Islamic Hip-Hop?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 09:48AM 
According to the Times Online (UK), Islamic hip-hop artists are taking the call for the Caliphate (Islamic empire) and the Ummah (Islamic state) to the streets (Click here: Islamic hip-hop artists are accused of indoctrinating young against the West - Britain - Times Online).
"HIP-HOP and rap artists are teaching young Muslims the ideology of radical Islamism through songs about the war in Iraq, the oppression of Muslims and the creation of an Islamic state governed by Sharia, or religious law. Intelligence agencies have identified music as a `tool for indoctrination'. The phenomenon began with an American group called Soldiers of Allah. The group has since disbanded but its music and lyrics remain popular on the internet. Other groups in Britain, France and the US have been identified as giving cause for concern. Many use the derogatory term `kufur' to describe non-Muslims.
Madeleine Gruen, an American intelligence analyst, highlighted the lyrics of a British group called Blakstone as a possible gateway to extremist politics. Ms Gruen has studied how music, internet forums, boardgames and fashion have been used to radicalise youths. She said: `The music is very persuasive because it is giving young people ideas, and those ideas are what might motivate someone to become a jihadi. The material is all in English. It’s spreading a radical message to domestic populations that don’t speak Arabic or Urdu.'
Ms Gruen said that Blakstone’s lyrics echoed the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT), the Islamist political movement. Blakstone operates from an industrial estate in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. The group could not be contacted yesterday. In an interview last year, its founder, Ahmed Ashley Welbeck said that the music was `about the underdog' and offered `a middle way' between Muslim tradition and street culture.
Last night, a spokesman for HuT said that it had no formal links with Blakstone or any other rap groups. He said: `Our message is out there, it is very widespread and it is hardly surprising that groups might pick up on it. HuT is a more traditional political movement. We use conferences, websites and leaflets, but rap music is not one of our things. There is a lot of anger out there, especially about the Iraq war. Our challenge is to channel that frustration and anger into political activism."
Here are some of the lyrics . . .
"Yesterday I was dreaming I dreamt of The State we made, a place with purpose and meaning. I saw my people they were smiling not grieving, I saw our kids they were safe they were breathing . . . And no more talk of war and of bombs to drop, under Allah’s Shade and Shield and fearing not. No more bleeding due scheming dogs on thrones, whom plot with foes to spread woes, the stench of rot. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. I look around and all I see today is poverty and misery from systems ruling over me with blasphemy. Their tool, kufur rule it’s a catastrophe"
From Close 2 Me, by Blakstone
"No Khalifah [Islamic state] Where are we heading? Without Islam we’re stressing, implement Allah’s blessing, that’s what I am addressing. Apart from this kufur scheme. Bring Islam back to the scene. Let’s unite the Ummah [Muslim nation], following only the Koran and the Sunnah. Even if all the kufirs got together, they still couldn’t stop this Ummah. We love Islam More than we love life."
From Bring Back Islam, by Soldiers of Allah
________________
This is yet another wake-up call. It won't be long before this is an issue in every American city. Let us pray for confidence in the gospel and boldness in proclaiming it. The cross always trumps the crescent!
Kim Riddlebarger
Not to be left out on this potentially great means of outreach, the Episcopal Church has just published a "hip-hop prayer book" (h.t. Gene Veith). It includes the following version of the Lord's Prayer (Click here: Welcome to Church Publishing)
Psalm 23 as adapted by Ryan Kearse
The Lord is all that, I need for nothing.
He allows me to chill.
He keeps me from being heated
and allows me to breathe easy.
He guides my life so that
I can represent and give
shouts out in his Name.
And even though I walk through
the Hood of death,
I don't back down
for you have my back.
The fact that you have me covered
allows me to chill.
He provides me with back-up
in front of my player-haters
and I know that I am a baller
and life will be phat.
I fall back in the Lord's crib
for the rest of my life.
Reader Comments (19)
"This is yet another wake-up call. It won't be long before this is an issue in every American city."
