truth associated with religious traditions in the face of the process of secularization. The second concern is its implication, interrogation and dramatization of ‘ambiguities and tensions’ of religious symbols,

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narratives, ritual practices and ethical codes, and ‘doctrinal systems’ of religious traditions.5 The third concern is the presentation of alternative visions of reality that may permeate this writing. Finally, the fourth concern is with the expression of ‘geographies of resistance’6 to ‘traditional’ or Western thought systems and practices. While it is inaccurate to suggest that Islam or Islamic culture is a monolith, one feels the necessity of a sense of accuracy and definition in approaching analysis to do with Islamic issues. The realization of religiosity requires a sense of concrete understandings, definite responses to questions, concerns and challenges, and certainly it requires definite referential points; this is no less true in assessments and analyses of the presentation of Islamic issues or of religiosity. Furthermore, an indication and consideration of the Islamic discourse of paramountcy in Egypt is also crucial. In defining a reference point, and in consideration of the Islamic discourse paramount in Egypt, the perspective of orthodox and mainstream Sunni Islam is used in articulating Islamic issues within the book. Furthermore, in assessment, discussion and analysis of these various issues, concerns and meanings, one felt a need for a delineation of a conception of Muslim identity, particularly a conception of Islamism, within the context of a discussion of Muslims who abide to the fundamentals of their faith. An awareness of the dual nature and meaning of this term is necessary. The term ‘Islamist’ in contemporary usage is one that expresses both extremism and terror in identity and action. The question of what an abiding, faithful Muslim who adheres in a fundamental, theoretical and practical sense to the precepts of Islam and actively seeks the realization of their religiosity can be termed becomes, therefore, a challenge. The term ‘Islamist’, given the current political atmosphere, would be and is highly problematic in usage. However, in meaning ’Islamist’ may reflect an identity of one who is committed to their faith and its precepts in thought and action; the factors of extremism and terror are not necessarily crucial to this identity thus defined. These two meanings are reflected in the research and in analysis and articulation of the predicament of religious identity and religiosity in Egypt; however, they are not used interchangeably.

IV. Theoretical Framework The book utilizes various approaches to locating, analysing and articulating the predicament of religious identity and religiosity. The

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boundaries of the work cut across various theoretical and disciplinary lines: political science, sociology, cultural studies, religious studies, contemporary philosophy and literary criticism. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the predicament of religiosity, I had to appeal to various theoretical and disciplinary frameworks. In analysing the predicament the book revisits: the development of secular thought through the discussion of various political theorists; the development of national thought and Easternist thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the analysis of key Arab/Muslim intellectuals and through a review of seminal historical works; the discussion of key issues and debates in relation to Islam and modernity through a consideration of key works of cultural critique and analysis. It also reviews the development of an identity crisis through the use of social theory and detraditionalization theories. I draw upon the writing of Western political philosophy to reveal the process of secularization, and to historical texts to locate the predicament. In discussing the process of secularization, one has to shed light on the decline of the sacred universe, and how a secularization and modernization discourse shaped and influenced the perspective of the ‘other’ on the Muslim self, and how in turn Muslim self-perception was altered. The study of key Islamic modernists and their struggle with colonial narratives is given against a backdrop of a theoretical analysis that highlights such influence. Edward Said’s works, particularly Orientalism (1979), and Johannes Fabian’s Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (2002) were instrumental in providing this theoretical analysis. In locating the predicament historically I appeal to the works of Albert Hourani, J.P. Jankowski and I. Gershoni, Hesham al-Awadi, in addition to other historians. To mention a few: Hrair Dekmejian (1971; 1980), Saad Eddin Ibrahim (2002; 2005), R. Khalidi (1993), Ira M. Lapidus (1997), and ‘Abd al-Rah˙ma¯n’ al-Ra¯fi‘ı¯ (1990). All of these works were instrumental in drawing out narratives, causes and directions within an Egyptian historical, political and intellectual scene. The works of Hourani (Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798– 1939 (1983) and A History of the Arab Peoples (1993)), and Gershoni and Jankowski (Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood 1900–1930 (1987) and Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930– 1945 (1995)) provided a comprehensive view of the time frames in question, a comprehensive view of the historical, social, political and cultural

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constraints. Thus, they have proved to be excellent reference points for the charting of historical causes and historical developments leading to the present condition. The other works gave an extensive and detailed view into the contentions and constraints of certain time frames, and assisted in drawing out the complexities of the issues of the time frames in question. The work of al-Awadi, for instance, is an extensive look at state– Brotherhood dynamics, particularly within the Mubarak era, and therefore was integral in shedding light on state politics with regard to the presentation of Islam in certain spheres, and with regard to alternatives. In situating the historical, cultural and political within the thematic concerns of the book, the discussion had to bring to light key issues and debates to do with Islam and modernity. These issues and debates provided a view of how the relationship of Islam to modernity is articulated. Furthermore, they brought to light the ways in which religious identity and religiosity are complicated by the tensions that arise between the respective discourses of Islam and modernity. In doing so various authors were appealed to. Anthony Giddens’ Modernity and SelfIdentity (1991), Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007) and David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (1989) give a philosophical and sociological view into the effects of modernization on social structures, religious formations and religious identity in relation to contexts of change. They elucidate the interventions and transformations that modernization imposes on individual psychology, belief and engagement in relation to traditional social structures and religious formations (theoretical and practical). These became crucial in understanding the negative effects of modernization on self and society: the deconstruction of the sacred universe, fragmentation of social and religious structures, the disembeddedness and disenchantment of the individual, and the resulting individual loss, uncertainty and anxiety with regard to religion. To situate these understandings within the context of an Egyptian experience, and more importantly, a Muslim experience, one appealed to various writers who shed light on issues particular to Islam and modernity; those include Talal Asad, John Esposito, Azzam Tamimi, Munir Shafiq and Ahmet Davutoglu. Talal Asad’s Formations of the Secular (2003) in particular offers an anthropological assessment of secularism in relation to political doctrine within Egypt. Pertinent to his analysis is

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how secular ideology became reflected in changes to law, Shari‘ah and ethics within Egypt enabling a progress towards a form of modernity not on a par with Islam or the psychological and cultural life and awareness of the peoples of Egypt. The neglect of the possibility of alternative modernities is further elucidated and verified through the theoretical and cultural analyses provided in an anthology edited by John Esposito and Azzam Tamimi, Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (2000), and is also discussed by Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt in Multiple Modernities (2005), Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’ in Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History (2004), Aziz al-Azmeh in Islam and Modernities (1996), Hisham Sharabi in Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (1992), Akbar Ahmed in Postmodernism and Islam (1992) and Galal Amin in The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (2006) and Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? (2000). The theoretical and practical realities of social and individual discontent, disorder and displacement, thus, became apparent. Finally, I draw upon social theory and detraditionalization theories to reveal the effects of the detraditionalization of Islamic society on religious identity, and on religiosity. Seminal and contemporary works within religious and sociological studies were instrumental in the analysis of primary texts studied. Of particular importance was an anthology edited by Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris titled Detraditionalization (1996). This anthology provided the framework for understanding, in a microcosmic manner, the shape and form of the changes imposed on individual psychology. These are: consequences of individualization; the changes in morality; the contingency of identity, morality and religion; the lucid, and socially and culturally ambiguous understanding of the religious and cultural universe; and the burdens and anxieties that are experienced as a result. Through these various theoretical and disciplinary discoveries the wrenching question of how to consolidate religious identity and religiosity with modernity becomes a focus and culmination of the book.

Literature Review Many intellectuals have attempted to describe and articulate the problem of Islam and modernity; however, few have been able to articulate the effect of a reality and a discourse of contestation on the Muslim self. There

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is an abundance of literature on the subject of Islam and modernity approaching it from various angles. This literature can be classified based on focus: literature that locates and defines the problem for and in relation to the West and Western thought systems; literature that delineates the problem from an Islamic legal perspective; literature that describes the intellectual scene within the Middle East; and, literature that partakes in narrative analysis and/or criticism. Most arguments are based on the premise that there is a perceived incongruity or tension and conflict between Islam and modernity; whether the reference is to political Islam or Islam in general, the premise remains the same. Most point to the tension and conflict experienced internally and externally within cultural and political frameworks: the need for religious reform and the need for a separation of religion and state are some of the issues tackled. Despite the varied focus of discussion within literature, the problem is most often phrased in terms of a civilizational predicament with national, international and global implications and a serious need for a solution. Modernity is also at times conceived more as a viable modernizing project, and increasingly so since the events of September 11; East and West relations have increased in tenuousness and Islam has received much more criticism and threat to its sustainability as a system of belief and as an identity marker. The concern in this research is with the need for an approach to the subject that takes into account two important elements: (1) the postcolonial experience, and the postcoloniality of the Muslim subject; (2) Islam and (individual) religiosity. Though this body of literature tackles the tension of Islam and modernity from varied perspectives, few attempt a detailed analysis of the shifting place of the sacred, and its consequential effect on the identity and religiosity of Muslims. Furthermore, while the element of postcoloniality of the Muslim subject is present within some of these analyses, the struggle for Muslim self-representation and the problematized sense of faith occupy a minimal space. Within the first body of literature, the predicament of Islam with modernity is often viewed from a narrow perspective that locates the problem within Islamic doctrine, Islamic thought or Islamic cultural

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and ethical practices, as specified by its legal system. Authors argue that modernity has at its foundations secular thought that is the culmination of social and political organization, and is not to be sourced to religious thought.7 As suggested, the Western tradition, and Western progress and civilization by implication, is predicated on democracy, freedom and civil liberties accommodating within its scope both plurality and personal autonomy. In an inaccurate and an unfair assessment, Islam and Muslim societies are seen to be incapable of realizing such progress, for the Islamic world has not realized secular states, nor is it capable of holding a neutral position with regard to religious ideologies.8 The tension between Islam and modernity is further conceptualized in terms of a civilizational predicament expressed in the binary of modern West and traditional East. Authors attempt to trace the problem historically, and define it politically by applying Huntington’s thesis9 on the civilizational divide characterized by and manifested in the form of tension and conflict. This argument suggests that the two worlds, as binary opposites, are driven by a different set of convictions. Based on this faulty and dangerous characterization, both worlds are said to be driven by particularism and a different set of ‘virtues’ or ethics. Some of the various binaries and terms used to articulate this divide, such as jiha¯d and ‘McWorld’, ‘House of Islam’ and ‘House of war’, attempt to further describe an Islamic ideological conception of ‘self’ and ‘other’, one that is most often said to be driven by a need to rehabilitate a sense of historical loss, and is a source of current Muslims’ sense of inferiority and ‘rage’.10 With this pretext in mind, the advance of these binaries and these conceptions is a construction of a discourse on Islam and Muslims, one that qualifies Muslim identity. This discourse designates and qualifies a set of labels, and a narrative on Islam and the problem of Islam based on this binary, a binary expressing a difference between the West and Islam, the democratic and the totalitarian, the secular and the religious, the modern and the medieval.11 What is central to this discourse is the conception and articulation of ‘Islamic terrorism’ as a key notion within Islam, as a regulating force within Muslim lives, and a threat to the West and Western values.12 Great attention is given to the ways in which these values can be protected, and to the means of combating Muslim terror; the discourse is supported by principles, plans, strategies and actions willed to defend against the ‘terrorists’.13

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Furthermore, a clear distinction is drawn between types of Muslims: the fundamentalist, extremist or Islamist and the moderate. Dialogue with the moderates composes part of the strategy for combating the terror of Islam.14 The moderates are seen to have a greater proximity to Western ideals, and can assist in the realization of ideological and theological balance within Islam. This proximity qualifies typology as it qualifies religiosity, affecting the construction of identities. Such ideological constructions allow for a minimalist space for understanding the Muslim self and Muslim predicament in modern contexts. Additionally, these ideological constructions do not bear in mind the necessity of an equitable analysis. Islamic legal perspectives enter this form of discussion as a means to negotiating and articulating new means to approaching Islam in modern contexts. Great attention has been directed towards Islamic law and its reform. This attention is produced and generated by the question of whether or not Islamic law is antithetical to human rights and civil liberties recognized within the West. These questions are framed historically and politically in light of various concerns for: the legitimacy of Shari‘ah within modern constitutional frameworks; liberties of the individual; religious minority rights; and women’s rights, among others.15 While Anver Emon suggests that Islamic societies seek reform ‘out of the ashes of colonialism’ in need of ‘nationalist definitions that distinguish them from their former colonial masters’ and in need of the establishment of an ‘authentic identity’, she also maintains that in the spirit of doing so, Islamic societies ideologically isolate themselves from the global scene.16 This point is further articulated by both Abdullahi An-Na’im and N.J. Coulson, who suggest that in following the traditions set forth within Islamic law, Muslims are resisting a ‘break with the traditions of the past’.17 In criticism of the development of Islamic law, authors contend that its applicability within a modern framework is questionable; it is described as ‘premodern’18 and ‘akin to the principles upon which Plato’s Republic was founded’.19 For instance, Howard denies the congruity of Islam and human rights by suggesting that the ‘Islamic conception of justice is not one of human rights’.20 The Islamic legal tradition, thus, becomes a focus of criticism, and Islamic reform becomes necessary: the reformation, re-articulation and re-interpretation of Islamic law and the basis on which it stands.

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Given these frameworks, Muslims can be easily grouped based on religious convictions, creating religious typologies that in effect are a manifestation of the interplay between these discourses on Islam and its expression in personal lives (degrees of religiosity are implicated): secular Muslims, liberal Muslims, moderate Muslims, fundamental Muslims, extremist or fanatical Muslims, are shades of religiosity on a spectrum.21 Furthermore, these analyses and perspectives engender an atmosphere of hesitation, doubt and lack of certainty with regard to Islamic law and, thus, practice. These modern discourses on and approaches to the question of Islam in modernity are factors in the creation of a problematized and complicated sense of religious identity and religiosity. While these frameworks locate the problematic within Islamic discourse and Muslim self-perception and worldview, there are other frameworks that locate the problematic within modern discourse and the modern political predicament that complicate Muslim identity construction and existence. Islamic identity is linked to ‘modern geopolitical, economic, and social struggles’.22 I. Lapidus situates Muslim identity within the framework of a ‘direct response to the global changes that constitute modernity’23 and the accumulation of changes that Muslim societies have undergone including anti-colonial struggle and the role of renewal and reformation in the process.24 Ayesha Jalal introduces yet another perspective by arguing that these movements mobilize around the concept of the nation, a distinctly Muslim conception of the nation that represents ‘Muslim selfprojections of identity’.25 To Jalal it is an ‘ingenious way of offsetting the growing disenchantment’ and an expression of the importance of solidarity of a community predicated on a sense of belonging to and an identification with the tenets of the faith and its traditions. This ‘theological centralization’ is a means to ‘individual self-affirmation [. . .] leading to purposeful collective action’.26 On the other hand, John Esposito suggests that these movements and changes signify a ‘quest for identity, authenticity, and community, and a desire to establish meaning and order in both personal life and society’.27 This ability and endeavour to both situate and understand the problematics of Muslim identity are a starting point. They reveal the uppermost layer of engagement with these issues; such analyses require further interrogation and deeper involvement with the issues at hand. The assessments of the problem of

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Islam, and the problem of a modern discourse in relation to Islam, require a greater awareness of the shifting place of the sacred in its various spheres of existence and performance, and the correlating struggle of Muslim identity in modern contexts for an adequate assessment and analysis of the predicament. Despite such range in the study of Islam and modernity, few, if any, devote an entire study to the predicament of Muslim identity and the shifting place of the sacred. Even within literary analyses most focus on the theme of the encounter, or the East/West binary in a way that reveals the search for identity. The topics reviewed include: the struggle with the dichotomy and attempts at eliminating it; the struggle to embrace Western values while maintaining selfhood; rejection of colonial imposition; and reformation or self-criticism. Within the framework of the contact theme of East/West, M.M. Badawi focuses on the centrality of Islam within Egyptian literature in relationship to identity. Badawi reviews the place of Islam in Egyptian literature by looking at pre-modern and modern poetry and prose. For instance, he discusses works from the Arab Renaissance (which began in the mid-nineteenth century), in which the ‘figure of Muhammad continued to play a significant part in Egyptian poetry’28 and in which idiom, illusion, imagery and language ‘are all deeply and unmistakably rooted in the Islamic religion and the Islamic tradition’.29 On the other hand, Rasheed El-Enany focuses, thematically, on the relationship of the East to the West by performing a ‘reverse study of Edward Said’s famous Orientalism’ through an exploration of Arab fictional and quasi-fictional responses to Western culture. He articulates and reveals integral aspects of the problematic of Muslim identity within a modern framework, and significant ideas in understanding Muslim self-perception in relation to the ‘other’.30 His analyses portray the ways in which some authors articulate difference from the West and pride in Eastern heritage (Tawfiq ˙ akim), how others attempt an amalgamation of values (Taha al-H Hussein), while others articulate a sense of shame in relation to the West and Western progress (Yahya Hakki).31 Muslim self-perception and problematic of identity can and should be situated within historical and political frameworks. Approaching the contact theme in a similar fashion to that of El-Enany, Stephan Sheehi situates the problematics of self-perception and religious identity within historical and political frameworks. Sheehi, specifically, situates

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Arab identity within the larger framework of the struggle of the Arab world with the West and with Western ‘supremacy’ to enlighten an understanding of the problem of identity. He pays close attention to the developments in Egyptian history towards the end of the Ottoman Empire and the initiation of British colonialism, leading towards a review of the modern conception of selfhood: Islamic and national.32 What is particularly astounding about his assessment is the explanation of the language of binaries that captivates the discourse on the Arab world, and the Arab intellectual stance in response to such a discourse. All of these topical assessments lead to the conclusion that modernity has an unrelenting impact on Arab and Muslim subjectivity, from which dialogical and dialectical responses emanate. A current and detailed analysis of the impact and of the nature of the responses to the challenges posed is, however, lacking. Some authors frame Muslim responses within the historical and political scene and in relation to the shifting place of religion and religious discourse, often revealing the predicament of religious identity. Mona Mikhail discusses the search for an authentic identity within the framework of the shifting place of religious traditions by focusing on the works of Yusuf Idris (1927– 91) and Naguib Mahfouz. She advances the argument that her assessment examines ‘allegories which reflect very clearly and unequivocally certain aspects of the accepted existential crisis of faith [. . .] [that are] intimately linked with the main issues of belief in God’; they are acts of revolt as a ‘rejection of the human condition’.33 The way in which she assesses the shifting place of the sacred is of importance, specifically if placed within the context of the subsequent rising of secular discourse/politics within Egypt. Hafez does exactly that in his engagement with a few works from the 1960s. Hafez describes the 1960s as the: ‘decade of confusion, a decade of numerous huge projects and the abolition of almost all political activities; massive industrialization and the absolute absence of freedom’ and the defeat of 1967.34 As such, the literature of the 1960s attempted to communicate and ‘express the complexities of this epoch’ focusing on issues of individualism, ‘patriotism and nationalism’.35 The most important theme in this blend is the ‘obsessive search for freedom in a world which seems to have been abandoned by God and surrenders its reason and logic to an inverted law’.36 His commentary on this theme allows for a due consideration of religious meaning, and its loss through

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an analysis of the psychological development of central characters, narrative techniques that embody this development and the shifting time and logic of events.37 The search for meaning and identity coincides with the loss of religious meaning; cultural formation was affected by the instability and unpredictability of the time. The question of whether or not the instability and unpredictability of the contemporary period lend themselves to similar understandings of the nature of society, and understanding of the challenges posed to religious identity, is of importance. The state of uncertainty that is dominant in Egyptian society and is expressed in its literature is analysed further by Muhammad Siddiq. From the perspective of the mapping of identity ‘against the backdrop of contemporary Egyptian culture, politics and history’ he examines the Egyptian novel as a contested genre.38 Paramount to his discussion and contribution is the disorienting effects of the encounter with the ‘other’ and the consequent hybrid state that is at the core of Arab identity. He further focuses on the space which religion occupies within the Egyptian novel: philosophical religious orientations within Naguib Mahfouz’s Al-Qa¯hirah al-Jadı¯dah (1945); the critique of religious superstition in Hakki’s works; the celebration of ‘unabashed’ desire and the conjoining of ‘religion and hedonism’ in The Cairo Trilogy (1956– 57).39 Siddiq’s work is very much to the point for the task at hand. The conducted analyses of religion and Muslim identity in the texts discussed above in large part take the form of an expression of the dichotomous relationship between Islam and the West, and the expression of contradictory values. There is also a focus on the tension with regard to the full acceptance of the West and Western values, in the process of the search for identity given against a backdrop of social, cultural, political events and changes within society. However, the lacunae are located within the assessment of religious identity within Egyptian society. There is a lack of a comprehensive study and a comprehensive understanding of the shifting place of the sacred as a result of the history of the encounter, and the subsequent effect on religious identity and religious ideology and religiosity. The lacunae lie in the following areas of study: (1) the shifting place of the sacred as a result of colonialist discourse and Western knowledge systems;

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(2) a study of the struggle for religious identity as a struggle for individuality and representation; (3) the study of consequent problematics and of change within the sacred universe and its expression within various spheres; (4) an understanding of these in relation to religiosity, and the manifestation of individual dispositions with regard to the sacred within these contexts of change; (5) the search for and the presentation of viable options with regard to the tension between Islam and modernity. This study fills some of these gaps.

Book Structure and Content I. Book Structure The book is organized around a diachronic analysis that begins with the late nineteenth century and ends with the contemporary period. Part I of the book covers the historical and cultural developments from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Part II of the book covers the historical and cultural developments from the early twentieth century to the middle of the twentieth century, while Part III covers the period from the middle of the twentieth century to the present. II. Chapter Contents Part I aims to lay the foundations for the discovery of the displacement of the sacred and the struggle with individual religiosity. This part of the book is focused on three main issues of concern. The first issue of concern is clarifying that the predicament faced by adherents of religion (faith) is one of a crisis of orientation. This crisis of orientation is ideological in nature and poses a threat to the sustainability and validity of revelation-based forms of knowledge. Tracing the development of the process of the crystallization of this crisis frames the first chapter: ‘The Enlightenment Project and Secularization in the West’. The second chapter, ‘Modernity and Islam in Egypt: The Struggle for Self-Representation and the Problem of Orientation’, discusses the second issue of concern. It traces the penetration and effect of secular and modern discourses of understanding the world on the Islamic point of reference, and conception of identity. It also

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outlines the ways in which Egyptian society has attempted to respond, with the purpose of highlighting that: (1) there is a crisis of orientation; (2) Islam remains central to Muslim thought. The third chapter, ‘Islam and Modernity: The Predicament of Identity’, aims at defining and describing the consequential effects on Muslim identity, and the subsequent search for authenticity. The fourth chapter, ‘Narrating Islam, Modernity and Muslim Identity’, attempts to chart a narrative of the linkages between these three elements (Islam, modernity and identity), so as to conceptualize the way in which the religious is disrupted, and the subsequent disruption of or effect on religious identity and religiosity. These issues of concern set the foundations for an understanding of the predicament of Islam and modernity, and the effect on Muslim identity and religiosity. Part II examines the intellectual shifts and their underlying ideologies. Chapter 5 examines the Egyptian national drive towards independence, progress and means to self-identification through a conceptualization of organizational principles in Egyptianist terms. The theoretical underpinnings of territorial nationalism are approached through an investigation of historical change, and the ideas of key Figures (such as Lutfi al-Sayyid and Muhammad Husayn Haykal). The way in which the territorialist vision is further elaborated and imagined in fictional narratives is examined through an interpretation of Haykal’s Zaynab and al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the Spirit. Chapter 6 examines the shift ˙ in focus through the analysis and discussion of the ideas of central Easternist intellectual figures, and their re-conceptualization of the means of constructing and conceiving self, society, nation and progress. These include Amı¯n and al-‘Aqqa¯d. Part III showcases a narrative of the displacement of the sacred, and the subsequent effects on religious identity and religiosity. Chapter 7 outlines the transformation in an entire world and its worldview (from sacred to secular) and the consequent effects on conceptions of existence (time and space) and sense of existence (security, or alienation and exile). This mirrors the transformations that took place in the context of the Egyptian nation, and projects the transformation in Muslim society and Muslim identity. The intent here is to show the ultimate distinctions in

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conceptions of existence (sacred versus secular, as they are expressed in time and space), their direct association with a worldview (transcendent and enchanted versus disenchanted), and their ultimate effects on (religious, Muslim) identity and sense of religiosity (or relationship to the sacred). This is approached through the study of one key fictional narrative, Abdel-Hakim Kassem’s The Seven Days of Man (1969). Chapter 8 is a transition into the deeper consequences of the transformation, and the complex and multi-faceted reality of crisis it manifests. From the vantage point of the destabilized sacred order, its social structures or social formation, and the ushering in of an unrestricted individuality, problems within the social sphere and the constructions of identity are examined. Through the study of Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley (1966), Salwa¯ Bakr’s The Golden Chariot (1991), Baha Tahir’s Love in Exile (1995) and Alaa al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building (2002) several issues are brought to light: increasing consumerist and materialistic ethics; the commodification of all values; political corruption; and the ultimate loss of value of a heritage, culture and roots. Chapter 9 focuses on women’s issues specifically. Using Salwa¯ Bakr’s The Golden Chariot (1991), the effects of the erosion of the religious order on the lives of women are examined. Particular attention is paid to the multi-layered system of subjugation and control that exists in society, and the intersection of structural and ideological demands on identity (traditionalism, modernism and religiosity). Ultimately, one finds that women are unable to navigate through or derive a sense of agency from any one of the existing discourses of existence and identity, they are pressured by the demands, and their realities are ultimately complicated, unjust and disabling to any sense of personal development. More importantly, in cases of a real interest in and need for religiosity, its existence and its realization in personal lives, the overpowering and destabilizing modern order impedes a harmonized and secure sense of religious identity. Chapter 10 draws on this idea further and showcases the way in which identities are further problematized in a way that is both disadvantageous to individual development and to the development of a nation. A look is taken at the conflicted, contradictory and polarized nature of Egyptian society, and more particularly the conflicted and contradictory sense of individual identity (resulting from the conflated

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ideological terrain). Another aspect of the complex reality is also revealed, that of a sense of attraction and repulsion to Islam and Islamic conceptions of the self (in response to and in a destabilized engagement with the complex realities). The conclusion of Part III of the book attempts to address all of these issues. It discusses a means towards a more rooted progress and modernity, and a more balanced sense of religious identity, by presenting the various solutions offered by the authors studied. The conclusion of the book attempts to provide a comprehensive picture of the conflicted sense of Muslim identity and of religiosity. It re-assesses the initial questions of the book in light of new findings, summarizes these findings, and makes recommendations on these bases for resolving the dilemma, and for future researchers.

PART I SECULARIZATION, ISLAM AND THE PREDICAMENT OF IDENTITY

Introduction Islam has, throughout its history, played a pivotal role in the lives of its adherents. Islam’s significance for its adherents stems from and is informed by it as ‘a doctrine’, a system of discipline and ritual, and ‘a system of social ethics and practices’.1 Throughout Islamic history, Islam has undergone significant reformation efforts as was socially and culturally perceived to be necessary from within its community. However, with the advent of colonialism, the introduction of the concept of the nation state, and the ushering in of the age of modernity, the form and structure of such reformation was much informed by the relationship of Islam and its adherents to the ‘other’ (the West) and its knowledge systems. Islam has since been confronted with the question of its own validity, from inside and outside the community of adherents. The struggle with the place of religion, the place of the sacred, has played out through the history of Islam within Egypt, at times expanding, at others withdrawing, as it dealt with political, social and cultural forces. This has presented and continues to present its adherents with a dilemma of identity: a constant shifting, manipulating, rejecting and reforming of religious symbols and meaning and further knowledge systems within Islam – an attempt to deal with the state of (post) coloniality, and the project of modernity.

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Most Middle Eastern societies, after the end of the Ottoman Empire, have suffered fundamental problems over national identity, Muslim identity, and ways in which to compromise, comprise and live the ‘self’ in a ‘modern’ Middle East. The colonial experience has wrought unprecedented change, disruption and chaos to the Middle East: the society, the culture. With the advent of colonialism in Egypt, religion and religious institutions increasingly began to be situated within the peripheries of social, cultural and political thought. Al-Azhar, as a centre for religious learning, among many other religious centres within Egypt, became a target of criticism and reform; its position as a key representational body and a centre of learning was both threatened and attacked. This threat was directed not only at al-Azhar as a religious institution of religious learning and knowledge, but also at the ‘ulama¯’, as figures of authority. During the reign of Mohammed Ali, and later the British administration (represented by Lord Cromer) the subsequent efforts at reform changed the nature of religion as understood and practised by the community of adherents within Egypt.2 Al-Azhar, and, de facto, religious institutions were decentralized as centres of knowledge, learning and authority. Other centres were introduced and other points of reference gained currency. Western systems of thought, based on Enlightenment principles of the primacy of scientific empiricism, rationality, individualism, freedom and, by extension, constitutional rights, gained and received an increasing level of interest, attention and focus for the intelligentsia of the time. Colonialists, nationalists and Islamic modernists all attempted to re-frame the sacred, all having a great and effectual role in knowledge creation and representation of and about Islam, its doctrine, its system of codes and ethics, and its practice. For colonialists, Islam provided faith in tribal and uncivilized forms of ethics and practices. For nationalists, it was only a part, at times expressed as an inconsequential part, of a nation’s (Egypt) expression of identity, history and culture, and thus, of no direct and necessary bearing on social and political thought and organization. For Islamic modernists, it was the key to understanding the world and the basis for understanding, tackling and dealing with all issues of concern in Egypt. The postcolonial period has meant an extension and further expansion of colonialism and the dilemmas it has inflicted on Middle Eastern societies. In the case of Egyptian society, the peoples of Egypt did not so

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much move beyond colonialism, rather, they have continuously attempted to deal with the chaos, the disarray and madness of colonial invasion of the societies, lives and identities of its peoples. Central to this struggle is the rewriting of historiographical narratives as attempts to legitimize relationships of proximity to the West; these are relationships of either closeness or distance, in terms of social, cultural, political, scientific and religious thought. They are attempts at gaining and acquiring a sense of validity, and acquiring a movement forward towards globally established conceptions of civilization, development and progress. This struggle is a crisis of how to deal with the project of ‘modernity’ on an individual and social level. Though colonized people (most often) respond to colonial legacy by writing back to the centre, writing back to the Empire, the struggle for Egyptian society was that at the crux of this response was writing back to the self. This act of writing to the self has taken the form of consistent and continual self-reflection and criticism that simultaneously addresses cultural meaning and self-perception, and colonial perspectives on the self. Thus it serves to address social and cultural concerns, and responds to perception and meaning emanating from the Empire. Egyptian society is continuously struggling with the place of the sacred; various religious traditions have provided the ‘self’ ways in which to deal with and respond to the polarities of religion and secularism, tradition and modernity. Furthermore, there is the struggle to find a place for the sacred in the face of (Western conceptions of) rationalism, liberalism and secularist thought, while struggling to contain/maintain a coherent, consistent Islamic ‘thought’, in the broadest sense of the word. During the periods of reform of the nineteenth century, Islamic reformers, in the face of threat to Islam, attempted to validate it and express its centrality as a doctrine, a system of social ethics and practice, and as the basis for social and political organization. They also attempted to prove its congruity with rationalism. These efforts emulated the conviction that Islam has a vital role in Egyptian society and is of crucial importance to Muslim life. However, after World War II, the Islamic order experienced an increasingly regressive role in social and national politics, as there was scepticism about Islam’s ability to theoretically and practically provide development and progress in the modern period (1900 – 30s). Some thinkers began to emphasize and glamorize the Pharaonic heritage of Egypt; others

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attempted to link Egypt to the historical development of the West, while others insisted on a shared history and culture of Arab peoples of which Egypt and Egyptians are attested to be a part. The position of the ‘ulama¯’ became increasingly ambivalent as secularist politics became the dominant ideology (1950s – Mubarak era). Islam began to be increasingly re-framed; it was no longer being characterized as a religious norm that is binding in nature based on Divine law, but rather, as an ethical code. The perspective from which to understand Islam shifted. Despite these variations in thought, it would be false to assume that, as a part of historical development, secularism will replace religion in an irreversible evolutionary process – the Islamic tradition consistently plays a vital and defensive role in the lives of Muslims in Egypt. It has across history been a source of social and cultural definition, and since the nineteenth century has played a definitive and defensive role. Instead, responses to such a predicament have constituted revivalism, reformism and the resurrection of a Muslim self and a Muslim society in the midst of a context undergoing modernist forces of change. Islam in modern Egypt continues, within circles of religious thought, to be viewed as a comprehensive theoretical and practical framework; it remains the origin and basin of faith. The battle to preserve and pronounce the pivotal role of Islam was expressed by religious institutions or organizations. AlAzhar battled with the government over the changing face of both religious and educational institutions (1950s–present), and religious organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (1920s–present), aimed at the reform of society (based on Islamic doctrine and principle) and for political representation.3 Since the Islamic resurgence of the 1970s, Islam has experienced a re-centralization, a movement from the peripheries of social, cultural and political organization to the centre. However, the colonial legacy of secular ideology, and current various manifestations of neo-colonial efforts to realize ‘progress’ in the Middle East, and the variant Muslim responses have all left irreversible marks on the intellectual landscape – it is currently an intellectual anomaly. Egyptian society has been penetrated by a wide array of referential points that inform members of society of parameters by which to measure various concerns, and of various levels of commitment to a variety of issues within Divine law. Furthermore, it has accepted and appropriated these various frames of reference.

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The current intellectual anomaly is threatening and unsettling to an individual sense of (Muslim/religious) identity. The intellectual landscape within a Muslim context has become far too fragmented, and can be characterized with uncertainty, and a lack of a uniform consensus on the means of understanding Islam and its practice. Within a modern context, the Qur’an, the Sunna and Shari‘ah are being used and misused to justify various social, cultural and national projects. The understanding of Islam itself has become problematized as new methods for understanding, reading and interpreting religion and sacred knowledge have been introduced. The outcome on a social and individual level is: polarity in thought; profound confusion; and a distorted understanding of self in relation to the world and in relation to the transcendent. The nature of Egyptian society is a me´lange of Islamic and Western, traditional and modern, with boundaries difficult to differentiate. On an individual level, this means a schizophrenic self that unconsciously is manifest in individual choices, thoughts and actions. This predicament of identity can be characterized as: a lack of stability; existential anxiety; ontological uncertainty; psychological displacement; and a threatened sense of identity. This is the predicament of identity that Muslim selves face within Egypt.

CHAPTER 1 THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT AND SECULARIZATION IN THE WEST

Introduction Religion has been struggling for definition and place across history. The three monotheistic faiths can attest to a history of conflict of this sort. With the progression of human intellectual thought, divinebased thought lost relevance. Tension or conflict between religion and secularism became spelled out in eighteenth century Europe, and nineteenth century Egypt. This tension has much to do with the place of religion within the political sphere, as societies changed their nature, structure and course from one that is transcendent to one that is immanent. A new form of spiritual life has been constituted within the West, and is on a drive for continuous re-constitution within the East. In light of these changes, and in light of continual conflict between transcendent (Divine, above, beyond; God as mover) and immanent (material; in existence; of the material world) worldviews, it is imperative to define religion and religious meaning for the individual within social and political spheres. Belief and faith form the crux of religion; a belief in a divine, in divine power, among other things. Religion has a spiritual aspect that is intrinsically connected to and defining of a form of religious consciousness, one that allocates meaning to the self and to the world, and from which value is of an inherent nature. It provides keen

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self-awareness: one of identity, answering a question of ‘who am I?’ and one of ontological self-awareness, providing a continuous existential ‘critical review and evaluation’1 of intent-based actions. It also provides an awareness of the world; and it provides a sense of confidence in faith itself as it is attached to convictions put into practice within life, endorsing and affirming a life of human self-worth and purpose. It assists human beings in interpreting life and their existence within it, and in interpreting the entire scene of human existence and human relationships and interactions. Religion as it is defined here has serious implications for social and political orders and structures. Within the social sphere, religion has seen an institutionalization of its theological doctrines in the form of religious, educational and social institutions and organizations that play various roles, and have various functions within religious societies. In this sense, it is not only a provider of education, social cohesion and unity, spiritual and moral guidance, among other roles, as it also acts as a marker of identity and belonging. As religion affirms self-worth and meaning individually, it, further, affirms strength and power socially and communally. The role that these institutions play within the political sphere further provides religion with a third meaning. On a political level, there is representation of the community of adherents, and of their understanding of religion in terms of symbolic forms, in terms of conditions of existence, and in terms of purpose. This unity, the unity of a religious community, is a form of solidarity that operates to impact relationships with other religious communities and with political government/representation. Its relationship with other religious communities draws out tensions and conflicts with regard to shared or disputed understanding of religion, transcendence and existence,2 while with political organization, it forms various relationships of power. The political organization can function to: (1) meet the needs and ends of a religious community; (2) be ‘pre-eminent’ over the needs and ends of a religious community; (3) hold ‘sway over religion itself’.3 In this third sense, religion is masked, privatized, individualized, as society is secularized.

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When religion is restricted in the performativity of its functions for individual adherents and the society of adherents (faith for the individual, and organization for the whole society), it is in fact not only constricted, but further subjugated – a subjugation that is deeply felt and experienced by an adherent of religion, as his/her conditions of existence change form and purpose. The political sphere has functioned within the West to provide new meanings of religion, and religiosity. It has re-articulated what it means to be an individual within a society. The new allocated meaning, to the individual and his/her place in society, re-fashioned the relationship to the transcendent (the Divine), the meanings of self and world, and the function of the human being within it, and it re-fashioned the ways in which an adherent of faith can sense self-worth and purpose in life. These acts of re-fashioning or ‘reform’ took various shapes over various phases of time in history: state sovereignty, nationality and nationalism, economic development and political economy, racial supremacy and colonialism/imperialism. Based on political needs and aspirations (ends and agendas) a further refashioning took place. These developments take away from the form and intent of religion; they subtract from the spiritual experience of the adherent of religion and from his/her relationship to the transcendent, along with all other meanings with which this relationship is endowed. As such, religion within the individual and social sphere can only be fully realized and fully function in the first sense described, and it is this first sense (and its loss) that is of utmost importance for this study. The inevitable changes that took place over time provide societies with a different set of definitions, far removed from those described above. These new definitions of what religion is in modern society provide a foundation for a humanistic value in which religion/faith or religious culture is grounded. Such values include: ‘the need for a worthy identity; a sense of self-worth; self-respect, and the respect of others; the need to love and be loved; the need for beauty, understanding, meaningful experiences and activities, self-expression, and self-fulfillment’.4

Religion in the West: Towards an Epistemology of Conceptual Change In contrast to an Islamic world or civilization, an Islamic worldview, the Western civilization has articulated the intrinsic value of faith in

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humanistic terms, as an expression of a humanistic culture. It is one that is less interested in a clear and unified system of rights and duties that are predetermined by divine law, through divine revelation, ordinance and intervention. The cultural experimentations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have brought about values of reason, individuality, freedom, liberty, which were further articulated into a political system constituting positive and negative human rights. Social, cultural and political institutions since have gradually come to embody these humanistic values informing humans of their individuality, subjectivity, rationality, agency and rights, and ushering in a new age of pluralism, toleration and a lack of objectivity. The deep commitment to these values has placed them in direct conflict with, in the words of Adams, ‘authoritarianism and traditionalism’.5 Being grounded in a humanistic mode of thought, and in humanistic experience, the world and any experience within it is thus conceptualized ‘in terms of concepts that were [are] grounded in, and had [have] their primary application to, human subjectivity and action’.6 The humanistic mode of thought was the gradual and developmental contribution of various philosophers over time, such as Plato and Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and Kant. The belief in humanism developed out of a strong belief in scientific empiricism to provide truth, and the subsequent loss of a belief in Divinity and Divine truth. The consequence is the incremented role of reason and individual will as forms of authority and power over the self and the world; it is the growth of the value of reason and of individualism over faith, or belief in a transcendent, a process of increasing secularization in social and political spheres. The result is a civil religion based on a scientific theology and its crystallization and solidification in political and social organizational and institutional settings. Western humanist culture, with a strong belief in metaphysics and scientific empiricism, relies heavily on lived or sensory experience. Truth and what is true is based on: first, the ability to reason its existence (the logic of evidentialism); and, second, the ability to experience it. This understanding of the self and its existence within the world has two purposes. The first purpose is greater human agency: the ability to decide what the world means informed by one’s own ability to reason, rather than a predestined order provided by a superior being. The second purpose is greater control and power over the conditions of one’s

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existence in the world in order to satisfy the individual will (in material, rather than moral terms). In effect the human subject imposes his/her own will on the world and decides how and in what ways the present and future is lived and how human existence is articulated. Given this context, human beings live in a world of causation and a web of human relationships. For instance, the question posed is not so much how the tree has come into existence, but the role that water and photosynthesis play in the development of the tree. A human being would in this sense provide care and provide the atmosphere required. In human terms, it is not so much a question of how simultaneously all of the organs of the body in harmony are willed to function, or prior to such an inquiry come to be; rather, it is one of reproduction (existence), diagnosis (of ailments) and remedy. Everything is explained in terms of causation, cause and effect, instead of divinity, divine revelation and divine will. As for the view of life in terms of a web of human relationships, the world is explained in terms of ‘humanistic needs [. . .] to do with identity, inner development, inner strength and inner well-being’.7 These needs are satisfied through the development of the self: the development of ‘identity, character and ability’ through ‘human relationships, a shared culture, and inter-subjective experiences and activities’.8 Divinity, divine revelation and divine will then have very little worth and value, given this perspective of self and world. In the pursuit of understanding God and articulating religion, the understanding of God or the concept of God has changed within Western philosophical discourse over the last few centuries. While Platonic and Aristotelian thought articulated existence in a God-centred manner, there has been a gradual movement away from such articulations. Platonic and Aristotelian thought or understanding is predicated on the following: (1) God is a transcendental, immutable and most perfect being; (2) He has created the universe and everything within it; (3) He has given everything order and logic, and reserved control over them; (4) He has divine intent in and for creation.9 As such, human beings must strive towards perfection in intent, will and action, in fulfilment of Divine will.

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Such God-centred conceptions of self and existence did not last. Various philosophers developed the role of reason, recognizing its critical role, but making every attempt to unite rather than segregate revelation and rationality. Despite these attempts to unite rather than segregate the two, the primacy of rationality over revelation was the gradual and desired change. What has ‘destabilized’ belief in God further is the failure to conjoin these two spheres: the presupposition that faith and reason belong to two different spheres, and, further, the undermining of the role of faith. Within the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, reason, rationality and scientific empiricism gained primacy and even supremacy over faith: ‘By the seventeenth century, what had begun as a criticism of the authority of the Church evolved into a full-blown skepticism regarding the possibility of any rational defense of fundamental Christian beliefs’.10 Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant and John Locke, among other philosophers, have redrawn the map of a theologically based human history. Human history is articulated as a development from states of savagery to states of civilization; a state of nature without a decisive authority. To strive to reach order, Hobbes and Locke introduce a law of nature, and rights of nature respectively. They attest to human equality and un-infringed freedom which is delegated to a form of agreedupon government to bring about order and to preserve the equality and rights of human beings. Given such an alteration in thought, perspective and authority, there is a re-writing of theologically based human history in two ways. The first is the (in)direct elimination of a theological narrative of human origin and the development of a human history. The narratives of prophet-hood, prophetic message (revelation here is also implied) and the illumination of human kind through faith are no longer assumed in this line of thought in an explicit sense. The second is the establishment of the concept of an uninfringed free will that is not accountable to a superior being, and is not accountable in a religious sense to any divinely ordained system of duties. The rights that are explicit in these articulations are the right to equality among men, the right to pursue wants and the right to property (materially based, rather than morally based rights). Such rearticulations of human nature and human history further destabilize faith, and progressively diminish the possibility of the survival of faith-based systems of thought (religion).

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By the Enlightenment, many philosophers and thinkers had contributed new ideas that incremented the value of reason over faith, and that endorsed an increasing secularization process leading to the (post)modern period, when a civil religion, ‘“the religion of man”, that is a religion free from the worship of the supernatural and free of hero worship’ was introduced.11 This concept of civil religion, represented and articulated by other philosophers, allows for greater liberty from the supernatural or the divine, as it allows for an increasing subjectivity. Human beings can use rationality and custom to derive moral truths, rather than faith, and both rewards and punishments are experienced within the world itself, so that there is no real need for ‘religious sanctions’.12 The need for religion to provide moral guidance became unnecessary, as humans can rely on autonomy and on benevolent will to derive a sense of morality and moral guidance.13 This eliminates the concept of an essentialized view of religion, and of morality, in the process creating greater subjectivity. The progress towards modernity has meant tremendous developments within both the political and the civil/social domains. For instance, the French and American revolutions have instituted Enlightenment principles in the form of constitutionalism providing citizenship and inalienable rights to a citizenry. Constitutionalism and the rights of citizens further see their culmination in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The political shifts outlined were accompanied by changes within the social sphere that have significant implications for belief and religiosity in the (post)modern period. The first shift is the endowment of the individual with the power of reason, to assess, to articulate, and to give meaning to the self and the world. Ontological self-awareness is then derived out of one’s ability to realize one’s full potential, to realize self-expression and self-fulfilment. The second change is that God no longer stands as the arbitrator, the judge of human action. No longer is life endowed with meaning relegated by a sense of piety and guilt over what should be done and what has not been accomplished. There is no longer a day of judgement, no accountability – only the worldly plane exists, the today and the tomorrow, in which daily tasks are executed. The third major change is the abstraction of the relevance of revelation, divine ordinance and pre-destination. God’s will and purpose for mankind simply cease to have meaning and relevance. Self-interest is key, and so is an inner sense of benevolence as judges for

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constituting and carrying out individual plans. Faith in God’s promise for human flourishing is replaced by a belief in the flourishing or pursuit of individual interests or state interests with the use (or manipulation) of law. Man in essence (or the entire human society) imposes his will on nature, on life, and on meaning.

Frames of Reference: Secularization and Conditions of Belief A modern secular age is characterized by the death of God. It is as Friedrich Nietzsche claimed: ‘God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!’.14 Within the (post)modern period, the political and social shifts which ensued from Enlightenment thought are sustained; Enlightenment principles persist in new forms. There is a strong belief in ‘scientific theology’, one grounded in scientific empiricism and truth, and a strong belief in individualism and human rationality to conceive and understand the entire spectrum of existence. In effect, the ‘self-sufficient power of reason’15 may yield various demands, possibilities and avenues towards the realization of fullness and the realization of personal desire, and potential. The experience of transcendence, the systems of ethics and morality are all then relative, producing heterogeneous systems of belief or thought within society. The secularization process seems irreversible in nature as it has become embedded within theoretical and practical frameworks. Within the social sphere, this embedded structure of thought and practice has had the greatest impact on individual belief and religiosity creating a state of plurality: various forms of belief that further disorient and destabilize the realm of religion, where the state of unbelief has precedence and is predominant. The consequences are: (1) the disembedding of individuals from (traditional) societal structures; (2) increased individualism or self-centredness; (3) social discord. Human beings no longer encounter God in a direct sense within their lives. Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age, elucidates this point. He suggests that ultimately as secularity becomes the governing principle, public spaces become emptied of God and any reference to Him or to ‘ultimate

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reality’. He suggests that humans ‘function within various spheres of activity – economic, political, cultural, educational, professional, recreational’ that ‘generally don’t refer us to God or to any religious beliefs’. The considerations we act on are internal to the ‘rationality’ of each sphere – maximum gain within the economy, the greatest benefit to the greater number in the political arena, and so on.16 The conception of time itself becomes a subject of immanent formation. Time and its conception shifted from sacred to temporal. Harvey explains that this change was perceived to be essential for rational autonomy, and thus, for modernity: Since space is a ‘fact’ of nature, this meant that the conquest and rational ordering of space [was necessary] [. . .] [T]he difference this time was that space and time had to be organized not to reflect the glory of God, but to celebrate and facilitate the liberation of ‘Man’ as a free and active individual.17 Sacred time and temporal time are very distinct; they yield different conceptions of the world. Sacred time18 means a particular historicity of past, and a particular purpose for present and future. The past of sacred time is that which informs the believer of origins, of Adam and Eve, of the creation of the universe, of purpose, of revelation and prophetic messages. The present is that time in which there is a duty to perform, a future to realize and a promising end to aspire to, while the future in sacred time is that of which there is a promise, of a life after, of justice, peace and forever living in the bounties of God reaped by a present fulfilled (as it is and was in the making), and by the mercy of a loving God. The past, present and future of temporal time are defined by scientific empiricism, rationalism, capitalism and material development, industrialism, commercialism, political economy and political sociology. Secular/temporal time is not centred on belief and acts of piety. It is a creation of time as an ordered environment ‘in which we live a uniform, univocal secular time [. . .] [that] we try to measure and control in order to get things done’.19 It is within this conception of time (the temporal/secular) that time is conceived and understood as a resource to be used, and not wasted. It is a construction that is focused on the worldly, acting as an interference to sacred time, and as an abolishing of

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‘higher’ or transcendental/sacred sense of time, and, thus, purpose and meaning. This transformation of the conception of time forms only a part of the formation of an age of scepticism. Secularism amounts to: (a) ‘the falling off of religious belief and practice, in people turning away from God’; and (b) ‘a move from society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be an option among others’.20 Socially speaking, this amounts to conditions of belief, semi-belief (or indifference), and unbelief, a state of plurality, and multiple points or frames of reference. Luckmann suggests that the state of religious plurality is a result of the decentralization of religion and its authority. He is, thus, locating the problem in the decentralization of religious authority, and in the privatization of faith: The social form of religion emerging in modern industrial societies is characterized by the direct accessibility of an assortment of religious representations to potential consumers. The sacred cosmos is mediated neither through a specialized domain of religious institutions nor through other primary public institutions. It is essentially a phenomenon of the ‘private sphere’.21 Essentially, what this means is that human beings can find multiple alternatives to experiencing a full and rich condition of belief that does not necessarily find its root in a belief in transcendence, in a transcendent divine being. This new approach is a means to finding an alternative to the loss of a central authority, and the privatization of belief. What may orient an individual spiritually or morally, what may direct their theoretical convictions, could simply be ‘moments when the deep divisions, distractions, worries, sadness that seem to drag [. . .] [him/her] down are somehow dissolved, or brought into alignment, so that [. . .] [he/she] may feel united, moving forward, suddenly capable’.22 The frame of reference becomes open to various interpretive and experiential tendencies, and orientations. As the ‘self-sufficient power of reason’ may produce a condition of belief and semi-belief, it may also produce a condition of unbelief. God’s presence can be open to doubt, and even negated. The belief in God’s omnipotence and omnipresence can be easily refuted. God, under this pretext, cannot be seen as the originating cause of the universe (and

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everything within it), and the power responsible for its harmonious functioning, as other theories of causality exist. This logic further predicates that it is impossible for free will to coincide with the omnipotence of this being and His foreknowledge of events and actions. God’s ordinance for moral goodness can further be questioned, for as He ordains morally based commandments, He, at the same time permits the occurrence of evil, and permits retributory actions (for example, ‘an eye for an eye’). Furthermore, it is not possible for human beings, as autonomous subjects of free will, to be expected to be enslaved to another being, higher or not. Time can also be questioned, as there cannot exist an ‘end of time’ when it has been disproven by a theory of infinite time.23 Life, then, is a mere cycle of life and death (where life after death is not possible, perhaps not pondered). Moreover, how is the existence of a Divine being to be sensed and realized in a world in which the presence of the transcendental is masked by material presence (urban development, electronic media and other various forms of technological development)? In such a theoretical and practical masking, the world is a ‘disenchanted’ place. The conditions of belief are, then, construed for and by individuals as they are presented with plurality, relativity and subjectivity of thought; ‘forms of immediate certainty’ have been ‘eroded’.24 Modern Western society is ‘made of a host of societies, sub-societies and milieux, all rather different from each other’ where the ‘presumption of unbelief has become dominant in more and more of these milieux; and has achieved hegemony in certain crucial ones, in academic and intellectual life, for instance’; the result is that the possibility of belief and of religious life and experience is either downsized or entirely occluded.25 The consequences of the dominance of the discourse of unbelief, or ‘disenchantment’, are significant, and are of great consequence to the social and cultural fabric of society. These consequences include: an increasing individuality, and a ‘disembedding’26 of the individual from a greater social structure; and, lastly, a movement towards a state of anti-structure, one that is characteristic of the postmodern period. One of the major consequences of the discourse of unbelief, a turning point in Western culture that came about as a result of the primacy of rationality and autonomy, is rising individuality and a consequent ‘disembedding’ of individuals from societal structure. A self-sufficient rationality encourages self-interest; it is self-centred. Modern identity is

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essentially defined by a disengaged stance to self and society and a disciplined one at that. It is guided by principles of professionalism, impersonality and distance, and self-sufficiency and autonomy/ individualism. Individuals within the modern period are trained into creating and appropriating inner and outer barriers of organization. Internally, they are encouraged to think and relate to others in an impersonal fashion, and externally a unified discourse of understanding sets the structure, tone and organization of social relations, one that is centred on the ‘primacy of the individual’.27 In the past a sense of self was part and parcel of the place of the individual within a larger social network. Individuals contributed to the development of their family, clan or kinship, and/or religious community; however, in a (post) modern society, an individual can easily imagine and live apart from the social and religious network. His/her role is no longer defined by the interest and the development of the social network, but is defined solely by prescribed legal codes and by self-interest.28 As rational subjects trained to have rational control over thought, action and interaction, human beings have transcended the need for social relations altogether. Within the inner and outer social sphere, an outlook and mode of life developed that distinguishes immanent from transcendent, and it is one that further de-encapsulates the meaning, need and space for the transcendent even within human relations. Within a (post)modern world setting it has become easy to see realities as purely natural – or part of the natural plane. Other realities or worlds of experience have either been undermined substantially (in importance), or destroyed. One can cite at this point how ‘disembedded’ individuals living in a disenchanted world suffer. They suffer from a lack of structure; anything is theoretically and practically possible as long as it is not in direct conflict with constitutional law and individual freedoms. They live in a condition of uncertainty, and ambivalence. The (post)modern period is best characterized as one of epistemological uncertainty, ontological multiplicity, consumerist individualism and moral relativism. Furthermore, it is characterized by a ‘heightened skepticism of traditional orthodoxies’.29 To describe it in a minimalist and simplistic fashion, communal forms of belonging, spiritual experience and their connection to transcendent realities are eroded. The Secular Humanist Declaration, issued in 1980 by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism, makes a forceful point to this same effect.30 These erosions problematize

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the sense of identity, the sense of self-worth, the sense of belonging, and the sense of purpose for the individual, more specifically for the adherent of religion. While society has enjoyed the fruits of secular humanism: free inquiry, democracy and freedom, it has also suffered. Ahmed discusses various examples that illustrate the disintegration of the family and family values, and the disintegration of morals and ethics in this (post)modern spirit of self-sufficiency, self-centredness, ontological multiplicity and moral relativism. He comments on rising feminism and the subtracting role of the male within the home: ‘In particular, men are singled out. To be male is to be suspect’.31 Another excellent example is that of violence committed against women. While they have been given freedom from domesticity, they now face horrid consequences: loneliness, being ‘open targets to men’s wildest fantasies and most violent plans’, and constantly attempting to emulate a vision of womanhood and beauty that is impossible to reach.32 Societies are exposed for their ills: materialism, consumerism, the superficial, the trivial and the mundane, and the immediate are all characteristic of the (post)modern social condition.

Conclusion: Revival of Religion The (post)modern condition encourages a turning to religion for forms of certainty, stability, unity and sense of moral objectivity. The threat and experience of meaninglessness, anarchy and nihilism encourage a search for meanings. The absence of existential, epistemological and ontological meaning is destabilizing and disorienting. As such, individuals suffering from a (post)modern condition require a point of reference, a guide, symbols and signs that hold greater meaning than the immediate, and for spiritual existence and meaning. This is why, for instance, people still mark and administer certain practices with spirituality, with spiritual meaning and religious ritual: a death, a birth, a marriage. These practices indicate both the relevance of and necessity for faith and spirituality, provided by religion, and the search for them. This forms a part of a need and search for stability as well as security. As Anthony Giddens proposes, in Modernity and Self-Identity, ontological security is essential for human existence. In a modern context of loss, disarray and disorientation, the individual is prompted to think, ponder, and respond; the situation necessitates a search for security. Existential

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and philosophical questions may be tamed by the tensions, demands and conventions of the day-to-day life within a (post)modern world/context; yet they also overwhelm with anxiety and fear as a ‘coherent sense of “being in the world”’ is lacking.33 The need for a sense of confidence and trust in the world and one’s place in it, an ontological security, necessitates a response, a form of a pre-emptive measure, to protect the self: ‘a protection against future threat and dangers which allows the individual to sustain hope and courage in the face of whatever debilitating circumstances she or he might later confront’.34 Such a response may not necessarily produce a condition of coherence, but it is a necessitated drive to act, that may take various forms. Self-identity becomes more about consistency and continuity, where individuals search for ontological at-homeness that is distanced from the theoretical and practical demands of the (post)modern world (in whatever form they take). As Roberta Sigel notes, ‘There exists in humans a powerful drive to maintain one’s identity, a sense of continuity that allays fear of changing too fast or being changed against one’s will by outside forces’.35 The created space of at-homeness becomes/is a space in which spiritual and religious performativity is possible. This turning to spirituality, religion and religiosity for meaning is not a distinct experience of Western societies. Muslim or Middle Eastern societies have gone through a similar turn. However, the reasons for, contentions of and history behind the revival of religion or its resurgence are of a different form and nature. Muslim societies respond to an exceeding number of pressures: colonialism, modernization, inter-communal contestation and the relationship to the ‘other’ (West), all of which will be part of the discussion with a particular focus on the case of Egypt.

CHAPTER 2 MODERNITY AND ISLAM IN EGYPT: THE STRUGGLE FOR SELF-REPRESENTATION AND THE PROBLEM OF ORIENTATION (LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY—EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY)

Introduction Islam’s significance for Muslims stems from and is informed by it as a comprehensive system of ritual, ethics and practices; to believers, it is an organizational system providing meaning and purpose for life, and its hereafter. Furthermore, Islam is central to Muslim lives as a system of meaning that provides self-awareness, spiritual and moral guidance, and a religiously based worldview (social, political and economic orientations). The Qur’an and Sunna form the basic premise from which Muslims derive knowledge and understanding. In conjunction they form a comprehensive body of knowledge that guides and informs a series of relationships, and spheres of practice that are understood and are applied as concrete truths. In the areas that the Qur’an and Sunna ‘do not respond concretely to the needs and the relativity of historical and geographical situations [. . .] reflections based on the two sources, ijtiha¯d, can be numerous so long as they do not contradict the former [Qur’an

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and Sunna]’.1 This practice is supported by the Prophetic tradition. Prophet Muhammed sent Mu’adh ibn Jabal to Yemen to ‘assume office of Judge’, then he asked Mu’adh, ‘According to what are you going to judge?’ He answered that he would judge according to the Qur’an and in its silence, according to the Sunna. The Prophet then asked: ‘And if you don’t find the ruling therein?’ Mu’adh answered, ‘Then I will exert my effort to formulate my own ruling.’ The Prophet approved this methodology.2 This practice has been central throughout the history of Islam as reformation was socially and culturally perceived to be necessary from within its community. Continuous renewal efforts within the Islamic intellectual polity were central to the development and progress of the Islamic civilization in various fields of knowledge. Through the practice of ijtiha¯d the scholars, ‘ulama¯’, were able to derive highly specific forms of knowledge; ‘scholars of the different madha¯hib [schools of thought] drew up codes of human conduct, covering all human acts in regard to which guidance could be derived from the Qur’an and hadith’ using such a process.3 The process of renewal, tajdı¯d, continued to be prevalent in Islamic thought. For instance, Al-Ghazali made several notable contributions towards augmenting Islamic knowledge by accounting for the plurality of thought existing in his time, yet remaining within the sphere and limits of the Qur’an and hadith/ Sunna.4 According to Ira Lapidus, ‘the tajdid movements were provoked by the extraordinary flourishing of the “alternative” forms of Islamic belief, worship and community in the period from the 13th to the 18th centuries’.5 As Islam spread to various geographical locations beyond the Arab peninsula, there was a need to account for ‘local cultural symbols and local cultures’ and diverging ways of thought within the scope of the Qur’an, hadith and the four major schools of thought of Sunni Islam.6 Centralized religious authority was maintained despite internal communal struggles for the definition of correct practices of belief within various societal locations. However, with the increasing needs for modernization within the Ottoman period, and with the advent of colonialism and the introduction of the concept of the nation state, clear transformations to Islamic presence and authority was witnessed and experienced. Islamic forms of knowledge and presence/authority underwent gradual disintegration and disorientation, as modernization and geopolitical

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changes took place. Renewal and reform efforts were informed by the relationship of Islam and its adherents to the ‘other’ (the West) and its knowledge systems. The discourse of colonialism and modernity introduced a distinct worldview to Muslim intellectuals, who at times admired, at others accepted or refuted the new forms of knowledge, knowledge seeking and authority that are meant to govern human existence within various spheres of thought and practice. Central to Muslim intellectual responses was the ‘rejection of Western cultural hegemony’ and the simultaneous rejection of blind imitation as a form of traditionalism or taqlı¯d. However, Western intellectual discourse (of modernity, and on the ‘other’) quickly penetrated the Muslim intellectual scene; ‘Western laws, systems of education and political institutions were introduced in most of the Muslim world and formed a parallel network that increasingly competed with the traditional religiously legitimated institutions such as shari‘ah law, religious education and so forth’.7 These discourses superimposed a distinct will and understanding on the human (existential) scene of thought and practice (social, cultural, political and economic), which has imposed on Islam and Muslims a need to respond, restructure and reform. It has imposed on Islam and on Muslims the need to re-assess an entire worldview of meaning and purpose that is not grounded in revelation, responsibility and accountability to God. The present existential and identity-based anomaly faced by Muslims is a result of this shift in the forms of knowledge. There is an inherent fragmentation and discontinuity in Islamic thought and in Muslim practice as their presents are increasingly dislodged from their pasts.8 The transition from transcendent to immanent has imposed and continues to impose challenges to Islamic thought and Muslim understandings. This challenge is amplified as modernization and secularization efforts ensued within Egypt, causing a greater degree of diversity and imbalance with regard to orientation. This crisis of orientation created a ‘complex ideological landscape’ that engaged in debates about ‘secularization and westernization’ ‘brought about by Western colonial domination and the subsequent process of decolonization’, and ‘renewal and modernization [. . .] mainly conducted among the Islamists and concern[ing] the exact nature of an Islamic state and law’.9 In Michel Hoebink’s terms, this dilemma, within the sphere of Islam and Islamic discourse, is one of ‘renewal and authority’.10

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This crisis of orientation, the crisis of renewal and authority, was amplified as modernization and secularization processes enforced a rearticulation of not only Islam, and Islamic practice, but also Muslim identity. However, it is important to note that the prominence and importance of Islam and Islamic thought to Muslims and Muslim lives continues to assert itself through various forms of revival within the modern period. Islamic revival is a testament to the centrality of Islam and Islamic discourse within the lives of Muslims, and, as Hasan Hanafı¯ suggests, the failure of ‘Western models and strategies ˙ of modernization and development’ and ‘of secular ideologies such as liberalism, marxism and nationalism [. . .] to recognize the role of culture and consciousness’.11 This chapter aims to address: the imposition of thought, the struggle of orientation (Islamic and nationalist), and the Islamic revival as a testament to the failure of secular politics within the region, and, thus, the importance of Islam to Muslims and Muslim lives.

Secularization and the ‘Other’ ‘Space and time are basic categories of human existence’ that account for the nature of social life.12 With the advent of the industrial revolution, urbanization and modernity, modern society has learned to appropriate a new sense of time, one that is more temporal and material rather than spiritual. Conceptions of space and time are in no way single and objective; there is a great deal of diversity of human conceptions and perceptions of space and time. Within a postmodern period, there is a multiplicity of conceptions of space and time that can exist within one society or even one social network. The meanings that are produced within the social, cultural and political spheres give rise to such diversity and multiplicity within social life. David Harvey maintains that time and space cannot be ‘assigned objective meanings independently of material processes [political, economic and cultural], and that it is only through investigation of the latter that we can properly ground our concepts of the former’.13 This puts forth the proposition that conceptions of space and time can be articulated and re-articulated to produce and re-produce forms of social life, which have theoretical and practical impacts on individuals (how they understand, interpret and act) that are of great consequence.

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The Enlightenment propositions for social and political life had great implications for the command of space. The power of rationality translated into the ability to imagine, create and have control over human existence (the present and future). This control or command of space and time had not only social, but also more importantly, political implications; it was part of the modernization process that could in effect locate and articulate the status of the West as a geographical entity on a scale measuring progress, development, civilization and democracy. Harvey comments on this development: a long line of thinkers [. . .] could begin to speculate on the material and rational principles that might order the distribution of populations, ways of life, and political systems on the surface of the globe. It was within the confines of such a totalizing vision of the globe that environmental determinism and a certain conception of ‘otherness’ could [. . .] flourish.14 The construction of space and time became a political and economic crisis, for every project of democratization, modernization or secularization ‘entails some kind of spatial strategy’15 that reconfigures, utilizes, manipulates and legitimizes space and time and their uses for specific interests or agendas. This is the heart of the problem. Time and space were used and are further used as sources of not only social but also of political power. Johannes Fabian, in Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object, articulates how the differences between cultures are conceived in terms of a difference in time: both geographical and developmental. He sheds light on how certain cultural typologies are created in a fashion that is distortive of intercultural relationships. This in effect amounts to the ensuing of categorical, theoretical and practical binaries: us/them; superiority/inferiority; civilized/uncivilized; modern/unmodern; democratic/undemocratic; free/unfree. This has the effect of superiority (as a conception of ‘self’) and domination (of the ‘other’). These constructs have their root in the secularization of time through the universalization of values and structures and systems of thought: the understanding of the world as a totality (‘the whole world at all times’), and the understanding of it in general terms (‘that which is applicable to a large number of instances’, ‘of generally valid’ instances).16 The temporalization of time and the

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application of generally valid principles of social evolution and evolutionary progress and development through modernization and secularization amounted to the spatialization of time. This spatialization of time meant the creation and ‘affirmation of difference as distance’ (the distance here implies both geography and progress or development, on a scale).17 This understanding was and is a means of distancing ‘others’ in terms of their progress: cultures or societies are on a ‘temporal slope [. . .] some upstream, others downstream. Civilization, evolution, development, acculturation, modernization [. . .] are all terms whose conceptual content derives, in ways that can be specified, from evolutionary time’18 and in terms of their ‘nature’. This act of distancing created relations of power and domination; it validated and justified colonialism (as it validates and justifies neocolonialism) through the ideological and political use of time. All forms of knowledge created and accumulated of and about the ‘other’ are created from this vantage point. As such, all forms of understanding, communicating and interacting with the ‘other’ are informed by these uses. Though the categorical binary of religious/secular is not suggested in Fabian’s writing, his analysis remains valid for this type of discovery/understanding. Islam, since its inception, has been engaged with socially, culturally and politically with much suspicion. It has consistently been seen as a dark threat to modern values of liberalism, democracy and secularism. Edward Said, in ‘Islam Through Western Eyes’, temporally marks this type of engagement with Islam from the eighteenth century to the present day, and further suggests that it is a form of orientalism in which Islam has not been ‘generally discussed or thought about outside of this framework created by passion, prejudice and political interests’.19 ‘Knowledge and interpretation’20 of Islam and the East has been discrediting of its validity and value. Furthermore, the West’s ability to advance and move beyond the age of ‘superstition and ignorance’ is seen to not have been met by Islam and the East; the people of the East have not been able to achieve the same type of progress. The contention is that Islam has not and is not able to modernize and secularize, and it should. In this light Islam has been seen, thought of, understood and discussed. If one considers some of the orientalist knowledge produced about Islam and the East, such a theory can be easily proven. Take, for instance, the specific case of Egypt and Arthur James Balfour’s position on this

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‘orient’ taken up in Edward Said’s Orientalism. His position echoes superiority in three distinct, yet interlinked ways: (1) Europe has the knowledge systems and the ability to know and understand Egypt and its ‘inhabitants’; (2) the East is incapable of self-government, and further has always been so, for ‘traces of self-government’ cannot be found in its history; (3) it is a duty upon Britain to uplift the ‘orient’ from the position of inferiority towards progress.21 This uplifting is understood to take economic, as well as social and cultural forms. These propositions of superiority suggest the inferiority of the orient in social/cultural and material progress, and in (racial) nature. Lord Cromer, Colonial Administrator of Egypt from 1883 to 1907, also contributes to this orientalist discourse of and about the East. In his essay that was published in the Edinburgh Review in 1908 he speaks of Egypt in a paternal fashion. Cromer argues that the ‘subject race’ is not capable of deciding what is best for its own interests; rather, it is the paternal duty of Britain to decide what is best ‘with reference, to what, by the light of Western knowledge and experience tempered by local considerations, we [Lord Cromer; Britain] conscientiously think is best for the subject race’.22 He justifies intervention and colonialism on the basis of the inability of the ‘subject race’ to control its own affairs. The ‘subject race’ is seen as incapable of self-determination. Lord Hartington, British colonial ‘Secretary of War’, too is not free of such orientalist thinking; he also subtracts from the value of the East and of Islam. To ‘Abduh’s reference to Egyptians as Arabs and Muslims and their dislike for domination, Lord Hartington answers: ‘Do you deny that ignorance is general throughout Egypt, or that the masses fail to differentiate between a foreign ruler and a native ruler and that the aversion to foreign domination exists only among cultured nations?’23 The criticism and belittling of Arabs extends to a discrediting of their faith. Lord Cromer attacks the religion of Islam. Consider his opinion of Prophet Muhammad: ‘[he] launched fiery anathemas against all who would not accept the divinity of his inspiration, and his words fell on fertile ground, for a large number of those who have embraced Islam are

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semi-savages, and often war-like savages’.24 Islam is discredited in a much more explicit manner in the well-known debate between Shaykh Jamal Al-Din al-Afghani, an Islamic reformer/modernist, and Ernest Renan. Though al-Afghani was not an Arab, he lived in Egypt for a significant amount of time (1870– 79) and left an undeniable mark on modern Islamic thought in the Arab world. Ernest Renan is said to have explicated his views on the Arabs and on Islam in a lecture given at the Sorbonne in 1883, which Sheehi suggests was not intended to be part of a debate but was ‘intended as a normal and “objective” exposition of Islam’s relations to the sciences’.25 In revelation of this intent he states: ‘any person who studies [. . .] clearly sees the actual inferiority of Muslim countries, the decadence of the governance of their states by Islam, the intellectual nullity of the races that hold exclusively to their religion, their culture, and their education’.26 It is clear that his entire lecture revolves around a three-fold purpose: (1) to indicate Islam’s incongruity with the sciences, and with rationality; (2) to suggest that Arabs/Muslims are of a Bedouin and inferior race, and thus suggest the inferiority of Islam as a system of thought and a doctrine; (3) to indicate that any accomplishments made within the history of Islam were in fact made by non-Arabs, not to be attributed to Islam or the Arabs; he affirms this point by stating: ‘This so-called Arab science, was it Arab in reality? In language but nothing but language [. . .] this science is not Arab! [. . .] Is it at least Muslim? Did Islam offer to rational research any aid? No, not in any way!’27 From then, the assessment of Eastern and Islamic ‘progress’ and Eastern and Islamic ‘nature’ was to take this form; they are to be seen continuously and consistently as inferior and lower on the scale of progress. Islam and the East were met with the elements of modernity and Western conceptions of progress and their demands, with which they have been asked continuously to comply in an effort to ‘catch up’, and further compelled to respond to in an effort to re-affirm and defend their own values and value systems. Returning to Fabian’s proposition about the West and its replacement of ‘faith in salvation by faith in progress and industry’,28 Islam cannot and has not been able to create the

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same replacement. Fabian makes the bold argument that ‘the true reason why biblical chronology had to be abandoned was that it did not contain the right kind of Time [a spatialized and secularized conception of time]’.29 For Islam and the Muslim East, the right kind of time remains one that is essentially sacred in nature; this is clear in continuous attempts to intellectually and socio-culturally understand and live both conceptions (of sacred and modern) simultaneously. In reality it has struggled to conjoin the two, for the faith in Islam and the transcendent forms a crucial aspect of Islam and Muslim life. This is projected in thought, behaviour and action and in choices made; it is inherent in concerns and issues, of an existential nature, raised by Islamic and Arab intellectuals from the Arab world, and specifically by the Muslim community in Egypt. It is communicative of the existential predicament experienced.

