Zwemer Center

Muslim Women and Leadership

Communicating the Gospel to Muslims through Religious Rites

Vivienne Stacey discusses how to communicate the Gospel with Muslims through religious rites. Muslims are often more concerned about what Christians do than what they believe. They will often have questions regarding Christian rites and practices which are a great opportunity to share the Gospel. This lecture focuses on the rites associated with Islamic death and burial rites.

These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on communicating the Gospel to Muslims through religious rites:

Well, we’ve thought of communicating the good news through festivals, through Muslim festivals, and through Christian festivals. But I haven’t come on yet to the matter of communicating the gospel through rites or through, rites of passage as some people would call them. What happens at a birth? What happens at a marriage? What happens at a a funeral? And Muslims are very interested in not so much in what Muslims what Christians believe, but often in what they do. And so what they what we do can be a very, significant way of sharing good news. Let me give you an example. Because I was doing some bible study, with a helping this young man with his bible study because he was, in roles in the Christian, bible correspondence course which was operating from another city. And his bible correspondence, courses came through the mail. And, the postmaster started interfering with his mail because he didn’t approve of this type of mail. And so this young man came to ask me, was there any other way of, arranging things? So I said I thought I could find a way of arranging things, but it would take some time, and I thought I could see who was very keen about studying, so I said well maybe I could give you some to keep up. I’ve got something here. It’s kind of correspondence, it’s question and answer.

So if you’d like to do this, then you can bring it to me and I’ll check it for you. I will check your answers and so on. I thought he’d come about once a week, but he came about every other day. He was very he really wanted to learn. We got things sorted out eventually but, there was a very bad accident during that period and, 4 of my friends were killed in a car accident and, Christians. And, he came very quickly when this accident occurred to see he was he thought maybe I was involved in the accident. So he came to find out if I was okay and I was okay. I hadn’t been involved in the accident. So but then he said, how do Christians, what do you do for a funeral? And what I mean, what do you do?

So he wanted to know. So I told him. I gave him quite a lot of things about what took place. He want he wanted to know quite a lot of detail. And then I but having explained the right or the the detail to an extent, I could then talk to him about the belief behind it. So I got out my prayer book, Anglican prayer book, because it it tells you a bit more than than I mean, it’s a sort of formal art more formal statement about what you do and what you say. So I think, that I felt was appropriate. That’s he would sort of line up with that a bit. But, so we looked at 1 Corinthians 15 and, the meaning the whole thought about, Christ’s death and so on. Interestingly, this and wonderfully, this man eventually through, some lot of difficulty in many ways, he became a believer.

He he was like a flower opening up to anything he heard. And, when I came to Cyprus, I was in touch with him. It was he when I visited Pakistan after I’d left, retired from there, he came 300 miles from or it’s more than that, from the frontier to the to the Punjab to see me in Lahore. So I took the chance to take him around and introduce him at the Christian, to various Christian institutions and meet Christian leaders and so on. But, when my mother died a few years ago, he wrote to me and I think that his letter perhaps was the most lovely letter that I received, and he talked about her being in heaven and and so on.

I have to say that the letter that touched me most was from this young man who, for Christ’s sake, has faced many difficulties and, who is living in a village well, his his ancestral village, he can’t be baptized there. He isn’t baptized, actually. And he’s already faced very quite a considerable amount of persecution. He’s very, very keen for the education of his 2 daughters, and he wrote he’s a writer, journalist, and he’s a teacher as well and he’s obviously writing to he’s he wrote to me women are treated like cattle and he was furious. I mean he’s really got a concern about children, women, and children. And he’s he’s got 2 daughters and, he’s negotiating to be able to enroll them in the Christian school in this town. But at the moment he’s working in Saudi Arabia and no one else is interested in getting his kids from the 3 miles from the village to this school. Though it would be wouldn’t be a cost or anything it’s so until he gets back there he can’t work it out. They’re about 5 and 6, these kids. But the loveliest of letters from a brother in Christ, very, very clear about his understanding of death and resurrection of Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life.

The death and burial of a Muslim, The way to wrap the body. What side? Who should do it? The measurements of the of the sheeting and the calico and requirements for male and female cuffing. It’s the shroud, I suppose. Sheeting. 4 metres. A 140 metres, centimeters. Sorry. A 150 centimeters or a 180 centimeters wide according to the size of the body. And and then there’s different sizes for men and women and, women have an extra an extra garment. All this tremendous detail tells you what to do when when someone has died, what to do after a person has passed away. Inform relatives and friends, Prepare Kabr, that’s the tomb, that’s the, grave. Arrange transport to the kabrastan which is the cemetery if it’s at a distance, perform the hussul, that’s the ritual wart washing of the body, put on the cuffen, this is the route the shroud, obtain doctor’s certificate, obtain death certificate, and obtain burial order. So these things have to be done, and they have to be done within 24 hours.

Ideally, if that person died, say, in the morning, they should be buried before sunset. And, very often, people are not, wouldn’t would be buried within 24 hours. It’s a it’s a custom but it’s, and it’s, it’s generally expected and it’s, here it it mentions that it that should be that’s how it should be. Christians also follow that. In a hot country, it’s difficult to keep a corpse and I have in the Punjab once we had we had a corpse under our fan, I don’t know if I can hear but and with ice blocks to keep the body a bit longer because the relatives were coming from the furthest parts of the country and they weren’t quite sure, they wanted to postpone the burial.

So that was our neighborly duty to, keep the corpse in our sitting room, in the coolest place under the fan with lots of ice blocks around. A lack of assurance in, in the, in the, of shall of salvation in Islam. A lack of assurance. It’s it’s presumptuous to think that God has forgiven you. So no Muslim prob probably no Muslim would say, I am sure that my sins are forgiven. And this is partly why I say it’s a good idea to present the good news as as a a release from the bondage of death and of sin, a Muslim doesn’t have problems with the idea of being liberated or release. Jesus said he’d come to release the captives, the captives of fear, of sin, and so on. So if you tell a Muslim I’m released from my sins, it’s okay to say I am I am sure that my sins are forgiven through Christ, but it but then the Muslim will think, this is presumption and think I’m presumptuous. It won’t mean that I will never say that, but but if you can it’s the gospel can be presented in different ways. And if we’re gonna stress, let’s stress, the deliverance and, the breaking of the bonds, and, let’s stress that side of it more than, the assurance.

Because a Muslim will not see assurance as a wonderful offer. A Muslim will see you as an, presumptuous person. There’s no special job for women when the men are going taking the corpse for burial, but, but they would be preparing food. They have this very good habit of or custom of, the bereaved don’t have to do any cooking for some days. People will bring to their home.

So because they’re involved in everybody comes to say how sorry they are about what’s happened and so on and so forth, they don’t have time for cooking, and they don’t have time to prepare meals for the people who come to their home. Sometimes Christians, emulate Muslims. I remember going to a 40th day celebration, not celebration, commemoration, for for Christian. I’ve been off offered off, been off into these things. And, it’s part of the 3rd day and 30 40th day remembering the dead now and praying for the dead too.

So a Christian once invited me, because some relative is of hers had died, and this was 40 days afterwards. And I was asked to pray. They said, please, will you, they said, pray pray for the dead. So I thought that’s a good test. So I got up and, I said well, I don’t actually pray for the dead, I pray for the living, so I’m gonna pray for everyone.

I’m praying for this home and I’m praying for living, and so I went ahead and prayed for the living because I I, don’t I don’t feel like it was a Christian home supposedly, and, I’m on Christian territory, so to speak, so I didn’t think, if I were in a Muslim home, and I’ve been asked to pray in Muslim homes, I would probably not give a statement. I would just pray and I wouldn’t. I I would find some way to give thanks and so on, but I wouldn’t pray for the dead. Well, I want to use the last few minutes to refer to an article which I found interesting. It’s in a book called The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection.

It’s by 2 well known women, Jane Smith, who’s an Islamicist, and Yvonne Haddad, who’s a university professor and well, she was in Ann Arbor, I think, not sure where she is now, but, I was particularly interested, that I haven’t read the whole book, but I read, one of the appendices, it’s none it’s b and it’s it’s on the subject of, yeah, appendix b, the special case of women and children in the afterlife and I thought that must be very interesting so I just went went through it. And I’ll I’ll just share a few thoughts here from it. You might want to read it yourself or, I think it’s quite useful to consider what Muslims are thinking. And you’re working with Muslim women, well what are they going to look forward to in the afterlife? What do they think they’re looking forward to? And what does the Quran and the Hadith and the community say they’re going to look forward to and what about children? So I just quote a few things. Women in the afterlife. The occasional conclusion of observers of Islam, particularly in the early stages of Christian missionary outreach to the mush Muslim community, has been that women, according to the Islamic understanding, do not have souls. Someone brought this up the other day. And then the writer here, Ivan Haddad, says this is totally incorrect, and I think it’s totally incorrect. If this were true, it would have grave and obvious implications for the issue of judgment and responsibility in regard to women. Now the Quran is very clear that every soul must bear his own responsibility and his own sin. So every woman must bear the responsibility for her own life and for her own sin. And if women don’t have souls, it’s an undermining, in a way, of this issue of judgment and responsibility which the Quran so greatly stresses.

Incidentally, it’s one of the reasons that Muslims find it difficult to accept the idea that Christ bore our sins because of this doctrine. Anyway, it’s not Koranic and it’s not in the Hadith and it’s not correct to say that Muslims, I don’t know how this got started. I think it’s she may explain this in one of her footnotes. I haven’t read the footnotes yet. So so it’s not to be accepted. And, she says too, while certain of the Hadith have greatly elaborated the suggested fate of women after death from the Quranic intention, it is equivocally clear in the Quran itself that men and women are on an equal footing when it comes to the chances of final felicity or perdition. Perdition. So that’s a clear statement. Another she also goes into what not just what is written in the Hadith and what is written in the Quran, but what modern writers in Islam are now saying. She says modern writers and commentators generally concur that the wives wives are not to be punished for the deeds of their husbands, although one does find an occasional reference to the contrary.

The Quran has little to say about earthly women in regard in relation to eschatological concerns, so there’s not much said. However, the Hiddis were certainly influential in molding the opinions and understanding of many generations, many centuries of Muslims. While they do not necessarily reflect either the revelation of God or the teaching of the prophet, they are nonetheless significant in so far as they reveal a cultural understanding important to the historical, development of Islam. So some of the the cultural things have become kind of baggage, like, we get cultural baggage sometimes, and we do, in in the Christian faith, you you we mix culture and and our faith and, sometimes it’s difficult to know which is which and we have to be careful especially if we’re going work in another culture that we are really communicating the gospel and its essentials and we’re not, teaching people that they have to sit in pews and do everything the way we did it. I mean that’s just an extreme example I suppose.

But it’s amazing how many churches in Pakistan have got pews and it’s completely uncultural. It’s a hangover from the British Raj. People generally sit on the floor or they sit in the villages they do or they sit on stools and we don’t have this Victorian architecture. The reversal of the natural order so graphically portrayed in the Quran is preceded in the transitional expansion of the series of excatological events by other signs signaling the disruption of ethical, moral, and social order. Well, let’s give an example of that.

