Camel Swallowing

Is Counter-Productive for Arab Intellectuals

There are twenty-two nations which are considered to be Arab states. However, since the prime days of Gamal Abdal Nasser these states have had very little to unitedly cheer about.

Possibly the greatest reason these sovereign nations have found little to be proud of, is that the Arab world has allowed itself to be brainwashed regarding what defines success. Of course the joblessness, hopelessness, poverty, severe abuse and occupation which is the daily diet of so many Palestinians is graphic evidence that all Arabs have much about which to truly be discouraged and disillusioned. The sad reality is that the Palestinians have responded by resorting to an ugly war of attrition by sacrificing their disillusioned youth through suicide bombings. Nevertheless, is it reasonable to hold the Palestinian victims responsible for the problems their exploitative oppressors have visited upon them? To have the strongest nation of the world financially and militarily, supporting your oppressors is not an easy obstacle to overcome.

For the Arab nations to buy into the lie that they are somehow inferior and a people in decline because they have been unable to defeat the nation of Israel in a series of wars, is absurd. Whatever technical and powerful weapons the nation of Israel cannot manufacture for itself, the wealthy U.S. makes certain that Israel receives. But it also makes certain it receives other needed and relevant assistance in order to insure victory in any Mid East war. So consistent dominance by Israel over Arab nations has been temporarily assured. This is indeed a distorted situation that causes strong discouragement and a feeling of deep humiliation. But it is not a rational justification for Arab nations to consider themselves inferior or to see themselves as a people in decline. Inferior weapons does not mean inferior hearts. Neither does superior weapons means superior hearts. Superior weapons do great damage but in the final analysis they are a disappearing shadow, an illusion, for they will pass away. ALLAH values the spiritual condition of the heart irrespective of the kinds of weapons possessed.

For the Arab world to have experienced temporary elation because the Armies of Iraq for a few days slowed down the superior weaponized U.S. invading force is a vivid demonstration of how distorted the values and perceptions of the Arabs have become. Why should it be considered a loss of honor for the Arabs that a highly industrialized nation like the U.S. which virtually worships the weapons’ industry, achieved a crushing victory over Iraq? Yes, it caused a temporary sense of pride that Iraq even temporarily succeeded in slowing down the mighty American war machine. But to participate in the immature Bush macho mentality that victory on the battlefield translates into moral superiority is absolutely absurd. Conversely, being defeated on the battlefield has no relationship to moral inferiority.

Yes, great weapons achieve military victories and cause much death and terrible suffering for the defeated. But, do mighty military victories achieved due to superior weapons cause a nation to have increased stature before ALLAH? No, a thousand times, no. In contrast, before the eyes of man who exalts and worships the superficial, any military victory is considered to be something wonderful – a spectacular achievement. But ALLAH is not superficial. A mighty military victory is often considered by Him to be despicable. To the Merciful, the heart of those on the losing side may be much more honorable than the hearts of those who happen to possess superior ability to kill, maim and murder.

There is not one verse in the entire Quran that could lead to the conclusion that superior weapons are pleasing to ALLAH. Spiritual weapons such as prayer, righteousness and justice please Him, but man made weapons bring him no pleasure. Is there one verse in the earlier Scriptures of the Hebrew Old Testament or the Christian Injeel which even imply that superior weapons please ALLAH? Instead, ALLAH’s Prophet’s again and again and again condemn man’s trust in weapons and his worshipping them rather than being devoted to ALLAH.

Nevertheless, 21^st century man cares little about ALLAH’s perspective on weapons. In fact, in the superficial, intellectualized Western world, ALLAH’s perspective on anything is not considered relevant. For example, I personally have been reading the scholarly U.S. Foreign Affairs Journal for about twenty-five years. At six issues per year and at least ten articles per issue, this is about 1,500 scholarly articles in these Journals which concentrate on relevant issues concerning relations among the nations of the world.

Since this Journal is published by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the content of its articles should give some indication on how important God/ Allah is to the scholarly, intellectual, informed contributors to this prestigious, influential Journal.

The bottom line is this. In those twenty-five years I have read at least three hundred of the fifteen hundred articles. But never do I recall ever having read in any of these many articles any mention of God or ALLAH’s perspective on anything. Yet, our flag salute refers to us being a nation “under God” and many of our coins bear the inscription, “In God We Trust,” though a more accurate inscription would be, “In Weapons We Trust.” Even if I had read all of the 1,500 articles, the result would have been the same. I am relatively certain that I would not have read of any reference to our Creator’s perspective.

