Is Sisi the Leader of Moderate Islam? Very interesting article today about Sisi vs. MB

Submitted by PezDispenser (Israel), May 9, 2014 at 12:52

http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-sisi-turns-islam-islamists-132027367.html

"Striking a pious tone that sets him apart from former president Hosni Mubarak, Sisi also appears to be taking on the mantle of a religious reformer. He has blamed outdated "religious discourse" for holding back Egypt.

"I see that the religious discourse in the entire Islamic world has cost Islam its humanity," Sisi said in an interview televised on May 5. "This requires us, and for that matter all leaders, to review their positions."

[...]

"Sisi has said there is no such thing as a "religious state" - challenging a central Islamist concept." [...]

Sisi has lamented interpretations of Islam that fail to keep up with the times: "We have frozen this. It has been hundreds of years," he said in the interview broadcast on May 5.

In a meeting with tourism executives in late April, Sisi addressed the question of how "religious discourse" had damaged the tourism industry - an engine of the economy repeatedly hit by Islamist attacks over the years.

Sisi said the sector had suffered from a religious discourse "not linked to concepts and developments of the age".

"There must be an enlightened religious discourse to protect society from alien ideas," he said, according to a statement posted on the official Facebook page of his campaign."

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