Where Is Islam Taking the World? – Program 3

By: Dr. Ergun Caner, Dr. Emir Caner; ©1995

What is the goal of Islam? How do they expect to accomplish their goals in the world?

The Future of Islam

Introduction

Every 24 hours, 68,000 people in the world become Muslims and begin to follow the teachings of Muhammad and learn about Islam’s surprising view of end time events. Islam teaches that Jesus will someday return to Earth to prove to the world that He is a true Muslim, that He will fight in the last great war of Armageddon, the battle for Jerusalem, and bring about the final Islamic defeat of all Christians and Jews. These beliefs greatly affect all aspects of Muslim life today.

Dr. Emir Caner: And so it is the ultimate jihad, it’s the ultimate picture of what will happen at the end of time, that Jesus defends Muhammad’s character. Jesus defends the Qur’an. Jesus defends everything it is to be Muslim. And Jesus defends that He is merely human, as chapter 5 of the Qur’an says, and is no more; and that those who say so, whether it’s Christians who say that He is the Son of God, or those who have corrupted it as Jews have done by eating swine or by corrupting the text, these people of the book are finally put in their place.

Today on the John Ankerberg show, my guests are two former Muslims who turned away from Allah and placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

Emir: We worshiped a false god, which was given to us by a false prophet, which gave a false hope, through a false word, until one day we were introduced to a true and living God, who was triune. And the son sacrificed His life for our sins, and the Holy Spirit, He indwelt us.

These men went on to get their Ph.D.’s and now Dr. Ergun Caner is president of Liberty Theological Seminary at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia and Dr. Emir Caner is Dean of the College at Southwestern on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. They are best-selling authors of Unveiling Islam and More Than a Prophet and are writing the first major commentary on every verse in the Qur’an from an evangelical Christian perspective.

Dr. Ergun Caner: This is for the Muslim, this war that is taking place now, eschatological. This is a prophecy for them, but they believe as they fight they are fulfilling the final days when Islam will take over and the world will be Islamic. And when the world becomes Islamic, Allah comes for judgment.

Join us for this special edition of the John Ankerberg Show.

---

Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. We have two former Muslims that placed their faith in Jesus Christ. They left Islam, paid a great price in their own personal life. Their family disowned them. They went on in their education to get their Ph.D.s. They are best selling authors. And we’re asking them to share the Muslim mindset. If we as Christians are to share our faith with other Muslims, the fact is, then how do we do that?

And the thing we want to encompass today is, where is Islam taking the world in the future? And I want to start off with a few numbers here. Today Islam is the second largest religion on the planet. It’s got over a billion followers. It comprises one fifth of the world’s population right now. Every day, guess how many people are joining and becoming Muslims? 68,000 people every 24 hours are becoming Muslim. At its current rate, there will be 2.2 billion Muslims on planet earth by 2050. It will encompass one fourth of the world’s population.

In fewer than 200 years, if things just keep going the way we’re going right now, it will surpass Christianity as the predominate religion on the planet. Islam right now is found in 204 of 238 countries around the world, including the United States. And in the United States – maybe you didn’t know this, and maybe, guys, you have better numbers than I do – there are approximately 1,209 mosques or Islamic Centers. And here in the United States they have a goal of proselytizing every American family by 2013, putting up $10 a person to get that job done, which will come from Saudi Arabia, alright? That’s on the table right now and it’s happening right now while we’re talking.

Now, here’s what I want to ask you: What are the consequences for the world? What will we be facing if these things happen, if this curve continues to go up this way?

Ergun: In America, our people, the olive-skinned – you know, we are Turkish, so you have Persian, Anatolian and Arab – move here four times faster than any other ethic group except for the Hispanics. They are culturally more devout than the average immigrant who comes here. They come here with purpose.

We have, in the Islamic world, six children on average per family. In the Christian world, we have less than two. And so, in the Muslim mind, they are going to win this battle if by no other means than biology.

