A Coptic demand to downplay or even remove Islamic Shari'a as the main source of legislation has provoked a heated debate, writes Gihan Shahine Priest Morqos, the official spokesman of the Orthodox Church in Egypt, plucked a sensitive cord when he issued a statement earlier this week demanding an amendment to Article 2 of the Constitution which states that Islamic Shari'a (law) is 'the main' source of legislation in Egypt. Morqos suggested that the text be restored to its original pre-1981 form by replacing "the" with an "a", hence making Islamic Shari'a just one of many other sources of jurisprudence in Egypt. Morqos further criticised a comment by the chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, Mustafa El-Fiqi, praising the Copts' sensibility for not asking to change Article 2 in the past. "Copts would like to change this article, but never asked in the hope that a Muslim would in support of Coptic rights," retorted Morqos. Coptic lawyer and human rights activist Nabil Gabriel, however, is not waiting any longer, and has called for the total elimination of any reference to Islamic Shari'a from the Constitution. Gabriel believes that such "religious tones immediately make the Constitution discriminative and create sectarian rifts". While not all Egyptian laws are derived from Shari'a, he insists that the very fact that "laws should not contradict Islamic Shari'a immediately reduces the citizenship rights of Copts". He mentioned obstacles in issuing a unified code for building houses of worship and a personal law for Copts as cases in point. For his part, Morqos explained that the Church is suggesting an amendment to Article 2 out of fear that Islamic Shari'a might be interpreted in the way that the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group perceive it, namely "discriminating against Copts," according to the cleric. Mohamed Hamed El-Gamal, former head of the State Council, however, believes these fears are "unfounded". El-Gamal served as legal counsel to parliament in 1975 and was assigned to amend the Constitution to its current form in 1981 under the late President Anwar El-Sadat. He further explained that any amendment to Article 2 would be "pointless" since a legal document was appended to the Constitution safeguarding the rights of Coptic citizens. The appendix, which is legally binding, confines Islamic Shari'a to what was introduced in the holy Qur'an and Sunna, and ensures a well- established Islamic principle which regards Muslims and non-Muslims as equal citizens in both rights and obligations. Besides, El-Gamal told Al-Ahram Weekly, no law can be passed without the approval of parliament, which already includes Coptic representation. El-Gamal insisted that changing "the" into an "a" does not necessarily mean -- linguistically or legally -- that Islamic jurisprudence is "the only" source of legislation, but rather a prime one. "Many laws are not derived from Islamic Shari'a, but they just do not contradict with it," he explained. "Besides, no law can be passed in contradiction with other Constitutional principles pertaining to equality and freedom of belief." According to El-Gamal, Sadat decided to amend Article 2 in response to wide public and Islamist pressure at the time, in return for altering Article 77 to its current form, which makes a president's term in office limitless. "Sadat wanted to win Islamist support so he would not face much resistance when changing Article 77," he elaborated. Nonetheless, the amendment sparked immediate uproar in Coptic circles at the time, and prominent Coptic MPs including Albert Barsoum, Hanna Narouz, Fahmi Rashed and Leila Tekla spoke forcefully against the amendment in parliament discussions. "They [Coptic MPs] cited several books with extreme thoughts which greatly discriminated against non-Muslim citizens living in an Islamic state," El-Gamal chronicled. Then Parliament Speaker Sufi Abu Taleb made fruitless attempts to quell Coptic fears, arguing that those books only represented the thoughts of their extreme authors and that equal citizenship is a well- established principle in the Islamic jurisprudence. Sadat asked Interior Minister El-Nabawi Ismail to settle the issue, who in turn consulted El-Gamal as the main author of the amendments. His counsel was the current appendix to Article 2, in order to curb any potential extreme interpretation of the Shari'a. This compromise seemed to satisfy Copts at the time. But today, Christian leaders are revisiting the issue out of fear of their perceived interpretation of the Muslim Brotherhood understanding of the article. Brotherhood MP Hamdi Hassan rebutted this perception as "speculative" since his group is "unlikely to rule the country any time soon." Besides, Hamdi told the Weekly, the "Brotherhood has always made it clear that Copts have the same rights and obligations as any other Muslim citizen as enshrined in Islamic Shari'a." He continued that "Copts are soliciting foreign pressure in attempts to twist the arm of the regime, and enforce their demands on 93 per cent of the country's population," Hassan added. "This is dangerous and likely to create sectarian conflicts." In the other camp, however, Morqos insisted that Copts are no longer a minority, saying that they represent an arguable 15 to 18 per cent of the population, and that they should participate in discussing citizenship laws rather than have them be imposed on them. Although conceding that there are "incidents" where Copts face discrimination "at the hands of some extremists in the workplace and if they want to build churches," El-Gamal insisted that adding an article to the Constitution noting the equal rights of citizenship will not necessarily solve the problem. He explained that this principle is already enshrined in the Constitution, and there are other laws prohibiting the establishment of any political party on the basis of religion or gender. Instead, the legal expert suggested introducing more tolerant religious views in state-owned media in order to curb sectarian sensitivity.
