Every year as Egypt marks the birth of the Prophet, joy is joined by a private sorrow. We sing of mercy and light, yet we still fail to present Prophet Muhammad in the fullness of his human example to the generations now coming of age. They live inside a digital public sphere where faith is debated in real time. In that arena, the older grammar of religious speech no longer travels well, and counter‑narratives that pose as critical reason have gained a hearing. These narratives are often selective in evidence and careless in method, yet they thrive because our own message is fragmented and reactive. The result is a gap between a living tradition and the young citizens who will inherit it.  

The scale of the shift is measurable. By January 2025, Egypt counted about 50.7 million active social‑media identities, roughly 43 percent of the population. That is the civic square for Generation Z and Generation Alpha. Whoever does not speak credibly there, will be unheard. 

Egypt’s culture remains deeply religious. That is not nostalgia. Long‑running survey research shows that religion continues to shape identity and public attitudes in our region, with a recent Arab Barometer wave recording a decline in those who described themselves as “not religious,” including a six‑point drop in Egypt between 2019 and 2021–22. Earlier Pew Global surveys likewise captured strong religious commitment among Egyptian Muslims. The picture is complex, but the center of gravity is clear.  

Where we have not been clear is in the story we tell about the Prophet and the civilization that grew from his message. The Prophet was the bearer of revelation, and he was also a community‑builder and statesman who drafted a civic compact in Medina that secured mutual defense, adjudication, and responsible freedom of worship. This was not theory. It was institutional design. 

Serious historians have been urging us to revisit those beginnings with a wider lens. Fred Donner’s work, for example, reads the first community as a coalition of “Believers” whose moral discipline and common law created a new social order. That order did not reduce religion to ritual. It made faith the engine of public ethics. 

We also underrate Islam’s civilizational contribution. Through the translation movement in Abbasid Baghdad, Muslim scholars rendered the Greek sciences into Arabic, developed them, and passed them on. That is not a slogan for school posters. It is a well‑documented process that helped seed the European renewal centuries later. The record is accessible in Dimitri Gutas’s study of the Graeco‑Arabic translation movement and in George Saliba’s analysis of Islamic science and its downstream effects.  

Beneath the historical narrative sits a principle that speaks to today’s youth, if we bother to explain it. Tawhid is not only a statement about God. It also ends the sanctification of nature and human rulers. The Qur’an speaks of the Prophet as a human messenger, and it warns against making clergy or princes into “lords” beside God. That insight releases the mind to study the world as creation, not deity, and it refuses the divinization of temporal power. Muhammad Iqbal called this the “spirit of Muslim culture,” a call to return from mystical passivity to a purposeful engagement with history and nature.  

Yet our public conversation is now trapped between two narrow poles. A hyper‑secular current agitates against religion’s public voice, while a cut‑and‑paste literalism mistakes inherited compilations for living law. Both crowd out the balanced Sunni tradition taught at Al‑Azhar and the applied jurisprudence practiced at Dar al‑Iftaa. The result is not a healthy pluralism. It is moral confusion and social fatigue.  

We will not break this stalemate with slogans. We need a reform of religious communication that is theologically sound, empirically informed, and native to the digital square. The following five tasks are achievable now.

1. Commission an annual “State of Digital Faith in Egypt” report.

Treat the digital public sphere as a field site, not a rumor mill. Map the images of the Prophet, the key questions, and the recurring distortions across platforms. Use mixed methods and publish the findings openly. International research on “digital religion” offers concepts and tools, but Egypt needs its own data and metrics. 

2. Teach the Prophet’s leadership as civic literacy.

Recenter the Seerah around the building of norms and institutions. The Constitution of Medina is an early model of shared security and arbitration. Pair that with modern scholarship that situates the first community as a disciplined moral project. Produce classroom‑ready modules and short videos for schools and youth centers.  

3. Restore civilizational confidence with evidence.

Curate a public series on the translation movement, the rise of mathematics and astronomy in the Islamic world, and the transmission into Latin Europe. Use names, places, manuscripts, instruments. Avoid triumphalism and stick to the record. Invite historians to speak with students.  

4. Train a new cadre in media and information literacy.

Clergy, teachers, youth workers, and student leaders need practical tools to counter mis‑ and disinformation without stifling debate. UNESCO’s model curriculum and its platform governance guidance are a good base for a national program that respects free expression while strengthening information integrity.  

5. Articulate a social creed for our time.

Egypt needs a consensus statement that aligns spiritual and material strengths and anchors civic ethics in the higher objectives of the law. Think of this as a compact of meaning that steadies public life and protects social cohesion. Burhan Ghalioun’s work on religion, society, and the modern state helps frame the intellectual task. Recent declarations like the Human Fraternity document and the Makkah Charter show how religious leadership can speak to universal concerns while remaining faithful to doctrine.   

Some will object that young people have moved on, or that religious talk should retreat to private life. The data suggest otherwise. Religion still sits close to identity across the region, including among youth, even as they ask sharper questions. The point is not to demand deference. It is to provide reasons and examples that hold up under inspection.  

Others will say the digital tide is too strong. It is strong, but it is navigable. The problem is not the medium. It is our refusal to adapt our craft without abandoning our core. If we speak with clarity about tawhid’s moral consequences, if we show how the Prophet built security and justice in a plural city, and if we tell the truth about what Muslims achieved in science and letters, then young Egyptians will have a language equal to their questions.

The Mawlid is an occasion of gratitude. It can also be a summons to work. Egypt’s institutions are ready. Al‑Azhar has a century of intellectual capital to draw on, and Dar al‑Iftaa has the mandate and experience to translate principles into contemporary guidance. What we require now is a common plan that measures what we do and holds us to standards of accuracy, dignity, and public benefit.  

The Prophet did not leave us with fear of the world. He left us with a grammar for human flourishing under God. If we present that grammar in full, our youth will not need to choose between ritual without meaning and meaning without roots. They will see the path to conscience, community, and hope.

Article by Dr. Ibrahim Negm

Senior advisor to the Grand Mufti of Egypt

Originally published in the Egyptian Gazette

September 11, 2025