IS ISLAM A RELIGION OF PEACE?
On the one hand, I could say that the answer to this
question is quite simple. Simply compare
Jesus to Muhammad…
Jesus never harmed anyone or anything. As Isaiah, describes the Messiah “A bruised reed He will not
break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish;” Isaiah 42:3.
Muhammad
conducted war, beheaded captives, raided caravans, and added captured women to
his haram.
Jesus’ immediate followers, likewise, were harmless. They spread the message of the Gospel through
reasoning and arguments of persuasion.
Muhammad’s successors conducted
war, beheaded captives, raided caravans, and added captured women to their
harams.
The answer is pretty straight forward. There is nothing about the life of Muhammad
that would even remotely suggest that he was a man of peace or that the
“religion” that he founded is one of peace.
One may also look to the Quran and the
Hadiths to confirm a general call to violence on the part of Islam. This is
countered by verses that serve as calls to peace also found in the Quran. In similar fashion when the Christian argues
on behalf of a peaceful Gospel, the Muslim apologist counters “But look at the
violence when Israel conquered the land of Canaan. That was not peaceful". Furthermore, if Jesus is the Messiah of peace
whom “a bruised reed He will not break” how can that claim be made when in the
end He will vanquish His enemies violently”?
Most Christians tend to avoid these
objections. Personally, I’m skeptical
that anyone who would present these objections is really interested in
determining truth and/or is so entrenched in Islam that He would be unwilling
to objectively reevaluate his own faith anyway.
I hope that such is not the case and with that in mind, I present as my
intention, to address these objections and demonstrate that they are
fundamentally unfounded. In this essay I will attempt to address the former objection and in a subsequent essay, I will address the latter objection.
Why the call in the Bible to genocide?
The Muslim is correct when he makes
the claim that God told Moses that when the Children of Israel were to enter
the Land of Canaan they were to completely kill all of the people of the
land. Clearly, in Deuteronomy 17:16-18
it says
Only in the
cities of these peoples that the Lord your God
is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that
breathes. But you
shall [k]utterly destroy
them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite
and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God
has commanded you, so that
they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which
they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God.
This is a reality. This is
a part of the very ugly, down and dirty truth that is found in the Bible. But it is a necessary part of the Bible
narrative. So I rhetorically ask “Why
did God command the Children of Israel to do something as utterly cruel as
annihilating the inhabitants of the land?
I will attempt to answer this, first of all, by addressing the nature of
the people who were in the land, second of all, by addressing the purpose
behind God wanting the Children of Israel to occupy the land and lastly, by the
nature of the warfare that was used in taking the land.
A.
The nature of the people who were living in
the land.
The first hint that we get about the nature of the people who were
living in the land is found in Genesis 15.
It tells something about, not only the people, but something very
wonderful about God. In Genesis 15, God makes
a covenant with Abram (whose name would be changed to Abraham). As part of the covenant God says to him
“Know for certain
that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is
not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will
serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will
be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
(Genesis 15:13-16
Here we see God telling Abraham that his
descendants would spend 400 hundred years in Egypt. The Amorites who were in the land at the time
of Abraham’s dwelling there were deeply involved in idolatry and all sorts of perverse
behavior. But the sin among them had not
yet reached its peak. They were not
beyond redemption. The 400 years of the
descendants of Abraham dwelling in Egypt was the time necessary for the
Amorites to reach their peak of corruption. Here’s where we see something
wonderful and compassionate about God. Notice His patience. He knew that the Amorites would get worse and
worse. He just didn’t want to utterly
destroy them then and there. Some of the
Amorites at the time of Abraham were redeemable and not deserving of death. The compassion of God also wanted to give
them time to repent.
I will not, at this point, get into the other
aspects of this covenant. They are very
significant. But they are not presently
germane.
So, at the time of the Children of Israel’s
(Abraham’s grandson’s) invasion of the land, the Amorites had become as corrupt
and irredeemable as they could be.
So, what was the nature of their
corruption? There is no specific history
of the account of their corruption mentioned in the Bible, however, after much
time had passed, the kingdom of the Children of Israel who had wrenched the
land from the Amorites became divided into two separate kingdoms. In the norther kingdom, there arose a king
who became so evil that he was likened to the evil of the Amorites (1Kings
21:26). To understand the corruption of
the Amorites, therefore, one need only study the activities of that king who’s
name was Ahab. An account of the
activity of Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, can be found between Chapter 16:29 and
Chapter 22:40 of the book of First Kings of the Bible. Among the things they did was to construct
Ashteroth which were poles erected in honor of the goddess Asherah. Mythology had it that she was the consort of
Baal… the weather god who rode the clouds and carried lightning in his
hand. The Ashteroth were constructed all
over the northern kingdom of Israel and orgies were conducted throughout the
land in her honor since she was the pagan “goddess of fertility”. Their idolatry actually led Ahab and Jezebel
to murder the actual prophets of God.
