While poor Bilal Hassam is beset by “Islamophobia,” here are some recent news items from the real world:
Benedict Kiely Real Clear Politics reported last Tuesday that Christians in Iraq face a new threat from “Popular Mobilization Units,” who in the town of Karamles, near Mosul, recently blocked a road that led to a church, preventing the congregation from going to the church, and “also strafed the church with gunfire.” Kiely added that the local priest “told me that this was the second time his church had been attacked in the last nine months. One of the militiamen held a handgun to the priest’s face when he went out to demand that they clear the street and stop shooting.” Said the Iraqi priest of the Shi’ite jihadis: “They are the new ISIS. We are really vulnerable.”
According to Fox News, “In Iraq, the Christian population has decreased from 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 200,000 today. Much of this was the result of ISIS’ merciless reign of terror, which was buoyed by Western inaction in 2014.”
The Christian website World Watch Monitor reported in early December that “over 100 Christians have been arrested in Iran in the past week and nearly 150 in the past month, as part of the government’s attempt to ‘warn’ Christians against proselytizing over Christmas.” These arrests could have fatal consequences: Lela Gilbert, a journalist who tracks the persecution of Christians, noted in the Jerusalem Post on the Saturday before Christmas that “in 2017, there were at least 517 executions in Iran.”
In Nigeria, meanwhile, according to Christian Today, “Nigeria’s president gave only a weak nod to the Christian communities being devastated by brutal attacks in his Christmas message to the nation. Despite thousands being killed by Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen in recent years, President Muhammadu Buhari played down the violence as he called on Nigerians to rebuild community relationships….The Christmas message is unlikely to appease Nigeria’s Christian leaders who accuse the authorities of turning a blind eye to the violent attacks being carried out on their communities.”
Likewise in Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote on Twitter: “Wishing all our Christian citizens a happy and peaceful Christmas.” Khan said nothing about Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who was on death row for eight years for “blasphemy” against Muhammad, only to be acquitted by the Pakistani Supreme Court and yet still not freed, for if she were, she would certainly be killed by Muslims who have been baying for her blood and hunting for her house-to-house.
Nor did Khan say anything about the many, many other Christians whose lives have been destroyed by Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, including Qaisar and Amoon Ayub, who were sentenced to death for blasphemy in mid-December.
Then there’s Egypt, where the joy of the anticipation of Christmas was somewhat soured on December 10, when Muslim mobs screaming Allahu akbar “waged attacks against the houses of the Copts in the village of Kom al-Raheb, pelting them with stones and thumping at doors and windows.” What was the Christians’ crime? The Muslims “were livid that the Copts had a day earlier, Sunday 9 December, opened a new church building and celebrated Holy Mass inside.” Authorities sided with the attackers: “The police arrived and demanded immediate closure of the unlicensed church.”
Why was the church unlicensed? In Egypt, as in many other majority-Muslim countries, it is nigh impossible for Christians to get the necessary permits to build new churches. The ultimate reason for this is that Islamic law forbids Christians under the hegemony of Islam to build new houses of worship: “The subject peoples…are forbidden to build new churches.” (Reliance of the Traveller, o11.5). In Muslim countries where Islamic law is not in full force today but remains a cultural hangover, such as Egypt, this often takes the form of endless bureaucratic red tape that it is impossible to cut through. So all too often the Christians build the church anyway, only to have it menaced, or demolished outright, by a slavering Muslim mob.
And as for all that respect that the Qur’an and Islam supposedly have for Jesus and Christians, Hassam doesn’t mention all this:
What a smooth and devious deceiver Mustafa Akyol is. Here are some of the “ecumenical themes already in the Qur’an”:
Jesus is not the Son of God and belief in the Trinity is “excess”: “O People of the Book! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter anything concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and his word which he conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and do not say ‘Three.’ Cease! It is better for you! Allah is only One Allah. It is far removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.” — Qur’an 4:171
And: “It is not befitting to Allah that he should beget a son. Glory be to him! When He determines a matter, he only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” — Qur’an 19:35
Jesus was not crucified: “And because of their saying: We killed the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger – they did not kill him or crucify him, but it appeared so to them; and those who disagree concerning it are in doubt about it; they have no knowledge of it except pursuit of a conjecture; they did not kill him for certain.” — Qur’an 4:157
Those who believe in the divinity of Christ are unbelievers: “They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary.” — Qur’an 5:17 (cf. 5:72)
Christians have forgotten part of the divine revelations they received: “From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done.” — Qur’an 5:14
Those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son are accursed: “The Jews call Ezra a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! ” — Qur’an 9:30
Christians who do not accepted Muhammad and the Qur’an are the most vile of created beings: “Nor did those who were given the Scripture become divided until after there had come to them clear evidence. And they were not commanded except to worship Allah, sincere to Him in religion, inclining to truth, and to establish prayer and to give zakah. And that is the correct religion. Indeed, they who disbelieved among the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the most vile of created beings.” — Qur’an 98:6
Muslims must fight against and subjugate Christians: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden what has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” — Qur’an 9:29
Also, a hadith has Muhammad predicting that Jesus will return at the end of the world and break the cross, as it is an insult to Allah’s power to say that he would have allowed one of his prophets to be crucified: “Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, ‘By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, son of Mary [Jesus] will shortly descend amongst you people [Muslims] as a just ruler and will break the Cross and kill the pig and abolish the Jizya [a tax taken from the non-Muslims, who are in the protection, of the Muslim government]. Then there will be abundance of money and nobody will accept charitable gifts.’” — Bukhari 3.34.425
“Muslims love Jesus. So why does everyone think we hate Christmas?,” by Bilal Hassam, Independent, December 24, 2018:
It’s Christmas time and so it hasn’t taken long for a national newspaper to run a feature implying British Muslims are poorly integrated for “refusing to celebrate a Christian holiday”. The irony of this pernicious Islamophobia, feebly hiding behind the banner of defending the Judeo-Christian values of our country, is that it is bereft of any meaningful understanding of Islam.
You see, the thing is, Muslims love Jesus.
In fact, the Prophet Muhammad said: “The dearest person to me in friendship and in love, in this world and the next is Jesus, the son of Mary.”
It may come as a surprise to many to learn that Jesus is mentioned in the Quran over 100 times, while the Prophet Muhammad, by contrast, is mentioned just five times. Described as the best woman ever to have set foot on earth, there is a whole chapter in the Quran named “Mary” and she is the only woman mentioned by name in the holy book.
It’s not just that Muslims love Jesus – we believe him to be one of the greatest messengers of god. We believe in his miraculous birth. We believe that god gifted him with the ability to bring the dead back to life, heal the leper and bring sight back to the blind and, like Christians, we believe in his second coming back to this world.
Just as Muslims have a deep love and respect for Jesus, so too are we taught to love and respect our Christian friends who have a different view of who Jesus was. Unfortunately, thanks to a handful of extremist nutters, coupled with an all too often Islamophobic media industry, people tend to have this erroneous notion that all Muslims want to do is convert everyone, and violently at that. Well, the Quran emphatically states that “there is no compulsion in religion”, meaning you can’t force anyone to become Muslim….