Interfaith Dialogue between Coptic Christians and Muslims

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Interfaith dialogue between those who live under Islam with those who live according to Islam.
memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=753
Coptic Priest Zakariya Boutrus Demands to Strike Out Verses from the Koran and Demands an Official Apology from Muslim Governments to Christians

The following are excerpts from an interview with Coptic priest Zakariya Boutrus which aired on June 27, 2005 on Al-Hayat TV.

Boutrus: I live in a country (the US) that respects freedom of speech. I exercise my freedom of speech and talk, and no one can deny my free will. Gone are the days of the sharp sword that cut off the tongues of our people and forefathers to prevent them from speaking in the Coptic language. Gone are the days people’s heads would be chopped off if they did not convert to Islam.

Interviewer: What should the Muslims do to make you stop saying these things?

Boutrus: My demands involve ten important issues. Let’s call it ten demands. The first demand… They are not for my sake, but for the sake of truth, belief, and Jesus.

First, striking out all the Koranic verses that deny the divinity of Jesus and the revelation of God in him.

Second, acknowledging that Jesus is the spirit and word of God, as they truly believe, without hiding this fact.

Third, striking out the Koranic verses and Hadiths that incite to kill Christians, like in the Al-Tawba chapter, v.29: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in Judgment Day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His messenger have prohibited, nor do they follow the religion of truth” – that is, Islam. Among whom? “Among the People of the Book.”

Interviewer: Who are…

Boutrus: The Christians and Jews. “Until they pay the Jizya poll tax in submission.” This is murder.

Number four, striking out the Koranic verses and Hadiths that incite to terrorism and oppression in all their forms.

Interviewer: What do you mean by terrorism and oppression?

Boutrus: Terrorism – “Urge the believers to fight,” and the Hadith: “I was commanded to fight people until they say: ‘There is no God but Allah’.” All this is terrorism and murder.

Number six: Stopping the attack on Jesus and the Holy Book in mosques and in all the media.

Number seven: Giving people and Muslims the freedom of… You may ask what do I care about the Muslims? No! They must have the freedom to choose their religion and the freedom to express their belief.

Number eight: To abolish the punishment for apostasy, to stop torturing people who convert to Christianity, and to stop imprisoning or even killing them.

Number nine: Formal apologies must be made by leaders throughout the Arab world for the murder of Christians in countries invaded by Islam.

Number ten: Leaders throughout the Arab world should make formal apologies for the insults directed against our faith throughout Islamic history.

The viewers may say, “Is this priest crazy, or what? These demands could only be made by an insane man… To strike out Koranic verses… Does this make any sense? What is he going on about?” OK, if you cannot change (the Koran), why are you asking us to change our beliefs? Why do you demand that we say what you say, or else - the sword?

(Al-Halabi) says: “If the Prophet wanted an available woman…” – in other words, an unmarried woman, a widow, or a single woman - “…he was allowed to enter her…” I don’t like to use the word i-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e. “…without her guardian and without witnesses…” Without witnesses. “…and against her will.” Against her will. “If he desired a married woman, her husband had to divorce her for him. And if he desired a servant-girl, her master had to give her to him. He can even marry off the woman to whoever he wants, against her will.”

Interviewer: We know that the Prophet is allowed what others are not.

Boutrus: Why? Is he made of different stuff than the rest of mankind?
 
Does he think any Muslim would really care? He’s right about all that stuff, but I don’t get what he thinks he is accomplishing by preaching to the deaf.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
(Al-Halabi) says: “If the Prophet wanted an available woman…” – in other words, an unmarried woman, a widow, or a single woman - “…he was allowed to enter her…” I don’t like to use the word i-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e. “…without her guardian and without witnesses…” Without witnesses. “…and against her will.” Against her will. “If he desired a married woman, her husband had to divorce her for him. And if he desired a servant-girl, her master had to give her to him. He can even marry off the woman to whoever he wants, against her will.”
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By the way, this part reminds me a lot of Caligula. 😦
 
Well, the Copts who had to live under Islam for centuries obviously do not understand Islam. The Copts who have been forced to learn Arabic obviously cannot understand the Quran.

