Part 3: Mohammed and the Origins of Islam | Cultish @TheAlMaidahInitiative

All right, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to part three Looking at the world of Islam. My name is

Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of the co -hosts here here along with Andrew Thanks for joining us for part three

Dude, absolutely. Let's do this man. I'm excited awesome and James. Thanks for you for joining us again now from Seattle You're you you've been taking us through a very

What do you call the what are the different history podcasts? What do you call like really popular ones? What are they called?

Dan Carlin, yeah hardcore history. It's like a hardcore history of like very quick hardcore history lots of conquests battles

Striving for power. We talked about the Crusades in part two But you end in part two with a little bit of a cliffhanger

I don't even know what the cliffhanger is. I figure there's a good way to wrap it up What where does that everyone's been waiting?

What's the cliffhanger all about? What's the next step in this whole process of the involvement that the journey that Islam has been into where it is today?

Yeah, so The Muslim world has been in a state of you know

Internal decline for some time and that it's been you know Decentralizing to these sort of points of kind of like local powers under Sultans, right?

the Crusaders would have had a very very hard time making a dent in a Muslim world that Was you know unified and powerful say like the

Abbasids or the Umayyads when they're you know they're going the reason that the Crusaders could make that is because the

Muslim world itself was fracked it was kind of fractured into these sort of Sultanate's basically

All concerned with their own power and domain Salahuddin was one of those

So as the sort of centralized power is declining a

New power is rising in the east, which is the Mongols and so the

Mongols are you know taking over, you know, China they're pushing east and And they're pushing west and as they push west they start to come into the

Muslim territories And they're moving very quickly. They kill a lot of people you know the strength of the

Mongol conquest is these Horse archers that are very accurate and they can you know move quickly attack quickly retreat quickly

Very very difficult to pin down Whereas you know the Muslim forces were sort of heavy infantry heavy cavalry

Which are quite easy to kind of pick off with this sort of Mongol strategy but really the you know, the source of the

Muslim weakness is this is sort of internal disunity and their Inability to centralize anymore.

Mm -hmm. So as these forces kind of come through eventually they get to Baghdad and when they're in when they surround

Baghdad they there's no army protecting it and They you know, and then so eventually hooker -lucan brings out the caliph and he is

Yeah, as he as hooker -lucan sort of tours Baghdad he finds this tower belonging to the caliph full of treasure and Hooker -lucan is appalled because the caliph has not

Used this money to raise an army to defend the city and he feels like you should have protected your people Mm -hmm, so he locks him in the tower with his gold and says why don't you eat your gold since you value it so much?

But eventually he then he relents he Allows the caliph out of this tower and then he

Rolls him up in a carpet and has him trampled by horses Which was you know, while that sounds cruel and for sure it is it was actually the way the

Mongols killed their own Leaders, so this was a sign of honor to them Killing him this way because they didn't believe in shedding blood according to their own religion

Okay, not shedding blood of like nobles. Mm -hmm Um Like an executioner had to be kind of bloodless.

So you roll up in a carpet having trampled by horses, right? I mean blood technically could be would probably shed

Yeah, I'm sure I was to being trampled by horses. Yeah, but the idea is like not by the sword. Yeah, exactly. Exactly And you know, you'd look at carpets from those reason or rugs in that region such a very ornate way to be

You know, they're actually ascribing a lot of value to you. You know at that point my association with carpets in there is carpet from Aladdin Yeah Those are very nice though.

So if the Mongols roll you up in a carpet and kill you that way take it as a compliment. Hmm So at that point the

Islamic world You know, the the center of power is relocated to Cairo in Egypt And the

Mongols have their own internal problems because it's very much a tribal society as well and Eventually, you know

Hulu Khan, you know, and the rest of the Mongols are kind of like, you know record and the conquest stop

But that hadn't happened. They could have taken over everything. They were just sort of unstoppable so They've conquered a lot of territory, but the

Mongols actually practiced religious tolerance So they didn't care what you believed as long as you pay your taxes to the great

Khan so because of that Islam had You know spread very easily among these

Mongols the Mongol Empire was actually a way for Islam to spread in more ways than it had already so What you start what starts to happen at this point is because of these internal court intrigues

People start hiring soldiers and bodyguards from other territories

So in Egypt there they hire a bunch of you know Turkic you know slaves from these sort of Mongol territories and they're called the the mom looks and Eventually these this military power that serves that has no investment in the internal politics is only investing getting paid suddenly gets their own investment, which is

Well, we should have power instead of serving the power because the power wouldn't exist without us, right?

