SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Muslim 'Breaking of the Crosses' in Syracuse NY

Muslims cut down, paint over 10,000 crosses to convert former Roman Catholic church to mosque. Plan approved by Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board.

This is surely another sign of our times, a sign of the impending apocalypse. The breaking of crosses and conversion of churches into mosques is widespread in Europe, but not yet so much in America.

The Final Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Syracuse NY (February 2010).

For Christians, it is a reminder of the warning of our Lord Jesus Christ: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).

The number of crosses covered over � 10,000 � is a deeply symbolic, Biblical number, and was no doubt chosen by the Holy Trinity Church founders based on Revelation 5:11, where the seer John beholds the myriads of angels around the throne of God:

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands...

This scene comes immediately after "the Lamb who was slain" (who is, of course, Jesus Christ) takes the scroll with the deepest mysteries of God, sealed front and back with seven seals, and is immediately praised:

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

�You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.� (Rev. 5:8-10)

Following this ecstatic worship of the Lamb by the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, and the prayers of the saints, the "ten-thousand times ten-thousand" worship Him too:

... saying with a loud voice: 

�Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!� 

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: 

�Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!� 

Then the four living creatures said, �Amen!� And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever. (Rev. 5:12-14)

The whole point of chapter 5 of the Apocalypse is to show that the Lamb � Jesus Christ � is equal with God the Father, that He is worshipped just as the Father is, by all the hosts of heaven, all the saints, and by "every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth."

Such is the significance of the 10,000 crosses, and the name of the former parish, Holy Trinity. It was one of the most visible, richly symbolic representations of the Christian presence in Syracuse, and in New York State and the United States by extension.

Though it is certainly a temporal tragedy that such a symbolic church would be desecrated, let the significance of this serve to enkindle our zeal. The collapse of institutional Christianity is happening all around us, but Christ promised us that "Even the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church."

During the desecration of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Syracuse NY.

Desecration accomplished: the former home of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church
is now a functioning mosque. Lord have mercy.

As for observant Muslims, this will be seen as a victory over Christianity, and a powerful sign of Islam's new global resurgence, of Islam's eventual domination over the United States and the Western world, and especially, as an eschatological sign of the end times, when, Muslims believe,

Isa (the Muslim Jesus) will return and "fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish jizya� and establish the rule of Allah throughout the world (Hadith from Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Battles, 37:4310).

Orthodox Christians! Let these dire signs rouse us to fervent faith and love for the Lord and His Church! As Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina wrote:

"Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all."

Syracuse: Muslims cut down, paint over 10,000 crosses to convert church to mosque
Creeping Sharia � August 17, 2015 (Comments in italics below in original post.)

Holy Trinity Church of Syracuse, before the "breaking of the crosses..."

For background on this story, see also:

• Muslim Refugees Take Over Former Catholic Church in Syracuse, New York
• At Holy Trinity's final Mass, a bishop prays, a protest is made, and the pews are packed

ISIS destroys Christian symbols in the Middle East. Boko Haram attacks churches and churchgoers in Africa. In the west, the process is more refined� for now. 

via From church to mosque: Syracuse Islamic group cuts crosses, tries to connect to neighborhood | syracuse.com.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. � Two gray church spires grow out of a bumpy plain of city rooftops along Park Street. The skyline is the same as it has been for the better part of a century until you look closer at Holy Trinity Church: There are slim copper crescents where, for 100 years, there had been crosses. 

The six crosses were removed and replaced at the end of June. Four of them were massive: 600 pounds of concrete each, and more than 4 feet tall. The step was the last, and most visible, in the building�s change from church to mosque.

The transformation has been a series of careful choices aimed at balancing the forces of two religions in a neighborhood that is shifting. The North Side, once full of Italian and German immigrants, is increasingly home to new Americans who are refugees from countries where Islam is the dominant religion. 

Even as the crosses were cut from the church spires on the outside, and 10,000 crosses were painted over on the inside, the new owners of 501 Park St. tried to leave what they could, and reuse what they couldn�t. 

The wood from the pews has been repurposed to fix the floor, which is where Muslims sit to pray. Painters worked to make the minbar, the pulpit where the imam stands, blend in with the stonework. The name of the mosque is Masjid Isa Ibn Maryam, which translates to Mosque of Jesus Son of Mary.

Is this the history we want to leave for future generations? It will be and it will get much worse if Muslim immigration is not halted and/or reversed very soon. More below the fold.

The cost to buy and transform the church was great: $300,000 and counting, said Yusuf Soule, the volunteer director of the North Side Learning Center, which bought the property and is overseeing the mosque construction.

Yusuf Soule, director of the North Side Learning Center, with the desecrated church in the background.

But the physical work and fundraising has been the easy part of the transformation.  

Soule stood inside the mosque, his nearly 7-foot frame diminished by the vastness of the space. The 50-foot ceilings seem higher than they were when there were church pews and an altar inside the building. Painters, paid and volunteer, were up on ladders for weeks, painting over some 10,000 crosses, Soule said. 

The crosses were turned into other designs, or, in some cases, covered over by gray paint so they blended into the walls. 

Covering those 10,000 crosses was a small feat when compared with what it took to remove the crosses from the church spires. That took months of back and forth with the city�s Landmark Preservation Board, submitting and resubmitting plans for removing the crosses and storing them onsite, which the board required. 

On June 29, Paul Waelder rode a crane to the top of the church. Along with workers from Giarrosso Sheet Metal, Waelder spent two days 200 feet in the air, working first with concrete saws to remove the crosses. Then his son, David Waelder, an artist and metal worker, hammered the domes and crescents into place. The crescents are smaller, less than a foot, on top of thin metal spires. They cover up the lightning rods that were part of the crosses and had to be left to protect the building. 

Paul Waelder said the high-profile job came with two stipulations: no talking to the press and no pictures or video of the cross removal. 

Waelder understood. �They had a bull�s eye on their backs,� he said. �They are doing good things over there.�

So good they didn�t allow Waelder to talk to the press or allow anyone to take pictures of the crosses being taken down. Did they not want to catch Muslims cheering? 

Watching the crosses come down off of Holy Trinity was hard for the people who found their spiritual home there, week after week, year after year. 

