Islam, Global Muslim Jew-Hatred, And Failed Jewish “Leadership”
Sheer cowardice in the face of canonical Islamic anti-Semitism.
March 3, 2020
Andrew
G. Bostom
[Editor's
note: Below is the text of Dr. Andrew Bostom’s 10-minute talk in Nashville TN,
on Thursday Feb 27, 2020, during a 'Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, Panel
on Antisemitism', at The National Religious Broadcasters Convention.]
Islamic Law, Sharia, per Koran 9:29—the 9th sura or chapter, the 29th verse—mandates waging jihad war to
submit Jews and Christians to a humiliating status of religious discrimination,
and legal inequality, if they do not accept the true faith, i.e., Islam.
Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day,
nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad)
and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (Islam) among the people of
the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing
submission, and feel themselves subdued.
But Islam also singles
the Jews out, uniquely, for opprobrium, as is evident in the 7th verse of the
Koran’s first chapter, called the “fatiha,” or “opening,” which pious Muslims
repeat 17- times daily. This verse refers to those who have “incurred Allah’s
anger”, and both a tradition of Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, and over 13
centuries of authoritative Koranic commentaries, till now, maintain this
reference is to the Jews. Why have they engendered Allah’s anger? Here is a
1940 summary “rationale” by the great scholar of Islam’s anti-Jewish polemic Moshe Perlmann,
from a chapter entitled, “Jews in the Koran and Traditions” (which mirrors a
1966 work by Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, modern Sunni Islam’s
greatest Koranic commentator, and Papal equivalent Grand Imam of Al-Azhar
University, Sunni Islam’s Vatican, from 1996 to 2010, also entitled, “Jews in
the Koran and Traditions”):
[Koran]
…[T]he Jews transgressed Allah’s commandments and flouted the prophets, and
even slew them (3:181).Therefore many punishments fell upon them (2:61); e.g.,
some of them were turned into apes for desecrating the sabbath (2:65; 7:166;
5:60 claims “apes & pigs”)… The believers [Muslims] will find that they
[the Jews] are their fiercest enemies (5:82)…Therefore, after they had rejected
many friendly overtures (2:59; 5:81), it was decided that they must be fought
against, made tributaries, and compelled to pay the poll-tax, as a mark of
their humiliation (9:29)…
[Traditions]
…[T]hey did not shrink from plotting, practicing sorcery and poisoning
(including Muhammad himself), until they were finally crushed and driven out of
Arabia. The Jews extended their hatred of the Prophet to all Muslims …They
became, in a way, the incarnation of evil. No wonder that, when the world comes
to an end, and when Dajjal (Muslim Antichrist figure) threatens to destroy
those of the true faith, the Jews will be betrayed in their hiding-places even
by the crying of the rock: "Here is a Jew behind me. Kill him."”
The discrimination shared
by Jews and Christians under deliberately abasing Sharia mandates is what
historian Bat Ye’or called “dhimmitude”—which derives from Koran 9:29’s
“dhimma” pact of submission which spared the lives of Jews and Christians who
did not convert to Islam. She stated,
For me, as a Jew, this insight into Christian dhimmitude
represented an intellectual experience that was not easy to undertake. This was
not the domineering face of European Christendom, persecuting and triumphant,
but the discovery of its persecuted, humiliated, and suffering other side. In
short, Eastern Christianity’s history of dhimmitude under Islam is a sort of
‘Jewish experience’—endured this time by Christians.
What was that “Jewish
experience,” past as prologue, shaped by both the broader Islamic institution
of dhimmitude, and Islam’s own unique canonical Islamic Jew-hatred, derived
from the Koran itself, the traditions of Islam’s prophet Muhammad (the
“hadith”), and the earliest pious Muslim biographies of Muhammad (or “sira”)?
Mythically “tolerant”
Muslim Spain, “Andalusia”, before the Reconquista—in fact a land of continuous
jihad, with strict application of the Sharia for both Christians and Jews—
illustrates clearly the simultaneous Jewish experience of dhimmitude, and
theological Islamic Jew-hatred.
