In Praise of Christians (at least some of them)
Posted: February 21, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam 10 Comments »
Fr Michael Fuller
In my working life I have occasion to work with the local Christian Anglican clergy. One of them, the Rev Michael Fuller of St George’s Church in Kensington, London, has just got back from a pastoral visit to Cornwall. Michael knows I am a Muslim and we occasionally speak about our respective faiths. Last Friday in Cornwall he met some Muslims who have to travel many miles to pray Jummah on Fridays (all the way to Bristol I think). Michael had the bright idea of contacting the local Church of England priest and asking if these Muslims could have their prayers in the local church – thus saving them many miles of travel each Friday. The priest agreed asking only that the Muslims recognise that it was a Christian place of worship – which they gladly did.
Fr Michael has shown other acts of consideration and kindness to Muslims which I need not go into here. His good works go unreported in the media. As Muslims we hear so often from the bigots and aggressive missionaries who plague our communities and MDI is right to respond to these attacks with robust arguments concerning the truth about Islam. But let us remember that there are Christian priests out there who quietly and lovingly communicate something of the original gospel message of Jesus.
This is not entirely unexpected as the Quran speaks of such people:
Thou wilt surely find that, of all people, the most hostile to those who believe [in this divine writ] are the Jews as well as those who are bent on ascribing divinity to aught beside God; and thou wilt surely find that, of all people, they who say, “Behold, we are Christians,” come closest to feeling affection for those who believe [in this divine writ]: this is so because there are priests and monks among them, and because these are not given to arrogance.
(5:82) Muhammad Asad translation
Islam, Gay Rights and The Death Penalty, A Muslim View
Posted: February 10, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, Militant Secularism, The Bible, The News 5 Comments »
The offending leaflet with content censored by the media
Today’s Guardian newspaper reports:
Three men have been jailed after becoming the first to be convicted of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation for handing out a leaflet calling for gay people to be executed.
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed gave out the pamphlet, entitled The Death Penalty? which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.
So what is one to make of this news? I have conflicting emotions. On the one hand I dislike any attempt to stir up hatred against any section of the community. Islam is a religion par excellence of community cohesion and social tranquility. But Islam does not recognize the concept of ‘gay people’ as if they were a separate race of humans to the rest of us. Shariah is concerned with our behaviour, our public actions, not with what it done in private away from the public gaze. However, any public manifestation of fornication, homosexuality or adultery, if observed by four reliable witnesses, can in certain circumstances, merit very harsh punishments including the death penalty. According to the Quran, God may choose to forgive all aberrations except for the association of other ‘deities’, other powers and other agents, with Him.
By advocating these harsh punishments Islam is in agreement with Christianity and Judaism, at least as originally conceived. God’s law given to Moses on Mount Sinai required the death penalty for those who committed such acts:
‘If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them’ (Leviticus 20:13 KJV)
Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, absolutely agreed with this requirement:
‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.’(Matthew 23:1-3 NIV)
A similar attitude to the Law is found later in the same chapter:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24 NIV)
This is not to say that I agree with the crude way these leaflets were written. Perhaps it was inevitably going to rouse the gay lobby and the law to suppress these views. And the three Muslims have been sent to prison and have had their freedom of speech crushed. I think the sentence handed down by the court was unfair. I have no doubt that the churches, if they say anything at all, will mutter platitudes about the Almighty loving ‘gay people‘, as if this quasi ‘classification’ of humans presented a different set of moral issues than ‘adulterous people’ or ‘fornicating people’.
Gay Marriage and Islam: A Muslim Response
Posted: February 4, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, Militant Secularism, The Bible, The News 7 Comments »
- The Bishop of London, Rt Revd & Rt Hon Richard Chartres
Today’s London Times proclaims:
Bishop of London backs gay marriage rebellion among clergy
“The Bishop of London has welcomed a rebellion by nearly a quarter of his clergy calling for churches to be permitted to register for civil partnerships.”
This is reported fully today in The Times but that article is behind a paywall.
The Mail Online has a free version:
“Nearly 100 clergy have joined a rebellion over a Church of England ban on civil partnership ceremonies.”
“The clergy have signed a letter demanding that the General Synod, the Church’s parliament, allow priests to hold ceremonies for same-sex couples in their churches.”
So how does Islam view the prospect of ‘Gay marriage’?
I think some preliminary remarks are in order:
People who complain that Muslims refuse to fit in with what are called “civilised values” are unaware of just what is being demanded of Muslims. These values are part of the air we breath whether our politics are of the left or right, conservative or liberal. They are the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
I think they can be summarised in four ways:
Firstly, man is now the measure of all things and nothing is to be judged in relation to an absolute or to a transcendent reality.
Secondly, man is both judge and criterion of judgement. There is no higher court of appeal or source of pardon.
Thirdly, whatever happens occurs within earthly time, for human existence stretches only from birth to death. Mans earthly life is therefore unconditionally important; to live is the supreme value, at death the game is over and lost.
Finally, there is the conviction that man is basically good; the evil which surrounds him is never his fault. It can only be blamed on institutions, on society, the economic system or defective education.
These beliefs, so readily taken for granted, cannot be reconciled with Islam (or traditional Christianity). What we do in this life echoes in eternity and we will be held to account for all our actions and thoughts by a God who is both completely just and the most merciful of all those who show mercy. Mankind is called to submit to Gods will, not to do our own will. As Jesus is reported to have said to his Lord, ‘May thy will be done, not mine’. This spiritual disposition is vanishing fast from Britain’s Christian churches, which have made some astonishing compromises with the spirit of the age. But Muslims see religion as a citadel resistant to decadence and changing tides of opinion, not as one strand in the pattern of modern life – the western way of life – but as an alternative to it. Those who have gone astray are invited to return and that is that. For Muslims there is one fixed mark, set down in the midst of times flow and that is the Faith as it came from God through the Prophet.
So back to our question: ‘How does Islam view the prospect of ‘Gay marriage?’
Muslims, and the dwindling band of traditional Christians, find this campaign to legitimise so-called ‘gay marriage’ astonishing (and abhorrent) for two reasons:
The very idea that men and women can alter God’s clearly expressed will seems like presumption and blasphemy. The Christian churches, it seems, are trying desperately to keep up with the times and are in dereliction of their duty to be faithful to the revelation they received.
Secondly, God has expressly given us his commands in the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran. They cannot be changed. We, as Muslims, stand should to shoulder with those few remaining traditionalist clergy who resist these compromises with modernism and secularism.
Traditionally Christianity has taught unambiguously that a priest or a Bishop is somebody who ought to live by the Bible and accept that the Bible’s teaching is quite clear in this matter – that heterosexual marriage is the right and only context for sexual relationships. And Muslims of course agree.
To the surprise of many, we have the ironic situation where Islam is not a threat to traditional British values, which historically are based on Christian values, but their ally. Islam complements and reinforces them. I could duplicate many times over the same point: whether it be the sanctity of life, opposition to abortion on demand, the rejection of euthanasia and assisted suicide, or the respect and courtesy due to women, Muslims find a natural affinity with the few remaining traditional Christians in our churches, and hence with the best of British values and culture which were formed by the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.
But of course Islam is a challenge to the forces of atheist materialism that reduce the individual to a mere consumer of goods; it is a challenge to those hedonist philosophies that deny God and worship the man-made idols of short-term pleasure and greed.
In conclusion, we must ask why have the churches at the beginning of the 21st century abandoned the teaching of the Torah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Reformers?
Perhaps a consideration of the larger social context will suggest a possible solution.
Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar in his excellent book The Quran and the Secular Mind (2008) comments provocatively (p.7):
‘We must note that there are now few authentically religious Jews and Christians in the West even among the clergy and the rabbinate. All intellectually sophisticated Jews and Christians are secularised and, in their attitudes towards domestic issues, as opposed to foreign policy, are typically humane capitalists whose religious beliefs serve as a decorative veneer on their underlying secularised religious humanism. All charges are variations on the stock Muslim accusation, rooted in the Qur’an, that Jews and Christians have achieved a cosy accommodation with the world – or with modern secularism, in our day – at the cost of being unfaithful to their dogmatic traditions. Modern versions of Christianity and Judaism appear to be carefully disguised variants of secular humanism. Predictably, therefore, many Jews and Christians, unlike virtually all Muslims, live conscientiously and comfortably within the arrangements of the liberal secular humanist state. Islam is now unique in its existential decision, though not intellectual capacity, to confront rather than accommodate the secularist world-view. It is a faith whose adherents are sounding a lone note of courageous defiance in the battle against secularism while other trumpets are blowing retreat.
The Law is Useless, Only Jesus can Save Us?
Posted: January 31, 2012 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity 271 Comments »Christian missionaries often argue that the law that was given to the Israelites was practically impossible to follow as the people would often break the rules by going against it (sinning), and so the law was not perfect and something else was needed. They argue that this something else was provided in the form of Jesus’ death on the cross, and his resurrection after 3 days. Salvation now relies on one putting his complete trust and faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and through that he shall be saved and granted eternal life.
On paper the argument sounds good, after all it is true, we are not saints, nobody is able to perfectly follow the law that was given by God, we have all gone against it. But does that make it imperfect and useless? If we want to use the same analogy, then we must also argue that our current judicial law is also useless, as people continually break the law by committing acts of murder, and theft and so let’s do away with it. Secondly, what the missionaries fail to realize is that even with the death and resurrection of Jesus, people continue to sin! And when I say people, I am referring to people who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. So what’s the difference? With the law people were sinning, without the law, people are still sinning, so if Jesus was meant to provide something different, he failed.
One might argue back that according to the law, you will be punished if you do break the law, and you won’t be right with God and so a sinner will never be able to be with God. Indeed the law does teach punishment for breaking it, but it also teaches about repentance and forgiveness, in other words if you do sin, it doesn’t mean your finished, rather you can still repent of what you did and you will be forgiven. The same applies to one who believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus, if one sins, what does he do? He repents! Similarly, when one broke the law, he too repented, so therefore you still have the exact same method in place, and nothing’s really changed. People are still sinning, and people are still repenting, so what’s the main difference? And just like with the law, if a Christian persists in sin, and does not repent, he will be thrown into the lake of fire. Just like a person who persists in breaking the law, and does not repent, he too will be punished according to the law. So in both cases we still have a punishment to be handed out to the guilty, and in both cases the guilty one can avoid a punishment, through the means of repentance.
Last but not least, if the law was imperfect and impossible to ever follow, then why on earth would God have made it? Isn’t that unjust? Isn’t that unfair? And isn’t that quite ignorant to make a law which you have to follow in order to attain salvation, but in actuality you will never be able to follow this law which will damn you to hell? If the missionary is correct, then this God cannot truly be God in the first place! Why in the world would anybody have confidence in a God that makes a law that he knows you can’t possibly follow, and will then punish you for it? I prefer to follow an understanding God, who makes a law for me to follow, but understands and forgives when I break it, opening up the means of repentance through that very same law.
The Christology of the Synoptic Gospels: some introductory comments
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, The Bible Leave a comment »Today, however, such a reading of the gospels is no longer possible. To start with the most obvious observation: there are four gospels, and each has a different picture of Jesus and his teaching. The fourth gospel, that of St John, presents the reader with a substantially different account of the teaching of Jesus, a conflicting chronology of his life (for example the date of Jesus’ crucifixion) and perhaps most significantly, presents a christology that is radically different from the synoptics. Thus NT scholars have long concluded that the gospels tell us as much about the views of their authors as they do about the events they allegedly describe.
As Christopher Tuckett (Professor of New Testament Studies in the University of Oxford) in his critically acclaimed work Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers Edinburgh University Press 2001) comments:
‘The picture of Jesus in John is in many respects very different from the picture in the other three, so-called ‘synoptic’, Gospels. Furthermore, most would agree that, in general terms, the synoptic picture is more likely to reflect the realities of Jesus‘ own time, and the Johannine account represents an (at times) extensive rewriting of the Jesus tradition by a later Christian profoundly influenced by his own ideas and circumstances. However, it is now recognised that what applies to the Fourth Gospel applies equally to all the Gospel: the synoptic Gospels, quite as much as John, have been influenced by the ideas and the circumstances of their authors. Thus in reading all the Gospels, we have to be aware of the fact that we reading accounts of Jesus‘ life as mediated by later Christians and hence we may learn much, if not more, about the latter as about Jesus himself in studying the Gospel texts.’
pp. 105-106 (emphasis in original)
‘Jesus is Lord’
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, The Bible Leave a comment »by JDG Dunn
The history of this confession of Jesus as Lord in earliest Christianity largely revolves round the question, How significant is the application of this title to Jesus? What role or status does this confession attribute to Jesus or recognise as belonging to Jesus?…The problem is that ‘lord’ can denote a whole range of dignity – from a respectful form of address as to a teacher or judge to a full title for God. Where do the early Christian references to the lordship of Jesus come within this spectrum? The answer seems to be that over the first few decades of Christianity the confession of Jesus as ‘Lord’ moved in overt significance from the lower end of the ‘spectrum of dignity’ towards the upper end steadily gathering to itself increasing overtones of deity.
We need not doubt that the Aramaic mari underlies the Greek kyrie (vocative)…Mar was used of the first century BC holy man Abba Hilkiah, presumably in recognition of the charismatic powers attributed to him. Moreover, ‘lord’ was largely synonymous with ‘teacher’ at the time of Jesus, and Jesus was certainly recognised to have the authority of a rabbi or teacher (Mark 9:5 etc). We can therefore say that the confession of Jesus as Lord was rooted within the ministry of Jesus to the extent that he was widely acknowledged to exercise the authority of a (charismatic) teacher and healer (cf. Mark 1:22,27).
Whether ‘Lord’ already had a higher significance for Jesus himself during his ministry depends on how we evaluate Mark 12:35-37:
‘While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, ‘Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:
‘ “The Lord said to my Lord:
‘Sit at my right hand
Until I put your enemies
Under your feet.”‘David himself calls him “Lord”. How then can he be his son?’
Even if it contains an authentic word of the historical Jesus (as is quite possible) it need only mean that he understood Messiah to be a figure superior to David in significance and specially favoured by Yahweh. It does not necessarily imply that he thought the Messiah was a divine figure (Psalm 110 after all probably referred to the king).
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From: Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity (emphasis in the original) pp.53-54.
So Dunn recognises that the title ‘lord’ originally denoted a human being. As the term began to be used in pagan contexts as the Gentile mission spread, where it was well established as a title for the cult deity in the mystery religions (especially Isis and Serapis), and also in Emperor worship – ‘Caesar is Lord’- a radical alteration of the meaning of the term occurred. Above all, St Paul advanced this change in meaning quite deliberately. He uses Old Testament texts that speak of Yahweh and applies them to Jesus (e.g. Romans 10:13). For Paul, ‘Lord Jesus’ had become a title of divinity.
In a profound sense, Paul founded the religion of Christianity we know today.
Why the Christian Understanding of Salvation is ‘Morally Grotesque’
Posted: January 27, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, The Bible 26 Comments »
Here is an extract from my opening presentation at London Central mosque in December 2011:
Islam places great stress on God as a God of mercy and forgiveness whom the individual can approach directly without the need of any mediator or priest. God says in the Quran:
‘O My servants, who have transgressed against their souls. Do not despair of the mercy of God, for He forgives all sins, He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.’
(39:53). From this understanding, which was shared by Jesus, flow certain critical observations regarding the later Christian view of the necessity of Jesus’ alleged vicarious atonement.
The Christian idea that guilt can be removed from a wrongdoer by someone else being punished instead is morally grotesque. Or if we say that God in the person of God the Son punished himself in order to be able to justly forgive sinners, we still have the absurdity of a moral law which God must satisfy by punishing the innocent in place of the guilty. As the medieval theologian St Anselm wrote in his work Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo), ‘it is a strange thing if God so delights in, or requires, the blood of the innocent, that he neither chooses, nor is able, to spare the guilty without the sacrifice of the innocent’.
I believe the basic fault of the Christian understanding of salvation is that it has no room for divine forgiveness. For a forgiveness that has to be bought by the bearing of a just punishment, or the offering of a sacrifice, is not forgiveness, but merely an acknowledgement that a debt has been paid in full. The Cross is not a symbol of forgiveness at all: on the orthodox Christian view, it denotes the repayment of a debt, as the infinity of Original Sin is atoned for by the infinite sacrifice of God’s own temporary death. But what humanity really needs, as we look back over our long record of disobedience, is a model of true forgiveness by a God who does not calculate, who imposes no mean-spirited ‘economy of salvation’ worthy only of accountants and bookkeepers. As the Bible teaches: The letter killeth – the spirit giveth life.
But in the authentic teaching of Jesus to be found in the synoptic gospels (that is the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) there is, in contrast, genuine divine forgiveness for those who truly repent. In the Lord’s Prayer we are taught to address God directly and to ask for forgiveness for our sins, expecting to receive this, the only condition being that we in turn forgive one another. There is no suggestion of the need for a mediator between ourselves and God or for an atoning death to enable God to forgive.
One of the most famous of all Jesus’ parables is found in Luke’s gospel: the so-called parable of the prodigal son. It is a story about how God treats repentant sinners. Note that the father when he sees his repentant son returning home does not say ‘Because I am a just as well as a loving father, I cannot forgive him until someone has been duly punished for his sins’, but rather he had compassion, and ran and embraced him and welcomed him home. So God does not need a sacrifice in order to forgive anyone. As the English convert from Christianity to Islam Ruqaiyyah Maqsood wrote: ‘the split-second of turning from Christianity to Islam is the realisation of the truth of the parable of the Prodigal Son. In the parables, God is loving enough to forgive directly. That was the whole glory of the Judaism which Jesus upheld.’
Another example is to be found in Luke’s story of the tax collector and the Pharisee, the tax collector standing far off would not lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’. Jesus declared that this man went home justified before God. Jesus insisted that he came to bring sinners to a penitent acceptance of God’s mercy: ‘Go and learn what this means, he said, quoting God: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Matt 9.13)
In my experience Christians often use the analogy of a ‘debt’ to explain how God needs someone to pay off our sin debt to him, and, because of his justice, he must take the payment from someone. Jesus however had very different ideas about God, namely that God is quite able to just cancel our debt of sin and forgive the sinner.
In Matthew 18 we read Jesus’ teaching:
The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of pounds. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
“But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
“But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand pounds. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
“His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
So God freely forgives our sins and expects us to forgive our neighbour too. The Lord’s Prayer, of course, has the same commandment.
So how is a human being to attain eternal life, that is, how are we to be saved? Interestingly, Jesus was asked this very question and you can read his answer in the gospel according to Mark chapter 10. Here is the story:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Note that Jesus does not tell the man that he must put his faith in Jesus, or that salvation is solely dependent on Jesus dying to atone for his sins. No. As a humble Jew Jesus recognizes that the attribute of goodness is found perfectly in God alone, not in himself; that to sincerely obey the commands of the Torah is the main road to salvation, but in this individual’s case he lacked just one thing – he needed to give away his wealth to the poor and this would result in his gaining treasure in heaven. Note carefully the sequence.
That this passage caused embarrassment to later gospel writers (who used Mark’s gospel when compiling their own gospels) is evident from the changes they made to Jesus’ words by removing his denial that he is good
Here is Matthew’s altered version in 19:17 (compare this with Marks original)
And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ (Instead of Mark’s original ‘why do you call me good?’)
By way of contrast let us turn to Paul’s answer to the same question about salvation in Romans 10:9:
If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
The differences are startling. As we have seen, Jesus’ answer to the question about salvation focuses on obedience to the Torah and giving to the poor. As a Prophet to the Jewish people, Jesus taught that faithfulness to God is to be expressed in adherence to the Creator’s commands and precepts in the Torah. Paul’s religion focused on Jesus and he claimed that the Torah had been abolished. Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 taught precisely the opposite.
Jesus’ teaching was fully in accord with contemporary Jewish understanding. Leading Jesus scholar EP Sanders, in his authoritative work on Jesus’ Jewish background says, and I quote, ‘The forgiveness of repentant sinners is a major motif in virtually all the Jewish material which is still available from the period (p 18, Sanders Jesus and Judaism). For Judaism sees human nature as basically good and yet also with an evil inclination that has to be continually resisted. However, God being aware of our finitude and weakness is always ready to forgive the truly repentant. In Islam there is a very similar view.
God is frequently described in the Quran as ar Rahman ir Rahim (The Merciful and the Compassionate).
Jesus, mirroring the teaching of the Quran, teaches that God knows our weakness and forgives those who, in the self-surrender of faith, bow before the compassionate Lord of the universe. Once, the Prophet Muhammad reported that the Devil said: ‘By my honour, O Lord, I shall never stop misguiding your servants so long as life remains in their bodies! The Almighty, the Glorious Lord, said: By My honour, I shall never cease forgiving them, so long as they ask forgiveness of Me!‘ (Ahmad).
Another wonderful saying is: ‘O son of Adam – so long as you call upon Me and ask of me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins as great as the earth itself, and were you then to face Me ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness in equal measure.’ (Tirmidhi, Ahman).
However, it needs to be pointed out that just as some people refuse to stop on the crazy path to their own destruction, despite the intercession of their loved ones, so the future lives of some people will be extremely unpleasant because of their absolute refusal to accept the love and mercy of God and to live in a way that is acceptable to him.
God tells us in the Quran: ‘If God were to punish people according to their wrongdoing, he would not leave on earth a single living creature; but He gives them respite for a stated term; and when their term expires, they will not be able to delay their fate for a single hour, just as they cannot bring it forward by a single hour.‘ (16:61)
Our salvation lies in our own hands and in the supreme compassion of Allah, who loves each individual He has created.
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I would like to share with you some teaching about God’s mercy and forgiveness that is to be found in authentic Hadith. The way they speak of God may surprise you if you think that Muslims believe in a remote and distant deity.
The prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said, Indeed, God is more happy with the repentance of His servant than a man who stops in a barren, desolate land; with him he has his riding animal. He then goes to sleep. When he wakes up he realizes that his mount is gone. He searches for it until he is on the verge of dying (for the mount was carrying his supplies and provisions). He then says, “I will return to the place wherein I lost it, and I will die there.” He went to that place, and he was then overcome by sleep. When he woke up, his mount was standing right beside his head: on it was his food, his drink, his provisions, and the things he needed. God is more happy with the repentance of his believing servant than the aforementioned man when he finds his mount and his provisions. (Bukhari & Muslim)
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A man heard chirping in a thicket, found some young birds, and took them. Their mother came and flew around his head, so he uncovered them and, when she alighted on them, wrapped them up together in his garment and brought them to the Prophet. He commanded the man to put them down and he did so. The mother would not leave them. The prophet said, “Do you wonder at the mercy of the chick’s mother for her young? By Him who sent me with the truth, God shows more mercy to His servants than this mother shows to her young. Take them back and put them where you found them, and their mother with them.” (Abu Daud).
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The Quran says:
“Say, if you love Allah, obey me (Muhammad), Allah will love you and forgive you your sins, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful” Quran 3:31
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For them will be a Home Of Peace in the presence Of their Lord: He will be Their Friend, because they practiced righteousness. (Quran 6:127)
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“To those who believe and do deeds of righteousness hath Allah promised forgiveness and a great reward” Quran 5:9
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The messenger of God said, ‘When God completed the creation He wrote the following, which is with Him above His throne: ’My mercy takes precedence over My wrath’
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The Prophet said, “Among those who came before you there was a man who had murdered ninety-nine people. Then he set out asking whether his repentance could be accepted or not. He came upon a monk and asked him if his repentance could be accepted. The monk replied in the negative and so the man killed him. He kept on asking till a man advised him to go to such and such village. So he left for it but death overtook him on the way. While dying, he turned his chest towards that village where he had hoped his repentance would be accepted, and so the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment quarreled amongst themselves regarding him. Allah ordered the village towards which he was going to come closer to him, and ordered the village whence he had come to go far away, and then He ordered the angels to measure the distances between his body and the two villages. So he was found to be one span closer to the village he was going to. So he was forgiven.”
The messenger of God pbuh said: ’No one will be saved from the hell-fire and admitted into Paradise by his deeds alone. When asked, ‘Not even you O messenger of God? he said, ‘Yes, not even me, unless God covers me with His mercy.
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And finally,
A man came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and asked,’ When will the day of judgment come?’ The Prophet replied, ‘What have you prepared for the judgment day that you are so concerned for it? He replied, ‘I do not have any good deeds in my account, but I do have one thing: I love Allah and His Messenger.’ The Prophet then said, ‘In that case, do not worry; you will be with those whom you love.’”
(Bukhari)
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This is Islam’s great secret, unknown to most in the West: the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). This man’s life and teaching came to me as a complete surprise. What an amazing man! A real prophet of God.
But above even this - dare I say it - is the outrageous and astonishing grace and mercy of God!
The Virgin Birth of Jesus in Islam
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity, Islam Leave a comment »The belief in the virgin birth of Jesus is a belief that is held by both Christianity and Islam. Many often wonder and ask what is the significance of the virgin birth within Islam? In other words what’s Islam’s reasoning for having a virgin birth?
The reason for the virgin birth in Islam is quite simple, it was a mighty miracle, and a mighty sign that God had carried out in order to the show people of the time as well as the coming generations. According to Islam Jesus was the Messiah, so indeed what better way to give a mighty sign for this, by having the Messiah being born of a virgin. The virgin birth also goes to show the high status and honorable position of the Messiah as he is born in miraculous circumstances.
Muslim commentator Ibn Kathir in his well-known interpretation (tafsir) of the Quran provides the following commentary on the significance behind the virgin birth:
This means a proof and a sign for mankind of the power of their Maker and Creator, Who diversified them in their creation. He created their father, Adam, without a male (father) or female (mother). Then, He created Hawwa’ (Adam’s spouse) from a male (father) without a female (mother). Then, He created the rest of their progeny from male and female, except `Isa. He caused `Isa to be born from a female without a male. Thus, Allah completed the four types of creation (of the human being), which proves the perfection of His power and the magnificence of His authority. There is no god worthy of worship except Him and there is no true Lord other than Him.
One must bear in mind that God performs several signs and wonders, the virgin birth happens to be one of them, amongst many other signs and wonders. Other examples of God’s miracles being worked is also in the example of Prophet Zechariah, in his old age he prayed to God for a son, who would be able to carry on his legacy, one must also bear in mind that while Zechariah was in old age, his wife was barren as well. Yet God heard the prayer and granted Zechariah a son, in John the Baptist, and so this was another miracle and sign that God had performed. One can read about this story in the Quran in chapter 19 verses 2-15.
So in essence the reasoning behind the virgin birth was to grant a mighty sign for the people.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Messiah
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity, Islam | Tags: judaism 8 Comments »Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree in the concept of there being a Messiah. A man who would be a king, a leader, a man of great standing, a man of honor, and a man of God. In the Jewish Bible we read about how the Messiah will usher in a kingdom of God, a kingdom in which the Messiah shall ruler over as the leader, a kingdom in which people will serve God, and a kingdom in which there will be peace and security. In the Gospels of the New Testament we read about how Jesus preached about the upcoming kingdom of God. What about Islam? How does the belief in the Messiah relate to Islam? This is a topic that is not often touched upon, Muslims often say yes Jesus is the Messiah according to the Quran, and often leave at that failing to fully appreciate what this actually means and entails.
Within the texts of Islam we are also told of this kingdom that will be ruled by the Messiah, namely Jesus, and that this kingdom will in fact be ushered in when Jesus returns in his second coming and that this would be a major sign of the end times. Just like how the Jewish Bible teaches, this will be a great kingdom, which will serve God, and a kingdom in which peace and security shall reign.
Interestingly it is the Christian concept of Jesus that has caused problems in it’s own understandings of who the Messiah actually was and what he was going to do. According to the Gospels, Jesus who was the Messiah, was in fact captured, and held to a humiliating death on the cross. So humiliating in fact that Jesus supposedly cried ‘My God my God why have you forsaken (abandoned) me’ as he was about to die. This picture of the Messiah stands in stark contrast with what was actually taught about the Messiah, for the Messiah was not to be humiliated and killed by his enemies as a common criminal, rather the Messiah was to be a king who would reign over his enemies and establish his kingdom. As a result of this the Gospels stand in direct contrast to what and who the Messiah actually was. In fact if one were to read the Gospels themselves, it records the disciples being saddened by the death of Jesus, it was a major jolt to their faith. Now why would that be so? Because they believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and according to their correct understanding, the Messiah was not going to be killed by his enemies, rather he was going to establish his kingdom and triumph over his enemies.
