JUDICIAL WATCH:
“The greatest criminal threat to the daily lives of American citizens are the Mexican drug cartels.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-american-border-with-narcomex.html
“Mexican drug cartels are the “other” terrorist threat to America. Militant Islamists have the goal of destroying the United States. Mexican drug cartels are now accomplishing that mission – from within, every day, in virtually every community across this country.” JUDICIAL WATCH
Iranian Military Leader Threatens Destruction of US and Israel
An Iranian military leader said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic is strengthening its military infrastructure and will soon oversee the destruction of Israel and the United States.
Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Tehran's chief terrorism force, said that "very soon" the world "will witness the destruction of the Zionist regime." Iran, he said, is equipping Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas to wage war against Israel. "The Zionists," Fadavi said, "are taking actions under the guidance of the United States, but soon the great Satan [the United States] will also be destroyed."
Fadavi's remarks come as Iran amplifies its threats to attack Israel and the United States amid a breakdown in diplomatic talks between the hardline regime and Biden administration. Nationwide protests in Iran also have challenged the clerical government's grip on power, with dissidents taking to the streets to demand regime change. The Iranian government has reacted to the protests with violence, including by killing protest movement leaders. These actions have been punctuated by a more hardline foreign policy stance against Israel and the United States, which Iran sees as fueling the protest movement.
The IRGC, which is responsible for killing hundreds of Americans, is not only supporting Palestinian militant groups, Fadavi said, but also amassing the military might needed for a strike against the United States and Israel.
"What our enemies know about us is little, and they will truly understand when we use our power against them," Fadavi said in comments carried by Iran's state-controlled press.
Fadavi also praised Iranian general Qassem Soleimani—who was killed in a 2020 drone strike ordered by then-U.S. president Donald Trump—for his efforts to arm various Palestinian factions.
The IRGC leader's threats came on the same day his military group conducted large-scale war drills in the Persian Gulf, an area where Iran frequently harasses U.S. military vessels. The IRGC navy reportedly tested "advanced missiles and combat drones," as well as "high-tech military weapons" and "naval cruise missile systems" during these exercises.
Slaughtered Mothers and Fathers
An Islamic hate that knows no bounds.
Incidents of Muslims slaughtering, or trying to slaughter, their own parents are on the rise.
Most recently, a 30-year-old Muslim man stabbed his own mother in the throat with a knife in France. After characterizing the incident as an “attempted murder,” local authorities said that the “accused has admitted to the crime,” which he “committed for personal and religious reasons.” Further underscoring the latter reason—“religion”—the Muslim would-be matricide was heard crying “Allahu Akbar.”
Two month earlier, and also in France, a Muslim man, 25, beheaded his own father, 60, with a knife. When police arrived on the scene, the Muslim patricide was also heard crying “Allahu Akbar” while fleeing the scene.
That the Muslim men in both of these examples from France deemed it fit to cry Islam’s ancient, jihadist war-cry—which literally means “my god is greater than your x, y, z”—indicates that, whatever their quarrel, these Muslim men at least believed that, in slaughtering their parents, they were acting on behalf of or vindicating Islam.
This was certainly the case of another, well-documented case of Muslim parricide. In September, 2022, a Muslim man bludgeoned his mother and father to death in Nigeria.
The reason? “My parents don’t like the prophet Muhammad because I adore him, [and] they called me a mad [crazy] person,” Munkaila Ahmadu, 37, explained in a video recorded by police. “[So] I killed them, because they refuse[d] to accept the truth concerning the prophet Muhammad. I killed them because they abused the prophet and their punishment is death—there is no repentance for any person who abused the Prophet.”
He is certainly not alone in such logic. After a Muslim mob stoned and burned to death a Christian college student, Deborah Emmanuel, accused of blaspheming Muhammad, a Muslim cleric justified the atrocity by saying, “When you touch the prophet we become mad [crazy] people…. Anyone who touches the prophet, no punishment — just kill!”
Showing no remorse whatsoever for murdering his father (70) and mother (60), Ahmadu instead boasted of how “I will [soon] be free because Allah is with the righteous person; that is why I am not worrying over my action…. I am now in police custody because, by human thinking, I did a wrong thing but in the sight of Allah and the Prophet what I did is the right thing” (emphasis added).
Is this true? Unfortunately, yes. “Executing” those who “blaspheme” against the prophet of Islam is as old as Islam itself and traces straight back to Muhammad, who was first to call for the slaughter of those who mocked or called him “mad.”
But even beyond the issue of blasphemy, another of Muhammad’s doctrines—that of al-wala’ w’al-bara’ (which can be simply translated as “love and hate”)—requires Muslims to hate anyone perceived to be in opposition to Islam.
Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse of this doctrine. As Osama bin Laden once concluded, after quoting that verse:
Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred — directed from the Muslim to the infidel — is the foundation of our religion (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).
Similarly, after citing Koran 60:4, the Islamic State confessed to the West that “we hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.” As for any and all political “grievances,” these are “secondary” reasons for the jihad, ISIS said:
The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizya and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you (emphasis added).
Even so, surely this hate has nothing to do with slaughtering fellow Muslims—especially one’s own mother and father?
Actually, the doctrine of al-wala’ w’al-bara’ encompasses even these killings. Consider Koran 58:22, another key verse that calls for hating non-Muslims:
You shall find none who believe in Allah and the Last Day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and his Messenger — even if they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred.
According to Ibn Kathir’s mainstream commentary on the Koran (The Al Qaeda Reader, pp. 75-76), this verse refers to a number of Muhammad’s Companions who slaughtered their own kin during the battle of Badr: one slew his father, another his brother, a third—Abu Bakr, the first revered caliph of Islamic history—tried to slay his son, and Omar, the second righteous caliph, slaughtered several of his relatives.
As Ibn Kathir explains, Allah was immensely pleased by their unwavering zeal for his cause and rewarded them with the highest level of paradise, as captured by the latter part of Koran 58:22:
Allah has inscribed the faith in their very hearts, and strengthened them [against their kin] with a spirit from himself. He will admit them to gardens watered by running streams, where they shall dwell forever.
In short, no one—not even fathers and mothers—are safe from the jihad.
There is a final and highly relevant lesson from all this: If Muslims are called on to hate and even murder their own flesh and blood—including fathers, sons, brothers, and wives—whenever they are perceived as mocking Muhammad or merely opposing Islam, is it any surprise that so many Muslims hate the “natural” enemies of Islam—foreign “infidels,” such as those who live all throughout the West?
While officialdom vehemently denies this reality, others in the West are apparently learning that, in Donald Trump’s words, speaking after a series of Islamic terror strikes in late 2015: “I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there. There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it.”
For those paying attention, we’ve gotten to the bottom of it a long time ago.
