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Who Writes History When There Is No Winner?

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Eight somber Muslims sat around white plastic tables on the gold-tinged red carpet of Sayyida Aisha Mosque in Sidon, Lebanon. Arabic sweets beckoned, but few partook. The seriousness of the occasion—reviewing their memories of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war that ended in 1990—seemed to make several uneasy. They did sip their tea.

Four were Lebanese native to Sidon. Four were Palestinian refugees. Several wore beards, some long and scraggly, others short and trimmed. One was a former fighter in the war. Another lost family members when a Christian militia massacred inhabitants in Tel al-Zaatar.

Beginning in 1975, Christians, Muslims, and Palestinians plunged Lebanon into a regional conflict that included Israel and Syria, leaving 150,000 dead. Those convening the meeting, a Lebanese evangelical and a Druze follower of Jesus, hoped to unravel the reasons behind the highly contested conflict. Their host, chief judge for the Sunni Muslim court in Sidon and imam of the mosque, lent his legitimacy to the sensitive proceedings.

As participants received a 12-page document presenting Lebanese history that preceded the war, they were taken aback by reading a fully Christian perspective. But then the story shifted to Muslim perspectives, divided between Lebanese and Palestinian views. Three versions of history, none legitimized over the other.  

Many Christians do not call Lebanon’s tragedy a civil war. They emphasize how Palestinian refugees brought local destruction in their fight against Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinians emphasize displacement from their homeland and their need for a base from which to fight Israel. Lebanese Muslims sympathized with Palestine but aimed to change a sectarian political order that disproportionately favored Christians.

When the group finished reading the document, the evangelical stood up.

“Which narrative do you sympathize with the most?” he asked.

Martin Accad, president of the Beirut-based Near East School of Theology, spoke in his capacity as founder of Action Research Associates (ARA), which is working on a project that presents civil war history through multiple narratives. Cofounder Chaden Hani took notes. Their project is unique because, in schools, history books end shortly after the country’s independence in 1943 and avoid discussion of the sectarian struggles that followed.

A few participants dominated the mosque conversation with their viewpoints. An elderly Palestinian former fighter mostly sat silent. Accad asked about their emotions, which prompted different responses. “Sadness at what happened,” said one. “Fear it might happen again,” said another. A third noted, “I am happy we are finally trying to talk objectively about what took place.”

To move on from the conflict, Parliament passed a general amnesty law in 1991 that pardoned all political and civil war–related crimes. Former militia leaders became politicians and ignored the peace accord to write a unified history textbook as each sect clung to its narrative.

In 1997, Lebanon mandated a new educational approach. After three years of work, the cabinet formally adopted the history curriculum. But it was never implemented due to political interference behind the scenes.

“History is written by the winners,” said Accad. “But there was no winner in Lebanon.” Christians and Muslims fought each other, and as allegiances shifted, each religion split into rival factions that clashed as well.

Accad said history became…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on December 18, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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The Priest and Social Worker Deradicalizing Jihadists in Prison

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Maya Yamout stared at the hardened jihadist sitting across from her over a plastic desk in the unkempt library prison. Books littered the floor. The man, a veteran al-Qaeda militant in the notorious Block B of Lebanon’s Roumieh jail pushed forward a glass of tea.

“Where’s the sugar?” Yamout asked.

The curt question fit their relationship. In their previous brief encounters, the prisoner called Yamout a spy, a pig, and all manner of insults that belittled her as a Muslim woman who did not wear a veil.

Yet this time, her mischievous smirk made the terrorist smile. Two weeks earlier, when he was sick, Yamout inquired about his health from prison guards and brought medicine and shampoo on her next visit. Once he recovered, he invited the visit, prompting the nervy but playful exchange. Sensing a breakthrough, Yamout proposed therapy. He accepted.

Eventually, filled with shame, he apologized for how poorly he treated her.

“To reach a prisoner, you have to bond over something,” said Yamout, the cofounder of Rescue Me, a Lebanese crime prevention and deradicalization organization.

But Yamout is clear: This something should not be religion. She’s found that speaking about faith often gets entwined in politics and leads to endless debate. It also rarely addresses what radicalized a militant in the first place.

Yet Marwan Ghanem, a priest in the Maronite Catholic church and president of the Lebanese chapter of Prison Fellowship International (PFI), takes the opposite approach. He centers his ministry on the story of Jesus and Zaccheus, believing the tax collector’s model of repentance can help any prisoner restore a debt to society.

Yamout and Ghanem worked independently in separate sections of Roumieh but met often for mutual encouragement. Despite their differences, when Yamout left in 2024 to pursue a PhD at the University of Swansea in the UK and budget restrictions at Rescue Me pinched its ability to go into prisons, she asked Ghanem to continue her work with extremists. She simply counseled him to go slow with religion, avoid provocation, be patient if insulted, and remember the prisoners’ humanity.

“Kill them with kindness,” Yamout said, “and kindness will prevail.”

Rescue Me, which Yamout and her sister Nancy founded in 2011, primarily worked among at-risk youth in the Hayy al-Gharbia neighborhood of Beirut until funding cuts in 2017 curtailed its service among the Lebanese poor as well as Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

Many in hopeless situations became easy targets for Islamic extremist groups, she discovered. And when prison overcrowding assigns ordinary criminals to Block B—designated for terrorist offenses—even the nonreligious can be radicalized through their need to belong, Yamout said.

She said Block B extremists fall into four categories. A quarter of her cases sought retribution for wrongs they suffered or the poverty they endured. Another quarter put a religious overlay on their frustration, while 35 percent did the same with politics. The remaining 15 percent are simple psychopaths—“I joined ISIS to smell the blood,” one told her.

Another prisoner she met fell into the second category. Born into Lebanon’s impoverished northern city of Tripoli …

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on December 3, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Grassroots Efforts Bring Together Diverse Sects in Iraq

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Three years ago in Iraqi Kurdistan, an adherent of the Kakai faith posted on social media that he had been called an infidel by a Sunni Muslim sheikh.

Kakai is a synthesis of Zoroastrianism and Shiite Islam, with between 110,000 and 200,000 followers in Iraq. Persecuted throughout their history, some Kakai consider themselves an independent religion, others a sect of Islam. But most Kurds are Sunni. The offending adherent felt a clear threat; some interpretations of Islam call for the killing of infidels.

Abdo Saad, regional programs director for Adyan Foundation, a Lebanon-based organization promoting interfaith dialogue and equal rights, reached out from his office in Erbil, Iraq, to the local ministry for religious affairs, alerting officials to the danger the Kakai follower may have faced. The authorities intervened and spoke to the sheikh privately. The Kakai man told Saad the issue had been resolved. But the ministry took no further action against the cleric.

