secretsfromthecanaries:

mycairo:

secretsfromthecanaries:

mycairo:

I always tell myself not to get too wrapped up in politics as I am mostly naive and emotional about everything but today I simply have to say something about what’s been going on here lately.
TV and news have showed many videos and pictures and the whole world could see how Coptic Christians…

Yeah, that´s all fine and clear and all that stuff… but you talk about the privileges that the Christian minority seems to enjoy in Egypt. It would seem to be strange to you, but so far, what I have heard of your government´s treatment of them (both during Mubarak´s reign and after it) it´s not exactly pleasant. Of course, all the reports differ, but most of them say that indeed the Christians are a persecuted minority in not only Egypt, but in all the Middle East as a whole. It´s funny that you want them to go to the West to practise their religion openly, because that´s exactly what the far-right politicians say about Muslims when discussing them being on our countries. It seems that extremists, both Muslims and Christians, clearly want nothing to do with each other, but however their speech is eerily similar. However, you will find that most Muslims can practice here their religion quite openly. We let them build as many mosques as they want, we let them have their “halal” butcher shops, we let them having with them most of their customs. How many Christians do you see killed in the Middle East every day for practicing their religion? Hundreds, even thousands. However, how many Muslims do you see killed in the West for practicing their religion? Very few, almost none, and if something like that happens, be assured that the media and the law will not rest until catching the responsible of such a despicable crime. 

“Secularism” doesn´t mean we hate religion, “secularism” means respect for all religions, it doesn´t matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist… or even if you have not religion at all. Remember the Quran? “Let there not be compulsion in religion”… if someone wants to follow a religion different than the one you follow, it´s his choice, if in the end it turns up he was wrong and goes to hell, well, it is something only God can decide, not you, and certainly not another person, no matter how enlightened he or she thinks they are. 

You wanna talk about poligamy? I once read a Islamic scholar say that poligamy was a practice needed in the times of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) because many men have died in wars, and so their widows needed someone to provide them with protection, so men married them to take care of them and help them. It was not necessarily a sexual or romantic arrangement, it was friends and fellow Muslims taking care of each other. But in times of peace, I doubt poligamy is hardly necessary. The Quran (and also the Bible) allows a person to have slaves (or even, in the case of female slaves, to have sexual relations with them), do you think slavery is necessary nowadays? 

Let´s talk about apostasy, then. Many Islamic countries mandate people who convert from Islam to other religions to be killed or at least, imprisioned. And many people (Ismalic politicians) fear that if a Islamic state becomes a Secular state, then many people would stop practising their religion or there would be mass conversions from one religion (Islam) to the other (Christianity). Some people would like to think of this as “the state taking care of its citizens”, as if those citizens cannot make decisions on their own. I would like to think of it as “the state not trusting his citizens”. Because really, do you trust somebody do you think is gonna leave your side at the first chance they got? 

Humm… let me see one inconsistency in your report. According to you, veiled women were ordered to remove their veils because of Christians? Oh, yeah, sure, just like in Tunisia, or in Irak, or in another Muslim-majority country where the Christian population is basically one percent of the whole nation. And please, do not confuse the measures a “secularist” chief of state enforces as what secularism itself is. In Spain, I can see a lot of Hiyabi women in public spaces (in my university there is at least three, I have seen several on the subway and on the streets…). Niqab and Burka are, however (and I will admit it), a different problem (although I will not speak about Burka, since everybody knows it is mostly related to Afghan tradition, and not to Islamic tradition as a whole), but a relatively low number of women dress in Niqab to consider it a significant problem. It´s not the first time where I have seen the behaviour of a dictator who thinks of himself as a God being blamed on an ethnic or religious minority. Such things were normal in Europe until far very recently, especially in my country, Spain. Franco liked to blame all sort of things that were his fault on the Jews, the Gypsies, the Communists, or the Freemasons. But in the end, everything that he did wrong was his faut. 

Of course Muslims have been mistreated in the past (especially in Eastern Europe, where they were a persecuted minority in the 1990s), and they face some harsh discriminations in the present. But it would be pointless to say that peace is impossible. Peace is possible. And it´s not a dream. I´m not Christian myself (although I was raised Catholic, and remain, in many ways, affiliated with the religion), as now I identify as a Deist. And one of our main tennets is peace. The word “Islam” (submission, to God) is derived from the word “salaam” (peace). God wants us to be peaceful. “Jihad” does not mean Holy War, it means “struggle” (with the temptations, within oneself, spiritually), I believe reason and faith are compatible and complementary. And that´s something Muslim leaders and scholars know. The day they care to explain it to the youths of the Arab Revolution might be the day where most lives are saved. 

Alright, let me comment on all your paragraphs just so that I can clear misunderstandings or even reflect on the mistakes I could have made by writing this rant. 

I’m in a more calm state now and I guess I will be more logical today than I was yesterday. 

It is true that the media and other reports never spared any effort to make the Christians appear as the persecuted minority in the Middle-East. (I will only refer to Egypt as the Christian situation differs from one middle-eastern state to another.)

So, if you really want to talk about the persecution of Christians, and let’s say they are persecuted…then I will have to tell you that not only Christians are but the whole Egyptian population. 

