In the first round of Egyptian elections for the lower house of parliament held this week, two Islamic parties were the winners. As reported by
CNN, the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party took 40% of the vote, while the more fundamentalist Noor Salafi Movement took 20% of the vote. The
New York Times today analyzes at length the internal debate this has caused. Here are some excerpts from the analysis:
[Salafist] Sheik Shahat ... and his allies are demanding strict prohibitions against interest-bearing loans, alcohol and “fornication,” with traditional Islamic corporal punishment like stoning for adultery.
The unexpected electoral success of the Salafis ... is terrifying Egyptian liberals and troubling the West. But their new clout is also presenting a challenge to the Muslim Brotherhood, in part by plunging it into a polarizing Islamist-against-Islamist debate over the application of Islamic law in Egypt’s promised democracy....
The Brotherhood ... is at its core a middle-class missionary institution, led not by religious scholars but by doctors, lawyers and professionals.... [I]ts leaders have sought to avoid potentially divisive conversations about the details of Islamic law that might set off alarms about an Islamist takeover. But their evasiveness on the subject has played into long-term suspicions of even fellow Islamists that they are too concerned with their own power.
