Understanding Islam And Its Radicals

I was completely numb as I watched the videos of the attack on September 11. As the attack was investigated and we learned that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists, I could not shake the thought that something in their religion made these attacks seem legitimate in their eyes.

So I started, very cautiously, to look into what Islam stands for and what it considers important. I did not want to jump to conclusions. I wanted to know the truth. As a Christian and a serious student of the Bible, I am familiar with the bloody passages of the Old Testament. For this reason I proceeded with caution in my research. My goal was to discover the truth about Islam. My research did include some limited reading of the Qur'an (known in the West as the Koran), but it mainly consisted of reading and listening to people who were very knowledgeable of the religion.

First of all, in order to understand Muslims we need to know what they think of Allah, and we need to look at their worldview. We need to understand moderate Muslims, but we also need an understanding of the radical point of view.

Dr. Samuel Schlorff, an expert on Islam with Arab World Ministries, has written an excellent paper on the religion. He makes a scholarly comparison between Christianity and Islam. Much of the information used in this article regarding the history of Islam was drawn from this paper.

1. Allah is Absolutely Transcendent
Allah is unlike anything that exists. This means that Allah is completely mysterious. Muslims believe that they can know the truth about him, but they can't have any knowledge of him as a person. He is a distant god who lets only his will be known.

2. Divine Guidance
Muslims believe the Qur'an offers guidance for living life and it is usually referred to as "a guidance and mercy for believers." (Sura 27:77) Their law (the Shari'ah) consists of the Qur'an as well as other materials.

3. Islam is from Heaven
The Qur'an describes its revelation as a "sending down" of material from a heavenly being. Because it came in the Arabic language, it is referred to as a heavenly language. From this idea stems the thought that an Islamic community is of heavenly origin. Dr. Nabil Jabur was interviewed recently on Moody radio. He is the author of the book The Rumbling Volcano, which deals with radical Islam. He states that the Qur'an is comprised of recitations given by Muhammad, which Muslims believe came from Allah for specific situations. Thus, when Muhammad was experiencing a tranquil period in his life, the tolerant recitations came forth. When he was having problems with three Jewish tribes, the militant recitations came forth. The Qur'an teaches both peace and war.
Some verses dealing with tolerance are:
Sura 2:5-6 - There is no compulsion in religion.
Sura 5:82 - The nearest in affection to the believer are those who say we are Christian.
Dr. Jabur stated. "When only one side of the Qur'an is presented alone, that is not the truth."

4. A Community in Submission
The Islamic view of the world is that man is inherently good. If man is depraved by society, then any government can create a perfect society by enforcing Islamic law. Muhammad was the head of state of Medina, which Muslims believe was a perfect society. This form of Islamic government is considered by Muslims to be an example of living in true submission to divine law. This degree of submission is greater than any that exists outside of Islam. For Muslims such a community represents the kingdom of Allah on earth. They believe the future of Islam is to dominate the whole House of War (which is how they refer to the entire non-Muslim world) until it is controlled by an Islamic state. The ultimate goal is that the entire world be under Islamic law.

What does the word Islam mean? We have been told, that Islam is related to the Arabic word meaning "peace." This is partially accurate, except that the word means a specific kind of peace. A more accurate translation is "surrender" or "submission." It describes the calm that exists when a vanquished soldier lays down his arms in submission. Dr. Schlorff states, "The truth is that there is another side to Islam, a side that embraces violence 'in the way of Allah.'"

Sura 2:216 - Fighting is prescribed for you.
Sura 2:190-192 - Fight in the cause of god, those who fight you enslave them. Fight them until there is no more persecution and oppression and there prevails justice and faith in god.
Sura 9:5 - Fight and enslave infidels.

During his interview Dr. Jabur was asked what the typical Muslim would think of Osama bin Laden. Would they approve or disapprove of what he is doing? He stated that it would be possible for religious Muslims to have either opinion. Some are embarrassed by what bin Laden is doing. Others think that grievances which have existed for years have come to a head in a justified violent retaliation.

