Islam and South Koreans

It is true that many South Koreans are studying Islamic culture and language in different Arab countries. But there are questions that need to be answered. In my Arabic class at the University of Qatar, there were a number of diligent Korean students among predominantly western non-Muslim students. I started wondering why all these South Koreans?

There was one South Korean named Ibrahim Kim (not his real name to protect his identity). Once our teachers were planning to take us (the Muslim students) to Makkah to perform Hajj and we were all very excited about that. But when I asked Ibrahim if he wanted to join us, his reply was a polite "No".

Then I asked him if he was a Muslim, and guess what his answer was! He smiled and said, "No, I am a Christian."

Then I remembered that I saw some news-heading about South Korean missionaries a while back which I didn't find interesting enough to read at that time. So I started searching the net using the keywords "South Korea Missionary" and got the news items I was looking for, and read them carefully.

I found that according to the New York Times "South Korea has rapidly become the world's second largest source of Christian missionaries" just behind the United States and they are now taking the lead in aggressively evangelising Muslims.

Also, "South Koreans proselytise, not in their own language, but in the language of the country they operate in or in English."

The NY Times also reported that "...many come (to Middle East countries) on student visas or set up computer or other businesses, and evangelise discreetly."

About 30 Christian missionary families have already settled in Amman, Jordan.

It is common for the missionaries to take Arabic version of Biblical names like Yusuf (Joseph) to easily hoodwink Muslims. So the issue is far from simple!