Note: This document can not be considered as the translation of the Arabic paper on the same subject. Although they both have great similarity, they are still formulated differently to suit the targeted audience.
Abū Hinnis Monastery is considered as one of the important locations that the "Holy family" stopped during their three year visit to Egypt. The monastery is located in Upper Egypt near Minia. The road to the monastery crosses over fantastic country landscape, between green fields and the Nile. We decided to go on a two day trip to attend the festival the church organizes in honor of the Virgin Mary.
The villages on the road to Minia have the typical traditional style of Upper Egypt. The palm trees and green fields next to the road recall the grace of Egypt of which many towns and cities in Egypt are now deprived. The people were an indigenous mix of simple farmers and public servants working for local government units. The rural landscape with the mountains on one side and the Nile on the other was one of the best views I have yet to see.
On the road to Abū Hinnis Monastery, we stopped at Jebel al-Tayr Monastery [The Mountain of Birds] and Suwādah Church. Jabel al-Tayr is a potential spot that the Holy Family rested on while on the road to Abū Hinnis Monastery. At Jebel al-Tayr Monastery, we visited the ancient church, where a room measuring approximately 3 m3 was allegedly where the Holy Family lived for three days. We then had a conversation with Father Mattá Kamāl Ḥanna of Jebel al-Tayr on the relations between Muslims and Christians, and if their perception of the Virgin Mary as a shared value would stand as a contributing factor to the relations between them. Father Mattá responded, "The Virgin Mary is a shared character for Muslims and Christians as she was mentioned in their relative Holy Books. There is no difference between them as to their interest in the dignity of the Virgin Mary." I asked him about the effect this would have in the daily lives of the ordinary public of both sides. "Both Muslims and Christians come to participate in the festival period. Others would come to visit, receive the blessings, ask for intercession from the Virgin Mary to resolve their daily life problems. I have seen many Muslim ladies, wearing a Ḥijāb or Niqāb, talking to the image of the Virgin Mary."
I then asked him about the issue of conversions. He said "Embracing Islam or Christianity should be a personal affair after preaching and giving guidance to the person in question in accordance with the relative Egyptian laws. But when a Muslim embraces Christianity, he or she has to endure the harassments of the officials. Moreover, he is not entitled to the same facilities a Christian who embraced Islam would enjoy. Therefore, I call for a greater clarity where religious matters are concerned.”
The number of people visiting Jebel al-Tayr is highly questionable. A number which can reach two million according to Father Mattá. This figure convey a great deal about the tendency to push up as far as possible in order to defend the legitimacy. The most interesting part was when he said "and God sends." So it is God who decides how many people come to visit. Therefore we have no right to question the number or to ask for exact numbers of them, lest we want to question the blessings God sends.
We continued our discussion with the relations between the church and the government. We were given a highly diplomatic answer; "The government is keen to provide us with all facilities and services." Concerning incidents of sectarian strife, Father Mattá said "there was a sectarian sedition between the monastery and al-Abed family, a Muslim Family living near the monastery, on the background of the dispute over five Feddans between the monastery land and Al-Abed land. The sedition has been curbed in the area and is under control. This incident has no effect on Muslim-Christian relations."
On the road to Suwādah, we briefly stopped to get some photos of the remnants of the "holy tree." This tree had a story to tell as Drs. Cornelis Hulsman, Director of Center for Arab West Understanding, says. He goes on to explain the story. The tree was found bowing to the earth. It was said that the tree bowed to Jesus, resulting in the tree becoming a blessing for visitors. Years later, before 2000, the Ministry of Tourism asked the patriarchy to provide it with a list of the religious spots to visit in order to place them on the tourism map. It was said that a priest suggested including the "holy tree." The villagers in the area were scared that had that tree been included in the tourism guide that their lands, along with the tree, would be confiscated. Thus, the villagers had to uproot the tree in order to save their bread winning land. The incident was reported as a religious harassment deliberately conducted by Muslims, which actually had nothing to do with it.
In Suwādah, we have seen a typical example of the authorities’ tolerance with church building. What we saw was an old church, partly distorted, and an almost completely new church was built over the same location as the old church. This was done under the license of restoration, yet in my opinion was a far cry from restoration. There was no problem obtaining the restoration license from the authorities, a man who is taking care of the church said, adding "The problem we faced were financial problems." No doubt the scale of the restoration process was large enough to be termed as a new church building. The new church space was more than enough when compared to the number of the Christians living in the neighborhood. This would undoubtedly raise questions regarding the church’s restoration process. We were unable to obtain even a rough estimate of the number of Christians living near the church in order to gauge how many people would frequently visit it. During a roughly 20 minute discussion with the man, we got numbers ranging from 2000, 3000, 10,000, to 15,000.
In Abū Hinnis Monastery, we climbed to see an ancient church atop a mountain. The church was in a cave. We went inside and noticed that the ceiling bore signs of graffiti written over the original old scripts on the ceiling, representing disrespect in attitude toward a historical heritage.
