By Dr. Donald N. Sills

Is Islam a religion of peace?

Or better yet, "is Islam compatible with Christianity as we look toward the establishing of Christian schools all across America with the understanding that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world?”

Osama bin Laden, or Osama, son of Laden, the world's current most notorious terrorist, has handed Muslims everywhere their worst public-relations nightmare: September 11" as a picture, an embodiment, of Islam. Muslims now have to define themselves in relation to the day of infamy. What could possible motivate a man to the degree that he thought the world would revolve around him? I want us to take a look, through the eyes of history, at Iraq, Baghdad and the country that has been the home of some of the most famous and infamous people of all times. A community that God Himself was impressed enough with that he included it in the Bible.

BABYLON

As in Daniel chapter 4 we must be as a “Watcher”. The watchers oversee the affairs of men to enable them to bring about the will of God in the earth. The holy ones (angels) came at the command of the watchers. Remember in Matthew 18:10, Jesus was speaking about the children, and he said “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

In Daniel the 4th Chapter we have the story of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. In VS 30 we have an understanding of God's reasoning for the King's 7-year exile into insanity. “The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?

This ancient city on the Euphrates River in Iraq, lay about 89 km, 55 miles south of Baghdad, near the modern city of Al Hillah. Probably settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it came under the Amoritic kings around 2,000 BC. It became the capital of the Babylonia and was the chief commercial city of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Destroyed by Sennacherib in 689 BC, it was later rebuilt. It attained its greatest glory as capital of the Neo Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar II (605-538). Taken by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, it was where he died. The largest city in the world at the time, it contained many temples, including the great temple of Marduk with its associated ziggurat, apparently the basis for the story of the Tower of Babel. The Hanging Gardens was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Babylon was indeed a great city. The walls of the square city were 14 miles long on each side, making 56 miles around an area of 196 sq. miles. Around the city was a deep and broad moat full of water, and beyond that the wall about 108 1/2 feet thick and about 417 feet high. There were 100 brazen gates. The houses were 3 and 4 stories high. Roads criss-crossed the city as in modern times.

The city was built on both sides of the great river Euphrates, the sections being known as the East and West districts. They were joined by a bridge 3,240 ft. long. At each end was a magnificent royal palace, the Eastern one being defended by 3 walls, the outermost being 7 miles in circuit; the 2nd one 4 ½ miles and the 3rd 2 ½ miles. There was also a tunnel under the river. The hanging gardens were 400 ft. sq. rising in terraces planted with trees of various kinds. The temple of Bel and other large buildings made Babylon the greatest city in the world.

A recent excavation has revealed that the hall where Belahazzar, son of Nabionus, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, held his drunken feast, where the hand wrote on the wall, was 60 ft. by 172 ft. The walls were beautifully decorated with painted stucco designs.

By all of this we can understand, to a degree, the arrogance of Saddam Hussein in his belief that he was indeed to be in charge of the whole nation and that the wealth belonged to him and to him alone. He still considers himself as King equal to Nebuchadnezzar

RENDER UNTO ALLAH

On the heels of September 11 there has been increased security and suspicion of Muslims who have settled in large numbers into communities in Western Europe and the US.

Just where do their ultimate loyalties lie?

This feeling has been exacerbated by a seeming unwillingness on their part to join the international outcry of outrage and to condemn those guilty of perpetuating the bloodshed of that fateful day.

The population at large has been thunderous in its denunciation, while the silence of the Muslim community has been deafening ... Early on, a group of British practitioners of Islam, some who had flown to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and to fight against the British and American forces there, made the distinction that they were “not British Muslims" but were rather “Muslims that happened to live in Britain.”

I was alarmed when I first heard this declaration ... and then perplexed when I considered it further. After all, I thought, we Christians make the same distinction. We claim to be citizens of another Kingdom ... “not of this world”. We view ourselves as “Ambassadors for Christ”. We claim to hold a higher allegiance than to the Constitution of the United States. Why then does this fact about Christian priorities not trouble America while a similar declaration by Muslims does? The answer is clear. These two groups march to the sounds of 2 very different drummers. Christians may feel uneasy to see the erosion of their values that once dominated the popular culture of the west but they are ultimately comfortable in the environment of secular states, after all Christianity was birthed in the hostile environment of the 1st Century Roman Empire. Christians are commanded by their Lord not to subvert but to recognize the legitimate role of the state ... to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's” and to render unto God the things that are God's.”

They are commanded to view even the harsh secular authority as the minister of God to create civil stability so that the Gospel can be preached and so that people of all faiths and of none can live in peace.

The aberration of the Crusades not withstanding, they seek to win the world to Christ by example and by evangelism, trusting not in the power of the secular state to coerce, but relying on the persuasiveness of their message and the Holy Spirit's convicting power in the lives of their hearer, to bring about the embracing of the Savior.

Islam by contrast, when in the majority, seeks to overwhelm and to coerce. It provides no room for others and uses the arm of the state to force religious conformity.

This is consistently seen in every Islamic country in the world.

Committed Muslims naturally long to live under the laws of the Koran which they view as the verbatim words of Allah. Regardless of the fact that Muhammad kindly viewed Christians and Jews as “People of the Book" there is little such tolerance under today's Muslim regimes. There is no such thing as religious liberty under Islam. In such countries the police power of the state is appropriated and becomes the strong arm of Islam to force obedience to religious dogma. In this environment radicals seize upon texts that seemingly justify killing non Muslims.

Example: after our routing of Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, it is still on the books today there that it is not against the law nor a criminal offence to kill a Christian in their country. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and many non Muslims fear that, given sufficient time and the weapon of enthusiastic reproduction, the ultimate Muslim goal is the subjugation of all Christians and all others.

Non Muslims in the West have reason to be suspicious.

Just what drummer does Islam march to and what is he telling them to do?