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Here is an article of mine that was published at ChronWatch.com in July 2008 titled: Stealth Islamic Inroads Into Our Culture. It is as relevant today as it was almost two years ago.
An Islamic conference just concluded this Sunday in Toronto. The organizers called it Journey of Faith. What is a lay Torontonian supposed to think about this title? Evangelical Christians are viewed suspiciously. But when a full-blown Islamic event, clearly present to proselytize, descends upon Toronto, even subway advertizers oblige with giant posters promoting the event.
I don't think an Islamic invasion, whether by stealth or by war, is far-fetched any more. Geert Wilders certainly believes it is possible. Here is another article of mine Christian Tolerance, Islamic Jihad, which describes the gradual, stealthy inroads that Muslims and Islam made into the ancient Christian kingdom of Ethiopia in the 16th century, until they orchestrated a take-over of the country. Despite the devastation, Ethiopians eventually defeated the Muslims, and lived to tell the tale, continuing with their Christian heritage.
"Stealth", by the way, is a word coined by Robert Spencer, who used it together with Jihad in a book he wrote: Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam Is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. In this book, he describes how Muslims infiltrate, slowly and meticulously, the predominant institutions of the land, and eventually convert the society to Islam. This happened 1,000 years ago and is happening now in our own century. This is what Wilders is battling against in the Netherlands, where the infiltration there, and in Europe in general, has reached the turning point, and Muslims have started mandating laws and rules according to their own religion and religious laws. They may or may not use violence, depending on the success of their stealth.
One spectacular stealth-turned-war is Islam in Ethiopia. Christian Ethiopians, for a variety of reasons including Christian piety (all people are equal under God), and a certain complacency, allowed Muslims to infiltrate the land. By the 15th century, Ethiopian Muslims, Muslim tributaries of Ethiopia, and foreign-led Muslim armies consolidated their efforts to eventually invade the country. This fifty-year occupation temporarily devastated the Christian civilization. But, the Emperors, in hiding with their religious leaders, eventually staged a come-back, and regained the land and the religion. I deal with this in another article Christian Tolerance, Islamic Jihad.
Not many stories have such happy endings. Egypt, the former Coptic nation, is now steeped in Islamic culture. India is in a constant battle with its Muslim residents. Europe may now have a spark of hope under the leadership of Geert Wilders, but Muslims will never tire. Even in Ethiopia, nothing is static. Muslims are constantly pushing forward.
Here in Canada, we have the main television channel of the country, the CBC, promoting a Muslim show in its prime time slot, called Little Mosque on the Prairie. I wrote about this in an article titled: How "Little Mosque on the Prairie" Is Aiming at Our Souls, and the article was published both at Chronwatch.com and at the American Thinker. The stealthy infiltration of Islam is a fact of our modern life. Weaknesses in our system, for example: The rampart multiculturalism that is promoted and celebrated in Canada; the atheism of many former Christians; and the immigration policies that don't discriminate against Christianity's avowed enemies, allow Muslims and Islam to grow unabated in our societies.
The eerie culmination of these observations I made is the Islamic conference that I mentioned above, that took place this past week-end in Toronto. It was matter-of-fact, despite it clearly tremendous ambitions. This year is a peaceful conference. What happens a few years down the road?