PART TWO CONTINUED: CONVERSIONS TO CHRISTIANITY.
MOROCCO
In Morocco, there is also a certain amount of evidence of Muslims converting to Christianity. While the majority of Christians are foreigners, the organisation known as the Voice of the Martyrs, founded to help persecuted Christians round the world, claims that there are at least 45,000 native Moroccans who have converted to Christianity, particularly in rural areas, often baptized in secret in various Moroccan churches. However, the International Religious Freedom Report published by the United States Department of State gives a much smaller figure, citing the estimates given by Moroccan Christian leaders, of 8000 Moroccan Christians out of a population of 34.8 million. [1]
An article published in 2006, on the Moroccan website, Ya-biladi, gives the reason for this modest but nonetheless remarkable movement towards Christianity: “The Arab press has been quick to accuse the US evangelists for the massive conversion numbers, therefore playing into the hands of the Islamists who advocate an end to the semi-freedom of religion in Morocco. But this assumption is wrong because as many observers emphasized, some Muslims are disillusioned by the crimes committed in the name of Islam, especially in Algeria by the Islamists and al-Qaida’s terrorist acts and are looking for something else.” [2]
DAVID GARRISON’S RESEARCH
Perhaps the first truly in depth study of conversions to Christianity in recent years comes from David Garrison and his colleagues, the results of which he recounts in his book, A Wind in the House of Islam, published in 2014. [3] He conducted two studies. The first took six years. The second, in greater depth, he conducted over a period of two and a half years, between 2011 and 2014. He writes, “With the assistance of numerous on-site collaborators, interviews have been collected from 45 movements in 33 Muslim people groups in 14 countries”. He defines a “movement” as “a movement of Muslims to Christ to be at least 100 new church starts or 1,000 baptisms that occur over a two-decade period”. Garrison’s conclusion is that “Today, in more than 70 separate locations in 29 nations, new movements of Muslim-background followers has crossed the threshold of at least 100 new church starts or 1,000 baptized believers, all of whom have come to Christ over the past two decades. In some countries the numbers within these new movements have grown to tens of thousands. Though the total number of new Christ followers, between two and seven million, maybe a statistically small drop in the vast sea of Islam, they are not insignificant”. [4]
The interviews were conducted in the languages of the converts and then translated with the help of bilingual assistants. Garrison and his co-workers isolated nine distinct geo-cultural clusters or complexes of Muslim people groups.
Defined initially by geography, these clusters have been further shaped by shared history, languages, trade, conflict and thus, destiny. Following Arab Muslims’ description of their world as “The House of Islam”, we called these nine geo-cultural clusters “Rooms”, Rooms within the House of Islam: (1) West Africa, (2) North Africa, (3) East Africa, (4) The Arab World, (5) The Persian World, (6) Turkestan, (7) Western South Asia, (8) Eastern South Asia, and (9) Indo-Malaysia. [5]
Garrison is careful not to sound triumphalist; on the contrary, as he points out with due modesty, the figure of two to seven million converts to Christianity comes to “less than one-half of one percent of the Muslim world’s population, hardly a cause to gloat”. [6] A little further on, he admits, “As an evangelical Christian, I come to this study with biases, I submit my own faith and practice to the authority of the Bible and the unique and exclusive salvation claims of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. But as a phenomenologist, I have attempted to hold my personal convictions at bay until I accurately described the phenomenon in question.” He finds much to admire in Islam and Islamic civilization; he has studied Arabic, and lived among Muslims in India, Egypt and Tunisia. His Muslim friends are described by him as “the most hospitable, generous and gracious people” he has ever known. [7]
IRAN
Iran is one of the most interesting of all the “rooms” that Garrison studied.
