Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Islamic Culture
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Genesis 16:11-12
The world has certainly seen a great deal of "his hand shall be against every man," which has been institutionalized in Ishmael's belief system, Islam. Winston Churchill once said of it, "That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword—the tenets and principles of which are . . . incentives to slaughter and which in three continents had produced fighting breeds of men—simulates a wild and merciless fanaticism." And now we see that he indeed is dwelling in the presence of the descendants of his brother Isaac and his nephew Jacob, fomenting problems while reaping the benefits of living among the blessings of God given for Abraham's obedience. It also sets up the fulfillment of the prophecy of Israel's downfall in Deuteronomy 28:43: "The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower." Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other European nations have experienced a massive influx of Arab or Turk immigrants over the past few decades, for much the same reasons as the U.S. has seen so many Hispanic immigrants from Central America. Economic conditions in their home countries are so depressed and hopeless that Western democracies look like the Promised Land. Add in a heavy dose of multiculturalism and socialist welfare policies, and the result is a burgeoning foreign population that refuses to integrate and abide by common standards. Denmark [in 2002] is a good example. It has about 200,000 Muslim immigrants in a population of roughly 5½ million, or about 3.5% of the population. More than half of these are crammed into urban areas because of the possibility of employment, but many are unemployed. In Denmark, these immigrants account for more than 40% of welfare spending. It gets worse. Muslims make up a majority of the nation's convicted rapists; non-Danes commit three-quarters of the rapes in Denmark. In other categories of crime, lesser but similarly disproportionate figures prevail. They have also brought in several unacceptable and illegal practices, for instance, forced marriages—promising a baby girl to a male in the home nation, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death—and threatening to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam. On another area of Danish concern, commentator Daniel Pipes writes: Muslim violence threatens Denmark's approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children's safety and were advised to attend another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to "kill all Jews . . . wherever you find them." ("Something Rotten in Denmark?" New York Post, August 27, 2002). Muslim clerics have also called upon adherents to take over Denmark and impose Islamic law once their population has grown large enough. By one estimate, in about forty years, Muslims will comprise one-third of Denmark's population. Keep these trends in mind as time hastens toward the return of Jesus Christ.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
His Hand Against Every Man
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Jeremiah 8:11-12
Many of our leaders are like those who proclaim, "Peace, peace! when there is no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11; 6:14; Ezekiel 13:10, 16). God speaks this to the prophets and priests - the leaders - of Israel and Judah who failed to warn the people about their backsliding and the coming punishment in the form of national invasion. This failure in leadership has been the norm in our Western nations for many decades now, and society has backslid just as Israel's did. And what do we have to look forward to? The same imminent punishment they expected - and received. Since September 11, 2001 - and frankly since long before then - the Western and Islamic worlds have increasingly collided. These clashes have sometimes produced sparks, sometimes brushfires, and sometimes raging infernos, but always something fiery - even the words that fly from them are hot and angry. At the base of this conflict is opposition, not just the fact that the West is one side and Islam is another, but also that at their most fundamental levels these two antagonists are polar opposites in nearly every respect. Due to this deep-seated difference, there is little hope of any individual or any nation bringing this conflict to a peaceful resolution. As time progresses through the asymmetrical war that pitches these two major civilizations against each other, those of us here in the West are beginning to learn more about the Muslim mind. This is the best we can do; we can never hope to understand it because it is just too alien to us. It would be like a dog trying to fathom a cat's rationale. We can certainly try to understand why Muhammad's disciples act as they do, but we will never truly grasp the calculus of the Islamic mind. We may know what but never why to our satisfaction. However, we have learned a few facts through tragic experience with Islamic fundamentalism. Generally, radical Muslim fundamentalists: - believe Allah requires them to conquer the world and place it under Islamic law, called Shariah. In other words, jihad is a major component of their religion, and they will not stop until it is accomplished or they are dead. In fact, their latest thinking is that wherever Muslims build a mosque, Islam has de facto claimed the region for itself, and jihad will proceed there through whatever means necessary.
- cannot be taken at their word, as they will lie to non-Muslims with impunity to further jihad. Sadly, due to self-interest, most people in the West share this trait with them, making "constructive dialogue" a futile exercise.
- set a low value on human life, even their own, which they will seemingly gladly sacrifice in Allah's service.
- place no value on Western lives, as we are infidels. To them, killing a Westerner has the moral equivalence of stamping on a cockroach.
