The Efforts of Evangelism and Orientalism in the Muslim World

Evangelism is an imperialist, political and religious movement that began to appear as a result of the failure of the Crusades in the Muslim world. Its objective is to spread Christianity in the world, in particular in the Muslim world. It also serves political objectives which included control of those countries where they convert people. The factors that helped them include widespread poverty and ignorance specially in the Muslim World. Western influence in these countries due to colonialism also is a big factor. The Evangelists established churches, schools, hospitals, charitable organizations and institutions which are considered Western but were practically aiding in evangelizing the host populations. The weakness in Muslim political leadership has allowed these movements to work in their hosts countries freely, or even being facilitated by Muslim government due to some political gain.

Raymond Lowe was the first person to start evangelizing after the failure of the Crusades. He learnt Arabic, traveled to Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon to debate with Muslim scholars. Another important figure in this movement is Samuel Zwinmer. He headed the evangelizing mission to Bahrain and the Middle East. He was the chief editor of the Muslim World magazine which was published in English and started in 1911. It continues to be published until now from Hartford. He entered Bahrain in 1890 and by 1894 he was fully supported by American churches. The first missionary work he did was under the cover of health. He established hospitals in Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. There is an institute established in his name in the US for evangelizing the Muslims. When he faced a lot of failure in evangelizing the Muslim world he announced the Jerusalem Conference of Evangelizing in 1935. He said to his followers “the missionary work that you have been recruited to do by the Christian countries in the Muslim countries, was not really to bring Muslims to Christianity for they do not deserve this guidance and this honor. But your mission is to bring the Muslim out of his Islamic religion in order to be detached completely from God so that he has no connection with morality which is considered the basis on which nations depend."

The evangelizing mission has been holding conventions including the convention held in Cairo in 1906, which was called by Zwimmer. He gathered Protestant missionaries to think of ways to spread the Bible among the Muslims. There were 62 participants in this convention and Zwimeer was the chair. In 1910, a similar conference was held in Scotland. 159 evangelical organizations of the world attended it . In 1911 a conference was held in Lucknow, India. At the end they distributed a document on the one side which it said “in memory of Lucknow 1911”. On the other side it said “To the one to whom that the Muslim world prostrates five times a day with humbleness and not with compassion, to the Muslim world and the Muslim communities, guide them to salvation through Jesus, the Messiah”, After that several conferences were held in Jerusalem. In 1974, a convention was held in Lausanne,  Switzerland.

The most alarming convention was held in Colorado in 1978 called the North American Compendium for Evangelizing Muslims in which 150 participants attended for two weeks. In it studies on the effects and results of evangelizing projects in the Muslim world were presented as well as suggestions on how to distribute and bring the Bible closer to Muslims. It ended with strategic plan for evangelizing that remained secret and had a budget of $1 billion. 

Some of the institutions the Evangelists built in the Muslim world include the American University of Beirut, American University of Cairo, American University of Khartoum, French College in Lahore, and many such organizations established by the American, German and English. Evangelists issue publications, videos, audios to aid them in their efforts. They establish correspondence programs between Muslims and Christians. They use broadcasting, magazines, Islamic encyclopedias, publications of the Bible, concise and attractive pamphlets for free distribution for those who ask for and for those who do not ask. They have established student houses, youth hostels, clubs, old homes, libraries, camps. They visit the sick in the hospitals as well as the prisoners in jails.

The concentration of their broadcasting stations in the most in the Muslim world. According to a 1975 study, in Indonesia they had 8,919 Protestant churches. 3,897 Protestant priests, 8,504 full time Protestant missionaries, 7,250 Catholic churches, 2,630 Catholic priests and 5,693 full time Catholic missionaries. They hoped to finish the conversion of Indonesia to Christianity by 2000. According to 1978 Compendium, there are more than 50 US missionary organizations in Kuala Lumpur alone. They had 2500+ broadcasting stations using more than 64 languages in Kuala Lumpur. There are 1,0100 missionaries groups in 38 African countries and a total of 220,000 missionaries in the whole world of them 138,000 are Catholic and 82,000 are Protestants. In Africa 119,000 missionaries spend more than $2 billion a year on evangelizing the local populations. They have their own planes, ships, and other modes of transportation. 

They believe are involved in these efforts because of the traditional hostility between Islam and Christianity as they believe that Islam prevented the spread of Christianity when it spread to the three continents in the middle ages. They have a political agenda which is to weaken the Muslims by encouraging them to be distant from Islam and thus control them.. It focuses on spreading their religion through social work and calls of women’s emancipation, human rights, etc. 

It is important for Muslims to understand the objectives of this evangelizing movement. Muslims must educate themselves about their strategies and tactics so that they can neutralize their efforts. Muslims must learn from them and apply similar tactics to spread Islam throughout the world. Muslims must also replace the social services missionaries provide in their own lands with those sponsored by Islamic organizations.

Another group of people who are very dangerous to Islam are the Orientalists The "orientalist" is literally someone related to the East. It refers to the scholarship related to the understanding of the affairs, history, languages, religion, culture and way of life of Muslim societies. This scholarship helped in the Western understanding of the Muslim world. It is aimed at helping the Western imperialism in the Muslim world.

