Even when one finds minority groups who call for such modifications in the Muslim world, they don’t get a large following. Why? One might argue that they do not have much freedom of expression in Muslim nations where they live in tyranny.
We live in a world that loves to find excuses, and doesn’t want to take responsibility for our actions. Even in the West where Muslims enjoy freedom of expression, you do not see a majority of Muslims calling for the much needed Muslim reformation? If most Muslims are really as “moderate” as many claim, how significant are the outcries against the Islamic Sharia law of Qisas? Qisas is the law of reciprocity, an Islamic version of an “eye for an eye” which states that: “no Muslim should be killed in Qisas for the killing of a disbeliever.”160 The death penalty for a Muslim is only applicable if he kills another Muslim. This leaves non-Muslims as free game with penalties such as prison or a fine.
On October 30, 2005, in the allegedly moderate Muslim nation of Indonesia, a Javanese trader named Hasanuddin Ida and five other men attacked and beheaded three young Christian girls—Arni Sambue (age 15), Theresia Morangke (15), and Alfita Poliwo (19) who were walking to school. At the end of Ramadan, Muslims are mandated to carry out specific acts of charity. Court transcripts show that Hasanuddin Ida believed that the beheading of Christians qualified as just such an “act of charity.” The murders were planned. The girls had been stalked going to school. The girls’ severed heads were dumped in plastic bags in their home village along with a handwritten note that said: “Wanted: 100 more Christian heads, teenaged or adult, male or female.”
Although the law in Indonesia for such a crime requires execution, on March 20, 2007, Hasanuddin, the mastermind of the murders received a mere twenty years in prison. Two other men who also participated in the beheadings received only fourteen year sentences. Now juxtapose these sentences to that of Shapelle Corby, a 28 year old Australian woman, who was sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian Prison for attempting to smuggle marijuana. Many in Australia think that Shapelle is innocent. Regardless, the message is clear: in Indonesia Western pot smugglers are given harsher sentences than those who stalk and saw the heads off of innocent young Christian girls. This example of injustice is one that is repeated thousands of times over throughout the Muslim world. The Voice of the Martyrs and The Barnabas Fund have collected hundreds of stories, updated daily, of Christians who are mistreated or even murdered without any legal repercussions for the Muslim murderer. Yet Muslims still try to play the “victim” card whenever they can.
One can find hundreds of Muslim websites littered with the typical twisted logic, playing the victim card while giving injunctions to kill the innocents. On an Internet interfaith discussion group forums.gawaher.com, one comment reads: “The kafirs (unbelievers) have been attacking Muslim countries killing Muslim people from the beginning of time… when we have done nothing. Like the people of Israel attack the Muslims from Palestine because they do it for the land and because they hate Arabs/Muslims… we defend them for Allah. We try and spread Islam, The one and only true word of Allah. They rejected it; therefore we are allowed to kill them. It is not forbidden to kill a kafir. Of course we want to by the will of Allah, peacefully live with them and teach them about the beautiful religion.”
Killing in the name of Allah while playing the roll of victim, is nothing new in Islam. From its inception and throughout its history to this very day, beheading has been part and parcel of its religion. The Bible even predicted it for the Last-Days as the primary method by which martyrs would be killed. No other world religion or empire practiced systematic beheading like Islam. The Roman Empire’s primary method of execution of non-citizens was crucifixion, while the Catholic Church was drowning or burning. Only Islam has such a long-standing historical tradition of beheading, with even, specific commandments recorded in its “holy book” to “strike off their necks” (Qur’an 47:4). By this, the martyrs will face the fate predicted in the Bible “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).
47
Both Desire Israel’s Destruction
Whether we are discussing the Antichrist, the Mahdi or Isa (the Muslim Jesus), we can see that they all specifically target Jews and Christians for their campaigns of terror. Yet Muslims are quick to respond when accused of anti-Semitism that they don’t hate Jews, they simply hate Zionism. I love the quote by Martin Luther King Jr. “You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews; you are merely ‘anti-Zionist.’ And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God’s green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews—this is God’s own truth.” If only many of the so-called civil rights leaders of today would follow the King’s wisdom on this point.
