"In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity.
Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every
year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity These
numbers are very large indeed"
Maher Abdallah:
Dear viewers, peace of Allah be upon you, greetings and welcome
to a new episode of the program Islamic Law and Life.
Our topic this evening will be Christianisation in the Dark Continent
... Africa. For after Islam was the religion of the majority,
the
great majority of that continent, the number of Muslims now is
no
greater than a third of the population. This is taking into
consideration, of course, that a large portion of this group are
Arab
Muslims. No doubt that the missions of evangelisation and
Christianisation played a great role in this demographic shift
of
Muslims in the continent.
To discuss this topic, it is my pleasure to introduce today a
man who is an expert on the issue of evangelisation and Christianisation
in Africa, even though he will concentrate on the issue of Christianisation
first and foremost…. Mullah Ahmed Al Qataani the president
of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in
Libya, which is an institution specializing in graduating imams
and Islamic preachers.
Mullah Ahmed, welcome to you on the program.
Ahmed Al Qataani:
Greetings to you.
Maher Abdallah:
If we start by inquiring about your strict stance against the
Christian missions in Africa, don't the followers of every religion
have the right to seek new converts, exactly as you train and
graduate
young Muslims to propagate Islam?
Ahmed Al Qataani:
I seek refuge in Allah the Seer, the Knower, from the stoned devil.
In
the name of Allah the Merciful the Beneficent. Thanks to Allah
the
One, the Only, the Permanent One, who did not give birth nor was
born,
to whom no one was equal. I bear witness that there is no God
but
Allah who has no partners, and I bear witness that our master
Muhammed
– Allah's prayers and peace be upon him - is his messenger
and
seal of prophets; Allah prayers be upon him and his brothers the
prophets and messengers and their families.
The question that you pose is a result of not comprehending the
difference between the concept of Christianisation and the concept
of
evangelism.
The concept of evangelism: is inviting the non-Christians to
the
Christian or Nazarene religion, and this is the right of every
Christian and the right of every believer to call others to his
faith.
However, we are talking about a different matter; which is
Christianisation. Christianisation means the following: preparing
plans, and executing these plans and evolving these plans to change
Muslims into Christians by taking advantage of the ignorance and
poverty (of the people) and whatever necessitates from similar
circumstances.
So, we are faced with the issue of taking advantage of circumstances,
taking advantage of humanitarian needs, taking advantage of the
lack of education for example, that these people (missionaries)
use to take Muslims out of their religion.
There was a time when Maldive
women were proud of their native heritage and went without
the obnoxious burugaa veil. This is changing fast as they
succumb to the world-wide campaign to force Islamic women
into the hijab. The next step could be what is
depicted in this picture. This Turkish man is protecting
his family's honour by making sure his daughter goes out
of the home in her hijab, chain and collar |
Maher Abdallah:
Fine. This is a big and dangerous phrase. Taking advantage of
poverty,
of ignorance, of lack of education, of some need is something
that a
Muslim can also be accused of. So if you don't back up what you
say
with examples, with references, your words remain in the air without
much weight to them.
Ahmed Al Qataani:
The reality is that these words say a lot less than they should.
As we
said in the beginning, everyone has the right to invite others
to his
religion; this is what is known as evangelism (or proselytizing).
As
for Christianisation, no one has the right to take Muslims out
of
their religion, and you asked for references and the references
are
too numerous.
Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa's
main
religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written
in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished
to
316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the
section
of Africa that we are talking about, the non Arab section, the
number
of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize
that
the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see
that the
number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the
beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of
Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million
882
thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million
in
the year 2000.
As to how that happened, well .there are now 1.5 million churches
whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour,
667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims
convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert
to Christianity These numbers are very large indeed …..
Maher Abdallah (interrupting):
Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have 6 million converting from
Islam to Christianity or converting from Islam and other religions?
Ahmed Al Qataani:
Great (question)! The other religions are not placed on the list
of
Christianisation; rather they are placed on the list of
evangelisation. The other religion in Africa is paganism; so it's
Islam, Christianity or paganism. There isn't something similar
to
Asia for example where you have Buddhism or Zoroastrianism. In
Africa
it is just these three, so if you talk about Christianisation
then it
targets the only other heavenly religion which is Islam. As for
paganism, those people worship animals and planets and the like.
Maher Abdallah:
So 6 million Muslims a year convert?
Ahmed Al Qataani:
Every year ….. In the African nations this century a tragedy
happened. Take for example what happened in Ethiopia. Ethiopia
is an
Arab nation and I am not saying a muslim nation. If any student
looks
up the word Habasha (Ethiopia) in the book Ocean Dictionary written
by
Al-Fairuz Abady, he will find that the word Habashat means "people
of different tribes" and this is what happened. Ethiopia
was a place
where Arabs from different tribes would go to live for a while.
