For an idea on why Egypt’s Coptic Christians and their churches are constantly under attack—most recently last Sunday, when a church was bombed, killing at least 25 Christians—one need merely listen to the words and teachings of some of the nation’s Muslim preachers.
Take Dr. Ahmed al-Naqib, for instance. He has studied at the best Islamic madrassas, including Al Azhar, authored numerous books on doctrine, received awards and decorations for his academic achievements, and regularly appears on television. In one video he appears discussing an earlier Muslim mob attack on a church in Egypt, which the media and government always denounce as fitna, an Arabic word that means temptation or discord and which Islam commands Muslims to oppose.
Citing revered Islamic texts including the Koran, Dr. Naqib explained that the open display of shirk—the greatest sin in Islam, associating someone else with God, which the Koran accuses Christians of doing via the Trinity—“is the worst form of fitna, worse than murder and bloodshed.”
In other words, and as he went on to make perfectly clear in the remainder of the video, fitna (or discord) is not when Muslims attack Christian churches—far from it—but rather when Christians are allowed to flaunt their shirk (or “blasphemies”) in churches near Muslims. Fighting that—even to the point of “murder and bloodshed”—is preferable.
Then there’s Dr. Yasser Burhami, the face of Egypt’s Salafi movement, who is as well credentialed and prolific as Naqib: he’s on record saying that, although a Muslim man is permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women, he must make sure he still hates them in his heart—and always shows that he hates them—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his Islam.
As for churches, Burhami once issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi and bus drivers from transporting Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar.”
But it’s not just “radical” or Salafi sheikhs who make such hateful pronouncements. Even so-called “moderate” Islamic institutions, such as Al Azhar’s Dar al-Ifta, issued a fatwa in August 2009 likening the building of a church to “a nightclub, a gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs.”
Such analogies are not original to the Salafis or Dar al-Ifta but rather trace back to some of Islam’s most revered doctrinaires, including Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim. They taught that “building churches is worse than building bars and brothels, for those [churches] symbolize infidelity, whereas these [bars and brothels] represent immorality.”
One can go on and on with examples of Muslim clerics and institutions inciting—with absolute impunity—against Christians and their churches in Egypt. Many secular and/or moderate Egyptians agree. For instance, back in 2014, Muslim Brotherhood supporters mauled and murdered a woman after her cross identified her as a Christian. Soon thereafter, an Egyptian op-ed titled “Find the True Killer of Mary” argued that:
Those who killed the young and vulnerable Mary Sameh George, for hanging a cross in her car, are not criminals, but rather wretches who follow those who legalized for them murder, lynching, dismemberment, and the stripping bare of young Christian girls—without ever saying [the word] “kill.” [Islamic cleric] Yassir Burhami and his colleagues who announce their hate for Christians throughout satellite channels and in mosques—claiming that hatred of Christians is synonymous with love for God—they are the true killers who need to be tried and prosecuted.
One can say the same thing about the suicide-bombing of St. Peter’s cathedral.
In short, until such time comes that the Egyptian government removes the “radical” sheikhs and their teachings from the mosques, schools, television stations and all other positions of influence, Muslims will continue to be radicalized, churches will continue to be bombed, and Christians will continue to be killed.
Good article Raymond. This needs to be said clearly for all those who claim that the “religion of peace” has been hijacked by extremists who have no understanding of the “religion of peace.”
Let us also remember that the postmodernist moral relativists that are running the Western world and the majority of Western societies love and adore islam and muslims, including muslim jihadists while they hate and demonize Christianity and ban Christian symbols and prayers from the public square. Watch the video clip below please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5ROQDscaJw
A radical or fundamentalist goes to the root of what he believe. You can not blame someone or her for that. It is only human to want to know more. We have to convince them to believe something else or we have to forbid his believe in total. There is no other way. Otherwise there will always be people who kill in the name of allah, because mohamet told them to do so.
