If you are Egyptian and interested in the future of your country, you now have only two options: either you support the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists and help them come to power in Egypt or, if you disagree with them, you will have to put up with accusations of secularism and enmity towards Islam. Sobhi Saleh, the leading member of the Brotherhood, has said there are no liberal Muslims or leftist Muslims, just Muslims and infidels. That means that only the Brotherhood’s ideology represents Islam and anyone who disagrees is an infidel. Sheikh al-Mahallawi has said clearly: “Those who call for a civic state in Egypt are infidels and idol-worshippers”—no more and no less. Accusing people of being infidels is a serious matter in Islam and it has such grave consequences that it has been said that if there are a hundred reasons for calling people infidels and a single reason for calling them believers, then Islam considers them believers. The prophet Muhammad warned people against falsely accusing someone of being an infidel: “If anyone calls his brother an infidel, then the accusation applies to one of them. If the accusation is untrue, the accusation applies to the accuser.” Nevertheless, not a week passes without us hearing a statement by some Salafist or Muslim Brother calling those who disagree with them infidels. The problem is that this wave of accusations does not end with Islamist leaders: it extends to mosque preachers as well. I have received many letters from readers with stories of how mosque preachers have spent whole sermons attacking those who call for a civic state and accusing them of secularism and atheism. So we face a political force that exploits people’s religious feelings—and believes that any method is legitimate to gain power, even if it means accusing Muslims of being infidels. This same behavior was evident in the referendum in March on amending some articles of the Constitution, not including Article 2, which says that Islam is the state religion. Some Islamists distributed leaflets calling on Muslims to vote for the amendments on the grounds that voting against would undermine the country’s Islamic identity, lead to a ban on the call to prayer and the hijab, and legalize gay marriage. That’s how much lust for power can drive some people to mislead public opinion in the name of religion. The strange thing is that, either deliberately or out of ignorance, this awful campaign to label advocates of a civic state as unbelievers confuses completely different political concepts.
A democratic civic state is a state in which sovereignty belongs to the people, a state of law and institutions where all citizens are equal before the law regardless of their religions. A religious state is a state in which the ruler assumes power in the name of religion, not in the name of the people. Human history has known two kinds of religious states: theocratic states in which the ruler considers himself God’s shadow on earth, ruling by divine right, unaccountable and irremovable; and states in which the ruler forms an alliance with the clerics to rule in the name of religion and considers anyone who opposes him a heretic. History has never known a religious state with a just and good government; in fact the religious state is always associated with injustice and despotism. We only have to compare any contemporary democratic state with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan to see the dangers of a religious state and the damage it does to personal liberty.
Secularism is a social movement inclined towards concern for worldly matters rather than religious matters, based on the idea of substitution—the world we live in takes the place of the other world, reality takes the place of the unknown and the world takes the place of religion. So secularism is indeed a movement that is hostile to all religion. Liberalism is a movement of social and political awareness that aims to free people from the bonds that limit their freedom or their potential. It is based on respect for the independence of the individual and for political and civic freedoms. But liberalism is not absolute. It is constrained by laws, which vary from one society to another according to the society's ethics and values. Economic liberalism, on the other hand, is based on the idea of a free economy that minimizes state intervention in economic activities and leaves the market to regulate itself. Some intellectuals speak about social liberalism, which favors state intervention in the economy and takes a middle position between pure capitalism and socialism, trying to achieve a balance between freedom and equality, making sure that people are qualified to work and also showing concern for social services such as education and health care. Atheism is a school of thought that rejects religion as a reference point in the life of humans and holds that religious texts are merely human creations that have no special sanctity and do not express any absolute truths.
