Islam, a totalitarian religio-political ideology that combines religious beliefs with a body of law and a belligerent nationalistic outlook, is re-asserting itself after centuries of quiescence. The military power of Islam, ferocious and rightly feared for centuries, was broken around the turn of the 19th century. Soon thereafter, most Muslim territories became colonies, client states, or protectorates of Christian nations. The European powers all eventually relinquished their Muslim colonies, but the native regimes that followed were usually secular and modeled after the Western governments that had recently controlled them; these benign governments typically were overthrown by dictators, but the dictators were almost always secularists and, in many cases, socialists. For the most part, they wanted nothing to do with Islam as a governing ideology. There were very few Islamic governments in the Muslim world for several decades. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, founded after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and never a Western colony, long had the most Islamic government in the world. (Close ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia prevented it from becoming jihadist in character, but the Saudis used their enormous oil wealth to peacefully promote Salafist Islam around the world.) Then came the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which a pro-American secularist dictator, the Shah, was replaced by an explicitly Islamic government, a government run by Muslim clerics who sought to implement sharia law as interpreted in the Shia tradition. Although Kemal Ataturk, the leader of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, took elaborate precautions to guard against a resurgence of political Islam in that nation, the past decade has seen the slow death of Kemalism (Turkish secularism) under the Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Last year's “Arab Spring,” saw the removal of several secularist Arab dictators, most notably Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, a long-time friend and ally of the United States, who was replaced by an Islamic government led by the Muslim Brotherhood (and another Salafist party even more militant than the Brotherhood).
In summary, what is happening in the Muslim world is an Islamic revival. Secular governments that had looked to the West for governing laws, principles, and structures are being rejected by their Muslim constituents. They are being replaced, often violently, by governments that look to Islamic law (sharia law) for guidance. Sharia law is a system of law, developed mostly in the 7th through the 10th centuries, derived from the Quran, the hadith (collections of oral traditions about the life and teachings of Muhammad), and the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
The current Islamic revival has many Christians wondering about Islam's place in Bible prophecy. Any discussion of prophecy must begin with a basic methodology of prophetic interpretation. One school, preterism, contends that the prophecies were all fulfilled by events that took place close to the time they were written. Another school, futurism, contends that everything remains to be fulfilled; it is all still in the future, and will take place shortly before the Second Coming of Christ. A third school of prophecy, historicism, contends that many of the prophecies were fulfilled during the 20 centuries between John the Revelator's time and our time. Although preterism and especially futurism are now more popular in evangelical circles, Seventh-day Adventists have always taken the historical approach.
Historicists have generally seen Islam as prefigured in the fifth and sixth trumpets, or first and second woes, of Revelation Chapter Nine. The fifth trumpet, or messenger, which is the first woe (Rev. 9:1-12), is seen as the Saracen or Arab wave of Islamic expansion. The Arab wave destroyed the Persian Empire, stripped the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire of most of its territory, swept away Christian Egypt and North Africa, destroyed a Christian Visigothic kingdom in Spain, and crested in northern France in 732 A.D. at the battle of Tours/Poitiers, at which Frankish forces led by Charles Martel (“the hammer”) defeated a large Muslim raiding force.
The sixth trumpet/messenger, which is the second woe (Rev. 9:13-20), is interpreted as the Ottoman Turkish wave of Islamic expansion. This Turkish wave destroyed the old Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire (when Constantinople, now Istanbul, finally fell to the Turks in 1453), eventually conquered most of Greece and Southeastern Europe, and reached its high water mark at the gates of Vienna in 1529, and again in 1683 when King Jan III Sobieski of Poland defeated the Ottoman forces.
The historical school of prophetic interpretation views Islam as divinely-allowed retribution against the apostate Christianity of the middle ages, that period of 42 prophetic months or 1,260 literal years lasting from 538 to 1798 AD, which was a time when pure, Bible believing Christians were furiously persecuted and the biblical witness was muted, forced to testify “clothed in sackcloth” (Rev. 11:2-3; 13:5). As Uriah Smith wrote, “The Saracens [Arabs] and the Turks were the instruments by which a false religion became the scourge of an apostate church . . . .” and later, “The hordes of the Saracens and Turks were let loose as a scourge and punishment upon apostate Christendom. Men suffered the punishment, but learned no lesson from it.” It was not long after the beginning of the period of Papal supremacy in 538 AD that Muhammad was born (570 AD), and Islam's assault on Christendom began in earnest soon after his death in 632 AD.