Anne Angiolillo raised her 10 children spending every Sunday in the pews of Holy Trinity. She opposed taking down the crosses, and cried inside when it was done, she said. 

Angiolillo moved from the neighborhood last year, but when she goes back and looks to the sky now, it seems empty. �They�re missing,� she said. �They really were a landmark.� 

Even now, Soule was reluctant to have pictures taken of the massive crosses. After they were removed from the building, they were carefully wrapped in plastic and cloth. They look a bit like mummies. The two copper crosses, less than 100 pounds each, were easier to remove. They are not wrapped. 

The city allowed Soule�s group to take the crosses down, but it also required them to keep the crosses at 501 Park St. Soule said the hope is that the crosses can be kept in a way that lets the public see them. But the final plan hasn�t been worked out.

Why would the city allow them to take down the crosses then keep them on site? Don�t hold your breath waiting for a plan.

Read it all to notice the inherent Islamophilia in the Muslims-good, Americans-bad puff piece by Marnie Eisenstadt.

Our previous coverage of the church-now-mosque and previous Eisenstadt Islamophilia here.

Timothy R. Furnish: 'Talking Honestly About Islamic Hate Speech'

A summary of the recent Boston University Conference, 'Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad'.

Talking Honestly About Islamic Hate Speech

by Timothy R. Furnish, History News Network � May 9, 2015

Timothy R. Furnish holds a PhD in Islamic history; writes, lectures and consults on Islamic world issues; and blogs on Mahdism and Muslim eschatology at www.mahdiwatch.org.

On May 3-4, 2015, Boston University (BU) was the site of �Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad��a conference jointly sponsored by they BU History Department, Center for Millennial Studies (CMS) and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. The organizer and driving force was Dr. Richard Landes, eminent scholar of medieval European (Christian) apocalyptic thought and director of the CMS until its demise in 2003. This conference, the CMS� last hurrah as it were, brought together the dozen or so American and Israeli researchers into the topics of Muslim apolcalyptic beliefs and movements in the modern world.

Landes set the stage for the conference with his introductory lecture, In which he pointed out that Islamic apocalyptic ideas might be a �bad joke� to some, but in reality they are very �bad news.� The reason so many scholars and analysts prefer the former description is a subset of the worst problem bedeviling Islamic/Middle East studies as a whole today: the fear of the charge of �Islamophobia,� in which writing or speaking about (Islamic) hate speech is branded hate speech itself.

Landes� position�which appeared to be the majority view among the folks attending this conference�was questioned, at times vehemently and indeed increasingly vitriolically, by several participants. The argument---which has become quite tiresome to many of us in the field, frankly�was that connecting modern jihadism and Islamic terrorism to any Islamic roots would somehow impugn all Muslims and place them at risk.

This position was ably refuted by many conference presenters, especially the journalist Graeme Wood, author of the influential article �What ISIS Really Wants� (in the March 2015 issue of The Atlantic). 

Wood�s presentation, entitled �On Resistance to Seeing Global Jihad as Apocalyptic Movement,� discussed the fervor and frequency with which ISIS interviewees would bring up apocalyptic Islamic ideas and how this was motivating them to behead Christians, reimpose slavery and call for attacks on Rome�and the incredulous stares which resulted whenever Wood told his (liberal) journalist friends about this. Beyond that, Wood recounted how many times interlocutors actively tried to refute his data and experience, refusing to accept that any modern Muslims�even members of ISIS�really held eschatological beliefs. (My own research into ISIS led me to conclude, last summer, that it was indeed apocalyptic.)

Dr. Jeffrey Bale, of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, lent scholarly heft to Wood�s anecdotal narrative. In particular, he focused on the phenomenon of �mirror imaging� among Westerners�the tendency to assume that the other �thinks like me,� or at least not too differently (as Wood described encountering). Thus, no matter how many times ISIS or al-Qa`idah or Boko Haram or the Taliban state, unequivocally, that they are waging jihad fi sabil Allah (�holy war in the path of Allah�), unbelieving Westerners try to explain it as really being motivated by political grievances, lack of jobs, or Western meddling in the Middle East.

Others scholars brought data and solid research to bear, on topics such as: the apocalyptic beliefs of ISIS� predecessor group the Islamic State in Iraq; the 1979 eschatological coup manqu� in Saudi Arabia, perpetrated in the name of the Mahdi (Islam�s �rightly-guided one� who will, along with the returned Muslim prophet Jesus, Islamize the planet); the nascent eschatological beliefs of Nigeria�s brutal Boko Haram movement; jihadist millennialists� use of social media; and the apocalyptic content of Hamas� propaganda against the Israelis.

That last topic proved a major bone of contention among the Jewish folks at the conference. At least one presenter simply hectored attendees on the blindness of many fellow Jews to see the clear Islamic roots of much of Palestianian violence�while saying nothing at all about the topic of the conference: Islamic apocalyptic thought. At least one indignant academic returned the favor, upbraiding the other side for �essentializing� all Muslims as violent (which no one at this conference had done, even implicitly)�while also ignoring the topic at hand. The vacuuity of this latter position was reached when, at the final panel, a Pakistani Muslim woman stood up and pointed out that female genital mutilation (FGM) is accepted in all four Sunni Muslim schools of jurisprudence�only to be attacked by the aforementioned panelist, who argued that FGM is only an African tribal custom. When yours truly pointed out the irony that another participant had called for �non-Muslims not to try to define Islam for Muslims��and here a non-Muslim presenter was attacking a female Muslim�I was pilloried, as well. But having long ago left academia, I mostly found the brouhaha amusing.

My own presentation was �Rejecting Millennial Time: the Ottoman Empire�s Wars against Mahdist Movements, 13th-19th centuries.� I discussed how the foremost Sunni state of all time dealt with eschatological challenges to its rule and, sometimes, legtimacy, from state (the Twelver Shi`i Safavid Empire of Iran), non-state (�lone wolf� Sufi Mahdis) and quasi-state (Yemeni Zaydi Shi`I Imams) angles. Ottoman responses ranged from the kinetic (violent force via janissaries) and political (co-opting; limited acceding to demands) to the �soft power� of propaganda and information warfare (fatwas delegitimizing self-styled Mahdis). My major point was that modern attempts to de-fang apocalyptic groups (overt ones like ISIS; quasi-eschatological ones like Syria�s Jabhat al-Nusrah) need to emulate the Ottoman example: that is, actually employ Islamic religious texts (Qur�an, hadiths, scholarly works) to undermine eschatological jihadists (as I first called for in August 2014). Simply labeling them �non-Muslim� will not do the trick.