The Islamic Response: Revival and Reform In response to such orientalist knowledge on Arabs and on Islam, the state of the ‘Muslim East’, of (Muslim) Egypt, has been characterized with strenuous reformation. This reformation of self and society has been ontological in nature: in a re-productive spirit of the colonial centre, at other times in rejection of it, and yet others in a spirit of complete re-invention of self and society. Muslim intellectuals of the nineteenth century had to deal with the dichotomy of civilization versus backwardness; they had to deal with the civilizational progress of Europe that was grounded in Enlightenment thought and new conceptions for social and political organization. It was of great urgency for these intellectuals to tackle issues that seemed to delimit their civilization: the secrets of European progress; the new principles of social and political organization and their applicability in Muslim Egypt; Islam and its relationship to the state of decadence that Muslim societies were in; and more importantly, the relevance and place of religion in new contexts and conceptions of progress. It is only appropriate to begin the genealogy of these developments with the rise of Islamic modernism. Under the direct rule of Western colonial power, Egypt witnessed the rise of Islamic modernism, one that had begun with the efforts of Rifa’a al-Tahtawi decades earlier, and gained shape, currency and importance for other Islamic scholars and Islamic modernists, and to an extent

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pan-Islamists, within Egypt, such as al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Qasim Amin. For these Islamic modernists there were a number of issues that were of great concern: (1) the assessment of the decline of Islam and its imperative revival; (2) the issue of Islamic belief and its relationship and congruity with rationality and the rational sciences; (3) the contradiction between Islamic traditions and Western sociocultural organization; (4) patriarchy and the equality of women; (5) the Islamic understanding of a nation in light of national politics. These issues were raised in terms of their relationship to the perceived state of the Muslim community (a decline of), and in terms of the relationship of the Muslim community in Egypt to the colonial power(s). As these thinkers were attempting to correct the (perceived) ills of their society, they were also very conscious about the implications of colonial intellectual and material domination. As such, much effort was exerted to defend and respond to the ‘West’ and to protect the values that each perceived to be critical to their understanding of the religion of Islam and the culture of the East. Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1839–97) is seen to be the originator of Islamic modernism; his vision of Islamic modernism took shape in his journal ‘al-‘Urwat al-Wu¯thqa¯’ (beginning in 1883, in Paris). The main thrust of his work advocated reaching/finding ‘al-‘Urwat al-Wu¯thqa¯’ (trustworthy hand-hold) by and through: (1) (2) (3) (4)

internal reform; Muslim unity; the combating of colonialism; confronting and dealing with the ‘philosophical and scientific challenges’ of Western thought.30

Al-‘Urwat al-Wu¯thqa¯ is a phrase that finds its origin in the Qur’an, in the chapter titled Al-Baqara, verse 256: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from error: Whosever reject taghut [‘anything worshipped beside God’] and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth

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and knoweth all things’.31 The stronghold of religion and belief in God is predicated on the belief in His oneness, and His guidance to Truth and righteousness – anything other than that leads to darkness. The following verses give examples of people misguided, so as to explicate the necessity of belief in God. The concepts/ideas emanating from this verse, and the examples that follow, find resonance in al-Afghani’s thought and writing. The concepts/ideas emanating from al-‘Urwat al-Wu¯thqa¯ find resonance in his advocacy for social and cultural regeneration, for Muslim unity, and for the progress of Muslims and Muslim societies. To him, Islam and Muslims have both what is innate and essential for development, advancement and progress as much as the West had at the time, if not more. Unity for him meant ‘the solidarity of the ’umma’, ‘a national solidarity that is beyond the nation’ and is predicated on ‘common religious conviction’, ‘the sense of responsibility which each member of it should have towards the others and the whole, the desire to live together in the community and work together for its welfare’.32 Social and cultural regeneration, coupled with unity, were the elements that he perceived to be necessary for real reform, a reform that directs the community of believers, along with its ‘ulama¯’ towards the ‘truth of Islam’.33 For al-Afghani, this truth does not lie in imitation, nor does it lie in stagnation. It lies in having a ‘strong-hold’ of the essential teachings of Islam: the belief in the oneness of God and His power over the universe. To him, the belief in God cannot mean a belief in a selfcentred universe, or a universe characterized by materialism and explained in totality through scientific empiricism. As such, he was critical and suspicious of Western intervention in social, cultural and religious affairs. He feared Western cultural domination or contamination, as he feared Western material and political domination. It was his belief that ‘The English’ were attempting to ‘weaken belief in the Islamic faith’ so that Muslims may submit to ‘foreign rule’.34 Al-Afghani, in his writing, maintains the deep concern for Western domination: both material and intellectual, and a firm belief in Islam as a religion and its ability to bring great social, cultural, material and scientific development, and power to combat colonialism and to advance Muslim and Eastern societies. This is clear in his response to Ernest Renan (1823– 92), in the al-Afghani–Renan debate, in which he is adamant to point to the great intellectual history that Renan denies

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Islam and the Arabs. He is adamant in further showing how Arab and Islamic intellectual and scientific thought have contributed immensely to other civilizations and, thus, remain capable of doing so in the future. In answer to Renan in the Journal des De´bats of 18 May 1883 al-Afghani states: ‘There came, however, a time when their [Greeks and Romans] researches were abandoned and their studies interrupted [. . .] The Arabs [. . .] rekindled the extinguished sciences, developed them and gave them a brilliance they had never had’.35 Despite his stern defence, he is keen to point out the difference between religion and philosophy, where the first requires following a system of belief, the latter requires free inquiry unrestricted. His conclusion is that no ‘agreement or reconciliation’ is possible between the two. To him, religion remains the root for the aspiration of societies.36 Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905) had ideas that were an extension to those of al-Afghani. He focused on some of the same issues, but was able to elaborate much further the modernist vision for social and cultural reform of the Muslim community in Egypt. ‘Abduh was able to tackle the issue of unity, reform and the nature of anti-colonial struggle in a clearer manner than that of al-Afghani. Like al-Afghani he believed in the unity of the Muslim ’umma, a unity that transcends national or ethnic boundaries – a unity based on nationality and ethnicity, to him, is constrictive to the concept of universality in Islam, narrow in scope and divisive in practice, as a unity based on a wider religious community is seen to be much more liberating. He is critical of the concept of nationalism, as he considers ‘national fanaticism’ or ‘ta’asub’ less ˙ favourable than ‘religious feeling of solidarity’.37 He favoured and aimed 38 to establish a ‘religious patriotism’. Religion as a basis encourages virtuous social development and reform leading towards justice: ‘The sum total of virtue is justice (al-‘adl) in all action [. . .] every citizen will respect the right of all; not willingly choosing an aim contrary to that of the whole; not seeking aims sharply contradictory to those of the group [. . .] until the whole presents a solid structure’.39 He instead (re)defines the concept of a nation as one that has more to do with belonging, rather than territory, geography or race and ethnicity. His definition of the nation focused on a sense of belonging which seems to be predicated on the fulfilment of certain criteria: freedom and security, the fulfilment of rights and duties and the protection of human dignity. He explains what a nation means: ‘The word (al-watan) as used by those who study politics ˙

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means the place after which you are called, where your right is safeguarded, and whose claim on you is known, where you are secure in yourself, your kin and possession’.40 Once these elements are realized in a nation, he believes that an individual will feel honoured in it and will be honoured by it, and will in effect protect it by all means. Unity for ‘Abduh also meant unity against a common danger, that of the colonial power, and against its intervention and penetration of local beliefs, values and customs. These fears shaped his concept of reform; he believed in a reform that will revive the values of Islam and strengthen the Muslim community. He was accepting of cultural and intellectual exchange, but only in keeping with what was fitting for and in line with the local culture and tradition. His social reform aimed at the reform of the educational system, the reform of some local customs that were not in keeping with Islam, and of ijtiha¯d in the reading and understanding of Islam through a reading and understanding of the Qur’an. The reform of the education system aimed at the reform of al-Azhar as the centre of learning within Egypt, one that is representative of Islam and the Muslim community. He was of the opinion that al-Azhar should provide and promote forms of knowledge that were different from the subjects that were of focus at the time: Islamic science and jurisprudence, fiqh and hadith sciences, and learning the Qur’an. His attempts at reforming the education system included the reform of the curriculum as well as methods of instruction so as to encourage and stimulate intellectual thought and creativity in an effort to fulfil (divine) purpose.41 ‘Abduh is said to have mainly contributed to social reform through his writing in the Egyptian Gazette in which he tackled issues, such as social corruption of which ‘bribery and favoritism’ are examples, women’s equality, and ‘the tyranny of officials’.42 However, his social reform was tackled with greater strength in his re-readings of certain passages of the Qur’an that had impact on social practices within Egyptian society, such as polygamy. He points to the injunction in the Qur’an that specifies that marriage for a man to a second or third or fourth woman is incumbent on his ability for full justice (in the way he distributes time, wealth and in his treatments of his wives). He further points to the incapability of man, as an imperfect being to do so, as stated in the Qur’an; ‘Abduh’s ‘ideal concept of marriage in Islam is monogamy’.43 He believed that the ‘ulama¯’ ‘should take the steps for

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amending the Canon Law of Islam which would best promote the ends of justice and the general interests of the people’.44 Part of his combat of Western intellectual domination was an effort to defend Islam’s validity and ability to face the challenges and the demands of modernity. Samira Haj elucidates that ‘Abduh was ‘neither a traditional nor a liberal, but a Muslim reformer who was critical of both traditionalist religious authority and colonial modernity’.45 ‘Abduh did not seek an ‘Islamic Humanism’46 that is fundamentally closer to Western notions of modernity; his modernity and rationalism, according to Haj, was ‘indigenous’.47 Wanting to ensure the continuity of Islamic authority and to counteract a powerful colonial modernity, ‘Abduh attempted to combat intellectual, social and cultural ‘degeneracy’ that is expressed in taqlı¯d and in taghrı¯b (Westernization).48 On the polemics of science and religion, rationality and religion of the time, ‘Abduh spoke. While ‘Abduh refused the codification and stagnation of thought, he limited the sphere in which man is able to exercise rationality. He was an advocate of independent thought, yet stern about the necessity of cultural and religious specificity. Part of his ethical doctrine was an attempt to re-examine traditional concepts in a new spirit fitting for a new age, without sacrificing the essential precepts of Islam. ‘Abduh was faced with a double predicament: the predicament of justifying and validating Islamic thought in the face of a Western liberal tradition, and the predicament of finding the means to rectify the ills of traditions and customs of a conservative community, without sacrificing Islam. He stressed the importance of ijtiha¯d by emphasizing the fallibility of human reason. To him, past ‘ulama¯’ made efforts based on the concepts of qiya¯s and ‘ijma¯’ to come closer to an understanding of the truth of Islam and its message to humanity within their respective time frames, which makes the necessity of ijtiha¯d all the more essential.49 To him this is possible, and regulated through the distinction between the various spheres or ‘codes of human conduct, covering all human acts in regard to which guidance could be derived from Qur’an and hadith’.50 These, according to Albert Hourani, were codified within the Maliki school of thought: (1) the proclamation of faith; (2) ‘iba¯da¯t, ‘acts of worship’;

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(3) mu‘a¯mala¯t, ‘acts by which human beings are related to each other’.51 According to ‘Abduh, the exercise of rational reasoning is possible and necessary, for as the Qur’an and hadith were precise about certain matters, they were general, unspecific and at times silent on others within these spheres or codes of human conduct. It was left up to human beings to apply these principles and rules in accordance with the specific ‘circumstances of life’ to be ‘exercised responsibly and in accordance with certain principles [Divine law]’.52 This approach favours rational thought over taqlı¯d. It is a perpetual quest for justice within the social sphere, a justice that demands social cooperation and realizes the attainment of good for humanity based on revelation, divine purpose and human rationality. This approach to the understanding of Islam can be seen in his attempts at social reform, of which the re-reading of the verses on polygamy are an example. It is further explicated in his understanding of the concept of al-qada¯’ wa ˙ al-qadar. Both al-Afghani and ‘Abduh have attempted to counter the ˙ claims of orientalists and ‘critics of Islam in terms of the criteria of Enlightenment’.53 The concept of al-qada¯’ wa al-qadar was understood ˙ ˙ by European thinkers to denote the lack of freedom of choice of the believer, and thus, the dependency of the believer on predestination and Divine decree in all of his/her worldly affairs. This was understood to be resulting in the state of backwardness of Muslim societies. Both ‘Abduh and al-Afghani rejected such claims; the concept did not mean ‘submission to the status quo’ nor is it a ‘fateful decree from God’ as understood by European thinkers; instead, it has much to do with the responsibility of the believer, and his/her active pursuit of a better state for self and society in relation to divine purpose, revelation and law.54 As P.J. Vatikiotis explains, ‘Abduh’s explication of the concept in a way that renders it a ‘destiny in which man has a role to play’ is an attempt to ‘render the relationship between man and his Creator a closer and more viable one’.55 ‘Abduh’s struggle to combat Western domination and Western criticism by striking a balance between traditional authority and reform was also advanced by Qasim Amin (1863–1908). The period that Amin spent in France, his education, his understanding of Western political and legal thought, his work on ‘al-‘Urwat al-Wu¯thqa¯’ and subsequent

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return to Egypt in 1885 gave him a fresh and comprehensive perspective on the need for reform of the Muslim ’umma. For Amin, reform was a national project. In light of Western domination and Western criticism, Amin’s project for reform was also a counter-narrative, on the topic of Islam and women’s role. While Western criticism of the condition of women in Islam and in Muslim societies can be seen as attempts at ‘undermining the foundations of a traditional culture’,56 the advocacy for women’s rights and their role in the national project, for Amin, was an attempt to esteem and honour the place of women in Islam and a woman’s role as defined by it. According to Amin, the place of women in Egypt at the time was antithetical to the message of Islam. As such, he devoted two whole works to the reform of the understandings and traditions related to women within Muslim Egypt: The Liberation of Women (1899) and The New Woman (1900),57 tackling such issues as women’s role in society, the veil, marriage, education and polygamy and divorce. According to Malek and Rula Abisaab, The Liberation of Women ‘was a political and ideological commentary about what colonized Egyptian society is not: namely inferior and beyond cultural repair’.58 This is clear in the entire work. Amin maintains the strong position that Islam is not the cause of the ills of society and the inferior status of women; rather, tradition and local custom are. He begins the text by clarifying his vision for the reform of the nation, through the reform of the status of women: ‘history confirms and demonstrates that the status of women is inseparably tied to the status of a nation’, whereby elevation of their status reflects a civilized and progressed nation and a decrease in their status reflects an uncivilized nation.59 It is clear from his perspective that to influence progress, the socio-cultural and religious convictions and ideologies with regard to women within and of a nation must be changed, and gradually so. Given this pretext, to be ‘uncivilized’ or backward is to misunderstand or disregard the intentions of Islam and Divine law for women, for ‘The Islamic legal system, the Shari‘a, stipulated the equality of women and men before any other legal system. Islam declared women’s freedom and emancipation, and granted women all human rights’.60 Amin’s attempts to fulfil the national project and to provide a counternarrative to colonial discourse on Islam and the status of women begins with a redefinition of a woman’s rights and roles within the family, within

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marriage, and within society. He does so with a direct and continual reference to the Qur’an and to hadith. A woman, for Amin, is endowed with intellectual capacities, with capabilities and with a purpose that is far beyond domesticity and servitude. To Amin her domesticity and servitude are a result of teaching and conditioning practices within Egyptian society that have relegated her to inferiority and dependency. The key to empowering women, and thus raising the status of the nation, would be through proper education, strengthening her role within society, adapting her to a more fulfilling role within a marital relationship, and expanding her abilities and skills intellectually and physically – an expansion of her horizons, and of her ability to contribute. Being part of the modernizing/reformist trend, Amin was attempting to demonstrate ‘that the inferiority of religion results from inferior minds, and the primary problem – namely, the neglect of proper education for men and women – has kept us [Muslims] from progress and is the root of all other problems’.61 His concern for a better education of men and women extends to the need for an enlightened and fresh view of Islam through the abandonment of taqlı¯d, and through the re-approach of the Qur’an and Shari‘ah from a new perspective. He, like ‘Abduh, was for ijtiha¯d based on the basic principles of Islam and its divine intent and purpose. Amin purports that ‘The Shari‘a includes generalities and general boundaries’ and gains its specificity only through the specific circumstances in which it is being used.62 Like ‘Abduh, he is open to ijtiha¯d, the use of human reason or rationality, to come to an understanding of the Qur’an and the hadith in areas which are permitting of this type of interpretative access, and to the extent that divine law permits and that the Shari‘ah is unable to provide. He explains: ‘The Quran and the Prophetic tradition are not susceptible to change or exchange. But the rules based on the predominant traditions and procedures are [. . .] according to social conditions and historical time frame, so long as such changes do not offend the principles of the Shari‘a’.63 Amin, like ‘Abduh, employed reason to demonstrate the affinity of Islam with modern scientific thinking, and to demonstrate Islam’s validity. It is this approach that he uses to reinterpret the Qur’anic injunctions on polygamy, on the veil, on seclusion and on divorce procedures. With contributions for reform and for the combat of colonial power and intellectual penetration, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh, and Qasim Amin began a movement of change

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for Muslim Egypt. What is crucial to note is that while they struggled against Western domination, they also struggled against traditional authority. This struggle was difficult and disheartening. The efforts to strike a balance between traditional authority and Western intellectual and cultural values was problematized by the presence of other rising intellectual discourses as means for a solution for the ills of Egypt. While ‘Abduh proposed the need for reform, and a need for a constitution that is fit for Egypt, and a government that was composed of ‘local councils [. . .] advisory council, [and] [. . .] finally a representative assembly’,64 he was of the opinion that it should be a wholly local construction. In his opinion the constitution should be one that is compatible with Egypt and its needs; he was of the opinion that it would be a grave error to simply transplant the ‘laws and institutions’ of Europe.65 In his opinion, doing so would create disunity within Egyptian society. His fears were well founded; by the mid-nineteenth century the dual nature of Egyptian society was all the more apparent. On the one hand, there existed religious institutions, of which al-Azhar is a prime example, and, on the other, there were foreign institutions emulated. Egypt during colonial administration witnessed a rise in foreign institutions: educational and otherwise. The educational institutions contributed to the rise of a class or elite of individuals who were educated in the theories, methods and thought systems of the West. The print culture disseminating ‘knowledge [and thought] of the new world of Europe and America’66 became more widespread. There was a growing momentum and support for Western ideas for social and political organization. Drawing on Enlightenment thought, many supported and suggested such ideas for change.

The Nationalist Response: Geographical and Historical Unity With the introduction of new forms of knowledge, and the rise of an educated elite or class, a split in thought became apparent about the means of further reform, about national strength and survival, and about progress. According to Hourani, the division was a ‘division of opinion about the basis of authority’; while some believed in secularism, others believed in Islam as a solution.67 The Islamic discourse presented by Islamic modernists was not the only discourse

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presented at the time as a solution to the problems experienced in Egypt. Liberal nationalism was another intellectual discourse and movement, at the time taking shape for the purpose of combating colonialism and for creating change within Egypt. Though, initially, ‘Islamic modernism and liberal nationalism were interrelated ideological movements in Egypt’ with ‘conceptual consistencies’ tending to ‘reinforce each other’, liberal nationalism took a ‘radical secularist turn’ and a definite shape from the late nineteenth century moving towards fuller expression in the 1920s and 1930s.68 Liberal nationalism or Egyptian nationalism was the result of the assimilation of Western thought in Egypt that was independent of the experience under the Ottoman rule. According to M.B. Ghali, liberal nationalism had two goals: ‘that of Egyptianity and that of opening to the West’; these two goals ‘were bound together in the minds of the men of 1919 and they gave rise to a great outburst of hope for the future’.69 In an effort to liberate the self and the nation, or to imagine it and construct it, Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, among other Muslim Egyptian thinkers, attempted to find a governing intellectual discourse, an authority for social and political organization, that did not stem from the concepts of Islam, and one that is grounded in a history that is somewhat removed from it. These attempts were an expression of the predicament of thought existing at the time. The trend was towards the construction of a self-contained geography, society and past; Egypt as a cradle of civilization is the place for a people with a past.70 The efforts to construct this distinctness of identity took two official forms of historicization as the basis for modern Egypt and modern Egyptian identity. On the one hand, there were efforts to identify and cite the Pharaonic past of Egypt. On the other hand, there was an insistence on a cultural link to Europe. Taha Hussein (1889– 1973), for instance, believed that Islam was not the governing principle upon which the nation is defined; ‘the new nation state in his view and in that of his like-minded contemporaries, was not to be conditioned solely by Islamic perspectives of history and civilization’.71 In The Future of Culture in Egypt (1938), he ‘makes it quite clear that in historical terms his country owes much to the legacy of Greece and Rome and has always been an integral part of the great Mediterranean civilizations’.72 To Timothy Mitchell, these writers in making such efforts were making an ‘argument against Europeans who insisted on the oriental and therefore

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backward character of Egypt [. . .] [T]heir concern was to show that Egypt was a modern, Western nation, a view to be proven by the fact that the West’s own past lay within Egypt’.73 It was an attempt at creating links with a larger community and a definition of nation and identity that was not solely grounded in Islam and the Islamic traditions prevalent in Egypt. Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872– 1963) is perceived to have been an avid supporter of Islamic liberalism and a contributor to the rise of liberal nationalism in a context muddled with colonial discourse, Enlightenment ideology, Islamic modernism and pan-Islamism. However, he ‘promoted the reorganization of Egyptian society and government around two pivotal ideas: Egyptian nationhood and freedom’ using the idea of the ‘evolution of human society expressed by such thinkers as Rousseau, Comte, Renan, Mill, Spencer and Durkheim’.74 He centred his thought on the concept of social and political freedom: as an inalienable right, and in terms of freedom from foreign control and from unnecessary state control. He also accepted the idea that ‘natural law of progress was the governing principle of social evolution’ that ‘led to a constant expansion of individual liberty, the domination of reason, increasing social differentiation and complexity, the decline of religion and custom, and the employment of individual self-interest as a basis of the social contract and government’.75 It is clear that his ideas were very much in line with Enlightenment thought, with Western liberal thought, and thus very much different from, if not in opposition to, Islamic thought; he relied on a different authority. His ideas present a clear and decisive shift in the system of thought in Egypt. Hourani explains this development: ‘the whole basis of the argument has shifted [. . .] [T]he appeal is no longer to the Quran and Shari‘a rightly interpreted, it is to the sciences and social thought of the modern west [. . .] [T]he standards of judgment now are the great concepts of the nineteenth century: freedom, progress, civilization’.76 To explicate the point, freedom, for instance, meant individual freedom of thought, will and action. His perspective of the nation, too, is not predicated on the belief in a religious community and religious duty that is based on divine law. ‘Abduh perceived the nation as a community of believers serving the nation in light of public interest (the organs to a body), and a subsequent feeling of security and protection delivered by the relationship between

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the individual and the other members of society. Al-Sayyid, on the other hand, provides a purely secular concept that is removed from the religion-based conception of a nation as provided by ‘Abduh. He defines watan as the land for Egyptians as a people with a common heritage. ˙ The Egyptian to al-Sayyid is ‘he who knows no other watan beside Egypt’ and the ‘Egyptians are the original people of this Egyptian land, as well as every Ottoman who lived in Egypt as a resident, and who has adopted it as his watan exclusive of other Ottoman watans’.77 He wants to replace faith in a larger Muslim community with faith in nationalism; to him faith in a larger Muslim community is imperialistic in nature. According to al-Sayyid, the only viable solution to both Muslim imperialism and Western imperialism is nationalism: ‘There is no other alternative but to replace it [nation as belief in a community of believers] by the one faith consonant with the ambition of every Eastern nation that has a defined watan. And that faith is the faith of nationalism’. Sa‘ad Zaghloul (1859–1927), too, made significant efforts in the construction of a nation predicated on nationalism. As the initiator of the Wafd party, an Egyptian nationalist party (it came into existence during World War I, and began official activity towards independence in 1919), and the initiator of Egyptian independence (1922), he expressed a dual nature in his thought for social and political organization. Zaghloul appropriated Western symbols and concepts in his theories for political organization, yet advocated, implicitly, the concepts of the modernist school of ‘Abduh. To give a more specific example, he expressed the idea of justice in the form of maslahah, public interest, and also used ideas of ˙ ˙ public utility in his political thought. Though both maslahah and utility ˙ ˙ can be understood to serve a similar end in political action and in society, their basis for authority and means for application indicates a difference; public utility is based on moral law and national duty, rather than divinely ordained duty. Furthermore, the national bond was not centred on the concept of the unity of believers (Muslims) in the transcendent, without racial distinction, and the use of religion as a source and a perspective from which to implement and create change based on Divine law and purpose. It was, rather, centred on the unity of the Egyptian people, sharing a common history and ancestry, giving religion a minimalist role in the definition or ideology of the nation. The Egyptian character that Zaghloul is in support of is apparent in his goals for Egypt: ‘the

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Egyptianization of the Egyptian economy, the abandonment of the veil by women, their participation in the national movement, the destruction of the class of pashas, the seizure of power by the fellahin, the disappearance of the Turkish element from Egyptian politics – and independence comes after all of this’.78 Egyptian nationalism slowly and gradually became the dominant ideology in Egypt. By the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century the utilitarian and positivist philosophy and politics borrowed from Western thought and assimilated into nationalist ideology became central to Egyptian nationalist thought. It gradually took precedence over the belief in Divine law and purpose, and religious social organization with a belief in the sacred nature of the natural national link between Egyptians as predicated by a common history and heritage, and in the centrality of freedom and self-realization (of individual and nation). In efforts towards progress, the ‘Arab world has known one revolution – the national revolution’, one that Abdallah Laroui characterizes as ‘confusion between goals and aspirations’ none of which are fully realized.79

Conclusion: Islamic Revival The attempts at imagining and constructing the Egyptian nation have been wrought with difficulties and ambiguities. Imagining and constructing such a nation was particularly difficult and ambiguous given two interrelated factors: the prominence of Western social and political thought and methods for organization, and the struggle for selfrepresentation. Up until the 1930s the intellectual scene within Egypt was concerned with defining the self in relation to the other; the tensions between imagining the community and imagining the geography were clearly visible, particularly in relation to their established relationships to concepts of the ’umma, and the Egyptian nation. In the process, such tensions highlighted the ideological inconsistencies and ideological fusions that these conceptions of nation were being imagined or constructed upon. However, since the 1930s most political expressions ‘had reverted to themes that connected more readily with people’s everyday experience and self-conception, particularly the themes of Islam, Arabism, and anti-imperialism’ giving the ‘local politics a much wider resonance than a purely Egyptian nationalism’.80

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The 1930s were a testament to the rise to prominence of the interest in and focus on Islamic ethics and values, and an emphasis on the importance of Muslim identity. This was particularly clear in the cultural productions of the time; there was a ‘stream of publications on the history and leading personalities of early Islam by the so-called “udaba”, whose number included Taha Hussein, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d al-‘Aqqa¯d, and Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m’.81 According ˙ ˙ to Smith, this shift has been the subject of varying interpretations by scholars, one of which is its interpretation as an indication of ‘an intellectual crisis’ without a clear and definitive alternative.82 However, within the spheres of political and social mobilization and organization, there was a revived sense of the strength of Islam as a foundation. The establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, by Hasan al-Banna (1906–49), was an expression of this desire to redeem the place of Islam as the solution, and the alternative. The Brotherhood ideology was informed and shaped by the belief in Islam as a comprehensive system that can assist not only in social and political organization, but also in correcting the social and political ills of Egypt. The main concerns of this organization were/are centred on a number of issues: ‘the domination of Egypt by foreign powers, the poverty of the Egyptian people, and the declining morality they identified in both the Egyptian state and the lives of individuals throughout Egypt’.83 The rooting of social and political action in Islam and Islamic ethics was, to them, the corrective measure required for the progress of Egyptian society. The Brotherhood aimed at establishing this goal by advocating certain state and individual practices that were rooted in Islamic values and ethics: state intervention for moral-based censorship of media content, the inclusion of Islamic/religious education in schools (Islamic history, Arabic and the Qur’an), and on an individual level ‘strict standards for conduct’, such as the ‘abstention from alcohol, gambling, dancing [. . .] styles of foreign dress, prostitution and adultery’.84 Their activism also included a broad range of social services that included medical services.85 The momentum for the Islamic alternative has been consistent since and still is in the present day; ‘questions of “identity”, modernization, “cultural authenticity”, socio-economic grievances, political participation, and foreign domination are all involved in the resurgence’,86 ‘a response to accumulated changes’.87 Within Egypt, as is the case

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within the ‘Islamic world’, this continual and consistent expression and mobilization of efforts towards redeeming the place of Islam within social, cultural, economic and political spheres is evident. This expression and mobilization can be understood within the context of the specific historical circumstances and experiences of Muslim populations, and should specifically be understood as ‘a response to social, economic, and political discontent with modernization’88 or, at the least, its effects. As Leonard Stone articulates, it is a ‘battle against too rapid secularization’, against ‘modernization or even Westernization’, and against the ‘liquidation of Islam’.89 The broad movement of activity for the re-establishment of the place of Islam and the re-articulation of its presence took the form of the re-emphasis on the historically authenticated sources of Islamic discourse and meaning. The re-emphasis on the fundamental principles of its systems and teachings is attempted through a ‘return to the purest sources of the religion, a movement to cleanse Islam from all the impurities, heresies, and revisionisms which may have influenced its body-intellect as well as its body-practice’.90 There were different periods within Egyptian history in which Islamic social movements have been ‘eclipsed’ or suppressed and silenced completely in preference and drive for secular-based politics and means for social, political and economic organization. According to Lapidus, ‘with the creation of independent states after World War II and the suppression of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt in the 1950s, these movements were eclipsed by the secular and socialist tendencies of the national states’.91 In 1941, the Muslim Brotherhood entered the ‘political arena’ by presenting its possible parliamentary candidacy within the elections with goals for ‘social Reform and the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Egypt’.92 This led to the arrest and imprisonment of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and the banning of their activities by British military authorities. During the reigns of both Sadat and Nasser any form of political opposition to the political ideology and strategy of the time was suppressed through imprisonments, and limitations on freedom of speech (publishing) were imposed, aiming at the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood.93 Despite such attempts, Islamic social and political movements continued to re-emerge as an alternative to secular politics, and in response to ‘growing inequities [. . .] rising foreign influence [. . .]

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alienation from the rest of the Arab and Muslim world [. . .] [and] conditions of mass discontent’.94 In 1987, the Muslim Brotherhood increased its number of seats in parliament presenting ‘Islam is the Solution’ as its slogan in the campaign,95 providing evidence of the lasting resonance of the importance of Islam as a doctrine, as an ideology, as a comprehensive organizational principle, and as an identity marker and way of life. According to Saba Mahmood, within the ‘last forty years’ the feminist movement ‘has empowered women to enter the field of Islamic pedagogy in the institutional setting of mosques’ as a ‘response to the perception that religious knowledge, as a means to organizing daily life, has become increasingly marginalized under modern structures of secular governance’.96 Framed within the perceptions and individual ideologies of the mosque movement are certain understandings about the transformations of Islam and Egyptian society and reasons for mobilization: the reduction of ‘Islamic knowledge to the status of “custom” or “folklore”’ and the consequential decrease in forms of piety; and the ‘secularization or Westernization of Egyptian society’.97 The rising popularity of the veil and the proliferation of Islamic knowledge and values are cases in point. Social ‘Islamic revivalist movements’ are a response to modern transformations and impacts98 ‘by parts of Muslim populations that do not share in political power or in the consumer culture of modernity’.99

CHAPTER 3 ISLAM AND MODERNITY: THE PREDICAMENT OF IDENTITY (EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY—PRESENT)

Introduction The narrative of Islamic history and/or the history of Islamic (social and political) mobilization within Egypt cannot be characterized by linearity. It has been one of variances, fluctuations and imbalances, and one of a disturbance of minds and spirits. Taking the effects of modernization, globalization and of September 11 into account, the variances, fluctuations and disturbances are intensified, and become all the more apparent. Nineteenth century reactions to contact with Western thought and thought systems have included: the ‘attempt to emulate the West in its ways to befriend or fight it back’; ‘the rejection of Western ways completely to draw back on the glorious heritage of Islam and adhere to its pure sources as the only means of successful resistance’; and the attempt to ‘reconcile the best elements of Islamic heritage with the best elements of Western civilization’.1 These reactions remain the same for different yet ontologically similar reasons. Globalizing trends have worked their way through Egyptian society, as have modernizing trends and thought systems, spreading ‘neo-liberal institutions and behaviors’ that have ensued in a fragmented sense of identity.2 Given the forces of modernization and globalization, the Islamic frame of reference is disrupted, structures of thought have been

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destabilized, questions of the validity of Islam and its principles are constantly being expressed in various forms, and acts of piety and the sense of religiosity are problematized. The events of September 11 have further amplified these pressures, creating a greater intellectual and an identity-based crisis; they have further widened the fissures between those who attempt to adhere to the fundamental principles of Islam, and those who (in an effort to emulate the West) reject Islam or Islamic teachings within the Muslim community, limiting the space for a dignified and balanced Muslim self and Muslim life within modern contexts. Epistemological uncertainty, ontological multiplicity, consumerist individualism and moral relativism are experiences of Muslims living modern contexts within Egypt, as forms of certainty with regard to Islam are being eroded. The absence of existential, epistemological and ontological certainty and meaning is destabilizing and disorienting. As existential, epistemological and ontological meanings are destabilized, Muslims experience the silent threat of the loss of meaning and the loss of space for religiosity. One has attempted the starting point for an epistemology of such rupture through the exploration of the historical shift in theoretical and ideological frames of reference (and by implication their imposition), Muslim intellectual responses, and nationalist responses. However, a greater attention to contemporary individual struggles is much needed to understand the predicament of identity in relation to Islam and modernity. Muslims are experiencing a continuous state of orientation and re-orientation, which has offset the primacy and authority of religion; however, it is crucial to attest that Islam maintains the role of a primary source of knowledge and an authority ‘over a wide range of societal locations’.3 Within a contemporary context, modernization, secularization, globalization and the events of September 11 have played a significant role in deepening the sense of dislocation and rupture in Muslim society; they have taken the form and effect of ‘compulsory universalism’, to use Aziz al-Azmeh’s term.4 This ‘compulsory universalism’ plays out in historiographical understandings, in knowledge production and dissemination, and in discourse and representation, all of which create and sustain the rupture, dislocation and disorientation evident in Muslim societies, or Muslim society within Egypt. This leads to far-reaching consequences that constitute the identity crisis experienced by Muslims: a loss of intellectual capital and collective

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memory; the decentralization and inaccessibility of religious knowledge; and states of discord and exile.

Loss of Intellectual Capital and Collective Memory Modern historiography is grounded in positivism and its approach to understanding and knowing the world and one’s existence in it. Ontological and epistemological validity and truth are delineated, defined and established only through empirical methods of investigation. The value of time is relegated, determined and defined by intellectual, social, cultural and economic progress, and the power of human reason and will to enable these developments based on empirical knowledge formed and produced. Taylor characterizes this understanding as a ‘shift or drift’ in the development towards modernity.5 However, the Islamic conception is determined, informed and shaped by sacred and revelation-based knowledge and purpose, and human development over time in realization of an ideal informed by such knowledge and purpose. Its validity, relevance and applicability is meant or perceived to be beyond time (for all times), transcending (and saturating) through the borders of all forms of knowledge and structures/ systems necessary for human existence. The past, present and future are informed, shaped and all thought and action therein are determined by historical moments and developments to do with the transcendental, forming an existential reality and an imperative of being. Modern historiography enforces criteria that result in and ensure a re-assessment of this reality and imperative; it enforces a critical review of Islamic ideological construction(s), Islamic cultural production, Islamic understanding of existence and purpose, and of authority and authorization within the sphere of religious knowledge. Modernity and its historiography are antithetical; Modernity is an antithetical structure and discourse to that of Islam, invalidating its historical and epistemological value and purpose.6 These pretexts have confused the Islamic domain of historiography that now expresses ‘inadequate thinking that has not made the essential choice between objectivity and subjectivity [. . .] between what is universally applicable and what is true from a particular standpoint only’.7 Furthermore, the notion of ‘triumphalism of the moment’ that is enunciated as a part of the discourse of modernity asserts and affirms the precedence of Western

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thought systems, and means for social and political organization.8 This precedence means the inferiority and the subordinate rank of other thought systems and means of organization. Thus, Islam and Muslims are judged and represented, and, thus, they (are forced to) construct thought systems and to construct their identities. The proliferation of this antithetical discourse through various forms of media-based technology sets up a live and consistent comparison between the Islamic culture and the Western culture; between the premodern and the postmodern. The postmodern is more desirable and enticing with its features of spontaneity, freedom, and high sense of and affluence of subjectivity; it is more advanced socially, economically and politically, more liberal in social, cultural, economic and political practices, simply more ‘modern’. The relationship of comparison is hard to ignore, and faith and religion are harder to maintain as they are juxtaposed to free thought and ‘scepticism’, as religious traditions are replaced by a culture of ‘iconoclasm’, and as ‘purity’ is contrasted to ‘eclecticism’.9 Akbar Ahmed asks: How can Muslims retain their central Islamic features – family life, care for children, respect for elders, and concepts of modesty and so on – in the face of the contrary philosophy of the postmodern age? How can they successfully convey the relevance of their beliefs and customs, their ‘message’, to the world community of which they are part? [. . .] How does a religious civilization like Islam, which relies on a defined code of behavior and traditions based on a holy book, cope in an age which selfconsciously puts aside the past and exults in diversity?10 The answer simply is that it has not been able to cope; it is unable to maintain a sense of coherence and balance. This incoherence and imbalance has much to do with how modernity was/is conceived; Susan Friedman suggests that ‘the centrality of colonialism and postcolonialism’ for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries requires a new geography of modernity and modernism, one based on a mapping of historical development and a ‘geography of beginnings’ that takes into account space and time.11 While the Western civilization began a postmodern phase by the 1950s, the Muslim (then) was still enduring and attempting to articulate modernity. As Ahmed

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suggests, ‘There exists [. . .] an intellectual time-warp between Muslims and the West. So while postmodernism is already seen by some in the West as passe´, yesterday’s cliche´, the Muslim intellectual continues to grapple with stale issues contained in modernism’.12 ‘The Muslim modernist phase was engendered by European colonialism’,13 so while modernity is marked in the West by the liberation of the individual and individual will from the shackles of doctrine, dogma and the power and authority of the Church, the Muslim attempts to make sense of the intellectual/ideological concepts introduced, while maintaining coherence within the various spheres of intellectual polity identified in Islam. Within the Muslim world, modernity has been transplanted without due consideration for its ideological underpinnings and foundational geo-historical origins. ‘“Modern” was translated by Muslim leaders as a drive to acquire Western education, technology and industry’ so as to harmonize it with Islamic thought.14 Aziz al-Azmeh chooses to describe this not as a transplantation of ideas, but a ‘heavy impregnation’ with ‘novel categories of thought, methods of education, contents of knowledge, forms of discourse and communication, aesthetic norms and ideological positions’ that have made it impossible to ‘speak with sole reference to traditional texts without reference to Western notions’.15 The ‘homogenizing and hegemonic assumptions of this Western program of modernity’ neglect an understanding of the ‘contemporary world’ as ‘a story of continual constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs’.16 Modernity as conceived, applied or forced to be realized within the Muslim world sustains the centre/periphery binary, and it ignores the possibility of various centres of modernity across the world that can be permitting of an equitable and reciprocal intercultural exchange. The nationalist regimes in Egypt have sustained this development. It has been sustained through the acceptance and adoption of the discourse of modernity with little attention to its origins and applicability, and through the subordination of religion and religious institutions within Egypt. Through the acceptance of an antithetical discourse to that of Islam, a consequential and perhaps deliberate subordination of Islamic historiography and of Islamic intellectual thought and thought systems took place in the modern period. The history and body of Islamic historical and social knowledge is, thus, denied and displaced from the collective memory of the adherents of the faith. Al-Azmeh comments on

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this development and suggests that it has created and proliferated a state of intellectual stagnation as intellectuals were denied ‘the ability to accumulate historical and social knowledge’ through the robbing of the ‘collective memory of its progressive capital’.17 The impact of this intellectual stagnation is profound; within a neo-colonial/‘modern’ framework, the present condition of the Arab/Muslim world, as is that of Egypt, is one of dependency: ‘exploitation, loss of liberty, and damage to the pride and material interests of a nation, but above all continuance and exacerbation of historical retardation’.18 The result is rupture and chaos: ‘a rejection of modernity; the emergence of a young, faceless, discontented leadership; cultural schizophrenia; a sense of entering an apocalyptic moment in history; above all, a numbing awareness of the power and pervasive nature of the Western media which are perceived as hostile’.19 The lack of a collective intellectual capital and collective memory of the Islamic past within practical and experiential presents can be likened to ‘collective amnesia’, and described as ‘nihilistic epistemology’, to use al-Azmeh’s terminology.20 While al-Azmeh’s concern is with ignorance about non-orthodox thought in Islam, it is safe to say that the prevalent ignorance is all encompassing. It is a ‘collective amnesia’ that represents ignorance of the Islamic past and ignorance about the discourse of modernity (one that is not independent of Enlightenment discourse on knowledge and existence). All around, this forms a state of fragility and susceptibility to influence; it is a superficial understanding or an absence of understanding of intellectual, social and cultural roots from which individuals/Muslims derive a sense of identity. Taking into account the proliferation of cultural and social knowledge through globalizing and universalizing means, using the media as vehicle, states of fragility and susceptibility to influence are much clearer.

The Decentralization and Inaccessibility of Religious Meaning With the inception of globalism and the prominence of Western thought systems and practice of the universalization of thought systems and structures, the nature, the location and production of religious meaning has undergone significant transformations. Globalization has encouraged the universalization of Western thought and thought

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systems through the spread of information and ideas, its normalization and standardization of a ‘popular’ and homogenizing culture, and its institutional and infrastructural openness.21 This has generated and amplified further transformations to Islamic discourse, knowledge structures and knowledge production. As Peter Mandaville describes, ‘over the last 20 years [. . .] numerous observers have described a process of fragmentation and breakdown, dating variously from the midnineteenth century to early-twentieth centuries, that is seen as gradually eroding the traditional system of knowledge production and dissemination in the Muslim world’.22 This indicates a significant transformation in the structures of authority: the sources of sacred knowledge, discursive and hermeneutical methods, and the means to specialization in religious knowledge by Muslim intellectuals. These transformations also indicate significant transformations to the ‘trajectory of religious discourse’ and a ‘tendency towards decentralized authority that has always been present in Islam’.23 Geopolitical pressures to reclaim Islam, or define and adapt Islam in modern terms for the purpose of creating greater geopolitical affiliations, have further penetrated the field of religious discourse transforming the interpretation and production of religious meaning, and possible orientations in relation to existence in the world. It is important to note that Arab nationalism and Arab secular politics within Egypt has been established on the ashes of religious institutions and institutional presence (a process of desacralization) within Egyptian society. The consequence was/is that ‘perception of the public, political and social domains through the prism of religion became marginal and was replaced by a new way of looking at the world, a perception that was modern, temporal, ideological, ethical, evolutionary, political’ signifying a ‘profound break with the past in the fields of thought and culture’.24 The larger outcome is a state of plurality and a pluralization of authority that does not indicate a greater degree of comfort with regard to religion and religiosity; rather, it is a plurality and a pluralization that represents the ‘fragmentation of cohesive identities’.25 Mandaville suggests that there are three axes to the pluralization of Islamic authority that one can use to delineate, define and qualify the predicament of Islam and modernity as a lived experience within the lives of Muslims, one that poses existential and identity-based predicaments associated with Islam and religiosity. The first axis Mandaville terms

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‘functional pluralization’ and he defines it as ‘changes in terms of how individual Muslims understand the social purpose and ends of knowledge seeking’. The second axis he terms ‘spatial pluralization’, and he defines it as ‘changes in terms of how far away and in what kinds of spaces one seeks authority or authorization’. Finally, the third axis is termed ‘mediatization’, which he defines as ‘changes in the textual forms and personified figures through which Muslims seek authority’.26 Colonialism, modernization (and by implication secularization), and Arab secular politics and its attempts at modernity have all contributed to a process of abstraction. Donald Berry defines the process of abstraction as ‘the replacement of traditional institutions by nontraditional institutions’ producing ‘feelings of alienation’.27 Apart from the profound changes in institutional life, education and other societal functions of knowledge seeking, this process of abstraction produced a ‘massive collision between the traditionally established forms of human thought and experience with the abstraction of human thought and experience which has emerged under the guise of modernity’.28 The dilemma lies in the absence of the means to sacred meaning, and the decreasing presence of the sacred within the public sphere. These forms of absences imply: the transformation of the form of knowledge appealed to in knowing the world, and understanding human existence and purpose. Islam is based on the belief in revelation-based knowledge (of sacred value), and a connection to the transcendental communicating Divine will and purpose. The new forms of knowledge introduce a new way of understanding; ethnology, sociology, anthropology and historiography (among others) become the means to qualifying truths related to existence. This is the abstraction: the replacement of religious institutions and forms of institutional knowledge; the disembedding of sacred reference; and the introduction of scepticism about the truth and finality of revelation-based knowledge. In terms of human experience, this translates into disorientation, confusion and alienation. Consequently, social purpose and the knowledge-seeking practices are afflicted by disorientation. The emphasis on modernity, on futurity, displaces the emphasis on the roots and foundational elements within faith, and displaces the entire system of belief, placing a ‘harmful strain on the physical and mental well-being’ of adherents.29 This strain is amplified given the inherent discord between contrasting worldviews, and the means to understanding existence and purpose. Furthermore, the

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increasing emphasis on individualism and the need for the maximization of individual benefit deteriorate the Islamic understandings of social purpose and of morality; they deteriorate religious foundations and practices, eroding concern for social welfare, communal and collective development, and, in consequence, solidarity and feelings of belonging.30 The overall result is deep ambivalence towards belief/ unbelief, and a mesh of thought systems and practices. The overall result is the blurring of lines which translates into alienation, the loss of the feeling of at-homeness within and in relation to religious traditions, and a constant intellectual and emotional discord and instability – this being ‘functional pluralization’. Central to understanding the shift in authority, authorization and the inaccessibility of religious meaning are what Mandaville terms ‘spatial pluralization’ and ‘mediatization’. They are also central in understanding the changes in the ways in which Muslims understand ‘social purpose, and means to religious knowledge’.31 The ‘prevalent trend in Muslim law reform’, though attempted with absolute discretion within the Islamic world, ‘has indeed been an attempt to generalize the classical precepts in such a manner as to have them merge with a notion of natural law’ rendering religious meaning incomprehensible, inaccessible and questionable.32 Both secularization and modernization have the combined effect of an ‘ambiguity of [religious] meaning’ as the ‘production of knowledge and authoritative discourse “here” [Muslim world] is often constructed in relation to – or at least strongly inflected by – themes, sources and debates located at a considerable geographical distance [“there”, the West]’.33 These demands and pressures widen the scope, space and boundaries of hermeneutical practice within the sphere of Islamic religious discourse. They also enforce a constant re-assessment, redrafting, reshaping and reconfiguration of Islamic law. The implications of these pressures is ‘a collapse of knowledge into being a monotony of solipsism of sheer self-reference [. . .] all that actually remains is the sentiment of the transcendental’.34 For Tuha¯mı¯ al-‘Abdu¯lı¯, this dilemma is epistemological in nature; this elucidates the state of plurality, the decentralization of authority, and consequent inaccessibility of meaning. The epistemological dilemma occurs as a result of disequilibrium or imbalance in, and disagreement on, the critical issues, and the methodology and means to be used in arriving at religious meaning.35 For instance, a conflict over

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methodologically based instruments used for arriving at religious meaning, such as qiya¯s and ijma¯’ may form an epistemological anomaly. This stems from the inability to cohere (in a spirit of (re)structuralism, reform, change or substitution) two distinct discourses: the Islamic and the modern. This inability to cohere can develop into a synthesized and superficial (practical, and law-based) formation, or a complete incoherence of thoughts and ideas.36 Al-Azmeh suggests that in the sphere of hermeneutical practice ‘Religious reason [. . .] is resorted to interpretation, that is, imposing on the text meanings which it could not sustain, being derived from the knowledge and circumstances of an age vastly different to that in which it emerged’.37 Instead of applying Islamic methodology: of hadith sciences, an understanding of the specific circumstances surrounding revelation(s), and qualifying and authorizing practices on the basis of a set of methodological tools, a different set of reading and interpretation practices are applied that enforce and encourage a spirit of modernity. Thus, the methodological tools and means for constructing religious meaning and authorizing practices are confused and pluralized. This is apparent in the clear imbalance in the way that knowledge is applied practically in various societal circumstances and locations, where some of the issues presented have come to surpass the ability of religious discourse to respond to the needs of a changing society.38 As Bergur and Luckmann argue, this ‘[p]luralism encourages skepticism and innovation and is thus inherently subversive of the taken-for-granted reality of the traditional status quo’.39 Contemporary Egypt is marked by a ‘plethora of institutions and trends now pervading society’ that are evidence of the plural (‘parties and institutions within the Islamic trend’), and diverse (‘various ideologies and tactics to achieve Islamic (or Islamist) ends’) nature of Islam in Egypt.40 This plurality and diversity cuts across a variety of societal locations, but can markedly be seen within the framework of women’s issues. There has been a marked development and improvement in women’s status within society and in women’s rights, within Egypt. Feminists within Egypt have achieved significant gains for women: the right to vote (1956), ‘the right to hold public office’ and hold ‘prominent political positions’, equality and an end to gender-based discrimination (1956; 1963), and access to ‘public-sector jobs’ and ‘on-the-job rights’ (1964).41 However, greater developments/changes, evidence of plurality and diversity, can be seen in

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new approaches to women’s issues within the scope of religious injunction. This type of pluralism and diversity ‘encourages skepticism and innovation’. The debate between Muhammad al-‘Ashma¯wı¯ (a retired ˙ Egyptian Supreme Court justice, and specialist in Islamic law) and Muhammad al-Tanta¯wı¯ (Mufti) on the issue of hija¯b in Egypt is a ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ testament of that, a case in point. While al-Tanta¯wı¯ relies on traditionally based methodological tools ˙ ˙ for assessing the relevance and importance of hija¯b in a modern context, ˙ as a divinely prescribed injunction; al-‘Ashma¯wı¯, on the other hand, uses approaches to interpreting and understanding this injunction in a way that is critical of its importance and its applicability.42 Al-Tanta¯wı¯ relies ˙ ˙ heavily on fiqh sciences, hadith sciences and Qur’anic interpretation to ascertain and clarify the applicability of the hija¯b as an injunction, as a ˙ central part of Islamic practice. He uses these methodological tools in addition to applying knowledge of reasons for revelation and knowledge of social and cultural practices at the time of revelation. On the other hand, al-‘Ashma¯wı¯ relies on hadith sciences, Qur’anic interpretation and socio-historical knowledge to clarify a contrary opinion: the hija¯b is not ˙ an Islamic injunction; the verses related to hija¯b were revealed to a ˙ particular audience and for specific reasons; the hija¯b is not applicable to ˙ all Muslim women; and it is certainly not an injunction, but a political statement and expression. One of the points on which the debate centres is verse 59 of Al-‘Ahza¯b ˙ (The Confederates): ‘O Prophet! Tell Thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when out of doors): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful’.43 Al-‘Ashma¯wı¯ explains that at the specific time in history this particular verse was revealed to distinguish maids from other believing women, who might encounter a threat to their chastity upon treading the desert. He further asserts that in a modern period, the need to apply this, for the sake of making a distinction, is no longer a necessity, and, therefore, the injunction was for a specific time frame, not meant to be applicable across time.44 Al-Tanta¯wı¯, in response, asserts ˙ ˙ that the verse is directed in a clear manner to the wives and daughters of the Prophet, ‘and the believing women’, stressing that it is not only applicable, but meant to guard the chastity of all Muslim women. He furthers this point by mentioning a hadith narrating that the

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Prophet has communicated to ‘A¯ishah, his wife: it is unlawful for a woman who believes in Allah and the day of judgment upon maturing to reveal anything of herself apart from her face and hands.45 It is rather clear that al-‘Ashma¯wı¯ and al-Tanta¯wı¯ are approaching the ˙ ˙ subject from two distinct and unrelated perspectives: one modern and liberal, the other traditional and religiously based. While al-‘Ashma¯wı¯ incorporates socio-historical, political and feminist reading and interpretation strategies, al-Tanta¯wı¯ strictly relies on religiously based ˙ ˙ sciences to ascertain divine ‘truth’. This diversity in thought encourages scepticism, and plurality in practice, which may or may not be of a healthy nature at all times. In its severe forms, this plurality and diversity in opinion, stemming from a difference in ideological orientation, encourages epistemological uncertainty, ontological multiplicity and moral relativism. Increasing plurality simply means the decentralization of religious knowledge, and the inaccessibility of religious meaning.

States of Discord and Exile As the media plays a role in proliferating: ‘a spirit of pluralism; a heightened skepticism of traditional orthodoxies; and finally a rejection of a view of the world as a universal totality, of the expectation of final solutions and complete answers’, it also plays a role in proliferating social and cultural practices that are contrary to the spirit of Islam and its goals for society.46 Media is a ‘central dynamic’ in the proliferation of certain Western cultural trends that have morphed the Muslim understanding of Islam and Muslim conceptions of identity: sexuality, understandings of beauty, and understandings of piety are cases in point. Sexual iconography, sexuality and a highly sexual image of women dominate Western media and culture, where the key concepts communicated to an attentive (Eastern) audience are: that sexual openness and expression is natural and desirable; that beauty, and thus value, lies in this sexual overtness; and that sexuality is the foundation to building highly exciting and enticing relationships. There is a high degree of obsession/neurosis with image, sex and sexuality that accompanies these concepts. These concepts are in direct conflict with Islamic values of modesty, shame, respect and honour that form an integral part of child rearing and family practices, especially as they are related to guarding women’s honour and chastity. They also come into conflict with direct and

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clear religiously based injunctions: modesty, guarding one’s chastity, and various other guidelines to gender relations. Phenomena that have arisen in response to changing attitudes towards sex, sexuality and image are volatile ways in which Muslim women choose to express their beauty, and the prevalence of ‘urfi marriage47 within Egypt. The ways in which Muslim women choose to express their beauty represent a highly confused sense of Muslim identity. In one instance there is a drive to observe injunctions to do with modesty and sexual relations, and in the other instance, there is a drive to express attraction and desire, to entice the opposite gender, and to experience varying degrees of sexuality, in a spirit of modernity, and its assertion as a part of self-definition. Islamic rulings/understandings are also manipulated in service of such spirit through the use of ‘urfi marriage, which can be qualified as a secret marriage that does not meet/fulfil the (key) requirements of both civil law (unregistered) or Islamic law (unannounced), leaving women and their rights unprotected. The reinterpretation of Islam and the reconstruction of Muslim identity in the spirit of modernity can also be seen in forms of piety. One can describe the Islam that has gained momentum within contemporary Egypt as an Islam of the youth, one that is highly superficial, and is removed from in-depth understanding of the faith and its purpose for humanity. Islamic cultural bankruptcy and social schizophrenia is evident in various other arenas of social practice. The Islamic cultural bankruptcy and social schizophrenia are further deepened and intensified by the projections and qualifications of Islam and Muslim identity in the media. News media and various other media technologies play a central role in knowledge creation, dissemination and cultural representation of the ‘other’ (the Muslim) in a way that serves geopolitical interests, as it serves to differentiate the ‘us’ from ‘them’. Ahmed explains: Islam, from the time of the Crusades, has been seen as barbarous, licentious, the enemy of Christianity; in our age, in addition, it is seen as anarchic and monolithic. The Islamic peril is now seen by many as the greatest threat to the West.48 Islam and Muslims are demonized and dehumanized in the media, simplifying their entire existence and corpus of knowledge to a few

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simplistic, ahistorical and acontextual representations. Islam and Islamic social facts are reduced to a level of ‘incoherence, incomprehensibility, and irrationality’.49 For instance, the term jiha¯d, meaning struggle, has been the focus of observation on Islamic activity, as it has particularly dominated any kind of analysis about Islam since the events of September 11. The term is defined and interpreted in the media as a ‘Holy struggle’, and a licence to kill and to wage war on the West when it generally and specifically means being a believer through spiritual, intellectual and physical effort and awareness.50 Couple this misused definition of jiha¯d with the term fundamentalism,51 and talk of terrorism is endless. Said frames this in an equation: ‘fundamentalism equals Islam equals everything-we-must-now-fight-against’52. Another example of the simplification and misrepresentation of Islam, Islamic social life, and Muslims is the issue of women. Women and their rights within Islam are portrayed in a negative fashion, always framed in terms of social structures and human rights. Socially, women are understood and interpreted in light of patriarchy as a societal structure defined by Islam. Islam, in this way, is linked both to Arab culture and to violation of basic human rights. The veil/hija¯b, husband– ˙ wife relationships, polygamy, inheritance and individual liberty all come into heated discussions of all sorts (feminist, and human rights discussions) not so much as ill-fated practices within themselves, but in a manner which questions the fairness, validity and rationality of Islamic thought. Here, yet another equation is at play: ‘Islam ¼ culture ¼ Arab culture ¼ the negative of modern culture. In reality, the agreement and contrasts are between modern West and premodern cultures’.53 The result is that Islam, Islamic social practice and Muslims are devalued, denounced, and globally exteriorized and marginalized. The inadequacy of Islam and Muslims is also announced and asserted. It is the inadequacy within a modern context to: provide the intellectual foundations needed; provide the means for social, economic and political organization; essentially, to provide a space for the fulfilment of human nature, for the fulfilment of human rights, and for the movement towards a predefined concept of progress and development. These practices constitute what al-Azmeh defines as ‘cultural differentialism’: ‘an essential perceptive system premised on the notion of a pregiven “culture”, which, like race, has no sociological definition [. . .] coined to schematize without precision an indeterminate reality

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[. . .] it is put forward to indicate sheer difference’.54 This practice creates a ‘stigma of otherness, of iconic character, that purport visibly to represent the culture in question in its entirety’;55 it is a practice that is absolutizing of the self (West), and that is an exoticism of the ‘other’ (East), creating and sustaining boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. The ‘absence of a genuine perspective’ on Islam and Islamic social life has serious implications and consequences, one of which is of importance to the understanding of the predicament of identity: ‘this reductive image of Islam has had ascertainable results in the world of Islam itself ’.56 Muslim self-interpretation currently incorporates and requires the act of accepting and integrating Western thought and social practice, as it also enforces the acceptance and integration of Western thought on Islam and Muslims. This does not necessarily take the form of healthy self-reflection and criticism. Western knowledge and representation of Islam, Islamic social practice and Muslims become part of Muslim self-interpretation, a part of Muslim conception and understanding of the self. This form of subjectivity induces schizophrenic states of wanting to be like the ‘other’, yet maintaining difference: a simultaneous celebration of sameness and difference. Attesting social, cultural and political (civilizational) viability and capability is part and parcel of Muslim need to assert the validity of Islam and Islamic ideology. Muslims are undergoing a constant state of change or transformation and are experiencing a constant need to prove the capacity for change and progress in competition with another system of thought that threatens, or is perceived to threaten, the sustainability of Islam and Islamic thought systems. This has led to extreme forms of religious expression, intellectual and ‘perpetual disequilibrium’,57 inwardness, perpetual fear, suspicion and apprehension (paranoia), and intellectual and cultural stagnation. This has led to the inclusion and exclusion of parts of Islamic ideology and parts of Western ideology, generally speaking, based on Western knowledge and representation of Islam and Muslims. This act is an expression of the desire for inclusion in a modern civilization as defined by Western thought systems. The ‘loss of intellectual confidence and direction’58 has also resulted in states of exile. The marginalization, dehumanization and denouncement of Islam, Islamic social practice, and by implication Muslims, has led to a certain level of anxiety in relation to Islam and being

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Muslim. Whether in the media or in academia, Muslims are qualified typologically on the basis of proximity to the West and Western discourses (modernity, democracy, progress, civilization). For instance, the conception of liberal Islam has much more to do with ideas conceived outside the world of Islam ‘adapted and used towards democratization and liberalization efforts closer to home’.59 The discourse on Islam and Muslims typologically qualifies Muslims in a way that eliminates the space for religiosity. To be religious is qualified more in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment terms: belief in the transcendental is both superstitious and backward; to express piety in social practice is a display of incoherence; and to express religion within the public sphere is an abomination. Moderate and liberal conceptions of Islam, and thus, moderate and liberal Muslims, are given a greater space for expression and are given a great level of encouragement. Both globalization and knowledge and representation on Islam and Muslims have given rise to a growth of Muslims with a ‘number of contesting perspectives on the function of religious knowledge in Islam’ in a way that allows for Islam to cut across and infuse ‘a number of disparate orientations toward knowledge [orienting social thought and practice in a variety of ways] without necessarily becoming the organizing principle of authoritative discourse’.60 This places the Muslim who chooses to adhere to the fundamental principles of Islam in a rather small and suffocated/suffocating space, exacerbating feelings of exteriority, of marginality, of exile, and of existential anxiety.

CHAPTER 4 NARRATING ISLAM, MODERNITY AND MUSLIM IDENTITY (MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY—PRESENT)

The loss of intellectual capital, the decentralization of religious knowledge (and authority) and its inaccessibility, and the states of discord and exile can be charted within the context of the interactions between modernity and secularism, or secular modernity, Islam and the attempt at the constitution of a Muslim identity in relation to Islam (its discourse and body of knowledge) and socio-cultural and socio-political realities. In Egypt, the Muslim imagination has been preoccupied with various contingencies to do with larger issues of the centrality of Islam, its discourse and worldview, Islamic cultural presence and representation, and Muslim identity. This preoccupation was of an increasing complexity and ambivalence as its relation to modernity (and its discourse), identity and progress became less defined. As various intellectual and ideological visions were introduced into Egypt, the task increased in complexity on ideological and practical levels; the task to decipher became all the more complex. The period between 1919 and 1952, a period in which various intellectual and ideological visions for Egypt collided, mingled and intermixed, marked the onset of a change in consciousness and a struggle with identity expressing a dislocation between modern discourse and Islamic discourse and cosmopolitanism, and the ambivalence towards the means to mending fissures between

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them. More importantly, it marked the beginning of a change in consciousness in relation to the understanding of religion, religious space and religious identity, complicating incrementally religious identity and religiosity. This struggle expressed itself in more deeply entrenched and more complex ways beyond this period, as the place of religion became all the more dislocated, and the means to placing it more ambivalent with the introduction of new challenges (the universalization of modern discourse, life, values and morality, globalization, September 11, and the increasing international dissidence with regard to Islam). Modernity and Islam have been perceived to be on opposite poles of the existential dimension. This is precisely because the tension between the two is a tension of orientation, and of authority.1 Modernity presents societies with a new perspective on authority. Within modern societies, thoughts, actions, behaviours and morals are self-legitimated, and individual worth, responsibility and agency are re-constituted. Within a modern order, religion submits to this structure: it is to be a private matter of individual practice, but one that does not invade the individual right to personal choice and freedom.2 This makes it impossible to identify and construct a collective rationality, or a collective moral sensibility stemming from religious discourse, and so nationalism became the religion of modern society.3 Thus a modern individual, and a modern society, become enlightened and modern in both content and structure. Secularism is an essential component for the structure of modern society thus defined. As Talal Asad explains, there are elements of the secularization process that are central to modernity: ‘(1) increasing structural differentiation of social spaces resulting in the separation of religion from politics, economy, science, and so forth; (2) the privatization of religion within its own sphere; and, (3) the declining social significance of religious belief, commitment, and institutions’.4 Religion, the structure of religious authority or presence and representation, and religious expression and religious identity become subjects of this alteration. Public space becomes emptied of God and the sacred, various sectors of society become liberated from the role of religion and religious control, and religion becomes an element of the private identity of a people. ‘The nation becomes an expression of the disenchantment of the world’ and the need for the constitution of a secular imagination of a community.5 Though modernity should not preclude religious

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imagination, modernity’s relationship to secularism (secular modernity) imposes such a philosophy, whereby the necessary equation is: ‘modernity, secularism, individualism, and the nation coming together in a seamless and unquestioned sequence’.6 Secular modernity then is conceptualized as religion’s other in various senses; secularism is the construction of secular space, whereby space and time are both material and determinate (scientific, not left to fate), existence is subject to mechanical laws (not supernatural), knowledge is of reason not the imagination, and belief is rendered possible through evidence, the reality of the seen and the knowable. The practical consequence of this is a duality (of belief/knowledge, imagination/reason, sacred/profane) that imposes a finely defined conception of progress. The worldly disposition for secularism renders religion and religious belief as mythical, and religion as a ‘misrepresentation of the real’. Being part of the world society, to progress as a nation, new conceptions must take to the fore: the social sphere is reconstituted, secularism is institutionalized, a new mode of government based on a new form of subject-hood is conceived, and the religious is delimited.7 Secular modernity is equated with progress, while religion is equated with backwardness and conservatism.8 With the introduction of modernity (or its concept) into Egypt, there were attempts to define the term ‘secularism’. These attempts are very telling of the understanding that penetrated the intellectual scene in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the profound changes accompanied by it. Secularism was translated as ‘ilma¯niyyah derived from ‘ilm or science, and ‘alama¯niyyah derived from ‘a¯lm or world, denoting worldly, and dunyawiyah ‘meaning that which is worldly, mundane or temporal’.9 These meanings sustained the pre-existing dualities within the discourse of secular modernity; they manifested oppositional thoughts, thought processes, and structures: religion and reason, ‘asa¯lah ˙ and mu‘a¯sarah, religion and state, religion and science.10 As a ˙ concept that was introduced through the context of colonialism, and modernization as Westernization, the term denoted a process through which Islam is to be delimited and marginalized, society restricted to reflect this break, and the severing of cultural roots or the break with the past.11 While various Western theorists (Kant and Durkheim) have indicated the respect for the contribution of inherited religion to society: a source of social cohesion, the ‘centrality to social identities’, and the

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provision of and advocacy for ethics or ‘ethical living’, secular modernity has increasingly diminished the role that religion has in public life12 and so its role in private life and identity. Furthermore, the articulation of secularism within the Arab world in the form of dichotomous definitions and constructions of reality has made conceptions of reality and living it more nebulous.13 Secularism has been articulated to denote the necessity of marginalizing religion and its role in the public sphere, and so religion has been deprived of its role in society. The state apparatus claimed sole legitimacy. Talal Asad explains how the nation became the ultimate expression of secular modernity in Egypt: law was reconfigured (disentangled from religion, dual courts of secular and religious were abolished by Nasser), religious authority was transformed (the transformation of Shari‘ah law, and the ‘reformation of Islamic tradition’), as were ethics (ethics as derived from faith or the precepts of the Shari‘ah were no longer the concern, increasingly individual and communal moralities governed).14 There are practical consequences of the deinstitutionalization of Islam and its disengagement from the various arenas of the public sphere. These consequences present themselves through various practical, ideological or psychological and existential dilemmas to do with religious identity and religiosity. Religious identity remains largely undefined, and any definition of Muslim identity currently is wrought with complexities and problematic. The question then arises: how can one define and situate Muslim identity in a study to do with the displacement of Islam, consequent (religious) identity trouble, and conflicted religiosity? Identity theorists suggest that identity is largely defined by: (1) various factors, such as nationality, race, class, family relations, job, income, education, religion and political convictions; (2) a prominent association with a type of identity.15 In defining Muslim identity one would like to suggest: (1) Islam should be a way in which individual identity is defined; (2) it should follow that Islam is a prominent feature in such an identity. Muslim identity should be both an ascribed and a chosen identity.16 What designates the degree of identity trouble and the degree of strife in

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realizing Islam and modernity is the proximity to Islam and its discourse (in identity, thought and practice). Various levels of ontological insecurity and existential crisis and anxieties can reveal themselves on the basis of that proximity. As individuals or selves negotiate between Islam and Islamic discourse and knowledge production on it; the sociopolitical and existential scene; the intimate communal realities; and various other existing ideologies (culture and traditionalism, nationalism, Westernism, globalism, worldliness) as introduced and produced through the socio-cultural and socio-political scene, varying degrees of complexity to do with religiosity and religious identity are further revealed, various levels of complexity arise. Muslims experience ontological insecurity and existential anxieties to varying degrees based on the negotiation between the Muslim self (as it is situated in relation to Islam) and the various other exigencies in their lived realities. Some of these complexities, as presented through various practical, ideological or psychological and existential dilemmas to do with religious identity and religiosity, can be mapped here. First, as intellectual capital and collective memory are disrupted, the dilemma presented is how to articulate and deal with the oppositional encounter of secular modernity and Islam. As religious meaning becomes increasingly decentred and inaccessible, the dilemma presented is how to articulate the prominence and dominance of the ‘authority of the sciences’ in all spheres of knowledge, and ‘the monopoly over world knowledge’.17 Finally, as states of discord and exile are eminent as a result of the loss of intellectual capital and collective memory, and the decentrality and inaccessibility of religious meaning, the dilemma becomes one of how to consolidate and appropriate the new conception of subjectivity, and deal with the burden of moral autonomy. In the structuring of the nation state in Egypt, and in the ‘disentanglement’ of religion and its gradual disengagement from various spheres of performance, the individual is subjected to questions of ontology and epistemology. If within the Islamic sense of being, a hierarchy of existence prevails providing a sense of ‘being’ as expressed by Adams and a ‘Muslim ontological consciousness and self-perception’ as explained by Ahmet Davutoglu,18 then one wonders how the opposition between such a self-definition and awareness takes place with that of secular modernity. Islam encourages a self-consciousness embedded within a larger scope of relations between man and God that dictate purposes,

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wills, functions and ends. The hierarchy of existence necessitates an ontological self-consciousness that is defined by this hierarchy and further reveals its necessary embodiment through the link between ontology and epistemology and the various levels of existence.19 Secular modernity necessitates the break in this link. Within Egypt, this has come in the form of the ‘weakening of traditional self-perception’ and ‘replacing it with a new civilizational self-perception’,20 stemming from the elements of secular modernity and a newly defined meta-narrative providing a new ontology and epistemology. Azzam Tamimi indicates that through the adoption of secular modernity as the means towards the end of progress, and the construction of the ‘new’ nation, Islam became marginalized and ‘excluded from the process of re-structuring society’.21 Egyptian territorial nationalism was a means towards defining a ‘new’ nation/ civilization, creating and sustaining in the process a new meta-narrative as a source of both ontology and epistemology defining ‘being’, and selfperception and self-consciousness. Through effective severing of the nation’s ties to its cultural roots and officiating its break with the past, the Islamic meta-narrative is marginalized, Islamic traditions are delimited in sphere and thus scope, Islamic presence within the public sphere of knowledge (whether in politics, economics, law or education) is redefined, downsized or eliminated, thus ensuring a change in consciousness and self-perception. The state effectively reconstructed national space, and maintained control over religious presence and representation, and over religious meaning. Thus, in the process of national creation, a radically different ontology and epistemology emerges. The new systems of meaning do not sustain the continuity of religious narrative or religiously derived ontology and epistemology and their presence and authority in identity and through religiosity. They de-root society, its structures, and the individual from the past and its sources of knowledge.22 Tradition is no longer a direct source of ‘being’, territory is; the territory and the heritage derived from this geography (Pharaonism) ‘becomes synonymous with identity’.23 This is evident in two seminal narratives, Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the Spirit (1933) and Muhammad Haykal’s Zaynab ˙ ˙ (1914); both are the subject of detailed discussion in this book. Both reflect a vision of a nation in which individuals attempt a modern realization of individual existence, one that predicates a national will in

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reference to individual benefit of its members. Egyptians form an organic whole through the prominence of the binding traits that are presumed to be distinct to their territory. They assume a vision of progress defined by a universalized conception of morality, a watered-down form of morality, one based on the homogeneity of human existence and individual interest: that of justice, human rights, equality (class-based, genderbased) and individual freedom or liberty. Privilege is not on the basis of religious distinction or piety, and the enactment of Islamic theory of existence; rather, privilege is that of national unity, the foundation of which is a common belief in ancestral pride and heritage as a means towards progress. Thus the hierarchy of existence as present within the discourse of Islam is delimited in functionality and scope. In Return of the Spirit a new form of religion is introduced: the religion of nationalism. The welldefined relationship between man and God, and the ontology and epistemology of individual existence thus informed becomes a matter of the private sphere, one subject to individual choice and freedom. In Haykal’s Zaynab attempts at the reconstruction of religious importance are evident. In the process of resolving the opposition between what is modern and what is traditional, religious traditions become the subject of reflection, and criticism, superimposing the desire for progress, and the expression of an individual will that supersedes the prominence of religious traditions. The transformation in consciousness and in self-perception is further embodied in the dilemma of the degraded position of the past, the eternal status of religion, and the desire to seek progress. This dilemma expresses itself in a distressed sense of identity, and conflicted understanding of the ontological status of Islam in personal narrative, leading to tensions, conflicts and unresolved stances. This has been reflected in many fictional narratives of the encounter with modernity, and the tension between East and West, of which Yahya Hakki’s The Lamp of Umm Hashim (1944) and Tawfı¯q al-Hakı¯m’s ‘Arinı¯ Allah’ (1953) ˙ are prime examples. Both narratives suggest the dualism and opposition of the traditional and modern, or the old and new; they both represent the dilemma of religion situated by secular modernity as the frame of the past, and the struggle with its enduring place as an eternal tradition. In ‘Arinı¯ Allah’ a son asks his father to show him God: ‘Father, you speak much about Allah [. . .] show me Allah’.24 The father is perplexed

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by the question, realizing that he has not seen God himself, he is unable to reveal Him to his son. This reveals the difficulty of finding the sacred and the dilemma of a disenchanted world: how does a person of religion realize faith or religiosity in a sphere empty of both? The father immediately embarks on the quest to find God, and so he roams the city asking people for an answer, people al-Hakı¯m describes as ‘disengaged ˙ from God, and from His presence in their worldly affairs’.25 In his quest he realizes that men of religion cannot give him the answer to his need; God is not in religious knowledge. He also learns from a devotee that God can only be revealed to the soul, if man gains love for God.26 Advised to humbly ask for the love of God (‘half of an atom’ of it); the devotee prays that he does attain this amount of love, and so it is realized. The end of this quest is ‘madness’ as described by the people of the city: he isolates himself in the mountains, and devotes his self and life to God, so much so that he neglects his son. Although in the ending of this short story the grand effect of the love of God on man is an element, what it reveals is the complexity of the secular– sacred dilemma: (1) the worldly and its plane are characterized as devoid of the sacred, and the two are irreconcilable in the affairs and soul of man; (2) men of religion are unable to, from within the discourse of Islam, conceptualize a means to reconciling the duality of the worldly or the modern and the religious, and so seeking ‘faith’ becomes the sole task of the individual; (3) those who realize religiosity are to do so in solitude; they are exiles from the sphere of the worldly. This dilemma is also taken up in The Lamp of Umm Hashim. The novella suggests the penetration of a secular consciousness and the decentralization of religion as a crisis of identity and of self-perception. Ismail is sent by his father to Europe for a ‘brighter future’ with great apprehension. This is described by Hakki: ‘A generation was annihilating itself so that a single member of its progeny might come into being’.27 The generation to be annihilated is one focused on religious observance, though it is one wrought with ignorance, poverty and superstitious beliefs. The brighter future sought is not defined by the turban of ignorance (‘under the turban a monkey you will find’),28 but by modern

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science; thus, the duality. Ismail embarks to Europe to gain a degree in the sciences, and in the process a new philosophy on life is acquired. His experiences can be characterized by growth, experimentation and individual formation. However, those related to individual ontology are most telling; a clear shift takes place whereby his identity is no longer framed and defined by Islamic ontology. He learns to appreciate nature as opposed to religious logic (and constraint); he learns to rely in personal formation on his desires and quest for unfettered freedom, not ‘his religion and his faith, his upbringing and his roots’; and he learns to be a self-interested individual, not one invested in the benefit of all.29 This change in his consciousness was initially a ‘source of bewilderment’; however, it enables him to ‘cast aside religious belief’ and substitute it for a ‘stronger faith in science’.30 Ismail’s divided self begins to arise upon his return to Egypt, where the two (religion and science) meet. Seeing himself as an ‘enlightened’ man, and so ontologically closer to secular consciousness, he becomes critical of religious traditions, or practices associated with the sacred, revealing a contested sense of identity and self-perception. In the prominence of scientific knowledge in his consciousness, religious practice or knowledge associated with the sacred and of belief (or the manifestations of) become difficult to rationalize and accept, so much so that this incites despair and disgust at the core of his being. A fissure is disclosed between his secular consciousness, and the Muslim reality and ontology. Disturbed by the ‘faith’ of his folk, and the failure of his scientific knowledge, he finds that he is unable to consolidate modern science and religious knowledge, and so he feels a sense of alienation from his own roots. Hakki offers the formula for resolving the dilemma: ‘There is no knowledge without faith’;31 it is only then that Ismail gains a sense of groundedness in his life. This formula fails in Naguib Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy (1956–57) though it is advanced as a possibility. The characters of Kamal and Riyad are most representative of the dilemma of a displaced religious ontology. Kamal represents the way in which reason and faith intersect, while Riyad represents a scientific or artistic bent on religion or religiosity; both reveal the various contradictions in the formation of a Muslim self. Both are displaced from Islamic theory of existence, from Islamic ontology, and both reflect a de-traditionalized and de-historicized consciousness. While Kamal gradually loses his faith in religion and

