Religious right in Egypt hoping for Islamic law

[rug]

Hazem Salah abu Ismail's blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islam has turned him into a leading presidential candidate.

Originally published Monday, April 9, 2012 at 5:44 PM
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — The men gathering outside the yellow mosque agreed: Adulterers should be stoned to death, the hands of thieves cut off.

"But not now," said Kareem Atta, waiting in a cool breeze for the sheik's car to roll up next to the Quran sellers. "Shariah law must be gradually put into place so it doesn't shock the system. You can't cut people's hands off if you first don't give them financial justice."

The young students, engineers and laborers are followers of Hazem Salah abu Ismail, a lawyer and holy man whose poetic blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islam has turned him into a leading presidential candidate. Posters with Ismail's gray beard and boyish face seem to hang on every street and alley across this ancient city.

Ismail is at once provocative and soothing, in a breath switching from genial to fiery. He has suggested revoking Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and holds up Iran as an exemplar of defiance against the U.S. His hard-line rhetoric has nudged American officials closer to the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood, a sign of Washington's scrambling to keep pace with the tremors of the "Arab Spring."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017944989_salafists10.html

[atreides1]

1. Wonderful

Take a giant step backwards...Saudi Arabia on the Mediterranean!

[eqfan592]

2. So is it OK for me to call this not only terrifying...

...but completely disgusting as well? Or will I be stepping on toes here?

"The men gathering outside the yellow mosque agreed: Adulterers should be stoned to death, the hands of thieves cut off. "

Wow, and we're still dealing with this sort of insanity in the 21st century....

[cbayer]

3. Since I haven't seen anyone here ever post in favor of Sharia law, I doubt

you will be stepping on any toes.

[eqfan592]

4. I figured as much.

But ya never know what people will decide to get touchy about...

[Lionessa]

6. I'm not entirelyl sure that our penal system isn't just as horrible

in its own ways. I mean to be caged and then forced to fight as in the one in Idaho, or the common and probably real, though not at all funny, idea of gang rapes and such.

Then add to that the quantity of people we have incarcerated. I mean, we really aren't a whole lot better, and with repubs in charge, they seem to want some damn similar stuff, except instead of it being adulterers stoned or hands cut off of theives, they want women to child more often in childbirth, they want poor people to just die, they want anyone of paler complexion to be able to shoot anyone of darker complexion....

I'm sorry these right wingers over there are not too much different than those here, and that's what's most scary.

Somehow I accept/expect them to still be backward rubes with extremist issues (yes, potentially racist I know, particularly when I know that Iraq prior to our interference was a model of secular and gender inclusive society), anyway... but to know that those in our own developed, advanced country now want us to start backtracking to nearly the level mentioned here, it's just stunning and terribly scary as to the speed they are advancing in so many areas in so many states since 2008.

[eqfan592]

7. Oh I hear you.

Every study in the universe done says that we are doing exactly the wrong thing when it comes to our prison system, but that doesn't seem to matter. People aren't interested in rehabilitation, something that might actually help our society. They want punishment, retribution and revenge.

Revamping our prison system is something that needs to be done so very badly, but can't be talked about by those in charge it seems.

[Lionessa]

5. I'm often stunned that they, ME right wingers upheld by ME religious right,

and our Republicans currently monopolizing the religious right into believing that they are religious instead of greedy, anyway....

Don't they continually seem to really want the same things just with different names? Sharia law or what we have here, where there's little or no justice involved, both stressing extreme punishment rather than any other consideration. Both want to completely control women and to blame women for the failures of men, like in the cases of rape and domestic abuse, they want a homogenous society that are all either through ignorant faith or rational fear obey the ruling powers decisions that are claimed to be of, from, or by god, bible, koran.

Religion is a really scary entity in all its forms. "Good" religious people aren't good because they are religious, they'd be good regardless. But religion sure gives a lot of evil people a place to be secure in their illusion of godliness.

[demosincebirth]

8. What did we expect? I feel sorry for the Coptic Christians who have lived there for 2 thousand

years.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Depressing

[laconicsax]

10. That's what the religious right does.

Replace Islamic with Christian and you have our religious right. Replace it with Jewish and you have Israel's religious right.

[rug]

11. There is a spectrum, though, that would be foolish to ignore.

[laconicsax]

12. That's absolutely true.

It would also be foolish to ignore that given the chance, the religious right in this country would institute their own Protestant theocracy.