I first wrote about Islamic apocalyptic in 1997�the year after Landes established the CMS at Boston University�as a grad student, with an article on the famous Arab Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun and his position on the Mahdi. Over the intervening two decades, Mahdism has proved to be not just a relic of Islamic history or a narrowly Twelver Shi`i belief, but a belief deeply held by hundreds of millions of Muslims (both Sunni and Shi`i) and, increasingly, the sharp edge of the jihadist scimitar (as per Wood�s aforementioned article, and my own starting summer 2014). It�s a pity that Landes� CMS has run its course, for as the Islamic year 1500 AH (after hijrah)/2076 AD approaches, Muslim eschatological fervor�almost certainly to include jihadist leaders thinking themselves the Mahdi�will only increase.

Links to all the videos of the presentations are being made available on Tim Furnish's Mahdi Watch. I have posted several of them here at Facing Islam.

VIDEO: 'Refusing to Take Islamist Ideology Seriously'

Dr. Jeffrey Bale lays out the ideological blinders of too many analysts and politicians today.

Nowhere Man--American Policy Toward Islam Is At Your Command
Timothy Furnish,  Mahdi Watch � May 21, 2015

One of the best lectures from the Boston University conference on Islamic apocalyptic is up--although it does not, ironically, really deal with the main topic of the venue.  Dr. Jeffrey Bale, eminent expert on terrorist ideologies across the board at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (CA), talked about "Refusing to Take Islamist Ideology Seriously."

John Lennon's lyrics, "he's as blind as he can be/just sees what he wants to see," aptly describe (too) many analysts of jihad and terrorism today--and Jeffrey Bale lays out the ideological blinders of these Nowhere Men and Women.

VIDEO: Timothy Furnish � 'Rejecting Millennial Time: The Ottoman Empire's 700-year War against Mahdism'

The usual Ottoman kinetic response to Mahdist rebellions started with the janissaries--but often this was supplemented with IO/IW in the form of fatwas and other religious salients.

Video of Tim Furnish's presentation at the recent Boston University Conference, "Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad."  The introduction by Richard Landes is noteworthy for his high estimation of Dr. Furnish in this formerly obscure but now frighteningly relevant field of Islamic Eschatology and Mahdi Movements.

This is a profound talk, which touches on Sufism and other Islamic sects, complexities of Ottoman rule, and an array of related topics which are of great help in informing our understanding of the Islamic State and its apocalyptic ambitions.

The COIN of the Ottoman Realm Spent Against Proto-ISIS Groups

Timothy Furnish, Mahdi Watch � May 19, 2015

"My lecture from the Boston University conference on Islamic apolcalyptic movements, "Rejecting Millennial Time: The Ottoman Empire's 700-year War against Mahdism" is up. [Scroll down for video.]

"Its two main points are that 1) eschatological/Mahdist groups are not new with ISIS, but have been around for centuries; and 2) the counter-insurgency (COIN) methods employed by the Sunni Ottoman state to fight such Islamic challenges to its rule are instructive for Muslim regimes today."

Link to video:
Rejecting Millennial Time: The Ottoman Empire's 700-year War against Mahdism

VIDEO: Graeme Wood speaks on the Islamic State's Apocalyptic Motivations

Courtesy of Timothy Furnish at Mahdi Watch:

'Atlantic' editor and writer Graeme Wood describes pushback on his now famous article 'What ISIS Really Wants' in a lecture entitled 'On the Resistance to Seeing Global Jihad as Apocalyptic Movement'.

Recorded at the Boston University conference 'Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad' (May 3-4, 2015).

Very special thanks to Tim Furnish for sharing this at his site, Mahdi Watch, where he is posting links to videos from the Boston conference. I will be posting some of the other talks in the days ahead.

Boston University to host Millennial Studies Conference on Islamic Eschatology, May 3-4

Boston University is hosting a conference on Mahdism, May 3-4, entitled 'Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad' with some impressive speakers, including Islamic history and eschatology scholar Timothy R. Furnish, whose articles are often featured here at Facing Islam.

The two other speakers with whom I am familiar are:

• Graeme Wood, author of the recent landmark article in The Atlantic, 'What ISIS Really Wants'
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, fearless ex-Muslim and author, whose new book is titled, 'Heretic - Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now'

If you are able to attend, by all means make every effort, as this promises to be a significant event. Anyone attending, I would be very interested posting your review, summary and impressions of the conference. Contact me through my profile listing in the left-hand column.

Tim exuberantly shares, "My paper is entitled 'Rejecting Millennial Time: The Ottoman Empire's 700-year War against Mahdism in its Realm'.  I'm honored to be sharing the stage with the likes of the august folks listed above!"  

Read more of Tim Furnish's preview of his talk at his website,  MahdiWatch.

Below are the highlights from the Boston University Event Listing:

_______

#GenerationCaliphate

Apocalyptic Hopes, Millennial Dreams and Global Jihad

May 3-4, 2015, Boston University

Sponsored by the Center for Millennial Studies, Boston University History Department and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Most Westerners associate the terms apocalyptic and millennial (millenarian) with Christian beliefs about the endtime. Few even know that Muhammad began his career as an apocalyptic prophet predicting the imminent Last Judgment. And yet, for the last thirty years, a wide-ranging group of militants, both Sunni and Shi�i, both in coordination and independently, have, under the apocalyptic belief that now is the time, pursued the millennial goal of spreading Dar al Islam to the entire world. 

In a manner entirely in keeping with apocalyptic beliefs, but utterly counter-intuitive to outsiders, these Jihadis see the Western-driven transformation of the world as a vehicle for their millennial beliefs, or, to paraphrase Eusebius on the relationship between the Roman Empire and Christianity: Praeparatio Califatae.

The apocalyptic scenario whereby this global conquest takes place differs from active transformative (the West shall be conquered by Da�wa [summons]) to active cataclysmic (bloody conquest). Western experts have until quite recently, for a wide range of reasons, ignored this dimension of the problem. 

