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Islam vs. Christianity: The Age-Old Conflict Continues
By Paul M. Weyrich
CNSNews.com Commentary
August 22, 2003

It's not just because Prem Awaes has come to this country as a legal immigrant that Americans should welcome him. No. He has a message that does not make for easy listening, but it is one that Americans, particularly those who are anxious to cast Islam as a peaceful and tolerant religion, need to hear.

Awaes has come to America thanks to the sponsorship of the Virginia Council of Churches and the Presbyterian Church of Fredericksburg. He had been trained as a missionary by the Salvation Army and had operated a Christian school for in Pakistan.

Because Pakistan is a Muslim republic, Awaes' work as a Christian missionary made him run afoul of the government's laws. Believers in the Christian religion are often persecuted; the police seldom do much to ensure the protection of religious minorities. Indeed, as Awaes pointed out in an interview with the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star, they will often be the attackers.

Recalling the violence inflicted on his village in an attack six years ago, Awaes said: "They threw hand grenades at houses. Muslims robbed the houses and took everyone's things."

After living constantly on the run in Pakistan, Awaes fled to Asia, living there for awhile before being granted refugee status by the United Nations and finding sponsorship in the United States. He expects to be reunited with his family soon.

More Americans are coming to realize that while many Muslims lead peaceful and tolerant lives, those who truly believe that the Qur'an represents the divine words spoken by Allah will not be tolerant or peaceful toward the "People of the Book": the Qur'an's designation for Jews and Christians.

As Sura 9:29 of the Qur'an declares: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the people of the Book, until they pay the Jizya (a special higher tax rate) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

Many contemporary theologians depict the Crusades as Christianity's war against Islam, but they have it dead wrong. For Islam was on the march centuries before the Crusades, having conquered the Christian lands of Egypt, Syria, North Africa, and Spain by the time Pope Urban II had declared the first Crusade.

To this day, the enmity continues. Just last year, a Muslim cleric in Indonesia called upon his fellow believers to fight "belligerent infidels" who are Christians.

Christians who believe that all people are equal in dignity before God need to realize that this idea is not taught in traditional Islam. Muslims who do believe in this equality of dignity have been influenced by the West, but within the Muslim community they are typically shouted down by the more fervent and louder voices of Islamic militants.

My colleague, Robert Spencer, writes in Islam vs. Christianity: The Age-Old Conflict Continues that Americans need to wake up to the fact that not all religions or their followers share the Western values of tolerance.

Indeed, more Americans are waking up to this. A poll released last month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed 44% of the American public now understands that Islam is more likely than other religions "to encourage violence among its believers." Only a quarter of Americans realized this in March 2002.

September 11 should have alerted every American to that fact. Unfortunately, the innate American sense of trust and decency, our best values, leave us ill-equipped to confront an enemy like Islam -- just as it was difficult in 1940 for many Americans to grasp that a civilized country like Germany could discard true Christian beliefs.

Now, as the second anniversary approaches of that terrible day, conservatives need to make sure every American realizes the true nature of the threat we face from Islam's fervent believers.

We should not have to depend on al Qaeda to provide a reminder.

(Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.)