Christian missionaries may argue that Jesus did in fact conquer over his enemies by rising from the dead after 3 days, yet the problem for them is that this was not taught about the Messiah, this is a Christian concept that they themselves invented. The Jews never believed that the Messiah was going to die and rise in 3 days, surely if this was such an important cornerstone of God’s divine plan for the Messiah, then surely he would have taught about it. Missionaries may once again argue that God did in fact foretell the death of the Messiah, yet if that was the case, then why were the disciples of Jesus saddened by his death, and why were they totally not expecting it to happen? Surely if God had foretold of this, then they alongside all the other Jewish followers of Jesus would have been expecting this, rather than being ignorant about it, and being completely saddened by his death. Secondly when one reads the Gospel of Luke one reads that the disciples were expecting Jesus to establish the kingdom, if God had foretold of the Messiah’s death and rising why did they not say they were expecting Jesus to rise in a few days, and why were they not excited and happy awaiting such a miraculous event if indeed it was foretold in their scripture? The answer is simple, it’s because no such teaching existed, there was no belief in a dying and rising Messiah, so future Christians after Jesus simply invented such a teaching to rescue Jesus from being a false Messiah, for if he was killed by his enemies as a common criminal. So what better way to fix this mess up? Simply say he was actually raised from the dead in 3 days. Yet the problem remains no matter what as the Messiah was not going to be killed by his enemies as a common criminal.
How does Islam play into this? Interestingly enough, for Islam, there are no problems, as Jesus was never killed by his enemies. In the Quran we get a contrasting version of events, according to the Quran God performed a miraculous deed and saved Jesus from death, God had saved Jesus from his enemies, and by doing so Jesus had truly triumphed over his enemies as God had foiled their plans. According to Islam God had raised Jesus unto himself, God had raised Jesus into paradise, where he awaits his eventual return, in which he shall establish his kingdom, i.e. the kingdom of God that was foretold in the Jewish Bible, and the kingdom of God that was taught by Jesus in the Gospels.
The Jewish Bible stresses that the Messiah would conquer evil before he establishes his kingdom, as there would be oppression and an evil force in place of which the Messiah would come and break. This belief and concept of the Messiah is also found and continued within Islam, as Islam teaches that when Jesus returns, he will first slay the anti-Christ, and then he shall establish his kingdom.
So when it comes down to it, Islam doesn’t merely call Jesus the Messiah simply for the sake of it with no meaning, Islam teaches the great significance of Jesus and what he will do, Islam reminds the people of who the Messiah is, and what he will do. The reason why it is important for this to be said is because Christian missionaries often like to claim that Islam has no actual proper understanding of who the Messiah is, and what he will do. They claim that Islam merely calls Jesus the Messiah but devoid of all substance of what the Messiah actually is. It is very important to know the actual facts and that these claims are completely false as Islam demonstrates that it does hold an important role for Jesus as the Messiah, a role that was taught previously in the Jewish scripture, a role that the Jews had believed in, and if anything it is the Christian missionaries own scripture that contain the contradiction and error in the true understanding of the Messiah.
Interestingly enough a large reason as to why Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah is because of Christianity and what it invented concerning Jesus, that he died and rose for the sins of the world, and that he was God and the unique divine Son of God, it is all of these teachings that have made most Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah as all of these concepts are completely foreign to their Jewish Bible and what they were taught within it concerning the coming of Messiah.
Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Muslim Version || Spoken Word || Response
Posted: January 16, 2012 Filed under: Christianity, Cool stuff, Islam, Poetry, Videos 1 Comment »Shamoun continues to agree: Sins were forgiven before and without the Cross
Posted: January 14, 2012 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity 26 Comments »Missionary Sam Shamoun just doesn’t know when to give up, but that’s fine by me, if he wants to persist in his stubbornness, then I am more than happy to persist in refuting the nonsense he has to write.
In his attempt at damage limitation control, Shamoun came out with an article trying to prove Jesus must be God because he forgave, Shamoun had written this article in responses to Paul Bilal Williams ‘ highly successful debate on the topic of salvation in Islam and Christianity. Now one of Paul’s main arguments was that the cross and crucifixion were not really needed as sin could already be forgiven without the cross, in other words the cross and sacrifice of Jesus was not the only way of removing sins. So obviously Shamoun didn’t get the irony when he mentioned how Jesus used to forgive sins, as this proves the point, sins could be forgiven without the cross as Jesus himself was forgiving people even before he died or was ever put upon a cross! Readers can read up on this issue in the following articles:
http://muslim-responses.com/Forgiven/Forgiven_
Shamoun’s response to all of this is the following:
God could forgive sinners even before Jesus’ actual death is because God had already foreordained from before the creation of the world that Christ would die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice. As such, God was forgiving people before Jesus’ death because he knew that the blood of Christ on Calvary’s Cross would be the payment for all the sins committed by the people of God. (http://answeringislam.net/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/zaatari/forgiven_without_cross.html)
So according to Sam Shamoun, the reason why sins could be forgiven before the cross was because God knew the sacrifice of Jesus was going to eventually happen, so it is on that basis that people were forgiven. Shamoun once again doesn’t understand how his arguments backfire; Shamoun’s limited thinking ability truly makes him fail to grasp the argument!
So I will make it very simple for him, so he can follow along:
- According to Christians, sins cannot be forgiven WITHOUT the cross and sacrifice, it is through the cross in which sins are forgiven
- According to the Bible, people were being forgiven BEFORE and WITHOUT the cross
- Therefore the cross and sacrifice is NOT the ONLY way of forgiveness, there was another method in place
- Shamoun still agrees that people were forgiven BEFORE the incident of the cross, before the sacrifice
- Shamoun argues that God only forgave them because he knew the sacrifice of the cross would happen, yet that still doesn’t change the fact that the sins WERE FORGIVEN BEFORE THE SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS, so whether you know about the cross or you don’t know about it, people were still being forgiven of their sins BEFORE the cross, hence again, the cross is STILL not the only way for sins to be forgiven
So now do you understand Shamoun? Shamoun CONTINUES to affirm the argument and he fails to realize it, that people WERE FORGIVEN OF THEIR SINS BEFORE THE CROSS, now if people were forgiven of their sins before the cross, then that means sins could be forgiven WITHOUT the cross! How hard is to understand this simple point?
Just to make this EVEN MORE SIMPLE for Shamoun, did God forgive people of their sins before the sacrifice of the cross ever happened? We all know the answer, and the answer is the point I am making.
So what’s the main point? God forgave sins before the cross, so the cross is not the only way to get rid of sins, if the cross was the only way to get rid of sins, then people wouldn’t have been forgiven without it as it is the only way to remove sins, yet sins were removed without the cross, hence the cross is not the only way for sins to be removed.
Sam Shamoun agrees, sins could be forgiven without the Cross
Posted: January 12, 2012 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity 14 Comments »After Paul Bilal Williams’ successful debate on the topic of salvation, missionary Sam Shamoun attempted to partake in some damage limitation control with a series of 14 rebuttals. The irony in Shamoun’s ‘rebuttals’ is that he simply affirmed the arguments that were put forward by Paul Williams. For example one of the arguments put forward by Williams was that the cross and crucifixion were not really needed, as there was already a method in place for people to have their sins removed and forgiven, and Paul gave examples of why this was so according to the New Testament itself. Obviously this poses major problems for Christology, as the crucifixion is literally the bedrock of Christianity. So out comes the major irony in Sam Shamoun who writes the following:
Jesus is seen forgiving sins, healing diseases, and knowing what people were thinking within themselves. Yet according to the Hebrew Bible, not only does Yahweh heal all diseases he is also the only one who forgive sins and knows what a person is thinking in his/her heart… In light of the foregoing, isn’t any wonder that the scribes who knew the Law thought that Jesus was blaspheming since they knew from the Jewish Scriptures that Christ was claiming an ability that belonged to God alone? And as far as they were concerned, Jesus was nothing more than a flesh and blood Jewish man who should have known better than to claim such exclusive divine functions and abilities for himself. (http://answeringislam.net/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/williams/god_incarnate1.html)
Sam Shamoun is essentially trying to argue that Jesus must be God because he was able to forgive people of their sins; the major irony is that Shamoun doesn’t realize that he is simply affirming Williams’ argument! The fact that Jesus was able to forgive sins BEFORE HE WENT ON A CROSS proves that sins could be forgiven and removed WITHOUT the cross, it shows that the crucifixion was not needed, and that Jesus could’ve simply forgiven people of their sins. Furthermore Shamoun states that this proves Jesus must be God as only God can forgive sin, therefore Shamoun affirms this attribute of God, that he is the forgiving one, i.e. he can forgive sins, so once again this proves the cross and crucifixion was not needed as all God could have done was to forgive people of their sins!
All in all this shows that the crucifixion was NOT the only method of forgiveness, there was a far more simple way of removing sins, and it was by the act of forgiveness. No blood, no death, no human sacrifice, but the simple act of: ‘I forgive you’.
A Very Early Easter Sermon
Posted: January 6, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity | Tags: blood sacrifice, evangelical christians, giles fraser Leave a comment »Thinking about the celebration of Holy Week in my new adopted cathedral brings home to me quite how important it is for Christians to insist upon a non-sacrificial reading of the death of Christ. For too long, Christians have put up with a theory of salvation that has at its core the idea that God requires the sacrifice of his own son so that human sin can be cancelled. “There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin,” we will all sing. The fact this is a disgusting idea, and morally degenerate, is obvious to all but those indoctrinated into a very narrow reading of the cross.
No, Jesus is not a blood sacrifice to appease a vicious God. The story is not an endorsement of the idea that sacrifice brings peace with God but an attack on it. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” Jesus insists, going on to side with the scapegoats themselves. The Gospel is clear. I am with the hunchback. I am with the one cast out. He became one with the rejected and the cast out. And thus he suffered the same fate. This is not to endorse sacrificial theology but to condemn it.
Yet despite this clear identification with the victim, much official Christianity holds on to the sacrificial reading of Christ’s death. The present pope has insisted that the Eucharist must be seen as a sacrifice rather than as a meal among friends, and evangelical Christians remain committed to their theory of Christ being sacrificed to offset human sin.
Lord have mercy.
————————-
The above text is an extract from an article originally in the Guardian newspaper 2009
It was entitled: The merciful crucifixion: What vicious God would demand Jesus sacrificed for our sins? We should ditch this view of Easter
Can God Become A Man? James White vs Abdullah Kunde
Posted: December 31, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, MDI 99 Comments »MDI Australia member, Abdullah Kunde debates Dr James White, of Alpha & Omega Ministries.
Debate filmed 17/09/2011 at UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
Is Allah Responsible For Christianity?
Posted: December 23, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity 2 Comments »According to the Quran Jesus was neither killed nor crucified, rather it was made to appear so, and that God had saved Jesus from the cross (4:157). Many Christian missionaries have seized upon this teaching to argue that as a result of this, it is Allah, who is responsible for the birth of Christianity. The Christian argues that since Allah made it look like Jesus on the cross, then it is Allah who is actually responsible for Christians who do in fact believe that it was Jesus who had been crucified, and killed upon the cross.
This is the type of argument that I often like to refer to as an argument good on rhetoric, but devoid of actual substance. Now here is the first question, according to Christianity, is it only crucial and fundamental to believe that Jesus was killed on a cross? The answer is no, according to Christianity one must believe that Jesus not only died on the cross, but that he was raised after three days, and that his actual death was a sacrifice for the atonement of sins. So how is Allah responsible for all of that? Allah simply made it appear that Jesus died, so how do you go from Jesus dying onto a cross, to Jesus dying for the sins of mankind, and raising from the dead three days later? Obviously the Christian putting forth this argument hasn’t strongly engaged in the area of critical thinking skills.
The ones who are responsible for Christianity are the preachers who came after Jesus and started preaching that his death was for the sins of mankind; they are the ones responsible for this teaching, not Allah. Allah never told anybody that Jesus died for your sins, Allah never told anybody that Jesus raised from the dead, rather these teachings came from Paul. If you had people who simply believed that Jesus died on the cross, then there would be no problem, all it would mean is that Jesus was a martyr who died for the cause, end of story. Yet that’s not what we have here, as stated, people came along and turned this event into something entirely different, claiming that this death was a sacrifice for humanity, and that the sacrificed one rose from the dead three days later.
So is Allah responsible for Christianity? No.
For unto us a Child is born
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Dawah 1 Comment »-
Who is this really describing?
It’s Christmas time and Trinitarian Christians are proclaiming the birth of God as the baby Jesus 2000 years ago. Their favorite Biblical prophecy concerning this event is Isaiah 9:5-6. How amazing that Isaiah speaks so clearly about Jesus! – and how baffling that Jews and Muslims remain so stubborn in their rejection of a divine Messiah!
But wait a minute – let us revisit this famous passage which will be read out in churches all over the world this week.
The Jewish Study Bible translates the passage thus:
For a child has been born to us,
A son has been given us.
And authority has settled on his shoulders.
He has been named
“The Mighty God is planing grace;
The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler” -
In token of abundant authority
And of peace without limit
Upon David’s throne and kingdom,
That it may be firmly established
In justice and in equity
Now and evermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts
Shall bring this to pass.
(Isaiah 9:5-6)
The scholarly commentary informs us:
“The Mighty God…ruler”:
‘This long sentence is the throne name of the royal child. Semitic names often consist of sentences that describe God; thus the name Isaiah in Hebrew means ”The LORD saves; Hezekiah, “The LORD strengthens”; in Akkadian, the name of the Babylonian king Merodach-baladan (Isa.39.1) means “the god Marduk has provided an heir.” These names do not describe that person who holds them but the god whom the parents worship.
Similarly, the name given to the child in this verse does not describe that child or attribute divinity to him, contrary to classical Christian readings of this messianic verse.’
So it seems that this passage is not a prediction about God becoming a man after all. In its historical context the verses probably refer to Ahaz’s son Hezekiah. This seems to be the consensus of modern scholars.
The Jewish Study Bible is published by Oxford University Press. This magisterial text is a must for those involved in Dawah.
Happy holidays!
Ineffectual Grace: A Reply to John Samson
Posted: December 19, 2011 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christian extremism, Christianity | Tags: christianity 24 Comments »Ineffectual Grace
John Samson is a Christian minister in Arizona, USA.
After MDI’s recent successful debate at the London Central Mosque between Rev Dr Steve Latham and myself on the subject of Salvation in Islam and Christianity I was interested to read how Christians felt about the arguments I used. Did they have any responses to my challenge? So naturally I was pleased to discover that a certain John Samson had put up parts 1 & 2 of my debate on his website called Effectual Grace. He wrote, ‘This very useful debate on the subject of “salvation” took place at the prestigious Regents Park Central Mosque in London, England on December 4th, 2011′.
By way of introducing myself to him I posted this comment on his website:
Hi John, I’m glad you liked the debate. Can I ask how you thought it went and do you have any observations about the Islamic position on salvation I defended?
regards
Paul Williams
He replied:
Hi Paul,
I am always amazed to watch these interactions, knowing that such a debate could never take place in a Muslim ruled country. It is only the freedom of the west that would allow such a debate. I thought the debate allowed the two sides to articulate their positions very well.
My observations? I listened intently to all you had to say. I thought you spoke very well to present the Muslim side but in all honesty was disappointed that you suggested Paul and Jesus were at odds regarding salvation, stemming from the implicit notion that because Paul never met Jesus, he had a different gospel. Yet there is very little in Paul that is not also in Peter and John and so on… Peter wrote “we are not redeemed by silver and gold but by the precious blood of Christ..” etc. That sounds very Pauline to me… and it also sounds very Christlike too Matthew 26: 26-28 “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you,for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
This would summarize my own position: “Every verse of all four Gospels is meant by the authors to be read in the shadow of the cross. When we start reading one of the Gospels, we already know how it ends—the death and resurrection of Jesus as a substitute for our sins (Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28)—and we should have that ending in mind with every verse that we read. And this is exactly what each of the Gospels intends. For example, Luke begins his story with the great word from the angel to the shepherds, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10). And Luke does not leave us wondering how Jesus would be a Savior. He connects the suffering and death of Jesus to the New Covenant of forgiveness—“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). And the New Covenant promises forgiveness for sins: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). So, according to Luke’s portrait of Jesus the blood of Jesus is being shed for the forgiveness of sins.”
May I ask you to take a look at this Paul? It is a teaching by Dr. John Piper at a Pastor’s Conference entitled “Did Jesus Preach Paul’s Gospel?” http://vimeo.com/10951333
Regards,
John
I was greatly encouraged to find a Christian who had taken the trouble to watch my debate and offer his observations, however critical. So in reply I posted this comment on his website:
John, I want to thank you for your comprehensive feedback. All your points can be effectively countered, but at this point to keep this simple and manageable I want to focus on the key point as I see it. You outline your argument thus:
‘This would summarize my own position: “Every verse of all four Gospels is meant by the authors to be read in the shadow of the cross. When we start reading one of the Gospels, we already know how it ends—the death and resurrection of Jesus as a substitute for our sins (Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28)—and we should have that ending in mind with every verse that we read. And this is exactly what each of the Gospels intends.’
And I think scholars of redaction criticism would agree with you whole heartedly. But, they would also point out that the evangelists crafting of the material at their disposal and their incorporating myths and legends into the gospels precludes us from simply reading off the the surface of the text and drawing uncritical conclusions.
As Evangelical Professor Michael Licona states: “It can forthrightly be admitted that the data surrounding what happened to Jesus is fragmentary and could possibly be mixed with legend”
Licona continued, “there is somewhat of a consensus among contemporary scholars that the Gospels belong to the genre of Greco-Roman biography (bios).” Then he goes on to say that “Bioi offered the ancient biographers great flexibility for rearranging material and inventing speeches,…and they often included legend. Because bios was a flexible genre, it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins”
Licona’s assessment of the gospel’s genre is clearly based on a thorough acquaintance with the subject. For further scholarly analysis I recommend the standard critical introduction to the gospel’s genre:
What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography by Rev Richard A. Burridge, Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Kings College, London. Burridge would certainly agree with Licona’s conclusions.
But turning from the evangelists own telling of the story to the historical Jesus and his teaching which is probably better preserved in the gospel of Mark and Q (than in the highly interpreted gospel of John), what do we read?
How is a human being to attain eternal life, that is, how are we to be saved? Interestingly, Jesus was asked this very question and you can read his answer in the gospel according to Mark chapter 10. Here is the story:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Note that Jesus does not tell the man that he must put his faith in Jesus, or that salvation is solely dependent on Jesus dying to atone for his sins. No. As a humble Jew Jesus recognizes that the attribute of goodness is found perfectly in God alone, not in himself; that to sincerely obey the commands of the Torah is the main road to salvation, but in this individual’s case he lacked just one thing – he needed to give away his wealth to the poor and this would result in his gaining treasure in heaven. Note carefully the sequence.
That this passage caused embarrassment to later gospel writers (who used Mark’s gospel when compiling their own gospels) is evident from the changes they made to Jesus’ words by removing his denial that he is good
Here is Matthew’s altered version in 19:17 (compare this with Marks original)
And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ (Instead of Mark’s original ‘why do you call me good?’)
By way of contrast let us turn to Paul’s answer to the same question about salvation in Romans 10:9:
‘If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’
The differences are startling. As we have seen, Jesus’ answer to the question about salvation focuses on obedience to the Torah and giving to the poor. As a Prophet to the Jewish people, Jesus taught that faithfulness to God is to be expressed in adherence to the Creator’s commands and precepts in the Torah. Paul’s religion focused on Jesus and he claimed that the Torah had been abolished. Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 taught precisely the opposite.
One last point – I want to invite you to an imaginative reconstruction of the Mark 10 story. In my version the story continues…. at this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. But later that evening he had a change of heart and said to himself ‘Jesus’ offer of eternal life and is just so amazing that I will give all my wealth to the poor after all. Jesus said if I did this I would have treasure in heaven.’ So the next day he was true to his word and sold his possessions and gave all his money to the poor. That night the man died quietly in his sleep.
Did he go to heaven?
About 10 minutes after I posted this comment on his site I discovered that Samson had deleted the 2 videos of the debate, and deleted all my comments and his reply. Shortly after that I received the following email from Samson:
Paul,
I dont appreciate your rhetoric at all. Quoting a scholar is not proof of anything.
Secondly, if he does not believe the Bible is God’s word, or believes parts of the Gospels are myths and legends, how can he in any way be an Evangelical? You say he is, I sure dont.
I could quote many scholars who would be more than happy to defend the inspiration and reliability of the Bible, both of its text and of its message, my friend, Dr. James White being one of them.
As I have reflected more on the debate, I feel Steve let the Christian side down badly by over stepping the boundaries of orthodoxy. Therefore after some thought, I no longer feel the debate is useful for people so have removed the debate from my blog. There are other debates I would recommend folk to watch which at least gives the orthodox Christian view. With all due respect to Steve, he did not provide that (in my opinion).
You also miss the entire point of Mark 10 - see here: http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/sermons/Derek’s_SERMONS/Mark/17b%20mark_10.17to31.htm
I do not think further discussion would be profitable.
John
This is most peculiar behavior. The Muslim Debate Initiative has a track record of debating Christians in a fair, courteous and intellectually rigorous manner. Samson was happy to post the “very useful” MDI video on his site having watched it first. He replied to my request for comments, but then apparently threw a tantrum when I had the temerity to counter his arguments in what I hope was a scholarly manner. Why is he not willing to defend his version of ‘orthodox Christianity’ against Muslim critique?
Furthermore he speaks most unfairly and inaccurately about the Rev Dr Steve Latham’s supposed theological ‘unorthodoxy’. Steve, who has a PhD in Christian theology from the prestigious Kings College here in London, holds to the central doctrines of Evangelicalism as understood by evangelical Baptists in the UK and the US. Could it be that Samson, an erstwhile Englishman, has not only taken up residence in America but inculcated the worse accesses of Christian fundamentalism which so plague that otherwise beautiful country? I hope not.
It is a shame that his only response to a reasoned Muslim challenge to his strict Calvinist Christian theology is censorship and apparently a fit of pique.
Obscure Christian Demagogue, Sam Shamoun refuses to deny the Bible DOES have forgeries
Posted: December 19, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity, The Bible 3 Comments »I recently made a post mentioning how Sam Shamoun quoted a forged verse from the Bible in trying to make a point against Islam:
http://thedebateinitiative.com/2011/12/18/sam-shamoun-quotes-a-biblical-forgery/
The posting obviously rattled the missionary’s cage as we are about to see, as he left the following message in response:
Sam Shamoun Hey folks, that troll Sami Zaatari posted this article in response to this blog spot: http://thedebateinitiative.com/2011/12/18/sam-shamoun-quotes-a-biblical-forgery/. He thinks that I posted this verse, which is fine since this will come to backfire against him. He doesn’t realize that whenever the other admins post something here, the same picture shows up. This is typical behavior of Muslim dwagandists since they are following the example of Allah and his false prophet whom he shamed and humiliated (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/10/who-killed-muhammad.html). However, the admins and Christians need to learn from these Christophobes and start studying up on textual criticism since a comparison of the Bible’s textual transmission with the Quran’s shows that Allah again lied to Muhammad when he said he would preserve his unholy deception from corruption… Now Sami make sure you mention this post as well.
(http://www.facebook.com/SamShamoun)
I hope Sam Shamoun is happy I mentioned his post? Shamoun is complaining that it wasn’t him who made the posting, even though the facebook page is named after him, links to his articles, links to his videos, links to his events, and even speaks like him when posting a message! So forgive me if I assumed it was Sam Shamoun making a posting on a facebook page titled Sam Shamoun.
Now having said all of that I want everybody to remember the main point of my original post, which was to merely point out that a BIBLICAL FORGERY WAS USED. Now does Shamoun refute that argument? No, instead all he does is argue that the text of the Quran is corrupt! Well as Shamoun’s colleague David Wood often likes to say, this is known as the tu quoque fallacy. So for example if person A accuses person B of being a liar, person B will merely respond back by telling person A you’re a liar as well! Shamoun has committed that very fallacy here, instead of defending his Bible; he merely says oh well the Quran is corrupt as well! Yet that doesn’t change the fact that the Bible does have a forgery in it, namely in John 8 about the story of the adulteress. So even if we grant Shamoun’s argument, all he has shown is that both the Quran and his Bible are textually corrupted, good job Sam!
Imagine you were a Christian hoping for a response from Sam Shamoun, a response to defend his Bible, and all he can muster up is throwing the accusation back against the Quran! That Christian still expects an answer regarding the accusation against the Bible, okay the Quran is corrupt, but what about my own Holy Book is there an actual forgery in it? Sadly if you are a Christian the hard truth is that the story of the adulteress is UNAMIOUSLY accepted as a forgery by textual critics of the Bible. Virtually all academics in this field accept this conclusion.
As for the supposed corruption of the Quran, please visit the following links that discusses the history, preservation, and textual integrity of the Holy Quran:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/
In conclusion all I will say is the following: Sam Shamoun agrees that there are Biblical forgeries, and with missionaries like him, who needs non-believing critics?!
Obscure Christian Demagogue, Sam Shamoun quotes a Biblical Forgery!
Posted: December 18, 2011 Filed under: articles by Sami Zaatari, Christianity, The Bible 2 Comments »I was recently browsing Sam Shamoun’s page on Facebook as he has been making comments about one of MDI’s latest debate that took place. What caught my eye was a new post he made on his page. He posted the following verse:
”If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)
The above verse was quoted by him alongside a picture of a Muslim lady supposedly getting stoned (the picture is not real btw). So why is this interesting? Well the verse he just happens to quote is an admitted forgery! The whole story of the adultress is a forged story that was inserted into the Gospel of John by a certain scribe. Now one would expect that someone like Sam Shamoun would know such a basic fact! Maybe Shamoun needs to go pick some books up and start learning the basics.
Shamoun’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SamShamoun
Strange reactions after the MDI debate on Salvation in Islam and Christianity
Posted: December 17, 2011 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Christian extremism, Christianity, Debates, Silly 4 Comments »After the debate on Salvation in Christianity and Islam on 4th December 2011, we had received many positive responses from both Muslims and Christians who attended. We would like to thank all the attendees for coming and making the event friendly, open and illuminating.
After we released the video of the event, a few online Christian forums were discussing the event. Most comments were positive, however we there were some very strange comments coming from the Facebook page of an obscure American Evangelical ‘apologist’ going by the name of Sam Shamoun. Enjoy.
Hey folks here is a debate which every serious Christian apologist needs to listen to, especially to the Muslim speaker who was a former “born again” Christian. Are we ready to answer his use of the Holy Bible to refute what we believe?
Paul Billal Williams, a false Prophet who must be put to death?
Nanna Mae If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or wonder, And the sign or the wonder comes to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other elohim, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not harken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for Yahweh your Elohim proveth you, to know whether ye love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after Yahweh your Elohim, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from Yahweh your Elohim
The ‘Behara Code’ – the conspiracy theory that Islam was set up by an unhappy Monk – from ‘credible sources’
Lina Coptic This is a brief story of Islam, passed down to me from many generations of christian Arabs, for I too am a christian Arab. There was a christian monk named “Behera”. he preached false information and was exiled from the church. he sought revenge and so he went to his friend Muhammad and told him that they could start their own religion, wreak havoc on the christian church, and become powerful men at the same time. and this is why you find alot of Christian teachings in the quran.
Discouraging video
Tony Tanious discouraging video….what is the apologetic response to Matthew 18:23?
If we forgive other peoples sins towards us, does it mean we will have to pay for those sins ourselves ‘out of our own pocket’? (furthermore, the parable of Matthew 18 :23 about pardoning debt, does not contain the word ‘ransom’).
Natalie Rahal I have an answer for Matthew 18 :23
It’s very simple actually.
The man was indebted to his master for a certain amount of money. But he was given pardon by his master, therefore the dept was already payed for from out of his own pocket. There WAS a ransom made. Because by definition, a ransom means for someone or something to be released by means of payment.
Paul Bilal Williams converted to Islam to gain the admiration of some Muslims??
We shouldn’t let tricksters like Paul Bilal try to fool people. Both Muslims and Christians are being fooled. I don’t even think Paul Bilal is even a true Muslim , he is just trying to make a name for himself and enjoys being showered by Muslim admirations.
If Jesus is God, why does he need to be given authority? Ronald’s three questions…
Ronald Peter Sam, for my learning, would you please comment on the following arguments that Paul raised in this debate;
1) (Mark 2:5-12) why the scripture says, the Son of man has power “ON EARTH” to forgive sins? Jesus is God, He has divine powers and he can excercise that power anywhere regardless of location may it be heaven or Earth. Why is there emphasis on Earth?
