UI – Part 336 – Islam Based on Fear

 

Is fear required to love God?  The Old Testament demonstrates the wrath of God.  God can do what he wants with humans whenever he chooses.  But fearing God, the Biblical God as distinguished from the Quranic Allah, is, in my opinion, more an understanding of God’s judgment to be applied upon one’s death.  Until that point love is the offer God makes.  If you accept God’s love and what he made possible, then God’s judgment is nothing for you to fear.

Christians and Love

Christians are those who believe in the saving grace of God.  Christ was sent by God so we can more fully understand God and his love for mankind.  Christ was sent also so God might show us his love for us, making our lives more meaningful.  Knowing we each have a sinful nature Christ became the substitute for us all, taking the punishment we deserve for the crimes committed against God (any sin).  Such an act of Grace, dying for another, is difficult to fully comprehend.  Add to that the fact that Jesus after his death rose from the dead proving his divinity. He was God incarnate.  The words of the Bible now take on much greater importance and significance by showing us God and the relationship possible with him.  The Holy Spirit fills believers, as the essence of God within, and we become examples of the Lord in the fashion we lead our lives.  God is the one in us.  God’s love, knowing God is with us, overcomes our fears.

In 1 John 4:2-4 we learn, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God.  Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world….the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”  There is truth and there is falsehood.

Verses ‘fear’, it is ‘love’ that comes from God. 1 John 4:7 , “Let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  Even those that did not love God were saved by God’s love through Christ – the atoning sacrifice. By loving one another, not instilling fear, we demonstrate God’s spirit, his love within us.  Acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and find the spirit in you; you will be a part of God. On the Day of Judgment then you will be confident of a life eternal with Him having nothing to fear.

“Fear has to do with punishment.” (1 John 4:18)  “There is no fear in love.” If you claim to love yet hate another,  a person you know, you have seen, then you cannot love God, whom you have not seen. 1 John 4:21, “Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

Islam and Fear

The term love is put forward in the Quran only as a response.  Allah does not love UNLESS you love Allah.  Allah is a mystery and remains so.  Hidden, Allah does not appear before mankind in any way to demonstrate his love.  From Islam’s history we learn an intermediary is used, Gabriel, to share Allah’s command with the mortal, Muhammad.  Muhammad was asked to memorize and recite what he received from Gabriel during time he spent alone, during breaks he took from everyday life to meditate in locations referred to as caves. His life changed and he pursued a monotheistic path with Allah as the one god.  As he gathered followers he became more strident in his approach to convince others to join his ideological mission.  As the numbers of Muhammadians grew fear became a common tactic to maintain loyalty and convert those who were of other persuasions when captured as a result of military incursions made by Muhammad’s army.

Fear is an effective tactic.  The bully assumes his superiority and takes on all comers, insisting they cater to his demands.

The Quran expresses hate as a more dominant characteristic, especially towards Christians and Jews.  From Sura 60:4, “We disbelieve in you and there has arisen enmity and hatred between us and you forever until you believe in Allah alone.”  Nor is there expressed any love of neighbor, or people who do not follow the ideology of Muhammad, as suggested in Sura 60:1, “Take not My enemy and your enemy for friends. Would you offer them love, while they deny the Truth (Islam) that has come to you (from Muhammad) driving out the Messenger and yourselves because you believe in Allah….If you come to strive in My way and to seek My pleasure, would you love them in secret? And I know what you conceal and what you manifest.  And whosoever does this, he indeed strays from the straight path.” The result for straying from the right path is severe chastisement, punishment, and such punishment is to be feared. Muslims are commanded to never respect those who resist Islam, in doing so a Muslim would be a ‘wrongdoer.’   A ‘wrongdoer’ is a disbeliever, the same as an infidel.  A Muslim cannot love a non-Muslim, by Allah’s decree, as put forward by Muhammad.

What does an infidel have to fear, to fear from the hands of a Muslim, a follower of Allah and Muhammad? “Surely Allah is Severe in requiting.” (Sura 8:13)  Requiting herein refers to Allah and Muhammad returning, as a favor, to the infidel, the wrongdoer, punishment ranging from fire, to beheading, to smiting of hands, to stoning, to murder, to death, and to other horrific forms, all to be feared. Not very favorable; neither caring nor loving.  War is declared. Any form of resistance towards Islam, even turning one’s back, that would curtail the progress of Islam, calls for punishment, militarily if necessary, and the guilty party is not the Muslim, but the resister.  It is upside-down logic. And by a Muslim taking action, terroristic tactics we might refer to today, against those holding up Islam’s progress, they become substitutes for Allah, thus acting on their god’s behalf. From Sura 8:17, “So you slew them not but Allah slew them, and thou smotest not when thou didst smite (the enemy), but Allah smote (him), and that He might confer upon the believers a benefit from Himself, Surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing.”

