Zwemer Center

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 2)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of the prophets and apostles, particularly other prophets outside of the Prophet Muhammad.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 2)

Moving right along here. Lecture 9 is, prophets continued, comparing the prophets. And I told you this would be could be a little bit tedious, and, we are going to prove that’s true. But, you know, it’s good to keep in mind too that other prophets are greatly revered as well. You know, other other prophets are sinless.

They’re they’re mausum, and, so even to say a you know, quote a verse like Romans 3 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, is, you know, an indication or a suggestion that the prophets have sinned, so you can get into serious trouble, and, especially if you get explicit, specific about Mohammed’s sin. So I encourage my students not to, not to say much about Mohammed. Of course, he was a sinner. They’re all sinners. We’re all sinners, including Muhammad.

He wasn’t, maybe the worst sinner in the world, but he certainly did his part in that respect. But the less you say about him, the better. I had a friend who would, I think, rather bluntly say, he was a missionary, he would say that something like this, he would say that Moses was a murderer, David was an adulterer, Abraham was a liar, and all of those, that’s true. I mean, that’s that’s quite true. I mean, they did fail, but this is very, very offensive to Muslims because they, they think of of, prophets as sinless.

You know, they’re idealistic, and they would say, well, you know, they did maybe commit mistakes and so on, but they don’t want to admit that prophets sinned. It’s very offensive to them, but we know that God used the prophets and uses all of us, despite our sin. But you know, perhaps, that in the Quran, Mohammed is far more humble. In other words, he admits his sin, and he talks there the Quran talks about it. But despite that, today, he is lifted up beyond all reason, and I’ll I’ll end with a little story, I think, of the from the Hadith that shows that Muslims are uneasy about this.

In other words, they don’t have confidence, all of them, that Muhammad is perfect and he can intercede for them. But nevertheless nevertheless, you do have these amulets and we’re here in lecture 9, we’re still talking about the prophets and other prophets. Muslims have, these amulets, and they’re in little metal or leather cases. They’re hidden from view, but they have them and often, some kind of, you know, a good luck charm or an amulet or something like that. One of the verses that that is used quite a bit is the throne verse and this is not specifically having to do with the prophets, but, it it says that this 2 and 255 is the verse that is very popular for Amulet.

Allah, there is no god but he. Okay? The self sustaining, eternal. No slumber can seize him, nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth.

And who is there that can to proceed in his his presence except as he permitth? Well, as I’ve said before, that accept exception clause is a dangerous one, almost like, you know, a lawyer or something because they will make much use of that, and and this is exactly the loophole that is needed to, to get your foot in the door. And so, but this this verse, 2255, is just like the lord’s prayer, the throne verse, you know, God, sitting on the throne and and in control of things. Always efficacy if is promised if god wills, inshallah, if god wills. Other examples, are there are many of them, how Muslims in various parts of the Muslim world will use various verses for various conditions or various situations.

One example is the Sudan, for prosperity in the market, 54 in verse 12. The Sudan help in court, Quran 564, Mali to possess a woman, and I wanted to read that verse because, we need to read some of them. Now this is chapter 12 and verse 30, and if you know anything about the Quran, this is called Yusuf or or Joseph. And in the Quran, there’s quite a titillating story about Joseph. It’s, from the apocryphal.

It’s apocryphal, it adds a lot of titillating detail to, how Joseph was tempted by this woman, who was the wife of Aziz. In other words, Potiphar is not mentioned, but Aziz is his name. And, she failed in her attempt to seduce him. But the story goes on as, I mean, you’ll have to read it. I can’t go through it, but in verse 30 is what it said.

The ladies in the city said, the wife of the great Aziz is seeking to seduce her slave from his true self. So in other words, the women of the city, they put this accusation against, Potiphar’s wife or Aziz’s wife. And, truly hath he inspired her with violent love, we see she is evidently going astray. So, you know, she they accuse her and the story goes on and on and so this woman hears, in verse 31, she hears of the malicious talk and she prepares a banquet for them. It’s it’s ridiculous in a sense.

She gave them each a little knife, and so she had said to Joseph in ahead of time, you come out before them. And so, when the appropriate time, then she calls him in, and he is so dashing, so, handsome that they cut they begin to cut themselves. Well, a little ridiculous. I mean, who’s gonna believe that? But, that that verse, 12 and verse 30, is sometimes used in an amulet to possess a woman because, you see, you need to pull all the kind of strings, you need all the help you can get sometimes to convince a woman, and and, these kind of love amulets are used all over the Muslim world, and I’m not just the Muslim world.

And, here again it mentions prayer beads. I didn’t show you yesterday, but these are the prayer beads. We looked at them on the screen. They’re called taspi in Pakistan. Subha is what they’re called in in Arabic, but those are used as prayer beads too and in ways by by form of folk Muslims that are not accepted by informal Islam.

Now prayers to Muhammad. Here is the, here is the sequence, and I’ll go through this in a hurry. Prayer miracles are demanded of the prophet in the Quran. You know? He has, in the beginning, his there are lots of unbelievers and they say to him, you know, we we don’t really believe you.

By the way, if you can read the Quran chronologically rather than the way it’s written, then you get a better picture of what’s happening, get a better picture of the of the history of it. And, you know, his experience in Mecca, during the first 12, 13 years of his revolutionary revolutionary career and then, then the last 12, 13 years when he was in Medina. But in the beginning, when he was in Mecca, he is confronted by quite a bit of doubt. And, they say we want a miracle, you see, over and over these verses. And Mohammed says, well, you know, Allah can do miracles.

He can send signs if he wanted to, but he obviously doesn’t want to. And Mohammed says, you know, he says, well, we’ll we’ll just wait. If if Allah chooses to do his miracle, fine. 10 and 29. Mohammed refuses to accept the challenge to perform a miracle.

They say to him, you know, show us a miracle. Show us a miracle. Show us a miracle. Well, he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t fall for it, but he does say, as we know, that the Quran is America.

Quran, that’s a miracle, and he says it’s a sign, and Muslims today would argue that the Quran is a miracle. You know, it’s it’s beautiful, written Arabic, You can’t it can’t be imitated. It can’t be no one can say anything like that. I think that’s not true, but that’s what Muslims will say. So, again, you have these verses here, you know, that you have verses in the Quran that no intercession is possible except as god wills and, of course, that leaves room wiggle room for Mohammed.

But does it really? I wanted to I said I was gonna read something from the hadith, that I ran across in Pakistan, experientially. In other words, it it wasn’t so much my experience, but there was a experience of a of a someone who worked in Pakistan. And here’s the deal. I’ve been talking to you about how, about how, Muslims are hoping that, you know, how Mohammed will intercede for them and go to bat for them and all this kind of stuff.

But if Muslims would just look at the hadith, they would would realize that this is not possible. I’ll tell you what happened. In in Pakistan, students were taking a Bible correspondence course, and, one of the reasons they were troubled was that they said there’s a story in the hadith that shows how desperate we are And here it is. It’s in, Al Bukhari, Sahi Al Bukhari, Sahi meaning the true. It’s the canonized one of the 6 canonized versions of the hadith of of the of the Sunnis, volume 6, page 277.

These students said here’s why we’re troubled and here’s the story. I can show it to you right there. You see? Could take a picture of it and put it on the screen, but copyright laws prevent that, so I’ll have to read it to you. Narrated Abu Huayra, Allah’s apostle, and, he he said, oh Quraysh people.

You see, Mohammed is Quraysh or he said a similar word, I cannot save you from Allah if you disobey him. Oh, Bani Abd Manaf. Who’s that? That’s his grandpa. I cannot save you from Allah if you disobey him.

O Abbas, that’s his uncle, the son of of Abdulmutallab, I cannot save you from Allah if you disobey him. Oh, Safia, the aunt of Allah’s apostle, I cannot save you from Allah if you disobey him. O Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad, I ask what you wish for my They said, They said we are very, very troubled because the hadith makes it clear that Mohammed cannot intercede for us. So, that drew them, in fact, to take bible correspondence courses, and I might say that in our experience, we did bible correspondence courses ourselves, and our school has gone down in numbers a great deal, but it was under national leadership for many, many years even after we left. The the the most precious verse to the students taking bible correspondence courses, the Muslims, was Matthew 1128.

Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. So you see, there really is no good evidence for Muslims to do what they do. They almost do it in in desperation. What do they do?

Well, they hang on to relics of the apostle. For instance, a hair of Mohammed, one hair of Mohammed in Kandahar, which is southern Afghanistan, a very religious place, really, fundamentalist stronghold, probably, the home of Mullah Omar, that one eyed assistant, the sidekick of Osama bin Laden, or a shirt in Kandahar. Whose shirt? The shirt of Muhammad, in other words, that he wore. Incidentally, when, Mulla Omar wanted to show his authority to Muslims, he put on that shirt and the relics in Badshahi mosque in Lahore, including his underwear.

I mentioned yesterday that mosque I talked more about the shrine right next door, that Ganj Bakhsh, that has such attraction, but the mosque in itself, Badshahi mosque, is pretty, pretty nice. And, you know, down below on the first story, everything is hunky dory. You don’t go down there, all this stuff that you expect, the simplicity and the orthodoxy of a mosque. But what happens when you climb the steps? If you ever go to Lahore and, get the chance to go to Ban Shai mosque, Better not camera carry your camera because you look like a tourist.

And if you’re a woman, put on, you know, a dupatta and and dress modestly. But if you get a chance, go in there. Go up to the 2nd floor. Behind glass window, what do you see? Relics of the prophet.

Well, all kinds of things, like his underwear. Now I doubt that it’s, in fact, his underwear. Surely the prophet I don’t think he even wore underwear, but, you know, this is the kind of thing Muslims put great value in. And in the top Kapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. This is a, we call it a museum.

600 relics. And in there, you can Google it and, look at this top copy palace. You can see pictures of it and get some detail on it, but, there are lots of boxes of hairs of Muhammad there. So you see, this is what Muslims like to put their trust in and their faith in, but, really, it’s it’s baseless and it doesn’t doesn’t really hold true. But I I get quite a bit of that stuff out of of Shimmel’s book.

Now we’re still talking about relics of the prophet. Muhammad is called the light of the world and, one Sufi in the Sindh, that’s the southern part of Pakistan. There was no creation, no angels, neither heaven nor earth. Your light was radiant before everything, Shimmel says this page 18128. Now, maybe here I should mention that, excuse me.

I gotta go back. I gotta should mention, Rabia, who was a Sufi in the she died in 185, Ah after the Hijra, or 801, in other words, 9th century. Rabia is a special Sufi saint in the history of Islam. And Rabia said that she loved God so much she really didn’t have any room for love of the prophet. This is what I mean when I say sometimes that old Sufism was purer, more noble than some of the stuff today that, gives him such glory.

That was rabiya. I mean, rabiya was something else. But, relics of the Apostle Astari said this: he was a lamp from light invisible. Any house in which you dwell does not need any lamps and on the day when proofs are brought then my proof is in your face. And Rumi, the great pro poet, said how could we commit error?

We are in the light of Ahmed, Ahmed meaning Mohammed. Anur unwater, the light of all lights. You see where, you know, this is amazing. Is it not? Again, quoting Shmuel, mystics said in poetry that from his drops of perspiration, each drop became a prophet, and that’s how you came up with a 124,000 prophets.

This is, folkish stuff. I mean, it’s, but it’s, it’s what Muslims, you know, talk about. And Muhammad is the seed of the human race. Again, to study in regards to Sufath 5313, it says when Muhammad saw God at another time when’s that? That was during that night journey.

He saw at the beginning of time, so light of Muhammad is before Adam. He that loves God must have loved me. Before Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and so Mohammed is supposedly preexistent. You see what I mean, folks? About, about the glorification of Muhammad, it’s really a paradigm for worship of saints, because that’s that’s really where it ends up, and so, it’s blasphemous, and it’s the trouble with Islam.

We could go on and on. You see, Mohammed again, I went too far too quickly. Mohammed is the goal of creation. The Indian, nax bandi, if there were not Mohammed, nobody would be, and the 2 worlds would not have existed. What worlds?