2) Using the aforementioned passage, Paul argued that Jesus was “GIVEN” the authority to forgive sins if Jesus is God than He needs not to take the authority but excercise it as His right.
I have looked in parallel Bible KJV, NJV, NIV, NLT and did not find the word GIVEN that Paul refered to. I wonder what version he read this passage from?
Actually, if Ronald kept on reading it says in Matthew 9:
‘So he [Jesus] said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 Then the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.‘
It also is mentioned further on in the same gospel -
Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV)
‘Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’
Hey guys, here is the second part of that Christ-Muslim debate. You have to hear the Muslim’s rebuttal since he brings up a lot of tough objections that Christians need to answer
Paul apparently has ‘messed up’ a lot of Christian minds…
Lina Coptic Sam can you please do a favor and make a video refuting Paul Bilal Williams ‘s statements!! he brought up many points that need to be refuted!!! and he probably messed up alot of Christian minds! CAN YOU!??
Part 2 of our MDI debate at London Central Mosque: Salvation in Christianity and Islam
Posted: December 14, 2011 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Debates, Islam, The Bible, Videos 3 Comments »Part 2 is now out. It records the rebuttals and the Q & A session.
It took place at the prestigious London Central Mosque on 4th December 2011.
Speakers:
Rev Dr Steve Latham, Director for Continuing Ministerial Development at Spurgeons College, London (a Christian Seminary)
Paul Williams, Director of Muslim Debate Initiative
In my view this was an excellent debate and showcased how MDI hosts, moderates and conducts its debates in a respectful and intellectually rigorous manner.
Recent MDI debate at London Central Mosque: Salvation in Christianity and Islam
Posted: December 13, 2011 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, MDI, Videos 6 Comments »Part 1 has just come out of production, so here is the film of my debate with the pastor of the Church where I became a born-again Evangelical Christian.
It took place at the prestigious London Central Mosque on 4th December 2011. We discussed the following questions (and a lot more!)
How are we saved? How does God save mankind from the consequences of their evils acts? Can we ever be forgiven? How do we obtain this forgiveness from God? Do we need the sacrifice of Jesus, or is striving in good actions with repentance enough? What faith do we need? Did Jesus teach atonement of our sins through his blood, or by faith and good actions alone?
Speakers:
Rev Dr Steve Latham, Director for Continuing Ministerial Development at Spurgeons College, London (a Christian Seminary)
Paul Williams, Director of Muslim Debate Initiative
In my view this was an excellent debate and showcased how MDI hosts, moderates and conducts its debates in a respectful and intellectually rigorous manner.
London Central Mosque Debate: Salvation in Christianity and Islam
Posted: December 4, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Debates | Tags: christianity, debate, jesus, salvation Leave a comment »How are we saved? How does God save mankind from the consequences of their evils acts? Can we ever be forgiven? How do we obtain this forgiveness from God? Do we need the sacrifice of Jesus, or is striving in good actions with repentance enough? What faith do we need? Did Jesus teach atonement of our sins through his blood, or by faith and good actions alone?
It took place at the prestigious London Central Mosque on 4th December 2011.
Speakers:
Rev Dr Steve Latham, Director for Continuing Ministerial Development at Spurgeons College, London (a Christian Seminary)
Paul Williams, Director of Muslim Debate Initiative
In our view this was an excellent debate and again, showcased how MDI hosts, moderates and conducts its debates in a respectful and intellectually rigorous manner.
Here is Part 1 film of my debate with the pastor of the Church where Paul Williams became a born-again Evangelical Christian.
It took place at the prestigious London Central Mosque on 4th December 2011. We discussed the following questions (and a lot more!)
Part 2 records the rebuttals and the Q & A session.
Judging by the Injil
Posted: November 27, 2011 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam 5 Comments »© Paul Williams June 2011
The U.S.A today has seen a sharp rise in incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim feeling. Expressions of such feeling have been noticeable in Mosque bombings, arson, violence towards Muslims, discrimination at work, and even murder. The sources of such negative feelings come from a number of traditionally intolerant sources; the right-wing neo-conservatives, radicals, white supremacists, and fundamentalist Christians.
In their expressions of hate towards Muslims, these groups invoke alarmist, paranoid conspiracy-theory narratives of ‘Islamisation of the USA’ or ‘stealth Jihad’ by what amounts to only 2% of the population.
Militant fundamentalist Christians, have added a further layer to this narrative, and combined an aggressive concept of Christian proselytisation , to wage ‘Spiritual warfare’ on non-believers (which is a cross between the Crusades and Psy-Ops worthy of a Cold war regime). This usually involves a number of methods, ranging from publishing aggressive and skewed articles online, to video propaganda, and disturbing non-Christian community events with loud speakers, large insulting signs and scattering leaflets amongst crowds of ‘heathens’.
Although we have come to hear of the more infamous groups of militant Christians, such as Westboro Baptist Church, others, of a more obscure variety exist, such as Acts 17 Ministries – infamous for yearly disrupting the Arab cultural festival in Dearborn Michigan. This year, they intent to mass distributed a number of anti-Islamic propaganda, focusing on a number of Islamic theological beliefs; in an attempt to ‘counter the spread of Sharia law’.
One such article they intend to distribute, concerns attacking the Islamic belief that Jesus (a.s) is not divine. In order to achieve this, they resort to straw manning the interpretation of Quranic quotes which tell Christians to study their own Bible to see the truth of Islam. The militant Christians claim that it is the Bible itself which ‘clearly’ and ‘uncontrovertibly ‘proves’ the divinity of Jesus, and therefore Islam is wrong in it’s claims, and Muhammed (saw) is a false prophet.
David Wood of Acts 17 Ministries wrote and produced this little pamphlet. You can read it here. Let’s scratch the surface, and put this argument to the test…
God in his Word, the Holy Quran ( 5:46-47), tells us that:
‘And We caused Jesus, the son of Mary, to follow in the footsteps of those earlier prophets, confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah; and We vouchsafed unto him the Gospel, wherein there was guidance and light, confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah, and as a guidance and admonition unto the God-conscious.’
‘Let, then, the followers of the Gospel judge in accordance with what God has revealed therein: for they who do not judge in the light of what God has bestowed from on high – it is they, they who are truly iniquitous!’
Furthermore we read in Quran 3:3-4:
Step by step has He bestowed upon thee from on high this divine writ, setting forth the truth which confirms whatever there still remains of earlier revelations: for it is He who has bestowed from on high the Torah and the Gospel aforetime, as a guidance unto mankind, and it is He who has bestowed upon man the standard by which to discern the true from the false.
Behold, as for those who are bent on denying God’s messages – grievous suffering awaits them: for God is almighty, an avenger of evil.
It is important to bear in mind that the Gospel frequently mentioned in the Qur’an is not identical with what is known today as the Four Gospels, but refers to an original, since lost, revelation bestowed upon Jesus and known to his contemporaries under its Greek name of Evangelion (“Glad Tidings”), on which the Arabicized form Injil is based. It was probably the source from which the Synoptic Gospels derived much of their material and some of the teachings attributed to Jesus. The fact of its having been lost and forgotten is alluded to in the Qur’an in 5:14
Quran 5:14:
And likewise, from those who say, “Behold, we are Christians.” We have accepted a solemn pledge: and they, too, have forgotten much of what they had been told to bear in mind – wherefore We have given rise among them to enmity and hatred, to last until Resurrection Day and in time God will cause them to understand what they have contrived.
Thus the Qur’an elliptically rejects the Christian’s claim of being true followers of Jesus: for, by wrongfully elevating him to the status of divinity they have denied the very essence of his message.
Furthermore, by their going astray from the genuine teachings of Jesus – and thus from true faith in God – is the innermost cause of the enmity and hatred which has so often set the so-called Christian nations against one another and led to unceasing wars and mutual persecution.
So in light of this Quranic teaching Muslims are entirely justified in asking Christians ‘What did Jesus say about himself?’ ‘Where did Jesus claim to be God?’
Our Early Sources of Information about Jesus
Most Christians who are not familiar with biblical scholarship probably think that knowing about the historical Jesus is a relatively straightforward matter. We have four gospels in the New Testament, so to know what Jesus said and did we should read the gospels. So what is the problem?
The problem in part is that the gospels are full of discrepancies and were written decades after Jesus’ ministry by authors who had not themselves witnessed any of the events of Jesus’ life.
But it gets worse. For honest readers notice not just the occasional contradiction or error in the New Testament; there are the existence of forgeries claiming apostolic authorship and containing fake eye-witness testimony (such as the notorious Second Letter of ‘Peter’); the troubling absence of the doctrine of the Trinity; the worrying interpolations/corruptions that have been discovered at crucial points in the NT: the so-called ‘Johannine Comma’ of 1 John 5:7 is clearly Trinitarian in teaching but is known to be a much later insertion by a Christian scribe; the absence of any resurrection appearances in the earliest gospel of Mark (check it out!); the fabrication of stories about Jesus (the famous story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 was not part of the gospel but added much later by an unknown scribe). All these facts are understandably deeply worrying for Christians, for how do we really know what is authentic and what is the inauthentic material in the NT? And to make matters worse – what about the unknown interpolations and corruptions that probably exist but still lie undetected?
But surely the most troubling phenomenon in the New Testament must be the difference between the Synoptic gospels and John. Most Christians are serenely unaware of the problem because they are not taught to notice what is evident to all serious students of the Bible.
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel
In John, Jesus speaks with an unclouded consciousness of a divine existence with God from before his time on earth (5.19ff and 8.12ff make this clear). But the question cannot be ducked whether the Jesus of the fourth gospel was intended as a historical portrayal, whether Jesus of Nazareth actually spoke in the terms used by John. Were the Christological claims of John’s gospel already in place from the beginning of Christianity? It is hardly likely.
Consider the following
James D. G. Dunn, one of the leading moderate New Testament scholars around and no “anti-supernatural liberal,” writes:
Few scholars would regard John as a source for information regarding Jesus’ life and ministry in any degree comparable to the Synoptics. It is worth noting briefly the factors which have been considered of enduring significance on this point. One is the very different picture of Jesus’ ministry, both in the order and the significance of events and the location of Jesus’ ministry. Another is the striking difference in Jesus’ style of speaking (much more discursive and theological, in contrast to the aphoristic and parabolic style of the Synoptics). As Strauss had already pointed out, this style is consistent, whether Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, or to the woman at the well, or to his disciples, and very similar to the style of the Baptist, as indeed of 1 John. The inference is inescapable that the style is that of the Evangelist rather than that of Jesus. Probably most important of all, in the Synoptics Jesus’ principal theme is the Kingdom of God and he rarely speaks of himself, whereas in John the Kingdom hardly features and the discourses are largely vehicles for expressing Jesus’ self-consciousness and self-proclamation. Had the striking ‘I am’ self-assertions of John been remembered as spoken by Jesus, how could any Evangelist have ignored them so completely as the Synoptics do? On the whole, then, the position is unchanged: John’s Gospel cannot be regarded as a source for the life and teaching of Jesus of the same order as the Synoptics.
(James D. G. Dunn, Christianity In The Making Vol. 1, Jesus Remembered, 2003, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 165-166.)
Other conservative Christian scholars who have similar types of verdicts to offer regarding the historicity of the gospel of John include: Bruce Stein, Craig A Evans and Martin Hengel, to name a few.
So when we consider the synoptic gospels on the one hand and John’s gospel on the other, it is impossible to think that Jesus spent his short ministry teaching in two such completely different ways, conveying such different contents, and there were simply two traditions, each going back to Jesus, one transmitting 50 per cent of what he said and another one the other 50 per cent, with almost no overlaps. Consequently, for the last 150 or so years scholars have had to choose. They have almost unanimously, and I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels and that John represents an advanced theological development, in which meditations on the person and work of Christ are presented in the first person, as if Jesus said them.
So what did Jesus reportedly say of himself and the important question of eternal life in our earliest gospel?
Jesus in the Earliest Gospel
Mark chapter 10 reads:
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money* to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
I invite you to consider the following
1) Jesus, as a humble Jew, denies that goodness comes from himself: only God is good. Ergo, Jesus is making clear that he is not God.
2) According to Jesus we are saved by obeying the commandments of God (note the striking contrast to Paul’s gospel about Jesus)
3) But in this particular encounter the man lacked one thing (only) that blocked him from eternal life: his riches. Jesus advises him to ’go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ so the man will receive his heavenly reward as a result of selling his possessions. After that, he is invited to follow Jesus. Note carefully the sequence.
4) This passage caused embarrassment to later gospel writers (who used Mark’s gospel when compiling their own gospels) who changed Jesus words to remove Jesus’ denial that he is good/God:
Here is Matthew’s altered version in 19:17 (compare this with Marks original)
And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’
Now let us turn to Paul’s answer to the same question in Romans 10:9:
If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
The differences are startling. Jesus’ answer to the question about salvation focuses on obedience to the Torah. As a Prophet to the Jewish people, Jesus sees his faithfulness to God expressed in adherence to the Creator’s commands and precepts in the Torah.
Mark 2:5-7 and the forgiveness of sins
The point can be easily missed. At first the issue seems to be Christological – ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?; ‘…that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…‘ (2.7,10). But that is a dubious interpretation. What Jesus actually says is, ‘Your sins are forgiven‘ – something the priest could say in the Temple to everyone who had brought a sin offering. Note too that the phrase ‘the Son of Man‘ evokes no comment, it was clearly not seen as a claim to exulted or divine status by the crowd (indeed in Aramaic idiom the phrase means ‘man’). In the parallel story in Matt 9.8 the crowd ‘glorified God who had given such authority to men’.
Furthermore, John the Baptist presumably pronounced sins forgiven (see Mark 1.4/Luke 3.3) without apparently provoking any accusation of breaching the divine prerogative. Also in the Prayer of Nabonidus from Qumran, Nabonidus says ‘an exorcist pardoned my sins’, where human mediation of divine forgiveness is clearly implied (4QprNab4).
The gospels also narrate that the disciples were given authority to forgive the sins of others – see Matthew 16.19; 18.18 and John 20.23 (‘if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’)
The Light
My comments re the historical problems surrounding the gospel of John apply to all David Wood’s quotes from that gospel. I will not repeat them here. But let us not forget that according to Matthew 5 Jesus taught his disciples,
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
So the true followers of Jesus are light to the world - just as Jesus was.
The Final Judge
David Wood is correct to say that only God will be the Judge on the Day of Judgment but is wrong to draw the conclusion that Jesus was therefore God. That is not how the apostles understood Jesus’ role and status. If we survey the apostles teaching in Acts (assuming for the sake of argument its’ authenticity) we read in Peter’s very first sermon the following:
“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, was a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know” Acts 2:22
‘Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah’ Acts 2:36
And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Acts 4:22
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. Acts 10:42
Now admittedly this is not Islamic teaching but it suggests that Jesus was a man who:
i) did miracles by the power of God
ii) was made lord and messiah by God
iii) was believed to be the messiah by his first followers
iv) as a man was appointed to be judge of the living and the dead by God.
Nothing of Peter’s teaching in Acts suggests that Jesus was believed to be Yahweh or God Incarnate or the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus was a man, a servant like David and the Messiah.
So, in conclusion, we read the Word that God speaks to the Christians of the world, with a clear warning:
People of the book, do not go to excess in your religion, and do not say anything about God except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of God, His word, directed to Mary, a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers and do not speak of a ‘Trinity’ – stop this, that is better for you – God is only one God, He is far above having a son, everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him and He is the best one to trust. (Qur’an, 4:171)
Jesus: Incarnate God, or Human Prophet? Sami Zaatari vs Michael Dantzie
Posted: November 25, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, MDI, Videos 5 Comments »Watch this highly controversial, chaotic, funny yet successful debate, at the University of Sussex, 10th November 2011.
Is “Allah” a false god, not in the Bible? A Jew explains
Posted: November 13, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, Christianity, Islam | Tags: allah, bible, judaism Leave a comment »Further Bolstering the Shahada
Posted: October 21, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, MDI, Question Mark Leave a comment »More Responses to Sam Shamoun on Islamic Shahada
by MDI Researcher Question Mark
Acknowledgement: We acknowledge Shaikh Jalal Abualrub’s help for the paper. May Allah (SWT) reward him.
Renowned Muslim apologist Bassam Zawadi wrote a response to one of Sam Shamoun’s paper. Shamoun’s subject paper has been refuted at “donotsaytrinity” as well, specifically, here apart from that readers might be interested to visit the following articles dealing with Islamic Shahada:
- Islamic Shahada – The Only True Shahada
- Islamic Shahada – The Invincible Shahada
- True Shahada Indeed
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 1]
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 2]
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 3]
Nevertheless, no sooner did Zawadi wrote a response – Shamoun came out with his self styled reply which we shall be dealing here, inshallah.
Zawadi wrote, to paraphrase, just because the exact formulation of the Islamic Shahada is not to be found in Qur’an it does not mean that the concept is not present in the Qur’an (3:18, 48:29). To this – Shamoun responded:
“First, we are glad that Zawadi agrees that just because an exact formulation or word is not found in a document (in this case the Quran) this doesn’t necessarily mean that the book or source doesn’t teach it. Since we assume that Zawadi is consistent we therefore expect him to never use the argument that the Holy Bible doesn’t teach doctrines such as the Holy Trinity just because the exact word or formulation is not found within the Jewish-Christian Scriptures.
Second, as we shall shortly show, the followers of Rashad Khalifa (also known as submitters) are correct in what they basically stated. Zawadi’s comments that the two parts of the Islamic confession are found in the Quran are beside the point. The argument is not whether one can find references where Muhammad is called an apostle or messenger of Allah. The real issue is whether the Quran makes it an article of faith to profess that Allah alone is God AND that Muhammad is his messenger in order to be recognized as a Muslim. The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t, and to use the logic employed by Zawadi would end proving that the creed of Islam should also include specific mention of other messengers as well. More on this later.”
Taking Shamoun’s first objection first – he has utterly misunderstood Zawadi’s argument because Zawadi knows that Islamic cannon of scripture is not restricted to Qur’an only but extends to Hadith literature as well. The truth of the matter is that Zawadi provided Hadith quotations in his reply which did prove that the exact formulation of the Shahada is not only just present in the sacred scriptures but was/is also to be testified to be recognized as Muslim.
What Zawadi would have stated is that just because the exact formulation is not in Qur’an word by word but the concept is there in it should be amalgamated with the fact that the exact formulation IS PRESENT in Hadith literature. This further bolsters Zawadi’s point because exact formulation is present in Hadith and the concept is worded in Qur’an.
Secondly, we would be more than glad to provide Shamoun with proofs that Islamic Scriptures does make the Islamic Shahada as an article of faith to be recognized as a Muslim. Shamoun demanded:
“The real issue is whether the Quran makes it an article of faith to profess that Allah alone is God AND that Muhammad is his messenger in order to be recognized as a Muslim.”
Nevertheless, we would like to point out the problem or shrewdness in Shamoun’s demand. Why is Shamoun demanding proof from Qur’an only? Would he accept if the proof for the testimony of Islamic Shahada is provided from Hadith Literature? If not, then why?
Nevertheless, it was one of Zawadi’s point to prove that Muslims at the time of the prophet (peace be upon him) did used to proclaim the Islamic Shahada.
Zawadi responded:
“Even the people back at Prophet Muhammad’s time used to bear witness that he was the Messenger of God.
Surah 63:1
When the hypocrites come unto thee (O Muhammad), they say: We bear witness that thou art indeed Allah’s messenger. And Allah knoweth that thou art indeed His messenger, and Allah beareth witness that the hypocrites indeed are speaking falsely.
The verse is talking about those hypocrites that used to come and bear witness that Muhammad is a Messenger but they were lying inside. Allah knew they were lying. But the point that I am trying to show from this verse is that people at the time of the Prophet did bear witness that he is the Messenger of God.
So the concept of bearing witness that Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his Messenger is a concept found in the Quran. It does not have to be word by word in the same sentence. This in no way indicates Muhammad is divine or anything just like how the Rashad Khalifa sect claim. The Prophet warned us not to do the same mistake as the Christians”
To the above response Shamoun argued back that it was only bunch of hypocrites who proclaimed the Shahada and not the sincere Muslims in general:
“Zawadi’s claim that Sura 63:1 shows that people were confessing Muhammad as God’s messenger misses the point. The point here is that it is only the deceivers who were bearing witness that Muhammad is a messenger in order to mask their deception and unbelieving hearts. True believers do not need to publicly bear witness that Muhammad is a messenger since they show that this is what they believe by simply obeying his instructions. To put it another way, it wasn’t the believers at the time of Muhammad who were verbally bearing witness that he was an apostle, but unbelievers and hypocrites that did so.
Second, the issue is not whether the Quran claims that Allah testifies that Muhammad is his messenger, or that believers are to believe that he is. The issue at hand, which Zawadi conveniently ignores, is whether Muslims are required to make a public confession, to testify in the words given in the hadith literature, i.e. “I beat witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” in order to be recognized as a Muslim. The fact of the matter is that the Quran nowhere commands Muslims to make this profession, the confession that Muhammad is Allah’s messenger in order to validate their Islam.” (Bold and Italic emphasize ours)
We would soon show Shamoun that it was not just “only the deceivers who were bearing witness that Muhammad is a messenger…” but even the sincere Muslims were proclaiming the Shahada. Plus, we will also provide proofs that believers to be recognized as Muslims were required to proclaim Shahada in public – it was a practice during prophet’s (peace be upon him) time!
We provide two Hadith, notwithstanding – Shamoun demands proofs from Qur’an. His demand from Qur’an (only) is absurd:
Abu Dhar – a non-muslim becoming believer after proclaiming Islamic Shahada:
Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 56 :: Hadith 725
Narrated Abu Jamra:
“…I testify that None has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and I (also) testify that Muhammad is Allah’s Slave and His Apostle.’ (Hearing that) the Quraishi men said, ‘Get at this Sabi (i.e. Muslim) !…’
Abdallah bin Salam – another non-muslim becoming believer by proclaiming the Islamic Shahada:
“Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 55 :: Hadith 546
Narrated Anas:
“…On that ‘Abdullah bin Salam said, “I TESTIFY that you are the Apostle of Allah.” ‘Abdullah bin Salam further said, “O Allah’s Apostle! The Jews are liars, and if they should come to know about my conversion to Islam before you ask them (about me), they would tell a lie about me.” The Jews came to Allah’s Apostle and ‘Abdullah went inside the house. Allah’s Apostle asked (the Jews), “What kind of man is ‘Abdullah bin Salam amongst you?” They replied, “He is the most learned person amongst us, and the best amongst us, and the son of the best amongst us.” Allah’s Apostle said, “What do you think if he embraces Islam (will you do as he does)?” The Jews said, “May Allah save him from it.” Then ‘Abdullah bin Salam came out in front of them saying, “I testify that None has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah.” Thereupon they said, “He is the evilest among us, and the son of the evilest amongst us,” and continued talking badly of him.”
Notice how both Abu Dhar (RAA) and Abdallah Bin Salam (RAA) did proclaim the Islamic Shahada publicly to recognize themselves as Muslims who were initially non-muslims.
Continuing further on his arguments, Shamoun quotes Qur’an:
“SAY you: ‘We BELIEVE in God, AND in that which has been sent down on us AND sent down on Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, and the Tribes, AND that which was given to Moses AND Jesus AND the Prophets, of their Lord; we make no division between any of them, and to Him we surrender.’ S. 2:136 Arberry
The Apostle believeth in what hath been revealed to him from his Lord, as do the men of faith. Each one (of them) believeth in God, His angels, His books, AND HIS APOSTLES. “WE MAKE NO DISTINCTION (they say) BETWEEN ON AND ANOTHER OF HIS APOSTLES.” AND THEY SAY: “We hear, and we obey: (We seek) Thy forgiveness, our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.” S. 2:285 Y. Ali”
O you who BELIEVE! BELIEVE in Allah AND His Apostle AND the Book which He has revealed to His Apostle AND the Book which He revealed before; and whoever disbelieves in Allah and His angels AND His APOSTLES and the last day, he indeed strays off into a remote error. S. 4:136 Shakir
To allege,
“The fact is that the orthodox Sunni creed does make a distinction since it singles out Muhammad alone in its confession. This is a direct violation of and in stark contradiction to the plain teachings of the Quran.” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
We have four responses in line to the above objection from Shamoun:
First Response:
The subject verses clearly exhort Muslims to BELIEVE in all earlier Prophets, their Books, Angels etc:
- “SAY you: ‘We BELIEVE in God, AND…” (Qur’an 2:136)
- “The Apostle believeth in what hath been revealed to him from his Lord, as do the men of faith. (Qur’an 2:285)
- “O you who BELIEVE! BELIEVE in Allah AND… (Qur’an 4:136)
Having noticed that, under the light of the above verses, Shamoun’s objection would hold good if Muslims by, supposedly, excluding the names of earlier prophets from the official Islamic Shahada stop “believing” in earlier prophets, on the contrary, Muslims – based on the same Qur’anic verses are compelled to believe in all earlier prophets, thus, Shamoun has no argument here.
Supporting our point, late renowned Tafseer Scholar Ibn Abbas observes:
“Then He taught the believers the path of divine Oneness so that the Jews and Christians had an indication of what this divine Oneness means, saying: (Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us) i.e. in Muhammad and the Qur’an (and that which was revealed unto Abraham) i.e. we believe in Abraham and his Scripture, (and Ishmael) and we believe in Ishmael and his Scripture, (and Isaac) and in Isaac and his Scripture, (and Jacob) and in Jacob and his Scripture, (and the tribes) and in the sons of Jacob and their Scriptures, (and that which Moses and Jesus received) i.e. we believe in Moses and the Torah and in Jesus and the Gospel, (and that which the Prophets received) We also believe in all the prophets and their Scriptures (from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them) that Allah sent them as prophets to teach divine Oneness, (and unto Him we have surrendered) we acknowledge that we worship Him and declare that there is only one true God.” (Tafsir Ibn – Abbas. Bold, Italics, Capital and Underline emphasize ours)
Notice the reason that Ibn Abbas provides for Muslims to not to make distinction between Prophets is THAT all Prophets were sent from one True God – Allah (SWT) to teach monotheism – So the premise for making no distinction between Prophets is to believe that all Prophets came from one true God to teach monotheism. And, all Muslims do believe that all earlier prophets came from Allah (SWT) to teach monotheism – and thus, once again, there is no distinction made between prophets made in the Official Islamic Shahada.
To sum up the argument, if Shamoun wants to use Qur’an 2:136 against Muslims for making distinctions between prophets – he must prove us that Muslims do not:
- “Believe” in earlier Prophets
- Believe that earlier Prophets came from one True God – Allah (SWT).
Second Response:
By concluding a baseless argument that Muslims, who follow Qur’an in every aspect of life, have made a distinction between prophets trespassing against the teaching of Qur’an – Shamoun has once again exposed himself that to fit his arguments he will not pay respect to the context.
So let us bring forth the context of the subject verse(s), Allah willing.
Here is the subject verse with its context, Qur’an 2: 135 – 136, (Yusuf Ali Translation):
“They say: “Become Jews or Christians if ye would be guided (to salvation).” Say thou: “Nay! (I would rather) the religion of Abraham, the True, and he joined not gods with Allah.”
Say ye: “We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma’il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and we bow to Allah (in Islam).” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
Observe that in verse 2:135 the Jews and Christians wanted Muslims to be either Jews or Christians to be saved – they wanted Muslims to have a partisan approach towards God’s religion which was, in actuality, universal for all humanity, notwithstanding the fact whether s/he be a Jew or a Christian. Then came verse 136 as a rebuke to this partisan approach where Mohammad (peace be upon him) was exhorted to reply that he and his people would rather follow the religion of Abraham (peace be upon him), that is Islam and would believe in all which was ordained to believe by Allah (SWT).
As the Jalalyns explain in their Tafseer:
“Say: (this address is to the believers) ‘We believe in God, and in that which has been revealed to us, the Qur’ān, and revealed to Abraham, the ten scrolls, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, his sons, and that which was given to Moses, the Torah, and Jesus, the Gospel, and the prophets, from their Lord, of Books and signs, we make no division between any of them, believing in some and disbelieving in others in the manner of Jews and Christians, and to Him we submit”. (Tafsir Al-Jalalyn . Bold, Italics and Underline emphasize ours)
According to the Jalals the purpose of the verse was to point to the Jews and Christians towards the fact that Muslims would not commit the same sin which they did – by believing in some Prophets while rejecting others. Thus, once again, if Shamoun wants to hold Qur’an 2:136 against Muslims (for discrimination between prophets in the Shahada) then he should prove that Muslims believe in certain Prophets and reject others as the Jews and the Christians.
