First, again let's look at the process in Egypt. While Sadat encouraged Egypt's raison d'etat and territorial identity. In the process of de-Nasserization, that is, weakening the Nasserites Institutions that challenged Sadat's leadership in his early years. Sadat also allowed for a greater measure of freedom for the Islamists. And Islamists became particularly active at the universities. Where they became in their own mind, the vanguard of the [UNKNOWN] that is, the vanguard of the Islamic community. Which they sought to Islamize from the universities and thereafter. When their influence seemed to gain too much ground, the Islamists were suppressed by the same Sadat. And it is this suppression of the Islamists that eventually lead to the assassination of Sadat in October 1981. And those who killed Sadat, who came from an Islamic Jihadi organization. Proclaimed the killing of Sadat to be the killing of Pharoah, that is Egypt's pre-Islamic leader. Sadat's great fault was that he was governing Egypt as a pre-Islamic, that is, generally an Islamic state. Sadat was succeeded by President Husni Mubarak. And Mubarak allowed a somewhat greater measure of political pluralism. And in practice this meant that the government acquiesced in the erosion of the secularizing foundations of the Egyptian Republic. Under Nasser, sharia courts were abolished and were accorded no role at all, even with respect to matters of personal status. Which was much further than many other Muslim countries had gone in such respects. Under Mubarak however, the regime allowed the Islamists to apply the sharia to cases in the secular courts. The courts were regularly used by Islamic lawyers to bring secular intellectuals, writers, professors, artists, and generalists to trial. And to convict them for the purely religious crimes of blasphemy and apostacy. Egyptian society from the late 1980s onwards showed ever more external signs of increasing religiosity. The construction of new mosques was rampant. People of all classes flocked in great numbers to Friday prayers. The Hijab, the veil, the scarf that covered the head and shoulders was worn by over 80% of women. And the consumption of religious literature was constantly on the rise. While movie going, alcohol consumption and the patronage of bars and nightclubs all declined. Islamists control the teacher's training college where they train future teachers who would disseminate Islamization into the classroom. In the last 1980s, the Ministry of Education in Egypt promoted greater religiosity in the schools. Through a revised curriculum and religious sentiments and ideas was said to dominate the schools. The mainstream print and electronic media were likewise deeply influenced by Islamization. The mostly state owned press shifted towards conservative religiosity. And self centers it abandoning much of the secular liberal content of the 1950s and the 1960s. Official religious publications were decidedly anti-secular. And national radio and television promoted a religious sensibility by increasing the number of Islamic oriented programs. As Asef Bayat has noted, Islamic sentiment thus eroded nationalism's secular expression. In state schools Islamic religious education was part of the Arabic language and history curriculum. Which were compulsory subjects for non-Muslims too. School text books tended to represent Egypt as a Muslim society. And sometimes he included specifically anti-Christian texts. And the curriculum required students to recognize the supremacy of Islam and the special relationship between Islam and the state of Egypt. The Islamization of society was therefore having a negative impact on Egyptian social cohesion. And on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. The situation of the Coptic Christian minority became steadily more precarious. As they were exposed to increasing levels of intolerance and violence. The regime had consciously acquiesced in the transformation of Egypt. It would actually become what Yasser Byart has described as a secular religious state. In Syria, the religious factor in politics was interminably related to the sectarian structure of Syrian society. Just like in Iraq, Syria and the Baath party had always been deeply influenced by sectarian politics. Ever since the rise to power of the Ba'ath in 1963, [FOREIGN] sectarian solidarity played an important role in regime stability. In fact, never openly admitted by the men in power, but a fact just the same. Ba'thi secularism was a vehicle for the sectarian domination of the Alawi minority. The systemic marginalization of religion was a blessing for the Alawis whose heterodoxical faith was a political and social liability. Therefore from it's inception in 1963, the Ba'athist regime was avowedly secular. And even radically so, during the