Islam

Islam is the second largest religion in the world, next to Christianity. Although Islam is a world religion and not technically a “cult” as defined in this book, it is a religion that originated approximately 500 years after the birth of Christ, and directly contradicts His teachings. Its place in the religious historical record, relative to Christianity; its growing presence in the United States; and its anti-biblical theology requires a response.

According to Scripture, the ancestors of modern Arabs can be traced back to Shem and are properly known as Semites. Shem’s descendant Eber gave rise to two lines: Peleg’s line, from which Abraham is descended, and Joktan’s line, which contains the names of many Arab groups. However, many Arab tribes trace their ancestry to Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham. The word Arab refers to nomads or bedouins and may be connected with the word for desert or wilderness. The original meaning expanded to refer to Arabic speakers and those living in Arabia. “Arabness” seems to be inherited through the male since intermarriage with non-Arab women was common and is still permitted by the Koran. The Spanish Umayyad Caliph Abd-er Rahman III (ruled 929–961), who was proud of his ancestry from the former ruling clan of Mecca before Muhammad, was actually only 0.93 percent Arab.3

The Koran mentions these pagan deities in Sura 53:19–20: “Have ye seen Lat, and ‘Uzza, and another, the third (goddess), Manat?” This is followed by an assertion (vv. 21–23) that these goddesses, the daughters of Allah—the moon god—according to pre-Islamic Arab theology,5 are mere human creations that divide God into parts. These deities were popular at Mecca at the time of Muhammad’s birth. Lat, or al-Lat (“the goddess”), was the sun god; Uzza or al-’Uzza (“the mighty one”), the planet Venus; and Man’amat, the god of good fortune. Other gods mentioned in the Qur’an include Wadd (another moon god, mentioned above), Suw’a, Yaghuth, and Nasr (Sura 71:23). Of these gods, al-’Uzza appears to be the supreme deity in Mecca.

It is believed by some scholars that Allah, or al-Ilah (“the god”), can be traced to Ilah, the South Arabian moon god. Henotheism, or the worship of only one god while not denying the existence of other gods, may have existed in pre-Islamic society. The Koran speaks of hanifs, pre-Islamic Arab monotheists who were neither Christian nor Jewish. Extant evidence shows that Allah meant “the (one) God” for the many Christians, Jews, monophysites, and Nestorians who lived throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

 Muhammad

Muhammad was born in Mecca, near the Middle Western coastal region of Arabia, about AD 570, to Abdullah (or Abd Allah), who died two months after he was born, and Aminah, his mother, who died when he was six. Mecca was a large commercial city known for the Ka‘aba (“cube”), a building famous for its 360 idols containing images of the moon god Hubal, al-Lat, al-‘Uzza, and Manat, and the Black Stone. Muhammad’s family was of the relatively poor Hashemite clan of the Quraysh tribe, and it is the patriarch of that tribe, Fihr (known as qirsh or “shark”) of the Kinnah tribe, who Muslims claim to be a descendant of Ishmael and an inheritor of God’s promise to Hagar in Genesis 21:18. After the death of his mother, he was sent to live with his grandfather, Abd-al-Muttalib, who provided a Bedouin foster mother for him, Halimah, and was raised in the desert. After the death of his grandfather when Muhammad was eight, he returned to Mecca to live with his uncle, Abu Talib. At twenty-five, Muhammad married a wealthy forty-year-old widow, Khadijah, after she proposed to him. Muhammad remained with Khadijah for twenty-five years and had two sons, who died in infancy, and four daughters. After Khadijah died in 619 or 620, Muhammad married a widow of a disciple and a six-year-old (who moved in with him when she was nine), Aisha. His seventh wife was his ex-daughter-in-law; by the time of his death he had twelve wives and two concubines (including Maryam, an Egyptian Coptic slave).8

Interestingly, Sura 4:3 limits the number of wives to four, and in Sura 4:31 marriage to one’s daughter-in-law was prohibited. But in Sura 33:36–40, Muhammad was conveniently given a new revelation from God that ordered Zaid, Muhammad’s adopted son, to divorce his wife so Muhammad could marry her by God’s command. This is called abrogation.

