A Jihadi's Conversion to Christianity

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Writing for the NYT, Patrick Kingsley (assisted by Eiad Abdullatif) tells of "The Jihadi Who Turned to Jesus" (March 24, 2017), which sometimes happens, though not in numbers sufficient to make up for those Christians slaughtered by Islamists.

Still, one wants to know why this man - identified only as Mr. Mohammad - converted from radical Islam to what appears to be some sort of evangelical Christianity.

Kingsley says, "Exactly why he sought solace in Christianity, rather than a more mainstream version of Islam, no one can quite explain."

No one? But Mr. Mohammad explains his reasons, as we see in Kingsley's paraphrase: "Reading the Bible, Mr. Mohammad claimed, made him calmer than reading the Quran. The churches he attended, Mr. Mohammad said, made him feel more welcome than the neighborhood mosques. In his personal view, Christian prayers were more generous than Muslim ones."

Kingsley dismisses these reasons as "subjective claims," which is rather an odd way of treating a first-person report on conversion, for could anything be more subjective than a conversion?

The couple also have dreams that lead to their conversion: "For Mr. Mohammad and [his wife,] Ms. Rashid, perhaps it was their dreams that sealed their conversion. As the couple began to consider leaving Islam, Ms. Rashid said she dreamed of a biblical figure who used heavenly powers to divide the waters of the sea, which Mr. Mohammad interpreted as a sign of encouragement from Jesus. Then, Mr. Mohammad himself dreamed Jesus had given him some chickpeas. The pair felt loved."

Kingsley does not mention - though he may be aware - that dreams of prophets are to be taken seriously in Islam. The prophet Moses, probably the figure in Ms. Rashid's dream who divides the waters of the sea, and the figure of the Muslim prophet Jesus, in Mr. Mohammad's dream, legitimize the conversion to Christianity in the couple's mind. This happens more often than one might expect, for there are many cases in the Muslim world of men and women dreaming of Jesus (usually), who tells them to convert to Christianity.

Muslims Converting to Christianity?

Image: Courtesy, WIGTake Resources

Christianity Today

In "Why Muslims Are Becoming the Best Evangelists" (Christianity Today, April 22, 2014), Timothy C. Morgan interviews career missiologist David Garrison on Muslim conversions to Christianity:

Muslim background believers are leading Muslims to Christ in staggering numbers, but not in the West. They are doing this primarily in Muslim-majority nations almost completely under the radar -- of everyone . . . . "What did God use to bring you to faith in Jesus Christ? Tell me your story." This was the core question Garrison asked . . . . In Algeria, after 100,000 died in Muslim-on-Muslim violence, 10,000 Muslims turned their backs on Islam and were baptized as followers of Christ. This movement has tripled since the late 1990s . . . . Garrison estimates that 2 to 7 million people from a Muslim background worldwide now follow Christ . . . . [According to Garrison,] "Muslim-background believers [say] that they had met Jesus[,] . . . . people whose lives had been shaken and rattled by their encounter with Christ . . . . They look into their Koran and they see references to Jesus. In the Hadith, they hear stories about Jesus . . . . Abdul-Ahad, a Sheik from Mogadishu, Somalia . . . . had been involved in drug running, prostitution, and extortion . . . . [but] the Sheik was saved . . . . [and he] said, "You know when you see people like me with the beard and with the prayers, skull cap, you stay away from us because you're afraid of us . . . . The truth is we want you to be afraid of us . . . . But when you see people like me you need to know that we're empty and we're lost" . . . . [Garrison] often see[s that fear,] anger and hatred . . . . The sad thing is this fear is grounded in reality. You've got 14 centuries in which tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Christians have been gobbled up into the world of Islam. It makes communism look like just a cheap parlor trick. Communism came and went in a century . . . . One reason Muslims are responding today is [their new situation]. They are in independent nations. They don't have colonial powers occupying them. As a result, they're turned in on themselves. They don't get along very well with one another. Several of the big movements . . . across the Muslim world coincide with Muslim-on-Muslim violence, horrible violence like in Algeria, Bangladesh, or Indonesia . . . . [as] self-government in Muslim-majority nations has triggered violence between Muslim factions . . . . Muslims are fighting Muslims both in the name of Allah, [but a]fter a while, people say: "Can this really be Allah's will? Can this really be his ideal for mankind? If this is Islam, I don't want any part of it" . . . . [For instance, i]n Afghanistan, one man who had been an imam said, "We were killing everybody in this village because they were a different branch of Islam than us. I took this little girl, one-and-a-half years old, in my arms. We had already killed her parents. She held my finger, looked me in the eye, as I stuck a knife into her and killed her. That was the beginning of my conversion [from Islam]" . . . . [As] for Christians[, says Garrison, t]his is not a time to . . . fear Muslims. This is a time to love, win, and reach Muslims . . . . [I]n the house of Islam, . . . [there are] movements breaking out in multiple places . . . . [One hears about Muslim dreams of Jesus, and Muslims take dreams very seriously.] It's part of the reality of their world. Mohammad listened to dreams, and he gave Muslims the impression that God could speak through them. So they do listen to them, and they do talk about them . . . . [Many of the Muslims interested in Jesus] are having dreams of a living being glowing with bright light and drawing persons to him or just exuding love or offering them a book to read . . . . [One evangelist would hear Muslims speaking of such dreams, and he would hand them a Bible, point to Matthew 17:1-2, and ask them to read.] They would start reading. "After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light" . . . . Muslims [would] read that and [say,] . . . . "That's the guy. That's the guy in my dreams. Who is this? And how do I know more about him?" . . . . A Muslim's direct encounter with the Bible seems crucial . . . . [Of these Muslim-background converts, t]here is a range [of views on Islam] . . . . Some Muslims who come to Christ and seem on the surface to be the most Islamic, hate Islam. They hate Mohammad. They would . . . [say]: "We will wipe this virus out from our people. It's just destroyed our people." And yet if you were an outsider, and you met them, you'd never even know they were a Christian, because they continue to live in the culture. And some of them are even imams and Sheiks who stayed in their culture. For many Muslims, Islam is central to the way their people function. It was their mother. It was their family. It was their community. And they had no [problem] . . . with Islam [as a culture]. What they want to do is to follow Jesus and to love their parents better and to draw them into faith. I found very few people who wanted to take on Islam. They just felt like that was a secondary battle. The real battle was to follow Jesus and to spread Jesus.

This is interesting, but even if we assume the high estimate of seven million Muslims converting every year from Islam to Christianity, that's a very low percentage out of one and a half billion Muslims, so I can't quite see much general impact, hardly the "staggering numbers" promised at the outset of this article . . .

Matthew Schrier's Conversion to Islam: Cynical? Stockholm Syndrome? Or Nonpathological?

Matthew Schrier
New York Times

Was Matthew Schrier cynical, pathological, or nonpathological in his conversion decision while a captive of Islamist jihadists in Syria? Consider the following sequence described by C. J. Chivers in "American Tells of Odyssey as Prisoner of Syrian Rebels" (New York Times, August 22, 2013). First, some torture:

Now was Mr. Schrier's turn.

Wearing masks, his jailers led him out, sat him down and forced a car tire over his knees. They slid a wooden rod behind his legs, locking the tire in place. Then they rolled him over. Mr. Schrier was face down on a basement floor, he said, legs immobilized, bare feet facing up.

"Give him 115," one of his captors said in English, as they began whipping his feet with a metal cable.

When the torture ended Mr. Schrier could not walk.

Then, 'conversion':

Mr. Schrier converted to Islam in March, he said, which improved his relations with the kidnappers and brought an added benefit: His jailers gave him something to read, an English-language Koran.

Finally, freedom:

[His] cell was in a basement; the mesh and welding on one window was damaged and had been only partially repaired.

Mr. Schrier . . . unraveled wires, opening a hole large enough to fit his head and one arm. But he got stuck and had to return inside and rewire the mesh . . . . After a few days, . . . Mr. Schrier opened a larger hole . . . . Mr. Schrier said, he pushed both arms out and followed with his head.

He passed through.

The article doesn't say anything about the reasons for Mr. Schrier's so-called 'conversion' -- we're left to wonder if he was cynical or caught up in profound psychological identification with his captors, a pathology known as the Stockholm Syndrome. Jihadists often pressure their non-Muslim captives to convert, promising them better treatment. There are even cases of forced conversions, as with Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig back in 2006. The two journalists were held at gunpoint and forced to recite the shahada, Islam's conversion formula.

Odd, that the article doesn't ever broach the issue, not even to let readers know if Schrier's conversion was possibly nonpathological and genuine, and if so, for what reasons . . .

Iranian Refugees' Interest in Christianity

Iranian Converts

Photo by Kairospress

Christianity Today

An extremely interesting article by Matthias Pankau and Uwe Siemon-Netto, "The Other Iranian Revolution," appeared in Christianity Today (7/17/2012), reporting on Christian converts among Iranian refugees living in Germany:

[Apparently, there are] countless reports of Muslims having visions of Jesus. According to . . . [those] interviewed for this article, most of these appearances follow a pattern reported by converts throughout the Islamic world: Muslims see a figure of light, sometimes bearing the features of Christ, sometimes not. But they instantly know who he is. He always makes it clear that he is Jesus of the Bible, not Isa of the Qur'an, and he directs them to specific pastors, priests, congregations, or house churches, where they later hear the gospel.

How did these conversions get started?

Twelve years ago, Trinity Parish in Leipzig, a tiny congregation of the Independent Lutheran Church, began teaching German as a second language to asylum seekers awaiting government approval of their refugee status.

Trinity used Luther's Bible translation as a textbook. Linguists credit that translation with having created the modern German language. Intrigued by what they read, several exiles asked to be baptized. They brought along friends who also wished to learn the basics of the Christian faith. "Today, one third of our 150 members are Persians," says Markus Fischer, Trinity's pastor.

That's the story in Germany, anyway, but there's a broader answer, for Iranians have been converting to Christianity since the 1980s, repelled by Iran's Shi'ite Islamist government, with its system of enforced Islamic law, and attracted by Christianity, with its emphasis upon grace rather than law. Or as one German pastor explains:

"Islam is like a rope ladder on which people try to reach God . . . . They manage to climb a few rungs, but with each sin, fall off the ladder and must start all over again. Christians, by contrast, need no ladder because Jesus comes down to earth for them. Christians have salvation. Muslims don't."

Also, Iranian refugees tend to be well-educated, and among educated Iranians, Islam has lost a lot of moral legitimacy due to Iran's theocratic system, or so the article says. But I would add two more things. Shi'ite Islam in some forms speaks of a divine spark or divine light within the early caliph they honor, Ali, so the Christian concept of Jesus as both human and divine is not so foreign, and Ali's suffering at his death -- betrayed and dying of thirst -- can recall the death of Jesus. But religious concepts aside, Iranians are very proud of their pre-Islamic civilization and don't accept the Islamic view that everything pre-Islamic was mere ignorance, what Muslims call jahiliyya, a very negative expression. Iranians tend to see Islam as an Arab ideology and Islamization as Arabization, and I think there's merit to their opinion.

Whatever the motivation, these conversions are certainly a phenomenon to keep one's eyes on in the shifting kaleidoscope of contemporary European multiculturalism.

Kuwaiti Prince Abdullah al-Sabah Converts to Christianity?

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File this one under the "Interesting If True" heading. In a recent issue of the Vatican Insider (January 16, 2012), Marco Tosatti reports on "Kuwait: The prince's mysterious conversion," informing us that "a Kuwaiti royal prince has become a follower of Jesus Christ" and has posted the affirmation in an audio file using his full name, Abdullah al-Sabah, on the Arabic Christian satellite TV channel al-Haqiqa, which transmits Christian religious programing:

In his audio file, Abdullah declared: "First of all, I fully agree with the distribution of this audio file and I now declare that if they kill me because of it, then I will appear before Jesus Christ and be with him for all eternity." In this statement, the prince demonstrates his awareness of the fate in store for a martyr of the faith, according to Christian doctrine. The television channel stated that Abdullah is a member of the royal family, and that he recently renounced his faith in Islam and became a Christian, without specifying which particular branch of Christianity he had chosen. After stating his full name, the prince declared: "I will accept whatever they do to me, because the truth in the Bible has guided me towards the right path."

This sounds like evangelical Christianity to me . . . except that it sounds more like a hoax, particularly since a Kuwaiti prince by the name of Azbi al-Sabah insists: "There's no one by that name in the Kuwaiti royal family." He could be lying about that, of course, but getting caught in a lie so easily checked leads me to think he's telling the truth. This doesn't rule out the possibility that Abdullah al-Sabah is a pseudonym taken on by a real convert to hide his true identity, though such would seem to contradict the reported audio. Anyway, if the reported conversion is genuine, we may be hearing more about this in the near future.

To this Kuwaiti report, Tosatti adds a bonus point about neighboring Iran and the growth of Christianity there, a worrisome issue for Iran's theocratic Shi'ite state, leading the Iranian authorities to utter typically paranoid statements:

After Heidar Moslehi, the Iranian intelligence minister, asked Muslim seminaries to become proactive in stopping the spread of Christianity, a high-ranking cleric declared that Evangelical Christianity is the most horrifying intelligence and security organisation in the world. This statement seems to have appeared on press agencies close to the Revolutionary Guard.

In a conference on "New Age cults" held in Varamin, a district south of Teheran, Akhond Mohsen Alizadeh declared: "We should not allow these cults to question Islamic jurisprudence under the cover of mysticism." He went on to add: "They tell the youth that God is wrathful and horrible in Islam but is love in Christianity. Also, Christian preachers answer the questions and doubts of youth in their own interest and try to attract them." Nevertheless a whole series of signs seem to indicate that non-traditional Christianity -- there are Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Iran as well as a large Armenian community -- is spreading. The regime's press recently spoke of them with concern and the number of cases of repression and condemnation following conversions is growing.

By "non-traditional Christianity," Tosatti means evangelicalism, which includes pentacostalism, a variant on evangelical Christianity that seems to appeal to a lot of individuals outside of the West. If these folks make up "the most horrifying intelligence and security organisation in the world," then I can only conclude that the Holy Ghost must be involved in espionage, which rather fits the insider lingo that refers to spies as "spooks"!

Spooky indeed, but with God of their side, meaning that on the side of the Iranian theocratic state is . . .

Hyper-Conversion . . . or Hyped Conversion?

India

Photo by Gary Gnidovic

(Image from Christianity Today)

I found of interest this article, "India's Grassroots Revival," written by Tim Stafford for Christianity Today (July 8, 2011) on conversions to Christianity in India, which are apparently occuring rather rapidly these days, but the magazine might be hyping this a bit:

With its people turning to Christ in waves, India hosts more believers now than at any time in its 4,000-year history.

Given that Christianity has been around for only about 2000 years, I wouldn't be astonished to hear that there are more Christians in India now than any time before Christ, but upon reading the article, I discovered that the comparison was only between now and any time since Christ. Here are some figures:

The newly Christian India is found mostly at the bottom rung of society, among . . . typically poor and illiterate "broken people" (the literal meaning of Dalit). Numbering 140 million or more, Dalits and Tribals (a grouping similar to the Dalits) have begun to shake the foundations of India's social order. They think in ways their ancestors never could have imagined. More of them are following Christ than at any other time in India's history, ministry leaders told CT [Christianity Today].

India's church has grown and is getting larger. It now comprises over 70 million members, according to Operation World. That makes it the eighth largest Christian population in the world, just behind the Philippines and Nigeria, bigger than Germany and Ethiopia, and twice the size of the United Kingdom.

