He [Mahmoud Jibril] and his allies publicly echoed a frequent refrain of Libyan voters who were unsure what to make of re-emergent groups like the Muslim Brotherhood: “Do they think they are more Muslim than we are?”

A political scientist who earned his doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh and taught there as well, Mr. Jibril said in a recent interview on Libyan television that friends and neighbors anywhere he has lived would describe him as someone who “goes to the mosque for Friday prayers, and we see that he prays.”

“The Libyan people don’t need either liberalism or secularism, or pretenses in the name of Islam, because Islam, this great religion, cannot be used for political purposes,” he said. “Islam is much bigger than that.”

“Jibril is praying five times a day and fasting, so what is the difference?” asked Suleiman Zoubi, a former judge and political independent in the eastern city of Benghazi who appeared set to win a seat in the congress. Ali Tarhouni, the leader of a fledgling party in Mr. Jibril’s coalition and another former minister in the transitional government, called the results evidence of Libyans’ “moderate” character. But he also attributed their success to familiarity. “People trust us,” he said. “Coming out of a war, with a political vacuum and a security vacuum, people were looking for those they knew were tested in the tough times.”