The folly of Morsy's death sentence

Story highlights

• Ed Husain: Ex-Egyptian President Morsy sentenced to death. This is counterproductive, as Muslim Brotherhood holds great sway
• Brotherhood is not a monolith; has range of views. Future of Mideast democracy requires engaging its pluralists, modernizers, he says

Ed Husain is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.The author of "The Islamist" can be followed on Twitter via @Ed_Husain. The opinions in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)This month, former Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsy was sentenced to death by an Egyptian court. More trials and harsh sentences are expected. Today, more than 40,000 Islamists are in prison in Egypt.

"In Egypt, we have now broken the back of the Muslim Brotherhood," a senior government official there told me recently. Part of me wishes he were right.

AtTIMES, I have felt only contempt for Islamists such as the Brotherhood. They have politicized my religion and made ordinary Muslims the sacrificial fodder of their self-serving plots and protests across the Arab world.

Ed Husain

Last month, an adviser to Morsy, Gehad El-Haddad, was sentenced to life in prison. I knew Gehad. I met him in Egypt in 2012. He was not a radical, but a pluralist Muslim democrat within the Muslim Brotherhood. He spoke to me passionately about economic prosperity, the rule of law and checks and balances in government; imposing Sharia was not of any interest to his generation.

In his early 30s and Westernized, Gehad has reached toward the West, once acceptingan invitation to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron to advocate for betterTRADE relations.

The future of democracy in the Middle East depends on engaging with the pluralists and modernizers within the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamist movement is not a monolith. There are different, conflicting currents even within the Brotherhood tradition, ranging from the violent Hamas to the nonviolent Jordanian opposition.

Democracy in the Middle East will not look like the White House in the United States or Westminster in England, but it will be participatory government, free from tyranny, upholding the rule of law and respectful of Muslim culture and history.

Mohamed Morsy sentenced to death in Egypt 02:55

The persecution of Islamists only helps to strengthen the narrative of jihadists who have always argued that voting is doomed and violence is the way forward. "Where is Morsy's elected government?" they say. "Whereas ISIS is strong and spreading."

The brutal repression of Islamism in 1960s Egypt created a generation of jihadists in prison. Since then, however, political incentives, engagement with the West and the freedom to participate in political life have also created a strain of democratic Islamists -- a political tendency closer to what we in the West would recognize as center-right social conservatives.

The thought leaders of global Islamism today are Tunisia's opposition leader, Rashid Ghannouchi, and Turkey's President Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Both men are proponents of normalization; their Islamism is about personal piety, not imposition of Sharia.

By ensuring that Turkey stays on this pro-WesternPATH, we avoid Erdogan tilting toward Putin and ensure that Erdogan's recent repressive moves, such as Twitter and YouTube bans by the government, are not repeated.

Arguably Sunni Islam's most important religious authority, Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, to whom Ghannouchi and other political leaders defer, explains that Sharia is aimed at the preservation of life, property, intellect, family and religion. These are known as themaqasid, or the higher objectives of the Sharia.

Therefore, any system of government that preserves the maqasid is a Sharia-compliant government. In this mainstream Muslim interpretation, the secular authority of the state and its courts is completely compatible with Islam.

What isGOING on in Egypt? 05:57

We are witnessing the emergence of Muslim democrats in key Arab and Muslim countries. In Turkey last year, I met with ruling AK Party parliamentarians who were offended if they were described as Islamists.

That was their predecessor movement, the Refaa party, not the pro-Western AKP. In Tunisia, the Ennadha party under Ghannouchi is traveling toward a similar space of being a mainstream conservative party, Muslim democrats and advocates of political and religious pluralism.

But where is Western support for this nascent but vitally important political project? Who will treat yesterday's Islamists as today's conservative Muslim democrats?

Last month, I visited Brussels where I met two British members of the European Parliament: Syed Kamall, who last year was elected as the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group and the first Muslim leader of any political group in the European Parliament; and Daniel Hannan, a British Conservative and author ofBOOKS on freedom and liberty.

"Our first conversation is not about secularism," says Hannan. "We discuss manifestos, the rule of law, personal liberty, common conservative values, campaigning andACCOUNTABILITY."

Hannan's organization, the Alliance for European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR), which evolved from the ECR Group, is leading the way -- a member of Turkey's AKP belongs to their board. These conservatives, driven by common values, cooperate, socialize and consolidate commitment to a democratic culture by helping to renovate schools in Bosnia or work in Syrian refugee camps in Turkey.

