More Thoughts on Islam

There are a few topics more emotional today for most people than the subject of Islam, ISIS, what we're to do. We actually have political candidates suggesting that we close all the mosques, at least register if not deport Muslims, all sorts of amazingly radical things.

And I say it's amazingly radical because let me just start off with this. If you're a Christian and you're going rah-rah do that. I don't even know what to say to you. Don't you realize? Don't you understand?

If you give that power to the secular government, the United States, which has proven itself to be extremely opposed to the Christian faith as well, that they will eventually use that power against us?

You don't you don't see that? I'm just left stuttering at times when I see people. Yeah, go get them Muslims. You want the government to be going after people on religious ground? Well, great, wonderful.

Anyway, there's a tremendous amount of emotion out there and what I'm seeing is, well what you'd expect to see, a radical polarization where any middle ground, and I'm not normally in the middle, but I am here.

I'm forced to be here because I see the imbalances on both sides. I see a lot of Christians who seem to think that Islam is absolutely monolithic and that they somehow have the capacity, they somehow have the ability to do what Muslims have never been able to do, and that is to discern what true Islam really must be.

It's funny, a lot of my Christian apologist friends will say, look, most of the Muslims that we talk to are Salafi. Salafi refers to the Salafi, the early first generations, you know, Muhammad, his companions, generation after that, and so what you would technically refer to as fundamentalist Muslims, Wahhabi, going back to, you know, strong emphasis upon Tawhid, avoidance of shirk, a rather strict literalistic interpretation, a very strong commitment to Hadith and to Hadith sciences, historically speaking.

That, you know, those are most of the people we've talked to, and so that's what defines Islam. Anybody who's not that isn't a real Muslim, you see. When people think that way, then they turn around, and when Muslims try to hold us accountable for the Crusades, oh, that was the Pope.

They try to hold us accountable for Unitarians, well, they're not Trinitarians. We want to all of a sudden make the proper necessary distinctions, so that we're not held accountable for what Rome has done, what Jehovah's Witnesses do, what Mormons do, because we demand that you listen to what we actually believe and recognize.

But just because it calls itself Christian doesn't mean that it's actually a Christian, and of course we have to give a defense of that. We have to, that's why we do, we debate issues like Sola Scriptura, and so we can look at the Roman Catholics and say, see, they reject Sola Scriptura, they reject the sole capacity of the scriptures to define the Christian faith, and so they brought in traditions from the outside, and so you've got the papacy and all the Marian dogmas and a perversion of the gospel and so on and so forth.

And so we have to demonstrate why we draw the distinctions we do, and that those distinctions are definitional, they're important, they're vital, they're historical, things like that. But for some reason, the emotions of the current situation, emotions created by the evil of the leadership of ISIS and these bloodthirsty men who are using their religion as a basis for rape and murder and pillage and a demonstration of the Apostle Paul's doctrine of total depravity to the nth degree.

It's satanic, it has spiritual roots to it, it is as evil as the day is long, but because of that, a lot of people on my side refuse to now make distinctions, and if you say you're a Muslim but you don't believe you should be doing that stuff, then you're not really a Muslim, you're not a true Muslim.

As if, you know, on our side we will make the argument, and it's a valid argument, that the Quran, the Hadith, the Sunnah of Muhammad is a contradictory body of material. It is not consistent with itself, that there are contradictions in that material.

And then we'll turn around and assume it's absolute perfect unity to create a monolithic Islam. There's inconsistency there, you can't do that. We have to allow for the proper distinctions, and I know, boy, we could get so much more support for what we do if we would jump on the all-Muslims-are-this bandwagon, but I can't do it because it's simply not true.

It simply isn't true. Now, let's start off, well, we've already started off, but let's... This was all prompted today, there's been a number of things that prompted this, but I listened this morning on a ride to a recent unbelievable radio broadcast where Craig Evans and Jeremiah Johnston were on, talking about their book, Jesus and the Jihadis, with Adnan Rashid, and another gentleman who, because I was listening, I wasn't really able to catch his name, but a British, seemed like British, Muslim, and it was an interesting conversation.

Unfortunately, it devolved quickly into the standard stuff. I tried, as best I could anyways, in the debate in South Africa last month, to address this subject and get past the surface-level kind of stuff that eventually did develop in this conversation, where the Muslims are throwing out their war passages from the Old Testament, Jihad saying, I've not come to bring peace with a sword, and that kind of stuff, and the Christians are throwing out their Quran war passages, and humiliate the Kafirs, and all the rest of that kind of stuff, and you've just got this, you know, battleship exchange, you know, B7, C4, boom, you know, you saw my battleship, that kind of thing, if you aren't old enough to remember that, never mind.

But, unfortunately, I had to disagree with both sides at points. One of the primary questions was, is ISIS Islamic? Well, I think the Muslims, first of all, need to stop answering that with a simplistic, oh no, of course not, I've got to talk, I'm in prayer, anybody knows, that's not the case.

That's not washing with people outside, you know, when you're willing to die by blowing yourself up while yelling, Allahu Akbar, there's something Islamic about that. They ain't yelling, Hallelujah, Jesus.

