Cairo between Dystopia and Umm al-Dunya

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I typically avoided Islamic Cairo’s crowded streets on Fridays, but I decided to attend the congregational prayer at al-Azhar Mosque with 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. 

“Do you know what this is about?” I asked Omar. 

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.

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’s bombardment—acts that had briefly challenged the government’s repressive hold. It had been five months since pro-Palestine protesters marched from al-Azhar Mosque and managed to briefly reach Tahrir Square after pushing past security forces. Since the Revolution, protests in Tahrir were largely unheard of given the threat of mass arrests and forced disappearances. 

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 Shafiʿi fiqh [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 Habib Umar. 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 “Misr umm al-dunya” [Egypt is the mother of the world], which Egyptians often used to warmly welcome foreigners after inquiring about their nationality.Underneath this apparent cosmopolitanism, however, I came to recognize that Western Muslims belonging to neo-traditionalist circles, like Omar and Ibrahim, seemed largely indifferent to the socio-political landscape they inhabited. They viewed Cairo as a timeless space—a blank slate for the acquisition of knowledge and spiritual bonds with its historic religious landscape. Their detachment from Egypt’s political realities was jarring against the backdrop of surveillance and repression targeting Egyptians and, at times, parts of the foreign Muslim community deemed “extremists.”

Religious Knowledge and Migration to Nasr City 

Nasr City’s 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’s. Indonesians and Malaysians had an established presence at al-Azhar dating back to the 20th century and facilitated by government channels. 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’s heterogeneous religious sphere. Absorbed in studying classical Islamic texts at the feet of esteemed scholars, their interactions with local Egyptians were minimal. 

While foreigners regarded Nasr City as a hub for knowledge, it was also the site of the Rabaʾa massacreand 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’s campaign posters with the slogan: “WE ARE ALL ONE.” 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 dilapidated Rabaʾa al-ʿAdawiyya Mosque, at all times surrounded by police trucks.

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 become saturated in cultural debates over sexuality and that he migrated to ensure his child developed a stable “Muslim identity.” With living expenses being substantially cheaper, he could also hire house-help. 

“Egypt is a blessed land,” he asserted. “Two years ago, I heard the adhan [call to prayer] echo throughout Cairo and decided to do hijra [migration]. The rest is history.” 

I appreciated Nasr City after living under France’s Systematic Obstruction Policy, but I did not share Ibrahim’s 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 “not let politics get to [me]” because such security measures were “necessary for the country’s stability.” 

“Before the Arab Spring,” he explained, “people travelled to Syria and Yemen for ʿilm [religious knowledge], but now all we have is Egypt.” 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. Religious knowledge, however, did not exist in a vacuum. It was controlled and enmeshed in Egypt’s counter-terrorism politics. Sisi’s call for a “religious revolution” sought the systematic replacement of religious subjectivities forged through political struggle for those amicable to the state. Thus, while microbus drivers played Qur’an and plastered photos of the grinning Muhammad Mitwalli al-Shaʿrawi on passenger windows, the vibrant cassette culture that once echoed the political commentaries of rebellious scholars like Abdal-Hamid Kishk was 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 “hypocrisy of Arab rulers.” The condition of possibility for religious knowledge seemed to be for it to remain “free” of politics—or, more precisely, of political struggle.

Police Raids, “Salafis,” and Inter-Religious Discord

As I interacted with Muslims who frequented neo-traditionalist circles, I noticed their disinterest in “politics” was accompanied by a hyper-investment in inter-religious discord. Hameed, an American Muslim pursuing a degree in Shafiʿi jurisprudence, was often wary of religious commentary that “sounded Salafi” and warned me about a local language center known for its “Salafi” orientation. Such warnings about “the Salafis” closely echoed the Global War on Terror’s rhetoric around “good” and “bad” Muslims. It also demonstrated a disregard for the complex histories of religious repression and political struggle that had driven some students to migrate to Egypt.

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 daily harassment in their respective countries. An Uzbek friend explained that in Uzbekistan, “religion had to stay in the mosque” 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’an centers in Nasr City. The same could be said of Chinese-Muslim families, three generations of whom could be found running restaurants and weekend Chinese-language schools for their children.

Yet, these endeavors to make Egypt home were fraught by the War on Terror’s global reach. It was known among students that Egyptian authorities were particularly suspicious of “Russians [sic],” whom they saw as “extremist” threats. They were surveilled through a concerted effort between Egypt, al-Azhar University, and their respective governments. In 2021, approximately 1,500 Uzbeks were recalled after 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, under orders from Beijing, 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’s “re-education camps.” 

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 tuk-tuk following 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 “valid” 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 samsas and tandyr nan, were closed for months.

Conclusion

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’s ongoing War on Terror. 

Angie Heo is the section contributing editor for the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.