by Raymond Ibrahim
"Posters on the fences of the Christian and Alawite city of Tartus in Syria: Either you immediately change your religion from Christian to Muslim and convert to Islam, or you pay protection and tribute fees with your lives." — X, May 20, 2025 -- Syria
"This is not a farmer-herder clash. It is a genocidal campaign. Our communities are being wiped out methodically. The international community must not remain silent." — Dr. Joshua Riti, a local administrator, persecution.org, May 25, 2025 - Nigeria
"Typically, kidnapped girls... some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their 'legal wives.'" — Morning Star News, May 28, 2025 – Pakistan
Despite fierce opposition from Pakistan's top Islamic authority and other Islamist groups, on May 29, President Asif Ali Zardari, signed into law a landmark bill banning child marriage, setting the minimum age for marriage for both genders at 18 years, but only in the Islamabad Capital Territory, not the entire country.
"Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion... It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence." — Morning Star News, May 27, 2025
That there are so many "accidental" fires of churches in Egypt suggests one of two things: either the extremists have...become more sophisticated... in their attacks on churches... or else Coptic Christians, for some inexplicable reason, have become the most careless, fire-prone people in the world: more Coptic churches than any other kind seem to keep "accidentally catching fire."
A Christian woman managed to record the savage destruction and arson the Muslims carried out. (She was ordered by State Security to remove the video, which she did; some copies, however, evaded censorship.) — Egypt
This is hardly the first time in Berlin that Muslims target and attack people for being Christian. — Germany
"Posters on the fences of the Christian and Alawite city of Tartus in Syria: Either you immediately change your religion from Christian to Muslim and convert to Islam, or you pay protection and tribute fees with your lives. Unknown individuals are distributing posters throughout the city, and at the end it is written: All religions are infidels, and only Islam is the true religion." — X, May 20, 2025 -- Syria
"We live like refugees in our own country." — Monsignor Najeeb, Assyrian International News Agency, May 29, 2025, -- Iraq
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of May 2025.
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: In the opening days of May, Muslim Fulani militants killed six Christians in Plateau State. "They hacked dead three Christians... and injured four others," said a local, adding that their aim is "to drive away Christian victims of terror." A pastor warned of "a grand design... to wipe out more than 200 Christian communities." The same report notes that over 3,100 Nigerian Christians were murdered last year.
On May 7, Fulani herdsmen killed two Christians in central Nigeria, "after killing 10 others in the same area the previous month."
On May 12, the Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, killed two Christian educational workers near an army base.
On May 14, Fulani militias killed eight more Christians and destroyed over 740 acres of farmland in Plateau State. Survivors described midnight attacks on sleeping families, with homes burned and crops trampled.
On May 24, Muslim herdsmen slaughtered 42 people in three Christian communities in Taraba state.
On that same day, Fulani terrorists shot and left a Catholic priest for dead before kidnapping his companions. Seriously wounded, he survived.
Although the Fulani are often presented as non-extremist herdsmen driven to seek new lands due to climate change, according to an International Freedom or Belief report,
"They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity."
"This is not a farmer-herder clash. It is a genocidal campaign," said Dr. Joshua Riti, a local administrator after the May 14 attack. "Our communities are being wiped out methodically. The international community must not remain silent."
Mozambique: A May 12 report notes that Islamic extremists are intensifying their attacks against Christians, including beheadings, kidnappings, arson, and church burnings. More than 349 people were killed in 2024, a 36% rise from last year. "Many Christians are suffering," a local priest said.
Indonesia: On May 19, five Muslim boys aged between 11 and 13 savagely beat and kicked an 8-year-old boy known for his Christian faith, church attendance, and biblical knowledge. He died soon after. Previously, they would bully the child, known only by the initials, "KB," but on that day, the beating was so bad that he arrived home hunched over in pain. When his parents learned what happened, they went to school and met with the principal. When he called in the bullies for a meeting, they confessed. According to KB's father,
"My child's stomach was kicked, that's why it's swollen. The child doesn't want to eat rice and even vomits blood.... He was having difficulty breathing. On the way to the hospital, he was already having convulsions. His condition was terrible."
On May 26, the 8-year-old boy succumbed to his wounds. "He was my first child," his devastated father said. "He was a good and strong child.... I can't believe all of this. I feel like I'm dreaming."
