Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and the Saudi Generals

Probably seventy-five percent of the small children in the U.S. have sometime heard the scary warning, “The bogey man is going to get you.” This warning will often produce a smile because the child knows that “the bogey man” does not exist. However, more often it will produce mild to extreme fear in the small children, even though they think they know that a person such as the bogey man does not exist. Yet anytime the term, “bogey man” is used against any one, it always has the message to the person that he or she has reason to be afraid of something. So the way that the term bogey man is now used in adult conversation is to refer to anyone or anything real or imagined that represents some type of threat, and possibly an evil threat.

I am convinced that there is a big, bad, fearsome bogey man that has put at least some type of fear in virtually every Muslim in the entire Middle East. The bogey man which I will soon talk about is like a twin Bogey man to the now deceased once feared Ruhollah Ayatollah Khomeini. Although his twin bogey man is not actually a man. Rather, this un-identical twin bogey man is not even a verse in the Holy Quran. Rather, the dangerous, scary, bogey man that I will discuss has been invented by man. This scary and feared Bogey man is a feared misinterpretation of just one verse out of the thousands of verses in the Holy Quran. So it is not the actual verse that causes Muslims to fear. Rather, it is the forced misinterpretation of the verse that grips their hearts with fear, even though they think that the verse itself is their friend. But some how, some way, a strange fear has gripped their hearts and minds that if they admit that Allah’s now Risen Bethlehem man actually defeated death rather than fleeing from death, that that will put him in a competition with the beloved Prophet Muhammad, which it will not because the two men had very different callings from Allah.

Still, Muslims fear to interpret this verse correctly because they think that this wrong interpretation, which regretfully prevents God’s Messiah from defeating not only death, but also prevents him from defeating the dreaded Israeli apparatus, is the interpretation that pleases Allah. But a false interpretation of one complex, profound, beautiful verse does not please Allah. So I repeat, it is not the verse itself that Muslims fear, but they fear the correct interpretation because they think the correct interpretation will offend Allah, and that only the false interpretation will please Him. So they have no fear of the wrong interpretation, but they have much fear of the right interpretation.

But the key to being free to accept the truth of the verse is to realize that it is not a simplistic verse. Rather it is a profound verse that is beautiful in its complexity. But whether the verse is considered simple or complex, if a person decides to understand the meaning of the verse in a way that is different from what the leaders and authorities in Islam demand that the verse be understood, that can get a Muslim into a big mountain of trouble, until additional understanding is provided by Allah.

Before we go into detail about how one particular verse out of the hundreds of verses in the Holy Quran has become a frightening bogey man, we will consider one actual man who became in 1979, Islam’s especially frightening bogey man. This was true, especially if you were a vulnerable woman. Significantly though, this man has been deceased for well over a decade, his long fearful shadow still terrifies many women. Yet, many of these women don’t remember who the mean man is who is casting the terrifying shadow.

This terrifying, unfriendly bogey man whose shadow even now continues to scare women and girls throughout the Middle East, is now the deceased Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As an outsider who does not have accurate, specific information about that Iranian Ayatollah, I did travel around the Middle East enough and read enough different news articles about him that I think I have fairly accurate impressions about his repressive impact on the Middle East. Before, during, and after this very effective Bogey man arrived, he has had an amazing ability to distort Islam into a psychological weapon to enslave the minds of girls and women. But before his arrival on the scene in a dominating way, women’s Islamic faith did not have the moments of dread that this bogey man Ayatollah soon introduced them to. From what I read and heard on the news, it seemed as though virtually every woman in specifically Iran soon became terrified of his repressive influence. And so narrow was his concept of how he was convinced that Islam was to dominate Iran, the citizens of Iran were for a period of time, not allowed to even experience the pleasure of listening to music, so extreme were his distortions of what was supposed to please Allah.

Remarkably even today, though Iranian Muslim women may not trace their fear directly back to the Ayatollah Bogey man Khomeini, it is really his bogey man stamp that he has even now put on the Iranian and other religious police that strikes fear into the hearts of both Iranian and even Saudi Arabian women. So these girls and women may not even be familiar with his dominating bogey man quality that he has passed on to prayer and religious police even in other countries.

For instance, a writer for the International Harold Tribune in June asked a question of a well educated professional woman in Iran about what she most feared. As I remember the news article, her reply was about a horrible dream in which she personally experienced a devastating earth-quake in her home city. As her house violently shook around her, she escaped to the safety of the open street. But once she was safely in the street outside her home, she became even more terrified. She suddenly realized the one necessary item that she had forgotten in her home. In her rush to save her own life, she had not remembered to wear her hijab, (her required head scarf). So she just stood in the street, trembling with fear, patiently awaiting her terrible fate at the hands of the unrelenting, religious police. To these rigid, unsympathetic, powerful men, it is far more important that she be wearing her head scarf than if she had been killed from a violent life threatening earthquake.

But whether that woman or even her interviewer realized it or not, it was not the actions of a few fanatically religious police that this woman actually feared. Even these many years after the bogey mans death, she was still terrified of the ghost of the bogey man who casts a long dark, legalistic shadow even though he has been dead and gone for more than a decade. So even now the narrow, rigid mind of this Iranian bogey man is still haunting women and even men throughout the Middle East. To be so fearful of his extremely narrow mind is to think that even Allah has a similar narrow and rigid mind. So these girls and women are intimidated to dread Allah, who is also supposedly so narrow and focused that nothing else will be able to please him if girls and women are not wearing their obligatory traditional Hijab/head scarf. So before this bogey man’s Islamic revolution significantly led by a man who never learned to smile, girls and women throughout the Middle East had lived much more joyful and fulfilling lives.

