Presenting the Gospel to People of the Muslim Faith, Part 1

Be with you here in California. I get a chance to come over here every once in a while. I lose a few liberties each time I do and then I go back to Phoenix and I get them back. We have this thing called the Constitution over there.

You've got to try it sometime. It's really neat. It's really, really fun. I was just in Boston and it was even worse there than it is here. But it's good to be with you and I hopefully will be able to present to you a number of things that maybe you've heard of before, maybe you haven't.

My goal, of course, over the course of this weekend is to seek to prepare you and really to try to remove from you some of the fear that I'm afraid most of us have when it comes to the subject of presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those of the Muslim faith.

Now, despite some of the inflated numbers that are sometimes thrown around, there's only three to four million Muslims in the United States right now. The number is, of course, increasing. But we certainly hear much about Islam every single day.

If you turn on the television, if you listen to the news, you cannot help but hear about Islam. You hear about Iran today. And you hear about some concerns concerning nuclear weapons and the Shiites and 12ers and 7ers and 5ers and the different kinds of Shiite Muslim theology there is and their belief in Ahmadi.

And people are very concerned that there are certain people in Iran that think that it would be very good to release nuclear weapons in the world because that will hasten the revelation of the Mahdi. And we sort of wonder what's going on, especially when we hear about Muslims blowing up Muslims and Sunnis disliking Shiites.

And most of us, if we're really, really honest, don't know what's going on in the Islamic world. And as a result, many of us, this is the face of Islam to us. We look over in Europe and we see what's going on there and we know that in over 700 places in France, in essence, Sharia law already exists in those areas.

And police call them no-go areas. You don't go into those areas. The police don't go into those areas unless there's some major, major reason, a murder or something like that. Other than that, they've just given up attempting to enforce Western law in those areas and they realize it's just too dangerous.

They can only go in there in force with armored vehicles and things like that. And we see in the United Kingdom the kinds of riots that take place. And we see people like this gentleman right here. Islam will dominate the world.

And we see the Al-Qaeda and people with AK -47s. And unfortunately, if most of your information about Islam comes from Fox News, and it's not going to come from MSNBC, but if it comes from Fox News, you see a Muslim and you see a Christian, you're automatically going to have in your mind certain reservations that are not exactly going to make you want to open your heart and soul to explain to this person the relationship you have with Jesus Christ, let alone do most of us feel overly confident in responding to the objections that are a part of the inter-religious dialogue that is ours.

On the flight over, I was reading a book about the earliest encounters between Christians and Muslims in regards to their debates and the issues that they brought up. And I couldn't help but smile as I looked at a list of the questions that the Muslims put to the Christians in those early centuries.

And really not much has changed. Drew was talking about having watched one of my most recent debates. I just did a debate at a mosque in Toronto, Canada, with one of the better-known Islamic apologists.

My name is Shabbir Ali. And much of the very same argumentation that was going on over a thousand years ago continues to go on today. Each generation having to become convinced of these truths and know how to communicate them to others.

But let's face it, that's something a lot of us are a little bit hesitant to do. And very often you know that in witnessing situations, it's that brief hesitation that allows that one opportunity to pass.

And so my hope is that over the next number of hours that we have together, not just this evening, but over the course of the whole weekend, don't worry, I can see the clock, my vision isn't that bad, that I'll be able to help you to understand what the issues are, to have more confidence, obviously, when it comes to the specific responses of the Christian faith, that's something that your church needs to be providing to you, in the sense of your understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, things like that.

But I will help you to understand what issues you need to be looking at in regards to reliability of Scripture, why we have the books in the Bible that we do, what about the accusation that our Bible has been changed.

There's all sorts of these things that come up in these conversations. And let's face it, my grandparents did not have to deal with many of the issues that you and I have to deal with today. They just didn't.

There wasn't a thing called the internet. I mean, how many of you this evening are sitting here with an internet-enabled phone? Okay? Those didn't exist just a few years ago, remember? And that means that every kind of attack upon our faith is now as close as our smartphone.

We cannot insulate people from these things any longer, and especially you young people, you know. If you're in the local high school, if you're in the local community college, the local university, I won't mention any universities by name.

I don't want to get into trouble. You'll notice I'm wearing a shirt with my ministry thing on it. I didn't bring an ASU shirt with me for some odd reason. I'm not sure why, but I'm glad I didn't. Anyway, if you're in one of those institutions of higher learning, you know that it is just the common experience of every day to have your faith not just questioned, but let's face it, mocked and ridiculed and attacked.

