Liberalism in Egypt
Encyclopedia
Liberalism
in Egypt
or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.
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 reform movement that was more concerned with the social conditions of Egyptian society. It gathered momentum between 1882 and 1906, ultimately leading 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 most 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 creation 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 group 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 first 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 family 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 statement of purpose 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 following four arduous years of war (in which Great Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate
) were closer to the secular, liberal principles of Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed and the People's Party. Prominent among these was Saad Zaghlul
who led the new movement through the Wafd Party
. Saad Zaghlul held several ministerial positions before he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and organized a mass movement demanding an end to the British Protectorate. He garnered such massive popularity among the Egyptian people that he came to be known as 'Father of the Egyptians'. When on March 8, 1919 the British arrested Zaghlul and his associates and exiled them to Malta
, the Egyptian people staged their first modern revolution
. Demonstrations and strikes across Egypt became such a daily occurrence that normal life was brought to a halt.
The Wafd Party drafted a new Constitution in 1923
based on a parliamentary
representative system. Saad Zaghlul became the first popularly-elected Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. Egyptian independence at this stage was provisional, as British forces continued to be physically present on Egyptian soil. In 1936, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
was concluded. New forces that came to prominence were the Muslim Brotherhood
and the radical Young Egypt Party
. In 1920, Banque Misr
(Bank of Egypt) was founded by Talaat Pasha Harb
as "an Egyptian bank for Egyptians only", 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 set the intellectual tone of a newly independent 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 evolution
ary view of the world and faith in science to bring progress to human society. This period was looked upon with fondness by future generations of Egyptians as a Golden Age
of Egyptian liberalism, openness, and an Egypt-centered attitude that put the country's interests center stage.
When Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize
laureate Naguib Mahfouz
died in 2006, many Egyptians felt that perhaps the last of the Greats of Egypt's golden age had died. In his dialogues with close associate and journalist Mohamed Salmawy, published as Mon Égypte, Mahfouz had this to say:
(Hisb el-Ghad) and the New Wafd Party (Hizb el-Wafd el-Gedid) are some of the contemporary Egyptian liberal parties. The latest liberal party that came to prominence, "Hizb El Ghad", was founded in November 2004.After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 many liberal parties came out to light such as Egyptian Liberal Party
, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.
Introduction
Muhammad Abduh
Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism...
, the son of a Delta farmer who was briefly exiled for his participation in the Urabi revolt and a future Azhar Mufti
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
, was its most notable advocate. Abduh called for a reform of Egyptian Muslim society and formulated the modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
interpretations of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
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 creation 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 group 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
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
resistance, galvanized Egyptian opposition against the British, culminating in the founding of the first 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 family 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 statement of purpose 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 following four arduous years of war (in which Great Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
) were closer to the secular, liberal principles of Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed and the People's Party. Prominent among these was Saad Zaghlul
Saad Zaghlul
Saad Zaghloul was an Egyptian revolutionary, and statesman. He served as Prime Minister of Egypt from January 26, 1924 to November 24, 1924.-Education, activism and exile:...
who led the new movement through the Wafd Party
Wafd Party
The Wafd Party was a nationalist liberal political party in Egypt. It was said to be Egypt's most popular and influential political party for a period in the 1920s and 30s...
. Saad Zaghlul held several ministerial positions before he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and organized a mass movement demanding an end to the British Protectorate. He garnered such massive popularity among the Egyptian people that he came to be known as 'Father of the Egyptians'. When on March 8, 1919 the British arrested Zaghlul and his associates and exiled them to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, the Egyptian people staged their first modern revolution
Egyptian Revolution of 1919
The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 was a countrywide revolution against the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan. It was carried out by Egyptians and Sudanese from different walks of life in the wake of the British-ordered exile of revolutionary leader Saad Zaghlul, and other members of the Wafd...
. Demonstrations and strikes across Egypt became such a daily occurrence that normal life was brought to a halt.
The Wafd Party drafted a new Constitution in 1923
1923 Constitution of Egypt
The 1923 Constitution was a constitution of Egypt during the period 1923-1952. It was replaced by the 1930 Constitution for a 5-year period before being restored in 1935. It adopted the parliamentary representative system based on separation of and cooperation among authorities...
based on a parliamentary
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
representative system. Saad Zaghlul became the first popularly-elected Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. Egyptian independence at this stage was provisional, as British forces continued to be physically present on Egyptian soil. In 1936, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936
The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Egypt; it is officially known as The Treaty of Alliance Between His Majesty, in Respect of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty, the King of Egypt...
was concluded. New forces that came to prominence were the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
and the radical Young Egypt Party
Misr El-Fatah (Young Egypt) Party
The Misr El-Fatah Party is a small Egyptian political party, with some 225 members.- Platform :The Party platform calls for:* Establishing a parliamentary/presidential ruling system.* Enhancing the Egyptian-Arab ties....
. In 1920, Banque Misr
Banque Misr
Banque Misr is an Egyptian bank founded by industrialist Talaat Pasha Harb in 1920.- Operations :The bank has branch offices in all of Egypt's governorates, and currency exchange and work permit offices for overseas workers in Egypt.Related organizations: Banque Misr presents long lists of its...
(Bank of Egypt) was founded by Talaat Pasha Harb
Talaat Pasha Harb
Talaat Pasha Harb was a leading Egyptian economist and founder of Banque Misr , and its group of companies, in May 1920.- His works :...
as "an Egyptian bank for Egyptians only", which restricted shareholding to native Egyptians and helped finance various new Egyptian-owned businesses.
