Andrew Hagen

The Christians of Egypt are frequently called the Copts. Maged S. Mikhail says that is an unnecessary and misleading descriptor. (*) Copt was not the term that they chose to call themselves historically. The better term is “Christian Egyptians,” as Mikhail argues. The ancient Egyptians of the pharaohs and pyramids converted to Christianity. Several centuries later, Egypt was conquered by the Arabs, and Islam eventually became the dominant religion. Today, the Christian Egyptians are a minority of those living in the Arab-majority Egypt. The ethnic descendants of the ancient Egyptians are alive today as the Egyptian Christians. Their Egyptian language is still spoken and written, though no longer in hieroglyphics. Thus, references to a “Coptic” language are really references to the Egyptian language. The Egyptian Christians of today do refer to themselves as Copts, but should not, as Mikhail argues.

In Egypt today, the members of the Coptic Orthodox Church, or Egyptian Orthodox Church, suffer officially sanctioned and tolerated religious discrimination and other violations of their human rights. (†)

Walid Phares has a highly informative article on Christians living in Arab-majority countries. (*) He shatters the myth that all such Christians are Arab in ethnicity. Some are, but most are not.

It would be more accurate to say “Middle East Christians.” I highly recommend the article, as it sheds light not only on its subject but also on the relation between Islam and race. The Arabs were the first ethnicity to adopt Islam widely. As a result, the distinction between Arabs, an ethnicity, and Islam, a religion, has been unnecessarily blurred.

Walid Phares is an interesting figure in the extremely contentious academic field of Middle Eastern studies. In that highly politicized field of study, it is difficult so far to sort out extremists from others. Phares seems interesting, so I’m going to keep reading his work. (†)

T.M.P. Duggan has an excellent article in the archives of the Turkish Daily News that shows how Sunni Muslims categorize religious beliefs.

1. The Kafir, or unbeliever: either a polytheist or an atheist.
2. The People of the Book: those people who follow a monotheistic religion but are not Muslims; these include the Jews, Christians and Sabeans.
3. The Shia: those who follow the descendants of the fourth Caliph of Islam, Ali, often regarding Ali as taking precedence over the Prophet of Islam, and who regard Ali or selected members of Ali’s descendants as infallible Imams and practice dissimulation or Taqiyah. They have split from the majority of the community, Shia meaning a faction rather than the majority, and today they consist of roughly 14 percent of the world’s Muslim population.
4. The Sufis: those who are termed the Mystics of Islam and may be more or less orthodox or may, on occasion, follow a compromise among numbers 2, 3 and 5 in practice or in doctrine.
5. The Sunni or orthodox majority who follow one of the four schools of Islamic law or Madhha.

(*) The four schools of Islamic jurisprudence range from the conservative to the liberal.

The most liberal of these schools is the Hanifa. In the middle are the Maliki and the Shafi.

The most conservative school, the Hanbali, was the school followed by the theologian Taqi-al din Ahmad ibn Taymiyah. Talmiyah was a major influence on Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab, who founded Wahhabism, the doctrine followed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today. (†) Wahhabism in turn has had a great deal of influence in the forming of Islamism. (‡) Some Islamist groups have been militant and violent, and others not. One Islamist group is the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn was instrumental in the creation of Al Qaeda.

Thus, we can see that militant Islamism and Al Qaeda do not represent all Muslims. There have been centuries of disagreement within Islam as to the meaning of the religion. One of Osama Bin Laden’s stated goals is to unite all Muslims. He of course means uniting all Muslims under his banner.

On April 3rd, in an article published in the Washington Post, Reuters reported on a statement made by a Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shi’ite cleric of Iraq. (*) He did not issue a religious edict, or fatwa, but he did call on his followers to remain neutral in the conflict between allied forces and the Iraqi regime. Speaking in Qatar, US General Vincent Brooks said in response, “We believe this is a very significant turning point and another indicator that the Iraqi regime is approaching its end.” An expert on Shi’ites and a professor at Columbia University, Hamid Dabashi was more cautious.

Dabashi said the call could be a tactic, or even a ruse, to protect the sacred sites and the true believers from harm at the hands of the invading armies. Religious law allows Sistani to resort to “taqiyah,” or dissembling for the good of the faith, to achieve those goals.

A fatwa from Sistani, issued earlier while he was under the control of Iraqi government agents, directed the people to resist efforts to topple Saddam.

(† previously cited) What is taqiyah, takiyah, Al-Taqiyah, Al Taqiyah, or al-Taqiyya, as it is variously transliterated from the Arabic?

Its exact translation is not widely agreed upon, but roughly taqiyah is the concealment of belief or faith for a special, higher purpose, such as survival. “And it is to save the life of a believer that one is allowed to utter a lie and save that precious life.” (‡) Questions and answers are available online. (§) In fact, some Shi’ites would say that taqiyah is required of a Muslim to protect himself when his life is in danger. (**) There is debate between Shi’ites on taqiyah. (††) Shi’ites comprise 10–15% of Muslims. The recognition of taqiyah is one of the differences between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam.

Sometimes the claim is made by Shi’ites that other religious systems allow taqiyah. Sunni Muslims have rejected the legitimacy of taqiyah. (‡‡) As for Christians, it is well known that from the earliest days, Christians were not allowed to lie to obscure their faith. The choice of disavowing one’s faith was often given to Christians in the Roman Empire prior to Constantine, and Christians chose to face the lions and gladiators, sealing their earthly death, and allowing them, in their belief, to enter heaven. There has never been a recognition of the legitimacy of taqiyah or anything like it in Christianity that I know of.

In any case, a discussion of the concept of taqiyah is likely to be controversial in nature. Issues and concepts, especially controversial ones, should always be considered in their proper context when discussing them, as I hope I’ve done here.

Update: 5 May 2004. Taqiyah is part of Sunni Islam as well. “Famous Sunni scholar, `Allamah Wahidu ‘z‑zaman Khan of Haydarabad (India) says: “Taqiyah is proved from the Qur’an, “except when you have to guard against them”; and ignorant people think that taqiyah is some?thing peculiar to the Shi’as, while it is allowed in the Sunni faith also at times.”" (§§)