Zwemer Center

KEEP CALM AND THINK BIBLICALLY

Several times recently I have been asked by concerned Christians questions along the lines of “will Muslims take over in the UK/the West?” or “how should we respond to the violence of Jihadists/ Islamic State etc?”. My precise answer depends upon the circumstances but is usually along the lines of “keep calm and think biblically”!

What do I mean? There is a danger that we allow our thinking to be manipulated by the secular media or the agenda of people who want to scare us into supporting their particular cause. So here are five suggestions for a calm and biblical approach to Islam and current world events:

Is Political Islam Always Violent? No-But…

The answer to this question must be an emphatic NO! There are plenty of situations where Islamists do not resort to violence. But at the same time they face a real dilemma. They want their society to be more consistently Islamic; but how are they to achieve this goal? Are they to work for a gradual and peaceful Islamisation of the country, or are they justified in using force to win power? And what happens when violence is done to them? These dilemmas can be illustrated from the history of one particular Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Taking the Qur’an out of Context

I recommend that believers of any faith when engaging believers of another faith, read the commentaries of  the scholars of the other faith that help interpret or contextualize the scripture of  the other faith. For example, regarding the Qur’an 2:191, a Christian might read the commentary of Ibn Kathir that contextualizes the verse to mean something quite different than the meaning given to it by the Christian reading the verse without the context and without access to the centuries of commentary around the verse.

Will contextualizing the verses solve the problem completely?  Absolutely not.  Why not?  Because ignorant believers in a particular scripture often decontextualize or misinterpret a verse in their own holy book.  Let’s look at some examples.

Have Christians at times treated the Bible to justify Jesus as the Lord of Wars more than the Prince of Peace because they read a verse such as Matthew 10:34 and believe that Jesus is advocating violence?  Absolutely!  This happened in the Crusades, which was actually a string of crusades, some launched by Muslims and others by Christians, each resorting to brutal violence.  It was a horrible time in the history of both Christianity and Islam.

Have Muslims at times treated Muhammad as advocating violence without any constraints when convenient for Muslims?  Absolutely!  ISIS does it daily.

Even acknowledging these horrendous events in our histories doesn’t solve the problem because believers often get into a game of “your sin is worse than my sin,” “your transgressions are worse than our transgressions.”  Or believers of different faiths often engage in the dubious logic of comparing the ideals of their faith against the realities witnessed in the lives of those of the other faith.  I don’t find it morally sensitive or helpful to justify sin in any way.

Sinful people are often not interested in the truth but instead on misusing words of truth to justify sin rather than promote goodness.

Jesus warned us about this and directed us to remove the log in our own eye before addressing the speck in another’s eye.

Are Muslims Political Pawns?

All press is good press. Perhaps not always true, it is often a maxim of politics. A day after the backlash over his ‘a Muslim should not be president’ comment, Ben Carson announced windfall fundraising of one million dollars.

But perhaps it is also a maxim of religion? With the name of Islam dragged through the mud of Republican politicking and right-wing punditry, the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seized the media spotlight and announced a campaign to freely distribute the Quran to citizens and civic leaders alike.

Back in 2001, CAIR chairman Nihad Awad reported that 34,000 Americans converted to Islam after the attacks of September 11.

It is a very natural phenomena. Media loves a negative story, which draws attention to an otherwise obscure issue. People begin to investigate, and discover the issue is not as completely negative as first reported, or stems from an extreme fringe. Then the counter-narrative emerges, in which the issue is hailed as good, or at least complicated. Conflicted over the original outrage, a moderating tone enters the issue into the mainstream.

From here, the politicking – or proselytizing – continues with precious momentum.

Islam is a religion, an idea, a way of life. Let it be praised or criticized according to its merits. But the better way is to do so with respect, humility, and hope. Muslims around the world deserve honest assessment of their faith. Whether of its religious, social, or political aspects, Christians should speak.

But Muslims in America deserve much more from their Christian neighbors. The better way is to bless, rather than demonize. To secure rights, rather than restrict them. To speak up in their defense, rather than rally a political base.

Conservative American evangelicals should be the first to depoliticize this issue entirely.

