Don’t tell me what’s hogwash. I personally know Christian Arabic speakers. Do you? Do you know anyone who speaks Arabic?
Lying about Arabic does not advance the resistance to the false teachings of Mohammed. It only makes the liar look like a stupid bigot, thereby harming the cause by making it easier for the Muslims to portray their opponents as rubes or racists who hate all Arabs regardless of creed.
Stick to showing that Islam is a political ideology cloaked in a religion that needs to be resisted for the sake of Western Civilization and any understanding of freedom, right or left, and stop exhibiting your ignorance of foreign languages as if it somehow helped the cause of resisting the Jihad. (By the way, capitalizing it in transliteration, particularly with the definite article does fix it as having the Muslim theological sense.)
Below is an excerpt of a letter sent by Brigitte Gabriel that gives you some measure of the intimidation of Christians in the Middle East to this day vis a vis the incorporation of “Allah’ in prayers and salutations. This is purportedly the Arabic word for ‘god’. In reality, Allah was the Moon God in the pre-Islamic pantheon of 360 Arabic tribal gods in the Kabah in Mecca: the ‘prima partes’ or first among many, if you will. Smacks of polytheism, doesn’t it?
Interesting that a Dutch Catholic bishop is benightedly suggesting that “Allah” be used as a term for G-d to engage in righteous dialogue with Muslims who must find him and others like him as nothing more and nothing less than a ‘dhimmi’.
Here’s what the Bishop had to say according to the Catholic News Agency.
Amsterdam, Aug 15, 2007 / 09:15 am (CNA).- Bishop Martinus Muskens of Breda, Netherlands, suggested in an interview with Radio Netherlands that Christians should refer to God as Allah, which would promote better relations with Muslims.
“Someone like me has prayed to Allah yang maha kuasa (Almighty God) for eight years in Indonesia and other priests for 20 or 30 years. In the heart of the Eucharist, God is called Allah over there, so why can’t we start doing that together?”
he was quoted as saying.
Many thanks Brigitte for bringing this to our attention.
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CALLING GOD “ALLAH”
by Brigitte Gabriel
All the Christians in the Middle East call God “Allah”. Bishop Muskens is out of his mind. This is how the Muslims control any population they dominate.
As the Muslims spread out of Arabia into the Middle East and conquered the local populations they forced them to not only to change their customs to adopt Islamic customs but also to change their language. I prayed to Allah as a Christian all my life until three years ago when I started really looking into Islam and examining its dominance from an intellectual point of view.
In the Arabic language (Arabic is Muslim) the word for God is Allah. So when we prayed in church, at school or any other place we prayed for Allah to protect us. Even in our “Arabic” language when we greet each other, thank each other, or talk about anything we mention Allah. It is always “Nushkur Allah” thank God; “Be Ethen Allah” God willing; “Subhan Allah” Wonder is to God, when we are talking about a beautiful child, beautiful scenery, or anything that had to do with God’s creation.
We do all this and we don’t even think about it because it has been a part of our culture since we were conquered by the Muslims centuries ago. Never even questioned it or thought about it and this is me Brigitte Gabriel, die hard Maronite Christian. I just thought that it is only the Arabic language for the word God.
The more I started looking and dissecting Islam and its teaching the more I learned how many practices that we Christians do in the Middle East are Muslim customs.
When I read Bob Spencer’s book, The Truth About Muhammad, I was stunned to learn how I got my middle name “Nicholas.” All children in the Middle East be it Muslim or Christian have our father’s names as our middle name. If you have 10 children, all ten of them boys or girls will have the same father’s name as their middle name. My name is Brigitte Nicholas …….
The Koran Says:
“Allah has not made for any man two hearts in his (one) body: nor has he made your wives whom ye divorce by Zihar your mothers: nor has he made your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But Allah tells(you) the truth, and he shows the (right) way. Call them by (the names of) their fathers: that is juster in the sight of Allah” (33:5)
When I wrote the review about Bob Spencer’s book for FrontPage Magazine (who asked me to review the book) they took that out among many other statements I made.
I can tell you many stories about how the Christians in the Middle East now are observing Islamic practices and not knowing it. This Dutch Bishop is out of his mind if he thinks that is going to create harmony between religions. Just look at what all the harmony of Christians in the Middle East who call God Allah has gotten them: slaughter, rape, killing, torture and being expelled from their own homeland.
Europeans love to mock the salience of religion in American society, but they won’t be laughing for very long. The de-Christianization of Europe in the name of “tolerance” is rapidly driving the spiritually shiftless continent into the arms of Islam. And now, amidst the postmodern theological confusion that defines contemporary Europe, even Catholic clergy are jumping on the Islamomania bandwagon.
The latest post-Christian theological spectacle comes to us from the Netherlands (of Ayaan Hirsi Ali fame), where the Roman Catholic Bishop of Breda, Tiny Muskens, says he wants Christians to start calling God “Allah” because he believes such a gesture would promote “rapprochement between Christianity and Islam”. Appearing on Dutch television, the 71-year-old cleric said:
“Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? … What does God care what we call him?”
Inquiring minds want to know: If the bishop really thinks the names “God” and “Allah” are interchangeable, why doesn’t he ask Muslims to start calling Allah “Yahweh”, the biblical name for God? But he won’t, because he knows they won’t.
Indeed, just because Christianity, Judaism and Islam are called “monotheistic” faiths, it does not follow that Christians, Jews and Muslims pray to the same God. So for those pre-postmoderns who believe that words still mean something, a quick survey of archaeology, history and theology-accompanied by a dose of common sense-can answer the question of whether the Allah of Islam is really the God of the Bible.
