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Khalil also stated that, "al-Awa aims his books at Copts who believe in Islam - knowing that no Christian in the world believes in the Prophet of Islam and his mission, just as no Muslim in the world believes in Jesus’ divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection, and that He was sacrificed for the sake of all mankind. Every religion has its own beliefs, so there is no point in arguing about these beliefs or in pressuring one side to recognize the beliefs of the other..." Khalil explains.
Khalil's main argument in his article is that al-Awa views Copts as citizens "not in accordance with the rules of a modern state, but in accordance with the rules of citizenship that apply to non-Muslims in a Muslim state... and he declares this openly in the preface to his book: 'We defend the Copts out of our Islamic belief'... He does not recognize modern social concepts, and according to him, 'the treatment of people in the Islamic state is based on their faith - whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims'."
In his rebuttal of al-Awa, Khalil wrote: "although al-Awa stresses, at all his meetings and in all his writings, that the ahl al-dhimma [individuals with protected status] belong to a history that no longer exist, he preaches that there is now a new protection apparatus that eliminates citizenship. According to this apparatus, all rights and obligations stem not from citizenship, but from religion: 'Islam gives the Copts the protection of Allah, and does not set them under the protection of the government, the police, or the local authorities. Whoever attacks a Copt attacks the overall protection provided by Islam. Islam obliges the Muslims to protect the Copts in Egypt even before the law does. In the first chapter of his study, al-Awa explicitly states that the Koran is the fundamental and primary source for all Islamic laws, values, and virtues and that 'the Koran is what determines the nature of the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims of all other religions. Thus, in a society that is largely Muslim, Christian clerics are forbidden from discussing matters of religion, religious law, Islamic sharia, and also from accepting what they like and objecting to what does not suit their inclination".
Aladdin Elaasar is author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age (Excerpts from The Last Pharaoh in this article by permission of Beacon Press). Email: omaraladin@aol.com