After 9-11, the Bush administration engaged in a public relations offensive to curry favor with the American Muslim community. The key message of that campaign was "Islam is a religion of peace," an idea that has correctly been maligned and lampooned ever since. Perhaps the promise of peace appears in the pages of the Koran, but only for adherents of Islam - and there is little evidence that even they have experienced it throughout Islam's 1,400-year existence. A brief examination of Muslim history shows a series of wars, infighting, and general mayhem ever since Muhammad sent his hordes out of the Arabian desert to slay the infidel. Unfortunately, too many Americans - in fact, too many Westerners as a whole - fail to realize the life-and-death struggle in which our civilization is engaged. We are complacent, thinking nothing in this conflict affects our daily lives, and besides, the Islamofascists best efforts are only bee stings compared to the full might of Uncle Sam. We forget that under the right circumstances, even bee stings can be fatal. Many more of us need to wake up to the fact that our societies have a relentless enemy who is full of pent-up hatred, motivated by religious fanaticism, and unfazed by the Western values of life, liberty, fair play, tolerance, and compassion. He spits on these as proofs of Western weakness. Why, then, are we vulnerable to the attacks of radical Islamic fundamentalists? Because we are spiritually weak, blind, and complacent! We are retreating before the Islamic thrust into our nations because we do not have the internal fortitude to resist with force and conviction. Our leaders, political and spiritual, have led us down paths of liberalism and humanism, and we have blithely followed. We have come to the point in our downward spiral that we cannot even differentiate between peaceful and bellicose attitudes among our bitterest foes! If fundamentalist Islam were a religion of peace, its adherents would behave peacefully. They do not. Their religion motivates them to kill themselves and others to advance Islam. Therefore, Islam is not a religion of peace but one of war and death. It is time we recognized this and turned to God for forgiveness for allowing ourselves, our cultures, and our civilization to descend into immorality, relativism, and spiritual lethargy. It is the only true way to avoid the coming conflagration and to find the way to real peace.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Peaceful Is as Peaceful Does
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Amos 5:13
Speaking at Regensburg University in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted fourteenth-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II, a Christian: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." His remarks were met with the usual firestorm of protest from the Muslim world. From the growing Muslim enclaves of Europe to the more traditional Middle and Far Eastern Islamic nations, the Pope was being burned in effigy and lambasted as a bigot and a racist intent on promoting a modern Christian crusade against Muslims. The Byzantine Emperor's observation predates by about five centuries a lengthier and more detailed one from a young Winston Churchill, which he included in his book, The River War, published in 1899: 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. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. 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. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. Any objective history of Islam will show that "the religion of peace" expanded primarily at the point of the sword. The concept of jihad, whether or not the Koran's original intent included aggressive warfare, came to mean "holy war" early in Islamic history, and millions of Muslims have sworn to advance jihad, no matter the cost, until the entire earth lies under the banner of Islam. The so-called "moderate Muslim," if such a person exists, is either 1) a secularist in reality, or 2) a moderate because he has calculated that it is presently in his best interest (for example, the governments of "moderate" Arabian Peninsula states like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar fall into one or the other of these categories). More broadly, the Pope's statement and the Muslim world's reaction to it highlight a confounding reality of this world: Those who speak the truth are considered dangerous and must be silenced. Usually, the silencing of those who dare to say what is right takes the form of ridiculing or discrediting them, branding them as intolerant, or stridently calling for them to apologize or resign. If this fails, Islamists are not above intimidation, threats, violence, and murder. In the Netherlands, Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn both paid the ultimate price for daring to speak the truth about Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. But this goes beyond Islam. It can reach into every facet of life on earth, but it is especially virulent when the subject is religion, lifestyle, or morality. Anyone who speaks authoritative truth wears a target in these days of tolerance and liberal humanism. Should a preacher, backed by the authority of God's Word, condemn homosexuality, he could in some places not only expect persecution but also find himself jailed or heavily fined for his "hate speech." Were a missionary to enter America's urban neighborhoods and preach abstinence, non-violence, and respect for law and authority, he would likely be laughed down, roughed up, and perhaps even killed for his "insolence." Even college campuses, supposedly bastions of free speech, are no longer safe for preachers, pundits, and politicians who stray beyond a narrow, politically correct viewpoint. It seems that the whole world—the nations of modern Israel in particular—has come to such a point. The time of the end is fast approaching as we see these activities of evil men increasing. From here on out, it will become increasingly dangerous to speak the truth to a "hear no evil" world.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
'Dangerous' Speakers of Truth
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