by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Hudson New York<\/em><\/p>\n For centuries, the Copts \u2014 Egypt’s Christian, indigenous inhabitants \u2014 have been subject to persecution, discrimination, humiliation, and over all subjugation in their homeland (etymologically<\/a>, “Copt” simply means “Egyptian”). In the medieval era, such treatment was a standard aspect of sharia’s\u00a0dhimmi<\/em>\u00a0codes, first ratified under\u00a0Caliph Omar<\/a>\u00a0in the 7th century and based on\u00a0Koran 9:29<\/a>. Conversely, during the colonial era and into the mid-twentieth century, as Egypt experimented with westernization and nationalism, religious discrimination was markedly subdued. Today, however, as Egypt all but spearheads the Islamist movement \u2014 giving the world Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Aymen Zawahiri in the process \u2014 that is, as Egypt reverts to its medieval character, the Copts find themselves again in a period of severe persecution.<\/p>\n And there appears to be no one to stop it \u2014 not even those most accountable: America’s friend and ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his government. Indeed, recent events indicate that the Mubarak regime is intentionally inciting Egypt’s Muslims against the Copts.<\/p>\n Consider: on September 15, prominent Egyptian Muhammad Salim al-Awwa, ex-secretary general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, appeared on\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and, in a wild tirade,\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0the Copts of “stocking arms and ammunitions in their churches and monasteries” \u2014 imported from Israel, no less, since “Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause” \u2014 and “preparing to wage war against Muslims.”<\/p>\n He warned that if nothing is done, the “country will burn,” urging Muslims to “counteract the strength of the [Coptic] Church.” Al-Awwa further charged that Egypt’s security forces cannot enter the monasteries to investigate for weapons \u2014 an amazing assertion, considering that Coptic monasteries are not only at the mercy of the state, but easy prey to\u00a0Islamist\/Bedouin attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Needless to say, these remarks have inflamed Muslim passions (not to mention paranoia) against Egypt’s Christians, who make approximately 12% of the population. To make matters worse, right on the heels of al-Awwa’s “monastery-conspiracy-theory,” Islamist leaders began to circulate baseless rumors that the Church and Pope Shenouda III “kidnap” Coptic women who willingly convert to Islam, and trap them in desert monasteries, “torturing” and “re-indoctrinating” them back to Christianity \u2014 even when the women in question\u00a0publicly insist they never converted to Islam<\/a>.<\/p>\n Due to all these allegations, since last month, there have been at least ten mass demonstrations in Egypt \u2014 most numbering in the thousands \u2014 condemning the Copts, the Coptic Church, and Pope Shenouda. The “Front of Islamic Egypt” issued a statement\u00a0promising<\/a>\u00a0the Copts a “blood bath.” Most recently, on October 8, Muslim demonstrators chanted “Shenouda, just wait, we will dig your grave with our own hands,” while burning the 86 year-old pope’s effigy.<\/p>\n At the very least, the usually intrusive Mubarak regime could have easily dispelled the absurd rumor that Coptic monks, among Egypt’s most humble figures, were stockpiling weapons for an imaginary\u00a0coup d’\u00e9tat<\/em>\u00a0in Egypt, by formally investigating and clearing the monasteries of the charge. Same with the ludicrous rumors that the Pope is kidnapping and torturing Coptic women who freely convert to Islam \u2014 an especially odd rumor considering\u00a0the reverse is true<\/a>: in Egypt,\u00a0Christian women<\/a>\u00a0are regularly\u00a0kidnapped<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0compelled to embrace Islam<\/a>.<\/p>\n To further exasperate matters, on September 26,\u00a0Al Azhar<\/a>, a formal state body of Egypt, denounced a\u00a0remark<\/a>\u00a0on Koran 5:17, which accuses Christians of being “infidels,” made by a Coptic clergyman at an internal meeting on dogma, as “blasphemous.” It further took this opportunity to state formally that citizenship rights in Egypt “are conditional to respect for the Islamic identity” of Egypt, thereby reversing any modern progress made regarding Egyptian equality and reinforcing the Copts’ historical role as\u00a0dhimmis<\/em>\u00a0(i.e., conditionally tolerated religious minorities). Pope Shenouda was further compelled to publicly apologize “if our Muslim brothers’ feelings were hurt.”<\/p>\n All this in a nation where Christian and Jewish scriptures are systematically denounced as fabricated. Indeed, mere weeks earlier, a well-known publishing house in Egypt issued a book dedicated to “proving” that\u00a0Christians had forged the Bible<\/a>. Such double standards are well entrenched: after all, whereas the Coptic clergyman privately remarked on a Koranic verse, the Egyptian government openly\u00a0interferes with Christian doctrine<\/a>, while preventing Muslims from converting to Christianity, in accordance to sharia’s\u00a0ridda<\/em>, or apostasy, laws. For example,\u00a0Mohammad Hegazy<\/a>\u00a0is one of many Egyptians who tried formally to change his religion from Muslim to Christian on his I.D. card \u2014 in Egypt, people are Gestapo-like categorized by their religion \u2014 onlyto be denied<\/a>\u00a0by the Egyptian court. (Many<\/a>\u00a0other<\/a>\u00a0such<\/a>\u00a0anecdotes<\/a>\u00a0abound<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Considering the citizenship rights Copts enjoyed in the early to mid-twentieth century, how did things come to this pass? Much of this can be traced to Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, who altered Egypt’s Constitution \u2014 by adding Article 2, “sharia is the principle source of legislation” \u2014 only to be rewarded, ironically, with assassination by the Islamist “Frankenstein monster” he had empowered. Since then, there has been a tacit agreement between the government and the Islamists. As\u00a0Youssef Ibrahim<\/a>\u00a0puts it, the agreement “turned over to Islamists control in media, education, and government administrations in return for allowing Mr. Mubarak’s rule to go on unchallenged, setting the stage \u2026 for his son, Gamal, to succeed him. As part of the deal, [Mubarak] agreed to feed Egypt’s Christians to the growing Islamic beast.”