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  • Political Islam, Citizenship, and Minorities: The Future of Arab Christians in the Islamic Middle East
  • Kurt J. Werthmuller (bio)
Political Islam, Citizenship, and Minorities: The Future of Arab Christians in the Islamic Middle East, by Andrea Z. Stephanous. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010.

One of the most divisive issues to emerge in Egypt since the January 25 Revolution has been the status of Coptic Christians in the nation's future, particularly in its relationships to a revitalized Muslim Brotherhood and resurgent Salafism. Throughout the broader Arab world, in fact, Christian communities have faced increasingly daunting circumstances in recent years, from disappearing populations (e.g., Palestine), to diminished political clout (e.g., Lebanon), to — at worst — unprecedented waves of violence (e.g., Iraq). Within this gloomy context, the focus of Andrea Stephanous' book, Political Islam, Citizenship, and Minorities: The Future of Arab Christians in the Islamic Middle East is both timely and important.

Stephanous' purpose in this study is threefold: first, to provide an overview of the emergence of contemporary political Islamic movements; second, to compare the particular sociopolitical contexts of Coptic and Maronite Christians in Egypt and Lebanon, respectively; and third, to deconstruct the existing political approaches by which these non-Muslim communities function, while offering an alternative conceptual framework. Some of the text is plagued with editorial shortcomings (including a surprising number of grammatical and punctuation errors), and would have benefitted from further revision. However, Stephanous arrives at some sound conclusions and prescriptions (particularly his concept of "dynamic citizenship") which could contribute a new and useful direction for the newly-revitalized question of politics and religious identity in the newly-tumultuous Middle East.

Stephanous' text is clearly organized from the outset, and he is careful in each section to clarify his intent. In the first part, he lays out a broad picture of the most influential political movements in the Arab world since the mid-20th century, leading into a discussion of the ideological evolution of modern political Islam, its "revolutionary and evolutionary" manifestations in Egypt, and critiques of the movement from within the internal debates of contemporary Muslim intellectuals. This first section of the book is, in fact, the weakest: most of Stephanous' text here is gleaned from a broad spectrum of other scholars, so it comes across as more of a compendium of work on political Islam rather than on original analysis. More importantly, he refers to his primary subject — Arab Christians in relation to political Islam — only tangentially here, and those limited references are brief and vague. For example, Stephanous recounts at one point another author's assertion that "the exclusion of Coptic history and Gospel texts from Egyptian education also indicates the impact of political Islam" (p. 93). The reader is left guessing as to who excluded what exactly, how this was decided, and when such a decision took place.

The second part is stronger. Here, Stephanous turns to a comparison of how the Coptic Orthodox and Maronite Churches of Egypt and Lebanon, respectively, approach politics in theology and practice. According to Stehpanous, the experiences of these two communities are as night and day: he succinctly argues, "The Coptic Church is an ineffective political voice for the Copts. In contrast, the Maronite Church has its own political voice and speaks powerfully in all political affairs" (p. 115). In this section, Stephanous employs a creative and varied approach, combining ideology, theology, and statistical research with a sophisticated sensibility toward these two wildly divergent sociopolitical contexts. He argues that the political clout of both communities has gradually decreased over the last half-century. The Copts have passively withdrawn from political engagement, contributing to their further marginalization (which had begun under Nasir and Sadat, due to land reform and Islamist-minded policies, respectively). The Maronites, on the other hand, have aggressively but futilely resisted the [End Page 692] inevitability of Lebanese demographics. In his analysis, neither side has lost political potency primarily because of the rise of political Islam, although both now face increasing pressure from it. Stephanous' discussion is lucid here, although in regard to Lebanon he explicitly and perplexingly skips the civil war period, despite the Maronites' intimate involvement in its...

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