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Islamic Tolerance Alert, and an update on the plight of Christians in Nigeria. "Nigeria - Muslim Rule in Kebbi State Chokes Church," from Compass Direct:
KALGO, Nigeria, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – For Kebbi state pastor Nuhu Mamman, to become a Christian was to have a death sentence passed on the life he knew: converting killed his past, and his future appeared moribund as family, friends and fiancée abandoned him.
[...]
“My Muslim blood relations don’t like me – they dislike and keep away from my family as if we are a plague to be avoided,” Rev. Mamman said. “They hate us because we have abandoned Islam. Our predicament has even been made worse as even Christians from other non-Muslim communities still don’t trust us. They believe that we are still Muslims despite our conversion to Christianity. This is very tough on us.”
Rev. Mamman, from the Hausa ethnic group of Kebbi state, says persecution of Christians is widespread in the state.
“In the northern part of Kebbi state, Christians face serious difficulties,” he told Compass. “We are always being forced to transfer former Muslims who have become Christians to other parts of this country in order to shield them from persecution.”
The church works hard to protect converts to Christianity from Muslim extremist attacks. After Adamu Muhammed, a Muslim from the town of Birnin Kebbi, became a Christian in 1997, Muslim radicals sought to kill him. As they hunted for him, Rev. Mamman said, the church moved him to Jos in central Nigeria, where he became a Bible student.
In 2003, Rev. Mamman added, a Muslim named Ibrahim Jega from Jega town converted to Christianity.
“His family members and other Muslims threatened to kill him,” Rev. Mamman said. “We were forced to take him to Zuru town for safety. Another convert from Islam to Christianity, Mohammed Abara from Sabon Birni town, also had to be taken to Pisabu by us in order to save his life.”
Of course, such actions follow the orders of Muhammad himself: baddala deenahu faqtuhu -- "If anyone changes his religion, kill him" (Sahih Bukhari 9.84.57).
Equally difficult is obtaining places for converts from Islam to worship.
“Even if we succeed in getting land to provide such converts with places of worship, Muslims who are in government will not allow us build such churches,” said Rev. Mamman, who was ordained an ECWA minister in 1994.
“Whenever we go to renew our land documents or even pay land rent for our church lands, Muslim government officials usually refuse to accept such payments,” he said. “But then, this is deliberate, as after a period of time they usually declare our church buildings as illegal structures, just to find reasons to demolish our places of worship.”
As one example of arbitrary demolitions of places of Christian worship in the state, Rev. Mamman cited the destruction of a church in Danbargo village by government agents.
“In Danbargo village of Shanga Local Government Area, almost all the villagers last year decided to become Christians after listening to the gospel preached to them,” he said. “We built a place of worship for these Christians, but the local government council authority of Shanga demolished this church building.”
Rev. Mamman said the local council also told the Christian villagers that if they refused to recant their belief in Christ and return to Islam, the government would seize their farms.
“Without any visible means of surviving this attack,” he said, “these Christians in Danbargo village went back to Islam.”
The Rev. Adamu Sunday Peni, vice chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Kebbi state chapter, told Compass that lack of land for building places of worship – along with forceful conversion of Christians to Islam and discrimination against Christian public workers – is among the most pressing problems Christians face.
Posted by Marisol at June 30, 2007 12:26 AM
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Don't hold your breath for any news conferences or action reports from Amnesty International or any other so-called 'human rights' group. When Christians are persecuted they look the other way. I say this as a non-Christian, non-religious person.
Posted by: alexon![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 30, 2007 1:00 AM
This does not suprise me at all. This should be a message to those of us who are Christian regardless of where we live of what will happen in the future when it comes our way.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at June 30, 2007 6:19 AM
What century is this?
Posted by: Ruebacca at June 30, 2007 8:17 AM
Speaking of Nigeria, and its emigrants, this article was in a local paper yesterday.
'Ireland elected its first black mayor Thursday, the latest sign of how rapid immigration is changing this once all-white nation.
Adebari traveled to Ireland with his wife and two boys in 2000 and claimed asylum on the basis of religious persecution, citing bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims in his homeland.'
http://www.silive.com/ap/stories/index.ssf?/base/international-23/118305536487950.xml&storylist=topstories
Let's hope the Irish have the good sense to distinguish between Christian and Muslim immigrants, going forward. They at least have a start; 'Ireland in 2004 stopped granting citizenship to foreign parents of an Irish-born child...'
Posted by: Vee at June 30, 2007 10:58 AM
The Western media does not cover Christian persecution, which says much about the Western Media. Amnesty International also does not put much energy into persecuted Christians too. Amnesty has been hijacked by secular leftists and is now an official pro-abortion organization.