And yet, understanding the nature of global Jihad in terms of the dynamics of apocalyptic millennial groups may provide an important understanding, both to their motivations, methods, as well as their responses to the inevitable disappointments that await all such believers. 

The now defunct Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University (1996-2003) brings to the public one final conference on apocalyptic beliefs, co-sponsored by the BU History Department and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).

This event is free and open to the public.

*All events will take place in the Stone Science Building (645 Commonwealth Ave), room B50

Selected Work

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Read �Those Who Love Death: Islam�s Fatal Focus on the Afterlife� from Heretic (2015) Here

Jeffrey Bale

Read �Islamism and Totalitarianism� (2009) Here

Read �Political Correctness and the Undermining of Counterterrorism� (2013) Here

J.M Berger

Read �The ISIS Twitter Consensus� (2015) Here

Paul Berman

Read �Why is the Islamist Death Cult So Appealing?� (2015) Here

Cole Bunzel

Read �From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State� (2015) Here

Timothy Furnish

Read �Days of Future Mahdism Have Not Passed� (2013) Here

William McCants

Read �The Sectarian Apocalypse� (2014) Here

Graeme Wood

Read �What ISIS Really Wants� (2015) Here

More info and full conference and speaker schedule here...

For ISIS, �All Roads lead to Rome�

The Islamic State caliphate has its sights set on large Christian targets, aims to �break the crosses�, both literally and metaphorically.

by Ralph H. Sidway

ISIS shows their black flag flying
over the Vatican.

The Islamic State has named many targets, including the �lands of al-Haramein� (two holy places), i.e. Saudi Arabia, and Spain. But its most significant goal seems to be Rome.  

When the Islamic State released its video in February of the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians on the coast of Libya, they titled it, �A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross.� After the slaughter, the speaker says, �And we will conquer Rome, by Allah�s permission��

Italian officials immediately reacted, warning �ISIS is at the door.� The Washington Post reports that, 

Our Italian allies... are responding with the correct initial steps, including placing portions of both their military and the capable Carabinieri paramilitary forces on higher alert, adding more nautical patrols between Libya and their southern islands; sharing intelligence throughout NATO and European Union/Interpol channels; and publicizing these measures to appear a more hardened target.

The Libyan coastal area which the Islamic State used for its bloody �Message� is only 109 miles from the island of Lampedusa, and just 300 miles from Sicily; from there it�s just a short jump to mainland Italy. But it may not take an actual invasion force from the Islamic State in Libya to launch a terrorist attack. The enemy may already be taking up positions inside Italy.

Islam threatens Rome once more.

Barbie Latza Nadeau of The Daily Beast reports that Italy saw �a 64 percent increase in illegal migrant arrivals by sea since last year. In all of 2014, more than 170,000 people arrived from Libya and Turkey, the highest number ever recorded.� Even worse, defense analysts warn that Italy has never been so exposed to an attack, due in large measure to heavily armed sea-based smugglers melding with those illegal migrants. Nadeau adds that �The Office of Migration in Rome says there could be as many as half a million people in camps waiting to come to Italy and the unrest will push them out faster.� 

In short, an ISIS attack on Rome is by no means far fetched, and if attempted, would be a symbolic attack on Global Christianity.

ISIS certainly understands the importance of symbolism. The Islamic State has demonstrated by the frequency and magnitude of their heinous atrocities as well as through their slick magazine �Dabiq� and their savvy social media proselytizing that they are masters of the Big Symbol. Tens of thousands of Muslims from Western nations are not leaving their relatively easy lives to join up with just any jihadist group. And they do so knowing they may be engaging in a generational struggle, an �Islamic Hundred Years War�, a concept the Islamic State embraces in its issue of �Dabiq� titled �The Failed Crusade�:

�We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women� If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market... The Islamic State will remain until its banner flies over Rome.�

Through targeting such Big Symbols, caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State are winning the ideological war and drawing large numbers of new recruits, because they are convincing. ISIS has the courage of its convictions, and in each new issue of �Dabiq� and each video, each Tweet, it further makes its case that the Islamic State is not just pointing to a future apocalypse, but that it is ushering in that apocalypse right now, today, and for observant Muslims that means each day brings them closer to Islam�s ultimate victory.

"It�s not just about jihad, it�s about the times we live in, in which Muslim expectation is rapidly being whipped into a distorted Islamic parousia frenzy..."

This is heady, intoxicating stuff, as Graeme Wood pointed out in his landmark article in The Atlantic. Joel Rosenberg phrased it even more directly, stating �The biggest threat now is not Radical Islam. It is �Apocalyptic Islam�.�  For more in depth theological underpinnings of both Sunni and Shia eschatological dreams, you may wish to plunge into Timothy Furnish�s Mahdi Watch archives, as he has been warning about this like a voice in the wilderness for years now. What Raymond Ibrahim does for demonstrating historical continuity in Islam�s treatment of non-Muslims over the centuries regardless of geography, epoch, language and race, Tim Furnish does in assessing the chiliastic hopes of this manic, totalitarian religion.

All these watchtower voices are crying the same alarm: It�s not just about jihad, it�s about the times we live in, in which Muslim expectation is rapidly being whipped into a distorted Islamic parousia frenzy, with anticipations of the rise of the Dajjal, the return of Isa (the Muslim Jesus), the revealing of the Mahdi, and the eventual ushering in of an Islamic paradise on earth.

Just as a prairie fire sweeps across the acres ever more rapidly, so Muslims are being swept up in this sense of living in apocalyptic times. Even the ordinary Muslim working his job or raising her children may become instilled with a sense of Divine Purpose beyond their humdrum daily grind, a Manifest Destiny for the End of the Ages, and a thrilling anticipation of the ultimate triumph of Islam over all the world, and over all the unbelievers. 

"The very demographic swaths of the Western Muslim community we had hoped were most �moderate� are proving to be every bit as susceptible to the Jihadi Apocalyptic Virus as front-line ISIS mujahideen."

