Let's make every day "Oxi Day"

October 28 is the annual Greek holiday "Oxi Day," (pronounced "okh-ee") when Greeks celebrate:

"General Ioannis Metaxas' strong reply of 'oxi' (no) to Mussolini's request to allow Italian troops to come into Greece at the beginning of WW II. The result of this stern message was powerful, and in the end, helped to maintain Greece’s course of neutrality for generations to come. Nevertheless, the Italians did invade Greece, but were subsequently driven back into Albania... On that cherished day in Greek history, prime minister Ioannis Metaxas not only rejected Italy's ultimatum, he chose the road of resistance... Cypriot countrymen also drew inspiration from Greece's refusal to let Italian troops invade in 1940 in the face of continued Turkish aggression." (Source)

Commemorated also in Greek Orthodox churches the Sunday closest to October 28, this is actually quite a profound holiday, one which takes its name from the simple word "No."

How important is this word? The Lord Jesus Christ teaches us:

"Let your 'yes' be 'yes', and your 'no', 'no'. Anything more than this comes from the evil one" (MT 5:37).

Thus, a simple and clear 'yes' or 'no' is the righteous response. Equivocation and nuanced dialogue is to be avoided. But that is a topic for another post.

In our time, a new "Oxi Day" is most desperately needed, not to stem the incursions of secular fascists, but to repudiate the efforts of today's threatening totalitarian ideology: Islam.

Cloaked in the garb of religion, Muhammad's followers seek to shield themselves against legitimate criticism:

• of Islam's harsh teachings about women being valued half or a quarter than a man, 
• of Islam's treatment of Christians, Jews and other non-muslims, 
• of Islam's practices of polygamy, female genital mutilation, and other backwards cultural anomalies, 
• of the barbaric punishments codified in sharia law for apostasy, blasphemy, theft, adultery, etc., 
• and especially its command to wage jihad against the unbelievers until all the world is brought under the rule of Allah...

Adherents of this radical supremacist ideology are making every effort to insinuate Islamic precepts (sharia law) into American life, culture, and law. Every week sees new reports of Muslims claiming to be discriminated against by employers, schools, and even ordinary U.S. citizens. The most outrageous recent example is that of Muslim students at Catholic University, who claim their rights are being violated by the presence of crucifixes in classrooms, and who are insisting on special Muslim prayer spaces. (Interestingly, President Obama insisted on crosses being covered when he spoke at Georgetown University in April 2009.)

Pious Muslims are supposed to observe prayer five times a day. However, the demands of job, school or circumstance allow Muslims to observe their prayer times in whatever manner is convenient. Orthodox Christians understand this concept very well, having the Hours of Prayer, and in general, the full cycle of services which devout Orthodox may strive to observe, and which are kept in Orthodox Christian monasteries. It is not uncommon for Orthodox Christians to group together the First and Third Hours in the morning, or the Sixth and Ninth in the afternoon. Some defer them until after the work day is ended, and have a brief, early-evening rule. Most monastic communities group the Hours with other services, so as both to enable a flow to the services, and to allow for sufficient time for work and other obediences.

The point is, that precise observation of prayer times is never thought of as etched in stone, but is rather a fluid obligation, adaptable to one's situation in life. Indeed, for a Christian, the goal is not punctual but unceasing prayer, unceasing communion with the Lord. To believe otherwise, exalting the literal times of prayer over the spirit of continuous spiritual communion with God, is to be pharisaical — or something worse.

In the case of Muslim demands for prayer breaks at specific times, for prayer rooms, foot baths, wearing the hijab in violation of safety regulations, and on and on ad nauseum, such demands are merely convenient opportunities for Muslims to advance the notion that special consideration must always be granted for Islam and the followers of Muhammad. Over time, precedents are set, so that Somali workers at a Swift meat packing plant in Colorado striking for prayer breaks can point to Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis who refuse to accept passengers who are carrying or have been drinking alcohol, who all in turn bolster the notion that shariah law must be respected and observed by all Americans, because Muslims are a special, privileged class of people. How does this agenda get advanced? By Muslims challenging American law and culture in the courts, in the media, and in every possible forum, insisting their demands be met and accepted. Otherwise the employers, school, or non-Muslims are certain to be defamed as Islamophobic bigots. 

The Islamic supremacist challenge need not be of such a functional nature as prayer breaks and the like. It is just as often advanced in the marketplace of ideas. The Islamic claim that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were Muslim prophets (an infamous bus ad which has run in many major cities), and that Allah is the God of Abraham, the God of the Old and New Testaments (favorite Muslim claims in inter-faith dialogues), are especially pernicious, and must be repudiated by Christians wherever and whenever they are confronted by them. Such claims are blatant efforts to co-opt and Islamize Christianity and Judaism. In the absence of a robust Christian refutation of such Islamic proselytizing techniques (dawah) the old legal maxim holds: Silence implies assent.

Over time, as supremacist Muslim claims proliferate, and more and more Americans back down, Islam becomes the de facto established religion in America, and Muslims can claim exalted, preferential status and treatment.

Perhaps Catholic University can inaugurate a new era of American "Oxi Days," and simply tell the Muslim students to adopt a common sense solution to their problem: If you don't like Catholic crucifixes, you are free to withdraw from Catholic University and choose a secular university.

Muslim demands for preferential treatment?   Just say "Oxi."

Steve Jobs and His Significance

Like many, I am mourning Steve Jobs, founder and visionary of Apple, Inc., who died yesterday after a brave battle against a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Steve (many of us Apple users call him by his first name, thank you very much) was a unique visionary, who revolutionized several industries (personal computing, music distribution, mobile telephones, digital animation), and created whole new product categories which have transformed our lives and the future of culture and technology (the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad). 

 

As CEO of Apple, the company he co-founded and will forever be identified with, Steve led the design and launch of the first truly successful tablet computer, the iPad, which he introduced as a "revolutionary and magical device."

Although a consummate showman, Jobs usually shied away from any such hyperbole, describing products as "really great," "the best iMac we've ever shipped," etc. Apple watchers famously described his presentation skills as the Jobs "Reality Distortion Field." But with the iPad, it's not hyperbole, and there's no need for a huckster to distort reality once you see it. I own one, and it is revolutionary, even magical. How magical? Well, had someone created such a slate five centuries ago, they might have been burned at the stake.

