THE BIBLICAL VALUES THAT CHANGED ME
To see in a nutshell the difference between Bible values and Islam, a Westerner can simply watch any mosque service—or, better yet, a Muslim government–sponsored mosque service in the Middle East. The opposite is also true; a Muslim who wants to understand that difference should attend a worship service in a church or synagogue.
I learned a lot about the fundamental differences between Biblical values and Islamic values when I first attended church and synagogue. One thing stood out for me, and it probably would grab the attention of most Muslims if they allowed themselves to attend: cursing was simply not part of church and synagogue services. This surprised me because it was so different from what I was used to. The normal ending of a mosque service consists of prayers cursing those whom Islam calls the enemies of Allah.
Praising vs. Cursing
During the church service I could not help but hear in the back of my mind the angry voices of Islamic imams yelling words of incitement and hatred to their captive audience: impressionable and vulnerable young men. Below are excerpts from mosque preaching by different imams, aired on several Arab government TV stations:
• “O Allah vanquish the unjust Christians and the criminal Jews, the unjust traitors; strike them with your wrath; make their lives hostage to misery; drape them with endless despair, unrelenting pain and unremitting ailment; fill their lives with sorrow and pain and end their lives in humiliation and oppression; inflict your tortures and punishments upon the unjust Christians and criminal Jews. This is our supplication, Allah; grant us our request!” (from a Friday prayer service at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city)1
• “May Allah cut your tongue out! May he freeze the blood in your veins! May he inflict you with cancer and allow you no reprieve. . . . Allah, strike them with all sorts of disease, afflictions and pain! Allah, strike them with cancer! Allah, let your prophet overpower them! Allah destroy them! Allah destroy them! Allah destroy them! Allah destroy the criminals who challenge the noble prophet! [At this point, the preacher switched to very serenely addressing his Muslim viewers.] And peace upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.” (popular Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad al-Zoghbi)2
• “Today, we realize why the [Jews] build walls. They do not do this to stop missiles, but to prevent the slitting of their throats. . . . My brother in the West Bank: Stab! . . . Today, we have declared a curfew (in Israel). . . . Stay at home, or go outside to your death. if you get out of your homes you’ll be killed. . . . Now, we are imposing a curfew with daggers. . . . Oh Prophet of Allah, incite the believers to fight. . . . Allah has brought the Jews, His enemies and the enemies of humanity. . . . Form stabbing squads. . . . Attack them in groups, cut them into body parts” (from an October 9, 2015, Friday sermon at the Al-Abrar Mosque in Rafah, Gaza, by Sheikh Muhammad Sallah, who brandished a knife as he was preaching).3
Growing up with this kind of religious message, I was amazed that there was no cursing at all in Christian worship services. Eventually I learned that the Bible itself forbids Christians to curse their enemies: “Bless them which persecute you; bless, and curse not” (Romans 12:14; see also I Peter 3:9).
There should be no doubt about the direct link between the widespread incitement to terrorize, stab, and kill coming from Islamic places of worship and the phenomenon of worldwide Islamic terrorism and the rash of knife attacks on Jews in Israel. Some Muslim defenders of Islam like to blame the phenomenon on misguided and ignorant Muslim preachers, even though preaching like this is heard in the most prestigious mosques in the Muslim world. I beg to disagree. These preachers and the governments that pay their salaries did not invent cursing and preaching terror; the source of their vitriol is the Koran itself, and the example of Muhammad, who dedicated his dawn-time prayers to cursing his personal enemies. What a contrast to Jesus’ teaching: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
Islam enthusiastically supports the cursing of non-Muslims by Muslims. And of course the opposite is forbidden by sharia law, on pain of death: if a non-Muslim is caught cursing Muslims, Muhammad, or Islam, or exposing the weakness of Muslims he is punished under the laws of blasphemy. Christians and Jews of the Middle East have lived with these laws for centuries. While hearing imams curse them day and night, they must tolerate it and never return the curse, or they will incur the Islamic penalty of death for blasphemy.
The dehumanization of non-Muslims in the Islamic world has been covered up—not only by Muslims but also by the international community. This injustice needs to be exposed for what it really is: a crime against humanity. This fact often hits me like a ton of bricks when I am at church listening to a sermon. As a new Christian, I often held back my tears when I looked around me and realized I was surrounded by the people Islam calls “enemies of Allah.” The contrast between mosque and church services was as different as night and day.
