Political Islam is playing a major rule now in the current political scene; so it is important to analyze how it rose in Egypt and how it has been shaped over the years. The political Islam is mainly a set of ideologies that holds the belief that Islam can be a political ideology as much as it is a religion. Although Islamic thinkers have always emphasized the enforcement of the Islamic law (Sharia) as the main reference of the state’s political and social ideologies, they never agreed on the exact means and degree of enforcing it. This difference of course dates back to the early times of Islam when different interpretations lead to a schism in the guided Caliphate called the Great Fitna which results we have to bear with until today. As the Islamic Thinker Mohamed Abdu suggested the Holy text is “alive” in the sense that its interpretations differ greatly depending on the background of the interpreter, these different interpretations lead to the forging of different schools of thought and Madhabs. And as political Islam is directly derived from Islamic teachings and has been affected by the differences in interpretations, Political Islam has never been united under one banner. The Ex Egyptians presidents Gamal Abd El Nasser and Anwar El Sadat had their different ways in dealing with the Islamists and of course helped in shaping political Islam in Egypt. Before Gamal Abd El Nasser, Egypt’s second president, Islamist groups were largely concerned with seeking independence from whichever external colonial, imperial, or even domestic (as the case with the monarchy) forces present within Egypt. When Nasser came into power, they had just emerged from a stalemate with the palace, which had revoked one of its groups’, the Muslim Brethren (MB), license for aiding an entrapped regiment by British forces during the 48-49 war and that was the launch of the Islamists gaining their identity in Egypt. And so, it can be said that political Islam was awakened by social, political, and economic factors. However, no one can deny that it has been provoked by oppression, controversial policies, being banned from political participation, violence, manipulation of the public opinion and etc. At first, Abd El Nasser tried to co-opt the Muslim Brotherhood to his side to benefit from their popularity. The relationship has evolved into cooperation in 1954 when Mohamed Naguib called for democratic elections and for the army to return to its bases; Abd El Nasser opposed that and made an agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood in order to get rid of the political parties on the scene and free the atmosphere for both of them only, and the MB agreed and this was a strategic mistake. After that, Mohamed Naguib was put under house arrest and Abd El Nasser became the president; but then at the same year, there was an attempt to assassinate Abd El Nasser, while making a public announcement in El Manshia. Nasser suspected the brotherhood and many of the Islamists and ordered the execution of six of the suspects, and the arrest of several thousand, which included Sayyid Qutb (who was the founder of Islamic Jihad movement ideology) and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Nasser by that had simply announced his opposition to the Islamic groups and made them “the banned groups”. Nasser’s main aim in that was centralizing the power and protecting the revolution from potential opponents, including the Muslim Brothers. Islamists then were becoming more and more anti- Nasser’s state and his regime, even more so after the 1967 defeat; they made us of the Arabs’ defeat in Egypt by referring it to Nasser’s deviation away from God and his “war on Islam” had led to the defeat, and that God was punishing them for that. The Islamists by that were trying to win the public and fuel them against Nasser and his regime, but Nasser was smarter than and declared his resignation in order to divert the attentions so the Islamists’ aims could not be fully achieved. In his era, Nasser introduced “Arab socialism” from which he made various political, social, and economic reforms. Although Nasser tried to link his view of socialism with the Islamic teachings and many statements about it, Nasser’s ideology was secular at its core and so he made sure there is a separation of religion and politics. His reforms and ideologies were to suppress the influence of the clergy and prevent them from interfering in matters of the state and also to imprison and outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists in general. It is only with the collapse and defeat of secular nationalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s that a space opened for the revival of political Islam. Nasser’s ideology with the Muslim brotherhood converted them from a struggling group against the colonization of Britain to a group which interferes in politics and wants to hold political positions and be in power. Also his oppression to them and the way he stripped them out of their civic rights is the main reason why they reverted to working, and building their organizations underground. The single-party policy didn’t allow any group to have a political identity under Nasser because he simply made the political participation “illegitimate”. After Nasser’s death in 1970, Mohamed Anwar El Sadat succeeded him as the president. Sadat as being viewed as Nasser’s puppet, he was expected to follow Nasser’s policy and to be easily manipulated on by Nasser’s supporters. But Sadat’s hidden leadership skills surprised everyone and