Grisly Methods of Persuasion
In the Abode of Peace, Islamic states resort to their own methods of
persuasion. They demand and threaten. They impose heavy restrictions
on travel, work and means of transport. They apply exceedingly slow
pressure until a person succumbs and abandons his home. When all
fails, they punish cruelly and inflict severe bodily harm on their
victims or are killed. In Southern Sudan for instance, they destroy
whole villages, cutting off their supply of food and poisoning their
water wells. They drive villagers to near starvation, terrorising
them into submission, under the pretext of subversion and rebellion
against a legitimate Islamic government. In the eyes of Islamic
governments, demand for secular constitutional reformation is
treachery, a criminal offence and defamation against its official
state religion and sectarian laws. It is punishable by flogging,
imprisonment, starvation or death, depending on the severity of the
offence. Non-Muslim children captured, by slave traders in the
conflict of the war zone, are sold into slavery. Anything goes –
anything non-Muslim captured as booty is (halal) lawful. They are a
mix of residues of past traditions of the pre-Islamic era and
current Islamic laws.
Islamic governments in various states of the Abode of Peace have
impounded and confiscated properties of the aborigines and
restricted practice of many of their customs. They refuse to issue
permits to open private schools and social centres. They even refuse
to renew permits for the restoration of churches, temples and native
historical landmarks. Many of the buildings and sites have fallen
silent and brought to ruin due to forcible migration, depopulation
and deliberate neglect. Inadequate government support, by their
Ministries of Religion and Endowment, and Tourism, leads to their
closure or abandonment. Like empty shells, they gradually fall into
decay. Later, in time, the government either pulls them down to make
way for progress or converts them to Islamic mosques or public
buildings. In the Turkish-occupied region of Cyprus, almost all the
churches and monasteries have been looted and destroyed. Many have
already been converted into stables, public lavatories, teahouses (chaikhanas)
and hotels. Constantinople city and all of Turkey; Syria, Israel,
Iraq, Egypt, and India are just a few countries among several others
that have experienced such an onslaught on their churches and
temples and holy sites (Hiro, 1989: pp 105, 128).
In Indonesia, as recently as 1996, Muslim mobs went berserk and
ransacked over fifty churches, hundreds of shops and business
centres and temples that belonged to Christians and ethnic Chinese.
Several shop owners were killed and church members burned to death.
In December 2000, the same pattern of killing of Christians and
burning their churches, through militant jihad forces, was carried
out in both the Maluku and Ambon Islands of Indonesia. Since the
early nineties, hundreds of Churches have been burned to the ground
and thousands of Christians have been killed in cold blood and
savagely hacked to death before the very eyes of the local police,
security personnel and the Indonesian Armed Forces. The Indonesian
government, like their counterparts in other Muslim countries, in
Nigeria, Egypt and the Middle East, adopt the policy of beguilement.
They accuse the media of sensationalism and unbalanced reporting.
Yet, when foreign correspondents come to verify the reports, the
governments concerned ban them from entering the country. They
cordon off the disturbed area with heavy military presence. They
apply a blanket of silence to prevent the culprits and their leaders
from being exposed to the world. Instead of placing guards to
protect the people, churches, temples and shopping centres and the
ethnic communities from being killed and their property pillaged and
burned to the ground, they cordon the area off and let loose the
Muslim mobs until they finish the job. The underlying cause being
the economic success and affluence of the Christians and the Chinese
groups. Islamic states justify such onslaughts as a measure against
greed and inequality of a minority against the impoverished Muslim
majority. Islam lives on pillage; it is part of its culture,
inherited from the days of the pagan era of the pre-Islamic days of
the ignorance period (Asr Al-Jahiliyya).
In the early centuries of Islam, an annual poll tax was exacted on
every Christian and Jewish adult as a fine for refusing to convert
to Islam. The annual fee, called (jizya), plus a heavy property tax
was imposed to diminish their source of income and expropriate land
of the non-Muslim. Islamic governments imposed restrictions on
Christian and Jewish traders, followed by an additional tax on
travel and farm produce. They burdened them with these hardships to
humiliate and impoverish them. By heavy taxation, the income of
these groups was reduced to the barest minimum. Many were forced out
of business, lost their property and became destitute. Some Islamic
countries still look at the Christians and Jews with contempt and
treat them as second-class citizens of a lower caste such as in
Egypt, the Sudan and Iraq. They revert to some old methods of the
archaic Pact of the second Sunni Khaliph, Umar `bnol Khattab. Burns
(p 86) gives a brief description of their treatment under their
Pact:
"The Pact of Umar imposed discrimination on the non-Muslims. Not
only did they have to pay the jizya [Protection of Christians and
Jews from Islamic persecution against payment of an annual fee
called Jizya i.e., poll tax] but [also] they lost ownership of their
land and, to be able to use it had to pay land tax, the kharj. Nor
were they allowed to build new churches or repair old ones. Church
bells, crosses, banners and sacred books were banned and services
had to be held in silence. Marriage or sexual intercourse with a
Muslim woman and blasphemy against Islam were capital offences. They
were made to wear discriminatory clothing and were allowed to ride
donkeys but not horses or camels. Without a receipt for a jizya, the
dhimmi [Christians and Jews] could be executed."
In Surat al-Tawba (Repentance) 9:29, the Koran commands the Muslims to:
"Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given as
believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what
Allah and his apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true
faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued."
In Surat al-Nisa’ (Women) 4:47, the Koran sternly warns the Christians,
"You to whom the Scriptures were given! Believe in that which we
have revealed, confirming your own scriptures, before We obliterate
your faces and turn them backwards, or lay our curse on you as We
laid it on the Sabbath-breakers."
Islam declares that their prophet is the "seal" of the prophets and
Islamic religion the "seal" of religions. Islam emphasizes that although
it recognises, to a certain extent, the two religions of ‘The People of
the Book’: Judaism and Christianity, Islam intends to phase them out
eventually. It claims that all religions, including Christianity, have
deviated from their true course. Islam seriously advocates that its
religion should supersede all religions. Islam, in its view, holds
supremacy over all other religions (Polk, 1991: p 42; Abdul-Haqq, 1980:
p 36).
The Koran, in Surat al-Imran 3:19, declares that,
"The only true faith in Allah’s sight is Islam.’ And adds in
3:85, ‘He that chooses a religion other than Islam, it will not be
accepted from him and in the world to come will be one of the lost."
Islam strives diligently to islamise the world through its religion. It
seizes every opportunity to build more mosques, especially in
non-Islamic countries and establish its own Islamic schools. It strives
to incorporate its religious teachings into the educational system of
the government of the day. Thus, it vies with communism and the West in
manifesting Islam as the social reformer of the day and as the only
acceptable way of life under any political climate (Hiro, 1989: p 207).
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