Muslims here are as persecuted as Christians are, as weird as that may sound since this is a Muslim country. 

No, Christians don’t get killed here for practicing their religion - at all. Their shops don’t get destroyed. Churches don’t get damaged unless some stupid youths want to stirr fights with other young guys which in itself has nothing to do with religion. 

So no, what you’re saying is not correct. Here in Egypt you can’t find Christians killed for practicing their religion, nor will you find them harassed in any way because as long as they stay peaceful, we are obliged to be peaceful too. 

The fights that might have occured lately between Muslim and Christian youth - and I emphasize on youth because they are so full of temper here - was because each group used to provoke each other. Something I have to say about my own religion and about Muslims in general is that we defend our religion and our Prophets with all our heart. If Christians provoke us by slandering our Prophet, they hit a nerve and this can lead to huge fights.
Sadly many Christians don’t respect this and even do it on purpose. One of the Christian Channels here in Cairo started slandering our Prophet, Peace and Blessings be upon him, and I myself almost cried when I heard it. It is disrespectful and even though we don’t defend Christianity and are more than respectful to them for actually slandering our Prophet Jesus,Peace be upon him, as being the son of God, we would not be disrespectful in such way. 
It has sadly become something so predictable though. They provoke us, some young Muslims have fights, people get killed and in the end Christians cry out and say they are persecuted. I don’t like conspiracy but their intentions are always so obvious. 

Where I come from, Christians are peaceful. They are calm and you mostly don’t even notice them.This is because they are in charge. Here Christians are harsh and violent. They kill people, they hit them with their crosses, their popes call for fights. It’s because they are the minority.

So, about persecution, we are all persecuted. It’s only that Christians are so dramatic to make it appear as if they are the only ones being persecuted in this country. 

Muslims brothers were arrested when they went to pray the Fajr-Dawn- prayer in the mosques and bearded guys had a hard time finding jobs. 
A little while ago there was an article in the newspapers celebrating that finally a bearded guy was elected to be the principle of a school because they never used to get high positions. The same goes for a friend of my man who was asked to remove his beard as a mechanical engineer. 

It has nothing to do with only Christians but we are all suffering and that’s why they are not persecuted for me. 

I have to admit that , after the revolution, no Christian is allowed to have high positions in the army anymore. This is because they were proven to have many spies during the revolution and it is more like a precautionary thing now. 
However, Christians did have their right even before the revolution. The minister of economy and finance was Christian. This means that all the money of the country was in the hand of a Christian. 
He had enormous power until he was found guilty of corruption and flew to Lebanon not to be imprisoned for 30 years. He was ordered to return 60Million Egyptian pounds to the state. 

We trusted Christians but they fooled us, both the Minister and the soldiers in the army. They were not persecuted at all, but they had real high positions until Egyptian authorities decided to change certain things after the bad experience of the revolution. You say it’s to be blamed on the individual person for being such a fool and not on the religion itself. I do not blame Christianity here but the Christians and their actions just the way I tend to blame Muslims for their actions. Never would I blame my own religion. 
However, things here in Egypt are different. Christians are extremely practicing, more than in Europe where they have their own countries. That’s why you can summarize on Christians if you speak about their actions. 

I come from Germany and I have to say that Muslims there are only allowed to practice their religion openly as long as they don’t show it too much. As soon as women veil too much, they get in trouble. Mosques do get damaged. Muslims do get harassed. Alhamdulillah it is not the norm but you can find people being attacked. 

You see things on the surface, both about Christians and Muslims, and you think it is the truth but as long as you’re not inside of this hurricane, you can barely know what’s going on. 

About women being veiled…I wasn’t talking about Niqab nor about Burqa. I am talking about the simple Hijab. Women here are often asked to remove it. I myself can’t work in a German school or in many positions simply because I wear loose clothes and a headscarf. Of course this is not all because of the Christians but I am saying that the West has influenced Egypt greatly and the West is mainly a Christian society, as corrupted and nonpracticing as it may seem.
Christian women here have it easier than Muslim ones, so they shouldn’t really complain about being persecuted.  

Of course we do not force religion on anyone and we never did because of the Quran verse you mentioned. This means we tell someone about Islam and if his heart doesn’t open for our religion, then we leave him. Allah is the only One who can guide a person to Islam and it’s not upon us to force them to something that their heart is not able to grasp. 

“Then Allah misleads whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.” 14:4

We accept Christians and Jews in a Muslim country but they have to stick to our rules and laws, just how it was in the Prophetic era. 

When we for example apply Sharia, we do this for a reason. Through Sharia, we can develop a balanced economy, family system, law system and security for our community. Sharia is the law of God and it’s the law of God for a reason because if you study Sharia, you will find out that it’s not only about chopping off hands or allowing men to marry more than one wife but it helps to establish a perfect community and it helps to keep the Muslikm family safe which is in every Muslim ruler’s interest. 

Our Sharia enjoyns the good and wards off the evil. This is something the Christian society doesn’t have and if they want to live in a Muslim country with applied Sharia, they are allowed to do that. Sharia also talks about the protection of the people of other religions. 
Our obligation as Muslims is to enjoyn the good and forbid the evil and if we don’t do that, we have wronged ourselves and may even be counted as one of the hypocrites on the day of Judgment. 

