MUSLIMS TODAY:

The Many Faces of Islam

Dr. Mark Harlan

Engaging Islam
IGSL
Jan 2020

© 2005 All Rights Reserved. 1

Encountering the World of Islam
 Ponder This…

• How can we sympathize with the plight

of Muslims?

• How would we react if we were in their

shoes?

• How does the Gospel call us to respond

to people’s suffering?

© 2005 All Rights Reserved. 2

Encountering the World of Islam
Islam After Medina
 Umma or Community
• Muhammad, after moving to Medina formed his
followers into a community, non-sectarian, with
no priesthood or hierarchy
• All mankind is one [loose knit] brotherhood,
established by the Qur’an under Allah’s law.
• Camaraderie of life forms and spiritual kinship.
– Everyone adopts a certain style of politeness and
cleanliness, an Arabic name, the same prayers,
feasts and festivals, and often the same clothes.
– All show solidarity with the community.
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Encountering the World of Islam
 Umma or Community

• And there may spring from you a nation who

invites goodness, and enjoins right conduct and
forbids indecency. Such are they who are
successful… You are the best community that
has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right
conduct and forbid indecency and you believe in
Allah. `
Sura 3:110

© 2005 All Rights Reserved.

Encountering the World of Islam
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 Unplanned Adaptations in Islam
• Classical, or orthodox Islam is tied to 7th century
Arabian culture, which—as it was written and
taught—did not contain the concept of adaptation.
• As a result, as Islam spread in time and area, its
relevance was challenged.
• Different Muslim communities have accommodated
or retrenched to survive.
This fragmented the Islamic community into
various subgroups.
• These branches of Islam provided alternatives to
formal Islam’s inflexible nature.
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Encountering the World of Islam
The Divided Muhammad
Abu Bakr
House of Islam
Umar

Uthman

Ali (Fatima)

Muawiya Al Hasan - abdicates

Umayyad [Quraysh]
662-750 Al-Husayn – martyred to Karbala
Damascus

Abbasid [Persian]
10 more Imams
751-1258
last disappears - Mahdi
Baghdad

Shia Islam – 15%

Sunni Islam – 80%
“Party of Ali”

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Encountering the World of
 Shi‛a Islam
• Arabs call Iran, “the mother of heresies”
– Muta – temporary marriage

• Imam – infallible guide to all truth – keeps pace

with change – ask the Imam
– Twelvers (12th Imam)
Mahdi, not the Messiah

– Seveners – (7 Imams) Ismailis – Druze

[extremely esoteric and isolationist]
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Encountering the World of Islam
 Early Theological Conflict
The primary subjects of early theological discussion were
the result of conflicts within the Muslim community:
(in addition to the right to succession to the Prophet)
• Defining who is a Muslim (role of faith/works & free will).
• Rationalist controversies over God’s nature
– The relation of the divine attributes & God’s essence
– Use of anthropomorphic language

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Diversity in Islam
Seven Kinds of Muslims
• The Traditionalists
• The Mystics
• The Folk Religionists
• The Fundamentalists
• The Jihadists
• The Reformers
• The Secularists
 The Traditionalists
• Revelation > reason
• The ‘silent’ majority
• Just want to live their lives and raise their
families
• Faith is for the private life, not the public arena
• They have a vague understanding that Islam
and Modernity are not in conflict
• Like many Christians
www.disciplenations.org/.../wO/.../1.3-Fight-for-the-Soul-of-Islam.pp...
 Schools of Law in Traditional Islam

1. Hanafi – liberal interpretation of Qur’an, reason and

analogy.
2. Shafi‛i – stressed consensus of community religious
leaders (ulama). Divide political & religious leadership.
3. Maliki – new law based on Hadith
(Don’t have a law in the Qur’an? – Find one in the many Hadith).
4. Hanbali – smallest, most conservative.
Rejects innovation beyond literal use of the Qur’an & Sunna.
-------------------
5. Ja’fari - Shi’ite

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Encountering the World of Islam
The Mystics (Sufis)

High Sufism
Formal,
Philosophical

Low Sufism
Folk religion
Spiritism,
occult
Healing, signs
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Encountering the World of Islam is a
trademark of Caleb Project.
 Folk
Muslims

