Zwemer Center

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Angels and Satan

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Angels and Satan

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture, Folk Islam on Angels and Satan, during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of Angels and the great Satan. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Angels and Satan.

Lesson 16, goes on to angels and, so, that’s the topic. We’ve talked about it before, but, we are going to now talk about Satan as well, angels and Satan, and we’ll be looking at, some verses here, out of the Quran again. We, don’t wanna repeat ourselves, but we will, there will be some overlap here. Notice that angels, if you’re following along on the, class notes as well, angels associate with God and and his realm. They are regarded as spirits, so we are not off base here when we include angels under the spirits, the topic of the spirits, they are bodies of light and, pure and on the traditions have the eye have the got the idea that on the pilgrimage to the holy place, God creates an angel at every step and, so on and so, I don’t know where that kind of stuff comes from.

Whether Mohammed, picked it up from somebody else or not, we we don’t always sure what were the influences were in, the life of Muhammad, but he he did get a lot of stuff from others, including Christianity and Judaism, but also remembering that Zoroastrianism was there as well, not to mention the paganism. These angels descend at God’s command according to the the Quran. I almost said Bible, but they descend according to God’s command and and, you know, that sounds familiar too. They are ministering spirits, in the Bible. They are, to to protect, but I, I believe that we’ve already looked at this verse here in, let’s see, 50 and verse 17, where, it says that, yes, we’ve already looked at this verse.

The 2 guardian angels appointed to learn his doings and note them. So, on the one hand, you have angels, a little bit of comfort in Islam, but on the other hand, not the same, which, I think is is is quite evident. I I think, when I think of angels, I think of of God, having a guardian angel, at least 1, to to minister and to help me and to you too as Christians. But, there is one verse here, in reference to the prophet, that has it it it’s it’s, it says that they punish the prophet’s enemies, and the verse is 3, chapter 3 and verse 123. And, it’s referenced here to the Battle of Badr, the only place listen to this.

The only geographical place that’s mentioned in the Quran that I’m aware of, and that is Badr. That’s where the famous battle of 90 of 6 24, I believe it was, was fought. Muhammad defeated his enemies from Mecca, and it says that Allah had helped you at Badr when you were a contemptible little force. Then fear, Allah, this may be your gratitude. And suddenly goes on to say that, remember, thou saidst to the faithful, is it not enough for you that Allah could help you with 3,000 angels specifically sent down?

Yeah. If you remain firm and act aright, even if the enemy should rush here on you in hot haste, your lord would help you with 5,000 angels making terrific onslaught. So, a little bit unclear here how many there were, but I think in the traditions, it says that Mohammed only had a small, he had a smaller amount of forces, when the Meccans came against him, and, god made them look very many more, in other words, through the angels, which sounds familiar, doesn’t it, when you think back of the scriptures, Elisha and one thing or another. And in the traditions it says that God did it, in other words, God allowed Muhammad to win that battle even though he had less forces. We’ve already talked about the archangels, how many there are and what they do, so we’re not gonna talk about that again, although it is mentioned here, but let’s let’s get into talking about Satan who is the archetype of disobedience.

He is not a very nice person. He is not a very nice person in in Christianity. He’s not a very nice person in Islam. Let’s let’s see. I say in 2 and verse 34 that we could have a look at at, what Ali has to say, the commentator, but 2 and for 34 says, behold, we said to the angels, bow down to Saint Adam, and they bowed down not so Iblis.

He refused and was haughty. So, that gives you some indication of of of the fact according to the Quran that he was an angel. But in 18/50, 18 verse 50, it says that he was one of the jinn. Behold, we said, and that is always god here to the angels and almost almost always to the angels bow down, to Adam they bow down except Iblis. He was one of the jinns.

So and he broke the command of his lord. Will you then take him as his and his progeny, progeny as protectors? Sounds like, the jinn procreate, doesn’t it? So, he’s one of the angels that we’ve just read before. Read that verse first, and then 18/50, he’s one of the jinn.

Now, technically, it’s true that in, in the Bible, we know that he was an angel and then he left his lofty estate and, became disobedient. But when you look at the Koran, it’s not clear because it sounds like he was one of the jinn in the first place, and he was also, one of the angels. So it’s not quite clear who who he is. There is one verse, that we note and that’s 37 and verse 65. It says that he’s very ugly.

Satan. The shoots of its fruitstalks are like the heads of devils. He is very ugly and the the Hadith confirms this. But we know that that, Satan can turn himself into an angel of light and so, he can deceive us by his beauty. Would that we would recognize him that easily.

Certainly, he, is able to trick people, through his beauty and through his ability to transform himself into an angel of light. So, he’s very, very tricky and he has all kinds of devices. Paul says that we are acquainted with his devices, how he brings tries to bring us down even as believers and I think as believers, we are more, the object of his attention. There you have a picture there of them throwing, pebbles at the, at the in Mina on the way to the on the pilgrimage, which is an uneven number of pebbles. Satan is powerful.

He knows God’s greatest name, but his memory fails him at the, judgment. And he especially troubles believers. He’s already mentioned that. He troubles Muslims as well. I’ll say he does, and he troubles us Christians as well.

He eats and drinks with his left hand. You know, using your left hand in the Muslim world is a no no. One of the reasons is that the left hand is used for cleansing yourself. But another reason you can’t use your left hand to eat with is because Satan does it. This is what the traditions say.

Now question here is, do Muslims manipulate god, control Satan, or do they, you know, attempt to do both? That’s really the question, isn’t it? Do they manipulate god and, or do they attempt to to manipulate Satan as well? I think, we’re going to leave that question a little bit to later, but because it does come up, but, we can think about that. And, one of the verses that I have here is 17 and 62, and that is, this verse.

He said, seest thou, this is the one whom thou hast honored above me. If thou wilt but respite me to the day of judgement, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway, all but a few. Now don’t you love this, King James English that we’re using here, the and thou and, very awkward stuff. But, you know, it does say that, that Satan is, I will bring his descendants under my sway. Satan makes makes this makes this statement, and so, he is an he is an enemy.

When you look at the at the, traditions, for instance, Mishkat volume 2, volume, I guess I don’t have the volume there. I don’t know what happened to it, but page 21, it talks about, him is, his enmity towards us and how he works in the lives of of people. But another book I refer to here is People of the Lie and that’s, goes on to say that oftentimes people do things because of their loneliness. They’re medicating themselves and ins and they really, you know, get under the under the, influence of Satan, because of, of their wants and needs and so on and so forth.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on God

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on God

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on God during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of God, with elevated characteristics found among Folk Islam on God’s character and how Jesus fulfilled these attributes, too. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on God. 

In lecture 15, we start, the second, major unit, and it has to do with beings. And, we’re gonna be using the Quran again some, maybe more in the beginning, but we’re not gonna use it all the time. It is good to, keep in mind though, isn’t it, that, you know, that, the Quran lends itself to the course, to the spirit world of Islam. It’s not just orthodox Islam that the Quran is good for. It is, useful for this course as well.

And so I will be using the Quran some as we go along. And, it will seem like we are repeating some things. There are there is some repetition here, but I think that’s, that’s good and, we I think the difference is that we’re going to be going into more depth on some of these issues On this lecture, lecture 15, we begin with the the the main area of spirits, which is, of course, a being, and, we start with God. That’s that’s makes sense, doesn’t it? Now we’ve talked about God before, haven’t we?

And, let me just, briefly talk about his 99 names. That, of course, there you have seen before, I think, in previous, lectures, the 99 names of God, which, hangs on the wall of many Muslim homes, and I have seen even on Christian in Christian homes, admittedly, the ones I saw it in were not didn’t seem to be genuinely born again or, so on. I I don’t know what the purpose was. But, Allah, they’re right in the middle in, then the 99 names of God. Now, these 99 names are are are basically, you know, they’re for the most part, I think they’re good names.

We can’t, dispute that. But interestingly enough, 40 of the names have to do with his power, and that tells you quite a bit right there, doesn’t it? Forty of those 99 names seem to deal with his power. 5 have to do with, he the fact that he is creator, which, you know, this is true in Christianity too. God is creator.

He is, he is powerful. 6 or 7 of them have to do with his unity, his absolute being, and let’s not forget that quite a few of them have to do with his mercy and his generosity. In other words, you know, he is merciful and compassionate, and that comes from the same root, Rahim or Rahman, which is pretty good name names for God. But interestingly enough, one of his names is all loving. And, some people who claim to be authorities on Islam deny this.

At least you’ll hear people speaking about the fact or that what they think is a fact that God is not at all loving in Islam and, but but but one of those 99 names is Al Vadud. Verse 11 chapter 11 and verse 90, for example, says, but ask forgiveness of your lord and turn unto him in repentance: for my Lord is indeed full of mercy and lovingkindness, and that’s the word al wadu. There is another reference too we could refer to, but that’s enough. He is avenging, and there are 5, that have to do with that. We will look we’ve already looked a little bit at at some of them, I think, if I’m not mistaken, but not sure.

But, in any event, 5 of them have to do with you could a loose translation would be avenging. We have to be careful, though, if we say that, that proves that, you know, God in Islam is, menacing and out to get us, because we do remember that some of the names of God in the Bible reveal his judgment as well. For example, that God is in a is a, he is a fire, all consuming fire or stuff like that. So in other words, let’s be careful, how we and and interestingly enough too, one of them is al kadus, holiness, 59 and verse 23, but it is not a very important issue, in other words, in the Quran, when we in other words, holiness in the Quran is not a big deal like it is in the Bible. Remember, you’ve got books like Leviticus who are, full of that concept, and and one of the only one of the 99 names of god is Al Caduce, holiness, holy.

Powerful, we’ve talked about, before that, al Qahar 13 and 16. Read that before, perhaps, but just at the end of the verse, it’s a long, long verse, it says the one supreme and irresistible, Al Qahar, and that is the one we’ve said before that is sometimes used to harm others. Irresistible. Or, yeah, a destroyer is sometimes used in a in a in a bad sense to cause harm to others. Now some of the names, and we’ll go over these quickly, we won’t spend a whole lot of time in them, are very, very good names.