You just know that that's the case, and you know that you need to be ready to give an answer, and you want to know how to give an answer. A few years ago, I had the opportunity of recording a bunch of videos, and the whole reason we were doing it, we were sort of doing it in secret.

We were doing it at a secret location, and the reason was these were videos where I was doing the lecturing, and then it was being live translated into Farsi, which is the language of Iran, and what we were doing is those videos were then satellite beamed into Iran for the persecuted church there in Iran, because when you talk to those folks, and you ask them, what can we in the West do for you?

They don't ask us to remove them from there. They don't ask us to do anything other than to help them defend their own faith. Come up with answers to the predominant culture that constantly tells them that their faith is wrong, to educate their young people, to give them, they're willing to suffer the results if we will but give them the answers, and so that's what I want to be able to do over the course of the number of hours that we have together.

So I want to start off really helping you to understand we're the ones that have to build the bridges. The Muslims are not going to build the bridges to us. We have to build the bridges to them. It has been my experience.

I understand, I very highly commend you that you folks do missions work up in Utah. Starting in 1983, we did that for 18 years. Every April, every October for the General Conference, we were up there in Salt Lake City witnessing the people passing out tracts and in that process doing debates up there in Salt Lake City and all that kind of stuff.

You have to understand what other people believe to be able to speak their language. Very frequently, we have a language barrier. If you all have done any work with Mormons, you know there's a huge language barrier.

They use our words, but they have completely different meanings attached to them. We're the ones that have to make the effort to do the translation. Well, it's very much the same thing in dealing with Islam, not just in regards to Arabic either, but there is a different language, and by the way, I hope you realize that only between 16 and 19 percent of the world's Muslims are Arabic.

In fact, the largest Muslim country in the world is what? Indonesia. We have this idea of Islam as being a primarily Arabic religion and you see Arabic people, that must be a Muslim. No, that's not the case, but we're the ones who have to make the effort to bridge the gap and to speak the language and to enter into the mindset of other people.

I frequently spend time, I'm afraid I didn't play football in high school. I'm very sorry. I realize I really disappointed Drew and certain other people that I won't mention at that point, but what I do do, I am an avid athlete.

I am a cyclist. I'm one of those guys you see going by on the street in the cotton spandex. There is a reason for that. Some of you wonder why do you wear that? Two weeks ago, I got on my bike at four o 'clock in the morning and I actually got off my bike for about two hours and did a debate with a scholar from Oxford via phone in London and then I got back on my bike, but on that day I rode 186 .74 miles, which is 300 kilometers, 10 hours and 37 minutes on the bike.

Let me tell you something. After 10 hours and 37 minutes on a bike, you want cotton spandex. You really do. Anything else and you're going to be in absolute agony, but one of the things I do when I do that is I listen to what other people are saying.

I listen to lectures, Muslims lecturing other Muslims. I try to enter into their mindset, understand what they're saying to their own people, listen to their theological lectures as well as debates and things like that as well.

Do a lot of sermon preparation, book writing and everything else while on the back of a bike. It's a fascinating way of doing things, but you have to be able to enter into the mindset and understand where they're coming from.

We need to spend most of our time doing what you won't get in a normal church service where you are getting what the Bible teaches. What we need to do here is understand where the Muslims are coming from.

Tomorrow morning we will spend some time obviously in the scriptures on particular issues, especially in what would normally be a worship service context. I would feel more comfortable doing that, but we start off with where they come from.

The Shahada and the Five Pillars of Islam

Every Muslim will know the five pillars of Islam, the five pillars of Islam beginning with the Shahada. The Shahada is the means by which you become a Muslim. You become a Muslim only by repeating a statement of faith in Arabic.

You cannot simply say, there is only one true God, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger in English and become a Muslim. You have to say, there is only one God that is worthy of worship, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.

Even if you don't know what you're saying, they will lead you through it syllable by syllable to become a Muslim. How many of you have ever seen someone become a Muslim? I hope this video clip I'm going to show you bothers you.

It's supposed to. This is a video clip from just a few years ago down in Sydney, Australia. The primary reason I chose this video clip is because you can understand what the speaker is saying. I have a wonderful wife.

Next month, we will have been married for 30 years, which means she was seven when we got married. At least that's what she wants me to say. I don't know what that's all about. We will have been married for 30 years.

She works very, very hard so that I can be involved in the ministry. Our health insurance comes through her and all the rest of that kind of stuff. I started studying Islam very seriously in 2005 in preparation for my debate with Shabir Ali in 2006 at Biola.

