Glad to see so many people have gathered from out of state to watch me teach Sunday school. So this is very close to the beginning, for those of you who were not with us last week. Very close to the beginning of a series that began last week, looking at different world religions. And the goal being sort of twofold. Firstly, just the obvious of preparing us for apologetic encounters with those who have other religions, who hold to Again, just the many, many different religions that you may encounter. And then secondly, somewhat less obviously, the goal being to appreciate the truth and beauty of true religion by seeing what, just by comparison with false, false religion. So with both of those goals in mind, last week we considered Islam, began looking at first of all the scriptures, of Islam, of course the primary scripture being the Quran. We talked about the revelation to Muhammad, or revelation, for a period of about 22 years, starting in the Arabian city of Mecca. Then he flees Mecca, goes to Medina, and over that period he has these series of revelations which are orally delivered. They are remembered, recorded by his followers, both just through oral repetition and then through writing down, basically, on whatever's handy. And they have this sort of amorphous mass of revelation, which was referred to even then, collectively, as the Quran. And then he dies. It gets compiled into the written form we have today. So we talked about that and then also looked at the Hadith, the very important, not inspired to a Muslim, but authoritative, records of the doings and sayings of Muhammad, which are very significant, fleshing out the Muslims' understanding of how to live and what to believe. So we looked at that, and then we started to consider the nature of Allah for the Muslim, a very significant element of Islam. Of course, the famous creed of Islam begins with the proposition that there is no god but Allah. That was the central message. That was really the message with which Muhammad began. We see his message develop over time through history, and he starts with just a sort of a shout against the polytheism that was rampant in Mecca. It was a profoundly polytheistic culture, and he was apparently just troubled by the amorality, by the polytheism that he observed, that he experienced. So he starts with just sort of this shout for monotheism against polytheism, and then develops develops his doctrine from that starting point. So we looked last week again at the absolute monotheism of Islam, which makes them believe the Trinity, believe any belief in a divine Jesus, is polytheism. They would say that Christians are sort of closet polytheists. In fact, typically if you talk to a Muslim who has received education in other religions, their perspective of us is that we really want to be polytheists, We really want to believe in three gods, but we know enough through our corrupted revelation. They would say the Bible and the Jewish scriptures are true originally, but then were corrupted over time. So we have enough truth that we realize, oh, we can't say there's multiple gods, but we really want Jesus to be God, and we really want the Father to be God, and we really want the Holy Spirit to be God. So we come up with this sort of patchwork solution of the Trinity. So we would view that as essentially de facto polytheism. So we looked at that initial, again, absolute monotheism, talked a little bit about the nature of Allah. Of course, when I say we talked about the nature of Allah, if you recall from last week, we really can't know the nature of Allah. All we know through the Quran is the will of Allah, that a very important element of Islamic belief is that you can't actually know Allah. That's not a goal. It's not a desire, and in fact it's almost blasphemous to try, that there's no sense of relationship, there's no sense of knowing a person or a personal being. It's all distant and absolutely separate from any sort of human knowledge of anything but the will of Allah, which is what is revealed in the Quran. So for today what I want to do is pick up from there, continue on with a slight discussion of a few additional elements related to Allah. And then look at the Muslim picture of individual people, what it is to be human and how we are saved. Did you have a question? I have no idea. That's a good question. Why would he care about polytheism? Well, to some extent, you know, common revelation, a common grace. I think he probably genuinely did have a feeling. There's a wrongness about this. He seems to have. Some of the passages of the Quran are actually rather beautiful affirmations of, again, the oneness of God, as frankly we see from Greek Plato talks about some rather beautiful statements about the oneness of God, that there is an absolute God. Even the Hindus, famous pantheists, you'll still read in various Hindu scriptures. Again, there is this God. He's out there. We just don't know very much about him. Perhaps we can't even know about him. So probably just, again, that sense that in his spirit, just like Romans talks about, you know, the sense written on our heart of certain truths. Very good. Yes. Right, well, okay, so a few things. First of all, the familiarity is loose. For example, the Quran refutes the Christian