Islamic view of Christians

Islam has two views of Christians (which should not be surprising since, as noted in my recent posts, there is a duality in Islam). The first view is that Christianity and Islam are ‘brother’ religions. The second view is that Christians must change their religion to meet the demands of Islam. Modern Christians want to believe that there is a bridge between Islam and Christianity. But the history of Islam shows that Islam works first to deceive, and then annihilate, Christianity. For 1400 years, Islam has destroyed Christian lands.

The Christians do not play a pivotal role like the Jews did, in the formation of Islam. That is, the Koran does not have a lot to say about Christians. Nor does the Sira (the life of Mohammed) have much to say about Christians. But Islam's attitude toward Christians can be seen in some of the final days of Mohammed's life, when he sent out troops against the Christians in the North of Syria. It was Mohammed's intent to attack the Christians. Soon after he died, that's exactly what occurred. Though the Christians did not play a pivotal role in the formation of Islam, the Christians did, however, play a very important role in the history of Islam. Remember that all the Middle East, North Africa, and what we now call Turkey, was Christian.

Since these areas are Islamic today, there is a history there, but let's take a look at Islam through a more modern eye. Two days after 9/11, phone calls started going out to all of the churches, with the request: “Let us send a Muslim to your church, and he will tell you about Islam, the peaceful religion.” Well, one church decided to go one better. They invited a group of imams (the imams are Muslim religious leaders); they also invited several Christian ministers. The Christians arrived that night in groups of ones and twos. Then, about the time the meeting was to start, in came all the Muslims. The imams came in as a group onto the stage, and the Muslim men filed in next. They surrounded the Christians in their seats. And then, the Muslim women came in, all dressed in black, from head to toe, and they sat in the back of the room. As Muslim women, they knew what their place was in public gatherings.

The first thing that happened was, an imam walked up to the lectern and placed a very large Koran on top, and opened it up about half-way. This was a symbolic act that was indicative of the entire night. The Christians didn't think anything about it one way or the other, but for the Muslims, it was a mark of who they were.

You see, Islam is a word that means ‘submission.’ In Islam, ‘submission’ has several meanings. For the Muslim, it means to submit to the Koran, the will of Allah and the sunnah of Mohammed. In addition, all Muslims are to make all others who are not Muslims, submit to them. So, they were there to dominate. What the Muslims did was to place the Koran as the focal point of dominance, because this is where, normally, the Bible would have been. This act of dominance was symbolic of the entire night.

One of the imams got up and started to give his talk. He first said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Well, that seemed like a good foot to get started on. Of course, it is not true, but since the Christians did not know anything about the god Allah, that seemed fine to them. The imam said they, too, honor Jesus, because Jesus was a prophet of Allah, and Jesus was a Muslim. He also explained that Jesus was not the Son of God; He was merely a Muslim prophet. And for that matter, the apostles were also Muslims. This came perhaps as a surprise to the ministers, but they didn't say anything. The imam then went ahead to say that Jesus was not crucified, and therefore was not resurrected.

The next thing he told the Christians was that the concept of the Trinity was a great affront to Allah. There was no such thing as the Trinity, and such a doctrine made the Christians polytheists. The fact that Christians are viewed as polytheists explains something that happened at the beginning, when the Christian minister first said, “Let us pray together.” There was almost a panicked response from the imams at this. "No," they said, "No! We do not pray with others." This was quite puzzling to the Christian minister, but since the Christians were there as hosts, and they were there to be kind and polite, he didn't say anything. But you could tell from the puzzled look on the minister's face that he was thinking, “Why would they object to praying together?” The reason is that the Christians are viewed as polytheists. To pray with them is a terrible sin, so terrible in fact, that it has a special name: “shirk.” The Koran says that if they had prayed with the Christians, they would definitely go to Hell. Praying with the Christians would have been a sin worse than mass murder, for the Muslims.

Again, the Christians did not understand anything about Islam, or they would have never made the invitation to prayer. Or, they would have simply gone ahead and prayed, with the Muslims sitting there. The Muslims dominated at this point. Inside of a Christian Church, there would be no prayers with the Christians.

