But parliamentary elections are drawing closer – probably within the next few months – and political actors need to consider their strategies. It is clear that divisions already exist within the revolutionary ranks, between those focused on being agitators and those focused on the elections. Ramadan gives these people the time to discuss, debate and, afterward, to regroup.

Public opinion cannot be ignored, like it was under the former regime, even while public opinion does not (yet) rule the country. While political factions are already speaking their minds in the new Egypt, good ideas alone do not make good leaders. Even when they disagree with the public mood, successful politicians must speak to the public’s concerns.

The economy, religion, the military and social media are four of the key issues politicians will need to understand and consider. The Abu Dhabi Gallup Center is now tracking the country’s pivotal transition on a monthly basis – and data from the last few months reveal some intriguing intelligence on those four issues.

Egypt’s political parties have yet to provide fully constructed economic plans – something they are going to need to do, quickly. Gallup’s data show Egyptians are more optimistic about the future after the revolution; they want to know how they can improve from this economic situation, which they know will be bumpy in the short term, to a much better one in the future. It is important to emphasize that, according to public polling, the improvement of the economic situation tops all other concerns. No political force can afford not to address it properly.

The role of religion in the public sphere is another key concern – at least in the media – both nationally and internationally. According to Gallup data, there may be some benefit in reconsidering this focus. Egyptians (Christians and Muslims alike) are generally receptive of other religions; after Lebanese, they are the most likely population in the Middle East and North Africa to welcome a neighbor of another faith. At the same time, most Egyptians (96 percent) feel religion is important, which suggests Egyptians may want religion to play a similar role as it does in European countries with established churches – to provide a moral core in the public sphere.

However, a respect for religion does not necessarily translate into an Islamist vision: the main political Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, polls at only 15 percent support, and less than one percent identify Iran as Egypt’s political model. Religion need be a fault line only if parties decide to make it one.

Regarding the military, Egyptian media is rife with criticisms of the armed forces on a variety of issues. However, for all of the discontent expressed in different mediums, justified or not, the army enjoys widespread public popularity. Gallup recently found 94 percent of Egyptians express confidence in the military, something any successful political force will have to consider carefully.

Finally, social media, the impact of which has been so widely publicized, is unlikely to be pivotal in the elections. World Bank figures show one-fifth of Egyptians use the Internet overall, let alone access sites such as Twitter or Facebook. Despite claims to the contrary, January 25 itself was not a ”social media revolution;” only eight percent of Egyptians say they used Facebook or Twitter to get their news about the protests, according to Gallup’s data. Social media was not then, nor is it now, the core information medium for the average Egyptian. There are no shortcuts in reaching out to that ”man on the street”, and all parties must be perceived as trying to do just that.

Ramadan can give political forces a time to strategize, but Ramadan will soon end, and elections are nearing. No one can take popular support for granted. Gallup’s data show a majority of Egyptians as political-party agnostics, with no party polling more than one-seventh of the population. Those who react strategically to public opinion stand to benefit greatly in this environment; equally, those who underestimate it stand to lose substantially. The time for planning will not come the day after Ramadan; it came the day Mubarak was forced from power. Those who have not realized that need to catch up, fast.

Dr H.A. Hellyer is Senior Analyst at the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center (UAE)/Gallup Center for Muslim Studies (USA), and Fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick (UK).

The sight of Mr. Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, 83 and ailing, confined to a hospital gurney inside a defendant’s cage reserved for common thugs evoked a range of reactions, with some people feeling the thrill of a vengeful comeuppance and others expressing pity for a proud man who once embodied the archtypical Arab autocrat.

Regardless of their politics or religion, many shared a feeling of watching a historical moment, not unlike the day nearly six months ago when Mr. Mubarak was deposed by an 18-day revolution that remade the region’s political dynamics.

