Intellectuals have responded to Bishop Bola after he rejected the inclusion of the interpretation of sharī’ah in the preamble of the Constitution. Kamāl Zākhir stated that the conflict is not between Christianity and Islam, but rather between religion and secularism. Jamāl Ass’ad, the Coptic thinker, stated, on the other hand, that Bishop Bola should not have been the one to reject the insertion of the text on sharī’ah principles in the Constitution and that he should have left it to other members in the Constituent Assembly. He clarified his position by saying that this is to avoid Islamist’s misunderstanding of his position that would create a conflict (Peter Majdī, al-Tahrīr, Nov. 12, p. 5).  Read the original text in Arabic.