Sookhdeo: Sadly, the situation has been rapidly deteriorating in most countries. Many Muslims see the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the "war on terror" as being an attack on Islam. Unable to attack Western forces, they increasingly attack Christian minorities in their own countries. Islam is also moving more and more towards a conservative theological position which is resulting in Muslim governments accepting their conservative agenda and this is putting pressure on Christian minorities.

VOL: In your opinion, is the clash of civilizations by Samuel Huntingdon a valid historical view of the relationship between Christianity and Islam?

Sookhdeo: Perhaps a better term should have been a clash of values. Such a clash has existed both in history as well as today. Islamic values are fundamentally different from Christian values.

VOL: Don't they share some common values?

Sookhdeo: There are those who argue that they do. Prince Charles and various Anglican bishops as well as political leaders are united in affirming this. However a closer analysis of both traditions will show this is not the case. For example, Islamic tradition is based on the community (ummah), or the nation. The Christian approach is based on the worth of the individual, freedom of thought, expression, conscience and freedom to change. In Islam such freedoms do not exist. So human rights and religious liberty in the Islamic mind are not given the same weight and importance as in the Christian tradition.

VOL: Can you give an example?

Sookhdeo: Yes, conversion. Islam is a one way street. You can enter it but you can't leave it. To leave is regarded as high treason punishable by death. A story in today's London Times about an imam's daughter, who converted to Christianity after fleeing an arranged marriage, is now under police protection after receiving death threats from her family, is an example of this. Her story is chilling, and provides a sobering reflection on what it is to be Muslim, or a Muslim convert to Christianity, in Britain today. By contrast, so-called Christians in England who convert to Islam are free and under no coercion or fear of death.

VOL: Reports out of Iraq by an Anglican priest, Canon Andrew White, says things are worse since the downfall of Saddam Hussein with Christians being killed and disappearing causing his own churches to suffer and empty out. What is your take on this?

Sookhdeo: When I first went to Iraq in Saddam's day with Canon White, the situation was a complete lack of freedom, but there was security and stability. Christians were protected in a general way though they still faced individual pressures. When I returned to Iraq after 2003, I discovered there were degrees of freedom and of security. More recently, when I returned again, I discovered there was no freedom and no security or stability for Christians.

VOL: How would you describe the present situation?

Sookhdeo: The present situation is desperate. Many hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled the south of Iraq and Baghdad moving either to the Kurdish north or across the border into Syria. Barnabas Fund is providing considerable aid for Iraqi Christians both in Iraq and in the surrounding countries. We have also just launched an international petition supported by Canon White and Baroness Cox to try to draw attention to the plight of Iraqi Christians and to seek ways in which Christians can persuade their governments in western countries to recognize the difficulties Christians face there and seek ways in which assistance can be offered them.

VOL: Recently 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent a letter titled "A Common Word Between Us," seeking common ground between the two faiths. The letter was hand delivered to many Christian leaders including Pope Benedict XVI, the Orthodox Church's Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 1 and all the other Orthodox patriarchs and to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leaders of protestant churches worldwide. Archbishop Rowan Williams has already responded to the letter in a joint communique written with several prominent Jewish rabbis. They were scholars drawn from a number of backgrounds -- theological, ideological and ethnic -- producing a statement addressed to international Christian leaders on the theme of the common understanding of the love of God and love of neighbors. What do you think of this statement?

Sookhdeo: Whilst it is to be applauded that Muslim leaders can reach out to Christian leaders and try to point to common ground between the two faiths and argue for a better world based on mutual understanding, it is important to assess what they are saying and to read the subtext.

Firstly the theological range of the Muslim signatories is very broad. They include both "moderates" as well as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as including people from moderate Muslim countries and countries such as Saudi Arabia. It is strange that those from the ultra-conservative positions could sign up to such a document when in fact they are the ones who are arguing passionately against Christianity and are suppressing basic Christian freedoms. This is duplicity on the part of the Muslim.

Secondly, they argue that there is the potential for global conflict between Christians and Muslims, but truthfully nowhere are Christians at war with Islam. While Mr. Bush may have used inappropriate language in describing the invasion of Iraq, it is not true to say that America is at war with Islam or that Christianity is at war with Islam. However, Islam from its inception has had a theology of war and that historic position now shapes how they see the world today in particular Christianity and the West.

