In July 2011, another Muslim mob went on a violent spree, attacking Christians, including a five-months-pregnant woman who was “beaten with iron rods and pipes . . . ‘The real reason behind this assault was the church bell, which has greatly angered the Muslims in the village.... This is the first time such an incident has taken place in this village,’ said Father Estephanos, ‘which is 60–75 percent Christian, and the reason is definitely the presence of the church bell.’”98 According to The Conditions of Omar, church bells are forbidden.
Similarly, in October 2011, in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmadmar, which only has two churches to serve fifteen thousand Christians, a Muslim mob with a “No to the Church” banner surrounded one St. Mary’s Church, throwing bricks at it and attempting to demolish it. According to the priest, the church had approval to operate, but “its license is still pending.... Muslims claim that we hold a mass every day at 4:00 PM, and we ring the church bell, which the church does not have, besides singing hymns, which they claim disturbs them.”99
In January 2012, before a bishop was going to celebrate Epiphany Mass in the Abu Makka church, several Muslims, mostly Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members, entered the building, saying that the church had no permit and no Christian should be permitted to pray in it. One Muslim was heard to remark that the building “would be suitable for a Muslim mosque.”100
In February 2012, thousands of Muslims attacked a Coptic church, demanding the death of its pastor, who, along with “nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building.” Their motivation was that a Christian girl, who, according to Sharia law, had automatically become a Muslim when her father converted to Islam, had fled her father and was rumored to be hiding in the church. Again, one is reminded that The Conditions of Omar stipulate that Christians shall not prevent any of their family members from converting to Islam—or in this case, aid a hapless Christian who suddenly found herself Muslim.101
Then in March 2012, some fifteen hundred Muslims—some armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt in response to false claims from local mosques that the private school was building a church. Two nuns were besieged in the school’s guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive. One nun suffered a “‘major’ nervous breakdown” requiring hospitalization. The entire property was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children. Consequently, school attendance “has dropped by at least one third.”102 Later, during a “‘reconciliation meeting,’” the offers of the leaders of the sword-waving mob proved to be “nothing less than an attempt at legalized extortion.” In exchange for peace, Muslim leaders demanded that the school sign over land that includes the guesthouse they attacked. As many human rights groups maintain, such meetings are “just a way to pressure powerless groups and people into giving away what little rights they have. ”103 Similarly, in June 2011, eight Christian homes were torched on the rumor that a church was being built.104
In September 2012, Qadr al-Dubara in Egypt, the largest Evangelical church in the Middle East, was besieged by “unknown people” hurling “stones and gas bombs.” The first gas bomb thrown at the church was called an error by police, but it was soon followed by other bomb attacks, which continued all throughout the night and into morning. Christians locked themselves inside the church and put on masks to avoid gas poisoning. Some of those trapped inside sought help by trying to contact politicians, journalists, and even the Muslim Brotherhood. All the latter did was announce on TV that the attackers were not Brotherhood members. After the besiegers left and the trapped Christians finally came out, not a single police or security agent could be found.105
In October 2012, another group of Muslims, led by Mostafa Kamel, a prosecutor in the Alexandria Criminal Court, broke into the Church of St. Mary in Rashid near Alexandria and proceeded to destroy its altar. Kamel claimed that he had bought the ninth-century church, when in fact it had been sold—but not to him. Greek Christians had sold the church to Coptic Christians because of the Greeks’ dwindling numbers in Egypt. Two priests, Father Maximos and Father Luke, rushed to the police station for aid. Kamel and his two sons also came to the police station, where they openly threatened to kill the two priests and their lawyer. Said Father Maximos, “We stayed at the police station for over six hours with the police begging prosecutor Kamel and his two sons not to demolish the church.” Father Luke said that the prosecutor had earlier lost all the cases he brought against the church, “So when this route failed, he tried taking the matter into his own hands.” 106
In June 2012, because many visiting Christians came to attend Divine Liturgy, Muslims surrounded St. Lyons Coptic Church during the service “demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demand was not met.” The priest asked the police for aid, only to be told to comply with the Muslims’ wishes—“and do not let buses with visitors come to the church anymore.” Christian worshippers exited halfway through Mass to insults outside. As they drove away, Muslims threw rocks at the passing buses. 107
The same story was repeated in October 2012 when a Muslim mob consisting mostly of Salafis surrounded the St. George Church in the Beni Suef Governorate. Armed with batons, they assaulted Christians as they exited the church after Sunday Mass, leaving five hospitalized with broken limbs. The Salafi grievance was that Christians from neighboring villages—who have no local churches to serve them—were traveling to St. George. The priest could not go out of church for hours after Mass, even though he contacted police, who came only after a prominent Coptic lawyer complained to the Ministry of Interior about the lack of response from police, saying “‘I want the whole world to know . . . that a priest and his congregation are presently held captives in their church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church.’”108
The Muslim propensity for complicating Christians’ lives by, for example, not allowing them to enter churches out of their own (churchless) jurisdictions is grounded in Muhammad’s command to Muslims: “Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley,”109 which has always been interpreted to mean that Muslims should make things hard on dhimmis.
