Syrian protesters now demand regime change, says Vatican analyst
Public protests in Syria were not originally intended to bring down the Assad government, according to a noted Vatican Arab scholar. But the brutality and corruption of the regime’s response has now changed the protesters’ outlook.
“In reality, most Syrians are just fed up,” says Father Samir Khalil Samir, SJ. “Except for the regime’s cronies, everyone is tired to see their demands written off and their most basic rights, like freedom of expression, denied.” At first the protests were designed to make the government take notice of public dissatisfaction. But the slaughter of thousands of peaceful protesters has left the people thinking that regime change is the only real option.
Father Samir essentially agrees with the protesters. Despite the real fear that a change in government could produce an Islamic regime, he argues that the Church and the West should embrace the need to oust the Assad regime.
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Samir Khalil Samir - News
“In reality, most Syrians are just fed up,” says Father Samir Khalil Samir, SJ. “Except for the regime's cronies, everyone is tired to see their demands written off and their most basic rights, like freedom of expression, denied.
And as Fr Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian-born Jesuit priest and noted scholar on the Arab World, stated in a recent interview on Vatican News, “I have the impression that the protestors are so disillusioned that they will not stop.
"The moment the regulations were changed players from Israel started to come in," says Samir Issa, the coach of Shabab al-Khalil. "They're treated as stars, they're tempted by double the amounts of money they made in Israel, and they get the chance to
Syrian Christians, whilst in support of many of the demands for greater freedom and democracy, fear that the fall of Assad might bring a radical Islamic regime that would deprive them and other minorities of true religious freedom (see Samir Khalil
DAMASCUS, July 24 () -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appointed Sunday Samir Othman al-Sheikh as new governor of the northeastern province of Dier al-Zour, the private Sham FM radio station reported. Al-Sheikh replaced Hussain Arnous,
Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J.: 111 Questions on Islam - Light On ...
Sunday Night Journal — March 27, 2011
If you want a single book that will serve as both an introduction to Islam and a careful consideration of its relationship, past and present, to Christianity, I doubt you could do better than this one. The author is an Arab Christian with many years of direct experience and a great deal of scholarly work on which to base his views, and the result is an excellent synthesis, grounded equally in honesty and good will. It avoids the hysterical fear and hostility of those in the West who can see no good whatsoever in Islam, and also the sentimental irenicism which blinds itself to the serious and intractable conflict between Christianity and Islam. Those secularists on the right who believe that western civilization began with the Enlightenment, along with certain fundamentalist (for lack of a better word) Christians, are often among those most hostile to Islam, the one because of its hostility to secularism and the other because of its hostility to Christianity. And on the left, those who wish to think of themselves above all as liberal and tolerant often seem wilfully blind to the conflict between their values and any realistic and historically justifiable view of Islam (an illusion which is not held symmetrically).
In this situation Christianity finds itself in a three-way struggle. Islam is its ancient enemy, and in much of the world its conquerer. But the post-Christian civilization of Europe and the U.S.A., officially a-religious if not atheistic, is often equally hostile and continually becoming more so. With Islam, Christianity shares a conviction that the world is the creation of one God, that the meaning of this life lies beyond it, and that our life in it must be ordered with that in mind. With secularism, Christianity shares a willingness to declare the existence of a public philosophical, cultural, and political space which is not the exclusive property of any religious or anti-religious group. I would not want to say which poses the greater threat to Christianity as a way of life, and which is more likely to be something with which Christianity can coexist in some reasonable degree of harmony.
To the drama of the modern Christian encounter with unbelief is now added the encounter with a religion at least equal in power and appeal (in worldly terms) to Christianity. Islam is intrinsically “fundamentalist” in one sense—not in the loose and pejorative sense, but in the sense that it is founded on a book, and that fidelity to the book is the measure of one’s practice of the faith. (Samir affirms the applicability of the term to Islam, noting that it has been adopted, in Arabic translation, by many Muslim authorities.) My personal conjecture as to its future is that it will suffer from the same tension as Bible-only Protestantism: that there will be an increasing degree of conflict between literalists and liberals, between those who adhere strictly to the word as written, and those who feel free to interpret it according to the changing standards of the times. As in Protestantism this has produced extremes in each direction, with a rigid refusal to adapt on one end, and on the other end a near-collapse of any sense that the text has any objective permanent meaning, so I expect Islam to develop in opposing directions. But this is truly, I emphasize, only conjecture. And even if it proves to be true, there is no assurance that the fundamentalist and liberal forces will be even roughly equal in influence.
A new favorite: Rabih Abou-Khalil - Once Upon a Dervish by samir almaghribi on 
samir-khalil-samir-on-islam-and-the-west.html 111 QueSamir Khalil Samir - Bookshelf
Samir Khalil Samir
111 questions on Islam, Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. on Islam and the West : a series of interviews conducted by Giorgio Paolucci and Camille Eid
"This book is the result of a series of extended interviews between an internationally acclaimed expert on Islam and two journalists who have dedicated ...Studies on the Christian Arabic heritage, in honour of Father Prof. Dr. Samir Khalil Samir S.I. at the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday
This volume of Christian Arabic Studies is presented to Father Samir Khalil Samir SI to make his sixty-fifth birthday and his tireless efforts spanning almost ...Christian Arabic apologetics during the Abbasid period, 750-1258
This collection of papers deals with a much-neglected experience of Arabic Christian writings at a time when Muslim and Christian thinkers were engaged in a ...Eastern crossroads, essays on medieval Christian legacy
BY Samir Khalil SAMIR, SJ CEDRAC – Université Saint-Joseph (Beyrouth – Lebanon) Le thème qui m'a été confié est le suivant : « Rôle des chrétiens dans la ...Day-by-day Information Directory
Samir Khalil Samir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samir Khalil Samir (born 1938 in Cairo, Egypt) is an Islamic scholar, Semitologist, ... Intervista a Samir Khalil Samir, a cura di Giorgio Paolucci e Camille ...
Amazon.com: Samir Khalil Samir: Books
Amazon.com: Samir Khalil Samir: Books ... Religions) by Samir Khalil Samir, S. Khalil Sameer, Jorgen S. Nielsen and Mingana Symposium on Arabic Christianity and Islam 1990 ...
le père Samir Khalil Samir - Oumma.com
Le père jésuite Samir Khalil Samir est professeur d'islamologie et de la pensée arabe à l'Université Saint-Joseph (Beyrouth) et au
Against The Grain
ratzingerfanclub, irregular musings of an eclectic nature, ... Fr Samir Khalil Samir, SJ is a professor of Oriental Theology at St Joseph's University in Lebanon. ...
111 Questions on Islam - Samir Khalil Samir : Ignatius
Samir Khalil Samir—one of the world's leading experts on Islam—responds to these ... Samir Khalil Samir is a Jesuit priest of Egyptian descent who now ...