From the foregoing it is limpidly observable that this argument has got nothing to do whether Muslims include the names of Prophets in their Official Shahada or not rather it is a matter of belief in earlier prophets. It is just another blatant misuse of the Qur’anic verses out of context against Muslims which always gets caught red handed to the chagrin of Shamoun.
For the brevity of this paper we are not responding to the other two verses, that is, Qur’an 2:285 and 4:136 which he used. The above two arguments which hold good for Qur’an 2:136 also hold good for Qur’an 2:285 and 4:136.
Third Response:
Traditionally Islam is understood the way it was practiced by the Prophet (peace be upon him) and Righteous Generations after him. If something pertaining to Islam was either uttered by Prophet or acted upon then that becomes a basis for Islamic teachings.
Similarly, if with the authority of the Prophet (peace be upon him) something was said and acted upon by the members of Righteous Generations then that too becomes the basis for Islamic teachings.
Having said that, we enquire Shamoun to show us a single proof from them where they testified the Official Islamic Shahada by proclaiming the names of all the previous Prophets.
On the contrary we have quoted Hadiths above of Abu Dharr and Abdallah Ibn Salam (RAA) where they recognized themselves as Muslims by testifying the Official Islamic Shahada which bore the name of Mohammad (peace be upon him) alone.
(Please continue reading below to find Fourth Response as well.)
To further damage his position, Shamoun derived the following,
“In light of the foregoing, the Islamic confession of faith would go something like this:
I bear witness that:
(1) I believe in Allah.
(2) I believe in His angels.
(3) I believe in His books.
(4) I believe in His messengers and that I do not make a difference or differentiate between any of them.”
Although we have already proved above that the Qur’anic verses Shamoun is using against Muslims do not support his case, on that premise – if verses do not support his basic claim, that is, Muslims distinguish between Prophets then his further derivations, as cited above, do not stand as well.
However, we will briefly respond to him here as well.
Firstly, notice that the Official Islamic Shahada is to “bear witness…” or “to testify…”, however, Shamoun’s interpretation and derivation has Muslims to “believe in Allah, Angels, Books, Messengers etc”. We ask Shamoun whether believing the same as testifying officially? Because Muslims believe in a variety of things including belief in:
- Resurrection
- Life after death
- Paradise and Hell
- Judgment day/ Events of the Judgment
- Predestination (Qadr) (Source)
Shamoun’s next argument was grotesque to say the least:
“Moreover, the Quran says that prophets were all inspired to profess that Allah is god alone:
And We sent never a Messenger before thee except that We revealed to him, saying, There is no god but I; so serve Me.’ S. 21:25 Arberry
It even claims that prophets and messengers commanded people to fear Allah and obey them:
The people of Noah treated the Messengers as liars, When their brother Noah said to them, ‘Will you not be God-Fearing? Surely I am unto you a Messenger, faithful to my trust. So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME; And I ask you no reward for it. My reward is only with the Lord of the worlds; So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME;’ S. 26:105-110 Sher Ali
The tribe of Ad rejected the Messengers, When their Brother Hud said to them, ‘Will you not fear God? Surely, I am unto you a Messenger, faithful to my trust; So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME… So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME;’ S. 26:123-126, 131 Sher Ali
The tribe of Thamud also rejected the Messengers, When their brother Salih said to them, ‘will you not guard against evil? Surely, I am unto you a Messenger, faithful to my trust; So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME… So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME;’ S. 26:141-144, 150 Sher Ali
The people of Lot rejected the Messengers, When their brother Lot said to them, ‘Will you not fear God? Surely, I am unto you a Messenger, faithful to my trust; So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME.’ S. 26:160-163
The people of the Wood rejected the Messengers, When Shu’aib said to them, `Will you not fear God? Surely, I am unto you a Messenger, faithful to my trust. So fear ALLAH AND OBEY ME.’ S. 26:176-179
This again shows that to follow ONLY the Qur’ans teachings a Muslim would be forced to confess faith not just in Allah’s unity but also profess belief in the apostleship of many messengers by explicitly referring to them by name!”
Observe how Shamoun bases his argument on “…follow ONLY the Qur’an” methodology, having seen that, let us point out some of the fundamental problems in Shamoun’s argument:
- We would like to ask Shamoun that with which authority he said that Muslims need to testify their Official Islamic Shahada by “explicitly referring to them by name”. The verses cited above does not say that the Muslims of Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) community and era should do so! Thus, Shamoun’s assumption begs more substantial proofs besides he is putting his words in the pure and divine verses.
- Continuing on a). All the previous Prophets before Mohammad (peace be upon him), as cited in the above verses, were particularly speaking to the community to which they were sent – so for those Muslims it would have been perfectly all right for them to testify, their belief in Allah (SWT) and in that particular messenger. It was perfectly alright for them to then proclaim:
“I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Noah/Hud/Salih/Lot/Shuaib (peace be upon them) is the messenger of Allah”
However, we find no evidence from the cited verses that it had to continue to the Muslims of Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) community.
Fourth Response:
- Continuing on b). It would be inappropriate, if not incorrect, to include any other name in the official Islamic Shahada – without any solid requirement to do so, because we are the members of the community of Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) prophet hood -following the laws and regulations which were instituted in his prophet hood. Consider the following Hadith for a clearer understanding of our argument:
Muhammad Ibn al-Alâ’ told us that Ibn Numayr reported from Mujâlid from Ibn Aamir from Jaabir that Umar Ibn al-Khattâb brought a copy of the Torah to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: “O Apostle of God, this is a copy of the Torah.” But [the Prophet] kept silent. Then Umar started reading and the face of the Prophet kept changing. So, Abu Bakr interrupted him violently: “Don’t you see the face of the Prophet (peace be upon him)?” Umar looked at the Prophet’s face and said “May God preserve me from His anger and from the anger of his Apostle (peace be upon him), we accepted God as Lord and Islâm as religion and Muhammad as prophet.” Then the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “By the One Who owns Muhammad’s soul, if Moses (peace be upon him) appeared to you and you followed him and left me, you would go astray from the right path and if he were alive and reached [the time of] my prophethood he would have followed me. ” (Sunan Al Daarimi, Kitab: Al Muqadimmah, Bab: Maa Yuttaqaa min tafseer Hadeeth Al Nabi Salaah Allaahu ‘Alayhi Wassallam, Hadith no. 436, Source.)
- Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) name is enough for the Official Islamic Shahada because (i) he is the epitome or all prophet hood – “seal of the Prophets” (Qur’an 33:40) plus (ii) he is the one who taught us about previous Prophets – so by just taking his name we inadvertently include all other Prophets in the Official Islamic Shahada there by obviating the superfluous and unnecessary act of taking (at least) 24 other names besides.
So much for the so accusations on Muslims that they discriminate between Prophets!
Further when Zawadi objected to Submitter understanding of Qur’an 63:1 – Shamoun responded back. Here are the exchanges and after that follows our response to Shamoun:
“Zawadi also had this to say regarding the Muslim submitters use of Sura 63:1:
My Response:
This is very poor understanding of Scripture. The verse is not saying that hypocrites are the ones who bear witness that Muhammad is a Messenger. It is saying that those specific hypocrites are lying when they say that they bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. They say it, but don’t mean it inside. The verse would not make sense. How can God accus[sic] them of lying when they say Muhammad is a Messenger of God and it is there in the Quran that Muhammad is a Messenger of God? God is saying that they are lying because they don’t mean what they say.
RESPONSE:
What truly shows poor understanding is Zawadi’s distortion of the point being made by the submitters. As we just saw above, their point wasn’t that Allah was accusing the hypocrites for lying when they testified that Muhammad was his messenger. Their point was that the only group that felt the need to publicly testify that Muhammad was a messenger were the liars and hypocrites as a way of covering up their disbelief. Basically, they are trying to show that the Quran doesn’t require believers to publicly profess Muhammad’s apostleship since by obeying and following the Quran they will be proving their belief in him.” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
Two responses to Shamoun are in order:
- It is important to understand that it was not customary or traditional ONLY of the hypocrites and liars to testify Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) Prophet hood as Shamoun and Submitters want to prove.
Zawadi was absolutely correct to point out that those specific people who were testifying his Prophet hood were charlatans and liars, however, there were numerous other faithful Muslims testifying the Shahada too, we have already provided Hadiths proving it.
Because in Qur’an 63:1 we have bunch of hypocrites exposed does not mean this verse can be used to conclude that “Quran doesn’t require believers to publicly profess Muhammad’s apostleship”. Such a statement requires more support from the texts, especially when Hadith resources are filled with faithful believers testifying the Shahada. And thus, Shamoun’s gauche exegesis is again called in to question.
- Submitters and Shamoun should prove that “the only group that felt the need to publicly testify that Muhammad was a messenger were the liars and hypocrites as a way of covering up their disbelief.” It is a totally unsupported myth because we have already provided two Hadiths which proves that sincere Muslims also proclaimed and testified Mohammad (peace be upon him) as a Prophet of God in their Shahada. So, it was not just the “group of hypocrites” who felt to testify but sincere first generation Muslims as well.
Does testifying Mohammad (peace be upon him) in the Shahada violates Islamic Monotheism?
Shamoun often quotes an Islamic author and his work, namely, Qadi Iyad Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi and Kitab Ash-shifa bi ta’rif huquq al-Mustafa (Healing by the recognition of the Rights of the Chosen One) respectively. Shamoun jumps to quote this book partially and deceitfully, we have already exposed Shamoun over this argument at Islamic Shahada – The Only True Shahada (Refer “Scholar Say” Section of the paper).
However, because it is one of Shamoun’s celebrated argument let us respond to it once again. Basically in the Qadi’s book there are comments of various Muslims which Shamoun uses to try to prove that the Shahada violates Islamic monotheism. Herein we will take all of them one at a time and respond.
“Qatada said, “Allah exalted his fame in this world and the Next. There is no speaker, witness nor anyone doing the prayer who fails to say, ‘There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.’”
We have a very simple response to the above Qatada quotation. Rhetorically replying, how does the above remark from Qatada violate Islamic monotheism?
“Abu Sa’id al-Khudri related that the Prophet said, “Jibril, peace be upon him, came to me and said, ‘My Lord and your Lord says, ‘Do you know how I have exalted your fame?”’ I said, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’ He said, ‘When I am mentioned you are mentioned with Me.’”
Here again we fail to understand how Khudri’s (RAA) comment goes againt the Islamic monotheism. However, if people find it hard to accept that “when Allah (SWT) is mentioned Prophet (peace be upon him) is mentioned with Him” then they should take into account the capacity in which Mohammad (peace be upon him) is mentioned with Allah (SWT) in the Shahada. He is not mentioned as God besides Allah (SWT) in the Shahada rather he is mentioned as a prophet and a slave (to Allah) in it. This is further proven by Ja’far ibn Muhammad as Sadiq’s comment (in the same source Shamoun is using) where he remarked:
“No one mentions YOU as the Messenger but that he mentions Me as the Lord.”
Moreover, the same book which Shamoun is using here, Yahya ibn Adam explained the meaning and interpretation of “exalting the fame” of prophet (peace be upon him). He said,
“The sura continues: “Did We not exalt your fame?” (94:4) Yahya ibn Adam said that this meant BY BEING GIVEN PROPHET HOOD. (Muhammad Messenger of Allah. Ash-Shifa of Qadi ‘Iyad, Qadi ‘Iyad Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Translated by Aisha Abdarrahman Bewley, Medinah Press Granada, Spain, ISBN 1 874216 26 2, pp.7. Bold, Capital and Italics emphasize ours)
Notice that exalting Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) fame means, the coronation of Mohammad (peace be upon him) as prophet. This certainly does not violate any Islamic Monotheism rather it further corroborates it because Mohammad (peace be upon him) is rightly not deemed as God but a prophet. Furthermore, we also notice Shamoun hiding Yahya ibn Adam’s comment which was present in the same page.
Furthermore,
“Ibn ‘Ata quoted a hadith qudsi saying, “I completed belief with your being mentioned with Me.” And another one which says, “I have made your mention part of My mention so whoever mentions Me, mentions you.”
“Ja’far ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq, “No one mentions you as the Messenger but that he mentions Me as the Lord.”
Once again, we do not specifically see the problem with Ibn ‘Ata’s remark because when we ponder in to the Shahada we find that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is indeed mentioned with Allah (SWT), however, the point which Shamoun misses is that he is mentioned as a prophet and not a God beside Allah (SWT). Thus, there is no breach of Islamic Monotheism.
Just below Ja’far ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq’s remark, Al-Marwardi suggested “that the Station of Intercession was being referred to by this.” Thus, how does this violate Islamic monotheism if these are talking about “Station of Intercession”?
Shamoun’s next quotation,
“The fact that mention of the Prophet is directly connected to mention of Allah also shows that obedience to the Prophet is connected to obedience to Allah and his name to Allah’s name. Allah says, “Obey Allah and His Messenger” (2:32) and “Believe in Allah and His Messenger.” (4:136) Allah joins them together using the conjunction wa WHICH IS THE CONJUNCTION OF PARTNERSHIP. IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO USE THIS CONJUNCTION IN CONNECTION WITH ALLAH IN THE CASE OF ANYONE EXCEPT THE PROPHET.”
Two responses are in order:
Firstly, As Yahsubi suggests that conjunction “Wa” is the conjunction of partnership, however, Shamoun again misses the point that this so called “partnership” between Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) is the “partnership” of God and His Slave/Messenger – it is a God-Slave or God-Messenger “partnership” and not God-God partnership. Thus once again, Shamoun has awfully misunderstood before attacking straw-man.
Secondly, if we grant Shamoun that Yahsubi was alluding about God – God “partnership” through the usage of the conjunction “wa”, yet we personally do not agree with Yahsubi’s remark for the following reasons:
Firstly, Yahsubi’s statement that, “IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO USE THIS CONJUNCTION IN CONNECTION WITH ALLAH IN THE CASE OF ANYONE EXCEPT THE PROPHET ”.
This statement goes head on against the plain teachings of Qur’an where the same conjunction is used for other Prophets, knowledgeable People, Angels, Books etc respectively:
“The Messenger believeth in what hath been revealed to him from his Lord, as do the men of faith. Each one (of them) believeth in Allah, His angels, His books, AND(WA) His messengers. “We make no distinction (they say) between one and another of His messengers.” And they say: “We hear, and we obey: (We seek) Thy forgiveness, our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.” (Interpretations of the meanings of the Qur’an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 2:285)
Conjunction “WA” used for Jesus (peace be upon him):
“(I have come to you), to attest the Law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was (Before) forbidden to you; I have come to you with a Sign from your Lord. So fear Allah, AND OBEY ME.” (Interpretations of the meanings of the Qur’an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 5:50. Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours)
When Jesus came with Clear Signs, he said: “Now have I come to you with Wisdom, and in order to make clear to you some of the (points) on which ye dispute: therefore fear Allah AND OBEY ME (Interpretations of the meanings of the Qur’an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 43:63. Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours)
Conjunction “WA” used for Noah (peace be upon him):
“That ye should worship Allah, fear Him and OBEY ME:” (Interpretations of the meanings of the Qur’an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 20:10. Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours.)
Conjunction “WA” used for non – prophets!
“O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, AND (WA) those charged with authority among you.”, (Interpretations of the meanings of the Qur’an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, 5:64. Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours.)
Secondly, the conjunction “WA” cannot be used with anybody else, including Mohammad (peace be upon him), if it signifies partnership with Allah (SWT) in His deity. So, if Yahsubi is using it, which we HIGHLY DOUBT, then he is incorrect – neither is Yahsubi God nor Prophet.
Shamoun’s next quotation:
“Hudhayfa said that the Prophet said, “None of you should say, ‘What Allah wills and (wa) so-and-so wills.’ Rather say, ‘What Allah wills.’ Then stop and say, ‘So-and-so wills.’”
We do not see the issue here. Shamoun should write what he intends to prove through this quotation.
Further,
“Al-Khattabi said, “The Prophet has guided you to correct behaviour in putting the will of Allah before the will of others. He chose ‘then’ (thumma) which implies sequence and deference as opposed to ‘and’ (wa) WHICH IMPLIES PARTNERSHIP.”
Shamoun misses a vital point that in the above Al-Khattabi quotation the conjunction “wa” is used in sharing the “will” of Allah (SWT) – one of His attributes, with somebody else. However, in the Shahada “wa” is just the continuation of two different statements, namely, deity of Allah (SWT) AND prophet hood of Mohammad (peace be upon him), thus, in Shahada no sharing of Allah’s (SWT) attribute(s) is proved. Thus, again, Shamoun has no substantial argument from the above citation.
“Something similar is mentioned in another hadith. Someone was speaking in the presence of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said, “Whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has been rightly guided, and whoever rebels against them both (joining them together by using the dual form) …” The Prophet said to him, “What a bad speaker you are! Get up! [Or he said: Get out!]“
Observe that in the above citation the speaker joined Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) without categorizing and differentiating who is who. The speaker did not separate Allah (SWT) as deity and Mohammad (peace be upon him) as His messenger as it is rightly done in the Shahada. Notice that Mohammad (peace be upon him) did not oust the speaker when he said obey Allah (SWT) and His messenger rather he took offense when speaker said “…rebels against them both”.
If there was really a problem in the usage of the two names together then Mohammad (peace be upon him) should have been consistent and rebuked the speaker when he was speaking of obeying Allah (SWT) and His Messenger, which the prophet didn’t do!
Thus, the speaker joined the two unjustifiably against the Islamic monotheism. Our explanation is further supported by Abu Sulayman’s quotation:
“Abu Sulayman said, “He disliked the two names being joined together in that way because it implies equality.” …
According to Abu Sulayman, the prophet (peace be upon him) disliked his name to be joined with Allah’s (SWT) in a certain special way, “in that way”. The two names should not be joined in any way which implies equality of Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) like in this case where the speaker said, “…rebels against them both”. The status of each one of them should be clearly separated just like in the Shahada that “…And Mohammad IS HIS MESSENGER”.
After quoting the above scholars Shamoun wrote:
“Thus, Muslim sources, not Christians or Orientalists, emphatically affirm that Muhammad’s name being combined with Allah through the use of the Arabic conjunction wa implies partnership, that Muhammad is a partner with Allah! This is especially true when we realize that according to Sunni Islam the recitation of the Islamic creed is a necessary first step in attaining salvation. In other words, Muslim salvation is dependent on reciting that Allah is god alone and Muhammad is his messenger, which means that Muhammad is just as much a necessary object of salvation as is Allah!”
There are various problems in the passage. Let us consider them:
Firstly, Shamoun saying, “Thus, Muslim sources, not Christians or Orientalists, emphatically affirm that…” It hardly matters whether the sources are Muslim or not, because:
- The so called “Muslim sources” should be backed from Islamic Scriptures which was hardly to be found in the citations Shamoun provided.
- Most of quotations did not had any sanad/isnad with them so we actually do not know the veracity of the citations notwithstanding they are coming from “Muslim Sources”.
Secondly, “…Muhammad’s name being combined with Allah through the use of the Arabic conjunction wa implies partnership, that Muhammad is a partner with Allah!”
Well, no Muslim denies that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is a partner with Allah (SWT). He is indeed a partner with him – he shares the partnership of slave to Lord, messenger to God – as is conspicuous in the Shahada and elsewhere in the Islamic Scriptures.
Thirdly, “In other words, Muslim salvation is dependent on reciting that Allah is god alone and Muhammad is his messenger, which means that Muhammad is just as much a necessary object of salvation as is Allah!”
Once again, which Muslim ever denied that salvation does not depend upon the proclamation of “Muhammad as his messenger”. However, Shamoun is incorrect when he claims that “Muhammad is just as much a necessary object of salvation as is Allah!” This is because, without a doubt, Mohammad (peace be upon him) is an impertinent “object of salvation” in the capacity of his prophet hood, however, Allah (SWT) is also of paramount importance (“object of salvation”) in the capacity of His deity. Thus, there is no common grounds for comparison between Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) then what is Shamoun comparing!
Fourthly, on the same lines, it is not only Mohammad (peace be upon him) on which salvation is pivoted, nevertheless, it depends upon the belief in all previous prophets, book, angels etc.
“Those who deny Allah and His messengers, and (those who) wish to separate Allah from His MESSENGERS, saying: “We believe in some but reject others”: And (those who) wish to take a course midway,- They are in truth (equally) unbelievers; and we have prepared for unbelievers a humiliating punishment. To those who believe in Allah and His messengers and make no distinction between any of the messengers, we shall soon give their (due) rewards: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. (Qur’an 4:150-152, Yusuf Ali)
“It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces Towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers;” (Qur’an 2:177, Yusuf Ali)
Notice that in the first verse adduced above, Allah (SWT) is specifically speaking of belief in ALL MESSENGERS, more importantly than that, according to the same verse, belief in some would lead to “humiliating punishment”, nevertheless, belief in all of them would provide “rewards” to the believer. Therefore, all previous messengers, besides Mohammad (peace be upon him) are also “objects of salvation” just like Mohammad (peace be upon him).
Shaikh Saleh Ibn Fawzan Ibn al – Fawzaan comments on the above Qur’anic verses:
“In these verses:
- Allah has linked faith in Messengers with faith in Him, His Angels and His Books.
- Allah has ruled Kufr (disbelief) for those who distinguish between Allah and His messengers – believing in some while rejecting others.” (We believe in all the prophets and all the messengers, by Shaikh Saleh Ibn Fawzan Ibn al – Fawzaan, Translated by Shawana A. Aziz, Pg. 4, Published at Quran Sunnah Educational Programs. Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
After his dabbling ignorantly at the Arabic “wa”, – Shamoun then embarks to educate Christians about the Greek “kai” which, for him, conjoins the deity of Jesus (peace be upon him) and Yahweh. He wrote,
“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, AND (kai) Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3
The Lord Jesus, by using the Greek conjunction kai in his prayer, makes himself the necessary object of the knowledge that leads to eternal life. In other words, Jesus makes himself a coequal partner with God by claiming that eternal life is dependent on knowing both the Father and the Son.”
The problem in the above explanation is that Shamoun assumed Jesus (peace be upon him) became “coequal partner with God” because his knowledge which leads to eternal life.
Shamoun’s assumption is wild and invalid because:
- The verse clearly differentiates Jesus (peace be upon him) separate from God – who is specifically the ONLY God. In other words, there are no Gods besides Him – otherwise the so inspired word “ONLY” will have no meaning and sense in the verse. Thus, Jesus (peace be upon him) is not God.
- Continuing on above, if Jesus (peace be upon him) was really a God – coequal with other God then why did not he continue to say “…whom you have sent as God OR as only true God OR as another only true God”. It is expected to include these phrases especially when this verse is so important that it is related to the salvation of Christians!
- On the contrary, why does Jesus (peace be upon him), in the verse, puts himself to the authority of some higher God as if he was abiding by the order – saying, “…whom you have sent” (cf. John 17:9).
- In fact, in the above verse, Jesus (peace be upon him) humbling himself to some higher God establishes his true status of just an ambassador/prophet/messenger as elsewhere found in Bible:
“Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him inthe midst of you, as ye yourselves also know” (Acts 2:22, The Holy Bible King James Version. Pdf version.)
Notice that in this verse again, Paul separates Jesus (peace be upon him) from the “only true God”. He specifically defines Jesus (peace be upon him) (1.) as a man (2.) approved by some higher authority, namely, God (thus, again, he cannot be God) (3.) God was performing miracles through Jesus (peace be upon him) which again means that he is differentiated from the ONLY true God and he is not God.
Based on John 17:3 in conjunction with Acts 2:22, it seems like Jesus (peace be upon him) fits more the bill of his prophet hood than deity as Mohammad (peace be upon him) in Islamic Shahada because they both are:
- Separate from the ONLY true God
- God has authority over them
- Men approved by God and,
- God performing miracles through them (peace be upon him)
Based on John 17:3 and Acts 2:22, Jesus (peace be upon him) shares the partnership of a prophet or an ambassador which God send just as in the Islamic Shahada Mohammad (peace be upon him) share the partnership of prophet hood with Allah (SWT). Thus, rather than doing any good to Shamoun – an appeal to John 17:3 has further bolstered the Islamic Shahada.
Shamoun continued to quote two Hadiths to prove that Muslims make distinction between prophets, especially with his so called lord and savior Jesus (peace be upon him):
“Narrated ‘Ubada:
The Prophet said, “If anyone testifies that None has the right to be worshipped but Allah Alone Who has no partners, and that Muhammad is His Slave and His Apostle, and that Jesus is Allah’s Slave and His Apostle and His Word which He bestowed on Mary and a Spirit from Him, and that Paradise is true, and Hell is true, Allah will admit him into Paradise with the deeds which he had done even if those deeds were few.” (Junada, the sub-narrator said, “‘Ubada added, ‘Such a person can enter Paradise through any of its eight gates he likes.’”) (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 644)
It is narrated on the authority of Ubadah b. Samit that the messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) observed: He who said: “There is no god but Allah, He is One and there is no associate with Him, that Muhammad is his servant and His messenger, that Christ is servant and the son of His slave-girl and he (Christ) His word which He communicated to Mary and is His Spirit, that Paradise is a fact and Hell is a fact,” Allah would make him (he who affirms these truths enter Paradise through any one of its eight doors which he would like. (Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Number 0043)
Before moving to the response we would do nomenclature for the two different types of Shahada under question. This nomenclature is only for the sake of clarity of understanding and explanation. It has got nothing to do with Islam:
- The Official Islamic Shahada, the one which is more common, would be called as “Mohammad (peace be upon him) Shahada”
- The Shahada in the above adduced verses which include Jesus (peace be upon him) as well, would be named as “Jesus (peace be upon him) Shahada”
Having said that let us begin with our response…
Shamoun’s argument is so weak that we would like to respond it through two approaches, namely, Concordant and Discordant approach:
Concordant Approach:
Firstly, based on the above Hadith, anyone can testify Jesus’ (peace be upon him) testimony in the Shahada. That being the case, where is the so called distinction Shamoun is talking about? As a matter of fact many Muslims do testify this type of Shahada.
Secondly, it is not that Jesus (peace be upon him) Shahada can only be testified but it is actually being testified in practice even today:
“Christian women convert to Islam on the spot”
Discordant Approach:
Firstly, observe that the Sahih Muslim rendering of the Jesus (peace be upon him) Shahada does not stress on testifying but it says “he who says”. Saying could mean to just say for the sake of reciting it (for blessings), remembering it, teaching it, which would be different from proclaiming as an official testimony. This explanation of ours is further supported by the points to follow:
Secondly, from a closer look of the Hadiths cited above, it is clear that the above Hadiths were not actually revealed to set words for the Official Islamic Shahada. Notice that both the Hadith starts by saying that anyone who “testifies or says” certain things would be rewarded with certain other things. The construction of the above Hadiths is like:
“If any one testifies X then s/he will be rewarded by Y”
The purpose of the Hadiths was to inform the testifiers of the paradise they would get as reward if they testify the Jesus (peace be upon him) Shahada – which has got nothing to do with setting up words for the Official Islamic Shahada or the Mohammad (peace be upon him) Shahada hence they cannot be held as proof for establishing Official Islamic Shahada.
Thirdly, corroborating the above (two) point(s) we do not find the first generation Muslims testifying the “Jesus (peace be upon him)Shahada”. It is worthwhile to note that Muslims are to imitate the first generation companions of the prophet. Here are a few examples from them testifying – look out which version of Shahada they are testifying:
“Narrated Abu Ma’bad:
(the slave of Ibn Abbas) Allah’s Apostle said to Muadh when he sent him to Yemen, “You will go to the people of the Scripture. So, when you reach there, invite them to testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and that Muhammad is His Apostle. And if they obey you in that, tell them that Allah has enjoined on them five prayers in each day and night. And if they obey you in that tell them that Allah has made it obligatory on them to pay the Zakat which will be taken from the rich among them and given to the poor among them. If they obey you in that, then avoid taking the best of their possessions, and be afraid of the curse of an oppressed person because there is no screen between his invocation and Allah.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 24, Number 573)
… Abu Dhar went to the Mosque, where some people from Quraish were present, and said, ‘O folk of Quraish! I testify that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and I (also) testify that Muhammad is Allah’s Slave and His Apostle.‘ (Hearing that) the Quraishi men said, ‘Get at this Sabi (i.e. Muslim)!’ (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 725)” (Bold, Italics and Underline emphasize ours)
Fourthly, if Shamoun does not withstanding the above three explanations, then he should know that, given the fact that both Jesus (peace be upon him) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) types of Shahada is permissible, Muslims prefer proclaiming “Mohammad (peace be upon him) Shahada” because they know:
- By proclaiming him (only) they are testifying prophet hood of all other prophets besides Books, Angels, Paradise, Hell etc. It was Mohammad (peace be upon him) who taught about them all.
