Friday, August 16, 2013

Ancient Egyptian Christian Monastery Set Aflame

by Raymond Ibrahim — 8/15/2013


As Muslim Brotherhood supporters continue their jihadi rampage on Egypt’s Christian churches—several dozens have now been attacked—it’s important to remember that their hostility is not simply directed to churches, but any and every expression of Christianity, including crosses, Bible stores, and even remote monasteries. Most recently, for instance, early Thursday morning (Egyptian time), hundreds of pro-Morsi rioters set fire to the Virgin Mary Monastery, also known as Muharraq Monastery, in Quwsaya, Asyut—one of the oldest monasteries in the world, which held many ancient Coptic manuscripts, likely now all turned to ash. Its flames reached surrounding Coptic Christian homes, setting some 15 aflame.


As I relate in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, Islamic attacks on Coptic monasteries are as old as Islam’s invasion into Egypt itself, that is, nearly 1400 years. Thus the persecution of Egypt’s indigenous, most original, inhabitants, the Christian Copts, continues unabated, in the same patterns, and in the name of Islam — that is, in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood, which, to its automaton-like devotees, is synonymous with Islam itself.