Islam predicts the fate of Christians and Jews: “The Mahdi will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews and Christians; if they accept it they will be spared, otherwise they will be killed.”161 Centuries before Islam, the Bible predicted that Satan—through the Antichrist—will primarily target Jews and Christians for death or conversion during his final reign of terror—that the Antichrist will “wage war against the saints and kill them” (Daniel 7:21). The Apostle John mirrors Daniel’s vision: “It was also given to him [the Antichrist] to make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Revelation 13:7). John also recounts seeing the Antichrist coming “up out of the abyss to make war with the saints, to overcome them and kill them” (Revelation 11:7). Interestingly, the Muslim Messiah seems to match the Biblical Antichrist, who, according to Islam, will slaughter the Jews and women.162 It isn’t surprising that Islam has Jews and women together following the Antichrist. In Islam, one of the main reasons for Jesus’ return is, “to refute the Jews over the controversial issue that they killed Jesus. However Jesus will kill them including their leader, the Antichrist”163 He will also not “regard the desire of women” (Daniel 11:37). “His [Antichrist] followers the Jews, will number 70,000. [Then] Jesus kills the Dajjal at the Gate of Hudd, near an Israeli airport, in the valley of “Ifiq.” The final war between the Jews will ensue, and the Muslims will be victorious.”164
Does Satan so specifically, so repeatedly, and so persistently target the Jews over and above all others? Yes! God loves Israel, and whatever God loves, Satan hates. Also, Jesus promised that he would not return until the Jews were established in their land and until they cry out, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 15:24). This return to Israel with Jews living in it is emphasized by Jesus and every prophet in the Bible. Many claiming to be Christians are critical of Israel and support the establishment of a Palestinian state; they point that nowhere in the text of the New Testament do we have a mandate for such a state called Israel. However, in Matthew 10:23, Jesus describes the land as Israel, and it will be as such just prior to His return. Satan believes that by eliminating Israel he can extend his existence to rule this world and postpone his eternal judgment by God. It is for such a reason the Bible warns of this during the Last-Days—Jews will be sought out for destruction. In analyzing and studying Islamic eschatology, we are confronted with yet one more final holocaust, far worse than the previous holocaust that occurred under the Nazis. Speaking of Jews, Allah “placed enmity and hatred” against them (Qur’an 5:64). They are described as those who always “kindle the fire of war and strive to do mischief on earth” (Ibid). Apologists argue that these verses are limited to specific historical incidents in Mohammed’s career. If so, why are these commands prescribed “until the Day of Judgment” (Ibid)?
This is not some mere temporary command. According to Islamic tradition, Jews not only start wars, they cause general mischief on the earth. Allah was so disgusted by the Jews, that he cursed them and literally transformed many of them into “apes and swine” assigning them the lowest “rank” among humankind (Qur’an 2:65; 7:166; 5:60). Among the more anti-Semitic and vocal Muslims, these verses have
become absolute favorites. I could recall so many stories from my childhood in Bethlehem where this venomous hatred of the Jews was hammered into our little heads. I remember one instance when my class traveled to the Jerusalem zoo. Spectators had been throwing cigarettes at this one lone gorilla which had learned to pick up the cigarettes and smoke. Our Muslim teacher told us that this gorilla must originally be a descendant of the Jews.
HITLER LOVED ISLAM
Today I look back at this and I think of what the Nazis taught. The same Nazi ideology of the “vermin Jew” is now being taught throughout the entire Middle East. Yet Muslims claim that Hitler was a Christian. Most Westerners today are not historically savvy enough to note that Hitler was probably possessed by Allah since he preferred Islam over Christianity for Germany. In his memoirs, Albert Speer reported how Hitler expounded his views on Christianity to a visiting delegation of Arabs. Discussing the implications of the battle of Tours when Charles Martell, a German, defeated the advancing Muslim army, Hitler held forth: “Had the Arabs won the battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. The Germanic peoples would have become heirs to that religion. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament.”165 Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.166 Hitler concluded this historical speculation with, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”167
Hitler even learned genocide from Islam. Adolph Hitler used what is now called the Armenian holocaust as his model for an even greater holocaust. Ottoman Turks developed techniques that were later used by the Nazis, such as piling 90 people into a train car with a capacity of 36, and leaving them locked in it for days—terrified, starving, and often dead.
