Document created: 9 July 02
Published Air & Space Power Journal

Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam by Mary Anne Weaver. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York. 280 pages, 1999.

The author, New Yorker Magazine’s Mary Anne Weaver, spent a decade in Egypt with her journalist husband, studying at the American University in Cairo. This book delves into the thinking aspirations and vision of the two predominant sides within Egypt’s political arena. The current secular quasi-dictatorship of Husni Mubarak and the Islamists as represented by various factions and organizations are discussed. Egypt is the heart of modern Islamic political thought. Frustrated by the experimentation with socialism, nationalism and parliamentary government, a segment of Egypt’s population have resorted to Islam as the solution to crushing poverty and economic abyss. Weaver paints portraits of Egypt intend to capture the pressures Egyptians face in the twenty-first century. In these portraits gaps between the ultra-rich and the poor are presented through views into Cairo’s island of Zamalek home to Edwardian villas and the Gezira Sporting Club and the slum of Imbaba in which donkeys compete with traffic and proper sewage treatment is non-existent. The Ciaro, designed for three million residents, now boasts’ over 15 million people. The government cannot provide for the massive population growth and in this vacuum Islamic organizations have attempted to fill the void.

The book masterfully dissects the different Islamic groups in Egypt, beginning with the oldest the Ikhwan, established in 1928. Additionally, details of some of the more innovative tactics used by the Islamic Brotherhood to infiltrated and control different professional associations like pharmacists, lawyers and engineers as a means to exercise control are discussed. Even the military is not immune from this and the author outlines the events surrounding the 1998 Egyptian military academy riots. Mubarak has resorted to dealing with these organizations violently and his regime has been criticized by many human rights organizations. Police collectively punish families, apply torture and detain its citizens for years. Interior Minister Hassan Al-Alfi discussed these allegations with the author and does not seen apologetic for his methods, citing Egypt’s emergency law that has been enacted for over twenty-years.

The author visits unofficial mosques in which Egyptians revel in inflammatory rhetoric against the regime, Israel and the United States. It is in these same mosques that Sheikh Omar Abd-Al-Rahman preached. Interview by the author his disdain for not only Mubarak but also his fellow Muslim sheikhs in Al-Azhar (Egypt’s religious center) is apparent.

Mubarak truly fears an Algerian style civil-war, coupled with the fact that he sat next to Sadat and was a witness to his assassination that occurred before an army review in October 1981. The book ends with an account of Abdel-Nabi Khalifa, an Afghan Arab, who the author tried to meet at Kasr-al-Ayni Hospital held in government custody, he simply disappeared. Weaver paints a vivid portrait of a cycle of violence and despair that many westerners and even tourists are not privy to, she does not offer any solutions to the problems, even the Egyptians she interviewed from Mubarak and his ministers to jihadist leaders and intellectuals only offer accusations and obscure means for dealing with an Egypt that grows at a rate of one million every year. Weaver’s portraits are a powerful and disturbing view and her book is recommended for students of Middle East affairs.

Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, USN
Washington, D.C.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.