<\/p>\n Hence the dire situation the Copts find themselves in.\u00a0Magdi Khalil<\/a>, a human rights activist at the forefront of the “Coptic question,” states that “Egypt is on the verge of chaos and change of regime and there is a plan for Copts to pay the price of this predicted chaos, by directing the surplus violence, hate and barbarism towards them.” This redirection onto the Copts is obvious even in subtle things: aside from the habitual anti-Copt indoctrination that goes on in mosques \u2014 all of the aforementioned demonstrations occurred immediately after Friday’s mosque prayers \u2014 Egypt’s state run public education system also marginalizes, if not ostracizes, the Copts (see, for example, Adel Guindy’s “The Talibanization of Education in Egypt<\/a>.”)<\/p>\n More obvious proof of the government’s complicity is the fact that, not only has it not prevented or dispersed the increasingly rabid demonstrations against the Copts \u2014 the way it viciously and unequivocally does whenever any protests are directed against itself \u2014 but Egyptian security, as Magdi Khalil affirmed in a phone conversation, actually facilitates, and sometimes participates, in these mass demonstrations. After all, Islamists who publicly call for the death of the Pope do so, writes\u00a0Ibrahim Eissa<\/a>, “knowing quite well that State Security will not touch them, since demonstrations are directed against the Pope and not the President, the Church and not the inheritance issue [Gamal Mubarak as successor of his father]. Those who go out in Jihad against ‘inheritance,’ democracy and election fraud are beaten mercilessly by security forces but those who go out to incite sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians believe \u2026that they are the friends and ‘buddies’ of the police and the State Security.”<\/p>\n As history teaches, whenever a majority group casts all its woes onto a minority group, great tragedy often follows. This is especially so when the majority group in question begins taking on an Islamist \u2014 that is, intolerant, violent, and medieval \u2014 character. Yet, if Egypt’s “secular” government and U.S. ally is willing to sacrifice the Coptic scapegoat to appease the ever-burgeoning Islamist monster, it has been nurturing for some four decades, to whom can Egypt’s Christians look for relief?<\/p>\n Raymond Ibrahim<\/a>\u00a0is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader<\/a>, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York For centuries, the Copts \u2014 Egypt’s Christian, indigenous inhabitants \u2014 have been subject to persecution, discrimination, humiliation, and over all subjugation in their homeland (etymologically, “Copt” simply means “Egyptian”).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[227,505],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-iJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":641,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/calls-to-destroy-egypts-great-pyramids\/","url_meta":{"origin":1161,"position":0},"title":"Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids \u2014 or, in the words of Saudi\u00a0Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi'i, those \"symbols of paganism,\" which Egypt's Salafi party has long planned to\u00a0cover\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3848,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-the-egyptian-revolution-can-be-the-best-or-worst-thing-to-happen\/","url_meta":{"origin":1161,"position":1},"title":"Why the Egyptian Revolution Can Be the Best or Worst Thing to Happen","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim NRO's\u00a0The Corner It is clear that the media and its host of analysts are split in two camps on the Egyptian revolution: one that sees it as a wonderful expression of \"people-power\" that, left alone, will naturally culminate into some sort of pluralistic democracy, and another that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7096,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-past-and-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":1161,"position":2},"title":"The Past and the Future","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Last November Raymond Ibrahim was interviewed by Egyptian reporter Sherif Awad.\u00a0 The interview appeared in several Egyptian magazines and websites, as well as American ones, such as the\u00a0Westchester Guardian. \u00a0The interview follows: Awad: Can you tell us about your family and their profession and how and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1191,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/islams-slave-soldiers-return-to-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":1161,"position":3},"title":"Islam’s Slave-Soldiers Return to Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Stonegate Institute The myths of a \"patriotic\" or \"altruistic\" Egyptian military carefully protecting the \"rights\" of its citizenry \u2014 the narrative of the mainstream media of the January 25 Revolution \u2014 are long gone. 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