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Cadmus

Muslim Persecution of Christians

GMT 5-15-2009 17:55:37
Assyrian International News Agency
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Christianity, born in the Middle East, is in danger of losing its two millenia-long presence there. If that notion sounds alarmist to Western ears, it is acknowledged by Middle Easterners as a growing likelihood.

“I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East,” said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, Jean Benjamin Sleiman, as Pope Benedict XVI visited that troubled region this week. The Lebanese Christian columnist Sarkis Naoum added: “Unless there is a turn toward secularism in the Arab world, I don’t think there is a future for Christians here.” In 1909, the Middle East was 20 percent Christian; one hundred years later, that percentage has fallen to five percent.

This precipitous decline is chronicled and explained in a detailed historical video entitled Muslim Persecution of Christians, produced by the Terrorism Awareness Project. The video, which is embedded below, recounts contemporary examples of anti-Christian violence, and the Islamic theology that justifies and intensifies it.

As the video demonstrates, the resurgence of the Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism around the world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can be directly correlated with the declining Christian population. As Muslims, influenced by Salafi movements to restore the “purity” of Islamic governance, reassert traditional Islamic legal stipulations mandating and institutionalizing discrimination against and harassment of Christians, Christians all over the Islamic world are feeling the heat.

In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where the Taliban has been lately implementing Shari’a law, Christians have been forced for their own safety to wear Islamic clothing and grow beards, so as to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Not all have been successful: many Christians have fled the area after the Taliban demanded from them jizya payments so large that they were beyond their means to pay. Jizya is the poll tax mandated in the Qur’an (9:29) that “People of the Book” – that is, primarily Jews and Christians – must pay for the privilege of living in an Islamic state.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s State Council, which advises that country’s Administrative Court, issued a report vilifying Maher El-Gohary, an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity, who had requested that his religion as listed on his official identification card be changed to reflect his conversion. The report denounced El-Gohary as an “apostate,” termed Christians “infidels,” and insisted (in line with the Qur’an and traditional Islamic belief) that Jesus was a Muslim prophet. It also skewered the convert’s “audacity” in making his request, which the report said threatened Egypt’s social order. Fr. Matthias Nasr Manqarious, who is helping El-Gohary take on Egypt’s legal system, explained that converts from Islam to Christianity today “can’t live as Christians in broad daylight.”

Converts from Islam to Christianity face similar troubles elsewhere in the Islamic world as well. Recently a Pentecostal pastor in Kenya, Abdi Welli Ahmed, who is also a convert from Islam, attempted to cross from Ethiopia into Somaliland, a breakaway Somali province. Ahmed explains: “I was beaten up for being in possession of Christian materials. They threatened to kill me if I did not renounce my faith, but I refused to their face. They were inhuman.”

Why do converts face such a hard time? Because Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said, “If anyone changes his religion, kill him” – and the death penalty for apostasy is still mandated by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Many Muslim countries take this very seriously. Early in May, Libyan police arrested a Coptic Christian from Egypt, Gergis Massoud Hanna, on charges of “Proselytizing Christianity in Libya” – although there are indications that a scheming business partner falsely accused Hanna. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are likewise used to harass Christians. Around the same time Hanna was arrested, a Pakistani attorney prosecuting blasphemy charges against a Christian, Hector Aleem, came out for vigilantism: “If the judge does not punish Aleem according to the law, then [we] will kill him ourselves.”

Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia have one thing in common: a resurgence of Islamic supremacism and reassertion of elements of Islamic law have not been enforced in those countries by their Western-influenced governments in the recent past. The momentum everywhere in the Islamic world lies with these Salafi movements – and Christians, as well as other non-Muslims, bear the brunt of this reassertion. Muslim persecution of Christians, built as it is into the foundations of Islamic theology and law, is not going to go away – and if movements of Islamic purity continue to gain ground in the Islamic world, it will only increase. It is long past time for human rights organizations and all free people to take notice, and say, “No more.”

strong>Watch Muslim Persecution of Christians

The Terrorism Awareness Project, like FrontPage Magazine and Jihad Watch, is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eight books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, is available now from Regnery Publishing.

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we know that for a long time, and we had to keep that in mind for deciphering their double language.

Also for people who doubt, they just have to surf on arab blogs

Infrastructure has nothing to do with any of this. The issue is radical Islam, and the Saudis are in front of everyone. The new Justice Minister is another cousin of the king. What has changed?

The Saudi idea of democracy is appointing councils by the King. Those are usually his family members.

Judges, ruling as their hearts see fit? Only Islamic rule applies. Maybe as they seem to interpret Islam will be more accurate.

Codifying law means setting a specific interpretation of Islam for all to follow.

Ask our troupes who served in Saudi Arabia what happened to their mail during Christmas. It was interrupted for several days to insure they get no Christmas presents or cards. The hold C meetings, even in closed US bases, because it is illegal to hold non-Islamic prayers anywhere in the country.

Please, spare me. The Saudi cultural revolution is visible anywhere Al-Qaida and other terrorists appears.

Are sure your sources are not the same that spoke of Christians in the UAE practicing their faith freely until they began fearing Iran (Marcus Aurelius). There are no Christians in the UAE, except for foreigners working there. And, the first church built was only a few years ago, and was denied any identification marks on the outside. It was only with the decree of the Emir and had a lot of resistance.

