From 2004: In Mubarak’s Egypt, Democracy Is an Idea Whose Time Has Not Yet Come

“Mubarak fears that if he widens the margins of democracy things will happen,” Essam al-Eryam, one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most prominent middle-aged leaders, told me at the Brotherhood’s headquarters. “There will be democracy here, sooner or later. It requires patience, and we are more patient because we are, as an organization, seventy-six years old. You have already seen some countries—Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran—describe themselves as Islamic regimes. There’s a diversity of models, even among the Sunni and the Shia. Egypt can present a model that is more just and tolerant.”