So that happens in and then You start to have the

Ottomans rise up in Turkey through these, you know So these tribes that are inherited from these

Mongol conquests and they have their own kind of, you know way of life, which is You know if it's perfectly into this sort of whole

Hard times create strong men strong men create good times good times great weak men weak men create hard times

And you have this cycle with Islamic opulence if you think of like Muhammad's direct, you know contemporaries

These are desert dwellers who were living in hard times and they are powerful because of that and conquer everything because of that But eventually that leads to its own opulence and decay and lavish lifestyles

Whereas so in Islam this time the people living in, you know, Cairo and the rest a kind of you know

Soft targets because they're living in a pretty easy opulent life these Turkic people that you know, you're a horse people that live in tents

Suddenly start, you know gaining lots of lots more power and eventually the

Ottomans start taking over all of Turkey pushing back the Byzantines and then they start a military conquest of the

Muslim world themselves and they take over all of North Africa and eventually they take over Mecca and Medina and They take over Egypt so 1517 the same year as the

Reformation something very important happens in the Muslim world. The Caliphate is Transferred from the

Abbasids that like the Arab descendants of you know, Muhammad's tribe to the Ottomans you have no relation to Muhammad's tribe and So the

Ottoman Empire is now the leader of the Muslim world and claims, you know Caliphate and The Ottoman Empire is expanding into Europe at this point so after the

Reformation you have a You know, you got it. You have like a hundred years of conflict which ends in the peace of Westphalia All the while while the

Reformation is happening. The Ottoman Empire is advancing through Europe You know state by state and is on you know, the verge of you know, taking everything taking everything on But the peace of Westphalia essentially means the

Protestants and Catholics stop fighting each other and agree to live in nation states where Catholics and Protestants are allowed to sort of practice their you know, their religion freely and One thing that's very interesting is do you know who the first person in Europe was to advocate?

To kind of publicly advocate for the translation of the Quran I'm Martin Luther no idea

Wow so the first ever So they translated the Quran into Latin and it has a preface written

By Martin Luther because the Catholics wouldn't allow it to be translated but Martin Luther basically argued if we're gonna you know be

Dealing with the Muslims and we have this civilizational struggle against the Muslims We need to understand what they believe and be able to critique it properly

So Martin Luther was a big advocate of Examining Muslim ideas and and thinking about them because it was pressing in his day because this was you know, the

Empire coming on so he so Martin Luther described the Catholic Church and the Turk Just as the two horns of the

Antichrist in his day because this was like very much on his on his mind So for him the

Quran was first translated from Arabic into Latin Yes, then was then from what do you translate from then like Latin a

German or was it? He was you know, he's trying to get a scholarly reading of it, which is in the Latin is the scholarly language at the time

Okay So he's not necessarily like hey you average peasant you need to read the

Quran, but he's like hey Christian scholars We need to be thinking about these things Yeah a question real quickly then is to the

Arabic language and then maybe didn't get into this Did the etymology of like the Arabic language that exists prior to Muhammad or did that whole dialect of Arabic?

It was did that come about as as a result of the rise of Islam a Bit of both.

Okay, so certainly you I mean the language Muhammad is speaking it's a it's kind of a one of many dialects and then it kind of becomes that there's like seven main dialects at the time of Muhammad and the

Quran becomes the basis for what's known as formal Arabic. Hmm. Well fuss her Which is even now the

Arabic dialects around the world don't really line up with that. Mm -hmm So the average Arab who's reading the

Quran is not reading a book in the language. They kind of read write and think in okay

It's a language of kind of educated people yeah, because I know and probably varies because you have all the different different sects of Islam depending on who you're dialoguing with but a

Lot of them would adhere to the fact that reading that the Quran is meant to be read in Arabic That's a more pure reading versus reading an

English translation of it, correct it basically any Orthodox Islam is going to believe that the

Quran is is only the Quran when it's in Arabic because It's not just a book you read for information

It's something you you know recite out loud and you're gonna get spiritual blessings from that as you recite it out loud.

