David Schenker the director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute raised worries about the form of the Islamic state which is being formed in Egypt, amid the ongoing conflict over sovereignty between the Islamists and the army.
Schenker said in an article named Egypt’s Islamists Future on the site of the Institute, last Thursday that the election of Mohammed Morsi, being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as Egypt’s president temporarily puts to rest the debate about whether the nation will be secular or Islamist. Egypt is an Islamist state.
He proved his point of view – that Egypt will become an Islamic state – by highlighting the control of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis of nearly 75% of the Legislative authority before the dissolution of the People’s Assembly by the Military Council last month.
Schenker said that the battle between the Islamists and the army is less important than the political battle about the type of Islamic state that is being formed in Egypt, pointing out that the contest would be between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood in the degree of militancy and the imposition of Islamic limits, such as cutting off hands of thieves and how soon the penalty should be imposed.
Moreover, the Director offered several evidence and analysis about some of the scenes that took place on the Egyptian political arena and the correspondence of American diplomacy, pointing to a diplomatic cable between the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, published by the site «Wikileaks», showed concern of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the lack of satisfaction with the tendency by the young and rural members of the group becoming increasingly Salafi-oriented.
Schenker said, you need years to become a full member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but one need only to grow his beard to become Salafi.
He pointed to the hostility during the parliamentary elections between the Salafi Nour Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, and even before the presidential elections the friction was clear, when Mohamed Morsi tried to reassure worried Christians, and said that there was no difference in beliefs between Muslims and Christians, the Salafis asked Morsi to «repent to God».
Schenker affirms that the Muslim Brotherhood «were not at any stage of its history a moderate group», and said: «in the group’s general guide issued in 2011, Mohammed Badie, the eighth General Guide (chairman) of the Muslim Brotherhood,
said that the success of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt would lead to a rightly guided caliphate that will instruct the world.” He added that the presence of internal political dynamics is likely to force the Brotherhood to take more radical positions in an attempt to bridge gaps with the Salafists.
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