The seen and the unseen. From throne to that which is beneath the dust, everything seeks my satisfaction as I seek your satisfaction, oh, Muhammad. Who has seen me, has seen the truth. Shimmel talks about this on page 131. And, you see Mohammed is central.

Central to what? Central to Islam. 1 Urdu poets, Shimon says, how could one know the rank of our leader of the world? If you want to reach god, know Muhammad as God. I’ve already mentioned to you once that, I have a book, that’s called the 99 names of Muhammad and, of course, orthodox Muslims would say, well, that’s Sufi ish, and yet, Muslims, orthodox Muslims won’t deny it.

They will say, well, Muhammad is worthy of it. And, so we have here, really the exaltation of the prophet and it’s much, much greater than he deserves and, and it’s it’s central. In in in one sense, you can’t really separate this from folk Islam. It’s it’s 1 and the same, and that’s why I’m a little bit tentative in in dividing, you know, folk from formal and and stuff like that because this is central to Islam. He is central.

And how do Muslims explain this? Well, when Mohammed himself is quite humble, he deserves, but but, you know, it it does say that he’s he deserves to be obeyed, but, but today, Muslims have lifted him way up out of reason. Given Muhammad’s exaltation in the mosque, what are the implications for believers staying in the mosque long term? Now this is a question of contextualization, and my own view on this is that, one who comes to Christ maybe will stay in the mosque for a time, but not indefinitely because one of the main reasons is because of Muhammad. He’s lifted up in the mosque and Christ has not given any glory at all And so I think that, that’s what we have to remember.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 1)

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of the prophets and apostles particularly the veneration of the Prophet Muhammad.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 1).

Lecture 9 is about, prophets and, I’m I’m sorry. Lecture 8 is what we’re on, not lecture 9. Lecture 8 is about prophets and apostles. Prophets and apostles, you know, the the difference is the apostles have received a scripture, whereas the prophets have not. Prophet word for prophet is nabi, word for apostles is arsul.

So you have, certain apostles in Islam, like Jesus, like, Moses and and David and and others who have received and Mohammed, who have received the scriptures, so they are greater than the than the prophets. You know, these these next couple of lectures might be a little bit boring to you because we’re going to be talking a lot about Muhammad, and so I encourage you to hang in there with me. His prominence is disturbing, and his the focus that he gets, the attention he gets, I I must say, is rising as I understand, the Muslim world. Just, for example, the, the celebration of his birthday in Pakistan when we went there in 1968, it didn’t amount to very much at all. Today, celebration of his birthday, which also was his death day, is a great celebration and even the celebration of that birthday is, something that orthodox Islam does not, should not and and doesn’t like, for instance, not allowed in Saudi Arabia, but that doesn’t shut the shut the Saudis out of folk practices, but it does show you that, the veneration of Mohammed is growing.

And then, we will look at that today. We mentioned yesterday, I think it was, in one of the lectures about Solomon in in Arabic or Urdu, it’s Suleiman, and, we said that that, Solomon is a pretty powerful figure in Islam because of, I guess, because of his, you know, his knowledge of of plants and animals and stuff like that, and so he is considered to be a very important person when it comes, to magic in overcoming, you know, evil forces. I read to you a verse out of the Quran, 2 and 102, I guess it was. They followed what the evil ones gave out falsely against the power of Solomon. The blasphemers were not Solomon, but the evil ones teaching men.

But then we said that, you know, even though the Quran, on the one denies it, yet on the other hand, it acknowledges it. If you could read on, like it says, they learned from them the means to sow discord between a man and his wife, so they acknowledge that. And the truth is is that, one of the, the amulets in the Arabic Muslim world, Arab Muslim world, is Al Subyan, and, that’s the Israeli the it says that only Suleiman had the power over the jinn. He had a brass talisman from heaven to control good and iron to control the bad. And that amulet, I should have said, is the 7 covenants of Solomon.

And if you have access to the book by, Bill Musk, The Unseen Face of Islam, there it is on page 210 where he talks about that. And, Am Al Sabyan is that evil spirit who, he refers to as that lone and loathsome woman who attacks people, primarily women, who are expecting a baby and before she has, you know, pregnant women and and and the newborn, so that’s they’re very, very vulnerable. That’s that woman who travels and, and and, is so fearful, so you need that amulet to protect yourself. Well, the as I mentioned, the topic here is prophets and apostles, and we’ll also be talking a lot about Muhammad. But let’s note one thing about prophets and apostles.

Muslims have the idea that the power the power of the prophets and apostles exceeds angels. We’ve talked about angels before. Why does it is it does it exceed angels? Well, because of this. Angels have some con have contact with God, but we don’t know how much contact they have with people.

Prophets are human. They have contact with God and people. Interesting, isn’t it? You know, they lived on earth, and so if you can get the I guess the point is you can get the the power of a prophet behind you or, can, you know, get them to intercede for you. You have a lot going for you.

That’s what that means. So, here’s a question that we are are just going to just bring to your attention. It’s one of the forums. It says Islam rejects animism. It does in a sense, but doesn’t have the power to defeat it.

So you can think about this. Can Islam meet felt needs? We’ll have discussion about this, and, we will, I think, have some pretty animated discussion about it. And so I’m not gonna talk about it here because it is on the form and you’ll be able to write in, your thoughts on this. Islam does reject animism in a sense, but does it have the power to defeat it?

Can Islam meet felt needs? Be careful with this one because, we want to give you know, reflect on this very, very carefully. Now, then a little bit more about Mohammed. And, he has regular names, and he is greatly venerated in Folk Islam. I would say that he’s venerated in Orthodox Islam as well.

Some of this is going to be sound a little bit tedious, but, you have to know a little bit about Arabic here, and the name Mohammed, the Persians pronounce that a little bit different. They say Mohammed, but, it’s it’s from the Arabic root, and it comes from the, Mohammed comes from the Arabic root hamd, which is to praise. So, Muslims make a lot of that term. For instance, words like Mahmud, to whom praise is due. You see it comes from the it’s the same root here, hamd and, Mahmood.

This is, you know, Arabic is is, from the root. You know, it’s root stuff, so all the words come out of the root. And, Muslims point out that hamd means praise to God, and in their creed, la ilaha illa ilaha Muhammad Ar Rasoolah, there is, you know, only one there’s no other god but God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God. So, I once wanted to show you something that I brought along. I hope you can see it.

A couple of mottos, and, see if I put them over my face. You can’t see my face. But, the first one is You Allah, o God, which, you know, people will hang on their walls in the Muslim world. I saw them all over Pakistan. You can expect that.

Oh god. This is what means, oh god. But the one that is right beside it all the time is popular Islam and what is that one? You Muhammad. Oh Muhammad.

They are side by side. And, you know, to think about it, Muslims really, by doing this, are showing how they think because it isn’t really right to do so. There is no other god but God, so why put Muhammad up there right next to to God? Well, they do it without batting an eye as I suppose some Muslims would begin it, but by and large, Muslims do this because Muhammad is, so highly revered that he is, up there right with God. Now, another verse that’s used, we just briefly mention this, is from the first sudah, the prayer, really, the the most prayed sudah in the bible in the in the in Islam, and it’s surah 1 and verse 1, and that is, only 7 verses, but it’s it starts by the this way.

In the name of Allah, most gracious, most vers merciful, praise be to Allah. What’s the word? Alhamdulillah. And so Muslims would say, see that? Muhammad is right there in the beginning.

And so on and on and on from the creed and and, and another one here, you know, there’s we go to, 17 in verse 1, and here is a verse, well, no, it’s I’ve, yes. It’s 17 and verse 79, 17 and verse 79, and, it is it says and pray in the small watches of the morning. It would be an an additional prayer, a spiritual prophet for thee. Soon, but will thy lord raise thee to a station of praise and glory. And the word here is Ma’kame Ma’kame Mahmud, a place of praise and glory.

And then if you look at the the footnote here, 2,278, to the prophet to the prophet was to be assigned in the hereafter the highest post of honor and glory. The Maqam the Maqam e Mahmud implying his excellence above all other prophets. The immediate reference may be to the hope that the Makan persecution will soon be over now. This is the trouble with Islam. It’s the, attention given to Mohammed that usurps the place of Christ.

This is, this is the trouble with Islam and on and on and on we can go. Muhammad’s regular names. This seems, boring to us, perhaps, that they will take the very names of his his his his name in Arabic, mem hey, mem dal, and they will build from those letters various words like from m, majid or majeed means glory, h, Rahman, mercy, and the next m. He has 2 m’s, you see. Muhammad, mulk means kingdom, and d, davam, everlasting.

So they’ll take these, things here and make a big case for the importance of Mohammed. Now there are other Koranic names, for Mohammed. I started to read 17 and verse 1 before, but I was a little ahead of myself. 17:1 is a very interesting verse. It says this, if you can follow along in your Quran, glory be to Allah, who did take his servant for a journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque whose precincts we did bless in order that we might, show him some of our signs.

Now, the point is this is a little bit off the topic of focus on, but not totally. A point of apologetics here is that it says, who take his servant for a journey by night from the sacred mosque, that’s Mecca, which was in existence, to the farthest mosque, and that is Jerusalem. The trouble is that that mosque that they’re referring to wasn’t even in existence at all at that time. It came into being, quite a few years later. Probably, as my understanding is that it was built in 80 in, Ah after the Hijra, Ah 68, Al Aqsa Mosque was built, or or AD 690.

So, what have we got here? We have another problem in the Quran, which is apparently, just a case of of fraud that was stuck in here, refer to a mosque that wasn’t even in existence. And if you look at the footnote here, 2168, the farthest mosque, says Ali, must refer to the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem on the hill of Moriah at or near which stands the Dome of the Rock. This and the mosque known as the farthest mosque, Masjid Al Aqsa, Masjid meaning mosque, and Al Aqsa were completed by Amir Abdul Al Malik in Ah 68, farthest because it was a place of worship, farthest west. Now the the commentator is doing his best to get around this evident fraud or, I guess, really, you know, the Quran, when you come to think of it, has never been has never never never been scrutinized.

Would to God that it would be scrutinized, because these kind of things, if it ever was allowed by Muslims, would reveal, really some of the problems, and this is this is definitely one. But, the point in here is that I wanted to make is, that the the night the night journey and, Muslims are not all agreed on this, but, most of them are. Most of them think that, Muhammad really did make that night journey. It sounds like the apostle Paul, really, who made the journey and, on his animal, al barak, not a horse, not a mule, but he had wings and supposedly went from the mosque in Mecca to the mosque in or the Temple of Solomon and then left footprints there, his horse, and then went on up into, the 7 heavens, one after the other. But, here you see it’s Abdullah, glory be to him who carried his servant by night.

You know, you wonder really where some of this comes from. You really wonder where it is, but, all, you know, Muslims believe this, take this at, at face value. I might mention that, Aisha, his favorite wife, says that his body remained there all night. So, you know, what’s really, what should Muslims think about this? Now development of the names given to Muhammad, there are other names too, all kinds of them.

Ahmed, Surah 616. We can’t go into every verse here. Muhammad, Surah 314, but these, you see, they are linked together. Ahmed is a, comes out of Mohammed, Abduhu, Bashir bringing good news, Nadir Warner in 3345, Sirajan Munir, a light giving lamp, in 3343. There are other names too that he’s given like, Yacine, and that’s Surah 36, that’s the name of the 36th Surah and which is the heart of the Quran, so they give that to Muhammad.

Another one they give you, some of them don’t make sense, but, this mentioned this, that that Surah 36 is used in Iran, one who eats the uterus of barren women, or eats the embryo, so wear charms, maybe the jinn has enmity against that woman, so the woman makes a vow to give her son to the imam. A miscarriage is prevented by a cord around the waist twisted twisted by a small girl, and then one reads, Yassin, that’s the 30 36th chapter, 36th sutra, and then ties 7 knots in accord, each knot being a prayer, and with a tiny padlock over which the mullah, that’s the that’s the guy who leads in the prayer, He says a prayer, cords and the locks are kept, and they’re alone to each other. That story comes from Zwemer. But, you know, that the story coming out of Iran just shows charms and, jinn and how the Quran is used. That’s, in this case, Surah 36 and Mohammed, that’s one of his names too.

