![]() ![]() ![]() The seeming ubiquity of sectarianism in the Middle East today has led some commentators to call for a new supranational order in the region. Read with an eye to history, this relatively minor conflict over a future church in a small village can teach us a lot about the history of religious freedom and the legacy of empire in the contemporary Middle East. To contain this local sectarian crisis, the governor of the province where the village is located held an informal reconciliation session to which he invited Christian and Muslim families. As a symbolic gesture of solidarity, the Egyptian president ordered the construction of a church in the village to commemorate its Christian “martyrs.” Over the next few weeks, a group of Muslim residents attacked the site to protest the building of the church. ![]() Al-'Ur, a small village in the south of Egypt where most of the victims hailed from, was grieving. Wide international condemnation of the murderers overshadowed a sectarian crisis that unfolded in the victims' hometown shortly afterward. Last February, ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya. ![]()
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