The History of the Conflict

Part 1 The War from the East

• Session 1.1 Is This War?• Session 1.2 Islam – One of the Great

Monotheistic Religions• Session 1.3 The Fight for the Soul of Islam• Session 1.4 Dar al-Islam – The House of War• Session 1.5 The Global Caliphate• Session 1.6 Islam – Religion of Peace?• Session 1.7 The History of the Conflict• Session 1.8 Poverty in Islamic Nations

Outline

• History – Looking Backwards

• Children of Abraham

• Prophecy – The Historic Preview

• The Ancient Prefigures the Modern

• The Humiliation of the Muslims

• The Present

History – Looking Backwards

History – Looking Backwards

• Modern West– The narcissistic generation – focus on self

and present– Little interest in history– Forgotten past

• History important to Muslims– Helps to explain present attitudes and actions– Jihadists living the present moment of a

historical conflict

George Santayana

• 1863-1952• Spanish citizen• Philosopher; poet;

writer/novelist• “The Nation which

forgets its past is destined to repeat it.”

Remembering History

• Questions:– What are Boorstin and Santayana telling us?

How does it relate to my life?– What does it tell us of all our responsibilities

as citizens? to future generations?

• If we want to understand our present and perhaps our future, we need to understand our past!

Children of Abraham

Prophecy

The Historic Preview

Prophecy

• History is the past retold

• Prophecy is the future foretold

History

• Read the following passages– History retold – Genesis 16: 1-11, 13– History foretold – Genesis 16: 12

• What does this passage reveal about:– God? How He treats Hagar? What He

promises Hagar?– Hagar as a woman? As the mother of a great

nation?– Ishmael (Hagar’s son)?

“Wild Donkey”

• The same descriptor – wild donkey found in other places in scripture

• Read the following sets to discover this description:– Set # 1 Ishmael Genesis 21: 20-21; 25: 16-18;

Abraham’s grandson through Isaac – Esau: Genesis 27: 40

– Set # 2 Job 11: 12; 39: 5-8

• What does this reveal about Ishmael and his descendents?

Conflict at the Heart of Islam

• Mecca vs. Medina

• Mother heart of Hagar vs. the fighting spirit of Ishmael

The Ancient Prefigures the Modern

The Battle Begins

• 622-632 AD, Prophet Mohammad controls Arabia

• 632-661 AD, Arab nomads leave the Arabian Peninsula behind, challenge the kuffar – Jews and Christians in “Babylon,” “Persia,” Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa

• 661-750 AD, Muslims sweep into Spain, Portugal, southern Italy and southern France

Early Expansion of Islam

Dome of the Rock

• 638 AD Jerusalem fell• Completed 891 AD• 3rd most holy place• 1st outside of Arabia• Site: Mount Moriah,

Temple Mount

INSCRIPTION

“He is God,

He is one,

He has no companions,

He does not beget,

He is not begotten.”

Umayyad Caliphate 660-750 AD

Abbasid Caliphate 750-1258 AD

Caliphate of Cordoba Andalusia 929-1031

The Crusades

The Ottoman Empire (The Last Caliphate)

1299-1923

September 11, 1683

• Muslims (Ottoman Turks) at the gates of Vienna• Northernmost expansion of Islam into Europe• The West won, Islam lost and has retreated since

The Present

The Humiliation of the Muslims

The Humiliation - The End of the Last Caliphate

• Nov. 1, 1922 - The Sultanate abolished the last sultan, Mehmed VI Vahdettin, resigned

• July 24, 1923 - The new “secular” Turkey was established by The Treaty of Lausanne

• October 29, 1923 - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk became the first President of Turkey

• March 3, 1924 - The Caliphate was constitutionally abolished

The Humiliation

[Al-Banna was appalled by] “the wave of atheism and lewdness [that] engulfed Egypt” [following World War I. The victorious Europeans had] “imported their half-naked women into these regions, together with their liquors, their theatres, their dance halls, their amusements, their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their whims, their silly games, and their vices.”

Hasan al-BannaFounder of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Humiliation

“… Suddenly the very heart of the Islamic world was penetrated by European "schools and scientific and cultural institutes" that "cast doubt and heresy into the souls of its sons and taught them how to demean themselves, disparage their religion and their fatherland, divest themselves of their traditions and beliefs, and to regard as sacred anything Western."

Hasan al-Banna

The Humiliation

• Personal reflection - Questions:– What are you thinking and feeling about this?– Put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. How

would you feel?

• Small group discussion

The Humiliation – Arab-Israeli Wars

• 1948 The Arab-Israeli War

• 1967 Six Day War – Israel reclaims the Temple Mount

• October 1973 The Yom Kippur War

Present Aspect of Prophecy

“Every problem in our region can be traced to this single dilemma: the occupation of Dar al Islam by Jewish infidels or Western imperialists…. The everlasting struggle between Ishmael and Isaac cannot cease until one or the other is utterly vanquished.”

Hashemi RafsanjaniPresident of Iran (1989-1997)

December 19, 1989

Present Aspect of Prophecy

“These events [9/11] have divided the whole world into two sides – the side of believers and the side of infidels. May God keep you away from them. Every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious. The winds of faith have come.”

Osama bin Laden October 7, 2001

The Present

The Roots of the Conflict –

Spiritual and Metaphysical

The Need for Western Reflection

• How do Fundamentalist Muslims view:– The West in general?– Christianity in particular?

• If you were in their shoes, how would you respond?

The Need for Western Reflection

• As a Christian:– How can you respond personally?– How can the Church respond corporately?

• During the crusades the Christians inverted the cross into a sword! What do you think of that?

The Conflict

• The conflict between Muslims and the infidels – believing Jews and Christians on the one hand and secularists on the other, is not about borders and armament.

• It is about ideas. It is a conflict of:– Spirit– Morality– Ideas - worldview

Freedom and Law

• Read Gal. 4: 21-31

• Questions:– What does Hagar represent? What does

Sarah represent?– Paul uses history as an allegory! What is his

main point?– What is the nature of freedom? Of law?– How does this relate to history today?