islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

The Arab–Islamic ImperialismGomaa, Egypt’s top Islamic jurist and Grand Mufti, issued a religious edict based on Islamic text, declaringthe exhibition of statues as un-Islamic. It was feared that Islamist may use this edict to unfurl their rageagainst the rich pre-Islamic heritage of Egypt as the editor of the Akhbar Al Adab magazine noted, ‘We don’trule out that someone will enter the Karnak temple in Luxor or any other Pharaonic temple and blow it up onthe basis of the fatwa.’ 378 The Ayatollahs of Iran have been systematically destroying the pre-Islamicmonuments and mausoleums under one excuse or another over the last three decades.A determined effort to obliterate all that is not Islamic is also witnessed in the continued Muslimethnic-cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Following the Partition of India in 1947, Hindusconstituted about 25–30 percent of the population in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), while about 10 percentin Pakistan. Today, their numbers have dwindled to about 10 percent in Bangladesh and 1 percent in Pakistan.The major cause of this massive loss of Hindu population in Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Pakistan is theresult of a steady exodus of Hindus to India because of the miserable treatment, they experience. Conversion,mostly under various compulsions, also contributes, to a lesser extent, to their falling numbers. Kidnapping ofHindu (also other non-Muslim) girls and forcing them to marry thuggish Muslim men, widespread rapes oftheir women, seizure of their property and lands, their mass eviction at times of turmoil and creation of otherkinds of social pressures compel the Hindus—not willing to convert—to leave their ancestral homes andresettle in India. A recent study in Bangladesh found that nearly ten million Hindus were forced to leave thecountry between 1964 and 2001 because of communal conflicts and deprivations. Some 2.6 million acres ofHindu land was grabbed by Muslims from 1965 to 2006. 379 Naeem Mohaiemen, a film-maker andcommentator, has this to say on the treatment of non-Muslim citizens in Bangladesh:We are not only a class elite, but also a Muslim elite that ravages this country and renders allothers as shadow citizens. From the Vested Property Act onwards, there are laws,understandings, social norms, politics and quiet discrimination that have rendered our Hindu,Christian, Buddhist, Adivasi (Aboriginal), and Pahari (Hill) citizens as sub-human—frozen outof schools, jobs, politics, culture, and lived life. 380In Egypt, the indigenous Coptic Christian population continues to dwindle resulting from persecution byMuslims. In order to apply pressure on Christians, Muslims build a mosque in every street where therehappens to be a church. On a regular basis, Muslims indulge in riots against Christians and vandalize theirproperties, churches and businesses (frequently reported in the media) and create other social problems, whichforce the Copts either to convert to Islam or migrate, mostly, to the West. In one latest incidence, a 20,000-strong Muslim mob with stones and butane gas cylinders besieged some 1,000 Christians inside the CopticOrthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams (Cairo) on its opening day. Overnight Muslimsturned the first floor of a newly-built building facing the Church into a Mosque and started praying there. Assecurity forces tried to disperse them, ‘the Muslim mob attacked the church…, broke its doors and demolishedits entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying "we will demolish thechurch" and "we sacrifice our blood and souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Islam." 381 Recently, a numberof Hindu girls in London were reported to have been terrorized by Muslim youths for converting them toIslam to such an extent that they were given police protection. 382 When such a thing happens in Britain, whathappens to non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries is easy to guess.378. Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt, Middle East Times, 3 April 2006379. Hindus lost 26 lakh acres of land from 1965 to 2006, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 15 May 2008380. Mohaiemen N, Tattered blood-green flag: Secularism in crisis, Daily Star, Bangladesh, 26 Feb, 2007381. 20,000 Muslims Attack a Church in Cairo, Assyrian International News Agency, 26 November, 2008382. Daily Mail, Police protect girls forced to convert to Islam, 22 Feb, 2007128