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Confronting the Other: Identity, Culture, Politics, and Conservative Islamism in Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Salwa Ismail
Salwa Ismail
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Middle East Politics, Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, U.K.
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Extract

The rise of Islamist groups in Egypt's polity and society is given force through the articulation of a set of competing yet inter-linked discourses that challenge the authority of the post-independence secular nationalist discourse and attempt to reconstitute the field of struggle and domination in religious terms. Concurrently, these discourses seek authoritative status over the scope of meanings related to questions of identity, history, and the place of Islam in the world. The interpretations and definitions elaborated in reference to these questions by radical Islamist forces (the jihad groups and other militant Islamist elements) are often seen to dominate the entire field of meaning. However, claims to authority over issues of government, morality, identity, and Islam's relationship to the West are also made in and through a discourse that can appropriately be labeled “conservative Islamist.” The discourse and political role of conservative Islamism are the subject of this article.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 1998 , pp. 199 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

NOTES

Author's note: This article is a much-revised version of Chapter 4 of my Ph.D. dissertation, “Discourse and Ideology in Contemporary Egypt” (McGill University, 1992). Parts of this text were presented at the conference “The Future of Nationalism and the State,” University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, July 1996. I thank Brian Aboud for his comments on earlier drafts of the article. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism.

1 al-Ahrar (the Liberal Party) emerged out of one of the three platforms of the Arab Socialist Union that were formed at the beginning of President Sadat's political-liberalization experiment. The leader of the party, Mustafa Kamal Murad, was a second-rank free officer. The party proclaims a liberal identity. However, it articulates a conservative Islamist line in reference to morality and the social sphere. In 1987, it entered an election alliance with the al-ʿAmal (Labor) Party and the Muslim Brotherhood and was allocated 20 percent of the seats won. Among its better-known figures were Shaykh Salah Abu Ismaʿil and Yusuf al-Badri. See Ebeid, Mona Makram, “Le rôle de l'opposition officielle en Égypte,” Maghreb-Machrek 119 (February–March 1988): 5–24Google Scholar.

2 This partly corresponds to Yahya Sadowski's distinction between radicals and legalists. Sadowski, Yahya, “Egypt's Islamic Movement: A New Political and Economic Force,” Middle East Insight 25 (1987):37–45Google Scholar.

3 For an analysis of the radical Islamist discourse in Egypt, see Ismail, Salwa, Radical Islamism in Egypt: Discursive Struggle, Montreal Studies on the Contemporary Arab World (Montreal: Inter-University Consortium for Arab Studies, 1994)Google Scholar; also Ansari, Hamied, “The Islamic Militants in Egyptian Politics,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984): 123–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On petro-Islam, or the Islam of riches, see Zakariyyā, Fuʾād, Al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Wahm fī al-Ḥaraka al-lslāmiyya al-Muʿāsira (Truth and Illusion in the Contemporary Islamist Movement) (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr lil-Dirāsāt, 1986)Google Scholar.

5 A thoughtful analysis of the dynamics of interaction among these various players is provided by Roussillon, Alain in “Entre al-Jihad et al-Rayyan: Phénomenologie de l'islamisme égyptien,” Maghreb-Machrek 127 (January–March 1990): 17–50Google Scholar.

6 This is an informal group of lawyers active in initiating court cases in the name of safeguarding morality and religious values.

7 Differences on matters of doctrinal interpretations have come to the fore recently and revolved around the position of Copts in Egypt. Mustafa Mashhur, the Spiritual Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, classifies Copts as dhimmiyyūn (protected subjects) who must pay the jizya (tribute, close in nature to a poll tax) and be excluded from military service. See al-Ahram Weekly, 3 04 1997Google Scholar. Other figures with links to the movement critiqued this view, asserting that Copts are citizens with full national rights; al-ʿAwwā, Muḥammad Salīm, “Bal al-Jizya fī Dhimat al-Tārīkh” (But al-Jizya Is in the Realm of History), al-Wafd, 18 04 1997Google Scholar. For other examples of responses to Mashhur, see al-Muṣawwir, 25 04 1997Google Scholar.

