We are the True Opposition: Popular Religion, Islamism, and

Counter-Hegemonic Discourses in Modern Egypt

Chris Simpson

Professor Gran
The Modern Middle East (#231)
Temple University
April 26, 2007

1
 Writing critically about the perceived cultural limitations of Arab and Islamic

political thought, Bernard Lewis observed that there is no word in Arabic, Persian, or

Turkish for citizen to describe someone who participates in self-rule, and that

throughout history, the overwhelmingly most common type of regime in the Islamic

world has been autocracy. The use of the word freedom was an imported novelty

which simply means not being a slave, and while in Western political thought the

opposite of tyranny is freedom, for the traditional Islamic system (whatever that is) the

opposite of tyranny is justice. The crux of the problem, for Lewis, is a civilizational

one: Islam allows for little or no separation between church and state, which is for him

the key to liberal democracy, specifically the British model. Though Lewis acknowledges

an Islamic principle of just rebellion against a ruler, when we descend from the level of

principle to the realm of what has actually happened, the story is of course checkered. In

this sort of environment, it is difficult to establish liberal governmental institutions.1

How can Muslims articulate dissent if they lack the word for freedom, and if

their culture does not allow for a separation of church and state? Lewis explication

leaves out an awful lot of the story of how Europeans got to that indispensable modern

secular understanding one which features in its particulars many similarities to currents

at large today in Muslim political thought and culture just as his description of Muslim

political thought ignores the complexity of discourse and dissent in the Arab world.

It would be worthwhile to remember that the separation of church and state in

Europe was itself not a done deal, and in many ways could even be said to have been a

1
Bernard Lewis, Islam and Liberal Democracy, remarks delivered 13 October, 1995 at the International
Forum for Democratic Studies, Washington, D.C.

2
close call. In spite of the apparent separation of power between Rome and individual

states, it was a core tenet of early modern states to control and direct religion. In fact, it

was exactly those individuals who desired theocratic government who became catalysts

for religious and political freedom in Europe, as Ellis Goldberg argues. Ironically, in

Egypt, like-minded groups would be seen by Lewis as the problem rather than as part of

the solution.

Furthermore, the extent to which church and state are united in the Arab and

Islamic world is most likely a drastic overstatement. As Nikki Keddie observes,

The supposed near-identity of religion and politics in Islam is more a pious myth
than reality for most of Islamic history. After the first four pious caliphs, there arose
essentially political caliphal dynasties that worked through political appointees and broke
religious rules when they wished. The body of ulama helped to create schools of law
partly to create a sphere independent of such essentially temporal rulers. 2

Finally, the problem in the Arab Islamic world might not necessarily be the lack

of church-state separation. The rise of the secular state in Europe developed according to

particular exigencies, and there was nothing in early modern Europe to compare to

colonial domination in the Arab world. Thus the vocabulary that the Arab Islamic world

would develop would not be, nor could it be, the same vocabulary that Europeans

evolved to address political realities which is why Lewis is at a loss to find direct

correspondences between British liberalism and Islam. But though the discussion takes

place in a different vocabulary, it is just as vital as the conversation which took place in

16th and 17th century Europe.

In spite of a history of autocratic rule, Arab Islamic nations such as Egypt have

developed a rich array of modalities to negotiate in the political sphere. But because of

that history of autocratic and colonial rule, the primary goal, rather than freedom, is how
2
Nikki R. Keddie, The Revolt of Islam, 1700 to 1993: Comparative Considerations and Relations to
Imperialism, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 36, No. 3 (July, 1994), p. 463

3
to resist power and to articulate dissent against authority.

In this paper I would like to examine some recent scholarship concerning the

nature of dissent and resistance to authority in modern Egypt, with especial attention to

the way these issues are articulated in popular culture. Popular culture is itself a form

of resistance, at least if it is formulated as a counter to a perceived official culture.

In Egypt, as anywhere, resistance to authority can be passive or active.

Passive forms of resistance include modes of religious practice which are at odds

with official, doctrinaire practice such as the ways in which the poor and common

people have retained rituals and traditions which in many places appear to be pagan or

pre-Islamic, dating from pharaonic times. It could be achieved by practicing a different

form of the official, sanctioned religion. In these cases, popular culture becomes a zone of

negotiation between those who want to change or eliminate it and those who desire to

retain it. Popular resistance to authority can also be found in such simple things as the

sorts of jokes and proverbs which are repeated on the street, as well as in modes of dress.

Active forms of resistance are characterized by a more aggressive and even

violent stance. Philosophically, active resistance seeks to completely discredit the

underpinnings of authority, and possibly to attack it, as with the Muslim Brotherhood and

other radical Islamic groups. It is important to note that these groups taken as a whole are

also part of the complex negotiations of popular culture, because they articulate critiques

of power in a form which is easily understood and widely agreed-upon.

Popular culture as resistance to official culture

It is not hard to find descriptions of remnants of pre-Islamic rituals in Egypt.

