Historically a center of the Islamic world, Egypt was long governed under the precepts of Islamic law. When the British colonized in the nineteenth century, there was resistance to secularization in all facets of life, including in the legal realm. Decades after Egypt gained independence, a blasphemy law was enacted in response to inter-faith violence, but it is usually used against Christians and the non-religious. Because of the structure of the legal system, apostates from Islam can be subject to civil death.

Background

The Islamization of Egypt occurred relatively early, in the mid-seventh century, when the Rashidun caliphate captured it from the Byzantines. From then on, it became one of the centers of the Islamic world, eventually falling into Ottoman hands in the sixteenth century. A period of British colonial rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave way to the establishment of an independent Egyptian state. Today, Islam is its official religion, but the nation is home to a significant Coptic Christian minority as well.

Development of Blasphemy Laws

Prior to the nineteenth century, Egyptian criminal law came from two principal sources: qanuns—“periodic and piecemeal criminal legislation”—and Islamic religious precepts which, while not written into a penal code, were followed in the absence of a clear distinction between religion and state. This was the case under Ottoman rule as well as after Egypt gained de facto independence from the Ottomans in the early nineteenth century. Under this system, blasphemous utterances against Islam could be met with execution, as was often the case throughout the Ottoman Empire.

In the late nineteenth century, Egypt came under colonial British control. This began an era of European influence on Egypt’s legal system, including the adoption of a national court system and the nation’s first secular penal code. However, the tension between secularization (largely represented by the West) and Islamic traditionalism never dissolved. While Egypt remained under the thumb of colonial Britain, traditionalist elements in society resisted many of these “modernizing” forces. Colonial occupation “gave rise to Islamic legal activism” and, eventually, the formation of fundamentalist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, even amid this influence, laws hostile to blasphemy and apostasy persisted, including one 1920 law which stipulated that a husband had no responsibility to a wife who apostatized.

Nonetheless, some of this secularizing influence stayed with Egypt. The penal code of 1937, formed when Britain still exercised de facto control over the country, still largely provides the basis for law in Egypt today. Matters of “personal status,” however, are resolved according to religion—issues like marriage and inheritance. Those without a religion are unrecognized in these matters, and apostates from Islam can therefore experience civil death. Likewise, Egyptian courts have ruled that apostasy or conversion from Islam is “not allowed.”

Egypt’s contemporary constitution enshrines Islam as the state religion and even identifies “principles” of Islamic religious law as the “main source of legislation.” The current “blasphemy law” punishes—with prison sentences of up to five years—“disdaining and contempting any of the heavenly religions or the sects belonging thereto.” Therefore, at least in its text, the law does not single out blasphemy against Islam specifically. It was introduced in 1981 in the wake of sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims, ostensibly to protect Christians and other religious minorities. In practice, Muslims have been only rarely prosecuted according to its provisions; the vast majority charged and convicted, in fact, have been Christian.

Recent Developments

Today, a struggle between countervailing forces of Islamism and secularism continues. The state continues to use the blasphemy law against people who express views which are critical, or construed to be critical, of Islam, especially atheists and Coptic Christians, and it continues to resist efforts from liberal human rights organizers to repeal or reform the law. However, an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the law was made in 2016, introduced as a bill into parliament which received support from roughly 20% of members. President Sisi has been an opponent of political Islam even as human rights violations and blasphemy convictions have continued; liberal and secular political parties exist, but in recent years, many have lost their independence from Egypt’s authoritarian government, turning away from democratic ideals and exerting essentially no influence over Egyptian politics. In 2018, new laws further restricting online freedom of expression were enacted.