bestcurrentnews 2023 Ramadan Prayer

Adoption of Children in Islam

On February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria. This earthquake was followed by another almost as powerful, and over 10,000 aftershocks. The death toll from these earthquakes has now surpassed 50,000 people, and many children in the region are now orphans.

Many have applied to adopt these children; however, Turkey’s religious authority, the Diyanet, caused an uproar when they released a statement explaining that Islam does not fully recognize adoption and actually allows parents to marry their adopted children. The Diyanet promptly removed the statement from their website and said those criticizing them were taking its advice out of context. 

The concept of adoption in Islam is different from that in Western nations. The Qur’an repeatedly says that Muhammad is the perfect Muslim, so a Muslim should imitate Muhammad to practice Islam correctly. This is how the concept of adoption was established in Islam. 

In pre-Islamic Arabia, adoptions were similar to Western adoptions, with children taking on the name of the adoptive parents and receiving an inheritance from them. However, Muhammad rejected this procedure, so the Western concept of adoption does not exist in Islam. Instead, there is a system more akin to a foster care relationship in the West called “kafala.” In Western adoptions, the child becomes a full member of the family, taking on the adoptive family’s name. In Islam, the child retains his biological name.

The adoption example for Islam comes from the life of Mohammad. Zayd bin Hâritha (son of Hâritha) was captured in an inter-tribal raid and sold into slavery. Upon arrival in Mecca, he became a slave for Khadijah (Muhammad’s first wife.). She then gave him as a present to Muhammad when they were married. Zayd’s biological father and uncle later found him in Mecca and wanted to buy him out of slavery. Zayd confirmed to Muhammad that the men were his father and uncle, and they offered to pay any price to Muhammad in order to free the boy. However, Muhammad offered Zayd a choice to leave with them or stay with him.

Zayd chose to stay with Muhammad, so Muhammad freed him and adopted him as a son. His name became Zayd bin Muhammad (Zayd, son of Muhammad), and he was one of the first converts to Islam.

Years later, Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina. Zayd was married to a woman named Zainab and eventually divorced her. Later during a trance, Muhammad stated that he received a revelation that Allah wedded Zainab to Muhammad in heaven.

Muhammad married her, but this caused a problem for him since, in their culture, it was considered wrong to marry your son’s wife. Muhammad then stated he received a new revelation from Allah: Allah did not make your adopted sons your real sons. (Sura 33:4). From this point forward, an adopted son was no longer considered a full part of the family. Muhammad continued to say that Allah gave him permission to marry Zayd’s ex-wife (Sura 33:37). Zayd’s name once again became Zayd bin Hâritha.

Since Muhammad received the revelation that adopted sons are not real sons, even in the West today, Muslims cannot fully adopt children.

PRAYER POINT

For the Christian, Galatians 4:4-5 reveals that God has chosen to speak of us as adopted and being children by the new birth. God sees us now as joint heirs with Christ. For this reason, Christians see adopted children as their very own. Since this is a foreign concept in Islam, pray that God will override their traditions and make way for Muslim children without parents to be released and welcomed into godly homes where they can learn of and receive the truth of the gospel of Christ.

bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

The Australian Jihadist Cheerleader

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day 25There are two emerging Islamic religious figures from the West that have become especially popular with foreign fighters that have joined the rebel forces in the Syrian civil war. These two Westerners, American Ahmad Musa Jibril and Australian Musa Cerantonio, are popular with Western and European jihadists on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These foreign fighters look to these men for guidance and inspiration.

Yesterday we looked at Ahmad Musa Jibril, an American cleric from Dearborn, Michigan. Australian Musa Cerantonio was born into an Italian Catholic family as Robert Cerantonio. He claims he converted to Islam after a visit to the Vatican left him disillusioned with Catholicism. After his conversion he traveled to study Islam in Cairo. His status as a Western convert helped him to become popular on Islamic satellite television programs, which gave Cerantonio a global audience.

His most popular platform, other than his television programs, was Facebook. At times, he was critical of the terrorist group, ISIS, but he also referred to the group “as the best forces on the ground in Syria.” Cerantonio called for war against the United States. “If we see that Muslims are being killed by the tyrant leaders of the USA then we must first stop them with our hands (i.e. by force). This means that we should stop them by fighting them, by assassinating their oppressive leaders, by weakening their offensive capabilities etc. …This is not something that is beyond us at all.”Musa Cerantonio Facebook

Cerantonio’s Facebook page was eventually taken down, but at the time it was removed he had about 12,000 subscribers. He used Twitter account earlier this month to announce that he was traveling to Syria. After he tweeted that he had arrived in the Middle East to join with the terror group, ISIS, he was actually discovered to have been living in the Philippines for about a year.

