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Ghannouchi grows up in a Tunisian traditional Islamic yet politically charged milieu of anticolonialist Arab Nationalism.

The journey of his life passes through stations, the first is his country's capital, Tunis, where he studies at the supposedly Islamic institution, Az‐Zaytouna, only to come out of it more confused and almost completely severed from his Islamic roots.

He escapes to Cairo and then to Damascus where he studies philosophy, divorces Nassirism, encounters Islamic groups, such as the Salafis, Hizb‐ut‐Tahrir, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and nationalists groups, such as the Ba’th Party and the Arab Socialist Union, and “reembraces” Islam.

A tour of Europe and then a one‐year study in Paris serve only to consolidate his conversion, attract him to Tablighi Jama’at, and terminate his exile.

On his way back home, he meets what hence becomes his main source of inspiration, Algerian thinker Malik Bennabi.

Within Islamic circles there are those, such as the affiliates of Hizb‐ut‐Tahrir and the followers of the school of thought headed by Ayman Dhawahiri (often written as Zawahiri), who constitute an obstacle to democratization because of their campaign against democracy and whatever Muslims may borrow from the “infidel” West.

Such groups claim to be the rightful followers of Sayyid Qutb whose key concepts of hakimiyah and jahiliyah they have incorporated into their discourse.

These groups confuse the religious with the political in Islam, a confusion that leads to misinterpreting Islamic religious text and misunderstanding Islamic history.

The theory of faraghat (spaces) is proposed as a model to explain the concept of ijtihad in political thought.

As the Tahrir Square uprisings of 2011 grew, the US narrative about the Arab world changed quickly, moving from old fashioned Orientalism to embrace a young revolution (Arab Spring) and a focus on new media and social networking software. This chapter takes an extended look at how cultural forms associated with the US—cyberpunk fiction, superhero comics, social networking software, and text messaging language—make their way into the Egyptian cultural scene, and are imbibed with rich new sets of meanings.

This chapter explains that the first eighteen days of the Egyptian Revolution culminating in the downfall of Hosni Mubarak were important because they created a fund of symbolic resources—stories people told about where they were and what they did, and mass mediation of narratives and images, both during and after the events. It then narrates some of the author's stories. They resonate with the widely felt process of entering into a liminal void, and they help establish some of the places and people who will feature in subsequent chapters. At the very beginning of the revolution, the author often spent his days working in a rented flat, which was not far from Tahrir Square. He spent his days there attempting to read various materials relevant to his research on the history of Egyptian mass media. After January 25, trying to glean insights on the history of radio and television from old magazines was an exercise in futility, not because the magazines were not rich sources for his research, but because the revolution taking place in the streets below was a constant distraction.

This chapter discusses the material frame of Tahrir Square. As a space, it has been shaped by the political-economic policies of the past four decades, which essentially turned it into an antihuman space, nominally suitable only as a “nonplace” that people passed through. A liberalized economy under the umbrella of a state that systematically redistributed income upward shaped demands for “bread, freedom, and social justice” as surely as it walled off Bulaq from communication with its urban surroundings, segregated Garden City to protect the imperial agents of the “Washington consensus,” and prepared downtown for private redevelopment. The causes of the revolution were inscribed in the urban fabric of its primary theater. It should be emphasized that the revolution-era character of Tahrir Square is incomprehensible without linking it to the growth of the formal parts of the expanding city, specifically the suburbs and their gated communities. But it is equally incomprehensible without similarly linking it to the even more significant growth of the informal parts of the city, and indeed the more general character of informality in many spheres of life, most significantly labor, which was systematically made precarious by the same design that poured resources into the new cities and slated Bulaq for extinction. However, the quotidian antihuman Tahrir Square depicted in the chapter has greater depth as a performance space than one might think.

