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Preacher's Moses story controversial in Egypt
[Al Arabiya Latest] Popular Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled is at the center of a controversy over an episode on his popular Quran program that discussed the story of Moses and allegedly linked it to current events and aroused sympathy for Jews.
In the program Min Qasas al-Quran (Stories of the Quran), which has aired on several satellite channels since Ramadan began, Khaled discussed how the Pharaohs slayed male Jews during the time of Moses. The famous preacher prepared the story earlier this year and posted it on his website in May with questions that he asked visitors to respond to.
"Think about these questions," he wrote on the website. "You will not find their answers in any book. They just need brains and imagination."
| Think for themselves instead of being told what they should think? Shocking! |
Among the questions posted were those asking: Why did the Pharaoh order male Jews to be killed? What do you think was Moses' political goal? Was it saving the Israelites or talking the Pharaoh into believing in God? Why didn't Moses call upon Egyptians to join his faith?
| Why would Moses have called upon Egyptians to join his faith? I'm confused. |
The responses were remarkable because the majority linked the story of Moses to the current political situation in Egypt and viewed it as an incentive to rebel against repressive leaders.
| Interestingly, they don't seem to have linked it to an Egyptian law passed after 1948, that made it illegal for Egyptian Jewish males to be in the country after their eighteenth birthday, or to when the Egyptian Jewish community, dating back to several centuries before Christ, ceased to exist. Just as the Pharaoh had intended in that long-ago time. |
Posted by: Fred 2009-09-01 |
