DURING its more than a hundred years of history Seventh-day Adventism has gained much momentum in its worldwide program. Every avenue in our work has prospered under the guiding hand of God. Today we have lengthened our cords and strengthened our stakes until we have planted the banner of Seventh-day Adventism in countries that represent 98.97 per cent of the world's population. This is surely a glorious achievement. And this great Advent Movement continues to move on majestically to greater and speedier triumphs in many lands.
In spite of this fact, however, we are faced with one very somber reality as related to our work among Moslems. In the world today there are the more than 412 million Moslems. These Moslems live among many nations, but only approximately 500 of them have become Seventh-day Adventists. The picture is more distressing when we realize that more than 400 of these converts are found in one union field in southeast Asia. I refer to Indonesia. It seems less difficult to win Moslems in Java and Sumatra than elsewhere in Moslem countries.
While I was in Lahore, Pakistan, attending the Islamic Conference, the brethren informed me that from among the 120 million Moslems living in the Southern Asia Division we have eight converts today. The picture is not much brighter in the Middle East, where after 75 years of work, there are less than 18 faithful Seventh-day Adventists among 100 million followers of Islam. To reach this vast far-flung Moslem world quickly with our message presents Seventh-day Adventism with its greatest unanswered challenge in this modern age.
In order to understand some of the difficult problems we face in converting Moslems we must look at the religion of Islam itself.
The Religion of Islam
Islam is the latest of the great world religions. It appears later than Judaism, Buddhism, or Christianity. It sprang up in the full light of history and spread more rapidly than any other great religion. We must recognize that Islam is the only religion that has offered a serious challenge to Christianity. History shows that it has never relinquished its hold on any people except in the case of Spain. Islam holds the loyalty of 412,813,000 adherents.1 Every seventh person in our world is a Moslem, and the Moslem call to prayer is heard almost around the world twenty-four hours a day. During the last decade Islam has emerged as a very active religion. Linked with the governments of numerous countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia it constitutes a world force that has to be reckoned with.
The Origin of Islam
Islam originated in the seventh century in one of the remote corners of the earth, far removed from the influence of civilization. The Arabian Desert was its homeland. The wandering Bedouin its first converts. It is interesting to note that Biblical history reveals the influence of desert life upon great characters and their message as seen in the lives of Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist.
And Mohammed, who founded the religion of Islam, was no exception. Some of his early years were spent in the Arabian Desert with the Bedouins. As a young man he entered the caravan business, and during these earlier years he made several trips to Jerusalem where he became familiar with Judaism and Christianity. Scattered throughout the Arabian Desert there were also Jewish and other Christian colonies, which made it possible for him to become acquainted with their religions. Evidently the thing that greatly impressed Mohammed was that both Jews and Christians had in common one God, a book, a revelation, and they were progressive and prosperous. In contrast was the disunity and poverty of his own desert tribespeople.
Later, Mohammed drew freely on these older religions in formulating his own teaching. However, "the new prophet broke with both Judaism and Christianity; Friday was substituted for Sabbath; the call from the minaret was decreed in place of trumpets and bells; Ramadan was fixed as a month of fasting, the direction to be observed during the ritual prayer was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca, the pilgrimage to Caaba was authorized and the kissing of the black stone—a pre-Islamic fetish—sanctioned." 2
He makes mention of many of the Old Testament patriarchs, such as Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and others. He taught that Jesus was a great human prophet, but that His life was cut short before He could complete all his work; so God called forth another prophet, Mohammed, to finish the work of revelation. It is claimed that these new revelations which came to Mohammed over a period of twenty-three years were given to him in a cave near Mecca. These revelations were written down and are embodied in the sacred book of Islam, the Koran. The word Qur'an itself means "recitation," "lecture," "discourse." Today Moslems accord this book the reverence that Christians accord to the Bible.3 They regard the Koran as the word of God, and it is thus a most sacred book.
"Today the sight of a Moslem picking up a piece of paper from the street and tucking it carefully into a hole in a wall, lest the name of Allah be on it, is not rare. The Koran, the book of Allah, is treated with unbounded reverence by the Moslem. It is the word of God, dictated through Gabriel to Mohammed. 'Let none touch it but the purified.' Surat 56:78." 4
It can safely be said that the Koran is one of the most widely read books ever written. Today in such an institution as Al-Azhar, the largest and oldest Moslem university in the world, this book still holds its own as the basis of the whole curriculum.
The principal religious insight of the Koran is that there is one God, who is a compassionate Father to all mankind. He is the only true God, the supreme reality, the pre-existent, the Creator, the omnipotent One. This doctrine will not sound like a new discovery to those raised in a Judeo-Christian tradition. But we must remember it was an exciting new thought to the Arabs of Mohammed's day, whose religion was a primitive polytheism in which the one moderately benign God, Alia, was outnumbered by a horde of malevolent jinns and demons.
There was almost every human reason why that adventure of Mohammed's should fail when he started his religion. It proved, however, to be one of the world's greatest success stories. A man, harassed by people who wanted to take his life, fled his native city, arrived at another city scarcely three hundred miles away, became its head, the ruler of a state, and founder of an empire. What his fellow townsmen ridiculed became the accepted gospel of all the Arab world. This was the beginning of a new religion on a scale the like of which the world had not seen before.
