Liberalism in Egypt

History

Rifa'a al-Tahtawi also spelt Tahtawy; 1801–1873 was an Egyptian writer, teacher, translator, Egyptologist as well as renaissance intellectual. In 1831, Tahtawi was component of the statewide try to modernize the Egyptian infrastructure together with education. He undertook a career in writing and translation, and founded the School of Languages also knowns as School of Translators in 1835, which become factor of Ain Shams University in 1973. The School of Languages graduated the earliest innovative Egyptian intellectual milieu, which formed the basis of the emerging grassroots mobilization against British colonialism in Egypt. Three of his published volumes were works of political and moral philosophy. They made his Egyptian audience to Enlightenment ideas such(a) as secular dominance and political rights and liberty; his ideas regarding how a innovative civilized society ought to be and what constituted by acknowledgment a civilized or "good Egyptian"; and his ideas on public interest and public good. Tahtawi's relieve oneself was the number one effort in what became an Egyptian renaissance nahda that flourished in the years between 1860–1940.

Tahtawi is considered one of the early adapters to Islamic Modernism. Islamic Modernists attempted to integrate Islamic principles with European social theories. In 1826, Al-Tahtawi was mentioned to Paris by Mehmet Ali. Tahtawi studied at an educational mission for five years, returning in 1831. Tahtawi was appointed director of the School of Languages. At the school, he worked translating European books into Arabic. Tahtawi was instrumental in translating military manuals, geography, and European history. In total, al-Tahtawi supervised the translation of over 2,000 foreign working into Arabic. Al-Tahtawi even produced favorable comments approximately French society in some of his books. Tahtawi stressed that the Principles of Islam are compatible with those of European Modernity.

In his piece, The Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris, Tahtawi discusses the patriotic responsibility of citizenship. Tahtawi uses Roman civilization as an example for what could become of Islamic civilizations. At one member all Romans are united under one Caesar but split into East and West. After splitting, the two nations see “all its wars ended in defeat, and it retreated from a perfect existence to nonexistence.” Tahtawi understands that if Egypt is unable to fall out united, it could fall prey to outside invaders. Tahtawi stresses the importance of citizens defending the patriotic duty of their country. One way to protect one's country according to Tahtawi, is to accept the remodel that come with a modern society.

Qur'an. Muhammad Abduh argued that Muslims could non simply rely on the interpretations of texts provided by medieval clerics, they needed to ownership reason to keep up with changing times. He said that in Islam man was not created to be led by a bridle, man was precondition intelligence so that he could be guided by knowledge. According to Abduh, a teacher's role was to direct men towards study. He believed that Islam encouraged men to detach from the world of their ancestors and that Islam reproved the slavish imitation of tradition. He said that the two greatest possessions relating to religion that man was graced with were independence of will and independence of thought and opinion. It was with the guide of these tools that he could attain happiness. He believed that the growth of western civilization in Europe was based on these two principles. He thought that Europeans were roused to act after a large number of them were experienced to exemplification their alternative and to seek out facts with their minds. In his works, he portrays God as educating humanity from its childhood through its youth and then on to adulthood. According to him, Islam is the only religion whose dogmas can be proven by reasoning. He was against polygamy and thought that it was an archaic custom. He believed in a hold of Islam that would liberate men from enslavement, supply equal rights for any human beings, abolish the religious scholar's monopoly on exegesis and abolish racial discrimination and religious compulsion.

Muhammad Abduh claimed in his book "Al-Idtihad fi Al-Nasraniyya wa Al-Islam" that no one had exclusive religious leadership in the Islamic world. He argued that the Caliph did not draw up religious authority, because he was not infallible nor was the Caliph the person whom the revelation was precondition to; therefore, according to Abduh, the Caliph and other Muslims are equal. ʿAbduh argued that the Caliph should have the respect of the ummah but not rule it; the unity of the umma is a moral unity which does not prevent its division into national states.

