Ultraconservative party to push for Islamic Egypt - Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Associated Press

CAIRO — Anticipating a strong presence in the new Egyptian parliament, ultraconservative Islamists outlined plans Friday for a strict brand of religious law, a move that could limit personal freedoms and steer a key U.S. ally toward an Islamic state.

An Egyptian waves a national flag while wearing a clown mask during a rally in support of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, at Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
Thousands of supporters of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, shout national pro council slogans during a rally at Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
A banner supporting Egyptian parliamentary candidate Ahmed Abd El Hameed Mohammed is pasted on a wall in the al-Azhar quarter in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. The fundamentalist Brotherhood is emerging as the biggest winner in partial results from the first voting this week in Egypt's landmark election, in which voters turned out in unexpected droves. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Egyptian supporters of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, wave by a national flag in Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Egypt's election commission announced only a trickle of results from the first round of parliamentary elections and said 62 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the highest turnout in modern history.

However, leaked counts point to a clear majority for Islamist parties at the expense of liberal activist groups that led the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, toppling a regime long seen as a secular bulwark in the Middle East.

The more pragmatic Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take the largest share of votes, as much as 45 percent. But the Nour Party, which espouses a strict interpretation of Islam in which democracy is subordinate to the Quran, could win a quarter of the house, giving it much power to affect debate.

A spokesman, Yousseri Hamad, said his party considers God's law the only law.

"In the land of Islam, I can't let people decide what is permissible or what is prohibited," Hamad told The Associated Press. "It is God who gives the answers as to what is right and what is wrong."

The Nour Party is the main political arm of the hard-line Salafist Muslim movement, which espouses a strict form of Islam similar to that practiced in Saudi Arabia. Salafis, who often wear long beards and seek to imitate the life of the Prophet Muhammad, speak openly about their aim of turning Egypt into a state where personal freedoms, including freedom of speech, women's dress and art, are constrained by Islamic law — goals that make many Egyptians nervous.

Salafis object to women in leadership roles, citing Muhammad as saying that "no people succeed if led by women." However, when election regulations forced all parties to include women, Salafi cleric Yasser el-Bourhami relented, saying that "committing small sins" is better than "committing bigger ones" — by which he meant letting secular people run the government.

In the end, the party put women at the bottom of its lists, represented by flowers since women's photos were deemed inappropriate.

This week, Salafi cleric and parliamentary candidate Abdel-Monem Shahat caused a stir by saying the novels of Egypt's Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, read widely in Egyptian schools, are "all prostitution."

Salafis are newcomers on Egypt's political scene. They long shunned the concept of democracy, saying it allows man's law to override God's. But they formed parties and entered politics after Mubarak's ouster, seeking to enshrine Islamic law in Egypt's new constitution.

By contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized political group, was officially banned under Mubarak but established a nationwide network of activists who built a reputation for offering services to the poor. After Mubarak's fall, the group's Freedom and Justice Party campaigned fiercely, their organization and name-recognition giving them a big advantage over newly formed liberal parties.

Stakes are particularly high since the new parliament is supposed to oversee writing Egypt's new constitution. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took control of the country when Mubarak fell, has tried to impose restrictions on membership in the 100-member drafting committee. The Muslim Brotherhood has said it will challenge the move, and a strong showing by Islamists in the elections could boost its popular mandate to do so.

Hamed, the Nour Party spokesman, said democracy can't pass laws that contradict religion.

"We endorse Egyptian democracy," he said. "However, I don't give absolute freedom to people to legislate to themselves and decide on what is right or wrong.

"We have God's laws that tell us that."

He suggested, for example, that alcohol should be banned and that a state agency could penalize Muslims for eating during the day during the holy month of Ramadan, when the devout fast from dawn to dusk.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis have both cooperated and disagreed in the past.

They tried to form an electoral alliance, which broke down over disagreements about including Christians and women in their electoral lists. However, the two parties campaigned together in some areas and declined to contest certain seats so as not to split the Islamist vote and allow liberal candidates to win.

The strong Islamist showing worries liberal parties who fear the two groups will work to push a religious agenda. It has also caused many youth activists who launched the anti-Mubarak uprising to feel that their revolution has been hijacked. Still, the liberal Egyptian Bloc coalition, which is competing with the Salafis to be the second-largest parliamentary bloc, could counterbalance hard-line elements.

Cooperation between the Brotherhood and Salafis in parliament isn't guaranteed, said Shadi Hamid, Middle East expert with the Brookings Doha Center. The Brotherhood is a pragmatic organization that will work with other parties to achieve its goals, while the Salafis shun compromise.

Once the parliament is seated, Hamid expects the Brotherhood to focus on establishing a strong parliamentary system, reforming state institutions and boosting the economy — goals they share with liberal groups.

"Banning alcohol or passing laws on women's dress are not on their priority list, and they see these issues as a distraction from the issues at hand," he said.

Still, a strong Salafist bloc in parliament will have a "massive effect," he said, by giving the group a larger platform for its views.

"The Salafis are going to insert religion into the public debate in a way that would not have happened otherwise," he said.

Many in Egypt's Coptic Christian population, which makes up 10 percent of the country, fear the Salafis will push for laws that will make them second-class citizens.

Even some religious Egyptians see the Salafi as too extreme.

"I am religious and don't want laws that go against my beliefs, but there shouldn't be religious law," said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a geography teacher. "I don't want anyone imposing his religious views on me."

The election commission said Friday that more than 8 million eligible voters — 62 percent — participated in the first round. But it announced final results in only a few races. It remains unclear when complete final results will be released.

This week's vote, held in nine provinces, will determine about 30 percent of the 498 seats in the People's Assembly, parliament's lower house. Two more rounds, ending in January, will cover Egypt's other 18 provinces.