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devotes his life to a quest for ‘truth’, whatever truth may be or he may discover it to be, Riyad advances an artistic perspective on life. They both express the inability to find definition and a secure source of knowledge stemming from their own faith. Kamal, however, is most representative of the inability to find a stable theoretical or ideological ground from which to secure an ontological and epistemological awareness and certainty. This becomes reflected in his life and in his writing. Kamal begins his journey for knowledge for the sake of knowledge and a quest for truth as a young man wanting to answer existential questions that can define his being, his present and his future: ‘What is God? What is man? What is the spirit? What is matter?’ This was a goal that to him characterized knowledge, Enlightenment, progress, a refined human spirit: a rising high above ‘the material world’. His interest in knowledge and in truth was in the intersection between an unshaken belief in God, and in the discovery of all forms of knowledge: ‘literary and social and social essays, religious ones, the folk epic about Antar [. . .] the writings of al-Manfaluti, and the principles of philosophy’.32 His spirit begins to be disturbed as he realizes that the era of religion has passed;33 his religious knowledge and principles come into direct conflict with the socio-cultural reality (one that is disengaged with the sacred), and with modern forms of knowledge that conflict with his understanding of religion, and its sacred truths. As he represents the quest and ability for modernity and religiosity (groundedness), he also represents the futility of the endeavour given the socio-cultural and socio-political realities. A discord is revealed between his own religious consciousness and that of the new secular culture of the elite, through which his personal theory for groundedness (a quest for knowledge and Enlightenment, and religiosity) is challenged. In one instance Aida and Husayn, friends of an elite class he wishes to associate with on various levels, offer him alcohol and ham. They express a certain level of contingency with regard to Islamic thought, or Islamic prescriptions. Upon his refusal on religious grounds, he is challenged, and defined as a ‘Hanbali fundamentalist’: ‘A glass of beer doesn’t make you drunk, and ham is delicious and good for you. I don’t see the wisdom of letting religion intrude in matters of diet’.34 Kamal is perplexed: religious injunctions are downgraded in their seriousness and in their sacred and therefore unquestionable nature,

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and furthermore, his choice to adhere to basic injunctions is associated with one of the more strict schools of thought in Sunni Islam (to denote his extremity in practice). In another instance, he is urged to indulge his sexual desires. He objects: ‘I can’t meet God in my prayers when my under-clothes are soiled’. His friend Fuad replies: ‘wash and cleanse yourself before you pray’. Kamal instead believes that ‘water cannot wash away sin’.35 This alludes to Skovgaard-Petersen’s double consequence of secularization: (1) choices are expanded; (2) religious commitments become dependent on subjective judgement (‘ethical autonomy and aesthetic self-invention’). The characters situated in a ‘disenchanted world’ employ secular reason, as opposed to religious meaning.36 As his religious sensibility is questioned, and the sacred status of religious meaning is questioned and religious ontology is degraded, he reaches a point in his development where he cannot sustain religious meaning or religious ontology. He finds that modern forms of scientific knowledge leave many questions unanswered from within the religious corpus of knowledge, and further, they contest that corpus. In thinking over Darwin’s theory he cannot explain the creation story, the truth of the Qur’an, and the existence of God. He resorts to a belief in God, but not in religion, for it is ‘a legend’, its historical narrative is false, and an intelligent man cannot ‘set his mind against science’.37 In the absence of a religious ontology, in its inaccessibility within the (ideological) structure of a secular modern order, he attempts to redefine and re-create his being and identity using its discourse and rhetoric: ‘materialist philosophy’. The world was not created by God, God did not create Adam; the big bang theory and Darwinism explain the origin of the universe and the origin of man, respectively. Kamal did not come from Adam and Eve, but from an act of love.38 A woman, her body and beauty, is likened to a Mecca, and the communion of laughter to the call for ‘prayer’, and the values more precious to identity are expressed as those of liberty, the abandonment of all ‘truths’, a self-centred appreciation of life and beauty, and an annihilation of the religious.39 Existence and values within in it all become transformed to reveal a more material and secular nature of being. Meaning and value, good and evil, truth and belief all

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become watered down to reflect this lucid, and undirected, and undefined meaning; this is reflected in Kamal’s being and existence. Kamal loses his religiosity through an inability to access religious discourse in modern contexts, and through its degraded position. While Kamal struggles to cling to his religious beliefs, his philosophy and the search for truth, Riyad simply chooses to be a sceptic: ‘we know nothing about God. Who can really say he doesn’t believe in God? Or that he does? The prophets are the only true believers’. Given this logic, he supposes himself to have ‘abandoned’ religion, yet reveals a contradiction, the belief in prophet-hood and in a will of God: ‘But I believe in science and art. I always shall, God willing’.40 The debate and its accompanying tensions are extended to the next generation; this is represented by Kamal’s two nephews Abd al-Muni’m and Ahmad. While Abd al-Muni’m becomes a Brotherhood member, Ahmad takes on socialism as a religion and philosophy of life. Abd al-Muni’m sees that in faith and belief there is a means to defining the self, and a means to progress, while for Ahmad it is in the development of ‘society based on science’.41 Conflicts and contradictions are revealed in these portrayals. They contest on belief, the applicability of religion and in what circumstances, and on old versus new values. Kamal, though, lives forever as a tourist, a philosopher, always at the ‘cross-roads’ without an ability to make any ideological or practical commitments in his life; he offers a resolution at the end of the trilogy: independence and the principles of social justice are the common ground, and means forward.42 Ultimately there are resonating tensions between what is ‘traditional’ and what is ‘modern’ (in identity, level of religiosity, in thought systems and truth claims, and suppositions of contemporaneity). These characters question the very foundations of their faith, in testament to the tension between modernity and religion, and their respective discourses and forms of knowledge. This tension causes a discord in Muslim identity, consciousness and levels of religiosity: does one sever all ties to the past? Does one re-create the past? How does one strip oneself from an individual ontology intimately linked to this past? Can the self be stripped of the self? How can one resist a traditional consciousness, one meant to define every aspect of one’s existence, and realize an idea of the self, and of progress not entirely clear, whole and complete? How does one move forward, and to what end? What

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segments are to be resisted, what can be accommodated, what can be changed or remain unchanged within Islamic discourse, and how does one validate its presence within a modern thought system and a modern life? All of these questions, whether on the level of ideology, or in practical contexts, prove difficult to answer, to decipher; thus, the tensions, the unresolved selves, the dilemmas and divided selves. Davutoglu explains that a central dynamic in a movement towards increased secularization has been the ‘mismatch between the traditional way of legitimation through religious value systems and attempts to re-establish all spheres of social life by a process of legitimation based on rhetoric of the values of ideological positivism’. This mismatch has created ‘severe discord’ within individual consciousness ‘between the surviving structures of traditional civilizations and the new structures of the political and economic institutions on the one hand and between the secular culture of elite and popular traditional/religious mass culture on the other’.43 The discontinuity and inconsistency in historical narrative and its structures meant a difficulty in defining ontology, a perturbed self-perception, and discord on the level of identity and religiosity. In this movement towards de-traditionalization and de-historicization the ‘absence of a collective consciousness’ has been the end result:44 the absence of a collective memory, a centralized intellectual capital, and the inaccessibility of religious meaning. Adrift on the Nile (1966), by Mahfouz, is a novel discussing this existential dilemma; it exemplifies the ambivalence, the state of being adrift, in the absence of structure and direction, and the state of being in discord as society is de-traditionalized and de-historicized. This novel is viewed by El-Enany as a political novel filled with despair over the condition of Egypt post 1952;45 however, one can read it for the struggle between old and new, and more importantly, for the resonating antistructure (the loss of a referential point), and the overbearing ambivalence, loss of meaning, and the collapse of belief, ‘a belief in anything’.46 The novel charts the lives of characters through meetings set on a boat where undirected and uncentred discussions about politics, the state of society, history and meaning (the lack thereof) are a subject. The boat serves as an escape from a despairing reality, as paradoxically it is life itself represented: ‘the truth is that we are not Egyptian or Arab or human; we belong to nothing and no one – except this houseboat’.47 Their lives, and thus selves, are revealed to be at a loss, uncentred, and

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without meaning. In an existence without meaning, they attempt to define meaning, in a way that suggests the collapse of all values: nothing is absolute, everything is trivial, absurdity is a state that can be believed in; ‘the higher basis on which life’s meaning had formerly rested [. . .] had now gone forever’, and neither the historical past nor the present offer answers, only contradictions.48 Samara attempts through her writing to shed light on this existential dilemma, the ‘absurdity’, the ‘loss of meaning’ and ‘the collapse of belief’ through which religion and morality become central questions. She writes: What must be studied in this context is the problem of religious people who take the path of the absurd. They are not lacking in faith, but still in practical sense, they lead futile lives. How can this be explained? Have they misunderstood the nature of religion? Or is it their faith which is unreal, which is a matter of routine – a rootless faith, which serves merely as a cover for the most vile kinds of opportunism and exploitation?49 She urges that once again meaning must be found in a new language of man, as religion once has offered meaning, to realize ‘truth’, ‘progress’, ‘success’ and ‘knowledge’, one that provides ‘an ethical system in an age when morals are crumbling’.50 The irony is that as religion, religiosity and morals stemming from them lose ground, religion becomes part of the absurdity they live in. The irony is also that in a moment that necessitates both responsibility and morality, they falter. Amm Abduh, the keeper of the houseboat, represents the integration of religion in this realm of the absurd, the inconsequential and the ambivalent. He calls to prayer and acts as a pimp,51 and in this contradiction, one finds that religion, devoid of sacred quality or links to its ontology, becomes part of and enabling to the profane. At the moment of true crisis, when meaning and morality should arise, and consciousness be revealed, the characters of the novel are unable to access them. They hit a man with a car, and flee. What remains is the individual, uncentred and unguided. As sources of knowledge and their accessibility are eroded, as the pre-existing social and ideological forms disintegrate, the individual is left to his/her own individuality in structuring his/her realities, systems of thought, and in

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writing his/her own biographies. Ulrich Beck explains that in the ‘plunge’ into modernity ‘God, nature, truth, science, morality, love, marriage’, family, and gender roles are turned into ‘precarious freedoms’; individuals select from a ‘variety of sacred universes’ open to them.52 Morality itself becomes contingent on personal preference. As ‘new modes of life’ come into being, as old ones ordained by religion and religious traditions are deconstructed or degraded, the individual is wrought with multiple choices, and multiple levels of complexity, whereby this freedom of choice becomes a burden or a responsibility.53 The result is that ‘Life loses its self-evident quality’; forms of ‘predefined’ certainty slowly disintegrate, and the human being ‘becomes a choice among possibilities’. The individual becomes ‘overtaxed’ by ‘countless authorities’ intervening in his or her understanding of the self, the understanding of traditions, and in the construction of new forms of thought, and new forms of social structures and their functionality.54 In an existence defined by discord and exile, particularly in relation to religion (its knowledge systems and traditions), religiosity (means to and forms of), and religious identity, individuals are ambivalent. Mahfouz’s The Journey of Ibn Fattouma (1983) is an allegory of loss, and the search for sacred truth, and so a good example. The character of Ibn Fattouma embarks on a journey for truth, for religious truth and certainty as prescribed by Divine authority, after realizing its absence in the world of Islam and the need for its reinstatement. He travels to four geographical regions representing four distinct ideologies and means for social, cultural and political organization: paganism in ‘The Land of Mashriq’; monarchy in ‘The Land of Haira’; capitalist democracy in ‘The Land of Halba’; and atheist communism in ‘The land of Aman’.55 In his travels he sets comparisons between what he learns and observes in these lands with the land of Islam. Through these comparisons the ills of Islamic society are revealed. For instance, in ‘The Land of Mashriq’ he sees similar ‘outward signs of misery’ and poverty as those in the world of Islam; he realizes that in the world of Islam true brotherhood is absent, and that while Islam is ‘wonderful’, life in the world of Islam is pagan.56 There is no ‘evil’ that he encountered in his journey that does not remind him of his ‘unhappy country’.57 This journey though likened by many authors to Ibn Battuta’s journey,58 can be read as a journey through the various ideological manifestations of truth, and the realization of reality and the self in a modern context. Ibn Fattouma’s

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travels could as well be comparable to the complexity of the modern scene, and the over-taxation of the self with ways of understanding the world, and the self within it. Although Ibn Fattouma approaches this journey with a spirit for a search for knowledge and truth, he does so out of a feeling that something is amiss, not out of a certainty of what should be in the land of Islam. His sense of loss and uncertainty is compounded by the absence of the religious structure of knowledge, and the absence of the religious itself in life. He, thus, investigates a crisis of a civilization and of a faith without aid, guidance, or direction, subjectively and reflexively. Ibn Fattouma, thus undefined and without direction, loses himself in each one of these ideologies. As he entered new lands he would ‘relinquish’ the one left behind and ‘remould in a new form’.59 Though he is keen on rationalizing whether they do or do not constitute worthy systems for social, cultural and political organization, his lack of direction allows for this freedom to indulge, to be at a loss, to be absorbed, to borrow and emulate, and be taken over by the ideology of choice. His failure to find ‘The Land of Gebel’ in which the solution was to be found, is the epitome of his loss, and the loss of the religious and cultural certainty that ‘used to be Islam’.60 The taxing inability to manoeuvre in life is evident in more practical terms in Latifa al-Zayyat’s (1923– 96) The Open Door (1960).61 Though it has been described as a novel that is about the becoming of a nation, one paralleled with that of the becoming of Layla,62 one can read it with attentiveness to the openness with which Layla approaches life as it is reconstructed, and the complexities she faces. In facing various practical complexities to do with women’s education, marriage, gender roles, social engagement, conservatism and morality, the pains of individuation, and the fragmented nature of her living experience are revealed. What often is the centre of concern in her discovery of her ‘new womanhood’ and in her individuality is that she must negotiate between the ‘fundamentals’ (predefined notions for social thought and practice), as represented by her parents, and between all that is ‘new’ in the evolving social and cultural contexts. Her pains and anxieties stem from the inability to decipher, for definitions are most often blurred, and future possibilities are undefined – particularly as the place of the ‘fundamentals’ is questioned. Though she is told by her parents that ‘The one who knows the fundamentals does not suffer’,63 she opts for the

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pains of the ‘new’ realities in realizing her sense of womanhood and freedom – and in the process learns that it is at the cost of traditions, that the multiple complexities of the ‘new’ offer little certainty, and that contradictions are rampant. Some of the complexities she encounters are: conflicting views on women; the troubling and contradictory intertwining of conservatism and sexuality, a confrontation of traditional morality and modern morality as sexuality; the questioning of the authenticity of traditions; the bewildering new world of university life, and its pluralities; and the confusing mesh of conservatism as complacency and submissiveness.64 There is no question that the general Muslim condition can be characterized with discord and exile. In looking at the narrative expression of the dilemma of identity and religiosity, one also sees a search for solutions, for stability, for authenticity. It is in striking a balance between religion and modernity as Hakki expresses; in finding a new language to speak through in modern contexts as Mahfouz suggests in Adrift on the Nile; or perhaps it is never to be realized except in an ulterior state of existence or life as suggested in The Journey of Ibn Fattouma; or it is simply in an openness to newness, to change and to modernity as al-Zayyat suggests. In all these varied searches and narrative conclusions, one finds the discord, and the unrelenting desire to make sense of the world.

Conclusion Egyptian Writing and the Search for Authenticity The loss of intellectual capital, the decentralization of religious meaning (and authority) and its inaccessibility, and the states of discord and exile with regard to Islam and Muslim identity impose a search for authenticity. They impose a search for an authentic Muslim identity, and an authentic and self-sufficient Muslim discourse. According to Bennett, this search is: (1) a response to the trauma felt by ‘Western influence’ and a means for withdrawing away from it; (2) a claim of an ‘authentic Islam’ over ‘liberal Islam’ that has become a trend; (3) a means for coping with the upsurges and fluctuations of change.65

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The Islamic and Muslim dilemma has been to continuously ‘find a way of coming to terms with cultural modernity and simultaneously maintaining authenticity’.66 Within a contemporary framework, the visibility of the failure to do so is undeniable: polarities, pluralities, exile and schizophrenic selves are what comprise Muslim societies. A greater pull away from Islam and a greater pull towards it are prevalent, creating the polarities of extremism, and superficiality. The resurgence of Islam and the preoccupation of all concerns/issues Islamic is representational of this search for authenticity. Authenticity, or ’asa¯lah, is a concept that expresses the double meaning of origins and ˙ purity, an ‘essential homogeneity’, Islamic continuity, and specifically defined Islamic identity and order.67 The search for authenticity represents the search for these. This struggle for authenticity is a result of the failure of modernizing and secular states to provide ‘legitimate basis for political participation’; the failure of ‘secular nationalism and Marxism’ ‘to produce economic development and extend political participation’; and the greater need for a space for religion and religious representation and expression.68 While many authors suggest that the quest for authenticity has created totalitarian and exclusivist notions within the Muslim world, it is also valid to say that this same quest for authenticity may be the means to finding a greater balance between the overwhelming presence of Western modernity, and the importance of Islamic thought, practice and worldview. A series of Arab intellectuals concluded a conference in 1974 on ‘The Crisis of Civilizational Development in the Arab Homeland’ with the proposition that ‘Authenticity does not consist of literal clinging to the heritage but in setting out from it to what follows, and from its values to a new phase in which there is enrichment for it and development of its values’.69 Through a dialectical engagement with the past and the present, the quest for authenticity may be the means towards rediscovering the deeper meanings and essences of Islam and their re-engagement within current social, cultural, economic and political practice in a way that is liberating to the adherent of Islam, giving balance and equilibrium to Muslim life. These complex realities are a subject of great reflection within Egyptian writing. Writing within Egypt has been central to the expression of social, cultural and political realities. In looking at the various authors studied, one sees the representation of Muslim Egyptian

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society through them, whether in their own characters and realizations, or through their respective portrayals of the realities of their society. The authors studied: the Islamic modernists (Jamal al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Qasim Amin), the cultural critics and novelists (Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m and Taha Hussein), the Islamic intellectuals (Ahmad ˙ ˙ Amı¯n, ‘Abbas Mahmu¯d al-‘Aqqa¯d), and the novelists (Naguib Mahfouz, ˙ Baha Tahir, Abdel Hakim Qasim, Latifa al-Zayyat, Salwa¯ Bakr, and Alaa al-Aswany), voice their own dilemmas, the pains of their realities and of the pains of Muslim Egyptian society from their respective vantage points and time frames. They all come from varied educational, class-based and regional backgrounds; however, they all form content for the study of Muslim identity. Take, for instance, the characters of al-‘Aqqa¯d, Taha Hussein and Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m, they all represent the deep thought and ˙ anguish associated with a slowly emerging new world, and the search for authenticity, for a clearly defined Muslim identity, and for an Islamically defined social, cultural and political order. Another example would be that of Naguib Mahfouz and Alaa al-Aswany; from their respective vantage points there is an expression of dissidence with respect to extreme forms or expressions of Islam, and their own stances with regard to its viability. Despite that, their narratives are portrayals of Egyptian society, microcosmic views of larger Muslim Egyptian society, and the varied intricacies of negotiating between the Muslim self and the world. There is no question that Egyptian writing has been central in expressing and interrogating new ways of thought, in engaging in current issues, in expressing dilemmas, and in imagining solutions or alternatives. Crucial issues that are addressed include: ‘opposition to imperial domination, nationalist movements and the struggle for independence, and on the social plane [. . .] an examination of the process of revolution and the impact of societal change’.70 These writers, cultural critics, artistic writers and Islamic intellectuals express the complexities of their respective time frames in search of an authentic identity, society and nation. A significant part in the expression of this authentic cultural self, and the challenges posed to it, are expressions of the ‘impact of Western or modern culture upon Islam or the clash between Western and traditional Islamic values’.71 This forms content of significant importance to the predicament of identity experienced by Muslims within Egypt. As forms of indigenous narrative expression that is reflective of reality,72 Egyptian writing can be mapped for complex realities to do with

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Islam, Muslim identity and Islamic/Muslim presence. This writing can be reflective of the ideological and existential challenges posed to Islam, Islamic space and Muslim identity within Egyptian society. This spiritual space can be telling regarding its importance within Muslim experiential, existential and ideological contexts, as it can also be telling regarding geographical, ideological, experiential and existential spaces of proximity and distance to Western thought and practice, and the continuous negotiation between the two. Spiritual significance associated with locations, with time, with human interactions, with social, cultural, historical and religious traditions, among other things, will be of focus as a testament to social and historical reality (the reality of incoherence, imbalance and disturbance), and as a testament of the will to regroup and make sense of existence, and to ascertain viable alternatives.

PART II STATES OF CULTURAL CONTESTATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SELFDEFINITION (EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY—MIDTWENTIETH CENTURY)

Introduction The concern and struggle over the character and identity of Egypt has always been an element of modern Egyptian history. This began in the late nineteenth century and culminated in the early twentieth century, and has been a consistent element from then on. However, the nation as a central feature and referent for the creation and sustainability of identity and character was more prominently expressed than at any other time in Egyptian history within the period between the 1919 and 1952 revolutions. Goldschmidt describes this period or ‘era’, 1919 to 1952, as ‘the golden age for the written word in Egypt’;1 a plethora of writing within this period, from books to articles, expresses the struggle over the means to theorizing and realizing identity. This writing portrays the genesis of modern Egyptian society and the evolution of Egyptian (national and individual) identity. This writing is evidential of a nation in becoming, of the engagement with present complexities, and the search for an authentic voice and

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truth. H.K. Bhabha envisages the nation-space as ambivalent, because language and the discourse of the nation produced by it are wrought with uncertainty, as they are both expressing an ongoing process of articulation of the constant state of cultural transition. To Bhabha, the nation-space is a space in which ‘meanings may be partial because they are in medias res; and history may be half-made because it is in the process of being made; and the image of cultural authority may be ambivalent because it is caught, uncertainly, in the act of “composing” its powerful image’.2 Textual narratives of this time period express the ambivalence of a nation; they are a display of a gradually emerging postcolonial world that is continually contesting between ideologies, perspectives and worldviews. This process is historically evident (1919 and 1952). It is within this period that Egypt witnessed the increase in anti-colonial nationalist activity, the emergence of a highly active and ‘didactic press’ (both secularist and Islamic), a thriving reformation politics (important to government and a variety of domestic affairs, education and the status of women), and finally, an ‘increased societal application of modernized Islam’.3 All these developments contributed to the changing intellectual scene in Egypt, as they are a testament of a rapidly changing world, a changing consciousness, and an emerging society and identity ambivalent of its roots and ambivalent about the means to national progress. The turn into the twentieth century represented a shift in the understanding of national and individual identity in Egypt, an opening to wide horizons for various conceptual ideas. While within the nineteenth century the main focus was Islamic identity marked by an allegiance to its political representation, the Ottoman Empire and thus Caliphate, within the twentieth century Egypt saw the formation of alternative perspectives of identity. The tremendous institutional shift in focus during the nineteenth century from the sacred to the secular was a pretext to a new era of modernization and change. Within the twentieth century, loyalty and allegiance to the Caliphate were put to the test. While earlier manifestations of identity formation and colonial resistance highlighted the Islamic character of Egypt, new manifestations of identity formation and resistance highlighted its distinct territorial heritage, one that is separate from Islam. This transformation and the ability to imagine the ‘new’ Egyptian reality would not have been possible without the loss of the importance of three fundamental conceptions prevalent at the time:

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(1) ‘the idea that a particular script-language offered privileged access to ontological truth’; (2) ‘the belief that society was naturally organized around and under high centers [. . .] who ruled by some form of cosmological (divine) dispensation’; (3) ‘a conception of temporality in which cosmology and history were indistinguishable, the origins of the world and of men essentially identical’.4 Essentially, in the process of conceiving the nation, an inversion of values occurred; instead of imagining Egypt as part of a larger Islamic nation, Muslims become an element of Egyptian reality. It was a struggle between contemporaneity and authenticity. S. Selim asserts that ‘1919 is a landmark date from both a historical and literary point of view’. It is representative of popular interest in and the appeal of independence from British occupation, as it also represented the call for ‘the liberation of the individual from the shackles of “dead tradition” and antiquated social mores’ by the intelligentsia of the time.5 Profound changes in consciousness occurred requiring the minimization of the importance of religion and tradition. Intellectual communities through various means, ‘the press, journals, books, prose, poetry, and dramaturgy, and other diverse artefacts of literary culture’ alongside Western-inspired educational systems, infused Muslim Egyptian society with new means of self-identification and organization.6 A new sense of consciousness emerged as a result, one that perceives the necessity of imagining and creating a ‘new’, independent and modern Egyptian society. However, with time, the historical process of modernity produced a ‘fundamental dislocation’, one between discourse and experience. This was experienced by the intelligentsia of the early twentieth century who suffered a ‘profound sense of alienation’ and dislocation from the world they lived in as they attempted to create a ‘new world’. The deep admiration for Western progress led their predecessors to reject ‘tradition’ on various levels and in all its forms.7 They participated in a contradiction: an attempt at national creation through distancing from the West, while using Western nationalist discourse and conceptions of modernity to envision the nation and its progress. The inability to perceive their realities completely led to new attempts at reconfiguration and reorientation in the 1930s. It led to considerations of fundamental

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importance to the region’s historical, cultural, social and political realities, that of the Arab and the Islamic. These intellectual shifts are the subject of examination as indicators of the process of change, as a means to understanding the genesis of modern Egyptian society and identity, and as pretexts to eras of rupture, ambivalence and dislocation in the Egyptian sense of Muslim identity.

CHAPTER 5 NARRATING THE NATION: THE RISE OF EGYPTIAN (TERRITORIAL) NATIONALISM (1900—1930s)

Introduction Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski assert: The fullest and most important opinions about Egyptian national identity formulated during the period of the British occupation were the views advanced by the leaders of the political parties formed in the decade immediately preceding World War I [. . .] the ‘Nationalist Party’, founded by Mustafa Kamil, and the ‘Party of the Nation’, whose leading theoretician was Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid.1 Louis ‘Awad describes the nature of these ‘opinions’ as a struggle around the question of governance: ‘who owns Egypt, and governs it?’ To ‘Awad, the struggle over the nature of governance was a matter of choice between two distinct forms: ‘the Egyptian bourgeoisie under European rule, or the Turks under the rule of the Ottomans’.2 These clearly represent two distinct orientations that are within the subtext of the interests of each of the two parties. They were two different intellectual currents for defining nation, society and self of tremendous influence

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to national, cultural and social identity formation post 1919. They represent a shift in understanding national identity and unity, one that highlights the progressively changing nature of orientation, and of the religiously based perspective. The prominent and primary form of resistance to British occupation in the early nineteenth century was through an allegiance to the Islamic community, and by implication the Islamic political, social and cultural representations, grounded in Islam. This is explicit in attempts by Muslim intellectuals to assert their claim of the need for Islamic revival and, further, socio-cultural and institutional presence (al-Afghani, Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Qasim Amı¯n are here implicated). Definitions of the nation had Islamic basis, even when race (Egyptianism) and territory were in question. For instance, to alAfghani and ‘Abduh, the concept of the Muslim ’umma is based on the solidarity of the religious community defined by the belief in God, and is encompassing of wataniyyah (love and attachment to a person’s ‘dwelling ˙ place’) and of relations between people of various nationhoods and races.3 This understanding undergoes significant re-articulation, and criticism, highlighting the struggle over the place of religion and its importance for political, cultural and social life in Egypt. Within the latter nineteenth century and early twentieth century the difference between a nation based on religious unity and one based on territory and nationhood became explicated, and the political meaning of such unity further expounded and developed. Ideologically speaking, the vision and demands of religiously based unity versus territorially based unity were expounded to be of different form and nature. This can be seen in the emphasis and programme of action set by each Party: the ‘Nationalist Party’ and the ‘Party of the Nation’. Though both advocated unity and opposition to British occupation, the understanding of the form of unity was different. The key development in perspective was a greater focus on Egyptian independence and nationhood, and a subsequent articulation of the place of religion and the religious perspective within each of the respective conceptions of Egyptian independence and nationhood. Mustafa Kamil (1874– 1908), the leader of the ‘Nationalist Party’ attempted to harmonize the centrality of the religious with the political need for national independence. He advocated ‘territorial patriotism’ and ‘Egyptian solidarity with the Ottoman Empire’ as he spoke of ‘the Egyptian nation’ and ‘of the Islamic nation’ perceiving ‘no conflict in

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giving allegiance to both’.4 Kamil believed in a greater solidarity with Muslim nations threatened with colonial invasion and suffering its effects, as he also believed in wataniyyah, the love and allegiance to one’s ˙ dwelling place and a greater unity and brotherhood with all who share it. A supporter and advocate of al-Jami‘ah al-’Islamiyyah,5 he believed that there remains in Islam validity for progress and for modernity. To him there is no contradiction between Islamic values and ethics and an openness to Western civilization; he advocated renewal of Islam without a rejection of what is valid within the Islamic tradition, and authenticity without a rejection of what the Western civilization has to offer.6 Elucidating this logic, he questions: ‘Why can an Englishman be a nationalist and a protestant, at the same time, and an Egyptian Muslim cannot be a nationalist and a Muslim? Can nationalism only be correct if it eliminates religion and diminishes it?’.7 His understanding of unity and identity was encompassing of the concepts of ’umma (Muslims and Copts united; representing ‘religiously based nationalism’) and watan ˙ (a person’s dwelling place, and his/her love for it). His political strategy meant ‘Egyptian political collaboration with the Ottoman Empire’, and Egyptian independence.8 Being apprehensive of the dangers that European intervention and design posed for the Islamic community, he advocated political ties to the Ottoman Empire (promoting good relations), as well as independence from it as a means towards realizing Egyptian nationhood and Egyptian aspirations.9 This political link was rejected by Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872– 1963), leader of the ‘Party of the Nation’. To al-Sayyid, religiously based unity and territorially based unity (secular and territorial) are two distinct and contradictory ideas; he states: ‘It [religious loyalty] is incompatible with the sacred Egyptian slogan, “Egypt for the Egyptians”’.10 He believed that political action is more properly based on ‘interest or utility’ than religious solidarity which could ‘divide Muslim and Copt’ within the country.11 The foundation of his call to Egyptian nationalism is the belief that neither language, nor religion, are binding of a nation.12 To al-Sayyid, Egyptian nationalism is comprised of three foundational elements: (1) ‘public interest’, Egyptians as all equal in rights and duties, working towards the prosperity of the nation, and, thus, their own happiness;

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(2) ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’, Muslim and Copt, Arab and non-Arab alike with the condition that belonging and allegiance is to Egypt only; (3) ‘national unity’, political representation of all the people in Egypt without distinction as the basis of unity, not religion.13 As a liberal thinker, affected by the utilitarian thought of Western thinkers, he believed that the principles of intellectual freedom and utility were the means to progress.14 He aimed to realize governance in the form of: (1) a democratic constitution; (2) the call for Egyptian unity and nationalism to challenge the Ottoman position and its wide appeal.15 The perspective from which al-Sayyid spoke was by no means dominant; Egyptian public opinion was still largely oriented towards the Islamic ’umma and the allegiance to or support of the Ottoman Empire; the ideas espoused by this party, through al-Jarida, were still ‘a minority viewpoint’.16 However, with greater focus on Egyptian rights and interests, al-Sayyid defined unity in civic terms: ‘The ’umma is that civic association which is a product of nature and one of its creations. It has the right to life and freedom, just as every individual possesses these natural rights’.17 The true bond of a nation is that of the land, the geography itself in which it resides. He is suggesting that the elements and contentions of history (people, land and events) have created and moulded Egyptian character and identity in the past and should be the source of inspiration in the present.18 Through this logic, the Pharaonic heritage of Egypt and its distinct Egyptian national character became the prime focus of a programme of action for independent Egypt; the people and their history within the region are the source of distinction and power. Al-Sayyid believed that Egypt has a unique and very distinct character; it is a distinct nation bound by geography: ‘our nation is bounded, by natural boundaries, separating us from others’ (cited in Nasa¯r, 2000, p. 233). To al-Sayyid, Egyptian identity was a matter of ˙ authentication; it must draw from its distinct historical roots in the region. According to Nasa¯r, al-Sayyid did not question the importance of ˙

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the Arab and Islamic character of Egypt; rather, he believed that the historical period before Islam is of greater importance. It has a greater bearing in defining the people of Egypt, and it is the source of identity (Nasa¯r, 2000, pp. 230, 235). This distant history provides a link and ˙ likeness to the West, and provides a source of pride in the Pharaonic heritage. The future of Egypt and its culture is tied to its distant past, which is ‘directly dependent on its Western cultural roots and dispositions’ (Nasa¯r, 2000, p. 231). Likewise, the Pharaonic heritage is ˙ the pride of Egypt; it provides Egypt with historical continuity and a means to realizing progress and modernity in Western terms. Given al-Sayyid’s theorization, Egyptian identity draws from and is shaped by this historicity. The ‘Egyptianization’ of Arabic, of education, of ‘contemporary Western civilization’, the separation of religion and politics, and the sole loyalty to Egypt, all formed the crux of this programme of action.19 This Egypt-centred sense of identity and allegiance culminated in the early twentieth century and gained currency among the intellectuals of the time, namely Muhammad Husayn Haykal, who further developed al-Sayyid’s vision for Egypt, Egyptian identity and culture. Haykal, among various other intellectuals, was influenced by the type of intellectual activity that al-Sayyid represented. This influence can be seen in the political organization and activity for independence that led to the 1919 revolution, and in efforts at national construction post 1919. The 1919 revolution represents a key element in attempts at realizing the perceived realities of Egypt and the Egyptian people, and is understood as a testament of Egypt’s unified identity and spirit. The 1919 revolution was understood as a revived sense of Egypt’s lost pride and power. It was seen as a testament of the unity, identity and character that al-Sayyid and his contemporaries envisioned as the truth of Egypt and of the Egyptian people. The fact that the struggle of independence was not a mere political effort, but was enabled and assisted by mass movements, without a clear and decisive link with one another, gives interpretations of the 1919 revolution this thrust.20 ‘Abd al-Rahma¯n ˙ al-Ra¯fi‘ı¯ suggests that there were various reasons behind the revolution having much to do with colonial rule, oppression and despotism: political (colonialism and the desire for rights, freedom and independence), economic (foreign monopoly over local markets, and the rising prices) and social reasons.21 However, the social reasons

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explained most suggest the popularity of the idea of Egyptian nationalism, and the spread of nationalism. He explains the various developments indicative of a preparedness for a revolution: ‘the spread of education, the development of thought, the progress in social practices, as well as the literary, scientific, journalistic, and women’s renaissance’.22 He stresses that both literature and journalism had a great effect in the transmission and propagation of a patriotic and nationalist spirit among the generation involved in the revolution. According to al-Ra¯fi‘ı¯, the 1919 revolution was a ‘political and national revolution’, and was characterized by national unity that was not religiously based, nor class based – Egyptian Muslims and Copts united, as did Egyptians of all classes.23 S. Kholoussy confirms this description; he describes the revolution as a ‘grass-roots movement’ that attracted Egyptians ‘from every sector of the population engaging both the mainstream and the marginalized alike’.24 Many social groups, who were not directly involved in the political efforts for liberation, utilized resources and efforts to advance their grievances by creating a link between their respective concerns and those of the nation. They envisioned national independence as one that addressed their concerns in a movement towards not only independence, but also, in certain cases, development and progress, and by implication modernity. On the intellectual and social landscape, three particular social movements engaged furiously in national independence bringing to the fore issues of concern that were later effectual in the political, intellectual and socio-cultural developments within Egypt: (1) the student movement; (2) the peasant and working-class uprising; (3) the women’s movement. For instance, women’s roles included: a fight for liberation and nationbuilding through discussions over their roles and rights; and creating and sustaining (in the process) their own place within nationalist discourse. Although the women’s movement was initiated in the late nineteenth century, the momentum for the discussion over women’s roles and rights grew in the early twentieth century. It was in the early twentieth century that women began, for the first time, to ‘become increasingly involved in writing and publishing, in demanding political

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rights, in debating their own roles in the family and public life, and in forming charitable associations on a large scale’.25 For instance, B. Baron notes that in the early twentieth century, there was an increase in women’s press founded for the purpose of establishing women’s voices, and articulating their opinions on various concerns, namely their roles, their right to education (and its form), marriage, and the practices of veiling and segregation.26 M.F. Hatem confirms these developments and further suggests that in the ‘first two decades of the twentieth century’ the discussions over women’s rights and roles were used to ‘mobilize the community in the discussion of what distinguished the modern national community from the premodern one’.27 Women’s involvement in literary production progressed into a subsequent involvement in political matters. Women were active within the sphere of national liberation, as they were active participants in defining the Egyptian nation: its women, and thus, its character. According to Baron, a ‘discourse of the nation emerged’ that constructed Egypt as a family, the hope of which was the fusing of ethnicities and the overcoming of racial and religious differences.28 Within the scope of this concept, Egypt as a family, women were constructed as ‘Mothers of the Nation’, as ‘the bearers and rearers of its future citizens’ and as the protectors of its honour.29 These concepts were applied and used in the 1919 revolution. After the denial of the demands of the Wafd for independence in 1919 and the exile of Zaghloul and other Wafd leaders, ‘many of the wives of the Wafd revolutionaries continued what their husbands started’.30 These women created a committee through which various national activities were organized in opposition to British occupation. This committee, the ‘Wafd’s Committee for Women’, organized ‘demonstrations, the boycott of foreign goods’, and articulated ‘their political views on the pages of Egyptian and British newspapers’.31 Through such activities women exercised their role as protectors of the nation, they mobilized their identity as ‘Mothers of the Nation’, expressing their nationalist concerns. Several accounts suggest that the women’s involvement in the 1919 revolution has opened greater means for social progress. Baron suggests that their involvement in the revolution gave them ‘license to press their claims’ as they also broke down ‘gender and other boundaries’.32 A.J. Johnson confirms that ‘their involvement in this political revolution

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soon spread to the social sphere, where women became vocal advocates of social change’ involved in ‘debates over veiling and gender segregation’ and the founding of ‘organizations to lobby for increased political rights for women, changes in family law, and more liberal interpretations of religious law’,33 all of which were part and parcel of national creation. The influence of nationalist/Egyptianist ideas were all too clear after the proclamation of independence; these ideas penetrated the political realm, playing a significant role in defining Egyptian identity and unity. Though great questions were posed by intellectuals of varying orientations (secular and Islamic) with regard to the form of political organization, unity was quickly communicated to be in the form of a nation state, with a clear separation between politics and religion. Some of the questions posed in the mid-1920s were with regard to political authority in the Muslim community; they were questions of urgency: does the abolition of the Caliphate mean a mere relocation to another centre of authority and prominence within the Muslim world (Turkey to Egypt)? Or is the abolition a final ending of the Caliphate system and an ushering in of a new age of political organization? ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Ra¯ziq’s book on Islam and governance, al-Isla¯m wa ’Usu¯l al-Hukm, exacerbated ˙ the tensions over the form and nature of governance in Egypt. However, with the end of World War I, the rise of the nation state as the prime form of political organization (with concepts such as sovereignty and self-determination gaining currency), and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (creation of Turkey 1923; end of the Caliphate system 1924), it was inescapable for Egyptian intellectuals to think except in terms of territory.34 Reinforcing ‘Awad’s opinion on the nature of Egyptian intellectual struggle, Sa‘d suggests that with these changes a new era began that is characterized by the ‘secularization of state, and the replacement of its (Egypt’s) Eastern character with a European one, and the severing of the link between the Ottoman and Islamic and the Arab’.35 It is within this period that an Egypt-centred sense of identity, and national definition, was theorized, developed and instituted with full thrust. Egypt’s right to territory and national character were key aspirations in the post-World War I period, a main factor in this development being Western European thought.36 The distinct nature of Egypt and the Egyptians, their collective image, was by no means a clear matter; in fact it was a project in the making. This collective image, theorized by Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid and

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Muhammad Husayn Haykal, and further ‘elaborated by their Egyptianist disciplines’, was assumed to be present in latent form within Egyptian heritage requiring an awakening and a transformation into a ‘tangible reality’.37 The task at hand required thinking beyond Egyptian identity as Jankowski explains: Correspondingly, the answers to this larger question [. . .] rested in a far deeper and more comprehensive process: the formation of a totally new collective image that would result in a revolutionary change in the worldview of Egyptians and the actual condition of Egypt [. . .] the transformation of Egyptian reality in all spheres of life.38 The creation of a new image, a new identity and thus worldview, was in reality a step towards secularization: the abstraction of the religious frame of reference, understanding and importance from political, cultural and social organization resulting in a new conception of self and world. Egyptian nationalism, expressed through environmental determinism, was a means towards this end – this conception of determinism revealed a greater emphasis on the natural world. To alSayyid, to Egyptianist intellectuals, the Egyptian nation is ‘concrete and definite’;39 it required a full expression of its identity supported by a theory of Egyptian territorialism, of Egyptian human nature, and of an Egyptian (national) language and literature. Egyptian territorialism, therefore, meant a conception of Egypt as a collective geography separate from its precedent, the Islamic and Ottoman. It is a territorialism that is ‘expressed through a principle of environmental determinism’, a conception of the nation as correlative to a ‘specific geographical area’ and constituting ‘a rejection of Arab nationalism’.40 This territorialism had to bring to the fore, to the Egyptian consciousness, elements of its own unique geographical location, historicity and character. This conception of territorialism, of environmental determinism, was elaborated by Haykal. Haykal in 1921 defined Egypt by theorizing the elements of its make-up: the natural milieu, and the social milieu.41 To Haykal, both the natural milieu and the social milieu were not only the components from which one can begin to understand the people of the Nile Valley, but they were also the determining factors of their territorial distinctness. Using Taine’s theory of naturalism, Haykal suggested that

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there is a link between man and his/her environment; this relationship was essentially a determining factor in human thought and practice, and various aspects of social life.42 By creating and emphasizing the relationship of man to his environment, Haykal sought to create a link between the specific geography and the character of the people residing within it. It is a theorization that is resonant of al-Sayyid’s definition of the ’umma. Believing in national unity, Haykal wanted to create a unified nation delimited by geography, by the Nile Valley, as a distinct and homogenous nation. This distinctness is further reinforced by history creating a distinct and independent Egyptian identity.43 He states: ‘The natural milieu [. . .] is what has affected and refined languages, beliefs, and spirits within the region. For all those who have lived in it have been subsumed by it, as if their fathers and their forefathers have resided in Egypt since the Pharaonic age’.44 The nature of the climate and geography of the Nile Valley here is seen to be of importance; climate and environment are understood to have an effect on the nature and temperament of the people residing in the area. The physical and climatic attributes of the Nile Valley are, thus, transposed onto the Egyptian character.45 Geography, environment and people are in this way linked and defined as one unit; this logic performs as a form of evidentialism of the (historical) rootedness of the Egyptian people within this geography. It is a solidification of the link and bond of people to land defining their nature, culture and history. This evidentialism serves to create a cohesive national identity and historical continuity for understanding the distinctness of the social milieu of Egypt. It assists in reaching the decisive conclusion that there exists ‘between historic Egypt and modern Egypt a spiritual link’ that is of a solid and irrefutable nature.46 According to Jankowski, by creating this link, Egyptianists were creating a cohesive national identity and were establishing historical continuity. The Nile Valley shaped the people, their ‘mentality’, their ‘spirit’, their ‘genius’, their ‘culture’, their ‘personality’, as it also created ‘Egyptian Patriotism’ and ‘Egyptian Nationalism’.47 Despite variations in the conception of Egypt and Egyptianity, there was agreement on the conception of Egyptian national character as ‘culturally distinct, historically unique and environmentally determined’. By accepting the distinctness of Egyptian national character, they believed that they could

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‘determine a course of action which, if followed, would lead to the realization of their aspirations of comprehensive and sustainable modernization’.48 Egypt was theorized, conceived and determined environmentally, culturally and historically. Suleiman encapsulates the ideology of Egyptian nationalism as one utilized to further four claims asserting distinctness: (1) ‘a direct psychological and racial link exists between the modernday Egyptians and their ancestors’; (2) ‘the Egyptians are different from the Arabs’; (3) ‘Egyptians are different from their co-religionists, mainly Muslims’; ‘Egyptian’ does not and should not immediately infer ‘Muslim’; (4) ‘Egypt’s great powers of assimilation have enabled Egypt to absorb waves of immigrants and to stamp their mental make-up with the indelible imprint of its character’.49 This assertion of uniqueness, this separatist theorization of identity, meant a clear separation between Egypt and its counterparts. The Islamic world and Arab culture were then perceived to have no consequent bearing on ‘true’ Egyptian culture, history and language. The distinctness of Egypt, Egyptian territory and of Egyptians, through the creation of a national identity and a historical continuity, means a separation from what is outside of these creations. Those elements perceived to be outside of these definitions are not only foreign to it, but are rejected. As Yasir Suleiman explains, within the ‘first three decades of the twentieth century’, this separatist theorization of Egyptian nationalism projected itself as ‘a form of identification that is more authentic than other competing nationalisms, be they linguistic or religious in orientation’. Egyptian nationalism promoted itself as an ‘alternative to Arab and Islamic nationalism’, which were not ‘without their supporters in the Egyptian cultural and political space’.50 Haykal, specifically, was influenced by two elements of Western thought that led him to believe in the necessity of Egyptian distinctness and Egyptian sense of authenticity that is separate from the Arab and Islamic. He was influenced by and a believer in positivism, and intellectual freedom. His philosophy was defined and informed by rational thought, evidentialism and intellectual freedom; he explains: ‘it

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is a philosophy that does not sacralize the past and does not submit to it’.51 As a basis for his philosophy, and his national vision, Haykal believed, at the time (1920s), that Egypt must free itself from Islam and all inherited culture so that it may discover its Egyptian character, one that precedes Islam.52 If Arab and Islamic solidarity were to be conceived, they were conceived in Egyptian terms. The construction of a new Egyptian reality coincided with a construction of Egyptian language, history and literature. Furthermore, to establish this ‘reality’, language as a carrier of this distinct Egyptian heritage and culture had to incorporate and communicate Egyptianity. To establish this ‘reality’, history must also reflect the distinct interaction, the distinct Egyptian heritage within the region, one that is not Islamic, not Arab, but Pharaonic. Egyptianist intellectuals accepted and were functioning under the premise that religion and language were not determining factors in nationality, and that Egypt’s distorted image (due to foreign elements) had to be refined. In this fashion Egyptian historiography operated in the national theory or programme of Egyptianists. History and historical heritage is grounded and bounded by geography – the historical occurrences over ‘successive periods’ contained within that geography represent a historical continuity from which to understand the history of the peoples of that geography. Suleiman points out that to al-Sayyid, and thus his disciples, the people of Egypt are linked ‘by the conditions of their continuous history, their existence in a well-defined territory and the common interests that hold between them’.53 The Egyptianist conception of history meant a particular periodization that linked Egypt’s present to its distant past, one that bounded territory, time and people, creating rootedness, unity and historical specificity and continuity. This historical rootedness and unity is further sustained by the ‘unique nature of the physical environment of the Nile Valley’, despite the ‘multiplicity of eras and diversity in regimes and culture’ Egypt is an ‘indivisible whole’.54 The role of the writer is to capture this bond and continuity, to capture the nation. Literature played an important role in communicating this knowledge. Literature had to communicate Egypt’s distinct territorial national heritage: historical, cultural and societal, expressing its national and social identity. Part and parcel of the theory of territorial nationalism is the formation of a national literature, or, differently

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described, the Egyptianization of literature. Language through literature had to perform by transmitting the contentions of the interaction of man with his environment, and the arising history and culture; it had to communicate the contentions of his/her reality, linking past to present. To al-Sayyid, Egyptian national literature is a crucial and foundational element in national construction and development. Theoretically, it had two important functions. The first denoted the transformation of literary activity so that it may reflect and describe the character of the nation, one bound to its distinct literary heritage. This is binding of ‘its past with its present and specifying [of] its identity’, as it also provides an element of distinction from other nations. The second is a vital reformative function: the ‘development of the nation’s ethics, the disciplining of individual manners [. . .] remedying some of the societal ills’.55 This is the Egyptianization of literature that al-Sayyid espoused. He encouraged writers to create a literature that expresses the specific social milieu of Egypt, in a manner that can reach a wide audience and serve the purpose of enlightening the nation.56 Creating Egyptian national literature is creating a link with the past, gaining intellectual wealth, knowledge and inspiration from it, and recreating the present. To Egyptianists, like al-Sayyid, Egyptian national literature ‘must be rooted in its environment, both physical and social’, with a vision for the future.57 Haykal developed this theory further by suggesting that national literature must portray the life of the people, past and present, and gain inspiration from the Egyptian countryside and from feelings of belonging to the specific civilization and history of Egypt. National literature must portray and reflect all aspects of Egyptian life and reality with the purpose of creating identity, inspiring and instilling Egyptianness, and developing the ‘intellectual and cultural life of Egypt’.58 In discussion of Haykal’s ideas on national literature, Suleiman explains that for Haykal national literature is ‘a marker of a nation’s culture and civilization’, that it is ‘the spirit of [. . .] all [. . .] domains of human knowledge’ and ‘it must seek to develop the new national spirit’.59 To this end, a plethora of writing appeared within the early twentieth century espousing Pharaonism as a source of Egyptian heritage and identity. Attempts at disseminating this Egyptianist culture were prevalent in various newspapers, all shaping and moulding public opinion in ‘conformity with Westernized Egyptianist cultural discourse

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and patterns of behaviour’.60 ‘Aiyyah Naja¯h provides specific examples; ˙ she cites a series of articles calling for this particular brand of Egyptian 61 nationalism. The influence of such writing was significant, affecting ‘virtually every sphere of postwar Egyptian public life’.62 Central to Egyptian nationalism, its formation, its articulation and support are two novels written in the early part of the twentieth century: Haykal’s Zaynab (1914) and al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the ˙ Spirit (1933). As forms of national literature they are central to the process of national formation and integral in serving its end. Haykal’s and al-Hakı¯m’s novels are only two examples of attempts to define, ˙ articulate and disseminate a particular conception of the nation. The relationship between Egyptian nationalism and their novels is consequential, and thus cannot be ignored. These two novels worked to not only articulate Egyptian nationalism, but also propagate it, advertently or not. The cultural influence of the ideology of Egyptian nationalism on future generations is not in doubt. These two novels worked not only to establish the ideology of Egyptian nationalism in a new form of expression, but also to suggest the importance of this new form of expression to Egyptian nationalism. This dual function amounts to an institutionalization and the internalization of nationalist ideology, whereby nationalist content is not only transmitted in textual forms but also disseminated, and, thus, internalized within the Egyptian consciousness. Explicitly suggesting Anderson’s conception of an imagined community, an imagined nation, Shalan suggests that the ‘process of internalization cannot be underestimated insofar as nationalism’s success as an ideology is predicated on the collective appeal it makes to an inclusive group of individuals, many of whom may in fact have no knowledge of and little or nothing in common with one another’.63 The internalization of the ideology of nationalism was and is an internalization of a very specific conception of self and world, identity and worldview; the ‘nationalist ideology takes root in the lives of individuals to become an essential part of their worldview’.64 Given the understanding of the role that these types of novels (Haykal’s and al-Hakı¯m’s) played, the roles of transmission and ˙ dissemination of nationalist ideology, one cannot ignore the way in which they have been instrumental in Egyptian national and cultural formation. It is by no means suggested here that these two novels

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singlehandedly institutionalized and internalized within Egyptian consciousness the newfound concept of self, society and nation, but it is the suggestion that their importance, as examples of the way in which Egyptian national character and identity is articulated, is supreme. While both Haykal’s Zaynab and al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the Spirit suggest ˙ the importance of national independence and the importance of Egyptianness as central to the emerging national formation, they also suggest specific conceptions of national progress. As they articulate and write the nation, they also communicate specific values and value systems. Central to both of these novels are: (1) a conception of Egypt; (2) a conception of Egyptian independence and Egyptian character; (3) ideas for progress through expositions of issues of national pride, love, marriage, chastity and honour, and of religion. These two will be the focus of close examination of the way in which writers articulated the territorially defined brand of Egyptian national character and identity, and the way in which they have envisioned national progress.

The Nation in Haykal’s Zaynab M.H. Haykal’s (1888–1956) Zaynab (1914) (1993) manifests and represents change. It utilizes writing to communicate a social, cultural and a national ideal. Egyptian Enlightenment thought is dominant in the novel, and as a literary piece it communicates this consciousness. It communicates a social message aimed at ‘reform’, at ‘raising awareness’, and at an Egyptian ‘Enlightenment’.65 Dominant in the text are criticisms of tradition, and visions and articulations for social change. Haykal wrote Zaynab in a period of intellectual activity aimed at social progress and reform, both political and cultural, for the purpose of realizing a greater Egyptian independence. Central to these intellectual activities are the awakening of a national spirit (political independence); social and cultural progress and reform; and ideas to do with individual freedoms. To Haykal, literary activity was crucial to these developments, for he understood that a direct link exists between literature and politics, and the importance of coupling the ‘literary

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revolution with the political revolution’ to call for and work towards independence and national aspirations.66 In his text Thawrat al-’Adab (1933) (1983), The Revolution of Literature, he clarifies the role that literature plays to this end. To Haykal national literature is a means towards portraying and narrating national heritage and history, as it is also a means of expressing and ingraining national sentiment. In meeting these ends, Haykal believes that national spirit will be ingrained and strengthened, and the ‘love’, ‘belief’ in and ‘praise’ for Egypt will increase.67 With an interest in creating distinct Egyptian literature (from Arabic literature) he suggests that inspiration in writing this literature can be found in the history and environment of Egypt.68 Thus, Egyptian literature should not only be distinct, but through this distinctness it should represent the ‘distinct’ Egyptian nation and its ‘distinct’ civilization.69 The purpose for Haykal is far more consequential than mere imprinting in the consciousness of Egyptians and non-Egyptians a picture of Egypt and its history; it is a purpose that speaks to the propagation and realization of the national project. Haykal wishes for the new generations of Egypt to realize the value and importance of their historical heritage and its ‘glory’ and to have a comprehensive and enlightened vision of Egypt in ‘consciousness, mind and soul’.70 Largely influenced by the ideas of progressive Arab thinkers on the nation and national identity (Lutfi al-Sayyid, Salama Musa and Taha Hussein), his interest was in the realization of a distinct Egyptian nation and Egyptian identity.71 Realizing this end through the realization of national literature means a focus on: (1) ‘the glorification of Egyptian nature’ or environment; (2) ‘uncovering the life of the Egyptian spirit’; (3) portraying the material, psychological and spiritual life of its ancestors.72 This vision is clearly manifest in his writing of Zaynab; his characterization of the Egyptian; and in his characterization of Egypt. Haykal initially published his novel with the title Zaynab: Mana¯zir ˙ wa ’Akhla¯q Rı¯fiyyah and instead of using his own name, signed off with Misrı¯ Falla¯h (Egyptian Peasant) (1914). These two choices reveal a great ˙ ˙ deal about his perspective on Egypt and on Egyptian character. While

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Egypt is defined by the environmental milieu, the Egyptian character is defined by its origins and connectedness to the land, symbolized by peasantry. This attempt frames his perspective on Egypt. He also explains the choice to use Misrı¯ Falla¯h as an attempt to define the ˙ ˙ Egyptian. This title is a form of identification with the Falla¯h, a political ˙ 73 statement to do with Egyptianness, an assertion of centrality of the peasant. In writing Zaynab, he aims for future generations to associate with it.74 Communicating national pride, and a very specific conception of Egypt, Haykal takes on a portrayal of ‘Egyptian Earth’ and Egyptian self, of which he believes the future generations of Egypt should be conscious. Through his portrayal of ‘Egyptian earth’, Egyptian territorial nationalism is echoed, as a conception of Egypt. As a narrative, the novel is saturated with glamorized, and perhaps romanticized, references to Egypt’s natural beauty, its landscape – its distinct nature. The Egyptian landscape is given a majestic and powerful quality in the novel. Haykal indulges in excessive descriptions of the beauty of the land, the serene atmosphere, the vast spaces ornamented with trees, the air of the countryside, among many other things, in a manner revealing of the distinct, unique and sacred quality of Egypt that Haykal attests.75 The distinct, unique and sacred quality of Egypt is in the power it possesses and the powerful bond it has with its people. It is described as one that draws and commands its people; likewise, its people submit to its call and its power. Haykal explains that once on Egyptian earth, Egypt beckons those who tread it. Its force is described as enlightening to the human spirit, and thus mind, making it all the more an authentic source of identification, identity, pride, innovation and creativity, and progress for the individual and by implication, the nation.76 Furthermore, Haykal reveals in his descriptions the grounded nature of the Egyptian in Egypt; a connectedness and intertwining of people and land. The connectedness of people and land that is described echoes harmony. It is a harmonized relationship, a harmonization of the spirit of the land and that of the people, commanded by something much larger than reality. For instance, the peasant is said to care for the land more than his/her child, the peasant is overjoyed in working on the land, reaping pleasure and peace through this connection.77 According to Haykal, the patient, loving, submissive, yet strong and solid character of the peasant is an inherited quality: ‘They always tread with firm steps

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[. . .] and they possess today of patience and perseverance what was to their ancestors in past centuries’ a tolerance that is historically authenticated through successive periods.78 In an attempt to create a new identity, a new epistemology (of the Egyptian), personal historiographies become framed by the geography and what it offers in meaning and quality. The timeless and unchanging nature of the peasant, and the historical origins of the connectedness of land and people is traced to centuries past, to the Pharaonic roots of Egypt.79 Haykal believes that this connectedness cannot be denied, and he elucidates this in The Revolution of Literature: ‘the blood that ran in the veins of the Pharaohs runs in the veins’ of all Egyptians, and the spiritual motivations of the Pharaohs are what drive the Egyptians in their lives today.80 Although he does recognize the various eras that Egypt has witnessed and their intellectual and cultural contribution, he maintains that the social and natural milieu persist (historically) as authentic characterizations of Egypt and of Egyptians. Furthermore, they supersede any other form of identification. Islamic culture, though recognized, is not recognized as paramount in identity, worldview or conception of progress. This forms a part of a national vision prevalent at the time, one that dictates not only the creation of a nation state, but also one through which the values of justice and equality are upheld as supreme. Influenced by Western thinkers, and a strong believer in individual freedoms, and in the values of justice and equity, he presents his vision for the nation. Egyptians are pitied for their submissiveness, for their subjugation, and for their state of affairs, and so they must seek the values dictated by the new order of national unity, of individual freedom and equality, and of utility. Described as both enslaved and exploited, the peasant struggle for the means of survival is described; peasants grabble and demand their miniscule pay, they are turned away with lame excuses, they plead with others to intercede, and have their pay cut for sick days.81 The landowners are portrayed as self-serving, abusive of power and an inherited social standing, and protective of the social order; they exploit and enslave the ‘poor’ peasant without a thought for his/her need for basic provisions of survival and better living conditions.82 The solution to the peasant problem communicated is inherent in the portrayal: a proactive, aware peasant and a just social order are a means

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towards change. The revolution is as much about the realization of independence and the creation of a nation, as it is about the creation of a new Egyptianness (peasantry), a new consciousness, and a new order of being. The social commentary on issues to do with love, marriage and the practices of hija¯b and segregation are what characterize the rest of the novel, revealing Haykal’s criticism of tradition and visions for progress towards a less traditional society. His ideas stemmed from a varied intellectual background (both Eastern and Western), and thus his greater interest was in new ideas aiming at renewal, reform and progress that reflected these ideas. He believed in intellectual freedom and the ability to realize progress through an understanding and an amalgamation of the ‘Arabic heritage’ and the thoughts and ideas of ‘the Western civilization’.83 His endorsement of Pharaonism did not mean a forsaking of the Arab and the Islamic, nor did his endorsement for the new mean a forsaking of the old, or the traditional. Viewing the nature of the dialogue between the old and new as a struggle between the Islamic civilization and the Western civilization, between modernity and authenticity, he supports a harmonizing approach with an interest in what is culturally valid and specific. Haykal suggests that while the advocates of the old or traditional support the method of the Salaf al-Sa¯lih refusing everything new, the ˙ ˙ advocates of the new, of modernity and progress, support establishing a new world on the ashes of the old. To him both avenues are faulty, for the past must connect to the present.84 To him, the Pharaonic heritage, the Islamic heritage and what is borrowed from the West in methods, thoughts and ideas are all valid in establishing progress. He believes that an agreement and unification between the old and new is a means towards a vitality, vibrancy and strength for an Egyptian civilization.85 However, being a disciple of Abduh, he disapproves of mere imitation of the West, and endorses borrowing what is specific to Egypt so as to preserve its character and to create greater Egyptian independence.86 Largely influenced by Arab, Islamic and Western thinkers, he presents his criticism and ideas for change in the novel. As he was influenced by Abduh, with a strong belief in amalgamating the material and spiritual aspects of life, in eradicating cultural stagnation, the need for ijtiha¯d, and the reform of cultural practices,87 he was influenced by Qasim Amin. He was a disciple of Qasim Amin in that he believed in women’s education, freedom and social participation. He took a

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particular interest in veiling, marriage, education and freedom, writing several articles on these issues between 1908 and 1910. Haykal was also influenced by Western thought and literature on rationalism and individual freedom, such as those of Stuart Mill, Rousseau and Spencer.88 This influence is evident in Zaynab; it is his attempt at reconciling the greater dilemma of traditional and modern, religious and secular. He presents his ideas for social and cultural reform through the thought and the lives of two central characters, Ha¯mid and Zaynab. ˙ Ha¯mid travels between the city and the countryside, as he also travels ˙ between thoughts of Zaynab, a peasant, and thoughts of his cousin ‘Azı¯zah to whom he is promised in marriage. Through these travels he contemplates the issues at hand in search of answers, and in search of what he feels is needed in his life. His relationship with Zaynab is free and unrestricted for the practice of segregation and the veil do not limit contact with the other gender, and so a ‘real’ experience is possible, while his relationship with ‘Azı¯zah is complicated by segregation. Through both experiences he contemplates love, marriage and their means and ends, concluding with a commentary on possible and necessary change. Zaynab, on the other hand, searches for a love, a class-compatible love, with whom she can spend her life. As her love of Ibra¯hı¯m, a peasant, begins to flourish, her marriage to Hasan slowly culminates. To her own ˙ detriment, her inability to realize love and marriage to the man she desires gradually leads to her spiritual death, and to the end of her life. In depicting these relationships, Haykal contrasts human nature and the nature of human instinct, free, unrestricted and natural, with the nature of man as a social being, unfree and restricted. The ‘natural being’ is one who is of distant historical roots and heritage, while the ‘social being’ is of the social and traditional structures that set parameters for love, marriage and social behaviour in general, restricting the ‘natural being’. This contrast can be seen in the experiences of both Ha¯mid and Zaynab. Ha¯mid’s relationship with Zaynab is regarded as ˙ ˙ far more natural, pure and magical in quality, more real, than his relationship with ‘Azı¯zah. Furthermore, Zaynab herself is described as at one with nature, a natural beauty, the ‘daughter of nature’, while ‘Azı¯zah, the daughter of custom or of society, is less so;89 she is timid, weak and pale. Similarly, Zaynab’s attraction, love and connection to Ibra¯hı¯m is far more ‘natural’ and pure than the sanctioned marriage that culminates

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between her and Hasan. In the process of playing out the exigencies of ˙ the lives of Ha¯mid and Zaynab, and their hopes and desires, Haykal ˙ reveals a great deal about the problems of tradition. Haykal, clearly, endorses personal freedom and individual will, over the dictates of tradition and religion. According to Haykal, these traditional practices that restrict individual freedom and will are what make love impossible, marriage void of meaning, and what have trained a harsh Egyptian soul. Through the character of Ha¯mid, Haykal voices criticism of ‘ancient traditions’ ˙ that encourage steadfastness in life and in faith: a life spent in ‘work and praise [of God]’; these he feels encourage submissiveness and passive acceptance, and a disregard for feelings and desires (personal freedoms).90 It is so because of the limitations and restrictions of old or ‘ancient traditions’ that force submissiveness and acceptance (a passive acceptance of fate), and a disregard for personal feelings and desires; it denies the heart and, thus, denies life, freedom, and, so, it denies love.91 Marriage in Egyptian society is also criticized as a form of restriction.92 Various criticisms are directed at the way in which marriage is practised: an inherited practice that is forced, and void of happiness. It is a burden of responsibility for most often a very young and inexperienced couple, and it is based on a relationship defined by marriage and propagation93 where matters of the heart are of no consequence.94 The role of women within marriage, within this ‘restricted’ form of ‘traditionalism’ in practice, is given special attention in the novel, and so criticism. The marriage of Zaynab and Hasan is the focal point of ˙ such criticism. Zaynab is chosen for Hasan as a pleasing partner and ˙ an excellent choice for the qualities she possesses, qualities that are understood to characterize a worthy wife. In the process of describing her as such, the criticism is embedded. A wife in a traditional Egyptian marriage is defined by inferiority to her husband, domesticity, level of productivity and servitude.95 Through such criticism marriage and the way in which it is practised are suggested to be antithetical to progress. The means to love and a marriage filled with love is further complicated by traditionalism, specifically by the practice of segregation. Ha¯mid, promised to his cousin ‘Azı¯zah in marriage, is frustrated with ˙ the practice. On the one hand, he dreams of the day he marries his cousin, yet, on the other, realizes how little he knows of her. The practice is criticized, for it leaves no room for the actualization of real

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relationships and real experiences, and is, therefore, seen to be removing them from ‘real life’.96 This he suggests is detrimental to their development, their judgement and their ability to weigh issues. The consequence of segregation is an inability to face real life and its challenges, as they are reliant on the workings of their imagination, not lessons from real experience.97 Given the practice, the women’s predicament is even greater. ‘Azı¯zah is cut off from educational activities of all sorts at the age of 12: ‘her father taught her reading and writing [. . .] then she was sent to a teacher to learn sewing and embroidery [. . .] she was then cut off from all of that and wore her veil’, and with that her social life was significantly limited.98 The consequences are many: her accumulation of both knowledge and experience of love and relationships were shaped through readings of low calibre; her physical strength and power did not develop to their potential; and, in her isolation, she suffered emotionally.99 Haykal voices the predicament through ‘Azı¯zah’s letters to Ha¯mid in ˙ which both segregation and veiling are criticized. Through a letter she communicates the harshness of the practice and her suffering; she is unhappy, her existence is ‘bitter’, and she feels that she is being held captive and that her freedom has been taken away.100 Through the dramatization of the exigencies of these relationships and these issues, Haykal resolves that cultural progress is a necessity, as it is a matter of gradual change. Both Ha¯mid and Zaynab are represented as ˙ the victims of traditionalism; daring to think outside of the restrictions of tradition, both characters suffer a terrible fate. Zaynab is described as ‘naive’ for pursuing and dreaming of something that is beyond the restrictions of traditional practice.101 At her death bed she leaves a message with her mother encouraging her to marry her sisters without force, for it is ‘unsympathetic’.102 Ha¯mid, too, suffers a similar fate for ˙ attempting to realize what is impossible in his time. He leaves his family, and departs from the novel with a letter to his parents. Through the letter that Ha¯mid leaves to his parents Haykal ˙ communicates, further, his ideas for social reform, and for progress. Viewing marriage as a ‘sacred relationship’, a marriage without love is seen as ‘unethical’.103 Ha¯mid, being a member of a new generation ˙ which has read and been affected by Western thought and culture, wishes to break with the restrictions of the past. Rather than finding himself and his resolutions in religion, he chooses free thought and will.

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Critical of the hypocrisy of Muslims and superstition in the practice of Islam, he resolves that even the honourable sin, men of religion lack the humility necessary, and their contributions, ‘dhikr circles’, offer him nothing in resolving his dilemmas, the dilemmas of the modern world, and so do not offer much towards progress. Instead, Ha¯mid relies more ˙ on logic, not tradition and not religion, to think through issues of love and marriage, resolving that a successful marriage is one based on love, and a real commitment between two knowing partners. A marriage based on love is noble, and should fulfil three realities or needs necessary for individual happiness and the flourishing of society as a whole: (1) seeking love for the sake of one’s happiness in life; (2) seeking progeny; (3) seeking a partner that will assist in raising a generation that can contribute to society as a whole.104 These are Haykal’s opinions and visions for change: progress will be actualized and the dilemmas of their modern world resolved through the realization of free thought and will. Recognizing and communicating that such change is gradual, Haykal determines destructive ends for both Ha¯mid and Zaynab, for their ˙ aspirations are portrayed as outside of the means and preparedness of their society and culture. The only character who is spared a destructive end is ‘Azı¯zah, and interestingly enough, she is the only one of the three who abides by the dictates of tradition, choosing to lead a sanctioned and, thus, ‘normal’ life. In a letter to Ha¯mid she writes: ‘Forever forget ˙ me Ha¯mid, it is madness that drove me to write to you what I wrote in ˙ the first letter without true intention [. . .] I am [. . .] with my life satisfied and accepting [. . .] I am not for love’.105 She attributes her earlier misgivings to the workings of Satan, she repents for her sins, and marries another man. Relying on Arab, Western and Islamic thinkers, Haykal aims at a birth of a nation and a birth of a new society. He aims at a nation, free, strong, historically authenticated and distinct and independent in culture, heritage and governance. He also aims at a new generation, a birth of new society, informed, equitable, free and governed by rationality, or critical thinking, rather than inherited traditions. This vision for Egypt did not mean a negation of religion for Haykal. Though he presents several criticisms of Islamic religious practice

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within the novel, he does not negate religion or its validity and importance. His vision of reform is all inclusive; science is as important as faith in the progress of civilizations. In his text The Revolution of Literature and in his articles published as a collection in Al-’Ima¯n wa al-Ma‘rifah wa al-Falsafah (1917) (1983), (Faith, Knowledge and Philosophy) (articles that appeared in print in al-Siyasah al-’Usbu¯‘iyyah between 1926 and 1927), he attests the importance and value of religion for civilizational progress. To him science alone is not sufficient, for both science and religion exist within humanity’s dual nature; thus, there has to be a balance between the material and the spiritual.106 While science works to uncover the secrets of the universe, Haykal believes that there will always remain knowledge that is unattainable. Science will forever be unable to uncover the truths of the universe and of existence.107 To Haykal, religion plays the role of explaining these unattainable truths. This concept resonates in the novel Zaynab. One can cite one particular segment of the novel in which the magnificence of creation is contrasted with the ability of man to cognize and rationalize it. Ha¯mid ˙ contemplates creation and the unseen. In the process of contemplating all that he, as a rational agent, cannot comprehend, he reveals man’s stature in the scheme of things. He admits that in contemplating the unseen, contemplating creation, and life itself, he is dumbfounded, unable to know and comprehend it fully. In doing so, it seems like Haykal is juxtaposing a belief in transcendence with rationality, and concludes that rationality fails. Take for instance his reference to the universe: ‘have all of these things witnessed the beginning of creation and remain to eternity without an end to them [. . .] through their eternal presence they have learned to be humble in recognition of the sovereignty of all that surrounds them’.108 This is not the only example for there are other, direct and indirect, references to faith and religiosity that permeate his novel. The sound of the call to prayer, and sin and repentance are two other examples. To conclude, Haykal writes: ‘we are convinced of a position of doubt with regard to these two ideologies [of science and religion]’ for knowing the future and the way in which it will unfold, and thus, which of the two is better for the service of humanity, is a matter of uncertainty. Caught between the means to defining self and nation in the terms of religion as opposed to the terms of rationalism, Haykal attempts to

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resolve the two. He suggests that the conflict is not a conflict between science or rationality and religion or belief; rather it is between men of science and men of religion over power and governance.109 Thus, at the time, Haykal suggested that both religion and science are equally important for the progress of humanity, so long as the end is its benefit and progress; however, he is unable to offer certain conceptions of the way in which this amalgamation is to be realized. Being a disciple of Abduh he suggests that ‘at the basis of knowledge-seeking are progress and renewal’ and therefore, ijtiha¯d cannot and should not be halted and men of religion should not be stagnant in their approach to religion.110 At the same time, science cannot be fully rejected. To him, while the methods of governance established through the principles of science, rationality and individual freedoms were and still are of prominence, the concepts, principles and ethics within religion meant for organization should not be rejected. To Haykal the power can reside with either ‘method’ in the future. His predictions were true to a degree; while he espoused Egyptian nationalism and Egyptianism in the early part of the century, he began to champion religion in the mid-1930s.

