Democracy, Religion and Moral Values: A Road Map Toward Political Transformation in Egypt

There is lots of confusion in Egypt among the public, as well as the newly developed political parties, mainly because of the compound relationship between democracy, moral values, and religion, and how they shape their future political system.

Egypt, with its Muslim and Coptic population, is a religious conservative society, which is calling for protection against the erosion of religion under any political system. Egyptians are debating on the new constitution and how it would define the religious identity of the country.

There are some Muslims who believe that Islam does not include the current form of democracy that exists in the western civilizations. There is no contradiction between democracy and Islamic teachings; and the confusion is attributed to the considerable lack of understanding of democratic principles and insufficient understanding of Islamic teachings.

In the last two decades, Egyptian society has shown exceptional increase in the conservatism associated with an equal or greater decline in the moral values in the society. The logic dictates that the moral values always derive from the religious teachings in a conservative society, and, hence, increasing religious conservatism should be accompanied by strong moral values, which was not the case in Egypt.

In the meantime, many Egyptians believe that democracy would risk eroding their culture and conservative values, while acknowledging the already declining moral values without understanding the real reasons behind that decline.  Islamic conservative groups are capitalizing on those fears and trying to lay doubts over all non-conservative and liberal groups as anti-religion or at least calling for adopting secular principals (E’LMANIA) similar to those of the Turkish system, which will wipe out the moral values of the society. It is important to understand the reasons behind this confusion to find innovative solutions that help Egypt during its transformation to democracy.

The majority of Muslims in Egypt have failed to draw the correlation between the Islamic teachings and democratic system, which is the main cause behind the existing confusion. If the core pillar of democracy is the separation between the three branches of the government—Executive, Legislative, and Judicial—then Islam would be the biggest democratic system ever existed.

During the early days of the religion, the judicial system in Islam was autonomous and strong, and that was evident by the indictments of rulers and their families during the Islamic dynasty.  Justice during Islamic dynasty was the main pillar of the country and it did not differentiate between people based on social status, religion, color or ethnic background. The ruler and his cabinet during the Islamic dynasty did represent the executive branch, and they were mandated by applying laws that were mostly legislated from the Quran and Sunnah (teachings of the prophet), called the Islamic Legislative (Shari’a) Laws. The Shurah’ committee (a counseling committee of religious scholars) was mandated for  a legislative process called in Arabic Ijtihad, which means issuing legislative rulings regarding matters that were not clearly mentioned in the Shari’a. The Shurah committee is the equivalent of the current legislative branch under the modern democratic systems. There was complete separation between these branches during the Islamic dynasty, as defined under the modern understanding of democracy.

Additionally, democracy empowers the public to govern themselves and hold the ruler accountable for the state of the union. Islam also empowered the public the same way. That was evident in the speech by Khalifa Omar Ibn El Khatab, 644 a.c., when he was giving one of his Friday sermons and asked the people to correct him if he done something wrong. The people responded “o’ Omar we would correct you by the tips of our swords if necessary”. He responded back saying “thanks God that Omar is living in a time where people would monitor him and correct him if he has done something wrong”. This event was mentioned several times by Muslim scholars as evidence of the moral behavior and justice of the Khalifa Omar and how much he was careful to serve his Ummah (nation).

However, the story is also evident of the righteousness of the public and courage to challenge the most powerful ruler known in the Islamic dynasty. This is strongly correlated to the democratic system, which empowers the people to hold their rulers accountable and change them in a peaceful ways through the election process. Therefore, it is obvious that Islam stated the democratic principals 1,432 years ago.

The majority of Muslims who lived abroad for extended times were more successful in drawing the correlations between democracy and Islamic teachings due to their better understanding of the western culture. Many of the Egyptian expatriates discovered that the majority of western countries apply the teachings of Islam even though Muslims represent a very small fraction of the population, which enabled them to build the strongest nations on earth in modern history. The great Islamic scholar of the 19th century, Muhammad Abdo wrote, after his return from France in 1888, that “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam”. Most of the core values of western countries, such as freedom, human rights, and justice, are universal and does not conflict with Islam or any religion, even yet they are important constituents of Islamic teachings.

The questions remain; what did go wrong? Is it the lack of understanding of the religion? Is it the way Muslim scholars preach for the religion? Is it the way parents teach the religion to their kids? Is it the lack of self-motivation and reading of Islamic source books? Or it is just the fault of people who insist on separating the religious and moral values. Is it the severe lack of understanding of democratic principles? I personally believe it is all the above to various degrees. Combating corruption and extremism are prerequisites for democratic transformation. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasons behind these phenomena to find solutions and expedite the democratic changes.

