November 2014 – The world’s attention is now fixed on an army of radical Muslim jihadists going by the name Islamic State – or the acronym ISIS – that threatens the stability of the Middle East. They have also threatened to destroy the West, including the United States, and subject it to Islamic law. That threat is more bluster than a real possibility, but for Christians in the Middle East, the barbarism of ISIS is terrifyingly real. This summer, horrific news filtered out of the Middle East that ISIS was not only obliterating a collapsed Iraqi military, but also brutalizing the civilian populations in ISIS-controlled territories.

According to a recentstory released by Assist News, ISIS leaders were massacring men and capturing Assyrian Christian women and girls, along with women from other religious minorities. The women and girls were systematically being raped in order to shame them, and then they were being forced to convert to Islam. They were sold to ISIS soldiers and forced to marry them.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS forces consider these women to be “slaves of the spoils of war with the infidels.”

One Iraqi Christian refugee told the BBC his harrowing tale of when ISIS took the Christian city of Qaraqosh: “We fled last night, actually at 3 a.m. in the morning,” the man said, adding, “They took the women. They raped them. They are selling them. … [T]hey are selling them! What century are we in?”

Conquest by the sword
Indeed, what century is this? When Islam erupted from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, it did so as a religious force that spread by the sword. 

In his book The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy, terrorism and Middle East expert Walid Phares said Islam conquered in response to a powerful marching order: “Bring all peoples under the word of Allah.” The adherents of the nascent faith believed the entire world was destined to submit to the rule of Allah and the message of the Prophet Mohammed.

It seemed as if it would come to pass. During that century and into the next, Islam conquered some of the most Christianized lands on earth – the Middle East, Northern Africa and much of Asia Minor. It subsequently spread through Persia into India. It was establishing a caliphate – a transnational “house of Islam” controlled by a “caliph,” a successor to Mohammed. Everyone under the banner of Islam was to be ruled by Islamic law.

During this time of Muslim conquest, it is true that some towns simply surrendered – willingly. But they hardly had any choice. The Muslim armies consisted mostly of Arabs – notoriously ferocious fighters and brilliant strategists. They would give the desperate populations of towns and cities three choices: 1) convert to Islam; 2) submit to Muslim rule and pay the jizya, a tax that relegated them to second class status; or 3) death. 

Resurgence
There are many analysts who believe that what ISIS represents – as well as other Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah – is a resurgent movement intent on finishing what Islam failed to accomplish in its earlier permutation.

After all, ISIS leaders have claimed that they have already reestablished the caliphate.

Raymond Ibrahim, Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and author of the book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, said in a Fox News opinion piece, “We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.”

If they haven’t already, Christians in the West need to face the truth: A virulent form of Islam has arisen in the Middle East and the very existence of the Christian faith in that region is at stake.

Worldwide pressure
Christianity is under tremendous pressure around the world outside the West. Open Doors (opendoorsusa.org), an international aid group that supports persecuted Christians, said that its study findings indicate that 80% of all people worldwide who are persecuted for their religion are Christians. Researcher Andrew Harrod says the number comes to “some 100 million people in all.”

The persecution of Christians is not limited to the Middle East, of course. In the western African nation of Mali, for example, 200,000 Christians fled after an Islamist coup in 2012, Ibrahim said. He cited reports from the region that indicate that “the church in Mali faces being eradicated.” Islamists have looted and destroyed churches and the property of Christians, along with torturing and murdering believers.

In Pakistan, Christian attendees of All Saints’ Church were targeted by two suicide bombers from a Taliban faction. The blasts killed more than 85 and injured more than 100 others.

Nor is the persecution of Christianity limited to Muslim nations. North Korea is the number one persecutor of Christians, according to Open Doors. The church in China has also faced intermittent and regional hostility for decades. And hostility against Christians in India, a majority Hindu country, has grown.

But as noted by the Jerusalem Post’s Ariel Ben Solomon, after North Korea, the next nine top persecutors on the Open Doors list were Islamic: Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen.

Other studies come to the same conclusion. A report from Pew Research Center issued at the beginning of the year categorized every nation in terms of its posture toward religion. As noted by Ibrahim, of the 24 countries Pew categorized as having “very high government restrictions on religion,” 20 of them are Islamic. 

Flight of Christians
The Middle East, however, is notable for the extent and virulence of the persecution.

Chaldean bishop Shlemon Warduni told the Assyrian International News Agency that ISIS “is ruthless and merciless,” and that the Islamist forces “are trying to rip our roots from the ground.”

For Christians in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the region, those roots are 2,000 years old.

Todd Daniels, an official for International Christian Concern, called the persecution of Christians in the Middle East an “existential threat.”

“We are witnessing the emptying of Christians from their homelands,” Daniels told the Catholic site Asia News.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented, and it’s increasing year by year.” The commission said Christians might disappear altogether from the Middle East within the next several decades.

The numbers don’t lie. When the 20th century began, Christians were 10% of the population. Today it is only 4%, according to the Economist. While some of that decline might be explained by differences in birthrates between Muslims and Christians, many experts believe persecution plays the largest role.

Even in countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, where Christians have long felt they were allowed to practice their faith without fear, the tide may be turning. 

“The community is fearful, because we look around and realize that the West doesn’t care about protecting us,” Adeeb Awad, a church official in Lebanon, told the Economist. “No one will.” 

What is transpiring is clearly a pogrom – an attempt to drive Christians out of Muslim lands or exterminate them if they refuse. 

“All around the Islamic world – in nations that do not share the same race, language, culture or economics, in nations that share only Islam – Christians are being persecuted into extinction,” Ibrahim said. “Such is the true face of extremist Islamic resurgence.” (Emphasis in original.)

What century are we in? For many Christians, it feels more like the 7th century than the 21st.  

Learn about, pray for  the persecuted church
AFA has often partnered with Voice of the Martyrs to publicize the plight of persecuted believers around the world.