Saad was not satisfied. In the honor-shame culture of the Middle East, it is often possible to resolve issues of religious freedom behind the scenes. Many converts to Christianity, for example, can live in relative peace if their Muslim families are not devout. Most authorities are not out to arrest believers.

However, if a conservative cousin publicizes the convert’s new faith, trouble may ensue. Wise officials may calm the situation, perhaps by relocating the convert to a different part of the city. They do not want Muslim extremists to discover the offense and call into question the religious legitimacy of a government that does not enforce the Islamic ban on apostasy.

Yet in the Middle East, only Lebanon allows a convert to officially register his or her new faith. For other nations in the region, religious scruples often trump religious freedom. Governments resolve many social issues along similar patterns, but human rights advocates lament that—as with the Sunni sheikh and Kakai Kurd—officials do not take a public stand.

Lebanon boasts one of the Arab world’s more robust expressions of political and cultural commitment to religious freedom. But Saad said the concept of rights-based citizenship has not sufficiently taken hold in any nation to enable a transition to a free and open democracy. He counsels Christians and Muslims to listen well to each other’s concerns so they can reform their nations together.

“I don’t have the answer for what this should look like,” he said. “I hope our grassroots work will push the leaders, but I don’t know.”

His uncertainty is warranted for Iraq as well. Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, the nation had a nominally secular regime that integrated allied elites from different sects into its authoritarian governing structure. During the transition to democracy under US occupation, Iraqi political parties immediately organized along religious lines, and the majority Shiites captured power.

Sunni insurgencies followed, culminating in the creation of ISIS. Shiite militias backed by Iran joined the international coalition to defeat the jihadist threat but then kept their weapons and eroded national sovereignty. Neighboring Syria may witness a similar transition to conservative Sunni power now that a former al-Qaeda member has overthrown the Alawite-led regime.

Adyan registered in Iraq in 2022. An early project aimed to replicate the Lebanon success of Alwan, a school-based program to foster religious diversity and acceptance. Alwan means “colors” in Arabic. The Iraqi government welcomed the effort but insisted on calling it by the less kid-friendly name “Education on Active and Inclusive Citizenship,” as the original name made them think of the LGBTQ rainbow. Due to local sensitivities, the interfaith group accepted.

Other projects worked on social cohesion, Saad said. In a Chaldean Catholic city in the northern area of Nineveh, a Christian, Muslim, and Yazidi led joint efforts to renovate a public square damaged by ISIS. They restored electricity, installed benches, and held a public dinner. Some played backgammon long into the evening.

Similarly, in the southern city of Basrah, Iraq, with an overwhelmingly Shiite population, Adyan helped a Shiite and a Sunni lead a festival of diversity in the main city square. Artists and singers entertained onlookers, when a member of the minority Mandaean religion took the stage. He told Saad this was the first time he felt comfortable speaking publicly about his faith, in which John the Baptist is the greatest prophet.

Within a sectarian society, good social relations are possible—even common. It is harder to…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on October 29, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Who Are the Ismaili Muslims?

Sean Gallup / Staff / Getty

An 11-acre Ismaili Muslim religious center is coming to Texas.

Part one of this two-part series described how the small sect of Shiite Islam will soon open the huge prayer hall and social center in Houston. Ismaili leaders emphasize an adherence to pluralism and interfaith dialogue, and this article will discuss how this assertion fits—or clashes—with Ismaili history.

For Ismailis today, who number between 12 and 15 million across 35 countries, pluralism is more than a commitment—it is near dogma. That is due to the center’s subsect, Nizari Ismailism, and its distinguishing feature: the living imam. Most Shiite Muslims name the leader of the Islamic community an imam, but only the Nizari sect claims he is alive and actively present in the world today.

And the imam’s legitimacy originates in his descent from Muhammad.

Islam’s prophet married and had several children, but only his daughter Fatimah survived to adulthood. She married Ali, Muhammad’s nephew and adopted son, and they had two daughters and three sons, one of whom likely died in infancy. All Muslims hold these descendants in high regard, and the current king of Jordan is one of thousands who trace their lineage back to Muhammad.

Yet the branches of Islam divided over who they saw as Muhammad’s true heir. Shiites believe that prior to his death, Muhammad designated Ali as his political and spiritual successor, so they call him “imam.” They also elevate Ali, Fatimah, and their sons Hasan and Hussein as Ahl al-Bayt, “the family of [Muhammad’s] household,” and believe these five received divine knowledge and infallibility. Only Muhammad holds the title of prophet, but his grandsons, in turn, became the second and third imams.

Sunni Muslims reject the claim of special favor, but honor Ali as the fourth community-chosen caliph, the highest Islamic political office. They dismiss the idea that an imam or any other human can inherit Muhammad’s aura of divine guidance.

Sunnis won the ensuing civil war in Islam and then set up a hereditary caliphate. Shiites rallied around Ahl al-Bayt, with some rebelling against the caliph’s authority and others adopting a quiet posture of perseverance. The majority, known as Twelvers, trace a line of 12 imams who from Hussein are designated directly from father to son. Twelvers are prominent in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Azerbaijan.

Ismailis, found primarily in Central Asia, East Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, separated over a disputed succession. In AD 765, the Shiite community faced a crisis when Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth imam, died at home, allegedly poisoned by the Sunni caliph who had previously detained him. Many of his followers believed he had designated his oldest son, Ismail, as the next imam—who died two years earlier than his father.

Sadiq’s other sons claimed Shiite leadership, with Twelvers following Musa al-Kazim as the seventh imam. But the crisis was more than just political—it was theological.

If an imam is infallible, how could he wrongly designate his successor? A dissenting party no longer in existence concluded that Ismail must still be alive and in hiding. Others held that Ismail’s son Muhammad should next inherit leadership, consistent with the father-to-son pattern. Most Ismailis today follow this line, and their head, known as Aga Khan V, is the 50th imam in the succession.

A century later, a different theological crisis hit the Twelver community. In AD 874, the eleventh imam died without an obvious heir. Consensus emerged that he did have a son who went into “occultation,” concealed from public view. Yet he never reappeared, and Twelvers judged that this Hidden Imam, miraculously preserved, will return to rule at the end of the age. Until then, fallible Shiite scholars lead the community.

In contrast, Ismailis offered Muslims…

This article originally published at Christianity Today on November 4, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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I Was the Enemy Jesus Told You to Love

Photography by Sandra Singh for Christianity Today

When I was 16, a new student named Zakariya showed up at school. His forehead bore fan-shaped scars that identified him as a member of the Dinka people group—south Sudanese minority rebels, many of whom were Christian. My enemies. Zakariya was nice to everyone and scored the top grades in class, which made me hate him more.