4
Boat processions at Luxor appear to be whats left of the fertility festival of Opet, the

pharaoh and his royal barges replaced with a ragged procession in honor of Sheikh

Yusef Abu al-Haggag, who is buried within the precincts of the Temple at Luxor.3

Elsewhere, the frequent appearance of boats in moulid processions and as offerings in

saints tombs is observed and compared to boats placed in ancient Egyptian burial sites.4

In the village of Nezlet Batran, in Gizeh, south of Cairo a sacred grove is described,

where trees are hung with prayer rags, or studded with virgin nails pounded into their

bark as offerings. The grove is said to be planted by companions of the Prophet but

more likely sacred to sukkan es-Sunt or The Inhabitants of the Acacias tree spirits.5

Another author describes a custom in modern (then) Upper Egypt wherein young boys

heads were shaven except for small tufts of hair which were consecrated to a sheikh, and

the remainder of the hair was packed into a clay ball and left as an offering at the saints

tomb. Archaeologists have found in ancient Egyptian tombs identical clay balls also

containing human hair.6

To be fair, most of these sources date from the early part of the 20th century and

reflect the concerns of Arthur Evans and James George Fraser, who were determined to

find the footprint of pagan Europe under the Christian veneer. These practices themselves

may no longer be extant, but their survival at least until as late as World War 2 is

remarkable, and indicates perhaps that pre-Islamic customs and beliefs of the peoples

conquered by Islam were far stronger than Islams aspiration to eradicate pagan
3
James Hornell, Boat Processions in Egypt, Man, Vol. 38 (Sept. 1938), and Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, The
Festivals of Opet and Abul Haggag: Survival of an Ancient Tradition?, Temenos, Vol. 26 (1990).
4
M.A. Canney, Boats and Ships in Processions, Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 2 (June 1938).
5
G.D. Hornblower, A Sacred Grove in Egypt, Man, Vol. 30 (Feb. 1930). Many acacia species contain
some psychoactive alkaloids similar to DMT the leaves and roots can be brewed into a powerful
hallucination-causing drink.
6
Winifrid S. Blackman, An Ancient Egyptian Custom Illustrated by a Modern Survival, Man, Vol. 25
(May, 1925).

5
traditions.7 The Roman church made a similar negotiation with pagan rituals as it

expanded into northern Europe in the early Middle Ages. The leaders of a region may

convert to a new religion, but the rituals and traditions of the common people are not

easily eradicated frequently to the annoyance of the upper classes. Folk idioms and

traditions are crucial to a sense of personal and local identity, and play a formative role in

the creation of nationalist identities as well.

But there are striking instances where negotiation of ancient practices, and their

essential curtailment, can be observed in the present moment.

In the village of al-Bakatush in the Nile Delta, a tradition which has spanned

centuries underwent radical alteration in the 1980s. The tradition involved the creation of

clay arusa (bride) dolls essentially fertility figurines which were attached to the

mastabas or raised platforms made of sun-baked clay that formed the threshold of village

households. During Ramadan, the village boys would attempt the ritual stealing of

these dolls, while the fathers of the household would attempt to scare them off. A stolen

doll would have to be replaced, and the new doll would have a feather added to it. A rapid

change in village architecture occurred in the 1980s, however: Migrant workers returned

from stints in Iraq and the Gulf with money to rebuild their houses, but they did not use

the old vernacular adobe bricks to do so (which are now scarce because the clay used to

make them is needed for top soil and less available lately due to the creation of the

Aswan Dam). The new houses have been built out of factory-made red brick. And this

has changed the threshold of the house no mastaba, and consequently, no arusa. What

is most interesting is the response of many of the villagers to this change in ancient

7
Boaz Shoshan, High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam, Studia Islamica, No. 73 (1991)
p. 83.

6
tradition: the Ramadan mastaba ritual was now seen as un-Islamic superstition, and

spoken of derogatorily by the young men there, a view which is being increasingly

accepted by the entire community.8 This new attitude is important.

The moulid and popular culture

Another ancient practice in negotiation is that of the moulid, the traditional

festivals of the birthdays of Sufi saints (and of the Prophet and his family) that occur in

towns and cities throughout Egypt throughout the year. These are holy men who have had

generous contact with the divine possibly even driven mad by it and blessed with

special power called baraka which can be transferred to individuals who visit the saints

tombs. Moulids involve both worship at mosques, the chanting of prayers, and visits to

the saints tomb, as well as more carefree diversions like rides, sweets and snacks, and

noisy nighttime processions. Temporary street vendors and shops are set up near

mosques. Barbers trim hair and perform circumcisions. Fakirs and street magicians

perform amazing feats.

Solemn aspects coexist with aspects which are frankly canival-esque. Some of the

processions have included a bridal couple of two men, a man dressed as a woman

giving birth to a puppy, mockeries of government officials,9 and pop songs belted out by

singing dwarves.10 An older description of a moulid procession, observed in 1908,

featured a young man wearing only a crown, his skin painted and a thin cord tied to his

penis which was controlled by an invisible puppeteer who pulled the string and made it

8
Dwight F. Reynolds, Feathered Brides and Bridled Fertility: Architecture, Ritual, and Change in a
Northern Egyptian Village, Muqarnas, Vol. 11, (1994).
9
Samuli Schielke, Habitus of the Authentic, Order of the Rational: Contesting Saints Festivals in
Contemporary Egypt, Critique: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall, 2003), p. 156
10
Jennifer Petersen, On the Margins: Facing Religious and Official Disapproval, Moulids Barely Survive,
Cairo Magazine (March 25, 2005)

7
dance to the music.11 A moulid is, as social scientist Samuli Schielke has observed, a

profoundly ambivalent spectacle,12 both sacred and profane, possibly connected to pre-

Islamic worship, and apparently chaotic (moulid as a word can also be a synonym for

chaos). But, Schielke points out, this festive chaos is not total; it does follow a certain

pattern of order, and that order is provided by the phenomenon of the saint, the reason

for the celebration.13 Saints anchor the party; the party requires them. True chaos,

according to an Egyptian proverb, is a mawlid without a master.14

But according to Schielke, the moulids break the implicit boundaries, as

perceived in reformist and modernist discourses, that define pious conduct, public order,

the relationship of piety to entertainment, and the meaning and function of religious

festivity.15 They present an aspect of popular culture which two groups of critics find

intolerable, for different reasons which Schielke argues are in fact aligned.