Yeah It literally adds kind of if you imagine these sort of scales of judgment with good deeds on one side bad deeds on the other

It literally adds things to your good deeds to recite out loud in Arabic Yeah, but just still

Andrew were you expecting a little cameo by Martin Luther in this whole discussion? I Was not expecting a cameo from Martin Luther, but I understand

What what he wants he wants to have a scholarly critique Do we need to have a reasonable defense for the faith that we have right first Peter 315?

So I get it hats off to you Martin Luther for that. So so in air so the Arabic Question so that's kind of like a divine language

Some Muslims and if you don't if you're Muslim living in America, and you're not reading it in Arabic or understanding it

You're not reading it at all. Um Generally, no, like it like it's not that people would always discourage reading in your own language.

They would just say That's not the main point Like if you're reading in English, you're not reading it.

You're not really reading the Quran You have to recite it in Arabic whether or not you understand it.

That's what you're really supposed to do You understand the meanings is, you know of tertiary importance that it's not like the main thing people read it for.

Hmm Okay, and so yeah, so picking up from like you said the you know, Martin Luther end up translating

Which is which was a big surprise. You just have the involvement of Muslim of Islam at that time Where is it, where does it where does it progress from there?

So again the context Martin Luther's end is Again is the

Ottoman Empire is the rising power, right? But like to an like really that's the moment it's kind of the real upstart, you know

Unstoppable nature because again the year of the Reformation is the year it takes Egypt That's the year they become the caliphs, right?

That's where we're getting to in history Wow So and then in I believe it's 1683

After again after the Reformation and after the peace of Westphalia the Ottomans have progressed all the way to Vienna in Austria and the city of Austria calls for help and you know five different European nation -states come and they

Have a you know, they engage the Muslims in battle and then it's Polish force called the winged Hussars you know marches and routes the

Ottoman army and One very very important thing for Europe happened at this point and one thing may or may not have happened

The very very important thing that comes from this battle was the first coffee shop in Europe because coffee shops were a huge thing in Ottoman Turkish culture and Basically they the when the army routed they left two tons of coffee beans in their camp

So they bought it into the city of Vienna and created Europe's first coffee house there Wow, that's cool, man, because coffee is way better than tea agreed

Well anything about all the different like brands that are out there. I mean you're from Seattle So obviously, you know you came in this morning with a

Starbucks and they have their own origin story Like how many how many car I don't know of any modern, you know coffee shops where people are, you know

You got the people brewing their Latte is this that and the other and there's their story is a giant battle that took place

You know and they can credit the Ottoman Empire for that like that. That's a pretty Epic origin story right there.

That's that's a brand. That's a pretty sweat That seems I'd be a reputable brand origin story right there, right? So if the

Ottoman Empire had won we'd still have coffee shops If they lost less decisively we wouldn't

The other the other legend thing that may or may not be true is croissants as well come from this battle, so The we're getting back to the

Crescent Moon, right? So the Crescent Moon was kind of this sort of the Crescent Moon symbolism has been you know around for a long time, but was

Very prominent in the sort of Ottoman culture. So the Ottoman flag was the Crescent Moon So because that was the last kind of great

Empire representing Islam. That's why The Crescent Moon has kind of become the logo for Islam, but it's just the

Ottoman flag Doesn't have any like theological significance before that. Mm -hmm So the idea is that for the

French baked the put that type of pastry before but they baked it into the shape of a Crescent to celebrate their victory over the

Ottomans of the Siege of Vienna Who knows if that's true, but that's the legend. Mm -hmm It's interesting.

We have a lot of our foods and coffee of coffee So we have coffees and croissant all originated in these like related battles.

Yeah so so at that point after that The Islamic world so basically from the point of the

Reformation and the piece of Westphalia The Islamic world has been in constant decline since then Um, it's been

It's been unable to keep up and it's been you're constantly declining from that point. The Siege of Vienna was the turning point so From that point the

Ottoman Empire kept existing kept kind of, you know doing it's you know Doing its thing for a long time and would you know be parts of different alliances with Europe?

But kind of lost a lot of sort of distinctively Islamic identity in a lot of ways Sometimes they'd be aligned with England sometimes with Germany And then in World War one in this kind of complex alliance structure

The Ottomans allied with Germany in the First World War So as well as the sort of in in the trenches in Europe you have these, you know, these lines of you know, people like shooting each other in this meat grinder meanwhile the

British Have designs in North Africa and Arabia So that's where Lawrence of Arabia comes in.

He is a British army sergeant who goes Into Arabia like he's he was he's into archaeology.