Another thing that the imam said in his talk was that the New Testament was a corrupt document, and was in error. Not only was the New Testament in error, but also, so was the Old Testament. But in particular, the reason that the New Testament was wrong was that Jesus' chief prophecy foretold that after him would come the final prophet, and his name would be Ahmed (‘Ahmed’ and ‘Mohammed’ are like ‘Bill’ and ‘William’). The imam said Christians had removed these prophecies from the New Testament. This was one of the many reasons that the New Testament was a document that was simply wrong. If Christians wanted to learn the real story of Jesus, what they would have to do was to read the Koran, because the Koran contains the exact truth about Isa, the Arabic word for Jesus.

[Note: Muslims claim that in one of the early codices of the Qur’an which Uthman ordered to be burnt, namely that of the expert reciter Ubayy ibn Ka’b, Surah 61.6 read somewhat differently. He omitted the conclusion "his name will be Ahmad" (ismuhu ahmad) and in its place records Jesus as saying that he was announcing a prophet who would bear the seal of Allah from his prophets and messengers (khatumullaahu bihil-anbiyaa’ wal-rusuli).]

Imagine if the Christian minister had stood up and made these assertions - that Mohammed was not a prophet of any sort; that the Koran was a derivative work; that is it was just a book in which things were copied from the Jews and Christians, Zoroastrians and the old Arabic religions; that Allah was simply the tribal moon god of the Koreish tribe. That is equivalent to what the Muslim minister said, but the Christians didn't do that for two reasons: One, they were the host, and they were going to be polite. The other reason was they had no idea that the Koran was a derivative work. In response to questions from the audience, none of the Christians had read the Koran, nor had they read the traditions of Mohammed (the hadith). Nor did they know anything about Mohammed's life. But, the imams had read the New Testament and the Old Testament, so they knew the Christian beliefs, and Christians knew nothing of them. This was the way the entire night went. The Muslims asked the Christians questions, and the questions that they asked were 1400 years old. These were stock questions, but the ministers were caught flat-footed. They had never thought about these kinds of questions before. Again, the Moslems came prepared, and the Christians were not prepared.

The lack of preparations by the Christians could be shown when one minister started talking badly about the Crusades and apologized for them. This meant he knew nothing about the Crusades. Yes, mistakes were made in the Crusades, but overall, they were a great good. Why were they a great good? It was one of the few times the Christians in Europe recognized the intense suffering of the Christians in the Middle East. The reasons the Crusades were started were simple. They came as a response to a cry for help. And why did these Christians cry for help? Because they were being murdered, robbed and taxed to death by their Muslim overlords.

Now how did these Muslims become their overlords? Well, originally that part of the world had been mostly Christian. It did not become Islamic because some imams showed up and started preaching in the marketplace. No; it was Islamic because the sword had been used to kill all those who would defend Christianity, and used to take over the government. So the Crusaders arrived in response to a desperate cry for help.

Basically the minister, with his comments, said he didn't know anything about the history of Christianity and Islam. This is tragic---dreadfully tragic. For over 60 million Christians have been killed in the process of jihad. How did Turkey, which is 99.7 percent Islamic, go from a Greek culture---a country called Anatolia---how did that country go from being Christian to Islamic? The Christians on the stage didn't know how this process happened, nor did they know that 60 million Christians have died in jihad. They also didn't know that in the 20th century alone, a million Armenians were killed in Turkey. Why didn't the ministers know these dreadful facts? Very simply, it's because they went to divinity school and no one ever mentioned these facts. They had never been taught the doctrine of Islam. They didn't know, for instance, that Islam is primarily a political ideology, not a religion.

Why don't they teach this at the universities and divinity schools? Well, nothing happens by accident. And in this case, the reason that Christians don't teach the history of Christianity and Islam is because the process whereby the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa all became Moslem is so dreadful, so painful--- even disgusting---that this horrible, tragic subject has been avoided altogether.

Islam has a political status for the Christians called being a ‘dhimmi.’ Although the Jews were the first dhimmis, the Christians were the biggest dhimmis of all…for one simple reason: there were far more of them. When the Muslims came in and took over the government, and implemented Islamic law---Sharia law---part of this included how Christians and Jews would be treated in public, and how they would be treated in the courts of law. It was dreadful. A dhimmi has no civil rights. So, this history of dhimmitude and special taxes that Christians had to pay, was dreadfully humiliating.

It's a shameful history that includes the death of 60 million Christians. None of the Christians up on the stage knew what happened to the seven churches of Asia. In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the seven churches are addressed. The seven churches were in Asia Minor, which was Anatolia, or what we call Turkey today. They don't know what happened to those churches, which is a real tragedy. But the story of the destruction of those churches tells a large part of the history of Islam.