Yes, under Steve Jobs we have seen something close to alchemy. We have seen vision, art and imagination perfectly wedded with technology. Revolutionary. Magical. Yet still deeply personal. Steve Jobs most dramatically touched our lives through devices you touch. His creative touch lives most powerfully through the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Known for his intense, at times even fierce persona, Steve's insistence on excellence and drive to create "insanely great products" reportedly also drove some of his employees to frustration or even despair. His rise from the mid-1970s to the launch of the Mac, then fall after being ousted from Apple in 1985, then his return to Apple as iCEO in 1997, and his success in leading it to become the most powerful and successful tech company in the world, and for a time this past August, the most valuable company in the world (surpassing even Exxon), is a story of almost fable-like import. There is much more to be revealed about Steve Jobs in a significant biography to be released soon. His importance is so enormous that we Christians should seriously ponder this man's legacy, example, and what his ultimate message may be.

For now, I'd like to offer the below observation by a blogger who goes by the alias The Anti-Jihadist, who gives us a perspective on Steve Jobs' significance which in our insulated American lives we might not at first consider.

How we should remember Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and (until very recently) the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, died yesterday at the young age of 56. He is being universally remembered and hailed as a creative and entrepreneurial talent of the first rank, earning numerous mainstream media comparisons to other giants of American business like Rockefeller, Edison and Henry Ford. In short, he was the consummate genius that only a free, non-Muslim society could conjure up.

Steve Jobs' brilliant life and career should always remind all of us that people can not reach even a small fraction of their potential under the shadow of Islam. It is mainly in the free, democratic Western World where most of the world's creative and inventive talents are born or choose to make their homes. It is mainly in the West where one finds, even now, the freedom to innovate, to pursue your dreams, and to reap failure or success based primarily on your merits and abilities. Freedom nurtures genius and ingenuity; totalitarian creeds destroy them.

Societies that lack fundamental freedoms and true tolerance for gifted individuals -- namely, Islamic societies -- are remarkably consistent in failing to produce noteworthy human capital or talent. The rare exceptions we find to this maxim -- the ones who manage to escape the death grip that Islam has on the minds, souls and psyches of so many -- prove this rule all too well. The world would have been much poorer if Steve Jobs had not been blessed with being born in a free society, in America; a society that allowed and encouraged him to reach for the apex of achievement in any field he so chose. What if Steve Jobs had had the misfortune to have been born in a place like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? What would have become of his talents then? Would the world had been for the better or worse for it?

Let us take this time to mourn and remember the late, great Steve Jobs, but let us now especially remember the lesson that his life teaches us: freedom of the individual is one of the most important gifts imaginable to the human race. The human enterprise cannot and will not progress nor succeed without it. 

 

Posted by The Anti-Jihadist on October 6, 2011 5:30 AM

Islam in SciFi: 'The Borg'

I recently watched one of the Star Trek motion pictures, First Contact (1996), which I hadn't seen in quite some time. It features the Star Trek: The Next Generation characters, and pits them against the evil Borg, who are trying to take over (assimilate) the human race. 

The movie is still very entertaining after fifteen years, its special effects at the service of a witty and engaging story, but what I wish to consider is the nature and symbolic importance of the unique menace introduced into the Star Trek universe by the STTNG series (and if one uses these abbreviations, you may infer he is at some level, a 'Trekker'), featured in this film in a more personal and sinister context than was ever done in the TV series: the Borg.

Short for CYBORG (which is short for 'Cybernetic Organism'), the Borg 'collective' is unlike the Klingons or Romulans, adversaries of Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s (STTOS). The Klingons, you may recall, symbolized the old Soviet Union, with some of the STTOS episodes offering insightful commentary on geopolitics and the Cold War (e.g., 'Balance of Power' and others), whereas the Romulans could perhaps be seen as Communist China, fleshing out a dangerous galaxy of expansionist civilizations whose cultures are distinctly war-like, glorifying battle and conquest, contesting with the peaceful (yet powerfully armed) United Federation of Planets of which our Star Trek characters are essentially naval armed services representatives.

Whereas the Klingons and Romulans are like us, in that they are distinct persons with differing personalities working together to advance their particular value systems and cultures, the Borg are a uniform, homogenized collective controlled by an 'uber-mind'; they exist as a 'hive' of drones, those words specifically used in the STTNG series (and in the Star Trek: Voyager series) and film to describe the collective and its Borg members. 

The Borg exist simply to expand their dominance. They have no culture, no arts, no personal life. (One could adapt the Ayatollah Khomeini's infamous dictum about Islam here: "There is no fun in The Borg!") They cannot think for themselves. They stiffly stride around like futuristic zombies. As they conquer different races and worlds, they kill whom they must, but what they strive to do is 'assimilate' others by getting close enough to inject self-replicating nanobots into the victim's bloodstream, who is then quickly transformed into a drone himself, and then surgically outfitted with cyber attachments to increase his warfare and technological capabilities. The drone's mind is subsumed into that of the collective, which we learn is organized and controlled by the Borg Queen, who seems to be the only Borg with a personality as such; she even declares "I am the Borg," indicating her role and power both.

With this brief background, we may notice a few key parallels between the Borg, and the looming sinister menace of the early 21st century, Islam.

The Borg always first engage the civilizations they have targeted for assimilation with an invitation. They encroach upon the target civilization's territory with one of their huge cubes, and immediately invite them to be assimilated, offer to raise them to perfection, and warn them ominously that, "Resistance is futile." If the target civilization declines the invitation, the Borg attack, and because of their sheer numbers, advanced technology, and singleminded determination, usually win, and assimilate the survivors of their genocidal assault into the 'hive', the collective.

This pattern is shockingly similar to the practice of Jihad and the Dhimma, as waged by Muhammad himself and his early followers from the Medinan period onward, and emulated for nearly fourteen centuries by devout Muslims. Just as Muhammad did (and he is the perfect example for Muslims, the 'ideal man'), jihadists invite the non-Muslims in whatever territory they are expanding into, to embrace Islam. If the infidels (kuffir, a term which has connotations of being unclean, and even sub-human) refuse to convert to Islam, the Muslims may make war upon them and kill them, unless the infidels acknowledge the superiority of Islam and submit to its temporal rule over their lives and property, paying the humiliating and crippling jizya tax. This 'Third Choice' is perhaps the only real difference between the Borg and Islam. The Borg are not quite so "generous."

