Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (16 page)

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Authors: Raymond Ibrahim

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In the Maldives in October 2010, authorities rescued Geethamma George, a Christian teacher from India, when Muslim “parents threatened to tie and drag her off of the island” for “‘preaching Christianity.’” Her crime was simply to draw a compass in class as part of a geography lesson; the compass was mistaken for a Christian cross.
232
In Saudi Arabia in 2010, there was “public outrage” when a Romanian soccer player kissed the tattoo of a cross he had on his arm after scoring a goal. In October of the next year, a Colombian soccer-player “was arrested by the Saudi moral police after customers in a Riyadh shopping mall expressed outrage over the sports player’s religious tattoos, which included the face of Jesus of Nazareth on his arm.”
233
In Indonesia in February 2012, the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party complained about the Indonesian Red Cross symbol because of its identification with “Christian culture and traditions.”
234
Islamic hostility for the Christian cross has even reached the West. In January 2011, in a Muslim-majority area of Odense, Denmark, an Iranian Christian family had two cars vandalized—windows smashed, seats cut up, and vehicles set ablaze—because the cars had crosses hanging in them, which local “youths” (the press’s usual disingenuous term for Muslim vandals and rioters) had demanded be removed from view. The family has since relocated to an undisclosed location.
235
In Spain in April 2012, the nation’s top-ranked football team, Real Madrid, removed a Christian cross from its official logo in accordance with the conditions of Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr al Qasimi, a business partner, and “to strengthen its fan base among Muslims in Europe and the Middle East.” According to Spain’s top sports newspaper,
Marca
, the change was made to “avoid any form of confusion or misinterpretation in a region where the majority of the population is Muslim.”
236
In Switzerland in October 2012, Muslims complained about a billboard campaign for Swiss International Air Lines, whose logo includes the cross from the Swiss flag, because the ads contained the words “‘the cross is trumps’”: “Muslims in Switzerland have responded negatively to the advertising, which they believe promotes Christianity over other religions.... ‘Many Muslims feel this Christian slogan [of Swiss International] is a provocation and an assault against Islam.’” The airline said that its ad campaign does not carry any religious or political message—that in fact the word “trumps” is a pun for a Swiss card game—and apologized for upsetting Muslims.
237
Even in the United States, in October 2011, Fox News reported that “the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University of America violated the human rights of Muslim students by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers. The investigation alleges that Muslim students ‘must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism—e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.’” Behind the complaint is John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University professor who asserts that Muslim students are “particularly offended” because they have to “meditate” at the school’s chapels and cathedral, where they pray while “having to stare up and be looked down upon by a cross of Jesus.”
238
He does not bother mentioning that offended Muslim students need not attend a private Catholic university.
The examples above are mostly taken from just the past two years. Mark Durie of the Middle Eastern Forum has collected more anecdotes of Muslim hostility toward and violence against the cross from around the world over the past several years:
•
Afghanistan
: A poster was found containing the caption “Destroying the cross is an Islamic obligation” and instructing Muslims to destroy objects with crosses on them.
•
Albania
: In March 2004, a Muslim mob attacked and desecrated the church of St. Andrew in Podujevo, Kosovo. Photographs show Muslims on the roof breaking off the prominent metal crosses attached there. There have also been many instances of Muslim mobs smashing crosses in Christian graveyards across Kosovo.
•
England
: In November 2004, Belmarsh Prison was reported to have plans to spend £1.6 million (equivalent to $2.4 million) on a mosque. The facility already maintained a multi-denominational chapel, but it was rejected for use by the Muslim inmates—some of whom had been convicted on terrorism charges—because the chapel contained crosses, which had to be covered up when the Muslims say their prayers.
•
Iraq
: In April 2007, in the al-Doura Christian area of Baghdad, Muslim militants instructed Christians to remove visible crosses from atop their churches, and issued a fatwa forbidding Christians from wearing crosses.
•
Malaysia
: In October 2007, a parliamentarian complained about the “display of religious symbols” in front of church schools, insisting that “these crosses need to be destroyed.”
•
Pakistan
: Two days before Christmas in 1998, a Catholic church in Faisalabad had its crucifix pulled down by a Muslim leader.
•
Palestinian Authority
: When Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, some of its militias went on a cross-destroying rampage. The Rosary Sisters’ convent and school in Gaza were ransacked and looted by masked men, and crosses were specifically targeted for destruction. A Christian resident of Gaza also reported having a crucifix ripped from his neck by someone from the Hamas Executive Force, who said, “That is forbidden.”
239
•
Saudi Arabia
: In 1995 George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was compelled to remove his pectoral cross when he was forced to make an intermediary stop in the land that birthed Islam. On the approach to the Red Sea coastal city of Jidda, Carey was told to remove all religious insignia, including his clerical collar and pectoral cross.
The long record of Muslim violence specifically targeting churches, monasteries, and crosses is conclusive evidence of Muslim hostility toward the Christian religion itself. This centuries-old, continents-wide pattern of violence cannot be explained by the race, culture, or particular circumstances of the perpetrators, any more than by that of their victims. Muslims who attack churches and other expressions of Christianity come from widely different places all around the world. The attackers are of different races—“white,” “yellow,” “brown,” and “black.” They speak different languages. They have lived at widely different times in world history. The common factor in all these attacks on Christian worship—the real reason behind them—can only be Islam itself.
PART THREE
 
