Georges Houssney is from the Middle East, is expert in Arabic, has been in charge of several Bible translations, and directs large ministry concerns in the Middle East, USA, and Europe. Here, he traces for us how the history of Islam has led to the current environment of worldwide Muslim openness to the gospel. We are seeing Muslim conversions to Christianity like never before!
First, we learn about the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, especially regarding violence and expansion of Muslim rule. We see what happened in the early days of Islam under the first 4 caliphs, Mohammed’s successors. These are followed by powerful Islamic dynasties in various parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe. Areas previously considered “Christian” were overrun in all of these expansions.
Following these, for several hundred years the Ottoman Turks established an empire encompassing much of the land of prior dynasties. They also captured parts of Southern Europe, like Constantinople and parts of the Balkans.
Of course, there was infighting within and between dynasties, but on the whole, the successful expansion of Islam was considered by Muslims to be an affirmation by Allah of their faith.
Within the last hundred or so years the situation dramatically changed:
The Ottoman Empire fell with the First World War. Europe and America then started to gain influence in portions of the world which were previously thought to be solidly in the hands of Muslim rulers. Muslim leaders could not understand how this reversal of power could occur. One response was to dig deeper into the Muslim sources, Quran and hadiths. This response leads to either more extreme behavior, because that is what the documents teach, or abandonment of the faith.
Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood developed an extreme ideology to counter the growing influence of the West in Muslim lands – for example in the 1970s women in Palestine and Iran commonly wore short skirts and no hijab. Fundamentalists felt that Islam was losing territory and a punishment for not following Islam rigidly enough. And so, a backlash movement began imposing the sharia and enforcing it with violence and terror. As a result, even liberalized Muslim countries, like Iran, have become strictly Muslim.
Several significant things have happened in the past few decades that have opened Muslim hearts and minds to the idea that Islam might not be the truth:
- Experience with the brutal legalism of Islam which stifles freedom
- Greater contact with the West and its freedoms, which they see as coming from Christianity
- Dreams and visions sent by the Holy Spirit
These things have combined to make many Muslims very open to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Georges encourages us to take advantage of this openness. In the West we now have many Muslim students, immigrants and refugees. We don’t need raise money to move overseas or learn a foreign language to share with them. God has made it easy for us to reach out to them where we live. Let’s do it! We show you how, step-by-step in our other videos.
(NOTE: This lesson was taped as a bonus to our PALM Project Level 1 training in Colorado, July 2024. If you want to learn more about the training, watch other videos posted on our website or YouTube Channel, or email us to schedule a training near you!)