It was only after I became Christian that I became fully aware of the depravity I had lived under. My heart was broken for the millions still living under Islamic slavery, robbed of their God-given freedom to discover the liberating truth of the Bible. The process of recovery from Islam took a while, but I am happy to say that I am now a new person in Christ. I wish the same healing for the Muslim people, whom I love and pray for.
It was the churches of America that helped in my transformation by messages of praise, love, fellowship, and peace. It was a blessing to leave behind the cursing culture of the mosque and become part of a culture of praise and blessing in the churches of America. Finally I was able to feel reconciled with God, with myself, and with the rest of humanity.
Looking back on the tragedy of cursing prayers in Islam, I am saddened to say that the majority of Muslims have no idea that the cursing, incitement to do violence, and profanity coming out of the mouths of Muslim preachers are in any way wrong or inappropriate. In fact during mosque services most of the worshippers respond to the cursing prayers at the end with a loud “Amen,” considering them justified, normal, and even holy.
Personal Prayer vs. Exhibitionist Prayers
Prayers are commanded in both the Bible and the Koran, but Biblical prayers and Islamic prayers are totally different in multiple ways—in their purpose, in how and where they are performed, and in whether they are a private matter or mandated by the state.
Biblical prayers are usually discreet. In Christianity prayer is regarded as a personal matter between believers and God. Christians also pray together in fellowship within their families, at meals, at social gatherings, and at church services. The Biblical purposes of prayers are many, among which are to worship and be conscious of the presence of God; to draw closer to God; to give thanks, to confess and repent our sins; to ask for forgiveness and blessings; to ask God to change us from inside, empower us, and bring good results in the world around us; and above all to surrender ourselves into His hands.
The Bible tells Christians, “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7). It also says, “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). Christians describe prayers as the way that the life of God in us is nourished and say that prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.
Christians pray in private in obedience to Jesus, Who said, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:5–6).
The Bible does not tell Christians and Jews to coerce, pressure, or shame others to pray. In Islam, however, prayers are not a private matter but socially enforced and in some cases made mandatory by the government. Islamic prayers are also ritualistic and synchronized; the words whispered are mandated. Men stand in a line shoulder to shoulder on prayer rugs and are led by an imam who initiates the prayers with a loud “Allahu akbar!,” meaning “Allah is greater.”
Christians do use some memorized prayers, especially the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus taught His disciples. But Christians typically pray in their own words, instead of repeating from rote memorization. As Jesus said, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:7–8).
In Islamic theocracies such as Saudi Arabia, prayer is an institutionalized activity overseen by a special religious police force called the virtue police. In less radical Muslim countries like Egypt, prayer is enforced socially and often by the family.
Even in the West, Muslims come under social pressure to pray. A young Muslim man from Morocco confided in me on a visit to the United States that he had converted to Christianity but was unable to practice his new faith because of family pressure. They insisted on taking him to the mosque every Friday, and he was afraid they would discover his secret conversion. Today that young man is a good friend, a practicing Christian, and a loyal American citizen.
In 2001, just a few weeks before 9/11, my children, who were all born in the U.S., visited Egypt with me for the first time. My twenty- and eighteen-year-olds woke me up at 6:00 a.m. at my mother’s home, in a nicer area of Cairo called Maadi, asking me if there was an emergency because of the loudspeakers blasting from every direction around the neighborhood. I laughed and told them that it was just the call for prayers from several area mosques surrounding us. It has been a custom since the invention of loudspeakers for mosques to use them for the call for prayers five times a day. My nephew once jokingly said that mosque sheikhs love to wake us “kafirs” all up to force us out of bed at 6:00 a.m.
The Islamic requirement to pray under societal pressure and the threat of punishment comes straight from Muhammad, who established many of the traditions still followed by Muslims today. For instance, the Prophet made it compulsory for all of his companions to gather at his mosque for prayers five times a day. Muhammad wanted to keep a close eye on them so none would abandon Islam or join forces with the people of Mecca against Muhammad.
A hadith describes how Muhammad went as far as punishing those who missed prayers with him by burning them inside their homes “The Prophet said, ‘Burn all those who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes’” (Bukhari 1.11.626). Another hadith quotes the Prophet explaining this pattern of behavior: “I would order someone to collect firewood and another to lead prayer. Then I would burn the houses of men who did not present themselves at the compulsory prayer and prostration” (Bukhari 1.11.617).
The tradition of forced prayers established by Muhammad is still carried on today. In 2016 the Islamic State beheaded a fourteen-year-old boy in front of his parents for missing prayers.4
Islamic prayers are often performed in public streets and squares (reminiscent of Jesus’ words about how “they love to pray standing . . . in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men,” rather than indoors or in a private setting. Muslims often feel it is their right to stop traffic and close businesses to perform their mandatory religious duty and to remind everyone else of it.