As a generalization, U.S. intellectuals appear to assume that the Eternal, Living God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and the Giver of life to man, has been locked in church buildings. It is considered silly, immature, and anti-intellectual to think that He should have any involvement in U.S. American foreign policy considerations. Admittedly, impersonal, abstract concepts of morality are sometimes referred to. But a personal God, though He is often silent, hears, evaluates and remembers every conversation, is never referred to or acknowledged. The very God, who the Quran and the previous Scriptures teach us will be the final Judge of the attitude, actions and motivations of all men, is considered to be irrelevant.

Tragically, it appears that the vast majority of sincere Muslim intellectuals have caught the deadly American secular disease which locks the God of the Universe out of one of the most important affairs of man. The relationship which nations have with each other is the one relationship on which the very survival of our highly weaponized world is dependent. It is exceptionally tragic that American intellectuals appear to be too sophisticated to ever give a high priority to God in their international relations’ considerations. However, in my mind it is even more tragic that so many intellectuals of the Mid East have traded in the precious heritage of their sincere belief in the One God, for the secular God of the West, a God who exists but who doesn’t truly care about what’s going on in the world. Though He created the world, He is seldom mentioned or even alluded to by the intellectuals.

After hoping that I have somewhat established the reality that it is absurd to worship the victory purchased by military might or to be humiliated by military defeat, I will now redirect our considerations to another very relevant issue which is apparently given less than zero consideration by Arab/Muslim intellectuals.

The Relevant Hypothetical

I will introduce this very relevant consideration by using a hypothetical situation. We will start with the assumption that ALLAH exists. Then we will assume that He has sent His very closest representative on an extremely important personal mission to this world. Tragically, while on this very important assignment, ALLAH’s closest representative gets brutally and callously murdered by the very people he came to help.

But let us also suppose that there is a large group of very sincere religious persons who have what they mistakenly believe is a compelling reason to think that this brutal murder did not occur. In fact, they are adamant about wanting to keep the good reputation of this messenger who come to earth representing ALLAH, as week as possible. So they compose several ridiculous scenarios about this messenger in order to make it appear that other true teaching about him agrees with the mistaken information that they believe about him.

Is it not entirely reasonable that a time will eventually come when ALLAH will lose patience with those who show a calloused, superficial, uncaring attitude about what His precious messenger endured at the hands of his vicious murderers. Please keep in mind that this messenger willingly volunteered for this important mission which he had no obligation to carry out. He loved ALLAH and people so much that he was willing to be murdered and he was also willing to be totally unappreciated both by his murderers and by those who claimed he was not brutally murdered. Instead, they stubbornly claim that he received a free ticket to travel to ALLAH’s heaven without even breaking into a sweat. They claim that the great deceptive escape to heaven was made right after he snuck away from the failed attempt to forever end his life. So, don’t you think the time will come when those who callously refuse to believe that he suffered an unjust, brutal execution, will be considered by ALLAH as just as guilty and as deserving of grave punishment as the actual murderers?

For Muslim intellectuals to claim to believe in ALLAH and yet to not consider the potential theological dimension of what Foud Ajami described over twenty years ago as the “Arab Predicament,” vividly demonstrates something quite tragic. They reveal that they are very nearly atheist Muslims. Or they demonstrate that despite the fact that they claim to have inquiring minds, they are actually quite closed minded. Or, they reveal that they live in a state of being fearful of Muslim authorities but have little fear of ALLAH. Or, despite their outward sophistication, they are actually quite superficial. Or, is it a mixture of all of the above?

There are very few Muslim thinkers who do not realize that one of the most controversial verses in the entire Quran is the verse, when understood absolutely literally and very probably superficially, appears to teach that ALLAH’s one and only Messiah was not extra-judicially executed by the Romans due to Jewish manipulation of the Roman governor.

But if that verse is understood in a more profound way which is even more consistent with other verses in the Quran, then the Messiah was actually executed but walked out of his Jerusalem tomb after three days of death. If this is so, then one billion three hundred million Muslims have made a profound err. Even more significantly, this tragic err has enormous implications that operate to the extreme detriment of Islam. In fact, this err puts Islam in serious cross-purposes with ALLAH.

For both Muslim intellectuals and Muslim theologians to refuse to consider the enormous implications of not dealing with the overwhelming probability that they are at cross-purposes with the ALMIGHTY ALLAH whom they publicly profess to believe in and who they think they serve, is absurd. In the picturesque words of the Messiah, it is equivalent to the ridiculousness of a person assuming that he is of normal intelligence but who attempts to swallow a camel. Even more disturbing is the reality that Muslims are involved in this Bush-like confused, hypocritical activity at the very time that the Arab-Muslim world has never needed clear thinking leadership more than it does now. It must leave no stone unturned in attempting to solve the terrible, seemingly unsolvable predicament in which it now finds itself.

Significantly, the Arab cartoonist, Khaldun Gharaybah in a cartoon published in Amman’s Ar-Ra’y on March 25, 2003, captured how desperate the Arab thinkers are as they see no solutions and are totally impotent to do anything about their predicament. He shows three Western dressed middle age Arab men, each looking extremely perplexed. Though they are dressed in neat suits with neckties, their Arab identity is unmistakable because of their traditional Khafaiyahs that they are each wearing.

