The story of ‘Accelerated Conversion’ and some afterthoughts

 

By Syed Kamran Mirza 

New York City, USA

[email protected]

 

Quite often especially when Islamists are in awkward situation, or when their self-esteems are in a pile of loose sands—they immediately start some ludicrous propaganda that many non-Muslims are converting to Islam.  This is far from the truth.  They even make some fictitious stories that Islam’s glory is attracting peoples to Islam, just like insects to the fire, notwithstanding the dire consequences that normally follows.  Therefore, “don’t worry my dear Muslims, Islam is of course a true Allah’s religion, etc etc.”  Islamists pretend to say this kind of thing to impress upon the newly converts.  Why this renewed surge of same old propaganda?  Because, September 11 has brought a deluge of hatreds/wrath to the religion Islam from other believers and non-believers alike.  Throughout the whole world, Islam as a religion has been identified as the most cynical oppressor and the enemy of the modern-day civilization.  As the Rev. Franklin Graham (son of Rev. Billy Graham) said, “Islam is the most evil and wicked religion on earth.”  Religion Islam almost becomes the synonym for the terrorists.  We are sick and tired of hearing repeatedly the most frequently uttered phrases such as:  “Islamic Terrorists,” or “Islamic militants.”  Muslims in general are terribly embarrassed and ashamed in front of the civilized world.  Therefore, they are trying to recuperate and find some comforts by making stories of so-called “Accelerated conversion.”  “ Here you go,” they claim, “there has been a surge in conversions to Islam since September 11…”  The question is: what attracts people to embrace Islam after all this horrendous act of unthinkable terrorism by some devoted Islamists?  Was it the great beauty of merciful Islamic destruction of WTC?  Or, is it that the world must have gone crazy?

 

This story (NFB January 8, 2002) of conversion of a British young girl to Islam may be a hoax, or may be a true case of personal choice of religion.  How can one verify this news?  And why should anybody bother about it?  Few weeks ago (after the Sept. 11), we read the news of conversion of Actor Willie Smith to Islam.  Later, this was found to be a hoax!  This reminds me of Neil Armstrong story in which the famous astronaut heard the sound of Azan in the outer space.  Another news we read in this forum that after seeing the great strength (Sept.11 destruction) and “Mazeza” of peaceful Islam, the Italian Ambassador in Saudi Arabia has converted to Islam.  Later we learned that, this Italian Ambassador was actually converted to Islam in 1964 while he was in Jerusalem.  Then, why this news was coming now?  This is the right time to rejuvenate Islam’s lost vigor and prestige by some Islamic hoaxes!  What do you know?

 

Other baseless “hoaxes” previously available in the market were:  Neil Armstrong, Jaques Cousteau, Michael Jackson, Maurice Bucaille, King Offa of England  and, Mike Tyson, they all became Muslim.  Christian apologists discovered wreckage of Noah’s ark in turkey, Prophet Muhammad’s name on a piece of wood from Noah’s ark (found in Russia), and Prophet Muhammad’s name fore-told in Hindu Scriptures.  ALL THESE WERE SIMPLY BOGUS CLAIMS BY WISHFUL MULLAHS.  Unfortunately, they get involved in spreading these concocted stories, which are mostly rubbish anyway, only to mislead gullible folks of which we have so many in this world.

 

In South Asian countries, especially in Bangladesh, “rumors/hoaxes” are frequently used to cheat ordinary peoples, to stimulate ‘pir’ bebosha, Tabiz bebosha and, to solidify the faith of believers.  For the same vested purposes, rumors are generated almost weekly such as:  Allah and Rasul’s names printed in: Tomato, Lau (kadu), piece of meat, over the eggshell, over a fish, etc. etc.  Surprisingly, there are no shortages of people who actually believe in this garbage.

 

Admittedly, conversions from one religion to another religion occur throughout the world for various personal reasons and it is a normal phenomenon among the believers.

Christianity and Islam are the two monotheistic religions that allow conversion.

