This Egyptian singer says forgive, don’t hate

Anne Alfred, a 27-year-old Egyptian singer, first published this video back in 2011 — at a time when Egypt was going through a revolution.

The idea then was to reconcile Muslims, Christians and Egyptians of all background. Her message was about forgiveness.

Now the video has resurfaced and gone viral, having been watched more than half a million times. The new publicity comes after ISIS published a video in which it showed the beheading of a group of Egyptian Coptic men.

Mai Noman of BBC Trending, who spoke to Alfred, says Alfred repeated her message from 2011: The answer to violence committed by ISIS, is not revenge but forgiveness.

"She said that it's only normal that people would feel hate and anger at the acts of the Islamic State," Noman says, "but what she hopes is that spreading love and forgiveness would be a stronger message."

According to Noman, Alfred understands that it might not be realistic to ask the families who have lost loved ones at the hands of ISIS to forgive, but she believes "the cycle of violence has to stop somewhere."

Noman says reactions to Alfred's video have been interesting.

"Back in 2011, there was more of a debate between Muslims and Christians about who's right and who's wrong … but now the messages under the video are mostly messages of support," she says.

"The messages are from Muslims and they start off their message saying 'I am a Muslim but I love this video,'" Noman says. She adds that some have said that ISIS's actions don't represent their religion.

Tensions between Christian and Muslims have a long history in Egyptian society, Noman explains, but until the 2011 Revolution, it was kept under control. Again now, though, she says both sides are seeing more eye to eye.

"You can't say that now they are completely united, but now that they feel [they are] under the same threat. They feel that if they stand united, they're stronger that way," she says.

And that's part of Alfred's message.