Muslims and Christians.

Catholic Insight has reported on the conflict between Muslims and Christians before (see C.!., March 2001, p.26, for the most recent coverage). Today we cannot do so without taking into account the events of September 11th.

Most importantly, we must be aware of preventing a racist or a religious backlash in our thinking about Muslims either in Canada or worldwide. A message, purported to come from Osama bin Laden, called for Muslims to crush "the new Jewish-Christian crusade" ("How do extremists use hatred as a weapon?", Globe, Sept. 25). This is the language of fanatics which Christians must shun at all costs.

Still, we must also be knowledgeable about the actual situation on the ground, if for no other reason than that we should be able to invite followers of Islam to reflect upon the Islamic culture out of which rises so much intolerance and violence. If the West is to avoid a clash of civilizations, we must examine our own presuppositions and prejudices. But it is also mandatory for the Muslim community to reflect on its culture and ask whether they are allowing themselves to be dominated by unacceptable practices and religious impositions.

Christians must not, and cannot, overlook a certain arrogance among many Muslims who share a conviction that Islam is far superior to Christianity. This has been evident even in Western Europe where many Muslim immigrants have settled over the last three decades. When offered the use of now empty Catholic churches in France, for example, Muslim recipients have shown no signs of gratitude, according to one source. They accept them in a matter-of-fact manner on the grounds that they need them and Christianity is dying anyway.

The attitude of intolerant superiority found a particular expression in the teaching of Mohammed Wahdab (1703-1787), who taught that previous generations had corrupted the teaching of Mohammed. He declared the Koran to be the absolute word of God and the only authority for public morality and religious duty.

Wahdnb, who lived in what is now Saudi Arabia, denounced those who disagreed with him as heretics to be destroyed, thereby justifying his declaration of divine warfare, or Jihad, against neighbouring tribes. His political allies seized control at Mecca and Medina, establishing the first Wahdabi state.

Wahdabism invigorated Islam religiously as well as politically. The Taliban culture is one of its offshoots; the application of Sharia (Islamic law) in the civic affairs of Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries, is another.

The relationship between Christians and Muslims in Muslim-dominated countries continues to be one of virtual persecution of the Christian communities. While some of this may be ascribed to temporary extremism, the general Muslim attitude of hostility towards Christians is such that it provides a fertile ground for that extremism. While Muslims are easily granted rights in Western countries, they refuse to reciprocate, or do so only with extreme reluctance or under political or economic pressure.

A perfect example is Saudi Arabia, which grants its 400,000 Catholic Philippine workers no religious freedom whatever. There is not a single Catholic church. Even religious meetings in the privacy of one's house are prohibited. This and the possession of religious literature are punished with imprisonment.

In late August, 2001, for example, as many as 10 Christians were arrested for attending a gathering which included a talk about Christianity. One of them, Afobunor Buliamin, a Nigerian, is a convert from Islam but as his passport still identifies him as Muslim he is now liable to the death penalty. Saudi Arabia has six million guest workers, of whom 600,000 are Christians.

Public executions of Muslim citizens for such offences as adultery are also common. The charge is almost always directed against the woman, who is executed, while the man gets off scot free.

In Afghanistan, as in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and elsewhere, the harsh Islamic law called Sharia is in custom. There are no Christians in the country any longer. Today eight Western charity workers remain isolated in a Kabul prison. Along with 16 Afghans, they have been charged with "proselytizing" on behalf of Christianity, for which the penalty is death.

As everyone now knows, the Taliban rulers have imposed possibly the harshest regime anywhere. Women have been forced out of the public workplace. They must wear the Burqa, a own which covers them from head to toe. Their daughters are not allowed to go to school. As U.S. President Bush pointed out, a man may face execution because his j beard is not long enough.

The Taliban terrorists are ruled by a council of clerics who justify their behaviour with the authority of the Qu'ran. The death penalty for missionaries or converts was established by them in January 2001.

People announcing the Christian gospel in Algeria, or Muslims converting, are also liable to the death sentence. Sixteen young people, members of an Evangelical denomination, were arrested July 26, 2001, at Cap Falcon, 4 0 km. west of Algiers, and charged with possessing Bibles and other Christian literature. However, Algeria does allow some older Catholic communities dating from French colonial days to exist. They have been there for over hundred years.

