Following the recent ruling by the Alexandria Court of Appeals that the 13-year-old twins Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramsis should be moved from the custody of their Christian mother Kamilia Lutfi to the custody of their Muslim convert father, ++Watani++ talked to Ms Lutfi. Ramsis was born a Christian, converted to Islam in 2000, reverted to Christianity in 2002, then back to Islam in 2005. His divorced wife Lutfi alleged he had resorted to “manipulating religions to his own ends”.
Motivated as a mother+Lutfi said the recent ruling came as no surprise. “Ever since the previous ruling in February 2006, which I appealed in the present case,” she said, “I have not been optimistic. I see both rulings as flagrant contradictions to the Egyptian law, to sharia or Islamic law, and to the Constitution.”
Lutfi told Watani that she had made it her business to review all relevant legal precedents, articles of the Egyptian law, as well as all relevant fatwas. Egyptian law grants a mother—regardless of her religion—custody of children until the age of 15, following which the children are given the choice of remaining with the mother or moving with the father. The ruling against the Christian-born twins has disregarded the law and has also gone against the twin’s wish to remain in their mother’s custody and be free to practice their Christian faith.
Lutfi told Watani that she was holding on to her children and her religion. Bitterly, she asked: “Can you believe that the court has favoured the children’s stepmother with their custody instead of their real mother? Simply because she is Muslim.
“My sense of motherhood will motivate me to exhaust every possible legal means to protect my children,” Lutfi determinedly said.
Dilemma
In the Egyptian media, Lutfi reminded, a number of learned scholars of Islamic Fiqh, including Suad Saleh and Sheikh Youssef al-Badry, repeatedly confirmed that a mother—regardless of her religion—has the right of custody of children until the age of 15.
Lutfi said: “All these principles were sacrificed on the ground of fanaticism.” Lutfi, who was fined EGP10,000 for libelling her husband, a charge she vehemently denies, claiming she was misquoted in an Egyptian newspaper, remarked: “Were the charge true, why were the editor and editor-in-chief who printed my alleged words not charged with libel as the law stipulates? Why did I have to be alone accused of the charge? Again, justice appears to have been sacrificed for fanaticism.”
The twins, Andrew and Mario, voiced their anguish at the ruling. “No matter the court ruling,” they said, “We are still Christian and wish to remain with our mother.” The twins face the dilemma of being considered Muslim by law, since they are required to follow the ‘better religion’—that being Islam in the sight of the law—in the event that their parents belong to different religions. The right of non-Muslim children of Muslim convert parents to remain Christian, however, and the right of converts to revert to their original Christianity, are being contested before the Constitutional Court. A ruling is expected once a report is issued on the matter by the court commision.
Defiant
Andrew’s and Mario’s story caught the attention of the media when, obliged to sit for the Islamic religion test at school in May 2007—students have to pass Religion exams to be promoted to a higher class—the boys answered none of the questions. On his answer sheet Andrew wrote “I am Christian” and Mario wrote: “My religion is Christianity”. They failed the exam and had to re-take it, but again insisted on writing these single phrases. But the Education Minister Yusri al-Gamal issued an exceptional decree that both children would be promoted to the higher class.
This year the twins will be required to attend Islamic religion lessons and sit for the exam. Watani found them defiant. “We will not take the Islamic religion test, even if we fail to pass the school year. We will not go to our father, even by force. We will run away.”