“Spreading corruption in the earth” is not a “bizarre new charge” concocted by the Iranian regime; it is a particular offense in Islamic law, for which penalties are delineated in the Qur’an: “The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom” (5:33).
Fox doesn’t know this and thinks it is a “bizarre new charge” because it is committed as a matter of policy to not knowing such things. Fox is often better than the other networks in reporting on the jihad threat, especially in reporting stories that other news outlets ignore (like this one), and that is why it is so furiously attacked by Leftists and Islamic supremacists as “Islamophobic.” It shies away, however, from examining how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism, instead echoing the general unreality about how “extremists” have “hijacked” the Religion of Peace to create “radical Islam.”
And just as the willful ignorance in Washington leads to policy errors, so Fox’s willful ignorance here leads to analytical errors — to the idea that the mullahs are being “extremist” in their treatment of Behnam Irani, when in fact they are simply following Qur’anic norms.
“Pastor imprisoned in Iran faces death for ‘spreading corruption on Earth,'” by Lisa Daftari, FoxNews.com, September 7, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
An Iranian Christian pastor already imprisoned for his faith now faces the death penalty after being hit with a bizarre new charge called “spreading corruption on Earth.”
Supporters fear the worst for Pastor Behnam Irani, who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2011 for his Christian activities, including leading a 300-member evangelical congregation in Karaj, a city less than 15 miles outside the capital, Tehran. He is now being held in solitary confinement and suffering numerous health problems, including internal bleeding, according to advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
CSW Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas old the website BosNewsLife.com that his group is “deeply concerned by the new charges against Pastor Irani” especially the charge of spreading corruption on Earth.”
“The charges leveled against Pastor Irani and other Christians are tantamount to an indictment of Christianity itself and mark a renewed escalation in Iran’s campaign against Persian Christians under the Rouhani presidency,” Thomas said in a statement.
In recent months, Irani faced brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which threatened him with additional charges.
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, who ran for office as a moderate a year ago, has since presided over a brutal crackdown on Iran’s Christian community. Rouhani and the religious mullahs he answers to have been particularly concerned about the spread of Christianity and conversion into its Muslim population.
“There are a lot of people who are disgruntled with the government and many for comfort and peace in their lives are turning to Christianity,” Jason DeMars, founder of Present Truth Ministries, which sponsors Christian churches and outreach in the Middle East, told FoxNews.com. “That’s a threat to the regime.
“The more people who turn from Islam, the fewer people they have on their side,” DeMars added.
In separate incidents, CSW reported at least five other Christians were taken into custody this week in the Iranian city of Isfahan, and authorities confiscated Bibles, computers, cellphones and other personal items.
In Iran, the punishment for apostasy, or turning from Islam, can carry the death penalty. Currently, many Christians are facing imprisonment in Iran, including Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen whose wife and two young kids remain behind in Boise, Idaho.
Beagle says
Nothing going on in the Muslim world, or earth as we know it, made any sense until I began to study Islam after the USS Cole bombing. Now everything they do follows predictable patterns to the point they are like an open book, that book being the Quran.
I’ve given up on magical “wake-up calls” or people “getting it” for the most part. If the Islamic State didn’t do it, it is hard to imagine what could. The denial is too hard wired institutionally at this point.
“In Iran, the punishment for apostasy, or turning from Islam, can carry the death penalty.”
And why is that? Because a saying of Muhammad has been codified into sharia law. It’s not an “Iran” thing. It’s an Islam thing.
IQ al Rassooli says
Hello Robert
It is beyond belief and beneath contempt how most of our leaders (in the West) have not had the intellect or decency to at least READ the first 8 chapters of Muhammad’s Quran (chapters 2 to 9)
These chapters alone would have been sufficient to give them all the intellectual knowledge and ammunition to parry any Muslims’ unfounded remarks and or accusations regarding their CULT belief system.
It is IMPOSSIBLE for any decent and fair minded human being having read these chapters to come to any conclusion other than that Muhammad, his Quran, Hadiths & his followers are Hatemongering Warmongering Racist Intolerant Duplicitous Misogynist, Disloyal, Hypocritical, Vile and hence totally Ungodly!
