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The Quran was reputedly revealed in Arabic to Muhammad over a period of 22 years. (610 -632 A.D.) |
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The arrangement of the 114 suras (chapters) is not chronological. The longest suras are placed first in the Quran. |
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According to Theodore Noldeke’s Geschichte des Qorans (History of the Qurans), 90 suras were revealed when Muhammad was in Mecca and 24 suras while he was in Medina. (Sell, n.d.,1-2) |
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The “mother of the Quran” is said to be in heaven, written by Allah Himself. |
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Revelations came to Muhammad to meet needs during three periods of time. |
When Muhammad was in Mecca (610-622 A.D.) Some suras are 1, 29, 96, and 111-114.
Muhammad’s early years in Medina,(622-625) Some suras are 2, 8, 61, and 64.
Last revelations when Muhammad was in Medina.(625-632) Some suras are 49, 66, 110, and 9.
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The Meccan revelations grounded Muslims in their faith, and the Medinan revelations were meant to translate their faith into action. |
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The third caliph (supreme ruler) Uthman (644-656 A.D.) established the official text of the Quran and had the other texts burned. |
LATER REVELATIONS THAT ANNUL EARLIER REVELATIONS
According to Quranic teaching, Allah can change his mind and replace a verse with a later and better revelation. Muslims say he can and does change his mind! “Whatever a verse (revelation) do we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?” (Sura 2:106) “And when We change a verse (of the Quran) in place of another- and Allah knows what He sends down…” (Sura 16: 101)
Militant Muslims say that the later revelations as in Sura 9:5,29 annul the earlier revelations (Sura 2:62, 256) that were tolerant of non-Muslims. The later Quranic verses justify jihad, that is, war on infidels.
PEACEFUL QURANIC REVELATIONS (610-625 A.D.)
During Muhammad’s early years in Mecca and early years in Medina, he made it easy for Jews and Christians to co-exist with Muslims. Three large Jewish tribes lived in Medina. Muhammad called on them to believe in Islam. To gain their allegiance, Muhammad tried several ways to win them to his side. “They [the Jews] turned to Jerusalem in prayer, so did he (Muhammad). They observed
the Feast of the Atonement on the tenth month by sacrifice and fasting, he ordered his followers to do the same. Thus he made it easy for certain Jews to pass over to Islam. (Sell, p. 81)
Early passages in the Quran advocate a peaceful co-existence with Judaism and Christianity .
“There is no compulsion in religion…” (Sura 2:256) “Verily! Those who believe who are Jews and Christians and Sabians (a past nation living in Mosul, Iraq), whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does righteous deeds shall have their reward with their Lord…” (Sura 2:62)
However, The Noble Quran says “This verse (2:62) mentioned in the Quran should not be misinterpreted by the reader… the provision of this verse has been abrogated by verse 3:85 ‘And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter, he will be one of the losers.’”
MUHAMMAD TURNS ON THE JEWS
Seeing it was hopeless to win over the three large Jewish tribes living in Medina, Muhammad turned against them and accused them of dishonesty in dealing with their Scriptures. “O people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians)! Now has come to you Our Messenger (Muhammad) explaining to you much of which you used to hide from the Scriptures…” (Sura 5:15)
When the Jewish tribes refused to believe in Islam, two tribes were expelled from the country. Their goods and property were confiscated. The third tribe (Bani Quraiza) offered to emigrate, but in vain. In 627 A.D. nearly 800 men were slaughtered, in cold blood, in front of Muhammad himself. Some of the women were divided among the Muslims, and the rest were sold as slaves along with their children.
The power of the Jews in Medina was broken and there continues to this day a special enmity between Jews and Muslims. In the Traditions, narrated by Abu Huraira: “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘The hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding, says, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” (Hadith- Al-Bukhari- 1:177)
A revelation in Sura 5:51 says “Ye who believe! Take not Jews or Christians as Auliya (friends, protectors, helpers), they are but Auliya of each other.”
Later Muhammad turned on Christians who refused to accept his teaching.
LATER MILITANT QURANIC VERSES
As Muhammad’s power increased in Medina, he built an army. The major topic was jihad and fighting the enemy. The earlier peaceful and tolerant verses were annulled by the last revealed sura, Sura 9.
Verse 5 says: “When the sacred months…have passed, then kill the Mushrikun (the idolators, polytheists) wherever ye find them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush…”
Verse 29 adds: “Fight against those… who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) until they pay the Jizyah (a special tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Muhammad confirmed this teaching in the Hadith. “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight the people til they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.’” (Hadith 2:483)
SUBJUGATION OF NON-MUSLIM MINORITIES
Non-Muslims living in Muslim majority countries often become second class citizens and are forced to live in a state of continual humiliation. Islamic law regards non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries as dhimmis, or “protected peoples”.