8 On the role of the Islamist current in the syndicates, see al-Sayyid, Mustapha K.,” Le syndicat des ingénieurs et le courant islamique,” Maghreb–Machrek 146 (October–December 1995): 27–39Google Scholar.

9 On Islamic PVOs, see Nafissa, Sarah Ben, “Le mouvement associatif égyptien et l'lslam: Elements d'une problematique,” Maghreb-Machrek 135 (01–03 1992): 19–36Google Scholar. On the social and charitable organizations affiliated with the Brotherhood and the Jihad, see Muṣṭāfā, Ḥāla, al-Niẓām al-Siyāsī wa al-Muʿāraḍa al-lslāmiyya fī Misr (The Political System and the Religious Opposition in Egypt) (Cairo: Dār al-Maḥrūsa, 1996)Google Scholar.

10 In 1988 and 1989, in clashes with the Jihad militants, the police laid siege to the Adam mosque in ʿAyn Shams.

11 In the censorship campaign waged against writers and artists, popular preachers such as ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Kafi used Friday prayer sermons to issue fatāwī (rulings) condemning various scholarly and artistic works.

12 Sivan, Emmanuel, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 137.

14 On the development of this concept of ideology, see Thompson, John B., Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar, particularly chap. 3.

15 Here I am drawing on Talal Asad's notion of discursive tradition. Asad defines an Islamic discursive tradition as “simply a tradition of Muslim discourses that addresses itself to conceptions of the past and future, with reference to a particular present” (Asad, Talal, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam [Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1986], 14)Google Scholar.

16 For a critique of the revivalist explanation, see Davis, Eric, “The Concept of Revival and the Study of Islam and Politics,” in The Islamic Impulse, ed. Stowasser, Barbara F. (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 37–58Google Scholar.

17 Social violence has been used in attempts to enforce the ḥijāb (veil) and to prohibit the sale of alcohol. This comes under the rubric of al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa al-nahy ʿan al-munkar (enjoining good and forbidding evil).

18 Despite the wide-scale arrests that followed the assassination of President Sadat by Jihad members, the group was reconstituted several times under different names, such as the Vanguard of Conquest. Al-Jamāʿat al-lslāmiyya is made up of numerous cells active on university campuses. In the last two years, out of seventeen trials of Islamist groups, fifteen involved cells of al-Jamāʿat. The nature of the structure of this group and the links between the various cells are not clearly established. See al-Fatāḥ, Nabīl ʿAbd and Rashwān, Ḍiyāʾ, eds., Taqrīr al-Ḥāla al-Dīniyya fī Miṣr (Report on the Religious Condition in Egypt) (Cairo: Markaz al-Ahrām lil-Buḥūth al-Istrātījiyya, 1997)Google Scholar.

19 On state violence, see Abdalla, Ahmed, “Egypt's Islamists and the State: From Complicity to Confrontation,” Middle East Report 183 (07–08 1993): 28–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also, The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Difāʿa ʿan Ḥuqūq al-Insān (In Defense of Human Rights) (Cairo: al-Munaẓẓama al Miṣriyya li-Huqūq al-Insān, 1997)Google Scholar. For an overview of the clashes between the state and the militants over the last two years, see ʿAbd al-Fatāḥ and Rashwān, eds., Taqrīr.

20 For an analysis of the mufti's report, see Ansari, “Islamic Militants,” and Ismail, Radical Islamism in Egypt.

21 I dealt with the positioning of the state in relation to the cultural politics of the Islamists in my paper “The State, Religious Orthodoxy and Public Morality in Egypt,” presented to the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 09 1996Google Scholar. On al-Azhar's expanding role in censorship, see, The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Ḥurriyat al-Ra-ʿy wa al-ʿAqīda: Qiyūd wa Ishkāliyat, Riqābat al-Azhar ʿ;alā al-Muṣannafāt al-Fanniyya (Freedom of Thought and Belief: Constraints and Problems; al-Azhar's Censorship of Artistic Productions) (Cairo: al-Munaẓẓama al-Miṣriyya li-Ḥuqūq al-Insān, 1994)Google Scholar.