Moshe Perlmann described
how inflammatory rhetoric rooted in canonical Islam—including “profuse”
usage of the Koranic epithet “ape” for Jews—declared, according to the sira, by
Muhammad himself before he slaughtered the surrendered males of the Medinan
Jewish tribe Banu Qurayza—and the notion Jews had breached the Koranic dhimma
pact of submission, through their “cunning”—precipitated the mass slaughter and
destruction of the Jewish community in Granada, during a 1066
pogrom by rampaging Muslims. It is estimated that four
thousand Jews perished, annihilating the entire community, and making it
the largest anti-Jewish pogrom, till then, in European history. Eight decades
later, the Jewish sage Maimonides barely survived the Berber Muslim Almohad
jihad ravages of Spain and North Africa which slaughtered tens of thousands,
forcibly converted the Jewish survivors to Islam, and subjected these forced
Jewish converts to a Muslim Inquisition which lasted through the close of the 12th century. Maimonides in his 1172
“Epistle to the Jews of Yemen”—who wrote to the sage as they were suffering
from a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms and forced conversions to Islam—urged them
to remain steadfast, while lamenting,
The nation of Ishmael…persecute us severely and devise ways to
harm us and to debase us…None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us.
Today, the grotesque myth
of Islamic tolerance of Jews, in particular, persists, even as we are in the
midst of a global pandemic of Muslim Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish violence.
This violent hatred is driven by the same unreformed and unrepentant canonical
Islamic themes Perlmann described in the 1940s—which date to the advent of
Islam—as promulgated, now, by Islam’s most authoritative religious teaching
institutions, Sunni and Shiite alike.
Analyses from the ADL published between
2014 to Nov. 21, 2019, which determined the prevalence (occurrence) of “extreme
antisemitism”—i.e., agreement with at least 6/11 antisemitic stereotypes, have
demonstrated:
·
The 16 most Antisemitic countries in the world are all in the
Muslim Middle East, where extreme Antisemitism has a 74 to 93% prevalence.
·
Extreme Antisemitism is 50-55% prevalent among Western European Muslims,
i.e., ~3-fold the rate of Western European Christians, or non-Muslims overall.
·
Extreme Antisemitism in the U.S., a much more philosemitic
country, has a 34% prevalence among Muslims, 2.4-fold the 14% rate in
non-Muslims
This excess of Muslim Jew-hatred is accompanied not only by endless jihad violence against Israeli Jews (450-500 thwarted attacks per year in 2018, and 2019; additionally, thousands of rocket barrages), but 3- to 10-fold increased rates of anti-Jewish violence, or violent threats, against Western European Jews, by Muslims, relative to violence from the Left, or Right, and 23 Muslim jihadist attacks against American Jews since 9/11, 16 of which were thwarted, thankfully, but 7 that were completed, resulting in 8 deaths and 8 serious injuries—the most recent being Muslim convert Grafton Thomas’s attack on a Monsey, New York synagogue, December 28, 2019, during a Chanukah candle lighting ceremony.
Current Al-Azhar
University Grand Imam, and Sunni Muslim Papal equivalent, Ahmad al-Tayeb,
during an October, 2013 interview, re-affirmed, authoritatively, the canonical
Islamic animus which fuels this global orgy of Muslim Jew-hatred, and violence.
Riveting on Koran 5:82, al-Tayeb stated brazenly:
A verse in the Koran explains the Muslims’ relations with the
Jews…See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism…Since the
inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and
Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. The Koran (5:82) said it and history
has proven it: ‘You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the
believers to be the Jews…’
850 years ago Maimonides stated with
the understandable resignation of a subjugated Jewish dhimmi in Islamdom:
We have done as our sages of blessed memory instructed us, bearing
the lies and absurdities of Ishmael. We listen, but remain silent…In spite of
all this, we are not spared from the ferocity of their wickedness, and their
outbursts at any time. On the contrary, the more we suffer and choose to
conciliate them, the more they choose to act belligerently toward us.
It is unconscionable that
today, due to sheer cowardice, Jewish and Christian leadership refuses to
condemn the canonical Islamic Jew-hatred proclaimed by Grand Imam al-Tayeb, and
thousands of lesser Muslim clerics, worldwide.
