Undeterred and now in his late seventies, he has his own satellite station, al-Fady TV, dedicated to scrutinizing Islam and preaching Christianity. And just like St. Francis, Father Zakaria constantly invites Islam’s scholars and clerics to debate him—only to receive death threats, including a multi-million dollar bounty on his head. Because he has publicized many unflattering things about the Muslim prophet—things that many Muslims never knew—responses have included live Muslim callers hysterically promising to find the priest and cut his head off.
Like the Egyptian sultan who concluded that he could not convert because “My people would stone me,” many Muslim converts appearing on and calling in to his show reveal that their apostasy from Islam has put them in grave danger. Many are outcasts; many are in hiding; and others are on the run for their lives, often fleeing from their own families.
The effects of such “multimedia proselytization” are considerable. A few years back, Al Jazeera even aired a segment highlighting what it characterized as an “unprecedented evangelical raid.” Other stations, like Haya TV (“Life TV”) air thought-provoking programs such as Su’al Jari’ (“Daring Question”), hosted by Brother Rashid, a Muslim apostate to Christianity, and Al Dalil (“The Proof”), hosted by Brother Wahid. From TV and computer screens they all effectively but safely confront Muslims on the truths of Islam vis-à-vis Christianity. If the many callers to these shows—often Muslims who have converted to Christianity, many clandestinely—are any indication, multimedia proselytization has been relatively successful despite the consequences apostates face.
THE TRUTH BEHIND ISLAM’S ANTI-FREEDOM LAWS
The laws against apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism are draconian, but there are exceptions and complexities that shed light on the real purpose and effects of Islam’s strictures against freedom of speech and religion. There are two major exceptions to these laws enshrined in Sharia, cases when the laws against apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism can be disregarded: 1) when they are broken under duress—for example, a Muslim is threatened with torture and death if he does not curse Muhammad and apostatize from Islam (see Koran 3:28 and 16:106); or 2) as a stratagem of war, as when Muhammad permitted a Muslim to feign apostasy and to blaspheme his name to win the confidence of the poet Ka’b in order to assassinate him. Likewise, Muhammad once commanded Na’im bin Mas’ud, a young convert from a tribe that refused to submit to Muhammad, to conceal his new Muslim identity, go back to his tribe—which he cajoled with a perfidious “You are my stock and my family, the dearest of men to me”—only to betray them to Muhammad’s waiting jihadis.21
In fact, according to Sharia, recanting Islam is not only permitted but, in certain situations, obligatory. In this Islamic law completely differs from Christian tradition. While countless Christians, past and present, have been martyred for refusing to renounce Christ, Muslims who are forced to choose between recanting Islam and suffering persecution are expected to lie and feign apostasy. Several prominent Muslim jurists maintain that, because the Koran commands Muslims not to be instrumental in their own deaths (see Koran 2:195 and 4:29), Muslims are permitted to say anything to preserve their lives—including recanting Islam and cursing Muhammad. Indeed, in Muhammad’s own lifetime, whenever his followers fell into the hands of their non-Muslim opponents, they would often renounce Muhammad and Islam rather than suffer torture or death.22
Likewise, because apostasy is so serious a crime in Islam, deserving of death, various safeguards are provided for the accused to be exonerated. Simply declaring the Islamic profession of faith, the shehada—“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah”—in front of Muslim witnesses often is enough for the apostasy charge to be dropped. As most Muslim scholars agree, Islam requires only formal conformity—regardless of what is in the heart of the individual Muslim, which only Allah can ascertain.23
In fact the first large-scale persecution of apostates from Islam, known as the Ridda Wars, literally the “apostasy wars,” had little to do with faith. Carl Brockelmann, historian of Islam, wrote that “religious motives played scarcely any role at all” in these wars. Medieval chronicler Ahmed ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri (d. 892) provided the real motive: “When Abu Bakr was proclaimed caliph [following the death of Muhammad], certain Arab tribes apostatized from Islam and withheld the sadaqa [“charity” money], some saying ‘We shall observe prayer but not pay zakat.’”24
But merely praying was not good enough; not paying the money amounted to apostasy. Accordingly the revered Abu Bakr launched a jihad that saw thousands of Arabs slaughtered, burned alive, and crucified, especially under the command of General Khalid bin al-Waild, the ruthless “Sword of Allah.”
These first apostates from Islam were not attacked for rejecting the spiritual truths of Islam or the prophethood of Muhammad; they were attacked because they rocked the boat. Quiet apostates who lack conviction in Islam but who do not rock the boat—and these are many, often referred to in the West as “moderate Muslims”—are generally left unmolested by the sword of Islam.
Consider the modern-day case of the Egyptian Muhammad Hegazy. Not only did he convert to Christianity, but he also took the unprecedented step of trying to update his government I.D. card to reflect his conversion. (In Egypt and many other Muslim countries, a person’s religion is indicated on his I.D.) Both family and clerics alike threatened him with death. Then in February 2008, a judge ruled that Hegazy “can believe whatever he wants in his heart, but on paper he can’t convert”—in other words, he cannot rock the boat.25
It is the same with Islam’s blasphemy law. It does not target people who disbelieve or mock Islam in their hearts, but rather those who do so openly and publicly, creating doubt and “mischief,” which, as Ibn Taymiyya explained, are more dangerous to Islam than physical attacks.
