First Look at Egypt’s Constitutional Declaration

Al-Monitor ^ | July 8, 2013 | Bassem Sabry

[Olog-hai]

The constitutional declaration shows the strong leverage the Salafist Al-Nour party has on the transitional process, already blocking two prime minister nominations. One of the main objections to the 2012 Constitution by the liberal opposition was to the Salafist-written Article 219, which elaborated on the “principles of Islamic Sharia” stated in the famous Article 2 rather than keeping the text open-ended and more flexible. The controversial Article 219 actually remains. In fact, the previous articles 1 (which mainly spoke of democracy, identity and citizenship), 2 and 219 have been merged into a unique, new, Article 1. The new article reads:

The Arab Republic Of Egypt is a state whose system is democratic, based on the principle of citizenship; Islam is the religion of the state; Arabic is its official language; and the principles of Islamic Sharia—which include its general evidences, its fundamental and jurisprudential rules, and its recognized sources in the doctrines of the people of the Sunna and Jam’aa (i.e., Sunnism)—are the main source of legislation.

Interestingly, direct references to pan-Arabism and Africanism have also been dropped, either for the sake of efficiency or to avoid another wedge issue behind the scenes over wordings. …

[ClearCase_guy]

Closer to the Caliphate. It’s not about Africa. It’s not about pan-Arabism. It’s about Sharia.

[cripplecreek]

Compare to the Hamas Covenant which is widely seen as a blue print for a "Caliphatic" constitution.

Hamas Covenant 1988