There are numerous books
about the life and teachings of Mohammad so I will talk about him sparingly and
limit myself to two very important points:
1) The Koran does not claim to be an alternative to
the Bible but rather a sequel to the Bible. This little known fact seems lost in a sea of
ignorant discussion today. Islam claims that in addition to the Koran, both the
Old and New Testament are the word of God.1 Jesus is described in
the Koran as a holy prophet but not an incarnation of God Himself.2 The test for a prophet in the Old Testament is
that he must be accurate in everything he teaches (Deut. 18:22). Jesus taught that He was God (John 14). If Jesus was lying, He was not a prophet, but
Islam claims He was a prophet. If
Jesus was telling the truth, then He is God.
But Islam claims He wasn’t God.
Either way, we have a rather serious contradiction. A matter of theology to be sure and this
series is concerned more with the morality of Islam than the doctrine of Islam
but the lofty claims of the Koran and subsequent contradictions to the Bible
are worth noting, especially from a book that influences so many lives around
the world.
2) People often defend Islam by suggesting the violent
verses of the Koran are being taken out of context. Well, yes, human beings certainly are notorious for
taking statements out of context. In fact, the Bible, itself is misquoted quite
frequently. For this reason I am
sympathetic to the question of context. But sympathy doesn’t make us the
victims of a hanging question without an answer. The correct context to any
literature is the author himself. What the author originally meant to say and
what his readers originally understood him to mean is the correct interpretation of any
writing. Now, Mohammad did not write the
Koran. He recited it and his followers wrote the words down after his death. If
we want to question whether or not Mohammad intended his recitations about
waging war to be taken literally, we have only to look at his life. Mohammad not only talked about violence in the
name of religion, he declared war in the name of religion! This settles the question of context.
It is true that many verses in the Koran also talk
about making peace.
This is because Mohammad was originally hoping to spread his new
movement
peacefully. When this did not happen, when not everyone found the words
as
soothing and as spell binding as he had anticipated, when he found that
he
needed to conquer places like Mecca by force, and that this was the
only way he would get individuals to accept Islam, Mohammad suddenly
received new revelations from Allah
and by an amazing coincidence these new teachings not only condoned
force but
commanded Jihad. Jihad refers specifically to the forceful spreading of
Islam.
And so, when people try to change the subject by ignoring
the war like verses of the Koran and instead bring up the peaceful verses, it
should be immediately pointed out that these contradictory teachings exist side
by side because Mohammad tried to spread his religion in contradictory ways.
And now we will take an honest look at the commands of the
Koran:
“Mohammed is God’s
apostle. Those who follow him are
ruthless to unbelievers but merciful to one another.” Surah 48
I’d say those words are
fairly clear, wouldn’t you? But wait!
There’s more! Here’s what the Koran says about the Jews:
"The most implacable of men are the Jews
and the pagans" Surah 5
Those words were first spoken in the 600’s. They have nothng to do with Irsael’s “illegal
occupation of the West Bank” in 1967.
The Koran also forbids friendship with Jews or Christians.
“Believers, take neither the
Jews nor the Christians for your friends.
They are friends with one another.
Whoever of you seeks their friendship will become one of their number.
God does not guide the wrong doers.” Surah 5
And here is the
Jihad command itself. Note: Infidel is defined in the Koran as anyone
who refuses the teachings of Mohammad.
“Believers, make war on the
infidels who dwell around you...Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the
hypocrites and deal rigorously with them.
Hell shall be their home ....They uttered the word of unbelief and
renounced Islam after embracing it.” Surah 9
Back to the subject at hand: The Arabs resent Israel
because they resent a non-Muslim country in the Middle East.
Americans once recognized this. So did many other countries of the world. But
such a successful P.R. campaign has been ignited against Israel,
that today people are believing lies about boarders and separate states and
refugees. In fact, these excuses were made up for useful idiots. I do not
intend these words as a derogatory phrase. Useful idiot is an actual
term coined for those who unwittingly assist an agenda because they do not
understand the agenda and instead are listening to propaganda.
One of the reasons we have so many “useful idiots” in America
today is because of Post Modernism. Post Modernism has been influencing our
universities for many decades now with its ideas of moral relativism.
It is next to impossible in a university environment to call Islam evil, to or to call any movement evil.
This leads to our next true/ false question.
True or False: The events of 9-11 have led Americans to the
conclusion that Islam is dangerous.
ANSWER: False:
Oh sure, for a while after 9-11, schools were returning to
prayer and universities were even asking Christian campus ministers to lead
memorial services. It lasted about five
minutes. And in time, for some reason, Islam to come out smelling like a rose.
In public schools, a new common
tradition has kids participating in “dress up like a Muslim day”.
Interesting how we never heard of this educational/cultural experience before
planes were rammed into the World Trade Center. But now it’s a reoccurring part of the school curriculum.
