Ahmed Katani
Maher Abdallah
Maher Abdallah:
Dear viewers, peace of Allah be upon you, greetings and welcome to a new episode of the program Islamic Law and Life.
Our topic this evening will be Christianization in the Dark Continent ... Africa. For after Islam was the religion of the majority, the great majority of that continent, the number of Muslims now is no greater than a third of the population. This is taking into consideration, of course, that a large portion of this group are Arab Muslims. No doubt that the missions of evangelization and Christianization played a great role in this demographic shift of Muslims in the continent.
To discuss this topic, it is my pleasure to introduce today a man who is an expert on the issue of evangelization and Christianization in Africa, even though he will concentrate on the issue of Christianization first and foremost?. Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani; the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, which is an institution specializing in graduating imams and Islamic preachers.
Sheikh Ahmad, welcome to you on the program.
Ahmad Al Katani:
Greeting to you.
Maher Abdallah:
If we start by inquiring about your strict stance against the Christian missions in Africa, don?t the followers of every religion have the right to seek new converts, exactly as you train and graduate young Muslims to propagate Islam?
Ahmad Al Katani:
I seek refuge in Allah the Seer, the Knower, from the stoned devil. In the name of Allah the Merciful the Beneficent. Thanks to Allah the One, the Only, the Permanent One, who did not give birth nor was born, to whom no one was equal. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah who has no partners, and I bear witness that our master Muhammed ? Allah?s prayers and peace be upon him - is his messenger and seal of prophets; Allah prayers be upon him and his brothers the prophets and messengers and their families.
The question that you pose is a result of not comprehending the difference between the concept of Christianization and the concept of evangelism.
The concept of evangelism: is inviting the non-Christians to the Christian or Nazarene religion, and this is the right of every Christian and the right of every believer to call others to his faith. However, we are talking about a different matter; which is Christianization. Christianization means the following: preparing plans, and executing these plans and evolving these plans to change Muslims into Christians by taking advantage of the ignorance and poverty (of the people) and whatever necessitates from similar circumstances.
So, we are faced with the issue of taking advantage of circumstances, taking advantage of humanitarian needs, taking advantage of the lack of education for example, that these people (missionaries) use to take Muslims out of their religion.
Maher Abdallah:
Fine. This is a big and dangerous phrase. Taking advantage of poverty, of ignorance, of lack of education, of some need is something that a Muslim can also be accused of. So if you don?t back up what you say with examples, with references, your words remain in the air without much weight to them.
Ahmad Al Katani:
The reality is that these words say a lot less than they should. As we said in the beginning, everyone has the right to invite others to his religion; this is what is known as evangelism (or proselytizing). As for Christianization, no one has the right to take Muslims out of their religion, and you asked for references and the references are too numerous.
Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, 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. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed ?..
Maher Abdallah (interrupting):
Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have 6 million converting from Islam to Christianity or converting from Islam and other religions?
Ahmad Al Katani:
Great (question)! The other religions are not placed on the list of Christianization; rather they are placed on the list of evangelization. The other religion in Africa is paganism; so it?s Islam, Christianity or paganism. There isn?t something similar to Asia for example where you have Buddhism or Zoroastrianism. In Africa it is just these three, so if you talk about Christianization then it targets the only other heavenly religion which is Islam. As for paganism, those people worship animals and planets and the like.
Maher Abdallah:
So 6 million Muslims a year convert?
Ahmad Al Katani:
Every year ?.. In the African nations this century a tragedy happened. Take for example what happened in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is an Arab nation and I am not saying a muslim nation. If any student looks up the word Habasha (Ethiopia) in the book Ocean Dictionary written by Al-Fairuz Abady, he will find that the word Habashat means ?people of different tribes? and this is what happened. Ethiopia was a place where Arabs from different tribes would go to live for a while. We all know that Islam entered Ethiopia before Islam entered the city of Medina. We all know that AL-Najashy (the ruler of Ethiopia) was a Muslim. It is mentioned by Al-Darkatny in his biography of the prophet ? Allah?s prayer and peace be upon him ? that during the month of Rajab in the 9th year of the Hijra (Muslim calendar) that the prophet said to his companions: ?Rise up and pray on your brother Al-Najashy.? From that year on the practice of praying on the absent was established. Therefore from the time of the prophet ? Allah?s prayer and peace be upon him ? Islam entered Ethiopia. So what has happened to Ethiopia?
What happened is that in the days of Emperor Hela Silasi who used to force Muslims to bow to the Christian, and if he refused then he was whipped 45 lashes and jailed between 2 and 5 years. In the year 1948, a massacre occurred at the hands of the Amharic tribes; the Amharic being Christians and collaborators, who continued to slaughter Muslims for 7 months and perform the most horrific acts imaginable. For example they deprived them from the most basic human rights, to the point that they mutilated the male Muslim?s reproductive organs so that no more Muslim children would be born. Ethiopia was rewarded after all these horrific acts; rewarded by being made the head quarters of the African Unity League.
