My Own Amazing Fitnah Experience

This strange miracle I will now recount involves the following persons: 1 - Former Radical Rabbi, 2 - The Prophet Muhammad, 3 - A Jewish psychiatrist, 4 - A Saudi student, 5 - One Persian couple, 6 - Five Saudi generals, 7 - One school counselor, 8 - One short jumper.

I speak and understand very little of the Arabic language. On December 16, 2006 in Seattle, Washington I was having a brief dream in which the strange word "Fitnah" began to be repeatedly shouted by a short man jumping up and down excitedly waving his arms. Upon waking up I immediately wondered what this strange event might mean. I had never heard the word "Fitnah" before. However, months later when I was re-reading the surah Baqarah in the Quran I realized that my eyes had seen the word three times. Yet this new word had certainly never registered in my mind.

Since I thought the word might be Arabic, I called a Saudi friend soon after getting out of bed, to see if he might recognize this word. He immediately explained that it was a strong word that meant to start a "great disturbance". A week or so later I was attending a very small Bible study led by a man from Iran. He had become a follower of the now risen Messiah when he had been healed of a serious back injury and no doctors had been able to help him. But when a man had prayed for his back in the "name of Jesus" it had been totally healed. Though he spoke only English and Farsi, when he and his Persian wife heard me mention the word "fitnah" they both excitedly told me that in Farsi it means "to start a great disturbance".

The world renowned man known as the "father of psychiatry", Sigmund Freud has taught us that the contents of our dreams are a product of what is hidden in our sub-conscious. But my dreams contradict this theory because the word "fitnah" had not been in my sub-conscious because it had not registered in my mind before. Yet, as I will now explain, it was used in my dream in a way that closely fits in with the main theme of my last thirty years of writing.

So this brings me to three "fitnah" experiences of the former radical Rabbi from Tarsus who later wrote the majority of the New Testament. Three different times the word "Fitnah" is used in the Arabic translation of the Book of Acts to describe the excited resistance which was exhibited when he tried to convince unbelievers of the relevance and reality of the death and resurrection of the Messiah, Isa. And that is precisely what I am attempting to do with my present writing on my website.

Significantly, this writing was originally motivated due to about four or five one hour discussions I had in a private apartment in Riyadh Saudi Arabia with five or more Saudi Generals in 1977.Through listening closely to their comments and insights I gained a new deep appreciation for the Arabic term "Shubbiiha Lahum," (It appeared to them) as it used in An Nisa 4:157, a profound verse in the Holy Quran. Consequently, I have been writing for the last thirty years to attempt to convince sincere Muslims that it is not ALLAH's will that the key term "shubbiiha lahum" continue to be understood in the precise and ridiculous way that powerful leaders in Islam demand that Muslims understand it.

From the Saudi Generals discussions about this verse that I intently listened to, I soon realized that the Holy Quran's words about the Messiah not being killed or crucified do not necessarily need to be taken literally word for word, in order to correctly understand the verse's true intent. I also soon realized that the traditional explanation of the meaning of "It appeared to them" did not necessarily mean that someone else was on the cross instead of Jesus, who appeared to be Jesus, but who was only a "Jesus - look – alike".

But why did Allah cause me to miraculously hear the new word "Fitnah" spoken emphatically about seven times, in a dream whose other contents I can't even remember? My own conviction is that He wanted to show me the similarity that awaits me in my own future with how the former radical Jewish Rabbi Paul had three separate first century "Fitnah" experiences as mentioned in the Arabic translation of the Book of Acts. For when this Apostle tried to convince Jews and Greeks about the truth of the Messiah's death and resurrection, similar to how my own writing attempts to convince today's Muslims of the truth of these same events, there will inevitably be strong but healthy disagreements or "fitnahs" among those who encounter my own controversial message.

For it is quite necessary that the new consideration of what is truly Allah's Will about the intended meaning or this crucial term, "shubbiiha lahum" that came only one time to the Prophet Muhammad, be a vital message in the Holy Quran. For in the absence of vigorous discussion and disagreement, truth about Allah's Messiah's victory over furious, jealous Jewish leaders will be missed and all of Islam will be the loser. So as Saudi Generals dared to have such discussions in 1977 in Riyadh, there is no worthy reason that today's citizens of the UAE and other nations cannot also have such open important discussions about how ALLAH humiliated the Jews through Isa's being raised up alive.

So I sincerely ask the progressive citizens of the Arab nations these two relevant questions: Did ALLAH's only Messiah who is spoken of as Messiah eleven times in the Holy Quran, overwhelmingly defeat both death and Jewish leaders? Or were Allah and his Messiah both cooperating in a CIA type conspiracy to deceive people as to what truly occurred on both the cross and three days later at a Jerusalem/Al Quds tomb. For the answers to these two questions are vital for the future of Islam in both its relationship to historical reality and to present reality regarding Allah's will for the role of His Risen Messiah in a vigorous contemporary Islam.

In fact, the virtual insanity of current leaders in the U.S. has made Islam's response to these two questions all the more significant. For these U.S. militaristic leaders have foolishly exchanged a rational belief in ALLAH's Risen Messiah for the grotesque Idol of weapons. So ALLAH is now looking to a vigorous Islam to faithfully step forward to fill the vacuum that has been created by the majority of the West. For we have unwisely replaced the risen Messiah with our own blood idol of militarism and our other Idol of the Jew's moral superiority over Arabs.

Therefore, for ALLAH and His Risen Messiah, Islam's opportunity is now. Yes ALLAH is patiently waiting for Islam to make a wise decision about whether the Jews did actually murder ALLAH's Messiah. The truth is that ALLAH overwhelming humiliated the Jews so that it was as though they had not killed him. He humiliated them by His triumphantly raising him up alive as the next verse emphatically declares.