And, other names too like Taha. But, many, many Koranic names for Mohammed, and, some of them are derived from the Quran. Habib Mohammed, here we are right here, my dear Mohammed and Habibullah, the beloved of God, Habib ur Rahman, beloved of the merciful, You Ula Muzamil, or enwrapped 1. Remember that Muhammad, and that, by the way, is the name of the 73rd Sura, enrapt 1. Remember perhaps you remember that Muhammad, when he was receiving revelations, at one time, he was cold.

Seemed like he was in a trance, and so he wrapped himself in a blanket, and so that’s what that’s referring to. 74 is the word for the covered one. So you see these are some of the names. You know, all of these names that Mohammed has, they are sort of like the names of God. God has 99 names.

I have a book. I didn’t bring it along, but it’s the 99 names of Muhammad. So Muhammad, in some ways, is far greater today than he ever intended to be. I think he’d turn over in his grave if he was aware of how how he is venerated. And, here are the names for Muhammad.

Abdul Khadu, servant of the holy, Abdul Ghaffar, servant of all forgiving, Abdul Abdulsalam, servant of peace, Rasul e Akram, most noble prophet, Rasalat e Panah, shelter of the prophetic office. What does that mean? That he is the one who protects the prophetic office, greater than all others, greater than every other prophet. These some of these are, blasphemous. Is universe, leader of the universe.

Now, Anne Marie Schimmel, who teaches at Harvard, wrote a book on Muhammad’s divine names and we refer to this book in the course because of its relevance, it’s quite amazing, is it not? And a lot of value and mystery in Muhammad’s names. There is blessing, in, you know, in just repeating his names. Blessing is in repeating his names. So, the more you bless him, the more you will be blessed.

So keep blessing him, and maybe you will have gained advantage somehow by, blessing him. Some, Muslims over and over and over again, they will, bless him, pray for him. You know every time they mention his name, they say may God bless him and grant him salvation. It’s not just peace be upon him, p b u h. It’s more than that: may God bless him and grant him salvation.

So, here you are here. You know, there’s this mystical value in his name, writing Muhammad in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, these beautiful languages. The calligraphy is is something else, and they will take, as I’ve mentioned before, and they’ll take each letter and make a great deal of it. Here is some poetical speculation. One poet says a 1000 times, sorry, a 1000 times I whoops.

I can’t get back there. A 1000 times I wash my mouth with musk and rose water. Yet to speak your name is impudence. I’ve said before that, say it again, that the problem with Islam is, is Mohammed and that they have taken this person and made him, so so important. And here is a prayer, a translation of this is this is a prayer for signs of blessing in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.

Oh God, I have intended to pray for the prophet. May God bless him and grant him salvation. Obeying your command and believing your prophet, Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him salvation. See? Every time you say his name.

And out of love for him and longing for him and exalting his might and being and worthiness, so accept this prayer from me in your favor and goodness, and remove the veil of negligence from my heart, and make me one of your upright servants. O God, increase him in honor, upon honor with which you have invested him, and in greatness upon greatness which you have given him, and in light upon light which you have created him, and raise his position in the company of those who’ve sent, you have sent, and his rank in the ranks of the prophets.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on Angels and Qur’an

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on Angels and Qur’an

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on Angels and Holy Books during a CIU course. Here, Larson compares Ideal and Folk Islam on Angels by presenting how each group gathers its understanding of them from the traditions and the Qur’an. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on Angels and Qur’an:

going to be using the Quran quite a bit, which might be a surprise to you, but, we just we just wanna make sure that, that, we understand that, folk Muslims get their stuff out of the Quran. They use the Quran. They give it sort of somewhat of a different interpretation, of course, but then that’s true of all Muslims, including the Shiites and the Sunnis, who give different interpretations. The Shiites read into it.

That’s the accusation against them. But but, you know, the folk folk Muslims really base stuff on the Quran, so we’re gonna be using the Quran, so I hope you have yours, handy. And I will, go through, some verses in the Quran. And today, we’re gonna be talking about, the, comparisons again. No surprise.

Unit 1 is all about comparisons. Talk about, angels and prophets. Comparisons again with, you know, some would call orthodox and, in comparison with it doesn’t seem like it’s too orthodox at all. In other words, it’s constantly surprising how much veneration is given to, Mohammed and how much, Muslims are hoping to get help and assistance from angels if they pull the right strings, and that’s true. But, we are gonna talk about books too.

In other words, the Quran again. And there is some repetition, in other words, overlap in this. I wanted to note that in the Quran, when we use the Quran on the PowerPoints, I have put the verses in bold because there are so many of them, but certain ones we’re gonna read and underline them to help you, follow along as best you can. So here we go, first of all, with angels, and we can’t look at all of them. But I wanted to start there at the back here and work our way the because that’s, in other words, work our way forward.

Keep in mind that the Quran is not put together chronologically. The longest suit is first and the shortest ones last. It acts it’s almost the exact opposite the way it was revealed. But I want you to notice that in 10/3, it says, actually, halfway down, the verse, it says, no intercession can plead with him. No intercession that can plead with God except after his leave.

In other words, except after, you know, God if God wills it. So that’s old English, King James English. It’s a little bit hard to put up with, but, you know, that opens the door, really, to anything, anything and everything when it comes to intercession. That angels might go to bat for me, because one could always say, well, God obviously gives permission. And it’s a good thing in a sense that we pray too as Christians, you know, thy will be done, but here, it it’s it’s really what happens is that it opens the door for a can of worms as it were.

Again, in, another verse here is 20 and verse 109. Notice we’re working our way, backwards, just the way the Quran is put together. Anyway, 2109 says on that day what day? The day of judgment. Lots in the Islam about the judgment, the, the, you know, the last day.

On that day shall no intercession prevail prevail except for those for whom permission has been granted. So it’s a perfect, it’s a perfect door. In other words, the camel’s head is in the tent and, really, that’s really, I guess, chronically, you can, make a an argument for intercession through angels, prophets, and, everyone else. Not everyone else, but, you know, saints and stuff like that. Let’s remember that the Quran is used by everyone, used by fundamentalists.

Bin Laden was was great at using the Quran, but also women who argue for freedom want freedom to women. They will use the Quran as well. So the Quran, as you can see, quite, versatile. Now 33 and verse 43, it says, he it is. He it is who sends.

You know, often the Quran is, in the plural when it talks about God, but here is singular. He it is who sends. In other words, I should have mentioned that it says usually we, which is the, the, Arabic, the what do you call it? For the plural of majesty, because God is king, remember, in Islam. It is he who sends blessings on you, as do his angels, that he may bring you out from the depths of darkness into light, and he is full of mercy to the believers.

Now it’s good to bless God. You know, bless the lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. The angels we know do this as well. But, just just we have to keep in mind, and this is the difference between Islam and Christianity, that in in Islam, by blessing God, blessing the the prophet is what they do every time they mention his name. Blessings upon him and blessings upon him, they hope to gain favor.

They hope to be brought out of it. It says this verse is very clear. Blessings on you as do his angels, that he may bring you out of darkness into light. We know that Christ has set us free, according to his mercy, and we don’t have to keep pleading for it because he has, set us free, taken us from the kingdom of dark into the kingdom of light. Okay.

Then on to 42 in verse 5. The heavens are almost rent asunder from above them by his glory, and the angels celebrate the praises of their lord and pray for forgiveness. So there’s another indication you see, in 42 verse 5 that, well, you know, if angels are praying for me, this is just like some things that go on in Christianity and that I have seen and you have seen too probably in Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox, Christianity and so on and possibly some in other, types of Christianity as well, where you are, you know, not just, trusting Christ for salvation, which we as evangelicals do, but here they angels can pray for your forgiveness. There’s a lot of difference, really, as we know scripture and we trust, for instance, Ephesians 28 and 9, by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: It is a gift of God, not through works, lest any man should boast. And then, lastly, 53 and verse 26.

I should have mentioned that the word for angel in Arabic is malak. That really is angel. It’s the word for messenger, but it’s used in in Urdu as well. In Persian. And in Urdu, we have another word for angel, which is.

But this is, Arabic, and, you know, people have often have this name too, malk, malk, malk. One of my students here a few years ago, was Persian and her name is Malka. It’s a lovely name. This is 53 and verse 26 if you’re following along, and we’re on page 4 in the class notes in case you’re wondering. How many so ever be the angels in the heavens?

Their intercession will avail nothing except after Allah has given leave for whom he please. Now this seems to me to be a contradiction, really, because it’s a loophole, and, some Muslims will hang on to this as if their life depended on it, the possible intercession of angels and, and then prophets as well. But, let’s just, spend a little bit of more time more time here, talking about, other angels, and here we’re going to get into the archangels. There are 4 of them, and we really can’t take the time to read all about them in the Quran. But just note that the archangels are Gabriel.

He’s the angel of inspiration, but then again, it’s not totally clear in the Quran if the, if it’s if it’s Gabriel or the Holy Spirit, but but being Muslims really have some more or less said that, yes, it’s Gabriel. But when you look at the Quran, it just sort of makes it look like they’re 1 and the same, Gabriel and the Holy Spirit. But, you know, there’s this Gabriel is the archangel of the angel of inspiration, meaning that he was the one who transmitted the Quran from God to Muhammad and then Muhammad to, as we know, down to the those who memorized it and then the writers and so on and on. But there was this chain you see through Gabriel. It wasn’t direct, interestingly enough.

Nothing is direct in Islam, whereas God spoke directly to the prophets. He didn’t in Islam. Israfil, the angel who blasts the horn, and there are several verses there. You can look at them if you want to. It’s a sound just like, you know, first Thessalonians.

The trumpet the trumpets will sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, except in Islam, there’s no certainty of salvation when the judgment or the end is thought of only judgment, and that’s, I think, re one of the great reasons why Muslims are so afraid, so afraid of death and of the end, as we will be seeing later on in the, just in the next couple of lectures. And, as a result, they look to, others that they can inter who will intercede for them. For Sunnis, it’s not the same as Shiites. Shiites would hope that Ali would intercede for them in the grave. But I do want to, note, the, little bit here about the Israel, the angel of death.

And in, 661, there is a a verse here that just shows you how fearful Muslims are. And, you know, I’ll talk a little bit about this in a minute, but to me in Islam, the angels are not the same comfort as they are in in my faith. I look at them as ministering spirits who protect, who help, who, do all those things, and I’ll be sharing a story about that at the end. But here, it just gives you an idea of of of of the of the work of angels in Islam that oftentimes it’s, it’s fearful stuff. In other words, fearful in the sense that, they they are, you know, watching over us and and and not only watching over us in a good sense, but I think watching over us to catch us, catch us up.

And, this one here brings out that, the angel of death takes our soul. He it says he is irresistible, watching from above over his worshipers. Irresistible. God is irresistible, which we could talk about for a long time, from above over his worshipers, and he sets guardians over you. Okay?

And they give you the impression that they’re, people that you are are more happy with, but they’re watching you to make sure that, you know, if you take a misstep, they’re gonna grab you. And then over you at length, when death approaches, one of you, our angels, takes his soul and they never fail in their duty. Well, that’s hardly any comfort to me, to take the soul. And then, 93 of that same chapter, 6 and 93 is a long verse. So we’ll go down halfway, and it, talks about here in the middle, it just starts as how the wicked do fair in the flood of confusion.

And at death, the angels stretch forth their hands and say, yield up your souls. This day shall you receive your reward, penalty of shame for that you receive. Now, of course, there is judgment in Christianity too, but here, this is this scary stuff of of the angels. Israel is the angel of death. And then and then there is, there is Munkar and Naka, and that is 47 here.

We’re at the end, here, the question folks in the grave, 4727. And, this too is scary, more scary than anything, really. 47 and 27. But how will it be? How will it be when the angels take their souls at death and smite their faces?

So here, you know, it’s not just taking their souls, but smiting their faces. This too is scary. And I, will just talk about this question in a minute, but I, I wanted to read something out of the traditions. Previously, I had this right on a PowerPoint, but we weren’t, didn’t have the permission to use it in copyright. So I am reading from you to you now, out of, it says, Bukhari and Muslim, and these are the prints of the of the traditions.