He observes that, “Of Iran’s population 64 percent were born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and have little affection for it. While Christianity is growing rapidly in the country, so too are many other worldviews as Muslim Iranians seek a respite from the state religion. It is common to find Iranian young adults walking away from Islam and turning to atheism, secularism, hedonism, drugs, and even ancient pathways such as Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.” [8]
I shall be discussing Iranian atheists in a later section, but I can personally vouch for Garrison’s latter conclusion. Over the last twenty years, I have given talks to Iranian groups in Paris, Stockholm, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and New York; they have all been anti-Khomeini, and most have been atheists, and certainly secularists — thus, evidently, their flight from Iran. Garrison also points out, quoting journalist Scott Peterson, “‘hidden behind the mullah’s mask is the most unashamedly pro-American population in the Middle East’. The sentiment was expressed spontaneously after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America, when 60,000 Iranians gathered on Tehran’s football stadium dressed in black to hold a candlelight vigil.” [9]
House churches are the most common place for Muslim converts to Christianity to worship. The House Church movement may have, as a conservative estimate, 100,000 followers, but “data from interviews with Iranian Christian refugees, and the number of correspondents to satellite Christian television programs give reason to believe that figure could be as high as a few million”. [10]
Garrison refers to Mark Bradley [11], who wrote, “If the figures from the survey carried out by Mohabbat TV were translated nationally, it would mean that 8 million people are interested in Christianity and nearly 3 million would actually want to become Christian”. The German online journal, Deutsche Welle [DW], cites other figures: “It is said that between 250,000 and 500,000 Iranians have converted, though the actual number is impossible to know.” [12]
DW then explains the reasons for conversions: “They are turning away from Islam primarily because they are disappointed in their government, which has tied politics and religion together so as to make them inseparable, and has curtailed many civil rights in the name of Islam.” [13]
Persecution of Iranian Muslim converts to Christianity has led many to flee to the West. The U.K. daily newspaper, The Guardian [14], describes the journey of these asylum seekers in Germany: mainly Iranian, and occasionally Afghan, émigrés who have given a new lease of life to the religious life of Germany. Many have paid as much as to $30,000 to be smuggled into the country with fake passports. Once in Germany they have usually adopted western names, and have added greatly to congregation numbers in several independent Lutheran, Evangelical and Presbyterian churches. They are now waiting for their baptism ceremonies as they rebuild their lives.
The last time Germany saw so many Iranians seeking entry was just after the 1979 revolution. The number of Iranian refugees has doubled every year for the last five years, from less than 1,000 in 2008 to 4,348 in 2012. Official figures from the federal office for migration and refugees confirm this trend. Over 3,500 Iranians were granted asylum last year, and Iran was one of the countries from which Germany saw a steep rise in asylum applications.
The Guardian gives the reasons for this exodus: “Spread across multiple churches and asylum camps, Muslim-to-Christian converts from Iran make up a noticeable population of asylum seekers who say a growing crackdown on Muslim-born Christian converts back home, and disillusion from decades of living under Islamic law, have led them to Germany. Though Iranian converts can be found in The Netherlands, Sweden and Austria, Germany’s economic stability and reputation as a major refugee hosting country has made the European country the most desirable destination.”
In the past, most of Iran’s Christians were ethnic Armenians and Assyrians who are allowed to practice their religion freely as long as they did not proselytize. Thanks to Christian satellite television broadcasts, in the last five to ten years, Iranian Diasporan Christian pastors have had an enormous influence over their fellow Iranians back home. Even ethnic Armenians and Assyrians have taken to spreading the gospel to their Muslim neighbours. The combined result is that the religion is taking hold throughout Iran. The Guardian tries to give estimates of the numbers involved, but notes: “The underground nature of the Christian conversion movement has made numbers impossible to determine accurately. Estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 by various sources. Though these statistics cannot be independently verified, converts and pastors both in and out of Iran say the movement is strong and widely spread. Some converts have also been reported to travel to neighboring Armenia to become baptized.”
STATISTICS
Perhaps one of the most astonishing statistics thrown out comes from a Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ahmad al-Katani, in an interview conducted by Al-Jazeera television [15] in 2000. Al-Jazeera quickly deleted the interview, but intrepid Christian evangelicals have managed to retrieve it [16], and even have the link to the original Arabic transcript [17]. Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani, the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, claimed that in Africa (by which he means essentially Black Africa), “On the other hand, the number of Christians has increased from one million in 1902 to 329,882,000. Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000 [18]. …In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These are huge numbers….” [19]
Al Katani does not tell us how he arrived at those extraordinary numbers.
