Dear CRI Partner,
In September 2026 we marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, when Islamist terrorists turned commercial airliners into weapons of mass destruction and murdered nearly three thousand people on American soil.
A quarter century later, America remains embroiled in war with Iran, while renewed efforts are being made to forge a treaty with its current leadership.
If you have been following the news, you have no doubt heard our president characterize Iran’s leadership as, well, “crazy.”
But are they crazy, really? Or is there something else going on?
The truth is that Iran’s negotiation tactics have a very specific history. And it is a history Christians can ill afford to ignore.
Think back to Muhammad.
After mastering Medina, Muhammad determined to become master of Mecca as well. In March 628, at Hudaybiyyah on the outskirts of Mecca, he entered into a ten-year cease-fire with the Meccans.
The agreement was extraordinarily unpopular among Muhammad’s own followers.
But Muhammad knew what he was doing.
For Hudaybiyyah was to set the pattern for the spread of Islam from then to now.
The formula was straightforward:
If you have military superiority, use it for conquest.
If not, sign a treaty.
That precedent has hardly been forgotten. When Yasser Arafat was criticized for concessions to Israel in the Oslo Accords, he invoked Hudaybiyyah: “This agreement,” he said, “is like that signed between our Prophet Muhammad and Quraish [in Mecca].”
Well, fast-forward to today.
Hudaybiyyah is the way Iran views the present nuclear treaty. Iran’s current leadership is well aware of its present weaknesses. But if and when they become strong, they will no doubt find a convenient pretext for violating any agreement with the United States.
Again, think back to Muhammad.
Following his conquest of Khaybar, he no longer had any need or room for Hudaybiyyah. In January 630, he marched toward Mecca with ten thousand seasoned warriors. Knowing they were no match for Muslim might, the Meccans submitted without a fight.
And the conquests continued. Just three years after Muhammad died, Damascus — the city toward which Saint Paul was traveling when he encountered Christ — fell to invading Muslims. Two years later Antioch, where the disciples were first called “Christians,” fell. Shortly thereafter, Jerusalem fell to the conquering Umar.
From the fall of Jerusalem to the present, the world has known jihad.
Muhammad migrated to Medina but never assimilated. After reaching critical mass, he “slew the pagans,” later “seized” Mecca, and “beleaguered” the cities of Arabia.
It is also instructive to note that Islam not only advances by sword but also through migration without assimilation — best characterized “as a python swallows its prey — slowly, with a long digestion.”
The late Libyan leader Mu’ammar Gadhafi understood the point. He boasted that “Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe — without swords, without guns, without conquests.”
Gadhafi was sadistic, but hardly stupid. He understood that a civilization need not be conquered militarily if, over time, it is transformed demographically and culturally. In his calculation, Europe’s declining native-born population and growing immigrant Muslim population would accomplish what armies need not.
Think back to Constantinople — today Istanbul — and Hagia Sophia. I was just there a few weeks back, pondering the reality that what was once the center of Christianity is now robustly Muslim.
Muhammad’s Islam is not a religion in the sanitized Western sense. Rather, it is an all-encompassing sociopolitical and legal matrix that has bred a worldview antagonistic to anything but itself.
While there may be millions of peaceful and tolerant Muslims, that hardly means that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion.
How different the life and teachings of Jesus Christ!
He elevated women to ontological equality with men. He commanded devotees to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them. He instructed adherents to turn the other cheek — to be peacemakers rather than makers of war.
And when a disciple struck a servant of the high priest with his sword, Jesus said, “Put your sword in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”
He defended the downtrodden and condemned the self-righteous. And above all, He set the ultimate moral example by dying so that others might live.
The contrast between Christ and Muhammad could not be starker. Nor could the contrast between Christianity and Islam.
While Islam has historically advanced by sword, authentic Christianity always advances through word.
And as far as treaties with Iran are concerned, we fail to remember the Muslim principle of Hudaybiyyah to our own peril.
Which brings me to why I am writing you today. Because my aim is to equip you, not alarm you, Christians must understand Islam as it actually is — not merely as our sanitized Western culture imagines it to be.
That does not mean hating Muslims. Our Muslim neighbors are human beings made in the image of God, people we are commanded to love, and people for whom Christ died.
But the existence of peaceful Muslims does not mean Christians should be naïve about the teachings, history, and political dimensions of Islam.
Nor can we afford merely to sound an alarm.
We must be equipped to answer Islam.
Islam denies the Trinity. It denies that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. It denies His crucifixion and therefore His glorious resurrection. In short, Islam denies truths at the very heart of the historic Christian faith and the gospel itself.
That is precisely why I once again want to put into your hands my book MUSLIM: What You Need to Know About the World’s Fastest-Growing Religion.
In MUSLIM, I deal directly with Muhammad and the Qur’an, jihad and Islamic law (Shariah), the caliphate, and Muslim misapprehensions concerning essential Christian doctrines.
The truth be told, I think the challenge posed by Islam — especially when exacerbated by the naïveté of so many Christians — demands a response from all concerned and thinking Christians.
And I say this without hesitation:
In MUSLIM, you have what may be the best book I’ve ever written.
What I think is unarguable is that, from a global perspective, it may well be the most important book I’ve ever written.
Why? Because ignorance has consequences.
If we do not understand Islam, we will be ill-equipped to recognize its errors, understand events unfolding in places such as Iran, stand with persecuted Christians around the globe, and — perhaps most importantly — lovingly communicate the gospel to Muslims who desperately need to know the Jesus revealed in Scripture.
That’s why your willingness to stand resolutely with CRI is so essential.
I’ll ask you to consider a special gift this month to help continue our vital work of equipping Christians to discern truth from error and defend the historic Christian faith.
And I strongly encourage you to request a copy of MUSLIM. If you already have one, get an additional copy for someone who needs to understand this consequential religious worldview.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, ignorance is no longer an option.
As Christians, we must wake up, stand up, and speak up.
We must speak the truth without hatred. We must love Muslims without compromising truth. And above all, we must hold forth the incomparable Christ — the One who conquered not by taking life but by laying down His own life.
None of our work is possible without the faithfulness of ministry partners like you. I’m more grateful than you’ll ever know.
May God bless you richly for standing with us.
…because Life and Truth matter,
President
P.S. Events unfolding in Iran are yet another reminder that Christians cannot afford to be naïve about Islam. Please request your copy of MUSLIM today. And if you already have one, put another copy into the hands of someone you care about. We must understand Islam — not so that we can hate Muslims, but so that we can lovingly make known the incomparable Christ.
