Sometimes, the preposition the New Testament uses is the preposition into. We believe into Christ. And this is the fundamental thing that happens to us when we're born again, when we're converted to Christ. Our faith unites us to Him. The Spirit unites us to Him. And in that way, we are bound together. And underneath all that is the fact that in everything Jesus did, He was representing us.
And because He was representing us, everything He has done is really ours. None of these things are what we work up in ourselves. All of these things we draw down from our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is everything and He fills our nothingness. Union with Christ, a teaching series with Sinclair Ferguson. Visit Ligonier.org slash teaching series to learn more.
Today on Renewing Your Mind. Nowhere in the Quran says, Muhammad, this is a command for you to go and kill the pagans of Mecca. Nowhere in the Quran is there a restriction put on the people who are supposed to engage in acts of violence and war against the unbelievers.
So these are universal commands for all times and all people. You may have heard that the Quran actually commands Muslims to kill Christians and Jews. That's a serious charge, especially in this pluralistic age in which we're encouraged to believe that all religions are the same. Well, today on Renewing Your Mind, we return to an interview that Dr. R.C. Sproul conducted several years ago to examine what Muslims believe, and what we're about to hear is something every Christian should know. Shortly after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 unfolded, I had a special guest on Renewing Your Mind by the name of Abdul Salib, a converted Muslim who co-authored a very important book entitled Answering Islam with Norman Geisler.
Dr. Geisler and Abdul collaborated on this book, subtitled The Crescent in the Light of the Cross. And in the course of those interviews that I conducted with Abdul, our phones rang off the wall literally. In the whole history of Renewing Your Mind, we had no response ever even close to the unprecedented response we had to that series of interviews with Abdul. And because of that overwhelming interest that was expressed by our listeners, I've invited Abdul to return to our program that we might conduct some further investigation and queries with him as our special guest. So let me welcome again to Renewing Your Mind, Abdul Salim. Thank you so much, R.C., and last time we did a phone interview. This time I have the privilege of being in your studio, and thank you for having me.
Well, I'm so glad to see you alive and well and in person. I'd like to just set the framework here for just a moment, Abdul, before we get your input. So often we see the term in the news media fundamentalist. I mean, historically it has been used as a pejorative term, an insulting term against Christians of the right. And of course, the term fundamentalism has a long history in America with respect to Christianity, going back to the turn of the 20th century and the so-called modernist controversy, the conflict between 19th-century liberal theology and orthodox Christianity.
And at that time, the great orthodox scholars of Princeton Seminary, people like B.B. Warfield and others, set forth what they considered to be the non-negotiable essence or substance of historic Christianity, the foundational principles of the historic faith, which they called the fundamentals, thinking that these are the tenets that every believing Christian would certainly affirm. All right, now, a hundred years later almost, it seems that the term fundamentalist has undergone a shift that now means an unthinking, moralistic, probably somebody that's biased against the blacks and all the rest.
I mean, it has a very negative cast to it. But if you just look at the word, any orthodox Protestant, any orthodox Roman Catholic would certainly have to be called a fundamentalist insofar as that these historic faiths all affirm the fundamentals of historic biblical Christianity. Now, there are many who call themselves Christians who would deny the atonement of Christ, who would deny the resurrection of Christ, and think that you can have an atonement-less or resurrection-less Christianity, and so they still bear the label Christian even though they categorically reject these dimensions that we would say are basic and foundational to historic Christianity. Now, I don't know how that applies across the street to Islam, because when we discuss methods of Islam, the news media keep referring to the radical terrorist branch of Islam as being an expression of fundamentalistic Muslim religion. And we have seen many representatives of Islam stand up and denounce the activity of the terrorists, saying that it is inconsistent with Islam itself. We had a couple of Muslims who listened to our interview that we had before and they called in complaining that you had misrepresented Islam, because their view of Islam was that there was no place for violence and so on. Now, was I talking then to liberal Muslims? Or maybe to state the question the other way, Abdul, is in your judgment, what we call the dark side of Islam, this proclivity for violence, is that fundamental, basic, foundational to historic Islam, or isn't it?