So he learned Arabic before so he goes into Arabia and starts making these connections with these

Arabs who resent being ruled by non Arabs Specifically I called

Faisal who is the Sharif of Mecca. Faisal was a direct descendant from Muhammad and So Muhammad had made a promise that the caliphate will remain among the

Quraysh even as only two people left on earth Meaning that the caliph should have been Arab the whole time and the

Ottoman Design on this is kind of a betrayal of that so The British are able to sort of exploit the sentiment and they are able to Fight this very modern guerrilla war against the

Ottomans attacking their railway using these, you know local Arab tribes and they are able to defeat the

Ottoman Empire and put the territory of The Middle East under the sort of joint control of England and France So then in 1916 they there's something called the

Sykes -Picot Agreement where basically England and France it's going to divide up these countries into areas of influence and then

Turkey or the Ottoman Empire is pushed back into the Geographic territory of Turkey and then they have a revolution which leads to a guy called

Artur Turk Mustafa Kemal Artur Turk meaning father of the Turks who you know reformulates

Turkey According to sort of Western ideals basically. So he says, okay

We're not going to be an empire anymore. We're gonna be a nation. Yeah, we're gonna have one language. We're gonna be one united people and He's very specifically says

Islam Will no longer be a religion of sword and politics But it will be a religion of hearts and minds and that's where Islam will truly thrive

So basically he's looking at the Westphalian model that comes out of the Reformation in Europe and applying that to Turkey then in 1924 exactly 100 years ago

His government abolished the caliphate so for 100 years now the

Muslim world has been cut up into nation -states with no caliph and That is the backdrop for everything that is happening and the influence of any the

Reformation like the thought behind that that the influence the Reformation had on European culture. They looked at that that Wow Yeah, talk about a long -lasting effect that never even that never came to mind.

That's fascinating. Right? Right, right. So, um So so if you look at the way the

Bible formulates the world, right? It keeps talking about the nations and people say well that's talking about, you know

Ethnicities is not that's a more modern term, but look at just Deuteronomy. How does God define

Israel? It's people its borders and its law Right. That's how the

Bible is defining Israel as a nation in Acts 17 Paul says, you know when

God divided up the nations according to their boundaries, right? Mm -hmm. So This sort of decentralized nation -state idea.

Yeah comes to us through the Reformation From the Bible And then it's kind of applied to the world in World War two to some extent

But that's a fundamentally Christian way of looking at the world Where there is not the

Islamic way of looking at the world So the Islamic way of looking at the world was to have the House of Islam under the wise guidance of one leader who is over religion and state and so basically the

British and the French basically, you know Inadvertently kind of like forced the Muslim world to function like the

Christian world Whereas art a Turk very consciously did that in making Turkey as a sort of, you know, secular division between powers

Kind of kind of state Wow, and that has set the foundation for the Muslim world as we know it today.

Hmm So is there no such thing as Islam anymore then if there's no caliphate?

Well No, definitely not But there's ways people have to formulate things differently so Before the abolition the caliphate there were some

Maliki Muslim scholars who didn't believe that it was lawful to have Like Jumu 'ah prayer and in a mosque like their

Friday service basically In a non -muslim country because Jumu 'ah prayer was created in Medina, which was a function of the state so basically

Imagine it would be like imagining if you kind of you know, somebody stole the Vatican and You know, there was no

Pope in Roman Catholicism What happens to Roman Catholicism at that point?

It doesn't just disappear, but it has to start reformulating itself in some ways You know in the same way Judaism reformulated itself after the temple was destroyed, right?

So it's been it's seismic in a lot of ways Although not as seismic as you might think because you know, it's already been decentralizing in a lot of ways for You know really since the decline of the

Islamic Golden Age So Muslims have learned to function without any like direct oversight from a leader.

So for a lot of people that's kind of ceremonial but it's still powerful in the in the minds of Muslims because there's a kind of hole in the center of the world basically

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Talk to you later guys So are they looking is there like some central body or an organization or community that's looking to become a caliphate again

Not really. I mean people have tried to do it. But if you remember Isis This is what they were about They had this whole big press conference where they drove a bulldozer through the

Iraq and Syria border and say there's no Iraq and Syria There's the Islamic State and then they called their leader

Abu Bakr al -Baghdadi the caliph so That's basically what they are trying to accomplish.

