SO WE NEVER FORGET THESE MUSLIMS ARE NOT A RELIGION OF PEACE!
Mohammed is the Anti-Christ and his followers are damned!
On March 27, 1996, Muslim extremists kidnapped seven Trappist monks from their monastery in the Atlas Mountains near Algiers. After two months, the Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) announced that the monks' throats had been cut. The bodies were never recovered; the severed heads were buried at the monastery in Tibhirine. There they await the restoration of the monastery, in a calmer time.The martyr-monks of Tibhirine came to world attention when the last testament of their prior, Father Christian de Cherge, was released by his family in France. Father Christian closed his letter by addressing the murderer he expected would kill him one day: "And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this `thank you' — and this adieu — to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours ... may we find each other, happy `good thieves,' in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen." I remember writing at the time that this last testament would make a fine second lesson in the Office of Readings for the feast of Father Christian de Cherge and Companions, Martyrs.
John Kiser, a former international technology broker with an interest in world religions, found the story of Father Christian, his fellow Trappists, and their Algerian Muslim friends and enemies irresistible. His search for the truth about this drama, a powerful metaphor for our times, is now available in "The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria" (St. Martin's Press). It's a fine read which does justice to the martyrs without turning them into plastic saints.
Kiser's evocation of the friendships that grew between the monks and their Muslim neighbors is particularly poignant. One of the Tibhirine Trappists was a physician, and the local villagers came to depend on him for basic health care. Other Muslims did odd jobs around the monastery, which maintained a classically Trappist, no-frills rhythm of prayer and work. It was a way of life that fit well with the poverty of the people with whom the monks lived.
The Trappists did not proselytize. Rather, they hoped that, by living Christian charity with integrity, they would demonstrate that their faith was no threat to the dominant Islamic culture of Algeria. Genuine religious freedom in the Islamic world may be an impossibility, given current Muslim self-understandings and resentments. But perhaps tolerance is a possibility. That, at any rate, is what the monks of Tibhirine tried to embody by being themselves — consecrated Catholic religious — while living respectfully among Muslim neighbors.
Kiser also does a good job of describing the kind of extremists who murdered the monks — unemployed, ill-educated young men, full of unfocused angers, easy prey for the Islamist rabble-rousing of politically ambitious (and similarly ill-educated) clerics. One wonders just how many hundreds of thousands of such young men exist throughout the Arab Islamic world. At the same time, Kiser argues that the murder of the monks, which was condemned by many Islamic leaders and seems to have been deeply resented by a majority of pious Algerians, was a turning point in that strife-torn country. I hope he's right, but I tend to doubt it; 40 people were killed in one recent month by a still-active GIA.
If there is one disconcerting thing about this otherwise ennobling book, it's John Kiser's suggestion that the Trappists and those Muslims who became their friends learned to appreciate each other on the common ground of a general religiosity, mediated through charity and fellow-feeling. It seems very unlikely. Christian de Cherge seems to have been a theologically adventurous soul. At the same time, his "testament" is thoroughly and unmistakably Christian. A man who wrote the way Father Christian did about his possible assassin was not a man affirming generic pieties; he was a man with thick, deep roots in a particular tradition, Christianity, and specifically Catholic monastic Christianity. The Muslims who became the monks' friends were similarly rooted in a specific, thick religious tradition.All of which reminds us that genuine interreligious dialogue means taking differences seriously, not looking for some mythical "neutral" position at which differences disappear.
Source: Chronology of early Islam. Notice how closely Islam's inception is associated with war. From 623 to 777, a span of 154 years, there are 83 military conflicts involving the Muslims...and that is just what I have recorded here. Is Islam a religion of peace? Muslims tell me it is. But....
570 - Birth of Muhammad in Mecca into the tribe of Quraish.
577 - Muhammad's mother dies
580 - Death of Abdul Muttalib, Muhammad's grandfather.
583 - First journey to Syria with a trading Caravan
595 - Muhammad marries Khadijah a rich widow several years older than him.
595 - Second journey to Syra
598 - His son, Qasim, is born
600 - His daughter, Zainab, is born
603 - His daughter, Um-e-Kalthum, is born
604 - His daughter, Ruqayya, is born
605 - Placement of Black Stone in Ka'aba.
605 - His daughter, Fatima, is born
610 - Mohammed, in a cave on Mt. Hira, hears the angel Gabriel tell him thatAllah is the only true God.