This chapter examines how the history of martyrdom inscribed in and around Tahrir Square constitutes one frame for the political performances that were the idioms of revolution. Martyrs are very common in commemoration, though not necessarily iconic in the sense that they inspire veneration or attract the eye. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the cumulative weight of commemoration as irrelevant to the political performances that took place in 2011 and its aftermath. The revolutionary political alternative, ideologically diverse, was enacted on a stage composed partly of a much less ambivalent commemorative martyrological history that could always potentially be mobilized against it. And it was mobilized with a vengeance in overthrowing Muhammad Morsy in the summer of 2013. On July 26, ʻAbd al-Fattah al-Sisi openly called for a popular tafwid (mandate) to “fight terrorism,” making an open accession to rule—ratified later by a patently fixed election—inevitable. Tens of thousands of the people thronging Tahrir Square and its surrounding streets on July 26 carried posters of al-Sisi in that demonstration. It should be emphasized that even though al-Sisi was backed by powerful individuals and institutions, and even though his emergence on the political scene indisputably drew all eyes toward him and inspired genuine veneration, his icon-hood was provisional, which is to say that it was inherently unstable.

Reads and translates the throng of revolutionary banners and signs whose visual immediacy both established the demands of protesters and responded to the emerging political discourse as it unfolded thereby becoming, in and of themselves, a translation of the awakening of public consciousness and a remarkable and fearless articulation of the right to language. The authors trace how these visual public signs inscribed a narrative of resistance that drew on various symbols and layers of historical, cultural, and political memory to write the story of a people in revolt. As the authors correctly point out, “a palpable sense of guilt, responsibility and complicity underwrote many of these banners, drawing on a collective memory of censorship and participation in silence, and paving the way for a new moral economy.” Through a translation of the unprecedented politics of display in Tahrir that combined humor, satire, and creative energy, the authors show how Egyptians used their individual and collective bodies as canvases to represent the demands of the revolution, to dismantle and expose a history of empire and global complicities, and to celebrate solidarities, exceptional valor, and enormously tragic sacrifice.

This chapter introduces the problematic of the book via a reading of Western media responses to the Arab Spring. On the one hand, commentators read the protests in terms of commonality: either as evidence that protestors shared a common goal, or as evidence that they lacked the cohesion to sustain democratic institutions. On the other hand, commentators read the protests in terms of political freedom: as expressions of the human capacity to shape the world we share together. These interpretations of the Arab Spring correspond to two different ways of seeing democracy. The first view presumes that democracy requires that the people share something in common. While democratic theorists are predominantly oriented towards commonality, this book will argue instead for emphasizing political freedom. On this latter view, democracy emerges through the interactions between plural persons who do not know whether or what they have in common. The protests in Tahrir Square in 2011 are, therefore, paradigmatic of democracy: the protestors acted together without knowing whether others would join with them, without knowing whether they could agree about their aims, and without knowing whether they would succeed. Yet they acted anyhow, and so expressed their political freedom.

It was the creation of a revolutionary space in the centre of Cairo that for many carried the symbolism of what the revolution aimed to achieve. Warren Magnusson has argued that political theory and political research more generally has prioritised a view of political life as if politics is primarily understood according to the discourses of the state. Social movement theory’s spatial emphasis has also largely been on understanding political movements that function within the political conditions of the state. Yet the political spaces created by the protesters in Cairo were in many ways radically different from the statist conception of political space. To appreciate fully the significance of the revolution, we must investigate the new practices and meanings that were inscribed onto Tahrir Square and its environs. The peripheral alleys became, for a short while, the political centre of protest. The boulevards and squares were re-inscribed with revolutionary meanings in what one could call, drawing on Henri Lefebvre, a ‘trial by space’. As a result, public spaces became reconstituted, briefly, as non-sovereign political spaces.

This introductory chapter details the last time the author met Hosni Mubarak in October 2010 in Rome when she was instructed to put together a list of 190 treasures from Cairo's museums for an exhibition of treasures from Egyptian history. It also looks at the revolutionary events in Tahrir Square and the plundering of the Egyptian Museum in 2011. The author then describes how she dealt with the challenges of corruption as she assumed a management position in the antiquities service in the Egyptian Museum. On that “day of rage” in Tahrir Square, she determined that she would be betraying herself and the youth of Egypt if she were to become the director of a museum founded by people who torture young people and beat them to death, and decided to do no more work that had any connection to Mubarak, his wife, and the regime.