Sounds rather complicated. But it’s so it it has come to this state now that in some societies women will go on pilgrimage with other women unaccompanied by a man. Now that’s that’s, not according to the book. It’s not according to the Quran or to the traditions, but it is happening. And the number of males, will decrease according to of another version the prophet related, this is what Mohammed is supposed to have said, I saw the fire, hell, and I have not seen to this day a more terrible sight.

Most of the inhabitants are women. They, those to whom the prophet was talking, said, oh messenger of God, why? He said, because of their ingratitude. They said, are they ungrateful to god? He said, no. But they are ungrateful to the companion, meaning husband, and ungrateful for the charity shown by their husbands to them. Even if you men continue to do good things for them and a woman sees one bad thing from you, she will say I never saw anything at all good from you. See, it doesn’t really help the image of the woman, does it? Other reports omit the direct reference to the death fate of women in the fire, but indicate that women are deficient in their religious practice because of menstruation, which prevents them from fasting on certain times, suggesting punishment for a biological function. And that in many instances, the husbands should be permitted the right to determine when and how their wives perform their religious duties.

Let me conclude, with a a prayer that is used and this gives us some clues, prayers do give us clues, It’s about the death of a child, and often we have opportunities to share with Muslim friends when a child has died. Death is an opportunity to give comfort, and, we can certainly genuinely give comfort when a child has dies, a baby, that it has gone to God who created it or him or her. And, and we can say that I’d like to say that, it is through Jesus that this child is accepted. And if I have a chance, I might in some try and be discreet and say, and and through Jesus he he would accept you and you will meet up with your baby again. Anyway, here’s the prayer. And, the prayer recited in contemporary Egypt on the occasion of a child’s death. You find in it a summary of the best Islamic thought can concerning hope for the little one as well as comfort for those who must face the ordeal of loss. Oh God, he is thy servant and the son of thy servant. Thou didst create him and sustain him and bring him to death and thou wilt give him life. Oh god, make him for his parents an anticipation, riches sent on before, a reward which proceeds.

And through him, make the make heavy the balance of their good deeds and increase their rewards. Let neither us nor them be seduced by temptation after his departure. Oh god, cause him to overtake the believers who preceded him in the guardianship of Abraham, and give him in exchange for his earthly home a better dwelling and a family better than his family, and keep him sound from the temptation of the tomb and from the fire of Gehenna. So it’s good if you explore a bit what Muslims think about and women, in the afterlife. I haven’t gone into the question of Hur, the Uhura’s and women but they are not the same believers and Uhura’s.

We could go into that at some other time, but do use, consider prayerfully how you may use the opportunities, with people who have been bereaved and also see what Muslims do believe about women in the afterlife and and children.

Christmas, Lent and Easter to Communicate the Gospel with Muslims

Vivienne Stacey discusses how Muslims will often have questions regarding Christian festivals like Christmas, Lent and Easter. These Christian festivals can be great opportunities to communicate the Gospel as both Muslims and Christians value religious celebrations. There can be an overlap between Islamic and Christian holidays.

These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on Christmas, Lent, and Easter to Share the Gospel with Muslims:

We have looked at the communicating the good news through Muslim festivals, And before we think about Muslim rights, like burial, funeral burials, and so on, I would like us to consider practical suggestions about involving our Muslim friends in Christian festivals. You will be able to make some suggestions probably if you have, lived with Muslims or in Muslim sections of a city or in Muslim countries. So we’ll have a little input from you, I hope. But first, let me think of let’s think about Christmas, the second greatest festival of the Christian calendar. I remember some friends, missionaries, in Beirut who deliberately chose to live in a section of the city and in a particular block of flats or apartments, which were, entirely inhabited by Muslims.

And, I remember the wife telling me, well, when it came to Christmas, we sent our 3 children through the whole block of apartments, each to give some cakes and sweets to the each flat I mean, each, apartment. So the children, took these homemade cakes and sweets and I’m no doubt said happy Christmas. People Muslims are generally are fairly aware about the birth of Jesus. In Pakistan it’s a it’s a national holiday but it’s not to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it’s to celebrate the birth of the founder of Pakistan. But that’s an accommodating way to deal with minorities.

Christian is the largest minority, and so the day that they particularly celebrate, is made of a national holiday but commemorating somebody else and so everybody can have the day off. This is a good method and in the hospital where I lived in the northwest frontier province, a a meal, a free meal, was given on Christmas Day to all patients and relatives. Relatives tend to come to hospitals with the patients and look after them during their illness so it’s generally a family around not just one patient. But everybody was welcomed to this, few to this meal in honour of the birth of Jesus. And, this could happen with hospitals or clinics.

It might happen anywhere. Sometimes I’ve been involved in holding a tea party for Muslim women, to celebrate Christmas telling them that it’s our special festival and, would they like to come and have tea and join in learning a bit about the customs that go with Christmas and the meaning of it, and I’ve had several Muslim women in my home, and we’ve had special songs, Christmas songs and a Christmas reading, sometimes a filmstrip or in some other visual aid to explain the facts about Christmas and the customs. Sometimes you could hold a Christmas party, children’s party with games and songs and some religious content. Now I think it’s important that you explain to your Muslim friends whose children would like to come and do come, that it there will be some explanation of the meaning of Christmas. So they don’t think they’re just gonna go to a a fun party that doesn’t have anything else in it and that they would be surprised therefore for a Christian or a spiritual content.

But it doesn’t have to be very it has to be appropriate for the children. Children’s party with game songs and some religious content. Carol singing party in, in Banu. We used to get woken up at 4 o’clock in the morning because a carol singing party would go around and, they would sing to patients on the wards and they would come and sing to, some of the staff in outside in their homes or outside their homes. And that would be 4 in the morning.

Sometimes they’re special films the Jesus film very popular among Muslim women I know that’s in the town of Multan it was shown shown at the Christian hospital there and they had to have several showings because it was so popular. But on special occasions like Christmas it would be shown and it would be only women attending the showing it was a zenana showing, a women’s showing. Then other ways in which you might at some place, some places bear testimony to Christmas in Banu in this frontier. We it’s a tradition there there’s been a Christian hospital there for nearly a 100 years to put little lamps divas. That’s a clay pot with a candle in it and some no yeah.

No. With a wick in it and inside there’s some oil and there’s some oil and the wick and it it’s so you can make these very cheaply. They put them around the edge of these flat roofed buildings, the hospital, the homes, the staff, also the church. Church incidentally is built in, sort of Muslim style with 4 minarets but across over the door. It’s an attempt to contextualize in architecture, but these lights and I remember walking across the hospital courtyard and being stopped by a patient’s husband I think, he said why all these lights around?

So I came up with one of my popular one of my statements which I’m keen on as you’ve gathered. Well Jesus it’s the birthday of Jesus and he is the light of the world. See so we have all these lights So right every Christmas Eve for nearly a 100 years this has been the custom. Let’s think about, I like to think about Lent. I don’t know if you keep Lent but the run up to Easter fasting Christmas Christians and quite often in Muslim countries Christians do do fast partly because they’re so conscious about fasting in general and in some Christian traditions fasting is quite usual.

The Orthodox Church the in Cyprus where I live it’s the prevailing family Christian family is the is the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox don’t stop eating but they they don’t eat meat during Lent and there are various other things that they refrain from during Lent which is the 40 days running up to Easter and Anglicans some of them keep Lent and mark it in certain ways by abstaining but not a total fast. Muslims asked Muslims, Christians, yeah, we know you fast. So how do you fast? What do you do? And I’m constantly trying to think of new explanations about the about the Christian fasting and that would be help Muslims understand a kind of fasting that doesn’t earn merit because that’s what they are thinking and but it’s and I have I have got some Muslim friends who kept the fast of that the Muslim fast.

One in a strongly Muslim country, a man, felt he would come nearer to the people that he was responsible for in his job if he fasted. I don’t think I’ve met any woman who’s actually kept the fast. I know Phil Parshall has kept it several times maybe his wife has too. Don’t know about that, but anyway that’s the Muslim fast but fasting is one of the 5 pillars of Islamic practice. So so it’s a bridge in a sense say how do you fast?

What do you do? Or why don’t you fast? And what’s the purpose of the fasting? I like to say we don’t fast on a large basis because in fact some Christians won’t fast because the bridegroom is with us we are a people of celebration so we’re not fasting but it is a good idea I will tell my Muslim friends to set aside time more time sometimes for prayer and for a reading of the holy book, the Bible in our case. So but I try to think of other explanations, but it’s always gonna come down somehow or the other that we are not trying to earn merit by it.

It’s not required. It’s an optional extra if we like it and or if we feel God, by his spirit, is guiding us that way. But that’s a totally different idea that they have. But you’ll find if you’re doing your shopping, the shopkeeper may ask you, you’ll find that your Muslim friend will ask you, school kids will ask you about it. So each year I try to think of some more creative way of using this opportunity when they take ask a question about it.

And then Easter, the greatest of Christian festivals, I want to tell you about one thing that happened in the Sindh province of Pakistan. There’s a hospital in a village area or a rural area of Sindh, Christian hospital. It’s a sort of country town. A lot of people in that town belong to a sub sect of sub subsect of the Shias. They are Ahmadi.

They’re considered actually heretical by many Muslims. And Pakistan is one of the countries which has declared them non Muslim. Not all Muslim countries say they’re non Muslim. They regard some of them regard the their leader, Khulam Ahmed Khan, as their way think he’s, an a prophet. So that means that for them, Mohammed is not the seal of the prophets, the last of the prophets, but one other has come and that is the heretical point point.

So other Muslims in that town are not Ahmedi. There are a few Christians there and some tribal people who may be sort of animist. But, anyway, the Christians in the hospital who have a good relationship with their patients who come from around as well as the town itself, decided that they would have a bible reading, in the kind of and and some celebration with I think some songs, but they would do it in quranic style and I think I’ve told you before that you can have a Quran reading in which 30 ladies gather together to read in 1 morning the whole of the Quran, each taking a different section. If you look in my Quran here, you’ll find it’s divided up into 30 sections, a 120 sections, and 60 sections. So if there were 60 women you’ll get through it more quickly and if there are a 11020 it would be half the morning but, and for that they sit on the floor on a or on a cushion, and they put the their Qurans on a a rehel or a stand.

You’ve probably seen the stands, and, is that in front as they read. So the Christians in this hospital decided that, they would put 24, I think they didn’t go to 30 but it was something like that, in a circle in a comfortable room in one of the bungalows I think of that or in some large room on their hospital territory. And so they wrote very nice beautifully written, in Urdu invitations to this celebration about Jesus and his death and and his his resurrection, and, 23 women turned up. The 24th woman wasn’t able to come, but she spent sent a special message. In fact, I think she came and said came not at that time, but another time. And said, I’m so sorry I missed this, but couldn’t you have another one and they thought well we got 23 out of 24 and and the 24th wanted to come So why don’t we have another one? And so they put quickly put on another reading and celebration. And another 24 people came. So it turns out to be they had tea afterwards and cookies or whatever, cakes and some of the not very nice Pakistani sweetmeat which I am not allowed to eat and but anyway they it turned out to be a very, successful, I should think, kind of way of interacting and sharing. I should think part of the success of it was their relationship, good relationships that they built up in the area through their medicine and through individual encounters with patients and friends, but I think the efforts at doing it more like a Koranic style reading, was more familiar and people felt at home perhaps.