Understanding the World's Greatest Source of Jew-Hatred
A sober examination of Islam's historical treatment of Jews.
January 30, 2020
Allon Friedman
[To order Andrew Bostom's new paperback edition of The
Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, CLICK HERE.]
During a public U.S. Congressional hearing held in April 2019,
data was presented from a worldwide survey performed between 2014 and 2017
by the Anti-Defamation League that found the 16 nations with the highest
prevalence of extreme antisemitism to all be Muslim countries in the Middle
East. In response to the presentation of these data, the ADL's Senior
Vice President for Policy Eileen Hershenov had this to say:
"vulnerable, marginalized communities have bigotry within them."
If explaining away Muslim Jew-hatred as somehow a result of
vulnerability and marginalization in societies that are overwhelmingly Muslim
strikes one as troubling, well it should; especially if the person doing the
explaining represents an organization that claims "its timeless mission is
to protect the Jewish people." Any person with a healthy sense of
self-preservation might ponder other questions that arise from this case. Like,
for instance: Why is extreme antisemitism so ubiquitous in the Arab Muslim
world? Or: Why is a prominent Jewish advocacy organization so intent on
apologizing for Islamic Jew hatred?
Unfortunately, anyone searching for answers to these timely
questions is not going to find them anywhere in the public arena. In fact, a
conspiracy of sorts has prevailed on college campuses, in Hollywood, in the
establishment media, in think tanks, and in other cultural institutions, both
Left and Right, where honest and open discussion of Islamic anti-Semitism is
taboo because of the fear of social ostracism and professional suicide.
Shamefully, many Jews too often aid and abet this ugly and
dangerous conspiracy.
Enter Andrew Bostom, M.D., an Associate Professor of Family
Medicine at Brown University, who has just released a second (paperback)
edition of his magnum opus The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From
Sacred Texts to Solemn History. It is a desperately needed corrective to
the amnesia, ignorance, and self-destructive denial of reality that currently
plagues much of Western Civilization and its Jewish community when it comes to
Islam's historical treatment of Jews.
Full disclosure: I worked with Andrew as a research collaborator
and have remained friends since. Bostom drew on his professional
skills as a physician, medical researcher and epidemiologist to carefully
construct an understanding of the underpinnings of Jew-hatred within Islamic
theology and civilization. The empirical evidence Bostom provides is
so comprehensive and powerful that it hits the reader like a tsunami.
Bostom is very careful to let Islam’s core texts and its most renowned and influential theologians, scholars, jurists, and leaders--from Islam’s inception to the 21st century--speak for themselves on this matter, which makes the overall argument even more persuasive. Perhaps inspired by his medical training, the author also offers the reader dozens of "case studies" culled from primary sources as well as third-party observers over disparate eras and lands (some translated for the first time) that encapsulate how Jews, identified in the Koran as the worst enemies of the Muslims, have suffered immeasurably as dhimmis, or subjugated people, under Islamic rule up to the present time.
Bostom is very careful to let Islam’s core texts and its most renowned and influential theologians, scholars, jurists, and leaders--from Islam’s inception to the 21st century--speak for themselves on this matter, which makes the overall argument even more persuasive. Perhaps inspired by his medical training, the author also offers the reader dozens of "case studies" culled from primary sources as well as third-party observers over disparate eras and lands (some translated for the first time) that encapsulate how Jews, identified in the Koran as the worst enemies of the Muslims, have suffered immeasurably as dhimmis, or subjugated people, under Islamic rule up to the present time.
The new edition also features an updated preface
that elegantly demonstrates how ancient antisemitic doctrines within
Islam have reverberated through the centuries to explain contemporary Muslim
antagonism and violence directed towards Jews. If there is any downside to this
book, it is that becoming so thoroughly informed about the predations suffered
by Jews throughout the ages can weigh heavily on the soul.
The author does, however, provide the blueprint for a constructive
way forward by highlighting the immediate post-World War II efforts of Jules
Isaac, a French historian and Holocaust survivor. Isaac, working with willing
Christian colleagues and directly appealing to two popes, helped catalyze a
movement that culminated in the Second Vatican Council and
the Nostra Aetate (1965) declaration, which was an unprecedented
and brutally honest document detailing the failings of the Church when it came
to the treatment of Jews. This movement ultimately reformed Christian teaching
about the Jews and greatly advanced Christian-Jewish relations.
