A visitor who stays at your home for an hour, a day or even an entire year is a guest. But the description is much less fitting for someone who has stayed for 14 centuries.
This is how Father Bishoy, secretary of the Coptic Ecclesiastical Council and a vocal Church leader, described Egypt’s Muslims--as guests.
Commenting on recent calls for the Egyptian government to stop interfering in Coptic religious affairs, Bishoy said that Egypt’s Muslims have forgotten that the Copts were the original inhabitants of the country.
“We treat with love those guests who have come to us and lived in our country and whom we have considered as our brothers,” he said.
Fourteen centuries have elapsed since those “guests“ first came to Egypt, yet some people still regard them as such and talk about two discrete groups in Egypt: the original inhabitants and the unwelcome visitors.
Not only are such arguments misleading, they are also politically unwise. There is no “pure nation” anywhere in the world, nor is there a single culture that is free of influence by other world cultures. All human societies transform over the course of history, and their cultures, religions, traditions, and even geographies change in the process.
Is Father Bishoy aware that Scandinavian countries--which boast the highest safety and security records in the world--were once home to the ruthless Vikings?
Would anybody in his right mind suggest that Native Americans--by virtue of being indigenous communities in the US--should expel present-day Americans who settled there two centuries ago?
Similarly, it would be sheer lunacy to demand that Spain be returned to the Muslims who ruled it for 700 years and that the Christians who retook the country by force and set up religious inquisitions be kicked out.
There is no doubt that Egypt was once Coptic, but even that period was preceded by a long Pharaonic history. And it’s true that the Islamic invasion of Egypt in the seventh century had its imperial calculations. But it also successfully persuaded many of Egypt’s Copts to convert, learn Arabic and marry newly-arrived Muslims.
Egypt’s Copts have definitely suffered discrimination during the long period in which Muslims and Christians have lived side by side in this country. However, to give credit where it is due, Islam can also claim many instances of tolerance towards other religions, more so than Christianity in the West.
Father Bishoy’s statement are illogical and represent a grave mistake. They will only serve to stoke the flames of sectarianism. Is this in fact what the Father wants?
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
What this person is writing about
What crime rate in Scandinavian countries has to do with the Vikings being the original people? They were the original people then and they are still the original people now.
Indians in USA want to talk their land but they can not because they are weaker. The same for Mexicans who consider Texas and California to be their land.
As for Spain, it was for Spanish people. Muslims took it for 700 years and Spanish people took it back. Which is a good model for nations around the world.
Such remarks are only going to flame sectarianism. I am a visitor in Egypt and can talk without prejudice. I do not see any signs of religous extremism in any of Egyptians I have met to this day. As for Coptic churches, a lot of them seem to have been conceived and built more recently than a few of the many mosques around. By the way, the giziya was made mandatory because the non Moslem subjects were not paying the zakaat. The zakaat was mandatory for the Moslem subjects. Check the records, the giziya was the same amount as the zakaat and the fitra put together. Please do not be mislead by half baked information fellowmen. Let us make this world a better place ... No conflict will be resolved that way.
Peace Be Upon You All.
Islam has been more tolerant to Christians than in the west?
In Australia and USA they let Muslims build mosques and Islamic schools at will. How many Coptic schools are there? How many new Churches are there? In Algeria 2 Christians were arrested for eating during Ramadan. This is a joke. Islam hates Christians and Christians are fed up. Muslims unlawfully invaded Egypt and imposed their laws on the Christians, including the gizya.
The Arab muslims invaded, imposed their religion using forced tactics and gizya, with many Coptic martyrs, dying for their religion, while the poor blindly converted.
And for your information, Spain was a Christian land before Islam existed. Just like Egypt. Except Christians never took Egypt back.