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The Role of the Intellectuals and Political Process of the Wasaṭiyya Current in pre-2011 Egypt

The relationship between the Egyptian al-Wasaṭ party (a splinter group consisting of some “Moderate Islamists” – islāmiyyūn mu‘tadilūn – who left the Muslim Brotherhood in order to form a party of their own in 1996) and the “New Islamist” thinkers has often been described as a mere process of “influence” of the latter on the former. This article argues that this relationship is, instead, better understood if analyzed in terms of “appropriation.” It focuses on the Wasaṭiyya party as it appeared on the political scene during the fifteen years preceding the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and defines this notion as a “space of theorization,” at the intersection of the intellectual, political and religious fields. The “New Islamist” thinkers were expressing their political ideas in this specific space, in the attempt to develop their political ideology and influence some political actors. Parallel to this, the al-Wasaṭ politicians were using this same space to gain intellectual legitimacy and pick up the elements that could forge a political programme. In so doing, they were carefully choosing, adapting and translating the ideas of their intellectual mentors, in order to fit their own concerns and the logic of the political field they were willing to belong to.