That’s fascinating, and I well remember that question, John. And, of course, I’ve had a lot of sessions in the Middle East and I’ve enjoyed being there. Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, you know, Egypt and all of those countries, open forums in Jakarta, Indonesia, or in the Islamic University of Malaysia, and so on. They’ve been very cordial when I’ve been there, and even though we are discussing very tense issues. So I always thank the Islamic world that has invited me,
given me the welcome mat and so on. But our worldviews are completely different, and this was one of the questions that is raised. Actually, the question is quite wrong in its assumptions. In Islam itself there are various interpretations. Why, even the founder himself also, their prophet, talked about the fact of the abrogation, that he was abrogating laws.
So there is no absolute even there. Or you take the various sects of Islam, you know, whether you take the Sufis, or the Ahmadiyyas, or the “Seveners” or the “Twelvers”. But the two major areas of the Sunnis and the Shias, world of a difference between their authoritative sources.
Is the custom as authoritative in the, the Shiite sect of it? No, it is much more in the Sunnah, the custom. So that in itself has various assumptions that are not portrayed in the question. But what is critical to understand as I am talking to you,
especially in the Middle East now, is to realize what a world of a difference there is between the way the law is viewed in your worldview and in the Judeo-Christian worldview. It is this, that when the law was given, it was given, said Jesus,
as the schoolmaster, as a teacher, or as a mirror. But when you want to wash your face, you don’t go to the mirror. The mirror only tells you that your face is dirty. You have to go to the faucet or to the water to wash it away. And all the law can do is educate and inform: it can never change your heart.
But also remember a few other things. Moses gave 613 laws. What did it do? All it created was more chaos. David reduced it to 15, you know: Isaiah reduced it to I think 8 or so: and Micah reduced it to 3, “To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly before your God”.
Jesus did not reduce it to one, he reduced it to two: “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself”. He said, “On these two hang all of the laws and the prophets”. Why is that so? And in the precedent to the Ten Commandments the answer is given.