Over seventy million . . . but how much over? More figures:

Across the vast nation, a visitor hears of unprecedented numbers of people turning to Christ. Operation Mobilization, one of India's largest missionary groups, has grown to include 3,000 congregations in India, up from 300 in less than a decade.

A hospital-based ministry in north India has seen 8,000 baptisms over the past five years after a decade of only a handful. Operation World's detailed statistics show that the Indian church is growing at a rate three times that of India's Hindu population.

The 2001 Indian census placed Christians at just over 2 percent of India's population. But currently, Operation World puts the figure near 6 percent and notes that "Christian researchers in India indicate much higher results, even up to 9 percent." Many Indian Christians say that doors closed for centuries are swinging open.

That all sounds rather impressive and fast-moving . . . but some caution is in order:

No one can be certain of such trends in this vast and complicated country. Religion statistics are poor, and enthusiastic reports from mission organizations may reflect only local conditions.

Todd Johnson, director of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Center for the Study of Global Christianity, says he has opted for more conservative estimates than Operation World's. The center's Atlas of Global Christianity estimates 58 million Indian Christians, not 70 million. Most of the difference lies in Operation World's "unaffiliated" category. The unaffiliated may be part of independent fellowships, or be "insider" Hindu or Muslim followers of Christ.

Nearly all reports of rapid growth come from independent mission and church groups. "I'm waiting to see how they settle," says Johnson. "It's a very volatile situation. Exciting things are happening. That's real. Our methodology is to wait and see, and do our best to track it. But it is remarkable. Everybody agrees with that. It is something new in the last ten years, especially in the north."

While the figures are debatable, the rise in numbers of conversion seems clear, so the question is "Why?" The article goes into some detail on this, but three points that struck me indicates that Christianity in India is associated with the vision of a fairer society: education, democracy, and equality. The article connects this to the so-called "social gospel":

Western Christians shy away from social programs. They take for granted the possibility of economic progress and think it has little to do with faith. In India, however, such programs make the full implications of Christian faith visible.

While this quote doesn't explicitly develop the point, I think that we can suggest that people at the bottom of Indian society probably see Christianity as a means of social mobility and convert partly for that reason.

Does that make such conversions 'genuine'? Interesting question. Read the article.

Blood of the Martyrs . . . Seed of the Church?

Coptic Christians Protest Persecution

Ed Ou for The New York Times

(Image from New York Times)

The mainstream media might finally have begun to notice the widespread persecution of Christians throughout the world, particularly in Muslim-dominated areas, for I've noticed more articles recently in the New York Times on Christians suffering in Pakistan, Indonesia, and a number of other countries, particularly Iraq, from which Christians are fleeing and which threatens to be emptied of the last remnants of what was once its Christian majority. Now, we're also beginning to hear about Egypt.

David Kirkpatrick, writing for the New York Times, has recently noted that "Egypt's Christians Fear Violence as Changes Embolden Islamists" (May 30, 2011):

"Will Christians have equal rights and full citizenship or not?" asked Sarkis Naoum, a Christian commentator in Beirut, Lebanon. A surge of sectarian violence in Cairo -- 24 dead, more than 200 wounded and three churches in flames since President Hosni Mubarak's downfall -- has turned Christian-Muslim tensions into one of the gravest threats to the revolution's stability. But it is also a pivotal test of Egypt's tolerance, pluralism and the rule of law. The revolution has empowered the majority but also opened new questions about the protection of minority rights like freedom of religion or expression as Islamist groups step forward to lay out their agendas and test their political might.

Crawling out of the woodwork shaken by the revolution are even Islamists as radical as a certain Egyptian Salafi Shaykh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni who explains in this You Tube video translated by the site "Translating Jihad":

We are in the era of jihad. The era of jihad has come over us, and jihad in the path of Allah is a pleasure. It is a real pleasure. The companions (of the Prophet) used to compete to (perform jihad). The poverty that we’re in -- is it not due to our abandonment of jihad? But if we could conduct one, two, or three jihadist operations every year, many people throughout the earth would become Muslims. And whoever rejected this da'wa, or stood in our way, we would fight against him and take him prisoner, and confiscate his wealth, his children, and his women -- all of this means money. Every mujahid who returned from jihad, his pockets would be full. He would return with 3 or 4 slaves, 3 or 4 women, and 3 or 4 children. Multiply each head by 300 dirhams, or 300 dinar, and you have a good amount of profit. If he were to go to the West and work on a commercial deal, he would not make that much money. Whenever things became difficult (financially), he could take the head (i.e. the prisoner) and sell it, and ease his (financial) crisis. He would sell it like groceries.

The video of this man's insights into economics breaks off at this point, but I believe that we've heard enough to understand his mentality. Apparently, this statement was made over a decade ago, but in the 'freer' atmosphere of post-revolutionary Egypt, it has recently surfaced, and when the good sheik was questioned about it, he stood by his remarks. I don't know how much support he has in Egypt, but if Islamists of this sort were to take over that country and establish an Islamic state, they might not prove so popular. According to Trevor Persaud, writing "Public Enemy: Iran's Persecution Backfires" for Christianity Today (June 1, 2011), an Islamist state can inadvertently enhance the appeal of Christianity:

Islam is losing credibility after 30 years of theocracy [in Iran]. Resentment against the reigning regime is spreading and deepening -- especially since the disputed 2009 national elections.

"Before the [1979] revolution, the clerics were promising that once Iran becomes an Islamic state, it would be utopia, it would be brotherhood, and everything would be fine," . . . said [Issa Dibaj, an Iranian Christian]. But since then, Iranians "have seen nothing but war and fighting and international isolation and hatred, [and] they are thirsting for change."

"The Iranian public basically doesn't trust the government anymore," . . . said [Abe Ghaffari, executive director of Iranian Christians International], "and they don't trust the Muslim clergy anymore, because they have seen a lot of double standards and hypocrisy."

Converts in smaller communities still risk persecution from their own families, but tolerance is growing in urban areas and among the younger generation. "In fact," said Dibaj, "in places like Tehran and more educated communities, if you say, 'I have become a Christian,' they will respect you because of your courage and your independent thinking."

If anything, government persecution has made Christianity much more attractive, said . . . [Elam Ministries member David Yeghnazar]. "When government officials are on television telling people not to read the Scriptures, that generates more interest in the Scriptures."

I suppose that the Iranian government is worried, for as the article notes:

[M]ore and more Iranian Muslims are converting to Christianity. The house church movement is booming, with converts estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Evangelists are distributing large numbers of New Testaments, and satellite television continually beams Christian programs into the country.

Hundreds of thousands. Impressive, I guess, but out of a population of what, 80 million? That's still a rather minor percentage, so what is the Iranian government worried about?

Or might they have read chapter 50 of Tertullian's Apologeticus and learned of his theory on the growth of Christianity? But then, they wouldn't be persecuting Christians if they had, would they?

Or would they? Think of Iraq, which is being depopulated of Christians as they flee to escape the violence aimed at them by Islamists. Or of Pakistan, where up to 60 Christians each month convert to Islam to escape persecution.

Maybe Tertullian's blood-seed theory is not universally correct. Maybe some kinds of persecution are effective if the violence is brutal enough and if a substitute religion is offered.

I suppose we'll find out . . .

Margaret Marcus becomes Maryam Jameelah

Maryam Jameelah

The New York Public Library

Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

(Image from New York Times)

I'm not sure what general understanding to draw from this odd biography, Deborah Baker's account of The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, which tells of how a young New York secular Jewish woman, Margaret Marcus, became "Maryam Jameelah, a . . . convert to Islam, who -- as a disciple of Pakistan's most world-renowned fundamentalist -- made a career out of condemning the West in dozens of books and pamphlets." That fundamentalist mentor was "Abul Ala Mawdudi of Pakistan, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami . . . . [and] a strong influence on both Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini," as noted by Lorraine Adams in her New York Times review, "A New York Jewish Girl Becomes an Islamist" (May 20, 2011).