Dr. Jabur tried to illuminate the meaning of a phrase which is used by Muslims and which has not been explained to us. Jihad does not mean holy war. Jihad means "striving for god." It comes in three degrees: 1) Striving against sin in one's own life; 2) The act of motivating others to do good; and 3) Using violent means to stop a wrong act is justifiable if necessary. This third degree is the one with which we are most familiar.

After Muhammad died in Medina he was succeeded by four caliphs who ruled in his place. (A caliph is "one who comes after.") The leadership of Muhammad's Islamic society was divided. Sunnis accept that all four were legitimate. Shi'ites believe that only one, Ali, was the rightful successor. The result has been a division within the Muslim world pertaining to Islamic law and spiritual authority. That is why we do not have a single Muslim leader to whom the world can appeal to stand up and lead the Muslims of the world away from bin Laden.

Shortly after the Attack, Chuck Colson brought up some very interesting points on his radio show, Breakpoint. He stated that due to the lack of widely recognized Islamic leadership, bin Laden is attempting to unify the radical Muslims living in moderate Muslim states. He would like nothing more than to have them overthrow those states so that he can unify them and install himself as the leader of one large radical Islamic nation, and wage war against the West. As evidence of this, he pointed out that bin Laden has not shown much interest in the Palestinians in the past. Now he is speaking out in their behalf in order to gain their support.

Of course most Muslims do not support such violence as terrorism. However watching a Muslim country being bombed day after day might change the minds of even the most moderate and cause them to support bin Laden. Perhaps that is the plan: Goad Muslims into hating the West so much that anything goes. The Qur'an supports both violence and peace. They may think that they can use violence now and then have peace on their own terms later

My thoughts...

I keep trying to consider John Q. Muslim.

And there have to be hundreds of millions of John Q. Muslims out there.

We proudly announce the number of Americans who did NOT protest against the war in Iraq on any particular day, we do it in order to make it perfectly clear that the actions of a few, are not representative of the opinions of the many. We do not allow ourselves to be painted with such a broad brush that would assume us all as being against the war, based on the loud, destructive, and disruptive actions of radicals amongst us.

But we don't afford John Q. Muslim the same consideration, if one kills, they are all murdering zealots.

I would imagine that John Q. Muslim's daily concerns would be very similar to mine, and that he would spend most of his energies on providing for his family.

John Q. Muslim lives mostly someplace other than the Middle East, and he is by and large not an Arab. The struggles of radical Islam and Western civilization are distant things, going on elsewhere, far away from him and his family.

Unlike Daniel Snopes, I don't believe that there could be 120 million possible terrorists out there, I don't think that there are that many people in the entire world who would willingly strap a live bomb to their body, and push the detonator.

But I don't underestimate the power of hatred.

I am afraid of it as well.

I see hatred cultivated by both sides of this struggle, and caught up in the cross hairs of that hatred is John Q. Muslim.

I hope we find a way to separate the instigators from the hundreds of millions of John Q. Muslims of this world, and at the same time, I hope he wakes up soon, and realizes that it’s time to get involved, and that it is time to stand away from the radicals within his faith.

I fervently hope that John Q. Muslim decides to draw a line in the sand soon, and stand with the rest of the normal people on this earth, who do not see mass murder as a sacrament, and that he works towards helping eradicate the power of hate within his religion, before hate consumes him and all around him.

Luis, I read this thread out of respect for our friendship, not because I was looking for answers or meaning in the morass presented by Islam facing off with the rest of civilization. ... And if the bin Laden's and Wahhabist and radical Imams have their way, that is the future of this planet, Islam waging war (with suicide murderers as their primary weapon) against Western Civilization.

I think I've offered the following in some form before here at FR, and I got everything from vile flames to thanks in return. I'm a tough old bird, so the responses aren't what I seek. Here goes, again. [HINT: if the reader doesn't like 'religious things' or Bible related things, then stop here and move on.]

