What is happening from Pakistan to Turkey to Egypt is the struggle between the Pir and the Mir, the spiritual leadership and the secular leadership, which continues. This is not surprising since Prophet Mohammad combined the role of both the spiritual leader and the military leader in him. He was a unique person in all senses.

In most of the Sunni Islamic countries the tussle between the Pir and the Mir has still not been resolved as can be seen from the goings-on in Islamabad, Ankara and now Cairo. The Islamists in Ankara have insulted and weakened the armed forces and its many retired senior most leaders and made the secular military and judicial and academic establishment impotent (But Ankara issues daily military threats to Damascus).

In Pakistan the secular and spiritual have been messed up in with the growing conflict between military and ISI created Jihadis at the behest of Saudi Arabia and USA for their policy objectives. The ongoing struggle and confrontations is like the one during the Ottoman empire between the Ottoman Sultan-Caliphs and the powerful Janissary corps with the latter getting out of control or rogue and changing and even killing Sultans till they were decimated by the Sultan Mahmud II in 1826. Will or can the Pak military do the same to the home created monster of various terror groups and Jihadis! 

In Egypt the battle has only begun with outside interference from Washington and Riyadh.

Below is a good piece from Tel Aviv’s Harretz on the current situation in Egypt after the oath taking ceremony by just elected President Engineering Professor Morsi (In Indian politics the only qualification to be a successful politician is to win elections by hook or crook, quite often crook, but now Mumbai corporate houses decide who would be the President or the Finance minister among others, so that unregulated loot of Indian resources continues).

Harretz is an excellent paper (media in Israel is freer than in USA, Turkey or Pakistan)

With the military managing foreign policy, the chances of a full-blown war between Egypt and Israel are slim, despite rhetoric from some quarters of the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the liberation of Jerusalem.

What to expect from Egypt's Morsi
By Aymenn JawadAl-Tamimi | June 29, 2012 
(Published with permission from the author)

What to make of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi's election as president of Egypt? What seems to be the most likely outcome is something analogous tithe "constitutional settlements" of the early Roman Empire. That is, the military, like the Emperor Augustus in antiquity, will entrust to itself management of foreign policy, while granting Morsi (and a parliament, if new elections are allowed ) - akin to the Senate in Rome - considerable autonomy with regards to the direction of domestic affairs, even as the military has assumed control over the drafting of the constitution.

Indeed, such a settlement would work well for the military, because, despite its extensive control of the economy, the burden of resolving the economic crisis would ultimately rest in Morsi's hands. Currently, as Reuters reports, the country’s depleted foreign reserves can only cover "three months of import coverage," while the local currency debt has increased to 600 billion Egyptian pounds ($99 billion), up from 500 billion before the unrest began in January 2011.

The International Monetary Fund has indicated that a $3.2 billion loan will only be granted if the country gets its finances in order, but the prospects of such a resolution appear to be bleak. Having Morsi take responsibility, therefore, can prove useful in directing potential civilian anger away from the military. On the other hand, the perception of a settlement between the military and the president could help to attract foreign investment.

With the military managing foreign policy, the chances of a full-blown war between Egypt and Israel are slim, despite bellicose rhetoric emanating from some quarters of the Muslim Brotherhood calling for the liberation of Jerusalem and establishment of a "United Arab States." For one thing, Egypt lacks the means to launch and sustain a war against Israel. At the same time, however, one should not expect Egyptian firmness in dealing with rocket fire against the Jewish state or militant activity in the Sinai Peninsula.

In fact, one could well see the military adopt an approach toward militancy not dissimilar to the methods of the Pakistani security forces: that is, targeting those perceived to pose a direct threat to Egypt's stability, while lacking resolve at best, and at worst playing a double game with other militants in order to continue receiving U.S. aid.

As for the domestic scene, it is probable that the Islamization trend that has been apparent over the past five or so decades will not only continue but could also accelerate. When the likes of Hosni Mubarak were in charge, the arrangement was such that Islamist ideology was allowed to disseminate at ground level. Now that Egypt has an elected Islamist president, it is to be expected that sentiments on the ground will only become more hardline.

Although it is easy to dismiss outlandish claims that Morsi wants to reinstate the discriminatory jizya poll tax - essentially the equivalent of a Mafia protection racket - on Christians (the report is an uncorroborated rumor that can be traced to one obscure Arabic website), there is evidence that he would like to restrict the rights of non-Muslim minorities and women. Just under half of voters chose Ahmed Shafiq, but that will not act as a firm barrier against a gradualist approach to implementing Islamic law that many in the Brotherhood see as the ideal strategy to adopt.

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic magazine last year, Morsi made it clear that neither he nor the Brotherhood could tolerate the idea of a Christian or woman running for the presidency of Egypt.

While much has been made of a recent announcement by an advisor to Morsi that there are plans to appoint a Copt and a woman as vice-presidents, it should be appreciated that such positions are likely to be no more than symbolic. In fact, problems of discrimination against non-Muslims and women will in all likelihood only worsen under Morsi's presidency. Further, the spike in Salafist mob attacks on Coptic churches since the ousting of Mubarak - attacks usually sparked by the flimsiest rumors and trivialities - is unlikely to subside, and the authorities will probably continue to do nothing about it.

In the long run, chaos and instability are most likely to dominate the country’s future. Unlike Iran, which has, since the mid-1980s, implemented a major family planning program that has dramatically slowed population growth, Egypt’s population (83 million as of October 2011) continues to grow. It could reach100 million by 2020, with more than 99 percent of the population living on an area of land around the Nile only 2.5 times the size of Israel.

Even assuming Egypt can escape from its current economic crisis, there is no sign its economy can keep up with the pace of population growth even to sustain present standards of living. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian Islamists have on past occasions denounced family planning as a Western conspiracy to keep the number of Muslims in the world in check. They have shown no intention of implementing a program to reduce the birth rate.

Egypt is unlikely to become a "Somalia on the Nile" as economist and columnist David P. Goldman has predicted, but in the long-term, internal stability is a remote possibility.
   
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford, and an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org