Had they done so, NOTHING emanating from the warped minds of Fundamentalist Muslims would have surprised them. Nothing!
Muhammad’s Quran should be made mandatory reading by everyone who is NOT a Muslim over the age of 17 years so that they cannot ever be deceived by mendacious Muslims selling their belief system to unwary and uninformed people
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
Peter Buckley says
Have no doubt: Christianity will be the majority religion in Iran and Egypt in the second half of this century. You heard it here first……
jihad3tracker says
Yes, P.B., you are correct — I DID hear it here first.
My very surprised eyebrows are still stuck in back of my ancient head — I am trying to restore them to their original place over my eyes.
Please provide a few discreet clues (coded in case CAIR is snooping) by omitting every third letter in the text.
Seriously : such a predication if actualized would be astonishing good news, so let us in on how that can happen.
Peter Buckley says
1. Look at the numbers.First of all there is every possibility the number or percentage of Copts in Egypt is underestimated.
“Dr. Essam Abdullah, a professor of philosophy at Egypt’s Ain Shams University and a regular political commentator on Arabic media, including Al Jazeera, recently made some startling remarks on a televised program: that there are “more than 23 million Copts in Egypt,” out of a total population of nearly 90 million, with an additional 7 million Copts outside Egypt.”
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/twenty-three-million-coptic-christians-in-egypt-says-authority/
Now why would a muslim say such a thing? If it is true, that means Copts represent roughly one quarter of Egypt’s population, as opposed to the 10% normally quoted. Even if the figures aren’t spot on, there’s probably an under-estimation.There’s our starting point….
2. A few years ago a man called Maher El Gowhary converted to Christianity. After doing so, he said:” “If they give Muslim-born Christians the right to change, I can assure you, that all of Egypt will convert to Christianity.”
Now, those could be the words of the enthusiastic new convert in the throes of finding a new religion……or it could be true. Given the reactions of “friends and family” to the news of a muslim even considering converting, his words ring true.
Conclusion: Large numbers of muslims WILL convert “If they give Muslim-born Christians the right to change”. That is the key. It is not a question of whether muslims WILL convert, but whether they CAN-whether IT IS SAFE In other words, it is a question of whether Egypt will become secular. Given their recent experience, and rejection of, Morsi and his MB, what do you think? What you have to understand is that muslims often have to witness the full horrors of Sharia before they realise the truth. This is particularly true of countries like Egypt and Iran which were “relatively civilised” in the recent past…i.e. within one lifetime. There’s also the question of Western pressure to secularise.So if Egypt goes secular within the next, say, twenty years, yes, it will happen.
Whilst Egypt will see a “steady” change, I believe Iran will be more spectacular, as the Christian population is much lower, and it doesn’t have as much historical presence as in Egypt, but the conditions for change are similar.
First, we have conversions to Christianity occurring at very high levels:
” Iranian Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has warned against the strong attraction of Christianity among Iranian youth. He recently admitted the government crackdown has failed to stop the spread of Christianity in Iran.”
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/July/Iran-Arrests-Christians-as-More-Muslims-Leave-Islam-/
What the Iranians don’t understand (yet) is that Christianity often thrives under persecution(isn’t that how it all started?), as Spencer himself has pointed out:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/persecution-of-christians-soars-in-iran/
So the mullahs are in a bind over this: do they carry on persecuting them knowing it won’t be a deterrent, or do they allow more religious freedom, go against Sharia, yet again knowing Christianity will continue to grow? That’s a no-win situation for them.
That’s why I have predicted what I said, but I want to make two more points:
The first is Christianity’s ability to convert. If “preaching the Gospel” has achieved this in what is considered an atheist part of the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8322072.stm
Why do you not think the same is possible in a part of the world where the vast majority DO believe in God?