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Resource Center-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel open Milwaukee Muslim women's Union

17 years, dispel the myth that Milwaukee Muslim women Union, interfaith dialogue and information through the program of social welfare in Islam [NULL] has been about public education. But it did not have their own home.

He was officially in the latest ventures, greenfield Union 5235 S. 27 provincial community outreach with the opening of the next month for Islamic Resource Center.

5,000 square feet Centre Union offices, in addition to local Islamic-Arabic language lending library houses classes and offers an array of cultural programming in the film cooking lessons and everything that will be exchanged for a first-of-its-kind.

"We just want to learn about Islam [NULL] anyone want to have access to the general public in the public school teachers" with her husband Najeeb, President of the Union's doctor Waleed Najeeb Janan project of his own money invested almost $ 1 million.

Milwaukee area with followers from all corners of the world's most diverse faith communities state that represents one of the House is believed to be Muslims, as long as 15,000.

To celebrate the diversity in the arts and artifacts in the glass: brilliant silver jewelry India Resource Center lobby Egypt and Palestine in the box;, China; More items from the Qur'an Indonesia-many complex wood carving in the verse.

Although the official debut weeks away, some limited programming began.

Syria on Friday, about 50 people attended the opening of the exhibition of paintings by the artist Adib Fattal. On Tuesday, a local Islamic school, and a woman in the early half of the Somali community gathered on maternity, aimed at keeping them off the path the Union program.

At the same time, the Center is working to get up and running.

On Monday, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in a library science interns worked on the lending library catalog.

The goal by the end of the year, Najeeb and amass nearly 500 titles began lending to 2012. Until then, readers are welcome to peruse the volume on the Center site.

To create a default Resource Center for the first time the Union did not set out to be.

It discussed the possibility of creating a permanent home for about 4 years ago started as a group that grew out of the brainstorming.

' We had a question, ' if we are, what we would ' our dream space? "Janan Najeeb said."And people will be exactly where you can get information at the top of the list. "

Coalition for exploration near downtown Milwaukee, but the lack of pricing and parking properties was an issue.

The group members found the 27, too big for their own purposes, at St property.

So Waleed Najeeb is his to expand medical practices is South to the North of the building, decided to open the half clinic.

Najeebs properties to buy and repair funds.

But the non-profit women's Union Resource Center annual operating costs of the expected 150 billion.

Najeebs ' contribution to the Mission's sense was born, the desire to have accurate information about people's faith and practice.

"Really, the only way to allay the fears and promote knowledge, is to promote understanding," he said.

The many faces of Muslim women to Turkish weekly journal, United States

By Bethsaida Nieves

Madison, Wi-what is the United States means today in Muslim women? I speak for myself, 400,000 Muslims growing up in the United States women are sharing their experiences of the United States. Struggles and successes of their personal narratives to us in the journey of life we share much more than we often realise above.

For myself, being Muslim, Maria Ebrahimji M. United States women speak: Zahra engaged in edited by T. Suratwala, symbolic and emotional and social considerations related to Muslim women in the United States and growing up in a complex set of readers.

The story of the manifestation of spiritual evolution. On the surface, we read problems, relationships with friends, colleagues, parents, and her husband, but is the expression of the human spirit to travel on a deeper level. This achievement won the adversity in their lives and remind us of the courage within each of us has the potential. As we mature and evolve, we transcend culture awareness of the beauty of life comes to develop towards. For example, if a woman divorced after strength and power of her voice and abuse about finding. Other women's national team during her work on the cultural significance of the conversation.

We are also dealing with how a woman's antics and uptight, she with her parents to read to experience the cultural and generation gap. The other woman struggles to explain how her name, rational, yet another suit (headscarf) describes the hijab worn by the desire to hook the difficulty in determining whether while speaking. Each woman has her own deep creative potential and profound truths about human existence.

Set in the United States and around the world, the United States and more than one country, say for myself and my discussion of Islamic identity. contextualised in This collection of stories, class, religion, ethnicity, history of the race, politics, language, and gender issues in this discussion. They are history, Islam, Muslim women are voiceless and powerless to challenge ideas, and ultimately society complicate the concept of the culture of each of these artists culture, s and beyond there for peace and social justice, solidarity, we have deep ties to us in our desire to teach.

I would say for themselves: the human possibilities and illuminate the paradigm Each woman is apparent between religion, politics and societal expectations, and how that anxiety about the interconnectedness that plagued America's identity to the real. One woman saw her at the end of a childhood friend of the United States, not Islam and how, at the time, it almost was proud of her. But if you want to pause in her confusion she felt did not need to choose a Muslim and an American. She can be both.

Another woman in her youth, in the right format, and the Muslim communities of Muslims how she struggled with a fitting. She is the only way Muslims that Islam was not soon there is a wide variety of religions recognized hospitality.

But not only was the childhood or teen challenge. African American women she describes how you feel and what Muslims communities include both within the community, to address discrimination against Muslims, and her desire to be excluded from the Muslims. Other African American women that she adheres to the true Islam, African-American feminist identity frustration I experienced when I tried to. Instead, she accepts the fragmented and contradictory parts of her personality, rather than trying to be like everyone else you decide to.

How each woman s discussion of religious belief and reflects the negotiation of identity variation cover. Every woman's strength and force her to create the myth of repressed Muslim women, it becomes a part of a complex negotiation of resistance model undercuts.

Women who share their stories, engineers, doctors, lawyers, community leaders, social justice advocates and a former Peace Corps volunteers teach in the United States, politicians, artists, professors, students, bloggers, journalists, winners, for the environment, and above all, our sisters in humanity. Every woman for herself through the experience of growing up with Muslim women in the United States readers, I tell you what it means to achieve a stronger level of understanding of.