Yes, I want to talk about polygamy. Well, let me break it down real short: the Islamic scholar you listened to was wrong. Not all scholars who call themselves Islamic should be listened to. 
Polygamy is one of the things Allah allowed Muslim men to do and the law of Allah is to be applied every time, not only in the Prophet’s era. 
Men shouldn’t marry more than one women if they do this for fun but actually it is a huge responsibility for a man and every strict Muslim men would think twice before doing it, since he has to provide shelter for them and their kids and divide his time and emotions, even if he has only two wives. 
I am a woman and I have to say I couldn’t handle two of me so I’ve got huge respect to those men who do it. 

This is especially helpful for Muslim women who were divorced with Children and can’t find a single young Muslim man to marry them. In such case the other Muslim men take the place and provide them and their kids with love and shelter because it is their obligation to take care of the women in Islam. 
Polygamy is nothing temporary but something static. 

About apostasy, we do not fear for a Secularist state because we are afraid Muslims will run away from us. We trust in our belief and most Muslims are not easly shaked in their faith at all since Islam is the true religion and especially those who reverted to Islam, value their faith. 
I mentioned above that we do not want a Secularist state for the reason of applying Sharia. We want to have a true Islamic state that protects our society and not some corrupted country with corrupted politics. 
But yes, it is our right to kill apostates and I won’t scare away from saying this. Our obligation is to advice the apostate to return to the religion and help him and after a while, if he doesn’t repent and even acts against Islam and if he is a danger for the Muslim society, then he should be killed. This, again, has to do with the protection of the society.

“They do not observe toward a believer any pact of kinship or covenant of protection. And it is they who are the transgressors. But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion; and We detail the verses for a people who know. And if they break their oaths after their treaty and defame your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief, for indeed, there are no oaths [sacred] to them; [fight them that] they might cease.” 9:11-9:13

Yes, maybe you are right and peace is possible but the way Christians demand their rights, it’s not gonna be peace that’ll be achieved. We as Muslims have to defend our rights, our society, our laws and if we give in, we have wronged ourselves. Peace can be achieved by Sharia and as long as this is far from us, Peace is too. 

I have to say that we Muslims have our share of fault, we have a huge share.
We became cowards and we’re so influenced with anything other than faith. The problems in the world are the clear lack of faith to me. 
I also don’t want to appear like I’m crying out and act like I’m a sad oppressed Muslim with no rights and I stand all alone against the evil Christians. It’s not like that and if this was the case, none but me was to blame because if we had the strong faith our forefathers had, nothing of this would have happened.

I was just speaking my mind how we as Muslims should form one unity and not take the Christians or Jews as our trustees. When it comes to faith, we should stand firm not to somehow get corrupted in our belief since this is what the Qur’an tells us. We are not supposed to be that harsh, but sadly times have changed and we as Muslims get sad at how other brothers and sisters of our religion sympathize with other religions and by that, stand against their own faith. It makes us angry and sad to a point that we can’t accept this anymore and just act harsh to bring them back. And after all, all of us have to learn much much more about how the Prophet Muhammad, Peace and blessings be upon him, took care of such situations. 
That’s enough for now. *sighs* give me some rest =D

Hummm… allright, you were doing good, until the part where you said “kill the apostate”. Yeah, I know, maybe it is cultural relativism speaking out here, but it just made my eyes wide open. I´m sorry, but we clearly have different views in the issue. If you do not want apostates in your country, you can deport them (we will be more than happy to take them in, after all, we infidels have to stick together…), you can fine them for expressing their “un-Islamic” ideas, hell, you can even jail them if that´s okay with you. But killing them, seriously? Now, you really are proving my point there, you see? 

It is a pity, I was starting to like you. I even chuckled when you were talking about poligamy and how “you couldn´t handle two of me”. I mean, you had me pretty convinced with your arguments until the point you mentioned you would kill a person. There are certain limits for me, and one of them is capital punishment. I mean, I don´t even support capital punishment for crimes such as murder or terrorism (however, I would leave them on prison for the remainder of their life), how would I be able to enforce it on an apostate? I´m sorry, maybe it´s the culture where I have been raised, but it just screams “wrong” when I read it.

Hummm, just one thing, you seem to say that Christians “slander” the name of the Prophet Isa by naming him as “the son of God”. Well, clearly here the one suffering of cultural relativism is you, because clearly, from the point of view of Christians, they are not slandering it. Quite the opposite. They don´t slander it, you think they do, but it´s just a belief that they were raised with. A belief that defines them, just as Prophet Muhammad (and God) defines your beliefs. 

Fortunately, you are right on one thing, not all Islamic scholars (and laymen too, for that matter) are right. I once thought in “reverting” to Islam, a couple of years ago, but it was things like this that kept me away from it. Or at least it kept me from the way Islam is practiced by certain people. I guess God has a different plan in store for me. 

I dunno what else I can say. And well, when somebody doesn´t know what to say, sometimes it´s better not to say anything at all. 

Yes, it seems we have different views and for so many people, this is hard to believe. 