Such prayers, causing traffic jams, blocking sidewalks, and accompanied with loudspeakers, have a strong element of exhibitionism. Islam is all about making an impression on others to express Islamic unity, power, obedience, submission, and solidarity. Some radicals even use street prayers as a way to intimidate non-Muslims and to convey an “us against them” show of force.
Christians in Egypt, who are not allowed to show any of their religious rituals and celebrations in public, usually avoid walking near mosques during the Friday prayers. This is because of fear of being targeted after an inciting sermon against the kafir Christians and Jews. Christians and Jews often hear Muslim preachers curse them on loudspeakers and TV sermons, and they must never object.
Mosques in the U.S. that I have personally attended encouraged prayers anywhere in public—on streets; in airports; inside airplanes, office buildings, and museums; and even at sporting events. Group Muslim public prayers do not happen by coincidence; they are planned. I personally heard Muslims planning to meet in a certain location to pray in public. The point is to impress on the American public how holy and devoted Islam is—and also to intimidate non-Muslims.
Islamic leadership in the West tell Muslims to demand Islamic prayer accommodations, such as special prayer rooms for Muslims and foot-level faucets (for the foot-washing that Islam requires before daily prayers) at their work places and on college campuses. Recently Muslims demanded a special prayer room at a Catholic university because crosses are offensive to Muslims.5
When I heard such demands by Muslims in the West, I knew immediately it was the same old game of intimidation and “I am offended” that was used against Christians and Jews in the Middle East. In the mind of Muslims, only they have the right not to be offended; everyone else must abide by their rules. Pushing the envelope and testing the patience of non-Muslims is a way of life in the Muslim world, something that the West does not yet understand.
When I worked at the Middle East News Agency, in Cairo, there were no prayer rooms for employees and no foot-level faucets either. The Cairo airport never had any prayer rooms or special faucets at the time. Muslims simply want to push the envelope with intimidation to see how far the West will go out of its way to accommodate demands that are extreme even by a moderate Muslim country.
Some Muslims want to demand a holy life style, like that at Mecca, be provided to them at taxpayer expense in the West. I often don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see Islamic exhibitionist intimidation playing out in public. I once saw several Muslim mothers in the Burbank, California, airport blocking a corridor to pray while their kids ran wild. It was not easy for me to get around them with my luggage while their children were bumping into me. I knew exactly what their purpose was, and it was not communion with God. It was a show of power and intimidation to tell America, We are here, we are Muslims.
In 2014, a Muslim family filed a $5 million lawsuit against the owners of the Empire State Building, claiming they had been booted out of the building’s observation deck because they were praying together there.6
On a recent flight to the Philippines a Muslim man stood by the door of the airplane and shouted “Allahu akbar!,” calling out that it was time for prayers and causing a scare among passengers.
There is a popular video on YouTube of an attractive Muslim woman with lots of makeup praying on different street corners in New York City. She engaged in these very public prayers and had them videotaped by her friends to make some kind of statement—to impress passersby, to look holier than thou, or to claim she is a victim and accuse ignorant Americans of being Islamophobes.7
I wonder what would happen to a Jew or Christian if he did the same thing, pray on public street corners in Islamic countries? I would like to suggest to this Muslim woman trying to teach Americans a lesson on respecting freedom of faith not to throw rocks when you live in a glass house.
A message of one-sided rights for Muslims only is promoted by Islamic leadership in America, who cannot help but follow the model of the tyrannical Islamic sharia of the Middle East. Such leaders call themselves moderate, but they have never publicly protested the mistreatment and mass murder of Christians in the Middle East, the practice of not allowing Christians to pray or hold a Bible in public, and the burning of churches that are not allowed to be rebuilt.
Prayers for All vs. Prayers Only for Muslims
While Christians and Jews pray for everyone, Muslims are prohibited from praying for non-Muslims. In the Koran Allah clearly tells Muhammad not to pray for dead disbelievers nor attend their funerals: “never offer prayer for any one of them who dies and do not stand by his grave; surely they disbelieve in Allah and His Messenger and they shall die in transgression” (9:84). “It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to pray for the forgiveness of idolaters even though they may be near of kin after it hath become clear that they are people of hell-fire” (9:113).