And this chart, I couldn’t, put it up on the PowerPoint because of copyright, laws. But the point of the chart is, in these 99 names of God, that Jesus fulfills every one of those 99 names, and I have chosen just a few of them to illustrate what it means. Ar Rahman, the one who shows mercy, in the Quran, every surah, every chapter in the Quran except one begins with this Bismid Al Amaun Raheem, in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, the one who shows mercy. And, Jesus. Of him, it is said in Hebrews 217 that, he had to be made like his brothers in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.

Ar Rahim, the one who is compassionate, again, remember Matthew 9:36 where Jesus looked at the crowds. They were harassed and helpless, and he was moved with compassion. Would that we, when we look at Muslims today, in all of their conflicts, confusion, we would be moved with compassion as well. They’re often in an uproar. Conditions are chaotic.

Rage is just under the surface, and it explodes. What are we going to think? I mean, how are we going to respond? Well, how does God think about them? He, of course, is angry with sin every day.

He’s angry with the violence and, and so on, but he’s also Jesus looks at them and realizes that they are harassed and helpless. Think of the fact that, I think 60% of the world’s poor are Muslim, and most of the mus the refugees in the world are are Muslim. You think these refugee camps, whether you’re in the Sudan or, Palestinians or, refugees from Afghanistan, wherever you go, refugee camps, and now from Syria flocking into Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan. They’re Muslim, and so would that God would, touch us too. Al Qaduz, we’ve already talked about that.

Jesus, of him it was said, you we know, we believe and know that you are the holy one of God. You you do remember that, in the Quran Jesus is spoken of as a holy child, but Mohammed is not. Of course, it said this is said too of Yahya, John the Baptist, but it’s not said of Mohammed. So he is he is, here’s another one too. It’s, I should back up a bit.

It is, Salam, the peace, You know, God that’s one of his names and and, of course, Muslims say that is so common and it’s a good greeting, but there is no peace, is there, to the wicked? The way of peace, they have not known. The only one that can bring peace to this troubled world is the prince of peace, and so we preach him. That’s the gospel. It says that, God reconciled all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross, Colossians 1 19 or 20, whatever translation you use.

Al elim, the omniscient one, is another one. And the Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Isn’t it great to be on the side of, the Christ in whom are hidden all the wisdom the, treasures of wisdom and knowledge? We won’t talk about all of them. Number 29 is Al Agal, the just and righteous one.

You disown the holy and righteous one and ask the murderer be released to you. This is what, the, the bible tells us. And, Al Halim, That’s a good name for God, the meek and lowly one in Surah 222225. And of Jesus, it says in Philippians, who had been in the very nature of God, thought it not possible to be equal with God, but made himself nothing, taking on the nature of a servant being made in the likeness of a man. He was humble.

Let us be the same. And, Al Wadud, we’ve already talked about that one, but Christ, God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Al Haqq, number 51, the true and genuine one. Haqq is a good name. It’s a very common name too in the Muslim world.

They, you know, Zia ul Haqq, who was the general and self appointed president in Pakistan in 19, I guess, 70 9, I guess, he came into power, took over. He promised to stay there on in the job for 11 days. He stayed for 11 years until he was killed mysteriously on August 17th, my birthday, 1988. Well, Al Haqq, the true and genuine one, and Jesus, of course, said I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father.

You know, Al Haqq, he is the one, and that’s a great verse to use for Muslims because Jesus is the only way. There is no other way, but through Christ. Lots of names, Al Majid 65, it’s not bold in there, but this is the grand and glorious one and notice that often Muslims, when they refer to the Quran, it’s, Majid al Quran, the glorious Quran. Really, there’s only one who’s glorious, and that’s Jesus. Remember, he said, father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Alwad Wawhid is, the one that Muslims use for the oneness, uniqueness of God, and of Jesus, it said the unique and holy one, he said I, the Father, I, and the Father are 1. We believe in the oneness of God. Lots of other names too. Number 83 is Arauf, the kind and friendly one. You know, these names are great names.

I have a book. It’s called the 99 names of, Allah by, David Bentley. Great book, to use, give to Muslims, and also possibly to, if they’re willing to do it, to sit down with them and, talk to them about this subject we’re on right now, and how Jesus, fulfills this, the Bible says about Jesus. Muslims, you know, they they respect him and they love him, but he’s a shadow in a sense. They don’t know all of his majesty and glory and so, we have a message to give to them with understanding.

Here’s another one, Anur, he’s the light. God is the light, and, it comes right out of the Quran, Surah 24 verse 35, and Jesus said I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. What a great verse. Those 7 declarations of Christ in the Quran, the light of the world, the bread of life, and so on are great themes to, for Muslims.

So those are the names of God and, let’s think for just a little while here, of how Muslims, how they use the name of God in Folk Islam, you know, admittedly, those mighty, majestic names of God are high and lofty. But what do folk Muslims do? They take that high and lofty name of God and they bring it down and use it in a talisman and here is a talisman from the Muslim book of the names of Allah, translation, in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. You see, that’s what every, Surah in the Quran begins with except one. Truly, thou wilt preserve the one who carries this writing of mine from the evil of all that might harm him.

See? This is an amulet. Thou wilt appoint over him its angels and servants and assistants who are entrusted with its service and guard him by day and by night. Muhammad is the apostle of Allah, and those with him are stronger than the unbelievers. Among them are merciful ones whom we see bowing and kneeling, seeking kindness from Allah and favor, their marks are on their faces, the effect of prostration, and that is their likeness in the Pentateuch in the gospel.

Now pious Muslims are always recognized, aren’t they, by the mark in their foreheads? And because their head, you know, touches the ground and years after year after year touching the ground, there is that callus. And so they, point to that as a sign of piety and of saying many prayers and so on. And they look at us and they wonder now do these people pray. And so, yes, we do pray, but we need to be able to demonstrate that to Muslims as we talked about in previous lectures of praying for them in their presence, for their needs, for their blessing, and for grace, and for peace, because without the peace of Christ there is no peace.

Now, the sovereignty of God is, that’s where we’re on right now. This is page 13 of your class notes if you’re following along there. He is merciful and compassionate, but as we’ve seen before in Islam, he misleads those he wants to, guides whom he wants to, and there are so many verses, like that. He created evil, and you get that out of Surah 113 and verse 2, those two last chapters in the Quran, by the way, 113 and 114, were, actually revealed when a curse had been put on Muhammad. Maybe we’ll talk about that later.

I’m not sure. But there are other verses too that are relevant. All all other beings act within his limits. Let’s see. I I went too far here.

And, 57 verse 3 is one that I was no. I’m sorry. 50 in verse 16. This is a favorite verse with Sufis. Sufis, you know, are different.

They’re warmer toward God and, more, they talk about God loving them and us loving God, but but but here’s a verse that they love, I’m not so sure that it’s all that comforting. It says 50 and verse 16, it said, it is we who created man. Okay? And we know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him. We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.

And then it goes on to say that, behold, we, 2 guardian angels appointed to learn his doings, to, to note them in one sitting on the right and one on the left. So in one sense, it’s, it starts out, you know, we we we know what dark suggestions are in his soul. This sounds to me like a sinful nature, doesn’t it? And, it talks about the the Sufis say, you know, we’re closer than his juggler vein, they love that verse, they love that verse, But, on the other hand, if if if God is you know, he’s got his angels there to watch every step, he knows, every misdeed we do, it would seem to put you on edge and make you worried, which Muslims are, are certainly worried. It keeps God as as as they’re certainly worried.

Now we’ve talked about this before too. One of God’s names, You Halim, O gentle one or merciful one around a woman’s neck, is it makes sense because women need comfort of a name like that and, let’s keep that in mind. So here’s a question. How does God’s image in the Bible differ from the Sufi idea? How does God’s image in the Bible differ from the Sufi idea?

Now this might seem like a question out of the blue, So let me tell you a little bit, about it. We don’t have time and we’re not sitting face to face so we can’t discuss it here, really in in active interaction, but it’s a good thing to think about. I think the difference one of the differences I see it, and I’m not an expert in Sufism, but I have seen Sufis and I’ve met Sufis and I’ve studied about Sufis some. But I think, one of the differences is something that we’ve mentioned before, and it is this. Sufis, admittedly, and rightly so, talk about how much they love God.

Oh, I love God. I love God. And it’s good that they love God. They keep looking inside to see how much they love God and whether their motives are pure and, really their love is sincere. This is good.

But you know what? When I think of of my concept of God and my love for God, it’s not so much my love for God that counts, but it’s his love, his, unconditional love for me that is so strong because my love for him is not as consistent as it should be and it’s not the most important thing. Now another question is how is God’s power portrayed in Christianity? Well, it is true in Christianity, in the Bible. I mean, God is all powerful.

We know this. But what’s the difference? The difference is, I think, that, his power is undergirded by his love and by his justice and so that is the bottom line. It’s not, that that his power is this white hot, awesome power. We we know that God is all powerful.

He’s omnipotent, but, in in Christianity his power is undergirded and controlled by his character of justice and love and so I think, I think that’s that’s the main difference. And, as we as we think of the difference in Islam, here’s a, a little chart that I’ve used between, you know, comparing God in Islam and God in the Bible. In the Bible, you know that his words and deeds are one of seeking people out, working with them patiently, and demonstrating some of the things that we’ve just said a, a minute ago, about, how he loves he loves people unconditionally and works with them patiently. You know, think of the the people in in the Bible, Abraham and Jacob and Isaac and and Joseph and all of those people, and some who were not as honorable as Joseph, but he he works with them. His deeds and and words, in the in the Bible are distinct from the Quran.

