A mass exodus from Islam

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There has also been concern over fact that many young people in Iran have abandoned Islam because they’re tired of the many restrictions imposed by the faith.

According to unofficial sources, in the past five years, one million Iranians, particularly young people and women, have abandoned Islam and joined Evangelical churches.

This phenomenon has surprised even the missionaries who carry out their activities in secret in Iran.

An Evangelical priest and former Muslim in Iran told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the conversions were “interesting, enthusiastic but very dangerous”.

“The high number of conversions is the reason that the government has decided to make the repression of Christians official with this new law,” said the priest on condition of anonymity.

“Often we get to know about a new community that has been formed, after a lot of time, given that the people gather in homes to pray and often with rituals that they invent without any real spiritual guide,” he told AKI.

“We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith,” he said. “It’s a mass exodus from Islam.”

adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.1988866222
 
I pray for those people who are brave enough to abandon Islam, especially in a country where such a thing carries the death penalty. God be with them.
 
I was reading on the net that Iranian Christians are turning converts away from their churches because they don’t want to be accused of ‘evangelising’ someone from Islam, even before the new law mentioned.

I think the mass exodus from Islam to Christianity though is happening in Africa where 9 million Muslims a year are converting from Islam to Christian churches.

I think the end of repression will cause a great shift in the Islamic countries.
 
Originally Posted by peary
One problem: Evangelicals don’t believe in a priesthood.
Hisalone said:
Not true
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Well, they certainly don’t believe in the Catholic priesthood! They may believe in the priesthood of all believers, but as far as an official priesthood, I have never come across an Evangelical who had that belief.
 
MugenOne said:
There has also been concern over fact that many young people in Iran have abandoned Islam because they’re tired of the many restrictions imposed by the faith.

According to unofficial sources, in the past five years, one million Iranians, particularly young people and women, have abandoned Islam and joined Evangelical churches.

This phenomenon has surprised even the missionaries who carry out their activities in secret in Iran.

An Evangelical priest and former Muslim in Iran told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the conversions were “interesting, enthusiastic but very dangerous”.

“The high number of conversions is the reason that the government has decided to make the repression of Christians official with this new law,” said the priest on condition of anonymity.

“Often we get to know about a new community that has been formed, after a lot of time, given that the people gather in homes to pray and often with rituals that they invent without any real spiritual guide,” he told AKI.

“We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith,” he said. “It’s a mass exodus from Islam.”

adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.1988866222
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** It must be true. I am a Muslim. There is no need of any law to forbid people to change their faith. That is basically wrong. The Iranians will not succeed by that law, in stopping people from going over to other faiths. It is not simply done that way. It is the basic principle of Islam: There is no compulsion in religion. ( Al-Quran 2:255).** That means any religion. So any government promulgating any law to stop people from changing their religion is not islamic at all.

Same in Afriqa, if people are going over to christianity then there must be good reasons for that. The Muslims have to learn a few lessons and new lessons of their faith. The old misconceptions will not help them survive.
 
abucs said:
I think the mass exodus from Islam to Christianity though is happening in Africa where 9 million Muslims a year are converting from Islam to Christian churches.
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Man, even if Muslims kill only 10% of their apostates that must mean up to a million people are being killed every year for leaving Islam in Africa alone.

Do you seriously believe this nonsense?
 
Kadaveri said:
Man, even if Muslims kill only 10% of their apostates that must mean up to a million people are being killed every year for leaving Islam in Africa alone.

Do you seriously believe this nonsense?
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And why is that possibility so hard to believe? If African Muslims will slaughter each other over skin color, why would they have any problems slaughtering apostates? Look up the numbers of deaths from Muslim on Muslim violence in Darfur.

I also find your phrasing interesting. Only 10%? Are you acknowledging that such a percentage would be considered low?
 
Kadaveri said:
Man, even if Muslims kill only 10% of their apostates that must mean up to a million people are being killed every year for leaving Islam in Africa alone.

Do you seriously believe this nonsense?
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Islam formally advises death to apostates. but in practice this is very rare. why? because muslims have conscience too. and most muslims are just like everybody else…in the sense that they are not very religious in heart. so those who would actually practice the islamic teachings on apostasy would have to be the extremists. those who conscience have been numbed by religious fanatism.
 
I agree with Agnotheist…i think killing apostates has more to do with the culture…of course the Muslims who do it must have read it in their scriptures, and those who do not maybe have other references… that’s why it’s up to the culture…my 2cents.
 
