Qur'an 2:256 says there is "no compulsion in religion," and apologists often cite this verse to claim no one can be converted to Islam under duress.
Claims about outright "compulsion" aside (and even then, a dhimmi must hope for well-behaved overlords), there certainly is an elaborate culture of coercion in Islamic law, with subtle and not-so-subtle measures taken to make the practice of non-Islamic religions inconvenient, uncomfortable, and dangerous. And such measures are taken following the letter and spirit of Qur'an 9:29:
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
"Christian Filipino migrants forced to convert to Islam," by Santosh Digal for Asia News, January 28:
Manila (AsiaNews) - "In my tens [sic] in Saudi Arabia, I have witnessed several Catholic or Christian Filipino migrants accept Islam under duress," said Joselyn Cabrera, a Filipino Catholic nurse working at Riyadh hospital. Because of high unemployment levels in the Philippines, more than ten million Filipinos have left to seek jobs abroad. Every day, about 3,000 leave the country. Recently, a majority has gone to Arab countries--some 600,000 in all, 200,000 in Saudi Arabia alone.
"After some months, employers give you an ultimatum, telling you to become Muslim to keep your job," she said. "For us, it is hard to make such a choice, but if we don't, we become the victims of abuse."
In her years in the kingdom, she said she saw at least 50 forced conversions at work.
"Even I have been subjected to pressures from my Muslim co-workers, but I have always refused saying that I'd rather remain Catholic. Until now, nothing has happened to me, yet."
According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Filipino emigration towards the Middle East has grown by 29.5 per cent between 2007 and 2008, a destination of choice for many migrants, and this despite horrible working conditions that include the possibility of forced conversion and sexual abuse in the case of women....
Imagine if we would forcibly convert the Muslims! The whole 1.5 gazillion Muslims would declare a jihad on us.
(oh wait: didn't they declare jihad already 1400 years ago..?)
"Even I have been subjected to pressures from my Muslim co-workers, but I have always refused saying that I'd rather remain Catholic. Until now, nothing has happened to me, yet."
The Jihad is patient.
I can understand a religious person's desire to have others convert to their religion, but a faith isn't a true faith if the individual is converted under duress. The quran says that allah knows the heart, then why would Allah accept a converted person who's not truly muslim in their heart?
Also, if a person becomes outwardly Muslim, that may satisfy those around them, however, the truth will come out that the person simply does not believe, and once again the converted person's life is in danger.
You can't win.
Not very smart to be confrontational with your healthcare workers. Sorta like insulting your waiter.
Is this the same Apartheid Saudi Arabia that doesn't allow non-Muslims to even visit Mecca and Medina?
Is this the same SA that confiscates ALL non-Islamic religious texts such as Torahs, Bibles, etc., as well as all non-Islamic religious goods, and burns them upon arrival in SA?
Is this the same SA that doesn't allow women to drive cars?
Krazy Kafir, don't be so certain about that. Many nurses from Bulgaria were convicted of deliberately spreading AIDS to children in Libya...unfounded charges, but rooted in the fact that the shortage of clean needles is actually to blame. Westerners get blamed wrongfully for many things in the Happy fun kingom.
"Christian migrant workers forced to convert to Islam"
Phony conversions don't really matter to allah, because he just LOOOVES to mock Christians ...all in a days work for the evil one and his minions.
No fun in islam? ...yeah, and apparently no love, either.
These migrant workers hearts truly belong to Jesus Christ ...AND they get to keep their job. Either way, allah loses, now and in the end. Me, I think I would rather starve than soil my lips by uttering such filth to allah, but that's easy for me to say, I guess. I am in no position to judge them ....
"Krazy Kafir, don't be so certain about that"
My call bell would burn out before too long. But then again, I couldn't be paid enough to even step foot in that Hellhole.
"There is no compulsion in relgion" Indeed in Audi Arabia you've got the free choice. No coercion whatsover. What a wonderful world!
Maybe while we are in the U. N. we can use Saudi Arabia as an example to demonstrate and/or explain why we are going to burn Korans and refuse admittance to Muhams that won't abandon their hate/kill/rape/pedo/terror/bomb/amputate/etc. beliefs.