It's a very broad question, R.C., and let me answer it by saying this. The fundamentals of Islam, like the Christian faith has its own fundamentals, the fundamentals of Islam include such doctrines as the absolute oneness of God, that's a non-negotiable, the doctrine of the unity of God. The other fundamentals of faith in Islam include belief in the fact that God has sent prophets, belief in angels, that God has created angels, belief in revelation that God, in order to guide humanity, has sent prophets with his messages and revelations from God to direct them to the straight path, and belief in the day of judgment, that there will be a day that we have to give a response for our deeds and actions.
Let me interrupt you at this point, Abdul. Now, in terms of Christianity, we can look at the Bible as the primary source book, but then we also look at historic creeds, where we have the ecumenical councils of the early church and then all of the various confessions of the various groups. The Protestant groups have their Lutheran creeds, Baptist creeds, Presbyterian creeds, and so on. And they differ at various points from one another, but yet these historic expressions of faith would all agree on the resurrection and these other foundational principles.
Are there such historical documents, apart from the Korean, that affirm foundational precepts to Islam? Not in the terms of like Christian creeds. There have been some creeds in Islamic history.
They have not been universally accepted. But the points that I just mentioned to you, they are basically the fundamentals of Islam, which are agreed upon by all Muslims of all various sects or denominations, whether they are conservative or liberal. Basically, these are the things that all Muslims have affirmed, that there is only one true God, that God has created man and angels, that God has sent prophets, that God has given revelation to humanity for their guidance, and that there is a day of judgment that we have to reckon with God. So in that sense, these are the fundamentals of Islam.
Now let me say something. Some Muslims object to the term fundamentalism being used to describe them. They say, no, that's a Christian term that doesn't describe us and that Islam has never dealt with these issues.
That's true. But in a sense, all Muslims are fundamentalists in the sense that all Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the actual literal word of God. You don't have any liberals in the Islam faith that deny the inspiration of the Qur'an like we have multitudes of professing Christians who would deny the inspiration of the Bible. There are. There are very few.
There are very few in numbers and their voices are very insignificant and they do not command any audience. And usually those kind of liberal Muslims are greatly persecuted in the Muslim world for saying such things. It's not like there is freedom of opinions in the Muslim world where you have liberal Muslims publishing liberal books about Islam.
So those voices are completely shut off. But let me bring your attention to a book that I was just recently reading by Diana Eck of Harvard University. She teaches the pluralism project at Harvard. She has a book called A New Religious America and she has a section entitled American Muslims, Cousins and Strangers. And in this book, Diana Eck talks about a Muslim apologist by the name of Badawi that talks about this issue of fundamentalism. And then this is what Diana Eck goes on to say, many Muslims would point out all Muslims are fundamentalists in the sense that they take seriously the revelation of the Qur'an. So Muslims basically believe that the Qur'an is the actual literal word of God come from heaven to Prophet Muhammad. And in that sense, the vast majority of Muslim are fundamentalists. And that's one of the fundamentals of the faith, that the Qur'an is the actual literal word of God. Would you say then from your experience that worldwide Islam would be more monolithically committed to the inspiration of the Qur'an than professing Christians would be towards the Bible? Absolutely.
Absolutely. The Qur'an has the highest place in Islamic faith and Islamic life. Well, how would you answer somebody who said that in these issues that we discussed the last time that you misrepresented Islam? I mean, I thought that everything that was substantial that we talked about, you backed up by direct citations from the Qur'an. Yeah, I would obviously not agree that I have misrepresented Islam, but I would like to take this time, Arsi, and basically defend my thesis by providing documentation for where I get my idea about violence. And as I emphasized last time, there are many devout Muslims that for various reasons, that this is not the place to get into those reasons, but for various reasons ignore or rationalize away the issue of violence and Islam. So there are many devout Muslims who take the Qur'an seriously and at the same time are peaceful, loving people. But what I'm saying is very emphatically that those Muslims who are engaged in violence in various shapes or forms, whether it's the persecution of Christians, oppression of women, destroying the freedom of religion or speech, or killing their enemies, those Muslims that are doing those things are justified for their actions based on the Qur'an and the example of Prophet Muhammad. So that's the distinction I'm making, that there are many devout Muslims that are not engaged in violence and somehow they ignore portions of the Qur'an and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad. All right, before you go into that and give your documentation, let me frame this issue because it touches on another question that comes up, and we had lots of calls about it, not with respect to Islam, but with respect to Christianity, saying, well, doesn't the history of the church reveal that Christians have a proclivity for violence? Wasn't the Holocaust propagated by Christians in Germany against Jews? We see the Crusades against the Turks and Jerusalem and so on as part of Christian history. And not only that, which are outside of the Bible, but you see the Old Testament wars conducted under presumably the direct management of God, who commanded the harem, the utter destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan as the children of Israel entered the land under Joshua. So we want to frame this question.
