Over the last decade, the religious establishment in Egypt has spearheaded a number of initiatives targeting the family to promote a model of marriage and family relations that are based on good communication, cooperation, and harmony. For instance, Al-Azhar established a unit of family reunification (wiḥdat lam al-shaml) on April 16, 2018. This unit provides online and in-person mediation in marriage disputes. The work of this unit has also expanded to tackle diverse challenges confronted by families including psychological and economic hardships and has been offering its service in villages as well as urban centers across the country. Al-Azhar also began a program of training female preachers to provide religious-based counselling to families across the nation. In 2017, Al-Azhar set up a committee to draft a new personal status law and made it public in 2019. Additionally, the Department of Egyptian Fatwa (Dār al-iftāʾ) established the committee for marital guidance in 2014. This committee evolved into the Marital Guidance Center (Markaz al-irshād al-zawājī) in 2021, carrying out training workshops for marrying or married couples; informing policy makers, and raising awareness of the society at large about the foundations and skills needed for healthy and happy marriage relationships. In this presentation, we examine some of these initiatives to engage with the following questions: How is reform understood in these initiatives? What is its object? And how is the role of the religious establishment and specifically the religious scholar changing through these initiatives? And importantly how are these initiatives being shaped by the Egyptian context after the 25 of January Revolution and more specifically since the rule of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi with complex interplay between the contested politics of religious reform, state feminism, and the on-going gender activism led by the civil society. Our presentation is based on analysis of data collected through qualitative research conducted by the first author in the period from 2014 to 2022 and subsequent research conducted jointly by the two authors in 2023. This research consisted of interviews with religious actors working in these programs; women scholar activists who have worked with the religious establishment; couples who took the training programs, as well as content analysis of: 1) written and materials produced by the studied programs, and 2) TV interviews with key actors leading these programs.

In 2023, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others normalized their ties with Syria. Even though the original reason behind severing the ties in 2011 were still present, the countries agreed on reinstating diplomatic and economic ties in exchange of reforms. The Syrian regime was expected to take back refugees, to reform its internal policies, and, notably, to curb the drug trade emanating from Syria across the region. The Syrian regime has, as experts on the country predicted, not implemented these forms. It has not taken real measures to decrease drug production or illegal trade and the trade has continued on as business as usual. In early 2024 the Jordanian army, in its fight against the trade, has even engaged militarily inside Syrian territory. This poses us with several questions, first of all, why did Jordan normalize with Syria in the first place? Did Jordan expect the Syrian regime to fulfil its promises of reform, or did Jordan have other motives (internal or external) when agreeing for normalization?

For over 10 years Mohammad Al Wakeel has hosted a daily call-in radio show soliciting complaints from Jordanians about everything from potholes to the youth unemployment crisis. He rails against corrupt officials and bemoans the inability of Jordanians to live with dignity due to poverty and want. To his supporters, he delivers miracles: helping young people fight through opaque bureaucracy to find employment or providing funds for lifesaving surgeries. Yet his detractors refer to him scathingly as "the King's dog", a regime stooge. This paper examines Mohammad al Wakeel, and the variety of imitators who have sprung up based on his success, as a conduit of and barrier to reform and broader political change in the country. On the one hand, his show provides a forum for publicly airing political grievances and provides lifesaving help for the poor. On the other, he handles them in such a way that transforms issues such as infrastructure, healthcare, employment, and police abuse as individual, social issues. Rather than advocating for systemic change or political organization, Wakeel develops a parallel petition and patronage system. He continually uses the language of reform and corruption in a way that many Jordanians suspect is a considered attempt to allay genuine political grievance while also serving as a "pressure valve" and a way to alert the regime towards its most pressing needs. Drawing on ethnography and discourse analysis I argue that Wakeel functions as a prime example of celebrity politics in neoliberal authoritarian settings.