Who should buy this book? Anyone who wants to understand the world
as it is today in an unvarnished presentation, free of the distortions of
political correctness; anyone who wants to understand the fundamental
underpinnings of the genocidal war against Israel; anyone who wants to
understand why Jews in Europe today are under siege. And anyone who wants
to save American Jewry as it stands at a precipice while Islamic Jew-hatred in
the world escalates frighteningly unchecked.
Allon Friedman, M.D., is a practicing physician and vice
president of the Jewish American Affairs Committee of
Indiana. JAACI is a leading advocate for Jews and Israel in Indiana
was instrumental in passing Indiana’s anti-BDS law, the second in the
nation. Dr. Friedman’s essays and editorials have been published locally as
well as in various media outlets across North America and Israel.
Report: Boko Haram
Jihadists Behead Catholic
Bride and Bridal Party
4 Jan 2020153
3:19
The communications director of the
Catholic diocese of Maiduguri in Nigeria has confirmed that a bride-to-be and
her bridal party were beheaded December 26 while en route to the December 31
wedding.
“They were
beheaded by suspected Boko Haram insurgents at Gwoza on their way to her
country home,” Father Francis Arinse told Catholic News Service
(CNS), regarding the alleged murders of Martha Bulus and her bridal party.
CNS reported
further the alleged murders of Bulus and her bridal party occurred on the same
day that 11 Christian aid workers had been murdered:
Several
international media outlets reported Dec. 26 that the Islamic State group
released a video showing it had beheaded 10 Christians and shot an 11th Dec.
26. The news agencies said they were unable to confirm the contents of the
video but described the victims as men. IS said the beheadings were payback for
the late-October killing of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghadi.
According to
the Christian Post,
the Islamic State in West Africa Province, a Boko Haram “breakaway group”
associated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the
beheadings of the Christians shown in the video.
“This message
is to the Christians in the world,” said a man’s voice in Arabic and the native
Nigerian language over the video footage, SITE
Intelligence Group told the New York Times.
The voice
continued:
Those who you
see in front of us are Christians, and we will shed their blood as revenge for
the two dignified sheikhs, the caliph of the Muslims, and the spokesman for the
Islamic State, Sheikh Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, may Allah accept them.
The video,
which reportedly showed one Christian aid worker being shot and ten others
beheaded, was published by the Islamic States’ propaganda media outlet, Amaq
News Agency.
Arinse said
Bulus had been his parishioner at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Maiduguri
when he first became a priest.
According to
Arinse’s report, the area has seen a number of abductions recently and government
security has not been sufficient.
CNS noted
that Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff in Nigeria, has said he is
ordering greater security in the area and has urged his troops to “stand firm
against all the criminals.”
In December,
the U.S. State Department said it had added Nigeria,
along with Cuba and Nicaragua, to the Special Watch List of governments “that
have engaged in or tolerated ‘severe violations of religious freedom.’”
According to
the Post, U.S.
Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said:
We are
designating [Nigeria] special watch list for the first time because of all of
the increasing violence and communal activity and the lack of effective
government response and the lack of judicial cases being brought forward in
that country.
It is a
dangerous situation in too many parts of Nigeria. The government has either not
been willing to or have been ineffective in their response and the violence
continues to grow.
The Post noted that Nigeria “ranks
as the 12th-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution,
according to Open Doors USA’s 2019 World Watch List.”
“They Asked Him to Deny
Christ”
Muslim persecution of
Christians during August, 2019, alone.
November 1, 2019
Raymond Ibrahim
This report
was first published by Gatestone Institute. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center.