belief that Jesus and Mary are part of the Trinity. So it very thoroughly refutes that Christian view. So again, the knowledge of Christian doctrine is loose. What is believed, and this is primarily based on Hadith, again, the debatably authoritative, remember we talked last week, there's several collections of Hadith, they were collected, several hundred years after Muhammad died, so Muslims even themselves would rank them on which are more authoritative, which are less authoritative. But it's based on Hadith, and then even extra Hadith, just traditions and such, say that Muhammad did have just sort of a spiritual hunger. and sought out educated Christians or Jews. It's really, we have very little knowledge that I've been able to find anyway as to who specifically he would have talked about. But it was known that there were Christian, and especially there were Jewish communities. in that area. In fact, one of the things he did when he fled from Mecca to Medina is he actually proceeded to kick out three tribes of the Jews, massacring the last one, actually, out of Medina. So again, they were there to be spoken with, and apparently tradition suggests he did. And frankly, you cannot read the Quran without saying, oh yeah, he definitely talked. He actually quotes certain parts of scripture in the Quran. Did I see a hand somewhere? Yes, yes sir. Right, I've Right and well and that's debatable even because most Muslims would say he was illiterate There's also evidence that he wasn't entirely illiterate In fact, that's part of why they would say that the miracle of the Quran that we talked about last week this sense of it It's so beautiful. They would argue. Well, he was actually illiterate they would say but yeah, he was certainly as far as just Knowledge of the scriptures. I have heard that as well as that she was she was Well, one of his wives. I believe his first wife was was As you said sort of a Coptic Christian potentially. I'm not sure that's not something I've studied enough to have Enough of a position beyond yet. I have heard that Certainly, so we're regardless of where he came in contact. Certainly he did come in contact with Christian and Jewish teachings. Yes, sir Yes, and no It is inerrant, but there's a doctrine, I'm stealing from what I was about to say, so we'll go directly to something we're gonna look at under the Quran, so just make a mental note, that's where it ought to be filed in your mental organization. I was looking at just the question of the reliability of the Quran. But Muslims believe, well, almost universally, Muslims believe in a doctrine called abrogation. And I love the idea of abrogation. I was thinking actually, I was having a conversation yesterday with Nathan King, actually, and he was describing this fella who got busted for pot possession. And his parents, as the police officers walk in, they smell, and you could get high, apparently, off the air. And what was explained to the police officers is, no, this isn't pot, actually. This is Turkish tobacco. Our son is a tobacco connoisseur. He hand rolls his own Turkish tobacco. And we were just complimenting this gentleman on the creativity of his, quick on his toes response to this dilemma. And I sort of picture abrogation, this doctrine, sort of arising in a similar way. So what abrogation says is that Allah will change his revelation. So you have between, depending on what scholars you believe, between five and 500 verses of the Quran that are canceled out by subsequent revelation. In fact, again, we'll put this in a better organizational point as we go through the lecture, but there was actually a section that Muhammad himself said actually came from Satan. He just didn't catch it when Satan gave him this part. He thought it was God, and then Allah subsequently revealed to him that it was Satan, and so he canceled that out. And they're actually called the satanic verses now, and they're no longer in the Quran. But you have beyond that, there's, again, between 500 and 500 verses that just get canceled out. So basically, what we have left is viewed as inspired and inerrant in a very similar way to Christian view. But again, you've got that doctrine of abrogation to complicate things. Were there any other questions just based on what we went over last week? All right. So again, we've got the absolute monotheism of Islam. And then looking some more specifically at the qualities of Allah. So we talked about, again, his being unknowable. The next couple of things that I want to emphasize in understanding the Muslim picture of Allah, I actually want to bring in, first of all, a theme that I think is helpful to us for understanding Islam. Last week we talked about the theme of simplification, the way in which many of the difficult doctrines of Christianity are almost, or of Judaism, are almost taken from three dimensions to one. A perfect example of that being the Trinity, being narrowed down and simplified into the easier to grasp concept of absolute monotheism. Well, in addition to the theme of simplicity, I would also look at a theme of imbalance. And I was actually thinking about it even during today's sermon, as we were talking about the way in which the Bible perfectly includes ideas of God's sovereignty. God is sovereign. God