Their joy was crudely assassinated when the supposedly wonderful new meaning was introduced to Middle Eastern Islam and to a lesser extent International Islam by the Iranian bogey man who primarily achieved his rock star type status by ridding Iran of the US supported bogey man. This was unpopular and also feared for political reasons, America’s man, the Shah of Iran. Quite significantly he was in power in Iran by a not very secret and extremely resented, CIA coup. In a very real sense, the people of Iran and especially the women have a right to blame America’s CIA for indirectly bringing to power in Iran the evil bogey man, the first Ayatollah K.

It was not just girls and women that this zealous, unsmiling bogey man influenced. The Ayatollah succeeded in bringing to any shriveled up little male minds which belonged to unfulfilled men who became powerful members of the Iranian or Saudi prayer police, a new revolutionary concept. Their favorite bogey man had now introduced overwhelming meaning into their unfulfilled male lives that had previously been barren. For this big, bad, courageous stern, rigid, now famous bogey man had helped the shriveled up minds of the desperate prayer police to finally discover a noble cause in which they could now find deep meaning. These men could now catch a free ride on the coat tails of the infamous Iranian bogey man and so had now become men with a fresh mission with new authority to carry it out. They could use their shrived up little minds and their newly acquired status to exercise their authority over defenseless, vulnerable girls and adult women. Quite possibly, in the shriveled state of their minds they were gratified that they could use the authority granted them by the State to have even beautiful young women fear their authority and cringe at their power over them. This undoubtedly must have satisfied some of these men’s unacknowledged sexual frustrations.

Thus, thanks to the infamous Ayatollah K. Bogey man, more and more Iranian women became victims whom the religious police could exploit for “wearing no Hijab”. So this was a convenient excuse in order to arrest those vulnerable, defenseless women who were supposedly offending a narrow minded, rigid Allah by not correctly covering the hair that Allah Himself has given them as a beautiful gift. These women and even young girls were now being pursued, psychologically exploited and often arrested by the shrunken little men of the prayer police. These men were drunk with their newly acquired power and these girls and women were satisfying the hunger of these psychologically starving men of the prayer police. For it was truly gratifying to these men to have these young women cringe in fear if they did not fulfill the religious laws' demand that when they were outside their home, always wear the state required Hijab.

The reality truly was that the power these religious police now possessed over these intimidated women was not truly the power of the men themselves that the women actually feared. These men were not the true bogey men to these fearful women. What the women truly feared was the long, long evil shadow cast by the true bogey man of Islam, the once living, dreaded Ayatollah K. of Iran. Thus, each woman actually dreaded the unpleasant and possibly evil punishment or evil consequence that he represented. This was even if the girls or women had never heard of the Ayatollah K. bogey man or had not even heard of this bogey man’s dark shadow.

These vulnerable girls and women were now facing these shrunken men who now had the authority to inflict upon their vulnerable lives severely distorted Islamic culture that had been created by the stern bogey man of Iran. So because of the power and negative creativity of this one Ayatollah bogey man, a new wave of what became considered as an unacceptable assault on human decency of not wearing a head scarf, began to be punished throughout Iran as well as in other regions throughout the Middle East. Though this new standard was invented by the Iranian bogey man and was a rigid rule that was supposedly exceptionally displeasing to Allah, the beautiful hair that Allah had given to women and girls as his gift to them now always must be hidden by a Hijab/Head Scarf, if they were anywhere out in the public. So these shriveled men were now empowered by the State to be psychological gratified by forcing these women with the threat of dreaded punishment to always wear the Head Scarf.

CIA Bogey Man Complicit In Fiery Deaths of Saudi School Girls

Directly related to the evil influence of the dreaded Iranian bogey man, innocent young school girls were murderously burned to death in a school fire in far off Saudi Arabia. As the young school girls attempted to frantically escape the smoke and flames while attempting to save their own lives, something evil and totally unexpected occurred. The long, terrible arm of the terrifying Ayatollah stretched its wicked shadow all the way to the Kingdom of Saud and over the escape path of the terrified girls. There the faithful Saudi Religious Police sternly reminded the girls that they would not be allowed to flee to the safety of the public street since they had forgotten their Hijab back in the burning and smoke filled school. The doubly terrified girls, terrified of the fire and smoke but more terrified of the State sponsored religious police, obeyed the police to go back in the smoke filled school, while frantically searching for their head scarves. Their totally unnecessary deaths occurred as they were frantically attempting to meet the uncompromising standards of the Saudi Arabian law as interpreted and enforced by the Saudi religious police.

How do I know about this horrible event? I read about it in one of the two Seattle newspapers that thousands of people read. But because I was once employed in the Saudi Kingdom for three enjoyable years previous to the Iranian Ayatollah’s influence, reading about this disgraceful, inhumane event left an unforgettable impression on my mind. But I can also guarantee you this. The terrified screams of those innocent, precious girls is still being heard by Allah. In indelible ink the screams of these girls have been written in the judgment records of both the Ayatollah Khomeini and the U.S. CIA.

But how can I say that the U.S. CIA was also complicit in these horrible, useless deaths in far, far off Saudi Arabia? The answer is that it was not only the U.S. CIA that was exceedingly complicit in the tragic burning deaths of those totally innocent young Saudi Arabian school girls, but the U.S. congressional overseers of the CIA also have the charred ashes of these girls on their filthy hands. Because it was the Congress directed CIA who organized the 1953 coup in Iran that put the Democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadeq, in prison and replaced him with our obedient puppet the also dreaded Shah of Iran. (So what happened to the popular Democratically elected, European educated with several PhD’s, Professor Mohammed Mossadeq? He was immediately put in prison. He died well over a decade later while still under a disgraceful and unjust house arrest. And even today most Iranian citizens still burn with resentment of how the U.S. CIA under direct orders from the U.S. government overthrew and humiliatingly treated their democratic choice for Iran’s Prime Minister. Even over two generations later neither the memories nor the resentment have very much dissipated as Iran is on the cusp of acquiring nuclear weapons. And it definitely adds to the old adage of the chickens coming home to roost is this irony. The nation which has most to fear from a nuclear Iran is the very good friend of the U.S., Israel. Yet it is Israel who is contemplating assassinating the U.S. Afro-American President for his slowing down Israeli state building.) It is also significant for the American’s to realize that the U.S. hostage crisis which occurred in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter, was a direct result of the justified resentment of the U.S. overthrow in 1953 of the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadeq.