According to historian Habib C. Malik of the Lebanese American University, “Over the centuries, political Islam has not been too kind to the native Christian communities living under its rule. Anecdotes of tolerance aside, the systematic treatment of Christians and Jews (who fall under the Islamic category of dhimmi) as second class citizens is abusive and discriminatory by any standard…Under Islam, the dhimmi are not allowed to build new places of worship or renovate existing ones…the political rights of dhimmi are absent; and the targeted dhimmi community and each individual in it are made to live in a state of perpetual humiliation in the eyes of the ruling community. These measures can only spell a recipe for gradual liquidation.” (Habib C. Mailk, 1999)
ALLAH OF ISLAM IS UNKNOWABLE
MUHAMMAD DEFINES MORALITY & HE IS TO BE OBEYED
Muslims say that since Allah is neither a person nor spirit, He is completely “other”. There is nothing whatever like Him. “There is nothing like Him; and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer.” (Sura 42:11)
Morality derives from the Prophet’s actions; the moral is whatever he did. His actions determine and define morality. Muhammad’s acts were Allah’s acts. “Indeed in the Messenger of Allah (Muhammad) you have a good example to follow him who hopes for (the meeting with Allah) and the Last Day, and remembers Allah much.” (Sura 33:21)
In addition to defining morality, Muhammad is to be obeyed! His orders have all the force of divine sanction. “…And whoever defies and disobeys Allah and his messenger, then verily Allah is severe in punishment… Obey Allah and His Messenger.” (Sura 8:13, 20)
MUHAMMAD AND THE HADITH
Much of the call to action comes in the Hadith, a companion book that amplifies on the Quran by quoting the words of Mohammad. Muslims seeking to gain Allah’s favor are to follow the styles of behavior in Mohammad’s everyday life. In Unveiling Islam, Ergun and Emir Caner note: “According to the South African Council of Muslim Theologians, the Hadith/Sunnah is the sensible explanation of an otherwise ambiguous Quran. They explain, ‘The Holy Quran without the Hadith or Sunnah remains unintelligible in certain Instances and in view of that, the Holy Quran has, in several verses, ordered Muslims to follow the Prophet in all his deeds and sayings. Therefore, if one believes in the Holy Quran, there is no alternative but to uphold the Hadith of the Prophet.’” (Caner & Caner, 96)
Even powerful dictators in Muslim majority countries must be careful to follow the Hadith. Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi got himself in deep trouble by declaring that he only believed in the Quran and didn’t accept Muhammad’s teaching in the Hadith. “The world of Islam formed a committee and told him…if he did not repent and take back his statement , he would fall under the law of renegades and infidels…They said that according to Al-Qaeda Al-Faquhia he was denying many of the Islamic truths, which would force true Muslims to kill him…he (Qaddafi) repented.” (Gabriel, 60)
Teachings from the Hadith have profound effects on Muslim lives. For example, Muhammad said in Hadith 9:549, (according to Al-Bukhari) that Allah guarantees anyone who engages in holy war (jihad) for the cause of jihad alone with “belief in (Allah’s) words, that he will either admit him into paradise or return him with his reward or the booty he has earned to his residence from where he went out.”
As a result, countless young men and women, believing their efforts against Israel or America to be a holy war (jihad), expect to be admitted to paradise if they die in the process. Mark A. Gabriel, former professor at Al-Azhar University in Egypt says, “When a person dies in jihad, his body is not washed or given clean clothes…The blood is a witness for him in front of Allah- a sign of honor. Muslims believe the angels will treat him as a special person to Allah…Dying in jihad is the only way a Muslim can be assured of entering Paradise at all.” (Gabriel, 29)
TWO ABODES: ABODE OF ISLAM & THE ABODE OF WAR
Islam divides the peoples of the world into two distinct realms or abodes: the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. The former have submitted to the will of Allah, and the latter are still resisting. Countries under Muslim control are considered the Abode of Islam. It is the duty of Muslims to preserve the Abode of Islam from contamination and where possible, to enlarge it at the expense of the Abode of War, where the infidel rules.
Many Muslims believe that the nations of the West established Israel in the heart of the Arab World to be an outpost of their civilization, to be a sword of the West hanging over the necks of Muslims. Therefore, many militant Muslims are committed to restoring Israel’s territory to Muslim control and to preserving the Abode of Islam in Palestine. Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the surrounding Arab countries attacked Israel in three wars. They failed to destroy her and were humiliated in the process. Since then, the militant Muslims have renewed their campaign of eradication through terrorism. Terrorist groups have bases of operation in Syria and Iran. Saddam Hussein in Iraq, gave financial helps to families of Palestinian terrorists that died fighting Israel. Money from Saudi Arabia , and her oil revenues, supported these terrorist groups.