Sophisticated urban Egyptians, who believe that Egypt needs to modernize, see in

the moulids a throwback, an example of the superstitious ignorance and folkloric

backwardness that retard the nations progress. Nicholas Biegman has described the

virtual ignorance and lack of interest of the Egyptian elite with regard to saints and

moulids.16

Islamist reformers dislike them for a number of reasons: they take issue with the

fundamentals of Sufi practice, which is ecstatic rather than legalistic; they find the

worship of saints to be both bida (an innovation not found in the Quran or the Hadith)

11
Nicholas Biegman, Egypt: Moulids, Saints and Sufis, The Hague (1990), p. 20.
12
Schielke, Habitus p. 159.
13
Samuli Schielke, Of Snacks and Saints: When Discourses of Rationality and Order enter the Egyptian
Mawlid, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, Vol 135, (July-Sept. 2006), p. 120.
14
Ibid.
15
Schielke, Habitus, p. 156.
16
Biegman, p. 21.

8
and shirk (an instance of idolatry); and lastly they find the vulgarity of the festivals, with

music and dance, the commingling of the sexes, and the proximity of profane activity to

religious places and pious practices to be distasteful. The moulids are inauthentic

Muslim practice.

But for Schielke, both critiques are joined as part of the Egyptian discourse of

modernity which goes hand in hand with Islamist reformist discourses the concepts of

progress and authenticity, despite tensions, are closely interconnected.17 The single thing

in Schielkes estimation that offends both Islamists and modernists is what he terms the

habitus of the event the physical disposition of the people who celebrate at moulids,

their comportment, which is characterized as undignified and not in keeping with

proper Islamic or modern behavior. He quotes a schoolteacher interviewed as he passes

the moulid on his way to a bus stop:

It is absolutely un-Islamic not proper for the religious, rational, civilized human
Islam is a religion of dignity, work, and worship, not a religion of laziness, neglect and
beggingOne must work, that is what our religion teaches. 18

And he quotes members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Nile Delta, who tell

him they find the spirit of joking and ironical attitude of moulids to be objectionable.

In his article On Snacks and Saints, Schielke details the sorts of reforms which

have been undertaken in response to the Islamist/modernist critique. They include

reforms from within, as Sufis try to reform their own practice to a more dignified manner,

and from without, as local communities seek to control the public space in which moulids

occur by restricting where vendors and entertainment booths can set up well away from

the mosque.19 Elsewhere moulid processions are being diverted, vendors harassed and

17
Ibid. p. 160.
18
Schielke, Habitus p. 160.
19
Schielke, Snacks pp. 125-129.

9
night curfews imposed by public officials, while Islamists have occasionally sabotaged

moulid activities.20

By ordering the chaos of the gathering and separating the sacred from the profane,

the essential ambivalence of the moulid is being compromised, and the meaning of the

event is being changed. Schielke compares the moulid to the carnival of medieval

Europe, and frequently references Mikhail Bakhtins seminal work of literary criticism

Rabelais and his World. But Bakhtin was careful to point out that the utopian time of

the carnival was also directly linked to Church feasts, and that

something must be added from the spiritual and ideological dimension. They [feasts]
must be sanctioned not by the world of practical conditions but by the highest aims of
human existence, that is, by the world of ideals. Without this sanction there can be no
festivity.21

It is precisely the intersection of the cosmic dimension and the material plane that

the moulids celebrate: there is no Fat Tuesday without and Ash Wednesday. To clarify

them is also to miss the point completely, and to destroy their meaning.

In a newspaper interview, Naguib Mahfouz laments that the moulid of the

Prophet Mohamed has passed just like any other day. I remember a time when such

occasions were much anticipated He reminisces nostalgically about the sights and

sounds of the moulids of his youth, ending with the lament that once the celebrations

were over, the tents would be dismantled and the land would appear desolate. Today, the

land contains high-rise blocks.22

Now, whether moulids are barely surviving or may be disappearing is hard to

gauge. Even challenged, the tradition seems tremendously vital. The moulid in Tanta

20
Petersen
21
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. Helen Iswolsky, Bloomington (1984) p. 9. Bakhtin also
notes that, like the moulids, carnivals were also genetically linked to ancient pagan rituals.
22
Naguib Mahfouz, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, http://weekly.ahram.eg/2004/689/op6.htm and
http://weekly.ahram.eg/1998/385/op7.htm.

10
attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors (no town in its right mind would kill a golden

goose like that) and it is estimated that, as most Egyptian villages have a saints shrine,

there are thousands of small moulids across Egypt and that there is hardly a day without

a Muslim moulid somewhere in Egypt.23 And as a tradition, the moulids have often been

alternately supported by and attacked by the powers that be, and there is an inevitable ebb

and flow in any popular religious practice. Moulids go in and out of favor, says

Nicholas Biegman, noting that the moulid of Ahmad al-Riai was one of the biggest

according to reports from 1880, and non-existent according to reports from 1940.24

What is interesting is that while there are occasional complaints about the

changes, they seem to be more or less accepted as necessary by most people. Quite telling

is a quote from a teenager in Al Khalifa, echoing the remarks of the young people in the

village of al-Bakatush: Religious awareness is better now; everybody knows that this

stuff is haram and bida.

Passive resistance in popular culture

The historian Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot has observed two striking instances of

passive resistance to authority in Egyptian popular culture.

In one article25, she studies attitudes towards power expressed in the jokes of the

city-dwellers and in rural proverbs and at first finds disturbing evidence of acquiescence

and an attitude of helplessness, a philosophy of submission in order to survive that

reflects a history of foreign rulers, colonial oppression, autocratic and oligarchic regimes.

She asks is authoritarianism reinforced or contradicted by popular sayings do they

reinforce a tradition of passivity or do they encourage activism? She sees both.

