In March 2012, one week after the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA) told an audience of Evangelicals that “his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities,” the PA declared a Baptist Church unlawful and added that birth, wedding, and death certificates from the church were henceforth invalid. A pastor noted that “animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians], ‘Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It’s the true and right religion.’” 67
Kuwait
In November 2010, the Kuwait City Municipal Council rejected a permit request for the construction of a Greek Catholic church in a southern Kuwaiti region known as al-Mahboula.68 In February 2012, Osama al-Munawer, a Kuwaiti parliamentarian, announced that he would submit a draft law prohibiting church construction. Prior to this announcement, al-Munawer had called for the “removal of all churches in Kuwait” on Twitter. (However, he later “clarified that existing churches can remain, but the construction of new non-Islamic places of worship should be banned.”)69
This incident in Kuwait helped precipitate a series of events that further evinced Islam’s innate hostility to churches. One month after the Kuwaiti parliamentarian announced his plans to ban all churches, a Kuwaiti delegation was sent to Saudi Arabia to ask its Grand Mufti—the highest Islamic law authority in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam—what Sharia’s position on Christian churches was. It was then that the Grand Mufti declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region,” stressing that Kuwait is a part of the Arabian Peninsula and therefore must abide by the Muslim prophet’s deathbed wish to drive all non-Muslims away from the Peninsula .70
Two months after the Saudi Grand Mufti issued his edict, villa churches serving Western foreigners in Kuwait were targeted. 71 One congregation was evicted without explanation “from a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven years.” Another villa church was ordered to “pay an exorbitant fine each month to use a facility it had been renting.... Church leaders reportedly decided not to argue and moved out.” Similarly, in July 2012, although approval had already been issued for the construction of a church in the region of Jleeb al-Shuyoukh, a group of Islamic preachers protested, arguing that churches should not be permitted to be built in “Islamic countries particularly in the Arabian Peninsula.” One sheikh “expressed displeasure” against those approving the construction of the church, “stressing that it is not permissible as per the Sharia,” adding that “excuses” such as saying that “it is a matter of human rights and international norms to build it, is not acceptable, as Islam comes first, and people should respect religion first before serving humanity or anything else.”72
Bahrain
Such sentiments are now common even in little Bahrain, long considered the most tolerant nation in the Arabian Peninsula, with a 30 percent non-Muslim population of foreign workers, mostly Americans and Europeans. In September 2012, Sunni clerics strongly opposed the planned construction of a Catholic church, “in a rare open challenge of the country’s Sunni king.” “More than 70 clerics signed a petition last week saying it was forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.... Prominent cleric, Sheik Adel Hassan al-Hamad, proclaimed... ‘anyone who believes that a church is a true place of worship is someone who has broken in their faith in God.’”73
Spotlight on Indonesia
The one East Asian nation that has a Muslim majority—indeed, it has the largest Muslim population in the world—is also the one East Asian nation where churches are openly under attack. Indonesia offers the best examples of Muslim mobs using the permit pretext to eliminate churches—even when, ironically, the government, via the courts, actually sides with the churches, saying they are legally registered.
The ongoing saga of the GKI Yasmin Church in Bogor is particularly illustrative of how Sharia law’s draconian approach to churches trumps Indonesian law. At least as early as 2008, local Muslims and officials began complaining about the church’s existence, subsequently closing it, even though it was already fully registered. In December 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the church to be reopened, but the Bogor mayor refuses to comply, keeping it sealed off. At the start, the congregation continued to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside their sealed church, often to jeers and attacks by Muslim mobs. Later, members began to meet at private homes. Not satisfied, local Muslims searched out and found one of these private homes where members were congregating and prevented them from worshiping there as well: “It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place,” observed one politician sympathetic to the Christians .74
The GKI Yasmin Church’s ordeals continue. Islamic gunmen opened fire on it, damaging the church building. A sticker on the back of a church member’s car saying “We need a friendly Islam, not an angry Islam,” prompted another attack on the church: scores of Muslims “terrorized the congregation and attacked several church members.”75
Most recently, the Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the church off has agreed to reopen it—but only if a mosque is built directly next door, to ensure the continued oppression of the church. As one report notes, “The church has faced hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them, blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and disrupted their outdoor services. It is unlikely that they will suddenly embrace the Christians’ presence.”76
In April 2012, yet another Protestant congregation in Indonesia, the Philadelphia Congregation in Bekasi—whose church had been illegally sealed off by authorities despite meeting all requirements for a permit—was met with violent opposition from Muslims for trying to hold a service on the street in front of the closed church building. Muslim residents made death threats, played loud music, and even rode a motorcycle through the congregation. A church spokesman stated, “We are constantly having to change our location because our existence appears to be unwanted, and we have to hide so that we are not intimidated by intolerant groups.... We had hoped for help from the police, but after many attacks on members of the congregation, we see that the police are also involved in this. ”77
In the province of West Java, an “Islamic extremist” group pushed hard to have five churches demolished—claiming that their existence was illegal—and in May 2012, following protests “by hard-line groups including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI),” authorities sealed off nearly twenty Christian houses of worship under the pretext that they did not have the required permits.78 Authorities have said that only one church may be built in the district in question—for the region’s twenty thousand Christians.
