Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the differences between Ideal and Folk Islam on their worldview beliefs. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt 2.).

 

Lesson lecture 13, comparisons, worldview continued. Just picking up from where we left off last time, really some of the things same things. I mean, we talked about space grids, and now we’re gonna get into the time grids. I think very interesting, very relevant, really, to think in these terms. Time grids, you know, it’s it’s it’s it’s back to these things we mentioned before about propitious times.

 

Times are really, you know, you can get lucky. Time grids, days of the week. Let’s talk about this. In Morocco, the jinn are active during the midafternoon prayers. Now I’m not sure that I understand why that is true.

 

You know, you would think that during the prayers on Friday, that the jinn would be subdued. In other words, that the demons would not be, dancing around and active, but, not true. In Iran, apparently, the jinn are active at twilight. Now that I can understand a little bit more why some would think that. Where I was, I don’t know whether it had to do because people were afraid of spirits or not.

 

But oftentimes, people will not sleep with the light off. They want to sleep with the light on. They don’t want the dark. They believe that Thursday Saturday belong to the jinn. Wednesday in Iran is evil.

 

The 10th of Muharram is great. Now why? Well, because Shiites, the Imamites in particular, that kind of Shiites which you have in Iran, they commemorate the month of Maharam. It’s the 1st month of the year and that’s when they remember every year the suffering of their great imam, Hussein, and so Shi’ite Muslims will, will grieve and lament and sorrow over this, thing that had happened way back sometime after just a few years after Mohammed, this great split when the Shia Sunni split came about. But on the 10th day of that 1st month, 10th day of Muhammed, when they really, this beating of themselves with chains and knives and so on, reach reaches a climax.

 

They believe that the 10th of Muharram is great. You can, by the way, you can, you can Google this and you can find it by, finding, you know, the the the YouTube videos of this. They’re not very pleasant to look at, but they also believe that the tsum tsum water overflows, that well, right there in, outside of the Kaaba overflows on 10th of the Ma’am. Thursday in Egypt is a good day to begin the Hajj. In other words, you’re going to bill begin the pilgrimage.

 

Okay? Begin it on Thursday. That’s a good day to to do that. Good day to sleep with your wife. Good day to consummate a marriage.

 

See the time grids? There’s some variations in, in the Muslim world as to when you do what or when you should do what, but, just giving you a few here in Pakistan. Thursday is a good day to die and be buried. Of course, if you die, you’re gonna be buried that same day for various and Sunday reasons that we’ve already talked about. Again, a good day to begin the pilgrimage.

 

And another thing that you wouldn’t expect is that Thursday is the day in Pakistan when the beggars are very, very active. That’s when the beggars will descend on you. That’s when the beggars will come around and hold out their hand and beg. You’d think that they would beg on Friday, but I think that they’re they’re begging on Thursday. Part of the reason is that it’s just a good day, you know, to do it.

 

It’s it’s a propitious day. It’s an opportune time. And so that’s when they will, will beg. It’s the day, of course, before Friday, which is the worship day. One thing that I noted, was that on Thursday evening, not too far from where I lived, we lived, or we have Carol and I for 23 years in at Ahazighan, was that on Thursday, the women of the city would honor a saint.

 

That was this peculiar place. There was a road, from where we lived right down to to downtown, and, on one particular little place on the side of the road halfway down to the city, which is about maybe you could think of maybe a mile and a half or 2, halfway down on the left side on Thursday night, what would the women do? They would come and they would light a candle. They’d leave a lamp. They’d do this and that.

 

So you could drive down there on Thursday night, and what you would see was all of these camp these candles burning, these lights burning, these lamps burning of women who had left them in that area and they said that this was the place of a very famous saint years ago and he was sensitive to women and their concerns. And so I suppose they would go there light a light, make a wish, actually a prayer, not a wish, but a request, and, they would leave a mark there hoping that the peer, who was sensitive to women’s issues, would listen to them. Maybe they wanted a baby. Maybe they wanted relief from a mean mother-in-law. Maybe they wanted this.

 

Maybe they wanted that. But women have many concerns, and so I was always touched by that. Now in Nigeria, continuing on these time grids, Friday is the queen of the days. A great day, you know, Friday. So do it on Friday.

 

Algeria among the Kabyl, mourners visit the tomb 5 consecutive Fridays. What tomb? Tombs of their, of their saints or tombs, I suppose, of their relatives. So you see here again, in the Philippines, Wednesday, the king of the jinn roams, And if you’re born the 2nd month, then you take part in yearly rites, you see, if you’re born such and such time. Some Muslims have the idea that 9 tenths of the plagues happen during Sufra, on the 2nd month.

 

Ramadan, many Muslims believe in fact, I never met a Muslim who doesn’t, believe is that the jinn are in jail and Satan is bound. Now I have found a hard time to believe this because it seemed to me that Satan was very, very active during Ramadan. It seemed like there were more fights, more squabbles, certainly didn’t seem like, he was bound at all. I can think back of, something that happened to me during Ramadan, my early years in Pakistan. I, you know, I made some goofs.

 

And one thing I remember doing in my early years, which I should not have done, was that I, I remember I was unloading a vehicle and I had some stuff on top of my jeep and, so it was tied up there and I pulled up to unload this stuff on my jeep. And without thinking, I jumped up on the jeep, untied it, took the stuff down, and then all hell broke loose. Some of the neighbors came around and said, mister Larson, what in the world have you done? I said, well, what do you mean what have I done? I just unloaded my stuff.

 

I got up in my jeep. They said, yeah. But, you know, you you should have warned the women because this is really what we do here. We we warn before we go up a little bit higher. You know, we see we say, you know, those who keep, the veil, okay, get keep, in other words, hide yourself.

