A secular outsider might be concerned primarily to look at Islam in terms of its history, political influence, sociological distinctives or ethnic origins. Clearly, whilst all those aspects of Islam are important, we have a much greater interest in its religious, theological and evangelistic implications. To cover such a vast subject in the detail required is impossible in the space allotted, so I propose to approach the subject at a very simple level and to address, for the benefit of those who have perhaps given the matter little previous study, three simple questions:

• Do we know what we’re dealing with in Islam? Do we understand why it matters?

• Have we a God-honouring strategy to address the situation?

• Do we know what we’re dealing with?

What is it? In a nutshell, Islam is a religion which originated with the teachings of Mohammed, a 7th-century Arab religious and political figure. Now, the very name Islam gives us an essential clue to the nature of the religion, because Islam means ‘submission’, or total surrender. Those who follow Islam claim that as Muslims they’re people who have totally surrendered themselves to what they understand to be God.

Where do their beliefs come from? Mohammedans (as we would traditionally call them) or Muslims (as they’d call themselves) do not think of Mohammed (or Muhammad) as having founded their religion but think of him as having been responsible for purifying and restoring a faith stretching back to Abraham and indeed to Adam, but which they imagine to have been distorted by Judaism and Christianity. They believe that God revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad whom they see as God’s final prophet, and they regard the Qur’an and the Sunnah (words and deeds of Muhammad) as the basic sources of Islam.

What do they Actually Believe?⤒🔗

About God? They believe that there is only one God. The Arabic term for God is Allah. The term possibly comes from a contraction of the words al- (the) and ‘ilah (deity, masculine form), meaning ‘the God’ (al-ilah). In traditional Islamic theology, God is beyond all comprehension. Mohammedans are not expected to imagine God in any visual form but to worship and adore him as a protector. As you know, although they believe that Jesus was a prophet, they reject entirely the doctrine of the Trinity, which they think of as a form of polytheism. In Islamic thinking, Jesus is a mere man and not the son of God.

About the Koran? The word Qur’an means ‘recitation’. When they speak about ‘the Qur’an’, they’re not usually talking about the printed book at all, but rather Arabic recitations of it. They reckon that translations are only as commentaries on the Qur’an, or ‘interpretations of its meaning’, not as the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an is divided into 114 suras, or chapters, which combined, contain over 6000 poetic verses. The chronologically-later chapters discuss mainly social and moral issues relevant to the Muslim community. They regard the Qur’an as the source of Islamic principles and values.

About angels? Belief in angels is absolutely central. The Arabic word for Angels (malak) means ‘messenger’, cf. Hebrew (malakh) and Greek (angelos). In Mohammedan thinking angels are perfectly obedient servants of God, communicating revelations from God, glorifying God, recording every person’s actions, and taking a person’s soul at the time of death. They also believe them to be intercessors on man’s behalf.

About the Day of Judgment? The Day of Judgment is something that figures large in their thinking. The Qur’an lists several sins that can allegedly condemn a person to hell, such as disbelief, usury and dishonesty. Muslims view paradise (jannah) as a place of joy and bliss, in terms of physical pleasures to come in the broader context of an ecstatic awareness of God.

About predestination? Here we find a difference between the Shi’a and the Sunni groupings. The Shi’as talk about ‘divine justice’ (Adalah) and stress the importance of man’s responsibility for his own actions but, in contrast, the Sunni play down the role of individual free will in the context of divine creation of all things and divine foreknowledge of all things.

About the state? In theory Mohammedans make no distinction between ‘matters of church’ and ‘matters of state’. In practice, Mohammedan rulers have historically frequently bypassed the Sharia courts with a parallel system of what were sometimes called ‘Grievance courts’ under their own control and some Mohammedan countries like Turkey are officially secular states.

About the rule of law? Sharia (which means literally, ‘the path leading to the watering place’) is traditional Islamic law and is regarded as a system of duties that are binding on every Muslim. It covers every aspect of life, from foreign relations to prayer. Some of the matters it covers are not dealt with in detail in the Qur’an itself, so various Islamic scholars have built on their own interpretations in each area of law, based on the Qur’an, the actions and sayings of Mohammed, the general view of legal experts and reason.