Coptic priest Zakariya Boutrus is obviously out of his mind for saying such nasty things about Islam. That is a no-no. It might hurt the feelings of Muslims.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
Well, the Copts who had to live under Islam for centuries obviously do not understand Islam. The Copts who have been forced to learn Arabic obviously cannot understand the Quran.

Coptic priest Zakariya Boutrus is obviously out of his mind for saying such nasty things about Islam. That is a no-no. It might hurt the feelings of Muslims.
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If he really thought it could change anything I would understand, but we all know how stubborn Muslims are. Do you think all this could actually bear fruit?
 
No. This sort of interfaith dialogue where a Christian tells the Muslims what is so offensive about Islam (from the Christian perspective) can never work.

Christians should avoid offending Muslims in any way - by pointing out the truth because we must avoid hurting the feelings of the Muslims at all cost. Never mind they are persecuting Christian, killing them, but it is obviously a higher wrong to hurt their feelings.

I think all Copts should just accept the ascendency of Islam and be content to live in submission and oppression. Interfaith dialogue should be for the Muslims to tell the Christians how peaceful and wonderful Islam really is. Personal experience from the Christian side is irrelevant - what is important is that the Muslim is allowed to lecture the Christian of the truth of Islam.

Heck, we should all convert to Islam right away - then there will be no problems and no necessity to hurt the feelings of Muslims everywhere.

Allahuackbar.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
Christians should avoid offending Muslims in any way - by pointing out the truth because we must avoid hurting the feelings of the Muslims at all cost.
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Like I ever said that. You know very well what I meant. Muslims have their feelings hurt no matter what. That’s just a given.
 
Hate-mongering experts hurting the feelings of Muslims. No-no.

frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=10242

Dr Habib Malik: As a Christian, I find such persecution to be revolting and utterly unacceptable.

…

In very few spots throughout the Islamic world where Christians live in Muslim-majority states do we find them enjoying an equal status with their Muslim counterparts. They are more often than not reduced to second-class status, or dhimmi status. In the Arab world, for example, the only place where native Christians have managed for centuries to avoid the dhimmi humiliation is in Lebanon. But even here matters have been deteriorating since the war in the country, which began in 1975 and since Syrian occupation and Islamist resurgence. All other Middle Eastern Christian communities (Copts, Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, etc.) are quintessential dhimmis. So if dhimmitude represents a recipe for slow and gradual liquidation of the targeted community, then this is the most subtle and most insidious form of persecution and it is quite widespread.

…

Ever since the earliest Islamic conquests dating back to the 7th century AD when Invading Muslim armies overran neighboring communities, many of them Christian, there has been systematic persecution of Christians. Setting aside the anecdotes of tolerance that adorn so much of the specialized (and romanticized) literature on Islamic history, the real story is a sordid one of the systematic reduction of vanquished peoples and members of other religions to second-class status at best—mainly reserved for Christians and Jews—and physical elimination at worst. So this is quite an old story indeed.

Interlocutor: Why do you think the persecution of Christians by Muslims in Arab countries is almost never spoken about in the Western media?

Professor Walid Phares: There is a myriad of reasons. One is ignorance. Western media has an educated membership but little knowledge of the oppression of minorities in general and Christians in particular in the Muslim world. It has even skipped the struggle of humanist, liberal and democratic individuals and forces from Morocco to Afghanistan. Who should you blame? Obviously those in charge of the education, i.e, university scholars. Which brings us to the second reason. As of the 1970s a flow of funding coming from the oil producing regimes in the Arab and Muslim world -mostly authoritarian ones- sunk on Western campuses, paralysing the process of information and education. These regimes blocked the circulation of knowledge as a way to avoid an international investigation of human rights and religious freedom in these countries. The direct result was that an army of scholars in the West participated directly in hiding the truth of persecutions, not only against Christians, but also against enlightened Muslim intellectuals.

