I have thought about this verse many times. The Bible says that in the last days, BEHEADING will specifically be the primary method by which YEHOVAH's people will be martyred. They will be killed specifically for their "testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God." What exactly is the Bible inferring will occur that will result in a worldwide standard of using beheading specifically, as a means of executing Christians? As I have tried to envision the nature of the end-times and what they will look like, I have often wondered about this verse. There are other passages in the Bible, very similar to this one, that also speak of a future persecution and a global trend of executing Christians for their faith in the Messiah:

Here the Messiah warns his disciples that they will be hated and ultimately put to death as a result of their identification with him. But then there is a prophetic expansion on this prediction. Yeshua says that "you will be hated by all nations because of me." Yeshua specifically predicted a GLOBAL ELEMENT to this future persecution against Christians. This next verse gives us even further insight --

All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you (John 16:1-4).

But in the second part of this verse, the Messiah is speaking of the end times. "In fact", he goes on to say, "the days will come when your persecutors will do far more than merely expel you from a synagogue; they will literally kill you." But the most bewildering and intriguing aspect of this verse is the next portion of the Messiah's statement. He says that those who kill you will literally think that in doing so, THEY ARE OFFERING A SERVICE TO GOD. It is this portion of the verse that is key.

How could someone in today's world literally think that YEHOVAH God demands the killing of other human beings simply because they believe differently? It's such a completely foreign concept to most modern western minds. It is not, however, a foreign concept to history. Both Islam and Catholicism -- and Protestants to a degree -- are guilty of this very thing, murdering those who are perceived to be heretics from what they consider to be the only true religion. Jihad, the Crusades, the Inquisitions -- all fit the bill of murder for and in the name of their God.

One thing is for sure, an absolutely necessary ingredient in any such bloody exchange would have to be a firm conviction that God is on one's side and that He commands such executions. It is impossible to imagine any belief system or philosophy on the earth that could carry out such a thing other than a well-established world religion. While totalitarian regimes are certainly capable of such a thing, this verse specifically says that the ones who carry out these executions will believe themselves to be serving their God in doing so. No, the system that carries this out will be a religious system that views itself as the earthly steward of some form of global divine government. It must view itself as YEHOVAH God's only organization or community on the earth. Only such a scenario can account for the actions that we read about in these verses.

In summary then, when we compare these three verses we get a very specific picture of what end-time persecution and martyrdom will look like. Firstly, it will be GLOBAL. Secondly, it will necessitate a belief system that views itself as having a DIVINELY APPOINTED GOVERNMENTAL ROLE ON THE EARTH. Thirdly, it will involve the SPECIFIC METHOD OF BEHEADING as its primary method of execution. So we have a global religion that will view itself as a divinely appointed system on the earth authorized by God to behead those who refuse to join. As we are about to see, in terms of religious systems that exist in the earth today, only the religion of Islam fulfills these requirements.

Beheadings in the News

Over the past few years we have heard many news reports of foreigners and Christians being beheaded by Islamic radicals in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and a few other countries. As a result, there has been a debate raging about whether or not this practice is indeed "Islamic" -- or if it is merely the barbaric practice of a few radicals who are violating the true principles of Islam. Among the public statements intended to be picked up by the western media are the usual statements denouncing such incidents as having nothing to do with "true Islam." In most cases, the western media gobbles up these disavowals and reprints them without much question. But if we examine not only Islamic tradition and history, but also the "word on the street" feelings of those Muslims who make their opinion known everyday on Internet message and chat groups, we find a much different reality. Islamic message boards all over the Internet have been debating the legitimacy or non-legitimacy of such actions since they have become front-page news stories. An article from CBS News entitled, Saudi Arabia's Beheading Culture, dated June 21, 2004, also picked up on some of this Internet "chatter" --

