Kerby Anderson

Joel Rosenberg was on my radio program to talk about his novel, The First Hostage. We didn’t spend too much time talking about his book, but instead focused on the phenomenon of apocalyptic Islam. Let me explain what that is.

There is both radical Islam as well as apocalyptic Islam. The vast majority of Muslims did not fit into either category. According to some reliable polls only about 10 percent of the 1.6 billion Muslims subscribe to the concept of violent jihad. Millions and millions of Muslims may believe in Islamic eschatology and even believe we are entering into the end times. But they don’t believe violence is the way to achieve it.

Radical Muslim groups like al Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban, and the Muslim Brotherhood may use violence against Jews and Christians. They want to push them off of Muslim lands. But they differ from apocalyptic Islam. Joel Rosenberg puts it this way. Radical Islam seeks to attack us. Apocalyptic Islam seeks to annihilate us.

Apocalyptic Muslim groups would include the leaders of ISIS (now called the Islamic State) and the top leaders in Iran. They are driven by Muslim prophecies that you can find in the Qur’an and the Hadith. They believe that the End of Days is at hand. They believe that their Islamic messiah will come to establish an Islamic kingdom known as a caliphate. They believe this messiah will implement Sharia law throughout the globe and force everyone to submit to this caliphate.

Joel Rosenberg has found that few world leaders understand these issues. Sadly many of them do not understand the danger of apocalyptic, genocidal Islam. We should pray that they understand because the future of America and the future of the western world depends on it.