Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood clash in Egypt

[union]

CAIRO — To Sheik Abdel Moneim el-Shahat, the Muslim Brotherhood’s call to apply only the broad principles of Islamic law allows too much freedom.

Sheik Shahat is a leader of the ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis, whose coalition of parties is running second behind the Brotherhood party in the early returns of Egypt’s parliamentary elections. He and his allies are demanding strict prohibitions against interest-bearing loans, alcohol and “fornication,” with traditional Islamic corporal punishment like stoning for adultery.

“I want to say: citizenship restricted by Islamic Shariah, freedom restricted by Islamic Shariah, equality restricted by Islamic Shariah,” he said in a public debate. “Shariah is obligatory, not just the principles — freedom and justice and all that.”

The unexpected electoral success of the Salafis — reported to have won about 25 percent of the votes in the first round of the elections, second only to the roughly 40 percent for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party — is terrifying Egyptian liberals and troubling the West. But their new clout is also presenting a challenge to the Muslim Brotherhood, in part by plunging it into a polarizing Islamist-against-Islamist debate over the application of Islamic law in Egypt’s promised democracy, a debate the Brotherhood had worked hard to avoid.

“The Salafis want to have that conversation right now, and the Brotherhood doesn’t,” said Shadi Hamid, a researcher with the Brookings Doha Center, a Brookings Institution project in Qatar. “The Brotherhood is not interested in talking about Islamic law right now because they have other priorities that are more important. But the Salafis are going to insist on putting religion in the forefront of the debate, and that will be very difficult for the Brotherhood to ignore.”

The Brotherhood, the venerable group that virtually invented the Islamist movement eight decades ago, is at its core a middle-class missionary institution, led not by religious scholars but by doctors, lawyers and professionals. It has long sought to move Egypt toward a more orthodox Islamic society from the bottom up, one person and family at a time. After a long struggle in the shadows of the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, its leaders have sought to avoid potentially divisive conversations about the details of Islamic law that might set off alarms about an Islamist takeover. But their evasiveness on the subject has played into long-term suspicions of even fellow Islamists that they are too concerned with their own power.

The Salafis are political newcomers, directed by religious leaders who favor long beards in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. Many frown on the mixing of the sexes, refusing to shake hands with women let alone condoning any sort of political activity by them. Although their parties are required to include female candidates, they usually print pictures of flowers instead of the women’s faces on campaign posters. And while the Salafis’ ideology strikes many Egyptians as extreme and anachronistic, their sheiks command built-in networks of devoted followers, and even voters who disagree with their puritanical doctrine often credit the Salafis with integrity and authenticity.

After the first election results last week, the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party quickly declared that it had no plans to form any coalition with the Salafis, with some members already ending months of restrained silence by striking back. In an interview after the vote, for example, Dina Zakaria, a spokeswoman for the party, derided the Salafis’ prohibition on women in leadership roles and their refusal to print the faces of their female candidates.

“We don’t hold stagnant positions,” she said, insisting that the Brotherhood’s party favored an evolving understanding of Islam that supported the right of women to choose their own roles. (At campaign rallies, women from the party sometimes underscore the point by saying Muhammad even enlisted women in combat.)

Such debates, however, threaten to knock the Brotherhood off the fine line it has attempted to walk.

In public statements, the party’s leaders have preferred to focus on broader themes of Islamic identity and the bread-and-butter questions that are the more urgent concerns of voters. On the campaign trail, the Brotherhood sometimes even seems to appeal to both sides from the same podium — sounding like Salafis themselves one minute but avowing moderation the next.

“To give your vote for Islamists is a religious issue,” an Islamic scholar, Sayed Abdel Karim, declared at a campaign rally in Giza, across the Nile from Cairo, calling for “the rule of God, not the rule of the people.”

“The revival of Islamic spirit in the region is a direct threat to Israel and the future of the Western civilization, Europe and the U.S.,” he said, asserting that “the enemy media” were already saying that “those who love Jews, the United States and Europe should make every effort to keep the Islamic spirit dormant. Look at the conspiracy!”

But moments later, the main speaker and the top candidate on his party’s list, Essam el-Erian, declared that the party believed only in nonsectarian citizenship for all, that Christians and Muslims should enjoy equal rights as “sons of the nation” in the eyes of a neutral state and that the next constitution should protect free expression. And he pledged warm relations with any nation that respected Egypt’s “independence and culture.”

(Brotherhood leaders have said they support retaining the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, with some possible modifications, while the Salafis have sometimes talked of putting it to a national referendum.)

“The garrison of religion in Egypt has special characteristics,” Mr. Erian said, “tolerance and moderation.”

