The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam - The Sword of the Prophet: Islam

Killing Christians
The underreported story of Islamist violence around the world

by Amitai Etzioni

11/11/2002

ON OCTOBER 17, bombs killed 6 people and wounded 143 in Zamboanga, the Philippines. While press accounts mentioned in passing that the victims were Christians, few conveyed to the reader that these were people assaulted by Muslim extremists because of their religion. On September 25, militant Muslims shot dead 7 Christian Pakistanis execution style in Karachi. Most of the media failed to report this at all, though it was at least the fifth bloody attack on Christians in Pakistan in the last twelve months.

And the media almost never point out that Christians are being killed, often at places of worship, in several countries with Islamic majorities or governments, not because they are Westerners or Americans (many are neither) but because they are Christians.
Nor is the White House or Congress nearly as attentive--to put it mildly--to this pattern of killing as it is to any injury on either side of the conflict in Israel.

People who follow international news are aware that a civil war raged in Ethiopia for more than 30 years. But few realize that it was a religious war--between Muslim Eritrea and Christian Ethiopia--in which tens of thousands perished. Many know that the people of East Timor were savaged, but it is rarely mentioned that most East Timorese are Christian, while the Indonesian militants who killed many of them and brutalized the refugees in West Timor are Muslim. Indeed, Christians in other parts of Indonesia have hardly fared better; for instance, thousands died during riots in the Moluccan Islands in 2000.

The bloody war in the Sudan, similarly, pits the Muslim government in the North against the Christian and animist South. And in Nigeria, as Muslims try to impose a strict version of the legal code called sharia in several provinces, armed conflicts between Muslims and Christians have erupted and thousands have died. Just lately, in the Ivory Coast, Muslims in the North have been attacking Christians in the South. On a smaller scale but very much along the same lines, scores of Coptic Christians were killed in Egypt in January 2000; several churches were burned in Kenya the following year.

It seems somehow inflammatory to point to the religious element of these and many other conflicts. Nearly every day, meanwhile, some scholar assures us that Islam is a peaceable and loving religion. What is going on here?...""

http://www.mdtaxes.org/news-stories/weeklystandard-etzioni-11-11-02.htm

My favorite bit....a picture entitled: A sword in one hand and the Koran in the other.

From the Saudi Arabian Information Resource The Holy City of Madinah (http://www.saudinf.com/main/a84.htm)

"Madinah is then the city of the Prophet. As the place in which the Holy Qur'an was compiled and from which the Prophet's companions administered the affairs of the Muslim community, it was the seat of the first Islamic state. From Madinah, armies, spreading the word of the Prophet, were dispatched to Egypt, Persia and Syria."

Yeah, Sacajaweau, you're right about that sword part!!!

Boy, I wrote that a long time ago!

What I have in my private library is very interesting. It is an American touring the Middle East and writing an historical summary. He visits the markets, the baths, the schools, is called a "dog" etc...He notes the history of Mohammed, the tribal conflicts and Mohammed's goal (backed by his dreams) to "conquer the world".

When I read some of Usama's dialogue (in relation to 9-11), his mention of "dreams" really caught my attention and I interpreted "dreams" as "plans".

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.