Sunday, November 23, 2008

The End of Islam

Islamic conquest and slavery - An enlightening article from South African Frontline Fellowship.

The End of Islam - Frontline Fellowship.

Muslim states are the most severe persecutors of Christians and radical Muslim extremists are the most vicious terrorists, hijackers, kidnappers, suicide bombers and assassins in the world today.

MUSLIM MYTHS
Yet Muslims, and their public relations agents and apologists, claim that Islam is a great religion of learning and tolerance. I have heard Muslim Imams of the Islamic Propagation Centre International declare in the mosque in Durban that Muslims are “more Jewish than the Jews and more Christian than the Christians!” All over the world, repeatedly, Muslims claim Islam to be superior to Christianity. “You Christians are so divided. We Muslims are all united. You have so many denominations, but we Muslims are all one. In Islam there is perfect unity.” And “Christianity is a religion for the Whites only, Islam is the Black man's religion.”; “There is no racism in Islam, we are all one in Islam.” “You Christians have so many Bibles, and you keep changing the Bible, but we Muslims have only one Quran, and it has never been changed.”

JUST THE FACTS
Slavery, Terrorism and Islam exposes the falsehood of these and other prevalent myths propagated about Islam. Far from Islam being a great religion of learning, tolerance and peace, this book presents the historical facts, and sets the record straight. Muhammad declared that if other books confirmed what was in the Quran then they didn't need them. And if the books did not confirm what was in the Quran they didn't want them. So the order was: Burn them! The Muslims burned libraries all across North Africa and the Middle East. They burned the library of Alexandria - the largest library in the world at that time. It probably included original copies of the Bible and other priceless manuscripts.

A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION
Over 3200 churches were destroyed or converted into mosques during the first century of Islamic Jihad alone. During the Muslim invasion of Syria in AD 634 thousands of Christians were massacred. As Mesopotamia was conquered between AD 635 and 643 many churches and monasteries were ransacked, and ministers and Christians slain. In the conquest of Egypt AD 640 and 641, the towns of Behnesa, Fayum, Nikiu and Aboit were all put to the sword. When the Muslims invaded Cyprus, they looted and pillaged homes and churches and massacred much of the population. In North Africa, when Tripoli was captured in AD 643, all the Jews and Christians were forced to hand their women and children over as slaves. When Carthage was captured, it was burned to the ground and most of its inhabitants slaughtered.

Beginning in AD 712 the Muslim armies invaded India. They smashed and demolished temples, plundered palaces, slaughtered millions of Indian men and enslaved the women and children. The ancient cities of Baranasai Mathura, Uggain, Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi and Dwarka were sacked, the populations massacred, and not one temple left standing.

“THE BLOODIEST STORY IN HISTORY”
Will Durant in his The Story of Civilisations, describes the Muslim invasion of India as “probably the bloodiest story in history.” The North Western region of India is called the Hindu Kush (“the slaughter of the Hindu”) as a reminder of the vast number of Hindu slaves who died while being marched across the Afghan Mountains to the Muslim slave markets in Central Asia. The Buddhists were also targeted for destruction. In AD 1193 Muhammad Khilji burned to the ground their famous library and the Buddhist stronghold of Bihar.

Shah Jahan is remembered as the builder of the Taj Mahal. What few Westerners know is that the builder of the Taj Mahal launched 48 military campaigns against non-Muslims in just 30 years. In AD 1628 he killed all his male relatives. Shah Jahan had 5,000 concubines in his harem but also indulged in incestuous sex with his daughters. In just one town, Banares, Jahan destroyed 76 Hindu temples. He also demolished Christian churches at Agra and Lahore. When he captured Hugh, a Portuguese enclave near Calcutta, he had 10,000 inhabitants “blown up with powder, drowned in water or burned by fire.” Another 4,000 were enslaved and offered Islam or death. Those who refused to convert were killed.

SPAIN UNDER THE MOORS
Neither was Spain under the Muslim Moors the jewel of Islamic tolerance that it is often purported to be. In AD 920 all the inhabitants of Muez were put to the sword. Cordova, Zarajoza and Merida were burned to the ground, with all adult males executed and all women and children enslaved. In AD 1066 all the Jews of Grenada were slaughtered. In AD 1126, all the Christians of Grenada were deported to Morocco.

