The next part of this very brief overview of Islam will be to address the following questions. We leave the origins of the religion of Islam and look at how it has developed since its founding. I certainly do not claim to be an expert on all things Muslim. As a perpetual student, I have been able to understand a few things that are Islamic and how that compares with what I believe is Biblical truth.
What advancements in medicine, science, technology, political governance, theology, and philosophy has Islam given to the world? Why are many Islamic nations 3rd world countries? How is all this explained? Why is the religion of Islam incapable and unwilling to correct its many abuses and its murderous inclinations? Are there any parallels with Christianity that are instructive?
Author Robert R. Reilly wrote a book that addresses these questions, titled The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis. It is a great book and I highly recommend it. It explains how the religion of Islam, as we know it, came to be. Most of the basics regarding this subject come directly from his book. I have added much more about the theological implications for Christianity.
From the previous two articles, it should be apparent that the religion of Islam is not what most of us have been told. Allah and his prophet are not who many think they are. That is no surprise when considering the lies, disinformation, and misinformation that the propaganda machines around the world have been pumping out on all matters great and small across all essential cultural, historical, geopolitical, economic, and social challenges.
There is a reason why the Muslim faith and Muslim countries seem to be so behind or third world. In many ways, they appear to be stuck in the past and ancient history. They are, and that is a result of Islam’s theology. Islam experienced a moral and theological crisis from the ninth to the eleventh centuries and has not fully recovered, according to the author. During this period, their religion was hijacked by the Ash’arite school of thought, and they abandoned the Mu’tazilite school of thought.
Islam’s Rejection of Reason
Ash’arites rejected reason and based everything on Allah’s revelation in the Qur’an and other holy writings. They represent the Sunnis of today. Sunnis represent 87-90% of the Muslims in all countries, not just Arab states. That is around 1.7 billion people. The others are Shia Muslims. They total 180-230 million people. Close enough to say Muslims are 2 billion strong. They are the majority religions in Central Asia, Western Asia, North Africa, West Africa, the Sahel, and the Middle East.
Mu’tazilites combined reason with revelation in their understanding of all key matters, especially theology. Unfortunately, they were eventually overcome by the Ash’arites.
The leading voice for the Ash’arites was Imam al-Ghazali. He thought that human reasoning led to the questioning of things that should not be questioned. Mankind’s reasoning, therefore, is the enemy of Islam. Islam, in his mind, required absolute surrender and submission to the will of Allah and Allah’s revelation. Thinkers, like Plato and Aristotle, are to be rejected because their ideas and questions lead to darkness, not light. Only in absolute obedience to Allah and his prophet is there light.
That sounds like a Roman Catholic Jesuit in their complete surrender and obedience to the Pope, doesn’t it? Did the Jesuits get this from Islam? Or did Islam adopt this from the Roman Catholic Church? We may never know. And how often have you heard evangelicals of the Augustinian Calvinism persuasion mock the role of reason in understanding spiritual matters? They tell us that we are not guided by reason but by revelation. If their doctrines were reasonable, they would never make that claim.
Imam Al-Ghazali’s arguments were refuted by Averroes (Ibn Rushd). To hell with reason, when unquestioning submission makes ruling the people so much easier. Hence, the acceptance of the Ash’arite theology. This theology affected everything in Muslim culture, not just politics, education, and law. Sunni Islam allows for no new interpretations of the law of Allah and his Prophet. Over the centuries, that position helps explain why so much of Islam is stuck in the past. What was right in the 12th century is right in the 21st century. The implications are much broader and profound. This way of looking at things is why Muslim countries are so backward and 3rd world in most respects. Change is beginning to appear. It will be interesting to see how far change is allowed to go.
The bottom line is that the Ash’arite school of thought has created a false god of their own, demented and darkened minds. This false conception of god, and the false revelation from this false god, have yielded a religion of power seen in violence and evil. And this god and his religion require unquestioning obedience at all times. Someone once said that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. That is the history of Islam.
