The Unbridgeable Gap
February 2008, Bible Believers’ Bulletin
We have been exploring the agenda of Time, Life, U.S. News and World Report, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the Associated Press, the Gannet string of newspapers, etc., to unite Christianity and Islam. Against those sources, we have given you the main writers on Islam and Mohammed so you will see the irreconcilable problems involved in such an endeavor. We have given you the definitive works by A. Sprenger and Charles Friedrici. We have quoted original Arabic sources, the Koran and the Hadith. We have given you material from five commentaries on the Koran, fifteen biographies on Mohammed, eight histories of the Arabs and Turks, and fifteen more works on the Islamic religion; as well as the personal testimony of Aisha, Mohammed’s favorite wife whom he married at nine years old.
According to those sources, the Islamic religion was not spread by missionaries, street preaching, and tract distribution. It was spread by aggressive, offensive warfare.
Mohammed said, “The sword is the key of Heaven and Hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of ‘the God’ (Allah) and a night spent in arms is of more value than two months of fasting or prayer. Whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven.”
This was the secret of the spread of Islam across North Africa: you enter Paradise by killing people. They practiced what Mohammed preached.
With the increase of his army, Mohammed took to the battlefield against his enemies in an aggressive, offensive war at the Battle of Badr against the city of Quraysh. His forces doubled, and he conquered several Jewish and Christian tribes. At one point he ordered (and personally watched) the massacre of 600 Jews (well, hello there, Adolph Hitler) in one day, and he had their wives and children sold into slavery.
But you can see the points where you and Mohammed agree, don’t you? The Koran says that to obey this fornicating killer is to obey God. Well, he enjoyed watching the slaughter of 600 Jews, and he enjoyed selling their wives and children into slavery. And you are going to have “dialogue” with folks who follow a man like that, are you?
Mohammed died as he had lived: planning the violent conquest of people who had waged no war against him at all. At 63, he returned to Medina where he died of a violent fever while planning a large, offensive, aggressive campaign against Greece. He was buried on the spot where he died, which is now enclosed by a mosque. He rotted in the ground just like Buddha, Mother Teresa, Mary, and all the Popes. He never came up.
The deathbed account says: “He suffered great pain, cried, and wailed in despair.” Jesus Christ didn’t die that way. Paul didn’t die that way. Peter didn’t die that way. In fact, when Peter was waiting to get his head cut off, he was fast asleep the night before his execution. But not Mohammed.
- Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
- For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
- I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
- Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
- Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
- Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
- ¶ Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.
- And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.
- And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)
- And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
- ¶ Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
- And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
- And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.
When Mohammed died, he wailed and cried, and said to his wives, “Do you not know that prophets have to suffer more than all others? [My, what a humble fellow.] One was eaten up by vermin; another died so poor he had nothing but rags to cover his shame. [The “one . . . eaten up by vermin” wasn’t a “prophet” at all; he was a Christian flagpole sitter who died up on a pole 100 years before Mohammed was born. His name was Simon Stylites.] But their reward [referring to himself] will be greater in the life beyond.”
Mohammed didn’t know what Allah was going to do to him in “the life beyond” (The Hadith, Burkhari, Vol. V, No. 266).
Among his last utterances was just what you would expect from a Moslem (to obey Mohammed is to obey God—Sura 4:80) living in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Indonesia. He said, “The Lord destroy the Jews and the Christians.” That came from a man who said, “There is no compulsion in religion.” He continued: “Let the Lord’s anger be kindled against those that turn the tombs of their prophets into places of worship. Oh Lord, let not my tomb be an object of worship. [It was—see above.] Let there not remain a man of any faith but that of Islam throughout the whole of Arabia. Gabriel, come close to me.”
And there it is, Thus spake Zarathustra. Thus spake Joseph Smith and Moroni.
Mohammed didn’t “call upon the name of the Lord” (Rom. 10:13). No Moslem does. Their god has no name. In fact, Mohammed didn’t even call on “the God” at all. He said, “Gabriel, come close to me.”
- For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
When Mohammed died, he prayed, “Lord, grant me pardon and join me to thy companionship on high, eternity in paradise, pardon, yes, the blessed companionship on high.” Well, did “the Lord” do it?
The Lord did it for Jesus Christ. He did it for the Apostle Paul. He did it for Stephen. But Mohammed never could tell you or any of his followers for sure where he was going because he never knew.
- And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
- ¶ It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
- I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
- And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
- How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
- But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
- And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
- Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
- And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
- And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
- And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
In the “Night Journey” in the Koran (Sura 17), we read, “Glory be to him who carried his servant,” referring to Mohammed himself. How that got into the Koran, nobody knows, because Mohammed wasn’t there to recite that Sura: he was dead. The Sura is given in the past tense.
If Mohammed got it from Allah and recited it before he died, then he didn’t have the guts to apply it to himself. He should have said, “Glory to him who carried me by night,” but Mohammed is always “yellow” when it comes to associating himself with Allah. He is trying to act like a good little monotheist. You take Sura 4:80; he says that whoever obeys Allah’s Messenger, obeys Allah. You mean yourself, kid? Then why don’t you say, “Whoever obeys me, obeys Allah.”
The “Night Journey” says, “Glory be to him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is remote in Jerusalem.” Notice that he didn’t call the Temple in Jerusalem “sacred.” That is the one God Almighty ordered Solomon to build. That is the one built in the place, which God selected as a place of sacrifice from Solomon’s father, David. David paid for that land with money; he bought it from its Jebusite owner; and he has a clear title deed to it. But you understand, that wasn’t “sacred.”
- ¶ And Gad came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite.
- And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the LORD commanded.
- And Araunah looked, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him: and Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king on his face upon the ground.
- And Araunah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshingfloor of thee, to build an altar unto the LORD, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
- And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood.
- All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The LORD thy God accept thee.
- And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
- And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD was intreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.
- ¶ Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
- And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the LORD.
- And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
- And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
- Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the LORD: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.
- And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all.
- And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.
- So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
- And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
- And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
- At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
- For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon.
- But David could not go before it to enquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.
In the Dome of the Rock in Mount Moriah, the handprints of the 600-winged angel, Gabriel, are shown in the mysterious rock, which attempted to follow Mohammed to its native quarry in Paradise, but was kept back by the angel. Mohammed was said to go up to Heaven from the Temple mount on a winged horse (hence the term “nightmare”).
Mohammed was succeeded after his death by Caliphs. They were rulers who continued his Church-State system. They continued to carry out his agenda of world conquest, sweeping across northern Africa, India, and Central Asia in war after war of aggressive, offensive campaigns against neutral nations (if Charles Martel hadn’t whipped them at the Battle of Tours [A.D. 732], they would have taken Europe, too). Their battle cry was “Before you is Paradise; behind you are death and Hell.”
Now that’s Islam. People like Osama Bin Laden and Yasser Arafat aren’t “extremists” or “fanatics.” They are simply applying what Mohammed and his successors believed, taught, and practiced for over twelve hundred years. The fact that many Moslems don’t live up to their “potential” is irrelevant to the discussion.
There is no way of reconciling a religion like that with any follower of Jesus Christ who believes the New Testament.