In AD 1009, Kalif Hakem of Egypt ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre and all Christian places of worship in Jerusalem. Christians were persecuted cruelly and pilgrims were attacked.

CARNAGE IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Under Mehmet II the Turks conquered the great Byzantine capital, Constantinople. On 29 May, AD 1453, waves of Turkish soldiers swept into Constantinople, the greatest city in the world at that time, and put it to the sword. Priceless libraries and irreplaceable works of art were burned, the population slaughtered, even in the Hagia Sophia, the greatest Christian church in the world at that time.

For centuries the Turks demanded an annual “blood levy” of Christian boys. Parents were forced to hand over one out of every five Christian boys for service in the Sultan’s army as janissaries.

THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUSTS
Slavery, Terrorism and Islam documents hundreds of massacres of Christian populations by Muslim rulers. For example: In 1860 over 12,000 Christians were slaughtered in Lebanon. In 1876 14,700 Bulgarians were murdered by the Turks. 200,000 Armenian Christians were slaughtered by the Turks in Bayazid in 1877. And in 1915 the Turks massacred over 1.5 million Armenian Christians. As recently as September 1922 the Turkish army destroyed the ancient city of Smyrna with its 300,000 Christian population.

INTOLERANT AND INCONSISTENT
Despite Islam proclaiming itself as a religion of tolerance, no Muslim countries allow freedom of religion. Despite the Saudi Arabian government funding the building of thousands of mosques in Christian lands, no church or synagogue is tolerated in Saudi Arabia. Nor can any Saudi Arabian citizen be a Christian. Despite Muhammad being called a “prophet of peace”, he engaged in 47 battles and raids on caravans in his lifetime. It is inconsistent of Islam to insist on the cutting off of the hand of a thief when Muhammad and his successors, the Caliphas, engaged in wholesale theft, raiding caravans, kidnapping hostages for ransom and looting homes.

INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY
The persecution of Christians by Muslims has become a taboo subject in Western circles. Over thirteen centuries of religious discrimination and persecution, causing the suffering, oppression, murder and enslavement of countless millions has been buried under a thick whitewash of myths of “Islamic tolerance”. The deceit, cowardice and silence of all too many Western journalists and academics continues to facilitate the religious discrimination and persecutions of radical Muslims to this day.

The intellectual dishonesty of those Westerners who engage in academic gymnastics to justify the invasion of other people's lands; the looting, pillaging, raping, murdering and enslaving of whole peoples, needs to be exposed. The hypocrisy of those who justify the military aggression of Muslims, but condemn those who inflicted defeats upon these Muslim invaders needs to be challenged. The fiction that “Jihad has never been an aggressive, but only a defensive concept”, should be dismissed with the contempt that such deception deserves. What were Saudi Arabians defending in Spain?

DOUBLE TALK
When Islam defines a refusal to submit to Sharia law under Islam as aggression, and when they define peace as submission to Islam, then we must know that we are not talking the same language.

In the USA, at various airport chapels, I've noticed the increasing practice of providing prayer mats and qiblahs to indicate the direction Muslims must face to pray towards Mecca. Qurans and quantities of glossy publications printed by the Saudi Arabian Embassy to promote Islam overflow the tables at these chapels.

Even at Epcot Centre in Disney World, in their Progress Through The Ages, there is a section praising the religion of Islam, which “kept learning alive” during the Dark Ages! Perhaps burning libraries provided some light, but the destruction of millions of books is hardly the way to “keep learning alive!”

Numerous films from Hollywood have portrayed Christians as benighted, closed-minded bigots and the Muslim characters as compassionate, intelligent and enlightened. There has been a relentless barrage of anti-Christian bias and pro-Islamic propaganda generated by Hollywood filmmakers, liberal journalists and college professors. As Karl Marx declared: “The first battlefield is the rewriting of history!”

