In a move that has many forward-looking Egyptians concerned, the government recently allowed the Salafis to return to preaching in mosques and on television.
Soon after the June 2013 revolution in Egypt, which saw the ousting (and subsequent imprisonment) of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist groups—chief among them the Salafis—were banned from preaching. The logic was that they were the primary actors responsible for inciting the nation’s more zealous Muslims to attack the government targets, Coptic Christian churches, etc.
Thus their access to mosques and other outlets were severely curtailed.
According to Nabil Zaki, the former spokesman for Assembly Party of Egypt, this new move allowing the Salafis, particularly the Nour party, to make a comeback “is a major setback that will make it that much harder for the government to combat reactionary thinking, and this, after the Egyptian public had made great strides against such thinking…. Permitting the Salafi sheikhs to ascend to the pulpits again revives the bitter experiences of confronting this form of reactionary thinking , bringing us back to square one.”
Zaki and others also warned that this decision coincides with parliamentarian elections, meaning that the Salafi clerics will again use their influence and religious rhetoric to sway voters towards a more “reactionary” agenda.