But the talented artist goes beyond their perplexed facial expressions to vividly communicate their state of total helplessness. He not only shows each man struggling to walk with the aid of two crutches. He also has drawn each of them with both legs having been cut off well above the knees making it virtually impossible to walk even with the aid of their crutches. Doesn’t this vivid cartoon reveal to us that the U.S. has rendered the Arab world impotent unless it finds a new resource from ALLAH that/who it is not now considering?

There is a well known powerful three word expression that has been used to describe the war strategy of nations with the ambition of establishing an empire.

“Divide and Conquer”

The clever and Machiavellian Bush Administration has already successfully divided the Arab nations and is now dealing with each one separately. The strength to be derived from unity has evaporated for the Arab nations. The conquering is the relatively small next step for the U.S. It need not totally conquer each of the twenty-two Arab nations. It only needs to separate each of them from the others enough that each nation will politely obey the dictates of the U.S.

As for the unity of the U.S. with its two main allies, Israel and Britain, it thinks it could even lose Britain and still survive with its intimate ties with Israel, with whom it always consults before making any move in the Mid East.

In my limited mind, I have identified five potential unifying factors for the twenty-two Arab states: Language – Religion – Oil (for most) – A mutual desire to contain but not to destroy Israel – A shared fear of the territorial ambitions of the U.S. as it seeks to realign the map of the Arab world so that it will meet Israeli and U.S. needs but will have less chance to work unitedly than it even now does.

Language, in my mind is an undervalued source of unity and potential strength for the Arab world. The Arabic language is a much more powerful and expressive language than English. When Arab leaders use Arabic to express concepts which contain substance instead of hot air and unrealistic rhetoric, the people will follow competent, true, sincere leadership.

Oil is a double edged sword for the Arab world. If it is used as a weapon, it can cripple the global economy but it will also hurt the Arab nations as much as it hurts the other nations. But to totally hand the control of the oil faucet over to the U.S. would be a crippling blow to Arab nations. So Arab oil wealth must be handled with great wisdom and delicacy.

Religion, a containment of Israel and a containment of U.S. territorial ambitions, we will consider together. I believe these three potentially unifying factors are inextricably bound together with the key factor being Islam. As Islam is now being unworthily practiced by Muslim extremists, it is being a powerful force for disunity rather than unity.

Yes, the vicious attack by certain religious extremists in the name of a distortion that they tried to pass off as Islam, did tremendous damage to the U.S. that was well beyond 9/11. But it has also done even more damage to the Mid East and has paved the way for U.S. control of that vulnerable and valuable region.

On the other hand, a defensive, unimaginative Islam whose main distinctive characteristic is to emphasize everything that their Risen Messiah supposedly is not, is taking Islam nowhere, fast. Nevertheless, ALLAH’s true Risen, Victorious Messiah is revealed in the Quran, but hidden by the wrong, defensive, negative interpretation of the Quran. Yet he is waiting for the Islamic world to recognize his amazing power and just authority so that he can be the one to bring unity to those committed to Islam. When that occurs, Arab problems with both the U.S. and Israel will work themselves out and there will be a new joy, purpose, hope and meaning among both the Muslims and Christians of the Middle East.

Yes, the U.S. at one time enjoyed the presence of the Messiah in its midst. But a worship of pleasure, a preoccupation with materialism and a trust in weapons replaced ALLAH’s Risen Messiah. We had mistakenly assumed that he was an American Messiah who enthusiastically waved the American flag. We considered him our private possession to dispose of as we pleased. We were very wrong and as a nation we may well be beyond recovering the relationship and blessing we once thought would last forever, no matter how much we abused, exploited and neglected ALLAH’s Risen Messiah.

Now the Middle East is thirsting for direction and meaning. And the Risen Messiah who was once a homeless baby in Bethlehem and was later an escaped refugee in Egypt, is now the Risen Messiah who is in ALLAH’s presence. If Muslims have the wisdom and humility to choose to be healed, ALLAH’s Messiah/Physician is ready to administer healing. But this Physician only visits a person, family or nation when he is invited. Don’t you think that to not seek the healing, help and guidance of ALLAH’s own Messiah is even more ridiculous than trying to swallow a camel? If the Prophet Muhammad were here today in the Middle East, what do you think he would think?

Never in history has there been a group of people with more potential and yet more besieged than today’s Arabs. The attacks are not frontal attacks but the attacks are relentless. They involve three main entities. The first concerns a particular land that was lived on and possessed by Palestinian Arabs but which the Jews wanted to claim because many of their ancestors had lived there in centuries past. Their 20^th century attempts to control the land where many of their ancestors had lived was greatly assisted by a broadly circulated and believed lie that there were virtually no people inhabiting the land that they wanted. But in reality there were hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living on the land the Jews so openly coveted.

