The Islamic Antichrist (16 page)

But it was not only Muhammad who suspected a demonic source to his revelations; clearly many of Muhammad’s contemporaries also believed that his revelatory experiences were demonic and that he was demon possessed:

“Yet they turn away from him and say: “Tutored [by others], a man possessed!” (Sura 44:14; Yusuf Ali)

And say: “What! shall we give up our gods for the sake of a Poet possessed?” (Sura 37:36; Yusuf Ali)

Apparently it grew necessary that Allah come to Muhammad’s defense and respond to his critics within the Qur’an itself:

No, your compatriot [Muhammad] is not mad. He saw him [Gabriel] on the clear horizon. He does not grudge the secrets of the unseen, nor is this the utterance of an accursed devil. (Sura 81:22–25)

It [the Qur’an] is no poet’s speech: Scant is your faith! It is no soothsayer’s divination: How little you reflect! It is revelation from the Lord of the Universe. (Sura 69:41, 42)

Many scholars have become convinced that Muhammad was either epileptic or demon possessed or both.
⁶
After studying the nature of his revelatory experiences and reading the comments of his contemporaries, this is not surprising. In fact, after discussing some of the specific physical manifestations of Muhammad’s experiences, John Gilcrest, a South African Christian author and well known authority on Islam, finalized his analysis of the various physical phenomena that accompanied Muhammad’s revelatory experiences:

It should be pointed out that men can be subjected to a different type of seizure which very closely resembles epilepsy. During the life of Jesus a young boy was brought to him who was “an epileptic” (Matthew 17:15) and who suffered extreme forms of epilepsy (he would suddenly fall down, be convulsed, and be unable to speak). There is no doubt, however, that this epilepsy was not naturally but demonically induced as all three records of the incident (in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9) state that Jesus exorcised the unclean spirit in the child and healed the boy. Without passing judgment on Muhammad, let it nevertheless be said that anyone subject to occultic influences could well find that seizures similar to epileptic fits would occur at appropriate times and, instead of causing a loss of memory, would have just the opposite effect and leave firmly induced impressions on the recipient’s mind. Throughout the world missionaries have related cases of precisely this nature. To this day such phenomena are not uncommon among Oriental ecstatics and mystics and they are widely reported.
⁷

So while the Apostle Peter describes the experience of the authors of biblical Scripture by referring to men who “spoke from God” as they were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21), Muhammad’s experience was much more direct, ecstatic, and dark. It is important to note that none of the biblical prophets ever questioned the source of their revelations. Muhammad’s experience was far more similar to the experience of a spiritist or someone who channels spirits than the experience of a biblical prophet.

OTHER STRANGE PHENOMENA

Muhammad’s frightening spiritual encounters did not end with these examples. On another occasion, Muhammad was “bewitched,” whereby he believed himself to be having sexual relations with his wives when he was actually doing no such thing. Guillaume notes that one Muslim scholar says that the spell lasted for an entire year. This episode of Muhammad’s life is well documented in Islam’s sacred traditions:

Narrated Aisha [one of Muhammad’s wives]: Magic was worked on Allah’s Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not.
⁸

This absolutely bizarre portion of Muhammad’s life should give pause to anyone who might consider Muhammad a genuine prophet of God—never mind the greatest of all prophets, as Muslims claim. One can only conclude that in order to have fallen into such a delusional state, Muhammad was indeed either demon possessed or significantly ill or both. In light of the occultic occurrences that defined Muhammad’s initial “revelatory” experiences, the conclusion is not hard to arrive at for anyone with any genuine spiritual discernment. Of course the contrast here is stark when we look at the life of Jesus, who,
rather than being given over to any form of demonic influence, instead freed numerous people from such oppression.

CONCLUSION

In the final assessment, we see that Muhammad’s revelations—the seeds out of which Islam sprouted—began amidst a violent and dark encounter with some form of spiritual being in the Cave of Hira. We have also seen that Muhammad’s life contained periods of either significant delusion or blatant spiritual oppression. Note this dimension of Muhammad’s life as we develop the greater theme of this book. Also, when attempting to discern the primary spiritual source of Islam, it is essential to see not only the dark nature of the initial seed but even more so its ultimate vision of the future—its fully mature fruit—as the demonic and anti-biblical revelations that began in the Cave of Hira find their culmination with the killing of every Jew, Christian, and other non-Muslim in the world.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE ANTICHRIST SPIRIT OF ISLAM

W
hile we have already discussed
the actual person of the Antichrist, the Bible also talks of
an antichrist spirit
. Apart from the one direct reference in the Bible to
the
Antichrist, there are four other times that the Apostle John uses the word in a more general sense. Each time it is in reference to a particular spirit. This spirit is defined by its denial of some very specific aspects of Jesus’ nature and His relationship to God the Father. Following are the verses that describe this “antichrist” spirit:

But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1 John 4:3)

Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:22–23)

Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. (2 John 1:7)

