Freedom of expression and freedom of belief have been burning issues in the Islamic Republic because they give an indication of the extent of support the has regime enjoyed. As a champion of reason and freedom Qābel instructed his readers to examine how sacred scripture dealt with the issues. In particular he focused on the issue of unbelief (kofr), and he argued that the original meaning was restircted, whereas it had been vastly expanded in subsequent years. His espousal of freedom of belief and expression endorsed freedom for non-Muslims, including atheists. He also discussed contentious issues suh as insulting the Prophet, and concluded that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda were no better than those in the West who defame the Prophet with “satirical” cartoons.

There has been a long tradition of seminarians (and former seminarians) who have argued for shariah reform based on a rational reading of sacred texts. This includes Jamāl al-Din Asadābādi (popularly known as al-Afghāni (d. 1897)), Shariʿat Sangalji (d. 1944), and Ahmad Kasravī (d. 1946). In many ways the trajectory of reform based on reason and logical argumentation is the consequence of the Osuli victory over Akhbāri literalism. The trend continued with the worldview of Ahmad Qābel, who advocated reform of “traditional” interpretations of Islam that made them compatible with modern human rights and reason, and which endorsed a form of religious secularity. The significance of Qābel’s vision of Islam lies both in its immediate Iranian context and the wider perspective of shariah in the Islamic world. In the Iranian context, Qābel constantly challenged the Principlists by crossing their redlines, such as velāyat-e faqih, hijab, their politicization of Imam Hosayn, and freedom of speech and belief, among others.

Velāyat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) is the political system governing Iran since 1979, and it was espoused by Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Montazeri in the early years of the revolution. This chapter discusses and analyzes the implications that this doctrine has with marjaʿiyat, the ideas surrounding the highest source of emulation and spirituality within Twelver Shiʿism. This chapter analyzes Qābel’s rejection of the political doctrine, and his relationships and perspsectives of the three most influentiual Ayatollahs during his life. Once again, Qābel was to cross the redline of what was acceptable in Iran by advocating a system that endorsed religious secularity.

In this biographical chapter Qābel’s life is divided into three stages: the early revolutionary years; the middle years when he received his ejtehād from his spiritiul mentor, Ayatollah Montazeri; and his final years which witnessed his more mature thoughts over a range of social, political, and religious issues. The chapter is written by examining the ten e-books which were largely assembled after his death. The main features of his works are also highlighted.

Imam Hosayn’s murder and defeat at Karbalā in 680 CE has resulted in a number of interpretations. The soteriological holds that veneration of Hosayn has salvific implications. However, this chapter focuses upon the politicization of Imam Hosayn from the early 1960s onward by looking at the speeches and works of Ayatollah Khomeini, Dr. ʿAli Shariʿati, and Ayatollah Mesbāh-Yazdi. Subsequently, the chapter turns to Qābel’s novel interpretation which rendered Hosayn a man of peace, eschewing any revolutionary view of creating an Islamic government. This chapter clearly demonstrates Qābel’s originality and his crossing of redlines.

Cultural erosion is one of the favorite topics of Ayatollah Khāmenei, and in order to protect Iran he endorsesd a prescriptive version of Islam over Iranian society, which Qābel characerized as a culture of sadness. He rejected both this and the mazhabi society and its rituals asociated with it. Moreover, he viewed the “Islamization” of the universities in Iran as nothing more than imposing gender segregation, which in reality did not achieve its goals. In explicitly articularting such criticisms, he crossed yet another redline in his advocacy of religious secularity. Indeed, his writings reveal that he considered the West more Islamic than Iran.

Few political ethnographies have tracked everyday realities of citizenship before and after the Arab uprisings. This chapter explains the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the study, situating it in relation to the relevant works on Egypt and the region. It sets out the approach of studying the production of lived and imagined citizenship in schools, situating the study within the sociology and anthropology of education. It identifies the key parameters for approaching lived citizenship in schools in terms of the focus on privatization and austerity on the one hand, and violence and discipline on the other. It charts how the research approaches the production of imagined citizenship in schools through analysis of textbook discourses, rituals and everyday student and teacher narratives.

The 2011 uprising is a watershed event in contemporary Egyptian history in terms of the unprecedented scale of mass protest and the historic changes that followed it. This chapter asks what changed in relation to the production of lived and imagined citizenship in schools in the tumultuous months and years following the uprising. It outlines changes in the wider political, economic and social context and maps key changes in the educational sphere, presenting novel analysis on trends in teacher salaries and public spending on education. In analyzing the research with students, teachers and stakeholders from 2016 to 2018, it updates the discussion on the themes that are methodologically and conceptually developed across Chapters 1–6 in terms of informal privatization, permissiveness and violent punishment, and maps key changes to textbooks, rituals and student narratives relating to citizenship and belonging. In particular, it highlights trends of student contestation of violent and humiliating treatment and debates around the introduction of new pro-army song in school rituals and divergent textbook treatments of the Revolution and the legitimizing narratives of the regime.

The pervasive informal privatization of public institutions seen in urban secondary schooling is a key component of the lived citizenship of different social strata. Many of the arguments in the book depend on an appreciation of the implications of pervasive private tutoring for the everyday school and for articulations of citizenship and national belonging among students. Privatization-by-tutoring affects almost every aspect of school life in Egypt, from whether students and teachers come to school or enter classrooms to whether the morning assembly ritual is performed. It is, however, the different ways in which informal tutoring markets are established within and alongside formal institutions in the three types of school that reflect the functioning of state institutions and differentiated modes of lived and imagined citizenship. The chapter dissects the trajectories, functioning and implications of informal privatization in different tiers of schooling. It explains enrollment in tutoring, its costs, the related forms of coercion, cheating, truancy, narratives of conscientious teachers and tropes of neoliberal subjectivity.