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
North Korea, Nigeria, and Islamic Nations Top the List of Most Dangerous Countries for Christians
(CNSNews.com) – Nigeria accounted for 89 percent of verified religiously-motivated killings across the world during the 12-month period ending last September, a year marked by a serious deterioration across many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, according to Open Doors.
The religious freedom advocacy group on Tuesday released the 30th edition of its closely-watched annual list of the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian.
As deadly as the situation has been for followers of Jesus in Nigeria, six other countries ranked even worse on the 2023 World Watch List (WWL), with North Korea returning to the number one spot that it held for two decades, until briefly displaced a year ago by Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
(The reporting period for the 2023 WWL runs from October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022.)
Since 2005, at least half – and as many as nine – of the ten worst countries on the list have been Islamic nations. This year is no different, with eight of the top ten (and 15 of the top 20) being members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Sudan.
The only non-OIC countries making the top ten are North Korea and Eritrea, in first and fourth place respectively.
“Globally, more than 360 million Christians suffer at least ‘high’ levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,” Open Doors says. That’s one in seven Christians worldwide.
Wybo Nicolai, who pioneered the first WWL three decades ago, said at Tuesday’s release that in 1993, there were “only” 40 countries around the world where “high to extreme” levels of persecution of Christians were recorded.
“Today this number has almost doubled, to 76 countries. So that’s a very strong indication how persecution of Christians has become a much bigger issue,” he said, adding that the “intensity” of persecution has also increased significantly over that time.
Sub-Saharan Africa features prominently in this year’s report. According to Open Doors, “a wave of religiously motivated violence nurtured in Nigeria has swept across the region, targeting Christian populations at an alarming rate in countries like Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, and Niger.” All of those countries are on this year’s WWL.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, Christians are targeted for violent attack by jihadists of Boko Haram and the regional ISIS affiliate ISWAP, and by radical Islamist Fulani herdsmen.
They “conduct raids on Christian communities, killing, maiming, raping and kidnapping for ransom or sexual slavery,” Open Doors says, reporting the verified religiously-motivated killings in Nigeria rose to 5,014 during the reporting period, from 4,650 a year earlier.
“Violence is only part of the equation, with ever increasing Islamization putting extreme pressure on many Christians in their everyday lives,” it says. “Nigeria’s government continues to deny this is religious persecution, so violations of Christians’ rights are carried out with impunity.”
In late 2021, the Biden administration lifted Nigeria’s designation as a “country of particular concern” – governments that perpetrate or condone “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” abuses of religious freedom, in the wording of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.
Despite criticism over the decision, last year it left Nigeria off the blacklist again.
Open Doors US interim CEO Lisa Pearce said Tuesday the ministry hopes to see the State Department return Nigeria to the CPC list – “the situation there is desperate.”
Beyond Nigeria, “jihadist violence is becoming commonplace” across the region, says Open Doors.
“The Islamist campaign of terror is fueled by a lethal mix of trafficking, changes to the climate and an influx of mercenary soldiers from the shadowy Kremlin-backed Wagner Group.”
‘Stand strong’
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, Christians continue to suffer under the rule of the Taliban.
On last year’s WWL Afghanistan was in first place, but Open Doors says its drop to ninth place this year “offers little cheer.”
“After the brutal takeover in 2021, many Christians were executed, as the Taliban went door-to-door to root out believers. Many Christians went deep into hiding or fled overseas,” it says.
“Over 2022, the Taliban’s focus has intensified for rooting out those with links to the old regime, more than uprooting the very small number of Christians remaining.”
Open Doors representatives at the WWL launch urged Christians to pray for their persecuted fellow believers.
“They need your support, they need your prayers,” said Nicolai. “At the same time, I’m convinced that you can also learn from them – how to stand strong under difficult circumstances, how to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ in the midst of opposition.”
Among other key findings in this year’s WWL:
--The Chinese Communist Party has clamped down further on religious groups including Christians, including the introduction of new rules on churches’ use of the Internet, and stepped-up censorship, disinformation, and extreme surveillance. China is in 17th place on the list.
--North Korea, back at the top of the WWL, accounts for “its highest levels of persecution ever,” following a new wave of violence under its “anti-reactionary thought law.” (The Bible falls under the law’s ban on “foreign published materials.”)
Open Doors says the WWL is compiled based on research, data from its fieldworkers, in-country networks, external experts, and persecution analysts. The International Institute for Religious Freedom audits each edition.
Jordan, Recipient of Billions in US Aid, Still Won’t Extradite Terrorist Linked to Murder of Americans
(CNSNews.com) – Almost a decade after the Department of Justice filed charges against a Jordanian woman in connection with a 2001 bombing in Jerusalem in which U.S. citizens were killed, she remains at large because Jordan, a major recipient of U.S. aid, refuses to extradite her.
With Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly planning to visit Israel this month, the parents of a child killed in the bombing are asking – not for the first time – for a meeting to discuss the matter.
Arnold Roth, who for years has lobbied U.S. administrations to induce Jordan to extradite the wanted terrorist, said on Tuesday he has requested a meeting, but has yet to hear back.
Arnold and Frimet Roth’s 15-year-old daughter Malki was one of two Americans among the 15 people killed when a Hamas suicide bomber detonated his nail-laden device in a crowded restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001. The other American citizen killed was Judith Greenbaum, 31, who was pregnant.
Seven of the 15 people killed in Sbarro pizzeria that afternoon were children, aged between two and 16 years old.
The bomber had not acted alone, but was escorted to the site by Ahlam al-Tamimi, a 20-year old Hamas member and part-time journalist, who had earlier scouted for suitable targets for killing as many Jews as possible.
Tamimi, who left the area minutes before the blast, would later recount her joyful reaction at hearing breaking news bulletins of the climbing death toll.
Later arrested, Tamimi was convicted in 2003 and sentenced by an Israeli court to 16 life terms. But in 2011 she was controversially included in a mass release of Palestinian prisoners, exchanged for an Israeli soldier who had been held by Hamas in Gaza for five years.
She was deported to Jordan, receiving what Palestinian news outlets described as a “hero’s welcome.”
In 2013 the Justice Department charged Tamimi, a Jordanian citizen, with “conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death” and privately sought her extradition. Four years later the charges and an arrest warrant were unsealed.
Tamimi was placed on the FBI’s “most wanted terrorist” list, the subject of a reward of up to $5 million.
Shortly after the unsealing, Jordan’s highest court ruled that the kingdom’s 1995 extradition treaty with the U.S. was invalid, never having been ratified by Jordan’s parliament.
The U.S. government rejects that claim, declaring the treaty to be “valid and in force,” and the standoff over Tamimi’s extradition continues.
“The Tamimi case is one we take seriously given her role in the heinous attack that killed 15 people, including two Americans, in 2001,” a State Department spokesperson said this week.
