Shortly before leaving Cairo on a trip to the US capital, Nader Bakkar, assistant to the president of the Salafist Nour Party, told a Saudi newspaper that his party “has destroyed claims by the Muslim Brotherhood for 80 years that Islam is the Muslim Brotherhood.”
It was another message to Washington that the forces of political Islam are varied and include many parties and camps, and are not exclusive to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Since their creation over the past three years, Salafist parties have tried to make contact with Washington and spheres of influence there, despite deep differences on issues such as women’s rights, equal rights for minorities, the meaning of applying Islamic Sharia and relations with Israel.
The Nour Party is not the only Salafist group making an effort in Washington; some leaders of Al-Watan Party are also trying to introduce themselves in the US capital, to open communication channels with decision making circles and spheres of influence in the US, in the hope of building good relations with Washington.
The visit by the Nour representative is not the first and will not be the last, but the timing of this visit is very significant. It comes after the new Egyptian constitution was approved, which some view as a key milestone after the events of 3 July in which Nour was the sole representative of the political Islam current. It comes as no surprise that Nour Party leaders promoted the new constitution, although it did not include articles the party had insisted on in the 2012 Constitution — especially those pertaining to the state’s Islamic identity and the role and interpretation of Sharia.
The fact that the interim government blacklisted the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group a few weeks ago and is asking other countries to recognise the repercussions of this classification and not interact with the group or its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, is certain to impact the nature of this visit.
The visit is paralleled by intense efforts on the part of several Arab states in the US capital propagating that the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing more than one of many political Islam groups that include centrists, moderates, Salafists, fundamentalists, jihadists and radicals. Also, that it would be a mistake to assume the Muslim Brotherhood is the sole representative of moderate political Islam. This new campaign is linked to earlier efforts that began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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