About Jihad? Jihad means ‘to strive’ or ‘to struggle’, especially in spiritual terms. Mohammedans think of Jihad as war against the devil, on behalf of Islam. Jihad is the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and the ultimate aim is to establish the universal domination of Islam. For most Shi’as, offensive jihad can be declared only by a divinely appointed leader of the (Mohammedan) community, and as such can’t be engaged in without such a leader. Many Shi’as also make a distinction between the ‘greater jihad’ (jihad al-akbar), which has to do with spiritual self-perfection, and the ‘lesser jihad’ (jihad al-asghar), defined as warfare.

Family life? Islam regards the family as the basic unit of society and defines very tightly the rights and duties of family members. The father is held to be financially responsible for his family. The division of any estate is specified in the Qur’an, which requires that most of it must go to the immediate family. A female’s share of inheritance is usually half of what a male would get. Marriage involves the groom paying a dowry (mahr) to the bride, and there’s a formal contract to that effect. A man can have up to four wives but a woman can marry only one man. Divorce is usually very easy and sometimes at the whim of the husband. There is considerable variation in the extent to which it’s believed that women should be isolated from the wider society.

What do they practise? Islam includes a range of religious practices, but followers are generally required to observe specified duties that unite followers of Islam into a community. Islamic law (sharia) has developed a tradition of rulings that touch on virtually all aspects of life and society from practical matters like dietary laws and banking to warfare.

Are they all the same? The two major groupings among Mohammedans – Sunni and Shi’a – date back to the 7th century and came about because of disagreements over the religious and political leadership of the community. Roughly 85% of Mohammedans are Sunni and 15% are Shi’a. There are important differences in belief and thinking and practice between the Sunni Mohammedans and the Shi’a ones. The Five Pillars of Islam are five practices essential to Sunni Islam. Shi’a Muslims subscribe to eight ritual practices which substantially overlap with the Five Pillars. They are:

• The shahadah, which is the basic creed or tenet of Islam: ‘I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God’.

• Salah, or ritual prayer, which must be performed five times a day. (However, the Shi’a are permitted to run together the noon with the afternoon prayers, and the evening with the night prayers). Each salah is done facing towards the Kaaba in Mecca. Salah is intended to focus the mind on the deity, and is seen as a personal communication with him that expresses gratitude and worship. Salah is compulsory but flexibility in the specifics is allowed depending on circumstances. In many Islamic countries, reminders or calls to prayer are broadcast publicly from local mosques at the appropriate times. The so-called ‘prayers’ are recited in the Arabic language, and consist of repeating verses from the Qur’an.

• Zakat, or almsgiving. This involves giving in relation to one’s assets and is obligatory. A fixed percentage is spent to help the poor or needy and to help propagate Islam. The zakat is not considered to be charity but rather a religious obligation on the well-off because their wealth is seen as a trust. They are also expected to give further amounts as voluntary donations and Shi’ites are expected to pay an additional amount in the form of a khums tax at 20% which goes into the hands of the Imams.

• Sawm, or fasting during the month of Ramadan. Muslims must not eat or drink (among other things) from dawn to dusk during this month, and must be mindful of other sins. The fast is supposed to encourage a feeling of nearness to Allah, and during it Mohammedans are expected to express their gratitude and dependence on him, atone for their past sins, and think of the needy. Sawm is not obligatory for people for whom it would constitute an undue burden. For others, flexibility is allowed depending on circumstances, but missed fasts usually must be made up quickly.

• The Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca. Every able-bodied individual who can afford it must make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his or her lifetime. It is a very ritualistic activity – when the pilgrim is about six miles from Mecca, he must dress in two white seamless sheets. The pilgrim must walk seven times around the Kaaba, touching the Black Stone, run seven times between Mount Safa and Mount Marwah, and symbolically stone the devil.

In addition to the khums tax, Shi’a Muslims consider three additional practices essential to the religion of Islam.

• The first is jihad, which is also important to the Sunni, but not considered a pillar.

• The second is the requirement to live a virtuous life and to encourage others to do the same.

• The third is to refrain from vice and from evil actions and to also encourage others to do the same.

What’s their background? Within 100 years of Mohammed’s time a Mohammedan empire covered an area from Central Asia to the Atlantic Ocean, but there was a lot of discord within it. Even so, the spread continued into several parts of Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. A dispute over leadership led to the split between the Sunnis and the Shi’as, so that division is almost as old as the religion. From very early on there was a distinctly racist streak in Mohammedan thinking and non-Arabs who converted to Mohammedanism weren’t treated as being on a par with Arabs.

