Islam – Religious or Political?
Posted: June 1, 2018 Filed under: 2018 Ramadan Prayer | Tags: Christianity, Islam, politics, religion Leave a comment
Love in the Bible and Qur’an
Posted: May 20, 2018 Filed under: 2018 Ramadan Prayer, Uncategorized | Tags: Bible, Christianity, Islam, Love, Prayer, Qur'an, religion, truth 3 Comments
Logic and Religion
Posted: May 16, 2018 Filed under: 2018 Ramadan Prayer, Uncategorized | Tags: Christianity, Islam, religion, truth Leave a comment
Christianity & Islam’s Views of Creation
Posted: May 31, 2017 Filed under: 2017 Ramadan Prayer | Tags: Christianity, Creation, Islam, Prayer, Ramadan, Ramadan Day 5, religion Leave a comment
Islam: Religion or Politics?
Posted: June 17, 2016 Filed under: 2016 Ramadan Prayer | Tags: Hadith, Islam, kafir, Political Islam, politics, Qur'an, religion, Sira 2 Comments
Religion is defined as “belief in, worship of, or obedience to a supernatural power or powers considered to be divine.” Politics, however, can be defined as “the use of strategy or intrigue in obtaining power, control or status.” Religion is between a follower and their god. Politics is between men.
Once Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, his message evolved from primarily a religious one to a political and militaristic one. In the first 13 years of Islam (the Mecca period) Islam averaged 11 to 12 converts per year, however in the Medina period Islam averaged around 10,000 new Muslims per year. Dr. Bill Warner from PoliticalIslam.com estimates based on the number of followers during the Mecca period as opposed to the Medina period of Muhammad’s life Islam’s success as a religion during Muhammad’s lifetime was about 0.3%, but its success as a political system was 99.7%. If Islam had remained only a religion, it would not exist today.
The difference between the religion of Islam and the politics of Islam is found in its treatment of the “kafirs.” Kafir is translated from the Arabic as “unbeliever,” however the translation does not accurately confer the meaning. Kafir refers to “people who reject Allah or deny or hide the truth revealed by Him. One who knowing what is true, decides to forget the evidence decides to sidetrack, deceive himself.” Kafir refers to all non-Muslims – Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, atheists, etc., and political Islam seeks to control non-Muslims.
There are some positive verses in the Qur’an about the kafirs such as Sura 109:6 “you to your religion and me to my religion,” but the overwhelming majority of verses (around 97%) about kafirs are quite negative. According to Islam kafirs are ignorant (Sura 6:111), disgraced (Sura 37:18), cursed (Sura 33:60-61), can be killed (Sura 4:91), raped (Ishaq 759), stolen from (Bukhari 5, 59, 537), crucified (Sura 5:33), made war on (Sura 9:29) and annihilated (Sura 6:45).
PoliticaIIslam.com has done a statistical study of the texts of Islam. The study reveals 64% of the Qur’an, 81% of the Sira, and 32% of the Hadith is about the kafir. Overall 51% of the Islamic texts deal with the kafir, which means the majority of Islam is political rather than religious.
Prayer Point:
Pray that western Christians will wake up to the realization that they are not infringing upon a Muslim’s religious rights when they question the aggression of the politics of Islam in western society.
The Gradual Islamization of the West: Education Part One – Accommodation
Posted: January 23, 2014 Filed under: Islamization of the West | Tags: accommodations, Education, gradualism, Mohamed Badi, prayer in schools, religion, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi 1 Comment
The Cato Institute features an illuminating interactive map on their website labeled the Public Schooling Battle Map. This particular map marks conflicts within the American public schools from 2001 through 2013. Such conflicts include disagreements concerning curriculum, freedom of expression, human origins, moral values, reading material, and religion.
As the map illustrates, conflicts regarding the education of children are numerous and widespread. Of particular interest to Christians are conflicts regarding religion in schools. The map below spotlights those conflicts that are defined as, “disputes involving the presence of religion in schools, either through employees, students, or outside groups.”
Most of the disputes marked have occurred when schools and/or districts have disallowed elements of Christianity i.e. Christian prayer, Christian hymns sung during “holiday” programs, etc. The justification often cited for disallowing a Christian influence is the misapplication of the separation of church and state. There is, however, a double standard in the way religions are being handled in U.S. public schools. While Christianity’s influence is increasingly diminished within the public schools, Islam’s influence is escalating.
