Endowments, society, and politics in Egypt

A study on endowments and politics in Egypt, which clarifies the relationship between endowments and politics within its jurisprudential and historical framework, then discusses the establishment of modern endowments in Egypt and their political dimensions, and the legitimacy of endowments for the role of endowment in supporting the Egyptian national movement, and the participation and development of endowments in Egypt. Endowments, society, and politics in Egypt, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Bayoumi Ghanem, introduction: Advisor Tarek Al-Bishri, may God have mercy on him. This book studies the relationship between society and the state in Egypt over the past two centuries from the perspective of charitable endowments as a tool used by traditional Islamic society to meet its needs and build a common domain between it and the ruling authority, relieving it of burdens and curbing its ability to interfere in its affairs, thus opening up a wider space of freedom outside the horizon of the ruling authority and its orientations. Through examining thousands of endowment deeds in Egypt, government documents, parliamentary records, as well as theoretical and legal sources of endowment jurisprudence and its rulings, the book depicts a detailed picture of the relationship between the state and society in Egypt during the past two centuries, within the framework of Muhammad Ali’s modernization project and his successors, which aimed — through building the modern state in Egypt — to tighten control over traditional society and gradually intervene in its affairs by controlling its ability to meet its needs. The book also clarifies that endowments were one of the traditional tools of resistance against Cromer’s project in Egypt, through attempts to provide services that the occupying state neglected, and thus highlights the role of endowments in Egyptian national work before July 1952, as well as the gradual attempts by the Egyptian state to restrict endowments, along with cultural trends supporting and opposing this, reaching the painful story of the Egyptian state's control over endowments and its suffocation after July 1952. This edition of the book "Endowments, Society, and Politics in Egypt" differs fundamentally from the previous one; not only because this edition is revised and includes a number of historical "documents" published for the first time, but also because it is issued at a time when the issue of endowments in the Islamic world has become a matter of interest for governments, civil society organizations, researchers, academics, jurisprudence scholars, legal experts, and members of legislative councils.