In June 2012, a Muslim mob of three hundred wrecked a store that was being used for a Sunday church service, saying that it “had not obtained permission to hold Mass.” The mob caused damage to the windows and some furniture on the first floor of the store. Police stopped them before they reached the third floor, where some sixty Christians were huddled. None of the Muslims was arrested, but twelve Christians were taken into custody for questioning.79 Around the same time, in compliance to calls from Islamic clerics, authorities allegedly ordered another twenty churches to be shut down. They had already closed sixteen smaller Christian places of worship, also storefronts, in the same district. At the time of this writing, many of these congregations were still defiantly holding services inside their sealed-off buildings, with members standing guard outside.
In August 2012, in West Java, a “large tent used for services by St. Johannes Baptista Church in Bogor was sealed off by authorities. The tent had been used by the congregation since 2006 as a temporary location while waiting for a permit to utilize a building; they had applied for the permit six years earlier. Police threatened to tear the tent down if the Christians continued to use it. According to Religion Today, the leader of the church says the hostility is linked to the size and growth of the congregat
ion, currently numbering around five hundred.80
Days earlier in West Java, Muslim protesters, claiming that a Batak Karo Protestant church was operating without a permit, forced it to shut down during a Sunday worship service. The church’s committee secretary said the church has the necessary permits to hold services, yet “the majority of the people still reject the church’s activity.”81
In December 2010, some two hundred demonstrators from “hardline Islamic organizations in West Java disrupted the worship” of another Protestant church, forcefully driving more than a hundred Christian worshippers out of the building. “Because they were fearful, children and women were crying when they came out of their place of worship,” explained the pastor. A police unit sealed off the building, leaving other congregations that had used the same building also without a place to worship.82 Islamic protestors further disrupted the worship of six other house churches on the same day, including the Indonesian Evangelical Tabernacle Church, the Pentecostal Tabernacle Church, and the Church of Pentecost-Rancaekek.
Most recently in Indonesia, things have only gotten worse. In October 2012 “unknown assailants” set fire to the Madele Pentecostal Church in the city of Poso, pouring gasoline over a collection box and setting it aflame. Weeks earlier in the same region, Christian homes were attacked and bombed. And two law enforcement agents who were investigating a recent attack on the Christian community were found murdered, their corpses dumped near an “extremist Muslim group’s training ground.”83 Because Poso has a large Christian population, Muslim attacks are frequent, one of the most notorious incidents being the 2005 beheading of three Christian girls en route to school.84 Meanwhile in Aceh, Indonesian officials, once again using the permit pretext, shut down nine Christian house churches and six Buddhist temples, arguing that homes cannot be used “for religious ceremonies or functions.” According to the report, “Local Muslim extremists welcomed the decision. Yusuf Al-Qardhawy, head of the Aceh branch of the Islamic Defense Front (FPI), called on other jurisdictions to follow Banda Aceh, enforce Islamic law and stop any non-Muslim worship activity that is not approved.” The province of Aceh is also the only one “which is subject to Sharia. Compliance is ensured by the morality police, a special force that punishes violations in dress and behavior.”85
CHRISTIAN CHURCHES HELD HOSTAGE BY THE MUSLIM MOB
While The Conditions of Omar focus on denying the building of new churches and denying the renovation of old ones, they promise churches protection only on the condition that no restriction imposed on Christians be violated. After naming any number of other restrictions—against displaying crosses, ringing bells, singing loudly, not proselytizing Muslims, and preventing fellow Christians from converting to Islam—The Conditions of Omar concludes with Christians agreeing that “if we change or contradict these conditions imposed upon ourselves . . . we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition.” Accordingly, throughout Islamic history to the present moment, wherever Christians are accused of breaking Sharia’s dhimmi laws, churches—always the most obvious and vulnerable representation of Christianity—are first to be attacked in retribution by the Muslim mob. As one writer explaining the status of churches in the Middle East after the Islamic invasions puts it: “They were often burned or demolished in the course of reprisals against infidels found guilty of overstepping their rights.”86 For some fourteen centuries, Christian churches have been treated as hostages to guarantee good (that is, submissive) Christian behavior, an arrangement that is enshrined in the ominous conclusion of Omar’s Conditions.