What this argument lacks is sufficient consideration of the proper place of denunciation. There is truth that is opposed to error. There are valid interests opposed to vile manipulations. There are Muslims in America and the world with political agendas to match any lobby from the right or the left.

There is a place for religion in politics. But great care should be taken against the politicization of religion. America has navigated this minefield for centuries, and Islam provides a particular challenge.

“But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” says the constitution. Let American citizens vote as they wish, from any, all, or no religious motivation.

But let American Christians both engage and transcend the politics of the day to embrace a kingdom greater than the republic. Their obligation is to help all participate in both.

Muslim Views of Abraham’s Sacrifice

Many Christians are unaware that Muslims have an annual celebration that commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s merciful provision of a substitute ram in his place. The celebration is called Eid-al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice). The celebration takes place at the end of the Hajj or pilgrimage. Everyone who is financially able purchases an animal to sacrifice. The animal must be killed in accordance with Islamic law in order to be considered Halal or permissible. This entails a short prayer of blessing while slitting the animal’s throat, giving careful attention to drain all the blood. The meat is then shared with family, friends and the poor. The celebration happens all over the Muslim world but it is certainly not limited to Muslim countries. Here in the United States I have seen goats and even a cow sacrificed to celebrate Eid. It is always a treat to see the interaction of my Muslim friends with rural South Carolina farmers negotiating the purchase price of an animal.

Several years ago, I memorized the story of Abraham and Isaac so that I could go to the Mosque and share it with my Muslim friends during this celebration. As I entered the mosque my friends greeted me with excitement, “Eid Mubarik” or “happy Eid!” The atmosphere reminded me of Christmas celebrations. The food was abundant. Everyone had on new clothes. The mood was genuinely joyous. I sat down with a small group of guys I knew fairly well from previous mosque visits. I told them how I had memorized the story concerning Abraham and his son and asked if they would like to hear the story. Everyone wholeheartedly agreed and so I began: “God told Abraham to go to a mountain and sacrifice his son…” but before I could continue, a young man interrupted, saying, “I have heard this story, it’s about Abraham and his son Ishmael.” Someone else in the group replied, “no, the story is not about Ishmael, it’s about Isaac.” Within seconds people began taking sides. My friends looked to me and said, “Well, which is it?”