“Everybody is watching from all parts of the society, young and old, pro-democracy or pro-government,” said Hussain Abdulla, 23, a human rights activist in Bahrain, where the monarchy has suppressed, sometimes violently, a democracy movement inspired by the events in Egypt. “Of course all the people who are pro-democracy are happy with it and it gives them a push to continue struggling.”

In Jordan, a clothing store salesman in Amman, the capital, who identified himself as Hisham said he like many others in Jordan was glued to the television in the middle of the day, awed by the trial’s opening four hours. “This is the trial that everybody has been looking forward to,” he said.

Many Jordanians — who have been demonstrating every Friday for political reforms in their own country — said they never believed they would witness such a thing. When Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, was captured, Jordanians saw it as a result of the American invasion and occupation. On the contrary, Mr. Mubarak’s trial, they said, was the Egyptian people’s demand.

In Baghdad, some Iraqis drew parallels between the prosecutions of both former leaders.

“Saddam and Mubarak were criminals in their own way,” said Ahmed Amer, 40. “Let the people see the destiny of these tyrants. They have to put him on trial because he’s destroyed the Egyptian people.”

Salam Ali, 48, a former teacher in Baghdad, said that many of his friends and relatives had watched the opening of Mr. Mubarak’s trial. “It’s fair for them to show it on TV, because he’s been the servant of Israel and America,” he said. “They should execute him.”

In Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest and most unstable country, where a movement to oust the autocratic president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been underway for months, protesters camped at an antigovernment demonstration in Sana, the capital, gathered around large screens showing Al Jazeera’s coverage of the trial. Many said they wanted to see Mr. Saleh and his family put on trial as well.

“Yemenis will learn a lot of lessons from the trial of Mubarak,” said Nabil al Hubaishi, who runs a small shop on Sana’s southern outskirts. “They will learn that everyone should be held accountable, even the president.”

Not everyone in Yemen shared that view. Some criticized the trial as a political charade.

“I don’t support it at all,” said Suad Mohamed, a middle-aged homemaker whose husband is in Yemen’s military. “Mubarak was the leader of Egypt. Now he is going to be tried when he is sick. Why?” Egyptians, she said, should be “applying rule of law in their new state. For Mubarak, it’s enough that he was ousted.”

It was unclear how many people were watching the trial in Syria, where security forces have been trying to crush a five-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. There has been speculation that Mr. Assad used the distraction of the Mubarak trial to order his security forces to seize the restive city of Hama, where dozens of people have been killed since Syrian armored columns first shelled the city on Sunday.

In much of Egypt itself, the trial stopped many daily routines. Cairo residents crowded into cafes or anywhere with a TV. Reuters reported that the city’s infamously clogged traffic had thinned during the broadcast.

The trial also drew a large audience in Israel, where many viewed the images of Mr. Mubarak with a sense of unease. Although he was a dictator, several Israeli commentators said, Mr. Mubarak had also been a reliable ally who upheld Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel for 30 years. It was also noted that the corruption charges against Mr. Mubarak included a natural gas deal that his regime made with Israel.

In the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, feelings were more conflicted. Many who watched the live broadcasts from the courtroom, on television and the Internet, expressed satisfaction that Mr. Mubarak was being brought to justice. Some said that it enhanced the credibility of Egypt’s interim military government. Others said they felt that the humiliation of the ailing former president went too far.

There was a measure of pity among some Gazans. Most, however, blamed Mr. Mubarak for having aided Israel in imposing a strict blockade of Gaza over the past few years, by keeping the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt mostly closed.

Abeer Ayyoub, a journalist in Gaza and a researcher for a human rights group, said that Mr. Mubarak deserved to be on trial for what he did to Gaza and to his own people. At the same time, she said, the trial had to be fair, adding, “This trial looks to be a matter of revenge.”

In the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the images of the former Egyptian president in court mostly elicited expressions of satisfaction, and envy, from people who have stumbled pursuing their own revolution to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who has ruled Libya for four decades.