As a side note, it is extremely interesting that the Star Trek creators designed the Borg ships to be shaped as cubes (with green-colored phaser weapons—green was Muhammad's favorite color), for the most important site on earth for a Muslim is the Kaaba in Mecca, where every Muslim must face when he/she prays, and to where every able-bodied adult Muslim must make pilgrimage at least once in their life. 'Kaaba', of course, merely means 'cube'. Did the Star Trek team deliberately pattern the Borg on the historical nemesis of Western Civilization? (Perhaps someone should warn Rick Berman and the Star Trek creative team that they may find themselves under a death fatwa should this 'secret' ever be deciphered by the more zealous adherents of the Religion of PeaceTM.)

For Muslims, including those who convert to Islam, if they take it seriously, and embrace such key dogmas as following the Sunnah (or 'Way') of Muhammad, and if they do this diligently, putting aside any internal, personal doubts or reservations, they become like the Borg drones; they inevitably 'submit' (the meaning of 'Islam') and deaden their own God-given conscience for an uber-conscience imposed upon them from without by the Ulema, the Muslim jurists who interpret the Koran and the life and sayings of Muhammad so as to form the Muslim ethos. This is why the Mujahideen can justify killing innocent civilians, women and children, and even other Muslims, in their jihad attacks. Such 'victims', by their living a Western way of life, or cooperating with the United States, are not innocent but guilty, and Muslims who side with the US or live according to Western mores, are de facto apostates, and thus guilty as well.

The concept of guilt and innocence in Islam, is tightly connected to the concept of Allah's sovereignty. Infidels are guilty precisely because they are infidels. Similarly, since, in Islam, the whole earth belongs to Allah, and therefore to the Ummah (i.e., the Muslim community), Muslims have both a right, and a compelling, divine duty to conquer lands not under Muslim control, to return that land to Allah's control. Thus to a Muslim, they are always the victims, and all their wars are defensive, not offensive. They are striving to liberate the world from the wrongful tyranny of non-Muslims. 

Granted, the Borg do not have this precise nuance regarding sovereignty, guilt and innocence, but they are possessed of an innate belief of being the perfect life form, which provides them with similar motivation to bring all sentient life forms into their Ummah of perfection. This fully corresponds to Islam's assertion that Muslims are the best of people, the winners, while Jews are descended from apes and swine, and all infidels are the worst of created beings, and are the losers in this life and the next.

These superficial similarities are interesting enough, but in the latter third of the film, we see a 'fascinating' (with all due deference to Mr. Spock) exchange between the Borg Queen and Commander Data, who is impervious to assimilation because he is an android, with such powerful encryption codes that he would have to willingly submit in order to ally himself with the Borg. The Borg Queen (portrayed with a creepy sensuality by Alice Krige) seeks to tempt Data by fitting him with the very thing he has always lacked, and always longed for: human skin. (Truly, Data is a futuristic Pinnochio figure, who in many ways is quite human.) His reaction to the Queen blowing softly across his newly enfleshed forearm hairs is a powerful depiction of carnal temptation. 

This use of temptation to convert is a tactic employed again and again by Islamic rulers, as evinced in the stories of the Neomartyrs under the Ottoman Muslims from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and even to our own time (see my previous post). The Christian is offered wealth, women, prestige, and luxury, if he will but renounce Christ and embrace Islam. (Some of the Neomartyrs did succumb to initial temptations, or were in other cases tricked into becoming Muslims, later repenting and confessing Christ, thus expunging their former apostasy and securing their martyrdom and salvation.)

Dramatically, Captain Jean Luc Picard offers himself to the Borg Queen if she will let Data go. Picard himself was captured by the Borg some years before, but was recaptured by the Federation and set free from the Borg's control and fully restored. He comes to realize, in a stunning epiphany, that the Borg Queen did not fully assimilate him as the Borg did with other humans, but was seeking to bend him to voluntarily join the collective, so he could be used to deceive, manipulate and control the Federation. In the midst of Data's temptation, Picard faces and utterly defeats his own nightmares concerning his prior experience with the Borg.

At the climax of the film, Data reveals he was himself merely deceiving the Borg Queen (note the irony, for Muhammad said, "War is deceit"), and he and Picard destroy her and the drones, saving the day and the entire human race, past and future. Their devotion to a humanity worth saving is our final key point in our consideration of the Borg.

The Star Trek universe posits a humanity that has value; it holds an anthropology that is innately advocating the extraordinariness of human existence. This is not a Christian anthropology (for, like all science fiction, Star Trek presupposes an evolutionist cosmogeny), but for our consideration, it makes two very powerful statements: (1) humanity, in all its diversity, with all its flaws, has unique, intrinsic value, and is worth defending, even unto the utter annihilation of an intractable foe; and (2) there are such things as intractable foes which must be completely defeated.

Regarding anthropologies: the Christian and Judaic faiths affirm that God created man in His own image.  In Christ we are raised up to be children of God, and co-heirs of the Kingdom of God with Christ, even reigning with Him if we remain faithful to the end. Hell is precisely our rejection of God and His love. As God's love is poured out on all, it will illumine and bless those who have loved Him and longed to live for and with Him, while it will burn those who have denied Him and hated or ignored God and neighbor.

Islam rejects such claims, believing that man was formed from a clot of blood, and his earthly role and only hope is to be a slave of Allah, and his eternal destiny is either a lusty, carnal paradise if Allah spares him (or if he is a jihadist killed while fighting in the way of Allah), or eternal damnation with Allah personally supervising his endless torture. There is no personal, intimate union of God with man in Islam, just fear of a capricious, vile creator, one of whose 99 names in the Koran is "the Best Deceiver."

Thus the horrific threat of Islamic fundamentalist movements like Wahhabism, Salafism and others, including those who seek to institute sharia law in the United States. These movements, by returning to the example of the warlord, pedophile, false-prophet Muhammad and his bloody Sunnah as the model for all Muslims for all time, and by elevating their rigid, brutal Islamic law as wholly above human reason, understanding and compassion, kill their God-given human conscience, and voluntarily buy into a satanic delusion, becoming the very intractable foe that our PC-infected culture is so loath to confront. 

In the Star Trek universe, some individuals were set free from the Borg collective (e.g., Picard, Seven-of-Nine from Star Trek Voyager), but the Borg itself was wholly irredeemable, and could not be trusted, negotiated with, placated nor appeased. So it is with Islam. More than a "Clash of Civilizations," Islam is a full frontal assault on human nature, human dignity, and on the dignity of God. If we allow Islam to co-opt Orthodox Christianity by assenting to the Same-God heresy, then we are blatantly guilty of blaspheming God, by ascribing to the Holy Trinity characteristics belonging to Satan. That is one intractable foe which must be confronted and repudiated at every turn. The false religion and ideology of Islam can only be destroyed by the Truth and Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Cube has to go.

