bestcurrentnews 2024 Ramadan Prayer

Christian Persecution

Each year, we typically write at least one article during Ramadan to address Christian persecution worldwide. Why address Christian persecution during Ramadan? This is because approximately 84% of the absolute worst persecution of Christians takes place in the name of Islam.

Open Doors maintains a World Watch List ranking the top 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. More than 365 million Christians around the world suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith, 295,120 Christians were forced to leave their homes, and 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked.

Worldwide, one in seven Christians (14%) is persecuted. On the continent of Africa, that number rises to one in five (20%), and in Asia, two in five or 40% of Christians are persecuted. 

Nine of the top ten nations where Christians face severe persecution are Muslim nations where believers in Christ are a small minority. Christians are falsely accused of blasphemy, young Christian girls are often abducted and forced to convert to Islam, and displaying their faith could cost them their lives. 

The top Islamic nations for Christian persecution are Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, and Nigeria (where more Christians are killed for their faith than all the other countries combined). The remaining countries include Yemen, Eritrea, Libya, and Somalia. 

The number one nation for Christian persecution that is not Muslim is North Korea. It is a secular country where the punishment of Christians is severe and where having a Bible will send you to a prison work camp, or you will be killed.

PRAYER

All of us who live in nations where we practice our faith freely are truly blessed! Thank God!

Muslim persecution is done by those who have believed the lie about Christians, and they think they are doing their god’s will. 

  • Pray for the Christians who are daily faced with fear and persecution, asking God to send forth His angels to strengthen, protect, and deliver them.
  • Pray for the persecutors (individual Muslims, Islamic leaders, and nations) who are deceived, and just as our Lord did with Saul, who became the Apostle Paul, bring them a dramatic encounter with the living Christ, resulting in their salvation.
bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

I am Iraqi, I am Christian

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day 28As Christians and Muslims gathered in a Baghdad church on Sunday afternoon, Manhal Younis cried and said, “I can’t feel my identity as an Iraqi Christian.” The woman next to her in the pew, a Muslim, reached out to her and whispered, “You are the true original people here, and we are sorry for what has been done to you in the name of Islam.”

Approximately two hundred Muslims attended a rally in Baghdad to show their solidarity with the thousands of Christians who have been forced to flee from Mosul. Some of the Muslims marked themselves with the Arabic letter “N” for “Nazarene” or Christian. Both Muslims and Christians held up signs that read, “I am Iraqi, I am Christian.” The event had been organized through social media that day before, and following the rally an online video was posted on Facebook showing Christian and Muslim participants holding up their signs and singing the Iraqi national anthem.

A Muslim law professor, Mahmoud Al-Asali, lost his life for standing up against the abuse and murder of Christians in Mosul. ISIS militants in Mosul killed him.

Arabic-Nazarene
The Arabic letter “N” used to show solidarity with persecuted Iraqi Christians.

As the grip of the terrorist group ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), also known as the Islamic State has tightened, the militants demanded that all Christians in the city convert to Islam, pay the jizya (a tax for non-Muslims), leave the city, or die. Ankawa.com reported the option to pay the jizya and stay in the city was taken away so Christians were forced to either leave their homes or convert to Islam.

ISIS used the Arabic letter, “N” to tag the homes of Christians. Those fleeing Mosul described how once the group tagged their homes, then later entered the homes taking whatever they wanted and using them as ISIS property. Some families leaving Mosul were harassed and robbed of money, jewelry and documents at checkpoints set up by ISIS, and there were reports that women had crucifixes torn from their necks as they left. One man attempting to escape with his elderly mother was forced to give the militants his car and her medicine, so he carried his mother on his back to safety.

The number of Christians in Mosul had dwindled from over 30,000 in 2003 to just a few thousand, however after the ISIS threat, it is believed that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world is now completely devoid of Christians.

Since the rally on Sunday, thousands have joined together on Twitter to express their solidarity with persecuted Christians in Iraq by using the hastag, “#WeAreN.” The Church of England and others around the world are showing their support by changing their pictures on their social media pages to the Arabic “N.”

Prayer Points:

Showing solidarity brings hope to Iraqi Christians who have been forced out of their homes. Pray that Muslims in Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations will stand up and resist the evil being done to Christians in their community; people they have worked with and who were neighbors and friends.

In addition to showing solidarity, pray for these Christians and all those who are being severely persecuted in Iraq – that God will overwhelm them with His grace, meet their daily needs and give them hope.

Pray the prayer of King David found in Psalm 55:9 over ISIS (radical Islamic group persecuting the Christians and making them convert to Islam or die). “Confuse them Lord, and frustrate their plans, for I see violence and strife in the city.”

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 20 – Christians – An Endangered Species

2013 Ramadan PrayerOmar M. Ahmad, former leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was quoted in 1998 as saying, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” He has since claimed that he never made the statement, however the reporter and editor that first published the story continue to be quite certain that he did.

Regardless, simply by an examination of the trilogy of Islamic texts and an observation of the history of the Middle East, it is clear this idea of Islamic supremacy exists and has thus far triumphed. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than with the Christian population of the Middle East.

During the last nine years of Muhammad’s life, he and his followers averaged one act of violence every six weeks. Immediately after Muhammad’s death in 632, the first major conquest of Islam occurred in Arabia. These were known as the “Ridda Wars” or Wars of Apostasy. According to historical accounts, tens of thousands of Arabs were attacked and forced to re-submit to Islam. After conquering Arabia, Islam conquered Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire. All of North Africa, Spain, central Asia and India were all brought under Islamic control by the early 8th century. Overall Islam murdered over 60 million Christians since Islam began its conquest of the non-Muslim world.

The incredible growth of the Islamic world eventually slowed, and in 1856 the Ottomans (leaders of the Islamic caliphate), under pressure from European powers issued a decree that said non-Muslims should be treated equally and given the freedom to worship.

In 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Islamic caliphate and brought in reforms to modernize Turkey including giving women the right to vote, adopting the Western (Gregorian) calendar rather than the Islamic calendar, and requiring the Islamic call to prayer and public readings of the Qur’an to be done in Turkish rather than Arabic.

Following the abolishment of the caliphate, the non-Muslim world experienced a time of relative peace until fundamental Islamists began to gain power and reassert themselves beginning at an accelerated pace in the 1970s.

The result of this acceleration is a disappearance of Christianity in the Middle East. In 1900, twenty percent of the Middle East was Christian.  Today, it is estimated that less than 2% of the region is Christian. The number of Christians currently under assault range from 100 to 200 million, and forty-two of the top fifty countries persecuting Christians either have a Muslim majority or a sizeable Muslim population.

In Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia, a strict sharia adherent nation, converting to a religion other than Islam is punishable by death. Prior to the war in Syria, Christians lived peacefully in the nation, but in a civil war that has claimed more than 93,000 lives, rebel forces often made up of foreign radical Islamists have killed thousands and forced tens of thousands of Christians to flee. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said, “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year…Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.”

Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute estimates that if religious discrimination is included as part of the persecution of Christians, there are 600 to 700 million Christians. Persecution can range from a loss of life to a loss of livelihood. Secular media outlets in the western world for the most part completely ignore persecution of Christians in part because they fail to perceive the religious root of much of the persecution.

Prayer Points:

Pray for a shift and an awakening for agencies such as the United Nations to not support regimes and nations that are guilty of religious persecution.

Evidence shows that with civil wars and persecution of Christians, 150,000 to 160,000 are martyred every year. Pray for the protection of the persecuted church and imprisoned believers around the world.

Ask God to enlighten Christian leaders and cause them to unite and insist upon action by western governments to stop the slaughter of Christians around the world.