EGYPT: WHAT SALAFIS WANT FROM COPTIC GIRLS
By Elizabeth Kendal
In Islam, a child is given the religion of the father the
day he or she is born. In Egypt, as in most Muslim countries, when children
turn 16 they receive a State-issued identity (ID) card with their
State-designated religion stamped on it. Those born to fathers registered as
Muslim are deemed Muslim regardless of the actual belief of the father or the
child because identity / affiliation is far more important than faith in Islam.
As Muslims, they are not permitted to leave Islam and they are obliged to live
according to Sharia Law: observing food and clothing restrictions, remaining
separated from Jews and Christians, and other stipulations. Furthermore a Muslim woman must marry a Muslim man.
Christians who wish to convert to Islam -- as nominal
Christians sometimes do, mostly for pragmatic reasons -- find getting a new ID
card is easy. However, as Muslims are not permitted to leave Islam, their
religious identity may not be changed. In recent years two extremely courageous
Egyptian fathers, both converts from Islam, have sued the Interior Ministry for
their right to change their religious identity. Both were motivated by concern
for their children whom the State deems Muslim. Both cases failed because the
courts would not permit apostasy from Islam. Death threats forced both families
into hiding. Because their children are deemed Muslim, their daughters will be
obliged by law to marry Muslim men and their sons, though free to marry a
Christian, would be obliged by law to raise those children as Muslims.
It is well known that fundamentalist Muslim men are being encouraged to seduce and marry Christian girls. When married to Muslim men, the
Christian girls are not only prevented from increasing the Christian
demographic, they are actually used to increase the Muslim population. Fearing
the influence of Christians, Salafi Muslims (hard-line Sunni fundamentalists)
oppose all interfaith marriage and want it criminalised; they also want the
legal marriage age for girls dropped from 18 to nine. It is well known that
Salafis kidnap Coptic Christian girls for forced conversion and forced marriage
to Muslim men to ensure Christian wombs are producing Muslim babies. In these
cases the Salafis always insist that the girls have converted freely, ensuring
that the girls cannot be rescued. As soon as the Salafis assert the girl is a
convert who deserves freedom of religion, the police, local officials and wider
Muslim community will rally to hold on to her as one of their own.
Born on 1 August 1998 in the town of el-Dabaa, 130km south
of Mersa Matrouh (north-east of
Cairo), Sarah Ishaq Abdelmalek is only 14. She was last seen on 30 September, entering a stationery shop near her
school. After her father filed a missing persons report with the police,
he received a call telling him that he will never see his daughter again.
According to a school friend, the 27-year-old shop owner -- a Salafist and the
son of a local Salafi leader -- had been pursuing Sarah for some time. He nowstands accused of abducting her. On 28 October the Salafist Front issued a
statement that Sarah, who they maintain is not under-aged, has converted to
Islam freely and married a Muslim man.
The case should prove a serious test for President Morsi,
for Sarah is under-age according to
Egyptian law which states the marriageable age for girls is 18. Will President
Morsi bend for the Salafis out of respect for fundamentalist Islam or will
he demand that Egyptian law be upheld and Sarah returned to her parents? Will
he follow other precedents and have Sarah placed in a secure Muslim girls home
until she is of marriageable age or will
he allow Sarah the opportunity to freely declare her true faith and then
protect her? Egyptian human rights organisations, including the National
Council of Women, are lobbying for Sarah to be reunited with her family without
delay. Still the prospects are not good. Surely a more obscene abuse of human
rights would be hard to find.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL --
* comfort, strengthen, preserve and ultimately rescue Sarah
Abdelmalek (14); may he have mercy on this family and all families likewise
grieving the loss of their abducted daughters.
* redeem this case to draw international attention to the
plight of hundreds of Coptic Christian girls who have been abducted, raped and
trafficked across religious lines; may the LORD of hosts expose and
destroy this obscene trade.
* enlighten many -- Muslims included -- to the terrible
implications of Islam's apostasy law: not merely that it mandates death but
that it forces people to live their whole lives as prisoners of Sharia, with no
means of escape, generation after generation.
'The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no
justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to
intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him . . . ' (From Isaiah
59:15b-16.)
SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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WHAT SALAFIS IN EGYPT WANT FROM COPTIC GIRLS
In Islam, a child inherits the religious identity of the
father. If that is Muslim, then it is inescapable because rejecting Islam is a
capital offence. This religious designation has huge implications as Sharia
covers all of life, including whom you can marry. A girl deemed 'Muslim' must
marry a Muslim man so that the fruit of the Muslim womb is always Muslim. However,
a Muslim man may marry a Christian. Afraid of Christian influence, Salafis
disapprove of all interfaith marriage. Salafis are known to abduct Coptic
Christian girls who are then forcibly converted and married to Muslim men.
Furthermore, by claiming the girls have freely converted to Islam, they say the
case is about religious freedom and not abduction across religious lines. May
God bring justice to Egypt.
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With
persecution escalating and intensifying globally, please consider participating
in International Day of Prayer (IDOP) for the persecuted church on 11
November. 'For we wrestle not against
flesh and blood . . .' (Ephesians 6:12). See Critical Prayer Requests (CPR)
