This is the English translation of «الدين المفتري عليه» (The Slandered Religion), Part 7 of 10.

Chapter Six: After Independence — Modern Despotism in a Nationalist Guise (الفصل السادس: ما بعد الاستقلال — الاستبداد الحديث بثوب وطني)

The Night of 11 February 2011: The Square Explodes with Joy

Picture the scene: Cairo, the evening of the eleventh of February 2011. Tahrir Square teems with hundreds of thousands who had encamped eighteen days under rain and bullets — youth and elders, veiled and unveiled, Muslims and Copts, sharing bread, blankets, fear, and hope. Suddenly Vice President Omar Suleiman appears on the screen, reading a short statement: Hosni Mubarak has stepped down. A stunned moment of silence… then explosion. Weeping and laughter and takbir and embraces among strangers, flags waved until they nearly touched the sky. An old man prostrates on the asphalt in thanks, a young man raises a placard reading: “The people toppled the regime,” and a girl screams into the microphone: “Raise your head high, you’re Egyptian!” That night, millions of Arabs believed the impossible possible: that peoples can topple a tyrant who ruled thirty years, and that the nation can recover its right to choose.

But — and this is the question that will haunt us through this whole chapter —: is toppling the tyrant the toppling of despotism? Or is despotism greater than a person, and deeper than a palace?

Colonialism departed and its regimes remained — indeed, they evolved. For after “independence,” the local elites inherited the colonial tools of repression — the prisons, the emergency laws, the intelligence apparatuses — and added to them a new glittering legitimacy: nationalism. Note the bitter irony: the officer who served in the occupation’s army or police became after “independence” an officer in the “national army” — the same uniform, the same methods, the same prisons; only the flag on the gate changed! And even the intelligence agencies colonialism founded to watch the “natives” were inherited by the national regimes to watch the “citizens” — as though citizenship changed nothing in the watcher’s eye. The ruler became “the hero of liberation,” “the man of the hour,” “the safety valve,” and criticizing him became treason to the homeland instead of rebellion against religion — the sanctity changed, the sanctification remained. And when Mubarak fell that night, the true question was: did the regime that made him fall with him?

The Hereditary Republics: Yazid’s Pledge in a Republican Garb

To understand what happened after 2011, we must understand what happened before it — specifically the night of 23 July 1952. That night the Free Officers movement moved; Anwar Sadat broadcast the first statement; King Farouk was forced to abdicate and leave the country on 26 July; then the republic was proclaimed in June 1953. The officers chose Major General Muhammad Naguib as the movement’s façade for his reputation and age, then Gamal Abdel Nasser quickly pushed him aside and placed him under house arrest, ruling Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970.

And here is the great irony: a revolution that rose in the name of liberating the people from hereditary monarchy ended in a system monopolizing power in the name of “revolutionary legitimacy” — a legitimacy never renewed, never held accountable, never ending. Nasser became “the immortal leader,” and criticizing him became treason to the revolution itself. Then came Sadat, then Mubarak — three full decades — with power passing among officers, not among ballot boxes.

And the most mocking phenomenon in modern political history appeared: the hereditary republics. Regimes raising the name “republic” and bequeathing rule from father to son as the Umayyad kings did. In Syria, Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and his son Bashar succeeded him — and the constitution was amended in days to lower the presidency’s age from forty to thirty-four to fit the heir’s age! In Egypt, the project of bequeathing Gamal Mubarak was being cooked on a slow fire — until the 2011 revolution aborted it. And in Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, the ruling families were preparing the sons to inherit the “republic” as an estate is inherited.

Yazid’s pledge returned in a republican garb: the ruler is bequeathed, not elected — the only difference being that the pledge became a “referendum” with results decided in advance. Contemplate the mockery: Muawiya needed sermons and threats to pass Yazid’s pledge, while today’s heirs need only an “independent” elections committee to announce the heir’s victory. The mechanism evolved; the essence is one: the nation a spectator of a bequest in which it has no say.

