It is impossible to ignore the perceptible and imperceptible relationships between the new social-networking media and the perceptions that govern human behaviour, shape world views, and clarify stances and outlooks towards events regardless of the (...)
How often must politicians have stared in amazement at football crowds and wondered whether it would be possible to make politics equally exciting to them.
The large discrepancy between the draw of the stadium and the popularity of politics has not (...)
How often must politicians have stared in amazement at football crowds and wondered whether it would be possible to make politics equally exciting to them. The large discrepancy between the draw of the stadium and the popularity of politics has not (...)
A closer inspection of some of the core ideas of Hassan Al-Banna (1906-1949), founder of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, may help resolve the current debate over the present condition of the Brotherhood and its future prospects.
Al-Banna, who (...)
A closer inspection of some of the core ideas of Hassan Al-Banna (1906-1949), founder of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, may help resolve the current debate over the present condition of the Brotherhood and its future prospects.
Al-Banna, who (...)
اقرأ باللغة العربية
Does Islam need to be reformed, some might ask in surprise. Yet, if they took the trouble to think and study some history, Islamic theology and jurisprudence, sociology and anthropology and, perhaps above all, comparative (...)
The targeting of Egyptian Christians by terrorist and takfiri groups is not a new phenomenon, like their targeting of Egyptian Muslims who refuse to subscribe to their oppressive and pernicious ideas. However, Christians have recently come under the (...)
The din of politics overwhelms. It drowns out all other sounds, even though these might be from forces having a stronger influence in shaping political stances and behaviour.
A case in point is the route pursued by billionaire businessman Donald (...)
We need to understand precisely what Daesh is before determining how to drive it back, contain it, tighten the siege around it and, perhaps, ultimately eliminate it definitively, so that it never resurfaces or sprouts new heads from the ashes.
It (...)
All Islamist movements, groups and movements with a political project, whether they pursue this peacefully or through violence and terrorism, share the belief in the notion of the alternative nation. The alternative entity would supersede the (...)
We cannot think of dismantling Islamism until we take a close and reflective look at three characteristics of the phenomenon that need to be taken into account in any assessment of the reasons for its existence, its role, its ideas and its recurrent (...)
Two antithetical outlooks have locked horns as Egypt commemorates the fifth anniversary of the January 2011 Revolution. One is impetuous, tendentious and determined to bury the will for change for the better that the Egyptian people harboured at a (...)
From the pharaohs to the present day, no phase in Egyptian history has been without some type of relationship between the state and religion. Religion in Egypt is deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants, regardless of the details (...)
Early in the latter half of the last century, Ali Ahmed Said Esber, known by his pen name Adonis, embarked on an ambitious study of the roots of “conformity versus innovation” in Arab-Islamic culture. He wanted to identify the ideological structures (...)
For the most part, religious extremism and terrorism grow in closed and unjust social environments. “Unjust” here refers to poverty and ignorance, narrow affiliations distorted by blind fanaticism and bigotry, and disregard for all ideas, social (...)
On Sunday, 21 Egyptian Copts were beheaded by ISIS in Libya. This prompted Egyptian air strikes that targeted the group's positions in Derna.
Egypt's Armed Forces are engaged in another battle against ISIS in North Sinai, on the eastern borders.
A (...)
“My freedom is to expand my cage.” This terse and profound line was conceived by the poetic genius of Mahmoud Darwish. It is often uttered by Arab writers as they are about to set pen to paper, or air their ideas on radio and television.
It (...)
No sooner had the dark hand of terrorism struck in France than the Western media, along with a large segment of the population there, pointed an accusing finger at Islam. The religion is terrorist by nature, went the general chorus.
Amidst the din, (...)
In 2014 the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist movement lost the social backing they had built up over decades. Facing political upheavals, the Muslim Brotherhood and its jihadist and proselytising Salafist allies squandered whatever popularity (...)
Electoral alliances are not new in Egypt — they are just ephemeral. Hardly are they formed than they quickly crumble due to ideological and personal clashes, the heavy security presence in the public sphere, politicians' impatience and shortage in (...)
The following conversation took place between a Belgian father of Moroccan origin and his nine-year-old son in Al-Raqqa, a Syrian city on the Euphrates.
The father had brought his son with him to live in an area controlled by the Islamic State (IS). (...)
After a five-hour silence, the French novelist Patrick Modiano wondered aloud why he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was not self-disparagement, of course, or an attempt to assume a modest pose in the flush of a great victory. The man (...)
Since its founding in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood's fate has followed a kind of roller-coaster trajectory. It rose up to such heights that it could touch the skies and was then toppled from its perch and plunged down to the earth.
It has been as (...)
Before the religious reform movement took off in Europe (without which the west would never have progressed), artists and writers prepared society for accepting the new ideas that paved the way for change.
Perhaps the gravest problem that has (...)
Despite the recent success of the presidential elections it appears that it will still take painstaking efforts on the part of Egypt's new political leadership to break the back of the three terrorist belts that currently surround the country.
As we (...)