Ennahda's March 2012 decision to retain Article 1 of the 1959 constitution unchanged (rejecting sharia as a source of legislation in the new constitution), with leader Rached Ghannouchi framing it as "a victory for the democratic Muslim state" — Al-Masry Al-Youm, reporting the decision announced Mon 26 Mar 2012 (article 29 Mar 2012).

كانت حركة النهضة الإسلامية التي تقود الحكومة في تونس، أعلنت الإثنين أنها قررت الاحتفاظ بالفصل الأول من الدستور السابق كما ورد دون تغيير.

نفى زعيم حركة النهضة التونسية راشد الغنوشي، أن يكون قرار الحركة الاحتفاظ بالفصل الأول من الدستور السابق دون تغيير، والذي ينص على أن «تونس دولة حرة، مستقلة، ذات سيادة، الإسلام دينها والعربية لغتها والجمهورية نظامها»، دون الإشارة إلى أحكام أو مبادئ الشريعة الإسلامية، تنازلًا أو تفريطًا في أي من أمور الدين، واعتبر أن اعتماد حركته للفصل الأول من دستور 1959 هو «انتصار للدولة الديمقراطية المسلمة».

وأضاف أنه «إذا كان الجميع قد ارتضى الإسلام دينًا للدولة ولم يتفقوا على معاني الشريعة، فقد رضينا بالإسلام دينا للدولة دون زيادة على ذلك، مادامت هذه الزيادة تُفرق صف الناس بسبب عدم وقوفهم على معانيها».

Behavioral conduct-axis record for Ennahda (state-religion / democracy / civil-liberties / modernization), with an embedded declared statement by its leader. In March 2012 Ennahda — the Islamist movement then leading Tunisia's coalition government during the constitution-drafting period — announced (on Monday 26 March 2012) that it had decided to keep Article 1 of the previous (1959) constitution unchanged, i.e. abandoning the inclusion of Islamic sharia as a source of legislation in the new constitution. Reported by Al-Masry Al-Youm, 29 March 2012.

Translation:
"The Tunisian Islamist Ennahda movement, which leads the government in Tunisia, announced on Monday that it had decided to retain Article 1 of the previous constitution exactly as written, without change.

Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi denied that the movement's decision to keep Article 1 of the previous constitution unchanged — which states that 'Tunisia is a free, independent, sovereign state; its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic, and its system is the republic,' with no reference to the provisions or principles of Islamic sharia — amounted to a concession or a relinquishment of any matter of religion, and he considered his movement's adoption of Article 1 of the 1959 constitution to be 'a victory for the democratic Muslim state.'

He added: 'If everyone has accepted Islam as the religion of the state but they have not agreed on the meanings of sharia, then we have accepted Islam as the religion of the state and nothing beyond that — so long as that addition divides people's ranks because they have not grasped its meanings.'"