This is chapter 5, a confirmation of the punishment in the in the grave. It says, Annas reported God’s messenger saying, when a man is placed in his grave and his friends leave him, he hears the beat of their sandals. Then 2 angels come to him, and having made him sit up, they say, what was your opinion of this man, of Mohammed? The believer replies, I testify that he is God’s servant and messenger. He is then told to look at his abode in hell for which God has substituted for him and abode in paradise, and he sees them both.

The hypocrite and the infidel are asked, what was your opinion of this man? And the reply, I I do not know. I held the opinion others held. They will retort you neither knew nor did you follow the believers. He will then be given a blow with iron hammers and will utter a shout which will be heard by all who are near him, with the exception of men and jinn.

So that’s Bukhari and Muslim, and we could, read others too. Here it comes, the the the page 35 of that same book. Abu Huayra reported God’s Messenger is saying, when the dead is buried, 2 black and blue angels are one called Al Munkar and the other Al Nakhr. Come to him and ask him what opinion he held and on and on and on. So, so it it’s pretty scary stuff, really, as I’ve mentioned before, and there’s a lot in the traditions about angels and death.

Now, this is a is a question, I have here for discussion. You know, we can’t discuss this face to face. Why might Muslims disallow forensic evidence of a corpse in court? Now this is a difficult question. I’m not sure that I, myself, know the answer fully, but it is an interesting discussion in class.

I don’t know per you know, completely, it is true that Muslims are quite fatalistic and, you know, that what happened, it happened, and, also, they’re very modest. And, for instance, if a woman dies, they don’t want, anybody looking at the body, because to them, it’s just like looking at you in life. That’s that’s true too. But I think another thing is this very thing that we’re talking about here that, you know, there is the judgment of the grave, there is this inquisition coming, and, you know, the angels are right there at hand, and so we might as well get this over with, and they wanna bury you right then. Of course, this is, forgot to mention the fact that, the incredible heat in some of these countries requires you to bury the, body immediately.

But I I, I have you know, why might Muslims disallow forensic evidence of a corpse in court? I remember, Baynazir Bhutto, whom some of you, I think, will remember, was assassinated several years ago. She was a prime minister of Pakistan, a beautiful woman who was educated in Harvard and in Oxford, and, it is suspect it’s suspected that she was murdered by the Al Qaeda. Really, no one allowed it, really. In other words, family didn’t want it and and, other the government wouldn’t allow it either, but, they just don’t allow forensic evidence of a corpse in court, and and I think those are some of the reasons, you know, God is the judge and what difference does it make, whose dead is dead, and so they wanna get it over with.

Now another thing is about the angels, and I’ll quickly put these up on the screen on the PowerPoint, and that is that the angels are, preside over days of the week. And you have here, Sunday, Rokael, Monday, Gabriel Tuesday, Sam Samil Wednesday, Michael Thursday, Sarafil Friday, Saturday, So, well, you have to, be careful what you do on certain, you know, days a week. For instance, we’ll look at this later, but Wednesday, in May, Muslim cultures, is not a day to wash clothes. So, just as interesting that that, this in is, this is very popular Islam. That’s all we can say.

Angels preside over days of the week. And, you have angels who are guardians of paradise guardians of hell as well. Guardian of paradise is Ridvan. Guardians of hell is malak or or or angels. Now when we said angels and books, we also are gonna talk a little bit about devils.

Well, this comes up, like, time and time again, and you might wonder how it fits. It’s something we’ve mentioned before, but I wanted to to say that, that Satan or the devil, shatan, whose name is also Iblis, sounds very much like Diabolus in Greek, he was, of the jinn, but he was also of the angels. So when we talk about shaitan, we’ll keep in mind that he’s also of the angels, and this is true of us too. We believe this in Christianity that he was an angel, but he disobeyed and rebelled. So, this is something I wanted to just show you from Bukhary so that you know that I’m not stretching it, that, narrated ibn Abbas.

The prophet said, if any of you, on having a sexual relations with his wife, must say before starting, now the English here is not perfect, in the name of Allah protect us from Satan and protect us protect what you bestow upon us, in other words, that is the coming offspring that that they should have a child, then Satan will never be able to harm that offspring. Where does it come from? It comes right out of Bukhadi 1, page 105, number 143, and also volume 4, page 323. I have this, set of Bukhadi 9 volume set that I bought in Pakistan, which I’m very proud that I have it. Also, I have the the, Muslim set, but you can get it online as well and check it out.

But but this shows, you see, the magical use of, the the the term use of God and and and how to get the victory over the devil. Alright. Now let’s talk a little bit about the Quran because we said we’re gonna talk about, the about the angels and the Quran, and, a little bit more about the books. And when we say books, we mean, the Quran. Though the Muslims do have great veneration, great respect for the bible, in that, you know, almost a almost a biblioetry in a sense because you, have to honor the book.

And I I when I’m with Muslims, I honor the holy books as well, and so, you know, I don’t don’t put them down below and and, but but for Muslims in the Quran, it’s, it’s borders on idolatry. And, how do you defend yourself against evil forces? Well, you use you do so by, you know, use of the book, and so you drink the book and you wear the book and you read the book and you memorize the book. Memorize the book. We thought that this is a good thing.

Well, it is a good thing to memorize holy books, meant to memorize scripture, but why do Muslims put so much emphasis on this? I think one of the reasons is that by memorizing the book and reciting the Quran, you can, work powerful, preventative against Satan, against demons, and on and on and on. It just sort of fits in with the worldview. And, coronopathy is sort of a cure in some Muslim areas for various diseases, and one of them is sometimes used Muslims have the idea that with a certain use of the Quran, you can overcome AIDS, Excuse me. A lot of, we would call them call girls in the in the Muslim world.

For instance, Karachi have AIDS. You know, you wouldn’t think of, would you, of the Muslim world and some of these strict areas like Pakistan, having prostitutes, but they do, And, lots of them, particularly in the big cities, in 1977, 78, the late seventies, when fundamentalist Islam came in, there was, you know, there was a renaissance and things tightened up, got a lot stricter. So, they did shut down a lot of brothels and stuff like that, but nevertheless, they go on under under the, under the eye and, are visited by people who look very, very religious and I have this book, The Dancing Girls of Lahore. This is not Karachi. This is the beautiful city in in the Punjab, but but, this goes on.

It’s quite common and, just sort of, by the way. Now let’s talk about something here. Discussion. Compare Muslim Christian views of Satan, and I believe that’s one of the forums. But, but but, compare Muslim Christian views of angels and angels.

And what are the missiological implications? Well, if we just think a little bit about angels, I’ve already talked about it a little bit, that angels in Christianity, as we know, are quite precious. In other words, they’re guard us they’re they’re guarding us as as believers, and they’re taking care of us, and I’m God that I’m so glad that God has has given them to us, but in Islam, it seems to me that they are often quite fearful and, you know, if you have to use them or try to use them as as, of of of doing intercession and stuff like that, it’s just a different concept of angels. I wanted to show you a book, that I have angels, true stories, what angels do for us, Robert Morgan, who’s one of our graduates and pastoring a church in Tennessee, Free Will Baptist. Great guy.

He wrote a book on angels. He’s written other books as well. Once book he wrote was on the, the Red, Red Sea Rules or something like that. But, you know, he, I gave him a couple stories on angels from Pakistan. One of them was, actually, I didn’t I referred him to somebody, but it was, what, a missionary from Pakistan who lost his keys on the way to he was on his way home, and he was in London.

He lost his keys and, locked him in the back of his car. He had to get to the airport in a hurry. And while he is wondering what to do, he and his wife somebody comes up, opens the the, trunk of the of the, car, the rental where the keys were in the trunk or the boot, and they look around to thank the person, and he’s gone. And they they they said that that is an angel. But the story I wanted to tell you was a Muslim convert and how angels are with Muslim converts, former Muslims.

And, this was somebody I personally knew and respected very, very much. He was loved by many people. His name was mister Qureshi, and we called him the peanut butter man because he made and marketed peanut butter, which is really unusual in the in the, east to made it and marketed it to foreigners. He loved peanut butter, and this is what he did, for a living, and he did made a good living at it. And, you’d look at his hands.

His hands were pretty, you know, they were good hands. In other words, he had worked with his hands. He became a believer and, he was very faithful to the Lord and bold in his witness outside of just outside of, Islamabad in a village there, and, he very boldly, you know, called himself a Christian and even put up on on a notice on the outside of his house. This was the house of the, mister Qureshi, a Christian, which is a pretty brave thing to do. The Muslims were not happy with that in that little village, so they opposed him.

But he was very generous to them and very kind and helped them out, in the, you know, in providing water for them, digging a well and fixing, the roads and stuff like that in this village and building canals and stuff like that, but the Muslims were not happy that he had converted to Christ, called himself a Christian, so they persecuted him and, they tried to bribe him and, so on and on and then turn him back to Islam, but he didn’t. Finally, they decided to burn him out. And so one day, mister Qureshi is sitting in his house in a village up there called Pin sultani Pin sultani. And by the way, there’s a book out, The Peanut Butter Man, that was written by a fellow missionary friend of mine, and it’s a great book if you get a chance to read it, The Peanut Butter Man. But here is mister Kresge, sitting in his house with his family, children, young children, his wife, and he hears this mob and they’re gonna burn him down.

So mister Cresci gathered his family around him and he said, this is it, but take courage. It’ll soon be over and will be with the Lord. And so he tried to comfort them as best he could and calm them as they heard this mob coming, shouting against mister Qureshi and that they were gonna burn down his house and him too. Now all of a sudden, in that roar of a mob, they heard some other voices, a couple of voices, and they didn’t know who they were. And the voices were clear, and they said, hang on.

What are you going to do? Don’t you remember what mister Kurishi has done for you? He built a well for you. He fixed a road for you. He built a canal for you, are you forgetting all that he did for you out of the kindness of his heart?

And he said that the noise of the mob died down, and pretty soon there was total quietness. And they went out, there wasn’t anybody there. And the people in the village said, you know, God protects his followers, Christians, these Christians through angels, and mister Qureshi himself is pretty sure, and his wife and family, that they were protected by angels. And that’s encouraging, isn’t it, when we think of the problems that, Muslim converts have that god does protect them. Praise god for angels.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on God

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on God

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Comparing Ideal and Folk Islam on God during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the comparison of Ideal and Folk Islam on how they understand God and what they share in similarities and differences. 

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

Lesson 6, is has to do with God, comparisons, and I think, this is very, very important, comparing God in Islam and in folk Islam and formal Islam. Was just talking about him last lecture at the end, weren’t we? In other words, talking about, how much we need God and and how much we desire him, not only for security, but for meaning and life and purpose. All of us struggle with that. You struggle with it all of your lives.

We need God and, we need him very, very badly. But, thinking of the relationship, in other words, relation to ideal beliefs, You know, Muslims, in many ways, are seeking God. I I think of, we used to call some people in, Pakistan, some Muslims, we called them, you know, not very many, truly, but some were sort of like Nicodemus. They were seemed to be, seeking God. But I think that Muslims, they they have a desire for God.

They they worship him, if we can use that word in a loose term, unknowingly. In other words, they they they cannot know him within the system of Islam. So when we use the word worship, we’re not using it in any other way but to bow down to him or to acknowledge him, but just like, you know, Jesus used the term when he spoke to the Samaritan woman, he says you worship what you don’t know, and also Paul, remember in Acts 17, he said you have an inscription here to the unknown God, and he used the word worship, so I’m not using the word worship as if it’s knowing God, but, they are bowing down to him and they want to they want to think about him. In fact, they have many ways and means to constantly remind themselves of who of of God, that he exists, that he’s there, far more God conscious than we are in in a sense. In other words, when I’m talking about the West, they put up signs all over the place and the buses and one thing or another about God.

But one thing they do do, is I’m not saying that this is totally folk Islam, but the the, poor people in particular, and I wish I had a blackboard here, to to write on. But if you cup your hands, both of them, you will see a an upside down v, and a one in the left hand, and that’s in Arabic stands for 81. And then in the next one, if you wrinkle up your hands, provided you have wrinkly hands, you in the next one, you will see a one and then another, actually, a a v upside down is 8. So you have 81 and 18, and what does that mean? That stands that’s 99.