“I want to make it clear that the U.S. government is committed to seeing that Ahlam Al Tamimi faces justice in the United States.”
$1.45 billion a year
Jordan has been a major beneficiary of U.S. military and economic aid for decades, totaling close to $24 billion through fiscal year 2019, according to the Congressional Research Service.
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with Jordan last September provides for $1.45 billion in U.S. aid each year between FY 2023 and FY 2029, subject to congressional appropriations.
When the current U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Henry Wooster, was going through his confirmation process in 2020, he assured Senate Foreign Relations Committee members in writing that he would “engage Jordanian officials at all levels” on the Tamimi issue.
Asked whether he would commit to using the leverage offered by generous U.S. support to Jordan, Wooster replied, “If confirmed, I would explore all options to bring Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi to justice, secure her extradition, and address the broader issues associated with the extradition treaty.”
Wooster will presently be leaving his post in Amman; President Biden on January 3 nominated Yael Lempert, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, to be the next ambassador to Jordan.
A series of questions submitted to the U.S. Embassy last week about efforts Wooster has made in line with his confirmation process assurances to secure Tamimi’s extradition, brought no response to press time.
Among other things, the embassy was asked whether the MOU signed in the fall contained any stipulations regarding resolution of the dispute. (A Jordanian newspaper in October cited Wooster as saying there were no conditions attached to the MOU.)
The Roth family request to meet with Blinken comes six months after they unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Biden when he visited Israel last summer.
Shortly before Biden hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah in the Oval Office in July 2021, they published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, urging the president to ask his guest “why our daughter’s murderer remains protected by his kingdom.”
There was no indication, however, that the Tamimi extradition came up at all during that visit – or in subsequent interactions between Biden and Abdullah.
The issue did not feature in their public remarks in July 2021, or in a White House readout of their meeting.
It was also not mentioned in a readout of a Biden-Abdullah meeting in Washington in May 2022, in a joint statement after a further bilateral meeting in Jeddah in July 2022, or in readouts of phone conversations in April 2021 and April 2022.
‘A mockery of American justice’
Arnold Roth said Wednesday he was not surprised not to have received a response to the request to meet with Blinken.
“No U.S. secretary of state in all the years since the U.S. indicted Tamimi has ever addressed us,” he said.
Roth contrasted that with the administration’s response to the death of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during an Israeli security operation in Jenin last May.
“When American officials at that level of seniority want to show how serious they are about justice and accountability, they reach out as they did repeatedly to Shireen Abu-Akleh’s kinspeople and extend courtesies and support,” he said. “We have never come close to seeing anything like that. Quite the opposite.”
Roth noted that Malki’s murder, as distinct from the Abu-Akheh case, was the subject of a U.S. prosecution.
“A Jordanian woman freely and brazenly takes full credit for deliberately engineering and leading the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem,” he said. Yet despite that, despite the FBI “most wanted” terrorist status and reward offer, despite the fact that “Jordan is at the very top of the league table for receiving taxpayer-funded foreign aid” from the U.S. – “despite all of this, she lives free in Jordan, not in hiding, a living icon of terror with toxic influence throughout the Arab world.”
“Against this background, the measures three U.S. administrations – Obama, Trump and Biden – have taken in lavishing support, concrete aid, a torrent of U.S. government cash and very generous compliments on the Hashemite Kingdom and its leadership simply baffle my wife and me,” Roth said. “Our child’s killer is living a life that makes a mockery of American justice.”
‘Allah be praised, it was great’
Tamimi, now in her early 40s, expressed no public remorse for her actions, but has boasted about them, telling a Jordanian newspaper days after her deportation, “I have never regretted what I have done, and if given another chance I’ll do it again.”
Tamimi would later recount to a Hamas TV station her reaction hours after the bombing. The interview was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
As she made her way home on a bus ferrying other Palestinians, she said she heard reports on the radio of the bombing coming in, and was disappointed at first to hear that three people had been killed, as she had “hoped for a larger toll.”
“Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn’t,” she said. “Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.”
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice, nor the Jordanian Embassy in Washington responded to written queries about the Tamimi case.
In 2019, a Pakistani migrant was arrested for sexually assaulting a female off-duty police officer aboard the RER express train in the city, while last year another migrant, from Tunisia, was arrested after trying to shove another person under a train while allegedly yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
Iran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on U.S. 'Islamophobia'
The mullahs know their American Leftist friends will neither notice nor care about the hypocrisy.
July 15, 2020
Robert Spencer
“War is deceit,” according to a statement attributed to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran were taking notes. After stepping up the persecution of Christians and even carrying out raids and arrests against them, Iranian authorities paused long enough to unveil, with great fanfare, a “scholarly” book about “Islamophobia” in the United States. Yes, that’s the real problem – and the American establishment media will nod along in agreement.
Evangelical Focus reported Tuesday that agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) “arrested at least twelve Christians, in a coordinated operation that took place in three different cities. The first arrest took place on 30 June, in Tehran, when ten intelligence agents raided the home of a Christian convert where there were around 30 Christians gathered.”
The agents recorded that raid, but at a certain point they turned off their cameras and began abusing the Christians, who were finally handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away in a van with blacked-out windows. They were taken to their homes, where the IRGC agents searched for Christian material and beat some of them, along with some of their family members, including some who had not converted to Christianity.
Evangelical Focus noted: “It is believed that, in both raids, the agents were helped by an informant, who had infiltrated the group of Christians within the past few months and gained their trust.”
All this followed a report in late June that seven other converts to Christianity had been sentenced to prison or other punishments, including exile, fines, and work restrictions, for the crime of exercising their freedom of conscience. According to Article18.com, “they were each convicted of the same charge – ‘propaganda against the state’ – under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for up to a year in prison for anyone found guilty of engaging in ‘any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations.’”
Mansour Borji of the human rights advocacy group Article18 stated: “Condemning these people to prison because of their possession of Bibles and Christian symbols is a clear demonstration that Iran’s Foreign Minister and others aren’t telling the truth when they say that ‘no-one is put in prison in Iran simply because of their beliefs.’ These people have done nothing that could be construed as ‘propaganda against the state’ or ‘acting against national security’, but nevertheless they have been treated so unjustly.”
Meanwhile, the International Quran News Agency reported that “a book on political Islamophobia in the US was unveiled in a ceremony in Tehran on Monday,” that is, the day before the raids and arrest of twelve Christians.
The book in question is entitled Political Islamophobia at American Institutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Resistance, and is the masterwork of University of Tehran Professor Hakimeh Saghaye-Biriya. The Islamic Human Rights Commission not in Tehran, but in London, has published the book.