‘Trading and Raiding’ and the fruit thereof
As a result of Muslim conquests (murdering, raping, stealing, and so on), they came into contact with Greek thoughts and ideas (the Hellenization of Islam). Greek emphasis on reason and philosophy captured their attention for some time, but was ultimately rejected (de-Hellenization). The Mu’tazilite school of theology embraced this rational line of thinking until rabid Ash’arites destroyed it. Not all Muslim minds, in all expressions of Islam, are closed, but the Ash’arite worldview dominates the most crucial Sunni expression. Sunni Islam is the primary factor or force in worldwide Islamic leadership. Shi’a Islam is important but doesn’t have the control or reach that Sunni does.
The two schools contended with each other. The Ash’arite school emphasized the will and power of Allah, while the Mu’tazilite school emphasized the justice and the rationality of Allah. They believed reason played an essential role in understanding God and what He wants from mankind. It was a question about the very nature of god, or Allah in the case of Islam. What role, if any, does reason have in our understanding of Allah? The Ash’arite school rejected reason, rationality, questioning, and thinking as they thought it depreciated the nature of Allah. Reilly writes, “The fatal disconnect between the Creator and the mind of his creature is the source of Sunni Islam’s most profound woes.” Page 4 of the author’s book.
Islam’s Rejection of Causality
Ash’arite theology, reflected in Sunni orthodoxy, does not embrace causality. There is no cause and effect because the will of Allah is the explanation for everything (voluntarism). Man doesn’t have free will. The closing of the Muslim mind has yielded terrorism, violence, and evil. It has also resulted in the lack of progress in medicine, education, technology, industry, science, theology, and better forms of government. Ideas have consequences, and these are the consequences of embracing the Ash’arite view of reality and god.
If there is no cause and effect, that ties everything together, then we are left with the idea that Allah’s will is the tie that binds. This is called “occasionalism.” The Ash’arite believes that the appearance of cause and effect is an allusion. They try to explain this “allusion” by saying Allah has ‘habits’ but those are random. “The ultimate meaning of this is that “there is no unity in the world, moral or physical or metaphysical; all hangs from the individual will of Allah.” Page 64 of the author’s book. Read a few examples given by the author. Page 143.
- “It is not Islamic to say that combining hydrogen and oxygen makes water. You are supposed to say that when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together, then by the will of Allah water was created.”
- Some Muslims do not believe that the Earth orbits the Sun; instead, the Sun goes around the Earth. “Ibn Baz declares that all those who say that the earth is round and orbits the sun are apostates.” And because no one is free to think, this guy was never challenged. What do they do with apostates? It is not a pleasant way to go, be assured of that.
- Seatbelts are presumptuous. If one’s time to die has come, the seatbelt will not help. If it is not your time to die, the seatbelt is unnecessary.
- “If Allah wants the bullet to hit the target, it will, and if He does not, it will not.” The human being aiming and firing the gun has nothing to do with it.
- Sudia’s oil wealth is because Allah wills it. “The presence of petroleum gives credence to the Saudi claim that its Wahhabi form of Islam is the legitimate one…This is why Wahhabism has spread so significantly, even in parts of the world like Indonesia that would seem, from their cultural backgrounds, to have little sympathy with its radical literalism.”
- Car insurance and vaccines are presumptuous and unnecessary.
- Natural disasters are Allah’s will in action. For example, the 2004 tsunami happened because Allah wanted to punish fornicators and sexual perverts who came together during that time. Page 146.
- One Muslim writer explained the September 11, 2001, attack in New York was a USA group of Seventh Day Adventists, not Islamic actors. The lack of correlation between facts and evidence is the foundation for Islamic explanations.
- Birth control increases STDs, according to a Saudi urologist in May 2005.
How is this line of “thinking” to be explained? Where did it come from? It makes no sense at all. Then again, we live in a day when progressive political leadership makes no sense. Heaven help us if this insanity ever becomes normative and people cease to object to this nonsense. We must dig a bit deeper for answers.
The pre-Islamic idols
Pre-Islamic Arabia was immersed in polytheism, even though a supreme god named Allah was recognized somewhat. “Their world was also immersed in pantheism, animism, fetishism, and superstition,” according to the author. There were 360 gods and goddesses. At the time, their business was “trading and raiding”. Women stayed home with the kids, and the guys went out killing and robbing for a living. Bless their hearts. It was during this “trading and raiding” that Arabs came across civilizations that were superior to their own in almost every way.