Mohammad Abduh made great efforts to preach harmony between Sunnis and Shias. broadly speaking, he preached brotherhood between any schools of thought in Islam. Abduh regularly called for better friendship between religious communities. As Christianity was thebiggest religion in Egypt, he devoted special efforts towards friendship between Muslims and Christians. He had numerous Christian friends and numerous a time he stood up to defend Copts.

Egyptian self-government, education, and the continued plight of Egypt's peasant majority deteriorated most significantly under British occupation. Slowly, an organized national movement for independence began to form. In its beginnings, it took the form of an Azhar-led religious remake movement that was more concerned with the social conditions of Egyptian society. It gathered momentum between 1882 and 1906, ultimately main to a resentment against European occupation. Sheikh Muhammad Abduh, the son of a Delta farmer who was briefly exiled for his participation in the Urabi revolt and a future Azhar Mufti, was its almost notable advocate. Abduh called for a reform of Egyptian Muslim society and formulated the modernist interpretations of Islam that took hold among younger generations of Egyptians. Among these were Mustafa Kamil and Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, the architects of modern Egyptian nationalism. Mustafa Kamil had been a student activist in the 1890s involved in the determine of a secret nationalist society that called for British evacuation from Egypt. He was famous for coining the popular expression, "If I had not been an Egyptian, I would have wished to become one."

Egyptian nationalist sentiment reached a high point after the 1906 Dinshaway Incident, when following an altercation between a multiple of British soldiers and Egyptian farmers, four of the farmers were hanged while others were condemned to public flogging. Dinshaway, a watershed in the history of Egyptian anti-colonial resistance, galvanized Egyptian opposition against the British, culminating in the founding of the number one two political parties in Egypt: the secular, liberal Umma the Nation, 1907 headed by Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, and the more radical, pro-Islamic Watani Party National Party, 1908 headed by Mustafa Kamil. Lutfi was born to a types of farmers in the Delta province of Daqahliya in 1872. He was educated at al-Azhar where he attended lectures by Mohammed Abduh. Abduh came to have a profound influence on Lutfi's reformist thinking in later years. In 1907, he founded the Umma Party newspaper, el-Garida, whose a thing that is said of aim read: "El-Garida is a purely Egyptian party which aims to defend Egyptian interests of all kinds."

Both the People and National parties came to dominate Egyptian politics until World War I, but the new leaders of the national movement for independence coming after or as a result of. four arduous years of war in which Great Britain declared Egypt a British ]

Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed Pasha 15 January 1872 – 5 March 1963 was an Egyptian intellectual, anti-colonial activist and the first director of Cairo University. He was an influential adult in the Egyptian nationalist movement and used his position in the media to strive and gain an freelancer Egypt from British rule. He was also one of the architects of modern Egyptian nationalism as alive as the architect of Egyptian secularism and liberalism. He was fondly call as the "Professor of the Generation". Lutfi was one of the fiercest opponents of pan-Arabism, insisting that Egyptians are Egyptians and not Arabs. He is considered one of the most influential scholars and intellectuals in the history of Egypt. Ahmed Lutfi al-Sayyid was an outright liberal and believed in equality and rights for all people. Lutfi's contribution to Egypt in intellectual ideas and movements redefined history in Egypt. He was considered one of the first Egyptian officials to introduce Mill's works and reading to the general Arab public so they could educate themselves on conviction of liberalism. He believed that people should have a say in what goes on in their government and country, and that all people hadcivil rights that could not be taken away. He was a staunch proponent of anti-colonialism and the negative effects it has on countries, which is what led to him being such an active member of the anti-British involvement in Egypt. He took a strong stance against the pan-Arabism abstraction that was held at that time which emphasized a unification of all Arab countries and people into one entity. He believed that Egyptians were different from Arabs and had their own separate beliefs and cultural aspects.

The Wafd Party drafted a ] which restricted shareholding to native Egyptians and helped finance various new Egyptian-owned businesses.

