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Muslims Leaving Islam in Droves

Ex-Muslim Magdi Allam's very public baptism on Easter Sunday made
headlines, but he is just one among legions converting from Islam
around the world.

April 3, 2008 - by Andrew Walden
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Pope Benedict’s choice to publicly baptize the most prominent Muslim
in Italy, Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, highlights a quiet worldwide
exodus from Islam. In recent years, millions have moved on. With this
high-profile action, Pope Benedict demonstratively blesses this
massive conversion from the highest levels of the Church.

Interviewed by al-Jazeera in 2006, Ahmad al-Qataani, leader of the
Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya,
explains the decline:

Islam used to represent ... Africa’s main religion and there were 30
African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number
of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are
Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking
about, the non-Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150
million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa
is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has
diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last
century.

On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one
million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us
round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose
congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667
Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to
Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity.
These numbers are very large indeed.

Allam’s public baptism came just ten days after the body of Catholic
Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, was found in a shallow
grave after being kidnapped by al-Qaeda February 29. The ceremony came
just three days after an al-Qaeda tape threatening the pope and
condemning cartoons of Mohammed. Muslims who convert to other
religions or abandon religion entirely are subject to a standing order
of death for apostasy. The baptism of Allam is an act of defiance in
the face of Islamic threats.

The baptism of Allam also comes in the midst of papal “dialogue” with
Muslims. The dialogue began unpromisingly with the catcalls from Islam
and its secularist allies which greeted the now-famous September 20,
2006, papal address at the University of Regensburg. In October, 138
Islamic leaders presented the pope with “A Common Word Between Us and
You” — nailed by critics as a craftily written call for conversion. On
March 4, Pope Benedict approved formation of a permanent “Catholic-
Muslim forum” scheduled to meet in November. And now he has thrown his
own call for conversion into the discussion. Islam’s secularist allies
were quick to echo Muslims, calling the baptism “provocative.” While
accepting the Islamic death penalty for apostasy as a given, they
complain the pope’s action could set back dialogue.

While the secularists wring their hands, Allam writes that his mind
“has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimizes
lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide,
blind submission to tyranny, permitting me to join the authentic
religion of Truth, Life, and Liberty. … I realize what I am going up
against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back
straight, and the interior strength of one who is certain about his
faith.”

Allam, author of numerous books and deputy editor of Milan’s Corriere
della Sera, joins a list of converts from Islam which includes many
other public intellectuals and millions of average people from all
over the world. This is more than the normal flow between two large
religious communities. Islam can point to little in the way of recent
conversions. Its claim to be the world’s fastest-growing religion
stems mostly from the high birth rate in Islamic countries, whose
infant mortality rates have been cut by the introduction of Western
medicine. Christian growth is based on adult conversion. As leading
Christian evangelist Wolfgang Simpson writes, “More Muslims have come
to Christ in the last two decades than in all of history.”

Although al-Qataani points to Africa, there is another phenomenon
based on repulsion from Islamist dictatorship, corruption, and
terrorist violence. In Iran as many as 1 million people have
surreptitiously converted to Evangelical Christianity in the last five
years. Pastor Hormoz Shariat claims to have converted 50,000 of them
through his U.S.-based Farsi-language satellite ministry. He contrasts
the upswing to the efforts of evangelical missionaries in Iran between
1830 and 1979, whose 149 years of work built a Christian community of
only 3,000. One Iranian religious scholar believes youth are
abandoning Islam because it is identified with the corrupt Iranian
government. Now the Iranian Majlis (parliament) is debating the death
penalty for conversion.

After years of al-Qaeda war on Iraq, a similar phenomenon is growing.
The New York Times March 4 reports: “After almost five years of war,
many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to
the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned
with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.” A
high school girl tells Times reporters: “I hate Islam and all the
clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction
became heavy over us. Most of the girls in my high school hate that
Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be
rulers.” A 19-year-old man says: “The religion men are liars. Young
people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion
anymore.” A Baghdad law professor explains that her students “have
changed their views about religion. They started to hate religious
men. They make jokes about them because they feel disgusted by them.”
A 24-year-old female college student says, “I used to love Osama bin
Laden. Now I hate Islam. Al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading
hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”

In southern Russia the same pattern is emerging. According to Roman
Silantyev, executive secretary of the Inter-religious Council in
Russia, freed from atheist control, two million Muslims converted to
Christianity. Repulsed by bloody terrorist attacks, those living in
areas such as Beslan have converted to Christianity in the greatest
numbers of all. As many as 100,000 have converted to Christianity in
post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

After decades of Islamist war, evangelicals report thousands of sub-
rosa converts in rural areas of Kashmir. Says one churchgoer: “I am
interested in this religion. I hate violence. I hate fundamentalists
in Islam. I come here to seek peace.” An Indian newspaper headline
reads: “Urban Muslim Youth Out to Junk Faith.”

Following decades of terrorist rule, Palestinians are being quietly
converted, holding in-home services to avoid detection. Says one
evangelist: “I’ve been working among these people for thirty years,
and I promise you I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Islam is also losing adherents in areas where Islamist harassment is
heavy on the streets. The London Times estimates 15%% of Muslims living
in Western Europe have left Islam — 200,000 in the UK alone. Those who
leave often face harassment, threats, and attack.

The mufti of Perak, Malaysia, estimates about 250,000 people have
abandoned Islam, making formal application for apostasy to the state —
a right allowed to Malaysian citizens who are not ethnic Malays. Says
he: “This figure does not include individuals who don’t do solat,
doesn’t fast and breaks [sic] all the tenets of Islam.” Borrowing from
the communist playbook, Malaysia operates “reeducation camps” for any
ethnic Malay found guilty of apostasy. Unsurprisingly, ethnic Malays
are at the bottom of the economic ladder in Malaysia.

In a letter published in Corriere della Sera on Easter Day, Allam
points out the pope “sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a
church that until now has been too cautious in the conversion of
Muslims … because of the fear of being unable to protect the converted
who are condemned to death for apostasy.

“Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practice
their faith serenely. But there are also thousands of Muslims who have
converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out
of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists.”

Allam describes Islam as a system for taking and holding power. Threat
of violence is its enforcement mechanism. Allam also points out:
“Beyond … the phenomenon of extremists and Islamist terrorism at the
global level, the root of evil is inherent to a physiologically
violent and historically conflictual Islam.” So it is not coincidental
that Muslims are abandoning the faith as U.S. and coalition soldiers
smash al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Islamist
terrorists and street thugs are beginning to look impotent.

Appeasement-oriented opinion explains Islamic violence as a response
to Western policy. For them, reality is incomprehensible. But in a
1998 ABC News interview with John Miller, Osama bin Laden explained
his motivation: Allah had given the jihadis victory over one
superpower (the USSR) and Allah would grant them victory over the
other. But a decade later it is not coming to pass on the battlefield.
The defeat of the Islamists puts the lie to the claim that Allah will
cause the infidels to desire submission. As a result, the Islamists’
ability to intimidate their captive populations is weakened. More and
more it is Muslims who no longer desire submission to Islam.