Those Christian ministers also had not studied enough about Islam to know that, not only had 60 million Christians been killed in jihad, but 80 million Hindus, 10 million Buddhists and 120 million Africans.

The Christians up on the stage that day didn't know enough to ask about slavery. You see, every slave that was sold to the white man on a wooden ship that brought them to America was bought from a Moslem wholesaler. The Christians didn't know enough to ask, why is it that when you say the Arabic word African, ‘abed,’ it's the same word that's used for a black slave. This night was a demonstration of two things: the knowledge and power of Islam; and how the Christians had not done their homework.

Christians, as well as all “kafirs,” should know how to use the Golden Rule to attack the Koran. Christians and all ‘kafirs’ should know the story of Mohammed.

All ‘kafirs’ should know enough about the Koran that when a Muslim claims that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God, you can offer arguments to show how that is simply not true. The information is available. All ‘kafirs’ should know how to address those issues raised in the church, because everything that the Muslims said from the podium of that church, are the same things they say continually.

All ‘kafirs’---not only Christians---should be able to debate regarding the issue of political Islam---if not with a Muslim, then with anyone, at work or wherever, who brings up the subject. What actual argument can anybody make for being ignorant about the history of political Islam? You really can't. You must face any fears or hesitations you may have about studying political Islam, which may come from a sense of unease about the history of political Islam. There may be good reason that you feel uneasy or hesitant, but these fears must be faced.

One of the reasons that these fears must be faced is that this dreadful history of Islam is continuing and moving through our world today. As an example, Iraq, which used to be a majority Christian nation, is now only 3% Christian---and, of the refugees who are leaving Iraq, 30% are Christian. Why is it that they're being persecuted? That 1400-year history is continuing today in Iraq. All ‘kafirs’ should be made aware of this. In Africa, Christian Africans are being killed and destroyed almost on a daily basis. How can these people be helped?

What is done to Christians is also done to Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. Islam does not discriminate. All ‘kafirs’ must submit.

If you're aware of the history of Islam---if you're aware of its political doctrine---then you can be more useful. And, knowledge about Islam is not merely an ability to hold your own in public debate. Knowledge about Islam will sensitize you so that your politics change, so that you can see that not only has Islam killed 270 million ‘kafirs’ in the past, but it's continuing to do so today.

Islam is destroying ‘kafir’ civilizations on a daily basis. When a Christian is persecuted, a ‘kafir’ is persecuted. The way to prevent this destruction is very simple. It is through knowledge about Islam, knowledge about the Koran, and knowledge about Mohammed.

From Political Islam: Christians

"The indemnity for the death or injury of a woman is one-half the indemnity paid for a man. The indemnity paid for a Jew or Christian is one-third the indemnity paid for a Muslim. The indemnity paid for a Zoroastrian is one-fifteenth that of a Muslim." -- 'Umdat al-Salik, o4.9

"Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution...Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash.... Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim...then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain...Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed....Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them." -- Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Islam: Jews

Mohammed used the Jews as the basis for being a prophet. The Jews then became an example of what happens to anyone who resists political Islam. They were assassinated, robbed, executed, raped, enslaved, kidnapped, became the first dhimmis (semi-slaves) and exiled. All of modern Jew hatred by Muslims was formed by Mohammed.

The Jews are very important in the formation of Islam. It could be said that if there were no Jews there would be no Islam. The reason for this can be found in the Koran. When Mohammed had his first vision, which no one else saw, and when he heard the voices that no one else heard, he said that the voice was of the Angel Gabriele. This is important because Gabriele is in the Jewish tradition. From the beginning, Mohammed said that his authenticity rested on the fact that he had the same basis as the prophets in the Old Testament. There were no Jews in Mecca when he started telling his story of Noah, Adam and Moses. The characters were the same, but the stories were different. For instance, in the Jewish scripture, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is about the release of the Jewish slaves. In the Koran, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is not about freeing the Jews; instead, it is about the fact that the Pharaoh would not admit that Moses was a prophet. So the Egyptians were destroyed.

In the story of Noah, the same was true. The reason that Allah destroyed the Earth with water was because men would not believe that he was a prophet of Allah. On and on the stories go. All of them changed to advance the Koran's central argument: everyone had to listen and do exactly as a prophet of Allah said. The message of the Koran is: the entire world is divided into those who believe Mohammed and those who do not.