rules. And yet also you have a clear teaching of human freedom, human responsibility, that we are not simply automatons. And that's a hard thing to hold in balance. Frankly, constantly there's this tendency to one end or the other. You have some, as we've spoken of, some Christian denominations, they would say God is not sovereign, that man could not be free if God was sovereign. And then on the other hand, you have a tendency sometimes to overemphasize God's sovereignty at the expense of human freedom. But yet we see throughout Christian history, across denominations, you see in general most Christian denominations have managed to hold to a balance that has men are free, men are responsible, yet God is absolutely sovereign. And I think that's striking. It's not, you know, pat yourself on the back. It's because we have our starting place in the Word of God. And we have helping us to understand and interpret that starting place, the Spirit of God within us. And if you look even, I was just thinking in comparison with perhaps American government, you know, we look at the structure of American government where it starts out about as brilliantly structured and balanced and organized as any man-made political institution. You know, the balance between state and federal, the balance between the different branches of government. And yet over just 200 years, I think most of us would agree, it has fallen out of whack because that's what happens when people balance things as well as they can. And yet for 2,000 years, we have a remarkable balance of two seemingly paradoxical truths of human freedom and responsibility and divine sovereignty that have managed to stay balanced for 2,000 years. A striking thing, I think, that really is an interesting apologetic for Christianity. It suggests a divine authorship of our doctrine. Well, compare that then to the picture of Allah. Where Allah, there is also an attempt, if you read the Quran, you're going to see statements about Allah being absolutely sovereign, and you're also going to see an emphasis on human responsibility. But if you dig into the Quran and you work out the doctrine, and frankly if you live it out for 1400 years as Muslims have, what ends up happening is almost every Muslim theologian, mainstream, you're going to find a tremendous emphasis on the sovereignty of Allah. And human freedom gets almost completely shuffled out the door. Again, lip service is still paid, but there's this picture of Allah as being sovereign. And essentially, we practically end up as automatons. In fact, for the Muslim, Allah even causes us to sin. That is his choice, not ours. The Quran tells us, In surah 17 that we first send a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life to transgress But let me let me read that differently to clarify An order to those who are given the good things of this life to transgress so the order is to them to transgress So that the word is proved true against them then it is we who destroy them utterly surah 7 states that whoever Allah guides he is the rightly guided and And whoever he sends astray, it is those who are the losers. And we have certainly created hell, for hell, many of the jinn and mankind. And again, just, well, a Muslim theologian just elaborating on these verses states, not only can he that is God do anything, he is actually the only one who does anything. When a man writes, it is Allah who has created in his mind the will to write. Allah at the same time gives the power to write. then brings about the motion of the hand and the pen and the appearance upon the paper. All other things are passive. Allah alone is active." And again, you feel like as a Christian, it's like, that's almost right, but you've got to realize that humans are real. Humans do things. And so what I think is striking here as we look at this Muslim picture of the sovereignty of Allah is not even that they're wrong that he's sovereign. It's just being a man-made religion, you can't maintain a balance. with the idea that men are still responsible, men still act and do. So that's one additional picture of Allah that I want to present. Another one that is striking and perhaps a little more practically significant, especially for us if we're engaging with a Muslim, is the relation of man to Allah. This is another area where Christianity has a beautiful balance between apparently paradoxical principles. You have the transcendence of God. God is absolutely holy. God is separate. And yet you have the eminence of God. God is here. God is in us. God became man. Frankly, you have it beautifully distilled simply in our Father who art in heaven. And yet that combining of principles is, again, out of balance in Islam. You see both of them, but in the practical working out of it, God is completely separate. He is entirely unknowable, unrelatable, merely a distant object of reverence and obedience. The idea of, again, calling him our father in heaven would be, frankly, blasphemous for the Muslim in that sense of familiarity. And even if we look at the picture of heaven for the Muslim, it's not a place of, the hymn says, the greatest joy of heaven is God himself. What we look for in heaven is communion with God ultimately. For the Muslim, that's very little emphasized. It's a