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March 25,
2008 5:00 AM
Islam’s
‘Public Enemy #1’
Coptic
priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.
By Raymond Ibrahim
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Coptic priest
Zakaria Botros
Though
he is little known in the West, Coptic priest
Zakaria Botros
— named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan
al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with
fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on
the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he
addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from
the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through
fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of
Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of
Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic
leaders throughout the Middle East.
Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around
his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach.
Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in
the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning
Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from
non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does
not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten
demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s
own radical demands on non-Muslims.
The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The
very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam —
who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip
of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera
TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity
annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry.
More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented
evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several n account for the Botros
phenomenon.
First, the new media — particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the
main conduits for Life TV) — have made it possible for questions about
Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to
hear Muslims from around the Islamic world — even from Saudi Arabia,
where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned — call into the show to
argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.
Secondly, Botros’s broadcasts are in Arabic — the language of some 200
million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have
published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely
unnoticed in the Islamic world. Botros’s mastery of classical Arabic not
only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve
deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature — much of it untapped by
Western writers who rely on translations — and so report to the average
Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found
within this vast corpus.
A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has
proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the
pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is
jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in
Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be
stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”).
To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to
give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on
the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of
the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent
Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.
Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently
detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect
of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly
conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic
tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly
invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond
and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that
their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence
and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.
More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence —
which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers.
The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often
find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing
(and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.
Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous
— and authentic — hadith stating that women should “breastfeed” strange
men with whom they must spend any amount of time. A leading hadith
scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk
show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi
confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males
is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women
“forbidden” to the men with whom they are forced into contact — the
logic being that, by being “breastfed,” the men become like “sons” to
the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.
To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at
al-Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institution —
went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing “Rida’ al-Kibir”
(sharia’s term for “breastfeeding the adult”), which prompted such
outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently
recanted.
Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing
issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sirhan’s
show, Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was
instigated by Botros: “I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that
channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at
Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his
sources!”
Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema
(aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him.
When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar
who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily
refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That
strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding
straightforward responses from the ulema.
The
most dramatic example
of this occurred on another famous show on the international station,
Iqra The host, Basma — a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab —
asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand
mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic
verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She
repeatedly asked: “According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?”
The two ulema would give no clear answer — dissembling here, going off
on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused,
and needed a response, since “there is a certain channel and a
certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has
received no response from you.”
The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, “low-life people like that must be
totally ignored!” and stormed off the set. He later returned, but
refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time
attacking Botros instead. When Basma said “Ninety percent of Muslims,
including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam
and are having a hard time swallowing it,” the sheikh responded, “You
don’t need to understand.” As for Muslims who watch and are influenced
by Botros, he barked, “Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses
to visit a mechanic, not a doctor — that’s his problem!”
But the ultimate reason for Botros’s success is that — unlike his
Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint —
his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and
concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow
humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that
end, he doesn’t just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before
concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and
invites all his viewers to come to Christ.
Botros’s motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote
“Israeli interests,” or “demonize” Muslims, but to draw Muslims away
from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity.
Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical
Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not
secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must
be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be
challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father
Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.
—
Raymond Ibrahim
is editor of
The Al Qaeda Reader.
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