22 Davis, Eric, “Ideology, Social Class and Islamic Radicalism,” in From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam, ed. Arjomand, Said Amir (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 133–47Google Scholar.

23 Shepard, William, “Islam and Ideology: Towards a Typology,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19(1987): 307–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Dekmejian, Hrair, “Islamic Revival, Catalysts, Categories and Consequences,” in The Politics of Islamic Revivalism, ed. Hunter, Shireen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 3–22Google Scholar.

25 Works by state-affiliated and independent shaykhs as well as selected reports on economic and financial affairs from the official press make up the corpus of texts used to study the discourses on morals, rituals, and usury.

26 The texts cover the period 1978 to 1989 and are representative of conservative Islamist writings. Jindi's early writings fall within the field of literary criticism. His later works, beginning in the 1960s, deal with issues surrounding Arab and Islamic civilization, Islam's relation to the West, and contemporary Arab intellectual writings. For a critical examination of Jindi's writings as representative of contemporary Islamist thought, see Arkūn, Muhammad, Tāʿrīkhiyyat al-Fikr al-Arabī al-Islāmī (The Historicity of Arab Islamic Thought) (Beirut: Markaz al-Inmāʿ al-Qawmī, 1987)Google Scholar.

27 The method used for analyzing the writings under study benefits from certain concepts developed in the field of discourse analysis, particularly those of A. J. Greimas. In particular, Greimas, A. J., On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory, trans. Perron, Paul J. and Collins, Frank H. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987)Google Scholar; idem, The Social Sciences: A Semiotic View, trans. Perron, Paul and Collins, Frank H. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Some of the technical terminology common to this methodology, and to the presentation of its findings, has been omitted or modified in this text. However, the meanings, concepts, and themes found in the conservative Islamist discourse, as well as the elements identified as being part of its organization and structure, are distilled through detailed textual analysis.

28 al-Jindī, Anwar, Shubuhāt al-Taghrīb (The Suspect Claims of Westernization) (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1978), 15Google Scholar.

29 “Al-Islām lā Yatalawwan abdān … Yā Duktūr” (Islam Does not Change Colors … Oh Doctor), al-Nūr, 30 03 1988Google Scholar.

30 Al-Jindī, , Shubuhāt, 17Google Scholar. It is interesting to compare these formulations with the following lament of a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood organization: “Marxism and secularism are being propagated openly and publicly. The contemporary ‘Crusaders’ plan and act to infiltrate everywhere without fear; the media, in addition to clubs and theaters, spread obscenities and misconduct.” al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, Islamic Awakening Between Rejection and Extremism (Washington, D.C.: The American Trust Publication, n.d.)Google Scholar.

31 “Ḥamalāt Waqiḥa Min Warāʾ al-Ḥudūd” (Rude Campaigns from Across the Border), al-Nūr, 14 12 1988Google Scholar.

32 Al-Fikr al-Dīnī al-Mustanīr” (Enlightened Islamic Thought), al-Mukhtār al-Islāmī, 73 (02 1989): 72–77Google Scholar.

33 “Ḥamalāt Waqiḥa,” al-Nūr.

34 “Al-Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī Yuwājih Duʿāt al-ʿIlmāniyya” (Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī Confronts the Preachers of Secularism), al-Ahrām, 12 01 1986Google Scholar.

35 “Mustaqbal al-Tabshīr fī Miṣr wa al-Amal fī Makka” (The Future of Proselytization is in Egypt and the Hope is in Mecca), al-Nūr, 22 06 1988Google Scholar.

36 al-Jindī, Shubuhāt.

37 “Mustaqbal,” al-Nūr.

