The story of ‘Accelerated Conversion’ and
some afterthoughts
By Syed Kamran Mirza
New York City, USA
[email protected]
Quite often especially when Islamists are
in awkward situation, or when their self-esteems are in a pile
of loose sands—they immediately start some ludicrous
propaganda that many non-Muslims are converting to Islam.
This is far from the truth.
They even make some fictitious stories that Islam’s
glory is attracting peoples to Islam, just like insects to the
fire, notwithstanding the dire consequences that normally
follows. Therefore,
“don’t worry my dear Muslims, Islam is of course a true
Allah’s religion, etc etc.”
Islamists pretend to say this kind of thing to impress
upon the newly converts. Why
this renewed surge of same old propaganda?
Because, September 11 has brought a deluge of
hatreds/wrath to the religion Islam from other believers and
non-believers alike. Throughout
the whole world, Islam as a religion has been identified as the
most cynical oppressor and the enemy of the modern-day
civilization. As
the Rev. Franklin Graham (son of Rev. Billy Graham) said, “Islam
is the most evil and wicked religion on earth.”
Religion Islam almost becomes the synonym for the
terrorists. We are
sick and tired of hearing repeatedly the most frequently uttered
phrases such as: “Islamic
Terrorists,” or “Islamic militants.”
Muslims in general are terribly embarrassed and ashamed
in front of the civilized world.
Therefore, they are trying to recuperate and find some
comforts by making stories of so-called “Accelerated
conversion.” “
Here you go,” they claim, “there has been a surge in
conversions to Islam since September 11…”
The question is: what attracts people to embrace Islam
after all this horrendous act of unthinkable terrorism by some
devoted Islamists? Was
it the great beauty of merciful Islamic destruction of WTC?
Or, is it that the world must have gone crazy?
This story (NFB January 8, 2002) of
conversion of a British young girl to Islam may be a hoax, or
may be a true case of personal choice of religion.
How can one verify this news?
And why should anybody bother about it?
Few weeks ago (after the Sept. 11), we read the news of
conversion of Actor Willie Smith to Islam.
Later, this was found to be a hoax!
This reminds me of Neil Armstrong story in which the
famous astronaut heard the sound of Azan in the outer space.
Another news we read in this forum that after seeing the
great strength (Sept.11 destruction) and “Mazeza” of
peaceful Islam, the Italian Ambassador in Saudi Arabia has
converted to Islam. Later
we learned that, this Italian Ambassador was actually converted
to Islam in 1964 while he was in Jerusalem.
Then, why this news was coming now?
This is the right time to rejuvenate Islam’s lost vigor
and prestige by some Islamic hoaxes!
What do you know?
Other
baseless “hoaxes” previously available in the market were:
Neil Armstrong, Jaques Cousteau, Michael Jackson, Maurice
Bucaille, King Offa of England
and, Mike Tyson, they all became Muslim.
Christian apologists discovered wreckage of Noah’s ark
in turkey, Prophet Muhammad’s name on a piece of wood from
Noah’s ark (found in Russia), and Prophet Muhammad’s name
fore-told in Hindu Scriptures.
ALL THESE WERE SIMPLY BOGUS CLAIMS BY WISHFUL MULLAHS.
Unfortunately, they get involved in spreading these
concocted stories, which are mostly rubbish anyway, only to
mislead gullible folks of which we have so many in this world.
In South Asian countries, especially in
Bangladesh,
“rumors/hoaxes” are frequently used to cheat ordinary
peoples, to stimulate ‘pir’ bebosha, Tabiz bebosha
and, to solidify the faith of believers.
For the same vested purposes, rumors are generated almost
weekly such as: Allah
and Rasul’s names printed in: Tomato, Lau (kadu),
piece of meat, over the eggshell, over a fish, etc. etc.
Surprisingly, there are no shortages of people who
actually believe in this garbage.
Admittedly, conversions from one religion
to another religion occur throughout the world for various
personal reasons and it is a normal phenomenon among the
believers.
Christianity and Islam are the two
monotheistic religions that allow conversion.
