Kuwaiti scholar: women can vote, but are unsuited to run for political office
Kuwaiti scholar Dr Ajeel Al-Nashmi, who serves as the head of the Sharia Scholars League in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), believes that women are not fit to hold public office. Al-Nashmi doesn't object to women voting, just doing stuff they aren't suited for, like debating, staying awake for long hours at night, and interacting with men. Al-Nashimi justifies his position by appealing to Islam: “[D]uring the era of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and subsequent periods, history has not registered women appointments in government to manage affairs in any Islamic state.”
If you're tempted to dismiss Al-Nashmi as a fringe hard-liner whose opinion doesn't matter, consider that Bloomberg Businessweek lists him as having connections with to 55 board members in 5 different organizations across 5 different industries. He has gained renown as a scholar and the author of several books dealing with Sharia and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Al-Nashmi received his doctorate degree in Jurisprudence from Al-Azhar University in 1977, then his Masters in 1995. As part of the GCC, he influences Muslims in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.
When a devout Muslim, one who has dedicated much of his life to studying Islam, says that Islam regulates a woman's life in x manner, I think the least we can do is investigate his claims...especially when he is known and respected as an expert by millions of Muslim households.
Women: Apostasy in Islam
Susan Ithungu, a Christian from Uganda, is out of the hospital. She's beginning to walk again. Every day that passes, she's one day further from the scarring events of 2010...the year her father locked her up and tried to starve her into submission (read more details here).
You see, Susan was Muslim, in that she was the child of a Muslim. And in March of 2010 she did what no Muslim 14-year-old is allowed to do (in fact, what no Muslim of any age is allowed to do)...she turned from the impersonal, vindictive god of the Qur'an to follow Jesus Christ. “I heard the message of Christ’s great love. Of Him dying for us to get everlasting peace, and there and then I decided to believe in Christ," Susan (pictured below) said.
Mukobi, her father, threatened to slaughter her publicly, but Susan would not recant. He hated the fact that she had renamed herself 'Susan,' disassociating herself with her birth name, Aisha (the name of Muhammad's 6-year-old bride and favorite wife). So Mukobi locked up his daughter. For six months. Every day, she received just a little food and just a little water. Slow starvation. Her weight dipped below 45 pounds. Still, Susan would not give up Jesus and return to Muhammad. Finally, in September of 2010, she was rescued by child protection volunteer and taken to the hospital.
What fascinates me about this story is that, in the eyes of Sunni jurisprudence, Mukobi's treatment of his daughter was merciful. Mukobi could have rightfully killed Susan for forsaking Allah, or at least had her flogged thirty-nine times every day. According to the Hanafi school of law, which has the most adherents among Sunni Muslims, the apostate woman is to be:
"...[T]hrown in prison until she returns to Islam or dies, being whipped thirty-nine times every day...She must be imprisoned, because she, after being a Muslim, did not give Allah the rights due him; so she must be obliged to pay back these rights by being imprisoned." - The Case of the Female Apostate
If an apostate is considered mentally ill, then their apostasy is not valid (it is impossible for them to leave Islam). Because the penalty for apostasy is so severe, sometimes families will try to 'shelter' their children by declaring them incompetent. In the case of Nurta, a Somali Christian convert from Islam, when beating failed to dim her faith in Christ, a doctor was called in to diagnose her as 'mentally ill' so her family could adminster mind-altering medication. When that failed, she was chained to a tree and in 2010 she was murdered in an apparent 'honor killing.'
(Note: this stuff isn't just happening in rural Muslim communities overseas. It's happening in Britain and the U.S. as well)
Beatings, imprisonment, death - these punishments for apostasy are endorsed by all four schools of Sunni law. So before we condemn Susan's father as a lone radical, we should go back to the sources and investigate what Islam teaches.
And we must pray for the hearts of the fathers to be turned to their children, and for Muslims around the world to forsake the emptiness of Islam and, like Susan, encounter the everlasting peace that is found only in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Islam and Sex Slaves: 84,000 girls in Iran
"In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: 'We are deporting you … because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We don’t have prostitutes.' Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called “morality houses,” and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution."
In her report, Islamic Fundamentalism and the Sex Slave Trade in Iran, Donna M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island paints a dark picture where goverment officials and Islamic religious teachers alike sexually exploit young girls. Although she doesn't go into much detail, Hughes does acknowledge the fact that certain Islamic teachings (like 'temporary marriage' mentioned above) play a serious role in permitting and perpetuating the global sex slave trade.
"Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists," she writes. The statistics are shocking: in Tehran alone there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution. Iranian girls are also trafficked abroad, providing sex slaves to Muslim men in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and beyond. Hughes writes of one case, in which a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey to be sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.
The worst part? The Islamic goverment of Iran is not interested in cracking down on those who enslave women. It's just business as usual to them.
"Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs."
Read more on Women in Islam at: Pilgrim Toward Truth Home Page
Muhammad's Treatment of Women
“Iqbal, an elderly Muslim lawyer told me that a man needs a fresh spouse every ten years in order to meet his sexual needs. And true to his word, he has had six wives, three of whom he has divorced. Iqbal has operated well within Quranic parameters. Never more than four wives at a time, and he has financially cared for each one.”
– Phil & Julie Parshall, Lifting the Veil, p.141
Discussing the Islamic view of women inevitably leads to a conversation about the differing roles of men and women…and when you talk about women in Islam, you’re going to have to talk about sex.
Why?
Because Muhammad himself taught prolifically on the topic of women in relation to sex...and modeled his teachings in his life. The Qur’an and Hadith contain 10,600 verses explicitly about sex (including the ‘f’ word four times from the prophet’s own mouth).
For some reason, our (usually sex-obsessed) western media has decided to ignore how Islam governs the bedroom, although even a cursory look into the teachings of Muhammad reveal that women and sex occupied a huge portion of his time (to read some of his teachings for yourself, check out this selection of Hadith, pages 36-44).
In many Islamic countries, Muslim men hold positions of nearly unmitigated control over all women in their lives – daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, and kafirs (infidels). Traditional Islam says that Allah has placed men ‘a degree above’ women, and that men are to be the ‘maintainers’ of women. According to mainstream Islamic thought (based in sacred texts), Muslim women are subservient – sexually, intellectually, financially, and spiritually – to Muslim men. And as Phil and Julie Parshall record in their book, the results are shocking.
One passage is especially heartbreaking, where Phil describes sexual norms that are prevalent in Islamic society – norms that allow men to sexually abuse their female relatives, but offer the women no way to cry for help. “My close Bangladeshi Muslim friend, Dr. Ali, told me that in Bangladesh when a rural Muslim father gets angry with his daughter, he will tell her, in a threatening voice, to do as she is told or he will have sex with her.”(page 141-142). Adultery, or zinna, is sex outside of marriage. In Islam, it is punished by death, beating, or incarceration.
I’m going to track down more recent stories, quotes, and Islamic sources that deal with what women are facing in the Islamic world. One thing I do know, that even as I pray for an end to promiscuous behavior, pornography, and abortion here in the West, I also thank God for the freedoms we do enjoy, freedoms based in a Judeao-Christian worldview.
Muhammad's Wives
In his book, Jesus and Muhammad: Profound Differences and Surprising Similarities, Mark A. Gabriel conducts a factual analysis of the life and teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, sourcing his statements with primary texts and reputed historical reports. I found his chapter "Attitudes Toward Women" especially helpful in understanding the differences between the way an Islamic society views women and the way a Christian society views women. Here are some notes about Muhammad (the Example for All Muslims) that I found interesting:
List of Muhammad’s Wives:
1. Khadija, the first wife.
Muhammad was 25, she was 40. She is described as being emotionally supportive when he received revelations (during which he foamed at the mouth etc.). She encouraged him when the people of Mecca resisted his teachings, and he remained married to her until her death at age 65.2. Aisha, the child bride.
About a year after fleeing Mecca for Medina (622), Muhammad married Aisha, the six-year-old daughter of his follower, Abu Bakr. He consummated their union when she was nine years old. Aisha was part of Muhammad’s harem until his death. Over the course of her life she became a key figure in Islamic history, narrating thousands of hadith.
She also was active politically, in that she hated Muhammad’s cousin Ali ibn Abu Talib. At one point, Ali told Muhammad he ought to divorce Aisha, and Aisha heard about it. She never stopped hating Ali. Years later, after Muhammad’s death, Ali was elected to become the next Islamic caliph, but Aisha opposed him. She gathered an army of dissidents, and in the battle that followed (the Battle of Camel), Ali was killed, along with about ten thousand Muslims. Yep, Aisha is a major figure.
3. Hafza bint Umar ibn al-Khattab
Hafza was the daughter of one of Muhammad’s warriors.4. Umm-Habib Rumleh bint Abi Sufyan
Umm was the daughter of the leader of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca.5. Zainab, the wife of Muhammad’s adopted son
Basically, Muhammad goes to visit his son, but his son isn’t home. Muhammad gets a glimpse of a partially-clothed Zainab, and falls in love with her. When her husband gets home, Zainab tells him about his father’s behavior (and exclamations of love). Shortly after, Muhammad’s son divorces Zainab, and Muhammad marries her.But not before the ‘angel’ Gabriel appears and reveals that 1) there is to be no more adoption, and all adoptions are annulled (surah 33;4) and that Allah has made a special exception for Muhammad to marry his son’s wife (Surah 33:37-38, “Allah’s command must be fulfilled. There can be no difficulty to the Prophet in what Allah has indicated to him as a duty). Her former husband died while fighting in Jihad three years later.
6. Umm Salama Hend bint Abi Ummayah
7. Maymuna bint el-Harith al-Hilleliah
8. Sauda bint Zema’a el Amawiya
9. Juwayriya bint al-Harith – Jewish prisoner
She was taken by Muhammad during a raid on the beni Mustaliq. On that same raid, Aisha (age 11) was accused of adultery, and Muhammad received a revelation from the angel Gabriel that she was innocent (Surah 42:11-18).10. Safiya, Jewish prisoner of war
Two years after he married Zainab, Muhammad was working on getting all the Jews out of Arabia. He had been mostly successful, but the village of Khaybar was still full of Jews. One night, he and his men surrounded it. They waited until most of the people were asleep, and then attacked. Muhammad had most of the young men and adults killed, but ordered that the women and children should be taken prisoner.In the course of the slaughter, he noticed a beautiful girl – Safiya. Her father and husband had already been killed, and she had already been taken by one of Muhammad’s men – Quais bin Thabet Al-Shammas. Muhammad traded two prisoners (Safiya’s cousins) for Safiya, in effect buying her from Quais.
Muhammad made Safiya ride back with him to Medina. He waited until she menstruated once, and then married her.
11. Ra-hana bint Shumahon
12. Maria bint Shumahon
13. Umm Sharik
Muslim men are permitted four wives....except Muhammad, because he received Allah’s special permission in this revelation:
“O Prophet! We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have paid their dowers; and those whom your right hand posesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to you; and daughters of your paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of your maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makkah) with you; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her; – this only for you, and not for the Believers (at large). – Surah 33:50, Ali Translation
However, none of his widows (nine of them) were allowed to remarry after he died, even though several of them were probably in their twenties (Surah 33:6, 52), and Muhammad himself had been married to a widow.