Not too far after Ahabs reign, the northern kingdom of Israel was taken
captive by the Assyrians and sent into exile.
As bad as Ahab was, that’s how bad the Amorites had become by the time
the Children of Israel had left Egypt.
That’s why God wanted to use Israel to wipe them out completely. They’d become a cesspool of sex, idolatry,
lawlessness and murder.
Concerning the Amorites, Exodus 23:32-33 God
tells Israel
“make no covenant with them or with their gods. They
shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me;
for if you serve
their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”You shall
God wanted the Amorites gone because they were thoroughly unredeemable,
and their idolatry and practices of prostitution would only serve to tempt the
Children of Israel to immorality.
B.
The purpose behind why God wanted
the Children of Israel to inhabit the land.
Rather obviously King Ahab of the northern kingdom was not the way God
desired for the Kingdom of Israel to progress.
God had given a law known as the Torah to the Children of Israel. It was an amazing law which made supernatural
demands upon the people of Israel.
To illustrate just how amazing this law was, one of its statutes stated
the following:
If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall
surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you
lying helpless under
its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely
release it with him.
(Exodus 23:4-5)
This was a practice that was unheard of and still is unheard of to this
day! Whoever heard of a man acting
charitably towards his enemy? When
Israel, after having been exiled and returned to the land, and under Roman
domination, Jesus told the people of His day just about the very same thing…
“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but
whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”
Matthew 5:39
The point that I’m making is that much of the Law of God consisted of decrees
that were outside of human nature to carry out. Man, in his natural state is not going to
“turn the other cheek”. A unique,
special sort of motivation is needed in order to implement this law on a
personal level. Certainly in the case of
the above law, willful forgiveness is required as well as a renunciation of
pride and the taking on of humility when one has been dishonored. In essence one must be willing to love God so
much that one is willing to obey His law regardless of one’s self interest. One must also know the requirements of
God. Those requirements are spelled out
only in God’s word, the Bible.
Human nature says “I can be a good person, in fact, I AM a good
person”. And so, God gave the Children
of Israel an opportunity to try to implement His law. Of course this law could never be implemented
to perfection, but imagine that you’ve been told to shoot an arrow at a
target. How are you even going to get
near the target if you don’t even know the direction that the target is
in? The law pointed in the direction,
and the objective was to create a society, which, governed by the perfect Law
of God, consisted of a population of people who were, at least compared to all
the nations around them, compassionate and respectful towards one another. Disputes were settled justly and in an
orderly fashion. Yes, some punishments
were treated with the utmost of severity but the intent was that such
punishments would never even be necessary.”?
So exactly where is this land where this
“society” was to be established? In Genesis
15:18, while God is making His afore mentioned covenant with Abraham, He tells
him.
“To
your [t]descendants I have given
this land,
From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates":
From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates":
The land was to extend from the eastern most river of the Nile
Delta to the Euphrates River. This
promise is reiterated not to Ishmael but to Abraham’s other son, Isaac in
Genesis 26:2-5. The promise is again,
repeated not to Isaac’s son, Esau, but to Isaac’s son Jacob in Genesis
23:13-15.
The descendants of Jacob have never fully acquired all of this
land, but the God of the Bible, who will not lie, promises that one day they
will obtain all of it. In Leviticus
26:40-45 Moses tells us that the descendants of Jacob (who is also called
Israel) will be exiled from the land but would one day return from the four
corners of the earth.
But why this particular parcel of land?
The land was to be
located right in the middle of the trading routes as caravans took their goods
from East to West and North to South and vice versa, all over the known
world.
Now imagine if you
will… this land, right in the middle of these trading routes is inhabited by a
people who, because they love God, are able to do these extraordinary things
like carrying on acts of kindness towards even their enemies. The traders would marvel and attribute this
amazing relationship between these people to their God. They would go back to their homes and
families after their long journeys and tell their wives and families and children
about this marvelous God. People all
over the world would give up their idols and pursue the knowledge of this
wonderful God.
