Christians in Iraq have been, and not for the first time, deliberately targeted in a major terrorist attack. Indeed, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Iraq, from the Gaza Strip to Egypt to Sudan to Nigeria, Christians are being assaulted, intimidated, and murdered by militant Muslims.
RUBINREPORTS BLOGSPOT*
Yet virtually never do Christians in any of these countries-perhaps with some occasional exceptions in India--attack Muslims. In the West, there have been no armed terrorist attacks on Muslims or the deliberate killing of Muslims. There does not exist a single group advocating such behavior.
Have you seen any of this in the Western mass media? Have any Christian church groups-some of which find ample time to criticize Israel-even mentioned this systematic assault? Indeed, on the rare occasions that the emigration of Christians is mentioned, somehow it is blamed on Israel, as one American network news show did recently.
I'm not writing this to complain about double standards, since one takes this problem for granted, but out of sheer puzzlement. Presumably, much of the Western media and intelligentsia-along with a lot of the church leadership, assumes that it is impossible for a non-Western, "non-white" group to ever be prejudiced. There is also a belief that if one dares report the news about pogroms carried about by Muslims against Christians it will trigger pogroms by Christians against Muslims.
The Catholic Church is quiet because it fears that complaints will increase persecution. Indeed, at a recent high-level Synod for the Middle East, leading Catholic clerics from the region blasted Israel and talked about how wonderfully Christians are treated in Muslim-majority countries. Iraq was singled out as a country where there were no problems in Muslim-Christian relations. Apparently, though, appeasement isn't working.
The al-Qaida terrorists said that all Iraqi Christians would be "exterminated" if two "Muslim women" in Egypt were not freed. Apparently, these were two young women, both married to Coptic Christian priests, unlikely candidates for conversion to Islam. They were in fact kidnapped and forcibly converted.
Thus, aggression against Christians is turned into a rationale to persecute Christians, a pattern we have often seen used elsewhere by Islamists. Yet many of the attacks in these countries are not carried out by revolutionary Islamist groups but simply by regular people, sometimes in large groups.
Here's a very partial chronology of such attacks and for the situation in Egypt go here.
According to the Iraqi terrorists' statement, the church was a, "Dirty place of the infidel that Iraqi Christians have long used as a base to fight Islam." Increasingly, Islamists are making it clear that any presence of Christians in Muslim-majority countries is unacceptable, just as the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East is unacceptable.
I just cannot understand how this factor and these attacks so often go unnoticed, and certainly unprotested. Isn't it time for Christians to try to help their persecuted brethren before they are wiped out--or at least forced to flee--altogether?
PS: I'm tempted to write an article entitled, "Why Do Feminists Remain Silent About the Persecution of Women in Muslim-Majority Societies." But Phyllis Chesler has already covered that subject extensively.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Showing posts with label Muslim world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslim world. Show all posts
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
School Textbooks in the Muslim world incite hatred & violence against non-Muslims
The ongoing war with Islam will remain futile unless the rest of the world forces Saudi Arabia and the other Arab oil countries on the Persian Gulf to remove hatred and violence from their school textbooks. The root causes of Islamic terror must be rooted out. This is not an internal issue and has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It impacts all of us and the world peace at large.
Many textbooks in Muslim countries assert that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," those practicing "major polytheism". They promote global jihad as an "effort to wage war against the unbelievers," including for the purpose of "calling [infidels] to the faith." They continue to teach that "the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," that Shiite practices amount to "polytheism", that the Christian Crusades never ended, and that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact.
Saudi Arabia has long sought to be the leading Islamic power and the protector of the faith, a claim asserted in the Saudi Basic Law. With its vast oil wealth and the religious legitimacy derived from its custodianship of the two Islamic holy shrines and control of the pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's long-term ambitions are now within reach. Even as its official doctrine and school books remain rooted in Wahhabism, the blend of the harsh desert traditions and severe Islamic interpretations of its past, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to be the authoritative voice of world Islam, with the King as a type of Islamic pope.
The Saudi ideological export is having an effect. Saudi Wahhabi extremism threatens to become a mainstream or even the dominant expression of Islam among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. Wahhabi thought and customs are taking root in Muslim communities from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, India and elsewhere.
Some passages from a Kuwaiti school textbook taught at the first secondary grade. Here is an English translation of passages from the book, "Jurisprudence", page 38:
Who is, or who is not, punished in a Muslim society:
*A Muslim who kills an apostate or someone who commits adultery against an infidel is not punished.
* If a Muslim kills an infidel or a slave, he is not punished.
* If a Muslim man, father, or grandfather kills someone from his offspring, he is not punished.
