True divine encounters in the Bible always begin with “Do not be afraid” (Genesis 15:1, 26:24, 46:3, Daniel 8:15-19, 10:12, 19, Matthew 28:5, 10, Luke 1:13; 26-31, 2:10, Revelation 1:17). Even Mohammed himself believed that he was demon possessed and became distraught, even suicidal: “So I [Mohammed] read it, and he [Jibril] departed from me. And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart… I thought, ‘Woe is me poet or possessed…I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest.’ So I went forth to do so and then when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, O Mohammed! Thou are the apostle of God and I am Gabriel.’”142 The reference to “poet or possessed” comes from Mohammed’s belief that poets created their poetry under the inspiration of demons. At-Tabari, Islam’s renowned historian explains: “The pre-Islamic Arabs believed in the demon of poetry, and they thought that a great poet was directly inspired by demons…”143
After the terrible experience, Mohammed returned home to his wife Khadija. Terribly disturbed, he: “returned with the Inspiration, his neck muscles twitching with terror till he entered upon Khadija and said ‘Cover me! Cover me!’ They covered him till his fear was over and then he said, O Khadija, what is wrong with me?’ Then he told her everything that had happened and said, ‘I fear that something may happen to me.’”144
It was not only Mohammed who suspected a demonic source behind his revelations, many of Mohammed’s contemporaries also believed that his revelatory experiences were demonically inspired. The Qur’an records the following accusations that were leveled against Mohammed: “Yet they turn away from him and say: ‘Tutored by others, a man possessed!’” (Qur’an 44:14) “What! Shall we give up our gods for the sake of a Poet possessed?” (Qur’an 37:36) The accusations became so bad that Allah even had to come to Mohammed’s defense: “It (the Qur’an) is no poet’s speech: scant is your faith! It is no soothsayer’s divination: how little you reflect! It is revelation from the Lord of the Universe (Qur’an 69:41, 42). “No, your compatriot (Mohammed) is not mad. He saw him (Jibril) on the clear horizon. He does not grudge the secrets of the unseen, nor is this the utterance of an accursed devil” (Qur’an 81:22-25).
Many scholars were convinced that Mohammed was either an epileptic or demon possessed—or both. South African missionary John Gilchrist comments: “It should be pointed out that men can be subjected to a different type of seizure which very closely resembles epilepsy. During the life of Jesus a young boy was brought to him who was an epileptic (Matthew 17:15) and who suffered extreme forms of epilepsy (he would suddenly fall down, convulse, and be unable to speak). There is no doubt, however, that this epilepsy was not natural but demonically induced as all three records of the incident (in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9) state that Jesus exorcised the unclean spirit in the child and healed the boy. Gilchrist continues: “Throughout the world missionaries have related cases of precisely this nature. To this day such phenomena are not uncommon among oriental ecstatic and mystics and they are widely reported.”145 The apostle Peter describes the experience of the authors of Biblical Scripture by referring to men who “spoke from God as they were, moved by the Holy Spirit” (II Peter 1:21). None of them however, ever questioned the source of their revelations; they never once asked if it was God or a demon that was speaking to them.
For well over a year, Mohammed admits that he was even “bewitched”, whereby he would slip into an ecstatic spell and imagined that he was actually engaging in sexual relations with his wives, when he was in fact doing no such thing. In a reliable Hadith, Mohammed’s favorite wife Aiesha recalls: “Magic was worked on Allah’s Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not.”146
46
Both Practice Beheading
Beheading is the very heritage of Islam, carried out in God’s name, and is exactly what the Bible warned us of: “And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the Word of God” (Revelation 20:4), and in a time that: “when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or Me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you” (John 16:1-4). If only the Church would heed Christ’s warning “remember that I warned you.” This is hardly an atheist system—the only religion that still practices these is Islam.
If Westerners think that the well-publicized beheading of Nicholas Berg in 2004 with images of masked Muslims standing behind bound hostages in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere is their acquaintance to Islamic Terrorism, they need to think again. Rarely do Westerners examine Islam’s history of the beheadings of hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenians and Christians from Smyrna. The future will prove of millions of Christians yet to be beheaded “in the name of Jesus.”
Imagine all these suffering like the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl did in 2002. To most Westerners however, Pearl was an anomaly. But was it? In 2004, Muslim beheadings seemed to have developed into quite a trend. For months there was just about weekly, a new story of foreigners and Christians being beheaded by Islamic radicals. Since that time, the beheadings have not stopped. In fact, it is likely that within weeks of your reading this, there will be a new beheading that will be posted by some Muslim group on the internet for the whole world to see.