Unintentionally the Zionist cause was greatly aided by the Western world not responding early enough to Adolph Hitler’s hatred of European Jews. Therefore, Hitler was allowed to ruthlessly murder so many Jews that the western world basically relieved their justified guilt for their failure to protect them by awarding them land which legally and morally belonged to Palestinians. But, this was a land that the United Nations had no legal or moral right to give away because it was not theirs to give.

After the Arab Palestinian land was given to the Jews and Israel was proclaimed a nation, the powerful U.S. convinced itself that it has many geopolitical and even theological reasons to support the Israelis over the Palestinians. So the besieging of the Palestinians by the Israeli’s with U.S. support was continued unabated with the Palestinians having virtually no chance of achieving any thing closely resembling true justice.

There also has been the besieging of the oil nations. This siege has taken several subtle forms. Manipulation, consistent pressure and coercion has been the main ingredients of this siege up until the recent invasion of Iraq when invasion and occupation became the new weapon of choice. Pressure, manipulation and coercion has been constantly maintained on the oil nations in order to insure that the machinery maintaining the global economy is well oiled and running smoothly.

But the U.S. has not wanted to control only the oil rich Arab nations. It is convinced that other regional nations also need to be under U.S. hegemony because of either these nation proximity to Israel or their relations with the oil nations or both. So the U.S. Mid East strategy has been to divide and conquer. Its strategy is to isolate each nation from the other so each nation can be manipulated and coerced individually. So deals are made separately with each nation in order to meet the U.S. agenda which mainly involves U.S. security and U.S. economic needs.

This strategy of divide and control has been so successful that a potential unifying force like the 22 nation Arab League has been rendered relatatively impotent and mostly marginalized. The U.S. been so successful in disuniting this League that the entire League has individually and collectively raised the white flag of surrender. Significantly, the Arab cartoonist, Hamid, in an April 2003, Abu Dhabi, AL-Ittihad, captured this pathetic surrender mood. He drew a caricature of the League of Arab States, headquarters. Instead of the twenty-two different flags representing the different nations traditionally displayed on the top of the building, he shows 22 identical white flags indicating that each individual nation has surrendered its will to the will of the U.S. dictator.

Even more discouraging for all Arabs is the message of the February 17, 2003 cartoon of Amjad Rasmi appearing in Ad-duster in Amman. His cartoon shows that it is not just at the level of leadership that the Arabs have resigned themselves to the U.S. dominating their region by its planned invasion and occupation of Iraq. He showed that discouragement and resignation had already dominated the Arab street. He pictured two streets, one street representing the Arab street and the other representing the Western street. On the Western street, crowds of vigorous people were either waving their arms protesting the potential U.S. war against Iraq or were waving anti-war banners. In vivid contrast, there was total silence and emptiness on the Arab street. It was entirely deserted except for one tomb stone symbolizing the death of public Arab protest against the U.S. war.

In addition to resignation and discouragement, the cartoonist’s lone tombstone on the deserted Arab street probably was implying that the death of protest on the Arab Street was due to the U.S. not allowing vulnerable Arab leaders to allow public protest against U.S. policy. Whereas, in the West, vigorous protest could not be prevented. So hopeless and without coherent answers has the predicament for Arab States become that immediately after a U.S. victory over Iraq was declared, the Arab League opted to not even convene a conference to collectively discuss the serious implication for all Arab nations of the U.S. occupation of one of their most prosperous sovereign nations.

Stop! Stop! Come to a halt! Enough of this negativism. There has never been such a wonderful time for Arabs to achieve such an amazing victory that will truly turn the present disunity of the Middle East into meaningful unity. But before this unity will be achieved the collective Arab mind must experience a dynamic metamorphous on what true victory actually means. It is not the Bush-macho-man mentality victory that if I can kill his people I am superior and victorious. But if he kills my people, he is superior and I become inferior. That thinking is garbage and those who live by it will eventually be thrown on the garbage heap of history.

Take a look at the individual Napoleon or at the great Assyrian and Roman empires. What happened to each of them? No! Greatness is achieved in the mind and heart and not on macho-man’s battlefields.

Earlier I wrote that besides the entities of land and oil in the Mid East, there was another entity which is under siege. But this siege is not so much form the U.S., but it is more form within Islam. Of course, it is the popular generalization that Islam has received a black eye form those who are laying siege upon true Islam from within such as AL Qaeda. Of course the extremist Islamists are attempting to hijack Islam and to exploitively use this major monotheistic religion for their own evil and corrupt purposes. But this is not a black eye for true Islam. Rather, it is a direct assault on Islam which true Islam will triumph over only when true Islam actually becomes true Islam. As simplistic as it may sound, true Islam, which has an implied meaning of submission to the will of ALLAH, does yet exist in the heart and minds of most Muslims.