Anyone else notice lately how wake-up call happy we are these days? If I had a dime for every wake-up call I am supposed to heed, religious and non-, "I'd never have to ring the front desk for one" ever again.
Every American city? I don't know, sounds a tad paranoid. I have hard time seeing a bunch of ranting Muslims hippity hoppiting down main street of Mayberry and seeing it actually "take."
PP
I think we should regard Pastor Kim's words. His remarks about the issue moving into every American city is certainly true! Islam is an evangelistic religion. It is also a very fast growing religion, mostly by birth.
What happened during the medieval age in Europe is happening again. Millions of Muslims are flocking to the cities of Europe, London, Paris, Berlin, just to name a few. They come to bring Europe under the confines of Islam! They say that the west has failed. Christianity has failed.
Muslims from the Middle East have many weapons. One of the big ones is money. Lots of it. Secondly they will offer society a faith that I actually believe many will accept. Polygamy, abortion, hatred for Jews and Christians, just to name a few.
They are coming to bring their gospel. We'd better be ready as a church to meet their challenges! Oh that a Samuel Zwemer would arise once again!
Anybody hear the new Cat Stevens' album yet?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1036050
Yussuf Islam, as he is known now, has made an impressive come back. This time, with a particular purpose: to educate unawares about the peace-loving Muslim religion. The album is called "I Have No Cannons That Roar."
I sure wish we had him in our camp -- this guy is still a very captivating artist! Not only that, he sounds very nice and sincerely devoted to good things.
We need to consider his influence seriously, I think. Beauty and softness are powerful allies to promote evil.
Robin
Don’t get me wrong. I certainly appreciate the realities of the big, bad world out there. But it’s out of my appreciation for a complicated world that I am not one easily given to what I consider rather simplistic “wake up calls.” A lot of this rhetoric sounds eerily close to the kooky rapturists (the end is near! Get ready to be spirited away to the clouds!), only it has its eyes set on more earthy concerns (the end is near! Here come the Muslims to eat you children and burn your churches!).
I guess it sounds really exciting to think that what happened in a romanticized past is happening now, Keith. And perhaps there are some very strong parallels. Everyone wants to be a part of something sexy. But I am just suggesting a step back and a deep breath.
Again, I appreciate all the feelings it can generate to see Hip-Hop Islam thumping down the street and what that might mean—especially in our day. But the rhetoric here is borderline alarmism, I think. I further think that good, Reformed confessional orthodoxy can do much, much better. If it wants to contrast itself to kooky American forms of Revivalism and be cast as a sound and sober faith, it may very well want to dispense with “wake up calls” and temptations to merely demonize another faith; as plainly false as it may be, orthodoxy needs no help from us to make the point by employing alarmism. That goes for anyone, as well, who longs for the “goodl’ days” when Mormons were the “bad guys.” Most seem to want to use that powerful word “cult” to describe Mormons (or other socially acceptable, yet clearly unorthodox, group). Anyone sensitive at all to language knows that “cult” brings with it all sorts of inappropriate connotations meaning kool-aid, bullets, suicide, compounds, incest and just plain absolute nuttiness. The Mormons I know, while couched in falsehood after falsehood, are not cultists. But I suppose I will now be accused of “defending Islam and soft-peddling Mormonism.”
It always escapes me why folks need to make false religions more of an enemy than they already are—insecurity? Feelings of inferiority? The fact that we live in such a comfy church age that we need to fabricate enemies, sort of like forcing someone on top of you and holding on while yelling “help!” I don’t know, maybe all that.
It’s just odd to me that those who want so much not to be associated with American Evangelicalism/revivalism (and rightly so) use the same obnoxious rhetoric, that’s all.
PP
Calvin, http://www.dr-fnlee.org/docs6/calvislam/calvislam.pdf
, and Luther http://www.dr-fnlee.org/docs/loiatp/loiatp.pdf , did a lot more demonizing of Islam than KR. How does that fit in with your view that "Reformed confessional orthodoxy" should do much, much better?
