Islam

Note to missionary critics. The persecution of Christians in Mauritania is a human rights issue.

Mauritania is a land of striking beauty. With sand dunes lined against the sky, Bedouins riding camels in the countryside, and flying beetles that look like they come straight from the abyss of the Apocalypse; Mauritania is a land of extremes - extreme beauty, extreme hospitality, and lately, extreme religion. As the world mourned the death of Michael Jackson, another man went not so quietly into the night, though largely unnoticed by mainstream media.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, an American Christian worker named Chris Leggett was gunned down by Al Qaeda for the alleged “crime” of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. To give you an idea of what kind of man Chris Leggett was, the 39-year old native of Cleveland, Tennessee, not only taught computer science in a low-class neighborhood in the capital city of Nouakchott, he also, according to the Cleveland Daily Banner, worked with the prison systems to train and equip women and young boys to re-enter society, directed a training center providing training in computer skills, sewing, and literacy, and oversaw a micro-loan program which fostered the growth of hundreds of small businesses. more >>

Christians and non-Christians alike are protesting a sign posted by a Florida church that equates Islam with the work of the devil.

Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., posted a sign early this week that reads, “Islam is of the Devil” on its front lawn. Its pastor, Dr. Terry Jones, told local news station WCJB that although most people consider the sign a message of hate, his church sees it as a “message of awareness, of opportunity to talk and to rethink.”

He also said the sign is the church’s way of expressing love to Muslims by informing them that Christianity is the only way to heaven, according to The Gainesville Sun. Jones says Islam is deceptive in presenting itself as a religion of peace. more >>

The following article is from Open Doors, a ministry to persecuted Christians worldwide. Open Doors is involved in training youth workers, pastors, refugee workers and others in the basic s of trauma counseling to help suffering Christians in the Middle East.

Living and working in the Middle East means living and working in the midst of wreckage. Wherever you travel in the region you find the traces of conflict. The landscape is marked by whole villages that have been razed and destroyed, by refugee camps that are filled with fear and uncertainty and with the remnants of grandeur that the last titan or dictator has left behind. Amazingly people go on.

They pick up their children, wipe off their tears and try to hope for the future. But when the day is done they are tired and weary. The men show you the scars on their bodies, the woman can’t find any sleep and the children grow up haunted by nightmares of the next raid coming to take away their family. more >>

A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts.

The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian.

On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result. more >>

A judge in Cairo recently rejected a request by a Muslim background believer in Egypt to legally change his religious status, marking the second time such a request was turned down in the predominantly Muslim country.

Like Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, Maher El-Gohary said he has received death threats and has been forced into hiding because of the threats against his life.

Despite El-Gohary’s plea, however, the judge ruled last Saturday that the convert to Christianity cannot legally become Christian. more >>