Rafiq el-Fellah, the leader of a rebel militia assigned to find pro-Qaddafi agents and saboteurs in Benghazi, said he had been too busy with work to watch on television but had read the news about Mr. Mubarak: “He was brought into a cage in a bed. I like that very much. When justice is like that, we have a bright future,” Mr. Fellah said.

Mohammed Ali, a gasoline station attendant, said he was impressed with the Egyptian judicial system, a hopeful sign for its democracy.

“It’s not easy for us Arabs to bring a president to court,” he said. “It was kind of stunning We hope it will be an example.”

The protesters, who since early July have been demonstrating against the Egyptian military’s handling of the transition to democratic reform, made the announcement Sunday and said they would return to the square at the end of Ramadan the holy month.

Ramadan began that night with the sighting of the new moon on the last day of the Islamic month of Shaban. Fasting will begin early Monday morning at dawn and end in the evening at dusk of each day for the next month, culminating in the three-day Id el-Fitr celebration.

All Muslim boys over 13 and all Muslim girls over 12 are required to refrain from eating and drinking, as well as smoking. Muslims are supposed to give more charity during the Ramadan month and take their prayers more seriously.

Also Sunday, Syrian troops stormed the city of Hama, the center of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, reportedly killing at least 95 people, according to the French news agency AFP. The crackdown reportedly is an attempt to silence the protests before the start of Ramadan.

The beginning of Ramadan this year coincides with the start of the Jewish month of Av. The fast of the Ninth of Av commemorates the destruction of both the First Temple and Second Temple in Jerusalem, which both occurred on the same date more than 650 years apart.

13: The army suspends the constitution and says it will rule Egypt for six months, at which point elections will take place.

March 11: Four top members of the Mubarak regime jailed on charges of ordering security forces to shoot protesters during the revolution, which left 846 people dead and 6,000 injured.

15: The army disbands the former regime’s hated security police.

19: Voters approve the proposed new constitution, with 77.2 per cent voting “yes.”

30: The military regime announces a parliamentary election for September, to be followed by a presidential ballot one or two months later.

April 13: Authorities say Mubarak and his two sons have been detained for 15 days as part of an inquiry into the January-February events. The former president is reported to have suffered heart problems during questioning.

16: The Higher Administrative Court dissolves Mubarak’s National Democratic Party and orders the seizure of its assets.

May 7: Fifteen die and 200 injured as Muslims and Christians clash in Cairo.

17: Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the ex-president, freed after remitting her assets to the state.

June 6: The Muslim Brotherhood’s new political party is declared legal.

22: The Muslim Brotherhood joins forces with 17 other parties, including liberal and secular groups.

28: A Cairo court orders the dissolution of local councils whose representatives were elected under Mubarak’s regime.

29: 1,036 injured in clashes between protesters and anti-riot police in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

July 5: A former minister sentenced in absentia to five years in jail and three others acquitted in corruption trials.

7: The public prosecutor refers 25 people to trial for murder during one of the most bloody days of the uprising.

13: The ruling military council seeks to placate protesters by announcing the sacking of hundreds of police officers and a delay of parliamentary elections.

15: Thousands rally across Egypt, capping a week of nationwide sit-ins to demand political change as anger grows with the military rulers.

17: Mubarak in a coma, state television cites his lawyer as saying, a report denied by the health ministry.

19: Mubarak has an abnormal heart rhythm and sometimes falls unconscious, the official MENA news agency reports.

21: A sweeping cabinet reshuffle fails to appease protesters as it retains several ministers they want sacked.

23: Fierce clashes between protesters angry at the military’s handling of the transition from Mubarak’s regime and army loyalists.

25: A Cairo court decides to merge the trials of Mubarak and ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly as former premier Ahmed Nazif is charged with corruption.

27: Mubarak refusing food and has become extremely weak, state media report.

29: Hundreds of thousands of Islamists pack Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in the biggest gathering since Mubarak’s fall.