Here is an English translation of some passages from school textbooks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia:
A fourth grade textbook on Monotheism and Religion instructs students:
"Any other religion other than Islam is invalid (false)." (P. 29 )
"Hate (yakrah) the polytheists and the infidels" as a requirement of "true faith." (P. 86)
5th Grade. Book: Monotheism and Religion:
*"Every religion other than Islam is invalid." (P. 33)
*"It is not permitted to be a loyal to non-Muslims, and to those who oppose God and His Prophet." (P. 14)
*"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot be loyal to those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives." (P. 71)
*"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion." (P. 73)
*"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power." (P. 75)
*"Jews are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them." "As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the keepers of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christian infidels of the communion of Jesus." (P. 83)
*"The clash between our [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills. In this hadith, Muhammad gives us an example of the battle between the Muslims and the Jews." (P. 113)
*"Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'." (P. 114)
*"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him." (P. 117)
"A woman who shows in public any part of her body except that of her eyes will be punished by hellfire by almighty Allah." (P. 194)
"The infidels have established Christian hospitals and clinics and send medics all over the world. As one of the Christianizers said, 'Where you find people, you find pain. And where there's pain, there's a need for a doctor. And where there's a need for a doctor, there's an appropriate opportunity for missionary activity [Christianization].'" (P. 163)
"The infidels have founded many schools and universities in the Muslim world at various educational levels. These include: the American Universities of Beirut and Cairo, the Jesuit University, Robert College in Istanbul, Gordon [Memorial] College in Khartoum, and others too numerous to mention. (P. 186)
Teacher's Manual:
Grade 5:
Teach that after their death, non-Muslims will be sent to hell. (P. 30)
Quiz: Is it permissible to love the Jews and Christians? Of course no. Explain why. (P. 15)
Grade 8:
*Command Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews, polytheists and other "unbelievers," including non-devout Muslims." (P. 14)
*Teach that the Crusades never ended, and identify the American Universities in Beirut and in Cairo, other Western and Christian social service providers, media outlets, centers for academic studies of Orientalism, and campaigns for women's rights as part of the modern phase of the Crusades. (P. 15)
*Teach that "the Jews and the Christians are enemies of the [Muslim] believers" (P. 16) and that "the clash between the two realms "continues until the Day of Resurrection." (P. 18)
*Instruct students not to "greet," "befriend," "imitate," "show loyalty to," "be courteous to", or "respect" non-believers. (P. 24)
Grade 9:
*Define jihad to include "wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them," (P. 25) and assert that the spread of Islam through jihad is a "religious obligation." (P. 26) [the word qital, translated here as "battle," is derived from the verb qatala, "to kill," and is virtually never used metaphorically.]
*Instruct that "the struggle between Muslims and Jews" will continue "until the hour [of judgment]" and that "Muslims will triumph because they are right" and "he who is right is always victorious." (P. 27)
Grade 10:
*Cite a selective teaching of violence against Jews, while in the same lesson, ignoring the passages of the Quran and hadeeths [narratives of the life of the Prophet, Peace be upon Him, that counsel tolerance. (P. 28)
*Teach the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact and relate modern events to it. (P. 29)
*Discuss Jews in violent terms, blaming them for virtually all the "subversion" and wars of the modern world. (P. 30)
*"Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc." (P. 66)
*"Explain that when someone dies outside of Islam, hellfire is his fate." (P. 67)
By the way, over 20 Saudi schools, each chaired by the local ambassador from Saudi Arabia, are located throughout the world, in Addis Abeba, Algiers,, Ankara, Beijing, Djibouti, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, Bonn, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rabat, Rome, Tunis and Washington.
In fact, you can find some of the above stuff in many school textbooks in all the Arab Gulf countries, Egypt, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan. Fourteen-year-old boys' and girls' brains are stuffed with intolerance, animosity towards other religions and their followers.
MORE
Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance
Many textbooks in Muslim countries assert that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," those practicing "major polytheism". They promote global jihad as an "effort to wage war against the unbelievers," including for the purpose of "calling [infidels] to the faith." They continue to teach that "the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," that Shiite practices amount to "polytheism", that the Christian Crusades never ended, and that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact.
Saudi Arabia has long sought to be the leading Islamic power and the protector of the faith, a claim asserted in the Saudi Basic Law. With its vast oil wealth and the religious legitimacy derived from its custodianship of the two Islamic holy shrines and control of the pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's long-term ambitions are now within reach. Even as its official doctrine and school books remain rooted in Wahhabism, the blend of the harsh desert traditions and severe Islamic interpretations of its past, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to be the authoritative voice of world Islam, with the King as a type of Islamic pope.
The Saudi ideological export is having an effect. Saudi Wahhabi extremism threatens to become a mainstream or even the dominant expression of Islam among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims. Wahhabi thought and customs are taking root in Muslim communities from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, India and elsewhere.
