Teaching (and Learning) Islam in Egypt

Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt, by Gregory Starrett. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. 370 pp. $22.

The Islamic revival in the Arab world has sparked intense debate in policy and academic circles over the last two decades. The purpose of this debate has been twofold: first, to assess the expanding role of Islam in social and political life and to register the extent of its impact; second, to analyze its root causes and situate it in broader political analysis linking culture to politics. Gregory Starrett's book, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt, contributes to the latter aspect of the debate. It outlines the ways in which Islamization has been part and parcel of Egypt's modernization program, in particular through the national education system. As Starrett puts it, "education is one of the contributing factors to the climate of religious activism in the first place." Ironically, the Egyptian government is partly responsible for the Islamic trend, only to find itself challenged by a growing religious movement.

Islam has always been important in Egypt. But since the 1970s its role has changed. From a set of traditions, beliefs, and rituals affecting people's private lives, Islam was transformed into a set of guidelines for reforming social and political life. In other words, it became an ideology, a set of principles consciously espoused and pursued. Islam understood in this way has been described as "political Islam" and sometimes (mistakenly) as "Islamic fundamentalism," borrowing a term applied to a more orthodox form of the Islamic faith. But the broader term, Islamism, may be more appropriate because it incorporates the call of Islam for social as well as political reform.

The manifestations of Islamic revival in social life encompass a wide range of phenomena such as the adoption of the veil by a growing number of women, the proliferation of Islamic publications and programs in the audio-visual media, the establishment of Islamic clinics and schools, the growing importance of the mosque as a center of people's everyday lives, and increasingly regular appeals to Islamic preachers for answers to both private and public problems. Islam's role has been growing in the political sphere too. Since the 1970s the Muslim Brotherhood, which advocates "Islamic" political reforms and the imposition of shariah (Islamic law), has enjoyed growing political appeal. At the same time, Islamic organizations and associations of all sorts have mushroomed. In response, the Egyptian regimes of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak worked to improve their Islamic "credentials." This has led to the use of Islamic "criteria" for judging many aspects of private and public life. In recent years, for example, literary and artistic expression considered insulting to Islam has been met with increasing censorship.

Assessing the nature and the extent of the Islamic revival continues to divide analysts. Some argue that Islam has always been important in the Arab world and that there is nothing special-no qualitative difference-about its "revival" since the 1970s. Others contend that it is simply too difficult to evaluate the true impact of Islamism. The Muslim Brotherhood continues to be outlawed and research into its status and support base is complicated by the repressive nature of the Egyptian regime. Since the 1980s, a small number of its members have entered the Egyptian Parliament as independents, but it is impossible to estimate whether the Brotherhood would win a "free" election in Egypt. In fact, we know very little about its current support at a national level. We do know that the terrorist activities of the extremist Islamist groups proved very unpopular among the Egyptian public and this contributed to their military defeat and virtual disintegration by the end of the 1990s. But we cannot be sure whether this has undermined the appeal of the moderate Islamists. It is also difficult to distinguish clearly between the proponents of political Islamic government and those who simply want a more...