Tuesday, August 29, 2006
...sorta. Andrew Bostom looks at the episode of the recently released Fox employees and enumerates some of the history of forced conversion to Islam: Reciting the Shehada in Gaza
Forced conversions in Islamic history are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries. Orders for conversion were decreed under all the early Islamic dynasties—Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks. Additional extensive examples of forced conversion were recorded under both Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish rule (the latter until its collapse in the 20th century), the Shi’ite Safavid and Qajar dynasties of Persia/Iran, and during the jihad ravages on the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the early 11th century campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni, and recurring under the Delhi Sultanate, and Moghul dynasty until the collapse of Muslim suzerainty in the 18th century following the British conquest of India...
I wonder what the world reaction would be if we forced people to convert to Reform or Reconstructionist Judaism--AT GUNPOINT!
Can you imagine someone reciting the abridged, English-language Reader's Digest version of the Passover Hagaddah on video? Somehow, I don't see that happening. But it's an interesting thought. :-)
What really gets me about this profound human rights violation is the fact that it seems to have been the suggestion of a Christian clergyman and peacemaker.
"Canon Andrew White, chief executive of the London-based Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, said the journalists' conversion to Islam allowed the kidnappers to save face. White says, "I have to admit the notion of trying to get them to say very publicly that they would convert was part of our suggestion of a way out."
How helpful.