Home › 40. Sectarian fitnah from al-Khānkah and al-Kushh to the crime of Naj‘ Hammādī

40. Sectarian fitnah from al-Khānkah and al-Kushh to the crime of Naj‘ Hammādī

Fri, 2010-05-07 14:08 — Tom

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Year: 
2010
Week: 
2
Article number: 
40
Article pages: 
5
Date of source: 
January 13, 2010
Author: 
Husayn ‘Abd al-Rāziq
Reviewer: 
Han&#299 Lab&#299b Ish&#257q
Article summary: 

The author highlights the history of the sectarian tension in Egypt, its reasons, and suggests some solutions.

 

Article full text: 

cAbd al-Rāziq reports on the last attack against Christians of Naj‘ Hammādī, which took place on Christmas Eve and six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed. At the same time that the international community condemns the incident, the Egyptian police consider it a revenge crime. The author believes that the incident is not an isolated crime, especially when taking into account the context of similar events which the author called ‘national fitnah’. Since the early 1970s, Egypt has witnessed a series of sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians. The author mentions the incidents of al-Khānkah in 1972 and similar incidents in the period 1975-1977. He also refers to the tension between President al-Sadāt and the church after the incidents of al-Zāwiyah al-Hamrā’ in 1981. The author considers the events in al-Kushh in 1998 as the most critical clash, where the police jailed a huge number of Copts and practiced different kinds of prosecution against them. The author provides similar incidents as a result of dispute over houses of worship as well as those incidents which result from the religious conversion and disappearance of Coptic minor girls. He also tackles many other similar events during 2006 and 2007 due to different reasons.

 
cAbd al-Rāziq states that there is a consensus among researchers about the reasons behind sectarian dispute in Egypt. cAbd al-Rāziq believes that Egypt is considered a semi-religious state as the second article of the constitution attests that “Islam is the religion of the state and the principles of Sharī‘ah are the mains source of legislation”. In reality, this article provides for discrimination against non-Muslim groups in society. Moreover, Egypt has passed through a period of disorder when the religious institutions wielded much influence on decision making during the period of al-Sadāt’s rule. Another factor is the non-official religious discourse, which pushes people towards intolerance and non-acceptance of the other. Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood played a crucial role in sectarian tension when they declared that their objective is to establish Islamic state, a pronouncement which scared Copts.
 
cAbd al-Rāziq highlights the issue of discrimination against Copts in different domains and at all levels. He also refers to the deliberate ignorance of teaching the Coptic era in the educational curricula as well as the issue of building houses of worship and the obstinacy of the state in issuing permissions. cAbd al-Rāziq suggests some solutions to this sectarian crisis such as: the separation between the state and religion, a unified law for houses of worship, reviewing educational curricula, equality in employment opportunities t, changing the style of religious discourse, and the establishment of democracy.  

 

Fulltext type: 
Summary
Quality: 
The article contains no obvious errors...
Classification: 
Opinion
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