Thanks for the link.
I guess I wouldn't characterize Calvin here as demonizing. I think he does what ought to be done with any falsehood and takes it on based upon its merits. And I would hazzard that KR has this capacity as well, no doubt. That is why I find it troubling to demonstrate on the one hand a higher level of critique and then one that tends to be much more low-brow. Be careful, Walt...I get the sense (and I could certainly be wrong) that you may assume that just because I am not sold on what I perceive as relatively careless rhetoric is not the same as some sort of wholesale endorsement of falsehood. I say that because it is my experience that many seem to think that just because one does not join in the rock throwing one is sympathetic to the falsehood per se. Sometimes we do need a mirror held up to our own blights, don't you think? Or do we get a pass for less-than rhetoric merely because we are on the right side?
One also has to keep in mind that it is isn't always easy to make one-to-one comparisons between how a figure in one time and place engages with another. For one thing, in Calvin's day people actually cared about theological issues. In ours, not so much really. So when the Reformers called popes dogs, etc. I think the atmosphere was much different and the language was simply more acceptable. I would guess you don't call your RC friends dogs? Or your Mormon neighbors pernicious idolaters? Those terms mean something different than perhaps they did then. Again, don't mistake me for wanting to take the edge off the truth like the Liberals and Evangelicals do. I'd like to cram the Canons down my Evangelical family's throat if I could and let loose on their awful twisting of soteriological truth. And I would like to lay all the problems of today's church at their feet and point my finger at them. After all, they are flat wrong. But I don't.
So ask yourself...why DON'T I rail like a madman against my Muslim, RC and Evangelical neighbors and friends? I think it will be because you actually agree with me fundmanetally but want to be also very clear about what you believe is right and wrong. Well, you don't have to nurture the latter sentiment with rhetoric.
PP
Short answer: no.
I am not sure I quite understand the question, other than to take a swipe and jot all I say down to petty "can't we all get along" emotion. It should be somewhat clear to you that I am no fan of this dogma.
"You were the one who started off complaining that he wasn't being consistent with Reformed confessional orthodoxy because of his "rhetoric.""
Yes, I did 'start it' (I guess). But in case I have not been clear, I am not saying he is inconsistent, rather that he could do better, that's all. Consistency and "doing better" are two different things. My point is just that when you are right, like we are, you really don't need to resort to rhetoric. For example, if my friend is absolutely convinced that the sky is green and not blue, I really don't have to resort to tactics that make him look unintelligent, weird, scary, out to get me, etc. He has a blindness that is obvious, and that fact needs no added impugning by me to make the truth of his blindness that much "more truthful."
You seem to want to fight, Walt. I was just airing my opinion.
...wait, wait, wait...you and I have gone around this tree before...that's right. Sorry, I forgot! Thanks for the responses, Walt, but I really don't think you have gotten me here. I know you think you have, but you just can't seem to appreciate one iota of what I have said.
Oh, well.
PP
The word "cult" is no perjorative - it's descriptive. A cult is a movement centered around the teachings of one man (Joseph Smith, in this case.) Note: Christianity is a cult in the sense it works the same way. Our devotion is centered upon the teachings of Jesus. The difference is, Jesus is the One True God - whereas Joseph Smith (one of many anti-christs) insists Jesus is not.
Opinions are freely allowed, of course. But I pray maturity leads us past that. The assumption that scare tactics are at work here, is simply mistaken.
The true Christian church has always been at war with the world. And we know our weapons are not as the world uses. 2 Cor. 10 says: For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Meanwhile, the point in this thread directs to a scary situation: a powerful dogma that expresses in real physical danger; is highly motivated to engulf all differing dogmas, using violence if necessary; recruiting under a guise of peace and wisdom.
There are no Chicken Littles here. We are Amillenarians. This means, though we are thoroughly optimistic that the Kingdom of God prevails in the Gospel -- real threats to the material freedoms in the City of Man are our business. The Captain of Our Souls will appear in the nick of time to judge the world, raise the dead and make all things new. (Once again, Christ comes to save the earth.) Until that moment, his warriors are ordered to engage the Enemy as directed: make thoughts captive to the knowledge of God.