This concluding chapter focuses on the events that happened since the start of the Tahrir Revolution in January 2011. Egypt now have a new president, a new constitution, new parties, and new coalitions. For the first time in their history, Egyptians were allowed to vote, and—no matter which way they voted—they were dissatisfied with the result. The country is politically divided. The only thing that unites people is their dissatisfaction. Indeed, everything is in short supply—most of all patience. The Egyptians took to the streets for bread, freedom, and social justice. Egypt's economic situation also worsened. The author witnessed the exodus of educated young people and the migration of intellectuals to America. Moreover, the literacy rate is sinking lower and lower as children and young people are neglected.

This chapter examines the dynamics of Copts’ engagement with the uprisings that ousted Mubarak. It starts with the church bombing in Alexandria in January 2011, a precursor for the revolution, and then looks at the high turnout of Copts, as participants and organizers, in the 25 January uprising, in particular in Tahrir Squre. Finally, it discusses the motivations for their participation.

The sense of religious pluralism of Tahrir Square faded fast following the 18 days, despite the hope of many that sectarian relations would improve with the removal of Mubarak. This chapter looks at how and why this happened and argues that a hybrid of new and old power configurations were behind the surge in violence against non-Muslims. It points to three factors in particular: the removal of the authoritarian grip allowed the already existing societal fault-lines to open up; SCAF’s state-sponsored religious discrimination; and the Salafization of the management of sectarian violence. It also looks at the church leadership’s stance vis-à-vis the changing power dynamics post January 2011.

This chapter offers an account of Dina Wahba’s personal experience as someone who participated actively in the 25th January Egyptian revolution and its subsequent events in Tahrir Square. She was inspired by the idea that the “personal is political” to insert a personal story in the heart of the heated political debates. Her account stems from the realization that it is imperative to populate the debates with local voices and to personalize the struggles.

Chapter 8 examines the growth of Islamic identity and political organisation. It starts by discussing different approaches to Islam and the meaning of Islamism. It looks at groups linked to Jamaat-e-Islami, whose ultimate aim is an Islamic state, and how they build support through strong organisation, grassroots community work, prosletysing, and civic engagement. And it also looks at more radical groups – Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun - who see themselves as a revolutionary vanguard for the restoration of an Islamic state. It argues that the turn to religion, which has happened throughout the Islamic world, is a consequence of the decline of a left alternative. Young Bengalis face alienation, racism, inequality, and no future. Islam offers them brotherhood, certainty and pride. It also argues that, while a very few have gone on jihad, it is dangerous to claim that Islamist ideas lead to extremist violence. However, Islamism has led to conflicts with non-political Muslims (especially concerning alleged war criminals from 1971) and has put difficult peer pressure on college students. It also perpetuates separatism.Finally, the chapter looks at how governments have deliberately promoted faith groups - which has consolidated religious power, encouraged conservative values, and cut across class-based organisation.

Chapter 4 explores the expressive qualities of the line in Persian painting and drawing. Using contemporary sources that linked linear precision to the maker’s dexterity and morality, this chapter focuses on the line as a vehicle of artistic representation. For historical viewers, the line read less as a contour designed to create motifs than as an object in its own right, endowed with plastic meaning and expressive effects. The line not only captured the sensory work of artists but it also attested to their moral qualities. Through precision, grace and minuteness, the line became the emblem of a painter’s moral character. Lyrical poetry further testified to the line’s ethical thrust by linking the calligraphic flow of the line to the mystical quest for love.

This chapter narrates the January 25 Revolution in Egypt through the testimonies of activists who participated in the event. On this day, Egyptians headed to Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo to join a protest against the regime of Hosni Mubarak. This event was publicized in a number of places, including the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said”—a page devoted to encourage Egyptian youth to oppose the government. Activists united to protest for several months the brutal act done to Khaled Said, culminating in the trial and conviction to life imprisonment of Mubarak. The chapter presents narratives of Adel Abdel Ghafar, Mona Prince, and other activists regarding this event.