According to the International Quran News Agency, “it analyses the role of US think tanks in institutionalizing and fueling Islamophobia in the US government’s domestic and foreign policies.” During the ceremony at the International Quran News Agency in Tehran, Saghaye-Biriya “described Islamophobia as a branch of racism in the West. She said at a time when protests against racism have spread globally, there is a good opportunity to make a bridge between Islamic resistance and anti-racism movements in the world.”
During the ceremony, a video message from Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan was played; it “hailed the book for providing a good analysis of the role of political think thanks in US policy making and understanding the roots of Islamophobia in the country.”
Back in the real world, “Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women.
Meanwhile, this book, and the accompanying ceremony, reveals the insidious nature of the entire “Islamophobia” enterprise. The Iranian endorsement and propagation of this term, with the participation of Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan, recalls another Iranian initiative in academic propaganda: Carl Ernst, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill pseudo-academic whose work on Islam is so whitewashed, so fawningly apologetic, so complete in its denial of the jihad doctrine and Sharia oppression, that he was given an award in 2008 by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the genocide-minded anti-Semite who was at that time President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ernst happily flew to Tehran to accept. The incident was emblematic of how much American academia has degenerated.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Mozambique: According to a Nov 9 report, “Jihadists set fire to a church building and several houses in the Chiure district of Cabo Delgado Province on October 26, killing one person.” Along with the church they torched, the Muslim terrorists said in a communique that they had also destroyed “other church property in Cabo Delgado,” though no details were given.
Uganda: Muslims demolished a Christian church and beat its pastor for reportedly “leading 23 Muslims to Christ in August,” which “angered Muslims,” said Pastor Agaba Ezera. On Nov. 8, during evening prayers,
“From out of nowhere, people came shouting and chanting Islamic words as if they were going to attend Eid prayers. They started beating us and pushing the church building down, as well as pulling off the iron sheets.”
One of his tormentors charged that “You brought kafiri [infidels] here and converted our elderly woman by giving her salt and soup – you must die today.” “I was beaten badly with blunt objects, but glory be to the Lord Jesus because I survived though they thought that they had killed me,” the pastor who sustained leg, back, arm, and head injuries said from his hospital bed. “This incident happened because of our evangelistic activities in the Muslim community of Katantala and Kapapali villages.”
Separately but similarly in Uganda, Muslims barged into a church meeting, and attacked and stabbed a Christian pastor and his wife, seriously wounding them. Earlier in August, five Muslim men between the ages of 19 and 27 had converted to Christianity. Soon thereafter, Pastor Jude Sitaalo, 56, began to receive threatening messages, both in person and by phone. “Pastor, let our children come back to Islam, and if not we are going to kill you and destroy your church,” read one text. Then, on the evening of Nov. 18, while holding a Bible study in his church with his wife and 10 other church members, he saw a mosque leader approaching the building followed by a band of Muslims: “They got hold of me and started beating me with sticks while one of them cut me with a long knife,” said Jude. “One member of the church and my wife tried to rescue me, but they were seriously beaten up with sticks.” The rest of the congregation fled for their lives. The pastor sustained knife wounds on his head, hand, and back; his wife was also slashed on the forehead and back. “We are suffering for pastoring converts from Islam,” Jude concluded his interview from his hospital bed.
Pakistan: Without any prior notice, authorities bulldozed the church and homes of 200 Christians in Islamabad, the capital of the Islamic republic, leaving them homeless. Because they were not given any warning or time to remove their belongings before the demolition, “These Christians have lost everything—their homes and all of their worldly possessions,” said a U.K.-based human rights group, in a Nov. 26 statement:
“Many of them have lived in the colony for years, raising their families here and investing their life savings into building and maintaining their homes. It is a travesty of justice that their homes have been wiped out without any alternative provision of accommodation. The timing is particularly concerning, coming so soon after costly and devastating floods, and with winter already here and temperatures plummeting.”
In August, monsoon floods killed more than 1,700 people in Pakistan, and left hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed or damaged, prompting the government, which estimated losses to be worth $40 billion, to declare a state of emergency. Sabra Saeed Athwal, whose home was among those bulldozed, called the demolition a “criminal act” and expressed fears that two other Christian colonies could be demolished next. She also indicated that “hardline Muslims” had pressured the authorities:
“This injustice has happened as Christians in Pakistan and around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas in just a few weeks…. The Pakistani government must either rebuild the homes or provide suitable shelter before Christmas as many of the colony’s residents are now living under the open sky or in tents and this is simply unacceptable. It is the state’s responsibility to treat its citizens equally and protect their lives without any distinction of race, religion and colour. The lack of care in this instance simply beggars belief…. Although we are Christian, we are Pakistani citizens too.”
Indonesia: Local officials on Java Island formally added their names and voices to calls by Islamist organizations to block construction of a Christian church, leading to complaints of governmental interference with religious freedom. “This incident,” one Christian leader responded, “harms the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees equality of every citizen to adhere to a certain religion and to worship freely in accordance to their own religions.” As is the case for churches in other Muslim nations, according to the Nov. 2 report,
“[R]equirements for obtaining permission to build houses of worship in Indonesia are onerous and hamper the establishment of such buildings for Christians and other faiths…. Such processes typically have to pass through four levels of bureaucracy before reaching the municipal level. Besides the opposition that the church faces, most applications for church construction permits in Indonesia take decades to process without support from high-ranking officials.”
USA (Pennsylvania): On Nov. 12, a 24-year-old Syrian refugee who had plotted to bomb a Pittsburgh church was sentenced to 17 years imprisonment. Citing court documents, the report says,
“[Mustafa Mousab] Alowemer plotted to bomb a church located on the north side of Pittsburgh using an explosive device. His stated motivation to conduct such an attack was to support the cause of ISIS and to inspire other ISIS supporters in the United States to join together and commit similar acts…. Alowemer was aware that numerous people in the proximity of the church could be killed by the explosion.”
Azerbaijan: A form of “cultural erasure” progresses as many ancient and medieval churches and monasteries continue to be demolished in the Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan regions, historically Armenian regions that are now under Azerbaijani authority. According to Caucasus Heritage Watch, 108 Medieval and early modern Armenian monasteries, churches and cemeteries between 1997 and 2011 have already experienced “complete destruction.” More recently, however, according to a Nov. 25 report, “new satellite imagery shows ongoing destruction of Armenian heritage sites. Images show disappearance of churches and cemeteries.” As one example, images showed how a more than 700 years old monastery was first destroyed, and then re-erected as a mosque.
