(IPT) — With the Egyptian economy already worsening since the revolution began in January, Muslim Brotherhood operatives are demanding stricter regulations on behavior and dress that could damage the country’s tourism industry.
The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which functions as the Brotherhood’s political wing, wants to ban alcohol consumption on Egyptian streets and ban bikinis on the beach.
For their part, Egyptian Salafists (who advocate a form of Islamism more extreme than that practiced by the Brotherhood) aren’t just troubled by alcohol and bikinis. Abd al-Munim A-Shahhat, a spokesman for the Salafist group Dawa, said that the Egyptian pyramids, the sphinx and other monuments should be covered up with wax because they are “religiously forbidden.”
Likening these relics to idols covering the walls of Mecca in pre-Islamic times, A-Shahhat said Wednesday that “The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture.”