The following are some of the
abuses that Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of August,
2019, thematically categorized:
Hate for and Violence against Christians
Cameroon: Militant Muslims reportedly connected with the Nigerian based
Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, “reached new heights” of
depravity, according to a report: after devastating the Christian village of
Kalagari in a raid, they kidnapped and fled with eight women. Some of the
women were later released—but only after having their ears cut off (image here). The report adds that Boko Haram
“has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has
now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”
Nigeria: On August 29, Chuck Holton, a CBN News reporter, aired a segment on his visit with
Christian refugees who had fled Boko Haram’s incursions into their
villages. Among the stories of death and devastation, the
following, spoken by a young man, stood
out:
“On 29 September 2014 was the
day that they attacked my village. Around ten I had a call that they have
killed my dad. They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off
his right hand. Then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow. In which he
refused, before they shot him in the forehead, the neck, and chest.” “Many of
the 1,500 Christians living in this camp have similar stories,” adds Holton.
Indonesia: A Muslim preacher in a Christian majority region referred to the
Christian cross as “an element of the devil,” prompting
outrage among Christians and some moderates. Sheikh Abdul Somad
made the comment during a videotaped sermon when he was asked why Muslims “felt
a chill whenever they saw a crucifix.” “Because of Satan! Was
his response: “There’s an evil jinn in
every crucifix that wants to convert people into Christianity.”
Christians and moderates condemned his words. Even so, “I can’t imagine
the reaction if it had been another preacher of a different religion insulting
an Islamic symbol,” observed one moderate. “There would have been a tsunami of
protests, with the perpetrator severely punished.” Sheikh Somad responded by releasing another
video; his excuse was that he was unaware that non-Muslims might hear his
words: “The Quran reciting session was held in a closed mosque, not at a
stadium, a football field, nor aired on television,” he explained. “It was for Muslims
internally. I was answering a question about statues and the position of the
Prophet Isa (Jesus) relative to Muslims.”
Burkina Faso: Although most mainstream media downplay the religious element in
Muslim on Christian violence in Africa, attacks on the Christians of Burkina
Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that the Washington Post published
a report on August 21 titled, “Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso.” Its author, Danielle Paquette, explained that “A spreading
Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known
for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed
of extremism.” She noted that the jihadis have been checking people’s
necks for Christian symbols, killing anyone wearing a crucifix or carrying any
other Christian image. In a separate report discussing several deadly
attacks on Christians and their churches, Bishop Dabiré said, “If this continues without
anyone intervening, the result will be the elimination of the Christian
presence in this area and — perhaps in the future —in the entire country.
Egypt: Authorities reinstated Sheikh Yasser
Burhami, a notoriously “radical” cleric and hate preacher, to the pulpit (minbar) despite strong
opposition. Burhami had previously issued numerous fatwas—edicts based on
Islamic scriptures—that demand hate and hostility for non-Muslims, most
specifically the nation’s largest and most visible minority, the Christian
Copts, whom Burhami has referred to as “a criminal and infidel minority,” and has invoked “Allah’s curse” on
them. He once went so far as to say that, although a Muslim man is
permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women (ahl al-kitab), he must make sure he
still hates them in his heart—and show them this
hate—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his
Islam. Burhami has also stated that churches—which he
refers to as “places of polytheism (shirk)
and houses of infidelity (kufr)”—must
never be built in Egypt. He issued a separate fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi
and bus drivers from transporting Christian clergymen to their churches, an act
he depicted as being “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor
bar.” Burhami’s fatwas also include calling for the persecution of apostates, permitting
Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rape,
permitting “marriage” to 12-year-old
girls, and banning Mother’s Day.
In a video, Dr. Naguib Ghobrial, a
Coptic activist, politician, and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights
Organization—which over the years has lodged 22 separate complaints against
Burhami—repeatedly questioned Egypt’s leading religious authorities’ decision
to reinstate the hate preaching sheikh:
“Is what Burhami teaches truly
what Islam teaches—is that why no one has done anything to him [in regards to
the 22 complaints lodged against him]? Truly I’m shocked! Please
answer Sheikh of Al Azhar; please answer Grand Mufti: are the things Burhami
teaches what Islam teaches? Is this why none of you oppose him or joined
us when we lodged complaints against him?… Why are you so silent? Amazing!”
The Slaughter of Christians
Pakistan: “A ten year old Christian child who chose to work in a dangerous
scrap factory so he could support his mother who had to fend for a family of
two boys and a drug-addict husband, was raped and tortured before being killed
by his Muslim employers,” according to a report (with photos).