DIVISIONS AND DISSENSION
Despite Muslim claims to the contrary, the unity of Muslims is more of a thin veneer than a reality. Muslims are divided into three mega blocks: The Sunni (“one of the path”), the Shi'ites (those who believe that Muhammad's son-in-law Ali was the true successor to Muhammad), and the Sufi (the mystical sect of Islam). These three main blocks can be broken down into literally thousands of identifiable groupings with major variations and distinctives.

One of the more obvious evidences of the divisions within Islam are the many wars waged between Muslims. Since the “Wars of Apostasy” (that raged during the Caliph Abu Bakr's brief rule following the death of Muhammad) to more recent years, the Muslim world has been torn by revolutions and assassinations. Just since 1948, the 21 Arab countries have suffered 30 wars, 63 successful revolutions, at least 75 unsuccessful revolutions and the murder of 36 Heads of State.

In the Arab world, revolutions and assassinations have been the most prevalent means of political expression and of attaining power. The only Arab country that was ever a democracy was Lebanon, when Christians were the majority there. However, after the Syrian invasion and intensified persecution of Christians led many to flee, and the Muslims to gain the majority, democracy in Lebanon was extinguished.

CHANGES IN THE QURAN
As to the myth that “there is only one Quran and it has never been changed”, Slavery, Terrorism and Islam exposes that as falsehood as well. Both the times of prayer and the direction of prayer were changed from the original Quran. Originally Muhammad had declared that it was Allah's will that all Muslims pray towards Jerusalem. After the Jews refused to accept his “prophethood”, Muhammad changed the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca.

DESTROYING QURANS
The third Calipha Uthman forcibly standardised the many variations of the Quran by demanding that all versions and copies of the Quran had to be surrendered - under pain of death - for destruction. At the end, Uthman issued a new, revised, standardised, version of the Quran which endures to this day.

MANY VERSIONS
As to there being only one version of the Quran, I have on my shelf a number of Qurans, several of which I obtained from the Islamic Propagation Centre International, including the translation and commentary by Yusuf Ali and the translation by Muhammad Pickthall. There are also the translations by Maulana Muhammad Ali, Ahmed Ali, J. M. Rodwell, A. J. Arberry, M. H. Shakir, N. J. Dawood and Muhammad Zafulla Khan. The differences between these various translations of the Quran can be quite interesting. For example the permitting of plunder in Surah 24:29: Rodwell translates it as “there shall be no harm in your entering (unoccupied) houses…for the supply of your needs”; M. Z. Khan's translation adds “wherein are your goods.” Dawood inserts “to seek shelter.” M. H. Shakir and M. M. Ali insert an ambiguous “wherein you have your necessities.” Ahmed Ali writes “where there is some convenience for you.” Whereas Arberry has a vague “wherein enjoyment is for you.”

Surah 4:34 (or:38, some versions of the Quran vary slightly as to their verse numbers), Dawood, Arberry and Rodwell translate as “as for (disobedient wives) beat them” whereas M. M. Ali and M. Z. Khan prefer a more obscure translation: “chastise them.”

Some Muslim translators such as M. M. Ali tried to soften Muhammad's savagery by retranslating verses such as Surah 8:12: “Strike off their heads. Strike off their fingertips!” with “smite…their necks…and every fingertip.”

Dawood translates Surah 8:68: “A prophet may not take captives until he has fought and triumphed in the land.” However, Rodwell uses these words in his translation: “…until he has made a slaughter in the earth.” Plainly the assertion that there is only one Quran, and the Quran has never been changed, is false.

ISLAMIC RACISM
Similarly, the claim that “there is no racism in Islam, we are all one…” is a blatant lie. From the very inception of Islam, and for its entire history, Muslims have made up the largest numbers of slave traders and engaged in the greatest slave trading campaigns in history. Even today, slavery continues in many parts of the Muslim world. Just about the only places in the world today where you will still find slavery practised are in the Muslim world.

Muhammad was a slave owner, and he traded in slaves. Throughout the Hadith, Black people are referred to as slaves. In fact, in the Arabic language it is impossible to distinguish between a Black person and a slave. The same word used for a slave is the word for a Black man. In the Hadith Muhammad is quoted as referring to Black people as “raisin heads.”