(material adapted from pp 177-183 of Jesus and Muhammad)
Read more on Women in Islam at: Pilgrim Toward Truth Home Page
Better Days for Libya's Christians?
The 6.6 million citizens of Libya - along with the rest of the world - are trying to get a better picture of what the future holds. The Muslim Brotherhood, oppressed under Gaddafi’s rule, is hoping to gain ground in the political and social arena. Secular and pro-Western forces want to see more democratic freedoms, especially regarding women’s rights. At this point, it is unclear whether Gaddafi’s demise will help or hurt the North African country’s tiny Christian population....
Read more at http://www.smyrnaministries.org/persecution-prayer-and-praise/africa/better-days-libyas-christians/10/21/11
Another Hero in Somalia
It’s men like Juma Kamil who are with the Lord now, under the altar asking for justice.
Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected Islamic extremists from the al Shabaab terrorist group on August 21. On September 2 his decapitated body was found on the outskirts of Hudur City in southwestern Somalia. A Christian who saw Kamil’s body said “It is usual for the al Shabaab (a militant Islamic group with ties to al Qaeda) to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith...our brother accepted the Christian faith three years ago and was determined in his faith in God. We greatly miss him.”
The area community feared burying him, and Kamil's body lay in the open for two days before unknown people buried him secretly. - Compass Direct News
And although we grieve with his family and friends, we know that Kamil has crossed from death to life; for him, the veil has been lifted and he can see his Savior face to face. Praise God!
I am so thankful that, as Christians, we belong to the great I AM, Emmanuel. He does not require that we kill ourselves to obtain certainty of our destiny - we know that our life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:3-4). And although we are carefully instructed not to be deceived by those who have strayed from following the Truth, we are also told to love them and pray for them, and to seek to restore them to fellowship with Jesus Christ (Jude 1:22,23)...not to wage war against them or behead them.
As we read about Kamil's kidnapping and murder, our sorrow for him should be mixed with joy, for he is with Christ right now! And our indignation at his attackers ought to be tinged with pity. They follow a god of chaotic temporal power, and are ignorant of the eternal joy and security found in the God and Father of Jesus Christ. They are blind to the Light, and in their darkness they are bound in the chains of the Qur'an and Hadith, which command them to behead apostates:
"They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them..." - Qur'an, Sura 4:88
Muadh asked, "Who is this (man)?" Abu Musa said, "He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism." Then Abu Musa requested Muadh to sit down but Muadh said, "I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and his messenger," and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. Abu Musa added, "Then we discussed the night prayers and one of us said, 'I pray and sleep, and I hope that Allah will reward me for my sleep as well as for my prayers.'" - Sahih al-Bukari, volume 9, book 84, number 58
Let us pray for Somalia. Let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters. And let us also pray for their aggressors - there is mercy enough at the foot of the Cross.
The Merit of the Gospel
"When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls;.... I disliked very much their hymns which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit."- Clive Staples Lewis
I have to admit, this quote made me grin. It reminds me of each and every time I've invited a non-Christian to church. Invariably, during worship or the sermon, I've thought to myself, "Man, this sounds CRAZY. Washed in the blood. Sweet Lamb of God. Beulah Land. It sounds soooo weird! What is he going to think about this???!!!!"
This ever happened to you? Don't sweat it. Whether your friend is a Muslim, atheist, agnostic or Yankees fan, God's forgiveness through Jesus is exactly what they need to hear about! Cheesy hymns, sermons that reference football too many times, or awkward moments passing the offering plate CANNOT negate the power of the Gospel! It is the message of hope and life and redemption. It is Truth. It may sound crazy, but the world we live in is crazier. When you're sharing the Gospel with a neighbor or friend (or even a Facebook friend), spend some time in prayer - the Holy Spirit is interceding on your behalf. If you don't feel like you have all the answers, that's okay. Tell God about it. Ask Him for the words you need. He DELIGHTS to give us everything we need in Christ Jesus! As C.S. Lewis found, if God is at work in people's lives and hearts then He will be glorified!
(please, as August winds to a close, continue praying for those observing Ramadan!!
Biblical Fasting - Reflections during the month of Ramadan
Have you ever gone a day without food? Gone straight through your work day, with no pause for breakfast, lunch, or dinner? No coffee, no snacks…nothing to propel you through hectic moments or the sleepy stretches of the afternoon? It’s tough. You can’t rely on your physical body for energy or focus. You have to find another source.
That’s why as Christians, we often fast when we pray – we are longing to intentionally and entirely focus ourselves on God as the source of our existence. When we fast, we are constantly aware of our hunger – of our frailty as humans, of our dependence on food. Our weakness brings into sharp focus how “in control” we really are, and reminds us to repent from self-sufficiency and instead cry out to God.
Scripture is full of examples of men and women who sought God through fasting and prayer (list adapted from http://www.angelfire.com/wa/msministries/bible.html):
- Moses fasted for 40 days…twice. The first time, God gave him the Law. The second time, God spared Israel for their sin with the golden calf. (Deuteronomy 9)
- Hannah fasted and prayed for a child. God gave her Samuel, who grew up to be a mighty prophet. (1 Samuel 1)
- Elijah fasted for 40 days while fleeing in fear from wicked Jezebel, who threatened to have him killed. God gave him comfort, boldness and instructions to go back the way he came and anoint new prophets. (1 Kings 19)
- King David fasted for seven days, that God might heal his baby son (conceived illegitimately with Bathsheba). The baby died, yet David experienced God's wonderful peace through this incredible trauma. (2 Samuel 12)
- Nehemiah fasted while he prayed for the restoration of Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 1:4)
- Queen Esther fasted when her people were on the brink of annihilation. She also asked her entire nation to join her for three days without food or water. (Esther 4)
- Daniel prayed and fasted for 21 days, repenting of the sins of his people, and crying out to God to heal Israel and act on their behalf. He received a vision and revelation of end times. (Daniel 9)
- John the Baptist and his disciples fasted often, as they prayed for deliverance and salvation. (Matthew 9:14,15)
- Anna, a godly woman whose husband had died devoted herself to prayer and fasting. She is honored in the Bible as one of the first women to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. (Luke 2:37)
- The Apostle Paul fasted for three days after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:9). He tells us 2 Corinthians 11 that he fasted often as he prayed for strength and unity in the Body of Christ.
- Jesus fasted for 40 days, and Satan tried to use this time of “weakness” to tempt Jesus. Yet even when weakened from lack of physical nourishment, Jesus proved that in man’s weakness, God’s strength is perfect. If God in human flesh fasted, how much more ought we? (Matthew 4)
The thing about fasting, though, is that it will not save us. God does not forgive us of sin because of what we do, but on the merit of Christ alone. Salvation is God’s gift (Romans 6:23).
Said another way: if fasting is done to impress others of our own holiness, or because we are trying to ‘be good enough’ for heaven, it is a ritual, done in the flesh. (The Pharisees of Jesus’ day fasted in this manner –and Jesus called them “a brood of vipers.”) In fact, the point of fasting for a Christian is saying, “Hey, I’m humbling myself because I’m not holy. I’m not strong. But you are holy, God, and you are strong. I want to know you.”
As you probably know, right now Muslims are observing Ramadan – the month of fasting. However, in Islam, fasting is required for the forgiveness of sins, salvation from Hell fire, the reward of Paradise, among other things. As Abu Huraira reported, Muhammad said, "When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained." [Bukhari]
Muslims all over the world are fasting to earn Allah’s forgiveness, attempting to expiate their sins, and earn entrance into one of the eight doors of Paradise while the devils are chained. Please keep them in your prayers – they don’t know that in Jesus Christ, we have access to the throne of God in heaven 365 days a year (Hebrews 4:16). They don’t have a relationship with the God who promises that all the powers of Hell will not be able to separate us from His love in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38).
Please spend some time this month praying for the Muslim world – they don’t have the Bread of Life, and are going spiritually hungry. Pray for God to touch their hearts with His Word, that they would learn what true fasting is (Isaiah 58).
(you can learn more about what Islam teaches about Ramadan here: http://www.qss.org/articles/ramadan/7.html).
A Prayer for Guidance (by George Washington)
O Eternal and Everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before Thy Divine majesty, beseeching Thee to accept of my humble & hearty thanks, that it hath pleased Thy great goodness to keep & preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet & pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed & comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech Thee to defend me from all perils of body & soul.
Direct my thoughts, words, and work; wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the Lamb, and purge my heart by the Holy Spirit, from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind & liberty of will serve Thee, the Everlasting God, in righteousness & holiness this day, & all the days of my life.
Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the Gospel; give me repentance from dead works; pardon my wanderings, and direct my thoughts unto Thyself, the God of my salvation; teach me how to live in Thy fear, labor in Thy service, and ever to run in the ways of Thy commandments; make me always watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor an unwillingness to depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber, but daily frame me more and more into the likeness of Thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in Thy fear, and dying in Thy favor, I may in Thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto Eternal Life.
Bless my family, friends, and kindred. Unite us all in praising & glorifying Thee, blessed Saviour, who hath taught us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name. Thy Kindom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever. Amen
- From his prayer journal, Mount Vernon, an undated prayer
Lust for Power vs. Covenant Love
About six hundred years before Muhammad’s birth, Jesus was striding throughout Israel, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and proclaiming God’s message of salvation to all who were willing to repent and believe. Crowds gathered to hear Him. He interacted with both the rich and the poor, both the powerful and the oppressed, both women and men; His following swelled into the tens of thousands.
Yet He raised no army. He took no captives.He amassed no wealth.
Instead, He directed His followers to pray and trust God for their needs. He called them together, unifying them as the Church, and promised to forgive them and sustain them. Ultimately, Jesus lay down His life to save them. Scripture is clear: Jesus was seeking glory not for Himself, but for His Father (John 8:50). God’s covenant of love with His people was fulfilled in Christ, to the point we say: “God is Love.”
That is the history of Jesus Christ - what is the history of Muhammad? He married a widow in a wealthy family to gain prestige and after her death, married eleven women (including a nine-year-old and his daughter-in-law) and had other concubines. After his flight to Medina, he mustered a fighting force large enough to plunder Mecca’s caravans, destroy Medina’s Jews, and re-conquer his hometown, Mecca.
Forty-seven battles later, Muhammad was wealthy and powerful. He endorsed the slave trade, advising his followers to keep slave-girls if they were not satisfied with their two, three, or four wives.
Styling himself as the voice of Allah, he promised his followers victory in battle, earthly riches, and a paradise of unlimited sex in exchange for submission to Allah’s system. Love does not enter the picture!
