Tag: Oman

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Christianity Today Middle East Published Articles

Does Oman’s Ban on Evangelism Increase Its Religious Liberty?

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In 2018, authorities in Oman escorted two American college students off a local university campus as they alleged the students were sharing their faith with Muslims. Omani law prohibits proselytism, and its constitution defines Islam as the state religion and declares sharia law as the basis of legislation.

Depending on the nature of their offense, the students could have faced up to 10 years in prison. Alternatively, they could have been found in violation of the law forbidding religious teaching without a government permit—as they were in the country on a tourist visa—and deported. Instead, they were let go with a warning.

Michael Bosch, a persecution analyst with Open Doors, said many foreign Christians who work with Omani converts from Islam have had to leave the country. For security reasons, Open Doors does not give numbers or details of these cases, yet it believes the Omani law hinders religious freedom.

However, Justin Meyers, director of Oman’s al-Amana Center (AAC), an interfaith ministry partnering with the Reformed Church in America, believes the law actually protects the religious freedom of its diverse population. (Part 1 of this series explained AAC’s background.)

After the students’ arrest, the Ministry of Religious Affairs called Meyers, asking him to talk with the students. Realizing they were from his home state of Michigan, Meyers first called local pastors he knew. One contact identified one of the students but had no idea he was in Oman. The sending organization had instructed him not to name the nation of his visit, the student told Meyers, lest he be inadvertently exposed—and possibly killed.

Open Doors ranks Oman No. 32 in its annual World Watch List (WWL) of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian. Its most recent report included an article about a female Omani convert to Christianity living in the US who stated on social media that if she were in her home nation, she would be killed or imprisoned for her faith.

Yet Oman is not on any lists of religious liberty offenders created by the US State Department or the Commission on International Religious Freedom. The State Department’s annual report cites Open Doors’ complaint about the treatment of converts and the monitoring of churches, but also that Christian groups had not reported any incidents of abuse or surveillance.

Meyers counseled one of the students, whom he was able to connect with, to respect the laws of Oman. Both students finished their six-month stays without further incident. Several years later, with the publishing of the 2025 WWL, the Omani government called Meyers again. Would he invite Open Doors for a visit so that officials could address their complaints?

The Open Doors report praised AAC for creating a more tolerant attitude among Omanis toward Christians while citing the Oman government’s support for AAC as an example of the country’s efforts to improve diplomatic relations with the West. Meyers has resided in Oman since 2013, serving as AAC executive director since 2021.

Open Doors had not consulted him and did not immediately respond to the Omani government’s invitation to visit—but Open Doors and AAC have since begun discussions about how to work together.

Since the death of former sultan Qaboos bin Said in 2020, Bosch explained, the new government has intensified its efforts to discover Christians who secretly share their faith. Previously, the authorities only identified those working directly with Omani converts. Now, the interrogation is broader, as authorities try to find networks and funding sources, Bosch said.

According to Open Doors criteria, “dictatorial paranoia” and “Islamic oppression” are two key drivers of local persecution. Although apostacy is not a criminal offense, converts could lose custody of their children under sharia-influenced personal status codes. But another driver is “clan oppression.” Within Oman’s tribal society, converts face shunning from society. And although the report recognizes that violence is not encouraged by the culture, some have been attacked for their faith.

Persecution, Bosch emphasized, is any act of hostility toward faith.

Mohammed al-Shuaili, associate director of AAC, said that Oman’s laws against proselytizing are expressly meant to…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on October 15, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Christianity Today Middle East Published Articles

Evangelism Isn’t Allowed in Oman. Sharing Is.

Image courtesy of Justin Meyers

In the ancient city of Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman on the northeastern shores of the Arabian Peninsula, several American Christian college students and local Muslims sat cross-legged on an oriental rug around printed passages from the Bible and the Quran. In the traditional Omani reception room lined with plush red mattresses and matching pillows, they discussed the phrase in John chapter 1 “the Word became flesh” and its Islamic parallels.

Two senior leaders—one Christian and one Muslim—guided the proceedings. They instructed the Americans to not place copies of the holy texts on the floor and assured the Omanis that these papers would not be thrown in the trash. Their primary goal that May afternoon was to avoid debating or comparing the texts academically, but rather to engage in a process called “scriptural reasoning.”

