(JPost) — While Egypt’s former president and interior minister stand trial for corruption, another debate threatens to rip open divisions over the shape the country will take in the post-Hosni Mubarak era: the role of religion.

In an editorial this week, Al-Ahram — Egypt’s state-run, highest-circulation paper — argued that the debate over whether Egypt should have an Islamic or secular state is “a gross waste of time.”

“One reason for the acrimony of this debate is that the nature of the Islamic state is unclear. For many people, an Islamic state is a culmination of Sharia, and Sharia is all about corporal punishment,” it said. “This is untrue. Sharia is not about stoning and flagellation and the severing of limbs, but about preserving life and enforcing justice.”

“Islamic Sharia is about obligations as much as it is about rights,” the paper argued. “Sharia is also about equality. The Prophet Mohamed admonished Muslims against punishing the poor and letting the rich get away. He said, “societies before you failed because they let the thieves go if they were rich and punished them if they were poor.”

A Sharia-based state, it said, would still respect the rights of minorities. “When Caliph Omar visited Jerusalem, he stepped out of the church to pray, for fear that if he prayed inside Muslims would be tempted to do the same in the future, which may endanger the sanctity of this Christian house of worship,” it said.