According to Islamic scriptures and tradition, marriage is a duty appointed by Allah, designed specificaly to expand Muslim influence and limit licentious behavior. The man's duty is to engender children (especially sons) and "maintain" his women. The woman’s duty is to be clean, obedient, and available to her husband at all times. If the man is not pleased with his wife for any reason, he is permitted to divorce her. It appears that when love is present in a Muslim marriage, it is despite Muhammad’s example, not because of it. In pleasing Allah, love is superfluous.
Is the same true for pleasing God, the Father of Jesus Christ? Is love a mere extra? No. God designed marriage as a picture, a living parable, to portray the loving relationship between Christ and the Church. Jesus does not love the Church because He is trying to gain power. He is not the Head of the Church because He needs an army. He is not interested in us because of what we can give to Him or do for Him or win for Him.
This is reflected in the behavior of a Christian husband: he is not using his wife to gain power (i.e. sons) or wealth or prestige; instead, he is looking for ways to love her and strengthen her faith (Ephesians 5:25).
As you hear about the suffering of women in the Islamic world, don't immediately blame it on poverty or corrupt governments or mere human causes. Remember these women are trapped in a religion that substitutes submission for love. Remember the contrast between Christ and Muhammad. Then, instead of shaking your head, get on your knees. Obey the command of the One who is Love: pray for them - both Muslim men and women. Pray for them, because they are living and dying without the knowledge that God is Love.
Wearing the Veil in India
A sobbing woman comes to a Lalitpur hospital in northern India. She begs the doctor to perform an operation that will make it impossible for her to get pregnant again. Already mother to three daughters, the woman is terrified – if her husband knew of her hospital visit, he would kill her. “Every night my husband comes home drunk and beats all of us because he wants a son. I have failed my duty as a woman, but I will not risk bringing another girl into such misery.”*
It is a country familiar with poverty, ignorance, and disease. Why should the plight of Muslim women be given special attention? Why is their suffering any different from their Hindu neighbors?
According to government and humanitarian reports, Muslim women comprise one of the most, if not the most, vulnerable, uneducated, and impoverished minorities in India.
Think about it: a minority of 69 million women, over half under age 25.
Indian courts have ruled that Sharia law holds precedence for Muslims over Indian civil law in family and marital matters - trapping Muslim women in a system where they have no avenue to appeal for better treatment. For instance, Islam in India permits triple talaq– the traditional Islamic method for divorce, in which a man ends his marriage simply by uttering the words, ‘I divorce you’ three times to his wife. Within their communities, the only way these women earn respect or affection is by bearing children…male children.
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India is home to the 3rd largest Muslim population in the world – roughly 138 million people – although Muslims comprise just 13.4% of the country. |
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Smyrna is blessed to partner with “Dev” and “Hansa” in their dynamic ministry. This Indian couple has been sowing the Gospel for over twenty years, reaching out to Muslims living in slums, ghettoes, and rural villages (one of their lit pictured right)
“Dev” recently reported good news. He met with trainees of one of their newest women’s vocational training centers: “This morning there were 22 Muslim women with whom I shared from Psalm 16. By God’s grace, we are preparing to start an adult literacy program for Muslim women here too, as about 10 of the trainees in the current batch are completely illiterate.”
Pray for “Dev” & “Hansa” as they seek to rescue Muslim women (as well as Muslim fathers, husbands, and brothers) with the life-altering message of the Gospel.
*adapted from a report from a contact in India, Fall 2010
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A snapshot from the life of the Prophet
Media sources are familiar with the Qur’an as the sacred text of Islam, but they rarely reference the hadith, biographical anecdotes from the life of Mohammed that the majority of Muslims view as morally binding. Many passages reference the way Muhammed dealt with women (a selection can be found here); as a woman, I find them troubling, including the ones quoted below:
While on his way to pray, Mohammed passed a group of women and he said, “Ladies, give to charities and donate money to the unfortunate, because I have witnessed that most of the people in Hell are women.”
They asked, “Why is that?”
He answered, “You swear too much, and you show no gratitude to your husbands. I have never come across anyone more lacking in intelligence, or ignorant of their religion than women. A careful and intelligent man could be misled by many of you.”
They responded, “What exactly are we lacking in intelligence or faith?” Mohammed said, “Is it not true that the testimony of one man is the equal to the testimony of two women?” After they affirmed that this was true, Mohammed said, “That illustrates that women are lacking in intelligence. Is it not also true that women may not pray nor fast during their menstrual cycle?” They said that this was also true. Mohammed then said, “That illustrates that women are lacking in their religion.”
~ quoted from the reputable collection of Hadith by Sahih Bukhari, volume 1, book 6, number 30
The hadith are records of Mohammed’s specific words and actions in dealing with his friends, his wives, and his neighbors. It is important to realize that imams and Muslim scholars do not base their teachings from the Qur’an alone, but draw from the recorded hadith. With rare exception, the Islamic world holds the hadith collection of Sahih Bukari as completely trustworthy.
Mohammed: After I die, the biggest problem that I leave to man is woman.
~ Sahih Bukhari, volume 7, book 62, number 33
The condition of women across the Islamic world is heartbreaking. They are illiterate, abused, imprisoned, and silenced. Be informed, and get on your knees to pray for them.
How a pastor in Baghdad responds to persecution
This story is....wow. Lord, give me a heart to pray for boldness. Open my eyes to your Sovereign nature. Teach me to trust your Word.
Amen.
excerpt from Ron Brackin's story "A Pastor in Baghdad"
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
DALLAS, TX(ANS) -- We met seven years ago in Baghdad. I was there researching a book on the post-Saddam Iraqi Church. Actually, it wasn't all that "post," since he had crawled out of his "rat hole" only a few weeks earlier.
After introductions were made, I sat down in front of his desk and, as I took out my digital recorder, he said, "Before we begin, I would like to read something to you." He opened a black-covered Bible and read from Isaiah 19, which my NIV calls a prophecy about Egypt:
"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria [modern-day Iraq]. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assryia my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.' "
You don't have to be a theologian to know that "that day" has not come yet.
"This is our vision," he said, "the vision of the Church in Iraq." And he went on to tell me his story and the account of his people between the Gulf Wars.
This morning, I received a telephone call from a friend in Amman, Jordan.
"Guess who is with me," he said, uncharacteristically playful.
It was my friend from Baghdad. We spent a few minutes catching up, and then I asked him two hard questions.
I knew that more than a million Christians had already fled Iraq, along with millions of other refugees, the Christians heading north to Irbil, Dahuk or Sulaymaniyah, where they are protected by the Kurds, or to the godawful refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. I wasn't surprised that they left. I was amazed that more than a million others have stayed.
He explained that he had lost half of his congregation since November 1, when al-Qaeda-connected gunmen took 120 hostages at Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad and slaughtered 41 Christians, including two priests, as well as 12 police officers and 5 bystanders and wounded 78 others. The media called it the "deadliest attack ever recorded against Iraq's Christians." In 2006 and 2007, my friend's church had a thousand members. Half left between then and last November. Half again since the attack. It turned out that the ter rorists had targeted my friend's church, but the killers went to the wrong address, one street away. The police broke up his service that Sunday morning, informed my friend about the "mistake," and told him to shut down and send everybody home, which he did. But the doors were open again two weeks later.
"How do you teach your congregation that God provides for them when they have no food, that he protects them when they are being raped and tortured and murdered, that he loves them when he sends no one to their rescue?" I asked my friend.
"When the terrorists came and killed many Christians," he said, "that week, I received many calls from my congregation asking me many why's. Why did Jesus let them kill Christians? Why didn't Jesus stop them? Why did God let the terrorists enter the church? Why? Why? Why?
"I cried out to God. I said, 'My Lord, give me the answers.'
"After that, in my reading that day in the Book of Acts 4:29, I saw that when the disciples were threatened, they prayed, I thought maybe for pr otection. I was shocked that they prayed for boldness.
"The next week, I went before the church.
" 'You ask me why, why why. You should go to God and ask him why he left his Son torn on the cross. Why Peter died on a cross upside down. After that, ask me why. It's in the plan. Because you are a Christian, it costs blood. And maybe it will cost our blood. God didn't promise us that we would live in a comfortable life. Why are we surprised? This is our life. This is what is promised for us. Open the Book of Acts and see how the Christians suffered.'
"They were very encouraged and were clapping and they prayed and cried and said, 'Oh, we are sorry, our Lord.' "
******************************************************************
While we prayed...
Three Sundays ago, while I was in a Sunday school class praying for persecuted Christians, Muslim soldiers were torturing Michel Loua, an imprisoned pastor in Conarkry, Guinea. As my friend Jacob opened the service with a hymn, Michel was laying in his own blood, shot through the heart. By the time seminary student David started preaching, the soldiers had already dragged the pastor’s mangled corpse to a hospital and dumped it there.
Sunday, November 14. U.S.A.
4396.7 miles
Sunday, November 14. West Africa.
I came across Michel’s story this morning, and the date leapt off the page at me. It’s still marked in my calendar: “The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.”
Oh how the battle rages…
Michel had been arrested on Tuesday, October 26 - without warrant or trial. No evidence had been filed against him, and authorities had announced they would release him on Monday, November 15...but his murderers did not allow that to happen. He was imprisoned and killed only a 9 hour, 8 minute plane ride from D.C.! Michel's youngest son was born in Texas four years ago—I can only imagine how desperately his family needs comfort from Jehovah God.
I've seen very little news coverage of the incarceration, torture, and death of Pastor Michel Loua, but I want the Body of Christ to hear about this hero. One of his friends says Michel's only crime was that “he was a faithful pastor and church builder, and that he could not be bought or bribed or silenced,”– may that be true of us, too! I can’t get over it: three weeks ago, chained in a filthy prison cell, a mere man imitated Jesus Christ and remained steadfast even in the face of death???!!! Surely the Holy Spirit was supplying his endurance!
His story isn’t getting much media attention now, but I have no doubt we’ll hear a lot about him in heaven, and Michel will be honored throughout eternity by our Almighty God for his tremendous faithfulness!
Keep the faith; pray for the persecuted.
"...As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also." - 2 Corinthians 6:3-13
Humble praise
Fragmented Perspective
"How can a man be righteous before God?" - Job 9:2
If you think you detected a somewhat caustic tone in my last post, you're right. Sometimes, after reading, watching, and hearing story after story of gut-wrenching violence carried out against Christians, I start to not-so-gracefully break. It's like all the screams of all those people are being ignored, and all their pain is one massive waste that we don't even care to try to stop. We, the educated, literate people. That awful feeling of enraged impotence sweeps over me - no matter how urgent the situation, only a few are aware, and they are too few to make a difference. I heap mental scorn upon the Church. She is self-absorbed and small-minded, busy with retreats and breakfasts and Wii for the youth group, nothing but a fat-cat society club blind to the struggles of the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned. "This is not what you want, Lord," I tell God. "It's not enough! We are all failing."
As if He doesn't know that already.
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
This week, I was reminded that the Most Holy God does not get His news from the BBC. His perspective is not mine - He can see everything, in its entirety. He is not dependent on me, or on the Church - it's the other way around. I only see fragments; God sees every human heart.
