Perhaps the evidence for Christianity is really no bigger than my thumb, while the mountain of evidence for Islam stands far off on the horizon. Whether there is sufficient evidence for or against some religious conception of the cosmos will be addressed in section 4. Let us contrast briefly, however, two very different views on whether contemporary science has undermined religious belief. In time, this belief began to acquire a messianic character, and a whole cluster of traditions and practices developed, associated with the figure of the Mahdi, the divinely guided one who will come in God’s good time, overthrow the kingdoms of evil, and establish the world of justice and divine law. The answer will come. Overwhelmed by the gift of salvation we have found in Jesus, we have a heart for authentic worship, are passionate about the local church, and are on mission to see God’s Kingdom established across the earth. In most political and public matters it was overwhelmed by the more ancient traditions of the regions, which survived in an Islamic disguise, notably in the persistence of the autocratic, monarchical form of government. The Government of India made an announcement to establish a sub-quota of 4.5% for minorities within the existing 27% reservation meant for the OBC.

Marwari businessmen like the Birlas, the Goenkas, Dalmias, Poddar, and the Singhanias began their lives parallel with India and continued to become an integral part of our lives even in modern day India. It is true that the equality of Islam is limited to free adult male Muslims, but even this represented a very considerable advance on the practice of both the Greco-Roman and the ancient Iranian world. On the whole Islam triumphed only in certain limited spheres of social and family life. So we find through the centuries a recurring theme of revolt: a feeling that history had somehow taken a wrong turn; that Islam had been perverted; that the Islamic community was being ruled by non-Muslims, by bad Muslims, by renegade Muslims, by those who had betrayed the heritage of the Prophet and were leading the community as a whole into sin; and that therefore it was the duty of the Muslims to overthrow and replace such an evil regime.

The Mongols returned to indigenous shamanic traditions after the collapse of the Mongol Empire, but Buddhism reemerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Islam came, not into a new world, like Christendom in Europe, but to lands of ancient civilization and deep-rooted traditions. The external enemy means the non-Islamic world, relations with which, in war and in truce, are elaborately regulated by Islamic Holy Law. They too are counted among the enemies of God, and against them there is a perpetual obligation of struggle (in Arabic jihad, usually inaccurately translated as “holy war”), until all mankind adopts the faith and obeys the law of Islam. The state is God’s state, the law is God’s law. It becomes much more intelligible in its modern context if we bear in mind the Islamic perception of God as the head of state. This term is much used in religious movements nowadays, notably by the group responsible for the murder of Sadat. In fourteen centuries of Islamic history there have been many opposition movements within Islam. A small number of these movements use violent means to achieve political goals. Similarly the haughty (in Arabic mustakbir, which in the Koran means something like hubristic) include even those, both at home and abroad, who profess the Islamic religion but do not accept the teachings and discipline of the revolution.

Not even the Patriarchy was altogether happy about Benedict’s impending visit. In the religious and political language of present-day Iran, the humbled (one might also translate the Arabic word mustad’af as deprived, downtrodden) include even the non-Muslim oppressed, who benefit from a kind of Islam of grace. Heresy is not an Islamic notion; there is not even an Islamic term corresponding to it. Since we are talking about religiously defined politics, a term that would most naturally occur to a Western observer is heresy. Heresy is a Christian term meaning a deviation, officially defined as such, from an officially defined orthodoxy. And since Islam has no councils or churches or hierarchy, there is no officially defined orthodoxy and there cannot therefore be any officially defined and condemned deviation from orthodoxy. Three denominations have applied for State recognition: the Ethiopian Orthodox, the Coptic Orthodox and the United Churches Council of Israel, which is the umbrella organization of Protestant churches in Israel. And since the state undoubtedly can have enemies, it follows that the enemies of the state are the enemies of God. What can happen is something much more serious and much more dangerous.