1. Mercy Mission World P.O. BOX 18776 London E6 3AE United Kingdom www.savemaryam.comPress ReleaseSave Maryam LiveEarly in 2004 our team began to receive reports of huge numbers of people leaving Islamin Indonesia. At that time we were informed of findings showing that within our lifetimethe rate of growth of Christianisation was heading for a massive societal as well asgeopolitical shift in the region. It would resemble East Timor when a few decades ago,due to the high levels of Christianisation - it had broken off from Indonesia. Due to a 70times increase in the number of Christians in just 100 years, what was happening inAfrica was also significant. With geopolitical and social upheavals, these changes were aclear indication and example of what could potentially happen to Indonesia if Muslimscontinued to be ignorant of their beautiful religion.In this Hijri year of 1433, Allah has been most kind by enabling a good number of ourteam members to visit Indonesia to see for ourselves firsthand what the situation was. Wemet with a number of Scholars, Professors, Journalists, Islamic Activists, Masjidcommittee members, Businessmen and Laymen and there seemed to be consensus thatthe number of people leaving Islam was a real issue. At a time tens of thousands wouldconvert at concerts in Surabaya and Jakarta. Olympic swimming pools were hired tobaptise them into Christianity. At that time large Mega Churches that can house 4,000 -10,000 people were being built in the main cities. We witnessed a general lack of Islamicknowledge and apathy. Poverty was also rife in many of the 17,000+ islands of Indonesiaand people were prey to anyone who could afford them basic social services needed toget by.So why are so many people converting to Christianity? There are number of reasons forthis phenomenon:1. Colonisation by the Dutch with a particularly aggressive Christianisation agenda.2. Widespread general ignorance about Islam and its rulings with a limited means of accessing pure Islamic knowledge.3. Poverty being rampant across Indonesias population. This is providing a fertile ground for resource rich movements to enter the hearts and minds of the people offering them a better alternative to how they were living.4. Government secular policies and 31 years of anti-Islamic legislations: Suharto presided over Indonesia for 31 years making Indonesia a secular country and even banning the hijab during his presidency. Today Indonesia is officially a secular state despite having 200 million Muslims there.5. 240 million people spread over 17,000+ islands - so it is easy for missionaries to go to an island and cordon it off from outside influence. This is precisely how hundreds of island are now off limits to Muslims as the whole island has accepted Christianity.

2. 6. Economy being in the control of Chinese Christians: The people of Chinese origin have strongly taken to Christianity in Indonesia.7. Strong evangelical focus in Asia: Time magazine on April, 2010 reports from a PEW report that the number of Christians in Asia has risen from 101 million in 1970 to 351 million in 2005.We also began to research the true number of conversions to Christianity in Indonesia peryear. There are large discrepancies from Muslim indonesian reports stating anywherebetween 12-15%. Christian missionaries however are stating that it is anywhere from 17-20%. So what is the real number? Some people choose to focus on one source fordemographic information - either only Muslim or either only Christian or either onlyofficial government reports or either only one organization or the other. In our view, insuch a matter in which biases are very strong, a more balanced approach was requiredwhere all credible authorities - both the most credible left and most credible right aretaken into account. As a result, we decided to focus on 2009 where projections werefound from both mainstream Christian and mainstream Muslim sources as well as anofficial account was also available from an ICG interview with the Indonesian religiousministry.In our humble opinion, a very basic projection of the numbers showed us that around 2million (+/- 1.5% to cater for non-Muslim converts to Christianity and immigration) was adecent estimate of the number that were converting to Christianity every year withoutcoming back to Islam. The real figure may be about 10-15% more - however these 10-15% people revert back to Islam after a year due to variety of factors. According to theestimates provided by a number of Muslim Professors that we came across, the actualnumber may be worse than 2 million. Our estimates were subsequently verified aftermeeting with a number of local Muslim duaat that we hope to work with in Indonesia.The following table will hopefully highlight to you how we reached our figures by taking amiddle path between two biases (Islamic authorities vs Christian missionaries). Westarted off with the official figures of 8.7% Christians in Indonesia in 2000 as per officialcensus figures and applied the respective growth rates per World Bank data onIndonesian yearly growth rates. Then we averaged the increase in the rise in the Christianpopulation over 9 years from 4 of the best estimates that we could find till the year 2009- and that was from the International Crisis Group report - the link of which is mentionedbelow. We subsequently saw that a figure of 2,014,837 was our near best estimate of thenumber of conversions to Christianity.

3. There is no Muslim who sees these figures except they wish that this was not true andnot the case. Truly only Allah knows the absolute exact real numbers that convert toChristianity but our responsibility is to make an educated guess just like what we havedone above.So our dearest friends, there is simply no doubt that this unfortunate reality ishappening. The question we should truly be asking now is - what are we going to do tohelp them rediscover the beauty, clarity and justice of Islam?In this blessed month of Ramadan, we should remind ourselves of the beautiful words ofour creator, Allah says in AlAnfal Verse 46:"Do not argue amongst yourselves such that your [strategies] fail and your strength isdiminished."And be the people who work on the solution. Be a people who consider the losing of oneMuslim, an episode that brings pain to the heart and mobilises them into action tosupport the religion of Allah.Let no one ever think that the problem is Christianity. Rather, the problem is us and ourweakness. Throughout the centuries, the Ummah has faced serious challenges from theMongols and Tatars to invasion of colonial powers to disease, drought, famine andfloods. Whenever we had held onto Islam strongly and our youth had been firm on thisreligion, we flourished. Whenever we abandoned our religion and our youth strayed -Muslims became weak. So the time is now to focus on ourselves and bring our youth backto Islam with a compassionate Prophetic approach. Its time to Save Maryam!Save Maryam Campaign Team6th Ramadan 1433 corresponding to 25th July 2012