38 al-Jindī, Anwar, “Marāhīl al-Mukhaṭṭaṭ al-Marsūm li-Iqtiḥām al-Islām Min al-Khārij” (The Stages of the Planned Plot to Invade Islam from the Outside), al-Nūr, 3 11 1988Google Scholar.

39 “Mustaqbal,” al-Nūr.

40 “ʿUlamāʾ al-Islām Yuḥaddidūn Mafhūm wa Maẓāhir wa ʿIlāj al-Taṭarruf” (The Ulama of Islam Define the Concept, Symptoms, and Remedy of Extremism), al-Nūr, 2 03 1988Google Scholar.

41 Al-Jindī, “Marāḥil.”

42 “Ḥamalāt,” al-Nūr.

43 “Mustaqbal,” al-Nūr.

44 Al-Jindī, , Shubuhāt, 16–17Google Scholar.

45 “Al-Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī Yuwājih Duʿāt al-ʿIlmāniyya” (Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī Confronts the Preachers of Secularism), al-Ahrām, 12 12 1986Google Scholar.

46 Al-Jindī, , Shubuhāt, 120Google Scholar.

47 The term for “instinct” used in the original Arabic text is “gharīza.” It is argued that “religiosity is an instinct” (al-tadayyun gharīza). “Al-Islām lā Yatalawwan,” al-Nūr, 30 03 1988Google Scholar.

48 Al-Jindī, , Shubuhāt, 107Google Scholar.

49 al-Jindī, Anwar, Suqūṭ al-ʿIlmāniyya (The Collapse of Secularism) (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānī, 1980), 175Google Scholar.

50 Zakariyyā, Fuʾād, “al-Muslim al-Muʿāṣir wa al-Baḥth ʿan al-Yaqīn” (The Contemporary Muslim and the Search for Certainty), in al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Wahm fī al-Ḥaraka al-Islāmiyya al-Muʿāsira (The Truth and the Illusion in the Contemporary Islamic Movement) (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr lil-Dirāsāt, 1986), 5–20Google Scholar.

51 al-Jābirī, Muhammad ʿābid, Fī al-Khiṭāb al-ʿArabī al-Muʿāsir (On Contemporary Arab Discourse) (Beirut: al-Ṫalīʿah, 1982)Google Scholar.

52 Quṭb, Sayyid, Maʿrakat al-Islām wa al-Raʿ';smāliyya (The Battle of Islam and Capitalism) (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 1987), 101–2Google Scholar.

53 Ibid.

54 “Ḥamalāt,” al-Nūr.

55 Ibid.

56 Al-Jindī, “Marāḥil.”

57 al-Jindī, Anwar, “al-Tayyār al-Islāmī Ḥaqīqa Thābita” (The Islamic Current is a Rooted Fact) al-Iʿtiṣām, 1 12 1988Google Scholar.

58 “Al-Islām lā Yatalawwan,” al-Nūr.

59 Vladimir Propp's analysis of Russian folk tales posited the presence of underlying narrative structures organized in terms of a basic trajectory: the quest by the subject or hero for the realization of an object of value. Greimas's model of narrative as the organizing principle of discourse is inspired by the Proppian schema.

60 Al-Jindī, “Marāḥil.”

61 Al-Jindī, , Suqūt, 136.Google Scholar

62 “Ḥamalāt,” al-Nūr.

63 Ibid.

64 Al-Jindī, “al-Tayyār al-Islām ī.“

65 “Al-Islām lā Yatalawwan,” al-Nūr.

66 Discursive organization refers to the communication process, or how the message is communicated to a locutee. In this process, the sender of the message makes use of and manipulates discursive tools to ensure the good reception of the message.

67 “Ḥamalāt,” al-Nūr.

68 “Mustaqbal,” al-Nūr.

69 Al-Jindī, “al-Tayyār al-Islāmi.“

70 Ibid.

71 In debates with the secularists, thinkers associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Yusufal-Qaradawi and Muhammad al-Ghazali, have used this strategy of argumentation. See Gallagher, Nancy E., “Islam vs. Secularism in Cairo: An Account of the Dar al-Hikma Debate,“ Middle Eastern Studies 25, 2 (04 1989): 208–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72 Al-Jind ī, “al-Tayyār al-Islāmī.”

