Muslims leaving Islam -
Tip of the Iceberg

Muslims leaving Islam - a Tip of the Iceberg (part1)

We think it is fair to say that the majority of Muslims have left Islam as a complete way of life

We see it everyday. By Allah, even the children of the big Maulanas are leaving Islam for the "fun" life. Who would have thought? This is a serious threat to the survival of much of the Muslim world.

Today, via satellite and e-mail, we can transmit the message of Islam to people of totally different backgrounds all over the world in an instant. Ironically, however, we have trouble getting the message across in our own homes. A significant number of Muslim children in the United States are leaving Islam, at least for a period of time.

I am speaking, however, of a generation which, in the nature of things, will soon die out. It is the young who matter; the second and the third generations. I have been told (I do not know whether this is true or not) that, in the United States, some forty percent of the young are leaving Islam altogether. That is disturbing, and one hopes that some will come back when they grow older, but there seems little that can be done at present about this situation.

How many Muslims have been lost to Islam in the last fifty years here ? Tens of thousands have been lost. The only reason Islam is still growing here, by large, is because of a steady stream of immigration. But when that dries up, the assimilation will dwindle our community down to nothing. It's like we have a bucket with a hole in the bottom. We keep pouring new immigrants in, but so many are leaking out are lost forever.

Islam is losing attraction and appeal as there is a drift from the element of love. Believers go to mosque for fear of Allah rather than His love for humanity. Love attracts and fear distracts. And that is the reason why members of the Hindu community of our country tend to prefer to adopt Christianity rather than Islam. Even our own young generation, with inquisitive sharp mind in this age of science feel frustrated ....

No wonder that there is a widening rift between our younger and older generation, and many people are turning away from Islam in droves.

The existing conditions in Muslim societies provide ammunitions to the enemies of Islam for vicious propaganda against Islam, which should actually be directed against the deviated cultures in Muslim societies. These conditions mislead many men and women because they often cannot cut through the historical culture and the desired culture of Islam. Many men and women from within Muslim societies have turned and are turning away from Islam, because of these distortions and deviations.

Although they were quite dutiful and earnest about Islam as small children, as they advance through their adolescence these same youngsters begin to doubt, question, and debate many of the articles of faith and become increasingly lax about observing their religious duties such as salaat and fasting. Ironically, many of the youngsters who seem to be pulling or turning away from Islam have always been outstanding students earning high academic marks at their public schools. Dismayed parents remark, We just don't understand this. Our children have always been very obedient, very good, but lately, it's as if Islam is the last thing on their minds. Lately, they never want to go to the mosque, we have to scold to make them perform salaat, and when we bring up Islam for family discussions they act bored and want to change the subject. We taught them all the basics about Islamic concepts and practice since they were small, but now step by step, they seem to be turning into disbelievers.

Conservatives have stepped up their attacks on Khatami's social reforms in the run-up to the election, with clerics warning that the nation's youth -- who account for two-thirds of the population -- are turning away from Islam.

Yes, people are leaving Islam, silently. This is a tragic secret, murmuring into the air of Islamic society these days, trying to tell us something; we can't hear the whisper because it is most often masked by the crude loud scream ‘Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth’.

Dear Marianne, You are not the only one who has been turned away from Islam after learning about it. If you read the testimonial of all those who have left Islam you will see that they left it after their knowledge of Islam improved.

Yes I am aware that Muslims use the story of the conversion of the Westerners as the proof of the truth of their religion. However, most of those who become Muslims leave it after they learn the inhumane teachings of Islam. Read the Steep and Deadly Climb and The Sleepless Night. The problem is that those who leave Islam often are reluctant to advertise their apostasy. Some of them may be concerned for their safety and some still have Muslim friends that they do not wish to offend. Therefore a silent withdrawal seems more appropriate.

The most dramatic crack in the mullah's regime came in Isfahan, where the Ayatollah Taheri, the imam of the city and the official representative of Supreme Leader Khamenei, resigned his post and released a five-page letter explaining his motives.