We wage war in the battle for ideas, with gentleness and respect.
"The word "cult" is no perjorative - it's descriptive. A cult is a movement centered around the teachings of one man (Joseph Smith, in this case.) Note: Christianity is a cult in the sense it works the same way. Our devotion is centered upon the teachings of Jesus. The difference is, Jesus is the One True God - whereas Joseph Smith (one of many anti-christs) insists Jesus is not."
My point was how the word is used in the common vernacular. Try to dispense with purely academic definitions of terms for a moment, as useful as they are. I am betting that plenty of you have Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" on your bookshelves and that orthodox Christianity is not listed there while Mormonism is. Per your definition it ought to be, but it isn't. When I use the term strictly speaking, yes, Mormonism is a cult. And I would go one further than you (and I bet you'd agree) that the men around those teachings are not divine as Jesus is; that distinguishes Christianity from all others. But back to my main point with which you seem to take issue. Most folks do not live and speak in strict terms. And in my experience within Evangelicalism and some Reformed circles is that the term is used in its pejorative meaning to lend to the fact that they are illegitimate, wanting to lend "images of Waco" to those with whom we are plainly at odds.
"Opinions are freely allowed, of course. But I pray maturity leads us past that."
I am not sure I understand this phrase...
"The assumption that scare tactics are at work here, is simply mistaken."
I will admit that this site does better than the Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism means to diminish. But I do wonder just how much of it has been shaken off when phrases like "wake up call" and sentiments like "it's coming to every American city" are employed. Again, it sounds a lot like Reformed versions of sandwich board-end-is-near nuttiness of the revivalism meant to be diminished. My opinion...you and I are free to be right or wrong!
"Meanwhile, the point in this thread directs to a scary situation: a powerful dogma that expresses in real physical danger; is highly motivated to engulf all differing dogmas, using violence if necessary; recruiting under a guise of peace and wisdom.
Yes, you may have noticed that I try to make it clear that I am not naive to the very real threats this sort of thing poses in various ways. But so do a lot of things in this big, bad world. My point is that it helps nothing to stir up sentiment that one is worse than another. Everything is opposed to the Gospel, nothing more or less than another.
Also, you mention above that you wish we had the likes of Cat Stevens "on our side." What's that mean? Does it mean that you wish we Reformed Christians could be relevant and utilize the worldly methods of power, influence, celebrity and devotion to good things like pop music to convert instead of word and sacrament? If so, isn't that sort of what folks like WHI et. al. rightly criticize? If so, perhaps you have no real problems with contemporary Evangelicalism as it promotes itself through the very same things?
PP
You're a nitpicker. You're typical of people coming on websites of faithful ministers of the gospel that look for tiny things to disagree with just for the the sake of disagreement. I'm glad you've taken up residence under this bridge. It's fun interacting with you.
"You're typical of people coming on websites of faithful ministers of the gospel..." You seem to imply that I have something against "the faithful Gospel." If it helps you any I listen regularly to WHI and read all of KR's sermons, etc. with gladness. I have no axe to grind against the Gospel, Walt. You seem to imply that any critique of a figure like KR is to come against the Gospel. I was offering up some thoughts on some comments and expressed sentiments. You didn't like them. Fine. But some charity and more honest diagreement goes a lot further than devolving into name-calling and accusation.
"...look for tiny things to disagree with just for the the sake of disagreement."
Hmmm, obviously I wouldn't put it that way. I agree with more in what I find here than I disagree. But how fun is it to just say Amen to everything? I hope to not succumb to name-calling, I find your disposition typical of those who simply want to shoo away whatever might challenge.
I will say for us what you won't (can't?)...we simply disagree on what is behind the "wake up call" sentiments, that's all.
