The Wasat Party in Egypt Promoting a Liberal Political...

The Wasat Party has slowly become an important opposition party throughout the years that promotes a more liberal political environment in Egypt. The article explains that before the Wasat Party had the legal status of an official party, the foundation was being formed secretively by young leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. The young leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were considering democratization to be a better option because of the positive impacts in had on other countries around the world. Moreover, the young leaders didn’t desire the repression they had to go through because of the strict interpretation of the Shari‘a, the Islamic law. The Shari‘a condemned aspects Therefore, the young leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood had to keep their intentions of their aspiring new political party secret until it was exposed to the regime. The Wasat Party offered more liberal interpretation of the Shari’a as well as provides different ideas of what undermined the Islamic core values the differed from the Muslim Brotherhood. There are three important ideological principles that characterize the Wasat Party that differ from the Muslim Brotherhood. The first ideological principle is the interpretation of the Shari‘a and its role in politics. For the Muslim Brotherhood the Shari‘a is a set of binding rules that have a major role in politics. They are fully bound by the rules and provide various measures of repression to any violators of such rules. In contrast, the Wasat Party