Yeh, let's follow Obama into aiding Sharia encroachment here in the U. S.
Without Sharia, Muhams are criminals, haters and terrorists.
With Sharia, Muhams are saints and we are the criminals, demons and deceivers.
Which will we choose?
Maybe it's time for a re-take of Hugh's final exam:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/09/fitzgerald-final-exam.html
Especially for political leaders.
www.veteranoutrage.com
First robert through this site provides excellend
PROOF of what Islam is activly doing and all
of its hypocrisies..
Sedond: most christians are hypocrytes as well
meaning that we all sin..
Third: the FACT though that you have to FORCE
people to join your terrorist loving band
proves to me that Islam is False..
For if
If Islam had all the answers
If Islam was a peaceful religion
If Islam was a blessing from god..
Then how come everyplace Islam goes
The countries end up in ruins
Wars and horrors never cease (even in muslim countries)
muslims kill and attack other muslims..
Islam destroyes all economic hopes and leaves everyone in ruins..
Thenb all the muslims FLEE like rats on a sinking ship
only to bring the same Islamic problems with them..
Is islam is so great
then why isnt every muslim running to move to
ohh somalia?
How come all muslims scream out kill the jews, kill the infidels
then immidiatly line up to get passports to infidel lands?
www.veteranoutrage,com
Champ,
Me, I think I would rather starve than soil my lips by uttering such filth to allah,...
Me, too!
How tragic that the Philippine government allows the near enslavement of its citizens in the islamic world for the wages they send home.
Hi, Boneshack ...yeah, perish the thought! :)
Of course there is no compulsion is Islam. Everyone knows that.
I have always found it ironic that the biggest misunderstander of Islam is Mahound who said "whoever changes his religion, kill him."
If only Mahound would have read the Qur'an!
Oh yeah, I forgot. Mahound can count illiteracy among his numerous character flaws.
The Myth:
Muhammad Rejected Conversions to Islam Made under Duress
The Truth:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-forced-conversion.htm
The conversion of Philippinos is of course celebrated, as we can see here:
Ramadan in Saudi Arabia inspires convertion to Islam
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=46953
I wonder what the Pope and the Vatican are doing in this matter.All Filipinos are Catholics.Every day ship loads of Muslims without papers come by night boats and land up in Italy's coasts to penetrate into France,UK, and rest of Europe.They succeed ,and it is these people, who indulge in terror activities against the real citizens of the country to which they migrate.Our religious heads,and governments are useless in this matter.
Muslims often argue that critics take verses out of context. But if ever a verse was taken out of context by Western Muslims, it is "there is no compulsion in religion". Most orthodox scholars say it was abrogated by the Verses of the Sword in Quran 9. Others say it was written because the women of Medina whose children died in infancy would make an oath that if they had a child who lived they would let the Jews of Medina raise it (which itself suggests that the Jews, who comprised 50 percent of the population of Medina at the time, had better health standards than the Arabs). As a result, when Muhammad expelled the final Jewish tribes from Medina, some of these children were with them. The Arab mothers were upset at the prospect of having their children leave with the Jews who were being expelled. Muhammad then announced there would be no "compulsion in religion"; the children being raised by the Jews could not be compelled to return to their parents and accept Islam. The result was that the children did indeed leave with the Jews. This verse, instead of being a verse of mercy, actually separated familites as the children were sent away with the Jewish families who raised them.
I recently blogged about my visit to the "Dawah Center" in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where foreign workers are enticed to enter Islam. For anyone interested, it is:
http://staringattheview.blogspot.com/2010/01/yusuf-estes-stump-christian_6448.html
It is an interesting point you make regarding the context of 2.256. I hadn't heard this before.
I would add that I have never heard the argument made by orthodox scholars that 2.256 has been abrogated by 9.5 or 9.29.
The verses are entirely reconcilable. 9.5 or 9.29 make no mention of forced conversion. It is an invitation to embrace Islam for which failure to do so will result in negative consequences. The infidel is always free to reject Islam and adopt dhimmi status or wage war.
It seems to me that the economic warfare referred to in the article is entirely consistent with both verses.