Finally, I come back to Muhammad, who said:
Belief returns and goes back to Medina like a snake…(Sahih Bukhari, 3.30.100)
Islam was initiated as something strange, and it would revert to its (old position) of being strange, and it would concentrate between the two mosques just as the serpent crawls back into its hole…(Sahih Muslim, 1.0270)
The Islamic faith will recede to Medina just as the serpent crawls into its hole…(Sahih Muslim, 1.0271, 0272)
Muslims will diminish in number and they will go back to where they started…(Sunaan Abu Dawud, 2.19.3029)
Muslims will be the scum and the rubbish even though their numbers may increase; the enemy will not fear Muslims anymore. This will be because the Muslims will love world and dislike death…( Abu Dawud, 37.4284)
Muslims will be destroyed through the hands of some Quraysh young men…(Sahih Bukhari, 9.87.180)
There will be much killing during the last days of the Muslims…(Sahih Bukhari, 9.88.183)
In other words, Muhammad knew Islam would get “found out” at some point. So there you have it. You can expect places like Turkey, Lebanon and all these other countries OUTSIDE THE ARABIAN PENINSULA to return to Christianity. It will happen. Over to you……
gravenimage says
Irrational exuberance, I’m afraid.
Jay Boo says
Peter Buckley might be right but he said,
“Have no doubt: Christianity will be the majority religion in Iran and Egypt in the second half of this century. You heard it here first……”
In other words sometime as early as 2050 but before 2099
That means it could take approximately as long as (99 minus 14) 85 years to even fully test your theory.
We must wait at least 35+ years just to begin.
Even so-called end of the world predictors narrow it down better than that.
Talk about going out on a limb
Peter Buckley says
“We must wait at least 35+ years just to begin.”
Not at all. You’ll hear about it happening “as it happens”. See my links to Christianity in China and South Korea, above.
quotha raven says
Peter B: Have you read Mark Steyn’s skinny little paperback called “America Alone”? Don’t mean to rain on your optimism, but maybe you should give it a look to appreciate the overall picture of “the second half of this century”…
Peter Buckley says
I have listened to Mark Steyn a number of times. There is a difference between warning people about what might happen in the future and believing it will. The “demographics” argument has been de-bunked over and over by many independent bodies:
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx
The figures are merely projections based on the assumption that all trends, such as immigration, will continue unchanged. Clearly that will no happen. Nor do they take into account the fact that more and more muslims are leaving the faith. Nobody seems to mention the FACT that the biggest rise is not in Islam but in Atheism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f92Nx4u-SMQ
So I take these projections with a pinch of salt. That said, I’m all in favour of people warning about the dangers of immigration from muslim countries. This should result in people supporting parties who propose less, or no immigration. For example, look what’s happening in France:
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/38803-140731-france-marine-le-pen-a-presidential-favorite-poll-shows
quotha raven says
My suggestion to you after reading your post(s) was to recommend Steyn’s book for a bit of additional context. I’ve examined the links you sent and still recommend you open your mind, wipe the sand out of your eyes and read America Alone. After having read it and applied your own little grey cells to its message, you can sneer dismissively about how “The “demographics” argument has been de-bunked over and over.” I find current events and the book more compelling than your arguments and the sources you cite. Perhaps you gravitate toward a more optimistic compilation and presentation of the numbers.
RaymondofCanada says
Thanks, Robert. It is the new mantra to pretend that all the violence in the Middle East is separate from Islam. It’s all so new and shocking! It is the fault of Islamic radicals which is new to Islam. Know your history, friends. How about this phrase? “so-and-so was kicked out of the mosque for his radical views.” I wish the media would stop reading news verbatim from the source. Getting kicked out a mosque for radical views or behaviour is like a church when it ordains a young person into the ministry.
James Foard says
Robert, I depend on you and Walid Shoebat for my daily news. You are indispensable. God bless you.
PRCS says
1) I note that several Fox commentators use the new, improved phrase “radical Islamist terrorists” to define the real problem–which is literalism.
2) Two days ago, after Krauthammer perpetuated the notion of “Islamic radicalism“, Dear Megyn referred to “a terrorist group that vows its allegiance to a radical form of Islam and then ran a series of clips of Rasool Barry repeatedly referring to the equally idiotic phrase “extremists”.
