Egyptian secularists and Islamists both frame the lower classes as culturally backward.

Evidence

Interestingly, the project of “civilizing” a population is one that secularists and Islamists share, albeit differently. Both of them agree that the rural and urban lower classes are immersed in “non-Islamic beliefs and practices,” in a deep-rooted culture that owes more to Pharaonic and Coptic Egypt than it does to Islam brought by the sixth-century Arab con- . — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1221

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: how supposedly opposed political camps converge on condescending a shared peasant/urban-poor ‘other’ — a cross-context pattern (also seen in Turkish Kemalism, Chinese modernization).