The Worldwide Strategy of Islam
By: Abdel-Massih
In his last years, Mohammed declared that Islam was revealed not only for the Arabic-speaking Bedouins but for the whole world, with the aim of bringing the peace of Allah upon all. Seven years after the Hijra, he sent letters to the kings and rulers in Alexandria, Abyssinia, Constantinople (Byzantium), Persia, and various parts of the Arabian peninsula. He challenged them to accept Islam officially and surrender to Allah, the true and only god.
Nearly all the envoys of Mohammed were killed or imprisoned. Of all the rulers contacted, only the governor of Alexandria sided with Mohammed and sent him two Christian slave girls. Mohammed married one of them, Miriam. In Median, she gave birth to Ibrahim, the only son born to him there.
When the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran urged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze to believe in Allah and surrender to Islam, he did nothing extraordinary. He merely followed in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammed. He offered to cooperate with them in fighting the West -- but only if they would become Muslims.
During Mohammed's last days, he commanded a group of his followers to fight against Byzantium, the eastern half of the Roman Empire. In AD 630, the Muslims were severely beaten at Muta Al-Balka in eastern Jordan, but this defeat did not remain a setback for them. It made them more determined to prove that Islam can surmount obstacles. When Mohammed died in AD 632, he had completed the principles of Islam, including the law of Holy War which became an indispensable part of the Sharia. This law was a powerful force behind the spread of Islam.
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When Mohammed died, there were two top generals among his followers: Khaled Ben Walid and Amr B. As. They inspired their armies and thrust northward, absorbing Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, long the leading centers of Christianity. In only one hundred years, the Muslims conquered all of North Africa, penetrated Spain, swept through the Middle East, entered into Persia, pushed toward Northwest India, and settled finally in the southern Russian steppe. The key Christian cities, the cradle of the Church, and many of the Christianized areas of Byzantium were lost to Islam. This was the greatest catastrophe that Christendom ever experienced! Who recognizes or even remembers this fact?
How devastating it is to think that many Christians welcomed Islam as a savior from the yoke of their leaders and churches. The invasion of Islam appeared to them as a lesser evil, owing to the deep divisions, doctrinal disputes, and bitter rivalries which had fragmented the churches of the Middle East in the centuries before Mohammed.
The Muslim invaders promised their Christian subjects religious freedom and privileges, if they would cut all ties with their former Christian rulers. Little did these conquered ones realize that they were to exchange a moderate yoke for an unbearable one -- one which has been suppressing them for over thirteen hundred years. Omar arranged and dictated a legal agreement for the Christians of Syria (ca. AD 635) obliging them to sign. This "contract" fixed their subjection in a detailed and pragmatic way:
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate:
This is a letter which we, the Christians of Syria, are directing to you, Omar Ben Khattab, O prince of believers. When you arrived in our country, we asked you to protect our lives as well as those of our family members and brothers in the faith. We requested you furthermore to guard our properties.
(In return for these services), we pledge to build neither churches nor monasteries; neither to restore weak structures nor to repair those in areas where Muslims reside.
We have committed ourselves to welcome Muslim travelers and passers-by as guests in our homes and to host them for at least three days.
We declare our obligation to hide no spies or foreign envoys in our churches of monasteries, nor to withhold information from Muslims which could endanger their welfare.
We promise to provide no Qur'anic instruction for our children, that is, to give them none of our own opinions regarding the Qur'an.
We vow neither to conduct our religious body from following Islam, if that is his wish.
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It will be our duty to treat Muslims kindly and to stand when they sit. We consent neither to imitate them by dress or speech (that is, by their particular idioms) nor to call ourselves of our children by their names. We affirm neither to saddle our riding animals nor to bear arms.
We shall neither allow Arabic letters to be imprinted in our stamp nor deal in alcoholic beverages. We consent to have the front part of our hair cut and to display neither our books nor Crosses in Islamic areas.
In most cases, the Muslims did not force Jews and Christians to surrender to Islam. But if they chose to remain faithful to their beliefs, they had to pay a heavy, dishonorable tax. For many of them, an old saying came true: "Faith stops at the purse!" The majority of Christians in North Africa, Syria, and Mesopotamia became Muslims legally, but hoped to remain Christians secretly, to avoid the heavy taxation. However, their children became Muslims fully and automatically.
Muslims conquered Christian states not only with the sword but also with their Book. The Qur'an and the Arabic language infiltrated, changed, and reshaped the Christian culture and society of the Middle East.
Islam overcame an area larger than Europe and more extensive than the United States -- and that at a time when no European state yet existed! In their victorious campaigns, the Muslims encountered different cultures and religions. These they did not wipe out. Instead, they accommodated themselves to local situations as much as possible and accepted many elements found therein, weaving them into their law. The conquered peoples who accepted Islam were allowed to retain many of their own practices and were granted limited authority. Thus, the Sharia is not based only on the Qur'an and Hadeeth but also on the Adat, the customs of conquered nations which do not directly contradict Islam.
A limited tolerance was extended toward the People of the Book who were permitted to continue living in their communities according to their faith in restricted areas, as long as they paid a discriminatory tax through their bishop or religious ruler. The ecclesiastical leader had to collect the amount and deliver it to the Muslim government. Through this restriction, the People of the Book became exploited citizens in the Islamic empires. The religious function of their leaders was automatically interwoven with political authority. As a result, the bishops were forced to administer legal affairs within their respective denominations, acting as churchmen and statesmen simultaneously.
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A policy of mercilessness was directed toward the heathen, animists, idol worshippers, and adherents of primal religions -- toward those who would not surrender to Islam. These had only two choices: to accept Islam or be killed. Eventually, the Muslims noticed that the extermination of thousands of pagans was a bloody and useless enterprise, so they decided to sell them as slaves for profit. In bondage, these slaves were to experience a daily dying, in contrast to the quick deathblow they would have received by the sword.
According to the Sharia, Muslims are allowed to enslave, own, and sell human beings. Although this legal right is not generally enforced today, owing to influences from Western colonialism, it is still found operating in several countries on the Arabian peninsula.
Many Western countries strengthened Islam in North Africa and the Middle East by purchasing slaves from Muslims in earlier times. Black Africans were sold to slave owners in America, and through this practice, Christians subsidized the Muslim armies who dealt in human cargo. We Christians in the West need to repent over this sin which has had global consequences.
Even today, Western engineers and doctors are being "bought" to rebuild Islam with lavish salaries offered by Muslim countries. In some of the Gulf states, foreign workers have to relinquish their passports to their employers upon arrival and are not allowed to leave, unless granted permission. These conditions indicated a "vocational enslavement" of thousands of skilled workers from all continents in our day.
Muslims, have divided the world into two sectors: Dar-al-Islam, "The House of Islam," and Dar-al-Harb, "The House of War." The only countries considered to be at peace are those in which the Sharia reigns. But in those lands where Muslims dwell as minorities, or where the constitution is not based mainly on the Qur'an, the internal and external matters of state are regarded as highly conducive to revolution. Indeed, such countries are viewed as war zones.
Muslims are not permitted to make peace with a non-Muslim country until its inhabitants surrender to Islam. They can agree to a cease-fire for a longer period of time, but never to peace! The late Anwar Sadat of Egypt, compelled by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to a partial peace-treaty with Israel, paid the price with his life for agreeing to such an "unhallowed pact."
The Arabic word for peace is Salam, and the word Islam is the active form for this term. Thus, Islam views itself as a "peace-making force" using weaponry, intrigue, commerce, and every possible mean to secure its goal. According to Islam, true peace can only exist where the Sharia rules and controls all matters of state.
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