Okay, here’s a tangled one. Joseph Loconte, writing for The Weekly Standard, takes N.T. Wright to task for his attitude about al-Qa’ida, the war in Iraq, American empire, and all that stuff. What he writes can be found here (HT: Justin Taylor). Loconte does a very fine job in avoiding shrillness in his response — …
A Real Clash Shaping Up
“Without question, Jesus and Muhammad are the two most influential persons who ever lived. Today we can see the influence in the two largest religions in the world: Christianity with more than two billion followers, and Islam with 1.3 billion” (Mark Gabriel, Jesus and Muhammad, p. vii).
Civilians Fair Game
“Prophet Muhammad was once asked if it was OK to kill women and children of those who were polytheistic . . . or infidels. He said, ‘I consider them as of their parents.’ In other words, if the parents were infidels, then it was permissible to kill their children” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. …
All In One Place
“A mosque in Islam is the center for worship, justice, war strategy and government. This is because Islam is both a religion and government. Islam is a pen and a sword . . . At his mosque in Medina . . . [Muhammad] planned his war strategy, held court and received visiting tribal leaders. It …
About As Stark as It Gets
Islamic law has its own ways of dealing with adultery. Jesus had another. “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law …
Not Like Changing Denominations
“The most dangerous thing a Muslim can do is leave Islam—no matter what the reason” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 59).
Disposable Human Rights
“Islam says that human rights are unnecessary because they are also a man-made idea that is not found in the Quran” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 55).
Why There is War in the House of War
“In Islamic law there are only two types of nations—a nation that is of the house of Islam or a nation that is of the house of war” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 47).
Slender Assurance
“Western media have poked fun at the Muslim understanding of Paradise (heaven)—virgins for men to enjoy and so forth—but it is much more significant to recognize that dying in jihad is the only way a Muslim can be assured of entering Paradise at all” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 29).
Sheik, Rattle and Roll
“When I was a feshman at Al-Azhar University in 1980, I enrolled in class called Quaranic Interpretation. Two times a month we would gather to hear lectures from a blind sheik whose passion for Islam made him popular among the students. Yet his radical side was obvious. Anytime he encountered a reference in the Quran …