So your hands, you see, can remind you of God. And, I think it’s, it’s a sign, really, of of the fact that Muslims want to be thinking about God and they want to mention him. Now it’s true that they mention him in ways that are wrong. In other words, like we talked about last lecture, putting his name up on the foundation or up on the house, or they might say, in the name of God, to ward off evil spirits. As I mentioned before, a man having intercourse with his wife will say bismillah so that the baby doesn’t become a devil, or they might say inshallah, if god wills.

You know, there is truth in that. If god wills, we’ll do this and that and the other thing, but I’m what I’m trying to say is that folk Muslims use these terms in different ways, and when we say folk Muslims, we don’t see we’re not talking about a minority, we’re talking about most of the Muslims in the world. Now, we did mention the 99 names of God and Muslims, by cupping their hands, can remind themselves of that. But one name of God, one of those 99 names of God, Al Qahar, can be used magically to harm others. God’s name can it can compel him to fulfill requests.

In other words, see, the idea of manipulating God, forcing him to do some things, to fulfill requests. Zikr, which is or vikr, whichever you wanna pronounce it, Zikr is, also somewhat magical. You’re you’re naming you know, going over the 99 names of God and, there is some magical thing to it. Amulets, through God’s names are written, for instance, one of the names that women in particular like, one of those 99 names of God women like oftentimes is al Halim, the patient one or the humble one. So in other words, but that al kahar is one that’s used, in other words, perhaps to give harm.

And I could have used I could have, taken you to a scripture verse for that, but I’ll I’ll do wait just a minute. But let’s just think about another couple of things here. Books and sources. A book by the name of Friedlander talks about the 99 names of God. It was written in Lagos, and the use there of of in folk Islam or popular Islam is totally different than the orthodox Muslims who’d want to use it.

This is another book by Friedlander, The Whirling Dervishes, being an account of the Sufi order known as the Mevliz and its founder, the poet and mystic, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. So that’s a pretty long title, but Muslims have their have their sources. Now, thinking too while we’re on the topic here of how the books are used, there is a difference between bibliolatry, which is, worship of the book, and what does bibliomancy mean? Well, it means the same thing in Islam as it does in anything else that, Muslims will use this book, this Quran here. They will use this Quran to, work powerful things on people, such as his names, or they’ll use it to prevent magic and one thing and others.

So there are 2 words there, bibliolatry, which is worship of the book, and I think Muslims, in all for all practical purposes, do worship the book. Some of you, I think, would be aware that right at this moment, another case has come up in Pakistan where a little girl by the name of Rimsha, Rimsha Masih Masih means Christian, In the north of actually, near the capital of of, Islamabad in Pakistan was accused of burning the Koran. What happened was that, she is, as most Christians are, a lot of Christians in Pakistan, sweeper Christians, they do that for profession. She was sweeping up, and somebody said that you swept up certain portions of a religious book that were used to teach religious instruction, and in that book were verses, you know, Koranic, some words from the Quran, and they accused this little illiterate girl. There was first some, suggestion that she was mentally handicapped, which may be true and it might not be true.

It doesn’t make any difference. She was very, very young, perhaps 11, maybe 14, whatever, but definitely illiterate. She wouldn’t have known. She can’t read and write. Most of the people in Pakistan cannot read and write.

Certainly, those Christians up there, sweepers, cannot, and so she was put in prison. It has since then been revealed that the imam himself set people up to it, may even have given false evidence. In any event, Christians in the area were terrified. They fled because homes had been burned, Christian homes. And you see this all this illustrates that Muslims basically worship the book.

Now is that is is that, Orthodox Islam? I don’t think so. I think it’s folk Islam because, bibliolatry is not orthodox Islam. But when people get so wound up, the imam you see in the mosque on a Friday says, you guys, you’re you’re really not good Muslims and he shamed them into action. And so they went out and burned down houses and then the police came in and arrested this poor little girl.

I’ve blogged about it in my blog, ww Larson I’m sorry. Wwwarrenlarson.com, and I’m very upset about this that, even even a little girl is not spared who’s illiterate. So, we realize that that this is this is the way that Muslims treat the Quran. Now I wanted to to read from you, actually, a bit of the Quran here showing that amulets are used with names. And one of the verses from the Quran is Surah 2, 250, 51.

In fact, we’ll probably go back a bit to 249. Samuel Zweymer in his book, The Influence of Animism on Islam, mentions this, And I will, refer to this, but I wanna mention a couple of other things too in here in this passage because, I can’t I can’t resist it. It, it talks here in 249, verse 249 of chapter 2. It says, when Thalutes set forth with the armies, who is to loot? That’s Saul.

Allah will test you at the stream. If any drinks of his water, he goes not with my army: only those who taste not of it go with thee. A mere sip out of the hand is exercised is excused, but they all drank of it except a few. What does this make you think of? Gideon.

Yes. And this is just an example of the anachronisms. In other words, the chrono chronological misfit in the Quran. This is in other words, they’re mixing things up here, bringing in, you know, Goliath and then, Gideon. Gideon is probably at least a 100 years before Saul, but this is because the Koran, in other words, Muhammad himself didn’t have good sources, he didn’t, you know, how does he know the chronological order of things?

He gets a bit here and a bit there and a bit everywhere else. That’s why, by the way, I don’t think that this book here is so you know, I don’t think that Muhammad was necessarily demon possessed. That I don’t accept. I think that he was confused. I think that the that, he was confused and that’s why you have such misappropriation of the facts in the Quran.

Another example of this, of course, is Miriam, with the word for Mary in Arabic, Miriam in the Quran, the same, who’s the mother of Jesus is mixed up with the story of Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses. So that’s a little bit off the topic, but let’s go on. This is the verse that is sometimes used sometimes used for harm against another. 250, when they advanced to meet Goliath, you see it just talks goes on to talk about Goliath, and his forces. They prayed, our Lord, pour out constantly on us and make our steps firm.

And then by all his will they routed them 2 51 and David slew Goliath. So you see it’s a it’s verses of power where David overcomes Goliath. So you can see that, Interestingly here too, the commentary to 8 number 286, note that how the whole story is compressed into a few words as regards narration, but its spiritual lessons are dwelt upon by many points of view. Here he says this, Eusevele, the Old Testament is mainly interested in the narrative, which is full of detail, but says little about the universal truths of which every story is a parable. The Quran assumes the story but tells the parable.

Now this is a pretty weak explanation for mixing up facts and, and really, all of that, but, nevertheless, that’s what he says. So you see, amulets being used with, from the Quran. And then here here is a, a magic square that is used to prevent harm. I’ve never actually seen this myself but read read about it being used in the in the Arabic world Arabic speaking world, where, all of these numbers, anywhere you go, add up to 65. You know, kitty corner or up and down or whatever where you go adds up to 65, and this square is used to prevent harm.

Quite an interesting square, isn’t it, that is used? But but, it is used in parts of the Muslim world. I don’t know whether you’ve experienced it or not, but, it’s not used universally in the Muslim world, but it’s used sometimes. Now another thing to mention here is the use of the rosary. It is used for prayer and and zikr.

In other words, zikr, the the mentioning of God’s names over and over again, and and, you know, it’s good to mention his names, but to mention his names to ward off evil is not a good thing. I could mention here too it’s also used for divination where a practitioner, somebody whose authority would choose one of those little, things there for at random. In other words, a little red thing there by random and then count towards the to the pointer, and, that’s one way that Muslims might be able to divine whether something is true or false, who puts a curse on you, so the the rosary is used for prayer for, zikr, in other words, god’s name, but it’s also used for divination and, for healing. Zweemer Samuel Zweemer says it’s used for, for healing. And I could say just a little bit more about how the rosary is used.

It’s called the I forget what it’s used in Pakistan. I forget the word. But anyway, oftentimes, the holy man or the practitioner would read the Fatiha, which is the first Surah, the first part of the Quran, and he would breathe on it. He would pick a bead and count towards the pointer, and, he might you know, if somebody says, well, did so and so put a curse on me? So he reads the or she reads the and then points counts towards the pointer.

Yes, no, yes, no, and keeps heading towards the pointer. And if you end on, on yes when you’re saying yes, that’s the word. If you end on no, then it’s no. But you might end on maybe. So, I don’t know exactly, how that’s done, but let’s just keep in mind that the that the rosary is used for those purposes.

Now, here’s another thing, and we end with this, that the midwife would use an egg. And, you may not be able to see this clearly, but a midwife, especially in village areas, would take an egg, and she would wrap the egg in the little cloth, and then she would begin to twist the ends, to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. And so she says, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, and keeps tightening it and tightening it and tightening it. And if it breaks when she says boy, then it is a boy. If not, it’s a girl.

I don’t know how accurate this is, and nowadays, I suppose, with ultrasound in many Muslim areas, it’s not used, but let’s keep in mind that these are some of the ways, there are folk practices that are used in Muslim areas, but not just Muslim areas, other areas as well.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Suif Influences on Folk Islam 

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Suif Influences on Folk Islam 

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Sufi Influences on Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the effects from the tradition of Sufism on Folk Islam.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture, Suif Influences on Folk Islam 

Again, more on history, and this time, a little bit more on Sufi influence. I did mention it last time, but I also want to, just begin with a little bit of a story from one of my students. You know, quite a few of our students take these classes, and then they they go out and they work, you know, and they send back some interesting stuff. I find it very interesting and I pray for them, so I’m hoping that, you too will do the same, send back any stories on folk practices to your old professor. It’d be much appreciated.

But one of my students wrote back something that I found very interesting, and he talked, and she talked about, use of the word. In other words, remember we used a couple lectures ago, you know, god be praised or god be thanked, something like that. And these students were out there in one of these places, I think in South Asia somewhere, and they came back home one day from being away for a little while and and their landlord had painted the the house. He’d painted it a purple, and, so they objected or at least they the painting was going on. They said, you know, we really want that house that we’re renting from you to be white rather than purple.

So they they they, were able to get it done in white. But then, the landlord, they say, these students of ours who had taken some Islam, they said that the landlord consented to get it white, but he had the last word on the foundation. Now listen carefully. The color was not the only surprise. The painter had written, Across one of the foundation stones.

When we saw it, we knew we could never paint over it. So, because they said, you know, such an act would be a great insult, Mar Shelah, loosely translated, means God allows it. Such a statement is often found on new houses. It serves several purposes. First of all, it acknowledges God as the source of blessings, and rightly so, but by so doing, such a phrase causes us to remember God as the giver of good gifts.

At the same time, mashallah is can deflect a judgment a judgmental attitude in a guest. If I were to question the appropriateness of something extravagant in my neighborhood’s possession, the fact that God allowed him to have such a thing, like a satellite dish or a luxury car or even a, a beautiful house, should soften any criticism and envy. It is the guard against envy that may be the greatest motivation for these words on your house. A felt need here amongst the number of people is the need to ward off the evil eye. Masha’Allah can do just that.

It can protect the processors of a new house like ours from a potential disaster and from a curse. So they’ll do it even, for, you know, foreigners or missionaries or whoever they are. I’ve seen this myself. One neighbor where I was in Pakistan built a beautiful house, and he it was much higher than houses in the immediate area. What did he do?

He wrote Moshala really up high so that, it would ward off any envy or jealousy. Now, so, we’re gonna talk now about Sufi influences, and, there’s a chart here, and I wanted to point out something about this chart. The main thing in this chart is that Sufi influence goes both ways. Just like fundamentalism goes both ways, you know, into Sunnis and Shiites and everyone else, it goes into both branches of Islam. Now in, in Islam, you have 2 major divisions.

You have the Sunnis, of course, which are the they have the, the lion’s share of of Muslims. 85% of the Muslims in the world are Sunnis. You have Sunnis here, and they have their 4 schools of law, Hanafis, Malaikis, Shaafis, and Hanbalis, and, we had Hanafis in South Asia, specifically Pakistan, but India as well. You have different schools of law in different parts of the Muslim world. The Muslim world is vast, and so, they have 4 schools of law.