In the Quran, you really don’t know that much about God, other than that he doesn’t love the righteous I’m sorry, he doesn’t love the unrighteous. And, but I think when you compare the 2, God in Islam, his words and deeds, and God in Islam in the Quran, in the bible verses the Quran, there is a big difference and that’s why I’ve, you know, big circles here and a little bit of overlap. But I think, we’re talking about the same one and so, we can, we can fall back on that, but we have to remember the, vast differences between God in the Bible and God in the Quran, but at least it’s a place to start, isn’t it? It’s a place to start, and so we we do want to build, I think, from the Quran. If we have to, we can build somewhat of a foundation, build there from from the person of God, but then we wanna go on and talk to Muslims about who God really is.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Felt Needs

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Felt Needs

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Felt Needs during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the comparison  and contrast of the felt needs between Ideal and Folk Islam.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Felt Needs. 

Lecture 14 is the last lecture in Unit 1 and of course it’s about comparisons and here we’re talking in this one about, comparisons of felt needs. My, my, oh my, the felt needs that are there among folk Muslims and we need to think about them and pray for them and feel for them, but our feeling is not just sentiment. It’s, an understanding of their hurts, of their felt needs, and also realization that the gospel speaks to their felt needs. The needs, you know, of folk and ideal Islam. I think, there’s some variation, but, they need power.

They need power for the crises in their lives. You know, we do too. Of course, we need power. How often do we feel powerless? You know, not to mention the purposelessness that that hits us, all of us, and the suicides, you know, think of the fact that the suicide rate among American troops coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq is skyrocketing.

Would that they could somehow reach into the, the resources, for their their crisis, the power. There is a book here, Dacey Marsh, whose father, Charles Marsh, worked in North Africa for many, many years. She did too. She was born there, but then she came back, worked with French in France, in Paris, in the outskirts of Paris and worked with Berber Muslims and, she was greatly used of the Lord and wrote a book, There is a God in Heaven, a good book for working with women, and I I say over and over again that, Folk Islam is so relevant to the needs of Muslim women and let’s remember that it’s Christian women who are going to reach them because because men, don’t really have a chance, you know, Christian men. I I worked in Pakistan for many years.

They didn’t have really much contact with Muslim women because of the segregation of the culture. I did some preaching where men and women, of course, were there, but primarily, when you think of Muslim women, think of the Christian women are going to have to be the ones that reach them. So, preventative measures are needed to ward off sickness, harm, and evil. There is this, idea of equilibrium. Now what in the world is equilibrium?

Well, let’s just back up, a minute here. Equilibrium is the idea that you have to, keep things in balance. In other words, you know, you there is danger here, but there’s also some benefit from the from the, so you try to hold these 2 in in in balance. You try to somehow keep an equilibrium. There is benefit from the perhaps, but there’s also danger.

Healing. Muslims, by and large, don’t want to mention the word death. Where I was, the word was mouth, death, but they use all kinds of synonyms like, you know, he went away, he, you know, he went to a better place and and so on. We we do this in English as well, but there, to say the word is a bad omen, so you don’t wanna joke about it ever ever ever in the Muslim world. Sometimes we joke about it, you know, kick the bucket.

We use all kinds of expressions, but it’s not funny really to a Muslim to joke about death because you could bring it to pass, you know, the angels are listening And, so, but this is a little bit more on the equilibrium that we really didn’t explain too well before, but, here’s what we mean by equilibrium during rites of passage. Now here you see you have positive activities and you have negative activities. Positive activities, the presence of practitioners with inherent or acquired power. What kind of practitioners? Well, people who power people who can, help like a Droit writer or somebody like that, or a midwife or some of those kind of people to have them around And, the negative thing is that you, on the other hand, you want to protect yourself from other people who could do you harm.

For instance, if you suspect that a an elderly woman who is by herself, a widow, if she is, feared, perhaps unjustly, but feared, by the evil eye. You know, stories circulate and all kinds of theories floating around that this old one, if she puts the evil eye on you, wow, that’s the end of it. So so what are you gonna do? Protect yourself and your baby and your animals from that person. That’s what you call now, another positive exit performance of activities on auspicious days.

So this is a good day to do this. This is a good day to do that. You know, start the Hajj on Thursday. Sleep with your Hajj wife on Thursday and so on. This is, this is a good day to do such and such.

But on the other hand, inauspicious days or day. Now if you understand Muslims ahead of time, you’re a lot better off than going into a place like Afghanistan and finding this out the hard way, really scratching your head, and, you know, and learning this the wrong way. This is why we’re taking this course so we can figure this out ahead of time. Positive activities, location at site of holy grave, okay, orientation towards Mecca, Well, this is a wonderful thing, really, to, to be able to be buried by this famous saint, or to when you’re ready to die, to turn the face of of grandpa towards Mecca, this is a positive activity in the Muslim view. But location to avoid where possible contact with the jinn.

So for heaven’s sakes, don’t take beautiful little Muhammad, this little child you have who’s so much loved and adored. Don’t take him to the to the garbage dump. Avoid it at all costs. Use of prophylaxis against evil. In other words, how can you prevent from, something happened, you know, use of provolites against the evil eye, perhaps you can wear a little amulet.

You can, you know, have some kind of a little thing on the child, beautiful little boy, to avoid so that you don’t have the evil eye. And exclusion of those with a history of the evil eye, as I’ve already meant. In other words, don’t for Pete’s sakes ever let this old woman get near my little baby or don’t let anyone else. You know, perhaps this missionary with the beautiful blue eyes or strange blue eyes, Maybe she would put a you know, maybe envious of my baby boy. I mean, all kinds of things.

You never know, really. Sacrifice of a vow to bind a saint to the needed task. So little Muhammad needs to be cured from his paralysis. So you go to the saint and you make a vow, but the saint is then is bound and you have to hold that saint to the needed task of curing little, Muhammad from paralysis. On the other hand, the saint has made a certain, like, condition that, the little boy’s his hair will not be cut or, after a year, his hair will be cut and it will be weighed and, a gift will be given to the saint.

This is, this is, the bond or observance of ritual purity, you know, when to do this and when to do that. Women during a certain kind of the month, of course, are not supposed to go to the mosque and exclusion of those richly unclean. You know, we can understand this, can’t we, from, the scriptures, but Muslims think this way. Attempts to deceive potential harmers, for instance, beautiful boy again, we keep referring to him, you know, when he’s just a little guy, you might dress him up as a girl or even give him a girl’s name. You know, all kinds of things.

And then as we’ve talked about earlier in the course about, you know, writing, to god be, you know, to god be praised or something like that on the, foundation of your house or somewhere perhaps up higher. I mean, this is some of the things that are are done. Now, guidance is another thing that is done, cutting the Quran. Now this is, this is not so easily done as perhaps it’s said, but Muslims sometimes seek guidance through a, something that’s called ishtakar. And, should I try to make arrangement on this girl or not and go to a practitioner and the practitioner runs his or her hand over the book, opens it, and reads the verse.

Lutz said these are my guests. Disgrace me not. That was Lot. So, let’s see. That that that means no.

Don’t do it. So, I mean, it’s it’s a form of guidance. I wouldn’t think it’s a very, good guidance, but, nevertheless, Muslims sometimes do this sort of thing. And, of course, veneration of saints, which we’ve talked about, over and over again, that certain saints are to be venerate venerated. And as for, missiological application, again, let’s think of this, We’ve talked about it before.

It’s not a new idea, but I think that Islam can push Muslims to Jesus. My own sense is that not just folk Islam. In other words, the rigidity, the harshness, the reaction of Muslims even, you know, attacking senselessly, the the US embassy or anything else that they react to. I I’ve experienced this myself. Maybe sometime during the course, I’ll get a chance to tell you about it.

I think that that kind of a thing is going to push Muslims to Jesus, but in the in reference to folk Islam, popular Islam, Muslims, you know, think why the stroke? Why the weakness? Witness sickness, rather. And, what has, these hostile influences. So these, I think, are opportunities for Muslims for Christians to give witness to Christ and to show his power and how he can minister to them.

You see, Muslims this is the tension. Muslims hold to Allah’s iron will, but they spend vast amounts of time and energy trying to change things. Listen to this. This is profound, I think, and, as far as I know, I wrote this years ago but I believe it and this is the thing. Since God is not delighted by obedience, nor displeased by sin, nor hostile to the arrogant, nor close to protect from hostile forces, Muslim Muslims put a human face on religion.

Almost, you see, like, god is not a person. He is, he’s just, you know, something holy, other and, he is he is really so much, you know, he’s not like this, he’s not like that, and so I think that this and we’ve talked about this before. These kind of things would push Muslims, into trying to put a face on religion, but we also believe that this would help Muslims come to Christ and that’s what we hope and pray for, isn’t it?

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the differences between Ideal and Folk Islam on their worldview beliefs. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt 2.).

Lesson lecture 13, comparisons, worldview continued. Just picking up from where we left off last time, really some of the things same things. I mean, we talked about space grids, and now we’re gonna get into the time grids. I think very interesting, very relevant, really, to think in these terms. Time grids, you know, it’s it’s it’s it’s back to these things we mentioned before about propitious times.

Times are really, you know, you can get lucky. Time grids, days of the week. Let’s talk about this. In Morocco, the jinn are active during the midafternoon prayers. Now I’m not sure that I understand why that is true.

You know, you would think that during the prayers on Friday, that the jinn would be subdued. In other words, that the demons would not be, dancing around and active, but, not true. In Iran, apparently, the jinn are active at twilight. Now that I can understand a little bit more why some would think that. Where I was, I don’t know whether it had to do because people were afraid of spirits or not.

But oftentimes, people will not sleep with the light off. They want to sleep with the light on. They don’t want the dark. They believe that Thursday Saturday belong to the jinn. Wednesday in Iran is evil.