According to extra-Koranic sources, Muhammad’s first mystical experience was allegedly being attacked by two men who cut his belly open in search of something. His foster mother thought he was demon-possessed after finding him standing and not having appeared to be the victim of any violence. He later claimed his nonexistent attackers to be angels who cleansed his heart. In AD 610, he claimed to have received his first of a series of revelations of the Koran from God through the angel Gabriel. His first disciple was his wife, then his cousin Ali, then his slave, and then his friend Abu Bakr. His wife and his uncle, who was his protector, both died in 619 or 620. The following year he was offered protection from powerful families in Yathrib, north of Mecca.

After his uncle Abu Talib died, the leaders of the various Meccan tribes and clans vowed to assassinate him. The angel Gabriel warned him of this, and he and his friend Abu Bakr fled to Yathrib, renamed Medina. This migration is known as the hijra and marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. Yathrib was a town dominated by Jewish groups but was at that time without a stable government, primarily consisting of feuding Arab factions and mediating Jewish tribes. Muhammad soon established the umma, a theocracy (or dictatorship) under his authority, and held complete control of the town.

Badr was conquered in 626, and in 627 a Meccan army 10,000 strong arrived to attack Medina, but Muhammad and his 3,000 men had prepared by digging a trench around the city. The Meccans later gave up and turned back. The Medinans retaliated by attacking a Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza, for allegedly conspiring with the Meccans, and Muhammad ordered the death of hundreds of Jewish males by beheading. The women and children of the tribe were sold into slavery. Two other Medinan Jewish tribes, the Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu Nadir, were driven from their homes and had all of their property confiscated. In 628 they conquered another group of Jews at Khaybar, who paid the jizya  to be left alone. Finally, in 630, Muhammad and his army conquered Mecca. On June 8, 632, Muhammad died.

His successors soon wrested Palestine (Israel and its capital, Jerusalem) and Syria away from the Jewish inhabitants and the Byzantines (629–641), conquered Iraq and Persia (633–643), Egypt (639), Tripoli (644), Toledo in Spain and western India (712), Crete (825), and Sicily (899). In West Africa, Muslims under Almoravid rulers pillaged the capital of Ghana (1076). Nubia, in East Africa, survived, as did a few small Christian nations until the 1500s.

Arab domination of conquered lands did not last forever, and soon many Muslim states declared their independence. In the early 1000s, the Seljuk Turks, who had only recently embraced Islam, began taking over territory previously held by Arab Muslims. By 1055, Tughrul Beg, leader of the Seljuk Turks, took control of Baghdad. Eventually, under the Ottoman Turks, who supplanted the Seljuks, Muslims went far into Europe, conquering Serbia (1459), Greece (1461), Bosnia (1463), Herzegovina (1483), Montenegro (1499), parts of Hungary (1526–1547) and Poland (1676). Although there were wars with European countries in the interim, many countries did not regain independence until the 1800s. Many Middle Eastern areas held by the Turks were lost under Napoleon Bonaparte, and later held by the British and French.

Several modern Middle Eastern countries did not come into existence as we know them until the early twentieth century. Iraq became independent in 1921, Egypt in 1937, Lebanon in 1945, Syria in 1946, Jordan in 1946, and Kuwait in 1961.

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the rise of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), there is an unprecedented interest in Islam and worldwide debate on its long-range goals. Islam in America is growing rapidly, despite deep concern and confusion surrounding its core beliefs, Sharia law, and the high-profile brutality of ISIS. Today, the open-borders policy of America and most of the world spreads the hidden culture of Jihad, and for the first time in history, Americans now expect and fear foreign terrorist attacks on American soil.

Unfortunately, most Christians still understand little about Islamic theology, confusing the identity of Jehovah, the God of Israel and the Christian church, with the Muslims’ Allah. There is a pressing need to address these theological differences—an urgency for Christians to study the heritage that is ours in Christ and resist confusion and error—in order to share biblical truth effectively with Muslim friends and neighbors.

“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet (or messenger) of Allah” is the great Shahada or “confession,” which faithful Muslims around the world declare daily. This declaration of faith effectively distinguishes Muslims from every other world religion, including Christianity and Judaism. More than 1.8 billion people worldwide worship Allah and revere Muhammad as his prophet.

Islam is a powerful global religious, social, and political force. Every Christian should recognize the implications of this, equip themselves with an active defense of the biblical faith, and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in love with the followers of Muhammad.

 Definitions

Martin, W., & Rische, J. M. (2020). The kingdom of the cults handbook: quick reference guide to alternative belief systems (pp. 305–310). Bethany House.