For those of you who are wondering what this is all about, allow me to introduce and explain the project. I have been working with Corpus Christi Watershed to produce a film about the three Massabki Brothers and the Emir Abd El-Kader.

The Massabki Brothers were three Maronite brothers who were devout Catholics and who gave their lives for their faith during the 1860 massacre of Christians in Damascus. Looters and rioters offered them the choice of renouncing Christ or of being brutally murdered, and they chose the latter. Their story is interesting because they were extremely materially wealthy, because they were laymen and because they died in a monastery with Franciscan brothers, speaking to the interconnectedness of the Church of the East and that of the West.

The other side of the story is that of the Emir Abd El-Kader. He was an Algerian Muslim who saved about 10,000 Christians from the 1860 massacre. He is only one of the many people who stepped in to try to prevent the killings and his story is extremely important in the contemporary dialogue about Islam. The truth is that the massacre itself was not caused by religion but rather by political and economic factors. As in the case of most if not all wars, people on both sides commit horrible atrocities. Abd El-Kader was a righteous religious man and a testament to what good people do in difficult situations.