Unrest in Egypt and the departure of President Hosni Mubarak have raised questions about the role of Islam in political life going forward. Dina Shehata, a Cairo-based expert on Islamists, says it is a misconception to think of Egypt as on the brink of a theocracy. Islam and sharia are already embedded into the Egyptian constitution, she says, and there is a "kind of balance" between the sharia and the civil code. Even the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful Islamist party, "doesn't want to move away from that." Shehata contends that Egypt will more likely continue to follow states like Malaysia and Turkey, which have Muslim identities without being fully Islamic. "What most Egyptians are concerned about right now is not whether we build a secular or a religious state, but how to create a democratic state, a sound economy, a just order," she says. The challenge going forward will be for non-Brotherhood opposition groups to establish viable political parties. She also says that when faced with elected Islamist political parties, the United States "should respect the will of the people and deal with these governments as the legitimate representatives of the people."
There's been considerable concern about what kind of governance Egyptians will choose going forward. Will they choose a hard-line, Islamic Republic akin to Iran, or will they lean toward a more moderate system akin to Indonesia?
Egypt is not Iran in the sense that having a theocracy is not on the table at all. Theocracy means rule by clerics. So this is not at all an option in Egypt. We don't have a strong clerical establishment like the one in Iran that took over in 1979. The Muslim Brotherhood, being the major player in this movement, is one of lay people who are religiously conservative. They are teachers, they are university professors, they're doctors, they're engineers, and they are religiously conservative. So the comparison is conceptually flawed. It might be better to compare it with Indonesia and Turkey and Morocco, countries that have lay movements rather than movements led by clerics. the Brotherhood is important in Egypt and will play a role in the coming period. But I don't think they themselves want to establish a theocracy.
How different is Egypt-based Islam compared to other countries in the region? What defines Islam in Egyptian daily life? And what's the relationship to democratic ideas?
There are different groups in Egyptian society that have different interpretations of Islam. You have Sufi groups who see it more as an emblematic set of practices. You have the Muslim Brotherhood who sees Islam more as a social and political system. And you have Salafi movements who see it as a very strict set of practices that Egyptians must follow closely. You have secular Egyptians. Some of them are religious and see Islam as a form of private practice and faith. And some who are not religious at all. They are secular both in their private lives and in their political orientation.
There's this fallacy that you are moving from a secular state to a religious state, which is completely misconstrued because it's already a state that is heavily informed by religious law, like most Muslim states.
People talk about Islam as though it was one thing to everyone. It's used by many countries and many people and different places, and it's associated with different traditions. The difference here is that you have some movements that represent a significant group of people who also want the political system to be more heavily informed by Islam. Already the Egyptian political system is not fully secular, where family law is based on the sharia and many of our laws are already [derived] from the sharia. The Egyptian constitution already states that sharia [underpins] the force of legislation. So we're not talking about moving from a fully secular to a fully Islamic order. What the Brotherhood typically says when they talk about their agenda is that they want to actualize or operationalize Article 2 of the constitution, which says that the sharia is the principle source of legislation.
There have been some polls in the last couple of years looking at different countries and how they feel about democracy, secularism, and sharia. And there is significant support for sharia law. Are there countries that Egyptians point to where sharia has created a less corrupt, more just system?
There are Muslim countries that continue to follow their tradition as Muslims in their political system that have prospered, like Malaysia and Indonesia. They're not theocracies, but they are Muslim countries and their governments are not fully secular or fully Islamic either. It reflects the majority of the population who are both Muslim and modern. In Egypt, sharia is already an integral part of our legal system and it is already an integral part of our constitution. There's this fallacy that you are moving from a secular state to a religious state, which is completely misconstrued because it's already a state that is heavily informed by religious law, like most Muslim states. There are many Muslim countries that have prospered by modernizing while maintaining their identity as Muslim countries. There are [also] Muslim countries that have not [prospered] but it's not about Islam. Islam doesn't explain to you why Malaysia has prospered and Egypt has not, or why Turkey is moving forward and another country has not.
Are there policies, whether it's family law or the role of women in society or how minorities are treated, that you think may become more religiously conservative?
The only area where there might be stricter application would be alcohol sales and consumption. But otherwise, the Islamists are not against women participating in public life. Already most Egyptians are quite religiously conservative, [and] our family law is based on the sharia so there isn't much more to do, in my view, to go in this direction. I don't think they would try and force a certain dress code on Egyptians, but they might closely regulate the alcohol consumption at nightclubs and so forth. For 99 percent of Egyptians, nothing would change. There's only a small minority of Egyptians, who you might say are more Westernized in the sense that they consume alcohol and so forth. So they might be affected in their lifestyle.
Read the rest of the interview at CFR.org.
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The European Magazine: Revolutionaries During Ramadan
Cathleen Falsani: One Nation Under Allah
And, although it's scary, I really do believe
That these revolutions - as messy as they are -
May be just the baby steps. It's going well so far.
People and religions (firmly mired in Middle Ages)
Need a Reformation. Now they're in the early stages.
