Numbers can tell us quite a bit about the state of Islamists on the second anniversary of the revolution. There are now about 20 Islamist-oriented parties that are either officially registered or in the process of completing their paperwork. There are also dozens of Islamist movements, blocs and networks that are growing increasingly active in the public realm but that are still in flux and lack organisational or political party frameworks and structures. The Egyptian revolution was a huge key that unlocked all the political and security restrictions on the various components of the Islamist current and released their leaderships, membership ranks and youthful elements into the political fray. It has become almost difficult to imagine that for three decades the Islamist scene had been frozen into a seemingly immutable matrix consisting only of the Muslim Brotherhood on one side and radical jihadist groups on the other. As much as the numbers have to say on the current fluidity and diversity in the current Islamist sphere in Egypt, there are still many essential observations that need to be made regarding the current state of this trend today, two years after the revolution. In general, the Islamist map is made up of three major blocs: the traditional Islamists consisting of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wasat (Centre) Party and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya; the Salafis and particularly the now politicised Salafist trend with its plethora of sheikhs and preachers; and thirdly, the rapidly growing and worrisome jihadist Salafist trend. True, there are some other groups and movements that lie between or overlap these three blocs, but so far these do not appear to have a significant influence or impact on the general Islamist scene. Bearing this map in mind, the first observation is that there is a marked shift among Islamists away from religious activity and towards political involvement. Among the causes of this trend towards politicisation is the Islamists' resolve to prevent the production of a regime that is hostile to them and their ideas and, hence, to establish their presence in all areas of political activity. At the same time, they are determined to take full advantage of the current political openness in order to fill the political vacuum that arose with the dissolution of the once dominant ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). At a broader level, they are determined to move ideology out of the mosque into the political establishment and generally “Islamicise” the public domain. Second, the relationships between Islamist political parties and movements are constantly shifting and volatile. Although they sometimes appear cooperative, they are predominantly competitive, sometimes antagonistically so. If this confirms anything it is that political interests prevail over ideology in the decisions of Islamist leaderships. Moreover, one observes that political parties that subscribe to the same ideological frame-of-reference, such as the Salafis, are in a more turbulent state than other parties in the Islamist fold. It is sufficient here to note that there are more than 10 Salafist parties that are either formed or under formation. Still, Salafi spokesmen do not regard such divisions as a cause for embarrassment but rather a sign of political maturation. Third, the Islamists in all their ideological and theological variations are keener to involve themselves in official political processes and the political game than their counterparts in those segments of the liberal and secularist trends that remain politically un-established. For example, Islamist parties that are putting their energies into vying for power and filling the voids in the public domain enjoy numerical, though not necessarily qualitative, superiority over their liberal/secularist counterparts. This is both surprising and ironic. For one, the Islamists do not have the same political expertise or skills as their liberal/secularist rivals who enjoyed a relative degree of freedom under the old regime. In addition, the Islamists appear, at least outwardly, to be more willing to respect and play by the rules of the political game, regardless of the structural flaws in their understanding of democracy which they essentially reduce to the ballot box. Another irony is that the Islamists are better able to reach alliances and pacts for electoral purposes than the secularists who are forever plagued by division and fragmentation. Fourth, the politicisation that led Islamist movements to create political parties and engage in multi-party politics has extended to the religious leaders — preachers and proselytisers — who for decades had shunned politics. None are immune to the temptation to stake a share in the political fray. The recent divisions surrounding the religious authorities of the Salafist trend are a good indicator of this trend. Following the schism in the Nour Party, the rift spread into the party's mother organisation and ideological incubator, the Salafist Calling. The coming phase is likely to bring further fissuring in the Islamist camp. Fifth, the Islamists' record of behaviour over the past two years reveals a sharp and increasing discordance between their slogans and rhetoric, and their political visions and practical policies. This may in part be due to the lack of political experience even among Islamists who had been engaged in the public sphere for decades. The Muslim Brothers offer the most glaring example. Although they have reached power, they have so far proven incapable of leading and managing the country competently and effectively. They and their apologists have made much of conspiracies