You are here: Home » News » World » Middle East » Egypt’s Salafis Will Not Work With Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt’s Salafis Will Not Work With Muslim Brotherhood

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on December 4, 2011.

Emblem of the Muslim Brotherhood

The ultra-conservative Islamist Salafis will not “water down” their ideology to form any kind of coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They consider the Muslim Brotherhood “too moderate.” The Brotherhood, which entered the Egyptian elections with a more developed party structure than any other of the nascent parties in the countries, is leading in the “parliamentary” elections being held right now, but the Salafis have come out with a strong showing, and may end up as the number two party in a transitional parliament whose principle function will be to create the framework for a new government, by either heavily amending the old constitution or writing a new one.

The Muslim Brotherhood, or more accurately the Society of Muslim Brothers, has a really bad reputation in the West, but one that is largely unearned. The Society began in 1928 in response to the manner in which the Ottoman Empire had been removed from the Middle East and North Africa after World War I, only to be replaced by the colonial forces of France and England. From its beginning, it has denounced violence as a means of change, but that didn’t stop people who began as members from committing acts of violence and letting the Muslim Brotherhood take the rap for it. One of their best known expelled former members is the current head of al Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the “Egyptian doctor” who was Osama bin Laden’s number two man and had to fight to become number one because of his advanced age. Al Qaida has criticized the Muslim Brotherhood for their preference for elections over terrorism.

The Muslim Brotherhood does advocate the use of the Qur’an and the Sunnah as the “sole reference point for…ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community…and state.” which does not translate into the same thing as a Shia theocracy like Iran. It would be more along the lines of a more moderate Saudi form of Islamic government. The Saudi form of Sunni is one of the more fundamentalist forms. The Brotherhood in Egypt is not idealistic enough to ignore the fact that the country has a very modern and diverse population. The 80 million Egyptians are not all Muslim or one sect of Islam, though Muslim ethnic Egyptians do comprise around 90% of the population. One of the few really good things about the Mubarak regime was an intolerance for persecution of minorities, and such persecution cannot be inflicted without setting off new conflicts. Women will not agree to being shoved back into the Middle Ages in a country where they have enjoyed educations, careers, personal liberties and political equalities for so long. The Salafis want to impose a more Islamic government than the majority of the people would tolerate.

These elections are not the final form that the government of Egypt will achieve. They will simply provide a civilian transition to a new government, removing the military from control. It will be at least a year until we see how a new Egypt evolves. That year or more will provide time for political parties to coalesce, replacing the dozens of “parties” that arose quickly this year, probably winnowing down to a more manageable number. The elections themselves still have weeks to go before we have an idea of the basic shape the transitional parliament will take.

The Brotherhood has broad support for the same reason Hamas does in the Gaza – decades of charity work. The first round of votes in these staggered election have the Brotherhood leading with 36.6% of the vote and the Salafi al-Nour party receiving 24.4%. That leaves 39% of the vote going to other parties. The more the votes are split, the greater the chance for proper representation of the ethnic and religious minorities in the country.

The Salafis scare just about everyone, from the country’s Christian minority to the secularists to the Israelis. They are more of a threat to the region than the Muslim Brotherhood because they are hardline Islamists. They want to ban interest payments to and from banks, ban women in executive positions, segregate women at work, and revise the peace treaty with Israel, while diversifying the economy to lessen the dependence on tourism. They want to outlaw alcohol, public displays of affection and the wearing of bikinis – all things that would seriously impact the tourist industry. The Muslim Brotherhood as taken a more moderate position in view of the enormous importance of tourism to Egypt’s economy.

In the first run-offs, 24 Salafi candidates will be going head-to-head with Brotherhood candidates. They are hoping for 20% of the parliamentary seats when the final rounds of run-offs are done in January. The party’s leader, Abdel Ghaffour, said the his party will accept a coalition cabinet, but not a secular state. It will try to push a Sharia law agenda, though he acknowledges that “no single party can impose its will on 80 million Egyptians.”

Gee, ya’ think?