Religious freedom from birth in Egypt

By Khaled Diab

Unlike eye colour and skin tone, religion is not hereditary. This reality must be reflected in Egyptian documents and personal status laws.

Monday 29 July 2013

In , like in many other traditional societies, the idea that religion is hereditary is so widespread that it is written into the law and children are stamped with the seal of their faith, on their birth certificates, from the very moment they are born.

But unlike eye colour and skin tone, children cannot naturally inherit their parents’ beliefs. Even the controversial idea of a ‘ gene’, if it were ever to be proven, does not predispose a person to a particular religion but to spirituality in general. In addition, it is a well-known worldwide phenomenon that youngsters reject and rebel against the beliefs of their parents and elders.

Yet millions of Muslims are entirely convinced that not only are the offspring of Muslims automatically Muslim but that the natural state of all newborns is , presumably before the world ‘corrupts’ them.

But does Islam itself back up this belief? Well, the Qur’an, as on so many other controversial subjects, is actually silent on the matter. Those who advocate the idea of Islam as a birthright base their belief on a hadith which states: “There is none born but is created to his true nature.” The Arabic word used is “fitra” (“innate nature”), which is certainly so ambiguous as to possibly signify anything.

Moreover, the notion that a child is born a Muslim, even if the parents are Muslim, contradicts the ‘s own injunctions guaranteeing of belief. “There is no compulsion in religion,” the Muslim holy book tells believers. And following the same example, Mohamad’s own of Medina guaranteed equal political and social rights to non-Muslims, including pagans.

And what greater “compulsion” can there be than to force an innocent mind unready to make the most serious commitment in life, its greatest leap of faith: to adopt a belief system before (s)he has the intellectual, emotional and cognitive capacities to do so?

Of course, it is not just Islam that sees religion as hereditary. In many ways, does too. No child becomes truly a Christian until (s)he is baptised and undergoes the holy rite of confirmation, which suggests freedom of belief. However, since the Church expects every God-fearing parent to do this shortly after their child’s birth, then this innocent baby has also had a faith thrust upon it before it can fairly be asked to make its own mind up.

So, what is behind this phenomenon? It is partly a manifestation of the common instinct people have that their children should grow up like them. Just as individuals often want their offspring to inherit the family business, they also want their children to adopt their dearest and most cherished beliefs.

Collectively, it is a kind of numbers game. In the ideological arena, the number of followers a particular faith commands has significance in the eyes of believers, and what more effective way to guarantee “natural growth” than through the automatic passing on of the flame of belief from one generation to the next. For a growing religion, continued growth adds to its self-confidence, while for a shrinking or minority faith, it helps arrest the attrition, boosting the community’s confidence.

But is this fair to children, and to the eventual adults they become? Absolutely not. Religion is not a birthright, and suggesting it is wrongs both those who would have chosen this path of their own volition, by depriving them of agency, and those who would have followed another path, by robbing them of choice.

While there is a fair chance that a child raised in a particular belief system will adopt it voluntarily as an adult, there is no way of knowing if this is the case in Egypt. In addition, the current system makes no allowance for those who wish to live by another religion or none.

It would be far better for all Egyptians to be born without a formal religious affiliation and then to choose the faith system that suits them once they come of age. This true freedom of belief is not only good for individuals but also for Egypt’s various faith communities, and society as a whole.

As an Arabic expression suggests, numbers in and of themselves are as meaningless as counting lemons. What matters more is the quality behind these numbers. What good is counting X million believers if these believers did not choose their faith freely?

In fact, it opens the door to deceitfulness and hypocrisy, as those who do not truly believe are afraid to voice their doubts due to social (and sometimes even legal) censure. Rather than having the dead wood of uncommitted believers or even non-believers, would a religion not be far stronger and more robust if the community was made up of voluntary believers? Society is also far stronger and better off when citizens can live honestly and express their convictions without fear of stigmatisation or worse.

Moreover, rather than a sign of supreme confidence, forcing a belief system upon newborns can be interpreted as an indication of weakness. After all, if a religion is confident that it illuminates the true path and that its truth is self-evident, then surely it would prefer that its followers make a conscious decision to adhere to it. And those who choose the “false” path have only themselves to blame and, if proven wrong, will get their comeuppance in the afterlife.

So, how do we translate this freedom of conscience to a workable reality in the Egyptian context?