What Archaeology Says about Allah
Muslims claim that in pre-Islamic times, “Allah” was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets and apostles. Indeed, the credibility of Islam as a religion stands or falls on its core claim of historical continuity with Judaism and Christianity. No wonder, then, that many Muslims get uppity when the claims of Islam are subjected to the hard science of archaeology.
Because archaeology provides irrefutable evidence that Allah, far from being the biblical God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was actually the pre-Islamic pagan moon-god. Indeed, it is an established archaeological fact that worship of the moon-god was the main religion of the ancient Middle East.
But what about the Arabian Peninsula, where Mohammed (570-632) launched Islam? During the last two centuries, prominent archaeologists have unearthed thousands of inscriptions which prove beyond any doubt that the dominant religion of Arabia during Mohammed’s day was the cult of the moon-god.
In fact, for generations before Mohammed was born, the Arabs worshipped some 360 pagan gods housed at a stone temple in Mecca called the Kabah. According to archaeologists, the chief deity of Mecca was the moon-god called al-ilah (meaning the god or the idol), which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times. Pagan Arabs even used Allah in the names they gave themselves: Mohammed’s father (Abdallah), for example, had Allah as part of his name.
What History Says about Allah
Historians say that pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped the moon-god by bowing in prayer toward Mecca several times a day. They would also make a pilgrimage to Mecca, run around the Kabah seven times and throw stones at the devil. And they fasted for one month, which began with the appearance of the crescent moon and ended when the crescent moon reappeared.
These same rites form the core of Islam today: Muslims bow in prayer toward Mecca; they make a pilgrimage to Mecca and run around the Kabah seven times; and they still throw stones at the devil. They also observe the fast of Ramadan, which begins and ends with the crescent moon.
Moreover, the ancient symbol of the pagan moon-god, the crescent moon, is the official symbol of Islam; it appears on the flags of Muslim countries, as well as on the tops of mosques and minarets everywhere.
Historians say that Mohammed, who as a traveling trader was exposed to Judaism and Christianity during his visits to different parts of the Middle East, tried to mimic those monotheistic faiths by taking Allah, the main deity within the Arabian pantheon, and making it the only god. Indeed, the basic confession of Islam is not that “Allah is Great” but that “Allah is Greater”. Greater than all the other idols, that is.
But Islam also draws from other pagan traditions. For example, the tale of Mohammed’s night journey into heaven parallels the Zoroastrian story of Arta Viraf. Zoroastrianism also inspired the Islamic belief that dark-eyed virgins await every man who enters heaven. And the Islamic ritual of praying five times a day? That, historians say, originates with the Sabeans, Syrian pagans who practiced an ecumenical mixture of Babylonian and Hellenic religion.
No surprise, then, that some scholars refer to Islam as monotheistic heathenism.
What Theology Says about Allah
Muslims claim that Islam is Judaism and Christianity reformed. They say the Koran confirms the truth of the Torah and the Gospels. But since those texts did not jive with Mohammad’s beliefs, they accuse Jews and Christians of changing and distorting the original versions. Muslims therefore assert that the Koran “clarifies” the Bible.
Even if that were the case, the Koran and the Bible present ideas about God (especially about His character) that are so diametrically opposed that any reasonable observer would conclude that each book refers to a distinct deity.
The Koran, for example, states unequivocally that Allah is an unknowable and non-personal deity. By contrast, the God of the Bible allows Himself to be known and desires fellowship with human beings on a personal basis. Indeed, the Bible says that Abraham (the same Abraham whom Muslims say they venerate) was the “friend of God.”
The Koran also portrays Allah as a vindictive deity who hates sinners and desires to afflict them. But the Bible says God is love.
Moreover, the New Testament teaches that God loved humanity so much that He came to earth to pay the debt for man’s sin, and that that act of grace is available for free to anyone who believes Jesus Christ is their personal Savior. But Islam denies that Christ was God or that He died in order to save humanity. Indeed, Allah does not provide any way for man to be reconciled to God.
And the theological differences go on and on, so much so that the God of the Bible cannot possibly be the Allah worshipped in Islam. Unless, of course, a Dutch bishop says so.
Allah and Eurabia
Mohammed thought the Jews and Christians of his day would receive him as a prophet. But the Bible says that any new revelation must agree with what is already established in Scripture (Isaiah 8:20). So they rejected his Allah as a false god. And Mohammed replied by setting his Islam on a permanent warpath against Judaism and Christianity that continues to this day.
The Dutch bishop and other Muslim fellow travelers think they can buy a fake peace with Islam by playing relativistic word games as a part of an “inter-faith” dialogue. But Muslims understand much better than do post-modern Europeans that ecumenical appeasement is a symptom of a Judeo-Christian civilization that is weak and dying.
The irony is that the real danger from Islam stems not so much from ordinary Muslims as it does from sickly Europeans who have subverted their Judeo-Christian heritage in search of secular hedonism. Because they live only for the moment, they are willing submit to anything, including Islam, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the pursuit of pleasure today.
It has been more than 50 years since the late Christian apologist C.S. Lewis first warned about Western Civilization’s disastrous lurch into post-Christianity. But even he would be surprised to see how quickly Islam is filling the religious and cultural vacuum that is post-Christian Europe.
It’s not that Europeans haven’t been forewarned. It’s that they couldn’t care less.
Soeren Kern is Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winnah.