As devout Muslims, my family and I were committed to Islam’s central place in the government. But our application of our religion was radical, since we prayed for Allah to destroy those who opposed us.

For two years, I added a request for Zakariya’s destruction to my daily noontime prayers. One night, that prayer was answered. My friends and I climbed a tree with our bayonet-fixed rifles and watched as a flashlight approached in the distance. It was Zakariya, who we knew walked this way each evening.

When he was beneath our tree, we ambushed him, beating him mercilessly with our fists and rifle butts. In a frenzy, I stabbed him repeatedly with my bayonet.

“Allahu Akbar,” I muttered in pride as we walked away from his mangled body. We left him for dead, and he never returned to school.

I was born into one of independent Sudan’s three leading families. My great-grandfather had joined the 1881 Islamic revolt against the British. Members of my family helped enshrine sharia law in our country. My father led the military in Darfur, where he later served as governor.

As the only son, I was to inherit this legacy. Our family believed our highest allegiance transcended the nation to include all Muslims in a global Islamic community called an umma. This inspired a tradition—unknown to me at the time—of early commitment to religious learning. So when I was 8 years old, my father drove me 500 miles north of Khartoum and dropped me at a desert madrasa to learn the Quran. He gave me no explanation and barely said goodbye.

At the madrasa, I was shaved bald and given a white robe and prayer cap for my daily uniform. Our group of ten boys sat in a straw hut and memorized Arabic verses with a long-bearded shaykh. The Quran was in his right hand; in his left he held a leather whip to punish our frequent mistakes. Allah must be like this too, I thought. I cried at night for 17 days straight.

When my father came to pick me up two years later, there was no embrace, but I saw he was proud of me. At home, I recited the entire Quran to my family and received a camel as my reward.

In my family’s eyes, I was now a man. Instead of playing soccer, I practiced disassembling and reassembling a Kalashnikov rifle and playacted ambushes against our enemies. Maybe it was preparation for Zakariya. By the time I graduated from high school in 1989, I was ready for jihad and to die as a martyr. I was the perfect son my father had dreamed of.

But my role model wasn’t my father. It was…

This article was originally published in the September/October print edition of Christianity Today. Please click here to read the full text.

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Does the Quran Support Religious Pluralism?

Eric Lafforgue / Art in All of Us / Contributor / Getty

Last month, an obscure jihadist group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, Syria, that killed 25 people. The attack came as a response, it stated, to the government requiring prior approval of Islamic preaching in the Christian neighborhood. Three months earlier, at the site of the future bombing, austere Salafi Muslims called on residents to convert to Islam, a practice known in Arabic as da’wa. Later, a car drove up and its occupants loudly repeated the call until local Muslims sent them away.

Salafis are known for growing long beards and wearing traditional robes in imitation of the prophet Muhammad. Salafi practice is not inherently violent, and reporting does not draw a clear connection between the incident at the church and the later suicide bombing. But many jihadists emerge from or are drawn to Salafi communities, as both aim to follow the Quran literally in complete devotion to Allah.

The jihadists even adopted a particular verse from the Quran as their slogan: “Fight the polytheists together as they fight together against you.” To them, belief in the Trinity is an offense against Allah’s oneness. In preventing Muslims from proper da’wa, then, both state and church in Syria became worthy of war.

Some experts say Salafis and jihadists represent a reaction—peaceful or otherwise—to reclaim a lost idealized era when Islam governed much of the world. Yet most Muslims are neither Salafis nor jihadists; many have accepted democracy and the nation-state system that formally adopts principles of minority rights and common citizenship.

Still, according to a 2013 survey of Muslims in 38 nations, the sense of Islamic superiority lingers. Like many evangelicals, the most devout Muslims view their faith as the only way to heaven and consider converting others to be a religious duty.

In the West, belief that someone is going to hell has little civic impact, as religious faith tends to be an individual decision. But in the Muslim world, this belief has subjected Christians to a long heritage of second-class citizenship. And the survey reveals that substantial minorities of the most devout want sharia made the law of the land, applied also to non-Muslims.

The modern principle of pluralism holds two ideas in tension: Believers should be free to spread their faith, while minority religions and their beliefs should be respected. As Syria shows, this can be complicated in the Middle East, where the understanding of Islam is a crucial factor for interfaith peace.

One Tunisian Muslim academic, Adnane Mokrani, makes a bold assertion: Islam, when properly understood, is an ally of religious pluralism. Though he concedes this is a minority viewpoint among Muslims, Mokrani, who serves on the Network of Centers for Christian-Muslim Relations advisory board, said that a new generation of theologians are reevaluating the Quran’s understanding of diversity.

The new network, profiled previously this series, doesn’t comment on political events or policies. It recognizes the witness of one’s faith as an essential part of both Christianity and Islam. But it believes that interfaith peace may require setting aside evangelism and da’wa in certain ways and places, though not as an activity of individual believers.

In this case, Mokrani believes the diversity of religions flows intentionally from the divine will, expressing his argument in a recent webinar. He cited this verse from the Quran as evidence: “If Allah had willed, He would have made you one community.” This idea is similar to that of the academic sage in the first article in this series, who lamented the state of conflict and rancor that ensues from religious difference. Yet the passage continues optimistically: Multiple religious communities exist so that they may “compete with one another in doing good.”

Classical Muslim theology, however, divides the world into the “House of Islam” and the “House of War,” as multiple verses in the Quran encourage Muslims to fight unbelievers. Historically, the House of War was the realm of opposing empires, with the Christian Byzantines the most stubborn in resistance.

This theology recognized that Jews and Christians in conquered lands now resided within the House of Islam. The Quran refers to Jews and Christians, along with Muslims, as “People of the Book,” in recognition of a shared scriptural heritage, Mokrani said. Classical Muslim scholars rejected much of the Bible’s content as distorted. Yet the Quran honors its conception of the Torah, given to Moses, and the Gospel, given to Jesus, as “containing guidance and light”—the same terms it uses of itself.

On the ground, this meant that Muslims would not forcibly convert Jews and Christians. Instead, the two religious groups could continue practicing their faiths in exchange for payment of a tax called jizya. Through this, these communities received status as dhimmis, safe from war and given freedom of worship—though not to evangelize. Treatment varied over time, but their second-class status reinforced the Islamic sense of religious superiority.

The historical development of Muslim society led to a gap between the original conciliatory vision of Muhammad and the later, more rigid attitude of scholars, maintains Mokrani, who is also professor of Islamic studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Faced with a growing empire and Christian opposition in war and faith, Muslim scholars’ commentaries on the Quran polemically defined Islam as a religious community distinct from Jews and Christians rather than in continuity with them.

Their interpretive tool was the location of Muhammad’s prophecies.