The 10th of Muharram is great. Now why? Well, because Shiites, the Imamites in particular, that kind of Shiites which you have in Iran, they commemorate the month of Maharam. It’s the 1st month of the year and that’s when they remember every year the suffering of their great imam, Hussein, and so Shi’ite Muslims will, will grieve and lament and sorrow over this, thing that had happened way back sometime after just a few years after Mohammed, this great split when the Shia Sunni split came about. But on the 10th day of that 1st month, 10th day of Muhammed, when they really, this beating of themselves with chains and knives and so on, reach reaches a climax.

They believe that the 10th of Muharram is great. You can, by the way, you can, you can Google this and you can find it by, finding, you know, the the the YouTube videos of this. They’re not very pleasant to look at, but they also believe that the tsum tsum water overflows, that well, right there in, outside of the Kaaba overflows on 10th of the Ma’am. Thursday in Egypt is a good day to begin the Hajj. In other words, you’re going to bill begin the pilgrimage.

Okay? Begin it on Thursday. That’s a good day to to do that. Good day to sleep with your wife. Good day to consummate a marriage.

See the time grids? There’s some variations in, in the Muslim world as to when you do what or when you should do what, but, just giving you a few here in Pakistan. Thursday is a good day to die and be buried. Of course, if you die, you’re gonna be buried that same day for various and Sunday reasons that we’ve already talked about. Again, a good day to begin the pilgrimage.

And another thing that you wouldn’t expect is that Thursday is the day in Pakistan when the beggars are very, very active. That’s when the beggars will descend on you. That’s when the beggars will come around and hold out their hand and beg. You’d think that they would beg on Friday, but I think that they’re they’re begging on Thursday. Part of the reason is that it’s just a good day, you know, to do it.

It’s it’s a propitious day. It’s an opportune time. And so that’s when they will, will beg. It’s the day, of course, before Friday, which is the worship day. One thing that I noted, was that on Thursday evening, not too far from where I lived, we lived, or we have Carol and I for 23 years in at Ahazighan, was that on Thursday, the women of the city would honor a saint.

That was this peculiar place. There was a road, from where we lived right down to to downtown, and, on one particular little place on the side of the road halfway down to the city, which is about maybe you could think of maybe a mile and a half or 2, halfway down on the left side on Thursday night, what would the women do? They would come and they would light a candle. They’d leave a lamp. They’d do this and that.

So you could drive down there on Thursday night, and what you would see was all of these camp these candles burning, these lights burning, these lamps burning of women who had left them in that area and they said that this was the place of a very famous saint years ago and he was sensitive to women and their concerns. And so I suppose they would go there light a light, make a wish, actually a prayer, not a wish, but a request, and, they would leave a mark there hoping that the peer, who was sensitive to women’s issues, would listen to them. Maybe they wanted a baby. Maybe they wanted relief from a mean mother-in-law. Maybe they wanted this.

Maybe they wanted that. But women have many concerns, and so I was always touched by that. Now in Nigeria, continuing on these time grids, Friday is the queen of the days. A great day, you know, Friday. So do it on Friday.

Algeria among the Kabyl, mourners visit the tomb 5 consecutive Fridays. What tomb? Tombs of their, of their saints or tombs, I suppose, of their relatives. So you see here again, in the Philippines, Wednesday, the king of the jinn roams, And if you’re born the 2nd month, then you take part in yearly rites, you see, if you’re born such and such time. Some Muslims have the idea that 9 tenths of the plagues happen during Sufra, on the 2nd month.

Ramadan, many Muslims believe in fact, I never met a Muslim who doesn’t, believe is that the jinn are in jail and Satan is bound. Now I have found a hard time to believe this because it seemed to me that Satan was very, very active during Ramadan. It seemed like there were more fights, more squabbles, certainly didn’t seem like, he was bound at all. I can think back of, something that happened to me during Ramadan, my early years in Pakistan. I, you know, I made some goofs.

And one thing I remember doing in my early years, which I should not have done, was that I, I remember I was unloading a vehicle and I had some stuff on top of my jeep and, so it was tied up there and I pulled up to unload this stuff on my jeep. And without thinking, I jumped up on the jeep, untied it, took the stuff down, and then all hell broke loose. Some of the neighbors came around and said, mister Larson, what in the world have you done? I said, well, what do you mean what have I done? I just unloaded my stuff.

I got up in my jeep. They said, yeah. But, you know, you you should have warned the women because this is really what we do here. We we warn before we go up a little bit higher. You know, we see we say, you know, those who keep, the veil, okay, get keep, in other words, hide yourself.

And you say it 3 times loud and clear, and then you can go up to a higher place, whether it’s the top of your roof, or or, you know, for fixing a telephone pole or or the, top of your Jeep, because they said, you know, mister Larson, you were up higher there and you could have looked over the wall and seen some of our women. I said, my dear friends, my dear brothers, of course, I didn’t look out of the wall. They said, but they could have seen you. Now I got the point, not that I’m so good looking or anything like that, but the problem was that this was Ramadan and during Ramadan, you know, you’re supposed to be more holy, supposed to be more pure and you have to watch your step, because, you know, Satan is bound. It seems to me that the way that they were acting was that they, they thought that he was not bound, And, anyway, interesting experiences.

During Ramadan, you really have to be careful. But, as I said, certainly didn’t seem to me that Satan was bound or because people are people and human nature being what it is. In, certain parts of the Muslim world where they hold these czar ceremonies, and this is a procession cult we’ll look at later along the Nile, they are not held during Ramadan. Ramadan is full of Barakah. On 27th, as I’ve mentioned before, which is the, the night of power, the gates of paradise are open.

And I’ve already talked to you about, the Nasser a little bit out of, out of the time. In other words, I jumped the gun on that one, but it was a propitious time. Now, causality, back to that that verse we’ve already seen that every man’s fate is hung upon his own neck, which is, so fatalistic to me, so fatalistic. You know, there are several reasons for fatalism, one being, you know, lack of resources and a lack of understanding that something can be done, but this this business here from the Quran makes it, even war, fatalistic. Now sickness is diagnosed.

Remedy is given, to find out why such and such thing happened. In other words, why did this person get sick? Why did the baby die? Why did this and why did this happen? Who put a curse on us?

Sickness is diagnosed. A child conceived on the 19th of the month is a bad time too for conception. And, some other things about Ramadan, that I’m not exactly sure of why they believe that. And, natural products possess life or bread. Now another thing to note here is that sweeping at night, if you do that, you sleep away from you.

You sleep away from you. This is, also part of the deal. You must you must you must you must do this, and, you don’t cut your fingers or your toenails at night. This is another thing. Particularly, I think I remember hearing stories of people who worked in Central Asia.

Not so sure about the about the Pakistanis, but I, I think that that’s probably true in, you know, in many places of the Muslim world, so it’s not just, in one place. But these are kind of things that you, you know, you just we we should keep in mind as we think about about Muslims. When you wash your clothes on Wednesday, they’re worn with unhappiness. Can you imagine? Washing your clothes on Wednesday, many some Muslims believe the clothes are worn with unhappiness.

Now, here are here’s a chart as you can see. Some of the the stuff here, the magic, the means of doing things beyond one’s personal power. In some cases, the cause, here’s the natural cause, physical symptoms, and what kind of the practitioner and the remedy. For instance, breaking the taboo. In other words, has this person who is sick done, somehow broken a taboo?

For instance, this could be, you know, some some taboo like, you know, going into a certain tomb if you’re the wrong gender or something like that. And how do you find out? By case history, often the practitioner is an old woman, The repentance is and penance is the remedy. Another thing is sometimes the cause of a sickness or misfortune, water buffalo drying up and and so on and on, could have been caused by the evil eye. So what do you do?

Case history, in other words. Find out where this person has been and and and so on. Again, notice midwife or maybe a medicine man, and so the, is a way to break the look. What look? The evil eye.

Here, sorcery sometimes is a, is done on a person, find out by divination and, a powerful magician is needed here. Find out the source of it. Sometimes a jinn will cause the harm, and this is also, found out by divination. The magician magician charms are used to protect against the jinn. Karina, as I mentioned, is that special, not special in the sense, but but but, you know, born the same date that, you were born and so is can be troubling I hear, charms I’m sorry, krina.

Yes. Charms and then fate and so on and on and on. And so, these are these are some of the things that we, we are, we must think about. Now, again, missiological application. I hope you don’t mind the fact that we keep, keep coming back to this, but, you know, we need to pray in the powerful name of Jesus.

Like, my wife tells a story, of one time when she came to the bedside of a person, a little girl who used to the kids in that family used to pray with play with our kids all the time, and she got very, very sick. And she went to the bedside of that little girl, You know, women can get into the homes much better than men. She was by the bedside of that little girl, had a terrible, terrible fever, and her father was there and others were there standing around the bed and she felt that the Lord wanted her to pray for this little girl, but she thought to herself, you know, I I I’m afraid to do it. I’m afraid to pray for this little girl. I’m afraid because my Urdu may not be the best and and maybe God would not heal this and I’ll be a laughingstock and make a fool of myself.

And so she struggled with this and she didn’t pray, But then afterwards, she felt, and still says to this day that I should have prayed for that little girl in the powerful name of Jesus right there as as God was telling me to do. So let’s pray for Muslims and pray for them in private, pray for them in public as well, and we need to show the ample resources in Christ, that he is able. We need to understand to exousia because there will be times when we will, get into exorcism and have to, cast out demons. It won’t be often, I don’t think, but there might be sometimes we have to do that and use the word of God and the cases where, where, Jesus cast out demons and here book 1 book by Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, I am referring to, and also also, Arnold, Clinton, Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic is another verse, another good book here. We need to demonstrate true worship.

In other words, of course, this is true in the Western world as well. What is true worship? But it’s also true in the Muslim world. When people come to Christ, the worship needs to be in spirit and in truth and, this we need to do. Now, another question we’re gonna deal with is should Muslim background believers or background Muslim believers, whatever term you wanna use, burn the bridges.

