The experience of Reza Aslan

Submitted by DEBANJAN BANERJEE (India), Jul 9, 2021 at 11:03

Dear Dr Pipes,

It will be very interesting for you to note that converting out of Islam is not something new or strange in Iran. Reza Aslan whom you probably know very well was one man whose parents had been in touch with Western influences , and Reza converted to an evangelical Church very early at his age. However he after a stint of living with real evangelist Christians in the US came back to Islam and now he is a renowned Sufi master and religious commentator.

So who knows what will happen to these converted Evangelists ? After all much of the people in Global south convert to Evangelism in the belief that they will have better immigration opportunities in the West. However once they have a taste in the post-COVID West they may change their preferences. I think that most of the Iranians will do a Reza Aslan, eventually.

Just remember that Muslims are gaining more converts in the West than Evangelists. The Evangelists no longer believe that it is important to convert the Jews to save their souls. Who knows that most evangelicals in the coming decades may believe that it is not that important to convert Muslims to save their souls.

Islam in Iran has faced many problems previously like the Mongol conquest, the Shah regime and so forth. There were times when the total Muslim population in the country was only around 1 percent (particularly during Mongol brutal invasions). This is nothing new. It was their Christian Mongol conquerors who actually became Muslims, some decades later. So who knows what will happen once the US presence in the West Asian region finally comes to an end in some decades time.

I believe Israel will no longer be a Zionist nation very soon. It will first become a very racist Orthodox nation a civil strife will then pursue between the Orthodox and the secular, then eventually a secular democracy that is favored by Arabs will be followed by eventual domination of the Palestinians. Netanyahu just acknowledged the end of the Zionist dream of Jewish domination in the Holy Land by allowing Palestinian citizens married to Israelis to gain Israeli citizenship. This is the end of Zionist dream of ethnic Jewish domination over the Holy Land.

I would love your views about all my viewpoints.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".