Islam's Continuity

For my first post since July, I've chosen to share a new article by noted scholar of Islam, Raymond Ibrahim, who I had the great pleasure of meeting at the Lima Conference on Orthodoxy and Islam, this past August 19-21. Raymond has for some time now been "demonstrating continuity" (the sub-heading of his former blog) in Islam, that is, how the actions of today's devout Muslims can be seen to span not merely decades back, but precisely 1.38 millennia, being evidenced in every land where Islam has spread.

In this article, Raymond makes his point stunningly clear by focusing on two nearly identical instances of attempted forced conversion, separated by five hundred years, culture and language:

Islam’s History of Forced Conversions

Raymond Ibrahim, September 29, 2011

Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization.

Consider the issue of forced conversion in Islam, a phenomenon that has a long history with ample precedents.  Indeed, from its inception, most of those who embraced Islam did so under duress, beginning with the Ridda wars and during the age of conquests, and to escape dhimmi status.  This is a simple fact.

Yet, when one examines today’s cases of forced conversions with those from centuries past, identical patterns emerge, demonstrating great continuity.  Consider:

Days ago in Pakistan, two Christian men were severely beaten with iron rods and left for dead by a group of Muslims, simply because they refused to convert to Islam.  According toCompass Direct News ^[1], they were returning from a church service when they were accosted by six Muslims.  After they discovered they were Christian, the Muslims:

then started questioning them about their faith and later tried to force them to recite the Kalma [Islamic conversion creed, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger”] and become Muslims, telling them that this was the only way they could live peacefully in the city. They also offered monetary incentives and “protection” to Ishfaq and Naeem [the Christians], but the two refused to renounce Christianity.

“After cajoling the two Christians for some time,” the Muslims pretended to go away, only to ram their car into the Christians: “The Muslims [then] got out of the car armed with iron rods and attacked Ishfaq and Naeem, shouting that they should either recite the Kalma or be prepared to die…severely beating[ing] the two Christians, fracturing Ishfaq Munawar’s jaw and breaking five teeth, and seriously injuring Masih…. [T]he two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them.”

Contrast this contemporary account with the following anecdote from some 500 years past (excerpted from Witnesses for Christ ^[2], pgs.62-64):

In the year 1522, two Christian brothers in Ottoman Egypt were denounced by local Muslims “mostly out of jealousy and envy”; so the emir arrested them and “began flattering them and asking questions about their faith.”  The brothers made it clear that they were firm adherents of Christianity.  “The Muslims in the audience became enraged with the brothers when they heard their answers, and they began screaming and demanding they must become Muslims.”  The brothers responded by refusing to “deny the faith we received from our forefathers, but we will remain unshaken and very firm in it until the end.”

The Muslim judge deciding their case told the Christian brothers that if they simply said the Kalma and embraced Islam, they “would be given many honors and much glory”; otherwise, they would die.  At that point, the brothers’ mother came to support them, but “when the Muslims in court noticed her, they fell upon her, tore her clothing, and gave her a thorough beating.”

After rebuking them for their savagery, the brothers reaffirmed that they would never deny Christianity for Islam, adding “behold our necks, do what you wish, but do it quickly.”

 Hearing this, one of the Muslims in the audience became so angry that he took out a knife and stabbed Kyrmidoles [one brother] in the chest, while someone else kicked him as hard as possible, and another dropped a large stone on his head.  Finally, they plucked out his eyes.  Thus Kyrmidoles died.  As for Gabriel [his brother] they threw him to the ground and one of the soldiers severed his right shoulder and then proceeded and cut off his head.

Now, consider the near identical patterns in the two accounts, separated by half a millennium:

1. The Muslims first begin by talking to the Christians about their religion, suggesting they convert to Islam.
2. Failing to persuade the Christians, the Muslims proceed to “cajole” and offer “monetary incentives and protection” (in the modern case) and “flatter” and offer “many honors and much glory” (in the historic case).  All that the Christians need do is speak some words, the Kalma, and become Muslim.
3. When the Christians still refuse, the Muslims fly into a savage rage, beating and torturing their victims to death (in the modern case, the Muslims assumed they had killed their victims).

Considering the Ottoman Empire and contemporary Pakistan are separated by culture, language, and some 500 years, how does one explain these identical patterns?  What binds them together?

Only Islam—Islam empowered, Islam in charge; Muslim majorities governing, and thus abusing their non-Muslim minority.  A fact of life, past and present.

Source.

____________

What Raymond Ibrahim does in his many articles, Dr Mark Durie has accomplished in his superb book-length presentation of Islam's treatment of Christians and other non-Muslims, The Third Choice. Durie devotes a large portion of his discussion precisely to "demonstrating continuity", showing through objective historical research how the Islamic practices of aggressive jihad, forced conversions, and the domination, subjugation and humiliation of non-Muslims through the institutionalization of the dhimma contract, are constants in Islamic history, spanning nearly fourteen hundred years, and evidenced in every part of the globe where Islam has spread. 

Wherever Islam goes, it seeks to usurp and dominate, by force if possible (jihad), and by stealth, immigration and deception if necessary, until it is sufficiently strong enough to wage offensive jihad. And wherever Islam is successful in overcoming and conquering a new territory and peoples, it becomes aggressively disposed towards its non-Muslim population, and wherever that happens, one sees the type of barbaric behavior against Christians documented in the lives of the Holy Neomartyrs (see Witnesses for Christ, by Nomikos Michael Vaporis), and in the lives of Christians in Islamic countries today.

Acknowledging this continuity in our considerations of Islam is essential for an honest appraisal of this alien and threatening culture which is once again seeking to assert itself over the world.

The Strange Teachings of Muhammad

Thus morning, happily, someone sent me this 2009 interview with Fr Zakaria Botros, whose return to the public eye I featured in a July 9 post. Rather than re-post the complete interview, which you can find here, I am selecting a few key sections which reveal a great deal about Fr Zakaria's life and sufferings, his heart for Muslims and their salvation, and his assessment of Islam and Muhammad based on the Islamic source texts.