Leaders of the Brotherhood’s party have endorsed public commitments to protect individual rights. And its platform strikes a consistent theme of eschewing the quick prod of legal coercion in favor of encouraging private endeavors toward gradual change. Unlike the Salafis, it has not proposed to regulate the content of arts or entertainment, women’s work or dress, or even the religious content of public education. In fact, the party’s platform calls for smaller government to limit corruption and liberalize the economy.

Instead the party proposes to nudge Egyptian society by the power of example. In culture, it would encourage “self-censorship” by asking artists and writers to sign a voluntary “code of ethics.” The government, meanwhile, would support music, films and other arts that extol religious and family values.

For social welfare, the party seeks to institutionalize the obligatory Islamic charitable contribution, known as Zakat, by collecting a mandatory 2.5 percent income tax from all Muslims, which the government would then pass to regulated Islamic charities. It would encourage these Islamic charities to set up their own religious schools and hospitals. And to encourage women to accept traditional gender roles, it would promote family values in entertainment while subsidizing community centers for matchmaking and marriage counseling.

“Do you find anything saying that our party is going to impose any kind of law on the moral side?” challenged Mr. Erian, who is running for Parliament in Giza.

Every major party here — liberal or Islamist — supports retaining the clause in the Constitution stipulating that Islam is the source of Egyptian law. But competing Islamist parties offer conflicting ideas about “activating” the clause.

The most liberal — like the former Brotherhood members in the Center Party and the presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, both breakaways from the Brotherhood — advocate essentially secular-liberal states, arguing that government should not get involved in interpreting Islam.

The Salafis, on the other hand, often favor the idea that a specialized council of religious scholars should advise the Parliament or review its legislation to ensure compliance with Islamic law.

The Brotherhood debated similar ideas as recently as a few years ago.

This year, however, the Freedom and Justice Party has sought a middle approach. Its platform calls for Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court to rule on compliance with Shariah. But that stance is essentially without consequence because the court already had that power under Mr. Mubarak, and the judiciary is a bastion of liberalism whose views of Islamic law are highly flexible, to say the least.

“Religious scholars’ guardianship over political life is completely unacceptable,” Mohamed Beltagy, another leader of the Brotherhood’s party, said in an interview. “Nobody could speak in the name of the heavens or the name of religion. We don’t accept tyranny in the name of religion any more than we accept tyranny in the name of the military.”

His party’s position, he argued, was in reality no different from the Center Party’s, though he acknowledged that his view was considered “debatable” within the Brotherhood.

[union]

How intriguing. The brain dead people of Egypt, most of whom live in slums with 100 kids per family, have voted in two opposing sets of Islamists who are now going to clash and will probably in the process ruin the Egyptian tourism industry.

[Alphanumeric]

They've been clashing politically for quite some time.
And if you had to choose between the two, I'd suggest going with the Salafis.

[Jaidi]

How intriguing. The brain dead people of Egypt, most of whom live in slums with 100 kids per family, have voted in two opposing sets of Islamists who are now going to clash and will probably in the process ruin the Egyptian tourism industry.

You are a master spinster. First it was the Salafis and the MB will team up to have a massive coalition to destroy Egypt and its opposition. Now its the Salafis and the MB will clash to destroy it

The MB are seasoned and reasonable politicians The chances they will clash violently are nonexistent stop it. They will actually show their political maturity by working with the opposition in Parliament to calm fears


BTW the MB also won the elections for the Doctor's and Engineer's Syndicates in Egypt by a landslide. So much for illiterate braindead support


I do agree with you in one area though and its the Salafi politicians are a drag, not a fan of them at all. They were arguing democracy and demonstrating is kufr, then jumped the bandwagon when Mubarak fell

[union]

They've been clashing politically for quite some time.
And if you had to choose between the two, I'd suggest going with the Salafis.

Yea, but only now have they had real power. But I think the military will use this tension between them to step in and act as a moderating force…perhaps rule under emergency law for another few decades till things cool off.

[Alphanumeric]

They've been clashing politically for quite some time.
And if you had to choose between the two, I'd suggest going with the Salafis.

Yea, but only now have they had real power. But I think the military will use this tension between them to step in and act as a moderating force…perhaps rule under emergency law for another few decades till things cool off.

Ah yes, of course. Silly me.

[union]

How intriguing. The brain dead people of Egypt, most of whom live in slums with 100 kids per family, have voted in two opposing sets of Islamists who are now going to clash and will probably in the process ruin the Egyptian tourism industry.