Iranians remembered U.S. historical interference in Iran, by the overthrow of the popular Mossadeq and the U.S. replacing him with the unpopular Shah. So the Iranian people, tired of the U.S. interference in their internal affairs in 1979 replaced the harsh leadership of the U.S. supported Shah with the new wicked man of the Middle East, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Under his leadership the Iranian Shiite revolution occurred which eventually impacted even the Sunni states of the Middle East with a much harsher and much more controlling form of Islam. And that is when the Hijab became a requirement throughout the Middle East for most Muslim girls and women that eventually lead to the tragic burning to death of young Saudi school girls.

Whether it sounds like I am overstretching or not, the Saudi girls would not have burned to death if the CIA had not put down Mossadeq and replaced him with a Shah who had America’s approval, but not the approval of the people of Iran. The people of Iran replaced that Shah with the man whose very real shadow still remains as the big bad bogey man of the Middle East who still demands that women and girls wear Hijabs or suffer the not so pleasant hostile punishments.

Admittedly, the unintended series of negative consequences of the U.S. CIA taking out the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran and replacing him with our man, the Shah, took a number of years before the charred bodies of the young Saudi school girls began crying out to Allah for vengeance. But that is the way with unintended the consequences of the anti-Allah evil actions by an arrogant, self-righteous, powerful self interest driven nation such as the U.S. nation. There is example after example in the Scriptures that God is a longitudinal, generational God who keeps account of evil over the long haul which is much longer than one President’s term or his terms in office. If the negative consequences are not revealed in the arrogant, irresponsible perpetrators life times, they will be exposed and exact their consequences at the Final Judgment.

Leaving the complicity of the CIA in the fiery Saudi Arabia tragedy, I do not believe that I am exaggerating the key role of the tragic bogey man influence of the first Ayatollah K; for he was definitely a long time dominating evil influence even well beyond the borders of Iran, and still is. Plus, he left behind him a horrible legacy or principle that many small, twisted minds have learned from him. This principle seems to be based on the now decreased Ayatollah having an extremely distorted view of the priorities of Allah from his wicked perspectives of what Allah desires:

“The charred dead body of a young Saudi school girl wearing her head scarf is supposedly preferable to Allah than an alive Saudi girl without her Hijab.”

The Evil Ripple Effect of the U.S. CIA

Having put deserved blame on the evil bogey man of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, it is not at all fair to put all the blame on him for the charred bodies of the Saudi school girls whose mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends still continue to weep over their cruel murders. So here is the historical sequence that Allah has not forgotten and neither should we.

The CIA Initiated Horrible Sequence

1. If there was no illegal overthrow of Iran’s Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953 by the CIA.
2. There would have been no replacing him by the U.S. with the much resented Shah.
3. If there would not have been the much resented Shah ruling Iran with a hard fist, there would have been no need to replace him with the dreaded Ayatollah Khomeini.
   If no Ayatollah Khomeini leading Iran, no pervasive 1979 Islamic revolution throughout Middle East.
4. If no Ayatollah Khomeini leading Iran, no enforced Hijabs on women and girls heads.
5. If no enforced Hijabs on Saudi girls heads, no crying out by God for vengeance against the CIA for initiating such horrible unintended consequences as innocent young Saudi Muslim girls being murderously burned to death.
6. If not such unintended consequences such as the girls charred bodies, US leaders would have less to dread at their Final judgment.

Persons may choose to laugh at my descriptions of the tragic sequences of events. But I have no doubt that trembling members of the CIA will not be laughing at this realistic unintended sequence of evil on Judgment Day.

An-Nisa 4:157 Influential Bogey Man Verse

We will now leave the horrible ravages that can be visited on a people as the result of a totally distorted view of the character of Allah that can be traced back to only one out of control man who I labeled as a “Big bad bogey man.” But also the emergence of that man can be traced to the arrogance of the U.S. government and it’s CIA. Similarly, we can trace some of the negative consequences for an entire society when certain leaders in that society’s religion refuse to take a long look at a profound verse in the Holy Quran in a more perceptive context. They must abandon their predetermined decision to only understand this profound verse in the most rigid, narrow minded, simplistic way conceivable without considering any other obviously relevant factors. And these leaders must no longer continue to demand that this is the only approach of which their very narrow minded God approves. Furthermore, they must also abandon their unenlightened slogan that these leaders insist upon following as their guideline.

Do not confuse us with relevant facts. Because our simple minds are made up.

Even though I will continue to use the metaphor of the somewhat childish term, “Bogey man” to make key points, I intend for this paper to be extremely serious. In fact, I am so serious about how strongly I feel that certain very relevant points must be made for Islam to progress rather than regress, I would be extremely pleased that a much, much, more gifted writer than Tom would suddenly appear and write a much better paper dealing with these same issues. I have thought of such persons as Michelle Obama, Collin Powell, Zibiginew Brezinski, Richard Haas, Jimmy Carter, Ellis Cose, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton. Each of these persons has analytical skills that are far, far beyond my own and an ability to express ideas that I can only envy. The obvious problem with any of them writing such a paper is that these issues, though quite important to both God and to the entire Muslim Middle East, are certainly not their priorities nor have they spent years considering these issues. Another major problem is that they are each persons of sterling reputations and cannot afford to risk those reputations by offending powerful peoples. And some of these issues must offend before they will be taken seriously. In contrast, I am a nobody and have absolutely no one but my Risen Messiah to answer to and to please. And he is the one who in the privacy of my own small counseling office, in Seattle’s Chief Sealth High School in 1968; distinctly and personally spoke these six words to me:

“Do you want to serve me?”