For more on Fr Zakaria and his missionary work among Muslims, follow the links in this and the July 9 post. His biography, Defying Death, is out of print, and fetches over $500 a copy through Amazon.com's used book resellers.

The Strange Teachings of MuhammadBy: FrontPage Magazine FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Coptic priest Fr. Zakaria Botros, who al Qaeda has  called  "one of the most wanted infidels in the world," issuing a 60 million dollar bounty on his head. Popular Arabic magazines also call him "Islam's public enemy #1". He hosts a television program, “Truth Talk,” on Life TV.  His two sites are Islam-Christianity.net and FatherZakaria.net. He was recently awarded the Daniel of the Year award.

FP: Fr. Zakaria Botros, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Botros: Thank you for inviting me.

FP: Let’s begin with your own personal story, in terms of Islam and Christianity.

Botros: I am a Copt. In my early 20s, I became a priest. Of course, in predominantly Muslim Egypt, Christians—priests or otherwise—do not talk about religion with Muslims. My older brother, a passionate Christian learned that lesson too late: after preaching to Muslims, he was eventually ambushed by Muslims who cut out his tongue and murdered him. Far from being deterred or hating Muslims, I eventually felt more compelled to share the Good News with them. Naturally, this created many problems: I was constantly harassed, threatened, and eventually imprisoned and tortured for one year, simply for preaching to Muslims. Egyptian officials charged me with abetting “apostasy,” that is, for being responsible for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.  Another time I was arrested while boarding a plane out of Egypt. Eventually, however, I managed to flee my native country and resided for a time in Australia and England. Anyway, my life-story with Christianity and Islam is very long and complicated. In fact, an entire book about it was recently published.

FP: I apologize for asking this, but what were some of the tortures you endured when you were imprisoned?

Botros: Due to my preaching the Gospel, Egyptian soldiers broke into my home putting their guns to my head. Without telling me why, they arrested me and placed me in an extremely small prison cell (1.8x1.5x1.8 meters, which was further problematic, since I am 1.83 meters tall), with other inmates, and in well over 100 degree temperatures, with little ventilation, no windows, and no light.  No beds of course, we slept on the floor—in shifts, as there was not enough room for all of us to lie down.  Due to the lack of oxygen, we used to also take shifts lying with our noses under the crack of the cell door to get air. As a result, I developed a kidney infection (receiving, of course, no medical attention). Mosquitoes plagued us. Food was delivered in buckets; we rarely even knew what the gruel was. The prison guards would often spit in the bucket in front of us, as well as fling their nose pickings in it.

FP: My heart goes out to you in terms of this terrible suffering you endured. What is your primary purpose in what you do?

Botros: Simple: the salvation of souls. As I always say, inasmuch as I may reject Islam, I love Muslims. Thus, to save the latter, I have no choice but to expose the former for the false religion it is. Christ commanded us to spread the Good News. There is no rule that says Christians should proselytize the world—except for Muslims! Of course, trying to convert the latter is more dangerous. But we cannot forsake them. This is more important considering that many Muslims are “religious” and truly seek to please God; yet are they misdirected. So I want to take their sincerity and piety and direct it to the True Light.

FP: In what way can you summarize for us why you think that Islam is a “false” religion?

Botros:  Theologically, as I am a Christian priest, I believe that only Christianity offers the truth. Based on my faith in Christ, I reject all other religious systems as man-made and thus not reflective of divine truths. Moreover, one of the greatest crimes committed by Muhammad—a crime which he shall surely never be forgiven for—is that he denied the grace and mercy that Christ brought, and took humanity back to the age of the law.

But faith aside, common sense alone makes it clear that, of all the world’s major religions, Islam is most certainly false. After all, while I may not believe in, say, Buddhism, still, it obviously offers a good philosophical system and people follow it apparently for its own intrinsic worth. The same cannot be said about Islam. Of all the religions it is the only one that has to threaten its adherents with death if they try to break away; that, from its inception, in order to “buy” followers, has been dedicated to fulfilling some of the worst impulses of man—for conquest, sex, plunder, pride.  History alone demonstrates all this: while Christianity was spread far and wide by Christians who altruistically gave up their lives, simply because they believed in Christ, Islam spread by force, by the edge of the sword, by fear, threats, and lurid enticements to the basest desires of man. Islam is by far the falsest religion—an assertion that is at once theologically, philosophically, and historically demonstrable.

FP: You always document your discussions with Islamic sources. Why do Muslim clerics and imams have such a difficulty discussing what Islam itself teaches and instead just attack you personally?

Botros: I think the answer is obvious. The Islamic sources, the texts, speak for themselves. Muslims have no greater enemy than their own scriptures—particularly the Hadith and Sira—which constantly scandalize and embarrass Muslims. To date, I have done well over 500 different episodes dedicated to various topics regarding Islam. And for every one of these episodes, all my material comes directly from Islam’s textual sources, particularly usul al-fiqh—the Koran, hadith, and ijma of the ulema as found in their tafsirs.

So what can the sheikhs of Islam do?  If they try to address the issue I raise based on Islam’s texts and sharia, they will have no choice but to agree—for instance that concubinage is legal, or that drinking camel urine is advocated.  The only strategy left them, then, is to ignore all that I present and attack my person, instead.

And when well-meaning Muslims ask their leaders to respond to these charges, one of their favorite responses is to quote the Koran, where it says “Do not ask questions of things that will hurt you.”

FP: So what does it say about a religion whose religious teachers and members have to ignore their own theological texts because they cannot endure what those texts really say? What sense does any of this make?

Botros: Again, this is a reflection of the fact that Islam is less a faith, more a vehicle for empowerment. As you say, what is the point for a person to closely guard and follow a religion that he himself has to rationalize, ignore, minimize, constantly reinterpret, dissemble over, and so forth? The fact is, most Muslims do not know what is in their own texts; at best, they know, and here and there try to follow, the Five Pillars.  This is why the issues I broach often traumatize Muslims—like a freshening slap across the face: a short, sharp, shock.  The stubborn, who take it as an attack of “us versus them,” irrespective of truths, just fume and plot to kill me; the other, more reasonable Muslims, who are really searching for the truth, end up waking up to the biggest hoax perpetrated on the human race in 1400 years, and many come to the ultimate Truth.

