UNTIL RECENTLY, the mere mention of their name could instill fear into the hearts of the masses and make grown men weep. A stereotypical image of the Muslim Brotherhood has been engraved in the minds of the public over the years — bearded, galabeyya-wearing fanatics whose only answer to the pressing social, political and economic problems of the day was “Islam is the solution!”

Those days may be coming to an end. In the wake of the banned-but-tolerated group’s strongest ever showing at the polls during the first two stages of this fall’s parliamentary elections, Al-Ikhwan is adamant that it wants to play ball —fairly and by the rules of the game.

At least that’s what they want you to think. The reality remains somewhat murkier, though there is no doubting that the Brothers polled their strongest showing ever, even as their supporters instigated the very electoral violence for which Al-Ikhwan usually blames the ruling National Democratic Party.

At press time, Brotherhood-backed independents had won 47 seats on the eve of the second runoff election last month, tripling the 15 seats it held in the outgoing parliament and making it almost guaranteed to become the largest opposition bloc when the new People’s Assembly session convenes later this month. (For more on the Brotherhood’s electoral success, see our election coverage starting on page 30.)

While the Brotherhood is unlikely to be allowed to form a party any time soon, the nation’s court system may well give Muslim Brotherhood dissident Abou El-Ela Madi’s Al-Wasat organization approval to form the nation’s first ever political Islamic party in a ruling expected later this month.

Why Al-Wasat and not Al-Ikhwan? It seems Madi’s party is not ‘that’ kind of Islamist, but more of what the founder carefully classifies as a ‘civil party governed by the laws of Islam.’ Al-Wasat, literally meaning ‘moderate’ or ‘medium,’ has received considerable attention in recent months after being approved by the advisory committee of the Political Parties Court. In October, the final court decision, which rarely conflicts with that of the committee, was postponed to December to allow government officials more time to review the committee’s decision. Madi’s original proposal to the court stands apart from past attempts to form an Islamist political party in that it calls for gender, religious and social equality on all levels.

Omar Mohsen Abou El-Ela Madi, founder of the Islamist Al-Wasat, says his party welcomes to Christians, too.

“In the end, you’re talking about common law, which cannot be compromised. Our program clearly focuses on safeguarding the rights of minorities because these are basic human rights,” Madi told us last month. “You do not have to refer to Islamic law to know that.”

It’s because of this relatively progressive interpretation of Shariah, many believe, that the government is considering allowing Al-Wasat into the political arena, although the initial advisory group decision was handed down before the Brotherhood’s strong showing last month. Many political observers continue to point out that Madi’s initiative could attract the Brotherhood’s more moderate members and allow decades of pent-up energy to be defused in a controlled environment.

Madi categorically refuses the implication that he is out to lure away members from the organization in which he was once a key figure. Although Al-Wasat was initially a Brotherhood initiative that first attempted to launch in 1996 when Madi was still a member, the two groups have since gone their separate ways because of an early procedural conflict which coincided with the outlawed party’s call for violent resistance, which led to Madi’s departure.

“Al-Wasat is open to all Egyptians,” asserts Madi, claiming his party is not engaged in any kind of special recruiting effort that could see it fall into the same trap as the Brotherhood and be accused of forming an illegal group, an offense under the nation’s emergency laws.

And there are others who believe it highly unlikely that the government is willing to use Al-Wasat to provide Brotherhood members with a legal venue for political participation.

Khaled Habib Watani Editor-in-Chief Youssef Sidhom remains skeptical of Al-Wasat’s interfaith credentials.

“The government does not think in this manner,” says Ahmed Thabet, a professor of political science at Cairo University. “It operates in a strict security sense, which means opposing any religious party. It simply follows a strategy of isolating and breaking up the group and is completely unwilling to negotiate on this matter.”

But why then, after three rejections spread over a period of almost 10 years, has the government now decided to give preliminary approval to Al-Wasat? In each case (1996, 1998, 2004), court officials concluded the party’s program offered nothing new to the existing field, but finally reversed that decision on appeal after Madi submitted the most recent revision of his party’s platform. The nine-page document issued by the advisory committee concludes Al-Wasat’s proposal is indeed unique in that it emphasizes the role of using Islamic tradition in inspiring reform while maintaining the rights of women and Christians and offering an extensive economic reform plan.

