Christian Conversions Irk Bangladeshis

By Ferdous Ahmad, IOL Correspondent

Dhaka —

Many in Muslim-majority Bangladesh accuse Christian groups of exploiting the need of underprivileged people to lure them into Christianity with money and jobs.

"Every year a large number of poor people, caste Hindus, Buddhist, Muslims and tribal people, convert to Christianity through financial support," a senior official of the Ministry of Religious Affairs told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity for the sensitivity of the issue.

Mainly tribal people, low caste Hindus and Buddhists were the usual target of conversion motivated by cash and jobs.

Now Muslims are also converting.

"Poverty and economic problems are the main causes of conversion to Christianity," says Abdullah Al-Faruque, the press manager of a leading daily newspaper.

He notes that a visit to any church on Sunday would show that most of the devotees are poor people.

"Christian missionaries and NGOs are working to convert people in the name of social service and development works," says Abdur Rahman Mallick, an educational consultant.

He claims hundreds of NGOs, including World Vision, CARITAS, Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and Rangpur Dianjpur Rehabilitation Sangha (RDRS), have been involved in preaching activities for long.

"I have no information about increasing Christian population in Bangladesh," Ataur Rahman, Secretary of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told IOL.

"Because there is no department in the Ministry of Religious Affairs to look into how many people convert into Christian."

Muslims make up 85 percent of Bangladesh's population, making it the third biggest concentration of Muslims in the world.

Hindus, Buddhists and Christians constitute the remaining 15 percent.

Increasing

Father Linto recognizes that every month a number of people come and convert to Christianity in his Kakrail Church, the biggest church in the capital Dhaka.

"In Bangladesh, there is no problem to preaching Christianity," he told IOL.

"We get all sorts of support from the government. We are minority but have influence power to the society."

Father Linto said many schools and colleges are established by the Christian community like Notrdam College, which is situated in heart of Dhaka, as well St. Xavier's College.

Thousand of students have been studying in these institutions.

By the 1690's there were only 13 Augustinian churches in Bengal. But now there are more than five hundred in Bangladesh.

At present 350 fathers and 500 sisters are working for Christians Missionary under the Kakrail Church alone.

The number of Christians is estimated to stand at nearly two millions, though the Christian community publicly puts the number at only half million.

In 1947, there were as few as 50,000 Christians before increasing by four-fold by 1971.

According to government census, the Christian population was 400,000 in 2001.

Christianity came to Bengal initially with the Portuguese in the 16th century.

They built a school and hospital at Hugli, West Bengal of India, where the Portuguese had obtained permission from Emperor Akbar, a Mughal emperor, to settle.

They established a monastery in 1959 from where they reached out to other parts including Dhaka and Chitagong.

Immoral

Christian conversion activities are being done discreetly and without drawing much attention.

Missionaries have reportedly been using new techniques and strategies to convert Muslims, which includes using Islamic and Arabic words in their preaching activities.

For instances, like Muslims, they call Bible as "Injil Sharif" and praying as Muanjat.

The person converting does not need to change his/her Muslim name.

Maulana Atqur Rahman, President of Bangladesh Masjid Mission, a social organization, urged the government to intervene and stop religious conversion through financial support.

"Converting into Christianity through financial support is not acceptable to humanity," Md. Fazlur Rahman, Additional Secretary of the government and Director General of Islamic Foundation, a government department for Islamic publication and Dawah, told IOL.

"We are trying to find out this sort of immoral conversion into Christianity," he added.

"As Muslims, we are worried about this sort of conversion and we should find out ways and means for poor Muslims and tribal people to stop this conversion process."

That's missionaries for you, taking advantage of poor people and buying their faith rather then help as "humanitarians" as they pretend to go in as.

Do you have any evidence people convert to Christianity through financial support, other than what this senior official said?
Just because most converts are poor that doesnt mean they converted because they were give money.
What does Injil Sharif and Muanjat mean?
I dont's see anything immoral in using Bengali or Isalmic words in Christian services. After all, Muslims use English and Christian words in the west, such as God, the Bible... instead of Allah and Injil..
How is this immoral??