The Nation in al-Hakı¯m’s Return of the Spirit ˙ Much like Haykal’s Zaynab, Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m’s (1898– 1987) novel is a ˙ portrayal of a very specific nationalist vision. Return of the Spirit (1933) is an expression of an ancient and authentic vision of the nation, and the desire to reunite and revive this nation on the basis of this historical truth. As both H. Kilpatrick and W.M. Hutchins suggest, it is a novel that aims at the ‘rebirth’ of the nation and a recovery of its ‘authentic culture and consciousness’.111 It is an expression of a vision of unity for the Egyptian nation that transcends class-based and religion-based divisions, and a vision of rebirth that relies on the historical truth and authenticity of the Egyptian nation grounded in a philosophy of Pharaonism. Though Cachia suggests that Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m was not a ˙ nationalist, he does agree with other writers, that al-Hakı¯m was, ˙ nonetheless, inspired by the movement towards independence through Egyptianism, and did express a great degree of nationalist commitment.112 The novel is an expression of such a commitment. As a biographical novel, al-Hakı¯m’s commitment is voiced through ˙ the character of Muhsin, al-Hakı¯m’s mirror at a young age. Return of the ˙

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Spirit is centred on the character of Muhsin, a budding ‘modern’ intellectual, who in the process of his struggle with love realizes a more ‘honourable’ love, the love of the nation and the need for sacrifice in its name. In the process of this realization, he visits the countryside and is able to understand the cultural heritage it represents; it is symbolic of the past of Egypt. He embraces all that is ancient and authentic, and upon returning to the city, becomes an active agent in reviving Egypt, in the revolution towards independence. Muhsin wants to study the arts to be ‘the eloquent tongue of the nation’ for the nation ‘has a heart to guide and a tongue to direct the material forces within it’.113 It becomes clear in the novel that the heart of the nation is grounded in its historical authenticity, its spirit and its unity, and that through literature, or literary expression, the nation is expressed, its vision elaborated and disseminated. This is what Return of the Spirit represents. The unity expressed by al-Hakı¯m in the novel bespeaks Egyptian ˙ distinctness and historical truth through which particular conceptions of Egypt, of the Egyptian and of the nation are expressed. It is a concept that is central to Egyptian territorial nationalism. Unity for al-Hakı¯m is ˙ a characterization and a binding force of existence, of land and of people; it expresses various types and levels of unity echoing a harmonized existence and presence that is traced to its Pharaonic roots. Existence for al-Hakı¯m is unified, it is of a spiritual nature, and can be seen through ˙ various manifestations of life and its exigencies. Muhsin, in the novel, witnesses this spiritual force during his visit to his parents in the countryside. He witnesses a calf and a child both suckling on a cow, a scene that, to him, echoes purity and innocence, but most of all mystery. This mystery, though it is to be understood through emotion, he is able to understand through logic and intellect, ‘thanks to his study of the history of ancient Egypt’.114 Ancient Egyptians through their wisdom were able to grasp the mystery behind existence, seeing through it a transcendent power, and thus, knowing and experiencing a great deal of spirituality.115 This Pharaonic vision of Egypt and Egyptians is further elaborated in the novel. The knowledge of ancient Egyptians is seen to be a force of inheritance. It is seen to be part of the Egyptian of today as it was of the Egyptian of yesterday: ‘The feeling of being merged with existence, that is, of being merged in God [. . .] it was the feeling of that ancient, deeply rooted Egyptian people’.116 This knowledge extends to their knowledge

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of and relationship to the land. It is wisdom of an ‘ancient people’ inherited, and thus ‘instinctive’ to the Egyptian peasant.117 The source of this knowledge and this power is within the heart; it is a ‘tremendous spiritual power’ spurring from a bottomless ‘well’ nourishing Egyptians eternally with knowledge, wisdom, guidance and taste.118 This is what distinguishes them from the European; while an Egyptian knows and experiences through the heart, the European utilizes logic and intellect, and ‘steals’ the ‘superficial symbol without the buried treasure’.119 The Egyptian eternal essence is expounded through an exposition of their spiritual unity as a people. This unity is what characterizes the Egyptian people, one that offsets any other form of unity, and by extension, any other form of spirituality. Aiming for the liberation of the nation, its due construction along secular-liberal lines, al-Hakı¯m ˙ attests the power of this spirituality, unity and the solidarity of the Egyptian people. These qualities and elements are enabling of national aspirations. According to al-Hakı¯m, this is the source of power for the ˙ Egyptian nation, for they did not build the pyramids ‘against their will’ but with ‘pleasure in communal pain’, ‘gentle patience’, ‘endurance’ and a shared cause.120 The peasant is the heart of this unity, and thus, he/she is to be respected, and honoured. As in Haykal’s Zaynab, al-Hakı¯m inclines ˙ towards a definition of unity and nationhood along secular lines. The individual is central to the construction of the nation, and so the peasant is the focus, and values of freedom of will and equality are the guiding principles. Thus, his exposition shows, like Haykal, a concern for the lack of regard for the peasant, and the need for due regard and for equality. In the novel Muhsin becomes distressed and annoyed by the way his mother treats peasants, and his father’s sarcastic remark towards him. His mother, a woman of Turkish origin, treats peasants with an air of aristocratic superiority. In her interaction with peasants she is domineering; she demands rather than requests, and is, further, disgusted by the notion of peasantry. In one instance, she refuses ‘peasant bread’ with disgust and opts for ‘French bread’.121 Regarding herself as a woman of distinction, she dismisses the gestures of regard that she receives from the women of the village; she ‘chases’ peasants away ‘with disdain’.122 Muhsin’s father on the other hand remarks that Muhsin is nothing but a peasant in a conversation with his wife about his clothing, mannerisms and whether or not he will be more like her, ‘distinguished’,

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or a peasant like him.123 To Muhsin, there is no shame in peasantry; rather, there is honour, and for peasantry to uphold Egyptianity the nation is (independent and liberated) and it thrives (progresses).124 Communion and brotherhood are key elements, and so they are enacted in the dynamics of the Cairene family, one that is inclusive of Mubarak, the male servant. Al-Hakı¯m utilizes a family to symbolize Egyptian society, and through ˙ this family he portrays a revival, a unity and a fight for independence. This family is composed of four men of varying professions, who occupy themselves with trivial and mundane matters. They get involved in meaningless quarrels, in comical arguments and in a fruitless love with one woman, Saniya. Through them, the character of the Egyptian is exposed: relaxed, kind, sociable and communal. While the Egyptian nation is portrayed to be united at the beginning of the novel, this unity is eventually lost. At the beginning of the novel they are portrayed to share a ‘communal style of life’ characterized by a solidarity, even in suffering; however, a loss of interest, resentment and a certain level of displeasure develops. Each of them, including Muhsin, begins to desire a certain level of independence from the rest.125 Their sense of unity as a family, or nation, is lost due to the forces of modernity, materialism and an interest in the mundane, something which is contrasted sharply with the image of the Egyptian peasant in the countryside. They can no longer collaborate together and find a common cause to unite them, nor the means to manage the finances. Their false unity over their love for Saniya gradually disintegrates as she disappoints each of their hearts. It is only when a greater interest is realized, a common interest, in the welfare of the nation and its liberation, that unity is re-established. Thus, al-Hakı¯m re-orients and reconstructs the interests of the ˙ nation; a concern for a spiritual unity (ethnic at base), derived from a distinctness of geography and history (the nation state). Muhsin on his trip to the countryside witnesses a discussion among Egyptians of various orientations, ‘some wearing traditional turbans and others modern fezzes’.126 Through this scene al-Hakı¯m communicates ˙ Egyptian unity, one that transcends both class-based and religiousbased differences. The discussion is meant to communicate ‘a sense of kinship and spiritual solidarity’ among the people of Egypt; it communicates a particular conception of spirituality that is nationalist

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and Egyptianist in nature.127 A new sense of spirituality is conceived, and religion is thus privatized (it is inconsequential to national creation); the unity of all Egyptians, rooted in the heritage of Egypt (Pharaonism, and peasantry) is the guiding principle for political organization towards Egyptian independence and nationhood. Egypt is, thus, defined in terms of historical authenticity, distinctness of character, and its union of hearts, and this is the spirituality or religion that al-Hakı¯m ˙ advocated for Egypt. Islam is defined, as a word that was ‘current in common Egyptian usage at all levels of society’ and has ‘no religious or sectarian stamp’. Therefore, the spirituality sought is one upon which a social union is manifested, one that is based on brotherhood among all Egyptians, ‘whether Copts or Muslims’.128 According to al-Hakı¯m, ˙ this is what defines Egyptians. Realizing this union once more for the sake of Egyptian independence requires reviving this sense of spirit and spirituality, connecting around a common goal, and fighting for a worthy leader. Egypt only then will rise. Love of the nation and love of its leader are key concepts for al-Hakı¯m. Revolution and the rise of a leader are all again anticipated in ˙ the novel through discussions. Dr Hilmi, Saniya’s father, recounts his expedition to Sudan. British interest in the area (resources, mahogany trees out of which ‘expensive furniture is made’) forms as the basis of human expedition into the territory claimed by the natural world.129 During this expedition, Dr Hilmi witnesses a pack of monkeys, who upon being shot at, express solidarity with their pack; they are shown to sacrifice for the group and accept death. Furthermore, the monkeys seek justice; they mobilize to avenge the death of one of their own and protect their territory.130 Narrating such an incident serves as a form of evidentialism: it is instinctual and natural to be part of a whole, to unite, fight and mobilize to protect. It serves to justify the ideology of revolution; the Egyptian people have a right (inalienable) to protect their nation, it is only natural that they express their solidarity and mobilize to protect themselves, fight for their people, and for their independence. What is necessary is a leader, one who represents the nation and can lead them to unite and sacrifice for Egypt. Again Pharaonism is utilized by al-Hakı¯m, to express this end. Al-Hakı¯m likens the (anticipated) ˙ ˙ modern-day leader to a Pharaonic god and king, Osiris. Osiris is an Egyptian god of the afterlife, an underworld agency that grants life to all

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forms, and those who rise with Osiris from death rise in union, inheriting, in the process, eternal life. Osiris is a symbol of revival, of life, and of an eternal awakening. With Osiris, or with the anticipated leader, eternal life is granted to both Egypt and Egyptians, without whom national awakening and progress is not possible. The modern-day leader becomes central to the realization of the nation, and a central referent for national progress and accomplishment. He represents the will and power of the people. Al-Hakı¯m realizes the nation through the reconstruction of ˙ Egyptianity; it is defined by Pharaonism reconstructed in modern terms: territorial nationalism, equality of all citizens, their union along national or ethnic lines, and the birth of a new spirituality (not grounded in religion or its discourse). The birth of Egypt along such lines for alHakı¯m is an irreversible process, as signified by the eternal rebirth that ˙ Osiris, the leader, offers. Egyptian society, as portrayed through the Egyptian family, unites in revolution for the sake of the nation. Muhsin returns from his visit to the countryside with newfound knowledge and awareness about his identity and his roots. In thinking over ‘peasantry’, he realizes that he is ‘first and foremost’ a peasant, ‘a man of the earth’, just like his father. This quality is authenticated by lineage, for Egyptians are direct descendants of the ‘original inhabitants’ and that in itself,131 Muhsin discovers, is a source of pride and ‘nobility’.132 Muhsin, despite himself and his sorrow over his disappointed love of Saniya, then, becomes an active agent in effecting change. In shared disappointment over their love of Saniya, both Abduh and Salim (Muhsin’s uncles) comfort Muhsin, expressing a great deal of solidarity despite their pain.133 This eventuates into deeper realizations of a greater meaning and appreciation of their solidarity or union. Their material interest as expressed through their shared love for Saniya transforms into a spiritual interest and becomes expressed as a shared love for the nation. The ‘beloved’ becomes Egypt, symbolized by Sa‘ad Zaghloul. The 1919 revolution is portrayed for its historical and spiritual essence: the spirit of an Egyptian people governed by one heart, moving in union to revive their nation. All of Egypt rose in protest, demonstrations were widespread, students came out of their classes, ‘stores, coffee shops, and residences were closed’, rail lines were cut, ‘al-Azhar was sealed off’ and ‘many Egyptians had bared their chests to the machine guns with astonishing heroism’.134 Egypt rose in union;

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‘Egypt had perceived in one moment that the crescent and the cross were two arms of a single body with one heart: Egypt’.135 All the members of the family would unite with a sense of patriotism and comradeship, sacrificing equally for the nation and the nation’s beloved (Osiris, Zaghloul), and facing together the same fate: imprisonment. They would all sacrifice for the nation’s beloved: Osiris/Zaghloul. The novel ends with an expression of their re-union: like they began living together in union, they end again in union, ‘each next to his brother’.136 As P. Cachia and others suggest, Al-Hakı¯m’s Egyptianist and ˙ Pharaonic thrust is an expression of his commitment to Egyptian independence and the love for his nation. His Pharaonic tendency in the novel echoes a commitment to Egyptian independence and a belief in its distinctness of character; however, it is not an unrelenting belief in and commitment to its ideology as a sole defining attribute of the Egyptian identity, nation and the means to national progress. Most of al-Hakı¯m’s ˙ writing from the mid-1930s onwards suggests a greater vision. In Bayna al-Fikr wa al-Fan (Between Thought and Art) (1936), al-Hakı¯m writes ˙ on Egyptian character, creating a distinction in the process between Egyptian and Arab character and identity. A conception of Egypt, Egyptian character and spirit is pronounced and, to al-Hakı¯m, it is one ˙ that is important to expressing identity. This conception contrasts the Egyptian to the Arab, the Egyptian being spiritual and the Arab materialist.137 According to him Egyptian consciousness was characterized by imitation of the Arab and a lack of awareness of Egyptianity.138 This changed with the birth of an Egyptian spirit; with independence, clarity in understanding and expressing Egyptian existence was born.139 This realization to him allows for an assured consciousness and a spirituality that inspires deep insights into life and existence.140 Furthermore, he insists on the revival of Egyptian character and Egyptian spirituality, to realize Egyptian distinctness and continuity. However, al-Hakı¯m does not negate the value and worth of Easternism and Arabism ˙ in defining Egypt and its identity. Though he believes that the ‘Egyptian spirit’ and Egypt’s ‘cultural heritage’ are central, his vision surpasses this limited conception of identity. In Between Thought and Art, he states that he does not wish to limit thought within the bounds of Egyptian nationalism, for he aims at a purpose that is greater; he states: ‘I want to endorse all of Eastern culture, and to work for its revival, so that it may stand alongside the

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Western civilization, strong and rich’.141 Doing this requires a dependence on and a revival of the cultural heritage of the East.142 Although he desires the formation of distinctness (ideological, characterbased and political) within the countries of the Arab and Eastern world, he does assert that there remains a characteristic that binds them all. This characteristic, he proclaims, is the ‘Eastern spirit’ to be contrasted with and strengthened in the face of a ‘Western spirit’. The Eastern spirit is defined by: its ideological character, its perspective, its traditions, its means to expression, its connection to the natural world and its sense of intellectual aestheticism.143 Al-Hakı¯m aims at a balance, at progress and ˙ modernization that are not characterized by Westernism or its spirit. If Western modernity is characterized by rationalism, individualism and gaining liberty from the authority of religion, according to Ya¯sı¯n, Egyptian modernity as desired by al-Hakı¯m has absorbed this rationalism ˙ and should aim at reviving the spiritualism of Egypt and the entire East as a means to striking a balance.144 This is al-Hakı¯m’s al-ta‘a¯duliyyah ˙ (a concept meant to communicate equilibrium) expressed in his writing. He believes that the ability to strike a balance and to amalgamate is part of the character of Egypt. He explains in his biography Misr Bayna ‘Ahdayn ˙ (Egypt Between Two Eras) (1983): ‘the most striking feature of the character of Egypt is that it can harmonize faith, science and art in one character, or one project, or one place, in an astonishing manner’. Al-Hakı¯m wishes ˙ for and believes in the possibility of an amalgamation of the material and the spiritual,145 the authentic and the modern, as a means towards a movement forward and towards civilizational pride and glory. This cannot be equally said about his views on women’s issues. Among his critics al-Hakı¯m is known as an enemy of women, and for ˙ those who want greater liberation for the Egyptian or Eastern women, he is just that: an enemy. Bu¯ha¯‘ı¯r explains that although Islam endorses and encourages equality among men and women, protecting in the process women’s rights, al-Hakı¯m is one who believes that a man is superior to a ˙ woman. Furthermore, the women in al-Hakı¯m’s life, beginning with his ˙ own mother, have all been terrible examples providing him with negative experiences.146 He is culturally a man of the East, one who is greatly influenced by its thought systems.147 There is great evidence of this in his writing on women. Al-Hakı¯m voices his concerns over the feminist quest for ˙ emancipation in his fictional and non-fictional writing. For instance,

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in his play al Mar’ah al Jadı¯dah (The New Woman) (1923), published in Fı¯ al-Waqt al-Da¯’a‘ (In Lost Time) (1987), a collection of his articles, he expounds one of his fears, the fear of greater liberty in the interaction between the sexes and its effect on social ethics, marriage and society. He revisits the issue in the 1940s in re-assessment; he proclaims that his original fears were unfounded, for society has grown accustomed to the image of women in various professions in society, the ‘lawyer, the journalist, the civil worker, the university instructor’, and that the institution of marriage was largely unaffected.148 His original fears seem to stem from a fear of change to the nature of the Eastern women along the lines of a less authenticated progress (of the West), and his re-assessment seems to be in light of his discovery of an unfounded fear. Despite this re-assessment of his views, al-Hakı¯m ˙ consistently communicates a general unease with women’s liberation and emancipation, and a wish for a more authenticated identity and progress for women. This is clear in his non-fictional writing as it is clear in the novel Return of the Spirit. In a number of his articles in In Lost Time, al-Hakı¯m seems to ˙ communicate that it is both natural and instinctual for a woman to desire domesticity, femininity and motherhood. In a journalistic, yet comical fashion, al-Hakı¯m writes about ‘al-Mar’ah Ba‘da ‘a¯m al-’alfayn’ ˙ ‘Woman after the Year 2000’ (1946). In a sequence of predictions he outlines the developments within the sphere of women. In a span of 2,000 years, and in a cyclical fashion, women begin with the quest for equality, the eventual loss of femininity and motherhood, then a reignited desire for domesticity, which leads to, once again, the women’s quest for equality.149 Though he ends this sequence with what is all too ‘natural’, women demanding once more rights, freedom and renewal, his point is all too clear. Al-Hakı¯m endorses a particular form of ˙ womanhood and femininity, one governed by modesty, conservatism, and traditional values. This perspective with regard to women’s issues is further pronounced in the same collection, in his article ‘Sila¯h al-Mar’ah al-lathy la ˙ Tastakhdimuhu’ (‘The Weapon that a Woman does not Use’) (1946). In this article he delegates roles among men and women: men are the rational mind, women are the emotional and tender heart. As the rational mind, man is responsible for obtaining means for survival, making decisions, and directing all aspects of life. Women on the other

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hand, are the tender heart; they tend men emotionally, as they also tend to their needs.150 Within the sphere of women’s issues, al-Hakı¯m ˙ believes that progress is not attainable through excessive liberalism, or in emulating Western modernity; rather, it is in traditionalism. In Al-Mamsu¯kha¯t (The Distorted) (1946), he directs an extremely harsh criticism at Egyptian women who emulate false and superficial symbols of modernity, in the hope of expressing sophistication. He directs a message to the Egyptian woman in which he explains that times have changed; that the imitation of the West or the symbols of Western modernity is faulty; and, that it is no longer a source of admiration for Egyptians, rather Egyptian heritage is. It is the role of women in Egypt, as a part of a quest for national independence, to have a ‘distinct national character so that her children would, as the future of Egypt, have their own character and their nationalism’.151 Laying the burden of the renaissance of the entire nation in the hands of women and the role that they play, progress within the sphere of women’s issues is relegated by development based on a respect for the merits of Egyptian character, with a regard for ‘modern times, the requirements of scientific, and social progress’.152 Some of these views on women resonate in his novel Return of the Spirit. The Egyptian woman is contrasted with the European woman in an effort to reveal the merits of Egyptian womanhood. While the European woman is described as ‘frivolous’ and ‘daring’, the Egyptian woman is credited for her politeness, her reserve and her instinctual knowledge of the effect of nuances of interaction. The Egyptian woman is said to know when to use a glance, and when to lower her gaze.153 Though Saniya symbolizes the ‘new’ woman, in her education and sophistication, she is sharply contrasted with women of the older generation, namely her own mother and Zanuba, as she is also criticized for her behaviour. Saniya’s likeness to Isis is only an indication of the physical charm and beauty of Egyptian women,154 it does not communicate an admiration of her character. The contrast between her and the other women reveals change within society, and the social and cultural ethics expected of women. When Muhsin is invited to her home to teach her singing, her mother’s reaction is that of modesty and modest resolve. She initially refuses to meet a ‘man’, she insists on wearing a veil in his presence, and maintains formality in speaking with him, while Saniya continues to

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insist that none of the above is necessary.155 Furthermore, the marital relationship of her parents can be contrasted to her relationship with Mustafa, her love interest and her neighbour. While her mother is cautious, respectful and even fearful in her relationship with her husband, Saniya, being the educated and aware woman that she is, shares a relationship characterized by equality. She engages in meaningful conversations about life, love and their future, and furthermore, is able to influence Mustafa to action. It is this unsanctioned love-based relationship that warrants the most criticism in the novel. It is represented to pose the threat of shame and dishonour to her family, as it also shames her as a woman. Her relationship to Mustafa becomes the centre of attention, quarrel and debate in their neighbour’s home. However, the most criticism directed at Saniya comes from the all-traditional Zanuba. Though Zanuba’s reactions can be explained as products of jealousy, they nonetheless represent the voice of tradition. Zanuba excites uproar among the male members of her family over the actions of Saniya, which are regarded as transcending the boundaries of the expected respect and honour to be maintained by women.156 Though some of the actions relayed were an exaggeration of fact by Zanuba, she necessitates an action, one justified by not only the dictates of tradition, but also religion. She suggests that informing Saniya’s father is a matter of sincerity, of guarding honour; it is a neighbourly duty, one endorsed by the Prophet Muhammad.157 The question of the nobility, or the lack thereof, of her actions is taken up by Saniya herself. An exposition of her thought processes on the matter of her relationship with Mustafa reveals a great deal about the bounds that al-Hakı¯m sets for women. On her first encounters with Mustafa on a ˙ balcony, she is taken aback by his actions: he glares back at a woman, and this is interpreted as a sign of disrespect by Saniya.158 Frivolous actions such as those of a man glaring at a woman, and those committed by Saniya towards Muhsin and the other male members of his family, do not qualify as honourable. However, actions that give meaning to life do. Once her feelings develop, she begins to question her ‘ties’ to this man that can sanction a relationship with him. The dictates of her society and of social and traditional values are offset with her feelings and desires. Love is defined in terms of ‘Honor and virtue’; it is honourable to experience something as noble as love.159 However, the end of love is

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what concerns al-Hakı¯m. For Mustafa too questions his ‘ties’ to this ˙ woman, and struggles between the logic of tradition and traditional values, and the logic of instinctual drive behind feelings of love that impel him to pursue Saniya. ‘Materialist logic’ and ‘emotional logic’ are contrasted in the process: ‘materialist logic’ dictates rational thought as it dictates that he ‘follow the straight path’ and ask for her hand in marriage without disclosing his feelings to her or contacting her, while ‘emotional logic’ dictates that he makes his feelings known so that they may either be reciprocated or rejected, and an action is taken. Al-Hakı¯m ˙ resolves the dilemma with a spirit of balance, one based on his belief in ta’aduliyya: ‘Mustafa became fully convinced. He seemed to grasp that the intellect’s logic differs from that of the heart. Each of them is sound. Each of them is necessary’.160 As excessive liberalism is not the end for al-Hakı¯m, neither is ˙ excessive traditionalism. The frustrated attempts that Muhsin, Salim and Abduh make in attracting Saniya are all too revealing of their lack of social awareness in their ways of approaching women and initiating a ‘respectable’ relationship. Apart from Muhsin who enjoys real contact, the attempts of other men to do so are juvenile. Zanuba is also the object of criticism of excessive traditionalism in social practice. Al-Hakı¯m ˙ describes her: ‘Zanuba grew up in the country where she was neglected and left uneducated. She served her father’s wife and raised chickens for her’.161 Her lack of education, knowledge and experience was exacerbated upon her coming to Cairo with her brothers. She was unable to develop, and ‘remained just as she had been’ only adopting in the process the superficial features and standards of dress and behaviour of women in Cairo, ‘without understanding what they stood for’.162 Her predicament is heightened when she cannot find a suitable suitor, and instead of searching for viable means to marriage, she turns to Sheikh Simhan to conduct works of magic, wasting the finances of the family in the process, and becoming an outcast among her family as a result.163 Zanuba’s failure in all aspects of her life is no coincidence; to al-Hakı¯m ˙ this type of traditionalism in practice breeds failure. Post-1930, al-Hakı¯m expressed a greater tendency towards Easternism, ˙ one enriched by the spirit of ta’aduliyyah. National and individual progress is defined, enriched and laminated by such an ideology. This can be verified in his views on various issues, and it is a tendency that is evident in his fictional and non-fictional writing. More strongly than in

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any other piece of writing, al-Hakı¯m champions Easternism in Bird of the ˙ East (1938) and calls for the return to it; one which was supported amply in his articles, particularly in Between Thought and Art. This call is part of a greater development in his thought, as it is part of a greater development in the intellectual landscape in Egypt. Though in the early 1900s, like many other intellectuals of his time, he was influenced and touched by the fight for liberation, and thus, the Egyptian nationalist vision, this gradually changes post 1930. Like Haykal, he begins to draw on broader meanings for defining identity. His support for Easternism in national definition is accompanied by a deeper recognition for the role of religion in defining individual and national identity, as well as progress. Though this turn to Easternism is an indication and part of a phase of intellectual uncertainty that many Egyptian intellectuals suffered at the time, it nonetheless is evidence of a return to cultural roots.

Conclusion While both Haykal and al-Hakı¯m endorsed the idea of Egyptian ˙ territorial nationalism, by the mid to late 1930s their support for Islam and for Arabism becomes more pronounced. Their endorsement of Islam goes as far as defending Islam as a viable and valid system of social organization, and defending its validity and value as a code or system of social ethics and practices. The belief in transcendence and the importance of this belief for society becomes more spelled out than before in their writing. A major development in their thought is that Islam becomes endorsed as a valid identity marker, for self and nation. There is clarity in their awareness of modernity and progress; the importance and prominence of a link to Western ideas of progress, and the prominence and strength of a national identity as a means towards that progress declines. Progress becomes associated with local heritage and locally conceived means for social organization, and means of identification – the Arab and Islamic. Haykal, for instance, devotes much time within this period to revisiting, researching and writing about figures within Islamic history, deriving through such investigation and inquisition ideas and values essential for progress and for identification. The rediscovery of figures such as the Prophet Muhammad and several of his companions becomes a source of identification and civilizational pride. Haykal embarks on these

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rediscoveries in light of an assessment of Muslims and the general state of the Muslim world, one which highlights the shaken trust and confidence in their faith, the destruction of the Islamic character and the resulting need to imitate. This reasoning is apparent in Haykal’s introduction to Haya¯t ˙ Muhammad (The Life of Muhammad) (1933). Haykal comments on the ˙ general decline of the Islamic ’umma, and expounds several reasons for this state. He suggests that much has been attributed to the Islamic faith that is not part of its essence. He specifically comments on the ‘additions’ in knowledge made to the discourse on Prophet Muhammad that have been used by orientalists to attack his character, Muslim nations, and to deface the religion of Islam.164 Haykal’s commentary includes a suggestion that a hostile and antagonistic view of Islam was being propagated under the guise of modern scientific scholarship instilling doubt in the minds of Muslim youth and obliterating their confidence in their faith and their Islamic identity. He also argues that in an attempt to defend Islam against such concealed attacks, Islamic scholars have disadvantaged Islam; they have shunned modernist voices, such as those of ‘Abduh, and consequently weakened their position in the minds of Muslim youth. He explains: ‘These youth have understood that according to Islamic scholars heterodoxy is being judged by the parameters of intellect and rationalism [. . .] blasphemy is associated with ijtiha¯d, as belief is associated with stagnation’, thus their belief was shaken, and they have forsaken thought over ‘the message of Islam and the Prophet of Islam’.165 The purpose for Haykal is to re-ignite pride in the Islamic heritage, and to re-initiate interest in Islam for the sake of realizing ‘truth’. Using modern scientific methods, he wants to (re) present the knowledge on the Prophet and convince in the process. The purpose for Haykal is to respond to the orientalist writing on Islam. He believes that the people of the East are more equipped and capable by reason of their ‘nature’ to comprehend the ‘Eastern and Islamic spirit’, and therefore research, inquisition and knowledge seeking should not be halted.166 In support of this argument, Haykal observes that colonialism has supported the proponents of stagnation amongst the Muslims as it has supported the proponents of antiIslamism. Couple this adversity with the obliteration of freedom of speech and research in Eastern nations, and the result is the destruction of the moral spirit of the East and its shaken confidence.167 He believes

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that this predicament is one that affects Eastern nations and peoples as it affects all of humanity. The remedy is research based on modern methods, and the overcoming of stagnation. Research such as this can only lead to ‘a new civilization’ in the mind of Haykal. He finds in Islam a breadth of knowledge, he understands Islamic thought as scientific at base, and believes that through Islam the knowledge on man and his relationship to the universe and to the Creator can be enriched.168 Clearly, these reasons and this purpose form a need to define the Islamic faith in terms of pride, rather than shame. Furthermore, they form the need to create a greater means for identification with all that is Islamic and a means for creating and sustaining Islamic identity. These reasons suggest a different imperative; rather than authenticating the Egyptian nation, the need is to re-emphasize the Islamic roots and authenticate their values as a source of heritage for individual and society. Progress is not so much linked to the West, but to the understanding of Islam, its values and its heritage, and in progressing towards civilizational prosperity through it. The quest for al-Hakı¯m in the 1930s and onwards was of a similar ˙ nature. Al-Hakı¯m continuously attempts to strike a balance between ˙ ’Asa¯lah and Mu‘a¯sarah, or authenticity and modernization. Though he ˙ ˙ expresses religion as a form of unity among all Egyptians, and defines Islam as one that has ‘no religious or sectarian stamp’ but a mere symbol of peace in Return of the Spirit, his support of Islam and the role it plays amplifies in the late 1930s onwards. In Between Thought and Art, ‘Mantiqat al-’Ima¯n’ (‘The Arena of Belief’) (1938), he states that religion ˙ is of importance to humanity. It serves two essential purposes: (1) it benefits humanity in life; (2) it assists in solving the mystery of the unknown. Furthermore, the importance and centrality of religion cannot be contested, for no matter how much scepticism of faith is instigated by science, faith in the hearts will remain unshaken.169 His ideas on Islam are expounded in his text In Lost Time (1987), in which he presents several key arguments in defence and support of Islam: (1) In the future science will not contest religion, but will support it. (2) Islam and Western secularism are incompatible.

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(3) Islamic secularism as opposed to Western secularism is more appropriate. (4) ijtiha¯d is central to Islam, and therefore remains necessary. Using Qur’anic references and prophetic statements, al-Hakı¯m explains ˙ that central to Islam is the search for knowledge. Thought, contemplation, examination and a search for truth in existence is part and parcel of man’s purpose in Islam. Science needs to discover the miracles of existence.170 To him, science and scientific knowledge can only support religion, not deny its validity; religion is the source of scientific knowledge. Given that science and religion in Islam do not negate one another, nor is there a problem in harmonizing them, al-Hakı¯m argues that ˙ (Western) secularism is counter-productive and further inapplicable to Islam. The perceived conflict between science and religion, or rationalism and faith, that instigated the separation of church and state in Europe is not true to Islam or the Islamic world; Western secularism is ‘contrary to the nature of Islam’. Al-Hakı¯m regards the conflict as one ˙ over the power exercised by the men of religion within the sphere of social matters and social organization.171 Al-Hakı¯m argues that ˙ Islam amalgamates, by its nature, humanity (defined as matters of the worldly) and divinity (defined as matters of religion). Both are central components of Islam, and so Islam is not in need of secularism; it is secularist by nature.172 Al-Hakı¯m verifies this argument by: ˙ (1) suggesting that the concept of secularism has always been part of Islam and is supported by men of religion; (2) using the Prophet and his life as evidence. Al-Hakı¯m quotes two men of religion, or religious scholars, on the ˙ matter to show that secularism is a concept accounted for in Islam and central to it; he attempts to endorse his concept ‘Islamic secularism’. He quotes ‘Abd al-Min‘im al-Nimr (1913 – 91) from his book al-Sunnah wa al-Tashrı¯‘ (1985) in which he maintains that it is a duty upon men of religion to take into account ‘time and place’ as important factors of consideration when offering ‘provisions and opinions’ in religious matters. Making a clear distinction between ‘iba¯da¯t and mu‘a¯mala¯t, he explains that ‘mu’amala¯t and their provisions are based on

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ijtiha¯d only and were not part of divine inspiration’. Thus, a re-visitation or a re-assessment of these matters using the laws laid out in doing so with due consideration to ‘new circumstances’ and the public interest of Muslims at large is necessary.173 Al-Hakı¯m further verifies this ˙ argument by quoting Ibn al-Qayyim, who states: ‘stagnation on transferred knowledge is a deviation in religion and ignorance in the aims of Muslim scholars and the past predecessors’.174 The purpose for al-Hakı¯m is the realization of public interest, and giving due ˙ consideration to the principles that Prophet Muhammad has accounted for. For, although the Prophet through divine inspiration and revelation communicated the Qur’an and the religion of Islam, he in matters of life, the worldly, was able to contribute much through personal ijtiha¯d, and was accepting in the process of the opinions of the companions.175 AlHakı¯m presents this as strong evidence in support of his concept ‘Islamic ˙ secularism’, one he endorses vigorously to demonstrate the viability and credibility of Islam, and to defend it. Seeing no apparent contradiction between religion and science, faith and rationality, the worldly and the transcendent, he calls for renewal in Islamic thought. He believes that Islam and Muslims are facing the threat of stagnation, and renewal is necessary. He states: ‘I call [. . .] for renewal in Islamic thought because Islam today is in danger [. . .] Muslims have relinquished thought over its essence and have sufficed in paying attention to the superficial and material’.176 Religious education is important to al-Hakı¯m; however, the educational ˙ methods used are of concern to him. Re-emphasizing the importance of knowledge and knowledge seeking in Islam, he suggests that current approaches to Islamic education, such as the approach to the Qur’an, encourage only memorization and regurgitation, rather than intellectual thought. He suggests that fostering intellectual thought as an approach and methodology to religious education should be used in schools and universities.177 Al-Hakı¯m further sustains that Islam is humanistic. He believes that ˙ in Islam foundational meanings exist: ‘mercy, knowledge and a sense of humanity’.178 Using various verses from the Qur’an and prophetic traditions, he finds that Islam is defined by these qualities, as it also supports them. From the selection of verses and prophetic statements that al-Hakı¯m presents, one can verify the following understandings of ˙ the qualities suggested. First, that mercy is an acknowledgement and

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belief in God’s mercy and it is having a sense of mercy at heart. Second, that knowledge and knowledge seeking are endorsed and highly valued in Islam, and that the source of knowledge and wisdom is God. Third, that there is no compulsion in religion; the Muslim nation is a moderate nation; that righteousness is the means and ends of humanity; and the bounties reaped from this are for its benefit.179 Al-Hakı¯m wishes to ˙ suggest the values in Islam that are for all of humanity, and the righteousness and prosperity it seeks for it. His endorsement of Islam as an ideology and an identity, one compatible with rationalism, rational thought and commensurate with modernity, is evident. This development in the thought of Haykal and al-Hakı¯m is by no ˙ means unique to them, for their intellectual shift and development was part of a larger development in Egypt. By the 1930s Egypt witnessed a gradual shift in orientation. National and individual identity and the means to national, social and cultural progress were all re-approached, re-examined and redefined. The trend was towards broadening the scope of these definitions. Arabism and Islamism become crucial factors for consideration, and key concerns for many intellectuals, academics and politicians from the 1930s onwards. This concern meant a broader understanding of identity as it meant broadening the scope of the national project, on national and international fronts. Nationally there was a concern over the means towards progress and reform, and internationally, there was a concern with identity, national strength and civilizational progress. An examination of the historical context of this development and the contributions of a few key intellectuals of the time grants a significant understanding of crucial factors in the genesis of modern Egyptian society.

CHAPTER 6 THE RISE OF EASTERNISM AND NATIONAL REDEFINITION (1930s—1950s)

Introduction Egyptian anti-colonial struggle took the form of a simultaneous and contradictory rejection and acceptance of Western discourse on modernity within the early part of the twentieth century. While the Egyptian intellectuals attempted to construct the nation along secularliberal lines and in congruity with Western conceptions of progress and modernity, they imagined a national narrative that is distinctly Egyptian, in differentiation from the West. The contradictory and dichotomous nature of the endeavour had a significant impact on Egyptian intellectuals, their conception of their future and their concepts of progress. Though Pharaonism is an undeniably important part of Egyptian history, the intelligentsia realized the dichotomy: their present is far removed from their distant past, and other elements of cultural identification exist. Both the imaginary and the historical narratives of the nation collided.1 Egyptian territorial nationalism was exclusivist in nature of both the Arab and Islamic elements of the cultural heritage of Egypt. By the 1930s the narrative of secular-liberal nationalism of the 1920s was no longer possible. A reconsideration of national discourse and of identity occurred. It was an epistemological shift in Egyptian thought, a turn from secular liberalism to Islamic nationalism, and Arabism. Some of

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the reasons that fuelled this turn include: the failure of liberal nationalism to attain progress, the growing discontent with Western hegemony over Egypt’s economy, poverty and high costs of living, growing unemployment among educated Egyptians, ‘rapid urbanization’, ‘continuing agrarian crisis’ and the ‘intensification of the industrial conflict’.2 The Wafd was incapable of resolving many of these issues, as it also failed in ‘achieving national liberation’; the search for the alternative was natural and necessary.3 This turn is defined as the turn to Easternism, a turn to an Easternist orientation; this was the rising alternative in the 1930s. The Easternist orientation meant the dissent from national emphasis on Pharaonism and Western affiliation, and expresses the need to define Egypt within the trajectory of Islam and the East. It is a movement away from an ‘Egypt-centered territorial nationalist position’ and an expression of an ‘Easternist affiliation of Egypt’. It is a re-orientation from a ‘secular-liberal paradigm’ to one governed by Islam and Arabism.4 A critique of secular-liberal thought and its establishment was waged by the ‘new effendiya’. This class of Western-educated Egyptian intellectuals has inspired this re-orientation to Arabism and Islam due to their disenchantment with Western liberal ideologies, and their discontentment with Western control. As a product of modern education within a context of continual social transition, the ‘new effendiya’ were frustrated with their realities; a great tension existed between their expectations for their nation and their future, and the ‘poor opportunities’ that their nation was able to offer.5 Their growing ‘suspicion’ and hostility towards British power and control further engendered the need for alternatives. They attempted to amalgamate the ‘traditionalism’ of earlier generation, and their quest for modernity. In doing so, they have reconstructed national and individual conceptions of identity, modernity and progress. They were perceived and represented as a social and political force contributing to larger processes of social, cultural and national ‘mobility’ from ‘non-modernity to modernity in its many forms’.6 Distinct from the earlier generation of effendiya, they participated in and practised ‘new modes of socialization and of consumption’, and new forms of identity construction.7 The distinction between the effendiya of the earlier part of the twentieth century and the ‘new effendiya’ is in the form of their modernization, and the way in which their respective modern national culture evolved: ‘top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’. The

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earlier generation of effendiya were of the elite or nobility of Egyptian society; they were the products of Western education (abroad and within Egypt), and trained in and highly influenced by Western thought. They were central to the formation and ‘building of a modern state’ along secular-liberal lines, created by and organically linked to the state apparatus and quest for modernity – ‘top-down’. The ‘new effendiya’, on the other hand, though products of Western-style education, were a middle-class reading public occupying various professions, and a part of Egypt’s social fabric – ‘bottom-up’. Though impacted by the processes of modernity, they witnessed and were crucial to social change, cultural transformations, the rise of mass culture and the formation of politics.8 Their conceptions of identity, progress and modernity were conceptualized within a different sphere of influence. Their discourses of selfidentification, representation, modernity and progress were constructed within the frame of the ethos of their time period and their cultural heritage. Thus, the emergent discourse of Easternism within the 1930s has been ascribed to their own processes of identification, and conceived means to progress. The ‘new effendiya’ of the 1930s and 1940s re-assessed and re-appropriated conceptions of modernity and contributed to the continuation of the modernist project and its evolution. The new identity and new conceptions of modernity were a synthesis of old and new, of traditional and modern. With a desire for social justice, national progress, national independence from foreign influence and imposition, and better opportunities in the future, they turned to Easternism. Their sense of identity was informed and governed by a sense of cultural authenticity. Egyptian identity was appropriated within the larger framework of local heritage. In an attempt to undo the liberal order, to redefine modern Egyptian society, revolutionize society and authenticate their sense of identity, the ‘new effendiya’ sought the heritage of Islam, and the heritage of the Arab world. The formation, dissemination and reception of modern national culture in the 1930s and 1940s were largely focused on Arabic and Islamic content. This was evident in both the press and in creative cultural productions, such as fictional writing and the cinema. Gershoni documents two ‘highly significant shifts’ in the Egyptian press. The first shift is that newspapers and periodicals which had been proponents of secular-liberal nationalism, of Egyptian territorial nationalism,

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underwent a re-orientation. Newspapers such as al-‘Ahram and alBalagh, and periodicals such as al-Hila¯l and al-Siyasa al-Usbu’iyya became ‘proponents and disseminators of Islamic– Arab culture’. The second shift was the emergence of a new type of press, one which ‘from the outset considered its sole purpose to be the production and transmission of Arabic and Islamic culture and literature in Egypt’.9 This does not include the body of Islamic literature produced within the time period of which Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad is an example, the production of fictional narratives espousing Easternism, such as alHakı¯m’s Bird of the East, the production of Eastern-oriented cinema such ˙ as Yusuf Wahbı¯’s film Ibn al-Hadda¯d (1944),10 and the Easternist and Islamic academically oriented writings of Ahmad Amin and al-‘Aqqa¯d. This has been accompanied by the founding of various societies whose constitution and activism is focused on disseminating Islamic and Arab culture, as well as fostering and encouraging an Eastern identity and means for identification. In light of the failure of the Wafd to resolve many of the nation’s problems, these social and political societies asserted their presence and articulated ‘alternative frameworks for the resolution of Egypt’s problems’.11 These societies arose as ‘anti-colonial movements’ incorporating conservative Islamic reactions to the failure of modernist reformers and to the disorientation of the growing urban lower classes’.12 Prominent among these societies are: Young Men’s Muslim Association (1927), Young Egypt (1933) and the Society of Muslim Brothers (1928), all of which enjoyed a large social and political following. Beinin asserts that the rise of these societies as major contenders of ‘mass allegiance’ is indicative of Egyptian ‘Islamic religious commitment or cultural orientation’.13 These societies were run by men from the social public who believed in the Islamic alternative. Given the bankruptcy of secularliberalism in Egypt, these societies sought to revitalize Islam in society, culture and politics. They ‘advanced an Islamic alternative’ in opposition to secular liberal nationalism.14 In an attempt to advance alternative means and methods for selfidentification, modernity and social, cultural and political progress, Islam became a ‘defining feature of nationalism’. While in the nineteenth century the burning question for Islamic modernists was the compatibility of Islam with rationality and Western scientific progress, the burning question for these Islamic activists and revivalists of the twentieth century was ‘how to organize a modern polity and regulate

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social processes’.15 They wanted to resist increasing secularism, ‘European encroachment on Muslim countries’, and to consolidate an Islamic position vis-a`-vis society and political structures, internally and externally.16 Islamic nationalism, thus, came to the fore. The Society of Muslim Brothers for instance, rejected secularism and ‘the idea of the separation of religion and the state’ in Muslim societies. It called for a religious state and religious sovereignty and believed in the application of ‘the Islamic modernist conception of gender relations’.17 The Society of Muslim Brothers ‘represented a synthesis of modernity and Islam. They called for rethinking older concepts and played down such prominent ideas as that of restoring the caliphate, but nevertheless fervently demanded the creation of a truly Islamic society’.18 The alternative vision that al-Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, called for ‘proposed a vision of Islam as an all-encompassing religion’.19 Al-Banna explains: ‘Islam is a faith and a ritual, a nation (watan) and a nationality, a religion ˙ and a state, a spirit and a deed [. . .] [T]he Glorious Qur’an [. . .] indicates [these] to be the core of Islam and its essence’.20 Combining Islamic ideas with a respect for certain features of Egyptian and Arab nationalism, the Society of Muslim Brothers called for the restoration of a society and nation on the basis of Islamic principles, values and methods. Several key ideas can be delineated in their ideology. First, they rejected the liberal nationalist conception of the nation and its glorification of pre-Islamic Egypt.21 Instead, a conception of a greater Islamic unity and means to self-identification is endorsed by the Brotherhood and other such societies, with a conscious recognition of Arabism as a factor. A unity based on shared history, culture and system of beliefs and ethics was primary; thus, a unity with neighbouring countries and a greater Islamic unity was the goal.22 Patriotism was, however, not rejected, for it was understood to be encouraged and prescribed in Islam and natural to humanity.23 Second, they expressed support for the Arabic language as the language of the Qur’an (a sacred language) and as the language uniting the peoples of the region. Third, a rejection of false ideas about Islam propagated by orientalists and adopted by Egyptians, and their correction.24 Finally, the aim was Islamic sovereignty in social, cultural and political spheres in an attempt to reverse anti-Islamic trends, tendencies and practices. Remedying corruption and materialism, and inspiring a true Islamic spirit among the Muslim youth was part and parcel of this goal.25 The

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revival and the institution of Islam in all spheres were the purpose; this was the alternative vision. While those espousing the Islamic character of Egypt regarded Arabism as a feature subsumed within the larger framework of its character and the vision for the Islamic nation, those espousing Arab nationalism regarded Arabism as a central and defining feature. The Arab referent was central to Arab nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s.26 The Arab nationalist movement, too, grew out of the efforts of the ‘new effendiya’ but was also supported by larger changes within the cultural and geopolitical landscape of the Arab Middle East; ‘accelerated migration’, the ‘expansion of education’ and the ‘indoctrination’ of ‘masses of young people’, the ‘growth of Arabic press’ are all reasons behind the firm hold of Arab nationalism in this period.27 The changing relations between Egypt and its Arab neighbours, post 1930, encouraged the Arab nationalist perspective. Furthermore, greater Arab emigration into Egypt and extensive participation by intellectuals and activists from the e´migre´ population in ‘journalism and publication’ within Egypt assisted in expounding the Arab nationalist perspective.28 Their Arab nationalist perspective was not entirely secular. In publications and in journalism the religious influence of some of these intellectuals and activists espousing Arab nationalism was apparent, while there was no indication of such influence and role in the thought of others.29 Despite the fact that ‘there is convincing evidence that the prevailing ideology of Arab nationalism in the twentieth century was formed [. . .] from Islamic modernist roots’, the participation of Christian Arabs in the movement had increasingly created secular Arab nationalism eliminating Islamic modernism from the equation.30 Disseminating their doctrines through publications, journalism and activism, the main thrust of Arab nationalism was Arab unity. As an ideology, Arab nationalism is the idea that ‘the Arabs are a people linked by special bonds of language, history (and many would add religion) and that their political organization should in some way reflect this reality’.31 A.I. Dawisha further suggests that cultural and emotional bonds among the Arab-speaking peoples are also defining features of Arab nationalism.32 It was a political and an ambitious movement that was concerned with ‘articulating the necessity of Arab unity’, was ‘armed with a modern programme of action’, had an interest in self-determination and

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independence, and sustained a belief in the necessity of political and even military collaboration and cohesion among the Arab states.33 This vision of Arab unity was propagated furiously by its leading ideologue and theoretician Sati‘ al-Husari (1882– 1968). For al-Husari, ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ the defining feature of Arab unity is the Arabic language; he explains: ‘people who speak a unitary language have one heart and a common soul. As such they constitute one nation and so they have to have a unified state’.34 The Arabic language serves as a marker of greater social, cultural and spiritual unity among the Arab peoples. It, alongside Islam, sustained and preserved Arab unity and sense of belonging. Furthermore, in his perspective Arab unity is ontological in nature. The divisiveness of Arab states is but an imperialist creation meant to divide the Arab nation, and to ‘weaken their military might and make them politically ineffectual’.35 Combating imperialist design through Arab nationalism and its propagation is a necessity of Arab national survival. With the growth of Western influence in the region, the reliance on Arab nationalism as a means of resistance to foreign imposition and foreign ideas grew.36 Great attention to Egypt and the Egyptian role in the fight for self-determination, independence from Western control and influence, and ‘regional leadership’ was given. Egypt became the centre for intellectual exchange on Arab unity and cultural and political cooperation; it was increasingly viewed as the centre of the Eastern and Arab world, and its most fitting leader. The Egyptian connection to the Arab world in this manner was defined by four factors verifying its connection to the Arab nation and verifying its Arab character: (1) an ‘anthropological unity between Egypt and the Arabs’; (2) ‘historical connection between the ancient Egyptian language and the Arabic language’; (3) Islam, as a unifying factor of the Egyptian people and the Arabs; (4) the geopolitical location of Egypt and its direct responsibility in the matter of a greater Arab national unity. Egypt’s responsibility as expressed by al-Husari is predicated on its ˙ ˙ geographical and political centrality, the degree of its modern advance in comparison to other Arab states, and by the fact that it is the cultural and intellectual centre of the Arab world.37

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Thus the Eastern character was sustained through a redefinition of national identity in religious and cultural terms. Egypt’s character was redefined to reflect its Islamic and Arab character and heritage. Through these, its progress, modernization and prosperity are to be realized. However, this did not mean a complete renouncement of Pharaonism; within the Egyptian intellectual scene there remained intellectuals who did not believe that relinquishing a distinctly Egyptian character and means of characterization was necessary or appropriate. For these intellectuals, Egypt was both Pharaonic and Arab. Both Jankowski and Zakı¯ illustrate the distinction between the territorial Egyptian nationalism of the early part of the twentieth century, and what Jankowski terms ‘Integral Egyptian nationalism’ of the 1930s and 1940s. Integral Egyptian nationalism, a refined form of territorial nationalism, arising out of the conditions of ‘crisis and strain’ and the failure of territorialist ‘order’, perceived a ‘symbiosis between Arabs/Muslims on the one hand and Egyptians on the other’.38 Within their historical discourse there was no apparent contradiction between the Pharaonic legacy of Egypt and its Islamic and Arab heritage. Furthermore, the Islamic and Arab heritage was an extension of the greatness of Egypt. However, apart from these movements and orientations, there remained an interest in Pharaonism and the distinctly Egyptian character of Egypt. Though this Pharaonic heritage was believed by some to be a shared legacy with the Arabs, it was argued to be the pride of the Egyptians. This form of Egyptianism, an extension of the territorial nationalist conception of Egypt of the 1920s and a residue of it, was sustained as a means to authenticating Egyptianism as the immediate and foremost means to identifying Egypt and Egyptians by some intellectuals. Taha Hussein is an example of an extreme advocate of this form of national identification.39 The nationalization of a distinct Egyptian heritage was a form of this Egyptianism, and a consequent result of it. The purpose was dual: defining a unique national character of Egypt and anti-colonial activism. D.M. Reid documents extensive efforts to institutionalize and nationalize the Pharaonic heritage of Egypt within the field of Egyptology and within academia. He explains that Egyptologists wanted to claim an ‘essential component of modern Egyptian identity’, as they also wanted to claim their place within the realm of progressive

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and scientific research and discovery, all the while escaping ‘hegemonic Western discourse that might well doom them to perpetual inferiority’.40 The control over national definition, national heritage and the production of knowledge was crucial to this endeavour. Reid further argues that ‘Egyptology and nationalism became more tightly intertwined’ between 1922 and 1953. Through nationalization and institutionalization, Egyptian national presence, strength and progress is claimed. The persistence of Pharaonism as a means to national definition and pride was also evident in the institutionalization of its discourse. Though a ‘watered- down Pharaonism’, the ‘1930s and 1940s saw the permanent establishment of Egyptian Egyptology as an academic field; an irreversible drive to Egyptianize the Antiquities Service; and, the rewriting of Egyptian history, which gave the pharaonic past a seemingly permanent place in school textbooks’.41 There is no doubt that Muslim intellectuals of this period (late 1930s and beyond) were struggling with the means towards achieving progress and defining identity; however, the Eastern turn is a defining feature of the 1930s and the 1940s. Three intellectual currents are identified: the Islamic nationalist, the Arab nationalist and the Egyptian nationalist currents. The key issues and debates that were of great concern were also numerous: ‘independence, nationalism, the Islamic connection, Arab unity [. . .] the caliphate system [. . .] means to educational reform [. . .] ethics’, and the woman question.42 The varied intellectual activity reflects the constant interrogation of modalities of thought and organization, producing a varied and rich body of intellectual thought, and thus literature, on the nation. Questions of heritage (Islamic, Pharaonic or Arab), of culture (traditional, modern and liberal, or a me´lange of all these), and of geography and territory were all eminent in the process of conceiving the nation. The conception of identity was all the more problematic. The dilemma of identity posed various alternative visions of loyalty and allegiance. The intelligentsia of this time period were suffering an intellectual estrangement or bafflement with what should and should not be, with the means and methods for constructing the self and nation, and for achieving modernity and progress. However, an Eastern means of identification was eminent in this period. Key intellectuals and activists of this period are: Taha Hussein, Ahmad Amin and al-‘Aqqa¯d, all of whom are a focus of discussion in this chapter. Hussein’s

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understanding of identity and progress is easily contrasted with the Easternist vision of the other intellectuals. A distinction is clear in their conceptualization of identity and of the means to reform, progress and modernization in Egypt.

Taha Hussein and Egyptian Westernism Taha Hussein (1889 – 1973) can be easily contrasted with his contemporaries, especially given the ideas presented in his text The Future of Culture in Egypt (1938). The main thrust of his work is the assertion of Egyptian independence and national strength and their development through modernity and progress. This he believes can be achieved through Westernism: extensive borrowing from the West and emulation of Western methods for organization in various fields. In this text, his position is far removed from Islamic allegiance or a belief in its role in the creation of the Egyptian nation, as it also reveals a lack of interest in a quest for authenticity. Hussein believed that the means to Egyptian independence, modernity and progress is through Westernism or Westernization. This is clear in his position on Egyptian identity, its link to the West and its cultural heritage, and his vision for national and cultural reform. For Hussein, the realization of national independence is merely the first step to the rise and recognition of Egypt as one of the world’s great civilizations and most progressed and modern nations; he states: ‘freedom and independence do not constitute ends in themselves, but are merely means of attaining exalted, enduring, and generally practical goals’.43 This task is one for the young of Egypt, the new generations who are facing a great and weighty responsibility towards Egypt and ‘the civilized world’.44 The means to advancing is modernization through Westernization, as conceived by Hussein. This methodology and line of thinking is justified through a verification of the unitary nature of human intellect that is binding of Egypt and the Western world; the historical and identity-based linkages between Egypt and the Western world; and the concurrence of this means towards progress within Islamic doctrine. Delineating the historical links that Egypt has and in the process defining its identity is the first step for Hussein. Hussein’s vision of the future of Egypt is one that recognizes its ancient and eternal glory

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(the Pharaonic past) and builds on its present; ‘the new Egypt will have to be built on the great old one [. . .] an extension, a superior version, of the humble [. . .] feeble present’.45 However, the recognition of Egypt’s ancient glory goes beyond an exaltation of the Pharaonic civilization; it is recognition of Egyptian cultural glory, one defined and enhanced by its association and amalgamation with Western cultural heritage. For him, culture is the defining factor, not geography, and given Egypt’s cultural heritage, Egypt is not Eastern. The East to Hussein is the Far East (India, China, Japan, etc.), one culturally different and ‘antagonistic’ to the West. The Egyptian mind is Western in its ‘imagination, perception, comprehension, and judgement’. He verifies this identification through the presentation of historical facts, perceived as ‘truth’. He explains that historically the contact between Egypt and the Far East was not regular and could not have ‘affected’ Egyptian thinking and Egypt’s ‘political or economic institutions’. Contact with the East was limited to the near East, ‘scarcely’ going ‘beyond Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, that is, the East that falls in the Mediterranean basin’.46 It is true, however, that there has been regular and extensive contact between Egypt and the West. The ‘ties binding the ancient Greco –Aegean civilization’ and Egypt suggest a long history of cultural borrowing and influence, as they also suggest means for selfidentification. He argues that a reciprocal relationship of cultural influence existed between the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Greeks. He states: ‘history has neither denied this nor subtracted anything from it [. . .] the facts affirm an Egyptian influence not only on Greek architecture, sculpture, and painting, but on the applied arts and science as well, not to mention the various aspects of daily life, including political conduct’. As Egypt ‘exerted’ its influence, it was also influenced by the Greeks.47 The historical and cultural ties between Egypt and the Greco –Aegean civilization are, thus, undeniable. They affirm, in his mind, that Egypt is culturally Western. Moreover, Egypt and its identity is Western; its ties to the Eastern world are not only feeble, but are also inadequate for defining and building a nation. Hussein negates the appropriateness and adequacy of both religious and linguistic ties as a means to defining national identity. He believes that political unity cannot be based on religious or linguistic ties. He uses Islamic history of governance to suggest the legitimacy and

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viability of his claims. He argues that Muslims ‘established their states on the basis of practical interests, abandoning religion, language, and race as exclusively determining factors before the end of the second century A.H.’. Furthermore, by the fourth century AH, ‘various national blocs and states’ emerged in the Muslim world ‘built on economic, geographical, and other interests’, not on a religious or linguistic basis.48 Though Hussein recognizes the importance of Islam and the Arabic language to Egypt, his argument is that they cannot serve as a basis for political organization. State and religion must be separated, and the Arab link is inconsequent to Egyptian national formation and definition. Essentially, given this Western emphasis in Egyptian history and culture, neither Arab nor Islamic cultural ties suffice for self-identification, and progress. Furthermore, Egyptian mentality and culture are given an eternal quality, unaffected by factors of religion. For as the Western nations adopted Christianity and were able to achieve progress and modernity unaffected by it, Egypt too maintains its mentality and should not be hindered in its quest for progress.49 Egypt is a (‘Western’) nation that can match Western progress if not surpass it. Both Christianity and Islam, alike, have been able to absorb Greek philosophy and contribute to the development in thought through transmission, translation and further intellectual discoveries. The difference for Hussein lies in historical circumstances; while the West experienced good fortune through the Renaissance, Egypt experienced a historical and cultural misfortune due to the Turkish invasion, one which has ‘halted the advances being made in Muslim countries’.50 He argues that this can be made good through reform. According to him, Egypt’s modern orientation is undoubtedly Western, and its advance towards modernity (Westernism) is inevitable. Though in his opinion the crisis between ‘the old and the new’ remains, it is undeniable that the new generation is European in their mode of thought, and that gradually Egypt and Egyptians are ‘drawing closer to Europe and becoming an integral part of her, literally and figuratively’.51 Therefore, the means towards progress is cultural borrowing and emulation. He suggests that reform is required for military, economic, political and educational means for organization, and they should be modelled after the West.52 According to Hussein, fears with regard to modernization and Westernization are unfounded. Identity will not be affected and religion will not be corrupted. He argues that while many view progress through

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Western means as detrimental to Islam (its system, culture and practice), ‘religion will not be contaminated by the evils they perceive to be latent in the European way of life’.53 Islam’s history has proven its ability to retain its strength despite contact with various civilizations. In fact, the Islamic civilization has experienced growth and development due to intercultural exchange; he explains that the ‘glorious Islamic culture of the Umayyads and Abbassids’ was due to the incorporation and adoption of aspects of the ‘Persian and Byzantine Greek civilizations’.54 Thus, the practice is not new, nor is it threatening to Islam and its character; intercultural borrowing has been a historical practice that enhanced the development of the Islamic civilization and can only do so in the present. Furthermore, he argues that the much-feared ‘materialism’ of the West is a product of intellectual thought, spiritual awareness and arduous efforts. Citing Western thinkers such as Descartes and Pasteur, he explains that critical thought has been the source of Western progress; while the lack thereof, as in the Islamic world, is the source and reason for its decadence.55 To him, if a problem exists in following the methods of the West, it does not lie in religion; rather, it lies in the conflict that exists between men of science and men of religion, not science and religion.56 According to Hussein, Islam ‘will be best maintained’ by doing as its ancestors did: ‘maintaining its responsiveness to contemporary needs’.57 His argument is that Islam in Egypt is not antithetical to progress, modernity and intercultural exchange, it never has been, and, therefore, it faces no threat in being responsive to the needs of progress and modernization in the modern period. His argument simply put is: Egyptian progress, independence, equality with advanced nations and dignity are best served through modernization, through intercultural borrowing, through Westernization. Hussein proposes a series of reforms in various fields of organization in accordance with this philosophy: military, economic, political, legal and educational. He suggests an army for national defence ‘equal in men and equipment’ and modelled after the ‘European pattern, particularly with respect to the training of soldiers, officers, and of varying specialists’.58 Similarly, in economics and politics, Western methods of organization are to be emulated. He advocates economic independence and the ‘protection’ of Egyptian ‘wealth and resources’ using the ‘same means that the Europeans and Americans use to defend their national economies’.59 He also suggests the separation of religion and politics,

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the application of democratic principles, and state organization and control over a series of aspects of civil organization. The reform of education, however, is his main concern, for it is the means to bringing about the future of Egypt, a future of independence (in all spheres), as it is the future of its citizenry, one characterized by freedom, dignity and prosperity. His project for educational reform tackles various issues. He calls for state control and unitary organization of education; the reform of educational levels and of the curriculum; the reform of teaching methods; and the reform of various policies to do with instructors. A key focus for Hussein is building a prosperous, educated and free future citizenry. He locates several inadequacies within Egypt and its educational system: (1) ‘the majority are illiterate’; (2) ‘the literate minority of Egyptians [. . .] have been subjected to various and often contradictory types of education’; (3) the scope of education is limited; (4) the various educational networks of al-Azhar are ‘scattered’ and uncontrolled; (5) al-Azhar’s teaching philosophy is ‘ancient’ and not conducive to the needs of the modern period; (6) the level of education and treatment that instructors receive, and their pay, are all poor.60 Apart from suggesting a curriculum that is wider in scope, unified and state controlled, with a focus on building an informed future citizenry (knowledgeable and aware of their rights and obligations towards themselves and their nation), he proposes a state-controlled system of education for al-Azhar. His concern with al-Azhar’s education system is that it is both outdated in its ‘educational philosophy techniques’ and that it functions with a level of liberty that should not be sanctioned. He perceives that al-Azhar produces students who are ‘very different in thought and behaviour from secular-trained youth’ due to its ‘educational philosophy and techniques, derived largely from the Middle Ages’, as he describes. He believes that the consequences of such a system are ‘serious’ and thus proposes a system for al-Azhar that ‘falls between the purely religious

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and the purely secular forms of education’.61 Specifically, he aims for secular forms of education alongside the religious education already provided by al-Azhar: ‘the government has no alternative but to supervise them in order to ensure that Azharites – like students in the public, private and foreign schools – are taught to love their country and to know its language, history, geography, and religion’.62 Modernizing al-Azhar’s techniques and methods in this fashion is meant to reconcile the two elements necessary for progress within the education system, the religious and the secular, and to reshape the intellectual life of the future citizenry of the nation. His reform propositions for al-Azhar go beyond the reform of its educational system and pedagogical techniques. He also proposes state control of al-Azhar. This state control is meant to curtail the authority of al-Azhar within Egypt; he explains: ‘al-Azhar should not be allowed to remain a state within a state, a privileged body capable of defying public authority’.63 He believes that al-Azhar has been a centre of conservatism and ‘antiquated practices’ that must be reformed so that it may realize contemporary needs: (1) a connection with the rest of society and the modern world; (2) an understanding of patriotism and nationalism, ‘in the modern European sense of the terms’. Thus, state supervision of its education is necessary, and the revision of its ‘primary and secondary school programs’ is an imperative, to Hussein.64 His ultimate purpose in proposing all of these reforms (the military, economic, political and educational) is establishing Egypt’s strong footing among the advanced nations, realizing its full independence, fulfilling the requirements for the development of a modern nation, and fostering a youth that will love their country, know that ‘duties come before rights’, and that ‘will never know the humiliation and shame that was the lot of their fathers’.65 Hussein’s text, The Future of Culture in Egypt, was met with a tremendous wave of criticism. It was largely unwelcomed for the ideas it presented with regard to self-identification. Hussein was criticized for negating Egypt’s Arab and Islamic ties and aspects of its identity. The responses to his text were abundant; however, taking a look at Sayyid Qutb’s (1906–66) response will suffice: in Naqd Mustaqbal ˙

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al-Tha¯qafah Fı¯ Misr (The Future of Culture in Egypt: A Criticism) (1939), ˙ Qutb provides an insight into the Eastern and Islamic orientation, and ˙ an insight into the reasons why Hussein’s means to self-identification were rejected. Qutb’s primary criticisms of Hussein’s text centre on ˙ his conception of Egypt’s identity and the means proposed for progress. Qutb confirms that Hussein does use historical facts to ˙ present his arguments; however, he suggests that his premises and conclusions are faulty. Qutb approaches the same historical facts and ˙ presents others from a different perspective, bringing to the fore a different understanding of Egyptian identity, one intimately connected to the Arab and Islamic East. In addressing Hussein’s question on whether Egypt is part of the West or East, he counter-argues that the world cannot be split into two different totalities: the West (denoted by Europe and America) and the Far East (China, Japan, Asia, Indonesia, etc.). He instead questions why the world cannot be seen to represent the vastness of races, nations and mentalities or intellects it houses. He specifically questions why a third segment of the world cannot be accounted for: the Arab world.66 In answer to the question of Egypt’s character, he maintains the Islamic and Arab character of Egypt. Though he does confirm that Egypt did historically maintain close contact with the Greek civilization, he does not believe that this is sufficient in defining Egypt’s identity. He explains that agreement on the basis of political organization does not mean a complete cultural and identity-based agreement; this is not a definitive means of defining identity. He suggests that despite the close contact with the Greek civilization, Egyptians historically detested the presence of the Greeks and despised, and further avoided, any unnecessary contact with them.67 Rejection, revolt and revolution to Qutb all verify a difference in cultural and intellectual makeup. ˙ Sustaining further his argument, Qutb addresses Hussein’s rejection ˙ of linguistic and religious ties as a means to national unity. He explains that despite an existing political strife between the Umayyads in Andalusia and Abbassids in Iraq, there was an intellectual and cultural unity among them. The history of cultural exchange and influence in the areas of literature and the arts is evidence of such unity. According to Qutb, their distinct political organization did not mean a lack of ˙ intellectual and cultural unity.68 Islam was a unifying factor; it played a large role in this cultural unification. To further attest this point, he

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attempts to explain the role that Islam plays and its many representations within civil, cultural and political life. To Qutb, the ˙ spiritual aspect of the East rendered to it by Islam goes far beyond mere spirituality, for Islam offers a comprehensive system governing various aspects of life. Contesting the conception of a material West and a spiritual East, Qutb sheds light on a foundational difference between Islam and ˙ Christianity and the roles they have played in the respective civilizations. Islam cannot be regarded in the same way as Christianity. He argues that while Christianity is a spiritual system of belief, it is vague if not silent on matters of society, economy and politics. Thus, its scope permits a degree of freedom in matters worldly, and thus liberty in self-identification, methods of organization and means towards material and cultural progress. Christianity does not dictate the same parameters of organization as Islam does, and therefore, its imprint was easily legislated to the sphere of the personal. He suggests that this foundational difference can be verified in the contents of the Bible and the Qur’an, and the messages that both Prophet ‘Issa¯ (Christ) and Prophet Muhammad have presented to humanity. While Prophet ‘Issa¯ called for ‘spiritual purity, mercy, leniency and forgiveness’, Prophet Muhammad came with a system that addresses spiritual and material matters.69 Furthermore, suggesting that the West was able to remain unaffected by cultural exchange, borrowing and amalgamation, retaining a distinct ‘Western’ mentality cannot be said of Egypt. Islam, unlike Christianity, is a holistic system that not only offers spirituality, but also dictates systems of ethics, values and methods of organization, all of which have imprinted the people of the Arab East with a distinct character and endowed them with a distinct social, cultural and religious identity. This social, cultural and religious identity (Arab and Islamic) cannot be denied of Egypt. For the Qur’an has framed the ‘Egyptian mind’ or intellect in a very specific fashion, one that is informed by the guidelines set forth in the Qur’an for spiritual and worldly matters.70 Qutb further contests the grounds on which Hussein advocates ˙ cultural borrowing. He believes that cultural borrowing from Western nations is nothing but a modern necessity that has nothing to do with a unified mentality bonding the culture of Egypt and that of the West. He argues that during the Islamic Golden age, the Western civilizations

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used this method as a means of attaining progress, and Muslim and Arab nations too will simply do the same. However, the Egyptian mind and spirit is and always will be Eastern and distinct from the West. Complete cultural amalgamation is not a necessity in Qutb’s opinion. ˙ The acceptance of modernity by Egyptian youth is not an indication of their Western identity. Though Qutb offers a few criticisms of Hussein’s ˙ educational reform propositions, he in large part is in agreement with him on this matter. However, what Qutb calls for is the maintenance of ˙ the distinct identity of Egypt (Arab and Islamic), the retaining of its past, as he advocates for a progress that is set by the ‘measure that is dictated by natural change’.71 His Easternist stance is equally shared by Ahmad Amı¯n, and ‘Abba¯s M. al-‘Aqqa¯d. They have each asserted the importance of an Eastern identity, Arab and Muslim, communicated their stance on the West and Western modernity (specifically in relation to Arab and Muslim identity and progress) and provided (in subtle variations) their visions for progress.

Amı¯n’s Easternism: East vs West Ahmad Amı¯n (1886– 1954) was one of Egypt’s prominent Muslim ˙ writers. His orientation was Easternist in that he advocated a close association and identification with Arab and Islamic culture, and their affirmation. He wished for reform and progress in the understanding of Islam and in the reconstruction of Muslim thought, and a strong and clear identification with its heritage.72 He describes the conditions of his ‘formation’ as an individual in his autobiography: My formation has been influenced to a great extent by what I inherited from my forefathers, the economic life that prevailed at our home, the religion that subsumed us, the language that we spoke, the folk literature that was related to us, and a type of upbringing [. . .] I did not make myself: God made me by way of the laws He prescribed for heredity and environment.73 Growing up in a highly conservative and religious environment, he was a religious man who believed in the precepts of his faith ‘unshaken by philosophy’ and by his readings ‘in the books of atheists’ as he describes.74

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In his time, Amı¯n expressed a great deal of disenchantment with Western imperialism, materialism, and, to a degree, culture. His disenchantment with Western imperialism and modernity takes the form of direct criticism at times and the affirmation of Arab and Islamic culture at others. His text ’Asharq wa al-Gharb (Orient and Occident) (1955), published after his death, verifies both approaches. In this text Amı¯n attempts to discern the roots of differentiation and difference between the East and the West so as to verify what qualifies progress, modernity and civilizational prosperity. He suggests that this text was a product of thought and questioning. He questioned Western progress and by fact of such questioning the perceived Eastern ‘decline’. Specifically, he questions whether there is a connection between Western thought and means for organization, and the progress of humanity.75 Through comparison, he attempts to show that while Western means for organization merit approval and admiration, not all Western values do. He argues that Eastern nations should use their own means of achieving progress, for social, cultural and political organization, as they should also honour their value systems. The text begins with a compelling question: what is East and what is West? Is there a reality to this distinction? Though he admits that it is difficult to qualify the difference, he takes into account four factors that have been used in qualifying ‘East’ and ‘West’ (geographical, temporal, and character-based and communal-based distinctions). He finds all means of verifying difference faulty, and attests that the only real distinction is materialism versus spirituality. The East is described as spiritual: (1) It is the source of the ‘major religions’; (2) Life in the East is predicated and defined by a belief in Divine ordinance and predestination; (3) Easterners account for their actions and purpose in life based on religious decree and rewards reaped from ‘good’ actions; (4) The East is governed by physical manifestations of spirituality.76 Amı¯n finds fault in the excessive spiritualism of the East; it leads to ‘weakness’ and ‘laziness’.77 On the other hand, the materialism of the West is defined as uninhibited, one that gives little regard to the human soul and to spirituality, and, thus, also faulty.78 Its society, its

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modernity, is built on material progress, centred on the conception of the human being as an ‘intellectual animal’ designed for rationality and productivity. The focus is on the material world. Its materialism is further predicated by the view that the human being is separate from any conception of transcendence; the prime focus is on the relationship of man to man.79 Western materialism, he believes, led to conflict, social and ethical disintegration and war. Some of the examples he cites are: the manufacturing of destructive war weaponry; ethnocentrism and colonialism; and the spread of crime.80 The shortcoming of Western modernity is located in its inherent lack of regard for spirituality, and the spiritual facets of humanity. Though he confirms that the East is identified by its excessive spiritualism and the West by its excessive materialism, he honours the ethics and values of the East. He argues that Western modernity is not only inadequate within itself in providing a means towards meaningful progress, as it lacks the spiritual aspects, but also that it cannot be applied to the East. Amı¯n sustains that Western ideas and structures of modernity cannot be simply transplanted to the East because they have arisen out of specific socio-historical and environmental circumstances. His claim is that aspects of Western modernity and civilization should instead be assessed for their applicability and benefit to the East. For Amı¯n, civilization is measured by its benefits, and by what it offers humanity and human progress in ethics, morals, social organization and peace. Though he acknowledges some of the merits of Western modernity81 and some of its contributions to the progress of humanity, his main argument is that, as a material civilization, it is not one to emulate. Historically, he argues, Eastern civilizations and their progress were lengthier and offered much in ethics, morals, social organization and peace; Eastern civilizations are a source of pride. Thus, within the modern period the spirituality of the East can be effective, and furthermore, completing of Western modernity.82 Though the East can benefit from Western means of organization and scientific development, it must retain its character. Modern superiority is not a factor in Amı¯n’s thought; however, human progress is. Eastern civilizations, he suggests, have committed a fault by absorbing, emulating and adapting Western thought and means for organization without due consideration. The attempt to absorb, emulate and adapt has resulted in ‘disorder and a lack of harmony’ and the ‘spread of imitation, and the disintegration of

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innovation in the East’.83 Feelings of superiority in the West and shortcoming in the East are only by-products of this state of disorder; they are not a reflection of the truth of Eastern society. He urges an understanding of these contentions in any efforts at progress and modernity in the East. The East can, given due consideration to its own values, historical circumstances and environment, be innovative and progressive in its own ways; the social milieu of the East, and its thought (those distinct from the West), will undoubtedly lead to innovations realized on a ‘non-Western basis’.84 Eastern ‘renaissance’ should be on the basis of its ‘character’ so that it may ‘present the world the kind of civilization that it is in dear need of. A civilization in which Islam substitutes war, and cooperation [. . .] and understanding substitute subjugation’.85 In this way, he states, ‘the world will benefit from the efforts, practices and innovations’ of both civilizations.86 Comparing East and West, Amı¯n affirms further his advocacy for Easternism, tackling in the process various issues of interest and concern. Though he discusses the faults and merits of certain practices in both cultures87 unable to make a clear and discernable stance, he maintains a strong Easternist stance at others. His discussion in the text of culture and ethics will suffice to explicate his Easternist orientation and polemical stance towards the emulation of Western modernity, in its entirety. Amı¯n’s definition of culture is containing of literary culture and social upbringing and conditioning in all its forms. The argument he sustains is that clear distinctions can be seen between the East and West (in terms of their cultures and in their respective social environments, or milieus), and that despite a history of contestation in the East (between tradition and modernity, old and new), the truth of the Eastern character remains valid. He sustains this argument by suggesting that language and literature, and social environments affect their nations. The Arabic language and literature, and the Arabic social environment, then, have deep impact on the Arab peoples, creating clear distinctions between them and other nations (the Western). Some of these include: their conception of the future (forward-looking versus historically informed); and their culture (science and innovation or religion, the imitation of predecessors and inherited knowledge).88 This difference alongside a long history of colonization and change are clearly manifested in the

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Eastern approach to education and in their educational systems creating variant conditions for consideration.89 Some of the conditions he discusses are: the introduction of Westernstyle education and educational systems; the effect of colonialism on education (the spread of Western culture, illiteracy, and the effect of protestant missions on religion and culture) and the various literary forms of anti-colonial struggle; and the resulting educational trends in the twentieth century (secular and religious).90 He attempts to show the contestation between old and new (traditional and modern), the resulting discord due to this contestation, and the persistence of Eastern culture. For instance, he explains that there exist variances in educational systems within Egypt that have formed over a long period of historical change: al-Azhar, national and foreign school systems. The results of these educational variances are: discord in the mental development of Egyptians, and conflicting views of identity and culture within society (religion versus secularism). This predicament, he states, can be witnessed in most of the Eastern nations.91 To Amı¯n, this state of affairs is dangerous. His expositions of the change occurring to culture in the East only suggest one conclusion. The forces of Western colonialism and modernity have shifted the focus from the language, and literature and culture of the East to those of the West, introducing language, literature and culture that are outside of the formation of the East and its environment. This social discord and chaos, though it has been combated historically with efforts to assert identity (through various means), remains a reality in the twentieth century. He concludes that all those attempting to realize progress in Western terms can never realize it fully, for ‘they are nothing but imitators’. What remains are feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.92 Such a conclusion suggests a belief in authenticity: the East needs to be grounded in, defined and stimulated by its specific history, culture, values and environment. His stance on ethics is equally telling of his Easternist orientation. Amı¯n differentiates between primary and secondary ethical values. Universal values include ‘courage, justice, self-control, honesty’, while secondary values are specific to nations; they include stances on women’s issues and other social practices.93 He argues that the weight and prioritization of ethical values are nation-specific and dependent on various factors such as ‘environment, culture, the economy’.94

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Furthermore, a clear distinction in the conception of ethical values exists between East and West. While Eastern ethics are governed by religion and directed by men of religion, Western ethics are governed by science and guided by men of science. He sustains this argument by providing a historical exposition of some of the ways the West has departed from religion and from using it as a source and measure for ethical values. In the process anything ‘old’ has been antagonized and rejected.95 His ultimate claim is that ethics should be grounded in faith, not scientific and material progress, uninhibited individualism and freedom. He explains that it is ‘insufficient for ethics to be mere rational laws [as the West perceives], but they must be supported by a spiritual power [as the East perceives]’.96 For Amı¯n, the meaning and value of ethics existed only when they were expressed in strong relationship to religion; for, as they derived their essence through scientific empiricism, they lost their value and meaning.97 He concludes that while the West has abandoned that connection (between ethics and religion) it has not been successful in replacing it with an equally valid system. The East, on the other hand, ‘still basis its ethics on religion, and so ethics remain sacred’ in the East. The ultimate suggestion is that the East should not emulate Western ethical values, and should retain its Eastern values.98 Ultimately Amı¯n was interested in values and means for organization that are grounded in the heritage of the East, and in conceptions of progress and modernity defined by them. The Arab East and Islam are the source of progress and modernity, and they equally match Western capacity for progress, if not surpass it.