"I am embarrassed and ashamed," he wrote. "You cannot blame (the United States and the Shah) for the failures and corruption of our country. This has all resulted in our people turning away from Islam, rising unemployment, inflation, high cost of living, a 'satanic gap' between the rich and the poor, an ailing economy, government corruption and addiction." He describes the regime as a vast mafia responsible for "a failing foreign policy, corruption, bribery, brain drain, and the harassment and jailing of journalists and writers." Worst of all, it funds and supports vigilante forces who "continuously sharpen their dinosaur fangs of violence, with the hope of marrying their ugly, oppressive, fear-evoking bride of violence to religion."

Islamic values and practices are also dying out, and most people are turning away from Islam in favour of a more secular outlook.

Muslims leaving Islam - a Tip of the Iceberg (part 2)

Muslim Youth and Europe underscores a sociological paradox that Mustafa Malik encountered during his fieldwork on Muslim cultural patterns in six European countries. He found out that young European Muslims are secularizing fast and yet stubbornly resisting assimilation into secular European societies.

The author notes that European Muslims are undergoing the secularizing effect of modernity, which was spurred by the Protestant Reformation.

Some of the social scientists that Mr. Malik interviewed in Europe have said modernity would secularize Muslims and assimilate them into secular native cultures. Their prognosis, he notes, has been only partially realized. Among the European-born Muslims fewer than 10 percent pray "regularly" or "fairly regularly." The practice is comparable to regular church attendance among West European Christians, ranging from 5% of the population in France to 23% in Northern Ireland.

The French Catholic Church is expecting around 9,500 people to be baptized as Catholics in the country this year, with almost 1,000 of those to be converts from Islam.

Three-quarters of the new believers had no previous faith, but 9 percent are former Muslims, 2 percent are former Jews and 2 percent are former members of other Christian denominations, the Church report said.

Islam is now embodied in a paradigm of secularization that was, until now, the major specificity of Western society. This means the decline of religious references in structural differentiation of society. Individualization means a sharpening of self-consciousness, privileging personal choice over the constraints of religious tradition.

This individualization is most often associated with privatization. This term means that religion is more confined to the private sphere and that religious values and rules are not placed at the centre of one's personal orientation to life, but rather is conceived of as a kind of annex or compartment.

As with European Christians, many Muslims now experience religion only during large festivals, at birth, marriage and death. In this way, European Islam is similar to other European religions, especially among the youth. Like 'consumers', people are increasingly choosing which tenets and rules of their religion to recognize and which to ignore. The inculcation of Western values through the educational systems certainly has an influence and can explain the emphasis on critical debate and reflexive questioning.

Most Muslims in the Netherlands came from Turkey or Morocco as 'guest laborers' in the booming economy, women and children following the men after they settled in. The Netherlands now has a second generation and a third on its way. Tension between Muslim traditions and the Western way of life is common. Islamic traditions emphasize family honor, with specific restrictions on sexual behavior and distinct social roles for men and women.

Arranged marriages are common and the confrontation of two cultures sometimes leads to conflicts between parents and children who, raised in the Western world, want to choose their own spouse. Muslim tradition includes the ultimate measure of kidnapping to force a marriage. Incidents of this, and of Muslim girls running away from home to avoid an arranged marriage, are common, leading to the establishment of a shelter home for Muslim girls only.

More than 100 women a year have surgery to "restore" their virginity, she estimates in her published work. While only 10 percent of the population is non-Dutch, this group accounts for more than 60 percent of abortions, "because the Muslim girls are kept ignorant," she said.

In his speech yesterday, Mr Alami said the Malay/Muslim community must channel more efforts into tackling the problems of its young.

He said: 'If not, we will be faced with an irony - while our community is occupied with the issue of shaking hands between males and females, we forget that more Malay/Muslim girls are involved in pre-marital sex and going for abortions.'

