From The American Interest comes a useful analysis of Egyptian liberals by Samuel Tadros:

Egyptian liberalism’s goal was always a state-sponsored project of modernization. With this goal in mind, Egyptian liberals were always writing and talking to the one actor that could enforce their project: the state, or more precisely, the ruler. …  [F]ollowing the spirit of the age in the 1930s, it was inevitable that nationalism would lose whatever liberal tone it initially carried and adopt an anti-liberal tone in imitation of the various totalitarian ideologies of the day—initially fascism, then Arab Nationalism, and, lastly and inevitably, Islamism.

The Egyptian liberal project was modeled on France. …  It should thus come as no surprise that the French understanding of the world shaped that of the Egyptian intellectuals. The French Enlightenment became the benchmark and, as a result, its form of secularism became the model. While the Egyptian intellectuals could never follow Atatürk’s footsteps, their ideas were not that different from his. They could never accept or understand religion or the role it plays in the public sphere. In a nutshell, they read plenty of Voltaire and Rousseau—but nary a line from Burke.

This is the historical crisis, and this is also the current challenge. Egyptian liberalism has never been able to find a coherent voice that addresses the rest of the population. …

Also from the AI blog stable: Peter Berger provides a theological and historical overview of Egypt’s Copts.