The Koran also says that it is pointless to pray for forgiveness for non-Muslims. Such prayers will not be accepted by Allah: “Ask forgiveness for them, (O Muhammad), or do not ask forgiveness for them. If you should ask forgiveness for them seventy times never will Allah forgive them. That is because they disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger, and Allah does not guide the defiantly disobedient people” (9:80). Allah’s unforgiving attitude makes him very different from the God of the Bible, Who, as we have seen, does not want the wicked to die, but to “return from his ways, and live” (Ezekiel 18:23). The Koranic principle that asking forgiveness for non-Muslims even “seventy times” is useless is an ironic contrast with Jesus’ command to forgive sinners “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21).
After a recent Islamic terrorist attack in Brussels, a Belgian Muslim Iman said that to pray for the non-Muslim victims of terror at the hands of Muslim terrorist is against Islamic law.8
One of the most touching experiences I felt after I moved to America was when my American neighbor told me that she was going to pray for me. The words, “I will pray for you,” were amazing to hear and unheard of in Muslim society even among Muslims.
In that sense Islamic prayers fundamentally differ from Christian or Jewish prayers in every way.
Vengeance Is the Lord’s vs. Vengeance Is Prescribed For Muslims
The overwhelming message of the Bible is love, peace, forgiveness, wisdom, and that vengeance is to be left to God. What I personally feel after reading the Bible is freedom from the urge to be vengeful of someone who hurt me. Proverbs 20:22 says, “Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.” Romans 12:19 reads, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
Even though the Old Testament does have the law of retaliation—“An eye for an eye” (Exodus 21: 24, Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy 19:21, as quoted in Matthew 5:38), the majority of rabbis do not interpret the law literally. The Old Testament also includes many messages of forgiveness, telling the people of Israel to leave vengeance to God: “To me belongeth vengeance” (Deuteronomy 32:35). “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18).
The Koran adopted the law of retaliation (“qasas” in Arabic), taking it literally: “O you who have believed, retaliation (qasas) is prescribed for you for those murdered—the free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. . . . He who transgresseth after this will have a painful doom” (2:178). The last sentence in this verse tells Muslims that if you don’t follow the law of qasas, or retaliation, a painful doom will be awaiting you. And so they do follow it. Just sixteen years ago an Egyptian man had an eye surgically removed in a Saudi hospital as punishment for an acid attack he had carried out against another Egyptian.9
The God of the Bible never commands Christians or Jews to do vengeance on His behalf or for His own sake. As we have already seen in the last chapter, Allah does.
Arab scholar Dr. Sania Hamady, one of the greatest authorities on Arab psychology, has said, “There are three fundamentals of Arab society . . . shame, honor and revenge.”10
The reason vengeance is a fundamental feature of Arab society is that Allah himself promoted values of vengeance and not values of forgiveness in the Koran: “Lo! Those who disbelieve and deal in wrong, Allah will never forgive them, neither will he guide them unto a road” (4:168). “Indeed, the vengeance of your Lord is severe” (85:12). “Surely (the ones) who have disbelieved in the signs of Allah will have a strict torment, and Allah is Ever-Mighty, Owner of vengeance” (3:4).
Vengeance is rooted and enshrined as a value in the Koran. Muhammad obliged Muslims to perform cruel, disproportionate, and irreversible punishments against others; punishments that amount to extreme vengeance, cruelty, and anger. It has always been the law in Islam, from in the seventh century up until today, to literally cut the hands off thieves, stone adulterers, behead apostates, and blasphemers and throw gays off of buildings. Muslims who were repulsed by carrying out such punishments were told by Muhammad that vengeance was good and healthy for them: “And there is life for you in retaliation, O men of understanding, that ye may ward off (evil)” (Koran 2:179).
In the Koran Allah says, “And who is more unjust than he who is reminded of the signs of his Lord, thereafter veers away from them? Surely We will be the Avengers against [Literally: avenge (Ourselves)] the criminals” (32:22). The Arabic word for revenge in this verse is “muntaquimun,” which literally means vengeance. But some Muslim translators try to soften the message of the Koran by falsely translating muntaquimun as retribution or requite: “And who doth greater wrong than he who is reminded of the revelations of his Lord, then turneth from them. Lo! We shall requite the guilty.” The people who are called “guilty” and “criminals” in the Koran are simply people who were offered the Koran but turned it down; in other words the Koran here is encouraging vengeance against non-Muslims whose only act of criminality is to dare reject Islam.
