History of Islam: Part 2

That kind word of introduction, thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you as always in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

This is the preaching of the cross radio broadcast.

The message that we have to declare to you is an old one.

We don't have any new thing to tell.

It's just the old, old story that Jesus Christ, God manifest in a body of human flesh, came into this world to suffer and bleed and die to pay for your sins and for mine.

And three days and three nights after Jesus Christ the Lord died upon an old rugged cross at Mount Calvary, he rose from the dead.

Now you'd think that would settle all argument and discussion about religion.

Seeing that Buddha did not conquer death, that Muhammad did not conquer death, that hundreds of popes have not conquered death, you would think that it would be very, very clear to dying men and dying women who it is they ought to trust for the salvation of their soul, and yet sadly, sadly, millions and millions and millions of people continue to follow the wrong way, to walk in the darkness, to seek life from dead men.

What a tragedy.

Jesus Christ is risen today.

Hallelujah.

And it's our declaration to you, it's our declaration to the whole wide world and everybody in it that Jesus saves.

No dead man can save, but Jesus Christ the living Lord, Jesus Christ the risen Lord, can save your soul.

We began on the last broadcast to discuss once again this matter of the Mohammedan religion, now being called by the news media and those who are repackaging the Mohammedan religion for Western consumption, now being called Islam, or the Islamic faith.

But Islam is nothing more than adherence to the person of and the principles of Muhammad.

Muhammad was a human.

He wasn't God manifest in the flesh.

He wasn't virgin born.

He's just a man.

And like every human, his life was filled with its tragedies as well as its fleeting joys.

It is probably because of these tragedies that he set up for his hereafter a paradise of bliss, or what to him seemed to be bliss.

In the whole world, he lamented on one occasion, I had but one friend, born in Mecca, five hundred and seventy years after Jesus Christ, five hundred and forty some years after Jesus Christ rose from the dead, born into a land of fierce idolatry, where predatory robbery and murder were the chief means of livelihood, he was forty years of age before he himself broke from the bondage of idols and entered upon his conquest with the sword.

His own ancestor, five generations back, had placed his family, the Khorash, in control of the government of the holy city, and his own grandfather was at that time a priest in the temple Kaaba, C A B A.

Muhammad's father died at Medina shortly before the prophet's birth and never saw his child.

There is a tradition surrounding his birth, which means there's no truth to it, no validation, but there is a tradition which many of the Muhammadans believe.

They tell that the moment he was born, an ethereal light illumined all the sky, that rivers overflowed their banks, that all the idols of the world fell down, that the light which had burned for a thousand years in the temple of Zoroaster went suddenly out, and that on the first moment when the young babe opened his eyes, he lifted them to heaven and exclaimed, God is great, there is no God but Allah, and I am his prophet.

Those who believe that will also believe that the dish ran away with a spoon and that the cow jumped over the moon.

There's just as much historical, archaeological, and theological proof for that tradition as there is for the for the oft cited tradition that a frog went a courtin and he did ride with a sword and a pistol by his side.

About a week after Muhammad's birth, he was taken to the Kaba by his grandfather and christened Muhammad, meaning the praised.

His grandfather, who was then nearly a hundred years old, made a speech over the infant in which he prophesied a wonderful future for him.

Why anyone would think that's remarkable is a mystery to me.

What do you think grandpa's gonna do?

Stand up and say this kid's gonna drive us all insane?

What do you think he's gonna do?

Stand up and say I see a future for this child of drug abuse and jail terms?

Not likely.

After the christening, his mother, fearing that Mecca was unhealthy, sent him out to nurse with the woman of a Bedouin tribe.

For the first five years of his life he remained with them on the desert.

During these years he suffered the beginning of the frequent attacks of epilepsy that occurred continually throughout his life.

When Muhammad was six years old, his mother Amina, who had moved meanwhile to Medina, which was her family home, died, and left Muhammad an orphan.

Not at all an uncommon thing in that day and time.

His grandfather took him to live at the temple, but after two years the old patriarch also passed away, and Muhammad went to live with his uncle, who was a dealer in cloth and perfumery.

Of little use in his uncle's business at this age, he was sent out to tend the herds and flocks of various masters until he arrived at the age of fourteen.

At about this time he began to accompany the caravans on their journeys to training centers, first as a helper, then as a camel driver, later as a business agent.

He seems to have been good at figures and accounts, although the balance of the evidence is that he never learned to read or write.

At nineteen he was allowed to accompany his uncle on an expedition against the hostile tribe of Beni Hashawasan, H A W A S I N, where he took part in his first battle.