In other words, there are some differences on what they’ve decided, like, you know, the punishment that should be given to, for this and that and the other thing. But notice that there’s a broken line here, Ahmadiyyas, that’s broken because they’re a heretical sect, and, you have about 4 4000000 of them in Pakistan. They’re persecuted more than the Christians are. The reason they’re persecuted is because they’re, they say, well, you know, you’re not really Muslims. You call yourself a Muslim, because they had a prophet who came after Muhammad, and that’s terrible blasphemy.

From the schools of law, you have the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamic associations that have come out of that, like the Hamas, not the Hezbollah. They would be come out of the the Shiites. But on this side, of course, you have the Shiites, different brands of Shiites, the Alamites, the Ismailis, the Zaydis, better known as the Twelvers, the Seveners, and the Fivers, and then you have heretical sects there too, such as the Alawites, in Syria, believe it or not. They are really they’re really, heretical. So, I think the point here of the whole, the whole, discussion here is that Islam was spread through Sufi saints primarily.

Now, we were talking in the last slide about, about this Sufi spreading all over the place. In other words, Sufism actually has permeated both sides of Islam. But, you know, it’s quite interesting to think of the fact that Islam has not spread primarily across the 100 and 100 of years through force, through the sword, but rather through Sufi influence. This is true in in Persia or or which is now Iran and Western Asia. It’s true in Central Asia, India, Indonesia, and Africa.

I wanted to tell you a little bit of a story here about, Data Ganj Baksh. When my editor wrote this, she after data, she had a colon as if it was data, but it’s not data. It’s an Urdu word, and it refers to a saint in Pakistan, in Lahore, in that beautiful Mughal city of Lahore. It’s right next to a a mosque that’s the glory of the Punjab for its beauty. It’s the called the Badshahi mosque.

Badshahi means king. So right next to that mosque is a shrine, and it’s Dhat Ganj Basha is the sort of the names given to that Sufi saint. And the reason why he is so popular is because the Muslims say that he spread Islam in that area, just by healing and praying for people and, associating with them. 1 of my friends, went there on a regular basis when he was doing his MA in English. He helped to helped teach my wife me and my wife, Urdu, not English, but Urdu in Pakistan, and he was very good in English.

And he’d taken he’d done his MA in English, And, he was telling me that the reason he passed his MA exams, obviously very stiff, was that that that Sufi saint helped him, Doctor Ganj Bakhsh, because he would go there every every week, when he was doing this MA. And, the saint helped him. So you see, what you have then is, is we’re still talking history and, the, the animistic beliefs and and symbols, were there, ahead of time. And and and, again, it’s it’s it’s I guess, it’s a bit repetitious, but, low Islam has basically adapted beliefs and principles, symbols. High Islam has interpreted the symbols, like the Hajj.

I I what by that, I mean that, and we mentioned this in the last last lecture, that the pilgrimage was there before Mohammed. He took it and he whitewashed it and he and he brought some things into, in fact, he brought a lot of it into into Islam so that you have today, the pilgrimage is one of the 5 pillars of Islam. I have a question here. It’s really one of the forum questions. Are there any Islamic symbols being reinterpreted today?

For example, how do veiled women want to be perceived? Is it working? So, we can you can discuss that in the in the forums, so I won’t go into detail here, but what about other symbols? Are there Islamic symbols being reinterpreted today? Obviously, the beards and burkas are, beards meaning that, you know, when we see beards, we generally think Taliban, but Muslims are trying to get across to us that beards don’t necessarily mean extremism, and I think they’re right, except that if you walk through a, through an airport with a beard today in the western world, you’re probably gonna get pulled over.

And so the Muslims are trying to reinterpret that and and certainly, But there are other symbols too. If you were to Google Islamic symbols, things would might come up like the, the crescent moon. When some people in the West see the crescent moon, I think they mistakenly think that that signifies a moon god, and that’s where it came from. I don’t think that’s true, but they are that’s the impression that they give. So there are quite a few Islamic symbols, and you can maybe think of more, that are are with us.

And, Muslims sometimes are trying to reinterpret them, and on the other hand, sometimes we take their symbols and, try to reinterpret them ourselves. For instance, if you see a Muslim in, you know, in the west west with, his with, you know, his dress on if he if he walks into a church, probably. People are gonna take that symbol and, and they’re going to think extremism, which is not necessarily true. This is just a picture of a shrine, that and there are shrines all over the place, all over the Muslim world. But, this is really what I wanted to, to talk about, in the end and to show the relationship between orthodox Islam.

I have a question there because, you know, we’re not we can’t be too dogmatic in saying what Orthodox Islam is, but we can also see from this chart that there is a type of Sufism that is higher, more noble, if we can say that, than what is generally practiced in folk or popular Islam. What do we mean by that? Well, we mean by that that, in Sufism, there was some there is evidence of some, nobility and love of God, that you don’t always see down here in folk or popular Islam where there are quite a few charlatans, quite a few, people in it for the money writing, you know, blessings out of the Quran and selling them and something like was going on in the Roman Catholic church at the time of of Martin Luther, corruptions that that he reacted against and others did as as well. But but I what I’m trying to say is that there were were periods in the history of Islam when Sufism was more prominent and, also, we can say that that in some cases, there is degeneration or deterioration today, and a lot of stuff goes on in popular Islam that is not the best.

But there is an overlap as I suggested before, and so let’s, keep that in mind. I wanted also to share something with the bible from the bible that I was just thinking about this morning as to why Muslims get into this. And I was thinking of, Psalm 90, and you will know the psalm. It’s the psalm of Moses. And Moses there in that psalm, I think the only one that he wrote, he talks about, you know, the things that that really worry people in in as far as I can see.

I was reading this this morning and I was struck by some of the things he says. He says for example, he says that, you know, our lives are so short. He says that, our days pass away under your wrath. We finish our years with a moan. The length of our days are 70 years or 80, if we have the strength.

Yet the span is but trouble and sorrow. So Moses talks about the brevity of life, and he and I think he also talks about, the fact that our sins are quite obvious. He says, we you you, in verse 8, you’ve set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. So our days are short, our sins are obvious, and, and I I think you could go on to say that not only are our days short, but in many ways, they are, life is is, a bit of a routine, and it is often boring. And so then he goes on to say at the end, of this Psalm 90, he says, satisfy verse 14, satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy, and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as you have seen trouble. So you know what? We need God. We need his presence. We need a personal relationship with him and we struggle with this as human beings, and Muslims do too.

They struggle with all kinds of things, and and so they they, get into counterfeits because of their loneliness, because of their boredom, because of the brevity of their life, often more brief than ours, and so they get into folk practices because of their need for God. You know, when we see these things, it should give us a greater burden for them, not a condemnation, even when we see extremism, a sorrow for them, a grief for them, a burden for them because really they need the Lord just like we do. I remember a song we used to sing, haven’t heard it for many, many years, people need the Lord. So that’s really, what we think of, in reference to Muslims.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Historical Perspectives on Folk Islam 

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Historical Perspectives on Folk Islam 

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on historical perspectives on Folk Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents historical perspectives on Folk Islam’s development, elements, and characteristics.

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson’s Lecture, Historical Perspectives on Folk Islam:

Today, we’re, starting on lecture 4, and, it is unit 1. Let’s just keep that in mind. It’s unit 1 and its, comparisons we’re doing, and, we’re talking, of course, about comparisons between formal Islam or and folk Islam, popular Islam, and orthodox Islam or unorthodox as some people would call it, and so we’re using those various terms. I hope that you are following the notes, the class notes, and, keep in mind that, in the end of those class notes, there’s not only a bibliography, but there is a glossary and you can check there for terms. In fact, the glossary is quite good, as is the, bibliography.

But, this is all unit 1, and we’re doing these comparisons. So, let’s go ahead with lecture 4. And, this one here is has to do with historical perspectives. So what we’re gonna do is we’re going back into before Islam, first of all, and, we’re also including a little bit on Sufism here. The we say I say including Sufism, not that we’re going to spend a whole lot of time on it this time, though I think next lecture, it will be we’ll bring it up again, but later on in the course, I believe, about lecture 24, something like that, we will talk more about the Sufis.

Just wanted to make sure that we understand that Sufism is not the same as folk Islam. There is overlap. There’s no question there. When you read some books, I think one book that doesn’t really make that much of a distinction, between Sufism and, Folk Islam is Phil Parcel’s book. However, we will show a chart at the end, I believe it is, of next lecture showing the overlap and how they, how they compare.

But let’s just think of the fact that before Islam came into being, in other words, before Mohammed was born in 5 70 AD, before that, really, let’s remember that in pre Islamic Arabia, there was a lot of, spirit stuff going on. All kinds of, of folk religion stuff was going on. So, lest we think that, Islam is the only thing that has folk religion in it, but really in in the paganism that was there, there was a lot of, folk practices, in other words, spirits and, one thing or another, and, when Islam came into being, of course, Muslims would say that Islam already always was, that Adam was a Muslim, Moses was a Muslim, Abraham, and so on, but but that’s a misreading of history. Really, Islam was born in the 6th century and then took off, but when Islam came into being, it reacted to the, spiritism and stuff that was going on there in pre Islamic Arabia, but, nevertheless, it, it did embrace it. In other words, it it was colored by it.

Maybe that’s the best term. It was colored by, paganism, and so we we will keep that in mind. But but but before Islam, in other words, before Mohammed, there were all kinds of magical powers. There were demons and witches and, various objects of blessings, if we can call it object of of power sources, and we can use those for bridges. But one of the objects that was there was the black stone.

Now we’re not talking here about a a rock group. If you were to, Google black Stone, it it you you will get information, of course, on that Black Stone that’s right embedded in the Kaaba, But you’ll also, come up come up some other groups too, singing groups, rock groups, I believe, that take on that term. But, the Black Stone is a pretty good example of, and and how it was viewed beforehand, before Islam, and how it’s viewed today to show that the, in pre Islamic Arabia, there was this stuff. The black stone, incidentally, according to tradition, is is a stone that, according to tradition, Islamic tradition, namely, Ibn Ishaq, who wrote the major work on on on Muhammad and on early Islam. Ibnayas Haqq says that the stone fell from heaven.

It was a meteorite. It fell from heaven. It was white, and, it has turned black, as a result of people’s sins. But what happened according to tradition, and notice that we’re repeating that tradition stuff, because, we don’t know whether it was really true or not. But when this thing fell, in other words, the tribes wanted someone in each tribe wanted to have the privilege of putting this in the Kaaba, which was there before Islam and was the place where people gathered in their paganism to worship, and they wanted to include the back black stone in the in the Kaaba, but they were fighting over who would have the privilege of doing it.

And so Mohammed, according to tradition, took a cloth. He laid it down, and then he had someone from, various tribes grab a corner of the cloth. They took it, placed it in, in where it is today, right in the Kaaba, I believe, the northeast corner, if I’m not mistaken. And there it sits today. We’ll see pictures of it later.

Not as good, the ones as I would like because, we weren’t allowed to use them for copyright purposes. But, you will see that, it, it is the really the object of devotion and adoration, and and I can say worship. But then, of course, before Islam, you had the beings as well. That means the the spirits. They were there in force, before Islam, and you had the various rituals.

Good example, again, is, the the pilgrimage, circling encircling the the Kaaba as is done today, 7 times in a, in a as as a counter, counterclockwise, and the ritual was there. Mohammed what did he do? He really picked it up, from paganism, and he whitewashed it a bit, enter in and pulled it into Islam. Mohammed, as we know, was a great contextualizer, wasn’t he, if there ever was one? And I’ve already been talking about the pilgrimage, so won’t say anything more about that.

Even, Umar, who was the, the, 3rd caliph in other words, after Muhammad, there was Ali and then there was yes. It was Ali and and following Ali was Umar. Umar said when he saw that, Muhammad kissed the black stone, that he said, I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for the prophets. So people today do the same thing. They kiss kiss or touch the back black stone, preferably kiss it, if at all possible, and they do it because Mohammed did it.

But it is really an amazing thing to see. Just a word or 2 more about the pilgrimage and the historical perspective. You notice that we’re including Sufism in here. When the Muslims go on their pilgrimage, their Hajj, it’s you’ll notice here that it’s 2 4 to 6 days. They fly into Mecca.

