The Great Spiritual Wrestling Match

Whether they be Political

Analysits – Secular Theorists – Islamic Revolutionary Theorists-

Christian Theologians – Secular Journalists; they all have a theory on why the Mid –East has suffered so greatly, especially since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. (This break-up occurred as a result of World War I just over eighty years ago.)

There are several easy identifiable causes, each of which have made their enormous contributions to the flagrant bloodshed, poverty, cruelty, disenfranchisement, and wicked injustice which has been the bitter diet of so many Middle Easterners for so many decades. Tragically, unless ALLAH Himself intervenes in a major way that only He is capable of, at this time man made solutions appear to hold little hope to end Middle East suffering and exploitation of Arabs, especially of the Palestinians.

In the following paragraphs I will neither offer a comprehensive analysis of the historical and present dilemma nor will I present a comprehensive potential solution. This is because I definitely do not possess the knowledge or the intellect to do either. However, with ALLAH’s help I intend to offer a quick overview of causes, which I hope will lay a foundation for revealing ALLAH’s healing process, which will involve His Anointed Messiah.

Two thousand years ago, by power from ALLAH, again and again the Messiah healed the sick and suffering. Therefore, my assumption is that since ALLAH empowered His anointed to heal the suffering then, after almost two thousand years in His Holy presence, He will be empowered by ALLAH to intervene for justice in behalf of suffering people and nations now.

The following are a few of the very visible forces, which for a variety of reasons are deserving of considerable blame for the suffering of the Middle East since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. I will make no attempt to rank the degree of blame each source deserves or to offer more than superficial comments on why each is worthy of blame. Also, each entity I will list will not be a neat, autonomous entity but will often have considerable overlap with other entities.

The first to come to the minds of many Arabs but not all, is Zionism. Zionism has displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and has seriously subordinated the legitimate needs of Palestinian human beings to the nationalistic needs of the State of Israel. Without going into detail, one of the most cruel, blatant lies ever told in the history of the world was told by Zionism in order to manipulate International support for the creation of the State of Israel. Their horrible lie was:

“A people without a land for a land without a people.”

But no matter what the lying Zionist propaganda machine was saying, the land had tens of thousands of people. But to the arrogant Zionists, the land did not have a people because the Zionist are so disrespectful of ALLAH, that they will not acknowledge that ALLAH created the Palestinians as human beings.

It is not only the Palestinian people who have been heavily impacted by the Zionist cause in the Middle East. Each of the Arab countries of the Middle East could list dozens of ways that having a non-Arab Zionist people manipulate their way into being a wedge between Arab nations has caused numerous disagreeable complications for their own people. This is in addition to the deep resentment Arabs have for the severe suffering that they have helplessly watched their Palestinian brother’s experience.

Another source of suffering has been Western Imperialism combined with colonialism which has divided up the Arab nations so as to meet the needs of the Western nations instead of meeting the needs of the Arab people living in their own land. Just as injurious as the direct results of imperialism has been how imperialism has enabled Zionism to accomplish its goals at the expense of the Arab people and at the cost of Arab blood.

Middle Eastern Arabs are not without responsibility for having the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bring them so much suffering, bloodshed and injustice for so long. When the U.S. partitioned Palestinian land and gave over half of their land to Israel, understandably, the Palestinians and their Arab supporters resisted the Israeli take over of Palestinian land. All Middle Eastern Arabs were in shock that the International Community would allow such a travesty of justice to occur. In the words of the noted author, Arthur Koestler, describing the British Belfour Declaration which led to the U.N. partition:

“… a document in which one nation solemnly promises to a second nation the country of a third nation.”

So the Palestinians determined that they would not accept this injustice but would sustain a long fight to obtain what was rightfully theirs.

However, the grandfather of the present King of Jordan, King Abdullah, in his wisdom warned the Palestinians that they should take what was offered to them. He attempted to help them see that since Israel had the support of the Western Powers, the Palestinians would lose rather than gain if they did not take what was offered to them. For his outspokenness, he was assassinated. But he turned out to be correct. Today, after thousands of deaths and untold suffering, they would be thrilled to receive what was offered them fifty-two years ago.

Colonialism, which cannot be separated from Western Imperialism has also caused great exploitation of the Arab people. Western capitalism, which cannot be separated from Western Imperialism and is also intertwined with colonialism has exploited the Arab Middle East. Exploitation of people and nations in order to meet Western needs has been one of capitalism’s main characteristics.

Undermining the religion of Islam in the Middle East has been secularism . When combined with other Western “isms,” secularism is seen as polluting the commitment to Islam of Middle Easterners. Especially is secularism perceived as interfering with Muslims emulating the Prophet in walking in the Straight Path of Islam. Secularism has interfered with Muslims walking in the Straight Path by influencing Muslims to disregard the Shari’a and instead paves the way for them to put the emphasis on man made legislation. When man creates legislation in place of instituting the Shari’a, it is considered by many Muslims to be pagan idolatry, because law is ALLAH’s Domain and not man’s domain. The extent that man made legislation has injured the Arabs, of course, is a subject of debate.