That was 41 years ago and I have been doing the best I can with the limited abilities he has given me to serve him faithfully mostly among the Middle Eastern Muslim community. Nevertheless, whether I have a personal calling to serve the Risen Messiah or not, I am convinced that if the points I would like to make were made by a person with much greater skill, this paper could be one of the most needed papers and most relevant papers relating to Islam and the Middle East, to have been written in the last 100 years. That is how damaging I am convinced that the Bogey man concept is when applied to the wreckage that a wrong understanding of the combination of An- Nisa 4:157 and 158 has had on the Muslims of the Middle East. After studying this one issue for 32 years, my perspective is that the wrong understanding of the originally intended meaning of these two verses has had a greater negative impact upon Muslim Middle Eastern society than any other single factor with the exception of one. I think that the foundational false statement that many Jewish people manipulated in order to gather support for building their present nation state, was probably more damaging. The term:

“A Land Without a People”

To describe a limited area of land where there lived hundreds of thousands of sincere Palestinian people in a land not without people, in order to pressure the guilt ridden western Christian community to allow and support the Jews to build their nation on mostly stolen land, I think is probably an equal distortion of important truth as the understandable confusion about how ALLAH wants An-Nisa 4:157 and 158 to now be understood.

In attempting to convince myself that I might be adequate to write these important papers a quote in the Foreign Affairs journal encouraged me considerably. The noted scholar G.K Chesterton wrote:

"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

So I decided that this task is so important and necessary that it is preferable for someone as limited as myself to try and to do even a bad job than for me not to at least try. I take comfort in the probability that I am better than no one. Also, since I have been frequently praying about this unaddressed controversial issue for 32 years, perhaps Allah will cause my preserving prayer to compensate some for my limited analytical ability.

Is An-Nisa 4:157 a Big Bad Bogey Man?

In addressing the question of whether An-Nisa 4:157 in the Holy Quran, which has a standard acceptable interpretation which causes the vast majority of Middle East Muslims to be afraid to disagree or to question the only accepted interpretation, I will begin with stating my foundational presupposition. There is only one true God. In the Arabic language whether you are referring to Islam or Christianity, He is known as Allah. This same true God in English, both in Islam and in Christianity, is known as God.

My next presupposition is that he is the God who millions agree is faithfully revealed in both the Arabic Quran and in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.

My third presupposition is that in both the Arabic Holy Quran and in the Greek New Testament this God or this Allah has a faithful servant who in the Quran is referred to eleven times as Messiah, always implying that he is God’s Messiah. But in the Quran, he also has a number of names, or titles, which total at least 16. (Since my Arabic is extremely, extremely, limited and I have no understanding of Greek whatsoever, and no Hebrew, I am entirely dependent on English Translations for the three books; the Hebrew Old Testament (Torah), the Greek New Testament (Injeel) and the Arabic Holy Quran.

In the Holy Quran all of the titles, names and designations of the Messiah are:
Blessed, Eminent or Illustrious (Wajth), Example, Jesus (Isa), Mercy, Messenger, Messiah, One brought near, One of the upright or righteous, Prophet (Nabi), Servant or slave (Abd), Sign or Revelation or Portent, Spirit, Witness, Word, Son of Mary (Maryam)

In the New Testament (Injeel) and the Old Testament all of the titles or names or designations of the Messiah are:
Advocate, Almighty, Alpha & Omega, Amen, Apostle, Beginning & End, Author of eternal salvation, Beloved Son, Beginning of God’s creation, Bread of life, Beginning and End, Bridegroom, Bishop of our soul’s, Beloved son, Blessed and only Potentate, Chief Shepherd, Branch of righteousness, Chosen of God, Captain of our salvation, Christ of God, Cornerstone, Christ, Counselor, Creator, Dayspring from on High, Deliverer, Desire of all nations, Door, Eternal Life, Faithful Witness, First and Last, Forerunner, Glory, Good Sheppard, Good Teacher, Governor, He that is True, Heir, High Priest, Holy child, Holy One, Horn of Salvation, I am, Image of God, Emmanuel, Jesus (Isa), Jesus of Nazareth, Judge, Just one, King, King of the Jews (From Roman Governor Pilate), King of Kings, King of Saints, Last Adam, Law Giver, Lamb of God, Leader, Life, Life giving Spirit, Light of the world, Living One, Lion of the tribe, Lord from Heaven, Lord of All, Lord of Glory, Man of Sorrows, Master, Head of House, Mediator, Messenger of the Covenant, Messiah, Morning Star, Nazarene, Our Passover, Our peace, Opener of God’s Doors, Prince of Kings, Prince of Life, Prophet, Prince of Peace, Rabbi, Redeemer, Resurrection, Righteousness, Rock, Root of David, Savior, Sanctifier, Salvation of God, Savior of the World, Second Adam, Seed of the Woman, Servant of the Lord, Shepherd of our Souls, Son of the Blessed, Son of David, Son of Living God, Spirit, Son of Men, Son of the Highest, Sun of Righteousness, Teacher from God, True Light, True Vine, Truth, Vine, Walker among his people, Way, Wisdom, Witness, Word, Wonderful

Of course there are both significant similarities and some differences in the Quran’s and the New Testament’s accounts about the Messiah that we could explore. However, I am choosing to focus our exploration on the difference in the understanding of the two main points in the Quran that do not concern actual differences between what the two Holy Books, the Holy Quran and the New Testament actually teach, but on what powerful leaders in the Islam say that this one verse teachers. It is not an insignificant point that when readers compel this verse to be understood in the way that it is, it forces the verse to not agree with what the New Testament (the Injeel) teaches and to also not agree with what other verses in the Quran teach.

