There's rioting in Africa, there's strife in Iran. In India and Indonesia, the situation is not much better. Suicide bombers routinely kill innocent people in Israel and Palestinians send their small children to battle. And of course, there's Saddam Hussein. All around the world, Muslims constantly seem to be fighting somebody.
In Nigeria, deadly riots between Muslims and Christians recently forced the Miss World competition to move to London. Over two hundred people died in the clashes, which started because a journalist implied that Mohammed would have thought the Miss World contestants were good looking.
In India-controlled Kashmir, twelve people were killed and over 50 injured during the weekend when Islamic militants attacked two Hindu temples, throwing grenades and firing their way in. Security forces used rocket launchers to end the siege. Kashmir is a constant hot spot for violence between Pakistani Muslims and Indians.
Students in Iran are currently angered at their government's hyper conservative justice system, and are protesting the death sentence of a university professor who said that people should not blindly follow the nation's Muslim clerics. The students have demanded that Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, review the death sentence and end the country's clerical dictatorship.
Widespread violence and trouble by Muslim groups have given the greater Islamic world a bad reputation, which has unfortunately lead to attacks against innocent Muslims who are not connected to any terrorist activities.
Even as reports of continual Muslim violence fill our television screens and newspapers, Christians need to be careful about their attitudes toward individual Muslim people. While governments are instituted to provide military protection against invaders and national enemies, and it is foolish to not strive to prevent terrorists from murdering innocent people, we should not hate the Muslim people. Jesus said, "But I say unto you, Love [agape] your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;" (Matthew 5:44).
Muslims, even the terrorists who seek to destroy Westerners, are human beings whom Jesus died to save. They are trapped in a works-based religion that serves a god who may or may not accept them when they die. They have no guarantee of heaven, no matter how 'good' they try to be. Their god did not send his son to die for them, nor does he offer them freedom from the guilt and power of sin over their lives. The only way they believe they can be guaranteed heaven is to martyr themselves in the name of Allah.
We need to remember to focus on the love that Christ has for these people, and the importance of our reaching out to them. Muslims are hungry for the love of God, and many respond favorably to Christ when they find that He truly cares about them, that he died for them, that they can be sure they can go to heaven. Those who are locked in hatred toward Christians and Westerners need our prayers, that God will break through into their darkness and give them "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6).
As terrorists threaten and seek to cause destruction, may God be praised for the great work He desires to do in the Muslim peoples.
