No matter what the faith they’ve embraced, no matter how commandeered their lives, Egyptians have remained religiously conservative. While not as rigid as today’s fundamentalists might like, they have always followed their beliefs with deep devotion and constant practice.

Today Islam is by far the dominant religion in the country accounting for about 80% of believers.

Egypt is the intellectual home of the faith. Since 975 CE, scholars at Al-Azhar University in Cairo have been recognized by the Muslim world as center of discussion for Islamic thought and practice. The centuries of scholarship at al-Azhar remind us that, while the basic commitments might stay the same, interpretation of this faith, like any other, changes with time and place.

How scholars, imans and the people around them deal with what is called an “Islamic revival” impacts the world. See "Islam is fading as a revolutionary force in Egypt" in the Economist July, 15 2010

Global Islam: Reviewing the Basics

Islam originated in the Arabian Peninsula with the revelation of the Qur’an to the Prophet Mohammed in 610 AD. Rather than being an exotic faith, it is rooted in the same Judeo-Christian tradition familiar to most Westerners. Muslims worship the same omnipotent, omnipresent and indivisible God, using the Arabic word Allah to refer to the self-same Almighty.

Islam simply means submission to the will of God.

Muslims believe the words of the Qur’an are direct from God and divine, subject to interpretation but not revision. They revere the succession of messengers mentioned in the Torah and the Bible, including the Prophet Mohammed, Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, and Jesus. They believe these prophets delivered the same basic message:

Islam spread rapidly. It unified the warring tribes of the Arabian Peninsula within eight years of the Prophet Mohammed’s first telling of God’s word. Then, like Christianity, Islam became a political as well as religious force, ultimately filling the vast geo-political vacuum created by the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

Today, with its 1.2 billion believers, Islam the one of the fastest growing religions in the world. It has huge populations in Indonesia and the Middle East as well as significant ones in China, India, United States, northern and sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention a legion of smaller countries.

Local Islam: Religion & Culture

Cultural beliefs have influenced Islam from its beginning.For example, at the time of the Prophet, Mecca was tribal and strong, patriarchal families put pressure on their people to conform to community standards.

In challenging the conventional faiths, the Muslims offended the the dominant tribe, the Quraysh, and were driven from Mecca.

In Medina, where they relocated, the Muslim encountered large Christian and Jewish communities with unfamiliar customs and social relationships. Following the Prophet’s lead, Muslims began the difficult task of distinguishing between unalterable Islamic principles -- like social justice, and cultural traditions -- like preventing women from having a public role. At the time, they decided to invite women who began to speak in communities forums.

The push and pull between religion and culture continues to this day. Muslim scholars and lay people, liberals and traditionalists, secular and religious leaders all struggle and a growing majority, fearfully stressed by economic, political and social changes, turn to dogma and literal interpretations of the Qur’an.

Others, prefering freedom of thought and information, rely on the Islamic ideal of searching for truth.They are stimulating a progressive Muslim renaissance.(link to books)

Contemporary Egyptian Culture

Political legitimacy—the consent of the populace to be governed by a just ruler—is a basic, unalterable tenet of Islam, second only to social justice. And yet, ironically – or cruelly, the majority of today’s Muslims are ruled by oppressive, authoritarian regimes that deny them basic personal, economic, and political rights.

So, for example, the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan believe just governance will only come when Muslims reject secular modernism and revive an imagined, ancient way of life - one untouched by centuries of experience. Unfortunately, their reverence for a model from the past, prevents them from offering practical Islamic solutions to the complex social, economic, and political problems facing believers in the modern world.

Egyptian Islam isn't Wahabi, but it's increasingly conservative. Once moving in socially liberal directions, Egyptians have seen their attempts to create secular governments undercut by opportunists who have taken advantage of a vulnerable economy, an undereducated and impoverished population.

Frustrated, some turn to Islam for political power, creating parties, developing constituencies and establishing power bases, typically through Muslim charities that offer social, medical, and economic support to the poor -- whom the governments tend to leave for last. Poverty, injustice, and other kinds of social, economic and political trauma are rampant. You can read the level of frustration by listening to the prayers which spill daily of the "thousand minarets" of Cairo. Militant Islamists claim that their governments' leaders are corrupt puppets of the United States and Europe, who are evil.They believe these powers must be eliminated in a just war (like westerners believed that World War II was a moral necessity).

The numbers of militant Islamists in Egypt is minute; their percentage in this stability-loving culture is likely to be smaller than organized groups of radical aggressors in most other countries around the world.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has formally denounced violence as a means to government change and Egyptians as a whole greatly prefer peaceful, democratic change in regime, even when it means waiting.

See also:
Understanding Centrist Islam

Read other Briefs

• Democracy in Egypt
• Art in Egypt
• Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
• Economy in Egypt

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