However, my strong presupposition is that due to several compelling factors, mostly from the Holy Quran itself, it becomes overwhelming evident that once the examiner of this profound verse is able to get past thinking that the verse in question is simple and also get past the demands that it must be understood in a superficial way rather than in a complex, profound way, the difference is immediately resolved and Allah is greatly glorified.

Boom Went the Dynamite!

The above is a sport’s broadcaster’s metaphor that is used when an unexpected climatic event occurs in a game that immediately gets everyone’s attention.

It will be with consider difficulty that I will refrain from giving each of the miraculous details that led up to me, a nobody, being invited by a Saudi General to discuss from the Quran and the Bible, wherein we could agree and where in we would differ regarding our views of the Messiah.

When the day came that we agreed upon to meet in his temporary apartment, when we were approximately two and a half minutes into the General’s comments, metaphorically, "Boom went the Dynamite!”

Suddenly, the entire wooden framed apartment building began shaking as if there was a 6.5 earthquake. We were also surrounded by loud bangs every two or three seconds as if it was near by Gun-fire.

The sudden violent shaking of the house and loud noises began occurring exactly when my kind general friend began dogmaticicaly proclaiming to me in his gentle, soft voice that all Muslims definitely know that the Messiah of the Surah of Maryam, has “not died and then risen from death.”

He had begun our conversation after we had completed our tea and cookies and after making other introductory comments. He immediately opened his large, beautiful Quran to An-Nisa 4:157 and 158 about Isa not being killed or crucified. He had read the two verses aloud without comment. Then, after only two or three strong concise comments confirming that since the Quran states very definitely that the Messiah did not die and was not crucified, that there should not be any doubt in any ones mind that the Messiah did not die and was not crucified. Therefore, he also did not rise from death because he definitely had not died. No sooner had these strong statements come out of his mouth, without any prior warning "Boom went the Dynamite!”

The whole wooden frame apartment building seemed to violently start shaking. Making it seem even more violent than it probably was, that simultaneously with the shaking there were this series of very loud banging noises. It was very scary.

By looking out the windows, he could see that without warning a quite violent sand storm had suddenly invaded our area. The loud banging was the sound from several unsecured wooden shutters loudly banging against the sides of the house. Very quickly the General was able to secure the loose wooden shutters and quickly, peaceful quiet returned. We immediately resumed our discussion.

I realized that the fear that the noisy, shaking event caused, occurred so suddenly and unexpectedly, that may have made it all seem more violent than it actually was. And the contrast with the quiet calmness that we had been experiencing before the unexpected interruption undoubtedly added to the sudden drama.

Sometime later I quietly reflected on what had occurred at the General’s temporary apartment. I decided that Allah had used his own ability to control nature in order to make a strong statement in total disagreement with the General’s dogmatic proclamation that Allah’s Messiah had not died and thus could not have later risen from the dead. It also seemed that perhaps I had been too polite in being a silent listener. Perhaps, since Allah observed that I was not willing to speak up for the Messiah’s victory over an unjust murder where he had been an innocent victim, and had not stood up for truth, that God himself would use nature to Interrupt an untruth that was being misrepresented as the final word of truth.

Allah had most certainly been present that day in that Riyadh apartment observing me not challenging the General’s quite dogmatic declaration exactly on what the historic truth was that had occurred just outside the gates of Jerusalem. And the General also seemed to be certain that he was the only one who knew the truth about God’s Messiah not walking out of that heavily guarded quiet tomb three days later.

Yes, I was quite certain that the Risen Messiah had also been present with us at 4:30PM that Thursday where we had previously agreed to have an afternoon discussion specifically about him. He had not only listened to our dialogue but he observed how intimidated his servant Tom was by the polite certainty with which the General spoke about what did and did not happen to the Messiah 2000 years before at Jerusalem. It was at though the General knew with absolute certainty what had occurred to the Messiah on that day that eventually turned very dark in Jerusalem. The General however was quite certain that the Messiah’s three personal witnesses who wrote their first hand accounts of what occurred, each supposedly had their own eyes deceive them. So it seemed that the observing Messiah could not for long tolerate the outrageous distortion that the sincere soft spoken General was presenting as special truth revealed to him from Allah through that one lone verse out of the thousands of other verses in the Holy Quran. The General seemed totally unaware of the strong potential that this obviously complex verse had to be understood in a completely different way than the traditional way that every Muslim is forced to understand this verse. Why?

From a very young child, he had undoubtedly been taught that no death for the Messiah was the only logical explanation that could possible is derived from 4:157 combined with 4:158. But whether my kind colleague was a respected Saudi General or not, he did not sense that it had any relevance that the exact details of what the many spectators had personally observed occurring to the Messiah from the hands of hostile Jews and from manipulated Roman occupiers were carefully described in three separate first hand accounts. And their own eye witness accounts that they faithfully recorded were not similar to the distorted conclusions of those who were willing to throw into the garbage heap of history what the previous Scriptures faithfully tell us about what truly happened to Allah’s courageous man from now occupied West Bank Bethlehem.

In the last 32 years as I have had the time and the inclination to calmly reflect on what actually occurred on that extremely hot day in Riyadh Saudi Arabia at the temporary apartment of an extremely kind, gentle and intelligent retired Saudi General. This is what I have concluded was the context of the get together and what occurred. Despite how insignificant I was as a guest in the apartment that day, especially when compared to the relatively famous retired General, the General viewed me and Allah viewed me and I viewed myself as a sincere believer in the resurrected Messiah. And I viewed my host who was my colleague in the large food company in which we were both employed, as a sincere and knowledgeable member of Islam. And the two of us had at least informally agreed that the purpose of our meeting was to sit together in his apartment with his open Holy Quran and my open Bible and quietly discuss together “Wherein we agreed and wherein we disagreed about Jesus or Isa, the Messiah, as portrayed in our respective Holy Books.”

