“A Nation For All”

Via Abram News:

Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,” Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online. The Coptic priest was commenting on the now widespread call by Muslim intellectuals and activists upon Egyptian Muslims at large to flock to Coptic churches across the country to attend Coptic Christmas Eve mass, to show solidarity with the nation’s Coptic minority, but also to serve as “human shields” against possible attacks by Islamist militants.  

Mohamed Abdel Moniem El-Sawy, founder of El-Sawy Culture Wheel was among the promiment Muslim cultural figures who first floated the bold initiative.

“This is it. It is time to change and unite,” asserted journalist Ekram Youssef, another notable sponsor of the intiative, in a telephone interview with Ahram Online. She added that although it is the government’s responsibility to act and find solutions to bring an end to such violations, “it is time for Egyptian citizens to act to revive the true meaning of national unity.”

Following last year’s Coptic Christmas Eve attack on congregants as they left their church in the Upper Egyptian city of Naga Hamady, Youssef created the crescent and cross logo with the slogan “A nation for all” – that was adopted during the past couple of days by many of Egypt’s 4 million Facebook users as their profile picture.

Mariam Yassin, a 24 year old video editor, will take Thursday off to travel to Alexandria to attend the mass at the Two Saints Church. “I am not going as a representative of any religion. I am supporting all those who died as a result of ignorance.”

Yassin’s friend, Mariam Fekry, was killed along with her mother, sister and aunt in the Two Saints Church attack

“I feel great sympathy for her family’s loss, yet I don’t feel that as a Muslim I should apologize on the behalf of murderers.” Yassin added.

On the other hand, Fatima Mostafa, a 40 year old house wife, will join Copts tomorrow to show that Muslims feel their sorrow. “I want to show the world that Islam is a religion of peace and that such attacks are nothing more than a result of poverty, ignorance and oppression.”

While the reasons they cite for doing so may vary, many Egyptian Muslims are rallying around the idea of acting to protect their fellow citizens.

“I know it might not be safe, yet it’s either we live together, or we die together, we are all Egyptians,” Cherine Mohamed, a 50 year old house wife said.

After last year saw an escalation of violence against Iraqi Christians and the breakdown of another round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, it is heartening to see such a tangible display of religious tolerance and communal solidarity in the Middle East. These people are literally putting their lives on the line for the sake of coexistence. It won’t be predator drones that win the war on terror for us. It will be millions more Muslims who make shields of themselves, who put their bodies in between fanatic monomania and civil society.

I only hope that when the symbolism of such noble efforts is not so obvious and theatrical as in this case, we can still recognize and appreciate their nobility.

Of course, none of this is to say Egypt is an ideal model for a progressive society; the nation’s government only banned female genital mutilation three years ago, and some 78-97 percent of living Egyptian women still have to live with the physical and psychic scars. And though technically illegal, one imagines the cultural momentum behind the practice, prevalent in the Nile valley as early as the second century BCE, will take some generations to finally die out.

But even still. It cannot be denied that this life-or-death commitment to religious pluralism is a positive step in one direction.

Egypt’s Grand Mufti: Terrorism “a manifestation of the immorality of people with cruel hearts”

Via Notre Dame University’s Contending Modernities blog, a statement by Shaykh Ali Gomaa, one of the most respected sharia jurists in Sunni Islam:

There is no religion worthy of the name that does not regard as one of its highest values the sanctity of human life. Islam is no exception to this rule. Indeed, God has made this unequivocal in the Quran by emphasizing the gravity of the universal prohibition against murder, saying of the one who takes even one life that “it is as if he has killed all mankind.” Islam views murder as both a crime punishable by law in this world and as major sin punishable in the Afterlife as well. Prophet Mohammad said, “The first cases to be decided among the people on the Day of Judgment will be those of blood-shed.”

The Islam that we were taught in our youth is a religion that calls for peace and mercy.  The first prophetic saying that is taught to a student of Islam is, “Those who show mercy are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Show mercy to those who are on earth and the One in the heavens will show mercy to you.” What we have learnt about Islam has been taken from the clear, pristine, and scholarly understanding of the Quran, “O people we have created you from a single male and female and divided you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

Terrorism, therefore, cannot be the outcome of any proper understanding of religion. It is rather a manifestation of the immorality of people with cruel hearts, arrogant souls, and warped logic. It is thus with great sadness and outrage that we witness the emergence of this disease in our nation with the recent bombing outside a church in Alexandria that killed tens of Egyptian citizens. There is no doubt that such barbarism needs to be denounced in the strongest of terms, and opposed at every turn.

Just as importantly, we must counter the deviant beliefs that underpin such gross transgressions. Despite their confused claims, terrorists are miscreants who have no legitimate connection to the pure Islamic way, whose history and orthodox doctrine are testaments to the Islamic commitment to tolerance, compassion and peace. The Quran is clear that “God has honored the children of Adam.” Islam therefore makes no distinction among races, ethnicities, or religions in its belief that all people are deserving of basic human dignity. Furthermore, Islam has laid down justice, peace and cooperation as the basic principles of interaction between religious communities, advising Muslims that the proper conduct towards those who do not show aggression towards us is to act with goodness and justice. Indeed, this is the way of the true Muslim, for “God loves the just.”

This is only Gomaa’s most recent statement against extremism; in the past, he has argued against theocracy and for republican government, asserted women’s entitlement to political rights mostly equal to men’s, forbidden female genital mutilation in a country where 97 percent of women have endured it, stated apostasy is not a capital crime, and denounced the fraudulent hate literature of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is currently a bestseller in parts of the Arab world, with most readers taking its poisonous claims at face-value.