Pew Research Center’s figures tell us that, “the number of Muslims living between the Sahara Desert and the Cape of Good Hope has increased more than 20-fold, rising from an estimated 11 million in 1900 to approximately 234 million in 2010. The number of Christians has grown even faster, soaring almost 70-fold from about 7 million to 470 million [emphasis added] Sub-Saharan Africa now is home to about one-in-five of all the Christians in the world (21%) and more than one-in-seven of the world’s Muslims (15%).” [20] And yet the following Pew conclusions contradict the Sheikh’s contention that Muslims in Black Africa are converting to Christianity at, to him, an alarming rate: “Neither Christianity nor Islam is growing significantly in sub-Saharan Africa at the expense of the other; there is virtually no net change in either direction through religious switching.” [21] Who is right?
According to the website Muslim Statistics, “A major Christian syndication has provided video evidence to us from their user data around the world which proves that a massive 350 million (!) Muslims live their outward lives as Muslims, on the surface, but have secretly converted to Christianity.” [22]
But the Muslim Statistics website refuses to provide the sources for such a claim, in order not, so it is claimed, to endanger the converts concerned:
Because of the extreme persecution against Christians taking place all across the Middle East we have decided not to publish the source or details of this data or where this converted populations live in the Islamic world out of consideration for their security and safety. It is our opinion that the mass slaughter of Christians taking place right now is exactly due to the fact that millions of Muslims have converted to Christianity and authorities and Salafis are aware that changes are taking place and trying to put a stop to it. [23]
There is no way for us to independently confirm these claims, which, if true, would mean that 16% of the world’s Muslims were secret Christians. This really seems a large number. I am more inclined to accept David Garrison’s more modest figures of between three to seven million Muslims converting to Christianity over the last ten years. I could be wrong.
There are further problems with such statistics. Many of those who converted to Christianity may have kept many aspects of their previous traditions, and thus have inadvertently produced a kind of syncretistic religion of their own. Also, many ex-Muslims may have converted or rather reverted back to Islam, as was the case with Americans who converted to Islam only to leave after a few years.
BROTHER RACHID AND AL-HAYAT TELEVISION
There are probably around twenty Christian channels broadcasting to the Islamic world, such as Middle East Television (also known as “METV”), which is a satellite television broadcasting network located in Limassol, Cyprus. Brother Rachid is the remarkable host of a live, call-in show on Al-Hayat Television [al-Hayat TV], which has bases in Europe and the United States. He is a convert from Islam, and was born into a conservative Muslim family in Morocco. Since his father was an imam, Rachid started life as a devout Muslim, memorising large parts of the Koran.
Since the launch of his show on al-Hayat TV, Rachid has devoted his life to defending the rights of Muslims to convert to Christianity, or simply changing their religion as they see fit, particularly in his native Morocco. Brother Rachid is not all afraid of criticizing Islam, or pointing out the virtues of Christianity over Islam, and has interviewed controversial figures such as Robert Spencer and Christoph Luxenberg. He believes that there have been probably somewhere between 40,000 to 60,000 converts to Christianity in Morocco alone in the last ten years. He receives nearly 13, 000 emails per month, and has since he started broadcasting in 2007. In an article in Morocco World News, we learn that Rachid
has recently posted videos on youtube translating the Quran into Moroccan Arabic dialect. His initiative was viewed by many Moroccan Muslims as provocative. Rachid cited to the daily the following demands that Moroccan Christians are still asking for:
1.To change one’s religion and the right for free practice of Christian religious customs.
2. To own the translated version of the bible in Moroccan Arabic or Arabic language, without fear of being arrested.
3. To give Christian names to their children.
4. To teach their children Christianity in school instead of Islam.
5. The right of Moroccan Christian women to marry a foreign Christian man, without having to prove his affiliation to the Islamic religion. [24]
NOTES
[1] http://www.refworld.org/docid/4f4361e72.html
[2] http://www.yabiladi.com/forum/moroccans-converting-christianity-44-1032753.html
[3] David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam, How God is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ, Colorado: Wigtake Resources, 2014.