Nor were Syria and Egypt the exception, but the rule: in Libya Muammar Gaddafi ruled forty-two years (1969–2011), and his son Saif al-Islam was being prepared to inherit the “Jamahiriya” — a republic with no declared president, bequeathed as though a kingdom! And in Iraq Saddam Hussein ruled from 1979 until his fall in 2003, and his sons Uday and Qusay competed over the inheritance in a state called a “republic.” And in Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled more than three decades, and his son Ahmed was being readied to succeed him in the “Yemeni Republic.” And in Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika ruled twenty years (1999–2019) until the popular movement toppled him in April 2019.

Contemplate the map: from the ocean to the Gulf, the republics behave as monarchies, and the monarchies behave as hereditary republics — and the peoples in both cases are outside the equation. And when an Arab journalist once asked an official: why doesn’t the president step down? He answered: and who will rule after him? As though the nation were incapable of producing anyone but him! This is the colonial guardianship mentality itself: the people are minors, the ruler a father never replaced — and when the father dies, the son inherits the “fatherhood.”

And the image was completed with the personality cult: the president’s portraits in every street, school, and office; his name inaugurating every project even if a side street; his titles swelling each year: the Leader, the Chief, the Redeemed, the Sage of the Nation. And when the president falls ill or grows old, news of his health is hidden like military secrets — because the whole regime hangs on one man, so his illness is a state crisis! And ask yourself: what system is this that collapses if its president sneezes? It is not a system at all; but a personal farm the size of a homeland.

And ask yourself: what is the essential difference between a king bequeathing his son the throne openly, and a “republic’s” president bequeathing his son the palace through a referendum? The only difference is that the second lies to you twice: once in the republic’s name, and once in the elections’ name.

The Elections Theater and the Permanent Emergency Law

And the modern regimes mastered the art of democratic acting: elections of honest production and decided results, parliaments that applaud, constitutions tailored to the ruler’s measure then amended to extend his stay. Elections are held on time, results announced on time, and the winner is known before the boxes are opened. Opposition is permitted — provided it does not reach power. And the press is free — provided it does not criticize the president. This is “democracy” in many of our countries: a modern décor for an ancient despotism.

And note the model Arab constitution: written in a moment of revolutionary or coup ecstasy, stipulating “rotation of power” and “separation of powers” — then come the amendments: the term-limits article abolished or extended, the candidacy age lowered to fit the heir, the president’s powers swelling until he swallows parliament and judiciary. The constitution with us is not a contract between ruler and ruled; but a garment tailored to the measure of the one sitting on the throne, re-tailored whenever the measure changes.

And beneath this décor, the emergency law was the true ruler. In Egypt, the state of emergency remained imposed since Sadat’s assassination in 1981 — more than three decades of permanent “exceptional state”! And in Syria, emergency was imposed since 1963 and lifted only under the pressure of the 2011 revolution — some half a century of exception. Emergency means: arrest without trial, exceptional courts, restriction of press and assembly — that is, suspension of the constitution in the name of protecting it. And when the “exceptional state” is the permanent rule, know that despotism is no longer a deviation from the system; it has become the system.

And note how the game is run: “democratic reforms” are announced, committees formed to amend the constitution, the opposition granted calculated seats in parliament to complete the picture — then whoever crosses the red lines is arrested. It is façade democracy: everything exists — elections, parliament, constitution, newspapers — and everything is emptied of meaning. As though before a masterful play: the actors professional, the décor luxurious, but the script written in advance and the ending decided.

The Tamed Opposition: Décor of Pluralism

And because the play needs “extras,” the tamed opposition was manufactured: parties founded by license from the authority, sometimes funded from its treasuries, their mission to fill the opposition’s seats in parliament without truly opposing. The opposition leader appears on official television to criticize “some mistakes,” then shakes the president’s hand at national occasions. It is décor opposition: existing to be said to exist, not to change anything.

And more dangerous than the cardboard parties: the penetration of civil society itself. The professional unions supposed to defend workers, engineers, and doctors are run by rigged elections or administrative decisions; the civic associations licensed, funded, and watched; even the mosques — as we shall see — run by remote control. And when a popular decision is to be passed, the “masses” are mustered by government buses to chant for the president before the cameras — rented popular endorsement! The result: a society with no free institutions, and individuals with no organization. And when the peoples went out in 2011, they went out spontaneously with no organized leadership — and this is what made stealing the revolutions easy later: no organization to protect the gain, so the military or chaos comes to fill the vacuum. The lesson: despotism does not fear the angry; it fears the organized — which is why its first target was dismantling every free organization.