Such socialACTION projects are designed to minimize government and strengthen civil society. In most Arab countries, civil society is not robust. Consequently, there is a tendency to produce political parties that lack effective checks and balances. A more vibrant civil society, therefore, can help to produce political movements that are less authoritarian.

Support from such networks in the West is already shifting the debate inside Muslim democratic movements. Hannan quotes the last sermon of the Prophet Mohammed to me: "Your blood, your property and your honor are sacred and inviolable."

His point is that there is a common strain of respect for the law, creatingWEALTHand the right to owning property both in the West and in Islam. Values like these not only inspire modern Muslim democrats, but also chime with the ideas of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith.

Is Turkey doing enough to fight ISIS? 04:41

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These are the conversations we need to have with Egypt's Islamists. Those who want to move away from the dead end of violent revolution and repression we can help. But by treating them as enemies to be locked up or sentenced to death, we simply affirm the narrative of victimhood of Sayyid Qutb, al Qaeda's founding father, who was hanged in 1966 for calling for the establishment of a theocratic caliphate.

INDEED it was the prisons of Egypt that gave us Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's current leader.

By approaching Islamists as Hannan does, primarily as conservatives, we can move them toward democracy, good governance, free trade andACCOUNTABILITY. We should help our allies in the Middle East change their approach toward the Muslim Brotherhood toward a policy of engagement and inclusion for those such as Gehad who are willing to embrace democracy and pluralism

Mother's plea to missing girls feared to have joined ISIS

Don't look for me, I'm in Syria: Message shocks mother 02:38

Story highlights

• Tawfiqua Adan and her friend Salwa Abdulla vanished earlier this month from Nairobi, Kenya
• A text message sent to the family suggests the universitySTUDENTS may have traveled to Syria
• Tawfiqua's mother Rahma says her daughter is a devout Muslim who loves her religion

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN)The tiny passport photo is becoming dog-eared at the corners, worn from being taken out of the purse where Rahma Adan keeps it close to her at allTIMES -- it is one of her most prized possessions.

Worrying away at the image with her fingers, Rahma explains that it shows her beloved daughter Tawfiqua. The young woman is shown clad in a black headscarf, but like all such "official" pictures it offers few clues to the personality of its subject.

That identity is a puzzle the 20-year-old's family have been struggling to piece together since Tawfiqua and her friend Salwa Abdulla vanished earlier this month.

Their families say the two girls went to Tawfiqua's home in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on May 13, after their day's lessons at a nearby Islamic school. A short time later, Tawfiqua left the house to see Salwa off, but never returned. The pair hasn't been seen since.

Alabama student marries ISIS fighter 01:41

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The disappearance sparked a desperate search by both families, but there was no trace of the friends.

Four days later, they received a shocking message -- thought to have been sent by Tawfiqua to her cousin -- which read in part: "Assalam aleykum cuz, how are you? Am now in Syria ... Tell everyone not to look for me am doing very fine."

Rahma says both families were devastated by the unexpected news.

"When I received the message, I was shocked," she told CNN. "I fainted, and the entire family, who were with me, was also shocked and cried."

Tawfiqua and Salwa, who were both university students, are described by their families and friends as kind, quiet and devout Muslims.

Why do women join jihad? 02:39

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"When she has free time, she always reads the Quran, she doesn't watch movies," Rahma says, unfolding the maroon andGOLD mat her daughter used to pray on. "She loves her religion, as a Muslim, she loves her religion."

As days become weeks, there is still no firm confirmation on the young women's whereabouts.

Rahma is confused as to how -- ifINDEED she is in Syria -- Tawfiqua managed to leave the country without an identity card or a passport.

Kenyan police say they have launched investigations into the case, but also wonder how the two left the country.

But if they have gone overseas to join ISIS, Tawfiqua and Salwa aren't the first to have made the journey: In March, Kenyan police arrested four young women trying to cross the border into Somalia without proper travel documents.

The four have been charged in a Mombasa court with being members of Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab. They deny the charges.

How ISIS Recruits Girls and Women To Jihad 06:10

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Police and some religious leaders say a growing number of young Kenyans are sneaking across the border to join foreign terror groups.

SecurityEXPERTS say Kenyans form the largest number of foreignRECRUITS to al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab. They say extremist preachers prey on young Muslims who are searching for identity and a sense of belonging, and radicalize them.

Rahma Adan says that although she finds it difficult to believe, there is a possibility her daughter was radicalized.

"I don't know," she admits. "Maybe it is Satan who has changed her mind. Maybe people came and told her something -- told her wrong stories, and tell her maybe this is good."

Asked if she has a message for her missing daughter, Rahma issues a desperate plea: "I beg her to come back to me. Because as a mother, I am hurting."