Making a mole hill of a mountain
You have heard the expression, “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill”. The challenge of this short article is to make a mole hill out of a mountain. There is simply too much vital information to address, so I will need to make a molehill out of that mountain of information. I plan to address the central issues only. Drawing inferences and connections with Christian theology will tie this article into the others and demonstrate the connection Islam has with Christianity and, in particular, with the Roman Catholic Church.
Does man have free will?
We are talking about predestination or fate (Ash’arite) and free will (Mu’tazilite). Does man have a moral responsibility to know and do the right thing? Or is man simply a puppet, directed by Allah, who is all will and power? One of the names for Allah in the Qur’an is “al-Jabbar, the Compeller”. According to the Ash’arite, Allah is the author or originator of all action in the universe, including human action. Man does not have free will. Therefore, man doesn’t author any action or behavior of his own. This is what the Ash’arites believe.
The Mu’tazilites disagreed and believed that man has reason and responsibility. Man has free will and is the author of his behaviors and actions. The problem was that the Qur’an supported both positions: predestination and free will. Each school offered quotes from their holy books supporting their position. The Qur’an and the Hadith were used to support both perspectives. The Hadith are the supposed sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. This Hadith quote explains it all, “If Allah so willed, he could make you all one people. But He leaves straying whom He pleases, and He guides whom He pleases, and you shall certainly be called to account for all your actions.” Page 17 of Rielly’s book. Think about the stupidity of that statement. Muslims do not have free will to act, yet Allah will hold them accountable for all their actions. If that makes sense to you, call this number for immediate help: 1-800-Deceived.
If this Islamic theology sounds like the theology of the Christian Calvinist, then you are beginning to understand the dilemma. The full-fledged Calvinist believes much the same as the Sunni Ash’arite. The Calvinist believes that God wills or determines who will or will not be saved. The honest Calvinist does not believe man has free will, as Adam did before he sinned. (Chapter two of my book, When Lies Become Truth.) Because mankind is born totally depraved, as a result of Adam’s sin, he can’t choose to do good. A fallen man can’t choose God or choose to do the right thing because he has no ability to do so. I repeat, if that makes sense to you, call the number above for immediate help.
The Christian Arminian, much like the Mu’tazilite, disagrees and believes that man can choose to believe in and serve God. Man has free will. If man doesn’t choose God, damnation is his fault and not God’s fault. God would prefer to save everyone and damn no one. With the grace of God, man can do the right thing, but is not compelled to do the right thing. By man’s reason, he can understand the things of God and understand how the universe works according to the laws of cause and effect, natural law.
The Bible can be made to support each position, just like the Qur’an and the Hadith were used to support both positions. However, only this position is proper, and only this position agrees with the moral rational nature of man (we have free will, and I am not talking about the non-free, free will of the Calvinist). And it is the only logical and reasonable answer. We know that we are responsible for our actions and will someday be held accountable for them. Anyone or anything written that tells us something different must be rejected by an act of our will. We know this and many other things by consciousness. Some of what we know are first truths of reason.
If the Ash’arite view is correct, how could Allah hold them accountable for the evil they do, as that evil is ordained, authored, and necessitated by Allah, who is the only cause of all action? It is Allah’s will, the primacy of his will. Men and women have no free will. They are only tools, puppets, and robots. And if Allah ordains something, it is not evil by definition. Allah can do whatever He wants. He is not accountable to anyone in the universe. Allah can make what was evil yesterday, good today by an act of His will. He owes no obligation to a fixed and permanent standard of righteousness. Moral law is not absolute. Many Christians who hold to Augustinian Calvinism believe the same thing. They believe that the foundation of the law of God is His arbitrary will and not the nature and relations of mankind. Moral law is not absolute, and God owes no obedience to it. If Allah were accountable or obliged to act in a certain way, then His omnipotence would be compromised. That is the Ash’arite view.