Badil, 10, worked at the men’s factory in order to support his impoverished
mother, Sharifa Bibi:
“I worked hard for many hours
just for the sake of my two sons so that they would not have to suffer as I
have suffered without education. My son Badil couldn’t bear to see the
struggle of his mother and insisted on working to help the family—despite my insistence
that he avoid work till he was older. Badil was such a responsible
son. Daily before leaving for work he asked me what should bring in the
evening from his wages. I insisted that he kept his money for himself,
but he brought groceries like sugar, rice, flour, ghee daily.”
Badil had to walk long
distances and work for many hours a day to earn the equivalent of one dollar a
day. Soon his employer began to cheat him on his wages. His mother
insisted that he quit, but the boy persevered; at one point he took his younger
brother, 9, with him to help. When the employers refused to pay his
brother anything for his contribution, Badil finally decided to quit—which
angered his Muslim employer. His younger brother recalls:
“As Mr Akram heard this he ran
to hit Badil but Badil ran from the shop and Akram gave chase. However, A
friend of Akram was standing nearby on his motorcycle and told Akram to sit
behind him, then both men chased Badil till they caught up with him. Akram then
got off the motorcycle and dragged Badil back to the store. They took
Badil inside the store which is full of scrap. For half an hour I was
completely unaware of what was happening with Badil inside. Eventually
both men came outside and pretended as if nothing had happened inside. I
thought my brother had also left the store from another exit so I went to look
for him. I searched vigorously for 15 minutes and then saw my mother
[approaching to walk the boys home], so I rushed to her to tell her what had
happened.”
Sharifa and her younger son
searched frantically for Badil and finally found him collapsed on the ground
near their home. They rushed to him, thinking he was exhausted from the
day’s work and subsequent thrashing, but quickly realized that he was barely
breathing: “At this point the whole situation was too much to bear for Sharifa
who began to scream and wail hysterically,” the report notes. Badil was
taken to a hospital where, seven hours later, the boy was pronounced dead. His
brother “has been traumatised following his brother’s death and hasn’t left his
house since and often screams in terror thinking the men responsible will take
him too.”
Cameroon: A Bible translator “was butchered to death on Sunday morning [August
25] during an overnight attack while his wife’s arm was cut off,” according to
a report: “Bible translator Angus
Abraham Fung was among seven people said to have been killed during an attack
carried out by suspected Fulani herdsmen sometime during the early hours of
Sunday morning in the town of Wum, according to Efi Tembon, who leads a
ministry called Oasis Network for Community Transformation.” Fulani
herdsmen are Muslim and the chief persecutors of Christian farmers in
Nigeria. “They went into houses and pulled out the people,” Tembon explained: “They attacked in the
night and nobody was expecting. They just went into the home, pulled them out
and slaughtered them.” Fung’s wife, Eveline Fung, who had her arm hacked
off was last reported as receiving a blood transfusion at a local hospital.
Attacks against Apostates and Evangelists
Iran: Authorities sentenced a 65-year-old woman,
a Muslim convert to Christianity, to one year in prison, on the charge that she
was “acting against national security” and engaging in “propaganda against the
system.” According to the report, “The hearing was owing to her
arrest shortly before Christmas when three agents from Iranian intelligence
raided her home and took Mahrokh to intelligence offices where she endured ten
days of intensive interrogation before she was released after submitting bail
of 30 million Toman (US$2,500).” Friends of the woman said that “the judge was very
rude and tried to humiliate Mahrokh after she disagreed with him.”
Separately, a Kurdish
bookseller in Bokan, Western Azarbaijan province, was arrested for selling
Bibles. According to the August 27 report, “Mostafa Rahimi was arrested
on 11 June on charge of selling bible[s] in his bookstore, and he was released
later on bail until the court issued his sentence. Hengaw Organization for
Human Rights has learned that Rahimi is sentenced to 3 months and 1 day
imprisonment. Later in mid-August he was arrested again, and he is
currently at the central prison of Bokan.” Another report elaborates: “Iran’s government is
officially Islamic, and authorities actively restrict access to Bibles and
other Christian literature. Sharing one’s faith is categorized as a criminal
offense, usually of the national security nature. The authorities often pressure
Christians so extensively, routinely violating their human rights, that they
are given no choice but to escape their country.”