A better question is why do the ulema hide these issues from both infidel scrutiny as well as the eyes of the average Muslim? One would think that if anyone is dedicated to the truth it would be the ulema; yet their deceptive tactics reveal the opposite. For instance, it is often the case that, after I quote problematic passages from certain Islamic books, they have a strange tendency of disappearing from the book shelves of the Arabic world.

The bottom line is, many Muslims think of Islam less as a spiritual system dedicated to ascertaining and putting one on the course of the truth, and more a way of life—first and foremost not to be questioned—that if followed closely, will result, not only in future paradise, but earthly success, honor, and power.

[...]

FP: In your view, who was Muhammad? 

Botros: Well, I have received the answer from Islam’s own books. Ironically, Ibn Taymiyya, who happens to be the hero of the modern mujahid movement, explained the prerequisites of prophet-hood very well.  One of the things he stressed is that, in order to know if a prophet is in fact from God, we must study his sira, or his biography, much like the Christ’s statement that “You shall know them from their fruits.”  So, taking Ibn Taymiyya’s advice, I recently devoted a number of episodes analyzing the biography of Muhammad, which unequivocally proves that he was not a prophet, that his only “fruits” were death, destruction, and lust.  Indeed, he himself confessed and believed that he was being visited and tormented by a “jinn,” or basically a demon, until his wife Khadija convinced him that it was the angel Gabriel—which, of course is ironic, since Muhammad himself later went on to say that the testimony of a woman is half that of a man: maybe over time he realized she was wrong, and that his first assumption was right.

FP: Fr. Botros, thank you for visiting us today.

Botros: Thank you, and may the true God richly bless you.

Canaries in the Coalmine Pt 2: Iraqi Christians

Aftermath of 2010 Baghdad Church
Massacre, in which dozens of
worshipers were killed by
extremist Muslims.

In this, our second in the 'Canaries in the Coalmine' series (the first looked at the worsening situation of the Coptic Christians in Egypt as the Muslim Brotherhood continues its acquisition of power and its push for an Islamic republic based on the shariah), we consider the heartrending and dire situation of Christians in Iraq.  Some on the ground in Mosul and elsewhere are already referring to Muslim persecution of Christians as "ethnic cleansing," and point to the hundreds of thousands of Christians fleeing Iraq as further proof of the horrendous conditions there.

Some of the stories below also refer to the horrific persecution of Christians in Iran, and the collapse of Christianity in the Holy Land in general as Islam continues its renewed, belligerent ascendancy.

It must be emphasized that these attacks on Christian communities are not "sectarian" or political in nature; as can be discerned from the accounts of survivors of the Baghdad church massacre, the Muslims who perpetrate these atrocities are basing their actions on Islamic teachings as found in the Koran and the life and example of Muhammad. Dr Mark Durie relates the nature of these attacks as follows:

It is good to note well the testimony of these survivors, because there is a view, widespread among the secular professional terrorism analysts of Western nations, that contemporary terrorism is not essentially religious in nature, but is a political movement which exploits the religion of Islam to serve what are in reality political goals.

One of the dangers of this rhetoric is that it causes the Western media to overlook or 'filter out' incidents of terrorists attacking indigenous Christians (and other religious minorities), because these attacks cannot be accommodated in the category of 'political violence'.

However there was no political advantage to be gained by killing unarmed Christian worshippers in Baghdad.  It was a purely religious act.  Thus, according to the survivors, their attackers:

1. Cried out Allahu Akbar 'Allah is greater' each time they shot Christians.
2. Called the Christians kafir 'infidel'.
3. Witnessed to the Christians that Allah is one.
4. Said it was halal (religiously permitted in Islam) to kill them, because they were Christians.
5. Rebuked their victims for 'worshipping' the cross and Christ and told them not to do so, e.g. they said, 'Don't worship the cross'.
6. Selectively targeted young men for killing: one of the attackers said 'Don't leave a young man alive.'  This is in accordance with the laws of jihad, which stipulate that male captives can be killed. Authentic hadiths (traditions) of Muhammad report that when he eliminated the  Jews from Medina, he had the men executed.  (A Jewish boy called Atiyyah later reported that when an examination revealed he had not yet begun to grow pubic hair, he was allowed to live).
7. Declared that they themselves would go to paradise but their Christian victims would go to hell.  They seemed to presume that they would be killed as an outcome of the seizure.
8. Refused to put a wounded victim out of her misery, by ending her life, although she was begging for this, on the grounds that it was fitting for her to suffer in this life because she was on her way to hell anyway.
9. Deliberately targeted Christian symbols for destruction, e.g. destroying crosses and a statue of Christ. (It was a tradition reported by Waqidi that Muhammad would destroy anything he saw which had a cross on it: W. Muir, The life of Muhammad.Volume 3, p.61, note 47.)

Here are just a few highlights of Muslim persecutions of Iraqi Christians from the past couple of years. Click on source links for the full stories:


December 2009 - Kirkuk (AsiaNews) - A policy of "ethnic and religious cleansing" is underway in Mosul; in fact, it has worsened as Christmas approaches, Mgr Louis Sako told AsiaNews. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, this means that "security measures must be strengthened or the holiday season". Meanwhile, tensions and fear are palpable in the city, made worse by a new attack against two places of worship, killing one person and wounding 40 more. A Christian source, anonymous for security reasons, said that the "community is destined to die".




March 2010 - Mosul (BBC News) - Hundreds of Iraqi Christians have taken part in protests calling for government action after a spate of killings. At least eight Christians have been killed in the past two weeks in the volatile northern city of Mosul. The killings prompted an appeal by Pope Benedict on Sunday for Iraqi authorities to protect vulnerable religious minorities. The UN says more than 680 Christian families have fled Mosul since the recent attacks.




October 2010 - Iraq (AINA) - As US forces continue to withdraw from Iraq, many fear a return to sectarian violence once they've gone. Iraqi Christians are particularly fearful of the removal of the main barrier between them and their persecutors. Their churches are burnt-out husks and heaps of rubble. Their businesses are targeted by extremists. Their leaders are kidnapped and assassinated. The Christian minority in Iraq, once a community left in peace to prosper, continues to be under threat from a campaign of persecution which has forced as many as 500,000 Christians to flee the country.

October 2010 - (AINA) - BISHOPS WARN OF CAMPAIGN TO DRIVE CHRISTIANITY FROM IRAQ - Ecumenical and interreligious dialogue were the focus Friday morning during the 8th General Congregation of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East. Pope Benedict XVI was present for the session which saw interventions from auditors and special delegates, as well as greetings from the World Council of Churches....

Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran of the Vatican's council for inter-religious dialogue said "let us not be shy in reclaiming not only freedom of worship, but also religious freedom". In this context one suggestion was the developing of a UN resolution on religious freedom that protects from discrimination, while condemning the use of religion to justify wars, or political and economic interests....

Discussions then widened out to the horrible tragedy of Christians in Iraq: bishops from the nation warned that there is a deliberate campaign to drive them out of the country and called on the international community not to remain silent. The difficult situation of the Church in Turkey was also touched on, a reality that is sometimes overlooked but one which is at risk of survival. Its story, concluded the Synod Fathers, was written with the blood of victims such as Mgr. Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, who was murdered in June.

November 2010 - (Foreign Policy) - ...The [October 2010] massacre in Baghdad is only the most spectacular example of mounting discrimination and persecution of the native Christian communities of Iraq and Iran, which are now in the middle of a massive exodus unprecedented in modern times as they confront a rising tide of Islamic militancy and religious chauvinism sweeping the region.

Christians are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in both Iraq and Iran, with roots in the Middle East that date back to the earliest days of the faith. Some follow the Apostolic Orthodox Armenian Church. Others subscribe to the 2,000-year-old Syriac tradition represented mainly by the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and by Aramaic speakers widely known as Assyrians in both Iraq and Iran.

In Iraq, Chaldean and Assyrian Christian communities have witnessed increasing violence by militant Muslims against their neighborhoods, children, and religious sites since the U.S. invasion. Even pastors are not safe -- two died in the recent Baghdad bombing; many have been killed by Sunni and Shiite Iraqis since 2003. In Iran, other clergymen, including members of the Armenian, Protestant, and Catholic churches, have been arrested, kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, or even summarily executed, over the past three decades.

"Many Christians from Mosul have been systematically targeted and are no longer safe there," said Laurens Jolles, a UNHCR representative, in 2008, after Chaldean women were raped while their men, including Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, were tortured and killed in warnings to Christians to abandon their homes and livelihoods...

But the roots of Christian decline in the Middle East actually date back centuries. In Iran, intolerance toward all non-Muslim minorities took a sharply negative turn from the 16th century onward with the forced Shiification of Iran by the Safavid dynasty. The early 20th century saw pogroms against Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire and northwestern Iran. Under the Pahlavi shahs, Assyrians, Armenians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha'is regained some of their rights and came to represent the modernizing elements of 20th century society. But the Islamic Revolution of 1979 undercut all those advances. Prejudice and oppression now occurs with impunity.

The numbers speak for themselves: The population of non-Muslims in Iran has dropped by two-thirds or more since 1979. From Iran, these groups flee to Turkey and India -- often at risk to life and limb through the violence-ridden border regions of Iraq and Pakistan. The number of Assyrian Christians in Iran has dwindled from about 100,000 in the mid-1970s to approximately 15,000 today, even as the overall population of the country has swelled from 38 million to 72 million people over the same period. In Iraq, Christians are fleeing in droves. U.N. statistics indicate that 15 percent of all Iraqi refugees in Syria are of Christian background, although they represented only 3 percent of the population when U.S. troops entered in 2003. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that between 300,000 to 400,000 Christians have been forced out of Iraq since 2003. And Christians have left because the message from Sunni militants and Shiite ayatollahs is crystal clear: You have no future here.

There is now an alarming possibility that there will be no significant Christian communities in Iraq or Iran by century's end. Christian schools, communal halls, historical sites, and churches are being appropriated by national and provincial governments, government-sponsored Muslim organizations, and radical Islamist groups. Economic and personal incentives are offered to those who adopt Islam. 

November 2010 - London (BBC) - A senior Iraqi Christian has called on believers to quit the country, after gunmen targeted a church in Baghdad. Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, who is based in the UK, made his appeal during a service at the Syrian Orthodox Church in London. The archbishop said Christians had been without protection since the US-led invasion in 2003. At least 52 people died as security forces stormed a Catholic Church in Baghdad to free dozens of hostages.

December 2010 - KIRKUK, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi Christians on Wednesday called off Christmas festivities in three cities across the country as al-Qaida insurgents threatened more attacks on a beleaguered community still terrified from a bloody siege on a Baghdad church. Church officials in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul along with the southern city of Basra said they will not put up Christmas decorations, have canceled evening Mass and urged worshippers to refrain from decorating their homes...  "Nobody can ignore the threats of al-Qaida against Iraqi Christians," said Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako in Kirkuk. "We cannot find a single source of joy that makes us celebrate. The situation of the Christians is bleak."  Christians across Iraq have been living in fear since a Baghdad church attack in October that left 68 people dead. Days later insurgents targeted Christian homes and neighborhoods across the capital with a series of bombs.

December 2010 - World Blind to Christianity's Evaporating Roots in Holy Land (Vatopaedi Friend/Calgary Herald) - One of the staples of television news over the Christmas holiday is coverage of celebrations in the Holy Land, providing a familiar and comforting nod to the ancient roots of Western civilization. Even in our increasingly secular society, images of Christians worshipping in Nazareth and Bethlehem provide welcome confirmation that we have a long and substantial history — even if we’re fuzzy on the details. It all looks so traditional and Christmassy.

Unfortunately this comforting image depends to a large extent on a dwindling number of embattled Christian communities. We are, in fact, witnessing the twilight of Christianity across much of the Middle East.

Not so long ago Bethlehem was a majority Christian town — about 80 per cent — and now is down to less than a third. Nazareth, too, has seen its Christian population almost halved in recent decades, and in Jerusalem itself the Christian community has fallen from a slight majority 80 years ago to below two per cent today. Christians are leaving the West Bank, in particular, to escape the instability and a long-standing Muslim boycott of Christian businesses that has ravaged the community’s economic foundations.

Thankfully this modern day exodus is mostly peaceful, which puts it in marked contrast to much of the history of Christian depopulation in the Middle East.

This is history the West has largely forgotten and ignored. Your average European or North American will certainly be more familiar with the story of the Palestinians and the much-publicized grievances of the Arab world in general.

Yet we’re not talking ancient history here.

Many people will have heard something of the Armenian genocide in Turkey in the years following the First World War, but few would know it was part of a larger religious and ethnic cleansing that also saw the mass slaughter of Greek and Assyrian Christians.

