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Two notions have been at the center of the Egyptian constitutional debates since 2011: the 'civil state' and the 'religious party'. The Muslim Brothers have played on the ambiguity of the notion of a 'civil state' as being neither secular nor theocratic, just as their understanding of an Islamic state. The Salafi al-Nūr Party has long refused to embrace the notion. Nevertheless, in 2019 it obtained from the Parliament's Speaker a definition close to the one defended by the Muslim Brothers and endorsed it as a victory against the secular interpretation of the term. The same ambiguity appears regarding the notion of a 'religious party'. The al-Nūr Party tried to prevent the interdiction of such parties in the 2014 Constitution. At the same time, it distances itself from the notion, and abides by the law, including Christian members, presenting female candidates, and organically separating political and religious activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the idea of ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam (mastership of the world), in the political thought of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam was formulated by the movements' founder, Ḥasan al-Bannā, as the ultimate goal of the MB, the last of a gradual seven-stage plan to Islamize the individual, the family, society, the government, and the state, and restore the caliphate. In an attempt to unpack this abstract concept, this article offers a contextualized reading of its use in the foundational tracts of the MB general guides, and in pertinent commentaries on some of these tracts. We point to an inherent ambiguity in the concept, which intertwines ideational and active elements of domination, ranging between the homiletical task of propagating Islam to the world and striving to rule the world. Within the MB, ustāḏiyyat al-ʿālam is found to serve alternately as a privileged status of the Islamic nation, a duty, a mechanism of power legitimation, and as a source of motivation in times of despair, while utilized in anti-MB campaigns to discredit the MB and curb its internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During their rule in Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), the Mamluks showed ambiguity in their attitudes towards the sultanate regarding the rules of succession and the power base of the ruler. This uncertainty has led to various ideas about the nature of the Mamluk State in scientific studies on Mamluk History. It is generally implied that the principle of succession was adopted to varying degrees in the Mamluk State, but that it was weak during the Bahri period and completely abandoned during the Circassian period. However, it was stated that the Mamluks wanted to establish an inheritance system, but it was emphasized that it often failed as a result of its conflict with the Mamluk system. In this study, although it is pointed out that there are dynastic system tendencies in the Mamluk State from time to time, it will be emphasized that the heirship was not applied as a system mostly, and that the Mamluk sultans remained in the "primus inter pares" rank alongside distinguished emirs rather than an absolute ruler. In this study, it will be tried to make a general inference by showing what kind of sultanate understanding was adopted in the Mamluk State through historical examples rather than a limited date range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of women in the processes of fertilization and procreation in ancient Egypt has been traditionally regarded as passive. This article sets out to challenge this view, by introducing the new evidence that the study of the Hemusets provide. The Hemusets have been largely neglected by the Egyptological scholarship, and consequently, their important contribution to the discussion of fertilization is still ignored, but this research examines for the first time their relevant textual and iconographic sources. This investigation shows that the Hemusets are involved in the creation of food and provision of fertility for both lands and humans. Furthermore, the sexual ambiguity of their iconography, and their chthonic nature frames them in a broader Mediterranean context of androgynous creative goddesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In showing a more gradual spread of Christianity over the fourth century, Depauw and Clarysse's revised statistical approach has some merits over Bagnall's earlier conclusions from onomastic evidence. However, given the complex, even ambiguous Christianity evident in late antique Egyptian sources, all attempts to track "conversion" on the basis of naming beg the questions: (a) what constitutes "being Christian" and (b) what do new naming practices actually represent in the overall assimilation of Christian traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore how the festive culture of mulids, Egyptian Muslim saints-day festivals, troubles notions of habitus, public space, and religious and civic discipline that have become hegemonic in Egypt in the past century and how state actors attempt to “civilize” mulids by subjecting them to a spectacular, representative order of spatial differentiation. I argue that habitus must be understood as a political category related to competing relationships of ideology and embodiment and that the conceptual and physical configuration of modern public space is intimately related to the bodily and moral discipline of its users. [ veneration of saints, festivals, habitus, public space, state, Islam, Egypt] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]