Source: Mission Network News, June 19, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A senior cleric made waves in Iran earlier this month by saying Islam was weak. Roughly two-thirds of Iran\u2019s mosques have closed<\/a>, he said\u2014a \u201cworrying admission\u201d for a state built around the principles of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom Doyle of Uncharted Ministries<\/a> says it\u2019s part of a broader trend. \u201cThere\u2019s just not that general excitement, that fervency to spread Islam that we saw when we started going to the Middle East 25 years ago,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe see tolerance for it. In places like the Gaza Strip, people are forced to make that the issue. For at least ten years, we\u2019ve seen attendance [declining] in mosques, and many Muslims, especially young ones, becoming agnostic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, \u201cwe\u2019ve been privileged to go into Iran a couple of times, and [in] the mosques that we visited, we didn\u2019t see any young people; just a bunch of old people, and there weren\u2019t that many of them. We saw the same thing in Syria, in Iraq,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we\u2019re seeing the collapse of Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You could say the same about Christianity in America. Church attendance is down across denominations<\/a>. However, Muslims in the Middle East are not only turning away from Islam. Many are turning to Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read the full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Editor\u2019s note: We think it\u2019s too soon to predict Islam\u2019s collapse, but see another opinion piece about Christianity growing in unexpected places<\/a> and describing why the author thinks it\u2019s happening now (World).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Mission Network News, June 19, 2023 A senior cleric made waves in Iran earlier this month by saying Islam was weak. Roughly two-thirds of Iran\u2019s mosques have closed, he said\u2014a \u201cworrying admission\u201d for a state built around the principles of Islam. Tom Doyle of Uncharted Ministries says it\u2019s part of a broader trend. \u201cThere\u2019s … Continue reading Middle East: \u201cI Think We\u2019re Seeing the Collapse of Islam\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12137,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136\/revisions\/12137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}