Ali Mustaf Maka'il is dead, and we should remember his family in prayer. Ali was a 22-year-old Somali college student and cloth merchant who converted from Islam to Christianity 11 months ago. A news report says he was shot in the back September 7 after he refused to join a crowd in Mogadishu that was chanting Quran verses in honor of the lunar eclipse.
Somali leaders are committed to implementing Sharia, or Islamic law, in the governance of the country. According to Sharia those who leave Islam for another religion are "apostates" and must be killed. Ali is the latest casualty in what observers fear is a growing persecution of the tiny Christian minority in Somalia.
There are complicated issues that transcend a simple religious explanation for persecution. Somalis look upon Christianity as the "mark" of their Ethiopean enemies and their former colonial masters, the Italians and the British. Thus, for a Somali like Ali to convert to Christianity is as much an act of disloyalty as it is apostacy in the eyes of his countrymen.
Still, the death of a Somali Christian convert who refused to participate in the community's Islamic prayers is reminder of how dangerous it is to be a Christian in much of the world.
In the 20th century, millions of Christians were killed in the name of atheistic communism (in fact, more Christians were killed in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries of Christianity). Communism has come and gone, but it looks like the 21st century will be just as bloody for many Christians because of Islam--the "religion of peace."
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