Australian authorities cancelled his Australian passport, which left him without proper travel documentation so he was arrested and is to be deported to Australia. There is now a Facebook page calling for his release that has more than 1,500 “likes.” There are no warrants for his arrest in Australia so he will probably be allowed to go free when he arrives.

Ahmad Musa Jibril and Musa Cerantonio have had much influence on the number of foreign fighters in the Syrian civil war. Their styles are different, but rather than competing for followers they have appealed to their audiences in different ways. This combination has encouraged their followers to consider fighting in Syria as honorable.

Prayer Points:

Ask God to give His wisdom and insight to counter-intelligence and counterterrorism organizations to enable them to have the information needed to stop or arrest those involved in recruiting others to becoming militant.

Social media has been used to encourage Westerners to join in the Syrian civil war. Pray that Western authorities will identify those who are inspiring others to jihad and terrorism and recognize legal ways to stop them from furthering their cause.

Jihadists are very successful in utilizing social media to spread a message of hate – pray the Holy Spirit will guide Christians and Christian ministries in ways to use this powerful tool to spread the message of the Kingdom of God. Declare His Lordship over all forms of social media!

bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

Western “Cheerleaders” of Jihad

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day 24NBC News reported more than 160,000 people including over 8,000 children have been killed in the three-year civil war in Syria. The figure from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights includes civilians, members of the Syrian military, foreign fighters and rebels. An estimated 9 million Syrians have left their homes since the war began in March of 2011. Of those, 2.5 million have fled to neighboring nations, and the other 6.5 million are internally displaced within Syria.

The conflict in Syria is recognized as the most “socially mediated civil conflict in history.” Few journalists have had direct access to battles within Syria in part because the nation was considered “the most dangerous place in the world for journalists” in 2013. Most television media has relied heavily on YouTube videos and citizen journalists to report what is happening. According to the United States Institute of Peace, “An exceptional amount of what the outside world knows – or thinks it knows – about Syria’s nearly three-year-old conflict has come from videos, analysis, and commentary circulated through social networks.”

A team of researchers from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) created a database containing the social media profiles of 190 Western and European foreign fighters that have joined Syrian rebel groups. More than 2/3 of these foreign fighters are affiliated with either Jabhat al-Nusrah or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – both groups which were at one point connected to al-Qaeda.

By studying the social media profiles of these fighters, the Center discovered a large number of the foreign fighters did not receive their information about the Syrian conflict through official channels of the fighting groups, but rather through individuals who are not affiliated with any of the terror groups.

These individuals, sympathetic to the rebel cause, are primarily based in the West and have most likely never been to Syria, however through social media they control significant influence over how the conflict is perceived. They encourage, justify and give religious legitimacy for their social media followers to fight in the conflict – basically serving as jihadist “cheerleaders.” Through social media they have become new spiritual authorities to whom Western and European foreign fighters are looking to for guidance and inspiration. The most prominent social media spiritual authorities are American-based cleric Ahmad Musa Jibril and Australian cleric Musa Cerantonio.Ahmad Musa Jibril

Jibril was born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1972. He enrolled at the Islamic University in Medina, Saudi Arabia graduating with a degree in sharia (Islamic law), and completed his advanced law degrees at a Michigan law school. In 2004, he was convicted on a string of federal offenses. A memorandum produced in the case revealed he was running a radical website that “contained a library of fanatically anti-American sermons by militant Islamic clerics, in English and in Arabic. Prior to his arrest, Jibril was banned from two mosques because of his radical views. He was incarcerated in a federal prison until March of 2012.

Jibril does not openly promote violence or encourage his followers to join the Syrian jihad, but he supports the principles of armed conflict against Assad. Much of his popularity is from Twitter and YouTube where there are videos of him delivering impassioned lectures on many topics including the situation in Syria. He does not openly support ISIS, however British ISIS fighters have reported watching the cleric’s lecture series before joining the jihad. His Facebook page has over 218,000 likes, and 55.6% of the “likes” and follows are from members of the terrorist group, ISIS.