Pakistan: On May 12, Muslims, including a former police officer, brutally tortured to death a Catholic laborer, Kashif Masih. The accusation: stealing a cell phone. Kashif's brother, Riyasat Masih, said the 35-year-old Christian had worked for former police inspector Malik Irfan for three years. At 2:30 a.m., Irfan's relatives raided their home, alleging theft, but "found nothing." Kashif, it turns out, had already been in Irfan's custody since May 11. By 5 a.m., neighbors found Kashif dumped in the street, "badly bruised with blood gushing out." Before dying, he told his family Irfan had accused him of theft and ordered seven men to "beat him till he confessed." They tortured him with clubs and iron bars, and hammered steel nails into his legs. "I cannot express the pain when I saw my younger brother's body," said Riyasat. "The bruise marks showed the brutality he had suffered at the hands of his influential employer and his goons." Though police were initially reluctant to file charges against a former officer, a Christian protest forced them to arrest Irfan. The other suspects remain free or out on bail. The report notes that Kashif's murder is not an isolated occurrence. On February 27, Muslims in Faisalabad shaved, blackened, and paraded a Christian man on a donkey for alleged wood theft. On June 6, 2024, a Muslim factory owner electrocuted 18-year-old Waqas Salamat to death for quitting his job.
Pakistani Rape and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls
On May 16, a judge in Lahore handed 16-year-old Catholic girl Jessica Iqbal back to her 32-year-old Muslim abductor, despite clear signs that she was coerced into claiming she had converted to Islam and married him. "My daughter couldn't recite the Kalima or answer any questions about Islam," said her father, Iqbal Masih. "It was obvious she had been forced—but the magistrate still let her go with her abductor." Jessica had been kidnapped on April 30 by their neighbor, Azeem Ullah. Masih immediately filed a police report, but Ullah was released within hours—and vanished three days later. In court, Jessica appeared terrified.
"She told us she was helpless... she feared for our lives," her father said. "Our lives are devastated. This mental anguish is killing me." Sohail Habil of HARDS Pakistan confirms the pattern:
"In 99% of these cases, girls are threatened into lying. The judge saw through it, and did nothing."
In Pakistan, this is common. Christian girls—some as young as 10—are abducted, raped, and forced into sham Islamic "marriages," often with judicial approval, the human activist added.
Separately, on May 27, Pakistan's top Islamic authority, the Council of Islamic Ideology, rejected and labeled a bill criminalizing child marriage as "un-Islamic." The bill—passed by the lower National Assembly on May 16 and the Senate on May 19—defines a child as anyone under 18 and criminalizes any marriage involving a minor. It equates marital cohabitation with minors to statutory rape, punishable by up to three years of rigorous imprisonment. The Muslim council also criticized the federal parliament for bypassing it during legislative review and argued that the bill's definitions and punishments contradict Islamic injunctions.
The "anti-Islamic" legislation also targets abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage, common abuses faced by Christian girls. According to one report, there is an urgent need for all these laws and measures:
"Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their 'legal wives.'"
Despite fierce opposition from Pakistan's top Islamic authority and other Islamist groups, on May 29, President Asif Ali Zardari, signed into law a landmark bill banning child marriage, setting the minimum age for marriage for both genders at 18 years, but only in the Islamabad Capital Territory, not the entire country.
Muslim Abuse of Apostates to Christianity
Somalia: From May 17 to 19, a young Somali man's brief return home ended in brutal rejection after his family discovered he had converted from Islam to Christianity. Once a drug addict, the 20-year-old found new life and sobriety through faith in Christ on April 20 after an underground Somali pastor shared the gospel with him. The family was initially "very excited and happy to see their son again smartly dressed and well groomed," the pastor recounted; but when they learned the source of his transformation, their mood quickly changed. They eventually began interrogating him, demanding he "pray the Islamic way." When he refused, his father said:
"You were better when you were performing prayers before receiving Issa [Jesus]. Now you have become worse. Leave this house and never come back."
Now homeless and ostracized, the young man laments the cruelty of those who once cared for him:
"My mother who used to be very lovely and friendly... has now turned against me and even denied me breakfast at home. Now that I have loved Issa, I do not have a family standing with me. I do not know what to do. I need prayers."
According to the Morning Star News,
"Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion... It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching."
Malaysia: On June 25, Malaysia's Court of Appeal ruled that only sharia courts may decide whether a person can leave Islam—reaffirming that civil courts have no authority in such matters. The case involved a 47-year-old man who converted to Islam in 2010 to marry a Muslim woman. After their divorce in 2015, he sought to return to Christianity, his original faith. He applied in 2016 to renounce Islam, but the sharia court rejected his request, ordering him instead to undergo "counselling sessions." A sharia appeals court upheld the decision.
After exhausting sharia options, the man turned to the civil courts, seeking recognition of his Christian identity. But the Court of Appeal dismissed his case, with Justice Nazlan Ghazali stating:
"We affirm that sharia courts have the exclusive jurisdiction to hear these cases and civil courts cannot interfere."