23
Beigman, p. 13.
24
Biegman, p. 19
25
Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Popular Attitudes Towards Authority in Egypt, Journal of Arab Affairs,
Vol. 7, No. 2 (Oct 1988)

11
 In the popular expression dance for the monkey in his kingdom she observes

both acquiescence and disrespect rulers are monkeys, inhuman and unfit to rule over

humans, but they must be respected because they have power. For much of Egyptian

history, the state apparatus has been largely aloof from society, and the power of the state,

wielded by aliens, could only be placated and ingratiated, evinced in the remarkable

proverb if a government official passes you by, roll in his dust.26 In a world like this,

intermediaries are necessary patrons and clients, guilds, orders, local bosses. Saints

were often these, taking the side of the weak against the strong.

The Egypt she depicts is a very conservative culture she observes that in the 18th

century, Egyptians rose up in revolt every 10-15 years, but these revolts were not aimed

at overthrow of the government but to limit abuse of authority by that government.

Overall, Egyptians were likely to keep their resentment at government policies to

themselves, or express it in jokes such as one in which people are frustrated by stamps

with Nassers face on them because they dont stick to the envelope because people are

spitting on the wrong side.27

The change in this historical trend comes in the Sadat era, when The rise of the

fundamentalist movement supplied an alternative safety valve to the nukta [joke].28

Sadat supported fundamentalist groups as a means to counter popular support for Nasser,

but it emerged that in religious vocabulary people had found a way to channel discontent

that was less likely to get them arrested than direct political speech. Islamic groups,

encouraging active resistance, emerged as a new patron in political intermediation, and

in effect, took on the role of the new ulema, especially since the older variety was

26
al-Sayyid Marsot, p. 6.
27
Ibid, p. 10.
28
Ibid, p. 14.

12
increasingly out of touch with the people and seen as a supporter of administration

policies. Fundamentalism, she says,

while being a genuine expression of interest in religion, is also a means of revulsion

against governmental policies; it makes a political statement against abuse of power,
injustice, the growing gap between the rich and the poor. 29

In another article30 the same author observes a similar crossover between passive

and active resistance, expressed simply in peoples choice of clothing. Sadats

encouragement of religion and of Islamic reformers like the Muslim Brotherhood,

combined with suppression of other types of political speech, more or less pushed

political debate in Egypt into a religious vocabulary. It was possible to discuss

westernization and the threat it posed to national culture, or Sadats dependence on the

United States, or oppression, corruption, exploitation, injustice and immorality in

religious terms.

Where other channels for communication were closed off to the public, Muslim
newspapers proliferated, attracting people who were not necessarily drawn to them by
religious content so much as by the fact that the paper was an open channel for
communication.31

At this time, many people (especially young people) began dressing in Islamic

garb to differentiate themselves from the rest of society. It was, al-Sayyid Marsot points

out, no such thing, but the clothing was characterized by modesty, and carried political

freight. Islamic garb was cheaper than following ever-changing western fashions and

thus an implicit critique of consumerism, and in its modesty symbolized the

righteousness of the wearer, simultaneously praising the ethics of Islam while rejecting

the moral decadence of the West. Clothing in this sense was both a passive resistance to

29
Ibid, p. 15.
30
Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Religion or Opposition? Urban Protest Movements in Egypt,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Nov. 1984)
31
Ibid, p. 549.

13
state authority and an active critique of state policy.

It was equally a statement eschewing western ideology, though not western

technology, and stressing that legitimacy lay within a religious framework and not
within any ism imported from outside.32

Islamism and popular culture

What seems to have happened in the last quarter century (and a process no doubt

accelerated by events in the last 6 years) is that the vocabulary of radical Islamic reform

has become a mode of popular discourse in which very deep political sentiments can be

articulated. It has also promoted a shift of sorts from passive resistance to authority to a

more active stance. As Islamism has become a form of popular religion, it challenges

other, older forms of popular religion. In fact, it always has: the critique of saints,

moulids, and festive traditions is as essential to the development of Islamism as a counter-

hegemonic discourse as its long and torturous historical development within Egyptian

society.

The wellspring of Islamist ideology is found in writings of Ibn Tamiyya (1263-

1328), such as his The Necessity of the Straight Path against the People of Hell in

which he condemns celebrations of the Prophets birthday (moulid), the visitation of

saints graves, tomb-worship and prayers for intercession, criticizing the common

peoplewho do not know the essence of Islam33 In this he strongly resembles 16th

century Protestant critics of European popular religion. His goal, like Martin Luthers,

was the eradication of innovations (bida) and a return to the primitive simplicity of the

founding days of the faith. He was also apparently a humorless sort who once kicked over

32
Ibid, p. 550.
33
Shoshan, p. 91.

14
a backgammon board when he saw two men playing the game sitting outside of a

Blacksmiths shop. 34

Ibn Tamayya had a profound influence on Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), the

Saudi theologian who has in turn had a profound influence on the Muslim Brotherhood

and other modern Islamist groups. As far as articulations of resistance to authority, al-

Wahhab had little to offer. He advocated that rulers should be obeyed despite any

injustice or harm they do (he was indebted to local Saudi rulers for the support of his

cause) and thus tyranny was a minor problem.35 In this he resembles Martin Luthers

Doctrine of the Two Swords, frequently cited as a theological argument for the

separation of church and state.

