Islamic Knowledge and the Making of Modern Egypt

Hilary Kalmbach (University of Sussex)

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English

Cambridge University Press
20 June 2024

Middle Eastern history; Social & cultural history; Islam

This historical study transforms our understanding of modern Egyptian national culture by applying social theory to the history of Egypt's first teacher-training school. It focuses on Dar al-Ulum, which trained students from religious schools to teach in Egypt's new civil schools from 1872. During the first four decades of British occupation (1882-1922), Egyptian nationalists strove to emulate Europe yet insisted that Arabic and Islamic knowledge be reformed and integrated into Egyptian national culture despite opposition from British officials. This reinforced the authority of the alumni of the Dar al-Ulum, the daramiyya, as arbiters of how to be modern and authentic, a position that graduates Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood would use to resist westernisation and create new modes of Islamic leadership in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Establishing a 130-year history for tensions over the place of Islamic ideas and practices within modernized public spaces, tensions which became central to the outcomes of the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Hilary Kalmbach demonstrates the importance of Arabic and Islamic knowledge to notions of authority, belonging, and authenticity within a modernising Muslim-majority community.

By: Hilary Kalmbach (University of Sussex)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781108437592
ISBN 10: 1108437591
Pages: 287
Publication Date: 20 June 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction. Hybridity, Islamic knowledge and 'being modern' in Egypt; 1. Reform, education, and sociocultural politics in nineteenth-century Egypt; 2. Dar al-ʿUlum: hybridity, education, and sociocultural change, 1871–1900; 3. Hybridity, Islamic knowledge, and the formation of Egyptian national culture, 1882–1922; 4. Fighting over the future of Egyptian national culture, 1923–1952; Conclusion. Authority, authenticity, and revolution.

Hilary Kalmbach is Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern History at the University of Sussex where she specialises in the culture, religion, and art of the MENA region. She has been awarded Fulbright and Clarendon Fellowships, the Cox Junior Fellowship (New College, Oxford), and the BRISMES Graduate Article Prize.

Reviews for Islamic Knowledge and the Making of Modern Egypt

'A meticulously researched study examining the often-conflicting positions regarding what role Islam can play in the construction of a modern society where educational politics and programmes have been key battlegrounds. Based on close-readings of a variety of material and the use of a scale that brings in individuals, social movements as well as institutions, this is a valuable resource for the study of Islam and education, the relation between state-run projects and grass-root movements and, not least, the force with which claims of authenticity can be used in political mobilization.' Catharina Raudvere, University of Copenhagen 'Hilary Kalmbach illuminates a critical hybrid pathway to modernity between al-Azhar and the civil schools - the teacher's college of Dar al-Ulum. That future Muslim Brothers Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb studied there underlines its significance for understanding Islamic revival movements from the 1930s to the present, in Egypt and around the world.' Donald M. Reid, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill