Muslims Leaving Islam In Droves
PJ Media:
Pope Benedict’s choice to publicly baptize the most prominent Muslim in Italy, Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, highlights a quiet worldwide exodus from Islam. In recent years, millions have moved on. With this high-profile action, Pope Benedict demonstratively blesses this massive conversion from the highest levels of the Church.
Interviewed by al-Jazeera in 2006, Ahmad al-Qataani, leader of the Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, explains the decline:
Islam used to represent … Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non-Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century.
On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.
As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.
Allam’s public baptism came just ten days after the body of Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, was found in a shallow grave after being kidnapped by al-Qaeda February 29. The ceremony came just three days after an al-Qaeda tape threatening the pope and condemning cartoons of Mohammed. Muslims who convert to other religions or abandon religion entirely are subject to a standing order of death for apostasy. The baptism of Allam is an act of defiance in the face of Islamic threats.
The baptism of Allam also comes in the midst of papal “dialogue” with Muslims. The dialogue began unpromisingly with the catcalls from Islam and its secularist allies which greeted the now-famous September 20, 2006, papal address at the University of Regensburg. In October, 138 Islamic leaders presented the pope with “A Common Word Between Us and You” — nailed by critics as a craftily written call for conversion. On March 4, Pope Benedict approved formation of a permanent “Catholic-Muslim forum” scheduled to meet in November. And now he has thrown his own call for conversion into the discussion. Islam’s secularist allies were quick to echo Muslims, calling the baptism “provocative.” While accepting the Islamic death penalty for apostasy as a given, they complain the pope’s action could set back dialogue.
While the secularists wring their hands, Allam writes that his mind “has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimizes lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission to tyranny, permitting me to join the authentic religion of Truth, Life, and Liberty. … I realize what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight, and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith.”
Allam, author of numerous books and deputy editor of Milan’s Corriere della Sera, joins a list of converts from Islam which includes many other public intellectuals and millions of average people from all over the world. This is more than the normal flow between two large religious communities. Islam can point to little in the way of recent conversions. Its claim to be the world’s fastest-growing religion stems mostly from the high birth rate in Islamic countries, whose infant mortality rates have been cut by the introduction of Western medicine. Christian growth is based on adult conversion. As leading Christian evangelist Wolfgang Simpson writes, “More Muslims have come to Christ in the last two decades than in all of history.”
Although al-Qataani points to Africa, there is another phenomenon based on repulsion from Islamist dictatorship, corruption, and terrorist violence. In Iran as many as 1 million people have surreptitiously converted to Evangelical Christianity in the last five years. Pastor Hormoz Shariat claims to have converted 50,000 of them through his U.S.-based Farsi-language satellite ministry. He contrasts the upswing to the efforts of evangelical missionaries in Iran between 1830 and 1979, whose 149 years of work built a Christian community of only 3,000. One Iranian religious scholar believes youth are abandoning Islam because it is identified with the corrupt Iranian government. Now the Iranian Majlis (parliament) is debating the death penalty for conversion.
After years of al-Qaeda war on Iraq, a similar phenomenon is growing. The New York Times March 4 reports: “After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.” A high school girl tells Times reporters: “I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us. Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.” A 19-year-old man says: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.” A Baghdad law professor explains that her students “have changed their views about religion. They started to hate religious men. They make jokes about them because they feel disgusted by them.” A 24-year-old female college student says, “I used to love Osama bin Laden. Now I hate Islam. Al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”
In southern Russia the same pattern is emerging. According to Roman Silantyev, executive secretary of the Inter-religious Council in Russia, freed from atheist control, two million Muslims converted to Christianity. Repulsed by bloody terrorist attacks, those living in areas such as Beslan have converted to Christianity in the greatest numbers of all. As many as 100,000 have converted to Christianity in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
After decades of Islamist war, evangelicals report thousands of sub-rosa converts in rural areas of Kashmir. Says one churchgoer: “I am interested in this religion. I hate violence. I hate fundamentalists in Islam. I come here to seek peace.” An Indian newspaper headline reads: “Urban Muslim Youth Out to Junk Faith.”
Following decades of terrorist rule, Palestinians are being quietly converted, holding in-home services to avoid detection. Says one evangelist: “I’ve been working among these people for thirty years, and I promise you I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Islam is also losing adherents in areas where Islamist harassment is heavy on the streets. The London Times estimates 15% of Muslims living in Western Europe have left Islam — 200,000 in the UK alone. Those who leave often face harassment, threats, and attack.