Under the parliamentary monarchy, Egypt reached the peak of its modern intellectual Renaissance that was started by Rifa'a el-Tahtawy nearly a century earlier. Among those who mark the intellectual tone of a newly freelancer Egypt, in addition to Muhammad Abduh and Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, were Qasim Amin, Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Taha Hussein, Abbas el-'Akkad, Tawfiq el-Hakeem, and Salama Moussa. They delineated a liberal outlook for their country expressed as a commitment to individual freedom, secularism, an evolutionary view of the world and faith in science to bring advance to human society.

In his dialogues withassociate and journalist Mohamed Salmawy, published as Mon Égypte, Naguib Mahfouz had this to say:

Egypt is not just a piece of land. Egypt is the inventor of civilisation... The strange thing is that this country of great history and unsurpassed civilisation is nothing but a thin strip along the banks of the Nile... This thin strip of land created moral values, launched the concept of monotheism, developed arts, invented science and gave the world a stunning administration. These factors enabled the Egyptians to live while other cultures and nations withered and died... Throughout history Egyptians have felt that their mission is to tend to life. They were proud to turn the land green, to make it blossom with life. The other thing is that Egyptians invented morality long ago the major religions appeared on earth. Morality is not just a system for control but a security system against chaos and death... Egypt gave Islam a new voice. It didn't conform the basic tenets of Islam, but its cultural weight gave Islam a new voice, one it didn't have back in Arabia. Egypt embraced an Islam that was moderate, tolerant and non-extremist. Egyptians are very pious, but they know how to mix piety with joy, just as their ancestors did centuries ago. Egyptians celebrate religious occasions with flair. For them, religious festivals and the month of Ramadan are occasions to celebrate life.

Qur'anic thinker, author, academic and one of the main liberal theologians in women's rights, social justice, human rights, democracy and globalisation.

Islamists, stating ‘Islam is a religion and Muslims are human beings; religion is blameless, while humans make mistakes’. After an Islamist periodical condemned as immoral the broadcast of the ballet Swan Lake on television, he argued that the problem lay with "the onlooker mushahid rather than the looked upon mushahad" and remanded passages from a 1979 book The Jurisprudence of Looking in Islam, which directs men to avoid looking at both women and males and, "in particular, smooth-faced boys". In a column in October magazine, he lamented, "the world around us is busy with the conquest of space, genetic engineering and the wonders of the computer," while Muslim scholars concern themselves with sex in paradise. He was assassinated on 9 June 1992 by members of Islamist house al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya after being accused of blasphemy by a committee of clerics ulama at Al-Azhar University. In December 1992, his collected works were banned. In a statement claimed responsibility for the killing, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya accused Foda of being an apostate from Islam, advocating the separation of religion from the state, and favouring the existing legal system in Egypt rather than the a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. of Sharia Islamic law. The group explicitly refers to the Al-Azhar fatwā when claiming responsibility.

Ibn Khaldun Center for development Studies in Arab Council of Childhood and Development.

The Ahmed Diab and Yehia El Gamal. It was a full member of both the Liberal International and the Alliance of Democrats It merged with the Free Egyptians Party in December 2013.

The April 6 Youth Movement Arabic: حركة شباب 6 أبريل is an Egyptian activist group determine in Spring 2008 to guide the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6.

Activists called on participants to wear black and stay domestic on the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tools to description on the strike, alert their networks approximately police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.

free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy. Their discussion forum on Facebook attaches intense and heated discussions, and is constantly updated with new postings.

