The REAL Problem With Islam

The REAL Problem With Islam
Sally Bishai

The real problem with Islam is not the fact that it is, as some might call it, “Anti-female” or “Anti-Feminist.” (Because it could be said that protecting modesty, beauty, and the god-given role of women as care-givers and child-bearers is the most PRO-female thing out there.)

The real problem with Islam has nothing to do with the fact that one of Mohammed’s wives was 9 years old. (Because scholars can’t seem to agree on the “legal age of marriage” for the 7th Century, so it could actually have been THE thing to do.)

The real problem with Islam isn’t that some might call it a bloody religion, what with the notions of Instant Paradise and Jihad swirling through the minds of world-weary would-be terrorists. (Because many Muslims disagree with the whole “justified/excused/condoned killing” thing cited by Jihadists, Islamists, and other names ending in “ists.”)

The real problem with Islam has nothing to do with the fact that some find the consistency of Allah’s commands (to Mohammed, in the Qur’an) less than consistent.

The real problem with Islam isn’t about the lack of a centralized governing figure that ALL Muslims listen to, or even one for Shia and one for Sunni.

Neither is the real problem with Islam the lack of consensus, with regards to “which faction is the true one,” or even “which Islamic country’s level of strictness/devoutness/what-have-you-ness is the most correct in the eyes of Allah?”. (Since places such as Morocco and Algeria are (relatively) more “western” and less-constricting than are places like Saudi Arabia, among others.)

These issues could be called subjective and dismissed through discussion or other means, or else proven to be valid and correct.

But I’m no Islamic scholar, I’m not concerned with proving the truth or validity or silliness of the afore-mentioned arguments. In fact, you could say they don’t matter one bit.

Islam could be the parent of and inspiration behind some of the most generous, kind, and devout people alive.

To my mind, however, it has one shortcoming.

The real problem with Islam is that in it, Jesus Christ is reduced to the role of a mere prophet.

Not the bridge between a so-holy-He-can’t-look-at-you-in-your-unholiness type of God and a sinful, flawed and filth-ridden human who could never hope to clean his act up or work his way to heaven (on his own steam, anyway).

Not the only One with the ability to forgive us our sins and make us into new creations.

Not the Son of God.

And that, then, is the REAL problem with Islam.

~

As Muslims all over the world starve their bodies to feed their souls,
pray that the love of the Lord Jesus Christ feeds their hungry hearts and seeking spirits this Ramadan.

Mental Illness… or Motivated Murder?

By Sally Bishai

Just one week ago, Fouad Fawzy and his wife could amuse their children with bedtime stories, or sing their son and daughter—ages three and seven—to sleep. Just one week ago, Fawzy, 40, could attend church services in his town of Zagazig (in Egypt, province of al-Sharqeya) and participate in the Coptic Orthodox mass. Just one week ago, the talented shoemaker may have had a good-natured argument with a friend about whether leather really was the best material to craft shoes from. A lot can happen in one week, though.

I say that because Fouad Fawzy is no longer with us.

While some of the reported details may seem to vary (very) slightly, it is a matter of record that the victim—heretofore known by his parental, marital, and religious status, rather than for the gruesome way he had to leave this world—was stabbed multiple times in his own shop on al Hamam Street.

One account has a bearded man entering the shop, going berserk, yelling “Kafir! Kafir!” and lighting into Fawzy with a knife, then leaving the scene of the crime muttering bits of the Koran.

Another account has the bearded youth calmly asking Fawzy if he was a Christian, after which came the brutal knife attack on Fawzy’s neck and torso.

Either way, however, people seem to agree that the bearded lad, a 27-year-old called Hossam Mahfouz, had not personally known Fawzy.

This most-recent entry in the string of attacks on Christians in Egypt has got me wondering what the motivation was, in each case, and whether they are all related.

Some might jump the gun and say “Yes! No question about it, they are definitely related!” But you know me, I have to analyze things before I can decide.