On one of these trading journeys to Basra in Syria, Muhammad then about fourteen stopped with his uncle for a few days at the home of an Astorian monk named Sergius.

This monk talked with him and told him many of the principles and practices of the Christian faith, in which the boy appeared to be much interested.

So at age fourteen, Muhammad was witnessed to.

He was told about Jesus Christ, about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Everybody gets the gospel.

They may reject it, they may receive it, they may call it a lie, they may love it as the truth, but they get the gospel.

At the age of twenty five, Muhammad had become the trusted business agent for a wealthy widow named Kadijah, K A D I J A, who became enamored of the young man's intelligence and sent an envoy to him with a proposal of marriage, to which Muhammad immediately consented.

Her father's permission, however, was also necessary, but was not so easy to gain.

This outside obstacle was overcome, according to tradition, by getting the fellow drunk and conducting the ceremony while he was plastered.

Interesting.

We now see Muhammad during the next fifteen years living a quiet life, assisting his wife in the management of her affairs, going on journeys to all the various trading centers of the East.

Their union was consummated by the birth of six children during this time, five girls and one boy.

To Muhammad's great grief, his only son died in infancy.

Khijah, his wife, had a cousin, Waraka, W-A-R-A-K-A, who lived near them and who was a deep student of various religious faiths.

This cousin had been born a Jew, later confirmed to Christianity, and finally became interested in the occult sciences and astrology.

Notice he wasn't a born-again believer, he was confirmed.

He got a little water on the forehead after consenting to belief in a few principles.

He was a man of considerable scholastic attainments.

He had translated parts of the Old and New Testaments into Arabic.

With this man we find Muhammad spending many hours in the discussion of these various religious systems, although he and his wife remained faithful idolaters until his great revelation came to him at the age of forty.

The event which was to change the course of his life and found a great empire, and effect the destiny of the whole world took place.

Muhammad was observing the Arabic fast of Ramadan in retirement in a cave at Mount Hara.

It was on the holy night of Al Qadr A L K A D E R, the night of the divine decree.

Muhammad said he was suddenly awakened by a great light.

It so blinded him that he fell as one dead.

When he regained his consciousness he beheld an angel standing before him, holding a silken banner on which words were written in Arabic characters.

Read, said the angel, which is kind of a funny thing to say to a man that's illiterate.

I know not how to read, said Muhammad.

Read repeated the angel, in the name of the Lord who has created all things, who created man from a clot of blood.

Read in the name of the Most High who taught man the use of the use of the pen, who sheds on his soul the ray of knowledge, and teaches him what before he knew not.

Whereupon Muhammad felt himself able to read.

We need that angel in the schools.

Upon the banner he perceived the messages which later were to become parts of the Quran and sweep the world in which he lived.

What did this man who could not read suddenly read?

The angel said, O Muhammad, I am the angel Gabriel, and of a verity thou art the prophet of God.

Muhammad startled, hurried to his wife.

He told her of his revelation, and then he went to the aged Waraka and told him.

Both immediately proclaimed their belief in the divine messenger and in the mission of Muhammad as a prophet.

Notice they didn't consult God, they didn't consult the Holy Bible.

Zaid Z A I D, Muhammad's slave, and later his adopted son, his youthful cousin Ali, and Abu Bekar, a cloth merchant of mystical tendencies, became the first converts.

Other members of his family laughed at him, scoffed at him, ridiculed him, or treated him with indifference.

He was only an epileptic, not right in the head.

But Muhammad began at once to hold secret meetings at his home, his life having been threatened.

From time to time he received more revelations in which the angel Gabriel would dictate more sections of the Quran to him.

It was four years before he had gained even adherence enough to enable himself to publicly appear and declare himself as a prophet of God.

Muhammad himself suffered many insults and mockings, even by his family connections.

The lot of his followers became very difficult.

The Meccans, incensed at the new faith, treated him very harshly and subjected them to violent physical abuse.

The cry was that this fanatic Muhammad must be stopped.

This epileptic is becoming dangerous.

That's what his neighbors and many of his relatives said.

The Meccans issued an edict that made outlaws of practically the entire following of Muhammad.

Although this edict was repealed a year later, the Prophet opened negotiations with a group of the people of Medina, the home of his mother's family, and attempted to get them to join the faith and afford protection to himself and his followers.

A price was placed on his head.

One man of each of the forty Arabian tribes banded themselves together for the purpose of slaying the Prophet.