God knows we're not enough - that's exactly the point of the Law, of the Prophets, of the Gospel itself. He gave His only Son precisely because we are all failing. Jesus was God's rescue mission for humanity, and God knew (and knows) the evil inclinations of mankind. The Bible's record in this regard is clear: Adam and Eve rebelled, their son Cain murdered his brother Abel, the Israelites committed idolatry and adultery shortly after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt, the temple priests were scalping poor people in the name of piety, the prophets who spoke God's words were thrown into wells, stoned, and imprisoned by their fellow Jews...the list goes on. God's redemption in Jesus Christ was possible because God willed it and carried it out, not because humans planned it or deserved it.
We will never be enough, we'll never be good enough: we need God's salvation!
I need to remember that, when I get overwhelmed emotionally. And instead of spiraling down into sin (slandering the Church, who is the chosen Bride of Christ is definitely sin), I need to do what David did, when injustice and oppression weighed him down. He looked to God for justice: " O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure." -Psalm 7:9
Trusting God to avenge, to protect, and to sustain His children isn't always easy, but it liberates us from the impotence of self-sufficiency, and unshackles our hearts to pray and love the same way that Christ did - He will not fail, and He is enough!
~keep on steady there, pilgrim
"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." - 1 John 2:1
Yes, we can read......who's asking?
The brutality suffered by Christians outside the West is a reality, and it boggles my mind how we, living in free countries, are still so ignorant and so silent about their torment...especially when even a half-hearted search unearths quantities of documented, modern-day persecution. What are we reading?
Paul Marshall's book, "Their Blood Cries Out," asks some hard questions of the American church, making the case that we have no excuse for our apathy. At the beginning of the book, Marshall quotes verbatim from Mark Danner's 1993 article on El Salvador (published in The New Yorker). The excerpt (p .87) reads:
"There was one in particular the soldiers talked about that evening (she is mentioned in the Tutela Legal report as well): a girl on La Cruz whom they had raped many times during the course of the afternoon, and through it all, while the other women of El Mozote had screamed and cried as if they had never had a man, this girl had sung hymns, strange evangelical songs, and she had kept right on singing, too, even after they had done what had to be done, and shot her in the chest.
She had lain there on La Cruz with the blood flowing from her chest, and had kept on singing--a bit weaker than before, but still singing. And the soldiers, stupefied, had watched and pointed. Then they had grown tired of the game and shot her again, and she sang still, and their wonder began to turn to fear--until finally they had unsheathed their machetes and hacked through her neck, and at last the singing had stopped."
Why have we withdrawn ourselves from the battle lines? How do we conscience our silence on their suffering? Marshall suggests that one reason we have stopped caring about the persecuted is that we are buying into the values of our society, a society that ridicules faith as a fairytale and refuses to take religion seriously.Yet this society has yet to explain away what he calls, "the brutal facts." The best it can do is unreport them (which it has...prior to 1993 right up to the present). We the church cannot afford to follow suit. We serve the Truth, and we will be held accountable to Him - the singing must never be stopped.
I know other wiser Christians have said this and are saying it, but the Western Church needs to step up and start shouting - both to encourage the persecuted and wake up its members. I admit it readily: I'm young, I have huge knowledge gaps, I'm idealistic. Passion often gallops ahead of articulate argument, and I struggle on a daily basis to correctly process and interpret everything I learn. But I have to try, because the Jesus I worship, the Messiah of the Scriptures, is the head of His Body, and I can no more ignore the amputation of my own arm than ignore the suffering of His hands and feet in El Salvador, in China, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran....etc. Please join me in praying, and in pursuing the facts, however brutal.
The Alphabet of Progress
"There have been roughly ten thousand books translated into Arabic during the last millennium...about the same number of books that Spain translates into Spanish each year."
I've learned a lot during Dr. David Aikman's History of Islam class, but when he cited the high rates of illiteracy, both historical and current, I was awed. I did some fact-checking, and arrived at the conclusion that the literacy situation in the Arab world is abysmal....especially compared to the United States. According to a 2002 U.N. report, 65 million Arab adults were illiterate. Since then, the situation has gotten worse (something only barely mentioned in this NY Times op-ed).
As of 2006, 1.2 billion Muslims have fewer books than 300 million Americans.The Library of Congress has more books than the combined collection at the national libraries of Brunei, Maldives, Suriname, Comoros, Djibouti, Qatar, Bahrain, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, Gabon, Gambia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Albania, Lebanon, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Benin, Tajikistan, Guinea, Azerbaijan, Chad, Somalia, Senegal, Tunisia, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, Cote d'Ivoire, Syria, Mozambique, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Iraq, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Guyana and Niger.
Why? Why is the demand for reading material so low in the Arab world? History indicates that Islamic leaders have supported the Qur'anic idea that Allah revealed all necessary truth in the Qur'an, and that it contains all the knowledge mankind needs. Anyone who posits truths that question any part of the Qur'an is a heretic, and ought to be silenced (read: killed). The Qur'an says that Allah is not bound or limited by anything, including logic.
Is it possible that Western philosophical traditions, which appeal to the immovable rules of logic, are totally incompatible with Islam? Robert Reilly's acclaimed book, "The Closing of the Muslim Mind," catalogs the role of reason in Islam, and examines what happens when a religion abandons rationality. There's a good chance your library has a copy - go check it out!
He sets the captives free...
A friend shared this quote with me, and it hit home hard:
"I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am."
- John Newton
By the grace of God, the free gift of forgiveness is mine in Christ Jesus. I am not what I hope to be, but I am not what I uses to be....amen!
The Missing Context
Read through the Christian Today story on David Fulton's release from prison. Are you happy the 61-year-old chaplain is back in his homeland? Of course. But what do phrases like "found guilty of sedition," and "convicted of forgery" suggest about Fulton's moral history? After reading through the scanty details of Fulton's release, I had a few questions. So I did a little digging.
Context is everything.
Turns out, the British missionary was forcibly separated from his wife and children, incarcerated on the strength of mere accusation, starved, subjected to hard labor, and dragged through judicial procedures that openly scorned non-essentials like documented evidence or eye-witnesses. His wife, Fiona (who worked with the terminally ill) was also arrested and imprisoned, ruthlessly separated from their two year old daughter.
You see, in The Gambia, submission to Islam and President Yahya Jammeh's police henchmen come first. Fulton's act of sedition was critically discussing some of Gambia's problems in an email. Problems? Gambia? Outrageous! (oh wait, do you mean things like poverty, female genital mutilation, police corruption, terrible roads, lack of medical care, education, etc?). Such sentiments, declared Gambia's law-enforcers, are seditious hate-crimes (keep in mind, this is a government condemned by the U.S. for human rights abuses, and that routinely uses murder, arson, unlawful arrests and death threats to silence fact-reporting native journalists).
No news story I found listed a comprehensive timeline of events (the Fulton's church website does here), although the Telegraph.uk.co did a better job with the forgery/sedition charges. VOM provided excellent details, but not a consistent narrative. Unfortunately, very few publications even asked what the last twenty months have been like for the Fultons. As near as I can figure, the timeline goes like this:
On Saturday, November 29, 2008, David and Fiona are arrested, unaware of the charges filed against them.
On Thursday, December 4, the charges of sedition are formally leveled against them. They plead not guilty. David is placed in a 5" by 5" cell in the filthy, high security Mile II prison. Conditions are appalling (19 prisoners have died there in the past 3 years). Fiona is placed in a cell at Banjul Police Station, separated from her 2 year-old adopted daughter Elizabeth. Bail is impossible - four Gambian property owners must vouch for them. They are unable to meet the bail requirements.
On Tuesday, December 16, the Fulton's trial is post-poned until Wednesday, December 24. They still do not know the full nature of the evidence brought against them.
On Wednesday, December 24, the Fulton's appear in court. Their lawyer advises them to plead guilty of sedition in order to get a lighter sentence. They do, but on December 30 they are sentenced to one year hard labor and a fine of about £6250 in sterling.
On the 30th of December, 2009, Fiona is released and returns to Britain. Her husband remains in jail, because he had an unauthorized license plate for his car (yes, that's the forgery charge, although it's common practice in Gambia). He did not deny that he printed the license plate, and was convicted of forgery - 3 year additional sentence. He appealed the conviction. While the courts delayed, he was also accused of impersonating a military officer.
These charges were eventually dropped because the prosecution didn't have any witnesses, and on Wednesday, September 8th, David Fulton was released and returned to the U.K.
The British government appears to have done little to effect his release; the Fulton's appear to be free-lance missionaries associated with a Pentacostal church; their oldest daughter Iona gave birth while her parents were in jail; etc. etc. etc. There are a whole TON of details missing from this story (and pictures...all the stories are running the same family photo pre-incarceration), and I guess I'm curious as to why this story got the superficial treatment from actual reporters.
Oh wait.
The Gambia is over 90% Muslim, and Sharia is the law of the land. Is it possible that the media left this story alone because the Fulton's real crime was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in an oppressive country dominated by Islam, and it's just not hip to criticize Islam? I'm not sure, but I know that context is everything.
Duty, child of Privilege
Lining the edge of my desk, next to my Japanese peace lily which needs to be watered, are a number of books I'm in the process of reading. Most of them have titles referencing Islam:"Islam and Mammon," "The Trouble with Islam Today," "The Crisis of Islam," "The Dark Side of Islam," "Secrets of the Koran," "Answering Islam," "The Scripture of Islam," while a few others have exciting names, like Bernard Lewis's "The Assassins" or Bilquis Sheikh's "I Dared to Call Him Father." All of them were written by thoughtful men and women (some Muslim, some Christian, some neither) who felt the need to address and discuss certain historical and spiritual aspects of Muhammad's faith.
I am profiting by their diligence, as well as my privileged position as a literate American with unfettered access to a wide variety of ideas. As a native-born Somalian, Egyptian, Iranian, Malaysian, or Pakistani woman, I would most likely be illiterate. If I did receive an education, my studies would be limited. If I attempted to interact with material intellectually critical of any Islamic teaching (which includes any text that endorses any Christian ideal), I would be in big trouble (beaten or worse).
I don't want to squander the incredible privileges I've inherited as an American; I don't want to waste the time I've been given. If I do, then perhaps, as in the days of Moses, a generation will arise forgetful of the sweet taste of liberty, and cut off from the words of the Gospel.
Love and Tolerance are Different Things
"Y
our generation has been sold the bill of goods about tolerance. 'Tolerance is the highest ideal, the best way to live in peace.' People are always saying it is our best defining characteristic."
My boss was looking straight at me. He continued:
"Is it? What about what Christ said, that we’re all evil? Jesus Christ didn't preach a mantra of tolerance toward sin. But he did say a whole lot about love. Our mistake is equating the two. Tolerance is NOT love. Love is sacrificial; love fights against anything that will harm the beloved; love is active, sometimes resulting in intervention; it is righteous and forgiving, and comes at personal cost.
