My Muslim coworkers are peaceful people. Of course, there are physically violent individuals among Muslims just as there are physically violent individuals among the non-Muslims.
--- In
Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, Kisan <mailbhejna@...> wrote:
>
> Gruesome killing of blasphemers has long been an inspiration for conversion to
> Islam:
> Asma bint Marwan, a contemporary of 'Prophet' Muhammad, composed poetry
> critical of Muhammad's followers murdering of tribal chiefs:
>
>
> When the apostle heard what she had said he said, "Who will rid me of Marwan's
> daughter?" `Umayr b. `Adiy al-Khatmi who was with him heard him, and that very
> night he went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle
> and told him what he had done and he [Muhammad] said, "You have helped God and
> His apostle, O `Umayr!" When he asked if he would have to bear any evil
> consequences the apostle said, "Two goats won't butt their heads about her", so
> `Umayr went back to his people.
>
> Now there was a great commotion among B. Khatma that day about the affair of
> bint [daughter of] Marwan. She had five sons, and when `Umayr went to them from
> the apostle he said, "I have killed bint Marwan, O sons of Khatma. Withstand me
> if you can; don't keep me waiting." That was the first day Islam became powerful
> among B. Khatma; before that those who were Muslims concealed the fact. The
> first of them to accept Islam was `Umayr b. `Adiy who was called the "Reader",
> and `Abdullah b. Aus and Khuzayma b. Thabit. The day after Bint Marwan was
> killed the men of B. Khatma became Muslims because they saw the power of Islam.
>
>
> Sirat Rasul Allah pg 676, Oxford University Press, Karachi, Pakistan.
> "I have been made victorious with terror" - Prophet Muhammad
>
>
>
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/925715--some-christians-in-pakistan-convert-fear-into-safety>
>
> Some Christians in Pakistan convert fear into safety
>
> LAHORE, PAKISTANâ€"Dog-eared and tattered, the blue book is an inch thick and sits
> on a dented metal table in the corner office of Jamia Naeemia, an Islamic school
> tucked in a scattering of cement-walled homes and roadside shops.
>
> Many believe the book offers the promise of safety and perhaps even a better
> chance at prosperity.
>
> The book is a registry used to document religious converts to Islam and
> officials at Jamia Naeemia say business is brisk nowadays.
>
> At least 20 to 25 former Christians adopt Islam each week by pledging an oath
> and signing a green and white document in which they accept Islam as “the most
> beautiful religion� and promise to “remain in the religion of Islam for the rest
> of my life, acknowledging that blessings are only from God.�
>
> Human rights advocates say it’s no surprise some of Pakistan’s 3 million
> Christians are adopting Islam. These are vexing and dangerous days for the
> country’s religious minorities.
>
> Last autumn, politician Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most
> prosperous province, began to campaign on behalf of a Christian woman named Asia
> Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. On Jan. 4, with debate over
> the future of Pakistan’s blasphemy law at a fever pitch, Taseer was gunned down
> by one of his personal security guards.
>
> Public reaction to Taseer’s assassination was stunning.
>
> Pakistan’s lawyers, praised just three years ago for saving this country’s
> independent judiciary, showered Taseer’s assassin with rose petals on his way
> into court. A rally to celebrate his death attracted 40,000 in Karachi and
> thousands more posted tributes to the killer on their Facebook accounts.
>
> “To be honest, I felt good when I heard he was dead; we got rid of him,� said
> Raghib Naeemia, an iman at Jamia Naeemia. “It’s very clear in the Holy Qur’an
> that if you say something nasty and harsh about the Holy Prophet, then you
> become a maloun (cursed) person. And we are supposed to round up those people
> and kill them very harshly.�
>
> While Taseer was among several high-profile politicians who have argued the
> blasphemy law should be amended, human rights workers say the real issue is how
> often the law is misused.
>
> An allegation of blasphemy shouted in the streets can, in an instant, whip a
> crowd into a frenzy and lead to assaults and dubious arrests.
>
> In one recent example, a Shiite Muslim doctor last month was confronted in his
> Hyderabad office by a pharmaceutical salesman. After telling the supplier he
> wasn’t interested in buying anything, the salesman persisted, according to local
> news reports. The doctor tossed the salesman’s business card in a trash bin.
>
> But because the salesman’s name was Muhammad â€" the same as the Muslim prophet â€"
> he complained to religious leaders that tossing his card the garbage was
> blasphemy.
>
> The doctor was dragged out of his office and beaten by a mob. Then he was
> arrested by police and charged with blasphemy.
>
> “No one feels safe right now,� said Nadeem Anthony, a Christian and a member of
> the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “People are scared.