Thus Islamic jurists and clerics often conflate Islam’s three separate laws against freedom—forbidding apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism. The different things forbidden by these different laws are all nonviolent acts that nonetheless weaken Islam. For example, a 2008 fatwa from the European Council for Fatwa and Research, ostensibly about apostasy, nevertheless alludes to blasphemy and proselytism when it decrees that “not every apostate should be killed, but rather only those who openly commit apostasy, or call for fitna, or voice harmful things against Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him) and the believers.” Obviously, any Muslim who openly converts to Christianity and seeks to live as an acknowledged Christian is going to be seen as one who “openly commit[s] apostasy,” and when he talks to Muslims about Christianity he will be accused of proselytizing and blaspheming—for then he is perceived as “call[ing] for fitna, or voic[ing] harmful things against Allah and His Prophet.”26
WHY CHRISTIANS ARE SINGLED OUT
Having examined the nature of apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism in Islamic law, let us now consider how and why it is that Christians are especially prone to being persecuted by Islam’s anti-freedom laws. There are three main reasons: 1. Christianity is the largest religion in the world. There are Christians practically everywhere around the globe, including in much of the Muslim world. Moreover, because much of the territory that Islam seized was originally Christian—including the Middle East and North Africa, the region that today is called the “Arab world”—Muslims are regularly confronted with vestiges of Christianity. In Egypt alone, which was a major intellectual center of early Christianity before the Islamic invasions, there may be some sixteen million Coptic Christians according to the baptismal registries of the Coptic Church. 27 In short, because of their sheer numbers alone, Christians in the Muslim world are much more likely than others to clash with Islam’s three anti-freedom laws.
2. Christianity is a proselytizing faith that seeks to win over converts. No other major religion—not Buddhism, Hinduism, or Judaism—has this missionary aspect. These other faiths tend to be coextensive with certain ethnicities. The only other major faith that has as strong a missionary component a
s Christianity is Islam itself—the one religion that Muslims obviously cannot “apostatize” to. Most Muslims who apostatize to other religions apostatize to Christianity, and hence suffer persecution as Christians. Because Christianity is the only religion that is actively confronting Muslims with the truths of its own message, it is the primary religion to be accused of proselytizing. And by publicly uttering teachings that contradict Muhammad’s, Christians fall afoul of the blasphemy law as well.
3. Christianity is the quintessential religion of martyrdom. From its inception—beginning with Jesus, and followed by his disciples and countless others in the early church—many Christians have accepted martyrdom rather than betray their faith, in ancient times at the hands of pagan Romans, and in medieval and modern times at the hands of pious Muslims and other persecutors. Few other religions encourage their adherents to embrace death rather than recant their faith, as Christ himself did: “But whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:33; see also Luke 14:33). As was mentioned above, Islam teaches Muslims to dissemble or publicly renounce their faith—not just when their lives are threatened, but even as a stratagem of war. Moreover, other religions and sects approve of dissimulation to preserve their adherents’ lives. A nineteenth-century missionary observed that in Iran, “Bahaism enjoys taqiyya [concealment of faith] as a duty, but Christianity demands public profession; and hence in Persia it is far easier to become a Bahai than to become a Christian.”28
To summarize, because of their large numbers around the globe, including in the Muslim world, Christians are most likely to clash with Islam’s anti-freedom laws. Because sharing the Gospel, or “witnessing,” is a dominant element of Christianity, Christians are most likely to fall afoul of Islam’s blasphemy and proselytism laws, as even the barest pro-Christian talk is by necessity a challenge to the legitimacy of Islam, and thus blasphemy. Because boldness in the face of certain death—martyrdom, dying for the faith—is as old as Christianity itself and integral to it, Christians are especially prone to defy Islam’s anti-freedom laws, whether by openly proclaiming Christianity or by refusing to recant it. Apostates to Christianity are much more obvious in their apostasy—owning Bibles, going to church—than lapsed Muslims who do nothing to arouse suspicion (not going to mosque or reading the Koran is not proof that a Muslim has apostatized). Enthusiastic Christians sharing the Gospel are not just breaking Islam’s proselytism laws, but are much more likely to transgress laws against blasphemy as well by challenging the truths of Islam.
Plus, there is one other exacerbating factor. More than any other religion, Christianity is Islam’s historical enemy. Converting to Christianity is seen as something of a double betrayal. Not only is the convert an apostate from Islam—which, as we have seen, can be overlooked as long as the apostate keeps his apostasy to himself, as apostates often do—but the open convert is publicly declaring that he has found something better than Islam in its nemesis, Christianity.