“Hitler was even more impressed with how the Turks got away with genocide. On Aug. 22, 1939, Hitler explained that his plans to invade Poland included the formation of death squads that would exterminate men, women, and children. He asked, ‘who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’”168 Heinrich Himmler, a high ranking Nazi stated: “I have nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this division for me and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action, a very practical and attractive religion for soldiers.”169
WHEN ARE CONTRADICTIONS NOT CONTRADICTIONS?
Muslim apologists defend the reputation of the Qur’an by alluding to peaceful verses in an attempt to whitewash the anti-Semitic rhetoric that fills the pages of the Qur’an. It is this type of serpentine “forked-tongue” deception that the Bible warned us of with regard to the Antichrist spirit that: “by peace he will destroy many” (Daniel 8:25). So, how does Allah deceive the faithful and sear the inner conscience to ignore all this peace in the Qur’an? Allah has hidden an ace under his sleeve perhaps like an asp shedding its old skin; the Qur’an has Nasekh, a hermeneutical rule that overrides the tolerant and peaceful verses that Islam considers obsolete—Mansookh. Islam holds to the notion that revelation is progressive, whereby whenever one comes across verses that seem to contradict one another; those newer revelations negate or cancel out the older ones. Anyone who grew up with even a minimal Islamic education understands this. In Mohammed’s early career as a false prophet, he tried appealing kindly to the Jews to win them over, but when the sugar failed, he resorted to very bitter vinegar that composed the majority of curses and condemnation against Jews.
Yet Muslim apologists would deny everything when they speak in English, including this rule. But if the law of abrogation does not exist, then why are Muslims not permitted to drink wine? Especially since the Qur’an permitted it? Yet every Muslim from his youth is taught that this as an abrogated verse. Mohammed had to find a technique to change his mind. How would he then cover all the contradictions? The answer is simple—they are not contradictions, they have been abrogated.
But anti-Semitism in Islam is not limited to the Qur’an; it finds an even fuller expression in the infamous Hadith about the final slaughter of the Jews. This sacred text is continually repeated in Mosques throughout the Middle East: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: ‘Oh faithful Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.’”170
The enmity of Islam toward the Jews has existed since Islam’s inception, yet today this enmity is blamed on Jews for founding the Nation of Israel and causing “the Palestinian plight.” A growing opinion today is that if Israel ceased to exist, then the Jews would finally be left alone. If this is so, then why were there so many massacres committed against Jews by Muslims prior to the establishment of the state of Israel? Islam fills Muslim hearts with a hatred that proceeds forth from the very pit of hell. Consider the words of Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah: “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”171
WHEN THE BRAVE ARE COWARDS
So it does not matter if the Jews had never entered their land or established a state, Nasrallah continues, “if we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology, and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”172 To call the Jews cowardly and weak is hardly the truth. I clearly remember one particularly violent demonstration in my village in Beit Sahur-Bethlehem when I was a teenager. We were all wielding knives and sticks, after having listened to a revolutionary song from the Voice of Palestine Radio calling for demonstrations the night before. They had played songs proclaiming Jews as cowards because they ran from stones. Yet as we threw our stones at them, the Israeli soldiers laid down their machine guns, and came towards us with batons, I will never forget their bravery—a dozen Jews approached hundreds of men. I injured one of them nearly to death. And although he was badly injured with his head gashed in, he stood back up. I asked myself that day about the song that said that the Jew was a coward. I wondered why the stones we threw didn’t make him run—he was a coward, wasn’t he? Every time the Jews tried to demonstrate that they didn’t want to use excessive force against us, though they certainly could have, we took them for granted and considered it cowardly. But I soon began to realize that it was we who stood behind children who were the true cowards.
