Egypt’s great divide

In this Nile River town in Upper Egypt, a pious and politically active Islamist group is handing out pamphlets that warn of what it claims are the dangers of a secular state. “Gay marriage! Alcohol! Nude beaches!” the fliers fearfully predict. The pamphlets represent an extreme end of post-Mubarak Egypt’s intense debate over the country’s political future. On one side stand some Islamists who contend that, as Egypt is a majority Muslim country, basic citizen rights and duties are enshrined in the tenets of Islam. Any other path, they assert, takes Egypt to perdition. On the other side are Egyptians who assert that the key guarantor of all citizen rights is the “civil state," whose rules trump religious doctrines. Religious minorities — chiefly Coptic Christians — also favor a civil state, while agreeing with Muslims who want their own religious authorities to deal with personal status issues like marriage and