Thus in November 2011 in Nigeria, Boko Haram Muslims shot and killed two children of a former member because he “betrayed” Islam when he apostatized to Christianity—in a very dramatic manner. According to a Christian source close to the convert, the man, a jihadi at the time, “was poised to slit the throat of his Christian victim” during a jihadi raid in northern Nigeria that killed at least 130 Christians, when, not unlike Saul of Tarsus (or St. Paul), “he was suddenly struck with the weight of the evil he was about to commit.” He dropped his machete and fled to a church close by, where he pleaded for help. The pastor “immediately met with the confessed killer and joyfully led him to Christ.... After meeting the Lord, the converted terrorist [and] murderer called his former colleagues to testify what had happened to him without disclosing where he was.... Upon discovering the man’s conversion to Christianity, Boko Haram members invaded his home, kidnapped his two children and informed him that they were going to execute them in retribution for his disloyalty to Islam. Clutching his phone, the man heard the sound of the guns that murdered his children [emphasis added].”29
Islam’s anti-freedom laws target people of all or no religions. Many outspoken Muslim apostates in the West, for example, who never converted to Christianity, must fear execution should they ever fall into the hands of their former coreligionists. However, they are here now, alive and well in the West and warning us, precisely because they were not challenging the spiritual truths of Islam then, when they were living under its shadow—and why should they have been? If life is limited to the now, as it is in the secular worldview, why risk death, especially when merely not rocking the boat, as many “moderate Muslims” do, will save them?
Likewise, countless are the secular, Western people who habitually blaspheme against Islam. But they live in the West, away from Sharia domination, and so are generally immune from its draconian punishments. Ironically, the people who often suffer most when Western secularists offend Muslims are the Christian minorities of the Islamic world. Whether in the time of the medieval Crusades or during Operation Desert Storm, Muslims often conflate the Christians in their midst with the Western enemy and punish them accordingly, under the concept of collective punishment (which we will explore in more detail later).
Thus Islam’s anti-freedom laws, while applicable to lapsed Muslims and secular people who criticize Islam, have been especially devastating to Muslims who convert to Christianity, and to Christians who speak about their religion.
WITNESSES FOR CHRIST
Innumerable Christians have been persecuted and killed because of Islam’s anti-freedom laws throughout Islam’s nearly fourteen centuries of existence. But the first fact to recognize is that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, who they were, what they were accused of, and how they died will never be known. Countless and nameless they must remain—just as countless Christians suffering today are nameless.30
However, a few books, most of them little known, contain documented cases, often limited to one region or era. One such book, Witnesses for Christ, lists the many Christians known to have been killed or executed in connection with Islam’s anti-freedom laws during the Ottoman period of 1437–1860. It discusses the Orthodox Christian “Neomartyrs”—a term coined for those killed for their faith after the sacking of Constantinople in 1453. (It should be noted that Orthodox Christianity has been the one Christian denomination most persecuted by Islam throughout history, as the onetime eastern lands of Byzantium were all Orthodox, and most of the indigenous Christian communities of today’s Middle East are Orthodox.)
Witnesses for Christ offers many interesting facts and statistics. Christians were tortured to death, burned at the stake, thrown on iron spikes, dismembered, stoned, stabbed, shot at, drowned, pummeled to death, impaled, and crucified. Five Christians were “literally cut to pieces while still alive.” The book offers two hundred such stories. Its compiler, the late Nomikos Michael Vaporis, correctly noted, “These numbers, of course, are not completely accurate, for all who have dealt with the question are unanimous in their belief that the number of Neomartrys is far greater because many left no record of their martyrdoms. In fact there are some Neomartyrs who are known to us by their name and very little else. ”31
This book makes unequivocally clear that the same exact anti-freedom laws under which Christians are persecuted and killed today were the laws under which Christians were persecuted and killed from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries—demonstrating an amazing degree of continuity that simply cannot be denied. The overwhelming majority of those persecuted were killed in accordance with Islam’s three aforementioned anti-freedom laws:Apostasy: These martyrs included Muslim converts to Christianity, as well as Christian converts to Islam—who had converted for wealth, social station, or marriage, or because they were tricked into converting—but later apostatized by becoming Christian again.
Blasphemy: These martyrs included Christians who spoke against or insulted Islam’s prophet Muhammad as well as those who were inno
cent but whom Muslims falsely accused for myriad reasons including envy, revenge, or sheer malice. Some Christians were accused of blasphemy for standing up for themselves or for Christianity, for coming to the aid of fellow Christians, or even for rejecting Muslims’ sexual advances.
Proselytism: These martyrs included Christians preaching to or baptizing Muslims who wished to convert to Christianity. Others were accused of proselytism simply for talking about religion, or publicly comparing Muslim and Christian teachings.
The only way the Christian victims chronicled in Witnesses for Christ could avoid being killed was to convert to Islam. (As we shall see, the same thing is often true today.) According to Vaporis, The vast majority of Neomartyrs, however, found themselves in a position brought on by a variety of circumstances and events where they had to either convert to the Muslim faith or, if they refused, stand as witnesses for their Orthodox Christian beliefs and die as a consequence. In these instances Orthodox Christians were actually being threatened with the loss of life, with no real attempt on the part of Muslims to convince them of the truth of Islam. It would appear that the Muslims involved were primarily interested in numbers, relying on the pressures of a social consensus in Islamic society and the threat of death to ensure that converts would remain Muslims. [Emphasis added.]32
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