The court also ruled that the man had provided "insufficient" evidence to justify renouncing Islam, though he may reapply. This ruling underscores the near-total legal control sharia courts hold over personal faith in Malaysia, leaving Christian converts without recourse in civil law.
Muslims Attacks on Christian Churches and Cemeteries
Egypt: On Friday, May 2, a massive fire "broke out" at the St. George Church in Qift, Qena governorate. The entire church and its contents were engulfed by the flames. Although no casualties were reported, according to the report, St. George's "is an ancient church with a historical character and deep religious symbolism for the people of Qena Governorate. It holds a special place in everyone's hearts as a spiritual and cultural landmark that hosts numerous religious and social events annually." As usual, authorities quickly dismissed the fire as an "accident"—thereby adding it to the many other churches to "accidentally" catch fire in Egypt in recent months and year. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, for a few.)
In one month alone, August 2022, 11 churches supposedly "caught fire." In one of these fires, 41 Christian worshippers, including many children, were killed.) That there are so many "accidental" fires of churches in Egypt suggests one of two things: either the extremists have—possibly with insider help, including from state security—become more sophisticated and clandestine in their attacks on churches (in one instance, a surveillance camera caught a votary candle suddenly and randomly exploding and creating a fire), or else Coptic Christians, for some inexplicable reason, have become the most careless, fire-prone people in the world: more Coptic churches than any other kind seem to keep "accidentally catching fire." Moreover, if it is true that lit candles, faulty wires, and other electrical problems are behind this ongoing surge in church fires, why are "accidental" fires in mosques and Muslim prayer halls—which outnumber churches in Egypt by a ratio of 60 to 1—completely unheard of?
Indonesia: According to a May 9 report, for 45 years now, Catholics in Bulukumba have been denied a church due to repeated Muslim opposition, even though they have met all legal requirements. Forced to worship in homes and warehouses, they now use a temporary building.
In separate incidents, between May 16 to 19, more than a dozen Christian graves across three cemeteries in Yogyakarta's Special Region, which is 93% Islamic, were vandalized, shocking the local Christian community. Many crosses, both wooden and stone, were broken or desecrated. On May 21, a male junior high school student was arrested. Although authorities insisted that he was "unaffiliated with a particular group or ideology," and "suffered from a mental disorder," Pastor Putu Praba Darana begged to differ: "I think there is a religious sentiment element in this case." Nor is this an isolated incident. As the Morning Star News notes,
"Vandalism and desecration of Christian graves in the area first occurred in December 2018, when the top of a cross at the gravesite of a Catholic, Albertus Slamet Sugiardi, was cut into a T shape... In addition to removing any Catholic symbols from the cemetery, the community expressed a desire to designate it exclusively for Muslims."
France: After stating that 58 Christian graves were desecrated with Islamist graffiti, including the slogans "Submit to Allah" and "France belongs to Allah," a May 23 post states,
"Such attacks are not only acts of vandalism but carry a strong symbolic and ideological message aimed at intimidating Christian communities and asserting radical Islamist narratives. The targeted nature of the graffiti, coupled with the defilement of sacred burial sites, elevates the act from mere property damage to a hate crime intended to sow fear and provoke tension between religious and cultural groups."
In a different occason, according to a May 10, Fr Laurent Milan, a Catholic priest who had just conducted mass in a church in Montfavet, found himself surrounded and threatened by a mob of about ten young men shouting "Allahu Akbar." The attackers, including minors, gained entry by claiming to be Muslim visitors but then launched insults and threatened to burn the church. "They didn't insult me personally," said Fr Milan, "It was provocation and abusive language, directed against the Catholic religion."
This attack is part of a rise in anti-Christian hostility in France the European Conservative reports. Three days earlier, youths disrupted a parish meeting with shouting and banging on windows. On April 18, Good Friday, two priests were attacked in Lisieux and Tarascon—one priest was grabbed by the collar, the other slapped. In Cambrai, a 96-year-old priest was kidnapped and brutally beaten by burglars who tied him up and stole religious items. The assailants remain free.
Perhaps most notoriously, in 2016, two Muslims forced Father Jacques Hamel, an 85-year-old Catholic priest, to kneel at his church altar before ritually slitting his throat and videotaping the slaughter.
General Muslim Abuse of Christians
Germany: Late at night on May 20 in Berlin, a group of men "of Arab origin" asked a man in the street if he was a Muslim. When the 24-year-old man, name withheld, responded that he was Christian, they violently beat him, dealing severe blows to his head before fleeing. The man required hospital attention.
