The wiles and guile of Islamic fundamentalism were given free reign as never before, threatening not only republican norms but the spiritual wellbeing of the average moderate, and presumably pro-democracy, Sunni Muslim on the street. The legacy of the Morsi episode may sadly be that in the Middle East, democracy and political Islam “don’t mix.”

They don’t mix not only in theoretical terms — the Umma (or community of believers) vs. the modern nation state; the sect vs. the citizen; Islamic morality vs. individual liberties — but also because political Islam gives political cover to all that is undemocratic in an Arab society.

Under Mr. Morsi, jihadists blew up the export gas pipelines on the Sinai Peninsula with relative impunity. Indeed, when militants went so far as to abduct military personnel, Mr. Morsi expressed concern for both the abductors and abductees. (The kidnap victims were later released.) Members of unofficial Saudi-style religious police forces could kill a young man for taking a walk with his girlfriend. Women who did not wear the hijab could be subjected to discrimination and sexual harassment — not to mention having their hair forcibly cut with scissors on public transportation and in school. The despicable practice of child marriage threatened to resurge.

In the dysfunctional Parliament, Islamist members focused on such issues as legalizing female genital mutilation and banning the teaching of foreign languages in state schools.

A controversial Salafi preacher, Abu Islam, defaced a Christian Bible to make his sectarian point. (He was ordered to pay a fine.) Meanwhile, in southern Egypt, a Coptic Christian schoolteacher, Dimyana Abdel-Nour, was tried on trumped-up charges of attacking Islam in the classroom. She paid a much larger fine, and her case is still open.

A glaring example of the Brotherhood’s sectarianism occurred at a Syria Solidarity Conference convened by Mr. Morsi on June 15. What at first seemed like a fascist-style pro-Morsi rally quickly devolved into a hate-speech bonanza against the Alawite regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. A number of popular Wahhabi preachers, like Mohamed Hassan and Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, not only complained of Mr. Morsi’s earlier, tentative rapprochement with Iran but also frothed at the mouth as they openly identified the Shiites with all evil. Mr. Morsi may not have been directly responsible, but he did nothing to prevent it.

On June 23, a mini-pogrom took place in which Hassan Shehata, a leader of Egypt’s tiny homegrown Shiite community, was dragged through the streets in his village outside Cairo, and then killed, along with three of his followers. Not a peep from Mr. Morsi.