Socio-Religious Authority in Post-Modern Egypt: Islamists and ‘ulamā in the eyes of Egypt’s ummah

Abstract

In contemporary Egypt, moderate Islamists, embodied by many members of the Muslim Brotherhood, have captured popular religious authority by supplanting the social role of the less adaptive traditional religious elite in an economically struggling, post-colonial Egypt. The urban poor of Egypt, a sizable part of the country’s population (chiefly consisting of its Muslim ummah) still relate to the traditional ‘ulamā (clerics) to fulfill their need to maintain cultural continuity in traditional mosque-based piety, while placing greater value in the potentially more helpful political activities and social services of moderate Islamists as their means of authenticating religious practice – doing religion in meaningful ways - and economic relief.