The Impact of the Islamic Movement in Egypt

Abstract

Islamic 'revivalist' or militant movements have become a phenomenon in most parts of the Third World since the mid seventies. This movement, which has been particularly powerful as an opposition in many countries (Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon), has captured the interest and even enthusiasm of many secular Eastern as well as Western writers, who have begun to see its potential as a powerful opposition movement. Its appeal, or rather fascination, for the First World seems to lie in its effective mobilization of broad categories of people, cutting across class, gender and nations. For Third World peoples, however, it seems to offer an alternative to the ills of the modern world, particularly after almost a century of modernization has failed to bring about the promised progress, affluence or justice. The aim of this article is to examine what the Islamic alternative offers Third World people, in this case in Egypt. What it offers must be seen in the light of the needs it addresses or the gap it fills in people's lives, both socially as well as ideologically. Given the central place that modernity has in the Islamic discourse, this will be seen against the impact that modernization has had, in recent years, on the lives of millions of people. In Egypt, the Islamic militant movement has already claimed the life of the former President in 1981, made attempts at the assassination of two Ministers of the Interior and has developed, in this decade, into an open confrontation with Coptic Christian minorities as well as secular writers and intellectuals. The Islamic movement in Egypt (in both its moderate and militant forms) also holds very crucial implications for women, whose advent into public life is seen to be part and parcel of Western cultural hegemony.