Turkey: On Nov. 15, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Turkey had violated the human rights of a Greek Orthodox church, which it had prevented from registering in Istanbul. According to the report, “The ECHR said that Turkey’s refusal to the Greek Orthodox Church to declare its property constitutes discrimination and ordered the country [Turkey] to pay 5,000 euros in costs and expenses.” Before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, Greeks (or “Rum,” Romans of the “Byzantine” Empire) formed the majority of the population. Since then, they have been dwindling in numbers. According to the report, there were still “nearly 1.8 million [Greeks in Constantinople] in 1910 but the population was devastated following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.”
“Subsequent Turko-Greek wars, a population exchange agreed upon between Turkey and Greece in 1923, and continuous political pressure on the community have reduced their numbers to several thousand. Their foundations, churches, and their properties have also become a major political topic in Turkey as governments seized, closed or denied them registration.”
Generic Muslim Hostility for Christians
Palestinian Authority: According to a Nov. 21 report,
“There has been a marked uptick in religiously motivated attacks by Palestinian Muslims on Christians in Bethlehem. Just over two weeks ago, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at a Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour near the city of Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a large mob of Palestinian men who hurled rocks at the building while congregants cowered inside. Several of the congregants were injured in the attack. The Palestinian Authority, responsible for security in the area, did nothing.”
UK: On Nov. 24, a court heard how Tarek Namouz, 42, a Muslim barber shop owner in London and recipient of thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded Covid grants, had on seven separate occasions sent £25,000 to ISIS fighters in Syria. The court also heard how he had said,
“I want to burn Christianity … we have incinerators and holocausts like Hitler, a lesson from history…. I swear to Allah we will cause chaos and kill the non-believers…. Whoever is not happy, a bullet in their head, I don’t want a single person alive who would oppose Sharia.”
Iraq: During a G20 Religion Forum in Bali, Indonesia, that was attended by more than 300 religious leaders around the world, a Christian archbishop from Iraq made several important remarks, including by warning that Christianity is “on the verge of extinction” in Iraq, where it had been for nearly two thousand years. According to Bashar Warda, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, “we Christians of Iraq now find ourselves on the very edge of extinction…. Now we face the end in Iraq, the same end faced by the Iraqi Jews before us, and the same end now being faced by the Yazidis, with whom we have suffered so much pain, alongside us.” Concerning the source of all this suffering and pain, he said that there is “a fundamental crisis of violence within Islam” that “can no longer be ignored” and which “continues to affect the entire Middle East, Africa, Asia and beyond…. And if this crisis is not acknowledged, addressed, and fixed, then there can be no future for Christians or any other form of religious pluralism in the Middle East.”
“Indeed, there is little reason to see a future for anyone in the Middle East, including within the Islamic world itself, other than in the context of continued violence, revenge, and hatred…. [Iraqi Christians are] not forgetting, but still forgiving. Can our Muslim brothers and sisters follow us in this, or will their own story of violence continue, destroying themselves eventually?…. Fundamentally, this change in direction can only come about as the conscious work of the Islamic world itself.”
Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the number of Christians has been decimated, going from about 1.5 million to under 200,000 now. Even though the Islamic State’s stronghold in the Nineveh Plains was overthrow in 2017, the rapidly dwindling Christian population continues to be harried. According to a fact sheet:
“In June 2020, Christian villages were bombed in Turkey’s largest operation in the area since 2015, forcing many Christians to flee. In May 2021, Christian villages were evacuated following Turkish bombing in the region. Christians were not protected by the local government. Many Christians are also seriously affected by intolerance and persecution. This is perpetuated mostly by militant Islamic groups and non-Christian leaders. They also face discrimination from government authorities. In central and southern Iraq, Christians often do not publicly display Christian symbols (such as crosses) as this can lead to harassment or discrimination at checkpoints, universities, workplaces and government buildings. Outspoken believers in the region have frequently become targets. Blasphemy laws can be used against Christians suspected of carrying out outreach among Muslims.”
Mozambique: On Nov. 10, images of a handwritten announcement from the Islamic State in Mozambique (ISM) appeared on social media. Addressing the army, ISM asserts: “We will escalate the war against you until you submit to Islam… Our desire is to kill you or be killed, for we are martyrs before Allah, so submit or run from us.”
As the message was addressed to “the Mozambican crusader army,” it also targeted Christians and Jews, whom it offered “three choices: submit to Islam, pay tax [jizya], or accept endless war,” said a Nov. 18 report:
“The three choices have appeared across Islamic State propaganda. In August, IS Central African Province released a video addressed to ‘Congolese Christian rulers’ declaring that they would wage war ‘until Allah establishes one of these three for you: Islam, jizya, or [continuous] fighting.’ Jizya refers to a tax levied on non-Muslims in many Islamic societies across history. The previous issue of the IS weekly newsletter Al Naba, published 10 November, also carried the demand that Jews and Christians convert or pay jizya…. [T]he message represents an attempt to adopt the trappings of a ‘caliphate’ in line with the stated objectives of the Islamic State leadership….”
Italy: On Sunday, Nov. 27, as locals were putting up Christmas lights in the city of Sora, a Muslim man “terrorized everyone” by suddenly hollering Islamic slogans, including the jihadist war cry, “Allahu akbar!” According to the report, “In the historic district of Canceglie, … real ‘moments of fear’ have been experienced. Once he was gone, having literally terrorized everyone present with the equally classic exclamation associated with terrorism, a[nother] young man continued to rail against the lights that are about to grace Sora.”
Sudan: On Nov. 21, Muslim authorities arrested and jailed a church leader on the charge of “witchcraft,” after Muslims began coming to his church for healing. Earlier, Pastor Abdalla Haron Sulieman led a prayer meeting for his ailing mother, and she recovered. On learning of what was deemed a miracle, local Muslims began crowding the church in search of healing, which, according to the report, “angered Muslim extremists who persuaded police to arrest the pastor on charges of claiming to be a witchdoctor (Case No. 6737/2022 under the Sudan Criminal Code of 1991.)”
“Sudanese Christians took to social media, some demanding the pastor’s immediate release, and others terming the jailing more evidence of ongoing and systematic persecution of Christians in Sudan. ‘We need to continue to pray for our brother because he is jail for the sake of the gospel,’ said one Sudanese Christian on his Facebook page.”
Indonesia: After an earthquake that killed at least 321 people, damaged 62,000 homes, and displaced more than 73,000 people, several human rights groups rushed with aid. Native Muslim groups, however, had other concerns. According to a Nov. 29 report, “a conservative Islamist group tore off labels from tents that were donated by a church for survivors of the Cianjur earthquake.” In a Twitter video that went viral, a group of people, who were later identified as members of the Islamic Reformist Movement—which has links to the banned extremist group Islamic Defenders Front, and even ISIS—were seen tearing off labels emblazoned with the words “The Reformed Evangelical Church of Indonesia” from the blue tents donated by the church to support survivors of the disaster. “Let’s destroy it,” one man can be heard saying in reference to the tents. Another man, wearing a long robe and white cap, can be seen recording while smiling. According to police, “the men dismantled the tents donated by the church in four villages, although they were not from the areas…. “Those who removed it were not the refugees. The refugees accept what is given from any group, regardless of religion,” Cianjur police chief Doni Hermawan said. “So I warned them, I made sure they would not do that again. Every [donation is given out of] humanity.”
