Abstract
This chapter deals with political, social, economic and cultural patterns that are involved in the development of political Islam and Islamism among the Awlad ‘Ali. The chapter offers the portraits of two Salafist preachers and their trajectories as religious activists. It also offers an analysis of the audiences, followers and disciples of the preachers and of Salafist Islam. Islamism is discussed as a social critique and as an evocation of a just order. Processes of radicalization among the Islamists in the borderland are examined, and attention is also drawn to the role of Islamism during and after the Arab revolutions in Egypt and Libya. The rise of Islamism is presented as part of the competitive character of heterarchy in the borderland.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2011, the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) merged with the German Development Service (DED) and the Society for International Education and Development (InWent) to form the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).
- 2.
On Sunni tribes in Iraq, see Hosham Dawod, The Sunni tribes in Iraq: between Local Power, the International Coalition and the Islamic State, NOREF Reports (Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF) (renamed Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution [NOREF] in 2016), September 2015).
- 3.
A broader discussion about the historical genesis of Islamism will not form part of this chapter.
- 4.
Roughly between 10 and 20 percent of the population of Marsa Matrouh originally come from the Nile Valley.
- 5.
Since I also fall under the restrictions of gender segregation, my research here is quite limited. I have only two female conversational partners from among the Awlad ‘Ali with whom I can address these issues openly. A female researcher would have much better access and I can only hope that a female anthropologist will work in this very interesting field soon.
- 6.
I refer to Victor Turner’s understanding of comunitas as a socioreligious space of equality and community; see Victor Turner, Das Ritual. Struktur und Anti-Struktur (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1989 (1969)).
- 7.
Shari‘a defines and protects the status of Christians and Jews as ahl al-kitab or ahl al-dhimma.
- 8.
At the same time, these radical Islamist groups have few qualms about participating in illegal activities (such as the smuggling of arms) for their fellows in Libya.
- 9.
According to Father Bejemy (the local bishop), between 1,000 and 2,000 Copts live in Marsa Matrouh.
- 10.
See “Crowd of 3 Thousand Muslims Attack a Coptic Christian Community, 25 Injured,” AsiaNews.it, March 13, 2010, http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Crowd-of-3-thousand-Muslims-attack-a-Coptic-Christian-community,-25-injured-17876.html; “Egypt: 24 Coptic Christians Injured after Mob Attack,” Church in Chains, March 18, 2010, http://www.churchinchains.ie/node/320; and “Muslims Attack Coptic Christians in Northern Egypt,” Deseret News, March 13, 2010, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700016283/Muslims-attack-Coptic-Christians-in-northern-Egypt.html?pg=all.
- 11.
Land is becoming a scarce resource because of intensive construction in the tourism sector, and most Bedouin do not hold official land rights deeds.
- 12.
I personally observed the transportation of these supplies during my fieldwork in 2011.
- 13.
In 2011 I crossed the border between Salloum (Egypt) and Amsa‘d (Libya) several times without being checked by official border personnel or customs.
- 14.
From that time on, participant observation research among these actors became impossible for me, and my information is based on interviews with informants from Tobruk, Darna and Benghazi via social media.
- 15.
Intermediary elites are positioned between the state and local populations; see Georg Klute and Trutz von Trotha, “Roads to Peace. From Small War to Parastatal Peace in the North of Mali,” in Healing the Wounds. Essays on the Reconstruction of Societies after War, ed. Marie-Claire Foblets and Trutz von Trotha (Oxford: Hart, 2004), 109–143.
- 16.
Both offices were introduced by the Egyptian state but subsequently appropriated by the Awlad ‘Ali; see Thomas Hüsken and Olin Roenpage, Jenseits von Traditionalismus und Stagnation. Analyse einer beduinischen Ökonomie in der Westlichen Wüste Ägyptens (Münster: LIT-Verlag, 1998), 85ff.
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Hüsken, T. (2019). Tribes and Political Islam. In: Tribal Politics in the Borderland of Egypt and Libya. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92342-0_6
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