Introduction 6 Position of this Study 7

First, Understand Islam

Before we can even begin to understand the attitude of Muslims, we must get a basic grasp of Islam itself. For the practicing Muslim, conformity to the laws of Islam are paramount. So what are these laws? They are the laws of Sharia, which are taken from the combined writings of the Quran and the Hadith (hadith is a collection of sayings and writings about Muhammad in a number of other “books”).

We are not going to look at the Sharia in this study as it is beyond our scope and is far too time consuming. It is enough to know that Sharia Law is an entire legal system that governs and regulates everyday life of all Muslims. According to the Quran, it is more superior to any other set of laws in existence, superseding even the Laws given to Moses by God.

As Muslims are taught that Islam and Muslims are superior to all others, their god is the only one true god and all must (emphasis on must) acknowledge these facts, then naturally they see adherence to Sharia Law as being the only right thing to do. We will say more about this a little later.

We also need to know something about the different groups and factions in Islam. We need to understand the mindset of the different Muslims (generally speaking) in these different groups and how cultural attitudes are ingrained in the Islamic traditions.

If we can grasp something of how Muslims differ in their thinking (and that difference is considerable) then this will help us should we wish to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them.

Further than that, we need to be aware of the highly defensive nature of Muslims towards their faith, defensive to the point that most have a tendency to become very aggressive or even violent.

What we need to be aware of at the outset is that we should make the distinction between the religion of Islam as a generalised whole and the Muslim as an individual. Just in the same way as there are many different attitudes, beliefs and theologies among Christians, the same applies to Muslims. There are a great number of different Islamic factions (what Christians might refer to as “denominations”) but the groups worldwide can be roughly divided into two, those being the Sunna and the Shia. So on that basis alone, we cannot assume that all Muslims think in the same way.

To understand Islam (the religion) requires study of the Quran and the Hadiths (and certainly an understanding of the life of Mohammad and the historical development of the religion over the centuries). It also requires an understanding initially of Arabic customs (going back to the mid 1^st century) and then the various customs of the countries that were invaded and conquered by Muslims as they spread from the Arab peninsula. This is not a simple task by any means and seems quite daunting in the extreme.

Such in depth studies have been undertaken by others over the years, so rather than do the work again, I endeavor here to give a flavor of Islam which dips into the studies of others, but also I want to provide a way to give an insight into Muslim attitudes and beliefs that will give you the opportunity to come to your own conclusions, despite my own quite obvious conclusions.

The facts are quite straightforward. Islam was born out of violence. It has used violence and the threat of violence as its main method of evangelism for the last 1400 years. A study of the life of Muhammad (from a historic point of view) will confirm the truth of this, much of which can be seen from within the Quran. Naturally you can do your own reading on this.

What you read about Muhammad can be extremely variable. In my meandering for works on this subject I came across the website “Islamhouse.com” which has many online books and articles, all from an Islamic perspective, in many languages.

I will draw your attention to one book I found called “The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (3)”. I urge you to read this book. As you do so, just be aware that the only book of reference quoted in the whole book is the Quran. So this is the story of Muhammad taken from the writings of Muhammad and others who came after him. (I have included the contents page of this book in Appendix 2. A copy of the book itself can be downloaded alongside this book on our website.)

In the opening passages of this book, it assumes and takes for granted that the God of Abraham is the same as Allah, which is the same stance that the Quran takes. The book ignores every instance of the violence of Islam, and emphasizes how others victimized Mohammad and his followers.

This book is quite typical of the method of “teaching” followers of Islam. Instead of referring back to the source material for the entire story, fanciful fiction is contrived and sold as “truth” and then a selected reference is given from the Quran.

What this does is to provide teaching to the followers of Islam which is expressed as fact, and using the Quran as the basis (in ancient Arabic that the vast majority cannot read) when in fact it is a fabricated story with an element of truth mixed in.

Different Versions of the Quran

In contrast to this is the historian’s examination of the life of Muhammad. (4) which even seems to indicate the possibility that Muhammad did not even exist at all. However, it is more likely that he did in fact exist but his biography has been significantly embellished.

You can of course obtain a copy of the Quran in English (or whatever language you wish) and read it for yourself, as a place to begin. Rather than engage in a long discourse in the variations in the different versions of the Quran, let me just say that no matter what a Muslim may tell you, there are many versions of the Quran, in Arabic and then translated into various languages. There are quite significant differences between versions in parts, and the different versions come from different parts of the world.
The following quote is from the Online article:
“The Different Versions of the Arabic Versions of the Quran” (5):

We began this article by considering this common Islamic claim:

No other book in the world can match the Qur'an ... The astonishing fact about this book of ALLAH is that it has remained unchanged, even to a dot, over the last fourteen hundred years. ... No variation of text can be found in it. You can check this for yourself by listening to the recitation of Muslims from different parts of the world. (Basic Principles of Islam, p. 4)

This claim is wrong. All of the Islamic evidence shows there are different canonical versions of the Qur'an used around the world today. They differ in their basic letters, diacritical dots, vowels, and the Basmalah; and this changes the meaning of words and sentences. Therefore how the Qur'an is recited around the world today is different; not all Qur'ans are identical.

I realise this may be hard for some Muslims to accept because in their culture they have grown up being taught there is only one Qur'an. However, this is the fault of Islamic leaders who continue to exaggerate about the Qur'an as they attack the Bible.
With this kind of inconsistency between versions, making any real sense of these writings is a difficult task at best. If we ask ourselves why there is so much conflict and aggression between the Muslim nations themselves, then this inconsistency is certainly one reason.
So having some idea about Islam is a starting point for us to understand the mindset(s) of Muslims around the world. But this is just the beginning. Interpretation of the Quran and other Islamic teaching provides a general framework for the religion, but as we have started to see, what is taught by the Islamic scholars to the population is a highly variable and dubious version of the words of the Quran and Hadiths themselves. In the main, the local Imam (rough equivalent to the Christian “Pastor”) will teach a sanitised and peaceful version which the people take to be the truth, because it comes from the person they are brought up to believe is an authority on the subject.
So if we are to win Muslims to Christ, we need to be aware of what we are up against. In a lot of cases, sharing the Gospel may be enough to prove to them that they follow a false god. But with most, it will be a very difficult path. The fear that they have in turning away from their faith in “Allah” (this is apostasy) means also turning away from the faith of their families.

As we will not be discussing the subject of apostasy in this study, I will simply tell you that the punishment for apostasy in the Quran is death. That should give you some idea of the fear that a Muslim will feel when faced with such a prospect. Should you think that this is an ancient punishment, let me remind you that people are beheaded for such crimes [sic] in Saudi Arabia today.