Free Republic

An imam of Vienna’s As-Sunnah mosque has called to establish an Islamic State and wants to introduce Sharia Law on Austrian territory, Austria’s Kronen Zeitung reports.The tape of the speech at the As-Sunnah mosque, which is runned by the VSC Cultural Association, has been delivered at Vienna’s Public Prosecutor’s Office. According to the translation from Arabic, the preacher clearly wants to create an Islamic state and introduction of Sharia law. The messages are focused on “infidels” as well. Local politician Leo Kohlbauer wants an investigation into the case: “I assume that in the background of this association is the dangerous...

Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with the Vatican to build churches for Christian citizens, according to Egyptian news media reports. Online newspaper Egypt Independent on Wednesday said the agreement was signed during a visit by Jean-Louis Tauran, the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue at the Vatican, during his visit to the kingdom in April. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the contents of the purported agreement. In an interview with Vatican News, Tauran confirmed a declaration had been signed which paved the way for further dialogue, but did not mention building future churches in Saudi Arabia. Tauran met high-level...

Saudi Arabia reportedly agreed to a historic deal with the Vatican to build Christian churches in the Kingdom, a potentially stunning development for the country that's home to Islam’s holiest site, Middle Eastern media is reporting. The move would continue the nation’s effort to transition to a “moderate Islam.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdel Karim Al-Issa of the Muslim World League and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, allegedly signed the agreement April 14, according to the Egyptian Independent. Under the agreement, a joint committee with representatives from both parties will also be established to...

Faisalabad (Agenzia Fides) - There is a Christian chapel in the state university of Faisalabad, and is the first place of Christian worship present in a public university in Pakistan. On April 15th, Archbishop Joseph Arshad, Archbishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi and Apostolic Administrator of the diocese of Faisalabad, in the presence of Muhammad Iqbal Zafar, vice Chancellor, professors, religious, students, inaugurated St. Mary's Church in the atrium of the Agriculture University. As reported to Fides by Archbishop Arshad, the chapel is dedicated to St. Mary. Msgr. Arshad congratulated the entire Christian community of the Agricultural University for promoting the construction of...

The only recorded palimpsest in which a Christian text has been effaced to make way for the Islamic holy text is to go on sale at Christie’s An “extraordinary” discovery by an eagle-eyed scholar has identified the shadowy outlines of passages from the Bible behind an eighth-century manuscript of the Qur’an – the only recorded palimpsest in which a Christian text has been effaced to make way for the Islamic holy text. French scholar Dr Eléonore Cellard was looking for images of a palimpsest page sold a decade earlier by Christie’s when she came across the auction house’s latest catalogue,...

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi arrived Thursday in the Qatari capital Doha on a pastoral visit during which he will lay the cornerstone for the Saint Charbel Church, Lebanon's National News Agency said. Speaking to reporters, al-Rahi thanked Qatar for “offering a land lot for the construction of the Saint Charbel Church.” Qatar's cooperation “strengthens ties between the two countries,” the patriarch added, noting that “saints have the ability to unite people.” Extending gratitude to Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad, al-Rahi said: “He knows that Saint Charbel reinforces the great friendship between Qatar and Lebanon, and we as Lebanese must...

The Church and Islam: Dangerous IllusionsWilliam Kilpatrick When I first began writing about the Church and Islam, I devoted a lot of space to describing ways that Church leaders could resist the spread of Islam. It seemed only a matter of time until they would wake up to the need to resist. As it turned out, however, that assessment was overly optimistic.The immediate task, as I soon learned, was not to find ways to counter Islam, but to convince the Church’s hierarchy that Islam ought to be resisted. There’s no use talking battle strategies to people who won’t admit that...

–Sialkot’s Rizwan Gujjar torched Asma using petrol after she refused to renounce her faith and marry himLAHORE: A Christian girl was set ablaze by a Muslim man in Sialkot for “refusing to renounce her faith and marry him”, Pakistan Today has learnt. According to the girl’s father Yaqoob Masih, his 25-year-old daughter Asma used to work as a domestic help at the house of Saeeduz Zaman in Mohalla Pakpura area in Sialkot.“On April 17, my son Maqsood and I went to Zaman’s house around to meet Asma and to inquire after the health of Zaman’s mother. We were sitting in...

The Arameans are a well-integrated Christian minority in the Netherlands. Originally they came from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Southern Turkey. Dutch newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ interviewed several of them and talked about the civil war in Syria. Christian refugee Johnny Shabo says that the same group responsible for the civil war in the eighties is now responsible for more chaos. The Muslim brotherhood that attacked the regime of Assad’s father earlier, are now attacking Assad junior’s regime. Shabo says that the leaders of ISIS and Al Qaeda who are fighting in Syria are part of the Muslim brotherhood. For Christian Arameans...

Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts. 4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness...

Two men have been spared jail after they burst into evening service at a convent warning nuns they must either convert to Islam or go to hell. The 26- and 28-year-old defendants were released from court in Verdun, northeast France last week, with the magistrate citing diminished mental responsibility at the time of the incident, when he said the men were suffering from psychiatric disorders. For having inflicted “psychological violence” against the nuns they urged to convert, the prosecutor requested that each man be given a 10-month suspended prison sentence, local media reports. “There is no link between your actions...

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- Nigeria's Boko Haram extremists attacked two villages on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Maiduguri late Sunday, killing at least 15 people, the military said Monday. The militants tried to enter the center of Maiduguri, the provincial capital of Borno state, but army soldiers repelled them, gunning down six armed insurgents and seven suicide bombers, said army spokesman Col. Onyema Nwachukwu. At least 83 people were injured and are receiving medical attention, he said. Residents of Maiduguri retreated to their homes Sunday night during hours-long battle marked by thunderous explosions and gunfire heard until the early...

Arrest warrants have been issued for four Iraqis on atheism charges, according to Dhi Qar province's Garraf district judiciary. The announcement garnered quite a reaction on media and social networks, as some say these hunts infringe on the rights of the Iraqi people, whose constitution guarantees them freedom of belief and expression. Other observers say the campaign has political aspects. Dhidan al-Ekili, the chief Garraf judge, told local Iraqi newspapers March 11 that security forces had been able to arrest one of the four indicted, as the search for the remaining three continued. Ekili said they are being pursued for...

European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans recently chaired a roundtable with ten Muslim imams from six EU Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands). Afterwards Timmermans announced that “the Commission is strongly committed to promoting diversity in Europe. Islam is part of our history, Islam is part of our present and Islam will be part of our future.” Such assertions are as true as the assumptions they are based on—and whether such assumptions are grounded in historical facts or fictions. In prefacing his claims about Islam’s historic role in Europe by saying “the Commission is strongly committed...

Let’s say you have a grandfather of whom you are particularly fond, and out of the blue, a stranger says: “Hey, that’s my grandpa!” Then, lest you think this stranger is somehow trying to ingratiate himself with you, he adds: “Everything you thought you knew about grandpa is wrong!” Would that endear this stranger to you? That is the question everyone who believes in the notion of “three Abrahamic Faiths” needs to answer. Proponents of this view believe that -- since Abraham is an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (especially the first and last of those three) --...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the Christian ex-governor of Jakarta to review his conviction for insulting Islam, a court spokesman said on Monday, so the politician will serve out his two-year sentence. A lower court jailed Basuki Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy last May after a doctored and incorrectly subtitled video spread on social media that appeared to show him insulting the Koran. At the time, Purnama, who is popularly known as Ahok, was popular and looked set for re-election to govern the capital of a country with the largest Muslim population in the world....

*Tragically, Christians living in lands formerly under the control of the "Caliphate" have been betrayed by many in the West. Governments ignored their tragic fate. Bishops were often too aloof to denounce their persecution. The media acted as if they considered these Christians to be agents of colonialism who deserved to be purged from the Middle East. And the so-called "human rights" organizations abandoned them.*The West was not willing to give sanctuary to these Christians when ISIS murdered 1,131 of them and destroyed or damaged 125 of their churches.*We must now help Christians rebuild in the lands where their people...

STANBUL – Turkey's president has recited an Islamic prayer in the Hagia Sophia, a historic Istanbul landmark that has become a symbol of interfaith and diplomatic tensions. Speaking for an art festival opening Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recited the Quran's first verse, dedicating the prayer to the "souls of all who left us this work as inheritance, especially Istanbul's conqueror." The Hagia Sophia was built during the 6th century Christian Byzantine Empire and served as the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was converted into an imperial mosque with the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul in 1453.

No attempt was made to save the dying manA Pakistani Christian man has died after receiving a torturous beating at the hands of guards and staff at a hospital in the Punjab capital, Lahore. Sunil Saleem, 26, was visiting his sister, Kiran, who was hospitalized during the later months of her pregnancy. Kiran was supposed to be visited by a gynecologist, who was on the phone and asked a nurse to make the visit. The trouble began when Kiran insisted on being see by the doctor rather than the nurse. An argument broke out between Kiran’s family and hospital staff....

Months after Isis was forced out and tired of waiting for government action, volunteers have begun the urgent job of rebuilding Iraq’s citiesEven if we work every day for the next six months, we still won’t finish this job – we don’t have enough support or equipment,” says Muhammed Shaban, an officer of the Civil Defence Force in west Mosul, in the exhausted tone of someone who is unable to separate his life from his work. Shaban and his colleagues were recovering as many as 30 bodies a day in August last year, one month after the fighting ceased. More...