Jibril often interacts with his followers on Twitter, which helps him generate a much higher following. For instance, after the death of a foreign fighter in Syria, Jibril sent a condolence message on Twitter to the jihadist’s brother. The brother uploaded the message to his public timeline, which was then retweeted multiple times. This type of interaction demonstrates to Jibril’s followers that he is more than just a religious leader, he also provides friendship and comfort to those fighting in Syria.

Tomorrow we will look at Australian Musa Cerantonio, and his influence with Westerners engaging in jihad. Prayer points for both of the articles will be in tomorrow’s post.

bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

Western Jihadists

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day - 23It is not a new phenomenon for Muslims in the West to travel to areas around the world to engage in jihad, however with the ongoing war in Syria and the recent announcement of the formation of a new caliphate by the terror group known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), the practice is becoming more prevalent.

Gatestone Institute reports that there are now at “least twice as many young British Muslims who have gone to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and other such groups than there are fighting for Queen and country here in the British armed forces.”

A California man was arrested on July 2 before he could board a flight to Turkey where he eventually planned to go to Syria to fight with ISIS. The young man, Adam Dandach, also known as Fadi Fadi Dandach, graduated from an American high school only two years ago. He told investigators, “he would assist ISIS with anything that ISIS asked him to do, and that he believed the killing of U.S. soldiers are justified killings.” When his mother learned that he planned to travel to the Middle East, she hid his passport. He was arrested for lying on an application for a replacement passport. He claims he was more disappointed that he did not get to go to Syria to join the jihad than he was that he was arrested.

New Zealander, Mark John Taylor, burnt his New Zealand passport and claims to have already been involved in fighting for the rebels in Syria. His Facebook page displays his burnt New Zealand passport and declares that he is on a “one-way trip,” declaring his intentions to die as a soldier of Mark Taylor - New Zealand JihadistAllah.

As of December 2013, the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) estimated that up to 11,000 fighters from 74 nations had gone to Syria to fight. Over one quarter of these fighters are from Western countries, mostly from Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Although not as numerous, Australians, Canadians, and U.S. citizens have also joined the fighting.

Those joining with the jihadis are not limited to young men. Sabina Selimovic, 15, and Samra Kesinovic, 16 disappeared from their homes in Austria in April. At first it was believed that the young girls had also gone to fight in the conflict in Syria. However, it was later discovered the girls were not in Syria, but most likely in Turkey. School friends confirmed the girls had become radicalized after attending a local mosque in Vienna. Police believe that whoever helped them leave the country is manipulating their social media accounts to “turn them into pin-up girls for the call to join the civil war.”

Perhaps they were the inspiration for British twin girls, aged 16 that left their Manchester homes to travel to Syria to become jihadi brides. The girls, Salma and Zahra Halane, were among the top twenty students at their school. It is believed they may have followed their older brother who joined ISIS. The family, originally from Somalia have said they are “absolutely devastated.” It is believed the two girls and their older brother may have been radicalized over Internet forums.

Earlier this month, around 100 Muslim leaders from different Islamic theological backgrounds launched an appeal to young would-be British jihadists: “Don’t’ travel to fight in Syria and Iraq.” This call came as claims emerged that as many as three Al Qaeda instructors tutored by a master bomb-maker are believed to have gone to Syria to teach British and other Western jihadists how to make “stealth bombs.”

Frank Gaffney from the Center for Security Policy said, “What they learn there are the skill sets to bring the violence to us.”

Prayer Points:

Pray that radical terrorist teachings in mosques and through the Internet will be discovered and stopped by the authorities and appropriate leaders.

For Muslim families with children who are leaning toward becoming radicalized, ask God to intervene and give the parents His wisdom and strength in dealing with their particular situation in their family – stopping the flow of these young people into a life of jihad.

In many Western nations, the Muslim population is rapidly increasing yet they are not integrating into the Western society. Pray that Western Christians will not be fearful or allow the threat of terrorism to keep them from reaching out to Muslims in their nation and in their local community. Pray they will realize that Muslims are not the enemy, they are treasured by God and are His prize. Ask God to stir their hearts and reveal His unconditional love for them.

bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

Atrocities Motivate Some Muslims To Question Islam

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day 4It is expected that the population in areas now under the control of terror group, “The Islamic State” (formerly known as ISIS) will experience much of the same abuse and atrocities that the residents of Raqqa, Syria have been experiencing since the terrorists took over their city last year. As the terror group has gained territory in Iraq, it has been emboldened and become even stricter in the enforcement of sharia [Islamic] law in Raqqa.

