Rod Huff's Blog, page 4

Similarities in Christianity and Islam

The two largest world religions have many similarities and of course differences. From my research, I will be sharing many of the differences. This blog will focus on the similarities. Both religions grew out of Judaism – Christianity circa 30AD and Islam in 622AD. I have not posted a blog over the past week as I’ve tried to comprehend the events during the Boston Marathon and out of respect for the victims, the first responders and the fine city of Boston my blog has been dark. As the events unfolded I couldn’t help but think about my book mimicking real world events. I’m quick to point out that the terrorists have not been tied to any world terrorist organization as yet but they were both Muslims that, according to their own uncle, were radical Muslims. Out of respect for the large percentage of the 1.6 billion Muslims who represent 23% of the world’s population who are peace loving I thought it would be a good exercise to examine the similarities between our two religions. The numbers vary widely from 1% to 36% of the world’s Muslims being radical but even a small percentage of 1.6 billion followers is a large number and nearly all terrorist activities emanate out of Islam. Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s right hand man, has been quoted saying: “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

As I said, future blogs will focus on differences but this one will discuss the similarities. Both have major divisions that differ in their beliefs. Christianity has Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant while Islam has Sunni and Shiite (see my blog A Divided Islam). Both believe in one God. This may surprise some readers but both believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. In fact, Jesus is recognized as a prophet in the Quran and is mentioned more times than any other prophets except Muhammad. The second coming of Christ is affirmed by both. A portion of Protestants differ and augue about the doctrine of predestination but all Muslims believe in it. Both believe in an afterlife: eternal heaven (paradise in Islam) and hell. The ability to reach differs wildly and will be discussed in future blogs.

Both see their holy books as divinely inspired but the similarity ends there. Christianity sees their Bible as the inspired Word of God delivered through forty different authors including prophets or disciples and the actual Word of God delivered by Jesus. The inerrancy of the Bible is not agreed upon by all the denominations within Christianity. Muslims believe their Quran was delivered exclusively to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a twenty-three year period. It was originally recorded in Arabic and most Muslims believe that any translation other than Arabic is flawed. Muslims cannot understand how Christians can believe their Word as it was written by so many different writers just as Christians question the validity of a holy book that was recorded by only one human.

Both have a designated day of worship: Sunday for Christianity and Friday for Muslims. Both have religious leaders in the churches/mosques. Christians have a variety of labels for them (minister, pastor, priest, etc.) while the leader of Islamic worship centers are called imams.

It is interesting to note that the two religions in general respect each other as monotheistic but Christianity does not see Muhammad as a true prophet and the Quran has facts and stories about Jesus that Christians do not believe. It is generally agreed that many of the Jesus stories came out of religious writings of the day that were not canonized and thus do not appear in the Holy Bible. The major difference in the two holy books is the fact that Muslims do not believe that Christ rose from the dead which is the key bais for the Christian faith – obviously a huge difference. For more information see my blog “Do Muslims Celebrate Good Friday?“.

Please continue to follow my blog as I discuss other aspects of the Islamic faith and other facst about my novel.

Beware of Using Actual People in Fiction

I learned a valuable lesson in fiction while writing Deadly Beliefs. One of my sources of information was a retired consultant to Homeland Security. He was extremely careful and never divulged sensitive information but he was helpful in pointing me to un-classified whenever he could without violating his clearances. In one of our morning coffee meetings he said, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to use actual characters in your book.” At that point I only had two non-fictional characters: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Laden’s right hand man) and I ignored his advice. On May 2, 2011 Seal Team 6 took out bin Laden – I was thrilled that the world was rid of such an evil person but the book required a relatively major re-write. Exit bin Laden – enter Nasi Ahsan, the fictional successor to bin Laden who was in the same compound in Pakistan when the Seals attacked – Ahsan escaped. The next time I saw my friend after bin Laden’s demise he simply smiled and said, “I tried to tell you not to use any real characters.” Lesson learned the hard way.

Who Is Anne Lange?

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I did a lot of research on the best way to approach writing a book. In my blog post Comic Relief? I discussed the concept of developing character bios and selecting images that represented each character – this helped me in writing and developing the Deadly Beliefs characters. To keep me organized I kept a three-ring notebook with pages for each character along with other details about the book.

Something funny happened one day. As I was printing several character bios, one fell on the floor of my office near the printer. I was busy doing something when my wife came into my office and picked up the page from the floor. What she saw on the page was an attractive lady whose bio indicated that she was living in Pennsylvania (my home state). Having had a couple of very unfortunate situations where two different friends had come across old high school friends via Facebook or Classmates.com and left their families, my wife was overly sensitive and her mind immediately went there.

“Who’s Anne Lange?” she shouted to me from the other side of my office. She was angry and was wondering why I had printed the details of this person’s life. Up until this point I had not shared with her about bio development and character pictures. Having been married for over forty years I immediately knew what she was thinking (even though I have never given her any reason to be jealous and she’s normally not). I started laughing – big mistake as she asked the question louder and with an edge. “Who’s Anne Lange….and don’t make up some story – who is she?” The more I laughed the madder she got until I was finally able to blurt out an explanation.

We had a good laugh and it continues to bring smiles as we joke about my secret girlfriend, Anne. All that to say – be careful with your character bios as they could be misinterpreted.

Do We Need to Fear al-Qaeda?

In my blog of last month, Is al-Qaeda Defeated?, I quoted a story by Peter Bergen, CNN’s National Security Analyst that pointed out several items that pointed to a weakened al-Qaeda. Peter has also written a book titled “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden — From 9/11 to Abbottabad”. His book is scheduled to release on April 30th (ironically the same date as Deadly Beliefs) by Random House. This book is dubbed as the definitive account of the ten years of pursuit of bin Laden. Peter had unprecedented access to White House officials, CIA analysts, Pakistani intelligence and the military. I’m anxious to read it and, based on the publisher’s promotion, I would recommend it to anyone interested on this subject.

