The missionary hospital where the doctors worked

RICHMOND, January 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A group of Southern Baptist missionaries working in Muslim countries has asked the U.S. leaders of their denomination to tone down their harsh criticism of Islam for safety reasons, a U.S. newspaper reported Sunday, January 19.

The Boston Globe said that the two dozen missionaries, who are working in 10 countries in the Mideast, North Africa, East Africa and South Asia, said in a statement that denigrating Islam “puts them at risk as they work to spread Christianity under dangerous conditions overseas”.

''We are not sure if you are aware of the ramifications that comments that malign Islam and Muhammad have - not only on the message of the gospel but also upon the lives of our families as we are living in the midst of already tense times,'' the missionaries said in the January 10 letter, reported the Globe.

The statement was signed by “a group of Southern Baptists serving in the Muslim world,” who did not give their names, the paper added.

Several Southern Baptist leaders have condemned Islam since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, said the Globe recalling Jerry Vines, a former Southern Baptist president, who attacked Prophet Mohammed (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as well as Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, who called Islam ''a very evil and wicked religion.''

In addition, Jerry Falwell said the religion promotes violence, and his comments led to riots in India between the Muslims and Hindus that left five people dead. At a later stage Falwell apologized for his comments.

On December 30, three U.S. missionary doctors were shot dead in Sanaa, Yemen.

Yemeni officials said that there has been problems between the U.S. Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission and some of the Islamic parties in Yemen because of the missionary activities of the doctors and the workers in the hospital.

According to Al-Jazeera channel correspondent, some Yemeni citizens were Christianized at the hands of these doctors, the correspondent said, adding that the hospital has received during the last few weeks warnings from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen regarding the targeting of the Americans working in the hospital.

The Yemeni officials said that the gunman confessed being a member of the right-wing Yemeni Jihad group, adding that “his goal was clearing the area of U.S. missionaries and getting close to Allah”.

A Muslim scholar told IslamOnline that “Almost all Christian missionaries depend on medical doctors when approaching alien masses, taking advantage of the humanistic service doctors render to poor diseased people.”

However, U.S. missionaries have also been attacked by non-Muslims. In January 15, a 60-year-old American Protestant missionary was attacked and seriously injured by rightwing Hindu activists in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Joseph Cooper and seven companions were assaulted on Monday after attending a convention in Kerala’s capital Trivandrum.

Cooper, who had come to Trivandrum from the town of New Castle in the United States to attend the Protestant convention, was set upon by a gang of 10 after they had exploded firecrackers to divert attention.