In fact, the report said, Al-Wasat’s economic reform plan was similar in many ways to the legislation the Nazif government has recently enacted, particularly as regards the new tax law.

Yet critics continue to question the extent to which the party will be able to live up to its ‘moderate’ label.

“Does the program allow for equal rights for men and women?” asks Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of Watani, the national Coptic weekly published in Cairo. “Does it recognize the rights of Christians, including those to testify in court and take leadership positions over Muslims? Is interest in financial dealings halal? These are basic questions that need to be answered. Otherwise, people will always doubt the party’s real motives.”

To each of Sidhom’s questions, Madi’s response is simple: “Yes.” Nothing in Shariah prohibits such demands, according to the party’s interpretation.

Sidhom remains unconvinced. Despite having warm personal relationships with Muslims and even members of the Brotherhood, he claims there are simply no guarantees Christians will be treated as equals under a declared Islamist state. The reason for this is that final decisions will always be justified by ‘the word of God,’ which is always subject to interpretation and leaves little room for argument, he claims.

“A few years back, [Watani] hosted Dr. Essam El-Erian and we discussed the concepts of a civil society versus a religious society,” recalls Sidhom, referring to the senior Brotherhood leader. “Dr. Essam gave a magnificent example of a democratic society, but when you add the salt and pepper that is creating that society in the shadow of an Islamic nation, I have questions that need to be answered. Will the final decisions be made based on true democracy, or the word of God?”

As a founding member of the original Al-Wasat program, Rafik Habib believes there is little conflict between democracy and the party’s interpretation of Shariah. The writer and activist says he could realistically see a system working to selectively enforce the tenets of Shariah so as not conflict with the beliefs of the country’s Christian minority. In most cases, though, he stresses that belonging to the same culture and tradition is what matters the most.

“My years of experience with Islamists has proved to me that, in every stage, the political and social debate between the faithful, regardless of their religion, is easy and always reaches compromise,” says Habib. “In experiencing, studying and practicing this issue, I’ve discovered that, as Christian and Muslim Egyptians, our implementations [of those compromises] on the social and political levels are identical. The real difference might be more apparent between an [Egyptian] Christian and one belonging to another civilization.”

Diligently thumbing his prayer beads — much in the same manner as Madi — while defending the party’s program, Habib makes it especially hard for outsiders to believe he has left Al-Wasat.

A prominent leader in the Protestant Christian community, Habib’s departure prior to the publication of Al-Wasat’s third program in 2004 dealt a huge blow to the party’s image of interfaith tolerance, according to analysts including Thabet.

Yet Habib says he did not leave on bad terms and stays in daily contact with Madi, not as an activist or politician, but as an old friend. Since their first meeting in the mid-1990s, the two have worked closely together to launch another relatively successful initiative in late 2003: the Kifaya movement. Today, Habib is an active member of Kifaya, but has chosen to take a step back from Al-Wasat, citing his interest as well as the party’s own.

“Distancing myself from the procedures is not the same as distancing myself from the initiative,” says Habib. “In the end, I will be the first person to celebrate the approval of Al-Wasat, because it will constitute a tangible addition to the project that I have faith in, whether or not I was a founder. I realized from the beginning that this was a transitional phase during which I preferred to be an observer.”

That phase, he says, was different from the two previous ones because it was a time when party members, especially former Brotherhood types, were putting great effort into distinguishing themselves from the outlawed group. The result is an even more sophisticated Al-Wasat program that received historic preliminary governmental approval and a categorical rejection from the Brotherhood.

For Habib, the party is still in the midst of transition, which is why he has not yet made the decision to go back. Still, he says he cannot rule out coming back in the near future.

“I realize that Al-Wasat is expressing itself in new ways that might mean a change in ideology, but then again, it might not,” says Habib. “It’s definitely possible that party policy is merely developing and becoming more complex rather than completely straying from the founding ideology.”

