Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 1)
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the differences between ideal and folk Islam in terms of their worldviews and beliefs.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Ideal vs. Folk Islam on Worldview (Pt. 1).
In lecture number 12, comparisons worldview, I want to just back up for just a minute. I had intended to talk to you a little bit in the last lecture about some experiences I had with a, peers or saints in Pakistan. And in one particular, case, just about 20, 25 miles from where we lived in south central Pakistan, there was a pier, a saint, and every year at that saint’s place, they celebrated his what they called an Urs or his birth his death date, actually, and it was April, as I remember, 12, 13, 14, 15, 3, 4 days there, right in there where they celebrated his his death day and so people would come from far and wide. It was a name a place called Saky Sarwar, s a k y, and then another word, Sarwar, s a r w a r. We would go, I would go, not to see the peer or the saint, but to sell literature.
It was a great chance to, you know, to get rid of literature and talk about Jesus and one thing and another. I used to have a loud speaker rigged up on my jeep and some literature there and I would get a chance to talk to Muslims. Some of them probably, you know, were not probably. Many of them were illiterate, and they would be wearing these, turbans. And so, had the loud speakers because there was a lot of competition, lots of noise and stuff, and, so I would, you know, tell them about the, you know, the holy, Injilim of Jesus and I can still remember years years ago that some of these people, these tribal guys would come right up and they’d you know, in order to hear you and and listen to you, they’d come up and they would their face would be right right in front of you.
And as you told them about Jesus and about, you know, his book and his who he was, Some of them had never, never, never heard about him. So, but what I wanted to mention was that, and this is this is on your class notes on page 11. That’s why I wanna, refer to it. But I, I did wanna mention that people would come, to, you know, make the request to this pier. I can remember, one woman who prayed for a son, she didn’t have a couldn’t have a son, couldn’t have a son.
Finally, through the auspices of that pier, she had a son, and they named him Pir Baksh, in other words, given of the peer. Others would name their sons Chodabaksh, given by God, and it’s very common, or some might name him Muhammad Baksh, given by Muhammad. So, but anyway, interesting things went on at this fair. It was a religious fair, as I mentioned, you know, remembering this saint, this peer, but all kinds of other people showed up too including prostitutes. And they would, would, carry on at this religious fair openly.
And there would also be places where men would be dressed up as women and dancing on huge platforms in the most sensual way that you could imagine. And also these, these, fellows, they had these huge bowls, you know, where they put a motorcycle in and the guy would round and around and round, and and he’d wonder how in the world he didn’t kill himself. But I I just wanted to mention that the the peers, the saints, and my personal experience, these are all over the country of Pakistan and other places as well. And a good place, really, a good opportunity to, you know, to, give a witness, as as best you can because that’s where the people are. Now let’s talk about comparison’s worldview, which is the title of lecture 12.
And here we’re talking about beings and we’re talking about power and space grid, but I I wanted to, to mention, the fact that the beings in other words, some of the things here that, you know, of course, the beings of Allah, the archangels angels. We already talked about this, the devils. But then there’s the jinn, the karena, which is this this is this jinn who is born at your the same time you are and is, with you for your life, and, is a bit of a, well, I guess, a blessing and a curse. In other words, you get some use out of this karena, but then also some problems. Another one is a czar, and, and so on.
Then you have the wallis, holy men, saints, prophets. I’ve already talked to you a little bit about that saint close to where I lived. So you have these on the ends, but you have this in the middle. So, you have the power, which is in this world, and we’ve talked about somewhat talked about braca, magic. Zikr is where you repeat God’s name over and over again, and various and other, powers that be, amulets, and these, of course, are unseen.
Now Paul Hiebert, the well known, anthropologist who taught at Fuller for many years and then, taught at Trinity Divinity School, talked about the flaw of the excluded middle And when he was talking about the flaw of the excluded middle, he was talking about western western views. He was talking about, not only the the secular world and there was a non Christian, but Christians too. He said basically, we have left this out. Left this out. We we deny it.
In other words, oftentimes, think that, you know, that no spirits and stuff like that, we just we just ignore it. We think it’s all, nonsense. He says that that’s not true and we should, give some consideration that, to to, to this. And I remember too others who have pointed out the same thing. For instance, Christians in Africa are much more able and willing to to get their mind around this kind of stuff than we are.