Let us now see what John wrote regarding the visions shown him on the Isle of Patmos, and discuss how it was fulfilled by Islam:
And the fifth messenger did sound, and I saw a star out of the heaven having fallen to the earth, and there was given to it the key of the pit of the abyss, and he did open the pit of the abyss, and there came up a smoke out of the pit as smoke of a great furnace, and darkened was the sun and the air, from the smoke of the pit. Rev. 9:1-2
The star that fell from heaven to earth was Lucifer, now Satan (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:14-187; Luke 10:18; Rev. 12:7-9, 13, 17). Muhammad believed his prophecies were inspired by the angel Gabriel (Quran 2:97); in reality, his inspiration came from a different angel, a fallen angel. Satan was given the key to open the abyss, meaning that he was allowed to inspire Muhammad to form a false religion. Like every Satanically-inspired false religion, Islam is a mixture of truth and error. Included among its positives are its acknowledgment of the inspiration of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, it promotion of monotheism, and its strong condemnation of idolatry and any sort of veneration of icons or statuary. But Islam denies the divinity of Christ and denies that Christ died on the cross to save the human race from its sins. These denials are the dark smoke that obscures the saving light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the New Testament, the “abyss” is a dark abode where demons are held (Luke 8:30-31; 1 Pet. 3;19; Jude 6), and a place from which demonic things emerge (Rev. 17:8). After the Second Coming, the lifeless, empty, desolate earth forms an “abyss” in which Satan is locked (Rev. 20:1-3, 7-10). So the abyss is both a dark abode for demons and a desolate place. The term “abyss” in Revelation nine can symbolize both 1) that Islam would emerge from the abyss from which demonically inspired doctrines come, and 2) that Islam would emerge from the desolate desert wastes of Arabia.
And out of the smoke came forth locusts to the earth, and there was given to them authority, as scorpions of the earth have authority, and it was said to them that they may not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but--the men only who have not the seal of upon their foreheads. Rev. 9:3-4
The false religion of Islam was soon to invade Christendom like a plague of locusts—although obviously not a literal swarm of locusts, because such swarms always destroy every green and growing thing. These “locusts” do not injure the grass or the trees. Gibbon notes that Abu Bakr, the first successor (caliph) to Muhammad, ordered his warriors not to destroy palm trees, fruit trees or grain fields, thus fulfilling this part of the prophecy.
Those who lack the seal of God will be sorely afflicted by these locusts. The seal of God is the Sabbath; the Fourth Commandment describes God's creation of the heavens and the earth, and thus establishes God's sovereignty over that creation, and His right to make laws to govern it. (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:8-11; 31:13, 17; Ezek. 20:12, 20. See, also, PP 307). Most Christians of the seventh century embraced the name of Christ while neglecting His laws and precepts, beginning with the Sabbath commandment. They had for centuries been neglecting Christ's commandments while persecuting and killing each other in pointless, inane controversies over the exact mixture of human and divine in the person of Christ.
And the likenesses of the locusts are like to horses made ready for battle, and upon their heads as crowns like gold, and their faces as faces of men, and they had hair as hair of women, and their teeth were as those of lions, and they had breastplates as breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings is as the noise of chariots of many horses racing to battle; and they have tails like scorpions, and stings were in their tails; and their authority to injure men five months; and they have over them a king--the messenger of the abyss–his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek his name is Apollyon. Rev. 9:7-11
The prophecy obviously does not speak of actual grasshoppers, or any other insects. We are here being shown a ferocious warrior nation that specialized in fast-moving cavalry attacks. This mode of warfare was the signature of the Arab Muslim armies, composed of magnificent Arabian horses ridden by skilled horsemen. These fearsome mounted armies rapidly conquered much of the world; within a century after the death of Muhammad (570-632 AD), Muslims had conquered all of Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, and had raided deep into France. Abaddon and Apollyon both mean “destruction” or “destroyer,” and that perfectly describes Satan, his prophet Muhammad—the prophet or messenger of the abyss—and what Islam did to the Persian Empire, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, and the Visigothic kingdom of Spain:
[A]nd it was given to them that they may not kill them, but that they may be tormented five months, and their torment is as the torment of a scorpion, when it may strike a man; and in those days shall men seek death, and they shall not find it, and they shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. Rev. 9:5-6
Islam is a militant creed that prescribes constant warfare against the infidel until sharia law is established throughout the world. However, Islam protects the lives of non-Muslim “people of the book”--Christians and Jews—on condition that they accept the treaty (“dhimmi,” in Arabic) pursuant to which they agree to live in submission to Muslim overlords. (In this respect, Islam compares favorably with the medieval Papacy, which tended to purposefully exterminate heretics and non-conformists in inquisitions or pogroms; the crusade against the Albigenses/Cathars was one such campaign of extermination.) Christians and Jews who live under the protection of the treaty are called dhimmis.