The mufti of Perak, Malaysia, estimates about 250,000 people have abandoned Islam, making formal application for apostasy to the state — a right allowed to Malaysian citizens who are not ethnic Malays. Says he: “This figure does not include individuals who don’t do solat, doesn’t fast and breaks [sic] all the tenets of Islam.” Borrowing from the communist playbook, Malaysia operates “reeducation camps” for any ethnic Malay found guilty of apostasy. Unsurprisingly, ethnic Malays are at the bottom of the economic ladder in Malaysia.
In a letter published in Corriere della Sera on Easter Day, Allam points out the pope “sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that until now has been too cautious in the conversion of Muslims … because of the fear of being unable to protect the converted who are condemned to death for apostasy.
“Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practice their faith serenely. But there are also thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists.”
Allam describes Islam as a system for taking and holding power. Threat of violence is its enforcement mechanism. Allam also points out: “Beyond … the phenomenon of extremists and Islamist terrorism at the global level, the root of evil is inherent to a physiologically violent and historically conflictual Islam.” So it is not coincidental that Muslims are abandoning the faith as U.S. and coalition soldiers smash al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Islamist terrorists and street thugs are beginning to look impotent.
Appeasement-oriented opinion explains Islamic violence as a response to Western policy. For them, reality is incomprehensible. But in a 1998 ABC News interview with John Miller, Osama bin Laden explained his motivation: Allah had given the jihadis victory over one superpower (the USSR) and Allah would grant them victory over the other. But a decade later it is not coming to pass on the battlefield. The defeat of the Islamists puts the lie to the claim that Allah will cause the infidels to desire submission. As a result, the Islamists’ ability to intimidate their captive populations is weakened. More and more it is Muslims who no longer desire submission to Islam.
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Can anyone say, “Enemy from within”?
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pmWhaaaaaaaaaaaa, I love that cartoon.
Thanks for showing lots of back-bone. It’s needed.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pmGreat piece…Yet another fine example of the blogs (In this case - Pajamas media) reporting the truth the establishment media refuses to do.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 pmLove the Knights Templar Photo lead! How true that animals like thier young better than these crazy wackjobs.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 pmNothing new to Dollard Nation readers. We’ve discussed this phenominon just recently. You know, I’m beginning to think that Dollard Nation is ahead of everyone else in it’s analysis of current events???
If you want to knock the teeth out of Islam, remove Sharia law.
Again, I quote Abul Kasem (get to know him): “[Sharia]is the heart and soul of Islam. Without Sharia, Islam is a toothless tiger or a poisonless snake. Sharia empowers Islam with the legal power to enforce its draconian, barbaric, uncivilized, and cruel provisions. Sharia gives Islam the arms and legs to force the world to submit to Islam.”
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:06 pmLet’s keep this momentum going.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:11 pmI am embarrassed to say I read about this years ago in a Christian publication, but had completely forgotten about it. I was also told by an African clergyman that among African Christians the US is seen as a field in need of missionaries from Africa where they haven’t watered down the faith. I told him then, and still think he’s right.
Amen, Dan. Pat and Bash seem always to have it first.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pmThe pictures of these animals abusing their children are very disturbing - I have kids that age and I cannot imagine doing what these barbaric death-loving scum are doing to them.
Is it any wonder that the “faithful” are leaving in droves - this much violence and death has to take a toll sooner or later.
In Bible times, those who abused children or “delivered them up to the fire” for their religious beliefs were destroyed without mercy, by the instruction of the True God to His people.
Its about time the free world took up that mantle…
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:15 pmThis is the most encouraging article I have read since that aweful day seven years ago.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:41 pmMuslims do not love their children, they know no happiness in life. All they know is death to honor a perverted god. What a sad thing, to go through life killing people and thinking “this is the right thing to do.” No Loving God could bestow blessings on a people that have reaped destruction on others.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pmThe Muslim faith has been brought to it’s knees by fools.
On sacrificing your children to G-d:
Genesis 22
Abraham Tested
…
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
———————————————————–
Seems “Allah” ain’t so merciful or easily pleased, as the Islamists just keep on offering up their sons but to no “heavenly” acknowledgement …
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pmWhen the true Word of God goes forth it never returns void.
