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Posted on 06/14/2002 8:20:55 PM PDT by Kermit
This week’s annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was met with some unexpected fireworks after my friend Dr. Jerry Vines, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., declared that Muhammad was a “demon-possessed pedophile” and that Islam teaches the destruction of all non-Muslims.
If you want to raise the ire of the mainstream press and the swarm of politically-correct organizations in this nation, just criticize Islam (as Dr. Vines learned).
Dr. Vines’ statements were made in reference to the new book, “Unveiling Islam: An Insider’s Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs” (Kregel Publications). It is written by scholars Ergun and Emir Caner, brothers raised as Muslims who are today dynamic and outspoken Christians. Ergun is assistant professor of theology and church history at Criswell College in Dallas, while Emir is assistant professor of church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
Dr. Vines also quoted from the Hadith, a respected source for Islamic teaching among Muslim clerics and followers worldwide. Upon examination, the Hadith verifies that Muhammad did marry the nine-year-old daughter of a friend. The girl, named Aisha, became known as the “mother of believers.”
“It’s simply a matter of quoting [Islamic] sources,” said Emir Caner. “If we are wrong in our understanding of the Islamic scriptures, we would be happy to be corrected.”
The specific Hadith citation concerning Muhammad’s relationship with the young girl is in volume 7, book 6, number 64 and 65, said Ergun Caner. (Both Emir and Ergun Caner were Sunni Muslims who became Christians in 1982.)
“The comments in question cannot be considered bigotry when they come from Islamic writings,” Ergun said during a press conference hosted by Baptist Press in St. Louis.
A lengthy passage from the Hadith, volume 1, book 1, chapter 1, shows that Muhammad himself believed he was under demonic influence, but it notes that Muhammad’s wife is the one who deemed his experience as “divine,” said Ergun.
Concerning terrorism and Islamic jihad, Emir noted differential interpretations by Muslims themselves. Some, he said, see jihad as a “spiritual war,” while others see it as meaning “physical,” he said.
“Some Muslims want to allegorize their own scriptures because they don’t want to defend jihad,” Emir said. “But if you take the Koran at its word, or Muhammad at his word, then you’ll find physical jihad.” In fact, he noted, the highest level of Muslim heaven — which has 70 perpetual virgins on couches — is reserved for Muslims who “shed their blood” (Hadith 135). Islam’s inclination toward violence, he added, also is reflected in the Koran: “Slay the enemy where you find him (Surah 9.92).
Dr. Vines was simply pointing out these distinctions. Since the media so often treats the Muslim religion with utter reverence — something we Baptists are unfamiliar with — he felt it was important that SBC members understand these distinctions. If those in the media were doing their jobs, Dr. Vines would have never felt it necessary to point out these disquieting elements of an enigmatic religion.
Ergun Caner observed an element of hypocrisy in the quest to portray Islam as a peaceful religion: “A so-called Christian who bombs an abortion clinic or shoots an abortionist and says God told him to do it does that act against the Bible,” he said. “But the Muslim who commits acts of violence in jihad does so with the approval of Muhammad. … When September 11 happened, we were all shocked. But where was the international outrage when jihad killed three million people (Christian people, I might add) in Sudan?”
A major element in the SBC — under the leadership of newly-elected president, Dr. Jack Graham — will be that of “Empowering Kingdom Growth.” This major ministry initiative encourages SBC members to humbly seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. This means we will accelerate our efforts to take the Gospel to all people — including Muslims. We do not do this as a form of “hate,” as some charge. We do this because we want others to know the peace that comes solely through a relationship with Jesus Christ — “For He Himself is our peace…” (Ephesians 2:14).
Among other actions, SBC messengers also called for churches and civil authorities to hold accountable clergy members guilty of sexual abuse. Another resolution calls for President Bush to place a “high priority” on enacting a ban on partial-birth abortion. And the SBC’s North American Mission Board challenged members to consider their personal role in the “Go” part of the Great Commission by personally participating in mission trips during 2003.
The Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination of 16 million people who are serious about their calling to be representatives of Jesus Christ. While we do not receive the kind and gentle treatment that most other socially-acceptable denominations enjoy, we are committed to boldly speaking Truth in love to the peoples of this world.
And I am gratified to have a part in this great effort.
HISTORICAL DATA ABOUT MUHAMMAD
* Mohammed is estimated by scholars to have had somewhere
between 15-25 wives. All agree that he had 9 wives at the time of his death
(5 more than the Quran permits for other Muslims)!
* He died at age 63 in the home of Aisha, his favorite wife,
and was buried on the spot where he died in Medina.
* Earlier, he fell in love with Zeinab, his cousin, and wife
of his adopted son Zeid. He then received a "revelation" from Allah that it
was permissible to marry the wife of an adopted son. Zeid divorced Zeinab
so that Mohammed could marry her.
Sources: Ernest Kellett, A Short History of Religions. New York: Books for
Libraries Press, 1971, P. 343, and Washington Irving, Life of Mahomet. New
York: Dutton & Sons, 1911, p. 231.
* On his deathbed, Mohammed said: "Do not fear those who
disbelieve, fear me" and called for the conquest of Christianity.
Source, Essad Bey, Mohammed. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1936, p.
330.
Marriage to Six-Year Old
In 624 Abu Bakr (Muhammad’s daily companion and one of his first believers and successor of Muhammad) gave Muhammad his daughter Aisha when she was six years old, although the actual marriage was not consummated until she was nine. This fact is uncontested by all Muslim scholars and chroniclers without exception). At the time of their marriage Muhammad was 54 years old (the age of her grandfather) – a difference of 45 years in their ages.
Aisha herself testified to these facts:
“The messenger of God betrothed me when I was six years old and then married me when I was nine years old.”
Source: Sahih Muslim (by Imam al-Mawawy), vol. 3, p. 577.
Islamic law has codified this principle of non-consent for under-age women based on Muhammad’s precedent:
“A father may give consent to have his young virgin daughter married without obtaining her permission, for she does not have a choice, exactly as Abu Bakr El Sadiq did to his daughter Aisha, when she was six years old. He married her to the prophet Muhammad without her permission.”
Source: Ibn Hazam (acknowledged by all Muslims as one of the greatest scholars on Islamic Law) in his al-Muhalla (“The Sweetened”). Vol. 6, part 9, pp. 458-460.
Abd El Schafi, author of Behind the Veil stated in response: “These are cruel, hard words and iniquitous Islamic principles which the free human conscience utterly rejects and detests because it is related to the most important subject in the girl’s life, that is, her body and her future” (p. 83).
Polygamy, Concubines, and Mistresses in Islam
“No one is allowed to wed more than four women, but he is permitted however, in addition to them, to buy (women), as many as he wants.”
Source: Ibn Hazam, vol. 6, part 9, pp. 441, 467.
However, exceptions were made for the Prophet and his successors:
Muhammad had 11 wives and an Egyptian concubine
Umar Ibn al-Khattab had 7 wives plus 2 maid-salves
Uthman Ibn Affan had 8 wives
Ali Ibn Abi Talib (cousin of Muhammad) married 10 women plus 10 concubines and maid-slaves for a total of 29
Al-Hasan Ibn Ali (grandson of Muhammad and called by the Prophet “the master of the youth of Paradise”) married 70 women (and was said to sometimes divorce two women in a day!).
Sources: Biographies such as Ibn Kathir’s, Bidaya and the Nihaya, vol. 7 & 8, and Suyuti’s, Chonicles of the Caliphs.
Marriage to wives of men killed by Muslims, including the murder of Jews
It was standard practice, and made legal by Muhammad, to take as a “wife” in addition to captives, the wives of men killed in battle (or executed). On one occasion when Muhammad launched an attack on a Jewish tribe he personally witnessed their beheading and then took some of their widows to bed. Semitic scholar and historian A.B. Davidson (a professor at New College, Edinburgh) recorded one such instance:
“On one day he caused 800 Jews to be beheaded in cold blood, himself standing by and watching the butchery; and in the evening, to efface the unpleasant impression from his mind, and give a more happy turn to his ideas, he took home the wife of one of the murdered chiefs, and added her to his harem.”