A glaring example of Islam’s favored status was reported by ESPN from a public high school in Dearborn, Michigan. In 2010, Ramadan, a month long time of daylight fasting observed worldwide by Muslims, happened to coincide with the beginning of football practice for the Fordson High School team. The team, winner of four state titles, after receiving “approval of school and district administrators and the blessings of players, parents and police” scheduled their practice sessions from 11 pm to 4 am so that Muslim players, who are allowed to eat and drink after sunset, could participate. The New York Times attempted to equate the religious accommodation for Muslims during Ramadan to Brigham Young University’s refusal to play athletic events on Sunday because of their religious convictions. However, this comparison fails to recognize the stark difference between a decision by a privately owned university and a publicly funded high school.
Accommodations for Muslim students are not only limited to the United States. Last April, The Guardian reported three quarters of the schools supported under the Waltham Forest Council (a school system in Britain) serve only halal meat despite the fact that Muslims only make up about 15% of the population of the area. Halal meat is slaughtered using Islamic standards including pronouncing the name of Allah during the slaughter. Only one school in the area serves both halal and non-halal meat. The schools that are serving halal meat to non-Muslim children report that the decision is based upon logistics since many school kitchens are not large enough to store and prepare two types of meat.
Valley Park Middle School in Toronto, Canada allows approximately 400 Muslim students to attend imam-led prayers in the school’s cafeteria. The 30-minute prayer service takes place every Friday from November to March – the months in the Islamic calendar when Islamic prayer times are during class times. The school agreed to the arrangement after large numbers of Muslim students were leaving on Friday afternoons to attend afternoon prayer at a local mosque, but then were not returning to school following the short prayer session. Imagine western school systems allowing Christian prayer sessions during Advent or Lent, which would certainly be equal treatment, but most likely meet with much opposition.
The prayer sessions began in 2008, and are currently still continuing. The sessions remained without scrutiny until July of 2011 when Muslim, Tarek Fatah, the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, raised objections to the treatment of young girls in the prayer sessions. The Toronto Sun quotes Fatah, “My concern is the Toronto District School Board (is) using tax money to tell girls they are second-class citizens.” The prayer sessions are set up in a traditional Islamic fashion with boys in the front and girls behind them. Strict Islamic tradition dictates that menstruating young women are considered unclean and are sent to the back of the room. Fatah is further quoted as saying, “It’s a fearful time for a young woman to get her first period, and right at that time you have this man (the Imam) telling them they are unclean. That should not happen in Canada.”
In November of 2011, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of “Shariah and Life” – a television program broadcast on Al Jazeera with an estimated audience of 60 million and chief religious scholar for IslamOnline, encouraged Muslims to adopt the concept of gradualism. Gradualism is the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages. Qaradawi wrote, “Gradualism is one of the laws of nature that Allah Almighty has created. It is also needed in applying the ruling of Shariah to make a change in people’s life.”
The greatest threat to western society is not through open war with Islamists, but through the gradual indoctrination of westerners. What may appear to someone who is not familiar with the teachings of Islam as an accommodation is actually a surrender of the freedom of thought and religion to a system that does not allow such freedom.
Prior to his arrest in August of 2013, Mohamed Badi, former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide, outlined the six phases of the Brotherhood’s plans to rule the world:
- Sharia over the individual
- Sharia over the family
- Sharia over the society
- Sharia over the government
- Resurrection of the Caliphate
- Mastership of the world
When western public schools disallow Christian prayers and Christmas programs, yet embrace and encourage Islamic prayer and traditions, they are already operating under Islamic sharia law.
In the next few months Best Current News will be exploring other methods Islamists are using to subvert the hearts and minds of our greatest blessings – our children.
Ramadan Prayer Day 30 – Christian Attitudes About Islam
Posted: August 18, 2012 Filed under: Ramadan Prayer | Tags: Christianity, Faith, Fascination, Fatigue, Fear, Forgetfulness, Fury, Islam, Ramadan, religion 4 Comments
For many Americans, an awareness of Islam did not begin until 9-11-2001 when our nation was attacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists. Prior to the attacks, Islam seemed a distant, somewhat exotic religion from the Middle East to many people. Since that time most American Christians have formed views about Islam and the Muslim people. In the book, Engaging Islam, author Georges Houssney identifies five common Christian reactions to Islam.
Fear is a rather prevalent attitude when it comes to Islam. There are different aspects of fear – some truly fear for their physical lives; others fear a loss of western freedoms and a systematic takeover of the U.S. by Islamists and still others have a fear of man – fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and insulting those who may have a different culture and belief system than their own. There is certainly validity behind our fears – it is estimated that somewhere around 171,000 to 176,000 Christians are martyred each year for their faith, and many of those deaths are the result of Islamists. Even in the U.S., there have been those who have gone into hiding as a result of threats against their lives because of radical Muslims. Throughout the past thirty days, the articles in the Ramadan series have shown there are indeed some Muslims who are attempting to turn our nation into an Islamic state.