However, if you believe in God, you also believe in His wisdom. With God it’s not like “Let’s see how time changes, then take God’s word, make your own opinion and eventually decide if you want to obey or not”…no, it’s not like that. 
When I converted to Islam, the first thing I learned was “hear and obey” because people in the Prophetic era obeyed even though they didn’t know of some negative effects of things they were doing. And we stand here in so many issues and we already know the negtive effects of things and that it’s forbidden in Islam…and yet we don’t obey. We just sneak around, try to build our life around wordly pleasures. 

When I converted to Islam, Sharia was the last thing I considered. In fact, I never really thought about it that much - also because I didn’t want to - up to the point where I HAD to study it. 
And the thing is…you have to believe in God, you have to 100% trust God, you have to trust in His wisdom and His rules and above all in His mercy and His punishment. If you do this, then you can accept all of these things with a pure heart. 

Unless your heart is not open for these things like trust and belief in wisdom, mercy and punishment; you will only try to find excuses of things that put you ‘off Islam’. And for those Muslims who are against such laws themselves, they have to take care of their own faith because something has been severely going wrong there.  

When I reverted to Islam I didn’t think of things that put me off and seriously there would have been much. But after so many scientific proves, I just couldn’t accept any other truth than Islam and that was when my heart was open and I sunk into that safe wave of faith that still surrounds me. 

I don’t want to get too deep into emotions now because there is too much to talk about. 
I just want to let you know one last..or two last things. 

Yes, we do believe they slander Jesus and actually not only Jesus but they also slander God which is even worse. This is what they were raised with, I know. But it is a shame. Many Christians have already found out that what they are saying doesn’t make sense and alhamdulillah, so many found their way to Islam. 
For us it is a horrible thing to say that the perfect Almighty God has taken a son while He is perfect and doesn’t need a son, not even to show His slaves His mercy. 
And the thing is that Jesus himself never said he is the son of God, rather he said - in the bible - that people should worship his God and his God only. It’s only in the later era that people called themselves Christians and invented the Trinity. 

Luke 10:

18.  A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

19.  ”Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

And now to the last point. You may be shocked about Islam and apostasy but I can tell you that we are not the only religion and especially Christians shouldn’t cry out about these rules since the Bible commands them to do the same. And not only this, they also command to kill those who try to convert you and destroy whole cities. So it’s a bad argument to blame us Muslims for such actions.

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.” Deuteronomy Chapter 13,6

And actually, this is what they are practicing here in Egypt too. We Muslims don’t even practice the killing of apostates and if Christians or apostates get killed, they are not killed the way they should be and in the kind of procedure that is necessary which is calling him to repent or finding out what was it that made him act like this. 

So, Christians here take the Muslim women who converted from Christianity, put them in their monasteries and kill them. And we know this.
Yesterday the Christians started demanding in a protest to get all converted Muslims-Christians back and we all know that their destiny will be death if we do this. 

So, this is what I wanted to say. I just don’t like that people pity Christians or that Christians themselves cry out about certain things when they practice some of these things. Also, if Muslims cry out in some situations, I don’t like it either since we have the means and freedom and power to change it. After all, who can do anything against you if Allah is supporting you?
If someone wants to argue with me, not you of course, about the rules of Islam, I can just respond with their beloved bible. 
Jesus himself said that you know the commandments, so follow them. 
It’s some kind of missionary tactic of Christians to get as many followers as possible. They are the last to be talking about freedom to convert, seriously. 
They preach about how bad Islam is and have never even read their own bible. No offense but this is a real negative spot of Christians. You - in general - don’t read the Bible and if someone comes up with some proofs that you don’t even practice what you preach, you get down with the old lie of “We don’t practice the Old Testament anymore”. Jesus told you to follow the commands, so do it. All of them. This includes wearing a veil, not eating pork, killing apostates. If they practiced all of that, you’ll find out how quickly the accusations against Muslims will have an end. 

But they won’t and we know it. 

So that’s what I told myself I won’t fall into. Islam gets followers because we have to study our faith and we have to read and memorize the Qur’an and the Sunnah of our Prophet and hence, we know what we are doing and what we are ‘preaching’. 
I stand up for my faith and it’s not upon me to make people convert to Islam. Allah is the One who guides mankind, not me. 
If all of this is speaking against your cultural views, then I can’t change it. I really can’t. 
Whatever way you find, it is exactly what you have chosen for yourself. 

One last thing, I just want you to know that by my speech I didn’t want you to like me or all these things. Thanks though. 
We have to strive for the pleasure of God, not the pleasure of people because mostly, when we strive for the pleasure of people, we go against the pleasure of God - you probably know all of this. So I could have just told you it’s all nice and fine and come to Islam, we do not do any of these things even though we are commanded to.
Of course I want you to come to Islam, you have no idea how much. But never in the world would I deny the law of God or myself to please someone and make him come to Islam.
Like I said, there are people who start to believe easily because they only want to find out about the very basics until God opens up their heart…and then there are those people who will always find excuses, no matter what you tell them. They will always find a reason not to come to your religion and this is when we as Muslims have to realize that we shouldn’t be sad about this since it is Allah who guides and the person’s heart and intention is what makes him open to faith or not. 
And if you really wanted to come to Islam, you’d be here already and not find ways to put you off. 

So that’s what I’m saying. Since we Muslims are told to talk about Islam and when people remain on their path, we are obliged to greet them nicely and go. 

