A WIDELY-CIRCULATED Moslem periodical recently published an article in which the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath was represented as an example of Christian apostasy.
The article said that in the early church "the fourth commandment of Sabbath was openly defied," pointing out that "in every council Sabbath was pressed down a little and the Sunday correspondingly exalted until the pagan holiday came to be honoured as a divine institution."
The author, a missionary of the Ahmadiyah sect of Islam in Rwanda, does not mention Seventh-day Adventists, but apparently he knows of them. He says "almost all" Christians keep Sunday. He cites from A. H. Lewis, History of the Sabbath and the Sunday.
The periodical is the Review of Religions, published in English at Rabwah, West Pakistan. It is circulated among the English-speaking Ahmadiyah Moslems and is used extensively by this sect as a missionary journal in many parts of the world. It also has some academic reputation, as it is being preserved in the micro film collection of University Microfilms in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The article appeared in the June, 1969, number.
The author, M. A. Ghauri, appears to make a distinction among Christians. He speaks of "men who mercilessly persecuted the 'remnant of the Church' because they would not fall in with the pagan usages of the church of Rome." "It is an undeniable fact," the article asserts, "that the true Christians suffered far more at the hands of the so-called Christians than the non-Christians." By "true Christians" he apparently means those who did not adopt idolatrous practices and Sunday observance.
The example of Jesus is cited in support of the Sabbath. "This dispute became so violent," Mr. Ghauri relates, "that in A.D. 363 the Roman Church passed a decree imposing the death penalty on those Christians who observed the fourth commandment---the Sabbath---or God's festivals according to the Jewish custom, or according to what Jesus Himself practiced."
The article mentions the Emperor Constantine and quotes the text of his edict in favor of Sunday observance. It notes the objection of the church to the Sabbath as a "Jewish institution" and concludes that the hatred of the Jews caused the general acceptance of the change.
Students of the Koran will recognize that the author's position stating the general apostasy of the Christian church while at the same time recognizing "true Christians" is based on sound Koranic exegesis. However, he has adopted the expression "remnant of the church" from Christian literature. Bible students may also recognize that a Moslem interpretation of this in terms of the Sabbath-Sunday controversy is in accord with the prophecy of Revelation 9:4.