Several years ago when I was having a debate with Ahmed Deedat at the Islamic Propagation Centre International in Durban, Deedat tried to change the subject to get out of a sticky corner he had painted himself in to by some theological gymnastics. “Kafirs!” Deedat shouted “that's what the White Christians called the Black people when they came here to South Africa: Kafirs! That's what the Whites called the Black people: Kafirs!” For some time Deedat continued to try to shout this refrain and change the subject, injecting some kind of racial animosity in the mixed group which was listening to this debate.

So I asked him the question: “But isn't 'Kafir' an Arabic word? From the Quran? Isn't ‘Kafir’the Arabic word for infidel? Wasn't it the Muslim slave traders who gave the people of Africa the term ‘Kafirs?’” Ahmed Deedat promptly changed the subject and never answered the question. Nor did he revisit the issue.

THE ISLAMIC SLAVE TRADE
As Slavery, Terrorism and Islam documents, at least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. As at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slaver raiders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is estimated that the death toll from the 14 centuries of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Sahara and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people.

There were many children born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, but very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive. Most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East slave bazaars were castrated and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth - in order to maintain Arab numerical supremacy.

CHRISTIAN ROOTS IN AFRICA
As to the Muslim claim that “Christianity is a religion for the Whites only, Islam is the Black mans’ religion.” African Christians point out that Christianity predated Islam in Africa by 6 centuries. St. Mark, the author of the Gospel of Mark, planted the Church in Egypt, in AD 62, and died for Christ in Alexandria. The Apostle Matthew, author of Matthew's Gospel, planted the Church in Abyssinia, (present day Ethiopia). Acts chapter 8 records the baptism of the treasurer of Queen Candice of Sudan, by the deacon Phillip. From the 1st Century the Church was firmly established in Egypt, Sudan and Abyssinia. Christianity came to Africa before it even went to Europe. It was an African, Simon of Cyrene, who helped carry the cross of Christ. Some of the greatest names in early Church history were Africans, including St. Augustine of Hippo, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen and Athanasius.

AFRICA'S AGONY
However, the Muslim armies wiped out the indigenous African Church that flourished in the countries which became Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Through the centuries the Christians in Egypt, Sudan and Abyssinia steadfastly resisted centuries of Islamic Jihad and persecution. Far from Islam being the Black man's religion, it has been the greatest affliction the Black people have ever endured through the 14 centuries of Islamic slave trade and the oppression of Sharia law.

Today, despite Muslims being only one sixth of the world's population, Muslim armies and terrorist groups are involved in 90% of the world's conflicts.

CULTURAL DISASTER
It is no wonder that William Muir (1819 - 1905) one of the greatest orientalists of all time, concluded at the end of his long and distinguished career: “The sword of Muhammad and the Quran are the most fatal enemies of civilisation, liberty and truth which the world has ever known…an unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's will…”

To this, many journalists and professors will claim that Islam was tremendously advanced scientifically and medically while Europe languished in the Dark Ages. However, as French historian Ernest Renan observed: “Science and philosophy flourished during the first half of the Middle Ages, but it was not by reason of Islam; it was in spite of Islam. Not a…philosopher or scholar escaped persecution…To give Islam the credit for…so many illustrious thinkers who passed half their life in prison, in forced hiding, in disgrace, whose books were burned and whose writings were suppressed by their theological authority, is as if one were to ascribe to the inquisition…a whole scientific development which it tried to prevent.”

PLUNDERING PROGRESS
What most of these propagandists for Islam choose to forget is that the Arab armies conquered the advanced Christian civilisations in North Africa and the Middle East. So, yes, by reason of plunder and occupation, the Islamic Empire was enriched and benefited immeasurably. But almost all of the scientific and technological advancements, and almost all of the hard work, were the work of Christian slaves and dhimmis.

We have not even looked here at the oppression of women in Islam, but there is a whole chapter on that in Slavery, Terrorism and Islam.

Faced as we are by the massive bloc of Islamic nations, and the vast petro-dollar funding of Islamic Propagation Centres, with their building of thousands of mosques and madrasses throughout Europe, Africa and the Americas, what hope is there for the future?

