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A.C.N - Aid to the Church in Need Italian Office |
Religious Freedom in
the Majority Islamic Countries |
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Introduction The respect
of religious liberty is one of the hallmarks not only of the
integrity of a legal system, but also of the maturity of a
free society. Every
individual has the right to liberty of thought, conscience
and religion. This right includes the freedom to change
religion or belief, and the liberty to profess, whether
alone or in common, in public or in private, one’s own
religion or creed in the teaching, the practice, the worship
and the observance of its rites
One of the most odious violations of the rights of man - indeed of one of the first of these rights, that of religious liberty - in many Islamic countries forbids those who are not Muslims even to pray in public. This compels Christians - and not only Christians but others too - to live in a situation of social inferiority because of their faith, in a condition that has been described as "second class citizenship". The false, unhistorical and politically motivated identification of Christianity with the West, which finds such easy acceptance among Muslims - and not only among the uneducated - and undoubtedly also a religious outlook unfamiliar with the concept of respect for human dignity, are together factors which for a large number of Christians living in Islamic countries imply a real diminution of their participation in public life and their social relevance. And this despite the fact that, in the absence of any spirit of reciprocity, the Muslims continue to build mosques in what was once the Christian world. And yet, in early June of 1998, in Aqaba in southern Jordan, there came to light the remains of a Christian church - probably buried by an earthquake in 363 AD - which might well be the most ancient Christian church so far discovered in the world. For it was from Palestine in fact - in today's Jordan - that Christianity actually expanded during the 4th century AD. The identification of the Christian religion with the West is thus shown to be an error, especially since the West itself, having undergone a constant process of dechristianisation over many centuries, now no longer identifies itself with Christianity. If Islam considers the West to be secularised territory, it has every reason to do so, but the only way to ensure a society of believers is to respect the rights of every man or woman, whatever religion they may profess - and not only the monotheistic ones, or as the Muslims themselves inaccurately describe them, the people "of the Book". The writings of the Prophet Mohammed, which assure peace in the monastery of St Katharine on Sinai, are capable of an interpretation which, logically extended, would lead one to consider them a guarantee for all Christians. But today they are forgotten by those interpreters of the Koran who now in the majority tend to follow the commentaries of the jurist Ibn Taymyya (1263-1328). He is now considered as the doctrinal source of the ideology of the so-called fundamentalists - according to whom the Muslim has the duty to assume the authority, and his teaching expounds the benefits that would be derived from a total union between the spiritual and temporal powers, both for the government and the governed. All this is true, despite the fact that, during a meeting held in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, one of the most prestigious scholars of the Islamic world, Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tamlawi, professor of the University of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, affirmed that Islam does not envisage sanctions for apostates, provided that these do not insult or threaten religion, for he maintained that "at the time of the Prophet Mohammed, if someone wished to leave Islam, the Prophet permitted him to do so", declaring that ultimately measures could be taken against the apostate only if he should attack Islam or threaten it. The present "report" does not set out to dwell on the doctrines underlying the events reported, nor does it seek to point out relations of cause and effect, for given the immense variety and geographical range of the situations described, and likewise their dynamic nature, one can often draw conclusions of a historical, political and ideological nature only with hindsight. Thus it is purely an attempt to monitor, via a sort of "snapshot" approach at a given moment in time, those countries in which the majority of the population belong formally to the Islamic religion; it aims to identify the dangers to the religious freedom of Christians and of the adherents of other religions who belong sociologically to the minority - including in some cases certain tendencies of Islam itself - in those countries which have made the struggle for "fundamentalism" their principal objective. To this end we have used journalistic and agency sources, summaries and personal testimonies, restricting ourselves to the most illuminating cases for each particular country concerned. These news items have been read and interpreted in the light of studies carried out by Orientalist experts with a view to understanding the religious, political and cultural importance of the events concerned and the climate of life prevailing in these countries, and at the same time taking into account those emerging tendencies that seem likely over the next few years and setting them in the context of the past. Thus, within the Islamic world, the disregard of the right to religious liberty takes on different forms according to whether the persecution comes from the institutions themselves in the name of the secular state (Turkey), in the name of the Sharia (Sudan), or for political reasons, whether internal (Egypt) or international. Finally there is the danger from Islamists groups who threaten the life and liberty of everyone, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, if they do not adhere to the particular interpretation of the Koran of these Islamists groups themselves. What is most often encountered is the legal prohibition, not merely the understandable social pressure, which bars both the conversion to Christianity by Muslims and the public practice of the Christian Faith in the Islamic countries - and hence, a fortiori, any kind of Christian missionary activity. This is one of the numerous signs of a worldwide process involving the progressive "ethnicisation" of cultures which are incapable of absorbing external elements. And yet the refusal to accept external cultural influences, far from being a source of survival, more often than not provokes a sort of implosion, that is to say the decadence of a part of the culture concerned. A prudent approach, that permits a culture to interpret and integrate other worlds into one’s own tradition and thereby enriches it, is essential for every culture if it is to avoid the danger of "homologisation" and globalisation. But this cannot be achieved by the exclusion of everything that is "other" but rather from the standpoint that everyone is a child of God and thus every offence against another is an offence against ones Father. Moreover - and this is the decisive factor - cultures are the instruments of man, and there for man, and hence their capacity to adapt should not be prevented by cultural or institutional obstacles. Andrea Morigi |
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