Somaliland: An August 16 report shares the experiences a
married Muslim woman, 32, underwent after her husband discovered a Bible in her
possession.
“I told my husband that I found
the Bible in Nairobi and wanted to read it,” the woman responded. “He just
pronounced the word talaq [Arabic for divorce] to me. I knew that our marriage
had just been rendered null and void because I joined Christianity, so without
wasting time I left the homestead…. There and then he took our two
daughters [ages 4 and 7] away from me and divorced me. He gave me a stern
warning that I should not come close to the children, and that if I do, he will
take the Bible to the Islamic court and I will be killed by stoning for
becoming an apostate.”
Her former husband proceeded to
expose the clandestine Christian to her Muslim family. “My brothers beat me
mercilessly with sticks as well as denying me food,” she said. “I feared to report the case
to the police or the local administration, because they will charge me with a
criminal offense of apostasy in accordance with the sharia.” She has
since relocated to an undisclosed location: “God has spared my life, and my
fellow underground Christians in other regions of Somalia have received me and
shared the little they have, but I am very traumatized.” According to
the report,
“Somalia’s constitution
establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any
other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that
laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in
application for non-Muslims. Somalia is ranked 3rd on Christian support
group Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most
difficult to be a Christian.”
Pakistan: After opening a summer education program for the youth, a
Christian family was “terrorized” and forced to shut down
on the accusation that they were clandestinely trying to convert Muslim
children to Christianity. According to a family member:
“We started a project for interfaith harmony and education teaching
marginalized children from different faiths about a year ago. In June, we
started a summer camp that provided a free program for children that have
dropped out of school. The design of this program was to provide guidance for
these children to become civilized and tolerant.” Two weeks into the
summer program, a group of men, two of whom were armed, stormed into the
academy, did violence to the property and harassed the children, and beat one
of the instructors: “They threatened us with consequences if the academy was
not shut down. They alleged that we were promoting Christianity and were
doing Christian evangelism. For safety and security, we had no other
choice but to obey the extremists and shutdown the academy…. I don’t want
to lose my son or any family member. This terrorizing incident has already put
us into trauma.”
In a separate incident in
Pakistan, around 4 a.m. of August 2, seven Muslim men stormed into a parish house, where they tied up and savagely beat
two young priests, Fr. Anthony Abraz and Fr. Shahid Boota, all while
they “humiliated and abused them for preaching the Gospel in a
Muslim-majority neighborhood.” The invaders also vandalized the building—including
by breaking windows, bookshelves, and cupboards—and desecrated Christian
objects, including Bibles, Christian literature, and icons. Afterwards, “We
were told we will have to face consequences if this house is not vacated,” Fr.
Abraz reported. “They said, ‘We don’t
want a Christian center near the mosque.’”
Finally, increasing numbers of
Christian girls continue to be targeted for kidnapping, rape, and/or forced
conversion in Pakistan. According to one report,
“In August, Yasmeen Ashraf, age
15, and Muqadas Tufail, age 14, were kidnapped and raped by three men in Kasur.
The pair of Christian girls were taken when they were on their way to work as
domestic workers. Also in August, another young Christian girl, named
Kanwal, was kidnapped, raped, and forcefully converted to Islam by a group of
Muslim men and a cleric in Lala Musa, located in the Gujart District. After
reuniting her family, Kanwal shared that she had been beaten, sexually
assaulted, and threatened with the deaths of her brothers if she refused to
convert to Islam.”
In the previous month of July,
at least three similar cases occurred.
“Oppression exists in different layers for Christian girls in Pakistan. They
are suffering on the bases of gender, religion, and class. It has been
documented that young Christian girls face higher levels of sexual harassment
and are persecuted for their Christian faith,” Nabila Feroz Bhatti, a human
rights defender in Lahore, said in response to the
aforementioned incidents. Similarly, the Pontifical charity, Aid to the
Church in Need, announced in August that it
“is sounding the alarm on the plight of young Christian women, and even
teenagers, in Pakistan who are forced to convert to Islam.” “Every year
at least a thousand girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam,
even forced to marry their tormentors,” elaborated Tabassum Yousaf, a
local Catholic lawyer.