There's, these people think they're Muslims. Now, I'm well aware of the fact that they're all sorts of, I'm so thankful for the 140 some-odd scholars that signed the document against ISIS a couple years ago, they're taking their lives in their hands, but the very fact they're taking their lives in their hands says something, and these documents are all being written outside the Middle East, which is interesting in and of itself, but I know you exist, I am thankful you exist, I know why you exist, I recognize that, I make the proper distinctions, but I have to fault a lot of my Muslim friends who, while opposing ISIS, joined that opposition immediately with some type of anti-Israel rhetoric, some wild-eyed political rhetoric.

I'm sorry, if you want to attack Israel, and you are not at the exact same time, even more loudly condemning the brainwashing of Palestinian children to stab Jews in the back, or the cartoons they have, and the songs they sing, I don't care what you have to say.

I don't care what you have to say, because the anti-Jewish insanity that I see amongst many Muslims, and that I certainly see bred by the Palestinians, is just so absurd, it's beyond any level of rational discourse or comment.

You can't have a meaningful discussion when people are behaving that way, it's just unreal. But, back to the point, if we don't hear a recognition on the part of non-radicalized Muslims, whatever, we're struggling to find terms, Muslims who do not believe there is a caliphate, do not believe that jihad is, in the sense of military actions, are appropriate in this context, so on and so forth.

You have to recognize that the members of ISIS, some of whom are simply there because they are evil men who love to do evil, they love raping women, they love beheading people, their consciences are seared.

I mean, to be perfectly honest, I don't think some of you Muslims even have proper theological categories to understand the depth of evil of these men. I don't, you don't, since you don't believe in total privacy, you don't believe in original sin, you don't have a meaningful hermartiology, doctrine of sin.

I don't even know how you understand how these people can do the things they do. But what you must understand is that there are others in ISIS who not only say the prayers, but are absolutely convinced that what they are doing is firmly founded in the Quran and in the Hadith.

They believe that. You may say they're wrong. Fine. I wish y 'all would be maybe arranging some debates with people and then letting the rest of us know and watch this. I've said to a number of my good Muslim friends, you all need to be producing, clear, mass producing books and pamphlets, not just simply saying ISIS is wrong, but showing how ISIS is wrong.

Specifically, strong argumentation, multiple lines, shouldn't be that difficult to do. But see, here's the problem. You and I both know that they are depending upon particular strata, particular elements of the Hadith, the Sunnah, and saying, this is what is applicable to me.

And you've got to understand something. I have a book here in my hand. And this is, this entire book, expensive book, 250 bucks, I think, expensive book. This is al-Waqidi's campaigns of Muhammad. It's funny, they decided, very interesting, the English, the life of Muhammad.

That's not what it says. That's not the Arabic title. Al-Maghazi is campaigns, the entire book from beginning to end. The raid of the Banu Nadir, the raid of the Al-Hudaybiyyah, the raid of al-Fatah, the raid, raid, raid, raid.

Here's the battle of Badr, right at the beginning. The battle of, the raid of Uhud. All it is, the whole book, how many, how many pages is this, is this book? 580 pages including, okay? Nothing but the military campaigns of Muhammad.

Now, it simply has to be recognized that there is a fundamental difference between the character and role of Muhammad and that of Jesus. You know, when I, during the, during the discussion on Unbelievable, was pointed out, well, Jesus did this.

This, this is, what? Five times, minimally, the length of the entire Gospels, all four put together? And every page of it is, well, filled with violence, filled with warfare. He was a warlord. I mean, once, once he goes to Yathrib, once he goes to Medina, he's thrust into that position of being a governmental and military leader.

And that's what he did. You have to recognize that material is there. And what I have said all along, and what I have to keep saying, no matter how unpopular it is, even in my own community, is that those Muslims who do not want to rape and pillage and behead and kill, those Muslims are drawing from the same body of material with their selective lens on, as ISIS is.

Now, ISIS is coming from a more conservative perspective as far as the authority of the Hadith, which Hadith to prioritize over other Hadith. No question about that. But the fact of the matter is that when someone asks the question, is ISIS Islamic?

If anyone answers either yes or no, without making necessary distinctions, both are not telling the truth. The conservative militaristic Christian who says, yes, that is Islam as a whole is lying. They're lying.

That's not true. Anybody can see that's not true. But the Muslim at the same time who says, no, no, no, there's nothing. You're not being truthful either, because you know not only the depth of the support they have, especially amongst the Salafi, the Wahhabi, but you know the nature of the Hadith and how you can find things in the Hadith that are supportive of what they're doing by providing a particular context.

And the problem is, and this has been my argument for a long time, the problem is your sources are insufficiently consistent and coherent to end this debate. You can't do with the text of the Quran what we can do with the text of the Bible.

You can't do it. It's not consistent. Oh, there's lots of Christians. Yeah, unbelieving Christians, but even the believing Muslim has to recognize the inconsistency of the materials that you're drawing from.

Let me give you an example. Let me give an example. Here is a clip from Memory TV. And I can listen enough that I think the translation is pretty good, pretty accurate. This is Sudanese cleric Muhammad Ali Al-Jazuli.