A good first step would be to remove the religion field in birth certificates and other identification papers. This would not only safeguard an individual’s freedom of belief, it would also protect citizens against arbitrary or systemic discrimination based on their religious convictions.

Like in many other parts of the former Ottoman Empire, Egypt’s personal status and family law is still largely based on the Ottoman millet system. While this system of confessional self-rule was once a leading example of religious pluralism and in action, it is showing its age in the 21stcentury.

Today, the array of beliefs goes far beyond the “three heavenly beliefs” recognised by Egyptian law. In addition to outright non-believers, you have those who belong to other faiths, such as Baha’is and Shi’a Muslims, those who wish to convert but find it hard to do so now and those who interpret their faith in a non-traditional fashion.

To accommodate all these groups and give them equal rights to Egypt’s conventional religious communities, I propose the creation of a parallel civil court system based on modern universal values to run in parallel with the three established family court systems.

Once these civil courts are in place, Egyptians, regardless of the religious affiliations of their ancestors, will have the freedom to choose which personal status system to follow based on their convictions. In order to avoid the risk of ‘shopping around’, a citizen must choose a single court system in its entirety, and not the part that suits him/her. For example, a couple should not marry under Canon law and then divorce under Shari’a.

Naturally, given the emotive nature of religion in Egyptian public discourse and the controversy surrounding apostates, we are probably a long way away from adopting such a pluralistic system. But if Egypt wishes to live up to its revolutionary commitment of in deed and not just in words, then it needs to find a fair way to deal with those who subscribe to other belief systems, even if they happen to be a minority.

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Follow Khaled Diab on Twitter.

This article first appeared in The Daily News Egypt on 23 July 2013.

Author

  • Khaled Diab

    Khaled Diab is an award-winning journalist, blogger and writer who has been based in Tunis, Jerusalem, Brussels, Geneva and Cairo. Khaled also gives talks and is regularly interviewed by the print and audiovisual media. Khaled Diab is the author of two books: Islam for the Politically Incorrect (2017) and Intimate Enemies: Living with Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land (2014). In 2014, the Anna Lindh Foundation awarded Khaled its Mediterranean Journalist Award in the press category. This website, The Chronikler, won the 2012 Best of the Blogs (BOBs) for the best English-language blog. Khaled was longlisted for the Orwell journalism prize in 2020. In addition, Khaled works as communications director for an environmental NGO based in Brussels. He has also worked as a communications consultant to intergovernmental organisations, such as the EU and the UN, as well as civil society. Khaled lives with his beautiful and brilliant wife, Katleen, who works in humanitarian aid. The foursome is completed by Iskander, their smart, creative and artistic son, and Sky, their mischievous and footballing cat. Egyptian by birth, Khaled’s life has been divided between the Middle East and Europe. He grew up in Egypt and the UK, and has lived in Belgium, on and off, since 2001. He holds dual Egyptian-Belgian nationality.

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8 thoughts on “Religious freedom from birth in Egypt

  • Khaled Diab

    Thanks, Noura. Indeed, education is vital in creating pluralism and tolerance.

    Reply
  • love the article ya Khalid, and I guess the education system will also have to change, so it would teach you about religion in general as a source of knowledge, not to direct you towards one religion without even revealing the full truth about it

    Reply
  • Oh, ok. I agree, I think the early ages saw a lot of innovation, but it went downhill and started circling the drain with the advent of the Brotherhood, and subsequently other radical organizations; it seems like a monumental task getting people – particularly within said organizations – to see the initial progress that was made and compare it to today’s Islam, which seems to be its own worst enemy more than anything else.

    I think its spiralled out of control and needs to be reined in, like you said, we need to lay a foundation for secularism and true religious freedom without fear of prosecution.

    Reply
  • Khaled Diab

    Very true. But what I mean is that the early centuries of Islam were governed by innovation in governance and rationality.

    Reply
  • Egypt was not as Islamicized/radical 50 or 60 years ago as it is today, is that what you mean?

    Reply
  • Khaled Diab

    Yes, Islam as commonly perceived. But I reckon it was not always so, and the Muslim ‘golden age’ was markedly secular.

    Reply
  • The problem is Islam tries to be everything at once, a political, social and ideological system that seeks control over everything – that has to change.

    Reply
  • Good article. I like the idea in principle but hey, baby steps. I think it’ll be a long time for true secularism, let alone religious freedom.

    Reply

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