Brooke Goldstein’s explanation of the REAL problem (literalism) seemed to go right over her head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Tjd9wrqe8&list=UUsdhHUTZnFFZ9Vf5_3Pq8QQ
3) Yesterday, Hamas leader Hassan Yousef’s apostate son, Mosab Hassan Yousef explained the real problem (following the Qur’an to the letter) to Uma Pemmaraju. It seemed to right over her head.
Note: I disagree with his use of the word/phrase “radical/radical Islam”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVjoS_NiBlo
I think, in some measure, they’re NOT ignorant about Islam but are complying with the company policy to “not bash the religion”; re: Tim Furnish’s recent appearance with Shepard Smith.
Whether it’s a matter of ignorance or timidity they are doing their audience no good with that nonsense.
Jay Boo says
Sad Irony
Iranians are not even Muslims, not truly.
They are a conquered people who hide their subservient status to Saudi Arabia’s Muhammad with syrupy sentimentality toward a lineage of Arab masters. They are merely Islamic slaves who try to paint over Sunni Arab shackles to appear as if Persian bracelets. Why do they bother to stand and celebrate the Persian New Year when they still crawl in submission to Islam and bow toward Mecca?
They still seek Sunni acknowledgement to validate their Muslim wannabe status and persecute religious minorities in order to grovel like a prison goon squad.
The 1979 Revolution, the fatwas to ‘defend’ Islam and the stoning of adulterers was more about ingratiating themselves with their Sunni Islam neighbors than it was about confronting the “evil” West.
It has become all too embarrassingly obvious to Mecca and throughout all of Islam that Iran’s insecure dress-wearing turban-headed Ayatollahs are just pleading to say, ‘I did a good thing, huh’ to the rest of the Islamic world.
Remember how Iranian wanabe Muslims tore Ayatollah Khomeini’s burial clothes off and knocked him near naked out of his coffin during his funeral procession in a subservient frenzy to just appear most pious?
Ouch! That was an embarrassment before their Sunni overlords.
Ayatollah Khamenei is just the latest in a long line of Islamic ideology administrators after the conquest of Persia. Lap-dog groveling for Islamic approval can no longer be camouflaged beneath layers of pompous violence for Allah, and willful passive-aggressive Holocaust denial.
The Iranian regime’s uncouth veil is wearing quite thin.
Although many Iranians truly hate Islam, they won’t admit it to themselves.
Rather than accept this painful truth, they pretend that they are Muslim by choice.
Iran is an ideologically-dhimmi nation in denial and Iranians are caught firmly in the grip of Sunni imposed ‘Stockholm Syndrome’
In other words.
The Iranian people are basically decent human beings who have been cruelly imprisoned by overlord Ayatollah puppets of Arab Islam to the point that they now identify and seek ideological approval from their foreign captors for spiritual guidance.
Shia Islam is a fatwa against truth. It is just a ritual submission to Sunni Islam with a face-saving (Islamo- Persian) illusion enabled by pretend Muslim Ayatollah delusions.
Iranians trapped inside denial are like spiders caught within their own web
… So sad … so very sad.
Every Iranian surely knows Allah is not God.
Allah is just a word, a foreign word to Persian peoples and the Koran is nothing but Arab conquerer lies conjured up from the reciting of satanic verse to force Iranians into willing submission.
Allah means submission.
Iranians, they are not even Muslims … they should just admit it; say it with pride.
No Fear says
All the non-muslim commenters on this site know about the “corruption” verse 5:33.
I can’t believe these commenters are professionals.
Read the Quran and Hadith and stop looking like dolts.
No Fear says
Pressed SUBMIT too early ……”can’t believe these TV commenters are professionals.”