And this came out middle of last year. I want you to listen to him. And then we're going to use this as an illustration. I know I'm going long here. I'm going to have to pick up the pace here. This is not supposed to be an hour long or something, but listen to what he says.

And well, listen, read what he says for the vast majority of this. And then I'll pick it up.

All right. So there,.

There you have a Sudanese cleric tearing up there at the end. When I first heard this, I immediately looked up the relevant Hadith because I remembered it. I remembered listening to it, reading it. And I remembered the fact that this is a clear example.

Of a contradiction, of inconsistency, incoherence in the Hadith itself. Notice we're in Sahih al-Bukhari. This is a book, Volume 4, Book 52. Book 52 is the book on Shihad. Number 256. The prophet passed by him in a place called Al-Abwa or Wadan and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger.

The prophet replied, they, that is the women and the children, are from them, that is pagans. I also heard the prophet saying the institution of Himmah is invalid except for Allah and his apostles. This is what he's referring to.

Women and children are from them. It's actually a very short Arabic phrase. And therefore he's, he's excited because you can attack America and you can blow up planes and women and children and it doesn't matter.

He was overjoyed to find this Hadith. But I guess he didn't then read the next two. Because Tuft 7 says, this is narrated Abdullah, during some of the Gazawat, remember this book here, that same root in Arabic, of the prophet, a woman was found killed.

Allah's apostle disapproved the killing of women and children. And number 258, during some of the Gazawat of Allah's apostle, woman was found killed. So Allah's apostle forbade the killing of women and children.

Slight difference in the terminology, but the concept is the same. Now, I suppose that what you could try to do is to say, well, they're consistent in that if women and children die by accident of the Kafirs, the unbelievers, the pagans, then that's just because they were from them, but that there is not to be purposeful targeting of women and children.

I suppose that would be one way of trying to hold these things together. Clearly, the Sudanese cleric didn't care about that and wasn't concerned about harmonizing. The point is rather clear. What is needed from our Muslim friends who are opposed to ISIS and want to convince us that Islam is a religion that, I mean, I'll just be honest with you, if ISIS accurately represents the very essence of Islam, then Islam is satanic, because what these men do, how they behave.

I mean, think about it. If you're a Muslim watching this, was Jesus a prophet of God? You have to say yes. Did Jesus teach things that are absolutely positively 180 degrees opposed to the behavior, attitude, sexual morals, personal morals, everything else of ISIS?

Yes. So what are you going to do? So the reality is that they are pulling their foundations from the same general material. Obviously, a lot of modern westernized Muslims have necessarily begun questioning the validity of the Hadith, or at least the mechanisms of interpretation and categorization that have developed over the years.

And any reformation of Islam seems to require a fundamental reorientation of Hadith studies and Hadith interpretation authorities. No question about it. No question about it. But I think that would fundamentally alter the very fabric and nature of Islam itself.

So what I'm saying here, and I'm hopeful that at least some of this has been useful to somebody, what I'm saying here is that I am hearing, I'm very concerned because I'm hearing so much of this controversy in this conversation taking place where there's no real interaction going on.

And there's no recognition of the necessity to make the proper distinctions or knowledge of the historical background and of the sources needed to make those distinctions and to make them properly. And I'm criticizing both sides at this point.

Because my Muslim friends, in general, use these challenges, even the ones that oppose ISIS, to just turn into an anti-Israel, anti-George Bush, it's all the West's fault type of diatribe rather than going, you know what, we've got a real problem.

We've got a real problem. Our leaders have not provided sufficiently clear and compelling argumentation and explanation as to what we really believe and why we really believe it, and how we can see with clarity the errors of ISIS, its theology, its teaching, its practices.

You can just make simplistic assertions, want, it doesn't change anything. And so is ISIS Islamic in the same way that, if you make the proper distinctions, in the same way that they are deriving their core foundations from the same sources?

Yes. But the term Islamic there is no more specific, or can be no more specific, than the general use the term Christian is in our modern society. Because if Christian can be applied to Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and all the variations within it, it becomes a meaningless term.

It doesn't tell us anything about what people are likely to do, or why they're going to do it, or anything else, because it's become so broad that it no longer has any meaning. So can the ISIS theologians present a consistent argument from the Quran and the Sunnah?

Of course they can. Can someone else present a consistent argument against them from the same sources? Of course they can. That's the problem. That's the problem. But unfortunately, once the emotions get supercharged, making those distinctions, going to those sources, looking at things carefully, nobody wants to do it anymore.

On either side. On either side. And that's a shame. A lot of other things I'd like to get into, probably talk about, I'm going to talk about the book on the dividing line when I get a chance, things like that.

But wanted to record this to just hopefully encourage you, if you're holding out and trying to continue to do the right thing, love the Muslim people, pray for them, be willing to witness to them, put your life on the line for them, respect them by finding out where they're coming from, what they believe, but you're starting to feel like you're in a small minority, hopefully this was somewhat of an encouragement to you to hold the line.

Keep on, because it's necessary to do. Thanks for watching. Hope you enjoyed.