Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians Read Free

by those sources. Moreover, even when stories are reported, the facts are often articulated in a way that minimizes the religious element of the persecution—to conform to the secular script of the Western mainstream media, which is largely blind to the influence of religion in current events.
    One must look elsewhere for the full picture. Fortunately there are a number of alternative media outlets and human rights organizations that report on the sufferings of Christians around the world. Most of these are little known. However, after following their work for years and becoming acquainted with several of their journalists around the Muslim world, I can testify that their work is first-rate. World Watch Monitor (formerly Compass Direct News), the media component of Open Doors, is one of the most authoritative sources on the sufferings of Christians, with reporters spread out around the world. So is International Christian Concern. There are also local news services that offer good coverage of certain regions. For the Near East, Egypt in particular, the Assyrian International News Agency is a good source for objective reports (most of which are easily verified by comparison with open Arabic sources). Readers are encouraged to follow the endnotes to the many anecdotes listed in this book for links to some of the most reliable English-language websites covering Christian persecution around the world.
    Even so, a great many instances of persecution simply never make it onto any English-language media at all. There are just too many incidents to keep up with—not to mention that some nations are especially inhospitable to Western journalists. On top of that, many Western journalists are at best uninterested in Muslim persecution of Christians. Even some big stories widely reported in the Muslim world never make it into English. For example, it was left to me to first translate and disseminate the assertion by Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches” in the Arabian Peninsula. 2
    I routinely get my stories straight from the source. I follow the Arabic-language media and can often verify stories via my many contacts and colleagues in the Middle East. Many of the reports that appear in this book—including the entire section on the Maspero Massacre, which initially was woefully misreported by the Western media—were identified, verified, and translated by me directly from Arabic sources. In many cases I have augmented reports appearing in Western media with more information and details from Arabic media as well as providing fresh translations of some important doctrinal and historical texts.
    The fact is that knowledge of Arabic opens a new world of information concerning such important and strategic nations as Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Readers are encouraged to visit my website, RaymondIbrahim.com , where I regularly translate breaking news from the Arab world—not just on Christian persecution but on Islamic affairs in general—and put it in context. I also maintain a “Muslim Persecution of Christians” tab on my website and produce a monthly report by the same name, which offers the very latest news on the sufferings of Christians under Islam, most of it reported only in alternate and foreign media.
    A final question remains to be addressed: Why focus on Muslim persecution of Christians? After all, Christians are being persecuted around the entire world—in North Korea, for example—and not just in the Islamic world. Why focus exclusively on the sufferings of Christians under Islam? The fact is, while it is true that Christians are also being persecuted in non-Muslim countries, the lion’s share of the persecution happens in Muslim countries. But there is another important point: Muslim persecution is much more existential and deeply rooted in Muslim societies. The persecution of Christians in other, mostly communist, nations is very real. It should