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An Unusual Christian View of * in Modern

NELLY VAN DOORN

In 1959 the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egpyt excommunicated a certain Dr. Nazmi Luqa. The motive for this grave clerical punishment was the fact that Dr. Luqd had published a book called: ", al-Risala wa-l-RasUl" (Muhammad, the Message and the Messenger) (1) of which the dignitaries of the Coptic Church highly disap- proved.

The dialogue of Christianity with Islam has been the subject of many an article on missiology or comparative theology (2). The majority of these articles, however, are written by western (Christian) scholars and theologians. Oriental living in Muslim countries hardly seem interested in the religion of their compatriots. One of the few Coptic Christians in modern Egypt who expressed his ideas on Islam was Dr. Nazmi Luqa (3). As illustrated above, his book on Islam caused a storm of agitation among ; in fact to such a degree that the Egyptian authorities removed the book from public selling. After the publication of his "Muhammad, the Message and the Messenger", Dr. Luqd continued to elaborate his ideas in several other books on religion, although the impact of his books on his personal life was enormous: "his children had been beaten en route to school, his home required a police guard and his name was smeared with the label of traitor" (4). This phenomenon together with the fact that he is, as one is tempted to say, a lone wolf among Oriental Christians makes it worthwhile to take a closer look -at Dr. Luqa's ideas.

' The foreword to Dr. Nazmi L5qE's book "Muhammad" was written by the then minister of education, the Muslim Kamal ad-Din Husein (5) and the book was prescribed in the curriculum of several secondary schools of Syria and Egypt (6). In this book Dr. Nazmi Luqa expressed such a mild and positive opinion on the religion of his Muslim com- patriots that the Roman-Catholic scholar Dr. Jean-Marie Gaudeul in his book entitled: "Encounters and clashes, Islam and Christianity in History" (1984), describes it as "so evidently Islamic that Christianity is absorbed into Islam in this attempt at uniting the two faiths" (7). But in his published works Dr. Luqa exerts himself to emphasize the fact that he is a convinced Christian, and has clearly no intention to convert to Islam (8).

In order to explain these apparently contradictory statements, it will be useful to give a sketch of Dr. Luqa's biography and his works. Dr. Nazmi LUq6 was born in 1919 in the city of Damanhour as the son of a middle class family. Although his father happened to be a civil servant, many of his ancestors for seven or eight generations were in the Coptic church. Moreover, a number of his direct relatives still work as priests in the Coptic Orthodox church (9).

------* This article was read as a paper on the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North-African studies, 25-30 August, 1986, in Hamburg. 36

His parents highly valued a good and broad education for their son and apart from the normal primary school, he was also sent to a Muslim in order to study classical Arabic and classical poetry. With this sheikh he also learned the Koran by heart (10). Although it is difficult to be certain about such sensitive things, the fact that a Coptic boy in those days got this sort of education, has to be regarded as a little un- usual, even for intellectuals from the Coptic community. The sheikh who taught the young Nazmi Luqa was a former student of Muhammad cAbduh. And as far as ideas about religion are concerned, Nazmi° Luqa was very much inspired by this sheikh.

Dr. Luqa studied philosophy at the university and till today he is a professor of philosophy at the cAin Shams university in Cairo. At a very young age Dr. Luqa already showed a great interest in religious affairs. At the age of seventeen he published his first book on religion and this was the beginning of a series of approximately fifteen books and articles on the notion of the Deity, on Christianity and especially on Islam (11). His writings about Islam are influenced by the great writer cAbbas MahmUd al-cAqqad (1889-1964) who published in 1952 a book on the life and message of the (12).

The intention of Dr. Luqa is to give an objective description of Muhammad, both the prophet and the person, and to provide objective information about the religion Muhammad proclaimed and the impact of this religion on the lifes of its followers. This purpose sounds clear and understandable, but while reading Dr. Luqa's works it is difficult to understand what exactly he means, for whom he is writing, and whether he is giving an outline of Islam to inform his Muslim readers or whether his book is meant to be read by Christians. For example, the bulk of his book entitled: "An6 wa-1-Islam" (Islam and me) is dedicated to the elaboration of what Dr. Luqa calls "the characteristics of Islam". A description is given of the Unity and Omnipotence of , of and of the Islamic community (13). For this description he makes use of quotations from the Koran which he interprets according to his own ideas without taking into account any of the traditional ways of Koranic interpretation (tafasir). Is this meant to be information for Christians who are in.terested in Islam, or is it to introduce to new ideas on Islam? At the end of the book the essence of his message remains unclear to the majority of the readers. The author himself realizes since he once exclaimed that: obviously this, ' most people who read his books only find the information that suits their own precon- ceived ideas (14). All this resulted in both Christians and Muslims believing him to have converted to Islam (15). This misunderstanding can be understood very well when we see how Dr. Luqd in his book "Muhammad, the Message and the Messenger" teaches that Islam is: "the new religion that appeals to all people without discrimination of race, age or class" (16). Remarks like that fit very well into the common traditional Islamic idea of a religious evolution in which Islam is the last of the divine revelations with Muhammed as the , seal of the prophets.

In order to find out the essential meaning of Dr. LGqd's message, we have to read his texts very carefully. Especially his work: "Iltiqa' al-Masihiya wa-1-Islam", a title which can perhaps be translated as: The Meeting of . This book may provide a key to the understanding of the mystifications that surround Dr. Luqa. "Iltiqa' al-MasThrya wa-l-Islam" was published in January 1981. It is basically a compilation of subjects and theories which Dr. Luqa also elaborated in later and