In Mecca, the prophet preached…

This article was originally published by Christianity Today on July 24, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Loving Muslim Neighbors Without Watering Down Your Faith

MOHAMMED HOSSAM / Contributor / Getty

When Wageeh Mikhail was a boy, a Muslim mob attacked his Presbyterian church and killed his Sunday school teacher in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya. Though he remembers little about the event itself, he recalls praying for the assailants. And he still feels emotional remembering how he honored the childhood lessons that told him to love his enemies.

It was not the last time he had to.

Three decades later, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Islamist supporters of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi alleged that Christians had collaborated against him and used that pretext to set dozens of churches on fire. In some locations, Muslims defended the local houses of worship.

Among these was Mikhail’s childhood church. The subsequent Sunday, grieving members worshiped in the burned-out pews—this was the extent of their protest. And across the country, Christians refused to escalate the conflict. 

Though Mikhail was living in Cairo at the time, he mourned from afar and again remembered his Sunday school lessons. Today, Mikhail is the director of the Network of Centers for Christian-Muslim Relations (NCCMR) and has a clear message: Muslims are not the enemies of Christians.

“Islam has been a practical and theological challenge to the Christian faith,” he said. “But we must work together.”

CT previously introduced Ramon Llull, a 13th-century Franciscan hermit from the re-Christianized island of Majorca in modern-day Spain, who advocated winsome relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. During the Crusades, he penned a novel in which a representative sage from each religion argued persuasively about his faith, without rancor, and the three remained friends.

NCCMR is similarly countercultural today but in a different direction. In a world in which interfaith dialogue can seek a relativistic commonality among the monotheistic religions, NCCMR’s partners, representing 18 centers in 13 countries with five additional applicants, recognize the call to conversion as an essential part of each religion. At formal events, the members agree to forgo Christian evangelism and comparable Muslim da’wa. Yet as individuals they are free to witness. Mikhail emphasized that all participants believe in freedom of religion—and its propagation.

“Christians have to evangelize,” he said. “The one who said ‘Do not kill’ also said ‘Go and make disciples.’”

NCCMR has faced sensitive issues beyond evangelism. During last year’s inaugural meeting, several attendees voiced concerns over rumors of an international conspiracy to merge Islam and Christianity into one religion. Mikhail assured them the network’s mutual commitment was to honor each faith as an exclusive religion with claims to divine truth.

Keeping in spirit with Llull’s characters, members agreed to avoid arguments and direct challenges over their respective religion’s superiority. Yet the network also made clear that NCCMR is not for religious leaders who assert that all paths will lead to God.

Mikhail appreciates Llull. But his vision for dialogue comes from his ancestors. In the early 1990s, he studied at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC). Though many of his professors were Egyptian, they used textbooks largely imported from the US. From this he assumed that all good theology came from the West. An American reoriented his theological geography.

In Mikhail’s third year…

This article was originally published by Christianity Today on July 23, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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How a 13th-Century Spaniard Modeled Interfaith Friendship

WikiMedia Commons / Edits by CT

Sitting with a student distraught by religious war, a God-fearing academic lamented the chaos in Syria, the destruction of Iraq, and the existential tensions seemingly ever-present in the Holy Land.

“What a great fortune it would be if … every man on earth could be under one religion,” he said. “[Then] there would be no more rancor or ill will among men, who hate each other because of the contrariness of beliefs.”

The academic’s answer, unfortunately, underestimates the human capacity for conflict. Beyond the bloody geopolitics, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have split into sects and factions, to the point of killing fellow believers who share the same text yet hold different beliefs.

But for some, the “rancor and ill will” have prompted a corrective impulse to unite the faiths through interfaith dialogue. And the impulse is not new. The God-fearing academic? He’s a character from a book written in the 13th century by Ramon Llull, a Franciscan hermit and early proponent of an initiative still controversial among many believers today. Countercultural even then, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men addressed a world severely lacking in peaceful religious pluralism.

When Llull published his book in the 1270s, Crusaders were strengthening castles in Syria. The Mongol horde had sacked Muslim Baghdad—but then suffered defeat in Palestine, in the fields of Galilee. Llull wrote from what is now Spain, during the Reconquista, a military campaign to restore the Iberian Peninsula to Christendom. The Muslim realm, which they named Al-Andalus and became known as Andalucia, had been comparatively tolerant of Christians and Jews.

Llull lived on the island of Majorca, where his father settled after James I of Aragon declared victory in 1229. In the decades that followed, Christian kings in the liberated lands increased restrictions on non-Christian monotheists resident since the 8th century Islamic conquest. Some they forcibly converted, and within a few centuries, they expelled nearly all Muslims and Jews.

Llull, writing in Latin, Arabic, and his native Catalan, advocated for converting the non-Christians by rational argument, not the sword. While he did defend the Christian conquest of Muslim lands, he also founded missionary schools and traveled to North Africa, where he disputed with Islamic scholars.

Few of his contemporaries…

This article was originally published by Christianity Today on July 22, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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What Do Iraq’s Persecuted Yazidis Believe?

John Moore / Getty

Hadi Maao has faced multiple challenges in his 22 years of life. At age five, his mud-brick house fell on him, a result of nearby car bombings. At age 12, he fled to the mountains when ISIS displaced his people. At age 19, he dodged police while seeking asylum in Europe. Today, he lives and works legally in the Netherlands, while missing and worrying about his family still living in camps in northern Iraq.

Yet he maintains hope.

“God is always by my side,” Maao said. “And when I pray, he assures me of his presence.”

The thought sounds very evangelical. Yet Maao is Yazidi, a member of a minority religious community in Iraq that dates back to ancient Mesopotamia.

CT profiled Maao in part 1 of this series. In part 2, we described the challenges of Christian aid groups who help Yazidis in Kurdistan, the northern Iraqi region hosting many camps for the displaced. USAID cuts, also described in part 1, have drastically reduced humanitarian service.

Alongside his faith, Maao credited the prayers of his foreign Christian friends for his continued well-being. Conversion to another religion is forbidden to his people, Maao said. But he believes there is only a “thread of difference” between Yazidis and Christians.

This is far from the case in theology. Maao said that in ethics and conduct, the communities are close and keep good relations. But he made the comparison as the two minority religious groups have faced persecution from the majority Muslims, many of whom charge Yazidis with devil worship. Christians sometimes speak similarly, claiming Yazidis worship Lucifer.

The Bible does not give many details about the origin of Satan’s evil—only that in pride the angel rebelled against God and God cast him out of heaven. But in Islam, the Quran relates that when Allah created Adam, he commanded the angels to bow before the human creation. Believing himself superior, Satan refused.