I haven't read the book, but maybe I should, for I might learn something more about the apparent appeal of Islamism for unbalanced young Westerners, if Ms. Adams is correct:

Baker not only makes us care about this disturbed woman[, Maryam Jameelah née Margaret Marcus,] and her hectoring prose, she has succeeded in composing a mesmerizing book on one of the more curious East-West encounters. She proves once again how a marginal case can be an illuminating way into vast and much disputed subjects, in this instance the meeting of West and East and the role of women under orthodox Islam.

From the details of the review, this sounds less a meeting of West and East and more a subsumption of the former by the latter. Or at least a story of how Islamism can make instrumental use of disturbed Westerners like the unstable Margaret Marcus, whom it turned into the unbalanced Maryam Jameelah:

[H]er tendentious books . . . are fixtures in madrasas around the world . . . . Her frenetic writing . . . matched Jamaat-e-Islami's interest in promoting her diatribes against secularism and women's rights . . . . Her prose was not the key to the popularity of her books. "The true source of Maryam Jameelah's authority arose not from her readings and argument, but from the circumstances of her life," Baker writes. "Every book she wrote is framed by an account of how . . . the daughter of secular Jewish parents . . . came to reject America and embrace Islam" and "sacrificed the supposed freedoms and privileges of a Western lifestyle to live . . . by the sacred laws laid out in the Holy Koran."

No doubt, these 'popular' books, read by Islamists for pious inspiration, leave out the dismal details of Jameelah's condition, which Adams, however, spells out for us:

[A]t age 23, she voluntarily checked into psychiatric hospitals for about two years . . . . [and within a year of her emigration to Pakistan] Mawdudi committed her to a Lahore psychiatric hospital . . . . Baker sidesteps one of the book’s most crucial questions: "Was Maryam Jameelah a schizophrenic? I couldn’t say." Yet the letters led me to believe she was. Baker mentions that Jameelah was medicated with Compazine, but blurs the implications when she omits that it's prescribed for schizophrenia. She also leaves out instances when Jameelah unambiguously acknowledges why she takes the anti-schizophrenic medication Thorazine. In a letter of Sept. 15, 1981, for example, Jameelah wrote: "I have to take Thorazine every night. I know if I stop taking it, I will soon relapse into the same condition I was before I went to the hospital both in New York and Lahore."

Conversion to fundamentalist Islam didn't solve Jameelah's problems, apparently, but did offer her a career "presenting 'a savage and titillating portrait of America' while disclaiming 'all responsibility for the crimes' committed by young terrorists who were inspired by her."

Little wonder that products of Pakistan's fundamentalist madrasas have such fanatical hatred for America, given that their formative view stems from the pen of such an unbalanced woman as the secular New Yorker Margaret Marcus who became the fanatically Islamist Maryam Jameelah.

Christian Convert Nagla al-Imam: Disappearance after 'Questioning'

Nagla al-Imam

(Image from Mark Durie)

Readers may recall a post on Nagla al-Imam nearly two years ago. In that post, I was concerned about some strange views on rape that she had expressed while still a Muslim and wondered if she continued to hold to those peculiar views after her very public conversion to Christianity. Well, I still don't have any word on that, but I recently noticed that she has undergone some rigorous 'questioning' by an official in the Egyptian security forces despite her very public conversion and her status as a human rights lawyer.

The Australian Anglican minister Mark Durie, a linguist with expertise in Arabic, offers details of the questioning, which is reported upon in the original Arabic in a video showing Nagla al-Imam with clear facial bruises:

[The official] went to take hold of the cross [on my necklace] . . . . He held the chain and tightened it around my neck. He was showing that he was threatening to cut the chain, or to hurt my neck, or do anything . . . . Holding my hair, he bashed my face against the desk. He slapped my face more than once, and punched me in the ribs, and on my arm. By this time I was bleeding from the side of my mouth . . . . When I went back [home] I couldn't sleep. My ribs and my body were hurting, my neck and my shoulders . . . . But my real hurt was not the [physical] pain. My real hurt was that there was no real reason for them to do this. I was simply a piece of flesh, an object of defamation and slander. I was always damaged goods.

The facial bruises visible in the video lend a degree of credibility to this testimony, so despite speculations by commenters and me that Ms. al-Imam might have undergone a very public conversion to Christianity out of a sense of self-preservation, possibly aimed at "generating notoriety to protect herself," that seems not have been the result, regardless whether it was her motive.

Ms. al-Imam has since disappeared . . .

Peter Hitchens: The Rage Against God

The Last Judgment, c. 1445–1450

(215 x 560 cm)

Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464)

(Image from Wikipedia)

Peter Hitchens -- younger brother to the very much more famous Christopher Hitchens, who has 'raged' against God in such books as God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything -- speaks up for God in a recent book, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.

These brothers certainly make for interesting bookends.

I haven't read either book, so I won't be comparing or offering reviews, but I did read an interesting excerpt from the book by Peter Hitchens in The Daily Mail Online: "How I found God and peace with my atheist brother: Peter Hitchens traces his journey back to Christianity" (March 12, 2010). In a fascinating passage, he confesses that fear propelled his return to Christianity:

No doubt I should be ashamed to confess that fear played a part in my return to religion, specifically a painting: Rogier van der Weyden's 15th Century Last Judgement, which I saw in Burgundy while on holiday.

I had scoffed at its mention in the guidebook, but now I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open, at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of Hell.

These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions.

On the contrary, their hair and the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me, and people I knew.

I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. My large catalogue of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head.

I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned. Van der Weyden was still earning his fee, nearly 500 years after his death.

That polyptych painting is found in the Museum of the Hospices Civils de Beaune, but for convenience is also pasted above, and while I find it quite impressive, I don't find the conversive power that brought Peter Hitchens to his knees and opened his mouth to speak.

Perhaps because of the 'irrational' character of his own religious experience, Peter Hitchens doesn't seem to put much stock in rational persuasion for belief in God, especially with such cases as his passionately atheist older brother, Christopher Hitchens:

It is my belief that passions as strong as his are more likely to be countered by the unexpected force of poetry, which can ambush the human heart at any time.

Not even good prose can do the trick:

Beyond that, I can only add that those who choose to argue in prose, even if it is very good prose, are unlikely to be receptive to a case which is most effectively couched in poetry.

By "prose," Peter Hitchens seems to mean discursive reasoning aimed at rational persuasion aimed toward fully grounded knowledge, but that doesn't usually lead to faith, apparently, for on the point of God's existence or non-existence, he tells us:

I have become more convinced we cannot know such a thing in the way we know anything else, and so must choose whether to believe or not. I think it better by far to believe.

Why he thinks so is perhaps further articulated in the book, but the excerpt does offer this reason for his choice of Christian belief:

For a moral code to be effective, it must be attributed to, and vested in, a non-human source. It must be beyond the power of humanity to change it to suit itself.

Its most powerful expression is summed up in the words 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'.

The huge differences which can be observed between Christian societies and all others, even in the twilit afterglow of Christianity, originate in this specific injunction.

That appears to be in prose rather than poetry, so it might not do the trick for others . . . as Peter Hitchens would likely concede. For him, I gather, the experience of faith is like falling in love. It is overwhelmingly persuasive but not an experience that can be effectively shared through rational argument. Only a foolish man would expect to win the heart of a woman through discursive reasons. Poetry is more effective in such cases.

But after falling in love, or into faith, one might still reflect upon reasons, for one can fall in with the wrong crowd . . . like too many converts to 'Islamism' these days.

Marginal Controversies: Between Islam and Christianity

Islamo-Christians? Christo-Muslims?

(Image from Christianity Today)

An intriguing missiological discussion taking place within Evangelical Christianity broke open in the pages of Christianity Today's "Global Conversation" section a couple of weeks ago (follow the link and scroll down the righthand side), the debatable issue being how closely a Muslim-Background Christian (MMB) could identify with Islam and still be considered "Christian."

