Fr. Georges Massouh on Christians' Right to Reject Islamic Law (2013)

 Arabic original here. This is from 2013, but extremely pertinent today.


To those who do not want to congratulate Christians on their feasts

In recent days, voices have been raised reminding Muslims of the impermissibility of congratulating Christians on their feasts. We respect the freedom of those who call on their coreligionists to not be attracted toward "infidels" under the guise of congratulating Christians on their infidel feasts. Religions are a private matter for those who belong to them, and we won't give anyone lessons on the soundness or unsoundness of the rulings they make about lifestyle and behavior.

However, if the discourse of these zealots for their faith is to be fair, they must refrain from inundating us, day and night, with talk of Islam's tolerance and openness and they must refrain from citing verses from the Qur'an that talk about respect human diversity and religious differences as being God's way. As they understand it, what is the meaning of the Qur'anic verse "O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct" (Surat al-Hujrat 13)? What is the meaning of the love that the Qur'an commands to Muslims when it says, "Thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud" (Surat al-Ma'ida 82)?

In reality, Middle Eastern Christians' concern is not for respecting social niceties and the exchange of greetings between Christians and Muslim, but rather that their rights to a life of dignity with their Muslim partners in a civil state and to complete equality between all citizens of the single country be respected.

Muslim-Christian relations cannot be reduced to photo-ops that gather a sheikh or mufti with a patriarch of bishop on religious occasions, but rather they are based on mutual respect within a state in which one religious group does not impose its law on other groups under the pretext that they are a majority and others are a minority.

Even if non-Muslims do not have the right to discuss the propriety of Muslims' congratulating Christians on their feasts, they do have the natural right to refuse the imposition of Islamic law as the primary source for their country's constitution. In a discussion that took place at a panel on Muslim-Christian dialog, one of the Muslims asked me how I, as a non-Muslim, can have the right to object to "the position of non-Muslims in Islamic law" when it is, in his opinion, a purely Islamic matter. I told him that this issue concerns me too, since it talks about me, so how do you have the right to prevent me from rejecting the legal restrictions that you draw up for me? I closed by saying that those who work for the return of Islamic law as the organizing principle for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims are acting according to the logic of the ancient conquests. That is, according to domination based on the absolute sovereignty of a group that is victorious in war over a group that is occupied and not a partner in the nation.

That some of them do not congratulate Christians on their feasts does nothing to diminish Christians' divine joy that is based on the presence of the Master of the feast among them. Christmas, Epiphany, the Transfiguration, the Cross, the Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost... these are occasions for them to rejoice in Christ their Redeemer. "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). We will not beg for the courtesies of this world that are called the exchange of greetings, although we have heartfelt appreciation for those who do not heed the call to cut themselves off and so congratulate the Christians every year according to their custom. However, we will not keep silent from demanding our right to a just state based on citizenship and total equality of rights and responsibilities among individuals within the one nation.