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TechnoratiAn expected 50,000 Muslims are preparing to descend on Capitol Hill on Friday, September 25, to enable the “peace, beauty and solidarity of Islam to shine through America's capitol.”
It would be easy for many Americans to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and beauty. By far the majority of Muslims in North America are law-abiding citizens who seek to live out their lives without recourse to violence. However, there is a strong and influential movement in the Muslim community that is positioning Islam to gain world dominance in the social, political, financial and religious sectors of nations.
The advertised objective of Friday’s gathering is “to invite the Muslim Communities and friends of Islam to express and illustrate the wonderful diversity of Islam.”
Diversity?
The Islamic community may be diverse by way of background, culture and country of origin; however, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is an underlying uniformity that unites Islamic ideology across the United States and around the world - a uniformity that certainly does not honor a diversity of faiths coexisting peacefully. For example, even while the civil war in Iraq reflects ethnic strife between Sunnis and Shiites, there is a forged unity in Islamic understanding regarding the “Apostasy Law”. Three Sunni schools and one Shia’ school within Islam all agree that Muslim male apostates (those who leave Islam for another religion) should be killed.
In countries where Sharia’ (Islamic) Law is implemented, converts to Christianity are severely persecuted. Such converts face imprisonment, beatings, torture and death. Mohammed emphasizes, as recorded in the Hadith, that male apostates must be executed. There are many cases where zealous Islamic leaders take Sharia’ Law into their own hands and carry out their own execution of apostates or persons who are believed to have committed blasphemy against Islam.
The highly publicized circumstance of 17-year-old Rifqa Bary should alert the American public to the serious and alarming pressure that is faced by many within Islam. Miss Bary, a convert from Islam to Christianity, fled from her Muslim family in Ohio for the security of a Christian church in Florida in mid-July, fearing that she would be killed to restore honor to her family as a result of conversion to Christianity. Her future is now being decided by the Florida courts.
Is this the so-called “peace and beauty” that will be trumpeted in Washington on Friday as the Muslim call to prayer echoes off of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the other great edifices that surround Capitol Hill?
The mantra ‘Islam is peace’ is almost 1,400 years out-of-date. It was only for about 13 years that Islam was peace and nothing but peace. From 622 onwards it became increasingly aggressive as the Islamic theology of war and jihad developed.
It is important for Christians to understand that Friday’s Muslim prayer initiative is part of a well-defined strategy to Islamize American society and replace the Bible with the Koran, the cross with the Islamic crescent and the church bells with the Athan [the Muslim call to prayer].
Christians need to be aware that behind the subtle appearance of Islam’s gestures of ‘majestic spiritual principles’ is a religion with an indefensible track record of human rights abuses, especially towards Jews and Christians. We must therefore be informed about Islam, its ideology and agenda and present to the world the only hope of true personal and global transformation which is found in the life-changing gospel message of Jesus Christ.
“Our time has come,” states Muslim attorney, Hassen Abdellah, the organizer of Friday’s gathering.
Well, the time has come for the American public to call Islam to account. The time has come for transformation and reformation within Islam. The time has come for Islam to change. Change needs to start now and means facing the reality that there is a foundational element within Islam that is determined to undermine peace and enforce the strict penal code of Islamic Law upon a society that celebrates liberty and justice for all people.
It will be a long, hard road for Islam to get its house in order so that it can coexist peacefully with the rest of society in the 21st century.
The time has come, indeed. It’s time to begin.
The Rev. Canon Julian Dobbs is the Canon Missioner of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. More information can be found at www.ChurchandIslam.com.
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