Something we have taken for granted for many years in the West is the fact that we have, more or less, been able to live in peace with people of very different background. This is a historical anomaly, and is not how it is in most cultures. Indeed, especially where Christians and Muslims live together, there is regular violence because of the inherent differences between the religions coupled with the fact that Islam defines peace only in terms of submission to its will- no conversion, no peace.
Martyrdom and persecution are real and still happen on account of being a Christian, especially in Muslim areas. This story comes from Uganda, where a Christian man was murdered and his daughter raped by his Muslim neighbor because he “insulted Islam”:
She said she was beaten and raped on April 19 and found unconscious in a pool of blood that evening in Kanginima village, having been attacked by three Muslim men.
“We shall kill you today because you are the one who made our sheikh to be imprisoned,” one of the men said to her, she told Morning Star News from her hospital bed.
The woman, whose identity has not been revealed, was present when her father was killed, but managed to escape.
I was able to identify the sheikh because we are neighbours, and my father had been questioning him about the Islamic faith not leading one to salvation with God,” she said.
“The sheikh had said to him, ‘You have no respect of our religion, and we have come for your life today.’ They started strangling my father as well as hitting him on the head with a big stick. When my father fell down, I managed to escape through the window.”
Ibrahim was arrested along with two other suspects on January 29, but the other two were released after the woman was unable to identify them. Ibrahim is still being held in a cell in Kamuge.