Pakistan: On Nov. 27, the British Asian Christian Association, which tracks the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, published a comprehensive and well documented report. It showed how attacks on Christians are disproportionate compared to attacks on other minorities. For example, 30 percent of all extrajudicial killings for blasphemy were committed against Christians—though they only form 1.27 percent of the population. Other findings follow:
“Despite [being] a larger demographic than Christians in Pakistan, Hindus seem to have a lot less attacks on their communities… There are rare cases, of course, of Hindu’s being accused of blasphemy. This may be based on the fact that Hindu’s live in large enclaves and would seem more daunting to attack; they are more established as a community and less vulnerable… Christians are more likely to interact with the majority Muslim population and this contributes to their persecution. Hindu and Muslim communities are more likely to segregate themselves from other faiths, something which is mirrored in India… Christians have also faced a large number of terrorist attacks and the twin bomb attack in Peshawar 2012, Lahore Twin Church attack 2013, Easter day attack at Gulshan park 2015, and Quetta church bomb attack 2017 are some of the major ones in recent times. Though Hindus were killed in a bomb attack at Orazaki market in 2018, they were not the main target…. The reason Christians are targeted by Islamist groups on more occasions, is believed to be linked to a perception that they are spies for the west and in retaliation for the war against terror. So you see Innocent Christians in Pakistan are more likely to be persecuted during times when the US, Britain and other Western nations are at war with Islamic nations…Even more galling is the estimated 700 Christians girls abducted, raped and forced into Islamic Marriage. … Even when an abducted girl is found by police she will not be returned to her family. Instead she is sent to a Women’s refuge centre that is meant to be impartial but is corruptible. Muslim rapists or their friends gain access to these protective centres and threaten to kill the girl and her family unless she states she willingly married the Muslim man.… Christian children are bullied in school and even killed for their faith. This prevents Christian families sending them to school which perpetuates levels of illiteracy. …. Provincial Curriculum text books caricature and demonize Christians and other minorities.”
This article is reprinted from the Gatestone Institute.
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
3 NYPD Cops Attacked with Machete Near Times Square on
Fourteen Killed in Islamic State Attack on Congo Church
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a Sunday bomb attack on a Pentecostal church in the eastern Kasindi province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC military confirmed 14 deaths and 63 injuries as of Monday morning.
Eyewitnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the attackers detonated an improvised explosive device inside the church during a baptism ceremony:
“Several among us died on the spot, others had their feet cut in two,” the 42-year-old told AFP. “God saved me and I came out in good health with my choir members. Today was not the day I should die”.
Fellow survivor, Jean-Paul Syauswa, said the explosion happened just after a group of people had been baptized, while a blind pastor was commenting on Bible verses.
“The bomb threw me at least 100 meters (yards) away,” he said.
A man who lost his brother in the attack complained that the government was not doing enough to protect local citizens, even though a large military force is stationed in the area to prosecute a long-running battle against insurgents.
“How can such a situation happen when Kasindi is full of soldiers?” the bereaved man wondered.
A picture taken on November 13, 2018, shows Tanzanian soldiers from the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) patrolling against Ugandan Allied Democratic Force (ADF) rebels in Beni. (JOHN WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images)
Another witness who was seated in a tent outside the church at the time of the attack told the Associated Press (AP) the detonation sounded like a “tire going flat.” She was injured in the leg, while her nearby sister-in-law was instantly killed.
“I am traumatized from seeing people die around me,” she said.
The AP reported injured victims from the attack were evacuated to the hospital in nearby Beni by MONUSCO, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Congo.
Kasindi is near the border with Uganda, in a region where the DRC is battling one of several vicious insurgent groups, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The ADF is a Ugandan jihadist rebel group that migrated to the Congo in 1995 and swore allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2019. The group has both Congolese and Ugandan members, and seeks to overthrow both governments to create an Islamic “caliphate.”
The ADF has killed at least 370 civilians over the past year and kidnapped hundreds more. The group frequently targets Christians, including worshipers, clergy, and children. Eyewitnesses reported seeing “the bodies of children on the ground” after the Sunday attack.
The DRC military initially blamed the ADF for the Kasindi church bombing, citing the heavy presence of ADF forces in the surrounding area, although the group has not staged an attack in Kasindi since 2014. The ADF had not released a statement on the attack as of Monday morning.
The Islamic State took direct credit for the attack through its Telegram channel on Sunday.
“Let the Congolese forces know that their continued attacks on the Mujahideen will only bring them more failure and losses,” ISIS said in its statement.
MONUSCO condemned the “cowardly and despicable attack.” DRC President Felix Tshisekedi called it a “heinous crime” and promised the perpetrators would be “prosecuted, arrested, tried and severely punished.”
Hagia Sophia: Muslim Forgery vs Documented History
No, the ancient church was not “purchased” by Muslims, nor were its congregants “assured” of fair treatment.
July 17, 2020
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved the transformation of the Hagia Sophia museum—which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral—into a mosque.
In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia [Greek for “Holy Wisdom”] into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of “Allahu Akbar”] for 481 years since then [until becoming a museum in 1934].
Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually “purchased” the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Once inside the city on May 29, 1453, the “enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter”:
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers’ breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves, once its doors were axed down. “One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep.”
The slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over “any well-formed girl,” even as many of the latter “preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks.”
Having taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest churches—nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture—the invaders “engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel.” On “its holy altars” they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins, and children,” including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful.” She was forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped.”
Next “they paraded the [Hagia Sophia’s main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, ‘Behold the god of the Christians!’”
Practically all other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. “The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled.” The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold, “thrown to the ground and kicked.” Bibles were stripped of their gold or silver illuminations before being burned. “Icons were without exception given to the flames.” Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
“Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain” when Sultan Muhammad finally made his grand entry into the city. “There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape.”
The sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, “marveling at the sight” of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons—Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar—he ordered a muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound “their detestable prayers. Then this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to utter forth his own prayers,” thereby “turning the Great Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet.”
To cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the “wretched citizens of Constantinople” dragged before his men during evening festivities and “ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment.” The rest of the city’s population—as many as forty-five thousand—were hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan’s claim that Sultan Muhammad had given “assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms,” or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly “purchased.”
At any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: “The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history.”
If conquest, mindboggling atrocities and rapes, and the desecration of churches—all committed in the name of jihad—are “the most glorious chapters of Turkish history,” one wonders what Turkey’s future plans for glory look like?