In other words, some of the, artifacts or some of the things that they used in the practice, of of of of of Folk Islam. But that’s one of the forms, so we’re not gonna talk about that at this point.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the differences between ideal and folk Islam in terms of their worldviews and beliefs. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 1).

In lecture number 12, comparisons worldview, I want to just back up for just a minute. I had intended to talk to you a little bit in the last lecture about some experiences I had with a, peers or saints in Pakistan. And in one particular, case, just about 20, 25 miles from where we lived in south central Pakistan, there was a pier, a saint, and every year at that saint’s place, they celebrated his what they called an Urs or his birth his death date, actually, and it was April, as I remember, 12, 13, 14, 15, 3, 4 days there, right in there where they celebrated his his death day and so people would come from far and wide. It was a name a place called Saky Sarwar, s a k y, and then another word, Sarwar, s a r w a r. We would go, I would go, not to see the peer or the saint, but to sell literature.

It was a great chance to, you know, to get rid of literature and talk about Jesus and one thing and another. I used to have a loud speaker rigged up on my jeep and some literature there and I would get a chance to talk to Muslims. Some of them probably, you know, were not probably. Many of them were illiterate, and they would be wearing these, turbans. And so, had the loud speakers because there was a lot of competition, lots of noise and stuff, and, so I would, you know, tell them about the, you know, the holy, Injilim of Jesus and I can still remember years years ago that some of these people, these tribal guys would come right up and they’d you know, in order to hear you and and listen to you, they’d come up and they would their face would be right right in front of you.

And as you told them about Jesus and about, you know, his book and his who he was, Some of them had never, never, never heard about him. So, but what I wanted to mention was that, and this is this is on your class notes on page 11. That’s why I wanna, refer to it. But I, I did wanna mention that people would come, to, you know, make the request to this pier. I can remember, one woman who prayed for a son, she didn’t have a couldn’t have a son, couldn’t have a son.

Finally, through the auspices of that pier, she had a son, and they named him Pir Baksh, in other words, given of the peer. Others would name their sons Chodabaksh, given by God, and it’s very common, or some might name him Muhammad Baksh, given by Muhammad. So, but anyway, interesting things went on at this fair. It was a religious fair, as I mentioned, you know, remembering this saint, this peer, but all kinds of other people showed up too including prostitutes. And they would, would, carry on at this religious fair openly.

And there would also be places where men would be dressed up as women and dancing on huge platforms in the most sensual way that you could imagine. And also these, these, fellows, they had these huge bowls, you know, where they put a motorcycle in and the guy would round and around and round, and and he’d wonder how in the world he didn’t kill himself. But I I just wanted to mention that the the peers, the saints, and my personal experience, these are all over the country of Pakistan and other places as well. And a good place, really, a good opportunity to, you know, to, give a witness, as as best you can because that’s where the people are. Now let’s talk about comparison’s worldview, which is the title of lecture 12.

And here we’re talking about beings and we’re talking about power and space grid, but I I wanted to, to mention, the fact that the beings in other words, some of the things here that, you know, of course, the beings of Allah, the archangels angels. We already talked about this, the devils. But then there’s the jinn, the karena, which is this this is this jinn who is born at your the same time you are and is, with you for your life, and, is a bit of a, well, I guess, a blessing and a curse. In other words, you get some use out of this karena, but then also some problems. Another one is a czar, and, and so on.

Then you have the wallis, holy men, saints, prophets. I’ve already talked to you a little bit about that saint close to where I lived. So you have these on the ends, but you have this in the middle. So, you have the power, which is in this world, and we’ve talked about somewhat talked about braca, magic. Zikr is where you repeat God’s name over and over again, and various and other, powers that be, amulets, and these, of course, are unseen.

Now Paul Hiebert, the well known, anthropologist who taught at Fuller for many years and then, taught at Trinity Divinity School, talked about the flaw of the excluded middle And when he was talking about the flaw of the excluded middle, he was talking about western western views. He was talking about, not only the the secular world and there was a non Christian, but Christians too. He said basically, we have left this out. Left this out. We we deny it.

In other words, oftentimes, think that, you know, that no spirits and stuff like that, we just we just ignore it. We think it’s all, nonsense. He says that that’s not true and we should, give some consideration that, to to, to this. And I remember too others who have pointed out the same thing. For instance, Christians in Africa are much more able and willing to to get their mind around this kind of stuff than we are.

So, let’s keep that in mind. Now, one of the questions in fact, this is one of the questions on the forums is, the implications of what Paul Hebert has said. So I’m not going to discuss it here, but I want you to be thinking about it and then respond. For instance, you know, the implications, I think that it’s possible to be, to go both ways too. You you’re in total denial or, all you think about is the devil and what he’s up to and the demons and one thing or another.

I think there are Christians, really, in both, categories, that so we need to think about the implications of this. But I I I’ll leave that to the forum and, won’t talk about it anymore right now. Now next thing on the on the list here are space grids. What’s space grids? Well, space grids is the idea that, that in certain places, the demons are very, very active.

So we have to watch out for them. And this is a, a little amulet here. It’s called the triangle of al Ghazali, the greatest, perhaps, theologian that Islam has ever come up with, who died in 11/11. He was the one who married Sufism with orthodox Islam and, you know, he was half Sufi himself. So, they have this the triangle of Al Ghazali.

Never seen this in Pakistan, but I believe in the Arabic speaking world, it is a a, an amulet that is used to, help out in these difficult places. Now, this sometimes is placed beneath a woman to give an easy delivery. In other words, our it’s a very difficult time And, so place this underneath the pillow and, the woman will will it will help in the birth. Now the idea here is, as you can see, letters have numerical value and, often, you know, and a letter has a numerical value and so that’s how they figure this out and, the numbers mean something. Odd numbers, by the way, are used for stones to cleanse yourself.

In other words, when you go to the bathroom, you pick out a certain number of stones, always an odd number of stones, use your left hand, this is Muslim talking. They don’t believe in toilet paper, but they do use water. They also use stones, some of them. But I think something that we can relate to more easily is if we watch a movie on the pilgrimage, when Muslims pick up stones to throw at the devil and those three pillars that represent the devil, what do they do? They’re supposed to pick out an odd number of stones, I think 47 or whatever it is.

It’s not quite clear sometimes how many, but it’s supposed to be odd. Now Muslims may not always understand or be able to explain to you, but that’s the truth, and it’s because of the space. Odd numbers protect in dangerous places. So, I am going to be talking a little bit here more about the dangerous places in a minute. But they would protect you odd numbers, especially number 5, protect you from the jinn and from the evil eye.

I can remember, in my ignorance, preaching sometimes and holding up, you know, my hand like this, number 5, when I was preaching. Well, I was soon informed that that was not the way to do it because this really number holding this here, is the way that you, hold off or, you know, prevent a curse. So what I was doing, I guess, was could have been interpreted as you guys are putting a curse on me and I’m protecting you from the evil curse. You see, there are 5 fingers here. If I lost a finger, I suppose I could get away with it, but, and, yes, numbers, numbers, numbers are are used a lot in in space.

Now another thing that, Muslims sometimes will talk to you about is the fact that, that woman is from the left side, created from the left side, and that’s really the evil side of a person. That’s really the negative side. That’s the side of, well, subject to temptation and vulnerability, and so women have to be protected. They are more vulnerable to to to temptation, and so they you need to they need to protect protected and, unless they unless they fall and get into trouble. So, that’s one of the reasons too why that they’re not, so welcome in in worship.

Muslims sometimes would say, and we had the saying where I was, that wherever a man and a woman are together, Satan is there in their midst. He’s there in that space. Another illustration I thought of was, in Pakistan. I had a friend, a young friend who died. He was, he wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t from the well accepted, sect.

It was the Ahmadiyy. There are probably about 4,000,000 Ahmadi’s or Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, and they have been relegated to to, the status of non Muslim because they believe that a prophet came after Mohammed, and so they’re not very popular. They’ve been persecuted a great deal, in some ways persecuted more than Christians, or Hindus. But I remember, one young man was taking a bible correspondence course, an Amadee, just a young young man, he was from an Amadee family and, for some reason, he died. He got sick and he died and so his father came to me and, you know, he was very glad that, we had befriended him and he was taking bible correspondence course.

And so the father said, You know what, I want you to come with me and we’re going to go and see where the boy is buried. So I said fine, go out there and see the grave. We drove out in the village and drove for quite a while in my old Land Rover, and then we got there, parked the Land Rover, and where do you think the boy was buried? He was buried right next to the saint because if you’re buried next to the saint, the father and I guess the rest of the family thought that this would help to guarantee him to, a place in paradise. Now I don’t know if the boy ever understood the gospel.

I do know that he took a Bible correspondence course or 2, and I don’t know if he ever really came to faith, but I do remember that the father took me out there and showed me where this boy was buried right next door. It was a beautiful little enclosure with a pierce tomb, the saints’ tomb was inside, and right next door, they had buried the boy. I’m sure it cost him a a lot of money to do that, but that’s where he was buried, with the hopes that he would be this would help his entrance into paradise. Another thing in regard to space is that space around Mecca is haram, and that that word haram is an interesting word. It is, a double meaning word.

It means, you know, in one sense, it’s it’s holy, but it’s also the word that’s used for forbidden. In other words, certain sins, like adultery and so on are haram. Eating pygmyk is haram haram, but the space around Mecca is dangerous space, powerful space, and so powerful that Muslims are sometimes afraid to look up even at the at the Mecca from a at the, cover from a distance because it’s so powerful. So, that space is, is powerful space. But I wanted to also point out the fact that there are areas where the demons and I I didn’t mean to suggest that the demons were thick, around around in Mecca.

That’s not what I was saying. But I would say that there are special places like the latrines. You know, latrine is where people go to the bathroom. Marshes, wells, rivers, garbage dumps, kilns, where you make the bricks, trees, so on, certain trees, where they are believed to be spirit infested. In other words, the jinn are are there.

