Comments on: Mufti of Egypt against women presidents

By: Ms .45

Ms .45 — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 12:06:52 +0000

This article at Ikhwanonline (written by a US journalist) suggests that the MB actually asked about 25 women to run in the last elections. The women refused because they risked jail and, as a result, sexual assault. I don’t know how credible the claim is, I’ll leave it to you guys to evaluate it.

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=4279

By: PS

PS — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:14:48 +0000

For what it’s worth, that last paragraph was added by a desk editor in Nicosia, it did not come from the Cairo bureau.

By: Tim Seah

Tim Seah — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:11:05 +0000

Yes, yes, no argument, the fatwa is outrageous… particularly so since it was so completely unnecessary. That was the only point I was trying to make.

Re. the reasons for the government’s false piety: who knows what they’re thinking? Agree that the MB’s appeal isn’t limited to the unibrowed, misogynist set, but that doesn’t speak to what the gov’ is thinking. They’ve been wrong before.

Suspect that if the government really wanted to take the wind out of the Brotherhood’s sails, they could start by cleaning up corruption, improving healthcare, cancelling summits with Olmert when they coincide with bloody Israeli military ops in Ramallah, and and…

And feinik, ya Suzanne, O Vanguard of Arab Women’s Rights? Time to put the fear of the Pharoah into the puppet sheikh and to show him from whence truly cometh his help.

If we must live under a despot, let’s at least have an enlightened despot.

By: Me Myself and I

Me Myself and I — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:49:20 +0000

so does this mean that relegion sanctions a despotic corrupt man to lead the prayer rather than a women..what does this sheikh smoke

By: Issandr El Amrani

Issandr El Amrani — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:37:29 +0000

Tim,

where’s the fire? The fire is that while there may currently be no credible female presidential candidates, the Mufti has now decreed (with the full power of his position) that women cannot apply for the top position, making it much more difficultfor any future candidate to run. Imagine Mubarak dies tomorrow and an election is called. Ayman Nour wants to make a statement by getting Gameela Ismail to run since he’s in prison. She now finds herself getting attacked for going against the Mufti’s fatwa. That she stands no chance is besides the point.

Also this highlights the regrettable backwardness of the Arab world towards women in politics compared to non-Arab Muslim-dominated countries.

Finally, with regards to AFP, that last paragraph is extremely ambiguous. I don’t think this regime is pretending to be conservative to compete with the MB (I would venture that most followers of the MB like it because it is hardworking, honest and actually does stuff). This regime is, or has become, fundamentally conservative in a way that is more dangerous than the ikhwan’s conservatism.

By: Tim Seah

Tim Seah — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:48:31 +0000

Um, are presidential elections scheduled any time soon? Has any woman stepped forward to run? Where’s the fire, Sheikh Ali?

PS Issandr, I think AFP might have been hinting that the regime, though its little ventriloquist-doll Sheikh, is trying to compete with the Brotherhood for conservative credentials… even as it freezes the assets of the group’s most senior members and Habib al-Adly laughingly threatens to put 2,800 more of them in jail.

By: Someone Honest

Someone Honest — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:53:28 +0000

I do not believe in waged clerks. As long as the govenment pays his salary is is biased no matter what, in his opinion. So his Fatwa is rated as a personal opinion not to be taken as an islamic reference for Muslims

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:27:12 +0000

Since when does Hosni lead the nation in prayer?

By: nisse

nisse — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:58:26 +0000

Who will rid us of these turbulent priests?
You, me and all others who care. The real question is how can we do it?