Our country was founded on the very Christian idea that liberty is only possible when men are virtuous, as opposed to carnal, licentious, and indolent. Good and evil are realities, and virtue is virtue only when it moves from theory to practice. In my eyes, defending the freedoms enjoyed by American citizens, regardless of gender or race, is a virtue. And by "defending," I mean actively ensuring that no one abridges or abolishes these freedoms.
When Frank Gaffney investigates and reports that 80 percent of the mosques built in the U.S. are built with money from Saudi Arabia (Wahabbi Islam), as an American, I am concerned. I understand that Shari'a law is a revered cornerstone of their religion, but I am also aware that it is incompatible with our Constitution and the laws of our nation, which are firmly based in Biblical principles. When I ask for further information about what these mosques are teaching, or if they are fostering anti-American sentiments, I am not asking bigoted questions - I'm asking national security questions. I'm not adverse to the teachings of Muhammad because I hate Muslims, but rather because I love the liberty found in Christ and I want ALL men (and women) to have the opportunity to experience it.
In Matthew 5:43, Jesus commanded us to emulate his example: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor & hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies & pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."
On 9-11, what I was feeling was exactly hate. Throughout the hours and days that followed, I was praying, "Lord, take this hate away from me! Give me clear thinking, let me step up and do what needs to be done to defend this country- but let me not hate!"
Several years went by, and I came to work here at Smyrna Ministries. Day after day, I read incidents of persecution, Muslims killing Christians, and I thought, "Is this going to lead me back to hate?"
I wrestled with this, but then I realized that these Christians dying at the hands of their tormentors are free, and it is the Muslims who are enslaved in bondage.
When Jesus condemned sin and commanded love, he was only echoing what his Father in heaven had said centuries earlier: "Do not go about spreading slander among your people, and do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. Do not hate your brother in your heart...and do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself, for I AM the LORD" (Leviticus 19:16-18).
When it comes to love and tolerance, the world is competing for your loyalty. It wants you to sell out to their definition, and enter an ethical arena where everything is gray, and virtue can claim no superiority to vice. Hold fast to what Christ taught—he died to prove his point.
Remember: Tolerance is overrated. Love is not."
Word.
Marred by dust and sweat and blood
This morning, after reading Brent Budowsky's opinion piece "Harry Reid in the Arena," I discovered that if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, many would label him an "Islam-basher." You see, Budowsky quotes Teddy's stirring 1910 speech, emphasizing his injunction to give credit to the sweating, bleeding warrior who has left the spectator's bench and is actually fighting in the arena. Yet a few paragraphs after the quote, Budowsky tells us our 26th president would have severely disapproved of current U.S. leaders who are "critics...partisans..(and) Islam-bashers" and heartily liked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's job-creation politics.
Does Budowsky know about Theodore Roosevelt's personal beliefs, or how he viewed Islam and Christianity?
The following passages are excerpted from Roosevelt's book, "Fear God and Take Your Own Part", (1916), reproduced in What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an by William Federer.
“Christianity is not the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely because the seventh century Christians of Asia and Africa had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight. Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought.
If the peoples of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, an on up to and including the seventeenth century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated.
Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor.
The civilization of Europe, American and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization because of victories through the centuries from Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today, nobody can find in them any "social values" whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influences are concerned.
There are such “social values” today in Europe, America and Australia only because during those thousand years, the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do -- that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today, there are thousands of Christians beaten, murdered, and imprisoned in Eritrea, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia...and every other Muslim-majority country. They are the ones "in the arena," faces marred by blood and dirt. The conflict between Islam and Christianity (and any country where Christians are allowed to live unmolested) rages on. I wish both Reid and Budowsky would revist the battlefields of history and glance at the consequences. Is not critics who destroy values, nor partisans, but rather those who redefine black and white out of the spectrum and claim the only color is gray. I honestly don’t know how all this will play out in my lifetime here in America, but I do know the final outcome will be total victory for Christ and all those who call upon His name & love His Word.
The Temptation of Treasure
"O man, send your treasure on, send it ahead into heaven, or else your God-given souls will be buried in the earth. Gold comes from the depths of the earth--the soul, from the highest heaven. Clearly it is better to carry the gold to where the soul resides than to bury the soul in the mine of the gold. That is why God orders those who will serve in his army here below to fight as men stripped of concern for riches and unencumbered by anything.
To these he has granted the privilege of reigning in heaven."
- Peter Chrysologus (c. 380-450)
Are we doing it?
"Are we doing it? Are we giving the world a symmetrical, authentic, fully-formed image of Christ? There is still time. Spiritual growth is not a matter of chronology alone. It's a matter of spirit. Of heart. Of who you are to the next person you meet. In the next crisis you face. In the next moment you live." - Lloyd John Ogilvie
This world is out to get you. It wants a grip on your core; it wants to control what you love and what you hate; what you look like and who you act like, and what you think about every minute of every day. The world says "You deserve this," "Follow your heart," and, "Be yourself," but beneath all the feel-good psychology is a message that's purely selfish. The world has rejected God and replaced Him with its own image, and is out to do the exact same thing in you. Sometimes it isn't clear, but in order to be on easy, friendly terms, the world requires that you reject God & live a life that is all about your needs, your image, your love-life, your appetites...you, You, YOU!
This is the whole difficulty with Christianity - Jesus Christ came to deny the world its victory in your life. He asks you to grip onto His words, every minute of every day. He asks you to love what He loves, and hate what He hates, to take His behavior as the absolute model, and His thoughts as your thoughts. He requires that you live a life in friendship with God, a life that is all about His needs, His image, His love...it's all about Him, Him, Him!
"The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." - Paul, Romans 13:11-14
Lethal Medicine
Imagine, for a moment, that a couple years ago a pharmaceutical company came up with a powerful medicinal drug. The company began to excitedly tout the drug as a life-improving elixir able to cure a host of Western maladies. More than fifty-seven countries bought the drug and set up clinics to dispense it, and subsidized it with government funds. These countries’ doctors ignored the appalling side-effects the drug had on every country’s population, even though in 100% of cases, the drug resulted in the debasement of women, Jews, Christians, and gays. In a majority of cases, the drug’s side effects killed the free press and adherents to democracy.
The analogy breaks down, of course, because Islam is not a drug: it’s an ancient recipe for submission to the powerful, never unaccompanied by suffering. Do Americans know what Islam has done in history—beyond the algebra and architecture angle? And are we allowed to l
earn from the 57+ countries where Islam is given free rein? Are we allowed to examine the facts, are we allowed to think rationally about Islam in America, to look at the whole picture with scientific precision and dispassionate analysis?
Are we allowed to learn from the past and build an unfettered future?
(know the facts: http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/)
Skylines & city streets...
"For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." - Romans 14:8-9
Skylines & city streets...
Today, in some hidden apartment in an Egyptian city, a woman tends her nearly paralyzed husband. She herself was shot in the arm by the same knife-weilding, gun-toting gang that attacked her husband because he works for a Christian organization. It struck me this morning, as I was praying for this hurting family, that I don't know this woman's name. Not only do I not know where she is living now, I don't know where she grew up, or what colors she likes to wear, what she likes to cook, or what passages of Scripture inspire her most. As I pray for her, I crave details. I want to personally connect with her, personally comfort her. But I can't. I have to trust that He will.
When I think about the thousands of Christians throught the Islamic world who meet secretly to worship, who must suffer and die without the comfort of knowing that their names and stories are being remembered by their fellow Christians, it breaks my heart. It's as though they are faceless silhouettes, as beautiful and abstract as city skylines. This must not be.
They do have names, and they are my kinsmen.
They do have names, and He has written them in the Book of Life.
Pray!
WHEN DO I OBEY?
Go look at yourself in the mirror. Forehead, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin, shoulders...your eyes staring back at you, windows into a soul transformed by the death and resurrection and indwelling of Jesus Christ.
God has rescued you by the power of the Gospel.
Now imagine that out of love and loyalty to Him, you've become the pastor of a church in Pakistan (or Egypt, or Bangladesh, or the Maldives, or Saudi Arabia - somewhere it is illegal to preach the name of Christ). Yesterday, a member of your congregation snuck to your house after dark, bringing with him a new convert - a Muslim businessman who has believed in Christ and wants to be baptized. You know that if you baptize him, he will face persecution from his relatives, his business partners, his imam, and even municipal authorities. He may be killed. You also know that you and your family may pay the ultimate price if word gets out that you baptized him.
What are you supposed to do?
When Peter & the other apostles were dragged before a hostile Jewish council and an irate high priest for evangelizing, they stuck to the Gospel and the Great Commission. Acts 5:29 reports the when the high priest, on pain of death, commanded the Christians to stop making disciples, "Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men."
Remember Moses before Pharaoh? Elijah before Ahab? Esther before Xerxes? Paul before Festus.....remember how their loyalty to God was far, far deeper than their fear of man. Persecution, no matter how terrible, is NEVER a legitimate reason to blow off the mission Christ gave us. The early church leaders taught the words of Christ and baptized in His name, and a glance through the book of Acts reveals that even during an era of brutal opposition, MANY WERE SAVED DAILY!!!!
I'm not a pastor in Egypt or Pakistan or anywhere else; I'm a believer living in the U.S.A. Yet I know the temptation to waffle on the words of Christ when someone looks at me with hostile eyes or accuses me of being judgmental or intolerant because, like Peter, I say the Cross is the only way to God.
Pray for me, for I am learning to count the cost.
Pray for the pastors in Islam-dominated regions where, often, their obedience to the Father's Son results in suffering and pain.
"Christ's call is to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers, and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil's clutches and the very jaws of Hell. This can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered devotion, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ." - C. T. Studd
Get Literal
"IF you remain in me and my WORDS remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you."
- Jesus Christ, John 15:7.
She was clinging hard to hope.
News about this rabbi had spread like wildfire throughout Syria, even reaching her sea-coast village in northwestern Palestine. Her young daughter suffered, tormented from within by a spiritual evil. The Syrophonecian woman mentioned in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 must have wrestled with doubts. Would the Son of David help her, a Gentile?
Yet, in spite of her fears, she seeks out the Messiah, the one who said: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." (Matthew 7:7)
It's one of my favorite stories, not just because Jesus heals her daughter with a word, but because she pursued Christ's heart. She probably knew very little about the God of Moses (remember, the Pharisees had turned the temple court reserved for women and Gentiles into a market-place - evangelism was not their priority), and the finer points of the Levitical law and OT traditions were unknown to her. All she knew was the lame walked, the blind received sight, and a light had dawned on a land in shadow.
Jesus says he was sent to feed Israel, yet she replies, "But Lord, even the dogs are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." In boldness, she trusted that even the tiniest scrap of God's power and Christ's mercy would be enough to transform her daughter's life. "All those who call on the name of the Lord shall be SAVED!"
This morning, after a conversation with Smyrna's Executive Director, I was convicted to get literal - to take Jesus at His Word and pursue His will in prayer. Jesus said to ask and His Father would abundantly provide...so I'm asking for deliverance for the women in Pakistan, and the children in Turkey, and the students in Ghana, and the men in Somalia...the Maldives..Iran..Eritrea...and the world. The Syrophonecian woman did not have the fullness of knowledge that I have through Scripture, but her words to Jesus overflowed from a believing heart.