Then there is Western Culture, which has undermined Islamic values. The depravity which Muslims observe in the west is a constant threat to undermine Islamic values. Virtually all Muslims agree that the values of Islam are superior and are much more pleasing to ALLAH than are many degenerate Western values.

Returning to a combination of the “isms,” it appears that a combination of secularism, imperialism, materialism, and other isms have together been the force behind enabling the United States to use their idol of militarism to intimidate authoritarian regimes to obey this idols commands. So, in a symbolic way you can say that certain puppet leaders in the Middle East have bowed their knee to the idol of militarism and thus have opened themselves to the charge of apostasy, idolatry and hypocrisy.

With this depressing state of affairs facing the Middle East, and with the imminent threat of the American idol of militarism attacking Iraq, we hopefully ask: Does ALLAH have a plan of intervention which is able to bring healing to the people of Arab lands?

First, we will look at a potential appalling scenario which regrettably has the potential to bring a conflagration to the Mid East.

-Potential Scenario-

The U.S. invades Iraq because the Vice President Dick Cheney, and his assistant, President George W. Bush have convinced other political leaders that unless the U.S. invades Iraq and murders Saddam (forces a regime change and shatters its infrastructure), Iraq will use its weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or Israel or both, or threaten to use them against a major oil producing nation such as Saudi Arabia.

Of course, if the U.S. does not attack Iraq, the chance is quite remote that Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction to attack either the U.S. or Israel or any other nation because of the certain destruction which would visit Iraq if it attacked either the U.S. or Israel or threatened any other nation with its weapons of mass destruction.

However, if the U.S. does choose to orchestrate a pre-emptive attack against Iraq, Iraq does not have the range to reach the U.S., but does have the range to reach Israel. Therefore, if the U.S. does attack Iraq, the chances of Iraq attacking Israel became quite strong. However, the chances were quite remote that an attack against Israel would occur before we made a superficial decision to make a pre-emptive first strike against Iraq.

When and if such a pre-emptive strike does occur, then the possibility of Iraq taking out its revenge against America’s nearby ally, AmerIsrael, is very great. Iraq would also attack Israel in order to draw brother Muslim Arab nations into the conflict. So the chance that AmerIsrael would then seek to “eradicate” Iraq as Israeli newspapers have already warned that they would do, would also become very great.

Think about it. If Israel was directly connected to such a conflagration in Iraq, would Arab nations stand idly by and take no action against Israel? I don’t know. But if they did, World War III could be ignited.

Thankfully, there are a number of reasons that this scenario may not occur. But the current simplistic, militaristic attitude of the U.S. administration with its arrogant giant military industrial complex, greatly increases the chances of such a horrible scenario. Even if this or a similar scenario does not occur, this does not mean that the United States through its militarism idol and through its new, “I know what’s best idol” does not pose a serious physical and spiritual threat to Islam and the Middle East.

This brings us again to the crucial question:

“Does ALLAH have a remedy?

The answer is: Yes! He most certainly does! However before we consider His remedy, there is a foundational reality that we must build upon. That is, there is now occurring a great invisible struggle or perhaps we can call it a great wrestling match to the death between the invisible spiritual forces of good and the invisible spiritual forces of evil. So once this presupposition of this invisible, lethal wrestling match is accepted, this dramatically changes both the tactics and the strategy of Islam’s struggle for righteousness and justice. Simply stated, Muslims can neither see ALLAH who will empower them to achieve victory nor can they see the invisible power with which they are locked in mortal conflict.

So the invisible enemy is not the Zionist State of Israel. The invisible enemy is not even the arrogant giant, the United States. The invisible enemy is also not authoritarian monarchies, corrupt monarchies or other autocratic, wealthy, apostate regimes.

The man who was once a Killer Rabbi, but after his Damascus conversion to become a follower of the Way, (the Way of the Messiah) described the invisible enemy like this after he became the leading Christian theorist. And this comes from a man who understood both the good side of Judaism and the dark side of Judaism.

“We are not wrestling with mere humans. Rather, our wrestling match is with invisible principalities and invisible powers who are the rulers of the darkness of this world and who are wickedness existing in high places.”

What a scary, invisible, formidable enemy he describes. With this emphasis on the invisible and since there are those who doubt the existence of the invisible, I will make a short digression. Every cell phone, every TV, every radio, is a powerful testimony to all of the invisible and inaudible images and even foreign languages that are unnoticed by us which are constantly speeding by our eyes and ears. If we had the right receivers such as TVs, short wave radios, and cell phones or regular phones, we would pick them up.

