A “war of fatwas” returned to dominate Egypt during decisive parliamentary elections. Supporters of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s government considered participation a religious duty, while opponents described those who voted as sinners.
The elections were the final step of a roadmap announced by Al-Sisi when he was army chief, in the statement removing Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi after mass popular protests against his rule in late June 2013.
After the new government’s major security campaign against the Brotherhood and hardline Islamist factions, Egyptians had hoped that an era of mixing political speeches with religious preaching to win poor rural voters would end.
Instead, the elections appeared to open another chapter of political-religious conflict, with a parliament expected to enjoy broad powers.
In the hours before voting began, pro-government clerics urging heavy participation exchanged religious rulings with clerics sympathetic to the Brotherhood who regarded participation as religiously impermissible.
Egypt’s Dar Al-Ifta issued a statement condemning rulings that prohibited voting. Grand Mufti Shawki Allam called them politicized attempts to stop people casting ballots, describing them as invalid and contrary to religious law because they used religious texts and judgments to serve the political purposes of groups that did not want Egypt’s welfare and stability.
Khaled Khalif, an Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Al-Gamiyya Al-Shariyya scholars’ front supportive of the Brotherhood, had ignited the dispute by saying that anyone who voted acknowledged the usurpation of power and sided with oppressors, which he called religiously forbidden. He described holding the elections as illegitimate.
A controversial ruling by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Naggar, a member of the Islamic Research Academy, further complicated matters. He described choosing parliamentary representatives as a religious duty no less important than prayer, saying that neglecting it was like neglecting an obligatory prayer.
Observers saw the political use of fatwas as a product of the ideological and political divisions that had developed since the January 25, 2011 revolution.
Since then, Egyptians had become accustomed to exchanges of religious rulings intended to direct them politically. Every ruling was quickly followed by dozens of opposing ones shaped by political considerations. Supporters of Al-Sisi’s government said the Brotherhood was trying every means to spoil the elections and influence voters, even, as they put it, at religion’s expense.
Medhat Al-Zahed, acting head of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party and a member of the Democratic Current’s presidential council, told Al-Arab that such rulings served extremism and assigned the labels permitted and forbidden to political practices that belonged to personal freedom. What was happening, he said, was playing with fire and would ultimately lead to accusations of unbelief.
He added that these rulings differed little from those Salafist sheikhs had issued under former president Hosni Mubarak, portraying participation in elections as sinful, corrupting, and contrary to religion. Continuing this verbal war, he said, eroded public trust in both religious and political figures.