HIDING PLACES "Shagging in KL," Surayah informed me, "is not an easy task." Finding suitably secluded places to have sex is one of the greatest challenging for unmarried couples, as few places are not suffused with governmental or parental authority and surveillance. Even behind closed doors, privacy is seldom assured. In collusion with hotel staff, religious inspectors barge into hotel rooms, and in more serious political cases, the ISA can search homes without warrants, violating any supposed divide between the public and the privacy of the home. ......

Even in more lightly governed families, however, the necessity of concealment compels Malaysian couples to come up with duplicitous and enterprising ways to meet their sexual partners and engage in sexual experimentation. .....

Like American teenagers, young Malaysian couples have sex in cars or in their bedrooms while their parents are away, but unlike American teenagers, this behavior continues well beyond teenagerhood. Couples returning from less vigorous supervision overseas are especially frustrated by returning to the surveillance of the family. Desires to spend more time together in a less stressful atmosphere lead many Malaysian couples to rent hotel rooms for overnight rendezvous. To avoid religious officials, women prefer high-class hotels that maintain international standards of protecting guest privacy. The suspicions of hotel staff can be avoided by checking into the room separately, but hiding overnight stays from the eyes of parents is more challenging.

Muslims leaving Islam - a Tip of the Iceberg (part 3)

The Malaysian Sexuality Study

The study produced some interesting and quite a few surprising results. It showed 20% of the 1,181 unmarried respondents had had sexual intercourse of which 93% were boys and 7% girls. Dating was however not all that common a practice as only 45% of the respondents had ever dated and 44% had experienced kissing and necking.

Knowledge of contraception was widespread among boys and girls but only 32.5% of the sexually active respondents had ever used contraceptives. Masturbation was fairly common with the majority starting the practice between the ages of 14 to 17 years of age.

Why should we adopt the change of attitude? Due to the alarming rate of sexual crimes in our country for one reason… Here and there we heard news about rape, molest and prostitution. Don't be surprised if these crimes increasing by the day and not the other way around.

In Malaysia, over 50 per cent of people who have HIV are under 30 years of age. We would like to believe that they are all in the category of people whom we don't know. However, 18 per cent of our youth (18-21 years of age) and 5 per cent of our secondary school children have had some form of sexual experience, and we all definitely know people who fall within this age category.

I'm not yet ready to get married, but why shouldn't I develop relationships, maybe not more than friendship or dating without sex (if that's possible), that could develop into marriage? Why do I have to live like a nun with no companionship until I consent to an arranged marriage? Especially when many Muslim boys are dating and having sex with non-Muslim women because the community doesn't come down as hard on them. Many Muslims have a double standard in disciplining girls versus disciplining boys on such matters. ......

Later, I came across a Minaret magazine survey of 90 Muslim students in California colleges on premarital sex. My suspicions that barring Muslim youth from each other causes Muslim youth to socialize with non-Muslim youth were somewhat confirmed. Sixty percent had engaged in some sort of physical intimacy without involving sex with non-Muslims; only 6.6 percent had with other Muslims; 28.8 percent had had premarital sex with nonMuslims; 4.4 percent with Muslims.

Though in the early years of life, childrens faith is more like a blind faith following the faith and tradition of their parents and older siblings. During the teen age years, they develop their own personalized faith which may be similar or somewhat different than the faith of people around them. .........

Many young people and their young faculty during college years take a vacation from religion because they see religion regulating their lifestyles. The new freedom includes freedom from God because without God "everything becomes possible in their desires and behavior".

Religion is given a tertiary place in life, the primary being science, and the secondary being social pleasures. The downsizing of religion is due to the elimination of God from daily life.

Frequency Of Violence, Levels Of Intensity Are Escalating
Just as we are seeing around the nation, domestic violence is also escalating in the Muslim community. Husbands are beatings wives, parents are beating children, girls and boys are being sexually molested. The cases of violence in the Muslim community which are coming to the attention of trained professionals are often at the highest intensity, i.e. life-threatening. Muslim women are calling help lines around the country, stating, "He didn't kill me this time, but I fear next time he will succeed."

