WATANI International
4 July 2010
Copts in the Egyptian media 41
Our reading of the Cairo papers this week takes us to the issue of the much-anticipated unified law for personal status affairs for Christians, which is now being formulated by a committee ordered by the Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei, and formed of delegates from the different churches in Egypt. The move comes in the wake of the refusal of the Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III to execute a court order to allow the remarriage of divorced Copts, on grounds that it conflicted with Biblical teachings.
The independent weekly Sawt al-Umma printed an interview with Rev Ikram Lamei, head of the media committee of the Evangelical Church. Rev Lamei said that the Evangelical Church would only sign the draft law if it included recognition by the Coptic Church of marriages contracted by other churches, and if it included provisions for adoption. Such provisions had been initially included in the draft but were dropped on the insistence of al-Azhar, the topmost Islamic authority. Pope Shenouda had acquiesced in hope that the bill would be passed, which it never did. The bill has been with the Justice Ministry and with Parliament since 1981 but was never placed on the agenda despite Church efforts to place it there.
The independent daily al-Masry al-Youm claimed the Greek Orthodox Church was angry at not being represented in the committee and intended not to recognise the law if passed.
Don’t greet them
Salafi thought came under fire in the daily State-owned Rose al-Youssef, where the writer Walid Toughan warned of the threat such thought carried against Copts. Mr Toughan referred to a report by the Ministry of Religious Endowments, in which an Islamic charity, The Sunna Supporters, is accused of inciting sectarian hatred by branding Copts as dimmis (Non-Muslim subjects under Muslim rule). Through its some 2000 mosques across the country, which the report describes as hotbeds of religious discrimination, sheikhs propagate notions against Copts. Copts, they say, should pay jizya (a tax paid by non-Muslims under Muslim rule); they should not be wished well for Christmas or Easter; having them as neighbours is a great distress; engaging in trade with them is a misfortune; and greeting them is a sin. So much for religious tolerance.
Rampant ignorance
Also in Rose al-Youssef, Hany Labib tackles in his daily column a review of the book Zigaat al-Anbiyaa’ (Marriages of the Prophets), posted on the website www.almesryoon.com. The author of the book is Sheikh Khaled al-Atfi, the former head of an Islamic charity notorious for its fundamentalist, salafi thought. Sheikh Khaled argues that Jesus Christ was not unmarried as Christians claim, but was a polygamist who had planned to marry ten virgins but ended up marrying—in a single wedding banquet—only the five who arrived on time. He shut the door in the face of the five who were late in coming.
The weird interpretation of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins cited in Matthew 25 is not new; it was first introduced by Sheikh Mitwalli al-Shaarawi in the 1980s. Even though the Bible clearly says: “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto …” (Matt 25: 1), the insistence in interpreting it as a wedding for Jesus persists. Mr Labib concludes by deploring the rampant ignorance which leads to such irrational interpretation.
Had it not been so ridiculous, the issue would have been downright distressful.
Exclusively Muslim
Considering all the above, it should come as no surprise that a State-owned daily should print an advertisement for the sale of a deluxe apartment, “exclusively for Muslims or Arabs”. Al-Ahali, the weekly mouthpiece of the leftist Tagammu party, denounced the advertisement and remarked that, if anything, it was an indication of how low Egyptians have descended into the abyss of fanaticism. Have Christians become so rejected, the paper asked, that they can no longer be our next-door neighbours?
And in another incident of flagrant fanaticism, the State-owned daily al-Ahram—among the oldest and most respected papers in Egypt—printed on its front page a story under the title: “New secrets on Michael Jackson and Islam”. The paper said that Michael’s brother, himself a Muslim, claimed that Michael would never have taken his own life had he embraced Islam, because he would have then understood the secret of his being and all those around him. As though it is only Christians who commit suicide! The claim is odd, but odder still that none less than al-Ahram should print it. You too, al-Ahram!