Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood just made a few assertions that have ruffled the nation’s secular and Christian populace.
 Essam el-Erian: “No one dares oppose the application of Sharia law.” |
At a conference attended by some 5,000, Senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Dr. Essam el-Erian, Vice President of the “Freedom and Justice” party, the Brotherhood’s political wing, declared that “No one in Egypt—not a Copt, a liberal, a leftist, no one—dares say they are against Islam and the application of Sharia: all say they want the Islamic Sharia [applied]. And when referendum time comes, whoever says ‘we do not want Sharia’ will expose their hidden intentions.”
He went on to threaten Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces with “massacres” if it interfered in politics and Islam’s role in the constitution and addressed the nation’s Coptic Christians as follows: “You will never find a strong fortress for your faith and rights except in Islam and Sharia,” adding, “Our Lord has commanded us to be just, and we have learned it from Islam. We do not wish to hurt anyone…”
More to the point, his Brotherhood colleague, Sheikh Sayyid Abdul Karim, asserted: “Those who do not wish to see Islam [Sharia] applied are drunks, druggies, adulterers, and brothel-owners.”
While such talk is commonplace from Egypt’s self-styled Salafists, it is significant that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has mastered the art of stealth, the art of appearing “moderate”—to the point that President Obama’s intelligence chief described them as “largely secular“—is beginning to feel comfortable enough to let snippets of the truth come out.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member