Joseph Cumming opens the discussion in his article "Muslim Followers of Jesus?" by identifying six categories of MMBs:

C1: MBBs in churches radically different from their own culture, where worship is in a language other than their mother tongue.

C2: Same as C1, but worship is in the MBBs' mother tongue.

C3: MBBs in culturally indigenous Christian churches that avoid cultural forms seen as "Islamic."

C4: MBBs in culturally indigenous congregations that retain biblically permissible Islamic forms (e.g., prostrating in prayer), investing these with biblical meaning. They may call themselves something other than Christians (e.g., "followers of Jesus"), but do not see themselves as Muslims.

C5: Muslims who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior in fellowships of like-minded believers within the Muslim community, continuing to identify culturally and officially as Muslims.

C6: Secret/underground believers.

As Cumming notes, the serious debate is between C4 and C5 (and note that C6 is off the continuum, for individuals within C6 could take any of the C1 through C5 positions). Cumming empathizes with C5 individuals, noting the case of a certain 'Ibrahim':

C5 believers like Ibrahim challenge assumptions about what it means to be Muslim or Christian. We all have more than one identity and community. For example, most American Christians assume one can be both a patriotic American (loyal to that community) and a faithful Christian, though they may disagree with some things their fellow-Americans do or teach. Believers like Ibrahim seek to be both authentic Muslims (loyal to the community of their birth) and faithful disciples of Jesus, critically evaluating what their fellow-Muslims do and teach in light of the teachings of Christ -- sometimes accepting, sometimes reinterpreting, sometimes disagreeing. Do such disagreements require American believers to repudiate American identity and community, or require C5 believers to repudiate the Muslim community and their Muslim identity? How can believers best be "critically loyal" to the community of their birth and to their family heritage, respectfully critiquing what is unscriptural, while upholding God’s Commandment to "Honor your father and mother"?

Christian critics of this particular C5 argument would probably cite the words of Jesus in Luke 14:26:

If any [man] come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Whether this is a valid retort to the C5 argument is merely for me to note, not to decide. Similarly, from the Muslim perspective, an objection to the C5 individuals -- who are "critically evaluating what their fellow-Muslims do and teach in light of the teachings of Christ" -- might be that Islam does not leave room for personal interpretation on such crucial issues, for Islam is a religion of laws that enforce particular beliefs, and if the consensus of Muslim scholars has agreed that belief in the 'deity' of Christ constitutes polytheism (shirk), then the individual has no freedom on this point. Those who would defend the C5 position are presupposing a sort of 'Protestant' Islam.

The debate over the C5 position isn't new. In "God Is Doing Something New," John Travis notes that the C5 issue has been around since at least the 1930s:

While the term C5 is relatively new, the basic concept is not. It was described in the late 1930s by missionaries working in the Middle East. Their reports mentioned that the term "Christian" in many Muslim lands had only an ethnic, political, or cultural association that was largely negative, with no implications of a spiritual rebirth. In addition, they noted that numbers of Muslims had become followers of Jesus Christ, yet refused to separate from the Islamic community, so that they could continue to live with their people and share their new life in Christ. In Lebanon in 1969, Baptist missionary Virginia Cobb emphasized that we are saved by Christ, not "religion." Cobb stated, "We are not trying to change anyone's religion. Religion consists of affiliation with a group . . . [a] dogma, structure of authority. . . . [T]he New Testament is quite clear that none of this saves. It is possible to change all of them without knowing God . . . our message is a person we've experienced, not a doctrine, system, [or] religion . . . ." In the following decade, mission leader John Anderson (1976) and missiologists Charles Kraft (1974, 1979) and Harvey Conn (1979) all encouraged the idea of groups of Muslim followers of Christ who would be salt and light to their own people. Each of these writings has engendered both enthusiasm and criticism.

What these missionaries described is exemplified in the life of Ibrahim, the Qur'anic scholar mentioned by Cumming. Ibrahim closely examined verses commonly understood to deny Christ and the Bible, and found alternate interpretations in line with the Bible. He concluded that he could follow Jesus and remain inside the religious community of his birth. Soon members of his family and community came to share his faith in Jesus. While many Muslims would not take the bold step to reinterpret aspects of Islam for themselves, some do.

Again, this seems to presuppose that 'Ibrahim' has the right to interpret the Qur'an privately, a point already addressed above. But I'd also expect Christian critics to note that if the C5 position has been around since the 1930s, then where are the results? Christian percentages in the Middle East have declined precipitously since that time.

But what do C5 individuals have to say for themselves? In "A Muslim Follower of Jesus," Mazhar Mallouhi seems to place himself in the C5 category, and he poses some questions:

Muslim followers of Jesus are being transformed by the same Holy Spirit that transforms all followers of Jesus. We read the same Holy Bible that Christians throughout the centuries have read. Shouldn't we believe the Holy Spirit will show us if we need to re-learn how to pray or change our forms and customs? Shouldn't we be free to follow Christ without being forced to adopt 2,000 years of Western religious culture? How can an outsider know the impact of our customs on our hearts? If we say our religious customs do not negate what is in our hearts, how can others negate our faith?

This would seem to radicalize even the extreme individualism sometimes found in American Protestantism, but also seems to constitute a thoroughgoing critique of Western Christianity, and likely also of Western civilization generally.

In "The Main Question Is Identity," John Azumah points to what he considers some problematic tendencies among the C5 advocates:

I believe C5 advocates bear some responsibility for the animated and sometimes acrimonious discourse. In his earlier writings, John Travis appealed to Christians that "much of our missiological energy should be devoted to seeking a path whereby Muslims can remain Muslims, yet live as true followers of the Lord Jesus." (See "Must All Muslims Leave Islam to Follow Jesus?" by John Travis, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 34 (4), 1998, pp. 411-415.)

Some C5ers speak of "encouraging" or "urging" MBBs to remain within the Muslim community as "Insiders." Others have urged and even required their missionaries to officially become Muslim in order to be effective. In several articles C5ers have devoted their missiological energy to demonstrating from the Bible that leaving one's religion of birth ("extraction") is unbiblical, and that Jesus and the apostles were all "Insiders," thereby suggesting that the existence of the church in its present diverse traditions (C1 to C4) is an aberration.

Azumah goes on to sharpen some of these points, especially where Islamic radicalism forces one to choose between a Qur'anic Isa and a New Testament Jesus, for how can one affirm both?

Cumming rightly states that "the prophethood of Muhammad is non-negotiably essential to Muslim identity." Yet when the question of Muhammad is raised, C5ers think it is "unimportant." It is true that "Muslim" means different things to different Muslims. In several communities in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, the term "Muslim" is a specifically and exclusively religious designation. Jesus is called "Muslim" in the Qur'an as part of Islamic replacement theology. The Muslim Jesus is deliberately set in opposition to the Jesus of the New Testament. To accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, as C5ers do, automatically puts one beyond the pale of such a Muslim community.

Well, aside from the questions that I raised above, I'm more than willing to sit out this controversy and simply watch as a spectator from the sidelines, but I did want to at least note this interesting development at the interstice between Christian and Muslim civilizations.

I should also perhaps add that what really matters in the long run is the overall trajectory of populations -- the religion that is increasing in numbers will determine which direction the C5 'believers' will head, i.e., more deeply into resurgent Christianity or back into surgent Islam. Relevant to this point, recall that Islamization took place gradually in the conquered Christian lands, and some scholars have argued that Sufism encouraged Islamization by allowing Christians to maintain an identification with Jesus while adopting the forms of Islam, a process that over generations led to Islam supplanting Christianity.

For the C5 'Christians' to have any significant impact upon Muslims generally, Islam will have to loosen its restrictions on individuals, and that doesn't seem to be the current trend . . . but we shall see.

Irishman threatens to kill British soldiers!

