Pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ

Some of us who knew what was behind the uprisings over a year ago in Egypt are not surprised at this. That this article follows one of a martyr of the 20th century is also apropos.

from the GS

Copts to be Excluded from Egypt’s Constitutional Committee for Believing Jesus is Son of God?

A Muslim lawyer in Egypt is arguing that, because Christians believe Jesus is the Son of God, they are clearly polytheistic infidels, and not the “Christians,” the “Nassara,” that the Koran speaks tolerably of, on occasion. Accordingly, Egypt's Copts, because they profess the Trinity, must be barred from having any say regarding the new constitution. “Lawyer Requests Exclusion of Copts from Constitutional Committee for being ‘Polytheists,’" from Coptic Solidarity, July 30:

Sherif Gadallah, a lawyer from Alexandria has submitted a report to the public prosecutor, against the president of the court of appeal, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, the interim Pope of Alexandria as well as President Mohamed Morsy requesting the exclusion of Copts from the committee in charge of forming Egypt's constitution, claiming that Orthodox Copts are not representative of Egypt's Christian population, because they are simply not "nassara"; a substitute term employed by Salafists to refer to people of Christian faith, this term has developed pejorative connotations, being used by those who loathe Christians the most; the use of which often justified by the fact that the term "Christian" was never mentioned in the Quran.

According to Mr. Gadallah Orthodox Copts are not "Nassara, or even Christian"; they can be counted among the "polytheists" which makes them non-representative of Egypt's Christians.

Mr. Gadallah bases his request on purely Islamic grounds. He states that the essence of all heavenly religions is that "Allah is one and there is no god but Him", and that the prophets of Allah, Moses, Eissa [Arabic for Jesus] and Mohamed, are but humans sent by Allah to pass along His message to His Creatures, so if a certain denomination of a certain religion claims that their prophet is the "son of God" or "is God", it is then considered infidel and a dissident of that religion. Gadallah goes on to ask the Grand Mufti to have Al-Azhar issue a clear statement about the verdict of Sharia regarding Copts who claim that Jesus is the son of God…