Standard Missionary Islamophobia

Standard Missionary Islamophobia
by Sh. G. F. Haddad

National media have widely reported that Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Fla., described Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile" during a June 10 sermon and that Vines inferred that Islam teaches the destruction of non-Muslims."
("Comments about Muhammad originate in key Islamic source, profs say", Baptist Press homepage, http://www.bpnews.net/ e m ail: bpress@sbc.net)

The charge of demon possession is an old one. The Qur'an mentions that the pagans of Arabia threw it at the Prophet Muhammad, upon him peace. Jesus was also accused of it. He replied: A house divided cannot stand. In the case of Muhammad, it is the pagans themselves who took back their charge when they reluctantly admitted his Message came from God.

As for the charge of pedophilia, it is new. The reason is modern-day ignorance of the norms of semitic societies for what qualifies as marriageable age and matches. Ignorance by a "pastor" no less. ("Who will protect the flock when the pastors will be the wolves?")

Jesus, also, was early accused of being a whoremonger and Mary was accused of worse. But, says another Baptist apologist, "Christians... understand the salacious slanders are rooted in someone's demented imagination and not in fact."

It is interesting to note that Christians from a very early time criticized (in blissful disregard of the Patriarchs' precedent) the Prophet's practice of polygamy, but not the marriage to ʿA'isha. Certainly, those from a Middle Eastern Semitic background would not have found anything to criticize, since nothing abnormal or immoral took place. It is latter-day Westernized Christians who began to criticize on this point.

See http://www.Islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/aishah.html

As for "Islam teach[ing] the destruction of non-Muslims," have you heard, faithful pastor, of Andalusia? Seven centuries of religious coexistence between the three faiths under Islam. Match this.

It's simply a matter of quoting [Islamic] sources," said Emir Caner, an assistant professor of church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. "If we are wrong in our understanding of the Islamic scriptures, we would be happy to be corrected.

The second sentence contradicts the first. If it were "simply a matter of quoting sources" then how can one be "wrong in our understanding"? This shows that they are aware of their own spin and ultimate dishonesty.

The comments in question cannot be considered bigotry when they come from Islamic writings," Ergun Caner said.

Ah, but the bigotry comes from you, Ergun, and all the glitter and pomp of your world will not unburden you of that responsibility.

A lengthy passage from the Hadith, volume 1, book 1, chapter 1, shows that Muhammad himself believed he was under demonic influence, but it notes that Muhammad's wife is the one who deemed his experience as "divine," Ergun Caner said.

And Jesus at Calvary believed himself forsaken by God in the Gospels. But it would be dishonest to characterize Christians as following one self-described as God-forsaken because there is more to their faith than this.

Concerning terrorism and Islamic jihad, Emir Caner noted variant interpretations by Muslims themselves. Some see jihad as a "spiritual war," and others, "physical," he said.

These are not variances but complementary views which are literally the same as in the Gospel. Jesus said, I did not come to bring peace but a sword, and he said I came to set son against father, daughter against mother, and he said whoever has no sword let him sell everything he owns and buy one, and he said to the disciples, Be cunning as serpents.

Some Muslims want to allegorize their own scriptures because they don't want to defend jihad," Emir Caner said. "But if you take the Koran at its word, or Muhammad at his word, then you'll find physical jihad.

So, the doctrine of righteous self-defense belongs only to Christians?

Islam's tilt toward violence, Emir Caner said, also is reflected in the Koran: "Slay the enemy where you find him, Surah 9.92," whereas Christians are commanded to love their enemies.

Surah 9 is entirely devoted to treaty-breakers. As for the pious lie about Christians loving their enemies, the greatest atrocities the world has ever known were committed by Christian armies and governments, the last to date being the razing of civilian cities in Germany and Japan.

As former Sunni Muslims, the Caners cite the major differences between Islam and Christianity as the "personalness" of God, and "grace as opposed to works."

A fabricated distinction stemming from ignorance. God is so personal in Islam that His 99 beautiful Names are recited by millions of Muslims, among them: Merciful, Kind, Gracious, Clement, Loving, Relenting, Beautiful, Giving, Tender, Cherishing, and they actually pray to Him five times a day and practice almsgiving as a categorical obligation. Christians for the most part talk about love while bombing four fifths of the world, do not exactly know if the Father and Creator is Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and worship on whim.

The Koran says Allah "is as close as your jugular vein, which is a place of fear, not of faith," Emir Caner said.

The jugular vein represents life, not fear, and life comes before faith. The Qur'an says God is present between a person and his own heart in the same sense. One can hardly get a more personal relationship with God.

"As Muslims, grace was a foreign word to us," he said, having noted in an earlier interview that the only way a Muslim can be assured of heaven outside of dying in jihad is whether his good works outweigh his bad ones.

Grace was a foreign word to him not as a Muslim but as an ignoramus. Otherwise he would have known that Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim, the first words of the Qur'an, then repeated 100 times, are about grace!
["In the Name of God all-Gracious, most Merciful"].

Nor is it mainstream Muslim doctrine that works save, but God's grace alone. However, good works are the mark of the faithful.

Christianity is "exclusivistic" in its claims, but universal in its appeal to others, Ergun Caner said. Christianity versus Islam is not a "we win, you lose" outcome, he said. "We want to tell all Muslims everywhere that they can be freed from 'scales of Islam.'"

People are leaving Christianity in droves. Muslims follow Jesus who predicted Muhammad and called him the Spirit of Truth and Holiness. By God's grace, the scales are falling off the eyes of millions of Christians everywhere. This is why Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world.

"But I say there will never be peace, not in Jerusalem, not in the Holy Land, not until the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, comes back.

Definitely. As a Muslim.