The Role of Religion in the Social and Political Thought of Egypt in the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries
The article examines the transforming role of Islam in the teachings of key Egyptian thinkers belonging to the late modern period. The authors analyze the impact of religion on various schools of thought including the reformists (Al-Afghani, Abduh), liberal nationalists (Kamil, Zaghlul), and traditionalists from diverse movements - from Caliphatists to the partisans of Hassan al-Banna. The authors focus on the attempts of the Egyptian thinkers to combine Islamic tradition and principles with the challenges of state, social and economic modernization. Special emphasis is put on the correlation between political and national aspirations, on the one hand, and the concept of religious unity, on the other. The authors lay stress on both the continuance and interrelation between these ideological movements, and the differences in their approaches to Islam and its role in the Egyptian society. The authors also attempt to study the reasons for a relative decline in the role of Islam in the public life of Egypt during the period studied.