Source: A.B. Davidson, Biblical and Literary Essays, ed. J.A. Peterson (London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1902), p. 228.
Sexual License in Islam – The Temporary Contractual Marriage
According to all Muslim scholars (especially in Sahih Muslim) the temporary, contractual marriage was made lawful by Muhammad simply to satisfy the sexual passions of his soldiers. The “marriage” only had to last 3 days, after which the woman could be deserted and left without any rights. Only the fact that it is temporary a “marriage” separates it from outright fornication and adultery (forbidden in Islam), but there is practically no difference. It was practiced during the beginning of the Islamic era (during the caliphates of Abu Bakr and Ibn Abu ‘Umar) and is continued in practice today by over 100 million Shi’ite Muslims worldwide.
Concerning this practice the following Islamic authority states:
“While in the army, Allah’s Apostle came to us and said, ‘You have been allowed to have Muta (“pleasure”), so do it.’ If a man and a woman agree to marry temporarily, their marriage should last for three nights …”
Source: Sahih al-Bukbari, part 7, p. 37.
BRIEF MUSLIM HISTORY
A.D. 610: Mohammed claims to be God's prophet and founds the religion of
Islam based on his claim to receive a new revelation of Scripture which he called
the Quran.
622: Mohammed fled persecution by fellow Arabs in Mecca and went to
Medina. His flight is known as the Hijira ("migration"). He won over the
people of Medina, raised an army and returned to Mecca in 630, killing 600
of the 900 men of his Qurash (Arab) tribe.
630: Muslim conquest of Mecca and the Arabian Peninsula. This conquest
(called jihad) later spread to the Middle East, North Africa, Iran and
Turkey.
632: Mohammed died in Medina of a fever at age 63. His tomb is there to
this day.
638: Muslim conquest of Jerusalem (6 years after Mohammed's death)
691: Dome of the Rock built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Al Aksa
Mosque also built at that time.
MUSLIM TERMS
Allah: Arabic name for God. Originally derived from near Eastern
moon god (thus, crescent moon symbolism in Islamic art).
Al Quds: Arabic name for Jerusalem, means "the holy".
Al Aqsa: Means "the farther." Moslems use this term for the "farther
mosque" (or "distant place') which is unnamed in the Quran. Later Moslems applied
it to Jerusalem as the place of Mohammed's ascension into heaven.
Palestinian terrorists today call themselves the "Al Aqsa Brigade."
Source, Randall Price (Ph.D., University of Texas), Unholy War. Harvest
House Publishers, 2001
BUMP and bookmarked for future referance. Thanks for the info.
"A lengthy passage from the Hadith, volume 1, book 1, chapter 1, shows that Muhammad himself believed he was under demonic influence, but it notes that Muhammad’s wife is the one who deemed his experience as “divine,” said Ergun."
Former Southern Baptist Convention President Jerry Vines has stirred up an interfaith hornets nest with his description of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as being a "demon-possessed pedophile."
Vines made the comments at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference in St. Louis as a criticism of the increase of religious pluralism.
Vines said, "Today, people are saying all religions are the same. They would have us believe Islam is just as good as Christianity. But I'm here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Islam is not as good as Christianity."
Vines continued, "Christianity was founded by the virgin-born Lord Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, and his last one was a 9-year-old girl."
And there was more. Refuting the Muslim belief that they are descendants of Abraham and serve the same God as Jews and Christians, though they call him Allah, Vines said, "Allah is not Jehovah. Jehovah is not going to turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."
Vines' strong but true remarks drew the expected denunciations from Muslims and liberal mainline denominational leaders but he drew some fire from some radio talk show hosts as well – traditionally regarded as a bastion of conservatism.