Religion in the President’s Service

Nor did religion’s employment disappear; it modernized and evolved. The state acquired a ministry of endowments issuing the unified Friday sermon read word for word in thousands of mosques — the imam does not choose his sermon’s topic, but receives it written from the ministry! — and an official mufti forbidding demonstrations and obliging obedience to “the guardian of affairs,” and religious satellite channels glorifying the ruler and praying for his long stay. Even the Hajj and Umrah became public-relations tools: the president’s pictures circling the Kaaba broadcast in the news bulletins, as though circumambulation were a political certificate of good conduct. The religion that was once in the caliph’s hand became in “Mr. President’s” hand — the same Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman recipe, with republican seals.

And when the 2011 revolutions erupted, the “sultan’s scholars” split as is their custom across history: those who forbade rebelling against the ruler and deemed demonstrations sedition, and those who ruled the revolution obligatory and the peoples’ support incumbent — and the difference between the two muftis was not in the text, but in the mufti’s position from the palace: Cairo’s mufti differs from Doha’s mufti, not because the hadith differed, but because the ruler differed! Religion here is not a reference, but a mirror reflecting the will of whoever pays.

And contemplate how the system is run: the Shaykh of al-Azhar or the mufti appointed by republican decree, the minister of endowments a member of the government, the Friday preacher an employee drawing his salary from the state — so if these rule obedience to the ruler, is it a religious fatwa or job instructions? And when the independent preacher is imprisoned and the drum-beating preacher honored, everyone understands the message: the permitted religion is the religion that serves the palace. Thus was completed the circle that began with the Umayyads: authority buys religion, and the bought religion legitimizes authority — and the only loser is the simple believer who thinks what he hears in the mosque is God’s voice, while it is in truth the ruler’s voice through the mosque’s loudspeakers. And the final irony: this exposed employment of religion did not protect religion but disfigured it in the youths’ eyes — so many of them came to link Islam with despotism, not because Islam is despotic, but because the despots spoke in its name so long. Whoever wants to protect religion, let him distance it from authority; for religion when it is the ruler’s tool loses its sanctity, and when it returns to being between servant and Lord it recovers its light.

Indeed, a more dangerous version appeared: groups that raised the banner of the “Islamic State” and practiced the ugliest kinds of despotism in religion’s name — killing, enslavement, destroying heritage. And on 29 June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria and installed himself “caliph of the Muslims,” appearing in a Mosul mosque to preach to his followers — a scene by which he wanted to evoke the caliphate’s awe, and evoked only its terror. The organization controlled land the size of a state and millions of people, and imposed its rule by slaughter, burning, and enslavement — presenting the world with the worst possible advertisement for the idea of the religious state. But look at the irony from this book’s angle: ISIS did not prove that Islam is unfit for politics — it proved in practice this book’s very thesis: when an armed faction owns the right to define Islam and impose it by the sword, the result is savagery, not a rightly guided caliphate. The problem was not in religion, but in mixing religion with absolute power, with no institutions and no accountability — exactly what the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottomans did, but with the twenty-first century’s tools and cameras.

The Arab Spring: The Harshest Lesson

Then came the Arab Spring (2011 CE) to deliver the harshest lesson in modern Arab history. The spark began in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, when the young Muhammad Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010 in protest at the confiscation of the vegetable cart by which he supported his family and a policewoman’s humiliation of him before the public — a slap on the face, and a contemptuous “get lost,” were heavier upon him than poverty itself. Bouazizi died of his wounds on 4 January 2011, but his fire ignited all of Tunisia: massive demonstrations, bloody repression, then Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s flight on 14 January 2011 after more than two decades in power.

The contagion moved to Egypt: 25 January 2011, tens of thousands in Tahrir Square chanting “the people want to topple the regime.” Eighteen days of sit-in and repression, then the night of 11 February with which we began this chapter. Then Libya, then Yemen, then Syria — where the arrest of children in Daraa who had written slogans on walls was the spark that ignited a revolution turned tragedy.