Well it was very popular that’s all I can say so perhaps to be copied somewhere. And then, this the same possibilities of sending, sweets and to neighbors and friends as as for Christmas and the possibility of including, Muslim friends in in special meals at Christmas time. Any other suggestions you might have? I’m rather in the business of trying to think of a few other festivals that we might celebrate. I sometimes I can think of, one brother who works in a Muslim country.

He decided to celebrate his 40th birthday, and it’s a very significant birthday for quite a number of people in the Muslim world. They don’t always celebrate it especially, but they’re used to this sort of idea. So so he worked it out very carefully, and he gave some testimony to God’s dealings with him and bringing him to his 40th year. But there was a meal and, the men were separate separated, but I think there was a curtain so they could the women could hear. You can, you know, as you So the women were there, but, they were women were sort of separate.

His wife was with them and he with the men, but the way they’d arranged it, certainly, they could eat at the same time and they could hear what because of the curtain, there they got the privacy the women needed. Is Chris it’s appropriate in many Muslim settings for Christians to go to Muslims to congratulate them on their festival, and then for Muslims to come to Christians and congratulate them on their festival. And this is what you are describing, really. I I know the the sheikh of 1 Muslim state, he goes to the Christians who have a hospital in his sheikhdom. He goes to see some of the staff and to congratulate them on their Christmas or on their Easter.

Both, I think he does. And they go to him, to his palace, and congratulate him and his family, on these 2 festivals, but particularly, the Eidl I think both Eidl Fitr and Eidl Azhar. It’s appropriate. And we used to sit up in where I lived in Banu in the northwest frontier. We used to receive people sometimes out on the lawn outside but some local people would come to congratulate us and then it’s as I say appropriate sometimes to get sometimes it’s the men who would go and congratulate but sometimes it would be in that time where I lived the women rarely we would rarely go to a Muslim home unless we were just going to see the women.

But in the in the Punjab it would be much freer. And then, also calamity or difficulty. In Cairo, I happened to be there staying with a an Egyptian family once, Christian family, when there was, there was rioting. And, so the my hostess said I’m I’m just going to phone my husband and and then and then she said I’m just going to go through the flats and see if anybody’s everybody’s got enough bread and enough this and that. So she was the only Christian the only Christian family in this block of 12, I think.

But the husband came back and offered to go. She she went round and said do you have enough bread? Do you have enough this and that? And then she said would you like my husband to go and collect your children? Because, this this curfew and maybe the husband was away.

And so this gave them a tremendous opening in those 12 homes because at a crisis point they offered help in food and in getting the children back before there was a total curfew. And actually, there was a 2 and a half day curfew, and my plane and to another part of the Middle East flew over Cairo because planes weren’t landing. But but the point is some crisis of this sort can cement relationships very well if you respond in some creative way. So there’s, room here for experiments and, for considering how in your particular cultural setting, you may involve Muslims in your festivals and, how we may deepen our relationships.

Communicating the Gospel Through Muslim Festivals (Pt. 2)

Vivienne Stacey discusses how Muslims will often have questions regarding Christian rituals, festivals, and rites of passage because these are meaningful events in Islamic theology. These practices can be great opportunities to communicate the Gospel as both Muslims and Christians value both beliefs and practices. There can be an overlap between Islamic and Christian practices. In addition, Islamic rituals, festivals, and rites of passage often include Muslim women. This episode addresses Muhammad’s night journey, his birthday, and the remembrance of the martyrdom of Hussein and Ali .

These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on communicating the Gospel through Muslim festivals (Pt.2):

So we’ll continue, with our subject of communicating through festivals, communicating the good news through festivals and rites of passage, and remembering our obligation, as it were, as human beings, quite apart from being Christians and Muslims, to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn will weep with those that mourn or weep. We’ll look at a a smaller festival next and that’s the festival which, is about is lilat al Miraj. Miraj means ascension and commemorates this festival the night of Mohammed’s ascension into heaven. It might have been a kind of mystical experience that he had. He might have gone to heaven and come back again, as some Muslims think.

There are 2 views about this. 1, that it was a kind of mystical experience and it didn’t physically happen. The other, that it physically happened. And at your leisure you could read up you could read Sura 53 1 to 18 and Surah 81 19 to 25. Muhammad’s vision is mentioned. But the night journey, the reference to it is in Surah 17 verse 1. So I’d like to hear that. Would someone read Surah 17 verse 1? This is about his mysterious journey, his ascension into heaven, whether it happens or whether he had a vision as it were. Thank you.

Glory be he who carried his servant by night from the inviolable place of worship to the far distant place of worship. The neighborhood whereof we have blessed, that we might show him of our tokens. Lo, he, only he, is the hearer, the seer. Thank you. So there’s a transfer of Mohammed, it seems.

This is the mysterious night journey, and it is celebrated. If there’s ever sometimes over a festival, a minor festival, or even a major one, something comes up, and your friend asks you something, something to bear in mind would be John 3 verses, 14, 13, and 14. John 3 13 and 14. Would somebody please read it? 

And no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, even the son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. Okay. So no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. We’re not especially going to explain, perhaps, to a Muslim whether we think Muhammad actually physically ascended or whether it was a a dream or something else. But we could say that there is not anyone who ascended into heaven, there’s no record in the bible of anyone else except for the prophet Jesus, except for Jesus, who descended from heaven and then ascended to heaven.

So the key verse here is verse 13, no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. So here’s, here’s someone who came from heaven and went back to heaven. Muhammad went up to heaven and came back if if if this was a real experience or happening. We don’t have to analyze it for them. They can analyze that.

We want to direct thinking to the person of Jesus who came from heaven and went back to heaven. And there are other passages that we could use, like in John 13. He he was in heaven and, as a clear statement at the beginning of John chapter 13. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus in verse 3, Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to god, rose and so on.

He’s he washed his disciples’ feet. But, the whole idea of, a man, son of man, ascending and descending, descending and ascending. This may come up, but, just you have to think through some of these things ahead of time. It helps, and god will guide you in interacting over the subject of feasts. Then there’s edel malad Eid ul Ma’ad or Eid ul Ma’ad.

The birthday of Mohammed increasingly celebrated as we saw when we studied Muhammad veneration. It’s also linked in to funerals because the popular idea is that on his 63rd birthday, Mohammed died. And this is celebrated in the 12th day of the 3rd month. In your folder, you probably have got a a handout, a page about the Muslim calendar. Good if you, study that.

It’s good to have a few clues about the Muslim calendar. They are there are lunar months and, the day starts at 6 o’clock in, the new day starts 6 o’clock in the evening. You it won’t often make a kind of make you confused invitations for meals, but if you’d you could run into a problem if you didn’t remember that the dating and the day would be from 6 o’clock in the evening. So you might think you’re being invited for thirst for for Wednesday evening, but it could be you you might think it’s there may be a confusion here because of which evening are you. You if you’re if you’re given the date, it will cover not the same evening if you see what I mean.

You work it out but 6 o’clock in the evening this is the beginning of the day it’s the, slight, the Jewish way of calculating. And then in in the way with a reckon days is the same, 3 days. 3 days. So you might Jesus died on a Friday and he rose on the Sunday morning and those are 3 days. We may not do a calculation of days even the same way.

So look at the calendar and get to know the names of the months. Some of them are well more well known than others. If you’re gonna be in the Muslim world you’ll find that the daily newspapers have two dates on them. And it will show Muslim dating and dating according to the Christian calendar. I would say that, one of the things that we can share most when we’re talking with Muslims about the celebration of Muhammad’s birthday and maybe we’re thinking about Jesus as well and they’re questioning us.

We can remember, to stress sometimes his suffering because like one of my Indian friends, you may meet somebody like her who takes the praise that you give to Jesus and puts it on Muhammad. So sometimes we want anyway to say something about the suffering of Jesus, may not maybe not about his death, may but about his suffering, but maybe about his death as well. And I’d like to remind you, as I have several times, that the Quran does not totally deny the death of Christ because it admits that the Jews intended to kill him. And it, implies that Jesus was ready to die. There’s no count that he wasn’t.

What the Quran denies that he’s that he actually died as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Then many Muslims celebrate the night of record. The night of record. That’s, very obvious. I, you’ll see candles and lights burning all night.

If you look out of your balcony or window and say one of the main Muslim cities of the East, you’ll see lights all around one way or another, and in the mosque as well. Because on this night, god registers all the actions which men are to perform in the coming year and records the deaths and births births and deaths. It’s the night of record. And some many Muslims stay up all night praying and and reading the Quran. Well perhaps the next day, I don’t suggest that we join in it, but, but the next day, your neighbor may have something to say about the night of record.

Shabeh Barat, as it’s called in Persian, the night of record. We can mention that, yes, we believe in a record, God’s record. Revelation 21 verse 27. Yes? But there shall be no means enter anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the lamb’s book of life.

That’s right. So there is a book that God keeps, It’s the Lamb’s book of life. It’s not so different from it’s a record, certainly. It’s the night of record. Well, there is a book, and here it’s mentioned. In Psalm 116, verse 15 about yes. Thank you. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Yes. God notes. He keeps a record. He notes deaths. And, births? Well, there’s a verse in Ephesians that we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

For believers this is so. Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. So that’s a pre birth record. Lots of Muslims have a real fear of death. Lots of lots of people, not perhaps we do, the fear of death. And they go to the mosque to beg for mercy. Hebrews 2 verse 15, who all their life seemed to have this fear of death. That’s the implication of Hebrews 2 15, isn’t it? They are in the bondage of the fear of death. As Christians, we are not in the bondage of the fear of death. We may have occasional fears about death, but we know that in Christ we are, safe. So there can be interchange on this. And our Muslim woman friends will be very much in bondage. They are in bondage to the fear of divorce. They are in bondage to the fear of illness.

They are in bondage to the fear of jinn and evil spirits. They are in bondage to the fear of death. And sometimes the night of record is the day is the night that, the next day can be talked about, and there can be some light shown thrown thrown on these things. The month of Maharam, one of the 12 months. 12?

Yes. Is the month when shears commemorate every year the martyrdom of Ali, the 4th caliph, and the death of his sons, Hassan and Hussain. The lamentations and commemorations take place during the 1st days of the month, 1st 10 days of the month. Have any of you seen this? Have you seen Maharam Processions? Yeah. What did you see? Yes. Well I saw men, in kind of a parade form, beating drums and then slashing themselves with knives. Slashing themselves in with knives.

So were they walking or they’re sitting or what were they doing? They were, So actually, it seemed like at one point they started to dance, but, Yes. They might have done. Is it a procession? Yeah. Was it a procession? And then they had crepe paper crepe paper no? I don’t know. They did. I mean, this is an indie They did. Yeah. Well, they had later on, they had crepe paper paper objects. They were very beautiful. Uh-huh. And they threw them and and destroyed them in, a lake. Right. No one explained this. Where was that? Which North India? So in North India, 10% of the population well, 10% of the Maharam, this kind of, it’s not it’s a commemoration of the death of these martyrs.

