During the viewer question time of our live television presentation on December 2010, a young man called in from Iran. He was desperate. For years, he had been reciting the daily Islamic prayer to Allah in Arabic, but his pleas had not once been granted. As he spoke, the anguish in his voice brought tears to our eyes.
Although deeply moved by this young man’s longing, it was no surprise that his persistent prayers came to no avail. You see, there were two major obstacles in his communication with Allah. Firstly, he did not know Allah’s language, Arabic, and Allah did not accept his language, Persian, as a way of communication (or prayer). Secondly, even if Allah did accept his language, he would still not respond to his pleas since prayer in Islam is not directed at this life but the next, however uncertain that life may be.
How would you feel if you were in desperate need and cried out for help, but were ignored because of your nationality, language or race? This is what Allah and Islam have been doing to Muslims! Muslims should not pray in their own language but in Arabic only, a language which is foreign to most of them. So this young man was exhausted by Allah and longed for a God who could understand his language and listen to his cries. He eventually gave his heart to Jesus Christ because the God that Jesus reveals respects and understands all languages, and is able to establish a personal relationship with people in their own languages, in all the languages of the world.
After many years of opportunities and hard work, I am now able to speak four languages and a couple of dialects. Yet my ability to express myself fully and truly to God and understand Him better is only possible through the language I have grown up with, whose idioms and values I am so familiar with. This language makes my relationship with God more meaningful since I am able to speak to God using its full expressive powers. How could the true God reject such clear logic? He wouldn’t. But Allah of the Qur'an rejects this, because he is not the true God. The true God will not be deaf to me if I speak to Him in my own mother tongue because He is all-knowing. He understands the intimate language of our hearts.
If Allah ignores pleas not spoken in Arabic, will Allah’s pious Muslims be expected to act better than Allah and respect people’s rights and grant their needs? Absolutely not. For this reason, the approaches and attitudes of Muslim leaders to moderate Muslims, who do not learn Allah’s Arabic, have always been discriminatory, hostile and all too often bloody. Since the rise of Islam, many Muslims have cried to their Muslim governments and leaders for their rights, but received nothing more than indifference, exile, torture and death.
Now, with the expansion of media technology, many Muslims are able to discover the fundamental problems in Islam, revoke their allegiance to Allah and put their trust in Jesus Christ. God is using radio, television, and the internet to open their eyes to the truth that Jesus reveals. Though Muslim leaders have been spending millions of dollars each year to reduce the impact of Christian media on Muslims, we are still amazed at how, despite such obstacles, many Muslims are eager and trying every possible means to access Christian media at great risk.
We are so grateful that Christ has given us a satellite ministry opportunity, in addition to other opportunities, to speak through the media into the homes of millions of Persian speaking Muslims all over the world; to speak into their hearts of the transforming love of Christ. God has enabled our presentations to be fruitful and encouraging, leading many Muslims to Christ.