There can be no ifs, ands, or buts. True Islam must require submission to ALLAH’s Will. Since ALLAH willed that His Messiah triumphantly defeat death after he was brutally murdered, any Muslim who will not embrace the glorious raising by ALLAH of His Messiah from death, is not a true Muslim who is being in submission to ALLAH’s Will.

This sounds harsh. It must also seem quite presumptuous that a Western non Muslim would make this assessment of who a true Muslim is and who is not a true Muslim. But, until the reality is embraced that a true Muslim is only partly a Muslim until he/she takes seriously submission to the will of ALLAH, because this is what the meaning of the word Muslim implies. So, if it is actually ALLAH’s Will that His Risen Messiah be embraced as a Messiah who defeated both death and the plans of Jewish leaders to destroy him and a Muslim refuses to embrace these realities, the consequences are clear. The person has made a definite choice to be only a partial Muslim. We will give the person the benefit by thinking of him or her as a 50% Muslim. But, when he of she embraces these truths regarding ALLAH’s own Risen Messiah, that person is no longer living in a state of denial of reality. The person is no longer living in opposition to the will and purposes of ALLAH. So the newly empowered former 50% Muslim who has now embraced the full implications of these significant realities regarding ALLAH’s Risen Messiah, by definition can now be considered a true, full 100% Muslim, one who is submitted to ALLAH as the term Muslim implies.

Of course, if Islam is not serious about the term Muslim having a direct link with a Muslim bring submitted to the Will of ALLAH, then a Muslim can convince himself that he/she is indeed a full Muslim by just reciting the Shahaada, the Islamic creed. But if that lowest common denominator becomes the acceptable practice, the whole concept of sincerely desiring to be submitted to the will of ALLAH is thrown in the garbage and Islam has truly lost its substance. So if Islam sincerely desires to be a potent unifying force in the Arab world, it must make up its mind about desiring to be submitted to ALLAH or not being concerned about being submitted to ALLAH.

If we do give the benefit of the doubt to a Muslim who refuses to be submitted to ALLAH, confirmed by his rejection of ALLAH’s Risen Messiah and call that person a 50% Muslim, there is an unintended consequence of which all Muslims should be aware. Muslims, by excluding submission to ALLAH’s will regarding His Own Messiah, have cut each Muslim in half. So they have reduced the world Islamic Community from one billion, three hundred million, to 50% of that total or to six billion, five hundred thousand. Is this what Muslims truly desire, a shrinking of the world Islamic Community in quantity as well as in quality?

Yes, Islam and the disunited, segmented, separated Arab nations of the Middle East have serious decisions to make. They are under internal attack by not having a clear understanding from ALLAH’s perspective of what a true Muslim actually is, a submission to ALLAH’s Will even though His Will implies acceptance of His Risen Messiah who defeated Jewish plans to forever end his life and who also defeated death itself.

Plus, they are under siege from the U.S. being in the process of dividing the Arab/Muslim world into small, isolated pieces. Each isolated nation is then forced by adverse circumstances to give first priority to pleasing this virtual U.S. slave masters enough to guarantee its own survival. Nevertheless, their individual survival is most certainly not a survival with dignity. Under such terribly adverse circumstance isn’t it reasonable that ALLAH Who is the Merciful, would provide special help to the Arab Muslim nations to help resolve this unfortunate predicament? Does not the need for special assistance and understanding lead directly to the Risen Messiah who himself was forced to fight and pray his way through one oppositional circumstance after another? Isn’t it truly possible that the very Risen Messiah who the Western leaders have so foolishly rejected due to their replacing him with self-sufficient arrogance, a pseudo sophistication and a fascination with and a worship of weapons, is now yearning for the exploited Arab Muslim Community to be receptive to his assistance and counsel? Multitudes in the West have deserted and abandoned him because they foolishly think he can be replaced with technology, sophistication, prosperity and weapons.

Think about it. Never has their been a people group with more zeal and religious enthusiasm than Muslims. You have accomplished so much even without uniting yourself with ALLAH’s victorious Risen Messiah. But now it appears ALLAH has allowed the circumstances to stack up against you so much that you might finally see the need to unite with the Messiah and Savior He has provided but who He will not force on any people group.

Therefore, it is quite relevant to ask: what experiences are there in the Risen Messiah’s résumé’ to indicate that ALLAH has given him a relevant background that would demonstrate that he has been chosen by ALLAH to lead Muslims in their struggle to overcome adversity and to achieve a quality unity.   Also, does he understand the dynamics and stress of being under constant attack and does he have personal experience with defeating relentless adversity?