But beheading in Islam by any means is not a new phenomenon, neither is it new to the so-called “hijacked Islam,” as President Bush puts it, “the wholesome and wonderful religion of peace.” And neither was it as apologists for Islam claim, “not an officially sanctioned Islamic practice,” especially when beheading was carried out by its founder and chief—Mohammed: “Abdullah cut off Abba Hakam’s head and carried it to his master. ‘The head of the enemy of Allah!’ exclaimed Mohammed joyously;—’Allah! There is no other god but He!’–’Yeah! There is no other!’ responded Abdullah, as he cast the severed head at the Prophet’s feet. ‘It is more acceptable to me;’ cried Mohammed, hardly able to contain his joy, ‘than the choicest camel in all Arabia.’”147
Sadly the blood lust of Mohammed did not stop here. In 627 A.D. while laying a siege around the Jewish village of Qurayzah, the village surrendered and witnessed Allah at work, whose name is recited by every Muslim as the compassionate, the most merciful—ordered Mohammed to dig the infamous trenches. Ibn Ishaq, Islam’s earliest biographer of Mohammed recounts, “Then they (Qurayza) surrendered…then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches… They were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figures as high as 800 or 900…This went on until the apostle made an end to them.”148 Those were not enough, soon after this incident, Mohammed had 400 more Jews beheaded, then, another campaign of beheading festivals took place as he re-entered the city of Mecca, “Do you see the soldiers from Quraysh (from Mecca)?” He asked. “Go and pluck their heads.” Would any Muslim scholar say that Mohammed slipped? Was there a confession like that of King David after killing Uriah the Hittite? If only that been the case. Even the most ‘moderate’ of Muslims when asked of this ghastly deed, they must justify these actions, for condemning these would deny Mohammed’s prophetic career. This exemplary prophet, the model for all humanity, and whose words and deeds considered authoritative and inspired by Allah Himself: “If you love Allah, then follow me [Mohammed]” (Sura 3:31). “Ye have indeed in the Apostle of Allah a beautiful pattern of conduct for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day” (Sura 33:21). So was beheading ordained and even commanded for all the faithful till Mahdi’s kingdom come. Even the trees will obey him and snitch on the last Jew alive. As the prominent Muslim Sheikh Qaradawi stated Mohammed’s will on that final Judgment-Day: “Ya Muslim (O Muslim), Ya Abd-Allah” (O slave of Allah) Hatha Yahudi” (Here is a Jew) “Ta’ala waqta’ ra’sah” (come and chop off his head).
All of Mohammed’s disciples beheaded, hundreds of examples can be sited—Hadith, Muslim poetry, both ancient and modern, Muslim history, current events, and even graffiti “We knock on the gates of heaven with the skulls of Jews,” written on walls throughout Sharia dominated cultures.
The favorite of Muslims; Khalid bin al-Walid who earned the title, The unsheathed Sword of Allah who fought under Mohammed’s leadership and under the first Caliph Abu-Bakr, was dispatched to extended Islam’s peace proposal to the people of Persia: “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. From Khalid bin al-Walid to the governors of Persia. Embrace Islam so that you may be safe. If not, make a covenant with me and pay the Jizyah tax. Otherwise, I have brought you a people who love death just as you love drinking wine.”149 When the Christians and Persians from Ullays turned down this peace offer, Khalid engaged them with an unfettered assault. The battle was so fierce that Khalid made a vow to Allah during the battle that if he defeated these resistors, he would make the canal that surrounded their village literally run with their blood. When the outcome was in Khalid’s favor, it actually took a day and a half to behead all of the captives. The obstacle for Khalid was that the ravine of blood coagulated and Khalid’s troops were forced to eventually release water into the canal in order that it would run red with the blood of the slain lest Khalid’s vow be left unfulfilled.150
Some of Khalid’s men wanted to meticulously fulfill his wishes “Even if you were to kill all the population of the earth, their blood would still not run… Therefore send water over it, so that you may fulfill your oath.” Khalid had blocked the water from the canal. Now Khalid brought the water back, so that it flowed with spilled blood. Owing to this it has been called Blood Canal to this day.”151
Even the prophet’s grandkids did not escape the blade. Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist, in an article from the New York Post, May 14, 2004 entitled Chopping Heads, outlines several other incidents throughout Islam’s history of the practice of beheading: “In 680, the Prophet’s favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid’s capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph’s soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein’s 71 male companions, including the one-year-old baby boy Ali-Asghar.”152
Thus the pattern had been established and the principle that Mohammed had modeled now came back and touched his own family. Eventually stories of beheading came to fill Islam’s history. Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad points out that in the late fifteen century: “Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern revisionist historians,” recorded the following account of his own defeat of his infidel enemies: “Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp.” While Islam’s adventures in India, are rarely ever discussed in today, the estimated number of the slain in India alone was eighty million.