THE ULTIMATE GOALS OF ISLAM
(According to more recent Muslim writers)
Hasan-AL-Banna founded the prototypical Muslim radical group of the modern age, the Muslim Brotherhood, in 1928. He wrote in 1934 “It is incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth… The brotherhood also had weapons…Some of its guns were deployed against Zionists in 1948, but the Muslim Brethren also resorted to violence in Egypt… They initiated attacks against Egyptian Jews … Al Banna told his followers, ‘Islam is faith and worship, a country and a state…
It is spirituality and hard work, It is a Quran and a sword.’” (Spencer, 2003, 218-220) Al Banna was assassinated in 1949.
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian, is considered the second great theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood. He writes in Signs Along The Road ,which is the heartbeat of the radical Islamic movements of today, “Demolish all governments and organizations that are established by man. Eliminate human racism that exalts one over the other. The return of God’s Kingdom can only be established by a movement of power and the sword.” (Gabriel, 119) The Muslim Brotherhood attempted to kill Egyptian President Gamal Nasser twice- once in 1954 and once in 1955. Qutb was sentenced to death in 1966.
SHEIKH ABDEL RAHMAN & OSAMA BIN LADEN
Al Queda is a radical Islamic organization led by wealthy businessman Osama Bin Laden, along with Sheik Abdel Rahman, former professor at Al Azhar University in Cairo, and Dr. Zawahiri. “Osama bin Laden did not start from nothing. Al-Qaeda is a repackaging, regrouping and reorganization of the Egyptian al-Jihad experience… Previous Islamic movements believed they should start locally- overturn their homeland first, establish a nation that is solely based on Islamic authority and then overtake the world. After their failure to take control of Egypt in the eighties, Dr. Zawahiri and Sheikh Abdel Rahman concluded that it would be better to go for worldwide jihad. They decided to go after the “head” rather than the “hands.” The head was identified by its political policies. America and Europe supported Egypt to destroy the Islamic sects…America is still supporting Israel to fight Palestine. Al-Qaeda decided America is the head, and the secular Arabic countries are the hands.
(Remember, militant fundamentalists consider nearly all Muslim governments to be overly secular.) Their mind-set is: if we take out the head, then the hands won’t work.”(Gabriel, 179-80)
Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s first target in the United States was the towers of the World Trade Center, in New York City. In 1993, he led the attack which was responsible for a major explosion in one of the towers, killing six people. For that effort, he sits in a U.S. federal prison for life. The militant jihadist Muslims seek to strike at economic interests and thus weaken America’s support for Israel. “Their target is civilization, economy, and the security of the world’s source of power, meaning the United States and European countries.” (Gabriel, 180)
THE WAR FOR MUSLIM MINDS
Gilles Kepel in The War for Muslim Minds states that the militant jihadists needed to
attract and mobilize the “masses” (the militant believing Muslims), who would perpetuate terrorism. They attacked the United States (“the faraway enemy”) on 9/11/01 to galvanize the “masses” to overthrow their corrupt rulers , the “nearby enemy.” Palestine became the cause for active participation in jihad.
“On October 7, 2001, Ben Laden sat with Zawahiri in front of an Afghan cave and swore that, ‘by Allah who raised the heavens without pillars, America (will) never know peace’ as long as the Palestinian people continue to suffer.” (Kepel, 2002, 1-2) The militant jihadists seek to swell the ranks of recruits for martyrdom and bring about drastic change in America (the head) and Muslim countries (the hands) that are ruled by corrupt rulers, as in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and Morocco.
Spencer in Onward Muslim Soldiers says:
“If the mujahedin around the world wage their jihads successfully, the rights of non-Muslims minorities will never be respected…The Sharia transgresses this declaration (the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights) in innumerable ways, from its laws about the treatment of women to its death sentence for converts from Islam to another religion. But the largest superstructure of jihad is the worst offender. It ordains that the wars of mankind must not cease until this equality of dignity and rights is denied to whole classes and races of people, who must forever be consigned to humiliating second-class status unless and until they are willing to deny their conscience and identity. (Spencer 2003, 304)
CRIPPLE AMERICAN ECONOMIC POWER
In 2004, Osama Ben Laden gloated that the war in Iraq and the war against terror were responsible for American budget deficits. The militant jihadists goal is to cripple the economic power of the United States. They tried to bring down a tower in the World Trade Center in 1993. They failed. However they succeeded on 9/11 of 2001 to bring down both towers. They are committed to bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. They believe if the “head” is taken out, then the “hands” won’t work. They believe it is much easier to overthrow “corrupt leaders” like in Saudi Arabia, if they are not supported by the United States.