How are we ever to build a constructive dialogue between Christians and the adherents of the religion of peace if people keep on saying such nasty things about the religion of peace? We should all concentrate on all the good that Allah has brought the world.
 
exoflare said:
Like I ever said that. You know very well what I meant. Muslims have their feelings hurt no matter what. That’s just a given.
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You obviously did not say that. I was merely expostulating further on my new-found belief that the feelings of Muslims must not be hurt in any way.

I have seen the light, brothers and sisters. One wouldn’t want to be accused of ‘attacking Muslims’ by revealing the truth about their religion and its impact on religious minorities.

After all, Islam is the truth - to deny this is to hurt the feelings of Muslims everywhere. Islam is the religion of peace - Muslims have told us this and who should know Islam better than the Muslims? Who are we to deny what the Muslims tell us about their religion?

I for one will endeavour to suppress my natural inclination and just accept that Islam is better than Christianity since Muslims tell us that.

Allahuackbar.
 
Look on the brightside, they probably won’t behead you with that attitude lol. This copt is obviously delighting in his freedom to say outloud what most copts actually think. Freedom is wonderful.
 
This type of Christian polemic web-sites should be banned.

persecution.org/suffering/index.php

The persecution of Christians in Islamic countries has absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

Either the Christians responsible for such polemics are liars or are just drama-queens. No Christian is ever persecuted by Islam. If anything untoward happens to Christians in Islamic countries it is not the fault of Islam - perhaps it is some Muslims misinterpreting the Quran, or more likely agents of the zionists Americans and Israel trying to make Muslims look bad and inciting people to ‘bash’ Islam.

After all, Muslims tell us Islam is the religion of peace and how can a religion of peace persecute religious minorities? It’s impossible so persecution of religious minorities cannot be happening.

Alllahuaathcbar.
 
exoflare said:
Does he think any Muslim would really care? He’s right about all that stuff, but I don’t get what he thinks he is accomplishing by preaching to the deaf.
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That’s called evangelism or to be politically incorrect prosetylising 😃

IMO, Fr. Zakariya Boutrus is doing a great job converting Muslims to the Christian faith. I pray that God makes his mission to abolish Islam a success.

There also other Christian missionaries who target Muslims exclusively, and one such person is Rev Jochen Katz of Answering-Islam. There are many non-Christians who are dedicated to free Muslims from this terrible slavery, called Islam, and one such person is Ali Sina who operates FaithFreedom web site that has forums that allow former Muslims to discuss with each other.

Please ask your local parish to pray for all these people, Christian and non-Christian alike that they may be sucessful in their mission to abolish Islam.
 
Priest Zakaria Butros on Al-Hayat TV criticizes Muhammad openly though he received death threats. Many Muslims converted because of him and you can hear their testimonies on his Pal Talk but all in Arabic. I believe what he says because he says no word if it were not written in Islamic books, Quran, or Ahadith.
 
i disagree with you both. The priest is successful. 2 of the interviwers on Al-Hayat tv were former Muslims. Rachid ( from Morocco) and Ahmed ( from Egypt). On his pal talk you hear testimonies from morocco , Egypt, Lebanon, even Saudi Arabia!!
 
After thinking about it some more, I understand. Thanks guys. Hope you don’t think I was turning PC there for a second… perish the thought! 😃
 
exoflare said:
After thinking about it some more, I understand. Thanks guys. Hope you don’t think I was turning PC there for a second… perish the thought! 😃
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you see, if the priest just criticized for the sake of it, am sure no one’d have converted…but the priest highlights things taken only from Islamic sources and Muslims are able to see what their leaders never teach or show…that’s why they’re converting…
 
inJESUS said:
you see, if the priest just criticized for the sake of it, am sure no one’d have converted…but the priest highlights things taken only from Islamic sources and Muslims are able to see what their leaders never teach or show…that’s why they’re converting…
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Yeah, I wasn’t aware of how effective this was at first.
 
More interfaith dialogue - this time between an Anglican Bishop (whose father converted from Islam) and Muslims.
A senior Anglican bishop has accused many Muslims of being guilty of double standards in their view of the world.

The Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, told the Sunday Times some had a “dual psychology” in which they sought “victimhood and domination”.