Maao said that in the Yazidi story, God rewarded this angel (which they believe was a spirit called Melek Tawûs) for his refusal, as he would only worship God. In another version, however, Melek Tawûs’s disobedience was forgiven with his repentance, evidenced by tears that quenched the fires of hell. Maao stated that Yazidi beliefs are relayed by oral tradition, creating…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on July 3, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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One Muslim Sect Confesses a Trinity. It Includes Simon Peter.

Muhammad Haj Kadour / Contributor / Getty

As an Alawite, Ziad identifies with the main markers of Islam.

“Our book is the Quran, our prophet is Muhammad, and our direction of prayer is the Kaaba in Mecca,” he said.

Ziad, a pseudonym granted because of the still-unstable situation in Syria, believes in God and called out to him during the Sunni militant attack on Alawite cities and villages in the coastal northwest. However, he does not perform the prescribed ritual prayers, fast for Ramadan, or consider a pilgrimage to Mecca necessary. And he drinks alcohol, which is forbidden for other Muslims.

Yet mainstream rejection of his sect goes far beyond these offenses. To understand why most Muslims consider Alawite beliefs heretical, we must first know a little about the religion’s main sects—Sunni and Shiite.

When Muhammad died in AD 632, disputes arose within the community over who would assume leadership. Sunnis, who today represent 85 percent of Muslims, hold that the prophet left this choice open for believers to decide. They chose Abu Bakr, an early convert and respected tribal leader, as the first caliph.

Shiites, on the other hand, hold that Muhammad designated his cousin Ali as his successor and that the tribal confederation bypassed his will. Ali was eventually chosen as the fourth caliph but assassinated within an Islamic civil war. The caliphate thereafter passed into hereditary rule. This political history matters practically little to Alawites, but they share with Shiites the belief that Ali was the first imam.

Most Shiites count a succession of 12 imams from the bloodline of Ali, whom they say God endowed with supernatural insight to interpret the Quran and Muslim religious traditions. The 12th imam is believed to have concealed himself—entering a period of what is called “occultation”—and will reappear at the end of the age.

However, Alawites follow…

This article first published at Christianity Today on June 25, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Muslim Militants Went on a Syrian Rampage

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On March 6, Ziad nervously scoured social media, hiding in a windowless room in his apartment. He had heard gunfire, and over the long course of the civil war in Syria, he had learned how to distinguish the various weaponry. These were military-grade machine guns. Bands of balaclava-clad militants in pickup trucks shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they attacked a government office just a mile from his home in the coastal city of Lattakia.

The 46-year-old educator and his wife, Zeinab, knew the militants were looking for Alawites. The couple belonged to the heterodox Islamic sect that many Sunni Muslims in Syria hated for their connection to the deposed Assad regime. Others went further and condemned their beliefs as heretical. Medieval and Ottoman-era fatwas declared Alawites deserving of death, and videos circulated of mosques calling for jihad against their community.

Ziad did not leave his home for the next three days.

When the dust settled, the March massacre claimed the lives of at least 1,700 Alawites. Ziad, currently in Lebanon and granted anonymity to preserve the safety of his relatives in Syria, describes the terror the community experienced.

“O God, save us,” he prayed quietly. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Six months earlier, when Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, Ziad hoped for a transition to democracy and wide-scale reform. Assad’s father, Hafez, seized power in a 1970 coup and disproportionately selected Alawites for key military and government posts. But few from the community truly benefited, Ziad said, while most lived in relative poverty—as in other rural regions. The regime permitted no dissent and cultivated insecurity among its minority religious populations to curb any threat to its power.

While Alawites make up a majority in the coastal plains and mountains of western Syria, the ethnoreligious group represents 10–13 percent of the overall population. Sunni Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians live among them in peace. But as militants barged into homes, looting cell phones and cash, they killed adult Alawite males and sometimes whole families.

Ziad had barred the iron gate to their building. Perhaps this spared their lives. He and Zeinab sat in the darkness to avoid showing signs of life in their apartment. And as he scrolled Facebook for updates, he learned…

This article was first published at Christianity Today on June 24, 2025. Please click here to read the full text.

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Middle East Muslims are Finding Jesus. Can They Fit Within a Weakened Church?

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In the Arab world today, the war in Gaza dominates the news, with its small Palestinian Christian community caught in the crossfire. But over the last decade, ancient churches have faced persecution in Syria and Iraq, while political instability and terrorism have threatened believers in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Nevertheless, the church’s activity in this region is about much more than war and persecution, as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) chapter of the Lausanne Movement’s State of the Great Commission report shows. For example, congregations have cared for refugees, and online ministries have expanded.

One notable development is the numerical growth of Muslim-background believers (MBBs).

The report provides an ominous description of Christianity in the MENA region: “The outlook for all Christian communities is negative.” Yet the section on MBBs concludes with hope amid the devastation, predicting that “a new church, from among the majority people, will rise up from the ashes of the traditional structures.”

CT spoke with Rafik Barsoum—coauthor of the MENA chapter, president of Message to All Nations, and pastor of a digital church initiative launched in 2022—to elaborate on key ideas in the report. He described the difficulties faced by MBBs and Christian-background believers (CBBs) alike, the witness offered by both, and why he dislikes the distinction between them.

Why did the report begin with a negative assessment?

Iraq, for example, is nearly bereft of Christians. The region is experiencing war, famine, terrorism, poverty, instability, and turmoil in every way. And with any turmoil anywhere, minorities are the first to be affected. In nearly every nation, if they are not facing outright persecution, struggles such as these pressure believers to leave the region.

Ancient churches are losing their people. The Middle East was once the beacon of Christian history; now it is at risk of losing its Christian presence.

But these struggles do not suggest a gloomy picture as concerns the work of Christ. We have seen signs of revival in the last decade like never before. But a price has been paid for it that is not often covered by the news or political analysis. We do not want this persecution to continue, but new signs of hope are emerging.

One of these signs of hope is the MBB community, which the report calls a “movement.”

The word movement is a missiological term describing an intangible awareness that God is drawing people to himself in ways we cannot explain, beyond the work of any one church or organization. It is as Jesus told Nicodemus: The wind blows where it will, and we see its effects in the wave that is forming. People are coming to know the truth through dreams and visions, the work of missionaries, the testimony of the church, and online media ministry.

Amid political turmoil, people are challenging taboos and delusions of the past—independently of this movement, but also as they witness Christian love in action. God is doing something unique.

Yet the report calls this movement “small.” How should it be measured?

The MBB movement is…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on September 26, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.

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More Porridge? Senegal Protestants Debate Exchanging Holiday Foods with Muslims

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Muslims in Senegal love to share meat. The country’s Christians share porridge.

Ending their monthlong Ramadan fast this week, the faithful in the Muslim-majority West African nation invited Christian friends to celebrate Korite (Eid al-Fitr), focus on forgiveness and reconciliation, and share a wholesome meal of chicken.

