My Trip to a Mosque

Well if the title didn't get you, this story may not be that interesting. Through some local contacts in Central Florida our Missions Pastor developed a contact with the Central Florida Islamic Society. I had an invitation to go and meet the public relations director and since I have never had a conversation about religion with a Muslim I thought it might be a great opportunity to have some questions answered, such as "what is the significance of those cool hats you wear?" (No significance by the way, just a fashion statement of the traditional dress of your native country)  We were greeted at the front desk by a blonde woman who spoke something in Arabic to us as we came in, but I am pretty sure by the look on our faces she figured we had no idea what she said. This was like a test I thought. If we knew what she said we were in the club, otherwise we were put in a special"waiting room". I knew the person we were there to meet was already there so I asked if we could go to the meeting room, and she arranged an escort for us to take us there. After some brief exchanges of names, I learned that our Muslim friend had quite a bit in common with me as far as education. He was born in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. when he was 13. Ok, that part is not really like me, but the next is. He graduated from Lake Brantley High School (go Patriots), got an AA degree from Seminole State College (go Raiders) and then graduated from UCF (go Knights). As we listened to him explain the difference in Muslim religions, it was clear that the director of public relations was doing all he could to reverse the damage done by the media. As members of the KKK claim Christianity for their faith, and many cult groups who live on compounds with 30 wives and other strange practices with whacked ideology say they are Christian, the Muslims that we hear about on the news are the ones who depart from the true faith but claim they are the true faith. I could relate to what he was saying. As he tried to outline the common ground between us, he began by telling us we pray to the same God, and God sent many prophets to the earth, with Jesus being one of those prophets. But because he knew we believe Jesus to be the Son of God and not just a prophet, he consoled us with this comment; "of all the prophets, Jesus is in the top 5", he said with a smile. How nice I thought. I immediately looked around the room to see if there was a listing of top prophets and their rankings but didn't see one published. I then realized how the government has helped our church define our faith by officially designating us a non-prophet organization.