About Daniel Shayesteh

Dr Daniel was born into a Muslim family in Northern Iran. He became a radical Muslim leader and teacher of Islam in the militant Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, closely supporting Ayatollah Khomeini. However, after falling out of favor with Khomeini’s political group, he escaped to Turkey where there began an amazing journey to faith in Jesus Christ.

Daniel's mission is to help others understand and lovingly respond to those who do not know Christ. He is also deeply concerned for the future of Western societies, their loss of confidence in Judeo-Christian values, and their persistent naivete about the implications of the world-wide Islamic revival.

Is Moderate Islam a Solution?

In the last days of his mission on earth, Muhammad left an unchangeable legacy for his followers to reject, humiliate and even kill moderate Muslims in addition to the annihilation of non-Muslims. Chapter 9 of the Quran is the last revelation that instructs the faithful followers of Muhammad on how to triumph over moderate Muslims, their disbelieving relatives and strangers.  Allah perfected his revelation to Muhammad by revealing the verses of this chapter, thus bringing the Quran to its completion. This chapter promotes the assumption that if there was moderation prior to this text, it can no longer apply.  It is Allah and Muhammad’s will that Muslims erase every kind of moderation among themselves and fight until a time when there is no more disbelief in the world and all submit to the religion of Allah.

Regarding the war against moderate Muslims, the Quran says:
O you who believe [Muslims]! Take not for protectors (guardians) your fathers and your brothers if they love infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong (Q.9:23).
We know that the word infidel in this verse refers to disbelieving Muslims, not literal relatives, as the same chapter later on gives instructions about disbelieving relatives:
You who believe [Muslims], kill any disbeliever who are close to you (relatives and neighbors) so that they may find out how harsh you are.  Allah is with those who are pious (Q.9:123).
Verse 23 targets those Muslims who do not take their faith seriously, do not pray or fast, or take part in jihad, or in other Islamic rituals and events. They must be fought. Moderation in Islam was unbearable for Muhammad. He said:
I was about to order for collecting firewood and then order someone to pronounce the Adhan [call] for the prayer and then order someone to lead the people in prayer and then I would go from behind and burn the houses of men who did not present themselves for the prayer (Bukhari V.9, Book 89, 330).
This hadith implies that moderate Muslims must be rejected, humiliated and burned by pious (harsh) Muslims. In verse 23, Allah and Muhammad order even the immature children of the moderate Muslims, who need protectors or guardians, to rebel against their fathers’ and brothers’ guardianship and disregard it. In other words, children are called to fight against their moderate parents and siblings in moderate Muslim families.

Many young boys who have been arrested for plotting terrorism in the western countries have been the children of moderate Muslims. One factor that has contributed to this is that the Quran, the only holy book for both moderate and radical Muslims, which is believed to be the most superior book in the world and wherever they go they proudly carry it with them. And as long as the Quran and Islam are with them, there will be much opportunity for radicalism to arise.

The kingdom of the Shah, the deceased ruler of Iran, was the height of freedom in the whole period since the start of Islam's occupation of the country.  He lost to radicalism after four decades of resistance in 1979, through the radical son of moderate Muslims, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the time of war between Iran and Iraq, boys, as young as 12 years old, were encouraged to disregard the guardianship of their moderate parents to take part in the war against the so-called ‘national’ and ‘international infidels’. Some of these young children lost their lives in this war and fulfilled the call of Ayatollah Khomeini for jihad and martyrdom without the consent of their parents.

Eight decades ago, Ataturk, the leader of Turkey, established a system to push the radicalism of Islam back. He promoted marshal law so that moderates could defeat radicalism. In respect to this law, a coup d’état took place in 1960 which resulted in the hanging of the ruling Prime Minister, Menderes, who aimed to regulate life in Turkey by the Shari’a, the law of Islam. Yet even the giant moderate army in Turkey has been unable to democratize Turkey in its real sense as the current Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, a committed Muslim, has successfully pushed back moderation in order to establish radical Islam. On September 17, 2010, in a memorial speech for deceased Prime Minister Menderes, Erdogan declared that Menderes and his friends were killed for Allah. He recently got the approval of his nation with 58 percent vote in order to amend the judiciary that protects Turkey’s secularism. Even Obama, the US President, congratulated him for this progress in the name of democracy, without being concerned that he has been paving the way for further Islamization of Turkey.

Now, despite all this clear evidence,  Western leaders, intellectuals and media not only trust moderate Islam, but the radicals too, as long as they claim that they are moderate! In the name of moderation, Muslims are now able to block the roads in Paris illegally in order to hold their prayers in groups, to build a mosque at Grand Zero, and to fight against those who aim to educate people about Islam.

If Islamic countries have been unable to establish democratic nations with their own moderate Islam, how will the West be able to establish such an Islamic community within itself? Islam has already regulated all aspects of life for all present and future Muslims. No Muslim has the right to cross the boundaries of Islam and adapt himself to other values; if he does, he will come face to face with family and community punishments.

Islam, either moderate or radical, is a barrier to true freedom.  How superior to know and abide by the values of Christ, which uphold freedom and love.  It is the beauty of such values that we must share, in word and deed, with Muslims.
Nor do they [the followers of Christ] light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all ...  Matthew 5:15 (NIV)