A little over two months later during Tabaski (Eid al-Adha), the mutton from sheep slaughtered in commemoration of Abraham’s sacrificing of his son will likewise be distributed to Christian neighbors. (Both feasts follow the lunar calendar and change dates each year.)

But for Christians, the sign of interfaith unity is the porridge-like ngalakh.

“Senegal is a country of terranga—‘hospitality’—and the sense of sharing is very high,” said Mignane Ndour, vice president of the Assemblies of God churches in Senegal. “Porridge has become our means of strengthening relations between Christians and Muslims.”

Sources told CT the holiday treat is highly anticipated.

In the local language, ngalakh means “to make porridge,” and the chilled dessert marks the end of Lent. Between 3 and 5 percent of Senegal’s 18 million people are Christians—the majority Catholic—and families gather to prepare the Easter fare on Good Friday.

Made from peanut cream and monkey bread (the fruit of the famed baobab tree), these core ngalakh ingredients are soaked in water for over an hour before adding the millet flour necessary to thicken the paste. It is then variously seasoned with nutmeg, orange blossom, pineapple, coconut, or raisins.

Tangy and sweet yet savory, the porridge gets its brownish color from the peanut cream.

The Christian community in Senegal traces its origin back to the 15th-century arrival of the Portuguese. And Jacques Seck, a Catholic priest in the capital of Dakar, stated that ngalakh developed during the period of French colonialism as mulatto servant women prepared their masters a meatless meal during the Lenten fast.

Ndour said that over time the tradition extended to Protestants as well.

Its believers numbering only in the thousands, the Protestant Church of Senegal was founded in 1863, becoming more visible in the 1930s. Lutherans came in the 1970s and are the second-largest Christian denomination today, alongside Methodists, Presbyterians, and newer evangelical groups.

But for some, ngalakh is controversial.

“Evangelicals do not share this tradition,” said Pierre Teixeira, editor in chief of Yeesu Le Journal, an interdenominational monthly publication. “But the rare churches that practice it broadcast a film on the gospel before distribution.”

Teixeira, a former Baptist pastor, grew up in a…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on April 11, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.

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Who Restricts Religion More, Politicians or the People? Pew Crunched the Global Data.

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Government restrictions on religion are at a global high.

Social hostility toward religion, however, has ticked downward.

So concludes the Pew Research Center in its 14th annual analysis of the extent to which 198 nations and territories—and their citizens—impinge on religious belief and practice.

Some sort of harassment of religious groups was recorded in all but eight.

The 2024 report, released earlier this month, draws primarily from more than a dozen UN, US, European, and civil society sources, and reflects conditions from 2021, the latest year with fully available data.

The global median on Pew’s 10-point scale of government restrictions reached 3.0 for the first time ever, continuing a steady rise since the baseline score of 1.8 in 2007. Overall, 55 nations (28%) recorded levels marked “very high” or “high,” only two lower than last year’s total of 57.

Nicaragua was highlighted for harassment of Catholic clergy.

Regional differences are apparent: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) scored 5.9, up from its baseline score of 4.7. Asia-Pacific scored 4.2, up from 3.2. Europe scored 3.1, up from 1.7. Sub-Saharan Africa scored 2.6, up from 1.7. And the Americas scored 2.1, up from 1.0.

Pew’s 20 measures of government restrictions included efforts to “ban particular faiths, prohibit conversion, limit preaching, or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.”

Some pertained to COVID-19, such as Canada’s fines against open churches.

A further 13 measures for acts of religious hostility by individuals or groups included “religion-related armed conflict or terrorism, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons, and other forms of religion-related intimidation or abuse.”

Social hostilities toward religion continued to trend downward since a high of 2.0 in 2018, decreasing to 1.6, the lowest score since 1.2 in 2009. But 43 nations (22%) still recorded levels marked “very high” or “high,” though significantly fewer than the 65 offending nations in 2012.

Nigeria was cited for clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farmers.

The order of regional differences in social hostility…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on March 18, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.

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‘Dune’ Centers Islamic Imagery. These Muslim-World Novels Center Christ.

Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Unsplash / WikiMedia Commons

Can you imagine if Dune took place in the ocean instead of the desert? One Christian novel does.

With Dune: Part Two now in theaters, moviegoers are once again treated to the cinematic spectacle of Frank Herbert’s popular sci-fi epic. Less known is how his 1965 novel bears witness to the influence of Muhammad.

And even less known are the efforts of Christians to translate their Muslim world experience into novels that communicate the gospel.

“We tend … not to recognize how much Islam has contributed to our culture,” stated Herbert in a 1976 radio interview. “But we owe Islam enormous debts of gratitude.”

The American author blended many religious themes into his six-volume series but deliberately filled his sand-infused apocalyptic landscape with tribal conflicts, Shiite concepts, and Bedouin-inspired characters. Hero Paul Atreides becomes the Mahdi, mirroring the Muslim messiah-like figure anticipated at the end of the world. And as he wins acceptance among the nomadic Fremen people, he takes the name Muad’Dib, adapted from an Arabic word for “teacher.”

Their desert religion is called Zensunni , mixing Islam with the Buddhism Herbert eventually adopted.

Dune is often credited as an inspiration for Star Wars and its Eastern cosmology. But there’s similar world-creating literature by three Muslim-world Christian workers writing in the genres of sci-fi, contemporary thriller, and young adult fiction.

Each bears witness to the love of Jesus.

“As far as I am aware, this is the first time that violent Islamists, followers of Jesus from Muslim backgrounds, and science fiction have been combined,” said Steve Holloway, author of Pelagia. “Conveying an Islamic story arc is one of the key motivations for writing the book.”

Set 40 years in the future, Pelagia tells the story of Ben Holden, a special forces agent turned professor of particle physics, and Suliman Battuta, a medical doctor and leader of a clan of nomadic “seasteaders” who herd tuna in the South Pacific Gyre, stretching from the coastlines of Chile to the Micronesian islands.

Holden’s scientist wife is murdered by the New Caliphate, a coalition of land-based Middle Eastern nations who want her project data for their jihadist aims. After surviving a later attack, Holden takes refuge with Battuta’s floating community of third-generation Yemeni followers of Isa al Masih, the Quranic name for Jesus the Messiah. Their status as apostates sets them in search of freedom of belief on the high seas.

Imagine the Wild West in submarines, with the fate of the world at stake.

The science of the novel is within humanity’s grasp today, said Holloway, whose book won the endorsement of Fish Farmer magazine, which called it a combination of films Captain Phillips and Minority Report. Currently overseeing a sea cucumber project in Indonesia, Holloway, senior strategy associate for Frontiers, served 12 years in a Southeast Asian nation where his team nurtured a small underground church as they researched ocean farming for the government, before expulsion from the country in 1998. A marine biologist, he read sci-fi as a kid and loved the world of Dune.

