The Constitution Between the “Civil” and the State: A Study of the Egyptian Case

Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat May 2026

The term “civil state” is relatively recent and has no origin in classical political theory. It emerged in political debates primarily as a counter to the idea of a religious state. As such, it is best understood as a product of contested circumstances and a hybrid construct of multiple notions, rather than as an inherently established concept.

This paper aims to illustrate the concept of the “civil” in relation to the state. It argues that this concept should not be examined solely in opposition to the religious or military domains, but also through the delineation of its limits. These limits distinguish it, on the one hand, from forms of social barbarism or societal incivility, and, on the other, from acts of sovereignty and states of exception in which ruling powers constrain, erode, or suspend the civil sphere. The analysis then turns to the constitution and its relationship to religion in Egypt, beginning with the 1923 Constitution. It examines the historical and intellectual contexts that led to the incorporation of Islam or sharia as a constitutional reference and sheds light on both the legal doctrine and the cultural milieu that shaped the first half of the twentieth century. The paper subsequently considers the post-1952 revolutionary period and successive constitutional frameworks, analysing initiatives to codify sharia from the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser through the presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. In so doing, it traces the ebb and flow of these efforts in relation to the dynamics of the public sphere and its debates. Finally, the paper examines the post–Arab Spring landscape and the perceptions of the civil and the constitution within a context of political instability. It analyses how the Constitutions of 2012 and 2014, as well as the 2019 Amendments, articulated the relationship between religion and the state, and between the military and the civil sphere —particularly amid the decline of public debate on democracy and identity compared with the cultural dynamism that characterised twentieth-century Egypt. The paper concludes that both official and intellectual Islamic discourses have largely incorporated the concept of the civil into their frameworks, whereas other currents have made limited contributions to its development. It further finds that Islamic political movements have remained comparatively weaker, both in constitutional debates and in sustaining efforts to codify sharia, which have extended for over a century.