What al-Wahhab brought to the table was an absolutely uncompromising vision of

brutal simplicity. His primary concerns were shirk (belief in more than one god,

manifested in actions as diverse as idol-worship, supplicating saints, worshipping saints,

use of amulets or talismans, practice of magic, astrology, divinations, giving shelter to

innovators, respecting rabbis or monks), tawhid (pure monotheism), and kufr (unbelief

though shirk, especially if practiced by Muslims, was far worse). He divided the world

ruthlessly into believers and unbelievers and had no interest in intellectual

accommodation or reconciliation.36 His enemies were Muslims who held the wrong

34
Ibid, p. 92.
35
Ahmad Dallal, The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750-1850, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, Vol. 113, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1993), p. 349. In this article, Dallal makes an
argument against a unified puritanical or reform Islamic movement which is inspired by Wahhabism
there is no distinct and homogeneous fundamentalist tradition. He compares four 18th-19th century Islamic
reformist thinkers: Arabian Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Indian Shah Wali Allah, west African
Uthman Ibn Fudi, and north African Muhammad Ali al-Sanusi, finding as many differences as
similarities. Some of these thinkers make very explicit arguments for rebellion against authority. He resists
the idea of reducing a complex set of variables into one discrete package. A similar argument is made by
Nikki R. Keddie in The Revolt of Islam, 1700 to 1993: Comparative Considerations and Relations to
Imperialism.
36
Dallal, p. 349.

15
beliefs about God, not tyrants who oppress Muslims.37 His doctrine, a grim and narrow

theory of unbelief, defined itself negatively, and to join with him was to join the true

Muslims, who repudiate unbelievers especially hidden unbelievers.38

Al-Wahhabs writings were squarely aimed at the popular religious culture of his

day he especially attacked Sufism and Shiism, as well as the practice of magic. Magic

laid claim to Gods knowledge, and those who practiced it were agents of devil. But the

practice of magic and soothsaying was widespread in Egypt and Syria, which put

Wahhabis in opposition to almost the entire Islamic world as well as to other infidels.39

The worst offenders were hypocrites and apostates he argues that it is a particular

serious offense to leave the forces of the true believers and go over to the unbelieving

enemy.40 Of course, to accuse a person of hypocrisy is to kill him, which left open a

potential critique of authority if you accused a Muslim ruler of shirk, it was only natural

to rebel. There is a brutal simplicity to all of this, an appealing reductiveness that cannot

comfortably be circumnavigated.

Islamism as a counter-hegemonic discourse

The idea of apostasy could easily be grafted on to a political program if the

apostates in question are Muslims who are essentially doing the bidding of kafir such as

British colonialists. Modern Islamic fundamentalism begins with the career of Hasan al-

Banna (1906-1949), a Sufi from the Nile Delta who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in

1928 with a program of Islamic revival as an instrument of anti-colonialism and national

rebirth. Al-Banna observed that Egypt had lost its way under colonial occupation by

37
Ibid, p. 350.
38
Ibid, p. 351.
39
Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Wahhabis, Unbelievers and the Problems of Exclusivism, Bulletin (British Society
for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 16, No. 2 (1989), p. 125.
40
Ibid, p. 126.

16
British, and that this was a result of having strayed from the straight path of Islam. The

Bretheren promoted a message of Islam as a self-sufficient, all-encompassing way of

life, an alternative to Marxism and Western capitalism41

The organization tapped into deep feelings of resentment in Egyptian culture and

quickly became very popular, claiming membership of almost one million by World War

Two. Their slogan was memorable: God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the

Quran our constitution, Jihad our way and dying for Gods cause our supreme

objective.

Al-Banna was killed in 1949, but the counter-hegemonic discourse of the

movement was sharpened by Sayyid Qutb42 (1906-1966), an Upper Egyptian whose

Signposts on the Road made him the ideological voice of the Muslim Brotherhood in the

1950s and 1960s. For Qutb, there are two societies: Muslim and Jahiliyya (ignorant).

Muslim societies must be based on Sharia law, and all legislation must have a divine

basis. If it doesnt, its Jahiliyya, and Jahiliyya government must be destroyed as

Muhammed destroyed the corrupt society of Mecca. Jihad in this case is a duty, and the

only option is armed struggle.43

Ellis Goldberg has remarked that if al-Banna was the product of an ancient

regime and the colonial era, Qutb focused far more sharply on the nationalist state in the

postcolonial era.44

41
Jeffrey A. Nedoroscik, Extremist Groups in Egypt, Terrorism and Violence (Summer, 2002) p. 3.
42
It is interesting that, in Sufi beliefs, qutb as a noun is used to describe the nature of a saint as pole or
axis, certain saints even earning the title of axis of the age the master of the moment, the center on
which the world pivots. Ibn Arabi was described as both the center and the circumference of the circle of
the universe. Valerie J. Hoffman, Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern Egypt, Columbia (1995), p. 93-4.
43
Ibid, p. 4.
44
Ellis Goldberg, Smashing Idols and the State: The Protestant Ethic and Egyptian Sunni Radicalism,
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), p. 15.

17
 In his article, Goldberg compares the modern Islamist movement to the actions of

leaders of the Protestant Reformation like Jean Calvin. Both are movements essentially at

war with society. And the Puritans made significant contributions in the early-modern

period towards the development of modern secular politics: Protestantism destroyed the

absolutist monarchs claim to power because it destroyed the mystical base for civil

authority.45

He is guarded against making "facile distinctions between Christianity and Islam

on the basis of a supposed categorical separation between church and state in the former,

observing that radical Protestantism worked not because it furthered the separation of

church and state, but precisely because it did not.46

The Calvinists could not endure the authority of a godless state, and nor could

Qutb. Goldberg quotes Calvin: If they [the government] command any thing against him

[God], it ought not to have the least attention, and compares that statement to one made

by Ibn Umar: to hear and obey [the authorities] is binding so long as one is not

commanded to disobey (God),47 and finds in both a similarity to the ideas of Sayyid

Qutb. Qutb saw the lawless arbitrary power of the state as being like pharaoh, and in that

comparison was able to forge an image with deep pop-culture resonance, because in

Islam, the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh is a key moment monotheism

confronts idolatry. The idolatry Qutb railed against was the secular pan-Arab nationalism

espoused by Nasser, which demanded loyalties which only God could command. Qutbs

focus on pharaoh gave him a vocabulary, moreover, with which to reach a much wider

audience for a politics of religious criticism than any earlier thinkers did.48 It is no
45
Goldberg, p. 6.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid, p. 7.
48
Ibid, 17.

