Special to IPT News
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3723/guest-column-ramadan-islam-holy-month
The
month of Ramadan, which ended earlier this week, proved to be a month
of renewed Muslim piety on the one hand, and renewed oppression of
non-Muslim minorities on the other. In Nigeria, for example, Islamic
militants are living up to the assertion that "Ramadan is a month of jihad and death for Allah," proving that killing Christians is not only reserved for Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter – when militants bombed churches killing dozens – but is especially applicable during Islam's Ramadan.
Usually, however, Ramadan-related
oppression has to do with Muslim perceptions that Christians do not
"know their place"—either because the latter openly do things forbidden
to Muslims during Ramadan, or because they dare object to the things
Muslims do during Ramadan.
When it comes to these aspects of
dhimmitude, Egypt offers countless examples, past and present, simply
because it houses the Middle East's largest Christian minority, the
Copts, and thus offers more opportunities for the intolerant face of
Ramadan to reveal itself. Two recent examples follow:
First, according to Coptic websites,
on July 27, a diabetic man in Egypt was driving his car in Maadi, a
suburb of southern Cairo, when he was struck with great thirst, "which
he could not bear" (a side-effect of diabetes, further exacerbated by
Egypt's July weather). He pulled over near a public water source and
started drinking water. Soon three passers-by approached him, inquiring
why he was drinking water (among the many things forbidden to Muslims
during daylight in Ramadan). The diabetic man replied, "Because I am a
Christian, and sick," to which they exclaimed "you're a Christian, too!"
and begun beating him mercilessly. Other passers-by began to congregate
to see what was happening, but no one intervened on behalf of the
diabetic non-Muslim until he managed to make a dash for his parked car
and fled the scene.
Though not forbidden to him, this infidel
Christian openly violated a principle of Islamic Ramadan, which was
deemed a great affront and was punished accordingly. This idea that
non-Muslims must show respect for Islamic observances is commonplace.
Around the same time this story took place, for instance, a Christian
Lebanese singer was taken to police while in Algeria for smoking in
public, and "failing to show due respect to Muslims."
She was released after police warned her that "she was not allowed to
smoke in public during Ramadan in Muslim Algeria, even though she was a
Christian."
The second story from Egypt concerns a
young Christian doctor, Maher Rizkalla Ghali, who was shot by riotous
Muslims, including easily-identified Salafis, resulting in the loss of
one eye and the likely loss of the other. According to Watan Voice, the perpetrators live downstairs and regularly fired bullets in the air while feasting during sahur
(the time before dawn when Muslims are permitted the things they are
forbidden in daylight, including food, water, and sex). One night the
raucous was so unbearable that the Copt spoke to them from his window,
saying that their actions were disturbing to the children and elderly.
Their response was to "insult his religion" and open fire at him, severely disfiguring him.
The Muslims then tried to break through the door to attack and plunder
the Christian household. Although the family filed a police report,
"security forces have not taken any action towards the perpetrators."
Likewise, though they tried to admit the blinded Christian man to
several hospitals, they were refused admission until Kasr Hospital
accepted them.
This story is almost identical to what happened to a family in Turkey around the same time. According to Hurriyet Daily News,
the home of an Alevi family "was stoned and their stables burned down
by an angry mob" because they "told a Ramadan drummer not to wake them
for sahur, the meal before sunrise," resulting in a quarrel.
After local Muslims found out about the family's temerity, "a mob of
around 60 people" gathered around the house hurling stones, setting the
stable on fire, and chanting Islamic slogans, including "Allahu Akbar!"
"They came to lynch us," explained a family member, and "told us to
leave and threatened to kill us if we did not."
The above anecdotes demonstrate the stark
antithesis between the West and the Muslim world concerning the notion
of being "sensitive" to religious minorities during the holidays of the
dominant religion: whereas almost every year, stories appear of Christmas being suppressed to accommodate Muslim sensitivities in the West, in the Muslim world, Christians themselves are being suppressed to accommodate Muslim sensitivities.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum
No comments:
Post a Comment