place of sensual pleasure. Beautiful, great food, beautiful landscapes, virgins for Other sensual pleasure that that's the picture of a paradise for the Muslim and entirely sensual I'm having fun is essentially what is emphasized on a paradise for the Muslim as opposed to any sense of Knowing God again, you know the language of John That in my father's house or many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself there where I am there you may be also that idea is very alien to the Muslim. And something that I want to talk about later as we shift more to thinking about how we can effectively speak to a Muslim is that generally when you speak with Muslims who have become Christians, it's Jesus that, shockingly, it's Jesus that draws them. It's, again, frankly, they have a corrupted version of the law. You know, Paul speaks of the law as a tutor to bring us to grace. Well, they have that tutor and they have nothing else. And it's that picture of Christ, that sense of I could know God and I could be known by him and loved by him. That, generally, when you talk to somebody who's become a Christian for a Muslim, that's what gets them. So that idea of fleshing out our idea of Allah as being, again, absolutely sovereign and absolutely separate. I think there's additional aspects of his nature. If you have any particular questions, feel free to ask. But that, I think, gives us at least a good working understanding sufficient for for our purposes here. So shifting then from Allah to us. What are human beings? We briefly got into this last week in response to a few questions. So the first thing we have to note is that human beings are not fallen. The Muslim concept of original sin is very simple. They don't have one. There is no picture of something being fundamentally wrong with human beings. No fall, no original sin. In fact, it's interesting. There is a tradition. I believe this is from the Hadith. I'm trying to recall if it's in the Quran or the Hadith, but it describes the fall of Adam. And it's just remarkably anticlimactic. It's like, you know, Adam does this bad thing. He's like, my bad, Allah. And Allah's like, hey, it's cool. That's it, time, that's done. It's just another sin. There's no sense of something off, something wrong with people. Which frankly, to me, you pick up a newspaper, you pull up the internet, and you just look at us and what we've made of the world. It seems hard to explain. what we've made of the world from Muslim concept of, again, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. The only problem is we're weak. We forget. We don't remember to worship Allah. We don't remember to obey Allah. And therefore, that's what we need to fix, is just try harder, essentially. And that really is the message of Muhammad, is try harder, be better, is what is the fundamental obligation of the human. Do they have a connection between sin and death? Not in the way we would. And again, you can't have that in the sense that if there's no sin of Adam to bring in death, then there's really not that theological, you know, death almost being compatible with sin. Death just happens. Death is just, and it's Allah. It's the will of Allah. Yeah. Well, the idea of Allah forcing people to sin, again, is not emphasized that much. Because frankly, if you're going to be an absolute determinist, forget religion. There's no point. If everything is just completely God moving you, making you sin, any religion is nonsensical. So the actual practical working out of theology does not emphasize very much that absolute, absolute sovereignty of Allah. It still overemphasizes sovereignty at the expense of freedom. But that idea of Allah is making my toddler sin, that's not how the typical Muslim is going to think about it. And I don't know, honestly, I'm not sure exactly how they would explain early sin. I think it would just basically boil down to Let's say I get a dog, and the puppy chews up my slipper. That's just how puppies are. I think it would be a similar kind of idea. Well, that's just how people are. We're prone to do bad things, and therefore, again, we need the revelation of Allah to point us on the right path, and then just do your best. So anyway, thinking about this, there's a verse from the Hadith, and this is from the Al-Bukhari Hadith, which is considered the most reliable Hadith for a Muslim. So practically anything which is in this Hadith is almost on level with scripture, with the Quran for a Muslim. And in this, it's recorded that Allah has said, just listen to, this is something that I think is striking as he records how one could be saved. Whoever can guarantee the chastity of what is between his two jaw bones and what is between his two legs, I guarantee paradise for him. In other words, guard your tongue, guard your purity, and I'll guarantee paradise to you. I will, too, actually. Yes, if you are perfect, you don't need to worry about a savior. But that's the highest hope of the Muslim, is, again, the guarantee of paradise. Just never say bad things. be absolutely pure in every way, and you're guaranteed paradise. Further, carrying on that same theme, then those whose balance of good deeds is heavy, they will be successful. But those whose balance is light will be those who have lost their souls. In