Know “Justice”, Know “Peace”

An adviser to Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi let slip an interesting statement in the wake of an interview with the Times of Israel. While the interview focused on Salafi leader Emad Abdel Ghafour’s statements regarding the Camp David Accords with Israel, the piece ended noting:

“We want Al-Watan party to be an effective contributor in building a realm of dignity and social justice. We want the Islamic Sharia to be a reality we can live in, not rhetoric anymore,” Abdel Ghafour said at his party’s launch.

Responding to a decision by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court to ban political slogans in election propaganda, Abdel Ghafour said that a distinction must be made between explicit religious promises, such as the promise to win heaven in return for voting for a certain party, and more neutral words such as “justice” which could be misconstrued as religious.

Why, precisely would a term like justice be misconstrued as “religious”? Because of course, in the Islamic context, there is no justice absent the Sharia, and indeed it is “unjust” to force men to live by the laws of men, rather than the law of God.

This is part of the great difficulty Western observers have when viewing the events now rising out of the Middle East. When the Muslim Brotherhood founds a “Freedom and Justice Party” they mean freedom from secular authority, and justice via the application of Sharia.

This is not (merely) dishonest rhetoric designed to fool Westerners, although it has that result. It has more in common with a lawyer’s legalese, where terms are strictly defined but not always as would understood by the lay person. Not an outright lie, but designed to obscure, rather than illuminate.

Which begs the question:

If we don’t understand what Ghafour means when he says “Justice”, do we understand what he means when he says “peace”?