The martyrdom of Sinwar…translating faith into an action plan policy

Because I grew up between the countryside and the city in the Egyptian Delta; I greatly celebrate the crops when they are still mixed with the clay of the earth. Green freshness makes me feel the passion for learning and the ability to continuously renew, and the clay of the earth reminds me of the necessity of searching the roots and realizing the consequences.

Item brought me back Al-Aqsa flood and religiosity: an Islamic awakening Presented by the brilliant journalist Abdul Quddus Al Hashemi to this spirit. The work took him 8 months, during which he met dozens of young Arab men and women around the world, aged between 20 and 40 years. To monitor the transformations of many of them after the flood – the Al-Aqsa flood – from “indifference” to a state of overwhelming religiosity, and sometimes even readiness to engage in the broader Islamic situation and support the resistance in Palestine.

He provided us with raw material, or a seed that is still rooted, that can be worked on to provide an analytical and interpretive framework for the phenomenon of new religiosity among Arab young men and women after the flood. It is a topic that fascinates me in writing and research.

Of course, the goal is not to generalize about the impact of what happened on October 7, 2023 until this moment on the shift of Arab youth towards religious practice. I realize the limitations of the sample and the extent to which it represents a population that is approximately one-third (32.2%) of the Arab population, but the material aroused in me a passion to question:

1. The meaning of religion as it appears in the interviews?
2. What is its relationship to the solid Islamic concepts of faith, disbelief, Sharia, loyalty, disavowal, and jihad?
3. Did the religiosity of the flood add new features or bring about changes in the phenomenon of new youth religiosity that I wrote about before?
4. What does this have to do with the religiosity of organizations and groups in light of their historical predicament? Were these young men and women able to transcend organizationally and ideologically the major Islamic organizations, or are they still stuck in their ideas, organizations, and practices?
5. And last, but not least; What are the effects and consequences of this phenomenon on politics and society, and on the relations of power and wealth nationally and internationally?

Transformations in the religious phenomenon – especially among young men and women – are worth monitoring. It is a dynamic, moving phenomenon that is not characterized by stability and always bears new things, and the conflict over patterns of religiosity in the region – or what I called in my book published by Madarat Publishing House earlier this year “The Spirit of Islam” – and the Arab Spring and the struggle over the spirit of Islam, has become one of the axes of polarization.

Islam still has the potential to appeal to the region today, and the way in which different Islamic intellectual tendencies deal with the multiple crises facing the region in the coming years will influence the evolving role of religion there in the long term.

The Palestinian issue has historically been and remains a fundamental factor in shaping Islam’s relationship with the public sphere, and it is also a central element in defining the public scene in the countries of the encirclement such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

The wars with the Zionist entity in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and the successive Palestinian uprisings since the beginning of the new millennium and before that, were decisive moments to give impetus to Islam’s relationship with politics. These moments also include a conflict with Israel, confrontations with the West, and are loaded with many cultural and religious symbols.

First: Restoring religiosity: a rising trend

The flood continues a growing trend in the relationship of young men and women under the age of 30 to religion and the practice of religious rituals in the Arab world.

The number of people becoming religious is increasing compared to their number in 2018, according to a survey whose results were published by the Arab Barometer 2022. Why is the relationship of Arab youth with religion changing?

According to the survey; Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories saw a decline in the number of people who described themselves as non-religious across all age groups. The survey revealed that more citizens of these countries are now describing themselves as religious.

According to the survey, Morocco witnessed a 7 percent decrease in the number of people who described themselves as non-religious among all age groups, followed by Egypt, with a decrease of about 6 percent, then Tunisia, Palestine, Jordan, and Sudan, with a decrease of 4 percent.

As for the category of young people under the age of 30, Tunisia witnessed the largest decline in the number of young people who described themselves as non-religious. About two-thirds of Tunisian youth participating in the survey describe themselves as religious, which is a significant decline compared to the 2018 survey, in which about half of Tunisian youth participating in the survey described themselves as non-religious.

According to the latest survey studies Youth studyReligiosity in the current period is more widespread in the countryside and major cities than in smaller cities, and among the upper segments of the university-educated middle and rich classes. However, these characteristics are witnessing constant movement and continuous change that requires monitoring.