We’ll still need to keep our clips full for the secular progressives and Liberals though.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pmAny Muslim who reads the bible will see the prophesy of the Messiah in the old testament and know the truth like Isiah 53 or many others such as “he will be born in Bethlahem” or “He will be born to a virgin” “he will be called a Nazerine” “his hands and feet will be pierced”. All they need is to get the truth in there hands.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pmMaybe they realize the virgins they get are 20 year old pimply computer geeks.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
God bless my (our) Crusader ancestors. They were on the right track hundreds of years ago. And here we find ourselves doing the same thing today against the likes of Akbar and Habib. Islam sucks. Mohammed was a pedaphile.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:44 pmDeath to Islam, the false murdering pretend religion.
@drillanwr:
I think I get your point, but your quote is out of context.I have a number of suggestions; this being just one:
“You took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them [the idols] to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?” (Ezek.16:20-21)
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 pmI hate Islam. It must be destroyed before it destroys us. But, its first victims are its own adherents. Most muslims have no choice, or at least think they have no choice. No one can force me to believe in anything. Faith belongs to the individual.
Take away sharia and the threat of violence, and the millions of sheep, cowed by the fear of death, will follow the brave few like Ayaan Hirshi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, and Magdi Allam.
The center of Islam is the clergy. The imams and mullahs need to be eliminated. Starting with the most vocal and virulent, kill them until no one is willing to wail out the adhan.
If they feel the need to be part of a religion that treats women like shit, hates gays, hates non-believers, and hates America, I’m sure Phelps and the WBC will be happy to have them.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 pmbeing a catholic Christian, I continue to this day to implore all christians of any denomination to continue to steadfastly evangelize the Muslims of the world. From this article
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pmbeing a catholic Christian, I continue to this day to implore all christians of any denomination to continue to steadfastly evangelize the Muslims of the world. From this article , i can see there are muslims out their ready to reject the evil tenets of islam and come to to know true love in Christ. Islam is the head of the dragon and it must be cut off through evangelization at the risk of our very lives.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pmThanks. Good one too.
The story of Abraham came to mind looking at those pictures with the article. I didn’t want to put too much of the story in for time/space …
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 pm“So it is not coincidental that Muslims are abandoning the faith as U.S. and coalition soldiers smash al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Islamist terrorists and street thugs are beginning to look impotent.”
aweeeeesome!
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 pmAll those apostates! All those stonings! Will there be video?
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 pmIt’s one thing to read about “slaughtering infidels” in the Koran. The reality is a bit more disturbing, apparently!
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 pmYou probably won’t be surprised to know that I and many other former Episcopalians now attend congregations founded by the AMiA or Anglican Mission in America which is presided over by African Bishops. True Anglican faith no longer is lead by England in any meaningful way. The ‘piskies were way to welcoming to draft dodgers in the VN era who only entered the ministry to avoid service. We ended up with a Church run by hippies.
I saw a video about an Egyptian man who converted to Christianity after he was ordered by his Imam to research Chritianity to learn how to refute it but the plan backfired. I’ll try to find it.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:05 amPretty good viewing:
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=2045a8fa133362bc6631
Bill Smith
April 4th, 2008 at 12:32 amIt is not really a coincidence that I and many other former Episcopalians have found our roots in traditional Anglicanism through the work of AMiA or Anglican Mission in America, which is under the authority of African Bishops. The real leaders in the Anglican Communion are no longer in England in any meaningful way. The ‘piskies were doomed when they started taking all the draft dodgers into the ministry back in the VN era. They were just trying to avoid service but now the Episcopal Church is essentially run by draft dodging hippies.
My only criticism of this war is summed up with
April 4th, 2008 at 9:53 am“unless God builds the house he who labors, labors in vain”
so then nation building requires the rule of law be established, the first question thereafter is, who’s law?,
as with our own nation the answer is Gods law. Unfortunately we seem in peril here because of the erosion of this very basis.
These images are horrifying however, how can we be prejudice against the whole faith based only by these particular pictures. Im sure there are some horrifying christian pictures just as bad that we could put altogether like this and put in some fancy statistics that would make some muslims confront our faith.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pmdid any one try to find out or think what drives muslim to kill themselves or their children, is it all to show off or terrorising people with out any reason,,,,, tell me one valid reason but think just once,,,,,
June 7th, 2008 at 5:20 pm