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Also last fall, American Muslim groups called for a boycott of Disney theme parks and merchandise to protest the Jerusalem exhibit at Disney World's EPCOT. They cited Israel's "illegal occupation and annexation" of Jerusalem, saying Disney ignored the city's significance to Islam. "Since Disney has elected to venture from entertainment into politics, the corporation must see that our community will not accept its endorsement of Israel's acquisition of territory by force," said Khalid Turaani, executive director of American Muslims for Jerusalem.

CAIR's 1999 annual report on Muslim civil rights stated that American public schools are a "major area in which Muslim apprehension about the lack of religious accommodation is growing." Still, the report cited progress in Chicago, where alternative foods are available when pork is served; Fairfax County, Virginia, where a "pig" sign on school menus indicates items that include pork; and in Paterson, New Jersey, where the school district cancels classes on two Muslim holidays.

The Mecca-based Muslim World League spearheads a "massive Islamic missionary effort," notes Mission Frontiers (October 1999). "Vast sums of [oil] money are used to propagate Islam around the world: aid to countries considered sympathetic, building mosques, sending missionaries, literature, radio, etc. The world's largest printing presses are located here, and they churn out 28 million copies of the Koran every year for worldwide distribution."

While Muslims gain religious rights in the West, persecution of religious minorities by extreme Islamic elements in some Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East continues unabated. The 1999 U.S. State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom notes that in Pakistan, for example, "discriminatory legislation has encouraged an atmosphere of religious intolerance."

The report says that Christians "face harassment and intimidation." In Saudi Arabia, "any attempt to convert a Muslim to another faith is subject to criminal prosecution. Public religious worship by any non-Muslim is a criminal offense." In Sudan, "Christians, practitioners of traditional indigenous religions, and Muslims who deviate from the Government's interpretation of Islam are subject to severe limits on religious freedom, including killing, prolonged arbitrary detention or imprisonment, threats, violence, and forced conversion to Islam."

Conversely, Muslims have suffered persecution at the hands of Christians, as the Serbian atrocities against Muslims and the war in Chechnya attest. These and other forms of persecution incline them to view the Christian West with similar foreboding.

Islam has a missionary mandate and the West is one of its final frontiers. "They see us [in the West] as having forsaken the foundations of our faith" and view Western nations as ripe for conversion to Islam, says David Echols, who worked in Pakistan for 25 years and now serves as outreach director at the South Asian Friendship Center (SAFC) in Chicago.

"In their minds and hearts Muslims believe firmly that Christianity has failed on the racial, social, and religious perspectives," says SAFC director Samuel Naaman, a Pakistani whose Muslim father was a terrorist before converting to Christianity. "Look at society and the people who claim to be Christians. What is the difference between them? Muslims believe they have a mandate from God that the whole world has to come under the banner of Islam."

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April 3 2000, Vol. 44, No. 4