The proof of this Muslim �Apocalyptic Fever� is in the demographics: the Muslims flocking from Western countries to join the Islamic State include not just testosterone-jacked young men, but also successful medical students from England, �straight-A, normal� teenage girls, and even young Muslimas with their school-age children. The very demographic swaths of the Western Muslim community we had hoped were most �moderate�  � affluent, professional, second generation children of immigrants as well as converts � are proving to be every bit as susceptible to the Jihadi Apocalyptic Virus as the front-line ISIS mujahideen. 

The Islamic world hasn�t had such a feeling since 1979 and the Islamic revolution in Iran, if even then. More likely one would have to go back to the period leading up to the Muslim defeat of Constantinople in 1453 to sense this same pent up fervor and taste of impending victory. When the Imperial City fell to its Islamic invaders, that pent up fervor exploded in an orgy of raping and pillaging which lasted for days. Islam�s capture of the Big Symbol of Eastern Christendom launched a new epoch of Muslim supremacy.

Which leads us back to Rome. 

The Eastern Christians did not think of themselves as �Byzantines�. That is a later appellation applied by historians using the older, pre-Constantinian name of the Imperial City. Rather, the Eastern Christians thought of and called themselves �Romans.� Constantinople was the capitol of the Roman Empire, eastern though it was. Even the Ottomans called their Orthodox Christian subjects the �Rom�.

The city of Rome and the city of Constantinople were always linked in Islamic thought and targeting beginning from the days of Muhammad himself, as seen in a hadith cited by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of Islam�s most prominent contemporary imams: 

�The Prophet Muhammad was asked: �What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya [i.e., Rome]?� He answered: �The city of Hirqil [the Byzantine emperor Heraclius] will be conquered first� � that is, Constantinople�.�

The aforementioned scholar of Islamic history and eschatology, Timothy Furnish, cites some of the many eschatological hadiths which serve as the fountainhead for Islamic State�s apocalyptic dynamo:

The relevant hadiths (too long to reproduce here) are explicated thusly:  

�Muslims will be at war with the Roman Christians�.the Christians of Europe and their colonies�.There will be a pause in this war due to a truce�.During this time the Muslims and Romans will fight a common enemy [presumably the �Safawis,� or Twelver Shi`is of Iran and Iraq]�.These events all lead up to the final, greatest, and bloodiest battle�al-Malhamah al-Kubra�between the Muslims and the Romans prior to the appearance of the Dajjal and the descent of al-Masih [Jesus].  This battle ends the era of the Roman Christians, as the Muslims will then advance upon Constantinople and thereafter Rome, to conquer the two cities and raise the flag of the Khilafah over them.�  

Constantinople was attacked and laid siege to by Muslim armies in 674-678, barely more than forty years after Muhammad�s death, and again in 717-718, but she successfully fought off both. Rome herself was sacked and the Vatican defiled in 846 by Muslim brigands; Sicily was conquered by the Muslims in 902, and was held for over 150 years until the Norman incursions began in 1061. Europe�s long memory recalls Italy�s struggles against Muslim forces during the first few centuries of the Islamic era.

Furnish continues his analysis of ISIS� goals:

But according to IS exegesis, they won�t stop there.   The new caliphate, either before the Mahdi comes or, perhaps, after his arrival, also will conquer Jerusalem and eventually �destroy the filthy house called the White House.�  Along the way the armies of jihad will �break your crosses and enslave your women.�  

The Islamic State�s vow to �break the crosses� is a direct quote from a primary apocalyptic hadith where Muhammad is said to have prophesied Isa�s (the Muslim Jesus) return:

Isa will �fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish jizya� and establish the rule of Allah throughout the world.� (Hadith from Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Battles, 37:4310)

�Breaking the crosses� means destroying Christianity and its global influence, one city, one village, one church, and even one believer at a time if necessary. The Islamic State seeks ultimately to crush the hearts of Christians everywhere, to break the Power of the Cross in the hearts of the Followers of Jesus. 

To this end, ISIS keeps the Big Symbol, the Big Cross � Rome and the Vatican � squarely in their sights. 

If you think their recruiting has been successful thus far, imagine what a large scale Islamic State terrorist attack on Rome and the Vatican would do. 

The Madness of Our Age

When Truth is the new �Hate Speech�, and True Islam is not Islam

by Ralph H. Sidway

Coptic Icon of St Anthony the Great

In the �Sayings of the Desert Fathers�, that collection of the wisdom of the early Christian hermits, there is recounted a saying of St. Anthony the Great, founder of monasticism:

Abba Anthony said that the time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will rise up against him and say, �You are mad, you are not like us.�

It seems to me that this saying is inextricably linked to a prophetic warning Jesus gave to his disciples during the Last Supper:

�The time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.� (JN 16:2)

Christians � especially those in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan� well, really throughout the entire Islamic world, according to the Open Doors 2015 World Watch List, which reports that 80% of the fifty worst countries for persecution of Christians have a Muslim majority � as I started to say, Christians may be forgiven for taking Jesus� words to apply to our own day and age. After all, in case after case, Christians are targeted, persecuted, kidnapped, raped, killed, their churches burned or bombed, crosses broken off, all because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. 

And in the vast majority of attacks on Christians, there is heard the infamous �Allahu Akbar,� the Muslim jihad battle cry meaning �Allah is greater.� As Raymond Ibrahim persistently points out in his reporting on Muslim Persecution of Christians, these attacks are often in direct response to Friday prayers at the local mosque, where firebrand imams whoop it up with their own �Allahu Akbar�-ing.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the Islamic State, is not merely an educated man, he is a fiqh scholar, which means he knows Islam, and is able to issue fatwas, religious rulings. He must be presenting a compelling case, as he is convincing tens of thousands of Muslims to leave their comfy homes and jobs in the West (and in Muslim nations) and join up with ISIS to expand the nascent caliphate.

Much of their jihad involves persecution of Christians, but the Islamic State is not the only Muslim group targeting the followers of Jesus. Look at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whose followers have been known to rampage through buses and trams checking passengers� wrists for tattoos of the cross, the telltale sign of Coptic Christians, and kill them on the spot. Then there is the Taliban, and of course the chief group to give ISIS a run for their money in terms of sheer ferocity, Boko Haram in Nigeria (who have just recently pledged their loyalty to caliph al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State).