31: Protesters camped out in Tahrir Square say they will suspend their sit-in during Ramadan, which started on Monday.

The Islamist parties now stand a good chance to win an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in November, and also contest successfully the presidential election. This outcome would be alarming for secularist pro-democracy elements and many regional and international actors, Israel and the US in particular, but it would need to be embraced as part and parcel of process of Egypt’s democratisation journey.

According to an Aljazeera public opinion survey, released on July 7, 2011, nearly 50 per cent of those polled indicated first preference for the Muslim Brotherhood, represented by the Freedom and Justice Party. Another 27 per cent expressed support for the Salafist cluster or what is now called Nour Party. Although there are some ideological and operational differences between the two parties, both are nonetheless Islamist, advocating political Islam as the framework for Egypt’s transformation.

A parliamentary electoral victory, with support from some, if not all, Salafists, will enable the Muslim Brotherhood to form a government in its own right, headed by a prime minister from its ranks or beholden to it. So far the party has denied it plans to field a candidate for the presidential election. But this does not mean that it will fail to support a preferred candidate. As the situation stands, none of the pro-democracy secularist figures, such as the former Egyptian foreign minister and head of the Arab League, Amr Mussa, and the ex-boss of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed Elberiddi, who are both seeking the presidential position, is likely to harness sufficient votes to beat a Brotherhood-endorsed candidate. The result may well be Muslim Brotherhood dominance in Egyptian politics.

These developments can easily be viewed as alarming by those who have historically viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as a menace to Egyptian and regional stability. However, this need not be the case. In any event, the Islamists, who are not homogeneous in their political and social disposition by any means, are unlikely to be in a position to establish a theocratic order, for example, similar to what has developed in Iran. Although the Saudi-backed Salafists remain a wild card, the same cannot be said about the Muslim Brotherhood. As the oldest party since its foundation in 1928, it has learned through bitter experiences that if it fails to secure popular support for its policies, it will have little chance of hanging on to power for too long, should it achieve electoral victory. The party’s mainstream leadership seems to have already shifted its posture in pursuit of centre-right realistic policy priorities and goals, and recognised the fact that the Egyptian society is a mix of 90 per cent Muslim and 10 per cent Coptic Christian, and that the country’s military leadership is pro-secular, with close ties with the United States.

Whilst a majority of Egyptians are devout Muslims, there is a great number amongst them that they do not want Islam to underpin the operation of their state and society. And it is this critical mass that is most likely to remain determined in ensuring that the Egyptian revolution stays on course to deliver a democratic rather than an Islamist political transformation. In this, they can count on the support of the military leadership and the international community. The February revolution has delivered Egyptians a new era of awareness and expectations. A failure on the part of any governments – Islamist or secular – to respond to this development effectively could easily result in the failure of that government, continued public turmoil and policy paralysis, which will not benefit anybody.

It is time for sober heads to prevail not only in Egypt, but also outside of the country. The US and some of the regional actors, most importantly Israel, bear a special responsibility in this respect. It would be a fundamental mistake if any of these actors were to try to circumvent Egypt’s process of democratisation in order to prevent the Islamists from coming to power through fair and free elections. Democracy cannot always be expected to deliver the kinds of outcomes that could fulfil their preferences.

Algeria’s past experience should be a warning to all. In January 1991, the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was on the verge of a winning a democratic election, but domestic secular liberal forces, supported by France, encouraged the military to intervene in order prevent FIS from achieving its goal. As the military cancelled the elections, and banned FIS and arrested many of its leaders, it helped generate the conditions for many radical members of FIS to go underground and take up arms, resulting in the gruesome killing of some 100,000 Algerians over the next decade. Algeria is still reeling from that episode, and its overall stability and security remains fragile.

Similarly, one must not look overlook the manner in which Israel and the US called for democratisation of the Palestinian politics, but when the Palestinian Authority held a general election in January 2006 and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas won it democratically, Israel and its supporters rejected the outcome. The failure to accommodate the results contributed substantially to acrimonious divisions among the Palestinians, with the West Bank remaining under the control of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas taking over Gaza Strip 18 months later. This complicated further the process for finding a viable resolution to the Palestinian problem.