Lest it appear that Muslim mob attacks on churches—whether in response to a perceived transgression of The Conditions of Omar or out of sheer hate—are limited to Egypt, here are a number of recent examples from around the Muslim world. The countries in which these atrocities occurred share neither race, ethnicity, language, nor culture—but only Islam:
Algeria
Armed men raided and ransacked the Protestant Church of Ouargla, Algeria, (formally recognized since 1958), dismantling the crucifix above the premises. The pastor and his family, who were trapped inside, feared that “they could kill us.” The pastor “has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since being ordained as pastor in 2007. In the summer of 2009 his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men. Then, in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats.”110
Ethiopia
In March 2011, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes in western Ethiopia when Muslim majorities set fire to roughly fifty churches and many Christian homes. Sources claim at least one Christian was killed, many more were severely injured, and from three to ten thousand were displaced by the Muslim raids and riots.111 And in November 2011 five hundred Muslim students, aided by Muslim police, burned down the St. Arsema Orthodox Church to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Although the church was built on land that had been used by Christians for more than six decades, a court had just ruled that it “was built w
ithout a permit,” thereby giving local Muslims an excuse to set it aflame.112
India
In April 2012 Muslims stormed and terrorized a house church in India where a Christian prayer meeting was being held, beating the Christians, including a sixty-five-year-old widow. The Muslims “called them pagans as they kicked, slapped and pushed the Christians.... ‘The Christians were running in all directions for their lives, including the children who were crying in fear,’” even as one Muslim, “brandishing a sickle, chased many of them, ‘hurling all kinds of insults and attempting to murder them all. . . .’ Five hundred Muslims had gathered and were watching in amusement as the extremists chased and harassed the Christians for about 90 minutes.”113
Kashmir
In May 2012 Muslims torched a 119-year-old Kashmiri church. The local bishop “said that the Muslim fundamentalists want Christians to leave the state.... He said that the church had filed a case with the police but had been advised not to ‘play up’ such incidents.” Christian minorities “are coming under growing threat from Kashmir’s Muslim majority. A Christian human rights group in India said that over 400 Christians have been displaced as a result.”114 Around the same time, a Catholic church made entirely of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set it on fire. “What happened is not an isolated case,” said the president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, as it followed the persecution of a pastor who baptized Muslims: “With these gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the Christian minority. ”115
Spotlight on Pakistan
In January 2012 in Pakistan, enraged by the voices of children singing Christian carols at the Philadelphia Pentecostal Church, Muslims praying in a nearby mosque decided to silence them—using an axe: “The children were preparing for mass to be celebrated the next day which was a Sunday. The loud cheers became terrified whimpers when suddenly four men, one of them with an axe, barged into the church. The men slapped the children, wrecked the furniture, smashed the microphone on to the floor and kicked the altar. ‘You are disturbing our prayers. We can’t pray properly. How dare you use the mike and speakers?’”116 As The Conditions of Omar clearly states, Christians are “Not to clang our cymbals except lightly and from the innermost recesses of our churches... nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims.”