rule of the so called Neo-Ba'ath from 1966 to 1970. But under Hafez al-Assad who came to power in 1970, the Ba'ath changed course. After rising to the presidency, Assad sought to enhance the religious legitimacy of the Alawis. In 1973, he reinstated the clause in the Constitution, requiring the head of state to be a Muslim. A clause that the neo-Ba'ath had previously removed. Assad also managed to get the leading Lebanese Shite cleric [UNKNOWN]. To recognize the Alawis as orthodox Shi'is. And thus as ostensible Muslims. Constitutionally eligible for the presidency in Syria. And from then onwards the link with the Shi'is in Lebanon has been particularly strong. But many in the Sunni majority community of Syria continue to regard the Alawis as socially inferior heretics. Who's political dominance was an anathema. But, after having crushed the Sunni opposition, as expressed by the Muslim brethren in 1982. President Assad adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards the Muslim Brethren. That was matched in the 1990s by a greater measure of tolerance toward religion in general. The process begun Hafez of having the Alawis accepted as Shi'is was accelerated under Bashar, his son. Bashar a president of Syria developed a more sustained program of Shi'ization, generally, with the help of the Iranians. As a means of legitimizing the Alawi community in the eyes of the Sunni majority. Hundreds of Alawis were sent to Iran for religious training. While Iranian men of religion toured Syria to preach on Shite religion to the Alawis areas. As the regime sought to rid itself of it's former ultra secularists anti religious image. The Syria mass media diligently presented [UNKNOWN] to the Syrian public and the world at large as a bona-fide Muslim. Bashar like Hafez before him made a deliberate effort to portray himself not only as a Muslim, but as a devout one. Furthermore since the 1990s religious schools have opened all over the country. Religious literature was readily available and was sold to the general public in far greater quantities than books on other subjects. The number of students studying Sharia in the university was constantly on the rise. And popular religious programs, just like in other Arab countries, were broadcast on national television. Syrian society, especially its Sunni components, was becoming more observant. At least if judged, for example, by participation in prayer or the adoption of the Islamic dress code. But all of the above failed to overcome the sectarian fault lines. Many in the Sunni Majority community continued to regard the Alawis as socially inferior heretics, which political dominance was unbearable. And when the Arab Spring erupted in Syria, it did not take long for it to develop into an all out sectarian civil war. Even in Iraq under Saddam Hussein the regime went through an Islaming phase. Shite opposition to the essentially Sunni regime was always ruthlessly suppressed. After Saddam Huseins final rise to power in 1979. Along with his effort to forge an Iraqi sense of national consciousness, drawing on Iraq's supposed pre-Islamic, Babylonian past. Saddam was not aversed to exploiting political Islam when he felt that such a shift would better serve his purpose. Thus while cracking down on Shi'ite political movements. Outlawing the Shi'ite opposition party a Dawa. And arresting and executing Shi'ite leaders. The regime changed gears in its political language. Saddam even began to claim direct descent from Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, revered by the Shi'ite as the rightful successor to the Prophet. The employment of Islamic themes for regime legitimization. Increased consistently from a towing of the Islamic line for most of the war with Iran in 1980s to deliberate Islamic flag waving in the 1990s. During the war with Shi'ite Iran hundreds of thousands of Iraq Shi'ites fought shoulder to shoulder with their Sunni compatriots. Partly out of loyalty to the state of Iraq and to their own Iraqiness. Partly out of intimidation by the state's ruthless organs of suppression. The war, however, also made it increasingly clear to the regime just how effectively the Iranians had made religion into a mobilizing force. As opposed to the weakness of Ba'ath ideology in emotionally motivating Iraqis. This further encouraged the process of Islamization, which peaked on the eve of the Gulf War in early 1991. When the words of Allahu Akbar were embroidered on the Iraqi flag. But these efforts were obviously artificial and got nowhere in bridging the sectarian divide between the Sunni's and Shia's in Iraq. After Saddam's overthrow by the U.S. in 2003, as we have already seen, the country rapidly degenerated into Sectarian strife between Sunni's and Shia's which has yet to come to an end over a decade later.