We have too many pieces on the table, so let's pick them one by one. Let's hear about the violence in Islamic foundational precepts, how that would differ from the Christian faith if it does. Okay, very good. Let me start, R.C., by reading very few verses from the Quran. I have a lot more verses, but I'm just going to pick a very few of them to set the context of the Quran, first of all, in this debate. For example, in chapter 2 of the Quran, verses 190 to 193, we read, fight in the cause of God those who fight you and slay them wherever you catch them and fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression. All right, let me stop there.
Immediately somebody's going to be there. The text of the Quran clearly enjoins people to fight and to slay the enemies of God. What's the context of that, Abdul? Well, the context of that obviously is towards the end of the prophet Muhammad's life when he was in Medina, and he was attacking the pagans of Mecca. So there were fight between the believers and unbelievers. But let me read some verses, and I will set the historical context for you more down the road here. Another chapter of the Quran, chapter 2, verse 216, supposedly God is saying this to the Muslim people. Fighting is prescribed for you, and you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and you love a thing which is bad for you. So God is apparently telling people that you don't even like to fight, but I'm commanding you to fight and destroy the enemies.
All right, time out. Let me be the devil's advocate here for a second. Now, you've quoted texts, and I trust that you're giving us the accurate text there, but there's also historical context for that text. Now, for example, I could read a passage from the book of Joshua or from the book of Deuteronomy where God gives the mandate to the Jewish people in Israel to go into Canaan, to slay men, women, and children there, and to institute the ban, not permitting them to allow any of the people to remain alive, because the whole idea is a scorched earth policy as God is commanding the Jews to take this land and rid it of all pagan influences. Now, that was by direct divine mandate to the Jews at that point in redemptive history. The church has not taken that to mean that therefore Christians or Jews of all ages have a mandate from God to slay pagans, right?
That's correct. I mean, there was a particular historical reason and context for that mandate. Now, couldn't a Muslim person come back and say to you, Abdul, oh, yes, we know that that's found there in the Koran, and that revelation came to Mohammed for his day, but it has no broader application beyond that particular initial conquest.
What would you say to that? Well, you have put your finger on a key issue, R.C. In fact, this was one of my responses in regard to the issue of violence in the Old Testament, that from the Old Testament, it is very clear that God's command to Joshua is for a special time, a special people, and a special purpose. We have no ongoing holy work, R.C. In the later Old Testament, this is not continued. And obviously, with the coming of Christ, this whole thing is put aside. Christianity has no foundation for jihad.
That's exactly right. And I would say even Judaism, they do not have a universal mandate for this spreading of the faith based on war. And if guys like Stalin and Hitler carried on against the Jews in the Holocaust, and they may have come out of Protestant Germany, they were acting in direct violation of Christian precepts in that slaughter. Absolutely. That's another… The Crusades, there's no New Testament mandate for carrying the sword to relieve Jerusalem from the Turks and so on. So that was a misguided black mark on the face of the church, not biblically based at all.
Absolutely. And this is one of the things I point out. The difference is not that Christians have never engaged in violence and Muslims have. Christians have done horrible things in the name of Christ and in the name of religion. But when Christians are engaged in violence, they are betraying the teachings of Jesus Christ and the example that he set for his followers. Whereas when Muslims are engaged in violence, they are not only not betraying the foundation of their faith, but they're in fact fulfilling the will of God as they understand it.
Let me let the devil back in the studio here for a second. But doesn't Christianity hold to the just war theory that there are occasions and times when the state, even under God, can and must engage in violence? Well, the just war theory, R.C., is a far different cry than the war justification that Islam provides.
I know. It's not a war of conquest. But again, if a Christian is involved in the just defense of their nation against aggression, then they're not violating the New Testament. Well, that's correct. That's correct.
So that there are… Yes. And Romans 13, for example, is one example where many Christians… That's all I was trying to say, but you're saying there's a difference between aggression and defense. That's correct.
You're saying that there's no biblical justification for aggressive violence. That's correct. That's absolutely right. Thank you for that clarification.