613 - Muhammad's first public preaching of Islam at Mt. Hira. Gets few converts.
615 - Muslims persecuted by the Quraish.
619 - Marries Sau'da and Aisha
620 - Institution of five daily prayers
622 - Muhammad immigrates from Mecca to Medina, which was then called Yathrib, getsmore converts.
623 - Battle of Waddan
623 - Battle of Safwan
623 - Battle of Dul-'Ashir
624 - Muhammad and converts begin raids on caravans to fund the movement.
624 - Zakat becomes mandatory
624 - Battle of Badr
624 - Battle of Bani Salim
624 - Battle of Eid-ul-Fitr and Zakat-ul-Fitr
624 - Battle of Bani Qainuqa'
624 - Battle of Sawiq
624 - Battle of Ghatfan
624 - Battle of Bahran
625 - Battle of Uhud. 70 Muslims are killed.
625 - Battle of Humra-ul-Asad
625 - Battle of Banu Nudair
625 - Battle of Dhatur-Riqa
626 - Battle of Badru-Ukhra
626 - Battle of Dumatul-Jandal
626 - Battle of Banu Mustalaq Nikah
627 - Battle of the Trench
627 - Battle of Ahzab
627 - Battle of Bani Quraiza
627 - Battle of Bani Lahyan
627 - Battle of Ghaiba
627 - Battle of Khaibar
628 - Muhammad signs treaty with Quraish.
630 - Muhammad conquers Mecca.
630 - Battle of Hunsin.
630 - Battle of Tabuk
632 - Muhammad dies.
632 - Abu-Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law, along with Umar, begin a military move toenforce Islam in Arabia.
633 - Battle at Oman
633 - Battle at Hadramaut.
633 - Battle of Kazima
633 - Battle of Walaja
633 - Battle of Ulleis
633 - Battle of Anbar
634 - Battle of Basra,
634 - Battle of Damascus
634 - Battle of Ajnadin.
634 - Death of Hadrat Abu Bakr. Hadrat Umar Farooq becomes the Caliph.
634 - Battle of Namaraq
634 - Battle of Saqatia.
635 - Battle of Bridge.
635 - Battle of Buwaib.
635 - Conquest of Damascus.
635 - Battle of Fahl.
636 - Battle of Yermuk.
636 - Battle of Qadsiyia.
636 - Conquest of Madain.
637 - Battle of Jalula.
638 - Battle of Yarmouk.
638 - The Muslims defeat the Romans and enter Jerusalem.
638 - Conquest of Jazirah.
639 - Conquest of Khuizistan and movement into Egypt.
641 - Battle of Nihawand
642 - Battle of Rayy in Persia
643 - Conquest of Azarbaijan
644 - Conquest of Fars
644 - Conquest of Kharan.
644 - Umar is murdered. Othman becomes the Caliph.
647 - Conquest of the island of Cypress
644 - Uman dies and is succeeded by Caliph Uthman.
648 - Campaign against the Byzantines.
651 - Naval battle against the Byzantines.
654 - Islam spreads into North Africa
656 - Uthman is murdered. Ali become Caliph.
658 - Battle of Nahrawan.
659 - Conquest of Egypt
661 - Ali is murdered.
662 - Egypt falls to Islam rule.
666 - Sicily is attacked by Muslims
677 - Siege of Constantinople
687 - Battle of Kufa
691 - Battle of Deir ul Jaliq
700 - Sufism takes root as a sect of Islam
700 - Military campaigns in North Africa
702 - Battle of Deir ul Jamira
711 - Muslims invade Gibraltar
711 - Conquest of Spain
713 - Conquest of Multan
716 - Invasion of Constantinople
732 - Battle of Tours in France.
740 - Battle of the Nobles.
741 - Battle of Bagdoura in North Africa
744 - Battle of Ain al Jurr.
746 - Battle of Rupar Thutha
748 - Battle of Rayy.
749 - Battle of lsfahan
749 - Battle of Nihawand
750 - Battle of Zab
772 - Battle of Janbi in North Africa
777 - Battle of Saragossa in Spain
This was just the beginning...
References:
Miller, William M., A Christian's Response to Islam, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1976.
Geisler, Norman, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Books, 1999.
Glasse, Cyril, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 1989.
Morey, Robert, The Islamic Invasion, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene Oregon, 1992.
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