If Christians were burning mosques and murdering religious leaders, Churches around the world would be protesting. Muslims around the world say little about what extremists are doing to Christians because deep down they believe we Christians are less than human.
The sad thing about Muslims is that they also lack compassion for their own dying if it does not serve the advancement of Islam. Consider the poor levels of giving from Muslim countries during the Great Tsunami of 2004. Christian Western countries gave the lion's share of the aid, even on a per capita basis. It was only when Islam started to look bad that Saudi Arabia put money into the charity giving. Islam may talk of Ummah and charity, but their actions show that the advancement of Islam is the primary goal, not community or mutual love (agape).
Posted by: James Martel at June 30, 2007 11:59 AM
i would think that persecution of christians is the most telling evidence that islam is of the devil. no culture currently persecutes christians like islam. china is pretty close, and north korea, but i think islam takes first place.
it is also the most glaring reason that islam should never be allowed to govern. the West's enemy truly is sharia law. this is a genocidal system. our best form of deterrence would be to attack the institutions of sharia law instead of waiting around for the next sharia motivated terrorist attack. islam thinks it is more righteous than the West, and it is sharia that tells islam this. sharia gives the pretext for every terrorist attack. terrorists are convinced they are right and that sharia should rule. therefore, the West must roll back sharia and seek to exterminate sharia.
so we must assume the offensive, wherever it takes us. the West acts like there is no way to stop the terrorism, but the terrorists had to learn their doctrine somewhere, and the West needs to go after those places, whever sharia is taught or enforced. any governmental power center of political islam or institution of learning qualifies.
Western governments need to announce that any terrorist attack in the world will be reciprocated by the destruction of numerous sharia halls of government and that such institutions of learning/governing will be eradicated worldwide, including mosques.
wherever the ideas of sharia are inculcated or enforced, those places will cease to exist. no more respect for the law schools of sharia.
this could be the West's policy of deterrence that it so desperately lacks right now, and the mosques of the world would be directly in line for this treatment if the destruction of political islam is insufficient.
right now islam believes it is immune to such attacks by the West. to start, there should be a declaration by the West of no more islamic states or republics. in short, there should be no more islamic law allowed, anywhere.
also declare that islamic states are hereby an enemy of the West and subject to immediate invasion and domination/occupation by the West and it's allies unless sharia is dismantled.
is there any other choice for us before these islamists outnumber us and infiltrate us until the chaos caused by islamists is insurmountable?
every islamic government should be gutted and replaced, one by one. just as fast as the radicals can set them up, we should take them down. sharia law should be made illegal. i don't care about the resulting chaos. we are headed for chaos now, and all because of sharia.
jesus christ will most probably do all of this when he returns, but it is ok to dream, yes?
islam is the antichrist religion and, realistically, islam will continue to grow and mix with western culture until we see the ten brittle and divisive world regions and the rule of the antichrist for 7 years. (Daniel 2: 31-45)
it's just that i hate to see it.
any religion that does not allow one's choice of religion has lost it's own right to exist.
not able to win in the free marketplace of ideas, islam cannot do anything other than take over nations by force, bullying and deception, and then never let them go. islam also constantly scapegoats Western capitalism as if islam is as pure as the driven snow. what hypocrits these islamic states are.
shame on the world for not opposing islam.
the invitation to believe on jesus christ remains open for all mankind.
except for the sin of unbelief in jesus christ, all other sins have been taken away by christ's cross, even islam's genocidal and murderous sins.
so the good news is that everyone can be saved from hell. not a bad deal from god.
but that does not mean that we shoudn't defend ourselves against such an oppressive, arrogant and crafty religion as islam. god i hate islam, but muslims know not what they do.
pompous islamists can still be forgiven by god, but such is the boastful behavior of those illuminated by satan, the prince of this world and the prince of the power of the air.
no wonder muslims think their god is so great, but such is the average muslim's brainwashed bondage to the prince of darkness.
at June 30, 2007 2:12 PM
Nicely stated, Gracer. I've been telling people this for the past few years, and it's nice to hear someone else state it so eloquently.
Thank you.
Posted by: DownWithIslam at June 30, 2007 3:22 PM
Taken literally, Mohammad's order: "If they change their religion, kill them." would also require Muslims to kill anyone who converted TO Islam. (Since they technically "changed" their religion.)
Wonder when the strict imams will get that fatwa going?
(Might discourage conversions to Islam, but, hey! the "prophet" said it, so it must make sense, somehow.)
