"...Alaa Hamid's case is yet another example of the growing alliance between religious authority and the conservative elements within the ruling establishment to suppress freedom of expression. The aim is to thwart moves toward greater democracy, which has been spurred on by the collapse of the authoritarian regimes of eastern Europe.
These conservative politicians argue for "responsible restraint", and call for the application of Shariah, so-called Islamic law, and, in some cases, for Islamic government. A few years ago, they succeeded in extending to Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Council the legal right to ban books...
..The term Shariah in the Koran means "the way", in the same sense that Jesus used the word when he said "I am the way..."
...The various, and sometimes conflicting, schools of Shariah came into existence at least 200 years after the Prophet's death. These schools of jurisprudence developed legal systems based largely on the traditional tribal law of pre-Islamic Arabia..."
Source: Karim Alrawi, New Statesman and Society, 'Egypt's Rushdie', 1/31,1992 v. 5, no. 187, Pg. 27