6 Things Christians can Learn from Muslims about Prayer

1. Pakistani Muslims, like their counterparts around the globe, bow to pray. Prayer is living and it involves motion and movement. There is a specific posture to each phase of the prayer. They stand, bow deeply, lower their foreheads to the floor, and sit. Pakistani Muslims understand intuitively the deep connection between body and soul and spirit. Their whole bodies are involved as they prostrate themselves humbly before God. They know they were created to worship and for them prayer is worship. The older I get the more I am realizing the profound truth that was modeled for me as a child. We are whole people. Our bodies are not disconnected from our inner reality. We go together, my body and I. As I watched Pakistanis, with their heads lowered before God, as they kept their bodies in line with their spirits, in seeming submission, I was challenged to bring my own self in alignment. Nowadays I occasionally raise my hands in supplication. Often I sit. Occasionally I pace out my petitions, walking back and forth before the Holy Throne of God. Often I kneel. Occasionally I bow face down before God, acting out what is true—that He is God and I am not. My prayers are directed to a Living God and often they are moving and motional.
2. My entire theology on prayer expanded as I watched with childlike curiosity my neighbors pray. For them, prayer wasn’t static and quietly compartmentalized. Prayer was a part of every single day. There were no exceptions. If you were in the middle of something, you stopped to pray. If you were busy and distracted, you were called back to prayer. No one was exempt: the rich prayed, the poor prayed, the villager prayed, the city dweller prayed, the tribal elder prayed, the plains person prayed. They were a praying people and that influenced me in significant ways. Prayer became for me a normal requisite to a normal day.
3. Pakistanis also understood the benefit of community in collective accountability. It was assumed: you pray, I pray, we all pray. Business contracts were paused while prayer mats were unrolled. Conversations over tea, kitchen gossip, homework all took a break for prayer. If your brother-in-law wasn’t praying you knew something was amiss. Everyone prayed. I love that community element. I love the structure that provides for a populace. There is routine and rhythms built around the call to prayer. It was this measured out, predictable schedule that warmed my heart to liturgical prayer. The stage of my heart was set for the high church’s loyalty to traditional written prayers. I love that those words have rung out in churches around the world and around the centuries. What stability is procured in that! I’ve always been intrigued by the monastic commitment to praying the liturgical hours. This official set of prayers marks the hours of each day and sanctifies the day with prayer: There is regularity in it. There is holy rhythm and purposeful pacing.
4. The muezzin begins with a recitation of the Islamic creed. Millions of Muslims repeat back to themselves, no less than five times a day, what they believe to be true. There is great benefit in learning this lesson from our Muslim friends. We have the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. What if we too deliberately remembered what is true? What if we recited back to our weary-from-life souls the character of God, his faithfulness, his sacrifice, his provision? Imagine the reassurance that might wash over our reactive emotions, our crises, our desperations, our superficial happiness? We could learn a lot from this repetition of doctrine throughout each of our days.
5. Growing up, I watched a whole community decide collectively to connect with God. They were given regular opportunities to have their obsessions with fickle and frail things pried away. I would love to claim that I learned this lesson as a child. I did not. But as I think of it now and reflect on it more, I wish I had. How often I’m distracted! How often I forget to remember my living connection with the Living God. I wish to live spiritually connected to the God who loves me and initiated relationship with me. I long to live from that reality all day long! Punctuating my day with intentional prayer would certainly help.
6. The idea that we can talk to God baffles me and strikes me as marvelous. I firmly believe that every prayer need not start with “Dear God” and shouldn’t necessarily end with “Amen”. Some of our deepest groans and yearnings float up as prayer. A thought unbidden of a faraway friend surfaces memory and prayer. To-do lists sighed over are heard by our kind Father as the true prayers of our overwhelmed hearts. Tears and sorrows become intercessions and laments. If we bounce our hearts up to the divine we live out our prayers. I watched my Pakistani Muslim friends stop, toward the end of their ritual prayers, for the silent session of “dua”. This was the space in their recitations for them to lift up their hearts in prayer. They prayed for whatever was on their minds: a sick relative, a final exam, a financial need.

How Christians Deterred me from Leaving Islam

After many years, I am finally sharing some of my story of why I think it took me so long to leave Islam and become a Christian. I am sure that I focus on some things and fail to see some of my own personal failures, pride and otherwise, that contributed to the timing of my conversion. I pray that you give me a break and read it as a Christian who was, is, and most likely will always be a mess—getting some points and missing larger more fundamental points.

So, what took me so long to declare myself a Christian after years of being a Muslim? Of course, there were my own intrinsic weaknesses and faults, but I would be hiding the truth from you if I didn’t acknowledge that one major factor in keeping me away from living the truth was Christians. I lived in the buckle of the Bible belt and was surrounded by congenital Christians—people who read their Bible, faithfully attend church, could craft an elegantly worded prayer, and knew by heart the words of more than ten hymns. It was these same Christians who baffled me because they told me that God was love; that Jesus called them to love all people, including their enemies; and yet I just didn’t seem to see the love.

What I experienced in my life on the buckle was hateful words directed toward gays, liberals, Muslims, Catholics, and the list just seem to grow more and more. I also experienced being on that list and was the recipient on more than one occasion of those hateful words. It just didn’t add up. What did add up was that I knew that I didn’t want to have anything to do with those Christians. The problem was that they were unavoidable. In life on the belt buckle, they surrounded me in Walmart, the Dairy Queen, college classes, sitting around me in the DMV, the doctor’s office, just about everywhere. As soon as they heard that I was a Muslim, out came the Bibles that were used as a weapon against me, my beliefs, and the ones I loved. When that tactic didn’t work, I was either labelled as deceived by Satan or just ignored, cut out of their lives. The latter was the most common occurrence.

