Number of results to display per page
Search Results
42. Islam and Technology: Evolution and Revolution
- Author:
- Aarti Ramachandran
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- In the heady days of the Arab Spring, as news came across the wire that longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was about to step down, the Twitter universe abounded with jokes about the dictator and his relationship with technology: “He's trying to Google Map Saudi Arabia but forgot he shut down the internet.”
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Saudi Arabia and Egypt
43. Is There an Islamist Alternative in Egypt?
- Author:
- Daniela Pioppi
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- It is a common place in the literature that the Muslim Brotherhood (jama'a al-ikhwan al-muslimin) is - after its re-emergence on the political scene back in the seventies - the main (if not the only) real, organised and mass-based opposition force in Egypt. Events in Egypt in January 2011 have recast attention on this question. This paper aims to evaluate, inasmuch as it is possible, the state of health of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) today, after forty years of coexistence with the Egyptian (neo)-authoritarian regime. Has the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood represented a real alternative to the incumbent regime? Or it is more correct to speak today in terms of an almost 'functional' opposition, tamed by recurring political repression and limited freedom of action? To what extent has the Muslim Brotherhood been able to shape or at least to influence the Egyptian political and social agenda, both with respect to the regime and to other opposition forces?
- Topic:
- Democratization, Islam, and Insurgency
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arabia, and Egypt
44. The Sudan Referendum and Neighbouring Countries: Egypt and Uganda
- Author:
- Øystein Rolandsen, Jacob Høigilt, and Åshild Falch
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
- Abstract:
- As a former coloniser and the Sudan's Nile-valley neighbour to the north, Egypt will inevitably be affected by the Sudan's political transition. As Egypt's regional influence appears to wane, the Sudan's increasing economic strength and the likely secession of Southern Sudan exemplify Egypt's overall difficulties in regard to the regional politics of the Horn of Africa and Nile Basin. Egyptian policy-makers and diplomats struggle with fundamental contradictions in Egypt's current regional status, competing priorities, and the need to stay on good terms with all political parties in the Sudan. To be able to balance domestic needs, relations with its immediate neighbours, and its role as a regional power Egypt must reshape its foreign policy; Egypt's national interests in the Sudan preclude neutrality in the processes ahead. It can however play a key role in a joint regional and international effort to secure the peaceful secession for Southern Sudan.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Civil War, Democratization, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, and Islam
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, Sudan, and Egypt
45. The Muslim Brotherhood: On the Record
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- The following sampling of comments by Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt explains the group's position in the current crisis and its attitudes towards the United States, Israel, and the rest of the Arab world.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Islam, and Insurgency
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Arabia, and Egypt
46. The Muslim Brotherhood's Role in the Egyptian Revolution
- Author:
- Shadi Hamid and Steven Brooke
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- On february 11, 2011, Egypt had its revolution when President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down after 18 days of massive protests. With the military taking control and promising a transition to democracy, the question of what comes next has acquired a particular urgency. Specifically, Western fears of the Muslim Brotherhood stepping into the political vacuum have re-energized a longstanding debate about the role of Islamists in Middle Eastern politics, and the dilemma that poses for the United States.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- United States and Egypt
47. Renewed Violence against Egypt's Coptic Christians
- Author:
- David Schenker
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- On January 6 -- Christmas Eve according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar -- six Coptic Christians and a policeman were killed in a drive-by shooting while exiting church in Naga Hammadi, Upper Egypt. The attack, which came in retaliation to an alleged rape of a twelve-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man, was the largest assault on Copts in Egypt since a January 2000 massacre left twenty dead in Sohag. The days since the shooting have been marked by violent clashes and the burning of Christian and Muslim property. These developments have unfolded against the background of increased political pressure on Islamists -- evoking the 1990s, when the killing of Copts by Islamist militants was a routine occurrence and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was banned from political participation. Thus, while Naga Hammadi might be an isolated incident, it could also presage the return of Egypt's Islamists to the bloody sectarian attacks of the 1990s.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Islam, and Sectarianism
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arabia, and Egypt
48. Al Qaeda's Religious Justification of Nuclear Terrorism
- Author:
- Rolf Mowatt-Larssen
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- When legendary jihadist Abdullah Azzam was assassinated under mysterious circumstances in November 1989, suspects in his murder included Osama bin Laden and Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. After the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan, Azzam sought to shift jihad to his homeland, Palestine. Zawahiri sought to focus the jihad on Egypt and the other secular Muslim states, in hopes of restoring the caliphate, the rule of Islamic clerics, which had ended after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1924. After Islamic rule had been re-established in the Islamic world, Zawahiri wrote, “then history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government.”
- Topic:
- Islam, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Palestine, Egypt, and Assam
49. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn
- Author:
- Ş. İlgü Özler
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- In this book, Asef Bayat explores Islam and democracy especially with regard to what he calls the “post-Islamist” movement in the Muslim world. Instead of asking whether Islam and democracy are compatible, he asks, “under what conditions can Muslims instigate democratization within their countries?” He challenges the Orientalist view on Islamic exceptionalism by not only contesting the validity of the question about the compatibility of democracy and Islam, but also through a very thorough investigation of the post-Islamist movement in Iran and the Islamist movement in Egypt. He defines post-Islamism as a “condition” and a “project” that emphasizes change through religiosity and rights that arises after Islamism runs its course as a legitimate source of hope for political and economic development (p. 10-11). Through his in depth case studies he demonstrates that the state has been successful in suppressing the post-Islamist social movements and their secular and reformist demands for political change in Iran. While the state has been equally successful at suppressing opposition (the political Islamist movement) in Egypt, the Egyptian state has not been able to quell society's turn to Islamism.
- Topic:
- Economics and Islam
- Political Geography:
- Iran and Egypt
50. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Islamist Participation in a Closing Political Environment
- Author:
- Nathan J. Brown and Amr Hamzawy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- The Muslim Brotherhood, the dynamic Islamist movement that has tried to navigate Egypt's semi-authoritarian system for over six decades, is facing a shrinking political space. For most of the past decade, the Brotherhood has expanded its political role, increasing from 17 to 88 members of Egypt's 620-member People's Assembly. Its success has brought increasing repression from the government. A range of measures have limited the Brotherhood's effective-ness in the People's Assembly, preventing it from forming a political party. This environment has led the movement to prioritize internal solidarity over parliamentary activities and refocus efforts on its traditional educational, religious, and social agenda. While the Brotherhood is unlikely to renounce politics altogether, the movement's center of gravity is shifting toward those who regard it as distracting, divisive, and even self-defeating.
- Topic:
- Islam and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Egypt