Interfaith in the the West and the Muslim World

Paul Austin Murphy

In the United Kingdom:

In the UK, non-Muslims have created a massive ‘interfaith movement’ which a small number of media-savvy Muslims have taken full advantage of. We’re always hearing about ‘community cohesion’ and the necessity of ’embracing diversity’ from this movement.

When an Islamic bomb goes off or yet another Muslim terrorist is arrested, the Church of Interfaith gets into full swing. When there’s another case of Muslim grooming, the C of I assures us that there are also many gangs of  Christian groomers. When there’s a protest against a super-mosque, yes, you’ve got it, the Interfaith zealots will be there begging the builders to make the mosque bigger and higher. 

So how’s the Interfaith Movement doing in Muslim countries?

 A report was released on May 7th by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). It revealed that out of 15 nations which were the worst offenders against religious freedom, 10 were Islamic nations.

In these Islamic countries, non-Muslims are persecuted, imprisoned or killed for their non-Islamic religious beliefs. This isn’t surprising since such persecution is written into Islam itself. That is, under sharia law all non-Muslims have a dhimmi status at best; at worst they are persecuted and often killed. The Koran itself has countless passages of hate towards ‘unbelievers’ (Kaafirs) and the hadiths are often even worse.

Since most Muslims in the UK are either Pakistani or of Pakistani heritage, let’s start with Pakistan.

In Pakistan there is a controversial blasphemy law. That will also explain why many British-Pakistani Muslims are agitating for blasphemy law here in the UK. Of course they don’t use the words ‘sharia blasphemy law’. Instead they talk about ‘hate crimes’, ‘Islamophobia’, ‘racism’ and so forth. In fact Muslims in the UK have been so successful of fusing the criticism of Islam with racism that we’ve now got the Religious and Racial Hatred Act of 2006.

Let’s stay with Pakistan. In that country there is massive persecution of all religious minorities, which often results in killings, arson and rioting. (It’s ironic that one day Pakistani Muslims in the UK will be interfaithing and enjoying peace and tolerance, and the next they will be visiting Pakistan, as they often do, and seeing some of the massive violence and persecution– carried out by their relations?– of non-Muslims. I wonder what they think about all this … .)

Turning to other Islamic Countries:

Take Egypt when led by what Western governments deemed to be the ‘moderate’ Muslim Brotherhood. USCIRF explicitly stated that the Muslim Brotherhood had systematically failed to stop violence against Egypt’s religious minorities, most prominently the Copts (Christian Egyptians). This is not a surprise because the Muslim Brotherhood has since the 1920s been strong on persecution, assassinations and bombings. This was hardly likely to have stopped once they gained power.

If we then move to Iraq and Iran, the Commission informs us that imprisonment, torture and executions are daily occurrences for non-Muslims in these countries. As is the case with many Islamic states, a conversion to Christianity in Iran and Iraq is classed as a ‘crime against state security’. This shouldn’t be a surprise because in Islam the state and religion are as one; that’s what Islam demands and what sharia law is there to bring about.

In Saudi Arabia all religious activities outside the permitted Wahhabism, an extremely conservative movement within Islam, are banned. Indeed in Saudi Arabia’s apartheid state non-Muslims have to drive on their own side of the road. That apartheid system encompasses all aspects of Saudi life. This is because the Islamic system of dhimmitude enforces a system of apartheid on all non-Muslims in Muslim states.

The Muslim countries which USCIRF notes also include Sudan, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. These are classified as “particularly worrisome countries”.

Even much vaunted “moderate” Indonesia is becoming ever less “moderate” (i.e. less tolerant), with increasing numbers of attacks on Christians and other religious minorities.

In January 2014 “Open doors” released it’s report for 2013 on the oppression of Christians. The leading persecutor of Christians was North Korea, but all the rest were Islamic Countries. That is, it found that nine out of the top ten persecuting Countries were Islamic and that they  “had as its source of persecution, Islamic extremism”. In order they were: Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen.

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Thus whilst Muslims use “interfaith dialogue” to both promote Islam and suppress the truth about Islam in the West (aka the “darul harb” – world of war), in the Muslim world (aka “darul Islam” – Islamic world) “interfaith” on the part of the Muslim populations comprises: the suppression of religious freedom; persecution of religious minorities including murder, imprisonment and torture; murder for “blaspheming Allah, his laws, his book and his prophet” and religious apartheid.

The question then remains, “which is the true face of ‘Islamic interfaith'”? That carried out by a relatively small number of Muslims in the West, or that demonstrated by the vaster numbers of their “brothers” in the Islamic world.