Supporters of Islam sometimes think of the period from 750 to 1258 as being the Golden Age of Islam with their empire centred on Baghdad. But central control got weaker and weaker, although the total area controlled by Islam expanded, stretching across North Africa and up into Europe.

From the 9th century on, the territory that they’d conquered in Europe began to be reclaimed from them. Their hold on Spain was loosened and they lost their Italian possessions.

From the 11th Century there were constant struggles with the Crusaders but generals such as Saladin had remarkable success, recapturing Jerusalem during the Second Crusade. That whole era came to an end with the Battle of Baghdad in 1258, when the Mohammedans were overrun by the Mongol Empire and indeed just before that they’d lost control in Egypt to slave-soldiers by the name of Mamluks in 1250.

Baghdad had fallen – but that didn’t mean the end of Mohammedanism. Far from it. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Ottoman empire went on the rampage with a string of aggressive conquests which included the Balkans, and parts of Greece. In 1453 they captured Constantinople.

They captured Egypt in 1517, and then launched a European campaign which got as far as Vienna in 1529.

At the same time a rather different Shi’ite dynasty assumed control in Persia and established Shi’a Islam as the official religion there and there were other Islamic dynasties ruling over many areas right down into the Indian subcontinent, such as the Mogul (Mughal) emperors, though in India they were somewhat syncretistic in their religious practices.

Things began to fall apart in the Ottoman empire – in the 19th Century, Greece and several of the Balkan states got their independence; at the end of World War 1 the Ottoman empire came to an end. Since then Mohammedan society has been politically and religiously somewhat fragmented.

Some of their groupings see Western ideas and culture as a threat. In countries like Iran and Afghanistan (with the Taliban), revolutionary movements created Islamic states. Groups like al-Qaida have engaged in international terrorism in an attempt to bring about the establishment of global Islamic power. Some other Mohammedan groupings would try to reconcile their religion with the idea of secular governments and human rights in the way that they’d be understood in the Western world.

How many of them are there? Estimates vary widely, but in round terms we could talk about 1,000,000,000. There are perhaps 40 countries where they are in the majority. About 20% of them are Arabs. About 300,000,000 of them are in the Indian sub-continent. In Europe there are about 30,000,000 of them, perhaps 2.5% of the total number.

Do We Understand Why it Matters that We should be Concerned about Islam?←⤒🔗

Islam is, in terms of the teaching of the Bible, a false religion. Now in one sense, that is so self-evident that it may seem pointless to point it out. But that fact is so fundamental that it really has to be the starting point for all our thinking with regard to how we approach Islam.

There are many common points with Christianity, but that makes Islam all the more dangerous, all the more deceiving and all the more liable to lead to confusion.

• Islam uses the substance of much of the OT but effectively supplants its authority.

• Islam rejects the NT Scriptures except insofar as it ambiguously refers to the Gospel of Jesus.

• Islam dishonours and degrades Christ.

• Islam elevates Mohammed to a greater status than Christ.

• Islam substitutes ritual for a living faith.

Islam is an integrated religion. By that I mean that religious life and every other aspect of life are very closely interlinked. Now, if the religious belief were sound, having every aspect of life interlinked with it would be exactly what you’d want to see, but the trouble is that every aspect of life is in this instance integrated with false religion. Islam emphasises belonging rather than believing.

Islam rejects outsiders – dhimmis (those under control of Mohammedan authorities) and harbis (those living in dar al-harb – non-Mohammedan territory). These are to be treated as outsiders, shut out from the life of Mohammedans and second class individuals. They generally go to great lengths to shut outsiders out from every aspect of their lives. Where they have control they do not want outsiders to integrate; where they are in a minority themselves, they go to great lengths to prevent the integration of any of their own people into the culture or cultures in which they’re actually living. They take great steps to avoid integration largely through:

• Arranged marriages.

• Avoidance of learning the language for many of them.

• The burka/niqab (face veil) keeps women totally isolated from the society they live in.

Islam is an intolerant religion, making a basic division of the world into daar al-islaam and daar al-harb. Within daar al-islaam where Mohammedans are in control, there is no question of equality of treatment for other religions – the aim is to have every area of life subjected to Islamic rule and practice. And the overall aim is that the whole world should become part of daar al-islaam. The very existence of daar al-harb is like a thorn in the flesh. It’s there to be destroyed and it is regarded as part of the reason for their existence that they should extend daar al-islaam so that daar al-harb is wiped out. The concept of toleration is an idea that is foreign to most of mainstream Mohammedan thinking. It is a fairly basic concept to them that non-Mohammedans are the enemy which must be destroyed. And non-Mohammedan religion must be destroyed. And non-Mohammedan culture must be destroyed. To most Sunni Muslims at least, there is no thought of it being inconsistent that they should take advantage of religious freedom in the West, but be unwilling to grant religious freedom within daar al-islaam and that they should work towards removing religious freedom for others within daar al-harb. Daar al-harb is the House of War – the war zone.