A resident explained a sense of hopelessness that they are experiencing, “Our dreams of getting rid of ISIS’s unfair rule and fatwas are vanishing as every city falls under [its] own control. …We gradually started losing hope in restoring the life we have had for hundreds of years.”

Public executions are reportedly a weekly occurrence in the city. In some cases the bodies of those executed are then “crucified” – placed on crosses to act as a deterrent to anyone else that may break the strict laws.

The Qur’an sanctions crucifixion as an appropriate punishment for anyone who wages war against Allah and his messenger (Qur’an 5:33).

Western apologists for Islam emphasize that the terror groups are not truly practicing Islam, however the written texts of Islam provide clear evidence that the Qur’an and the traditions of Muhammad sanctioned this type of behavior.

That certainly does not mean most of the Muslim world condones crucifixion to be acceptable. However, when groups such as The Islamic State rise to power their insistence that they are practicing a more pure form of Islam does cause many modern Muslims to begin to examine the teachings of their faith more closely.

For example, Christianity Today reports that in Algeria after similar Muslim-on-Muslim violence killed 100,000 people, 10,000 Muslims turned Raqqa Churchtheir backs on Islam and became followers of Christ.

Responding to Muslims with the heart of God, especially after reading accounts of atrocities such as beheadings, crucifixions and rapes – can be difficult for Westerners. It becomes even more difficult when Islamic demands affect us in our own nations and infringe on our western “rights.”

We are in quite a unique time in history as far as the Muslim world is concerned with the advent of satellite television, the Internet, translations and commentaries of the Qur’an, etc. Muslims that may be questioning their faith can examine the teachings of Islam for themselves. Our prayers for them will make a tremendous difference in their lives; opening up their hearts to His truth.

Prayer Points:

Thank and praise God that because of His overwhelming love and mercy, we can boldly come before His throne on behalf of people around the world.

Ask God to draw Muslims around the world to Himself so they may find His peace in the midst of the violence that may surround them.

Pray that Muslims will see the turmoil in their religion through the eyes of God and receive a hunger for His truth.

Ask the Lord to direct them to the Holy Bible online in their own language and read the New Testament. Pray they will have the courage to face the differences between Christianity and Islam and receive the revelation of how much they are loved by Jesus Christ.

bestcurrentnews 2014 Ramadan Prayer

A New Caliphate?

2014 Ramadan Prayer Day 3Much attention has been focused in recent weeks on the nation of Iraq. News commentators have debated the West’s role in Iraq while much of the nation has fallen under the control a former al-Qaeda ally, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

ISIS announced on Sunday they were changing their name to The Islamic State, declaring that they have restored the Islamic caliphate. A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader called a caliph. President Ataturk of Turkey abolished the last caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, in 1924. ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been declared as the Caliph or leader of the new state. The group has called on al-Qaeda and other militant Sunni groups to pledge their allegiance to this newly formed caliphate.

ISIS, a Sunni jihadi terrorist group had close links with al-Qaeda until February. The split between the groups came after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was unable to stop fighting between ISIS and another rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra. Fighting between the two rebel groups in Syria killed 7,000 people including 650 civilians caught in the crossfire. ISIS is known for its strict interpretation of Islamic (sharia) law and brutal violence including beheadings and floggings.

Much of the group’s violence has been directed against Shia Muslims. On June 12, 2014 ISIS claimed they executed 1,700 “Shi’a members of the army” in Iraq although those reports have not been substantiated. The UN reports that more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting between ISIS and Iraqi forces.

The group has seized over one third of Iraq, and supporters of ISIS have been distributing propaganda indicating the next ISIS Control June 2014targets of their aggression are Jordan and Saudi Arabia. After taking over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, ISIS put up posters which read, “We call upon the people of this county to bring their unmarried girls so they can fulfill their duty in sex jihad for their warrior brothers in the city and anyone who will not appear will feel the full force of the sharia [Islamic law] upon him.” Reports indicate that ISIS fighters have been going door to door in Mosul, killing men and raping women found in the houses. A UN spokesman said he had received information that four women who had been raped committed suicide following the brutal attacks.

