Article begins<\/h2>\n
I typically avoided Islamic Cairo\u2019s crowded streets on Fridays, but I decided to attend the congregational prayer at\u00a0al-Azhar Mosque<\/a>\u00a0with Ibrahim and Omar, two British Muslims I had met weeks prior. We took a microbus from Nasr City. It dropped us off on a narrow street. We walked ten minutes, dodging street vendors and bread couriers on bikes. The mosque soon came into view and the sight was dystopic: rows of security forces, equipped with batons, helmets, and tactical vests surrounded al-Azhar. As we drew closer, I noticed Egyptian young men returning from the entry gates, visibly aggravated. They had been denied entry by undercover police.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDo you know what this is about?\u201d I asked Omar.\u00a0<\/p>\n He shook his head and we navigated our way through the crowd. After a brief security check, we were let through, as were the Indonesian and Malaysian students who rode the microbus with us.<\/p>\n While searching for a space to pray inside the crowded mosque courtyard, I wondered whether the security spectacle was meant to dishearten the acts of defiance sparked by Gaza\u2019s bombardment\u2014acts that had briefly challenged the government\u2019s repressive hold. It had been five months since pro-Palestine protesters marched from al-Azhar Mosque and\u00a0managed to briefly reach Tahrir Square<\/a>\u00a0after pushing past security forces. Since the Revolution, protests in Tahrir were largely unheard of given the threat of mass arrests and forced disappearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n After prayer, we walked past the Central Security Forces still stationed at the gates. Omar went to visit local shrines while Ibrahim and I explored bookstores in search of a text in Shafi\u02bfi\u00a0fiqh<\/em>\u00a0[Islamic jurisprudence] recommended by his tutor. Ibrahim and Omar had migrated in 2021 to join religious groups in Cairo under the tutelage of renowned Yemeni scholar\u00a0Habib Umar<\/a>. They settled in Nasr City, a neighborhood comprised of lower- to middle-class Egyptians and foreigners, primarily from Southeast Asia but increasingly from Central and East Asia, the North Caucasus, Europe, and North America. The diverse nationalities among students embodied the expression \u201cMisr umm al-dunya<\/em>\u201d [Egypt is the mother of the world], which Egyptians often used to warmly welcome foreigners after inquiring about their nationality.<\/p>\n Underneath this apparent cosmopolitanism, however, I came to recognize that Western Muslims belonging to\u00a0neo-traditionalist<\/a>\u00a0circles, like Omar and Ibrahim, seemed largely indifferent to the socio-political landscape they inhabited. They viewed Cairo as a timeless space\u2014a blank slate for the acquisition of knowledge and spiritual bonds with its historic religious landscape. Their detachment from Egypt\u2019s political realities was jarring against the backdrop of surveillance and repression targeting Egyptians and, at times, parts of the foreign Muslim community deemed \u201cextremists.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: <\/span> \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEgypt\u2019s Central Security Forces surround al-Azhar Mosque before the congregational Friday prayer. The area they occupy is typically packed with street vendors selling everything from prayer beads and walking canes to lupine beans served in small plastic cups.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Nasr City\u2019s proximity to al-Azhar and affordable Arabic-language schools made it an optimal starting point for foreign Muslims pursuing religious study and language training. It had bustling Southeast Asian restaurants, Uzbek bakeries, and American chain restaurants like Sizzler\u2019s. Indonesians and Malaysians had an established presence at al-Azhar dating back to the 20th century and\u00a0facilitated by government channels<\/a>. Meanwhile, Western Muslims like Ibrahim and Omar moved to Egypt to avoid politics at home and were keen on fashioning their religious identities in Nasr City\u2019s heterogeneous religious sphere. Absorbed in studying classical Islamic texts at the feet of esteemed scholars, their interactions with local Egyptians were minimal.\u00a0<\/p>\n While foreigners regarded Nasr City as a hub for knowledge, it was also the site of the\u00a0Raba\u02bea massacre<\/a> and where the Egyptian government had persistently worked to outlaw and violently suppress the Muslim Brotherhood. Government efforts sought to forcibly erase this history of death, destruction, and incarceration through various means, one of which was the ubiquitous presence of Sisi\u2019s campaign posters with the slogan: \u201cWE ARE ALL ONE.\u201d Yet, this history continued bleeding into the present. It surfaced in conversations with Egyptians who travelled from prison to prison across Egypt in search of their loved ones, and others who shaved their beards in fear of being labeled members of the Muslim Brotherhood. And, what remained in plain sight was the\u00a0dilapidated Raba\u02bea al-\u02bfAdawiyya Mosque<\/a>, at all times surrounded by police trucks.<\/p>\n En route back to Nasr City with Ibrahim, I thought about the swarm of security forces surrounding al-Azhar. The night had settled, and our microbus sped past colossal military infrastructure complete with watchtowers housing shadowy armed soldiers. These scenes had slowly become normal to me. While walking home I asked Ibrahim if he enjoyed living in Egypt. He explained that everyday life in Britain had\u00a0become saturated in cultural debates over sexuality and that\u00a0he migrated to ensure his child developed a stable \u201cMuslim identity.