THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:

In Egypt, Islamists Reach Out to Wary Secularists (EMAD MEKAY, 9/21/11, NY Times)

Egypt, a fecund breeding ground for Arab and Islamic ideologies, is witnessing the birth of yet another: Islamic liberalism.

Nageh Ibrahim, the ideologue of the Islamic Group, an umbrella organization for Egyptian militant student groups that in the 1980s and 1990s took up arms against President Hosni Mubarak, was one of the first to use the term, in an apparent bid to woo secularists into a rapprochement.

"Liberalism has so many good sides that do not run afoul of the universal principles of the Islamic Shariah," he told an audience drawn from the Wafd Party in July. "We have to search for a form of Islamic liberalism compatible with the norms of Egyptian society while not alienating other forces."

Mr. Ibrahim, whose books advocated violence as a means for changing the Mubarak regime, now argues that Islamists and secularists have more common ground than differences. [...]

Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al Azhar, the bastion of Sunni Islam scholarship that prides itself on a moderate form of Egyptian Islam, issued a document that seeks to marry secular attitudes with conservative theories.

The Azhar Charter, drafted in August, declares that a civil state governed by law will not contradict Islam and that individual liberties should be guaranteed in the future constitution and laws.

The charter eased the way for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most organized political group, which is widely expected to win the coming parliamentary elections, to promise not to monopolize the drafting of the constitution. The Brotherhood has said that all political orientations, including the country's six million Christians, should take part.

There are a substantial number "of similarities between Islamists and liberals," Amr Hamzawi, one of the rising secular stars, told a Wafd Party gathering. "At a minimum, both sides are looking for a country where the rule of law and real citizenship prevail while peaceful change of power is guaranteed."

Follow @brothersjudd