The Muslim Religion.

The Muslims know there is a God, and only one God. He is not made of wood or stone by man’s hand. He is eternal, the Creator of the universe, and the giver of life. The Muslims also rightly reject multiple lives as a way of gaining eternal life.

The Muslims share some common heritage with Jews and Christians, although they believe Jews and Christians have perverted the Scriptures. The common link is that Muslims claim Abraham as their ancestral father. The Muslims are believed to be descended from Ishmael, the son of Hagar. Hagar was the servant girl of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. The Muslims accept Moses as a prophet, but reject the Bible’s claim that God’s blessing is through Isaac. The Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, but deny He is the promised Messiah.

The Muslims also reject the Christian concept of the Trinity, one God in three persons. The Muslims believe Christians worship three Gods instead of the one true God. The question one must ask is, can the Muslim religion be reasoned true or false? First, we must examine the practices of Muslims. Every Muslim has 5 duties:

to make the profession of faith “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet” (Allah is Arabic for God — there is no god but God) to pray 5 times a day to give a regular portion of his goods to charity to fast during the day in the month of Ramadan to make at least one pilgrimage in their life to Mecca, if possible

Notice there is not a lot in these practices that most of us would find objectionable at first glance. We prefer to view Muslims as radical fanatics who do not value life as westerners do. This allows us to make them different from us, and thereby acceptable as objects of hate for our prejudice. This is not how God views them. God loves them the same as he does you, and everybody else on this planet, including Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists.

Muslims would have others believe that Islam is a religion of peace, but this is problematic both in view of its past history and its current policies and practices. Under the Ottoman Turks, scores of Orthodox Christians accepted martyrdom rather than convert to Islam. In 1821, at the outbreak of the Greek War for Independence, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Gregory V, was hung from the gates of the patriarchate. The fierce and even brutal persecution of Christians in Islamic countries today is well documented — if shamefully ignored (see Paul Marshall's Their Blood Cries Out). Muslims cannot deny the fact that there are extremists in their midst, and these often have the voice in the Muslim community. This admission comes from the Islamic Supreme Council, a Muslim education group that is criticizing Islamic leaders here in the US for too often “equivocating between implicit support for extremists and general condemnation of terrorism.” It says that Islamic extremist organizations often operate in the US under “assumed identities as non-profit organizations or corporate businesses, hiding their origins and affiliations” (Religion Watch). The KLA's ties with Muslim terrorist Usama bin Laden and the support it receives from the militantly Islamic state of Iran were widely reported.

As a religion Islam is deficient in many ways. It does not admit the concept of grace and makes no provision for redemption of sins. Heavily based upon rituals, it is legalistic, and pervaded by a sense of fatalism (kismet). Muhammad himself inspires little confidence in his claim to be a divinely chosen prophet. When he was still young, he was subject to fits, leading his foster mother to suspect that he was possessed by demons. His later visions were accompanied by similar manifestations, terrifying Muhammad himself. Although some of his followers persist in believing Muhammad to have been sinless, his behavior in Medina was in many ways disgraceful — he plundered caravans and persecuted Jews. When Kadijah died, he took several wives, sanctioning polygamy (he himself exceeded the “proper” limit of four wives). His sexual indulgences translated into his conception of heaven as a place of sensual gratification.