Muhamad Rofiq MUZAKKIR

34529

Understanding the Discourse of ʿAlī Jumʿah on the Military Coup During the Arab Spring in Egypt

Understanding the Discourse of ʿAlī Jumʿah on the Military Coup During the Arab Spring in Egypt

This article aims to propose an alternative explanation to the existing scholarship about the factors behind the failure of Egypt to transform into a democratic country after having experienced the major moment of the Arab Spring. I argue that the theological discourse of the ʿulamāʾ and their commitment to one of the currents of Islamic political thought in the premodern period contributed to the miscarriage of the Arab Spring. In doing so, I focus on unpacking the discourse of the previous grand muftī of Egypt, ʿAlī Jumʿah (Ali Gom’ah), on the military coup against the democratically elected president from the Muslim Brotherhood, Muḥammad Mursī (Mohammed Morsi). On several occasions, Jumʿah conveyed discourses that supported and justified the actions of the military leaders who took power. I trace ʿAlī Jumʿah’s discourse on the coup through three medieval scholars’ views on the usurpation of power (al-istīlāʾ ʿalá l-imārah). I compare ʿAlī Jumʿah’s discourse to that of al-Māwardī, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Jamāʿah, three prominent political theorists and jurists in the medieval period. I argue that the tendency to conform with tradition led ʿAlī Jumʿah to formulate his undemocratic discourse. In this article, I examine several notions from the Islamic legal field that ʿAlī Jumʿah employed to justify the coup. I also argue that in addition to following the standard norms from the medieval period, ʿAlī Jumʿah also departed from such norms in several aspects. I contend that his discourse during the Arab Spring has had severe implications for both the Islamic legal field and the political trajectory of Egypt.
Keywords:

Usurpation of power, Egypt, ʿAlī Jumʿah, the Arab Spring authoritarianism,

PDF

___

  • Abdel Meguid, Ahmed, and Daanish Faruqi. “The Truncated Debate: Egyptian Liberals, Islamists, and Ideological Statism.” In Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy, edited by Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi, 253-290. London: Oneworld, 2017.
  • Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  • Abou El Fadl, Khaled. “The Praetorian State in the Arab Spring.” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 34 (2013): 305-314.
  • Abou El Fadl, Khaled. “Failure of a Revolution. The Military, Secular Intelligentsia and Religion in Egypt’s Pseudo-Secular State.” In Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring: Rethinking Democratization, edited by Larbi Sadiki, 253-270. London & New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Abou El Fadl, Khaled. “Egypt’s Secularized Intelligentsia and the Guardians of Truth.” In Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy, edited by Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi, 235-252. London: Oneworld, 2017.
  • Abou El Fadl, Khaled. “Dominating Religion in Egypt’s Pseudo-Secular State.” http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/09/15/3848943.htm. Accessed March 5, 2018.
  • al-Albānī, Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn. Silsilat al-aḥādīth al-ḍaʿīfah wa-l-mawḍūʿah wa-atharuhā l-sayyiʾ fī l-ummah. 14 vols. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿārif li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2004.
  • al-Anani, Khalil. “The ‘Anguish’ of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.” In Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring: Rethinking Democratization, edited by Larbi Sadiki, 227-239. London & New York: Routledge, 2015.
  • Anjum, Ovamir. Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  • Asad, Talal. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Qui Parle 17, no. 2 (2009): 1-30. https://doi.org/10.5250/quiparle.17.2.1.
  • Bano, Masooda. “At the Tipping Point? Al-Azhar’s Growing Crisis of Moral Authority.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 50, no. 4 (2018): 715-734. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743818000867.
  • Bassiouni, M. Cherif. “Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution.” In Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters, edited by Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy, and Timothy Garton Ash, 53-87. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
  • Bayat, Asef. Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2017.
  • Belal, Youssef. “Islamic Law, Truth, Ethics: Fatwa and Jurisprudence of the Revolution.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 38, no. 1 (2018): 107-121. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4390015.
  • al-Dhahabī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad. Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 18 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 2006.
  • Esposito, John L., Tamara Sonn, and John O. Voll. Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Fadel, Mohammad. “Islamic Law and Constitution-Making: The Authoritarian Temptation and the Arab Spring.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 53, no. 2 (2016): 472-507. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2711859.
  • al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Faḍāʾiḥ al-Bāṭiniyyah. Edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī. Kuwait: Muʾassasat Dār al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyyah, 1970.
  • al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Faḍāʾiḥ al-Bāṭiniyyah. Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn. Along with Abū l-Faḍl Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn al-Ḥusayn al-ʿIrāqī’s al-Mughnī ʿan ḥaml al-asfār fī l-asfār fī takhrīj mā fī l-Iḥyāʾ min al-akhbār. Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2005.
  • al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. Faḍāʾiḥ al-Bāṭiniyyah. al-Iqtiṣād fī l-iʿtiqād. Edited by Inṣāf Ramaḍān. Damascus & Beirut: Dār Qutaybah, 2003.
  • Hallaq, Wael B. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
  • Hamzawy, Amr. “Egyptian Liberals and Their Anti-Democratic Deceptions: A Contemporary Sad Narrative.” In Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy, edited by Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi, 337-360. London: Oneworld, 2017.
  • Hassner, Ron Eduard. War on Sacred Grounds. Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2009.
  • Hillenbrand, Carole. “Islamic Orthodoxy or Realpolitik? Al-Ghazālī’s Views on Government.” Iran 26, no. 1 (1988): 81-94.
  • Høigilt, Jacob, and Frida Nome. “Egyptian Salafism in Revolution.” Journal of Islamic Studies 25, no. 1 (2014): 33-54. https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/ett056.
  • Human Rights Watch, “The Rabʿa Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt,” https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt. Accessed May 20, 2019.
  • Ibn Jamāʿah, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm. Taḥrīr al-aḥkām fī tadbīr ahl al-Islām. Edited by Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Munʿim Aḥmad. Doha: Riʾāsat al-Maḥākim al-Sharʿiyyah wa-l-Shuʾūn al-Dīniyyah, 1985.
  • Ibn Khallikān, Abū l-ʿAbbās Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Barmakī al-Irbilī. Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān. 7 vols. Edited by Iḥsān ʿAbbās. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1900.
  • al-Idlibī, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Aḥmad. “Ḥadīth al-jund al-gharbī: Ḥadīth ‘satakūn fitnah, khayr al-nās fī-hā al-jund al-gharbī’.” http://idlbi.net/jundgarbi/. Accessed May 20, 2019.
