When ‘Al? A?mad B?k?th?r’s novel al-Th?’r al-A?mar [The Red Revolutionary] was published in Egypt in 1949, the author added the anachronistic subtitle “A Tale of Conflict between Capitalism and Communism in K?fa,” thus confirming the political underpinnings of his text. Written at a time of conflicting views over Egypt’s political future as the country nears decolonization and approaches self-rule, B?k?th?r’s novel dwells on a specific event in Islamic history, namely, the Qar?mita movement of 899/278. The novel revisits the historical event and stages it as a narrative tool for critiquing/ironizing existing Western ideologies as optional systems of government in Egypt. This paper investigates both the textual and contextual significance of B?k?th?r’s work, with particular reference to the use of the novel genre as a vehicle for political critique as well as propaganda for an altogether different ideology. Situating the novel in the sub-genre tradition of the Bildungsroman, which focuses on the growth of the individual through a series of mistakes and disappointments, this paper interrogates the political development of B?k?th?r’s protagonist, ?amd?n Qarmat, and his final discovery. At the end of the novel, ?amd?n, who begins his journey as a communist ideologue, comes to the realization that both Capitalism and Communism are inadequate political systems on all levels, politically, economically, and socially, and that Islam is the only successful solution. Peppered with Quranic verses that B?k?th?r uses as epigraphs and not necessarily as semantic agents to advance the plot or inform the narrative, the novel ends with Islam prevailing the land as the most suitable governing system for comprehensive justice on earth. Some of the questions this paper will address include the following: How persuasive is B?k?th?r’s narrative in debunking those particular systems of rule vis a vis Islam? To what extent does the novel succeed in promoting Islam as a triumphant imaginary and a more valid system of government, especially in relationship to questions of social equity and comprehensive justice? Is B?k?th?r alone in this inspirational call for the application of Islam as a system of rule, as Cachia remarks in his essay on the “Faintness of Islamic Inspiration in Modern Arabic Literature”? Or does the novel instead constitute a socially symbolic act in a larger meta-narrative of competing ideologies in Egypt in the age of decolonization?