AMERICA AND ISRAEL
One big reason the militant jihadists hate America because of its staunch support of Israel. America has had a close relationship with the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Dr. Charles H. Dyer of the Moody Bible Institute says:
“God has blessed America because of America’s friendship with the Jewish people and the state of Israel. When God called Abraham, He promised that He would ‘bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse’ (Genesis 12:3). That principle holds today…This does not mean that we must condone everything Israel does, but we must never cease to affirm the right of Israel to exist as a nation in the land God has promised her.” (Dyer, 2003, 141-42)
Perhaps because of the heavy price America has paid in the war with Iraq and the deep desire for peace in the Middle East, foreign and domestic pressure will mount against supporting Israel’s position on peace. Many say that peace in the Middle East runs through Washington. Arab countries maintain that violence and terrorism will stop when the Palestinians and Israel agree to a peace settlement. No doubt, in the coming years America will be pressured to force Israel to an unfavorable peace settlement. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as the capital of their respective countries. The Palestinians want the 4 million refugees that fled Israel during the three wars with her neighbors to return to Israel. It is doubtful that true peace will return to the Middle East in the foreseeable future.
AMERICA AND THE END TIMES
America was not a country when these Scriptures were written concerning the end times. Where is America’s place in the political picture? Charles H. Dyer states “It is clear from Scripture that the dominant political and military power will center around the Mediterranean and Europe- not the United States. By the end times, the United States will no longer be a major influence in the world …How can this be? “First, it is possible …we will become a second-class power when God removes the Christians from the earth, an event scheduled to occur just before the beginning of this seven-year period (of tribulation). Second, ... America is declining morally. When a country ceases to produce fruits of righteousness, it can no longer expect God to bless…We have been Israel’s close ally for the past five centuries…Some have even mistakenly blamed our friendship for Israel for the terrorist attacks against our country. The minute the United States turns it back on Israel, we will have made ourselves an enemy of God. Third…If terrorists ever find a way to unleash chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons on our cities, the resulting chaos could force us into a period of decline… Fourth, perhaps we will suffer a military defeat or simply weaken in our national resolve. Financial crises at home could increase our isolationist tendencies.” (Dyer, 140-42)
A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE
The call of Jesus Christ has always been to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), including Muslims, who live in most countries of the world. We share the Good News that the God of the universe has revealed Himself to mankind through Jesus Christ and His Word, the Scriptures. The Scriptures are full of claims that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said in John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Some Muslims will respond to the Gospel when Christians faithfully witness that Jesus Christ can liberate them from the penalty and power of sin. In the United States some four million Muslims are living in our neighborhoods, sharing workplaces, and attending our schools and universities.
The greater Columbus area has a good number of Muslims, including over 20,000 Somalis. Because relationships are very important, Christians should prayerfully consider establishing a close relationship with one or two Muslims. Spending time together in various contexts can help establish a warm relationship. Genuine friendships take time and effort, of course. Invite your friend to your home, go on an outing, eat meals together, and help him with his problems. You will discover Muslims are open to discuss religious issues and as you pray you will have opportunity to share your testimony. For more in- depth discussion of friendships, see my book Islam And The Bible: Why Two Faiths Collide, chapter six. God is pleased when we reach out to people who need to know the saving power of Jesus
Christ.
REFERENCES
Caner & Caner. 2002. Unveiling Islam. Grand Rapids, MI. Kregel Publishing
Dyer, Charles H. 2003 The Rise of Babylon. Chicago, IL. Moody Publishers
Gabriel, Mark A. 2002 Islam and Terrorism. Lake Mary, FL. Charisma Publishers
Kepel, Gilles. 2004 The War for Muslim Minds. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Malik, Habib C. “Christians in the Land Called Holy.” First Things, January 1999.
Sell, Canon. n.d. The Historical Development of the Quran. Oak Park, IL People International
Spencer, Robert.. 2003 Onward Muslim Soldiers. Washington, DC. Regency Publishing, Inc.
David Goldmann spent nearly a quarter of a century ministering to Muslims in North Africa. He serves with Frontiers and conducts seminars on Islam. He is the author of Islam And The Bible: Why Two Faiths Collide, published by Moody Publishers. His website is www.goldmannseminars.org
(The views stated in this article are those of David Goldmann and not necessarily those of Frontiers.)
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