From these verses, we learn that the antichrist is a spirit that is identified as a “liar” and a “deceiver” who specifically denies the following:

1. That Jesus is the Christ/Messiah (the savior/deliverer of Israel and the world).

2. The Father and the Son (the Trinity or that Jesus is the Son of God).

3. That Jesus has come in the flesh (the incarnation—that God became man).

THE ANTICHRIST SPIRIT OF ISLAM

The religion of Islam, more than any other religion, philosophy, or belief system, fulfills the description of the antichrist spirit. The religion of Islam makes one of its highest priorities the denial of all three of the points regarding Jesus and His relationship to the Father. In fact, we can fairly claim that Islam is a direct polemical response against those essential Christian doctrines. Regarding the previous points, however, Muslims will be quick to argue that Islam teaches that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. But this is really just trickery. While it is true that Islam does retain the title of Messiah for Jesus, when one asks a Muslim to define what the title “Messiah” actually
means
in Islam, the definitions given are always hollow and fall entirely short of containing any truly messianic substance. In Islam, Jesus is merely another prophet in a very long line of prophets. Biblically speaking, however, the role of the Messiah among other things entails being a divine priestly savior, a deliverer, and the king of the Jews. As we saw in earlier chapters, rather than delivering His followers, the Muslim Jesus leads Israel’s enemies against her and seeks to convert or kill all the Jews and Christians. This would the equivalent of calling Adolph Hitler, rather than Moses, Israel’s deliverer. But the Apostle John informs us that in the last hour, a man is coming who will fully personify the antichrist spirit and deny many of the essential biblical doctrines regarding who Jesus is and what He came to do. That man will be
the
Antichrist.

TAWHID AND SHIRK

In order to properly understand the antichrist spirit of Islam, there are two doctrines that must first be understood.
Tawhid
refers to the belief in the absolute oneness of God. Islam adheres to the strictest form of unitarian monotheism possible.
In Islam, God is utterly alone
. But in order to understand
tawhid
, one must understand that it is more than just a doctrine; in Islam, belief in
tahwid
is an absolute commandment. And if adherence to
tawhid
is the highest and most important commandment in Islam, then the greatest sin is
shirk
.
Shirk
is, in essence, idolatry. From the “Invitation to Islam” newsletter published by a Muslim group from Toronto, we read a very telling statement that helps us to understand exactly how
shirk
is viewed by Muslims:

Murder, rape, child molesting, and genocide. These are all some of the appalling crimes which occur in our world today. Many would think that these are the worst possible offences which could be committed. But there is something which outweighs all of these crimes put together: It is the crime of
shirk
.
¹

Thus many Muslims feel as though believing in the Trinity or ascribing divinity to Jesus are among the greatest sins conceivable. In fact, believing in these essential Christian doctrines is more than just a sin;
it is the most heinous of all crimes
! In the Muslim mind,
shirk
refers not only to the beliefs of polytheists or pagans, but also to the essential historical doctrines of the Christian faith. We will examine these three essential doctrines and how Islam specifically denies them.

ISLAM DENIES THE SONSHIP OF CHRIST

The religion of Islam has as one of its foundational beliefs a direct denial of Jesus as God’s Son. This denial is found several times throughout the Qur’an:

In blasphemy indeed are those that say that God is Christ the son of Mary. (Sura 5:17; Yusuf Ali)

They say: “God hath begotten a son!”—Glory be to Him! He is self-sufficient! His are all things in the heavens and on earth! No warrant have ye for this! Say ye about Allah what ye know not? (Sura 10:68; Yusuf Ali)

They said, “The Most Gracious has begotten a son”! You have uttered a gross blasphemy. The heavens are about to shatter, the earth is about to tear asunder, and the mountains are about to crumble. Because they claim that the Most Gracious has begotten a son. It is not befitting the Most Gracious that He should beget a son. (Sura 19:88–92 Rashad Khalifa)

[T]he Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; [in this] they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say.
Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!
(Sura 9:30; Yusuf Ali, emphasis mine)

The Qur’an pronounces a curse on those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son. People who say such things utter “gross blasphemies” and are likened to “unbelievers” or infidels. Without question then, in this regard, Islam is an antichrist religious system. Remember Jim Hacking’s comments from chapter one? He was the priest in training who converted to Islam. “The thing I’ve always latched to is that there’s one God, he doesn’t have equals,
he doesn’t need a son to come do his work
.” Islam attempts to create an acceptable form of monotheistic worship yet it not only leaves out the most essential aspects of a saving relationship with God, but it also directly confronts these things and calls them the highest forms of blasphemy. “Far be it from God that he should have a son!” These words encircle the inside of the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem—the very location where for centuries God’s people, the Jews, worshipped in their Temple awaiting their Messiah. This is also where Jesus, the
Son of God
and the Jewish Messiah will someday rule over the earth. Islam has built a monument of utter defiance to this future reality.

ISLAM DENIES THE TRINITY

Islam applies the same claim of blasphemy to those who believe in the Trinity: