This dataset consists of the articles and reports of the RNSAW content that were published in the year 2002. As previously noted that at the time the articles were published, Arab-West Report did not exist. Religious News Service from the Arab World, the organization which would ultimately become Arab-West Report, published the following documents.
The dataset contains primarily the writings of Cornelis Hulsman, Drs., reporting on Christians situation in Egypt and subjects related to the Copts in the US with a number of editorials serve as a media critique of the Coptic organizations press releases issued abroad and other articles published in the local Egyptian newspapers.
The reports covered the following topics:
- A report that addressed a conflict between the Coptic Orthodox and Brethren Churches in Al- Ashmonein and described the relations between the two denomination there as “tense”.
- A critique of what the authored believed as” Distorted Reporting” About Coptic Christians in Egypt. The three authors criticized a report in the Layman, an American Presbyterian publication, claiming Christians in Egypt are persecuted. They believe the author of this article was ill-informed and provided readers with wrong information.
- An overview of the contents of the three books about Coptic Orthodox ecclesiastical law, published by the Monastery of Makarios.
- A List of Churches in Assiut Governorate for Which Governorate Decrees For Restoration And Presidential Decrees For Building And Renovated Were Issued.
-An overview of the activities of the Coptic Catholic peace movement, Justice and Peace in Egypt
Media critique:
Press release of the US Copts Association about the decision of the governor of Assiut instructing to remove an illegally built section of the church which the association does not mention and thereby providing only part of the information needed to form an accurate picture of this issue. The press release is also very aggressive in the last paragraph where it calls the governor an Islamic extremist.
- Criticizing the press release of the US Copts Association. Some Copts frequently resort to claims of Islamic extremism if they are dissatisfied with the decisions made.
- An Interview with Bishop Marcos about the Succession of Pope Shenouda, Father Matta Al-Meskeen, Ecommunications and Other Subjects. In Addition to that the dataset included an Interview with Father Johanna and Father Basilius of the Monastery of Makarios.
-Summary of the Ph.D. thesis of Revd. Dr. Wolfram Reiss about the Sunday School movement in the Coptic Orthodox Church with a focus on the role of Pope Shenouda III and Father Matta el-Meskeen and the place of the church in a Muslim society. Reiss´ study provides an excellent insight into the contemporary history of the church and explains differences between church leaders in the past decades.
- A crisis in the Egyptian Church Resulting from an article in the Sunday School magazine requesting the pope to avoid public [political] activities.
-A text of the statement of the Anglican/Al-Azhar Dialogue Commission
- Egyptian TV Addresses Inter-Religious Dialogue
-Egyptian Cultural TV broadcasted on October 27 a live discussion with Patrick Haenni, social researcher at the CEDEJ in Cairo and Cornelis Hulsman, Drs., on inter-religious dialogue.
A report about A group of Germans belonging to the YMCA [Young Men´s Christian Association] and Evangelical Church of Saxony, Germany [Evangelische Kirche Deutschland] who discovered a very different Christian Egypt from what they had expected from press reports in their home country. The group had followed the trail of the Holy Family between Beni Suef and Assiut and met with many different people.
- A report about a claimed apparition of the Holy Virgin In Giza
- An analysis of the Arab and Western Press in terms of the biases of the Western media and the limits imposed on political and freedom press in Egypt.
- A report about Dr. Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd, sympathizer and supporter of the RNSAW, receiving the Franklin Delano Roosevelt prize for his contribution to the Freedom of Worship
- Media criticism of ‘Reckless, Anti-Islamic Statement’ of major US Christian leader.
- An evaluation of the RNSAW workshop for Egyptian journalists. The report shed light on the objectives and program of a RNSAW workshop for Egyptian journalists in cooperation with the Al-Ahram Institute for Regional Journalism. The workshop was financed by the Dutch Embassy and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and covered human rights issues, women, Western and Arab media, freedom of expression and reporting about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
- The Dialogue Agreement between the Azhar and the Church of England
The authors of this material include Cornelis Hulsman, Drs., Jos Strengholt, Rudolph Yanni, Peter Zarqah, Dr. Kamal Burayqa‘ ‘Abd al-Salam, Israel Shamir, Holger Jensen, Phil Reeves, Philip Smucker, Paul Perry, Michael Fowler, Michael Sabah, Dr. Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd, Yusuf Sidhom, Nirmin Fawzi, Chris Patten, Wolfram Reiss, Otto Fridrich Augustus Meinardus, Basilius al-Maqārī, Corin Kazanjian, Jawdat Jabrah, Sayyid al-Qimni, Majid Musá Yanni, Rev. Dr. David D. Grafton, Rev. Dr. Mikhael Shelley.
"}},{"dsDescriptionValue":{"typeName":"dsDescriptionValue","multiple":false,"typeClass":"primitive","value":"All reports are written in English, though some reports feature Arabic text or cite Arabic sources.
Team including job titles:
Sparks, MA M.R. (Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT))
Strengholt, J.
Yanni, R.
Zarqah, P.
‘Abd al-Salam, Dr. K.B.
Shamir, I.
Jensen, H.
Reeves, P.
Smucker, P.
Perry, P.
Fowler, M.
Sabah, M.