- Muslims have support from the practices of first generation Muslims who testified with only Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) messenger ship proclamation in it.
Fifthly, we would like to quote Zawadi’s response:
“The real testimony is “I witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” to become an orthodox Muslim. This is because Prophet Muhammad said that this Shahadah is one of the pillars of Islam and not any other Shahadah is. The other Shahadahs are statements of fact but this is the ultimate Shahadah because the Prophet said that this Shahadah is one of the five pillars of Islam and no other Shahadah.
Saheeh Bukhari
Volume 1, Book 2, Number 7:
Narrated Ibn ‘Umar:
Allah’s Apostle said: Islam is based on (the following) five (principles):
1. To testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle.
2. To offer the (compulsory congregational) prayers dutifully and perfectly.
3. To pay Zakat (i.e. obligatory charity).
4. To perform Hajj. (i.e. Pilgrimage to Mecca)
5. To observe fast during the month of Ramadan.
Shamoun desperately and miserably responded to the above:
“Moreover, Zawadi’s assumption that Muhammad mentioning this specific shahadah in a list enumerating the pillars of Islam excludes all other shahadahs is simply erroneous. The fact of the matter is that Muhammad NEVER said that this specific profession is the ONLY shahadah that is part of Islam’s pillars. Had Muhammad said this then this would only prove that he contradicted himself, or that the Hadith literature contains contradictory teachings.” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
By writing the above response, Shamoun has grossly exposed his shallow understanding of Islamic theology because the absence of any other Shahada other than the Official Islamic Shahada (in the pillars of Islam), in any authentic Hadith collection proves that Mohammad (peace be upon him) only recommended this type of Shahada; if there would have been other renderings of Shahada included in Islam’s first pillar then they should have found their way in the Islamic Traditions.
So much for the two Hadiths which Shamoun cherishes using to include Jesus (peace be upon him) in the Official Islamic Shahada.
Recapitulate
To recapitulate, in this rebuttal we have seen:
- That Islamic Canon of Scripture is not restricted to Qur’an only and thus an attempt to disprove Islamic Shahada from Qur’an only is sheer straw – man attempt.
- Continuing on (1.), the authentic Hadiths reports do establish the Islamic Shahada as proclaimed by Muslims all over the world. Not only that, they also prove that at the time of the prophet (peace be upon him) proclaiming the Islamic Shahada was the norm.
- We also saw how Shamoun was caught distorting the sense and purpose of divinely inspired verses of Qur’an like, 2:136, 285 to allege that Muslims make distinctions between prophets.
- We witnessed how Shamoun unsuccessfully tried to use distorted imports from Qadi Iyad’s book to establish breach of Islamic Monotheism by the proclamation of Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) name in the Shahada.
- We also saw how Shamoun’s straw – man argument of Mohammad (peace be upon him) as an “object of salvation” broke apart on closer observations.
- Rather than doing any good to Shamoun; an appeal to John 17:3 further established the Islamic Shahada!
- Finally, more importantly, we saw how Shamoun was exposed on his poor understanding of God-breathed and uncorrupted Islamic Scripture when he unsuccessfully tried to misuse Hadiths to prove that Jesus’ (peace be upon him) testimony should also be included in the Official Islamic Shahada.
No matter how much anyone tries to challenge the Official Islamic Shahada by their twisted understandings but it only remains for a fact that, “There is no God but Allah (SWT) and Mohammad is His messenger”
Can God become a man?: A Christian/Muslim Dialogue – Australia
Posted: October 17, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Islam, MDI 4 Comments »
We are happy to announce that our MDI branch in Australia will be taking part in a public event on October 17th, the event will feature MDI speaker Abdullah Kunde, and Dr. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. Full details of the event, timing, and location can be found on the following link: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=4783
Muslim Calls in a Christian Show
Posted: September 24, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Silly, Videos 2 Comments »
Come to Common Terms
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Question Mark 4 Comments »Come to Common Terms
“Muslims have been quick to ask Christians about the Trinity; it is time we ask them about tawheed and Muhammad.”- Samuel Green
Introduction
As a “response” to an open letter published by Muslim Scholars – Samuel Green objects that Muslims quote Qur’an 3:64 in the letter and want Christians to worship only one God when they are themselves guilty of deifying Mohammad (peace be upon him) as a partnering deity with Allah (SWT):
“…challenge Islam about the way it associates Muhammad with God… Muhammad is associated with God in every area of Islam.”
It is our privilege to accept Samuel’s “challenge” and to analyze all the arguments and ‘proofs’ which he has put forth in support of the alleged deification of Mohammad (peace be upon him) and breach of Islamic Monotheism.
Inviting the Challenge
Samuel Green has got seven arguments, A through G, to prove that Islam deifies Mohammad (peace be upon him). Let us visit each one of them.
“A. Muhammad is associated with God in the Shahada, the Islamic confession of faith.
“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
To be a Muslim and enter paradise you must confess Muhammad with God. Compare this to the Shema of Moses where God alone is confessed.
Here, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart … (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, NIV)
The Christian confession is of God alone too with no requirement to confess Moses, Paul or anyone else but Muhammad is associated with God in the Shahada.”
The above quotation was the first argument coming from a person who claims to have understood “Tawheed and Shirk” so much so that he explains it to Muslims what the terms mean and its imports in the sub – section of his paper “TAWHEED AND SHIRK”!
It needs to be pointed out that although Mohammad (peace be upon him) is mentioned in the Shahada – he is not associated in any way to God which would breach “Tawheed”.
Often Christian apologists in their haste to attack straw – man forget the capacity in which Mohammad (peace be upon him) is to be confessed in the Official Islamic Shahada. He is not confessed as a deity beside Allah (SWT) rather as a slave and a messenger:
“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
More than that, there are proofs in Islamic literature, which further establishes the status of Mohammad (peace be upon him) as no more than a mere mortal messenger and slave who will even die:
“Muhammad is no more than a messenger: many Were the messenger that passed away before him. If he died or were slain, will ye then Turn back on your heels? If any did turn back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to Allah; but Allah (on the other hand) will swiftly reward those who (serve Him) with gratitude. (Qur’an 3:144, Yusuf Ali Translation)
And,
Narrated Abu Ma’bad:
(the slave of Ibn Abbas) Allah’s Apostle said to Muadh when he sent him to Yemen, “You will go to the people of the Scripture. So, when you reach there, invite them to testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and that Muhammad is His Apostle. And if they obey you in that, tell them that Allah has enjoined on them five prayers in each day and night. And if they obey you in that tell them that Allah has made it obligatory on them to pay the Zakat which will be taken from the rich among them and given to the poor among them. If they obey you in that, then avoid taking the best of their possessions, and be afraid of the curse of an oppressed person because there is no screen between his invocation and Allah.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 24, Number 573)
… Abu Dhar went to the Mosque, where some people from Quraish were present, and said, ‘O folk of Quraish! I testify that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and I (also) testify that Muhammad is Allah’s Slave and His Apostle.‘ (Hearing that) the Quraishi men said, ‘Get at this Sabi (i.e. Muslim)!’ (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 725)
And,
Narrated ‘Ubada:
The Prophet said, “If anyone testifies that None has the right to be worshipped but Allah Alone Who has no partners, and that Muhammad is His Slave and His Apostle, and that Jesus is Allah’s Slave and His Apostle and His Word which He bestowed on Mary and a Spirit from Him, and that Paradise is true, and Hell is true, Allah will admit him into Paradise with the deeds which he had done even if those deeds were few.” (Junada, the sub-narrator said, ” ‘Ubada added, ‘Such a person can enter Paradise through any of its eight gates he likes.”) (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 644)
And,
It is narrated on the authority of Ubadah b. Samit that the messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) observed: He who said: “There is no god but Allah, He is One and there is no associate with Him, that Muhammad is his servant and His messenger, that Christ is servant and the son of His slave-girl and he (Christ) His word which He communicated to Mary and is His Spirit, that Paradise is a fact and Hell is a fact,” Allah would make him (he who affirms these truths enter Paradise through any one of its eight doors which he would like. (Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Number 0043)
It is observable that the Holy Scriptures establishes that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is just another mortal who will die one day or that he could be slain in a battle. Furthermore, they also speak that he is a slave of Allah (SWT). What is interesting to note is how can a mortal and a slave of God be co – equal to God. Samuel needs to provide more proofs to establish his case.
On the contrary, Mohammad (peace be upon him) warns Muslims not to deify him as Christians, like Samuel Green, deified Jesus (peace be upon him):
“Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 654:
Narrated ‘Umar:
I heard the Prophet saying, “Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a Slave. So, call me the Slave of Allah and His Apostle.”
Doing more damage to Samuel’s already flimsy argument, we have Mohammad (peace be upon him) disowning any divine attributes to himself which befits God alone:
“Say: “I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden, nor do I tell you I am an angel. I but follow what is revealed to me.” Say: “can the blind be held equal to the seeing?” Will ye then consider not? (Qur’an 6:50, Yusuf Ali Translation)
Say: “I have no power over any good or harm to myself except as Allah willeth. If I had knowledge of the unseen, I should have multiplied all good, and no evil should have touched me: I am but a warner, and a bringer of glad tidings to those who have faith.” (Qur’an 7:188, Yusuf Ali Translation)
The forgoing verses have made it abundantly clear that there is no divine association except for the association of slave to master and messenger to God between Mohammad (peace be upon him) and Allah (SWT). Thus, Samuel needs to understand concepts before attacking straw – man.
Further Readings on the above argument:
- Islamic Shahada – The Only True Shahada
- Islamic Shahada – The Invincible Shahada
- True Shahada Indeed
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 1]
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 2]
- The True Shahada Indeed: Revisited [Part 3]
By now we already have a glimpse of the quality of arguments to follow from Samuel’s paper.
Let us turn to his second argument, namely “B.”
“B. Muhammad is associated with God in prayer (Salaat). The Salaat is the Islamic prayer ritual prayed five times a day. Even though Muhammad is dead he is addressed in this prayer.
Greetings to you (As Salaamu ‘alaika ), O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.
Prayer should be to God alone (tawheed). Christian prayer is to God alone but the Salaat is shirk.”
Many replies are in line to one of the weakest arguments.
Notice that Samuel assumes that prophet (peace be upon him) is associated with God in Salaah because (1.) He is addressed even though he is dead (2.) He is greeted.
We accept that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is addressed in the prayer (Salaah), however, the common mistake which many Christian apologists commit is they hardly consider the capacity in which Mohammad (peace be upon him) is addressed and greeted.
Samuel will have a case if Mohammad (peace be upon him) is addressed and greeted in a way which befits God – Almighty with this forgoing let us see at some of the proofs of how he is addressed in the Salaah.
“[Sahih Bukhari: Volume 6, Book 60, Number 320]
Narrated Ka’b bin Ujra (Radi Allah Anhu): It was said, “O Allah’s Apostle (sal-allahu-alleihi-wasallam)! We know how to greet you, but how to invoke Allah for you?” The Prophet (sal-allahu-alleihi-wasallam) said, “Say: Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa’ala Ali Muhammaddin, kama sallaita ‘ala all Ibrahim, innaka Hamidun Majid. Allahumma barik ‘ala Muhammaddin, kama barakata ‘ala ali Ibrahim, innaka Hamidun Majid”
“[Sahih Bukhari: Volume 6, Book 60, Number 321]
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri (Radi Allah Anhu): We said, “O Allah’s Apostle! (sal-allahu-alleihi-wasallam) (We know) this greeting (to you) but how shall we invoke Allah for you?” He (sal-allahu-alleihi-wasallam) said, “Say! Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin ‘Abdika wa rasulika kama- sallaita ‘ala all Ibrahim wa barik ala Muhammadin wa’ala all Muhammadin kama barakta ‘ala all Ibrahim.’ Al-Laith said: ‘Ala Muhammadin wa ‘ala all Muhammadin kama barakta ala all Ibrahim.”
As is perspicuous that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is not invoked. It is Allah (SWT) who is invoked for Mohammad (peace be upon him). This means:
- Because Mohammad (peace be upon him) is not invoked there is no question of him being deified.
- Because Allah (SWT) is invoked for Mohammad (peace be upon him) further corroborates that Allah (SWT) is the only true deity, as one does not invoke prayers for a deity – it is absurd.
- Finally, greeting is not invocation. We greet daily in our lives, however, if greetings has anything to prove for deification then consider a fact that even Abraham (peace be upon him) is greeted in Islam in the very same way as is Mohammad (peace be upon him) and in the same “Salaah”, not merely that, even the family members of Mohammad (peace be upon him) and Abraham (peace be upon him) are also greeted!:
“ALLAHUMMA SALLI ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA SALLAITA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID. ALLAHUMMA BAARIK ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA BAARAKTA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID.
“O Allah, let Your Blessings come upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, AS you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious. Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, AS you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious”” (Source)
Therefore, in order that Samuel Green’s argument (B.), make any sense he should address the following points:
- How does invoking to Allah (SWT) deify Mohammad (peace be upon him)
- How does greeting Mohammad (peace be upon him) deify him when:
- Greeting is not any exclusive act of worship for God – Almighty.
- Even family of Mohammad (peace be upon him) is greeted.
- Even Abraham (peace be upon him) and his family is greeted.
Or, should we expect Samuel to write, in his next paper, that even family of Mohammad (peace be upon him) and Abraham (peace be upon him) and his family are also deified in Islam! Or should we expect Samuel to be more objective and less subjective in his next paper.
Samuel’s third argument, namely, (C.):
“C. Muhammad is associated with God in location. Mosques are to be places of worship to God alone (tawheed). For this reason no one is ever to be buried inside a mosque; nor are mosques to be erected over graves. This would be to associate a person with a space that is for God alone.
And the places of worship are only for Allah, so pray not unto anyone along with Allah. (Qur’an 72:18, Pickthall)
Narrated ‘Aisha and ‘Abdullah bin ‘Abbas: When the last moment of the life of Allah’s Apostle came he started putting his ‘Khamisa’ on his face and when he felt hot and short of breath he took it off his face and said, “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their Prophets.” The Prophet was warning (Muslims) of what those had done. (Sahih al-Bukhari: vol. 1, bk. 8, no. 427, Khan)
Yet, Muhammad’s grave is inside the mosque in Medina. The mosque in Medina is a major place of pilgrimage for devout Muslims and yet it is shirk.”
We would respond Samuel by two approaches, namely, concordant approach where we will accept his argument on the face of it and discordant approach were we do not accept his argument.
Concordant Approach:
The reason why prophet (peace be upon him) cursed the Jews and Christians is because by building places of worship at the graves of their prophets they started to worship the prophets rather than worshipping God (cf. Qur’an 9:30 & Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 93, Number 532s), however, even if we agree to Samuel’s argument that Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) grave is in the Mosque yet Muslims neither worship him nor his grave like the Jews and Christians.
In fact the Hadith which Samuel pulled out has back fired against his charges because it exhorts Muslims not to worship prophets (or their graves) like the Jews and the Christians did.
A similar Hadith, with a slightly different rendering is found in Sahih Muslim:
“Muslim :: Book 4 : Hadith 1082
‘A’isha and Abdullah reported: As the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) was about to breathe his last, he drew his sheet upon his face and when he felt uneasy, he uncovered his face and said in that very state: Let there be curse upon the Jews and the Christians that they have taken the graves of their apostles as places of worship. He in fact warned (his men) against what they (the Jews and the Christians) did.
Notice that according to this Hadith, Jews and Christians are condemned for transmuting the graves of their prophets into places of worship. Contrary to this practice, Muslims do not worship Mohammad (peace be upon him) neither his grave, neither have they turned his grave into a place of worship; as a matter of fact prophet’s grave is separated out in a cubicle in the Mosque in Medina.
Notwithstanding the fact that (a.) Muslims do not worship Mohammad (peace be upon him) (b.) nor his grave (c.) nor have they turned his grave into a place of worship – let us know consider Samuel’s objection – the mere presence of Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) grave in the Mosque in Medina in the sub – sequent section.
Discordant Approach:
Historically, Prophet (peace be upon him) had his house in the Mosque of Medina right from the early days of its construction:
“The construction (of the Mosque of Medina) took some twelve days. It was after its completion that the quarters for his wives were built in the same manner; and it was after the construction was complete for them that the Prophet (peace be upon him) moved out from the house of Abu Ayyub. Both Sawdah (RAA) and Aishah (RAA) had a house each. Subsequently, as he married more women, more houses were built.” (A Biography of the Prophet of Islam – In the light of the Original Sources – An Analytical Study. Volume 1, By: Dr. Mahdi Rizqullah Ahmad, Translated by: Syed Iqbal Zaheer, Maktaba Darussalam 2005)
Mohammad (peace be upon him) died in one of the quarters of his wife:
“His grave was dug where he died, in Aishah’s cottage” (A Biography of the Prophet of Islam – In the light of the Original Sources – An Analytical Study. Volume 1, By: Dr. Mahdi Rizqullah Ahmad, Translated by: Syed Iqbal Zaheer, Maktaba Darussalam 2005)
It is a traditional practice in Islam that prophets are buried wherever they die:
“Malik :: Book 16 : Hadith 16.10.27
Yahya related to me from Malik that he had heard that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, died on Monday and was buried on Tuesday and people prayed over him individually with no one leading them. Some people said that he would be buried near the mimbar, and others said that he would be buried in al-Baqi. Abu Bakr as-Siddiq came and said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, ‘No prophet was ever buried except in the place where he died.’ “So a grave was dug for him there. When he was about to be washed they wished to take off his shirt but they heard a voice saying “Don’t take off his shirt,” so they did not take off his shirt and he was washed with it on, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.
And,
Aboo Bakr told them that the Prophet (r) had said, “Prophets should be buried wherever they die.” Thus a grave was dug immediately below the bed on which he died in the house of ‘Aa’ishah. (Source)
With the forgoing, firstly, we see that:
- Mohammad (peace be upon him) had his house in the Mosque of Medina right from the early days of its construction.
- He died in one of the quarters in the mosque.
- And it is an Islamic fact that prophets are buried where ever they die.
Therefore, it is not Muslims who made prophet’s grave in the mosque or turned his grave into a place of worship but the Mosque was already there even before the death of the prophet and it was coincidental that he died in one of the quarters where he resided which was in the mosque and subsequently he was buried not in the mosque but at the place where he died which happened to be a mosque.
Thus, it is poor understanding of Samuel to charge Muslims of “Shirk” by having prophets grave in the Mosque without having sufficient background knowledge.
Secondly, the prophet’s grave has been well secluded from the rest of the Mosque to avoid any disturbance or worship (if any) from or to it.
Thirdly, according to the Hadith which Samuel quoted in conjunction with the Sahih Muslim Hadith we quoted, Muslims are exhorted explicitly not to worship Mohammad’s grave (peace be upon him) like the Jews and the Christians did. Thus, we have no substantial proof against Islam which would establish that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is deified because his grave is in the Mosque of Medina especially when we have explicit statements condemning the worship of his grave.
Here is Samuel’s another weak argument, fourth argument:
“D. Muhammad is associated with God in love and forgiveness. Love and forgiveness in Islam do not come from God alone to us (tawheed), instead they are through Muhammad (shirk).
Say, (O Muhammad, to mankind): If you love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Qur’an 3:31, Pickthall”
Notice how presumptuously Samuel has claimed that love and forgiveness does not come from God alone. And he quoted Qur’an 3:31, however, hardly did he read the verse carefully. The inspired verse does not claim that divine love and forgiveness comes from Mohammad (peace be upon him), on the contrary, it says that they come from Allah (SWT) alone and to achieve it, one needs to just follow Mohammad – following – which is not even remotely near to worshipping! Samuel needs to get his comprehension, especially of Sacred Scriptures, correct before claiming anything or prove us how the verse claims divine love and forgiveness from Mohammad (peace be upon him) besides Allah (SWT).
One shows true love to Allah (SWT) by following Mohammad (peace be upon him) because it is ordained by Allah (SWT) himself that everyone should follow the prophets,
“We sent not a messenger, but to be obeyed, in accordance with the will of Allah.” (Qur’an 4:64, Yusuf Ali Translation)
So by following prophets/Mohammad (peace be upon him) we are indirectly obeying Allah (SWT) and thus worshipping Him and loving Him.
Yet again, Samuel’s allegation begs for more support from Scriptures to establish anything even close to substantial.
Samuel’s fifth argument, (E.),
“E. Muhammad is associated with God in blessing. The idea of relics giving God’s blessing is shirk because the power of God would be associated with his creation in some way. However, Muhammad gave out the relics of his hair as a blessing to others.
Abu Bakr reported: (He called for) the barber and, pointing towards the right side of his head, said: (Start from) here, and then distributed his hair among those who were near him. He then pointed to the barber (to shave) the left side and he shaved it, and he gave (this hair) to Umm Sulaim (Allah be pleased with her). … (Sahih Muslim: bk. 7, no. 2992, Siddique)
To paraphrase Samuel’s argument, because Mohammad (peace be upon him) gave his hair to some one that is why he turned himself into God – Almighty!
This argument is ludicrous to say the least. Samuel needs to bring in more substantial proofs if he wants to convince Muslims about the deification of Mohammad (peace be upon him).
However, firstly, the Hadith under consideration does not indicate that his hairs had something divine in them. Rather the Hadith only specify that he gave his hair to other – they might have kept it as a loving memoir of their prophet (or for any other reason) which has got nothing to do with its divinity.
Furthermore, even if the hairs have got any blessing in them, it still needs to be established that they become divine because of it and that Muslims started to worship hair(s) or Mohammad (peace be upon him) due to it because we have no such incident recorded in Islamic traditions.
Samuel’s second last argument:
“F. Muhammad is associated with God in salvation. Salvation in Islam does not come from God alone to us (tawheed), instead it is through Muhammad (shirk).
Narrated Ibn Umar: On the Day of Resurrection the people will fall on their knees and every nation will follow their prophet and they will say, “O so-and-so! Intercede (for us with Allah), “till (the right) intercession is given to the Prophet (Muhammad) and that will be the day when Allah will raise him into a station of praise and glory (i.e. Al-Maqam -al-Mahmud). (Sahih al-Bukhari: vol. 6, bk. 60, no. 242, Khan)
O Prophet! … accept their allegiance and ask Allah to forgive them. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Qu’ran 60:12, Pickthall)”
Firstly, we fail to realize how does the Hadith and the Qur’anic verse quoted by Samuel establish that salvation comes from Mohammad (peace be upon him) because they do not talk about salvation coming from Mohammad (peace be upon him) at all.
Secondly, we feel proud to proclaim that Muslim salvation does not just depend on Mohammad (peace be upon him) but on the belief in all earlier Messengers, Prophets, Books, Angels etc:
“O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and the scripture which He hath sent to His Messenger and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Day of Judgment, hath gone far, far astray.” (Qur’an 4:136, Yusuf Ali Translation)
Observe that the verse says that anyone who disbeliefs in any one of the messenger or books etc has gone astray, in other words, in order to be successful or to gain salvation we need to believe in all messengers, books etc thus, a Muslim salvation does depend on the belief in all prior messengers – not just Mohammad (peace be upon him) himself. So, in the next response we expect Samuel Green to claim that Muslims have deified all messengers, books, angels etc! and, thereby further expose his ignorance of Islamic Theology.
Let us now analyze Samuel’s last argument:
“G. Muhammad practised shirk. In the Law of Moses and the Prophets it is very clear that we are not to venerate sacred stones.
Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 26:1, NIV)
Yet, Muhammad continued the pre-Islamic practice of venerating the Black Stone.
Bukhari, Muslim and Abu Daw’ud reported that ‘Umar approached the Black Stone and kissed it. Then he said: “I know that you are a mere stone that can neither harm nor do any good. If I had not seen the Prophet (peace be upon him) kissing you, I would have never kissed you.” Al-Khatabi said: “This shows that abiding by the Sunnah (custom) of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is binding, regardless of whether or not we understand its reason or the wisdom behind it.” Such information devolves obligation on all those whom it reaches, even if they may not fully comprehend its significance. It is known, however, that kissing the Black Stone signifies respect for it, recognition of our obligation toward it, and using it as a means of seeking Allah’s blessings. (As-Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh us-Sunnah (Hajj and `Umrah), Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1992, vol.5, p. 75.)
All Muslims today must continue this idolatrous practice when they go on pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, even though it is such obvious shirk. Why must they do it? Because Muhammad did it.”
Several responses are in order to this erroneous misconception which many emotional Christian Apologists harbor:
Firstly, the so called Old Testament verse is about the condemnation of the worship of idols, images and stones; as the verse itself claims, however, the Black Stone of Islam is an object of respect and not of worship. So Samuel first needs that it is an act of worship to substantiate his case. Consider these back firing statements from authority Samuel quoted:
“I know that you are a mere stone that can neither harm nor do any good… It is known, however, that kissing the Black Stone signifies respect for it…”
Ironically, even Samuel knew that Muslims do not worship but only respect the Black Stone:
“Yet, Muhammad continued the pre-Islamic practice of VENERATING the Black Stone.”
We are startled to ask why did Samuel choose the word “veneration” to “worship” especially when he was up to prove worship of it. It is because he knows no Muslim has ever worshipped the Black Stone!
Therefore, in order that at least Samuel’s last argument does any good to his case he should at least do one of the following to substantiate his case:
- Prove that veneration (as shown by Muslims for the Stone) or respect is the same as worship.
- Muslims ever worshipped the Black Stone.
But if he cannot do that, and of surety he will not be able to do that (inshallah), then he should consider showing his so called divinely inspired Leviticus verse to biblical Aaron, a revered biblical ‘monotheist’ prophet, who was caught amidst defiling himself and others with the very same Idols and Stones Samuel is fussing about:
“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (Bible, Exodus 32:1-4, King James Version)
Conclusion and Invitation
We have seen that none of the objections which Samuel Green had against Islam and its pure monotheism had any substantial argument in it except for flimsy assumptions, misconceptions, ignorance etc about the subject of Islam.
However, we invite learned Christians like Samuel Green (and others) into a more concrete discussion about Islam and Christianity. We cordially invite Christians (and Jews) to worship none but Allah (SWT) alone, desist from the worship of Jesus (peace be upon him) and accept the message of the last and final messenger, Mohammad (peace be upon him) through the Qur’anic verse:
“Say: “O People of the Book! come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah.” If then they turn back, say ye: “Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah’s Will). (Qur’an 3:64, Yusuf Ali Translation)
But if they turn on their heels then “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) is His messenger”
Note: Emphasises like Bold, Italics, Capital, Underline etc wherever not found in the original, is ours.
———————————————
Appendix
Muslim author and Da’ee Ahmed Eldin provides another perspective to important issues raised by Samuel Green, particularly, to his arguments “B.” and “C.”.
As a response to argument “B.” which was the blessings invoked for Mohammad (peace be upon him) in the daily ritual prayers, – Eldin quotes:
“Praise be to Allaah.
These are some of the versions of the Tashahhud which are narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
1 – Ibn Mas’ood (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) taught me the Tashahhud, holding my hand between his hands, just as he would teach me a Soorah from the Qur’aan:
‘At-tahiyyaatu Lillaahi wa’s-salawaatu wa’t-tayyibaat, as-salaamu ‘alayka ayyuha’n-Nabiyyu wa rahmat-Allaahi wa barakaatuhu. As-salaamu ‘alayna wa ‘alaa ‘ibaad-Illaah is-saaliheen. Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhu wa rasooluhu (All compliments, prayers and pure words are due to Allaah. Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allaah and His blessings. Peace be upon us, and on the righteous slaves of Allaah. I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except Allaah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger).’
This was whilst he was among us, but after he was taken, we would say ‘as-salaam ‘ala’n-Nabi (peace be upon the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)).’”(Narrated by al-Bukhaari, al-Isti’dhaan, 6265)
This is the soundest version of the wording of the Tashahhud according to the scholars. This should be said in the first Tashahhud, and in the second Tashahhud there should be added to it al-Salaah ‘ala’n-Nabi (sending blessings upon the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)). Ibn al-Qayyim said: “It is prescribed for his ummah to send blessings upon him in the last Tashahhud.” (al-Salaah wa Hukm Taarikihaa, 1/284)
2 – The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:
“Say: ‘Allaahumma salli ‘ala Muhammadin wa ‘ala aali Muhammadin kamaa salayta ‘ala aali Ibraaheem, wa baarik ‘ala Muhammadin wa ‘ala aali Muhammadin kamaa baarakta ‘ala aali Ibraaheem fi’l-‘aalameen innaka Hameedun Majeed (O Allaah, send prayer upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as You sent prayers upon the family of Ibraaheem. And send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as You sent blessings upon the family of Ibraaheem among the nations; You are indeed Worthy of Praise, Full of Glory)’ – and the salaam is as you know.”