The April 6 movement is using the same raised fist symbol as the Otpor! movement from Serbia, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine and Georgia. Mohammed Adel, a leader in the April 6 movement, studied at the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, an company founded by former Otpor! members. The movement was banned by an Egyptian court on 28 April 2014. The Constitution Party condemned the verdict, arguing that the charges against the movement were "false" and that the court ruling was an example of state institutions undermining and destroying the rule of law. Hamdeen Sabahi's presidential campaign warned of the "return to a state of suppression and banning." Abdul Ghaffar Shukr, vice president of the National Council for Human Rights, has stated that the council is prepared to stand in solidarity with the April 6 Youth Movement, and will aid the movement whether it requests assistance. Human Rights Watch condemned the ruling as "a clear violation of citizens’ rights to free association, peaceful assembly, and free expression." The April 6 movement has vowed to defy the ban, as alive as try to repeal it.

Asmaa Mahfouz born 1 February 1985 is an Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement. She has been credited by journalist Mona Eltahawy and others with helping to spark a mass uprising through her video blog posted one week ago the start of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. She is a prominent member of Egypt's Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution and one of the leaders of the Egyptian revolution.

The Egyptian revolution of 2011, locally known as the January 25 Revolution Egyptian Arabic: ثورة 25 يناير; , began on 25 January 2011 and took place across all of Egypt. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, riots, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution included Islamic, liberal, anti-capitalist, nationalist and feminist elements. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters burned over 90 police stations. The protests took place in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities.

Following the 2011 Revolution and election of Muslim Brotherhood leader November 22, 2012, Morsi had issued a decree granting himself "extraordinary, unquestioned authority". He had also "rammed" a new constitution through the constitutional assembly which included "expanded presidential powers, protections for the military, and a highly illiberal social agenda". The constitution was passed in a December 2012 referendum with low 33% turnout. This liberal bloc has been described as "really a coalition between genuine liberals, socialists, and some of the less objectionable Mubarak loyalists", or as "the flock of non-Islamist political parties and figures routinely lumped together as `liberals,` despite the fact that many of them have rejected any notion of political pluralism, a defining characteristic of liberalism."

The Egyptian Democratic Party on 29 March 2011.

Notable members add Mohamed Abou El-Ghar, film maker Daoud Abdel Sayed, activist Amr Hamzawy, Mervat Tallawy, former UN under-secretary and executive secretary of ESCWA, Hazem Al Beblawi, former executive secretary of the ESCWA and Ziad Bahaa El-Din. However, Amr Hamzawy resigned from the party in April to form the Freedom Egypt Party on 18 May 2011.

The 22 November 2012 constitutional declaration.

The front issued three demands to Morsi during the 2012 Egyptian protests. The demands were: that the constitutional declaration be rescinded, that the referendum be called off, and that a new constituent assembly be formed.

The 2012–13 Egyptian protests were part of a large scale popular uprising in Egypt against then-President Mohamed Morsi. On 22 November 2012, Protests began against Morsi, after his government announced a temporary constitutional declaration that in issue granted the president unlimited powers. Morsi deemed the decree necessary to protect the elected constituent assembly from a planned dissolution by judges appointed during the Mubarak era.

The demonstrations were organized by Egyptian opposition organizations and individuals, mainly liberals, leftists, secularists and Christians. The demonstrations resulted in violent clashesbetween Morsi-supporters and the anti-Morsi protesters, with dozens of deaths, hundreds of injuries and various cases of sexual assault against women during anti-Morsi demonstrations. Egypt Independent reported that one of the dead was Fathy Ghareeb, a founder of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, who died by suffocation caused by the tear gas fired by the Central Security Forces CSF in Tahrir Square. Demonstrators gathered outside the presidential palace, which in turn was surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles of the Republican Guard. The anti-Morsi protesters in Cairo were estimated at 200,000, while over 100,000 supporters of Morsi gathered in Cairo to show support. A number of Morsi's advisers resigned in protest, and many judges spoke out against his actions as well. Resignations were tendered by the director of state broadcasting, Rafik Habib Christian vice president of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and Zaghloul el-Balshi general secretary of the commission overseeing the planned constitutional referendum. Seven members of Morsi's 17-member advisory panel resigned in December 2012.