Explaining multireligious nationalism: The cases of Albania and Egypt

Even though the close relationship between the Reformation in Europe and the rise of nationalism is underlined by many scholars, contemporary dynamics between religion and nationalism are rarely remembered. The religiously exclusionary procedures for the nation-state formation have been one of the main apparatuses to succeed in national homogeneity, which is always desired by nation-states. The early nation-states such as England, France, and Spain all rose upon religious homogeneity. Therefore, while it is easy to find religiously homogenous nationalism examples, multireligious nationalisms are strictly rare and require more attention. Such cases provide us with an invaluable opportunity to compare, test, and ultimately understand the complicated relationship between nationalism and religion. In this thesis, I argue that Albanian and Egyptian nationalisms successfully addressed the challenge of accommodating different religious affiliations within their populations, thus becoming rare examples of multireligious nationalism. After formulating the concept of multireligious nationalism, which entails three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, namely, the presence of diverse religious groups within the nation, the rejection of exclusionary practices based on religion, and the recognition and inclusion of diverse religious groups; the causal background of Albanian and Egyptian multireligious nationalisms is analyzed. I argue that the efforts of Christian minorities within both societies, along with Protestant missions, contributed to the revival of Albanian and Arabic as literary languages. This revival provided a platform for minority elites to express their nationalist ideas, which were reciprocated by Muslim elites. Subsequently, external threats from other Balkan states in the case of Albania, and the British invasion of Egypt, led to the unification of elites from diverse religious groups in both contexts. Consequently, the concept of nationalism expanded to encompass diverse religions within both societies.