Yes, this “experiment”
failed the first time. That’s because
human nature really doesn’t allow it.
You call Adam the first Prophet, but he’d sinned. He had given in to the temptation to be “like
God” and all of us are guilty of that.
Why do we get angry when we’re insulted or dishonored? All of us is prone to hate our enemies. In all of history, only Jesus loved those who
tortured Him, spoke ill of Him, insulted Him and ultimately crucified Him.
C. The nature of the warfare used in taking the
land.
God said to the Children of Israel through Moses…
“Behold, I
am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to
bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on
your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him,
for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But
if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your
adversaries. For My angel will go before you and
bring you in to the land of the
Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the
Jebusites; and I will completely destroy
them,
(Exodus
23:20-24)
He
goes on…
I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw
into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all
your enemies turn their backs
to you. I will send hornets ahead
of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the
Hittites before you… You shall make no covenant with them or with
their gods.They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin
against Me; for if you
serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
(Exodus 23:27-28, 32-33)
Put simply, clearly from this text,
God is doing the fighting on behalf of Israel to clear the land of those
nations whose idolatrous practices would pose as a snare to them.
How then did this “strategy” of the
Angel of God going before the Children of Israel play itself out?
The first city that the Children of Israel came to was Jericho. Jericho was a big wall enclosed city. The city was taken because God Himself
knocked down its walls. The people of
Israel rushed in, and killed everyone except a prostitute who had repented of
her prostitution and her family. None of the Children of Israel died.
The next
battle was at the town of Ai. There were
two attempts on the part of the Children of Israel to take the city. The first attempt was unsuccessful and 36 men
were killed. It turned out that this
lack of success was because one man had sinned.
That man and his family were put to death and the second attempt was
successful, again, with not Israelite casualties.
The third
battle was against five Amorite kings.
We read about it in the Book of Joshua chapter 10.
Joshua 10:8-11
In essence, when God is fighting for Israel, if there
is no sin in the Israelite camp, no Israelite dies. Furthermore, it is God Himself, who does most
of the killing.
Let’s bring us now to the 21st
century. We’ve noted that, at least
according to the Bible, Moses (as well as other prophets) had foretold that the
people of Israel would be scattered, understandably because of their sin. We’re also told that they would eventually return
to the land. We’ve also learned that the
land they presently occupy is only a fraction of the land that had been
initially promised to them by God.
We’ve also learned that as cruel as the Biblical call
to genocide of the inhabitants of the land seemed to be, it was justified not
only because of the utter depravity of those people, but evidence for that
justification was manifest by God Himself doing most of the fighting.
We’ve also noted that when there is absolutely no sin,
no one dies.
Today, the people of Israel are back in the land. Is this the time of their return? Maybe yes… maybe no. We do know, however, that when the State of
Israel was first formed, Five Arab armies fought against a rag-tag force of a
few thousand, ill armed holocaust survivors and were rebuffed.
One web-site, http://necrometrics.com/20c30k.htm,
gives figures for the deaths of Arabs vs. Israelis between the years 1948 and
1973. Just counting the deaths of the
specific wars during those years there were an estimated 6800 to 11,100 Israeli
deaths and 35,800 to 68,600 Arab deaths, every one of which is tragic! Even the wars and intifadas after this time have
led to more Arab deaths than Jewish deaths.
In light of this data, what evidence is there that miracles were
performed by Allah on behalf of the Muslim cause? Where has Allah shown signs that He was
fighting for Islam? In contrast,
anecdotes abound of instances where God has fought in this modern era on behalf
of the Israelis. One need only conduct a
Google search.
Of course, Muhammad encouraged fighters to be willing
to “die for the cause of Allah”.
However, the Biblical model that I’ve put forth seems to intimate that
the army that is without sin suffers absolutely no losses. In light of that, it seems that there is plenty
of sin to go around. The sad thing is
that people tend to be too arrogant either to admit their sin or to question
the world view that drives them on to mutual destruction.
I would pose the question, therefore… “Is Islam a ‘religion
of peace’ or is it in fact, a world view, founded by a pseudo prophet, that is
actually fighting against the will of the one and only true God? I would also pose the question, what makes
Muslims so sure that Jesus is merely just a prophet and what makes Jews so sure
that Jesus is not the Messiah?
I hold as axiomatic that these two factions are
fundamentally at war because they reject the true understanding of whom Jesus
actually is.
