Religious or civil… This is one of the most crucial topic on which the secular liberals and Islamist movements struggle on in Egypt. This is obvious that, the attitude which situates the religiosity against civility can be considered as a great unfairness not only in terms of scientific realities, but also for the administration model that Egypt would develop as a sample both for the Arab world and Islamic world.  

 

The expectation of those who put forward the concept of civil state is an administrative model that will be far apart from the Islamic values which are the principal element of Egyptian identity. They want to abolish the second article of the Egyptian constitution saying “The principles of Islamic Shari’a are the main source of legislation” from the constitution. On the contrary, for the Islamist movements the second article of the constitution is the redline that cannot be violated. 

 

The foremost secularists of early 20th century emphasized that tolerating the non-Muslim minorities was not making a concession from the Egyptian identity- that is Islamist identity at the Egypt Conference held in 1911. Again the aforementioned people stated that the presence of more than one religion in a state did not constitute an obstacle against the identification of the identity of the majority in the constitution. According to them the general and comprehensive tie for Egypt was the recognition of the identity of the majority beyond question. There were those such as Ahmed Lütfi es-Seyyid and Abdulaziz Fehmi among the aforesaid seculars.  

 

As a matter of fact the 1932 Constitution decreed the official religion of the state as Islam and official language as Arabic.

 

However, as the civil can be religious, the religious can also be civil. As a matter of fact, there are people in the Islamist movements who adopt the understating envisaging the civil state concept based on religious foundations. We also believe that this approach is correct. Thus, the discourse requiring the civil state compulsorily to challenge religion does not reflect the truth. The group named as the western scientific movement has an approach of this kind and words that the civil compulsorily challenges the religious. However, there is another movement believing that the civil state has religious roots. In this context, thinkers such as Max Weber and Alexis de Tocqueville can be referred to. The latter obviously states that American democracy and liberty spring from religion. Max Weber, a sociologist of religion, emphasizes the unbreakable tie between capitalism and Protestantism signifying the prominence of religion. Therefore, production, working, and the ethic of capital accumulation have a significant relation with religious feelings. For example, since the seculars in secular Turkey understood that the propaganda of citizenship and patriotism is not sufficient to protect the generations passing through a crisis and falling into the clutches of atheism returned to recognize Islam as the only way out in the end. As a result of this they coined “Turkish Islamism”- even if it is problematic for us.       

 

We, Islamists, endeavor to accept the civil state provided that it does not ostracize and challenge religion; respect the identity of majority in Egypt and the second article of the Constitution. As maestro Hamid Rebi states, the extremist laicité coming out as a result of French Revolution and envisaging the separation of religious and state affairs could not be sustained. Contrarily, the religion revisited the state and returned to influence the decisions of the state. In fact, we should remember the statement of Giscard D’estaing saying “European Union is a Christian Club.” Again the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement saying “Germany represents the principles of Christendom. The Muslims here should melt in this state instead of as an independent structure based on Islamic Shri’a” are sufficiently illuminative in this context.   

 

As known, hundreds of researches claim that in the US religion has returned on to the stage as significantly influential on the state decision particularly since the era of President Ronald Reagan. This influence reached its peak during the office term of President George W. Bush. Furthermore, Bush would inspire from the Bible concerning his policies toward the Islamic World and he was a member of radical Evangelist group.

 

Those who recommend us a state model inspired by the Western political thought in fact express their loyalty to the Western- oriented political thought and this is an elitist approach that looks down on the rest of the world. In other words, they represent the notion of “cultural imperialism.”  It imposes on us to adopt the West as the main basis.    

 

We say that life has a global and a local dimension. If there are universal and global ideas then we will evaluate and adopt them, but provided that they do not abolish our cultural particularity and uniqueness. Our particularity that we consider as the source of insipiration for the civil state is the Arab-Islamic civilization that springs from the Islamic Shari’a with its course and style.

 

We reject the religious state in the sense of Western Catholicism as well. In such a state model there is the issue of sovereignty of the religious leaders. The monopoly of interpreting religion would also be in their hands. Therefore, nobody would have the right to think, speak or make jurisprudence. In that sense, there is no experience of such a religious state in Islamic history. According to the Islamic thought the idea of every single person can be both accepted and rejected. The only innocent person whose all ideas are accepted is the Prophet.   

 

Therefore, the political order based on Islam is engirdled with glorious revelation and wisdom, that is, the book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Prophet. We define this as the constituent authority, the authority constituting the political order, not an authority conflicting it. The institutional authority springs from experience and jurisprudence basing on reason.

 

We say “Yes,” to the civil state based on Islam, but we reject the understanding of state that casts religion. Such a state is the expression of following the west in terms of politics and knowledge like a shadow and inability to be one self. It is not possible for us to accept this humility after the 25 February revolution