Coppenrath is a creative and innovative publisher specializing in high-quality children’s books across all segments and ages, including board, picture, religious, non-fiction and activity books as well as fiction for young adults. Coppenrath and its Hölker imprint also publish innovative gift, cooking and lifestyle books for adults.
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This book seeks to look into the issue of oppression of Copts in Egypt. This will be done first by documenting practices and events, secondly by analyzing the social and economic dimensions to the causes and roots, and thirdly by revising the discourses and ideologies at hand. All through the last century, Egypt has known modernization projects of disparate orientations. It turned from semi-liberal rule to a regime that bans political and association freedom, to a project based on the market economy and adopts the neoliberal prospective. Can we find a linking thread to the Copts situation through all these different stages? Modernity began with Mohamed Aly Pasha, who needed to develop agriculture, to establish industries and schools, and to resource those who have competencies regardless their religion. This led to the deconstruction of Dhimmis’ obligations which prevailed for about 12 centuries. The military conscription was imposed on Copts in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. However, that did not lead automatically to achieving equality; because it was a kind of development that took place without a thought revolution to put religion in a new place. On the contrary, the influence of religion remained present in any discussion of the Copts rights. This research follows the conditions of Copts along the last two hundred years, in their relations to the deficiency that imbued the successive modernization projects, and the role played by the Islamic movements since the late nineteenth century. Those movements which saw modernity as a source of corruption, and put forth the necessity of returning to fundamentals.
It’s Egypt during the last decades of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Egyptians Muslims are Sunnis while their Caliphate is Shiite. The regime is torn between the Shiite Caliph and the Sunnis ministers and so are the subjects. The Copt, on the other hand, are struggling to keep their balance in the country. The plot depicts the journey of Youssef the Coptic who is involved in political schemes, dangerous love story, and his own spiritual journey to find his way to God. This novel is a revolutionary historical text that examines themes of religion, identity, authority, politics, and love.
In December 1994, at a time of intense political pressure for peace in the Middle East, Bettina Selby set out on a journey from Cyprus to the Holy Land. Riding her bicycle wherever possible, she travelled slowly through Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and finally into modern Israel.. Her eventual destination was a city she knew and loved; so much so that the political turmoil of the preceding year had made her unwilling to return. Now, spurred on by the Jordan/Israel peace treaty and an audience with King Hussein, Bettina felt that at last a new perspective on Israel could be achieved. Over the next two months she travelled widely, from the ruins of Byblos in Lebanon to the Armenian Cathedral Church in Jerusalem, and to the refugee camps of Gaza. In every place she was offered the hand of friendship by people of diverse race and culture. What began as an enjoyable and quirky travelogue fast becomes a compelling critique of Middle Eastern politics, and it historical and religious foundations. In clear and lyrical prose, Bettina Selby has produced a fascinating account of her travels and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the modern Holy Land.
