Forced conversion
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A forced conversion occurs when someone adopts a religion or philosophy under the threat that a refusal would result in negative consequences not just in the afterlife but in this life too, ranging from job loss, social isolation to incarceration, torture, or death. Typically, such a conversion entails the repudiation of former religious or philosophical convictions.
There is considerable controversy over whether documented cases of forced conversions reflect official religious teachings.
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[edit] Buddhism
In general Buddhism is a non-violent religion opposed to intense proselytism. Still the pre-Buddhist Bön of Tibet may have faced persecution[1] including forced conversion. There are also allegations that the military government of Myanmar has engaged in forced conversion to Buddhism,[2][3] primarily to assure conformity.
[edit] Christianity
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Christians usually reject the idea of forced conversion, citing a passage in the New Testament (Romans 10:9-10). However, Christians have not always followed the New Testament mandate, which posed the question of how to deal with such conversions under duress. Pope Innocent III, who denounced forced conversions, pronounced in 1201 that even if torture and intimidation had been employed, in receiving the sacrament one nevertheless:
...does receive the impress of Christianity and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling. ... [For] the grace of Baptism had been received, and they had been anointed with the sacred oil, and had participated in the body of the Lord, they might properly be forced to hold to the faith which they had accepted perforce, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed, and lest they hold in contempt and consider vile the faith they had joined.[4]
During the 15th century, Jews in Spain were frequently pressured into converting to Christianity. This culminated in their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Subsequently, in 1497, the Jews in Portugal were forcibly converted to Christianity. [5]
[edit] Islam
Some critics of Islam claim the Qur'an supports forced conversion and have complained that its adherents have a long history of forced conversions(see Dhimmi) (see Aslim Taslam) One argument given by these critics is that deadly violence is directed towards people who refuse to convert, or convert and then lapse into apostasy. Various Qur'anic suras are cited:[citation needed]
- 9:73, "O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and hypocrites and be harsh with them"
- 9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free.
- 4:89, They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
Some also point to such historic facts [3]
Some historians reject these ideas, asserting that the early sura 2:256 shows that "Islam is a religion of peace". [6][7][8][9][10][11]
Armstrong writes on forced conversions that after Muhammad's death, nobody in the Islamic empire was forced to accept the Islamic faith; indeed, for a century, conversion was not encouraged and, in about 700 CE, was actually forbidden by law.[12] Even though occasionally, individual cases of forced conversions such as of Ibn Firāsa against Samaritans can be noticed under Islamic rule, Islamic law clearly forbade forced conversions.[13][14] Forced conversions did play a key role in some later periods of Islamic history, mostly in the 12th century under the Almohad dynasty of North Africa and al-Andalus as well as in Persia where Shi'a Islam is dominant.[15]
While Jewish communities in Arab and Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs and Muslim. Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis wrote that "The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam." (Bernard Lewis, "The Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, (Fall 1968), p. 401.)
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to convert and rejected Muhammad (as well as conspiring with the pagan Quraish tribe of Mecca to kill Muhammad), two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled from Medina. In 627, Muhammad's followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men in Medina, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves. (Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi, (NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985), pp. 43-44.)
[edit] Current reports of forced conversion to Islam
In March 2007 the BBC reported that people in the Mandaean religious minority in Iraq alleged that they were being targeted by Islamist insurgents and being offered the choice of conversion or death.[16]
Or on an individual level, one of the more famous examples are the two journalists Centanni and Wiig kidnapped by Islamic Palestinians' Holy Jihad Brigades and were forced to convert to Islam at gun point.[4] [5] NPR asks if a Forced Conversion to Islam is "Valid" [6]. J. Glazov writes that it is embedded within Islam [7]
The outrage in Pakistan over death of a Catholic boy Javed Anjum forced to convert to Islam at the hands of torturous abductors [8]
In Indonesia, leaders are troubled by the accounts of forced conversion to Islam [9], The Bacan-Seram islands [10]
In Egypt, Copt protest the case of the wife of a priest in a village who is rumoured to have been forced to convert to Islam [11]
It was reported in February 2007 that Hindu and Sikh organisations in the UK believe that young women of these faiths are being coerced by young men they meet at university into converting to Islam. The chief of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair attended a conference where the allegations were made. A spokeswoman for the police said: "We are aware of it as an issue that concerns the Hindu community but are not aware, without further research, of any specific incidents reported to police. We would encourage anyone who has been targeted in this way to seek help.[17]
[edit] Shinto
During its 1910-1945 colonization of Korea, Japan required Koreans to give up Christianity and install a kamidana in their homes.
[edit] References
- ^ Unearthing Bon Treasures
- ^ US Department of State
- ^ Christian Post
- ^ Grayzel, Solomon, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century, rev. ed., New York: Hermon, 1966, p. 103
- ^ [1]
- ^ Sir Thomas W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam
- ^ Marshall G. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam
- ^ Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples
- ^ Ira Lapidus, History of Islamic Societies
- ^ L.S. Starorianos, A Global History, the Human Heritage
- ^ [2] Islam Spread by the Sword? The Myth and The Reality]
- ^ Armstrong(1993), A History of God: from Abraham to the Present: the 4000-year Quest for God, pp.185
- ^ Levy-Rubin, M. "NEW EVIDENCE RELATING TO THE PROCESS OF ISLAMIZATION IN PALESTINE IN THE EARLY MUSLIM PERIOD THE CASE OF SAMARIA", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 43(3), 257--276, 2000, Springer
- ^ Fattal, A.(1958) Le statut légal des non-Musulman en pays d'Islam, (Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique), pp. 72-73
- ^ Lewis (1984), pp. 17, 18, 94, 95
- ^ BBC News on-line 7 March 2007
- ^ Times Online