(Narrated by Muslim, al-Salaah, 405)
The Sunnah is to make du’aa’ (supplication) after the Tashahhud and before the tasleem (salaams). See Question # 5236
Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid
According to the above citation also “Tashahhud” only implies seeking peace for the prophet (peace be upon him), hence, there is no supplication made to him which would otherwise violate Islamic Monotheism. As a matter of fact, we seek peace for all the prophets – no wonder we suffix “Assalato wassalam” (peace be on you) whenever referring to any prophet including Jesus (peace be upon him).
On the issue of prophet’s grave inside the mosque in Medina, argument “C.”, – Eldin enlightens:
“”The Prophet’s Grave
The presence of the Prophet’s grave in his masjid in Madeenah can neither be
used to justify the placing of bodies in other masjids nor the building of masjids
over graves. The Prophet (r) did not order that he be buried in his masjid, nor did
his companions put his grave into the masjid. The companions of the Prophet (r)
wisely avoided burying the Prophet (r) in the local graveyard for fear that later
generations would become overly attached to his grave. ‘Umar, the freed slave of
Ghafrah, related that when the sahaabah (companions of the Prophet (r) gathered
to decide on the Prophet’s (r) burial, one said: “Let us bury him in the place where
he used to pray.” Abu Bakr replied, “May Allaah protect us from making him an
idol to be worshipped.” Others said, “Let us bury him in al-Baqee’ (a graveyard in
Madeenah) where his brothers among the Muhaajireen (migrants from Makkah)
are buried.” Abu Bakr replied: “Verily burying the Prophet in al-Baqee‘ is
detestable because some people may try to seek refuge in him which is a right
belonging only to Allaah. So, if we take him out (to the graveyard), we will ruin
Allaah’s right, even if we carefully guard the Messenger’s grave.” They then
asked, “What is your opinion, O Abu Bakr?” He replied, “I heard Allaah’s
Messenger say: ‘Allaah has not taken the life of any of his prophets except that
were buried where they died.” Some of them said, “By Allaah, what you have
said is pleasing and convincing.” Then they made a line around the Prophet’s bed
(in ‘Aa’eshah’s house) and dug the grave where his bed was. ‘Alee, al-‘Abbaas,
al-Fadl, and the Prophet’s family took his body and prepared it for burial.95
‘Aa’eshah’s house was separated from the masjid by a wall and it had a door
through which the Prophet (r) used to enter the masjid to lead salaah. The
companions sealed off this doorway in order to complete the separation of the
Prophet’s grave from his masjid. Consequently, the only way that his grave could
be visited at that time was from outside the masjid.
Expansions of the masjid took place in the time of the second Caliph ‘Umar and
the third Caliph ‘Uthmaan. But both of them cautiously avoided the inclusion of
either ‘Aa’eshah’s house or that of any of the other wives of the Prophet (r).
Expansion in the direction of the houses of the wives of the Prophet (r) would
have automatically included the Prophet’s grave in the masjid. However, after the
death of all the sahaabah who were in Medinah,96 Caliph al-Waleed ibn ‘Abdil-
Malik (reign 705-715 C.E.) was the first to extend the masjid in an easterly
direction. He included ‘Aa’eshah’s house inside the masjid, but demolished the
houses of the other wives of the Prophet (r). The expansion was reported to have
been carried out by al-Waleed’s governor ‘Umar ibn ‘Abdul-‘Azeez.
When ‘Aa’eshah’s house was included inside the masjid, a high circular wall was
built around it so that it would not be visible at all from inside the masjid. Two
additional walls were later built at an angle from the two northern corners of the
house in such a way that they met each other forming a triangle. This was down to
prevent anyone from facing the grave directly.97
Many years later, the familiar dome was added to the roof of the masjid and was
placed directly above the Prophet’s (r) grave.98 The grave was later surrounded by
a brass cage with doors and windows, and the walls of the grave itself were
draped in green cloth. In spite of the barriers which have been placed around the
Prophet’s grave, the error still remains to be corrected. Walls should once again
be placed to separate it from the masjid so that no one could pray in its direction
nor visit it inside the masjid.
Salaah in the Prophet’s Masjid
The prohibition of salaah in masjids with graves in them is applicable to all
masjids except that of the Prophet (r). This is due to the many special virtues
attributed to prayer in it, not found in any other masjid containing a grave.99 The
Prophet (r) himself pointed out this special feature saying, “Do not journey
except to three masjids: al-Masjid al-Haraam, al-masjid al-Aqsaa, and this
Masjid of mine.” 100 He also said: “ Asingle salaah in this masjid ofmine, is better
than 1,000 salaahs elsewhere, except al-Masjid al-Haraam.” 101 He even assigned
special significance to a part of his masjid saying: “ The area between my house
and my pulpit is a garden from the gardens of paradise.” 102 If salaah in the
Prophet’s masjid was considered makrooh (disliked), the virtues of his masjid
would be negated and it would be made equal with all other masjids. Just as
salaah in general has been forbidden at certain times, yet allowed if it has a
defined purpose (e.g., janaazah) other than optional prayer, salaah in the
Prophet’s masjid is likewise desirable due to its exceptional nature.103 And,
Allaah forbid, if a grave were to be put in either al-Masjid al-Haraam or al-Masjid
al-Aqsaa, salaah would still be desirable in them due to their special virtues and
place of honor in the sight of God.104″
SOURCE: USOOL AL AQEEDAH FROM DR BILAL PHILIPS
Notice that according to this version, (a.) the grave was intentionally “sealed” off of the Masjid once the prophet (peace be upon him) was buried, moreover, (b.) righteous Caliphs of the likes of Umar (raa) and Uthman (raa) carefully excluded prophet’s (peace be upon him) grave during the expansion of the Masjid, (c.) even when the later Caliphs, – Caliphs after the companions of the prophet (peace be upon him) – included the grave inside the Masjid they made sufficient structural modifications in order to keep the grave out of the sight of the worshippers.
In a nut shell, Muslims were taking all sorts of precautions so that Mohammad (peace be upon him) is not given the status which is not permissible in Islam, yet we find Christian apologists like Samuel Green pay any care to Islamic traditions before attacking straw – man.
Emphasize wherever not found in the original is ours.
The After life – With Adam Deen & Rob Scott
Posted: September 22, 2011 Filed under: Atheism, Christianity, Dawah, Islam, lectures, Uncategorized, Videos Leave a comment »Muslim & Christian perspective on the after life.
What does the after life mean to us?
Is there any reason to believe in the after life?
Held at the London Muslim Center (LMC)
Jesus Is Still A Jew!
Posted: September 14, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Videos Leave a comment »Though coming from a Christian point of view it contains much truth the world-wide Church needs to hear…
“A memorial to the millions of people who have suffered at the hands of this cruel god”
Posted: July 30, 2011 Filed under: Christianity Leave a comment »Church in Wales inquiry after rector burns Bible pages
22 July 2011 From BBC News North West Wales
(see a video about this here: BBC © 2011)
The Church in Wales says it is investigating after a Gwynedd rector burnt some pages from the Bible.
The Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth of St Peter ad Vincula Church, Pennal, also cut up pages from the King James Bible to create an artwork.
Unveiling it at a church event, he said it revealed a “cruel and vile God“.
The Bishop of Bangor said: “Destroying parts of the Bible we don’t like is disrespectful and will offend many people.”
Mr ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales he had burnt scraps of cut up the passages at the public event because he had been making a statement as part of an art experiment.
He said he had had nothing but support from people at the church near Machynlleth, close to the Gwynedd-Powys border.
‘Gobsmacked’
He revealed his controversial piece of art at an event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
He said: “I find it highly offensive that people would think I have given my life to serving that type of God and that I would regard the words of the King James Bible as sacred truth.
“I cut out all the nasty bits of that Bible, the language of which is being celebrated all over the place this year, because I don’t think you can separate that language from the God it is representing.
“I was gobsmacked no programmes or articles are representing the cruelty, revenge and hatred of this version of God.”
The artwork, which also contrasts the language of the Bible and the festive greetings of Christmas cards, is mounted on a 9ft by 7ft board.
Mr ap Iorwerth wants to show it in a gallery and also promote it as an alternative Christmas card , because he thinks it will provoke thought and discussion.
He said it is the “most-popular” version of God as cruel that he takes exception to, whereas he thinks more attention should be paid to God’s life-work and the view that “God is love”.
“People have told me they turned away from the real message of Jesus because of this God – that this version put lots of people off him as children.
“My version of God is Jesus, who was pure compassion and unconditional love.
“The King James Bible should be praised for its language but not for the God it represents – the two need to be separated.”
He said he burnt the pages, which were the remaining scraps of those he cut up to make the display, as a “symbol of all the suffering in the world”.
“The point being that some people are more concerned about destroying a few bits of pages than about those who have died after suffering.”
He said he had not yet heard anything of an investigation against him and will be pursuing his own “evangelical” investigation after the summer into “how such a cruel God has so prominent a place in national life”.
‘Wrestle with’
He said he also planned to create a “wall of shame” at the church naming all of God’s “cruel actions”.
The rector claimed “incredible” support from parishioners.
The Bishop of Bangor, Andy John, said destroying the Bible, or passages from it, would cause offence to many.
He said: “I have therefore written to the Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth and will be investigating the matter further.
“There are parts of the Bible that we struggle to understand today because culturally our life is so far removed from that period in which the Bible was written.
“However, it is not given to us to pick and choose – sometimes the most challenging parts are those which we need to wrestle with most of all.”
Other Gods of Christianity
Posted: July 12, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, MDI, Question Mark Leave a comment »Other Gods of Christianity
Exposing various other hidden Gods of Christianity
Is it three or one God in Christianity? This has been one burning question being debated for years, however, in this paper we are about to observe that Christianity is not about one or three Gods but numerous other deities besides!
The Yardstick
Christian apologist Sam Shamoun has proposed (or helped us!!) with a set of qualities or attributes which a Christian God must possess. He said,
“…one of the many reasons given in Scriptures to worship Yahweh alone is the fact that he is the Judge of all…” (Bold, Underline and Italics emphasize ours)
He quoted the following biblical verse:
“O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!” Psalm 94:1-2”
And another verse,
“Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. THE LORD JUDGES THE PEOPLE; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.” Psalm 7:6-8 (Bold, Caps and Italics emphasize ours)
And then he wrote,
“If the NT writers believed that Jesus is God we should not be surprised to find them ascribing these very Divine functions (that is the function of Judging) to the risen Lord.” (Bold, Italics and Capital emphasize ours)
It is clear from the above citations that Shamoun wants to argue that because Jesus (peace be upon him) was delegated the job to judge people therefore, he is God. No wonder he entitled the name of his paper as:
“Jesus as the Judge of All the Earth
Additional Evidence from the New Testament for the Deity of Christ” (Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
To recapitulate, judging people is an evidence for deity of Christ (peace be upon him).
Other deities
However, the Bible is rigged with other mortals who too possess the power to judge people!!
We read in the so claimed “Injeel”:
“And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, YE SHALL SIT UPON TWELVE THRONES, JUDGING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL.” (Matthew 19:28, King James (1611) Bible. Capital and Bold emphasize ours)
Notice that it is not just the similarity between Jesus (peace be upon him) judging and apostles judging as well! Rather they would- very similarly to Jesus (peace be upon him)-, sit on the throne and judge at least twelve tribesmen.
Paul goes a step ahead of the biblical Jesus (peace be upon him) to expand the reign of apostles and saints from just twelve tribes to the entire world:
“Do ye not know that the SAINTS SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?”(1Corinthians 6:2, King James (1611) Bible.Bold, Italics, Caps and Underline emphasize ours)
Comparatively, we find that the God of Old Testament would judge whole of Earth as well:
“”Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Genesis 18:25 (Caps emphasize ours)
And,
“The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed.” 1 Samuel 2:10 (Caps emphasize ours)
And,
“O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!” Psalm 94:1-2 (Caps emphasize ours)
Observe how idolatrously Paul claims and attributes that saints would judge the whole world just as God of Bible would also judge the entire Earth!
But this is not where the ignominious similarity ends because Paul takes a huge leap to claim that saints would even judge Angels!
“Know ye not that WE SHALL JUDGE ANGELS? how much more things that pertain to this life?” (1 Corinthians 6:3, King James (1611) Bible. Bold, Capital and Italics emphasize ours)
“Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life!” ( 1 Corinthians 6:3, Good News Bible, TEV. Bold, Italics, Underline and Capital emphasize ours)
Shamoun provided three NT verses where we can only find biblical Jesus (peace be upon him) to judge living or dead people, however, saints of Christianity, by the virtue of judging angels, have propelled themselves ahead the deity of Jesus (peace be upon him) to become greater gods than him!:
Jesus is the Judge of All.
“And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” Acts 10:42
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
“in that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” Romans 2:16
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:” 2 Timothy 4:1
Notice yet again that Shamoun thought that Jesus by judging “living and the dead” was judging ALL, however, he did not thought of Angels who – as higher beings, would be judged by Saints, ironically!
Christian scholar and a renowned commentator of the Bible – Albert Barnes, explains that by the virtue of saints judging humanity and angels, would be elevated to the post of honor and to the“right hand of judge” and more importantly, would be ASSOCIATED with Jesus (peace be upon him) in judgment:
“it is the only one which gives a fair interpretation to the declaration that the saints should judge angels in 1Co_6:3. If asked “in what way” this is to be done, it may be answered, that it may be meant simply that Christians shall be exalted to the right hand of the Judge, and shall encompass his throne; that they shall assent to, and approve of his judgment, that they shall be elevated to a post of honor and favor, as if they were ASSOCIATED with him in the Judgment.” (Barnes’ Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:2. Bold, Italics and underline emphasize ours)
As an ultimate proof of idolatry and sharing of godhead- Barnes truth fully exposes the paganism of Christianity by saying that saints would be “associated” with Jesus (peace be upon him) in the divine process of judging humans. In other words and as per Shamoun’s own yardstick, saints would share the divine right of judging humans with the God.
Another observable point is that Barnes states that “Christians” would be ‘exalted’ to the “RIGHT HAND of the Judge”. We often read many claims from Christian apologists that Jesus (peace be upon him) is God because he would be exalted on the right hand of God (Acts 7:55, Romans 8:34) nevertheless, even “Christians” would be “exalted to the right hand of the Judge”. Therefore, either Jesus (peace be upon him) is not a deity or even lay “Christians” are also Gods in Christianity.
And it is not just commentator Barnes, noted Bible commentator Matthew Henry also claims that believers will have a position in the right hand of God:
“Those are the given in common to all believers. The glory of being in covenant with the Father, and accepted of him,of being laid on his bosom, AND DESIGNED FOR APLACE IN HIS RIGHT HAND, was the glory which the Father gave to the Redeemer, and he has confirmed it to the redeemed.” (Henry’s commentary, John 17:20-23. Bold, Italics, Capital and Underline emphasize ours)
Noted Christians like Johnson and Mc Garvey acceded to the fact that there was some sort of partnership or in their words, “close association” between Jesus (peace be upon him) and saints:
“The saints shall judge the world, because of THEIR UNION WITH THE MESSIAH, to whom all judgment is committed” (Source. Capital, Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
And
“The saints will only participate AS MYSTICALLY UNITED WITH CHRIST the judge.” (Source, Capital, Bold and Italics emphasize ours)
Anybody united, associated and sharing in God’s divine work should definitely partner his God head as well.
To Recap
We have seen:
- There are New Testament verses which exclusively attribute the divine privilege of judgment to mere mortals, which should have been sole right of sovereign God.
- While Shamoun showed us that his assumed god – Jesus (peace be upon him) would be judging “living and dead”, on the other hand we read in New Testament that saints would be judging nor just mere mortals but even angels!
- We have noted Christian scholars like Barnes, Henry, Johnson and Mc Garvey agree to the idolatrous fact that there was/is/would be some sort of divine association/union/partnership in the divine functionality of judgment between saints and God.
And now because we know that, according to Christian scriptures, judgment is an evidence for deity of God in Christianity and Christ (peace be upon him) therefore according to Shamoun’s own argumentation, which is,
“However, if the NT doesn’t teach the full Deity of Jesus then we should not expect them to attribute to Christ the Divine prerogative of judgment since this would be idolatry on the grounds that this would be ascribing to a creature the incommunicable or exclusive characteristics of God.” (Italics emphasize ours)
We can infer two points, firstly, either the so called inspired New Testament authors were “not expect(ed)… to attribute to…saints and apostles the Divine prerogative of judgment” which belonged only to God or the NT authors, in their trans have committed “… idolatry on the grounds… that they have ascribed to creatures …the incommunicable or exclusive characteristics of God.” We allow Shamoun and Christians to choose between the two options.
Allah willing, more refutation for Shamoun to follow in future.
“There is no God but Allah (SWT) and Mohammad (peace be upon him) is his messenger”
Through this paper I would like to beseech Allah (SWT) to elevate the position of my deceased father in his grave. And bring happiness to two wronged and harmed souls in my life.
N.B.: Unless otherwise mentioned all quotations have been taken from Shamoun’s paper.
Judging by the Injil
Posted: June 19, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam Leave a comment »The U.S.A today has seen a sharp rise in incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim feeling. Expressions of such feeling have been noticeable in Mosque bombings, arson, violence towards Muslims, discrimination at work, and even murder. The sources of such negative feelings come from a number of traditionally intolerant sources; the right-wing neo-conservatives, radicals, white supremacists, and fundamentalist Christians.
In their expressions of hate towards Muslims, these groups invoke alarmist, paranoid conspiracy-theory narratives of ‘Islamisation of the USA’ or ‘stealth Jihad’ by what amounts to only 2% of the population.
Militant fundamentalist Christians, have added a further layer to this narrative, and combined an aggressive concept of Christian proselytisation , to wage ‘Spiritual warfare’ on non-believers (which is a cross between the Crusades and Psy-Ops worthy of a Cold war regime). This usually involves a number of methods, ranging from publishing aggressive and skewed articles online, to video propaganda, and disturbing non-Christian community events with loud speakers, large insulting signs and scattering leaflets amongst crowds of ‘heathens’.
Although we have come to hear of the more infamous groups of militant Christians, such as Westboro Baptist Church, others, of a more obscure variety exist, such as Acts 17 Ministries – infamous for yearly disrupting the Arab cultural festival in Dearborn Michigan. This year, they intend to mass distribute a number of anti-Islamic propaganda leafets, focusing on a number of Islamic theological beliefs; in an attempt to ‘counter the spread of Sharia law’.
One such article they intend to distribute, concerns attacking the Islamic belief that Jesus (a.s) is not divine. In order to achieve this, they resort to straw manning the interpretation of Quranic quotes which tell Christians to study their own Bible to see the truth of Islam. The militant Christians claim that it is the Bible itself which ‘clearly’ and ‘uncontrovertibly ‘proves’ the divinity of Jesus, and therefore Islam is wrong in it’s claims, and Muhammed (saw) is a false prophet.
David Wood of Acts 17 Ministries wrote and produced this little pamphlet. You can read it here. Let’s scratch the surface, and put this argument to the test…
God in his Word, the Holy Quran ( 5:46-47), tells us that:
‘And We caused Jesus, the son of Mary, to follow in the footsteps of those earlier prophets, confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah; and We vouchsafed unto him the Gospel, wherein there was guidance and light, confirming the truth of whatever there still remained of the Torah, and as a guidance and admonition unto the God-conscious.’
‘Let, then, the followers of the Gospel judge in accordance with what God has revealed therein: for they who do not judge in the light of what God has bestowed from on high – it is they, they who are truly iniquitous!’
Furthermore we read in Quran 3:3-4:
Step by step has He bestowed upon thee from on high this divine writ, setting forth the truth which confirms whatever there still remains of earlier revelations: for it is He who has bestowed from on high the Torah and the Gospel aforetime, as a guidance unto mankind, and it is He who has bestowed upon man the standard by which to discern the true from the false.
Behold, as for those who are bent on denying God’s messages – grievous suffering awaits them: for God is almighty, an avenger of evil.
It is important to bear in mind that the Gospel frequently mentioned in the Qur’an is not identical with what is known today as the Four Gospels, but refers to an original, since lost, revelation bestowed upon Jesus and known to his contemporaries under its Greek name of Evangelion (“Glad Tidings”), on which the Arabicized form Injil is based. It was probably the source from which the Synoptic Gospels derived much of their material and some of the teachings attributed to Jesus. The fact of its having been lost and forgotten is alluded to in the Qur’an in 5:14
Quran 5:14:
And likewise, from those who say, “Behold, we are Christians.” We have accepted a solemn pledge: and they, too, have forgotten much of what they had been told to bear in mind – wherefore We have given rise among them to enmity and hatred, to last until Resurrection Day and in time God will cause them to understand what they have contrived.
Thus the Qur’an elliptically rejects the Christian’s claim of being true followers of Jesus: for, by wrongfully elevating him to the status of divinity they have denied the very essence of his message.
Furthermore, by their going astray from the genuine teachings of Jesus – and thus from true faith in God – is the innermost cause of the enmity and hatred which has so often set the so-called Christian nations against one another and led to unceasing wars and mutual persecution.
So in light of this Quranic teaching Muslims are entirely justified in asking Christians ‘What did Jesus say about himself?’ ‘Where did Jesus claim to be God?’
Our Early Sources of Information about Jesus
Most Christians who are not familiar with biblical scholarship probably think that knowing about the historical Jesus is a relatively straightforward matter. We have four gospels in the New Testament, so to know what Jesus said and did we should read the gospels. So what is the problem?
The problem in part is that the gospels are full of discrepancies and were written decades after Jesus’ ministry by authors who had not themselves witnessed any of the events of Jesus’ life.
But it gets worse. For honest readers notice not just the occasional contradiction or error in the New Testament; there are the existence of forgeries claiming apostolic authorship and containing fake eye-witness testimony (such as the notorious Second Letter of ‘Peter’); the troubling absence of the doctrine of the Trinity; the worrying interpolations/corruptions that have been discovered at crucial points in the NT: the so-called ‘Johannine Comma’ of 1 John 5:7 is clearly Trinitarian in teaching but is known to be a much later insertion by a Christian scribe; the absence of any resurrection appearances in the earliest gospel of Mark (check it out!); the fabrication of stories about Jesus (the famous story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 was not part of the gospel but added much later by an unknown scribe). All these facts are understandably deeply worrying for Christians, for how do we really know what is authentic and what is the inauthentic material in the NT? And to make matters worse – what about the unknown interpolations and corruptions that probably exist but still lie undetected?
But surely the most troubling phenomenon in the New Testament must be the difference between the Synoptic gospels and John. Most Christians are serenely unaware of the problem because they are not taught to notice what is evident to all serious students of the Bible.
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel
In John, Jesus speaks with an unclouded consciousness of a divine existence with God from before his time on earth (5.19ff and 8.12ff make this clear). But the question cannot be ducked whether the Jesus of the fourth gospel was intended as a historical portrayal, whether Jesus of Nazareth actually spoke in the terms used by John. Were the Christological claims of John’s gospel already in place from the beginning of Christianity? It is hardly likely.
Consider the following
James D. G. Dunn, one of the leading moderate New Testament scholars around and no “anti-supernatural liberal,” writes:
Few scholars would regard John as a source for information regarding Jesus’ life and ministry in any degree comparable to the Synoptics. It is worth noting briefly the factors which have been considered of enduring significance on this point. One is the very different picture of Jesus’ ministry, both in the order and the significance of events and the location of Jesus’ ministry. Another is the striking difference in Jesus’ style of speaking (much more discursive and theological, in contrast to the aphoristic and parabolic style of the Synoptics). As Strauss had already pointed out, this style is consistent, whether Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, or to the woman at the well, or to his disciples, and very similar to the style of the Baptist, as indeed of 1 John. The inference is inescapable that the style is that of the Evangelist rather than that of Jesus. Probably most important of all, in the Synoptics Jesus’ principal theme is the Kingdom of God and he rarely speaks of himself, whereas in John the Kingdom hardly features and the discourses are largely vehicles for expressing Jesus’ self-consciousness and self-proclamation. Had the striking ‘I am’ self-assertions of John been remembered as spoken by Jesus, how could any Evangelist have ignored them so completely as the Synoptics do? On the whole, then, the position is unchanged: John’s Gospel cannot be regarded as a source for the life and teaching of Jesus of the same order as the Synoptics.
(James D. G. Dunn, Christianity In The Making Vol. 1, Jesus Remembered, 2003, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 165-166.)
Other conservative Christian scholars who have similar types of verdicts to offer regarding the historicity of the gospel of John include: Bruce Stein, Craig A Evans and Martin Hengel, to name a few.
So when we consider the synoptic gospels on the one hand and John’s gospel on the other, it is impossible to think that Jesus spent his short ministry teaching in two such completely different ways, conveying such different contents, and there were simply two traditions, each going back to Jesus, one transmitting 50 per cent of what he said and another one the other 50 per cent, with almost no overlaps. Consequently, for the last 150 or so years scholars have had to choose. They have almost unanimously, and I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels and that John represents an advanced theological development, in which meditations on the person and work of Christ are presented in the first person, as if Jesus said them.
So what did Jesus reportedly say of himself and the important question of eternal life in our earliest gospel?
Jesus in the Earliest Gospel
Mark chapter 10 reads:
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money* to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
I invite you to consider the following
1) Jesus, as a humble Jew, denies that goodness comes from himself: only God is good. Ergo, Jesus is making clear that he is not God.
2) According to Jesus we are saved by obeying the commandments of God (note the striking contrast to Paul’s gospel about Jesus)
3) But in this particular encounter the man lacked one thing (only) that blocked him from eternal life: his riches. Jesus advises him to ’go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’ so the man will receive his heavenly reward as a result of selling his possessions. After that, he is invited to follow Jesus. Note carefully the sequence.
4) This passage caused embarrassment to later gospel writers (who used Mark’s gospel when compiling their own gospels) who changed Jesus words to remove Jesus’ denial that he is good/God:
Here is Matthew’s altered version in 19:17 (compare this with Marks original)
And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’
Now let us turn to Paul’s answer to the same question in Romans 10:9:
If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
The differences are startling. Jesus’ answer to the question about salvation focuses on obedience to the Torah. As a Prophet to the Jewish people, Jesus sees his faithfulness to God expressed in adherence to the Creator’s commands and precepts in the Torah.
Mark 2:5-7 and the forgiveness of sins
The point can be easily missed. At first the issue seems to be Christological – ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?; ‘…that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…‘ (2.7,10). But that is a dubious interpretation. What Jesus actually says is, ‘Your sins are forgiven‘ – something the priest could say in the Temple to everyone who had brought a sin offering. Note too that the phrase ‘the Son of Man‘ evokes no comment, it was clearly not seen as a claim to exulted or divine status by the crowd (indeed in Aramaic idiom the phrase means ‘man’). In the parallel story in Matt 9.8 the crowd ‘glorified God who had given such authority to men’.
Furthermore, John the Baptist presumably pronounced sins forgiven (see Mark 1.4/Luke 3.3) without apparently provoking any accusation of breaching the divine prerogative. Also in the Prayer of Nabonidus from Qumran, Nabonidus says ‘an exorcist pardoned my sins’, where human mediation of divine forgiveness is clearly implied (4QprNab4).
The gospels also narrate that the disciples were given authority to forgive the sins of others – see Matthew 16.19; 18.18 and John 20.23 (‘if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’)
The Light
My comments re the historical problems surrounding the gospel of John apply to all David Wood’s quotes from that gospel. I will not repeat them here. But let us not forget that according to Matthew 5 Jesus taught his disciples,
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
So the true followers of Jesus are light to the world - just as Jesus was.
The Final Judge
David Wood is correct to say that only God will be the Judge on the Day of Judgment but is wrong to draw the conclusion that Jesus was therefore God. That is not how the apostles understood Jesus’ role and status. If we survey the apostles teaching in Acts (assuming for the sake of argument its’ authenticity) we read in Peter’s very first sermon the following:
“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, was a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know” Acts 2:22
‘Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah’ Acts 2:36
And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Acts 4:22
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. Acts 10:42
Now admittedly this is not Islamic teaching but it suggests that Jesus was a man who:
i) did miracles by the power of God
ii) was made lord and messiah by God
iii) was believed to be the messiah by his first followers
iv) as a man was appointed to be judge of the living and the dead by God.
Nothing of Peter’s teaching in Acts suggests that Jesus was believed to be Yahweh or God Incarnate or the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus was a man, a servant like David and the Messiah.
