What about these Muslims?
For the March edition of Cross-Cultural Ministry eNews, we will take an in-depth look at Muslim people who have arrived Down Under in the past few decades.
Is the arrival of Muslims among us something to worry about, or is it an opportunity for the church?
Who they are, where do they come from, what do they believe, and how can we respond?
Introduction
Before we dig into the details, I want to speak briefly from the heart.
I grew up with a vague sense that the Muslims of the world were the great challenge to Christianity (along with Communists), and we were sworn enemies with little in common. That started to change for me 30 years ago when I first travelled to some majority Muslim countries and spent time living among them. Since then, I have gotten to know hundreds of people who follow Islam and count many of them as dear friends.
Some things they believe perplex me, but as a group of people, they are endlessly warm, engaging and enjoyable to be with. Conversations easily flow to spiritual matters, and most people I talk with are looking for things we have in common rather than disputes. (It is possible what I am describing is the general culture of Middle Easterners who are hard-wired to hospitality.)
I am hoping this article will encourage you to talk with Muslim people you meet, and a good place to start is to talk about the person of Jesus (Isa in Arabic).
Did you know that Muslims are told that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, performed many miracles, is the Messiah, ascended to heaven and will return? A few things to explore together!
The following link might also help: Sharing Christ with a Muslim friend: practical tips – Christar.
Most importantly, though, we bring the presence of the living Jesus, and he overcomes the barriers.
The census numbers
Recent immigration to Australia and New Zealand has seen more arrivals coming from the Middle East, which explains why we are seeing more Muslim people around the place.
Perhaps you are concerned that we are being ‘overrun’ by these newcomers, so I did a search of census data to check what has been happening. The following graph might help offer some perspective to these trends.
I think the take-out messages from these numbers are:
- There is a definite drop in the percentage of our population who declare as Christians shown here in the blue (perhaps ‘casual’ believers are being a bit more honest about what they tick).
- There is a noticeable increase in the number of Muslim adherents (albeit, coming off a very low base). This can be attributed mainly to the change in source countries within the migrant intake.
- We are not being overrun by people of other world religions, but the ratios are subtly changing.
a. Out of interest, Islam is now the second-largest religious group at 2.7% with Hindus and Buddhists slightly less.
b. Christians still outnumber Muslims 20 to 1 in Australia and New Zealand. - We now have a missional opportunity close at hand, and (frankly) it’s time we live out our faith.
Where do Australian Muslims come from?
Migration from various countries has led to an increase in Muslims since World War II. A quick history of arrivals:
- Under the ‘White Australia Policy’, they initially came from the Balkans (Albania and Bosnia and Eastern Europe) and settled in places like Shepparton and Mareeba (North Queensland).
- In the 1970s, Turkish and Lebanese Muslims followed, and these people mainly settled in Sydney and Melbourne. Today they make up the largest cohorts among Australian Muslims.1
- The 1990s saw an increase of Muslim students arriving from South Asia and South-East Asia (Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia) with some settling here.
- More Bosnian and Kosovar refugees arrived in the late 1990s after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
- Iraqi Arabs and Kurds came as refugees after the Gulf War conflicts, along with Iranians.
- In the 2000s, significant numbers of Afghan Hazaras arrived, and they were followed by displaced Syrians in 2016. These refugees tend to be more traditional, with the women likely to wear head coverings (a factor that means Muslims are more visible in public).
- Currently, 2.7% of the Australian population (approximately 600,000) declare as Muslims and are more concentrated in NSW (Lakemba, Auburn) and Victoria (Meadow Heights/Campbellfield/Dandenong) and South Australia (Kilburn and Salisbury).
Different Islamic groups
Describing a typical Muslim in Australia is about as complex as describing a typical Christian.
Islam and Christianity are similar, in that both have serious followers as well as cultural adherents, and both have many different denominations.
The big divide within Islam is between Sunni and Shia. The majority Sunni group is rooted in the Arab world, while the Shia tend to be more Persian (Iran). The difference between Sunni and Shia is a whole study of itself. (There are about five times more Sunni than Shia.)
Within the Sunni, there is a militant minority group called Salafi (sometimes termed Wahabi). Salafi’s aim is a return to the original form of Middle Eastern Islam. Salafi take advantage of political unrest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia etc (Daesh/ISIS) and will use violence to achieve their goals.
Salafi’s are a minority, but they are vocal, and many other Muslims think they are criminals.
Other subgroups within Islam include Alawites, Ismaili, Sufi, Druze and Ahmadiyya.