Declining moral values while increasing conservatism in Egypt mostly originated from the incomplete means of preaching the religion that traditionally focus on the ceremonial parts without much discussion of the impact of its doctrine on social and community development. All Muslim scholars agree that Islamic teachings should lead to a very peaceful, productive, and successful society.  When people develop their faith based only on fear of hellfire (Johannam) or love for paradise (Jannah), they rely only on the ceremonial parts of the religion, grow selfish, and do not connect with one another. The majority of preachers quote the Quran (Muslim Wholly Book) and Hadith (The Prophet teachings) as the religion doctrine and barely touch on the impact of these administrative commands on the society development.

Despite increasing conservatism, Egyptians have had many interpretations for the declining moral values; some are related to spreading of poverty among larger number of citizens (40% live under poverty), some are related to the lack of proper education, and some are related to changing cultural behaviors due to the impact of western civilizations. For instance, the wide spread of corruption due to bribes in the governmental sectors was attributed to economic difficulties and low wages of the government employees. A high percentage of illiteracy among citizens (close to 29%) and increasing unemployment was also behind the declining moral behavior.  Youth have a hard time maintaining a strong code of moral values when they do not have any hope of finding jobs and start their own families, while living in a conservative society that does not allow premarital relationships.

Cultural changes and its impact on declining moral values was evident everywhere; for example, some considered that hypocrisy is an acceptable part of the constantly modified culture. Hypocrisy could be easily detected at almost every store when the seller compliment a customer by saying “you do not need to pay for the merchandize”, yet expects payment.  Arabic is a very rich language full of many words that could be used to express what people mean, yet made up words and traditions  became part of the culture. Additionally, some of the top 1% of the wealthy families imported parts of the western practices ranging from night clubs to devil worshipers, which made conservative Egyptians to see them as part of the core values of a liberal democratic society. Muslim extremists used these practices in their scare tactic that is commonly used to warn against civil and liberal political system.

These aforementioned examples were used just to explain how the people excuse the declining moral values despite the increasing religious conservatism.  However, these are weak excuses that do not stand on any truth, especially when pointing out that even under weaker economic and education systems in the last century, the moral values were much stronger in the Egyptian society. Additionally, in early 1900, conservatism was not widespread, yet moral values were much stronger, as been reported by historians.

There are many risks associated with reducing the religion teachings to the ceremonial parts without deep understanding of the impact of religion on community development. People with such an incomplete understanding of the religion are subject to drifting into far left or right sides of the religion. For instance, many students and visitors from the Muslim majority countries who are visiting the U.S. or  any western country, would end up with either one of the following extreme situations: a) becoming drawn to the far left and forgetting all about their religion teachings, despite their conservative background, and engaging in severe form of liberal practices (such as alcohols, dating, drugs, etc), or b) becoming shut off from their new surroundings and associating only with their peers in a complete rejection of the new culture, and becoming more extreme in their beliefs. Hence, they fail to understand that the moral values and strength exists in the new culture because they only focus on the negative practices that contradict their beliefs.

Therefore, the absence of complete understanding of the religious doctrine would develop weak Muslims regardless of their conservatism. Weak Muslims with an incomplete understanding of the religion are subject to corruption or extremism, which constitute a major deterrence for changes toward democracy. This is evident in the Taliban groups in Afghanistan, who claim their own conservative views of Islam, yet they failed to develop a civilized society, in contrast to the Islamic civilization that was developed by conservative scholars at early years of the religion inception. However, younger generations in Egypt are eager to change themselves and their country. This is evident by the strong popularity of untraditional missionaries (not scholars) such as Amr Khalid and Moustafa Hosni. Those preachers have better abilities to preach Islam, not because of their scholarly knowledge, but because of their better ability to correlate between Islamic teachings and its impacts on community development.

So what went wrong in a country that has Al Azhar Mosque (The most highly regarded place for Muslims Sunnis after Mecca and El Madina) and that is the birth place of the Muslim Brotherhood? The bizarre and even reversed relationship between increasing religious conservatism and declining moral values tainted the Islamic religion around the world. Normally, people of other faiths do not go out of their way and read about Islam from the source books to learn about its teachings.  However, people’s views of Islam and its values usually get estimated from the behaviors of its followers. Muslim extremists became the concern of every country around the world, including Muslim majority countries.

Understanding the causes behind declining moral values despite increasing conservatism in Egypt is important to find innovative and comprehensive solution while expediting democratic transformation of Egypt. It is important to start by realizing that the problem does not lie in the religion, but in the incomplete understanding of its followers, to find solutions.