Salaam - Peace. 

orthodoxbrit:

secretsfromthecanaries:

mycairo:

I always tell myself not to get too wrapped up in politics as I am mostly naive and emotional about everything but today I simply have to say something about what’s been going on here lately.
TV and news have showed many videos and pictures and the whole world could see how Coptic Christians…

Yeah, that´s all fine and clear and all that stuff… but you talk about the privileges that the Christian minority seems to enjoy in Egypt. It would seem to be strange to you, but so far, what I have heard of your government´s treatment of them (both during Mubarak´s reign and after it) it´s not exactly pleasant. Of course, all the reports differ, but most of them say that indeed the Christians are a persecuted minority in not only Egypt, but in all the Middle East as a whole. It´s funny that you want them to go to the West to practise their religion openly, because that´s exactly what the far-right politicians say about Muslims when discussing them being on our countries. It seems that extremists, both Muslims and Christians, clearly want nothing to do with each other, but however their speech is eerily similar. However, you will find that most Muslims can practice here their religion quite openly. We let them build as many mosques as they want, we let them have their “halal” butcher shops, we let them having with them most of their customs. How many Christians do you see killed in the Middle East every day for practicing their religion? Hundreds, even thousands. However, how many Muslims do you see killed in the West for practicing their religion? Very few, almost none, and if something like that happens, be assured that the media and the law will not rest until catching the responsible of such a despicable crime. 

“Secularism” doesn´t mean we hate religion, “secularism” means respect for all religions, it doesn´t matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist… or even if you have not religion at all. Remember the Quran? “Let there not be compulsion in religion”… if someone wants to follow a religion different than the one you follow, it´s his choice, if in the end it turns up he was wrong and goes to hell, well, it is something only God can decide, not you, and certainly not another person, no matter how enlightened he or she thinks they are. 

You wanna talk about poligamy? I once read a Islamic scholar say that poligamy was a practice needed in the times of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) because many men have died in wars, and so their widows needed someone to provide them with protection, so men married them to take care of them and help them. It was not necessarily a sexual or romantic arrangement, it was friends and fellow Muslims taking care of each other. But in times of peace, I doubt poligamy is hardly necessary. The Quran (and also the Bible) allows a person to have slaves (or even, in the case of female slaves, to have sexual relations with them), do you think slavery is necessary nowadays? 

Let´s talk about apostasy, then. Many Islamic countries mandate people who convert from Islam to other religions to be killed or at least, imprisioned. And many people (Ismalic politicians) fear that if a Islamic state becomes a Secular state, then many people would stop practising their religion or there would be mass conversions from one religion (Islam) to the other (Christianity). Some people would like to think of this as “the state taking care of its citizens”, as if those citizens cannot make decisions on their own. I would like to think of it as “the state not trusting his citizens”. Because really, do you trust somebody do you think is gonna leave your side at the first chance they got? 

Humm… let me see one inconsistency in your report. According to you, veiled women were ordered to remove their veils because of Christians? Oh, yeah, sure, just like in Tunisia, or in Irak, or in another Muslim-majority country where the Christian population is basically one percent of the whole nation. And please, do not confuse the measures a “secularist” chief of state enforces as what secularism itself is. In Spain, I can see a lot of Hiyabi women in public spaces (in my university there is at least three, I have seen several on the subway and on the streets…). Niqab and Burka are, however (and I will admit it), a different problem (although I will not speak about Burka, since everybody knows it is mostly related to Afghan tradition, and not to Islamic tradition as a whole), but a relatively low number of women dress in Niqab to consider it a significant problem. It´s not the first time where I have seen the behaviour of a dictator who thinks of himself as a God being blamed on an ethnic or religious minority. Such things were normal in Europe until far very recently, especially in my country, Spain. Franco liked to blame all sort of things that were his fault on the Jews, the Gypsies, the Communists, or the Freemasons. But in the end, everything that he did wrong was his faut. 

Of course Muslims have been mistreated in the past (especially in Eastern Europe, where they were a persecuted minority in the 1990s), and they face some harsh discriminations in the present. But it would be pointless to say that peace is impossible. Peace is possible. And it´s not a dream. I´m not Christian myself (although I was raised Catholic, and remain, in many ways, affiliated with the religion), as now I identify as a Deist. And one of our main tennets is peace. The word “Islam” (submission, to God) is derived from the word “salaam” (peace). God wants us to be peaceful. “Jihad” does not mean Holy War, it means “struggle” (with the temptations, within oneself, spiritually), I believe reason and faith are compatible and complementary. And that´s something Muslim leaders and scholars know. The day they care to explain it to the youths of the Arab Revolution might be the day where most lives are saved. 

Reblogged for the epic comment here, not the hate filled lies claiming that Copts live in luxury (since murder, rape, kipnap, forced conversion, suppression if faith and general persecution are luxury!) I also like the irony of the OP saying for the Christians to go to Europe and out of a Muslim nation when the Copts are the native Egyptians and were practicing their Christianity openly in Egypt for hundreds of years before the Arab invasion which brought Islam to their nation and with it, 1400 years of persecution by their invading overlords (like an extended, medieval Israeli occupation of Palestine). The ones that brought their faith with a sword and conquered now label the Natives as alien and persecute them as such when they are the biological link to the great Dynasties of Ancient Egypt and thousands of years of history. It is a sad situation.