They’ve given the status of martyrs. It’s the nearest that we come in Islam to vicarious suffering. Muslims, Shia Muslims tend to identify with the suffering of Ali and his sons, with the suffering of these so called these martyrs. And it’s the nearest, The whole it’s possibly a reason why quite a number of, Shia have Shia people have come to faith because they are more able to understand vicarious suffering than the average Sunni Muslim. This factor to consider.

They’ll understand more clearly when you talk about the suffering of Christ. Shia Islam is a Islam, it’s a minority line, if you like, within Islam. 10% of the world’s Muslims are Shia, and most of the others are Sunni. So Sunni Muslim, they are in majority, so they’re more triumphalistic. But Sunni, Shia Muslim are a a majority in their own household, the household of Islam.

And, they have a minority kind of feeling about things. They are the a people who are suffering or oppressed, they feel. And sometimes there’ll be divide between Sunni and Shia is very great. I remember, once in Pakistan in the northern areas, I was asking about a certain area. And a Sunni was talking about a Shia and about Shias, as if they weren’t Muslims. And that’s the there is a very great divide sometimes. But my main point here is look at the idea of vicarious suffering. And, if you’re talking to a shear, you will find less reaction when you talk about the vicarious suffering of Christ, not in those theological terms, but as Christ identifying, with us and bearing our sin and so on. In Iran, Shia will be the Shias are 90%. Can you, just define for me the difference between the two Muslim groups?

Like, what makes the Sunni Muslim and what? Yes. I don’t quite understand the difference. Yes. Well, briefly, the sun is follow the they are the original and they follow the law and the first 4 caliphs after, Muhammad and the 4th.

The 4th caliph was Ali and it’s there that the split came because partly there’s a political emphasis line in this. It’s over leadership, but there were other, religious points, and there was a battle fought in Kerbula at 6:8 80 or 681. That’s Karbala. Karbala is in Iraq and Ali and his sons lost this battle. Karbala is for the Shia Muslim, the holiest one of the holiest places, in the world.

The Shias even have slightly different Quran. They’ve got a few verses added in the Quran. Some of it is blessing on the family of Ali and, if you I’ve been to a one shrine, complex where they they sold bracelets which had the names of Muhammad and, had the name of Fatima. It had Ali, but then it had Hussein. And, so that would be Shia because Muslims generally and Sunnis would not go in for this.

They’re more like the sort of orthodox traditional line is the Sunni and the Shia tend to be more charismatic in a sense following a leader. And so you find that Shia Islam splits up a lot. So in Shia Islam, you’ve got, you know, a leader comes, a charismatic kind of leader, and somehow they split, and you get subsects, Ismailis and Aghokhanis and Khojaz and a few more. Plenty. And, so it’s not only a subset, but a sub subset.

So if you’re trying to think of the main families of the Christian church well they’re more like orthodox because they’ve been there from Sunni is more like orthodox, been there from the start, and I would say the comparison would then be Shia is more like Protestant. And just the Protestants, tend to focus on leaders who lead people off into different kinds, you know. There’s a Wesley and a Luther and a so on. I I don’t want to I’m just giving you the idea. And theologically well the the this they have they are following a different line because the Shia considered that the legitimate successors of Mohammed came through Ali Hussain and Hassan and Hussain and then so they had a an idea on the caliphate which was or who was caliph?

Khalifa is the word really. Khalifa. We get the word caliph from it. They follow a different line and divide up into the subsects. The interaction between Sunni and Shia, they have separate mosques, they have separate burial grounds.

It’d be very interesting. I was thinking last night in Colombia. If there are 3 mosques in this city, there must be, some there must be a sheer gathering somewhere. I don’t know. And then the There must be a graveyard.

I was thinking of graveyards because I was preparing to talk to you later about, death and burial. So in this city there must be Muslim graveyards. Possibly, there’s there are 2 because if there are any Shia Muslims here, they probably won’t want to be buried in a Sunni one. I could give you a sheet which would give you some other differences between Sunni and Shia but you need to pay attention to this because it’s wise that you do because and presumably in some other studies you will. If any of you bought my books submitting to God you’ll see a chart of the different, sheer sex and sub sects and there will be a brief explanation of of Shia Muslims.

Sometimes, Shia have asked me, whom do you follow? You see they’re more less sort of according to the theology as it were, and more according to the leader. So they’re asking me, who do you follow? I don’t know if they knew us Christian or Muslim or what. But I remember when I was traveling once, I was asked this question, so I say I follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, this has become part of my rather standard sometimes standard answers if I’m asked by a customs official in a Muslim town or as I’m flying out of the country, are you are you Muslim? Here am I dressed like a Pakistani, my head covered with a bible and a Quran in my hand luggage? Say, are you Muslim? I say, I worship 1 God. That’s starters. And, I don’t say that. I worship 1 God, and I follow the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s alright for a Sunni or a Shia. But the Shia, who do you follow? And, you can talk quite a bit about the one you follow.

You don’t have to go into saying he’s the son of God to start with. He is the light of the world. A sheer of quite in very sort of more mystical in a sense. And so illumination, noor, and light, they like this idea. So Jesus, the light of the world. And you can go on. With a Shia you would get another point in before the official would say, oh, you’re Christian. With them, Sony, it will only go free in my experience. I worship one God. I follow the Lord Jesus Christ and he is the light of the world.

I’m sure that with Shear, you go 1 or 2 more. Better than saying straight off I’m a Christian and having that ends it, he then consolidates, or she, and there, consolidates her idea or his idea of, what he thinks or she thinks Muslims are, Christians alike. See, there’s a stereotype in the Muslim mind sometimes, as we have stereotypes about Muslims. They have them about us. So, we if we are asked are you Christian and you say yes, then it’s just confirmed a stereotype.

But if you’re asked and you say, I am this, I am that, and I am that, well, at least they got to think about those things. And it’s a real question that bugs people. I believe in 1 God. 2 hours of argument about, or discussion on the unity of God. It doesn’t count, I think, nearly so much as the creed or statement, I believe in 1 God.

So, festivals, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn, is coming alongside fellow human beings, fellow women, and and Muslims, Christian and Muslim.

Using Muslim Rituals, Festivals, and Rites of Passage to Share the Gospel (Pt. 1)

Vivienne Stacey discusses how Muslims will often have questions regarding Christian rituals, festivals, and rites of passage because these are meaningful events in Islamic theology. These practices can be great opportunities for sharing the Gospel with Muslim women as both Muslims and Christians value both beliefs and practices.  There can be an overlap between Islamic and Christian practices. In addition, Islamic rituals, festivals, and rites of passage often include Muslim women. For more on this topic, particularly the Festival of Ramadan, see Vivienne Stacey’s article on Sharing the Gospel with Muslim Women During Ramadan.

These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on using Muslim rituals, festivals, and rites of passage to share the gospel (Pt. 1)

We’re studying the subject of communicating through festivals and rites of passage, through festivals and rites, communicating the gospel through festivals and rites. Rites of passage was of birth, marriage, death, and a few others that, are meaningful, to Muslims. I’d like I’d like someone to read Romans chapter 5th, 13 verse 15, which is really about the importance of building relationships. So would someone read Romans chapter 12 verse 15? Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Mourn with those who mourn. Thank you. So we are trying to identify with our Muslim friends, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. At the beginning of our, study, I’d like to emphasize the the Muslim interest in practice. Muslims are often asking, what do you do?

If someone gets married, how do you do it? What is done at the ceremony? When a child is born, what are the practices? And I focused, as you have discovered, on on death and burial. So what do you do, is what they ask quite often.

And I think the gospel of Christ can be communicated as much through the practices of believers as through the, festivals and through the beliefs. William Miller, who worked for 40 years in Iran, wrote a very useful booklet, a letter to his Muslim friend, explaining the beliefs and practices of Christians. I suppose if you were writing this in North America or something like this or in Britain, you might just write on the beliefs of Christians. You wouldn’t want to stress the practices, but he does do this because he knows that Muslims come, and they we, in the course of our living, interact with them, and they ask, what do you do? And they want, it’s an opportunity just as much as going and sharing in a festival, to explain what happens at the wedding, and maybe they come to attend the wedding.

And, the funeral, what happens when a Christian dies? What happens? Not only they want to know the belief, but the practice, and that’s probably what they want to know more because they think it’s so important what exactly you do. Certainly, in the Muslim world, the whole cycle of festivals, and for that matter, practices, rights, through the year, involve women tremendously. I remember staying during the month of fasting, staying a night or 2, with an off he was an army officer and his wife, and my friend was a friend of the of the wife, and so that’s how I came to be in their home at that time.

And it really hit me when I thought, well, she has to get up in the very early, middle of the night, really, to give breakfast to her husband about 3 AM because he’s gonna fast, and she will fast right through until sunset. And then there’s the children. They have to have their meals, they’re small, at the ordinary time. And then there’s these 2 guests, and we volunteered to just, join in the fasting, and for her not to do extra things for us, But she did. She didn’t think that we were really, wanting to fast.

We I both of us would have happily fasted, but she thought it was part of her responsibility as a hostess, I think. And we weren’t actually keeping the month of fasting, so obviously, we’re not weren’t strong candidates. But anyway, but how it turns up to how it affects the life of women. And not just women, it’s students. I’ve been in Cunard College in Lahore during the month of fasting, and many of the Muslim students, the majority are Muslim, they will keep the fast.

And it’s quite difficult to keep their attention if you’re trying to teach in a situation like that. If, it affects the life of the country considerably, things slow down. Everything is, I would say, hampered, but maybe that’s you see, that’s my perspective. But, it’s certainly makes things very different and is a strain. More people lose their temper during the month of fasting, it seems, than the rest of the year.

There’s a lot of quarreling because of the pressures of doing this for a month. Not everybody fasts, but it affects women, particularly. Now, there are all sorts of other festivals besides the wealth the world known ones, like the Eid al Fitr or the Eid al Azhar. There are and the celebration of the birthday of Muhammad, those festivals, most people, e. They Milad, the celebration of the birthday of Muhammad, and other festivals well known through the whole Muslim world.

But there will be also special festivals relating to local saints, and some of these are not so local. People come from all over the world to attend the what is called the Urs, URS, which means it’s the anniversary, of the day in which the saint attained his union with God. Is Ursa actually means marriage, and, these are mostly Sufi saints. I have been to the shrines of quite a few Sufi saints and witnessed what some of the things that go on. I can think of the, Nizam ad Din Shrine Complex in Delhi.

It’s a very, very large, Sufi shrine with mosque. It has a a a langar, a kitchen to to serve 100 of of pilgrims coming to the shrine every day. You can get a free meal. And there are shrine shops, you can buy not buy, but you can give an offering, to get a bowl which has on it inside the bowl written, one of the verses of the Quran, and it’s a bowl, that’s used to put water in and pray over or say some, name of god over it. And it’s useful to give to a child, and it may heal that child.

