It’s only because conditions elsewhere in the Muslim world are so much worse that the United Arab Emirates appears to be a land of “tolerance” and “coexistence”, as Pope Francis characterised it during his visit this week.
This was captured in the gift that the Crown Prince gave to the Holy Father – the notarised document from 1963 whereby Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi, gave a property to the Catholic Church on which to build a church. The gift was meant to highlight the contrast with the dominant country of the Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia, where Christian practice is illegal. Forget about a church – even being caught there with a bible or rosary is sufficient to end up in a religious jail. Still, tolerance for the Christian minority in the UAE remains a longstanding gift of the emir, not acknowledged as a fundamental human right.