If Allah is the only will in the universe, then everything that happens is the will of Allah. All evil is his will. All suffering, death, disease, famine, storms, war, destruction, and wickedness are the will of Allah. Allah is the author of sin in man, but it is not sin in Him. There is no sin if all this is true. This same logic applies to the Calvinist position as well. God must be the author of sin. Yet, God condemns us to hell for being born with a sinful nature that can only do one thing, and that is sin. God chooses those He will save, and all the rest will not be saved. Ash’arites and Calvinists have the same view of God. Yes, they may differ in parts, but it is essentially the same thing. (Is Allah the same as Jehovah?) All action in the universe is the will of God, including all sin, suffering, death, and wickedness. In other words, might makes right, and the end justifies the means. Allah is all-powerful (might) and will (His will is right, even if it is wrong for mankind). Might makes right. Allah’s will is the end, so anything He does is justified, no matter how evil it appears to us. Is that not the apotheosis (prime example) of irrational thinking?
When the Mu’tazilite suggested a different opinion, that was viewed as an assault on Allah, you know what happened next? Allah willed that their brothers, the Ash’arites, kill these Mu’tazilites. You can’t make this stuff up.
What you believe determines what you do. Ideas have consequences.
One last comment about the will of Allah and cause and effect. Most of us believe that God created the universe, including the natural laws that govern the universe. Those natural laws are secondary causes. For instance, the law of gravity, which God instilled in the universe. That law is the secondary cause. God doesn’t directly will a rock to fall; God created a law of gravity that makes the rock and all other objects fall.
Ash’arites did not believe in any secondary causes. Allah causes everything, at all times. God must will the rock and everything else to fall; there is no law of gravity, only the will of Allah. There is no cause and effect. If Allah did not cause everything, at the level of an atom, then He must not be all-powerful and His will must be optional. That means He is not sovereign, meaning He is not god, according to the Ash’arite.
They believe that Allah creates atoms and immediately destroys them, and then makes them again. Allah creates and then destroys the universe every moment. What appears to be movement is an allusion. Things have no past or future. Things exist in just one moment. This is an atomistic view of the will and sovereignty of Allah and reality. Everything is therefore miraculous or supernatural, as there are no natural laws or secondary causes. There are no natural laws governing the planets or the human body. Allah wills everything moment by moment, instant by instant.
If that is true, then what? There is no sin or evil in the universe. No one should ever feel guilty or be held accountable for doing any act of evil because that act is Allah’s will. We should be proud to mass murder people, or to rape women and children. We should be proud to steal, lie, and cheat, for all these are the pure will of Allah, praise his unholy name. “This voluntaristic view means reason can’t apprehend creation”. Why study anything? Why think? “Reality becomes incomprehensible and the purpose of anything becomes indiscernible”, according to the author. There is no rational, logical, or reasonable answer. The primacy of the will (Allah’s will) explains everything and nothing at the same time. (This is not much different from Augustinian Calvinism, is it?)
In the beginning was the deed, not the word. Knowledge comes after the deed, not before it, in this insane theology. But the word of God says just the opposite, in the beginning was the Word or reason. And the Word was God. The deed follows the word or follows reason. Ash’arites made their god, Allah, pure will and power. They cared nothing about god’s moral attributes like love, righteousness, and justice. The Mu’tazilite made Allah a being of reason, rationality, and justice, comprehensible by man. Man could will to worship, love, and serve Allah and was not programmed to do those things. This is a God of love. The other is not a god of love but of nothing but power and will, who is not worthy of worship in his own right. No man would worship him of his own free will, because power alone is an insufficient reason to love God voluntarily—page 53 of the author’s book.
Mu’tazilites did not believe in original sin. Sin or evil must be the consequence of what a person does. Adam is responsible for his sins and no one else. Man is not responsible for Adam’s sin either. God never does evil or acts unfaithfully. Because God is just, He doesn’t lie and He keeps His word to man. Ash’arites despised these ideas of the Mu’tazilites. Calvinists despise these ideas.
How did we get written revelation from God?
The Ash’arites believed that the Qur’an was never created or made but that it is eternal just like Allah, and co-eternal with Allah in the Arabic language. I thought Allah was the only true god. So how can Allah and the Qur’an be co-eternal? How is that different from believing in two gods? Are you following this? Still have that number I gave you?