Egyptians and Tunisians only wanted to be free.
Others in the region? Well, we'll have to wait and see.
With decades of corruption and decay they must reverse
It will take a lot of work and, yes, it may get worse.
Reformation's messy. It results in Civil War.
But, it's what the vast majority is fighting for.
Many aren't thrilled with us. We've sided with the guys
Who oppressed their people... Now it's a surprise?
We can't know where this will end but, if you're asking me;
I can only watch in awe the scenes on my T.V.
Most Egyptians, according to surveys, want much more Islam in their legal system and political system.
Gazans did not want to live under such strict Islamic rule and an Islamic dictatorship, but thanks to Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is Sufi), that is the trajectory they are on.
If one looks at graduation pictures from Cairo University over the last few decades, women in Egypt have become almost entirely covered, but decades ago, they dressed in Western styles and did not wear the hijab. According to Egyptians, this is the effect of the Muslim Brotherhood.
I hope things turn out well. But given the large protests with hundreds of thousands of Egyptian Muslims screaming for war and bloodshed, the signs are not good at the moment.
To many who think they know about Islam:
If you are a positive person, particularly someone who makes an honest living or at least trying for it, please do know the media is no place to get to know Islam, its many schools and its depths.
If you are in the league of oppressors or those making a living by damaging humankind rather than contributing anything positive to humanity, including an honest living or at least trying for it, it would be very difficult for you, if not impossible, to know Islam. How could you comment on what you don't and won't know.
The very minute the first messages of Islam were announced by the messenger (PBUH), oppressors and those who make a living, or fortunes, by abusing others or abusing anything they can, started to work against them in by any possible means. How could they ever know Islam.
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You cannot have freedom, democracy, and fairness when Islam and Sharia are part of the laws. Women and non-Muslims are not legally equal to Muslim males under Islam. There is also no freedom of religion under Islam, and more importantly, there is no freedom of religion in any country that is majority Muslim. Those are deal-breakers, as far as I'm concerned.
Regarding Malaysia and Indonesia, of course they're not theocracies like Iran, but they are also far from being free and democratic. Likewise, Egypt probably won't become a theocracy like Iran, but it most assuredly will not become a free, democratic country. It will be, at best, like Malaysia and Indonesia.
http://shariah4america.com/
The figure appears low, if survey is conducted among the muslims.
"UnfortunatÂely, humans have this tendency to see any ideologies other than their own as one gigantic hive mind. And, as a threat."
If it is Islam with the objective of world domination and universal imposition of shariaa, then it is indeed an existential threat.
"The author probably has not been to Aceh in Western Sumatra, an lslamic paradise if there ever was one."
Or to Pakistan, Bangladesh or even Maldives, where they have introduced a constitutional amendment that non muslims can be citizens.
A vast majority of Egyptians want more, not less, religion in their politics--support extreme sharia law penalties including death for apostasy. One in five Egyptians view Al Qaeda favorably
http://pewglobal.org/2010/02/04/mixed-views-of-hamas-and-hezbollah-in-largely-muslim-nations/
None of this bodes well for what's coming in Egypt.
For evidence of this, look at how quiet they are about the mixture of the two in Saudi Arabia, and how vocal they are about it in Turkey when it dares to not toe their line.
If the Egyptian government takes its lead on 'the Crisis' (if Ireland was 'the troubles' then the Holy Land is 'the Crisis'), and Iran (to name two of the issues where the opinion of the Egyptian public differs from that of the reichers) from anyone other than them, they will inundate the American public with the message that 'Egypt has become an extremist enemy that must be punished/destroyed' and appeal to the xenophobic impulse amongst mainstream America to sell that message.
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So we should recognize and deal with Hamas?
Egypt is not Iran in the sense that having a theocracy is not on the table at all. Theocracy means rule by clerics.
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Theocracy in Iran means rule by the clerics, but theocracy can be achieved in many ways. The Refah Party in Turkey tried to install a theocracy by using Sharia law as the platform for the ruling political party. If successful, it would have produced the same result.
Incorrect, by definition a theocracy is a country ruled by a religious order i.e. the clerics, priests, ministers, monks, rabbis etc. are the people in charge by definition. A country with a democratically elected government who have their policies heavily informed by religion is a democracy. Now, a religious party may attempt to install a theocratic government; but this doesn't make their government necessarily a theocracy.
Democracy: The expressed will of the governed is the highest law.
Everything else is detail, as only one source of authority can be supreme.
"If there is one change in Egypt, it has to do with the blunt emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which mocks democracy. The Islamists are already feeling like the state’s future masters.
The provocative return of the Egyptian Khomeini, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, was meant to grant this revolution a face and an identity; an Islamist identity. Qaradawi was the one who issued the call for Israel’s destruction last week in his appearance before hundreds of thousands (and possibly millions) of Egyptians in Tahrir Square. He opposes the United States and the Shiites, and is of course in favor of a religious Islamic regime in Egypt. This is a grave blow to anyone who thought that Egypt is moving towards democracy; it is also a sign of things to come."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4034077,00.html