The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood by Baron Beth

Author:Baron, Beth [Baron, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2014-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

6

COMBATING CONVERSION

The Expansion of the Anti-Missionary Movement

TURKIYYA HASAN GOT A GREAT SEND-OFF at the Port Said train station on June 22, 1933, a week after addressing a gathering of more than fifty local citizens in an attempt to galvanize the anti-missionary movement and to raise money for a new orphanage. Supporters presented her with flowers to express “the admiration of the Muslim people of Port Said for her heroism and steadfastness in withstanding the threats and cruelties of the missionaries who tried to force her to abandon the faith of Islam.”1 The fifteen-year-old symbol and spokeswoman of the anti-missionary movement boarded the train for Cairo at a quarter past noon. Escorted by a delegation that included Port Said Islamists Dr. Muhammad Sulayman, Muhammad Sarhan, and Muhammad Shirdi, she arrived four hours later at the Cairo Station, where again she received flowers, this time from the girls on the reception committee.2

After resting at a hotel, Turkiyya proceeded to the offices of the newspaper al-Siyasa for a ceremony in her honor and to thank the staff of the paper for the interest they had taken in her case. Muhammad Husayn Haykal, a well-known writer at the paper and a member of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, and Hifni Bey Mahmud, the editor, welcomed her with refreshments. Her hosts asked her questions about evangelical methods used to convert Muslim students to Christianity and wondered why she had not consented under torture to accept Christianity. In reply, she expressed discomfort with the idea of a trinity, explaining that she could not believe that if God is One, as the Qur’an said, that he could be three, or that Jesus could have been a son of God, and she affirmed that she was ready to die for her beliefs. Her remarks impressed her hosts, who found them sincere and thoughtful.3

Keeping Turkiyya in the news antagonized Egyptian state officials, British colonial officers, Americans consuls, and foreign missionaries, who had all hoped to put the affair quickly behind them. The teenager played her part well, coming to Cairo expressly for the purpose of energizing the anti-missionary movement. After the reception at al-Siyasa, Turkiyya rode in a car with Haykal and Dr. Sulayman to the headquarters of the Jam‘iyyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin (YMMA). The orphan from Port Said must have been duly impressed when she arrived at the hall, packed by activists who had gathered to launch the Jama‘at al-Difa‘ ‘an al-Islam (League for the Defense of Islam). Turkiyya watched as a coalition to fight proselytizing and combat conversion came together, inspired by her actions.4

The intensification of Protestant proselytizing had helped to spur the growth and spread of Islamic associations. Members of these associations sought to strengthen Islam and Muslim faith at a time when the community faced threats from within—secularists who looked to the West for models—and from without—foreign missionaries and occupiers who undermined Muslim religious practice and belief. The protests of Islamic activists reflected outrage over the impotence of Egyptians to rein in or oust missionaries under the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.