His Grace Bishop Angaelos delivered this address as part of a seminar on the relationship between religion and politics in Egypt. Before the Arab spring, there was a long held view that democracy cannot really flourish in a predominantly Muslim society. The first three years of the post-Arab spring Egypt provide an excellent opportunity to unearth many of the arguments and counter-argument surrounding this – and other – views. But, we asked, in what ways does religion, and religiosity, impact on how citizens make choices about parties, about how parties engage with representative institutions, and with the law. The seminar was organised into four panels to explore these issues and was designed to bring together a a broad range of thinkers and perspectives to engage in evidence-based and reasoned dialogue.

Professor Stephen Whitefield (Fellow in Politics), Dr Elisabeth Kendall (Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies) and Dr Mazen Hassan (Cairo University) co-convened this seminar.