The so-called 'religion of peace' looks anything but peaceful as refugees attempt to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban swept to power. They promise an 'inclusive government' that is compatible with Islamic law so the sting is in the tail particularly for women and girls based on previous experience of Taliban rule.
Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the latest slaughter of innocents outside Kabul airport. The suicide bomber will not have regarded his own death as suicide but as having been slain in battle as a warrior for Islam with the promise of 72 virgins in the after life.
The killer's victims were mainly Muslims legitimised by rival interpretations of their faith.
Mass slaughter by Islamists is not an isolated event.
In June BBC News reported that armed men killed at least 160 people in an attack on a village in northern Burkina Faso. The fight against West Africa's Islamist insurgency was reported to be at a critical stage.
In January BBC News reported that "around 49 died and 17 were injured in the village of Tchombangou, while another 30 died in Zaroumdareye". Several violent incidents in Africa's Sahel region had been carried out by 'militant groups'.
Currently, Christians in Nigeria are living in fear of another attack according to House of Lords member Baroness Caroline Cox. "There are reports on the ground that Islamic terrorists are planning an attack on Jos, capital of the Plateau state in central Nigeria", she said.
Whether or not this attack takes place or when there other atrocities in Africa, based on previous experience it is unlikely that there will much if any media attention. Hence the scale of the problem is not as obvious as it should be.
According to Islamist terrorist attacks in the world 1979-2019 "at least 33,769 Islamist terrorist attacks took place worldwide. They caused the deaths of at least 167,096 people. We can also say that Islamist terrorist attacks account for 18.8% of all attacks worldwide, but that they are responsible for 39.1% of the lives lost due to terrorism; or that, during the years studied, there has been an intensification of this violence and that the deadliest period is the most recent: from 2013 onwards, in our opinion, Islam has become the main cause (63.4%) of deaths due to terrorism in the world. We identify and quantify operating methods and targets. The vision of the phenomenon improves, the image becomes clearer. In this way, we show that the majority of the victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims (91.2%).
The threat of Islamist attacks greatly disrupted our lives long before the arrival of Covid-19.
As The Catholic Thing put it in Religion and the Re-classification of Islam:
"Air travel is not what it used to be. In the 1980s and 1990s, you could accompany your relatives or friends to the terminal, sit and talk with them at the gate while waiting for boarding, give your kisses and hugs, and leisurely head back for home. Teenagers and some “20-somethings” will have no such memories. Now it’s the baleful experience of security lines, searches, removing stuff for the metal detectors, and full body pat-downs for people who – like me – have metal implants.
"Mosques are being built everywhere. Saudi Arabia has funded the building of thousands of mosques throughout the world and has supplied massive funding for the more than 2000 mosques in America. Christian churches are forbidden in Saudi Arabia – and are being destroyed in Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere, where their existence was previously allowed.
"And we learn of the unusual “cultural” proclivities of Islam – execution of apostates and homosexuals, ideological and legal relegation of females to inferior status, female genital mutilation, divorce without appeal, rape without defense, honor killings, stoning for adultery, etc."
There is much to fear from a such threatening, political ideology.
Another member of the House of Lords, Lord Pearson, was condemned as Islamophobic merely for discussing the fear of Islam.
Here is an extract from what Lord Pearson said as published in Hansard and reproduced in the Archbishop Cranmer blog:
"So I submit that it is not phobic to fear Islam, which is responsible for by far the most violence on our planet today. However, if we so much as even try to learn and talk about Islam, we are immediately called Islamophobic by the Muslim Council of Britain, Tell MAMA and other suspect organisations, yet we can say what we like about any of the world’s other religions and nobody turns much of a hair."
Free speech is under threat.
Church and state leaders who embrace Islam as a religion of peace should take note.