73 “A1-Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī,“ al-Ahrām.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 A1-Jindī, “Marāḥil.“

78 “Wā Islāmāh!” (O Islam!), al-Ahrār, 24 08 1987.Google Scholar

79 Al-Jindī, “al-Tayyār al-lslāmī.“

80 Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939 (London: Oxford University Press,1976), 144.Google Scholar

81 Ibid., 138–44.

82 This position was expressed by nationalists such as Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, who voiced concern that Egypt pay its debts in order to regain national independence. See Hourani, , Arabic Thought, 180.Google Scholar

83 A1-Jindī Shubuhāt.

84 Shaykh Kishk is an al-Azhar graduate who studied uṣūl al-dīn (the fundamentals of religion). He was an imām (leader of the prayer) at a government mosqueand a preacher in ʿAyn al-Ḥayāt mosque. He was arrested in 1966. His recorded sermons gained wide distribution in the early 1970s. He also contributed a column in the government-sponsored al-Liwāʾ al-lslāmī. See Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh: Muslim Extremism in Egypt (London: al-Saqi Books, 1985), 174–76.Google Scholar See also Jansen, Johannes J. G., The Neglected Duty (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), chap. 4.Google Scholar

85 Shaykh Shaʿrawi is recognized as the star of television preachers. He is an al-Azhar graduate of no scholarly distinction. He worked as a religious teacher in the state educational system. In 1976, he was appointed minister of religious endowments by Sadat. Prior to this, he had spent some time teaching in Saudi Arabia. Shaykh Shaʿrawi is a central figure by virtue of the multiple positions he occupies. He is a popular preacher whose Friday sermons are televised. He has worked as a consultant to the Islamic Societies for the Placement of Funds. In addition, he has been engaged in various attempts to broker peace between the government and the militant Islamists. For a critical reading of Shacrawi's discourse and his rise to prominence, see Fuʾād Zakariyyā, al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Wahm fī al-Ḥaraka al-Islāmiyya al-Muʿāṣira. See also Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, “Muḥammad Mutawalli al-Shaʿrāwī—A Portrait of a Contemporary ʿĀlim in Egypt,” in Islam, Nationalism and Radicalism in Egypt and the Sudan, ed. Warburg, Gabriel R. and Kupferschmidt, Uri M. (New York: Praeger, 1983), 281–97Google Scholar, and Jansen, , The Neglected Duty, chap. 5Google Scholar.

86 ʿAbd al-Kafi belongs to the younger generation of preachers who have gained a large following. His sermons are said to be behind the decision of many middle-class women to don the veil. He is also known for afatwā stipulating that Muslims should not be the first to greet non-Muslims.

87 Zakariyyā, “al-Muslim al-Muʿāṣir.”

88 Court proceedings initiated by the head of a Sufi order sought to ban the film from Egyptian cinemas. An earlier version of the screenplay had been deemed “blasphemous” in an al-Azhar ruling. In addition, conservative Islamist figures such as Yusuf al-Badri have been involved in initiating court cases against movie billboards—charging theater owners with transgression against the moral code.

89 Intervention carried out in the name of the public good.

90 In March 1993, Abu Zayd's candidacy for promotion to professor in the Arabic Language department of Cairo University's Faculty of Arts was denied. This decision was based on an apostasy charge made against his writings in the report of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Sabur Shahin, a member of the promotion committee. Shaykh Shahin used the pulpit of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs mosque, where he is the Friday preacher, to denounce Abu Zayd and his works. The “offensive” works include a semiotic study of the Qurʾanic text and a critique of contemporary Islamist discourses. The court case seeking the annulment of his marriage was brought by the Islamist lawyer Muhammad Samida Abu Samad.