These helplines are also receiving an increase in calls from our community about violence on children, including severe beatings, burnings and other forms of torture, incest (in-family sexual relations), sodomy, and various levels of malnutrition. Some of these acts of aggression have resulted in hospitalization for the young victims.

A Community in Crisis
The worst haram committed by the Muslim community is to ignore this problem and its urgency. The Muslim community is in denial. As a people, we do not like to talk about this issue, about the violence we've witnessed or experience firsthand. We are also a community in crisis, as the level of violence in our homes is escalating at an unprecedented rate to the highest levels of intensity. How has this happened? Through our continued silence.

There is increasing evidence that because of these problems, coupled with the lack of adequate Muslim youth support programs, the youth are losing their interest in religion .....

It is important to stress that the major problem here is that most Muslim youth in Malawi grow up in families that are themselves religiously weak and lacking in commitment to the ideals of Islam. Islam in such families is simply a tag of identity that plays very little in the day-to-day affairs of the family. Without strong spiritual guidance and without a role model within the family, the youth grow up with a destiny quite novel and un-Islamic in its character and orientation. It is not uncommon to find Muslim youth who can hardly perform a prayer (Salah) accurately let alone recite the shortest chapters of the Qur'an (Surah). .....

The failure by Muslim families to provide adequate guidance to their children is further exacerbated by intermarriages across religions. There is a growing number of families in which one of the spouses is a non-Muslim. Although attempts are usually made to convert the non-Muslim spouse to Islam, the children growing up in such families are exposed to two conflicting religious affiliations and therefore grow up confused. .....

The few cases in which the current breed of Muslim youth have clashed with the elders on religious matters are probably an indication of the youth's frustration with the hegemony that the elderly continue to exert on various Islamic institutions. ..... it looks like more and more Muslim youth are being alienated from true belief and are lost to Islam.

THE RISKS OF SEPARATION
Most Muslim youth, like other Americans, can unfortunately find themselves increasingly susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, partly because of the failure in following Islamic teachings and unsafe practices but also because Muslim youth who find themselves in situations of temptation are overwhelmed. "For youth who are sheltered by their parents from any significant contact with the opposite sex, a chance encounter can result in a total loss of moral judgment," said one person. "Imagine kids who are never given the opportunity to even talk with members of the opposite sex being put in a classroom with attractive people who may show an interest in them. They just can't handle it."

Many otherwise well-meaning parents socially cripple their children by denying them the opportunity to interact with other girls and boys in an open, Islamically supervised forum. The result is that members of the opposite sex are seen as objects of fear and curiosity rather than as people -and are treated as such. "Our parents spent all of our formative years making blanket statements about the"evils of sex," explained a 22-year old college student. "And once we get married, we're expected to conveniently forget these feelings. Many people of my age find that hard to deal with, and I think that leads to a lot of dysfunctional marriages."

THOSE WHO FALL
There are many more Muslim children than our community would like to admit who are sexually active, some unapologetically. Most, if not all, are discreet in their actions, knowing that the ensuing conflicts would be tremendous. They seem content with living dual lives, one for the mosque and one for themselves. Few, if any, reconcile their behavior with Islam, and most readily accept and believe that what they are doing is considered a major sin in Islam, seeking instead to avoid thinking or talking about the consequences. "It's amazing, really," said one observer. "People who otherwise fast and avoid alcohol will readily jump into someone's bed and not even think about it the following day. These people have moral blinders on when it comes to sex."

Most people involved treat it as a personal weakness or a failure in character, thereby avoiding responsibility for their actions. "I can't help it," said one youth. "Of the typical sex-drugs-rock and roll sampler of temptations that are available to me, the only one I can't resist is sex. Everything else is relatively easy, but that one isn't."