hell, they will abide. So again, it is a very mechanistic, very transactional kind of picture. OK, good deeds, bad deeds. Again, literally, there's a picture of a scale. We'll weigh up the good deeds, we'll weigh up the bad deeds, whichever is higher. Well, if it's more good deeds, you get into paradise. If more bad deeds, you go into hell. And it is that simple. You just gave me my transition to my next point. Thank you. So basically, again, there's many similarities with Christianity and Judaism. The basic moral code, that they would agree with the Ten Commandments, that sort of an idea. So your basic moral code with a couple of tweaks that I'll get to. But then particularly, if you think about it, human nature being what it is, you want a little bit of a safeguard. You know, I want something that'll really weigh the good deeds side of the scale down. So you have, some of you have doubtless heard of the five pillars of Islam. These are things that basically weigh extra heavily on the good deeds side. These would be recitation of the creed. Remember we mentioned the, again, it would be said in Arabic, Ilaha ila Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah, which is That there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger again You'll you'll say that repeatedly every day for the the Orthodox Muslim because that's just that's building up your your your pile of Good deeds that will weigh in the balance a second pillar of Islam is prayer. You have the ritual prayer five times a day every day and and again with that emphasis on that we talked last week on repetition and wrote over understanding and You know, you're just rattling off these memorized prayers. It's not a, it's typically, and there are more personal, you know, I've got a problem, Allah help me kind of prayers. But typically these ritual prayers are just that rote ritual. Five times a day, weighing up in the balance of your good deeds. Thirdly, you have almsgiving, particularly to, again, to those in need. You have the famous Ramadan fast, where for the month of Ramadan, You're supposed to, between dawn and dusk, you're supposed to abstain from food and drink. Typically, they also abstain from smoking and sexual intercourse for that month. So you've got the Ramadan fast, and then fifth, your pilgrimage to Mecca, the famous pilgrimage that every Muslim is required to make at least once. So these are things that weigh extra heavily in the scales. These would be the Quran, yes. This would be, and if not, Muhammad doesn't actually say, you know, these are the five pillars of Islam. They are presented as these are the things that are important and then therefore later theologians come along and say, okay, these are the things Muhammad said are extra virtue. Or even frankly, remember we talked last week about surah 112, the very short surah that just describes God's nature. And we said that recitation of that Muhammad's date is worth reciting. You get as much virtue as if you had recited a whole third of the Quran if you just recite that section because it's extra important. So again, just rather than memorizing all the details, just have this picture of extra virtue things that can again further way up your good scale side of the transaction. Paradise. Yeah, exactly. So again, there are, and this is where, again, I want to say, emphasize this theme of the imbalance. Because you will see, if you talk to a Muslim, he will say, you know, Allah is love. Allah is mercy, in fact. That's a very frequent name applied to Allah. So there's, it's said, that he is, again, loving and merciful, et cetera. To me, I think of, you read the dating profile. And all his dating profile, I'm loving, I'm merciful. But then when you actually meet him, when you actually see the working out of theology in other parts of the Quran, in the Hadith, no matter what label is applied to him, the actual outworking of it, and again, the descriptions of paradise and that sort of thing, it is prepared by Allah for a reward. But Allah himself is not the reward. Any other questions? Yes. Very much. Yeah. Essentially, it's a different picture. Fundamentally, really it goes back to your orientation to God. I know for the Muslim, God is a power with commands that you obey. And that is you, that is God, and that is that. And it is hard to, from a Christian perspective again, that emphasis on faith, that emphasis on you get paid by God himself dying on your behalf. It's just a radically different, everything is different. Yeah, it is. And in a sense, it's much more comfortable. Instead of my having to worry about, well, I need to die. I need to die to sin. I need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a lot simpler just to say, that's bad, don't do it. And if you don't do it enough, and if you do enough good things, you'll be saved. It's a simple transactional kind of picture. It just really doesn't doesn't fit the reality, but it is, you can see the simplicity of it being appealing. trying to think. Basically, no. In general, it's very outward emphasized. I'm sure that there are sections, again, this is where not having exhaustively studied the Quran, but I'm sure there would be sections that would talk about, you know, don't be proud, pride, and that sort of