"One hundred years after the death of Muhammad his followers were the masters of an empire greater than that of Rome at its zenith, an empire extending from the Bay of Biscay to the Indus and the confines of China and from the Aral Sea to the upper cataracts of the Nile." 5
Rise of Islam—A Miracle of History
The swiftness with which Mohammed consolidated all that became the Islam Empire, is one of the miracles of history. The Jews, who refused to accept him as the Messiah or his creed as theirs, he largely destroyed. All opponents, if they dared show resistance, were conquered by the Moslem Arabs. More distant tribes were invited to send delegations bringing their allegiance. No one can doubt the fact that Arabia was unified and the people of the desert morally elevated by Mohammed's creed.
For centuries the Western Christians regarded this religion of Islam as moribund —a religion that was dying. They passed it off as an outmoded ideology. But not so today. In recent years, especially the last fifteen years, Islam has undergone a dramatic renaissance in some parts of the world. It is now on the march in many parts of the Middle East and Asia, and has become one of the dynamic elements in a driving force behind African nationalism.
A recent issue of Look magazine featured Africa as "a continent in an uproar." In an article, "Islam, Africa's Booming Faith," the statement was made, "For every African who turns from pagan gods to Christianity, an estimated 10 become Moslems. (Of the continent's total population of 232 million, authorities estimate that there are 90 million Moslems, 77 million pagans and 41 million Christians.)"6
What are the reasons for this great resurgence of Islam? What factors have caused this renaissance to accelerate since the second world war?
Reasons for Rapid Spread of Islam
The primary reason, undoubtedly, for the rapid spread of Islam is found in the religion itself. Islam is the essence of simplicity and directness. It is one of the most democratic religions of the world. It has no priesthood, no idols, no mystical sacraments, and no elaborate doctrines. It offers no unattainable ideal, few theological complications and perplexities. Its ritual is the simplest of all religions. Its duties are definite and practical.
There are five acts of worship, or religious duties of the Moslems, which center on the so-called five "pillars of Islam."
The first pillar is the profession of faith. This "is summed up in the tremendous formula la ilaha illa-'llah; Muhammadum rasulu-'llah (No god but Allah: Muhammad is the messenger of Allah). These are the first words to strike the ear of the newborn Moslem babe; they are the last to be uttered at the grave." 7 Between birth and death no other words are repeated so often.
Prayer is the second pillar of faith. "Five times a day—dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset and nightfall—is the faithful Moslem supposed to turn his face toward Mecca and recite his prescribed prayer." 8 The Arabic language is used as a medium of expression, no matter what his native tongue may be.
Almsgiving constitutes the third pillar of the faith. Originally almsgiving was prescribed "as a voluntary act of love," but later "it evolved into an obligatory tax on property, including money, cattle, corn, fruit and merchandise." 9 However, in more recent times, it is left again with the Moslem conscience as to the amount that should be given.
Ramadan, the month of fasting, has become the fourth pillar of Islam. "Abstinence from all food and drink is enjoined from dawn till sunset during Ramadan." 10
The fifth and last pillar is that of the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage, which usually means going to the holy city of Mecca, is only required if it is possible to do so. It should be pointed out that down through the ages this institution has continued "to serve as the major unifying influence in Islam and the most effective common bond among the diverse believers." 11
"These religious obligations constitute the fundamentals of Islam. They are not the only ones instituted by koranic prescription. Basically there is but one criterion for the conduct of a believer: the will of Allah, as revealed through Muhammad in the Book." 12
It should be stated that Islam has generally satisfied itself with only a verbal profession from would-be adherents. "Once the formula [there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad his prophet] is accepted and reproduced the person is nominally a Moslem." 13
A closer look reveals that Islam has no caliph, no central head, either political or spiritual, but this has not seriously lessened its religious power. Its millions of adherents are united, not by external authority or formal organization, but by common faith, common observance, the consciousness that they are all brothers in loyalty to Allah and his prophet, Mohammed.
Moslems hold that Islam can unite the world. They believe that it can give man what he wants most today—a sense of personal worth and the consciousness of God and a challenge of submission to Him and devotion to His cause. They also sincerely believe that they can give the world what it most needs—brotherhood above the strife of rival sects and the struggle of individuals and nations for supremacy.
We must recognize the one great fact regarding Islam, and that is Islam is more than a religion—it is a way of life. Islam is intricately interwoven into the fabric of the Moslem family and society and nation.
Another contributing factor of the rapid renaissance of modern Islam is that during the past decade we have witnessed the accelerated upsurge of nationalism. The great quest for independence and self-government among many of the nonwhite peoples of the world has brought political freedom to some 230 millions of Moslems. New Moslem nations across half the world's girth from Morocco to Indonesia have been established. In these new states Islam has become the national religion.
1 Kenneth W. Morgan, Islam the Straight Path (New-York: Ronald Press).
2 Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs, p. 29 (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
3 "The Historical Background of Islam," a paper prepared by S. G. Maxwell, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Africa. (Southern African Division of SDA.)
4 Hitti, op cit., p. 34.
5 Ibid., p. 1.
6 Look magazine, March 28, 1961.
7 Hitti, op. cit., p. 40.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., p. 42.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 44.
12 Ibid., p.. 45.
13 Ibid., p. 40