Promoters and defenders of Islam in the West are constantly warning against the danger that Americans may judge or retaliate against all Muslims because of the actions of a few Muslim terrorists. And yet Muslims are taught by their own religion to take vengeance against non-Muslims for the crime of rejecting Muhammad’s Koran. They seem to be unaware of the contradictions in their position: they demand forgiveness from the world for terrorism, which they claim is perpetrated by just a few bad apples, while at the same time they must obey Allah’s commandment to do vengeance and jihad against those who reject the Koran.
Muhammad’s dedication of his entire religion to vengeance against those who rejected it has caused the world a lot of bloodshed. Islam is literally all about vengeance.
There is a fundamental difference in worldview between Christianity and Islam. Christianity accepts the fact that we live in an imperfect world where perfect justice is unattainable and consequently the wicked can often prosper in our world. The God of the New Testament is patient, letting good and evil men “both grow together” until “the end of this world” (Matthew 13:30, 40). Jesus says that His Father “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” alike (Matthew 5:45). Islam, on the other hand, is obsessed with molding this world into perfection by forcing human beings into perfect submission. Muslims believe that perfect peace can and will come on Earth when Islam wins over all nations and takes control of world government under the Islamic Ummah. Consequently, in pursuit of a worldwide Islamic State, Muslims allow themselves to use any means for the destruction of everything un-Islamic.
Six hundred years after Christ taught humanity forgiveness, love, and salvation, Muhammad turned back the clock to bloody vengeance.
Forgiveness and Mercy vs. Reveling in Unforgiveness
Muslims call Allah “the merciful,” but for the most part the Koran is about unforgiveness and reveling in torturing and humiliation. One must read a credible translation of the Koran to understand the extent of Allah’s anger and vindictiveness.
Allah seems to revel in torturing those who turn their backs on Islam, “yoked together in chains, wearing shirts of tar, their faces enveloped in the Fire.” (49–50). They will “stare in terror” (21:97). and be “made to drink pus”—“he gulps at it but can hardly swallow it down. Death comes at him from every side but he does not die. And beyond him is relentless punishment” (14:17). “[T]he sinner’s desire will be: Would that he could redeem himself from the Penalty of that Day by (sacrificing) his children, and his wife and his brother, and his kindred who sheltered him, and all that are in the earth, so that it might save him. By no means! Verily, it will be the Fire of Hell! Taking away (burning completely) the head skin! It invites he who turned his back [on truth] and went away [from obedience]” (Koran 70:11–17).
While Jesus also warns about hellfire in the New Testament, His descriptions are not anything like as graphic as Muhammad’s. The Prophet and his God seem to take an unhealthy delight in the punishments they are promising.
Allah is also comfortable with extreme humiliation and public disgrace in this life. He describes the shame of those he wants to punish: “And those who earn ill-deeds, (for them) requital of each ill-deed by the like thereof; and ignominy overtaketh them—they have no protector from Allah—as if their faces had been covered with a cloak of darkest night. . . .” (Koran 10:27).
The Koran mentions Allah’s humiliation and painful torment of his enemies 420 times.11 But the joy of vindictiveness does not end there. Allah appears to be giving a lesson on torture: “Like boiling oil, it will boil in the bellies, Like the boiling of scalding water. Seize him and drag him into the midst of Blazing Fire. Then pour over his head the torment of boiling water” (Koran 44:45–48).
Biblical Angels vs. Islam’s Warring and Vindictive Angels and Jinn
In the Bible, angels are spiritual beings created by God to serve Him. Some angels remained obedient to God, while others disobeyed Him and fell from Heaven. These bad, fallen angels are called demons or devils, and they stand in active opposition to the work and plan of God. Christians are warned to be on guard against the deception of the bad angels (demons), especially of Satan, the chief fallen angel: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
The Bible teaches that angels guard those who make the Lord their refuges (Psalms 91:11). They protect us from physical harm and give strength to overcome difficulties. Angels also proclaim God’s Truth and do battle with Satan and his demons.
The good angels in Islam, however, are totally different from the good angels in the Bible. Muhammad claimed to have communicated with angels, including Gabriel, who he said had relayed the Koran to him. Muhammad told his reluctant fighters that angels under the leadership of Gabriel accompanied Muhammad to battle and helped him persuade people to convert to Islam.
Muhammad told stories of how Gabriel mounted a horse called Haizum, and fought alongside Muhammad in his battle dreams. The angel Gabriel even amassed an army force of three thousand angels to fight with Muhammad against his enemies in the battle of Badr.
Muhammad’s angels also help Allah at the doors of Hell. The Koran describes angels standing at the door of Hell: “when the angels take the souls of the Unbelievers (at death), (how) they smite their faces and their backs, (saying): ‘Taste the penalty of the blazing Fire’” (8:50).