Some passages from a Kuwaiti school textbook taught at the first secondary grade. Here is an English translation of passages from the book, "Jurisprudence", page 38:
Who is, or who is not, punished in a Muslim society:
*A Muslim who kills an apostate or someone who commits adultery against an infidel is not punished.
* If a Muslim kills an infidel or a slave, he is not punished.
* If a Muslim man, father, or grandfather kills someone from his offspring, he is not punished.
Here is an English translation of some passages from school textbooks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia:
A fourth grade textbook on Monotheism and Religion instructs students:
"Any other religion other than Islam is invalid (false)." (P. 29 )
"Hate (yakrah) the polytheists and the infidels" as a requirement of "true faith." (P. 86)
5th Grade. Book: Monotheism and Religion:
*"Every religion other than Islam is invalid." (P. 33)
*"It is not permitted to be a loyal to non-Muslims, and to those who oppose God and His Prophet." (P. 14)
*"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot be loyal to those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives." (P. 71)
*"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion." (P. 73)
*"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power." (P. 75)
*"Jews are the people of the Sabbath, whose young people God turned into apes, and whose old people God turned into swine to punish them." "As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the keepers of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christian infidels of the communion of Jesus." (P. 83)
*"The clash between our [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills. In this hadith, Muhammad gives us an example of the battle between the Muslims and the Jews." (P. 113)
*"Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: The Prophet said, the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'." (P. 114)
*"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him." (P. 117)
"A woman who shows in public any part of her body except that of her eyes will be punished by hellfire by almighty Allah." (P. 194)
"The infidels have established Christian hospitals and clinics and send medics all over the world. As one of the Christianizers said, 'Where you find people, you find pain. And where there's pain, there's a need for a doctor. And where there's a need for a doctor, there's an appropriate opportunity for missionary activity [Christianization].'" (P. 163)
"The infidels have founded many schools and universities in the Muslim world at various educational levels. These include: the American Universities of Beirut and Cairo, the Jesuit University, Robert College in Istanbul, Gordon [Memorial] College in Khartoum, and others too numerous to mention. (P. 186)
Teacher's Manual:
Grade 5:
Teach that after their death, non-Muslims will be sent to hell. (P. 30)
Quiz: Is it permissible to love the Jews and Christians? Of course no. Explain why. (P. 15)
Grade 8:
*Command Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews, polytheists and other "unbelievers," including non-devout Muslims." (P. 14)
*Teach that the Crusades never ended, and identify the American Universities in Beirut and in Cairo, other Western and Christian social service providers, media outlets, centers for academic studies of Orientalism, and campaigns for women's rights as part of the modern phase of the Crusades. (P. 15)
*Teach that "the Jews and the Christians are enemies of the [Muslim] believers" (P. 16) and that "the clash between the two realms "continues until the Day of Resurrection." (P. 18)
*Instruct students not to "greet," "befriend," "imitate," "show loyalty to," "be courteous to", or "respect" non-believers. (P. 24)
Grade 9:
*Define jihad to include "wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them," (P. 25) and assert that the spread of Islam through jihad is a "religious obligation." (P. 26) [the word qital, translated here as "battle," is derived from the verb qatala, "to kill," and is virtually never used metaphorically.]
*Instruct that "the struggle between Muslims and Jews" will continue "until the hour [of judgment]" and that "Muslims will triumph because they are right" and "he who is right is always victorious." (P. 27)
Grade 10:
*Cite a selective teaching of violence against Jews, while in the same lesson, ignoring the passages of the Quran and hadeeths [narratives of the life of the Prophet, Peace be upon Him, that counsel tolerance. (P. 28)
*Teach the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact and relate modern events to it. (P. 29)
*Discuss Jews in violent terms, blaming them for virtually all the "subversion" and wars of the modern world. (P. 30)
*"Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc." (P. 66)
*"Explain that when someone dies outside of Islam, hellfire is his fate." (P. 67)
By the way, over 20 Saudi schools, each chaired by the local ambassador from Saudi Arabia, are located throughout the world, in Addis Abeba, Algiers,, Ankara, Beijing, Djibouti, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, Bonn, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rabat, Rome, Tunis and Washington.
In fact, you can find some of the above stuff in many school textbooks in all the Arab Gulf countries, Egypt, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan. Fourteen-year-old boys' and girls' brains are stuffed with intolerance, animosity towards other religions and their followers.
MORE
Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Can Christians live under Moslem rule?
http://www.noonanfornevada.com/?p=3713
The recent story we noted about an Egyptian court essentially ruling that the Coptic Church in Egypt must violate Christian teaching opened up, for me, the fundamental issue of whether or not Christians can live in peace and justice under Moslem rule.
The Copts of Egypt – who are the descendants of the pre-Moslem population of Egypt – have suffered for a very long time, but of late the persecution of the Church in Egypt has gotten worse. Various fanatics incite violence against the Christian community (which makes up officially about 5% of the population, but is probably closer to 10%; anywhere from 4 to 8 million or so Christians…the Moslem government likes to downplay the number of Christians in Egypt), and nothing is ever done to the perpetrators.