Thirdly, the assumptions that both Islam and Christianity believe that God is love and we are called to love our neighbors is untrue when applied to Islam. Whilst love may be mentioned as being an attribute of God, one cannot argue that the divine nature of God is love in Muslim thought. This would be considered blasphemous.

In Christianity God's nature is that of love. Furthermore, whereas in Christianity we are called to love our neighbors, in Islam our relationship to our neighbors is defined by Sharia, which is Islamic Law. Initially pagans were to be killed, while Jews and Christians were to be made Dhimmis (second class citizens) paying a poll tax for protection, without full equal rights. Converts to Christianity from Islam are to be killed. So how do you love your non-Muslim neighbor when you must either subjugate or kill them, and if they regard women as half the value of a man or less?

Fourthly, it is striking that there is no reference in this statement to Christian minorities within Muslim countries. At the very time when massive persecution is taking place in their countries, the Muslim writers are silent, while simultaneously laying the blame on the West for attacking Muslims.

Fifthly, I am convinced that this letter is in fact Dawa (i.e. an Islamic mission tract). It is highly critical of the basic tenets of Christianity i.e. the Trinity and the Deity of Christ. This can be seen from the choice of Qur'anic texts quoted, if you know how these particular texts are normally interpreted by Muslims.

VOL: Recently a group of Episcopalians that included seven bishops were among other religious and influential Christian leaders who signed a letter asking Muslims to forgive Christians. The letter with signatures recently appeared as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. "Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility," the authors said. "Since Jesus Christ says, 'First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye' (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the 'war on terror') many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we 'shake your hand' in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world." How do your respond to this statement?

Sookhdeo: An Anglican Christian leader from East Africa and a friend of mine has spoken of the betrayal contained in this statement. He cannot understand how Western Christian leaders can commend Muslim leaders and apologize for the failings of the church in the past without taking any account of what Islam has done and is doing to Christian minorities in their countries today. At a time when Christians are suffering intense persecution from Muslim sources, Western Church leaders have chosen to ignore their plight and even to apologize to the Muslims.

VOL: Do you see any historical parallels?

Sookhdeo: It is not unlike Germany in the 1930s when the majority of Christians kept silent while many of their leaders actually sided with those who were persecuting Jewish people and said nothing when Christian pastors from a Jewish background were silently withdrawn from their pastoral responsibilities. They practiced appeasement instead of confronting the evil where it existed. Only a minority (the Confessing Church) was faithful to Christ and was caught between the government policy and the appeasement leadership of the German Church, which had cooperated with Hitler.

Furthermore, whilst it is important to recognize that Jesus embraced his enemies on the cross, he did not embrace their ideas, for it was their ideas that ultimately crucified him. The Yale statement signed by Christian leaders of varying hue unwittingly embraced Islamic ideas to the point where it could be argued that they have betrayed their Lord and their Christian faith. For example there is no reference to the Trinity. Jesus Christ is mentioned, but not his Lordship, nor his atonement. We as Christians would begin such a statement with an affirmation of the Blessed Trinity, whereas Muslims begin with an affirmation of the unity of God. We have chosen their affirmation thereby in effect denying our own.

We have allowed ourselves to become party to a grand deception. In Islam there is a concept known as Taqiyya which allows Muslims to practice dissimulation, for in Islam one is allowed to deceive in order to achieve a given end. The Muslim statement is an example of Taqiyya and Christian leaders have not been able to discern this, for they have taken the statement at face value. They have worked on the basis of their feelings rather than utilizing their intellectual and theological faculties which would have enabled them to grapple with this statement. I am amazed at how Christian leaders can be so naive and gullible. Indeed there is amongst Christians, by in large, a lack of understanding of Islamic strategic thinking and their way of communication which often involves a double meaning.

I understand their desire for a good and safe society, but if this is built on a mirage that fails to recognize the realities of Islam, it is worthless.

VOL: Dr. Sookhdeo, I gather you have just written your ninth book titled "Global Jihad, The Future in the Face of Militant Islam" what is your message? It has been highly commended by leading military and political figures.

Sookhdeo: The book is to help in understanding the nature of warfare in the Islamic faith. It analyzes the Islamic theological basis for warfare as well as the historical developments and where we are at today. The book can be purchased from Amazon or direct from the Barnabas Books (www.barnabasbooks.org)

For the Barnabas Fund response to the open letter from 138 Muslim scholars, visit www.barnabasfund.org/news/archives/article.php?ID_news_items=342

VOL: Thank you Dr. Sookhdeo.

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