Al-‘Aqqa¯d: Polemical Narratives, and Progress through Islam Amı¯n’s Easternism is exceeded by al-‘Aqqa¯d (1889–1964) who in his lifetime fervently defended Islam and Islamic means for organization. Al-‘Aqqa¯d’s writings are extensive, ranging from texts that are historical in nature, texts that explain Islamic thought, and others that are written in explicit defence of Islam. His texts cover a wide variety of topics on the heritage of Arab and Islamic civilization and culture. These include: ‘Athar al-Hada¯rah al-‘Arabiyyah’ (1946), and ‘al-Thaqa¯fah al˙ ˙ ‘Arabiyyah’ (1960). Others are expositions of Islamic thought systems,

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such as: ‘al-Dı¯muqra¯tiyyah Fı¯ al-Isla¯m’ (1952), ‘al-Mar’ah Fı¯ al-Qur’a¯n’ ˙ (1959), and ‘al-Tafkı¯r Farı¯dah ‘Isla¯miyyah’ (1962). Yet other texts are a ˙ clear and explicit defence of Islam; these include: ‘Ma¯ Yuqa¯lu ‘An alIsla¯m’ (1957) and ‘Haqa¯’ iq al-Isla¯m wa ‘Aba¯tı¯l Khus]mih’ (1957). Al˙ ˙ ˙ ‘Aqqa¯d was mainly inspired by the need to respond to claims challenging the validity of Islam, Islamic culture and Muslim identity; the writings of orientalists and some non-Western scholars. His displeasure and frustration with popular discourse and scholarship on Islam was pronounced in his writings. In response, al-‘Aqqa¯d tackles three areas of concern: the perceived East/West dichotomy; the questioning of Islam and its relevance in the modern period; and the attack on Islamic practice that has instigated doubt in the minds of Muslims. The perceived East/West dichotomy is based on a conception of difference between the two nations and civilizations, delineating in the process measures of progress. Islamic and Arab nations are perceived to suggest inadequacies, inconsistencies and inherent contradictions with modernity. This he suggests is faulty. Much like Amı¯n, he argues that there is no basis to these assumptions of dichotomy, and no basis to the suggestion of the inferiority of Islam, and Islamic and Arab nations. To al-‘Aqqa¯d civilizational worth is predicated on what it offers humanity in benefits. He asserts the glory of Islam, its history and heritage. Particularly in ’Athar al ‘Arab Fı¯ al-Hada¯rah al-’Urubiyyah (The Influence of the Arabs on ˙ ˙ the European Civilization) (1946), he suggests that the intellectual development and progress offered by Islam during its Golden Age were unprecedented. It offered developments in many areas: in literature, arts, science, music, philosophy and religion, among many others; Islamic progress was the cause for European progress. He explains that popular opinion in nineteenth century Europe was that Eastern nations do not seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; rather, they seek it for benefit. He contests this opinion, stating that it is a claim that is unfounded; such opinions sustain the dichotomy, esteeming Western nations and serving their sense of pride and their purposes in the East (colonization and exploitation).99 Through historical investigation, he verifies this argument: Eastern nations have sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The supposed precept that the Greeks were able to contribute to the area of philosophy due to their intellect, one different from the Easterners, is implausible to al-‘Aqqa¯d.

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To him, there is no truth to the distinction in human ‘intellects’: the peoples of the East were and are not different from the Greeks, or the West. However, he claims that historical circumstance is the factor affecting cultural production, and it is one that can be accounted for. Furthermore, he argues that European philosophers benefited from Arab and Muslim philosophers, such as al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufayl.100 Of the specific examples he suggests is the effect that Ibn al-‘Arabi has had on Christian (mystic) thinkers that have come after his time. John Eckhart, Spinoza and Raymond Llull were equally influenced by Ibn al-‘Arabi’s thought: on God, His traits, His ultimate presence in all existence, and the idea that ‘the ultimate end of the human soul is a connection with God through practice, knowledge and prayer’.101 His ultimate conclusion is that ‘it is faulty of anyone to suggest that all that was inherited from Muslim philosophers was transferred knowledge [from Greek philosophers]. For there were among Muslim philosophers those who practiced independent thought and those who stopped at simply transferring and interpreting knowledge’.102 The truth that al-‘Aqqa¯d wants to verify in his writing is that there is no distinction between East and West on the basis of human intellect, in the capacity for cultural production, and for progress. Eastern nations have sought knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and should be able to continue to do so. Furthermore, Islam is not in contradiction with rational thought, in fact, it encourages it. In al-Tafkı¯r Farı¯dah Isla¯miyyah (Thought, a Duty in Islam) (1962), ˙ al-‘Aqqa¯d verifies this truth using the Qur’an and prophetic statements. In this text, al-‘Aqqa¯d argues that contemplation and rational thought are encouraged in Islam, and further, are a duty; the Qur’an tells the believers to contemplate existence, to think in life to verify ‘truth’, to verify right from wrong, truth from falsehood, and to apply it in the affairs of the worldly. The Qur’an esteems reason and raises the awareness of its reader to the necessity of exercising it. Perception, awareness, contemplation, thought and reasoning are all accounted for as its functions; this he argues is verified through specific verses in the Qur’an.103 For al-‘Aqqa¯d, it is a principle of Islam to seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge and to seek it for the benefit of individual, society and humanity. Using examples such as the contributions of various Muslim philosophers, he maintains that this

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has been practised historically in Islam and there is nothing in Islam that prohibits it.104 Al-‘Aqqa¯d equally defends Islam and Islamic practice, sustaining his argument of the concurrence of Islam and modernity, Islam and progress. The attack on Islam as means to social and political organization, he believes, is a threat to its sustainability. Thus, he addresses certain areas of concern, women’s rights in Islam in al-Mar’ah Fı¯ al-Qur’a¯n (Women in the Qur’an) (1959). Islam endorses women’s rights. Al-‘Aqqa¯d clarifies the vision of women in the Qur’an; it is one that is equally protective of society and its interests, as it is guarding of women’s rights. He clarifies that the Qur’an, in discussing women, accounts for three factors: their nature, as they have been created; their rights and duties, in family and society; and social interest. The purpose of these is threefold: (1) protecting and esteeming women; (2) correcting societal ills and protecting society; (3) upholding standards of ethics and justics.105 An example is al-‘Aqqa¯d’s explanation of the concept of guardianship, ‘Qawa¯mah’, in Islam as one based on the nature and instinct of men and women. Men’s guardianship over women is not based on superiority of being; rather, it is based on the instinct to protect and on the basis of responsibilities and duties ordained and enforced on men (financial responsibility is an example).106 He attests that this can be verified: the genders do differ, and historically human social practices portray the ‘nature’ of guardianship, of man over woman despite the expansion of women’s roles over time.107 To al-‘Aqqa¯d, this understanding of the difference between the genders, and its accompanying concept of guardianship, do not take away from the rights that women are allocated. He explains: ‘the rights of women in the Glorious Qur’an have been constructed on the most just basis determining fairness for the individual and fairness for all, and this is true equity’.108 Complete equality between men and women in the realization of the same rights is not the goal in Islam, as explained by al-‘Aqqa¯d. Equality is realized through equitable rights and duties for each gender, even if their arenas of social practice differ. There is no complete equality to be realized between men and women given their nature, instinct, the characterization of their makeup and their

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respective social roles.109 This is the equality described and established in the Qur’an between ‘man and woman, or husband and wife, or between male and female, and there is no prosperity for a society that does not realize this form of equity’.110 His main purpose is to verify justice in Islamic law and practice. In defence of Islam, al-‘Aqqa¯d attempts to verify the qualities and doctrines of Islam that make it an ideal system of organization and of belief. Al-‘Aqqa¯d continues his defence of Islam asserting its comprehensive nature in Haqa¯’iq al-Isla¯m wa ’Aba¯tı¯l Khus]mih (The Truths of Islam and ˙ ˙ ˙ the Falsity of its Opponents) (1957); he believes that the attack on it as a system of belief is unfounded. To al-‘Aqqa¯d, Islam is authentic in the life of the individual, the society and the nation. It is a system of belief that is as close as can be to completeness; it provides individual, society and nation with a means to addressing: the matters of the ‘world of the seen and the world of the unseen’. All spiritual needs are also addressed in its systems of organization, in its ethics, and in the way it accounts for reason and conscience.111 Al-‘Aqqa¯d attests this comprehensive nature of Islam by discussing three of its qualities. The first quality is its accountability for the world of the known (seen) and the unknown (unseen), the material and the spiritual, the body and soul. According to al-‘Aqqa¯d, Islam accounts for and harmonizes these elements in its system creating a holistic vision for life, and holistic means for living it. He explains that a religion cannot be described as holistic if it negates any one of these elements, something which Islam does not do. For instance, it addresses the mind as it addresses the conscience, it also accounts for predestination as it accounts for human will and freedom.112 He explicates this point further by discussing the system of ‘iba¯da¯t (acts of worship), and its purpose. He argues that the system has many benefits: ‘it is one that unites the requirements of the worldly with those of religion’.113 The second reason given to sustain the argument that Islam is comprehensive and holistic is: Islam predicates and encourages human rationality and human activity. He explains that although it is thought that the belief in predestination is the reason behind Muslim stagnation, the truth of the matter is that Islam endorses a belief in predestination and the acceptance of fate as it endorses human activity and productivity. He explains that Muslims who choose to rely on ‘fate’ and God’s will in justification for their inaction and lack of productivity in their lives are

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acting in ‘disobedience of Allah’, for they are, contrary to such belief and action, commanded to be productive agents in ‘the Qur’an and in Prophetic statements’.114 The third reason given to sustain the argument for the comprehensive nature of Islam is that it is inclusive of all humanity. The only distinctions Islam makes are: (1) between those of knowledge and those without it; (2) between those who are active and those who are inactive; (3) between the ethical and the unethical.115 Al-‘Aqqa¯d’s argument is that Islam is not only justified as a system of organization, one that is comprehensive in nature, but it is also concurrent with modernity. He is keen to address the prevailing doubt in Islam as a system of belief and its applicability today in his text Ma¯ Yuqa¯lu ‘An al-Isla¯m (What is Said about Islam) (1957). He addresses the doubt and questioning directed at Islamic practice by discussing issues such as prayer, fasting and hermeneutics. He acknowledges the effect that such doubt and questioning has on Muslim faith and belief, and Muslim confidence in Islam, and keenly works through these various issues to not only explain their value but to instil confidence in Islam and in Muslim identity. For instance, he describes prayer as a means towards a solid relationship with God, linking the world of the known with the world of the unknown. He further argues that it is practised in all faiths, it is a sign of human progress and that its benefits, as a spiritual exercise, have been scientifically proven.116 In discussing fasting he numerates the types of fasts that are practised based on their varying purposes: purification (of the body, for beauty and health), sympathy (in times of trouble or tribulation), repentance (for sins), to protest and raise awareness (for social justice), and one used for physical and psychological training (as in the military). He, then, goes on to suggest that the practice of fasting in Islam harmonizes all of these purposes. It combines and serves all of these purposes, and its practice is both beneficial and necessary, in Islam.117 Finally, his discussion of hermeneutics suggests that two approaches are in use: the scientific and the traditional. The scientific begs the reading and interpretation of the Qu’ran using new methods and in light of new discoveries and societal changes, while the traditional begs a reading and interpretation of the Qur’an based on the readings of the predecessors, the Salaf. While he maintains that it is a

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duty to exercise reason, he does not believe that a scientific reading suffices. He argues that the Qur’an must be understood as it was revealed with due consideration to modern discoveries. Hermeneutics, however, need to be grounded in religion, as scientific theories, methodologies and approaches are ever-changing, and, therefore, cannot provide stability in religious interpretation.118 Through his research and writing, al-‘Aqqa¯d is able to make very distinct and precise conclusions on Islam and modernity. His first conclusion is: ‘Islam conveys to the Muslim his/her doctrine in understanding divinity, in understanding prophetic guidance and in understanding humanity, this is not surpassed by any other doctrine or system of belief, religious, theoretical or practical’. The second conclusion is: ‘Islamic laws and principles do not deter the Muslim from achieving any ends presented by science and modernity’. The third conclusion made by al-‘Aqqa¯d is: Islam is a rich supply for humanity and human progress and benefit in the future.119 Al-‘Aqqa¯d ultimately believes that Islam is both a system of belief and a system of organization that is logical, rational, convincing and beneficial. Its principles are comprehensive, addressing all the needs of humanity; they are for the benefit of the individual, the society and humanity at large. It encourages justice, fairness, rational thought, productivity and progress. Furthermore, any contesting claims about the nature of Islam and its validity are faulty; Islam is not only valid but necessary for human progress – it surpasses any other system of belief and organization. For al-‘Aqqa¯d, Islam is not the alternative; rather, Islam is the only means towards conceiving Muslim life.

Conclusion The Easternist orientation that was initiated in the 1930s and 1940s, though conceived by some intellectuals as a crisis of orientation, was a means to expressing, voicing and asserting an authentic sense of self and nation. This sense of self and nation derives this sense of authenticity from the fact that it is one more grounded in the culture and religious heritage of the East as opposed to the West. Easternist intellectuals such as Amı¯n and al-Aqqa¯d saw themselves, their society and their nation in an inherently different way than their predecessors. Central to these conceptions of self, society and nation is a particular interpretation of

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Islam; they saw Islam in a profoundly different way. It is not traditional and backward, it is not the cause of Muslim decline, and it is not antithetical to modernity. Rather, Islam is the means to progress, it is not prohibiting of it, and in its doctrine is all that is necessary and beneficial for humanity. They wanted to affirm its value, and their right in conceiving their own means of self-identification and means to progress through their own religious and cultural heritage. By re-conceptualizing the difference between ‘East’ and ’West’ in equitable terms, they were permitting themselves progress and modernity, one denied them by fact of the dichotomy set up in colonialist, orientalist and even in nationalist discourse. They asserted the truth of the East and of Islam through visitations into its doctrine, systems of organization and ethics and its history, deriving real and authenticated approaches to understanding Islam that assert feelings of pride rather than shame. Islam becomes in the process far more than a means to self-identification, but also, the only means to conceiving ‘the world of the seen and the unseen’.

PART III STATES OF AMBIVALENCE (MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY— PRESENT)

Introduction The notions of modernity and progress have captivated the minds of the Islamic and Arab intelligentsia of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, spearheading them in a fluctuating movement towards an unattainable and highly disillusioned end. Its unattainability stems from the central fact that these notions of progress and modernity were borrowed as opposed to constructed from the religious and cultural centre of the region. The relegating of these core values to the periphery and the attempt to ‘imagine’ or construct new realities on a false and unstable basis conceiving a possible movement forward is the disillusionment. The attempt at these notions of progress and modernity continued throughout the twentieth century, constructing in the process a gradually destabilized society and culture, and an incrementally distant one from its own centre. For decades the unequivocal requirement of Islamic nations, vis-a`-vis nation states, was to adopt, apply and achieve Western conceptions and theories of modernity and progress, that is, to attain Westernization and secularization.1 This meant, essentially, to attain political, social, and cultural legitimacy through greater proximity to these stated ideals. Modernity and progress, as two interrelated concepts, dictated a view of human political, economic, social and cultural development leading

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towards a more secularized society dependent on a new set of values that are not based on religion. In the realization of these values, paradigms and models, the ideal is realized: modernization and progress – ‘the marginalisation and ultimate disappearance of traditional belief’2 was the expected and anticipated outcome. These can be traced to cultural and political developments that began in the nineteenth century, particularly the development of Arabist thought, anti-colonial struggles and the desire for modernization. ‘Cultural Arabism’ as Y.M. Choueiri terms it, was accompanied by various political changes geared towards Arab prominence and modernization.3 As an ideology it expressed itself as an ‘oppositional’ movement that is characterized by ‘defining the “self” contra the “other”’, that being the Turkish and the European/colonial.4 Through ‘a broad awareness’ of a ‘cultural identity that had to be cherished and reformed’, Arabism culminated in the gradual construction of an Arabist ideology, and its realization in political terms via a nation state.5 As an ideology that first emerged among ‘a small circle of intelligentsia’ mainly concerned with ‘cultural matters’ particularly the ‘revival and renovation’ of the Arabic language and its literature, and the ‘tripartite encounter’ of ‘Ottoman reform, European models and Arab civilization’, cultural Arabism ‘denoted a literary’, ‘ethnic’ and political movement that adapted ‘the myths, memories, symbols and values’ of Arab civilization to ‘new conditions, endowing them with new meanings and new functions’.6 As expressed through three intellectual trends (the Islamic, as defenders of a community; the Christian intelligentsia focusing on a pride in Arabic culture and an enthusiasm for Western achievements in ‘the fields of science technology and education’; and urban notables and landowners, as part of institutional structures and leaders of ‘political Arabism’), three changes developed in the realization of an Arabist vision highlighted by a desire for modernism, and its expression in political terms. The first is the emphasis on Arabic, the second is the homogenization of the community, and the third is the shift from religious to territorial narrative of the community. The emphasis on Arabic by both religious and secular scholars was an emphasis on Arabic culture as a rediscovery of the ‘Arabs as an ethnic community in possession of cherished ideals and valid values’. The notion of Arabism and its scope were thus widened so as to include ‘all Arabic-speaking communities’,

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irrespective of religion. Second, the idea of a watan, or a fatherland, as ˙ ‘introduced by Ottoman officials’ denoting an Ottoman fatherland under which the Arab localities were subsumed, was transformed. The concept of a fatherland became integral to political vocabulary expressing the desire of Arabs to be regarded as a single political unit; the Arab world thus was referred to as the fatherland beginning in the 1920s. This further implied a ‘shift from a religious or dynastic narrative to one built around territory and its people’. It denoted a secular dimension that was incorporated in political Arabism.7 The efforts culminating in these changes can be seen in the ideas of both Sati‘ al-Husarı¯ (1882– 1968), a writer and influential Arab ˙ nationalist, and Michel ‘Aflaq (1910–89), a philosopher and Arab nationalist. Both al-Husarı¯ and ‘Aflaq adopted and secularized the ˙ Islamic concept of collectivity of all Muslims ‘in confining it to the Arabs viewing it to be a nation in the European sense’.8 In specific terms ‘Aflaq contended that Islam is central to the representation of Arab cultural past and its renewal. To the Arabs, Islam ‘formed part of their innermost personality’ and so a precious element and ‘ingredient’ of ‘national culture’; however, Arab nationalism, as politically expressed, addresses all Arabs ‘irrespective of their religion or sect’.9 Thus, the ideas of leading Arab intellectuals and theoreticians provided the philosophical and ideological framework for redefining, in Arab terms, the modern political order, expressing a secular paradigm. Islamic society was easily redefined from one ‘based on Islam and the ’ummah, to one that is based on Arab nationalism’.10 The core of their attempts at redefinition is a conception of society based on ethnic unity; the shared language, culture and history of the Arabs becomes the focal point for unity, one that is decidedly separated from any specific designation or importance of religion. The cause behind such redefinition is a ‘modern’ belief in the irrelevance and inadequacy of religion for national definition (thus its privatization), the desire to become a nation among strong nations through a cultural affinity with the West (through a rewriting of Egypt’s history and a redefinition of its character), and a need for validation. The project for the expression of a community in both cultural and political terms was refashioned and restated in a ‘modern framework’ addressing ‘rational attitudes’, the secular tendency of the modern order, the need to assert ‘cultural credential in a new political order’ and the desire for independence and modernization.11

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This cultural debate and political desire was complicated by a culminating crisis on the cultural and political scene. In Egypt, in the two decades preceding the military coup (1952) multiple factors created an intense crisis within Egyptian society, transforming the shape and form of this interest and this debate. On the political scene, there was a continuous crisis caused by ‘a three-cornered power-struggle between the monarchy, the Wafd, and the British imperial presence’.12 On the intellectual scene, a crisis among the intellectuals was evident, caused by ‘the impact of modernization on a traditional Islamic society’. While the gates of ijtiha¯d that had been opened by Muhammad ‘Abduh remained open without due consensus, the lack of political efficiency and leadership ‘capable of presiding over this crucial process of ideological formation and forging of a new synthesis of thought’ hampered the ability to create a comprehensive national philosophy to guide the transformations within Egypt.13 Finally, the joint Arab humiliation rendered by the defeat by Israel gave a blow to Arabist might, and the strength of its vision.14 The new approach to Arabism and cultural and political quests for legitimacy can be defined by two features: the formation of pan-Arab ideology and the formation of a new paradigm that viewed Arab society as a ‘living organism governed by the law of adaptation, growth, and mutation’.15 The pan-Arabist ideology came to take on a ‘constructive’ shape. As Arab states gained independence, unity was of ‘unifying the inter-Arab markets and building a comprehensive inter-Arab institutional structure’ as an attempt to reach the ideal of Arab unity. This unity was meant to transcend the borders and boundaries that had been ‘artificially imposed during the colonial period’.16 Arab states were grouped under the League of Arab States; however, it was ‘deemed by most Arab nationalists to be a weak and inefficient organization incapable of meeting the political, social and economic challenges of the post-war era’. In an attempt to unite more than one Arab state, a union between Syria and Egypt took form (1958–61) under the leadership of Nasser, but without long-lasting results due to political differences, the inability of Nasser to ‘share power’, the strengthening of an Egyptian state at the cost of the weakening of a Syrian state at the ‘institutional level’, and the introduction of ‘rapid social and economic change’ without a ‘political framework to support this process’.17 This was coupled with a paradigm that viewed Arab society as one that is

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adaptable and changeable. Any controversy over national definition that raged in the 1930s and 1940s was put to rest; the question of ‘whether the Arabs have a uniform and comprehensive cultural heritage, or what constitutes an Arab nation’ and the foundational question of ‘the compatibility of Arab nationalism and Islam, and the mutual relation between the two’ were ‘virtually dropped’. Arab nationalism became a living force not a theoretical debate by the 1950s.18 Post-independence Muslim states, as is the case of Egypt, were ‘heavily influenced by and indebted to Western secular paradigms and models’19 on all levels of government and society, whereby political, cultural, social construction and production were defined and measured by these new parameters of legitimization, expressing the desire to authenticate cultural validity and viability, and to modernize. The government, the society and the culture were forced into a process of re-assessment of all values stemming from their own religious and cultural centre; they were forced into a quest for legitimacy. For instance, the Islamic conception of economics, one that is foundationally a system of social cohesion in economic processes and of social benefit in ends,20 is re-assessed in terms of its ability to speed economic processes and reap maximum profit. Compared with a modern capitalist system it fares, internationally and within the context of the modernist paradigm, as a system that slows down the process, and as one that encourages lack of development, or underdevelopment.21 Education, social institutions and political organization were also greatly adapted to and replaced by Western-inspired systems. In the process of nation-building, Egypt borrowed and emulated Western-style education and institutions, relied heavily on Western advisors for political and legal organization, and modelled the West in an attempt to legitimize their newly established state, and in an attempt to ‘develop’ according to these parameters. In the process, ‘the role of Islam in state and society as a source of legitimation of rulers, states and government institutions was greatly curtailed’. This is not to suggest that the separation of religion and politics was total; ‘most states retained a modest Islamic fac
ade, incorporating some reference to Islam in their constitutions’.22 Using various Western-inspired social and political paradigms for progress, post-independence Egypt attempted a legitimization of its presence in the face of outside forces, while at the same time it attempted an internal legitimization of its approach to progress through vague,

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empty and superficial references to Islam. The role and direction of the government under Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak was continued secularization imposing ‘Western models (ideas, values, and institutions) of development’ that have become inescapable in an ‘unremittingly secular age’.23 Administrative, legal and educational systems originating in the West were ‘embedded within structural transformations’. This culminated in three (interlinked) realities: (1) the internalization of a national and a ‘modern’ consciousness (superimposing a religious consciousness); (2) altering modes of thought and behaviour; (3) creating and sustaining a false consciousness and a false sense of progress.24 These regimes essentially adopted various ideological frameworks in continual secularization efforts as short-term solutions for highly complex problems.25 Continued secularization came in many forms: Marxist, socialist and Arab Nationalist ideologies, the wholesale promotion of Western values, policies of economic and cultural Infita¯h, ˙ and the curtailment of religious political presence and religious activism. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’ indicates, ‘The post-nationalist and post1967 Arab state seems to have one enemy: the Islamists’. Even ‘at the cultural and ideological planes, the ruling elite imposed the state’s ideology on all’ treating any Islamism, ‘including moderate Islamism’, as a ‘threat’ to the ‘new world order’ and to progress.26 To counter this continued secularization in Egypt, and to rectify the ills of society, Islamic movements arose in an attempt to revive the role of Islam in all spheres of life, and to offer alternatives. This formed an arena of struggle over legitimization and authority, and over culture and identity, that persists to the present day. This, alongside various other pressures on the construction of culture and identity, creates a confusing state of affairs. After the Free Officers coup in Egypt (1952), and the reign of Nasser, a ‘moderate policy of secularism was pursued’, under the banner of what Nasser called ‘Arab Socialism’.27 He attempted a legitimization of his quest for modernity and progress internally (Egypt) and externally (the international community). Though Nasser was of the generation of Egyptians that experienced the great intellectual output and influence of Egyptian nationalism, Islamic modernism, Arabism, Western philos-

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ophies and their ‘cross-currents’, he largely depended on Marxism and socialism, while respecting the role of Islam in society. His political philosophy and ‘formula for legitimization did not rely on a wholesale rejection of the past, but on an eclectic synthesis of pre-revolutionary political thought and action’.28 ‘Arab Socialism’ was a mixture of Marxist and socialist thought, and a belief in Arabism. Nasser attempted to assimilate these various ideologies, weeding out conflict among them.29 In the 1962 Charter he pronounced his unrelenting belief in ‘Arab Socialism’ as the solution, and as a means to modernizing Egypt; the Charter was the first attempt to define his ideology.30 He did not reject Islam entirely, for he appealed to it for the legitimization of his political philosophy and for the legitimization of his leadership. His main focus was anti-imperialist national struggle, the development of national strength (along the lines of his philosophy), the development of social equity, and economic productivity.31 Externally Nasser fought an anti-colonial battle through a programme for massive nationalization (for example, the nationalization of the Suez Canal and joint-stock companies), and the assertion of Egyptian political strength. Internally, he attempted to build a new society instilling socialist values, systems and representative institutions, and by curtailing any form of opposition (mainly that of the Muslim Brotherhood). His liquidation of various forms of political opposition to his power was explained and justified as means to abating and controlling ‘infighting’ between the various parties and their ideological underpinnings, and through that reducing and controlling what might cause lack of unity and divisiveness.32 His political formula was that of a ‘social contract’, a populist formula that provided for public needs in return for public agreement over government policies. Under this ‘social contract’ the Nasserite government would satisfy basic needs, would ‘consolidate a sense of social equity’, open ‘the doors for social mobility through meritocracy, and afford [. . .] the people pride and dignity as Egyptians and Arabs’ in return for popular agreement of government authority and control.33 Alongside a series of social and economic policies promoting overall equity and development, income redistribution, and land and agrarian reform assisted in creating a greater sense of equity among the people of Egypt. The populist formula served its purpose: the ‘1955– 1965 decade witnessed a remarkable rate of investment [. . .] and equally impressive weight of economic growth’ and

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‘young Egyptians were guaranteed jobs and salaries that enabled them to afford housing, start a family, and live decently though modestly’.34 Nasser’s ideas were not simply populist; he was deeply invested in both Arabist and national interest; he believed in: (1) Egyptian nationalism and its ‘concomitant values of national power, dignity, and prestige’; (2) social justice for his people, ‘whom he regarded as the victims of centuries of political and economic exploitation’; (3) a commitment to rapid modernization; (4) a ‘sense of personal mission to accomplish the above goals’; (5) Arab unity.35 While this is all true, what is also true is that the ‘Arab Socialist’ philosophy was instilled in the masses through education, media and print, leading to what would be the disillusionment of the 1967 defeat bringing to the fore once again critical questions with regard to the reasons for Arab and Muslim failure and possible means to progress. In the 1960s Nasser adopted socialism as a national ideology to ‘end capitalism’s domination of political power’ and to realize social equality. Goldschmidt explains that power and wealth helped shape ideas within Egypt. ‘The presence of European merchants in Egypt helped to promote a capitalist form of economic organization’ and the elite within Egypt had a ‘propensity to extend the scope of its power’; both were unfavoured realities to Nasser. Therefore the challenge to Western hegemony by the ‘USSR and other Communist states’ in the Middle East ‘lent an attractive lustre to the ideas of socialism’.36 In the 1960s the socialist educational reform policy was in effect. Nasser perceived the function of education as one tightly knit with the development of society and the development of the nation; the mission, in Nasser’s words, is to ‘re-draft the ideals of morals of society’; he wanted to ‘incorporate national and modern values and ways of thinking’ and essentially alter the collective consciousness in a way that was perceived to serve national ‘progress’.37 The transformation of society through education was perceived to be the fundamental means towards achieving this end. Nasser’s commitment to the principles of socialism and to ‘socialism as a solution’ was more pronounced than ever during the 1960s when the ‘transformation’ of society through education, from elementary levels to the highest levels

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of education, was designed and prescribed to communicate the new ideals of the state. Thus, curricula and books were produced on the subject of Arab nationalism, the Arab nation and the principles of Arab socialism, however vague and generalized the definitions were, with the aim of creating a larger awareness of, and association with, these concepts among the new generations.38 The attempt to mould a new society adherent and loyal to the principles of Arab socialism was also extended to the public sphere. An ‘Arab Socialist Union’ was established comprised of various units ‘in schools, factories and city districts’ that was open to all citizens, with the government as its ‘centralized body’ through ‘which policies and directives could be passed down from the top to the local levels’; Nasser created ‘an authoritarian state in which all power was concentrated in his hands [. . .] [I]nstitutions [. . .] the university campus, and professional syndicates were not permitted to function autonomously and independently of state patronage’.39 Apart from being a means towards moulding society, a form of political indoctrination, it was an ‘alternative to the traditional centers of power, especially in the villages’, ‘influencing many aspects of life’ and offering a ‘means of gaining influence and of easing professional and personal success’.40 Existing loyalties to family, tribe and religion had to ‘be replaced or at least diminished in significance’ and the new national consciousness had to be the ‘primary source of allegiance’. To create and sustain this national consciousness, the government had to fabricate a fusion between elements (the historical, ethnic, linguistic and Islamic), and to apply historical selection as a means to detaching recent (Islamic) history from the present (stressing the Pharaonic, as opposed to the Islamic in curricula).41 As legitimacy and continuity was constructed within the national narrative, legitimacy and continuity was diminished within the religious narrative, shifting allegiances and disturbing collective consciousness. As the Arab socialist aspirations were pursued through education in the 1960s, the character of the Islamic institutions was also altered. Al-Azhar, for instance, was transformed in content and means (1961): new secular subjects were introduced and new teaching methods were adopted.42 The reforms established ‘several new faculties specifically for the teaching of modern, secular sciences’ with the purpose of integrating al-Azhar ‘into the educational mainstream’ and the purpose of bringing

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‘those associated with al-Azhar under more effective regulation and thereby shape the Egyptian religious sphere in accordance to the prescriptions of the governing elite’.43 The relevance of al-Azhar as an academic institution and a centre for religious knowledge was analysed and decided based on its relevance to the new ‘socialist society in Egypt’; complacency with the changes was expected, and any resistance on the part of faculty ended with their replacement with more ‘cooperative’ members.44 Though the introduction of secular subjects may not have been an entirely negative change, these changes created a struggle of power over knowledge, whereby the traditional or Islamic were discriminately underprivileged in the process. Government intervention and control, as such, was a repression of the intellectual and religious freedoms of faculty and students at al-Azhar. The government’s efforts to mould, shape, control and orient the existing ideological frameworks extended to attempts at ironing out any opposition to the revolutionary aspirations of the government, and thus, propagating further its socialist ideology. Unity for the Nasserite government meant an ideological and practical unity under the new regime, and a unified support for it. Stressing and enforcing its ideology across the social, cultural, political and economic spectrum, the Nasserite government weeded out and eliminated any opposition by drawing support for its regime and by more forceful means of eradicating counter-forms of activism, specifically that of the Brotherhood. Nasser understood the value of Islam and its deeprootedness in Egyptian society; as such, nothing proposed by the Nasserite government was presented as in opposition to the precepts of Islam. Extensive efforts were made to legitimize the ideology of ‘Arab Socialism’ and thus the regime: ‘the Free Officers made their adherence to Islam clear’; ‘the Islamic character of their planned reforms’ was stressed; religious institutions and mosques were used as forums for the spread of information on secular policies; and socialist ideas were religiously sanctioned by ‘cooperative’ ‘ulama¯’.45 In pursuit of full ideological and political power, the Nasserite government further curtailed and eradicated Brotherhood activism in light of its conception of unity, and in light of the much-feared Brotherhood power and influence among the masses. The assassination attempt on Nasser made by the Brotherhood in 1954 set in motion the elimination of the competition. The Brotherhood was involved in frequent confrontations

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with the state in opposition and conflict over orientation: ‘Many of the MB leaders were killed, assassinated, or executed in these confrontations. Many more of its members were jailed and imprisoned’.46 The Nasserite ‘propaganda’, both ‘simple and elementary’,47 has further dissipated an already divided social and cultural scene; it created a confusing ideological plane that did nothing but aggrandize visions of progress, and introduce ideologies and perspectives that lack the historical breadth and firm basis for sustainability. According to Derek Hopwood, the Nasserite programme of educational reform and socialist propaganda introduced new and alien value systems that created an intellectual weakness which compromised the vision and knowledge of the youth, and altered general social conceptions.48 Though the socialist formula or ‘Arab Socialism’ offered much-needed provisions for society, it did not address cultural issues. It was concerned with concrete matters (economy, social equity, etc.), and it was not fully developed. Though it was quite adequate to address the issues of bourgeoisie power and colonialism and their monopoly over politics, economics and society in Egypt (at the time), these were not the central and only problematic issues at play. As Nazih Ayubi explains, the cultural and religious values of Egypt form a much more solid structure for development given their historical, epistemological and ideological basis. They are much more defined, constructed and historically, culturally and sociologically entrenched in Arab society than the foreign, ahistorical and ideologically exclusivist concepts of socialism and Marxism.49 The attempts made in creating such vague associations have only amplified the ideological and conceptual gap.50 The use of these theories invalidated and debunked the religious and cultural centre of the region, constructing an intellectually boggling and limited conception of self and society. It excluded understandings of life, meaning and purpose derived from religion, limiting their understanding to superficial levels. It, also, excluded cultural wealth in the pursuit of a limited conception of society, social evolution and progress. The vagueness of the Nasserite ideology and endeavour and their ill-fated ends are far too evident – history has proven so. This is the prime reason behind the eventual failure of ‘Arab Socialism’. Once its political representation failed, it collapsed as an ideology. It failed to sustain itself, for it had no strong foundational roots in the region, and it was not developed and

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conceptualized in a way that can serve the needs of culture and society in a much more rooted and integrated manner. The cumulative effect of the educational reforms, the ironing out of all forms of opposition and the attempts at moulding a highly cooperative and complacent society was rather the creation of a highly repressed, polarized and disillusioned/confused society. The responses to the failure of 1967 are a testament to both shock and disillusionment with the perceived failure, the reasons for it, and the means forward. The defeat of 1967 was seen as both a disaster and a catastrophe in the eye of the general public, the intelligentsia and the Arab world; it represented a failure of all that is Nasserite: ‘Arab Socialism’, Arabism and their provisions for national strength and progress. Amidst the wave of emotional outcry over the defeat, criticism gradually emerged, one that questions verbatim Arab lack of strength, Arab failure to progress and achieve the aims of the Arab and Egyptian nation. Intellectuals of varying orientations questioned, and were at a loss for answers; ‘The Arab left, the Islamic trend, and the nationalist trend were all perturbed by the reasons behind defeat and sought in their different ways to diagnose and remedy the situation’.51 The questioning and selfcriticisms that emerged pinpointed a series of fallacies: fallacies of the Arab mind, the Arab self, the Arab ideology, fallacies of Arab culture and of Arab religious tradition, and of independence (from colonialism) and of true progress (modern, scientific, technological and secular, or modern and Islamic).52 For those with an Islamic orientation, the failure was rooted in the lack of belief in God, the abandonment of religious philosophy, and in nationalism and imperialism. Sala¯h al-Munajid, a Lebanese writer, ˙ ˙ states: ‘The Arabs have abandoned their belief in God, and God has accordingly abandoned them’, while the Mufti of Jordan stated (1967): ‘They [the Israelis] possess neither the power, nor the fortitude [. . .] to make them capable of such a deed [. . .] but God chose to let this band dominate us because we strayed away from Him’.53 For those of secular orientation, like al-‘Azm, the failure was located in the Nasserite experiment (its lack of ideological clarity), the structure of Arab society and its deeply entrenched traditionalism, the Arab personality, one that is overcome by a sense of inferiority vis-a`-vis the ‘other’ and a false sense of achievement, the disillusioned Arab imaginary (of Arab reality), and an insufficient amount of criticism directed at the cultural and religious

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sub-structure of society that allows for mysticism and superstition to persist.54 The defeat also had its deep impact on modern Arab society: ‘the alienation of youth, the great devaluation in tradition, social and cultural values, and the loss of correspondence or harmony between values and the social system’.55 Ultimately, there was an expression of a sense of crisis and failure, and its manifestation in all levels of society. The self-criticisms, despite their variance, alongside these social manifestations of crisis, suggest one thing: the ultimate failure of ‘Arab Socialism’ or, put differently, the fallacy of ‘Arab socialism’, and Arab and Muslim lack of or inability for self-assertion. The sense of crisis and its manifestation in society was to continue to the present day in light of various attempts at modernization through secularization. During both the Sadat and Mubarak regimes a similar regimen of secularization coupled with the suppression of the religious contributed to the developing lack of ideological coherence within society, the sense of loss and exile, and more so, an inherent ambivalence. While Sadat permitted the Brotherhood some religious freedoms, he too, like Nasser, maintained a strong hold over the development of the nation along secular lines.56 His policy of Infita¯h (an ideology of Infita¯h ˙ ˙ modernism) has been isolated by many scholars as the culprit for the increased incoherence, exile and ambivalence within Egypt. Sadat wanted to ‘develop Egypt along Western lines, with Western economic aid, and with Western technology and Western experts’.57 It was a policy and an ideology of Infita¯h modernism that ‘grew steadily closer to ˙ the West’, promising a vision of progress that was ‘dazzling to many Egyptians’: ‘a more open economic system and democratization at home, closer ties with the “advanced West”, and regional peace’ all supported by a ‘powerful state media’.58 Though Sadat’s policy permitted ‘political pluralism’, it practised political particularism; the state retained monopoly over politics. The inability to realize results, and the neglect of more pertinent issues to do with culture and the religious alternative led to the eventual outpour of dissatisfaction from the public; ‘toward the end of Sadat’s years [. . .] they [Egyptians] became more disillusioned, frustrated and alienated’. There were ‘accumulating signs that Sadat’s vision was losing its appeal’: riots (1977), political corruption, worsening social equity, increasing violent confrontations between the state and the Brotherhood (post-1972), student opposition to Sadat’s political course, Egypt’s alienation in the Arab world as a

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result of the Camp David Peace Accords (1978) and his eventual assassination (1981).59 Likewise, Mubarak attempted to consolidate the religious presence permitting some freedoms in Brotherhood activism and parliamentary involvement, while simultaneously pursuing the realization of a secular nation leading to similar results. Like Sadat, Mubarak pursued a policy of liberalization and a political and cultural stance that is closer to the United States; the main lines of Sadat’s policies were continued by Husni Mubarak.60 The revolution of 25 January 2011 was an expression of popular discontent with the Mubarak regime; it is not simply the fall of Mubarak, but the fall of his entire regime, a disenchantment with its power and more importantly authenticity, legitimacy and relevance to Egyptian national desire and national realization. Some have suggested that the revolution is centrally to do with the economic crisis; however, one would say, many have proposed more daring and accurate assessments. These include: the decline in cultural development (literary and artistic output); uncritical openness to Westernism; a popular discontent with foreign policy;61 a failed economic policy that has consistently increased the gaps between rich and poor; political corruption; waning national resources (inadequate response to the 1992 earthquake); and the lack of protection of public interest. The three Egyptian regimes represent, in the words of Said, a realization of a ‘dynamic of dependency’ in which Egypt as a postcolonial country has been driven into and governed by various global processes of ‘rationalization based on external norms’.62 The Egyptian state has represented a new form of internal power realizing the needs of external powers (leading states, global capitalism), leading to the adoption of mistaken means and the fulfilment of mistaken ends in the realization of the nation and its aspiration. Continued secularization in Egypt has clearly culminated in a highly ill-fated end. The process of Infita¯h or ‘Opening’ to the West has resulted ˙ in an incrementally dissociative process from the cultural centre of the region. The policy of Infita¯h modernism was a process of disillusion˙ ment, a disillusioned progress and a disillusioned sense of modernity: politically and economically Egypt became more dependent, and culturally subjected to influence. As Hourani explains: The Infitah, and indeed the whole movement of events since the Egyptian revolution of 1952, had rested on an unsound basis: the

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false values of consumer society in economic life, the domination of a ruling elite [. . .] [E]gyptians were importing whatever foreigners persuaded them that they should want and this made for a permanent dependence.63 All in all, the post-Infita¯h era brought about not only economic ˙ changes, but also, more importantly, it brought about ‘radical changes in the structure of society, its dominant values’, as well as profound changes in ‘the nature of Egyptian personality’.64 Across time, the conception of modernity transformed from ‘a symbol of progress to a direct military presence or to an Americanized presence in the contemporary Arab society (that is, American globalization [. . .])’ placing Arab thought, and Arab identity in an ‘irreconcilable position’. While there is a desire ‘to overcome the sense of loss the modern Arab consciousness had experienced for centuries’, Arab thought and identity are ‘oppressed at the core by the very modernity that has offered [. . .] a sense of hope and liberation’.65 The identity and culture of the region has remained captive, permeable and incapacitated by the West, its ideologies, cultures and its ways – one governed by a persistent demand to meet its definitions and standards. Official thought and culture within Egypt testify to this incapacitation; since independence, the various patterns and trends within Arab and Islamic thought have been constructed in relation to this ‘other’, and in response to the challenges presented by it. In discord and imbalance, all attempted theorizations of their presents in an attempt at harmonization in practice. The nationalist-religious, Islamic and the liberal-Marxist with their variances and sub-structures all attempt to define philosophies, terms and identities to establish legitimacy, difference or proximity to this ‘other’. For instance, as Islamic intellectuals define authenticity as a term to ‘denote a return to and the reconstruction of the origins of Islam’, other currents are highly critical of its concurrence with conceptions of progress and modernity.66 This openness to the West and the consistent identification of self, society and politics in relation to it, has meant an accumulating cultural crisis. This crisis has ‘been a key factor in regenerating and bringing to light major debates about various issues’; however, in Abu-Rabi’s opinion it remains ‘quite easy to argue that the Arab world [. . .] still suffers from dependency, social and economic gaps, authoritarian regimes, and the absence of real critical values’.67

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The current state of affairs cannot be defined as anything but a crisis. This civilization has been wrought with deep-seated confusion about the course towards ‘progress’, the meaning of ‘modernity’, the ways to achieving this sense of advancement in thought and practice, and by a deeply entrenched psychological collapse that puts into question all values. Many Arab intellectuals across this history have attempted to come to grips with ultimate questions and problems and locate remedies as they simultaneously attempt to consolidate the various orientations within their own society. However, as Hrair Dekmejian argues, ‘The legitimacy crisis in the Islamic countries has its roots in the failure of political and intellectual elites to substitute secular ideologies of legitimization and social cohesion for traditional Islamic legitimacy’,68 or at the least an attempt to centralize the Islamic, giving Islam its rightful place in society – an attempt to understand its value to the society and culture and implement and use it as a source and means for theorizations of progress and of modernity. The lack of regard for this discourse and alternative has been consequential: the creation of a civilization of crisis. The crisis stems from the inability to create sustainable linkages between discourses of modernity and progress, and the inability to use cultural wealth as a point of departure. There exists a centrist current in Egypt, a ‘Centrist school’ that aims for: (1) ‘the logical fusion between [. . .] tradition and modernity’; (2) a ‘comprehensive understanding of Islam’; (3) an ‘equilibrium between the fixed tenets of religion [. . .] and its modifiable rules of conduct’. However, as Sagi Polka explains, these centrist ‘pseudo-intellectuals’ are caught in the midst of a battle between ‘a secular-rationalist line of thinking maintained by an intellectual elite, and a conservative religious trend’.69 Polka suggests that their ‘intriguing intellectual attempt [. . .] to act as public arbitrators between the distant ideological extremes within public discourse, and to establish a communicative dialogue between those identified as “Islamiyyun”, Islamists, and those styled “Almaniyyun”, secularists’ had been hampered by: extremist approaches to Islam, extremist approaches to secularism and the lack of interest of the government in lending a voice to these centrist voices.70 Of the

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many consequences reiterated by these centrist intellectuals, such as Muhammad ‘Ima¯ra, Ahmad Kama¯l Abu-Majd, Fahmı¯ Huwaidı¯, Yusuf ˙ ˙ al-Qara¯da¯wı¯, and Ta¯riq al-Bishirı¯, are: ˙ ˙ (1) ‘the general estrangement of Islam that is manifest, for example, in the scorn and defiance held towards Islamic values on the pages of modern publications in Egypt’; (2) a threat posed to not only the ‘Muslim faith, but faith per se, be it Muslim, Christian or Jewish’.71 ‘Ideological polarization is the order of the day in Egypt’, says Polka,72 and this can lend to a crisis in identity, so long as the battle rages, and voices and means to mending fissures remain marginalized. The crisis can be expressed as a formula for disaster for Egyptian society: the imposition of universalized values of modernity and progress on the part of the West; a disregard for religious and cultural wealth; imperialist and neo-colonial forces at play (cultural, political and economic) adding to the stagnation of the society and culture; and the importation and application of foreign ideas without due consideration for cultural specificity. From an Islamic perspective the causes are clear: (1) the fissure between Islamic theory and Islamic practice created as a result of the introduction of a new worldview, perspective and orientation that is incompatible with the Islamic ethos; (2) the intellectual and cultural invasion of the West (through colonialism and neo-colonialism, the modernist discourse, globalization); (3) the attack on Islam and Islamic practice, and the dissemination of the fear of Islam (more so since the events of September 11). The outcome has been the disruption and dissolution of Islamic social, cultural and historical identity; this is eminent within the social sphere. Modern Egyptian literature provides a portrayal of the multi-layered nature of this crisis. As reflections of this crisis, several Egyptian novels are examined in the coming chapters and traced for the displacement of the sacred, and the consequent effects on religious identity, religiosity, and on society as a whole. The following chapters are structured in a way to reflect the multi-layered and multi-faceted nature of the crisis,

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addressing various facets of the crisis, revealing its nature and effect on identity. Separately, each chapter addresses different facets of the crisis in segments, all the while attempting to illustrate a few common threads. First, they attempt to reveal an underlying rationale, that of the predicament of the loss (or decline) of the sacred. Second, they attempt to reveal the entrenched nature of the crisis; the disturbance it manifests as a result of the decline or loss of the sacred. Third, they reveal the varied nature of the crisis addressing various aspects and issues to do with identity and its expression: ethics, values and gendered conceptions. Fourth, they ultimately attempt to show effects on religious identity and on religiosity. This structure is not meant to suggest a complete portrayal of all issues to do with the crisis of religious identity and of religiosity, for many other manifestations of the crisis exist. However, through the examination of the nature of the crisis using the examples that the novels provide, an understanding is reached of the extent of the crisis, and of what possible remedy is necessary.

CHAPTER 7 FROM SACRED TO SECULAR: TIME AND SPACE, ALIENATION AND EXILE

The explosion of the ‘modern’ order within Muslim Egyptian society has entailed the destabilizing of the thesis of the sacred with the introduction of its antithesis (secularization) and the ensuing of the ‘modern’ order. The destabilizing effects of secularization are eminent and pervasive on micro-levels (social units, individuals and identity), as they have been on macro-levels (politics, culture and society). Benedict Anderson links the rise of nationalism to the erosion of religion and religious certainty. While the introduction of nationalism had meant the formation of ethnic groups through the act of imagination, a coherent conception of self and nation has not been the expected result. This is true for Egyptian society; solidarity, continuity and meaning (quests for legitimacy and belonging) have not been the end result. The assimilation of secular/modern thought has developed on the ashes of ‘the divinely-ordained’ order,1 its legitimacy, and its systems of value and meaning, producing what is often a distorted sense of self, and sense of self-existence. The allegory of a nation suffering this predicament is no better expressed in literary narrative than in Abdel-Hakim Kassem’s The Seven Days of Man (1969). The novel is an exposition of the intersection of two lives, two worldviews and two perspectives: one historically grounded (the Islamic, is or being), and the other historically developing (the national or ‘modern’, becoming), at the expense of the former. This intersection is

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wrought with exile, alienation, apprehension and a desperate struggle for being. This desperate struggle is represented through the lives of father (Hagg Karim) and son (Abdel-Aziz), and their geographies of existence. While for Hagg Karim, Islam, faith and religiosity hold a ‘deterministic, almost self-existent, ontological status’2 and a source of identity, for Abdel-Aziz, modern thought is the developing ethos and the source of becoming (an identity in the making) – thus, the allegory of a withering nation (’umma) and its decentralization. Time and space, as ‘basic categories of human existence’,3 are crucial elements of this allegory, as they explicate social change, senses of exile and alienation, and the subsequent inversion of values. Sacred time and space are contrasted with secular time and space in the novel, whereby their respective spaces of representation collide. Hagg Karim’s world is informed by a fixed temporal logic: past, present and future. The past ensues from divine ordination and prophetic message; the present time is transitory as it is governed by interactions and transactions of spiritual nature reproducing the ethos of the past and meant to culminate in a blessed and fortunate future (heaven). Hagg Karim leads a community of men, most representative of the ’umma, its microcosm. Their lives are essentially an extension of a pristine, pure and enchanted vision of life and its re-enactment; a temporal and ideological continuity is maintained through concrete practices. Their days are marked by acts of piety aimed at reaping the most blessings for a ‘hereafter’: ablutions, daily prayer, recitations, dhikr, evening commemorations of the past, visitations to honoured sites, and alms-giving.4 All occurrences are appropriated within sacred time. An example would be the appropriation of natural occurrences: ‘You had to pray right away, or the thin, delicate trace of light would vanish from the horizon and darkness would fall’.5 These temporally fixed practices are inextricably linked to specific spaces and their representation. A dialectical relationship between the body and the temporally and spatially structured practices and representations takes place. Through this relationship, value and meaning are invoked, based on principal elements: religious narrative and ‘collective memory’, ‘tradition’, ‘locality and place’, and ‘cultural identity’.6 Material spaces and objects are imbued with meaning: the guesthouse in which they gather for recitation and commemoration is respected, the saints and their shrines revered, mosques are honoured, and the books of recitation are glorified.

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A specific example is the inscription of al-Busiri’s ‘Qası¯dat al-Burdah’7 in a mosque. The inscription sanctifies the place of worship, as it situates it and all transactions performed in it within the larger framework of religious narrative, tradition and identity.8 All these spaces and objects hold meaning that is most representative of the principal elements of their existence. They commemorate the past through practice, as they simultaneously affirm the purpose, a future time and space: ‘men [. . .] own nothing. And the aim of this life is the hereafter, a misty, magical, pure world that kindles longing in men’s breasts’.9 Something as simple as the ‘expanse of mats’ used for seating is viewed to be an extension of ‘the earth’; the dervishes are part of creation, as they are part of a much larger occurrence, a heavenly phenomenon (transcendence) that brings about ‘pitchers of light’ ‘pouring down from heaven’.10 Furthermore, their recitations of praise of God and His Prophet are ‘blessed observances’ holding ‘dazzling meanings’ that reap rewards, as they also are avenues to ‘heavenly spheres’. Their representative gatherings and transactions enhance and enrich the worldly, and increase an awareness of the extra-worldly.11 Time, space and representation are all appropriations of spiritual utility that embodies a ‘progress’ towards an end in ‘heaven’. The peace, tranquillity and serenity that characterize sacred space in the novel slowly withers as they travel to its sharp contrast, secular space (the city, Tanta). Time in travel acquires a more sluggish pace; it becomes symbolic of a disenchanted world and a degenerating sacred space. It expresses the deep anguish felt by these men as their sacred ‘order’ withers. Kassem locates their predicament within the larger processes of modernity. Time and space are portrayed as material qualities; they are inextricably linked to material processes in a way that alters the value and meaning of human geographies of existence. Time is assessed in material benefit, and space ‘gets treated as a fact of nature’, one that can be measured; both are subject to social construction and utility. In speaking of the experience of modern time and space, Harvey defines this development: ‘different objective material qualities of time and space are deemed relevant to social life in different situations’, whereby neither is fixed, enabling a progress that expresses a sense of becoming.12 The subjective process of becoming is neither linked to sacred meaning, nor associated with it. Meanings invoked are material in nature; this bewilders, frightens and alienates the men of the sacred order.13

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Apart from the scenes typical of a ‘modern’ city (buildings, roads and automobiles), multiple spaces and times are portrayed to intersect within the city expressing materiality. Space is not defined by mosque or shrine; rather, by shops and stores, workshops, buildings, coffee houses, and entertainment sectors. These spaces are multiple spheres of performance defined by and representing processes of ‘capitalist production and consumption’.14 For instance, the cinema represents image production and consumption; shops and stores, vendors, merchants and coppersmiths represent industrial production and consumption; and the buildings with plaques advertising ‘doctors and lawyers’ represent human production and consumption (value in human service).15 Furthermore, the space that the men of religion enter is a space that expresses a multiplicity of actions, and a collapse in a unitary or a uniform sense of time. Human geographies of existence intersect in a fashion that lacks unity or uniformity, whereby performance expresses material value and consequence of life. Time is contingent on production, and thus progress. This is evident in Kassem’s portrayal of the city where various spatially and temporally structured practices intersect and collide: ‘pedestrians walked more briskly, the carriages rattled along at greater speeds, and the automobiles roared through the streets’; merchants clutched ‘at the fringes of the crowd coaxing those on the edge to buy’; and ‘vendors were doing their job with their hands and mouths’.16 Space is thus materialized, and time expresses contingency based on a conception of material progress. The value and meaning invoked by spaces, their representations, and the dialectical relationship of body and space in time are a clear and sharp contrast to those invoked by the sacred order. The city expresses a modern order, one without unitary or uniform functionality, except in conception of materiality and progress; the village expresses sacred order, the religious, with unitary and uniformity in structures and practices, and conceptions of production and progress. The contradiction and struggle between the sacred order and the secular order is also manifest in the differing sense of being of both father and son, bringing about feelings of anguish, exile and alienation in their respective experiences. Hagg Karim presents a sense of being in time and space; this sense of self is shared by the men of the sacred order, the dervishes. Their sense of self-existence is defined and, furthermore, determined by Islam, Islamic traditions and Islamic practice. Their world ‘soared on the wings of miracles and the power of divine blessings,

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in which sacrifice for the brothers was the best way to increase the little they had and to bless it’.17 Their sense of identity and existence remain undisturbed throughout the journey. Despite the fact that their sense of religiosity remained unshaken, they were affected by the processes of modernization. The effect is one that verifies: an awareness of disenchantment, and its destructive consequences. This is most apparent as they near the city; they are all aware of the disenchanted world they are about to enter, and thus, qualify it as ‘a city of sons of whores’, a city they enter with anguish, apprehension, ‘confusion’ and ‘bewilderment’. At the threshold, between the sacred and secular, their sense of awareness is deepened: they become nostalgic for their past and are emotionally saddened and burdened by the distance from it.18 This marks the beginning of their alienation and exile. As they enter the city they are abashed by its contrast to their world; however, their awareness of modernity goes beyond a mere observation of its physical manifestations. They are equally aware of disenchantment. Hagg Karim questions his place within this new order, and thus is aware of his own displacement and the displacement of the sacred within the secular; as a man of religion, a leader of his community, he questions where he is situated, and ‘How could any bride in the world get married without his being there?’19 His role as one that mediates the occurrence of a marriage and sanctifies it through the observance of religious law becomes undefined within secular space; he and his ‘order’ both become invalidated. His sense of invalidation, one shared by the other men, heightens in the city, antagonizing, and exiling and alienating them. Edward Said defines exile as a tragic experience, an ‘unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home’.20 This precisely is the experience of these men of religion. Their sense of alienation, exile and to a degree frustration is of ‘insurmountable’ depth. This is manifest in their loss of sense of peace, serenity, but also physical strength – in this way Kassem illustrates the destabilizing effects of modernity. The joy, merriments, love and brotherhood that used to characterize their interactions in their ‘home’ become stifled by agitation, frustration and anguish in the city. The brothers bicker, shout ‘angrily’ and curse the city, one which subjects a different state of being on these men. Furthermore, the pristine sense of life that characterized their life at home in the village is also altered. This change is marked by physical manifestations of its loss. The sense of

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angelic purity is no longer manifest in their mannerisms, their attire, their bodies or their atmosphere; patience and pardon are forgone, their clothing is described as ‘dirty’ and ‘soiled’, their bodies are ‘sweaty’, ungroomed and unclean, and their surroundings are suffocating, cluttered and filthy.21 The mawlid itself manifests the transformation of religion and religious discourse. The concern in the mawlid is focused on material transactions, and practices that are worldly as opposed to other-worldly. It is resonant of a carnival, a boisterous celebration (singing, acting out narratives/theatre, and mechanical regurgitations and re-enactments of the ‘sacred’).22 Their predicament and despair is ultimate after the mawlid, which in a sense marked, with its end, the end of the existence of their sacred order. They all suffer differing ailments signifying the ultimate destruction and death of their world – something which is, using Said’s characterization, of ‘supreme disaster’ and ‘despair’.23 A ‘contrapuntal’ and distorted sense of exile and alienation is expressed by the son, Abdel-Aziz. His exile and alienation stem from an interpersonal struggle, a struggle between being and becoming. His is a ‘discontinuous state of being’.24 It is a duality that expresses two contradictory states, an attraction and repulsion, both ‘occurring together contrapuntally’.25 In the first he suffers a displacement from his native place and its sacred order, and a corresponding inability to consolidate it with the ‘modern’ or secular (being, attraction). In the other, his alienation from his native place and its sacred order urges him to create new connections, commitments and affiliations, all of which are antithetical to it (becoming, repulsion).26 It is through his development (his quest for stability and belonging) that the effects of modernity on individual religiosity are most evident in this novel. He begins his journey of self-discovery as a child, through an observation of the sacred world, its spatially and temporally determined significations, and its discourse, and in the process is able to convey an inability to connect with it, comprehend it and realize it in his identity and self-existence in the same way his father and the dervishes did. This is most evident in his perception of his father’s actions, and his perception of the spiritual significance of concrete locations, objects, interactions and actions. For instance, while Hagg Karim conceptualizes the books of recitation based on their signifying associations to principal religious elements of value and meanings, for Abdel-Aziz, they represent a sort of mystery and

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ambiguity. He is unable to understand the mystery and magic they avow; the connection between the text and the world of transcendence is in his mind absent, because essentially, he undergoes secular education.27 Due to this education, his esteem, regard and fear for the actors and actions, locations and objects of the sacred world become contested, communicating ambivalence. Secular education, as described by Kassem, is ‘his illness and his cure’; his books present him with knowledge that introduces him to a fundamentally different world from the one he grew up in.28 As Jasim al-Musawi describes, Abdel-Aziz represents ‘the long lived nahdah legacy [national aspirations coupled with the ‘Western’ model]: ˙ a division between an awareness of science and responsiveness to urban allurements, enchantments, and desires on the one hand, and communal spirit of faith and peaceful togetherness on the other’.29 His education is a source of questions directed at the validity of truth claims associated with the sacred order, as it is also the source of his spiritual instability, one that leads to his eventual distancing and disembedding from the ‘sacred’ world. As he develops into a young man, he develops a distance from and ‘diffidence’ towards the sacred order, so that he no longer feels the ‘sweetness’ of the brotherly bond, and can no longer remember the hymns and chants.30 This development bewilders him and torments his soul; he is both nostalgic for the ‘reassurance, clarity and light’ felt in his childhood, and wanting to be set free from the sacred world. He is at once faithful and full of doubt, at home and distant, full of spiritual desire and defiance. His misgivings most abound when he is amongst the travelling dervishes, and he begins to desire his own ‘long journey’ to ‘quench’ his ‘strange burning thirst’. At this juncture he questions: ‘How can a man journey without a cane, without baring his feet, without performing his ablutions?’, concluding that such a man is essentially ‘ritually impure’.31 His disturbance of spirit gains an explosive scope once he is in the city. This disturbance leads to a confrontation, struggle and challenge of the sacred world. In the city he becomes estranged further from the sacred order; trained in the art of rationality, not spirituality, he is a model of a disenchanted youth. Abdel-Aziz develops an awareness of the sciences, of rational thought, and the allure of the city. As such, he is no longer able to sustain an understanding of the sacred, and an attachment to it. In thinking over religious narrative, he smiles at the thought of an angel

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of death calling upon the village. He finds that such claims to transcendent truths cannot be sustained. In contrast, ‘scientific truth’, he learns, and learns to believe, ‘is devoid’ of the ‘poetry’ of the sacred; it is tangible, factual, ‘simple and harsh’.32 His knowledge exasperates his doubts of the sacred and of sacred practices. All authority and legitimacy claimed by sacred truth, thus, become invalidated in his mind. This is represented through his harsh criticism of the men of religion. His doubt unmasks a violent anger and frustration towards them; he perceives a primeval history of his people, and a continued ignorance and baseness to them. He further maintains the lack of validity of sacred spaces and their representations. For instance, he began to ‘loath walking barefoot on the floor of the Sultan’s mosque’, and became critical of the truth of religious meaning.33 Actors of the sacred are also trivialized. In listening to a sermon, Abdel-Aziz pays little attention to the ‘clarity and eloquence’, and ‘profound thoughts of the sheikh’; he rather ‘lost interest in what the man was saying and began to watch his jerk. He would wait for it, laughing to himself when it came’. This culminates in a direct attack at the legitimacy of the entire order: ‘Nations with no mind! Nations that don’t think. They move just like animals. They don’t have any idea where they’re going or where they’re coming from’. To him, simply, they are ‘Idol worshipers’. To this his father responds with the alternative: ‘you are ignorant [. . .] Unbeliever!’34 The sacred and the secular collide. Most resonant of Frantz Fanon’s ‘colonized intellectual’,35 Abdel-Aziz resigns to losing himself to the secular. However, his problematic internal struggle is not entirely resolved. He resigns to live in duality, not one that aligns the sacred with the modern, but one that grasps human nature and the ‘inevitability’ of change (from sacred to secular). His experience of the procession towards the shrine in the city is central to his resignation. He witnesses the ‘human river’ and is unable to stand apart from it. The procession of men from the city and men from the village presents a procession of mankind. Their monotonous and uncontrollable movement towards and attraction to the shrine represents a need for salvation; they are at once sinners, unable to control their ‘temptations’ and ‘desires’ and vulnerable beings searching for spiritual solitude. Conversely, it also represents the materialization of popular religion36 in the city, something which he cannot reject despite the ‘stubborn, persistent questions in his mind’.37 The modern world order

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exerts its influence, it has encroached on the sacred order, and AbdelAziz recognizes the futility of challenging its presence. ‘Something had begun, and nothing could stand in its way’ even in failing to understand why or accept it. Saddened, he realizes that he can no longer question, for the sacred world, represented by his father, had crumbled, it had ‘risen and set’, and ‘everything had lost its importance’.38 Disenchantment is the reality, for the world of ‘miracles’, ‘saints’ and ‘prayers’ ‘was gone’ and he can do ‘nothing’ to alter that; ‘no trace of hope remained to mitigate his depression’.39 It is replaced by coffee houses, men of secular education and meaningless social practices.40 Kassem’s novel ends with the inauguration of a disenchanted world, the secularization of society (time, space and their implicated representations) and Abdel-Aziz’s assimilation into it.

CHAPTER 8 THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIAL FORMATIONS

Individual Freedom and the Disembedded Self Disenchantment (the alteration of a worldview, and the loss of a sense of the sacred) through ‘progress’ into ‘modernity’ has its deep-seated effects on social formations. As suggested by Harvey, the shift in meanings and in the representations of space and time presented a ‘crisis in our experience’ of these categories of human experience, problematizing culture and cultural practice.1 Through ‘modern progress’, space and time are conquered and imbued with new meanings that appropriate significant changes in ‘our conceptual apparatus’ of self-existence and of social formations. Social life becomes a reproduction of this conceptual apparatus, facilitating the process of social change (a transformation from religious to secular),2 with serious implications. There are serious implications for self-existence and aspects of social formation: conceptions of self (identity), of individual freedom, the stratification of society (gendered, familial, societal, and their respective functionality), and social transactions and social performance. What are inherent in conceptions of self-existence and in these aspects of social formation are various levels of distortion and destabilization; multiple factors intersect, manifesting ambivalence and a disturbed state of affairs. There is a sharp contrast between a traditional and a modern social formation. A traditional social formation is one that is organized around the concepts of shared identity and a fellowship. The attributes of a traditional order, as such, are: a ‘strong sense of common identity’

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(informed by a shared history, culture, cultural narrative, cultural practice, attitudes and concerns), ‘close personal relationships’ and an attachment to traditional sentiments and concerns.3 This is most exemplified by Hagg Karim and his community. He acts as the patriarch or leader of both his household and the community at large; he lives at the ‘head of a lane where everyone belonged to his family or his clan. He was their leader, and they were his proud, loving [. . .] followers’.4 The entire community is constructed around a conception of fellowship, whereby their prime identification, sense of loyalty and allegiance is to their religious affiliation. Stemming from this affiliation is a reinforced sense of community, brotherhood, and collective responsibility and action.5 Society is organized on the basis of this sense of identity and this fellowship. Society is thus structured or stratified: (1) a religious devotion, to which all submit, and a religious allegiance that all serve;6 (2) a community or a religious leader; (3) male leadership of the family unit; (4) a matriarchal leadership of household affairs.7 Social transactions and performances express and enact this traditional form of social formation. A modern social formation, on the other hand, is organized around a sense of individuality and a detachment from traditions and the traditional order. A modern order is characterized by ‘a society or group characterized chiefly by formal organization, impersonal relations, the absence of generally held or binding norms, and a detachment from traditional and sentimental concerns, and often tending to be rationalistic and secular in outlook’.8 Within the modern social formation, individuals become in the process not agents or participants embedded within the larger social formations of a society (family, society, ’umma), but, rather, disembedded ‘agents engaged in projects [cultural change that is focused on material practices and transactions] that take up time through movement in space’.9 Disembedding is both ‘a matter of identity’ and of ‘social imagary’; the way one is able to think or imagine the self and the ‘whole of society’ is altered.10 In this way, individuals exist in space as agents of individuation, becoming, and human desire. Time and space are utilized as sites of ‘power and resistance’

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mobilized to liberate ‘human desire’. Thus, social space becomes open to varied individual performance of will, desire, ‘creativity and action’.11 It is in this that Abdel-Aziz’s dilemma is expressed; he is caught between spaces, he either chooses to submit to traditional authority or ‘carve out particular spaces of resistance and [individual] freedom’.12 His is a struggle for his own sense of agency, freedom and desire, one localized within the self, not the community. As such, he mobilizes his own sense of power and resistance, and imposes it on sacred space and sacred practice. Interestingly enough, this is expressed through sexuality and desire. As a child he is aware of his sexuality, temptation and desire, and he uses them as avenues of self-expression and self-assertion. In various instances where the sacred or the sacred order in performance is evident, Abdel-Aziz acts the contrary by introducing his individual desire and will: his sexuality, imposing the profane on sacred space. While women bake for a religious occasion, he is occupied with lust for their bodies; at the end of the mawlid feast, as the men recite ‘The Opening’, he kisses a Tanta¯ girl in the stairwell; during the mawlid, as a ˙ ˙ woman sings a hymn for the Prophet, Abdel-Aziz imagines a conquest of 13 her body. This practice is at the centre of gravity of the situation; the sacred (fear of and reverence for God in this instance) ‘doesn’t operate through various [. . .] locations of sacred power’; the ‘sacred/profane distinction breaks down, insofar as it can be placed in person, time, space, gesture’.14 A sense of shame or feelings of shame and regard in certain places disappears, breaking these boundaries further. Saints, the world of spiritual power, avenues towards God’s mercy through faith all become radically limited in scope and efficacy, giving a great degree of individual ‘freedom’. This freedom expresses a sense of abandon, and disenchantment; an ability to ‘relate to certain realities as purely “natural”, and disintricate them from the transcendent’.15 Relations to the sacred and to the ‘social sacred’ are, as such, ‘dispensable’.16 As his sense of identity is asserted and his sense of what is really important becomes contested, defining relations within the sacred order loses its importance. The transformation that takes place is one of disengagement, distancing, disembedding and impersonalization. He exists within a controlled grid of social formation, and sacred performance. As he distances himself from the sacred, he also attempts a distancing of the ‘social sacred’ as a means towards self-assertion, and individual freedom. Upon the travel to Tanta, he decides to travel

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separately. In the city, this separation between him and the ‘others’ gains a new scope. It takes on the form of a separatism between the enlightened and the unenlightened, whereby, he as an enlightened man, is above, and therefore, better (knowledgeable, modern; a symbol of progress) than the members of the traditional order. He begins to view himself as outside and beyond this fellowship. He wishes to change them and their ways, and is critical of their thinking: ‘He wished he could rise up and shout to them to stop and try to comprehend the world, to divide it into small compartments and to reflect on it’.17 The epitome of the fulfilment of his individuality and freedom takes place after the fall of the patriarch, his father, and his engagement in the new world, free, unrestricted. Self-realization and self-reliance become the principles for his social practice and for social formation in general, as he attempts to find a means to assimilate into this world. Engagement within the social sphere and engagement with the sacred are altered around such principles. Identity, then, only flourishes not in relations to dervishes, sheikhs, and to God, but in self-defining, self-interested, ‘self-reliant’ and ‘self-sufficient’ ways. It is an ethic of freedom that encourages greater agency, one ‘entirely free, unconstrained by authority’,18 be it God, or the realization of a sacred order within social formations. An entire social consciousness thus becomes altered, giving way to new beginnings not directed or governed by the principles of the sacred.

