Middle East Focus: Islamic State of Egypt, Kingdoms of God……

Arabia Deserta

Islamic State of Egypt, Kingdoms of God……

Walking on water

Sectarian (confessional) tensions in Egypt escalated this past week. This time it is not Shi’a-Sinni, but Christian-Sunni tensions. These tensions have been simmering in Egypt since the days of Anwar Sadat, who started the process of empowering the Salafi Islamists (Saudi school of religion) against the secular Nasserist left (open relaxed universal school of religion).

Under Mubarak, Egypt has made great strides away from its traditional civil society and toward a society that is, if not plain Salafi then at least Salafi-esque. Egypt's al-Azhar on Saturday issued a statement strongly criticizing a senior Coptic bishop for claiming that some verses in the Quran, the Muslim holy book, were added to the book at a date after it was first written down. In a speech in Fayoum on Wednesday, Bishoy suggested that certain verses of the Holy Quran had not been recited by the Prophet Mohammad but rather inserted later during the era of Caliph Uthman bin Affan. These are verses that he contends call non-Muslims infidels. He called for a thorough study of these verse, contending that “dialogue and clarification makes one delve into the mind and abolish those verses that label us infidels.”……”.

Alarabiya (Saudi) reports today that Al-Azhar in Cairo has retaliated to the Coptic “salvo” with a statement that Egypt is an “Islamic state”……..

IF I were rude and irreverent, I would suggest that Egypt be renamed the Kingdom of Islamic Egypt (KIE). Of course “kingdom” and “Islam” are not supposed to be compatible, if one goes by the book. But it has worked for others.
Even Christianity was originally based on only “one kingdom”, before the various church kingdoms were erected, long before the era of television and financial kingdoms of a corporate God.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com