Spotlight on Egypt
Egypt provides an abundance of evidence for this phenomenon—unsurprisingly, considering that Islamic officials in Egypt, following Ibn Taymiyya, see the church as “houses of torment and fire” that are “worse than bars and brothels.” In August 2009, Dar al-Ifta issued a fatwa not only banning the building of new churches but likening the building of a church to “‘a nightclub, a gambling casino... the alcohol industry or... a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs.’”87 In July 2012, Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, a leading member of Egypt’s Salafi movement, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim bus and taxi drivers from accepting Coptic Christian priests as passengers; he depicted driving a priest to church as “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar.”88
The story of St. George Coptic Church in Edfu is especially instructive of the plight of churches in Egypt. Built nearly a century ago, during the Christian “Golden Age,” St. George was so dilapidated that the local council and governor actually approved its renovation and signed off on the design. Soon local Muslims began complaining, demanding that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—as stipulated by The Conditions of Omar—because they were “irritating Muslims and their children.”89 Leaders even insisted that the very dome of the church be removed. Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse the church, the bishop refused. The foreboding cries of “Allahu Akbar!” began; Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place. Copts were “forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George’s Church.”90
Then, after Friday prayers on September 30, 2011, some three thousand Muslims went on a rampage, torched the church, and ransacked the dome. Rioting Muslims also set fire to nearby Christian homes. According to Christian eyewitnesses, security just “stood there watching.” 91 In fact, Edfu’s Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church. The governor who had approved the renovation appeared on state television and “denied any church being torched,” calling it a “guest home”—a common tactic to minimize the destruction of churches. He even justified the incident by arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than permitted: “Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story,” he proclaimed on TV. 92
It was this incident that caused Egypt’s Christians to protest in October 2011, leading to the Maspero Massacre, in which the Egyptian military intentionally targeted and killed dozens of Christian protesters, running some over with armored vehicles—and state media lied, portraying the Christians as the aggressors and the military as the victim.
The destruction of St. George Church was far from unprecedented; rather, it was simply the last of a number of consecutive church attacks in the previous weeks and months—the straw that broke the Coptic back, hence the mass protest at Maspero. Just a few months earlier, in March 2011, a Muslim mob attacked the local Church of the Two Martyrs in Soul, south of Cairo, burning it down as a Muslim prayer leader called on Muslims to “kill all the Christians.” Adding insult to injury, the attackers played “soccer” with the ancient relics of the church’s saints and martyrs. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building where they spent some twenty hours pounding its walls down with sledgehammers to cries of “Allahu Akbar.”93
Neither the military nor state security appeared—even though this was all happening near Cairo, Egypt’s capital, not some inaccessible village. After demolishing the Church of the Two Martyrs, a group of Muslims held prayers at the site and began making plans to build a mosque atop the destroyed church—a live reenactment of Islamic history almost identical to the examples recorded centuries earlier by the Egyptian historian Maqrizi and others. Because of the attack, Copts in Soul fled to adjacent villages. Christian women who remained in the region were sexually assaulted.
Two months later, in May 2011, throngs of Muslims, estimated at three thousand, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near Cairo. Twelve Christians were killed, some by snipers shooting from rooftops. More than two hundred were injured. Three churches were set aflame to cries of “Allahu Akbar,” while Coptic homes were looted and torched. As usual, Egyptian authorities did little to stop this rampage, showing up nearly five hours after it
began, providing ample time for Muslims to terrorize the Copts. One priest said, “‘I called everyone, but no one bothered to come. . . . I mourn all those young people who died.’”94 The pretext for this particular attack was that a Christian girl had converted to Islam and the Coptic Church had allegedly responded by abducting and torturing her into renouncing Islam. Muslims found this scenario believable because that is precisely what Islam requires Muslims to do to female apostates who convert to Christianity, as we shall see.
Also in May 2011, “hundreds of Muslims angered by the prospect of a government-closed church re-opening in their neighborhood protested outside the church, causing the provisional military authority to back away from its promise to allow Orthodox clergy to reopen it.” Before its scheduled reopening, the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Abraam in Ain Shams, located in an impoverished region of northeastern Cairo, was surrounded by Muslims, who trapped several priests inside and prevented others from entering the edifice. Fighting between Copts and Muslims led to the injury and arrest of the Copts.95 As is usual in these incidents, the non-Muslim victims were the ones in trouble with the authorities.
In June 2011, hundreds of Muslims surrounded another St. George Church, south of Minya, threatening to kill its priest—who was locked inside celebrating morning Mass. The Muslims cried, “‘We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us,’” adding that they would “‘cut him to pieces.’” As usual, police and security forces gave the terrorists ample time to terrorize—appearing a full five hours after the incident began. When they escorted the priest out, it “looked as if he was the criminal, leaving his church in a police car.”96 Several different reasons were given for this attack, from claims that the priest had earlier tried to make renovations to the hundred-year old church to claims that he had refused demands from local Muslims that the Christians in the region must pay jizya, the tribute required of non-Muslims under Sharia law. 97
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