he was able to retain the presidency by a series of smart political moves. Sadat carried out his “corrective revolution” on 15 May of 1971 in which he ordered the arrest of his vice president and over 100 other Nasserists and charged them with maneuverings to overthrow Sadat’s government. Many of these men had resigned their government positions in the days before the arrests, possibly in preparation for a coup against Sadat. In conjunction with this corrective revolution, Sadat ordered the demolition of many prisons and places of detention and began to co-opt some of Egypt’s Islamists by feeing some from prison and encouraging the development of Islamist student groups. This was mainly a move to balance the political power of any remaining Nasserists but it brought more than that. New freedom for the Islamists paved the way for a new direction for the Brotherhood. They spoke out against violence and tried to change Egypt by altering the individual’s view of the state. To this end, they provided more education and services for Egyptians. In 1970, Sadat legalized a multiple-party system in one article of law 40 but banned any party to be formed on the basis of religion and also prevented any political party to gain political status if it conflicted with Shar’ia. These policies of Sadat has greatly shaped the political Islam in Egypt, as he acknowledged Islamists’ presence but he did not give them any power politically or legally; he rather considered them a social project that turned a likely threat from similar groups into an increase for his patronage over them and over the students they recruit from universities after he set the free from their prisons. The Islamists at his time certainly had their political freedom to speak up; and his view of the Islamic associations (Jamaat al Islamiyah) as a counterbalance to leftist influence among students and universities helped these associations to rise and grow. His open door policy eased the entrance of the Wahaby ideology that came along with the immigrant Egyptians in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states which eventually initiated the Salafi movement in Egypt. Sadat then wrongly introduced violence to Al-Gama’at Al-Islameya and other Islamists to get rid of the Nasserites and the Nationals; but later, the Gama’a would fall out of favors with the president, and join forces with the Nasserites to oppose his independent policies such as the signing of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which ended in his assassination by a cooperation of Al- Gama’a with Al-Jihad.

Nasser’s and Sadat’s different ideologies and different ways in dealing with the Islamists have helped shaping their ideologies in many different ways. Nasser’s oppression created an eager for power and setting their identity; especially with the Muslim Brotherhood which were obsessed of creating their own network all over Egypt that can form a powerful party with a popular support which had happened after the 2011 revolution, also it is the oppression period that made some of them form splinter militant groups, that started to spread all over Egypt as soon as the security apparatus grip loosened. This was very clear especially in rural areas where the government power was replaced by the local elites such as ‘omda’s and family alliances in upper Egypt. This made places like upper Egypt a safe haven for the Islamist movement for almost all of its period of existence, even through the times when Jihadists were hunted all over Egypt, their safe havens in Upper Egypt’s fields and mountainous areas could not be cleansed by the security forces. Also the oppression taught them the basic laws of politics which they didn’t seem to understand prior to the March 1954 crises. Sadat has simply helped them gaining the popular support they needed by letting them expand socially in his era; and also letting them experience their political freedom after being suppressed a lot by Nasser. Also how Sadat cleared the floor for them to operate in trade unions, syndicates, and even student unions facilitated their objective of keeping themselves grassroots movements, and provided them with a constant flow of recruits into their organizations, gaining them a lot of power, and making them the political, social and economic giant that they are today. The threat of the Islamic associations didn’t appear till towards the end of Sadat’s era; after his visit to the Israeli Knesset and Camp David accords later. These events and the reactions towards it from various political Islam movements made the radicalization in their ranks obvious. This revelation made it clear that sooner or later there will be a second wave of hostilities between them and the government, which was sparked by the assassination of Sadat on October 6th 1981 by Islamist radicals. Sadat’s policy with them and using them as an oppression tool against the Nasserists is another reason that made these associations more violent as they have been on both sides of the oppressive process. At the end Sadat’s assassination made the Islamists viewed as radicals by the bulk of the people, as they had to encounter his popularity which they helped spread previously as a hero of war and peacetime, and the liberator of Sinai, and even as a pious president, and a caliph-like ruler. This simple act of assassination brought on the wrath of the people along with the government against Islamists, making them enter a period of relative weakness, which they would come out of by the beginning of the twenty first century.