Note: The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are sourced in the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Hagia Sophia: Turkish Propaganda vs. Documented History
Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved of transforming the Hagia Sophia museum — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral — into a mosque.
In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia [Greek for "Holy Wisdom"]. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of "Allahu Akbar"] for 481 years since then.
Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually "purchased" the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Once inside the city on May 29, 1453, the "enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter":
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers' breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves — once its doors were axed down. "One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep."
The slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over "any well-formed girl," even as many of the latter "preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks."
Having taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest and oldest basilicas — nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture — the invaders "engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel." On "its holy altars" they enacted "perversions with our women, virgins, and children," including "the Grand Duke's daughter who was quite beautiful." She was forced to "lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped."
Next "they paraded the [Hagia Sophia's main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, 'Behold the god of the Christians!'"
Many other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. "The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled." The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold, "thrown to the ground and kicked." Bibles were stripped of their gold or silver illuminations before being burned. "Icons were without exception given to the flames." Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
"Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain" when Sultan Muhammad II finally made his grand entry into the city. "There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape."
The sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, "marveling at the sight" of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons — Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar — he ordered a muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound "their detestable prayers. Then this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to utter forth his own prayers," thereby "turning the Great Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet."
To cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the "wretched citizens of Constantinople" dragged before his men during evening festivities and "ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment." The rest of the city's population — as many as forty-five thousand — were hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan's claim that Sultan Muhammad had given "assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms," or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly "purchased."
At any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: "The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history."
If conquest, mindboggling atrocities, and the desecration of churches — all committed in the name of jihad — are "the most glorious chapters of Turkish history," one wonder what Turkey's future plans for glory look like?
The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are sourced in the author's book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
Iran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on U.S. 'Islamophobia'
The mullahs know their American Leftist friends will neither notice nor care about the hypocrisy.
July 15, 2020
Robert Spencer
“War is deceit,” according to a statement attributed to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran were taking notes. After stepping up the persecution of Christians and even carrying out raids and arrests against them, Iranian authorities paused long enough to unveil, with great fanfare, a “scholarly” book about “Islamophobia” in the United States. Yes, that’s the real problem – and the American establishment media will nod along in agreement.
Evangelical Focus reported Tuesday that agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) “arrested at least twelve Christians, in a coordinated operation that took place in three different cities. The first arrest took place on 30 June, in Tehran, when ten intelligence agents raided the home of a Christian convert where there were around 30 Christians gathered.”
The agents recorded that raid, but at a certain point they turned off their cameras and began abusing the Christians, who were finally handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away in a van with blacked-out windows. They were taken to their homes, where the IRGC agents searched for Christian material and beat some of them, along with some of their family members, including some who had not converted to Christianity.
Evangelical Focus noted: “It is believed that, in both raids, the agents were helped by an informant, who had infiltrated the group of Christians within the past few months and gained their trust.”
All this followed a report in late June that seven other converts to Christianity had been sentenced to prison or other punishments, including exile, fines, and work restrictions, for the crime of exercising their freedom of conscience. According to Article18.com, “they were each convicted of the same charge – ‘propaganda against the state’ – under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for up to a year in prison for anyone found guilty of engaging in ‘any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations.’”
Mansour Borji of the human rights advocacy group Article18 stated: “Condemning these people to prison because of their possession of Bibles and Christian symbols is a clear demonstration that Iran’s Foreign Minister and others aren’t telling the truth when they say that ‘no-one is put in prison in Iran simply because of their beliefs.’ These people have done nothing that could be construed as ‘propaganda against the state’ or ‘acting against national security’, but nevertheless they have been treated so unjustly.”
Meanwhile, the International Quran News Agency reported that “a book on political Islamophobia in the US was unveiled in a ceremony in Tehran on Monday,” that is, the day before the raids and arrest of twelve Christians.
The book in question is entitled Political Islamophobia at American Institutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Resistance, and is the masterwork of University of Tehran Professor Hakimeh Saghaye-Biriya. The Islamic Human Rights Commission not in Tehran, but in London, has published the book.
According to the International Quran News Agency, “it analyses the role of US think tanks in institutionalizing and fueling Islamophobia in the US government’s domestic and foreign policies.” During the ceremony at the International Quran News Agency in Tehran, Saghaye-Biriya “described Islamophobia as a branch of racism in the West. She said at a time when protests against racism have spread globally, there is a good opportunity to make a bridge between Islamic resistance and anti-racism movements in the world.”
During the ceremony, a video message from Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan was played; it “hailed the book for providing a good analysis of the role of political think thanks in US policy making and understanding the roots of Islamophobia in the country.”
Back in the real world, “Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women.
Meanwhile, this book, and the accompanying ceremony, reveals the insidious nature of the entire “Islamophobia” enterprise. The Iranian endorsement and propagation of this term, with the participation of Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan, recalls another Iranian initiative in academic propaganda: Carl Ernst, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill pseudo-academic whose work on Islam is so whitewashed, so fawningly apologetic, so complete in its denial of the jihad doctrine and Sharia oppression, that he was given an award in 2008 by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the genocide-minded anti-Semite who was at that time President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ernst happily flew to Tehran to accept. The incident was emblematic of how much American academia has degenerated.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
The description of quite a different Sweden, the result of more than 1.2 million immigrants, mostly from Muslim countries, can be found here: “Suicidal Sweden: Woman Gang-Raped in a Park by Five Teenage Syrian Muslim Migrants,” by Amy Mek, RAIR Foundation, December 26, 2022
Sweden has one of the world’s worst recorded rape rates. In 2018, the state broadcaster SVT revealed that 58% of men convicted in Sweden of rape and attempted rape over the previous five years were born abroad. Some of the most brutal rape cases have involved Muslim or African immigrants.
Will Islam Convert the West?
The trans craze suggests that we are highly vulnerable.
Kim Ghattas’s book, Black Wave, describes the revolutionary fervor which swept across much of the Muslim world in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The movement was marked by the sudden reappearance of a wave of black hijabs, abayas, and burqas in countries in which the wearing of such symbols of submission had all but disappeared.
During this period, millions of Muslims converted. But they didn’t convert away from Islam. Rather, they converted from a passive and conventional form of Islam to a more militant and expansionist form.
Having re-Islamized much of the Muslim world, Islamists have in recent years set their sights on the conversion of the West.
But is a conversion of that magnitude possible? In his best-selling novel, Submission, Michel Houllebecq describes how it is possible and even probable. But although many Christians and other non-Muslims do convert to Islam each year, we haven’t yet seen the landslide-type shift to Islam predicted in Submission.