You are a master spinster. First it was the Salafis and the MB will team up to have a massive coalition to destroy Egypt and its opposition. Now its the Salafis and the MB will clash to destroy it

The MB are seasoned and reasonable politicians The chances they will clash violently are nonexistent stop it. They will actually show their political maturity by working with the opposition in Parliament to calm fears


BTW the MB also won the elections for the Doctor's and Engineer's Syndicates in Egypt by a landslide. So much for illiterate braindead support


I do agree with you in one area though and its the Salafi politicians are a drag, not a fan of them at all. They were arguing democracy and demonstrating is kufr, then jumped the bandwagon when Mubarak fell

Salafies arre useful idiots. While the Muslim Brotherhood trying to bring Islamism into Egyptian society through stealth, the salafies are being bombastic fools who antagonize Israel (never a good idea) and actively bring up the controversial issue of religion up to the surface constantly, in the process worrying the Western world who are now more likely to turn a blind eye as the military moves to appoint a Prime Minister unilaterally while ignoring the will of the Egyptian people to have an Islamist leader.

BTW, quit putting words into my mouth.

[Jaidi]

How intriguing. The brain dead people of Egypt, most of whom live in slums with 100 kids per family, have voted in two opposing sets of Islamists who are now going to clash and will probably in the process ruin the Egyptian tourism industry.

You are a master spinster. First it was the Salafis and the MB will team up to have a massive coalition to destroy Egypt and its opposition. Now its the Salafis and the MB will clash to destroy it

The MB are seasoned and reasonable politicians The chances they will clash violently are nonexistent stop it. They will actually show their political maturity by working with the opposition in Parliament to calm fears


BTW the MB also won the elections for the Doctor's and Engineer's Syndicates in Egypt by a landslide. So much for illiterate braindead support


I do agree with you in one area though and its the Salafi politicians are a drag, not a fan of them at all. They were arguing democracy and demonstrating is kufr, then jumped the bandwagon when Mubarak fell

Salafies arre useful idiots. While the Muslim Brotherhood trying to bring Islamism into Egyptian society through stealth, the salafies are being bombastic fools who antagonize Israel (never a good idea) and actively bring up the controversial issue of religion up to the surface constantly, in the process worrying the Western world who are now more likely to turn a blind eye as the military moves to appoint a Prime Minister unilaterally while ignoring the will of the Egyptian people to have an Islamist leader.

BTW, quit putting words into my mouth.

There will be contention between the Parliament and the military but the MB will succeed in making it appear to be a national contention by working with the liberal parties in opposition. The U.S. is averse to being seen as supporting the wrong side of transition again especailly after there experiences this year. They've already welcomed the Egyptian and Tunisian elections results. The MB's focus will be towards gaining more power in the Parliament. With legitmacy of the vote and international legitimacy all the cards are on their side

Also look towards the Presidential eleciton which will be held next year. The Salafis are running a candidate, the MB arent, and the liberals have Baradei. The likely winner will be whoever the MB endorses. I think it will be AbdelMoneim AboulFottouh, former MB leader( got kicked out for running for President) and head of the biggest doctors union in the Arab world Educated, well spoken, and the liberals will also support him after learning the pitfalls of this election

[Somaliman50]

What are the long term policies of the ikhwan? Even if you claim they want to bring islam stealthly, do they plan on implementing shariah in its entirety? Will they be willing to ban alcohol and interest, introduce public flogging and stoning?
I always liked to give them the benefit of the doubt because they have been in a long struggle for decades, but people are starting to think they're just 'moderates' trying to please the west. Even the islah movement in somalia are appearing modern, saying the niqab is antislamic and beleivin in mixed schools etc.

[TheblueNwhite]

I doubt very much that the liquor stores in Cairo are going to close anytime soon.
Cheap beer and black market Araki is what's all about. Drink up.

[Aliyyi Oromada]

There will always be squabbling with this kind of political system. You can't have a functioning state unless one political ideology has absolute power. And the balance of power is still with the military. They're just waiting for the right opportunity to shut it down and take power.

[FAH1223]

What are the long term policies of the ikhwan? Even if you claim they want to bring islam stealthly, do they plan on implementing shariah in its entirety? Will they be willing to ban alcohol and interest, introduce public flogging and stoning?
I always liked to give them the benefit of the doubt because they have been in a long struggle for decades, but people are starting to think they're just 'moderates' trying to please the west. Even the islah movement in somalia are appearing modern, saying the niqab is antislamic and beleivin in mixed schools etc.

The Islax movement in Somalia is an extension Ikhwan Al Muslimeen in Egypt,

[Somaliman50]

Fah, yeah exactly, doesn't this suggest the ikhwan are moderates who probably won't ban alcohol etc.

[FAH1223]

I don't think they'll ban it...

[ToughGong]

This cunt only posts about muslims when that article is either putting the muslims in a bad light
Or the article is about some idiot masquerading as muslim says "Evolution and Islam are compatible"
The kufaar threw him some crumbs now he's constantly licking their bum hole