Egypt's air-conditioned Islam |

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Egypt's air-conditioned Islam
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Le Monde diplomatique

CHAT SHOWS, NASHID GROUPS AND LITE PREACHING

http://mondediplo.com/2003/09/03egyptislam

A new approach to religion is emerging in Egypt, more compatible with globalisation. The hijab is a fashion purchase and televangelists preach about personal success, self-awareness and getting rich. But this Islamised neoliberalism ignores Egypt's acute social problems. by HUSAM TAMMAM AND PATRICK HAENNI *

EGYPT's political scene changed fundamentally in the second half of the 1990s. The murder of tourists in Luxor in 1997 led, paradoxically, to the end of violence by Islamist groups. The "young gener ation" of Islamists (al-gil al-gadid) went over to the principles of liberal democracy that were the basis for the programmes of all the parties that tried to set themselves up under the banner of religion: al-Wasat (the centre), al-Islah (reform) and al-Sharia (religious law).

The Muslim Brothers, the most important of the Islamist organisations, which have been simultaneously repressed and tolerated, are making pacts with their former devils: they have forged alliances with the secular leftwing Tagammu party during campaigns of solidarity with Palestine, and on 27 February 2003 with the ruling National Democratic party of President Hosni Mubarak in the great rally at the Cairo stadium against United States' intervention in Iraq.

The competition between official and political Islam, which shaped the dynamics of Islamis ation in Egypt over the past 25 years, was undermined by these changes. The protagonists in this cold war have been disqualified: al-Azhar, the heart of official Islam, is under fire for its compromises with the regime; among the young in Cairo its ulema (scholars) are seen as out of date, living in an ivory tower. In political Islam the Muslim Brothers, tarnished by links, more supposed than real, with the violence that has shaken Egypt, have lost the aura they had in the 1980s. And the radical groups have either disappeared or retreated to the margins of the Muslim world (for example, the faction of the Jihad group outside Egypt, under Dr Ayman Zawahiri, allied itself with Osama bin Laden).

New religious players have appeared: charismatic preachers with a style similar to American televangelists; performing artists who have "re-Islamised" themselves; middle-class women who have set up as preachers and invented a new tradition, the Islamic salon, now a feature of middle-class life; musical preaching groups; and highly educated "independent" Islamists.

These people have four things in common: almost all come from secular parts of the educational establishment and have acquired their knowledge of religion by themselves; they are young, from privileged backgrounds and socially integrated; they are trying to combine the characteristic teachings of different cultural models with Islam, which then loses its centrality; and they claim to have broken both with official and political Islam. But the values of this trend are far from revolutionary. Instead they are the disenchanted, here-now gone-tomorrow yuppie values: hedonism, individual ease and consumption. We are moving away from the era of politics.

The issue of the Islamic headscarf - the hijab that was the symbol of the Islamic awakening of the 1970s - has now become emblematic. It no longer signals rejection of the West as it did then, but instead signifies a non-Islamist way of being Muslim: the end of an obsession with identity and an expression of the realities of globalisation, market reform and consumerism.

The hijab has been re-appropriated by the fashion business, although it is still sometimes sold outside mosques. In boutiques that cater for women who veil, the hijab is now designed to the standards of international fashion. The shops have English or French names: al-Muhajaba Home, al-Salam Shopping Centre, Flash, L'Amour. All far from the identity programme of the Islamists or the ethics of modesty. These "liberal veiled women" (al-muhajabba al-mutaharrira) have exhausted the patience of fundamentalists by wearing Paris-designed scarves and speaking to their children in English. They are condemned both by the activists of the Muslim Brothers and traditional preachers trying to invoke the omniscience of God.

Similarly, the nashid (religious chant) has been ideologically deprogrammed and adjusted to globalisation. The old custom of chanting, inherited from the Sufis, was taken up in the 1970s by Islamist groups on university campuses, who were inspired by the writings of the many Islamist militants then in prison, with their references to jihad, martyrdom and heroism, and their condemnation of the arbitrariness of government. For a decade it was all politics - just as it was for the headscarf when it first appeared on the campus. The words of the chants were militant and criticised the state, and there were no musical instruments, which were deemed illegal. Later, influenced by the Islamic-nationalist music of the first Palestinian intifada (1988-91), the nashid was musically accompanied, first by tambourines, then drums, then synthesisers.

At the end of the 1980s two performing groups were formed and were sought after in Islamist circles to play at the "Islamic marriages" that started a new fashion. The themes of the nashid were modified, and love, happiness and poetry appeared. This was partly to suit the less activist younger generation, but also because militant slogans did not fit the formalities of Egyptian marriage ceremonies. In the later 1990s the groups became more professional, widened their range of instruments, began to charge for perform ances and sold audio-cassettes. In 1990 there were just two groups: now there are about 50. They have left jihad and its repertoire behind, and compete with Egyptian pop stars - and like those stars, they waver between a romantic mood and bursts of nationalism alluding to Palestine and Iraq. Nashid groups have less religious names than before - al-Wa'd (promise) or al-Gil (generation) are now common; their music continues to fuse with non-Arab rhythms, Anglo-Saxon pop, jazz and rap.

This entry, both with the hijab and the nashid, into consumerism and syncretism with non-Arab models, has led to an implicit questioning of the old puritanism of the 1970s and 1980s - and above all a questioning of the principle of the ideologisation of religion. The change is import ant: we could trace similar patterns in the Islamic economy, increasingly affected by the ups and downs of international finance; or in Islamic charity, which has been rethought, within a framework of neoliberalism, as a security net to replace the state's withdrawal from this area (a withdrawal the Islamists have widely supported).