GOD WILL BE MORE MERCIFUL THAN MY PARENTS
For those rare occasions where a Muslim girl finds herself pregnant with an unwanted baby, the option exercised is almost always abortion, usually without consent or knowledge of the parents. The dilemma of choosing abortion in cases such as these can be devastating to those who, already racked with guilt over the consequences of their first major sin, find themselves forced to commit a second major one. "You're placed in a situation where you fear your parents more than you fear God Himself," said one young woman who found herself in this situation. "Knowingly choosing abortion was the most difficult thing I ever had to do, but at the time I was convinced that God would be more merciful than my parents."

AMSTERDAM - The Netherlands have since Thursday a second helpdesk for Moslems coming to the discovery that they are homosexual. The foundation Yoesuf wants to review the Islamic background of the homosexuals because helpdesk-members have found out that some Moslems are having problems with that. A few months ago has the more-liberal Turkish-Islamic foundation Ipoth already founded a shelter for Homo-Moslems.

1 Power and Sexuality in the Middle East (Academic essay, 1998)
2 Gay Muslims in the Post-Attack World (2001)
3 Male Homosexuality in the Arab World (essay, 1998)
4 Gay Life and Death in the Arab World --Persecution of homosexuals increases in the Middle East (2002)
5 Pakistani-American Gay Muslim Activist Works to Build Ties (2001)
6 Islamic Studies on Homosexuality (1998)
7 Gay Muslims Face a Growing Challenge (2002)
8 To Be Gay and Muslim (USA) (2002)
9 More acceptance for gay Muslims since 9/11: Activists call for dialogue on the definition of Islam (2002)

Muslims leaving Islam - a Tip of the Iceberg (part 4)

We have Muslims who refuse to pray. We have Muslims committing every sin under the sun and denying that it is a sin. We have Muslims praying to graves and using amulets to protect themselves from Shaytan.

"Brother, let me tell you the most important thing in Islam", said the stranger who had cornered me in a Lahore coffee bar. Far from agog, I waited to hear what it might be, though experience had taught me that it was unlikely to include any of the five pillars, truth or tolerance, or the like. "The most important thing in Islam" he said "is that your wife covers her head", a view of Islam which I had heard often from many Muslim men. In other words the most important thing in the practice of Islam is to get your wife to do it, or your children, or your grandfather, or anybody but yourself!

Back in Britain I listened to the Muslim wails. "We are losing our children! By the time they leave school they are strangers, lost to us and to Islam! What can we do?" .....

At the exhibition, the school kids of all ages were milling around looking at the World of Islam. As they tried to find the answers for their question sheets it was clear that Muslim kids knew little more than all the rest. No wonder our young people are losing their Islam. They have received so little to start off with.

Sisters and brothers, it is time to wake up to reality. While we often like to boast about the large size of our Ummah, the fact is that we are losing more hearts and minds everyday, due in large part to our silence about human rights abuses, especially those directed towards women.

Domestic Violence is a disease like none other; its effects on families and communities are time and again proven to be catastrophic. Muslim institutions and organizations have been silent too long on the topic and we are losing a generation of our youth and families to the effects of abuse in the home.

I have heard so many stories of sisters' pleas for assistance falling on deaf ears – sisters asking for relief from an abusive husband, or for financial assistance to meet their family's basic needs, or with the overwhelming responsibilities of single parenthood. I have heard so many stories of sisters dealing alone with growing Muslim children, particularly male children, who are straying from the path of Islam.

Related to challenge of building strong Muslim families is the task of moulding strong Muslim youth. One of our major problems is that we are losing many our youth to the dunya.
(dunya=this wordly life)

"Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among North American teenagers and young adults." Yes, that's young Muslim men and women - our friends, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, students, neighbours, classmates, relatives or 'just acquaintances'. We are losing young precious lives with endless potential and immense value for the Ummah - the historic exemplars and torch-bearers of the Islamic life, movement and tradition - not just to drugs, violence, gangs, and teen rave/hip-hop culture, but to depression, isolation, and now suicide.

We are willing to pay for our children's secular education, yet we are losing them in the public schools and colleges.