So, in conclusion, we read the Word that God speaks to the Christians of the world, with a clear warning:
People of the book, do not go to excess in your religion, and do not say anything about God except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of God, His word, directed to Mary, a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers and do not speak of a ‘Trinity’ – stop this, that is better for you – God is only one God, He is far above having a son, everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him and He is the best one to trust. (Qur’an, 4:171)
© Paul Williams June 2011
Jesus may not have died on the cross, Christian scholar claims
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Christianity 2 Comments »
Jesus may not have died nailed to the cross because there is no evidence that the Romans crucified prisoners two thousand years ago, a scholar has claimed.
The legend of his execution is based on the traditions of the Christian church and artistic illustrations rather than antique texts, according to theologian Gunnar Samuelsson.
He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion – only that Jesus bore a ‘staurus’ towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a ‘pole’.
Mr Samuelsson, of Gothenburg University, said: ‘Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely challenged.
‘And what’s even more challenging is the same can be concluded about the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn’t say as much as we’d like to believe.’
Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross is strikingly sparse – both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-Biblical literature as well as The Bible.
He said: ‘The overwhelming number of texts only offer a noun “stauros” or a verb “anastauroun” or “anaskolopizein”. In almost every dictionary these terms are said to mean “cross” or “to crucify”.
‘But as I show in my thesis they are used in a much wider sense than that. The verbs refer to some kind of suspension of a human being – living or dead – while the noun refer to the suspension device used in such suspension.’
Mr Samuelsson, a committed Christian himself, admitted his claims are so close to the heart of his faith that it is easy to react emotionally instead of logically.
He said: ‘My question deals with the traditional understanding of the death of Jesus – that He carried a cross-beam toward Calvary, but since he could not stand the burden of the cross a passer-by was forced to carry it for him.
‘On Calvary the rest of the cross was awaiting, that the two parts were conjoined and Jesus was then nailed to the crucifix-like cross.
‘As a matter of fact these text are strikingly silent when it comes to depict the actual event. The texts say that Jesus carried a stauros, which has a much wider usage in antiquity than just referring to a “cross”, towards Calvary, to be “stauroun” – which is used in a much wider sense that just “to crucify”.
‘The text is silent about why Jesus carried a stauros, what that looked like – was it the whole execution tool or just a part such as the cross-beam – and why a passer-by was forced to carry it for Jesus.’
Mr Samuelsson said the actual execution texts do not describe how Christ was attached to the execution device.
He said: ‘This is the heart of the problem. The text of the passion narratives is not that exact and information loaded, as we Christians sometimes want it to be. If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels.’
Mr Samuelsson said: ‘That a man named Jesus existed in that part of the world and in that time is well-documented. He left a rather good foot-print in the literature of the time.
‘I do believe that the mentioned man is the son of God. My suggestion is not that Christians should reject or doubt the biblical text.
‘My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we think it is. We should read on the lines, not between the lines. The text of the Bible is sufficient. We do not need to add anything.’
Article published here
Why there is no room for God’s forgiveness in Christianity
Posted: April 14, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam Leave a comment »The basic fault of the traditional understandings of salvation within Western Christianity are that they have no room for divine forgiveness!
For a forgiveness that has to be bought by the bearing of a just punishment, or the giving of an adequate satisfaction, or the offering of a sufficient sacrifice, is not forgiveness, but merely an acknowledgement that the debt has been paid in full. But in the recorded teaching of Jesus there is, in contrast, genuine divine forgiveness for those who are truly penitent and vividly conscious of their utter unworthiness. In the Lord’s Prayer we are taught to address God directly as our heavenly Father and to ask for forgiveness for our sins, expecting to receive this, the only condition being that we in turn forgive one another. There is no suggestion of the need for a mediator between ourselves and God or for an atoning death to enable God to forgive. Again, in the Lukan parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the father, when he sees his penitent son returning home, does not say, ‘Because I am a just as well as loving father, I cannot forgive him until someone has been duly punished for his sins’, but rather he ‘had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”* But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” (Luke 15. 20-24)
And again, in the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the latter, ‘standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified’ (Luke 18. 13-14).
And yet again, there is his insistence that he came to bring sinners to a penitent acceptance of God’s mercy: ‘Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Matthew 9.13).
This was fully in accord with contemporary Jewish understanding. E.P. Sanders in his authoritative work on Jesus’ Jewish background, says that ‘The forgiveness of repentant sinners is a major motif in virtually all the Jewish material which is still available from the period (Sanders Jesus and Judaism SCM Press p.18,1985); and it continues today in the prayers on the Day of Atonement. For Judaism sees human nature as basically good and yet with an evil inclination that has continually to be resisted.
However, God is aware of our finitude and weakness, and is always ready to forgive the truly penitent. In Islam there is an essentially similar view. God is always spoken of in the Quran as Allāhi raḥmāni raḥīmi ’God the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’. God knows our weakness and forgives those who, in the self-surrender of faith, bow before the compassionate Lord of the universe.
Excerpt from The Metaphor of God Incarnate (second revised edition) published by SCM, 2005.
Professor John Hick is a world-renowned philosopher of religion and Christian theologian.
Where are the original Torah and Gospel?
Posted: March 29, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam 3 Comments »Question: Could you please tell me where the original copies of the Taurat [Torah] & Injeel [Gospel] are? I am getting different answers from my Muslim friends. I was of the understanding that the originals were destroyed/corrupted and that is why the Quran was sent to mankind. Does a copy of Taurat & Injeel exist on earth in it’s original form?
Answer: Many thanks for your question. You are right that there is a little bit of confusion about this, and also that some Muslims don’t quite know the facts properly.
The earliest copy of Saint Luke’s Gospel in existence is known as the Bodmer Papyrus XIV-XV. It belongs to the Vatican Library and can be dated from between 175-225 AD, which is roughly one hundred to one hundred and fifty years after scholars believe the original was written. The document consists of fifty-one pages of a manuscript that originally contained seventy-two pages.
The very earliest known fragment of the New Testament is from Saint John’s Gospel and is slightly earlier. It dates from some time in the first half of the second century, which is maybe fifty years after the original was written, according to Biblical scholars.
As for the Old Testament, there are around one thousand manuscript copies in existence. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the earliest Hebrew copy of the Old Testament was the Masoretic text (named after a group of Hebrew scribes known as the Massoretes), dating from around 800 AD.
The oldest Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint dates back to around the second century BC. However, with the discovery in 1947 of many ancient manuscripts in earthenware jars found in a cave at Qumran near the Dead Sea, two copies of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, written in Hebrew, were found, which were one thousand years earlier than any previous manuscripts.
So, what does all this tell us, and how does it fit into what Muslims believe about the original Torah and Injeel (Gospel) being corrupted? In other words, how does it answer your question?
For our purposes, the Torah responds to what is now referred to by Christians and Jews as the Old Testament, and the Injeel refers to what Christians refer to as the Gospels, which form a part of the New Testament.
There are clearly, then, existing copies of both the Jewish and Christian texts, dating back quite a long way. Biblical scholars are agreed that most of these texts agree with one another in about ninety-five per cent of their content. That seems quite a lot and seems to suggest not much change in thousands of years.
However, five per cent of a book is still a considerable number of words, especially when you consider that the Old Testament is made up of 39 different books and a total of 593,493 words, and that the New Testament is made up of 27 books and 181,253 words. That means that nearly thirty thousand words differ in the Old Testament and nearly nine thousand words are different from one another in the New Testament.
Enough of playing with numbers. Muslims believe that the original of both the Torah and the Injeel no longer exist in their original form. We read in the Quran what means:
“Some of the Jews pervert words from their meanings.” (An-Nisaa 4:46)
And also:
“So woe to those who wrote the Book with their hands, and then say: ‘This is from Allah,’ that they may sell it for a little price. So woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for their earnings.” (Al-Baqarah 2:79)
Muslims believe that God the Almighty did indeed reveal His message to previous generations through Prophets He sent down to them. Each of these messages was for a particular people at a particular time in history. The message given to Moses, then, was for the Jews of his time. The message given to Jesus, was for the Jesus of his own time.
The Quran, though, which was revealed to the unlettered Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) over a period of twenty-three years, was for all people and for all time.
So you see, there are indeed copies in existence of the books which Christians and Jews believe were the revelation of Allah. Muslims, however, do not believe that these books are a true record of what was originally revealed. They were either written down wrongly in the first place, or were corrupted by translation or by the deliberate actions of men.
It would take an answer much longer than this one to explain, for example, how the Gospels were written. The early Christian Church eventually chose four Gospels from among many, which roughly corresponded to what Christians already believed.
The writers of these particular four differ in their intentions in writing, but none of them write to prove anything about Jesus. They write to portray a different aspect of Jesus for a particular audience.
In some places they actually disagree with one another, because they are not dealing with facts, as we know them, but with artistic creativity. These Gospels are indeed beautifully crafted, but cannot and do not claim to be the literal word of God.
These Gospels were written after the letters of Saint Paul, in which the case is made very strongly for Jesus being divine. Paul claims his knowledge of this came from a personal revelation from Jesus.
You will realize, sister, that trying to sum up the whole breadth of Biblical scholarship and Quranic belief in such a sound-bite answer is like trying to explain nuclear physics in a thousand words.
In a nutshell, the answer is this: yes, there are copies of both the Old and New Testament in existence, which date from relatively close to the time the original message was revealed.
Muslims, however, do not believe that these scriptures are indeed the Torah and the Injeel (Gospel) originally revealed to men by Allah Almighty. They believe this because the Quran tells them that they are not. The originals no longer exist.
We should be very careful, then, in quoting from them to prove a point, since we are quoting from something which we believe to be corrupted.
This does not, however, prevent us from respecting what Christians and Jews believe, because their own books are sacred to them and we do, after all, worship the One God.
Is it Justifiable to Lie in Order to Tell the Truth?
Posted: March 28, 2011 Filed under: Christianity 3 Comments »Who Wrote the Bible and why It Matters
by Bart D. Ehrman
Author of ‘Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are‘
Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors — a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or two in some other place. But is it possible that the problem is worse than that — that the Bible actually contains lies?
Most people wouldn’t put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.
Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon and call such books “pseudepigrapha.”
You will find this antiseptic term throughout the writings of modern scholars of the Bible. It’s the term used in university classes on the New Testament, and in seminary courses, and in Ph.D. seminars. What the people who use the term do not tell you is that it literally means “writing that is inscribed with a lie.”
And that’s what such writings are. Whoever wrote the New Testament book of 2 Peter claimed to be Peter. But scholars everywhere — except for our friends among the fundamentalists — will tell you that there is no way on God’s green earth that Peter wrote the book. Someone else wrote it claiming to be Peter. Scholars may also tell you that it was an acceptable practice in the ancient world for someone to write a book in the name of someone else. But that is where they are wrong. If you look at what ancient people actually said about the practice, you’ll see that they invariably called it lying and condemned it as a deceitful practice, even in Christian circles. 2 Peter was finally accepted into the New Testament because the church fathers, centuries later, were convinced that Peter wrote it. But he didn’t. Someone else did. And that someone else lied about his identity.
The same is true of many of the letters allegedly written by Paul. Most scholars will tell you that whereas seven of the 13 letters that go under Paul’s name are his, the other six are not. Their authors merely claimed to be Paul. In the ancient world, books like that were labeled as pseudoi — lies.
This may all seem like a bit of antiquarian curiosity, especially for people whose lives don’t depend on the Bible or even people of faith for whom biblical matters are a peripheral interest at best. But in fact, it matters sometimes. Whoever wrote the book of 1 Timothy claimed to be Paul. But he was lying about that — he was someone else living after Paul had died. In his book, the author of 1 Timothy used Paul’s name and authority to address a problem that he saw in the church. Women were speaking out, exercising authority and teaching men. That had to stop. The author told women to be silent and submissive, and reminded his readers about what happened the first time a woman was allowed to exercise authority over a man, in that little incident in the garden of Eden. No, the author argued, if women wanted to be saved, they were to have babies (1 Tim. 2:11-15).
Largely on the basis of this passage, the apostle Paul has been branded, by more liberation minded people of recent generations, as one of history’s great misogynists. The problem, of course, is that Paul never said any such thing. And why does it matter? Because the passage is still used by church leaders today to oppress and silence women. Why are there no women priests in the Catholic Church? Why are women not allowed to preach in conservative evangelical churches? Why are there churches today that do not allow women even to speak? In no small measure it is because Paul allegedly taught that women had to be silent, submissive and pregnant. Except that the person who taught this was not Paul, but someone lying about his identity so that his readers would think he was Paul.
It may be one of the greatest ironies of the Christian scriptures that some of them insist on truth, while telling a lie. For no author is truth more important than for the “Paul” of Ephesians. He refers to the gospel as “the word of truth” (1:13); he indicates that the “truth is in Jesus”; he tells his readers to “speak the truth” to their neighbors (4:24-25); and he instructs his readers to “fasten the belt of truth around your waist” (6:14). And yet he himself lied about who he was. He was not really Paul.
It appears that some of the New Testament writers, such as the authors of 2 Peter, 1 Timothy and Ephesians, felt they were perfectly justified to lie in order to tell the truth. But we today can at least evaluate their claims and realize just how human, and fallible, they were. They were creatures of their time and place. And so too were their teachings, lies and all.
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the New York Times bestselling author of ‘Misquoting Jesus’ and ‘Jesus, Interrupted’. His latest book, ‘Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are’, is now available from HarperOne.
Missionary Tactics Against Islam
Posted: March 18, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, MDI, Videos Leave a comment »Debate: Jesus or Muhammed – which one is the better role model for society today?
Posted: March 3, 2011 Filed under: Christian extremism, Christianity, Dawah, Debates, Secularism 3 Comments »Topic: Jesus or Muhammed – which one is the better role model for society today?
Venue: Kingston University, London, UK
Date: 3rd March 2011
Beyond Fundamentalism: Texts and Translations
Posted: January 14, 2011 Filed under: Christianity 32 Comments »Christians of a more conservative persuasion often assure the rest of us that the Bible ‘as originally given’ is guaranteed free of error and that no other work from the ancient world has been preserved with such fidelity.
But do these assurances stand up to the evidence of the Biblical texts? What does the objective factual evidence inescapably tell us?
The role of the Septuagint translation gives us a powerful illustration of the issues.
The New Testament writers generally quote from it as does Jesus as depicted by them (though he spoke Aramaic not Greek).
James Barr, Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University, tells us:
The Septuagint is a work of epoch-making importance, the first full-scale translation of a body of works like the Old Testament to be made on this scale and in a scope that involves languages as different as Hebrew and Greek and cultural milieus as different as the Jewish and the Hellenistic. But, under the circumstances, it was not surprisingly, as a translation, a work of very mixed quality. It differed from book to book, since different techniques of translation were used; at some places it must have had a Hebrew text different from ours, while at others it seriously misread or misunderstood the Hebrew. No scholar who knows the material doubts that this is so. But this makes a difference when we consider the New Testament. For it does not only use the Septuagint in a general way: it often uses the exact ductus of its swords as argument or proof of a theological point.
Escaping from Fundamentalism page 142
Let’s look at an example that illustrates this phenomenon, from the Epistle to the Hebrews 10.5
Consequently, when he came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired,
but a body hast thou prepared for me…’
This passage is a quotation from Psalm 40:7ff. In the original Hebrew, which is what is translated in our English Bibles (check one and see) we read:
Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire; but thou hast given me an open ear… (Ps.40.6)
Now the whole point of the quotation in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that it mentions the preparation of a body for the Christ coming into the world; the writer comes back to exactly this:
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:10)
But there was absolutely nothing about a body in the original Hebrew at all! Scholars debate over whether it was a mistranslation or a copying error in the transmission of the Greek text. But we can nevertheless draw the following conclusions:
1) There is no doubt that the Epistle to the Hebrews was proving a point of doctrine from a word that did not exist at all in the Hebrew Bible and which was either the product of an error in transmission or a mistranslation.
2) The matter was theologically important: the question was whether there was in the Bible a previous reference to the clothing of Christ in a body. And as we have seen this difficult demonstration is accomplished entirely through the appeal to the erroneous words of the Septuagint.
So to return to my opening remarks:
Conservative Christians often assure us that the Bible ‘as originally given’ is guaranteed free of error and that no other work from the ancient world has been preserved with such fidelity. I asked, ‘do these assurances stand up to the evidence of the Biblical texts? What does the objective factual evidence inescapably tell us?’
We are now in a position to conclude that matters of doctrinal importance have arisen from accidental or erroneous factors in the transmission of the Bible.
Btw, this sort of thing is not uncommon. Further examples can be cited on request…
Debate: Tawheed or Trinity: What is the nature of God?
Posted: December 10, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates | Tags: abdullah kunde, christianity, debate, islam, muslims, samuel green, tawheed, trinity, trinity christianity tawheed debate islam muslims abdullah kunde samuel green Leave a comment »
This event will give the primary speakers an opportunity to present on the major difference between the two largest Abrahamic faiths. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the Islamic fundamental of Tawheed (Indivisible Divine Unity) will be each illustrated and discussed with an opportunity for audience questions and answers at the conclusion of each speaker’s presentations.
Speakers:
Samuel Green – Works for the Australian Federation of Evangelical Students in a chaplaincy role at the University of Tasmania. He has been active in Christian apologetics for some time, in particular apologetics pertaining to Islam. He has developed a training course for Christians interested in ministering to Muslims, entitled ‘Engaging With Islam’ http://www.engaging-with-islam.info/. He has also contributed significa……ntly to the anti-Islam apologetics websites Answering Islam and Answering Muslims http://www.answering-islam.org/Green/index.htm. He has previously undertaken several formal debates against Muslims, including Abdullah Kunde and Beylal Racheha.
Abdullah Kunde – Is a medical student completing coursework at Liverpool Hospital. He is currently studying Islam in Sydney and has previously completed Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish studies at university. He has participated in several formal debates against Christians, including Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, two of which have been broadcast worldwide on an Arab Christian satellite television channel. Abdullah Kunde is a member of the MDI platform in Australia.
Presented by: SUMSA, UWSMS, UWSMSA, MUMSA, Campbelltown MS and UTSMS
Answering Common Questions on Salvation That Christians Pose to Muslims
Posted: November 28, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Islam Leave a comment »Here’s a new article by Bassam Zawadi & Mansur Ahmed from the excellent site call to monotheism
If it’s not the concept of God Himself that is the major dividing line between Muslims and Christians, then it is definitely the way to attain salvation.
There are nine common questions that Christians usually pose to Muslims regarding the concept of salvation in Islam and we will attempt to briefly address them here in this article.
1) Islam teaches that Allah’s will is arbitrary. He can forgive whomever He wills according to the Qur’an. If Allah can forgive you without punishing you, how does Allah balance between mercy and justice when granting or denying salvation to people? In Christianity, God has punished all sin so we don’t have to worry about this.
Islam does not teach that Allah’s Will is arbitrary. In fact, Allah’s Will is exercised or expressed in accordance to His Divine nature and Wisdom. Sin is not a thing – that exists by itself independent of volitional actors – which needs punishing when committed. A woman is not sin, neither are our eyes, or our hearts. But the action of the eye or the heart when looking at a woman with lust is a sin. Sin does not exist as an entity – wrongly conceived in Christianity – which you can punish. Punishing the actors of sin has a meaning and not punishing the sin.
We do not believe that Allah needs to express both His Mercy and Justice on every individual at the same time at all times. His Justice is carried out on every individual in perfect wisdom. No one will be wronged, for everyone gets their due (as good and bad is explained through the prophets and messengers at all times in human history). Any good one has done or any bad one has done – be they small or big – will be accounted for. That’s the Justice of God.
His Mercy however, though in a general sense is open to all in this life (as understood from His name Al-Rahman). The Qur’an states:
Surah 3:31
Say (Oh Muhammad): If you love Allah, then follow me, Allah will love you and forgive you your faults, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful
Here we see that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is commanded to tell the people that they must follow his guidance, which was revealed to him by Allah in order to receive Allah’s love. Allah says:
Surah 21:107
And We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds.
So here we see that Allah is offering His love and mercy to everyone in the form of Islam. If one rejects Islam then he or she is rejecting Allah’s offer of love in turn. It’s not an issue of Allah not wanting to love the person, but an issue of the person not allowing Allah’s love to reach him.
Allah has declared to humanity about His nature:
Surah 7:156
My Mercy encompasses all things
Surah 6:12
He has taken it upon Himself to be Merciful
Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said:
When Allah created the creation He put down in his Book, which is with Him upon the Throne: Verily, My mercy prevails over My wrath. (Sahih Muslim 4939)
He has however, in a specific sense, reserved the abundant mercy (Surah 7:156) for the believers in the hereafter (as understood from His name Al-Raheem).
God by taking on to Himself to be Merciful, which prevails over His wrath (i.e. punishing through Justice) has told us how He expresses these two apparently contradictory attributes. His attributes therefore are complimentary.
There are two kinds of sins that could occur. One is sin against God and the other is sin against creation. If we sin against God, it is entirely within God’s prerogative to forgive us. If we sin against humanity more than one thing could occur. 1) He whom I sinned against could forgive me for my crime or 2) God could forgive me for my crime and then recompense the victim in order to ensure overall justice.
Furthermore, God could punish me in this life for my crimes without punishing me in hell. For example, he could punish me with trials in this life. He could punish me in the grave. He could punish me and wipe out my sins by making me feel pain when the angel of death is pulling out my soul. He could temporarily punish me in hell for any sins that I committed.
This doesn’t contradict God being All Merciful. We don’t define All Just and All Merciful as meaning that God should be fully just and fully merciful with a human being at all given times. Surely, Muslims and Christians alike would agree that God won’t be merciful to the disbelievers on the Day of Judgment for instance. Rather, when we say that God is All Merciful or All Just we mean to say that His ability to exercise these two attributes is infinitely vast, but whether He decides to exercise them is entirely up to His will that is in accordance with His nature.
Also, we should bear in mind that Justice does not always denote vengeance or punishment. Sometimes forgiveness and display of mercy could be an act of justice. Allah’s forgiving someone for a sin without punishing him for it does not mean that Allah compromised His Justice. Human beings are created weak and are meant to fall into sin from time to time. There is no reason to believe that we deserve to be punished for every single thing that we do. We will expand more on this point below.
2) You Muslims aren’t even sure whether you have attained salvation. For crying out loud, Muhammad himself wasn’t sure if he would go to heaven according to an authentic hadeeth, so how could you be!?
It is not correct that Muslims aren’t sure whether they have attained salvation or not. Muslims have a guarantee of salvation and Promise from God to that matter.
Allah states:
Surah 9:72
Allah has promised to the believers -men and women, – Gardens under which rivers flow to dwell therein forever, and beautiful mansions in Gardens of ‘Adn (Eden Paradise). But the greatest bliss is the Good Pleasure of Allah. That is the supreme success.
Allah also states:
Surah 3:9
Verily, Allah never breaks His Promise
Now if you ask the Muslim “are you going to paradise?” he is going to say to you “if Allah wills” (insha’allah). The well informed Muslim is not going to tell you “Yes I am going paradise for sure.” No, the Muslim hopes and prays that he will end up in paradise. It’s not because the Muslim is worried whether Allah will keep His promise, for as we have seen Allah does not break His promise. Rather, it is because the Muslim cannot be sure whether he would continue remaining on the straight path and die as a Muslim and the guarantee or promise of salvation is conditional in remaining and dying as a Muslim.
As for Christians, well there is no consensus regarding this matter.
If you are a Calvinist you would adhere to the doctrine of the preservation of saints, which basically states that once you’re saved, you’re always saved. Once the Holy Spirit dwells in you it will never leave you. But if you happen to be following the Arminian school of thought you would take a different stance and take a position similar to what Muslims take, which is the doctrine of conditional preservation of the saints, which states that there must be a condition for one to be saved and it is possible for one to lose that status.
One verse that Christians who adhere to the conditional preservation of saints often appeal to is the following:
Hebrews 6:4-8
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls upon it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.”
The above verse according to Arminians clearly shows that the Holy Spirit could possibly leave even after it has dwelt in you.
They also appeal to the various verses in the Bible that warn believers about apostasy (e.g. 1 Timothy 4:1 and several other verses in the book Hebrews) and then ask why the New Testament would warn against something that isn’t even possible?
Also, Paul is reported to have said:
1 Corinthians 15:2
“By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
Paul is putting on a condition for one to be saved by the Gospel. That condition is that one holds firmly onto it. Clearly there is no point for saying such a thing if it is not possible for a true believer to let go of it. If the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints were true then it would have been enough for Paul to say (or something similar):
“By this gospel you are saved, once you have firmly embraced the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
According to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints once one has become truly regenerate, he will never apostatize. Once he has embraced the gospel he will never let go of it. There is no “ifs” about the matter. However, Paul’s statement fits perfectly well with the doctrine of conditional preservation of the saints, which states that there must be a condition for one to be saved and that is the condition that Paul put:
if you hold firmly to the word.
These verses point to the apostasy and since apostasy is at least possible, then how could one be 100% sure that he wouldn’t apostatize in the future? Obviously, Calvinists would try to engage with these verses so we will allow the Christians to have their own “in house” debates on the side and they could try to settle the issue amongst themselves.
Uncertainty is a motivational factor to make you word harder in being a better person. Imagine you join a university and you are absolutely guaranteed that you would pass all your subjects no matter what you do. It would make no difference whatsoever if you study or not, you are still guaranteed your degree. If that is the case, would any students study just for the sake of studying? Not too many we suppose.
If someone claims certainty that he will go to heaven then this could lead to some problems. For example if you are absolutely certain that you are going to paradise why should you fear God? The New Testament states:
1 Peter 2:17
Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
Why should we fear God if we know for a fact that we are going to paradise? Why should we fear God anyways? Well the Bible states:
Exodus 20:20
Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
So here we see that the reason why we should fear God is so that it could be a motivation for us to stop sinning. Well why should we stop sinning? Well it’s to avoid God’s wrath. But if the Christian already avoids God’s wrath by believing in and accepting what Jesus supposedly did on the cross then the Christian doesn’t have to worry about God’s wrath anymore. And if he doesn’t have to worry about God’s wrath anymore because he is certain that he is going to paradise then why fear God as the New Testament instructs him to do?
As for Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) supposedly not being assured of his salvation, this has already been addressed over here.
3) The Qu’ran says that Allah is a deceiver, how can you trust a deceiver when he promises you something? Even Muhammad’s close companion Abu Bakr said he wasn’t sure about going to heaven because he doesn’t feel safe from the deception of Allah.
Allah in His wisdom throws back the deception at the deceiving unbeliever. The word ‘makr’ for example, according to classical Arabic dictionaries can have meaning of praise or blame depending on its usage in context. Breaking the deceivers plot is not to be taken as a blameworthy action, but it is on the contrary a praiseworthy action.
Such language is also present in the Bible (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 2:11) where God sends a lying spirit so they can believe in the lie in the spirit of outperforming the evil ones in their own evil plot.
As for the narration of Abu Bakr, this narration has not been proven to be authentic and even if it was Abu Bakr’s statement it is to be interpreted as him speaking out of humility.
4) Islam teaches that salvation is dependent upon the scales and whether your good deeds would outweigh the bad. How do you know what your scales would say on the Day of Judgment? Do you have some kind of notebook where you keep track of your actions or something? How about if you forgot to repent from a sin?
The weightiest deed on the Day of Judgment is ‘laa ilaaha illallaah’ the declaration of faith in Islam. This is both a faith and deed which is described as the key to entering paradise. No other bad deed can outweigh this one on the scales (except Shirk- which negates faith anyway if it’s not repented of before death).
All our actions are recorded – the good and the bad even if they are like the size of a mustard seed -, by the angels who are placed as scribes (Surah 82:10-13). A book that records everything from small to large where everything is accounted for (Surah 42:18)
As for possibly forgetting to repent for a sin, the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us to make a prayer asking Allah to forgive us all of our sins while acknowledging that Allah knows better about them than us:
O Allah, forgive my sin, my ignorance, my immoderation in my affairs, and all that You know better about my (faults) than myself. O Allah, forgive for me my joking, my seriousness, my unintended error, and my deliberate (mistakes) — and I have done of all that.) (Tafsir Ibn Kathir)
Secondly, Allah said that He will not hold us accountable for what we forgot:
Surah 2:286
Allah burdens not a person beyond his scope. He gets reward for that (good) which he has earned, and he is punished for that (evil) which he has earned. “Our Lord! Punish us not if we forget or fall into error, our Lord! Lay not on us a burden like that which You did lay on those before us (Jews and Christians); our Lord! Put not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Pardon us and grant us Forgiveness. Have mercy on us. You are our Maula (Patron, Supporter and Protector, etc.) and give us victory over the disbelieving people.”