So let’s start with the obvious (and oft-volleyed) motive: Madness. One of the accounts above has the perpetrator shouting insanely before attacking his victim. And, while he was said to have been yelling about religion (or lack thereof), the truth is that busting in and screaming like a banshee (with no provocation) could be called insane (and so could busting into random churches and cutting people, but that’s another story..). And it is of interest to a psychologically-minded person like me that Mahfouz’s age, 27, matched the date of the attack, June 27th. (This parallel is the type of thing that would please a paranoid schizophrenic—the perpetrator, I mean, not me—to no end.)

On the other hand, someone might say that religion drove young Mahfouz to commit his foul and bloody crime. After all, he was said to have asked after Fawzy’s religion, screamed “Kafir” (“infidel”), and muttered Islamic verses ex post facto, among other things.

Still others (“conspiracy theorists”) might posit that Mahfouz did indeed know Fawzy, and that the murder was pre-meditated, or a crime of passion—revenge for a real (or imagined) tiff between the men. These people might also suggest that eyewitnesses who happened to be Coptic might have used Islam as a convenient scapegoat for the murder, or that they were blindly pinning the reason for the murder on the fact that Fawzy was actually Coptic.

So which theory is correct? And WHAT was the reason behind the mid-April knife attacks at the Alexandria churches? And was it REALLY the “I Was Blind But Now I Can See” DVD that ignited the sad chain of events in Alexandria back in October? I can’t (and in fact never could) say; I wasn’t there, and I don’t have a psychic link with the perpetrators. (Meaning I can’t read their minds to find out the one, true answer to each mystery.) But that’s not the only problem.

See, I don’t think that any one answer is the correct one. Like the question of “Nature Vs Nurture,” I believe that the true answer to any number of these “Why?” questions is a blend of several factors. Furthermore, I don’t think we can ever conclusively know why any of these tragedies happened, although we may like to think we have a good idea. And I don’t deny that we could, in our pondering, be close to the truth.

Unfortunately, however, this Not Knowing the True Motive is a rather large obstacle to finding a solution to the problem, or even deciding how to keep it at bay. (This is to say nothing of the different ways these problems can even be defined, but that’s another story for another day…)

News From Newark: The Fourth International Coptic Conference Convenes in New Jersey

By Sally Bishai

June 19th marked the first day of the Fourth International Coptic Conference. The event was attended by many great thinkers and writers, both “Middle Eastern” and American, both “Coptic” and not.

In fact, one of the discussions swirling about during the coffee breaks was “What is a Copt, anyway?”

As you know, I have explored this question many times in my writings, but it was certainly thought-provoking to hear so many different explanations.

For example, some suggested that all Egyptians are (for the most part) Copts, while others maintained that only Egyptian Christians deserve such an honor. Still others narrowed their use of the word to denote those of the Coptic Orthodox faith. And in an interview with Dr. Ahmed Sobhy Mansour (who very graciously took the time to talk to my camera, along with many other dear and learned people during my three-day stay in Newark), the scholar informed me that he thought the word referred to the religion of our forefathers, the ancient Egyptians.

Interesting viewpoints, all, but I must confess that I am no closer to having formed an opinion on the matter than I was last week.

As I mentioned two seconds ago, the conference was held in Newark, New Jersey, and hosted by Copts United and the International Christian Union. The shindig had previously been slated to take place at the United Nations Building in New York, but got shifted to the Holiday Inn in New Jersey for security reasons.

The wide range of speakers did a great job covering their respective issues; these distinguished guests included conference staples Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Father Keith Roderick, and Dr. Wafaa Sultan, as well as a Rabbi, a Bishop, and Daniel Pipes.

Other visible attendees included Dr. Gihad Ouda (political scientist, author, and mega-nice guy), Engineer Cameel Halim and Dr. Mounir Dawoud (who hosted the conference), and the unmistakable, electronically-transmitted presence of Conference Chairman and the dear Father of the Coptic cause, Engineer Adly Abadir Youssef.

Two speeches that stood out to me were Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s (which posited that the problem in Egypt is dictatorship) and Daniel Pipes’ (which mentioned reciprocity, among other things). And, of course, my own, which was a five-minute rhapsody about solidarity despite differences, and the strength of unity.

The title of this celebration of unity—“Religious Freedom of Christian Minorities in the Middle East”—was fitting, letting attendees know that the conference wasn’t just about Copts or even Egyptians in general. In fact, the Conference Resolutions actually included a whole section about “The Lebanese Issue.”