18
coincidence that Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambuli shot Anwar Sadat in 1981 saying I have

killed Pharaoh (a quote reminiscent of John Wilkes Boothe crying out sic simper

tyrannus after shooting Lincoln, itself a quote from Brutus upon killing Caesar).49

Abd al-salam Faraj was the chief theorist for the assassins of Sadat, the Jamaat

al-Jihad. His pamphlet, The Neglected Duty, directly confronts the issue of action. Islam

requires Muslims to do more than the 5 Pillars ask, and the believer must take a stand, a

jihad: The idols of the world can only be made to disappear through the power of the

sword,50 and Jihad thus becomes essentially a 6th Pillar of the faith.

But this was a nonreceived concept, and in order for it to be valid, Faraj needed

to negate prior interpretations and deny privileged position of ulema to interpret the

sacred texts, and this is crucial: Sunni militants openly defy the control of a small elite

over these texts.51 Goldberg finds in this discourse a similar strain to the political

thought of Jean Calvin, who denied the right of Roman Catholic clerics to interpret the

Bible. He defines Calvinism as a refusal to accept received interpretations of the texts of

revelation and a refusal to accept the authority of the old interpreters as well,52 noting

that with this de-legitimization of traditional authority a significant decentralization of

authority occurs53

If the state enforces the law of unbelief, and acts in consort with the unbelievers

as Sadat clearly did when he signed a treaty with Israel or when he accepted copious
49
Though I am focused here on specific threads in the development of an ideological discourse, there is
much more to the story of the development of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic movements which
succeeded it, Jamaat al-Jihad and al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, and others, as well as the political tension
between Upper and Lower Egypt: Mamoun Fandy, Egypts Islamic Group: Regional Revenge? Middle
East Journal, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Autumn, 1994); Peter Gran, Upper Egypt in Modern History: A Southern
Question? (on-line resource provided by instructor); Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypts Islamic Militants,
MERIP Reports (February 1982)
50
Ibid, 22.
51
Ibid, p. 26.
52
Goldberg, p. 7.
53
Goldberg, p. 10.

19
amounts of American aid money then the state is a legitimate target of jihad and open

rebellion. Goldberg adds, that Islamist rulers resort to violence against individual rulers

does not necessarily differentiate them from the early Protestants.54

For Goldberg, the comparison is a crucial one because Islamism seems to be

fulfilling a similar role in negotiating the rough passage to a secular state, though this is

counter-intuitive. Both Protestantism and Islamism are discourses on the nature of

authority in society.55 Of course, in no way was the Consistory of Geneva a liberal

democracy of the sort that Bernard Lewis privileges. For Calvin, the idea of the

separation of church and state was as absurd as it was for Sayyid Qutb, and Goldberg

makes clear that the same sort of counter-hegemonic discourse that they proposed could

easily be flipped to a hegemonic discourse if they found themselves with political power.

But it was also the uncompromising position of the Puritans towards arbitrary power that

mid-wifed the British constitutional monarchy though it was a long and bloody struggle

to achieve it (something Lewis elides).

Nikki Keddie directly engages the church/state problem in Islam with an

intriguing argument.56 Islam is and has always been a catalyst for the formulation of

reform, rebellion and anti-colonial ideology. She takes issue with the western myth that

for Islam, there is no functional separation between church and state, though she

acknowledges that in modern times religious institutions, movements and beliefs have

had more political importance in the Muslim world than in the West.57

At the same time, she tries to avoid sweeping definitions of Islam which are

exalted as determinants in culture, trying to avoid essentialism while acknowledging

54
Ibid, 33.
55
Ibid, p. 3.
56
See note 2, above.
57
Ibid, p. 464

20
that Muslims themselves often see Islam as a totalizing world view however little that

unity has been realized.58 In other words, someone like Bernard Lewis may be accepting

a generalized Muslim view of Islam at face value, without taking into account the

peculiarities of time, space, and economic and political contingency, sort of like

accepting the attitude of American triumphalism as a truth about America rather than a

truth about how America sees itself.

Another myth she wishes to counter is the idea that the denial of legitimate

resistance and revolt by normative Islam left people without any but sectarian means to

justify revolt and she asks did main-line Christianity provide any more justification for

revolt than did Islam? That is, did Rome give Luther permission to rebel? Mainline

religious leaders described revolt as worse than an evil ruler59 but it was always

possible to declare ones ruler an infidel and wage jihad against him as in the

Reformation, when the pope was routinely depicted as the anti-Christ.

In her essay, Keddie compares the phenomenon of militant Islamic revivalism as

it occurred independently in Saudi Arabia with Wahhabism, movements in West Africa,

and the Padri movement in Sumatra, finding as many differences as similarities, and

denying the primacy of Wahhabism as an influence.

One common factor is that each evolved out of peripheral regions, during

moments where the imperial centers were collapsing, and in eras when trade and

exposure to the West was provoking economic, cultural and political changes.60 The issue

of convulsive change is crucial and explains more about the problem of church and state

than Bernard Lewis interpretation:

58
Ibid, p. 465
59
Ibid, p. 466
60
Ibid, p. 471

21
 Although it is often said that religion and politics in Islam are always intertwined,
Islamic principles are often only loosely enforced during periods of normal government.
These principles are, however, far more enforced in Islamic militant movements, such as
those discussed above, which wish to remake society in an Islamic image. The militance
and injunctions regarding morality and gender relations that are believed to characterize
early Islam provide a model for these movements. 61

The purpose of all laws regarding moral behavior is to create clarity and order in a time

when such is lacking such as during the Jahiliyya that Mohammed reformed, or the

topsy-turvy world that modernity creates.