We hated Jews, period. Not just Zionists as we claimed. The Muslim Student Association of UCLA in front of Americans say that they only hate Zionism, yet in Arabic they chant in front of the Israeli Consulate “Death to the Jews.”173
AND THE COWARDS ARE BRAVE
Today Islam and the Muslim world is undeniably the single-most anti-Semitic force on earth. Palestinians in particular use the anti-Semitic apocalyptic template as a basis for much of their actions against Israel. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, the former officially appointed Imam of the Palestinian Authority could not have made it any more clear: “the decisive battle will be in Jerusalem and its environs: ‘The resurrection of the dead will not occur until you make war on the Jews…’”174 it does not say “defend yourselves against the Jews,” but “make war on the Jews.” Muslims believe that this final slaughter will be an offensive battle. Don’t forget that. Consider the following from “sermon” from the same Sheikh Mahdi:
“Oh Allah, accept our martyrs in the highest heavens…
Oh Allah, show the Jews a black day…
Oh Allah, raise the flag of Jihad across the land…”175
As the world is eagerly awaiting and believing for the peaceful co-existence of the Jewish and the Palestinian people, the very religious leaders of the Palestinian people, with the full support and approval of the political leadership are ceaselessly beating the drums for another final solution. As Moroccan cleric al-Maghili (d. 1505) said “Love of the Prophet [Mohammed] requires hatred of the Jews.”176
48
Both Occupy The Temple Mount
As we were warned by Christ two millennia ago, the Antichrist will make the Temple Mount the specific location of his rule. Why would both accounts whether we study the Mahdi or the Antichrist—both desire to establish their rule from the Temple Mount, regardless that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur’an? Why not Mecca or Medina? Antichrist wants to rule over Jehovah’s Temple. In the early years of Islam, in order to coddle the Jews to his cause, Islam did exalt Jerusalem. But when his attempt failed, Mohammed turned on the Jews and made a practice of praying towards Jerusalem one of the “Mansookh” (cancelled) verses and the command to pray towards Mecca the “Naskh” (abrogating verse). Satan must control Jerusalem because he desires to sit in the true Temple so that he will be like the true God. Antichrist has a dual purpose, he is Anti or “against,” yet he is also an “in place of” Christ.
While the Bible sets forth Jesus as the Messiah and the defender of Israel, Islamic tradition portrays the Mahdi and Jesus as joining with an army of Muslim warriors carrying their black flags of war against the Jews. The Mahdi like Saladin will lead this army to Israel and re-conquer it for Islam. The Jews will be slaughtered until very few remain and Jerusalem will become the location of the Mahdi’s rule over the Earth. Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, in his book, Imam al-Mahdi, the Just Leader of Humanity quotes the following hadith: “Armies carrying black flags will come from Khurasan. No power will be able to stop them and they will finally reach Eela (Baitul Maqdas in Jerusalem) where they will erect their flags.” Baitul Maqdas or “the holy house” is referring to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Could placing flags with the slogan, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his Messenger” in the Temple be the Abomination of Desolation?177 Or could it be that a Black Stone image be set on the Holy of Holies?—only time will tell. In a particularly venomous manner, Egyptian authors, Muhammad ibn Izzat and Muhammad ‘Arif comment on the above tradition: “The Mahdi will be victorious and eradicate those pigs and dogs and the idols of this time so that there will once more be a caliphate based on prophethood as the Hadith states…Jerusalem will be the location of the rightly guided caliphate and the center of Islamic rule, which will be headed by Imam al-Mahdi…That will abolish the leadership of the Jews…and put an end to the domination of the Satans who spit evil into people and cause corruption in the earth, making them slaves of false idols, and ruling the world by laws other than the Sharia (Islamic Law) of the Lord of the worlds.”178 This is astonishing; this evil one is on a mission to change the laws to Islamic Sharia. This law according to Islam came from Allah, the Lord of the worlds, that is, this world and the under world. After this, “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (II Thessalonians 2:4). Today, the Temple Mount, or in Arabic Haram Ash-Sharif, is the location of two Mosques and is considered to be the third holiest site of Islam. The above verse written by the apostle Paul indicates that there will be a rebuilt Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in the future. The apostle Paul says that the Antichrist will “set himself up in God’s Temple,” or more literally, “he takes his seat in the temple of God.” This event was also taught by the early Christian Church. The early Church Father Irenaeus writes: “But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months and will sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire.”179
God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible Page 22