Anybody catch that debate here? Anybody at the Biola debate in 2006? Okay, I guess not. We had 2 ,500 people there, but I guess you have more than 2 ,500 people in LA. You have more than 2 ,500 people on one small stretch of freeway in LA most of the time.

Anyway, I was listening to all these people and I would find video clips and say, hey, Kelly, come over here. Listen to what this guy says. I would play something for her. She would listen for about the first 10 seconds.

She would just go, I can't understand what he's saying. She couldn't understand Ahmad Didat's accent or Zakir Naik's accent or something like that. I picked this one especially because the speaker, Khalid Yassin, is from Brooklyn.

He's nice and easy to understand. I've listened to the entirety of the multi-hour presentation that he did here over the couple days in Sydney, Australia. It was really an anti-Christian lecture about all the errors in Christianity filled with errors that I could identify very easily, wrong dates for when things happened, and a tremendous amount of misunderstanding.

But be that as it may, what is interesting is this is in a Western culture. You are seeing people coming forward to become Muslims in a Western culture. I had the opportunity, I've debated a number of times now in Sydney.

In fact, last October I debated Abdullah Kunda at the University of New South Wales down in Sydney. And I've had the opportunity of lecturing at Moore College in Sydney, which is a wonderful Christian school there.

And the first time I lectured there, some of the students in the missions class I was teaching had actually attended this particular thing, which we're going to see. But I'd like you to listen very carefully as Khalid Yassin leads these people, both men and women, in becoming Muslims.

And then we'll discuss it a little bit right afterwards.

Now the gift that we're giving to them is something that will help them on their way. One, it's a copy of the Quran with the transliteration of the meanings. Secondly, it's a short, easy-to-read, authentic biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

Thirdly, it is a set of seven books. It is a set of seven books that have in it lessons for new Muslims. Now, your acceptance of Islam is your acceptance of God, not your acceptance of me, or not your acceptance of these people, nor your acceptance of the political dynamics in the world, because it has nothing to do with that.

It's just your acceptance of God. And this gift is to help you make that transition. I want you to say with me the simple words, and these words are nothing more than what I have explained. There's no trick, no curve, and we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in.

But let's say the words. Let's just go over the words called the Shahada, the bearing of witness. And I'll tell you what it is. Essentially, it is the saying of that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Saying that word and then adding to it, I testify or I declare or I announce that there's none to be worshipped except Almighty God and that I testify or I declare or I announce that Muhammad is the messenger of God brings you all into the transition of Islam.

From that point, it's your sincerity. It's your acts of worship. It is your commitment that will make the difference. Now, whatever you owe God of something you did that only you know and God knows after tonight, your board is clear because God is the forgiver of those that come back to him.

But whatever you owe somebody, money, rent, a loan, you still owe that. Is that fair? Okay, please just say after me, the words la, la, Muhammad, Rasulullah. Ash hadu an la ilaha illallah wa ash hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu.

Sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Ameen. So, that's how it works. That's how you become a Muslim. Now, some of that looked somewhat familiar and some of it was quite different. I always watch, I always look out over the audience.

I don't know how many times I've played that now. And when he says, we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in. I see who smiles or frowns or makes some facial. And your board is clean. Sort of watch that.

And as people are coming forward, it looks like an evangelical church service. And the people are encouraging him on. They're shouting Allahu Akbar, which is basically their version of hallelujah. And yet, the similarities bother us because, well, that's ours.

But at the same time, there are differences. Some rather major differences. How many people here made your profession of faith in Christ in either Koine Greek or Biblical Hebrew? Do you do that here, pastor?

Do you lead them all? And yet, to become a Muslim, that's what you have to do. You have to make your profession of faith in the Arabic language. And did you notice how the men were dressed? They were dressed like Muhammad was dressed in the 7th century in Arabia.

And so, it illustrates something. Something that's very, very important. We don't really have time to unpack it this evening. But what this really goes back to is Acts chapter 15. In Acts chapter 15, Christianity was saved from being like that.

In other words, the Christian gospel is not limited to a particular language. It's not limited to a particular time period. It's not wedded to a type of culture. And that is what is causing so many of the stresses in the world today.

Is that Islam is a religio-political system or a politico-religious system depending on the percentage of Muslims in a population. When the percentage of Muslims is very small, the emphasis is upon the religious aspects.

As that percentage increases, the emphasis begins to become much more upon the political aspects. And we see this happening all across the world today. And that is what is causing so much of the turmoil and difficulty.