So what do you do when you go into the latrine? This is what they call I guess it’s an old British term. It’s the term we used in Pakistan. Well, you say Bismillah, in the name of God, when you go through the door. One thing you don’t do in the latrine is talk to anybody.

I mean, you know, in these public latrines, I remember being in a carocci in a public latrine, you don’t talk to anybody. I remember talking to somebody a little bit in the latrine, turned out that he was an imam, a mullah, you know, with a long beard and he quickly informed me that this was not the place to talk and I found out later that the main reason is that jinn inhabit these places. So watch your step when you’re in the latrine or garbage dumps, kilns, trees, and so on. So, yeah, you know, space thinking, I have thought of this a little bit. I don’t know what the significance of it is, but, Jesus is at the right hand of God, isn’t he?

Not at the left hand, and, and he said one time that, you know, separate the sheep from the goats, the sheep on the right hand, the goats on the left hand. So, what am I saying? I’m saying that, there is some scriptural significance to to space. I’m not saying anything spiritual or spooky or mystical about this, but I, I am saying that, maybe we could use this too in our missiological application. I don’t know to what extent we can apply it though.

We have to be careful. Prayer walking, I don’t really believe that you can prayer walk and put the demons on the run by walking around the mosque, but, you know, Muslims don’t always look favorably on that when, young people come out and hold up their hands and walk around the mosque with their hands held up. I don’t think we have to do that, but we do do need to have an understanding of Muslim thinking and worldview when we do some of these things. What about, demons and objects? In other words, can can a demon inhabit a an object, an animal?

I think that, it’s possible, but I I don’t want to get so afraid of some little artifact or something that I think it’s going to be demon possessed, so I I wanna be careful about that. We need to, to I think one missiological application here is that we need to think in terms of various things when we preach and witness in this kind of a context. One is truth which we know about. In other words, we we do preach the truth. We we’re strong on that in the western world, you know.

That’s that’s that’s true. We we want the truth, and notice the truth is here at the center. Rick Love, who wrote the book, Muslims Muslims and the and the, Muslims Magic and the Kingdom of God, worked in Indonesia. He uses certain verses and, we just wanna make note of them. Colossians, of course, we’ve already referred to, but, the, you know, the work of Christ and his his his power, what all he he did in, Colossians, 112 through, through, 13.

He has rescued us, verse 13, from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom have redemption the forgiveness of sins. So that’s Colossians. And then, first Peter 3, 322, I’ll read that as well, And that says that, who has gone into heaven and is at god’s right hand with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him. But Rick Love uses these kind of verses in his book if you ever get a chance to read that book. But, back to this topic here of of truth, remember that we need to talk about some other things as well when we witness to Muslims and when we preach in Muslim contexts.

We need to understand the power element, and, oftentimes, I think that Muslim folk Muslims are struggling with this issue, more than in anything else. And then the the issue of allegiance. To whom are they going to give their allegiance? And I think you can you can look at Jesus and some of the things he did, for instance, when he talked to the woman of Samaria in John 4. I think he deals with all of these topics and more in his discussion with her.

He doesn’t just, you know, say I am the way, the truth, and the life, which is the truth, of course, but, he deals with other things as well and we need to think of of various things, in, you know, these issues as well when we’re witnessing to Muslims. These are encounters, if you were, that we need to cover in our work and our witness to Muslims.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners  

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners  

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents some certain Folk Islamic practices and their implications in their beliefs for those who practice them.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners. 

You’re not gonna believe some of this stuff, but I, I, you know, as we get into lecture 11 here, comparisons, practices, which is practices and practitioners, It sort of strikes me that it’s it’s hard to believe when you when you think about it, some of the things we’re talking about. In fact, it’s all a bit incredible, to, but in particular here in this lecture, practices and practitioners, again, we’re we’re dealing with comparisons and we’re gonna talk about the pillars of Islam. You know, everybody, if they know anything about Islam, knows the the 5 pillars of Islam that the Sunnis have: the confession of faith, the ritual prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, but the thing that’s interesting is that these 5 pillars mean something else to, to in popular Islam. In other words, they have another purpose. First of all, the confession of faith drives away, you know, the confession of faith.

There is no other god but Allah, and Really, it is, you know, it’s a declaration in Orthodox Islam of of the oneness of God, monotheism, strict monotheism and the apostleship of Muhammad, but, it’s it’s it’s there. I just wanted to, refer you to a little, an account of some of our students working in Africa, and this is what they said. They said, stepping out my front gate, I met some neighbor kids on their way home from a religious school right behind our house, and, listen to the sound clip for an experience of what we hear throughout the day. Following close behind their greeting was a request for me to do something I will never do. Say the shahada.

That’s the, Muslim profession of faith. No. I can’t. I follow Jesus Christ, I said. No, say it.

This is what you say. And so they’re this is, what they were trying to pressure, this young couple, this young fellow to do, who’s one of our students. And they have I remember them trying, to to get me to say the Shahidah too as if that would make me a Muslim, but I just wanted to, alert you to the fact that the Shahidah, confession of faith, is, more than just a statement of there is no other god but god and Muhammad is the apostle, but, confession of faith drives away evil spirits. Prayer? Well, confession of faith and then ritual prayer 5 times a day is, interesting as well.

You know, that that ablution is is almost more important in some context than the prayer itself. The ablution, to get is not to is, you know, is not bodily purity, but get you free from the demons. It’s not worship. It’s not bodily purity, but it’s free from the influence of evil spirits, and you begin with your ablutions on the right side. If there’s no water available, then sand can be a substitute.

Your head is covered and this could be, a tradition that you get from the Talmud, but so that the spirits won’t enter your mind and a sutra or a stone or a stick, and you can, Google this and find pictures of where Muslims will put a if they’re out in the desert, they’ll put a stick in front to protect from demons. And it might say that this is, to, you know, to stop any, influence other distractions and so on. There’s also this in the mosque, but, really, my understanding is in some understanding quite a bit of understanding is that it was is to keep, to protect you, the Muslim, from the demons, and and I meant to bring, Muslim a Muslim along in volume 4 in page 190 through 94. I didn’t didn’t think of it, forgot to bring it. One more book to bring.

Another thing is is that, Muslims will stand right together. You know, there’s no gap among the worshipers lest Satan squeeze in. The Imwezin, that’s the guy who gives the call to prayer, that call drives away Satan and demons. Even the takbir, Allahuakbar, god is great, is a cry against the demons. When reading the Quran, you take refuge against, Satan, shaitan, and sneezing during prayer is, ominous because it gives Satan the chance to get in.

You see, it puts a whole new slant on the, 5 pillars, doesn’t it? Totally. And, what about almsgiving? You know, good thing to give alms. There’s no question about it.

Except I am convinced from what I’ve read and also from what I’ve experienced that people give alms oftentimes so that someone will not put a curse on them. You know, if you’re in the bazaar in Pakistan and a an old older woman I’m not gonna call her an old woman, but, sometimes older women are desperate conditions and, they look evil, I suppose, for various reasons, and they come up and they beg. They grab a hold of you, and they don’t let go. And, oftentimes, you’ll see people will give to them because these older women have the gift, it is thought, to put a curse on you, use the evil eye, put a curse on you, so you give to them to prevent that. You see that, that that shows gives almsgiving in a totally different light.

And what about fasting? Well, fasting to protect against diseases and the pilgrimage as we’ve already talked about a good deal, in order to get the blessing from touching or kissing the black stone and on and on and on. So, the purpose or the meaning of each pillar in Islam changes. Now the devil supposedly spends the night in your nose, and I was going to, bring, Al Muslim along and read out of that. So what do you do in the morning?

You snuff out your nose three times. And I think back of some of my own experiences, listening to people early in the morning and by the pump, you know, the hand pump, they can make more noise, coughing and spitting, and so I’m not surprised. I mean, this does make sense that that that, they’re they’re making so much noise to get rid of Satan. Snuff it out. Now, let me also hear, I think, is, I I’ve referred to the hadith several times, but here is the website that I mentioned to you before.

It’s http, colon/www.searchtruth dotcom. That’s httpcolon/www.searchtruth.com. You can go in there and you can do search, do a search on, the devil in your nose or something like that. And, hopefully, you will be able to pull up these stuff, because, presumably, you don’t have the hadith at your fingertips, but it is online. Now, here’s a question here.

Are there Islamic aspects where form and meaning are inseparable? Of course, this this, question comes out because of contextualization, you know, that if we can just change the meaning, we can use some of the Islamic forms. I think that’s true. There’s nothing wrong with bowing and prostrating when we prayed, not did our prayers, but when we prayed in Pakistan every morning with a bunch of people, some of whom were Muslim converts, We would get on our knees and we would, you know, we would bow, sometimes holding our head to the floor. That’s great.

I think it’s a good sign. It’s a very humble and a position of thoughtfulness and humility and of need, but I think that the, the ablutions, if you were to import and and implement ablutions, I think it’s going too far because the ablutions are so filled with with wrong meaning, and I’ve just talked a little bit about them, that I don’t think that you can, you know, always pour a new meaning into some of these practices. Now here’s a chart that is an interesting chart, I think, because it shows, it’s out of Bill Musk and used with permission, that it shows, the practitioners of popular Islam who are below the line. You might have this book, so you it won’t be anything new to you. But if you don’t have it, you will have to listen very carefully.

There’s a lot on the chart. And then above the line are the practitioners of Ideal Islam. So these are the practitioners of Ideal and Popular Islam. There is another thing here, less power to more power, meaning that the further you get to the right, the more power is needed. So up here, it’s also another thing that says, you know, from center, meaning things that are more, I guess, accepted to things that are less accepted to the periphery.

For instance, sorcery is, more of, on a margin more on the margins than some of the other stuff that they do Muslims do. Well, let’s just talk about some of the things that both practitioners of Ideal Islam and practitioners of, Folk Islam might be doing. For instance, charms or talismans. Down here, they’re called Dua writers or prayer writers. So the Dua writer in Folk Islam does basically some of the same things that a lot of Muslims, clerics, even in the city, will do this, but that’s not all they do.