That's what Osama bin Laden and Ayman al -Zawahiri Wanted in the endgame, right? so their goal of attacking

America in 9 -11 was to Basically destabilize the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt Because basically they that's what their cause was their cause was we don't want to be ruled by these petty dictators and you know

You know kings, yeah, we want to have the territory of Muslims ruled by the caliph

So their endgame was well, they're not gonna be able to do that while America's propping up the Saudi government

Which is our ally and so we need we need to get America Exhausted through terrorist attacks and wars that don't go anywhere so that there's a level playing field so we can build the

Middle East that we want to build and Reestablish this idea of all Muslims under one leader

I'm Leading in sort of this kind of like Muslim utopia, basically Yeah, and let me ask you this too because you're it's like we're talking, you know about some of the involvement in 1920s in that Area in the

Lawrence of Arabia and I was like man I mean actually talking my wife about were you watching some of the classics? She's actually never seen in Ten Commandments So we're gonna be watching that over Easter, but I was like man, we need to watch

Lawrence of Arabia, too Especially around that time. But um, what's interesting too is that I'm curious because when we were at lunch the other night dinner the other night

You know I was showing you the that would be the kingdom that came out like in 2007 and the introduction sort of had that sort of timeline of American involvement like in the

Middle East with their foreign policy Like how did that but you said he was like missing some chunks and segments

I don't know if I'm jumping too much ahead. No, no, that's fine But like yeah with American foreign policy and honestly one other thing too is that like I remember being introduced

You know 9 -11 and I was very much a hardcore right -wing like pro -bush Conservative I remember like Michael Moore like attacking the filmmaker

Michael Moore did fair 9 -9 -11 sort of attacking Bush in saying he has Association with like the

Saudi government, but then you know, so he will respond to go Oh, well, actually there's the Saudi government's been related to has had relations with all these previous

US presidents, too And I just I'm marrying at the time. I was like man. What's where did this all start? Like why like why did this relationship start?

How did that affect that? So Yeah, how does that all like work in well? That's great.

And I think I work with a lot of Saudis. Yeah, I Love the

Saudis I'm like most Muslims don't like them Most Saudis don't like other

Saudis. I Love Saudis. Yeah, I Enjoy them. I that their culture is fascinating to me and yeah, there's lots of wonderful things about Saudi culture

But I think one thing people miss is how complicated that you know country is but Saudi Arabia is a good sort of case study here because the name

Saudi Arabia Array, it's always been called Arabia, but it's called Saudi Arabia because it's ruled by the

Saud tribe. Hmm, right? So that's what someone like Osama bin Laden wants to you know deal with Do you get rid of he doesn't want a

Saud tribe? He wants an Islamic state not a Saudi state So the so the relationship between Saudi Arabia and America has come through Saudi Aramco the

Arabian American oil company Which has been a which has been a good

Deal for everybody, right? It's not one of these things that you know it's this kind of colonial exercise where you know, the

West leaves with like piles of gold and you know These people left in disease and poverty This has lifted

Saudi Arabia to be a wealthy country, right? This has been a win -win situation between Arabia Saudi Arabia and America.

Yeah by doing business together, right? So It's kind of one of the few good things we've done in the

Middle East in a lot of ways hmm and Saudi culture was generally a fairly moderate culture until in 1974

The King Faisal was assassinated by his nephew also named Faisal and Then a few years later some radical

Muslims took over Mecca and held it hostage and they were basically Demanding the abdication of the

Saudi royal family. Why because you've become too westernized you're getting rid of Islam and you know You need to be overthrown

So King Fahd in the 80s introduced him called the basic law of Saudi Arabia Which is the

Saudi Arabia of our you know childhood imaginations, right? Which you know women can't drive cars.

Everyone's covered head -to -toe. There's no movie theaters and there's no music There's no, you know, there's no joy or anything like that, right?

And the Saudi family royal family did that out of necessity because they were worried that they were gonna be, you know overthrown right, so they have factions they have to deal with which are these radical

Muslims and They have to you know Keep them in check and appease them to some extent in order to maintain any power base

So anytime they want to move the country forward in some way they have to worry about this

So they have these, you know religious police that are going around telling everyone what to do. I mean, you know But in Saudi culture people hate these people.