and attempts to undermine them, but all such “conspiracies” could have been laid to rest had the people felt that the president and the Muslim Brotherhood had a genuine vision and a realistic programme for remedying the daily problems and needs of the Egyptian people. In fact, the very repetition of such conspiratorial excuses is a sign of weakness and the failure to live up to their promises. The rhetoric of “conspiracy” rings particularly false to the many to whom it has become apparent that neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor President Mohamed Morsi are genuinely motivated to end the Mubarak regime and radically reform the state and that, instead, they are bent on using its authoritarian structures to consolidate their hold on power. Sixth, the classical mottos and slogans that Islamist rhetoric has relied on, such as the “Islamist project”, the “Islamist state”, not to mention the famous “Islam is the solution”, have been exposed, fallen by the wayside and lost much of their symbolic force. This is indicative of a significant erosion in the Islamists' ideological and propaganda capital. Perhaps the intensive recourse to the slogan calling for the application of Sharia law is little more than an attempt to salvage the Islamists' image among their own support bases, even before the public at large. I believe that this slogan will eventually go the way of its predecessors and other major Islamist narratives. A major reason for this is the striking fact that the political surge that the Islamist movement is experiencing in Egypt has not been accompanied by an intellectual and cultural revival in Islamist political discourse in a manner that would enable it to keep pace with the rapid developments generated by the revolution. On the one hand, there has been no attempt to renovate the thinking and modes of thought and argumentation that rest on conventional jurisprudential visions and fatwas. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the discourse has fallen into decline, that it has grown more rigid, antiquated and unable to respond to the needs of an evolving society, to which testify many of the Islamists' pronouncements and fatwas that are filling the airwaves these days. On the other hand, no new Islamist enlightenment thinkers have emerged to inject fresh terms and ideas into the Islamist discourse. Again, the opposite is the case. Once prominent Islamist reformist figures have been muted and sidelined. In their place we find superficial Islamist television evangelists who are unworthy of the lofty message they presumably seek to transmit. The irrational nonsense and poisonous demagoguery that spews from some of the Salafist satellite television shows in the name Islam only begins to describe the extent of this problem. Seventh, Islamist political behaviour has betrayed an ultra-majoritarian mindset that in turn reveals the poor levels of their understanding of and dedication to democracy. These traits are to be found in equal measure among political old hands such as the Muslim Brothers — regardless of their oft-repeated claims to commitment to democracy during the past couple of decades — and political newcomers, such as the Salafis and reformed jihadists. Nor is this attitude confined to political behaviour. It has come to pervade rhetoric as well. The fact that such terms as “tamkin” (empowerment, generally for the purpose of implementing the Islamist project), “istikhlaf” (naming the successor) and “hakimiya” (supremacy) have come to replace the concepts of participation, plurality, cooperation, diversity and difference in their rhetoric has raised many concerns over their true intentions with respect to the future of political power, government and democratic rotation of authority in Egypt. Eighth, the religious demand in Egypt remains the chief determinant of the rise or fall of the Islamist movement. The religious market is still thriving, although this comes at the expense of the product (the quality of rhetoric, substance and behaviour). Applying the theory of “supply and demand” to this phenomenon, we can comfortably maintain that in spite of the increasing demand for religiosity, the supply is equally abundant, which helps explain the decline in the content of what is on offer in the Islamist media. If the supply continues to increase in this manner, one of the effects will be to generate an aversion to ostentatious religiosity among many sectors of society and, perhaps, lead them to rethink the question of religion itself. Certainly, the intensive presence of religion in all public and private affairs, especially in view of the contrived and dogmatic ways it is imposed, could erode the attractiveness of the religious idea. This raises the major and as of yet unanswered question as to why the most popular and attractive religious ideology in Egypt seems to come at the expense of other ideological and intellectual theses. Lastly, in spite of all the talk of “Islamisation”, “Ikhwanisation” (Muslim Brotherhood-isation) and “Salafisation” of the state and society, there are still structural limits and boundaries that impede the Islamists' drive to assert their hegemony. True, the fortifications against such a drive may appear weak, but the failure of the Islamists to deliver on solutions to the country's fundamental economic and social plights would be an even greater barrier to their Islamisation bids. In other words, the Islamists will not be able to realise their dream of “empowerment” until they adopt realistic policies and projects that solve the problems of the people who will show no mercy for politicians who fail.
The writer is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.