Moral Economy and the Virtues of the ‘New’ Self The post-revolutionary failure to produce an original vision for national progress has led to the modernization of values and patterns of behaviour. The unresolved relationship to the West and Western supremacy; the failed attempt at reconciling the ‘Western model’ and the drive for ‘authenticity’; and the inability to foster pride in cultural heritage, and to re-interpret ‘modernity’ has left a social and cultural vacuum that can be penetrated and subsumed.19 As Amin explains, a greater drive for Westernization, constituted within the scope of the Westernization of production and consumption, has ultimately altered social thought, social practices and patterns of behaviour.20 The result is the occurrence of a dislocation on various levels of performance between religious ethics and day-to-day structures and practices (the social, the

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political and the economic). Religious ethics become supplanted with ‘modern’ ethics of disembedding that create new relationships with dayto-day structures and practices all ultimately defined by materiality, materialism and self-interest. A ‘profound change in our moral world’ and a ‘revolution in our understanding of moral order’ take place, positing new relationships. These relationships are predicated on ‘human flourishing’, invoking meanings focused on individual benefit, individual realization and interest, essentially a privatization and corruption of the sacred.21 It is an individual ethic of freedom that is characteristic and characterizing of modern society, one governed by ‘conditions of appropriation and domination’ to do with the larger processes of capitalism, the Westernization of production and consumption, and, ultimately, of culture.22 This occurs within the context of even larger processes: modernization and secularization. The ‘Evolving mental structures and their material expression’ are as such deeply implicated in these processes, as they define social ethics.23 While this has been enabled through the general Westernist stance within the arena of politics and knowledge production in Egypt, it has been furthered by the capacities of globalization. Globalization entails the collapse of time and space between cultures. Time and space as markers of human existence and performance are thus compressed, leading to a ‘disorienting and disruptive impact upon political-economic practices, the balance of class power, as well as upon cultural and social life’.24 Within the realm of culture and social life, the disruption is supreme because ethical values are in question. The global spread of culture is in essence a globalization of values; new intellectual, ethical and cultural systems are thus derived. The universalization and homogenization of culture entails the homogenization of identity, thought and practice, as ‘indigenous knowledge of morality is increasingly challenged by a liberal modernity conveyed by development practitioners from the West as by the forces of globalization’.25 The current modern discipline dictates that values are defined a certain way, and that a level of freedom and individual expression are to be achieved through the application, practice or realization of certain types of performance and thought. Everyone becomes part of an international society and its socially established activities, consumed, absorbing and applying its embedded global practices and morals. States

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are co-participants in this process as they enable the universalization and homogenization of values through corporations that manufacture or engineer consent26 to a world of materialist production and, more importantly, consumption (products, services and values). Within the arena of consumption, two processes inform and shape the transformation of values: ‘the mobilization of fashion’ and the mobilization of the consumption of services, all too enticing to resist. The consumption of fashion is mobilized in mass markets providing a means to accelerating the pace of consumption in many areas, or of many commodities: ‘clothing, ornament and decoration, but also [. . .] of life-styles and recreation activities (leisure and sporting habits, pop music styles, video and children’s games, and the like)’. Like products and ideas promoted by this consumption industry, services are also mobilized and monopolized; the consumption of ‘personal, business, educational, and health services’, as well as the consumption of ‘entertainments, spectacles, happenings, and distractions’. Ideas, ideologies, values and ethics, and established practices become subject to the ‘volatility and ephemerality’ of the trade (and its values).27 Of the primary effects has been the creation of a ‘throwaway society’; a continued emphasis is placed on ‘the values and virtues of instantaneity’. Products, ‘values, lifestyles, stable relationships, and attachments [. . .] and received ways of doing and being’ are all part of this dynamic – one can do away with anything. This suggests a profound change in human psychology, one focused on a sense of transience and temporariness ‘in the structure of both public and personal value systems’,28 making it unproblematic to criticize, alter and do away with established religious values, and values systems. The growth and dynamics of capitalism, and the spread of a global culture of consumption, are centred on appeal: the appeal to human desire, the appeal to tastes; an appeal to unrestrained freedom of choice and of being. Information, knowledge and advertising are no longer ‘built around the idea of informing or promoting’ or advocating value-based ideas, ethics, lifestyles and lifestyle choices. Instead, they are built around and geared towards the manipulation of ‘desires and tastes’ with direct reference to ‘three themes of money, sex and power’.29 The saturation of media, knowledge and, thus, minds, with symbols of status, power, material affluence and desire is directly related to the construction of identity, and an information society that largely

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functions, lives, performs on the basis of these themes and symbols. The ultimate effect is that morals weaken and relax, the ‘dedication to tradition’ and to religious values become destabilized and further diminished, and behaviours and practices that ‘would otherwise be thought reprehensible’ become normalized.30 Modern senses of doing and of being are (ideologically and in essence) stripped and separated from religion, religious virtues and practices. Ideologically and psychologically, it becomes difficult if not problematic to account for religion and religious values and practices within the spheres in which they are customarily operative. Identity becomes defined by the themes and symbols of the homogenized culture; actions and states of being that they embody become absorbed and reflected in social identities. ‘Clusters of behaviour’, ‘consumption patterns’, ‘lifestyle identities’ and the ‘identity of people as consumers’ all become the unfortunate reality.31 As values, ethics and ethical norms are all transformed, everything gradually becomes a ‘commodity, the object of commercial transaction, including man’s very soul’.32 This ultimate transformation in consciousness can be mapped in literature.

The Ethics of Consumerism and Materiality The most basic of transactions towards the achievement of modern ethics is the assertion of individual freedom. This has been duly discussed with the example of Abdel-Aziz from The Seven Days of Man. However, the commodification of values and lifestyle choices is more apparent in the character and life of Hussain Kirsha of Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley (1966). Reading Midaq Alley from the perspective presented by Gassick (translator), as outside the ‘framework of time’, enables the reading of ‘The universal problems of behavior and morality the novel examines’. Restricted by neither ‘time nor place’, they are relevant in the discussion of the effects of the larger process of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’ as experienced in Egypt.33 The character of Hussain Kirsha is representative of the tragedy of human experience within the modern period. He is enticed away from the alley (the present past) into a new order of being. Contrasted to his childhood friend Abduh, Hussain is not one who is gentle, or inclined towards acceptance and satisfaction in basic needs, and his religiosity is limited. His interests are beyond the alley; beyond

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the traditions it represents, and the responsibilities it begs of its inhabitants. In abandoning his family and his alley he is pursuing material interests, but more importantly, expressing a far greater reliance on and interest in the discourse or worldview presented and provided by another source (represented by work with the British army and the cultural practices of the West). In pursuit of material wealth, he is declining cultural wealth, specifically that of his origins. Furthermore, in abandoning his family and his alley, he is declining social responsibility, and de-rooting himself from traditional spaces of performance. His interest lies in a lifestyle, and thus, a lifestyle identity associated with the West, ‘luxuries’ expressing a higher level of achievement or ‘progress’. He was able to buy new cloths, ‘frequent restaurants’, he ‘delighted in eating meat [. . .] attended cinemas and cabarets and found pleasure in wine and the company of women’.34 These luxuries are a status symbol; in his mind they are associated with the centre of modernity, the West, and in their enjoyment and their representation in his life and actions he is creating an association with that centre, and so a dissociation with his own space of existence, the traditional alley. In constructing his identity in this way he contrasts himself with the alley and its inhabitants, and asserts a level of progress and achievement beyond the others – one that is both pretentious and false. The falsity of his sense of individual progress is asserted by Mahfouz (as the writer), for he writes Hussain’s eventual failure and return to the alley. This communicates the ultimate failure of the ethics of modernity, and perhaps the project of modernity itself. The character of Safiyya in Salwa¯ Bakr’s The Golden Chariot (1991) exhibits a similar facet of the problem. A victim of a classist and material society, Safiyya’s life is centred on goals and dreams at times defined by this society, at others conditioned by it. Her dreams are defined by ‘the marvels and excitement of the metropolis’; her ‘ultimate dream was to obtain some red shoes with high heels’, as she ‘longed to have her hair styled [. . .] to put on red lipstick to match her red shoes like the city women did’.35 Her dreams for her sons were further defined by the standards set by society for respectability: education, but more importantly the ‘same material advantages enjoyed by more privileged families’ to reflect ‘breeding and refinement’, essentially an economic status on a par with societal expectations. She and her family were ‘caught in a consumer society which craves the latest of everything’.36

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As such stealing and drug-dealing became essential for the realization of such goals, and for sustaining an existence based on and devoted to classist and consumerist ethics. For instance, the acquisition of material goods through theft is described as ‘glorious’, for it opened the window of opportunity for fulfilling standards of living, but more importantly the values of life predicated by a false ‘modernity’. Her poverty and impoverishment can be linked to a government’s failed policies, and her life goals are defined by them (Nasser’s educational policy, Sadat’s infita¯h, subsequently followed by Mubarak, and the ˙ inability to deliver the promise for jobs and equal opportunity). However, the greater predicament is that the ‘carelessness’, ‘recklessness’ and moral demeanour with which Safiyya lived were never objects of her regret.37 Despite repeated incarceration for her crimes, she always returned to her lifestyle, and lifestyle choices, for the realization of the standards of living were more important to her than the virtues of honesty, dignity and honour. A much clearer portrayal of the dissociation of religious ethics from day-to-day practices and their replacement with modern ethics can be seen in the story of Bahiga Abdel-Haqq. Bahiga Abdel-Haqq, a ‘well brought up’, honest and innocent woman, aspired to fulfil the dream of becoming a doctor: securing a position in life, and attaining the respectability not accorded to the lower classes. Much to her dismay, she receives the same education as the daughter of a minister (as permitted by Nasser’s policy for education), but is not accorded due respectability. Her life is defined by her economic status, and so by multiple layers of injustice. While the government’s failed economic policy left many people destitute, the openness to the West and the lack of a local or cultural vision is located as a major culprit. The interests and agenda of the masses have shifted: from religiously based aspirations and national anti-colonial interests and aspirations, to material and mundane interests and aspirations. This shift is manifest in Bahiga’s life in many ways: being ‘respected but not valued’ as a doctor with a salary of 120 Egyptian pounds; being ‘consigned to oblivion’ in her job placement in a hospital ‘run by the Ministry of health’; and being devalued as a potential partner, for lacking the physical and moral manifestations of modern culture (beauty products, brand names and an unpreserved ‘proof of her virtue and modesty’).38 Both government and society are party to her oppression. Her success in society is determined by the

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three c’s: ‘a country estate, a car and a clinic’, as it is also determined by a concern for materiality, and a lack of concern for honour and chastity. These are the values and practices of currency, and her inability to meet those standards is her ‘crime’.39 It is an indication of the ultimate transformation of virtues, and of what constitutes a virtuous individual and/or a virtuous woman. This leaves Bahiga with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy as she was troubled by the schizophrenia of the current state of affairs. Her sense of honour and respectability, her reverence for God in her life and lifestyle choices, and her efforts and skills as a doctor are all not valued.

Commodifications: the Body, the Self The tragedy of the dissociation of religion from the ethical discourse and its performance is of epic proportions when the essence of being is involved. In The Yacoubian Building (2002) the struggle to maintain this essence is apparent, as is the ‘necessitated’ commodification of all values. Busayna is from a lower class and of a conservative and religious upbringing. Upon the death of her father, the family is left ‘destitute’ and Busayna is forced to work to help her mother provide for their family. In her first year she goes through a series of jobs and has one astounding discovery: the ‘logical conclusion’ of any of these positions was the necessity of the commodification of her body for the permanence of the job. Both her mother and her friend force her further to realize the reality of life, its lack of romanticism and virtue. They insist that she adopt an attitude and practice that would protect her chastity, yet maintain her source of income, leaving her ‘saddened and puzzled’.40 In the process of submitting to this reality, her sense of morality and her religiosity become conflicted. She feels the indignity of commodifying her body (submitting it to various uses in return for money), and a sense of shame and guilt: ‘her rendezvous with Talal [her boss] [. . .] had an impact on her [. . .] [S]he found herself no longer able to perform the morning prayer [. . .] because inwardly she was ashamed to face “Our Lord”, because she felt herself unclean, however much she performed the ablutions’. Furthermore, she began to have nightmares, would go on for days feeling ‘depressed and melancholy’ and upon visiting the tomb of El Hussein ‘she burst into a long [. . .] bout of weeping’.41 Despite her torment over her ‘feelings of sin’ she convinces herself of the necessity of

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her own commodification, so much so that she gradually develops resentment, ‘bitterness and cruelty’ towards the entire world.42 This sense of resentment and bitterness towards the world is no more than an expression of her inner torment and the injustice that she feels. She is angered at her state as a ‘fallen’ woman, her state of indignity, and the world itself for the forced betrayal of morals. This anger translates into: lack of trust and compassion; a misconstrued view of humanity (she begins to view all women as perverse, fallen women who surrender their bodies in return for money, and people as dishonourable beings); and resentment for her love, Taha, who has been able to retain his virtues.43 Her resentment towards Taha is particularly revealing. Both angry and disenchanted, she understood the religious virtues he encouraged (modesty), but viewed him as a ‘dreamy, naive boy’. She treated him with cruelty, and spoke to him with mockery and sarcasm because essentially in his presence her awareness of her own sin was compounded: ‘she craved to rip her relationship with him to pieces so that she might be freed of that painful feeling of sin that tortured her as soon as she set eyes on him’.44 The entirety of her being becomes troubled, only to be rectified in her marriage.45 While Busayna is forced into the commodification of her entire being, Hamida of Midaq Alley chooses this commodification. Through Hamida the ethical crisis in its true nature is revealed: the ethical discourse in theory and practice is separated and dissociated from Islamic contexts (both social and historical) that give it meaning. Hamida yearns for a life outside of the traditional quarters she lives in, a life characterized by material affluence, power and influence. Understanding the appeal of her own body, she uses it in hopes of attaining this goal; a prospect of marrying a rich man who can afford her the life she desires. However, upon being lured by a man into prostitution, she gives in without regard for ‘moral issues’: ‘her emotions were as intoxicated as her heart, her blood, and her feelings danced with her’ as she entered the new world.46 The values of this new world are predicated by a perverse sense of happiness, honour and dignity. Happiness is in sexual gratification, and ‘pimps are stockbrokers’ of this happiness; honour is in illicit relationships and affairs, not in a sanctified marriage; and dignity is in a life of material comforts.47 These can be contrasted to the life Abduh sought with her (one of her initial marriage prospects): happiness in life with the

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woman he loves, honour in chastity and marriage, and dignity in a respectable life (not material luxuries). The ethical discourse of her new world, however, is very different. The system of education she received within in it is telling of this fact. A department for each of the modern forms of knowledge existed: one for anatomy (sexual); one for the arts (sensual dancing); another for the principles of the English language (sexual principles); and one for ‘class’ and ‘refinement’ (mannerisms, dress and cosmetology).48 All of these forms of knowledge become aspects of her commodification, as they also become a source of identity formation and of identification, and of values, ethics and ethical practices. She is transformed into the object of a modern sexualized culture, which is without association to religion, its ethics, or its heritage. Her entire being is rewritten and transformed in submission to the superficial, mundane, and the sexual and profane. Her name, too, is changed to appeal to this new culture: from Hamida, ‘good’, to Titi, a name void of meaning. Not forced by circumstance or need, she found joy in all the comforts, power and authority of her new life.49 While the story of Hamida shows commodification in exchange for material benefit, the story of Zaita elucidates the power associated with this form of consensual commodification. Much like the pimp in Hamida’s life, Zaita exercises capitalist control over people. His command over space and people is inextricably linked to the accumulation of power and wealth. This, in an allegorical sense, testifies to the perpetuation of a modern capitalist culture, the dissolution of an indigenous culture and system of values, and the inherent lack of religious ethics and values (lack of faith, and the faithful). Zaita exercises individual power over the destitute, those unable to secure a source of income, through the infliction of a disability onto their bodies, as he also exercises power over the spaces they occupy. Known as the ‘cripplemaker’, Zaita creates an industry through the commodification of bodies; their value is associated with material benefit, ‘their weight in gold’. He cripples bodies, transposing the image of destitution in physicality, profiting from the process: ‘As he swept his eyes over the heaps of beggars on both sides of him he was filled with delight. His joy was that of a powerful lord mixed with the delight of a merchant who sees profitable merchandise’.50 The delight he experiences in this trade manifests in his desire for beggars to form ‘the majority of mankind’; his capitalist endeavour and desire is expansive in nature.51

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The fact that his capitalist endeavour is sustained through consent testifies to not only the participatory nature of capitalism, but more importantly the state of the nation itself. A man of a large build, and thus the ability to use his capacities to secure a source of income, chooses to approach Zaita for dismemberment. As he consents to his own dismemberment, he describes his ailment, the inability to ‘understand or remember anything’.52 The nation is crippled, unconscious and disempowered for its distance from its own self, as it is also a party to its own degeneration through consent. What is far more tragic is that in Zaita’s inability to commodify this man’s body through dismemberment, he commodifies religion. Zaita explains that in his dismemberment the only emotion he would arouse is ‘indignation’ not ‘sympathy’, and so he offers to teach him ‘idiocy’ to reap wealth: ‘I’ll teach you some ballads in praise of the Prophet’.53 Far from being a display of ‘idiocy’, it represents the lack of regard and reverence for the sacred, and a transgression of sacred space. Cultural and religious values are no longer the means to establishing justice, good, and the flourishing of mankind. Principle elements in Islamic thought are not the subject of discussion, focus or concern. A concern for the distribution of wealth and for the insurance of the basic needs of the citizenry54 are foregone practices, for as Zaita communicates, a reliance on ‘the mercy of their “well-wishers”’ is no option, given the state of affairs.55 Religion and religious values, too, are commodities that can be used, misused, manipulated for and subjected to individual desire and interest.

Political Corruption and the Lack of Disciplinary Ethics The commodification of religion attests to the continual decline in its importance. Its commodification verifies much more than its regressing space of existence (its privatization), and declining significance. It verifies the undermining of its authority and its subsequent misuse. Religion went from being a widely held system of values and practices, to a privately held system of doctrines and values, to a dispersed and diffuse set of values subject to individual tastes, to one that is minimally binding in any form. Through a separation of ethics from theology these shifts in the understanding of religion became possible. This separation has severed the binding nature of ethics to practices, undermining the entire system in the process. This is inherent in the political sphere, as it

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is inherent in the social sphere. The privatization of religion (system, belief, conscience and sensibility), the detachment of virtues and ethical practices from religion and religious traditions, made it possible for religion to be subjected to the service of the authority, power and discipline of the state.56 As religion has been privatized and neglected in political and social practice, Arab nationalism has also been neglected, leaving a void for despotism, among many other things,57 to seep through and become the rule of law. In Egypt, for the last several decades, the principles of authority, power and discipline of the state have been hypocrisy and corruption, and the commodification of religion for state and personal interests. Alaa al-Aswany provides two examples of this predicament in The Yacoubian Building: the example of Hagg Abu Himeida and Hagg Azzam, both aspiring politicians. Both these men are of modest backgrounds and both have been able, over the years, to become prominent businessmen and millionaires. Their interest in participating in politics is not dependent on their merit, or their interest in the citizenry. Rather, they both aspire to be politicians in order to increment their social standing (one defined by money and power). Neither of these men is interested in becoming administrators of ‘good’ or protectors of public interest, and they are not equipped with the necessary knowledge to do so. The way in which they derive their authority as possible candidates is not informed by their respect for the rights of citizens and an investment in the protection of public interest, as it is not derived from public trust, choice and consent. While Hagg Abu Himeida attempts to command public respect, confidence, choice and consent through the commodification of religion, Hagg Azzam attempts to derive his authority though an appeal to a stratified system of corruption. Hagg Abu Himeida is described as ‘Egypt’s biggest heroin dealer’ who uses Islam to project an appealing image of piety: ‘He had flooded the newspapers and television with advertisements undertaking to give any woman a number of new, “modest” dresses and colored headscarves if the same woman would take the decision to observe religiously sanctioned dress and agreed to hand in her old, revealing clothes’.58 Hagg Azzam, on the other hand, appeals to a man on the political ladder of corruption who promises Azzam’s election for the price of a million Egyptian pounds.59 Throughout the campaign, both competed for votes enlisting any means possible, including ‘gifts distributed to constituents’.60 Neither of these men

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command the confidence and trust of the public; instead, they attempt to attain positions of power through bribery, deceit and coercion. Mahfouz points to the same predicament: money is the ‘aim and object of those who squabble for power’ as there is ‘no harm in money being the objective of the poor voters’. Thus, an entire nation lives unconscious, in need and certainly undeterred from a focus on their ‘vital interests’ or needs: bread, food, clothing and gas.61 The state itself is projected as a larger hierarchy of power and corruption invested in personal benefit. Using power, coercion, bribery and blackmail, political/personal ends are met. Hagg Azzam gets involved with El Fouli who has a long history within Egyptian politics. What is most characteristic of El Fouli, a man who seems to stand for the corruption of Egyptian politicians in the novel, is his resilience: he supports the regime whatever its current politics may be. As the regimes shifted he shifted his politics, aligning himself with the state (or the governing party): ‘when the state switched to capitalism, he became one of the greatest supporters of privatization and the free economy’, and his real talent for politics was the ability for ‘corruption and hypocrisy’, ‘enabling him to assume the highest positions of state’.62 Linked to a hierarchy within the state apparatus who enable this form of corruption, he is able to abuse power and benefit from Azzam through blackmail; Azzam is urged to give in a quarter of his profits or accept the reality of a fabricated drug scandal in his name.63 The neglect of Islamic ethical philosophy within politics, and the neglect of a philosophy of (Arab) nationalism are of a serious consequence, as no clear discourse is in place. In an article titled ‘Why are we falling behind as the world progresses?’ Al-Aswany reiterates the key principles and ethics neglected in politics in Egypt. There is a lack of concern for public interest; the association between the public and the political representation is lacking in both value and relevance. A notion of individual prosperity overrides a notion of common good, and the relationship between the public and the political representation is not one governed by the necessity of addressing the needs and ideals for which the notion of ‘common good’ begs.64 Leading figures in politics must be chosen based on merit and public consent and trust, commanding confidence in their leadership and their ability to sustain communication between political organization and the public in realization of common good. These figures must be

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knowledgeable in the law and invested in the rights of citizens, the protection of rights, and the propagation of good, as opposed to corruption. Instead, what takes place as explained by al-Aswany is the following. The president ‘does not take office through voters’ choice but through the power of the security agencies and their ability to suppress opponents’. The president’s power and immunity from accountability extends to ‘senior officials’ who are ‘selected out of favour’; it is a model for corruption as it stands.65 The lack of interest in national benefit and national prosperity, and the lack of interest in religious ethical principles are both apparent in his analysis. Politicians within the state apparatus are not delegates of democracy, nor are they subservient to the responsibility and accountability that the role carries, whether as expressed in national terms (subservience to the rule of law, that of democracy, equal rights, and personal freedom) or Islamic terms (subservience to Divine law, an understanding of vicegerency or Khilafah, and of more specific political ethics, such as shu¯ra¯ and an interest in public good). There is a clear neglect of key principles and ethics of political practice, as displayed through these examples.

Language, Status and the Decline of Culture An entire culture is, too, neglected in this history of a series of failed attempts at realising foreign –isms: modernism, secularism, Westernism. In an attempt at the realization of a false sense of civilization, education was transformed, and so were culture, and ultimately language, its status and use, demonstrating ‘how the memory of a nation can fade’.66 The importance of the Arabic language has been in decline. Samia Mehrez attests that Arabic newspapers ‘practically on a daily basis run an article or column bemoaning and bewailing what has befallen our beautiful Arabic language and the extent to which it has succumbed to various forms of “standardization”, “simplification”, “westernization” and outright “deformation”’,67 while Sharabi explains that as the West became the source of all parameters, an increase in a Western-orientated population became the result.68 With an adherence to Western standards of progress, modernization and development, all facets of social and cultural life came under reconsideration and transformation. Language became subsumed within this Westernist drive: produced, shaped and

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formulated based on a discourse of Westernization. This is not to suggest that linguistically the language has been transformed, but it is to say that meanings infused into the language have come to express a Westernist culture and ideology, not an Islamic or Arab one, and furthermore, its function as a medium of culture, education and communication has been delimited. Language became part of the discourse on the market of a developed, modernist culture, as it became part of the discourse of the expression of individual modernism, an expression of status, social distinction, privilege and power, an association with the centre of progress, development and modernity, the West. Thus, an education curriculum includes the philosophers, thinkers and ideas of the West and its culture, English-medium institutions are on the rise (devaluing the Arabic language, and threatening its place in society and culture), classical Arabic language is in minimalist use, and the infusion of English becomes an infusion of Englishness into the everyday colloquial. This ultimately renders the sources of religion, tradition and culture partially accessible (if accessible), it threatens the status of culture as a whole and its development (curtailing innovation and creativity), and breeds generations unknowledgeable and illiterate in their own historical, social, cultural and religious legacies. ‘All profound changes in consciousness’, in the understanding of the self, the social world, and of purpose as manifest in various structures and in day-to-day activities (social formations, ethical values, political and economic transactions) ‘bring about amnesia’.69 Cultural amnesia is compounded by an even greater cultural amnesia; memories of the nation fade, as the nation itself, too, fades.

CHAPTER 9 THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN

Vulnerable, Powerless and Subjugated The outcome of cultural susceptibility to Western influence and control, of the distorted and inauthentic sense of modernity, and the dissolution and absence of a genuine traditional perspective has been a false consciousness that imposes a distorted reality. Women’s emancipation is a key element in this development. Historically, there have been two positions on the issue of women: one conservative, the other reformist. Within the modern period, these two perspectives on women seem to struggle, collide and intersect, without real propositions for development. The reformists ‘sought to focus on some of the major issues connected with the degraded position of women in society, but they did not address the central problems’. The conservatives, on the other hand, rationalized the ‘status quo’ and opposed ‘cultural change’.1 Of the major issues reformists and conservatives have neglected are the intertwined nature of tribal traditions with religion (Islam), and the imposing Westernization of values and their effect on each – something which ultimately muddles discourse, ideology, identity and practice. Neglecting to address this issue has led to a polarization of spheres of ideology and practice, and their essential conflation. This is projected within the social sphere. Within the social sphere there is a simultaneous drive for the obstinate protection of values, and a drive for the liberation of values. In an attempt at the protection of values, tribal and hegemonic structures of control persist, limiting women’s freedom, and deepening

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their sense of subjugation. The ‘liberation’ of values, on the other hand, with regard to the place of women in society has ensued in an onslaught, whereby tendencies, actions and values project the erosion of traditional structures of protection and power, and the introduction of an ambivalent sense of responsibility, alongside violence and domination. Both exist and persist simultaneously. Within traditional (religious) social formation women hold a space of respect and honour. They are at once respected agents of responsibility and power within the family, and vulnerable agents (in need of protection). In other terms, the female is both demanded for her provisions, and protected for her nature and value. Although this exists within a tribal social formation, it exists alongside a stratified system that places women at the bottom, as subjects of submission, complacency, control and servitude. With the erosion of a traditional (religious) social formation, women in a modern order become susceptible to manipulation and subjugation, one duly compounded and magnified by persistent traditional (tribal) structures of domination and control, and the increasing demands of (Western) modernity (to do with femininity, sexuality and responsibility). This problematic is portrayed in Salwa¯ Bakr’s exposition of women’s lives, in The Golden Chariot (1991). In The Golden Chariot the reader gets a panoramic view of the plight of women. It suggests the existence of a multi-layered system of subjugation and control, an insufficient level of liberation, and the intersection of factors (state law, tribal traditions and religious values). Women are subjects of hegemonic structures: the state, the family and tribal ethics. Their sense of liberation is incomplete; for instance, they can be both educated women, and subjects of male control. Furthermore, the values that intersect to either complicate their existence, or rectify it, are multiple. This amounts to a complicated and unjust existence. The women of The Golden Chariot are women who occupy a space outside of society. This space is presented through the jail metaphor, one that holds an almost paradoxical meaning. Bakr chooses to separate these women from humanity, which is, ironically, an act of humanity within itself. The ultimate suggestion of this separation is that humanity, as it stands, exists without the values of justice, love, mercy and compassion; the world is unjust and inhumane, it subjugates the vulnerable, and good. Bakr, in a sense, constructs a distinction and separation through this jail metaphor between two spaces: the space occupied by these

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women, true humanity (women in the jail who demonstrate the values lacking); and the space of the real world, one lacking humanity. In the second meaning, they are banished and exteriorized. These women suffer the ill fate of being subjects of state power, which does not act to defend them and uphold justice; rather, it adds to injustice through (undue) punishment. Though the plight of each of these women is different, they suffer the same fate: subjugation, injustice and ultimately exteriorization (jail). Fate is a thread that runs through the various lives; it is a concept that resonates throughout the novel. The power of the concept is in its Islamic meaning. Fate within Islam is a primary concept and a foundational element of belief. The concept of fate in Islam is rooted in time; through time, all that happens (all realms of activity) is governed by fate. It denotes predestination, Divine will, and thus, in Islam, its acceptance is a requirement of faith and belief. Fate is ‘written on a tablet in heaven’,2 and in accepting fate they accept God’s will (in His service and for His pleasure) and are triumphant, and achieving of true happiness (in the means, their actions in the world, and in the ends, heaven). In the novel, this concept functions as both a justification for all that has befallen these women, and their lack of agency and responsibility in what they live through and endure. More importantly, it verifies their status as victims of structures of domination, control and subjugation, as their acceptance of this fate verifies their faith and belief (and so their subsequent reward in an ascent to heaven).3 Another level of separation that Bakr creates is one between two planes of existence. The first plane is the earthly, one described as unjust, and this is elucidated through the exposition of women’s lives. The second plane is the heavenly plane. This second plane is represented as a figment of the imagination, but is symbolic of a faith in a better existence (a hereafter). In its representation, it is a form of survival tactics (escapism); it assists in enduring an unjust existence. As a symbol, it stands for transcendent heaven: representative of a belief in a better existence, one much deserved. The separation, apart from indicating the desire for an alternative state of existence, is a testament to the lack of justice in the world, and the assured justice in the other. Heaven is described as both a ‘beautiful celestial world, the like of which could never be found on earth’ and this ‘other beautiful world in the sky’.4 However, Bakr’s final description of heaven is one

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from which an association to transcendent heaven can be drawn. Heaven is described as a ‘beautiful place [. . .] where there is grace and favour, everlasting, supreme happiness and true, deep love between human beings and where they would not be kept awake by continual quarrels and strife’.5 This description is tantamount to one existing in the Qur’an, in surat al-Wa¯qi‘ah.6 These verses describe what awaits the righteous in heaven: bounties, beauty, grace and companionship; a ‘supreme happiness’ that is fortified by the presence of peace and the absence of ‘frivolous discourse, idle boasting, foolish flattery’ and ‘moral mischief’.7 Therefore, in heaven, Divine justice will prevail (in contrast with human justice, as represented by the various structures of oppression in society). Until the appointed time, the women of The Golden Chariot live in the earthly plane. The reader is introduced to a series of stories, all of which highlight the oppression of women. Through an intersection of factors leading to this state of affairs, the reader gets a glimpse of the reality and depth of their oppression. The first story, that of Aziza, highlights the dissolution of social structures of protection, the persistence of traditional practices, and the way they work to oppress women. Aziza, like many other women, is not given the ‘privilege’ of or opportunity for an education; hers is limited to domesticity and traditional tribal ethics (respect defined by obedience). She also leads a secluded life, one that contributes to her naivete´ and disillusionment (a lack of understanding of life, and a lack of understanding of her rights). She lives with her mother and stepfather, and in the process of her life, she is manipulated into an illicit relationship with her stepfather. The ‘narrow’ circle of her existence,8 her lack of true education and seclusion, and the manipulation of these ethics, are all factors of her oppression. Aziza is left unprotected; her stepfather does not practise religious ethics of honour, protection and kindness, as he also transcends the boundaries of religious law. He defies all expectations: social, cultural and religious. He manipulates ethics to his advantage, and because she is limited, she becomes his prey. A similar formula is expressed in Hinna’s story, with an additional factor, religion. Hinna, too, is raised with traditional ethics and expectations. The expectation is that she respects her husband’s wishes, that she is obedient to him, and that she is equipped in ‘domestic matters’. Her husband enjoyed conquests of her body throughout

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45 years of marriage in the most abusive manner, one devoid of consent, ‘love and companionship’.9 He wanted her to be a symbol of (modern) sexuality that is devoid of dignity and honour; he wanted her to be ‘like a tart in one of those night clubs’.10 His violation of her rights is justified by his own rights claim, one he supports using religion: ‘her husband [. . .] refused categorically to let her abandon what he considered a necessary preparation and one of the religious rights he was entitled to from her’.11 The irony is that he desists from his own religious commitments: he does not treat her with kindness and respect; he does not honour her, or protect her sense of dignity and her stature (as both his wife and the mother of his children); he does not attempt to ‘draw near to God’ through acts of piety; and he offers her wine as ‘antidote to the wounds’ that he inflicts on her body.12 This scenario attests to and expresses a hypocritical/schizophrenic existence: as he demands religious observance, he fails to do the same. To Hinna, he was ‘violating all the laws of morality and the godly laws which were ordained by all religions’.13 Hinna’s silence and complacency is defined by traditional ethics and expectations (obedience, complacency and domesticity), and his rights claims; she is forced into accepting her state of affairs.14 A delineation between her religious rights and religious duties, and traditional expectations, is absent in her case. She misconstrues her inability to retract from the relationship as an act of ‘fate’ (divine decree), as opposed to complacency regarding the traditional order, the status quo, or an inability to contest it. A man’s lack of responsibility and a women’s compounding responsibility in a ‘modern’ society is depicted through the stories of Mahrusah and Saffiya. Mahrusah lives with an ungrateful husband who robs her of all her possessions, and abandons her, leaving her to support herself and her children, while Saffiya is obliged to run away from her home to avoid her abusive stepfather, and as a result is left to support two children through university education on her own. None of these men uphold the requirements of the religious order; they do not live to love and protect the dignity and honour of their women, nor do they support them. The state enters this pyramid of oppression and subjugation as well. Mahrusah obeyed her husband ‘believing it to be a divine obligation, tantamount to obedience to God’ and endured his merciless treatment ‘believing that it was better to be married than to live alone’.15 After her husband has robbed her of her possessions, she

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attempts to make a living, which the state complicates. The state does not act as a body of protection; it fails its citizenry in many ways. She was forced to ‘move around from job to job’ to make a living and was ‘pursued by municipal officials, demanding protection money and fees which she was forced to pay to get the necessary licence to ply her trade in peace’.16 The state’s economic policy is also indirectly criticized and pin-pointed as a culprit in the destitution of a people; the state encouraged an open-door policy, but failed to provide ‘the factories to make the goods’. Mahrusah’s goods were of ‘discarded paper’.17 The state is also unable to uphold true justice. Madame Zaynab, after the death of her husband, is pursued by her brother-in-law for the inheritance, and it is she that loses the legal battle for her rights claim. More ‘privileged’ women, those accorded the opportunity of an education, are not more advantaged; they too are subjugated. Aida, Azima and Bahiga Abdel-Haqq all pursue a form of education; however, that does little to alleviate the injustice, or accord them more freedoms. Aida completes a bachelor’s degree in commerce; Azima pursues an artistic form of religious education (‘religious exhortations and sermons’); and Bahiga pursues a medical doctorate.18 However, all three women are judged on the basis of, and oppressed by, parameters of social expectation. Aida’s injustice is defined by traditional structures and practices of oppression; she is judged by the parameters of expectation of marriage, beauty and fertility. As such, she is a victim of a multi-layered injustice. Her parents arrange her marriage without consent immediately after her graduation. Her marriage defines her eligibility and value as a female, one that is not located in her educational accomplishment; ‘her mother went round the house trilling triumphantly so that all the neighbours would be aware of the happy event’.19 She is further devalued by her husband and her family, who assert that her worth as a woman is in her ability to bear children. In a male-dominated society she is fortunate to have a husband ‘from a good family with excellent inheritance prospects and a good job’, particularly since her physical beauty is lacking.20 A true appreciation of her worth and a respect for her entitlements is absent, and she is forced to endure an unjust reality presented by society and its oppressive traditions as good fortune. In the limited bounds of her marriage, one that does not accord her the freedom to pursue her career or individuality, she becomes a victim of domestic violence, and the

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centre of accusations of infertility. Though her husband is infertile, and her brother is the one who avenges his sister by killing him, her mother adds to the injustice. Her mother is a Sa’idi woman who is ‘well versed [. . .] in the rules of vendetta’, and so she not only convinces Aida to take the blame, but also abandons her completely after her sentence is carried through.21 Men, family, society, its social order, its traditions and the state participate in the oppression. Azima is not in any way more fortunate. Like Aida she is incapacitated by social structures of domination, and furthermore, she is invalidated by society. Azima cannot meet social parameters of expectation; her level of beauty is something which she can do little about. Despite the fact that she is raised in an environment that fosters and encourages early marriages, domesticity and ethics of obedience, she endures her sense of alienation and her loneliness, and uses her talents and skills to build a life for herself. Her ‘talents as a female mourner blossomed’, she used her amazing skills to tailor elegies, and studied ‘religious exhortations and sermons’ until she reached a peak in her career when she was able to create her own music group and began to sing ‘religious verses’.22 Her accomplishment, resilience and perseverance matter little in an unethical and unjust world. Her desire for marriage, though she is deemed unmarriageable by society (thus, invalidated), is manipulated by a ‘clever opportunist’ who ‘took charge of her affairs taking decisions over every aspect of her life and gaining absolute authority and power over her’, all the while denying her a religiously sanctioned marriage and an honourable life.23 He fails at realizing his role within a religious social formation: he does not function as her protector, and he does not sustain her livelihood. In a morally bankrupt society, morality is unvalued. Bahiga’s story defines this dilemma more explicitly. Like Azima she desired a religiously sanctioned relationship, and is alienated for this desire. A hadith that encourages the selection of pious women for marriage (as the epitome characteristic to be sought in women) is re-narrated in the novel to suggest that piety is no longer valued or desired and that ultimately religion is inoperative in, and peripheral to, social practice.24 The woman that is desired, Bahiga learns, is one of beauty and wealth, both representations and manifestations of the materiality of the modern order. Conversely, traditional practices alongside a self-interested sense of morality are operative. Aida, Azima and Bahiga live unappreciated for

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their accomplishments, are oppressed by social structures of domination, and disregarded for their good nature, and in the case of Azima and Bahiga their sense of religiosity. All of these women are subjugated by society, as they are subjugated by the state. Through Bakr’s exposition of the lives of women the reader gets an in-depth understanding of the reality of the status of women in a modern society. She addresses the intersection of factors leading to their oppression; however, what is fundamental to her exposition is the lack of justice. The lack of justice in society, though discussed through an array of causes, is ultimately attributed to the lack of faith and belief; in concrete terms, to the dislocation of the sacred and to disenchantment. It is no accident that all the women abiding by the laws of society are also women who are characterized as innocent, good-natured, Godfearing, and in some instances religious. As indicated earlier, through the jail metaphor, they are contrasted with the rest of society. It is through this contrast that the predicament is understood. Hinna urges her husband to be pious. Mahrusah does not want to commit suicide so that she does not die an unbeliever. Azima practises a form of religiosity and sought a religiously sanctioned relationship, as did Bahiga who was a ‘well brought up young woman’ observant of religious injunctions.25 Religious values of justice, love, mercy and compassion are found in women within the jail; these are values lacking in the real world and are much needed for a return to humanity, as suggested by Bakr. This message is delivered through the story of Mahrusah. Mahrusah recognizes that she is among a community of women who, like herself, are suffering a series of misfortunes and are oppressed. Through her realization of the common thread of injustice and tragedy, she becomes an agent of love, mercy and compassion. As fate is responsible for their injustice, fate too is responsible for her position as a guard, an avenue for her becoming an agent of good values. As a jail guard she is able to infuse the sphere of injustice with love, mercy and compassion. It is suggested that there is no hope for the salvation of humanity without such qualities; in the presence of love, mercy and compassion, injustice will be eradicated. This seems to correspond to a message of faith, of religion, that Bakr communicates. Islam is peace, and God is just, loving, merciful and compassionate, and through the realization of the message of peace, and the qualities of ‘good’, justice on earth prevails. The constant appeal to God, the journey to a celestial

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heaven, and the qualities she invokes, point and appeal to the re-centralization of faith, and/or the ethics espoused by it. This is supported by Bakr’s insistence on the importance of rejuvenation and renewal within Islam, and the need to access and assess the sources of the past.26 Until the appointed time, Aziza prepares an imagined journey to heaven, and all deserving women mount the chariot.

CHAPTER 10 AMBIVALENT IDENTITIES AND THE SACRED

Dualism and Opposition The modern period is clearly characterized by competing narratives, problematizing existence. These represent ‘social and historical knowledge’, a means to historicizing the past in the present. As narratives of origins and roots, they are narratives of being: a means to knowing, understanding, interpreting and ‘making sense of the social world’, and thus, constituting the self.1 Identity constitution is conflicted as a result of a conflation of competing (grand) narratives; thus, ambivalent identities become prevalent. This can be further explained by the greater Arab quest for modernity and modern identity. The Arab ‘renaissance’ was a failed attempt at a Western discourse of progress; the break from traditional and traditional society was not fully achieved, and a ‘modernized’ self was not realized. The experience is characterized by a series of problematics that suggest the ultimate disruption of society and identity; Hisham Sharabi defines them: identity, history and the West. From the ‘fundamental standpoints of secularism and Islam’, identity represents the collision of two contesting means of identification, while history represents contending discourses, their values and ‘truths’.2 In such a conflated terrain, the result is a displaced, deformed, and ambivalent existence: a ‘hybrid society’ and culture that sustain conflicts and contradictions.3 As the narrative of modernity was introduced, traditional narrative and society were destabilized, and identity became divided and caught

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between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, defined by the simultaneous projection of both, and characterized by neither in essence. Modern narrative is explained by a ‘self-generated, rational, and progressive logic shed of the constraints of ethics, law, political authority, religion and kinship’; it is an ‘anti-historical, anti-narrative, naturalistic conceptual frame’.4 Grounded in the concepts of free, unrestrained and self-interested individuality, the governance of individual reason, and the rejection of all forms of authority, this modern narrativity calls for the de-rooting of traditional society and traditional ethics. Given the essentiality of tradition (religion is here implied), the two narratives compete, introducing various forms of duality: a duality within the social sphere, and a duality in the subject, whereby ideas, ideologies, actions and identities are constantly in contestation and struggle. This highlights the epistemological uncertainty and the ontological anxiety prevalent within the social sphere as a result of the struggle between narratives. The duality within the social sphere is defined by two factors: (1) the positing or existence of ‘external objects of power and constraint’; (2) the abstraction of the subject from history, relations and institutional practices, from narrative (a naturalized state of individualism and individuation).5 External objects of power and restraint are objects of the social order, one that retains an overriding power over the determination of social action and is governed by a sustained link to narratives shaping the subject – object duality (society versus individual). This is complicated by public narratives (narratives attached to cultural and institutional formations, and the general narratives eminent within public space) and masternarratives (of secularism or Islam, individual or society, nature and instinct or civility).6 The duality in the subject is defined by two factors: (1) the abstraction from traditional narrative; (2) a ‘morally charged introspection’ situated ‘amid a flow of contending cultural discourses’.7 As individual ontology is lucid and undefined with no definite grounds to draw from, the subject is lost amongst ‘value-spheres’ and discourses

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contending priority and legitimacy over each other. The result is a tension, and even ‘incommensurability among the [. . .] discourses [secularism and Islam]’ and a ‘series of contradictions within the subjectself’.8 Thus, as subjects struggle to assert their identity and freedom in the social sphere, they struggle with their divided selves; meta-narratives collide, and they collide with ontological narrative9 (individual becoming). Egyptian literature provides ample evidence and portrayal of duality and contradiction, stressing the ‘incompleteness, fragmentation and contradictions of both collective and personal identities’, as they are caught between ‘projects of identity, social demands’, and personal growth and responsibility.10 Al-Aswany paints a picture of duality in physical spaces that reflects an inherent duality within the social spaces of Egyptian society. According to al-Aswany, this duality embodies ‘the change that the Egyptian elites underwent between, before, and after the revolution’. Embodying the intellectual shifts, the duality is represented in The Yacoubian Building through disparate yet co-existent spheres: the Automobile Club and the Sheraton’s Kebob restaurant. The Automobile Club is the centre for ‘the aristocratic ministers of the bygone epoch with their pure Western education and manners’ and their wives ‘in revealing evening gowns, sipping whisky and playing poker and bridge’. On the other hand, the Sheraton Kebob restaurant is a centre for ‘the great men of the present era [. . .] with their largely plebeian origins, their stern adherence to the outward forms of religion’.11 These two spheres stand side by side, indicating a social enigma: the separation and duality of social spheres. While both are subject to objects of power and constraint (the ideal of Westernism and the ideal of Arabism and Islamism, even if in mere physical manifestations or representations), both sustain an interest in a particular heritage. Those of the Automobile Club sustain the nationalist stance, a seemingly Egyptianist heritage, with a prime link to the West. On the other hand, those of the Sheraton Club with their ‘outward forms of religion’ seemingly suggest a different kind of nationalism, one grounded in Arabism and Islam. However, both, in an interest in mere physical representations of their respective heritage, are inapt forms of culture: unsustained, incomplete and truly distant (or abstracted) from both of these historical narratives of being. The physical and social spaces of separation indicate: a hybrid society; a deeply entrenched social separation between the religious and the secular; and a

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linkage or delinkage to both forms of narrative, regardless of their respective degrees of either religiosity or secularization. Similar portrayals of duality and/or hybridity can be found in the characters of Taha and Busayna. While he is a practising Muslim, and advocates a certain level of religiosity, urging his beloved Busayna to be modest in dress, she, on the other hand, dresses less modestly than (religiously) expected. While he projects honour, respect, discipline and sincerity in his character and religious practices, she, on the other hand, is projected as less observant. For instance, they contest on modesty; she dresses in a manner revealing of her feminine charms, and he is angered by that.12 Taha here acts as an external power of constraint, informing Busayna of not only individual expectations, stemming from his view of the world, but also societal expectations, to do with the image she projects, and of the virtues she holds. Another portrayal of the hybrid nature of society can be found in Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley. It is reflected though the characters of Hussein Kirsha and Radwan Hussainy. Hussein Kirsha is a man invested in his ‘perverse’ sense of sexuality, an interest in young boys, while Radwan Hussainy represents religiosity, a man who is a ‘sincere believer, pious and God-fearing’.13 On a deeper level, Hussainy represents the power of social and cultural formations of religion; he attempts to remind Kirsha of the importance of expectations. Kirsha here is placed in opposition to the social and religious order, and chooses to assert his free will: ‘What’s wrong with people that they can’t mind their own business and leave others to mind theirs?’.14 Hussainy and Kirsha ultimately dispute over definitions with regard to his sexual ‘perversions’ (more so his identity): choice versus fate in action; repentance for salvation versus predestination; shame versus honour; discipline versus instinct.15 In the contestation of definitions, a clear contestation of values is displayed with a primary concept at their centre. This is the conflict between practices on the basis of divine law versus practices on the basis of free uninhibited will. A greater conflict between narratives of being is presented when one individual exhibits this duality in their character. Hagg Azzam, for instance, projects a sense of religiosity, as he also exhibits the practice of religiously unsanctioned acts. In pursuit of his personal desires, he attempts to sanction his acts religiously. He justifies the use of Hashı¯sh ˙ (a hallucinogenic substance), and justifies polygamy. Though polygamy is religiously sanctioned within Islam, it is sanctioned with strict

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limitations. Its practice is permitted in instances where there are compelling social and moral reasons (an example: unbalanced gender ratios, where the female population is higher), and it is permitted with one key injunction, that the women in question be treated fairly and justly.16 Hagg Azzam enlists the advice of Sheikh Samman who encourages him to marry lest he fall in error: ‘Why open the door for Satan, so that you can fall into error? You have to protect yourself, as God commanded. God has made marriage to more than one wife lawful for you so long as you behave with justice’.17 While Azzam’s capacity for desire as a compelling moral reason for a second marriage is questionable, what is definite, however, is his unjust, and so unreligious, treatment of his new wife, Souad. In pursuit of both religiously sanctioned practice and free will he keeps his marriage a secret so as not to damage his public persona. In doing so he denies Souad a dignified and fulfilled marriage, he uses her as a means of sexual gratification (unfulfilling the precepts of a marriage), and refuses her the right to bear a child. All of this is accentuated by the sheikh’s support for his actions, one that enhances Azzam’s sense of overpowering agency, not his sense of responsibility. When she gets pregnant, he again enlists the aid of Sheikh Samman, to justify abortion.18 Upon her refusal, they attempt to convince her that refusing her husband’s command is a far greater sin than their own actions. Denied her basic rights, her baby is eventually aborted without her consent and she is divorced.19 Hagg Azzam exhibits religiosity and observant piety, as he also exhibits a tendency towards an unfettered free will. Caught between applying religious law and attainting personal interest, between an acceptance and a rejection of certain ideas and practices, the social order here is truly the overriding power; religion is misused and partially applied to achieve personal interests. A more in-depth portrayal of the complexity and conflict involved in duality is presented through the relationship between Hatem Rasheed and Abduh, and in their respective characters. Hatem Rasheed is a homosexual journalist, and the son of a Westernized intellectual who completed his ‘higher studies in the West and returned to apply’ what he learned. His father held a ‘reverence for Western values’ and an ignorance for the ‘nation’s heritage and contempt for its customs and traditions’ which he considered, like many of his time, ‘shackles’ pulling Egyptians ‘backwards’.20 Hatem grew up in a highly ‘European’ style of life ‘in both form and essence [. . .] he could not remember ever seeing his father

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pray or fast’. Living a very lonely and sad childhood, Hatem suffered from ‘alienation and mental confusion from which children of mixed marriages suffer [his mother is French]’.21 Furthermore, he was the subject of sexual abuse from the young age of nine; a Nubian servant, Idris, manipulates the void of affection Hatem’s parents left, he manipulates Hatem’s emotions. This description serves as a vantage point into his internal struggle, as well his relationship to Abduh. Hatem projects both pride and, at the same time, atrophy in his sense of self. He attempts to defend his identity as a homosexual, and his lifestyle choice, as he also withdraws from it, communicating a conflicted identity. He makes a strong defence of his identity when attacked by a co-worker who suggests that not only is homosexuality a problem for Egypt, but that homosexuals are psychologically troubled and ‘unfit to lead the work of any institution’. Understanding the attack on his persona, Hatem replies: ‘Egypt has not fallen behind because of homosexuality but because of corruption, dictatorship and social injustice’.22 Inwardly, however, Hatem is troubled, given his acute awareness of the rejection of his sexuality, socially and religiously; as he publicly defends himself, he inwardly attempts to ‘reduce the homosexual space in his life to the narrowest possible’ and rejects and despises his own homosexuality. In times of despair, in review of his life, he would express resentment and hatred; ‘he would say to himself that if they had made a little time to look after him, he would never have sunk this low [. . .] they left him and his body to the servants to play around with’. He blames his parents for their lack of care and attention, as well as for his sexuality. Both were too preoccupied with their ‘professional ambitions’, both showed a lack of affection towards him, and his mother’s neglect is particularly grounded in her ‘hatred for Egypt’.23 His is a predicament, he despises who he has become, and, yet, he is unable to live in any other way. The duality in Hatem’s character is further problematized by his need to re-materialize an ‘Idris’ in his life. Though Idris is the key perpetrator of violence against Hatem, he remains for Hatem an object and representation of affection and love. Hatem searches for a man of physical likeness to Idris so as to re-instil a sense of emotional and psychological stability once felt in his presence. Hatem ‘sought among all other men for Idris – the rough-hewn, primitive male whom civilization had not refined, and with all the hardness, crudity, and vigor that such a man

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represented’.24 The object of Hatem’s desire becomes Abduh, a Sa’idi man, who is traditional and religious, with a ‘dark brown face [. . .] thick lips [. . .] snub Negroid nose’; Hatem entices and seduces him into his homosexual lifestyle. The predicament here is that while Hatem despised his mother’s blatant sense of superiority over the Egyptian, playing ‘the role of the cultured European among the savages’, he exercises the same form of (postcolonial) racism.25 For his desire for a ‘primitive’ and uncivilized male to be materialized in a traditional and religious man is the epitome of his (postcolonial) racism. Not only does Hatem reject Abduh’s religiosity, but he also attempts to refine the ‘savage’. He introduces him to his lofty lifestyle, assists him in dressing in European clothing (as a symbol of refinement), offers him money and new life opportunities, and the prospect of education, which Abduh accepts as a means to financially better his life and that of his family.26 The conflicts and contradictions existing in their relationship and in their respective characters are evident when Abduh expresses his religiosity, while Hatem plays the role of the enlightened Western(ized) intellectual. Abduh expresses his religiosity and fear of what he believes to be certain punishment for his relationship with Hatem: ‘How can I pray when every night I drink alcohol and sleep with you? I feel as though Our Lord is angry with me and will punish me’. Hatem rejects his sense of religiosity, and insists that there is no due punishment: ‘Our Lord is big and He has true mercy, nothing to do with what the ignorant sheikhs in your village say’. Echoing orientalist thought on Islam, he further attempts to convince Abduh that nothing is due to fate, and belief in it is ‘backward’. Religion for Hatem is not in the ‘iba¯da¯t of which Abduh speaks, nor in reverence for God; he rather insists on a different sort of religiosity, one informed by a conception of unconditional love.27 This conception finds its root in modern Christian theological ethics, one that supposes the irreducible worth of all and the necessary will to love unconditionally.28 It is a conception of love that does not account for responsibility as found in Islam and in biblical pronunciations of love.29 Hatem further insists that to verify respectability, Abduh must be educated, while Abduh declines and explains that the only testament of respectability is that of faith: ‘There is no God but God is the only witnessing I’ll ever do’.30 Untroubled by the foreign origin of his knowledge, and his own subordination to

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Western culture, Hatem attempts to impose this worldview in imitation of the conqueror, putting the validity of a system of belief into question. Both of their characters are a testament to the existential dilemmas spurring from the conflation of narratives. Both Hatem and Abduh reflect a ‘divided self’ caught between ‘the different worlds’ they inhabit.31 In Hatem’s duality a paradox is evident: he recognizes his alienation and that it is the result of his parents Westernist tendency; he is tormented as a result of this alienation, yet at the same time expresses great confidence in his (Westernist) convictions. Abduh, on the other hand, is lured into a lifestyle choice that he both enjoys, yet is unable to accept and verify; frustrated by the hypocrisy of his existence he cannot completely withdraw from this lifestyle and into his pre-Hatem identity, or regain his religiosity, one affected by this relationship.32 Both are caught between the ideals of cultures and doctrines, and the actuality of their lives; they are troubled by both and feel security in neither. The greater contestation that lies beneath the battle of identities is a battle of worldviews: thought and reason versus belief; scientific knowledge and truth versus religious meaning and truth; individual existence versus a social existence. Beyond the self, the contestation expresses a struggle over the validity of culture, and the meaning of Enlightenment and of progress. They contest without resolve whether they are in Western knowledge and education, and style of life, or in religion, in religiosity, and in traditional life. The inability to resolve the Western/Islamic, material/spiritual, modernist/authentic dilemma is a true cause for various forms of duality, for contestation and ambivalence with regard to identity, identification and the means towards progress (a progress to a future, a movement forward). The ambivalence prevalent in all of the examples discussed, ambivalence in thought and identity (in conflict and contradiction), reveals the intensity of the dilemmas of individual existence: an ‘endless series of crises and conflicts’.33

Withdrawal and Restraint While hybridity and duality are prevalent in Egyptian society, a strong association with and dissociation from Islam and its precepts as polarized forms of identity are also prevalent. In light of continued secularization, forms of identity have emerged: a conforming identity, and a responsive identity. The conforming identity attempts to align itself with the status

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quo, while the responsive identity emerges in response to a need or urgency. As the state increased its suppression of religion in various forms, as the international community criticized the Arab and Islamic world for various deficiencies, as media corporations sold an ideal of a modernized society and identity, a conforming identity emerged, one that submits to these powers. As these same events took place, a responsive identity emerged to assert its Islamism, and defend its culture, and in attempts at its suppression, the phenomena of political Islam spread. These polarized responses both represent unhealthy forms of identity. Consider the international anti-terrorism climate and its effects. Media is used to project a sense of fear and urgency: a fear from an intangible menace, and urgency to act. Amin is right to suggest that fear ‘discourages dissent’, and creates a climate in which many are prepared to relinquish their rights.34 However, more than that, fear instigates polarized responses: silencing, delimiting and galvanizing repression; and fighting, retaliating, counteracting and circumventing repression. The rhetoric used frames two separate and essentialized cultures, and in effect stresses the need to choose or identify with either camp: the civilized/uncivilized, the modern/premodern. For some the powerful camp is enticing, for others the need for self-defence is more endearing – both are in a defensive position. The struggle between essentialisms transposes into the social sphere; culture, identity, self-consciousness are all affected, destabilized, and even debilitated in their development. State suppression of religion is also another way of looking at this same predicament. State secularization policy, its privatization of religion ‘within its own sphere’,35 has been enforced by various means. This has engendered similar responses: fear of state violence and so conformity, or frustration by consistent efforts at repression, and so response. The Islamic presence has been viewed by the Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak regimes as a key contender and, thus, rival. During Mubarak’s presidency, persistent efforts were made in denial of the legitimacy of the Brotherhood, in fear of its impact and power within the religious, social, economic and to a degree political sphere. This denial and fear translated into ‘coercive campaigns’ that were launched ‘against Islamists, both moderates and radicals, since the early and mid-1990s’.36 The level of coercion peaked after September 11 and the ‘international anti-terror climate it created’.37 There are a series of examples of state violence against the Brotherhood, as

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well as civilian Islamists. For example, during the 1995 elections, ‘harassment and arrests’ targeting ‘figures that were perceived to be a major source of tanzim’s [the mobilization and the provision of services at the grassroots level] power’. Another stark example is the control placed over the professional syndicates and university student groups in which the Brotherhood were operative and which they were leading. In instances of Brotherhood refusal to comply, force was used, and arrests were made.38 The financial resources of civilian Islamists were also targeted by the state, in an attempt to ‘discourage Islamist entrepreneurs and to weaken their financial resources’, and thus their power and presence.39 This coercion and state violence can easily translate into withdrawal, submission and conformity, or responsiveness that can be, and has been, on a par with state violence. The predicament of polarized identities can also be viewed from the vantage point of state-sponsored media that endorses a type of culture (as opposed to another, the Islamic), and the international perspective on the Arab and Islamic world. The control over media corporations motivated by the ‘desire to maximize profits’ and governed by a materialistic global culture has its due effects. Large corporations manufacture information ‘concerning the goods and services they produce but also concerning the policies they endorse or disfavour’. According to Amin, this monopoly is not only over traditional mass media, but it is a monopoly that extends its ‘influence into education systems’.40 Furthermore, the Arab world has been thus characterized: underdeveloped, or developing; a harbour for terrorism and terrorists; its state of knowledge and literary production is unconducive to the development of knowledge; and its relationship with the West is that of a ‘clash of civilizations’.41 This builds a knowledge society that is: (1) interested in the commercial, the material, base and mundane; (2) one that suffers from a sense of shame of its own culture and cultural development; (3) one that is constructed around a specific identity and a means of identification, sustaining dissociation from Islam and Islamic identity, or association with the Western culture and identity. As this takes place, filling the social, cultural, educational and identitybased gaps becomes necessary. Islamists take to the fore to sustain an

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Islamic identity or culture. The Brotherhood has been excellent at doing so. It has been able to fill the gaps left by the state since Nasser. The Brotherhood emerged in protest against ‘total failure of the social, economic and cultural modernist project’; the Brotherhood understood the ‘dramatic social and economic changes that have led to the emergence of disenchanted lower middle class youth’ in the last 20 years, and was able to ‘offer an existential refuge, not just in terms of moral or religious values, but also in terms of material needs’.42 However, the problem lies in the greater trend towards extreme forms of Islamization, in other terms the emergence of a tahrı¯m trend in Egyptian society, and ˙ the Islamic world at large.43 The increasing prohibition of various practices within society, not previously accounted for in the history of Islam and its culture, became the means to having a stronghold over what is left of Islam, or Islamic culture. Alongside this form of extremism is the introduction or the re-establishment of extreme forms of religiosity not previously held in Islam, or abolished by it. Forced marriages, forced seclusion of women, the rigidity in abiding by ‘Islamic’ forms of dress and the social prohibitions placed on women’s education, are but a few examples. The concern here is with the responsive identity, and Egyptian literature provides two excellent cases in point: the first by Baha Tahir, Love in Exile (1995), and the second by Alaa al-Aswany in The Yacoubian Building. Tahir provides an excellent example of the tahrı¯m phenomenon ˙ through the character of Khalid, a young man with interests in sports, literature, watching television and playing chess, who takes his religiosity to an extreme. He attempts to purify himself and his life by purging all that he perceives to be unlawful or prohibited within Islam. Informed by the larger Islamic discourse on the ‘other’, he forsakes his interests. He attempts to explain to his father why he forsakes an activity he excels at: ‘I have withdrawn from the competition’, ‘I read a fatwa that says that playing chess is prohibited. And I am convinced of it’.44 His father finds this absurd, and rightly so; it is a dehumanization of Muslims and a supposition of a rigidity characteristic of Islamic thought and practice. A reading into Islamic history finds that chess, though a foreign pastime, has been thoroughly enjoyed since the Abbasid Empire in the Islamic world. It has been among the many other leisure activities that Muslims have enjoyed not understood as conflicting with religion or religious duties.45 A fatwa denouncing its

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practice and its subsequent prohibition is a clear manifestation of extreme forms of religiosity that prohibit all that is Western in origin in a quest for an authentic Islamic essence, as faulty as that may be. Khalid further attempts to prevent his sister from partaking in any activities that he perceives to be unlawful in Islam. He prevents her from going out, and prevents her from visiting a social club out of fear of ‘immoral things that take place at the club’.46 Through his attempts at prohibition he defines her rightful place, the home, an exclusion from the outside world, something which is uncharacteristic of Islamic ruling on the role of women in society.47 While Tahir provides an example of the tahrı¯m trend, al-Aswany ˙ provides a portrayal of the contestation between individual and state, and the correlation between state violence and Muslim extremism and violence, through the story of Taha. Taha is a pious, honest and noble young man, who is also the son of a property guard. He aspires to enter the police academy, and takes on all preparatory stages with great aptitude and skill; however, he is denied the opportunity to become an officer due to his class. Despite his deep feelings of humiliation, injustice and a letter to the president explaining the indignity of what had occurred, the lack of regard for human rights, and for religious values (morals, piety, nobility and justice), he finds himself curtailed by a classist society. Upon enrolling in the Faculty of Economics at the university as an alternative, his awareness of the classism of the society he lives in becomes heightened. The only solace he finds is in his peers: ‘all country boys, good-hearted, pious and poor’ and in his faith.48 His peers shared the ‘same distaste at daily displays of frivolity they saw on the part of their affluent male colleagues and their abandonment of [. . .] religion, as well as the shamelessness of some of their female colleagues’; they are critical of manifestations of modernity, and as less modernized subjects they are closer to their roots.49 His existence in a religious sphere is safe, secure, ‘sweet’, ‘authentic and pure’, agreeable to his beliefs and tendencies.50 This circle of faithful and faith provides him with a tremendous amount of security and inner peace. This testifies to the power of religion; religion and religiosity are powerful sources of guidance, stability, peace and anchorage in identity and in life for the disadvantaged and the destitute (materially or spiritually). However, this soon changes when he is arrested and tortured (sodomized) by the police for his association with the mosque and for his participation in

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demonstration against the war on Iraq, and is subsequently recruited by the sheikh into a greater battle. This battle is against the entire regime and its policies. Taha joins a group of Muslims in a society outside of society, one that rejects state policies, as it projects extreme forms of Islamization. Some of their pronounced stances are: a rejection of socialism, of secularism (conversely, the lack of regard for Islamic law), of the war on Iraq and of Zionism, and a rejection of and disenchantment with an ethically bankrupt society. Furthermore, there is an evident anger with government suppression of religion and religious presence: ‘The National Security Investigation Bureau is now launching a criminal campaign against all Islamists. Detentions, torture, murder. They open fire on our unarmed brothers while arresting them, then accuse us of resisting the authorities’. ‘Has the observance of God’s law become a major crime?’51 State rejection of religious presence is clear, as religious rejection of the state, in responsiveness, is also clear. In their construction of a society outside of society, a parallel world, they reveal a rejection of the master-narrative prevalent in the city (modernist, secularist), and an attempt to protect the collapse of the Islamic narrative. At once there is a de-focusing on the city and its conceptual apparatus, and a re-focusing on Islam and its conceptual apparatus. However, the focus on Islam in a peripheral space signifies feelings of ontological insecurity, and a deep desire to bring forth real alternatives. This alternative however is marred by both state repression and by political discourse (state stances on issues of concern), and as such translates into extremism in thought and action. The separation from the centre (the city), and the creation of a parallel world is a struggle for the legitimation of narratives and identities, however marred it is by repression (and equally by defensiveness). Exhibiting various forms of extremism, existence is reconceptualized, Jiha¯d is re-interpreted, and various forms of extreme religiosity are practised. The world of the city is thus conceptualized as a world of Jahiliyyah (resonant of the ideas of Sayyid Qutb), and the state, as one that ˙ upholds its order, is targeted through a targeting of representative members. Jiha¯d no longer is conceptualized as efforts made in the name of Islam and in service of God and in His cause: enjoining good and prohibiting evil,52 upholding justice, an internal struggle to better the self and society, all in realization of Divine will and for the pleasure of the Lord.53 Instead, the understanding of Jiha¯d is reconceptualized to denote

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armed struggle, as the entire discourse of Islam is reconceptualized: ‘Gihad is a pillar of Islam, exactly like prayer and fasting [. . .] gihad is the most important of those pillars’.54 Furthermore, the community exhibits other forms of religious extremism: the complete separation of men and women, the centrality of life around a rigid set of activities (training and prayer), and the marriage of men to women they do not know. Taha lives, marries, trains in this camp, and dies in armed struggle against state officers in an attempt to regain his sense of lost honour. Signifying greater phenomena within the Arab and Islamic Middle East, this story denotes the mere juxtaposition of two orders without real attempts at creating a common order. What prevail are false alternatives to a desperate and desolate reality, leading to devastating results.

Conclusion The question is: what is the solution to the predicament of Muslim identity and religiosity in modern contexts? In addressing the ‘solution’, the literary authors discussed offer some ideas towards realizing alternative realities in the following areas: (1) the removal of current ‘ulama¯’ and modern Islamic discourse from modern contexts; (2) the need for the rejuvenation of Islamic knowledge and for the bridging of the gap between Islamic theory and practice; (3) the problem of patriarchy and social inequality; (4) the problem of a despotic government and the injustices, the lack of freedom and the inequalities that arise.

Modern Islamic Discourse and Modern Contexts The problem of the ‘ulama¯’ (or men of religion) is a problem that has been expressed in the following two ways: (1) the inability to situate Islam in modern contexts; (2) the problem of authoritarianism in faith. Al-Aswany offers various criticisms aimed at the way in which Islam is being approached and communicated. In describing the Egyptian scene,

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he attempts to establish the power and effect of the role of the religious figure or ‘preacher’, by explaining that they are not merely a source of guidance, but are fundamentally involved in the education of the public on religious matters. As a primary source of religious meaning, they are the means through which the public accesses knowledge, as they also shape its form or content. Of his main criticisms geared towards these religious figures or ‘new preachers’ are: (1) ‘they do not have any academic training in the religious sciences, and so their success is not the result of any deep knowledge of religion so much as of their persuasiveness and personal appeal’; (2) ‘the discourse that these preachers offer deals only with formalities and rituals [. . .] but they never speak about freedom, justice, or equality’; (3) their being intertwined with the state apparatus is a disadvantage.55 In directing such criticism, al-Aswany begs for the re-realization of the character of the man of religion, and his purpose, one duly highlighted by an ability to address modern concerns. His second criticism urges the expansion of the scope of concern and study; in his opinion, religious observance and religiosity require an equal attentiveness to the ritualistic aspects of the faith and the humane principles it teaches. Limiting the discussion to matters of ritual subtracts from Islam its comprehensive quality, as it also denies the devotee the ability for its full appreciation and realization. In more specific terms, ritual, moral virtues and the ability to uphold the foundational principles in Islam (freedom, equality, etc.) are what is necessary. He argues that as people are praying in Egypt ‘they ceaselessly suffer defeat and disaster after defeat and disaster’.56 His final criticism asks for the dissolution of the power that the state exercises over religious figures, and, perhaps, by extension religious institutions. He explains that a book by Professor Wael Lotfi has shown that the new preachers, ‘all of them, without exception, operate in full cooperation with the security agencies’; a ‘preacher would pay a high price for any violation of the agreement, ranging from a ban on preaching to expulsion from Egypt’.57 The new preachers are party to the interests of the institutions they take part in, and the ‘ulama¯’ of al-Azhar are civil servants appointed by the state; both are subject to control. This

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to al-Aswany not only deprives them of the independence that they should enjoy as men of religion (as established by Ibn Hanbal), but also compromises their neutrality and objectivity, obstructing relationships between them and the people. The current control over men of religion is also a control over knowledge; it stifles the ability of the mass public to not only be aware of the meanings and principles Islam espouses, but also to be active agents in creating real change in Egypt.58 One would add that government control over these spheres of the religious instils in the mass public a fear of religiosity, religious practice and any form of religious involvement or practice. Maintaining a strong hold over the religious sphere is at once a control over the access to knowledge, and a control of religious freedom and expression. The problem of authoritarianism in faith, one the other hand, is discussed by al-Aswany through a discussion of what he terms ‘flawed religiosity’. His concept of ‘flawed religiosity’ communicates dissidence with extreme forms of religiosity (an example of which is the niqab),59 exclusivist and judgemental forms of practice, and definitions of duality in practice (virtue versus vice).60 ‘Flawed religiosity’ is to be remedied through religious virtue that should embody justice and tolerance, the ‘disciplining’ of the self ‘to do good works’ and ‘suppress’ desires, and the interest in matters that are central to religiosity. The ability to move beyond ‘the externals of religion’ is central to his analysis.61 Al-Aswany’s vision for tolerance in religion is also found in Kassem’s works. In The Seven Days of Man, Abdel-Hakim Kassem writes the end of the religious order; however, in looking at the way in which this order is described, one finds an empathetic beauty in the description. The dervishes are ‘bound’ together by brotherhood, ‘affection and sincerity’, one that allows them to equally and indiscriminately contribute and belong to their Sufi circle. Furthermore, in their evening gatherings and through their brotherhood and spirituality, they are able to find comfort and solace from the difficulties of their lives. The loving or accepting and indiscriminate quality of their spirituality is most apparent in their attitude towards one of the dervishes, Mohammed the Dandy, who is known to have an illicit relationship with El-Gazyeh, and to sustain a comfortable, if not luxurious, lifestyle through his wife’s thefts. Though his character and life is frowned upon, he remains welcomed with a forgiving attitude. Ali Khalil voices the disapproval, while Hagg Karim avows tolerance, compassion and forgiveness: ‘Hagg

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Karim, the Dandy’s whole life is sinful’, says Khalil, ‘But he dirties his hands with kerosene and lights the lamps at our weddings and funerals [. . .] God has allowed him in his kingdom and in the Path. I can’t throw him out’, answers Hagg Karim.62 This description adds to Kassem’s respect and appreciation for brotherhood and tolerance in Islam, and his support for it. This is again found in his novella Al-Mahdi (1984);63 however, it is in the form of a criticism of the lack of tolerance, or the presence of authoritarianism in Islamic practice. Al-Mahdi is a story of a forced conversion to Islam of a Christian man named Awadallah, which alternatively means ‘God’s recompense’. Through the story a criticism of religious excess arises in the form of a conflicted dialogue or view of Islam between the Brotherhood, who assume the responsibility of the conversion, and the Sufi order. While the Muslim Brotherhood looks upon the process of conversion as a good ‘omen to Islam’, and so a festive occasion, one to be celebrated, the Sufi order views it as a religious transgression. The question of Awadallah’s conversion comes as one of choice versus one of coercion; with ultimate regret Sheikh Sayid alHasari describes the festivity over the conversion as one that deprives ‘prayer of the reason for worship’.64 Both coercion and oppression are seen in a form of Islam that is overtly studious to matters of faith, but in actuality is lacking in ethical substance and religious meaning, is oppressive for the devotee or believer, and denying of choice. The essence of religiosity and the limits of religious authority are both focal points for discussion in Kassem’s portrayal. In agreement with al-Aswany, Kassem here supports the realization of the true meaning of faith. Thinking over the essence of Islam, and the principles of honesty, tolerance and true faith is the goal; these principles are here contrasted to a vision of religiosity that takes on the formalities of ritual or religious practice, and neglects the meanings therein to be upheld and sustained. However, the question of how to realize these meanings in Islam or in Islamic society becomes central.