I want her heart.
I want to pray, believing that God will work miracles this very hour.
Return to Pilgrim Toward
You Said It, C.S. Lewis!
"If I am a field that contains nothing but grass seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and resown.
That is why the real probelm of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind." - From The Joyful Christian by C. S. Lewis
Lewis writes that it is impossible to fragment your life into areas that need Jesus and areas that don't. Man needs complete, total surrender and complete, total salvation, day to day and minute by minute. He says here that following Jesus is exactly impossible to do if you are trying to merely readjust your outside-self. It is your inside-self that Jesus is interested in, and He wants to crucify it and replace its petty smallness with His own Life. In the morning, it is His voice you must listen to, His point of view you must take, and His large, strong, quiet life you must allow to consume you.
"The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose."
Lewis's words were a timely reminder to me today...our reward as Christians is not the love of Christ, it is not His example or His principles, it is not His comfort or His legacy - our reward is Christ Himself, His indwelling presence and, soon, to actually, physically be with Him and His Father. It's the Good News, it's the central truth to Smyrna's staff and all those that Smyrna supports, and it's the point of this Universe!
She Dared to Take Him at His WORD
For years, I have heard stories of new Christian converts in Muslim communities being ostracized, persecuted, or harmed by their angry, "dishonored" family members. Right down the road from where I work, a young Muslim woman came to Christ, and is trying to keep it quiet from her family long enough to attend her brothers wedding. I can't imagine facing the hostile eyes of my father or the scorn of my mother - it would be awful. Bilquis Sheikh, a Pakistani woman, relates how she struggled with fear of her family as she wrestled with the decision to be baptized.
"Most of all I worried about my little grandson, Mahmud; what would happen to him! My heart caught at the thought of Mahmud's father. He was a very volatile man, who might easily try to take the boy from me if I became a Christian, therefore clearly demonstrating that I was unstable. [These] thoughts seared my heart. Suddenly, the realization of the pain I might inflict on others became too much for me and I stood up, crying. I threw a wrap around me and walked into the cold, winter garden, my refuge where, it seemed, I could think best.
"Oh Lord," I cried, as I paced the graveled path, "could You really want me to leave my family? Can a God of love want me to inflict pain on others?" And in the darkness of my despair, all I could hear were His words, the words which I had just read in Matthew:
Anyone who puts his love for father or mother above his love for me does not deserve to be mine, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me... (Matthew 10:37-38)
This Jesus did not compromise. He did not want any competition. His were hard, uncomfortable words, words I did not want to hear." - from I Dared to Call Him Father, by Bilquis Sheikh
In an era of missions and theology that too often bends and interprets the words of Christ in order to merely draw people into "dialogue" about love and peace divorced from a solid Biblical foundation, I found Bilquis' honesty about her fear and her honest confrontation with the words of Christ very encouraging. The mystery is that fellowship with Jesus and His Father is a priceless treasure; it is the essential component necessary in order to truly love your family. If they experience pain when you depart from old customs and practices, it is because they do not understand the magnitude of God's love in Christ Jesus, or the desperate severity of their sin. Although they suffer, and you suffer, you must cling to Christ. He is compassionate, and He does not desire any to be apart from Him. And He listens when you intercede for them.
Courage in Somalia
Her wrists are raw from chains, her feet blistered from the heat of the ground, yet 17-year-old Nurta adamantly clings to her the One who saved her soul, Jesus Christ.
All those around her, including her family that has chained her to a tree, violently urge her to return to the worship of Allah. They have beaten and cajoled the young Somalian woman,
alternately reciting the Qur’an and dosing her with drugs to “cure her” of Christianity, which they perceive as a “mental illness.” According to Voice of the Martyrs, Nurta has been suffering for her faith since May. Believers from that region of Somalia implore the Church to intercede on her behalf.
As I ponder her courage and fortitude, I am amazed - Nurta, the same age as Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas, isn't wavering back and forth in a teen-angst identity crisis - she is absolutely certain of her identity in Christ, and she is proving it by enduring pain. Yesterday, I found myself wondering if she's ever heard of Hebrews chapter four, which explains that our high priest, Jesus, is able to understand her pain. I hope so. And I pray that the Spirit sustains her, and that she is able to approach the throne of grace with confidence, and receive mercy to help her in her time of need.
Poverty and Islam: an economist's opinion
The other day I ran across a scholarly paper titled, Islam and Underdevelopment: An Old Puzzle Revisited, by Tim Kuran, an economics professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Kuran raises several fascinating questions about the historical and modern correlation between poverty and Islam. In an effort to figure out why the world’s Muslim countries continue to be underdeveloped, Kuran examines the works of experts on Islam, discusses their theories and theses, and covers a lot of Islamic history.
Kuran observes that, “[T]he poorest countries in the world contain disproportionately many with predominantly Muslim populations. From a scientific standpoint, then, it is natural to inquire into the existence of a causal relationship between Islam and economic development (p. 2).”
He wants to examine the effects of Islam from “a scientific standpoint,” and expresses surprise that few scholars have approached Islam with the scrutiny reserved for history-impacting phenomena. “It should be recognized that the relevant literature is remarkably small in view of Islam’s importance in global affairs.” Europe and America walk on eggshells when it comes to criticizing Islam for any reason, and Kuran notes that attitude has permeated the academic and economic communities. “Significantly, the English-language development textbooks currently in vogue tend not to explore linkages between religion and economic development, to say nothing of addressing the economic role of Islam in particular” (p. 2).
Kuran says there is incontrovertible evidence that the Islamic world has been in an economic decline since around 1250. Why? Why have the learned men of the past hundred years eschewed analyzing the impact Islam has on economic, technological, and social development? They tout thirteenth century Muslims as being the “guardians of culture,” but then turn a blind eye to other historical realities. Isn’t it odd that the printing press didn’t make a widespread appearance in an Islamic country until the eighteenth century? Or that modern medicine (especially ultra-sounds, obstetrics, and anything to do with female healthcare) are still distrusted or unknown in much of the current Islamic community?
It’s refreshing to read an economist-scholar who wants to get the facts straight and lay them out in the open. As Kuran himself says, “Whatever the extent of current anti-Muslim prejudice, it is unlikely to disappear by ignoring potentially discomforting possibilities. On the contrary, a dispassionate analysis that dispels myths might serve as an antidote to religious prejudice.”
Understanding how a people-group relates to God is vital to understanding their history and culture. In the same vein, understanding how a people-group views wealth, education, technology, and economic concepts will help illuminate the true nature of the deity or deities they worship. Kuran’s research shows that very few scholars are or have been digging into the verifiable history of Islam.
The Fate of the Faithful
Study Islam or speak frequently with a practicing Muslim, and you will become familiar with the phrase “In sha Allah”, which means “if God wills” (literally, “whatever happens is God’s will”).
Unlike Christians, Muslims do not worship a god they can really know. According to the Qur’an, Allah’s moral character is veiled in secrecy. He has 99 names, ranging from The Creator of Death to The Dishonorer. His demands must be obeyed, but his ways are beyond all understanding. As a result, Muslims have no assurance of Allah’s forgiveness—they cannot be certain if Allah’s ultimate use for their lives will be for good or evil.
Uncertainty about the will of Allah has consequences. Churchill and Patton, who both traveled in the Arabian Peninsula and saw Muslim lifestyles up close, wrote about the oppression of Muslim women, and the apathy engendered by the fatalistic doctrine of Islam. Churchill says that the concept of women as “property,” along with the idea of heaven as a 72 virgin paradise, degraded Arab culture and made Islam an odious form of slavery:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it." - The River War | Sir Winston Churchill
What 24-year-old Churchill observed in 1899 is true today, as is evident by the living conditions of women in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, France…the list goes on. General George Patton, a bold, brave and blunt man, made a connection between the quality of life in Muslim countries vs. the quality of life in Western countries that holds a lot of truth.
"It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing."
I believe that these men would agree that the phrase “it is God's will” is an inadequate response for the painful and degrading practices of female circumcision, child-brides, wife-beating, and the imprisonment of purdah. It seems that the fate of the faithful is to always be uncertain about the intentions of Allah, and that is one of the most troubling aspects of Islam I have encountered thus far.
~carry on, pilgrim
Return to Pilgrim Toward Truth Hompage
Married to Muhammed
Yesterday I picked up W.L. Cati's book "Married to Muhammed," which is an American woman's story of marrying a Syrian man.
According to the Qur'an, Cati's husband had the responsibility to admonish her, the right to desert her sexually, and the right to beat her to correct her rebellious behavior (which was her conversion to Christianity). I found some elements in her story sad, and others fascinating, including her description of her Muslim wedding ceremony.
During Muslim wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom are taken into separate rooms and questioned. The bride is asked three times if she is being forced to marry. Each time she says "no," part of the marriage contract is fulfilled. The bride's father has to sign various papers so the "transaction" of his daughter into the care of another man will be official. After the honeymoon, the couple will often live with the husband's parents, and his mother has authority over the new wife.
I found the picture above on a Muslim matrimonial website, accompanied by the explanation that, in an effort to combat immorality, the Egyptian government is financing mass weddings. The girls in the picture are wearing dresses borrowed from a government-aligned charity, and are awaiting a mass ceremony held last fall in Idku, Egypt. Many of them know little more about their almost-husband than his name.
Muslim men and women view marriage as a duty appointed by Allah, with the man's duty to engender children and "maintain" his women, and his wife's (or wives') duty to be clean, obedient, and available to her husband at all times (Al-Bukhari, 18). I am not saying that all Muslim marriages are loveless contracts made by two strangers. My initial impression of Islam, as a woman who believes Galatians 3:28, is that it is religion that divorces love from sex and replaces unity with servitude.
Christian men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the Church - to the point of dying for her. Christian women are urged to respect their husbands, and submit to his leadership (Ephesians 5:25). Both are called to avoid all arguing and complaining, to be patient, gentle, and self-controlled, and to submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. There is no male dominance, but rather servant leadership.
I want a more complete grasp of doctrines in Islam pertaining to male/female relationships, but at this point it appears that a loving marriage between a Muslim man and woman is in spite of Islamic teaching, not because of it.
True vs. Actual
I keep thinking about BBC reporter Olenka Frenkiel’s reference to “True Islam.” She asserts that the West values religious liberty and tolerance to such a degree that we are ignoring “Actual Islam,”—an openly oppressive religious system that sanctions slavery, oppression, and murder. What are the differences between True Islam and Actual Islam? Is the connection between the theology of Islam and the practices of its followers merely a tenuous thread, with the current followers guilty of distorting the truths set down in the Qur’an, or is Islamic theology the root of the problems?
