Not Related To Islam

"The verdict under shariah for those who seek corruption on earth is to be fought, or crucified, or have their arms or legs cut off or be exiled from earth.
"Strike with an iron fist. Otherwise, the country will be lost at your hand and they'll say it is your fault. They'll say Islam doesn't know how to rule and that it's the Islamists who wrecked the country."
Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim

"The verdict against them under God's law is death.
Salafi cleric Mahmound Shaaban

Death to the heretics. To the secularists, to the socialists, to the wannabe democrats, to the Copts, to the unruly Egyptian youth committing to stone-throwing protests against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Death too to those who call themselves Muslims but whose faith is of insufficient substance; they are as good as apostates.

These two honourable clerics call upon their president, Mohammed Morsi to strike them down. Strike them all. Cut off their arms, their legs. Exile them from earth to an early grave. Where they will be unwelcome in Paradise. Their bodies will rot in the sacred soil of Egypt, and their souls will wander disconsolate for eternity.

Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammed el-Guindi one of two Egyptian activists killed during anti-government clashes in Cairo earlier this week.    Photograph by: Gianluigi Guercia , AFP/Getty Images

However, it seems that the Cairo government is not too dreadfully impressed by this singularly violent advice. The country's top prosecutor has ordered an official investigation into Mr. Shaaban for the issuance of his fatwa. Fearing that there will be those among his followers who will undertake a mission to mount the fatwa from notional theory to final reality.

And security has been improved around the homes of the country's main opposition figures as a result. The murder of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid, a reminder that Egypt followed Tunisia's lead in the Arab Spring, and has no notable wish to follow its lead in assassinating an opposition leader.  President Morsi and his prime minister have both denounced those edicts.

But there you have it, Islamic law, sharia, requires the killing of opposition figures. In response, the National Salvation Front spoke of Mr. Belaid's assassination that "sounds danger alarms fronm Tunisia to Cairo, and warns of the cancerous growth of terrorist groups cloaked by religion and carrying out a plot to liquidate the opposition morally and physically."

But wait, the Islamist clerics are just warming up: a third one has declared the sexual assaults on women are fully justified; those women enter Tahrir Square deliberately, provocatively. "They are going there to get raped", thundered cleric Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah. "These are devils named women... They speak with no femininity, no morals, no fear... Learn from Muslim women, be Muslims."

Muslim women, it appears, do not get raped. On the other hand, since late January at least 19 rapes were reported on one day alone. Mobs stripping women, penetrating them with sharp objects. If these are not Muslim women, what then are they? They are Muslim women dressed decorously, demurely, sometimes with full covering, and usually wearing the scarf. They are not immune to sexual assault.

Egyptian women demonstrate in Cairo's Tahrir Square on January 27, 2012 (AFP Photo/Khaled Desouki)

To his credit Mohammed Morsi's office stated that it "stresses its full rejection of hate speech cloaked by religion". All national religious and intellectual leaders are called upon "to stand as one line against unacceptable inciteful language".  Such edicts could lead to "sedition and disturbance", warned Prime Minister Hesham Kandil; for they "are not related to Islam".

Amazing.