In October 2012 the Catholic Church of St. Francis, the oldest of the Archdiocese of Karachi, was attacked by a Muslim mob of six hundred. According to a priest, “Fr. Victor had just finished celebrating a wedding, when he heard noises and shouting from the compound of the church. Immediately all the faithful, women and children were sent to the parish house. The radicals, shouting against the Christians, broke into the building and started devastating everything: cars, bikes, vases of flowers. They broke an aedicule and took the statue of the Madonna. They tried to force the door of the church, throwing stones at the church and destroying the windows.” Police did not arrive until an hour later, giving the terrorists plenty of time to wreak havoc. The Archbishop of Karachi lamented that “the church of San Francesco has always served the poor with a school and a medical clinic run by nuns. For nearly 80 years it carries out a humble service to humanity without any discrimination of caste, ethnicity or religion. Why these acts? Why are we not safe?”117
In February 2012 a dozen armed Muslims stormed Grace Ministry Church, seriously wounding two Christians: one man was shot and left in critical condition, the other had to have his arm amputated. And another church member was thrown from the roof after being struck repeatedly with a rifle butt. “The extremist raid was sparked by charges that [the] church was trying to evangelize Muslims in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. The community several times in the past has been the subject of assault and the pastor and his family the subject of death threats.” As usual, the police, instead of pursuing the perpetrators, opened an investigation against the victims—the pastor and twenty other church members.118
In August 2011, two churches were set aflame and burned to the ground. Officials downplayed these attacks, saying that the churches were “only made of board.”119 Around the same time, Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto proclaimed that churches cannot be built on streets with Muslim names.120
In March 2011, as Christians were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Salvation Army church in Hyderabad, a group of Muslim youths gathered outside the building and started playing loud music and harassing Christian women as they arrived. Four Christian men came out of the church building to stop the Muslims from harassing the women. The Muslims left for a short time and returned with handguns. They murdered two of the Christian men and seriously wounded the other two.121
Tunisia
In May 2012 in Tunisia, the country where the “Arab Spring” began—a country traditionally seen as one of the most moderate Arab nations—it was revealed that the Christian Orthodox Church in Tunis, one of very few churches in the nation, was being “abused” and receiving “threatening messages.” Church members were described as “living in a state of terror,” so that the Russian ambassador in Tunis specifically requested the nation’s Ministry of Interior to “protect the church.” The abuse got to the point where “Salafis covered the cross of the church with garbage bags, telling the church members that they do not wish to see the vision of the Cross anywhere in the Islamic state of Tunisia.” 122 In a separate incident, a Muslim burst into another church to present a message from an Islamist party “inviting the archpriest to convert to Islam or to take down the church’s crosses and pay ‘jizya’, the tribute that Islamic law requires subjugated non-Muslims to pay.”123 And in September 2011, around twenty Muslims attempted to transform a Christian basilica into a mosque “in an ominous sign of the growing threat to the country’s small Church in the wake of the revolution.” The police dispersed them, but “they have been invited to make an official request to the faith ministry” to transform the church into a mosque.124
Tanzania
On the 99-percent-Muslim island of Zanzibar, part of the United Republic of Tanzania, the very few churches serving the Christians who make up only 1 percent of the population are under attack. In late 2011 Muslims destroyed two churches—one was torched and the other torn down—all to yells of “Allahu Akbar.” The first church, the Pentecostal Evangelical Fellowship of Africa, was “reduced to ashes” by the fire. As the Muslim assailants fled the scene, they could be heard saying “We do not want a church in this area!” No arrests were made. The church’s bishop said, “The Muslims are burning our church buildings quite frequently here in Zanzibar, but the government is not speaking against this kind of destruction of our church premises.”125 The other church, Siloam Church, was demolished by a throng of Muslims numbering more than one hundred. They entered the church building with clubs, hammers, torches, and swords, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” and demolished it in about three hours. Earlier a Muslim was heard saying, “We are not comfortable with the existence of the Siloam Church—this church is growing. . . .”126
According to Reuters, in May 2012 hundreds of Muslims set two more churches on fire during protests after members of an Islamist movement known as the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation were arrested. 127 In July 2012, Muslims burned down yet another two churches, to cries of “away with the church—we do not want infidels to spoil our community” and vows not to befriend “infidels.” The pastor of one of the churches, Evangelical Assemblies of God, said, “Tomorrow is Sunday, and my members numbering forty will not have any place to worship.” With “fear in his voice,” the pastor added, “We have reported the case to the police station. I hope justice will be done.” Likewise, the pastor of Free Evangelical Pentecostal Church in Africa—where forty-five seats were destroyed by fire—said, “I have thirty-six members, and it will be very difficult for them to congregate tomorrow. The members are afraid, not knowing what other plans the Muslims are out to do. We request prayers at this trying moment
. ” 128
In October 2012 Muslim mobs burned several church buildings in different parts of Tanzania after an argument between two children about the supernatural powers of the Koran allegedly led a Christian boy to desecrate Islam’s holy book. Two church buildings in Kigoma were set on fire and another’s roof was destroyed. On Zanzibar, Muslim rioters completely destroyed a building under the management of the Evangelical Assemblies of God. And in Dar es Salaam, three more church buildings were set on fire and another was ruined beyond repair. “We shall continue attacking the churches until they are no more in Tanzania’” was the slogan repeated in Tanzanian mosques.129
On Christmas Day 2012 the Reverend Ambrose Mkenda, a Roman Catholic priest, was shot “through his cheeks” by two motorcyclists and grievously injured. Members of the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation, also known as the “Awakening,” who had previously threatened local Christians because of the alleged Koran desecration, are believed to be responsible. As of December 27, the priest’s health had further deteriorated and he was in intensive care. 130
THE VIOLENT JIHAD ON CHRISTIAN CHURCHES BY MUSLIM TERRORISTS
Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians Page 8