The wild reality was that inwardly I loved Jesus and had come to believe that He was not only the Lord and Savior, but He was my Lord and Savior. I just couldn’t stand being around Christians. I will never forget one interaction with a Christian who told me what I believed as a Muslim and when I responded that I didn’t believe that, he said that I was practicing taqiyyah (a form of planned lie). Unfortunately, I got angry and told him that if he wanted to know what taqiyyah really was he might look at Christian missionaries who lie about why they travel to Muslim populated countries and live there. Instead of saying that they were professionals hired to convert Muslims, they said things like they were helping build the infrastructure. While it wasn’t a total lie, it was what my Roman Catholic friends called, lying by omission. That scene didn’t go very well. It was not one my proudest moments, but hey.

ISIS: Un-Islamic or True Islam?

There are typically two responses to ISIS. ‘ISIS has nothing to do with Islam’ or ‘ISIS are the real Muslims’. It’s easy to understand why so many Muslims—especially in western contexts—dissociate themselves from ISIS. They are thoroughly embarrassed to think that non-Muslims around them might assume that because they are Muslims, they must have some sympathy with ISIS and all that it is doing. They therefore argue that many of the practices of ISIS are completely un-Islamic, even anti-Islamic and cannot be justified by the legal traditions that have been developed over many centuries.

At the other extreme there are many Christians—and, dare I say, especially evangelical Christians—who believe that ISIS is much nearer to the spirit and practice of early Islam than moderate Muslims of today. They point to particular verses in the Qur’an (e.g. about beheading, crucifixion and slavery) and passages in Hadith literature, the biographies of Muhammad and legal texts to show the connections between the brutalities of ISIS and early Islamic texts.

Both of these approaches are thoroughly unhelpful and need to be challenged.

Christians and Muslims Alienate Each Other

Twelve simple ways to stop the alienation:

1. Relate to individual people, not abstractions.
2. Talk to people, be a student, and remain curious about the content of what someone believes and the ways in which they live out their faith.
3. Acknowledge that you are not as knowledgeable as you think. Stay humble.
4. Ask God to reveal ways in which you operate out of prejudice—ways about which you have absolutely no awareness.
5. Meet a Muslim, or several Muslims, rather than listening to what the media tells you about Muslim or the generalizations they make about “Islam” or the ‘true Muslim’
6. Dare to love people—all people—regardless of the cost.
7. Thank God you were given faith, not because of something good about you—your intelligence or your goodness—but because of something wonderful about God.
8. Find your worth and value in the fact that Christ died for you and loved you even when there was nothing loveable in you.
9. Keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds. Keep it real and learn from that reality.
10. Don’t become a hater. Haters are haters even when they claim to be guided by God. When you kill, torture, or hate people because they are not like you, or because they don’t believe what you think they ought to believe, you are a hater and not of God.  You grieve God and displease Him.
11. Be clear about your salvation. You are not saved by being an American or a Saudi, a Republican or Democrat, a liberal or conservative, a Yankee or a Southerner, a Baptist or an Episcopalian, a Christian or a Muslim, a Harvard or Wheaton College grad….You are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and that not of yourself. That is not just good news; it is the best news!
12. There is still time to change and stop alienating people of other faiths. The Holy Spirit is always there waiting for you to love as you are loved.