And that is one of the major differences between the Christian faith and the Muslim faith. You cannot separate out Sharia, the law, from Islam and still have Islam. It's not possible. And that Sharia touches every aspect of human life.

Every aspect of human life. So much so that I remember I did a debate in Norfolk, Virginia a couple years ago back in, I think it was 2008 if I recall correctly. I was observing another debate that was taking place.

And the Muslim debater called himself a former Christian. And one of the things that he emphasized as one of the things that drew him into Islam was the fact that Islam gave him guidance for all of life and Christianity did not and could not do so.

Now whether that's true or not is another issue. But the nature of that guidance, the specific nature of that guidance down to the point of how you wear your clothes and how you wash yourself and how you bathe and everything you do during the course of the day is an integral part of the Islamic faith.

And so you see that and you see that in the dress and everything else that takes place is one of the major issues to think about. The Gospel transcends all those cultural linguistic boundaries. Islam requires you to bring an entire cultural concept along with it.

And that's where much of the problem is coming in. So that first issue, the shahada, la ilaha illallah wa muhammadan rasoolallah, there is only one God. I'm going to be doing a book, Lord willing, if I get the one I'm supposed to have done, had done six months ago, done soon, a second book with a Muslim author.

And our co-authored book will be on the trinity versus tawheed. Tawheed means the oneness of Allah. And this is the central issue, and we will spend much more time on this, but the central issue in regards to Christianity and Islam in our dialogues fundamentally what a Muslim will identify as the error of Christianity.

We have gone into excess. We've gone beyond the bounds in that we have fundamentally denied tawheed, the oneness of Allah, in the doctrine of the trinity. Now I obviously reject that and believe it's based upon a fundamental misunderstanding, even of the Quran itself.

It's one of the main reasons I cannot possibly believe the Quran is a revelation from God. Because even if the trinity was wrong, in 632 AD when Muhammad died, Allah knew what the trinity was. The author of the Quran did not.

And so even if the trinity is wrong, Allah could accurately represent it. But the Quran does not, therefore I do not believe it can come from God. We will develop that as time goes on. But that shahada is what unites all of the Shiites and Sunnis together in their confession of faith, the fact there is but one God.

They are not only monotheists, but they are Unitarians. We are Trinitarians. We believe there is one God, three persons. They believe there is one God and one person, so they are Unitarians in their confession of faith.

So that's the first of five pillars. The second is the salat, the prayers. In fact, in Indonesia, you don't even ask someone if they are Muslim. You say, do you do the prayers? Have any of you ever lived in a Muslim country?

Maybe some military folks there? And what would happen during the time of prayer? The society comes to a screeching halt. If it's a truly Islamic society. I mean, there are countries that call themselves Muslim, but honestly, it's very deeply nominally Muslim.

It's just a cultural thing. But in many of those countries, society will just come to a halt during the five daily prayers. And of course, during that time, they face toward the Qibla, the mosque in Mecca, toward the black stone in the Kaaba.

And so to give you a taste of this, I have a couple minutes of a video clip from an Islamic video where they are explaining the concept of salat. And they're talking first about how you face toward Mecca, how you find the direction toward Mecca.

You will see some video, we'll see a little bit more a little bit later on, of the Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. You'll see this black building in the midst of normally surrounded by tens of thousands of people.

That is the Kaaba. The Kaaba itself is not a holy thing. The Kaaba has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. In the corner of the Kaaba is the black stone, which Muslims believe fell down from heaven.

And that is what they're really bowing toward when they pray. So here's just a brief clip of a much longer video on the subject of prayer.

East or West, North or South, turn their faces toward the Kaaba at the prayer time. If a person is in a place such as a desert, jungle, a strange town, or a place where he is unable to find out the direction from others, then he is allowed to use his own judgment and offers his prayers facing in any direction that he thinks the Qibla could be.

Nowadays, a compass is available, which gives the direction of the Qibla from anywhere in the world. The person now makes the Niyah, or intention in his mind, more specific relative to whatever prayer he is ready to perform.

Again, the Niyah does not have to be expressed aloud. Now that we have gone through the preliminaries for offering the prayer, or Salat, we are about to commence the act by declaring the Niyah.

Notice the translation will be given so you'll see. Notice the woman is behind the man. And what is the language of the prayer? It has to be in Arabic. It is called Surat al-Fatiha. It is the first surah of the Quran.