I’m sorry to be rude but you must be totally out of your mind. 
First of all I never said they live in luxury and if I did, then please copy my statement. I said they have more rights than many other religious minorities in western countries and elsewhere.
And please, come here to Egypt and tell me about the rape, kidnap and forced conversion. Never have I heard such utter nonsense. We do not force religion on anyone and the one who does is not Muslim.
Come here and see what Copts can do to their women who convert to Islam. See how things here got all messed up because they still refuse to get two new Muslim women out of their monastery after they converted to Islam.  
It seems your coptic friends have done a great job at telling you such things.
I do not know who raped them, kidnapped them or whatever but this could have never been in the name of Allah and justified by us Muslims. If this happened to anyone, then I do apologize for the idiots doing this to Coptic Christian men and women but I can tell you that most of those lies are not true.
You have no idea what war is going on here and how Christians and all other groups love to slander us Muslims and especially Salafis here of rape and murder while they have no proof at all. they even arrest Salafis now who have not even been in the place of the crime. You have to think logical and see the proof and things here to say what exactly are claims or truth.
Egypt is a Muslim country now and insha’Allah will be like that forever. Just like any other country, we want the minorities to stick to our rules and laws. 
If they don’t, then they should leave. In Islam there is a simple concept which I’d like to underline with the Qur’an.
If we Muslims complain about being oppressed, then we should leave to the country where we are not.
“ Indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] while wronging themselves - [the angels] will say, “In what [condition] were you?” They will say, “We were oppressed in the land.” The angels will say, “Was not the earth of Allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?” For those, their refuge is Hell - and evil it is as a destination.”9:97

Excuse my rudeness but even if Egypt was originally a Christian country, it wasn’t invaded like Israel invaded Palestine and I forbid such comparison since only misinformed people can say such unfair things. 
Egypt was invaded just like any other country on this earth was occupied. So now we want to say that Americas’s Invasion and the Occupation of the Native American’s land is like Israel and Palestine? Think twice.

secretsfromthecanaries:

mycairo:

I always tell myself not to get too wrapped up in politics as I am mostly naive and emotional about everything but today I simply have to say something about what’s been going on here lately.
TV and news have showed many videos and pictures and the whole world could see how Coptic Christians…

Yeah, that´s all fine and clear and all that stuff… but you talk about the privileges that the Christian minority seems to enjoy in Egypt. It would seem to be strange to you, but so far, what I have heard of your government´s treatment of them (both during Mubarak´s reign and after it) it´s not exactly pleasant. Of course, all the reports differ, but most of them say that indeed the Christians are a persecuted minority in not only Egypt, but in all the Middle East as a whole. It´s funny that you want them to go to the West to practise their religion openly, because that´s exactly what the far-right politicians say about Muslims when discussing them being on our countries. It seems that extremists, both Muslims and Christians, clearly want nothing to do with each other, but however their speech is eerily similar. However, you will find that most Muslims can practice here their religion quite openly. We let them build as many mosques as they want, we let them have their “halal” butcher shops, we let them having with them most of their customs. How many Christians do you see killed in the Middle East every day for practicing their religion? Hundreds, even thousands. However, how many Muslims do you see killed in the West for practicing their religion? Very few, almost none, and if something like that happens, be assured that the media and the law will not rest until catching the responsible of such a despicable crime. 

“Secularism” doesn´t mean we hate religion, “secularism” means respect for all religions, it doesn´t matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist… or even if you have not religion at all. Remember the Quran? “Let there not be compulsion in religion”… if someone wants to follow a religion different than the one you follow, it´s his choice, if in the end it turns up he was wrong and goes to hell, well, it is something only God can decide, not you, and certainly not another person, no matter how enlightened he or she thinks they are. 

You wanna talk about poligamy? I once read a Islamic scholar say that poligamy was a practice needed in the times of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) because many men have died in wars, and so their widows needed someone to provide them with protection, so men married them to take care of them and help them. It was not necessarily a sexual or romantic arrangement, it was friends and fellow Muslims taking care of each other. But in times of peace, I doubt poligamy is hardly necessary. The Quran (and also the Bible) allows a person to have slaves (or even, in the case of female slaves, to have sexual relations with them), do you think slavery is necessary nowadays? 

Let´s talk about apostasy, then. Many Islamic countries mandate people who convert from Islam to other religions to be killed or at least, imprisioned. And many people (Ismalic politicians) fear that if a Islamic state becomes a Secular state, then many people would stop practising their religion or there would be mass conversions from one religion (Islam) to the other (Christianity). Some people would like to think of this as “the state taking care of its citizens”, as if those citizens cannot make decisions on their own. I would like to think of it as “the state not trusting his citizens”. Because really, do you trust somebody do you think is gonna leave your side at the first chance they got? 