[4] Garrison,op.cit., p5
[5] Garrison, op.cit.,p23.
[6] Garrison, op.cit.,p34.
[7] Garrison, op.cit.,p.42
[8] Garrison, op.cit.,p.135.
[9] Garrison, op.cit.,p.135, quoting Scott Peterson, “Iranians Love the U.S.A.”, In Iran, Issue 7, Summer 2013, pp.13-14.
[10] Garrison, op.cit.,p.140
[11] Mark Bradley, Iran and Christianity: Historical Identity and Present Relevance, Bloomsbury Academic; 1 edition (December 29, 2011), p187, note 2. See also Mark Bradley,Too Many to Jail: The Story of Iran’s New Christians. Monarch Books; 1st New edition (December 1, 2014).
[12] Thomas Latschan / js, “Iran’s persecuted converts” Deutsche Welle [DW], 20 May, 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/irans-persecuted-converts/a-18464360
[13] Thomas Latschan / js, “Iran’s persecuted converts” Deutsche Welle [DW], 20 May, 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/irans-persecuted-converts/a-18464360.
[14] Liana Aghajanian, “Iranian converts flock to Germany” , The Guardian, Monday 12 May 2014.
[15] https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/al-jazeerah-6-million-muslims-convert-to-christianity-in-africa-each-year/
[16] https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/w-got-it-here-al-jazeeras-deleted-interview-with-sheikh-ahmad-al-katani-on-6-million-muslim-conversions-to-christianity-per-year/
[17] http://web.archive.org/web/20040402023134/www.aljazeera.net/programs/shareea/articles/2000/12/12-12-6.htm
[18] بالمقابل ارتفع عدد الكاثوليك من واحد مليون في عام 1902م إلى 329 مليون و882 ألف، ولنقرب الرقم سنقول 330 مليون نسمة في عام 2000 الآن..
[19] في كل ساعة يتحول إلى النصرانية 667 مسلم، في كل يوم 16 ألف، في كل عام 6 مليون، هذه الإعداد الضخمة الكبيرة جدًّا.
[20] http://www.pewforum.org/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa/
[21] Ibid.
[22] ‘350 million Muslims secretly live as Christian converts’, November 4, 2014
https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/350-million-muslims-are-secretly-living-lives-as-christian-converts/
[23] Ibid.
[24] “Moroccan Converts to Christianity told their stories”, in Morocco World News ,10 February 2013, http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/02/77798/moroccan-converts-to-christianity-told-their-stories/
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Anybody who converts to Christianity should move to Israel. That’s about the only place where Christians are welcome nowadays, and it has the world’s fastest growing Christian immigrant population. I wouldn’t recommend moving to America, where Christians are held in low regard. If you come here and go into the bakery business, for example, you might be asked to bake a wedding cake and end up going broke.
True, there are lotsa Moslems in Israel, but they are the freest and most prosperous Moslems on earth. And besides Moslems are popping up all over the map, except maybe in Japan, so the chances of getting caught up in a mass murder is not appreciably greater in Israel than most other places. Chances of getting struck by lightning blah blah blah.
Well, at least until the Supreme Leader goes ahead and detonates one his brand new nuke missiles over Tel Aviv, that is.
Paul says
There’s no doubt that Iran’s insane regime want to get Israel and
will soon be in a position to do just that – thanks to the current
administration in the White House. However, God’s in control
and shall not abandon Israel. This is actually all going according to
prophecy. Iran was always going to gain nuclear weaponry and
shall obliterate “Mystery Babylon” of Revelation, Saudi-Arabia :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GGWbxP2jTw
http://shoebat.com/2015/07/14/the-bible-prophesied-about-obamas-nuclear-deal-with-iran-and-predicted-it-will-be-a-complete-catastrophe/
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
God’s in control and shall not abandon Israel.
I pray to God you are right, but I have a real bad feeling about Iran. Hell, the Supreme Leader just published a 400-page book spent on the annihilation of Israel with an occasional sidebar on nuking America. But no worry, the U.N. approved the arms “control” “deal” Secretary War Coward just concluded with the Persians.
