Performing Piety: Singers and Actors in Egypt's Islamic Revival

Afterword

Afterword E gypt is presently going through a turbulent time, full of potential and tensions. During the time of writing this book, I was only able to visit Egypt for a few days in October 2010 and December 2011. For that reason, I cannot go into all the current transformations in Egypt and what they mean for the Islamist movement and its art project, because the upheaval postdates the period I collected my material. Yet I managed to interview the media man Ahmad Mursi Abu Haiba during my last twovisits shortly before and after the revolution.1 Ahmad Abu Haiba was in 2010 selected by the American network cnbc World as one of the top seven media leaders in the world. His most recent endeavor was to open the channel Tahrir, which broadcast all events from Tahrir Square to the whole world. The ordeals of his career within the Islamist movement and the media are an excellent illustration of what this book has sketched. Starting as a playwright within the Islamist Student Union, and writing religio-political satirical plays that were thwarted by the government for their “fundamentalist” leanings, he moved on to media. He worked with ʿAmr Khalid, worked for al-Risala with the veiled actresses, launched the first Islamicvideo clip channel 4Shbab, which was obstructed by Saudi funders for its open-mindedness, and has now opened the channel Tahrir, an endeavor which, like the revolution, appears to be wavering. His story thus neatly illustrates the developments in Egypt over the last thirty years that I have reconstructed in this book and provides glimpses into the postrevolutionary period as well. the career of ahmad abu haiba Ahmad Mursi Abu Haiba described himself as a very religious youngster and would now call himself at that period “a fundamentalist, or an extremist.” ( 260 ) Performing Piety Like many other young Muslims in his environment, he considered everything haram: art was deemed illicit and watching TV was not permissible. Despite his rejection of his previous views, he is happy that he went through this stage, because it now helps him to understand and argue against those strict religious interpretations. Upon entering the faculty of engineering, Abu Haiba started to open up his views in general and toward art in particular. He began to read a lot of books and to discuss religion with open-minded friends such as ʿAmr Khalid, 10.1. Ahmad Abu Haiba in his office at 4Shbab (photograph by author) afterword ( 261 ) who lived in the same neighborhood and with whom he used to play soccer . They came to the conclusion that they could use art to deliver a message. Characteristic of other student-artists of the Islamic groups, he started with plays that remained on the safe side of contemporaneous religious interpretations . He related with a smile that his first plays were “very bad plays: boring, historical plays in standard Arabic. I remember there was a competition of bands and play teams. The judges that came to our show actually slept during the show, they literally slept! Because it was so boring! I myself was about to sleep.”2 The actors were not chosen for their acting skills, but for their piety and commitment. Yet Abu Haiba developed his views on art, maintaining that art is not only a message or a tool, but has a value in itself. The plays greatly improved, and, eventually, his group’s “Islamic theater play” won the university competition in the year of their graduation. Abu Haiba divides his artistic development into three periods, which were closely tied to political developments in Egypt as they have been described in this book. His first period as a playwright was at university: “It was without women and without music. It had a clear Islamic message. We were speaking about something historical or political issues. When I would like to make a justification for that period I would say the usual theater was just only about women and partly about music.”3 He intended to develop an alternative to this kind of “lowbrow” art. The second period came after graduation from, 1991 to 1996, when Abu Haiba and his company started to use music: It was a strange coincidence, the biggest theater in Egypt at that time, Ramsis, was controlled by the Syndicate of Engineers. It was hired by ʿAdil Imam [one of the most famous Egyptian actors, also known for his antiIslamist critiques...