But don’t try buying these things. I did it once because, it’s got a word from the holy book of Islam, the eternal book in their thinking. So you can’t buy the eternal word of the eternal god. You can make an offering for it. And I maybe I told you that I on this basis, I I changed my way of selling bibles into offerings for bibles, because, that’s what they do about a Quran.

I’ve I once, when I go to buy a new Quran, except that I bought one here, and I didn’t do it here, but, but when you want to get a new Quran in a in a Muslim country, you ask what is the offering for it? You can’t buy the eternal book, and, it would be downgrading it, wouldn’t it? So you off you find out what the offering is. So the shrine complex has got shops, and it’s got, stalls, shall we call them. It has it even has a kind of living complex for the people, the wives of the and the families of the people who maintain the shrines.

And there’s a well known book, which you would enjoy reading, I think, called Frogs in the Well. It’s on the bibliography. Frogs in the Well was written by a sociologist who spent a year, I think, actually in Delhi, in this shrine complex, getting to know the wives of the, leaders of the on the workers at the shrine. People come from all over India, all over Delhi, all over the world to this very famous shrine complex. Anyway, she talked with the women.

She learned Urdu, and, this, Jeffrey is her surname. Pamela Jeffrey, perhaps, I can’t remember. But, she asked them all sorts of things about their lives, and they hardly ever left the shrine. So she said, asked them more questions than this, and they said, well, we’re like frogs in the well. They were tied in to this place where their husbands worked, And probably, in 20 years, some of them never left that.

There’s a station, just a railway station just by the side of the shrine complex so that pilgrims and people coming can easily reach it. But these women, because of what their husbands was doing and because they were keeping the veil and they were segregated in very conservative style, they stayed there all the time. Frogs in the well, so she called her book that. Now, let’s just think about this. During the fast, if you you It’s probably better, generally better, to call on your friends in the evening after the breaking of the fast.

Sometimes they’ll invite you to join in the breaking of the fast. That’s when you, eat a few dates and drink some water. The main meal is later. But I I have joined in, in the breaking of the fast, because I’ve been staying with Muslims who were keeping it. But don’t go and visit your Muslim friend in the middle of the afternoon or if it’s, or even before anytime before the breaking of the fast in general, because they will feel that they need to give you some tea.

Or because they know you’re not fasting, they will feel obliged to to do something in the way of hospitality. And that would be difficult for them and embarrassing for you. So, I mean, that’s just a guideline. There’s no law about it, but just a suggestion. The fast and the feast, the fast is celebrated.

I could put it with the festivals because it leads up to one of the great festivals, but the 2nd greatest in Islam, the Eid al Fitr, at the end of the month of fasting. So I class it with this, with festivals. It’s celebrated differently in different countries, and I have been in Saudi during the fast, Saudi Arabia, and everything is, fairly somber. But I’ve been in Yemen when everybody looks forward to it, and they they sort of live it up every night. The women, collect together in the area, and the men collect together, and they really enjoy the enjoy it.

I mean, they eat at night, as you may know, but but they they really have fun. And I’ve been there with them in their fun, so I I know that they enjoy it. And about 4 o’clock in the morning, they will or 3 o’clock in the morning, they’ll go back to cook, to the breakfast before dawn, and then they’ll be fairly, tired during the the day. But they have to look after their children, of course, but it goes on like this. But Yemen, if you go to Yemen, you you can have a really good time, and it’s a very good time for interchanging.

You if you’ve got 4 hours or 5 hours and your people are relaxed, they women together, talk, and so you can interact, and there’s quite a lot of fun in this way. And I went with a an American who was my hostess, and, she speaks excellent Arabic. And, we, I could see how well she could interact with these people. Well, let’s look at 1 or 2 specifically. The Eid al Fitr festival is the breaking of the fast.

It marks the end of Ramadan. It’s called sometimes it’s called the Little Festival, and I like to compare it with Christmas, which for the Christians is is the Little Festival. You might not think so from the way the church celebrates Easter and Christmas, but it’s actually Easter is the is the big festival. Easter is the primary festival of Christians celebrating the resurrection. And, if we’re gonna compare, then the little festival in Islam, is the Eid al Fitr after the the festival, the breaking of the fast, and the main festival, which we can compare with Easter, is the Eid al Azhar, the feast of festival of sacrifice, which takes place 20 no.

70 days after the end of the month of fasting. Ramadan is the Arabic for the month of fasting, and Ramzan is the Urdu, so I sometimes interchange as I speak Urdu. So what happens then on Eid al Fitr, the festival at the breaking of the fast? All the men go off to the mosque or to the what is called the Id Ga. You’ll see it here on your handout, Id Ga.

It’s a special, large, open place set aside for such gatherings, because sometimes the courtyard of a mosque is not large enough, for the number of people who, go. And, sometimes there’s a in many towns, there is an Eid Gar. Eid means festival. Maybe you say it in Arabic, Eid. And then in, Ga means place, and there it is.

It’s just this field, if you like, or an open area. And, after that they have prayers and and worship and listen to a sermon, they go home for other festivities. The women do not generally go to the mosque or special prayer prayers, but pray at home, and they’re busy cooking choice dishes. And everybody wears new clothes, and they often exchange gifts. It’s good to rejoice with those who rejoice and to relate to people in their festivals, and you will find that in different ways they will include you in some way or another if you are if you’ve got Muslim friends.

Then the main festival of Eid of the year, the Eid al Azhar, is the festival of sacrifice. And the sacrifice, is made by pilgrims at the beginning of their pilgrimage, but it’s it’s celebrated all through. Even sort of weeks before, you see lots of goats around, and you see an extra supply of of sheep, and even of, of buffalos, and I don’t know. It depends what the country goes in for, particularly. Camels will qualify as well, actually.

They’re all destined for sacrifice, on that day, and I think we should read about this. Would somebody from their Quran, preferably from Yusuf Ali’s use What am I saying? Yusuf Ali’s rendering, is that Yusuf Ali? Yeah. Would you read the second 22nd Surah and verses 33 to 37?

Here, it’s commanded that the this sacrifice should be made, and this is one of the celebration. Now, it’s not in general a sacrifice for sin. It’s a sacrifice in commemoration. Commemoration of the intention of Abraham to sacrifice his son. And it doesn’t, in that part of the Quran, I think, specify which son.

Would you read it, please? This is I believe it’s, ayat 34. Thank you. To the people, did we appoint rights of sacrifice that they may celebrate the name of Allah over the sustenance he gave them from animals fit for food. But your god is one god.

Submit then your wills to him in Islam and give those and give thou the good news to those who humble themselves, to those whose hearts, when Allah has mentioned, are filled with fear, who show patient perseverance over their afflictions, keep up regular prayer, and spend in charity out of what we have bestowed upon them. The sacrificed the sacrificial camels we have made for you as among the symbols from Allah In them is much good for you. Then pronounce the name of Allah over them as they line up for sacrifice. When they are down on their sides after slaughter, eat eat thereof and feed such as beg not, but live in contentment, and such as beg with new humility, thus have we made animals subject to you that you may be grateful. It is not their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah.

It is your piety that reaches him. He has thus made them subject to you that you may glorify Allah for his guidance to you and proclaim the good news to those who do right. Verily Allah will defend from you all those who believe. Verily Allah loveth not any that is a traitor to faith or shows of gratitude. Thank you.

Mhmm. Good. So it’s there. Now, I just, maybe it’s difficult to look at this diagram, but, here we are. I’m indebted to Dudley Woodbury for setting me on this line of thinking of comparing, the sacrifices or the commemorations, in Judaism, Islam, and the Christian faith.

And so when we look at this greatest of all festivals for Muslims, which they celebrate around the world and, to which sometimes they invite us in one way or another, I have stayed with a Muslim family at the time of this celebration, and I shared in with my hostess as we went round, giving some of the meat of the sacrifice to the poor people or not so poor people. She was very wealthy, my hostess, and, she went she gave you’re supposed to give a third of the sacrifice away. You give a third to the religious leaders, and you give a you keep a third to eat with your family. So sometimes Muslims will send some meat from the animal, as a token of friendship. Send it to your home.

Sometimes, in some countries, Christians don’t feel free to take it, and I feel this is a great pity because, this is not meat sacrificed to idols. It’s commemoration. It’s not even a sacrifice for sin or anything. It’s it’s a commemoration of of Abraham. And so if they feel close to you, they want you to share in some way.

So if you’re not actually there for the feast, they will send you some meat. So we could all ask 7 questions about Eid al Azhar. We could ask what is commemorated, And I’ve already said, mose the commemoration of Abraham in his intention to sacrifice his son. What is the significance of the sacrifice? How does the worshipper prepare?

What is sacrificed? Who is saved or blessed? Who provided the sacrifice, and how is it commemorated? And you can compare this with the Passover, ask those same seven questions. You can compare it with Good Friday and ask those same questions, and you can compare it with the Lord’s Supper.

It’s an interesting study. It’s worth spending some hours, working through this and thinking it through. You won’t be able to, probably go into a detailed study of this sort with your Muslim friend, but you might for maybe. I don’t know. One never knows.

But, there are many points. I’ll just highlight a few points of, what should we say, bridges. Who provided the sacrifice, for example? The Quran clearly says that God provided it. That’s what we read also in Genesis.

God provided the lamb, and Ishmael, Isaac was not, offered. In the Quran, the the main description is in Surah 37 verses 102 to 109. I wonder if somebody would read this for us. Could you then see you’ll find an answer to another of these seven Surah Surah 37 verses 102 and 109. And probably, if we were looking at a biblical passage, we would look at Exodus 12, the story of the Passover.

I have it. Then when the sun reached the age of serious work with him, he said, oh, my son, I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice. Now see what is thy view. Thy son said, oh my father, do as thou art commanded. Thou wilt find me if Allah so wills one per practicing patience and cons constancy.

So when they both patience and constancy. So when they both when they had both submitted their wills to Allah and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead for sacrifice, we called out to him, oh Abraham, thou has already fulfilled the vision. Thus indeed do we reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial, and we ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice. Oh, and we left this blessing for him among generations to come in later times.

Peace and and salutation to Abraham. Yes. Thank you. So can you think of another point, a bridge here in thinking between comparing the Christian idea or the Jewish idea of the sacrifice. There’s, the idea of, with the Jews of the sacrifice at the time of the Passover, the first Passover.

So what’s in the Quran that, parallels that? Which verse or? What about verse a 107? The numbering may be different if you have a different, version, But number, verse 107, then we ransomed him with a tremendous victim. Then we, that is God, ransomed him, that is Abraham, with a tremendous victim, with a a great sacrifice.

And all this terminology actually is is Jewish, and, it’s, Jesus we think of as the ransom for sin. So we ransomed him with a tremendous victim, with a with a a sheep or a goat or a cow or a camel, a great offering, a great sacrifice, and god provided it. We ransomed him. God provided the sacrifice. So we can find parallel parallels here.

There’s a it’s not a sacrifice for sin, except I think in 1 or 2 traditions, the idea of a sacrifice for sin comes in Islam, but in general, it’s not there. And people are sometimes rather vague about what the sacrifice is for. So just try to work through this and look up the references. Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, John 121. I mean, sometime or the other in conversation, these things will come up, and you will have a natural opportunity to take some idea from what they are involved in to what or how it also speaks to your heart and how.