So that is the important context of how I viewed what we had hoped to peacefully accomplish on that hot, sunny day in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia thirty two years ago. But even though it was so long ago, I can even remember exactly where I parked my car near his apartment. And I can also remember that in my enthusiasm to meet with the General, I forgot to roll up my car windows. For that one historic day for me will forever indelibly be imprinted in my mind. But more importantly is how the Creator of us both, viewed the important context of our meeting that day. So here is a brief summary of what I believe that Allah observed as He observed an important Saudi General who represented Islam. And from the world’s perspective, Allah saw me as a relatively unimportant mid- level employee of an important Saudi school meal distribution company. But, more importantly, Allah viewed me as a sincere but seemingly insignificant representative of His Risen Messiah. And the two of us were getting together with the agreed purpose of discussing our views from each of our Holy books, their respective views of the Messiah in order to understand each others respective view points.

So let us assume that because God observes all things very closely and possibly all the more closely does he observe the meeting together of two sincere men who both had declared somewhat openly that they both desired to be Allah’s faithful servants. So that was the context that Allah was closely observing.

So what did he see happen very early on with the two men who in a very real way were each in that apartment at that virtually suspended moment in time personally representing the world’s two largest religions. But that Saudi General, in sport’s terminology, had the home field advantage. This home field advantage was both in terms of in whose home this meeting was taking place and in whose home nation this meeting was occurring. It was obviously in Saudi Arabia, the home of Holy Mecca, the birthplace of not only the founder of Islam, who is the Prophet of the people of Islam, but it was also occurring in the home of the Holy Mecca where millions upon millions of sincere Muslims visit on a holy pilgrimage each year.

Even though I was meeting together with this gracious General in the very region of the world that is the focal point of Islam and also would be soon meeting with the other retired Generals to whom he would gracefully introduce me the following week, we were all still in the same emotionally charged region. Yet each general was extremely gracious to me as a total outsider. I considered it not a small privilege that I, a total stranger, and an openly non Muslim would be so welcome in their midst.

In their discussions about the two verses, the language switched back and forth from Arabic to English with myself always remaining much more of a silent observer than a participant, even when the conversation was in English. And I never played the role of challenging the points that anyone made by suggesting a less traditional way to consider any opinions although they did do this to a degree with one another. So the discussions did have some give and take which left me hopeful that eventually such men would be able to leave the concentrated focus on only the two verses and consider the reality that their conclusions actually contradicted many statements contrary to their perspective, statements in the previous Scriptures which the Quran openly stated (Al-Maidah 5:48 and Al-Imran 3.3) that it confirmed. So it disappointed me considerably that the one verse, 4:157, had such an overwhelmingly firm grip on these mature leaders minds that they would not come close to allowing themselves the freedom of mind required to consider new ways to look at other ways that the words within the verse could be understood. Or would they consider any outside factors or verses which could affect how to view the message and purpose of 4:158. And the possibility of the previous Scriptures which were often mentioned in the Quran, having any impact on their conclusions was far from being even a consideration.

So in the final analysis, my heart was broken that these trained leaders were so strongly under what I viewed as the negative influence of the adversarial message of the way that it was virtually demanded that this verse be understood. So it left not even a tiny opening for the message of God’s love to squeeze through and penetrate the hearts of these basically peaceful and gracious loving leaders. That they seemed to have both their hearts and their minds locked so tight that they were not willing to even consider the possibility that that when An-Nisa 4:157 and 158 are considered in combination, that they definitely have this credible potential. They can be understood in a way which reveals how Allah’s now risen man had loved people enough and continues to love us in the same steadfast manner that he was willing to endure cruel torturous contempt and an excruciating murder so that he died in other's behalf. This was in contrast to being a Messiah who thought of himself first and who loved his own life so much that he did whatever God would allow him to do to avoid execution and permanently escape suffering and death.

In retrospect, as I further reflect on that first meeting which was violently interrupted near its beginning by a disrupting especially violent desert sand storm, I realize, we definitely accomplished less than fifty percent of our agreed upon objective. And I will accept the responsibility for our failure. For our agreed upon objective had definitely been to have an open Quran in addition to an open Bible and discuss wherein we agreed and disagreed about Jesus/Isa.

Yes, the General’s Quran had definitely been both open and consulted. Except if we had been two runners competing in a mile run both he and his Holy Quran had completed the race in glorious fashion while Tom and his Bible were still standing at the starting line not knowing how to run.

There was more than one explanation for why this supposed comparison had turned out as a comparison with only the Quran being opened and not the Bible. I had been the one who had definitely taken the initiative in proposing this get together in the first place. But there in the General’s own apartment I felt strongly that since I was a guest in his apartment that I owed it to him to show the courtesy of presenting his case first. And once that had occurred and he had confidently stated his Quran’s authoritative totally uncompromising position which clearly cancelled both the historical facts and what the biblical eye witnesses had to say about what their own eyes had observed, to the General it had became totally irrelevant as to what the previous Scripture had to say about the eye witnesses account. So this put me in the position of attempting to graciously and patiently learn all I could about the General's position of what this verse was truly saying about the Quran’s position on the death and resurrection of God’s Messiah with the biblical position being what he seemed to already know. Since my personality and skills don’t lend themselves to me being a crossfire type of debater and that I personally find that that approach hinders understanding rather than helps understanding, I felt that more understanding would eventually occur by my temporarily allowing the General to treat the previous Scriptures as irrelevant. Because it seemed that he apparently had decided that the Quran’s revelations had basically cancelled the Bible’s revelations despite my realizing that the Quran stated that it confirmed the previous Scriptures (Al-Maidah 5:48 and Al-Imran 3.3) But I felt that to start debating what other verses from his Quran said would not be a helpful way to proceed.

