Taken from John Wesley’s The Doctrine of Original Sin, Part I, section 6. This was published in 1757 by the founder of Methodist Episcopal Church or the Methodists…

An ingenious writer, who a few years ago published a pompous translation of the Koran, takes great pains to give us a favorable opinion both of Muhammad and his followers. But he cannot wash the Ethiop white. After all, men who have but a moderate share of reason cannot but observe in his Koran, even as polished by Mr. Sale,[1] the most gross and impious absurdities.[2] To cite particulars is not now my business. It may suffice to observe in general that human understanding must be debased to an inconceivable degree in those who can swallow such absurdities as divinely revealed. And yet we know the Muhammadans not only condemn all who cannot swallow them to everlasting fire, not only appropriate to themselves the title of Muslims or “true believers,” but even anathematize with the utmost bitterness and adjudge to eternal destruction all their brethren of the sect of Ali (the Shi’ites), all who contend for a figurative interpretation of them.

That these men then have no knowledge or love of God is undeniably manifest, not only from their gross, horrible notions of him, but from their not loving their brethren. But they have not always so weighty a cause to hate and murder one another as in the difference of opinions. Muslims will butcher each other by thousands without so plausible a plea as this. Why is it that such members of Turks and Persians have stabbed one another in cool blood? Truly, because they differ in the manner of dressing their head. The Ottoman vehemently maintains (for he has unquestionable tradition on his side) that a Muslim should wear a round turban. Whereas the Persian insists upon his liberty of conscience, and will wear it picked before. So, for this wonderful reason, when a more plausible one is wanting, they beat out each other’s brains from generation to generation.

It is not therefore strange that ever since the religion of Muhammad appeared in the world the espousers of it, particularly those under the Turkish emperor, have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth. That numberless cities are razed from the foundation, and only their name remaining. That many countries which were once as the garden of God are now a desolate wilderness. And that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished away from the earth! Such was, and is at this day the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of humankind!

[1] In 1733, George Sale published The Koran in English.

[2] In 1726 and 1737, Wesley was influenced against Islam by Humphrey Prideaux’s The True Nature of Imposture Fully Displayed in the Life of Mahomet (1697).

Notes About Muslim Terrorist Groups

There are two main branches of Islam: the Sunnis and the Shi’ites. Like in Wesley’s day, the majority of today’s most publicized Muslim terrorist groups come out of Sunni Islam, not the Shi’ites. The reason for this is simple: the Sunnis tend to be more conservative, fundamentalist, and literalist in their interpretation and application of the Koran. Terrorist groups are sort of like “revival” organizations that crop up out of the larger context of Islam: they come and they go and they come again. Geographically, the Sunnis also own a larger amount of territory than the Shi’ites. Terrorist groups see themselves as “going all the way” in their obedience to Allah and the Koran, whereas the more mainstream Sunnis are viewed as lukewarm, politically correct, and compromised.

• Al-Qaeda – International Sunni terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden.
• Hamas – Sunni terrorist group in Palestine founded by Khaled Mashal.
• Hezbollah – Shi’ite terrorist group in Lebanon founded by Ragheb Harb.
• The Taliban – Sunni terrorist group founded in Afghanistan by Mohammed Omar.
• The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – Sunni (Wahhabi) terrorist group founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.