A very significant event in the Eden Garden needs to be understood, to understand why Islam is both successful and insidious. In Christian tradition, the whole 'fruit from the Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil' episode has come to mean women and men are at opposition where family is concerned, and man sinned willingly whereas the woman was duped. The reality is much deeper, and failure to recognize what is so deep is to miss that which is at the heart of the human condition throughout all of history. [What is to follow isn't new, early Church teachers dealt with it, but it is not vogue today.]

If we look at the way the serpent posed his argument, his persuasion, we discover the demonic brilliance of his accomplishment (in causing the first human family to fall from their state of grace), but we will also see the seeds of his ultimate final defeat.

GE 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
GE 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
GE 3:4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

While obedient, the first human couple was in a state of grace, not in need of salvation from anything, but that doesn't mean they were at their full potential else they would not have fallen from Grace. The serpent's task was to foment disobedience by some means. He appealed to the intrinsic yet untried nature of human beings, their pride in capability (not a sin in that expression), their pride in self ('Love your neighbor as you love yourself'). He pricked her (and thus, later, Adam's also) pride by calling God a liar, inferring that her Creator had not been truthful with her, had withheld from them some great state of existence that they could achieve through their own actions, not by gift from their Creator. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God ..."

What the serpent invited Eve to do had many layers of possibility in it: she could follow through and disobey, but Adam not disobey, thus driving a fatal wedge between the creatures God created to live in harmony; she could disobey and eat of the fruit, then stand in superior position (in her mind) to the man, thus destroying the inherent harmony God had created between man and woman; she could obey under threat of death, never again trusting God due to tension the unresolved issues foment; she could ... well, you get the picture. What she did was disobey, then enlist the man to follow along also. But what was the great temptation that brought it all to fruition?... 'You shall be as God', without God's gift of such an exalted position, the very position Satan aspires to!

Two scripture passages to be found in different locations of the New Testament lend insight: "Many are called, but few are chosen"; "Faithful is He that calleth you, for He will also do it". If so many are called/invited to become the children of God, why are so few chosen/born into Christ's family?... Because so few will let Him do it! So few will let Him save them as they seek to save themselves, seek to place God in debt to them.

Christianity is all about accepting a gift, to allow God to sanctify us. Islam is all about doing it yourself, making your self righteous enough to please God and receive the 'paradisical rewards.' It was never intend thus, for that would render Christ's blood, Christ's Cross, of no import in the final reality of the universe.

If a religion or sect or cult promotes bootstrap salvation, it is a blasphemy toward Christ and Him crucified for us, for our salvation. In reading the Koran and Mohammed's receiving of the directions for righteousness, we see immediately the same subtle lie and temptation offered to the first human family.

If Jihad means anything to a Moslem, it means obedience results in God owing the Moslem a debt of Paradise. If Paradise can be reached by works of obedience, then the Cross is of no regard. That's blasphemy toward the Lord of Heaven, the Christ of our Salvation. Add the instruction to force all to obey allah and there is no doubt that the one who would force obeisance is not the Author of the gift of Salvation in Christ Jesus.

[One last aside: it is interesting that Islam and Judaism come from the children of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac; one through a son of rebellion, as one born by natural means, from a woman not included in the original promise to Abram and Sarai, the other through a son who fulfilled God's promise, a son dedicated to God by his father, a son who finally submitted his will, voluntarily, to be God's man through whom He would in the fullness of time bring His Son. That contrast is to be found beginning in the Eden Garden, and the origin of our fall from Grace but the ultimate seed of Satan's defeat. For it is by Grace you are saved, not by works lest any man should boast. If ANY descendant of Adam could boast his own salvation, the Cross would be nullified. Even Jesus said 'Thy will be done' and 'Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' Never will you find Jesus even implying that God is compelled to save even him. No where is it written that salvation through Christ is to be forced.]

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