Jinn are supposed to be supernatural creatures that Arabs in the culture that preexisted Islam believed in. They were retained by Islam; in fact, an entire chapter of the Koran, called “Al-Jinn,” is dedicated to them (chapter 72). When I was a Muslim I never personally believed in jinn, but I heard many stories of how people had to protect themselves from jinn and of people who used jinn to empower themselves against others. Belief in jinn has caused social and cultural trauma in the Muslim world, victimized many people, and caused mental problems for some Muslims. This superstitious side of Islam is often denied by Muslims. But it should be hard to deny because it is in the Koran.
American TV shows on Arabian “jeanies” are not total fabrications after all.
Upholding Human Rights vs. Sacrificing Human Rights
Many people in the West paint all religions with the same brush. Some assume that Islam is as peace-loving and respectful of human rights as Christianity, while others see all religions as anti–human rights. But the truth is that Biblical values and the Ten Commandments have been proven to be in harmony with human or natural rights—in fact they are the ultimate source of those rights, expressed in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, for example—and that the same cannot be said of Islam and its laws.
The list of Islam’s violations of the basic human rights and freedoms of both Muslims and non-Muslims is very long. Here is a brief list of some Islamic laws and doctrines that violate human rights:
1. No freedom of religion.
2. No freedom of speech.
3. All men are not created equal.
4. Lying and slander are an obligation.
5. Cruel and unusual punishments are in store for those who disobey Islamic law.
6. Killers of apostates, adulterers, and parents who kill their offspring are protected from prosecution.
7. The right of non-Muslim countries to protect themselves against Islamic jihad is denied under the laws of sharia.
8. A Muslim head of State can come to power through force, without the consent of the people.
9. The Muslim public has the right to remove a Muslim head of State from office at any time if he is no longer a Muslim or refuses to rule by sharia.
10. The age limit for marriage for girls is nine.
11. A husband has the right to beat his wife.
12. A husband can divorce his wife, but she cannot divorce him.
13. The Testimony of a woman in court is half the value of a man’s.
14. To prove rape a woman must have four male witnesses.
15. Slavery is legal under Islamic law and is still unofficially practiced in many Islamic countries—and officially in the Islamic State.
16. Islam guarantees Paradise only to those who kill and are killed in jihad against the enemies of Allah (non-Muslims).
Islamic law also allows jihadists, those who are fighting for the expansion of Islam, to rape, enslave, and take possession of the property of non-Muslims. There are “fatwas” (Islamic rulings based on sharia) that allow girls to give themselves to the mujahideen in Syria. Even homosexuality, which is prohibited in Islam, is allowed for suicide bombers. In 2010 a fatwa was issued in an Arabic news video permitting sodomy to a suicide bomber to “widen” his anus in order to accommodate the explosives. That video, which I have personally watched, has recently been removed from the internet after Islamic leaders felt the public backlash.12
Islam is simply not compatible with human rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It demands that human rights and basic decency be sacrificed to empower Islam’s totalitarian ambitions over people, territory, and governments.
That might explain why almost all Muslim countries are in constant political instability, coups d’état, and revolutions, with Islamists wanting to take control of government by force. Unless those who are loyal to Islam have total control over the government, they cannot impose sharia, and thus they feel impotent. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, “A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.” Islam demands and even romanticizes absolute government of the entire human race under sharia law. And its proponents have absolute contempt for their fellow man, and for his rights.
Islam has contempt for human rights because they conflict with Islamic goals of totalitarian control. That is just another major example of the differences between the Bible and Islam. The Bible is a bulwark protecting us from the tyranny of man on man and government on citizen, but Islam came to reinstate the enslavement of man to man and individuals to their rulers.
Work Ethic vs. Wealth through Conquest
The Bible is filled with verses on the ethics of hard work and relying on one’s own labor: “For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee” (Psalms 128:2). “Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established” (Proverbs 16:3). “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4).
The Bible commends those who work hard: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4). “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute” (Proverbs 12:24). All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Both Old and New Testaments make it clear that hard work should benefit the worker: “The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits” (Proverbs 14:23). “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10). “The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits” (II Timothy 2:6).
The work ethic found in the Bible has blessed the West for centuries with a prosperous civilization. Today, despite the petro dollars, many majority-Muslim countries are among the poorest nations in the world. Besides being poor, the Muslim world also contains the most war-torn, unstable, and chaotic places to live. Muslim refugees are pouring into the Biblical West without realizing that their own religion has not promoted the political, social, economic, and spiritual environment for prosperity and stability.
