The rise of political Islam across the Middle East, North Africa, and even parts of the Gulf, after the wave of Arab uprisings in 2011, pit it against the two most enduring political projects in the Arab world’s modern history. The first, the secular Arab republics, and behind them their pillar institutions, had seen their foundations shaken by the Arab uprisings, and so feared that political Islam, with its vastly different frames of reference, ideological loyalties, and ways of seeing the secular state, would accelerate the erosion of these foundations. Arab monarchies were not less vulnerable. In a number of Gulf states, the winds of change that had been unleashed in 2011, opened domestic politics to local versions of political Islam. This was particularly alarming in the Gulf, for there religion has long resided at the core of the tribal, social, and economic fabric of political legitimacy.

Political Islam had come to power through elections that most observers would describe as free and fair. But these groups’ experiences, ways of seeing their societies and the world, and how they began to put these ideas and experiences into practice, varied across the region. Some political Islamist groups tried to undertake their projects while operating within the established political system of their countries, through which they had contested and won elections. Other political Islamist groups tried to overhaul the political systems of their countries, threatening the pathways through which they had ascended to power.

The word ‘project’ also meant different things in different parts of the Arab world at the time. In some countries, the projects of the political Islamist groups seemed largely compatible with the key tenets of the socio-political experiences of their societies. In other countries, the projects that seemed to be emerging were in stark contrasts to their countries’ experiences in at least a century.

But the fundamental problem that the rise of political Islam had triggered concerned the Arab world’s experience with modernity in the past two hundred years. At the core of this experience lied a question about the extent of the role of religion, primarily Islam but also Christianity, in modern Arab societies. The role of religion in society did not concern faith. The key issues revolved round the role of religion in relation to political legitimacy, society’s frame of reference, social norms, economic activities, and crucially the identity of a society.

The Arab world, especially in Egypt, but also in Tunisia and Lebanon and in some cases Iraq, had repeatedly attempted to put forward serious answers to the question of the role of religion in modern Muslim-majority societies. From attempts by religious scholars such as Rifaa al-Tahtawi and Ali Abdel-Razek to cultural luminaries such as Taha Hussein and al-Akkad, to philosophers such as Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, to artists such as Naguib Mahfouz and Osama Anwar Okasha, the Arab world, and especially at its core the colossal Egyptian cultural ocean, had delved into that question from different angles through different times.

But the political milieu that followed the Arab uprisings circa fifteen years ago was far from cultural debates unfolding in books and social salons. The Arab world was, in effect, multiple theatres of confrontations between powers of the old republics and monarchies attempting to preserve what they believed were the fundamental tenets of their countries, and new forces, secular and Islamists, trying to force change at the very core of these tenets. But as the previous article in this series showed, whereas the youth-led, largely secular groups that had ignited and led the first waves of the Arab uprisings were largely unorganised, unfunded, and with hardly any leadership structures, the Islamist groups were well organised and funded and followed strict structures and ways of operations. And so, quite quickly, the confrontations over the future of many countries in the Arab world became, for the most part, between the pillar institutions of the Arab states versus the large Islamist groups in these countries.

The confrontations proved intense and were often fraught by echoes of earlier conflicts from decades past. Raw power ruled supreme. Several Arab cities, and not only those that were witnessing the beginnings of civil wars, underwent violent clashes. The dreams that had begun with hope in most parts of the Arab world, descended, in different parts of the region, into nightmares. Many correctly, and often presciently, feared for their counties.

The results were never in doubt, however. In all cases in sizeable and coherent countries, up until the change that took place in Syria at the end of 2024, the Islamists lost. The wave of political Islam was stemmed.

But the fundamental question about the role of religion in modern Arab societies - and by extension, in modern Muslim-majority societies - remained unanswered. And whereas decades ago, that question had triggered intelligent, insightful, and in some cases really brave attempts at answering it, in the past decade, the attempts at tackling the question were largely mediocre, coated in seemingly lofty, but in reality often meaningless rhetoric.

But, despite the traumas, the Arab world has emerged from this confrontation stronger, at least sensing what it is lacking. For the largest segments in most Arab societies, neither political Islam (in its myriad varieties) nor patriarchal nationalism (whether in old or new garbs, or in Arab republics or monarchies) is a guide to the future. Neither rationalises the past in logical ways; neither balms the pains Arab societies have been suffering for decades; neither offers a nuanced response to the major, yet often concealed, changes Arab societies have been undergoing in the past 15-years since the uprisings; and importantly, neither ignites the capacities of their societies, especially the colossal segments of the youths who, as the next article in this series will show, remain trapped between a frustrating heritage from the past and an elusive promise of the future.