A man claiming to be Jesus Christ did not get the reception he was hoping for
A man alleged to have walked into a Dubai mosque claiming to be Jesus Christ has been arrested and questioned by Emirati police, senior prosecutors announced Monday.
The Egyptian man, who has not been formally charged, is accused of entering a mosque in Bur Dubai and claiming to be a chosen prophet.
"Law enforcement officers arrested the suspect shortly after a number of complainants reported that he claimed to be Jesus Christ," a senior prosecutor told Gulf News, a local newspaper. "Prosecutors are questioning the suspect over alleged charges of offending a divine religion. If preliminary interrogations prove that he did claim to be a prophet then this suspected act is incriminatory and punishable by law."
Both the United Arab Emirate’s Federal Penal Code and Dubai municipal regulations forbid incitement against any religion. Article 312 of the penal code states that a person convicted of encouraging adultery or offending any religion or its associated rituals will face between one month and three years in jail. Muslims convicted of eating pork face the same sentence, although the judge is given discretion to replace the jail sentence with a fine.
There is ongoing cultural tension between Emirati citizens and foreign workers, who make up the vast majority of the UAE’s residents.
Islam is the state religion in the UAE and the vast majority of the country’s citizens are Sunni Muslims with a small Shia minority. Many foreigners are also Muslim, but it is estimated that Christians now account for over 3.5% of the UAE’s population, with around 1.25 million Christians from Arab countries, South Asia and the Philippines.
Non-Muslims are forbidden from proselytizing or distributing non-Islamic religious literature in the Emirates, and dozens of Christian congregations are often found sharing the same facility.
Dr Mohammed Aboelenein, chairman of the Department of Sociology at United Arab Emirates University, argued that while inter-religious tension existed, local media had blown the ‘Jesus incident’ out of proportion.
"I wouldn’t give this incident too much attention," he told The Media Line. "Even in the most advanced societies in the world there are sensitivities among all religions."
"You hear about these cases every now and then in every society, with some wacko claiming to be Jesus or Mohammad. I would say that such a person is probably suffering from some kind of mental disability, so I think the police dealt with this in the right way, letting everyone know that insulting any religion is totally unacceptable in Arab society."
"Religious sensitivities are taken seriously here," he added. "If someone walked into a mosque claiming he was the prophet Mohammed he would have been dealt with in the same way."
Dr. Rima Sabban, a sociologist at Zayyed University in the UAE, agreed with Dr Aboelenein.
"People can hold judgments or ideas about one another but disrespect by one group against another is not really tolerated here," she told The Media Line. "There was a time when you could hear talk about people from other religions as ‘non-believers’ but today I think there is a growing acceptance of other cultures and religions, particularly among the younger generation."
"There is a high level of tolerance in this society for coexistence of different types of people," she added. "The existence of large numbers of foreign workers could represent a challenge to that coexistence, but Dubai has the largest number of churches in the Gulf and the number of churches in the city is still growing."