Muhammad Abduh
Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism...
and Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, were Qasim Amin
Qasim Amin
Qasim Amin born on 1 December 1863 Alexandria died April 22, 1908 Cairo was an Egyptian jurist and one of the founders of the Egyptian national movement and Cairo University. Qasim Amin was considered by many as the Arab world’s “first feminist”...
, Muhammad Husayn Haykal
Muhammad Husayn Haykal
Muhammad Hussein Haekal was an Egyptian writer, journalist, politician and Minister of Education in Egypt.- Life :...
, Taha Hussein, Abbas el-'Akkad
Abbas Al-Akkad
Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad was an Egyptian writer.-Biography:Al-Aqqad was born in Aswan, a city in Upper Egypt, in 1889. He received little formal education, completing only his elementary education. Unlike his schoolmates, he spent all his weekly allowance on books. He read about religion, geography,...
, Tawfiq el-Hakeem
Tawfiq al-Hakeem
Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim was a prominent Egyptian writer. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of an Egyptian wealthy judge and a Turkish mother...
, and Salama Moussa
Salama Moussa
Salama Moussa Born into a wealthy, land owning Coptic family in the town of Zagazig located in the Nile delta. Salama Musa was a journalist, writer, advocator of secularism, and pioneer of Arab socialism. He wrote or translated 45 published books; his writings still influence Arab thought and he...
. They delineated a liberal outlook for their country expressed as a commitment to individual freedom, secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
, an evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary view of the world and faith in science to bring progress to human society. This period was looked upon with fondness by future generations of Egyptians as a Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
of Egyptian liberalism, openness, and an Egypt-centered attitude that put the country's interests center stage.
When Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureate Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie...
died in 2006, many Egyptians felt that perhaps the last of the Greats of Egypt's golden age had died. In his dialogues with close associate and journalist Mohamed Salmawy, published as Mon Égypte, Mahfouz had this to say:
Modern Liberal Parties
The Democratic Front Party (Hizb el-Gabha eldimocratia), the Tomorrow PartyTomorrow Party
The el-Ghad Party is an active political party in Egypt that was granted license in October 2004. El-Ghad is a centrist liberal secular political party pressing for widening the scope of political participation and for a peaceful rotation of power....
(Hisb el-Ghad) and the New Wafd Party (Hizb el-Wafd el-Gedid) are some of the contemporary Egyptian liberal parties. The latest liberal party that came to prominence, "Hizb El Ghad", was founded in November 2004.After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 many liberal parties came out to light such as Egyptian Liberal Party
Egyptian Liberal Party
The Free Egyptians Party is an Egyptian liberal party, founded after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. On 3 April 2011, the engineer and business tycoon Naguib Sawiris and a group of intellectuals and political activists announced the establishment of the party and declared the program and the...
, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party
Egyptian Social Democratic Party
The Egyptian Social Democratic Party is a left liberal party in Egypt which was founded after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution by the merger of two minor liberal parties, the Egyptian Democratic Party, and the Liberal Egyptian Party on 29 March 2011...
Active liberal parties
- Egyptian Liberal PartyEgyptian Liberal PartyThe Free Egyptians Party is an Egyptian liberal party, founded after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. On 3 April 2011, the engineer and business tycoon Naguib Sawiris and a group of intellectuals and political activists announced the establishment of the party and declared the program and the...
- El-Masreen El-Ahrar Party- - GhadTomorrow PartyThe el-Ghad Party is an active political party in Egypt that was granted license in October 2004. El-Ghad is a centrist liberal secular political party pressing for widening the scope of political participation and for a peaceful rotation of power....
: Ayman NourAyman NourAyman Abd El Aziz Nour is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament and chairman of the El Ghad party.He was imprisoned in January 2005 by the government of President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was released on health grounds on February 18, 2009... - Hizb el-Gabha el-DimocratiaDemocratic Front Party (Egypt)-Foundation:The party was founded in 2007 by Osama Al Ghazali Harb, a former member of the Egypt's National Democratic Party and Member of the Shura Council, and Yehia El Gamal, a former minister of the Cabinet of Egypt.-Ideology:...
: Ossama Al-Ghazaly Harb - New Wafd PartyNew Wafd PartyThe New Wafd Party is a nationalist liberal party in Egypt.It is the extension of one of the oldest and historically most active political parties in Egypt, Wafd Party, which was dismantled after the 1952 Revolution. The New Wafd was re-established in 1983...
-Hizb al-Wafd al-Jadid- (re-established of the wafd party) - Egyptian Social Democratic PartyEgyptian Social Democratic PartyThe Egyptian Social Democratic Party is a left liberal party in Egypt which was founded after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution by the merger of two minor liberal parties, the Egyptian Democratic Party, and the Liberal Egyptian Party on 29 March 2011...
See also
- Egypt's Liberal ExperimentEgypt's Liberal ExperimentEgypt's "Liberal Experiment" took place between 1924 and 1936.The Wafd Party saw independence and constitutional government linked. While the British did not agree with full independence, they certainly liked the idea of European-style constitutional government. The country's first elections for...
- Politics of EgyptPolitics of EgyptThe government of Egypt, as of February 27, 2011, is a republic currently under military rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak stepped down following several days of mass protests. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the...
- List of political parties in Egypt