ASSIUT: Last month, 49-year-old Om Khaled was on her way to the Virgin Mary Monastery in Drenka, Assiut to baptize her three-month-old son. The Muslim woman, following an age-old tradition in her hometown, was fulfilling a vow to God (nadr) to baptize her son according to Christian rituals if she were to ever get pregnant.
During the monastery celebrations, held every year from Aug. 7 to 21, Muslims making similar vows flock to the monastery, where the Holy Family is believed to have taken refuge during their visit to Egypt. According to Father Yacoub Suleiman, spokesman of the Virgin Mary Monastery, about 40 Muslims seeking to baptize their newborns arrive every day. The number reaches 100 during the last three days of celebrations.
This has led the monastery to build another room dedicated solely to baptizing Muslims, next to the one dedicated to Copts.
Both rooms feature a stone container filled with water, in which babies are immersed three consecutive times. The only difference is the use of the holy oil, referred to as ‘Miron’ in baptizing Christians. The full baptism ritual, including the holy oil, is the first step in the Christian faith. Boys are baptized after 40 days of birth and girls after 80. In the case of converting to Christianity, baptism is not limited to a certain age.
But this difference between the two rooms had led to some objections. Hossam Salman, a 40-year-old Muslim, insisted on baptizing his newborn in the Christian room, with all the rituals intact.
The priests who tried to persuade Salman that there’s no difference between the two rooms, had to find an alternative.
“The priests had to find an alternative because using the Miron oil [during the ritual] would mean that the child is a Christian, one of the priests told Daily News Egypt.
One priest distributed the holy oil in the monastery as a souvenir to visitors and told Salman to use the oil on his son at home.
This age-old habit of baptizing Muslim newborns – a tradition where both religions are meshed in the absence of any animosity – comes at a time when sectarian strife is frequently making headlines.
“Muslims are waiting for the celebrations each year to baptize their children, and this is after the women make a vow to God to do so after facing problems getting pregnant, Suleiman explained.
However, Dr Wassim El Cici, Egyptology researcher, said baptism is originally a Pharoanic practice that was used to “purify from sins.
However, baptism isn’t the only symbol of national unity in this event. Out of four million visitors this year, 25 percent were Muslim, Mohamed Saleh Fahmi, the head of the local council of the governorate of Assiut, told Daily News Egypt.
“The Holy Family is loved by all Muslims, he added. As for the visitors who come each year for the celebration, some of them sleep in tents or book hotel rooms near the monastery while others rent rooms inside the residents’ houses.
During the celebrations, it’s difficult to tell a Muslim from a Christian. Michael Fahmy, a 35-year-old Christian, slept next to Mahmoud Fateh, a Muslim of the same age, in one of the tents that housed around 25 people.
Michael said, “We are friends and we have been coming to the celebration since we were kids.
Mahmoud said, “I’m so happy to attend the celebration. . I eagerly wait for next year’s celebration; despite warnings from the Sheikh of the mosque before attending.
Amr Choubaki from Al-Ahram Center of Political and Strategic Studies said that sectarian strife in Egypt “is a limited political situation.
Choubaki told Daily News Egypt, “When there was a national project in the 20s of the past century until the end of the 60s and Egypt did not witness sectarian tensions, but now the situation is different because of the absence of a large national project that can unite Egyptians. But Mohamed El Sayed Saeed, an expert at the same center and the editor in chief of the independent newspaper Al-Badil, disagrees. “There is confusion in the state policy in the Christian-Muslim relations, some intellectuals believe that the government is fueling sectarian strife whether consciously or stupidly and that Egypt has a degree of simmering tension, that is haphazardly managed.
Meanwhile, Saeed said, “there is a stream that resists the idea of sectarian strife and does not want to recognize it.
