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Friday, March 29, 2024 - 05:52 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

“My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge…” - Hosea 4:6

Star and Crescent, Traditional symbol of Islam
Star and Crescent, Traditional symbol of Islam

The Biden Administration has by usurping “Executive Authority” already settled over 65,000 almost completely unvetted refuges from Afghanistan in the United States. Few of these were involved in helping American or NATO forces in Afghanistan. According to Pew Research, Afghanistan is the most radical Muslim country in the world with 99 percent of its 99 percent Muslim majority favorable to Sharia Law over American or Western laws. You have to be an oblivious idiot, incorrigible crook, or dedicated enemy of the United States and Western Civilization not to see this is an extremely perilous disregard for the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.

Most Americans have dangerously little accurate knowledge about the fundamental beliefs of Islam. This includes American political leaders, many of whom are using immigration as a path to political power. Hosea warned that continued willful ignorance can destroy nations. Knowing the realities of Islamic doctrines is essential for American and Western survival.

 

Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a revealed religion. In all three, the claims of divine revelation of spiritual and moral truth are recorded in a book or books that are considered sacred and foundational. Judaism has the books of the Old Testament, and Christianity has added the books of the New Testament to that foundation. The primary claim for divine revelation of truth and moral principles in Islam is the Koran. An important characteristic of revealed religion is that its teachings have the status of final divine authority and are therefore not subject to amendment or reinterpretation by mankind or majority vote.

The Bible was written over many centuries by men who are considered to have been divinely inspired. The Christian view is that their writings may reflect various literary styles, personalities, and historical contexts, but they impart divine truth as the authors were moved by God in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Jewish view is similar but pertains only to the Old Testament and, of course, does not embrace the Christian view of God as a Trinity— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Islam’s view of the Koran goes far beyond the Judeo-Christian concept of divine inspiration. Muslins believe that the Koran was written by Allah (Arabic for God) and already existed in heaven before the Angel Gabriel gave it piecemeal to their Prophet. Muhammad faithfully revealed these passages to his followers as they were given to him over a period of 22 years. Shortly after his death in 632, Muhammad’s followers compiled these revelations into a presumably perfect rendering of the heavenly Koran.

The Koran is a little smaller than the New Testament and contains considerable repetition. For example, the story of the Exodus is repeated 27 times. Eliminating the repetitions in the Koran would make it only about 40 percent as big as the New Testament. Because the Koran’s verses often neglect to give the full context of its revelations, other teachings of Muhammad recorded by his followers are critical to its interpretation. These words of Muhammad are called the hadiths, and various collections of them are called Hadiths. The Hadiths which Muslim scholars consider most reliable are regarded as truth only slightly less sacred and significant than the Koran itself. These collections are especially important because they help fill in the context and meaning of Koranic verses. Still, many objective Western scholars of the Koran consider about 20 percent of its verses to make little sense. Much Muslim scholarship goes into tracing and determining the authority and reliability of the hadiths, but the Koran itself is not very open to different interpretations. In a society dominated by Islamic Law (Sharia) the penalty for doubting standard interpretations of the Koran can be death.

Only about 14 percent of Islamic Doctrine, measured by the number words, is found in the Koran. Sixty percent is in the Hadiths, and 26 percent in the biography of Muhammad, called the Sira. These make up the doctrinal trilogy of Islam.

The most reliable Hadiths and biographical histories of Muhammad are together called the Sunna and held in especially high regard. One of the most respected biographical histories of Muhamad is Sirat Rasul Allah (The Life of the Messenger of God) by Ibn Ishaq. A favorite 800-page English translation of this is The Life of Muhamad by Alfred Guillaume. Muhammad speaks through both the Koran and Sunna and has an enormous influence on the nature of Islam. There are over 30 exhortations to follow the example of Muhammad in the Koran alone. The golden rule of Islam is to follow Muhammad. Sharia (Islamic Law) is simply the codification of the moral and spiritual teachings of the Koran and Sunna into indexed law. The most respected English translation of a classic manual of Islamic Sacred Law is the 1232-page Reliance of the Traveller by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. For example, in this manual on page 599 is a definition of Jihad indexed as o9.0:

“Jihad means to war against non-Muslims…”

According to Dr. Bill Warner, in Lectures on the Foundations of Islam, 31 percent of the Islamic doctrinal trilogy is about Jihad.

