Once again, Muslim mobs have risen in violence against Egypt’s Christian minority, the Copts.
A few days ago, mobs attacked and burned Coptic properties in Manshiyat al-Hawasliya in Abu Qurqas (Minya province).
What sparked this latest violence remains unclear, though reports suggest that one Christian household was about to have a mobile network booster of one duly recognized telecom company installed on their roof. Immediate Muslim neighbors objected, on the belief that the transmission waves would harm them. However, as word of the disagreement spread, more and more Muslims grew angry—mostly on the generic fact that a Christian was getting too “uppity” with his property.
This is unsurprising, given the predominance of extremists in the region: among many other injustices, extremist Muslims in Abu Qurqas have torched a Christian prayer tent on Christmas Eve; attacked another Coptic man’s home on the rumor that he was using it as a church; and forcibly suspended Christian worship in a preexisting church. And this is to say nothing about the even more routine form of persecution Copts experience in Minya province in general.
Similarly, and by way of context, it should be recalled that Islamic law (sharia) has many stipulations and extreme limitations on what Christians can and cannot do with their properties. According to the all-important Pact of Omar, in order to safeguard their lives, Christians had to agree to the following:
We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims…. We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of Muslims [emphasis added].
Thus, the very notion that a Christian was doing something that “distinguished” his roof appears to have been enough to rile and throw a growing mob—which included hijabbed women and children—into a paroxysm of fury.
And, lest there still be any question as to the ultimate source of the hostility, as the mob destroyed and torched Christian property, they could be heard in a video (to be further discussed below) chanting in unison “Allahu Akbar”—Islam’s war cry against kuffar (infidels)—while also demanding the immediate expulsion of all Copts from the village (collective punishment also traces back to the Pact of Omar).
On the one hand, there is nothing really remarkable about this story: extremist Muslim attacks on Christian Copts are a dime a dozen in Egypt. On the other hand, because one Coptic woman managed to record the savage destruction and arson committed by the Muslims, this particular outburst offers documentary evidence that underscores the sheer horror Christians (routinely) experience in Egypt.
The video can be viewed here. (She was ordered by State Security to remove it, which she did; some copies, however, evaded censorship.)
The woman, barricaded in her home, video tapes the mobs from her barred window as they completely thrash, set fire to, and hammer parts of her family’s property.
You can hear the woman say (in Arabic), “Do you see—oh, world! do you see, what they’re doing, and how they behave?”
Soon after that, you can hear her say “Save us! Please save us…. O, save us!”
She also cries out, “O Lord, Lord, Lord—please have mercy [kyri eleison].”
At one point, addressing the Muslim vandals outside her barred window, she says, “Please, please have mercy! We’re going to die, we’re going to die!”
No mercy was offered, just more rage and, as can be heard, a constant chorus of Allahu Akbar!
“Look how they destroyed our whole house—the fence, doors, windows!” she says at one point. When she sees someone tearing and running away with a piece of her property, she cries “Thieves … thieves! Where’s the government? What government?!”
As usual, the mobs were given amble time to vent their rage before the authorities and firefighters responded.
At the end of the recording, it seems that the mobs finally break into her home and assault her and/or other family members—at which point she starts screaming and crying hysterically.
The video abruptly ends soon thereafter.
Such are the routine experiences of Christians in Muslim-ruled Egypt.