The discussion concerning the prospects for democratization in Muslim-majority countries has been revived in recent years. It has been widely argued that the repression and exclusion of Islamic movements from the political process in Muslim countries breeds radicalism, while political engagement and inclusion, however, encourages moderation and compromise. The fact that only few Muslim states have been affected by the recent global wave of democratization has raised many questions concerning the impact of Islam and Islamic activism on democratization. Does Islam or Islamic activism hinder democratization and strengthen authoritarianism in the Muslim-majority countries? Can democratization progress in Muslim countries without the full inclusion of the major Islamic forces in the formal political process?

Through an examination of the life and writings of the Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), this dissertation seeks to determine the conceptual bases of the Islamic movement in twentieth-century Egypt. It is argued that the central factor in the rise of islamically-oriented opposition to the elite order has been the gradual emergence in Egypt of the distinctively modern form of the nation-state. Specifically, the processes of Egyptian State formation are seen as responsible not only for the creation of conditions conducive to oppositional Islamism, but for engendering notions of national community and historical transformation which, through the processes of discursive transmutation, have provided the core of political sentiment undergirding this particular form of dissent.

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This thesis explores the development of women's education in pre-independence Egypt from the mid-nineteenth century to 1922. It looks at women's educational facilities and women's access to education through the reigns of Muhammad Ali, Said, Ismail and the British occupation. While the rise in women's educational concerns on a formal level parallels the growth of modernist, Islamic reformist, and proto-feminist thought in the late nineteenth century, the relationship among the three groups vis a vis their respective positions on women's education differs and is therefore examined in the thesis. / Research on this topic reveals a correlation between the early women's movement, a strong proponent of women's education, and Egypt's national and Islamic reform movements. As each group espoused a vision of change for Egypt, one secular and the other decidedly more religious, the common denominator for social progress was the unanimous support for advancements, although conditional, in educational policies regarding women. Couched in a context of modernism, the pursuit of freedom from foreign control and the desire for Egypt to develop into a fully productive society, were indispensable aspects of the development of women's education.

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The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the relationship between religion and revolution within the context of Egyptian Islamic culture. The discussion will begin with an investigation into the evolution of revolution as a concept, from its original scientific meaning within the writings of Copernicus to its current political meaning as a radical social break with the past. It will be argued that the revolutionary ideal of escaping fate and rationally constructing the future is the driving force behind the Modern era. Faith in the capacity of humanity for self-redemption could only arise after the scientific discoveries of the Renaissance began to disrupt the static metaphysical universe of the past. The concept of social development then arose in the Enlightenment as a quest for the liberation of reason so as to construct a new society free of myth and mystery. The discussion will then attempt to demonstrate that the culture of Egypt underwent a parallel philosophical development during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to the importation of modern technology. In order to prove this, the military reforms of Muhammad `Ali will be compared to Hobbe's concept of the Leviathan, the journalism of Muhammad `Abduh will be placed within the traditional Islamic debate concerning the ethical relationship between reason and revelation; the cult of nationalism will be contrasted with s&dotbelow;ufi mysticism; the social project of the Nasser regime will be interpreted in light of Rousseau's conception of the liberal social contract; and the thesis will conclude with a discussion of the thought of Sayyid Qutb in terms of the failure of Modernity to fulfil the promise of the Enlightenment.

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