What You Want to Know about Life in Palestine: Muslim-Christian Relations

Welcome back to the new miniseries where I answer your questions about life in the Palestinian Territories. If you missed the first post about grocery shopping, you can read it here. Today we’re looking at the following topic submitted by a reader:

How Muslim and Christian culture interact today.

First, it will be helpful to establish some context. Many Americans (including my younger self) have a very limited understanding of the Middle East generally and Muslim culture specifically, based on a set of stereotypes that we have been introduced to. We tend to hear about the conservative extreme of Islamic societies such as Saudi Arabia or Iran and apply that perception across the board, assuming that every Muslim country is the same. Imagine someone from outside America assuming that New York, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Oregon all have the same culture just because they’re all part of America. We would laugh, right? In some ways they couldn’t be more different. And yet we do the same thing with countries in the Middle East.

What we often don’t realize is that, generally speaking, there are three types of “Muslim countries” (not all of which are in the Middle East, by the way), meaning Islam is the majority religion. In the first group, which includes places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, you have zero separation between religion and government. Islam is the state religion, and other religions are forbidden and/or persecuted. In the second group, there is no official separation between religion and government (i.e., Islam is the official state religion), but other religions are freely practiced by minorities. In the last group, there is complete separation between religion and government, the majority of the population just happen to practice Islam.

Palestine falls in the second category. The majority of the population is Muslim, and Islam is the state religion, but Christians enjoy freedom of worship, and there are a growing number of people who do not practice any religion. When it comes to Christianity, many different denominations and/or traditions are represented here. In our city alone there are Baptist/Evangelical (at least 3 different churches), Lutheran, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic (Melkite), and Coptic.

The fact that there are Christians in the actual birthplace of Christianity shouldn’t be shocking, but to many Americans it is. I remember the first time I realized there were Palestinian Christians. (You can read more about that in another post.) That was the first step in a journey of discovery I continue to traverse today as I learn more and more about our brothers and sisters in Christ in this region. But Christianity in Palestine does not merely exist; in some areas it is highly visible and even more a part of public life than it is in the States.

Ramallah and Bethlehem, two cities in the West Bank portion of the Palestinian Territories (the other portion being Gaza), are considered “Christian cities.” Among other things, this means that by local law the mayor of each city must be Christian. Of course, that could just mean “Christian-in-name-only” (I’ll use the acronym CINO for short) and not an actual follower of Jesus, but it means that they cannot be Muslim, atheist, etc. Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian government in the West Bank, was founded by a Christian family in the 1500s. Today, there are Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter parades, Christmas concerts, and a Christmas market. The municipal government sets up giant Christmas trees throughout the city, hosts a Christmas tree lighting for the largest one, and displays a nearly life-size nativity scene on the grounds of City Hall. Even on the national level, despite Islam being the state religion, Christmas and Easter are official holidays.

Christianity also shows up in education. In several cities, there are multiple private Christian schools, attended by both Christians and Muslims. Because religion is a mandatory subject, these schools teach Islam classes for the Muslim students but are able to offer Christianity classes for the Christian students. When taking the national high school exit exam, students will be tested on either Islam or Christianity depending on their religion. Which brings me to discuss how religion and identity are closely tied together here.

When people are born, their religion is recorded with the government. Until about a decade ago, it was also displayed on their IDs. There is very much a sense of being born into a religion here, and that association lives with you regardless of whether or not you believe and/or practice that religion. So while practically everyone will identify as either “Christian” or “Muslim,” the number of people who actually live according to either faith is smaller. “Christians” are a small minority in Palestine, but because of the large amount of CINOs, true Christians, i.e., people who have actually trusted Christ as their Savior, are an even smaller minority.

And now that the contextual background has been painted, we can look at how Christians and Muslims interact with each other in daily life here. Many Christians in America, never having met a Muslim and forming their understanding based solely on what they hear and see on the news, have the impression that all Muslims hate Christians and want to attack them, burn churches, etc. What we often fail to realize is that just as with any other religion, there is a spectrum on which people fall, and there is much disagreement within Islam over how the faith should be lived out. While there likely are Muslims in Palestine who hate Christians, there are others who simply disagree with Christianity and have no problem being friends—even close friends—with Christians.

Muslims and Christians live and work alongside each other just as people of different faiths do in the States. Using our own experience as an example, we have many close friends who are Muslim; we have hosted them in our home and visited them in theirs. We have attended Muslim weddings and funerals, and Muslims have attended Christian ones alongside us, each ceremony being conducted according to the beliefs and practices of the given religion.

In the workplace, Muslims and Christians in the public sector and banks, are all given days off for both Islamic and Christian holidays. In the private sector, some companies give Muslims the Islamic holidays off and Christians the Christian holidays off, while others give everyone the Islamic holidays off and give the Christian holidays only to Christians.

During holidays like Ramadan where Muslims are to fast from both food and drink (including water) from sunrise to sunset, Christians, though not required by law to fast, will often abstain from eating or drinking in public out of consideration for their neighbors. Muslim-owned restaurants will also be closed during fasting hours, while Christian-owned ones will remain open.

I hope this has given you a glimpse into the cultural dynamics that exist between Muslims and Christians here in the West Bank. Stay tuned for the next post where we’ll look at a different aspect of life in Palestine.

Do you have a question or topic you’d like me to discuss in this series? Let me know in the comments!

PC: Eric Eanes. Used with permission.