Among a section of the religious middle classes this change resembles the familiar Western New Age religiosity in the way it borrows from other cultures (such as Asian spirituality). Magda Amer, a young, middle-class woman preacher from Cairo, is keen on chakras (2), yoga, reflexology and macrobiotic food. Her courses on Islam and alternative medicine attract well-heeled women who attend the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq mosque in the affluent suburb of Heliop olis where she preaches.

Amr Khalid, 36, from a solid middle-class background, has taken this change to the limit with his super-cool preaching, which invokes the Protestant work ethic and self-awareness. In just four years he has become the most popular preacher in the Arab world and beyond. The secret of his success was that he positioned himself outside the rivalry between political and official Islam, by offering a religious product compatible with the modern expectations of the urban middle classes: a worldly religion that talks about inner peace and spiritual well-being, and rejects religious observance in which rite is an end in itself. It refuses to see Allah as a God of retribution.

Khalid does not want to look like a traditional sheikh; he prefers to be close-shaven rather than bearded, wears a suit and tie not a white galabiyya, speaks Egyptian dialect not classical Arabic. He has broken with the classic Salafi style of preaching, adopting a softer style in which God is love. Copying the style of the US televangelists, he was the first to bring a religious chat show to the Arab world - a formula quickly taken up by all who call themselves the "new preachers" (including Khalid al-Guindy, al-Habib Ali and Safwat Hegazy). His main message is that we must "reconcile religion and life". Observance does not mean sacrifice but small adjustments; being religious does not mean giving up the pleasures of life. That is why he likes to be photo graphed wearing a football shirt and with a soccer star - a way of concretely expressing the balance between body and spirit.

All this is far from jihad, or even just politics, as noted by the sheikh from al-Azhar who, a little cynically, spoke of Khalid's da'wa diet (lite preaching); the Muslim Brothers call it " air-conditioned Islam". Khalid's only project is to address the trendy young of Cairo or Alexandria through a religious discourse that talks of the values of self-realisation that are part of liberal modernity: ambition, wealth, success, hard work, efficiency and self-awareness. He offers them the model of virtuous wealth and salvation through deeds. One of his followers explains bluntly: "Wealth is a gift from heaven and a rich Muslim will spend his fortune in the cause of God and in charitable deeds."

That is Khalid's intention. In a rush of enthusiasm, he told his followers: "I want to be rich so that people will look at me and say 'You see, rich and religious', and they'll love God through my wealth. I want to have money and the best clothes to make people love God's religion." Khalid attaches importance to effort and the efficient use of time, and crusades against useless leisure and too much sleep. Like an entrepreneur, he believes that: "The first thing, in building a serious life, is to define objectives, and write them down." He calls on his followers to be "productive in the help you give to friends, productive in doing deeds, productive in developing society". He praises the value of ambition: "One of the proofs of God's love is that it encourages you to be ambitious, gives you the ambition to reach ever higher, to raise yourself ever higher in society."

Khalid certainly has been successful: his sermons are now protected by copyright, he has set up several companies for distributing audio-cassettes, he is religious adviser to the Saudi firm Iqra and in demand on the boards of directors of Islamic banks. As a religious entrepreneur who sanctifies market values within the framework of depoliticised preaching, Khalid has become a media product, and he certainly sells. LBC, the chain founded by Christian Lebanese militias, unhesitatingly sacrificed its religious loyalties to the god of profit: last Ramadan, it broadcast Khalid's Islamic chat show, Wa Nalqa al-Ahibba (Meeting the Loved Ones), to woo audiences in the Gulf states and to maximise its advertising revenues.

This sort of preaching is not just an Egyptian phenomenon. For the past five years Islamist publishers have been enthused by the idea of management. A former Muslim Brother, Muhammad Abdel Gawad, publishes an Islamised version of this in booklets with titles such as The Secrets of Efficient Administration during the Life of the Prophet and The Prophet's Management of Human Relations. In Morocco similar pamphlets tell you to put Divine Blessing to the Service of Business, and in the Gulf an Islamist publisher sells The Ten Habits of a Successful Person. In Indonesia the most sought after of Jakarta's trendy preachers, Abdullah Gymnastiar, does not only preach, he also gives courses in management and motivation.

In Egypt state religious institutions have not escaped: at the ministry of waqfs (3), reform projects now concentrate more on the social role of the mosque, civil society and self-sufficiency. One of their seminars at al-Azhar University focused on rethinking da'wa (preaching), using the precepts of US-style marketing.

There may be something to be said for these ways of affirming religion. And the syncretism that is creeping into new manifestations of the return to Islam may make us smile. But what we are seeing is not so much the rise of an Islamic humanism, more an Islamised renewal of economic liberalism. And this is happening in a climate of severe and increasing social inequal ities that urgently need an alternative solution to resist neoliberal globalisation. Thoughtful young Islamists show growing interest in movements that seek alternative solutions in the anti-global isation debate, such as al-Janub (the South), an organisation oriented towards the third world. Their interest may still focus on recreating a utopia founded on Islam, but freed from its old obsession with identity.

* Husam Tammam is a journalist at Islamonline and Patrick Haenni a researcher at the Centre d'Etudes et de documentation economiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDJ) in Cairo

(1) See Ibrahim Warde, " Islamic finance ", Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, September 2001.

(2) Sanskrit term meaning wheel,which, according to eastern medicine, is a centre of energy promoting health and psychological well-being.

(3) The waqf is the regulating body for Islamic religious properties and endowments.

Translated by Wendy Kristianasen