Why do governments invest in religious education? Focusing on the recent expansion of governmental Qur'anic schools in Egypt, we argue that state-sponsored Qur'anic schools are more likely to be placed in districts with an established Muslim Brotherhood presence and high levels of competition between government and private providers of religious services. This is because governmental control of religious schooling at the local level allows the government to sway younger generations away from supporting the Islamist opposition. We test our argument using a novel dataset of Qur'anic religious schooling and the structure of local religious markets in Egypt, as well as, contemporary survey data. The paper sheds light on the critical role of educational management in the consolidation of autocratic regimes and their stability.