  • islamweb.net. “Maʿná l-sawād al-aʿẓam wa-l-amr bi-luzūm al-jamāʿah al-ūlá.” https://fatwa.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=210028. Accessed May 21, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. ʿAlī Jumʿah wa-huwa yakhṭub amāma ʿaskar al-inqilāb al-liqāʾ al-musarrab kāmil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5_r-zV5Tj4. Accessed May 18, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. Faḍīlat al-imām al-duktūr ʿAlī Jumʿah wa-ruʾyah taḥlīliyyah li-mā yaḥduth fī l-bilād. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52DMpHZBxE4. Accessed May 20, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. Ḥadīth Rasūl Allāh ʿan jaysh Miṣr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8odslLsmrI&t=573s. Accessed May 18, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. Maqṭaʿ ṣawtī lī-muftī ʿAlī Jumʿah athnāʾ al-thawrah wa-yuʿalliq ʿalayhi l-Shaykh Muḥammad Saʿd al-Azharī. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzf_79q9fKo. Accessed May 20, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. “Min mawāqif al-ustādh al-duktūr ʿAlī Jumʿah.” http://www.draligomaa.com/index.php/%D8%AF%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D9%85%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AB%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9/item/911-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%82%D9%81-%D8%A3-%D8%AF-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9. Accessed May 20, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. 30 yūniyū yawm min ayyām Allāh intaṣara fīhi l-muʾminūn ʿalá l-kāfirīn. https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/1303970. Accessed October 11, 2018.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. “Translation of the Transcript of Ali Gomaa’s Message to the Egyptian Security Forces in the Weeks Prior the Rabaa Massacre.” Draft translation 12/2015. Translated by Usaama al-Azami. https://www.academia.edu/19791977/Translation_of_Ali_Gomaas_Lecture_to_the_Egyptian_Armed_Forces_Summer_2013_in_the_weeks_prior_the_Rabaa_Massacre_draft_. Accessed May 18, 2019.
  • Jumʿah, Alī. “Tolerance in Islam [A translation of Ali Gomaa’s Lecture to the Egyptian Armed Forces on 18 August 2013 – 4 days after the Rabaa Massacre]. Translated by Usaama Al-Azami. https://www.academia.edu/31264955/Ali_Gomaa_s_Lecture_to_the_Egyptian_Armed_Forces_on_18_August_2013_four_days_after_the_Rabaa_Massacre_draft_. Accessed May 18, 2019.
  • Lambton, Ann K. S. State and Government in Medieval Islam An Introduction to the Study of Islamic Political Theory: The Jurists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
  • Lesch, Ann M. “The Authoritarian States Power over Civil Society.” In Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy, edited by Dalia F. Fahmy and Daanish Faruqi, 121-174. London: Oneworld, 2017.
  • Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010.
  • Lipa, Michal. “Internal Determinants of Authoritarianism in the Arab Middle East. Egypt before the Arab Spring.” Hemispheres: Studies on Cultures and Societies 31, no. 3 (2016): 57-67.
  • al-Māwardī, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb. al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyyah wa-l-wilāyat al-dīniyyah. Edited by Aḥmad Mubārak al-Baghdādī. Al-Manṣūrah & Kuwait: Dār al-Wafāʾ & Maktabat Dār Ibn Qutaybah, 1989.
  • Moosa, Ebrahim. “Allegory of the Rule (Ḥukm): Law as Simulacrum in Islam?” History of Religions 38, no. 1 (1998): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1086/463517.
  • Moosa, Ebrahim. “Political Theology in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring: Returning to the Ethical.” In The African Renaissance and the Afro-Arab Spring: A Season of Rebirth?, edited by Charles Villa-Vicencio, Erik Doxtader, and Ebrahim Moosa, 101-120. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015.
  • Moosa, Ebrahim. “Recovering the Ethical: Practices, Politics, Tradition.” In The Shariʿa: History, Ethics, and Law, edited by Amyn B. Sajoo, 39-57. London & New York: I. B. Tauris & The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018.
  • Osman, Amr. “Past Contradictions, Contemporary Dilemmas: Egypt’s 2013 Coup and Early Islamic History.” Digest of Middle East Studies 24, no. 2 (2015): 303-326. https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12071.
  • al-Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf. “al-Khawārij bayna l-dīn wa-l-tārīkh wa-l-siyāsah [Kharijīs between Religion, History, and Politics].” Al-Jazeera’s Interview with Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī. http://www.aljazeera.net/programs/religionandlife/2013/8/25/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AC-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9. Accessed July 10, 2018.
  • Ranko, Annette, and Justyna Nedza. “Crossing the Ideological Divide? Egypt’s Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood after the Arab Spring.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 39, no. 6 (2016): 519-541. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2015.1116274.
  • Riḍā, Muḥammad Rashīd. al-Khilāfah. Cairo: Muʾassasat Hindāwī li-l-Taʿlīm wa-l-Thaqāfah, 2012.
  • al-Sayyid, Riḍwān. al-Jamāʿah wa-l-mujtamaʿ wa-l-dawlah: sulṭah al-aydiyūlūjiyā fī l-majāl al-siyāsī al-ʿArabī al-Islāmī. Beirut: Jadāwil li-l-Ṭibāʿah wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2015.
  • Warner, Carolyn M., and Stephen G. Walker. “Thinking about the Role of Religion in Foreign Policy: A Framework for Analysis.” Foreign Policy Analysis 7, no. 1 (2010): 113-135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2010.00125.x.
  • Warren, David H. “Cleansing the Nation of the ‘Dogs of Hell’: ʿAli Jumʿa’s Nationalist Legal Reasoning in Support of the 2013 Egyptian Coup and Its Bloody Aftermath.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 49, no. 3 (2017): 457-477. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743817000332.
  • Zeghal, Malika. “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952–94).” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31, no. 3 (1999): 371-399. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800055483.
Ilahiyat Studies-Cover
  • ISSN: 1309-1786
  • Başlangıç: 2010
  • Yayıncı: Bursa İlahiyat Vakfı
Arşiv
Sayıdaki Diğer Makaleler

How Could Early Christians Be Wrong? The Role of Fahm al-Salaf in the Biblical Hermeneutics of Ibn Taymiyyah and Michael Servetus

Mohammad ABU SHAREEA

Formation and Consequences of the Conversion Process: A Qualitative Study of Adult Converts

Ali AYTEN, Hatice KILINÇER, Neriman ULU, Nihal İŞBİLEN ESENDİR, Hafize ALBAYRAK

Understanding the Discourse of ʿAlī Jumʿah on the Military Coup During the Arab Spring in Egypt

Muhamad Rofiq MUZAKKIR

A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, by Marinos Sariyannis

Özgür KAVAK