Did the wife of a Coptic priest really become Muslim? Gamal Nkrumah looks for the truth The focus this week was on mega-projects and a sensationalist conversion tale that set national emotions ablaze. Tuesday's front page banner of the national daily Al-Ahram highlighted President Hosni Mubarak's inauguration of celebrations marking the opening of the country's spanking new Mediterranean port. "Mubarak opens new Damietta Port, Egypt's first harbour to be operated electronically -- poised to become the country's biggest exporting port." The paper extensively quoted Minister of Transportation Essam Sharaf's description of the state-of- the-art facilities of the new port which cost an estimated LE190 million. The paper noted that the Damietta Port Authority covered the total cost of the ultra- modern transshipment project from the revenues generated by the new port, "which means that the project is free of debts," as the Damietta Port Authority Board Chairman Ibrahim Youssef told Al-Ahram. The second largest national daily Al- Akhbar also showed the spotlight on Damietta Port stressing it would initially provide regular employment opportunities for 12,000 people, steadily rising to an estimated 40,000 jobs when the project is completed. The itineraries of visiting African dignitaries also received much coverage in the Egyptian press this week. Much was made of Senegalese President Abdullah Wade, who apparently after meeting in Cairo for a brain- storming political discussion with President Mubarak about African conflict resolution and development concerns, flew to Luxor and Aswan for the ultimate cultural tourism experience. Mubarak's statements to Germany's Der Spiegel received wide coverage in both the national and opposition press. Mubarak, the papers noted, warned that an attack by the United States on Iran would be "catastrophic". And in an unprecedented and thought- provoking remark about the Muslim Brotherhood which he identified as a terrorist organisation, Mubarak said, "the Muslim Brothers have a long terrorist record," read a front- page headline of the daily Al-Ahrar. In no uncertain terms, Mubarak denounced the Brotherhood for fomenting sectarian strife and spreading religious bigotry and fanaticism. "We disagree with their politics and ideology," Mubarak was quoted as saying in Al-Ahrar. The same theme was picked up by Al- Ahram which quoted Mubarak as saying he could not contemplate collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood in any capacity because of their terrorist record. He added that they had tried to assassinate him as they also tried to assassinate the former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. The national weekly Al-Mussawar, had this headline: "Who is responsible for arousing confessional disturbances?" for an in-depth report by the magazine's Editor-in-Chief Makram Mohamed Ahmed in which the lurid details of the story of the wife of the priest of Abul-Matameer were revealed. "Every year an estimated 1,500 people, mostly from the United States and Russia, but hailing from more than 90 other countries, call at Al-Azhar requesting that they become Muslim," Mohamed Ahmed noted. The office of the sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest religious authority in the country, issues certificates attesting that the individuals concerned have become Muslim. "However, the declaration by Coptic Christian Egyptians that they have become Muslim is a far more difficult exercise. The procedures are painstakingly complex," Mohamed Ahmed explains. "It is not enough for a Copt to declare his intention of becoming a Muslim, not enough to demonstrate his or her knowledge of the pillars of the Muslim religion. A Copt's verbal declaration cannot be taken for granted. Rather, Al-Azhar liases with the state security apparatus and with the higher echelons and authorities of the Coptic Church to ascertain the real motives of the would-be convert. "Furthermore, a Coptic priest must be assigned to try to dissuade the would-be convert from becoming a Muslim. This procedure might take more than one session and ends only when the Coptic Church is convinced that the individual concerned truly does want to become Muslim." The writer went on to recount the tale of Wafaa Costantine, the wife of the Coptic priest of Abul-Matameer. According to Mohamed Ahmed, Costantine had long harboured a strong desire to become Muslim. She had listened to tapes of Islamic preachers such as Sheikh Al-Shaarawi and Amr Khaled, she fasted in Ramadan and had learnt by heart the suras (Qur'anic chapters) of Yassin, Al-Kahf (The Cave) and Al-Rahman (The Merciful). The tale of Costantine was also the subject of numerous columns. Pundits reflected on the ramifications of her conversion to Islam and speculated on the state of Christian- Muslim relations in contemporary Egypt. Al- Ahram 's columnist Fahmy Howeidy found it astounding that for two weeks Egypt was in the throes of sectarian tension. "The entire country, the length and breadth of Egypt, laboured under the strain of two fictitious rumours. The first claimed that security men in Beheira governorate abducted the wife of a priest so as to force her to become Muslim. The second rumour was that the wife of the priest was embroiled in an extra- marital relationship with her Muslim boss in the office where she worked, and that he lured her into embracing Islam, then kidnapped her... or that she eloped with him and went into hiding in fear of her family." Howeidy, like Mohamed Ahmed in Al- Mussawar, proceeded to describe the events that led to the priest's wife becoming a Muslim: her husband had his leg amputated because of his advanced stage of diabetes; she was won over to Islam after watching a religious sermon on television delivered by Sheikh Zaghloul El-Naggar; she yearned to learn more about Islam and started to perform Muslim prayers and other rites. "Rumours began to circulate among the Copts of Egypt like wildfire. Angry protests erupted and clashes with the police followed which led to the injury of 62 policemen," wrote Howeidy. "But what raised the level of tension to boiling point was when Coptic Pope Shenouda declined to deliver his usual Wednesday sermon in protest, and headed instead to a Wadi Al-Natroun monastery in the Western Desert." "The problem," Howeidy goes on to say, "is that Costantine is no ordinary woman, personifying a special symbolism for she is, after all, a priest's wife."