As you get into more into the villages, these village clerics, these imams, do more of, these practices than than anyone. I mean, really. So, you you can get down charms, talismans, curing by herbs, curing by divination, fortune telling, exorcism, magic, and sorcery. So you see you’re going down the line here. Notice that, you’ve got the dua writer, the prayer writer, the midwife, the magician, the shaman, the sorcerer.

We notice that the mid that the women in folk Islam are quite active. It’s interesting that in formal Islam, they have been pressed down and and in other words, not really given a place of leadership. They don’t have they can go to the mosque, but they really don’t have a part in it. And most of the time, they don’t go to the mosque unless you’re in Southern California, but many places in the world, the Muslim women do not go to the mosque. But in Folk Islam, they have had, they’ve they’ve had some influence and, the midwife is, uses various and sundry powers.

We noticed the other day, that just in the use of an egg, for instance, they so they have they do use this stuff, divination, I think you’re getting into now a village clerk, cleric, an imam, would be more into that kind of stuff in the villages than, imam in the city. Fortune telling, yes, exorcism, more the village cleric will be into that kind of thing, magic and sorcery. So, you see there you have it. They are, they are there are is quite a bit of of overlap here, isn’t there? And this is an interesting chart that, isn’t foolproof, but, it’s something that that Muslims, are into, and, it doesn’t show it does really doesn’t show there’s a whole lot of of, distinction sometimes.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Eschatology and Mission

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Eschatology and Mission

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Eschatology and Mission during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the divergent views on eschatology and mission between Ideal Islam and Folk Islam.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Eschatology and Mission.

This is lecture 10, comparisons and, eschatology and mission. We might might be wondering, you know, is this relevant, but I I think it is. The reason is that eschatology is so important here is because it seems that fear of, of the future really drives, Muslims really into folk practices, drives them into, into trying all kinds of things to to, you know, ensure a better future. And I remember, Vivian Stacy, who worked for about 40 years in Pakistan in mission work and then worked in and out of the Middle East, a great a great worker, great person. She teaches a course taught a course, she’s now deceased, on women in Islam, and I remember her saying that, the Muslim women may not know very much about the Quran at all.

In fact, very little. They, many of them are illiterate. In Pakistan, probably only 12, 15%, maybe now a little bit more, are literate, but she says from all of her years of experience is that, Muslim women know very little of the Koran, know very little theology per se, but they know a lot about the judgment, and so they, that they in other words, they have heard quite a bit about this. So, I also wanted to, just make note of the fact that I have a paper, called, Islamic Eschatology Implications for Christian Witness, and you can find it, I think, by googling Warren Larson and then the name of that paper. And I talk about quite a few things, not only God’s judgment.

Kenneth Craig, by the way, one of the, greatest Islamicists, and I think by now, perhaps, he’s gone to be with the Lord, but he says that the judgment, the end times, eschatology, is long on God’s judgment and short on his love. So, you know, just think of this that, that as a person in Islam dies, say an old man is just on his last leg, so to speak, and, so what do people do? What do the Muslims do? Well, they turn his face towards Mecca. Lay him on his side, turn his face towards Mecca.

They have, an Imam come in and chant, the the Quran and they will light some kind of an incense in the room to keep the spirits away. So, this is this is all what it’s about, hoping that, all of those things will help him in the judgment to make it across. Though is there is absolutely no no, assurance of salvation, nothing like that at all. The, the hadith in particular talks talk a lot about, the judgment, talks about the terrible judgment, For instance, boiling brains from the fire that’s beneath your soles of your feet is just the least punishment. And if you think of it to yourself, if that’s the least punishment, what in the world is the most punishment?

So you know a lot about the horrors of hell, but in contrast to the pleasures of paradise, That’s really what the paper is about, but I wanna say again that all of this seems to feed into folk Islam. Notice that, I have here popular and ideal Islam, last day, and, last day is, not going to be covered because we’re really talking about this under under predestination. So that’s what it’s meant when it says, see below. But what is predestination? Well, by the way, I should have mentioned in the paper that the role of Jesus in Islam in the end is remarkable.

He does, according to the Hadith, judge according to Islamic law. But nevertheless nevertheless, he’s there and he’s alive and while Mohammed is dead. So there are many bridges that we can use, but the greatest bridge we have with Muslims is the role of Christ in the Quran and in tradition and and, specifically to this point in, the the end, the judgment. So, predestination here comes from the word qadr, which is really power, and takdir means measure. So several things here: decree, doom, destiny, and, the divine preordaining.

One of his names, God’s names, is Al Qadr, and in Islamic, in the theology of Islam, you had the Khaganites, and this was, in contrast to the Methazilites who were rationalists. We don’t have any Methazilites today. They were shouted down and moved aside. But just off the, just off the, you know, by the way, Islamic theology is not as simple as you might think and Muslims have really done a lot of thinking. I teach a course, Islamic Theology, ICS 6012, taught in the, fall online, and, you might be interested in that course.

It is, an eye opener into the thinking of Muslims. They, you know, they’re not all, traditionalists. They’re not all dyed in the wool. Some of the greatest thinkers, that you can imagine, the greatest minds are Muslims. For instance, Fazlur Rahman, the Pakistani who, is now dead, but he used to teach at University of Chicago.

Anyway, predestination and it fits right into, Islamic, into Islamic theology. One, thing that we talk about in that course is, this quote from, Venk Singh, who wrote the Muslim creed. He says there’s not a single tradition that gives freedom. In other words, the traditions, you know, a 100, a 150 years after Muhammad, the traditions come about, and, they’re pretty pretty hard, harsh, unbendable, and, there is not that freedom really, of course, for various reasons that we won’t talk about, but, you know, it helps to stay in power if you, are heavy on on fatalism. You know, god has put us there, put us in power, and so we’re not going to move at all.

It’s God’s control over all things. That’s what predestination and I wanted to, just read a few verses from the Quran, as always. The first one is 17 and verse 13, and I hope that you can follow along here in your Quran Sharif, as it’s called, or, whatever name, glorious name that they give it. 17 and verse 13 says this, every man’s fate we, that’s God, we have fastened on his own neck on the day of judgment. We shall bring him out for him a scroll which he will see spread open.

So there’s no wiggle room here. Fate. And there in the footnote, 2187, it sounds very, you know, pagan. The the the fate comes from the word, it’s tayr, literally a bird, hence an omen, an evil omen, fate. The Arabs, like the ancient Romans, sought to read the, mysteries of human fate from the flight of birds, and many of us in our own day seek to read our future fortunes by similar superstitions.

We read in the previous verse that there are signs. They are meant for quite other purposes. As we have explained, our real fate does not depend on birds or omens or stars. It depends on our deeds, good and evil. Well, that’s true, but but it isn’t very true because, our fate decides or is determined really by what God decides.

You see, this is what we’re going to say over and over again. His will, his, irrefutable will is really what’s what’s important. And, let’s see. I don’t think I’m missing verses here, but, I will turn you to 54 and verse 42, and there are several verses here. The the people rejected all our signs.

That’s 54 and 42, but we seize them with such penalty as comes from 1 exalted in power able to carry out his will. Now, granted this verse is a little better. It makes it sound like, you know, they rejected, God’s signs and so, he who is god who is exalted in power, he’s able to carry out his will, so, not too bad. Now, then a little bit further on in that same chapter, it talks about, actually, I guess, verse 55, in an assembly to truth in the presence of a sovereign omnipotent. And back to 49, I should have mentioned, verily all things, have we created in proportion and measure.

That’s the same word again, taqdir, from Qatar. And so god is sovereign, and he is, the one that decides without any, you know, the he just can’t be moved and and so on. In 15163, the footnote says Allah’s creation is not haphazard. Everything goes by law, proportion, and measure, you see. Everything has its appointed time and place and occasion as also is definite limitations.

Nothing happens but according to his plan, and every deed, word, thought of man has its full its fullest consequences except insofar as the grace and mercy of Allah. Well, that’s what’s short in, Islam. So, we’ve looked at several verses there. I think, we haven’t looked at 14 verse 4 right at the bottom here that I have, and it says there, 1 third down, of his own people, in order to make things clear to them. Now, Allah this is disturbing.

Here, this is this is proves what we’re saying. Allah leaves straying those whom he pleases and guides whom he will he pleases. He’s exalted and powerful of wisdom. So this, you see, is double predestination, and some commentaries like a fellow by the name of Asad, not Asad in Syria, but Asad the scholar, seems uncomfortable this, and, he puts in brackets. And in your Quran, if you ever see brackets, you know you know that this is not the original.

He puts in brackets and who go astray, but it’s it’s it’s really his own, attempt to explain the heavy handedness that we see in Allah. So let’s continue on with, the, with these verses. I wanted I can’t read them all as we’ve said before, but we turn now to 76 and 30 through 31. We’re not cherry picking, but we are picking out a few verses, to illustrate the point. This is, not just here now that God leaves them as to go astray leaves them going astray, You’ll notice that in 76 verse 30, it says you will not accept as Allah wills, for Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.

He will admit to his mercy whom he will. So that’s, one of the differences that we’re seeing, and we’ll we’ll talk in a minute about the differences between, you know, predestination in Islam and predestination in Christianity. But I wanted to refer you to a story in, the Hadith, in its al Muslim. You know, the the really heavy heavyweights in, in the traditions are, Bukhari and Muslim, and then there are 4 others that the, Sunnis use. But on in Al Muslim volume 4, there are 4 volumes in this, this set, at least there are in the set I have, volume 4 of Al Muslim, page 1396, it talks about an argument that Adam and Moses had.

