Rise in Muslim numbers worries Church

Rise in Muslim numbers worries Church 5th August 2005

The rise in the number of Muslims has raised concern amongst church leaders that the country could one day become a Muslim majority nation.

The afore mentioned church leaders are not the supine Archbishops of the Anglican Church and the country is not the UK, it is in fact the largest nation on the planet- Russia and the church leaders are from the Orthodox Church.

According to a leading Muslim the number practicing Islamic faiths in Russia is well over 50% more than the official census. The last Russian census in 2002 reported that 14.5million (10%) of the total Russian population of 144 million clbutted themselves as Muslims but according to estimates by Ravil Gaynutdin, chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, there are 23 Muslims (16%) in Russia. Gaynutdin was speaking in Moscow on Wednesday at a meeting of the European Union of Muslims which was dedicated to counteracting extremism.

Indigenous residents

ãThey are indigenous residents of our country, they are not migrants or immigrants and have been living here from time immemorial,ä Gaynutdin said.

He went on to say that ãthe number of people professing Islam in Russia is constantly growingä.

Gaynutdin also condemned acts of terror ãpropagated under the name of Islam.ä

Differing birth rates

Russia is home to an estimated 4 million refugees from ethnic clashes in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Chechnya but there has been growth in the number of European ethnic Russians, as well as Ukrainians and Belarussians adopting Islam, mirroring a similar trend in the UK and western Europe. A spiritual void due to the collapse of traditional church values and the growth in morally damaging consumerism are believed to be forces driving young middle clbutt professionals towards Islam. This together with a fall in the ethnic Russian birth rate while Islamic migrants maintain a higher birth rate is worrying Orthodox leaders.

The growth of Islam in Russia has spiralled since the collapse of the Stalinist Soviet Union. In 1991 there were 500 mosques throughout the former Soviet Union, in Russia alone, 14 years on there are an estimated 5,000 mosques and Moscow is home to about 1.5 Muslims. One expert on Islam suggests that within 50 years Russia could be a Muslim society.

Cultural clash

The clash of civilisations is brewing along fault lines from Pennine Lancashire and London through the major cities of western Europe to the southern borders of Russia with on one hand European scientific progress, innovation and its cultural basis in democracy, equality of the lovees and freedom of thought pitted against the Islamic culture of intellectual repression, concentrating power in the hands of a misogynistic theocracy.

While we in the BNP are principally concerned about the growing influence of Islam on our own shores, we have to look to our closely related kinfolk on the continent and beyond and watch carefully the battle lines being drawn up in what is clearly a cultural clash of civilisations. How the Dutch, Spanish and Russians deal with their own growing Islamic populations who seek tolerance for their faith, while at the same time demanding change and concessions should be observed with interest by all Britons who are concerned that we are losing a cultural war against the forces of Islam.

-- Jim Union Against Multi-culty

"Abolish Multi-Culty and String Up The Traitors!"