Let us move to another location in Africa, let it be Nigeria. Nigeria is known by Muslims by the name of the Land of Takror. Nigeria was founded at the beginning of the last century by the British, and many Islamic sources mention it?s name as the Land of Tekror. There is even a letter by the reciter Suyuti, who died in the year 911 Hijri, where the title is: Opening the blessed request and relating the hidden openly to the questions of the people of Takror. So there was an established relationship, and they used to send questions to the scholars of Islam, so this letter (of questions) was sent from one of the sheikh scholars of Nigeria that was called Takror to the Muslim scholar AL Suyuti in Egypt and he in turn responded and the contents of this letter are published and printed and is found in the book ?The collection Islamic decrees?.
Nigeria?s population is 120 million people, 70% of whom are Muslim. In the 1960?s a British missionary came and declared that he will Christianize North Nigeria, the majority of whom are Muslim. As a result, Ahmad Banulo (from the leaders of the Msulims) was forced at the time to move him to Lagos the capital. As a result the butcher Arorese, that was present at the time, eliminated all the Muslim rulers and killed Ahmad Banulo, why? Because he merely dared to move this missionary who declared that he wishes to Christianize North Nigeria.
In another country, Zanzibar, is an Arabic African nation and I am not saying Muslim. Zanzibar was always connected to the Sultanate of Oman (in the Persian Gulf). Concerning Zanzibar, there was a priest by the name Julius Niriry, president of Tanzania, who annihilated 20,000 Muslims (male and female) with a military force lead by a chicken thief. This thief was imprisoned for being accused of stealing chickens; he was released and asked to command the military brigade that annihilated 20,000 Muslims.
Maher Abdallah:
My dear viewers welcome back to this episode where we are speaking about the topic of Christianization in the African continent and we are speaking with the Sheikh who is observing and following this issue, as each hour Islam loses just under 700 Muslims who join the Christian religion which leads us to the number of 6 million Muslims every year.
Our sir, you mentioned that there are advantages being taken of necessities: poverty, ignorance; what you mentioned then are waves of elimination, waves of religious eradication, and there is no need to call is racial eradication?.. However, let us go back to the topic necessity and exploitation. This may have all been in the past; the military expeditions that you spoke of were all in the beginning or middle of the last century, but what is happening today in regards to exploiting necessities?
Ahmad Al Katani:
What I wanted to say is that these military expeditions and wars paved the way for what we are seeing today; converting 6 million Muslims every year did not happen from nothing, but was a result of what I mentioned earlier.
As for the topic of necessity exploitation, then a nation like Somalia, whose population is 9.5 million people, are all Muslim without exception. There are no Christians or pagans. And if you did find any then they are an insignificant number that are not even on official statistics. A Belgian missionary by the name of Sabeh came to Somalia and purchased 30,000 Muslim youth, he took advantage of their parents poverty, and we all know the terrible situation that Somalia is going through now and what it went through a few years ago. This is taking advantage of a humanitarian need that any human can go through.
Maher Abdallah: (interrupting)
Excuse me, what do you mean purchased?
Ahmad Al Katani:
You know that the current laws forbid trading in slaves, but I can?t find another expression to use. The man asked (from the country of Belgium) approximately forty million dollars or slightly less and it (Belgium) hurried in sending the money to him out of fear that this opportunity will be lost. Belgium sent the money in a very short time, and he (the missionary) paid this money to the parents of the youth and I can only call it buying and selling, there is no other name for it. The result was that 30,000 children were made Christian and baptized in the churches. I say this with all regret, but these children are now adults. This event occurred a number of years ago and these youth are now adults and what is more dangerous is that these people will return to their families; some of them have already returned indeed and others will return. This tragedy happened in Somalia, people?s poverty was taken advantage of and this humiliation happened in front of the eyes of on lookers.
Maher Abdallah:
Fine! Another picture of taking advantage, this was in consideration of Somalia?s state during war; in the case of a tragedy such as poverty where people were forced to do so due to the circumstances in the area. But what about other regions, how are they doing?
Ahmad Al Katani:
Yes. In Zaire there are now half a million muslim refugees, only Muslims are subjugated to severe missions of Christianization. I am sorry to say something and I am not the first to make this point; it has been said before: the bounty of humanitarian aid that is delivered goes to the Christians, and now because of this opportunity the muslims are Christianized in Zaire. There are half a million Muslims targeted for christianiztion on a daily basis. There is a horrific absence of muslim effort in the field. There is no Arabic or muslim (missionary) presence in Africa, except on a token level, nothing productive.
Maher Abdallah: (interrupting)
These words are contradictory to what we hear in summits that are held, without mentioning the names of organizations that hold these summits at times specifically to discuss the situation of muslim in Africa, south of the desert.
Ahmad Al Katani:
My dear sir, among the plans to Christianize is to leak periodic numbers weekly, monthly and yearly and these statistics works as sedatives in the body of the community. Every now and then we hear in the media, whether television, radio or print that an African family has converted to islam, or members of a family have become Muslim or that a university professor has converted to Islam. These are all tranquilizer shots. For every muslim that converts to Islam, there are thousands that become Christian. We have previously mentioned the number of people that become Christian every year, every day and every hour, all these numbers make people think that matters are fine, that Islam is well, and the truth is the exact opposite.
Maher Abdallah:
If you permit, I do know a group of organizations, whose names I don?t want to mention, which reside in Africa and have headquarters in Tanzania.
Read More: http://www.formermuslims.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=972
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