Time does not permit us to go around the globe in our survey, but suffice to say that each of these Muslim groups are striving to adhere to Islam in something approaching its purest form, and they proudly cite the Koran and the example of Muhammad as mandating their actions, including verses even some Westerners are beginning to recognize:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Sura 9:29) 

Kill the mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. (Sura 9:5) 

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Sura 8:12)

Of course, persecution of Christians is not the Islamic State�s sole objective. That may be merely a tactical component of their overall jihad strategy to usher in the Islamic �end of days�. But whether tactics or strategy, it is all driven by their intoxicating (for more and more Muslims) brew of �Apocalyptic Islam�.

Yet how does the West respond to this global tidal wave of Islamic jihad?

With a pathological denial which can only be described as a form of madness.

Devout adherent of the 'Religion of Peace'
with its holy book, the Koran.

After each Islamic atrocity, as if on cue, whole phalanxes of authority figures � from the President and Secretary of State and directors of our national security agencies, to media figures, professors and educators, entertainers, and even Christian leaders, bishops and priests � march out with their trite, patronizing statements defending Islam and claiming that ISIS and Boko Haram and the rest are distorting and even demonizing the �religion of peace.� The sane person begins to feel he has somehow wound up in Bizarro World, where everything is backwards. The cognitive dissonance is stunning.

All these authority figures are telling us not to trust what we plainly see. Yet that is not enough. 

The ones with political power are ever more ominously threatening us, with not so subtle hints at free speech restrictions, censorship, and hate crime prosecutions. Recall that the only person to serve jail time in the wake of the 9/11/12 attacks on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi was a Coptic filmmaker in the United States, whose video �Innocence of Muslims� was blamed by President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the �spontaneous protest� which took the lives of four Americans. As President Obama said at the United Nations, �The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.� 

In the view of the Islamic State, Boko Haram, and observant Muslims the world over, the mere existence of Christian communities in Islamic lands is an insult to Islam. For Muslim zealots, Christians must be given the three choices: convert to Islam, or submit to Islamic rule and pay the jizya and �feel themselves subdued,� or if neither of those, then they must be killed.

Indeed, we are truly living in the times Jesus foretold, as Muslims who kill Christians clearly �think that they offer God service.� 

And we are likewise living in the time Abba Anthony spoke of, as Western leaders retreat ever deeper into their intellectual cocoon of jihad denial, even as they target �men of good sense� who strive to warn and educate about the threat of Islam itself.

For Christians, the times call for perseverance in keeping the faith in the face of rising persecution. And for all people still possessed of common sense and integrity, the times call for courage and virtue to continue to speak the truth to power, even as the madness increases all around. 

In our times, preserving one�s faith, hope, love � and sanity � is perhaps the most important victory.

Islamic State destroys churches, smashing crosses and icons

The smashing of crosses and destruction of churches is a harbinger of Islamic apocalyptic dreams, and stems from Islam's deep hatred of Christianity, as seen in this hadith:

Muhammad said: "There is no prophet between me and him, that is, Jesus. He will descend (to the earth)... He will fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill swine, and abolish jizya. Allah will perish all religions except Islam." (Sunan Abu Dawud 37.4310)

ISIS Destroys Assyrian Churches, Hostages Still Being Held

AINA, March 16, 2015

ISIS has posted pictures, on its twitter accounts, of its members destroying the St. George Monastery in Mosul. The pictures show ISIS members using sledgehammers to smash crosses and icons, and removing the cross from the dome and replacing it with the black ISIS flag.

ISIS captured Mosul on June 10, 2014 and immediately destroyed or occupied all 45 Assyrian churches and other religious institutions in the city.

ISIS also destroyed Assyrian archaeological sites, including the walls of Nineveh and the cities of Nimrud and Khorsabad.

In Syria ISIS attacked 35 Assyrian villages in the Hasaka region, capturing at least 300 Assyrians and destroying at least 5 churches, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua.

After two days of heavy clashes Assyrian and Kurdish forces regained the Assyrian villages of Tel Mighas and Tel Misas. The Church of Saint Sargis in Tel Tamar was been destroyed by ISIS, who burned the bibles and broke its cross. This church has been liberated and is now under the control of Assyrian and Kurdish fighters.

Hostages still being held

ISIS is still holding 52 Assyrian families, nearly 300 people, who were captured in the initial attacks on February 23. No progress has been made in the negotiations for their release in the last three days.

Biggest Threat Now is not Radical Islam. It is 'Apocalyptic Islam'

"For the first time in all of human history, we have not just one but two nation states whose rulers are driven not by political ideology � or even mere religious theology � but by apocalyptic, genocidal End Times eschatology."

Related:

• All articles by Islamic Eschatology Scholar Timothy Furnish
• �What ISIS Really Wants�- Review of Graeme Wood�s article in The Atlantic.
• Persecution of Christians a Significant Indicator of Future World Chaos

The biggest threat now is not Radical Islam. It is 'Apocalyptic Islam'. Let me explain. 

by Joel C. Rosenberg, February 27, 2015 - (hat tip to John B.)

Joel C. Rosenberg addressing the National Religious

Broadcasters Convention (photo credit: NRB)

(Nashville, Tennessee) � Yesterday, the Christian Post published the following article: �ISIS, Iran Are Agents of �Apocalyptic Islam� Paving Way for �Islamic Messiah,� Says NYT Bestselling Author.� I hope you will take a few moments to read it and consider the analysis.

Last night, I discussed this subject in more detail at the closing dinner of the National Religious Broadcasters convention. Here are excerpts from those remarks. I also promised to post stunning research data on the End Times beliefs of Muslims from a 2012 Pew Research Center study. You will find those numbers below.

�����

THE THREAT OF �APOCALYPTIC ISLAM�

The threat we face is not simply from Radical Islam. Indeed, it not even primarily from Radical Islamic groups like Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and al Qaeda at this hour, as serious as these threats are.

The most serious threat we face in the Middle East and North Africa is what I call �Apocalyptic Islam.�

This term � �Apocalyptic Islam� � is one that each of needs to become familiar with and begin to teach others. Why? Because for the first time in all of human history, we have not just one but two nation states whose rulers are driven not by political ideology � or even mere religious theology � but by apocalyptic, genocidal End Times eschatology.

