ISIS: A Surprising Reaction from an Unexpected Source

Seems that on a weekly basis now we see or read in the news about horrible attacks, bombings, be-headings, and continuous threats from the Islamic groups ISIS or ISIL. Tragic and frightening to be sure. But there's an interesting phenomenon that may be emerging thanks to ISIS/ISIL that neither group would have expected: an increase of Muslims leaving Islam. Just search the web and you'll see stories pop up discussing just this. 

Two respectable resources have recently released data indicating an increased uneasiness from Muslims in the heavily Islamic regions listed in the text box above.

1. Life.Church, the creators of YouVersion and the popular Bible app, this week announced a couple of amazing facts. First, their Bible app surpassed 200 million total downloads. Secondly, the country that has experienced the greatest increase in Bible App growth is Iran, with a download increase of 1,886% in 2015 (from 2014).
   
   
2. Created in 2004, Global Media Outreach (GMO) has become the largest provider of online evangelism and discipleship. GMO basically provides an avenue for people all over the world to access information on Christianity, request prayer, and even become a Christian with the help of "online missionaries", or Christians who communicate with them via email. I've actually been involved with GMO since 2010, and have communicated with nearly 1,600 people worldwide, including 367 from India, 104 from Nigeria, and over 50 from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria combined. 

GMO recently announced that so far in 2015 they have received over 77 million responses from people in heavily Muslim Middle Eastern countries. That's 5% of the 1.6 billion Muslims world wide.  And that's 1 out of every 20!  Sure, not all have left Islam, and maybe very few have yet to.  But there's no denying that an interest or at least a curiosity now exists that wasn't there before. There are definite signs that many Muslims are now questioning there Islam religion, and I can't help but believe that the atrocities performed by ISIS/ISIL over the past couple of years is one reason why.

Ok, I know what you're thinking. Those are both Christian resources. And yes, they obviously are. But both carefully monitor all activity within their websites, They can determine where all of their downloads go or emails and website visits come from.  Sophisticated analytic software makes this very possible and thorough nowadays. So there's no reason to believe the facts these two sites provide aren't true. 

Regardless, it'll be interesting to follow this in the coming months and years to see if this trend really does continue.