ISLAM’ S WAR ON CHRISTIAN FREEDOM
 
T
he precarious status of churches and other forms of Christian expression under Sharia law is emblematic of Islam’s innate hostility to Christianity. But Islamic law goes further, denying freedom of speech to all Christians and even freedom of conscience and conviction to Christian converts. Sharia curtails these freedoms by means of three laws that, though separate, often overlap: the laws against apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism. For example, the Muslim who converts to Christianity is guilty of apostasy. But he can also be seen as a blasphemer, whose very existence is an affront to Islam. And when he speaks about Christianity—as enthusiastic new converts are wont to do—around Muslims, he exposes himself to charges of proselytism. These three Islamic laws effectively ban freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and even freedom of thought.
None of these three laws applies solely to Christianity. Muslims can apostatize to any or no religion; people from any non-Muslim religion can theoretically proselytize Muslims; and non-Christians, including Muslims, can be charged with blasphemy. For a number of reasons, however, Christians are by far the most likely to fall afoul of Islam’s anti-freedom laws.
First we will examine the doctrinal background of these three laws. Then we will consider how and why it is that Christians are most likely to break them. And finally we will look at how the Islamic doctrines enshrined in these laws have played out in practice—by examining some historical patterns and then looking at current applications of the laws. Once again we will see remarkable continuity—from one end of the Islamic world to the other, and from the earliest beginnings of Muslim history to today—in how these laws are understood and enforced.
APOSTASY
 
Irtidad
, or apostasy from Islam, is one of the most reprehensible crimes—if not
the
most reprehensible crime—in Islamic law, deserving of great punishment, including execution. So great a crime is it that if several people apostatize at once, the Muslim state is obligated to proclaim an official jihad against them.
1
Moreover, because he has actively left or “betrayed” Islam, the apostate is seen as worse than the born infidel. The absolute condemnation of apostasy in Islam is so well known that it is almost redundant quoting sources. Nevertheless, some striking passages from Islamic authorities follow.
According to the entry on the apostate (or
murtadd
) in the
Encyclopaedia of Islam
, long considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies, “In Fikh [or
fiqh
, Islamic jurisprudence], there is unanimity that the male apostate must be put to death, but only if he is grown up. . . . A woman, on the other hand, is imprisoned, according to Hanafi and Shi’i teaching, until she again adopts Islam.” According to other schools of law, “she also is put to death.... Execution should be by sword . . . apostates must sometimes have been tortured to death.” As for those apostates who manage to escape death, they “are not sure of their lives, as their Muslim relatives endeavor secretly to dispose of them by poison or otherwise.”
The late Majid Khadduri, “internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on Islamic law and jurisprudence,” wrote in his
War and Peace in the Law of Islam
,
2
“Both jurists and theologians agree that apostasy constitutes a violation of the law punishable both in this world and the next. Not only is the person denied salvation in the next world, but he is also liable to capital punishment by the state.” Khadduri quotes the various Koranic verses—2:214, 5:59, 16:108—that condemn apostates and then focuses on 4:90-91, which calls for the killing of the apostate from Islam, and concludes,
Although only [verse 4:90–91] specifically states that death sentence should be imposed on those who apostatize or turn back from religion,
all the commentators agree that a believer who turns back from his religion (irtadda) openly or secretly, must be killed if he persists in disbelief
. The traditions are more explicit in providing the death penalty for everyone who apostatizes from Islam.
The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “He who changes his religion [Islam] must be killed
.
”
Cases of those who apostatized and escaped punishment are few, but the rule was certainly more strictly enforced after Muhammad’s death as a result of the victories won during the wars of the ridda (secession). The law of apostasy endorsed by the practice of the early caliphs has been sanctioned by
ijma
[that is, consensus among Islam’s scholars], and there is no disagreement as to its validity.
The
murtadd
[apostate], however, is not to be executed at once; he is warned and given three days of grace to afford him time to choose between Islam and death. Except the Hanafi and Hanbali jurists, the authorities treat women on the same footing as men. Abu Hanifa maintained that women should be forced to return to Islam by such punishment as beating and imprisonment. Children and the insane are not liable to be killed until the latter recover and the former come of age. The killing of the
murtadd
must be done by the sword.... [Emphasis added.]
 

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