References pp. 133-137.

Little is known about Egypt's Gypsies, called Dom by scholars, but variously referred to by Egyptians as Ghagar, Nawar, Halebi or Hanagra, depending on their location. Moreover, most Egyptians are oblivious to the fact that there are today large numbers of Gypsies dispersed from the outskirts of villages in Upper Egypt to impoverished neighborhoods in Cairo and Alexandria. In Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt sociologist Alexandra Parrs draws on two years of fieldwork to explore how Dom identities are constructed, negotiated, and contested in the specifically Egyptian national context. With an eye to the pitfalls and evolution of scholarly work on the vastly more studied European Roma, she traces the scattered representations of Egyptian Dom, from accounts of them by nineteenth-century European Orientalists to their portrayal in Egyptian cinema as belly dancers in the 1950s and beggars and thieves more recently. She explores the boundaries-religious, cultural, racial, linguistic-between Dom and non-Dom Egyptians and examines the ways in which the Dom position themselves within the limitations of media discourses about them and in turn differentiate themselves from the dominant population. This interplay of attitudes, argues Parrs, sheds light on the values and markers of belonging of the majority population and the paradigms of nation-state formation at the governmental level. Based on extensive interviews with government workers and ordinary individuals in routine contact with the Dom, as well with Dom engaged in a variety of trades in Cairo and Alexandria, Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt is about the search for the fragments of identity of the Egyptian Dom.

Copts and the Security State combines political, anthropological, and social history to analyze the practices of the Egyptian state and the political acts of the Egyptian Coptic minority. Laure Guirguis considers how the state, through its subjugation of Coptic citizens, reproduces a political order based on religious identity and difference. The leadership of the Coptic Church, in turn, has taken more political stances, thus foreclosing opportunities for secularization or common ground. In each instance, the underlying logics of authoritarianism and sectarianism articulate a fear of the Other, and, as Guirguis argues, are ultimately put to use to justify the expanding Egyptian security state. In outlining the development of the security state, Guirguis focuses on state discourses and practices, with particular emphasis on the period of Hosni Mubarak's rule, and shows the transformation of the Orthodox Coptic Church under the leadership of Pope Chenouda III. She also considers what could be done to counter the growing tensions and violence in Egypt. The 2011 Egyptian uprising constitutes the most radical recent attempt to subvert the predominant order. Still, the revolutionary discourses and practices have not yet brought forward a new system to counter the sectarian rhetoric, and the ongoing counter-revolution continues to repress political dissent.

Religion is central to any religious discourse, but religion as an analytical category that facilitates the reexamination and reinvention of a particular religious tradition is more difficult to locate. This task is made particularly difficult in Islam, where the lines demarcating religion, culture, civilization and politics are deliberately ambiguous and fuzzy. The objective of this book is to identify and examine the place of religion as such an abstract category in modern Islamic discussions from the nineteenth century to the present. It shows how ideas of religion facilitated the transformation of religious discourses, both when accepting and resisting modernity. The central focus is on intellectuals who grappled with reconciling Islam with successive waves of modernization. Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse begins with early discussions in Egypt and colonial India on the essence of religion and its social value in the light of modern challenges in science and politics. It then moves from these discussions, and explores key contributions by twentieth century Muslim intellectuals on the meaning of identity, state, law, and gender. Above all, Abdulkader Tayob offers the reader a creative way of understanding modern Islamic discourse, uncovering the deep structural foundations of its approach to religion, religious values and spirituality.

This is a substantially expanded edition of the author's seminal work The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses: A Contemporary Case Study. Beginning with the case study of a Muslim basketball player who refused to stand up while the American national anthem was playing, the author documents the disintegration of the Islamic juristic tradition, and the prevalence of authoritarianism in contemporary Muslim discourses. The author analyzes the rise of what he describes as puritan and despotic trends in modern Islam, and asserts that such trends nullify the richness and diversity of the Islamic tradition. By declaring themselves the true soldiers of God and the defenders of religion, Muslim puritan movements are able to degrade women, eradicate critical thinking, and empty Islam of its moral content. In effect, the author argues, the self-declared protectors of Islam become its despots and oppressors who suppress the dynamism and vigor of the Islamic message. Anchoring himself in the rich Islamic jurisprudential tradition, the author argues for upholding the authoritativeness of the religious text without succumbing to authoritarian methodologies of interpretation. Ultimately, the author asserts that in order to respect the integrity of the Divine laws it is necessary to adopt rigorous analytical methodologies of interpretation, and to re-investigate the place of morality in modern Islam.

[Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt] certainly represents a landmark. It is the first monograph devoted to an integral study and interpretation of the entire corpus of literature preserved from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom.'Joachim Quack, Professor of Egyptology, University of Heidelberg.