Christians from 39 nations and 50 ethnic groups are represented in a study of 600 ex-Moslems carried out by Fuller Theological Institute's Professor Dudley Woodberry. They speak of the reasons why they decided to leave Islam to follow Jesus, even in the face of heavy persecution, sacrifice and death threats.

"In Denmark, a growing number of Muslims have converted to Christianity in the last few years," reports Idea, an evangelical news service. Free churches in particular report of a stream of Muslims wanting to be baptised; in Odense, almost 50 Muslims have joined one Pentecostal church in the last three years alone, according to a local newspaper report. Other churches report similar numbers, and John's Church, part of the Danish State Church in Copenhagen, has baptised 25 ex-Muslims in the same period. According to the newspaper report, the new believers are predominantly Iranians and Iraqi Kurds who have been in Denmark for several years.

A unique event took place in the Caucasus region in autumn 1998 as a large number of new Christians met, most of whom are ex-Muslims from 12 Islamic people groups in the area. Most of the 49 ethno-linguistic people groups in the Caucasus region are controlled by an Islamic reform movement which takes its inspiration from a Saudi Arabian fanatic Muslim group known as Wahabbis. "I never imagined that there are so many of us," said one participant. "Look at how many tribes we come from! God is doing something wonderful here in Caucasus!"

Today's mass immigration of various people groups around the world is gradually erasing geo-political boundaries. It is not unusual to see Pakistanis or Ukrainians in the Middle Eastern country of Dubai, and it is not surprising that there is a large number of Iranians and Africans in Greece.

Several of our national churches around the world host congregations of such people groups. Foursquare churches in Greece and Germany, for example, host Iranian refugee congregations that are made up of ex-Muslims who would not have the same degree of freedom to hear and respond to the Gospel in their own country. Displacement has new opportunity.

When the Caner boys came into the world, their Turkish-born father, Acar, the man who called the faithful to prayer at the mosque, whispered in their ears the words they were to live by: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah."

But they were living in Columbus, Ohio, far from Acar's Sunni Muslim origins. After their parents separated, others were soon whispering in the Caner boys' ears.

Ergun Caner, the oldest of Acar's three boys, was the first to convert. He was 15 when he accepted a friend's invitation to a weeklong church revival.

To him, his relationship with Allah was impersonal, ritualistic. The message he got at Stelzer Baptist Church was something completely different.

"Christ died for man. That was one thing for me to hear. It was quite another thing for me to hear that Christ died for me. Ha. Then it becomes personal," says Ergun, now 35. "I thought this was good news for all Muslims."

Instead of welcoming the news, Acar Caner told his son he no longer wanted to see him. When younger brothers Emir and Erdem (who now goes by Mark) went for visitation with their father, there was no talk of Ergun; their elder brother's face had been cut from family photographs.

Despite that, the two younger brothers soon followed Ergun's path, with the same results.

Ex-Muslim Scholar's Book Refutes Islam

( CHARISMA) -- A former leading Muslim scholar has written a book refuting the idea that Islam is a peaceful religion, despite fears for his life.

While many people have been arguing that those behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks do not represent true Islam, Mark Gabriel has been putting the finishing touches to a study that analyzes Muslim history and looks at what he says are the roots of violence in the Quran.

The author of the forthcoming "Islam and Terrorism" (Charisma House) writes with authority, as a former professor of Islamic history and culture at the most prestigious Muslim institution in the world -- Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

Raised to be a devout follower of Muhammad, Gabriel began reciting the Islamic holy book at age 6 and had memorized the entire writings by the time he was 12. After studying Islam at the University of Cairo, he graduated second in a class of 6,000.

But his scrutiny of his faith led him to discover Islam's dark underside. He could not understand why Islamic nations had been so violent toward one another through history, and he wrestled with the many contradictions he found in the Quran. "I became very confused between the teachings of Islam and the Muslim practice of Islam," he recalled. "This was a very big issue to me, but I was not allowed to question anything. No one is."

