The red glow of the setting sun turned the desert sands the color of blood in its passing. Muhammad sat near the fire in the caravanserai as he listened to the babble of voices. Like him, the others enjoyed the conversation in the early evening over their dark coffee. Unlike him, the others would melt into the mists of the past. He, Muhammad of the tribe of Quraysh, camel driver for Kadijah, wealthy widow of Mecca, would one day weave these conversational snatches of Judaism and perverted Christianity with a dose of Arabian paganism into a new religion–Islam. And he would weld into a fearsome fighting machine the wild sons of the desert.
In the year 622, Muhammad fled the city of Mecca to Medina. The flight, called the Hejira, is considered the beginning of Islam. Before his death, ten years later, Muhammad had all of Arabia at his feet. By the time the next century had rolled its course, North Africa, Palestine, Turkey, Persia, and some of Spain were waking each day to the cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to the first of the daily prayers.
Islam continues to gather in converts. The golden domes of mosques now rise amid the spires of our cities. In 1945, there was one mosque in England; today there are close to 700. In France, Islam ranks second only to Catholicism. And in the inner cities of North America, hundreds of devotees are embracing Louis Farrakhan’s militant Black Islam.
Moslems claim five million adherents in this continent alone. Dr. Ismail Faruqui has called on the faithful to seek 50 to 75 million more: “Only from massive conversions,” he says, “can we hope to elect Muslim politicians, appoint Muslim judges, and incorporate the shar’iah (Islamic law) into the judicial system. We must transcend our minority status to make Islam a dominant force in America and the West.”
But what we see of the religion built on “an eternal truth and a necessary fiction” in the West is not true Islam. Here the soft glove is worn over the steel gauntlet. Islam brooks no rivals.
A fundamental tenet of Islam is that all the world should be the World of Islam. For centuries, the Jews lived in relative peace in the Arab world, albeit as second-class citizens. It certainly was better for them there than suffering the pogroms and persecutions of the so-called “Christian countries” of Europe. But the animosity between the two sons of Abraham rose to fever pitch when Israel was reestablished as a homeland for the Jews in 1948. It was an affront to Muhammad that a land once dominated by Islam should have been lost. Nothing will do but its return to the fold.
Little Israel floats in a mighty sea of Arab nations. News magazines must enlarge the region so you can even find the land given to the children of Isaac. The promise to Ishmael has come true: “a great nation” (Gen. 21:18), God said, so great “that it cannot be numbered” (Gen. 16:10). Yet from our vantage point in New Covenant days, we see that the promise to Isaac included Ishmael: “…in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). That blessing, no doubt, includes the Scriptures, but Genesis 22:18 states, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This seed, Paul tells us, is the Messiah (Gal. 3:14-18). He came also for the Arab world–if only they had embraced Him instead of the empty hope of Islam.
But for millions it is still not too late. And you can help. Pray for the Moslem world; pray for the Christians seeking to bring light into their darkness. Reach out to Moslems at home. (Students from Islamic countries now form the largest group of international students at our universities and colleges.) And of course we need to see a wave of intrepid souls who are willing to go, to storm the ramparts of Islam with the gospel.
I stood one day in a little shop in old Jerusalem. An old Moslem sat in the corner, counting his beads (they out-bead others with 99 in the long chain). I ventured to ask him what he was doing.
“Counting beads. This will help me to heaven.”
“It will? If it’s true, that’s wonderful! Show me how to do this…but one question before we begin. How many beads do you need to do to get to heaven?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“That is a problem. What if you miss by one bead?”
His answer was only a vacant stare.
Moslem plans should not dishearten us. Christ is man’s only true hope. Let’s give them Christ.