Islamic law permits the possession of concubines, or sex slaves. This has been demonstrated countless times, including through Islamicclericsquoting Islamic scriptures, and through ordinary Muslims, past and present, acting on it.

That said, Islamic sanctioned sex-slavery does not perturb the Western world simply because the powers-that-be—specifically academia, media, and government—ignore it, and all other unsavory phenomena associated with Islam, out of existence.

Interesting, therefore, are the responses from the authorities—comical one might even say—when one of these everyday anecdotes actually does surface to the general public.

Enter the recent abduction of nearly 300, mostly Christian, teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram, yet another Islamic terrorist organization plaguing mankind. As expected, the group justified its actions in Islamic terms, with its leader declaring on video, “I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.”

Of course, for those in the know, none of this is surprising. In March 2012, Boko Haram warned that it would do just this, declaring that it was preparing to “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.”

Moreover, of all the human rights abuses I catalog in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians—and these are depressingly many—Boko Haram’s has resulted in more Christians killed than in the rest of the world combined.

The group has bombed or burned hundreds of Christian churches in the last several years, most when packed for service, including on Christmas Day and Easter Day, leaving countless worshippers dead or dismembered. In its bid to cleanse northern Nigeria of all Christian presence—a repeatedly stated goal—it has threatened to poison the food eaten by Christians and stormed areas where Christians and Muslims were intermingled, singling the Christians out before slitting their throats.

Go to my monthly “Muslim Persecution of Christians” series (currently 31 in all), and see the innumerable atrocities that Boko Haram has been responsible for in the last two-and-a-half years—many of which make the recent Nigerian girls’ abduction pale in comparison.

The real news here is that the so-called mainstream media, which generally downplays or ignores Boko Haram’s terror campaign (see here for example), actually reported on this particular atrocity, prompting both Western and Muslim authorities—who are much more accustomed to, and comfortable with, pretending these sorts of things don’t exist—to respond in awkward, hypocritical and, in a word, foolish, ways. Thus,

Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. had been in touch with Nigeria “from day one” of the crisis. But repeated offers of U.S. assistance were ignored until Kerry got on the phone Tuesday with [Nigerian president] Jonathan amid growing international concern and outrage over the fate of the girls in the weeks since their abduction…. “I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort,” Kerry said at a State Department news conference. “And it will begin immediately. I mean, literally, immediately.” Seconds before Boko Haram decapitate a Christian on video

“Convinced everybody”? Is Kerry referring to himself? After all, there might not have been any need for “greater effort,” the need to act “immediately. I mean, literally, immediately” had Kerry only let the Nigerian president and government do their job one year ago, when they were waging a particularly strong and successful offensive against Boko Haram in the very same region that the schoolgirls were recently kidnapped.

Back then, in May 2013, soon after Nigerian forces killed 30 Boko Haram members, Reuters reported that “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a strongly worded statement [to the Nigerian president] saying: “We are … deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism” from Boko Haram.

Perhaps this sheds more light on why “repeated offers of U.S. assistance [regarding the kidnapped girls] were ignored” by Nigeria, “until Kerry got on the phone” (whatever that means).

As for Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who is now bemoaning the lot of the kidnapped girls in Nigeria—saying it’s “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible”—when she was Secretary of State, and in a position to help offer “the fullest response possible” she repeatedly refused to designate Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organizations,” despite the countless atrocities it had already committed, despite the fact that it had boasted it would “strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women,” as it just has, and despite urging from the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, and several congressmen and senators.

Her logic was once voiced by her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton. Back in February 2012, in a speech in Nigeria, Clinton declared that “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff”—a reference to Boko Haram’s terror—and warned the government that “It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence”—a precursor to Kerry’s May 2013 condemnation of the Nigerian government’s tough offensive against Boko Haram, which would supposedly “only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.”

In short, just like the Obama administration has been a thorn in Egypt’s war with the Muslim Brotherhood, so too has it been a thorn in Nigeria’s war with Boko Haram—despite all its current handwringing and “outrage” over this latest—that is, known—atrocity.

As for the “Islam” aspect of Boko Haram’s violence and Christian persecution, needless to say the Obama administration rejects it outright. Thus, after the 2012 Easter Day church bombings by Boko Haram that killed dozens of worshippers, U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson was quick to insist that “religion is not driving extremist violence”—or, in the aforementioned words of Bill Clinton, “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff.”

Still, because this latest kidnapping anecdote has received sufficient media attention, including in the Arab and Muslim worlds, some Muslim leaders have been forced out of their comfort zone to respond.

Thus, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib, the Grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al Azhar—regularly touted as the Muslim world’s most prestigious institution of Islamic learning—was quick to condemn Boko Haram’s actions of kidnapping and selling “infidel” women, saying, “these actions have no connection to the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam.”

