(Re)Arrangement of State/Islam Relations in Egypt’s Constitutional Transition

Abstract

After briefly framing state/shari‘ah relations in pre-2011 Egypt, the paper (1) describes the negotiations behind the (re)arrangement of shari‘ah-provisions in the new constitution, (2) analyzes the content of the new provisions in their Hegelian relation to the previous Supreme Constitutional Court jurisprudence — expounding on the complex articulation of the explanatory note to art. 2 (art. 219) — and (c) considers the ramifications of the new arrangement, focusing on the impact of the mandatory referral to al-Azhar.