Posted on 01/28/2016 6:12:57 AM PST by marshmallow
San Cristobal de las Casas (Mexico) (AFP) - The domed mosque with a minaret rises above small homes in a seemingly unlikely place: A southern Mexican indigenous city that will greet Pope Francis in three weeks.
Surrounded by the misty mountains of Chiapas state, San Cristobal de las Casas is home to many members of Mexico's growing Muslim community.
Women wearing colorful hijabs walk down the dusty streets of the highland neighborhoods. On Fridays, hundreds of Muslims go to the imposing mosque or smaller places of worship to pray to Allah.
"I wasn't born a Muslim. I became a Muslim in 1995. I was the first one in my family," said Ibrahim Chechev, the 34-year-old imam of the Ahmadiyya sect, one of the three Muslim denominations in San Cristobal.
Wearing a dark skullcap, Chechev is a Tzotzil Maya who changed his name, Anastasio Gomez, after converting to Islam. But even here, Muslims are divided between different groups, like in many other countries.
While the Murabitun World Movement owns the big mosque, the Ahmadiyya followers hold their Friday prayers in a cold, windowless room of a home where two families live.
Chechev is among many local Muslims who left the Murabitun movement, a Sufi group led by Spaniards who brought Islam to San Cristobal two decades ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Islam has been quietly growing among the indigenous population in southern Mexico.
as if they don’t already have enough decapitations.
This is in Chiapas, former home of the terrible bishop Samuel Ruiz. Many of these converts actually became Evangelicals first, after the left-wing lunacy of Ruiz took effect and destroyed the Catholic faith in that area. Ruiz was big buds with “Comandante Marcos,” if you recall him.
Latin American Evangelical churches are very emotional and “pastor-centric,” so a lot of times, if there was an argument or rivalry between two charismatic preachers, the churches would end up by imploding. The Muslims, who always hang out around leftist causes in Latin America because of the PLO connection, were right on the spot and swept in to convert these former-Catholic former-Evangelicals. Most of the converts are Indians, which is what constitutes the majority of the local population.
And guess what - when Francis visits, he has announced he is going to make a “pilgrimage” to the grave of Samuel Ruiz. The current bishop, appointed under BXVI, is very good, but Francis is expected to undermine him by making his statement authorizing married clergy there. Ruiz was the one who ordained hundreds of completely ignorant men to the diaconate as sort of “barefoot clergy” and planned to ordain them to the priesthood but was prevented from doing so by JPII and BXVI. Ruiz was a bad bishop who should have been removed by JPII, but the latter Pope rarely took any action on problems like that. So now we have a Muslim hatchery down in Chiapas.
De veras, un nombre puro MEXICANO.
Jajaja.
Hay bastante judeos en Mexico pero rusos...quien sabe?
Many of the indigeous population STILL worship the Aztec gods so their taking on Islam doesn’t make any impression on me. They will, without doubt, add their beloved Aztec gods to Islam as well.
Decapitation is only for proven murderers.
The Mexicans don’t have capital punishment so they make you eat the HOTTEST chili peppers...then you REALLY, really, really, really with you were dead.
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