If there had been Jews in Mecca, they would have said: "Wait a minute! That's not the way this story really happened!" The Koran addresses this problem by saying that the stories in the Old Testament have been corrupted. You see, according to the Koran, every one of those people---Adam, Noah, Moses, David, and Solomon---all prophesied that one day would come the final messenger of Allah: Mohammed. But (according to the Koran) the Jews had destroyed all of those prophecies. The real Jewish scriptures are found in the Koran, according to the Koran.

At first the Jews are seen favorably in the Koran of Mecca. But, listen to what Islam has to say today about the Jews in the modern world. Jew hatred by Muslims is reported frequently in Europe today.

Here are some words from modern Muslim political leaders: a former Turkish Prime Minister, in front of crowds, has publicly proclaimed that "the Jews are bacteria and like a disease".

In Saudi Arabia, on a TV show, an interviewer asked the man on the street questions about the Jews. One of them was: 'Would you be willing to shake hands with a Jew?' One person said, "Of course not. I would have to cut off my hand." Another question: 'If a child asked you who were the Jews, what would you say?' One person responded: "Allah's anger is upon them. They strayed from the path of righteousness. They are the filthiest people on the face of the earth, because they only care about themselves."

Another quote from a modern Muslim, who is a professor in a university in Egypt, that is roughly equivalent to Harvard. This imam is on a fatwa committee. A fatwa is simply a legal judgment. So, the legal counsel issued a fatwa saying that Jews were apes and pigs. They went further, to say that: Jews fabricate lies; they listen to lies; they hide the truth and support deception; they are hypocrites; they want other people to feel pain; they are happy when others suffer; they are rude and vulgar; they break their promises; and they're cowards.

This is in decided contrast to Mohammed in Mecca. In Mecca, Mohammed practically claims to be a brother to the Jews. He said that he was the last of the line of the Jewish prophets. What explains this? One explanation for this is that Muslims picked up their Jew hatred from modern Europeans; that it's a remnant of Nazism. Let's examine this further. Let's go back 600 years ago, long before any of the modern Europeans existed.

In Tunisia, when the call to prayer came, a Jew said that Mohammed was no prophet in the line of the Jews. He was beheaded for insulting the prophet. In Morocco, a ruler said that the Jews pay the tax and they are very humble. We will learn later what this means. In North Africa, Jews that sold wine to Muslims were beheaded, and their families sold into slavery. In Tunisia, a Jew who dressed like a Muslim was to be stripped and beaten and jailed. If he was caught riding a horse, he was to be pulled off of the horse, stripped and beaten. In medieval Iran, a Jew was forbidden to go out into the rain, since the water might fall off of him, onto the ground, and a Muslim might step in it and become contaminated. So, as a consequence, when it rained, Jews were not allowed in the marketplace, for fear of contaminating Muslims. All of these stories were before there were any of the modern European states, so we have to look elsewhere for the attitudes of Jew hatred by Muslims.

Let's go back to the Koran, because there are, in effect, two Koran's. The second Koran, written in Medina, draws a totally different picture of the Jews. There were a lot of Jews in Medina. There were three tribes, and they comprised about half the population. When Mohammed entered Medina, it did not take long for the Jews to inform him that he was not a prophet in their lineage. No one could contradict Mohammed, so it didn't take long until he took care of the problem. After about a year, he had become politically powerful enough to attack one of the Jewish tribes. He beat them and took all of their money, and exiled them from Medina. Not long after that, he found an excuse to attack the second Jewish tribe. After he captured them, he took all of their wealth, and was going to do worse. But the Jews had allies amongst the Arabs. One of their old allies stepped forth and said, "Do not harm them; they are former allies of mine." So Mohammed exiled them and took all of their money.

His third attack was against the strongest tribe of Jews. After the Jews surrendered, the men were separated from the women and children. The men were taken into the marketplace, and one by one their heads were cut off---all 800. Mohammed sat there throughout the day, sitting alongside his 12-year-old wife, Aisha. The executions went on into the night. By 10 o'clock at night, the last Jew lost his head, by torchlight. The Jewish children were adopted into the Muslim families and raised as Muslims. He sold them in wholesale lots, into slavery. Now, this is a story that every Muslim knows. There was a different attitude in Medina than in Mecca. But, after the Jews of Medina had been destroyed, Mohammed did not stop there.