Humm… let me see one inconsistency in your report. According to you, veiled women were ordered to remove their veils because of Christians? Oh, yeah, sure, just like in Tunisia, or in Irak, or in another Muslim-majority country where the Christian population is basically one percent of the whole nation. And please, do not confuse the measures a “secularist” chief of state enforces as what secularism itself is. In Spain, I can see a lot of Hiyabi women in public spaces (in my university there is at least three, I have seen several on the subway and on the streets…). Niqab and Burka are, however (and I will admit it), a different problem (although I will not speak about Burka, since everybody knows it is mostly related to Afghan tradition, and not to Islamic tradition as a whole), but a relatively low number of women dress in Niqab to consider it a significant problem. It´s not the first time where I have seen the behaviour of a dictator who thinks of himself as a God being blamed on an ethnic or religious minority. Such things were normal in Europe until far very recently, especially in my country, Spain. Franco liked to blame all sort of things that were his fault on the Jews, the Gypsies, the Communists, or the Freemasons. But in the end, everything that he did wrong was his faut. 

Of course Muslims have been mistreated in the past (especially in Eastern Europe, where they were a persecuted minority in the 1990s), and they face some harsh discriminations in the present. But it would be pointless to say that peace is impossible. Peace is possible. And it´s not a dream. I´m not Christian myself (although I was raised Catholic, and remain, in many ways, affiliated with the religion), as now I identify as a Deist. And one of our main tennets is peace. The word “Islam” (submission, to God) is derived from the word “salaam” (peace). God wants us to be peaceful. “Jihad” does not mean Holy War, it means “struggle” (with the temptations, within oneself, spiritually), I believe reason and faith are compatible and complementary. And that´s something Muslim leaders and scholars know. The day they care to explain it to the youths of the Arab Revolution might be the day where most lives are saved. 

Alright, let me comment on all your paragraphs just so that I can clear misunderstandings or even reflect on the mistakes I could have made by writing this rant. 

I’m in a more calm state now and I guess I will be more logical today than I was yesterday. 

It is true that the media and other reports never spared any effort to make the Christians appear as the persecuted minority in the Middle-East. (I will only refer to Egypt as the Christian situation differs from one middle-eastern state to another.)

So, if you really want to talk about the persecution of Christians, and let’s say they are persecuted…then I will have to tell you that not only Christians are but the whole Egyptian population. 

Muslims here are as persecuted as Christians are, as weird as that may sound since this is a Muslim country. 

No, Christians don’t get killed here for practicing their religion - at all. Their shops don’t get destroyed. Churches don’t get damaged unless some stupid youths want to stirr fights with other young guys which in itself has nothing to do with religion. 

So no, what you’re saying is not correct. Here in Egypt you can’t find Christians killed for practicing their religion, nor will you find them harassed in any way because as long as they stay peaceful, we are obliged to be peaceful too. 

The fights that might have occured lately between Muslim and Christian youth - and I emphasize on youth because they are so full of temper here - was because each group used to provoke each other. Something I have to say about my own religion and about Muslims in general is that we defend our religion and our Prophets with all our heart. If Christians provoke us by slandering our Prophet, they hit a nerve and this can lead to huge fights.
Sadly many Christians don’t respect this and even do it on purpose. One of the Christian Channels here in Cairo started slandering our Prophet, Peace and Blessings be upon him, and I myself almost cried when I heard it. It is disrespectful and even though we don’t defend Christianity and are more than respectful to them for actually slandering our Prophet Jesus,Peace be upon him, as being the son of God, we would not be disrespectful in such way. 
It has sadly become something so predictable though. They provoke us, some young Muslims have fights, people get killed and in the end Christians cry out and say they are persecuted. I don’t like conspiracy but their intentions are always so obvious. 

Where I come from, Christians are peaceful. They are calm and you mostly don’t even notice them.This is because they are in charge. Here Christians are harsh and violent. They kill people, they hit them with their crosses, their popes call for fights. It’s because they are the minority.

So, about persecution, we are all persecuted. It’s only that Christians are so dramatic to make it appear as if they are the only ones being persecuted in this country. 

Muslims brothers were arrested when they went to pray the Fajr-Dawn- prayer in the mosques and bearded guys had a hard time finding jobs. 
A little while ago there was an article in the newspapers celebrating that finally a bearded guy was elected to be the principle of a school because they never used to get high positions. The same goes for a friend of my man who was asked to remove his beard as a mechanical engineer. 

It has nothing to do with only Christians but we are all suffering and that’s why they are not persecuted for me. 

I have to admit that , after the revolution, no Christian is allowed to have high positions in the army anymore. This is because they were proven to have many spies during the revolution and it is more like a precautionary thing now. 
However, Christians did have their right even before the revolution. The minister of economy and finance was Christian. This means that all the money of the country was in the hand of a Christian. 
He had enormous power until he was found guilty of corruption and flew to Lebanon not to be imprisoned for 30 years. He was ordered to return 60Million Egyptian pounds to the state. 

We trusted Christians but they fooled us, both the Minister and the soldiers in the army. They were not persecuted at all, but they had real high positions until Egyptian authorities decided to change certain things after the bad experience of the revolution. You say it’s to be blamed on the individual person for being such a fool and not on the religion itself. I do not blame Christianity here but the Christians and their actions just the way I tend to blame Muslims for their actions. Never would I blame my own religion. 
However, things here in Egypt are different. Christians are extremely practicing, more than in Europe where they have their own countries. That’s why you can summarize on Christians if you speak about their actions. 

