As I wrote recently, "We may be seeing even more such examples of Muslim countries increasing their already relentless persecuting of Christians as they strive to prove their Islamic bonafides and forestall the Islamic State's challenge to their authority."
More proof of this trend in this story, if you needed it.
Imam of Mecca’s grand mosque calls for all-out war against Shi’ites and Christians
via Jihad Watch, April 3, 2015
The imam of the grand mosque in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam? How did Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais miss all the Qur’an’s peaceful teachings that Barack Obama, John Kerry, and David Cameron find so easily?
“Muslim Cleric Calls for ‘All-Out War,’” by Riyadh Mohammed, The Fiscal Times, April 2, 2015:
…Amid the ongoing Sunni-Shiite wars, on the eve of April Fools’ Day, an audio recording was circulated online of the man who presides over the holiest site for Muslim around the world. The caption on photo accompanying the recording read, “Imam of the grand mosque in Mecca calls for all-out war against Shiites.”
“Our war with Iran, say that out loud, is a war between Sunnis and Shiites,” Sunni preacher Abdul Rahman al-Sudais says in the nearly seven-minute clip. “Our war with Iran…is truly sectarian. If it was not sectarian, we will make it sectarian… The Jews and cross” – meaning Christians – “I swear by Allah that they will have their days…The prophet said that Rome will be conquered …Our disagreement with Rafidha” – another word for Shiites – “will not be removed, nor our suicide to fight them… as long as they are on the face of the earth….”
While cursing Jews is part of Friday prayers and speeches in many parts of the Islamic world, most Muslim imams avoid calling for all-out war with Shiites and Christians. Hearing that call from al-Sudais in the grand mosque in Mecca is an unprecedented escalation of hate speech (though, for what it’s worth, Al-Sudais’ page on Facebook didn’t confirm his alleged comments).
“Remember the date of 3/31/2015, the day the Shiite-Sunni war was announced. It will last more than the crusade wars,” said Ahmed Abul Hussein, the secular editor-in-chief of an Iraqi news agency, about the cleric’s speech. …