Mean while, the country is plagued with terrorists who attack any one, Muslim or otherwise, with unparalleled ferocity, decapitating, or slitting the throats of, men, women, and children. Over a ten-year period an estimated 100,000 people have fallen victim to them. The latest attack came on September 27. Twenty-two people attending a wedding were slaughtered. These terrorists, too, claim to act on behalf of Islam.

Hardline Muslim organizations in Pakistan have continued to invoke that country's draconian blasphemy laws. In ate July the Pakistan High Court upheld the death sentence passed in 1998 on Ayub Masih, a Catholic, arrest d two years earlier for supposed derogatory remarks a out the prophet Mohammed. Masih is now forced to appeal o the Supreme Court. He claims that the charges are false and were laid as the result of a land dispute.

There is no further news since May in the case of Kingri Masih, who converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman and then reverted to Christianity; nor of Younus Sheikh, a Muslim homeopathic doctor, condemned to death on August 25 after a complaint of derogatory language supposed y used in a lecture to students. He also claims that the charge is false and levelled out of personal spite.

In January 2001, a Pakistani woman arrived in the U.S.A. whose husband h d cut off her ears and nose -- after first blinding her in on 4 eye because he suspected h 4 r of seeing another man. Domestic violence against women is routine in Pakistan, as in Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil states around the Gulf. Governments may not approve but fanatic Muslim clerics do, once more invoking their interpretation of the Holy Book.

Earlier this year Catholic Insight cited previous problems with Sharia law in Nigeria (pop. 110 million), which is half-Christian and half-Muslim, with a Muslim majority in the north. Of the 37 states, nine have now adopted the Sharia code. Theoretically applicable to Muslims only, in reality Sharia is used to subject Christians to harsh penalties. Many have moved south since its introduction. The most recent clashes--in mid-September--left 500 people dead in the city of Jos alone.

Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja asserts that, unless the Sharia code is removed, Nigeria will be bitterly divided and Christians will be "second-class citizens in their own country." The Archbishop works with other Christian and Muslim clerics to promote good relations among their individual communities in his own region. He claims that the violence in Jos was more ethnic than anything else, with religion only a pretext.

Catholic Insight has reported before on Indonesia. Many Catholics and Protestants from the "Spice Islands" are now refugees. Some 8,000 Christians have been murdered in the last two years while, earlier, Catholic East Timor suffered 200,000 dead during years of military occupation.

In the Indonesian part of Borneo (Kalimantan), Christian and Muslim groups have been working together to defuse the violence between ethnic groups. One Catholic parish has gone out of its way to provide food and shelter for refugees, while the local bishop has acted as mediator in talks between the warring ethnic groups. Recently, a Catholic bishop excommunicated any Catholic involved in ethnic warfare. In other places in Indonesia, however, churches have been damaged or destroyed by bomb attacks.

In the Philippines, Muslim extremists continue to terrorize people on some southern islands. Early August saw an attack on the village of Balobo on Basilan Island. Seven men were beheaded and 21 people, including eight children, abducted. This is the latest in a series of killings and kidnappings by the group, which is demanding the establishment of an Islamic state in the archipelago. On August 28, Irish missionary Columban Father Rufus Haley was shot dead when he refused to surrender to three kidnappers.

In Lebanon Christians are being oppressed by both local Muslims and the occupying Muslim army of Syria. The Maronite Patriarch has demanded that Syria withdraw its army now that Israel has pulled out of the country. The Syrians entered Lebanon when the Israelis invaded the country in 1982. When Israel withdrew in 2000, hundreds of Christians were arrested for so-called collaboration with the Israelis. This has become a new and bitter dispute between Christians and the Muslim-dominated government.

In Macedonia, Albanian Muslim rebels have been blowing up Orthodox churches as part of an attempted ethnic cleansing. The same process was applied earlier in Kosovo even before NATO began its bombing campaign. Despite the presence of NATO forces, the Greek Orthodox heritage in Kosovo has been wiped out, churches destroyed, and the remaining Serbs relegated to enclaves along the Serbian border.

This short report has not touched upon the 15-year-long war of the Sudanese Muslim government (in which two million Christians are estimated to have died) against the Christian (mostly Catholic) South, nor on Morocco, Tunis, Libya, Egypt, Iran or Iraq, all states where Christians experience difficulties of greater or less severity.