Whilst leading Muslim clerics complained of the Swiss decision to ban the building of further minarets, there was not a word from the same for the continued denial of the right to worship freely for religious minorities across the Muslim-majority world.
In Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Christian minority make up some 10% of the population; yet they continue to face hostility and persecution, largely whipped up by the Islamists. Writing in the New York Times, Daniel Williams observes the double-standards of the leaders of the Islamic community in condemning the Swiss referendum on minarets, whilst remaining silent about the continued denial of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority’s right to worship in peace:
On a side street in the far northeast Cairo suburb of Ain Shams, the door of a five-story former underwear factory is padlocked.
This is, or was supposed to be, the St. Mary and Anba Abraam Coptic Christian Church. The police closed it Nov. 24, 2008, when Muslims rioted against its consecration. Since then local Copts have had to commute to distant churches or worship in hiding at one another’s homes.
While Muslim leaders criticized the Nov. 29 vote in Switzerland that banned construction of minarets, the distinctive spires on mosques that are used for the call to prayer, they don’t support Christians who want to build churches in some Islamic countries. Restrictions in Egypt have exacerbated sectarian violence and discrimination, say Copts, a 2,000-year-old denomination that comprises about 10 percent of the population.
The day after the Swiss vote, Ali Gomaa, one of Egypt’s top Muslim clerics, called the decision “an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside of Switzerland.”
Copts quickly said that neither he nor any other Islamic leader mentioned the Christian situation in Egypt.
“Without the merest attempt to put our house in order, are we in any position to taunt others to put theirs?” Youssef Sidhom, editor in chief of the Cairo-based Egyptian Coptic weekly newspaper El-Watani, said by telephone. “They should be ashamed.
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According to the shariah:
“…Muslim authorities must guarantee the security of lives, property, churches, crosses, and other religious rites and practices of the dhimmis, provided they do not build new churches (but they can repair or renew the building of old ones) or display their crosses or ring their church bells too loudly.” (according to: War and Peace in the Law of Islam by Majid Khadduri, page 195)
It helps to acknowledge this increasingly strong tradition in the Islamic world, which has a basis in Islamic law, but the West puts itself at hazard if it judges its actions according to these standards, rather than the standards of tolerance and religious plurality that have become a key tenet of Western political and social life over the past several hundred years.
Refer to the Law,
Agreed.
However, I would assert that the values of tolerance and relgious plurality are not simply Western values; but, rather, universal values and the non-negotiable human rights of people where ever and whenever they find themselves.
Whilst there is plenty of evidence for the historical oppression of the Copts in Egypt, it is sadly also the case that the present pitch of intolerance has been reached only comparatively recently with the rise of the bigoted, twisted innovatory interpretation of Islam that is Islamism.
This intolerance didn’t exist before Ikhwan burst on the scene.
264u
There have always been periods since Islam came to Egypt when the Copts (amongst others) have undergone periodic persecution. However, you are correct that over the last century or so, the oppression of the ancient Coptic Orthodox Christian community has been largely the business of al-Ikhwaan and fellow Islamist travellers.
Incidentally, William’s article (above) makes a historical howler. The Coptic religious community is not “2000 years old”. The Coptic Orthodox Church came into independent being as a result of a schism in the wider Orthodox communion that came to a head at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE.
The Coptic language (now an entirely liturgical language only used in Church services) is, however, considerably older – being a descendent of the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians.
For an example of a pre-modern persecution of the Copts, one might recall the particularly savage pogrom at the city of Qft, in Upper Egypt, in 1176.
After a local rebellion against Ayyubid rule in Egypt, Al-Adil, brother of Saladin, hanged nearly 3000 Copts on the trees around the city.
“………… it is sadly also the case that the present pitch of intolerance has been reached only comparatively recently with the rise of the bigoted, twisted innovatory interpretation of Islam that is Islamism…….”
The source of Muslim’s fanatical aggression is Islam itself.
This hate is as old as the first massacre of of kafirs by the prophet of Islam. Nothing has changed, the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs all over the world.
Please find somewhere else to play, Gerrit.
The topic of this thread is not your pathological hatred of an entire faith community.