As for Egypt’s minister of endowments, Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar al-Gum‘a, he too released a statement saying that “the terrorist deeds of Boko Haram have nothing to do with Islam, especially this latest deed of kidnapping girls. Instead, they are terroristic, criminal actions, and Islam is clean of them.” He then went into White House spokesperson mode, saying that poverty, economics, and the rest were the true motivators for Boko Haram’s savagery.

One can sympathize with Egypt’s state sheikhs—after all, they are busy fighting their own brand of Islam misunderstanders, the Muslim Brotherhood and their fellow ideologues, who have been abducting male Coptic Christians for ransom and females for sexual abuse, slavery, and/or conversion to Islam.

Happily for these moderate clerics, few are openly challenging their assertions that Islam is clean of Boko Haram’s actions. Based on precedent, they often have no response and can become hostile.

For example, some years back, when Sheikh Gamal Qutb, a one-time Grand Mufti of Al Azhar, was asked on live Arabic-language TV if Islam permits sex slaves, he refused to give a direct answer, preferring to prevaricate. When pressed for a clear answer by the Muslim female host, he became hostile and stormed off the set. He eventually returned, only to be implored again by the host, who said, “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of sex slavery in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” to which he gruffly responded, “You don’t need to understand!”

And there you have it. From Obama administration officials who helped empower Nigeria’s Islamic terrorists, only to wring their hands and feign outrage now at their behavior, to Islamic clerics who confidently dismiss accusations against Islam, only to put their heads in the sand and hope no one calls them out—here is just a small example of what officialdom would have to deal with if the full totality of crimes committed in the name of Islam were to become common knowledge.

A Coptic Christian man in Egypt has been arrested on complaints from local Muslims that, without a permit, he has converted his home into a church and is supposedly even holding religious rituals.

The 55-year-old man, known only by his initial, “BH,” is a laborer in the al-Minya district in Upper Egypt, where Christians are especially targeted. It was back in 2011 that the Copt first turned his home into a church, prompting angry, local Muslims to report him. He was arrested by police but later released after agreeing that he would never again try to use his home as a church.

Apparently not one to be deterred, “after a while, Muslims in the village were shocked to see the Christian worker do it again [use his home as a church]—only openly this time.”

So police have arrested him once again, pending investigation.

In Egypt, as well as most other Muslim countries, Christians need special permits, often from the presidency itself, to build churches—permits which are next to impossible to acquire—shedding some light on this Copt’s actions.

Gatestone Institute

• Danish

Human rights organization Open Doors published its 2014 World Watch List in January, highlighting and ranking the top 50 nations that persecute Christians. The overwhelming majority of countries making the list—and nine of the top ten worst offenders—are Muslim, and include nations from among America’s allies (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) and its contenders (Iran); from among economically rich nations (Qatar) and poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); from among “Islamic republic” nations (Afghanistan), “democracies” (Iraq), and “moderate” nations (Malaysia and Indonesia).

The report also indicates that every Muslim nation that the U.S. has helped “liberate,” including in the context of the “Arab Spring,” has become significantly worse for Christians and other minorities. Previously moderate Syria is now ranked the third worst nation in the world to be Christian, Iraq fourth, Afghanistan fifth, and Libya 13th. All four receive the worst designation in the ranking process: “extreme persecution.”

Three of these countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya—were “liberated” in part thanks to U.S. forces, while in the fourth, Syria, the U.S. is actively sponsoring “freedom fighters” against the regime, many of whom have been responsible for any number of atrocities—including massacres, beheadings, and the crucifixion of Christians and others.

Despite this track record of interfering in Islamic nations only for the human rights of minorities to plummet, and despite the fact that Syria has gotten dramatically worse for Christian minorities, Secretary of State John Kerry declared in January that, if only Bashar Assad goes away, “I believe that a peace can protect all of the minorities: Druze, Christian, Isma‘ilis, Alawites—all of them can be protected, and you can have a pluralistic Syria, in which minority rights of all people are protected.”

The same was predicted of Iraq over a decade ago, yet today, well more than half of the Christians are either dead or fled, after years of constant attacks on their churches and persons once Arab dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted.

Libya offers a more recent precedent. Since U.S.-backed “rebels” overthrew Qaddafi, Christians—including Americans—have been tortured and killed (some for refusing to convert), their churches bombed, and their nuns threatened.