This is hardly the first time in Berlin that Muslims target and attack people for being Christian. In previous years, a man was injured for wearing chain with a cross, another was beaten and threatened with a knife because of his Christian tattoo and another was attacked for wearing two wooden Christian crosses. Also, less than a year ago, the St Matthew's Church in Berlin was the target of an arson attack.
Egypt: In late May, Muslim mobs attacked and burned Christian properties in Minya province upon learning that a Christian household was about to have a mobile network booster installed on their roof. (According to the all-important Pact of Omar, in order to safeguard their lives, Christians had to agree
"not [to] build houses overtopping the houses of Muslims.") As the mob, which included hijabbed women and children, destroyed and torched Christian property, they could be heard in a video crying "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest") —Islam's war cry against kuffar (infidels)—while also demanding the immediate expulsion of all Copts from the village (in keeping with the Pact of Omar which, additionally, promotes collective punishment.
A Christian woman managed to record the savage destruction and arson the Muslims carried out. The video can be viewed here. (She was ordered by State Security to remove it, which she did; some copies, however, evaded censorship.) Barricaded in her home, she videotaped the mobs from her barred window as they completely trashed, set fire to, and hammered parts of her family's property. You can hear the woman say (in Arabic), "Do you see—oh, world! do you see, what they're doing, and how they behave?" Soon after that, you can hear her say "Save us! Please save us.... O, save us!" She also cries out, "O Lord, Lord, Lord—please have mercy! [kyri eleison]" At one point, addressing the Muslim vandals outside her barred window, she says, "Please, please have mercy! We're going to die, we're going to die!"
No mercy was offered, just more rage and, as can be heard, an ongoing chorus of "Allahu Akbar!"
"Look how they destroyed our whole house—the fence, doors, windows!" she says at one point. When she sees someone running away with a piece of her property, she cries "Thieves ... thieves! Where is the government? What government?!" As usual, the mobs were given amble time to vent their rage before the authorities and firefighters responded. At the end of the recording, it seems that the mobs finally break into her home and assault her and other family members—at which point she started screaming and crying hysterically. The video abruptly ends soon thereafter.
Syria: While harassing a Christian majority town, masked men in military uniforms made "threat[s] to kill Christians." According to a May 5 report,
"Syria has recently experienced a dramatic and worrying escalation of hate speech that fuels tension and threatens civil peace.... The current racist campaigns and inflammatory statements have contributed to divisions among the constituents of the Syrian society and increasing violence... [A] group of masked men in military uniform attacked a store selling alcoholic beverages in Rablah town, which is inhabited mostly by Christian citizens, in Al-Qusayr countryside in Homs. The gunmen assaulted a young man who was in the store at the time of the attack, sabotaged the store's contents and stole money. Before leaving the area, the gunmen threatened to kill the town's residents, called residents as 'infidels' and insulted the Christian religion and its symbols."
Separately, according to a May 20 post,
"Posters on the fences of the Christian and Alawite city of Tartus in Syria: Either you immediately change your religion from Christian to Muslim and convert to Islam, or you pay protection and tribute fees with your lives. Unknown individuals are distributing posters throughout the city, and at the end it is written: All religions are infidels, and only Islam is the true religion."
Iraq: According to a May 29 report, nearly eight years after the Islamic State's fall, the nation's Christian population remains in a state of crisis, facing persistent discrimination, forced displacement, and cultural erasure. Once numbering 1.5 million, Christians now total just 140,000, despite roots that stretch back to the 1st century, long before the 7th century Islamic conquests. Iraqi Christian leaders and NGOs stress a systematic effort to erase their presence, beginning with the Islamic State's seizure of Mosul in 2014. In the words of Monsignor Najeeb, Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul:
"As soon as they seized the city, jihadists' voices echoed from mosque loudspeakers and megaphones to mock Christians, announcing that they must choose: conversion, exile, or submission under dhimmi status. Most fled with only their cars and what they wore."
Even after ISIS, Christians continue to suffer routine discrimination: "Today we are not equal," laments Yohanna Yousif of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization. "They have all the rights; we have none." Roland, a project manager, echoes this sentiment:
"I applied online to be a teacher and received a positive response by email. But when the list of accepted candidates was published, my name had been removed because I'm a Christian. Similarly, in class, when a Christian student is top of the class, teachers give them lower grades so that a Muslim student can take the first place."
Shiite militias like Hachd al-Chaabi, who have nearly 240,000 fighters, are accused of seizing Christian lands and conducting a "real demographic shift." In Bartella, Christians—once a majority—are now a minority. Monsignor Najeeb calls it a "heritage genocide," adding, "We live like refugees in our own country."
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.
Raymond Ibrahim
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21727/only-islam-is-the-true-religion-the-persecution
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