\u201d\u00a0With living expenses being substantially cheaper, he could also hire house-help.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEgypt is a blessed land,\u201d he asserted. \u201cTwo years ago, I heard the\u00a0adhan<\/em>\u00a0[call to prayer] echo throughout Cairo and decided to do\u00a0hijra<\/em>\u00a0[migration]. The rest is history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n I appreciated Nasr City after living under France\u2019s\u00a0Systematic Obstruction Policy<\/a>, but I did not share Ibrahim\u2019s optimism. It was disquieting, I explained, seeing Egyptians barred from entering al-Azhar, all while enjoying what Egypt offered us as foreigners. Ibrahim suggested I \u201cnot let politics get to [me]\u201d because such security measures were \u201cnecessary for the country\u2019s stability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the Arab Spring,\u201d he explained, \u201cpeople travelled to Syria and Yemen for\u00a0\u02bfilm\u00a0<\/em>[religious knowledge], but now all we have is Egypt.\u201d Ibrahim and many friends in his circle exalted, sought, and meticulously cared for religious knowledge. They feared instability in Egypt would disrupt the already dwindling sphere of religious learning. <\/p>\n Religious knowledge, however, did not exist in a vacuum. It was controlled and enmeshed in Egypt\u2019s counter-terrorism politics. Sisi\u2019s call for a \u201creligious revolution<\/a>\u201d sought the systematic replacement of religious subjectivities forged through political struggle for those amicable to the state. Thus, while microbus drivers played Qur\u2019an and plastered photos of the grinning Muhammad Mitwalli al-Sha\u02bfrawi on passenger windows, the vibrant cassette culture that once echoed the political commentaries of rebellious scholars like\u00a0Abdal-Hamid Kishk<\/a>\u00a0was long gone. Weeks after the security spectacle at al-Azhar, an Egyptian friend told me that the shaykh whose recitation we favored had been banned from leading the Ramadan night prayers. He had made a long supplication for the liberation of Palestine and decried the \u201chypocrisy of Arab rulers.\u201d The condition of possibility for religious knowledge seemed to be for it to remain \u201cfree\u201d of politics\u2014or, more precisely, of political struggle.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: <\/span> \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Raba\u02bea al-\u02bfAdawiyya Mosque was the epicenter of political mobilization for the Muslim Brotherhood prior to and over the course of the Revolution. During the Raba\u02bea sit-in, it housed a makeshift media center and served as a field hospital for injured protesters demanding the reinstatement of the democratically-elected President Muhammad Morsi.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n As I interacted with Muslims who frequented neo-traditionalist circles, I noticed their disinterest in \u201cpolitics\u201d was accompanied by a hyper-investment in inter-religious discord. Hameed, an American Muslim pursuing a degree in Shafi\u02bfi\u00a0jurisprudence, was often wary of religious commentary that \u201csounded Salafi\u201d and warned me about a local language center known for its \u201cSalafi\u201d orientation. Such warnings about \u201cthe Salafis\u201d closely echoed the Global War on Terror\u2019s rhetoric around\u00a0\u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d Muslims<\/a>. It also demonstrated a disregard for the complex histories of religious repression and political struggle that had driven some students to migrate to Egypt.<\/p>\n The language center Hameed was leery of had a diverse student body from North America, Europe, but most notably from Uzbekistan and Chechnya. As with most foreigners, Uzbeks and Chechens sought religious knowledge. Their migration, however, emerged from an attempt to escape the secular governmentality and\u00a0daily harassment<\/a>\u00a0in their respective countries. An Uzbek friend explained that in Uzbekistan, \u201creligion had to stay in the mosque\u201d and was heavily controlled by the state. After decades of Soviet-Communist rule that stifled religious learning, Uzbeks desired to rectify their lineage and relationship to the Islamic tradition. It was common to see Uzbek grandparents, who had migrated with their children and grandchildren, studying at Arabic and Qur\u2019an centers in Nasr City.\u00a0The same could be said of Chinese-Muslim families<\/a>, three generations of whom could be found running restaurants and weekend Chinese-language schools for their children.<\/p>\n Yet, these endeavors to make Egypt home were fraught by the War on Terror\u2019s global reach.\u00a0It was known among students<\/a>\u00a0that Egyptian authorities were particularly suspicious of \u201cRussians [sic<\/em>],\u201d whom they saw as \u201cextremist\u201d threats. They were surveilled through a concerted effort between Egypt, al-Azhar University, and their respective governments. In 2021,\u00a0approximately 1,500 Uzbeks were recalled<\/a>\u00a0after al-Azhar reported to Uzbekistan that students were skipping classes, raising government concerns over the acquisition of non-state approved religious education. Four years prior, 200 Uyghurs enrolled at al-Azhar were,\u00a0under orders from Beijing<\/a>, snatched from their apartments and seized at the airport by Egyptian authorities. After being interrogated by Chinese intelligence officers in prisons across Cairo, they were forcibly disappeared, likely placed in China\u2019s \u201cre-education camps.