St Francis Magazine 5:5 (October 2009) St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision 93 OBSERVATIONS ON ABUNA ZAKARIA BOTROS (AND A BOOK REVIEW) BY ABU DAOUD 1 Stuart Robinson with Peter Botross, Defying Death: Zakaria Botross—Apostle to Islam (CityHarvest Publications: Upper Mt Gravatt, Australia). 152 pages. If I had to make a list of the most important people in the history of Christian witness in the Muslim world, the first place would go to Blessed Ramon Llull, a Roman Catholic layman, philosopher, and missionary. The second place would go to Fr. Zakaria Botros, the Coptic Orthodox priest who famously hosts a program in Arabic on satellite TV—a program that can be seen throughout most of the Arab world. In this program Zakaria, “addresses controversial topics of theo- logical significance — free from the censorship imposed by Is- lamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Is- lamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East. 2 He raises infamous questions about ridaa’at al kibaar, for ex- ample, which is Arabic for ‘the breastfeeding of adults’ whereby a woman can breastfeed a man unrelated to her and thus be allowed to be in his presence without a mahram; or the sexual appetites of the Prophet, for example; or his habit of wearing his child-bride’s 1 Abu Daoud is a missionary in the Arab World. His native country is the USA. 2 Raymond Ibrahim, ‘Islam’s “Public Enemy #1”’ (March 2008) in National Re- view Online, accessed 28 Aug 2009 [www.article.nationalreview.com]