Why millions of Muslims are seeing apparitions of the Mother Mary

ABC.NET.AU

Why have apparitions of the Mother Mary appeared across the Muslim world in recent decades, and why was St George celebrated just as much in 19th century Anatolia as he is in modern Britain? Margaret Coffey explores the inter-religious saints that have bound together different faiths in shared ceremony and respect.

In 1968, when Egypt was experiencing something of a political, social and economic crisis, the image of the Virgin Mary was seen above the dome of a Coptic Christian church in the Cairo suburb of Zeitun.

Mary's image was seen first in April 1968, a month after workers had gone on unprecedented strike in another Cairo suburb, by two Muslim watchmen at a garage across the road from the church. The apparitions recurred for five months, for hours on end, and more than a million and a half people claim to have seen Mary during this time. There was no verbal message received, but many Egyptians interpreted the apparitions as a message about Egyptian unity and peace, and as testimony to the power of the spiritual realm.

Again, in December 2009, a Muslim neighbour of a Coptic Church in Giza, Egypt's third largest city, claimed to have seen a light over the Church from the vantage point of the coffee shop over the road. Over the following days, 200,000 people, Christian and Muslim, shared his observation—and took it as a sign of difficult times to come, when unity would be a challenge to the Egyptian people.

It turned out to be a timely warning—soon after, at the Coptic Christmas, a number of Christians were shot down in front of a church.

So, where is Mary now, when Egypt is again in a time of crisis?

Mary has been one of the strongest symbols across the Middle East for unity, across religions, tribes and nations.

In 1982, the year that saw the so-called Hama massacre, when the Syrian regime put down with particular thoroughness a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city that became one of the first opposition centres in the current war, Mary appeared in an ordinary house in the old city of Damascus. She was preceded by other manifestations that drew thousands of people, and when she delivered her messages over a period of years, they emphasised unity and peace, first among Christians, and then between all peoples. Our Lady of Soufanieh remains a focal point of prayer in Damascus—every day at 5 pm, the house is open for prayer, and those who come include both Christians and Muslims.


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