Can you just imagine if we tried that with Christianity? “Hey kids. Everybody wear a cross
tomorrow. It’s just for education’s
sake.” The ACLU would be over there so
fast it would make your heads swim!
As for universities? They are more puzzling than an episode of The
Twilight Zone. College professors
derail Christianity at every opportunity.
But everything they hate about the Bible, and I mean EVERYTHING THEY
HATE ABOUT THE BIBLE is also found in the Koran. What religious doctrines do
college students absolutely despise today?
Hell? The Koran talks about hell. In fact, The Koran describes hell more
graphically than the Bible does. How about the role of women in religion or the
submission of women to men in religion?
The Bible is often accused of chauvinism, falsely I should say, and yet
the Koran really does say demeaning things about women.
“Men have authority over women
because God has made the one superior to the other and because they spend their
wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient.
They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them.” Surah 4
I would think today’s feminist organizations would be up in
arms over Islam’s treatment of women. 80
percent of Arab women believe wife beating is both routine and normal. (“Have we
Been Beaten By Our Wives Today?” Jerusalem
Post Aug 30, 1991)
Phyllis Chesler, author of the book, The Death Of Feminism
came on my radio show as a guest. During this fascinating interview, she
shared about her unsuccessful attempts to get leading feminists to denounce the
treatment of women at the hands of the Taliban in Pakistan
and Afghanistan,
What Miss Chesler discovered was that liberals were more afraid of perception
than reality. They did not want to be perceived as being Pro-Bush and this
somehow meant that they could not criticize Islam.
Let me put this as straight as I possibly can. If feminists
cannot recognize that women are being demeaned and persecuted in Muslim
countries more than anywhere else on earth, they should give up the cause. Has
feminism been reduced only to a movement about the right to an abortion or the
right to be a lesbian? Do feminists not
care when young girls get their fingers cut off for refusing to wear certain
coverings? Is it not a human rights
issue when women, after being raped, are then murdered by their own families as
“honor killings”, because they were seen in public with men, even in the so
called peaceful Muslim countries like Jordan?
Are you catching on? Islam has become a Politically Correct
religion. Post-Modernism has crippled our nation morally. It has left a large, moral vacuum. Vacuums always get
filled. If you don’t fight for your standard of morality, somebody else is
going to come along who will push theirs. Paradoxically, when discussing
Christianity or the Republican Party or George Bush, college professors are
quite willing to use words like evil. But in another context, the
response is always, “Who are we to judge?
Maybe Osama Bin Ladin’s mother never bought him a sled when he was a
kid.”
How can we call Islam evil if there is not such thing as
evil?
I had a chance to visit Ground Zero (formally the World
Trade Center)
practically one month to the day after 9/11. The smoke was still coming up out
of the ground and workmen were pulling up debris all through the night. A
husband and wife from California
began talking to me from behind the fence where a few of us “spectators” were
standing. This couple had a friend who had been at work in one of the towers
that fateful day. She was now dead. I’ll never forget what the woman said to me.
“I’m just trying to understand why they hate us so much.”
“Maybe they are just evil and they enjoy hating,” I replied.
The expression on her face was one of astonishment. Clearly
I had given the wrong answer. It must have been something we did. It was our
oil policy or something. Nobody could be this evil simply for evil’s sake.
We are at war, people!
They do not merely object to Israel’s
existence. They object to our existence too. If the war was only about armies
and weapons we would win in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, this is also a war of
ideas and on that front, we are losing hands down! If we are incapable of calling anything evil
(besides George Bush) how will we recognize evil? This is why so many people are quick to
reconsider whether the Holocaust really happened. The idea of a civilized
nation calmly sitting down and planning the death of an entire race is
inconceivable.
What I am saying is this: Post Modern
America has tilled the ground, making it ripe for a religion which seeks to
expand and conquer. It makes the
terrorist’s job easier! Although their
philosophies are different as night and day, Islam and Post-Modernism are
involved in a strange, dangerous partnership, a partnership unconscious to the
gullible Post-Modernist, a partnership being exploited by Muslim fanatics.
Liberals will read an article like mine and immediately
dismiss it as being paranoid and Islamophobic. (a new Politically Correct word,
invented by Muslims who take their cue from Post-Modernism, because they see "useful idiots" using similar terms).
Interestingly enough, the last time Al-Queda
sent a letter to the United States,
it said, “Americans. Be on notice. Convert to Islam or die.”
It did not say, “Gee, you liberal Americans. We really appreciate your attempts to
understand us.” No, the letter was
speaking to all Americans, even the Liberals. You see, Liberals keep defending the
terrorists by explaining what they really want and how we could understand them
better if we would only sit down and talk to them. I take a rather old fashioned approach myself
and allow the terrorists to simply speak for themselves. They say if you let an evil person talk long
enough, sooner or later he will explain exactly what he plans to do.
Read Part Twelve in tomorrow’s blog.