Mm -hmm. There's a saying Um There's a saying in Najdi, which that goes something like Kel Benak with the world it's something and it's like what it means is put a

Religious helper between you and hell. Mm -hmm, right? So they think they were going to these people are going to hell

Yeah, and so you have this public Islam in Saudi Arabia, which is super hardcore But lots of people who are not bought into this right including the royal family

So what the king of Saudi Arabia did Was basically they they basically used all their oil money to send all their students on Scholarships to the

West both learn things and they get a more moderate view of the world Right and that has set the stage for the current crown prince.

Who's you know, the basic absolute dictator of the country to Make all these reforms women can now drive you have movie theaters and concerts and you know a little bit more freedom to say

What you think? You know not entirely because you're not criticizing the government. It's a lot more leeway than you had

And he is he's removed all the powers of arrest from the religious police and he says in 2017 Saudi Arabia is going to be what it once was a moderate

Muslim country. There's open to all religions and open to the world We're not going to spend the next 30 years of our lives hiding from extremists.

We're gonna destroy them today. Hmm, so Um Yeah, so people don't realize that you have this struggle within Saudi Arabia So people ask all the time and I used to ask this myself.

Why on earth we allies with Saudi Arabia, right? We're allies with Saudi Arabia because there's a lot of people that like us there They're like genuine friends and have you know common interests with us.

Yeah Aren't they building a center of rule religions there? I remember and Dubai.

They definitely are. Okay, maybe that's related to it They want to show that they're more open and more syncretistic. Yeah for sure.

Yeah so But the things that we've haven't done well in the Middle East would be things like Funding the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Yeah, so in world at the end of World War two America's a generally benevolent foreign policy, which believes in The Christian idea of self -determination and nation -states and decentralized power

Yeah, the Atlantic Charter between Roosevelt and Churchill that was the conditions of America helping.

Hmm Yeah will help but no more empires No British Empire. No German Empire. That's our condition, right?

But when we're fighting the Cold War there's this is very much ends justify the means attitude so Brzezinski his goal

Jimmy Jimmy Carter's foreign secretary was to fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Basically give the

Soviets their Vietnam with the goal of collapsing the Soviet Union because they wouldn't be at it

Because Afghanistan is like the graveyard of empires. Isn't that what we discussed the other day about Charlie Wilson's war?

Is this is this the timeline that we're at? Yeah, we're in the 80s now. Okay. Yeah, so in the 80s

In the 80s we kind of funded the mujahideen the Soviet Union collapsed as a brilliant strategy

But basically it just saw Afghanistan as kind of collateral damage You know the ends justify the means in order for taking out these other power

And that's basically how America and the West has been treating the Middle East Since since kind of really since the

Cold War Not really, you know being too concerned about the well -being of the actual people there and having a short -sighted foreign policy for that so because of that and because of the government's we've propped up then we start to kind of come into the crosshairs of You know people like Osama bin

Laden Hmm, that's not just and and listen Violent this radical

Islam would be violent whether or not we were involved But it is certainly our foreign policy that has made it a little bit more pointed at us

Right in some ways some good things some bad things Yeah, you know, so what's the difference?

Yeah, what's the difference between let's say like the conquering caliphate? during the

Islamic old age a little bit before that Then what we would consider quote -unquote radical Islam today, like weren't they conquerors?

Yeah, so the conquerors but what were a state force They weren't revolution

Not right. They weren't revolutionaries trying to overthrow a government. It was one state fighting another state, right?

in a time without gunpowder and So gotcha, and so that the hope is yeah, we want to be that one day

But first we have to do is, you know Cut, you know Degrade these states, right?

so the funny thing is They really what do you know, it's not really ruined al -qaeda's plans

Isis Because al -qaeda had this, you know, I'm an eyes were hairy had this, you know master plan of putting radical

Muslims saturated throughout Western countries And eventually when it was time

They could you know, they could finally build the caliphate, right? Whereas Isis basically is like, yeah, we agree caliphate.

We're gonna do this now Leroy Jenkins And just kind of like went for it

Yeah and then all these operatives that had been like You know bought into the sort of al -qaeda vision suddenly find the

Isis one a lot more compelling because they're trying to deliver what they Want much faster? Yeah, so all these people who were like potential sleeper agents in Western countries were like, right

We're gonna go to Syria and become a conventional army and Allah is with us. So we won't be defeated and they're defeated.

Mm -hmm So their whole like long -term Plan is kind of is kind of you know screwed.

