Practicing Islam in Egypt
Print Media and Islamic Revival

Explores how, why and where an Islamic revival emerged in 1970s Egypt, and why this shift remains relevant today.

Aaron Rock-Singer (Author)

9781108710053, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 June 2020

223 pages
23 x 15.3 x 1 cm, 0.4 kg

'Upending scholarly claims of Islam's discursive continuity against secular modernity, Rock-Singer keenly details postcolonial Egyptian Islamic movements' profound contemporaneity - their affinities with the postcolonial state and non-Muslim revivals, their immersion in mass media, and much more. In reframing Islam and politics, Practicing Islam in Egypt illuminates the late modern 'return of religion' more broadly.' Emilio Ibrahim Spadola, Tufts University, Massachusetts

Following the ideological disappointment of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, an Islamic revival arose in Egypt. Yet, far from a mechanical reaction to the decline of secular nationalism, this religious shift was the product of impassioned competition among Muslim Brothers, Salafis and state institutions and their varied efforts to mobilize Egyptians to their respective projects. By pulling together the linked stories of these diverse claimants to religious authority and tracing the social and intellectual history of everyday practices of piety, Aaron Rock-Singer shows how Islamic activists and institutions across the political spectrum reshaped daily practices in an effort to persuade followers to adopt novel models of religiosity. In so doing, he reveals how Egypt's Islamic revival emerged, who it involved, and why it continues to shape Egypt today.

Acknowledgments
A note on transliteration and spelling
Introduction
1. Mind before matter: visions of religious change in post-colonial Egypt
2. Currents of religious change: ideological transmission and local mobilization
3. Could the state serve Islam? The rise and fall of Islamist educational reform
4. Prayer and the Islamic revival: a timely challenge
5. Beyond fitna: the emergence of Islamic norms of comportment
6. The ambiguous legacy of the Islamic revival: how women emerged as a barometer of public morality
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Islamic studies [JFSR2], Religious groups: social & cultural aspects [JFSR], Ancient Egyptian religion & mythology [HRKP1], Islam [HRH], Religion & beliefs [HR], General & world history [HBG], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]