thing. But in general, certainly it's safe to say the focus is entirely in the Quran and in just practical application of Muslim life. It's all on what you're doing and what you're not doing. Yes. Muhammad himself. Yeah, which does actually say that martyrdom provides assurance. But yeah, that's the only thing that offers assurance is in the actual language of the Quran. The only thing that's, you know, okay, if this happens, you go to paradise. It is actually, again, martyrdom. But yeah, apart from that, Muhammad himself says, I don't know. This is from the Hadith, but again, it's the most reliable collection of the Hadith, so Muslims in general would take this completely for granted. Yes, of course, this is true. Muhammad is quoted as saying, by Allah, though I am an apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me. In fact, actually, that's why some of you might have even observed as you read Muslim writing, they'll speak of Muhammad, peace be upon him. Why are we wishing for peace upon Muhammad? Because we really hope Allah will let him into glory, that he will be saved, that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, again, they would hold him up as the most glorious, perfect human being. We'd better pray for him and hope that Allah is merciful. Now, it's interesting also, though, as I mentioned last week, just our soul rebels against this idea of just be good and hope for the best. So even though there is not a shred of support for this in the Quran, we do see widespread belief in just sort of popular Islamic theology. And again, more just sort of you might call street theology, not what the theologian would teach, but what the average Muslim believes. There is a picture of Muhammad serving as a mediator, serving as an intercessor. That there's a fairly well-developed, in fact, that we're going to be before Allah, before the judgment seat. and will go from person to person, asking, so we go to, I believe it's, we go to Adam, and he can't intercede for us because he ate the fruit. We can't go to Noah, and he can't intercede for us because he was impatient and didn't take other people on the ark. We go to Jesus, and he can't intercede for us because he was worshipped as a god. And then we get to Muhammad, and Muhammad being the greatest human being, It's a little bit of a stretch, as we'll see shortly. But he then can't intercede for it. So again, that desperate need for something more by way of intercession that, again, Muhammad completely without reference in the Quran sort of ends up filling that void. Yeah. Right. Right. I think on one level you would be, and I think on another level people can get used to just about anything. This is just how I've been raised. This is how you live. Well, it lets you be God. You save yourself. In fact, that's interesting. Even when you read Muslim theologians who are talking to Christians, they try to clarify. They say, don't think of salvation. Salvation for the Christian is something that is on a fundamental level done for you. Salvation for the Muslim is a description of your condition after judgment. That if you get into heaven, then you can look around and be like, okay, I'm safe. But it's simply a description of your condition. That it's not, again, something done for you, done to you. And that is the highest hope. But remember, it's so tied up in culture, so tied up in family. And so often, there's just not a knowledge of Christianity. Or again, the knowledge that they have is so distorted that they're not just going to be like, oh, hope of salvation. Let me be saved. In fact, generally, it's very difficult to evangelize the Muslim. And I think part of it is, again, culture, family, et cetera. And partially, it's just Islam lets you be God. You save yourself. Did I see? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Exactly. Right. That's the perfect analogy. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. In a sense, it's almost the reverse of what Cariel was saying. She was having trouble getting inside the Muslim, you know, how they think. Well, they have difficulty getting inside how the Christian thinks. It's just what you're used to. In the interest of time, I do want to keep on, anyway, with one other thing, which is basically just to, while we're thinking about how the Muslim should live, how the Muslim should act, sort of the elephant in the room, of course, is jihad, martyrdom, etc. And I don't want to spend too much time on it for the simple reason that most, well, like the fellow you encountered at that seminary, who very much under, or the mosque, very much underplayed the picture of jihad and the importance and centrality of martyrdom. But I think it is worth at least just sort of answering questions on our part, okay, so what is, how theologically orthodox is ISIS? When we see these news stories of what's going on in the Middle East, is that a corruption of Islam or is that Islam? So I just want to briefly give sort of a picture of how the Muslim does, or how he is taught in the Quran, while also noting that the typical Muslim who you're going to encounter in America is not going to hold to this. They're just going to Well, typically typically your basic response is going to be these verses are taken out of context that