A Thought on Religions in the World

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Muslim world

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Countries with more than 5% Muslim population.^[4]              Sunni              Shias      Ibadi

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was created by the International
Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) . It is an entity separate and distinct from the State Department, created as an independent, bipartisan U.S. government advisory body that monitors religious freedom worldwide and makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. In its annual reports, the USCIRF identifies Tier 1 and Tier 2 countries:

• Tier 1 countries are  those that USCIRF recommends the United States designate as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) under IRFA for their governments’ engagement in or toleration of particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
• The designation of Tier 2 countries was created to highlight situations where religious persecution and other violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the governments are increasing. To be placed on Tier 2, USCIRF must find that the country is on the threshold of CPC status—that the violations engaged in or tolerated by the government are particularly severe and that at least one, but not all three, of the elements of IRFA’s “systematic, ongoing, egregious” standard is met (e.g., the violations are egregious but not systematic or ongoing). 

In the 2013 report, Tier 1 CPC Countries are Burma*, China*, Eritrea*, Iran*, North Korea*, Saudi Arabia*, Sudan*, Uzbekistan*, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam 

(* Countries officially designated as CPCs by the U.S.) Tier 2 countries are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Russia.

I quote from a recent report from the Christian press dealing with the flight of Christians from Muslim countries:

"The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year by year," the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said. In our lifetime alone "Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt."........ 

Iraq's Christian population was at least one million in 2003. Today, fewer than 400,000 remain the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.  

The same pattern has come to Syria, after the U.S. has shown its support for the jihad on Syria's secular president Bashar al-Assad. Regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings. 

The last Christian in the Syrian city of Homs, in October of last year -- which previously had a Christian population of some 80,000, was murdered. 

I recently heard that Coptic Christians have been leaving Egypt in large numbers. There is now a possibility that this largest Christian community in the Muslim world will be transferred abroad within a couple of decades.

As the top map above shows, the major religions of the world are divided geographically. This is a result of their historical development. The map of Christian populations indicates that in many countries, Christians are the vast majority. This is the result of historical replacement of earlier religions by Christian sects. Now many Muslim countries seem to be expelling Christians (having already expelled Jews and others). I had hoped we were beyond that "religious cleansing". The trend does not bode well for relations between the West and the Muslim world.