It may have first begun at the time of Islamic state in Spain, or perhaps the end of the Crusades, or maybe event during the Umayyad Dynasty in the second century of Islam. John of Damascus is considered to be the first orientalist. He wrote two books. The first was "Life of Muhammad" and the second was "The Dialogue Between a Muslim and a Christian". His efforts was aimed to enable Christians to debate with Muslims. The most prominent orientalist, Dr Edward Said of US wrote a book called "Orientalism" which was made into a documentary called "Edward Said on Orientalism". He wrote another book called "Covering Islam". He describes Orientalism as a scholarship that is not interested in understanding or coming close to the cultures of the East. Rather it generalizes all  cultures as one culture. It was intended to support the Western hegemony over the Muslim world. He uses the theory of the French sociologist Michel Fuqeux that "knowledge is power" to prove that the Western power and ability to subdue the Muslim world was due to the scholarship of Orientalism. He cites an example when French colonized Egypt they brought scientists from all walks of life to study Egypt, whereas Egypt did not have any knowledge of France. Hence the French were successful in controlling Egypt.

From a religious point of view, Orientalism attached the sources of the Islamic belief system. Their scholarship raised the doubt about the truthfulness of the Prophet (SWAS). They claimed that the hadiths were fabricated as they were made by Muslims in the first three centuries. They wished that after the Muslims give up the Sunnah they will have only the Quran to deal with which can be interpreted in many ways. This, they hoped will break the unity of the Muslims. Also, the majority of Islamic rules from the Sunnah will disappear after discrediting the hadiths. They also crated  doubt in the authenticity of the Quran and thus weakened its authority. The wanted to remove the source of Islam. They attempted to belittle the value of Islamic Jurisprudence. They stated that Islamic law derived from Roman law. They had hoped that Muslims would have to attempt to make a new law and give up the heritage of Islamic law. They belittled the importance of the Arabic language among Muslims arguing that Arabic is unable to catch up with modern thought. They encouraged local dialects to supersede Classical Arabic. They hypothesized that Islam was borrowed from Judaism and Christianity. We realize the differences between these religions. They are there because Islam is authentic while the others have changed. Their similarities are there not because of borrowing but the three religions come from one source  - Allah. The orientalists use weak and fabricated hadiths to attack Islam although they had criticized the validity of hadith themselves. They use their institutions and resources in order to evangelize the Muslims.

The strategic objective of orientalists is to prevent Westerners to fall in love with Islam after their military attempt to destroy Islam failed. They also also have financial/commercial objectives as they realize that knowledge of the East can bring them profits. They have indirect control over the resources of the Muslim world. Politically they are motivated to weaken the brotherhood among the Muslims through their work. They had to divide the Muslims in order to control them. They follow a policy of divide and conquer which they implement by encouraging nationalism. They have pitted Arabs against the non-Arabs as well as divided the Arabs into very many different nationalities. Nationalities help weaken of the Ummah. They sponsored the growth of the local dialects and cultural practices rather than the development of religious knowledge and values as well as Classical Arabic. Western governors and nowadays Western Ambassadors learn the languages, habits and practices of the Muslims before starting their missions. Orientalists were also motivated by gathering intelligence in Muslim countries and provided advice to the enemies of Islam. Some orientalists were motivated to learn for the sake of knowledge. Muslims say that the book of Thomas Arnold - "Call to Islam” - fairly depicted Islam. The French orientalist Rene accepted Islam and lived and was buried in Algeria. He wrote books in support of Islam.

The orientalist movement have published several books, some of which are valuable to Muslims. Of these is the Mujam al Mufahris which is a dictionary of the words of the holy hadiths. It includes an index of words in the 6 authentic hadith books as well as Musnad Ad Darimi and Muwatta Imam Malik. It is published in 7 volume and is very concise and useful.

In a report of one of the British ministers to his government in 1938 wrote "war thought us that Islamic Unity is the greatest danger that the British Empire must fight against."

Muslims must realize that the movement of Orientalism has resulted in the desire and effort to evangelize Muslims, destroy the credibility of Islam. Evangelism and Orientalism work in coordination. Orientalism was based mainly in Europe, but now it is based in the US. It is supported by governments, institutions, businesses and churches. It is dedicated to serve the imperialist enemies of Islam. They work for the establishment of Israel and are able to achieve trust and credibility among the Muslim world. Orientalists are appointed in key positions in the Muslim world. There are many people who are not Orientalists but speak the language of the Orientalists and work for their goals without awareness.

In order to counter the efforts of Orientalism, Muslims must learn Islamic knowledge. When a typical Muslim takes a course in Islam in university, they are taught using books by Orientalists. His teacher is probably also an Orientalist. So he gets a distorted version of Islam and his thoughts become corrupted. Thus the Muslims must equip himself by learning true Islamic knowledge deeply. A knowledgeable  Muslim will know what the Orientalists are saying and counter their arguments. It is not useful to argue about each of their claims but it is important to discredit the authority of the Orientalist, so that people do not see him with respect. Muslim scholars should read what the Orientalists are writing. They should counter that by  presenting the truth about Islam in an attractive and easy language so that people can read without confusion. The style of writing should be such that the normal people enjoy what they read. Finally,  Muslims should carry out scholarship in the Islamic sciences that the Orientalists have monopoly over. They should fill that Islamic knowledge vacuum where only the Orientalist operate. Unfortunately not many bright Muslim minds are active in these areas.