What role can Egypt's imams play in resolving social problems? Ahmed Abu Ghazala finds out Many of Egypt's present social problems are associated with poor standards of behaviour. Whether it is a matter of neglecting to clear up litter, resorting to dubious methods to speed up administrative procedures, or not always working as hard as one might do, which one of us can truthfully say that we have not sometimes been guilty of anti-social behaviour? With this in mind, Abdallah El-Bastawisi, imam of the Al-Quddous Mosque in Nasr City, recently announced an initiative to support street cleaning in the area of the mosque, going on to make an agreement with the municipality to the effect that local residents would help to collect domestic rubbish, delivering it to the municipal services for disposal. El-Bastawisi made the announcement after his Friday sermon, probably bearing in mind the Prophet Mohamed's statement, recorded in a hadith, that "I have been sent to complement the finest of manners." Good manners and good neighbourliness are virtues that the imams of mosques and other religious office-holders can help promote, given the respect they enjoy in Egyptian society. Following El-Bastawisi's announcement of the new initiative, local residents began cleaning the areas in front of their apartment buildings. The following week, El-Bastawisi renewed his call for volunteers, so far with mixed success, but he remains confident that more and more people will be encouraged to follow this grassroots initiative to improve the local area. Members of the community had discussed the idea with him before his Friday sermon, El-Bastawisi said, adding that it was important for local people to become more involved since local authorities do not always have sufficient resources to ensure that areas are kept pristine. "We decided to help them by cleaning the area in front of the mosque and calling on residents to clean areas in front of their buildings. This will help the whole municipality," El-Bastawisi said. The Prophet Mohamed particularly valued cleanliness, he added. "When the Prophet Mohamed saw a man wearing dirty clothes, he was shocked, asking whether the man had not been able to find a way of cleaning his clothes." Islam sees neatness and cleanliness as a virtue, and the Prophet Mohamed himself said in a hadith that "Allah is good, and He therefore accepts only that which is good." One of the area's residents who gave up his time to help clean the area's streets with two of his children was Khaled Eissa, one of the community leaders who had originally discussed the idea with El-Bastawisi. "We donated money to help buy brooms, plastic sacks and other things," Eissa said, describing himself as pleased with the way things had worked out, but seeing the Nasr City experiment as very much a pilot project from which lessons can be learned. A more systematic approach was needed, Eissa said, with building supervisors perhaps being paid an additional sum to clean the areas in front of buildings on an ongoing basis. Alternatively, a building-wide system could be set up, with residents clubbing together to organise cleaning rotas for the areas surrounding their buildings. While such ideas have yet to take off more widely, the Nasr City experiment, and the role played by the imam of the local mosque within it, has suggested the role that other imams could play in dealing with other social problems that currently beset the country. According to Minister of Waqf (religious endowments) Mahmoud Zaqzouq, the country has some 104,000 mosques, each of which has an imam who leads prayers and gives sermons and lectures. In addition, each mosque has a "mosque servant", someone responsible for taking care of the building and delivering the azan, or Muslim call to prayer. While many imams and mosque employees are appointed by the ministry, since many mosques are built with private funds only some 50,000 imams are today appointed by the state, with the rest being either privately employed or volunteers. A similar pattern holds for mosque servants. For Mohamed Raafat Osman, professor of comparative Islamic jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the role of the imams goes beyond preaching and leading prayers, and therefore there is no reason why they should not play a wider role in the community. The imams "should have one eye on society. If they see good things happening around them, they should encourage them. If, on the other hand, they see negative things taking place, then they should act to discourage them and instruct believers not to become involved," Osman said. Imams should also call upon their listeners and the government during Friday sermons to act properly, he added. During the Prophet Mohamed's lifetime and the earliest days of Islam, mosques acted as civic centres where community problems were discussed and resolved. However, as time passed and cities grew, developing political authorities, mosques gradually lost this communal role, becoming largely places for religious observance. As a result, the societal role played by the imams also began to decline. Moreover, Eissa adds, people today see social problems such as untidy streets as the local authorities' problem, and they are often unwilling to give the local imam a communal role. "People often perceive such problems as being the responsibility of the municipality, which charges every household LE8 a month to clean the streets, and then does nothing," he said. There may also be other reasons why historically Egypt's imams have been reluctant to take on wider social roles. "Many imams don't necessarily follow public issues, and they may also be obliged to take on other activities besides their role as imams to complement their earnings, preventing them from playing a larger social role," Osman said. The content of imams' sermons is not monitored, though this could be introduced in order to ensure that they are addressing people's needs. "Imams should be given complete freedom to discuss any topic they perceive as being important in their sermons, as long as they are covering it objectively," Osman added. "They should address important topics that are relevant to people's lives." For his part, El-Bastawisi, the imam behind the Nasr City experiment, said that many people believe that imams' sermons are monitored by the Ministry of Waqf, but this idea is false. "Imams and sheikhs have complete freedom to choose the topics they perceive as suitable," he said. "The imam's role is to see what people need, discuss and try to solve their problems, coexist with them and never to isolate himself," El-Bastawisi concluded.