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 30, 2007 4:25 PM
thanks Down i appreciate it.
basicaly i have only one thing to say to the superior-minded sharia, and to the islam which thinks islam is more righteous than Western society, and that is, despite all of islam's zealous effort to please god, islam has zero righteousness in god's sight. that's zero, zip, nada. that's right, imagine that. infidel christians will get to heaven before anyone in islam because christians trusted in christ's righteousness instead of their own.
conversely, muslims strive to be more moral than infidels, but muslims will miss heaven completely. it's sad.
there is no righteousness at all before god without jesus christ, the same jesus christ that islam ignores, persecutes, suppresses and denies. patronizing jesus as only a prophet doesn't cut it either. jesus is the son of god and is diety, but islam calls that polytheistic and idolatrous.
well, islam has certainly sealed it's fate there, being that jesus christ is the only name under heaven by which man can be saved.
this one point of denying christ makes sharia law a charade and a false, nazi-like legal system for the "genetically superior" islamic race.
in reality, all of the legalistic trappings of islam do nothing but to manipulate people into doing satan's bidding, while muslims think they are doing "god" a service by murdering innocent, non-muslim people for being "unislamic".
so all of this smokescreen that islam tries to portray itself as the lily-white, sinless savior of the world, is in truth islam as the most merciless, ruthless and intolerant cult in the world. the only way to please islam or escape extreme prejudice, is to follow islamic protocol and become muslim. not exactly a recipe for freedom of religion.
the old covenant law, or a close knockoff of it, which islam so prides itself in, is an obsolete method to please god.
god is only pleased with the acceptance of jesus christ his son, and every other sin on earth in the meantime is totally forgiven and is continually being taken away, thanks to the blood of christ. now all people have to do is receive christ's life living in them to be born again of the spirit. islam does not want this to be known, but this is the new covenant, a free pass to eternal life that cannot be earned but only believed in.
all of the islamic jumping through hoops for god and bowing down 5 times per day is meaningless to god. jesus is the only way into eternity. otherwise, one's destiny is quite clearly hell.
islam is an intricate cult to make people do satan's bidding. satan hates the jews and christians, so no coincidence that islam is always seething against these groups with a diabolical hatred, all of such hatred already forgiven by god of course, thanks to christ, but dangerous to the recipients nonetheless.
at June 30, 2007 5:27 PM
Notice something hopeful about this story? Looks as though - despite the clear, present and immediate danger of violent death, plus being cut off from their family, 'friends', and hometown, job too - there's STILL a steady trickle of converts out of Islam into the Christian faith in Northern Nigeria. Kind of says something about the relative spiritual satisfactions of the two competing belief systems. Now: what if the trickle became a river...and the river, a flood? Despite all those Saudi bribes, all those murderous threats?
I can understand the hesitation of the existing Christian community and their wariness of the new converts...they probably all know about taqiyya, even if they wouldn't know its technical name nor the texts that discuss it.
However, judging from this story, it seems clear that once the new convert has demonstrated their sincerity by persevering through some pretty awful persecution, the Christians do accept them.
May God bless the new ex-Muslim Christians of Africa. May dozens turn into hundreds, into thousands, into millions.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 30, 2007 6:00 PM
Greetings:
Maybe if Pope Benedict mentioned something along these lines to President Bush....
Posted by: 11B40 at June 30, 2007 7:29 PM
Well, obviously, a God of Love is much more attractive than a God of Hate. If religion is left to free choice (for un-brainwashed people, anyway) Islam is bound to come out the loser. And, since Islam is at least as much political as religious, it must always be trying to gain the majority and must always guard against losing membership. By religious guilt if possible, at the point of the sword if necessary.
Of course, all of us jihadwatch and dhimmiwatch bloggers understand this; now, how do we get this awareness "out there" to where our own politicians can discover it? Our president still thinks it's a religion of peace, doesn't he? The UK still thinks it's a "tiny minority of extremists", don't they? (Even after the recent bomb attacks and attempts!)
How can you dope-slap these guys hard enough to get them out of their touchy-feely "it's a major religion" fog?
at July 1, 2007 2:00 PM
Actually the pope specifically mentioned this to President Bush, and Bush did indeed pass the message on to his generals.
There are, unfortunately more pressing needs than those in Nigeria, and the Pope asked for protection for the Chaldeans of Baghdad, despite that they don't recognize his authority, nor even a few very essential things in katholicism (I believe they don't even accept the trinity).
But the religion itself, and Christians protecting eachother, is much better protection than even America's army can provide. Work, family, and trust in the lord is what will save Christianity from islam, not any army.
Posted by: tomcpp at July 5, 2007 7:07 AM
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