The Application of Sharia Law in the United States

In the effort to understand this controversial and inflammatory subject, his explanation proved very helpful. Here is a list of what is and is not allowed in the American judicial system:
Allowed: Distribution of inheritance according to religious motivation
Not: Asking the court to divide inheritance according to shariah law
US law allows freedom of contract and disposition of property. One may divide one’s property in a will according to whim, or ask a religious scholar to divide it according to shariah law. But the court does not accept competency to interpret religious laws, and would reject a request asking it to do so.
Allowed: Application of foreign law to determine marriage or overseas injury
Not: Specifics of foreign law against US code or procedural discrimination of testimony
US law will accept that two foreign individuals are married if they were legally married according to the law of their country of emigration. If in foreign nations marriage is determined according to shariah, then US courts must take this into consideration for the determination of marriage in a domestic dispute. Foreign acceptance of polygamy, however, has no application in US courts. Similarly, if an American is injured abroad and sues a company with representation in America, tort laws are determined by the nation in which the injury occurred. But should foreign tort laws limit the value of female testimony, as for example in some understandings of shariah, this has no carry-over consideration in the American lawsuit.
Allowed: Exemption from work rules for religious reasons
Not: Unless it imposes ‘undue hardship’ on an employer or is against government interest
US law permits reasonable accommodation for religious belief, evaluated on a case-by-case basis. So wearing a hijab at work or taking time from the work day to pray may or may not be granted, based on the nature of the employment in question. A famous ruling allowing Muslim taxi drivers to decline a customer carrying alcohol may or may not have been judged correctly, but what is important is that it was based on existing American precedent, not in understanding what is right in Islamic shariah.
Allowed: Granting accommodation to students or clients that impose only modest costs on the granting institution
Not: Evaluation of these requests on the basis of which religious group asks for them
US law allows public and private institutions to better serve citizens and customers by appealing to their religious sentiments, as long as this does not damage the public interest as a whole. Banks have offered sharia-compliant loans, for example, and schools with high density Muslim populations have granted a full day off on holidays rather than just excusing Muslim students. Examples of this sort apply equally to all religious petitions, and must not be judged on the basis of which religion benefits.
Allowed: Efforts to legislate Islamic morality in heavily populated Muslim areas
Not: Unless it violates the Free Speech Code or Equal Protection Clause
US law permits citizens to lobby government to pass laws reflective of morality. In local areas therefore, Muslims are as free as others to pass legislation barring alcohol, for example. Should any locality, however, seek to encode restrictions on “blasphemy” or limit the rights of women, it will stand in clear violation of existing US law and be struck down by the courts.

Why The Sudden Rise of Political Islam?

Have we forgotten the 58 tourists who were gunned down at Luxor in Upper Egypt in 1997, and how in Algeria in 1989 the army seized power after FIS, the Islamist party, had won a democratic election? We’ve had Muhammad Mursi attempting to impose a Muslim Brotherhood agenda on Egypt while he was in power from 2012 to 2013. We’ve had Ayatollah Khomeini creating the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist AKP have turned the tide after decades of secularism imposed by Ataturk and brought Islam back into public life. Hizbullah was created in 1986 as a resistance movement against Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon. Similarly Hamas came into existence in 1986 as a response to 40 years of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. If we go back further to the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, we find that Hassan al-Banna was driven by two clear goals – the revival of Islam and the ending of the British occupation of Egypt. And if we go back further still we find that in India Muslims played a significant role in the 19^th Century in opposing the British Raj.

Are there any common factors in all these different expressions of political Islam? In every one there are two main drives – the desire to see the public sphere ordered by Islamic principles and the refusal to be ruled by foreigners. As we shall see shortly, context is all-important. In every case there has been something specific in the context – a perceived injustice – which has driven Muslim to take action and often to resort to violence.

Overcoming Fear of Muslims

This battle between fear and love was clearly demonstrated in several experiences when I visited churches wearing a headscarf. An older gentleman at the first church visited, who was a greeter at the church, was not able to recover from his fear after seeing a woman wearing a hijab approaching the church. As a result, he blatantly ignored me, which came across as very unloving. In this instance, fear drove out love. On the other hand, at the second church visited, a woman was hesitant at first and kept her distance. She was uncertain as to how to react, but eventually she made the decision to allow love to triumph over fear. Although she initially sat at a distance from me, she eventually moved down to sit directly beside me, engaged her in conversation, and hugged me before leaving. In this case, love drove out fear. In another scenario, I walked into a large lobby and was clearly confused as to which direction to go for the service. At least three greeters and volunteers stood around and watched me, clearly lost. Evidently the volunteers were scared or unsure of what to do, so they did not help, and instead let the me wander around. In contrast, at the fourth church visited, I was once again lost, but this time a greeter overcame fear and helped. He personally gave me a tour of the entire church so I would know how to find my way around. Lastly, at the first church, when instructed to greet those nearby, a woman half-turned toward the me, but upon seeing the the hijab she hesitated and almost turned back around. Fortunately, she managed to overcome fear and made the decision to greet the me despite her initial uncertainty.