But we may be getting there. In 2013, Nazma Khan founded World Hijab Day, an annual event “to raise awareness and normalize the wearing of the hijab.” The event was intended to present the hijab as a symbol of a woman’s right to choose what she wants to wear. World Hijab Day was soon being celebrated in hundreds of colleges and universities. And thousands of young women and young men fell for the pitch that the hijab is somehow liberating.
The ease with which large numbers of college students succumbed to the notion that the hijab is a beautiful symbol of freedom is one indication that many young people are highly susceptible to propaganda campaigns.
Another indication of youthful susceptibility to dubious trends is the trans craze which is now sweeping through our society. The notion that a boy can become a girl and a girl, a boy flies in the face of both science and religion. Yet faith in the reality of this miraculous transition is spreading rapidly. In the UK, for example, the number of children and young adults who identify as transgender increased by 4,000 percent between 2009 and 2018. And according to the Daily Caller, the Montgomery County public school district in Maryland saw a 582% increase in the number of students identifying as gender non-conforming over the last two years.
Moreover, according to one report, 40 percent of liberal arts college students now claim to be LGBTQ. This includes 61 percent of Wellesley students and 70 percent of students at Smith.
Dr. Lisa Littman of Brown University suggests that the explosive rise in the number of adolescents identifying as trans is largely a factor of peer contagion—not only pressure from other students at school but also from social media peer influencers on the internet. Sadly, instead of countering the contagion, schools often compound it. Teachers introduce students to books about transgender ‘celebrities’ such as Jazz Jennings, and schools keep insisting that all identities should be celebrated.
What does the trans craze have to do with conversions to Islam? The point is that if peers, schools, and social media can accelerate one trend, they can accelerate another. If they can normalize trans, they can normalize Islam. In fact, as I have noted, universities have already become willing participants in the campaign to normalize hijabs. Would they become willing participants in a campaign to stifle criticism of Islam? Of course, they would. They already have. Over the last dozen or so years Arab Gulf-State kingdoms have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to American universities to ensure that students gain only a favorable impression of Islam.
Would the spread of Islam be good for our society? You might as well ask if the spread of transgenderism is good for society. By and large, educators don’t ask those kinds of questions. Educators at all levels are much more interested in fashion—fashions in ideas, fashions in religions, fashions in sexuality and gender, and fashions in historical revisionism (e.g., racism explains everything). Educators may say they are interested in the common good, but they tend to equate the common good with what’s happening now.
Are drag queens in vogue? Then the kids need to know right away. How else can they choose an identity unless they know all the available identities? That’s the way a significant number of educators and their influencers think. Few of them question whether it’s good to normalize drag. The only question for them is “how can we expose kids to more drag?” And their answer, more likely than not, will be to institute a mandatory “drag pride day” during which the queens can display their wares to the kids.
Which reminds me: “International Day to Combat Islamophobia” is fast approaching. Last March, the United Nations declared March 15 to be the annual date for marking the need to combat “Islamophobia.” Why March 15? Because on that date in 2019, a white man killed 51 Muslims during prayer services at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques.
Doubtless, the educational activists and influencers are already drawing up plans for schools to mark this tragic day. The kids, they will argue, need to know about Islamophobia and they need to know that Islamophobia is caused by white supremacy.
It won’t matter that violent attacks on mosques by non-Muslims are a rarity. And it won’t matter that deadly attacks on Christian churches by Muslims are an almost daily occurrence in Africa.
What matters is that International Day to Combat Islamophobia will give educators an opportunity to portray Muslims as victims of Islamophobia—just as they’ve successfully managed to portray the transgender “community” as victims of transphobia. It will also provide an opportunity to invite Islamic speakers to come to school and explain that Islam stands for peace, justice, and equality for all. For good measure, the kids can be told about all the athletes, musicians, rappers, and other celebrities who have converted to Islam.
I’ve noted some similarities between the movement to normalize trans and the movement to create sympathy toward Islam. But there is a difference. The trans fad may turn out to be a transitory phenomenon. Transgenderism is so obviously out of touch with objective reality and so obviously harmful to children and adolescents that it may turn out to be a short-lived fad. Moreover, the fact that a strong organized parent resistance to transgenderism has arisen may hasten its demise.
Islam, on the other hand, is not a fad. Although there may currently be a faddish interest in Islam, Islam is a 1400-year-old faith. And it has a history of conquest and of conversion that we can’t afford to ignore. Islamic empires were among the largest in history, and in the first centuries of its existence, Islam managed to convert about half of the Christian world to itself. Moreover, in contrast to the transgender movement, the resurgence of Islam in recent decades has met with very little resistance. Although jihadi militants are often hunted down by armed forces –as, for example, in the Philippines—there has been little pushback against Islamic cultural jihad. For example, with a few exceptions, parents have been reluctant to resist the whitewashing of Islam in school curriculums. After all, Islam is a religion and there is a taboo in our culture against criticizing religions (except for Christianity, which is fair game). And then, of course, there is the fear factor. In France, teachers who aren’t sufficiently respectful of Muhammad risk decapitation. Thanks to the fear factor, French teachers are now reluctant to say anything remotely critical of Islam.
There are major differences between the trans fad and the growth of the Islamic faith. That’s not to say, however, that the trans mania doesn’t have any lessons to teach. Perhaps the most important lesson is that seemingly negligible trends can suddenly escalate into fast-spreading contagions. No one would have predicted ten years ago that the time would soon come when many young people would become desperate to declare themselves trans.
But that’s the trouble with straight-line projections of current trends. Such projections don’t take account of the fact that as trends become more popular and acceptable, they accelerate at a faster rate. Many projections predict that in countries such as England, France, and Germany, Islam will become the dominant faith within 30 to 40 years while Christianity will become a minority religion. But it could happen much sooner than that. Once the trend becomes clear to Christians, their level of discouragement will increase and so will their dropout rate. By the same token, as Islam appears more and more to be the coming thing, conversion rates will begin to grow exponentially.
The fact that Muslims make up only a small percentage of the U.S. population should not blind us to the fact of Islam’s rapid growth elsewhere. Many centuries ago, Islam converted Christian North Africa. Now it seems intent on converting the rest of Africa. Meanwhile, in France and other parts of Europe, military and security professionals warn that a clash with Islam is increasingly likely. And, since the average European is well beyond fighting age, that clash is likely to result in a capitulation to Islam.
If that happens, some of the blame will lie with all those in the media and education establishments who have been naively marketing Islam to the rest of us without calculating the consequences. Much of the burden of blame, however, must fall on the shoulders of Christian leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, who—especially in Europe—complacently looked on as newly-built mosques filled up, while churches emptied, parishes closed, and scandals spread.
William Kilpatrick
William Kilpatrick is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His books include Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, What Catholics Need to Know About Islam, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad.
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