Egypt's new government trying to separate Islam from politics

As Islam has always had a political component, this will be extremely difficult. The only model is Turkey, which is in the process of rapidly re-Islamizing. "In Egypt, a campaign to promote an ‘Egyptian Islam,’" by Stephanie McCrummen for the Washington Post, October 9 (thanks to Trevor):

CAIRO — One recent Friday, Egyptian officials dispatched an Islamic preacher named Mustafa Nawareg to a mosque full of angry people — distraught relatives and friends of demonstrators killed by security forces.
 

Shahin's words are not clear. Does he mean that a state Islam doesn't exist within the Islamic tradition? Has he never heard of the caliphate? Of the Umayyads and Abbasids and Ottomans and the rest? Or does he mean that the new de-politicized Islam that the Egyptian authorities are trying to implement doesn't exist within the Islamic tradition? That is true -- every mainstream sect of Islam and every school of Islamic law teaches that Islam has a political and societal component. Secular Turkey was established in the context of an explicit rejection of political Islam, so it can't precisely be considered to be a manifestation of Islamic tradition, although it did create a de-politicized state Islam that lasted for decades and is only dying now -- and seems to be the model for what Egyptian authorities are currently trying to do.

Pop culture is taking the cue, Shahin noted, pointing to a new song being played around Cairo. It is called “We Are a People, and You Are a Different People,” a thinly veiled reference to Morsi’s followers.
 

Now, why is that? Does it have anything to do with the nature of the dominant religion in the country? Or is that question too "Islamophobic" to be asked?

A long struggle over IslamThe struggle to define Islam in Egypt has a long history, one pitting the Muslim Brotherhood and other dissidents who favor political Islam against the more secularly oriented establishment.

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser established the Ministry of Endowments in the 1950s, around the time that he survived an assassination attempt by a Brotherhood member and banned the organization.

All his successors launched periodic crackdowns on Islamist preachers, though the wider goal of stifling their ideas inevitably failed in a country with more than 100,000 mosques and millions drawn to sermons promising a more perfect Islamic society.

The 2011 revolution that toppled Mubarak unleashed the full power of the Islamist movement, sweeping Morsi to the presidency. But during his troubled year at the nation’s helm, Morsi also attempted to drag Islam in the Brotherhood’s direction, removing moderate preachers considered to be Mubarak allies and replacing them with Islamists who proselytized for Morsi’s agenda.

The struggle played out within al-Azhar itself, as Islamists attempted to wrest control of the revered 1,000-year-old institution from its traditionally moderate leadership. The moves alienated Egyptians who follow a more moderate Islam, and their massive protests helped the military justify the coup.

In his first address to the nation after Morsi’s ouster, Egypt’s army chief, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, was flanked by Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar, whose close associates run the Ministry of Endowments.

In the larger mosques across Cairo, plastic-coated signs are going up on the gates these days: “The Ministry of Endowments is the only one that completely and generally supervises the mosque.”

New tone in sermons

Morsi supporters say they are hearing new sermons, sometimes urging them to rally around the military, other times dwelling on matters such as health care.

“Last Friday, the preaching was all about military rule and the marches,” said Mohamed Ali, a doctor, speaking during one of the dwindling Friday protests by Morsi supporters. “This Friday, it was about the treatment of honey for diseases. I wanted to leave, but I felt it was not acceptable.”

The Friday after Nawareg was attacked at El-Rahman El-Rahim, worshipers began streaming in around noon — cleanshaven men and others with beards, women in colorful scarves and some in conservative black niqabs.

They passed through the gates, where there was a checkpoint manned by several security guards, who rummaged through backpacks and satchels. An old Azhari professor of Nawareg’s delivered a sermon about how God’s plan can be found in the details of nature, and there was no shouting.

Afterward, some worshipers stopped to talk about what had happened the previous Friday.
“Those people are not Muslims,” said one man, referring to the Brotherhood supporters. “They are terrorists, and we will not stop until we catch them all. Thank God the government is with us.”...

If the Muslim Brotherhood members are not Muslims, what are they? This man would probably say that they are heretics, apostates -- who should be put to death according to Islamic law. And so it goes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-egypt-a-campaign-to-promote-an-egyptian-islam/2013/10/09/45060fca-29b3-11e3-b141-298f46539716_story_1.html