There’s a a preparation for this, but please, study these, from your handout and sheet. One other I think we will in this next the next time you study, whether you’re studying a long way away in distance learning or here, we will in the next session or the next study, we’ll continue looking at festivals, and then we will, take think about the rights, and we’ll think particularly in the rights about death and burial. We’ll focus on one right and go along with that. Give you an idea to how you might then take another right, like marriage, and go deep into that. You can do that as part of your personal studies and observations.

So communicating the good news through festivals and rites, Let us rejoice with those who withdraw rejoice, and let us mourn with those who mourn.

Creative Ways to Communicate the Gospel with Muslims

In this Lecture, Vivienne Stacey discusses the value of using stories, poetry, songs and analogies to share the Gospel with Muslims. Sometimes it isn’t the Gospel message that is rejected but rather the form by which we communicate the Gospel. These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on creative ways to communicate the gospel with Muslims:

So we’re continuing, to consider communicating effectively with our Muslim friends, and we’re continuing considering how Jesus communicated in different ways. Through stories is another way. So collect stories. I gave some stories. I mentioned, the pot which somebody cooks in.

If you clean the outside and not the inside, it’s an example of outward cleansing from sin, but the heart is not changed. And and chickenpox, if you start treating every pox, and don’t get the inside changed, a a remedy for what is causing the trouble from within, is trouble. And no Muslim woman treats every pox of her chickenpox, but, they will recognize it’s comes from something within. Use find examples, and there are many. Poems.

Sometimes Muslims are very keen on poetry. And, one of my Muslim friends, was a poet, and he used to write poetry and recited at, Mosheira. A Mosheira is a gathering of poets. And in the home of my friend, Bill Keese, I once attended a a mashayra. There were about 40 people present, half of them about 16 of them were women, and we sat round in this lovely room in her very wealthy home. And the television came, to take put it on TV, a moshire, a poetry reading. There was one other foreigner there, Anna Marie Schimmel, who’s a famous, writer on and, student on scholar. She’s German. She lives in the United States, and she’s a professor in one of the well known universities here. She’s an expert on the life of of Muhammad Iqbal, the poet, or the, yes, poet and writer, philosopher of the subcontinent.

She was there, and I was there. I was there because I was a guest in the house, And, various people it started quite late. Various people recited poems, men and women. And, she was asked for a poem, and I she is very fluent in about 6 or 8 of the languages that Muslims speak, like, Farsi, Persian, Pashto, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Arabic, and a few more. So she had probably made a poem up, and so I was asked for a poem.

So I said, well, I’m not a poet, and I haven’t actually got a poem, but I am in Hyderabad because one of my books is being published here in Hyderabad for the centene jubilee of the Henry Martin Institute, and I’ve written a book about Henry Martin. And, in in my book, I’ve, got a picture of the or, yeah, a photograph of some of the well known poetry of a Sufi Sufi poet, Saadi, whose tomb is in Shiraz. And so I’ll read you that, and it’s Sufi poetry which talks about Jesus. So I I just read it. And, I knew this whole thing was going on in Urdu.

I knew that, if there was anybody who wanted to talk to me about Jesus over, probably at midnight over refreshments, they would come and find me. And sure enough, one woman came to to talk to me about Jesus. Anyway, that’s, poetry. It means a lot, much more. We don’t have these kind of poetry readings about Jesus, but in Muslim setting it might be good if we had some poems and like my friend, Taq Kashmiri, he he, took part in these kind of activities as a Christian.

Songs. I learned certain something about songs from a situation that 2 friends of mine told me in a they went to visit a remote part of Northern Pakistan. We used to go on holidays to these or vacations to these parts of Pakistan. Lovely places in Gilgit and, Chitral and Baltistan and Skadu and Hunza right up to the nearly to the border of China, lovely areas. Anyway, we all had our adventures. And, one adventure for her was that she was in a certain area with her husband and the horse owner. They’d hide horses. The horse owner was a local leader, and he he invited this couple, to his home for a meal. And, my friends learned that the leader’s father-in-law had recently been murdered. And, so the the woman, the Christian woman, tried to talk to the women about Jesus’ victory over death, but they weren’t keen to hear the message. But she had a lovely singing voice, and she sensed that maybe they would accept it if she sang. She asked if, she asked if she should sing, and she did. And they asked her to sing again. And then she asked if she could pray for them. They asked her questions about the song.

They listened to the same message, that she had spoken before, but they didn’t receive it in as a a message told, but they received it as a message sung. And then the the man whose friend had been the leader’s father-in-law who had been recently murdered, the leader, said, well, I know you live in that city over there, that city, and I’ve got a relative there. I’ve got a brother there, and I know that that family would like to hear you sing. So it was an opening through song. They asked and then they asked the husband to sing too.

So here’s an example of the same message but put in different form, and it is acceptable. Illustrations, I’d like to say something about that. What I really want to say is that use curiosity. I like using curiosity. I find it most effective.

Sometimes you will have seen me with a bag, that’s I have those 2, but I’ve got another one with which I put books in. I used to have them use it in Pakistan, and I would put tracts about Jesus as the his name is called Wonderful. It’s a lovely tract in Urdu, and it’s in it’s in Farsi, and it’s in Arabic, and it’s in several other languages. Anyway, lovely tract about Jesus. He is he is incomparable in his birth, in his sinlessness, in his in his life, and in his death, and in his resurrection, and so on.

Okay. Well, I used to carry them, and I still carry them around. I’ve actually got couple with me. And, I had been spending Christmas day with a Pakistani couple, a pastor and his wife. He had about 30 villages, which he was responsible for.

So he got his elders and his wife and me, and we split up into teams, and we took so many villages each to lead Christmas services. And at the end of that rather busy day, he put me on a minibus to go to the city where I lived. It was about 8 miles or 10, and there were I think there were 3 seats left, and there were about 10 farmers already in the minibus. And I sat at the back, And, I had my this bag with me, which actually had tracks in it. And I wasn’t gonna particularly do anything with my tracks and give them out in the bus, but after we’d gone a mile or so, another farmer got on, and he had a bag not so different from mine.

So the men said, what’s in your bag? And he said, carrots. So then I just sort of piped up, and I said, I have a bag, but I don’t have carrots in it. Dead silence. See? So they all want to know what’s in my bag. And so, well, I said, I’ve got I’ve got seed in my bag. Well, I said, actually, I’ve got, some little booklets. And, so they didn’t really want to engage in conversation with me, but 5 6 men in front put up their hands. So I was in the back, so I put 6 of them in the different hands, and then there was dead silence for, 10 minutes, I think. And, then they one man said, this is foreign seed. So I said, oh, no. This seed was first sown in Asia. It’s not foreign seed. And then they started to ask me questions.

They said, do you prefer living in Pakistan or in your own country? That’s the question. Okay. So I said, well, when it’s the will of God for me to live in my own country, I like that better. And when it’s the will of God for me to live in your country, I like that better. But, actually, I I don’t belong that closely to any country. I am like Abraham, who I am like Abraham who seeks a city which is above, whose builder and maker is God. So I’m like Abraham. I’m a pilgrim in this world and so and so on. But I had an excellent opportunity to to share, and they took the tracks away with them.

It’s not so cultural, perhaps, for a woman to get into this, but, I mean, I seem to get into these things. So and if you’re the older you are, the easier it’s to get in and to get out. So, but if you try it when you’re too young, it’s not such a good idea perhaps. Anyway, but I I have to tell you about, I think he came from, oh, he was a Maori from New Zealand working with, Muslims in the south of Thailand, and he happened to come to my one of my seminars in India. And, so he used curiosity.

So let me tell you how he did it. He used to go to the tea shop. Easy for him as a man. I can’t go to sea shops so easily. But, anyway, he went.

He would go, and then he would meet some young men, just sort of meet them. And, on the back of his motorbike, he had things all wrapped up. And, they were very interested to know what he had wrapped up on the back of his motorbike. And he said, oh, you wouldn’t be interested in what’s wrapped up in the back of my motorbike. And and then he he it became a thing of curiosity for them.

So he said, oh, well, I’ve got some, got some material that tells about, about the prophet Jesus. And they said, well, show us what you’ve got. And he said, well, you wouldn’t be interested in what I’ve got. He said, well, then come to our village and and show us so that, show the people in the village. And he said, well, if I come to your village, I’m just going to that village.

If I come to your village, people will get, very restive or they won’t give me peace and it I probably they won’t accept what I’m gonna show and all the rest of it and what I’m gonna say. And they said, no. We guarantee. We will guarantee to keep everyone will be very peaceful in our village, but please come and show us what you’ve got on, wrapped up there on your motorbike. He would go on, you know, for half an hour, and they’d do this.

And, so they’re all dying to see what he had, and they guaranteed that the village would behave very properly, and it would all be quiet. And, so then he would go to their village, which was one of his ideas in the first place anyway. So curiosity. Don’t tell it all. I remember once, there was a woman grinding.

I was going out to some other villages to to share the good news and coming back to this village while I was stay staying at night. And, so in the morning when I was going out, I saw this woman grinding, And I said, you know, before the end of the world, it will be like this that there will be, 1 woman grinding, 2 women grinding. And 1 woman will be taken to be with God, and the other one will be left. And I then I said goodbye. And she spent the day worrying about this.

She spent the day thinking about this. And, so when I came back, she was glad to learn more. Curiosity, probably, or not just curiosity, maybe. If you’re grinding like this and you’ve just heard this thing and you it goes in your mind through the day. So illustrations.

Now let’s think about using people’s points of contact. I’ve already touched on it perhaps, but amulets, I’ve mentioned, asking people what’s inside, and if it’s some word of god, some word from the Quran, then offering in them a word of god from the scripture, from from the bible. The wearing of the veil. Sometimes I’m asked, why don’t I wear a veil? And I don’t know what if, I mean, I everyone has their own ways, so, you might think that some of my methods are a bit strange.

But anyway, I say, oh, I’m I I do wear a veil. And then I say, I wear I wear a spiritual veil all the time. I wear a veil all the time, a spiritual veil. I’m clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah said, whatever he said in chapter 61 verse 10.

It’s about, the bride bridegroom no, the bride being clothed, and I just can’t remember it by heart. So you see how bad I am at remembering things by heart, but somebody got it. It’s 61110. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul will exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of righteousness.

He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. And And I explained that spiritual burqa, which I which I have, that spiritual, veil, which is an entire veiling, and we can disc we discuss on the bus journey. Then sometimes a Muslim lady sitting next to me may say, well, you know our creed, there is no god but god. What’s yours? And I give John 17 verse 3 as my answer as I’ve already mentioned.

There is one god and one mediator between god and man, the man Christ Jesus. I know that’s not the summary there, but there is a summary in 1 Timothy about that. This is life eternal that we may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. Well, nothing too startling for a Muslim. One God, Jesus, his apostle or sent one, but it has the idea not of just statement of belief, the idea of knowing god, the idea of of relationship, and so we talk about that.

Sometimes we talk about prayer. Always, we talk about fasting during the month of fasting. And I’m looking for more and more answers about how to reply. Sometimes, why don’t you why don’t you fast? Well, the the bridegroom’s with us, so we’re celebrating.