But one thing that catches my attention over and over is that movements such as Islam and others that are coming here to this country, the variant forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, they are doing what Christ commanded us to do, but we are not doing as fervently! They are doing door-to-door; they are doing public relations; they are doing advertising. They are on the front lines of cultural confrontation. And sadly, somewhere down the line, we as Christians have been silenced. They mock us, they sue us, they ridicule us on television. And somehow, we have sat silently by as this has taken place.

Ankerberg: Where do you think we’re going?

Emir: Well, in the Christian community, I think the greatest worry is we water down the Gospel. We give them what we think they need, and not what they actually need. Where we’re going, just look to Saudi Arabia. The lynch pin to Islam was always Mecca and Medina, and it now, again, has become so because of the Wahhabis. If you want to see where Islam is going, it’s going toward a purist slant. They’re going back to the 7^th century. They’re doing so on such a scale that 60% of all mosques built in the world are built by the Saudis.

If you want to see what the Islamic world is doing then don’t believe what most secular universities teach – that somehow Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, and that everything is in moderation. Instead look to see what the Wahhabi’s are doing, what the Saudi’s are doing, and what’s going on across the world where now more than two dozen countries have accepted the Islamic republic, or Islam as an official religion, within the last two dozen years.

That’s where Islam is going. We’re going to a clash of civilization. Not a clash of civilizations, but a question of where we’re going to be as a world, and the clash literally being between the two greatest evangelistic faiths, and that is of Islam and Christianity.

The good news in all of this is that Christianity is still the number one religion, and that it is growing faster in many places around the world than any other religion; in fact, two to one. Fox News just dealt with this in Africa. Where you only had 10 million Christians in 1900, you now have over 400 million. And if statistics remain constant, you have 600 million by 2050, or even less than that. And so you have the clash…

Ankerberg: Yes, that’s the difference in the figures. The figures I was giving you were figures that are secular people projecting.

Emir: Sure.

Ankerberg: And they don’t take into account what we know about what’s happening in other parts of the world. Tell me a little bit about sharia law here in the sense that as each of these countries becomes an Islamic republic, tell the folks that are listening the impact of sharia law being instituted in each of these countries.

Ergun: Yes, well, I want to make sure that what Emir said is caught by your listeners. Two dozen countries have accepted fresh, have accepted new, sharia law. These aren’t countries that are restating it that we’ve always considered Muslim countries. These are two dozen countries accepting sharia law as the rule of their government, their new constitutions.

What’s happening is the spread of what we would call an Islamic theocracy. Sharia law is the operation, in any country that their constitution will be rules of the Qur’an, and the Hadith. Now the difference between the two is subtle but important. The Qur’an, all 6,000 verses plus, all 114 chapters, every word is from the mouth of Allah.

It’s different. It’s different than our Bible. Our Bible tells the narrative, it tells the stories. It is inspired by God but it often uses the words of men that God puts there for a reason. The Qur’an is one long monologue. And they say those are the words, the exact words, of Allah.

The Hadith are the words and sayings and teachings and rules, laws, of Muhammad. So any country on the planet that calls itself an Islamic republic, operates by sharia law, meaning that the example given by Muhammad is carried out in the courts.

For instance, in any country that’s an Islamic country, that’s Islamic law, it takes the testimony of two women to equal that of one man. That’s because Muhammad taught this. If you are caught stealing, your hand is chopped off; lying, your tongue is cut out. If someone dishonors the family, then that family must put that person to death. These laws come straight from the mouth of Muhammad, the teachings of the Hadith, and they are carried out in constitutional fashion, in judicial fashion, in those countries.

Ankerberg: Talk about, what is dishonoring the family?

Emir: Dishonoring the family, the honor killings that you see even in Great Britain where you’ve had more than two dozen and so forth, dishonoring can be, of course, converting to another religion. One of the saddest cases, I think, perhaps we want to focus on is if a woman is raped, it is her fault; she brought it on herself. And thereby the brothers or the father must go and do the bidding of the family and take away the disgrace by removing her life. This type of dishonor is seen not merely in the Eastern world but in the Western world.