Talal says
I quote it again, from a different translation:
5:33. The punishment for those who fight God and His Messenger, and strive to spread corruption on earth, is that they be killed, or crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be banished from the land. That is to disgrace them in this life; and in the Hereafter they will have a terrible punishment.
source http://www.clearquran.com/005.html
Bronson says
Notice how the Fox comments are replete with quotes from the Bible countering this Koranic injunction but not one pointing out 5.33, shows how appallingly ignorant most people are. Not just the author of the Fox piece who should know better – Lisa Daftari, daughter Iranian Jews who immigrated to the US.
gravenimage says
I’m glad your parents were able to get out.
hammar says
Only Jesus is Lord and Son of God. “Why possess the whole world when you lose your soul”.
allah the false god and mohammed the false prophet are nothing more than that of possessing death and faithless prayers and believers.
MSM BS says
Fox is currently the best mainstream TV station on this issue. That’s not much of course, but without Fox News the Americans would be much more ignorant about the threat of jihadism.
However I do hope that in the future someone would set up a popular TV channel targeting mass audience that speaks honestly about Islam, or that the existing TV networks would begin to speak the truth.
DP111 says
If any proof is required that Islam is evil, one has to look at the results.
1. Islam does not civilise people but makes them more introvert, more violent, and generally uncouth, and given to barbaric customs.
2. Muslims are forever cutting each others throats, if not engaged in slitting Christian throats.
3. Muslims are forever at war. But despite continuous practice, they get beat by Christians, Jews, and even Hindus.
4. Islamic nations produce no scientific discoveries, no technical innovations, no great literature, and no social improvements in the affairs of men ( politics).
5. As Islamic religion dominates Muslim lives, one would think that there would be a great outpouring in spiritual and metaphysical philosophies – but even even here, there is nothing.
6. Islam is a cult that destroys the essential creativeness of men, and replaces it with destructiveness.
7. Instead of taking the good within men and enhancing it, Islam takes the evil in men, and enhances that.
The fruits of Islam are not just bad tasting, but poisonous. Even small amounts in a nation, can cause unpleasant complications. Larger amounts can lead to death.
So Glenn, if you want to help yourself, and other Muslims, accept Jesus Christ in your life.
I’m certain that when Islamic nations become Christian, they will become as fruitful as once the West was, till it decided to go it alone. I
Prinz Eugen says
One would like to think that politicians and journalists would study the unholy koran so that they could conduct a meaningful discussion or write a lucid commentary on events, but instead, they allow the enemy (led by CAIR and
imam Barak Hussein here) to “instruct” them on the peace an d love gushing out of that unholy book.
Tried reading the koran many years ago, too much a cut and paste of the Scriptures. With the first Gulf War,m I finally went back and read the whole thing.
As the work goes on the call for war, killing, beheadings, mutilations pick up the pace. If this is supposed to be the “last” of the divine revelations, then the Creator must have have had a severe breakdown in the 7th century (AD !) for
His laws changes drastically! The Creator of the Scriptures is not a
moon god, so apparently the raving pedophile used Biblical references to bolster and somehoiw “justify” his demand for absolute power.
gravenimage says
Fox News calls offense described in Qur’an a “bizarre new charge”
………………………………….
Of course there’s nothing new about the charge of “spreading corruption in the land”. Don’t investigative reporters do any actual investigating these days?
And it doesn’t take much—a quick Google search reveals the salient Qur’anic verses. Even Wikipedia has a *relatively* decent entry on the concept.
It’s not that difficult to figure out.
The most salient verse here is Qur’an 2:27:
“Those who break the covenant of Allah after ratifying it, and sever that which Allah ordered to be joined, and (who) make mischief in the earth: Those are they who are the losers”
In other words, they are accusing Pastor Behnam Irani of either being an apostate himself or of enticing other Muslims to leave Islam with his preaching of Christianity—probably both.
But despite Fox’s continuing cluelessness on the tenets of Islam itself, at least they are bringing attention to the plight of oppressed and imprisoned Christians in Iran—one of the very few mainstream media sources that is covering this issue at all.
That the case of Pastor Saeed Abedini—an *American citizen* unjustly imprisoned in Iran is not considered a rallying point here is disgusting. I imagine very few Americans have even heard about it.