But what happened after the tyrants fell? Here is the harshest lesson: the peoples discovered that toppling the ruler is far easier than building the system. In Egypt, Muhammad Morsi was elected president in the summer of 2012 in the first free presidential elections in the country’s history — then was removed on 3 July 2013 and the military returned to the forefront, and the nascent democratic experiment was aborted in its cradle. In Syria, Libya, and Yemen, the revolution turned into devastating civil wars whose effects remain to this day. And in Tunisia — the most successful and longest-lived experiment — the elected president himself, Kais Saied, turned against the constitution on 25 July 2021 when he froze parliament and monopolized powers.

Nor did the lessons stop at 2011: in April 2019, the popular movement in Algeria toppled Abdelaziz Bouteflika after twenty years in power, and in the same month the Sudanese toppled Omar al-Bashir after three decades — the Arab Spring’s “second wave.” But the result repeated itself verbatim: in Sudan, the military pounced on the revolution; in Algeria, the regime reproduced itself with new faces. The peoples topple tyrants with amazing skill, then fail to build the alternative — like one demolishing an old house without owning the new house’s blueprint, sleeping in the open.

Stop here and ask the essential question: why did failure repeat? Why does a new tyrant come every time a tyrant falls, or chaos come?

The answer — the sum of this whole chapter —: the problem is not in the individuals but in the absence of institutions. The tyrant is not an individual disease, but a symptom of a sick system: a system with no respected constitution, no independent judiciary, no peaceful rotation of power, no mechanism preventing any ruler — however righteous at first — from turning despotic. Topple Mubarak and one like him comes, because the throne itself is designed for despotism: absolute powers, no accountability, no removal. And even when a democratically elected president arrives — as in Tunisia — the absence of entrenched institutions makes his coup against the constitution possible.

And here the lesson meets this book’s thesis through its wide gate: the Arab revolutions owned the principle — “the people want,” that is, legitimacy belongs to the nation — but lacked the mechanism: how “want” is translated into a constitution that protects, a judiciary that holds accountable, elections that exit the ruler through the door when his term ends as they entered him? A principle without a mechanism is a slogan fading with the first crisis; a mechanism without a principle is an iron cage. The peoples chanted the principle in the squares, then failed to build the mechanism in the institutions — so despotism returned through the windows after being expelled through the doors.

And this is exactly what this book’s second part proposes: the problem is not that we never tried the “righteous man” — we tried him often, from Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz to Muhammad Morsi to Kais Saied, and each time the system swallowed the man or the man swallowed the system. The problem is that we never built the mechanism that makes the ruler’s righteousness unnecessary: institutions that hold accountable, protect, and remove — regardless of the morals of the one sitting on the throne.

The Conclusion

After independence is the sixth chapter of the deviation — the closest to us and most painful: despotism without crowns, bequeathing rule in the republic’s name, rigging elections in democracy’s name, hiring religion in nationalism’s name, ruling by permanent emergency law in security’s name, and manufacturing a cardboard opposition in pluralism’s name. The garbs changed across fourteen centuries — from “Commander of the Faithful” to “the Ottoman Caliph” to “the High Commissioner” to “Mr. President” — and the essence remained unshaken: a ruler the nation neither chooses nor can remove.

From Muawiya to Yazid to al-Mutawakkil to Abdulhamid to Mubarak to al-Assad: six chapters of diagnosis, and one story repeating in different costumes: the mixing of religion with power, and legitimacy drawn from heaven or from abroad or from the rifle — from everything except the people. And in every chapter the nation paid the price: blood in Karbala, subjugation in Baghdad, humiliation under the Mongols and Ottomans, division under colonialism, repression under “independence.” Fourteen centuries of paying the same invoice, for one repeated error: that people be ruled without their will.

And here the diagnosis ends… and the most important question begins — the question you waited six chapters with us to hear its answer: if the disease is the mixing of religion with power and the absence of the people’s legitimacy, what is the remedy? How do we separate religion from the state without losing our religion? Does separation not mean excluding Islam from public life? And how do we build a legitimacy from the people through modern institutions that the revolutions’ winds do not topple? And what is the mechanism that makes the ruler the nation’s servant, not its master — elected when he does well, held accountable when he errs, removed when he corrupts?

Big questions, and their answers bigger — but possible. For just as the deviation across fourteen centuries was the result of one mixing, the reform across fourteen coming centuries can be the result of one wise separation: separating religion from the state, and building legitimacy on the people’s will.

That is what the second part answers.