The Mu’tazilite believed that Allah revealed His will to man so that it would be written down and known by man. The idea that the Qur’an was created in time was highly offensive to the Ash’arites, for if it was made in time, it would be subject to man’s reason and rational criteria. This took power away from the leaders, the ulema. An uncreated Qur’an doesn’t allow for man’s reason to interpret the will of Allah. A created Qur’an would give power to others to interpret the Qur’an. Mu’tazilites eventually lost the war, and their writings and books were burned. Their version of hate speech, I suppose.
The inconsistencies, unreasonableness, and illogic of the Ash’arite view are readily apparent from the Hadith, other authoritative writings, and the Qur’an. These inconsistencies in the Qur’an or Hadith, whatever they might be, are to be accepted without questioning according to the Ash’arites. “The Qur’an is the speech of God, uncreated, the acts of men are created, and inquiry into the matter is heresy,” according to Hadith collector, al-Bukhari in about 933 AD (taken from the author’s book). Have you heard anything like that before?
That same argument was used by Martin Luther in the 16th century (and others starting with Augustine in the 5th century, including John Calvin, and Johathan Edwards) as he discussed the sickening implications of his view of the nature of God and the apparent injustice of creating mankind with a sinful nature unable to obey God but responsible to obey God perfectly. Damnation being the outcome. He said that the more difficult it is to believe in God, the more laudable the faith that believes it. In other words, stop with the questions, the word of God, according to Luther and others, settled the issue. What he meant is that his interpretation of the Word of God settled the matter. As you have heard it said, “We are not governed by reason but by revelation.” Did the Ash’arite get this from Augustine? Or did Luther et al get it from the Ash’arite?
For the Ash’arite, the Calvinist, and the Catholic, if their doctrines were reasonable, they would sing a different tune about the role of reason. But because they are not reasonable, they must stifle questions and insist that revelation trumps reason. Shut up and believe our interpretation. Sickening, isn’t it?
The Mu’tazilite in me responds with the comment that this is nonsense and highly disgusting. God gave us reason, rationality, and free will to keep us out of the ditch and to protect us from our own illogic, stupidity, and impure hearts. We can and must know right from wrong, justice from injustice, good or evil, because these moral standards are objectively understood. These ethical standards are created in us by God Himself. Before the law of Moses was written on tablets of stone, Jehovah had written them in our moral rational nature. The laws of Moses on stone were declaratory only. God held people, who lived before Moses, accountable to moral law, before God wrote them on stone and gave them to Moses.
Either-or……..Both-and
The Ash’arites, the Roman Catholic, and Calvinists each believe, to different degrees, in the fallacious dogma of “either-or.” The Ash’arite says that we must believe in revelation or reason. It is one or the other, ‘either or’. Both can’t exist at the same time. There is some agreement between the Calvinists and the Catholics. But the truth of the Bible is ‘both-and.’ God expects us to use both His divine revelation (Bible) and our minds, our reason, and moral rational nature. It is both reason and revelation, with revelation and the Holy Spirit of God being the final umpire, not the pope, not the imam, not the pastor. I have never found a Biblical truth that revolted my understanding of His revelation. I have not experienced Luther’s dilemma because I was not bound by Augustine’s, Luther’s, Calvin’s, or Edward’s interpretation of scripture.
Mu’tazilites lost the war, and the results are:
“By the 12th century, the conservative, antirationalist schools of thought had almost completely destroyed the Mu’tazilite influence,” according to Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy. (quote from the author’s book.) By the fourteenth century, the greatest thinker of the day dismissed the study of physics! “We must refrain from studying these things (general classes) since such restraint falls under the duty of the Muslim not to do what does not concern him. The problems of physics are of no importance for us in our religious affairs or our livelihoods. Therefore, we must leave them alone.” Page 43. Immediately, I think of their “livelihoods” and wonder if their “livelihoods” might not have been much improved by the study of physics and other sciences? And what was the primary livelihood back in the 14th century? Was it “trading and raiding?” I am pretty sure that their victims would have preferred that they adopt a new livelihood.
