Mod_rewrite question

How do I transform the URL:
http://www.domain.com/category1.php?mode=2&order=desc
into:
http://www.domain.com/index.php?cat=category1&mode=2&order=desc

I tried this in .htaccess file:
RewriteRule ^(.*).php\?(.*)=(.*)&(.*)=(.*)$ index.php?cat=$1&$2=$3&$4=$5 [nc]

but it does not work.
It does not pass the variables mode and order.

Can anyone help?

 

you can try something like:

RewriteRule ^(.*).php index.php?cat=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}

Code (markup):

let me know if it works