At a time when hate rhetoric prevades most media outlets in Egypt, it was refreshing to come across a feature recently printed by the independent, leftist Cairo daily al-Badeel, entitled “In this manner we love God”.
Reciting Qur’an
The feature presented various inspiring examples of national unity. I really hope that the televised media grabs some of these examples and airs a feature about them, to spread among Egyptians a sense of renewed security following the steady rise in sectarian strife. Among the stories printed was one that concerned the village of Qarara in Minya, Upper Egypt. According to al-Badeel, the 6000 mostly Coptic inhabitants of Qarara earn their living by reciting Qur’an during the funerals and special occasions held by the Muslim villagers of the neighbouring village of Sharona. The Christians of Qarara see no harm in engaging in the practice, and no Muslim in Sharona ever objected to the Qur’an being recited in their village almost exclusively by Christian chanters.
Art is art
The Coptic artist Atef Zaki from the town of Naqada in Qena, Upper Egypt, makes a living by painting scenes of hajj on the walls of the houses of the Muslim villagers who return from performing the mandatory religious duty of hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca. It is traditional to paint such scenes on houses of returning pilgrims as a form of celebration. Zaki is proud of his job, he told al-Badeel.
There was also the story of the Muslim carpenter Sayed Abdel-Rehim from Naga Hamadi who is expert at making wooden crucifixes. Abdel-Rehim said that he learnt the intricate art of woodworking from the Coptic muallim—literally teacher, a term used to indicate an expert at a certain job—Fikry Gawargious who taught him the art of making mosque pulpits as well. Abdel-Rehim insisted that art will be art whatever the religion or the output. He added that Copts have long worked in building and decorating Upper Egypt’s mosques and so have Muslims in Upper Egypt’s churches.
Would that all Egyptians were artists!
Fiery headlines
With no issue of the paper free of at least one story on Copts, mostly of the type guaranteed to stir hatred and sectarian tension, Sout al-Umma—the Cairo weekly independent paper with overtly Islamist inclinations—has adopted an obvious stance against Copts. It frequently uses incendiary headlines on its front page to advertise stories on the inner pages, only for the reader to discover that the stories inside have nothing to do with the headlines concerned.
Headlines of a recent issue screamed: “We publish an exclusive on investigations regarding the Christian woman who converted to Islam and was abducted by her Christian husband’s friends [to prevent her from publicising her conversion and living as a Muslim]”. The story inside is about a rape incident and the religion of the victim is not known.
The same issue of the paper carries a story of the struggle between a Muslim convert and the church which he claims has hidden his wife and daughter to prevent them from converting to Islam as he did. The story, which was also preceded by hot headlines, is unsubstantiated and leaves out major details such as which church is accused of the deed and why the father never made any complaint about the disappearance of his wife and daughter to the relevant authorities.
Father Yuta
Sout al-Umma also claimed it was printing a story, “backed by pictures”, on the “details of the mean film against Islam and the Prophet Mohamed posted on the Internet by Father Yuta, while the Church remains silent.” The story, which has been widely circulated of late, is about an anonymous person who calls himself Fr Yuta and posts material on the Internet attacking Islam. Sout al-Umma printed some derisive pictures he posted and blamed the Church for allowing the so-called Fr Yuta to tarnish the image of Islam. Even though the security apparatus has announced it has not discovered who ‘Fr Yuta’ is, the paper insists he is a Coptic priest and that the Church is doing nothing about his derision of Islam. The paper heavily condemns deriding Islam on the Internet but appears to have no qualms about the derision of Christianity that is so rampant online.
This begs the question of whether the paper is aware of the hatred it incites and the sectarian strife that is bound to follow.