CHRIST or MOHAMMED ? By Rev. Robert I. Brown* T HE Lord Jesus summed up the attitude and activity of the Chris tian and the Christian church in
sents a shameful picture of indifference and neglect on the part of the church. Within the limits of this review, we can but refer to typical activities. The work of the hospitals and dispensaries as a spearhead for evangelism needs no justification. Yet from Tangier to Egypt there is but one mission hospital, and that is strategically placed in Tangier. For sixty years this hospital has main tained its dual ministry of healing the sick and preaching the gospel, and how much hostility and distrust have been allayed thereby. How many have seen the gospel in action in the devoted lives of the Lord’s servants and heard it from their lips? In this place alone in recent months, souls have been definite ly won for the Lord Jesus. In Tripoli City, with the door wide open for the gospel, we need to establish a mission hospital. What a chance for a doctor with a great love for the Lord and souls to volunteer for one of the tough est places on the missionary battlefield! Then we would mention the work of the schools, almost a natural corollary of the medical work. Wherever you visit the mission stations in North Africa today, you will find little groups of boys, girls, and older ones gathered together to hear the gospel. Hundreds have thus heard. So far few have responded. You ask why? “ The Law of Apostasy in Islam is death.” We pray that a great boldness will be given to these so that they will be ready to seal their testi mony with their blood if need be, but let us join the fellowship! How little we have labored, prayed, and given that their lot might be easier! Another typical feature of Moslem work is that of the Bible Depots. The Scriptures are invitingly displayed and before long a curious Arab finds him self inside talking over with the mis sionary these “wonderful words of life.” Truly “the entrance of [God’s] word giveth light,” and we can hope and pray that this may be the experience of many who today read the gospel. Then there is the work of the itiner ant evangelist. This is arduous but thrilling, often made the more difficult by the attitude of the European au thorities and the inadequacy of mis sionary transport. Many scores of vil lages have been visited with the gospel in these last years and yet thousands more need to be reached. This was the apostolic way, and although the seed (Continued on Page 32)
thinking, and Mohammed has been en veloped in an aura of worthiness. Let us arrive at the facts. If in his early days we detect a measure of spirituality and sincerity in Mohammed, it was rap idly strangled by his insensate lust for temporal and undisputed power. His solemn bond was given only to be broken; he pursued his ambitious way with a merciless and relentless fanati cism that rarely, if ever, has been par alleled in human history. Whole tribes, whether they submitted or not, were ruthlessly exterminated, and the best of the female captives were added to his harem. His personal history shows that he could not resist the charms of the fair sex, even though they were the widow of a warrior whom he had just slain in battle, the wife of his adopted son, or an innocent seven-year-old child; all by “revelation” were his rightful prey. To his dying day Mohammed cursed Jew and Christian alike. But, above all, he perpetrated and his followers have perpetrated the great denial: Jesus Christ, they affirm, is not the Son of God and did not die on the cross. Whom did Jesus declare was the father of lies? the devil; and the Allah in whose name Mohammed strove to exterminate the name of Christ, is the devil and Mohammed was his prophet. A religion is always an enlargement of its founder, and Islam in its essence today is what Mohammed was. The ignorance and dis ease of Moslem lands, the subjugation and sorrow of their womanhood, and the fanaticism of Islam in general are directly attributed to Mohammed and are for all time codified in the Koran. This needs no commentary when it is realized that the murderer of Iran’s previous premier was brought to the point of committing his foul deed by a non-stop reading of the Koran. A stream cannot rise higher than its source, nor can Islam rise higher than the Koran and its founder. With this as an introduction, let us look at our battlefield of North Africa. The work in which we are vitally in terested is carried on almost right across North Africa at its widest extent, from Morocco through Algeria and Tunis to Libya. Twenty-five million Moslems! And in our own mission approximately 80 missionaries face this tremendous and challenging task. There are several other agencies all doing a faithful job, but the combined Christian effort pre
one penetrating phrase, “ For my sake and the gospel’s.” In other words, He desired that the Christian should be characterized by a personal, uncondi tional and unreserved loyalty to Him self and an all-consuming desire to make Him known. Islam exists today, proudly defiant, as a divine judgment upon the church which did not march beneath that ban ner. If Mohammed in Arabia in the sev enth century had met there or elsewhere on his travels to Syria one worthy repre sentative of the Lord Jesus Christ or one group of such, it is more than likely that Islam would never have emerged. What did he find? Mohammed in his early days at least gave evidence of being a sincerely troubled seeker; the idolatry and polytheism with which he was surrounded had failed to satisfy him. Yet all that the Christian tribes of Arabia and Syria could offer him was a weird mixture of superstition and error, with the truth so clouded over as to be almost extinguished. When his early followers sought refuge in Ethi opia, at the court of a so-called Chris tian king, Islam, instead of being evan gelized and enlightened, was protected and strengthened. When later militant Islam swept across North Africa, the cradle of the Christian Church, the land of the great apologists and countless martyrs was so lacking in love for the Master and zeal for His gospel that it met the only pos sible fate—judgment—and all was swept away. Today North Africa’s 25,000,000 population is almost entirely Moslem. There is but one word from the New Testament which can sum it all up, as we say in Arabic, Bka Iasoua —“ Jesus wept.” The shame of Islam, its birth, conquests, and the Christian church’s neglect thereof should weigh heavily upon us. ■ Just what is Islam? These are days of liberal and consequently vague and lazy * Representative of the North Africa Mission. Has produced a translation of Matthew into the Tunisian colloquial dialect. Was a military prisoner for 2% years; now resides with his wife in Kairouan, “holy city” of North Africa where no missionary has resided since 1938.
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