Islam is a religion of conformity. The emphasis is on outward conformity, going through the rituals, fulfilling the legal requirements, and within Shia Mohammedanism, obeying the rulings of the Imams and even more so, the Ayatollahs (top Imams). There is no room for independence of thought or challenging of authority. Apostasy is prohibited, and the punishment for apostasy is death.

Islam is a militant religion. The daar al-islaam and daar al-harb distinction makes Mohammedanism militant by its very nature. The concept of those parts of the world which are not under Mohammedan control being a war zone is very deep-rooted. Mohammedans reckon they belong in daar al-islaam, in spite of the fact that they may be located in daar al-harb. If they’re in daar al-harb it is still their responsibility to further the interests of daar al-islaam and it is part of their mission in life to do so. The concept of jihad also makes Mohammedanism militant. You will remember that Jihad means 'to strive' or 'to struggle'. To Mohammedans, Jihad is war against the devil, on behalf of Islam. You will remember too that Jihad is the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and the ultimate aim is to establish the universal domination of Islam. When you appreciate something of the concept of Jihad, you realise that it is no use looking at things in Western terms and asking Why do they do it when the short term costs are horrendous and the gains very questionable? By definition, a struggle is something that may take a very long time indeed. It’s not a Blitzkrieg that they are involved in – it is a struggle that has been going on for 14 centuries and they will keep going on. And we are, by definition, the enemy.

Islam is a wealthy religion. It would be very foolish indeed to imagine that all or even most Mohammedans are wealthy – the opposite is undoubtedly the case. However, the fact of Arab oil wealth has certainly transformed the economic situation of that religion in that there is a constant inflow of Arab funds, especially for prestige projects and for military purposes. Arab Mohammedan nations are armed to the teeth and have the military ability to enforce most of what they want.

Islam is a religion with a vast number of people under its influence. I mentioned a figure of 1,000,000,000, but of course statistics are almost always misleading and are very often used with a view to distortion of the truth. Additionally, of course, in a state of war – which is what the whole idea of daar al-harb is about – statistics are likely to be an even greater distortion of the truth. If you took the high-end figures which some Mohammedans would produce, they claim that there are about 1,300,000,000 Mohammedans in the world. Being realistic, that is probably a significantly overestimated figure. If you take a low-end figure from people who might want to minimise the number they quote, some people quote a figure as low as 900,000,000. So 1,000,000,000 – a billion in European parlance – is a fair enough round figure – out of which there are 30 million in Europe – six times the population of Scotland. 30 million working, officially at any rate, for the destruction of everything non-Islamic, and paying to finance Islam – and, officially at least (in religious terms), owing no loyalty to the states within which they live. But most of all, 30 million souls in Europe and 1,000,000,000 souls worldwide in the tight grip of a religion which is vastly different from Biblical Christianity and leaves them outside of any Christian concept of a right relationship with God through Christ.

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This is a Situation we Cannot Afford to Ignore because←⤒🔗

• We are under attack – we are in the daar al-harb.

• We are commanded by God to order our lives and our society in a way that honours Him in Scriptural terms.

• We are commanded by God to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. However hard it may be (and indeed it may seem impossible) to bring the Gospel to the Mohammedans in our midst, we simply do not have the right to set aside a command which the Bible lays quite clearly in front of us.

Have we a God-Honouring Strategy to Address the Situation?←⤒🔗

We need to emphasise a Bible-based authority. That is where surely our addressing of the situation must start. Our problem with Mohammedans is not that they follow what they describe as Islam; our problem with them is that what they follow is contrary to the Bible.

This is not a question of our own personal likes or dislikes; it’s a question of what is right in terms of the Bible which is God’s Word to us. Islam rejects the authority of the Old Testament and it rejects the authority of the New Testament, yet that is where our authority comes from, not from later writings like the Koran, not from the diktats of ayatollahs or rulings of lesser imams, but from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments themselves.