The Rejuvenation of Islamic Knowledge While due attention to the effects of ‘flawed religiosity’ and authoritarianism in faith has been given, the need for the rejuvenation of Islam and the rejuvenation of the relationship between ‘Muslim’ and

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Islam for a modern existence becomes critical. Though flawed religiosity speaks more to the problems within the world of Islam, the rejuvenation of faith and the necessary re-linking of Islamic theory and Islamic practice speak to the problems within the world of Islam, and the problem of the world of Islam in relation to modern discourse and the modern ethos. Authors argue for the rejuvenation of Islamic knowledge and for the bridging of the gap between Islamic theory and practice. Al-Aswany’s definition of flawed religiosity extends to include the widening separation of ‘belief from conduct’, ‘a disconnect between piety and ethics’, one that he sees is ‘spreading like a plague’ in Egypt. Of the manifestations of this plague are: conduct that does not echo religious belief; the inability to see the contradiction between ‘insulting people and being devout’; harassing women; lying and hypocrisy; and mistreating people while fasting.65 More examples have been elucidated through the analyses in this book: Hinna’s and Mahrusa’s husbands and their mistreatment of them; Safiyya’s stepfather and his abuse of her; and Hagg Azzam and the injustice he inflicts on his second wife Souad, are some of these examples. Salwa¯ Bakr explains in an interview with Nour Center that civilizational progress has been minimal because ‘we do not pose questions as we do not renew questions that have a bearing on our lives and principles and understandings’.66 Rejuvenation or renewal for Bakr means the process of renewing the ‘questions that are connected to the various aspects of the life we live’.67 In an interview with ‘al-Misrı¯ al˙ Yawm’ she indicates the necessity of the inclusion of religion in the debate, and the necessity of readings that ‘lead to that which is positive’ or constructive.68 She goes on to suggest that Islamic modernists of the nineteenth century have all been able to respond to the intellectual crisis prevalent in their times, and that is necessary today. Furthermore, renewal for her is one that must be connected to the heritage of the past for ‘the historical is what remains to us, and our relationship to history is foundationally dependent on efforts of understanding the self, who are we, where have we come from, and how have we formed?’69 To renew the intellectual debate, one must look to the sources of the past that inform the present; that is the source of identity. To Bakr, since the Nahdah ˙ legacy offered by Islamic modernists, ‘there has not been grand ideas posed by the intelligentsia’ in the form of societal or cultural intellectual debates that serve the renewal of consciousness.70

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Although both form and content of renewal in Bakr’s discussion are clear, the exact questions to be asked and content to be renewed is not explicit enough. If renewal is to be inspired by the past to dislodge a better present and future, then what in practical terms should be done? Hassan Hanafı¯ offers some ideas; he argues for the transcendence of ˙ ˙ current methodology with regard to the conceptualization of modernity in the Arab-Islamic East: transference, imitation and translation (linguistic or ideological). For this, according to him, has led to three destructive and anti-progressive results: (1) the development and growth of orientalism-in-reverse; (2) the development and sustenance of a static consciousness (being always on the receiving end of thought) not a creative and innovative consciousness; (3) the development and perpetuation of a dual consciousness, a dual and unresolved sense of self.71 He and Muhammad al-Ja¯birı¯ suggest a re-creation of modernity that is ˙ remaking of the conceptual apparatus of the present and one would add the present consciousness, as well as maintaining a great connection, understanding, and an awareness of the Islamic history, sources, ethics, purposes and ends – its entire heritage.72 To look at one’s heritage for an understanding of the self in modern contexts requires inspiration with regard to what modernization and progress mean at the highest level, for more specific questions to be answered (as suggested by Bakr), and clearer goals to be drawn. In resolving the dilemmas or the predicament of Muslim identity, ideas or inspiration from within the corpus of knowledge of Islam need to be culled. Both Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf al-Qarada¯wı¯ offer a distinct ˙ conceptualization of modernity and of progress, rooted in the heritage of Islam. Modernity and progress are expressed as interlinked concepts and processes. While progress denotes a forward movement (taqaddum) accentuated by growth and ascent in knowledge (numuww and taraqqı¯)73 modernity is contemporaneity (mu‘a¯sarah) in that progress.74 Progress is ˙ a development in all forms of knowledge, be it intellectual, cultural, artistic, moral or economic, in refinement of a civilization and its standards of virtue, morality and ethics. This is not simply an endeavour for an increase in knowledge; rather, it involves advancement, depth,

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analysis, criticism, and greater understanding of both sacred and secular forms of knowledge. It is to reach higher ends and to fulfil higher purposes for the benefit of the self and of mankind.75 This is a contemporaneous progress. To them, contemporaneous progress also involves the continuous and consistent interest in, the conscious ability for, and an effort towards correcting, ‘purifying’ and ‘repairing’ the negative in society ‘for the better’.76 This struggle for positive change is further sustained by the idea of a continuous need for it: ‘God will send (a) messenger(s) to renew your faith every 100 years’ (Hadith, Bukharı¯). As Ramadan indicates, this is a process of change, always in the making,77 and so contemporaneous progress also suggests an interest in renewal (tajdı¯d) that again takes into account purposes and ends, as well as the time and geography. Progress and modernity thus should be reconceptualized, and thus, should be realized; ‘our reading and our understanding of the texts will be “renewed” by the contribution of [. . .] scholars and thinkers who will point to new perspectives by reviving timeless faith in our hearts while stimulating our minds so as to enable us to face the challenges of our respective times’.78 This positive and constructive (re)reading of Islam is supported or promoted by Kassem in his novella Good News from the Afterlife (1984). This ‘good news’ is news of an afterlife that is not defined by damnation for wrongdoing. Life and death take on an organic whole to the life of the individual, whereby ‘Life is half the truth, and the other half is death’.79 This whole is not defined by fear and punishment, but by growth, knowledge, wisdom, responsibility, ethical awareness and accountability placing a greater emphasis on these as values and states of being to be realized.80 Kassem uses the traditional Islamic narrative of the meeting/ dialogue between the dead and two angels, Naker and Nakeer, to infuse meanings into religious ideology. While in the traditional narrative the dead are asked about their belief and religious practice, Kassem in the recreated dialogue chooses instead to focus on matters of deed, motive or intention, the law, and the purpose of life. In focusing on deed and motive, the purpose is to realize the distance between one’s deed and one’s true motives; deeds become situated within their circumstance as opposed within the frame of ‘indisputable’ and ‘imperative’ forms or ‘models of behaviour’.81 The law as it is realized in the world is contested for its despotic and

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authoritarian nature; while religious authority is contested for transforming prophethood into an absolute authority.82 Death becomes an avenue to realizing the truths of life, and a means through which man can understand the motives for actions; thus, the voyage is one of emancipation of the human soul, and an avenue to realizing a greater conscience, or understanding of what it means to be a conscientious ethical being, independent of the authority of law.83 The sense of ‘moral evaluation’, responsibility and accountability that Kassem espouses is one that echoes the meanings that the concept of viceregency in Islam holds. Kilpatrick explains that Kassem is concerned ‘with the quality of inter-personal relations, with man’s [. . .] search for knowledge, wisdom and spiritual insight’.84 To gain an insight into one’s soul and realize that in thought and action requires an acute awareness of the responsibility of man as a believer in transcendence and Divine will. Fulfilling the function as predicated by this relationship becomes part and parcel of being a responsible and accountable agent and the realization of absolute good, justice and prosperity for the entirety of mankind. Thus, religiosity and piety become the embodiment of this concept and the principles therein. The level of consciousness Kassem describes requires that actions in the internal sphere of individual thought and practice and the outer sphere of social thought and practice should be governed by the concept of enjoining good and forbidding evil, and working in righteousness.85 Thus, the world of God can be upheld, as opposed to ‘the center of the oppression’.86 In this way, a link between theory and practice could be possible. The link between Islamic theory and Muslim practice is also possible through education, as al-Aswany suggests. This is the second arena through which the dilemma of Muslim identity can be resolved given the problems within the world of Islam, and the problems of the world of Islam in relation to the modern discourse and modern ethos. AlAswany is critical of religious education that is minimalist and simplistic (given the complexities of the epoch) in its interpretations of faith and piety, as he is also critical of secular education. In his criticism of religious education he highlights the extremity that Wahhabi Islam is instilling in Egyptians, and the way in which such education is geared towards the inconsequential,87 while, in discussing secular education, he claims that as it stands it stifles creativity and learning.88 He has discussed the need for greater depth in Islamic understandings, and in

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regard to secular education, he suggests that there is a need for greater democracy where citizens have ‘access to justice and nurturing’ so that they may enjoy better fates and contribute to Egypt.89 One cannot help but think that his assessment is true. A great sense of inferiority exists among many Arab Muslims; years of colonialism and political despotism have taken their toll. Among many, a sense of intellectual independence and creative and critical outlook is lacking, for most have been subjugated, silenced and overpowered by (imposed and learnt) complacency. Talk of politics or religion, the expression of a national vision, the realization of great ambitions or goals are all part of a prohibited arena of thought or realization. Thus, it becomes difficult for those who are of vast intellectual horizons to realize their full potential, or for the common folk to initiate dialogue and to innovate solutions for real-life scenarios, needs and problems. Instead, what exists is a reality of nullifying patterns and routines, thoughts, practices and ways of life. Furthermore, they have inherited a legacy that looks upon the West and its accomplishments with awe and admiration, coupled with a deep sense of inferiority. Furthermore, Islamic discourse does seem to exist in a vacuum, whereby it is collected as part of individual corpuses of (religious) knowledge, but not necessarily applied practices. Something is lost in translation as a great gap exists between the theoretical and the practical or the real in Arab-Muslim societies. If the heritage of Islam and the East are to be used as point of departure, then the understanding of the purposes, ends, principles and values of Islam and the heritage of the East should be used to lead to pride and strength as opposed to shame and complacency. One wonders if re-establishing links between theory and practice, and the re-invention of the form of Islamic education can assist in creating the necessary changes. In stressing the ‘value’ behind Islamic principles and ethics, a greater awareness could be developed. A heightened awareness of the self and of self-existence means a greater awareness of the implications of daily interactions, of daily practices, of choices, of presents and futures, and ultimately of the development of self and society. The division between what is thought to be wholly religious and wholly non-religious should be remedied. Static notions of traditional and un-traditional, and the dualities of traditional and modern should be dissolved through better understandings of Islam in modernity.

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Rectifying education, whether Islamic or secular, is a daunting task, yet of supreme importance. Though one cannot do justice to any reconceptualization towards this end, one can suggest that a realization of a new consciousness within the realm of religious education can be assisted by knowledge of the narratives, actors, and events and constraints within Islam. This implies a new perspective on Islamic education that is outside of its traditional conception. Islamic history, its narrative, its actors, events and constraints needs to be built through and without the constraints of the study of Shari‘ah, of hermeneutics, and hadith sciences. Alongside traditional forms of education, an education that develops realizations of the narrativity of actors, of events and of constraints and the lessons and elements they communicate is of importance. Allowing these to come to life and speak, as opposed to being contained on pages and merely read, would encourage the development of a greater consciousness of greater religious meanings and ethics. Equally important is the understanding through these readings of the equity and equality, justice, freedoms, rights and duties that Islam allows for. These must be seen in conjunction with and in relation to the prevalent cultural discourse that imposes limitations on personal freedoms, as it forms a structure of subjugation on women. The principal ethics in Islam and the values it espouses should be realized for a more balanced conception of individual and social existence. Within the realm of secular education, the understanding of cultural specificity and of worldliness cannot be absent or amiss. What is particularly true to the Arab-Islamic East and what is not true to it should be realized. This is not to encourage divisions among cultures, for in the Qur’an it is stated that humankind is created into ‘nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye despise each other)’.90 Rather, it is to encourage a greater awareness of the difference that exists. This is particularly important as quests for Western conceptions of progress, for modernity, and secularization remain relevant means towards realizing futures of the nations of the Islamic East. An understanding of the specificity of the historical and ideological processes of modernity, of secularization in the West is of great importance. Equally true is the understanding of more recent historical and ideological developments in the West: postmodernism and anti-secular philosophies. Through greater awareness of the processes, developments and reactions to modernity, secularism and notions of development and progress in the West, an

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awareness of the Western experience, of Western purposes, ends and realizations becomes all the more real. They become relevant in the processes, developments and reactions in the East to Western forms, ideas and processes, and in the construction of more appropriate (historically, culturally and socially) means to progress and development. The need to emulate the ‘other’ can lose its relevance. The relationship to the ‘other’ can be remade (from being merely consumerist to being productive and innovative), and sound and balanced cultural exchange can then be fostered and developed, for the benefit of both East and West.

Patriarchy and Social Inequality The problem of patriarchy and social inequality forms the third arena of necessary change for the authors in question. Al-Aswany takes offence at Wahhabi thought with regard to women, what it requires of them, and what that suggests about the nature of both men and women. According to him, petro-Islam encourages a view of women as weak and indecisive, and therefore inferior to men, but also as a source of temptation for men, while it encourages a view of men as uncontrollable beings governed by instinct. Thus, what becomes required is the niqa¯b, seclusion of women, and their exclusion from the public sphere. The ultimate effect on society is the mistreatment of women through seclusion and limitations placed on their rights, and through the harassment they endure in public space. He denies all of these readings and attacks any justification or validity that may have been attached to them. The solution to the problem follows: When we see women as human beings with moral volition, dignity, and independent personalities, when we recognize their rights, as endorsed in Islam, when we trust and respect women and give them full opportunity to be educated and to work, only then will virtue come about.91 Both Bakr and al-Zayyat seem to require no less. Focusing on the predicament of women caught between what is traditional and what is modern, Bakr defines the means towards achieving these goals as resistance, while al-Zayyat defines the means as both resistance and the overcoming of traditional restraints. Bakr defines resistance as the ability

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to uphold ‘the women’s movement’, to ‘contribute to the advancement of society’, and to confront life’s difficulties, and the inherited values that put a brake on their female creative energies’.92 The strength of these women is in their ability to survive the most horrid of circumstances, and in overcoming their circumstances by overcoming the difficulties posed to their ‘female creative energies’. Their capacity for survival and the ways in which they overcome their situations comes in the form of patience and sacrifice, but also vengeance. In patience and sacrifice, Aida goes to prison in place of her brother, who murdered her husband in her defence; Jamalat goes to prison in defence of her mentally unstable sister; Mahrusah supports her children after her husband takes all of her earnings and abandons her; Umm el-Khayr goes to prison in place of her son, for drug possession. In vengeance, Aziza kills her stepfather for taking advantage of her; Hinna kills her husband for sexually tormenting her for years; Madame Zaynab kills her brotherin-law for depriving her and her children of their inheritance; while Azima castrates a lover who exploits her. One can see how patience and sacrifice express a great capacity for love and for survival, and so a form of resistance to undue injustice in the lives of these women. However, one cannot see resistance or hope in vengeance. While these portrayals suggest the power that comes with an insistence on survival, on rights to be claimed and on a strong female presence in the world (one that overpowers patriarchal representation, the men in these narratives), there is little more to be said about what in the arena of women and their struggle for equality and rights should be realized. Sadly, destitution, plight and despair overpower resistance in the novel. Bakr’s portrayal can be contrasted with al-Zayyat’s more hopeful and more vocal portrayal of struggle and resistance within the arena of women’s issues. Through the story and strength of Layla, the central character in The Open Door, al-Zayyat is vocal on central issues: women’s marriage and education; seclusion and patriarchal power; and life purpose and principle. Layla’s power is drawn through her personality, her life expectations and ambitions. Her ideal woman is defined as an educated, proud, yet dignified woman, while her ideal life is defined by the ability to live out her dreams, realize her desires and relish in the joy that comes with that.93 This ideal comes into realization as she confronts the restraints of tradition in her quest for a more modern and more just female existence.

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In her confrontation of early marriage, Layla attempts to secure the right to a more dignified assessment of women and their capacities, the right to life, and the right to education. Layla is overwhelmed and troubled by the way in which women marry; they are assessed on the basis of physical beauty, their youth and their complacency regarding the socio-cultural order – on these bases a young lady is to have a ‘price in the market’. In being assessed for her eligibility, Layla is angered.94 This order imposes a single fate on all women: they are to be secluded upon reaching puberty, a repression from living life; they and their wants, dreams and desires would remain insignificant as such, a denial of their personhood and rights; and their end is marriage, not an education or career.95 Meeting this expectation is coupled with an ideological duality that makes complying with the socio-cultural expectations an imperative: ‘two types of women existed in the world. There was the sort in the street, the sort that sparked desire, and then there were mothers, sisters, wives’.96 In struggling for her ideals, Layla realizes a life outside the restraints of traditions, she contests that accepting this order is a social and cultural imperative, and deconstructs the ideological duality. In contesting marriage as it is practised, she argues for the right of a woman to choose her mate, and her right to an education. She insists on surpassing the expectations of the older generation, for the women of her generation are more empowered to create change. Choice and love are central elements for a sound marriage, while education is a route to a life of a wider scope of understanding and choice.97 Layla pursues her education, and in the process is able to overcome her seclusion, and slowly attain her individualism. Although this initially comes with difficulties, as new scenarios present themselves to her, she is able to gradually develop a sense of self. For instance, she questioned how and in what circumstances she could meet a man, and in such a meeting what could possibly take place, as she also negotiated social codes of practice with regard to mixing with the opposite gender on university grounds.98 Layla is able to further overcome the patriarchal hold over her life by trespassing the limits of expectation mainly through three relationships: her relationship with her father, the failed relationship with Isam and her relationship with her first fiance´e, Dr Ramzi. Through each of these, al-Zayyat claims for women a right to freedom and choice, and a right to

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respect. Layla initiates the ability to overcome the patriarchal hold by participating in demonstrations; though eventually sighted by her father she continues to take part, despite the repercussions.99 Thus resistance becomes essential for attaining women’s freedom of choice and expression. In her relationship with Isam, Layla is able to claim power over her body; she claims the right to a dignified relationship for herself and for other women. What is of great consequence here is not only the ability to circumvent patriarchal control over a woman’s body, and the control of what it designates, but also the demanded respect for all.100 The duality of ‘fallen’ versus ‘pure’ or ‘respectable’ woman is deconstructed; all women are accorded the right to a just treatment – on the basis of their inclusion in humanity. Through the third relationship, and the trials it presents Layla, the right of choice, and the freedom from traditional restraints is demanded. Layla subverts male dominance once more by securing ‘free will’; she chooses to leave a man who imposes on her complacency and submission as dignity and honour. The ability to lead an honourable and respectful life in other ways is argued for. Layla eventually marries Husayn, a young man whom she loves and with whom she shares her perspective on life (nationalist interests). The culmination of female strength in this ending is al-Zayyat’s way of writing the possibility and ‘truth’ of an alternative existence. Finally, the life purpose and principle that al-Zayyat encourages through the story of Layla is the ability to live for something greater than the everyday. This is expressed in a letter Husayn addresses to Layla. The life purpose and the principle she espouses is one that surpasses the ‘province of “I”, of apprehension and stagnation, of social rules’, as it is also the ability to overcome standing motionless ‘on the sidelines, merely observers’. What is encouraged is the ability to contribute to the development and change of society and the nation, to be of the people who ‘look toward a better future for our people and our nation’. The ability to give back to society and to the nation in a form of contribution that creates change is the greater goal for women; women are encouraged through this vision to be participants in social and political change.101 Although al-Aswany, Bakr and al-Zayyat offer fruitful ideas on women’s issues, one cannot help but feel that these analyses disappoint. There are certain questions that arise: what are the limitations to circumventing traditions? How can cultural traditions or their systems of repression be deconstructed, while at the same time maintaining

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Islamic values? How is the more specific and central issue of the conflation between cultural traditions and Islam to be resolved? Also, what of more specific issues to do with the Islam– modern divide, how are they to be resolved? Adila in The Open Door voices a major point that is yet left suspended: ‘But we’re lost. We don’t understand – are we the harem or not? We don’t know whether love is haram, prohibited by our religion, or permitted, halal. Our families say it’s haram while the state radio day and night sings love, love, love, and books tell a girl, “Go on, you’re free and independent”, and if a girl believes that she’s got a disaster on her hands and her reputation will go to hell’.102 The questions of limitations, the conflation between cultural traditions and Islam, and the Islam– modern divide all arise here. Another three examples are provided by Bakr in The Golden Chariot: honour killing (in the case of Shafiqah’s sister, a woman who fell in love with a Christian man; Shafiqah is driven to madness as a result); the issue of inheritance (as in the case of Madame Zaynab); and the ultimate question of virtue as revealed through identity, and the apologetic stance and shame that are appended in the realization of such an identity (as in Bahiga’s case) – these too are left untreated. These issues do arise amongst the ‘two major feminist paradigms referred to as “secular feminism” and “Islamic feminism”’,103 and they should be addressed. While Badran explains that each of these two paradigms evolved out of ‘historical contexts in which subjects and identities were being (re)fashioned out of shifting combinations of religious, class, ethnic, and national affiliation’, they are ‘flowing in and out of each other’.104 This suggests great hope for major transformations within the sphere of women’s rights. Anchoring their respective discourses in religion, ‘notably the Islamic modernist discourse’ paired with an interest in the ‘advance of the nation’, these two paradigms, according to Badran, are progressively edging closer to realizing ‘gender justice that includes the practice of full equality’ within the twenty-first century.105 In their ability to co-operate on gender justice and full equality, they should be able to present alternatives that circumvent: (1) the patriarchal hold and the tendency of Muslim traditionalists to resist change; (2) Islamic extremism in its practice of a change towards a return to a purer version of life;

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(3) secular extremist voices who are just as ‘dogmatic and ideological’ in their understanding of Islam.106 As Ziba Mir-Hosseini explains, the ability of feminist discourse to take legitimacy from Islam’s sacred texts is possible and necessary, for it is necessary to ‘bring change from within’ through an engagement with ‘Islam’s sacred texts and its legal tradition’. Doing so suggests the ability to secure credibility and acceptance among the masses, as it also secures the ability to bring about more durable, grounding and lasting change.107 Limitations can be defined, values of justice and equality can arise, and a more balanced conception of modern living can be sustained.

Despotism, Civil Rights and Religious Freedom The fourth and final arena of necessary change is the problem of a despotic government and the injustices, the lack of freedom and the inequalities that arise. This is addressed through attention to the following issues: (1) civil rights and democracy, the lack thereof; (2) extremism and the suppression of the religious; (3) the necessity of political and socio-cultural involvement. Although for Bakr change is the responsibility of the intelligentsia, for al-Aswany politics are. Al-Aswany’s vision of change can be summed up in a statement that he reiterates in his articles: ‘Democracy is the solution’.108 According to al-Aswany, as expressed in an interview published by the Guardian, this vision is complicated by two interrelated struggles in Egypt: ‘the one for democracy and justice, and the one between a tolerant culture and Wahhabism’.109 In ‘A Surprise Dinner with an Important Person’ (2011),110 al-Aswany recounts a dream in which he expresses requirements for change to Jamal Mubarak. One of the requirements of democracy for al-Aswany is true development in Egypt: the ability of the government to provide for its people, to amend levels of poverty and unemployment. Democracy also constitutes the protection of civil liberties; rigging, detention, torture and repression all come under this purview.111

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For al-Aswany, despotism is also the reason for flawed religiosity. He numerates the causes: (1) ‘the despotic regime, which necessarily leads to the spread of cheating, lying and hypocrisy’; (2) a despotic regime that through injustice has lent a sphere for the development of fanaticism; (3) the fact that ‘the understanding of religion that now prevails is ritualistic rather than behavioural’.112 Muslims ‘in their deficient understanding of Islam’ are caught between ‘government clerics and Wahhabi clerics’, and the injustice of their daily lives.113 According to him, these circumstances have not only led to the gap between Islamic theory and practice, but, more to the point, the creation of a sphere that is welcoming of Wahhabi Islam, and the creation of fanaticism. He states: ‘The fanatics are not real opponents of the regime, but a complication of it. If you are young and do not have hope, you’re pushed to be a criminal or a fanatic’. It is this reality through which the character of Taha in The Yacoubian Building has been inspired.114 Once again, he states: ‘Democracy is the solution’. In looking at Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley and Ibn Fattouma, one recognizes that he, like al-Aswany, suggests that there are moral and ethical questions to be asked and answered in the process of change. While in Midaq Alley the traditional quarter is portrayed as destitute in appearance and in morality, to suggest the loss of the past as eternal and pristine, in Ibn Fattouma the past is no longer the source of inspiration, it is deflected in a search in the present for a better future for Islamic society. The authenticity of the past and the virtues it represents are deconstructed by Mahfouz’s portrayal of a degenerating alley. By mirroring the problems of society at large as the same,115 what takes precedence is the importance of resolving these issues. Much like Kassem’s stance on recreating the past in the present (represented as a dream in Good News from the Afterlife),116 Mahfouz does not seem to take interest in that as the solution. What is paramount in his portrayal is social and political involvement as a means towards a better future for the ‘world of Islam’. This is manifest prominently in Ibn Fattouma. While the main character in Ibn Fattouma takes offence at the gap between Islamic theory

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and Islamic practice, the state of the Islamic world, he does not revisit the past as a means towards gaining a better future. His comparisons between the various ideologies for existence take on the form of what makes a better form of governance. His assessments are made always in relation to the Islam he knows; he weighs what he comes in contact with and attests to what is missing in the world of Islam, similar to what is practised in it (in virtue or vice), and new ideas of merit. The restoration of the community becomes his ultimate task as an individual, and so the individual responsibility in contributing to or bringing about social and political changes.117 Though he falters along his way, he does leave a message for his people, the contents of which are unknown. However, the focus on the political and social means for organization suggests his ultimate concern for political authority and political and socio-cultural involvement or participation as the means towards mending the problems of the world of Islam. Perhaps now, given the revolution, following the guidelines of involvement or participation here outlined by Mahfouz are in culmination. One hopes that truly the concerns for matters discussed above would be central to the development of a society accommodating to a more balanced Muslim identity.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

After decades of experimentation (of liberalism, of socialism and Marxism, of unrestrained Westernization, of renewal and various attempts at isla¯h), ˙ ˙ Egypt remains at the crossroads. In the midst of ideological anomalies, the problem is difficult to decipher, and a movement forward is difficult to conceive and realize. The crisis of narratives that permeates the social sphere, as clearly discussed by various critics, intellectuals, religious figures and artistic writers, has manifested in a crisis of civilization, of society and of identities. The acceptance of an ‘enlightened’ notion of progress (the realization of secularism through modernity, a gradual Westernization) and the attempt at its application without a due consideration for the place of the religious has been nothing but an obstacle to the development of a secure or balanced sense of Muslim identity. This is complicated by: (1) the crystallization of polar opposites, of secularism and Islam, in the political, intellectual and social spheres; (2) the confusion, or the polemic with regard to the means forward; (3) the mounting ambivalence with regard to cultural and social identity given the conflicted terrain with regard to Islam and Islamic thought, Islamic presence and Islamic identity (globalization, September 11, and clashing intellectual debates). The acceptance of an enlightened notion of progress and its complications (crystallization, confusion, mounting ambivalence) has clearly made identity construction all the more ambivalent, and the movement forward all the more difficult (difficult to conceptualize and realize).

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The historical development of intellectual thought leading to this state has been traced and analysed. In a quest for modernization and progress amidst various constraints an understanding of the problem of religious identity can be delineated. The central question has been the ways in which to articulate the place of Islam, and the distances from the Islamic past and towards a form of progress that are to be realized (in proximity or in detachment). The early twentieth century was characterized by a growing European influence, a remnant of a struggle between the cultural and religious roots and thus means of organization of the region, and the new values emanating from the centre of power and influence. The problem of how to articulate Islam given the new contexts and values became spelled out. The trend, thus, became towards modernization as Westernization. The result was that on the social, cultural and political scene an uncompromising bent towards liberal, rationalist and Western values became eminent. In light of these changes, Islamic contexts, meanings, articulations of identity and thought had to be reconsidered. For instance, Abd al-Raziq attempted to show that there is no concept of governance in Islam, while Lutfi al-Sayyid and Taha Hussein reformulated the concepts of ’umma and of identity and belonging. This trend was later followed by an Easternist trend that meant a reversion to the Islamic ideals of the past and an attempt at their realization – an attempt at re-situating, and centralizing the Islamic. The developments that took shape in the early 1930s were in a spirit of reversion to the Islamic past in an attempt to relate new realities, contexts and understanding to Islam, and in realization of it, in the absence of alternatives. This came as a result of a need for an authenticated sense of culture and identity, and as a result of disenchantment with the West. This reversion was expressed in terms of glorifying the Islamic past, espousing the validity and viability of Islamic thought and its comprehensive nature, and in terms of a disenchantment with and rejection of Western values. For instance, al-‘Aqqa¯d attempted to show that democracy and rational thought are part and parcel of Islamic thought; Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m developed a theory ˙ of Islamic secularism to attest to the mutual relations between the two spheres; and Ahmad Amı¯n and Tawfiq al-Hakı¯m expressed polemical ˙ ˙ thought to what is Western. The shift between two polar opposites (Islam, and modernization as Westernism or secularism) as a means of

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articulating cultural identity seems to have persisted in time (to the present day). Within the context of the Arab awakening the place and relevance of Islam too had to be re-articulated. In a struggle for nationalist power and influence in Arabist terms, the means to achieving prominence was through secularism. This was accompanied by an unbending belief in the Islamic alternative and a movement for its realization. The battle between those who believed in Islam and those who believed in secularism (two desperate models for being and for progress) has been consistent. Articulating the past, present and future has been subsumed within these various thought processes and movements that express these two models of being and of social, cultural and political organization, without true resolve. This points to utter failure: (1) the inability to creatively come up with a historically and culturally secure conception of identity that can be viable and sustainable, independent of the West; (2) the inability to constructively mend the fissures between the Islamic and the secular or modern; (3) the inability to realize a distinct conception of modernity and progress, stemming from the cultural and religious heritage of the region. One found this modern–Islamic split prevalent in literature. It expresses an either/or situation, where identity is meant to be defined by one or the other; the situations and the way in which they are expressed may differ, but in the end the dichotomy remains without a true resolve. Both Yusuf Wahbı¯’s film Ibn al-Hadda¯d (1944) and Yahya Hakki’s ˙ The Lamp of Umm Hashim (1955) highlight the dichotomy. This duality is again seen in the character of Ismail in The Lamp of Umm Hashim; the resolve only expressed at the end: ‘There is no knowledge without faith’.1 This is repeated within more recent literature. It remains a subject to be expressed; here are some examples: Hussain Kirsha and the sheikh in Midaq Alley; Khalid and his sister, Hanadi, in Love in Exile; Bahiga and society at large in The Golden Chariot; Taha and Busayna in The Yacoubian Building. Though the question of Muslim identity can be adequately explained by the unresolved nature of the dichotomy, one finds that there exists

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more depth and complexity to the matter. The problematic of the Islam–modern divide does have much to do with the following: (1) the remnants of a colonial past, and neocolonial predicament; (2) the power and influence of a centre of culture that is pervasive in its presence, and a resulting incapacitation by a receiving culture and society; (3) a resulting epistemological uncertainty, ontological anxiety, and a threatened self-identity. However, one found that while this power and influence on Egyptian society and Muslim cosmopolitanism, consciousness and identity is true, the inability to constructively and adequately re-articulate and reconstruct the culture, society and self towards a religiously and culturally authenticated progress is also a source of the problematic. At one level the predicament of Muslim identity can be explained by the dichotomy of Islam and secularism; however, it can be further explained by more complex issues. At a deeper level, the effect on religious identity and on religiosity can be sourced to a declining Islamic ethos, and a multi-factored situation particular to Egyptian society. The general narrative of the declining Islamic ethos offered suggests the following: the breakdown of Islamic social structures and knowledge structures; the rise of individualism and materiality and the decline in moral duty and ethical responsibility, stemming from faith; the conflation between tribal culturalism and Islam; and the inadequacy of modern Islamic discourse to meet modern demands. The Egyptian reality lends itself to a corrupt government, a declining or limited religious space and religious freedom, economic injustices and inequalities, and corruption. Mutually, the two factors (the declining Islamic ethos and the Egyptian scene) interact to affect religious identity and religiosity. In specific terms, the declining Islamic ethos expresses itself through structural differentiation that diminishes the importance and space for the religious, as it also expresses the inability to conceptualize or articulate Islam in modernity. The inability to creatively situate Islam in modern contexts is rendered difficult by stale and ineffectual efforts by intellectuals and religious figures, and by the limitations imposed on the expression of Islam. Meanwhile the situation in Egypt expresses another

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layer to the effect on identity and religiosity; for instance, a dissonant reality can lead to dissidence with Islam, with Muslim identity and with religiosity. In specific terms, poverty and injustice can lead to a declining religiosity or an affected religiosity. The problem then can be articulated as a mutually interacting and multi-layered set of factors that lead to this predicament of Muslim identity: the unresolved tension between Islam and modernity; the declining Islamic ethos and the inability to mend or respond in healthy and constructive ways to the Islam– modern divide; the inability of the government to provide a means for the expression of the religious; and its inability to provide an environment in which rights are protected and (social and cultural) progress is possible. This is a rather complex predicament. The writers, cultural critics, public figures and religious intellectuals analysed in this book have all articulated in their own ways and within their own times frames various ways of resolving the dilemma. Fruitful ideas have been articulated with regard to situating Islam and articulating a balanced conception of Muslim identity. From the early twentieth century, authors have suggested: the rejuvenation of Islamic knowledge through onerous efforts to counteract powerful anti-Islamist knowledge structures and research; an in-depth analysis and realization of Islamic meanings and means for social organization that are inclusive of modern contexts of understanding and structuring society, and modern understandings of secular and religious matters; and a rebuilding and strengthening of Muslim self-perception through these. Within the contemporary period, authors have suggested similar ideas. They have touched on social, cultural, religious and political matters of concern, as discussed in the conclusions of Part III of the book. All of these articulations and solutions are important and worthy of exploration. If considered holistically, these articulations and solutions suggest the need for a comprehensive process of re-creating the nation, one that begins with the re-creation of identities, knowledge basis and of consciousness and awareness. The ills of society and culture are far too pervasive for any aspect of the problem to be treated separately. Addressing the problems located within both religious education and secular education are starting points. Islamic discourse needs to address modern concerns and needs, and the ‘ulama¯’ must in the process find the balance between addressing modern concerns and remaining true to the Islamic tradition.

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Furthermore, the gaps between what is regarded as Islamic education and what is understood as secular education must be bridged for a more sustained perception and understanding of Muslim existence and presence, and for a well-sustained and productive cultural and social progress. This must be accompanied by well-sustained understandings of cultures: the Arab culture, the Islamic culture and Western culture. This will aid in maintaining and sustaining distinctions, particularly between Islam as religion and as culture, and the existence or articulation of Islam within various other spaces and in negotiation with other cultural meanings (the Arab, and the Western). This will aid in building greater awareness of rights, duties, and aims and objectives of Muslims’ selves and of Muslim society at large. This is a project for researchers within education and religious studies. These issues can be taken up and addressed. To further bridge the gap between what is secular and what is Islamic, sociological, cultural, religious and political studies must be undertaken in collaboration to assess the means, objectives and ends of the variances within and between these two streams in Egypt. The aim is to create greater agreement and flow amongst them on various issues of concern to the social public. Within literary studies, this can also be addressed: what is the secular and Islamic vision for Egypt? How can they be contrasted? How do they negotiate between one another, and what are the primary and common goals and means among them for progress? These questions can be asked in analysis of literary narratives emanating from Egypt, as it can be asked of the intellectuals and public figures of Egypt. For a well-sustained and balanced Muslim self-perception, Muslim self-perception itself is a subject of further study. With the aim of debunking inferiority complexes, shame and apologetic, these inferiority complexes must be assessed for their sources and reasons and the means to overcoming them. Whether within sociological analyses or literary analyses and study, these are important subjects of study. However, to be able to articulate any of these research endeavours and to realize sound results the ultimate questions of what modernization, what progress, what identity and to what ends must be addressed. This is for the Muslims of Egypt to answer in collaboration and in negotiation with religious figures and intellectuals, with Islamic texts and sources, with religious meaning, and with Islamic culture.

NOTES

Introduction 1. Jamie Scott, Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Postcolonial Literatures (Netherlands: Rodopi B.V., 2001), p. xxi. 2. Ibid., p. xvi. 3. Elie Maynard Adams, Religion and Cultural Freedom (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), p. 146. 4. Scott theorizes that mapping space and place is the mapping of spiritual significance associated with locations, with time, with human interactions, with social, cultural, historical and religious traditions, among other things. Furthermore, he notes that sacred spaces represent a sort of postcolonial social collective sensibility to regroup, recollect and exercise and express a ‘ritual sensibility’ that is of a spiritual, intellectual and cultural form/nature, a sensibility that arises out of the interaction between the individual and his/her encounter with ‘his [or her] world and his [or her] humanity’ (Scott, Mapping the Sacred, p. xvi). 5. Scott, Mapping the Sacred, p. xxii. 6. Ibid. 7. Bernard Lewis, ‘What Went Wrong?’ The Atlantic (January 2002). Available at www.theatlantic.com/doc/200201/lewis (accessed 19 March 2015), p. 4; Graham Maddox, ‘Islam and the claims of democracy’, in Wayne Hudson and Azyumardi Azra (eds), Islam Beyond Conflict: Indonesian Islam and Western Political Theory (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), p. 55. 8. Lewis, ‘What Went Wrong?’, p. 4; Maddox, ‘Islam’, p. 56. 9. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Simon & Schuster, 1997). 10. Benjamin Barber, ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’, The Atlantic (1992). Available at www. theatlantic.com/doc/199203/barber (accessed 19 March 2015); Bernard Lewis, ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’, The Atlantic (September 1990). Available at www.

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11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

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theatlantic.com/doc/199009/muslim-rage (accessed 19 March 2015); Richard Jackson, ‘Constructing enemies: “Islamic Terrorism” in political and academic discourse’, Government and Opposition 42/3 (2007), p. 404; Leonard A. Stone, ‘The Islamic crescent: Islam, culture and globalization’, Innovation 15/2 (2002), p. 122; David G. Kibble, ‘The attacks of 9/11: evidence of clash of religions?’, Parameters (Autumn 2002), p. 38. Jackson, ‘Constructing enemies’, p. 401. Bruce Hoffman, ‘Combating Al Qaeda and the Militant Islamic threat’. Testimony presented to the House Armed Services Committee (California: RAND Corporation, 2006), p. 7; Jillian Schwedler, ‘Islamic identity: myth, menace or mobilizer?’, SAIS Review XXI/2 (2001), p. 7. Hoffman, ‘Combating Al Qaeda’, p. 14. James Kurth, ‘Global Threats and American Strategies: from Communism in 1995 to Islamism in 2005’, Orbis (lecture series) (2005), p. 635; Bryan Turner, ‘Sovereignty and emergency: political theology, Islam and American conservatism’, Theory, Culture & Society 19/4 (2002), p. 108. Kurth, ‘Global Threats’, p. 644. Anver N. Emon, ‘The limits of constitutionalism in the Muslim world: history and identity in Islamic law’, Social Sciences Research Network 8 – 9 (2008), pp. 7 – 21. Noel J. Coulson, ‘The state and the individual in Islamic law’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 6 (1957), pp. 51– 5; Louay M. Safi, ‘Human rights and Islamic legal reform’, Louay Safi website (1998). Available at http:// louaysafi.com/content/view/49/19/ (accessed 18 March 2015), pp. 6 – 13; Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, ‘Human rights in the Muslim world’, in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy of Human Rights (St Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2001), pp. 317– 29. Emon, ‘The limits of constitutionalism’, p. 2; Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 10– 14. Coulson, ‘The state and the individual’, p. 49; An-Na’im, ‘Human rights’, p. 321. Emon, ‘The limits of constitutionalism’, p. 1. Coulson, ‘The state and the individual’, pp. 51– 7; An-Na’im, ‘Human rights’, p. 319. Emon, ‘The limits of constitutionalism’, p. 7. Cited in Safi, ‘Human rights’, p. 2. William E. Shepard, ‘Islam and ideology: towards a typology’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (1987), pp. 307– 9. Schwedler, ‘Islamic identity’, p. 13. Ira M. Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival and modernity: the contemporary movements and the historical paradigms’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40/4 (1997), p. 444. Ibid., pp. 445 – 6, 540– 2. Ayesha Jalal, ‘Religion as difference, religion as faith: paradoxes of Muslim identity’, Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan (2001), p. 2. Ibid., pp. 3 – 7.

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27. John Esposito, ‘Religion and global affairs: political challenges’, SAIS Review 18/2 (1998), pp. 19 – 24. 28. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi, ‘Islam in modern Egyptian literature’, Journal of Arabic Literature 2 (1971), p. 156. 29. Ibid., p. 158. 30. Rasheed El-Enany, Arab Representations of the Occident: East – West Encounters in Arab Fiction (London: Routledge, 2006b). 31. Ibid., pp. 57, 67 – 9. 32. Stephan Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (Florida, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004), pp. 19 – 22. 33. Mona N. Mikhail, ‘Broken idols: the death of religion as reflected in two short stories by Idris and Mahfouz’, in Issa J. Boullata (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1980), p. 83. 34. Sabry Hafez, ‘The Egyptian novel in the sixties’, in Issa J. Boullata (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1980), p. 171. 35. Ibid., pp. 171– 2. 36. Ibid., p. 176. 37. Ibid., pp. 176– 8. 38. Muhammad Siddiq, Arab Culture and the Novel: Genre, Identity and Agency in Egyptian Fiction (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 1. 39. Ibid., p. 120.

Part I

Secularization, Islam and the Predicament of Identity

1. Hamilton A.R. Gibb, ‘The heritage of Islam in the modern world (1)’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 1/1 (1970), p. 3. 2. Meir Hatina, ‘Historical legacy and the challenge of modernity in the Middle East: the case of al-Azhar in Egypt’, The Muslim World 93 (2003), pp. 51 – 68; Ira M. Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival and modernity: the contemporary movements and the historical paradigms’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40/4 (1997), pp. 444– 60; Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 3. Hatina, ‘Historical legacy’, p. 58.

Chapter 1

The Enlightenment Project and Secularization in the West

1. Elie Maynard Adams, Religion and Cultural Freedom (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), p. 2.

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2. Jeff Haynes, ‘Religion, secularisation and politics: a postmodern conspectus’, Third World Quarterly 18/4 (1997), p. 710. 3. Ibid., p. 710. 4. Adams, Religion, p. 9. 5. Ibid., p. 12. 6. Ibid., p. 13. 7. Ibid., p. 17. 8. Ibid., p. 17. 9. Brian Morley, ‘Western Concepts of God’, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006). Available at www.iep.utm.edu/g/god-west.htm (accessed 19 March 2015), paras. 1 – 9. 10. James Swindal, ‘Faith and Reason’, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008). Available at www.iep.utm.edu/f/faith-re.htm (accessed 19 March 2015), para. 50. 11. Gerhard Falk, Man’s Ascent to Reason: The Secularization of Western Culture (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), p. 207. 12. Ibid., p. 217. 13. Clinton Bennett, Muslims and Modernity: An Introduction to the Issues and Debates (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 25. 14. Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The madman’, in Lawrence Cahoone (ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 116. 15. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 9. 16. Ibid., p. 2. 17. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 249. 18. Johannes Fabian, in Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), provides the following definitions of the sacred conception of time: ‘In the Judeo-Christian tradition time has been conceived as the medium of sacred history. Time was thought, but more often celebrated, as a sequence of specific events that befall a chosen people [. . .] faith in a covenant between Divinity and one people, trust in divine providence as it unfolds in a history of salvation centered on one Savior, make for sacred conceptions of time’ (p. 2). 19. Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 59. 20. Ibid., pp. 2 – 3. 21. Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York: Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1970), p. 103. 22. Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 6. 23. David Harvey, in The Condition of Postmodernity, comments on Giordano Bruno’s theory of infinite time: ‘This was the achievement of the Renaissance; it shaped ways of seeing for four centuries [. . .] [I]t generates a “coldly geometrical” and “systematic” sense of space which nevertheless gives “a sense of harmony with natural law, thereby underscoring man’s moral responsibility within God’s

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27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

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geometrically ordered universe”’ (p. 244). Harvey’s quotations are from S. Edgerton, The Renaissance Re-discovery of Linear Perspective (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 12. Ibid., pp. 13, 291. Charles Taylor, in A Secular Age, uses the term ‘disembedding’ to describe the changed social condition of the individual. He states: ‘Embeddedness [. . .] is both a matter of identity – the contextual limits to the imagination of the self – and of the social imaginary: the ways we are able to think or imagine the whole of society. But the new buffered identity [disembedded], with its insistence on personal devotion and discipline, increased the distance, the disidentification, even the hostility to the older forms of collective ritual and belonging [. . .] towards a conception of the social world as constituted by individuals’ (p. 156). Ibid., pp. 137, 146. Ibid., pp. 142, 146, 290. Akbar S. Ahmed, Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 10. The first few lines of this declaration contend a commitment to democracy, and an opposition to ‘all varieties of belief’. It focuses on ten ideals, one of which is religious scepticism (scepticism about the existence of a supernatural power, and an opposition to the forfeiting of individual will). Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 244. Ibid., p. 247. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (California: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 37. Ibid., p. 39. R. Sigel (ed.), Political Learning in Adulthood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 459.

Chapter 2 Modernity and Islam in Egypt: The Struggle for Self-Representation and the Problem of Orientation (Late Nineteenth Century –Early Twentieth Century) 1. Tariq Ramadan, Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity (Markfield, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 2001), p. 78. 2. Cited in ibid., p. 16. 3. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991/1995/2005), p. 159. 4. Ira M. Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival and modernity: the contemporary movements and the historical paradigms’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40/4 (1997), p. 448. 5. Ibid., p. 449. 6. Ibid., p. 449.

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7. Michel Hoebink, ‘Thinking about renewal in Islam: towards a history of Islamic ideas on modernization and secularization’, Arabica, T. 46, Fasc. 1 (1999), p. 37. 8. Husain Kassim, Legitimizing Modernity in Islam: Muslim Modus Vivendi and Western Modernity (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), p. 100. 9. Hoebink, ‘Thinking about renewal in Islam’, p. 38. 10. Ibid., p. 31. 11. Cited in ibid., p. 44. 12. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 202. 13. Ibid., p. 204. 14. Ibid., p. 250. 15. Ibid., p. 257. 16. Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 3 – 4. 17. Ibid., p. 16. 18. Ibid., p. 17. 19. Edward Said, ‘Islam Through Western Eyes’, The Nation, 26 April 1980. Available at www.thenation.com/article/islam-through-western-eyes (accessed 19 March 2015), para. 6. 20. Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), p. 162. 21. Cited in Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), pp. 32 – 3. 22. Cited in ibid., p. 37. 23. Mahmudul Haq, Muhammad ‘Abduh: A Study of a Modern Thinker of Egypt (Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1970), p. 32. 24. Cited in Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 80. 25. Stephan Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (Florida, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004), p. 139. 26. Cited in ibid., p. 139. 27. Ibid., p. 140. 28. Fabian, Time and the Other, p. 17. 29. Ibid., p. 13. 30. Ibrahim Kalin, ‘Sayyid Jamal al-Din Muhammad b. Safdar al-Afghani (1838 – 1897)’, Centre for Islamic Sciences website (2007). Available at www.cis-ca.org/ voices/a/afghni.htm (accessed 19 March 2015), para. 6. 31. The Holy Qur’a¯n: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA’ Ed. Madinah: M]jama’ al-Malik Fahid, 1984; 2:256. 32. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798– 1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 117– 9. 33. Ibid., p. 119.

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34. Jamal al-Afghani, ‘Al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqa’ (1884). Available at sitemaker.umich.edu/ emes/sourcebook/da.data/82631/FileSource/1884_al-afghani.pdf (accessed 19 March 2015), p. 7. 35. Jamal Al-Afghani, ‘Answer of Jamal al-Din to Renan’, Journal des De´bats (1883). Available at sitemaker.umich.edu/emes/sourcebook/da.data/82631/FileSource/ 1884_al-afghani.pdf (accessed 19 March 2015), p. 4. 36. Ibid., p. 6. 37. P.J. Muhammad Vatikiotis, ‘Abduh and the quest for a Muslim humanism’, Arabica, T. 4, Fasc. 1 (1957), p. 63. 38. Ibid., p. 63. 39. Cited in ibid., p. 65. 40. Cited in Haq, Muhammad ‘Abduh, p. 23. 41. Ibid., p. 13. 42. Ibid., pp. 44 – 5. 43. Ibid., p. 51. 44. Ibid., p. 49. 45. Samira Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 71. 46. Haj here speaks in criticism of the way in which Vatikiotis qualifies ‘Abduh’s reformation project. 47. Ibid., p. 72. 48. Ibid., pp. 68 – 72. 49. Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 147. 50. Hourani, A History, p. 159. 51. Ibid., pp. 159 – 60. 52. Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 149. 53. Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, p. 87. 54. Ibid., p. 88. 55. Vatikiotis, ‘Abduh and the quest’, p. 68. 56. Valerie J. Hoffman-Lad, ‘Polemics on the modesty and segregation of women in contemporary Egypt’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 19/1 (1987), p. 23. 57. See Galal Amin, Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000). 58. Malek Abisaab and Rula J. Abisaab, ‘A century after Qasim Amin: fictive kinship and historical uses of “Tahrir al-Mara”’, Aljadid: A Review and Record of Arab Culture and Arts 6/32 (2000). Available at www.aljadid.com/content/ century-after-qasim-amin-fictive-kinship-and-historical-uses-tahrir-al-mara (accessed 19 March 2015), p. 3. 59. Amin, Whatever Happened, p. 6. 60. Ibid., p. 7. 61. Ibid., p. 70. 62. Ibid., p. 104. 63. Ibid., p. 104.

278 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94.

NOTES

TO PAGES

60 – 67

Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 157. Ibid., p. 137. Hourani, A History, p. 304. Ibid., p. 307. Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, p. 125. Mirrit Boutros Ghali, ‘The Egyptian national consciousness’, Middle East Journal 32/1 (1978), p. 62. Timothy Mitchell, ‘Making the nation: the politics of heritage in Egypt’, in Nezan Al Sayyad (ed.), Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage (New York, NY: Routledge, 2001), p. 213. Robin Ostle, ‘Modern Egyptian Renaissance Man’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London 57/1 (1994), pp. 190. Ibid., p. 190. Mitchell, ‘Making the nation’, p. 214. Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, p. 143. Ibid., p. 144. Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 167. Cited in Sylvia G. Haim, ‘Islam and the theory of Arab nationalism’, Die Welt Des Islams 4(2/3) (1955), p. 145. Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 216. Abdallah Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 174. Mitchell, ‘Making the nation’, p. 214. Ostle, ‘Modern Egyptian Renaissance Man’, p. 189. Charles D. Smith, ‘The “Crisis of Orientation”: the shift of Egyptian intellectuals to Islamic subjects in the 1930s’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 4/4 (1973), p. 382. Ziad Munson, ‘Islamic mobilization: social movement theory and the Muslim Brotherhood’, The Sociological Quarterly 42/4 (2001), p. 489. Ibid., p. 490. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, ‘Egypt’s Islamic activism in the 1980s’, Third World Quarterly 10/2 (1988), p. 642. Ibid., p. 632. Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival’, p. 445. Leonard A. Stone, ‘The Islamic crescent: Islam, culture and globalization’, Innovation 15/2 (2002), p. 121. Ibid., p. 124. Ibrahim, ‘Egypt’s Islamic activism’, p. 633. Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival’, p. 445. Munson, ‘Islamic mobilization’, p. 488. Marina Stagh, The Limits of Speech: Prose Literature and Prose Writers in Egypt Under Nasser and Sadat (Stockholm: Akedemitrych AB, Edsburk, 1993), pp. 67, 155. Ibrahim, ‘Egypt’s Islamic activism’, p. 649.

NOTES

TO PAGES

67 – 72

279

95. Ibid., p. 647. 96. Saba, Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival’, Cultural Anthropology 16/2 (2001), p. 205. 97. Ibid., pp. 205– 206. 98. Lapidus mentions a few changes and impacts: the ‘disestablishment of Islam’, the marginalization of ‘Islamic educational and legal systems’, the erosion of ‘traditional forms of solidarity’ and a ‘powerful impact on families and the relations of men and women’ (Lapidus, ‘Islamic revival’, p. 446). 99. Ibid., p. 446.

Chapter 3 Islam and Modernity: The Predicament of Identity (Early Twentieth Century –Present) 1. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, ‘Egypt’s Islamic activism in the 1980s’, Third World Quarterly 10/2 (1988), p. 655. 2. Leonard A. Stone, ‘The Islamic crescent: Islam, culture and globalization’, Innovation 15/2 (2002), p. 129. 3. Peter Mandaville, ‘Globalization and the politics of religious knowledge: pluralizing authority in the Muslim world’, Theory Culture 24/2 (2007) p. 104. 4. Aziz al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities (London: Verso, 1996), p. 81. 5. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 290. 6. Clinton Bennett provides an insightful explanation of the antithetical nature of the discourse of modernity (to that of religion). He argues that ‘the modern world-view believed that mega-theories, or meta-narratives, could explain the world – evolution, Marxism, capitalism all offered universal views that deciphered history, economics and social structures. Such meta-narratives have been called “totalizing explanations” – of history, of science, of culture and of course religion’ (Clinton Bennett, Muslims and Modernity: An Introduction to the Issues and Debates (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 25). 7. Abdallah Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 63. 8. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 23. 9. Akbar S. Ahmed, Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 5. 10. Ibid., p. 5. 11. Susan Standford Friedman, ‘Postcolonial modernities and the space/time borders of modernist studies’, MODERNISM/Modernity 13/32 (2006), pp. 426, 428. 12. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 28. 13. Ibid., p. 29. 14. Ibid., p. 31.

280

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72 –80

15. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 80. 16. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, Multiple Modernities (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005), pp. 1 –2. 17. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 44. 18. Laroui, The Crisis, p. 154. 19. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 32. 20. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 26. 21. Stone, ‘The Islamic crescent’, p. 129. 22. Mandaville, ‘Globalization’, p. 102. 23. Ibid., p. 103. 24. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, pp. 48 –9. 25. Mandaville, ‘Globalization’, p. 105. 26. Ibid., p. 103. 27. Donald L. Berry, Islam and Modernity through the Writings of Islamic Modernist Fazlur Rahman (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), p. 12. 28. Ibid., p. 12. 29. Ibid., pp. 20 – 1. 30. Ibid., pp. 24 – 5. 31. Mandaville, ‘Globalization’, p. 103. 32. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 12. 33. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 42; Mandaville, ‘Globalization’, p. 108. 34. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 34. 35. Al-‘Abdu¯lı¯, Tuha¯mı¯. (2005). ’Azmat al-Fikr al-Dı¯nı¯. Dimashq: Da¯r Al-Balad, p. 29. 36. Ibid., p. 29. 37. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 119. 38. Al-‘Abdu¯lı¯, Tuha¯mı¯. (2005). ’Azmat al-Fikr al-Dı¯nı¯. Dimashq: Da¯r Al-Balad, p. 29. 39. Cited in Berry, Islam and Modernity, p. 18. 40. Sana Abed-Kotob and Dennis Joseph Sullivan, Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), pp. 19, 1. 41. Ibid., p. 97. 42. Al-‘Ashma¯wı¯, Mohammad Sa‘ı¯d. (1995). Haqı¯qat Al-Hija¯b wa Hujı¯yat Al˙ Hadı¯th. Misr: ‘Arabiyyah Litiba¯‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, pp. 5 – 6, 13 – 16, 25 – 8. ˙ ˙ ˙ 43. The Holy Qur’a¯n: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA’ Ed. Madinah: Mu¯jama’ al-Malik Fahid, 1984; 33:59. 44. Al-‘Ashma¯wı¯, Mohammad Sa‘ı¯d. (1995). Haqı¯qat Al-Hija¯b wa Hujı¯yat Al˙ Hadı¯th. Misr: ‘Arabiyyah Litiba¯‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, p. 28. ˙ ˙ ˙ 45. al-Tanta¯wı¯, Muhammad. (1995). ‘Al Hija¯b Faridah Islamiyyah’. Fı¯ Muhammad ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ al-‘Ashma¯wı¯, Haqı¯qat al-Hija¯b wa Hijiyat al-Hadı¯th (pp. 25 – 31). Misr: ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ‘Arabiyyah Litiba¯‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, p. 30. ˙ 46. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 10. 47. ‘Urfi marriage is a prevalent form of marriage in Egypt. It can be defined as a secret marriage, one that takes place between two individuals in the form of an

NOTES

48. 49. 50.

51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

TO PAGES

80 –85

281

agreement to marry. It is not a form that is legislated by a religious authority, or a civil court. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 3. Laroui, The Crisis, p. 68. Jiha¯d means struggle, and striving for the sake of God whether in secular or religious matters. In Islam it is considered to be a duty or obligation upon every Muslim. The prevalent conception of jiha¯d as merely ‘holy war’ is inaccurate. There are many references in the Qur’an and the prophetic statements to the term, most of which indicate a necessary moral and spiritual struggle for the betterment of self, society and humanity. The greater jiha¯d is that of the nafs, the spirit, as the prophetic tradition indicates. It is a spiritual jiha¯d that encourages individual responsibility towards the self and others in intent, thought and action: Ibn al-Qayyim, Al-Fawa¯’id: A Collection of Wise Sayings (BTS, Trans.) (Egypt: Umm al-Qura, 2004), pp. 143– 4. Armed struggle is an undeniable part of the definition; however, it is not a jiha¯d in the cause of terrorism, abrogation of human rights, invasion and colonization. Fundamentalism is another misused term. It is a term that was ‘derived from early twentieth-century history of Protestantism in the United States’ for a call to a return to the fundamental/core values of Christianity as means of depropagating modernist or secularist ideas that ‘invaded Christian theology’ (Immanuel Wallerstein, The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New York: New Press, 2003), p.105). While it is regarded as a negative term to describe highly threatening practices, it means a return to core values/ principles of faith and an adherence to them. Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), p. xix. Laroui, The Crisis, p. 68. Al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities, p. 6. Ibid., p. 18. Said, Covering Islam, p. 44. Laroui, The Crisis, p. 9. Ahmed, Postmodernism, p. 96. Mandaville, ‘Globalization’, p. 106. Ibid., pp. 104, 107.

Chapter 4 Narrating Islam, Modernity and Muslim Identity (Mid-Twentieth Century – Present) 1. Joas Bons-Storm, ‘Practical theology is a secularized world beyond the obsession with guilt and atonement. Towards a theology of blessing and its implications for our practices’, in Wilhelm Grab and Lars Charbonnier (eds), Secularization Theories, Religious Identity and Practical Theology (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009), p. 77.

282

NOTES

TO PAGES

85 –88

2. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (California: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 187. 3. Ibid., p. 187. 4. Ibid., pp. 18 – 21. 5. Dilip M. Menon, ‘Religion and colonial modernity: rethinking belief and identity’, Economic and Political Weekly 37/17 (2002), p. 1663. 6. Ibid., p. 1663; Asad, Formations, pp. 2, 24. 7. Asad, Formations, pp. 15, 29, 35 – 6; John Esposito, ‘Islam and secularisation in the twenty-first century’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 10. 8. Esposito, Islam and Secularism, p. 12. 9. Azzam Tamimi, ‘The origins of Arab secularism’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 13; Asad, Formations, pp. 206– 7. 10. Tamimi, ‘The origins’, p. 17. 11. Ibid., p. 13; Munir Shafiq, ‘Secularism and the Arab-Muslim condition’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 141. 12. Rob Warner, Secularization and Its Discontents (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), pp. 14, 22. 13. Tamimi, ‘The origins’, p. 17. 14. Asad, Formations, pp. 208– 10, 219. 15. David Machin and Theo van Leeuwen, ‘Branding the self’, in Rick Iedema and Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard (eds), Identity Trouble: Critical Discourses and Contested Identities (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2008), pp. 42, 50. Craig Calhoun, ‘Social theory and the politics of identity’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995b). Charles Lemert, ‘Dark thoughts about the self’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1994). Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (California: Stanford University Press, 1991). Gloria D. Gibson and Margaret R. Somers, ‘Reclaiming the epistemological “other”: narrative and the constitution of identity’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995). 16. Lori Peek, in ‘Becoming Muslim: the development of a religious identity’, speaks of Muslim identity, in general, and in relation to September 11, specifically. He suggests that there are stages to the development of Muslim identity in the United States: ascribed, chosen and declared (Sociology of Religion 66/3 (2005), p. 217). Peek’s terminology here is utilized to define Muslim identity, and to locate conservative, moderate and liberal religious identities or stances within the discussion. 17. Michael Dusche, Modernity, Nation-State and Islamic Identity Politics. Paper presented at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2009, p. 72.

NOTES TO PAGES 88 – 94

283

18. E.M. Adams, Religion and Cultural Freedom (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), p. 2. Ahmet Davutoglu, ‘Philosophical and institutional dimensions of secularism: a comparative analysis’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), pp. 176– 7, 183– 4. 19. Davutoglu, ‘Philosophical and institutional dimensions’, p. 184. Davutoglu explains the Islamic hierarchy of existence, and thus, self-consciousness: (1) a ‘well-defined’ ‘ontological and epistemological relationship between God and man in the form of a revealed text’; (2) the interpretation of revelation and its reinterpretation is embodied in the ‘collective rationality’ and the methodological ‘consensus of a community’; (3) a historicity of revealed text and religious leadership; and (4) a firm link between the ontological and the various levels of existence of the individual. 20. Ibid., p. 177. 21. Tamimi, ‘The origins’, p. 13. 22. Paul Heelas, ‘Introduction: detraditionalization and its rivals’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 3. Thomas Luckmann, ‘The privatization of religion and morality’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 60. Timothy Luke, ‘Identity, meaning and globalization: detraditionalization in postmodern space-time compression’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 128. 23. Richard Sennett, ‘Individualization and “precarious freedoms”: perspectives and controversies of a subject-oriented sociology’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 179. 24. Al-Hakı¯m, Tawfı¯q. (1953). Arinı¯ Allah: Qisas Falsafiyyah. Misr: Misr Litiba¯‘ah, ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ p. 11. 25. Ibid., p. 12. 26. Ibid., p. 13. 27. Yahya Hakki, The Lamp of Umm Hashim and Other Stories (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005/1944/1955), pp. 46, 48. 28. Ibid., p. 47. 29. Ibid., pp. 63 – 6. 30. Ibid., p. 67. 31. Ibid., p. 84. 32. Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy (New York: Random House Inc., 1990, first published 1956– 7), pp. 587– 9, 747. 33. Ibid., p. 707. 34. Ibid., p. 741. 35. Ibid., p. 613. 36. Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 23–4; Asad, Formations, p. 225.

284 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

NOTES

TO PAGES

94 –100

Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy, pp. 891– 3. Ibid., pp. 915, 943– 5. Ibid., pp. 901, 906– 7, 909, 911. Ibid., p. 1087. Ibid., pp.1064 – 5, 1072– 3. Ibid., pp. 1012, 1085, 1131, 1166, 1301. Davutoglu, ‘Philosophical and institutional dimensions’, p. 189. Ibid., p. 200. Rasheed El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning (London: Routledge, 1993). Naguib Mahfouz, Adrift on the Nile (New York: Anchor Books, 1993/1966), p. 92. Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., pp. 48, 61 – 2, 74, 81, 83, 85. Ibid., p. 92. Ibid., pp. 93 – 4. Ibid., p. 46. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, ‘Individualization and “precarious freedoms”: perspectives and controversies of a subject-oriented sociology’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 24. Ibid., p. 25. Ibid., pp. 28 – 30. Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Morality in the age of contingency’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), pp. 51, 53. Niklas Luhmann, ‘Complexity, structural contingencies and value conflicts’, in Paul Heelas, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds), Detraditionalization (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), p. 67. Wen-chin Ouyang, ‘The dialectic of past and present in Rihlat Ibn Fattouma by Najı¯b Mahfouz’, Edebiyat: Journal of M.E. Literatures 14/1– 2 (2003), p. 87. Naguib Mahfouz, The Journey of Ibn Fattouma (New York: Anchor Books, 1992a/1983), pp. 24, 27, 41. Ibid., p. 57. Michael Beard, ‘Master narrative and necessity in Ibn Fattuma’, Edebiyat: Journal of M.E. Literatures 14/1– 2 (2003), pp. 21 – 8; Ouyang, ‘The dialectic’; El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouz. Mahfouz, The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, p. 25. Ouyang, ‘The dialectic’, p. 88. Latifa al-Zayyat was a novelist, activist and academic. The Open Door (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000/1960) is one of her most acclaimed pieces, most known as a biography of her own becoming. Booth cited in al-Zayyat, The Open Door, p. xxiii. Al-Zayyat, The Open Door, p. 158. Ibid., pp. 36, 40, 71 – 2, 77 – 9, 82 – 3, 178– 9, 241.

NOTES

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285

65. Clinton Bennett, Muslims and Modernity: An Introduction to the Issues and Debates (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 18. 66. Bassam Tibi, Islam between Culture and Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2001), p. 139. 67. Aziz al-Azmeh, Islam and Modernities (London: Verso, 1996), pp. 52 – 63. 68. Scott M. Thomas, ‘Taking religious and cultural pluralism seriously: the global resurgence of religion and the transformation of international society’, Millennium, Journal of International Studies 29/3 (2000), p. 818. 69. Cited in Issa J. Boullata, Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 16. 70. Roger Allen, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction (New York, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 78. 71. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi, A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature (London: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 102. 72. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi provides an analysis of the genesis of modern Arabic literature (poetry, the short story, the novel and journalism). He clarifies that it has been greatly influenced by models and means for expression derived from Western culture, by Western writing in translation, and that it further developed under the conditions of Western influence and colonial presence in the Arab world. However, the means and methods introduced to the Arab world in the nineteenth century were utilized and transformed to express native sensibility: the need to assert culture, identity and individuality; the need to address social, cultural and moral issues; the need for social reform; and the need to build a cultural image distinct from and in response to the (Western) ‘Other’ (Badawi, A Short History, pp. 1 – 3, 11, 14, 92). This transformation in the form of writing and in the topical interest as reflected in writing has been significant in shaping Arabic writing in Egypt since. One finds that to this day, writing of all forms expresses native sensibility; it probes into and treats cultural and social dilemmas.

Part II States of Cultural Contestation and the Struggle for Self-Definition (Early Twentieth Century – Mid-Twentieth Century) 1. Arthur Goldschmidt, ‘Egyptian historiography, 1919 – 52’, in Arthur Goldschmidt, Amy J. Johnson and Barak Salmoni (eds), Re-envisioning Egypt: 1919–1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005a), p. 466. 2. Homi K. Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 3. 3. Arthur Goldschmidt, Amy J. Johnson and Barak Salmoni (eds), Re-envisioning Egypt: 1919– 1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press 2005b), p. 2. 4. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 36. 5. Samah Selim, The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880– 1985 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), p. 73.

286

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107 –112

6. Israel Gershoni, ‘The evolution of national culture in modern Egypt: intellectual formation and social diffusion, 1892– 1945’, Poetics Today 13/2 (1992), p. 326. 7. Selim, The Novel, pp. 88 – 9.

Chapter 5 Narrating the Nation: The Rise of Egyptian (Territorial) Nationalism (1900– 1930s) 1. Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900– 1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 6. 2. Cited in Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’il a¯ al-’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 87. ˙ 3. Sylvia G. Haim, ‘Islam and the theory of Arab nationalism’, Die Welt Des Islams 4(2/3) (1955), pp. 131– 40. 4. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, pp. 6, 7. 5. The views of ‘al-Jami‘ah al-’Islamiyyah were an extension of those of the early Islamic modernists. Central to their belief is the awakening and rise of the East by facing the double challenge of eliminating social and religious ills within society and reviving the faith, and combating colonial threat to Islamic and Eastern societies and values (‘Ima¯ra, Muhammad. (1978). Al-Jami‘a al˙ Isla¯miyyah ‘Ind Mustafa¯ Ka¯mil. Bayru¯t: al-Mu’asasah al-‘Arabiyyah li dira¯sa¯t wa ’l-Nashr, pp. 11, 48, 55). 6. ‘Ima¯ra, Muhammad. (1978). Al-Jami‘a al-Isla¯miyyah ‘Ind Mustafa¯ Ka¯mil. ˙ Bayru¯t: al-Mu’asasah al-‘Arabiyyah li dira¯sa¯t wa ’l-Nashr, pp. 96, 113. 7. Cited in ibid., p. 95. 8. Ibid., p. 68; Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, pp. 7, 8. 9. ‘Ima¯ra, Muhammad. (1978). Al-Jami‘a al-Isla¯miyyah ‘Ind Mustafa¯ Ka¯mil. ˙ Bayru¯t: al-Mu’asasah al-‘Arabiyyah li dira¯sa¯t wa ’l-Nashr, pp. 68, 69, 74. 10. Cited in Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 8. 11. Ibid., p. 8. 12. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 95. ˙ 13. Nasa¯r, ‘Aismat. (2000). Fikrat al-Tanwı¯r Bayna Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid wa ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Sala¯ma Mu¯sa¯. Misr: Da¯r al-Wafa¯’ Li Dunya¯ al-Tı¯ba ‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, pp. 221–3. ˙ ˙ 14. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 91; Sa’d, ˙ Husayn. (1993). Bayna al-’Asa¯lah wa al-Taghrı¯b Fı¯ al-’Itijaha¯t al-‘ilma¯niyyah ˙ ‘Ind Ba ‘ad al-Mu¯fakirı¯n al-‘Arab al-Muslimı¯n. Bayru¯t: al-Mu’asasah al-Jami ‘Iyyah li Dira¯sa¯t wa ’l-Nashr wa al-Tawzı¯‘, p. 9. 15. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 91. ˙ 16. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 10. J. Shalan, ‘Writing the nation: the emergence of Egypt in the modern Arabic novel’, Journal of Arabic Literature 33/3 (2002), pp. 211– 47.

NOTES

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112 –117

287

17. Cited in Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 9. 18. Nasa¯r, ‘Aismat. (2000). Fikrat al-Tanwı¯r Bayna Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid wa ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Sala¯ma Mu¯sa¯. Misr: Da¯r al-Wafa¯’ Li Dunya¯al-^ı¯ba ‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, p. 233. ˙ 19. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 14. 20. Al-Ra¯fi‘ı¯’s account of the revolution supports the idea that there was no collaboration between movements in the revolution, and that some were spontaneous and reactive in nature (’Al-Ra¯fi‘ı¯, ‘Abd al-Rahma¯n. (1990/1958). ˙ Misr al-Mujahidah: al-Tara¯ju‘ wa al-’Intik a¯s min al-’Ihtila¯l ’ila¯ Thawrat 1919. ˙ ˙ Misr: Da¯r al-Hila¯l, p. 137– 9). ˙ 21. Ibid., pp. 124– 33. 22. Ibid., p. 132. 23. Ibid., pp. 132, 133. 24. Samia Kholoussy, ‘Fallahin: The “Mud Bearers” of Egypt’s “Liberal Age”’, in Arthur Goldschmidt, Amy J. Johnson and Barak Salmoni (eds), Re-envisioning Egypt: 1919–1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005), p. 278. 25. Amy J. Johnson and Scott David McIntosh, ‘Empowering women, engendering change: Aziza Hussein and social reform in Egypt’, in Goldschmidt, Johnson and Salmoni (eds), Re-envisioning Egypt: 1919– 1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005), p. 249. 26. Beth Baron, ‘Unveiling in early twentieth century Egypt: practical and symbolic considerations’, Middle Eastern Studies 25/3 (1989), p. 372. 27. Mervat F. Hatem, ‘The 1919 revolution and nationalist construction of the lives and works of pioneering women writers’, in Goldschmidt, Johnson and Salmoni (eds), Re-Envisioning Egypt: 1919– 1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005), p. 402. 28. Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender and Politics (California: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 31, 36. 29. Baron, Egypt as a Woman, p. 36. Baron suggests the term ‘honour’ was used to denote the honour of the nation, one to be safeguarded against colonialist and imperialist violation, ‘humiliation and shame’ (p. 41). 30. Johnson and McIntosh, ‘Empowering women’, p. 251. 31. Hatem, ‘The 1919 revolution’, p. 398. 32. Baron, Egypt as a Woman, p. 122. 33. Johnson and McIntosh, ‘Empowering women’, pp. 250, 251. 34. Husayn Sa’d, (1993). Bayna al-’Asa¯lah wa al-Taghrı¯b Fı¯ al-’Itijaha¯t al˙ ‘ilma¯niyyah ‘Ind Ba ‘ad al-Mu¯fakirı¯n al-‘Arab al-Muslimı¯n. Bayru¯t: alMu’asasah al-Jami ‘Iyyah li Dira¯sa¯t wa ’l-Nashr wa al-Tawzı¯‘, p. 21. 35. Ibid., p. 21. 36. Ibid., p. 26. 37. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 79. 38. Ibid., p. 80. 39. Yasir Suleiman, The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Ideology (Manchester: Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2003), p. 171. 40. Ibid., p. 163.

288

NOTES

TO PAGES

117 –124

41. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 139. ˙ 42. Ibid., p. 139; Selim, The Novel, p. 80. 43. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 172. ˙ 44. Haykal, 1983b, p. 129. 45. Suleiman, The Arabic Language, p. 176. 46. Cited in Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’il a¯ al-’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 209. ˙ 47. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 134. 48. Suleiman, The Arabic Language, p. 175. 49. Ibid., p. 176. 50. Suleiman, The Arabic Language, pp. 163, 169. 51. Cited in Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’il a¯ al-’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 138. ˙ 52. Ibid., p. 140. 53. Ibid., p. 171. 54. Gershoni and Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs, p. 147. 55. Nasa¯r, ‘Aismat. (2000). Fikrat al-Tanwı¯r Bayna Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid wa ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Sala¯ma Mu¯sa¯. Misr: Da¯r al-Wafa¯’ Li Dunya¯al-Tı¯ba ‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, p. 102. ˙ ˙ 56. Ibid., p. 103. 57. Suleiman, The Arabic Language, pp. 178. 58. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, pp. 95, 176, ˙ 180, 186. 59. Suleiman, The Arabic Language, pp. 177, 178. 60. Israel Gershoni, ‘The evolution of national culture in modern Egypt: intellectual formation and social diffusion, 1892– 1945’, Poetics Today 13/2 (1992), p. 342. 61. Naja¯h, ‘Atiyyah. (1993). Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa al-Da ‘awah ’il a¯ al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Adab al-Qawmı¯. Lubna¯n: Matba‘at al-Jami‘ah al-’Amrikiyyah, p. 179. ˙ 62. Gershoni, ‘The evolution’, p. 342. 63. Shalan, ‘Writing the nation’, p. 213. 64. Ibid., p. 213. 65. Al-Ba¯ru¯dı¯. (2003). Riwayat Zaynab. Fı¯ Nadwat Muhammad Haykal (eds), ˙ Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa Juhu¯d al-Istina¯rah al-Misriyyah. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: ˙ ˙ ˙ Majlis al-’A‘la¯ lithaqa¯fah, p. 84. 66. Ahmad Zalat. (1988). Muhammad Husayn Haykal Bayna al-Hada¯rataı¯n al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Islamiyyah wa al-Gharbiyyah. Al-Qa¯hirah: al-Hay’ah al-Misriyyah Lil Kita¯b., ˙ ˙ p. 47. 67. Haykal, 1983b, p. 107. 68. Ibid., pp. 122– 3, 130. 69. Ibid., p. 120. 70. Ibid., p. 129.

NOTES

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124 –129

289

71. Ibrahı¯m, ‘Abd’allah. (2003). Qira’a¯t Zaynab. Fı¯ Nadwah Muhammad Haykal (eds), Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa Juhu¯d al-Istina¯rah al-Misriyyah (2003). ˙ ˙ ˙ Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Majlis al-’A‘la¯lithaqa¯fah, pp. 25– 34. 72. Haykal, 1983b, p. 130 –33. 73. Shalan in ‘Writing the nation’ refers to Cachia’s analysis of Haykal’s choice: Egyptian Peasant. It is suggested to be far more political then described above. Shalan feels that it is more accurate to view this choice as a form of differentiation between ‘an Egyptian of native stock’ and ‘an Ottoman subject residing in Egypt’ (p. 221). 74. Muhammad Husayn Haykal. (1914/1993). Zaynab: Manazir wa ’Akhl a¯q ˙ ˙ ˙ Rı¯fiyyah. Misr: Da¯r Al-Ma‘a¯rif, p. 8. ˙ 75. Ibid., pp. 18, 40, 58, 73, 103. 76. Ibid., p. 19. 77. Ibid., pp. 15, 107, 108. 78. Ibid., p. 29. 79. Ibid., pp. 19, 40. 80. Haykal, 1983b, p. 122. 81. Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. (1914/1993). Zaynab: Manazir wa ’Akhl a¯q ˙ ˙ ˙ Rı¯fiyyah. Misr: Da¯r Al-Ma‘a¯rif, pp. 16 – 17. ˙ 82. Ibid., pp. 22 – 3. 83. Zalat, Ahmad. (1988). Muhammad Husayn Haykal Bayna al-Hada¯rataı¯n al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ’Islamiyyah wa al-Gharbiyyah. Al-Qa¯hirah: al-Hay’ah al-Misriyyah Lil Kita¯b., ˙ ˙ pp. 75 – 6. 84. Haykal, 1983b, pp. 133–5. 85. Ibid., p. 135. 86. Ibid., p. 138. 87. Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. (1964). Al-’Iyma¯n, al-Ma’rifah, al-Falsafah. ˙ ˙ Misr: Da¯r Al-Ma‘a¯rif. ˙ 88. Ibrahı¯m, ‘Abd’allah. (2003). Qira’a¯t Zaynab. Fı¯ Nadwah Muhammad Haykal (eds), Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa Juhu¯d al-Istina¯rah al-Misriyyah (2003). ˙ ˙ ˙ Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Majlis al-’A‘la¯ lithaqa¯fah, pp. 25 – 34; Harb, ‘Ali. (2003). Al˙ ’Ihya’ wa al-Tanwı¯r. Fı¯ Nadwat Muhammad Haykal (eds), Muhammad Husayn ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Haykal wa Juhu¯d al-Istina¯rah al-Misriyyah (2003). Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Majlis al-’A‘la¯ ˙ lithaqa¯fah, pp. 305– 6. 89. Darra¯j, Faisal. (2003). Al-Wa‘ ı¯ al-Hada¯thı¯ Fı¯ Nadwat Muhammad Haykal ˙ ˙ ˙ (eds), Muhammad Husayn Haykal wa Juhu¯d al-Istina¯rah al-Misriyyah (2003). ˙ ˙ ˙ Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Majlis al-’A‘la¯ lithaqa¯fah, p. 132. 90. Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. (1914/1993). Zaynab: Manazir wa ’Akhl a¯q ˙ ˙ ˙ Rı¯fiyyah. Misr: Da¯r Al-Ma‘ a¯rif, p. 100. ˙ 91. Ibid., p. 100. 92. Ibid., p. 125. 93. The reference here is to a prophetic tradition endorsing marriage, in criticism of meanings emanating from it. 94. Ibid., pp. 125– 133, 139, 211.

