By Taylor Luck

AMMAN – Fresh off surprise electoral victories in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, Islamists face both a golden opportunity and an uncertain political landscape.

As Islamists take their turn at governance after decades in the wings, observers and politicians say the movements face several challenges that will dictate the future success of political Islam across the region.

The solution

Despite its absence from the recent election campaign, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said it is set out to prove its slogan “Islam is the solution”.

After garnering over 40 per cent of the popular vote in this month’s legislative elections, Egyptian Islamists say they will carry through a campaign agenda of rooting out corruption and political reform, policies which they claim are at the heart of Islamic teachings.

“The Holy Koran is not only a religious book, it’s a guide to social and political reform,” Mahmoud Hussein, secretary general of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, told The Jordan Times.

“After years of corruption, years of unemployment, years without freedoms, it is the right time for the Arab people to return to this guide as we enter a new era.”

Islamists are to observe respect for minorities, equal application of the law, and women’s rights that stem from fundamentals of Islamic ideology, which they claim are in line with modern democratic theory, starting with the concept of umma (nation).

While secular political theory states that the people are the source of power, Islamist ideology that the umma is the source of power, a concept rooted in the earliest teachings of Prophet Mohammad.

“People, citizens and umma are different words for the same concept. In many ways Islam predates modern democratic theory,” said Rheil Gharaibeh, Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood executive bureau member and head of the Amman-based Centre for Umma Studies.

“At the end of the day, the call to Islam is a call for reform.”

read more on Jordan Times: