Sid: My guest, Joel Richardson, takes a subject that most Christians will readily admit they don’t understand the end times. They don’t understand the book of Revelation. They put the whole thing on a shelf. My guest has been raised up by God to make the complex mysteries simple. Joel Richardson, because tied in with the end times is the religion of Islam, there have been numerous death threats. I can’t even tell people where you live. Is that correct?
Joel: Yeah. I’m ok with the Midwest, but beyond that when people ask me where I am I say, “I’m in my secret bunker.”
Sid: Ok let’s get right to the meat. I am fascinated with the information you have on our president, our former presidents, especially Jimmy Carter, but let’s get to something even more important than that because they’ll get the CDs that you have. They’ll get the DVDs that you have. Tell me a bit, I’ve never heard of this before, this treaty that throughout Muslim history show a pattern of what went on but will go on in the United States. I can’t understand how you can know this. Our state department and our administration doesn’t know this, because if they knew what you are about ready to state publicly on the air, they would never be trying to orchestrate peace agreements with the Palestinians in Israel. Tell me a bit about this treaty.
Joel: The treaty that you mentioned is called the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. Really what I often say is that if you want to have a basic understanding of Middle Eastern politics, and the Palestinian issue, you have to understand this treaty and it’s role in Islamic history. Unfortunately, our president administration has said, “The present issue in the world with terrorism is not related to Islam. It is merely a reaction against imperialism.” But again unless we get into Islamic theology, the religious doctrines of Islam, we’re going to miss this basic fact and it’s affect on the Middle East and not the only the Middle Eastern politics but Biblical prophecy. As the story goes, Mohammed had been kicked out of Mecca. He and his very small band of Muslim followers had moved to a nearby city of Medina, and Mecca was the religious capitol of the region. Every year the surrounding pagans would all make pilgrimage to Mecca to worship their various gods at the kaba (the cube in the middle of Mecca).
Sid: What do you mean “the cube in the middle of Mecca”?
Joel: The kaba is the shrine. The kaba in Arabic simply means “the cube.” It’s a black cube that is a building and that is literally the shrine that throughout the earth everyday 1.7 billion Muslims bow five times everyday towards Mecca. They pray toward the kaba, and that’s the shrine that sits in the middle of the haram sharif. That’s what they call the noble sanctuary in the middle of Mecca. During the time of Mohammed it was filled with idols so this was a shrine that was pre-existent to the religion of Islam. Mohammed told his small band, roughly a thousand people, that they were going to make pilgrimage that year. They were trying to self-fulfill this prophecy. They were approaching Mecca; they came to a place called the Spring of Hudaibiya. The most powerful tribe of the region was the Carashis. The Carashis stopped Mohammed and his men at the spring and really abused Mohammed in front of his men, mocked him quite a bit. They said, “No, you’re not going to make pilgrimage, absolutely not, but we will make a treaty with you.” This treaty has come down in Islamic history as the Treaty of Hudaibiya. They said, “From now on, if any of your men want to leave Islam, you have to let them go, but if any of our people want to convert to your group and become Muslims, you have to send them back. For the next ten years, we will have a ceasefire. You will not attack us; we will not attack you. Next year, well let you come back; you can make a pilgrimage.” The next day all of Mohammed’s men were really upset, because he was looking like a false prophet. Mohammed said that that night allah had given him a revelation. He said that this was a great victory because he realized that the most powerful tribe in the region had agreed not to attack them. Over the next two years, Mohammed began attacking a series of Jewish villages plundering, raiding, pillaging, and massacring these villages. He said to the people, “If you will join in these raids from now on, you get your percentage of the plunder, booty, women, and slaves.” Within two years as Mohammed became a pirate of the desert he went from a thousand men to roughly ten thousand. The Muslims were larger than the Carashis. He broke the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. He came and invaded Mecca. He conquered the Carashis, and he was now the undisputed leader of the entire region. Muslims today believe that Mohammed was the perfect man and perfect example for all Muslims to follow. Today all Muslim politicians and leaders, look to this example of making a treaty when you are weak in order to gain strength, in order to reload, in order to gain strategic dominance over your opponents.
Sid: Use a modern-day example of Yasser Arafat. How did he use that treaty?
Joel: This is going back to the eighties. Arafat had made a significant treaty with Israel. Many from the Israeli Left were very excited about this. They were talking about moving towards peace. Then Arafat was speaking before a group in South Africa. He spoke in Arabic. To the people in Arabic he said, “Listen as far I’m concerned, this treaty is just like the treaty that Mohammed himself engaged in with the Carashis. This is no more or less than the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. We will use this treaty in our onward march towards Jerusalem. What Arafat didn’t know was that someone was recording this speech. When it was translated, he was caught openly admitting that he had not literally entered into any desire for peace.
Sid: Fast-forward. President Obama, the state of Israel, and the Palestinians. What is going on when the Palestinians say, “We want a small portion of the land for ourselves”? Do you believe that for one minute?
Joel: They call it the two-state solution. This has been something that has been pushed from the Bush administration and the Clinton. Everyone’s failed. Obama’s picking up the baton, and he’s going for the two-state solution. He’s pushing the Israeli government to go for the same thing. Netanyahu is potentially open to discussing such a thing. Within the very charter of Hamas and all of the various political leaders even the Palestinian side of the West Bank they all have history of openly stating the fact that they want to see the annihilation of the state of Israel. So while they may enter into a treaty, on order to get confession in order to see Israel give confessions and come their way, their ultimate goal is always to see the destruction of Israel.
Sid: But wait a second. The U.S. will back Israel up. So they’ll never be able to get more than just the Palestinian state. Uh oh. Maybe that’s why our military is being weakened, and they know that.
Joel: Absolutely. There’s no question that those in Israel on the right who refuse to even discuss a two-state solution, who are determined to be strong to make Israel’s military strong in order to rightfully defend themselves, they are on the position of right. History has born out the fact that when you have a nation of people…..
Sid: But listen. Our state department knows what you’re saying. Why are they still proceeding forward? Our administration knows-whoops we’re out of time.