The only mistake that CBS made is to assume that most of the participants who use such forums are indeed "radicals." Many in these forums presently live in the USA and Canada and many are converts from Christianity. While the writer of the CBS article assumes that because of the barbaric nature of such discussions that the individuals are all therefore "radicals," you will find that many of them are simply individuals who take their faith as a Muslim seriously, just as we take our faith as a Christian seriously. While some of the members of these discussion groups seem to be disgusted and ashamed by the recent rise of beheadings, the overwhelming majority seem to be far more focused on doctrinal issues such as whether the beheadings were done properly -- or if the specific victims were considered enemies or were innocent parties! Sam Hamod, who is the former director of the Islamic Center in Washington D.C., when given the opportunity to chime in on this issue in an article featured in the Washington Times, used the moment not to condemn the beheadings, but to make the point that the men committing the beheadings in Iraq and elsewhere are doing it all wrong!

"You can't do it like the idiots on TV. The right thing to do is slit the person's throat, not cut off the entire head" ("Beheadings Allowed by Islam, but Only in Extreme Situation," by Julia Duin. The Washington Times, June 24, 2004).

Beheading in Islam: Muhammad's Example

When Muhammad began his career of violence and aggression, his band of Muslim warriors was still very small. Caravans traveling back and forth from Mecca and Damascus became Muhammad's favorite soft targets. Because the inhabitants of Mecca depended on these caravans for their life they were more than a bit disturbed after several attacks by Muhammad and his gang of marauders. Finally, men from the tribe of Quraysh came from Mecca to attack Muhammad and his men. This battle, which came to be famously known as the Battle of Badr, saw Muhammad and his fledgling army gain a surprise victory over the Quraysh. Among the people who were slain was Abba Hakam.

Aba Hakam was severely wounded but still alive when Abdullah, the servant of Muhammad, ran up, put his foot on Aba Hakam's neck, got a hold of his beard and started insulting the fatally wounded man whom his own people had named "the father of wisdom." Abdullah cut off Abba Hakam's head and carried it to his master. "The head of the enemy of Allah!" exclaimed Muhammad joyously; -- "Allah! There is no other god but he!" -- "Yea There is no other!" responded Abdullah, as he cast the severed head at the Prophet's feet. "It is more acceptable to me;" cried Muhammad, hardly able to contain his joy, "than the choicest camel in all Arabia" (Ali Sina, The Examples of Muhammad http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sinaawa40621.htm). 

Sadly the blood lust of Muhammad and his followers only increased from here on. In 627 A.D. Muhammad himself oversaw what can only honestly be called a mass slaughter. Muhammad and his army laid siege around the Jewish village of Qurayah. After twenty-five days, the village surrendered, hoping that Muhammad would be merciful to them. Instead Muhammad had his soldiers dig several trenches and forced between six to nine hundred men to march into them. At the hands of Muhammad's soldiers, they were ALL BEHEADED. The trenches became mass graves. From Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul -- Islam's earliest and most well received biography of Muhammad -- we read the gruesome account:

Then they (Qurayza) surrendered and the apostle confined them in Medina...Then the apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches...They were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figures as high as 800 or 900...This went on until the apostle made an end to them (A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, p. 464).

Apparently, after this grisly slaughter, something was awakened in Muhammad. Those 600-900 men from the Qurayza who were beheaded were not enough. Soon after this incident, Muhammad had 400 more Jews beheaded. Muhammad was allied with two groups of men, the Khazraj and the Aus. The Khazraj were in charge of beheading the four hundred Jews but the Aus were standing by on the sidelines. When Muhammad looked and saw that the faces of the Khazraj were taking pleasure in beheading all the men and the Aus were standing on the sidelines, he ordered that the last twelve beheadings be carried out by the Aus:

Khalid said, "O Allah, if you deliver their shoulders to us, I will obligate myself to you not to leave any one of them whom we can overcome until I make their canal run with their blood." Then Allah defeated them for the Muslims and gave their shoulders to them. Khalid then commanded to his herald to proclaim to his men, "Capture! Capture! Do not kill any except he who continues to resist." As a result the cavalry brought prisoners in droves, driving them along. Khalid had detailed certain men to cut off their heads in the canal. He did that to them for a day and a night. They pursued them the next day and the day after, until they reached the Nahrayn and the like of that distance in every direction from Ullays. And Khalid cut off their heads (http://www.muhammadanism.com/Islam/islam_beheading.pdf).

