At least the threats are verbal .. for now.
he’d better check his bicycle for bombs before riding it each time...
Allam said, “Yesterday evening I converted to the Catholic Christian religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. I finally saw the light, through divine grace, the healthy and ripe fruit of a long gestation lived in suffering and in joy ...“I am particularly grateful to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who has imparted to me the sacraments of initiation--baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist--in the Basilica of St. Peter in the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter vigil.”
Then the new convert showed that he had no intention of playing down his adherence to his new faith. Referring to his baptismal name, he wrote: “I have assumed the most simple and explicit Christian name: ‘Christian.’ Since yesterday, therefore, my name is ‘Magdi Christian Allam.’”
He continued this way:
“For me [this is] the most beautiful day of my life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith on the memorial of the Resurrection of Christ from the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable privilege and an inestimable good. ...
“[This is the] authentic religion of Truth, of Life, and of Liberty. In my first Easter as a Christian I not only have discovered Jesus but have discovered for the first time the true and unique God, who is the God of Faith and Reason.”
These lines are a strong challenge to Islam, which emphasizes the uniqueness of Allah--so unique, so isolated, that in Islam the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation can’t be entertained in any way. Allam is saying that the “true and unique God” is not to be found in Islam, which claims him but does not have him, and that the God of Islam is not really the God of faith and reason.
Later in his open letter Allam turned again explicitly to his newspaper’s editor and wrote, “Dear editor, you ask whether I fear for my life in the consciousness that my conversion to Christianity certainly will obtain for me a death sentence for apostasy. You are quite right.” Allam said that he will “face my fate with head high, with back straight, and with interior sureness of one who has the certainty of his faith.”
Then he said that “His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversation with Muslims, refraining from evangelizing in countries with an Islamic majority and being quiet about the reality of conversions in Christian countries. Out of fear. Fear of not being able to protect converts from condemnation to death for apostasy [from Islam] and fear of reprisals against Christian residents of Islamic countries.
“Well then, today Benedict XVI, with his testimony, says we need to overcome the fear and not be timorous in the affirmation of the truth of Jesus even among the Muslims. ...
“In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who serenely live their new faith. But there also are thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are impelled to conceal their new faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who hide among us.”
Allam concluded his open letter by saying that he hopes the “historic gesture of the Pope and my testimony will bring out the conviction that the moment has arrived to leave the shadows of the catacombs and to affirm publicly our will to be fully what we are.
“If we cannot have here in Italy, in the cradle of Catholicism, our home, a guarantee of full religious liberty, how will we ever be able to be credible when we denounce the violation of such liberty elsewhere in the world?”