Terry 'K' Kelly

(Image from Times Online)

Nicola Smith, writing for The Sunday Times (November 15, 2009), tells us that some fanatical "Irishman wants to kill" British soldiers:

"I've already picked up a gun and done target practice to make myself familiar with weapons. The other day I learnt how to use an M-16 [rifle] in five hours," he said. "Next week, . . . I could be . . . fighting a British soldier."

What's he got against the Brits? He doesn't like soldiers?

"Why is it such a big deal that I want to do this? Have I not got the right to do the same thing as a guy going into an army recruitment centre?" he said. "As long as we have no security, you will have no security. We'll kill and bomb you as you have killed and bombed our lands."

Oh, I see. A militant Irish nationalist. One of those men with a long memory stretching all the way back to the 12th century, when the Anglo-Normans conquered Ireland. A man who would shout out with The Pogues, "A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell," along with the rest of the lines to "Young Ned of the Hill," as a call to remember the atrocities of that English Protestant Cromwell in his reconquest of a rebellious Ireland during the 17th century. A man who recalls the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1922 division of Ireland. He must be some hardline IRA member, ready at any moment to attack the British:

Ireland is also a legitimate target, according to Kelly. "Ireland has a US embassy so it is open to attack," he stated.

Eh? Mr. Kelly wants to kill Irish citizens, too? And, apparently, Americans? What the hell is his motivation?

"I was living a cushy Western lifestyle, in a three-storey house with a swimming pool. I was your average Western racist."

Good Lord, I'm nearly tempted to become an 'average' Western racist if that'll get me a three-story house with a pool! But what specifically turned Mr. Kelly against the West? Did he turn 'Third-Worlder' from some encounter with injustice?

In 2000 . . . he was serving time in . . . prison . . . for bootlegging.

That sounds more like an encounter with justice. Somehow, that seems to have led to Mr. Kelly's turn against not only the British but even the Irish, the Americans, and the entire West!

I wish that I could explain what's gotten into this man's bitter heart, but for the life of me, I can't figure it out, so perhaps a few of my faithful readers could check out Ms. Smith's article and explain to the rest of us precisely what has so radically transformed Mr. Terry 'Khalid' Kelly.

Neda Agha-Soltan's death revisited . . .

Marzieh Amirizadeh

and

Maryam Rustampoor

Muslim-Background Christians

(Image from BosNewsLife)

Although I'm now about 90 percent convinced that Neda Agha-Soltan's death was a purely random killing by the Basij, who had no suspicion that she might have been Christian, the case of Muslim-background Christians such as Marzieh Amirizadeh and Maryam Rustampoor is what raised my suspicions:

Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, and Maryam Rustampoor, 27, have been held for over four months in Tehran's notorious Evin prison apparently for converting to Christianity from Islam.

Iranian Christians and rights investigators said the two young women, who were arrested March 5, suffered sleep deprivation as part of police interrogations and were held in solitary confinement for three weeks in May and early June.

Later, they were put together in one small cell for about two weeks before being moved to a larger area to make place for other inmates, including many protesters who were detained following last month's disputed presidential elections, said Christians with close knowledge about the situation.

About 600 women were reportedly brought to Evin prison during the protests. (Stefan J. Bos, "Concerns Over Detained Iranian Christians Amid Political Turmoil," BosNewLife, July 7, 2009)

As the report notes, apostasy from Islam is taken very seriously in Iran:

Apostasy along with murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Iran, and last week Iranian media reported that at least six people were hanged for murder in the same prison where the two Christian women are held.

Iran's hardline on apostasy, combined with the seeming cross worn by Neda Agha-Soltan, left me wondering . . . but my former student Hajir, an Iranian, expressed skepticism that Neda had been specifically targeted:

Even though it might seem interesting that a girl whos name is Persian was wearing a cross in a picture, to me it is not surprising at all. First of all many of people who I know that live very secular if they find something stylish they might wear it for a period, therefore they are not necessarily Christian.

Or since many Persians these days are confused with their religious identity might identify themselves with any religion temporarily, but they cannot be considered real converts because [they] mostly do not have deep understanding and they just follow the trend for a short period.

But still there are many (unknown number) of Christian converts in Iran that she might also be one of them, Her religious belief is really uncertain to me, indeed it seems a cross to me in the photo.

. . .

I personally think her death was just like other deaths that unfortunately took place within the past few weeks and the only distinction is the video that has made the scene more significant than the others.

I believe she was shot down by Basij troops and the death was not plotted in advance. Because police were even unable to locate the protests, how could they possibly know somebody who has no high profile -- like her -- is somewhere among the protesters to plan to kill her?!

Hajir's final point is a very astute one. Following through on some plan to kill Neda Agha-Soltan in the chaotic crowds would have been very difficult. Still, let's not dismiss it entirely, for Iran's Islamist leaders are said to be worried about conversions away from Islam, especially conversions to Christianity, so much so that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly promised, "I will stop Christianity in this country" (Kenneth R. Timmerman, "Freedom to Believe," NRO, December 15, 2005). Consider this analysis from the news report above on Marzieh Amirizadeh and Maryam Rustampoor:

Elam Ministries linked the attacks [on Muslim-background Christians] to concern among Iran's leaders about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic nation. "Because Iran is a strategic gateway nation, the growing church in Iran will impact Muslim nations across the Islamic world."

The group said in 1979, there were less than 500 known Christians from a Muslim background in Iran. "Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation."

Church leaders have reportedly said that they believe "millions" can be added "to the church in the next few years-such is the spiritual hunger that exists and the disillusionment with the Islamic regime." (Stefan J. Bos, "Concerns Over Detained Iranian Christians Amid Political Turmoil," BosNewLife, July 7, 2009)

One need not accept the optimistic projections of Elam Ministries to recognize that the Islamic Republic of Iran might be paranoid about such conversions. Some supporters of the Iranian government even seem to revel in the brutal suppression, as with this "Anonymous" individual in a comment to one of my blog entries on the election in Iran:

Ahmadinejad was ahead before the election, and there is no reason to believe he did not win a landslide. He has been rubbing the West's nose in its own sh*t for over 4 years.

Four more years, like it or not. (Your own sh*t, that is.)

I found courtesy difficult to maintain in the face of such vulgar gloating by an individual who didn't even bother with asterisks (though I have since supplied these), but I did manage what I hope was a sufficiently irenic reply:

Anonymous, when I saw the "Anonymous" signature, I expected the sort of comment that you posted, so I wasn't surprised and therefore certainly not disappointed.

Congratulations on your victory. You sound happy with it.

We'll just have to see how this all plays out over the years and months, but "Anonymous" should recall that fateful warning to Sir Gawain: Þe forme to þe fynisment foldez ful selden ("first things to last things very seldom match," SGGK, Part 2, line 499).

Neda Agha-Soltan: A Christian?

Neda Agha-Soltan

Click Photo to Enlarge

(Image from Gabrielle Cusumano)

Readers probably recognize this photo of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman who was struck by a bullet in the heart on June 20, 2009 during the recent demonstrations in Iran. If you missed the earlier reports, see the Wikipedia entry on the "Death of Neda Agha-Soltan" for information and links.

Truth is hard to come by in a case such as this, for the Iranian government has clamped down on reports and has claimed that foreigners killed her. I certainly don't accept this official Iranian claim. Initially, I assumed that Ms. Soltan had simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and had gotten struck by a stray bullet, for she was apparently not directly involved in a protest at the moment, nor was she especially close to where clashes were occurring. Many reports that I've seen, however, insist that she was deliberately targeted by the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia formed to protect the Islamist Iranian state and monitor the Islamic practices of Iranian citizens. But I couldn't understand why someone as innocuous as Ms. Soltan would be targeted.

Now, the buzz on the internet has been growing that Ms. Soltan was a Christian, based on the evidence of what appears to be a Christian cross on the necklace that she is wearing in the photograph above. Click on the photo to enlarge the image, and decide for yourself, but it does appear to be a cross to my eyes -- as well as to the eyes of my wife.