He went north to Khaybar where the Jews were prosperous. He put them under siege, and after they surrendered, he took all of their wealth. But this time he did not kill them. A dead Jew does not make you any money. He basically created a new form of human being, called the dhimmi. A dhimmi existed in an Islamic world. A Jew could only be Jewish in his home or in the synagogue. All of the culture, laws and politics were Islamic. A dhimmi had to pay a tax, called the JHIZIYA. Fifty percent of everything they earned was paid to Islam and Mohammed. The Koran says, in addition to paying the tax, that the dhimmi has to be humiliated. Remember the medieval reporting in which the Jews paid the tax and were very humble? That's because they were dhimmis.

But Mohammed did not stop with making enemies out of the Jews of Khaybar. Even as he lay on his deathbed, his last words were, that neither Jew nor Christian shall be allowed in Arabia. Three years after that, when Umar was caliph---that is, supreme ruler of all of Islam---he drove the Jews out of Arabia. From that day forward, there have been no Jews in Arabia. Saudi Arabia exists in religious apartheid.

The Koran goes even further in talking about the Jews; it calls them APES. Remember earlier, back when the fatwa ruled that the Jews are apes and pigs? The modern scholar wasn't making that up. Mohammed added further, that the Jews were rats. So we have here two totally different views of the Jews. This is dualism. One view of the Jews is that the Jews and Muslims worship the same God. Why, they are brothers! The other view of the Jews is they are apes and rats. These are two opposite ideas, but because of the dualism within Islam, they are both seen as true. A Muslim can say to the Jew, "Oh, we worship the same God. We are brothers in religion." Or, he can say they're apes and rats.

Let's move forward from Medina to modern times. There is a problem between Jews and Muslims today. It's known as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is important to know that it is the official position of the Israeli government, that Islam plays no part in the problem of Israel. Let's listen to what the leaders of the Palestinians say. Here is one leader: "I support the Palestinian cause. I support jihad." Israelis proclaim that the problem is simply a modern political problem. It is a struggle between nation-states. But jihad is not a modern concept. It is a 1400-year-old concept. A leader of Hamas said: "The Koran used terms that are closer to animals than human beings. The Jews were likened to a donkey carrying books, and were compared to apes and pigs. The Israelis today are the descendants of apes and pigs." Another leader said: "The Prophet Mohammed foretold that Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews, and the stones and trees would say, "Servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him."

Another Islamic leader says: "Allah willing, we will enter Israel as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through jihad."

We have here two very different views of the problem in Israel. Jews today deny that Islam has anything to do with Israel's problem, while Muslims say that Islam demands that jihad will annihilate Israel. We covered the history of Jews in Islam, and saw that Mohammed enslaved, killed and created the dhimmi. In that one word, dhimmi, we find the reason that Jews and Christians do not recognize the source of their problems in Islam. They have been annihilated, humiliated and shamed. Jews and Christians were dhimmis. Whether it was North Africa, Spain, turkey or Egypt, the dhimmis were treated badly. No one wants to remember such dreadful history---so they deny its existence.

Instead of telling this 1400-year history of shame, Jewish scholars create a beautiful lie, the lie of the Golden Age of Islam. It is said that the highpoint of civilization was found in Islamic Spain. That it was a culture of tolerance and great intellectual striving. There is a wee bit of truth to this, in that there were a few Jews and a few Christians who prospered and were in high places of government as advisers, and in other capacities. But to call this a 'Golden Age' is an elitist view, because there were very few who prospered. Can a Golden Age exist that is based upon the dhimmitude of kafirs? Can it be a Golden Age when the Europeans fought for seven hundred years to drive out Islam from Spain? Can a Jewish scholar call that a Golden Age, when 5,000 Jews were killed in one day, in Cordoba? There may have been some gold flecks in Spain, but it was no Golden Age.

So it is the history of the dhimmi that explains the case of amnesia when it comes to the history of Islam and the Jews. For that matter, no kafir wants to look back and see how a total of 270 million kafirs were killed over 1400 years. The facts are too disturbing. No kafir wants to look back and say that his ancestors were enslaved. No Jew wants to look back and say that, for 1400 years, they were treated no better than dirt on the street, in Islam.

It is sad that this history is not remembered. Until Israel sees its true place in history---that the Jews of Israel are descendants of the dhimmis of Islam---until Jews accept that the real struggle is against jihad---they will be doomed to repeat the history of Khaybar. The only way to save Israel is to see the true history of Islam. Living a lie which denies the history of Islam is not the way to preserve Israel.

The above is from the website Political Islam: Jews.