While I would prefer that Muslims would convert from their religion, you have to know that if Islam was outlawed anywhere on this planet, a real honest to God jihad would be unleashed. Plus, as long as most Muslims behave themselves, you can’t really slap the whole Muslim world with the jihadist brush. And if Islam can be outlawed, any religion including ours could be too.
After National Socialisme had plunged Europe and more into a killing-field, after 1945, Hitlers ‘Mein kampf’ was forbidden. Do we need another war to do the same?
Well we have one already! We have to take the consequenties of living with this madness called islam. It is submission, flee or FIGHT! So we have to fight, not the muslims, but islam. And that will mean we will insult every muslim by telling them they believe in a lie. But we HAVE to tell them the truth (Ephecience 6: 13-18) and we have to protect our self, our children and our neighbors by forbidding this book of evil.
I know I’m late to this, but you can’t simply be confrontational with everyone else. The Apostles did things the right way, being righteous, honorable and persuasive to the world, and confrontational to sinners in the Church. Jesus wasn’t confrontational all the time, just when He knew when, but we lack that Godly level of wisdom.
All I can say is bring the Jihad – Bring It On
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30efafd07a684a45131a927c1771629d0ad07f0861d2c8a0b407427246810005.jpg
Cool story, Bro!
The communist governments in China and Russia combined with Islam killed more people on earth (majority Christians). We must ask ourselves who started the communist party in Russia – according to reports it was the Bolsheviks Jews. How did Mohammad come to power and who helped him? We know his first wife, Khadija, was a Jew who was the first convert to Islam. Her along with other members of the Jewish community in Medina (Jews tribes started/controlled Medina) helped him write the evil cult religion. More Christians have been slaughtered throughout history, but we continue to only speak of one holocaust naming the Jews as the victims even through Hitler killed millions of Catholics and other Christians.
Lastly, both religions hate Christians because we believe Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior. If you speak ill will about the Jews, you are branded as “anti-semitic”. If you speak ill will about the Muslims, you are branded as “anti-islamophobic”. But speak ill will all day long about the Christians even slaughter them, and you won’t hear anyone say a damn word. When are we (Christians) going to stand up for our rights and stop this madness and war going on around the world targeting Christians?!?
There can be nothing but the sword between us and Dr. Ahmed al-Naqib, until the camel piss drinker either converts to Christianity or departs from Islam some other way.
MSM in western media should be emblazoning these muslim perpetrated crimes against humanity instead of ignoring it, especially since sharia islam is 100% bad for kaffirs and apostates. Instead, they prefer to demonise Israel and Christianity. But the times are a changing…. Crusaders are historically known for taking a long time to rise up, but eventually they do, and then don’t cry…muslims.
It is absolutely pathetic that in Britian, a man is being threatened with prosecution by the transport security team, for not wanting to sit next to a muslim woman. This is called a hate crime in our highly advanced western civilisation founded on christian principles and values. CAIR in america is constantly complaining about graffiti and letters expressing the opinions of those who reject islam and muslims. Any physical attack on muslims is rare and it is also well known fact that muslims report false hate crimes.
Yet, in muslim majority countries, like Egypt, muslims are pracitising islam in its most abhorrent form, viciously murdering, raping, plundering and destroying that which is christian. An the UN allows the OIC to get away with these extreme and genocidal crimes against humanity. In the meantime, the UN appoints muslims to head up human rights commissions, that appear to be doing very little expect expanding islam.
Islam is actually a evil pagan moon god cult that has roots back to Babylon. Since Christ Jesus is the way, the truth, Christianity will always be under assault. The reason why leftists hate Christianity but don’t have a problem with Islam is the same reason. Islam is a false pagan cult and not the right path.
islam is NOT, has NEVER been and NEVER will be a “religion of peace”.
Islam is a religion of death and destruction. Muhammad was given the Quran by Satan and not by an Angel. Jesus Christ is the only way to get to heaven whether you believe that or not. Muslims are Servants of Satan and unless they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior they will spend eternity in hell. The most wonderful thing about the truth is that it is not subjective. It is not subject to a person’s belief or lack thereof.