Islamism in Nubia and Egypt - Essay Example

ISLAMISATION OF NUBIA AND EGYPT The word Islam is derived from the Arabic word "salam", which is often associated to mean "peace". However, the word"submission" is of better translation to mean the total surrender of oneself to God. A devotee of Islam is called the Muslim. Most religious historians perceive Islam as having been founded by the Prophet Muhammad ("Praiseworthy") in 622 CE. The religion started in Mecca, when the angel Jibril read the first revelation to Muhammad. This religion is said to be the youngest in the youngest of the world's very large faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. On the other hand, Islamisation is said to be the process of conversion of a society to the religion of Islam, or an increase observance by an existing Muslim society named as neologism. The arrival of the Arab Muslims into the Christian Country of Egypt began the call to Islam. They penetrated the country to restrain it and bring it under their dominion. Their arrival sparked off the process of islamisation in Egypt. Although throughout the history of Egypt the conversion to Islam was quite gradual but a steady trickle of Copts converting to Islam was inevitable. At some points this trickle distended to a steady or even gushing flow of new converts. The islamisation of Egypt went through stages which were diverse in nature and occurred at different stages in its history. People in Egypt were taken by surprise when the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood achieved a fifth parliamentary seat in the 2005 elections. Concurrent to this shock is the escalating number of attacks on Copts in the country. These two events are in fact connected and should be viewed as a natural consequence of persistent efforts over the past few decades to Islamise the country. Egypt's system of government that was on the threshold of collapse under a corrupt monarchy some six decades ago, nearly succumb to the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1928, almost after two decades, the Brotherhood seemed to have acquired the strength that to them was a natural phenomenon that they would take over the rule in Egypt and establish an Islamic state from the remains of the dysfunctional liberal system. Then transpired the army's revolution; although most of the "Free Officers" had formerly been Brotherhood members and, as new leaders, it was apparent they had exceptional connections with the Brotherhood, but the realities of ruling soon led to differences of interests. This eventually led to the ban of the Brotherhood in 1954, and its objectives and designs had to be set aside. Nevertheless, these goals and aspirations never really died. The years of the Nasser with successes, losses, and experimentations with Arabism and socialism, those set-aside aspirations were revived with the arrival of Anwar Sadat. He commenced his rule by providing avenues to the Brotherhood and other Islamic groups. He then began what has been famously dubbed as the "Great Islamic Transformation" of Egypt. There transpired changes in the constitution to where the Principles of Islamic Shari'a were "a main source" of legislation. This was stipulated in the Second Article of his new Constitution that was promulgated in 1971. The "a" was then replaced with "the", that made Shari'a the term of reference for the entire constitution, therefore stating that all other articles will be interpreted in that sense. This was done in May of 1981. This significant change provided the official, political, and 'psychological' foundation for the Islamic transformation to advance in an unstoppable pace. "I am a Muslim president of a Muslim state." This famous slogan of Sadat was an apparent manifestation of this historical transformation. Those who have endured the most sufferings during the drastic transformation are the Copts. "I can no longer stand the insults and the spitting in my face because I don't wear hijab. I have become a stranger to my own country." This was a statement made by a young Coptic woman from Alexandria, as quoted by one of the correspondents of Le Figaro of April 17, 2006 edition. This statement somehow spoke loudly of the overall situation of the Copts in Egypt and because of the series of quasi-simultaneous attacks on three churches. Aside from the recorded violent attacks against them over the span of 35 years, they have been forced into a de-facto dhimmi status. Under this status, the "People of the Book" are allowed to keep and practice their faiths, while living under complete submission to the supremacy and rules of Islam. This includes the payment of jiziah "in humbleness". The "Chart of Omar", usually attributed to Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab, is the foundation of the dhimmitude status as it lays down several obligations and prohibitions by dhimmis, and ends with: "If they break any of their conditions, there is no valid pact with them and they deserve from Muslims whatever the adversaries do." (Lakhdar) It is also a fact that the infamous Second Article of the constitution presents the legal basis to discriminate against and marginalize the Copts in their own lands. These are some of the noted transformation that Egypt went through at that time: Mosques broadcast prayers over public speakers, and even popular music in most public transport and malls are replaced with religious recordings. The professional arena, organizations, and the Lawyers' Bar are mostly dominated by Islamists. They have been venues for spreading Islam and talks of anti-Western agenda. Another noted change is that in government administration offices, employees spend most workdays performing ritual acts and prayers; taking into consideration that the said workday happens to be the shortest period in the world. Office managers often take the role of prayer leaders. Alcohol was not totally banned in the country; however, local authorities restricted its sale to tourist areas. During the fasting month of the Ramadan, alcohol may be served in tourist locations apart from the fasting hours and that is between sunset and dawn. Furthermore, century-old schools of fine arts are now filled with girls wearing hijab and bearded men, all asserting that sculpturing and illustrating human models are illicit. All paintings and sculptures depicting nude models have been kept away during the late 1970s. Even the basic and common daily greetings of "good morning", "good day", "good evening", were replaced by the Islamic "assalamu alaykum". It would need volumes to