91 One should keep in mind the role of the rector of al-Azhar in influencing the direction of the institution. Under the late Shaykh Jad al-Haq, al-Azhar was more aligned with the conservatives and came into conflict with the mufti, Shaykh Sayyid Tantawi, who was considered a liberal figure. Following the death of Shaykh Jad al-Haq, Shaykh Tantawi succeeded to the position of rector of al-Azhar. Conservatives within al-Azhar have organized in the form of the Ulema of al-Azhar Front, issuing statements denouncing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in September 1994. The text of the statement appeared in al-Wafd, 7 08 1994Google Scholar. On al-Azhar's position on the ICPD, see Brown, Donna Lee, “Abortion, Islam and the 1994 Cairo Population Conference,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997): 161–84Google Scholar. The front has been active in declaring liberal and secular intellectuals as infidels. The latest target of this charge is the Egyptian thinker Hasan Hanafi; Engel, Richard, “Apostate Ruling Endangers Professor,” Middle East Times, 11 01 1997Google Scholar.

92 See the text of the ruling; Maḥkamat Istiʾnāf al-Qāhira, al-Dāʾira 14, Istʾnāf 278, 1995Google Scholar (Cairo Court of Appeal, District 14, Appeal Case 278, 1995).

93 Islamic authority figures from the “moderate” camp were party to takfir. For example, at the trial of the assassin of Faraj Fuda, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali, a prominent Islamic figure identified with the Muslim Brotherhood, testified that it was permissible for a Muslim to apply ḥadd al-ridda (the ordinance of apostasy) to an apostate.

94 Ahmad, Mustafa Ali, “Les inte'rêts bancaires sont illicites,” al-Ahrām al-Iqtiṣādī, 2 06 1986Google Scholar, in Islam el dèrègulation financière, ed. and trans. Rycx, Jean-François (Cairo: CEDEJ, 1988), 60–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 Ibid., 61.

96 On the activities of the Islamic banks and companies, see Ayubi, Nazih, Political Islam (London: Routledge, 1991), 178–95Google Scholar.

97 On the links between the religious establishment and the ISPF, see Shuhayb, ʿAbd al-Qādir, al-Ikhtirāq: Qiṣṣat Sharikāt Tawẓif al-Amwāl (The Infiltration: The Story of the Islamic Societies for the Placement of Funds) (Cairo: Dār Sīnā, 1989)Google Scholar.

98 “Les banques islamiques et les Sociétés islamiques de placement sont-elles une réaction de l'lslam des riches ou une réaction de l'lslam politique?” al-Ahrām al-Iqtiṣādī, 12 05 1986Google Scholar, in Islam et dérégulation financiére, 92–93Google Scholar.

99 Tawfik, Fathi Mohammed, “C'est leur succès qui attire des attaques contre les investissements islamiques,” Middle East Times, 23–2911 1986Google Scholar, in Islam et dérégulation financière, 227Google Scholar.

100 Frow, John, “Discourse and Power,” Economy and Society 14 (05 1985): 204Google Scholar.

101 For more on these, see al-Dīn, Muhammad Nūr, “Taṭawwur Raʾs al-Māl al-Maṣrafī fī Miṣr” (The Development of Finance Capital in Egypt), Qadāyā Fikriyya (08–10 1986), 136–64Google Scholar; Zalouk, Malak, Power, Class and Foreign Capital in Egypt (London: Zed Books, 1989)Google Scholar.

102 This idea is drawn from Frow, “Discourse and Power.”

103 “Taqrīr Muftī al-Jumhūriyya ʿan Kitāb al-Farīḍa al-Ghāʾiba” (The Mufti's Report on the Book ‘The Missing Precept’), appendix in Junayna, Niʿmat, Tanẓīm al-Jihād: Hal Huwa al-Ḥāl al-Badīlfi Miṣr (The Jihad Organization: Is it the Islamic Alternative in Egypt?) (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥurriyya, 1988)Google Scholar.

