generalspeaking

Christians In A Muslim World

It becomes a death sentence to be a Christian in Afghanistan or Pakistan, for to abandon Islam and adopt Christianity makes one an apostate. The death sentence is prescribed as a just penalty for the abandonment of Islam. Particularly for the abomination of Christianity.

In Iran, the death sentence has been meted out to a young Christian cleric who joined a Protestant evangelical movement when he was a youth; now, many years later, he stands accused of evangelizing among Muslims, and being an apostate.

In Egypt, after attending Friday prayers in the village of Marinab, south of Cairo, Muslims rampaged through the village clashing with Christians, destroying their shops and setting fire to their church. In Cairo itself a few months earlier Muslim Salafists attacked the Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church. Six people were killed, 120 injured.

In the Palestinian Territories where Christianity existed in its original form for millennia, Christian Arabs have slowly been departing because of continued harassment.

Christians in Iraq, mostly Syrian or Chaldean Catholics, numbered a million and a half before 2003. Like the Jews who had lived in Iraq for thousands of years and were forcibly expelled in 1948, Christians now have become the despised target. There exist now an estimated 450,00 to 600,000 Christian Iraqis in the country out of 30-million people.

When the sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia populations post-U.S. invasion took place, it was soon followed by increasing attacks on the Christian populations. In central Baghdad last October al-Qaeda gunmen took over 100 Catholics captive in a siege at the Our Lady of Salvation cathedral, killing 52 hostages.

Christians have left the capital and surrounding areas in fear for their lives, and displaced families have settled now in the north of the country, in Kurdish territory where they feel safe.

Christians are not permitted to live in Saudi Arabia at all; there is no tolerance for any religion but Islam by the Saudi reigning family.

Labels: Islamism, Middle East, Religion

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, October 02, 2011