they're there They were speaking to a very specific context In this case, the specific context was everybody Muhammad met who wasn't a Muslim, truly. But still, the idea that he killed the unbeliever, et cetera, is generally going to be explained away as it was just about this particular really bad group of Jews, because they were Muslims, basically is what it boils down to, or this really bad group of polytheists in Mecca. And they'll also point to the fact, again, that the Quran does say that Does say that again God Allah is a God of mercy. There is the famous surah 2 to 56 verse 256 Which said that there is no compulsion in religion So again, there are sections of the Quran which are going to speak to you know, respect for unbelievers, etc But there are also sections which somebody like, you know, a theologian for ISIS or something like that is going to cite references like, and actually the same surah as the surah that says there shall be no compulsion in religion. Surah 244 says, fight in the cause of Allah. Surah 95, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit and wait for them at every place of ambush. And we could say perhaps, well, maybe that's meant metaphorically in a spiritual sense. Well, so when you meet those who disbelieve in battle, strike their necks until you have inflicted slaughter upon them. That was not understood spiritually and metaphorically by the followers of Muhammad. Again, that was very deliberately and specifically carried out by his followers. Surah 9 29 fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the last day and who do not consider Unlawful what Allah and his messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the scripture So again when you meet the unbeliever force is acceptable force is even commanded as a means of conversion And specifically going to that question of martyrdom it does if I'm just plain reading of the Quran suggests that the only assurance of salvation for the Muslim is to die in the cause of Allah, which if you stop and think about it, makes suicide bombing sound a lot more appealing. I frankly, honestly, if that was my only way of being sure of salvation, sign me up. If that's the calculus that you might have eternal damnation, and frankly the Muslim view of hell is quite vivid, if that's what you're always your chances, unless you kill yourself or get killed fighting for Allah, it's crazy not to do that, if you really believe that. And you do have in Surah 3, 195. So those who immigrated or were evicted from their homes or were harmed in my cause or fought or were killed, I shall surely remove from them their misdeeds. And I will surely admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as reward from Allah. Surah 3, 157. And if you are slain or die in the way of Allah, forgiveness and mercy from Allah are far better than all you could amass. And I'm just picking a couple because I don't want to belabor you with these references. So yes, again, a Muslim typically will point to other verses which suggest, you know, again, be merciful, be gentle. They'll point to, again, very typically they'll quote Surah 2, 256. That's probably the most commonly quoted section of the Quran on media and so on. Again, no compulsion in religion. But if you look at the specifics, both of what is taught about how to relate to unbelievers and then what the Muslims actually did, that idea of forceful conversion, frankly, is right out of the Quran. In fact, other actions of ISIS, which they're famous for, are also right out of the Quran and the Hadith, as we'll perhaps have time to explore more next week. So next week, I want to consider then specifically how to respond to the Muslim, and just to sort of give you a foretaste of the basic structure we'll look at. First of all, your big first step is to answer questions about Christianity. As we've alluded to, Muslims typically are very uninformed about the doctrines of Christianity. Secondly, you want to raise questions about Islam, particularly we'll look at some questions about the Quran, some of which we've already discussed, and also the person of Muhammad himself, and then finally, frankly, just point them to Christ as the final and by far most important step. So that's the game plan for next week. We'll probably not take all of next week on that, so we'll hopefully start looking next week as well at various Eastern pantheistic religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism. Are there any final questions about what we covered today? You have like two minutes, so talk quick. Yes, Terrielle. There's no need, we're not fallen. There's no, yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. But I really think what Cassie said is a great analogy. And the person, how many people do you meet in American society who their hope of salvation is just, well, I'm basically a good person. I haven't ever killed anybody. That's always how the human wants to be saved. So. Yes, Mr. Christopher. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that's certainly something that we can't be there, but we can pray. We can pray for our fellow believers who are suffering unspeakable things. So yeah, thank you. I think there's time for one more question. OK, very good. Well, you are dismissed. Have lunch.