Support From Islamists for Liberal Upends Race in Egypt - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The main missionary and political groups of the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, threw their support behind Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a dissident former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood known for his tolerant and inclusive view of Islamic law.
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The endorsement goes a long way toward making Mr. Aboul Fotouh the front-runner in a campaign that could shape the ultimate outcome of the revolt that ousted the former strongman, Hosni Mubarak.
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Mr. Aboul Fotouh’s liberal understanding of Islamic law on matters of individual freedom and economic equality had already made him the preferred candidate of many Egyptian liberals.
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Known for their strict focus on Islamic law, the Salafis often talk of reviving medieval Islamic corporal punishments, restricting women’s dress and the sale of alcohol, and cracking down on heretical culture.
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Salafi leaders described their decision in part as a reaction against the presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the powerful and established Islamist group that now dominates Parliament. Though more moderate than the Salafis, the Brotherhood also favors the fashioning of an explicitly Islamic democracy in Egypt, and on social and cultural issues the group is closer to the Salafis than Mr. Aboul Fotouh is.
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a spokesman for the Salafi group, acknowledged a big difference with Mr. Aboul Fotouh over his understanding of a verse of the Koran declaring, “There is no compulsion in religion,” which he interprets to mean that the state should not compel people to follow religious rules. But such compulsion “in reality is not possible now” in any case, Mr. Shahat said.
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Leading Salafis hinted in recent days that they did not expect quick fulfillment of their goals for a state governed by Islamic law. Instead , they wanted a president who could deal with Egypt’s pressing needs while allowing them freedom to preach and advocate.
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the Salafi endorsement also appeared to provide an unexpected validation for Mr. Aboul Fotouh’s argument that mixing preaching and politics would be “disastrous” for both Islam and Egypt,
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Although the Salafis are more conservative on many cultural issues, they also typically disapprove of the Muslim Brotherhood’s emphasis on internal obedience and orthodoxy.
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Mr. Aboul Fotouh has explained that his candidacy and his expulsion from the Brotherhood are part of a larger dispute over whether in a democratic Egypt the Brotherhood should control its own political party, or instead go back to its roots in preaching and charity while its members apply their own values to political life.
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he has alluded to threats to the credibility of religious leaders in the unseemly day-to-day of political life, ranging from the appearance of compromises in the interest of power to more vivid embarrassments
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The overlap between what’s partisan politics and what’s missionary is disastrous for the religious mission and a disaster for the party as well,” Mr. Aboul Fotouh said of the Brotherhood in the El Rahma interview. “They will see in the future the result of this threat, which is a threat to the homeland and to religion.
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Mr. Aboul Fotouh also speaks fluently in the language of Salafis. He has talked at greater length and in greater detail about what Islamic law demands than the other Islamist candidates, including those of the Muslim Brotherhood, who fear alarming moderates. Among other things, he often argues that the first priorities in advancing Islamic law should be individual freedom and social justice.
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he argued that Egyptian Muslims were not waiting for a president to teach them to follow their faith. They wanted a president to develop their agriculture and industry, as he said Islamic law also required.
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Mr. Aboul Fotouh, who spent more than six years in jail for his Brotherhood leadership, brought to the competition for the Salafi vote a special authenticity. Many Salafi leaders came out of the Islamist student movement that Mr. Aboul Fotouh led in the 1970s, before he and some others from the student group joined and revitalized the Brotherhood.