The remarks I heard from one talk show host about Vines comments greatly upset me, because I'm a fan of conservative talk radio. In fact, I'm more than a fan. I'm a talk radio addict, with my car radio buttons preset for the area news talk stations.
Not surprisingly, my "addiction" follows me nationwide. When I go out of town, I always look for the local talk station and Los Angeles, where I'm pursuing my Ph.D. is no exception.
But some of my listening habits are about to change. Lately, I've been getting increasingly upset about the direction some talk radio is heading and comments I heard on one talk station in Los Angeles this week served to reinforce those concerns.
For example. Commenting on Vines' statement that Jesus was born of a virgin, one Los Angeles talk show host fumed "They're (Christians) always pushing virginity. They're never going to back away from that. Why couldn't Jesus come from a loving sex act? That's the root of some of the Catholic weirdness."
He just didn't get it and comments that I've heard this guy make before make me think that he has no desire to understand why Jesus couldn't have been our Redeemer if He had been born as the result of a "loving sex act." It has nothing to do with Christian attitudes toward sex.
And it's more than some of these shows being unfriendly to religious conservatives. Some of them make no attempt to promote even basic family friendly values. Now I might expect worse behavior in Los Angeles than Albuquerque but the same thing's happening here too. Things have really taken a downward slide on our major conservative talk station..
Take a few days ago, for instance. This radio station's weather forecast is provided by the local ABC television affiliate. During some friendly chatter between the two, the television weathercaster told the substitute radio host that he was really tired. An innocent enough remark, wouldn't you think? Sadly, not any more. In a voice dripping with innuendo, the radio host asked the meteorologist, "Were you BUSY last night?" There was no mistaking what he meant.
The downward spiral continued the next day. The host and his producer were talking about getting their dogs groomed. The host said that after getting groomed his dog becomes very excited. A trivial but harmless enough story if it finished right there, but not a hope. The host said that when his dog gets excited he tells him, "Not on my leg, use hers!"
Haven't the sort of people who listen to conservative talk radio grown past that? Conservative talk radio grew because of its attraction to both Christian and family-minded conservatives. Hosts didn't hesitate to say what was right and what was wrong and their discussion was serious, intelligent and reflected traditional American morality.
I guess that's changed in Albuquerque. When the individual I talked about above substitute hosts, clean intelligent discussion goes out the window and morning shows are endless rounds of banal discussion routinely sprinkled with foul language and bathroom humor. Sadly, this is a station that for many years conservative Christians regularly tuned in to and one that was regarded as a family friendly.
Well, after this guy goes off the air there's relative safety and you can tune into Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura. However, the family friendly zone ends at 3 p.m. when the station's regular afternoon host hits the airwaves. While there's plenty of good discussion on this guy's show, it's also punctuated with profanity, bathroom humor and attacks against conservative Christians.
In a recent article on crosswalk.com (http://news.crosswalk.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID74088|CHID194343|CIID1139204,00.html) titled "Why aren't there any left wing talk show hosts?" author Kelly Boggs commented "When you tune into a conservative radio show, what you hear is what you get. There is no pretense of balance. The hosts are loud and proud of their conservatism. They offer no apology for the right-of-center views they express. You may not agree with the message but at least you know what to expect -- a conservative bias."
True, Kelly. But ultimately, is dirty, ignorant, foul-mouthed conservatism any better than mealy-mouthed liberalism? Some years ago I was interviewed on a Christian talk station whose motto was "talk radio hell hates." THAT'S the sort of radio I want to find and start listening to. Currently, I think that the devil loves much of conservative talk radio and that the Lord's not very pleased with it.
If your local talk station is pushing talk filth, tune out and let station officials know what you think. Today's handful of media conglomerates which own the majority of radio stations in the United States will do whatever works, i.e. brings in the ratings and makes money. Tell them that filth doesn't work for you!
Kind of an eerie parallel of the Adam and Eve story. "It was not Adam who was deceived, but Eve who was deceived [first] and became a sinner."
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