Hanbalism is the most literalist school of Islamic Jurisprudence, according to the author. Saudi Arabia mostly follows this. There are four schools of law for the Sunni. The most crucial part or discipline of Islamic education was not theology but law. The Qur’an and other writings have answered all questions, so there is nothing left to do but to obey the law. Don’t think, don’t ask questions, don’t look for a reason, just do as the Prophet Muhammad did and Allah commands. (“Obey as if you had a choice. Pretend. People with no free will have no choices by definition!)
Death to innovation, life to imitation
Islam believes that innovation is a sin and a crime. Imitation is the only way and is beyond criticism. (Page 47 of the author’s book). This prohibition against innovation applied especially to theology, but it spilled over into everything else as well. If Allah wanted us to know about something, He would have written it down. If it isn’t written down already, we do not need to know it. Revelation replaces thinking, reasoning, questioning, and making innovations. Don’t think, just do what the Prophet of Allah would do. Pretend that you have a choice in the matter.
Form over substance
Both Christians and Muslims are easily attracted to a religion that requires little or no thought. They find it much easier just to be told what to do and when to do it. Theirs is a religion of “form over substance”. Catholics and many Calvinists excel in this, as do the Muslims. Both are told not to reason or question what they are being told. Just do it, and all will be fine.
Truth and true Christianity are all about ‘substance and not form’. It is about the purpose and the motive for doing what we do. There is no motive in Islam, as that requires reason and free will. Motive is not preeminent in Catholic theology either, for it is lost in a sea of rituals and sacraments (form).
Death to conscience and the duty of private judgment
There is no right of private judgment in the Roman Catholic Church. The church explains it all, and the infallible Pope represents God on earth. The Pope is Christ’s Vicar here on earth and can forgive sins and determine moral law. Even our conscience must bow before the Pope. Don’t think, just do as told. We are not governed by reason but by revelation.
There is no Arabic word for conscience in Islam. Freedom of conscience is not recognized. This is not surprising since conscience involves reasoning and questioning, neither of which are permitted.
Much, but not all, of this line of thinking is present in Calvinist and Catholic theology. Luther struggled with the disgusting implications of his views, but instead of taking that as a warning from God, he silenced his conscience, stopped thinking, and just bowed his knee to written revelation. Unfortunately, he misunderstood God, and it was his faulty interpretation of scripture that was to blame. Don’t think, just do as told. We are not governed by reason but by revelation according to both the Calvinist, the Catholic, and the Ash’arite Muslim. In the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, it is written that Jehovah said, “Come, let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet….”
Ash’arite theology is almost identical to high Calvinism. I leave room for some differences. One of my favorite theologians once said, “If you will not think, you can’t be saved.” More truthful words have never been spoken.
The unknowable God, and the death of God
Man can’t know Allah’s essence or character, and man is not created in the image and likeness of God. Any attempt to know Allah’s essence or His attributes is forbidden. Allah is pure will and power. Man’s reason is not needed or allowed. What Allah reveals, in the holy writings, is his rules for us, and nothing about Himself, according to Ash’arite theology. I hope you didn’t lose that telephone number I gave you earlier; you might need it sooner than you think.
Someone please tell me why Allah, or the god called the “uncreated Qur’an,” gave mankind these rules when Allah’s will determines everything in the “moral” and natural universe? This written revelation (Qur’an) is meaningless to mankind, for Allah determines what each of us will do, at every moment. Man has no free will, according to them. Man doesn’t choose what he will do, for only Allah’s will prevails. Allah wills that rocks fall, blood circulates, the sun rises and sets, planets rotate, people die horrible deaths, men and women kill each other and their children, they rape each other, and bombs explode. All of this Allah makes happen moment by moment. Praise his unholy name. Their god is no god, just fate. If they are accurate, God is dead.
Allah is not the one true God of the Bible.