The Islamic Republic of Iran today is ruled by an apocalyptic, genocidal death cult. (see also here and here)

So is the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. (see here and here)

The former are Shia. The latter are Sunni. Both believe the End of days has come. Both believe their messiah � known as the �Mahdi� � is coming at any moment. Both are trying to hasten the coming of the Mahdi. Yet each has entirely different strategies to hasten his arrival or appearance on earth.

ISIS wants to build a caliphate. Iran wants to build The Bomb. ISIS is committing genocide now. Iran is preparing to commit genocide later.

In the near term, ISIS is more dangerous. Why? Because ISIS is on a jihadist rampage right now. Robbing. Killing. Destroying. Enslaving. Raping. Torturing. Beheading. Because ISIS is a Satanic movement. This is not mere terrorism. This is genocide. These are demon-possessed people making blood sacrifices to their god and if they are not stopped they will murder millions and bring down one Mid-eastern regime after another.

As Americans, we dare not turn a blind eye to this threat. If we don�t defeat the jihadists over there, they are coming here. We must act, and act now.

Longer term, Iran is the most dangerous, especially if the President approves this disastrous nuclear deal that is emerging. Why? Because the apocalyptic leaders of Iran are biding their time to build a nuclear arsenal capable of killing tens of millions of people in a matter of minutes.

Far too few people in the West truly understand the nature and threat of Radical Islam. Fewer still are aware of � much less understand � the nature and threat of Apocalyptic Islam. Indeed, many dismiss these concerns all together. But the fact is that a deep and widespread belief exists within the Islamic world that we are living in the End of Days, and that the Islamic �Mahdi� or �messiah� is coming at any moment to bring Judgment Day and the end of all things.

According to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, �in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, more than half or more of Muslims believe they will live to see the return of the Mahdi.�

Consider that sentence again � �more than half.� In a world of 1.5 billion Muslims, that means more than 750 million Muslims believe not only that the Mahdi is coming, but that his arrival is imminent.

• In Egypt, 40% of Muslims believe the return of the Mahdi is imminent.
• In Jordan, 41%
• Among Palestinians, the number is 46%
• In Iraq, a stunning 72% of Muslims believe this

What�s more, an enormous number of Muslims believe that Jesus is coming back to earth. In their eschatology, however, Jesus is not the Savior. He�s not the Son of God. He does not come to reign as King. Rather, Islamic End Times theology posits Jesus as the deputy, serving under the Mahdi, and forcing all people to convert to Islam or die.

• In Jordan, 29% of Muslims believe Jesus is coming back to earth
• In Egypt, it�s 39%
• Among Palestinians, the number is 46%
• In Iraq, an eye-popping 64% of Muslims believe Jesus is coming back.

These facts have real-world implications. Our President and many policy-makers are ignoring both the facts and their implications. But we must be clear: we face a threat from Radical Islam which seeks to attack us. We face an even greater threat from Apocalyptic Islam which seeks to annihilate us.

Is Islam Really 99.981% Terrorism-Free? Refuting Fareed Zakaria on ISIS

by Timothy R. Furnish, Mahdi Watch, February 22, 2015

Muslims the world over await the Mahdi's return.

Fareed Zakaria penned a rather inane article in �The Washington Post� last week, entitled �The limits of the Islamic label� (which he adduced at length in his �GPS� show this morning).  The point therein: to criticize Graeme Wood for his �Atlantic� article, �What ISIS Really Wants,� in which the latter dares to state that ISIS is profoundly Islamic, and even apocalyptic, in its belief system and actions. Zakaria supports President Obama�s Machiavellian �terrorism means never having to say �Islam� � strategy on the grounds that it avoids alienation of 1.6 billion Muslims, and takes Wood (and those of us like-minded) to task with the metric that ISIS�s 30,000 members only comprise .0019% of the world�s Islamic population.

But ISIS isn�t the only terrorist organization which adduces Islam as its raison d�etre�it�s only the most brutal.  I scrutinized the data on the other three dozen major terrorist groups which are Islamic, on the US State Department site as well as several others, and came up with a rough membership number for all the non-ISIS Sunni Muslim terrorist groups of some 65,000.  Adding in ISIS�s 30,000 puts the global Sunni dedicated terrorist ranks into the 100,000 range�especially when we consider that State enumerated the membership strength of a number of these entities as �unknown:� it�s certainly reasonable to estimate that these half-dozen groups (which include the likes of al-Qa`idah [AQ] central and the Abd Allah Azzam Brigades) count several thousand adherents.  

But wait, there�s more that refutes Zakaria�s specious claim.  

The core ISIS ideology centers around several key Islamic concepts: Islam as the only true religion; the need for a caliphate to rule all Muslims and impose shari`ah; the necessity of not just da`wah but jihad to achieve those ends; the belief that the Qur�an should be literally followed, even if need be to the point of beheading opponents.  This interpretation and articulation of Islam is virtually synonymous with that of the Wahhabis of the Arabian peninsula, the Deobandis of the Indian subcontinent, and even, arguably, apolitical piety-minded �missionary� groups like Tablighi Jama`at [TJ]. Active Wahhabis number at least 5 million in the Gulf; Deobandis make up some 20% of Indian Muslims (30 million) and 20% of Pakistani ones (35 million); and TJ�s membership has been put in the 20-80 million range (see my entry on this group in the World Almanac of Islamism).  In addition, while Wahhabis and Deobandis can all be subsumed under the category of Salafism, not all Salafis are Wahhabis or Deobandis�and this latter category would include at least 10 million more Muslims.  

Even taking the lowest estimates for Wahhabis, Deobandis, TJ members and Salafis, we arrive at a count of some 95 million.  This comprises about 6% of the world�s total Muslim population�or, since we�re actually working here only with the Sunni population, about 8% of  the world�s 1.36 billion Sunnis.  (Yes, there are Twelver Shi`i terrorist groups�notably Hizbullah�but such tend to be as much nationalist as Islamic, and they are rarely as brutal as the Sunni terrorist ones, plus, they are not as enamored with imposing shari`ah, much less a caliphate.)  