We Must Emphasise that the Bible is:←↰⤒🔗

• A reliable authority. We need to stress to ourselves and to the Mohammedan community around us alike, that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments carry the authority of God Himself and that they’re given to us to be our rule in matters of faith and our guide for daily life; that they’re reliable and consistent, contrary to what those who follow Islam believe; that the text of the Bible is well-authenticated and that we’re dealing with a consistent message from beginning to end, not a series of disconnected jottings.

• Not the Koran. Now some people might point out that both the Bible and the Koran deal with principles and values. True. But we might say quite appropriately that surely the Bible message centres on the importance of a right personal relationship with God on a one-to-one basis. God is knowable! What we need on an individual basis is a right relationship with God and the Bible makes it very clear how that is to be had: not on the basis of outward conformity to certain rules of behaviour or through the performance of specified outward acts, but rather on the basis of repentance and faith.

• Not the teaching of Imams. In Islamic culture the Imams have a very significant place. The word Ayatollah has entered into the general vocabulary and when you hear the word used, it’s generally in the sense of a religious leader who is pressing his own extreme ideas home on the people over whom he’s got a measure of influence. What we have to remember ourselves and what we have to bring home to those who come from an Islamic background is that the message of every religious teacher or preacher must be measured against the absolute standard of the Bible.

We Need an Emphasis on Believing as a Condition of Belonging.←↰⤒🔗

Those who have been brought up within Islam generally reckon that the condition of belonging within their religion is that they should go through the rituals prescribed by their religion. To them, it is not so much a question of their relationship with God on a one-to-one basis as it is of their belonging to the community of their fellow-religionists. What we need to stress again and again is the vital importance of each individual’s personal relationship with God and for that relationship to be right. We need to spell out clearly the Bible’s teaching on the provision that God has made to address the desperate needs of sinners who can never, no matter how much effort they put into it, earn a right relationship with God on the basis of their own merit. We need to stress that belonging to the true community of those who are faithful to God is something which follows on from a right relationship with God based on repentance and faith, rather than being the primary end in itself.

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We Need a Clear Proclamation of the Nature and Awfulness of Sin.←↰⤒🔗

What we need to bring out very particularly is that the seriousness of sin is the effect it has on our relationship with God, not simply on our relationship with those around us. Sin is rebellion against God, not simply against the rules of organised religion. Even what we might imagine to be the smallest and least significant of sins deserves eternal punishment. How can a sinner understand his or her need of a Saviour if he or she doesn’t understand anything of the awfulness of sin?

We Need an Unashamed Proclamation of the Christ of Scripture.←↰⤒🔗

It is not that those who follow the teaching of Mohammed don’t know anything of the existence of Jesus. They know the name. The teaching they follow acknowledges Jesus as a prophet, but the awful thing is that they reject His role as the Messiah. They think of Him as a mere prophet, a sort of imam of His day. Certainly to them He is a lesser individual than Mohammed, which is why what we have to make very clear is that He is the Messiah. He is the One God promised would come, the Seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent, the Messiah, the Ultimate Prophet, the Ultimate Priest and the Ultimate King, the One through whom alone we can have a right relationship with God. He is the One who paid and paid in full the price due for the sins of His people, the One who is the great King and Head of His Church.

We Need a Clear Presentation of the Doctrine of the Trinity.←↰⤒🔗

Lucas de Graaff points out that Islamic understanding of a ëChristianí may be evangelical but is usually far from Reformed in its thinking. Mohammedans shout out Allahu Akbar? And what does it mean? They say it means God is great! but it does not mean that exactly. It means God is greater! But the doctrine of the Trinity spells out the fact that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is greater than we can fully comprehend. Islam lacks the answer to that very statement which they ignorantly utter several times a day. Yet the doctrine of the Trinity gives the answer!

We Need a Clear Emphasis on Covenant Theology.←↰⤒🔗

De Graaff also makes the point that Christians who are weak in covenant theology and reject the links between circumcision and baptism, Passover and the Lord’s Supper, tend to support very strongly the idea that the current political state of Israel has a divine legitimacy. He argues that from a Reformed perspective, whatever promises there may be with regard to the future of the Jews, it’s their spiritual future which is of central importance and there can be no automatic assumption that the present political establishment in the State of Israel has guaranteed divine legitimacy for its every action.

