The Egyptian Arab Spring and Political Islam

• Author: Ayman Gad El ashkar
• Position: South East European University, Faculty of Public Administration, Republic of Macedonia
• Pages: 59-65

Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences

IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania

Vol. 2 No. 2

July 2016

ISSN 2410-3918

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

59

The Egyptian Arab Spring and Political Islam

Ayman Gad El ashkar

South East European University

Faculty of Public Administration, Republic of Macedonia

Abstract

This study elaborates and analyzes the phenomenon and concept of political Islam, the reasons

of the increased role of the Islamists and their political and reformist tendencies in the light of

the Egyptian revolution of Arab Spring, reasons and the main factors that have contributed on

theiradventintopowerandtheirinuenceinthattimetheissueoftheapplicationofIslamic

Sharia and complex realities about this dilemma. The revolutions of Arab Spring, including

the Egyptian revolution, are considered one of the most important and most dangerous events

intheXXIcenturyaertheterroristaacksofSeptembernotonlyintheMiddleEast

but throughout the world because of their impact on peace and global security. The growth

of the phenomenon of political Islam and the advent of Islamists into power in Egypt has

represented one of the most remarkable features of this sudden revolution. No doubt that the

issueoftherelationshipbetweenIslamandthestatespoliticalsystemraisesmanyconfusing

questions for many people. In this sense the importance of this study will directly identify the

fact that the leadership of Islamists in Egypt is not the implementation of Islamic Sharia but

their movements and ideology.

Keywords: Political Reform, Islamic Sharia, Secularism, Islamic Movements, Ideology.

Introduction

Contemporary Islamic organizations and movements that emerged in Egypt and

Arab world in the political arena and which have adopted Islamic thought were

not created at once. The state and politic repression during the third decade of the

twentieth century was the source of this thought and a contributing factor in forming

and establishing one of the most important and powerful active Islamic groups in

thisregardrespectivelytheMuslimBrotherhoodinEgyptanditsfounderHassan

al-Banna in 1928 (Rua, 1996, 41).

Islamists or Islamist movement, as it is called, have agreed on the urgent need to

convert the society into Islam, or in other words to Islamize the society. The concept

and theory of the Islamization of society from their point of view, understood as the

result of a comprehensive social and political action. This tendency requires to get

narrowed the scope of the concept of the mosque, on the concept of direct and clear

intervention in political life. In fact, this tendency grew and appeared prominently in

the beggining of sixties of the twentieth century, which was shown with the fact of

goals of the donor of power. Islamists do not look the religion in a narrow sense, such

as the act of charity, performing the prayers or messages and statutes of religious

legitimacy. But, on the contrary, they took another look, in a full faith. Religion is