If agreeing that the declining moral values in the Egyptian society is mainly related to incomplete preaching of the religion and its teachings at early stages of life, then religious institutions should play an important role to rectify this problem. Al Azhar always represents the moderate views of Islam, which is estimated from deep understanding and scholarly studies of the religion. Al Azhar is considered a very prestigious religious authority among Muslim Sunnis; however, its role and credibility was hampered in the last four decade because of the control and intervention of previous governments. The weakening of Al Azhar resulted in the development of many other conservative Islamic groups that have different ideologies and interpretation of the religion. Therefore, any future government in Egypt should empower El-Azhar and grant it the autonomous status to resume its function and role as a respected religious authority in the Middle East and among all Muslims. Al Azhar would play essential role in restoring the moral values in the Egyptian society through proper preaching of the religion and highlighting the importance of building strong, healthy, and successful society.

A comprehensive solution should include many facets most importantly empowering Al Azhar as a religious authority in Egypt. It is crucial to find creative means for Al Azhar to connect with the younger generations, which represent around 60% of the entire population, through the internet, TV, and any other viable media. It is equally important to ensure the autonomous status of Al Azhar with complete control over its budget and decisions. The Egyptian government should increase Al Azhar’s budget to allow for domestic and international outreach as well as to enhance the financial well-being of its preachers. Al Azhar should increase the number of scholarships for students to receive higher degrees in theological studies. Al Azhar should go through internal reforms to increase the standards of its education, graduates and affiliates. The west should engage Al Azhar in visiting scholars programs to receive specialized language training and facilitate its ability to train Muslim missionary groups in the western countries. Al Azhar should organize annual or semiannual international conferences to discuss important issues related to the Muslim affairs. Al Azhar should initiate special programs directed to the youth such as outdoor camping programs and community centers. The University of Al Azhar should be transformed and internationally accredited to compete domestically and internationally to attract students in all disciplines with moderate understanding of the religion. It should develop international campuses outside Egypt in Muslim majority countries. These are some examples of the proposed means to empower Al Azhar to assume its role as a religion authority of moderate views in the Muslim world.

Another facet of the comprehensive solution includes K-12 education reform. A successful Muslim should have free and critical minds and anxious for knowledge. Good education guides people to seek the information and knowledge from its sources rather than receiving it from unqualified scholars. Education reforms should include the teaching material, students, parents and teachers. Religion teachings at school are part of the extra curricula in Egypt and should be reviewed and updated continuously to reflect a balanced approach between the ceremonial teachings and the impact of the religion on community development. Teaching materials should include creative means to deliver the information such as scenario exercises, self studies and research, distinctions between religion and traditions, and community services.

Volunteering is an absent culture in the Egyptian society due to the lack of team work skills, despite Islamic teachings that emphasize the social activities and team work. Community services would include visits and volunteers to orphanages, hospitals, assistance housing for elders, etc. Islamic teachings would be best reflected and represented in practical applications for students. Schools should encourage parents to volunteer and sometimes mandate participation in the Parent-Teachers Organizations (PTO). The PTO would be instrumental to elevate the level of education in the public schools, besides changing toward the team work culture in the country.

Islamic media reforms should also be considered as one facet in the comprehensive solution. It will be a difficult dilemma to keep the balance between freedom of press and restricting access to satellite TV channels with religion programming hosted by less than qualified scholars. There is no doubt that there is a lot of chaos and confusion created by contradicting Islamic rulings (Fatwas) from tens of these channels. There is no easy solution for this problem; however, it is important to acknowledge it and start a national debate in Egypt to find plausible solutions. Al Azhar has developed dedicated online web service and provided hot phone lines to answer the public’ questions; however, apparently, this is not sufficient and still considered a partial solution.

Another facet of the comprehensive solution should include a social awareness campaign. Egypt, like many countries in the region, has a long history of previous occupations by foreign powers before and after the Islamic dynasty. Therefore, Egyptians inherited a culture that is a rich mixture of various traditions, which made it difficult for many people to separate between the traditions and the Islamic teachings. The mix between traditions and religion created very weak society in constant conflicts and dissolving morals. Traditions proved to be much stronger than religion in Egypt, as seen in the common traditions of Muslims and Coptics in their celebrations and daily activities. The Muslim Brotherhood succeeded to some extend to teach their members to distinguish between traditions and Islamic teachings; and hence, they managed to distinguish themselves from the rest of the society. However, the Muslim Brotherhood failed to spread these teachings in the society and formed their own association to distinguish themselves from the rest of the society based on religious claims. Therefore, they became part of the problem and not the solution, creating additional reasons for conflicts and division in the society. The Egyptian government through its Social Ministry should lead the public awareness education in collaboration with Al Azhar and other young and popular preachers. This is not a call to cancel the cultural values of the society, there are many traditions that elevate the code of moral values and fit within the Islamic teachings, on the other hand, there are many others that conflicts with the religion and the moral values.