Notice, show us the straight path, the path of those whom thou hast favored. Listen to the next two. Not the path of those who are in thine anger, nor of those who go astray. Keep that in mind. Notice the hands have to be in a particular position.

I took a class from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary about a year and a half ago to the mosque near ASU. And we observed the prayers at that particular point in time. The women were nowhere near the men.

They were actually behind a screen at the back of the room while the men were up front toward the Qibla, which faces toward Mecca. Now, I mentioned that prayer, which all Muslims know. It's the first of the chapters in the Quran.

We'll be talking a lot more about the Quran later on. But it said, lead us in the path of those who have earned thy favor, not in the path of those who have earned thy wrath and those who have been led astray.

Every Muslim says that every day, at least five times a day. What you need to understand is that in Muslim theology and in Muslim tradition, what that prayer is, is lead us in the path of the Muslims, not in the path of the Jews and the Christians.

Because Muhammad very clearly explained that those who have earned thy wrath, those are the Jews. Those who have been led astray, specifically in our belief in the deity of Christ and the Trinity, are the Christians.

And so each and every day, the Muslim is praying, don't let me be a Jew or a Christian. That needs to be understood because that's part and parcel of the everyday experience of the faithful Muslim person.

So those are the prayers. The times of the prayers change depending on the time of the year. I know in Phoenix, in just a few weeks, the Fajr prayer in the morning will be as early, I think it gets as early as 3 .55am if I recall correctly.

And to engage in the prayers, you have to undergo what's called wadu, the ritual cleansing. You've heard about all the controversies going on at universities, airports, and things like that, where they've been trying to make available special prayers.

Special bathrooms for the Muslims to be able to do wadu, the cleansings they need to do before they engage in the prayers, etc. So that again is a part of bringing in of the culture and the things related to that.

Then we have Saum, fasting, the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar year. Islam will always use a lunar year. So their year moves forward through our year 11 -12 days per year. So the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting, moves forward 11 -12 days in our year each year because they use a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar.

And so right now, Ramadan is moving toward July. Now think about that for just a moment because in the month of Ramadan, the Muslim, the faithful Muslim, fasts from the time in the morning when you can hold a white thread and a black thread up and differentiate between them until the evening when you can no longer differentiate between them.

The Muslim will not eat and the Muslim will not drink, as in even water. Now imagine what that's like in Saudi Arabia in July to go from sunrise to sunset. Actually, it's beyond that, without drinking water.

Now there are exceptions for people in hospitals and things like that, but it is an incredibly difficult task. It's a whole lot easier when that's January. But because of the lunar calendar, that moves through the course of the year.

And I remember the first time I was introduced to Ramadan, that I remember it clicking in my memory, was back when the Houston Rockets and Hakeem Olajuwon were in the NBA Finals and Ramadan hit. And some of the games were during the day.

And the question was, could Hakeem play a whole game without drinking water? Because he was an observant Muslim and so he would not drink water during Ramadan. And so that's an interesting aspect of it.

Then we have Zakat, the giving of alms. I'll be very brief here. Basically what it boils down to is anything that you possess for more than a year, you give 2 .5 of it in alms giving. If you're under an Islamic nation, which there really aren't any today in the fullest sense, that would be the tax in essence.

But many Muslims will give that to the local mosque, to organizations like that that would help to promote Islam. And that is the giving of Zakat. And then you have the Hajj. Now I'm old enough to remember.

Remember the Johnny Quest? Anybody remember the cartoon Johnny Quest on Saturday mornings? A couple of you are nodding your heads. And remember Hajji? They had Hajji. And that was a person who went on Hajj.

And Hajj, every Muslim, if they are capable of doing so, if their health allows, is required to go on Hajj at least once in their lifetime. Now this is interesting because Islam is now so large that that technically is not a possibility.

Saudi Arabia limits the number of people who can go on Hajj. And given that there are over a billion Muslims in the world, given how many million can do it in any one year, it would be absolutely impossible for Muslims to actually fulfill the fifth pillar.

But it's still something that many of them desire to do. And so they travel to Mecca and Medina to engage in Hajj. And here's a quick description of Hajj for you.

Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is compulsory for all Muslims in good health and with sufficient funds to make the journey. The Hajj is the foremost of all Muslim rituals, even if less than 10 of all Muslims ever manage to complete it.

The Hajj's importance lies in its allowing the believer to approach the center of the world as well as the place where the Quran's divine revelations began and continued for about 12 years. The performer of Hajj does not only reenact Muhammad's ritual, he or she also recalls acts of important people in Muslim history.