9-11
First of all, the Scripture is clear: “The desert tribes will bow before Him and His enemies will lick the dust…all kings will bow down to Him and all nations will serve Him.” Psalm 72:9-11

That's the 9/11 of the Scriptures. Probably the most foolish thing Muslim radicals have ever done was attacking the financial heart of America with the terror attacks on the New York World Trade Centre and Washington with hijacked aircraft. Since September the 11th 2001, more critical books on Islam have been written than in previous centuries. And we have begun to see the first cracks in the monolithic empire of Islam.

TYRANTS OVERTHROWN
The Taliban, probably the most radical Islamic regime in the world, in Afghanistan, was toppled by US forces. For the first time free elections have been held in Afghanistan. Then Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the military superpower of the Muslim world was defeated by the American and Allied forces in a matter of weeks. (The Americans have now also organised the first free elections in Iraq's history).

Also, in the first free elections in Nigerian history, a Christian president came to power. For 38 years Nigeria suffered under a succession of Islamic dictators. Nigeria hosted the Islam in Africa Conference and was recognised as an officially Islamic state by the World Islamic Organisation. Although Sharia law continues to be enforced in the 12 Northern provinces of Nigeria, with hundreds of churches having been burned, and thousands of Christians massacred, the population of Nigeria has plainly rejected Islamic rule and a Christian president is in power there for the first time.

MORE DEFEATS FOR ISLAM
Next the National Islamic Front Government of Sudan which had waged Jihad against the Christian Black South, seeking to impose its policies of Islamisation and Arabisation, have now agreed to a cease-fire and signed a peace treaty. This peace treaty grants autonomy to the South, exempting them from Sharia law and recognising some religious freedom. Then, last year, Malawi, which had for ten years been ruled by a Muslim president, elected a Christian president.

SHAKING FOUNDATIONS
Also, last year The Passion of the Christ film was shown throughout the Muslim world to overflowing theatres. Never before had any Christian medium impacted the lives of tens of millions of Muslims. Missionaries in the Middle East rejoiced that more people had seen The Passion in a single day in their city than they had been able to show the Jesus film in the previous four years of full-time missionary work! While the Jesus film was illegal and could only be shown secretly, at great risk, The Passion was being openly screened in the shopping mall cinemas! This, taken along with the phenomenal response to SAT-7, a Christian mission broadcasting Gospel programmes in Arabic throughout the Middle East, is also unprecedented.

Then we should mention the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and Libya's sudden renouncing of terrorism and seeking to co-operate with the USA. Taken together with the facts that: there are more missionaries focused on the Muslim world today than ever before in history, more books written on Islam from a Christian perspective than ever before, and there is also more prayer focused on the Muslim world than ever before. All of these factors considered together represent a series of seismic events shaking the very foundations of Islam.

THE THREAT OF FREEDOM
Islam cannot survive freedom. The Quran cannot survive intense scrutiny and critical investigation. In this technological age, Islam's days are numbered. Although they can hijack Western technology to use against the West, the foundations of Islam are rotten to the core and cannot stand.

The Scriptures declare: “At the Name of Jesus every knee will bow…every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…” Philippians 2:10-11.

The day will come when the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the seas are full of water (Habakkuk 2:14).

Yet it is also true that “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). There is a tremendous ignorance of Islam and most Christians are failing to evangelise their Muslim neighbours. That is why this book, Slavery, Terrorism and Islam is needed at this time. We need to understand Islam and we need to evangelise Muslims.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into His harvest field.” Matthew 9:39

Frontline Fellowship's new book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam - The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat sets the record straight, with chapters on “Muhammad, the Caliphas and Jihad”, “The Oppression of Women in Islam”, “The Sources of Islam”, “The Scourge of Slavery - The Rest of the Story.” With 110 pictures and 12 maps and charts, this book is well illustrated. It consists of 12 chapters and 9 very helpful appendices, including demographic maps of the Spread of Islam, a Glossary to understand Islamic Terms, a comparison of Muslim Nations and Military Spending versus their National Prosperity, a chart on how Jihad works depending on the percentage of Muslims in the population and Guidelines for Effective Muslim Evangelism.

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