And so it goes around the Moslem world – where there are Christians under Moslem rule, persecution, robbery, rape and murder are common and justice is impossible to obtain. In the Assyrian area of Iraq, the Christian communities of Lebanon and Pakistan – anywhere you care to mention, if Moslems rule over Christians, then the Christians are in a bad way. Meanwhile, Moslems under Christian rule can not only be sure of justice, but can actually be sure of kid glove treatment by people of the West determined to show they bear no ethnic or religious hostility to Moslems.
It is time, I believe, to consider that it isn’t possible for Christians to live under Moslem rule. When one thinks about it, the fact that Christians are forbidden to live and worship in Mecca is all that needs be said – we Christians are considered to be the merest filth to Moslems. We are unclean and unfit to come within sight of Islam’s holiest city. This attitude very naturally spills over to other areas of life – very easy for a Moslem to move from “you aren’t as good as me” to “why don’t I just take what I want from you?”.
Unless and until Moslems drop this attitude – unless and until they allow a Christian church to open in Mecca (and there are secret Christians there – we can’t live openly there, but Moslems do lack the willingness to do hard, dirty work on their own…so, they hire foreigners, a large number of whom are Christian, to do it for them, even in Mecca), we simply cannot trust Christians to be under Moslem rule.
Out of the Moslem States, where there is a sufficiently large and compact Christian population, we should assist in the creation of non-Moslem nations. Part of Egypt, part of Iraq, part of Sudan, part of Lebanon – and part of the West Bank – must be freed from Moslem rule, at least to the point of internal autonomy which will prevent some Moslem hate-monger from stirring up violence and persecution for whatever reason.
Such a process would not be easy, but far easier than just allowing things to continue as they are now, with endless bloodshed and persecution. Additionally, by starting to make an issue out of this, we might even start to force some Moslems of good will to rethink the Moslem attiude towards “infidels”. Change some times does not grow organically in a society – every now and again, the pace must be forced. As regards Christians under Moslem rule, the time for forcing things has arrived.
The recent story we noted about an Egyptian court essentially ruling that the Coptic Church in Egypt must violate Christian teaching opened up, for me, the fundamental issue of whether or not Christians can live in peace and justice under Moslem rule.
The Copts of Egypt – who are the descendants of the pre-Moslem population of Egypt – have suffered for a very long time, but of late the persecution of the Church in Egypt has gotten worse. Various fanatics incite violence against the Christian community (which makes up officially about 5% of the population, but is probably closer to 10%; anywhere from 4 to 8 million or so Christians…the Moslem government likes to downplay the number of Christians in Egypt), and nothing is ever done to the perpetrators.
And so it goes around the Moslem world – where there are Christians under Moslem rule, persecution, robbery, rape and murder are common and justice is impossible to obtain. In the Assyrian area of Iraq, the Christian communities of Lebanon and Pakistan – anywhere you care to mention, if Moslems rule over Christians, then the Christians are in a bad way. Meanwhile, Moslems under Christian rule can not only be sure of justice, but can actually be sure of kid glove treatment by people of the West determined to show they bear no ethnic or religious hostility to Moslems.
It is time, I believe, to consider that it isn’t possible for Christians to live under Moslem rule. When one thinks about it, the fact that Christians are forbidden to live and worship in Mecca is all that needs be said – we Christians are considered to be the merest filth to Moslems. We are unclean and unfit to come within sight of Islam’s holiest city. This attitude very naturally spills over to other areas of life – very easy for a Moslem to move from “you aren’t as good as me” to “why don’t I just take what I want from you?”.
Unless and until Moslems drop this attitude – unless and until they allow a Christian church to open in Mecca (and there are secret Christians there – we can’t live openly there, but Moslems do lack the willingness to do hard, dirty work on their own…so, they hire foreigners, a large number of whom are Christian, to do it for them, even in Mecca), we simply cannot trust Christians to be under Moslem rule.
Out of the Moslem States, where there is a sufficiently large and compact Christian population, we should assist in the creation of non-Moslem nations. Part of Egypt, part of Iraq, part of Sudan, part of Lebanon – and part of the West Bank – must be freed from Moslem rule, at least to the point of internal autonomy which will prevent some Moslem hate-monger from stirring up violence and persecution for whatever reason.
Such a process would not be easy, but far easier than just allowing things to continue as they are now, with endless bloodshed and persecution. Additionally, by starting to make an issue out of this, we might even start to force some Moslems of good will to rethink the Moslem attiude towards “infidels”. Change some times does not grow organically in a society – every now and again, the pace must be forced. As regards Christians under Moslem rule, the time for forcing things has arrived.
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