A comprehensive effort should be launched to educate the public about democracy and its shared values with Islamic teachings. There is no doubt that the democratic transformation in Egypt will lead to a more stable regime and strong partnership with the world based on mutual respect and interests. It is not necessary to adopt a particular western version of democracy in Egypt as long as the system includes the core values of democracy, such as the separation of the three branches of the government and empowering people through transparent and honest elections. Freedom of speech, religion, and press, and human rights are also essential parts of any democratic system. There are many variations in the relationship between the state and religion in the modern world, in which four types of the constitutions define these relationships. Ultimately, the new constitution in Egypt would have to account for one of these four relationships:

1. A constitution of a holistic loose religion with the pattern of secularism based on “freedom against religion”, a Soviet formula. The elite of the society believe that religion in itself is a risk and indicator of an undeveloped society. This formula of the constitution is vanishing because it contradicts the right of individuals to have their private and public religious freedom without interference from the state. Individuals governed by such a constitution cannot practice their right of faith and religion and the state is not protecting that right. For example, North Korea’s constitution does not have any religious article and cannot be used as a model for the relationship between the religion and state in Egypt.

2. A constitution that distinguishes the holistic religion of the majority and prohibits other minority religions. This formula of the constitution is directly related to the conservative interpretation of fundamental groups belong to the religion of the majority, i.e. not necessarily the religion doctrine but mostly an issue of personal belief. An example of this type of constitution is the 1990 Constitution of Nepal, which dictated that Hindu is the only religion in the country and refused to acknowledge the right of other religions such Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to practice their faith. This constitution was modified with the coup in 2007. Similar to that was the Taliban way of governing, despite the absence of a written constitution. The real danger of such a formula for the constitution is the claim of a certain group to have the right to legislate for the entire society based on their limited restrictive interpretation of the religion. Consequently, this style of the constitution would deny the right of other religion minorities or even other groups form the same religion to have their private or public practice of their faith. Hence, religion would turn into an instrument of repression that control the politics and legislate to the entire community.

3. A liberal constitution as a prelude to a neutral religious respect for all religions openly. Behind this style of the constitution is a secular philosophy that assumes “freedom of religion” not “freedom from religion”.  This is the true model of a liberal constitution as in the case of the United Stated, Canada, Australia and Japan, where the state shall respect the private and public spheres of individuals. States with such a liberal constitution would not favor any religion at the expense of others and would not force any individual or group to hide their religious symbols or adopt a different faith. Under a liberal constitution, a state drafts and enforces legislation that protect human rights, and the state does not have the role of merging religions in society by forcing them to abandon their symbols of believes.

4. A liberal constitution that decides the special status of the majority religion with two conditions:

a. The religion of the majority itself has the ability to absorb the fundamental rights of the followers of other religions. This condition was achieved in Islam by virtue of its texts and its ability to coexist with other faiths in an atmosphere of justice and outreach as stated clearly in several verses of the Quran. This fact became evident in the demands of some Egyptian Coptic to apply the Islamic laws that permit the self-management of Church Affairs without any interference from the state.

b. The presence of law provisions that include “Constitutional-Supra” article that guarantee equal rights of different religion followers.

There are several examples of this style of constitution as in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Finland. These countries have constitutions that decide explicitly that Christian Lutheran is the official religion, as in the case of Anglican Christianity in Great Britain. Christian Orthodoxy exists in Greece and Cyprus, and the official Catholic religion in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Almost all Muslim countries refer to Islam in their constitution, except Turkey (after its constitutional amendment in 1928), Lebanon, Albania, and a number of former communist countries in central Asia.

The first and second formulas for the constitution listed above have very little potential to be implemented in Egypt. These two styles of constitution do not represent, nor should they, any hope or future for political force in Egypt, because:

a. They do not agree with the true liberal spirit.

b. They are assuming religion purity in the society, which is impossible to find in any country.

c. The formal commitment from most of the world’s government to human rights charters, which emphasize the freedom of religion and the right to practice religion.

The difficulty with the third constitution style, as mentioned by the great American philosopher, John Rawls, is that it requires previous social consensus on the constitution. It is not expected that the constitution itself would create social consensus without the need to suppress, and hence the constitution itself becomes a cause of social conflict. Therefore, without social consensus, the constitution would deviate from its original role, which is preventing social conflicts and good management of potential conflicts. Given that fact, Egyptians do not have this social agreement on the drafting of a religion-neutral religious constitution. Therefore, the fourth alternative for the constitution, which has examples of many contemporary liberal constitutions, would have stronger potential to be the chosen example for the new Egyptian constitution.