Religious Identity and Egyptian Youth: Practitioner Perspectives
Omar Sheira
Since its inception, Tabah’s Futures Initiative (TFI) has prioritised listening to the Arab region’s youth and learning about their opinions on issues related to the religious attitudes of the millennial generation. To that end, we have conducted surveys in 19 countries in order to identify trends relating to religious identity (in the broadest sense) in the Arab region.
In pursuit of a more nuanced, nation-specific understanding of religious identity issues trending among the youth of the region, we recently set out to speak with field experts in Egypt in preparation for further work in the country in the coming year. Egypt was selected because it is considered a bellwether of regional politics and a central player in the Arab world. As the region’s largest and most populous nation — with a population of 104 million — Egypt is also perceived to be a trend-setter for culture, literature and the arts. In the domain of religion, it is home to Al-Azhar, one of the Islamic world’s most important religious and intellectual institutions.
The interviewees — who were government representatives, religious scholars, educators and researchers — reflected on shifts they had witnessed in youth cultural and religious identities, as well as a range of socioeconomic issues. The first trend discussed was that of religious identity. A religious scholar from Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya (Egypt’s official fatwa centre) viewed Egyptian youth in general as being “lost” in the post-revolution era due to two factors: first, religious figures’ participation in politics and their subsequent fall from grace, which gave youth “an unclear image of religion, its primary and secondary sources, and its curriculum as a whole”; and second, “[the perceived] contradictions between religion and the advances witnessed in the empirical sciences.” These were similarly voiced by other interviewees, who saw that young people face a dilemma where they neither know about religion nor understand how it can relate to their current lives.
The interviewees suggested that these issues can be addressed by fostering the Islamic tradition of learning and questioning, re-explaining the theological and philosophical foundations of Islam, deconstructing extremist thought, reforming the image and channels disseminating religious education and accepting plurality in Islam.
The second highlighted the issue of Westernisation. There was general consensus among the interviewees that this trend is driven by the extensive reach of social media and Western culture, young people’s lack of attention to the Arabic language and the adoption of Western or Western-influenced role models who represent a cultural universe and lifestyle that is distinct from the local context. A government representative noted in an interview that Egyptian youth often hold opinions that exhibit “an imbalance and conflation between local and global values and ideas.”
The third trend discussed by the interviewees was the rise of entrepreneurship among young people, a phenomenon that saw a particular boom after the revolution of 2011. An interviewee who founded a youth organisation explained that “youth became more engaged in entrepreneurship as a means to positively impact society”. This view was strongly supported by others who added that youth now have the opportunity to pursue and specialise in fields that are in need of development such as technology, online services, sciences and the arts.
The interviewees also discussed a fourth observation — which stems from the shortage of quality education — namely, the lack of critical thought among the younger generations. They generally viewed youth as not being sufficiently equipped with the logical and analytical tools to process the news and ideas posted in the media and social media. This led the interviewees to count critical thinking as a skill that should be developed in order “to be objective, understand concepts deeply, and formulate accurate perceptions of the future”. A member of an organisation that offers online courses listed other by-products of poor education such as digital illiteracy, little or no enthusiasm to learn and a shortage of skilled graduates meeting the standards of employers.
Over the coming year Tabah Futures Initiative aims to delve deeper into some of these issues to develop a complex understanding of the context and juxtapose the views of practitioners and field experts with the lived reality of younger Egyptian generations. Please watch this space.■
Omer Sheira is a research assistant at Tabah Futures Initiative.