So, let’s keep that in mind. Now, one of the questions in fact, this is one of the questions on the forums is, the implications of what Paul Hebert has said. So I’m not going to discuss it here, but I want you to be thinking about it and then respond. For instance, you know, the implications, I think that it’s possible to be, to go both ways too. You you’re in total denial or, all you think about is the devil and what he’s up to and the demons and one thing or another.
I think there are Christians, really, in both, categories, that so we need to think about the implications of this. But I I I’ll leave that to the forum and, won’t talk about it anymore right now. Now next thing on the on the list here are space grids. What’s space grids? Well, space grids is the idea that, that in certain places, the demons are very, very active.
So we have to watch out for them. And this is a, a little amulet here. It’s called the triangle of al Ghazali, the greatest, perhaps, theologian that Islam has ever come up with, who died in 11/11. He was the one who married Sufism with orthodox Islam and, you know, he was half Sufi himself. So, they have this the triangle of Al Ghazali.
Never seen this in Pakistan, but I believe in the Arabic speaking world, it is a a, an amulet that is used to, help out in these difficult places. Now, this sometimes is placed beneath a woman to give an easy delivery. In other words, our it’s a very difficult time And, so place this underneath the pillow and, the woman will will it will help in the birth. Now the idea here is, as you can see, letters have numerical value and, often, you know, and a letter has a numerical value and so that’s how they figure this out and, the numbers mean something. Odd numbers, by the way, are used for stones to cleanse yourself.
In other words, when you go to the bathroom, you pick out a certain number of stones, always an odd number of stones, use your left hand, this is Muslim talking. They don’t believe in toilet paper, but they do use water. They also use stones, some of them. But I think something that we can relate to more easily is if we watch a movie on the pilgrimage, when Muslims pick up stones to throw at the devil and those three pillars that represent the devil, what do they do? They’re supposed to pick out an odd number of stones, I think 47 or whatever it is.
It’s not quite clear sometimes how many, but it’s supposed to be odd. Now Muslims may not always understand or be able to explain to you, but that’s the truth, and it’s because of the space. Odd numbers protect in dangerous places. So, I am going to be talking a little bit here more about the dangerous places in a minute. But they would protect you odd numbers, especially number 5, protect you from the jinn and from the evil eye.
I can remember, in my ignorance, preaching sometimes and holding up, you know, my hand like this, number 5, when I was preaching. Well, I was soon informed that that was not the way to do it because this really number holding this here, is the way that you, hold off or, you know, prevent a curse. So what I was doing, I guess, was could have been interpreted as you guys are putting a curse on me and I’m protecting you from the evil curse. You see, there are 5 fingers here. If I lost a finger, I suppose I could get away with it, but, and, yes, numbers, numbers, numbers are are used a lot in in space.
Now another thing that, Muslims sometimes will talk to you about is the fact that, that woman is from the left side, created from the left side, and that’s really the evil side of a person. That’s really the negative side. That’s the side of, well, subject to temptation and vulnerability, and so women have to be protected. They are more vulnerable to to to temptation, and so they you need to they need to protect protected and, unless they unless they fall and get into trouble. So, that’s one of the reasons too why that they’re not, so welcome in in worship.
Muslims sometimes would say, and we had the saying where I was, that wherever a man and a woman are together, Satan is there in their midst. He’s there in that space. Another illustration I thought of was, in Pakistan. I had a friend, a young friend who died. He was, he wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t from the well accepted, sect.
It was the Ahmadiyy. There are probably about 4,000,000 Ahmadi’s or Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, and they have been relegated to to, the status of non Muslim because they believe that a prophet came after Mohammed, and so they’re not very popular. They’ve been persecuted a great deal, in some ways persecuted more than Christians, or Hindus. But I remember, one young man was taking a bible correspondence course, an Amadee, just a young young man, he was from an Amadee family and, for some reason, he died. He got sick and he died and so his father came to me and, you know, he was very glad that, we had befriended him and he was taking bible correspondence course.
And so the father said, You know what, I want you to come with me and we’re going to go and see where the boy is buried. So I said fine, go out there and see the grave. We drove out in the village and drove for quite a while in my old Land Rover, and then we got there, parked the Land Rover, and where do you think the boy was buried? He was buried right next to the saint because if you’re buried next to the saint, the father and I guess the rest of the family thought that this would help to guarantee him to, a place in paradise. Now I don’t know if the boy ever understood the gospel.