He fled to Medina, since called the City of the Prophet.

This was in the thirteenth year of his mission, and the forty or I'm sorry, fifty-third year of his life.

As yet his followers numbered less than three hundred persons.

This flight of Muhammad and his little band of followers from Mecca is celebrated in Muhammadan history as the Hagirah, H.

E.

G.

I R A, and from this date they mark their time, the year of the Hagira, being the year one.

In our reckoning, this would be September 20, 622 AD.

Medina welcomed him with open arms and proclaimed him ruler of the city, and it was here that shortly afterwards he first declared himself prophet of the sword.

A great empire was now born, to be nurtured with flame and sword.

Holy wars were to be fought.

Isn't that an interesting term, holy war?

And crusades were to be waged.

The prophet of the sword had conquered.

Multitudes began to gather under the flaming banner of the crescent, all eyes turned toward Mecca, the holy city.

So great had become the power of Muhammad that in the years before his death he was under constant guard to keep him from assassination.

It's not great power, if you ask me.

Plots to poison or stab him, conspiracies to overthrow him, seethed about him.

I don't remember Jesus needing any bodyguards or armies to protect him.

Believe he came to lay down his life, and if it wasn't time to lay down his life, let him try to throw him off the brow of a hill.

He'll walk right through the midst of them.

Let them try to arrest him.

All he must do is uh speak the word, and they'll fall to the ground backward like dead man.

But when Muhammad captured the Jewish citadel of Kabar, he fell victim to the vengeance of the niece of a slain warrior.

Entering the palace, she demanded food.

A roast shoulder of lamb was set before him.

With the first mouthful he sensed danger and spat it on the floor.

It was virulent poison.

One of his followers fell to the floor and died in convulsions.

The girl was called before him.

Boldly confessing the plot, she declared, I thought if thou wert indeed a prophet thou wouldst discover thy danger.

If but a chieftain thou wouldst fall, and we should be delivered from a tyrant.

Arabian authorities are divided as to the fate of the girl.

It's maintained by some of them that she was delivered up to the vengeance of the relatives of the soldier who died of the poison.

According to others, her beauty pleaded in her behalf, and Muhammad restored her to her restored her unharmed.

Nobody knows for sure, but the poison had entered Muhammad's system.

It affected his heart, and he suffered from it till he died two years later, although it's not attributed as a cause of his death.

It remains here but to tell something of Muhammad's family life and to describe the touching scene of his death.

Many writers have criticized Muhammad for his fondness for women.

Yeah, and well they should.

They've overlooked the fact that a plurality of wives was in his time and place almost a universal custom among those who could afford the expense.

And yet, if Muhammad were God's prophet, he would follow God's word.

And God's word said that a man is to be the husband of one wife.

That's how many he gave Adam.

That's how many instructed the kings of Israel to have and to hold.

There are historic records of the names of twelve of Muhammad's wives, and tradition places the number sometimes as high as twenty-five.

As we said before, kind of a Joseph Smith deal.

Call yourself a prophet, say that God told you uh told everybody to listen to you, and then start telling the ladies that God said uh she is to give herself to you.

It's quite a racket if you can if you can get it going and maintain it.

Now it must be borne in mind that many of these women were taken as uh much for reasons of policy, as for reasons of an affectionate nature.

In other words, uh Muhammad would marry women uh to ensure and strengthen his political hold upon a certain region or area.

He remained true to Khija throughout her lifetime.

Only after her death he became betrothed to Aisha.

Aisha remained unquestionably his favorite until he died, but his other wives had their separate abodes connected with the temple at Medina, where Muhammad lived.

The wives of Muhammad were Kadijah, a wealthy widow of Mecca, Sauda, a tall, hefty, mature widow, Aisha, a plump child of ten years, ten years old, when Muhammad nearly in his mid-fifties, took her to be his wife.

They put you in jail for that in the United States, or at least they're supposed to.

Hafsa, twenty-year-old daughter of Omar, Zanab or Ziniab the first, a widow of one of the heroes of the battle at Beter, Um, widow of Abu Salama, Zenab II, widow of Zaid Muhammad's servant, Juriah, a captive taken in war, Safiya, captive taken in war, Um Habiba, daughter of Abu Sufyan, Mimuna, sister in law of his uncle Al Abbas, and Mary the Coptic maid, a slave girl, who bore him a son named Ibrahim, who died in childhood.

So that's Muhammad's women as far as as far as we know them, probably many more whose names aren't recorded.