Gabriel's questioning led to his suspension from the school and eventual imprisonment. "I didn't know where to turn," he said. "I had always been told that Christianity is the wrong faith because they believe in three gods. So, for a year I was without a god."

While working for his father, Gabriel developed chronic headaches and started visiting a local pharmacy for help. The pharmacist, a Christian, finally asked what was wrong because she feared that he was becoming addicted to the medication.

He told her he had been searching for the true God. "She smiled and said, 'I don't think this is something you can deal with by taking tablets,'" he said. "She handed me her Bible and made me promise not to take any more tablets until I had at least read some of it."

He took the Bible home and started reading in the book of Luke. "I lost all track of time," he remembered. "It felt like I was sitting on a cloud above a hill, and in front of me was the greatest teacher telling me about the secrets of heaven and the heart of God."

Gabriel gave his life to Christ. But when his father learned of the conversion, he tried to shoot his son. Gabriel's sister and mother helped him flee the country. He made his way to South Africa, where he received discipleship training with Youth With a Mission. Because of continued threats on his life, he was forced to move to the United States last year, seeking religious asylum.

© 2002 charismanews.com
© 2002 Maranatha Christian News Service

(Post date: January 11, 2002)

The wonderful world of Islam in the US

- as told by ex-muslims -

NEW YORK — Seated several floors above a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, the two Egyptian men were restless.

"You have to be careful here," one said. "The hot dog stand owners, the taxi cab drivers — they are Muslims and they listen to everything."

Having just come out of church, they were at an indoor cafe, conversing about former Muslims they knew who were now Christians. Some married into the faith. Some of the converts no longer believed in the Koran. Others said they had had visions or dreams of Jesus Christ. And others felt the Christian message of God becoming a man was more compelling than their faith. These converts face all kinds of dangers for having left Islam: ostracism from family members and friends, kidnappings and even death threats.

....

The U.S. State Department has documented numerous instances of religious persecution overseas against Muslim converts to Christianity. What is not so well known are the threats against such converts in the United States.

Some have simply been shunned by their families. Others have been kidnapped by family members and friends, and put on a plane back home. All are reluctant to ask for protection from U.S. law enforcement, especially those converts with Arabic surnames who are leery of getting their names on a U.S. police report.

....

Ann Buwalda, an immigration lawyer for Just Law International in Fairfax, said she's been approached by Pakistani converts who are refugees. One man, "Masih," was working at a retail store in Northern Virginia, she said, when a Muslim co-worker from Pakistan noticed he was wearing a cross. The man asked Masih why he was wearing it.

"I am Christian," said Masih. The Muslim co-worker became angry, called him derogatory names in their native language, shoved him in a hallway and thereafter tried to get him fired and threatened him after work one night.

....

She tells of another young female convert who wears a cross and who was stalked by a Muslim Pakistani taxi driver in the retail store where she works. Yet another Pakistani woman who converted to Christianity was threatened with death by Pakistani neighbors. "That kind of stuff, it's frightening when it happens," Ms. Buwalda said.

....

Victor Gill, a Pakistani immigrant who lives in Philadelphia and who leads a ministry called Christian Voice of Pakistan, said converts are regularly harassed in the United States. "The threat is real," he said. "They think they are doing something to earn credit with God when they kill Christians.

....

"Another convert I know here who is Lebanese, his family threatened to kill him," Mr. Tanagho said. Hence, he added, when he baptized a Persian woman a few years ago, she asked that her baptism be kept secret. "Egyptians and Iranians show some of the greatest interest" in Christianity, he said. "They've seen the ugly side of Islam."

....

"There was one case of an Iranian who became a Christian in New York," he said. "His wife, a Muslim, reported this to their families in Iran. The next thing, the father put pressure on him to return to Islam and even had an imam in New York call him and try to pressure and intimidate him.

"He has applied for asylum here because he knows he can't return to Iran and be safe there. Under the Islamic law, he'd be severely punished and if he persisted in his Christian faith, he'd probably die.

