coptic christians

**Simon Iskander** · 11-06-2006, 03:15 PM

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf said in one of his talks that many of the apparent problems in the Middle East between Christians and Muslims were caused by colonialism. He said that when he was working as a nurse, one of his patients was a very elderly Iraqi Christian lady, who was alive when the British first came to colonise Iraq.

When she told him she was Iraq, he started speaking to her in Arabic, which she was very surprised by. And he asked her 'What was the situation in Iraq like before the British came?'

She said to him 'I swear we had no problems. Muslims and Christians lived happily and harmoniously together. The problems started when the British came and they started telling us "You are Christians, you are like us" and "They are Muslims, they are different from you."'

**jaylen** · 11-06-2006, 03:50 PM

I believe it. We as muslims live well amongst all religions. Islam lays the rules/laws out for us. When the jews lived amongst the muslims it was their safest period of living. It's when they left were they persecuted. No one seems to want to acknowledge that because of the point you just made. European christians sought out to destroy the muslim world. what better way to do that than divide the arabs from within. Either christians against muslim or muslim against muslim. the divisions are endless and the problems are vast.