And what we’re seeing in the world is, those countries that believed in religious liberty are now moving towards religious tolerance; and that those countries that hold to tolerance are moving towards persecution. Liberty has now been waning in France. You cannot wear a burka in schools, you cannot have a yarmaka; you cannot wear a large cross to a French public school. In Australia you have hate speech as a crime in that the Christian group, Catch the Fire Ministries, must now apologize for saying negative things about Islam. In Canada you have laws of politics where you cannot go against homosexuality 60 days before an election.

And so liberty is moving towards tolerance while tolerance is moving toward persecution. Tolerance like in Turkey and Morocco where you used to see some forms of tolerance to a certain extent, is now waning and the further East you go in Turkey, or the more laws set up in Morocco where if you proselytize you can have three to five year sentence. And this is all happening in front of us, and it’s really two large groups that are persecuting: the communists of the five communist nations left in the world, but more so the Muslims. And this is the clash in which we find ourselves.

Ankerberg: Alright. And as these countries become Islamic, and sharia law takes over, the liberties that we know in America will not be a part of that scene.

Ergun: No.

Ankerberg: Not only do you have the population, but you also have jihad. Is it still for today?

Ergun: Well, jihad is not only the carrying out of sharia law, jihad is prescribed. The second chapter of the Qur’an says you have been ordered to fight. This has been prescribed for you. You may not want to do it, but it is good for you. If you do not act out on jihad, you’re obviously not devout.

Ankerberg: Alright. We’re going to take a break. We’ll talk about it more when we come right back.

BREAK

Ankerberg: We’re back. We’re talking with two former Muslims that become Christians and paid the price. Their family disowned them. And we’re talking to them about jihad. Is it for today? We’re talking about where is Islam taking the whole world in the future. And what I want to nail down is that if you listen to our President, if you listen to Condoleezza Rice, if you listen to a lot of our people that are writing in newspapers and doing news commentaries, Islam is a peaceful religion, overall, okay? What I want to know is, does the Hadith, does the Qur’an, actually teach jihad as physical warfare and not just personal struggle? Can you document it?

Ergun: Well, throughout Islamic history, 1300 years of history, Islam has never peacefully coexisted in a country where they were a minority. So, historically, to say that Islam is a religion of peace is either myopia or just plain-out stupidity.

Secondly, theologically, the Qur’an is replete with teachings that Islam must be the religion, it must be the rule, it must be the law. It’s theocratic, remember, so Surah 3, verse 85, “If they will not believe in Islam, nor in the last days, it will not be accepted of them.” Surah 4 verse 101, “Know that the infidels are open enemies unto you.” Surah 5:51, which, “take no friends from among the Jews and the Christians.” Surah 9, the entire chapter, is “seize them, slay them, where you will find them,” says Surah 9:29.

You go on and on and on in citing these verses, and after a while the Muslims with whom we debate in universities and colleges either end up saying, “Well, you’re taking it out of context,” or you keep citing so many verses that you say, “Well, where does the context begin?” Book 52 of the Hadith is called “Jihad – Fighting for Allah’s Cause.” And everything the 19 bombers did on September 11, 2001 was followed by and documented in the 52 book of the Hadith. Down to blowing the wudu, the ablution, with their breath as they did on the airplanes.

Ankerberg: Alright, where I’m going with this is that if the Hadith and if the Qur’an actually teach this, and as Muslims are coming back to pure Islamic teachings, okay, are we going to have more of the bombings? Are we going to have more warfare? When they get the power, if they get the bomb, if Iran gets the bomb, are they going to use it?

Ergun: Of course. I have no question. This is what is so frustrating for us. We go into the media, and we go and do a talk show, and I honestly feel like we are talking to more and more Neville Chamberlains and the Churchills are getting pushed in the back. You have people who are making pacts with Hitler, so to speak, where they are saying – oh, and before somebody asks, are you really comparing Islam to Hitler? Absolutely! Except it makes Hitler look like a nursery school teacher, because you cannot possibly imagine the atrocities that take place in the name of Allah. And then to turn around and call this a religion of peace when blood flows on cement floors and on cobblestone paths, and in the name of Allah they are slitting throats slowly. It is an insult to the memory of the dead and an insult to the legacy of the living to call this peaceful.