As I mentioned, they they do their circles around the Kaaba, and then they take off, to Mina and then head down to, to the plain of Arafat where they sit for an afternoon and basically, are experiencing God or trying to when they believe God comes down. It’s very if you ever see a movie on the Hajj, the pilgrimage, you will be moved by the emotion and the tears and and the obvious sincerity of people thinking that God has come down and met with them. But, here then then sitting there in the afternoon, and they head back, to Musdalifa and then, to Mina, and there they cast stones, 3, stones at the at the devil represented by the 3 pillars, and that in itself is was there beforehand and then back to Mecca, and that ends the Hajj. But a lot of stuff that goes on during the pilgrimage is, very, very folk in my, sense, and it was done for our purpose right here, before it was it was there before Islam came into being. But but, let’s talk about another popular element that is very, folkish on the Hajj, on the pilgrimage, and that is the Zamzam water.

There is a picture here of of a bottle. It’s possible that some of the bottles look like this, but when I was in Pakistan, they brought back water from Zamzam, and the the Zamzam well is right in here inside of of the, Kaaba. Muslim Hajjis, people are going on a Hajj. They bring back this holy water. There’s this well right there.

It’s called Zamzam, and, tradition has it that Hagar was provided when she ran back and forth between the two pillars, ran back and forth searching for water that God gave, that water, and, today Muslims, when they go over to pilgrimage, on the pilgrimage, they come back with all kinds of of that stuff. And what they I’ve seen them carrying it back to Pakistan is jerry cans, you know, the jerry cans that you use for jeeps. So, I was once, I think it was 1995 when I went over to Pakistan to do my dissertation, having been kicked out, asked to leave in 1991, accused for of spying on the nuclear facilities, which was untrue. But then I went back in 1995 and did some research for my dissertation on Muslim converts and why they convert. And incidentally, I found out that, realized that, which I knew before, but I wanted research that they oftentimes convert, be they ever so few as far as Pakistan is concerned, they convert because they’re getting fed up with the rigorous, unbending nature of fundamentalist Islam.

And, anyway, I was standing there at an airport, one of the largest airports in Pakistan, waiting for my luggage. And down the conveyor belt, I could see all these jerry cans. It was just at the end of the Hajj. And so, the fellow next to me was a Muslim. He’d obviously been working overseas or something like that.

He was embarrassed, and he said, oh, these Muslims. He said, these Muslims. This is not really Islam, but they do this. They bring back that holy water so that they can, take a little of it, rub it on their their kids, aunt or uncle or grandpa or whoever it is, and that’s, the holy water, just something like, we’ve seen in certain branches of Roman Catholicism. Alright.

Another popular element is something that we’ve already referred to and that is, the touching of the black stone. This is a this is a replica. 1 of my students, did this so we could use it without, without getting a copyright permission, but she drew it. I think she did a tremendous job. And what they are doing here, you can’t see it very clearly, but, they’re reaching out to touch that black stone because in touching the black stone is the blessing or kissing it.

And I have one picture, it’s not on the PowerPoint, of somebody actually kissing. He’s putting his head right inside the as far in as he can, the, black stone. It’s encased in a silver sort of a casing. That in itself has evolved over over time, because they’ve it’s been repaired, and now Muslims have put a silver case around it to hold the splinters together, but it’s, you know, it’s not huge. It’s just a few inches wide and a few inches long.

And that black stone is to touch that or to kiss it, better yet, is one of the most important things of the hunch. The problem is if you get, you know, hundreds of thousands of people in that as they walk around that and even though they’re they’re keep they keep moving when they every time they go by, they wanna either touch it or or wave to it. Not the best thing, but, there is a a rush there, a crush of bodies, and so you can get trampled. If you’re old and weak, there is that danger, but that’s what they’re doing. And if the picture was more clear, you would see a woman or 2.

The woman women are not, their dress is not so specific. It’s not so important how they dress, although the men are all dressed in white 2 peat 2 pieces. The women, it’s more free. But women are on Hajj too, and interestingly enough, on that Hajj, the gender barriers break down. You know, men and women, mix quite freely, whereas in normal, Muslim society, that’s not true.

But there they are trying to touch the black stone, and then when they get that blessing, they go home and they will touch their relatives. And they too are supposedly supposed to get the blessing. I missed one there, but it was just another another picture of the black stone, which is a little more clear. Sorry about that. But let’s keep rolling here.

Now we’re gonna talk about Muhammad and the, the in reference to the Quran and the Hadith, and, the word for magic is al sihr, al sihr. And I wanted to, refer to the Quran here, And, a verse in the Quran is chapter 2. It’s 114 soon as here, chapter 2 and 102 just to point out the ambiguity in, in Islam in reference to magic. Now it says in chapter 2, that’s, Al Baqarah, chapter 2 and 102. It says that they followed what the evil ones gave out falsely against the power of Solomon, the blasphemers were not Solomon, but the evil ones, teaching men magic and such things as came down at Babylon to the angels Herut and Marut.

The, it here says of Solomon, the blasphemers are not of Solomon, but the evil ones, and here the word is shayatin in, Arabic, al shah shahateen, which is the devils. I wanted to note you to note something else, that in the footnote 103, the commentator, Yusuf Ali, says this. He says, this is a continuation of the arguments, in 2 101, and he says, the people of the book, Who’s that? Jews and Christians. Instead, of looking to the plain books of revelation.

In other words, he means the books that came before the Quran, the Taurat, the Zebur, Injeel, the books of Moses, in other words, the Psalms and the book of Jesus, instead of looking to that and seeking to do the will of Allah, ran after all sorts of occult knowledge, most of which was false and evil. Many wonderful tales of occult power attributed to the power of Solomon, to magic, but Solomon dealt in no arts of evil. It was the powers of evil that pretended to force the laws of nature and the will of Allah. Such a pretense is plainly blasphemy, and he calls it kufr. Now the thing that I object to is that he refers to people of the book who brought in this occultic stuff, and it’s true that so called Christians have been in involved in the occult, but to blame it on the people of the book as he does, and it doesn’t even mention paganism or pre Islamic culture, which Islam borrowed from.

But I read this, this first part here and then we’ll read a little bit more to show that, Muhammad was conflicted about magic and how to deal with it and so is Islam. It goes on to say, that, and by the way, those 2 angels, Harut and Marut, are are dreadful angels. Such things, without saying, we are only for trial, so do not blaspheme. They learned them from them, and here it shows that, though it speaks against it, yet it recognizes the power, the means to sow discord between man and wife. So in other words, Muslims could easily think from this, and they do.

Oftentimes, if a man’s not getting along with his wife, somebody’s put a curse on them, magic has been thrown on them, and we have to, break that. And, and then it says, but they could not thus harm anyone except by Allah’s permission, and they learned what harmed them. So, that’s, and then, incidentally, there are other references here that you see on the PowerPoint. Magic is referred to in the Hadith. In other words, the sunnah, and 3 then editions are mentioned, Mishkat, which is not one of the canonized, but, Al Bukhari is I guess, I guess, Al Bukhari isn’t mentioned here yet, but mentioned yet later on.

But, it says in the hadith that in in fact, it’s Muslim. That’s what that stands for, not a Muslim, but al Muslim, which should be in italics because it’s a book. That tradition said that, some magic was permitted to counteract the evil eye. Snake and scorpion bites. Now scorpion bites are pretty fearful, if if anything is fearful, but in other words, to overcome or to to to to survive a scorpion bite, a little bit of magic.

And then, as I mentioned before, Bukhari says the same thing, that, it’s generally not allowed, but it’s permitted to counteract yellowness in the eyes or jaundice, you see? And, a Mishkat, again, one of the sets of traditions, says that regarding magic, yes, providing you do not associate with other gods. So, see, that’s the end all. You can do anything, really. You know, you can get involved in magic to counteract something, to throw off a curse or the scorpion bite or something like that, provided you don’t, associate with other gods.

So that tells you quite a bit right there about how Muslims are thinking. And then, lastly, Islam, of course, forbids divination, and, they condemn the Quran condemns it. But I wanted to read a verse to you again out of the Quran. That’s this is in 5, surah 5 and verse 90. By the way, this, chapter for 5 and the one that we just read, this this is some of the last last stuff that was revealed to Mohammed.

Oh, you who believe who’s that? Muslims. Intoxicants and gambling are wrong, and, you know, he’s right, and and and the dedication of stones. And and then he says, divination by arrows are an abomination of Satan’s handiwork. Again, al Shaitan.

Eschew such abomination that you may prosper. Satan’s plan is but to excite enmity and hatred between you with intoxicants. Here, the word for intoxicants is, hamar, which is sort of the same word for yeast in some languages, but it’s quite interesting, and this is a little bit of apologetics here more than it is folk Islam, but, Islam forbids drinking down here on earth, but then you have other verses where, it talks about wine being permissible, permitted, and enjoyed in heaven. I guess it sort of becomes holy. There it’s in some cases, it’s called sharab, which is another word for for wine.

But, up there, there’ll be wine, women, and song. And even though intoxicants and so on are condemned down here, That said, some Muslims do in fact drink, but, theoretically and theologically, they are forbidden, they’re haram, and yet, up in heaven, it is permitted.

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Folk and Ideal Islam

Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Folk and Ideal Islam

Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Comparing Folk and Ideal Islam during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the difference between Folk (Popular) and Ideal Islam and some of its characters. 

  Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Comparing Folk and Ideal Islam:

In lecture number 3, we’re going to be doing more comparisons. You know, we said that there are comparisons between ideal and folk, and then there are differences in how they look at things like God, Satan, the Quran, and all those kind of things. Those are some of some of the differences, so that’s the point of this lecture, comparisons, between folk and formal. That’s what we’re doing this time. High religion is defined like this.

Well, first of all, let’s just look at this. Muslims often present Islam as a religion of principle, and admittedly there is some truth in that. They want to present it as modesty, monotheism, devotion to God, lofty ideals, education, free choice, fasting, piety, and human rights. I think of, someone I just heard about just recently, an imam in Atlanta and arranging a marriage with someone here in Columbia, and very strict as far as the modesty. In other words, his daughter’s rather his son is gonna marry some Muslim woman up here, and extremely strict on modesty.

You know, that’s how they want to come across as we are much more modest than you are, and in a sense, that’s true. They are. And, of course, monotheism, one god stuff, and and devotion to god. It’s it’s all, you know, very pious stuff, lofty ideals, and and all of this kind of stuff. Some Muslims, particularly Muslims who have a chance, are highly educated, and they emphasize education, very sincere, devoted to fasting and piety and all those kind of things.

That’s what we call high religion, but it’s not the end of it. Low religion, is a folk Islam is a catchall for mixing formal, orthodox with animistic practices. And high or ideal Islam is like a shopping mall, where everything is neat, organized, clearly marked. Just think of of our shopping malls. Some of them are more organized than others.

Others don’t seem to be as as as organized, but, nevertheless, that’s high Islam. It’s like a a very neat shopping mall where everything is clear. In folk Islam or popular Islam, it’s like an open market and many of you have been in those kind of things. You’ve seen, that kind of a deal. The streets are crooked and everything is fluid and free flowing, bargaining for this and that and the other thing, and there isn’t seem to be much planning.

The power of Islam may not be in its dogma or even its opposition to the trinity, though that is very clear. But in the oak cult, the headaches, the love potions, the curses, the procession cults, So, that’s something to think about, isn’t it? Because, Islam is into those kind of things. Now let’s be careful and not just accuse Muslims of this kind of thing. I was recently reading of how witches or those suspected to be witches are treated in parts of Africa.

This, in particular, case was Congo, where Christians included are very much into accusing people of being witches, even a child, and so that child may be tortured, because, it’s a they’re afraid that this little person this one is a a witch. Well, Muslims are into this kind of thing as well, and, into love potions, curses, possession cults, very much. Procession cults will be talking about the czar along the Nile later on. But a little bit more on on low religions. Zwemer, back to him.

We’ll be quoting him, talking about him quite a bit in the course. We always do. While Muslims, that’s the way they used to talk about Muslims, they spelled it o m o s l e m s, Muslims, and in some circles, they still do, while Muslims profess to believe in one god and they repeat his glorious incommunicable attributes in their daily worship. They everywhere permit this glorious doctrine to be buried under a mass of pagan superstitions? Borrowed?