Some of Khalid's men proclaimed to him:

"even if you were to kill all the population of the earth, their blood would still not run...Therefore send water over it, so that you may fulfill your oath." Khalid had blocked the water from the canal. Now Khalid brought the water back, so that it flowed with spilled blood. Owing to this it has been called Blood Canal to this day (ibid.).

Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist, in an article from the New York Post, May 14, 2004 entitled "Chopping Heads", outlines several other incidents throughout Islam's history of the practice of beheading:

In 680, the Prophet's favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid's capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph's soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein's 71 male companions, including the one-year-old baby boy Ali-Asghar.

Thus the pattern had been established and the principle that Muhammad had modeled now came back and touched his own family. Eventually stories of beheading came to fill Islam's history.

The Value of a Non-Muslim Life

The first thing that should be pointed out is that according to Islamic law Muslims are, for all practical purposes, allowed to kill non-Muslims. This is based on the law of Qisas. Qisas is essentially the law of reciprocity. It is the Islamic version of an "eye for an eye." Qisas -- for instance -- states that if a Muslim murders another Muslim, then that Muslim will likewise be executed. Amazingly though, this law DOES NOT apply to a Muslim who murders a non-Muslim! This teaching is found in a Hadith from Sahih Bukhari:

In some cases of course, other penalties such as prison or a fine might be given to the murderer. But sadly, reality bears out the fact that in such a culture that does not value the life of non-Muslims as much as that of Muslims, a blind eye is most often turned to the murder of non-Muslims. If you go to the website of the Voice of the Martyrs at www.persecution.org, or the Barnabas Fund, at www. barnabasfund.org, you can read hundreds of stories, updated daily, of Christians who are mistreated or even murdered without any legal repercussions for the Muslim murderer. The statement below is a perfect example of the mentality encountered when talking to many Muslims from the Middle East. This statement was made on an Internet interfaith discussion group. Notice the attitude toward the killing of non-Muslims (kaffirs):

The kaffirs (unbelievers) have been attacking Muslim countries killing Muslim people from the beginning of time...when we have done nothing. Like the people of Israel attack the Muslims from Palestine because they do it for the land and because they hate Arabs/Muslims...we defend them for Allah. We try and spread Islam, the one and only true word of Allah. They rejected it, therefore we are allowed to kill them. It is not haram (forbidden/illegal) to kill a kaffir. Of course we want to Inshallah (by the will of Allah) peacefully live with them and Inshallah teach them about the beautiful religion (http://forums.gawaher.com/index.php?showtopic=4154&). -- Emphasis mine

Do you see the altogether TWISTED AND PERVERTED MENTALITY expressed in the above comment? The "beautiful religion" that allows the killing of those who do not belong to it?? This is nothing but the spirit of Satan.

The Quran On Killing Infidels

Perhaps the quranic verse that is most often quoted by westerners to demonstrate the violent nature of the Islamic religion is the verse known within and without Islam as "the verse of the sword":

Surah 9:5 (Shakir): So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the obligatory charity, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. --  (emphasis mine)

As many times as this verse is quoted, there has been a Muslim who has stated that this verse is not applicable today. While I would certainly love to believe this, the real question that needs to be asked is: How do the teachers and scholars of Islam interpret this verse? Do they say that it still applies today? The overriding majority of modern and classical Muslim scholars agree that it does.