Though the concept was developed in the 1990s by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish philosophers, the term scriptural reasoning is a bit of a misnomer. Participants read and reflect on the selected passages with inquisitive curiosity, not logic. The point is self-discovery—and sharing—of one’s personal reasons for faith.

The Christians approach the Bible with love and reverence, describing the message they see within. Muslims do the same with the Quran, and the two groups exchange observations and ask questions, seeking to understand the passages’ meanings from the other side. Both Christians and Muslims listen attentively, free from the burden of convincing the other.

In Oman, where proselytization is illegal, al-Amana Center (AAC) uses exercises like scriptural reasoning to help bridge divides between Muslims and Christians, Arabs and Americans. Leaders said such activities by the current incarnation of the Reformed Church in America’s (RCA) 130-year ministry in Oman, now an independent partner institution, builds trust and mutual respect.

Justin Meyers, executive director of AAC, led the May session of scriptural reasoning. The students came from Hope College, a small Christian school from Michigan, as part of a senior seminar course involving an immersive exploration of Arab and Islamic culture. AAC’s Arabic teacher, Mohammed al-Shuaili, led the Muslim contingent and had already done this exercise dozens of times.

“It becomes hard to tell the Bible and Quran apart,” Shuaili said. “Scriptural reasoning brings people together, to discover the common threads.”

The scriptural reasoning website offers 34 topics—including things like modesty, fasting, and reconciliation—and looks at how passages in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Quran discuss these themes. Shuaili said he especially appreciated its focus on Abraham’s hospitality.

Meyers, an RCA pastor from Grand Rapids, described how Christians get to experience the impact of quranic recitation while Muslims discover the beauty of the biblical text. By creating safe spaces for religious conversation, he said, interfaith relations are strengthened in Oman, the Persian Gulf region, and the world.

Oman’s nearly 5 million people are a diverse mix of Sunni, Shiite, and Ibadi Muslims as well as Christians (4%) and Hindus (5%), mostly from the substantial immigrant community.

While appreciating sincere Muslim engagement with the Bible, many evangelicals may view scriptural reasoning as a step down from evangelism. Shuaili’s response suggests he equates the two religious texts and downplays the differences. In a good-humored comment of commonality, he said he expects to see Meyers in heaven one day, where they can play pickleball together. But at no time, the scriptural reasoning website emphasizes, is anyone called to compromise their faith commitment.

Prior to AAC, Shuaili was a strict and traditional Muslim who would have never interacted with believers of other religions. This indicates the promise of interfaith relations to better integrate communities, but is Christian-Muslim dialogue a proper substitute for the RCA’s once-vibrant missionary heritage?

Open Doors ranks Oman at No. 32 on its World Watch List of nations where it is hardest to be a Christian. (Part 2 of this series discusses why AAC disputes this ranking.) Yet while Open Doors’ annual report praised AAC for “helping to create a more tolerant attitude towards Christians,” it also said that the center is “very much intended to boost Omani diplomatic ties.” With churches monitored and proselytizing illegal in the country, the report said that government support for AAC’s interfaith dialogue helps Oman keep a “friendly face” toward the world. 

The AAC website states it differently. The center…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on October 14, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Lapido Media Middle East Published Articles

Islam Greets Christianity in Oman

Staff, students, and local friends of the al-Amana Center
Staff, students, and local friends of the al-Amana Center

Imagine David Cameron in Norfolk, about to speak on ‘British values’. He then invites forward a Muslim Brotherhood leader, and asks him to explain Islam.

And in the Zippo’s Circus-like atmosphere, the audience leaves pleased.

Transfer the scene to the Sultanate of Oman, and witness an American Christian pastor make clear the gospel in the austere heartland of Ibadi Islam.

Now picture a tolerance that predates Britain’s embrace of multiculturalism—on the border of Saudi Arabia.

The analogy is not perfect. Sultan Qaboos bin Said is an absolute monarch, ruling since 1970. Proselytisation is forbidden in any direction.

But the Shiva Temple in the capital of Muscat has served the Hindu community for over 200 years. Since the early 1900s the government has given land to build churches.

Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric has repeatedly called for all non-Muslim houses of worship in the Arabian Peninsula to be destroyed in accordance with sharia law.

Clearly, Oman does not share Wahhabi convictions. There appears a similarity in strict practice, but not in the approach to others. The Ibadi branch of Islam is far older than the eighteenth-century Saudi creed, dating to its formative scholar from the old capital in Nizwa in AD 711.