Paul says
Things are going to get a a lot worse before they get better
and I expect nothing less than World War 3 breaking out properly
and, well, literally Armageddon. I believe ultimately that America
and the West will be OK as well as Israel and civilisation in general,
but Saudi-Arabia has to go, pure and simple. It’s buying up our media,
our education, our politicians, financing mosques everywhere etc.,
spreading its filth and evil in the process.
Gufo says
Sorry to jump in, but I wish Persians were still in charge of Iran. We would not have the current madness taking place, but a different civilization _ would it be better? We don’t know, but as well as all the great civilizations annihilated by islam, the real Persians are not at all the lunatics we are dealing with now. Whatever is great about Iran is still a memory of Persia, while whatever is wicked is a result of islam. That being said, I agree on Israel being one of the safest places for non-muslims, and definitely for Jews, who are again in the condition of fleeing Europe, fleeing US, with our governments doing nothing about it. Such a disgrace.
Mirko says
It’s obvious for all Christians that Israel won’t be obliterated, therefore, someone else might be 🙂
Paul says
Yep, and when it’s that great champion of human rights
and decency that we know and love as Saudi-Arabia it
won’t be a day too soon.
Paul says
I’m sure there are a number of decent Saudis and goodness
knows how many there have secretly come to Christ too. This
part of Revelation is aimed at them – “Come out of her my
people….”. Some may scoff at this right now, they won’t in the
not too distant future….
“For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her
immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of
immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become
rich by the wealth of her sensuality.” 4I heard another voice from
heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not
participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; 5for her sins
have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her
iniquities.…
Shane says
I am thankful to Allah that so many Muslims are being killed by other Muslims. If they ever stopped killing each other, they would conquer the world. Of course, Muslims are getting aid from liberal traitors in the West who keep bringing in large numbers of Muslim immigrants.
Paul says
Islam, with its anti-democratic, totalitarian, anti-Western,
anti-‘colonialist’ (supposedly) and anti-Judeo/Christian
‘values’, is a perfect pawn for them to bring about some
sort of leftist revolution and take down the West. Well,
if they were to succeed, they’d certainly get their revolution
but the bitter disappointment of not getting to share power
with crazed clerical ideologues would be the very least of their
problems.
Buraq says
In brief, any decent person who ‘gets’ what Islam is all about leaves pronto. That proves they have a conscience and a sense of humanity. But those knowing what Islam is all about and deciding to stay proves that they are inhumane clowns.
On balance, I’d say the world has more decent, humane people than clowns, and so expect the exodus from Islam to continue, and even increase in speed.
Excellent article!
jewdog says
If people want to live freely and practise their religion openly, the only way is by force of arms, to take control of land back from the Muslims. The Jews did it with Israel and the Christians can do it easily with the backing of Western armies. Now that many Muslim lands are in anarchy, it should be easy. All that’s lacking is the will.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
… the only way is by force of arms, to take control of land back from the Muslims. The Jews did it with Israel…
Don’t overlook, Dog, that most of the land in Israel was bought by Zionists with cash on the barrelhead, starting way back in the 1890s. Most of the purchases were from absentee landlord Moslems living in Amman and Beirut. The idea of Palestinian refugees is a rancid myth made from whole cloth.
jewdog says
Yes, but what was purchased in cash could only be kept later by blood. It was only because Britain had her empire that those purchases could be arranged. It was a unique and felicitous occurrence that cannot be repeated today. The only way now is through force.
Angemon says
I know of a foul-mouthed sham who won’t be pleased with this… Brace for damage control!
Kanalratte says
In fact Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. You can see this especially
in the West:
GB 1990: 1 million Muslims, 2015: 3.5 million Muslims, 2030: 7 million Muslims
France 1990: 0.6 million Muslims, 2015: 6 million Muslims, 2030: 9 million Muslims
Germany 1990: 2,5 million Muslims, 2015: 5 million Muslims, 2030: 8 million Muslims
Netherlands 1990: 0,35 million Muslims, 2015: 1 million Muslims, 2030: 1,5 million Muslims
So in the year of 2030 most countries in Western Europe will have a muslim population of 10%.
GB and France will even have 15% of the total population.
