The once outlawed Islamic Band of Brothers is showing its shariah bona fides since coming to power after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was an ally to the US and helped, as did his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, to turn Egypt’s status in the world around after the disastrous Gamal Nasser era.
The best that can be said for Mr. Mubarak is that he has been easy for the West to deal with. He is always ready to spur along Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and to stage military exercises with the United States. He is certainly a dedicated foe of Gamaa al Islamiya and other Islamist terrorist organizations that threatened his rule. Above all, he did not renounce the peace treaty with Israel that had gotten his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, killed. Behind the scenes, Mr. Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, formerly his intelligence chief and now his vice president, have had close relations with a succession of Israeli prime ministers and American presidents.
Of course, he was no angel and still conducted himself as an Arab despot in a Muslim land. Ruling there is no easy task. However, in a region with few real friends, he was the closest thing to a real Arab ally the US and Israel had in the region. Now that the “Arab Spring” has reached its fruition in Egypt, a bloody facelift will now be in order by the so-called “moderate” and “largely secular” Islamic thugs. This is no surprise to those who are even slightly up to speed on the Brotherhood. Their most famous slogan, used worldwide, is: “Islam is the solution”.
The Facebookians probably missed that part when they were rooting the fall of Mubarak, which necessarily gave rise to the Islamists. Mubarak, after all, was the only thing that stood in the way of their coming to power.
Rule: You can either have friendly dictators or radical Islamist in the Middle East. A cynic? I’ll take that.
“If a man has stolen millions of the state’s money, the penalty is that I must cut off his hand,” said Mahmoud Ghuzlan, a professor of biochemistry at Zagazig University. “There is no argument. These are God’s words.”
The group, banned for half a century, was legalised only after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak.
Professor Ghuzlan said the penalty of amputation, mandated under sharia law, should apply to his sons Gamal — the younger, who was being groomed as heir — and Alaa, a businessman.
In a scene that transfixed the nation last week, the two brothers, both charged with profiteering, stood in court as their father lay on a trolley next to them.
The senior Mubarak, charged with responsibility for the deaths of about 850 protesters killed by his security forces, periodically craned his neck forward to peer from the defendants’ cage out at the court.
Professor Ghuzlan had no sympathy. Mr Mubarak should be hanged if convicted, although “beheading by the sword” would be more traditional, he said.
He sought to paint sharia as a merciful alternative to Egypt’s current legal system, saying a thief who stole only to feed his family would not suffer amputation.
Despite his words, Muslim Brotherhood rule would evidently be harsh. Adulterers would be whipped, alcohol banned, men and women separated in university classes and pre-marital sex and same-sex relationships would be forbidden. (The Australian)
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