Furthermore, according to Pew data, large minorities�indeed, majorities in some parts of the Islamic world�believe not only that shari`ah is ordained by Allah, but also that components thereof such as cutting off hands for stealing or stoning for adultery should be the law of their lands.  This differs very little from ISIS ideology.

Likewise for apocalyptic beliefs: some 42% of the world�s Muslims, or about 670 million people, indicate they expect the Mahdi to come in their lifetime; and a further 35%, approximately 560 million, say the same about the return of Jesus. [Pew results here.]

Quite a far cry from Zakaria�s .0019%. 

Fareed Zakaria finished his �WaPo� piece by citing an Egyptian-turned-terrorist, then pontificated that �calling him Islamic really doesn�t help you understand� why this chap did so.   Au contraire, Mr. Zakaria: it helps very much,  despite your sophistic attempts at muddying the analytical waters.

�What ISIS Really Wants� � A brief review of Graeme Wood�s Feature Article in the March issue of The Atlantic.

by Ralph H. Sidway

Graeme Wood�s 11,000 word article on the Islamic State hit the blogosphere like a bomb this past week. Thank God.

One of my friends and co-strugglers immediately posted a link to the online edition on his Facebook page. And Robert Spencer over at Jihad Watch posted this stirring assessment of its importance:

This is an extraordinary piece, as it represents one of the first, if not the first, mainstream media acknowledgment that... jihadis use the texts and teachings [of Islam] to justify their actions and make recruits, and make a case that obviously convinces many young Muslims, that they represent the truest and most authentic expression of Islam.

The publication of Mr. Wood�s extremely cogent and informed piece couldn�t be more timely, arriving the same week as the President�s �Summit to Counter Violent Extremism�, whose false premises it ably refutes.  Wood�s work is made all the more compelling through his in depth interviews and face time with ISIS supporters from Australia and Britain, through whom he conveys the supernatural allure, the �pull� which ISIS exerts upon Muslims who begin to buy into its end-times theology. This journalistic aspect of the article balances the analytical, and makes it real for us, putting a human face on ISIS. 

Wood begins with the following sub-title:

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here�s what that means for its strategy�and for how to stop it.

Mr. Wood�s three sentence subtitle is less publishing tag or hook and really more of a thesis statement, and he begins his defense of this thesis by asking a few �simple questions,� the what and where, and the motivation question, showing immediately he is not afraid to assign blame where the facts lead:

...Few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State�s appeal. �We have not defeated the idea,� he said. �We do not even understand the idea.� In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as �not Islamic� and as al-Qaeda�s �jayvee team,� statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

Wood sets out to �understand� the idea, the allure of ISIS, and determines fairly early on in his article:

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic� the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Beyond this, through his research and his lengthy interviews and face time with dedicated supporters of the Islamic State in both Australia and Britain, Wood discovers that the very nature of the caliphate itself exerts an enormous pull on Muslims:

The caliphate... is not just a political entity but also a vehicle for salvation. Islamic State propaganda regularly reports the pledges of baya�a (allegiance) rolling in from jihadist groups across the Muslim world� The Muslim... who dies without pledging himself to a valid caliph and incurring the obligations of that oath, has failed to live a fully Islamic life�  

After [ISIS leader] Baghdadi�s July sermon [in 2014, announcing openly the caliphate], a stream of jihadists began flowing daily into Syria with renewed motivation.

After his exhaustive and far ranging analysis, he makes a case for supporting �quietist� Salafis, whom he defines as those who believe it is wrong to cause division among the ummah, the Muslim community, and therefore are very reluctant to get involved with politics, pledging allegiance to the principles of Islam, but not to a caliph.

Of course, Wood acknowledges that even quietist Salafis may discern at some point that a caliphate does have divine sanction, and would at that time give it their allegiance. Wood bravely tackles this hypnotic pull of ISIS and the caliphate for Muslims, drawing a surprising parallel with Hitler and Nazism:

In reviewing Mein Kampf in March 1940, George Orwell confessed that he had �never been able to dislike Hitler�; something about the man projected an underdog quality, even when his goals were cowardly or loathsome. �If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.� The Islamic State�s partisans have much the same allure. They believe that they are personally involved in struggles beyond their own lives, and that merely to be swept up in the drama, on the side of righteousness, is a privilege and a pleasure�especially when it is also a burden. 

Fascism, Orwell continued, is 

�psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life � Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people �I offer you a good time,� Hitler has said to them, �I offer you struggle, danger, and death,� and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet � We ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.� 

Nor, in the case of the Islamic State, its religious or intellectual appeal. That the Islamic State holds the imminent fulfillment of prophecy as a matter of dogma at least tells us the mettle of our opponent. It is ready to cheer its own near-obliteration, and to remain confident, even when surrounded, that it will receive divine succor if it stays true to the Prophetic model. Ideological tools may convince some potential converts that the group�s message is false, and military tools can limit its horrors. But for an organization as impervious to persuasion as the Islamic State, few measures short of these will matter, and the war may be a long one, even if it doesn�t last until the end of time.

The only hope as a secularist which Graeme Wood can give is that it will be a long, slow struggle against ISIS. But as Christians, we hope for something more decisive, more redemptive. But what does that mean for us? 

From within the living tradition of the Orthodox Christian Church, we have holy and revered recent elders who themselves prophesied that we are nearing the end of this age. Their message to us in our time of such apocalyptic incarnations of bloodthirsty Islamic jihad would be that it is only the faithful living of an authentic Christian life in the Church which imbues us with divine grace sufficient to see us through. 

Keying on the apocalypse, on signs of doom and gloom, are not what we are to be focused on, even though the entire world be engulfed in flames. Christ gives us general signs of His Coming to help us be prepared, telling us to �Watch.� But we are to watch so as to be ready for Him, and we are to persevere in faith and love however long that may be, for 

"He who endures to the end shall be saved." (MT 24:13)

In our age, when �men�s hearts fail them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth� (LK 21:26), it is Jesus Christ Who consoles and strengthens us with the promise of His return:

"Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near." (LK 21:28)

Graeme Wood�s article is definitely one of the most significant contributions to understanding not only Islamic jihad and ISIS, but the apocalyptic dreams of Islam itself, which will continue to convulse Middle East and indeed global politics and events for some time to come. I highly recommend it.