Apologetics/Islam
JKM
 The Fundamentalists
• Revelation > Reason + ijtihad (independent reasoning)
• Thoughtfully faithful Muslims
• Consider that the problems of Muslims stem from too
much modernization
• Restorationists – return Islam and the world to the
glorious past
• Most are not violent
• Correspond to fundamentalist Christians

www.disciplenations.org/.../wO/.../1.3-Fight-for-the-Soul-of-Islam.pp...
A Fundamentalist
• Founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood
• Political alternative
• Model of social Islam
(for Hamas,Hezbollah)
• Officially renounced
violence
 Ultra Fundamentalists:
Hanbalites
• Wahhabism adopted by the Saudis
• Hate of Sufism and all “unorthodoxy”
• Mandatory attendance of public prayers
• No smoking
• Must wear beard
• No rosary
• Holy war obligation
Ultra Fundamentalists:
Hanbalites
 The Jihadists
• Revelation without Reason?
• Restorationists – return Islam and the
world to the glorious past
• The minority of the fundamentalists willing
to use violence to accomplish their goals
• Follow example of Mohammed in Medina
• Faith is to relate to every area of life
including social, economic and political
institutions
A Jihadist
• Founder Al-Qaeda
• Declared war on the
USA
• Planned 9/11
• Committed to the
restoration of a global
Muslim Empire

• www.disciplenations.org/.../wO/.../1.3-Fight-
for-the-Soul-of-Islam.pp...
 The Reformers
• Revelation + Reason
• See Islam as a progressive, rational and
reforming faith
• Islam needs to be related to the real world
(not necessarily accommodating Modernism)
• Follow example of Mohammed in Mecca
• Represent a small minority of Muslims
• Natural allies of other reasoning monotheists
– Jews and Christians
 A Reformer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

• Tariq Ramadan,
• Professor of Islamic Studies,
Oxford University
• Grandson of Hasan al-Banna
• Swiss Muslim who aims to
Europeanize Islam
• Veil not obligatory, but choice
• "Islamic Message” not
conservative social code, but
commitment to universalism
and welfare of non-Muslims.
 The Secularists
• Reason without Revelation
• Operate consciously or unconsciously from an
atheistic set of assumptions
• Muslims by birth, name and historic background
only
• Reject Islam as a religion
• Function from secular materialistic value system
• Correspond to liberal Christians
 A Secularist
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Member of Dutch
Parliament
• Author: The Infidel
• Intellectual Refugee
• Fellow American
Enterprise Institute
 Modern Resurgence of Islam:
Reaction to Foreign Domination After Islam’s Greatness
• Materialism
• Capitalism
• Communism
• Socialism
• Humanism
• Secularism
• Racism
• Democracy
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Encountering the World of Islam
 Strong Appeal to the Umma
• Desire to return to the mythical yet grand
umma of the Caliphate.
• All Muslims united together, living with
dignity, social justice, following the
precepts of the Qur’an (a utopian ideal).
• Why is God punishing us? Because we
are not faithful to him.
• If we repent and apply Shari‛a, then God
will have mercy on us.
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Encountering the World of Islam
 Islam’s Struggle Today
• As Muslims fall further and further behind the
rest of the world, fundamentalism’s answer is
to say that godlessness, apostasy, and
infidelity - the hallmarks of modernity - are not
the answer to bring happiness and fulfillment
to the world. “ISLAM IS THE ANSWER!”

• Which Islam?

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Encountering the World of Islam
 Struggle for the Soul of Islam
(Moderate vs. Militant Muslims)
• Mecca • Medina
• Christians and Jews are • Christians and Jews are
“people of the book” “infidels”
• Ijtihad – Freedom of • “Ijtihad law”
thought
• Persuade • Conquer
• Enlightened • Strident
• Reformers • Jihadists
• Pluralism in society • Uniformity in society
• Freedom • Tyranny
 Our Response to this Resurgence

• What needs are Muslims looking to Islam

to fulfill?

• What is Islam’s solution to the problems

facing Muslims?

• What answer or solutions does our

message offer? 30