The Use of ‹Collective Memory› in Muḥammad alĠazālī’s Religious Discourse – the Battle of Badr (624) and the October War (1973).

This article aims to explore the possibility of analyzing the concept of retrospective utopia in Muḥammad al-Ġazālī’s (1917–1996) predication as a reconstruction of ‹collective memory›. The analysis considers the sermon that al-Ġazālī presented at the ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ mosque in Cairo on 14 December 14, 1973, concerning verse Q. 2:217. The analysis of the sermon under consideration presents the exegetical strategy with which al-Ġazālī managed to justify the events related to the October War of 1973, i.e. the attack by Egyptian forces during what was considered the holy month, at the Battle of Badr in 624, an event reworked by Islamic tradition and presented to the Islamic community from the perspective of ‹collective memory›. In this contribution, I present the two historical events considered, contextualize al-Ġazālī’s preaching activity in 1973, hinting at the relationship between the exegete and the political representation of the Egyptian state in those years, and then analyze the sermon considered, explaining why the author chose to justify the actions of President Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) through religious proselytism and the recall of ‹collective memory›. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]