Motivated to show how followers of Jesus from Islamic communities flourish best in their original environment, he wrote Pelagia for a general global audience—including Muslims—and depicts austere jihadis with sympathy. There are no “cartoon bad guys” in his novel.

“It is more Tolkien than Lewis,” Holloway said. “Secular reviewers say it has a spiritual theme that doesn’t get in the way of a good story—I take this as a compliment.”

Yet it does have a conversion story, something missing from Someone Has to Die, book one in a trilogy written by Jim Baton, the pen name of a veteran Christian teacher serving in Indonesia. But whereas the futuristic setting of Pelagia is a step removed from Holloway’s ministry, Baton is still involved in the nitty-gritty of peacemaking.

His nom de plume means “bridge” in Indonesian.

“A thriller novel is perfect for our modern world of terrorism,” Baton said. “But I describe jihadists as human beings who have suffered, long for justice, and want the world to be a better place—and, that God loves them.”

In Someone Has to Die, Abdullah is a former terrorist seeking to atone for his past deeds by…

This article was originally published on February 29, 2024. Please click here to read the full text.

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Sharia Law Makes a Solid Case for Christ

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For 1,400 years, Christians have wrestled with how to defend their faith to Muslims. While Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, it denies his divinity. And as for his sacrifice for sin on the cross, the Quran denies the crucifixion and by extension the resurrection, claiming instead that God took him directly to heaven.

Christian responses have often been polemical, seeking to invalidate the message and morality of Muhammad. They have also been apologetic, sometimes employing legal arguments that Muslims view as manmade and changeable—thus lacking authority to adjudicate matters of eternal significance.

Baptist pastor Suheil Madanat seeks instead to ground the authenticity of the gospel account within Islam itself. In Evidence for the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ Examined through Islamic Law, the former president of the Jordan Baptist Convention (2016–2022) consults expert sharia compendiums and relevant scholarly works to learn sharia’s criteria for validating relevant evidence—including eyewitness testimony, confession, expert opinion, and circumstantial evidence—and examines the New Testament accounts against it.

Endorsed by scholars at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary in Amman, the book is a new resource for Muslim apologetics and comparative religion. CT interviewed Madanat about liberal source criticism, the divergence in resurrection accounts, and his ultimate hope for Muslims who read his book.

How does traditional Islam look at the Bible?

In principle, they accept both the Old and New Testaments as the word of God, but they believe that they have been largely corrupted. Though they accept that some accounts read today still have some truth, they do not accept the Bible as authentic. This is especially the case for the parts that contradict Islam—mainly the divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus.

How do Arab Christians tend to address these objections?

Most of what I read in Arabic is a polemical approach rather than apologetic. They are more concerned about attacking the ethics of Muhammad and the teaching of the Quran rather than defending the Scripture. I have not seen much done to vindicate the authenticity of the Bible, though some is done in academic circles.

But I must add that Muslim scholars do not provide solid testable evidence that can be argued against. They say the Bible is corrupt, but what is the alternative? The Quran speaks about preserving the divine text, but where then is the authentic text? How did God allow this? When did the corruption happen exactly? To be sure, they do tell a story of the alleged corruption, but it contradicts plain historical facts.

They do not give objective answers to these questions, inviting the polemical reply.

Is this why you wanted to defend the Bible through an Islamic framework?

My task here is not to defend the whole Bible but the reliability of the accounts of crucifixion and resurrection, the backbone of our Christian faith. The libraries of the West are full of conservative responses to liberal source criticism and other critiques, but they do not mean much to most Muslims. Since the Quran says that the Bible is corrupt, they ask: Why should we care about an intra-Christian dispute?

But when I say I want to examine evidence for Chistian claims through the filters of divine Islamic law—it immediately catches their attention.

What is your method?

Islamic law has established strict criteria to examine eyewitness testimonies, but those who experienced the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are long deceased. Their evidence exists only in documentary form—the Gospels. These must be first authenticated, so they can be equivalent to live eyewitness accounts, and then examined. The problem is that…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on December 22, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

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The Best Books for Understanding Islam and Connecting with Your Muslim Neighbors

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The world’s second-largest religion, Islam has long exercised the minds of Christians. Dating to A.D. 610, when Muhammad is said to have received his first revelations from God, the faith quickly conquered Christian lands in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, establishing the two faiths on an adversarial basis that has continued through eras of caliphates, crusades, and colonization.

Muhammad originally viewed his communications with God as a continuation of the message received through the biblical tradition, calling Jews and Christians “People of the Book.” But though the treatment of non-Muslims cycled through periods of peace and persecution, the teaching of the Quran ensured theological distinction. Islam esteems Jesus only as a human prophet and denies his crucifixion.

Yet there is much that unites Christians and Muslims. The five pillars of Islam espouse monotheism, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. Certain expressions desire mystical communion with God, while others pursue pietistic fidelity to his law. Both religions seek to spread the faith and care for society, anticipating the judgment to come. And while adherents to each faith debate the place of militancy, history clearly testifies to the blood shed in the name of God.

While Islam has not experienced the same levels of schism as Christianity, Muslims debate within—and divide asunder—what they call the umma, the worldwide community of Islam.

Muslim diversity is also cultural. Though Islam was birthed in present-day Saudi Arabia and is generally associated with the Arab Middle East, the most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia, and its greatest rate of growth is in Africa. Nearly 50 nations boast Muslim majorities, while large minorities exist in India and China, with Islam established through migrating communities and individual conversion in Europe and the Americas. Each region has put its unique imprint on the religion, and Muslims encounter the same popular tendencies toward syncretism and secularism as experienced by Christians.

In the series of book lists that follows, CT has asked regional experts to select the best resources for evangelical Christians to understand and learn about Islam, both from Muslims themselves and from Christians who have devoted years to building relationships with the community.

The selected books not only offer paths of evangelism but also encourage cooperation for the common good. They reflect the diversity of Islam and, to some degree, the diversity of evangelical approaches toward Islam. While none bear the stamp of our full endorsement, we offer them—to Muslim and Christian alike—in the hope of better understanding, peace, and love between our two communities.

Read well, pray, and discern.

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on December 18, 2023. Please click here to read the expert bios and to explore the different geographic regions. I contributed additional reporting for the article introduction.

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Morocco Earthquake Moves Marginalized Churches to Christian Charity

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Local and foreign Christians have joined in relief efforts following last week’s massive earthquake in Morocco.

Nearly 3,000 people have died, with more than 5,000 injured. Registering 6.8 on the Richter scale, it is the North African nation’s most powerful quake since 1969 and its deadliest since 1960.