Part of the Risen Messiah’s Resume’

1. The Israeli King Herod, out of jealousy, was consumed with wanting to murder the newborn Messiah after he heard that this infant was destined to become King. Through ALLAH’s Might and Wisdom He enabled him to escape with his mother and her husband Yusef (Joseph) so that they became refugees in Egypt, and by doing so they defeated the plans of a corrupt King to annihilate him.
2. The Injeel indicates that his younger brothers continually harassed him because he was so certain that he had a unique calling to serve ALLAH. Psychological cruelty form ones own family members can be devastating. He consistently defeated their insults with his patience and love.
3. The Devil himself viciously attacked him through an onslaught of temptation while he was devoting himself to fasting and prayer in the wilderness. He successfully resisted Shitan’s (Satin’s) evil temptation and triumphed.
4. He defeated the consistent persecution and rejection of this own Jewish people by not being concerned with whether they would kill him or not. So he continued to heal and to tell penetrating parables which consistently exposed the rejection of ALLAH and the extreme disobedience to Him which was so inherent in their own corrupt religious apparatus. So he has the experience of defeating a corrupt religious system.
5. The people of his own home synagogue callously attempted to murder him by pushing him off a cliff. They were enraged at him for the way he had directly confronted him regarding their own rigid racism. His composure and resoluteness overwhelmed them and he walked away unscratched after he had exposed their racist, apartheid attitudes.
6. The religious apparatus sent various secret representatives to him in order to trip him up in his words so that they could build a case against him to justify his arrest and to undermine him in the eyes of the people. He so overwhelmed them in every contest of the mind that it was as if there were not contest. So he consistently exposed their shallowness and corruption.
7. The Temple Police sent their version of their Mutawaeen to arrest him. They were so impressed with his words that they did not put a hand on him. Instead, they returned to the top religious officials who sent them shaking their heads and talking to themselves. They said that never had there been a man who spoke like this man. The corrupt temple police were no match for him.
8. The Quran points out that persons who had been attacked with the disease of leprosy came to him for his healing hand to defeat their disease. By ALLAH’s assistance, his healing touch defeated victim after victim of leprosy.
9. The Quran teaches that babies who were attacked with blindness even before they departed from their mother’s wombs, had their eyes receive their first sight when they became adults. This healing came a result of the healing touch of ALLAH’s Messiah.
10. Violent, savage men who were so overwhelmed and possessed by evil spirits that they could break apart iron chains, were calmed and dispossessed of their evil spirits through his boundless authority. So the dark unseen spiritual forces were not match for him.
11. A violent storm attacked the small boat in which he and his disciples were crossing a large lake so that the boat was almost sinking. He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea. When there was a need for it to occur, he revealed his mastery over nature.
12. When a large crowd which included mutowa like temple police along with top religious officials armed with swords and clubs came to arrest him so that he could be executed, his presence so overwhelmed them that many of them drew back and fell to the ground. Officials appointed by a corrupt, controlling government were no match for him.
13. Then probably the ugliest and most shameful night and morning in the history of civilization began to unfold due to the Jewish rage against the Messiah who ALLAH had graciously sent them in order to heal their spiritually diseased souls. But three days after it appeared to them that they had forever killed him, it became very clear who had truly triumphed when he quietly walked out of his Jerusalem tomb.
14. The religious crowd bound him and took him first to Annas, the father-in-law to the High Priest for all of Israel. This began a series of brutal encounters where the anointed Messiah of the entire human race was kicked like a dirty soccer ball from one group to another to be beaten, cruelly interrogated, mocked and humiliated. He was repeatedly questioned by a series of corrupt, sold out leaders. He was continuously ridiculed, beaten in the head and body again and again and man after man took turns spitting on him. They tried to break him, but these corrupt authorities never succeeded.
15. After they took him first to Annas, the father-in-law to the High Priest of all of Israel. He then kicked him over to his own daughter’s husband, the corrupt High Priest, Caiphas. While he was there, the members of the highest Jewish governing body, the Sandhedrin, lowered themselves to a garbage like status. They repeatedly hit him with their fists, and spit in his face again and again. They even blindfold him as they hit him and mockingly told him to prophesy which person had hit him. But these corrupt religious officials and their servile soldiers could not break him.
16. Early the following morning, after the night of beatings, they definitely decided to put him to death. So they figuratively kicked him over to the Roman governor Pilate in their futile attempt to make the Romans’ responsible for his murder, rather than to allow themselves to be accountable for this terrible crime of injustice.
17. While the Roman governor was interrogating the Messiah of all men everywhere, the Chief Priests and Elders of the Jewish people, while full of venomous hostility, disgracefully manipulated the crowd to demand that the man who was ALLAH’s only anointed Messiah, be cruelly crucified.
18. Then he was kicked to the Roman Governor’s own occupation soldiers. These soldiers who were far from their homes in Rome, found a way to relieve their frustration at their victims’ expense. They took him into the Roman governor’s place where they gathered the whole company around him. There they attempted to further humiliate him. They striped off all of his clothes and mockingly dressed him up to be a king. Then many of the occupation soldiers spit in his face and took out of his hand the pole like weapon that they had made him hold so that he would appear to hold the scepter of a King. Using it as a weapon, they hit him on the head with it again and again. But these hostile occupation soldiers could not break him.
19. Then the occupation governor, Pilate, had him kicked over to the Israeli king Herod. This corrupt, sold out Israeli King, hoped the Messiah would perform some kind of miracle for him. Being a king he felt he was entitled to some entertainment. The Messiah refused to answer even one of King Herod’s questions, though he questioned him at length. He would not satisfy the corrupt King’s depraved ego needs by giving him the satisfaction of an answer. So neither could the corrupt King Herrod break him.
20. Amazingly, two committed enemies, the corrupt occupying Governor Pilate, and the even more corrupt Israeli King Herod, actually changed their relationship with each other, from a bitter hatred to warm friendship, that dark morning because of their shared experience of intensely interrogating ALLAH’s Messiah though they did not recognize him to be ALLAH’s Messiah. They also shared the opportunity of having their own soldiers ridicule and mock him, but it appears that of the two corrupt leaders, it was only the occupying force of Pilate whose soldier’s viciously whipped the Messiah, spit upon him and repeatedly hit his head with their pole like weapon. But, neither the corrupt occupying Governor, nor the equally corrupt King Herod nor their soldiers were able to break the will and the obedience to ALLAH of His Messiah.
21. So different groups in different locations beat and battered him all night and through the next morning. His body was too bruised and exhausted for him to carry his own cross through the crowded Jerusalem streets to crucification hill. Yet, though these forces had succeeded in breaking his body, they had not broken his indomitable spirit.
22. It appeared to the outsider that he was finally defeated when the obedient occupying soldiers used huge nails to attack his flesh. The blood poured from his hands and feet as the heavy Roman hammers drove the cruel nails through his leg bones and his hands down into the wood of the cross. To the many chief priests who were eagerly watching, it appeared that he was finally defeated and spiritually broken. Yet, instead of cursing these superficial frauds whose lying tongues had convinced the Roman occupiers to execute him, he tenderly prayed for their forgiveness. So these powerful, corrupt forces failed in their futile attempt to turn him into a bitter, frightened, resentful man.
23. From the cross, as he hung their bleeding and gasping for breath, he saw one of his disciples, who in fear had abandoned him. He was now standing near the Messiah’s broken hearted and grieving mother, Maryam. (Mary) The Messiah, though himself suffering terrible physical and spiritual agony, tenderly with a few words, restored to this broken disciple his self dignity. He gave him the honor of providing special care for his mother in his own home.