The next morning, the festivals celebrating the Virgin Mary started early in the morning. We embarked on a felluca [a type of boat], along with the bishop and ’Shamamsah.’ I had a conversation with priest whose answers on the relations that Muslims and Christians have concerning the Virgin Mary were highly diplomatic. As soon as we went into the relations between Muslims and Christians, he seemed more conservative with his short answers. But in spite of this he was far less pessimistic than the businessman I later listened to. The businessman’s perception of Muslim-Christian coexistence was darker than what I expected a Christian could have. He believes that it would be better for the Christians to live in a pure Christian closed society rather than to coexist in a Muslim community. This, living in closed society, he thinks, preserves the Christian characteristics of the Christian community and gives the Christian community more power than what he called "dissolution into the Muslim community." He continued by telling me stories on how the Christians are being discriminated against by Muslims for no reason other than being Christian. He told me of a young doctor who was re-enlisted in military service and then deliberately sent to a remote farm which has nothing to do with doctors, only because his name reveals his Christian affiliation.
The festivities proceeded as we went to Kom Maria [Maria’s Hill]; a hill that is believed to have been passed over by the Holy Family over on their journey into Egypt. The festival was shared by Muslims and Christians, with the local Muslim Imāms and Christian priests and bishop, along with the governor and security chief, a beautiful view of the Egyptian society that one was proud of and wished that it could be better perceived by the public.
We were on the way back Cairo, but the story remains incomplete. We had Father Johanna Fayez on board. I asked him about the status of the Virgin Mary for Muslims and Christians. "You can find both Muslims and Christians with an image of the Virgin Mary. They also make vows and ask for blessings from the church. Most of them, both Muslims and Christians, ask for blessings to conceive children." I asked him: "How do you analyze Muslim-Christian relations?" The situation now can be characterized with quietness – a word that sounded a little bit more like a truce rather than peace or co-existence – and the wise people on both sides avoid troubles, and when it arises they resolve it quickly."
I asked him if he feels any change in the relations between Muslims and Christians whether positive or negative in the last ten years. He replied: "Yes, of course, negative change. The love between Muslims and Christians has decreased because of the extremist groups. Extremism has its Islamic roots deep in Islam. It depends on Qur’ānic texts and not misinterpretation. There are Qur’ānic verses calling on Muslims to kill non-Muslims. Muslims do not deal with Christians on equivalent base. Often, they see them from the perspective of Ahl al-Dhimmah who should be subject to the Islamic verse "until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (Surat Al-Tawaba: Aya 29). Had Muslims given Christians some of their rights, they give them out of grace and not as rights for fully eligible citizens of Egypt. Even the Brotherhood [Muslim Brotherhood] had good ties with the Christians until the 1973 War was over and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. Therefore, the Brotherhood needed a new party to confront. They had no better choice than the Christians in Egypt. They were influenced by foreign intellectual trends." "There remain some good examples of the relation," he added. He told me how a Muslim English teacher had asked about his son when he was absent from school. He went on and told me about a Muslim colleague who warned a Christian friend of his not to stay in the students’ city because there was a state of restlessness during the demonstrations organized by an Islamic trend. He concluded by saying "if Muslims followed the right way of Islam, there would be no problem."
I proceeded to ask him about his opinion on the reconciliation sessions frequently held these days as soon as sedition incidents occur. He commented that "Reconciliation is a way to prevent worse developments of the incidents, but it does not solve the root of the problems. Mostly, the reconciliation is superficial and the government is only interested in getting control of the situation. The Christians are rarely treated with justice. He has to accept the reconciliation to avoid further losses if he decided to sue the aggressor. You could rarely find an incident where the Muslims were wronged. This is because the Christians, unlike Muslims, have been ordered to love others, even his enemies; not to kill others for embracing a different religion."
I was shocked by Fr. Johanna’s expression and concepts of Islam and Muslims.
End of the story. But did it really come to an end, or did it leave loose ends. Nobody could explain. The only answer I know for sure is that the answer is still there as deep and rough as the rocks of the mountain near Abū Hinnis Monastery in Upper Egypt.
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6] The "Holy Family" is the biblical term for the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, and Zackeria (peace be upon them). Muslims identify them with their names. They do not call them Holy Family as they do not ascribe the "holy" adjective to anything other than God.
7] Asking for blessings, intercession, or help from the Virgin Mary or anyone other than God is considered unlawful according to Muslims. Some of the common people might do this out of love for the prophets and religious misinformation. The tradition in this case plays a principal role in such case to formulate the perception of the common people.
8] For more information on conversions in Egypt, see the special report written by Mr. Mads Akselbo Holm, intern of CIDT, at the following address: www.arabwestreport.info, and AWR, 2007, week 50, art. 2]
9] An idea that is totally wrong and cannot be accepted from a priest living Egypt not the West. The Qur'ānic Ayat was decontextualized and misinterpreted. Extremism existed long before Islam. The sense of injustice, exclusion is the major source for extremism. Had he referred to one of the Qur'?n exegesis books, he would have found that the verses referred to are revealed for fighting back those who are fighting Muslims. Therefore, the verses are revealed to put rules for fighting back against the aggressors, not to initiate wars against civilians.
10] This is a clear contradiction. How should be no problems for Muslim if they follow the correct path? The same path that has extremism roots deep within. Or it might be something other than Islam.
11] This is typical of stereotypes, a way to throw the problems over to the others, claiming that they are the bad people. Or might be more interesting to be intrinsically bad, evil, and terror-motivated! Does this sound similar to something…?
العربية