(Maybe THIS will help.......)
The article highlights the "seemingly rather curious fact" that wherever Islam has imposed itself by conquest -- in what is now Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and in the regions of historic Mesopotamia and Palestine -- "Christianity, which had been extraordinarily vigorous and rooted for centuries, practically disappeared." And, the article further notes, "for almost a thousand years, Europe was under constant threat from Islam, which twice put its survival in serious danger."
The explanation? As if taking a page from the historian Bat Ye'or, the article cites the Islamic precepts of jihad (holy war) and dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims). It also stipulates that there are two meanings of jihad -- the spiritual war, or struggle, to be faithful to the teachings of the Koran, and the literal war that is waged to spread Islam. Both meanings, it says, are "equally essential and must not be dissociated, as if one could exist without the other." The article continues: "Obedience to the precept of 'holy war' explains why the history of Islam is one of unending warfare for the conquest of infidel lands." This same "obedience" has led to recent anti-Christian violence in Algeria, Pakistan, Nigeria, Java, East Timor, the Moluccas and, most dramatically, Sudan. Little wonder, as the article also reports, that between roughly one-quarter and one-third of the estimated Christian population of the Middle East has emigrated over the past decade to the free world.
It's refreshing to be reminded that you and I probably agree more than we disagree.