The bishop, whose father converted from Islam, also said there were situations in which society could require Muslim women not to wear full-face veils.

Society required recognition and identification in teaching, he said.

Mr Nazir-Ali argued it would never be possible to satisfy all of the demands made by Muslims because “their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims… and always wrong when Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists”.

He compared Bosnia and Kosovo, where he said Muslims were oppressed, with the powerful position of the Taleban in Afghanistan, who he said had been the oppressors.

He added: “Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement and new demands will continue to be made.”

Veil debate

The bishop’s comments on the use of full-face veils by Muslim women add to the debate sparked by Commons Leader Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, last month.He disclosed that he asks Muslim women to remove the veil when they attend his Blackburn constituency surgeries. Mr Straw also suggested that Muslim women who wear veils over their faces can make community relations harder.

In the Sunday Times, Mr Nazir-Ali referred to a “huge increase” in the wearing of Muslim dress in Egypt, Pakistan and Malaysia.

He said: "I can see nothing in Islam that prescribes the wearing of the full-face veil.

“In the supermarket those at the cash till need to be recognised. Teaching is another profession in which society requires recognition and identification.”

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, entered the veil debate last month by saying people should be free to wear visible religious symbols.

He said aiming for a society where no symbols such as veils, crosses, sidelocks or turbans would be seen was “politically dangerous”.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6117912.stm
Bishop Nazir-Ali is wrong about the full-face veils though - the hadiths do say that Muhammad’s wives covered their faces until only one eye was exposed (from memory I think it was specified as the left eye).
 
I believe Interfaith Dialogue is a necessity nowadays. We should all come together for the peace to grow in this world. I was amazed by the approach the Mr. Fethullah Gulen takes to Interfaith Dialogue. This is why I would like to share with you a couple of links.
This is a Muslim preacher with many followers which brings a new approach to interfaith dialog. I think we need more and more people that think in this way.
  1. “Gülen’s Approach to Dialogue and Peace: Its Theoretical Background and Some Practical Perspectives”, Gurkan Celik, Pim Valkenberg, The INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of DIVERSITY in ORGANISATIONS, COMMUNITIES and NATIONS, 7(1), 29-38, 200
ijd.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.29/prod.443
  1. Fethullah Gülen’s contribution to Muslim-Christian dialogue in the context of Abrahamic cooperation (P. Valkenberg)
fethullahgulenconference.org/houston/read.php?p=fethullah-gulen-contribution-muslim-christian-dialogue-abrahamic-cooperation
  1. “The Gülen Movement and Promoting Human Rights Values in the Muslim World”
gulenconference.org.uk/userfiles/file/Proceedings/Prcd%20-%20Keles,%20O.pdf
  1. “Fethullah Gülen and the ‘People of the Book’: A Voice from Turkey for Interfaith Dialogue” Zeki Saritoprak, Sidney Griffith, MUSLIM WORLD, 95 (3), 329-340 JUL 2005.
www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118646956/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
  1. Islam and Terror: From the Perspective of Fethullah GÜLEN (I. Albayrak)
fethullahgulenconference.org/dallas/read.php?p=islam-and-terror-from-perspective-of-fethullah-gulen

I strongly suggest everybody to take a look at this interesting approach. In one word I can describe it as just AMAZING.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
Well, the Copts who had to live under Islam for centuries obviously do not understand Islam. The Copts who have been forced to learn Arabic obviously cannot understand the Quran.

Coptic priest Zakariya Boutrus is obviously out of his mind for saying such nasty things about Islam. That is a no-no. It might hurt the feelings of Muslims.
Click to expand...
This priest is really nuts. Even if the Copts and the Muslims in Egypt were more or less equal in power, population, and status, such comments are a foolish disregard of the rights of another religion.

But considering that this guy lives in the US and is spouting all this stuff, he is really endangering the lives of his co-religionists in Egypt, as well as all other Christians there (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Greek Orthodox). We know how crowds can be incited toward violence against Christians quite easily.

I do understand that he feels a heady liberty and probably has chaffed under Islamic domination in his own life. But the Copts don’t need this.
 
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