That's correct. There is no justification for having crosses on your shield and going and slaying the pagans because they are not Christians, reclaiming lands. That's a different thing than just war issues that the church has raised. But R.C., I want to first set the Quranic context. Then what I want to do, if you do not let the devil back in the studio for a few minutes, I want to set the context of Prophet Muhammad himself. And then I will get into the historical things about the rise of Islam and violence that goes back to the very heart and root of Islamic faith.
Let me just read two more verses very quickly. Chapter nine of the Quran, verse five, fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them and seize them, beleaguered them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war. Chapter nine, verse 29, fight those who believe not in God nor the last day, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are of the people of the book. So Muslims are commanded to fight even Jews and Christians if they do not acknowledge the religion of truth and if they do not submit themselves and bow themselves in submission to the Islamic authority. Chapter 47, verse four of the Quran, therefore, when you meet unbelievers, smite at their necks at length when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them. Chapter eight of the Quran, smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them, this because they contend against God and his people.
Now I'm reading just a few portions of the Quran because for the sake of time, we don't have much more to get into. But R.C., one of the differences that in fact you pointed out between the Quran and portions of the Old Testament is that the commands in the Quran have absolutely no time restriction on them. Nowhere in the Quran says, Muhammad, this is a command for you to go and kill the pagans of Mecca. Nowhere in the Quran is there a restriction put on the people who are supposed to engage in acts of violence and war against the unbelievers.
So these are universal commands for all times and all people. And in fact, we have seen that being carried out through Islamic history in the past 1400 years. Now some moderate liberal Muslim can say, well, this verse is no longer applied to us, but he has no authority to say that. And the vast majority of Muslims do not agree with that view that there are verses in the Quran that are just for a special time and place because this is the word of God for all time and all people. So that's the big difference between the verses we see in the Quran and the verses that we see, for example, in the book of Joshua.
So that's one issue. But Muslims, R.C., maybe because we have a Protestant slant here, they do not only just look at the Quran, they also have the traditions and sayings of Prophet Muhammad and his actions. These are important sources for Islamic law. We hear a lot about Sharia law, Islamic law. Islamic law doesn't just come from the Quran.
The Quran is very limited in that respect. So what Muhammad said in his lifetime and how he acted in his lifetime provide the foundation for the culture of Islam and for the Islamic law, which Muslims implement. And I have in the studio with me today books that are the most sacred books after the Quran in the Islamic world. For example, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad are called hadith. His sayings were collected, thousands of them, in various books and collections. We have hadith of al-Bukhari, which is the most sacred collection of Islamic writings right after the Quran. We have the hadith of al-Muslim, another Muslim scholar who collected Prophet Muhammad's sayings. And so we have hadiths that basically promote the use of violence for spreading the faith. Basically promote a very aggressive view of Islam. And so Muslims who are engaged in violence and aggression not only refer to the Quranic verses but refer to the sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad. While this interview took place several years ago, these insights about the Islamic religion are as current as today's headlines, and we as Christians need to study and understand them.
Dr. R.C. Sproul's guest today on Renewing Your Mind was Abdul Salim, a former Muslim who is now a Christian missionary working to evangelize Muslim communities here in America. And if you'd like to study this topic further, our resource offer today will help you do that. It's the entire interview that R.C.
did with Abdul Salim. It's a two-CD set titled The Dark Side of Islam. Call us with your gift of any amount. We'll be glad to send it your way.
Our phone number is 800-435-4343, and our web address is renewingyourmind.org. And let me encourage you to check out other resources on this topic on our free app. There you'll find articles on apologetics, including how we as Christians should interact with our Muslim co-workers and neighbors.
You can download the app when you search for Ligonier in your app store. And before we go today, I'd like to share with you an encouraging closing thought from Abdul Salim. I think it's very important to emphasize that Christians should not be afraid of reaching out. One of my biggest complaints about the church in America is that Christians are so afraid of establishing relationship with their Muslim neighbors, Muslim co-workers or colleagues. And I think we should not let this incident prevent Christians to even pull farther away, not that, in fact, if we claim that we are a people that want to take the love of Christ to others, these are the times for Christians to show that love in very practical ways to their Muslim neighbors and friends. And we'll learn more about how to interact with our Muslim neighbors and co-workers tomorrow with a message from James Anderson and his series, Exploring Islam. So I hope you'll join us Thursday for Renewing Your Mind.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-12-02 07:37:45 / 2023-12-02 07:47:24 / 10