The Egyptian people have given political Islam a chance and now see it as something to fear, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi told Fox News in an interview aired Monday.
Sisi told
"Special Report" anchor Bret Baier, in an interview taped in Cairo on Sunday, that the Muslim Brotherhood claimed to the Egyptian public that their form of "political Islam" could be successfully practiced after the Arab Spring in 2011.
Now that it has failed, Sisi, a Sunni Muslim, has
declared that Islam must be reformed and the Islamic State (ISIS) must be fought and defeated.
"They had a chance, and now it is time for the whole world to pass its judgment on political Islam," Sisi told Fox News.
"I really hope that you go to the streets and ask them and you will see that they have real fear of … Islamic politics, of political Islam ruling of any country," Sisi said. " At least in Egypt here you will find this fear."
Religious extremists have turned the lives of Egyptians into "a living hell," Sisi said. "How is that possible with a pretext of religious ideology?"
The president cited his country's 7,000 years of civilization that is now challenged by "distorted religious rhetoric," terrorism and extremism that seeks "the devastation of the whole world and humanity."
He said his call for an end to extremism is not a revolution against religion, but a revolution "to support and reinstate the right meaning of religion, the right presentation of what religion stands for.
"We are fighting all the misconceptions that are created by extreme ideologies which, by turn, create terrorism that is threatening the whole world," he said.
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