There are many contradictions in the Koran, but Islam has a doctrine of interpretation called Abrogation to resolve them. The Doctrine of Abrogation, which gives primary authority to verses recorded last or more recently, effectively cancels or subordinates earlier contradictory verses. The later Medinan verses on Jihad essentially abrogate more peaceful verses from the earlier Meccan period. Westerners unaware of the Doctrine of Abrogation are often deceived into believing that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, while it is actually dominated by the Doctrine of Jihad. Almost all Jihadic verses of the Koran involve making war on non-Muslims.   

The Koran’s many repetitions are often inaccurate borrowings from the Old Testament and other Jewish writings. Of the 27 repetitions of the Exodus story, the Passover—a very important part to Jews and Christians—is consistently left out. It also contains some confused Christian history and theology. For example, Isa (Jesus) is said to be the son of Mary, the sister of Mosses and Aaron, thus confused with Mariam in Judeo-Christian scriptures. Isa, the Jesus of Islam, is not the Son of God but only a Prophet and did not die on the cross or save anybody from their sins. He comes back at the end of time to destroy Christianity and convert people to Islam. Despite these obvious (and often distorted) borrowings, Muslims do not consider Islam to be a derivative of Judaism or Christianity. They consider Islam to be the original faith of Abraham of which Judaism and Christianity are corruptions.

Although “Allah” is a monotheistic god with many characteristics common to the Lord God of the Bible—all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign over all nature and mankind—their personalities as painted by the Koran and the Bible respectively are quite different. Many Muslim apologists insist that Allah and the Lord God of Judeo-Christianity are the same, but most Biblically informed Christians disagree. Many Muslims who have converted to Christianity, however, consider that Allah is God, but that Islam has badly distorted his true nature and personality. In quoting the Koran and Hadiths, I usually leave the Arabic, Allah, untranslated, because Allah is so different from the Judeo-Christian Jehovah or Lord God.

Curiously, one of the main themes of the Koran and the Hadiths is hell. Allah (or Muhammad) hurls 783 threats of hell-fire at the unbelieving and disobedient in the Koran. Despite the constant drumbeat in every chapter of the Koran of “in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, a major theme of the Koran seems to be vengeance against all unbelief. In contrast, the New Testament contains only 74 verses that mention hell, and the Old Testament even less!  Moreover, the Bible and especially the New Testament’s dominant message is salvation by forgiving grace, a stark contrast to the Koranic theme of vengeance on unbelievers.

One of the great concerns about Islam to the West is its violent nature. For 1400 years its principal way of spreading the Muslim faith has been the sword. The Koran calls for Holy War to make Islam the dominant religion of the world in no less than 109 verses. So much that Jihad must be considered a cardinal pillar of Islam. It seems secondary in importance only to the proclamation that Allah is the only god and Muhammad is his prophet.

The call to Jihad is really a derivative of another cardinal principle of Muslim theology—the Supremacy of Islam. This is seen especially in Surah (chapter) 9, verse 33:

“He it is who hath sent his Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion, albeit they who assign partners to God be averse from it.”

It should be noted that “assigning partners to God” is a major sin in Islam, the Trinitarian God of Christianity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is blasphemy to Muslims.

Another grave concern is that the Koran and Sunna advocate or approve conduct towards women and girls that strongly contrast with Western standards. This has resulted in high crime rates against women in several European countries that opened their borders to massive numbers of unvetted Muslim migrants.

I often hear people claiming that education could make Islam into a more peaceful religion, more compatible with the West. This is close to being nonsense. Islam is a revealed religion not subject to change or pacification by majority vote or the influence of the West, women, or “moderates.” The problem is in the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad. You cannot make Islam into a religion of peace without removing the Koran and Muhammad.

Another concern which the West must consider when dealing with Islam is that according to the Koran and Muhammad, civil government and Islamic religion should be inseparable. If Muslims ever take over the government of a Western country by Jihad or political elections—which is becoming an increasingly realistic possibility in the next twenty years—freedom of religion for non-Muslims will be out the door in those countries that have naively welcomed a mass influx of Muslim immigrants. Because most Sunni and Shia religious leaders consider democracy an affront to the Will of Allah, all other political liberties will soon follow religious freedom out the door.

The totalitarian motto “Ignorance is Strength” in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, means that the ruling class is able to maintain power and control by keeping the rest of the population ignorant. Nations are enslaved by first crushing knowledge and truth.

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Mike ScruggsMike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East.

He holds a BS degree from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Stanford University. A former USAF intelligence officer and Air Commando, he is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, and holds the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart, and Air Medal. He is a retired First Vice President for a major national financial services firm and former Chairman of the Board of a classical Christian school.

Click the website below to order books. http://www.universalmediainc.org/books.htm.