Egypt to the Salafis: "YOUR MOMMA!!"

When Mubarak was in power, he feared the counter power of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In response to this fear, he, prior to the January 25, 2011, followed the path of his original mentors, Nasser and Sadat.  Those military dictators who had shackled Egypt for 60 years had a recipe: fight the Islamists by other Islamists.  The Mubarak weapon was pre-ordained: fight the Brotherhood by an extremist Islamic movement called the Salafis.

The term “Salafi” in Arabic means “the return to the age of their co-religionist ancestors, the Islamists of the 7^th Century A.D.”  That return to the Islamic governance of nearly 1980 years ago is ideologically and practically flawed.  Islam of the age of the Prophet Muhammad and his four successors (Khalifas) was democratic (based on Shura-consultation).  It was based on women integration in decision-making and in other public life aspects.  It was also based on treating non-Muslims as equal in rights and obligations (“Lahom Ma Lana wa Alaihom Ma Alaine” – Arabic for: They have the same rights and obligations as us Muslims).  It was respectful of art and culture. 

How far removed are the present-day Salafis from this formula of what Islamic Law (Sharia) is all about?!  Very far to the point of being unrecognizable.  Long beards and long worry beads are characteristic of the Salafis in Egypt of today.  In their utterances and practices, they made Islam unrecognizable except for rituals.  But Islam is defined, not in the solitary context of rituals.  It is defined by the way you treat others, especially the others who happen to be non-Muslims.

The Mubarak Salafi creation, with its base in Alexandria, burst into the open only after the original revolutionaries, gathered by the millions in Tahrir Square and similar squares all over Egypt, got rid of Mubarak.  The Salafis felt that it was time to harvest the fruits from the trees of freedoms which they did not plant.

The result has been the establishment of a political party called “Al-Noor” (The Light) which gained 20% of seats in the new Parliament.  Those elections were fair and free, and the anti-Salafi forces accepted those results.  No problem.  Now emerges a problem for the Salafis who, in effect, look for guidance not within cosmopolitan Egypt.  They look for it from across the Red Sea – the wabbi police practices of the Arabian Peninsula which at times parallel the extreme Taliban ideology in Afghanistan.

The problem is that the Salafi leader, Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, wishes to run for the highest post in Egypt in the forthcoming May elections.  He was disqualified by the Supreme Elections Commission under laws enacted during the Mubarak regime.  These enactments stipulated that an Egyptian presidential candidate must be an Egyptian citizen who neither he/she, nor his parents have ever carried a non-Egyptian passport.  Abu-Ismail’s Momma, who had passed away, was found to have been an American citizen who in fact had been registered to vote in US elections.  Trouble in paradise for Abu-Ismail and his Salafi movement!!

That disqualification was not the only one.  It parallels other disqualifications affecting other would-be candidates including Omar Soliman, the former spy-in-chief for Mubarak, and Khairat El-Shater of the Muslim Brotherhood for having served time in jail for political reasons.

Yet the Salafis would not let well enough alone.  Reared on the conspiracy theory, and trusting in their throaty numbers, they attempted to besiege the Defense Ministry, where the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (the SCAF) has its headquarters.  In very late April, in Cairo, the Salafis rumbled and their adversaries counter-rumbled.  The Salafis lost and Abu-Ismail’s hopes for the Egyptian presidency evaporated.

Who are the counter-Salafis?  Nearly everybody else, including the Muslim Brotherhood whose public stance is decidedly more moderate.  In this, the Brotherhood, especially the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), is joined by the General Union of Artistic Syndicates (Cinema, Drama and Music) which is assisting the FJP in the quest of Abdel-Monim Abu-Elfoteuh for the presidency.

These anti-Salafi forces have resorted to public demonstrations at the Headquarters of the Court of Cassassian (Naqd) in Cairo (where this blogger conducted hearings five years ago regarding compensation for the estates of the victims of the Egyptair crash of 1999).

Other anti-Salafi responses are taking place in Egypt’s public squares and in the secular media.  Among those direct and indirect responses are:

• Demonstration against Saudi authorities before the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Cairo for having arrested in Jedda an Egyptian activist, Lawyer Ahmed Al-Gizawi, for insulting Saudi Authorities while in Egypt; the Saudi Ambassador to Egypt was recalled by his Government;
• The present efforts to exclude the Egyptian Parliament from joining in the drafting of the new Egyptian Constitution;
• The formation by Dr. Muhammad El-Baradie, who during the Mubarak dictatorship was the first to call for constitutionalism and democracy, of a new party.  His party is devoted to constitutional protections with the predictable name of “The Constitution Party” (Al-Dostour Party);
• The defense of Al-Mufti of Egypt, the progressive Sheikh Dr. Aly Jomaa for his religious visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.  The defenders charge his attackers, especially the Salafi’s, of desiring to replace the enlightened Jomaa by a Salafi obscuranist; and
• Counter-attacking Abu-Ismail by alleging that he had lied about his credentials when applying to run for president by not revealing his mother's US citizenship.

In effect, the new Egypt is telling the Salafis: “YOUR MOMMA!!”