>
> If you want something from your neighbour or you are angry at him, you say
> blasphemy and that’s it.�
>
> In the most famous case, the one that has transfixed the nation and led to
> Taseer’s killing, centres on Bibi, a resident of the Punjabi village of
> Ittanwali, west of Lahore.
>
> While working in the fields last June, she was sent to fetch water. When some of
> the other woman refused to drink it because it had been carried by a Christian,
> a spat ensued about the merits of both religions. The other women later went to
> a cleric and complained that Bibi has blasphemed the name of the Prophet
> Muhammad.
>
> A complaint was filed and Bibi was charged, convicted, and given a death
> sentence.
>
> The spirit of McCarthyism hangs in the air like the clouds of dust that swirl
> though this historic city’s poor neighbourhoods.
>
> In Lahore last week, a Christian woman got into a heated argument with her
> sister-in-law, a Muslim. The Muslim woman went outside their home and cried out
> that her relative had blasphemed against Islam. A group of protesters stormed
> into the home and beat the woman. One of the ringleaders later bragged that his
> own wife had hit the woman the hardest.
>
> “Her hand is so swollen that she hasn’t been able to make rotis,� he told the
> Express Tribune newspaper.
>
> The Christian woman and her husband are now in hiding, the paper reported.
>
> One of the results of this wave of anti-Christian activity unfolded on a sunny
> afternoon this week. Azra Mustafa, a 45-year-old housemaid, shuffled into the
> Jamia Naeemia and asked to speak to an imam. A recent convert to Islam, the
> housemaid and mother of six needed to get the proper documents to prove to her
> neighbours that she was no longer a Christian.
>
> “It feels great,� she said. “I moved to a Muslim neighbourhood and now I feel
> like we are one family.�
>
> Each day, Mustafa, whose husband remains Christian and now lives separately from
> his wife and children, wakes up to attend 5 a.m. prayers before she leaves for
> work four hours later. By the time she returns home at 7 p.m. from a job that
> pays her 2,500 rupees ($28) a month, darkness has fallen over her one-room home.
> After dinner, a teacher comes to her home to give Mustafa and her children
> 90-minute lessons on Arabic and the Qur’an.
>
> Asked if she felt safer in the wake of her conversion, Mustafa replied, “of
> course.�
>
> Mustafa sat patiently as the seminary’s staff and students hustled about,
> preparing to attend a rally scheduled for later that afternoon â€" a protest that
> featured at least 3,000 people who at one point chanted “death to Christians and
> the friends of Christians� as they marched through the heart of Lahore.
>
> As Mustafa gathered her papers together and prepared to leave, Parvaiz Masih, a
> 23-year-old auto rickshaw diver, walked into the office. He hoped to convert
> that afternoon, and had already told friends he would now be known as Muhammad
> Parvaiz.
>
> “I’ve been thinking about it for two or three years,� he said, wrapped in a
> heavy blue shawl. “About four days ago, I decided to do it.�
>
> A group of a dozen young men studied Parvaiz and a visitor asked if Taseer’s
> murder and other publicized clashes involving Christians had played a role in
> his decision. Parvaiz shrugged meekly and wouldn’t answer.
>
> It wasn’t long before another Christian, 26-year-old Naseer, entered Jamia
> Naeemia. With a crowd of men looking on, she, too, was hesitant to elaborate on
> why she wanted to follow Islam, but nodded when she was asked whether she
> believed she would be safer as a Muslim.
>
> Adjusting a pin on the saffron-coloured dupatta that covered her face, Naseer
> said she had slipped away from her parents’ home earlier in the day to make her
> way to the seminary. When another visitor asked again whether her personal
> safety played a role in her decision, Nasreen flashed a look of anger and
> snapped, “there’s no question.�
>
> It was clear why Naseer and others were hesitant to speak more freely about
> their concerns over safety. An iman for the madrassa said he would not proceed
> if someone gave safety as a reason for their conversion.
>
> Peter Jacob, executive director of an advocacy organization funded by the
> Catholic Church, said an average of 400 Christians annually converted to Islam
> between 2005 and 2010. In 2011, he expects that number to swell. “It’s going to
> be very different in these hostile conditions,� Jacob said. “People have no
> faith in the police or justice system and the kind of fear that exists now was
> never there before.�
>
> It isn’t only Christians in Pakistan who are feeling uncertain nowadays.
>
> The blasphemy law is playing a role even in battles between Muslims, who make up
> about 97 per cent of Pakistan’s 180 million people.
>
> Zafar Hilali, a former Pakistani ambassador and foreign secretary, insists the
> venom over blasphemy has more to do with Pakistan’s class divide than religion.
>
> “The poor are becoming increasingly desperate and don’t know what to do; some
> religious leaders that are using that,� Hilali said, adding that the instability
> adds to their influence and political sway.
> Kisan.
>
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