document the radical role played over the past decades by the government-owned media, which is the conduit to reflect the government's decrees in the process of Islamic Transformation. The media has consistently played a significant role in the process. However, they project a different statement when asked about the excessive religious material in the government media. Egyptian officials would say that the government is defeating violent Islamic groups by outdoing them in religiosity. However, the predicament is believed to be deeply rooted than a simple reaction to Islamic violence; it is most likely an intentional practice that has sustained over the past few decades. Overall, Egypt seemed to have regressed. It has undergone serious modernisation and Western interventions since the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha. Egypt badly needs a leadership that will overturn the trend and gear the country back on the road to enlightenment and modernity. The history of the Nubians is closely connected with that of ancient Egypt. Images of early Gods bore similarities with the hieroglyphs of Egyptian Gods - with heads of animals and birds. Ancient Nubia or kingdom of Kush was once a rich and powerful nation and was the center of culture and military strength in Africa. Like the Egytians, the Kushites believed in life after death. At the end of the 4th millennium BC, the kings of Egypt's 1st dynasty conquered upper Nubia, thus introducing the Egyptian cultural influence to the African people. In succeeding centuries, Nubia was subjected to consecutive military expeditions from Egypt in search for slaves or materials for building royal tombs. This destroyed much of the Egyptian-Nubian culture that had arisen from the initial conquest in the 1st century. During the 6th century the Nubians were converted to Christianity. They remained so until during the 14th until the 17th centuries, where the gradual process of Islamisation took place. Today, the Nubians are all Muslims but their somewhat animalistic beliefs which mean that they believe that inanimate objects have spirits are still mingled with their Islamic practices. How did the process of Islamisation conquer the Nubian society The Funj were initially non-Muslims, but the aristocracy soon adopted Islam and, although they preserved many traditional African customs, stayed titular Muslims. The conversion was largely the work of a few Islamic missionaries who came to Sudan from the bigger Muslim world. The great success of these missionaries was not among the Funj but rather the Arabized Nubian population living along the Nile. The spread of Islam was pressed on in the 16th century, when the supremacy of the Funj enhanced security. In the 16th and the 17th centuries, numerous schools of religious learning were established along the White Nile, and the Shayqiyah confederacy was converted. Numerous famous Sudanese missionaries who followed them were Sufi holy men. The Sufi brotherhoods themselves played a significant role in connecting the Sudan to the larger world of Islam beyond the Nile Valley. Even though the vehemence of Sudanese Islam diminished after 1700 however it gave rise to a new order the Mirghaniyah or Khatmiyah which became one of the strongest in modern Sudan. Furthermore, another concept in the spread of Islam in Nubia was during the fiefdom of the independent warlords, the Christian kingdoms of Makuria and Alwa slowly destabilized and become fragmented. Bands of Bedouin Arabs who are forced out of Egypt by its leaders, concurrently treaded southward along the Red Sea hills and on towards the Nile accordingly hastening the process of political decay. The surge of large number of Muslim nomads into Nubia demoralized what little influence Christianity still has. The already divided Christian territories slowly surrendered to the Muslim chiefs, either by violence or through their intermarriage with the governing Nubian families. Nubian society has its tradition that a man leaves all his property to his sister's eldest son and not to his own sons. This elucidates why in ancient times, the Nubian throne is passed on to a king's nephew. As the Arabs increasingly married Nubian women, all property in time were passed on to the Arabs, who in turn left all their properties to their own sons. Due to the fact that the Arabs became dominant both socially and politically, their children started to identify mainly with their Arab ancestors and completely ignored the acquaintance of their pre-Islamic Nubian ancestors. The collapse of centralized reign in the Nubian Nile Valley and the surrounding deserts resulted to plundering gangs and lawlessness, which then caused in the termination of foreign trades and Nubia's mounting seclusion from the outside world. Despite their conversion to Islam, Nubians in the North were able to somehow preserve their language and some remnants of their previous culture. Ironically, the Nubians in the South were Arabized to such degree that they completely lost their native tongue to Arabic. Since the native distinctiveness lacked regard among the Arabs, the Islamised Nubians currently assumed real or deceptive genealogies that connected them to Arabia and the Prophet Mohammed. Sooner or later the Nubians came to be divided into several small Arab chiefdoms, having one or several villages, and each of those are ruled by a mek ("king"). The discrepancy between the mystical, traditional faqihs, or Islamic jurists that is close to the Sudanese and the orthodox, created an enmity that in the past yielded open hostility in times of trouble and brooding suspicion in times of peace. In recent times, this schism has weakened; the faqih continues his traditional practices, while the Sudanese have acknowledged the position of the 'ulama' (the Muslim scholars trained in the Islam or Islamic law) in society. They interpret the Islam's sciences, doctrines, and laws and the sole guarantors of continuity in the spiritual and intellectual account of the Islamic society. References: (1) Abdur Rahman I. Doi. Sharia, "The Islamic Law," Ta Ha Publishers, (1984), Page 21. (2) Guindy, Adel. The Islamization of Egypt. MERIA. Volume 10, No. 3, Article 7/10. 2006. (3) Abaza, Mona. Debates on Islam and Knowledge in Malaysia and Egypt: Shifting Worlds. London: Routledge Curzon. (2003) (4) J. W. CROWFOOT: "Christian Nubia". Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. XII, pp. 141-50 (5) L. P. KIRWAN: "Notes on the Topography of the Christian Nubian Kingdoms". Journal of Egyptian Archeology, Vol. XXI. pp. 57-62 Read More