Safa Reza - Inside Islam: Exposing and reaching the world of Islam

This book is dedicated to all of our faithful partners throughout the world. Your support and prayers have made itpossiblefor us to reach multitudes of unreached people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for being the backbone of this ministry. With your continued help we will reach millions of people forJesus.

First of all, I would like to thank my beloved wife, Marilyn. You are the joy of my heart and a true partner and friend. Thank you for being patient with me.

I am grateful to Jim Olson and John Mason. Thank you for giving me a chance and believing Jesus in me.

Thank you to Deborah Poulalion and the editors from Charisma House for your tremendous editing work on this book.

Thanks also to Carl Ellis for your contribution of the statistics on African American converts to Islam.

Thanks to Kaveh, Christopher, Tallat and Faheemah for allowing me to record your testimonies in this book.

I would like to thank Virginia Prochnow and again my wife, Marilyn, for your proofreading.

Last and above all I want to thank my beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, without whom I would still he hound in the chains and shackles of a dark religion.

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Part I: What Is Islam?

Part II: Reaching the Muslim World

Part III: The Church Rises Up to the Call

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I will say to the north, "Give them up!" And to the south, "Do not keep them back!" Bring My sons from afar, And My daughters from the ends of the earth - Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.

Isaiah 43:6-7

ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, America's soul was scarred by a great and unprecedented tragedy. A group of Muslim fundamentalists hijacked four passenger aircrafts and used them as weapons of mass destruction. They brought down the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City and crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D. C. Why would a group of religious people do that to innocent people? What is their motive? Why do they hate us so dreadfully that they are willing to kill themselves and thousands of innocent people? Where does that hate come from? How can they murder so mercilessly and ruthlessly? Why do they hate American government and American people?

To understand the answers to the above questions, one must understand the spirit under which these men operate - the spirit of Islam. What is Islam? What does Islam want? Where is Islam going? What is Islam requiring from its adherents? Are these terrorists ordinary Muslims? Why are some Muslims more violent than others?

This book presents a view of Islam that may be contrary to what you have heard from other sources. To understand, we must take a look at our changing, transitioning world over the past few decades.

The eighties and nineties were decades of transition and enormous change, both in the natural and the spiritual realms. They were a period of shifting politically, economically and spiritually from one era to another. The world passed from the cold war era of communism to an age of new threats by the Islamic fundamentalists; from dealing with atheists to an increased concern with religious extremists. The political map of the world took a new shape, and new unpredicted boundaries were drawn.

The political and economic highlight of this period was the bankruptcy and fall of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies. The walls of an antichrist empire came tumbling down, an oppressive empire which had suppressed the truth and freedom for several decades.

Communism was a system of religious beliefs. Even though the bylaws of that system did not include the Ten Commandments or the worship of the one true God, its heroes, Marx and Lenin, were adored as divine and followed as gods. In the pursuit and spread of their ideology, communists were as fanatical as some religious people.

With the fall of communism, the world was ready to embrace another antichrist force, a spiritual principality that would resist and oppose freedom and truth. This force, however, would be covered with a religious outfit and would possess a greater authority over the lives and minds of its followers than communism ever did. This power which would soon become a threat to world peace was a spiritual force called Islam.

Islam is a world religion with more than one billion adherents - one out of five people in the world are Muslims. Islam dominates in many political and social arenas and in multitudes of cultures and people groups. It reigns in more than forty-five Muslim nations, and its roots have reached almost every possible corner of this earth. It is a world power spiced with many cultures.

Islam in Africa is not the same as Islam in the Middle East or Islam in India. Consequently Muslims differ one from another in their beliefs, practices and behaviors. However, they all have one thing in common Allah is their God, and Muhammad is their holy prophet.

To the Western mind, Islam is an irrational and illogical sort of belief. Here in America, where most people have very little knowledge of this religion, Muslims are perceived as hostile, violent and anti-American religious people. The purpose of this book is not to analyze Islam in light of the political upheaval in the Middle East in the past decade. Nor will I lynch Islam because of the recent violent acts of Muslim fundamentalist groups, even though I will walk you through this past decade of events that have brought worldwide attention to Islam. My goal is to scrutinize Islam, its makeup and its history under the light of the gospel and allow readers to perceive for themselves the true nature of this religion.

By no means will I allow any spiteful or resentful attitudes toward Muslims to be concluded out of my writings. We must not judge all Muslims in the light of recent violence done by a small core of Muslim fundamentalists. It would be unjust and untruthful to do so. The core of Muslim extremists who abide by the fundamentals of Islam do not make up a sizable percentage of those who call themselves Muslims. As a matter of fact, Muslims in general are very loving and hospitable people.

We must probe Islam with spiritual discernment and not with any preconceived emotional or logical notions. If we fail to gain a spiritual understanding, the whole point and purpose of this book will have been missed.