Westman says
Imagine the rate of conversion to Islam in any region under the control of Daesh or Boko Haram. A cancerous growth typically has a high rate of growth yet it is already doomed.
I found this article, describing the increase of Muslim divorce in the West by 4 times over the “old countries” as quite revealing about how replacing compulsion with freedom affects Islam. Wives are not satisfied with the second-rate status under Islam.
http://www.soundvision.com/article/divorce-among-american-muslims-statistics-challenges-solutions
It will be Secularism, more than Christianity, that will weaken Islam in the West. Islam is a poor civic administrator, being more parasitic than creative and productive. It literally steals productivity from workers and eliminates half the population(women) from economic control. In the West, the adherents have the choice of keeping the status quo or have economic progress; which drives toward secularism.
Kanalratte says
When the (western) securalism and liberties may affect the muslim immigrant communities, there will be already a muslim majority in western Europe.
Westman says
I don’t doubt that “Muslims” might someday be a majority in Western Europe. “Christians” are the current majority and there is nothing to suggest that it effects the general tenor of Western Europe outside of historical edifices and historical context.
Being a secularized Muslim has no more significance than being a secularized Christian. Muslims are going to Europe because fundamental Islam has failed them. Most of those making economic progress don’t visit the mosque anymore.
There is another overlooked factor and that is climate change. There is a great line in Lawrence Of Arabia where King Faisal says, “No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert.” The peak temperatures of the ME are increasing. Europe is a comparative garden with funds for the transition from the ME.
Everyone has some religious label; most of which are becoming irrelevant in the civic sphere. Don’t kid yourself about the piety of the Muslims in Europe. The majority are embarrassed by the behavior of the militants but what can they call themselves but Muslims without endangering themselves?
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
GB and France will even have 15% of the total population.
So then, the question is what is the inflection point at which Sharia is imposed on the host nation. For some reason 25% – 30% feels about right to me. That’s when they take over.
To reflect on the “religion” of Islam: when I was a youth I went swimming in a creek in the woods. When I got out and up onto the bank, I was horrified to see a few leeches attached to my legs. My buddies took the matches we had there for smoking cigarettes (as 13 yr olds) and burned the leeches out. So then I had three open sores. They turned into running sores, and my mom had to take me to a doctor to administer antibiotics to make sure that I didn’t get infected from the poison from the bloodsucking leeches. Now, speaking of bloodsucking leeches, we turn back to the Moslem infection rate in Great Britain and France. There is no antibiotic for Moslems. Maybe Dr. Bostom will invent one, but I don’t think such a miracle drug can exist for ideology, despite the burning need for one.
jayell says
Sometime ago on this site (I believe?) an ex-muslim of arab descent (?) said that he thought Islam had no more than about 10 years left. I thought that he was talking fanciful nonsense, but reading the information here it seems he possibly had a good point, if a little over-optimistic. It must come back to that old chestnut about how long you can fool all the people….
Kanalratte says
In France there’s a city called Roubaix that has already a muslim population of over 50%.
In Germany we have the city of Gladbeck with a 35% muslim population.
Some London boroughts like Luton have a muslim population over 30%. So the whole city of Birmingham has.
American people probably can’t believe it, but western Europeans are now living in an upcoming
caliphate.
Westman says
We can believe it. What we don’t believe is that these pockets of Islam will be a shining example of tolerance, art, music, and productivity. When these cities appear as a suggested tourist stop for touring Jews, let us know.
What we expect, when these cities are majority Muslim, is civic dysfunction, heavy reliance on the dole, trash in the streets, angry demonstrations, and declining productivity.
gfmucci says
Sounds like cherry picking the stats, much like our feds do when giving unemployment reports. At the very least what the author writes is counter-intuitive.
mortimer says
The ground is shifting and trembling under the feet of the Islamic world as millions of Muslims begin to think for themselves.
Islam will be doomed, because Islam has no consistent doctrine. Everything in Islam is dualistic. These severe, inherent contradictions in Islam bring profound dissatisfaction and anxiety when people start to examine them. Obscurantism cannot bear close analysis.