This was especially significant since his dear mother had previously lost her beloved husband Yusef (Joseph) and was now enduring the agony of watching her son being slowly murdered. So her fragile and vulnerable state left her in great need of special care. This tender incident definitely reveals that the whole corrupt, power hungry system was not able to even put a dent in his ability to love, to forgive and to care.

1. Even after he was dead and was in his borrowed Jerusalem tomb, the elements lost their battle to bring decay to his battered body. So even the elements were defeated by him. This was in direct fulfillment of an anciiety prophecy in the Scriptures that the body of the Messiah would not experience decay.
2. A squad of professional occupying soldiers form the world’ mightiest empire were assigned to prevent his dead body from being stolen from the tomb. They partially succeeded. Hid dead body was not stolen. Instead, ALLAH’s precious angels rolled away the huge stone blocking the entrance, while the ALMIGHTY infused new life into his cold, dead body. Then he quietly but triumphantly walked out of his Jerusalem tomb, though it was being guarded by a Special Forces unit from the proud Roman occupying Army. Yes, by ALLAH’s Might and Wisdom, His own Messiah had been enabled to simultaneously defeat a guarded tomb, a Special Forces unit of the world’s most weaponized military, and even death itself. All these amazing victories were accomplished when he walked out of his tomb, alive. As the Quran emphatically states, “ALLAH raised him up…”
3. Later his disciples were terrified that the enraged Jewish authorities would arrest them because of the authority’s paranoia over the Messiah’s disappearance from his well guarded tomb. To protect themselves, the disciples hid together behind locked doors. The Messiah, rather than further frightening them by knocking on the locked door, overwhelmed the laws of nature by walking straight through the closed, locked door. Again, he demonstrated that even natural laws could not limit him.
4. Later, he helped us all to realize the intimate identification he has a Risen Messiah, with those persons who embrace him and then endure suffering and persecution because of him. He demonstrated that his spirit was so indwelling persecuted followers that when a person suffered he also suffered, that when a follower was persecuted, he was also persecuted. This reality was vividly revealed when many months after his resurrection, he suddenly and unexpectedly spoke from above to the rabid, Rabbi, Saul of Tarsus who later became rasuul (the apostle) Paul of Christian fame.