"People here are in danger, including from family members in the United States, who shun them, disown them and deprive them of any inheritance. And their family members still back in Iran get used as hostages."

....

At Millersville University, a small college in the gentle hills just southwest of Lancaster, Pa., several hundred Arabic-speaking Christians were having their annual conference.

Several called themselves MBBs: Muslim Background Believers. MBBs are former Muslims who become Christians.

One Jordanian who refused to have his photo taken — "Someone published my picture before and there was trouble" — went by the assumed name of Maxwell Mohammed.

"I go out of my way to find MBBs across the country," he said. "They have no one to talk to. Last week I got a call from New York, an Iranian couple. His family had cast him off because he had become a Christian."

....

Mr. Mohammed, 53, who said his family has disowned him as well, said Muslim groups meet all over northern New Jersey but in numbers of 10 to 20 to escape detection.

"These MBBs have unique problems," he said. "They become family-less and jobless. I help these people with money, jobs and visa problems. It's hard for these people to find mates as well. Even other Christians wonder if they'll go back to Islam.

"They need a family. It's like they carry a cross their whole life. My own mother said to me: 'Your father is dead and you, too.' If you convert, you are given three days to come back. If you do not, blood is shed."

Muslims leaving Islam - a Tip of the Iceberg (part 5)

* every hour 667 muslims are converting to Christianity *

From a reliable arab source I got the following info...

In an Al-Jazeera article of 12/12/2000 Sheikh Ahmad al Kat'ani, administrator of an islamic missionary institute in Libya, admits that christianity in Africa is growing much faster than islam. Also he displays his deep concerns about christianity in Asia....

..... seems muslims don't tell us the whole truth but in stead keep the real juicy stuff only for themselves...


Sheikh Ahmad al Kat'ani:
"every hour 667 muslims are converting to christianity"

Christianization in Africa
(arab link)
http://www.aljazeera.net/programs/shareea/articles/2000/12/12-12-6.htm

snapshot of part of the article + translation:

translation:
"Islam used to be, as we stated before, Africa's primary religion...there was around 30 countries that write in arabic , currently the muslim population in Africa dropped to 316 million. Half of that number is of the North African Maghrib arab countries who are muslims anyway. So Africa that we are talking about, the non arabic, now has a muslim population of only 150 million , and if we knew that africa's population is around 1 billion people, then this is for sure a far less ratio/percentage than what it used to be in the beginings of the 20's century....as opposed to this ; The catholic population has risen from around a million of people in 1902 To 329882000 now, lets make it nearer and say 330 million .

As for how this happened, Africa has now a million and half a million churches. The number of the members of these churches 46 million people. Because of the christian missionaries every hour islam loses 667 muslims convert to Christianity, every Day 16000 , every year 6 MILLION."

(Quote: )
"... in these countries the number who has embraced Christianity amounts to legion. The old myth that the Muslims are staunch believers and cannot be converted to any other religion holds no water. Modern missionaries with their vast resources and foreign aid have exploded this myth. They are scoring great successes in this field."

Email the researcher who did the above compilation: whatsthisthen@hotmail.com

Ex-muslim/freethinker sites & forums: [ Disclaimer: These are not necessarily Christian based sites ]

. http://main.faithfreedom.org
. http://forum.faithfreedom.org
. http://www.secularislam.org/skeptics/anwar.htm
. http://www.apostatesofislam.com/main.htm
. http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/
. http://www.mukto-mona.com/
. http://www.exmuslim.com/
. http://www.exmuslim.com/forum/index.php
. http://www.religionandsecularism3.gq.nu/
. http://www.geocities.com/murtad_malaysia/
. http://www.geocities.com/exmuslims_survey/
. http://www.geocities.com/muslimapostate/index.html
. http://www.taslimanasrin.com/
. http://www.homa.org/
. http://www.noniedarwish.com/
. http://www.savekashmirmovement.org/