I do know that he took a Bible correspondence course or 2, and I don’t know if he ever really came to faith, but I do remember that the father took me out there and showed me where this boy was buried right next door. It was a beautiful little enclosure with a pierce tomb, the saints’ tomb was inside, and right next door, they had buried the boy. I’m sure it cost him a a lot of money to do that, but that’s where he was buried, with the hopes that he would be this would help his entrance into paradise. Another thing in regard to space is that space around Mecca is haram, and that that word haram is an interesting word. It is, a double meaning word.
It means, you know, in one sense, it’s it’s holy, but it’s also the word that’s used for forbidden. In other words, certain sins, like adultery and so on are haram. Eating pygmyk is haram haram, but the space around Mecca is dangerous space, powerful space, and so powerful that Muslims are sometimes afraid to look up even at the at the Mecca from a at the, cover from a distance because it’s so powerful. So, that space is, is powerful space. But I wanted to also point out the fact that there are areas where the demons and I I didn’t mean to suggest that the demons were thick, around around in Mecca.
That’s not what I was saying. But I would say that there are special places like the latrines. You know, latrine is where people go to the bathroom. Marshes, wells, rivers, garbage dumps, kilns, where you make the bricks, trees, so on, certain trees, where they are believed to be spirit infested. In other words, the jinn are are there.
So what do you do when you go into the latrine? This is what they call I guess it’s an old British term. It’s the term we used in Pakistan. Well, you say Bismillah, in the name of God, when you go through the door. One thing you don’t do in the latrine is talk to anybody.
I mean, you know, in these public latrines, I remember being in a carocci in a public latrine, you don’t talk to anybody. I remember talking to somebody a little bit in the latrine, turned out that he was an imam, a mullah, you know, with a long beard and he quickly informed me that this was not the place to talk and I found out later that the main reason is that jinn inhabit these places. So watch your step when you’re in the latrine or garbage dumps, kilns, trees, and so on. So, yeah, you know, space thinking, I have thought of this a little bit. I don’t know what the significance of it is, but, Jesus is at the right hand of God, isn’t he?
Not at the left hand, and, and he said one time that, you know, separate the sheep from the goats, the sheep on the right hand, the goats on the left hand. So, what am I saying? I’m saying that, there is some scriptural significance to to space. I’m not saying anything spiritual or spooky or mystical about this, but I, I am saying that, maybe we could use this too in our missiological application. I don’t know to what extent we can apply it though.
We have to be careful. Prayer walking, I don’t really believe that you can prayer walk and put the demons on the run by walking around the mosque, but, you know, Muslims don’t always look favorably on that when, young people come out and hold up their hands and walk around the mosque with their hands held up. I don’t think we have to do that, but we do do need to have an understanding of Muslim thinking and worldview when we do some of these things. What about, demons and objects? In other words, can can a demon inhabit a an object, an animal?
I think that, it’s possible, but I I don’t want to get so afraid of some little artifact or something that I think it’s going to be demon possessed, so I I wanna be careful about that. We need to, to I think one missiological application here is that we need to think in terms of various things when we preach and witness in this kind of a context. One is truth which we know about. In other words, we we do preach the truth. We we’re strong on that in the western world, you know.
That’s that’s that’s true. We we want the truth, and notice the truth is here at the center. Rick Love, who wrote the book, Muslims Muslims and the and the, Muslims Magic and the Kingdom of God, worked in Indonesia. He uses certain verses and, we just wanna make note of them. Colossians, of course, we’ve already referred to, but, the, you know, the work of Christ and his his his power, what all he he did in, Colossians, 112 through, through, 13.
He has rescued us, verse 13, from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom have redemption the forgiveness of sins. So that’s Colossians. And then, first Peter 3, 322, I’ll read that as well, And that says that, who has gone into heaven and is at god’s right hand with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him. But Rick Love uses these kind of verses in his book if you ever get a chance to read that book. But, back to this topic here of of truth, remember that we need to talk about some other things as well when we witness to Muslims and when we preach in Muslim contexts.
We need to understand the power element, and, oftentimes, I think that Muslim folk Muslims are struggling with this issue, more than in anything else. And then the the issue of allegiance. To whom are they going to give their allegiance? And I think you can you can look at Jesus and some of the things he did, for instance, when he talked to the woman of Samaria in John 4. I think he deals with all of these topics and more in his discussion with her.
He doesn’t just, you know, say I am the way, the truth, and the life, which is the truth, of course, but, he deals with other things as well and we need to think of of various things, in, you know, these issues as well when we’re witnessing to Muslims. These are encounters, if you were, that we need to cover in our work and our witness to Muslims.