ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

20 Muslim woman is not accepted because, in this case, it is feared that the woman will convert to the Christian religion, thus, the Umma, will be losing a faithful one. Islam has not yet evolve from the phase of discriminatory tolerance to the recogni- tion of freedom of conscience and religion for all individuals without exception: there has been no "updating" for the effective recognition of religious pluralism. It is unthinkable for a Muslim, convin- ced that he possesses the total truth, to abandon his religious faith to become a Christian. The laws of Islamic states, among other things, forbid it, under penalty of imprisonment or even more severe treatment. There are, however, Muslim converts, because of their en- thusiasm. they cannot silence their faith. They are then hit by serious persecutions, so much so that they are forced to lea- ve the country. Even the Christians who would want to help them would be su- spect of proselytizing and will be at risk of incurring severe penalties. By contrast, Islamic law does not prohibit Christians from converting. There are several Chri- stians who convert for material reasons but more often because of marriage. In this case a Christian who who wants to marry a Muslim must first convert to Islam. However, if this individual seeks to become a Christian again he becomes liable under penalties of the law. A law passed by the Egyptian Parliament under President Anwar El Sadat condemned to death the Christian who, having become a Muslim, wanted to become a Christian again. President Sadat prevented this law from becoming enforceable. Islamic fundamentalism Fundamentalism or fundamentalismmeans the desire to change society, to reconstitute today a situation existing in the past whe- re one believes, rightly or wrongly, that life was lived according to the true values of Islam. The awakening of Islam began in the mid-nineteenth century by peaceful philo- sophers and thinkers, despite colonization, in search of an identity lost after the decline of the socio-political society of the Muslim world. With the passage of time this awa- kening will take a political color accentuated to the extreme. Religion will become the en- gine of liberation and conquest movements which coincides with the rise of Arab expan- sionist Islam in Africa. In the Muslim world the recent re-Islamization movements have in common the break with the predomi- nant societal order. Fundamentalists are equally opposed to a compromised Islam, which would have accommodated itself in to modernity transmitted by secularization, which is not considered Islamic. The funda- mentalist aims to appropriate power and to expand outside the nation's borders with the spirit of conquest .Some has resorted to terrorism; Iran exports this conception. The cause of the greatest difficulty, as regards the condition of Christians in pre- dominantly Muslim countries, is Islamic fundamentalism. This phenomenon em- bodies in itself the worrying tendency of an appropriation of the technological de- velopment of the Western world, separa- ted ,however, by those cultural premises that have made it possible to arise. Behind this, it is easy to read the will to resolve, all contemporary political and social pro- blems through religion.. A process that hinders the recognition of all those rights that in the West are prerogatives granted to minorities. Further, poverty and igno- rance have favored the extension of reli- gious extremism. After their independence, the Arab coun- tries favored free education and industriali- zation with the consequent phenomenon of urbanization. The new recruits, especially university graduates, uprooted from their rural context, with a degree and without work, are disappointed by the promises not kept by so-called socialist regimes in