Individuality is represented by the multiplicity, diversity, and juxtaposition of sources of reception, despite the distinction, difference, and sometimes contradiction between them. The relationship with the sources of reception is drawn up by the individual choosing first and feeling comfortable with them, so he continues

Second: the style of youth religiosity

While empirical data paints a picture of the region’s youth as religious; Young people consider religion a private matter. For MENA youth, religion no longer serves political or ideological purposes, but instead focuses on personal well-being and self-discipline, making it appear more like a channel for spirituality. As these questionnaires monitor high levels of religiosity; This is primarily at the individual level; It is no longer linked to a collective social utopia.

These features find their explanation – in my opinion – in the social media model as a cognitive model for the Egyptian revolution and new media: reading, which combined with criticism of the practices of preachers and Islamists after the Arab Spring uprisings, and was made more prominent by the characteristics of Generation Z – who were born in the late previous millennium and the beginning of this millennium – In 2024.. Generation Z is born from protests And the characteristics of its communication model.

Social media are not just tools that are used, but rather an expression of values ​​and practices that revolve around:

1. IndividualityWhere the individual has an increased role in producing, circulating, and interacting with content, in contrast to the professional institution that was independent in producing content, the space for the individual to express himself and challenge the dominant narratives has also increased.
2. The increasing value of freedom based on persuasion/Dawah versus authoritarian control.
3. Recognizing diversity/pluralism With what it means of openness to the diverse self and the different other.
4. Utility and practicality: Which means going beyond the ideological – which is specialized in answering the major questions – to searching for answers to the minor questions. The effective discourse now is what I call “livelihood discourse,” which aims to improve people’s quality of life in a practical way.
5. The balance between privacy and common humanityThere are two trends competing in the world now, and social media is the platform on which these two trends move and feed. The first trend is to retreat to local particularities, sub-national loyalties, and closed identities, and the second trend is to expand the common humanity by virtue of realizing that the challenges facing humanity are common.
6. Absence of the center/absolute/referenceThere is extreme fluidity in the content provided. This phenomenon led to a lack of cultural and cognitive depth. The flow of information does not necessarily create knowledge. The idea of ​​good speech has also disappeared and the shift to the idea of ​​appropriate speech that suits specific circumstances has become prevalent. Extreme relativism in word and deed – which can turn into liquidity or conspiracy theory – is the ruling system in the overall information model presented through social media.
7. Voracious and rapid consumption of content and symbolsThis phenomenon has led to a rapid and widespread overtaking of institutions that produce content, services that provide…etc.
8. Increasing value of global knowledgeKnowledge is no longer local but global, based on participation in its production and subjectivity in its acquisition. It is based on practical life experiences, not intellectual theories, and the gap in it can be overcome. I mean the gap between advanced and backward, and its centers have become multiple and easily accessible. Knowledge has shifted from relying on reading only in the past to integrating and multimedia, with greater relative weight for visual, audio, and interactivity.

Third: Religiosity of the Flood: continuity and change

Although this section of the article is devoted to studying the elements of continuity and change in the religiosity of Arab young men and women; I would like to stress that I am not one of those who embrace the idea of ​​transcendence and discontinuity in understanding the Arab reality. The writer of these lines belongs to a school that emphasizes the idea of ​​transformation in transitional periods that include juxtaposition, coexistence, and sometimes overlap between the old and the new and between different phenomena. Meaning that we are faced with multiple patterns of religiosity that interact with each other as a result of the expansion of the religious field Towards a free and independent pluralistic Islamic religious field With diversity and variety.

Despite the efforts made over the past decade to dominate and control the religious field by some regimes and institutions, these efforts have failed for reasons that are beyond the scope of this article.

The religiosity of young university students, both male and female, after the Arab Spring is of an individual nature, and its solid core is not formed by organizations. Rather, it is due to the network of interactions and the many initiatives that it brings together – as the study of Who Fills the Void observed – legal science and emotional mysticism, and its features are shaped on social media and in practical practice, not ideological discourse, and it is characterized by an overwhelming female presence, and its position on politics has not yet been determined; Rather, it is shaped and developed by contexts.

Al-Hashimi’s interviews help us re-examine the extent of continuity and change in these characteristics and characteristics, and how they were shaped in light of the flood. This is what we will present and discuss its lessons in the second part of the article.