Even though the Koran, like the Bible, warns Muslims not to get attached to material wealth, Islamic values about acquiring wealth are totally different from those of the Bible. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, bragged that he acquired wealth through terror: “I have been made victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy), and while I was asleep, the keys of the treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand. . . .” (Bukhari 4:52:220).
Islamic values on this, as on every other subject, are rooted in the example and life of Muhammad. And Muhammad accumulated his wealth through offensive wars and battles against tribes that refused to convert to Islam.
Muhammad rewarded Muslim fighters who died with Paradise and those who survived with wealth: “Allah guarantees that He will admit the ‘mujahid’ in His cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safety with rewards and war booty” (Bukhari 4:52:46).
The last ten years in Muhammad’s life were nothing but a series of battles and attacks on others to expand his power and acquire wealth—goods, land, homes, and slaves—from his enemies. Under Islamic law these are the lawful spoils of war.
The example of Muhammad and his Muslim fighters is in stark contrast to that of the Mecca merchants and to the Jews who lived in Medina, the same town as Muhammad.
Three major Jewish tribes resided in Medina before the arrival of Muhammad. It was not hard for the outside world to notice how different Muhammad and Jewish tribes were when it came to earning their living. The Jews became prosperous through hard work: tool-making, agriculture, and trade. Before Muhammad, Medina attracted some poorer Arab tribes who were able to benefit from the prosperous Jewish economy. It was these poor Arab tribes who invited Muhammad to move in after they converted to Islam.
Muhammad utilized the poor Arabs of Medina to build wealth through war instead of following the example of the Jews that those Arabs originally worked for. Muhammad destroyed, burnt, enslaved, and beheaded his way to wealth, all taken from his victims, whom he called “kafirs.” The “spoils of war” were a big motivation for his fighters, and a whole chapter in the Koran is dedicated to their legitimacy. Muhammad made sure to announce a law saying that he and Allah were to take one fifth of the booty (8:41), and he warned his fighters against stealing any of it (Reliance w52.1).
The contrast between the style of life of Muhammad and his fighters and the Jewish tribes probably alarmed the Jews—with good reason. Muhammad, who called himself an Abrahamic prophet, envied the Jews’ power, wealth, property, and women. Muhammad’s solution was to expel two of the Jewish tribes, seize their property, and give four-fifths of it to his fighters as a reward. The six to nine hundred men of the third Jewish tribe were all beheaded. After the slaughter, Muhammad had his first pick of the women, who were divided amongst the Muslims as sexual slaves. The Jewish children, women, land, homes, cattle, and goods were Allah’s gift to Muhammad and his fighters.
It may be that the mere existence of Jews and their hard-working way of life made Muhammad look and feel illegitimate. In any case, he wanted their possessions. The Jews had to be gotten rid of. And not just the Jews of Medina. Muhammad entrusted Muslims till the end of time with the mission of killing Jews wherever they find them. After Muhammad died, his followers continued to hunt down and kill Jews until finally, one hundred years later, they built a mosque right on top of the ruins of Solomon’s Temple, thinking they had erased Jewish history from existence.
Conquest became the most honorable model for acquiring wealth in Islam. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, all the wealth in Kuwait that could be removed was taken by the Iraqi soldiers. That was sharia-approved behavior.
This has always been the model for Muslims to build wealth. Islam became an ever-expanding machine of conquest that could not stop—or else it would run out of money—sucking up the wealth of many great civilizations including Persia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Coptic Christian Egypt, and the Biblical lands in and around Jerusalem. And it explains why manual labor and those who work in both farming and trade are looked down upon in Muslim culture and often despised and treated as slaves.
Today, as Muslims are escaping their vast, poverty-stricken Islamic territories in fifty-four Islamic nations for the greener lands of Europe and America, Westerners seem to think they are rescuing refugees. But this is just the latest version of a story that has been repeating itself for fourteen hundred years.
