The Religious Establishment and the Arab Spring: The Case of Egypt

Abstract

As we have seen, the terms most commonly used for the anti-regime and Islamist movements were ‘salafists’ or ‘radical Islamists’. The religious leaders tended to argue that such radicalism mainly resulted from a misunderstanding of Islam or radicalism and foreign involvement. Through these two explanations, the Egyptian religious leaders tried to find scapegoats, attributing the reasons for the political chaos to others – mainly Islamists themselves and foreign governments or foreign pressure – not to their own government or the inadequacies of the political and economic system. The religious officials also warned of the negative effects of the political chaos on domestic stability and the religious values of the people. The solution proposed and supported by the officials was a combination of repressive and co-optive policies. From this examination of official religious discourse, three points can be extracted. First, there were interconnections among several discursive levels – explanation of the reasons for the political chaos, the choice of the terms deployed, the warning of negative consequences, and the suggestion of solutions. The fact that the leaders found the reasons for the political crisis in an ignorance of Islam led them to define the chaos as salafists. In addition, since it was thought that the activities and ideologies had the effect of destroying domestic stability and sectarian conflicts, the religious officials were obliged to find solutions in the dissemination of ‘correct’ information. Second, it is demonstrated from all the four categories of official religious discourse examined in this research that the language of the religious elite was, to a considerable extent, similar. The officials sometimes used very similar or identical expressions. Such expressions as “extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam”, “[Islamists] wear the cloak of religion”, “Islam is a religion of tolerance”, and “revenge or retaliation against terrorists” were often used by the religious leaders. Finally and most importantly, the religious officials appeared to hold out some hope for the ideological correction of Islamists and other revolutionary forces, thereby in the process both upholding the base of their social authority as the ones who would do the correction and subtly reminding the secular branch of government of their worth. With the similarity and consistency of their arguments in mind, it can be said that there was a tacit agreement between the ruling elite and the religious establishment. As shown in the similarity of language and approach, the religious officials have exploit the conflict between the state and revolutionary or Islamist movements for their own hegemonic process. It is likely that they were trying to expand the scope of their activities and to enhance their political position as an ideological state apparatus. The way the religious officials seem to have conceptualized the political changes that were going on in Egypt when President Morsi was in office must have confirmed to them not only that the alliance with the state was the safer bid if they wanted to maintain their privileges and consolidate their interests, but also that their traditional approach to politics was sound (Khan 2014, 81). Thus, the religious establishment has failed to break out of the vicious circle of the traditional conception of the relationship between religion and politics. The decision to take sides in the conflict between the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood was both dictated by its traditional understanding while at the same time reconfirming this understanding. By siding with the state, the religious officials has failed to realize the contradiction between its position and the discourse that its scholars propagated in the last few months prior to the military coup.