"Members knew that prayer was not our first priority." "We came home in the early hours of the morning, and went to bed, too tired to say our prayers." "Our work was more important than minor matters such as praying, reading the Scripture, giving to charity, or being kind to our parents and fellows."*
Does that sound familiar? It is the testimony of Ed Hussain, the Islamist, who has recanted from his former membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir. He describes a way of life that advocated the violent overthrow of Western governments and the introduction of Shariah law, while at the same time neglecting their personal holiness. At the mosque they put on a show for their followers, but their prayers were formal and ritualistic and meant nothing to them.
I do not absolve Christians from formal and ritualistic prayers, but this little illustration should serve as a warning to us. Without a proper prayer life we too might degenerate into violence and hate.
I shall be writing a few articles on prayer in the next few weeks, but this particular article concludes with an incident from Michigan State University. Here the local Muslim group of students were planning a protest about teh Danish cartoons. This prompted a response by a Professor of Mechanical Engineering:
Dear Moslem Association,
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey ), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.
This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests. If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment - you are free to leave.
I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option.
Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.
Cordially,
I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering
This apparently occurred in February 2006, and my source is a right wing blog. Many such stories turn out to be concocted for political polemic, but this story has been verified by Snopes.com.
*I have slightly modified the quotes for stylistic effect. I wished to hide their Muslim nature from the reader until the point was made.
The good professor is doing what all good christins do, lump all Muslims as the enemy and blame them specifically for all the atrocities. That would be like me blaming you for the Crusades, the Inquisition and Catholic priest pedophilia....Jesus forgives you for your blinders and indiscriminate anger and so do I. And I heed dearly the words of Jesus: "Love your enemies."
ReplyDeleteA Quaker universalist
Well, actually I'm not. I am quoting Ed Hussain, who was criticising the prayers of Islamists (his word). He says that they neglect their prayers in favor of politics. And they certainly don't 'love their enemies'. As you will no doubt read in today's post I commend Sufi Moslems for being 'Christ-like'.
ReplyDeleteTry Reading Ed Hussain's book for an exposure of certain strands of Moslem belief.
The letter I quoted from the Professor in Minneapolis was reacting to the Islamist group in his university who were protesting the Danish cartoons, which were themselves poking fun at a so-called 'religion of peace' that enforces its peace with explosives.