Islam and the Arab Revolutions

Usaama al-Azami’s Islam and the Arab Revolutions is one of the most important monographs to date on the religious dimensions of the Arab uprisings, particularly the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and the 2013 military coup. Rather than focusing on political elites, protest movements, or geopolitical maneuvering—as much of the Arab Spring literature does—al-Azami turns his attention to the senior Sunni ulema and their public interventions during the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary moments. The result is a tightly argued intellectual history that places Islamic scholarly discourse at the center of modern Middle Eastern political upheaval.

The book’s central concern is the divergent responses of prominent Sunni scholars to the revolutions. Al-Azami argues that the ulema did not respond monolithically; rather, they split broadly into pro-revolutionary and counter-revolutionary camps, with a third group initially ambivalent before gravitating toward authoritarian positions. The book traces these trajectories chronologically from early 2011 through the aftermath of the Rabaa massacre in August 2013.