The fight started between two men after the first complained about the second passing by his house driving a motorbike, the same security source added.

The first man then fired a shot from a gun in the air to intimidate the second, who minutes later pulled out a shotgun, climbed on the roof of a building and started shooting randomly at the crowd below, injuring bystanders.

Police are still searching for the two men, who escaped soon after police arrival.

The shooting came only hours after a gunfight erupted in the busy district of Moski, killing at least four people and injuring dozens in a gun battle. Molotov Cocktails and rocks were also used.

That fight involved two families who attacked others over a dispute over displays in the area. Tens were arrested after the police and the army were called to the scene. The deputy general from Moski police station was injured after a being hit in the face with a bottle. Police said they are still searching for the guns that were used and other suspects.

Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry said that the 450 would-be travellers, some of them patients seeking medical treatment, were turned back at the border on Saturday.

Palestinians in Gaza have accused Egypt of creating unnecessary hold-ups at the crossing, the only one open to residents of the coastal territory, and the interior ministry said it had a backlog of some 30,000 travel applications.

In a statement, the ministry gave no details on why the travellers were turned back, but the incident came after Egyptian forces arrested 12 men, including three Palestinians, in connection with an attack on a north Sinai police station.

North Sinai security chief Saleh al-Masri announced the arrests on Saturday, a day after the attack on the police station in El-Arish.

The attack came as clashes rocked the town on Friday, killing three civilians, an army officer and a police officer and leaving 19 people wounded.

Also on Friday, around 150 men in trucks and on motorbikes rampaged through El-Arish, firing assault rifles in the air, terrifying residents.

They rode through the deserted streets waving black flags which read “There is no God but Allah,” before attempting to storm the police station.

Gaza residents hailed Egypt’s decision to reopen the Rafah border crossing in May, after an uprising overthrew the government of former president Hosni Mubarak.

The decision ended Egypt’s cooperation with a blockade Israel imposed on the Palestinian enclave in 2006, after Gaza-based militants snatched an Israeli soldier.

But since the border reopened, Egypt has closely restricted the number of travellers able to cross each day, leading to repeated requests from Palestinians including the Gaza-based Hamas government for larger travel quotas.

The trial had been scheduled to take place at a Cairo convention hall Wednesday.

The 83-year-old former president and his former interior minister, Habib El Adly, face possible death sentences if convicted of unleashing police on the demonstrations that drove them from office in February.

Six of El Adly’s assistants face trial on the same charges, Justice Minister Mohamed Abdel Aziz Al Guindy said Saturday.

Mubarak has denied the charges.

The human rights group Amnesty International has estimated that at least 840 people were killed and more than 6,000 wounded during the three-week uprising that toppled Mubarak.

A police officer accused of indiscriminately shooting protesters has been sentenced to death in absentia.

In addition, Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa, and a business associate face trial on corruption charges.

The trial will be open to the public under heavy security and carried on Egyptian state television, Guindy said.

The trial is set to open on the third day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Mubarak ruled Egypt with an iron fist for nearly 30 years before the revolt that toppled him February 11, leaving the nation under the control of a military council. He has been hospitalized since suffering heart palpitations in April, but Health Minister Amr Helmy declared Thursday that the ailing former strongman is “fit to stand trial, given a proper transportation arrangement.”

Prosecutors have said Mubarak suffers from depression, fatigue, repeated irregular heartbeats, low blood pressure that could lead to fainting and an increased risk of heart attack. His lawyer disclosed in June that the ex-president had been struggling with complications from a previously concealed 2010 surgery for stomach cancer.

Earlier this month, hospital officials reported that Mubarak had fallen into a brief coma and recently said that he was depressed and refusing to eat as he awaits trial.