104 “Baʿd Musalsal al-Ṣidām bayn al-Shurṭa wa al-Jamāʿāt al-Islāmiyya” (After the Episode of Confrontation between the Police and the Islamic Jamāʿat), al-Nūr, 18 01 1989Google Scholar; “Kalafū Anfusahum bitaṭbīq Ḥudūd Allāh wa Jaladū al-nās fī al-Shawāriʿ” (They Abrogated the Right of Applying the Religious Ordinances and They Flogged the People in the Streets), al-Aḥrār, 26 12 1988Google Scholar.

105 According to Alain Roussillon, Egypt has witnessed a rearrangement of the political scene, with new lines of division between the secularists and the Islamists replacing the left/right division. Roussillon, Alain, “al-Jamāʿāt al-Islāmiyya fī al-Siyāsa al-Miṣriyya” (The Islamist Groups in Egyptian Politics), al-Mawqif al-ʿArabī 94 ((February–March 1988): 74–102Google Scholar.

106 Fūda, Faraj, al-Ḥaqīqa al-Ghāʾība (The Missing Truth) (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr lil-Dirāsāt wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 1988)Google Scholar.

107 ʿAbd al-Salām Faraj, “al-Farīḍa al-Ghāʾiba” (The Missing Precept), appendix in Tanẓim al-Jihād.

108 Fūda, , al-Ḥaqīqa, 22Google Scholar.

109 There have been a number of recent works devoted to a re-reading of the early Islamic period. Among these writings are al-Qimmanī, Sayyid Maḥmūd, Hurūb Dawlat al-Rasūl (The Wars of the Prophet's State) (Cairo: Dār Sīnā, 1993)Google Scholar; al-Karīm, Khalil ʿAbd, MujtamaʿYathrib (The Society of Yathrib) (Cairo: Dār Sīnā, 1997);Google Scholar and idem, Shadw al-Rabāba bi-ʾAḥwāl Mujtamacʿal-Ṣahāba (The Fiddle's Chants on the Ways of the Society of the Companions) (Cairo: Dār Sīnā, 1997)Google Scholar. Khalil's works deny any puritanical pretension to the society of Madina and to the Companions. Profane concerns governed much of the actions of the members of the model society. Again, an underlying message is that the sexual code and practices of the period are far removed from their idealized representation by the Islamists.

110 Fūda, , al-Ḥaqīqa, 86Google Scholar.

111 Ibid., 100.

112 Ibid., 130.

113 A more detailed analysis of the discourse can be found in Salwa Ismail, “Discourse and Ideology in Contemporary Egypt” (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 1992)Google Scholar. The findings are based on an examination of thirty articles covering the party's weekly seminars and the leaders' speeches given on different occasions, such as religious celebrations, memorial anniversaries, and party conventions. The survey looked at issues covered in a three-month sample for each year between 1980 and 1984.

114 The Labor Party traces ideological and membership roots to Young Egypt, a pre-revolutionary political organization.

115 A position taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and the “independent” ulema who condemn violence as a weapon of opposition while maintaining a critical view of the government for its delay in applying sharīʿa in a comprehensive manner.

116 The party paper's position on the International Conference on Population and Development was articulated in moral terms. It termed the conference “mwʾtamar al-ibāḥiyya wa al-shudhūdh” (the conference of promiscuity and deviance). See al-Shaʿb, 07 and 08 1994.Google Scholar

117 Roussillon, “al-Jamāʿ āt al-Islāmiyya.”

118 Ibid., 86.

119 Ibid.

120 Differences between the Labor Party and the Muslim Brotherhood developed in the early 1990s. They were largely tactical rather than ideological in nature. For instance, the Muslim Brothers' acquisition of a weekly publication in 1993 reflected an internal competition for leverage over common political and doctrinal positions. In the Labor Party's Sixth National Conference, executive-committee positions were filled predominantly by party members, while the Muslim Brothers' presence was marginal. The continued alliance between the party and the Brothers was, however, affirmed by party leader Ibrahim Shukri in his speech at the conference; al-Ahāli, 12 05 1993.Google Scholar

121 “Ḥamalāt Waqiḥa,” al-Nūr.