Browsing by Subject "Article 2"
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Item Regulated religion : examining the interplay of the religious and the secular in the interpretation of the modern Egyptian constitution(2023-04-24) Layman, Allyson; Ayoub, Samy A.; Azam, Hina, 1970-Article 2 of the Egyptian constitution establishes, “Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic is its official language. The principles of Islamic Shari’a are the principal source of legislation.” Entrenched in historical commitments to Islam as a source of political legitimacy and the necessity to evolve in accordance with the demands of the modern nation state, contemporary Islamicate societies have reconciled discrepancies between secular and Islamic interests through constitutional means. In contemporary Egypt, the attempt to reconcile secular and Islamic interests is most clearly embodied in the interpretation of Article 2 cases. This thesis argues that the interpretation of five Article 2 cases, from 1993 to 2017, by the Egyptian Supreme Court (SCC) establishes a pattern in which secular power renders the specificities of religious traditions irrelevant, illustrating an expansion of “the secular.” By interpreting Islamic norms in determining legislation, the state necessarily pursues a form of secularization.