A previous article tackled the speech given by the Grand Imam Prof. Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayyib;here, I would like to praise His Eminence for bearing witness for the truth, fearing nothing. During his speech, he clarified the “mixing” some are trying to instill in minds to impact the vision of the role of the Egyptian Family House, either to distract people from this house or to leave it a dead body! Yes, there is a great difference between “Fraternity” and “Mixing”: Fraternity is the attempt of the Egyptians (Muslims and Christians)to coexist in peace, enhancing the security and prosperity of their homeland. While “mixing” is adopting and believing in the other’s thoughts, which is totally unlikely! Coexisting and living in fraternity do not obligate a person to adopt others’ beliefs!
His Eminence Prof. Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayyib also referred to the trends calling for “Abrahamic”, attempting to mingle Judaism, Christianity and Islam to become one religion agreed upon by all people. Such attempts, although apparently aim at attaining peace, lack much vision of the traits God granted to people, including “freedom”. God has given people two ways, either to pursue good principles or to ignore them in their life, either to work honestly to fulfill their mission, supporting and encouraging each other, or to work only for themselves at the expense of each other through controlling fates. God has granted man freedom to choose the path he would like to walk through.All religions guarantee man’s dignity and God-given full freedom, leaving him the chance to choose either to follow the commandments or to refuse them, bearing the responsibility of his choice. God has required us to fix the earth, not to spoil it. However, nowadays, people spoil the earth, taking pretexts unaccepted by God: including the call of those of directed ideologies, taking names as “Freedom”, “Unity of Religions”, “The Unified Universal Religion” or “The Abrahamic Religion”.
These attempts are nothing but spoil of the creation of God. How would God, after creating man and earth on the best form, ask us to spoil His creation?! Don’t people know that the creation of God is the most accurate formation and the most wonderful system? Christianity declared: “God created heaven and earth…Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good”.
Islam asserted the same meaning: “Do they not ever reflect on camels—how they were masterfully created, and the sky—how it was raised high; and the mountains—how they were firmly set up; and the earth—how it was levelled out? So, continue to remind all, O Prophet, for your duty is only to remind. You are not ˹there˺ to compel them to believe.”
How would we accept this plague which tries to spread among us?! His Eminence Grand Imam warned us of this with all bravery, boldness and strength; it is the soft black secret path, the path of the devil which is hidden to many, but it can never deceive those of insights and consciences: This path ends at setting people away from their religions, converting them into blunt stones that fit to be a brick in the wall of a new universal system, that makes people a flock driven unaware to be slaughtered!
The goal of these ideas is to eliminate every religious spirit wherever it is, to cut off and bury all the heavenly religions from the earth, to export a fictitious religion called the “Abrahamic religion” and to dissolve all the believers of heavenly religions in it. This is the actual beginning of eliminating the relationship between us and God. Here a question arises: Will there be a prophet of this new religion, asking us to believe and follow it?! Therefore, we have to realize that there is no salvation except by returning to God -blessed be His name- for He is the Master of existence, and by protecting ourselves, adhering to virtue, rejecting darkness. What is taking place currently, aiming at eliminating religions is a conspiracy woven against believers, to destroy morals, and to overthrow the nationalities of nations and peoples. A real war is taking place between good and evil, and what is happening is like poisoned honey that promotes a calamity about to kill us, under words wrapped in the name of God, while God does not know them! It terrifies me a lot when the devil mentions God’s name! I am mentioning what Imam “Ali bin AbiTalib” said: “A word of truth by which falsehood is meant.” O man, if you are to be taught, then be exhorted by yourself before others! Let him hear who has ears. And … the talk about the Egyptian Family House is still going on, among the stories of beautiful Egypt that never end!
The General Bishop
Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