We all
know that Islam entered Ethiopia before Islam entered the city
of
Medina. We all know that AL-Najashy (the ruler of Ethiopia) was
a
Muslim. It is mentioned by Al-Darkatny in his biography of the
prophet
– Allah's prayer and peace be upon him – that during
the
month of Rajab in the 9th year of the Hijra (Muslim calendar)
that the prophet said to his companions: "Rise up and pray
on your brother Al-Najashy." From that year on the
practice of praying on the absent was established. Therefore
from the time of the prophet – Allah's prayer and
peace be upon him – Islam entered Ethiopia. So what has
happened to Ethiopia?
What happened is that in the days of Emperor Hela Silasi who
used to
force Muslims to bow to the Christian, and if he refused then
he was
whipped 45 lashes and jailed between 2 and 5 years. In the year
1948,
a massacre occurred at the hands of the Amharic tribes; the Amharic
being Christians and collaborators, who continued to slaughter
Muslims
for 7 months and perform the most horrific acts imaginable. For
example they deprived them from the most basic human rights, to
the
point that they mutilated the male Muslim's reproductive organs
so
that no more Muslim children would be born. Ethiopia was rewarded
after all these horrific acts; rewarded by being made the head
quarters of the African Unity League.
Let us move to another location in Africa, let it be Nigeria.
Nigeria
is known by Muslims by the name of the Land of Takror. Nigeria
was
founded at the beginning of the last century by the British, and
many
Islamic sources mention it's name as the Land of Tekror. There
is
even a letter by the reciter Suyuti, who died in the year 911
Hijri,
where the title is: Opening the blessed request and relating the
hidden openly to the questions of the people of Takror. So there
was
an established relationship, and they used to send questions to
the
scholars of Islam, so this letter (of questions) was sent from
one of
the sheikh scholars of Nigeria that was called Takror to the Muslim
scholar AL Suyuti in Egypt and he in turn responded and the contents
of this letter are published and printed and is found in the book
"The collection Islamic decrees".
Nigeria's population is 120 million people, 70% of whom are Muslim.
In the 1960's a British missionary came and declared that he will
Christianise North Nigeria, the majority of whom are Muslim. As
a
result, Ahmed Banulo (from the leaders of the Msulims) was forced
at
the time to move him to Lagos the capital. As a result the butcher
Arorese, that was present at the time, eliminated all the Muslim
rulers and killed Ahmed Banulo, why? Because he merely dared to
move
this missionary who declared that he wishes to Christianise North
Nigeria.
In another country, Zanzibar, is an Arabic African nation and
I am not
saying Muslim. Zanzibar was always connected to the Sultanate
of Oman
(in the Persian Gulf). Concerning Zanzibar, there was a priest
by the
name Julius Niriry, president of Tanzania, who annihilated 20,000
Muslims (male and female) with a military force lead by a chicken
thief. This thief was imprisoned for being accused of stealing
chickens; he was released and asked to command the military brigade
that annihilated 20,000 Muslims.
Maher Abdallah:
My dear viewers welcome back to this episode where we are speaking
about the topic of Christianisation in the African continent and
we
are speaking with the Sheikh who is observing and following this
issue, as each hour Islam loses just under 700 Muslims who join
the
Christian religion which leads us to the number of 6 million Muslims
every year.
Our sir, you mentioned that there are advantages being taken
of
necessities: poverty, ignorance; what you mentioned then are waves
of
elimination, waves of religious eradication, and there is no need
to
call is racial eradication….. However, let us go back to
the topic
necessity and exploitation. This may have all been in the past;
the
military expeditions that you spoke of were all in the beginning
or
middle of the last century, but what is happening today in regards
to
exploiting necessities?
Ahmed Al Qataani:
What I wanted to say is that these military expeditions and wars
paved
the way for what we are seeing today; converting 6 million Muslims
every year did not happen from nothing, but was a result of what
I
mentioned earlier.
As for the topic of necessity exploitation, then a nation like
Somalia, whose population is 9.5 million people, are all Muslim
without exception. There are no Christians or pagans. And if you
did find any then they are an insignificant number that are not
even on official statistics. A Belgian missionary by the name
of Sabeh came to Somalia and purchased 30,000 Muslim youth, he
took advantage of their parents poverty, and we all know the terrible
situation that Somalia is going through now and what it went through
a few years ago. This is taking advantage of a humanitarian need
that any human can go through.
التنصير
في
إفريقيا