Why should we fast? Or in the holy angel, it’s written, come, let us keep the festival. The festival in the original language, which is Greek, in the original language, it means, let us go on keeping the festival. For the Christian, every day is festival because Jesus is alive and he’s risen. Some some of these answers.

Or, how do you fast? And so that’s another discussion. When I travel where people are keeping the fast, I don’t generally, eat or drink so that my fellow passengers don’t feel uncomfortable. I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable. I have to say that, in the very burning heat of the northwest frontier, in the summer, sometimes when the men go off to say their prayers, I do have a sort of swig at my, my water in the thermos flask.

Generally, there are 1 or 2 women only on the bus. But, but in in principle, I try not to eat or drink in front it’s not because I’m fasting, but because I don’t like to, advertise eating and drinking or to make people feel uncomfortable about it. Pilgrimage, well, my line is, yes, I’m, I’m a pill. I’ve been on pilgrimage, but I’m always on pilgrimage because I’m seeking that city which is above, the Jerusalem which is above. Jerusalem is the 2nd most holy, shrine, I think 3rd most holy in the Muslim world, actually, if you’ve mentioned Jerusalem.

And you can talk about the pilgrim the pilgrim and the pilgrim city and the pilgrim way. Jesus is the way, the truth. Jesus is the way, practice. This is we follow him. The truth, belief, and the life experience.

The way, the truth, and the life. The Pilgrim way, the Pilgrim and the Pilgrim City and the Pilgrim Way. Other words well, I’ve had some very interesting conversations with over words, and one of them was, in the northern areas of Pakistan when it was the time when Baynazir’s father was in jail and likely to be hanged. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, her father, sentenced to death, prime former prime minister. And, one of the chaps in the we had a we go we got seats in the back of a an open kind of, vehicle, kind of Jeep, and there was one seat left, and some young man, got that seat.

So he told us how terrible this was that that Buto was sentenced to death, and he said if, some of us would like to die in his place. So I said, oh, really? I said, there was a a case, a law case, and, and I went on about this law case a bit. And I said and and there was a, a man who who died in someone else’s place, and I went on to talk about Jesus. Well, anyway, that was or or at least a seed sown.

And, there’s another sometimes, you get an opportunity. I used to go when I was learning Punjabi and living in a village, I would go for a walk. No. Nobody goes for a walk in a village. I mean, if you well, at least without a purpose.

If you’re going for a walk through the village or you might be going to the place where women go to the toilet in in that kind of cane field for sugar field on there’s another one that men use. So you might be going, that’s might be the purpose of your walk, or you might be going to get water at the well, but you don’t just walk, but I just walked. And I met a Punjabi woman going the other way, and she stopped to chat. And she she asked me some questions. She said, how many houses do you own?

So I said, well, I don’t actually own any house. My parents have got a house, but it’s not mine, and they live in England. And I’ve got a job here in the city, but then the house goes with it. I have a house to live in, but I don’t own it. So I don’t own any houses.

She said, my extended family, we own 200 houses. So I said, oh, really? I said, well, come to think of it, my extended family, we own more than 3 200 houses, and we have wonderful houses. We have houses that don’t need any, any whitewashing, and no thief can break in and steal. And, they’re they’re utterly secure, so I’m getting on about these wonderful houses. And so she said, well, how can I get one of those houses? Oh, I said it’s very easy, and I had my Punjabi New Testament with me. So I got out, John 14, I think it was, in my father’s house are many mansions and so on and so forth. And so I was able to to talk to her about that and how you can get one of those houses. Well, you never know.

It’s good to think of ways of contact either through religious terminology, which comes up all the time as in the five practices of Islam, or just things that come out of daily life. And, if you get in the habit of it, it becomes sort of a way of evangelism, and, it’s just becomes fairly natural. I heard the Indian students laughing when I told them, well, once I was having a ride in a rickshaw, and the the rickshaw set me down, and the driver. And, so he asked me what the time was. So I said it was the time for salvation.

So but I’ve only done that once. But, anyway, he listened. And, I always offer taxi drivers, and and, I offer rickshaw drivers. I always get a whole stack of gospels or and a whole stack of tracts when I go to Pakistan. I don’t use them in the frontier because it’s not the place to use them. But in Karachi and Lahore, I I use them regularly. And, one of my friends thinks there are gonna be a lot of taxi drivers in heaven, but I I don’t have quite as much faith perhaps as she does. I hope to be some there’ll be some. So one one man said, well, I’m I’m secular. So I said, well, he didn’t want to accept it.

You see the the gospel? So I the tract. So I said, well, does it mean if you’re secular, you can’t read any religious meth anything religious? And he said he he laughed and said no, and so he took it. So there’s a great opportunity. I see 786 up on a on a taxi. I say, oh, I see. You’re a religious man. Or I see there’s no god but god, and Mohammed is his prophet up on the taxi. So I see I see you’re religious.

Maybe you would like to read about this prophet, and they know about this prophet. And I said it was his birthday next week. I I was in Pakistan in December, so I this is what I did in December. Say, well, it’s the birthday of this prophet next week. So would you like just to read this?

Can you read? Yes. Can you read? No. Nobody in your family can read? 

Oh, yes. My son can read. He’s going to use in 8th grade or something. Okay. So there are there are opportunities like this.

So many points of contact. Generally, the one off. This is we’re talking about one off. But a seed there and a seed there, and God is amazing when you listen to people’s Muslims who’ve come to Christ to hear how God used a seed there and a seed there and a seed there. So you’re not the only person, who’s doing this kind of thing, and, so there is much opportunity in this way.

Any question you would like to ask? Or any comments you would like to make? Don’t worry if you can’t, you know, turf out the whole packet of seeds. One seed was probably quite enough for 1 person for one day, and you don’t know who’s coming the next day or the next year or the next month. I like sometimes to make my, statements credal, so I’m very keen on saying I believe in one god.

That’s a creedal statement. I am very keen to make statements which say I believe in in very simple terms so that it’s not it’s not negotiable, it’s not arguable in one sense. And Muslims identify with the statement, I believe in one God. I think we’ll conclude, and let’s look out at for ways of teaching, like having a syllabus of the parables. And then let’s think of creative ways of sharing good news as we travel, take you take long journeys.

People want to chat. They don’t have much to do. We can have very interesting stories and travels. And, yeah, there’s one one I’ll tell you 1 or 2 more another time.

Using Islamic Terms to Communicate the Gospel to Muslims

In this lecture, Vivienne Stacey discusses the importance of learning local languages as well as the value of using Muslim phrases and Islamic terms when communicating the Gospel. These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on using Islamic terms to communicate the gospel to Muslims:

We’re looking at the material, in the handout paper, communicating effectively with our Muslim friends. And I I’d like to make 1 or 2 comments about speaking their language. I’m glad that some of you are going off to other countries, and you’ll be learning one of the languages. Even if you just learn a little, it’s very useful. And, so if you stay in if God calls you to stay in the United States or Canada or somewhere around here, then learn a little of their language.

They’ll be very keen to teach you a few words. No problem. And it’s good if you can greet people in their own language, in their own way, and it’s a way of really breaking down barriers very quickly to just learn a little if you can’t learn very much and increase on your learning, like find out what the greetings are that they use and and then use them with them. A salam alaikum is used right through the Muslim world, and the answer to the person who says it is, That’s the reply. And, sometimes, in certain areas of the world, Christians have got a a subculture of their own.

This is true in Pakistan, where in the Punjab, women and well, and men will say just salaam. And that rather marks them out as Christians, but there’s nothing a matter with the Muslim greeting, and it’s not exclusively the Muslim greeting. Assalamu alaikum is quite an order. It’s no compromise in that means, may peace be upon you. So, but Christians have got to hang up some of them and don’t use it.

Christians up in the frontier use it, and, I think it’s good if we have there’s no reason why we shouldn’t use the greetings that Muslims use to one another through the world. We can, also use titles of respect, I think, without any common compromise. We can use a title of respect for Mohammed, but sometimes we could call him Mohammed Sharif. Sharif means noble. Well, I don’t he was in a in many ways noble.

He improved the situation for women in his in Arabia. He was against, killing of female children. He preached about the one god in a city where there were 360 or so idols in the Kaaba before he cleaned it up. He was noble in different ways. He was a remarkable statesman.

He unified Arabia within 10 years. He he was an, a remarkable person. So we are not compromise compromising if we give him the name, Nobor. I don’t call him my prophet, and there’s there’s no problem. A Muslim generally will understand if you don’t call him prophet because, he will understand, and if he doesn’t, you’ll need to explain it to him or her, that if I believed in Muhammad as prophet, I would rig would become a Muslim. And he is for the Muslim, the last of the prophets, the seal of the prophets. And for the Quran, we can use the word Sharif as well, or we can use the word Quran Majeed or Quran Sharif. That’s the Sharif would be more ul uldu. And we we should refer to the holy bible, I think, when we’re talking with Muslims rather than the bible. Give it its, I think inside my Bible, it’s written.

Yes. A reader’s guide to the Holy Bible. We’ve sort of slipped off the Holy, perhaps, but that’s just our custom. We’re not disrespectful, but, let us be who we are. We read a book, which is the holy bible, and that’s, no no, exaggeration to call it that.

No dishonor to leave it off, but it doesn’t seem the right thing in Muslim eyes, and we’re thinking about how it appears to them because we want them to read it. I’ve already dealt with, some words that we need to consider the consider the meanings of the word sin and the meaning of the word salvation. But, in some languages, there are other influences, and there’s a choice of words. In Urdu, definitely, lots of Pakistani Christians use the word, which comes from Hindi, for love. Muslims use the word Mahabut, and it’s a genuine word in the Urdu language as it is in Arabic.

So prem to the Muslim would speak of Hindu and, Hindu influence, and it is coming from that background. So we wouldn’t use prem, but it comes in the hymns. It comes in the songs. And, if you are in a strictly Muslim area, concentrated Muslim area like in the frontier of Pakistan, it might even be better not to sing that kind of song because of the vocabulary. Christians use the word shanti sometimes in Pakistan.

It’s Hindi. It’s, it’s not Muslim at all in vocabulary. The word often used in translation is Itminaan rather than than Ashanti. So we could, pay attention to the vocabulary, make sure it’s it’s, vocabulary that’s meaningful to Muslims and not an offense. Shanti, they’ll they’ll think you immediately mark you out as someone who’s connected with Hinduism And, praying, certainly, and prebu for God instead of Allah would certainly mark you out that way.

It’s a subculture. Bengali in Bengal, and in Bangladesh, there are some Christian subcultures. I would think in the United States, there are some Christian subcultures, but I won’t, go on and establish that. Just think about it. We need the language of the the woman, the average woman, or the man in the street, if you like, and the woman in the home. And then, gee, Muslims need to know about whom we’re speaking. Do you remember the names given in the Quran to Jesus and the titles? Can someone tell me quickly? Al Nas. Beg your pardon?