 

And you say it 3 times loud and clear, and then you can go up to a higher place, whether it’s the top of your roof, or or, you know, for fixing a telephone pole or or the, top of your Jeep, because they said, you know, mister Larson, you were up higher there and you could have looked over the wall and seen some of our women. I said, my dear friends, my dear brothers, of course, I didn’t look out of the wall. They said, but they could have seen you. Now I got the point, not that I’m so good looking or anything like that, but the problem was that this was Ramadan and during Ramadan, you know, you’re supposed to be more holy, supposed to be more pure and you have to watch your step, because, you know, Satan is bound. It seems to me that the way that they were acting was that they, they thought that he was not bound, And, anyway, interesting experiences.

 

During Ramadan, you really have to be careful. But, as I said, certainly didn’t seem to me that Satan was bound or because people are people and human nature being what it is. In, certain parts of the Muslim world where they hold these czar ceremonies, and this is a procession cult we’ll look at later along the Nile, they are not held during Ramadan. Ramadan is full of Barakah. On 27th, as I’ve mentioned before, which is the, the night of power, the gates of paradise are open.

 

And I’ve already talked to you about, the Nasser a little bit out of, out of the time. In other words, I jumped the gun on that one, but it was a propitious time. Now, causality, back to that that verse we’ve already seen that every man’s fate is hung upon his own neck, which is, so fatalistic to me, so fatalistic. You know, there are several reasons for fatalism, one being, you know, lack of resources and a lack of understanding that something can be done, but this this business here from the Quran makes it, even war, fatalistic. Now sickness is diagnosed.

 

Remedy is given, to find out why such and such thing happened. In other words, why did this person get sick? Why did the baby die? Why did this and why did this happen? Who put a curse on us?

 

Sickness is diagnosed. A child conceived on the 19th of the month is a bad time too for conception. And, some other things about Ramadan, that I’m not exactly sure of why they believe that. And, natural products possess life or bread. Now another thing to note here is that sweeping at night, if you do that, you sleep away from you.

 

You sleep away from you. This is, also part of the deal. You must you must you must you must do this, and, you don’t cut your fingers or your toenails at night. This is another thing. Particularly, I think I remember hearing stories of people who worked in Central Asia.

 

Not so sure about the about the Pakistanis, but I, I think that that’s probably true in, you know, in many places of the Muslim world, so it’s not just, in one place. But these are kind of things that you, you know, you just we we should keep in mind as we think about about Muslims. When you wash your clothes on Wednesday, they’re worn with unhappiness. Can you imagine? Washing your clothes on Wednesday, many some Muslims believe the clothes are worn with unhappiness.

 

Now, here are here’s a chart as you can see. Some of the the stuff here, the magic, the means of doing things beyond one’s personal power. In some cases, the cause, here’s the natural cause, physical symptoms, and what kind of the practitioner and the remedy. For instance, breaking the taboo. In other words, has this person who is sick done, somehow broken a taboo?

 

For instance, this could be, you know, some some taboo like, you know, going into a certain tomb if you’re the wrong gender or something like that. And how do you find out? By case history, often the practitioner is an old woman, The repentance is and penance is the remedy. Another thing is sometimes the cause of a sickness or misfortune, water buffalo drying up and and so on and on, could have been caused by the evil eye. So what do you do?

 

Case history, in other words. Find out where this person has been and and and so on. Again, notice midwife or maybe a medicine man, and so the, is a way to break the look. What look? The evil eye.

 

Here, sorcery sometimes is a, is done on a person, find out by divination and, a powerful magician is needed here. Find out the source of it. Sometimes a jinn will cause the harm, and this is also, found out by divination. The magician magician charms are used to protect against the jinn. Karina, as I mentioned, is that special, not special in the sense, but but but, you know, born the same date that, you were born and so is can be troubling I hear, charms I’m sorry, krina.

 

Yes. Charms and then fate and so on and on and on. And so, these are these are some of the things that we, we are, we must think about. Now, again, missiological application. I hope you don’t mind the fact that we keep, keep coming back to this, but, you know, we need to pray in the powerful name of Jesus.

 

Like, my wife tells a story, of one time when she came to the bedside of a person, a little girl who used to the kids in that family used to pray with play with our kids all the time, and she got very, very sick. And she went to the bedside of that little girl, You know, women can get into the homes much better than men. She was by the bedside of that little girl, had a terrible, terrible fever, and her father was there and others were there standing around the bed and she felt that the Lord wanted her to pray for this little girl, but she thought to herself, you know, I I I’m afraid to do it. I’m afraid to pray for this little girl. I’m afraid because my Urdu may not be the best and and maybe God would not heal this and I’ll be a laughingstock and make a fool of myself.

 

And so she struggled with this and she didn’t pray, But then afterwards, she felt, and still says to this day that I should have prayed for that little girl in the powerful name of Jesus right there as as God was telling me to do. So let’s pray for Muslims and pray for them in private, pray for them in public as well, and we need to show the ample resources in Christ, that he is able. We need to understand to exousia because there will be times when we will, get into exorcism and have to, cast out demons. It won’t be often, I don’t think, but there might be sometimes we have to do that and use the word of God and the cases where, where, Jesus cast out demons and here book 1 book by Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, I am referring to, and also also, Arnold, Clinton, Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic is another verse, another good book here. We need to demonstrate true worship.

 

In other words, of course, this is true in the Western world as well. What is true worship? But it’s also true in the Muslim world. When people come to Christ, the worship needs to be in spirit and in truth and, this we need to do. Now, another question we’re gonna deal with is should Muslim background believers or background Muslim believers, whatever term you wanna use, burn the bridges.

 

In other words, some of the, artifacts or some of the things that they used in the practice, of of of of of Folk Islam. But that’s one of the forms, so we’re not gonna talk about that at this point.