Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Egypt

Christian woman in Egypt Shoe-whacks Salafi Fundamentalist for Calling her a Harlot (Photo)

Juan Cole 02/18/2013

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Last December at a protest against Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi in Egypt, it is alleged that an unveiled Christian woman was standing with other demonstrators when a hard-line Salafi fundamentalist came up to her and said “Cover your face you harlot!” She immediately reached down, took off her shoe, and slapped him across the face with it.

This story, now circulating on the internet, apparently originally appeared late last December in the Egyptian newspaper Misr an-Nahar-da (Egypt Today). It was reprinted in Al-Hasela.

Christians are about 10 percent of the population in Egypt, and many are middle class and well educated. Some in the community are very concerned with the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and what it will do to the status of minority Christians. The woman was understandably upset, but such physical responses to verbal provocation are unwise.

Coptic Church officials in Egypt have unhelpfully urged Christian girls to wear a headscarf in this conservative Muslim country.

Filed Under: Egypt

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....