Isa Al Masih. Yes. He’s Isa or Al Masih, Jesus the Messiah. It’s an empty title in the Quran. There’s no definition of it, but it’s the same title that we use, and, Christ, actually, is the Greek for it. So it the Messiah, Masih. But we need to make sure that Muslims who read about Isa bin Maryam, or Isa al Masihah, or Almasi, that they realize that this is the Jesus also of the New Testament, of the Bible. So it’s not necessarily something that they will automatically recognize. If you use the word for Jesus, which they are not familiar with, they won’t know that you’ll think you’re talking about somebody else. So as a teacher, if you like, you go from where the pupil is and, teach go from there.

Start where they are. They’re with Issa ibnim Mariam. They’re with, Esa al Nasi, and they’re with, there’s another title which I escapes me at the moment. But, so you’ve got to make sure that that it’s the same, or there’s a connection between what is described in the Bible that you have in, say, Urdu, the language of the country or whatever language is being used. The biblical rendering and translation for Jesus, son of Mary, that they realize that this is the same person that’s being talked about in the Quran.

Granted that there’s a different portrayal, but it’s not so far off. It’s I always feel it’s like a picture out of focus in the Quran. One of my bad photographs, out of focus, but by the grace of God, one day, it will come in focus, for Muslims as it does here and there as we’ve heard as we’ve heard for Muslims as it does here and there as we’ve heard as we’ve prayed. Ibn al Mariam, Isa Al Masihah. Now, religious terminology, we’ve already also thought about that in relation to sin, repentance, and salvation.

Lots of words are in common. Word for du’a, prayer, That’s impromptu prayer or not the structured prayer. But that’s the word we have in Urdu. That’s the word we have in Arabic, and, we all they know what they’re talking about, and we know what what we’re talking about. The same thing, the same informal prayer.

So we’ve got a lot of things going for us, really. The Muslims use the same religious vocabulary throughout the world, in Swahili, and in Uighur, and in Uldu. They’re all using these Arabic words. They might change them slightly, but it’s the same basic vocabulary. So here we are with qibla. This is this is Arabic, but you’ll find it in Urdu. It’s used, and it’ll be used through the Muslim world. You use it in Iran. Yeah. So it’s worthwhile learning some of these words.

Vazoo, the ceremonial washing before prayer. It’s the same, right through the Muslim world. So it’s, helps you with your language in a way, and, to know that and to use those words. Understanding the customs, well, it’s very disrespect respectful, to put, your Quran on the floor. I was given the lift, very kindly by a couple yesterday.

Don’t tell them, but, Anita, but, the lady put her bible on the floor of the car. So I, you know, I was slightly hurt, but, but there were no Muslims in the car. But but I just wondered. I mean, supposing they gave a lift to, to a Muslim girl or something, might they do it? If it becomes your habit, you may well do it, you see.

It’s not a custom that, would commend the reading of scripture to a Muslim girl if she happened to get a ride in the car. They would think, well, they can’t think too much about the bible that they put it down there. And, you never know when you’re gonna meet a Muslim. They turn up everywhere. A Muslim will often take a a special cloth to write to wrap, the Quran.

I have been known to wrap my bible as well, but, I’m not, set in a pattern, I’m afraid, about it. Maybe I should be. I’m careful about my packing if I’m going to the to the Muslim world and put I generally have 2 suitcases, and on one of them, I put the Quran, and the other, I put my shoes. So that’s there’s no fence, especially when the Muslim customs people have a look in my suitcases. Yeah.

Now, thinking their way, I’ve got us, heading here, and, you’re probably aware that generally, we think in logical progression. This is our training. We think in straight lines, I would say, in steps. Muslims are mostly Asian and African. Middle Eastern, they generally think in sort of circular thinking.

It’s, it’s all there, but it’s not. It’s it’s put in a more circular type of thinking. If you want an example in the bible, the first letter of John, if you analyze it and really study it, you will find that that goes for circular thinking. He takes a theme and he goes around and he goes around. If you chart it out, you won’t find it goes exactly logically step by step.

It’s more, more like this, circularly. So, you can communicate truth just as much by circular method. I heard a brilliant serve servant once in Nepal by an Indian doctor, and he spoke about light, the word, which you should get add this to your vocabulary, the word nur or light. And, it’s a bit too tall there. Nur. And, it’s spiritual illumination is what it means. If you write it, it’s transcribe it, you would come like this. Spiritual illumination. It’s spiritual light. It’s not like the electric light, but it’s spiritual light. It’s the light that lights the heart on the mind. It’s spiritual. God is Noor. God is al Noor, the light. Muhammad is light, Noor, not the light but light.

So he doesn’t have al or l before him. When his when he’s described as light, he’s described as light without a definite article. When God is described as light, he’s the light. And Jesus is the light, the Nur of the world, the light of the world. But the idea is a a spiritual illumination.

Now, I’d like to take some examples of ways of communicating. And actually, in preparing my, talk and then writing this booklet, I’ve analyzed the methods that Jesus used in, communicating, in treating in teaching. He did things with his disciples, and I used to like to do things with my students in Pakistan when I worked for 20 years in the Bible Training Center, United Bible Training Center. I like to do things. I like to do evangelism and see the living God in action and then come back and analyze what he’s done. And that’s what I’m trying to model on what Jesus did. And he used at least half a dozen ways of communicating truth and his message. He didn’t use just the gospel package and the 4 spiritual laws and so on and so forth. He had a variety of ways to reach a variety of people. Now, you may have come across some of you, the some book by or some teaching by Martin Goldsmith of All Nations Christian College.

He worked in Indonesia and Malaysia, and he learned he decided to Islamicize some of the parables. He took, for example, the parable of the 2 men who went to the temple to pray, and he Islamicized it by making it a story, which it really was anyway, about 2 men who went to the mosque to pray, and then he he tells the story. And he used to tell it in the tea shops in Indonesia. He would go and drink tea, with the men in the that particular town where he lived. And so he then he would tell he would dress up this story, and he would tell it. And he told about the 2 men and their reaction and so on, and he said, which of those, 2 men do you think that pleased God and was acceptable to God? And they sort of discussed it a bit, And then he didn’t really want to hear their answer that day. He said, well, let’s time’s running out, so why don’t you go and ask your leaders in the mosque what they think as well, and, I’ll meet you tomorrow for tea. So he they would go off to the mosque, these chaps, and they would discuss it with their religious leader, and they would come back the next day and meet Martin. And, they would say to Martin, well, we think it’s the the the Pharisee that pleased God because he kept all the rules and regulations and did it the proper way. And that other guy, he just stood at the he was at the back and said, god be merciful to me, a sinner. He he didn’t do it the right way. And so so Martin would say, well, that’s rather strange, because in the Holy Angel, which I have here, the story is recorded like this, and then he would read it. And then he would sometimes, when he was living in Malaysia, he would take a taxi with several other people to go to Singapore, and then he would sit deliberately. He would choose his seat next to the driver so that he could talk to the driver and all the other people, and he could also listen to this conversation.

You I, I think this is a very good method. I I like it. I’ve practiced it too. So he would tell the driver about Haji so and so. This is a woman who’s gone on pilgrimage. And, oh, I don’t yes. I think she had gone on pilgrimage. Anyway, she she gave oh, no. It was a man, Haji so and so, who donated a very, very large sum of money to the mosque. And then there was this poor woman, this poor, a very poor woman who who gave a very little bit, but it was practically all she had.

So he’d dress up this one, this story. He would spin them out for 15 minutes, and they were very good stories, I have to say. So or even longer. And, so then he would ask, you know, which one which offering was more acceptable to God? And then eventually, he would, on that kind of journey, say what the holy angel said.

So try dressing up the parables and telling them as stories, and then then coming back to the text. The Uyghurs might like it. Yeah. Right. I think everybody likes stories. Now, one thing I experimented with in India when I was teaching, I’ve had seminars there lasting sometimes 6 weeks. And, I asked my students, supposing you were gonna make a theological syllabus from the parables, what would you do? How would you come up with it? And, the the best result is here in my book here, booklet. 1 young man, he carefully went through the parables, and he carefully set them out.

So here’s the syllabus. It’s about sin. It’s about God’s love and our need to repent. It’s about the judgment of god, god’s way for man’s salvation, counting the cost of following Christ, and Christian Living and Discipleship or Stewardship rather. That’s a syllabus.

It’s a progressive syllabus of ideas illustrated by about 3 2 or 3 parables for each in that lot. The Pharisee and the publican, that teaches us about sin, The rich fool who collected everything and died suddenly, is about sin as well. And then Matthew 15, it’s not exactly a parable, but it’s a kind of, symbolic way of explaining things. It’s about ceremonial and real defilement. And then our god’s love and our need to repent, well, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and notice it.

It’s a story for men and then a story for women. The lost sheep for men, the lost coin for women, women’s story. And Jesus was the only rabbi, I think I think, who taught with parables and often taking one that applied to the life of men and one that applied to the life of women. So very good. Think about that. And the lost son, and that can be developed. There’s also the there’s the lost younger son, and there’s the lost older son. They were both lost. So parables then as a way of teaching. Teaching a Muslim woman, if you’ve got someone who will come once a week, you can have one group of parables or one parable for a week or something like that. And then plays. Once in Karachi, I heard that Kenneth Bailey’s book, The Cross and the Prodigal, you can get hold of this book in Arabic or in Urdu or in English, and it’s published in English in this country. His book on it’s a play of the parable of the prodigal son, but it’s also a commentary as well. There’s a section of explanation or exposition, and there’s a and there’s the play. And in Carracio, it was very effective.

A Christian youth group and a church there put it on, and they had these people had young people who had Muslim friends, and a couple of the Muslim friends said, well, can we take part in the play? Now, that meant they had to get into the shoes of the people in the play. And, as they became the better actors they came, the more they understood of what they were acting There’s Temple There’s Temple Gairdner who got told off by his mission in Cairo, because he put plays on for schoolboys, and he took. He wrote a play called Joseph and His Brothers, which is brilliant. It’s, I I had to sort of dig in the British Library, and, it took a bit of unearthing. But, I’ve now tried to get it translated into several languages. I don’t know how successful that was, but, it’s an excellent play. He’s done several others. He’s done one on Saul and, one on Saul of Tarsus and, and, who was the person who helped Saul, before when he became Christian? Barnabas?

No. It wasn’t Barnabas. Sorry. I’ve forgotten who he was. He was.

Leibon? I’m just trying to think. Just trying to You’ve forgotten as well? Okay. Well, it’s in it’s in Acts, so we’ll find it.

Sorry about that. Anyway, what? An what? Ananias. Thank you.

Good. Good job. Somebody knows the revival, isn’t it? Sorry. Yeah.

Names escape us sometimes. But, drama, and especially in peep with people who are extremely good in drama, Punjabis are excellent. They can put on wonderful plays. So using plays, to and especially biblically based ones with biblical truth, to sort of get these things across is excellent. And, generally, Christians and Muslims will get involved.

You can’t do anything very privately in a village. I I don’t know if you ever tried, but, yeah, it’s difficult to do things very privately. So I think we’ll leave it there, and then we’ll continue with this subject because I wanna say a few more things about communicating effectively with Muslim women, and, we can think more about how Jesus did it and how we might do it wherever we minister.