We see immediately the vast difference between Allah and the God of the Bible, who tells us that we are created in His image and likeness. He is the knowable God of love, truth, light, justice, reason, and holiness. Man, by his misuse of God’s gift of free will, chooses to disobey God. We recapitulate Adam’s choice. We have all sinned. We are enemies of God Almighty by our own decisions. Jehovah is God Almighty, who wants us to know and love Him as our Father. He took on human flesh, suffered, and died on a cross for us. He rose from the dead, so that He might redeem us from every lawless deed that we have committed. If that doesn’t warm your heart, then your heart is as cold as stone. You may have the heart of an Ash’arite.
Allah is an idol with a heart of stone. No thinking person can worship such a god. Absolute power is not a sufficient reason to worship and love a being like that. And this explains why they forbid the use of reason. Don’t think, just do whatever Allah moves you to do as if you had a choice. You don’t. If you murder some people tomorrow, by blowing yourself up, Allah did it through you, the instrument.
Muslim Education
In an Ash’arite society, what can education possibly mean? It certainly can’t mean thinking, reasoning, and innovation. There is no debate allowed and no thinking outside the box. It is all forbidden, punishable by death for all apostasy. Education is about learning and rote memorization. Education is about memorizing what is required to live in society. Everything, including the sciences, became rote memorization of whatever was allowed to be taught, which was generally about Islamic laws. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. Why even bother with rote education if Allah’s will determines everything? This appears to be another inconsistency with their views of reality.
It is easy to understand why Muslims are throwbacks to centuries gone by. If thinking, improving things, innovation, and asking questions are punishable by death, most people just shut up. Development would inevitably be retarded. That is what we see.
Law without justice
Ash’arite theology believes that Allah can make laws that are impossible to obey, and there is no injustice in that. Calvinists and almost all other evangelical Christians believe the same ridiculous proposition. For when Christians claim that we are born with a sinful nature, that is the source and cause of their sins, they are saying explicitly that God made laws impossible for us to obey. The penalty for not perfectly obeying laws that are impossible to follow is hellfire. Tell me how God is just if this is true? It can’t be demonstrated. Mankind must fall back on the idea that God is above moral law and that His will is right even if we know it is wrong. Al-Ghazali puts these words in the mouth of God: “These to bliss, and I care not; and these to Fire, and I care not.” Page 80 of the author’s book. In this application, both Muslims and Christians serve an indifferent and arbitrary god, who is not the God of the Bible or reason. One Muslim leader said that it would not be wrong of Allah to condemn us for another person’s sins or send the evil people to paradise and the righteous to hell. Catholics and other Christians believe the same thing, that we are guilty for Adam’s sin and inherit a sinful nature as a result of Adam’s sin. And god is just in sending us to hell.
Al-Ghazali is considered by many Muslims, even today, to be the second most important person in Islam, next to Muhammad. The will of Allah is all there is; there is no other reality but Allah, Al Haqq (the only reality). Islam is pantheism (all gods equal or god is the universe or the universe is a manifestation of God) or monism (only one supreme being exists; you and I don’t exist).
Passivity in religion
Ash’arism (and Sufism) taught passivity and indifference about the world. Quietism is closely related. (From the author’s book.) All these ideas are not taught in the Bible but are taught in some Christian circles as well as in Islam. In high Calvinism, man, a born sinner, is passive until God regenerates him. God is the sole cause of salvation and all the acts of man. If most people are not saved, it is because God did not choose to save them. If your reason objects to this, your reason must be silenced. Stop thinking, for it makes a person an infidel. Just obey. Blind obedience is a virtue. Still have that 1-800 number?
Democracy impossible, despotism inevitable
If reason and rationality are banned (Ash’arism), how can a real Democracy or a constitutional republic survive? It can’t. In a Democracy, it is reason over power. In Ash’arism and Hanbalism, it is power (despotism) over reason. Hanbalism is a movement to purify Islam. It advocates that Islamic theology and philosophy must be rejected, and strict adherence to Qur’anic law must be observed. Hanbalism (personal opinion is not acceptable, nor is the consensus of later generations of Muslims) in the form of Wahhabism is gaining traction today, according to the author. Wahhabism is more opposed to the primacy of reason than Ash’arism. That is difficult to imagine!
