Being Salafi Under Sisi: The Strategy of the Egyptian al-Nour Party

Speaker: Stéphane Lacroix, Sciences Po Chair: Toby Dodge, LSE On 3 July 2013, Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s guidance bureau and the first democratically elected president of Egypt, was overthrown by a military coup led by General Abdelfattah al-Sisi. Since then, the Muslim Brotherhood has been designated a terrorist organization and brutally repressed. In contrast, the Salafi al-Nour party, the political arm of the "Salafi Call" (al-da'wa al-salafiyya), has supported Morsi’s overthrow, taken part in the writing of a new constitution and supported General Sisi in the May 2014 presidential elections. How can we account for al-Nour’s political strategy? What role does the party play in the emerging power structure in Egypt? And what does this tell us about al-Nour’s political identity? Recorded on 26 May 2015.