In the Middle East, many Muslims do convert
to Christianity. However,
Muslim’s conversion to Christianity never get to the news
media for fear of being apostate and killed by the
“merciful” Islamists. People
convert to a religion for various reasons, such as, economic
supports, for mental spiritual satisfaction, and even for
marital purposes. Everyday,
throughout the Third World countries, Christian missionaries are
busily converting tens of thousands of poor/destitute peoples.
Does it make the Christian religion great?
Thousands of peoples did convert to Jim John’s cultic
religion in the seventies; thousands of Japanese people
converted to a dangerous cultic religion Supreme Truth; and a
crazy man like David Koresh was able to brainwash thousands of
his followers to die for his brand of religion.
Is the conversion to certain religion/faith makes that
faith great? The
big question is, does conversion spree a ‘litmus
test’ for a good, or a true religion.
I don’t think so!
If this were
correct, then China’s Falun Gong would be the fastest growing
and the best religion in the entire world right now.
Perhaps some of the readers may remember
those two young American “born-again” Christian ladies, who
went to the far away land of Afghanistan to preach Christianity.
These two young ladies were school dropout, misguided
drug addict in their early teens and they were spoiled children
of the family. Then
they suddenly heard Jesus was calling them.
Jesus knocked their heart, not just the door as Allah of
Islam knocked at the door of that young British lady.
These two born-again Christians were about to see the
Talibani magic of Afghanistan.
They would face the sure death by stoning by those robust
looking bearded Talibans by chanting “Allah-Hu-Akbar”
somewhere near the Afghan stony mountain.
However, they were most lucky; Taliban just could not get
enough time to do the Islamic justice because of the Ababil
birds (B-52) of infidel America.
These “erudite” American neo-Christians thought it
differently. They
rather thought it was Jesus who rescued them from the hands of
Taliban. The truth
is only Jesus knows well what would happened to them—had there
been no war broke out at this time, or had there been no B-52
arrived there with 15,000 pounds ‘Daisy Cutter’ bomb!
This writer will be the last person to deny
that Islam already has 1.2 billion followers.
Honestly, does Islam need more followers?
Does the number really matters?
Christianity has over 2 billions followers, almost double
the number of Islam. Does
it make Christianity a better religion than Islam or any other
religions? Judaism
has only a few millions (maximum of 10 millions).
Can we claim that Judaism is a worse religion than Islam
or Christianity? Can
we say that, Muslim Ummah (community) is more prosperous
than Jewish Community because Muslims are more numerous?
Then, why the
number of conversion is so important news to us?
Is it our weakness or our strength?
Does the number of supporters really
matter? A few
century ago the entire world believed the Earth to be flat and
Sun rotates East to West to give light to the earth.
Only one or two human being did not believe the earth to
be flat. Who were
right eventually, those billions of ignorant peoples or those
one or two scientists? The
mouth full claim of billion Muslims does not make much sense to
me. How many of
these billion people have the knowledge of Koran and Hadiths?
What about those millions of moderate
Muslims who are reconsidering their faith after the heinous task
of Sep 11 perpetrated by some devout and true Muslims?
Many moderate Muslim-origin Americans even feel
tremendously ashamed and embarrassed to identify themselves as
Muslims. Many
moderate or not so strong believers of Muslim descent are trying
to hide their identity in the west, or many even declared that
they are no longer Muslims.
Many youngsters at their early twenties from Muslim
background are actively changing their names.
The other day in a social gathering, some young men of
Muslim origin were declaring very vocally that, they are going
to remove some portion of their names.
That is they will get rid of “Muhammad,
Ahmed, Rahman, Islam, etc.” from their names.
I read some news in some Bengali weekly papers in which
some adult Muslims declared that they have removed the prefix: Muhammad,
Ahmed or Islam from their names.
Most of all, what benefit do we achieve by getting some
erratic human beings (some young whites, or some black
prisoners) converted to Islam?
Who counts those Muslims, who either convert themselves
to Christianity or just give up their faith in Islam silently?
Do we still have something left to be proud about Islam?
Let us not delude ourselves thinking that Islam is still
the greatest religion of Peace.
The action of 9-11 by the Arab terrorists in NYC and
Washington DC have exposed the true color of Islam.
Truth has a peculiar way of emerging out from the sealed
bag. No amount of
testimonials from all the Mullahs of the world could undo the
damage done by those 19 young men from Arabic speaking nations
of the world. And
that’s for sure!
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