Over the coming 16 months or so Egypt will have parliamentary and presidential elections. In the past the regime has tried to use judges to conceal the rigging of elections, but this year the judges refused to play their part in the charade. And so, the regime has decided to abolish judicial supervision altogether as well as refuse international monitoring of the voting. All this confirms that these parliamentary and presidential elections will be another electoral farce through which President Mubarak will either hang on to power or bequeath it to his son, Gamal.

The president, of course, charges the Ministry of the Interior to supervise — meaning rig — the elections. The details of organizing the actual fraud — the arrests, the beatings, the intimidation of the disagreeable candidates and voters; the printing, distribution, and falsification of ballots, votes and counts; etc — are carried out by thousands of police officers, policemen, civil servants, and more than a few thugs who are called in for special projects during the campaigns and elections.

It is a curiosity of our life, that these men who rig and falsify elections, like most Egyptians, dutifully say their prayers, fast in Ramadan, give alms, and go on pilgrimage. They ask their wives and daughters to wear the hijab. Indeed, it may come as news to outsiders, but these civil servants do not feel that the election fraud they commit is a sin, or an offense against their God. In their thinking, these election tactics are unconnected to their religion and thus, the perpetrators feel neither shame nor guilt.

Yet at the same time, these same police and civil servants would certainly refuse a presidential order to drink alcohol or not to fast in Ramadan because they would refuse any mortal’s order to disobey God. Why is it then that Moslems see alcohol consumption and failing to fast as an offence against God and view electoral fraud as just “carrying out my orders”?

It is because the books on Islamic law, all written well before elections existed, do not mention elections or election fraud. The gate of ijtihad, or individual judgment in matters of Islamic law, was closed centuries ago, and most Islamic law experts over generations have limited their teachings of Islamic law to the repetition of dogma as it was pronounced a thousand years ago. Little has changed. And, it must also be said that many jurists throughout our history allied themselves with despotic rulers. And, while the religious precepts were taught on many aspects of contemporary life, the civic rights (or duties) of Muslims were ignored, or worse, were distorted to prop up despots and exempt them from judgment.

In Islam, sins are divided into major and minor sins. Major sins warrant punishment by God in this life and the afterlife. Although jurists part on details, they all agree that bearing false witness is among the gravest of major sins. The sacred texts written a thousand years ago do not identify making false witness within the context of election rigging. Still, to rig an election with false results most certainly bears false witness. The misrepresentation prevents the winning candidate from obtaining the position which is his or her due, while giving the position to someone who does not deserve it. Indeed, one can argue that election rigging is much worse than bearing false witness, because bearing false witness deprives an individual or a family of their due, whereas rigging elections deprives the whole nation of its due.

If the Interior Ministry personnel associated the civic misdeed of election rigging to the religious sin of bearing false witness they would refuse to participate in the fraud. It is this limited understanding and application of Islam’s religious codes and standards that makes us susceptible to despotism and somewhat submissive in the face of injustice. It also helps explain why despotism is more widespread in Islamic countries than elsewhere.

Civil and political rights advance only in two cases: when the society recognizes religion as a promoter and defender of basic values — truth, justice and freedom, or when a society bases itself on an ethical concept whereby the collective human conscience is the ultimate arbiter which sets the criteria for virtue and honesty. However, in countries where religion is detached from human values — talents and resources go to waste, dooming those societies to falling behind in the march of civilization. Those who define religion and piety as set of procedures lead their followers to a false formal piety and undermine the natural sense of conscience, and right and wrong itself. Indeed, it can drive a man to behave appallingly while confident of his goodness, which has been unwisely determined by his correctly performing prescriptive religious obligations.

Today, the state of affairs in Egypt has sunk to rock bottom and it is no longer to possible to remain silent. Millions of Egyptians live in inhuman conditions — poverty, unemployment, disease, repression and unprecedented corruption. They have a right to a dignified and humane life. The change we demand will come from the top of the political pyramid and equally from the base. It is our duty to pressure the regime until it allows proper elections. But as we contemplate the road ahead, we must be mindful of our duty to associate election rigging as a grave sin, and a despicable crime against their country and countrymen. Only when that happens will the President’s call to falsify an election go unanswered. And, then will the future begin in Egypt.