Egypt is paradigmatic of what has gone wrong over the past half century in Muslim countries. From creeping secularisation across the Arab world led by none other than Gamel Abdul Nasser of Egypt, the bête noir of the West, the modernisation of many of these countries continued apace including such countries as Afghanistan.
What happened since that momentous epoch?
During the 1950s and 1960s even that icon of secularisation and modernity, the bikini, made its appearance in these countries. It is not that these countries were becoming less religious, it was merely the acceptance that there would be a separation between temporal and religious affairs. Was this not the journey that Western Europe embarked upon after the Enlightenment?
Main picture: Sunbathers near the Port of Alexandria, 1955