{"id":81,"date":"2011-02-24T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T14:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/understandingsecularism.wp.trincoll.edu\/2011\/03\/02\/egypt-secularism-sharia-and-the-prospects-for-an-inclusive-democracy\/"},"modified":"2011-10-12T13:58:16","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T17:58:16","slug":"egypt-secularism-sharia-and-the-prospects-for-an-inclusive-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/2011\/02\/24\/egypt-secularism-sharia-and-the-prospects-for-an-inclusive-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt: Secularism, Sharia, and the Prospects for an Inclusive Democracy."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by <strong>Manar Shorbagy<\/strong>, \u00a0<em>Arab Center for Development and Future Studies &amp; Political Science Department, The American University in Cairo<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The relationship between religion and politics is at the top of the political agenda in Egypt, and, as I shall argue, it has important implications for the political rights of Egyptian women and minorities. However, the issue is not a simple secular\/religious divide. It is, rather, the problem of how to de\ufb01ne the nature and characteristics of a civil, democratic state that is neither a theocracy nor an Islamically \u201cnaked\u201d public space. The Islamist\/secularist dichotomy is a false one; it has little or no relevance to actual political processes and possibilities in Egypt, where a middle ground is both theoretically and practically conceivable. Such a middle ground, however, must be deliberately sought and found by Egyptians, so that a national consensus on the relationship between religion and politics can emerge.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Egypt: Secularism, Sharia, and the Prospects for an Inclusive Democracy. on Scribd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/17232623\/Egypt-Secularism-Sharia-and-the-Prospects-for-an-Inclusive-Democracy\">Egypt: Secularism, Sharia, and the Prospects for an Inclusive Democracy.<\/a> <object height=\"600\" width=\"100%\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf\"><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"opaque\"><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"document_id=17232623&amp;access_key=key-1uek05ryzhs958ysawp8&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\"><embed name=\"doc_33992\" src=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=17232623&amp;access_key=key-1uek05ryzhs958ysawp8&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" height=\"600\" width=\"100%\" wmode=\"opaque\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Manar Shorbagy, \u00a0Arab Center for Development and Future Studies &amp; Political Science Department, The American University in Cairo The relationship between religion and politics is at the top of the political agenda in Egypt, and, as I shall argue, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/2011\/02\/24\/egypt-secularism-sharia-and-the-prospects-for-an-inclusive-democracy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,18,5,28,32],"tags":[52,63],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}