{"id":702,"date":"2012-06-16T00:51:32","date_gmt":"2012-06-16T00:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=702"},"modified":"2013-04-10T21:40:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T21:40:42","slug":"salafi-sex-scandals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/salafi-sex-scandals\/","title":{"rendered":"Salafi Sex Scandals"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n

Gatestone Institute<\/em><\/p>\n

Sheikh Ali Wanis, an Egyptian parliament member and prominent figure in the Nour Party \u2014 the Salafi party which preaches a return to early Islam based on Muhammad’s practices \u2014 was recently caught in a “compromising position” with a female other than his legal spouse(s). According to officialreports<\/a>, police found a parked car on a dark farm road and went to investigate. They found a man, with the Salafi trademark beard, performing an “indecent act” with a “young girl,” who was later reported as being 19-years-old.<\/p>\n

First, the Salafi MP told police that she was his fianc\u00e9; later, he claimed the teenage girl was his niece. One\u00a0video clip<\/a>\u00a0shows Wanis immediately after he was arrested by police, imploring one of the officers not to report him.<\/p>\n

Now, however, that the police did expose him \u2014 and now that it has beenshown<\/a>\u00a0that the girl is neither his fianc\u00e9 nor his niece \u2014 Wanis’ story haschanged yet again<\/a>: according to him, this was all a “set up” by the ruling military and its security apparatus, all meant to defame him and the Salafi Nour party (somewhat reminiscent of when another Salafi politician told police that his face was bandaged because he was injured in a carjacking \u2014 when in fact he had a cosmetic nose job).<\/p>\n

Still trying to maintain an aura of piety, Wanis even quoted the Koran in a statement meant to exonerate him as falsely accused: “O you who believe! If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly, and afterwards become full of repentance for what you have done” (Koran 49:6).<\/p>\n

And what did his “ultraconservative” and “upright” Salafi colleagues do \u2014 they who constantly preach “morality,” the need for the hijab, and the segregation of the sexes”? Did they renounce him? Perhaps a bit of public whipping, to atone for his sins? Did they, in “righteous indignation,” do what two Egyptian brothers recently did when they thought their sister was being “immoral” \u2014\u00a0slaughter her, the mother, and aunt<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Not at all. After Friday prayers, hundreds of protesting Salafis marched out in the streets with Wanis, shouting anti-police slogans and conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

Just as Egyptian secularists have long argued, Islamists like the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood hide behind a mantle of piety and morality \u2014 yet, when it comes to it, such piety and morality is not something they strive to live by, but rather a weapon to use against non-Islamists, who are by default always portrayed as corrupt, immoral, etc.<\/p>\n

Quick to grow beards and have a\u00a0zabiba\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 the callous forehead mark produced by head-banging on the floor during Muslim prayers \u2014 Islamists like Wanis are more concerned with outer signs of morality, even as they engage in forbidden sexual relations, which are banned on pain of death by their own Sharia. They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.<\/p>\n

Yet there is more to it than this. Operating according to the Islamic notion ofniyya<\/em>, or “intention,” no doubt the Salafis have concluded that, even if Wanis is guilty, admitting it only harms the Islamist movement’s progress \u2014 hence, the best strategy is to deny it. After all, in the words of their prophet Muhammad, “War is deceit” \u2014 and the Islamists have certainly been\u00a0treating the elections as war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking of equivocation and sex, immediately before this scandal, another prominent Egyptian Salafi,\u00a0Osama al-Qusi<\/a>, declared that it is permissible to view sex scenes in movies \u2014 “so long as the plot calls for it,” concluding, in the words of Muhammad, that “deeds are judged according to intentions.”<\/p>\n

Sex scandals can strike any politician’s career. What is important, here, however, is that a sex scandal has just struck the one political party in Egypt whose only appeal is that it stands for morality, religion, and “family values.” It has nothing else to offer \u2014 and now it doesn’t even have this, as its thin veneer of piety continues to slip away.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92012 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim Gatestone Institute Sheikh Ali Wanis, an Egyptian parliament member and prominent figure in the Nour Party \u2014 the Salafi party which preaches a return to early Islam based on Muhammad’s practices \u2014 was recently caught in a “compromising position” with a female other than his legal spouse(s).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[118,33,227],"tags":[1035,1017,139,1043,30,1060,1030,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-bk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-all-violence-on-copts-from-sex-slavery-to-calls-of-genocide-in-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":0},"title":"It’s All Violence on Copts: From Sex Slavery to Calls of Genocide in Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Posts from\u00a0Jihad Watch Egypt's Salafi Party Objects to Banning Sex Slavery Considering that the abduction, enslavement, rape, and trafficking of Coptic Christian girls, especially minors, in Egypt is at an all time high \u2014 according to US lawyers,\u00a0550 such cases have been documented\u00a0in the last five years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6796,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-jesus-demands-sharia-law-and-jizya-tribute\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":1},"title":"‘Muslim’ Jesus Demands Sharia Law and Jizya Tribute","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Time and again, Muslims, especially those in Egypt,\u00a0project Islamic thinking onto Christians: thus the Coptic church has been\u00a0accused\u00a0of smuggling and storing weapons in its churches to take over the nation (when in fact mosques are regularly exposed housing illegal weapons for the jihad); of kidnapping and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6816,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-study-exposes-scandalous-fatwas-of-brotherhood-and-salafis-in-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":2},"title":"New Study Exposes Scandalous Fatwas of Brotherhood and Salafis in Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ Gatestone Institute As the full ramification of the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s year in power continues to be exposed, a new study by Al Azhar\u2019s Fatwa Committee dedicated to exploring the fatwas, or Islamic decrees, issued by the Brotherhood and Salafis\u2014the Islamists\u2014was recently published. 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