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, as Egyptians hung decorative lanterns symbolizing the coming of Ramadan, I woke up to WhatsApp group messages about police raids targeting foreigners. Rumors of what spurred the raids circulated, the most common being that a Chechen had flipped over a\u00a0tuk-tuk<\/em>\u00a0following a pricing dispute and injured the Egyptian driver. For over three weeks, police raided Arabic-language schools and mosques at the dawn prayer, and they set-up checkpoints at the outskirts of the city checking for \u201cvalid\u201d visas. When questioned by my polite, clean-shaven friend outside the mosque one night, a police officer bluntly responded that security forces were targeting men with beards. This was not unusual in Egypt. The decision to maintain beards, in a mostly clean-shaven society, made certain foreign Muslims distinct targets. The Chechen-run wrestling dojo and the popular Uzbek bakery, known for its\u00a0samsas<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0tandyr nan<\/em>, were closed for months.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: <\/span> \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAn Uzbek bakery in Nasr City favored by Central Asians and growing in popularity among Egyptians. The bakery sits across from a women\u2019s Qur\u2019an school run by Egyptian and Uzbek women.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The police raids exemplified how the vibrancy of foreign Muslim life in Egypt could abruptly give way to a dystopian reality. They also made clear that Nasr City and broader Cairo were not blank slates for religious self-fashioning, for underneath the insular neo-traditionalist pursuit of religious knowledge were Egyptian lives irreversibly marked by imprisonment and exile. It is precisely this double act of creation through erasure that gives neo-traditionalists such a pivotal role in Egypt\u2019s ongoing War on Terror.\u00a0<\/p>\n Angie Heo is the section contributing editor for the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article begins I typically avoided Islamic Cairo\u2019s crowded streets on Fridays, but I decided to attend the congregational prayer at\u00a0al-Azhar Mosque\u00a0with Ibrahim and Omar, two British Muslims I had met weeks prior. We took a microbus from Nasr City. It dropped us off on a narrow street. We walked ten minutes, dodging street vendors and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11767],"tags":[52750,25453,52748,52745,32452,6321,15927,52746,52747,52749],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-119059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthropology","tag-aldunya","tag-cairo","tag-dystopia","tag-global-war-on-terror-gwot","tag-islam","tag-knowledge","tag-migration","tag-neo-traditionalism","tag-repression","tag-umm"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA rushed photo taken from a slanted angle captures rows of security forces stationed outside the geometrically-shaped gates of al-Azhar Mosque. The security forces are clad in all-black, wearing military vests, knee pads, leather boots, and helmets with tactical goggles perched on top. Balaclavas cover their faces, leaving only a narrow opening for their eyes. A long baton hangs from the side of their camouflage pants. In front of the security forces are two groups of men exchanging words. They wear berets and sweaters adorned with yellow army signage. Barely noticeable are the guns strapped to their dress pants. They all appear miniscule before the mosque\u2019s grand stone walls and tall carved wooden doors. \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tL.M. \u00c1ybar<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.anthropology-news.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Aybar-Photo-1-856x856.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nReligious Knowledge and Migration to Nasr City\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA photo taken from behind the smudged window of a moving microbus captures the closed-off Raba\u02bea al-\u02bfAdawiyya Mosque as night falls. A full moon peeks through a cluster of clouds. The mosque\u2019s white exterior is damaged and chipped, but its round arches appear firm. To the side of the mosque is a designated area housing a black vehicle and an officer wearing a stark white uniform. A tall young man stands across the street from the mosque as a red car speeds by.\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tL.M. \u00c1ybar\u00a0<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.anthropology-news.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Aybar-Photo-2-856x856.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nPolice Raids, \u201cSalafis,\u201d and Inter-Religious Discord<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA photo of an Uzbek bakery\u2019s open shopfront. Stacks of freshly baked samsas<\/i> and tandyr nan<\/i> are piled high on a table, decorated with a maroon and light gray floral cloth. Behind them are a pair of waist-high brick ovens. Two silky yellow curtains close off the view to the back of the bakery. A small gap between the curtains offers a faint glimpse of the Uzbek baker shaping the dough.\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tL.M. \u00c1ybar<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.anthropology-news.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Aybar-Photo-3-856x856.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nConclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n