I'm not a proponent of missionaries, the article could be right.

^ they make it seem like islam i guess

i think thats whats tryna be said right?

Isn't that what muslims did during their rule in Spain? Made life so miserable for nonmuslims under the Dhimmitude that they were forced to convert to have any rights at all?

care to back that up with some evidence?

Islam ruled spain for 800 years,that's 800 HUNDRED YEARS! and if you study the history of that time, you will find it was a time of great advancements in all fields. And the christians and jews enjoyed great prosperity along side the Muslims. The Jews themselves say it was the first time they lived in peace, free from oppression and persucution they often faced in christian lands. And what did the christian crusaders do when they came to spain? They killed every non-white person (Muslim, christian or jew). The leader of the crusades said "kill them all, God will save his own"....meaning kill all of them and God will "save" the christians by taking them to heaven.

So before you open your mouth and prove to us how ignorant you, instead try to read a little history first

Do a little google search and you'll find your answer. Even the real christian humanitarian agencies in Africa complain against this missionary thugs who for the poor and starving to accept the bible in exchange for food and money or die.


Muslims use english in the west because it is the only language the westerners know,and they use christian words because westerns are too ignorant of other cultures and their languages. But Muslims not specifically pick out christian like words and use deception and tricky to convert westerners. What these people are doing is taking advantage of poor people and their situation. And injil does not equal bible, Injil is the Gosphels, bible is bunch of stories written by men and put together long ago. We believe in the revelation Torah, Psalms, and Gosphels and not in talmund or bible, books full of filth, porngraphy, immorality and other adult material.

That's like saying my new masters aren't as bad as my old master because they only beat me on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of everyday. Nonmuslims in Al Andalus were Dhimmis. They weren't afforded the same rights as muslims:

We're talking Bangladesh not Africa.

Who exactly was the leader of the crusades?
Anyway, the quote has nothing to do with the Reconquista.

My question would be what the Crusades have to do with the topic?

Anyway, these accusations are made occassionally. If there is actually a Christian group that doesn't give charity without conversion then it should be condemned, but I doubt that is the case. At least not in relation to the larger and more well known Christian charity groups. In my experience it is more like..."Here, take this food, water, clothing, etc, and have a Bible in the bargain." They can take the charity and throw the Bible in the garbage if they wish.

It was the spanish people who like other christian nation people that invited the Muslims to conquer their land and to be freed from their own tyrant rulers. Do study a little history and stop making yourself look like a fool

And where is your source for that load of lies you just unloaded here to waste our time with.

The Umayyad's were not invited. They took advantage of the political trouble with the Visigoths and the Merovingians. They would have continued advancing into Frankish territory if Charles Martel hadn't stopped them. The Umayyad's took advantage of a power vacuum. Let's not invent history to make a point. It never works.

Plus, this has nothing to do with the topic.

Whatever Christian missionaries might do to help people beyond just standing on a soapbox and preaching to them I think accusations that they were somehow trying to 'bribe' people into converting are inevitable. Exactly the same would be true if a muslim charity was on-the-ground providing material aid in a Christian country.

The story is very high in indignation while being totally devoid of any solid facts.

Muslim charity does provide aid in christian country. LIFE and other islamic charities in the US not only provide aide to Muslims but also non Muslims in muslim and christian nations. There are even christian charities africa and other muslim nations that provide aide to Muslims and other non-christain people. These are the real humanitarian charities and not upfronts to do missionary work. These christian chairties also complain about these moron western missionaries who ruin the repturation of good christian chairties by doing their crap over here. Do a little google search and you'll find plenty of evidence of these missionaries take advantaged of the poor and their sitautions. You'll even find testimonies from real christian chairities.

Back when Tsunami hit, these same missionaries went to india to help them out. they came by truck loads with blankets, medince, and food and in returned they asked the victims to accept christianity and the bible. When low pathetic offer was refused, they turned their trucks around and left without given any aide to anyone. I've posted the article of this on this forum,try searching for it around india and tsunami headings if you want.