Prominent Egyptian Muslims, including leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, rallied yesterday to defend their country's Christian minority after threats from an al Qa'eda-linked group in Iraq.
The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group that
includes al Qa'eda in Iraq and allied insurgents, declared on Wednesday that
all Christians were "legitimate targets".
The threat follows the group's attack on a Baghdad church
on Sunday in which at least 56 people died, including two priests.
The killings attracted condemnation and revulsion
throughout the Muslim world. In Abu Dhabi, up to 1,000 Muslims and Christians
are expected to attend a service tonight at St Joseph's Cathedral in memory of
the victims.
Sunday's attack and the new threats have rattled
Christian minorities throughout the region. But the call to eliminate
Christians from Muslim lands is particularly menacing in Egypt, where growing
divisions over the past few months have teetered on the edge of outright
violence.
Leaders of Egypt's Christian community, about 10 per cent
of the population, said the calls for bloodshed will have the opposite of their
intended effect. Instead of instigating violence against Christians, they have
jolted hardliners of both religions into rejecting violent rhetoric, which has
escalated since the summer.
"People are reconsidering their situation and their
positions and I suppose that they would rather protect Egypt from al Qa'eda
than give al Qa'eda the chance to infiltrate and use them for other goals,"
said Yusuf Sidhum, the editor of Al Watani, a privately owned weekly that
serves the Coptic Christian community. "Everyone stepped up and said it is
high time to change this bloody rhetoric, which drags us in the swamp of
sectarian strife."
Although Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qa'eda's
second-in-command, is from Egypt, the Islamist militant group has never enjoyed
much support in the country.
Recently, however, Egyptian adherents to the hardline
Salafist school of Islamic thought have protested against Christian leaders.
They say Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church is holding two women who have converted
to Islam, and object to what they describe as provocative statements by
Christian Egyptian clerics.
For several consecutive Fridays last month, Salafis
protested outside churches in Alexandria after Bishop Bishoy, a conservative
Coptic priest, commented that Muslims are "guests" of Egyptian
Christians, whose presence in the Nile Valley predates the birth of Islam by
several hundred years.
Bishop Bishoy's comments followed equally incendiary ones
by Mohammad Salim Al Awa, a conservative religious leader and the former
secretary general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars. In
mid-September, Mr Al Awa told audiences of Al Jazeera's Without Borders
programme that Christians were stockpiling weapons in monasteries. He also
alleged that Camillia Shehata, the wife of an Upper Egyptian Coptic priest, was
being held against her will by church officials after she converted to Islam.
It was Ms Shehata's story, along with a similar
allegation from 2004, that the ISI invoked when some of its members took over
the Baghdad church on Sunday.
But instead of turning against Christians, calls to
protect them echoed from throughout Egypt's Islamic community.
"This is something to be rejected and strongly
denounced, and it serves none but those who want to spark discord and target
national unity," the head of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed al-Tayeb, said.
Pope Schnouda III, the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox
Church, used his weekly address in Cairo on Wednesday to praise Al-Azhar and
the "sympathy" Christians have received from Egyptian newspapers,
intellectuals and the ministry of interior, which has posted extra security
outside churches.
Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed Islamist
group that represents the strongest opposition to Egypt's ruling political
party, also strongly condemned the ISI and its statements.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is stressing to all, and
primarily Muslims, that the protection of holy places of all monotheistic
religions is the mission of the majority of Muslims," the group said.
Except for some isolated incidents, Egyptian Christians
and Muslims have long enjoyed a peaceful relationship. But as Egyptian society
has become increasingly conservative over the past decade, the relationship
between the faiths has deteriorated.
The inter-religious dialogue reached its nadir early this
year, when Muslim gunmen opened fire outside a church in Naga Hammadi in Upper
Egypt, killing nine people.
Bishop Kirolos, the pastor of the Naga Hammadi cathedral,
said yesterday he was confident that the Egyptian government would continue to
protect the Coptic minority.
"We have lived in sectarianism since Sadat's
time," Bishop Kirolos said, referring to Anwar Sadat, Egypt's president
during the 1970s and whom many blame for empowering Islamists to counteract
communists and socialists. "Now we are accustomed to this situation.
Nothing more is going to happen."
Others, however, singled out Egypt's government for
blame. Over the past decade, the Egyptian government has sought to mollify the
radical Islamists within its borders by ignoring Salafi satellite television
channels - which sometimes preach against Christianity - and teaching
sectarianism in textbooks and classrooms, said Moneer Megahed, the head of
Masryoon Against Religious Discrimination, a non-governmental organisation.
"Al Qa'eda is not supported by mainstream Muslims.
Not now, not before. So there is nothing new in this," Mr Megahed said.
"But what we need is to uproot sectarian violence and sectarian tension in
Egypt. This can only be done by enforcing the law and changing the education
system, how the media tackles the sectarian events and ultimately, by adopting
a secular state."
mbradley@thenational.ae