LONG TERM, say another couple hundred years, or even 500, does anyone see any way that the countries already subjected by Islam could ever get out from under that? It just seems so impossible once it has control. If the West does not act fairly quickly to end all Muslim immigration and end all further spread of Islam and begin to reverse what has occurred it too will have no way out eventually. Does anyone seriously see any possible event or change in the world that would result in so-called Islamic countries becoming free and having other religions?
If and when the West removes Islam from the West, perhaps direct attacks on Mecca and other so-called holy sites might prompt some rethinking of the so-called holy omnipotent nature of Allah and Islam. But other than that, what? The U.N. requesting rights for infidels?
It looks to me like once Islam has taken over the world, history will come to an end and humans will stay in a dark age until extinction. There doesn't seem to be any event on the horizon that could cause Islam to implode; certainly there hasn't been anything in the last 1400 years. If Islam does indeed implode, the death toll will likely be more than a billion, perhaps even several billion. We westerners just can't get it into our heads that we don't all think alike, that there are people with a world view diametrically opposed to ours. We assume, like G. W. Bush did, that Muslim families want the same things our families do, that you can reach Muslims through their pocketbooks. Isn't it amazing how just one person can so change history, and even be responsible for the deaths of over 200 million people?
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger..."
I believe in Allah. He also answers to "Satan", "Lucifer", "Belial", and many other names. But, you see, for me the dealbreaker is the phrased: "and his Messenger".
I've read enough about his "Messenger" to know that, in the first place, he's dead. I don't believe that the dead can be "insulted", "humiliated", "offended", etc .
Secondly, I don't want to have anything at all to do with what Muhammed did, said, grunted in monosyllable as an answer, taught, preached, and most especially modeled as proper behaviour.
"...and his Messenger". How sleazy and transparent can a man's bid for godhood be? How stupid is it to accept such a clause as a part of declaring one's faith?
Observing things as they are now it seems that a civil war (if it can be characterized by such a name) in Europe is inescapable anymore. It will give its first actual signs very soon. The equation is crystal clear: Islam is a supremacist ideology by its very nature, that's to say its supremacism is closely related with its allegedly 'revelational' foundation. So supremacism is an element without which Islam itself can not stand. It is inherent to its core. Therefore, when the Muslims of Europe will feel enough power will try to impose Sharia. And then... there will be reaction.
One of the main problems in Islamic world is that the ideology itself is oriented towards preserving a primitivism and barbarism, for having willing warriors. It is very difficult to reach them by word because they have not even the educational background to understand. And if some of them awakens there is actual threat against them and their families. It is a mafia like social formation controlling (or trying to control) some one billion people.
When someone thinks all these gets a glimpse of how a bad situation humanity is facing nowadays. Worse than Nazism either maybe, because this time the 'enemy' is in our very neighbourhoods.
It was clearly the Western societies' fault. They accepted Muslims, having reduced their own worldview to one that sees nothing other than economy relations. And they perceived as self evident the delusion that Muslims too will integrate to their so "self evidently" unmistaken worldview. A horrorful fault, indeed. And now, smelling the danger they try to eliminate religion, cultural identity and any discussion about those issues with the aim of eliminating Islam too this way. They try to bury things to a forgetfullness. Just with the same mindframe that they burying radioactive and toxic remnants in abandoned mines or throw them to the open seas. The remnants does not disappear of course, they only poison environment in unseen and, so, even more dangerous ways. It is a a life approach that encourages eating things that it is not possible to digest, shortly said. But Islam is marching even faster taking advantage of this stupidity.
This has been going on for years as was made known in the English newspapers when I livd in SA in 1994 that any foreign worker who converted to islam would be paid higher wages and I guess this still goes on today as the middle eastern country where my husband works the locals get paid twice as much as the expats and the locals are born 'managers' with little hope of expats being in the same position. One can only hope that when these filippinos go home they drop the ideology and revert to their true religion of catholicism if they have any sense. No sane person would ever be a muslim because the ideology is based on nothing but lies as there are no manuscripts to substantiate anything that they preach. It's allmade up and hearsay.