The Salafī-leaning Islamic Legitimate Body of Rights and Reformation (ILBRR) issued a fatwá that forbids congratulating Christians on their religious festivities. Commenting on the fatwá in an article written in al-Musawwir weekly magazine, the Coptic thinker and author, Yahyá Tadrous, cited Quranic verses that endorses Islam's amity towards the Egyptian Christians in particular and Allah's divine plan for diversity among all nations and tribes, men and women in general. The author quoted professor of Islamic sharī’ah Dr. Ahmad Kuraymah who said: “Whoever forbids congratulatory greetings is abrasive. To you, my dear Christian brothers and sisters, I wish you wholeheartedly a Merry Christmas!” Tadrous quoted, further, the words of the Egyptian thinker Jābir ꞌAsfūr in al-Ahrām newspaper on January 2 this year: “The war of 1973 evokes memories of Egyptian soldiers who had been killed during one of the many battles of this war; I remember that we buried them, Christian and Muslim soldiers, side by side, to protect their corpses from hazardous bombs and the perils of a harsh desert. Whether it was the Christian Jirjis or the Muslim Ahmad did not matter. We mourned for our EGYPTIAN comrades.”
"The war is long over and life took its course with its ups and downs, but never before has Egypt experienced what we all witness nowadays. We hear clergy men preaching their Friday sermons forbidding the followers from extending congratulatory words to their Christian neighbors. Some stood up rejecting the words of their clergy men. It filled me with joy to see veiled Muslim women and girls at the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, presenting flowers and sweets to the Christian worshippers.”
Stressing the distinctive unity of Egyptian Christians and Muslims, Tadrous added: “We fight together (the Sinai Liberation War of 73), we dream together (the January 25 Revolution), we mourn together (the funeral of late Pope Shenouda III). We speak the same language, we laugh about the same jokes, and we sing the same songs. […] The transition that is taking place now worries me. I fear for Egypt to turn into another Afghanistan” (Yahyá Tadrous, al-Mussawir, Jan. 9, p. 50, 51 and 52). Read original text in Arabic.
