Written by Nicholas Kristof | sacbee.com
This is a sensitive area I’m wading into here, I realize.
A Sudanese court in May sentences a Christian woman married to an American to be hanged, after first being lashed 100 times, after she refuses to renounce her Christian faith.
Muslim extremists in Iraq demand that Christians pay a tax or face crucifixion, according to the Iraqi government.
In Malaysia, courts ban some non-Muslims from using the word “Allah.”
Islam-haters in America and the West seize upon incidents like these to denounce Islam as a malignant religion of violence, while politically correct liberals are reluctant to say anything for fear of feeding bigotry. Yet there is a real issue here of religious tolerance, affecting millions of people, and we should be able to discuss it.
Saudis ban churches; it insults Islam to suggest it is so frail it cannot withstand an occasional church.
In Pakistan, for example, a brutal campaign has been underway against the Shiite minority. Likewise, Iran represses the peaceful Bahai, and similarly Pakistan and other countries brutally mistreat the Ahmadis, who see themselves as Muslims but are regarded as apostates. Pakistani Ahmadis can be arrested simply for saying, “peace be upon you.”
All this is a sad index of rising intolerance, for Pakistan’s first foreign minister was an Ahmadi; now that would be impossible.
I hesitated to write this column because religious repression is an awkward topic when it thrives in Muslim countries. Muslims from Gaza to Syria, Western Sahara to Myanmar, are already enduring plenty without also being scolded for intolerance. It’s also true that we in the West live in glass houses, and I don’t want to empower our own chauvinists or fuel Islamophobia.
The paradox is that Islam historically was relatively tolerant. In 628, Muhammad issued a document of protection to the monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery.
“No compulsion is to be on them,” he wrote. “If a female Christian is married to a … read more at sacbee.com
Categories: Americas, Arab World, Islam, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, United States