Meanwhile, those who try to
protect Christian girls are punished. On August 16, Maskeen Khan and two
other Muslim men attacked the home of Bahadur
Masih, a Christian. While holding a knife, Khan and his partners tried to
rape Masih’s daughter, Rachel, but were prevented by the rudely awoken family
that immediately and desperately responded. “Since the Christian family
was defending themselves, Khan also got some injuries,” Ahsan Masih Sindhu, a
local Christian political leader, reported. “The family handed Khan
over to police and he got medical treatment. However, he later died in police
custody.” Police arrested and charged four members of the family with
murder, even though they were in their own home protecting their daughter from
violent intruders. Other members of the family have gone into hiding due
to threats from the dead would-be rapist’s relatives. “We are sad about
the death of Khan, however, the Christian family did have the right to defend,”
Sindhu explained. “The police must conduct
a fair investigation into this incident.” Instead, police are denying the
family the “right to defend” itself.
Attacks on Churches
Algeria: On August 6, police barged into a church during
worship service, evacuated reluctant worshippers, and sealed the church
building off. “I am deeply saddened by so much injustice – it breaks my
heart,” Messaoud Takilt, the pastor said. “This is not surprising
since other Christian places of worship have been closed and sealed as was the
case today. But anyway, we will continue to celebrate our services outside
while the Lord gives us grace for a final solution.” When police denied,
with a veiled threat, his request to at least let the worship service conclude,
“The assembly finally yielded and agreed to leave the premises, but with much
pain. Some went out with eyes full of tears. ” Police proceeded to
empty the premises of all furniture and sealed off every door before the
distressed pastor (picture here). Responding to this
latest church closure the World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement on August 12 calling
on Algeria to cease closing and instead reopen churches. A portion follows:
“We deeply regret that two
additional churches were forcibly closed by administrative decisions, in May
and in August 2019 in the city of Boudjima, northeast of Tizi-Ouzou in Kabylie
Region. This brings the number of forcibly closed churches to 6,
including one house church…. Many more churches are threatened with closure,
amid denial of formal registration and recognition by authorities.”
Indonesia: Muslim protestors compelled local authorities to
revoke a permit for and cease construction of a Baptist church in Central
Java. On August 1, residents went to the partially constructed church and
padlocked its fence. A meeting was later held between the church, local
residents, authorities, and others. Although the pastor displayed the
governmentally issued permit to build a church, Muslim residents insisted that
it was wrongly given, leading to a standstill in negotiations.
In the previous month, July, two other churches were shut
down in Indonesia following local protests.
Turkey: St. Theodoros Trion, an abandoned, historic church—the original
Greek congregation of which was purged by the Ottoman Empire—was vandalized,
including with genocidal slogans. According to the report,
“The vandals sprayed hate
speech across the church’s walls. The vandalism was largely a reference to the
secularism that Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, had forced into the
governmental structure…. Just a few years ago, the same church was
targeted by Islamist vandals who wrote slogans such as ‘the priest is gone, he
went to the mosque’ — a reference to the country’s genocide and the forced
conversions which occurred during this time. There are no Christians attending
this church. All of the congregants were victims of the genocide. They faced
death, deportation, and forced conversions. Those few who survived have since
fled the country. The church currently stands as a historic monument to the
Christianity that once was commonplace in the region.”
Egypt: A Christian toddler was the latest, if inadvertent, victim of Egypt’s
draconian restrictions on churches. According to an August
21 report, Youssed Ebid, a 4-year-old
Christian boy (photo), was struck by a tractor
while waiting outdoors for a bus to take him to church in another
village. His own village is currently denied one, forcing its Christian
residents to travel long distances to attend church. Many Christians in
Egypt are in the same situation, and accidents during their long treks are not
uncommon.
Note: Click here for
previous monthly reports of Muslim Persecution of Christians, going back to
July 2011.
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