The Margins of Print: Children's Religious Literature in Egypt

Abstract

In Egypt, twentieth-century developments in psychology and educational theory have combined with market forces and increasing state interest in religious and political socialization to produce radically new ways of transmitting the Islamic religious tradition to children. In conjunction with 'Western-style' religious textbooks and examinations in schools, both public and private sector publishers now produce instructional material combining conventional printed messages with pictures, drawings and activities. The production of these new textual forms has helped create models of religious authority parallel to, but outside of, traditional Islamic scholarly practice, models whose principals are educators, professionals, writers and businessmen. Our understanding of the impact of 'print' media on Muslim societies must therefore take into account novel pedagogical and intellectual tools, ranging from drawings to computer software, which, together with new political and economic forces, are transforming Islamic cultural production. For more than a century now, the spread of mass primary and higher education, the emergence of new social classes, and the acquisition of technologies and market structures which encourage the mass-production of books and periodicals, have helped transform religious traditions in the Muslim world. These transformations are both formal and institutional ones, having to do with the manner in which Islamic knowledge is created and transmitted, and substantive ones altering the content, context and significance of what Islam - the free submission to God - means to large sectors of the population in Muslim countries. Particularly important is a gradual but accelerating shift in the locus of religious authority from the partially state-subsidized ranks of the Ulema Muslim religious scholars - to the ranks of 'secular' intellectuals whose commitment to religion is not matched by traditional credentials. Understanding these transformations, which include the complex set of phenomena often described as 'Islamism' or 'Political Islam', requires us to look at the ways Muslims, whether in Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia or North America, produce and communicate their understandings of the Islamic heritage. Obviously one of the most important ways this is accomplished is through the production of 'Islamic literature': written or printed material designed to inform, instruct, persuade and mobilize. Despite the wealth of attention anthropologists have given to writing and print as intellectual technologies over the last two decades (see, for instance,