Political Islam
Midterm Paper 3- What role did the Nasser and Sadat Presidencies play in shaping political Islam in Egypt?
Political Islam is playing a major rule now in the current political scene; so it is important to analyze how it rose in Egypt and how it has been shaped over the years. The political Islam is mainly a set of ideologies that holds the belief that Islam can be a political ideology as much as it is a religion. Although Islamic thinkers have always emphasized the enforcement of the Islamic law (Sharia) as the main reference of the state’s political and social ideologies, they never agreed on the exact means and degree of enforcing it. This difference of course dates back to the early times of Islam when different interpretations lead to a schism in the guided Caliphate called the Great Fitna which results we have to bear with until today. As the Islamic Thinker Mohamed Abdu suggested the Holy text is “alive” in the sense that its interpretations differ greatly depending on the background of the interpreter, these different interpretations lead to the forging of different schools of thought and Madhabs. And as political Islam is directly derived from Islamic teachings and has been affected by the differences in interpretations, Political Islam has never been united under one banner. The Ex Egyptians presidents Gamal Abd El Nasser and Anwar El Sadat had their different ways in dealing with the Islamists and of course helped in shaping political Islam in Egypt. Before Gamal Abd El Nasser, Egypt’s second president, Islamist groups were largely concerned with seeking independence from whichever external colonial, imperial, or even domestic (as the case with the monarchy) forces present within Egypt. When Nasser came into power, they had just emerged from a stalemate with the palace, which had revoked one of its groups’, the Muslim Brethren (MB), license for aiding an entrapped regiment by British forces during the 48-49 war and that was the launch of the
Political Islam is playing a major rule now in the current political scene; so it is important to analyze how it rose in Egypt and how it has been shaped over the years. The political Islam is mainly a set of ideologies that holds the belief that Islam can be a political ideology as much as it is a religion. Although Islamic thinkers have always emphasized the enforcement of the Islamic law (Sharia) as the main reference of the state’s political and social ideologies, they never agreed on the exact means and degree of enforcing it. This difference of course dates back to the early times of Islam when different interpretations lead to a schism in the guided Caliphate called the Great Fitna which results we have to bear with until today. As the Islamic Thinker Mohamed Abdu suggested the Holy text is “alive” in the sense that its interpretations differ greatly depending on the background of the interpreter, these different interpretations lead to the forging of different schools of thought and Madhabs. And as political Islam is directly derived from Islamic teachings and has been affected by the differences in interpretations, Political Islam has never been united under one banner. The Ex Egyptians presidents Gamal Abd El Nasser and Anwar El Sadat had their different ways in dealing with the Islamists and of course helped in shaping political Islam in Egypt. Before Gamal Abd El Nasser, Egypt’s second president, Islamist groups were largely concerned with seeking independence from whichever external colonial, imperial, or even domestic (as the case with the monarchy) forces present within Egypt. When Nasser came into power, they had just emerged from a stalemate with the palace, which had revoked one of its groups’, the Muslim Brethren (MB), license for aiding an entrapped regiment by British forces during the 48-49 war and that was the launch of the
Cited: * Gamea ', Mahmoud. w Areft el Ikhwan|. Print. * Gallaher, Paul. POLITICAL EXCLUSION AND VIOLENCE:THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT IN EGYPT. Thesis. NAVALPOSTGRADUATESCHOOL, 2004. Print.