I realize that anyone could make a similar argument against Christianity and the abuses present in “Christian” nations. You could easily highlight the atrocities committed by men and women in the name of Jesus Christ. You could find examples of Christian women who allow their husbands to abuse them in the name of “godly submission,” and you could point out the divorce and abortion rates in families that attend church and own copies of the Bible. However, the words of Jesus Christ do not in any way grant them permission for their actions. He came, not as a warrior, but as a sacrifice, a physician, and a redeemer. He came not to force conversions, but to freely forgive, to heal, and to save.
As I study Islam, all I know is that the Gospel found in the Holy Bible is not ambiguous or vague when it comes to wife-beating or murder. All I know is that Allah is not the Father of Jesus Christ, nor was Jesus a prophet of Allah like Muhammad. Jesus Christ lived a perfect, blameless life and never forced a single person to believe in Him through violent means.
And I know this because I have read it for myself.
According to the BBC, over 75 percent of Pakistani women are illiterate. In some regions only one woman in ten can read. As I sit here writing, the images of broken, burned, and dying Pakistani women have not yet faded from my mind’s eye. As I study what sacred Islamic texts say about women, I am painfully aware that very few Muslim women ever have the opportunity to read the Qur’an for themselves. In most cases, everything they know about Allah and Muhammad they learn from their male relatives. Most of what their male relatives know about Islam, they in turn learn from imams and scholars, who are the “custodians of Islam.”
These “custodians of Islam” base their teachings from the Qur’an—it is the highest authority in Islam. The Sunnah is secondary to the Qur’an—it depicts events in the life of Muhammad and lays out ethics for living. Hadiths are also secondary to the Qur’an. Each hadith explains the commands of Muhammad and is a narration of a period of his life.
I want to learn more about these texts; I want to know if “True Islam” endorses “Actual Islam.”
A Timely Reminder
On Easter Sunday, I sat down to a beautiful lunch of rice and lamb. Seated across from me was a pretty Korean acupuncturist recently come over from China; on my right was Jessica,* a soft-spoken elderly heiress from Arkansas. As the conversation progressed, I noted that each of them repeatedly mentioned God’s love, but I wondered how similar a concept of Him they shared.
Jessica was an ecumenical “social gospel” believer. Over hors d’oeuvres, she had said she “couldn’t believe in a Christ who would condemn anyone.” We had been discussing Islam, and I was getting frustrated with her views on polygamy and female oppression. She gently discounted my stories of persecution and held that most incidents resulted from “cultural” differences, and that Islam is actually an improvement on Christianity (she wasn’t very clear how). She pointed out the “similarities” between Islam and Christianity, and I began to feel ashamed for her. In the name of “tolerance” and “love,” Jessica is ignoring the failures of others and herself. “Love” means turning a blind eye to the ugly parts of human nature. As long as they are trying to do right, people have no real need of forgiveness. Jessica is trapped in an intellectual labyrinth that denies human sin and any need for a Savior.
On the other hand, Hope,* the Korean acupuncturist, had become a Christian while studying medicine at the University of Beijing. She told of the severe penalties the police inflict on Christian pastors who are caught preaching. While in China, she had attended an underground church, risking her safety to study the Bible. Hope, who has spent less than a year in the United States, rejoices in the freedom she has to worship Jesus Christ in the open. Although she is not sure what her next life step is, she repeatedly said she was trusting God and that he was helping her learn English.
As I sat between these two women, I thought of the place in Romans where Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah: “They pursued it [God’s favor] not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." – Romans 9:33
On one side of me, an old woman was stumbling on the Rock of Ages. On the other, a young one was rejoicing in her risen Savior. My heart hurts for Jessica. I am grateful for our conversation. I learned that I need to further study the history of Islam and the countries dominated by it, and I need to always keep in focus that it is not human words that save, but God’s pure grace in Christ Jesus.
*names have been changed
How should a religion be judged?
“Men and women must be kept apart, or society will descend into chaos. They must cover their bodies so as not to excite uncontrollable passions. This is purdah and purdah makes women free.” – Pakistani Islamic leader, 1999
A few years ago the BBC sent correspondent Olenka Frenkiel to Pakistan to investigate allegations that each year, uncounted thousands of women die at the hands of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Along with a camera crew, Frenkiel traveled throughout Pakistan, asking questions and recording answers, and observing lives. She was shocked—the situation was worse than she had ever imagined.
The law of “purdah” prohibits women from ever leaving their homes…for any reason. Women are slaves of their male relatives, treated worse than cattle—symbols of wealth, maintained only as long as they are silent and compliant. She encountered husbands who had cheerfully shot their wives, brothers who had willingly slaughtered their sisters, and fathers who justified murdering their daughters with words, “I am a Muslim…she dishonored me.”
Frenkiel found that the Pakistani culture and government sanctioned the murder and abuse of women, in big cities like Lahore and Karachi as well as in remote regions. About her trip to Pakistan, Frenkiel wrote,
“True Islam may not justify such treatment of women, but actual Islam, Islam as it is practiced through vast regions of the world tolerates it and even endorses it. Check through the population statistics of countries throughout the world. In Islamic countries there are almost always more men than women. In most non-Islamic countries, from richest to poorest, there are more women than men…Where are the missing women in Pakistan? How is it that so many—nearly three million—are missing from the population?”
Frenkiel is asking a question that is answered by the sacred traditions and texts of Islam, which elevate man above woman, and replace fatherhood, marriage, and fellowship with a twisted concept of honor.
I encourage you to watch Frenkiel’s documentary “Murder in Purdah,” and ask yourself, as Frenkiel had to, which is the real Islam. Is it the Islam of liberal scholars or Islam as it is practiced and preached to millions?
Uncrucified Prophet or Risen Savior?
This week, as I prepare my heart to celebrate Easter, I’ve been looking at what Muslims believe about “Isa” (Jesus) versus what the Bible says about him.
Bible: Jesus was crucified. “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth? Before your eyes Jesus Christ has been clearly set forth as crucified!” (Gal 3:1). His crucifixion is specifically referenced seven times in the book of Matthew, six times in Mark, four times in Luke, six times in John, and thirteen times in the remaining twenty-seven New Testament books.
Qur’an: Isa was not actually crucified. “That they said in boast “we killed Christ Isa, the son of Mary…but they killed him not, nor crucified him” (surah 4:157).
Bible: Jesus was not created. “In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (Jn 1) and “He is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col 1:17).
Qur’an: Isa was created in the ordinary way of men. “The similitude of Isa before God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust” (surah 3:59).
Bible: Jesus is the only way for sinful humans to be made right with God. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me” (Jn 14:6). “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2)
Qur’an: Isa was an apostle of Allah. “O people of the book, commit no excess of your religion, nor say of Allah aught but truth, Christ Isa, the son of Mary, was an apostle of Allah” (surah 4:171).
The Qur’an views Jesus as a good man who submitted himself to the will of Allah. Muslims believe Allah raptured him for his devout ways. Obviously, Jesus cannot be the rescuing Savior and the apostle of Allah. Either the Bible is correct or the Qur’an is correct…but it is foolishness to try say Christianity and Islam, as “Abrahamic religions” are fundamentally similar. Islam is a religion centered on a deity named Allah and the revelations and laws he gave to a man called Mohammed (whose earthly life is documented by historians and ancient sources, including some of his wives).
Christianity is centered on Jesus Christ (whose earthly life and subsequent crucifixion are mentioned by reputable ancient texts apart from the Bible, including the writings of Tacitus (Roman), Josephus (Jewish), Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Thallus (Greek). Interestingly, all their writings confirm New Testament events, although not one of these historians were Christians).
In further posts I want to examine the known facts about both Jesus’ life and Mohammed’s life, but today I want to remind you that our Savior was not invented by men, nor created by God; he was not Allah’s apostle, nor did he come to the world to promote his own fame. Jesus Christ came that we might find forgiveness from God and redemption from sin through his atoning blood. It is because of his sacrifice and purity that Easter Sunday is a time of celebration!
Love & Fear
“For those who reject Allah there is a terrible Penalty…” (surah 35:7)
“Fight those who neither believe in Allah nor the last day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not embrace [Islam] the religion of truth…(surah 9:29)
This week I realized how terrifying those verses are….especially if you’re a Muslim child who is trying to figure out how Islam compares to the beliefs of your classmates. It’s two weeks before Easter, and Dana* is snuggled into my lap. She’s the daughter of a Moroccan woman, and her large dark eyes and curly black hair are simply beautiful. While her mother attends the English classes offered by my church, Dana and other children play with me and I help them do their homework. Usually we stay downstairs while the adults are in classes, but this week the teachers announce a special treat: everybody gets to go upstairs for desert and a short Easter service.
The pastor is at the front of the room, and Dana listens as he begins to share the Gospel story. When he tells of the crown of thorns placed on Christ’s head, and the nails driven through his hands and feet, Dana stiffens. The pastor continues, recounting Christ’s crucifixion and burial. She whips her head around and whispers fiercely in my ear, “This isn’t the real story. Jesus did NOT die.” When the pastor, his face alight with joy, tells of Jesus walking out of the tomb, Dana snorts. “This is not true. Jesus did not die.” I quickly whisper back that as soon as the pastor finishes, we’ll go out to the hallway and she can tell me the real story.
But first, the pastor invites everyone to bow their head as he prays. Most of the adults, from places like El Salvador or Mexico, are nominal Roman Catholics who are more interested in learning English than learning about Jesus, but they politely bow their heads. I bow mine as well, and catch a look of disdain from Dana. She then leans almost out of my lap toward her mother, who is sitting several rows back. Her expression is angry. “No! No!” she whispers to her mother, accompanying her words with vehement hand motions indicating that her mother MUST NOT pray.
I know that, according to the Qur'an, Jesus was neither killed nor crucified (surah 4:157-158). Instead, Allah recalled Jesus and raised him up (3:55). So a few moments later, I ask Dana if she wants to tell me the “real” story about Jesus. “I believe that Jesus was God’s precious son, and the Jesus came and died and rose again just like the pastor said. But I want to hear what you believe, and why you believe it.” She looks at me for a second and nods, but says she needs to talk to her mom first. She trots across the room to her mother, and is back a few seconds later. “My mother says I cannot tell you,” she says shyly, slightly puzzled. I look down at Dana, a tiny fourth grader who doesn’t interact very well with the other kids, and say, “It’s okay, Dana, I know you pray to Allah. I know you’re a Muslim. You don’t have to worry.”
Her entire face changes to one of intense fear. “How do you know that? Who told you?” I reminded her of a past incident where she had said something. “No, that didn’t happen. I didn’t tell you!”
