Muslims

Muslims believe, “No one truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. It accounts for 20% of the world population. It is growing so fast mostly because they have large families and they pass on the religion.

The Church has a focus on the Muslim outreach. The future of the Church will include Muslims.

They use the Koran as their Bible.  It has been translated many times and meanings changed. Isis uses a twisted version of the Koran

What we have in common: The Church is putting out a new pamphlet called What Mormons and Muslims have in Common.

The Muslims are mostly in North Africa, India and Indonesia.

Feroz Hussain is a man born in India who attended BYU, studied engineering, and now lives in Fresno. He built all the Costcos and has built much of the new construction of BYU. Laurel taught his son, Raj, in Seminary. She asked Feroz to teach her children what Muslims believe.

He started with the story of Abraham and Sarah, how they waited and prayed for a child. This was a few centuries after the flood. When a couples married in those times, part of the dowry the wife brought to the marriage was a handmaiden. The handmaiden would serve as a 2^nd wife (also called concubine). The husband was married to the handmaiden as well as the wife. (Which gives more understanding to the phrase from Mary to the Lord, (“behold the handmaiden of the Lord.”)

So after Sarah didn’t conceive, like 40 years later, she gave Hagar to Abraham and she conceived Ishmael. (the name Ishmael means God hears our prayers.)

When Sarah was past 90, she conceived Isaac. Hagar, the handmaiden was from Egypt. After Isaac was born, Hagar hated Sarah and ran away from home. An angel appeared to her and told her to go back

When Isaac was weaned at about 2 years old, it was customary to do a big celebration. By then Ishmael was about 16. (Gen 16). Ishmael was mocking and making fun of Isaac. Sarah got mad and told Abraham he needed to cast him out because he would be a bad influence on Isaac. Abraham prayed about it and the Lord told him he would take care of Ishmael and his descendants would become a great nation.

Muslims believe that Abraham was told to kill Ishmael, not Isaac. The whole thing about being saved by an angel is about Ishmael, not Isaac, according to Muslims.

The place where Isaac was sacrificed is now a historic site. Muslims want to own the site because they believe it was about Ishmael. They also believe Allah ascended from the same site. This is one of the main reasons for all the conflict in the area. They want the site back from the Jews but the Jews won’t give it up. There has been thousands of years of contention over it.

During the dark ages, Muhammed was born in Mecca, a very wicket city filled with idols. He was orphaned at 6 and sent to live with an uncle. He became a camel driver and a widow proposed to him.

Later he began to spend a lot of time in solitude, in a cave, studying and reading. He says that the angel Gabriel (who we believe to be Noah) appeared to him at about age 40 and visited him for 23 years. He hired scribes to write what he received and that became the Koran. He began teaching others and that’s where Muslims came from. The word Muslim means “One who submits to God”.

The Muslims are faithful followers of Muhammed. They love Muhammed the same way we feel about Joseph Smith.

They believe in the first 5 books of the Old Testament. They believe that Muhammed was the last and greatest prophet.

Here is some of their beliefs form the Koran:

They believe in one true God – Allah, who is without body or form

They don’t believe in the millennium

They do believe in the 2^nd coming – that God (Allah) will come down, there will be a great judgement, and we will go to heaven or hell.

They believe Jesus was one of the prophets – a great prophet and they believe in the moral teachings of the New Testament.

They believe the Bible has been changed a lot with translations and that plain and precious parts have been taken out. (so do we)

They believe that Christ didn’t resurrect, but was taken up by Allah and the whole crucifixion was a hoax.

They believe that Jesus had no father, but was like Adam.

They believe in the 10 commandments except the one about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. They don’t believe God rested on the 7^th day because God doesn’t need to rest. That’s silly.

These are the 5 pillars of Islam. These are necessary to achieve heaven.

1.       Testimony bearing ( they call it a declaration of faith

2.       Pray always (they believe in praying 5 times a day and in their societies they stop everything when the bell rings to pray.

3.       Fast offerings  – they call it an offering to the poor and pay 2.5%

4.       Fasting - they fast every day during Ramadan.

5.       Going to the temple – they make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once a year. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia.

6.       They don’t believe in the Holy Ghost. They think all references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament refer to the angel Gabriel.

7.       They do believe in Satan, called Iblis) who is a fallen angel because he refused to bow down to Adam and now works to tempt us to do wrong. It is almost true because Adam is the head of the angels.

Teachings in the Koran:

Should submit to one true God

Be grateful for everything

Talk kindly and be gracious.

Don’t start ward but defend your families

Don’t make alliances with Christians or Jews

Don’t eat pork

Don’t drink alcohol

Don’t gamble

Avoid fortune tellers

Marriage between a man and a woman is approved of God

The secret of a happy marriage is unselfishness

There should be no sex outside of marriage

Guard your private parts

Abortion is forbidden

Modesty is very important. Heads should be covered

Divorce is allowed twice

God does not love the conceited

Children are a great blessing, Believe in large families.

Polygamy is ok, up to 4 wives to provide for women who don’t have families.

If you don’t accept Islam after being taught it, I will havd to kill you.

Only 1% of muslims ae radicalized.

Al Qaeda has killed more Muslims than Christians

Some think the judgement can’t come until they wipe out all the Jews.

Resurrection day is actually the day of judgement.

The trial of the grave is that we have to remain in the grave until until judgement day.

In hell there will be no food, but scum

To be lifted up when Christ comes we have to be honest, morally clean and do good to our fellow men.

We will have perfectly matched spouses in the next life (not the same ones we have now.

There are two factions in Muslim between who should have been the leader after Muhammed, his son or a chosen replacement. The Shiites wanted to follow Muhammed’s son, the Soonies wanted a new appointed leader.

The Muslims biggest problem is that there is no central leadership, no central government. Members just study and live by the Koran and the old testament and try to do the best they can and pass it on to their families.

There is nothing in the Koran about the atonement, but there is much truth in it.

There is a different policy in our church for teaching and baptizing converts from Islam to our church, depending on what country they are in. Here we have to be sure there is no danger to their lives if they convert.

In other countries they aren’t allowed to go to church; there is no religious freedom there so they create small compounds where other religions can practice quietly.

There are 2 stakes in Abu Dhabi. They have to meet in small numbers and the government leaves them alone, but the members are always in danger. Where there is religious freedom, many Muslims are being baptized.

Elder Holland said he is perfectly comfortable accepting Muhammed as a prophet.