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Couple goes into hiding as police place Islamic law over Egyptian penal
code. ISTANBUL, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – Christian convert Raheal
Henen Mussa and her Coptic husband are hiding from police and her Muslim
family for violating an article of Islamic law (sharia) that doesn’t
exist in the Egyptian penal code.
Police arrested Mussa, 22, on April 13 for marrying Sarwat George Ryiad
in a customary marriage (zawag al ‘urfi), an unregistered form of
matrimony in Egypt made without witnesses. It has gained popularity
among Egyptian youth but is not sanctioned by most Islamic scholars. The two signed a marriage contract between themselves. Only Ryiad and
their attorney have a copy. Police have not obtained a copy of the
contract, but they used its existence as a pretext for arresting Mussa. According to a strict interpretation of sharia, Muslim women are not
permitted to marry non-Muslim men, although the opposite is allowed, and
Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution stipulates that sharia is the
basis for legislation. The two have not committed a crime according to Egyptian law since they
didn’t seek official marriage status, but police and Mussa’s family are
pursuing them because they violated Islamic law, advocacy groups say. “They have not violated the law, but the family and the police are
applying their own unwritten law,” said Helmy Guirguis, president of the
U.K. Coptic Association. “Islamic law interprets that if a Muslim girl
marries a non-Muslim man, even on paper, they are breaking the law of
God, not the law of man.” The two could not get married in an official ceremony since Mussa is
considered a Muslim by birth, and changing one’s religious status away
from Islam is impossible in Egypt. A lawsuit is pending, however, for a
Muslim-born man to change his status on his identity card. Formerly known as Samr Mohamed Hansen, Mussa converted to Christianity
three years ago, before marrying Ryiad. Police arrested her as she came
home from her workplace at a Cairo salon. They identified her by the
Coptic cross tattoo on her right arm – a common mark among Copts. She was transferred to a station operated by the secret police, where
she stayed until Sunday (April 19), when her family took her. While in
their custody, her family completely burned off her cross tattoo,
according to the U.K. Coptic Association. Mussa escaped from them on Tuesday (April 21). She and her husband fled
Cairo and are in hiding. If the two are caught, advocates fear, they
could be forcibly separated, arrested and beaten, with Mussa being
returned to her family. Sharia influence in Egyptian law also means that Muslims have the right
(hisbah) to file a lawsuit against someone who has violated the “rights
of God.” This provision, advocates fear, means Mussa and Ryiad’s
unsanctioned marriage could make them targets of Muslim extremists
wishing to apply the full extent of this law. The most famous example of hisbah’s application came in 1995, when Cairo
University professor Nasr Abuh Zayd was declared an “infidel” and
forcibly divorced from his wife for criticizing orthodox views of the Quran. Ryiad and Mussa were not married in a Coptic ceremony, as many churches
avoid marrying registered Muslims to non-Muslims for fear of being
targeted by authorities and Islamic extremists. “Nobody [in Egypt] can declare the marriage of a Coptic man to a Muslim
girl,” attorney Naguib Gabriel told Compass. “It would be very dangerous
to the life of a priest.” Marriage Woes Mussa and Ryiad’s case is the latest in a spurt of recent arrests and
lawsuits against those who don’t adhere to the Islamic-influenced dictum
that Muslim women may not marry non-Muslim men. In October 2008, a Cairo court handed Father Metaos Wahba a five-year
prison sentence for issuing a marriage certificate to a Christian man
and a Muslim convert to Christianity. He stated that he did not know the
woman’s papers stating her religion as “Christian” were a forgery. Human rights groups have called on Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak to
release Fr. Wahba, as Egypt is a signatory to the U.N. Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which allows full religious freedom,
including conversion. Mussa’s jailing mirrored that of Christian convert Martha Samuel Makkar,
24, detained last December at a Cairo airport for attempting to flee the
country with her husband. She was charged with carrying forged documents
that listed her religion as Christian and incarcerated for a month. A judge granted her bail but not before threatening to kill her for
leaving Islam (see “Judge Tells of Desire to Kill Christian,” Jan. 27). Nadia Tawfiq, the lawyer in charge of Makkar’s chase, said many arrests
and trials in Egypt result from laws that assign people social status
according to the religion on their identity cards. She said the best hope for change is a May 2 court hearing of Maher
El-Gohary, a Muslim-born man who is fighting to have his Christian
religion recognized on his official documents. If he succeeds, he would
be the first person in the country to be granted that right.
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