And, by the way, I should have, I should have brought the, I should have brought the, the web the the link for you, to show you that you can get into the hadith and you can, you know, you can look at Bukhadi or Muslim or, Al Majah or whatever you want, and you can do, search on words like, you I was looking the other day and just looked this up, Adam Moses, but, of course, I have it in written form as well. But Adam and Moses, got into an argument. And Moses said to Adam, you know, Adam, I’m putting in my own words here, but he said, Adam, you’re really to blame for all this, all this trouble we see on earth and the, you know, and the rebellion and the sin and so on and the killing and one thing or another, and you know what Adam said? Adam said it was preordained. My decision was preordained in the garden, and then the hadith says Adam won the argument.

Moses couldn’t say anything. So, interesting. That’s how far, it goes. So what are the implications here? What happens?

Well, what happens is that, well, no. Let me back up a little bit here. I’m I’m missing out on some. There are a few other verses that I wanted to, check out with you. One is, let’s see.

I guess it’s 10100 and, give me a second here. 10100. It says that no soul can believe except by the will of Allah. So you’ve got lots of, really lots of these verses in the Quran. No, no soul can accept except by the will of Allah, and I’ve already read 76 verse 30 through 31.

So, what happens? Well, it’s quite logical, really, as far as, you know, as I can see. If nothing else works, then intercession of powerful beings prevails against the unbending iron will of God and it seems to me that Muslims are pushed into focus on by the theology of Allah’s irrefutable will. You see, it’s not just, animism, the roots of animism and so on that it might have come from Christians and and paganism and all that, but it seems to me that this, this stuff actually, let’s see, this actually, is pushed the Muslim Muslims are pushed into this. Now the question I had here is what differences do you see in Islam and Christianity in the area of predestination?

Now we’re not face to face, so we can’t discuss this, which is always an interesting discussion, almost one that you need to think about and to reflect on. And so I’m going to share some of my thoughts here. You will notice in your class notes that there are some verses listed here. You know the verses, for instance, Romans 918 that, you know, that God does, he does make the decisions and, you can find verses in, you know, in Exodus 2, there’s Exodus 8:15 where God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Of course, we must remember that first, pharaoh hardened his own heart.

But I think the difference is, and here is, something that is very precious to me, the difference is in the nature of God and how we how much we as Christians know God. Look at this. I hope you can see these cards of mine. They’re, pretty thick little bundle here of 3 by 5 cards. Well, those are scripture verses that I have been working at and, for many, many years, at least these are the precious ones, trying to memorize and renew them, haven’t always done it.

Sometimes my own thoughts and anxieties and needs, emotional needs, drive me to them quite often, and the verses that stand out to me are the nature of God, at least many times. I mean, there are, of course, lots of other things in there too, about how to live and walk in in holiness and so on and on and on, but I think of some verses, in reference to God that are very precious to me. For instance, Isaiah 30 and verse 18 says something to the effect, that, God is he is longing to be compassionate to us. He rises to to help us. And then in Isaiah 63 and verse 8, I guess it is, that in all their distresses, he was distressed.

These verses to me are very, very precious. You know the, the saying that Muslims have always God is, is greatest. Well, you know, that’s true. He is great, and is for his power, but to me, he is great because of his humility, because of his, stooping to save us and to help us. In all of our distresses, he was distressed.

God is, not willing, first 2nd Peter 3 and verse 9 says, he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In Islam, it seems sometimes that he is willing that people perish. Think of the difference. Think of the difference. And so I always, often fall back on this, this nature of God and and his, his unquestioning love and his character.

But in Islam, the bottom line is really his will. That’s really the bottom line. So, just to sum sum of these things up, we’re not finished with this lecture yet, but just to sum up some of the things we’ve been talking about, that in in Orthodox Islam, formal Islam or whatever you wanna call it, the divine decrees are unchangeable. In other words, they’re irrefutable. They are, they cannot be, resisted or questioned in any way.

So that’s really the deal. And then in popular Islam, there is an attempt to change those decrees, change, what happens at childbirth, and and, and and angels descend and and on and on. And the paradise, the gates are are sometimes open. So that’s popular Islam. So Muslims then pray to the angels or expect the angels around the throne to, to help out or to intercede, and there are propitious times.

What does propitious mean? Propitious means they are times of opportunity, blessing, or times to really to make use of. In other words, God is here or he is going to bless, he’s going to answer, he’s going to hear on these special times, so we need to make use of them. We, we can hope to find help and blessing on those particular times and I have, there are 3, I think not 3, but there are more than 3 propitious times, you know, when you can expect God to do something and one, of course, is the night of might or, the night of power. That’s, Surah 97:1:5.

That’s the end of Ramadan or Ramzan, if you’re in Pakistan. Maharamzan, the month of, of, fast, 9th month of the year. At the end, it’s the night of power, but 27th when the Quran supposedly started coming down. That’s a night when Muslims hope, above above all things that they will have a dream in one thing and another, of God, and God will be revealed to them. And then there’s the night of of, the night of record, the night of forgiveness, and that is also called the night of the dead, lailut al bara in or shabei baraat in some some context Muslim context.

It’s 1 month before Ramadan. At that time, god registers the actions for the entire year. This is a propitious time. And, when we work in the Muslim world, we need to know these times. We need to know these, these holidays and what they men mean and how to use them for the purpose of the gospel in ways that are appropriate and, I guess, sensitive, but also when we can really get the gospel across.

Now there’s the night of Ascension. We’ve talked Ascension. We’ve talked about that when Mohammed allegedly went from, Mecca to Jerusalem and then on up into heaven, which, and then on that trip, he supposedly talked to prophets along the way. I think Jesus was on, heaven number 4, but in any event, they in that time, he talked his way into, through Moses’ intercession, which shows you really, again, the intercession that, got the prayers down from 50 to 5. That’s what the tradition says.

Can you imagine Muslims saying prayers 50 times a day? But there are other nights too like the night of Muhammad’s birth, Eid Malade Nabi, and that’s the time when his birth date and his death date are remembered and we’ve talked about that, before. Now, let’s talk missiology. You notice that we keep coming back to this. We don’t study Islam for the sake of studying Islam, but we study Islam for the sake of presenting the gospel.

You know, this just keeps coming up again. Today, on this date, our ambassador in Libya was killed in a riot and and a couple of other Americans. And, it made me angry personally and very, very sad because it was all through a misunderstanding. Somebody, just some individual fellow happened to, think that he could get away with making a movie about Mohammed, which was very anti Mohammed. Somebody gets a hold of it, makes a copy of it, puts it on the Internet, translates it into Arabic, and the Muslim world reacts, in rage and they descend on the American embassy in Benghazi, kill the US ambassador and a couple of other Americans.

And it makes me angry and out you know, I’m just outraged, but then I remember, and I put this on Facebook too, I remember that, these people need the Lord and, I remember the verse in Romans 3:15, their feet are swift to shed blood. We are angry, but we should remember that they really need the Lord and that’s, in other words, doing things like this in rage and unreasonable reactions. I don’t not, I’m not justifying that anyone should make such a movie. No one should be so naive and so misinformed, and so individualistic in his thinking or her thinking to think that he can get away with this. You’d almost have to live on another planet to do this.

It’s inexcusable, but yet, to react in such a way is a pattern in the Muslim world. Well, there are lots of implications, that we could talk about, but, one of them is that, the devil is defeated. Now, oh, by the way, I should have mentioned, just backing up a little bit, about, the propitious times. I meant to mention that, I can remember, years years ago, I think it was the year that, Gamal Abdel Nasser died. You know, he was the president of Egypt, the charismatic fellow, who for years was the president of Egypt and, did his best to unite the Arab world and the Arab nationalism.

I think he died in 1970 on September 28th. He failed to to unite the Arab world. He wanted Egypt to be the head of it. Egypt is the largest Arab country in the world, but, Nasser failed. Anyway, when he died in 1970, I can still remember what the paper said.

The paper said he died on a holy night. He died on a great time, meaning that, you know, a good chance that he he got to paradise because he died on holy night. You know, to me, that is pretty flimsy. So, then that’s, of course, one, missiological, application, but there are others, we think, of of, and I’ve noted here, the devil is defeated. You know, Colossians is a great book on the defeat of the devil and how that, all of the forces of evil were, lined up on display and the Hebrews, I believe, says that he he came to defeat the works of the devil.

Christ did. But another thing I want to mention, could have mentioned before, but I I mention it now, that we could can use special times, in other words, for prayer and preaching. Now you know, perhaps, the 30 day prayer during Ramadan where these requests come out. That’s good to pray specifically for Muslims during the month of fast. That’s very good.

But, you know, if you’re in amongst working among Muslims, to preach on, on this topic because you’re gonna have a tent you’re gonna get their attention. You know, the the the night of Jesus’ birth, that was a special time and the angels are there and they’re, they’re praising God and so we can make these these these these, connections. They’re really bridges, I think. We can pray, you know, pray for Muslims during the, in the last day of the month of Ramadan, the night of power, we need to pray that Muslims will have dreams of Christ and who he is. It’s well known that Muslims are having dreams, you know, the Berber Muslims in Algeria and and of having dreams of Christ.

So we need to think of that and use it. Always remember that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, Mark 124, right in the beginning of his gospel. That’s what he he says. And that Satan is doomed. You know that Jesus has it all under control.

Christ, has him under control. In Ephesians, talks about this, and so we need to to stand on it. It doesn’t mean that we do not fail, that we do not, sometimes are not deceived by this Satan. Not at all. We are, and it’s due to our own weaknesses and sins and so on, and yet we know that scripture says Satan is doomed.

The war will be won, and and there is power in mission. You know? All power have I given unto you. Go and, and baptize the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. So we are waiting for the conquest at Perusia and after Jesus has destroyed all the, powers, the spiritual powers that that that, are there, then the devil will be thrown into the lake of of fire and death and hell, will, be defeated as well.

So that’s what we hang on to. This is this is our confidence. This is what we we preach, and, it’s not based on our experience. It’s based on the irrefutable, unchangeable word of God. So praise the Lord for that.