Abū Zayd, Dr. N.Ḥ. (Leiden University)
Sidhom, Y. (Watani)
Fawzi, N. (Religious News Service from the Arab-World (RNSAW))
Patten, C.
Reiss, Dr. Rev. W.
Meinardus, Dr. O.F.A.
al-Maqārī, Fr. B. (Monastery of Makarios)
Kazanjian, C. (Intern-Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU))
Jabra, J. (Arab-West Report (AWR))
al-Qimni, S.
Yanni, M.M.
Grafton, Dr. Rev. D.D.
Shelley, Dr. M.
This Thematic Collection contains links to the datasets of the Stichting Arab-West Foundation (AWF), in The Netherlands in close cooperation with the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT). These datasets cover the period 1994-2016. The data consists of the reporting of Dutch sociologist Cornelis Hulsman, reporting supervised by him, full-transcript interviews, audio recordings and summaries of these audio recordings.
The Arab-West Foundation was established in 2005 to support the work of Cornelis Hulsman and his wife Eng. Sawsan Gabra Ayoub Hulsman-Khalil in Egypt. Cornelis Hulsman left The Netherlands for Egypt in October 1994. Sawsan Hulsman followed suit in 1995. They focused primarily on the study of Muslim-Christian relations and the role of religion in society in Egypt and neighboring countries, while obtaining their income from journalism.
The purpose of this work was to foster greater understanding between Muslims and Christians in Egypt and to show non-Egyptians that relations between the two faiths in Egypt cannot be described in reductive black and white terms, rather they are diverse and complicated. Working towards mutual understanding of different cultures and beliefs helps to reduce tensions and conflicts. Too often, parties present themselves as the victim of the other which results in biased reporting. Sometimes this is done deliberately to gain support. What is lacking in cases like this, is an in-depth understanding of the wider context in which narratives of victimization occur. Hulsman found several patterns that are key to understanding Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt such as
- the impact of a culture of honor and shame and
- aversion in traditional areas for visible changes in public (which includes church buildings and making one’s conversion to another religion public).
The datasets also include material on the place of Islamists in society, as well as wider information about Egyptian society since this is the context in which religious numerical minorities in Egypt live (the term minority is widely rejected in Egypt since all Egyptians, regardless of religion, are one. But in terms of numbers Christians are a minority).
It was Hulsman’s ambition to obtain a PhD but the challenges of making a living in Egypt prevented him from accomplishing this goal. Up until the year 2001, Cornelis only had an income from traditional media reporting. After 2004 he became largely dependent upon working with Kerk in Actie (Netherlands), Missio and Misereor (Germany).
Hulsman was dedicated towards non-partisan Muslim-Christian understanding. This began starting with a large number of recorded interviews, followed by research into why so many Christian girls convert to Islam (1995-1996). This work in turn led to the creation of an electronic newsletter called Religious News Service from the Arab World (RNSAW) and a growing number of investigative reports. In 2003 the RNSAW was renamed Arab-West Report. In 2004 they attempted to establish an Egyptian NGO but since no answer was obtained from authorities, the procedure was taken to the Council of State who ruled in 2006 that the request for NGO status was valid. This in turn resulted in a formal registration of the NGO with the Ministry of Social Solidarity in 2007. Because the outcome of this process was insecure in 2005 the Hulsmans established the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT) . CIDT was established as a tawsiya basita (sole proprietorship) on the name of Sawsan Gabra Ayoub Khalil since it was extremely complicated to do this on the name of a non-Egyptian. In the same year friends of the Hulsman family established the Arab-West Foundation (AWF). CIDT tawsiya basita was closed in 2012. A new company was established under the same name but now as limited liability company and again it was not possible for Cornelis Hulsman to become a partner.
As a consequence the Hulsmans have been working since 2005 with an Egyptian company and a Dutch support NGO. Since 2007 they have also been working with an Egyptian NGO. This was important, since Egyptian law prohibits companies from receiving donations and carrying out not-for-profit work. NGOs, on the other hand, need to request permissions from the Ministry of Social Solidarity for each donation they receive. Such permissions are hard to obtain.
CIDT functions as a thinktank with funding from Kerk in Actie (Netherlands), Missio and Misereor (Germany) and at times projects with other organizations. CIDT produces the electronic newsletter Arab-West Report and has built the Arab West Report Database based on these data. Publication of this data is accomplished through the Arab-West Foundation since it turned out to be extremely hard to register Arab-West Report in Egypt. CAWU became the prime organization hosting student interns from Egypt and countries all over the world, which was possible since CAWU does not charge student interns for its services and neither pays them for any work carried out. Student interns have been contributing on a volunteer basis to the database of Arab-West Report, writing articles and papers and being engaged in social media under the supervision of Cornelis Hulsman. Other student interns contributed to summary translations of Arabic media, always supervised by a professional translator of CIDT.
CAWU has been promoting intercultural dialogue through a variety of programs including meetings and forums with community members, religious leaders and politicians from Egypt and the West. CAWU's aim is to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between Arab and Western communities by exposing biased media reporting and informing the public and important persons on complicated issues.
- Availability -
AWF's datasets are available to researchers upon request. Please go to the dataset you wish to download and request permission via the button 'Request Permission' on the tab 'Datafiles'. AWF will respond to your request.