Yeah Yeah, no, it's interesting too and because we're we are sort of we're working way through this historical timeline where we started a long

A long time ago and now we're in a now we're in the century that we recognize, you know

Looking now in the 1980s and even now like in all these things, you know lead up to like one of my favorite

Books is one by Lawrence Wright called the looming tower Which is like al -qaeda and the path like to 9 -11 and you can get into that But that all all of our involvement did lead up to 9 -11

Which really I remember that era of like from 2001 to really 2008 There's such a conversation the political sphere about, you know, the role of Islam and all that But I remember what it ended up being it forced a lot of people who are

Christians to say, okay How do I actually interact with the Muslim world? that was a big thing for me and and Ultimately where this is where we're ahead of this where we're taking with this series

Is that all this history all this all these different parts of this linear timeline even getting into the kind of like the geopolitical?

world of the last 100 years and I think even the last 20 to 30 years it has had a huge impact on all of us

But that again that is heavily weighed into how we actually interact With our

Muslims friend as the neighbors like we're talking about, you know, the recent fall of Afghanistan obviously

That happened. I remember when we went into Afghanistan all those years ago like 20 some years ago

And then we exited out two years ago But then having the refugees sort of come up in your area and that being a place where you actually get to interact and dialogue

With them in real time That's where you're seeing How do these things parts together as far as how we actually interact with them as Christians and how they have the different?

geopolitical events affect that so the segue I want to kind of close with here before you hit the next section about this is how

I want you to think about Islamic history is You know people are always worried about this kind of imminent threat

But the truth of the matter is this the Islamic world has not been in the ascendancy since the

Protestant Reformation It's you know, it's it's fracturing and what the

Protestant Reformation created was Prosperous nation -states that with decentralized power freedom of expression and you know economy and education and So what's happening now is a mass migration from the

Muslim world to the West and people see this as a threat and For sure, there might be some threats associated with this in one shape way shape or form or another but think about this every time that a

Muslim comes to the West for Whether it's safety whether it's freedom of expression whether it's prosperity or whether it's for education

They're making an implicit decision That they would rather live in a country inconsistently

Based on Christian ideas, then they would then rather rather live there than in a Muslim country

Wow Is that not an opportunity that we should be engaged in as Christians?

Absolutely Absolutely. And do you have any last thoughts as we wrap up here? Oh 100 % man.

I love that dude. That was very well said. Yeah, it's changing the way I think about what's going on Today, I mean you're hundred and ten percent, right?

That's why I was asking the question I'm like so since there is no Caliphate does Islam exist? I get how it can exist philosophically and religiously

But um the people like you said when they're moving from the states nation states or whatever going to America They're abandoning

What Islam kind of is fundamentally and that's an opportunity for us to be like look this is from Jesus This is from his rule his reign right in the heavenly places

And you can be seated with him in your salvation and inherit every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places through Jesus in faith alone

Which is it should be the message from a Christian to anybody who's not in Christ So, I mean, that's that's beautiful Yeah so basically like what

I what I've experienced is because of how things have gone the last hundred years because if people like are to talk to can the

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Basically, there's a battle for the soul of the Muslim world and a battle in most

Muslims Soul which is a battle between Islam and secularism

Like they believe in we are wanting the voice of God in their lives but they also see some of the benefits of the sort of secular world but also see some of the pitfalls of the secular world that we'd see too as Christians, right and so all we're really trying to do is a ministry here is bring a

Christian voice to that table and You know make that a three -way tug -of -war rather than just a two -way tug -of -war.

Mm -hmm Now that's good, that's good so this is the perfect study to kind of wrap up this final segment of like the historical timeline what we're gonna do for the rest of the series that we actually gonna kind of segue into Like actually how to engage how to answer

Islam So when you actually and hopefully what we want to be able to do is that for the rest of the series?

When you're wrapped up you be able and the people can also check out your YouTube channel We'll have links in the description is that you'll be able to walk away.

Hopefully from this series with just a degree of Confidence and that to approach your

Muslim friend or neighbor and not in any way with fear But I've really loved compassion and Christian compassion and concern and what you say earlier like the way we should live is to live courageously

Right, right to to courageously and lovingly Engage them and and it

I've had those times too like it's surprising when you go out there to engage them Like how much they want to have like conversations.

They love to talk about this stuff. So that's now it's been my experience I'm really really excited for this and I hope

I'm so what's that's what I'm really excited for you all to enjoy as We wrapped up the as we go into the other segments of our series