In the Middle East, many Muslims do convert to Christianity.  However, Muslim’s conversion to Christianity never get to the news media for fear of being apostate and killed by the “merciful” Islamists.  People convert to a religion for various reasons, such as, economic supports, for mental spiritual satisfaction, and even for marital purposes.  Everyday, throughout the Third World countries, Christian missionaries are busily converting tens of thousands of poor/destitute peoples.  Does it make the Christian religion great?  Thousands of peoples did convert to Jim John’s cultic religion in the seventies; thousands of Japanese people converted to a dangerous cultic religion Supreme Truth; and a crazy man like David Koresh was able to brainwash thousands of his followers to die for his brand of religion.  Is the conversion to certain religion/faith makes that faith great?  The big question is, does conversion spree a ‘litmus test’ for a good, or a true religion.  I don’t think so!  If this were correct, then China’s Falun Gong would be the fastest growing and the best religion in the entire world right now.

 

Perhaps some of the readers may remember those two young American “born-again” Christian ladies, who went to the far away land of Afghanistan to preach Christianity.  These two young ladies were school dropout, misguided drug addict in their early teens and they were spoiled children of the family.  Then they suddenly heard Jesus was calling them.  Jesus knocked their heart, not just the door as Allah of Islam knocked at the door of that young British lady.  These two born-again Christians were about to see the Talibani magic of Afghanistan.  They would face the sure death by stoning by those robust looking bearded Talibans by chanting “Allah-Hu-Akbar” somewhere near the Afghan stony mountain.  However, they were most lucky; Taliban just could not get enough time to do the Islamic justice because of the Ababil birds (B-52) of infidel America.  These “erudite” American neo-Christians thought it differently.  They rather thought it was Jesus who rescued them from the hands of Taliban.  The truth is only Jesus knows well what would happened to them—had there been no war broke out at this time, or had there been no B-52 arrived there with 15,000 pounds ‘Daisy Cutter’ bomb!

 

This writer will be the last person to deny that Islam already has 1.2 billion followers.  Honestly, does Islam need more followers?  Does the number really matters?  Christianity has over 2 billions followers, almost double the number of Islam.  Does it make Christianity a better religion than Islam or any other religions?  Judaism has only a few millions (maximum of 10 millions).  Can we claim that Judaism is a worse religion than Islam or Christianity?  Can we say that, Muslim Ummah (community) is more prosperous than Jewish Community because Muslims are more numerous?  Then, why the number of conversion is so important news to us?  Is it our weakness or our strength? 

 

Does the number of supporters really matter?  A few century ago the entire world believed the Earth to be flat and Sun rotates East to West to give light to the earth.  Only one or two human being did not believe the earth to be flat.  Who were right eventually, those billions of ignorant peoples or those one or two scientists?  The mouth full claim of billion Muslims does not make much sense to me.  How many of these billion people have the knowledge of Koran and Hadiths? 

 

What about those millions of moderate Muslims who are reconsidering their faith after the heinous task of Sep 11 perpetrated by some devout and true Muslims?  Many moderate Muslim-origin Americans even feel tremendously ashamed and embarrassed to identify themselves as Muslims.  Many moderate or not so strong believers of Muslim descent are trying to hide their identity in the west, or many even declared that they are no longer Muslims.  Many youngsters at their early twenties from Muslim background are actively changing their names.  The other day in a social gathering, some young men of Muslim origin were declaring very vocally that, they are going to remove some portion of their names.  That is they will get rid of “Muhammad, Ahmed, Rahman, Islam, etc.” from their names.  I read some news in some Bengali weekly papers in which some adult Muslims declared that they have removed the prefix: Muhammad, Ahmed or Islam from their names.  Most of all, what benefit do we achieve by getting some erratic human beings (some young whites, or some black prisoners) converted to Islam?  Who counts those Muslims, who either convert themselves to Christianity or just give up their faith in Islam silently?  Do we still have something left to be proud about Islam?  Let us not delude ourselves thinking that Islam is still the greatest religion of Peace.  The action of 9-11 by the Arab terrorists in NYC and Washington DC have exposed the true color of Islam.  Truth has a peculiar way of emerging out from the sealed bag.  No amount of testimonials from all the Mullahs of the world could undo the damage done by those 19 young men from Arabic speaking nations of the world.  And that’s for sure!  

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

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