Muslim clerics today are still advocating jihad for the acquisition of wealth. Prominent Egyptian sheikh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni gave a recorded lecture on how Muslims’ financial difficulties are due to the fact that they have abandoned jihad. The solution, he told the Muslims attending his lecture, is to go back to jihadist raids a few times a year. The purpose of the jihad Huwayni was recommending would be to bring back wealth and slaves—prisoners of war including women and children—who could be sold in the market to bring in extra income when times are tough for Muslims. His lecture explained the economic benefits of the sharia code: after Muslims do an offensive invasion of a non-Muslim nation, the properties and persons of infidels are to be seized as “ghanima” or “spoils of war.”13
But at least one Muslim leader has noticed that the lack of a work ethic is hurting the Islamic world and tried to come up with an argument for recommending one from Islamic sources. “[W]e (the Muslim World) don’t work and if we work, we don’t do it professionally. We do not produce . . . and we import everything from the needle to missiles,” said Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He admitted that he could not find one Koran verse or hadith about a proper work ethic. But he did say that “Muhammad ordered us to excel in everything ‘if you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly . . .’ How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us? They have become superior through knowledge and technology and work ethics.”14
The lack of a work ethic in the Islamic world helps explain why Muslims’ eyes are always focused on the outside, non-Muslim world, the greener pastures, for more and more to conquer and expand into. Capturing wealth from others rather than creating wealth is an Islamic value, established as an honorable and holy legal right of Muslims. As Muhammad said, “Booty has been made legal for me” (Bukhari 53:351).
The Islamic model of acquiring wealth that was promoted by Muhammad is unsustainable. It only keeps digging Muslim nations into more war, terror, bloodshed, and poverty.
Muslim leaders today can no longer openly use piracy on Western ships or engage in government-against-government jihad because it is against international law. In addition, Muslim nations are weaker militarily compared to the West, at least at the present. Muslim ambassadors today can no longer afford to be as honest as their counterparts two hundred years ago. During the Barbary wars the Tripoly envoy, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, told Thomas Jefferson and John Adams that Muslims’ rights to piracy against American ships was “written in their Koran.”
Muslim governments today have no choice but to delegate the job of holy jihad to paramilitary groups, called jihadis in the Muslim world, but terrorists in the West. Many such groups are created, coddled, and financed by Muslim governments and ironically many threaten the Muslim governments that created them. Under Islamic law jihad should be the job of every Muslim head of State, but today the power of the West and of international institutions founded by the West has forced many Muslim governments into a love-hate relationship with jihad and jihadist groups.
Unlike the Tripoli ambassador, Muslim leaders today insist that neither they nor Islam have anything to do with terrorism, and many Western leaders repeat this lesson.
Islamic governments and groups who are really engaged in jihad, as they are required to do under Islamic sharia law, must convince the world that they have a different cause, one that is just and noble. Daily Islamic attacks, terror, and aggression must be explained as in aid of liberation from occupation and imperialism, righting past injustices, or addressing land and border disputes. Muslims must appear to the world to be the victims in order to justify jihad. Many people around the world have fallen for claims that Muslims are victims rather than aggressors. Today Europe and America are rescuing Muslim refugees rather than rescuing the people being targeted by the jihad: Coptic Christians, Yazidis, or Kurds.
Islam’s long history of wealth creation through terror and conquering continues today, but the West today is still in denial and refuses to learn from history.
More than Conquerors vs. to Conquer Is to Prevail
Conquering has a totally different meaning in the Bible from in the Koran. Romans 8:36–37 says, “As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
Those Bible verses appear to speak directly to me about my life of suffering under Islamic oppression and terror. With Christ’s love I have become more than a conqueror, and that with Jesus, I have been saved from a horrific life of conquering—a very different kind from the conquering that the Bible promises Christians—for which my father lost his life.
Values of conquering are all over the Koran and unfortunately ingrained in the psyche of most Muslims as the highest honor.
I once saw an Egyptian tourist in a U.S. airport wearing a provocative tee shirt that Americans hardly noticed; they did not even understood its meaning. The shirt said “To conquer is to prevail.” That pretty much sums up the purpose of Islam and its goals in America and around the world. Islamic values are often paraded before the eyes of the West, but few ever notice. After a few moments of internal outrage and sadness over the obvious challenge to the West by Muslims, my mind took me to Romans 8:37: “We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Unlike the Bible, Islam measures its success as a religion by its ability to violently conquer. The aim of Islam is to control governments and people and suck the wealth of a nation dry. Islamic preaching is all about triumph—prevailing over all nations and religions. There are many video clips of Muslim preachers stating in no uncertain words that they want to turn the White House into the Muslim House and conquer Buckingham Palace, Rome, and so forth, to turn them into Muslim capitals. This is how Islam measures religious success.
Muhammad is quoted as saying: “Verily Allah has shown me the eastern and western part of the earth, and I saw the authority of my Ummah (nation) dominate ALL that I saw” (Muslim, 2889). As the prominent twentieth-century Islamic scholar Abul A’la Maududi said, “The purpose of the Holy Prophet’s appointment as a Prophet was not merely to preach this Religion, but to make it prevail over all others.”15