The key question then becomes: how does reformism become militancy? In

answer to these questions, she suggests the defeat and repression of Islamists by

governments with Western arms, the creation of the state of Israel, perceived ancient

animosities between Islam and Christianity dating to Crusades, and the failure of

Western-style political reforms.62

She concludes that we must accept the probability that many young educated

Muslims do not so much reject the West because they are Muslims but, rather, become

Islamists largely because they are hostile to Western dominance and we can speak of

radical anti-imperialism, including cultural imperialism, leading to Islamism as much as

or more than the other way around.63 In other words, Islamism is an anti-hegemonic

discourse aimed now at globalism.

Islamism as popular culture

What is necessary to investigate is exactly how it came to pass that this religious

ideology became such a persuasive and popular paradigm for the critique of global power

and resistance. Antonio Gramscis ideas are a useful tool for understanding the ideologies

of oppression and of liberation, and many authors argue that, from a Gramscian
61
bid, p. 483
62
Ibid, p. 484
63
Ibid, p. 486

22
interpretation, Islamism has created a genuine counter-hegemonic discourse that is

political, religious, and popular.64

Where conveniently mystifying phrases like Islamofascism are deployed to

describe radical and militant Islamism to suggest a totalitarian ideology of control, those

movements which fall into that broad category have a very different aspect at ground

level, where they can be seen as articulations of counter-hegemonic ideologies (and even,

frequently, as intermediaries).

Rupe Simms examines the Muslim Brotherhood as a case-study in the

development of counter-hegemonic narratives, arguably the largest and most powerful

Islamic movement of the 20th century.65 He contends that they have informed Gramscian

theory by employing Islam as an effective tool of anti-ruling class cultural analysis.66

Gramsci emphasized the subjective component of human will as an aspect of

revolution that Marx had ignored he had been perplexed by the political reality of Italy,

where the church and Italian nationalism worked together to smother revolutionary

action, a force which Marx had underestimated and which seemed to be a throw-weight

that acted as a drag against the forces of revolution that Marx had described as inevitable.

For Gramsci, the demise of capitalism would not necessarily occur due to the workings of

inexorable laws of historical materialism, arguing that explaining everything in these

terms was primitive infantilism,67 and that the masses had to be politicized before they

64
Two writers are particularly illuminating in this aspect. On the particularities of Egypts Muslim
Brotherhood: Rupe Simms, Islam is Our Politics: A Gramscian Analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood
(1928-1953), Social Compass, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2002). In a more general way examining Islamism across
the region: Thomas Bukto, Revelation or Revolution: A Gramscian Approach to the Rise of Political
Islam, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (May, 2004)
65
Simms, p. 563.
66
Ibid, p. 580. At the same time, this is a provocative position, because to Gramsci, religion was
oppressive, not emancipatory.
67
Butko, p. 46.

23
could unite, revolt, and establish a workers democracy.68 For Gramsci, everything is

political, even philosophy.69

Likewise, Islamic reformers saw the need for the greater group of Muslims to be

Islamized before they could unite, revolt, and establish an Islamic democracy. In

other words, they have to build an ideology for comprehending the world that is

accessible and which will become universal and effect a change in popular philosophy. To

do that, it was necessary to construct a genuine counter-hegemonic discourse, and that,

says Rupe Simms, is exactly what they did. According to him, the Muslim Bretheren

were cultural subversives and organic intellectuals in the Gramscian mold, who were

engaged in a project to readjust the narrative of Egyptian common sense.70

Hegemony was Gramscis term for the ideological control that the dominant

group maintains through the control of popular beliefs and worldview, or through culture.

The dominant class can avoid or reduce violence or coercion by constructing a cultural

understanding of the world in which their subordination is seen as natural, universal, and

eternal. The dominant class uses state and civil society (schools, religion) to promote

their ideology.

The early ideology of Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood was formed

in opposition to British colonial hegemony in Egypt

The Brotherhood, as the nations most religiously zealous, philosophically radical

political activists, committed themselves to abolishing British domination and to creating
a new society based on the Koran and shariah. To them, British imperialism had ruined
Egypt on a grand scale: the British teachings of the Koran, the British way of life violated
forces destroyed the authority of the state, and the British capitalists subverted the
viability of the economy. 71

68
Simms, p. 564.
69
Butko, p. 46.
70
Simms, p. 574.
71
Ibid, p. 570.

24
 By popularizing its counter-hegemonic ideology, the Muslim brotherhood

developed a following among both common folk and the educated classes, giving them a

vocabulary of resistance that was capable of challenging British colonial domination of

Egypt.72

Simms breaks down the Muslim Brotherhoods influential discourse into five

basic components.73

First, Islam is presented as not only self sufficient, but all-sufficient, a

comprehensive system that deals with all aspects of life, according to al-Banna74 or in

the words of historian Ishak Musa al-Husaini Islam is doctrine, worship, fatherland,

citizenship, religion, state, spirituality, action, Koran, and a sword.75

Second, Islam is the basis for a state, or as the Muslim Brotherhood slogan went,

The Quran is our constitution. For the Brethren, the constitution of Egypt had to be

rejected as both a man-made idol and the product of British imperialism, and they

therefore denounced the entire government that it legitimized. They denounced

parliament as well because it obstructed their goal of a united Islamic state, and because

parliament ignored the interests of the poor and instead cooperated with alien capitalist

interests. Thus the critique engages both political and economic realities in a religious

vocabulary.

Third, Islam is the basis for a necessary critique of the West and westernism

(and, by extension, globalism as well). For Sayyid Qutb, the British were morally

repellent and politically oppressive, and Islam offered the only real alternative.