So Muslims are commanded not to act in love, but in hatred, as haters, as those who maim and kill, wielding the Sword of Muhammad as if it is Allah’s hand, the hidden god, being raised to behead the enemy, any who do not accept or resist Islam.

Fear, instilling fear in non-believers is a practice of Islam.  Sura 8:18 informs us, “This — and (know) that Allah will weaken the struggle of the disbelievers.”  How is this accomplished? Answer – using fear tactics.  If you are not a believer you are “the vilest of beasts, in Allah’s sight, are the deaf, the dumb, who understand not.”  (Sura 8:22).  So from that – where is the love?  Sura 8:12 reveals the truth of Islam, “I am with you (Allah and the Messenger saying to Muslims)…, I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.”  That is followed with orders to behead and remove fingers-tips. All because non-believers oppose Allah and His Messenger.

Speaking about power in numbers we refer to Sura 8:26, which makes it clear that when in a minority Muslims (in Mecca) were concerned they could not advance their faith as they would prefer, considering themselves weak, but when in greater numbers (in Medinah) they were stronger and thus were better able to fight for their cause (the ideology of Muhammad – Islam). Never in Islam is love applied to create a family of followers joined in a peaceful movement.

The Scripture of Islam recognizes that to grow their ideology, which they refer to as a religion, force is necessary.

God and Allah

God loves.

Allah only loves when loved, otherwise Allah hates.

Non-Christians are to be loved by Christians as God loves.

Non-Muslims are to be hated by Muslims and fear the sword of the Muslim. When Muslims are in large numbers, a majority verses a minority, they are a greater force to be reckoned with.  Conversion by force becomes a common form of proselytization.

Accept Christ’s sacrifice, atone for your sins, and the Spirit of God will fill you. You will love, as God loves.

Loving as Allah loves is an imponderable, as Allah is selfish, only loving those who are Muslims, devout, never wavering and loving Allah. So is a Muslim to only love those who love them, with the caveat, if that love is from a Christian it is to be dismissed, as non-believers are to be eradicated.

God is not a mystery.  He came to earth and lived among humans. He provided the saving grace for all mankind as God incarnate.

Allah has never been seen, not even by Muhammad, and never will be.  Allah may just be a figment of Muhammad’s imagination.

Overcome Fear When God is in your Heart

The comparison is obvious, from Scripture alone.  Muhammad learned about Christ during his lifetime, but could not accept his divinity.  If he did   he may have simply chosen never to admit it.  It may have been too difficult for him to comprehend and accept the fact anyone would die to save another.  He was just not built that way.  He was a fighter, a warrior and wanted it his way.  Material and forceful he made his own god and compelled others to embrace the one – Allah.  He tried to incorporate into his ideological system much from Jewish and Christian history and heritage, but failed to understand God’s wrath and Judgment are for God alone. He never understood God’s love. We can learn, we can understand, but we cannot carry out God’s punishment.  That is for God alone.  God never enabled humans to act on his behalf and lead them to believe they were acting in God’s place.

Muhammad was a politician, a charismatic leader, but a deceiver as well.  A militant with a personal agenda. He used Allah as a smokescreen, taking advantage of the weak and the poor to have hope in an eternal future, while at the same time creating his own domain, a tribe who was to be feared and become the only Arab tribe, and then the All-World-Tribe.  It became a religion, as people then, as today, want to believe in something.

The clarion call of Islam is not to love your neighbor, but to fight, “FIGHT them until there is no more persecution (resistance towards the advance of Islam), and all religions are for Allah.”

Love God. Fear Not

God has your back. Defend freedom.  God may have wanted all the world for God, but knew there would be those who would never believe.  He knew too there would be false gods and opposition to the Son of God. There would be an anti-Christ.  From Romans 1:28-32, “Just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.  They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil…; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decrees that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

God also understood a belief in Christ, his life, truth, sacrifice and resurrection, is voluntary.  There is a plethora of evidence to support accepting Jesus and his accomplishments.  From witness testimony to architectural evidence to records maintained.  God knew anyone forced to believe may in fact not really believe.  Conversion by coercion and maintaining an ideology out of fear of punishment for resistance never insures the heart of the follower is committed or convicted.  How many in the Muslim world community are not fully committed to their cultural heritage or the religion of Islam they are subjected to adopt?  Are they voluntary followers?  A simple ‘No’ is the answer.

Know that God loves. Living in fear is not normal.  Fear God, yes, but interpreted as a sense of fear, respect, admiration and love of God. God first loved.

Grace and Peace.