As many as 500,000 residents of Mosul fled the city as ISIS took over, yet according to The Telegraph tens of thousands of these residents have decided to return preferring to live under the rule of the Sunni terror group to the Shia dominated Iraqi army. The same pattern occurred in Syria where the population of cities overtaken by ISIS initially welcomed the jihadis, but then regretted the strict Islamic society ISIS created. The regulations imposed in Raqqa, a Syrian city under ISIS control, banned smoking, drinking alcohol, and tattoos, and demanded that women be covered in public although women are discouraged from leaving the house at all. The punishment for breaking any of these rules is public flogging. Stealing can result in limbs being chopped off, and committing adultery is punished by death by stoning.

ISIS has been quite successful in utilizing social media to quickly spread its propaganda. From memes (internet picture) mocking United States First Lady Michelle Obama to using popular Twitter hashtags like those related to the World Cup, the terrorist group is making a strong push to reach westerners with their message. Terrorism expert, Charles Lister says the group’s efforts has allowed them to become somewhat of a “’celebrity’ actor within the international jihadist community” with foreign supporters from around the world expressing their support and allegiance to ISIS. The group’s announced goal is to gain one billion supporters for their Islamic State.

The Clarion Project reports British authorities estimate more than 500 young radicalized Muslims have traveled from Britain to Syria to join the conflict. Estimates are that as many as two thirds of those may have returned to live in Britain, because they travel through Turkey, a common vacation destination. Two of the British born jihadis, Reyaad Khan and Nasser Muthana have appeared in an ISIS recruitment video aimed at British Muslims. Nasser’s father, Ahmed Muthana, originally from Yemen, described how he felt when he saw the video of his son, “I was shaking and in tears. …My wife fainted and has not recovered from what she saw. …I feel sick and devastated that my son is caught up in this. He was brought up to love and respect my country which is Britain.”

Many Muslims living in the West would echo the sentiment of this father. The western nation where they now live is their country. However, radical terrorist groups are aggressively seeking recruits in the West like Ahmed Muthana’s son. Nations of the world need the wisdom of God to know how to respond to the situations in nations such as Syria and Iraq. Our leaders need to hear from the God of heaven.

Prayer Points:

Pray for wisdom for the leadership of nations around the world. Pray that each world leader will be surrounded with godly counsel and truth in order to make difficult decisions regarding the uprisings in the Middle East.

Pray for the people of Iraq and Syria – those who have fled these nations and for those that have remained. Pray for the protection of families, and an end to the brutal violence.

Pray for those who have been victims of the violence – the women that have been raped and the children that have witnessed horrendous atrocities.

Pray that Muslims – both Shia and Sunni will see that the root of the violence is from the violent teachings of the Qur’an and the traditions and biography of Muhammad himself. Pray that they will see that there is a God who desires to bring His peace to their lives and their nations.

Ask the Lord for social media to become a source of spreading the gospel to the world rather than an instrument of jihadists. Pray that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others can quickly identify the jihadi propaganda and stop it. Pray that groups like ISIS will no longer be able to “hack hashtags” and spread their message.

ISIS and other terror groups target disenfranchised or disillusioned young Muslim men in the West. Pray that Muslims will see the root of their disillusionment comes from allegiance to a false god. Ask Jesus to appear to them in dreams and visions and lead godly young men across their paths to share the truth of the gospel.

 

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 23 – The Plight of Islam’s Children

2013 Ramadan PrayerThe words of the “adhan” or the Muslim call to prayer are first words a newborn Muslim baby hears. His or her father whispers into the child’s right ear, “God is great, there is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Come to prayer.”  This is the crux is Islam, acknowledging Allah and Muhammad as the perfect example.

By the time a Muslim reaches the age of 50, he has heard this repeated nearly 90,000 times. That is roughly 1,800 times per year every year since the day he was born.

In some nations, the call to prayer is not the only tenet of Islam that children learn at an early age. A 2011, report regarding school textbooks in the Middle East revealed the Egyptian school children are taught Christians and Jews are infidels. And for many years textbooks in Palestinian schools have rejected Israel’s right to exist, and have portrayed a Middle East in maps and through text without the nation of Israel on them. For instance, the following is from a 12th grade Palestinian textbook: “Palestine’s war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.”

Palestinian Media Watch released a video of a young girl reciting a poem about Jerusalem on Palestinian Authority TV that calls Jews the most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys and wretched pigs. It ends with the lines:

 As long as my heart is my Qur’an and my city

As long as I have my arm and my stones

As long as I am free and do not barter my cause

I will not fear your throngs

I will not fear the rifle.

