Interesting piece in Foreign Policy on the rise of sharia courts in jihadist-held Sinai where there is almost no government control.
In the Sinai Peninsula, where government buildings and checkpoints have been bombarded by rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and car bombs on a near-daily basis in recent weeks, the Egyptian state is losing ground to ultraconservative Islamists with an alternative vision for rule of law. The growing influence of self-taught sharia judges who uphold the Quran over Egyptian law reflects an alarming erosion of state sovereignty in the Sinai Peninsula. In late August, state courts in North Sinai were forced to transfer all of their cases to the comparatively stable jurisdiction of Ismailiya, in the face of escalating attacks by armed extremists targeting government buildings and security personnel. This week, two prominent sharia judges were among 15 hard-line Salafis arrested on charges of inciting terrorist attacks, as the Egyptian government struggles to contain rising extremism. But despite the current crackdown, it is clear that the deeply entrenched sharia courts of North Sinai are here to stay.
Since the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, the already fragile government in Sinai has been further crippled by a wave of armed attacks, ambushes, and car bombings by militants equipped with increasingly sophisticated weaponry stolen from police stations or smuggled across Egypt’s borders with Libya and Sudan. The escalation of violence has forced the closure of a critical police station in Arish and the evacuation of other government buildings, creating an institutional vacuum that sharia courts are opportunistically exploiting.
The outsourcing of traditional law enforcement functions to non-state actors is reminiscent of a pattern seen in failed states like Somalia, where powerful Islamic courts with their own private militias and ties to al Qaeda seized control over vast swaths of the country in 2006. While the sharia courts of Sinai are nowhere near as institutionalized as those in Somalia, they similarly aspire to absorb the functions of state institutions that are failing to govern.
In an unofficial sharia court in the Egyptian governorate of North Sinai, Sheikh Abu Faisal is slowly building the infrastructure of a parallel Islamic state in plain view of a government he regards as illegal and undemocratic. A former agricultural engineer who taught himself sharia jurisprudence in the jail cell where he was detained on charges of involvement in the 2004 bombings at tourist resorts in Sharm al-Sheikh, Abu Faisal has since become one of the most powerful sharia judges in North Sinai, hearing dozens of cases every week at the House of Sharia Judgment in Arish and another court in Sheikh Zuweid — among at least 14 informal Islamic courts that have been established since the 2011 revolution.