Our American constitution states that we are all created equal in the image of God with certain rights that can’t be abridged. In Muslim countries, there is no equality of humanity. The Jew and the Christian are most definitely not equal to a Muslim. Jews and Christians can never deserve equal treatment with a Muslim until they convert to Islam. The question of human rights doesn’t exist in the Muslim mind. How can anyone have the right to anything he does not possess by nature? This rejection of reason leaves brute force the only option. Violence is the only path forward. If intellectual opposition, based on reason, is rejected, violence or revolution is the only other option.
Morality impossible
If Allah is the only will in the universe and if man doesn’t have free will, then morality is impossible. There is no evil and no good. Nothing is wrong and everything is correct. There are no bad people and no good people. A suicide bomber is not a mass murderer and is not guilty of a capital crime. The child rapist is not a bad person or an immoral one. The martyr is not a good person. Morality is dependent on free will. If the will of Allah (including the God of Calvinism) is everything, then force is the ultimate source of virtue. Force precludes morality. Force is an attribute of natural law, not moral law. Voluntariness is an attribute of morality or moral law.
Final Comments
This mole hill will have to do. Much of the mountain is still left standing. I encourage reading this book by Robert Rielly and the others cited in this series of articles. I also recommend reading books written by Robert Spenser. Specifically, The Truth about Muhammad, and Did Muhammad Exist?
Ideas have consequences, and what you believe determines what you do. More results of the demonic insanity of Ash’arite Islamic views follow. (Taken from the author’s book.)
- The Arab world remains in a profound darkness.
- Little or no creativity in most Arab countries. Innovation is a dead duck.
- No scientific advancements in any discipline of science, from medicine to mathematics and physics.
- No reform, personal or civic.
- Muslims are at the bottom of human development in health, education, per capita GDP, and productivity. Page 162.
- High unemployment.
- Arabs are illiterate compared to most of the rest of the world.
- Little personal freedom.
- Almost no scholarly Arab/Islamic publications.
- They are a society of consumers and not producers. Trading and raiding have been replaced, to some degree, with immigration into other lands.
- A culture without advancement and one stuck in time.
Naturally, Muslims attribute all this to a lack of faith in Allah: nice try, but no cigar. If Allah is all will and power, then this lack of everything is His will. Human will had nothing to do with it. Allah wants every other civilization to develop and prosper except Islamic nations, which follow Allah. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
Muslims and many Christians alike share some of the worst ideas on the top side of the earth. When the Pope said that Muslims and Catholics serve the same god, he was correct. However, it is not the God of the Bible, and that is obvious from all that has been presented in these articles. There are undeniable similarities between the Catholic faith and the Muslim faith. Both despise Bible believing Christians and have been killing real Christians for many centuries, over 1,400 years.
It seems very probable that Muslims and Catholics will continue to move closer together. They will find their unity of purpose in the exaltation of Mary. In turn, the Roman Catholic Church will find ways to synthesize Islamic beliefs with Catholic beliefs. The Catholic Church has been doing that for almost 1,500 years. A one-world government, with a one-world religion, is a perfect description of their collective aspirations.
President Barack Obama said, “As a student of history, I am aware of civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance (appreciation of Greek thought, art, literature and culture).” I opened this series of articles citing this comment from our then President. After reading all that has been written about the character, history and theology of Islam, would you agree with him that “Islam carried the light of learning through so many centuries”?
Where Islam goes, it extinguishes light and learning both. The ease with which our leaders like Obama and Biden lie is truly breathtaking and disgusting at the same time. Anyone who might disagree with the progressives, will be called Islamophobic, racist and hateful. When progressives resort to name calling those who disagree with their wicked propaganda, you know for certain how intellectually and morally bankrupt they are.
Our only hope
Nothing but a revival of truth and faith in the one true God can rescue humanity from Islam, the Catholic religion and apostate evangelicalism. More land, more money, more weapons, more riches and more programs, and moral secular ideals will not fix this problem. Allah, the Roman Catholic god and the god of apostate evangelicalism must die and his works must perish. Religious men and women must begin to think, to ask questions and do what truth in scripture, reason and their conscience demand of them. They are moral beings endowed by their creator (Jesus) with a free will and self-determination. The same is true for all Christians who have wandered from the path of truth and confidence in the Word of God, the Bible.