Muhammad declared that he had received a revelation from Gabriel, commanding that no man should marry any of his wives after his death, but that they should remain widows in respect to his memory.

Like I said, it's a great racket if you can get anybody to buy into it.

The day before Muhammad's death, he was too weak to go to the temple to lead devotions as was his custom.

Abu Bakr was directed to take his place.

When the people saw Abu Bakr, the cry arose that Muhammad was too.

Was dead.

The greatest wailing and confusion fell upon the multitude.

When Muhammad was told of this, he insisted that he appear before the people, exerting his little remaining strength, and leaning on two of his followers, he appeared in the temple, taking his seat behind Abu Bakr.

His appearance amazed the people, and he spoke to them, saying, I have heard that a rumor of the death of your prophet filled you with alarm.

But has any prophet before me lived forever?

Yes, Muhammad, as a matter of fact, they have.

Enoch was translated to heaven and did not die because he walked with God.

Elijah was carried to heaven in a chariot.

Moses was seen alive on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And Jesus Christ, whom you claim to have supplanted, walked out of the grave and is, not only does he live forever, but he is eternal, everlasting life, and imparts the same to all those that believe on him.

So Muhammad in his dying words proved the great spiritual darkness of his soul.

Has any prophet before me lived forever that you think I should never leave you?

Everything happens according to the will of God.

Really?

Really?

Everything happens according to the will of God.

It was God's will that Adam eat the fruit.

It was God's will that Satan rebel against him.

It's God's will that men lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape.

Come on, Muhammad.

You lived your whole life and didn't learn anything any better than that.

Everything happens according to the will of God, these are his dying words, and has his appointed time which is not to be hastened nor avoided.

I return to him who sent me.

Of that you can be sure.

And my last command to you is that ye remain united, that ye love, honor, and uphold each other, that ye exhort each other to faith and constancy and belief, and to the performance of pious deeds.

By these alone men prosper, all else leads to destruction.

Not one word, not one word about faith in God, not one word about faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just do good deeds, and everything will be okay.

The end was at hand.

The reaper stood over him.

His last words spoken in public were uttered shortly after.

I do but go before you, you will soon follow me.

Death awaits us all.

Let no one then seek to turn it aside from me.

My life has been for your good, so is my death.

On the next day Muhammad seemed for a while to regain his strength and was in exceedingly happy state of mind.

Aisha, his favorite wife, the one he married when she was ten years old, remained alone with him for a long time, but his pains returned and redoubled, and perspiration broke out on his brow.

He felt that death was fast approaching.

He commanded that all his slaves should be given their freedom.

Well what a nice thing to do.

How about give them your their freedom the very day they come into your power?

You know what Jesus Christ does?

He sets captives free.

Praise be to his name.

He said that all the money in his house should be given to the poor, which I'm sure all of his wives really appreciated, since they couldn't marry again.

Now think about that.

He told his wives they couldn't marry again, and then gave all his money away on the day of his death.

Think about their recompense for being his concubines and and uh and well, you you understand.

Then raising his eyes to heaven, he said, God be with me in the death struggle.

So here's this last tragic scene.

Muhammad the Great is dying.

One of his wives is sitting beside him, knowing she's gonna be facing uh starvation and poverty as soon as he breathes his last breath, knowing she can never m marry again for the next thirty, forty, fifty years of her life.

She's gotta live in poverty.

He says, Oh, Allah be it so, among the glorious associates in paradise.

And those are the last words he uttered.

His eyes closed, he sank gently into unconsciousness, and three days and three nights later the worms moved in and began to eat him up.

Died on his 63rd birthday, the eleventh year of the Hagira, 632 AD.

His favorite wife was twenty.

He left her nothing.

He was buried by his own command in the place where he died, his body being interred directly beneath his bed in the house of Aisha, adjoining the humble mosque near the city of Medina, which had first raised him to commanding power.

And so ends, so ends the life of Muhammad.

No resurrection, no victory, no conquest, no eternal life, no gift of life to his followers, no hope of salvation for those that believe.

Just the man, just the man who lived after the desires of his flesh, who died, provided nothing for his many wives, gave no salvation, no eternal life to his followers, and bid them to do good works rather than trust God or trust the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a sad state of affairs.

And the world rolls on.

The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

Neither is there salvation in any other.

There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

This is the preaching of the cross radio broadcast.

The announcer will be on in just a moment to tell you when this program would be heard again over this radio station.

We hope you'll join us then.

I'm Brother James.

May the Lord richly bless you and good day.

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Until next time, and throughout eternity, make Jesus Christ be praised.