CAIRO - When he took the stage at a campaign stop last year, Nader Bakar moved with a polished grace that defied the brimstone stereotype of an ultraconservative Islamist.
Lithe and bearded, Bakar was appearing at a rally supporting a progressive Islamist presidential candidate, even as his Nour party envisioned Egypt as an Islamic state. The candidate lost, but Nour, savvier than its bigger and more moderate rival, the Muslim Brotherhood, showed a political nimbleness rare among Egypt's religious movements.
The military coup that toppled President Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood this week has focused attention on how Nour and other ultraconservative Salafi parties will advance their agendas against revived secular and moderate voices backed by the Egyptian army, which for decades has warned against Islamist ambitions.
That calculation is tricky for Nour. Although a nominal parliamentary ally of the Brotherhood, it sided with anti-Morsi protests, backed the army's plan for a coalition government and accused the Brotherhood of pushing the country toward civil war.
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Many Islamists are outraged over the fall of the Brotherhood and the arrest of its leaders by generals they condemn for deposing Egypt's first freely elected president. But amid the fury are questions over how to keep the goal of political Islam alive.
Some wonder whether Islam has any place in politics, which many clerics regard as a realm where compromise takes precedent over the imposition of God's will. The coup has made them more disdainful of the ballot box and is forcing them to reconsider how they might merge religion and politics at a time when the trend in Egypt, especially among the young, appears to be to separate the two.
The question echoes across the Middle East and North Africa, including in countries such as Tunisia and Libya, which are trying to rebuild after the upheavals of the Arab Spring. In Turkey, liberals showed anger at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attempts to insinuate a more pronounced Islamist tone into society. Turkey is hailed as a model of political Islam, but even Erdogan's decade-long economic success story did not mute the uproar.
Still, given the Brotherhood's setback in Egypt, ultraconservatives are looking for an opening. Their grassroots programs, including education and aid to the poor in the provinces, leave them better organized than secular parties.
The Salafists adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam, deeply rooted in the Quran. They will be "a winner in this phase and will be the leader of political work in the Islamist current, because they calculated the recent political equation very nicely," said Gamal Sultan, an analyst and newspaper editor. "They have been rational and well thought out. … But it's a gamble."
Nour epitomizes that description. It won about 25 percent of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections and became a nominal ally of the Brotherhood, which won nearly 50 percent. While the Brotherhood hewed to authoritarian tendencies, Nour was more fluid. At times, it sided with the secular opposition against efforts by Morsi and the Brotherhood to accumulate more power.
It sought to avoid bloodshed and sensed an opportunity in Egypt's latest political drama. It didn't participate in the massive anti-Morsi protests that started Sunday, but it backed calls for a coalition government. Bakar accused the Brotherhood of making "an enemy out of anyone who criticized or disagreed with them."
Nour is facing criticism for its stance. Many Morsi supporters at a rally Friday denounced Nour as betraying the country's first Islamist president. Ironically, in the eyes of strict Salafists, Nour made the same mistake as the Brotherhood: sacrificing religious principles for political power.
Passions around the coup were further inflamed Friday, when soldiers opened fire on Islamists marching toward the headquarters of the Republican Guard, where Morsi is believed to be in custody. The incident may put pressure on Nour and embolden its rival Gamaa al Islamiya, a former terrorist group that backs Morsi.