If we look at these definitions in their various senses we can see how incoherent the political battle raging in Egypt is, as the cards are stacked to exploit the religious feelings of simple people and bring particular Islamists to power. Dividing people into Islamists and secularists creates a totally false and unfair dichotomy. Those who disagree with the Islamists’ ideas do not oppose Islam itself. Those who favor a civic state are not necessarily secularists or atheists. They might be devout Muslims who cherish their religion but who refuse to let religion be used as a cover for despotic rule that is usually repressive and iniquitous. In fact, since the start of the 20th century the struggle of the Egyptian people has always been for a democratic civic state. Leaving aside the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, throughout its modern history Egypt did not hear about a religious state until the late 1970s, when Wahhabi thinking backed by oil money first arrived. If we were to agree with Sheikh al-Mahallawi, that those who advocate a civic state are infidels, that means that Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa el-Nahas, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and other Egyptian leaders were all unbelievers, because all of them without exception called for separating religion and politics. So a democratic civic state is not secular or atheistic, but stands at an equal distance from all religions and respects all citizens equally. The Brotherhood has now invented a new slogan, calling for a civic state with an Islamic “reference point.” This is strange talk, because there can never be a civic state with a religious “reference point.” What exactly is meant by an Islamic “reference point”? If it means Islamic principles such as justice, freedom, and equality, then these are already the bases for a civic state, thus no additional “reference points” are needed. If it means setting out sacred principles that cannot be discussed and imposing them on people in the name of religion, then we would be dealing with a despotic religious state merely masked by a different name.
The question now is: can sharia law be implemented in a democratic civic state? The answer is obviously yes, provided it comes about by the choice and free will of the people. If there is an Islamist political party that holds that Egyptian law does not comply with sharia principles, it has the right to try to implement what it sees fit and it must then clearly put forward an electoral program explaining the laws it will pass to implement sharia, and if that party obtains a majority in free and free elections it would have the right to carry out the program for which people voted. But if the Islamic party takes power and then thinks it has a duty to impose its own version of sharia without consulting people, then again we would be dealing with repressive government using religion as a cover for despotism. Some might say that the result is the same in either case, but the difference in method is important and distinctive, because when you defer to the will of the people, enforcing the law is legitimate. But when you impose on people whatever you think is right, you are encroaching on their right to choose the laws and principles they want to live by. Besides, imposing religious governance varies according to the mindset of the person imposing it. Enlightened thinkers such as Tarek el-Bishri and Ahmed Kamal Aboul Magd see the concept of implementing sharia quite differently from the way Salafist sheikhs see it. Sheikh Abu Ishaq el-Howeini, for example, believes that studying at Law College is un-Islamic and that all the women studying at Egyptian universities are sinners because they study alongside their male colleagues in the same lecture halls. He claims that the religious sciences are meant only for men and, in the opinion of His Grace, however learned a woman might be, she will always remain a vulgar imitation of the real thing. Sheikh el-Howeini has an excellent solution for Egypt’s economic problem—that Egypt invite some foreign non-Muslim country (Sweden, for example) to embrace Islam. If the Swedish government rejects Islam, Egypt would declare jihad on Sweden and if Egypt defeats Sweden and invades and occupies the country, it would give the Swedes a choice between converting to Islam and paying the jizya poll tax. A jizya imposed on Sweden would certainly stimulate the Egyptian economy. If the Swedish enemy refused to convert or pay the jizya, we would have the right to enslave the Swedes, he says. The Swedish slaves would help us with our work in return for food and clothing. The Egyptian masters would have the right to take the Swedish women, who are renowned for their beauty, as concubines without the need for any marriage contract or witnesses, because they would be chattels. If an Egyptian had a surplus concubine, or if he grew tired of her, he could sell her in the slave market and spend the money. Sheikh el-Howeini has been filmed and taped expounding these extraordinary views. What should we expect from a man with such a mentality if he came to power in Egypt and imposed his vision of religion on us?
The Egyptian Revolution took place to free Egyptians from tyranny and oppression, and Egyptians will never agree to exchange political despotism for a religious despotism. If the Islamists want to carry out their political program, they must present it to the Egyptian people, who have complete sovereignty in a democratic system. If the voters choose the Islamists’ program, no one has the right to stand in their way because it would be the will of the people. But if the people reject it, no one has the right to impose it on them, whatever the reasons and justifications might be.
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