Here is the reality of it all. People change religions when given the chance. Catholics become Jewish, Jews become baptists, baptists become Muslims, whatever. It doesn’t matter who goes where. The issue is do people have the chance to learn about other options then move to where their faith leads them. If not, then there is an issue. I know this may sound like Western thought, but it is not. You should be allowed to go where your properly formed conscience leads you. No one should have the right to kill you for it. Here is my issue with some Muslims.

There is no compulsion in religion, you say. I see the words. Then I see the laws call for the death of apostate men. I see Christians killed in Muslim countries. I see bans on public worship or churches being built or repaired. I see governents turn a blind eye when mobs destroy churches. And you say there is no compulsion. I am sorry, but it Alabama, death and destruction to make someone agree, or the threat of force, is in and of itself compulsion. Perhaps we are backwoods in our understanding of compulsion.

God bless those who take a stand and say “this is what I believe, and death does not scare me.”
 
There have been reports of conversions in Europe. In France alone, there are 15,000 converts each year with 10,000 converting to Catholicism.
 
Follow-up on this post with another essay from Spengler.

The mustard seed in global strategy

With Pope Benedict’s baptism of Magdi Allam, a prominent Muslim-born journalist who converted to Catholicism during Easter services, the global agenda is changed through the soul of a single man. Since September 2001, the would-be wizards of Western strategy have tried to conjure variations of Islamic “reform” or “democracy”. None of this matters now, for as Magdi Allam tells us, the matter is not to persuade Muslims to act like liberal Westerners, but to convince them to cease to be Muslims. (Mar. 25, '08 )

The Pope also has in reserve the European youth movement “Communione e Liberazione”, which he has nurtured for decades. Forty-thousand members turned out in 2005 when the then Cardinal Ratzinger addressed a memorial service in Milan for the movement’s founder. European Christianity may be reduced to a few coals glowing in the ashes, but it is not dead, only marginalized. If the Catholic youth of Europe are offered a great task - to evangelize the Muslims whose restlessness threatens to push Europe into social chaos - many of them may heed the call
peregrinus_WA said:
There have been reports of conversions in Europe. In France alone, there are 15,000 converts each year with 10,000 converting to Catholicism.
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Kadeveri,

"Man, even if Muslims kill only 10% of their apostates that must mean up to a million people are being killed every year for leaving Islam in Africa alone.

Do you seriously believe this nonsense?"

No. but then that was your assertion, not mine.

As mentioned above, Muslims are good people and the problems in many countries come in because of extremists, who often have a say in the legal situation.

For example in Malaysia it was recently ruled that a Muslim could not leave their faith - it was illegal. The woman journalist was forced to go to a sharia court to argue that she was no longer a Muslim. she lost.

If one non Muslim person converts in a marriage then all children under a certain age become Muslim by law. There is another case at the moment where a hindu man in the army was said to have converted to Islam. He then died leaving behind a wife and child. There is a legal case pending now on whether the child should be taken away from the non muslim mother as the child is deemed by law to be muslim, even though the child has absolutely no knowledge or practice or experience of Islam and has no living relatives who are muslim.

other different examples of things in a ‘moderate’ country -

in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-31129720071227
topix.com/forum/world/malaysia/TLV3FA0C0K8899VCF

In other countries you have similar things, either more or less severe to do with passports and work opportunities etc. And of course death in countries including Afghanistan, now maybe Iran.

The ‘no compulsion in religion’ is interpreted in different ways. In many muslim countries it means that if you are muslim, christian, hindu etc then you are free to practice. But converting from one to another, especially from Islam is not thought to be covered in this ‘no compulsion’. In certain situations it is considered a serious crime.

i agree with you Planten,
Islam needs to stand on its own two feet in these countries and gain adherants through its faithful following of God and not repressive laws that will, in the end, cause more problems than it solves.
 
abucs said:
As mentioned above, Muslims are good people and the problems in many countries come in because of extremists, who often have a say in the legal situation.
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While I agree with your basic premise, I feel it is important that people stop referring to Muslims who practice their religion in the traditional fashion “extremists”. Islam has not changed in 1400 years, and people who practice it the same way that it has always been practiced are not extremists. I would argue that the “extremists” are the Muslims who don’t agree with the traditional beliefs taught in the Koran, things like waging Jihad on the world, executing converts, and treating women like livestock. The extremist Muslims are the ones who don’t feel any pressing need to destroy western civilization, who are horrified at the thought of killing Jews and Christians, and who have the courage to say so. Unfortunately, extremist Muslims are in short supply.
 
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