72
Ibid, p. 571.
73
Ibid, pp. 573-9.
74
Ibid, quoted on p. 578.
75
Ibid, quoted on p. 573

25
 Fourth, Islam is the basis for education. For Gramsci, education involved securing

the high-ground of a culture and was essential for the propagation of hegemonic

discourse. But the current Egyptian education system had been modeled on the Western

model, which divided society along religious and secular lines. The Brethren advocated

madrasas as the keystone of their cultural revolution. They also attacked al-Azhar

university for treasonous failure because it had capitulated before the political power

and materialistic influence of the colonial forces.76

Finally, there was the call to action: Islam is the basis for jihad (holy war).

Violence was a necessary component of liberation, and divinely inspired war was

preferable to degeneracy and servitude, and death was martyrdom and also indicated a

fervent commitment to Egyptian nationalism.77 In sum, says Simm,

the movements organic intellectuals, when considered from a Gramscian perspective,

presented Islam as a total way of life and the basis for a cultural revolution, a revolution
which would eventually and comprehensively Islamatize the sociopolitical affairs of first
Egypt and then the entire Muslim world.78

Consequently, Abdullah Muhammad Ibrahim was justified in declaring we, the

Muslim Brotherhood, are the authentic opposition.79

If they are, it seems likely that it is so not because of a wave of fanatical

religiosity or because Egyptians are incapable of separating religion from politics, but

because, for historical reasons, religious vocabulary has been able to articulate the most

penetrating and accessible critique of globalism. By creating a coherent narrative and an

integrated conception of the world, by taking advantage of the moment in time when the

hegemonic discourse is seen to be bankrupt and ineffective, by presenting a self-sufficient

76
Ibid, p. 577.
77
Ibid, p. 578.
78
Ibid, p. 579.
79
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypts Islamic Militants, MERIP Reports (February 1982), p. 12.

26
alternative to the current power structure, by unifying the group in opposition to the

hegemonic order, and by proposing a long-term strategy to bring into existence a new

type of society, the Muslim Brotherhood has accomplished what Gramsci insisted a

counter-hegemonic discourse must do.80

It is the essence of a cultures political science to address the specific problems of

its own time and space. Bernard Lewis advocates an adjustment of political thought

which does little to address the actual situation on the ground in modern Egypt, where

people find themselves and others like them to be, generally, on the receiving end of an

aggressive attitude by a group of countries toward much weaker ones [which] is referred

to as a clash of civilizations.81

And if Islamism takes control of Egypt (which seems unlikely) it will then

become the official practice and will have to contend with popular forms not in

accordance with their doctrines in the same way that Protestants in Early Modern

Europe had to contend with the remnants of pagan practice, witchcraft and other folk

rituals (even the production of Miracle Plays was criticized). The spasm of witch trials in

16th century Europe had more to do with socio-economic change and the Protestant

Reformation than it did with any medieval outlook with which witches are associated

in the popular imagination. The medieval Catholic church tolerated a great deal of

doctrinal deviation from European Christians in return for hegemony, while the

persecution of witches was part of Europes painful transition to modernity.

The modification of the moulids though it destroys their Bakhtin-ian

ambivalence is acquiesced to by a public which agrees with the Islamic arguments. But

80
Bukto, pp. 41-62.
81
Galal Amin, The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World, trans. David Wilmsen, Cairo (2006)

27
more crucially the ambivalence of the festivals is in some ways truly Islamic, if you

postulate that Islam is a religion of the world. That is, the Prophet himself was not just a

spiritual leader, but a businessman, a politician (sheikh), a judge, and a war-chief. Unlike

Christianity, Islam does not revile the material world, and the vision of heavenly bliss is

distinctly physical. Its possible to imagine an understanding of the moulids as sacred

precisely because they make no separation between the sacred and the profane, as Islam

makes no separation between church and state. By that reasoning, the clarification of the

moulids by dividing sacred space from profane space may be an indicator of a

changing attitude in Egyptian popular culture, one leaning towards a separation of secular

space from sacred space.

In Egypt, Islamism is one of a number of counter-hegemonic discourses at large,

and while its popularity means that other forms (like moulids) have to negotiate with it,

the presence of a plurality of popular practices also suggests that Islamism will have to

negotiate with them.

Moreover, the simplistic model that Bernard Lewis promotes simply does not

hold water Egyptian culture is criss-crossed with a variety of political discourses, and it

is simply facile to say either that there is no conceivable separation of church and state in

the Islamic world, or that including religion in the conversation limits the discussion of

politics.

In the West, and in a paradigm promoted by the current political administration,

we tend to see in Islamism a kind of aberration, that a great religion has been hijacked.

If we can only persuade them to reinterpret their religion in a different way,

everything will be fine. The idea that Islamism itself might have more to do with the

28
economics of globalization than it does with religion is an idea that has gained no

purchase with decision-makers who have decided that this is a civilizational conflict.

Or they fret that folks there confuse religion and government and that is

preventing true democratic liberalism from taking root, ignoring that sizeable portions of

the American electorate would love to see religion and government fully aligned.

One of the problems may be that the focus on Islamism as a fanatical aberration is

itself a limited approach. The emphasis on implementing a harsh version of sharia law is

indeed disturbing and alien, but the fact may well be that political discussion and

dissent in Arab Islamic nations is impossible without consideration of sharia, or

without consideration of religious exigencies. We see it as alien because we assume that

the separation of church and state allows, and is essential to, the development of the

vocabulary that underpins our political thinking. But perhaps it is as impossible for the

Arab world to consider politics without the Quranic vocabulary as it would be for us to

consider politics without that secular separation. And perhaps it is the Wests

categorization of economics, politics, and society into three separate boxes that is itself

an inadequate model.

29