An Interview with Islamist Scholar Abd al-Mun’im Moneep
د. صالح سرية رحمه الله by Nico Prucha Introduction Abd al-Mun’im Moneep and I met for the first time in mid-2011. We took time for a long, unrestricted discussion in a public space. An open discussion on controversial issues like Islamism and Jihadism while sipping tea in a typical Cairo coffee shop felt awkward at first but it turned out that almost everyone was busy talking politics shortly after the stepping down (or ousting) of Egypt’s long term president Hosni Mubarak. Abd al-Mun’im Moneep is a scholar who has dedicated much of his life to the study and documentation of Egyptian Islamist and Jihadist movements. His personal life has become entangled with these movements; he had been arrested for the first time when he was 16 years old in the wake of president Sadat’s assassination in October 1981. He describes himself as a traditionalist, as a Sunni Muslim, who is devoted to the study of, and proper religious conduct according to, divine texts, avoiding the te...