Popular Religion and the Entry into Political Modernity as Seen in The Last of the Angels

Abstract

In public and academic discourses on Islam and nationalism/ nation-building, official/orthodox and ideological forms of the religion are privileged. Popular religion, involving mysticism and magic, saint- worship, and ritual, while acknowledged, is often relegated in these contexts. Nationalists and nation-builders, whether religious or secular, have been almost unanimous in their denunciation and denigration of popular religion as “backward,” superstitious, and corrupt. Wahhabis and Kemalists converged on this issue, as did modern reformists from Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) to Muhammad Mursi (until recently president of Egypt, from the Muslim Brotherhood). One of the first measures of the Muslim Brotherhood government installed in Egypt in 2013 was the imposition of restrictions on Sufi ceremonies and disallowing mosque space for zikr sessions. Yet historically and until recent times and into our own days, most believers could be characterized as religious bricoleurs, bringing together different elements and themes from a repertoire of syncretism, Sufism, ritual, and magic for instrumental objectives of health, wealth, and happiness as well as piety (see Zubaida 2009: 99–120). How did this popular mindset enter, if at all, into articulation with social and political modernity and fuse with ideologies and actions? The novel under consideration delves into these themes, among others.