So it is in the Spiritual realm, there is an invisible struggle between good and evil constantly occurring all around us, which we do not see.

In the context of the overwhelming reality of the invisible, I will now present my perspective of what I feel ALLAH has helped me partially understand as His remedy for the Mid East. And with all due respect to Islamic theorist such as Osama Bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, Sayyid Qutb or many other brilliant and learned men, my approach will involve a radical departure from theirs. Yet it will be similar to their approach in the degree of dedication and commitment, which I am convinced that ALLAH desires. However, ALLAH in his grace, forgives us when we do not reach His desired level of commitment.

Since the power of evil is transcendent, ALLAH’s remedy must not only be transcendent but also must have His Empowerment and his full blessing. Yes, it is only the Messiah of the very Quran, (which was faithfully transmitted through the Prophet Muhammad) whom ALLAH has chosen to anoint with this required transcendence.

His very title, Messiah, means anointed.   Consequently, a quality of Isa that is not often mentioned is that through his anointing by ALLAH, he received the quality of transcendence.

Instead of Isa using the exact words of what the Quran used to describe him, “eminent in this world and in the next,” he used somewhat similar words, “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” In the very same statement in which he described the authority with which ALLAH had anointed him, the Messiah also told his follower that he would always be with them. Of course, this ability to always be with them required a quality of transcendence, which ALLAH does not lightly bestow.

The Zabur (Psalms) which the Quran confirms as reliable, has a remarkable prophetic account of the awesome authority ALLAH has bestowed on His Risen Messiah Isa. Zabur (Psalm) 2 also describes the severe punishment, which ALLAH will visit on Kings, Rulers and Zionists who will refuse to give His Messiah the recognition due him. Few seem to realize these terrible warnings even exist.

(Since this Zabur, (Psalm) twice uses the term “son,” I caution readers to realize that son is used here to describe the authority and privilege which comes in a father and son relationship which is symbolic of the intimacy of the relationship between ALLAH and Isa.)

This Psalm is awesome when you consider the power that ALLAH has given His Messiah to dash nations to pieces like broken pottery if they rebel against the rule his Messiah has acquired or will soon acquire. Consequently, these statements are very straight forward in warning Israeli leaders, American leaders, Arab Kings, Zionist leaders or any other leaders, that they had better realize that they must shape up or they will be crushed. This will occur because ALLAH’s anointed is committed to protecting those who come to him for refuge from authorities who misuse power.

So the true Islamic revolution to which ALLAH is calling all Muslims who have ears to hear, is ALLAH’s revolution against all rulers of this world who are obeying the evil powers of darkness and exploit their own people and other people. As the writer to the letter to the Hebrews emphatically teaches:

“For those who deliberately keep on sinning after they have received the knowledge of the truth, they must live in a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire which will consume the enemies of ALLAH for it is a dreadful thing to fall under the judgement of the living ALLAH.”

For those who may have difficulty accepting the reality of the Messiah being so transcendent or omnipresent that he can be aware of everything simultaneously, I will remind them that no one can have a more complete perspective on everything occurring in this world than the Risen Isa. After all, he has been ALLAH’s presence observing the actions of all people of the entire world for almost two thousand years.        

Also, most of us know that on long distance phone calls it takes less than one half second for our voice to go from one distant part of the world to another distant part of the world. Therefore, if our voices can do this, since ALLAH is able to empower His Messiah to do all things, He can easily empower him to move with such imaginable speed that he could be everywhere simultaneously. For those of us who do not need this type of example, we can simply accept the truth of Isa’s own promise, that his comforting presence will always be with each person who chooses to follow him.

So what is required of each of us who wish to participate in ALLAH’s revolution to over throw the spirit of evil and to live in ALLAH’s true Islamic Kingdom of submission to only Him? A first step is to realize that ALLAH’s Messiah will one-day reign in ALLAH’s true Zion, as the compassionate but authoritative and Just King of all the earth. Until that time arrives, we must fervently pray and request ALLAH to empower us to avoid cooperating in any way with the evil spirit that is behind all disobedience to ALLAH. Whether it is disobedience by Kings or disobedience by Presidents or disobedience by Prime Ministers or disobedience by neighbors.

Therefore, may ALLAH empower each of us to make a serious commitment to do everything possible to speed the spiritual or physical reign of ALLAH’s anointed Messiah over all this earth from ALLAH’s own Zion. (The word Zion has been ruined for many Arabs because of its connection to Zionism. What it truly means is “The Glorious Place Sacredly Devoted to the Rule of ALLAH.” Without exception, there are no enemies of ALLAH who are actually able to ruin or contaminate HIS MIGHTY RULE!)

May ALLAH Be With You and Your Family