Almost three million Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians perished in what are now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In the first quarter of the 20th century Christians represented about one-third of the Syrian population, but now they account for less than 10 per cent. In Turkey there were about two million Christians in 1920, now reduced to just a few thousand.

Even more recently, the campaign of violence and persecution against Iraqi Christians is surely one of the most under-reported stories since the invasion of 2003. Iraq’s Christians once made up three per cent of its population, and now account for half of its refugees. About 500,000 Iraqi Christians have fled that country over the past seven years, and it’s not hard to see why. As recently as the end of October, 52 people were killed when security forces tried to free more than 100 Catholics taken hostage during a Sunday mass in Baghdad.

The Return of Fr Zakaria Botros

Raymond Ibrahim has just posted a new article telling of the return of the fearless Coptic priest, Fr Zakaria Botros. Just as did the Holy New Martyr Fr Daniil Sysoev of Moscow, Fr Zakaria boldly confronts the utter falsity of Islam and the abject depravity of Muhammad (the 'ideal pattern of conduct' for Muslims). Yet he does this not with anger or vindictiveness, but out of his evangelical love for Muslims, and his desire that they be delivered from falsehood and spiritual deception, and brought to a saving faith in Christ Jesus.

Fr Zakaria and Fr Daniil exemplify our calling, our three-fold path regarding the religion of Muhammad: (1) to grow ever deeper in our Most Holy Faith, in our abiding in Christ; (2)  to stand firm against and refute Islam; and (3) to lovingly reach out to Muslims with the Gospel of Life, the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Zakaria Botros: Islam’s Scourge Returns

Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On July 8, 2011

Father Zakaria Botros, also known as Islam’s “Public Enemy #1,” is back.


From around 2005-2010, this 76 year-old Coptic priest was Islam’s bane. Appearing weekly on Arabic satellite, where he was viewed by an estimated 60 million people worldwide, mostly Muslims, he meticulously exposed any number of theological problems with Islam—all from Islam’s own books—while simultaneously evangelizing from his own book, the Bible.

His mission “is to attack Islam, not to attack Muslims but to save them because they are deceived. As I love Muslims, I hate Islam.” 


And he has been effective: Mass conversions to Christianity, open and clandestine, have resulted. Indeed, years back al-Jazeera aired a segment complaining about Fr. Zakaria’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world; similarly, one Sheikh Ahmad al-Qatani lamented that as many as six million Muslims annually “apostatize” to Christianity.


Unsurprisingly, Fr. Zakaria’s exploits caused al-Qaeda to proclaim him “one of the most wanted infidels in the world,” putting a $60 million bounty on his head; undeterred, the priest kept going, his viewers and converts multiplying by the week.


Then, in May 2010, after a particularly graphic episode on Muhammad, his shows inexplicably stopped airing. His enemies exulted. Muslim leaders, preachers, and sheikhs appeared on TV, gleefully announcing that Allah had silenced the great enemy of Islam.


Yet, over a year after his many foes—external and internal, Muslim and non-Muslim—have managed to stifle him, Fr. Zakaria is back on satellite, now with his own station Fady TV(Redeemer TV), “a channel for those searching for the truth.”


Though other Islam-critics and evangelists have appeared on Arabic satellite since, many with a good following, it is clear that people have not forgotten the priest, the original trailblazer of open and honest talk on Islam—the original scourge of Islam.


Watching the first episode of his new show, “Knowledge of the Truth,” was like witnessing a reunion between a lost flock and its spiritual shepherd. Viewer after viewer—Christians and Muslims, much more of the latter—called in to express how much they had sorely missed the evangelist, and how happy they were to see him again, some in tears, others in joyous laughter.


And while their words were full of sincere and enthusiastic praise—many insisted that he is a living saint, others a modern day St. Paul—it was only when an elderly-sounding woman asserted that everyone must support Fr. Zakaria, not for his sake, but for the sake of his work liberating Muslims from bondage, that the normally stoic Zakaria broke down in tears.


Why is Fr. Zakaria so loved—and hated? For starters, as a native Arabic-speaker, he takes his message straight to the heart of the Islamic world; as a man of God, he takes his message straight to the heart of Muslims—something the Western approach cannot achieve.




You see, while Western critics are limited to making secular arguments against specific aspects of Islam—for instance, that it is illiberal, intolerant, sexist—he makes spiritual arguments against the very foundations of the religion.


This is not to say that Western polemics are not beneficial; they are, in that they awaken Western peoples to the nature of Islam. However, arguing or even proving that Islam falls short of Western/secular standards has little impact on Muslims—except perhaps to make them more tenacious of their faith (the inevitable result of comparing apples and oranges).


But an attack on the veracity of the religion itself—an attack articulated through a spiritual as opposed to a secular paradigm—must be confronted by Muslims.


In short, Fr. Zakaria’s success rests in the fact that he fights fire with fire; that he speaks the same language Muslims do—not just literally, Arabic, but more importantly, figuratively, the language of religion and faith, the language of God. He cannot simply be ignored.


For example, during this, his first episode, he discussed Sheikh Huwaini‘s recent assertions that Islam advocates plundering, enslaving, buying, and selling infidels. Many have written about this anecdote either to show that Islam is intrinsically violent, or that “radical Islamism” is spreading, or that Islamic teachings are incompatible with the West.


But Fr. Zakaria takes it a step further—takes it right to the heart of the matter. After asserting that “God created mankind in his image,” he sincerely addressed his Muslim viewers: “Would God truly want you to kill your neighbor, to enslave him? Would the Almighty truly want believers to buy and sell other human beings like animals? Think people! Use your minds, listen to your hearts—for your souls are at stake!”
The same reason the secular mindset may find this approach too simplistic or “unsophisticated” is the same reason it is far from comprehending Islam.


Still in its early stages of development and financially challenged, Fady TV has yet to reach the Middle East, where the real battle for souls is waged, though the priest is hopeful. The station is set to air entire programs dedicated to examining various topics in depth, including the Koran, the Hadith, Muhammad, and Allah.


As I previously did, I plan on following and summarizing Fr. Zakaria’s programs. See for example “The Perverse Sexual Habits of the Prophet” and “Was Muhammad a Messenger from God or Satan?” for a sampling.


For more information on this singular priest, read his exclusive 2009 FPM interview, wherein he discussed his life story, including the torments he experienced for preaching to Muslims in Egypt. Also, to get a feel for his very “non-dhimmi” approach, watch his famous “Ten Demands of Islam.”

Source: frontpagemag.com