In another article on CNN.com Peter is further building a case that core al-Qaeda is on its way to extinction Should We Still Fear al-Qaeda? . He builds a convincing case as a world renowned expert on the topic. Among other points he makes:

Al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Islamic Maghreb has had no known or aborted attacks in the West and quotes Camille Tawil who has covered Islamist militant groups for two decades.
He states that the core al-Qaeda is on its way to extinction – done strikes killed 38 al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. Bergen says, “Core al-Qaeda is going the way of the dodo.”
Many of their affiliates are in also in sad shape and lists several examples.
Yemen militants are also being decimated by drone strikes with 28 key members of the group being killed.

After building this case he concludes his article by stating that the jihadist violence is not over and points out some exceptions to the points he raised above – some areas of concern.

Now enter Deadly Beliefs – I am not for a minute going to argue with Peter Bergen but, as a fiction writer, I am going to take the concept that al-Qaeda is a ‘non-issue’ and create the opportunity for a world-wide simultaneous attack. It is interesting to read actual news articles that support my premise.

A Divided Islam

Although I do not delve into the two denominations within Islam in Deadly Beliefs, I found it to be very interesting in explaining some of the unrest in Muslim controlled territories. Just as the Christian faith has been split over the centuries into Baptist, Methodists, Lutherans…..the list goes on, so too has the Islamic religion. Most of you have probably heard of Sunnis and Shias. In  doing the research for the book I researched thus topic and thought it might be of interest to some of you and equip you to have a deeper understanding of this religion. In my discussions with middle easterners they were very clear on whether they were Sunni or Shia. Their affiliation is very important.

What was the basis for this separation? It dates back to the appointing of the successor to Muhammad when he died in the year 632. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad’s wife Aisha, was Muhammad’s rightful successor while the Shiites believe that Muhammad divinely ordained his cousin and son-in-law Ali in accordance with the command of God. Similar to Christian denominations believing in the Bible (although there are differing levels of inerrancy involved) both denominations in Islam consider the Quran to be divine and delivered to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel.

The numbers vary but it is generally believed that 80-90% of the world’s Muslims are Sunni and 10-20% are Shia. Back to the book for a moment as a point of reference, the al-Qaeda terrorist organization is a part of the Sunni sect and is intolerant of non-Sunni Muslims. All radical Muslims tend to be unified in their hatred of Christian and Jews.

The differences are too vast to dive into a three-hundred word blog but a major schism exists in regards to their beliefs about the end-times. Most Shias belong to what is known as the Twelver tradition. In short, the word Twelver refers to the belief in the twelve Imams  who were divinely appointed and specifically that their savior (Madhi), the Twelfth Imam, who will return during the end times. Another major difference is that Shias believe their Imams (spiritual leaders/head of their mosques) are free from sin and human error and are blessed with an ability to interpret the inner meanings of the Quran dating back to Muhammad.

To learn more about the Twelfth Imam wrapped around an interesting novel I suggest you read The Tehran Initiative by one of my favorite authors, Joel Rosenberg.

Comic Relief?

As I read intense books in the thriller, historical, mystery or whatever genres I enjoy when the author introduces some lightheartedness – a relief from the tension. Al-Qaeda terrorist cells operating within the United State is certainly not a laughing matter but I felt a need to relieve the tension from time to time. Enter Wazir Hoda a Saudi Arabian whose appearance lends itself to his happy-go-lucky spirit and comedic senses. Throughout Deadly Beliefs he provides the reader with something to smile about.

In one of the early encounters the members of the Islamic Apologetics class meet at a coffee shop for socializing and planning of their larger mission. Here is an excerpt from the book as we hear Wazir ordering his favorite coffee drink:

Wazir was first in line almost every time. In addition to his drink, he usually ordered a Middle Eastern pastry. One look at him and it was easy to tell that he ate too much of the wrong kind of food.

“May I help you?” the exotic-looking Middle Eastern girl asked.

“Yes, I’d like a small coffee in a large cup with two pumps hazelnut, two pumps vanilla, two pumps caramel, two Equals, and four Sweet’N Lows, filled to the top with cream, with extra cream on the side, double cupped, with no sleeve, a stir stick, and a stopper put in the top, at one hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit.”

They were getting used to his overly precise drink orders but still loved to make fun of him—Wazir was an easy target. His jovial, fun-loving spirit took some tension out of their classes and following meetings. Today they focused on all the artificial sweeteners.

 Fadi laughingly remarked, “Wow, it’s a good thing that you keep the calories down by using Sweet’N Low!”

Wazir took it in stride and slipped off to the side while he waited for his order.

Within earshot of Wazir, Taj said, “I’ll have a large half white mocha, half café vanilla iced coffee, easy on the ice, with two shots poured over the top with whipped cream and caramel drizzle.” When the laughter had subsided, he said, “Just make that a large regular coffee.”

 

The personalities of several terrorists readily appear and each one adds his intrigue and personality to the plot and the story. You can read the character bios of all the central characters in the ‘Behind the Scenes’ tab on the website and click on the ‘Character Groups’ (Antioch Islamic Center to view Wazir). Once you’re in that tab you simply click on the faces of the characters and their bios will pop up. I used these bios as a tool as I was writing. Much of the information in the bios does not make it into the book and was simply a way for me to better understand my characters as was writing.

 

Thanks for your interest and stay tuned for more Deadly Beliefs information!