‘Islam does not promote tolerance’

I was horrified to read my statements taken completely out of context in “Can Christians and Muslims coexist?” (Page 1, June). Please let me clarify. My e-mail to your reporter said the exact opposite of what he wrote.

While some individual Muslims are broad-minded, Islam does not promote tolerance. In fact, the constant brutality of the culture fostered by Islam attracted some Muslims in Yendi, Ghana, to Christianity.

Christian converts were persecuted in Yendi, at times fleeing for their lives. The Hadith demands, “Whoever changes his (Islamic) religion, you kill him.” This is not vague or optional. See www.islamonline.net. Where Islam controls the civil government of a country, foreigners are tolerated, but renouncing Islam often is legally punishable by death.

After 9/11, some Muslims in Yendi apologized to us as Americans, not as Christians. Ordinary people everywhere associate America with generosity.

Muslim patients, including men, appreciated my praying with them, because they acknowledge that physical health and spirituality are linked, and they do see Christ as a prophet. But while there were exceptions, Muslims in Yendi were not generally respectful of women, instead taking advantage of the power of the strong over the weak, often with deception. Had your reporter asked me about women directly, instead of cutting and pasting from my general e-mail, I would have described a Yendi woman who was forced to grovel as she entered and exited the room to bring her husband his meals.

That typifies the Islam I observed.

Linda Benskin | Austin, Texas