Born in 1932, Al-Ashmawi specialised in Comparative Law, Theology and Islamic Law both in Cairo and the United States, then embarking on a long career as a magistrate that led him to become a leading figure in the Egyptian Supreme Court and the Tribunal for State Security. A supporter of a clear separation between the spiritual and the political sphere, the compenetration of which is instead strenuously defended by almost all the representatives of contemporary radical Islamism, the Egyptian jurist believes that as a universal message, Islam leads to a basically religious and spiritual dimension.

An interpretation of Islam in the political sense, instead, leads to a profound misrepresentation of its message, since – as explained by the historian Massimo Campanini – political phenomena are contextualised historically and thus diverge from the religion’s universal vocation. For this reason, in opposition to the beliefs supported by Islamic extremism’s theoreticians and activists, an Islamic renaissance can only begin with a clear rejection of the politicisation of religion, essential in order for it to be understood and experienced on the basis of modernisation and historicity.

In his most famous work, Against Islamic Extremism, Al Ashmawi – whose ideas of an Islamic renaissance on a secular basis are not, however, exempt from imperfections that, according to some, undermine its theoretical rigour – says, “God wanted Islam to be a religion, but human beings decided to make it political. Religion is general, universal and all-absorbing. Politics is partial, tribal, restricted in space and time. Reducing religion to politics means confining it to a restricted dominium, to a community, to a given region and a given moment in time.”