January’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Attacks on Christian Churches

Egypt: Christian churches were severely targeted during the first month of 2014. Among other incidents, during New Year Eve church services, Muslim Brotherhood supporters attacked St. George Church in Ain Shams; one young Coptic man died from a bullet wound to the head. International Christian Concern reports that on Friday, January 3, Muslim Brotherhood supporters also attacked an Evangelical Church in the Gesr El Suez area of Cairo, “pelt[ing] stones on the church and chanting slogans against Christians,” in the words of a local. Reports indicate that “there was no security for the church building and that the attackers operated with impunity.” On Sunday, January 5, security forces in Suez disrupted a terrorist cell belonging to the “Supporters of Jerusalem,” which was plotting to attack a nearby church during January 7 Orthodox Christmas celebrations. Among other things, a bomb was found in the bathroom of the Three Saints Church in Beni Suef city, which was diffused by police. On January 10, security forces “arrested a bearded person in possession of four hand grenades in a handbag next to the Church of two Saints,” according to a local Christian. (In 2011, a suicide attack on the same church on New Year’s Eve resulted in the killing of over 20 Christian worshippers). On January 24, authorities found explosives inside a car parked behind the Al Malak church, which was targeted, “to be exploded,” sources told International Christian Concern. On Saturday, January 25, Security forces in Ismailia Security directorate found 26 Molotov Cocktails inside a bag next to the church of St. Bishoy in Ismailia city. Witnesses say that the person in possession of the bag of explosives was sitting in a car next to the church and that “he fled when he saw the policemen.” On January 28, “A group of armed men,” reported Asia News, “attacked the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in the governorate of Giza. Police responded to gunfire and one officer died in the shootout, while two others were injured.”

Indonesia: In the province of Aceh, where Sharia law holds sway, Christians, who make up 1.2 percent of the population, continue to be denied permits to build churches. According to Agenzia Fides, “There are only three churches in the provincial capital Banda Aceh (one Catholic and two Protestant), and even though the Christian population in Aceh is increasing, the requirements to obtain permits and the pressures of radical Islamic groups on the civilian authorities have made it extremely difficult for non-Muslims to build new places of worship. Moreover, the current governor of the province, Zaini Abdullah, who was elected in 2012, promotes a declared program of islamization of society.” A human rights leader was reported as saying that the laws that appear within Sharia districts “limit the freedom of minorities to practice their faith and are not coherent with the Indonesian Constitution.”

Malaysia: An unidentified assailant hurled two petrol bombs at a shrine fronting the Church of the Assumption. Only one bomb ignited, causing minor damage to the structure. This came in the context of anger at Christians using the word “Allah” to refer to the biblical God. “But the incident,” said Sky News, “stirred memories of a wave of such attacks on places of worship—mostly churches—four years ago during an earlier bout of divisions over the dispute in the Muslim-majority country…. Conservative Muslims have raised pressure in recent weeks for Malay-speaking Christians to stop using the word ‘Allah.’”

Nigeria: On a Friday in the Muslim-majority north, gunmen suspected of being members of the Islamic organization Boko Haram burned down a church and the house of a National Assembly member. Separately, in the midst of several Sunday morning raids by Muslim Fulani herdsmen, at least fifteen Christians killed.

South Sudan: During clashes between rebel groups and the recently formed government of South Sudan, Catholic and Protestant churches were attacked, priests forced to flee for their lives, and the whereabouts of a bishop who disappeared remain unknown. Some 600,000 people, most of them Christian, have also fled their homes amid reports of mass slaughters and ongoing attacks on churches.

Zanzibar: More than 100 Muslims stormed a church following an evening worship service and beat the visiting preacher. According to a church elder, “These rowdy Muslims were shouting and yelling, saying, ‘We are looking for the bishop of the church to slaughter him—we are tired of the existence of this church near our mosque and the noise they are making.’” The Islamic mob fled when police arrived—but not before tearing the visiting pastor’s coat and shirt, and causing him to suffer multiple contusions requiring medication. According to another church member, the “congregation has been living in fear for their lives… At the moment we cannot worship freely because we are being threatened. The Muslims are accusing us of making a lot of noise while they themselves make a lot of noise.”

Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism

Algeria: Ali Touahir, a 52-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity, is paying the price for apostasy: his Muslim wife has left him, taking their seven-year-old daughter, and is divorcing him in court. One of his wife’s brothers has openly threated to kill him. According to court documents, the wife’s lawyer wrote: “It is not possible that my client [the Muslim wife] still remain under the same roof with a man who has renounced his religion, as he became apostate; and we are not ignorant of the punishment that is due an apostate under sharia [death].”

Israel: Christians were warned against “slandering” Allah. A large billboard was posted in Nazareth featuring a picture of an Israeli stop sign, along with Koran 4:171 which reads: “O people of the Scripture [Christians]! Do not exceed the limits of your religion. Say nothing but the truth about Allah (The One True God). The Christ Jesus, Son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God and His word conveyed to Mary and a spirit created by Him. So believe in God and His messengers and do not say: ‘Three gods (trinity).’ Cease! It will be better for you. Indeed, Allah is the One and the Only God. His Holiness is far above having a son.”