Especially, the obscure and unhistorical origins of the syncretistic folk religion that eventually became Islam fail completely to satisfy normal curiosity. No Islam existed before the seventh decade after Mohammed. Even from 700AD until 750AD, there were inconsistencies in the doctrines that supposedly appeared fully formed before 632AD. The traditional stories about Islam’s origins are contradictory. The question ‘what really happened?’ leads Muslims to realize that Islam as it has been presented cannot possibly be true. The contradictions and anomalies within the Koran as well as the various stories point to multiple sources of Islam.
Westman says
You’ve nailed it, Mortimer.
The dualism of Islam makes it attractive to both the disciplined and the undisciplined. Want fidelity?, got that, want variety and more wives?, got that, want to steal from Infidels? got that, just don’t steal from Muslims. Want some slaves and the ultimate in hunting?, got that; just be sure you can frame the victim as an aggressor toward Islam, otherwise “..it shall be as if he had killed all mankind. ” – if you’re Jewish.
Gosh, it looks like there is one set of doctrines when dealing with Muslims and another set for dealing with “Infidels”. Just about everything is allowed if doing it to unbelieving “infidels”.
shams78 says
Some Armenian Oriental Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire were brainwashed around 150 years ago by Protestant missionaries, and founded a separate “Armenian Evangelical Church”.
Around 60 years ago, some Protestant missionaries in Iran brainwashed some Assyrian Oriental Orthodox Christians into becoming Protestant and they founded the “Assyrian Pentacostal Church”.
These Protestant Churches have been busy harassing and disturbing their Persian Muslim neighbors by distributing Protestant Gospels and literature and are apparently working hard at trying to disturb the peaceful relations between Persians and Orthodox Christians.
I know for a fact, that Assyrian and Armenian Orthodox Christans do not harass their neighbors and pass around religious literature.
The Assyrian and Armenian Orthodox Christians think these Protestants are traitors to their community and disturbing the peace. The tiny minority of Protestant Assyrians and Armenians does not represent the majority Oriental Orthodox Assyrians ans Armenians.
In Iraq the Assyrian Orthodox and Chaldeans must swiftly condemn the Protestant missionaries who are busy harassing Yazidis.
In Syria the Orthodox and Catholics aren’t too fond either of Protestants trying to convert their followers.
shams78 says
Protestants are even disturbing Ethiopian Orthodox Christians.
https ://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Y47C_SCkjIA
Assyrian Orthdox have good relations with Yazidis. The Yazidis used to shelter them from the Ottomans.
Armenian and Assyrian Orthodox have had religious freedom in Iran for centuries and Armenians were brought down to live in cities like Isfahan from the Caucasus by Iranian Shahs who did not force the to convert or give up their religion.
Zimriel says
The Protestant missionaries weren’t entirely a bad influence…
Assyrians and Armenians were made aware that the rest of the world had noticed them. Those who remained Orthodox re-converted a lot of their fellow men to Orthodoxy, and then they all rallied for their rights under the Ottomans and Safavids. They also spread news of what was going on to the worldwide media – which might have been Protestant (and Jewish) but also wasn’t going to take that thug Abdulhamid II’s side over Christian Armenians.
The rest of the West then, unfortunately, sat by whilst the genocides happened. But at least the Russians noticed and etched out an Armenian province, later a “soviet republic”. This saved the Armenian people from annihilation.
I don’t much like the implication that the duty of Christians is to sit down and shut up because it might stir trouble. The message that sends to Muslims is “we’re weak”. The same message is sent to Christians.
Zimriel says
*ahem* – LEST it might stir trouble.
Angemon says
Called it.
Heinz says
You don´t have to pay to get out of Iran!!!In Austria an Iranian Girl said how it is really,they came by plane.
Her parents lied and telling a story…!They still lie!They wash money,every day people came to her house….the family want to bring more family members to Austria…
But ofcourse what I heard the most Iranians are against the Mullahs,thats right.
We had a Persian doctor here,but he was a litlle to good in making money…you only must say “aua” and you get your bones in a cast…or something else.The whoel city knew it and make jokes of him..eveybody who don´t wanted to work goes to him…(I think you know in north europe you still get good money if you are ill,and ill is ill even if you had an telephon job it is not allowed for you to work if you hab an arm in a cast).