I come from Germany and I have to say that Muslims there are only allowed to practice their religion openly as long as they don’t show it too much. As soon as women veil too much, they get in trouble. Mosques do get damaged. Muslims do get harassed. Alhamdulillah it is not the norm but you can find people being attacked. 

You see things on the surface, both about Christians and Muslims, and you think it is the truth but as long as you’re not inside of this hurricane, you can barely know what’s going on. 

About women being veiled…I wasn’t talking about Niqab nor about Burqa. I am talking about the simple Hijab. Women here are often asked to remove it. I myself can’t work in a German school or in many positions simply because I wear loose clothes and a headscarf. Of course this is not all because of the Christians but I am saying that the West has influenced Egypt greatly and the West is mainly a Christian society, as corrupted and nonpracticing as it may seem.
Christian women here have it easier than Muslim ones, so they shouldn’t really complain about being persecuted.  

Of course we do not force religion on anyone and we never did because of the Quran verse you mentioned. This means we tell someone about Islam and if his heart doesn’t open for our religion, then we leave him. Allah is the only One who can guide a person to Islam and it’s not upon us to force them to something that their heart is not able to grasp. 

“Then Allah misleads whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.” 14:4

We accept Christians and Jews in a Muslim country but they have to stick to our rules and laws, just how it was in the Prophetic era. 

When we for example apply Sharia, we do this for a reason. Through Sharia, we can develop a balanced economy, family system, law system and security for our community. Sharia is the law of God and it’s the law of God for a reason because if you study Sharia, you will find out that it’s not only about chopping off hands or allowing men to marry more than one wife but it helps to establish a perfect community and it helps to keep the Muslikm family safe which is in every Muslim ruler’s interest. 

Our Sharia enjoyns the good and wards off the evil. This is something the Christian society doesn’t have and if they want to live in a Muslim country with applied Sharia, they are allowed to do that. Sharia also talks about the protection of the people of other religions. 
Our obligation as Muslims is to enjoyn the good and forbid the evil and if we don’t do that, we have wronged ourselves and may even be counted as one of the hypocrites on the day of Judgment. 

Yes, I want to talk about polygamy. Well, let me break it down real short: the Islamic scholar you listened to was wrong. Not all scholars who call themselves Islamic should be listened to. 
Polygamy is one of the things Allah allowed Muslim men to do and the law of Allah is to be applied every time, not only in the Prophet’s era. 
Men shouldn’t marry more than one women if they do this for fun but actually it is a huge responsibility for a man and every strict Muslim men would think twice before doing it, since he has to provide shelter for them and their kids and divide his time and emotions, even if he has only two wives. 
I am a woman and I have to say I couldn’t handle two of me so I’ve got huge respect to those men who do it. 

This is especially helpful for Muslim women who were divorced with Children and can’t find a single young Muslim man to marry them. In such case the other Muslim men take the place and provide them and their kids with love and shelter because it is their obligation to take care of the women in Islam. 
Polygamy is nothing temporary but something static. 

About apostasy, we do not fear for a Secularist state because we are afraid Muslims will run away from us. We trust in our belief and most Muslims are not easly shaked in their faith at all since Islam is the true religion and especially those who reverted to Islam, value their faith. 
I mentioned above that we do not want a Secularist state for the reason of applying Sharia. We want to have a true Islamic state that protects our society and not some corrupted country with corrupted politics. 
But yes, it is our right to kill apostates and I won’t scare away from saying this. Our obligation is to advice the apostate to return to the religion and help him and after a while, if he doesn’t repent and even acts against Islam and if he is a danger for the Muslim society, then he should be killed. This, again, has to do with the protection of the society.

“They do not observe toward a believer any pact of kinship or covenant of protection. And it is they who are the transgressors. But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion; and We detail the verses for a people who know. And if they break their oaths after their treaty and defame your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief, for indeed, there are no oaths [sacred] to them; [fight them that] they might cease.” 9:11-9:13

Yes, maybe you are right and peace is possible but the way Christians demand their rights, it’s not gonna be peace that’ll be achieved. We as Muslims have to defend our rights, our society, our laws and if we give in, we have wronged ourselves. Peace can be achieved by Sharia and as long as this is far from us, Peace is too. 

I have to say that we Muslims have our share of fault, we have a huge share.
We became cowards and we’re so influenced with anything other than faith. The problems in the world are the clear lack of faith to me. 
I also don’t want to appear like I’m crying out and act like I’m a sad oppressed Muslim with no rights and I stand all alone against the evil Christians. It’s not like that and if this was the case, none but me was to blame because if we had the strong faith our forefathers had, nothing of this would have happened.

I was just speaking my mind how we as Muslims should form one unity and not take the Christians or Jews as our trustees. When it comes to faith, we should stand firm not to somehow get corrupted in our belief since this is what the Qur’an tells us. We are not supposed to be that harsh, but sadly times have changed and we as Muslims get sad at how other brothers and sisters of our religion sympathize with other religions and by that, stand against their own faith. It makes us angry and sad to a point that we can’t accept this anymore and just act harsh to bring them back. And after all, all of us have to learn much much more about how the Prophet Muhammad, Peace and blessings be upon him, took care of such situations. 
That’s enough for now. *sighs* give me some rest =D