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Africa North
In Egypt, Islamists Reach Out to Wary Secularists
2011-09-25
CAIRO — Egypt, a fecund breeding ground for Arab and Islamic ideologies, is witnessing the birth of yet another: Islamic liberalism.
Wishful thinking from the NYT, of course...
Nageh Ibrahim, the ideologue of the Islamic Group, an umbrella organization for Egyptian militant student groups that in the 1980s and 1990s took up arms against President Hosni Mubarak, was one of the first to use the term, in an apparent bid to woo secularists into a rapprochement.
Once wooed, they'll be controlled, converted or executed...
“Liberalism has so many good sides that do not run afoul of the universal principles of the Islamic Shariah,” he told an audience drawn from the Wafd Party in July. “We have to search for a form of Islamic liberalism compatible with the norms of Egyptian society while not alienating other forces.”

Mr. Ibrahim, whose books advocated violence as a means for changing the Mubarak regime, now argues that Islamists and secularists have more common ground than differences. In several public speaking events and articles, he has avoided blaming secularists or liberals for the polarization between secular and religious groups that followed Mr. MubarakÂ’s fall. Instead he has blamed a sabotage campaign by partisans of the former regime.
It's always the counter-revolutionaries who are to blame, comrade; you and I should band together under my direction so as to resist them...
Other Islamists have adopted his conciliatory line. The cleric Mohammed al-Zoghbi, a hero of the Salafi movement and one of the fiercest critics of secularism, recently called the country’s secularist activists “brothers with kind, good and patriotic hearts that just need to know the Islamists better.” A few weeks earlier, he described secular Tahrir Square protesters as “a homeless bunch, forced into Tahrir Square, after they were beaten up by their wives back home.”

Less conservative Islamic players have entered the fray as well.

Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al Azhar, the bastion of Sunni Islam scholarship that prides itself on a moderate form of Egyptian Islam, issued a document that seeks to marry secular attitudes with conservative theories. The Azhar Charter, drafted in August, declares that a civil state governed by law will not contradict Islam and that individual liberties should be guaranteed in the future constitution and laws.

The charter eased the way for the Muslim Brotherhood, EgyptÂ’s most organized political group, which is widely expected to win the coming parliamentary elections, to promise not to monopolize the drafting of the constitution. The Brotherhood has said that all political orientations, including the countryÂ’s six million Christians, should take part.

There are a substantial number “of similarities between Islamists and liberals,” Amr Hamzawi, one of the rising secular stars, told a Wafd Party gathering. “At a minimum, both sides are looking for a country where the rule of law and real citizenship prevail while peaceful change of power is guaranteed.”
So long as everyone in the end is an Islamicist. Iran has a similar model; everyone can participate in the political process so long as nothing you do contradicts what the ayatollahs permit you to do.
Still, the convergence leaves many skeptical on both sides of the divide. Refaat Saeed, a secularist critic of the Brotherhood, said the true colors of the Islamists were seen in their meetings.

“You can tell, for example, from their rallies and the banners they carry they actually want a religious and not a democratic state.” he said. “Egypt is at a crossroads right now. The country will either turn into a Salafist or a Muslim Brotherhood state or it will choose to become a modern country. Egypt hasn’t yet decided.”

Among prominent Islamists, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a lawyer, Islamic activist and candidate for the Egyptian presidency, has refused to endorse the Azhar Charter. “I reject that call from all of its sides,” he said.

The Labor Party, which is pro-Islamist, has spoken out against “diluting the Egyptian Arab and Islamic character.”

For a pragmatic Islamic trend to truly take root “will take some more creativity,” said Hossam Maklad, a researcher into Islamic movements. “Islamic liberalism needs to improvise a form of governing that rests on Islamic heritage and civilization as a great foundation while at the same time enjoying all the good benefits of Western liberal structure. If we can combine both, then we’ll save ourselves all those fights and quarrels.”
Posted by:Steve White

#5  Islamic liberalism = we only kill Jews?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2011-09-25 15:15  

#4  The air of taqiya is thick, my padawan.
Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165   2011-09-25 11:19  

#3  The must have been studying American leftists. "Cooperation" means doing everything we want and you get nothing. "Radical" means not wanting immediate, dramatic and destructive change. "Fascist or Nazi" means disagreeing with what we demand.

And most importantly, "lies" mean "truth".
Posted by: Anonymoose   2011-09-25 11:16  

#2  Frog meet scorpion.
Posted by: AlanC   2011-09-25 10:13  

#1  Needs a good picture of a grasping zombie.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2011-09-25 10:00  

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