KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - It would appear that the so-called Arab Spring was nothing more than a false hope or worse, a ruse. In either case, it is all but dead. This is painfully evident as violent attacks against the Coptic Christian community continue throughout Egypt. Also painfully evident is the blatant rejection of reason and truth commonly associated with these mindless attacks.

We only need to look at an article published on Wednesday, February 15, by Asia News in order to get an idea what I mean. Based on the article, a mob of about 2000 Muslims, mostly Salafists, set fire to yet another beautiful Coptic church. This one is in the village of Meet Bashar in Zagazig, Sharqia province, which is about 50 kilometers north east of Cairo. The name of the church is Saint Mary and Saint Abram.

The violence ensued over the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl, Rania Khalil. Salafists believed she was abducted by Christians. However, the actual reason for her disappearance was not known. According to the article, she has been found and placed in police custody. After the police interrogate Rania and her mother people should know what actually happened.

In another article published by the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), we find out that Rania's father, Khalil Ibrahim, converted from Christianity to Islam two years ago, and that Rania converted from Christianity to Islam three months ago. We also learn that she recently had a disagreement with her father about an arranged marriage to a Muslim man, and that she did not really disappear, but went shopping without her father's knowledge. It also appears that she visited her mother. 

You would expect this news to quell the mob's violent rampage, but it did not. Rania does not want to live with her father, and her refusal to return to him intensified their rage. So the size of the mob reportedly grew to about 20,000. At this point, they demanded the death of the Coptic pastor, Reverend Guirgis Gameel. Then they went to his home, but he apparently was not there, so they destroyed his furniture. They also terrorized about 100 Copts seeking safety in the church, pelted the church with stones, torched the home of the church's porter, and torched a few parked cars.

This mindless incident represents just one of the many violent attacks by Muslims against the Copts throughout Egypt, though it should be noted that many Muslims do not approve of such violence. During this particular incident, some Muslims even tried to protect their Coptic neighbors and the church (God bless these brave souls). Be that as it may, every time Muslim mobs attack the Copts, it seems that their reasons for doing so are irrational. They readily go on rampages and killing sprees based on nothing more than hearsay or a rumor. The truth simply does not seem to matter to some Muslims.

We apparently see this same sort of thing in yet another article published by the AINA in late January. They reported that a mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked Coptic Christian homes and businesses in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat, Alexandria.

The article states, "The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man [Mourad Samy Guirgis] had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone." By the time the rampage subsided, Mourad Samy Guirgis' home and factory had been looted and torched along with the homes of his relatives and three of his neighbors and a number of other Coptic-owned shops and businesses.

According to eyewitnesses, the mob of Muslims included members of the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, Father Nashed said the mob was comprised mainly of ordinary village Muslims, and he could not explain why people who have peacefully lived together for years could commit such violence.

While there is no single explanation, Robert R. Reilly offers us an enlightening explanation for these violent incidents in his book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind. In it he analyzes the rejection of reason and truth within the Muslim world and its relationship to violence, which he traces back to early Islam.

Reilly tells us that there were two competing schools of thought in early Islam, Mu'tazilitism and Ash'aritism. The Mutazilites used reason to understand their fundamental beliefs and relate them to their experience of the world. The Ash'arites did not; they rejected reason. Unfortunately, the Ash'arites won out.

As a result, Reilly says the idea of "cause and effect" generally does not exist in the Muslim mind. They do not see an inner logic to things. Nor do they learn ...