We Need a Clear Understanding of the Claim of God Over Every Area of Life.←↰⤒🔗

The third point which de Graaff makes with regard to our Reformed position is that we rightly emphasise the claim God makes over every area of life. Indeed the Scottish Church has given special attention to the fact that both the Church and the Civil Magistrate are answerable to God. God has given them distinct roles. Now that distinction between the roles of the Church and the Civil Magistrate is an important distinction that is foreign to Islamic thinking. The roles of spiritual leadership and political leadership were kept separate in Israel, though in the heathen nations round about them the roles were as often as not combined. When the two are combined unbiblically the result is cruel dictatorship, whether it be the Stuart monarchs in Scotland or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

We Need a Bible-Based Approach to Culture.←↰⤒🔗

If we believe that God has a claim over every area of life, it’s vital that we work for a culture that’s honouring to God and if it’s to be honouring to God, then it’s got to be Bible-based. People from a Mohammedan background are very ready to point to what they see as the evil things in Western culture and it is a fact that many of these things, measured against Biblical standards, are indeed evil. We have work to do in the wider community to bring Gods standards to bear on it, and we must ensure that our own personal and family life is organised in terms of Gods standards. We must use God-honouring cultural standards in our dealings with those from an Islamic background and insofar as the broader cultural standards in the community are honouring to God it is right that we should impress on those coming into our society the importance of observing those standards.

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We Need a God-Honouring Political Structure.←↰⤒🔗

Look around you and what do you see in the political world? Hordes of confused politicians anxious not to antagonise any religious grouping except Christians and meanwhile making laws and implementing policies which are utterly contrary to the teaching of the Bible! Indeed, in some instances apparently attempting to limit our freedom to proclaim the teaching of the Bible. We need to have Gods standards brought to bear on the governments of our day and we should demand and expect that all those under the legitimate authority of a God-honouring government, Mohammedan or not, should be required equally to observe God-honouring legislation and regulations.

We Need a Discerning Approach to the Young.←↰⤒🔗

That is the very area in which Mohammedans are at their weakest. Many of them are more worried about the younger generation than about anything else. Many of their young people have been born in this country, gone to ordinary schools and had contact with their peers from other backgrounds in a way that their parents haven’t and have absorbed a lot of the thinking of those around them in the wider community. Some of them are Westernised enough to resist and reject what they don’t like of the culture of their parents – to rebel. Some of them are almost completely Westernised at least in terms of culture. Many of our contacts are going to be with those younger people and we need wisdom and grace to present to them not simply decadent Western culture and values, but the Christian message within a God-honouring world view.

We Need a Firm Approach to the Adults.←↰⤒🔗

Mohammedanism is not a religion of compromise. So much of what passes in the wider world for Christianity, sadly, is. However, our approach must be on the solid basis of the uncompromising truth of Scripture and focussed where the Bible focusses our attention on the central matter of our need for a right personal relationship with God and the basic need we have for our sin to be dealt with in the only way it can be effectively dealt with through Christ.

We Need a Recognition that Mohammedanism or Islam isn’t as Monolithic as it Claims or as it Appears to be.←↰⤒🔗

To the outsider it can appear monolithic. There are many divisions and fault lines within it. There is the division between Sunni and Shiía. There are the differences between the different racial groups who describe themselves as Islamic. There is the distinction between those who think that they must follow the traditional approach and regard everywhere outside daar al-islaam as daar al-harb and those who take the line that they can regard some western countries and cultures as daar al-daíwa, the witness zone in which they can try to take over by peaceful means and persuasion. And again there are those who follow the line that they can have a religious co-existence without persecution. There was an interesting agreement signed in Norway to that effect, during 2007. There were vast differences in the past between the forms of Mohammedanism in, for example, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and, for example, in the Indian sub-continent. There are still significant differences. We must know just what variant of the religion we are dealing with and bring the truth of Scripture to bear on the needs of the individual in the light of the background he or she is coming from.

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We Need Confidence in the Sovereign God.←↰⤒🔗

He is the One who is Lord of time and Lord of eternity. He is the One who orders the events of time for the ultimate good of His cause and His people. Mohammedans were sweeping up through Spain and into France in the 8th Century. But in the end of the day Charles Martel with his 20,000 or 30,000 troops was the victor and Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi and 10,000 of his 80,000 troops were dead and the Islamic threat to Europe was repulsed. They were repulsed from the gates of Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683. The God who was sovereign then is sovereign now, and He requires of us that we should be faithful in our witness for Him in the time and situation in which He has placed us.