Friday prayers converted mosque congregations into revolutionary demonstrators

Evidence

As waves of young people and activists made their way toward Tahrir Square on the twenty-eighth, they were astounded to see new streams of people coming out of the mosque after ceremonies. Together now, they chanted, “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice!” and “The people want the fall of the regime”—a demand that not even the seasoned activists had planned to make three days earlier. Some preachers had come out in support of the revolt during Friday prayers. And then, a huge procession emerged from Imbaba, the poor neighborhood that looks much like a Brazilian favela, and stomped onto the bridge over the Nile to add their numbers to the movement. As protesters from all over Egypt pushed forward, now part of a far larger mass than anyone could have imagined, it felt like something had shifted in the nature of time itself. They had cracked open the structure of reality, and with each step, with each victory against police defenses, with every movement, it felt as if they were literally moving history forward. “A weird distortion in the air”—or the feeling of “magic”—this was the kind of language that participants grasped for to describe the sensation. Everything was possible. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 221

Categorization

• XREF: Could connect to the crowd/revolution literature on how proximate participation amplifies belief in possibility, and to the reader’s protest-decade book project. — connects to: A distant mosque massacre permanently shapes how Muslims everywhere experience Friday prayer — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 891; Christchurch permanently altered Friday worship into a moment of mortal fear for Muslims worldwide — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 893

Broader Connections

• Christchurch permanently altered Friday worship into a moment of mortal fear for Muslims worldwide #complicates (0.82) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 893
• A distant mosque massacre permanently shapes how Muslims everywhere experience Friday prayer #expands (0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 891