So at that first meeting with the General and at the subquent meetings with his retired general friends, the previous Scriptures continued to be treated as irrelevant and were basically not mentioned by me or by anyone else, except to say that they had been changed. Though I faithfully sat in my chair as a silent bump on a log with my Bible in my lap, I do not ever recall being asked even one question about what the eye witnesses to the execution and to the subsequent resurrection had to say about what they had even observed about what had occurred. This disinterest was despite the existence of the three very relevant verses of Al-Maidah 5:48, Yumus 10:94 and Al-Imran 3:3 being quite available in each General’s very readable Holy Quran as precise guide lines as to what should be occurring when the truth of a matter is being sought. And our seeking the truth was our implied purpose if not our explicit purpose for meeting together with our open Qurans and my supposedly “open” Bible.

The pronouncement from Allah himself in Al-Madiah 5:48 and Al-Imran 3:3 are certainly not to be treated as trivial that the book (this Quran), “in truth is confirming the Scripture that came before it.” This would certainly include Scriptural account after Scriptural account of both the Messiah’s initial death and his subsequent resurrection. It is also an extremely relevant matter that the Prophet himself was given the following instructions from God himself in Yunis 10:94 on how to solve matters of importance when there is doubt about any revelations to the Prophet which was precisely what An-Nisa 4:157 and 158 were:

“So if you (o Mohammad) are in doubt
Concerning that which was revealed unto you,
Then ask those who are reading the book (the Torah) and the Injeel (gospel) Before you.”

So the three clear confirmations of the previous Scriptures having the final authority are definitely not to be casually cast aside.

But apparently resourceful Muslim leaders have found a number of irrelevant weak excuses to cast aside these important instructions about the need for confirmation from the earlier Scriptures. And it is not irrelevant to mention that the Messiah himself encountered similar clever, sophisticated avoidance mechanisms, from the Jewish leaders of his time. We will read about the sophisticated mechanism that they had invented in order to avoid financially helping out their elderly parents as described in Mark 7:9-13.

It was made quite clear to the Jews that Moses told them that they had a responsibility to monitarily assist mothers and fathers in their old age. But the Messiah exposed their wicked callousness in finding a clever way to avoid helping out their needy elderly parents. They exploited a tradition called “Corbin” which meant a gift devoted to God. Thus, by the children of elderly parents using this calloused, deceitful excuse of Corbin, they gave zero help to their parents. They just lied to their needy parents and said:

“Listen our dearly beloved parents. We really wanted to give you some financial help that we know you really need. But we have already tied it up in a Corbin account to God. And God needs it more than you do. SORRY!”

So it appears that Muslim leaders have found a similar way to manipulate and to trick the Quran just as their Jewish cousins so many years ago tricked their aging parents by manipulating the Law of Moses.

From my perspective, whereas the Jews of the Messiah’s time used the word "Corbin” to avoid a sacred responsibility to their aging parents, the Muslim leaders of today, sometimes use the two words Ijma and Muharif to accomplish a similar processes to avoid acknowledging that the Messiah both died and rose. For even if it could explicitly be proven that the Messiah both died and rose, there is an Islamic principle called Ijma that I believe is relevant to the difference in perspective that we are attempting to resolve. By applying this principle of Ijma, or concensus, the Islamic community is required to agree before there can be any change of a significant nature. So the factual truth of the Messiah’s death and resurrection would need to be truth that is seen as beneficial to the community. The consensus of the community is the decider of the truth because of this principle of Ijma or consensus.

So the artificially false can actually be allowed to supersede truth due to the principle of Ijma or consensus which is the community needing to agree on what the truth is and if it benefits the Islamic community before truth is allowed to become truth. So Ijma can become for Muslims the equivalent of what Corbin was for the Jews; a handy dandy way to avoid acknowledging even historically factual truth.

Also, there is another Israeli Corbin deception that Muslim leaders have used to conveniently circumvent previous Scriptures needing to confirm a controversial conclusion of what leaders decide that verses like An-Nisa 4:157 and 158 actually mean. I will call this second defensive principle from Al-Baqarah 2:75 in the Quran, "The Muharif Chango-Chango Principle".

In that verse Muslims are warned about a party of Jews who perverted the Word of Allah knowingly. So these words that they supposedly perverted or changed were eventually stretched to beyond what the mind could imagine. The “Word of Allah”, which was obviously something of a limited extent and was not the written Scripture conveniently became all of the written Scriptures. And the term “corrupted” or changed (Muharif) finally came to take on this expanded application. So whenever the Bible stated something that was inconvenient for Muslims to believe, like the death and resurrection of God’s Messiah that became the part of the Scriptures that the Jews supposedly corrupted or changed.

Come on! Get real! I am not kidding. Muslim leaders actually use this distorted, twisted logic to totally undermine any part of the Scriptures that do not fit their agenda under the “Muharif Chango-Change Principle.” So under this principle Muslims are allowed to throw into the Zaballi (garbage) the important confirmation principles expressed in the three different verses of Al-Imran 3:3, Al-Baqarah 5:48 and Yunus 10:94 which gives authority to the previous Scriptures to confirm controversial verses in the Quran. Because under the Muharif Chango-Chango principle of Al-Baqarah 2:75, none of the previous Scriptures any longer exist because all have possibly been changed.

The Jews Ate Their Own Children Principle

To prove that those inconvenient previous Scriptures still do exist and are unchanged, I have attempted to counter and defeat the Muharif Chango-Chango principle with the very authentic “The Jews ate their own children principle.” This principle sounds silly but it is an extremely serious and tragic principle. It is logical and is totally confirmed by eight or nine Old Testament authentic passages about Jews eating their own children. These are each brief Scriptures in the Old Testament that are not taken out of context. Additionally, on this website I have an entire paper on this subject and it refers to Jews eating their own children in the title. I realize that the whole possibility of Jewish parents eating their own children seems preposterous to the civilized mind. But also the US using remote controlled drones that kill innocent people in Afghanistan and Pakistan should also seem unreal, but is it?