In April of 2013, The Guardian reported approximately 37,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 to 17 were receiving weekly military training classes in the Palestinian area of Gaza. The boys learn about assault rifles and other weapons, first aid and firefighting. During school breaks, voluntary camps are offered where students can learn how to handle guns and explosives. The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades assists in the training. They deny the use of real weapons, however a video that was filmed at a school near Gaza City shows students carrying assault rifles and one boy firing an artillery shell at a replica of an Israeli watchtower, complete with an Israeli flag. About 5,000 boys have participated since the program began in September 2012, and the Palestinian government is considering adapting the course for teenaged girls next year.

Another video, filmed in Deir ez-Zor, Syria was posted to the Internet in June which shows children training at an Al-Qaeda. Save the Children estimated that two million children were innocent victims of the war in Syria. Many children struggled to find enough food to eat, girls were being forced into early marriages to protect them from the threat of sexual violence, and armed groups were recruiting other children. Children as young as eight have been used as human shields in the fighting.

The Taliban in Afghanistan recruits orphans to act as decoys and to be suicide bombers against western forces in Afghanistan. According to Britain’s Channel 4, Taliban fighters promised an eight-year-old orphan boy named Neaz a handful of coins worth 91 cents to go with them. They gave him sweets and taught him to use a gun and build IEDs. After gaining the child’s trust they tried to convince him to use a suicide vest and blow himself up at a checkpoint. After questioning how he could spend the coins he was promised if he blew himself up, he eventually escaped and turned himself into police. He now lives in an orphanage.

Prayer Points:

In Matthew 19:14, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them…”  Pray for the children of Islam who have become orphans because of war in their nation. Ask God to watch out for them, enabling them to be cared for by people who will not use them as weapons or decoys.

Many Muslim children are taught to hate non-Muslims from the time they are small children. Pray that God will break through the years of indoctrination with His love and reveal His heart for all people.

Pray the Spirit of Truth will be revealed to these children, causing the stronghold of deception to be broken over the minds of Muslim children and that they will be introduced to salvation through Jesus Christ.

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 20 – Christians – An Endangered Species

2013 Ramadan PrayerOmar M. Ahmad, former leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was quoted in 1998 as saying, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” He has since claimed that he never made the statement, however the reporter and editor that first published the story continue to be quite certain that he did.

Regardless, simply by an examination of the trilogy of Islamic texts and an observation of the history of the Middle East, it is clear this idea of Islamic supremacy exists and has thus far triumphed. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than with the Christian population of the Middle East.

During the last nine years of Muhammad’s life, he and his followers averaged one act of violence every six weeks. Immediately after Muhammad’s death in 632, the first major conquest of Islam occurred in Arabia. These were known as the “Ridda Wars” or Wars of Apostasy. According to historical accounts, tens of thousands of Arabs were attacked and forced to re-submit to Islam. After conquering Arabia, Islam conquered Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire. All of North Africa, Spain, central Asia and India were all brought under Islamic control by the early 8th century. Overall Islam murdered over 60 million Christians since Islam began its conquest of the non-Muslim world.

The incredible growth of the Islamic world eventually slowed, and in 1856 the Ottomans (leaders of the Islamic caliphate), under pressure from European powers issued a decree that said non-Muslims should be treated equally and given the freedom to worship.

In 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Islamic caliphate and brought in reforms to modernize Turkey including giving women the right to vote, adopting the Western (Gregorian) calendar rather than the Islamic calendar, and requiring the Islamic call to prayer and public readings of the Qur’an to be done in Turkish rather than Arabic.

Following the abolishment of the caliphate, the non-Muslim world experienced a time of relative peace until fundamental Islamists began to gain power and reassert themselves beginning at an accelerated pace in the 1970s.

The result of this acceleration is a disappearance of Christianity in the Middle East. In 1900, twenty percent of the Middle East was Christian.  Today, it is estimated that less than 2% of the region is Christian. The number of Christians currently under assault range from 100 to 200 million, and forty-two of the top fifty countries persecuting Christians either have a Muslim majority or a sizeable Muslim population.

In Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia, a strict sharia adherent nation, converting to a religion other than Islam is punishable by death. Prior to the war in Syria, Christians lived peacefully in the nation, but in a civil war that has claimed more than 93,000 lives, rebel forces often made up of foreign radical Islamists have killed thousands and forced tens of thousands of Christians to flee. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said, “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year…Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.”

Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute estimates that if religious discrimination is included as part of the persecution of Christians, there are 600 to 700 million Christians. Persecution can range from a loss of life to a loss of livelihood. Secular media outlets in the western world for the most part completely ignore persecution of Christians in part because they fail to perceive the religious root of much of the persecution.

Prayer Points:

Pray for a shift and an awakening for agencies such as the United Nations to not support regimes and nations that are guilty of religious persecution.

Evidence shows that with civil wars and persecution of Christians, 150,000 to 160,000 are martyred every year. Pray for the protection of the persecuted church and imprisoned believers around the world.

Ask God to enlighten Christian leaders and cause them to unite and insist upon action by western governments to stop the slaughter of Christians around the world.

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 10 – Jizya, the Islamic Tax for Protection

2013 Ramadan PrayerDhimmis or non-Muslims (especially Christians and Jews) living in Islamic controlled lands were forced to submit to Islam or pay the jizya – a protection tax. It was considered by Muslims as a punishment to degrade non-Muslims. Eleventh century documents show the authorities used harsh methods in collecting the tax and often the tax was extended to those who were supposed to be exempt such as children and the elderly. Those who could not pay the tax were sometimes forced to give their wives and children to the Islamists as slaves.

Eventually the jizya was eliminated although the Ottoman Empire did not abolish the tax until 1855. It was reported, however, that members of the Sikh community in Pakistan were forced to pay the jizya to the Taliban in 2009. Today Christian refugees from Syria have reported Islamist rebel forces once again are forcing non-Muslims to pay the jizya.

On June 25, 2013, Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.  As part of her testimony, she shared Syrian refugee, Jamil’s experience:

One Friday trucks appeared in the village with heavily armed and bearded strangers who did not know anyone in the village. They began to drive through the village with a loud speaker broadcasting the message that their village was now part of an Islamic emirate and Muslim women were henceforth to dress in accordance with the provisions of the Islamic Shariah. Christians were given four choices. They could convert to Islam and renounce their ‘idolatry.’ If they refused they were allowed to remain on condition that they pay the jizya. This is a special tax that non-Muslims under Islamic law must pay for ‘protection.’ For Christians who refused there remained two choices: they could leave behind all their property or they would be slain. The word that was used for the latter in Arabic (dhabaha) refers to the ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals.

Shea further related that Jamil and other families began to pay the jizya, but decided to flee after the amount they demanded kept increasing each month. Some who were unable to pay or escape were forced to convert to Islam. His account was independently corroborated by an Orthodox cleric who said if the Christians did not pay the jizya, they were killed.

Paying the jizya in the West is much more subtle. In March of 2013, during a roundtable discussion on the U.S. broadcast on Al Hafiz TV in Egypt, an Islamic cleric encouraged Muslim leaders to treat the United States as a dhimmi by making the U.S. conform to Egyptian demands and then accept foreign aid. He proclaimed a fatwa (an Islamic religious decree) that Egypt must “impose on America to pay aid as jizya, before we allow it to realize its own interests, the ones which we agree to.”

Other Muslims consider “welfare” from western nations as jizya. Anjem Choudary, a radical Islamic cleric from the Britain was secretly taped encouraging his followers to get a “Jihadseeker’s allowance” from the British government. He takes home more than £25,000 (around $38,000) each year in benefits. On the video, he explains to a group of his followers, “People will say, ‘Ah, but you are not working.’ But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kaffar (non-Muslim). So we take Jihadseeker’s Allowance. You need to get support.”

Without the outspokenness of a handful of Islamists few westerners would see how the policies of our governments are indeed twisted to appear that western governments are actually dhimmi states, financing the supremacy of Islam.

Prayer Points:

Far too often westerners mistakenly believe Islamic practices such as dhimmitude and jizya were part of Islam’s past. They fail to recognize that Islamic teachings and practices have not changed since the days of Muhammad. Pray that westerners will begin to have an understanding that Islam’s 7th century political and militaristic tendencies are a threat to democracies around the world.

Pray for the Christian and other non-Muslims populations in nations such as Syria where fundamental Islam is forcing them from their homes. Pray for the refugees and for those who were unable to escape the persecution – especially those who were forced to convert to Islam. Pray that they will realize that God does loves them and desires them to be a part of His Kingdom.

Pray for Muslims around the world to see the abuse, inequality, and destruction that Islam in its purest form brings to non-Muslims, especially Christians. Pray that they will question why Islam must insist by force – rather than by reason that Islam should be followed.