I still don’t understand why Dana was so frightened about me finding out she is a Muslim, unless her mother is attending the class at the church without her husband’s permission, but my heart aches for her.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them…” Matthew 19:14
*name has been changed
Revelation and Interpretation
Yesterday I read a statement by former Islamic extremist Tawfik Hamid. He said, “The best way to stop criticism of Islam is to admit that violent teachings exist and that Islamic scholars must work on providing modern ways for interpreting and understanding their religion instead of accusing those who expose the problem and raise valid questions…”
However, reinterpretation is problematic. Islam is a religion based on “revelations from Allah,” specifically found in the Qur’an and Hadith. These revelations may contain severely troubling teachings (religious persecution, slavery, permitted rape, polygamy, domestic abuse, deception, murder, etc.), but they are the words of Allah given to Mohammed via “divine revelation” or wahy. In Unveiling Islam, Ergun and Emir Caner explain the seven ways Mohammed experienced wahy:
- He had seizures that caused him to sweat profusely, hear the ringing of bells, foam at the mouth, and roar like a camel (according to his wife Aishah and ‘Umar ibnu’l Khattab)
- He had dreams
- He had visions
- He saw an angel that appeared to be a tall young man
- He saw actual angels
- He crossed “the seven heavens” one evening (known as Mi’raj) and received a revelation
- He heard Allah speaking from behind a veil
To Muslims, the Qur’an is the “Mother of Books” (surah 43:3) and they are suspicious of any non-Arabic translation. They revere it, and store it on the highest shelf in their house. They believe no other book can ever compare to the Qur’an in beauty, mystery, or integrity.
If scholars try to reinterpret these revelations, they are saying their interpretation is weightier than Allah’s own words to Mohammed. No devout Muslim would be able to accept scholarship that “reinterprets” the Qur’an, especially if the motivation is to reform it into something peaceful and compatible with a Western culture based on Judeo-Christian values.
A glimpse into another world...
COINCIDENCE?
In 1901, a twenty-five year old Muslim by the name of Abdul Aziz fought his way back to his homeland in Saudi Arabia, where he and his family had been driven out when he was still a child. He made himself a king. In order to promote the stability and loyalty of the desert tribes surrounding his newly-won land, Aziz married over three hundred women, and fathered more than fifty sons and eighty daughters. Since then, the sons and grandsons of his favorite wife, Hassa Sudairi, have ruled Saudi Arabia. Today, the descendents of Al Aziz number well over twenty-one thousand people, and approximately one thousand are princes or princess who can trace their line directly back to Al Aziz.
In Princess, Jean P. Sasson recounts the life of one of Al Aziz's descendants, Sultana.The non-fiction account of a royal woman's life in Saudi Arabia is not for the faint-hearted. Females exist merely for pleasure, and Sasson matter-of-factly records scenes of oppression, hate, and suffering. I found it interesting that in the preface of the book, the author and her source both explicitly say it is not their “intention to demean the Islamic religion.”
As I am reading Sultana's story, it seems obvious that Islam, despite what our Western scholars say, is not a religion hospitable to friendship between men and women. It is hostile to individuality, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech. There is a set way to pray, to wash, to dress, and to worship. Men marry four women, and their male children are treated like gods, while their female children are ignored until they are old enough to attract a desirable husband. If a girl inappropriately looks at, talks to, or interacts with a man, she must be killed (TIME Magazine reported a Saudi princess was drowned in a swimming pool for adultery…back in 1978. However, it seems the media generally glosses over abuses in Islamic countries). Decorum from women is heralded as a virtue, yet prostitution, slavery, and brutal punishments for even minor offences are the norm in other areas of Islamic culture.
Is it a coincidence that Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Islamic societies in the world, is egregiously oppressive to Christians, women, and ethnic minorities?
Objective Reality
Paraphrasing the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18,"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Allah is God, follow him." I’m not interested in “interfaith dialogue” that espouses cooperation and harmony in vague, academic terms. The point of examining the life of Muhammad and the life of Jesus Christ, their teachings, and the behavior of their followers is to arrive at objective reality (also known as Truth).
The sacred texts of Islam endorse the cruelty and selfishness of men, and the oppression, subjection, and suffering of women. The founder of Islam, Muhammad, lived a personal life that demeaned and marginalized women, sexually and intellectually. The sacred text of Christianity, the Bible, advocates the kind treatment of women. The fulfillment of Christianity, Jesus Christ, lived a personal life that valued and loved women, spiritually and intellectually.
The God of Israel and Father of Jesus Christ revealed in the pages of the Bible created men in authority over women, with the direct command for the man to love and care for his wife (not wives).
Below are a few biblical passages concerning the role of women laid out in the Bible:
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Genesis 3:16 (God places the husband in authority over the wife)
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Judges 4:4-9 (Deborah tells Barak to get it together and go to Mount Tabor)
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1 Corinthians 11:3 (God is head of Christ, Christ is head of man, man is head of woman. Appropriate authority is part of God’s order.)
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Ephesians 5:22 (just as church is subject to Christ, wives subject to husbands. Husbands must love their wives like they love their own bodies, and serve their wives like Christ served the Church—servant leadership)
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1 Timothy 2:14 (Eve, not Adam, was deceived. Her transgression had earthly consequences.)
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2 Timothy 3:6 (Evil men are able to sway weak-willed women to indulge in all kinds of evil desires)
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1 Peter 3:7 (husbands must treat their wives with respect, as the weaker human)
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Titus 2:3 (Older women should be teachers of good things)
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1 Timothy 5:14 (young widows ought to remarry to avoid immorality. Women are the managers of the home under their husband’s authority)
C.S. Lewis said, “For wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue. For the modern mind, the cardinal problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique” (The Abolition of Man).
As a Christian, I am not interested in subduing reality to my wishes, and neither was Jesus. He suffered on the cross because it was his Father’s will–the one man who COULD have subdued reality to his wishes instead submitted himself to incomprehensible humiliation, self-discipline & perfect virtue in order to maintain the standard of holiness inherent in his Father's character. As I study what Islam says about women and what God says about womanly submission, I want the back-drop to be that Calvary hill where eternal death was conquered through obedience.
For "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." - Galatians 3:28
What does Islam offer women?
“For Kameelah Wilkerson, it was an incident at a public bathroom at one of the holy sites that struck her. As the lines of people waiting grew, men barged into the women’s toilets and drove out the women. What surprised Wilkerson, born and raised in Los Angeles, was that the women said nothing.
“I was saying, ‘Ladies, why y’all sitting there, move over and take your space!’” said Wilkerson. “I just wanted to bum rush over there and tell them (the men), ‘Move back on the other side.’”
- Hadeel al-Shalachi, AP story 2009
The Hajj is an annual event, and this year (according to the Islamic calendar based on the crescent moon) it will happen in mid-November. Over two million Muslims will journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. As they enter the Holy Sanctuary of the Sacred Mosque that houses the Kaaba, they must walk with their right foot first. As they pass through the gate, they must recite the Talbiyah, repeating “Here I am, Oh Allah…you have no partner.” Other necessary rituals may include anything from a symbolic jog in the desert in memory of Hagar (the mother of Ishmael) to walking counter-clockwise over designated areas to animal sacrifice.
They will have traveled from France, England, Indonesia, or, like Kameelah Wilkerson, from California and the U.S.A. Many will come from Iran, Somalia, Australia, and Tajikistan—indeed, these pilgrims travel from around the globe to bow at the base of a black, cube-shaped building and pray, hoping to please their god.
If you’re like me, you’re thinking, “This sounds very Old Testament.” And if you’re like Wilkerson, you’re a little confused at the place of women in Islam.
While at Mecca, Wilkerson was astonished at how passive her fellow pilgrims were - how could they let the men walk all over their rights like that!?! What she did not understand is that those women come from conservative Islamic societies where they can be beaten if they do not submit, or lose their salvation if they do not obey.
"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, [first] admonish them, [next] refuse to share their beds, [and last] beat them." (surah 4:34*)
Although Muhammad remained monogamous for twenty-five years (he was married to the widow Khadija), afterwards the Prophet married eleven women (including a nine-year-old and his daughter-in-law) and took two others as concubines. He said, "Be kind to women sprung from your rib," but counted wife-beating as a necessary discipline, not a domestic crime. Keep in mind that he is the man that all Muslim men are supposed to emulate.
"Women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree over them, and Allah is Exalted in Power."
(surah 2:228)
A degree over them? How? Intellectually? Spiritually? Economically? The text is ambiguous. However, the Qur'an says explicitly that a man may take more than one wife, yet it prohibits a woman from having more than one husband. Men may divorce women, but the Qur'an gives no such rights to women.
Nowhere in the Bible does God ever command polygamy, nor does he say that Adam was created superior to Eve. Husbands are commanded to "love their wives as Christ loved the Church and laid down his life for her." In my next post I'm going to bring the contrast between what the Qur'an teaches about women and what the Bible teaches on women into sharper focus.
*some translators use the phrase "beat them lightly," although according to Ergun and Emir Caner the text does not anywhere indicate such translation.
The pilgrimage begins...
Islam and Christianity through the eyes of a twenty-something
While at college, I had listened as my Christian peers puzzled over the world’s second most prevalent belief system, wondering “why anyone would ever want to convert to Islam—it’s so…oppressive.” However, very rarely were they familiar with even the fundamentals of Islam, and I never heard anyone, not a pastor or a professor or a fellow-student, make a substantive case explaining how a religion that says it is about “submission” and “peace” could be a vehicle of oppression. Part of that was my own apathy; I wasn't looking for an explanation. I didn't really care. Islam didn't seem to be a big deal to my friends or my church, so I decided it wasn’t going to be a big deal to me. I glossed over my ignorance, categorizing Islam as not-so-great alternative to the truth I've found in Christ.
But God began to make me uncomfortable with such a hands-off mindset.This summer, before I began working here at Smyrna, I heard the Iranian-born actress Shohreh Aghdashloo speak at a screening of the film The Stoning of Soraya M. She stars in the movie, which is banned in Iran, that is 116 minutes of artistically captured pain—the pain of a woman and her family enslaved in the name of Islam. It is an intense film, and echoed a book I read on women’s submission in Islam called The Caged Virgin, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali stunned me with her exposé of the hopeless subjection women experience as Muslims in many regions. Millions of women literally live and die in a system that says they were created for a mere physical purpose, and that the very design of their bodies causes men to sin.
Although both Ali and The Stoning revealed my ignorance and made me indignant with my apathy, God alone has changed my heart, and is stirring within me a genuine concern for Muslims. Writing for Smyrna is allowing me to learn the background behind persecution incidents in an Islamic context. Every day I talk with Christians who have seen first-hand that devotion to Allah is unutterable bondage. Their joy and conviction in Christ is incredible, and their compassion for the Muslim world is humbling. As I seek to emulate their faith, I have decided to catalogue my research and efforts to understand Islam, share resources that I find helpful, and contrast the God and Father of Jesus Christ with the god of Mohammed.
It is my prayer that you benefit both intellectually and spiritually from this blog.
God, you are the only way to life and peace; help us to better understand your Word and who you are, because there is a spreading Darkness that our culture, and perhaps even our church, is ignoring. Lord, I want to defend your Name and the freedom I have in you. I do not want to be caught off guard, nor do I want my brothers and sisters to trivialize a matter that has life-or-death importance. Please guide my steps, instruct my heart, and inspire my pen as I pilgrim toward truth.
Amen.
The problem of moral revival
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/09/the-problem-of-moral-revival/