Pastor Dave Ginter
 
Response:
I was asked this question recently at a forum recently here in Guatemala City. I think given the extreme interest in Islam today, informed intelligent people really benefit from know the facts giving rise to all three major branches of Islam.

Introduction to Islam
One in every five inhabitants on earth belongs to the religion of Islam. It is the fastest growing religion in the world by percentages. Shia and Sunni Islam share the same basic Islamic tenants. First, they are strictly monotheistic with no wiggle room regarding the Christian understanding that our one God is a Tri-unity (that is, there is one God Who is best described as existing in Three Persons). Islam, along with Judaism, rejects the Christian idea of a plurality of persons in the one Godhead. Therefore, Jesus is understood in Islam to be a man and a prophet, the supreme Prophet (even ahead of Mohammed). However, to Muslims, Jesus is not God.

Next, Shia and Sunni Muslims accept ongoing Revelation which began in the Old Testament, continued through the New Testament revelations and ended with the Quran. While all Islam argues that the earlier revelations have been corrupted to a certain degree, they claim absolute accuracy of the Quran.

Submission to Allah is key in Islamic belief (Allah is the Arabic word for “God”). The word Muslim means “one who submits to God” and is the active participle of the same verb of which Islām is the infinitive.

Another important principle in Islam is the gathered community. The Islamic community is never to discriminate based on race, economic status, or even nationality.

Purity is one area of vast importance to all branches of Islam. That is why Muslims abstain from pork,  alcoholic drinks, illicit drugs, etc. This concept has been twisted to support Radical Islam’s views of “removing” the impure from the world, cleansing the world on Allah’s behalf, so-to-speak.

The Five Pillars of Islam
Muslims practice five formal aspects of worship. These “Five Pillars” describe the faith for a Muslim and help structure a Muslim’s daily life. These five pillars are:
  1. Declaring your faith
  2. Prayer five times a day
  3. Almsgiving to the needy
  4. Fasting during Ramadan
  5. Making the Pilgrimage to Mecca

Differences between the branches of Islam
Now as to the differences between them…
Sunni and Shia divided shortly after the death of the founder and prophet, Mohammed. Their differences have more to do with political realities than with belief systems. When Mohammed died, the problem arose over who would take over the fledgling faith. Who would rule the Islamic State?

Sunni’s felt strongly that the most capable leader should hold this position. Abu Bakr, thus became Caliph, meaning the civil and religious leader of the Islamic state. The word Sunni refers to one who follows the Prophet’s traditions. Shia’s felt that the leadership should remain within the Prophets own family. For them, the Imam, or leader, must have direct lineage to Mohammed, himself. Other differences include acceptance by Sunni’s of extra writings (the Hadith) and Shia Islam’s belief that the Imam is sinless, a belief rejected by Sunni’s.

Sunni’s make up approximately 85% of all Muslims while Shia’s make up the remaining. But unlike Judaism and especially Christianity, you will rarely hear any Muslim identify as belonging to one branch or the other. Both groups consider each other to be Muslims.

Let me close by detailing what I see as the difference between traditional Islam (both Shia and Sunni) and Radical Islam. Traditional Islam is very predestinational oriented. What I mean is they have a firm belief in the absolute control of Allah. In Christian theology we refer to this as the Sovereignty of God.

Let me give an example: when I first visited Upper Egypt and landed at the Aswan airport, I noticed we nearly missed the wreckage of a plane that had crashed there many months before. When I commented that the wreckage might put a damper on tourism, I was gently rebuffed by my Islamic tour guide who said, “If Allah wants that plane wreckage removed, Allah will remove it”.  During my seven years living Egypt, I was to hear the same phrase used in a number of contexts, from explaining why bombed out Egyptian and Israeli tanks in the Sinai desert to learning to cross busy intersections without looking both ways first (“If Allah wants me to be hit by a car…”).

Radical Islam has no such belief in the Sovereignty of God, as best I can determine. In fact, Radical Islam intends for Allah’s purity to rule, whether or not Allah has intervened. Followers of Radical Islam will see to it themselves that the “infidels” are removed and the world made pure. Traditional Islam believes Allah will rule and overrule. Radical Islam helps Allah rule.

What should a Christian’s response be to Islam? First off, we need to get more educated about Islamic beliefs, history, etc. We need to STOP bunching all Muslims together as though Traditional followers and Radical followers were one and the same. Most importantly, we need to stop taking the road of fear regarding Islamic people and begin to embrace them with the love of Jesus. Start by recognizing all the beliefs Christians and Muslims share in common: One God (and we’d better learn to do a better job of explaining the Trinity), Jesus as a higher prophet even than Mohammed, the virgin birth, Christ’s coming again, and the Bible. We share more beliefs with Islam than we do any other major faith, including modern day Judaism.

Islam also presents us a major challenge. They want us to clean up our culture, one that has had 2000 years of Christian influence. They want us to again become “People of the Book”, Islam’s original name for Christians. What will you do to prove you accept their challenge?


 


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