Hayat Muhammad and the Muslim Brothers: Two Interpretations of Egyptian Islam and their Socioeconomic Implications

Abstract

Several new interpretations of Islam and its applicability to modern life made their appearance in Egypt during the 1930s. Two of these interpretations, though at opposite ends of the intellectual and socioeconomic spectrum of Egyptian life, were also interrelated. One was the shift to Islamic themes and apparent defense of Islamic culture by Egyptian writers previously identified with demands for reform reflecting European secular ideals; among these writers were Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Taha Husayn, and, later, Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad. The second was the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood as a force in Egyptian life indicating a deep concern over the threat to Islamic values presented by the modernization of society along Western lines. This paper will consider Husayn Haykal's Hayat Muhammad as an elitist intellectual's response to the strength of popular religious sentiment evidenced by the rise of the Muslim Brothers as well as to the emerging economic unrest which appeared in the mid-1980s. It will then treat the approach of the Muslim Brothers to issues dealt with by Haykal in order to establish a comparative basis from which certain conclusions can be drawn concerning the socioeconomic origins of these differing interpretations of Islam. Finally, I would like to suggest the manner in which these interpretations may offer grounds for a reconsideration of the question of modernization in light of current discussion of the roles of intellectuals and ideology in developing countries. Hayat Muhammad has been acclaimed as an important statement by an Egyptian defending Islam against the encroachment of Western materialism. It has also been treated by Nadav Safran and others as a book epitomizing the inability of Egyptian modernists to harmonize reason and revelation in an Islamic society and justify reform within a religious framework. Each approach has placed emphasis on Haykal's apparent attack on European culture as materialistic and his supposed exalting of Islamic culture as embodying spiritual values in an emotional and apologetic manner.