But far from the epicenter near the historic city of Marrakesh, gathered believers all had the same question.

“No one ever asks of disasters, ‘Why did it happen to them?’” said Youssef Ahmed, a senior member of Tangier Northern Church, 350 miles away. “But when it hits you, everyone wants to know God’s will.”

The house church service went much longer than usual.

Although Morocco only recognizes Islam and Judaism as domestic faiths, local believers generally say the government permits them to worship quietly in their homes—under a protective but thorough surveillance. Alcohol and pork, forbidden by sharia, are also freely available in the country. About 15 percent of citizens declare themselves nonreligious, while only 25 percent express trust in clerical leadership.

“We are not restricted in Morocco,” said Ahmed. “Just don’t be a nuisance.”

The latest US State Department report on Morocco indicates that, while “undermining the Islamic religion” is punishable with up to five years in prison, there are no known cases of Christians running afoul of the law.

But that Sunday, the former Muslims had other concerns on their mind.

“Why did it happen? We cannot know. Was it because of sin? We cannot know. Was it a test, like with Job? We cannot know,” said Ahmed, who led the lengthy discussion. “All we know is that God allowed it to happen, and his ways are righteous. We keep our faith in him.”

Encouraged in their walk, they went out to serve.

The congregation is a part of the 36-member Union of Christian Churches, which Ahmed founded in 2010. Congregants traveled south with supplies to see what they could do.

Attempting to reach isolated villages in the Atlas Mountains, where many mud-brick homes were destroyed, they were turned back by roadblocks which permitted only relatives to enter. Continuing on to Jemaa al-Fnaa Square in Marrakesh, they encountered a mass of humanity camped out in fear of continuing aftershocks. They quickly joined in with the multitude of Moroccans—and tourists—distributing water and blankets.

Much of the 9th-century UNESCO World Heritage site was undamaged, including the medieval Kotoubia Mosque which overlooks the square. But a less famous minaret had collapsed, as had portions of the 12th-century city wall. Badly damaged also was the earth-and-stone Tinmel Mosque, built by the Almohad dynasty in an Atlas Mountain valley 60 miles away before the Berber caliphate conquered Marrakesh and moved onward to Spain.

One Moroccan pastor estimates the church today is…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on September 15, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

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Sola Scripturas: Can Evangelicals Befriend the ‘Protestant Reformers of Islam’?

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If one pictures “radical Islam,” chances are the image resembles Osama bin Laden, Boko Haram in Nigeria, or the ISIS fighters of Iraq and Syria. And the connotation is that they are out to kill—or at least to turn the world into an Islamic caliphate.

They are known as Salafis: Muslims who bypass accrued tradition to imitate meticulously the example of Muhammad, his companions, and the first generation to follow them. After the death of the prophet in 632 A.D., the nascent faith’s collective zeal established a sharia-based global empire that did not end until the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Muslims who look like these jihadist images are found in every major American community.

Matthew Taylor counterintuitively argues that, at least in the United States, Salafis actually compare better with evangelicals—the religious group with the most unfavorable perception of Muslims in general.

Author of the forthcoming Scripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America, Taylor argues that the Salafi impulse to return to the origins of Islam parallels the evangelical desire to imitate the early church. And both communities, as the title implies, center their approach on sacred text.

The question is: Do the two scriptures take them in radically different directions?

CT asked the Fuller Seminary graduate, now a mainline Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, to address the common concern about Salafi extremism and to advise evangelicals on how to pursue a path of possible friendship:

What makes a Muslim a Salafi?

Salafism has very deep roots in the Muslim tradition, and the term Salaf refers to the first generations of Muslims. The idea is to get back to the original authentic practices and theology of Islam, before the tradition became corrupted or diluted.

The Salafi approach involves a direct approach to texts, a deep interest in the Hadith—a secondary scripture in Islam that includes the sayings and actions of Muhammad and the early Muslim community—and a downplaying of the traditional schools of jurisprudence. This is why many Salafis will analogize and call themselves “the Protestant Reformers of Islam.” They see their project as similar to what Martin Luther and John Calvin did in the 16th century.

Can you tell a Salafi simply by their appearance?

It is easier in non-US contexts. A beard is a strong signal that a man is an observant Muslim. And you’ll find Salafi discourse—based on specific hadiths—as very focused around the length of the beard as more than can be grasped in the hand. Traditionally, they adopt distinctive modes of clothing such as the thobe, a long, flowing robe with pants that come up just above the ankles.

Salafi women almost always wear the hijab and others the niqab, which covers the face. But after 9-11, the American security state had an intense focus on Salafis which prompted a process in which many integrated into the American Muslim mainstream, downplaying distinctive Salafi attire and even avoiding always expressly calling themselves Salafis.

How do they justify downplaying their distinctives? Salafis have a sophisticated understanding of the difference between…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on May 25, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.

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How Should We Then Live Among Muslims? Four Arab Christian Views

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Two Middle East nations share a city named Tripoli.

They share little else, apart from a Phoenician heritage and mutually near-unintelligible dialects of Arabic. One of their starkest contrasts concerns freedom of religion.

Libya sentenced six Christians to death earlier this month for converting from Islam. Lebanon, despite its sectarianism enshrined in politics, allows free movement between religions.

Libya’s Tripoli was commemorated in the official hymn of the US Marines in homage to American intervention on the shores of North Africa. Lebanon’s was an outpost of an eastern Mediterranean–focused American missionary movement that transformed society through gender-inclusive education.

The Italians colonized Libya; the French, Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Middle East is marked by British influence, Ottoman traditions, petrodollar economies, democratic structures, multicultural kingdoms, autocratic republics, and everything in between.

What unites them all is the preponderance of Islam.

But among the followers of Muhammad there is also difference. Some nations are secular; others enforce sharia. Some protect Christian minorities; others discriminate against them. It is difficult to offer a sweeping synopsis—or uniform lessons learned by local Christians.

Yet CT asked four Arab Christian leaders with deep roots in the region to make an attempt. Two currently live abroad; two live in their nation of origin. Yet each represents a space on the spectrum of strategies on how to best live as a Christian in a Muslim society.

One articulation of the spectrum, crafted by theologian Martin Accad, arranges common Christian responses into five categories: syncretistic (the blurring of faiths), existential (the dialogue of diversity), kerygmatic (the preaching of the apostles), apologetic (the defense of the gospel), and polemical (the interrogation of Islam).

The leaders engaged below were not asked to sort themselves accordingly, nor does this landscape article seek to label them. But each was asked the following question:

Whether in a context of oppression or embrace, how should believers in Jesus witness to their faith, keep social peace, and maintain unity with fellow Christians?

Martin Accad / Najib Awad / Harun Ibrahim / Barshar Warda

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on May 17, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.