Question mark. I’m not sure where they borrow it from, but, he says, from demon worship of the Arabs, Hindu gods, or animistic practices of Malaysia and Central Asia. Now, Samuel Zweymer said that in his book, famous book, really, The Influence of Animism on Islam, pages 7 through 8. And you can go to most universities today, and you can find, that book, The Influence of Animism on Islam by Samuel Zweymer. A good book it is, really, and the fact that it’s still being, you know, still being referred to, is witness to the to the scholarship of Samuel Zwaymer.

You know, when I think of Samuel Zwaymer, I think of a man who combines scholarship with seal. He was a scholar in motion. He just didn’t sit in a chair and, theorize about Islam. He knew a lot, he had a keen mind, but he also had a passion to win them to Christ. Now, we are still talking about low religion and the fact that there has been resistance, resistance to focus on, resistance to this, this, you know, this popular stuff, if you wanna call it, strong denunciations like ibn Aymih, who died in 13/28.

He was of the Hanbalayt School, Hanbalayt School as you have it today in Saudi Arabia and a few other Arab places, Arab countries, that being the strictest of the strict of the 4 schools. There are 4 schools of Islam, also the Muslim world. Where I was in Pakistan, it was Hanafi. That’s strict enough, but the Hanbalites are very strict, and, ibn al Tamiyya came from that school. He spent his life defending Islam against a tidal wave of what he called deviation or bada, and, these Muslims are very strong on this word that there should be no innovation or deviation in Islam, that is orthodox Muslims, and he said who summon sheikhs in time of need.

So in in other words, what he was saying is that when you’re in trouble, when you want to, you know, get the victory over a curse or, an evil spirit or something like that, then you go to a sheikh. And he spent his lifetime denouncing it, fighting against it, and not so sure he succeeded. The dangers of independent judgment, We have here a word called Ijtihad, which comes right out of the Quran, which, you know, you’re you’re not supposed to be making any independent personal judgments on anything. When you think of Islam, think of the fact that, you are supposed to do what you’re told. In other words, you’re not supposed to be evaluating in a on a personal basis, or deciding what’s right and what’s wrong.

And, so he, he argued against this, and and and and Muslims do today too. Don’t really think about it, argue with it, or examine it. Just just accept it and do it. He and others have accused Christians of saint worship, and it’s true. Some Christians have been involved in that.

I remember years ago, even before I went to Pakistan, going into a church in Montreal. You can guess what kind of a church it was. There were the saints all the way all around the the, around the outside, Peter and people like that, in their standing there, and people came in and they would bow to these saints. Well, I’ve often thought of what a Muslim would think when he or she sees that. Of course, they would think that they’re bowing in worship to these images.

The Roman Catholics would say, no. We’re venerating them, but it doesn’t look like that to Muslims. So they accused Christians of saint worship, of pilgrimages, and, and and they spoke of us and they were in strong opposition to astrology and called it haram, in other words, forbidden and horoscopes. Ibn Ahamiyyah has written an article against the jinn, which is the spirits, of course. But when you come to think of it, you know, the Quran is full of the jinn.

What I mean by that is it talks about them all the time and much more considering the size of the Quran, much more about the spirits and and than the Quran than the Bible does, so you really can’t pull it out of the Quran. It’s in there. Now, specifically, when we think of comparisons between folk and ideal Islam, let’s think about the names of God. His book, his names and his attributes are used as amulets against demons and jinn or as a fetish. You know, you can look at verses in the Quran like chapter 2 and 152.

The Quran has a 114 chapters in it, but, Muslims use words like this. To what? To fight against, or resist, curses, bad luck, these are names of god. Marsha Allah, you know, god did it, or give him the praise or something like that, and Bismillah, in the name of god, or and Insha’Allah. God will, if God wills.

Zikr is the repetition of his name. Well, Muslims use these terms. Let me give you an example. Bismillah, this word here, in the name of God. Muslims, a real good Muslim, would repeat this name even, when he’s having a physical relationship with his wife.

Bismillah, he would say, to, make sure that the child, if there is one, as a result of this union, does not become a devil. So you see the repeating the names of God or these special words, Insha’Allah, Mashallah, Bismillah, These are words that are really powerful words. They’re the names, that are are gods, really of God, but they’re used as amulets against the demons or they’re written, in written form to use as protection against, but, another thing is if you’re following along in your class notes, which I hope you are, the places of prayer. How do they compare folk and ideal? Well, places of prayer, we know that in reference to orthodox Muslims, the place of prayer is a mosque.

For folk Muslims, the place of prayer is really the shrine. What does that mean? It means that Muslims go to the shrine to make their requests. What is a shrine? A shrine is really, a peer’s place, a saint’s place, either dead or alive.

His tomb is there, but Muslims will go to that place to pray. In other words, to request make some special request for help to get rid of an evil spirit, to get rid of a sore back, arthritic back, or, some kind of paralysis for their son. So you see, the places of prayer are different. Now the interesting thing is is that, many Muslims go to the mosque on Friday. But where do they go on Thursday?

To the shrine. It’s not like they’re one or the other, that they’re both. In the mosque, they would say their prayers on Friday because that’s what you do on Friday is say your prayers if you’re any type of Muslim at all, other than Muslims in Central Asia who don’t seem to be very, pious, but you go to the mosque on Friday, and Thursday, you go to the saints’ tomb, be that ever so simple or, elaborate. Now what about written authority? Well, for Orthodox Muslims, the written authority is the Koran.

Of course it is. The Koran is everything. The Koran is in itself almost worshiped because of its importance. People memorize it. Heard of somebody claiming the other day that his little 6 year old son hadn’t memorized the entire Quran.

I don’t think it’s possible, that you could memorize it by age 6, but I do know of people who have memorized it by age 10 or 12, the entire Quran, which is about 2 thirds the size of the New Testament, to do that in a language particularly not your own, in other words, not you’re not Arabic speaking person, to memorize that when your mother tongue is Urdu or Farsi or something like that is no small feat. But, for an Orthodox Muslim, the written authority is the Quran. What about folk Muslims? Well, they would use the Quran but in a different way, particularly certain chapters, namely, suitors 113 and 114 are powerful protection against spirits, And those 2 short chapters, later on in the course, we’ll talk about the context of how they were revealed, but those 2 surahs were, given revealed to Muhammad in the context of a curse that was put upon him. What about the practitioners?

Well, in folk in formal Islam, the practitioners, in other words, the people who call the shots, are, you know, are the, those who know Arabic, they’ve memorized the Quran, they are teachers of the Quran, they are people who call give the call to prayer in the mosques, it may be a little mosque or big knot mosque. Their authorities in the Quran and the traditions, the the sunnah, the sunnah of the prophet. They are often known by their beards. You know, when a Muslim at least it was true where I was. When they defined a beard, they always held their hand down like this, to show the length of the beard.

The more the pie the more pious, the longer the length of his beard. So practitioners in formal Islam would generally be having a beard, but you know what? You can’t always tell, because even some of these Taliban, though they claim to be orthodox, they have long beards, and yet many of them are into folk practices. But in specifically in the practices practitioners, sorry, in folk Islam, the people who write the prayers, the people who put curses on people or protect, you know, from curses and so on and on and on, or saints. They are different than the practitioners in in formal Islam.

Women too, by the way, are pretty much practitioners in folk Islam. You know Islam, orthodox or formal Islam has pretty sort of held women down. In other words, put them down, kept them there out of leadership, but in popular Islam, folk Islam, they have found their own way, and they have places of leadership or power, what I should say, in the things that they do. So that’s, it’s really women are in there. Now what about training?

Well, in training for formal Islam, like I mentioned, was, you know, Arabic, learning the Quran by heart and had the traditions, the sunnah or the hadith. That’s the training, of course. But the training for the folk practitioners or leaders would be spending time with a mentor, learning how to how to do it, how to write the prayers, and if you’re really into the serious stuff, how to do sorcery, but that’s not all of the Muslim world. And so the training is different. And what about the authority of the practitioners?

Well, it varies. It really does vary. I believe it’s Musk who has a continuum where the power, in other words, does increase, but but but many times when you look at the, the practitioners, they overlap. In other words, especially in the villages, someone who, plays the role of a formal Islam, yet in the village, he also does the one who writes the prayers. So, the authority of the practitioners varies.

Now here are some comparisons between, folk Islam, popular Islam, and formal Islam. Now the we’ve put them side by side so that you can see. The just look right across and see the comparisons. Now in folk or popular Islam, as we keep reminding you and keep using this term, the, there is this heartfelt emotional stuff. In other words, when you really are afraid, then what do you do?

Then you appeal to this. Whereas formal Islam is more interested in truth or the cognitive stuff, you know, the head versus the heart. Folk Islam is a bit mystical. In fact, it’s very mystical opposed to the legalistic stuff. In folk Islam, there are concerns, health, guidance, success, prosperity, and fear, always, always, always.

These are the things that you really want to, you know, you you are concerned about. Health. Who wouldn’t be? Well, what do you do for good health? What do you do for guidance?

What do you do to make sure that you don’t have an accident with your truck or one thing or another? Whereas in formal Islam, there is an emphasis on the origins. In other words, God the creator, heaven, hell, purpose, judgment. These are more the issues. Here, it’s power in spiritual revelation.

In other words, sort of like god spoke to me or, I have this special, anointing and, and, so I can bless people and my saliva is will will do the trick and so on. Here, it’s the Quran and sacred traditions, as I’ve mentioned. This is inspirational, more off the cuff, more, free and flow feeling where this is institutional, beautiful mosques being built all over the world. It’s certainly institution. This is manipulative.

How can we use God? And also, I think, you know, sort of hold back Satan and his spirits. Here, there is supplicative supplication, really is the word, but not totally. So these terms are used. Now, we’ve already talked a little bit about about, this comparing folk and form of ideal Islam, and this chart here, for your information, talks about how animism tries to speak to these fears, and then it also is helpful in looking at Christian answers.

In Folk Islam, the felt needs, of course, are fear of the unknown, and here, there’s sort of a continuum where a lot of Muslims would be probably not, to the left, in other words, which would be extreme, but they would most Muslims would have, you know, something to do with fetishes, talismans, and charms, Certainly, superstition, they would be into that. So I I I guess what we’re saying is that there is the the middle here, but but but not always the extreme that you have on the left side. In the Christian answer, of course, is our securities in Christ who guides, keeps us. Here, you have fear of evil. Second one on the in the chart, extremism is sorcery of witchcraft.

There is incidence of this, more, I think, in Africa than some in the Middle East, But amulets, Muslims are into this. They certainly do this. They tie knots for our prayer request. They use amulets on the wrists of their children and one thing or another. There is exorcism, and that is quite common.

We do exorcism in Christianity too and we do it in the name of Christ. We do deal with it, We can’t ignore it, and, it’s more common than you think. Fear of the future. Angel worship is not all that common, but, certainly, divination is and spells. Islam, Muslims are fatalistic, and there is fanaticism.

We trust in Christ. We try to, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who’s Lord of the future, but it isn’t easy for us, is it? In other words, we too worry about the future. What’s gonna happen to me? How am I going to be to be protected and fulfilled?

I mean, what’s old age gonna be like? Will, I have medical? And things like this. Well, we trust Christ, and we do the best we can through God’s power, shame if not in the group or shame even if you’re in the group, magic is very common, curses are blessings, Nail hair trimmings, this is very common, not to allow your hair to be cut by an enemy or not to give anybody a chance to put a curse on your nail trimmings or your hair. Here, Baraka, saints, angels, petitioning, this is all very common.

Another one is powerlessness of the individual against evil. You cannot stand against it on your own, so you need the help of saints or, in other words, peers, and you have these familiar spirits in Islam, we’ll be talking about those later on, basically the is one word for it, and you have the power of the Holy Spirit. Would that we, as Christians, were more dependent and, full of the holy spirit and his power. Life has no meaning, purposelessness. Does that sound familiar?

It does, in the west, and, it certainly is in Islam as well, but maybe not as much. Sickness, so common in the Muslim world, especially with the lack of medical stuff, and then, divine healing, which we have in Christianity.