Skipping forward to a slightly more modern era, Taheri continues: “In 1842 the Afghani Muslims overtook the British garrison in Kabul and beheaded over 2,000 men, women, and children. The heads were placed on sticks around the city as decorations.”153 The practice continued during the 1980’s, in Afghanistan, where an estimated 3,000 Soviet troops were beheaded by the Afghani Mujahideen, also common throughout the Iranian revolution: “In 1992, the mullahs sent a ‘specialist’ to cut off the head of Shapour Bakhtiar, the Shah’s last prime minister, in a suburb of Paris. When the news broke, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president of the Islamic Republic, and the example given by many Westerners as ‘a moderate Muslim,’ publicly thanked Allah for having allowed ‘the severing of the head of the snake.’”154 Taheri even makes reference to one Algerian “specialist” nicknamed Momo le nain (Mohammed the midget) who was recruited by an Islamic group known as the GIA specifically for the purpose of chopping off heads: “In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children. In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him [on a free trip] to Mecca for pilgrimage. Last time we checked, Momo was still at large somewhere in Algeria.”155 Taheri likewise relates the situation in Pakistan where, “Rival Sunni and Shi’ite groups have made a habit of sending chopped off heads of each other’s activists by special delivery. According to one estimate, over 400 heads have been chopped off and mailed since 1990.”156 And beyond all of these very incriminating examples there are also the government sanctioned beheadings that take place weekly in Saudi Arabia after Friday prayers just outside the mosques. Over the past two decades, the Saudis have decapitated at least 1,100 people for alleged crimes ranging from drug running to witchcraft and apostasy, and in 2003: “The Saudi government beheaded 52 men and one woman… A condemned convict is brought into the courtyard; hands tied, and forced to bow before an executioner, who swings a huge sword amid cries from onlookers of ‘Allahu Akbar!’ Arabic for ‘God is greater.’”157
What takes place during one of these beheadings is simply one of the most macabre things that you can imagine. With a very deliberate sawing and hacking motion, the head is severed. The “infidel” is heard screaming and gurgling until the knife passes through the throat in the exact same manner as a ritual animal sacrifice. In Islam, animal sacrifice is usually referred to as “Udhiyah or Dhabh.” On Eid al-Adha (Day of Sacrifice), a Muslim holiday held during the Hajj (pilgrimage), an animal is often sacrificed. Before the animal is slaughtered, the knife wielder says Bismallah (In the Name of Allah) while others chant Yah Allah! (Oh Allah)
Like the sacrificial goat or calf, the human sacrifice is often seen sitting bound before his captors, shivering with fear. It is not unlike any other such sacrificial ritual that may have occurred in various Middle Eastern pagan cults over four thousand years ago. Only Islam, among all of the world religions, has adherents that still practice overt human sacrifice. With regard to the recent spate of ritualized beheadings that have been broadcast by Islamic fundamentalist groups, the language, the manners, and the rituals are identical to Islamic traditional animal slaughter, and all that with cries of Allahu Akbar. So, who is this Allah and what is this Allahu Akbar (Allah is greater), greater than who? What is so great with screaming this phrase while beheading Nicholas Berg, the Jewish-American contractor, Daniel Pearl another Jew, and Kim-Sun-il, the Korean translator and evangelical Christian? All three of these men loved Muslims and even attempted to help them. To my friends in the West; this is Islam. To my friends in the East, a choice needs to be made—the love of Allah or the love of Jehovah? This is the question. I have made my choice—there is no God like Jehovah.
IN SATAN’S FOOTSTEPS
Ritual beheading is nothing new—the Mayan civilization practiced human sacrifice with rituals of plucking out hearts and chopping off heads. Yet Islam today is not altogether unlike any one of these ancient pagan civilizations with all of the beheading and heart plucking. The one stipulation however is this—today the whole world must call this satanic cult a “religion of peace.”
My Son, Theodore Shoebat has written a book entitled In Satan’s Footsteps. I learned more from my 15-year-old son’s book than I learned from nutty professors during my college days. He connects all evil to one source—Satan: “I will never forget my first trip to the Pyramids in Chichen Itza Mexico, seeing the ritual altars and the gigantic water-hole where they would throw the bodies. Sure, the Mayans had acquired great scientific knowledge, yet their science was intertwined in evil that was so deep it’s shocking. Yes it’s true, nothing is new. Germany, which was hailed as a beacon of knowledge and science, allowed itself to be caught up in the spell of one of the worst perpetrators of evil in history—Adolph Hitler. The quest leads us to ask—is there a devil? Can we trace his footsteps? What are the common denominators between
these cults?”158
“The story of Satan can be seen all throughout the cults from time immemorial. Take Quetzalcoatl for example, god of civilization was identified with the planet Venus and with the wind; he represented the forces of good and light pitted against those of evil and darkness, which were championed by Tezcatlipoca. According to one epic legend, Quetzalcoatl, deceived by Tezcatlipoca, was driven from the ancient city Tula, the Toltec capital, and wandered for many years until he reached his homeland, the East coast of Mexico—where he was consumed by divine fire, his ashes turning into birds and his heart becoming the morning star. Another version has him sailing off to a mythical land, leaving behind the promise of his return.”159
Similar with the war of Satan in heaven, Satan has duped the world into thinking of him as the underdog; he identifies himself with Venus, the star in the north and Quetzalcoatl as Messiah who will reclaim his position. It is no wonder that when I spoke to Mormon missionaries and asked them for evidence that Christ visited the Americas their reply was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent.
THIS IS NOT ISLAM?
Why is it so common to see Muslims only fighting those who expose Islamic atrocities, but rarely if ever fighting the ones who carry them out? Instead of demanding to stop the atrocities and change Sharia, they would rather defend the behavior with the typical, “this is not Islam! Islam should not be judged by the behavior of a few.” But if they did, then their fight wouldn’t need to be focused on “Islamophobes” who are simply reporting the atrocities, but they could concentrate on the Sharia which needs changing.
God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible Page 21
