State Islam: Constructing Authoritarianism through Friday Sermons in Egypt

• In Event: Elites and Religion: Offline and Online

Abstract

In Egypt, a new and consolidating authoritarian regime has sought to dominate the religious sphere to counteract the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi movements presenting a challenge to its authority. In 2014, its new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called for a “religious revolution” to “renew religious discourse” and combat what he called “Islamist extremism”. The Ministry of Awqaf was tasked with extending direct state control over private religious institutions, with institutional control being pursued through nationalizations of mosques and the banning of preachers without certification from state-certified training institutes. But the strategy also included attempts to control discourse within these sites, promoting ‘official’ and ‘moderate’ Islam. Since January 2014, the Ministry of Awqaf has moved to standardise both the topic and texts of Friday sermons for dissemination within Egypt’s mosques. This paper examines 450 sermon texts produced by the Ministry and distributed to preachers for delivery within Egypt’s mosques every week. The content analysis demonstrates how mosques and Friday sermons are used to construct the image of the new regime, through a discourse of ‘dawlatiyya’, or statism, in the public discourse, where the state is viewed as the saviour and solution to all the country’s problems. This paper demonstrates how Egypt’s authoritarian regime since 2014 has attempted to monopolise religious discourse through state Islam, to legitimise its policies and rule, and prevent space for opposition movements to mobilise. This reflects of a wider regional trend to allocate increasing resources towards controlling public religious space.

Author

• Neil Russell, Glasgow Caledonian University