Significantly, when a brilliant light from above abruptly blinded the rampaging Rabbi when he was headed to Damascus to terrorize and arrest Christians, the exact words he said to him from above, contained a special message. The exact words were: “Saul, Saul, Why are you persecuting me.” But Saul had never seen the Messiah. How could Saul be persecuting him? Because every time Saul laid a hand on a harassed believer, the Messiah was experiencing that harassment. So the Messiah did not say to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting those who believe in me?” Instead, he said, “Why are you persecuting me?” Beyond our ability to comprehend, the Messiah himself experiences our persecution as if it was happening to him, so close is his identification with each person who has embraced him.

True Unity

ALLAH’s Risen Messiah, because he so deeply understands the discouraging circumstances of the Arabs, though he has awareness of their mistakes, has far more potential to bring true unity to both Arab Muslims and Arab Christians than Nasserism ever had. There is no comparison between the potential for unity that Nasserism brought and the potential for unity that the Messiah can bring to Mid Eastern Arabs. To compare them is like comparing a cold cup of tea to the mighty ocean.

Oh you Muslim Arab intellectuals, what kind of Godot are you waiting for to heal the hearts and minds of Muslims? Is the rejected Messiah from the West Bank who Israel rejected but who ALLAH has accepted, not good enough for you? Do you want him to write a book on physics or philosophy before he can meet your high, sophisticated standards?

You will do well to understand that ALLAH’s Messiah is a “Where the rubber meets the road” Messiah. He is the Messiah for the taxi driver as well as the Messiah of the King. He is the Messiah of the prostitute as well as the Messiah of the Queen. He is the Messiah of the over burdened, hidden wife who changes diapers and washes dishes, as well as the Messiah of the successful business man. He is the Messiah of the nurse, soldier and kindergarten teacher as well as the Messiah of the military officer, the doctor and the school administrator. He is the Messiah of the laborer as well as the Messiah of the construction supervisor.

Oh you Muslim intellectuals, get real. Quit hiding behind sophistication and fear. Admit that the evidence is overwhelming that ALLAH’s true, courageous Messiah definitely died, but later rose to new life and now holds each of us accountable. Please acknowledge that you truly don’t have true answers hidden in your ponderously worded political and economic theories. Please admit that this appreciated woman and working man’s Messiah is ALLAH’s true Messiah. And by the way, if you do meet a more superior Messiah than the triumphant Lion from Bethlehem, please don’t forget to tell one billion three hundred million of those who consider themselves Muslims and myself, where he is being hidden so that we can also meet him.

A very simple song from years ago unexpectedly came to my mind as I was writing the above thoughts. This song summarizes in an exceptionally simple way the reality that can bring meaning and spiritual healing to each person of this world. It’s tender words capture the compelling reasonableness of trusting ALLAH’s Messiah since ALLAH Himself trusted this amazing man to rule over even the mysteries of nature.

“Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters.

Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea.

Put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.”

The Jews could not control him then, so they manipulated the mighty Romans to maliciously and unjustly execute him. Nevertheless, he has overcome and defeated each and every obstacle he has ever encountered. Will he continue to do so? Because he will always remain in ALLAH’s favor he will finally triumph over every evil he will ever face.

For even one person, not to mention hundreds of millions of Muslims, to claim that none of these brutal interrogations and beatings occurred and that there was no crucifixion and no resurrection is outrageous and ridiculous. Worse still, it is a horrendous crime against both ALLAH and His Messiah. Like Jews mocked ALLAH’s Messiah again and again before his crucification, you Muslims mock ALLAH Himself now. You mock Him by rejecting His great love gift to you when He compassionately allowed His Messiah to give his life for all men. But instead of expressing appreciation, you relentlessly claim that ALLAH performed a cheap magic trick by making a person look like His Messiah, while He deceptively snuck His Messiah up to join Him in Heaven. In order for this serious mocking of both ALLAH and His Messiah to be forgiven, it must be whole heartedly repented of before the Messiah comes to Judge.

It is absolutely absurd that any person of influence and stature would counsel others to boycott this Messiah or would attempt to marginalize him by minimizing the authority he has received directly form ALLAH. In the wise words of the Holy Quran, He is truly ALLAH’s “Mercy.”

Oh, how great is all of our need for ALLAH’s Mercy. To unwisely boycott ALLAH’s Mercy is to unwisely reject ALLAH Himself. When you seriously think about it, rejecting ALLAH’s Mercy makes even less sense than attempting to swallow a camel.