290 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111.

112.

113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

NOTES

TO PAGES

129 –137

Ibid., p. 139. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., pp. 27 – 8. Ibid., p. 192. Ibid., pp. 20, 151. Ibid., p. 305. Ibid., p. 252. Ibid., pp. 257– 9. Ibid., p. 200. Haykal, 1983a, p. 20. Ibid., pp. 37, 38, 100. Haykal, Muhammad Husayn. (1914/1993). Zaynab: Manazir wa ’Akhl a¯q ˙ ˙ ˙ Rı¯fiyyah. Misr: Da¯r Al-Ma‘ a¯rif, p. 166. ˙ Haykal, 1983a, pp. 11 – 15. Ibid., p. 18. Hilary Kilpatrick, The Modern Egyptian Novel: A Study in Social Criticism (London: Ithaca Press, 1974), p. 41. William Maynard Hutchins, Tawfiq AlHakim: A Reader’s Guide (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), p. 12. Pierre Cachia, ‘Idealism and ideology: the case of Tawfiq al-Hakim’, Journal of American Oriental Society 100/3 (1980), p. 228. Amatzia Baram, ‘Territorial nationalism in the Middle East’, Middle Eastern Studies 26/4 (1990), p. 431. Michael Wood, ‘The use of the Pharaonic past in modern Egyptian nationalism’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 35 (1998), p. 181. Gershoni, ‘The evolution’, p. 343. T. Al-Hakim, Return of the Spirit (William Maynard Hutchins Trans.) (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1990), p. 79. Ibid., p. 169. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., p. 179. Ibid., pp. 180– 1. Ibid., p. 180. Ibid., p. 182. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., p. 159. Ibid., pp. 43 – 4. Ibid., pp. 27, 69, 123. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid., p. 156. Ibid., p. 156. Ibid., p. 145.

NOTES

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137 –144

291

130. Ibid., pp. 143– 4. 131. It is an identity that is superior to and distinct from the Arab identity. This distinction is represented by the contrast between the peasant, of a noble origin, and the Bedouin, characterized by ignorance, lack of generosity and kindness, and ‘debasement by slave descent’ (ibid., pp. 166– 7). 132. Ibid., pp. 161, 165, 166. 133. Ibid., p. 248. 134. Ibid., pp. 273– 4. 135. Ibid., p. 274. 136. Ibid., pp. 275– 82. 137. Al-Hakim, Tawfı¯q. (1936). Bayna al-Fikr wa al-Fan. Misr, p. 291. ˙ ˙ 138. Ibid., p. 284. 139. Ibid., p. 284. 140. Ibid., pp. 286– 7. 141. Ibid., p. 318. 142. Ibid., p. 318. 143. Ibid., p. 322. 144. Ya¯sı¯n, al-Sayyid. (2001). ’Adab Tawfı¯q al-Hakı¯m. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Mirit Lil Nashr ˙ wa al-Ma ‘lu¯ma¯t, pp. 144– 52. 145. Al-Hakim, Tawfı¯q. (1983). Misr Bayna ‘Ahdaı¯n. Misr, pp. 117– 19. ˙ ˙ ˙ 146. Bu¯sha‘ı¯r, al-Rashı¯d. (1996). Al-Mar’ah Fı¯ ’Adab Tawfı¯q Al-Hakı¯m. Dimashq: ˙ al-’Ahalı¯ Litiba¯’ah wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzı¯‘, pp. 9 – 17. ˙ 147. In his biography he explains that he was influenced by Enlightenment thinkers of the West and that he was frightened of this influence for it opened up his intellectual horizons. Yet, he describes himself as a spiritual and religious man, one fond of his Eastern spirituality and further able to amalgamate rationality and faith (Al-Hakim, Tawfı¯q. (1983). Misr Bayna ‘Ahdaı¯n. Misr, pp. 27, 42 – ˙ ˙ ˙ 3, 55). 148. Tawfı¯q Al-Hakim. (1987). Fı¯ al-Waqt al-Da¯’i‘. Misr: Mu’asasat al-’Ahra¯m, ˙ ˙ pp. 278 –9. 149. Ibid., pp. 73 – 6. 150. Ibid., pp. 77 – 80. 151. Ibid., p. 70. 152. Ibid., p. 72. 153. Al-Hakim, Return of the Spirit, p. 85. 154. Ibid., p. 86. 155. Ibid., pp. 63 – 4. 156. Ibid., p. 229. 157. Ibid., p. 229. 158. Ibid., p. 222. 159. Ibid., pp. 235– 7. 160. Ibid., p. 245. 161. Ibid., p. 31. 162. Ibid., p. 31.

292

NOTES

TO PAGES

144 –153

163. Ibid., pp. 43, 52 – 6. 164. Husayn Muhammad Haykal. (1933/1977). Haya¯t Muhammad. Misr: Da¯r Al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Ma‘a¯rif., p. 34. 165. Ibid., pp. 34 – 5. 166. Ibid., p. 36. 167. Ibid., p. 37. 168. Ibid., p. 41. 169. Tawfı¯q Al-Hakim. (1936). Bayna al-Fikr wa al-Fan. Misr, p. 223. ˙ ˙ 170. Tawfı¯q Al-Hakim. (1987). Fı¯ al-Waqt al-Da¯’i‘. Misr: Mu’asasat al-’Ahra¯m, ˙ ˙ pp. 92 – 3, 123. 171. Ibid., pp. 117– 8, 124. 172. Ibid., p. 120. 173. Cited in ibid., p. 127. 174. Cited in ibid., p. 127. 175. Ibid., pp. 139– 43. 176. Ibid., p. 158. 177. Ibid., pp. 160– 1. 178. Ibid., p. 146. 179. Ibid., pp. 146– 55.

Chapter 6 The Rise of Easternism and National Redefinition (1930s – 1950s) 1. Gabriel Piterberg, ‘The tropes of stagnation and awakening in nationalist historical consciousness: the Egyptian case’, in James P. Jankowski and Israel Gershoni (eds), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 44. 2. Anshuman A. Mondal, Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 178. Lucie Ryzova, ‘Egyptianizing modernity through the “New Effendiya”: social and cultural constructions of the middle class in Egypt under the monarchy’, in Goldschmidt, Johnson and Salmoni (eds), Re-envisioning Egypt, 1919 – 1952 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005), pp. 132, 135 – 6. Joel Beinin, ‘Islam, Marxism and the Shubra al-Khayma textile workers’, in Edmund Burke and Ira Lapidus (eds), Islam, Politics and Social Movements (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), p. 207. 3. Beinin, ‘Islam, Marxism and the Shubra al-Khayma textile workers’, p. 207. 4. Mondal, Nationalism, p. 176. 5. Ryzova, ‘Egyptianizing modernity’, pp. 125, 134. 6. Ibid., p. 125. 7. Ibid., p. 126. 8. Ibid., p. 126; Israel Gershoni, ‘The evolution of national culture in modern Egypt: intellectual formation and social diffusion, 1892– 1945’, Poetics Today 13/2 (1992), p. 326.

NOTES

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154 –156

293

9. Gershoni, ‘The evolution’, p. 345. 10. In Yusuf Wahbı¯’s film a man returns to Egypt after gaining an education from the West, and to the surprise of his folk, is adamant and involved in applying it to the benefit of his people, expressing great humility and pride in relation to them. In his marrying a woman from an upper class, the duality arises. While he represents the glory of the principles of traditional society, she expresses Westernist tastes and tendencies; both are situated at extremities of thought and practice. By the end of the film, the man succeeds in drawing his wife and her family back to their roots; a high level of triumphalism is expressed. 11. Beinin, ‘Islam, Marxism and the Shubra al-Khayma textile workers’, p. 207. 12. Michael M.J. Fischer, ‘Islam and the revolt of the petit bourgeoisie’, in Bryan S. Turner (ed.), Islam: Islam, State and Politics (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 122. 13. Beinin, ‘Islam, Marxism and the Shubra al-Khayma textile workers’, p. 207. 14. Ibid., p. 209. 15. Fischer, ‘Islam and the revolt’, p. 127. 16. Metin Heper, Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East (Sydney: Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd., 1984), pp. 21 –2. 17. ‘Abd al-Halı¯m Qindı¯l. (2010). Jama¯l ‘Abd al-Na¯sir: Mı¯la¯d Fikrah. Al-Quds, ˙ ˙ p. 1; Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 197. 18. Glenn E. Perry, The History of Egypt (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 81. 19. Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, p. 197. 20. Cited in ibid., p. 198. 21. Ibid., p. 213. 22. Sala¯h Zakı¯. (1983). Misr wa al-Mas’alah al-Qawmiyyah. Al-Qa¯hirah: Da¯r al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Mustaqbal al-‘Arabı¯, p. 61. 23. Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, p. 212. 24. Ibid., pp. 212– 3. 25. John C.B. Richmond, Egypt 1798– 1952: Her Advance Towards a Modern Identity (London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1977), p. 199. 26. Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the 20th Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 5, 40. 27. Martin Kramer, Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers 2008), p. 29. 28. James P. Jankowski, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930– 1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 22. 29. Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammed Muslih and Reeva Simon (eds), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. xii. 30. C. Ernest Dawn, ‘The origins of Arab Nationalism’, in Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammed Muslih and Reeva Simon (eds), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 10 –11. 31. Khalidi, The Origins, p. vii. 32. Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, p. 13.

294

NOTES

TO PAGES

157 –166

33. Khalidi, The Origins, p. vii. Y.M. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism: A History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2000), p. ix. 34. Cited in Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, p. 2; Kramer, Arab Awakening, p. 3. 35. Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, pp. 3, 8, 13, 16. 36. Kramer, Arab Awakening, p. 4. 37. Sala¯h Zakı¯. (1983). Misr wa al-Mas’alah al-Qawmiyyah. Al-Qa¯hirah: Da¯r al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Mustaqbal al-‘Arabı¯, Zakı¯, pp. 27 –35. 38. Ibid., pp. 56 – 57; Jankowski, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, pp. 100– 3. 39. Sala¯h Zakı¯. (1983). Misr wa al-Mas’alah al-Qawmiyyah. Al-Qa¯hirah: Da¯r al˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Mustaqbal al-‘Arabı¯, Zakı¯, p. 58. 40. Reid, Donald Malcolm, ‘Nationalizing the Pharaonic past: Egyptology, imperialism, and Egyptian Nationalism, 1922 –1952’, in Jankowski and Gershoni (eds), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 128. 41. Ibid., p. 129. 42. ‘Aismat Nasa¯r. (2000). Fikrat al-Tanwı¯r Bayna Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid wa ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Sala¯ma Mu¯sa¯. Misr: Da¯r al-Wafa¯’ Li Dunya¯ al-Tı¯ba ‘ah wa ’l-Nashr, p. 20. ˙ ˙ 43. Taha Hussein, The Future of Culture in Egypt (Washington, DC: American Society of Learned Societies, 1954/1938), p. 1. 44. Ibid., p. 1. 45. Ibid., p. 2. 46. Ibid., p. 3. 47. Ibid., p. 4. 48. Ibid., p. 5. 49. Ibid., pp. 8 – 9. 50. Ibid., p. 10. 51. Ibid., p. 12. 52. Ibid., pp. 10 – 13. 53. Ibid., p. 17. 54. Ibid., p. 18. 55. Ibid., p. 21. 56. Ibid., p. 18. 57. Ibid., p. 20. 58. Ibid., p. 15. 59. Ibid., p. 16. 60. Ibid., pp. 22 – 8. 61. Ibid., pp. 23 – 4. 62. Ibid., p. 26. 63. Ibid., p. 26. 64. Ibid., p. 27. 65. Ibid., pp. 17, 24. 66. Sayyid Qutb. (1969/1939). Naqd Kita¯b Mustaqbal al-Thaqa¯fah Fı¯ Misr. ˙ ˙ Jeddah: al-Da¯r al-Su‘u¯diyyah li Nashr wa al-Tawzı¯‘, p. 12.

NOTES 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88. 89.

TO PAGES

166 –172

295

Ibid., pp. 14 – 15. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., pp. 20 – 1. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., pp. 28, 30. See Ahmad Amı¯n’s biography My Life: The Autobiography of an Egyptian Scholar, Writer, and Cultural Leader (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978) and William E. Shepard’s The Faith of a Modern Muslim Intellectual: The Religious Aspects and Implications of the Writings of Ahmad Amin (New Delhi: Stosius/Advent Books Division, 1983). Ahmad Amin, p. 10. Ibid., p. 21. Ahmad Amı¯n. (1955). Al-Sharq wa al-Gharb. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Maktabit al˙ Nahdah al-Misriyyah, pp. 1 – 3. ˙ ˙ Ibid., pp. 137– 40. Ibid., p. 142. Ibid., p. 141. Ibid., p. 142. Ibid., pp. 15 – 18, 22, 38 – 9. The benefits he includes are: (1) knowledge as a foundation for life, the ‘rationalization of reform’ is central to that; (2) the destruction of despotism, corruption, the rule of kings and the attempt to obliterate the economic difference between classes; (3) ‘progress in the understanding of human rights’; (4) global connectivity; (5) great innovations and discoveries for the benefit of humanity (Amı¯n, Ahmad. (1955). Al-Sharq wa al-Gharb. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: ˙ Maktabit al-Nahdah al-Misriyyah, pp. 33 – 5). The defects he numerates are: ˙ ˙ (1) the increase in wars; (2) increased sense of racial superiority, specifically in relation to the East; (3) a sense of servitude to power, specifically national power; (4) ‘an exaggerated empowerment of women against men’; an excess in philosophers contributing to a lack of rational balance; and (5) ‘materialism lacking in spiritualism’ (Amı¯n, 1955, pp. 35– 8). Ahmad Amı¯n. (1955). Al-Sharq wa al-Gharb. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Maktabit al˙ Nahdah al-Misriyyah, p. 23. ˙ ˙ Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 26. Examples include individualism versus communalism; women’s freedom and empowerment versus women’s conservatism. In discussing these he suggests a balance. Ibid., p. 59. Amı¯n’s discussion of democracy is of a similar nature; the lack of democracy in the East is due to historical occurrences. Through a discussion of Islamic civilization and a presentation of two prophetic traditions, he argues that

296

90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

NOTES

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democracy and justice have been consistent elements in Islam and in Islamic history. He sustains that democracy is not a Western value and can be reestablished in the East. To do so, it must recognize the values embedded in its own culture, ‘widen its horizons’ and focus on its needs (Amı¯n, 1955, pp. 45 – 57). Ibid., pp. 59 – 68. Ibid., pp. 61 – 2. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 127. Ibid., p. 128. Ibid., pp. 131– 2. Ibid., p. 134. Ibid., p. 134. Ibid., p. 135. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1946a). ’Athar al-‘Arab Fı¯ al-Hada¯rah al˙ ˙ ‘Uru¯biyyah. Fı¯ al-‘Aqqa¯d, Hada¯rat al-Isla¯m (1946). Bayrut: Da¯r al-Kitab al˙ ˙ Lubna¯nı¯, p. 70. Ibid., pp. 74 – 5. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 80. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1962). Al-Tafkı¯r Farı¯dah Isla¯miyyah. Bayru¯t: ˙ ˙ Manshu¯ra¯t al-Maktabah al-‘Asriyyah, pp. 7 –8. ˙ Ibid., pp. 51 – 3. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1959) Al-Mar’ah Fı¯ al-Isla¯m. Bayrut: Manshu¯rat ˙ al-Maktabah al-‘Asriyyah, pp. 3 – 4. ˙ Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., pp. 8 – 11. Ibid., p. 62. Ibid., pp. 62 – 3. Ibid., p. 64. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1957a). Haqa¯’iq al-Isla¯m wa ’Aba¯tı¯l Khusu¯mih, ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ p. 19. Ibid., pp. 25 – 6. Ibid., p. 105. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 28. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1957b). Ma¯ Yuqa¯lu ‘An al-Isla¯m. Al-Qa¯hirah: ˙ Maktabat Da¯r al-‘Aru¯bah, pp. 271– 3. Ibid., pp. 280– 85. Ibid., pp. 263– 70. ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d Al-‘Aqqa¯d. (1957a). Haqa¯’iq al-Isla¯m wa ’Aba¯tı¯l Khusu¯mih, ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ p. 31; Al-‘Aqqa¯d, ‘Abba¯s Mahmu¯d (1962). Al-Tafkı¯r Farı¯dah Isla¯miyyah. ˙ ˙ Bayru¯t: Manshu¯ra¯t al-Maktabah al-‘Asriyyah, pp. 148– 9. ˙

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Part III States of Ambivalence (Mid-Twentieth Century –Present) 1. Azzam Tamimi, ‘The origins of Arab secularism’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 13. 2. John Esposito, ‘Islam and secularisation in the twenty-first century’, in Azzam Tamimi and John L. Esposito (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 1. 3. Youssef M. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism: A History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2000), p. 58. 4. Nazih N. Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East (London: I.B.Tauris, 1996), p. 136. 5. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, p. 58. 6. Ibid., pp. 58. 65; Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State, p. 136. 7. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, pp. 68 – 73. 8. Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), p. 206. 9. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, pp. 163– 4. 10. Paul Salem, ‘The rise and fall of secularism in the Arab world’, Middle East Policy IV/3 (1996), p. 149. 11. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, pp. 65, 73. 12. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir: A Study in Political Dynamics (New York: State University of New York Press, 1971), p. 18. 13. Ibid., pp. 18 – 19. 14. Glenn E. Perry, The History of Egypt (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004), pp. 85 – 86; Arthur Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-state (Colorado: Westview Press Inc., 1988), pp. 101– 2. Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir, p.74. 15. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, p. 165. 16. Beverly Milton-Edwards, Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), p. 63. Ayubi, Over-Stating the Arab State, p. 136. 17. Milton-Edwards, Contemporary Politics, pp. 63 –4; Choueiri, Arab Nationalism, pp. 166– 7. 18. Nissim Rejwan, Arabs Face the Modern World: Religious, Cultural and Political Responses to the West (Florida: University of Florida Press, 1998), pp. 87 – 9. 19. Esposito, ‘Islam and secularisation’, p. 3. 20. Dieter Weiss, ‘Ibn Khaldun on economic transformation’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 27/1 (1995), pp. 29 – 31. 21. See Galal Amin’s chapter ‘Economic development’ in Galal Amin, The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006). 22. Esposito, ‘Islam and secularisation’, p. 2. 23. Ibid., p. 3.

298

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24. Stephen Vertigans, ‘Islam and the construction of modern nationalism: the unintended consequences of state sponsored socialisation’, in Gregory Franco and Scott Cervantes (eds), Islam in the 21st Century (New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers Inc., 2010), p. 4. 25. Ibid., p. 2. 26. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought: Studies in Post-1967 Arab Intellectual History (London: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 16. 27. Perry, The History of Egypt, p. 103. 28. Hrair Dekmejian, ‘The anatomy of Islamic revival: legitimacy crisis, ethnic conflict and the search for Islamic alternatives’ Middle East Journal, 34/1 (1980), p. 5. 29. Derek Hopwood, Egypt: Politics and Society 1945– 1990 (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 101; Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991/1995/2005), p. 406. 30. Hopwood, Egypt, pp. 90, 99. 31. Ibid., p. 88. 32. Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir, p. 72; Bruce K. Rutherford, Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 132. 33. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam and Democracy: Critical Essay (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), p. 137. 34. Ibid., pp. 119– 21, 137. 35. Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir, pp. 99 – 100. 36. Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt, pp. 89, 116; Dekmejian, Egypt Under Nasir, p. 100. 37. Hopwood, Egypt, pp. 90, 136; Vertigans, ‘Islam’, p. 6. 38. Hopwood, Egypt, p. 137. 39. Ibid., p. 91; Hesham Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy: The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak, 1982– 2000 (New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004), p. 33. 40. Hopwood, Egypt, pp. 90– 91; Hourani, A History, p. 407. 41. Vertigans, ‘Islam’, pp. 6 –7. 42. Roxanne Euben and M. Qasim Zaman (eds), Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 225. 43. Ibid., p. 225. 44. Hopwood, Egypt, p. 96. 45. Ibid., pp. 95 – 7. 46. Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam and Democracy, p. 57. 47. Rejwan, Arabs Face the Modern World, p. 103. 48. Hopwood, Egypt, p. 136. 49. Nazih N. Ayubi, ‘The political revival of Islam: the case of Egypt’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 12/3 (1980), p. 486. 50. Nasser did not attempt to ‘tamper with the teachings of Islam’. However, he did put to use a number of ‘ulama¯’ to propagate his socialist philosophy as outlined

NOTES

51. 52. 53.

54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

TO PAGES

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in the Charter (1961), one that makes ‘only a few brief references to Islam and does not give it a central role in the creation of the new society’. The ‘ulama¯’ were used to ‘prove that the values of Islam and socialism were precisely similar’, sanctioning in the process the ideas of socialism, class solidarity and nationalism (Hopwood, Egypt, pp. 96 – 7). Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 59. Rejwan, Arabs Face the Modern World, pp. 104– 34; Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 59. Cited in Rejwan, Arabs Face the Modern World, p. 105; Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 160; Nasr Abu-Zayd. (2004). ‘al Ta¯rı¯kh wa al-Nas wa Mas’alt ˙ ˙ al-Tajdı¯d’ Fı¯ Qada¯ya¯wa-Hiwa¯ra¯t al-Fikr al-‘Arabı¯, Sirbist Nabı¯. Dimashq: Da¯r ˙ al-Balad, p. 118. A¯diq Jala¯l al-‘Azm. (1968/2007). Al-Naqd al-Dha¯tı¯ ba’da al-Hazı¯mah. Dimashq: Da¯r Mamdu¯h ʻAwa¯n lil-Nashr wa-Tawzı¯ʻ, pp. 43 –77; A¯diq Jala¯l al‘Azm. (1970). Naqd al-Fikr al-Dinı¯. Bayru¯t: Da¯r a- Talı¯‘ah Litiba¯‘ah wa ’l˙ ˙ Nashr, pp. 8 – 15; Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 160; Hourani, A History, p. 444; Nasr Abu-Zayd. (2004). ‘al Ta¯rı¯kh wa al-Nas wa Mas’alt al˙ ˙ Tajdı¯d’ Fı¯ Qada¯ya¯wa-Hiwa¯ra¯t al-Fikr al-‘Arabı¯, Sirbist Nabı¯. Dimashq: Da¯r al˙ Balad, p. 118. Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 60. Vertigans, ‘Islam’, p. 18. Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam and Democracy, p. 97. Ibid., p. 140. Ibrahim, Egypt, Islam and Democracy, pp. 35, 140– 1, 212; Perry, The History of Egypt, pp. 121– 3; Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt, pp. 154– 7; Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991/1995/2005), pp. 419– 21. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 420. The complacency regarding American designs and support for Israel are the focus of criticism. Two issues that have been continually addressed are: lending aid and support to the US attack on Iraq, and the support for its subsequent military presence, as well as the stringent Gaza border control. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), pp. 264– 5. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 443. Ayu¯b cited in Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, p. 153. Abu-Rabi’, Contemporary Arab Thought, pp. 58 – 9. Ibid., pp. 89 – 90. Ibid., pp. 90 – 1. Dekmejian, ‘The anatomy of Islamic revival’, p. 5. Sagi Polka, ‘The centrist stream in Egypt and its role in the public discourse surrounding the shaping of the country’s identity’, Middle Eastern Studies 39/3 (2003), p. 41.

300

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70. Ibid., pp. 45 – 7, 60. 71. Ibid., pp. 48, 51, 53. 72. Ibid., p. 52.

Chapter 7 From Sacred to Secular: Time and Space, Alienation and Exile 1. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 7. 2. Jamie Scott, Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Postcolonial Literatures (Netherlands: Rodopi B.V., 2001), p. xxi. 3. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 201. 4. Abdel-Hakim Kassem, The Seven Days of Man (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), pp. 7, 17 – 29, 44 – 5. 5. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, p. 1. 6. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 215, 217. 7. ‘Qası¯dat al-Burdah’ is a hymn dedicated to the Prophet Mohammed. It is composed of ten parts; parts commemorate the Prophet and his message, others are praises of the Qur’an, and yet others are verses of supplications and repentance. 8. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, p. 35. 9. Ibid., pp. 2, 7, 17, 20, 32– 34. 10. Ibid., pp. 32 – 3. 11. Ibid., pp. 21, 34. 12. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 202– 5. 13. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, p. 104. 14. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 204. 15. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 104– 5. 16. Ibid., pp. 103, 105. 17. Ibid., p. 45. 18. Ibid., p. 97. 19. Ibid., p. 105. 20. Edward Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 172. 21. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 136– 9, 170. 22. Ibid., pp. 147– 50. 23. Ibid., pp. 169– 71; Said, Reflections on Exile, p. 180. 24. Said, Reflections on Exile, p. 177. 25. Ibid., p.186. 26. For Said, exile need not create an ‘indulgent or sulky’ subjectivity; rather, it promotes and fosters ‘self-awareness’, and ‘reconstitutive projects as assembling a nation out of exile’. Exile is an energy that enables the re-creation of the self and the world; it gestures the re-creation of the state of exile or being an exile, and the fate of such exilic experience (Said, Reflections on Exile, pp. 183–4).

NOTES

27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

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Given that exile is a positive and constructive force, as represented by Said, one wonders if Abdel-Aziz’s withdrawal from his heritage and his creation of alternate associations is an exile in the full sense as Said expresses, or if it is a permanent state of exile as one incapable of re-creation, or re-routing, or regrowth, for its lack of creative energy for resolving the past/present dilemma? Said’s definition of exile as an experience of being outcasted and incomplete, however, proves highly useful. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 2, 15, 37. Ibid., p. 73. Muhsin Jassim Al-Musawi, ‘Beyond the Modernity Complex: ‘Abd al-Hakim Qasim’s re-writing of the Nahdah self-narrative’, Journal of Arabic Literature 41 (2010) p. 26. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 74 – 5. Ibid., pp. 81, 86, 100– 1. Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., pp. 141, 175. Ibid., pp. 140– 1, 157– 8, 179. Fanon’s analysis of the colonized intellectual is as follows: (1) losing the self into Western culture’; (2) convictions are shaken; (3) combat, ‘the colonized [. . .] will rouse the people’ (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004), pp. 156–9). Abdel-Aziz lacks here a revolutionary energy. He is critical of his cultural heritage, and he submits to new forces. The novel ends at this note. The third stage of Fanon’s analysis on the colonized is lacking here as he does not lose himself among his own people as a transformative and revolutionary force. Abel-Aziz’s dilemma is reflective of that of the dilemmas of the Nahdah legacy ˙ and its quests. As Abdel-Aziz is aware of popular religion and is disappointed with its diluted and superficial form, he is forward looking (beyond religion) (Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, p. 178). It is an indication of the social enigma: the quest for modernity is unrealized, traditions cannot be disposed of completely, and religion in a more meaningful and purposeful form has not been salvaged. Ibid., p. 152. Ibid., pp. 188, 191– 3. Ibid., p. 196. Ibid., pp. 216– 17.

Chapter 8 The Transformation of Social Formations 1. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 201. 2. Ibid., pp. 205, 207. 3. Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 4.

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4. Abdel-Hakim Kassem, The Seven Days of Man (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 1. 5. Ibid., pp. 3 – 6, 13, 19; Sharabi, Neopatriarchy, p. 29. 6. Islam is structured around a conception of individual responsibility, accountability, and a conception of a social order, to propagate ‘good’ and uphold justice. It has equal regard for the individual as it does for the social community (family, society, ’umma), and its vision encourages their interconnectivity and dependability. Its encouragement of individual strength and capabilities is an encouragement of individual production for the purposes it defines. Thus, it does not encourage an individuality that supposes a disregard for society or its structures (‘Ima¯ra, Muhammad. (2005). Al-Isla¯m wa al˙ Tahadiyyat al-Mu‘ asirah. Misr: Nahdat Misr, p. 19). This is informed by a sense ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ of responsibility as accorded by Divine decree: ‘Behold, thy Lord said to the angels; “I will create a vicegerent on earth”’ (The Holy Qur’a¯n: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA’ Ed. Madinah: Mu¯jama’ al-Malik Fahid, 1984; 2:30). The individual, as does society as a whole, takes upon a responsibility of realizing Divine will and purpose on earth. 7. In Islam, men and women are of equal worth and status; both are subservient to the commandments of faith, to Divine decree, and both hold duties and responsibilities of equal worth to the prosperity of the individual, society and the nation. The Qur’an gives equal regard to their religious and ethical obligations and rewards, their legal rights, and their education. However, different from a Western conception of equality, Islam encourages a ‘dual sex’ rather than a ‘unisex society’ in which there is an interdependence of roles (complementary in nature), and a high regard for an extended family unit: ‘both sexes are assigned their special responsibilities’ assuring ‘the healthy functioning of the society for the benefit of all its members’. A man’s role and his relationship to the wife is governed by a principle of qawa¯mah imposing the responsibility of protection, of respect and of provision for the woman, as it enforces the man’s ultimate responsibility of guidance and leadership (Lamya’ al-Faruqi, Women, Muslim Society, and Islam (USA: American Trust Publications, 1988) pp. 37 – 41, 43 – 44). This can be contrasted with a traditional tribal social formation (Arab, pre-Islamic) in which society is hierarchal, and women are subservient to men. A clear distinction can be drawn between the two, as Islam was introduced in reformation of the many ill practices of the Arab tribal social formation. However, one cannot ignore the persistent existence of both side by side, their conflation in the consciousness of the masses, and thus, the subsequent disregard for or ambivalent understanding of respective roles and responsibilities, of life purpose, and the violation of rights. These results can be seen in various areas of life, as will be displayed in the forthcoming chapters. 8. Sharabi, Neopatriarchy, p. 4. 9. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 211.

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10. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 156. 11. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 213. 12. Ibid., p. 213. 13. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 61 – 8, 125, 145, 148, 159. 14. Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 79. 15. Ibid., p. 143. 16. Ibid., p. 157. 17. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 114, 133, 138, 143. 18. Taylor, A Secular Age, pp. 137– 8, 282. 19. Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women, The New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000), pp. 45 – 9. 20. Ibid., pp. 51 – 2. 21. Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 157. 22. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 222– 3. 23. Ibid., p. 228. 24. Ibid., p. 284. 25. Scott M. Thomas, ‘Taking religious and cultural pluralism seriously: the global resurgence of religion and the transformation of international society’, Millennium, Journal of International Studies 29/3 (2000), p. 836. 26. See Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Paperback (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2002/1988); and Edward Bernays ‘The Engineering of Consent’ (essay published in 1947) and The Engineering of Consent (Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955). 27. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 285. 28. Ibid., p. 286. 29. Ibid., p. 287. 30. Galal Amin, The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006), pp. 11 – 12. David Machin and Theo van Leeuwen, ‘Branding the self’, in Rick Iedema and Carmen Rosa CaldasCoulthard (eds), Identity Trouble: Critical Discourses and Contested Identities (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2008), pp. 46, 50 –1). 31. Machin and van Leeuwen, ‘Branding the self’, pp. 46, 50 –1. 32. Amin, The Liberation of Women, p. 174. 33. Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley (New York: Anchor Books, 1992b/1966), p. x – xi. 34. Mahfouz, Midaq Alley, pp. 33 – 5, 114, 117. 35. Salwa¯ Bakr, The Golden Chariot (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1991), pp. 125, 127. 36. Ibid., p. 129. 37. Ibid., pp. 127– 8. 38. Ibid., pp. 141– 6.

304

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39. Ibid., pp. 140, 145– 6. 40. Alaa al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006/2002), pp. 41 – 3. 41. Ibid., p. 46. 42. Ibid., p. 47. 43. Ibid., p. 47. 44. Ibid., p. 47. 45. Ibid., p. 246. 46. Mahfouz, Midaq Alley, pp. 189– 90. 47. Ibid., pp. 195– 8. 48. Ibid., pp. 207– 21. 49. Ibid., p. 255. 50. Ibid., pp. 57, 132. 51. Ibid., p. 56. 52. Ibid., p. 59. 53. Ibid., p. 60. 54. Islam commands the ‘equitable distribution’ and circulation (alms-giving) of wealth, the insurance of basic needs, the prohibition of monopoly over markets or wealth, and ‘mutual responsibility’ (J. Patrick Bannerman, Islam in Perspective: Guide to Islamic Society, Politics and Law (New York, NY: Routledge, 1988), pp. 97 – 8); Sa¯biq, Sayyid. (1985). Fiqh al-Sunnah. Bayru¯t: Da¯r al-Kı¯tab al-‘Arabı¯, pp. 422, 560; Imam Muhammad al-Bukhari, Moral Teachings of Islam: Prophetic Traditions from al-Adab al-Mufrad by Imam al-Bukhari (Abdul Ali Hamid, Trans.) (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2003), pp. 22, 26, 34). All wealth is due to the Lord, and thus, its subsequent use and utility is in service of God and His will: ‘It is He Who has spread out the earth for (His) creatures’; ‘give them something yourself out of the means which Allah has given to you’; and ‘And those in whose wealth is a recognized right for the needy who asks and him who is deprived’ (The Holy Qur’a¯n: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA’ Ed. Madinah: Mu¯jama’ al-Malik Fahid, 1984; 55:10; 24:33; 70; 24 –25). The concept of vicegerency (Khilafah) can be drawn from this responsibility, too. The degradation involved in the commodification of all, even human beings, and of religious values, is a testament to the loss of a discourse and the dislocation of its meanings. Values currently more pertinent are self-interest and the accumulation of wealth, at all costs. 55. Mahfouz, Midaq Alley, p. 132. 56. Thomas, ‘Taking religious and cultural pluralism seriously’, p. 822. 57. These are as defined by Sharabi: ‘Disunity and polarization’, foreign intervention and control, and the prevalence of the ‘military establishment’ (Sharabi, Neopatriarchy, p. 130). 58. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, pp. 86 – 7. 59. Ibid., p. 84. 60. Ibid., p. 88.

NOTES 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

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Mahfouz, Midaq Alley, pp. 151– 3. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, pp. 80 – 1. Ibid., pp. 147– 8, 227– 30. Alaa al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable (New York: Random House Inc., 2011), p. 23. Ibid., pp. 24 – 6. Bakr, The Golden Chariot, p. 158. Samia Mehrez, Egypt’s Culture Wars: Politics and Practice (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2010), p. 100. Sharabi, Neopatriarchy, p. 81. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 204.

Chapter 9 The Plight of Women 1. Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 32 – 3. 2. Salwa¯ Bakr, The Golden Chariot (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1991/2008), p. 42. 3. Fate in this sense encourages patience, persistence and perseverance, and ultimately rewards for those who embody these characteristics and live by them, as it also denotes belief in God and entrusting Him for all that ultimately is in the world and in personal or collective lives (Imam Muhammad al-Bukhari, Moral Teachings of Islam: Prophetic Traditions from al-Adab al-Mufrad by Imam alBukhari (Abdul Ali Hamid, Trans.) (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2003), p. 93; Hamilton A.R. Gibb, The Encyclopedia of Islam Vol. V (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980), p. 184. It does not, however, encourage blind acceptance, complacency and the lack of agency. Depressive and dejected states are not the goal of Islam, nor is the propagation of an adamantly rejectitious will. 4. Bakr, The Golden Chariot, pp. 101, 183. 5. Ibid., p. 191. 6. The Holy Qur’a¯n: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA’ Ed. Madinah: Mu¯jama’ al-Malik Fahid, 1984; 56:12– 40. 7. Ibid., 56; 25 – 6. 8. Bakr, The Golden Chariot, p. 9. 9. Ibid., p. 38. 10. Ibid., p. 40. 11. Ibid., p. 45. 12. Ibid., pp. 39, 40, 45. 13. Ibid., p. 51. 14. Ibid., pp. 40 – 2. 15. Ibid., pp. 116, 117. 16. Ibid., p. 118. 17. Ibid., p. 119.

306 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

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Ibid., pp. 54, 85, 140. Ibid., p. 85. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., pp. 90 – 3. Ibid., pp. 54 – 7. Ibid., p. 60. Ibid., p. 148. Ibid., pp. 45, 60, 114, 140, 148. Bakr, Salwa¯. (2008). Liqa’ Ma‘ al Ka¯tibah wa al-Ruwa¯’ iyyah al-Misriyyah Salwa¯ ˙ Bakr. Markz al-Nu¯r, 12/05/2008. http://www.alnoor.se/article.asp/id¼ 24134. October 2011; Salwa¯ Bakr. (2010). Salwa¯ Bakr: Nu ‘anı¯ Min Muthalath al-Fitnah al-Tai’fiyyah wa al-Hawas al-Jinsı¯ wa al-Ta‘asub al-Kurawi. Al Misrı¯ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ al-Yawm, 21/01/2010. http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?Arti cleID¼240968.

Chapter 10 Ambivalent Identities and the Sacred 1. Gloria D. Gibson and Margaret R. Somers, ‘Reclaiming the epistemological “other”: narrative and the constitution of identity’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995) pp. 39, 59. 2. Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 10– 12. 3. Ibid., p. 4. 4. Gibson and Somers, ‘Reclaiming the epistemological “other”’, pp. 46 – 8. 5. Ibid., pp. 49 – 50. 6. Ibid. pp. 61 – 3. 7. Ibid., p. 59; Craig Calhoun, ‘Social theory and the politics of identity’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995b), p. 10. 8. Gibson and Somers, ‘Reclaiming the epistemological “other”’, p. 59; Calhoun, ‘Social theory’, p. 12. 9. Gloria Gibson defines ontological narratives as narratives that ‘make identity and the self something that one becomes [. . .] embeds identities in time and spatial relationships’. Furthermore, ‘Ontological narratives affect activities, consciousness and beliefs and are, in turn, affected by them’ (Gibson and Somers, ‘Reclaiming the epistemological “other”’, p. 61). 10. Calhoun, ‘Social theory’, p. 14. 11. Alaa al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006/2002), p. 145. 12. Ibid., pp. 19 – 21. 13. Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley (New York: Anchor Books, 1992b/1966), p. 90. 14. Ibid., p. 95. 15. Ibid., pp. 45, 95– 7.

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16. ‘If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with them, then only one’ (Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 4:3). Sayyid Sabiq recounts several reasons in which polygamy has been historically sanctioned and practised in Islam, and all attest to being compelling moral reasons: unbalanced gender ratios, infertility on the part of the woman, and in protection of widows resulting from war. However, the inability to do justly by the women in question is in itself a reason for the prohibition of the practice of polygamy. While Azzam provides financially for Souad as stipulated by Islam (Nafaqa), he neglects all of her marital rights and so does injustice to her: cohabitation, a respect for her rights and for her dignity, a right to a full life, and sensibility towards her needs and emotions (‘Abd al-‘Azı¯m Bin Badawı¯. (2009). ˙ Al-Wajı¯z Fı¯ Fiqh al-Sunnah wa al-Kı¯ta¯b al-‘Azı¯z. Misr: Da¯r Ibn Rajab lil Nashr ˙ wa al-Tawzı¯‘, pp. 353–8; Sayyid Sa¯biq. (1985). Fiqh al-Sunnah. Bayru¯t: Da¯r alKı¯tab al-‘Arab, p.169, 185). Instead, his marriage to her is one that can be likened to a mut‘ah marriage, which is considered unlawful in Sunni Islam, for it gives power to the interests of the man, as it limits the rights of the woman. Azzam thus is able to indulge in his needs without due consideration for Souad’s. 17. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, p. 52. 18. There is a certain degree of contestation of whether or not abortion is lawful in Islam, with some opinions suggesting its acceptability before the passing of 120 days, while others prohibiting the practice altogether (Sayyid Sa¯biq. (1985). Fiqh al-Sunnah. Bayru¯t: Da¯r al-Kı¯tab al-‘Arabı¯, p. 195). However, in the case of Azzam and Souad two important issues are of concern: (1) Souad’s ambivalence regarding religious meaning and her religious rights, and so her rejection of the authority of the sheikh without due consideration and effort given to the matter on her part; (2) Azzam’s violation of her right to choose. This case testifies to: (1) the lack of understanding of the religion and a clear ambivalence towards it (in terms of rights, duties, actions and their religious meanings and ramifications); (2) the overriding power of cultural and social (as opposed to religious) practices and expectations; (3) the clear discord between Islamic theory and its practice. 19. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, pp. 173– 95. 20. Ibid., p. 73. 21. Ibid., p. 74. 22. Ibid., p. 179. 23. Ibid., pp. 182– 3. 24. Ibid., p. 76. 25. Ibid., pp. 77 – 8, 183. 26. Ibid., pp. 131– 2, 183, 185. 27. Ibid., pp. 134, 184. 28. Alister McGarth, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2011), p. 456; Magna Parks, Christians, Beware! The Dangers of Secular Psychology (Ringgold, GA: TEACH Services Inc., 2007), pp. 27 – 30.

308

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29. Every aspect of life in Islam is defined by duties and responsibilities towards the self, the family and society at large. Islam encourages a sense of responsibility in action, for all actions are governed by divine decree, and contingent on doing ‘good’ to reap rewards and attain salvation (heaven). In interpretation of verse 177 of al-Baqarah in the Qur’an, Ibn Kathı¯r explains that the verses therein lay out foundational rules and elements of faith and piety. These foundational rules and elements encourage steadfastness to piety in ritual, thought and action, an individual and social responsibility: ‘it is righteousness to believe in Allah, and the Last day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; To spend of your sustenance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; To be steadfast in prayer and to give zakat, to fulfill the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic’ (Muhammad Ibn Kathı¯r. Tafsı¯r al-Qur’a¯n al-‘Azı¯m (1). Lubna¯n: ˙ ˙ Da¯r al-Qalam, pp. 181 – 2; Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 2:177). Christianity, too, addresses responsibility through a conception of love: ‘thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self’, ‘love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul’ (Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 33:3). However, despite Christianity’s encouragement of the ethical duty and love towards others and towards God, what is prominent in modern Christian thought and theology is the unconditional love of God. Through the story of Christ, crucifixion and salvation, one understands that human redemption is granted, if not definite (McGarth, Christian Theology, p. 456; Brian Wilson, Christianity (New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. 1999), p. 103). It is this form of love that Hatem refers to, and infuses into Islamic theology. 30. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, p. 184. 31. Charles Lemert, ‘Dark thoughts about the self’, in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1994), p. 101; Anzaldua cited in ibid., p. 102). 32. At a point in his relationship with Hatem, and as a result of his son’s death (which he understood as a punishment for his sin), Abduh quits his life and identity with Hatem and moves to his village. There he, in character and in physical charm, expresses the grandeur of all that is an Egyptian Falla¯h: ‘He ˙ was sitting [. . .] wearing a gallabiya and had a large Sa‘idi turban on his head. At that moment he looked enormous and imposing, like a magic dark-skinned jinni that had materialized from the world of imagination. He looked too as though he had taken off along with his Western cloths his whole contingent and exceptional history with Hatem Rasheed’ (al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, pp. 224, 231). 33. Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Modern Islam: The Search for Cultural Identity (California: University of California Press, 1962), p. 129.

NOTES

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34. Galal Amin, The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006), pp. 111– 12. 35. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (California: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 181. 36. Hesham al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy: The Muslim Brothers and Mubarak, 1982– 2000 (New York: I.B.Tauris, 2004), p. 1. 37. Ibid., p. 2. 38. Ibid., pp. 180, 155– 7. 39. Ibid., p. 186. 40. Amin, The Illusion of Progress, pp. 41 – 2. 41. Ibid., pp. 24 – 45. 42. Al-Awadi, In Pursuit of Legitimacy, pp. 18 – 19. 43. Jalal al-‘Azm places this phenomenon within the larger processes of cultural interpretation. He suggests that the transfer of orientalist discourse into the East has had one prominent effect: the emergence of a counter-discourse that reconstructs the epistemological underpinnings of orientalist discourse to define its ‘other’ (orientalism-in-reverse). This counter-discourse reproduces the epistemology of orientalism; it recreates it in construction of a clear distinction between East and West, Islam and Europe (Sa¯diq Jala¯l al-‘Azm. (1997/2004). Dhihnı¯at at-Tahrı¯m. Dimashq: al-Mada¯ lil Thaqafah wa-Tawzı¯’, ˙ p. 43). Within the arena of the Islamic revival (Salafi movement, an off-shoot of the Brotherhood, and influenced by Wahhabism), this discourse is the drive for authenticity, whereby authenticity translates into de-rooting. It is a drive for the extraction of all that is Western in origins, a rejection of its ideas, institutions, imaginings and organizational principles. Al-‘Azm questions how this is possible when Western elements have deeply penetrated Eastern culture: journalism, artistic expression (theatre, the short story and novel, modern poetry), populist forms of government, an eight-hour work day, are some examples he lists (al-‘Azm, 1997, pp. 52, 56). More importantly, this drive is problematic for it supposes, as in the words of Kipling, that ‘East is East, and West is West and never the twain shall meet’. 44. Baha Tahir, Love in Exile (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1995/2001), p. 97. 45. Hasan Ibrahı¯m Hasan. (1996). Ta¯rı¯kh al-Isla¯m: a-Siya¯sı¯ wa al-Dı¯nı¯ wa al˙ ˙ Thaqa¯fı¯ wa al- ’Ijtima¯‘ı¯. Bayru¯t: Da¯r al-Jalı¯l, pp. 362– 3. 46. Tahir, Love in Exile, pp. 205–6. 47. Islam encourages the development and participation of women. There are many examples in Islamic history of great Muslim women who were active social participants and great leaders in their communities. To list a few examples: Khadijah, the prophet’s wife was a business woman; ‘Aisha was a great religious scholar and a teacher approached by male and female companions of the Prophet for knowledge; Zubaida was a prominent women in the Abbasid period for her contribution to the development of women’s Islamic fashions and for her contribution to architectural projects (Lamya’ al-

310

48. 49.

50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63.

NOTES

TO PAGES

245 –250

Faruqi, Women, Muslim Society, and Islam (USA: American Trust Publications, 1988) p. 9; S. Ahmed Ansari, Women Companions of the Holy Prophet and their Sacred Lives (New Delhi: Noida Printing Press, 2001), p. 41; Hasan Ibrahı¯m Hasan. ˙ ˙ (1996). Ta¯rı¯kh al-Isla¯m: a-Siya¯sı¯ wa al-Dı¯nı¯ wa al-Thaqa¯fı¯ wa al- ’Ijtima¯‘ı¯. Bayru¯t: Da¯r al-Jalı¯l, pp. 350 21). These women were not enjoined to be in isolation or to be segregated in Islam, and all enjoyed a great amount of freedom to live and develop, and to partake in social, cultural, economic and political activities. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, p. 92. For religion and religiosity to find their place amongst a specific stratum of society, rural and poor, is telling of the dissociation between a conception of modernity and a conception of religion and religiosity. It supposes that modernity, or being ‘modern’, do not by fact of definition (and thus identity) permit religious expression or identity to take root, as it also supposes that the sphere of religion is within limited spaces, not within the actualities of life (in mosques and villages). Both are suggested to be incompatible and in their division of spheres the inability to fuse the two is apparent. The divisiveness of spheres is divisiveness between the urban and rural, a centre of modernity (new), and a centre of traditionalism (old). This is clear here, as it is clear in AbdelHakim Kassem’s Seven Days of Man (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969). This divisiveness is clear in their identities, perspectives and tastes, it is clear in physical spaces, as it is also clear in geographies or territories, and their representation. Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, pp. 91 – 3. Ibid., pp. 95 – 9, 168. ‘Let there rise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: they are the ones to attain felicity’ (Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 3:104). Bin Badawı¯, ‘Abd al-‘Azı¯m. (2009). Al-Wajı¯z Fı¯ Fiqh al-Sunnah wa al-Kı¯ta¯b ˙ al-‘Azı¯z. Misr: Da¯r Ibn Rajab lil Nashr wa al-Tawzı¯‘, p. 617. ˙ Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, p. 95. Alaa al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable (New York: Random House Inc., 2011), pp. 91 – 3. Ibid., pp. 92 – 3. Ibid., p. 93. Ibid., pp. 93 – 4. To al-Aswany, the niqab is an extreme form of practice that is not required in Islam, that has an effect on the perception of women in society, and does not prevent the occurrence of vice in society, such as sexual deviance, harassment and assault (ibid., p. 87). Ibid., pp. 88 – 9. Ibid., pp. 88 – 9. Kassem, The Seven Days of Man, pp. 6 – 10. Abd al-Hakim Qasim, Rites of Assent: Two Novellas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984/1995).

NOTES

TO PAGES

250 –254

311

64. Ibid., p. 62. 65. Ibid., pp. 89, 103– 4, 107, 151. 66. Bakr, Salwa¯. (2008). Liqa’ Ma‘ al Ka¯tibah wa al-Ruwa¯’ iyyah al-Misriyyah ˙ Salwa¯ Bakr. Markz al-Nu¯r, 12/05/2008. http://www.alnoor.se/article.asp/id¼ 24134. October 2011. 67. Ibid. 68. Bakr, Salwa¯. (2010). Salwa¯ Bakr: Nu‘anı¯ Min Muthalath al-Fitnah al-Tai’fiyyah ˙ wa al-Hawas al-Jinsı¯ wa al-Ta‘asub al-Kurawi. Al Misrı¯ al- Yawm, 21/01/2010. ˙ ˙ ˙ http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID¼240968. 69. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt. 70. Ibid. 71. Hasan Hanafı¯. (2005). Hiwa¯r al-Mashriq wa al-Maghrib. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Ru’ya¯ li ˙ ˙ ˙ Nashr wa-Tawzı¯‘, pp. 162 2 3. 72. Muhammad Al-Ja¯birı¯. (2005). Hiwa¯r al-Mashriq wa al-Maghrib. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: ˙ ˙ Ru’yah li Nashr wa-Tawzı¯‘, p. 157; Hasan Hanafı¯. (2005). Hiwa¯r al-Mashriq ˙ ˙ ˙ wa al-Maghrib. Al-Qa¯hı¯rah: Ru’ya¯ li Nashr wa-Tawzı¯‘, p. 165. 73. Tarif Kha¯lidı¯, ‘The idea of progress in classical Islam’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40/4 (1981), p. 278. 74. Yu¯suf Al-Qarada¯wı¯. (2001b). Al-Thaqa¯fah al-‘Arabiyyah al-‘Isla¯miyyah: Bayna ˙ al-’Asa¯lah wa al-Mu¯ ‘a¯ s arah. Bayru¯t: al-Risa¯lah, p. 77. ˙ ˙ 75. Tariq Ramadan, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Yu¯suf Al-Qarada¯wı¯. (2001a). Hawla Qada¯ya¯ al-Isla¯m wa ˙ al-‘Asr. Bayru¯t: al-Risa¯lah, p. 46; ’Ayman Sa’d-‘Uddin, (2007). Al-Thaqafah al‘Isla¯miyyah wa al-Tahadiyaat al-Mu’a¯sirah. Al-Riyad: Maktabat al-Rushd, p. 14. ˙ ˙ ˙ 76. Ramadan, Radical Reform, p. 13; al-Qarada¯wı¯, 2001b, p. 80. ˙ 77. Ramadan, Radical Reform, pp. 12, 153– 4. 78. Ramadan, Radical Reform, pp. 12–13; al-Qarada¯wı¯, 2001a, p. 45; al-Qarada¯wı¯, ˙ ˙ 2001b, pp. 80 – 81; ‘Ima¯ra, Muhammad. (2005). Al-Isla¯m wa al-Tahadiyyat ˙ ˙ al-Mu‘ asirah. Misr: Nahdat Misr, p. 79. ˙ ˙ ˙ 79. Qasim, Rites of Assent, p. 75. 80. Ibid., pp. 74 – 5. 81. Ibid., p. 107. 82. Ibid., pp. 113 – 14, 119– 20. 83. Ibid., pp. 126 – 7. 84. Hilary Kilpatrick, ‘Abdel Hakim Qassem and the search for liberation’, Journal of Arabic Literature 26/1 – 2 (1995), p. 65. 85. ‘Let there rise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: they are the ones to attain felicity’ (Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 3:104). ‘And say: Work (righteousness): soon will Allah observe your work, and His Messenger, and the Believers’ (Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 9:105). Ibn Kathı¯r verifies that this responsibility is one for a group of scholars and intellectuals who are to take on this duty, as it is equally an individual responsibility to be vicegrents (Ibn Kathı¯r, Muhammad. Tafsı¯r al˙ Qur’a¯n al-‘Azı¯m (1). Lubna¯n: Da¯r al-Qalam, p. 335). ˙

312

NOTES

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254 –263

86. Qasim, Rites of Assent, p. 119. 87. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt, p. 89. 88. Alaa al-Aswany, Friendly Fire (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2009), p. xviii. 89. Ibid., p. xix. 90. Qur’an, IFTA’, 1984; 49:13. 91. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt, pp. 83– 6. 92. Cited in Rasheed el-Enany, ‘The madness of non-conformity: women versus society in the fiction of Salwa¯ Bakr’, Journal of Arabic Literature XXXVII/3 (2006b), p. 390. 93. Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press 2000/1960), pp. 22, 32. 94. Ibid., p. 41. 95. Ibid., pp. 23, 53, 56, 82. 96. Ibid., p. 32. 97. Ibid., pp. 77 – 8, 83, 90. 98. Ibid., pp. 36 – 7, 207. 99. Ibid., pp. 47, 49, 52. 100. Ibid., pp. 117, 157. 101. Ibid., p. 218. 102. Ibid., p. 79. 103. Margot Badran, ‘Between secular and Islamic feminism(s)’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1/1 (2005), p. 6. 104. Ibid., pp. 6, 12. 105. Ibid., pp. 8, 16. 106. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, ‘Muslim women’s quest for equality: between Islamic law and feminism’, Critical Inquiry 32 (2006), p. 641. 107. Ibid., p. 645. 108. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt. 109. Alaa Al-Aswany, ‘Cairo Calling’, Guardian, 23 August 2008. Available at www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/23/fiction9 (accessed 19 March 2015). 110. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt. 111. Ibid., pp. 51 – 5. 112. Ibid., p. 104; al-Aswany, ‘Cairo Calling’. 113. Al-Aswany, On the State of Egypt, pp. 104– 5, 153. 114. Al-Aswany, ‘Cairo Calling’. 115. Mauris Deeb gives an analysis of the way in which Mahfouz portrays a decaying alley and its juxtaposition to the city. Through this analysis, the alley is suggested to be depicted in likeness to the city morally, and is contrasted to it in its physical features (lacking physical charm) (Mauris Deeb, ‘Naguib Mahfouz’s: Midaq Alley: a socio-cultural analysis’, in Trevor La Gassick (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Naguib Mahfouz (Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1990), pp. 32– 5). 116. Qasim, Rites of Assent, p. 115.

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313

117. Wen-chin Ouyang, ‘The dialectic of past and present in Rihlat Ibn Fattouma by Najı¯b Mahfouz’, Edebiyat: Journal of M.E. Literatures 14/1– 2 (2003), p. 96.

Conclusions and Recommendations 1. Yahya Hakki, The Lamp of Umm Hashim and Other Stories (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005/1944/1955), p. 84.

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INDEX

’Abduh, Muhammad, 54 –7, 59– 60, 62 – 3, 110, 133 Abisaad, Malek and Rula, 58 abstraction, process of, 75 Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim, 195 Ahmed, Akbar S., 41, 71 –2, 80 al-’Abduli, Tuhami, 76 – 7 al-Afghani, Jamal, 50, 52 – 4, 57, 59 – 60, 110 al-’Aqqad, ’Abbas Mahmud, 173– 9, 266 al-’Ashmawi, Muhammad, 78, 79 al-Aswany, Alaa, 247–8, 251, 254– 5, 257, 262– 3 The Yacoubian Building, 217–20, 221– 3, 236–41, 244–7, 267 al-Azhar, 24, 26, 55, 60, 164–5, 189–90 al-Azmeh, Azi, 69, 72, 73, 77, 81 – 2 al-Banna, Hassan, 65, 155 al-Hakı¯m, Tawfiq, 102, 145– 50, 266 ˙ ‘Arini Allah’, 90 – 1 Between Thought and Art, 139– 40, 145, 147 Bird of the East, 145, 154 Egypt Between Two Eras, 140 In Lost Time, 141 The New Woman, 141 Return of the Spirit, 89 – 90, 122– 3, 133– 45

al-Husari, Sati’, 157 al-Munajid, Salah, 192 al-Nimr, ’Abd al-Min’im, 148– 9 al-qada’ wa al-qadar, concept of, 57 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 252 al-Qayyim, Ibn, 149 al-Rafi’i, ’Abd al-Rahman, 113– 4 al-Raziq, ’Ali ’Abd, 116, 266 al-Sayyid, Lutfi, 61, 62, 109, 111– 3, 116–7, 120, 121, 266 al-Tantawi, Muhammad, 78 –9 al-’Urwa al-Wuthqa (journal), 52 – 3 al-Zayyat, Latifa, 257 The Open Door, 99 –100, 258–60, 261 alienation, 75, 76, 203– 4 ambivalent identities dualism and opposition, 234– 41 rejuvenation of Islamic knowledge, 250– 7 restraint and withdrawal, 241– 7 solutions to predicament, 247– 62 Amin, Ahmad, 168– 73, 266 Amin, Galal, 242, 243 Amin, Qasim, 57 – 60, 127– 8 Arab identity, 195 and Egyptian identity, 139– 40 ‘Arab Socialism’, 186– 93 ‘Arabic heritage’, 127

330

MUSLIM IDENTITIES

Arabic language, 157 Arabism, 182– 5 see also Easternism Aristotle, 32, 33 Asad, Talal, 85 – 6 authenticity, search for, 100– 3 authoritarianism and ‘flawed religiosity’, 249, 250– 1 ’Awad, Louis, 109 Bakr, Salwa¯, 251– 2, 257– 8 The Golden Chariot, 215– 7, 226– 9, 258– 9, 261, 267 Balfour, Arthur James, 48 – 9 Baron, Beth, 115 Beck, Ulrich, 98 being and becoming, 202– 3, 204 ‘natural being’, 128– 9 Beinin, Joel, 154 Bennett, Clinton, 100– 1 Berry, Donald, 75 Bhabha, Homi K., 106 body and self, commodification of, 217– 20 British colonialism/occupation criticisms of Islam, 49 – 50, 53 – 4 postcolonial period, 24– 6 resistance, 109, 110 1919 revolution, 106, 107, 113– 6 1952 military coup, 106, 184, 187 see also Western colonialism Caliphate system, 116 capitalism, 213– 4, 220, 222 causation, 33, 38 – 9 ‘Centrist school’, 196– 7 Choueiri, Youssef M., 182 Christianity and Islam, 162, 167, 175 civil religion, concept of, 35 civil rights, 262– 4 collective memory, loss of, 70 – 3, 88 colonialism Ottoman Empire, 44– 5, 110– 2

AND MODERNITY

see also British colonialism/ occupation; Western colonialism commodifications of body and self, 217– 20 of religion, 220– 1 ‘compulsory universalism’, 69 constitutionalism, 35 consumerism and materiality, 214– 7 ‘Crisis of Civilizational Development in the Arab Homeland, The’ (1974), 101 Cromer, Lord, 49 – 50 cultural amnesia, 224 cultural borrowing, 161, 162, 163, 167–8 cultural contestation, 105– 8 ‘cultural differentialism’, 81 – 2 cultural typologies, 47 Davutoglu, Ahmet, 88, 96 decentralization/pluralization of religious authority, 38, 39, 73 – 9 Dekmejian, Hrair, 196 democracy, 262, 263 despositism, 262– 3 discord, 75 – 6, 96 and exile, 79 – 83, 100 disembedded self, 208– 11 disenchantment, 203, 207, 208 disorientation, 75 – 6 distressed sense of identity, 90 – 1 divinity vs humanism, 32, 33 dualism and opposition, 234– 41 Easternism, 144– 5, 146– 7, 179– 80, 266–7 Al-’Aqqad: polemical narratives and progress through Islam, 173– 9 Amin: East vs West, 168– 73 Hussein: Egyptian Westernism, 160– 6 and nationalism, 151– 60 education bridging Islamic and secular, 270

INDEX colonial, 60 Islamic, 149, 254–5, 256 al-Azhar, 24, 26, 55, 60, 164– 5, 189– 90 secular/Western, 152–3, 172, 205, 256– 7 socialist reform, 188–90, 191, 192 Egyptian identity, 112– 3, 116– 9, 137, 165– 6 and Arab identity, 139– 40 Egyptian Westernism, 160– 6 Egyptology and nationalism, 158– 9 Enlightenment, 47, 51, 57, 62, 83 see also secularization, in the West environmental determinism, 117– 8 epistemology of conceptual change, 31 – 6 dilemma, 76 –7 equality concept of, 34 status of women, 176– 7, 257– 62 ethics of consumerism and materiality, 214– 7 political corruption and lack of, 220 – 3 traditional, 228– 9 and virtues of ‘new’ self, 211– 4 Western and Eastern, 172– 3 see also morality exile and alienation, 203– 4 and discord, 79 – 83, 100 existentialist dilemma, 88, 96 – 8 Fabian, Jonathan, 47 –8, 50 – 1 fate, concept of, 227 fatherland, concept of, 183 feminism see women/feminism fictional narratives see literature ‘flawed religiosity’ and authoritarianism, 249, 250– 1 and despotism, 263 free will, concept of, 34, 39

331

freedom individual see individualism/ individuality religious, 262– 4 Friedman, Susan, 71 Gershoni, Israel, 153 and Jankowski, James P., 109 Ghali, Mirrit Boutros, 61 globalization, 68–9, 73–4, 83, 212–14 God-centred conceptions, 33 – 4, 35 – 6, 38– 9 Greek civilization, 161, 166, 174– 5 guardianship, concept of, 176 hadith, 44, 56 – 7, 59, 78 – 9 Haj, Samira, 56 Hanafi, Hassan, 252 Harvey, David, 37, 46, 47, 200, 208 Hasan, Hanafi, 46 Hatem, Mervat F., 115 Haykal, Muhammad, 145– 7, 150 Faith, Knowledge and Philosophy, 132 The Life of Muhammad, 146 The Revolution of Literature, 124, 126, 132 Zaynab, 89 – 90, 122–33 Haykal, Muhammad Husayn, 113, 116–8, 119– 20, 121 Heelas, Paul et al., 11 hierarchy of existence, 88 – 90 hijab debate, 78 –9 history Islamic, 25 – 6, 43 – 6, 70, 120 Pharaonic, 112– 3, 120, 121–3, 126, 127, 134 –5, 137– 8, 158– 9 see also British colonialism/ occupation; nationalism; secularization Hobbes, Thomas, 32, 34 Hoebink, Michael, 45 Hourani, Albert, 56 – 7, 60, 62, 194–5

332

MUSLIM IDENTITIES

humanism, 31 – 3 Islamic, 149– 50 Hussein, Taha, 61, 102, 160– 6, 167– 8, 266 hybridity see dualism and opposition identity theory, 87 individualism/individuality, 32, 36, 39 – 40 consequences of, 40 –1, 208– 11 inferiority, sense of, 255 intellectual capital/confidence, loss of, 70 – 3, 82 – 3, 88 Islam British colonial criticisms, 49 –50, 53 –4 crisis of legitimacy and ‘Centrist school’, 196– 7 declining ethos of, 268– 9 defence of, 145– 50 deinstitutionalization of, 87 extremism, 243– 4, 244– 7 feminism, 67, 261– 2 history/historiography, 25 – 6, 43 –6, 70, 120 knowledge rejuvenation of, 250–7 subordination of, 72– 3 and modernity, 85 discourse and contexts, 247– 50 see also secularism; secularization and ‘new’ Egyptian reality, 106– 7 orientalist perspective, 48 pluralization/decentralization of authority, 38, 39, 73 – 9 Prophet Muhammad, 44, 49 – 50, 78 –9, 145–6, 149, 167 reform and revival, 44 – 6, 51 – 61, 64 –7, 154–6 Wahhabi, 254, 257, 262, 263 see also Easternism; Qur’an Jankowski, James P., 117, 158 Gershoni, Israel and, 109

AND MODERNITY

jihad, 81 Johnson, Amy J., 115– 6 Kamil, Mustafa, 109, 110– 1 Kant, Immanuel, 32, 34 Kassem, Abdel-Hakim Al-Mahdi, 250 Good News from the Afterlife, 253– 4, 263 The Seven Days of Man, 199– 207, 209, 210– 1, 214, 249– 50 Kholoussy, Samia, 114 language, 120, 121, 157, 172 status and decline of culture, 223– 4 Lapidus, Ira, 44, 66 Laroui, Abdallah, 64 liberal nationalism, 61, 62 literature/fictional narratives death, 253– 4 dualism, 236– 41 nationalism, 120– 45 religious tolerance, 249– 50 responsive identity, 244– 7 sacred and secular order, 199– 207 search for authenticity, 100– 3 social and political involvement, 263– 4 tradition vs modernity, 90– 100 transformation of social formations, 209, 210– 1, 217– 20, 221– 2 women, 226– 33, 257– 61 see also specific writers Locke, John, 32, 34 Mahfouz, Naguib, 102 Adrift on the Nile, 96 – 7, 100 The Cairo Trilogy, 93 – 5 The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, 98 – 9, 100, 263– 4 Midaq Alley, 214– 5, 218– 9, 237, 263, 267 Mahmood, Saba, 67 Mandaville, Peter, 74 – 5, 76

INDEX marriage, 128–31, 143–4, 228–32, 259 polygamy, 55 – 6, 57, 237– 8 ’urfi, 80 materialism/materiality, 163, 169– 70 and consumerism, 214– 7 ‘material logic’ and ‘emotional logic’, 144 sacred and secular, 200– 3 of science, 53 – 4, 94 media influence of, 79 – 81, 83, 242 state-sponsored, 242 Mehrez, Samia, 223 military coup (1952), 184, 187 Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, 262 Mitchell, Timothy, 61– 2 morality and moral guidance, 35 as personal preference, 98 see also ethics ‘Mothers of the Nation’, 115 Mubarak regime, 194– 5, 242– 3 Muslim Brotherhood, 26, 65, 66, 67, 190– 1, 193– 4, 242– 3, 244 Najah, ’Aiyyah, 122 Nasser regime, 184, 186– 92 nation concept of, 54 – 5 and status of women, 58 – 9 national independence, 114– 5 nationalism, 109– 23, 199 anti-colonial, 106, 109 Arab, 74 see also Arabism; Easternism failure of, 101 geographical and historical unity, 60 –4 ideology of, 119, 122 liberal, 61, 62 and literature, 120– 45 national creation and, 89 – 90 Western influences, 62, 107– 8, 111, 113, 116, 119– 20, 128

333

‘Nationalist Party’, 109, 110– 1 ‘new effendiya’, 152– 3 ‘new preachers’, 248– 9 ‘new womanhood’, 99 –100 newspapers, 153–4, 223 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 36 ontological insecurity, 41 – 2, 88 ontological self-consciousness, 88 – 9 orientalism, 48 – 9, 58, 146– 7 ‘other’ celebration of sameness and difference, 82 media representation of Islam, 80 –1 secularization and, 46 – 51 stigma and exoticism of, 82 time and space, 47 – 8 Ottoman Empire, 44 – 5, 110– 1, 112 ‘Party of the Nation’, 109, 110, 111–3 patriarchy and status of women, 257–62 peasants connectedness to land, 125– 7 as ‘natural being’, 128– 9 and unity, 135– 6, 139 Pharaonic heritage, 112–3, 120, 121–3, 126, 127, 134–5, 137–8, 158–9 Plato, 32, 33 pluralization/decentralization of Islamic authority, 38, 39, 73 – 9 political sphere, 30, 31, 35 corruption and lack of ethics, 220–3 Islamic social and political movements, 66 – 7 time and space, 47 – 8 see also nationalism Polka, Sagi, 196– 7 polygamy, 55 – 6, 57, 237– 8 postmodern period, 35, 36, 40 – 2, 71– 2 ‘private sphere’/privatization of belief, 38, 90

334

MUSLIM IDENTITIES

progress ‘Arabic heritage’ and ‘Western civilization’, 127 ‘enlightened’ notion of, 265– 6 science and faith, 132– 3 and secularism, 86, 98 through Islam, 176– 9, 252– 3 Western influence, 181– 2, 185– 6, 193, 194– 6, 211– 2 Prophet Muhammad, 44, 49 –50, 78 – 9, 145– 6, 149, 167 public sphere, 87, 89, 189 Qur’an, 52–3, 55, 149, 168, 176–7, 228 and hadith, 44, 56 –7, 59, 78– 9 and Sunna, 43 – 4 Qutb, Sayyid, 165– 8 Ramadan, Tariq, 252, 253 reason/rationality fallibility of, 56 – 7 in Islam, 175– 6, 178– 9 power of, 47 role of, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38–9, 39–40 see also science Reid, Donald Malcolm, 158– 9 religious freedom, civil rights and, 262– 4 religious institutions, role of, 30 – 1 Renan, Ernest, 50, 53 – 4 research study, 1 – 3 cultural and literary mapping, 5 – 8 literature review, 11– 19 mapping Muslim identity in Egypt, 3 –4 sample selection, 4 – 5 theoretical framework, 8 – 11 responsive identities, 241– 2, 244– 7 restraint and withdrawal, 241– 7 revolution (1919) 107, 113– 6 sacred and scientific truth, 205– 6 and secular materiality, 200– 3

AND MODERNITY

and social order, 210 –11 and temporal time, 37 – 8 Sadat regime, 193–4 Said, Edward, 48 – 9, 81, 203, 204 science and Islam, 50, 132– 3 materiality of, 53 –4, 94 and sacred truth, 205– 6 scientific empiricism, 32 –3, 34, 53 secularism definition of, 86 –7 ‘Islamic secularism’, 148, 149 time and space, 46 – 8, 51, 200– 3 secularization de-traditionalization and de-historicization, 96 destabilizing effects, 199 and Islam, 23 – 7, 242– 3 and the ‘other’, 46 – 51 process, 85 – 6 in the West, 29 – 31 conditions of belief, 36 – 41 epistemology of conceptual change, 31 – 6 revival of religion, 41 – 2 self commodification of body and, 217–20 disembedded, 208– 11 virtues of ‘new’, 211– 4 self-definition, 105– 8 self-interest, 35 –6 self-representation, 43 – 6 Islamic reform and revival, 44 – 6, 51 – 61, 64 – 7, 154– 6 nationalist response, 60 – 4 secularization and the ‘other’, 46– 51 self-sufficiency, 39 –40 Selim, Samah, 107 September 11 events, impact of, 69, 81 sexuality, 79 – 80, 210 homosexuality, 237, 238– 41 Shalan, Jeff, 122 Sharabi, Hisham, 223, 234 Shari‘ah law, 59, 87

INDEX Sheehi, Stephan, 50 Sigel, Roberta, 42 social formations, 208–23 social reform, 55 – 6, 57 social sphere, 36 – 7, 38, 211, 235 time and space in, 46, 47 Society of Muslim Brothers, 154, 155 state separation of religion and, 162, 163– 4 suppression of Islam, 242–3 Stone, Leonard, 66 Suleiman, Yasir, 119, 120, 121 Sunni Islam, 44 Tahir, Baha Love in Exile, 244– 5, 267 tajdid movements, 44 Taylor, Charles, 36 – 7, 70 territorial nationalism see nationalism territorialism, 117– 8 time changing conception of, 37 – 8, 39 historiography and Islam, 70 time and space, 71 – 2 globalization, 212– 3 multiple/secular conceptions of, 46 –8, 51 sacred and secular order, 200– 3 traditional order authority of Islam, 60 ethics and religion, 228– 9 social transformation, 208– 9 and status of women, 140– 4, 225– 6, 257–62 vs modernity, 90 –100 tribal traditions, 225– 6 truth, scientific and sacred, 205– 6 ’ulama¯’, 24, 26, 44, 53, 55 – 6, 190, 247, 248– 9, 269 ’umma, 53, 54, 58, 64, 110, 111, 112, 146, 200 unity, 134, 135, 136– 7

335 Arab, 156– 7, 184– 5 of Egyptian people, 63 – 4 Islamic, 155, 166– 7

Vatikiotis, P.J. Muhammad, 57 Wafd, 152, 154, 184 ’Wafd’s Committee for Women’, 115 Wahhabi Islam, 254, 257, 262, 263 West, secularization in see secularization, in the West Western colonialism, 45, 51 – 2, 56, 66, 71– 2, 75 see also British colonialism/ occupation Western influences nationalism, 62, 107– 8, 111, 113, 116, 119– 20, 128 progress, 181– 2, 185– 6, 193, 194– 6, 211– 2 Westernism Egyptian, 160–6 language, 223– 4 vs Easternism, 168– 73 see also education withdrawal and restraint, 241– 7 women/feminism hijab debate, 78 – 9 and Islamic revival, 67 misrepresentation of, 81 ‘new womanhood’, 99 – 100 and pluralism, 77 – 9 reformist and conservative positions, 225 rights and equality, 176– 7, 257 –62 rights and national independence, 58 – 9, 114– 6 sexuality, 79 – 80 and traditional order, 140–4, 225– 6, 257– 62 violence against, 41 see also marriage Zaghloul, Sa’ad, 63 – 4