Title ： Making a New Constitution and State-Religion Relations: The Case of Post-Revolutionary Egypt

Date ： July 23, 2013 14:00-16:30

Venue ： Main conference room, 3rd floor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (Tobunken), The University of Tokyo

Language ： English

Organizer ： NAGASAWA Eiji

A Symposium titled Making a New Constitution and State-Religion Relations: The Case of Post-Revolutionary Egypt was held on July 23, 2013, at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo, Japan, with Prof. Gianluca P. Parolin (Visiting Associate Professor, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Japan/ Assistant Professor of Law, the American University in Cairo, Egypt) and Mr. Kazuaki Takemura (Ph.D student, the University of Tokyo/ JSPS fellow).
On July 3, 2013, about a week after the announcement of this symposium, there was a significant change in the sociopolitical situation in Egypt. Led by the members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Morsi, the first elected president after the 2011 revolution, was dismissed from his presidency and the newly enacted constitution of December 2012 was suspended for a revision. It was said that some of the reasons for this move were the problems that the administration of Morsi’s government was having and/or the process of making the new constitution as well as its content in relation to State-Religion (especially State-Islam) Relationship. Held at this crucial time, this symposium unexpectedly became an opportunity for reviewing the recent issues.
After a welcome speech by Prof. Nagasawa Eiji (Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia), Mr. Takemura and Prof. Parolin presented their papers. Using articles of al-Ahram daily newspaper published between July and November, 2012, as the main source, Mr. Takemura outlined the trend of discussions surrounding the four articles (Art. 2, 3, 4, and 219) from 2012 Constitution that may touch State-Religion relations to reveal the background of its enactment. Professor Parolin, then, described the state of close competition between various “Islamic” forces (such as Muslim Brotherhood, al-Azhar, and Salafis) brought by the newly established article 4 that expressed the importance of religious opinion of al-Azhar, by taking an example of the legislating process of sukuk law, or a law regulating Islamic-compliant state-issued bonds.
Professor Parolin and Mr. Takemura also detailed the meanings and connotation of the words in the four articles mentioned above. Later, with around 20 participants, discussions followed on various topics such as the socio-historical background of the enactment of the articles, and the place of “Islam” and “secularism” in contemporary Egypt.