Speaking of the Resolutions, let’s have a look at the ones that were decided upon this time around:

The Coptic Issue

First: Declaring the Coptic movement in the Diaspora and in Egypt – that represent no less than fifteen million according to international estimates- as a national and public peaceful movement against the aggression and despotism practiced by the ruling regime with its corrupt institutions.

Second: To work towards the amendment of the second article of the constitution and to eliminate the phrase “Islam is the religion of the state” and to affirm the Egyptian identity.

Third: To work- through all available peaceful means- to stop the persecution and the physical elimination of the Copts, to stop the repeated massacres and attacks on churches, and to bring the assailants to a re-trial after their acquittal as a result of the non-Independence of the judiciary system and the interference of the executive authorities in the previous trials such as in Al Kosheh and elsewhere.

Fourth: To seriously and decisively confront- with all legal means –the extremist and fanatic groups that facilitate and incite and engage in the forced conversion and luring of Christian teenage girls into Islam. Everyone has the right to choose his/her faith on free will and without coercion.

Fifth: The Copts have the right to restitution of their physical and moral rights they were deprived from in addition to the compensation of their harms.

Sixth: To work through all legal means and demand the recognition of the rights of the converts to Christianity in obtaining new identification cards that reflect their Christian identity without bringing them to trial.

Seventh: Change the ideologies that protect and incite…inspired by religious convictions and beliefs.

Eighth: Request an official apology to the Copts from the ruling regime for the injustices committed by the authorities against the Copts.

Ninth: Forming a general secretary of the Coptic movement with subcommittees and work to safeguard funding means to proceed forward with the movement.

Tenth: Warn against the attempted infiltrations of this rising movement by other anti-government movement such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and the infiltration by the regime and its institution and to not engage in negotiations over the principals of this movement.

Eleventh: This declaration stands until the formation of the general secretary that will be established within 90 days of this date.

Twelfth: Lifting the restriction imposed by the state on building and renovating churches.

Moving on, the Resolutions for “The Lebanese Issue” are as follows:

First: Disarming all factions and militias, especially the Palestinian and the Shiite Hezbollah, and limit arms only to the official state represented by the army and the security forces, and take the necessary safeguards to stop the smuggling of weapons to Lebanon through strict control of its borders and implementing the UN resolution number 1559.

Second: Inaugurating a monitoring of security systems and control of fund transfers that are being illegally smuggled into Lebanon through a joint international – Lebanese system to prevent Lebanon from turning into a conflict ground for the benefit of either the Wahhabi or the Shiite Persian factions or others.

Third: Setting short and long term strategies to stop the rising tide of immigration of Lebanese youth and families by creating an attractive environment for the Lebanese Christians through affirmative actions to counter the demographic imbalance that we referred to in the introduction.

Fourth: Requesting that the international community, especially the United States and the European Union… [would] establish… a supportive fund to provide international assistance and extend a hand to Christians in Lebanon, and the creation of jobs for them, to establish developmental and investing project to accommodate them and reconstruct their affected areas.

Fifth: To review the school curricula throughout all education levels in order to clear it of the inciting materials and to confront all forms of intellectual terrorism either by political, social, or media means along with the reaffirmation of the importance of coexistence between all sects, denominations and religions under a secular and modern state that does not discriminate between its citizens based on religious, sectarian or denominational affiliations.

Sixth: The international community should place strict measures that prohibit the interference of regional forces and neighboring countries in the Middle East in the internal affairs of Lebanon, specially Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, these countries are required to bear their responsibilities in compensating Lebanon for the sabotage and afflictions it suffered from these countries and its interference in Lebanon.

All in all, it was an action-packed 48 hours, and I was glad to attend.

(Check the July issue of www.xculturemag.com for photos of the conference and “Sally Bishai’s 30 Minutes With… Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim,” and stay tuned for the summer 2006 edition of Photo X Quarterly for even more conference coverage.)

Sally Bishai is author of Mideast Meets West: On Being and Becoming a Modern Arab American and director of Children of Kemet: The Copts, Culture and Democracy of Egypt. Visit her online at www.sallybishai.com.