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Reconceptualizing the Contemporary Ulama: Al-Azhar, Lay Islam, and the Egyptian State in the Late Twentieth Century

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Reconceptualizing the Contemporary Ulama: Al-Azhar, Lay Islam, and the Egyptian State in the Late Twentieth Century RECONCEPTUALIZING THE CONTEMPORARY ULAMA: AL-AZHAR, LAY ISLAM, AND THE EGYPTIAN STATE IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Shadaab H. Rahemtulla Bachelor of Arts (Honors), Simon Fraser University, 2005 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the Department of History © Shadaab H. Rahemtulla 2007 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY 2007 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name: Shadaab H. Rahemtulla Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis: Reconceptualizing the Contemporary Ulama: AI­ Azhar, Lay Islam, and the Egyptian State in the Late Twentieth Century Examining Committee: Chair: Karen Ferguson Associate Professor of History PaulSedra Senior Supervisor Assistant Professor of History Derryl MacLean Supervisor Associate Professor of History Thomas Kuhn Supervisor Assistant Professor of History Martin Bunton External Examiner Assistant Professor of History University of Victoria Date Defended/Approved: 11 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Declaration of Partial Copyright Licence The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. The author has further granted permission to Simon Fraser University to keep or make a digital copy for use in its circulating collection (currently available to the public at the "Institutional Repository" link of the SFU Library website <www.lib.sfu.ca> at <http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/112>) and, without changing the content, to translate the thesis/project or extended essays, if technically possible, to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation of the digital work. The author has further agreed that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by either the author or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without the author's written permission. Permission for public performance, or limited permission for private scholarly use, of any multimedia materials forming part of this work, may have been granted by the author. This information may be found on the separately catalogued multimedia material and in the signed Partial Copyright Licence. While licensing SFU to permit the above uses, the author retains copyright in the thesis, project or extended essays, including the right to change the work for subsequent purposes, including editing and publishing the work in whole or in part, and licensing other parties, as the author may desire. The original Partial Copyright Licence attesting to these terms, and signed by this author, may be found in the original bound copy of this work, retained in the Simon Fraser University Archive. Simon Fraser University Library Burnaby, BC, Canada Revised: Fall 2007 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the role of the historic interpreters of Islam, the ulama, in the religious revival that has swept Egypt since the 1970s. The existing literature has generally portrayed the resurgence as having been led by laymen, who were compelled to take on leadership positions due to the growing isolation and passivity of the "traditional" ulama. Challenging this narrative, I argue that the ulama are hardly traditional actors that have been co-opted wholesale by the state by showing how the boundaries have blurred considerably between the ulama and lay Islamic activists since the 1970s, which has led the former to assume increasingly a role of dissent within Egyptian society. Such protest is historically significant not only because it forces us to reassess the role of the ulama within the revival, but also because it raises some larger questions about the very identity of the ulama within contemporary Muslim societies. Keywords: Political Islam; AI-Azhar; Ulama; Religious Revival; Modern Egypt. Subject Terms: zo" Century; Middle East; North Africa; Islam; History; Politics. III In memory ofDr. William L. Cleveland IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this thesis has been a deeply rewarding experience. It not only represents the culmination of a long-standing interest in the sociopolitical role of Islam in contemporary Muslim societies, but also marks the end of a six-year study at SFU. The university has been blessed with a solid history program. Indeed, the History Department - in both its warm collegiality and commitment to the critical study of the past - is a model of what a community of scholarly learning should be. Many scholars and fellow students have enriched my stay in the department, but there are four professors in particular that have played a key role in my development as a historian, and, more importantly, as a human being. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the late Dr. William Cleveland, Dr. Derryl MacLean, Dr. Thomas Kuhn, and Dr. Paul Sedra for training me to think and write critically about the past, and to articulate my ideas persuasively in comparative and nuanced ways. I am especially grateful to Paul for taking over the supervision of the work following Dr. Cleveland's passing, and for his selfless dedication to the thesis. He raised all the right questions, and consistently pushed me to define my terms more rigorously. I would like to thank my loving parents for their unflinching encouragement and support over the years. If I am still in graduate studies, it is because of them. Finally, I would like to thank God - my closest friend - for giving me the opportunity to seek and contribute to knowledge. He has made my life meaningful, and for that I am forever grateful. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval ......••..............•................•.....................................•..................•.......•......•......•............•.....ii Abstract iii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi INTRODUCTION 1 Modem Egypt: A Brief Background 2 The Muslim Brotherhood 8 Al-Azhar before the Nineteenth Century 11 CHAPTER 1: DEFINING THE CONTEMPORARY ULAMA 15 Introduction 15 The Historical Irony of the Modem Ulama 16 The Fragmentation of Religious Authority 27 Conclusions 37 CHAPTER 2: THE ULAMA AND LAY ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS 44 Introduction 44 Al-Azhar before the Age of Nasser .44 Nasser's Reforms of al-Azhar and their Consequences 50 Functionalizing Islam: The Islamic Revival in Contemporary Egypt 55 Putting Islam to Work: Shaykh Shaarawi and Shaykh Kishk 62 The Ulama and the Muslim Brotherhood 67 The Ulama and Militant Islamic Groups 76 Conclusions 81 CHAPTER 3: INDEPENDENT MOSQUES, THE STATE, AND THE HIGH ULAMA 84 Introduction 84 Venues of Protest: "Private" and "Government" Mosques 85 The Ulama's Growing Criticism of the State 92 Challenging the Higher Ranks of al-Azhar 97 The High Ulama and the Regime: A Changing Relationship 100 Conclusions 105 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................••............••.........•.•.... 108 Introduction 108 The Age of Modernization Theory ]08 A New Scholarly Spotlight: The Rise of "Lay" Islam 113 Rethinking the Role of the Ulama in the Revival., I 16 A Problem of Definition: The Ulama as a Social Group? 120 The Historic Heritage: The Islamic Intellectual Tradition 124 VI "Lay" Islam and the Tradition: A Necessary Engagement.. 126 Redefining the Contemporary Ulama 130 Conclusions 131 BIBLIOGRAPHY 136 Archival Sources 136 Unpublished Sources 136 Secondary Sources 136 Vll INTRODUCTION The religious resurgence that has swept through the Middle East and South Asia since the 1970s has long intrigued scholars of contemporary Islam. They have generally portrayed the historiography of the Islamic revival as led by laymen, compelled to take on leadership positions due to the growing isolation, passivity, and rigidity of the historic interpreters of Islam, the ulama.' A new scholarship has emerged, however, that seeks to provide a more nuanced history by examining patterns of continuity and change in the complex relationship between the ulama and their respective societies.i In this thesis, I will argue that the ulama are hardly "traditional" and passive actors who have been co- opted wholesale by the state, but rather - as the case of modem Egypt illustrates - that the ulama playa critical role in the Islamic revival, as well as society in general. I will advance this thesis by showing how the boundaries have blurred significantly between the ulama and lay Islamic activists since the 1970s, which in tum has led the ulama to assume increasingly a role of dissent within society. Such extensive interaction and mixing between the ulama and lay Islamic activists was a result of the historic convergence of two rather remarkable intellectual developments in late twentieth century Egypt: (a) the ability of the ulama to speak in new ways to broader segments of society following Nasser's reforms of al-Azhar in the 1960s, 1 In this thesis, I will italicize all Arabic words except for alim, ulama, Qur'an, hadith, and al-Azhar, as well as the names of peoples and places. Aside from such commonly used words as "ulama" and "awqaf", I will simply add an "s" to the end of singular Arabic nouns to denote the plural. 2 The most compelling examples of this revisionist literature are Robert W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman eds, Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics ofModern Muslim Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Malika Zeghal, "Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952-94)," International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 31, (1999); and Malika Zeghal, Gardiens de l'lslam. Les oulemas d'al-Azhar dans l'Egypt contemporaine (Paris: Presses de Sciences Politiques, 1996).
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