Remember the concept that the behavior of all Muslims is dictated by both the Quran and the Sunna (sayings, actions and behavior of Muhammad). From Ibn Kathir, the renowned eighth-century scholar, we learn the true Islamic interpretation of this verse. Kathir begins by citing, for support of his interpretation, several eminent early Muslim Hadith narrators/scholars; Mujahid, 'Amr bin Shu'ayb, Muhammad bin Ishaq, Qatadah, As-Suddi and 'Abdur-Rahman. Kathir then explains the meaning of the verse --

Ibn Kathir explains that the purpose of this verse is to

(Guide) the believers to what they should employ in their fight against the idolaters, Allah says, "So, when you meet those who disbelieve (in battle), smite their necks," which means, when you fight against them, cut them down totally with your swords. "Until you have fully defeated them," meaning, you have killed and utterly destroyed them. This is referring to the prisoners of war whom you have captured (ibid.).

So when we examine these verses we see that Muslims are COMMANDED TO BEHEAD (or, at a bare minimum, "smite the necks") of those non-Muslims whom they are fighting against. However, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, judge of the Shari'ah (Islamic Law) court in Great Britain -- as well as the secretary general of the Islamic World League and the spokesman for the International Islamic Front -- has a slightly different opinion --

What's the verdict? "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement" (Joseph Farah, World Net Daily, IslamicTerror.com? Muslim Websites in West Defend Bin Laden, Call for '5th Column', November 13, 2001).

After examining just a sampling of Islamic texts -- as well as the opinions of Islamic scholars, spokesman and everyday Muslims -- we see that Islam not only COMMANDS the killing of non-Muslims but also supports a culture where killing non-Muslims has become an acceptable practice. But before we finish this article, there is one more very specific tradition that will surely come into play if the person of the Mahdi ever becomes a reality.

Death to Those Who Dispute the Authority of the Caliph

The leadership role of a Caliph in Islam is a very powerful concept. The Caliph is viewed as the both the successor of Muhammad, and the leader of all Muslims. The last Caliph that both Sunnis and Shia' accept as justifiably elected was Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. Ali died in 661. Since then many other Caliphs have held office, but none that held the universal sway that the first four Caliphs held. Muslims have been awaiting the restoration of the Caliphate to restore unity and leadership to Islam worldwide. The Mahdi is expected to fulfill this role. From a Hadith in Sahih Muslim we read of the punishment for those who dispute the authority of the Caliph --

The Saudi Arabian Government HOLDS THIS SAME OPINION as well. On the official Saudi Arabian Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) website, we find a similar declaration:

Summary and Conclusion

Now let us review the points that have been made. First, we have seen that the end times as described in the Bible will be a time when Christians will be persecuted and murdered for their faith. The specific manner of death that the Bible mentions for Christians will be martyrdom BY BEHEADING. As we have most clearly demonstrated, it is quite undeniable that BEHEADING is a tradition that stretches throughout Islamic history. Islam itself has thoroughly documented the fact that Muhammad and his immediate successors practiced BEHEADING as the specific means to kill "the enemies of Islam." This practice has continued in certain quarters of Islam to this very day. The Quran itself actually encourages BEHEADING, or at a bare minimum, "smiting the necks" of "idolaters" and any "prisoners of war."

Firstly Pearl is a Jew, a Munafiq, [a hypocrite] a Spy, and a Kaffir [unbeliever]. Do not be fooled by these people. Their hatred for Islam can be seen from their mouths and what their heart conceals is much worse. I do not see where the sick part is in slaughtering...In Islam we...can't even torture the kaffir -- we just slit their throat, and it's proven when you pass a special area in the neck, they no longer feel pain...And remember when we Muslims capture a Muslim munafiq, we do the same to him, we slaughter him. What do you think of a Dirty Jew, Stupid Munafiq, Two-Timing Spy, and a Kaffir? We do the same to him. Walhumdulilah. [Thanks be to Allah] And Remember the Rasoul [Muhammad] slaughtered a great number of Jews in one battle; the best of creation did this, because the Jews backstabbed Prophet Muhammad. And if you think this is still sick, InshaAllaahi [I hope by the will of Allah] you're alive when Mahdi is around cause your going to see many Jew/munafiqqin [Jews/hypocrites] heads on the floor.

Satan is alive and well and carrying out his plan of deception and murder in the form of the religions he has spawned on this earth!

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Preparing the Way for the Return of YEHOVAH God and His Messiah!

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