And to this region where Islam originally took hold, the Ministry of Religious Affairs invited Revd Douglas Leonard to speak.

Heritage

Leonard is the director of al-Amana Centre in Muscat, an outgrowth of the Reformed Church in America’s (RCA) mission dating back to 1893. Today its focus is on interfaith dialogue.

Leonard expected a quiet discussion with twenty imams. He found a huge tent full with 500 people, over a thousand outside, and twenty imams seated in the front row. Three television stations were present, broadcasting his lecture to the whole nation.

It was a lecture, not a Billy Graham crusade. But it focused on countering misconceptions about Christianity, dealing with differences and not content to settle for ‘common ground’.

A kindly reception was guaranteed by his official introduction as part of the heritage of ‘Dr Thoms’, an RCA missionary-surgeon remembered fondly. Omani’s eyes soften, Leonard said, and tell stories of how he healed their grandparents, or delivered then when they were born.

Leonard also teaches a course each semester at the College for Sharia Sciences. Its thousand strong student body goes on to become imams, jurists, lawyers, and bureaucrats.

‘The government wants every Omani to gain appreciation of other religions,’ he said.

Piety

Ibadism sees tolerance amid conviction as the essence of original Islam.

Twenty years after the death of Muhammad the nascent caliphate was in civil war. Unlike the eventual Shia, they rejected Caliph Ali when he agreed to negotiate with Muslim rebels deemed insufficiently pious. And unlike the eventual Sunni, they did not reconcile with the rebels after their victory established a hereditary throne.

History records one of the leading rejectionist parties as the Kharijites, a violent and puritanical sect who declared anyone in disagreement a non-Muslim, much like ISIS today. But though they emerged from the same political position, Ibadis separated completely from the Kharijites and became quietists. They insist on piety but do not judge, as only God can know one’s heart.

Ibadis are less than one per cent of Muslims worldwide. But in Oman they are a majority, with a substantial Sunni minority. Shia are roughly five per cent, though the government does not keep official statistics. In law and practice, all mosques are open to all faith interpretations.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Oman’s population is 3.2 million, 30 per cent of which are foreign workers. An estimated 85 per cent are from India, mostly from the southeastern state of Kerala where Hindus and Christians together have shaped the culture.

Centuries of trade across the Indian Ocean have nurtured an open spirit. A few Hindus and Christians have become citizens.

But nearly all Omanis are Muslim, and the demographic explosion of foreigners since the oil boom has put pressure on traditional society. Sultan Qaboos has developed interior cities such as Nizwa, but despite employing extensive foreign labor the city has not been allotted a church.

Doing so would be sensitive, Leonard said, just as building a mosque can be sensitive in parts of the West. But in his experience the people are kind and the government wants to do all it can to facilitate the ability of foreign Christians to worship.

Appreciation

And one reason Leonard is trusted is because he does all he can to facilitate the ability of Omani and Christian alike to appreciate the other.

Over the past five years al-Amana has hosted 42 American university students in a semester-abroad program. Besides taking introductory classes on Arabic and Islam, they have been matched with 40 Omanis in ‘scriptural reasoning’.

Much interfaith dialogue does not go into the details of religious difference, afraid to cause offense or devolve into argument. Scriptural reasoning seeks to honor each faith at its core, studying the texts as holy in the eyes of the other, and not just stop at common ground.

Each year for the past four the Omani government has sent ten religious sector employees to Cambridge University for training, where Leonard is an instructor. One became emotional reading the Sermon on the Mount, saying he would now tell other Muslims that what they say about Christians is wrong.

An experience mirroring that of Kory McMahan, a junior at Northwestern College in Iowa and al-Amana’s most recent graduate.

‘At my school there is no Muslim voice, but it deserves to be heard,’ he told Lapido Media. ‘I can’t speak for Muslims but I can share what I have seen and learned.’

Leonard hopes the pattern of religious tolerance in Oman can be replicated throughout the Middle East, as well as combat anti-Muslim sentiment in the West.

‘Ours is a 120 year example of Muslims and Christians working together,’ he said. ‘Imagine what would happen if instead of being suspicious, we came together for the common good.’

Whether in Norfolk or Nizwa, British and Omani values may not be that far apart.

This article was originally published at Lapido Media.