The rituals performed around the Kaaba reenacts when Prophet Abraham and Ishmael transformed the Kaaba into the sacred place of worship and peace. In spite of some physical hardships, pilgrims who complete the Hajj consider it one of the greatest spiritual experiences of their lives.

Many Muslims regard the Hajj as one of the great achievements of civilization because it brings together people from around the world and focuses them upon a single goal. A believer is required to make the pilgrimage at least once in his or her lifetime.

So there's Hajj. Now you saw the Kaaba there. I've only found one video. It may be the only one that exists, I don't know. But I've only found one video that allows you to actually see inside the Kaaba.

Now again, the building itself is not specifically sacred. It's been torn down and rebuilt a number of times since the days of Muhammad. It's the black stone that is the real issue. But here is a video of what the Kaaba looks like from the inside.

Obviously from someone's cell phone. I'm not sure if they were supposed to be taking this, but they did. And it's on YouTube. So this is the inside of that building. But there's really nothing in there that is specifically sacred.

It is the black stone which is embedded on the outside of all the corners that is really the object to which they are facing. That's the inside of the Kaaba. It's the only video I've ever seen of what the inside of the current Kaaba looks like.

That really, I guess you could say, is the center of the Islamic world, is what you're looking at right there. That is the inside of the Kaaba. Now there's the black stone. In fact, there's Muhammad Ali looking at the black stone right there.

But this is a more recent picture. There's the black stone. It is a meteorite, basically. Muslims feel that it was sent down from heaven. It was originally white but turned black because of the sins of man.

But it is a meteorite which, of course, was venerated before Muhammad came along. And in fact, the Kaaba was a house of worship. It had, by tradition, 360 idols in it before Muhammad came along. And the Muslims would do the seven times around the Thulaf, around the Kaaba, as a part of their worship.

And much of that has remained in Islam, though given a different basis is what is claimed by the Muslims. So that gives you an idea. You've probably seen the Kaaba a number of times on television. It gives you some idea of what it is you're looking at there.

Now, aside from the five pillars, you have six articles of Sunni Islam. Now, Sunni Islam is the majority. About 85 of the world's Muslims are Sunni. Shia are about 10%. And then you've got a mixture of other perspectives making up the rest of that.

The vast majority of those that you'd be running into will probably be Sunni, but you might encounter a Shiite as well. Iran, of course, is Shiite. And it's interesting, even though Shiism is a small minority in worldwide Islam, Shiites sit on 50 of the oil reserves in the Middle East.

So there you have where some of the political issues enter in at that particular point in time. But most of the comments that I'll be making will be about Sunni Islam rather than Shiite Islam because you're going to have a much better opportunity or probability of running into a Sunni than a Shiite.

Belief in Allah. Belief in all the prophets and messengers of Allah. So there have been many, many prophets and messengers. Allah has sent prophets and messengers to all the people of the world. And they were all bound together, according to the Quran, by one common belief, and that is la ilaha illallah.

There is but one God. That was what binds all the prophets together, is that they all repeated that same message. Belief in the angels and the jinn. And the jinn. The jinn are a part of Islamic belief.

Jinn is where we get genies. The jinn are made of smokeless flame, smokeless fire. That's where you got the stuff from genies in a bottle and so on and so forth. But the jinn, according to Muslims, really it's a parallel world.

They are much stronger than human beings. They're much faster than human beings. But they're not as smart as human beings. That's a real dangerous combination. Stronger, faster, dumber. That's not a good thing from my perspective.

But there are Muslim jinn and Christian jinn and Jewish jinn. I'm not sure how there could be atheist jinn. But it's sort of a parallel world. It's a very, very interesting belief. Belief in the books.

Ketuvim, a plural, sent by Allah. And so it is very clearly stated in the Quran that the Torah, the Torah and the Injil, the Gospel, were sent down by Allah. That they were originally anyways inspired.

We'll talk a little bit about what modern belief is about that. But you must believe that God has sent down books, plural, and belief in the day of judgment. There will be a day of judgment. And there will be those who enter into paradise and those who enter into the fire.

And, in fact, the descriptions of hell in the Quran and then in the traditions associated with Muhammad called the Hadith are significantly more graphic than anything you have in the Bible. In fact, well I'll, will I be illustrating this immediately?

No, let me just tell you the story. One of the stories that is told, the Hadith are, Could someone pull the battery out of the clock in the back? It's moving way, way, way too quickly. And I've got to get to some other things.