If you have read this far, have a good weekend. I suppose I would not call our exchanges so much fun as frustrating, Walt. But it has been interesting.
PP
"My point was how the word is used in the common vernacular. Try to dispense with purely academic definitions of terms for a moment."
Robin:
"Academic" definitions? Words have real meaning. Let's not succumb to the world's erosion of truth. Douse the firey debate with the water of knowledge! Let's reclaim the word and re-educate. Christians are to be teachers; we can at least explain The Faith, on the ground level.
In deference to my Mormon friends, I agree proper charity and respect are right - without compromising truth, though.
Pam:
"..Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" ... orthodox Christianity is not listed there while Mormonism is."
Robin:
Classical Roman history names Christianity as a "cult" -- useful stuff when re-educating the subject. (Be patient, please, this IS relevant*...)
Pam:
"Most folks do not live and speak in strict terms."
Robin:
Of course. It's why Christians are "all things to all men" using tact and care yet not compromising Truth.
Pam:
"Evangelicalism and some Reformed circles ...the term is used in its pejorative meaning to lend to the fact that they are illegitimate..."
Robin:
Yes! (sigh) How grevious and wrong. We ought to apologize for offenses made by the Christian-camp and attempt to re-educate. *Here's the relevance: the words "cult"(God's realm) and "culture" (man's realm) are important distinctions to understand Covenant Theology - which is vital in explaining the Gospel - which should be the only "offense" we make.
Pam:
"Opinions are freely allowed, of course. But I pray maturity leads us past that."
"I am not sure I understand this phrase..".
Robin:
By design, opinions are arbitrary and useless (functional not perjorative) in the sense that they don't depend on facts. Mere opinion is not substantive. Arguments however, rely on facts. They are premises that have various supportive reasons. Scripture teaches we are to argue and contend. (Much like a defense attorney builds a case to convince a jury.) The Apostle Paul argued the case of the Gospel in the synagogue. (No opinions here!) There's a difference. While Christians ought to avoid quarreling, there's a place for "iron sharpening iron" productive growth in our thinking. Let's get some solid reasons we hold to our beliefs and know why we believe them!
Pam:
"My point is that it helps nothing to stir up sentiment that one is worse than another. Everything is opposed to the Gospel, nothing more or less than another."
Robin:
Though I think I know where you're coming from here, I'd have to stand with Paul on this. Most of the New Testament describes all the distinctions on how the Gospel is defended. Sometimes Paul is furious (Galations) because the new church threatens apostasy; other times he intervenes in sinful power/celebrity struggles (1 Corinthians) and cross-cultural issues. Sin has always ranged in a continuum from weakness to full-blown treason.
(The fight for truth is simple and complex.) It's helpful to recall Paul admonishes not to waste time on "quarrels about words" 1 Tim. 6:3-5
Pam:
Also, you mention above that you wish we had the likes of Cat Stevens "on our side." What's that mean?
Robin:
Cat Stevens is a dignified gentleman with a serious mind and creative skill. He had the wisdom to understand that just because his gifts are powerful it didn't equate to Allah needing his help in evangelism.(Which can be a conceited notion.) He rightly shunned celebrity and humbly laid-down art in pursuit of piety. An an overall great musician and thoughtful poet, his wimsome image is thoroughly sentimental. I think his voice will be persuasive for Islam.
That said, pop music is inappropriate to match the place, reverence and beauty of God's covenant renewal each Lord's Day.
I hope some of these ideas are useful. Thanks for allowing me to lend a piece of my mind....smiles
Thanks much for your hospitable reply. I appreciate your comments. Folks could take a lesson from your civility here.
I think we can agree on much. And I think you get my very basic point that we ought to watch ourselves. This is not a play for downplaying orthodoxy in any way, and I think you get that.
I still think you are playing a bit too strictly with a term like cult. For my part, I also distinguish between cult and culture and know the difference and I understand why you define and use it the way you do, etc. But most simply do not...what they mean to impugn people. And I think you get that.
Again, thanks for an honest exchange.
PP