Ankerberg: How many countries now have sharia law? What is it, 24?

Emir: At least 24, with Malaysia becoming the newest republic to do so. Here you have Christians within a realm of more than a billion population of Muslims who are experiencing persecution of greater forms than we have seen in our generation, since at least World War II.

The Sudanese persecution by itself, conservative estimate is that 2 million Christians have been killed, especially in the south, for nothing other than being a Christian. That’s a conservative estimate. Some say it may be 2, 3, 4 times as much, and if it is, it’s larger than the holocaust, yet no one wants to call it the holocaust.

Franklin Graham has called Islam an evil religion, and everybody’s got on his case. But he is a man that has done more over the last 30 years of humanitarian effort, through the Samaritan’s Purse, and why would he do such a thing? Well, he knows, number 1, the tenets of Islam is what is behind all of the slaughter; and number 2, he has built hospitals in the Sudan, he has been to the Sudan, he has tried to bring peace to the Sudan. That is, all of these naysayers that consider what he says politically incorrect, he actually knows the situation. He knows what Islam says, and he’s not naïve because he’s hiding behind the wall of the west.

Ergun: As converts from Islam we are getting more and more frustrated with this political correctness. I tell my students at Liberty that political correctness, if you are politically correct, you are usually biblically corrupt[ because somewhere down the line you have to give up something, either the preaching of the Gospel or the standing of truth. Emir is at Southwestern Seminary and he deals on the front lines of defending the martyrs, bringing a voice to the martyrs. Me, in my world, I do debates. And you know, we go into this forefront, we go into the wind and what’s frustrating is, men such as yourself have been doing this for decades, and you’re being left out to swing in the wind. You take a stand and everybody backs off, because they’re afraid to offend somebody. The Gospel is an offense. What is offensive to me is that Christ dies on the cross and somebody else is apologizing for it!

Ankerberg: How many people have died in the Sudan?

Emir: At least 2 million. When you ask the Sudanese, they’ve lost count because of the women who’ve been raped, the enslavement of tens of thousands upon the day. So literally what we have here is American Christians must stand up and be a voice for the voiceless. When Ergun writes When Worldviews Collide dealing with intellectual apologetics, and when I speak of The Costly Call, which is relational apologetics, here’s where the rubber hits the road. And we must stand, not behind those who are being persecuted, but beside those that are being persecuted.

Ergun: That’s right.

Emir: I have a friend who is now an exile in Europe, but he grew up in Malaysia. His mother and father converted from Islam to Christianity. She was beaten to death in her bed. The father was shot to death. They lost their multi-million dollar estate. He was standing on the shore with his father when his father was shot, fell into the water, let go of Hassan’s hand. Hassan swam to a boat to safety. And here’s the amazing picture of God’s grace in someone’s life. Hassan now is in exile, yet what is he doing? He went back to Malaysia to share Jesus Christ with the very man who signed the papers for the execution of his father. These are the people for which we must stand, and believe. And it is an absolute insult to Christianity itself and to those who stand for Christianity to do otherwise.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’ve got Islam conquering via population, in terms of growth numbers. We’ve got Islam growing in terms of conquest by the sword. In the future, we’re going to see more of this. They don’t have the truth, we have the truth. We need to stand up now. And so our word to the Christians is, look, if you don’t realize what’s coming, just study this material a little bit, and see where this is going.

And what we’re going to talk about next week is end time events that are predicted in the Qur’an and Hadith, okay? What did Muhammad say is going to happen at the end of time? Another way of saying it is, the Bible has prophecy, talking about Jesus Christ is going to return. What Christians are going to find interesting is that Muhammad, he had Jesus coming back, okay? But the fact is, it’s a whole different scenario, alright. And we want to talk about that. It’s fascinating stuff. It will fit right into what we are saying. I hope that you’ll join us then.

Read Part 4