The language is obscure, drawn from the terminology of religious scholars and largely incomprehensible to anyone else.
But "it is like a bombshell," says Mohammed Hassanein Abdel-Al, constitutional law professor at Cairo's Ain Shams University.
The article means that laws passed by parliament must adhere to specific tenets of Shariah that the four main schools of Sunni Islam agree on. That could include banning interest on loans, forbidding mixing of genders, requiring women to wear headscarves and allowing girls to marry when they reach puberty.
"The doors are wide open to restrict individuals' freedoms," Abdel-Al said.
Another new article says clerics from Al-Azhar, Egypt's most prominent Islamic institution, are "to be consulted on any matters related to Shariah," implicitly giving them oversight in legislation.
Other articles give sweeping powers for implementing Shariah, without directly mentioning it, often through subtle additions introduced by Islamists.
Article 10, for example, commits both the state and "society" to protecting "the moral values" of the "true Egyptian family."
The vague language empowers private citizens to enforce Islamic morals, Abdel-Al said. It could even give a constitutional justification for the creation of religious police, known as commissions "for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice."
"If I'm walking with my wife and her face is not covered or she's not wearing a headscarf, a man can come up and order me to cover her. I can't protest or object because the constitution instructs him to do so," Abdel-Al said.
Borhami pointed to Article 76, which he called "amazing." Originally the text said the only crimes and punishments can be those set by law. But Islamists amended the phase to "by law or by virtue of constitutional text."