Out of the 200 founding members who back Al-Wasat’s 2004 platform, Christians now number in the single digits. Nevertheless, Madi downplays Habib’s departure and remains optimistic, saying he’s confident more will join once the party earns official status and the green light to run an active campaign.

For analysts like Thabet, “Al-Wasat is still a ‘personal party’ that could do more to increase its popularity without risking accusations of engaging in illegal campaigning for the Brotherhood. “Aside from three or four people now working for its establishment, it really has no organizational structure,” he says. “What party members need to do now is hit the streets and try to appeal to common people.”

Yet even dissenters like Sidhom say the number of Christian members who join up for the party is neither here nor there. The size of Christian membership in any political organization, he opines, is relatively meaningless to the organization’s agenda.

“I think the registration of Christian members in Al-Wasat is a healthy sign, just as their presence is healthy in any other political group,” says Sidhom. “But having Christians as members of your party does not mean anything. We have Christians that are members of liberal-leftist groups, Communist groups, conservative groups and the NDP. It’s only a display of the diversity of their political beliefs.”

Just as moderate Islamist movements have been successful in earning government recognition in several Arab countries including Jordan, Yemen, Morocco and Tunisia, Madi says he believes in his chances of not only gaining government approval, but effecting change in the political arena. He need look no further afield than Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina for inspiration, but change will come only if he can attract a base of real support —something even stalwart parties such as Al-Wafd seem unable to do today.

“We’re the unrepresented section of Egyptian society,” says Madi. “Our segment makes up a large part of this society. It’s made up of people who are moderately conservative, religious, but are not afforded a place in the political picture. What are available are other parties that don’t represent the Islamic segment, or a banned group that puts its members in constant danger.”

But finding success will not prove easy, warns Thabet, who believes the organization needs to put more effort into clearly conveying its ideology, especially regarding the role of religion in society.

So far, Al-Wasat has done little to publicize its political agenda and make clear its stances on issues concerning its interpretation of Shariah. It has instead focused its latest program on tackling social, economic and even foreign policy issues facing the country with hardly more than general comments on the exact role of religion in society.

To attract more supporters, especially moderate Brotherhood members, and become a distinct entity from the Brotherhood, Thabet says the party’s policy must be more direct and not shy away from being slightly exclusive. Otherwise, Al-Wasat risks making the same mistake as the outlawed party and ending up with a large number of members that do not necessarily agree on very basic matters.

“There are many factions inside the Muslim Brotherhood itself,” says Thabet. “There are people who are more accepting of the rights of women and minorities. Others are more stringent. In the end, Brotherhood leadership looked at this as a possible threat to the group’s unity. So the group has historically taken the position of not declaring a single set of beliefs such as the role of women and Shariah and the role of Copts. Al-Wasat must do that.”

Sidhom agrees, saying the party’s agenda cannot be limited to “organizing interfaith iftars during Ramadan.” It must not only take clear-cut stances, but follow up equal rights promises made to Christians and women with action and guarantees in order to maintain and increase numbers representing their vital memberships.

But if distinction is what is needed, it is exactly what Al-Wasat members sought in preparing the new program, says Madi. By preparing a full economic and social agenda, the party broke traditional stereotypes that limited Islamic parties to speaking only on matters of religion. The choice also enables the party to present itself as a real political contender that holds the answers to people’s problems, not just ones that relate to Islam.

In addition to being open to membership by people from other religions, party guidelines strongly oppose theocratic rule. On this prickly issue even Madi thinks it’s difficult to win over the opposition, because, he believes, their concerns are based on false assumptions.

“Do we have to present a restrictive, radical program in order for it to be Islamic?” Madi queries. “Why can’t we present one that’s moderate and balanced and tell people this is what a real Islamic program is about?”

The Political Parties Court will convene on December 3 to determine the fate of Al-Wasat and two other parties, including that of one-time Nasserist Hamdin Sabbahy’s Al-Karama (Dignity) Party. et