Violence in the name of Islam
There is considerable debate among Muslims about whether violence is justified, with the ideas of various subgroups almost unrecognisable to each other. The Koran contains material that (taken literally) would lead a follower to be aggressive, but not all Muslims take a literalist view of these parts of the Koran. Those who like to say that Islam is a religion of peace must grapple somehow with the passages that are not peaceable. A verse often quoted is Quran 5:32: ‘If you kill one innocent person, it is as if you kill the whole of humanity’, and possibly, this is used to ‘cancel out’ other passages.
Christians are rightly concerned about militant Islam, but most violence within Islam is between different Islamic groups, along the lines of the historical conflict between Catholics and Protestants.
World news focuses on disasters, wars, terrorism etc, so news from the Middle East will often mention violence connected with Islam. The actions of a minority can capture the narrative, and this means that you could conclude that the average Muslim is inclined to violence.
This is not true – Muslims are ‘normal’ people like the rest of us. Most are peaceable and some are not.
In the spirit of fairness, a person who literally acted out some Old Testament passages in our present time would raise some eyebrows. We Christians, fortunately, have the New Testament (while Muslims don’t have this message of grace in their writings). We can direct them to the Injil (New Testament) and urge them to read the story of Jesus.
What do Muslims believe?
Arabic is the general language used within Islam.
The Arabic word for God is Allah, and the word ‘Islam’ means ‘submission to the will of God’.
1400 years ago, Mohammad claimed to receive new instructions dictated from the angel Gabriel, which became the basis of the Koran (Quran). These instructions contain many references to stories from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures (often with a change inserted). Next to the Koran, Muslims have the Sunnah, which contains practical examples from Mohammad’s life.
Muslims believe that Mohammad was the last of a series of prophets like Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa), and if Mohammad contradicts the former prophets, his version is followed. Mary the mother of Jesus is revered and called Maryam. Hagar also features and is called Hajar.
Muslims speak of five pillars of their faith:
- the declaration of faith (Shahada)
- praying five (or three) times a day (Salat)
- giving money to charity (Zakah) – 2.5% of income
- fasting during Ramadan (Sawn)
- a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime (Hajj).
Important events in the Muslim calendar include:
- Ramadan – a month of fasting to commemorate the giving of the Koran. The fast is during the daylight hours and finishes with a daily (sunset) meal called ‘Iftar’. Ramadan concludes with a celebration called Eid ul-Fitr (everyone dresses up and greets each other saying Eid Mubarrak).
- Eid ul-Adha – this is the festival of sacrifice and commemorates the event in Abraham’s (Ibrahim’s) life when he offers up Isaac/Isma’il. Mohammad declared that it was Ismael (instead of Isaac) offered, who was spared when God provided a lamb.
- Ashura – an Islamic holiday to mark the day that Moses (Musa) and the Israelites were saved by the parting of the Red Sea. It is also a time they mourn the death of an early martyr dear to the Shia.
The Arabic terms Halal and Haram mean allowed and forbidden. Halal is an extension of the Hebrew idea of ‘Kosher’.
How should we respond?
I think that it’s reasonable that Muslims strongly believe the teachings of their faith persuasion until they have something better to go on. Like Christians, they are told the basis of their faith was given by revelation.2
The simple fact is Christianity and Islam cannot both be true as there are contradictions about crucial points. Questions like the means of salvation (belief in Jesus as Saviour or adherence to law).
The person of Jesus is the gamechanger.
He is alive, and he is the one before whom every knee will bow!
Christians who believe that Jesus is risen and actively engaged in winning the nations can approach Muslim people with real confidence. He is the answer, and we can pray that he reveals himself. We can show his love and engage people in friendship. We can share about the ‘hope within’ – confident that the Holy Spirit is at work.
In the area of interfaith studies, some people (experts) seek to motivate Christians by offering a thorough analysis of the Koran and depicting Islam as a threatening religion. I suspect that this approach merely creates a dislike of Muslim people and causes us to withdraw behind spiritual ‘battle-lines’.
Others will note the rising number of Muslim migrants and urge the government to restrict the numbers of these migrants or urge Christians to pray against these people who are taking over the country.
Each to their own, but I suggest we can approach this with the expectation that Jesus has a plan for good and he is ‘awfully fond of Middle Easterners’.
Craig Heidenreich is the Cross-Cultural Ministry Facilitator for Cross-Cultural Ministry.
Further reading – Sharing Christ With a Muslim Friend: Practical Tips – Christar
1 To add some context – the significant Lebanese Muslim community in Australia is actually outnumbered by Lebanese Christians who came at the same time.
2 Muslims are also directed by references within the Koran to disregard some of the crucial truths of the gospel. The New Testament doesn’t directly refer to Islam (as it was written 500 or so years before), and so Christians look to more general warnings in Scripture about ‘false teachings’ that will draw people away from the true faith.