Middle Eastern Christian Survival Strategies After
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Arab-West Report Papers Paper 57 (September 2015) Middle Eastern Christian survival strategies after the Arab Revolutions in 2011 with a focus on Egypt - 2015 International Conference on Middle East Strategic Landscape 100 Years after the First World War Author: Cornelis Hulsman Editor: Emily Stacey Reviewers: Prof. Dr. Jan Jongeneel, Maurice Gajan, Ella Volkmann Publisher: Arab-West Report ARAB WEST REPORT MEDIA RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY FROM EGYPT AND THE MIDDLE EAST Published September, 2015 by Arab-West Report 90 Road 14B El-Maadi, Cairo, Egypt Telephone: +20 (0) 2 27510268 URL: www.arabwestreport.info E-mail: [email protected] Middle Eastern Christian survival strategies after the Arab Revolutions in 2011 with a focus on Egypt Cornelis Hulsman, Editor-in-chief Arab-West Report Studying Muslim-Christian relations since 1976 [email protected] September 9, 2015 Presented at the 2015 International Conference on Middle East Strategic Landscape 100 Years after the First World War Organized by the Future University and University of Central Florida September 12-14, Cairo-Egypt 1 Note on transliteration Transliterated names vary greatly from the Egyptian pronunciation, and thus we see great differences in the spelling of Arabic names. For this paper names and words have been written in their familiar form (for example Tahrir Square rather than midān al-taḥrīr) or have been given in the preferred spelling of the person. Glossary sharī’ah - Islamic law Allahu akbar – God is the Greatest Intifadah - uprising Shura Council – Senate – upper bicameral chamber dissolved in 2014 2 Middle Eastern Christian survival strategies after the Arab Revolutions in 2011 with a focus on Egypt. Introduction Christianity in the Arab World was flourishing in relative terms prior to the First World War and consequent break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Since the 1920s, and particularly since the Second World War, Arab Christianity has seen an ongoing demographic decline and, in several parts of the Arab world, a disappearance from which it is unlikely to recover. This paper tries to find an answer to the question of how Christians in the Arab World deal with the prospect of ongoing decline and what strategies they are using to survive in lands where they have lived since the beginning of Christianity. I will first present a very brief overview of the decline of Christians since the arrival of Islam, the proportional increase of Christians in the 19th century and early years of the 20th century and the renewed decline following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In the following section I will present the theoretical framework of Alexander R. Arifianto that links declining Christianity to political alliances and tensions along religious lines in the region. This is followed by a section with a description of religion and politics in Egypt in relation to an Egyptian Christian survival strategy that was strongly linked to maintaining good relations with Egyptian authorities before the Revolution of January 25, 2011 and the Islamist rise to power. It continues to describe how, following this, the majority of Christians sided with the opposition to Islamist rule (2012-2013), and after the overthrow of Egypt’s first Islamist president Christians have allied themselves with the rulers of the country led by former field marshal Abdelfattah al- Sisi. The experiences in Egypt and other countries in the region confirm Arifianto’s theoretical framework. The paper concludes with some suggestions for facing the future. One would think that the future of Christianity in the Arab World is very bleak, but there are sparks of hope that should be kindled. I am grateful for Prof. Dr. Jan Jongeneel, emeritus professor of Mission Studies at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and CAWU interns Maurice Gajan and Ella Volkmann for reviewing my draft text.1 This has resulted in several additions to this text. I am grateful for both reviews but, of course, I remain responsible for this text. 1 Email Prof. Jongeneel November 5, 2015, review Maurice Gajan and Ella Volkmann November 24, 2015 3 A brief history of the declining Christian presence in the Arab World Prior to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, Egypt, most of North Africa and the Levant belonged to the Byzantine Empire, where Christianity was the majority religion. The early Arab Muslim armies swept over these Christian lands in the 7th and 8th centuries. Arabs called the indigenous Christians in Egypt ‘Qibt,’ which was taken from the Greek ‘Aegyptos.’ The word ‘Qibt’ has become the name ‘Copt.’ Thus, when we speak of Copts in Egypt, we speak of Egypt’s indigenous Christians. In greater Syria, indigenous Christians were named after Syria, hence the Syrian Orthodox Church. In the first one or two generations, Christians were treated well, but due to ongoing wars, Muslim rulers needed funds, and exorbitant taxes of Christians became a major source of income.2 Demographics also changed, due to large scale Arab Muslim migration to Egypt and other countries in the first centuries of Arab rule. Large numbers of Christians also converted to Islam. In North Africa the indigenous church entirely disappeared.3 In Egypt the percentage of Christians rapidly dropped to around 20% of the population in the early 10th century and 7% in the 13th century.4 The Christian population in other countries dropped no less rapidly. The Mongol sacking of Baghdad in the 13th century and the Spanish Reconquista in the 15th century heralded the end of the Islamic Golden Age. During the 15th and 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became one of the most powerful states in the world, but declined in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire and the Egyptian Khedives wanted to modernize, thus bringing Western influences, including those of Western missions, to the Arab World. Indigenous Catholic and Protestant Churches (Presbyterian, Evangelical, Pentecostal and other denominations) developed alongside the ancient Orthodox Churches. They usually took the name of their nationality, i.e. Coptic (Qibt = Egyptian) in Egypt and added to this ‘Catholic’ or ‘Evangelical.’ Almost without exception, converts to these Catholic and Protestant churches came from one of the Orthodox Churches in the Arab World. The Uniate Churches are noteworthy, as they accept the authority of the Pope of Rome, but maintain the liturgy from the Orthodox tradition. These Uniate churches were particularly strong in Lebanon (Maronites) and Iraq (Chaldeans). The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt represents around 90% of all Christians. 2 C. Hulsman and R. Atallah, “Egypt – the Church under Pressure,” in: H. A. Gravaas, C. Sauer, T. Engelsviken, M. Kamil and K. Jørgensen (eds), Freedom of Belief and Christian Mission (Oxford, Regnum, 2015). 3 Prof. Dr. J. Jongeneel notes that a major reason for survival of the Copts was that they had a Bible and liturgy in their own language. In North Africa the church did not use the indigenous language but Greek, the language of the empire. Email November 5, 2015. 4 D. Behrens-Abouseif, “The Political Situation of the Copts, 1578-1923” in: Braude, B. and Lewis, B. (eds), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, vol II: The Arabic-speaking lands (Holmes and Meier, 1982). 4 Orthodox Churches largely depend on an active monastic life, since church leaders are chosen from the monks. Catholics and Protestants developed flourishing schools, with the result that the average Catholic and Protestant is better educated than the average Orthodox. The better educated Orthodox and Muslims, until today, often went to Catholic or Protestant schools. It is thus not surprising that increased modernization first took root among Christians, with modernized education resulting in more prosperity, better health care, higher birthrates and lower child mortality which brought about faster population growth among the Christian population, in comparison with the Muslims.5 Christians in Syria made up 10.13 % of the population in 1914 which, partly as a result of migration from modern Turkey, grew to 14.07% in 1948. In 1914, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon had a Christian population of 11.26%, 9.06% and 57.64% respectively. The Egyptian census of 1917 showed a percentage of 8.07 % Christians. The census showed this increase continued until 1927, when the Christian population was 8.34%. In the 1920s, a demographic decline began that continues until this day.6 Average Christian families gradually became smaller, while those of the average Muslim, largely due to better health care and consequently lower mortality rates in the lower classes, became larger. Muslims from the higher and middle classes became better educated and had smaller families. Due to their education, they also gradually replaced Christians in government positions that had previously been filled by Christians to a large extent. This contributed to Christians increasingly losing their relative privileged position they had acquired in the 1920s-1940s. 7 Furthermore, nationalizations of property after Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser took power in 1952 resulted in the first large scale migration of Christians from Egypt. Economic hardships increased from the 1960s, with growing differences between the rich and poor in the 1970s. Since the 1970s, Muslim-Christian tensions increased with recurring violence, especially in lower class areas, over issues such as church building, mixed Muslim-Christian relations and conversions. These conversions went in both directions, but mostly from Christianity to Islam, which also negatively impacted Christian demographics. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior is well aware of the number of converts, but does not publish these figures. The estimates for the 5 Y. Courbage and P. Fargues, Christians and Jews under Islam (Tauris, 1998), pp 57-90 6 The World Christian Encyclopedia, edited by David Barrett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), claimed a percentage of 18.6 Christians in the 1970s, including 12 percent “crypto-Christians,” for which no evidence was presented.