In a time when politics intersects with religion, and roles within Egypt’s institutions are being reshaped, there emerges an urgent need to reaffirm the constitutional principles that the Egyptian people agreed upon in the wake of their revolution.
The preamble of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution states that “Egypt is a modern, democratic, civil state.” This phrase is not mere rhetoric; it is a foundational vision confirming that the ultimate reference point in matters of governance and legislation is the constitution and the law—not fatwas or religious interpretations, no matter how prestigious the issuing authority may be.
One of the stark contradictions in the Egyptian scene is that while hostility against the Muslim Brotherhood is publicly proclaimed, there is, in practice, a deep adoption of many of the very ideas the Brotherhood and Salafis promoted. It is as if the conflict was never about the essence of the ideology, but only about who occupies the seat of power. This contradiction implants a dangerous duality in the public consciousness: an official discourse that declares war on political Islam, and actual policies that nourish its sources in education, culture, and religion.
The religious establishment has now become a legal guardian over thought. Intellectuals or reformers may no longer express views on religion unless filtered through the “Council of Senior Scholars”—an institution created by the Brotherhood in the 2012 constitution, which persists despite being a vague body whose members are unknown to the public and whose selection process is opaque. Paradoxically, this council has turned into a supreme censor of thought, in a country that for centuries had been a beacon of religious ijtihad (independent reasoning).
At the same time, many media figures with clear, past affiliations to the Brotherhood are being appointed and elevated to influential positions in shaping public opinion.
Recently, the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) has taken on the role of a media partner in inaugurating projects, with repeated discussions about selling endowment assets that the state does not even own. The Minister of Awqaf is hoisted on shoulders as if he were a political leader.
From the space of thought to the laboratory of obedience, I see the entry point through education. The most dangerous development is the re-religionization of the educational field using methods of rote learning and submission. Instead of opening horizons for critical thinking and expanding access to languages, sciences, and technology, religion has been made a success-or-failure subject in high school curricula, without any pedagogical or scientific justification. Education’s mission seems no longer to build an independent mind, but to manufacture a submissive one.
The danger grows with calls for the spread of thousands of kuttabs (Qur’an memorization schools) for preschool children—the most critical age in forming the mind. What is happening is the exclusion of imagination and curiosity, replacing them with rote memorization, shutting the door early on any seeds of criticism or creativity. It is a disguised return to the Brotherhood’s project: a generation that obeys before it thinks.
Teachers at this stage are the most important in preparing children, and I find it baffling that responsibility for this is handed to religious figures rather than trained educators.
The contradiction becomes more glaring when religion is used in official speeches, clothing decisions and conflicts in a mantle of sanctity. The line between a civil state and a theocratic one fades. Brotherhood and Salafi thought reemerges as a legitimizing shadow for rule—even if the declared enemy is that very current. In essence, it is a postponed battle against the self.
What we are witnessing is not merely miscalculation, but a deep infiltration of Brotherhood and Salafi ideology under the cloak of the state—a contradiction that threatens Egypt’s cultural and political future. The real struggle is not with a banned group, but with the ideology that has seeped into the veins of politics, education, and media.
In a civil state, sovereignty belongs to the people, legislation to their representatives, and the ultimate reference is law—not fatwas. Any attempt to reproduce a version of “Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist) under a new institutional cover would be a violation of the constitutional contract and a retreat from the gains of the modern state.
Civil governance does not mean hostility to religion. It means separation between the religious and the legislative, while fully respecting religion’s value as a moral and cultural source, not as a tool for issuing or enforcing legislation.
Reviving the role of scholars in religious guidance is commendable—on the condition that it remains within the limits set by the constitution. No institution, religious or otherwise, has the right to overstep its authority and impose guardianship over thought, education, or law.
Thus, the true guarantee for maintaining the unity of Egypt’s legal framework lies in adherence to the constitution, respect for the role of the Constitutional Court, and clear distinction between what belongs to God and what belongs to human governance.
Among the most important principles of the civil state is that it does not mix religion with politics. Nor does it reject religion. In fact, religion in a civil state remains a factor in building morality and creating energy for work, achievement, and progress. What the civil state rejects is using religion for political purposes. That contradicts the principle of pluralism on which the civil state is founded and turns religion into a source of dispute, dragging it into the realm of narrow worldly interests.
We must not forget that Egypt is home to 18 million Christians, and that the Copts are not a minority, but an essential component of the fabric of society.
Why, then, do we want a civil constitution as defined in our vision of the future and in the philosophy of the constitution? Because the rotation of power, oversight of state institutions, and balance of powers are the safeguards for society as a whole and for individuals and their rights. There can be no rule in the name of God through intermediaries who set themselves up as agents between humans and their Creator. Nor should the monolithic Salafi-Brotherhood mentality infiltrate the fabric of the state. Nor should any person or group place itself above periodic constitutional accountability and the requirement of power rotation, lest it become tyrannical and domineering over society under any pretext.
There are moments in a nation’s history that sound an alarm, not because the scene is new, but because it is being blindly repeated.
What we see in Egypt today—the absence of viable civil alternatives—inevitably paves the way for Islamist rule, which possesses both funding and international organization, and at times, regrettably, Western intelligence support.
This is not a sudden crisis, but a gradual slide into tragedy. We do not want chaos, nor a repetition of the same experiences that previously led to the country’s decline.