The logic behind my highlighting and exposing the Old Testament Scriptures which reveal that on a number of occasions, what you would have ordinarily considered loving Jewish parents, yet the Scriptures reveal in at least eight different passages that in extraordinary food deprivation circumstances they ate their own children. So when I discovered this I thought this was an opportunity to counter what I viewed as an absurd distortion and ridiculous explanation of the one word, the plural verb of the noun Muharif as mentioned in Al-Baqarah 2:75 in the Quran. That educated Muslim leaders could take the phrase “that a party of them (Jewish Rabbis) used to hear the word of Allah then they used to change it knowingly after they understood it.” And from that one verb for corrupting what those Jews heard, the Muslims have built a case that is repeated by most Muslims that the Holy Quran teaches that the Jews changed the Bible so that the Scriptures, which the Quran states that the Quran confirms, that because this one verse is twisted and itself is corrupted so that it supposedly teaches that the Jews changed whole sections of the Bible so that the Scriptures which the Quran confirms no longer exist. Tragically, most Muslims have bought into this absurd distortion of logic. So I have labeled their ridiculousness as the “Muharif Chango-Chango Principle”. So I have countered it with my own very credible and trust worthy. “The Jews ate their own children Principle”, that is based on facts from the Old Testament. And I will illustrate the effectiveness of this principle by a real conversation I had with an intelligent Muslim who was doing some work in our home near Salt, Jordan.

In a discussion that was very friendly I casually referred to something that was mentioned in the Bible:

Friend: “Tom, you don’t believe the Bible, do you?”
Tom: “Yes, why do you ask?”
Friend: “Because the Jews changed the Bible so you cannot trust what it says.”
Tom: “Is it okay if I change the subject for a minute and ask you a question?”
Friend: “Sure, go ahead.”
Tom: “Do you believe that the Bible reveals that there were Jews who ate their own children?”
Friend: “What are you talking about, anyway?”
Tom: “I am asking you if you believe that there were ancient Jews who actually ate their own Children.”
Friend: “Of course I don’t believe that.”
Tom: “No, its true. I definitely would not be kidding about something so serious.”
Friend: “No you are kidding. Aren’t you? The Jews just could not have been eating their own kids.”
Tom: “No I am not kidding. Wait here while I take a few seconds to bring my Bible and show you the eight or nine places where it talks about the Jews eating their own children.” (I start to get up.)
Friend: “No! No, I believe you!”
Tom: “Now here is my point, don’t you believe that it is quite humiliating for the Jews that the Bible has eight or nine short passages in the Old Testament Scriptures that talks about certain Jews being forced by circumstances to eat their own children?”
Friend: “Yeah! Really humiliating.”
Tom: “So don’t you believe that if there were certain Jews looking for things to take out of the Scriptures or to change do you really think they would have changed those Scriptures or that they would have taken certain Scriptures out and would have not also taken out all the humiliating Scriptures about some of them eating their own children?”
Friend: “Yes, of course they would have gotten rid of all those Scriptures about them eating their own kids.”
Tom: “So do you still believe that the Jews changed the Scriptures?”
Friend: “You made your point. I will admit that they didn’t change ‘em.”

Now that I hope that I have exposed the Ijma defense mechanism, to avoid agreeing with the quite reasonable conclusion that the Quran can be understood to teach that the Messiah both died and rose. And I hope that I have exposed the “Bible has been changed defense mechanism” that I have labeled the “Muharif Chango-Chango principle.”

So now I will return to the still living twin bogey man of the Iranian Ayatollah bogey man who especially targeted women who were not wearing the obligatory Hijab. And his twin bogey man is the destructive misunderstanding of the true intended meaning of An-Nisa 4:157 when it is properly combined with 4:158.

Reviewing what I learned from the gracious Generals was this. The extreme dedication that I believe that I observed the Generals having for their favorite verse was a dedication based not on respect but on an Ayatollah Khomeini bogey man type of fear. That is, it appeared that they had a dedication to that particular verse in the Quran that definitely was not based on joy but on a fearful enslavement that they might offend the verse if they were not totally loyal to the verse and to make certain that they showed zero compassion or respect for Allah’s now living man who Allah, according to An-Nisa 4:158, used his Wisdom and Might to raise up. So, according to the Quran, he is definitely still alive whether you believe that he died or not.

If the General did not deep down have a bogey man fear of the verse and what the verse had the power to do to them, they would have enthusiastically engaged other verses in the Quran and not slavishly stuck within the verse without risking dealing with other verses in their Quran or in the previous Scripture which could have released the living Messiah to have an encouraging presence among the Muslim people. And I believe that the foregoing analysis pretty much sums up the relationship the vast majority of Muslim leaders have with An-Nisa 4:157. They are afraid of it as a child fears a bogey man and as Iranian women feared the Ayatollah bogey man Khomeini. And Muslim leaders can easily prove my analysis wrong. They can examine what 4:157 and 158 truly is intended to teach by bringing into the examining room each of the different verses I will list from the Quran which would shed light on An-Nisa 4:157/158, such as An-Nisa 3:55, Maryam 19:33/34, Al- Baqara 2:75, An-Nisa 3:3, Al- Maidah 5:48, Yunus 5:48, Yunus 10:94 and Al-Fajr 89:22 and Al- Baqarah 2:3, and Al- Maidah 5:117 to name, but a few.

Regarding the blessing that will come to the Middle East and to all of Islam when Allah’s risen man from Bethlehem is welcomed into Islam’s midst the blessings that will come will be too many to imagine. But especially there will be shouts of joy from all the mothers, sisters and daughters as well as grandmothers, and great-great grandmothers in all of Islam. ILHAMDILLAH!

They will soon discover that his presence is indeed comforting. He will hear their slightest whispers. He will share their joys, their tears, and their sorrows. And he will participate with them in their love for their children, for their parents, and for every other loved one. He will always be near.