Kazakhstan: A court fined two Protestant Christians for possession of Christian publications, which were defined as “extremist material.” According to a note sent to Agenzia Fides, a “tough system of religious censorship imposed by the state” prevails in the nation. Earlier, in October, 2013, Bibles and icons in a small shop were seized by police and the owner indicted for the sale of religious material without the permission of the state. Similarly, a 67-year-old Christian Presbyterian Pastor has been under arrest since May 17, 2013, on charges of distributing “extremist material,” that is, leaflets on the Christian faith.

Lebanon: After blasphemy allegations saying that a decades-old library owned by a Christian and church leader possessed “material deemed insulting to Islam and Muhammad,” the building was torched in an arson attack; two-thirds of its 80,000 books and manuscripts were destroyed.

Malaysia: Christians using the word “Allah” for worship were again attacked by Muslim groups. Similarly, the portrait of one Fr. Andrew Lawrence, Director of the Catholic weekly Herald, was burned, and threats to his life continue. Msg. Murphy Pakiam, the region’s Archbishop Emeritus, in a letter asked authorities to “take the necessary measures to prevent further provocative acts of intimidation against minorities,” and concluded by saying “let us not forget to pray for our enemies, who have misunderstood our faith.”

Pakistan: Asia Bibi, a Catholic Christian wife and mother who has been on death row for over four years without trial for allegedly blaspheming Islam and/or its prophet Muhammad, sent a message to Pope Francis saying that “only God will be able to free me…. I also hope that every Christian has been able to celebrate the Christmas just past with joy. Like many other prisoners, I also celebrated the birth of the Lord in prison in Multan, here in Pakistan… I would have liked to be in St. Peter’s for Christmas to pray with you, but I trust in God’s plan for me and hopefully it will be achieved next year.”

Dhimmitude and Murder

Bangladesh: Ovidio Marandy, a young Christian and brother of a Catholic priest, was murdered. According to his brother and family, “Muslim radicals wanted to punish the young man, a well-known figure in the local Catholic community, because he had recently organised a demonstration in his village against Islamist violence,” and more generally was speaking for Christian rights in the Muslim majority nation. According to the local Christian priest, “We are shocked by what happened. Christians have the right to vote. Why are Islamists attacking us? We want peace.”

Egypt: Yet another Coptic Christian child was kidnapped in Egypt. Thirteen-year-old Cyril Rif‘at Fayiz was abducted in the Minya district by “unknown persons” who later called the child’s parents demanding one million Egyptian pounds, nearly the equivalent of $150,000 USD, an exorbitant sum for Egyptian villagers.

Syria: Two Armenian families were compelled to convert to Islam at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and one man, Minas, a young Armenian, was killed for refusing. According to iNews, “Minas and his father were held in ISIL’s prison for 115 days, according to one activist, and his accusation was that he refused to submit [to Islam, i.e., convert].” The same report mentions other Christian Armenians killed, including one who reportedly had “his head chopped off and placed in a biscuit box.” Separately, another Christian man, Fadi, was beheaded and his body stabbed with his own crucifix, which exposed him as a Christian to “rebels” who had stopped his car.

Turkey: Protests against Christmas and New Year celebrations were described as “unprecedented” by Al-Monitor. The campaign was led by the Anatolian Youth Association (AYA), the youth branch of the pro-Islamic Felicity Party. In one instance, members displayed posters in various Istanbul neighborhoods that pictured a Muslim man punching Santa Claus with the slogan “No to New Year’s and Christmas celebrations.” The group also distributed flyers stating, “We are crying out that the New Year’s and Christmas celebrations held in our country are wrong and constitute a blow dealt to our Muslim identity. “ On 26 December at Beyazit Square in Istanbul, the AYA stabbed an inflatable Santa while chanting against Christmas and New Year celebrations. One Christian bishop expressed concerns that the Santa parody was “like a rehearsal” for attacks on real people: “A handful of Christians are left in this country, and such incidents naturally cause fear… The savage murders of missionaries took place in the wake of similar hate campaigns.”

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Previous Reports:

• December, 2013
• November, 2013
• October, 2013
• September, 2013
• August, 2013
• July, 2013
• June, 2013
• May, 2013
• April, 2013
• March, 2013
• February, 2013
• January, 2013
• December, 2012
• November, 2012
• October, 2012
• September, 2012
• August, 2012
• July, 2012
• June, 2012
• May, 2012
• April, 2012
• March, 2012
• February, 2012
• January, 2012
• December, 2011
• November, 2011
• October, 2011
• September, 2011
• August, 2011
• July, 2011