Why would they hide their churches from Iran? Iran has its own churches that are functioning now with bells and crosses. I recently watched on American television a prayer service in one of the oldest Assyrian churches around. Yes, those are the same Assyrians that are being annihilated in Iraq, without any Arab country raising a peep.

Heck there are churches everywhere in the world except in Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to be Christian.

A beacon of tolerance.

Keep on believing.

Cadmus

The Saudis are, in fact, doing a major reform of their legal system, starting with a new Minister of Justice, to infrastructure development, all the way to codifying the laws. At present, individual judges rule as their minds and hearts see fit. That is scheduled to change. Also new to the mix is the introduction of precedence as a legal fixture. The Ulema is being nudged out from the center of law.

Take a look at Saudi Legal Reforms Start, which focuses on an interview the Minister of Justice recently gave to Asharq Alawsat.

The Pakistani nuclear program was almost fully financed by the Saudis, and the Saudi king attended the first test trials, and declared it the Islamic bomb. The Pakistani Government is only slightly less fanatic than the Taliban. The war raging now is one of control and dominance, and is not about whether Pakistan will be fundamentalist or not.

In fact Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the only three countries to recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan are the main source of support for this movement. Now the Taliban and Al-Qaida are trying to take the throne rather than continue to take orders and that is the cause of the conflict.

Has anybody wondered why the Saudis who make up less than 2% of the Moslem population produce more than half of all terrorists? Pakistan produces most of the rest.

The most extreme Wahhabi Islam rules Saudi Arabia. These are the doctrines of Bin Laden and taught the world over to terrorists.

Saudi Arabia is the most radical of Islamic Governments anywhere. The Iranian rulers are not nice guys by a long shot, but they pale in comparison. Iran has an active opposition in the country albeit not very effective yet. Non-Moslem minorities exist and are allowed to practice their religion, of course with limitations, but churches actually have bells and crosses on the outside. Women are allowed to vote, drive, run for office, walk with their faces showing etc.

I do not wish for anyone to be an Iranian minority, but in Saudi Arabia it is actually a crime to be anything other than Moslem. Yes, OPENLY DECLARING A FAITH OTHER THAN ISLAM IN SAUDI ARABIA IS A CAPITAL CRIME IN SAUDI ARABIA. After years of complaints, the Saudis relented and removed the word “Kafir” (infidel) from the resident documents of non-Moslem foreigners working there. They now only call them non-Moslems, and are denied the most basic of rights. Women are barely considered human. Opposition to the king on even the slightest of issues is considered treason.

The Saudi Government has no constitution or legislative body. It is ruled purely by Islamic law. It is in fact forbidden to create laws. The rulers are limited to interpreting Islamic law.

Yet, these are proclaimed our “friends and allies”. And, we rely on their help and advice to fight Islamic Fundamentalism. This has been the most insane foreign policy ever. How can we rely on the enemy to help us defeat it?

Today, they try to focus western attention on Iranian nukes and nothing else. These are a looming problem. However there is a more immediate problem that is threatening to become even more problematic. Pakistani Nukes that exist, are growing in numbers and are proliferating throughout the Moslem world.

Stan Kutz’s description of what the Iranians will do in the Gulf does not take into account a very basic fact. As Shiites, who in total make up less that 10% of all Moslems and are considered heretics by Sunnis, the Iranians can never rule the Moslem world. Sunni fanatics can. The Arabian Peninsula is mostly Sunni, even through there is a sizable Shiite minority along the Gulf. Introducing fundamentalist rule in that area will be Sunni, and not a good thing for Iran.

The Iranians are Chess players, which by the way comes from Iran, Their ultimate objective is indirect control over the area, by pressing the Gulf states to abandon US protection in return for military cooperation and mutual protection treaties.

In this, the Iranians will support the fundamentalists to create a threat to the Gulf rulers and present themselves as a savior. They are offering to help the Gulf States in securing themselves from this threat, and arguing that the US presence aggravates fundamentalist sentiments and they would be better off without it.

The Gulf States know that the Iranians are stoking the flames. They also know that the US does aggravate the problem and do not want us there forever. As such, they are working on the Sunni nukes.

They keep us focused on Iran, while they develop their own system of keeping Iran in check.

They are no more our friends than Iran’s rulers. At least the Iranians are honest about it. We know exactly what they think of us.

It is time we learn that Arab rulers do not have any more love for us than the Iranians. And, the reach of Sunni Fundamentalism is much farther than Shiite, and much more dangerous.

Cadmus

Care to elaborate more on that?

20/MD: “I’m agnostic, but Islam makes me think that Satan must be real.”

I think the majority of my fellow housewives go through their day far more concerned about getting Jimmy to his piano lesson and Jenny to her soccer practice after school. The best of them might be able to do a country map, but only because of helping the kids with their homework, not because they avidly read all updates to the CIA Factbook. The few who are somewhat aware are more focused on trying to make their mortgage payments after pay cuts/job losses and figure out cheaper college options. Very, very few are looking beyond the home front, and I wonder how much worse it must get for them to realize Satan is breathing down our necks?

It reminds me of when I kept chickens. The best rooster wasn’t a chicken’s chicken, but an outward facing fellow who was always aware of eagles, owls, coyotes, and bears, and would herd the girls back into the hen house at the slightest sign of danger. Ever vigilant…

so right, but you, anglo-saxons, you were eager to we lose our colonies

would that be an end to pakistan?