From the fact that Ms. Soltan had studied at Islamic Azad University, majoring in philosophy and religion, I had assumed that she was Muslim, but supposing that she were a convert from Islam to Christianity, then a motive for her execution would become more plausible, for Muslim-background Christian have previously been targeted by Iran's Islamist government (e.g., Hossein Soodmand in 1989, Mehdi Dibaj in 1994, and Ghorban Tourani in 2005), and the popular disorder during the demonstrations may have provided the Basij a perfect opportunity to strike.

So . . . was Ms. Soltan a Christian . . . and was she targeted? I suspect that we'll be hearing more about this soon enough, though definitive answers might be difficult to obtain.

Crypto-Catholics among Albanians

Roman Catholic Church

Village of Kravoserija

Southern Part of Independent Kosovo

September 8, 2008

(Reuters/Hazir Reka/Files)

Following up on yesterday's post on the report by Fatos Bytyci, "Out of hiding, some Kosovars embrace Christianity" (Reuters, September 28, 2008), I found an article by Maurus Reinkowski, a professor at Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg: "Hidden Believers, Hidden Apostates: The Phenomenon of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Christians in the Middle-East" (Dennis Washburn et al., editors, Converting Cultures: Religion, Ideology of Transformations of Modernity, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007, pages 409-433, pdf article).

In this article, Reinkowski has a bit on crypto-Catholic Albanians:

[Page 420:]

Certain regions of Albania and Kosovo show from the 17th through the 20th century a prominent occurrence of crypto-Christian groups. Their existence can also be related to the historical conditions of that region. In order to shake off Ottoman rule Albanian leaders forged frequent alliances with European powers -- with Venice in the middle of the 17th century, (Footnote 37) and from the late 17th century onwards with Austria and Russia. Ottoman authorities responded in certain strategically sensitive regions by transferring populations and laying greater emphasis on conversion. Steadily increasing tax obligations, due to the financial malaise of the Ottoman state, may have added to the pressure to convert (Footnote 38). The greater part of conversions in that region seems to have taken place for anything but reasons of conviction. A crypto-Christian (or to be more precise: Crypto-Catholic) culture developed in parts of the Albanian lands. Crypto-Christians had double names, Christian names in their domestic, circles, Muslim names in public; they went both to church (mostly in their villages) and to the mosque (when visiting the cities); they had their children christened and confirmed, but also circumcised; they got married using both the Christian and the Muslim rites; they observed Christian fasts, but also went to the Mosque during the Muslim month of fasting (Ramadan); they asked for the last rites and anointment by a Catholic priest, but were buried in a Muslim graveyard. In some villages the Ottoman tax collector encountered only Muslims (since they had to pay less taxes than Christians), but a commission seeking to levy in the same village recruits for the Ottoman army would meet only Christians (since they did not have to serve in the Ottoman army). (Footnote 39) One's religion could also change accord-

[Page 421:]

ing to altitude. During their stay in the plains in the winter months the crypto-Christians were Muslims, but in the summer on the mountain meadows, out of reach of the state, they were Christians (Footnote 40). Christian and Islamic practices were accessible to both religious groups and easily imitated. Christening, which was seen as a magical protection against spirits, sorcerers, wolves and the like, was used not only by Christians, but also by Muslims (Footnote 41). Catholic priests in the northern Albanian mountains enjoyed great respect with Muslims (Footnote 42). Pilgrimage sites and holy graves were shared by Christians and Muslims (Footnote 43). Islamic dervish sites, in Albania primarily maintained by the Sufi order of the Bektashis, were important for the Islamization of the Balkans and Anatolia, since they integrated old Christian pilgrimage sites into the Muslim cosmos. Christians were not kept away from these places of pilgrimage; the Bektashi holy sites seem even have to been made deliberately compatible to Christian pilgrims (Footnote 44).

How is this relatively high concentration of crypto-Christians in the Albanian lands to be explained? It would seem that the people of Albania were somehow prepared by their previous historical experiences for crypto-religious strategies. With the frequent shifting of this region between Catholic powers and the Greek-Orthodox Byzantine empire the local Albanian notables and population may have, already in pre-Ottoman (and thus pre-Islamic) times, acquired the experience of changing their affiliation to opposing confessions according to the given situation.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on her journey in 1717 through the Balkans to Istanbul, met Albanians and expressed a kind of benevolent surprise at their lack of decisiveness in questions of religion:

[Page 422:]

But of all the Religions I have seen, the Amounts [i.e. the Albanians] seem to me the most particular. (. . .) These people, living between Christians and Mahometans and not being skill'd in controversie, declare that they are utterly unable to judge which Religion is best; but to be certain of not entirely rejecting the Truth, they very prudently follow both, and go to the Mosque on Fridays and the Church on Sundays, saying for their excuse, that at the day of Judgement they are sure of protection from the True Prophet, which they are not able to determine in this World. (Footnote 45)

(37) Noel Malcolm, Kosovo. A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 118.

(38) N. Malcolm, pp. 118, 126, 131, 165. The Greek-Orthodox clergy was repeatedly authorized by the Ottoman state to collect church taxes from the Catholic population
as well.

(39) This anecdote is so popular that it may be found in several works such as R. Dawkins, Crypto-Christians 1933, p. 271; and Bardhyl Graceni, "Le crytpochristianisme dans la region du Shpat au cours de la derniêre periode de la domination ottomane," Studia Albanica 26.2 (1989): pp. 92-102. The principle source for these reports seems to be Edith Durham, The Burden of the Balkans (London: Nelson, 1905).

40. A. Bryer, Crypto-Christians (1983), p. 22.

41. Speros Vryonis, "Religious Change and Continuity in the Balkans and Anatolia from the Fourteenth through the Sixteenth Century," in Islam and Cultural Change in the Middle Ages, ed. Speros Vryonis (Wiesbaden; Harrassowitz, 1975), pp. 127-140; N. Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. 129, 132; Isa Blumi, Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire. A Comparative Social and Political History of Albania and lemen 1878-1918 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2003), p. 146.

42 P. Bartl, Ktyptochristentum (1967), P. 125.

43 Ger Duijzings, "Pilgrimage, Politics and Ethnicity: Joint Pilgrimages of Muslims and Christians and Conflicts over Ambiguous Sanctuaries in Former Yugoslavia and Albania," in Power and Prayer. Religious and Political Processes in Past and Present, eds. Mart Bax, Adrianus Koster (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1993), pp. 80-91.

44. G. Duijzings, Joint Pilgrimages, pp. 85, 88.

45. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Compiled by Robert Halsband, vol. 1: 1708-1720 (Oxford, 1965), p. 319.

Despite Reinkowski's statement that "Certain regions of Albania and Kosovo show from the 17th through the 20th century a prominent occurrence of crypto-Christian groups," he later notes some doubts about this:

[Page 429:]

Two historians of the Balkans, Georg Stadtmueller and Stavro Skendi, have even gone so far as to claim that one would have been able to find crypto-religious groups everywhere in the Balkans where conversion to Islam took place. (Footnote 73) In opposition to this sweeping judgement, Ger Duijzings puts forward the strong argument that crypto-religious groups cannot persist over long periods. Kosovo's crypto-Catholics in the 19th century completely lost their knowledge of Christian dogmas and any consciousness of having been originally Christians due to the lack of a church infrastructure. Emissaries of the Vatican missionary institution Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, which intensified its activities in the 19th century maintained that these groups had persisted as crypto-Christians continuously from the 17th century onwards. But indeed, only after these crypto-Catholics had been discovered by European emissaries, travelers and missionaries, did these people begin to perceive themselves in these terms. (Footnote 74)

73 Georg Stadtmueller, "Die Islamisiertmg bei den Albanern," Jahrbuecher fuer die Geschichte Osteuropas 3 (Munich, 1955), pp. 404 -429; S. Skendi, Crypto-Christianity (1967), pp. 227-246.

