Joseph, I was curious if you were Muslim. Davao has a lot of Muslims there I think.
I'm Christian and work among the Muslim community in Davao and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Davao City, where we are based, has a Muslim population of only around 10%, while the coastal province areas and islands found in the Sulu Archipelago that we work in have Muslim populations of between 90 and 97%.
I'll just say my points are common in the Muslim world and these things are not common outside of the Muslim world... Of course there are freaks that overreact and do crazy things. This happens everywhere. Mental illness is definitely a thing.
In Egypt, where incidents of female genital mutilation are almost equal between Christians and Muslims, the Christian mothers that allow this to be done to their daughters are mentally ill, while the Muslim mothers are doing it because they are followers of Islam. A Christian mother does this to her daughter in the United States and a Somali mother does the same, the American Christian is a freak, while the Somali Muslim did it because of her religion.
When a Christian or Hindu kills someone for leaving their religion, they are mentally ill, but when a Muslim does it, it's because they follow Islam.
A Christian man in Chad with multiple wives, where more Christians than Muslims practice polygamy, is a freak, while the Muslim man doing the same in that country is doing it because he follows Islam.
Do the above statements sound like fair assessments between Muslims and non-Muslims?
I'll just say my points are common in the Muslim world and these things are not common outside of the Muslim world. And the whole topic is about helping Muslims that have converted to Christianity (in the western world) stay strong in their faith. Of course there are freaks that overreact and do crazy things. This happens everywhere. Mental illness is definitely a thing. The point is it's highly rare. But in the Muslim world its very, very common.
Polygamy (Rare among Muslims): Fewer than 1% of Muslim men in Indonesia (242,700,000 Muslims), Pakistan (233,000,000), Bangladesh (150,800,000), Egypt (90,000,000), Iran (82,500,000), Afghanistan (37,025,000), and Saudi Arabia (31,535,000) live in polygamous households. The percentage is higher in some Sub-Sahara African countries, but the Muslim populations of those countries are much lower and polygamy is practiced in similar numbers by non-Muslims.
Female genital mutilation (Practiced by Muslims and non-Muslims alike):
- 90% of Egyptian women have been circumcised. The practice is common among Muslim as well as Christian families in Egypt and other African countries, but is rare in the Arab world.
- Eritrea, 98% of Muslim women have undergone FGM, but 88% of Catholic women have also undergone it, as have 84% of women belonging to other religious communities.
- Similarly, in Mali, 89% of Muslim women, 84% of Christian women and 86% of animist women have undergone the practice. (UNICEF, 2013)
- In Niger, Tanzania and Nigeria, FGM is more widespread in Christian communities than in any other religious group.
- In Niger, more than 50% of the girls and women who have undergone the practice are Christian and Muslim women account for only a few percent (UNICEF, 2013).
- In Burkina Faso, religion is not used to justify the practice of FGM, which is practiced within all religious communities. (copfgm.org)
Child marriage (Practiced by Muslims and non-Muslims alike):
Top 10 countries with the highest absolute numbers of child marriage.
- 222,400,000 India
- 43,400,000 Bangladesh
- 36,700,000 China
- 32,100,000 Indonesia
- 23,700,000 Nigeria
- 21,900,000 Brazil
- 20,500,000 Pakistan
- 19,900,000 Ethiopia
- 10,400,000 Mexico
- 10,400,000 Iran (girlsnotbrides.org)
Killed for leaving Islam (Rare): There are no verses in the Qur'an that call for death for apostates, and Hadith narrations that mention apostasy do not show that death is a punishment for apostates. It is, however, for those apostates who commit treason or start a rebellion against the Muslim ummah. Even in countries that have a death penalty for apostasy, those charged are rarely put to death.
There's no denying that many ex-Muslims experience social pressure, threats of violence, or even death for leaving Islam, most of this is only verbal abuse and rarely evolves to a point of becoming physical. And while there are reports of Muslims being killed for converting to Christianity or leaving the faith reported in any given year (dozens? maybe 100), the number is miniscule when compared to the hundreds of thousands of Muslims that are leaving Islam each year.