{"id":6911,"date":"2014-01-13T11:27:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T19:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6911"},"modified":"2014-01-13T11:27:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T19:27:18","slug":"armenian-christians-pressured-to-convert-to-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/armenian-christians-pressured-to-convert-to-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenian Christians Pressured to Convert to Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Arabic language websites\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\u2014which, throughout the course of the war against the Assad government has committed any number of atrocities, from decapitating \u201cinfidels\u201d to burning churches\u2014has successfully \u201cforced\u201d two Armenian Christian families to convert to Islam.<\/p>\n

A video accompanies some of these reports.\u00a0 In it, what appears to be an elderly Armenian man stands alongside an Islamic cleric who announces the Christian man\u2019s conversion to Islam\u2014to thunderous cries of \u201cAllahu Akbar!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0In his exultation, the cleric makes exuberant statements like \u201cYou see, we have no honor without Islam\u2014without proclaiming aloud that \u201cThere is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet!\u201d (Without the religious jargon, this is simply another way of saying, \u201cOnly by joining our team can you ever escape dishonor,\u201d\u00a0the lot of all non-Muslim, subhuman \u201cinfidels.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The cleric also adds that, because the man is the head of his household, his Christian wife and children are all now Muslim as well\u2014\u201call praise to Allah!\u201d\u00a0 Naturally, if they reject their new Islamic identity, they become \u201capostates,\u201d a crime punishable by death.<\/p>\n

The rather flippant and sarcastic text that accompanies this video points out the obvious:<\/p>\n

After decades of peaceful coexistence between the various religions of Syria, and after decades of living under the moderate form of Levantine Islam \u2026 these two Armenian families were none too keen on entering Islam or learning of its eminence\u2014except at the hands of DAASH [al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], which has been presenting a \u201crosy\u201d picture of Islam and Muslims, by way of chopping heads, whipping people, and general repression.\u00a0 Thus did these two Christian Armenian families finally enter Islam, \u201cwillingly\u201d\u2014but only at the hands of DAASH.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, it\u2019s \u201ccurious,\u201d to say the least, that Christians who for generations lived amid moderate Muslim majorities in Syria but opted to remain Christian, are now \u201csuddenly\u201d attracted to Islam\u2014and at the hands of a jihadi organization that has been bombing churches, kidnapping and beheading Christians, and\u00a0even teaching children to slaughter Christians<\/a>wherever they may be found.<\/p>\n

Sound like genuine conviction to you? Maybe things like the 2012 news that \u201ca family of Armenian Christians was found murdered, and\u00a0all members of the family horribly decapitated<\/a>\u201d in Syria is compelling these Armenian families into seeing the \u201cwisdom\u201d of embracing Islam?<\/p>\n

Here we reach an important but overlooked historical point.\u00a0 While many Christians,\u00a0past and present<\/a>, have indeed\u00a0willingly embraced martyrdom<\/a>\u2014the sword, death\u2014rather than recant Christ for Muhammad, the majority of born Christians, when faced with converting to Islam or dying, have opted for the former.\u00a0 Indeed, call it a lack of idealism or a lack of faithfulness, when faced with converting to the \u201cwinning team\u201d of Islam or simply being third-class subjects (dhimmis<\/em>), countless nominal Christians throughout the centuries have opted for the former.<\/p>\n

That is precisely how and why the so-called \u201cIslamic world\u201d\u2014the majority of which was almost entirely Christian before\u00a0the Islamic conquests<\/a>\u2014came into being: a fact Western people were once well acquainted with, before the\u00a0current age of political correctness and alternate<\/a>\u00a0realities fell upon us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Arabic language websites\u00a0reported\u00a0earlier this week that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant\u2014which, throughout the course of the war against the Assad government has committed any number of atrocities, from decapitating \u201cinfidels\u201d to burning churches\u2014has successfully \u201cforced\u201d two Armenian Christian families to convert to Islam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[225,227],"tags":[366,919,192,1017,30,1060,1041],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Nt","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6338,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/walls-of-hate-anti-christian-graffiti-vandalizes-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":6911,"position":0},"title":"Walls of Hate: Anti-Christian Graffiti Vandalizes Egypt","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com With the ousting of Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, the homes and churches of Egypt\u2019s Christians are seeing an unprecedented rise in anti-Christian graffiti. \u00a0The following are some of the pictures that were recently disseminated, captioned with translation of graffiti and location information. \u00a0The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/_admin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6840,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-cleric-incites-children-to-slaughter-christians-and-alawites-in-syria\/","url_meta":{"origin":6911,"position":1},"title":"Muslim Cleric Incites Children to ‘Slaughter’ Christians and Alawites in Syria","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 A video recently appeared of an Islamic Sunni cleric in Syria inciting Muslim schoolboys, most of whom appear \u00a0to be between the ages of five-twelve, to hate and kill Christians and others. 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