Oftentimes, fear leads to the second common response to Islam – fury. Since 9-11, the fear of more attacks from Islamists has actually altered our American way of life and that understandably makes us angry. It is because of a group of terrorists from the “religion of peace” that we have to take off our shoes, carry small containers of liquids in tiny bags and stand in endless security lines at the airport. As Christians in our nation seem to lose more and more rights, it makes us angry to see that Islam is gaining more rights and compromise of truth in our nation is evident.
Ironically due to the fear and fury some Westerners have exhibited toward Muslims, another group of Christians sympathize with the adherents of Islam because of what they feel are unfair and vicious attacks against Muslims. These Christians exhibit another common response – fascination. They see Islam as an exotic religion with a rich, cultural heritage, but they fail to realize the teachings of Islam are markedly different from those in Christianity. There are Christian churches and organizations that open their churches for Muslims to hold Islamic services all in the name of “loving their neighbor,” but this love is misguided and even “unsanctified mercy”.
Forgetfulness is another common attitude. Christians are busy and there are countless other important issues that vie for our attention. Many falsely believe that Islam does not affect their day-to-day lives; therefore they are apathetic regarding Islam.
Finally some Christians respond to Islam with fatigue. They are tired of hearing about the latest outrage or offense someone has supposedly committed against Islam. From a call to shut down Nike shoes because Muslims thought a design on the heel of their shoes looked like Allah in Arabic to Muslim cab drivers refusing to allow passengers into their cabs with seeing eye dogs, some American Christians are weary of listening to the religion of perpetual outrage’s latest offense.
Fear, fury, fascination, forgetfulness and fatigue describe the reactions of many American Christians, however God calls us to react to Islam with faith. Faith that our God did not take a 1400-year coffee break, and is now surprised there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. He has a plan and a purpose for the Muslim people, and He has a plan and a purpose for each one of us.
As Christians, we must separate the system of Islam from the people. Fearful Christians do not share their faith or in order to protect themselves they water down the truth of the Gospel. Fascination also leads to compromise so we no longer have a distinct Gospel. Untruths or half-truths will never advance the Kingdom of God.
Fatigue can lead to exhaustion, and in a place of exhaustion we may find ourselves too tired to look beyond the religious system of Islam and see Muslims as individuals in need of the Savior. Forgetfulness can lead to apathy. Many Christians pray for God to send forth the laborers into the harvest, but few Christians actually believe they may be the very one God wishes to send forth. The phrase “send forth” in the passage actually can be translated from the Greek as “cast out”. Maybe God knew in our reluctance that some of us would have to be “cast out” into the harvest.
Scripture says, love casts out fear and produces boldness. I John 4:7-18, “In this way, love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness…There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” May we walk in boldness, presenting the gospel to those around us with love and pray as the early believers did. “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30).
Fury, however can lead to strife. We cannot be faithful servants of the gospel if we are motivated by strife. The Bible tells us, “Be angry, but don’t sin.” There is a righteous anger that does need to rise up in every American Christian in this nation – not anger at Muslims, or atheists, or gays, or abortionists, but an anger at ourselves for not guarding and appreciating this unique nation, which God has given to us. An anger that motivates us to fall on our knees and cry out for mercy on behalf of our nation.
We have seen the past 30 days of our reports that Islam’s impact on American culture and on the seven spheres of American society has been significant. The inroads, the infiltration, the propaganda thrown at the western world has been incredible and thus far effective. We are playing “catch up” to many years of information warfare. The only hope for the defeat of radical Islam is Jesus Christ, the Son of God … the only Way, Truth and Life. And it starts by inviting Him back into our nation.
PRAYER FOR ISLAM IN OUR NATION
- Pray that the American people in our nation will be drawn to seek God on behalf of the United States — praying that we, as a people, will return to the God of our Fathers and to our foundational beliefs.
- The Muslim people in our nation need their hearts prepared to hear the truth of the gospel. Pray that God will soften their hearts and that the Church will rise up boldly and confidently, with love, sharing the message of salvation through Jesus Christ to the Muslim people.
- Speak God’s blessings over the Muslim people! Pray that “what our enemy [Satan] has meant for evil” God will turn it around for good and bring forth multitudes of Muslims into the kingdom of God. May God be glorified in the United States of America!