Zimriel says
Shi’ism, by which I mean the mystical Shi’isms of the Twelvers and Ismailis, has an in-built appreciation for martyrdom – in the person of the Imam al-Husayn. I’ve always thought it would be difficult to evangelise among Sunni Arabs; as a culture, Sunni Arabs appreciate winners and view the martyr as a loser. The Iranian peoples (including, for this purpose, Armenians) are different. They got beat by the Arabs and identify with the losers.
The first branch of Christianity to elevate al-Husayn as a Christian saint will win the Iranians over. Maybe a vision that al-Husayn converted in his last few weeks of life; such would be difficult to disprove. And such a literal deus-ex-machina might not even be necessary. Consider that Islam at the time wasn’t yet very different from Nestorian Christianity – this is before the Qur’an was codified.
David, Thailand says
Sorry people, take comfort with manipulated numbers if it helps you sleep easy at night, but it’s the “tiny minority” in the civilised world that will give our future generations more grief than the hundreds of stunted millions in the Islamic world.
citycat says
It says something that one has to have the protection of another group/religion to leave Islam, and God knows how many have freely joined Islam, or, come to think of it, any religion, maybe not by threat of death, nor by visions of eternal hell that is impossible, but by, at least commonly, ye olde peer pressure.
Why not if there’s no mental, physical or spiritual tyranny involved, and people need order and community, and something beyond this uncertain world of humanity, not that certainty is an aspect of eternity, and is there choice? and is there freedom in religion? Free to leave? Fine. Free to not be sexually mutilated? Fine
There does seem to be no compassion in Islam, no choice, no individuality, no freedom, it sounds terrible, 5 times a day, else be stoned to death, except perhaps for the top men/man. Who’s the top men/man?
Westman says
That’s Islam’s core cause of chaos: no central authority. No one speaks for Allah. The Quran and Sunnah are a contradictory, inconsistent, militant, hell-fire-threatening, mess assembled by 8th century “scholars”.
The West could completely ignore the ME and they would still(as always) be fighting among themselves. The “real” Caliphate will never be agreed upon.
citycat says
I see- right- Caliph- the chief Muslim civil and religious leader regarded as the successor of Muhammad.
origin Arabia- ‘deputy of God’
So there is no civil, only the Koran.
Their only evolvement being infidels.
Lioness says
I can’t see the evidence of the muslim religion shrinking. In Canada there were 30K muslims in the 1970’s and now there are 1.5 million. I know, that’s mostly due to immigration and high birth rates. But I constantly hear in the news about converts to Islam, and these are only the ones that perpetrate jihad, so there are many more who for the time being are “peaceful” (i.e. contemplate jihad later). So looks to me that the “shrinking religion” theory is a wishful thinking. Even if there is some truth to it, there are 1.6 billion muslims, so it will take a very-very long time for them to diminish.
medaber_emet says
i dont know on what he is basing the claim that islam is shrinking
the way i see it they are only gaining power and its easy to explain
the women of islam canot leave islam and cant merry an infidal
and young man of islam are taking Christians and Jews and other religious woman and make them Muslims
therefore islam can only grow
the only thing that reduce the number of muslims is the war a war in Syria between isis and hizballa
and the rebels and the army of Asad
Peter Buckley says
Atheism grows in Saudi:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/12/atheism_explodes_in_saudi_arabia_where_just_talking_about_atheism_is_illegal_partner/
Agnosticism growing even faster in Iraq:
http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/death-iraqis-exists.html
From this interesting article:
“The problem with the rhetoric about moderate Muslims standing up to the extremists is that there is no example in history of moderates ever succeeding against people who mean it. This isn’t to say that non-totalitarian Muslims are only passively accepting of the radicals’ crimes. No, while millions of Muslims support violent theocracy, millions of Muslims are also disgusted and furious at the crimes of their co-religionists. What they are doing is one of the most underreported stories of our time. These millions and tens of millions of Muslims are not “reforming” their faith, but leaving it.”
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/6211/full
Apostasy in muslim countries is the great (as yet) untold story.