The plight of the dhimmi is not a pleasant one. The details of dhimmitude varied from place to place, but the main features were the same. Since Islamic persecution of the Copts has recently resumed in earnest, we will discuss the conditions of dhimmitude in Egypt that, over the course of about a thousand years, reduced the Egyptian Christians from the overwhelming majority of the population to a small minority of about ten percent. (Interestingly, when the Arabs first conquered Egypt in 641 AD, the Copts found them preferable to their erstwhile Byzantine rulers, largely because most of the Copts were monophysites who were persecuted by the Chalcedonian Byzantine government [monophysitism and Chalcedonianism being competing schools of thought regarding Christ's exact human/divine nature] and the Muslims put a stop to this internecine persecution. Some years later, after the Muslims had consolidated their grip on power, the Copts were introduced to the true nature of Islamic tolerance.)
First, dhimmis are required to pay a special poll tax called the jizyah that Muslims are not required to pay, and typically paid other commercial taxes at a higher rate than Muslims. The jizyah is paid in a humiliating public ceremony at which the dhimmi is slapped in the face or hit on the back of the neck. He was then issued a receipt that allowed him to travel, but if he lost the receipt he was subject to execution. Dhimmis were not allowed to travel without a passport, and any boat transporting a dhimmi lacking a passport was burned.
Second, title to land was forfeit to the Muslims; dhimmis had to pay a land tax called the kharaj to continue to cultivate their own land. The kharaj instantly reduced many of the Copts to destitution. Thousands left the land or converted to Islam. But the Muslim rulers could not afford to lose their peasant class, so they rounded up Coptic villagers and branded them with identifying brands, so that they could not escape their serfdom. For many years, Copts were forbidden to sell their land to Muslims, because that would exempt the land from the kharaj, which the Muslim rulers needed. To discourage mass conversion, the jizyah was extended to new converts to Islam.
In theory, dhimmis are allowed freedom of religion, but they are not allowed to build new churches or repair existing churches. They must worship in quietness and are not allowed to ring church bells, or have singing at church or lamentations at funerals. They were forbidden to proselytize. Disparaging or criticizing Muhammad or Islam is considered a serious breach of the treaty, punishable by death. (When today we see Muslims demand that Westerners not disparage the prophet, they are treating Westerners as already conquered dhimmis; many Western leaders, much to their disgrace, try to accommodate these sharia demands, not realizing that submitting to one sharia demand will only lead to more and still more such demands until submission is complete. Islam means submission.)
A dhimmi man is not allowed to marry or have relations with a Muslim woman; this also is breach of the treaty serious enough to warrant death. By contrast, Muslim men are allowed to marry Christian women. A dhimmi is not allowed to own or carry a weapon. Dhimmis are not allowed to have any authority over a Muslim, nor testify against a Muslim in court. Dhimmis were required to wear special clothing, usually ugly, ill-fitting and ridiculous, to distinguish them from Muslims; they could not wear clothes that Muslims wore, nor certain colors, such as green. The purpose of these clothing regulations was to both humiliate and to easily distinguish dhimmis. Dhimmis were not allowed to ride noble mounts such as horses or camels, but were relegated to donkeys and mules. Dhimmis were not allowed to build houses as high as the houses of Muslims, and often were consigned to ghettos away from the Muslim neighborhoods. Dhimmis were required to stand and remain standing in the presence of Muslims.
The enforcement of the treaty fell to the Muslim ruler of the land, and these varied greatly in the extent to which they enforced it. On many of those occasions when enforcement was lax and dhimmis got too far above their station, however, the Muslim “street” would take matters into its own hands; rioting Muslims would often destroy dhimmi property and kill dozens to hundreds of dhimmis. They reasoned that by ignoring the restrictions of the treaty, the dhimmis had forfeited its protection of their lives.
The bleak life of dhimmitude was indeed “as the torment of the scorpion.” It is little wonder that most of the Copts eventually chose conversion to Islam, and even this route out of their serfdom was not always open to them. But the plight of the dhimmi was better than the fate of non-Muslims captured in raids and in piracy; these were not entitled to the protection of the treaty. Piracy has always been acceptable in Islam, following the example of Muhammad, who practiced brigandage against desert caravans. For hundreds of years, Muslims raided the coasts of Greece, Sicily, Italy, France, and even Ireland. Mediterranean shipping was not safe from Muslim piracy until after the Napoleonic Wars. Captives taken in these raids were booty, the spoils of war. They could be killed or forced to convert to Islam. Typically their fate was slavery, which usually meant concubinage for the women, and often meant castration for the men. Muhammad's example in owning slaves and concubines legitimized slavery, both sexual and non-sexual, for his followers down through history. (One of Muhammad's concubines was “Mary the Copt,” who was gifted to him by the Byzantine governor of Egypt in 628 AD.) Although we think of Islam as the realm of the veil, niqab, chador and burka, slave girls could be exhibited in the marketplace naked from the waist up.
Clearly, during the First Woe, many Christians would “desire to die, but death would flee from them.”