74 Ger Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo (London: Hurst, 2000), pp. 87, 92, 103.

Such is the state of the scholarship on this issue -- or at least the state of this scholar's scholarship. Crypto-Catholics did continuously exist at least as late as the 17th century but may have lost their memory of having once been Catholic between the 17 and the 19th centuries, until reminded of this fact by a late-nineteenth-century re-Catholization effort that got interrupted by the twentieth century. On Reinkowski's evidence, crypto-Catholicism may be a discontinuous phenomenon but nevertheless a phenomenon.

Apparently, the 'crypto-Catholics' are remembering again, and yesterday's blog entry recorded a mild complaint in the form of this comment by a Muslim calling himself "Ipi" who posted from Canberra, in Australia:

Christian mercenaries come to Kosova full of cash, bearing gifts and are targeting the poor and vulnerable . . . pathetic and sad (May Allah have mercy on my brothers and sisters, for money has poisoned their spirit).

Ipi later deleted the comment, perhaps after re-reading the post and deciding that former Christians who pretended to take on the guise of Muslims to obtain relief from the high taxes levied on Dhimmis could hardly be blamed for shedding that guise because of cash or gifts . . . if that's even what is happening.

Anyway, Ipi offered no evidence for this accusation, but if it were true, might not this make these 'reverts' to Catholicism crypto-Muslims?

Revival of Catholicism in Kosovo?

Crucifix in Roman Catholic Church

Village of Kravoserija

Southern Part of Kosovo

September 8, 2008

(Reuters/Hazir Reka/Files)

We seem to be living in a time of large ideological transformations, including the shifting of religious beliefs. In much of Europe, one notices the spread of Islam, mostly due to an influx of Muslim immigrants but also to the tendency of these immigrant communities to have large families.

Conversions also occur, as some native Europeans also turn to Islam.

The picture, however, is more complex, for quiet conversions from Islam to Christianity are also occurring. An interesting development in Kosovo that illustrates an unusual case of a potentially large-scale movement from Islam to Catholicism among Albanian Kosovars has been reported by Fatos Bytyci in an article, "Out of hiding, some Kosovars embrace Christianity" (Reuters, September 28, 2008):

The majority of ethnic Albanians were forcibly converted to Islam, mostly through the imposition of high taxes on Catholics, when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans.

For centuries, many remembered their Christian roots and lived as what they call "Catholics in hiding". Some, nearly a century after the Ottomans left the Balkans, now see the chance to reveal their true beliefs.

I recall reading over ten years ago about Islam in the Balkans, and a point made by the writer was that many Christians there living under Ottoman rule pretended to convert to avoid the high taxes. They used two names, a Muslim one for the Ottoman rulers and a Christian one among Christians.

Over time, I suspect that religious beliefs would tend to conform to the religious ideology of those holding power, with Balkan crypto-Christians gradually becoming Islamicized.

The case of Albanians might be even more complex, however, for I recall reading in yet another article that in Albanian families, one member would 'convert' to Islam to protect the family property, but the rest would remain Christian. The Bytyci article would appear to confirm this:

In staunchly Catholic families, often in villages with a strong social network, men converted publicly but continued to practice Christianity at home. Women and daughters often kept the faith, meaning it was transmitted to children.

I don't know the historical scholarship on these points, for I read these things in news reports -- albeit in such publications as The Guardian and The International Herald Tribune -- but this Bytyci article would tend to confirm what I've previously read, especially given statements by Kosovars themselves:

"We have been living a dual life. In our homes we were Catholics but in public we were good Muslims," said Ismet Sopi. "We don't call this converting. It is the continuity of the family's belief."

Consequently, one finds Catholic churches being constructed and Catholic believers emerging, as with the "hundreds of Kosovar Albanians gather[ing] on Sundays to attend religious services in a still unfinished red-brick church in the Kosovo town of Klina," which Bytyci claims is "part of a revival of Catholicism in the newly independent Balkan state."

But we might need to take Bytyci's report with a grain of salt:

Inhabitants of Kravoserija in the south of the country have had their own church since 2005, with the help of the Kosovo Catholic Church. Beke Bytyci is one of five villagers who has the keys to it, since chancellor Zefi only comes to celebrate mass every few weeks.

Opening the wooden door, he crossed himself: "I will be baptized next week," he said.

More than half the 120 village families attend the ceremonies, and the small church is always full.

"My dad made a mistake in not raising me as a Christian," said Ferat Bytyci, a 35-year-old merchant in the village and a relative of Beke. "Now things have changed and I don't make the same mistake."

I note that Fatos Bytyci shares the same surname as Beke and Ferat. Perhaps "Bytyci" is a common name, but also possible is that Fatos Bytyci is one of the Catholic reverts. That wouldn't mean that the report of conversions is exaggerated, but it would mean that anyone interested in the phenomenon should seek out more sources.

Perhaps some readers will happen to know of other articles on this issue.

Return to "The Mission Field..."

House Church in Iran?
The data is a bit fuzzy . . .
(Image from Christian World News)

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog entry titled "The Mission Field" and asked about the statistics that one sometimes hears concerning Muslim-background converts to Christianity. A couple of interesting articles published last week in Christianity Today provide a bit of information on this issue, though not much hard data.

Christopher Lewis, "It's Primetime in Iran," Christianity Today (September 24, 2008), describes the scene in a television studio that beams a Christian message from Pastor Hormoz Shariat to Iranian believers in Christ:

The TV studio hums just a few feet from his church office in northern California, but pastor Hormoz Shariat is still a last-minute arrival to his own show. Behind the scenes are teams of phone counselors and hip young producers.

Waiting behind an Islamic veil 7,000 miles away is an exploding house-church movement in Iran, whose compatriots eavesdrop on the illegal satellite programs produced daily by Pastor Shariat's Iranian Christian Church (ICC).

Lewis doesn't explain here why he refers to the "house-church movement in Iran" as "exploding," but in a separate article, "Looking for Home," Christianity Today (September 24, 2008), he cites information from Abe Ghaffari of Iranian Christians International, so I can see what he meant by the remark:

Missiologists say Persians have never identified as strongly with Islam as their Arab Muslim conquerors. While some studies estimate 500,000 to 1 million Iranian Muslim-background believers worldwide, Ghaffari counts fewer than 300,000 -- most of them isolated "secret believers." But even Ghaffari is stunned by how Iran's house-church movement of 50,000 has doubled in the last five years. "This is historic," he says.

Ghaffari sounds somewhat trustworthy since he downplays the total numbers of Iranian converts from Islam to Christianity, but I nevertheless wonder how one 'counts' "secret believers." Presumably, one would need to count these, or a representative sample, to back up claims of a "doubling of the Iranian house-church movement in 5 years" -- which sounds impressive but is ambiguous between meaning from 25,000 to 50,000 and meaning from 50,000 to 100,000. Initially, I took the claim to mean the latter, but I now think that it must mean the former.

However, I am not sure, for in my "Mission Field" post, I noted that Golnaz Esfandiari, "A Look At Iran's Christian Minority" (Payvand's Iran News . . . 2004), quotes the Iranian Protestant Issa Dibaj on the number of Muslim-background Christians in Iran:

"There is another Christian minority that people know little about, these are Iranians who are born as Muslims and then later become Christians," Dibaj said. "Their number is growing day by day. [There] may be around 100,000 [of them], but no one really knows the exact number."

The number 100,000 might sound as if it would support Ghaffari as meaning that the house-church movement has exploded from 50,000 to 100,000, but Dibaj's estimate was four years ago would therefore not support Ghaffari's round number if 100,000 is meant. Unclear, however, is whether or not Dibaj was referring to a house-church movement at all. And what does Ghaffari mean by his numbers anyway -- individual believers or house churches?

Whatever the figures, they pale beside Iran's mostly Muslim population of about 70 million. The house-church movement might be 'exploding,' but to my ears, it still sounds more like a firecracker than a bundle of dynamite.