5) Since Allah’s will and judgment are arbitrary, how do you know if Allah forgave your sins?
Allah’s will and His attributes are not arbitrary as explained before. His justice is such that no one will be wronged unjustly on the Day of Judgment (Surah 42:18). His Grace, love and forgiveness will be showered on the Day of Judgment upon those who showed to be the recipient of His Grace. People will go to Hell due to His Justice and to heaven by His Grace. Allah has described, unlike being anything arbitrary, that to receive His Grace, Mercy and forgiveness – one needs to follow the prophetic guidance and obey Him(Surah 3:31; 3:132). So if one has the correct faith in Allahand follows His will, now offered as Islam, and sincerely repents for his shortcomings/sins, Allah will surely forgive him (Surah 15:49; 40:2; 20:82)
6) How could Muslims believe that finite works could “earn” them paradise and please God? God is too great for that and requires something more and that thing is the acceptance of God’s sacrifice for us.
Islam makes it clear that one will enter paradise based on his faith and good works. Allah says:
Surah 2:25
And give glad tidings to those who believe and do righteous good deeds, that for them will be Gardens under which rivers flow (Paradise).
Without faith, Allah will not accept those good deeds that one has done as He states in Surah 9, verse 17.
When Islam says that one must have faith, one must have faith in six specific things.
1) Belief in Allah as the only true God
2) Belief in the angels
3) Belief in all the revelations that God has sent
4) Belief in all the of the Messengers that God has sent
5) Belief in the Day of Judgment
6) Belief in predestination.
It is essential that the Muslim believes in all six of these things in order to make sure that his or her heart is purified because Allah says:
Surah 26: 88-89
The Day where neither wealth nor sons will avail. Except him who brings to Allâh a clean heart [clean from Shirk (polytheism) and Nifâq (hypocrisy)].
Also, the Muslim must recognize and be aware that it is ultimately only by Allah’s mercy that one will enter paradise:
Sahih al-Bukhari
Volume 8, Book 76, Number 474
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and receive good news because one’s good deeds will NOT make him enter Paradise.” They asked, “Even you, O Allah’s Apostle?” He said, “Even I, unless and until Allah bestows His pardon and Mercy on me.”
So here we see that it’s not by one’s good deeds that one will enter paradise but by Allah’s Mercy. However, Allah has commanded us to do good deeds and we would not be recipient of His mercy unless we obey His commands.
Now when it comes to Christianity there doesn’t seem to be a consensus amongst Christians regarding this crucial point. The Roman Catholics would say like what the Muslims say and that is that salvation is achieved by both faith and works. However, the Protestants take a different stance and say that salvation is only attained by faith alone and that this is the kind of faith that manifests itself and bears the fruit of good works.
We personally tend to agree more with the Roman Catholics on this point, since it appears that the Old Testament, the Biblical Jesus and his half brother James believed and taught such a doctrine as the following verses below illustrate:
Ezekiel 18:21-22
21 “But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.
22 None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will
Matthew 19:16-21
16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17″Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
18″Which ones?” the man inquired.
Jesus replied, ” ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,’[d] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[e]“
20″All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
James 2:20-26
20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. 25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Dr. Umar Al-Ashqar states the harmony between faith and good works in the process of salvation:
Paradise is something of immense value; a person cannot earn it by virtue of his deeds alone, but by the Grace and Mercy of Allah. Muslim reported from Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah said:
“No one of you will enter Paradise by his deeds alone.” They asked, “Not even me, unless Allah covers me with His Grace and Mercy. (Muslim, 4/2170, hadith no. 2816)
The fact that some texts indicate that Paradise is the price for the deeds could be problematic, for example:
{No person knows what is kept hidden for them of joy as a reward for what they used to do.} (Qur’an 32:17)
{such are the dwellers of Paradise. They will abide therein.} (Qur’an 7:43)
However, there is no conflict between these aayaat (verses) and the meaning of the hadith. The aayaat indicate that good deeds will be a reason, not the price, for admission to Paradise. The hadith says that good deeds are not the price for admission. Two groups were misled in this matter: the Jabariyah, who took the hadith to mean that the reward is not connected to deeds, because man has nothing to do with his deeds [i.e. everything is foreordained]; and the Qadariyah, who took the hadith to mean that Paradise was the price for good deeds, and man has the right to enter by virtue of his good deeds.
The commentator on At-Tahaawiyah said: “As for the idea that recompense results directly from one’s deeds, the Jabariyah and Qadariyah are misled, and Allah, to Whom be praise, has guided Ahl as-Sunnah. The Arabic preposition ba’ of negation (nafyi) is not like the ba’ used for affirmation. The negation in the hadith “No one will enter Paradise by virtue of his deeds (bi ‘amaalihi) is the ba’ of substitution or exchange, as if good deeds were not the price of a man’s admission to Paradise. This is like the (false) Mu’tazili claim that good deeds will give a person the right to enter Paradise, whereas the truth is that admission to Paradise is by the Grace and Mercy of Allah. The bi’ in the ayah, {. a reward for what they used to do [Jaza'an bi maa kaanu ya'maloon].} (Qur’an 32:17) is known in Arabic grammar as the bi’ of causation, i.e. because of their deeds. But Allah is the Creator of cause and effect, so everything is referred back to His Grace and Mercy.” (Sharh at-Tahaawiyah, 495.) (Umar Al Ashqar, Islamic Creed Series, Volume 5: Paradise and Hell in Light of the Qur’an and Sunnah, pages 265-266)
7) The Qu’ran says that Allah “misguides people” and “hardens their hearts”. This shows that several people end up in hell and lose salvation because Allah made that to be the case. What kind of hope for salvation does Islam offer us when Allah could end up hindering us from attaining it?
One can refer to this article for a fuller explanation http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/what does it mean that allah guides whom he wills and misguides whom he wills
It is not that He ‘misguides’ them, but rather leaves them astray even after reminding them. This is because they chose misguidance over His guidance. There are some who have become oblivious to the guidance due to their own making, and no advice or warning benefits them. They have chosen to seal their own hearts from guidance. This is from the foreknowledge of God. It is not Allah who hinders us from attaining salvation; neither is it He who has made us like that.
In the Bible, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. God declares:
Exodus 4:21
I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he will not let the people go.
But if God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then Pharaoh cannot be held morally responsible for his actions, since he did not do it of his own free will, but out of constraint (cf. 2 Cor. 9:7 ; 1 Peter 5:2 ). Why did he harden Pharaoh’s heart so he would reject God’s will? If God is just, why blame Pharaoh for his sin when it was God who hardened his heart to sin?
Paul says:
God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden (Rom.9:18-19 )
We see that the Bible contains similar apparently problematic passages. The question we would like answered is why Christians are applying double standards when critiquing Islam?
8 The concept of salvation straight from the time of Adam involved blood sacrifice, yet Islam mentions nothing about this. Islam’s concept of salvation contradicts that of the previous prophets.
Blood sacrifice was not the only way of atonement. Three different methods of atonement are identified in the Hebrew Bible: animal sacrifices, contrite repentance & prayer, and charitable deeds. For a fuller explanation please read: Blood Sacrifice by Messiah Truth Out Reach and Jews for Judaism.doc.
9) Can you perfectly obey God’s law? No you cannot, so why do you deserve going to paradise? Shouldn’t Allah be All-Just and only accepting perfection?
For starters the question is a straw man. Islam does not expect Muslims to perfectly follow each Islamic ruling or law. Secondly, the question seems to demand perfection, yet God did not create us perfect, God created us with free will, and knew that we would fall sometimes, so you can’t demand perfection when you haven’t been created to be capable of being a perfect saint. Thirdly, in Islam God expects us to sin, because when we sin we turn back to God in repentance. In essence this is a way to open up a relationship with God! In Islam God expects you to fall, but it’s about picking yourself up, learning from your mistakes, and moving on. Fourthly, not all Muslims will automatically go to heaven, many will go to hell where they will be cleansed of their sins, as for Muslims who do go straight to heaven, they will be punished in this life as a way to get rid of that sin, as the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught, punishments in this life is a form of taking the sin away and being saved in the hereafter. Fifthly, let us use some logic and rationality as God would want us to, saying a bad word is a sin, punching someone is a sin, etc., yet these are minor sins at most, do you really expect God to send you to hell for eternity for such a small sin? God never created us with the intention of being perfect, hence to assume perfection is a straw man, a straw man Christians can’t impose on us as Muslims.
Allah said:
Surah 16:61
And if Allâh were to seize mankind for their wrongdoing, He would not leave on it (the earth) a single moving (living) creature
Thus, anyone who invokes Allah for His Wrath against his own self will be taking foolishness as their way. Those who have sane minds, in contrast, invoke Allah for His Mercy and only invoke Him for His Wrath with their enemies. This is because Allah’s Mercy encompasses everything:
Surah 7:156
(As to) My punishment I afflict therewith whom I will and My Mercy embraces all things. That (Mercy) I shall ordain for those who are the Muttaqûn (the pious), and give Zakât; and those who believe in Our Ayât (revelations,
Allah does not require anyone to perfectly fulfill His commandments, but to be as righteous as they humanly can:
Surah 2:256
Allâh burdens not a person beyond his scope
Surah 64:16
So keep your duty to Allâh and fear Him as much as you can
Thus, Allah shows His Kindness to His creation that He treats them with His Mercy. How can this be a source of criticism? We thank Allah that He treats us with His Mercy, that He only requires us to do what we can in return for His Promise of Paradise, {(Allah said) eat of the Tayyibât (good lawful things) wherewith We have provided you, and commit no transgression or oppression therein, lest My Anger should justly descend on you. And he on whom My Anger descends, he is indeed perished. And verily, I am indeed forgiving to him who repents, believes (in My Oneness, and associates none in worship with Me) and does righteous good deeds, and then remains constant in doing them (until his death).} (Surah 20:81-82)
We reiterate the point that display of Mercy does not necessarily contradict the notion of being Just. Justice does not equal revenge. Justice equals fairness. Allah could forgive someone fairly without punishing him because that person repented from his sin sincerely and was too weak by his own nature to resist committing it. We are not saying that the weakness of humans justifies their committing sins. There are minor and major sins and there usually aren’t any good excuses for one to commit major sins. Also, it depends on how frequent one is sinning. But what matters the most is how the person picks himself up after sinning. That would determine how Allah would deal with such a person. Whether Allah chooses to forgive or punish, at the end no matter what He does He is being fair.
Feel free to contact me at b_zawadi@hotmail.com
Muslim review of Bassam Zawadi vs. Tony Costa
Posted: July 11, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Islam 2 Comments »ON-THE-SITE REVIEW OF BASSAM ZAWADI VS. TONY COSTA
“Was the Prophet assured of his salvation?”
by Abu Yasin al-Kanadi
I attended this highly-anticipated debate yesterday in Toronto and enjoyed it immensely. I will not be going into a nitty-gritty detail of the points since I have not reviewed the recording yet, but will share my initial impressions from my memory of the debate last night. First, a sincere congratulations to both debaters for showing the rest of us here on the Internet and the PalTalk universe that such a debate can be carried out in a civil and respectful manner. Even a provocative debate title such as this one– “Was the Prophet Muhammad assured of his salvation?”– can be handled with tact and restraint when it involves two gentlemen on both sides. Also a quick word in response to what we can expect to see on David Wood and Sam Shamoun’s websites: One brother once put it best to me when he said that, no matter how well a Muslim debater actually does, all you really get on Wood and Shamoun’s hate-blogs from the majority of like-minded Christian reviewers is about how the Christian debater “cleaned the floor” with the Muslim debater. Notice that the two Christians who were actually present at the debate and who have thus far posted some comments on Wood’s blog have not even made such a claim (although I am sure that such claims will eventually follow).
Now as for the debate– the truth of it, that is– Bassam proved his case quite well. Only brainwashed evangelicals who have as their starting premise that everything that touches the Prophet Muhammad turns dark and evil or who are simply too intellectually inept to grasp Bassam’s arguments in the first place would feel otherwise. Bassam clearly demonstrated that the only way that Tony can prove that the Prophet was uncertain of his salvation is by rejecting hadiths and calling upon Muslims to do the same. In other words, he is basically asking Muslims to change their religion (not because he has proven anything false, but simply because it is convenient for him to ask us to), since orthodox Sunni Islam includes the use of authenticated hadiths. Bassam made it very, very clear that Tony was using double-standards throughout the debate in regards to this issue.
Even in regards to the Qur’an, Bassam gave lexicon and tafsir references to show that “`asaa” (translated as “may” in most English translations) can mean several things depending on the context, and that in reference to the forgiveness of the Prophets “sins” mentioned in the Qur’an it actually means “definitely”. He also, for the benefit of the English speaking audience, demonstrated how the English word “may” can likewise in certain contexts imply certainty and not uncertainty; for example, “Let’s sign the contract so that we may do business together.” There is no uncertainty that the carrying on of business will follow the signing of the contract. Tony completely glossed over this response of Bassam’s and kept on repeating that his translations of the Qur’anic word have it stated as “may”, and therefore the Qur’an only says that Allah may forgive the Prophet’s sins but that there is no certainty given here. So basically, this exposes not only Tony’s ignorance of the Arabic language but also his inability to either understand or concede to Bassam’s greater research and expertise in this matter, which would have been the more honest and academic thing to do. Being a specialist in the Greek of the New Testament, one would expect Tony to better appreciate the flexibility and nuances of an ancient language and the need for recourse to classical lexicons and not only Penguin paperback translations from Indigo’s. His failure (from memory) to even address Bassam’s English example arguably also demonstrates Tony’s inability to fully understand English, a charge that we are more used to hearing from the opposite side!
Again, Tony’s standards were completely inconsistent. He deduces from the fact that the Prophet feared what Allah would do with him the idea that the Prophet was afraid that he might go to hell. Bassam explained that the Prophet could still fear Allah for other valid reasons, even if he knows that he is saved; for example, he might fear difficult trials and punishments that await him (as with all prophets), a painful death, etc. Tony did not once directly address this response of Bassam’s. For Tony, acting with “anxiety” and fear automatically equals the fear of going to hell; one wonders if he is simply projecting his own honest and innermost soteriological doubts and fears unto the Prophet of Islam. The double standard of course lies in the fact that Jesus was sweating with fear in the Garden of Gethsemene and prayed to God for deliverance from death. Does this mean that Jesus was uncertain of his salvation or of God’s plan for him? Did Jesus perhaps fear hell or the deception or treachery of God the Father? The typical Christian answer would be: “No, of course not! He knew all along what God’s plan was and that God’s plan is good. This incident only demonstrates Jesus’ HUMANITY.” Well why can’t the same thing be said for the Prophet?
Why can’t the Prophet simply be allowed to be a human being who feared what God would do with him (in this life) and feel uncertain about life’s trials and tribulations which surely await any bona fide prophet of the Lord? Even a so-called “saved” Christian will try to avoid pain and death by wearing a seat-belt in the car, looking both ways before crossing the street, wearing a helmet while bicycling, etc. Does the attempt of a “saved” Christian who has cancer to seek treatment through chemotherapy undermine or expose his faith in his salvation as being false? Why are millions of “saved” Christians in the Bible-belt in the U.S. registered gun and rifle owners if not out of some type of anxiety or fear? Either it’s love of violence or fear, or both. We could go on and on with such examples. But none of these questions or examples directly address the question of whether a Christian is “saved” or not, or even whether he feels saved or not. Similarly, several of the hadiths that Tony quoted about the Prophet exhibiting some type of general fear of God and the future were actually irrelevant to the actual issue at hand. Bassam even tried to help Tony along by asking him the more specific question, “Can you give a reference showing where the Prophet feared hell?” Not surprisingly, Tony could not provide anything except an ad infinitum repetition of his previous points.
Tony also alleged that the Prophet asking for God’s forgiveness 70-100 times a day demonstrates that he was not forgiven. Yet Tony was asked during the Q & A if he (Tony) was saved and, if yes, does he still repent to God or ask God for forgiveness. Tony answered YES to both questions. Does Tony’s continued repenting to God undermine his claim of being “saved”? If both realities and experiences can go hand in hand for Tony, why can’t they go hand in hand for the Prophet Muhammad? I think Bassam should have hammered in this point much more. Nonetheless, the point was made clear through the questioning itself (the question was repeated by a 2nd questioner, illustrating Tony’s inability to satisfactorily address this question in the first instance).
Tony tried to justify his brushing off of hadiths by saying that Muslims do not always agree with them and that Sunnis and Shias cannot agree on the same hadiths, a red herring that I suspect Bassam saw coming from a few Canadian kilometres away. Bassam correctly pointed out Tony’s inconsistency on this because Tony himself had used hadiths elsewhere in his presentation to try to make his case stronger. Why then was he brushing off all the hadiths that Bassam quoted instead of trying to rationally tackle them? What Bassam could have also mentioned here is that there are dozens of gospels in existence but it is reasonable to quote only from the “canonical” gospels in a debate setting with Christians. Similarly, if you are debating a Sunni Muslim, it is rather reasonable to quote from their “canonical” or authenticated hadith collection. If there is a mutawaatir hadith that is accepted all across the board by the world’s Sunni Muslims, that is a legitimate source of information to be used in such a debate. Let’s not re-invent the rules at the 11th hour. I think Tony can probably get a lesson on hadiths from Wood and Shamoun on this particular point; perhaps they can hammer the point to him better than Bassam did. Unfortunately, however, they will not be left with much of a case on this particular topic if they were to do this.
I was a bit iffy about Bassam’s classification of hadiths as “scripture”, however, and wondered if that might be going a bit far, although I did see Bassam’s point and, for the purpose of this debate, the basic point being made is valid. Perhaps it would have been sufficient to state that the hadiths occupy the same level of religious importance to Muslims as the gospels do to Christians. If Christians believe that the gospels are “inspired” words that accurately relay information about Jesus, Muslims believe the same about the hadiths, regardless of the technical semantics involved. So Bassam’s categorization of hadiths as “scripture” required a few short sentences of justification. Nonetheless, we don’t expect to be told by Christians that we shouldn’t use hadiths. Limiting the Islamic side to only using the Qur’an is like limiting the Christian side to only using the Commandments pronounced by Yahweh in the Old Testament (which would incidentally leave the Christian with only the most concentrated form of anxiety and fear!)
If Tony is satisfied with his inconsistent measuring sticks and is unable (or unwilling) to grasp Bassam’s responses (some examples of which are outlined above, and which Tony totally glossed over), then I don’t expect his entourage and other evangelical fans on the “exposing Islam”-type websites to fare much better; it is rather predictable and cliched that some individuals from that camp would pronounce that Tony “proved his case” and that Bassam, like the rest of the Muslim debaters in the West, is good “but not good enough.”
As one of the posts on Wood’s blog quite correctly stated, Bassam is part of the cream of the crop of a very small number of competent Muslim debaters (in the English-speaking arena anyways) and Tony is part of the cream of the crop of a rather large number of Christian ones. Looking at the result of the debate objectively, then, which did clearly weigh in in Bassam’s favour, I think it’s rather clear where the Truth lies. In the case of last night’s debate, the truth did set the Prophet free.
Exposing David Wood: Of Mosques and Men, Pt. 2
Posted: July 2, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam Leave a comment »the latest revelations from www.loonwatch.com
Garibaldi writes
‘In my last article I debunked the lies and disinformation in the first half of David Wood’s anti-Muslim/anti-Mosque diatribe. Since then we have received a lot of comments and tips regarding the background of David Wood. Apparently David Wood is a….’
Read the rest of this disturbing article at www.loonwatch.com
St. Paul: Can he be a Prophet of God?
Posted: June 28, 2010 Filed under: Christianity 2 Comments »By Mohammed Q
In this article we will analyze Paul’s candidacy of prophet hood. The analysis will be simple and based on two Biblical criterions. We would not use any extra Biblical material so that those who (mis) take Bible to be the “Word of God” may not fuss. We would quote from both the Testaments. Then, we will put Paul to the test of both the verses and check whether he qualified for prophet hood or was he, at best, a “self – appointed” apostle.
1.NEW ONE FIRST:
1. JOHN 7:16-18, this is where we find our first argument. We read:
“Jesus answered, “What I teach is not my own teaching, but it comes from God, who sent me. Whoever is willing to do what God wants will know whether what I teach comes from God or whether I speak on my own authority. A person who speaks on his own authority is trying to gain glory for himself. But he who wants glory for the one who sent him is honest, and there is nothing false in him.” (HOLY BIBLE, TEV)(Emphasis mine)
We read in the commentary of Matthew Henry, one of Christianity’s widely read commentaries.
[3.] That hereby it appeared that Christ, as a teacher, did not speak of himself, because he did not seek himself, v. 18. First, See here the character of a deceiver: he seeketh his own glory, which is a sign that he speaks of himself, as the false Christs and false prophets did. Here is the description of the cheat: they speak of themselves,
and have no commission nor instructions from God;
no warrant but their own will, no inspiration but their own imagination, their own policy and artifice.
Ambassadors speak not of themselves;
those ministers disclaim that character who glory in this that they speak of themselves. But see the discovery of the cheat; by this their pretensions are disproved, they consult purely their own glory; self-seekers are self-speakers. Those who speak from God will speak for God, and for his glory; those who aim at their own preferment and interest make it to appear that they had no commission form God. (Emphasis mine)
(Source: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/MatthewHenryComplete/mhc-com.cgi?book=joh&chapter=007)
Furthermore, we read a similar exegesis in the commentary named as “The Fourfold Gospel”:
7:18 He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory1: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.
He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory. Those who bear their own message seek their own glory. Those who bear God’s message seek God’s glory, and such seeking destroys egotism. (Source: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/TheFourfoldGospel/tfg.cgi?book=joh&chapter=007)
Points which need to be highlighted from the above cited verse and commentaries are:-
i. A humble and trustworthy person, let alone a claimant of prophet hood, should not speak on his own authority without any genuine commission or instruction from God-Almighty. But if he does then he is seeking worldly glory and he ought to be false person, let alone prophet. So, to sum up this point, a true prophet should not speak on his own authority
ii. Anybody purporting his own, personal message seeks his own glory. Therefore, a genuine person should not tout his personal message.
iii. On the same corollary, a true prophet of God will wait to receive revelations (if he does not has it on any particular spiritual/ religious matter) rather than passing his own whimsical judgments. Then, if he does so; he could not be a true prophet of God.
For now just hold up these deductions in your mind as we move on to our next biblical verse. After that I would finally apply both the biblical yardsticks to Paul.
2.OLD IS GOLD:
Deuteronomy 18:18-20, builds our second test for Paul’s candidacy for prophet hood. We read:
“I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in his mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. ‘But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak
or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’(THE OPEN BIBLE, NKJV)
Although the deduction from the above cited verse is very plain that the a genuine prophet should not speak any thing(spiritual) from the vicissitudes of his mind but should rather wait for a revelation to be revealed, nevertheless, if he does so then he is an imposter. But my deduction may not carry as much weight as would of any Christian Scholar’s. So let us check what they say about it.
WHAT DO THE CHRISTIAN SCHOLARS DEDUCE
Christian apologist David Wood comments on the above cited verse. Here are his words for a fair analysis for truth seeking minds:
“”But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)
Here we have two criteria for spotting a false prophet: (1) delivering a revelation which God has not “commanded him to speak,”
(Emphasis Mine)
He again repeated the implications of Deuteronomy 18:20, for a second time, but with a different English constructions.
“That is, it seems clear that if a person speaks in the names of false gods or delivers revelations that don’t come from God, the person cannot be a true prophet. (Emphasis Mine)
He (David Wood) again repeated the same inference of Deuteronomy 18:20, however, this time to attack the veracity of Prophet Mohammad’s, peace be upon him, prophet hood. He wrote:
“B1. If a person delivers a revelation that doesn’t come from God, that person is a false prophet. (Emphasis Mine)
B2. Muhammad delivered a revelation that didn’t come from God.
——————————————————
B3. Therefore, Muhammad was a false prophet.”
(Source: http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Wood/deuteronomy_deductions.htm)
[Side remark: Let me point out here that this paper is not meant to defend David’s attack on Mohammad’s prophet hood, peace be upon him. David Wood has been refuted ad nauseum for his attacks in “Deuteronomy Dissection: Two short, Sound, Simple proofs that Muhammad was God’s prophet” (Refer it in my blog)].The point which needs to be emphasized from the above citation is the basic premise to check any candidates claim of prophet hood. And the premise is again the same; the candidate should not deliver a revelation which does not come from God.
PAUL: FAIR JUDGMENT BE UPON HIM
I hope that by now you have not forgotten the above 2 criterions for recognizing a true prophet from a scum. If you have, then kindly refresh your memory by re-reading above but if you have not forgotten then lets us put Paul into the test of the above criterions.
It is reported of Paul as saying: “I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others.”(The Open Bible: 2 Corinthians 8:8, NKJV)
Here, Paul did not had any specific “command” from Almighty, nevertheless, embarrassingly, he was currying people’s love and respect to him to transmute his personal opinions as spiritual decrees.
FURTHERMORE
“Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion …” (Holy Bible: 1 Corinthians 7:25, TEV)
“Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment …”(The Open Bible: 1 Corinthians 7:25, NKJV)
It does not require any stodgy exegesis here that Paul was using his own whims; he admittedly, did not had any command from Higher authority, contrary to that, he was presumptuously basing his judgments upon his own personal feelings. Therefore, violating the aforementioned premises that if he (purported candidate) delivers a revelation which does not come from God, such a candidate would be spurious prophet.
POSSIBLE RESPONSES
The most obvious fuss which a Christian might commit to defend the untenable position of Paul is by saying something like: “Paul was not promulgating any ‘personal’ revelations OR that Paul was not attributing any of his words to God.”OR a Christian may respond with something like, “Paul was sincere to declare that the words are not God’s words but his own.” Under all these circumstances the Christian is basing his flimsy arguments (to defend Paul) obviating the fact that the full Bible is purported to be the “Word of God”. No Christian ever says that the Bible is “Word of God” but 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 which are Pauline, that these verses were not inspired to Paul (as Paul himself accepts it). While basing the response on the aforementioned arguments a Christian accepts the contradiction that 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 is not the “Word of God” but “Word of Paul”. The above contradiction can only be reconciled when the Christian accedes that Bible is at the most partially “Word of God”. To put simply, 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 were not revealed to Paul neither was it inspired to Paul then how did 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 enter into the so thumped “Word of God”.
CONCLUSION
When we read John 7:16-18 , Deuteronomy 18:18-20 corroborated with biblical commentaries in conjunction with 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 then it turns out that Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:8, 1 Corinthians 7:25 was violating the ethics set by Jesus and Moses, peace be on them at John 7:16-18 and Deuteronomy 18:18-20 respectively. And therefore, he was only trying to seek his personal glory while bluffing many. And sadly many are still deluded even when proof is right under their nose. It is verifiably established, from biblical sources, that Paul was not a true apostle, however, he used his own mind to cull decrees of spiritual import. Not only that, he shamelessly, used the love and favor of the multitudes to impress on them decrees of spiritual relevance. These facts only elicit the selfish nature of the man to rule over multitudes.
IN THE END
To close, I should provide you with the final verdict from the man who vicariously possess that authority (kindly, do not misinterpret) Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, where he said:
I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “I am the nearest of all the people to the son of Mary, and all the prophets are paternal brothers, and there has been no prophet between me and him (i.e. Jesus).” Narrated Abu Huraira, in Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Hadith Number 651. (Emphasis mine)
”There is no God but Allah; and Mohammad (peace be upon him) is his messenger.”
Exposing David Wood: Of Mosques and Men, Pt. 1
Posted: June 24, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, The News, Videos Leave a comment »New article on loonwatch.com about the Muslim haters:
‘Loonwatch.com is a blogzine run by a motley group of hate-allergic bloggers to monitor and expose the web’s plethora of anti-Muslim loons, wackos, and conspiracy theorists.
While we find the sheer stupidity and outrageousness of the loons to be a source of invaluable comedy, we also recognize the seriousness of the danger they represent as dedicated hatemongers. And so, while our style reflects our bemusement, our content is fact checked and our sources well vetted making sure loonwatch.com is a reliable educational – if entertaining – resource on the rambunctious underworld of Muslim-bashing.’
Posted on 24 June 2010 by Garibaldi:
David Wood is a Christian apologist who attempts to save Muslim souls through his organization Acts 17 Apologetics and www.answeringmuslims.com. In the past Wood and his entourage, including ex-Ahmadi Muslim Nabeel Qureshi have targeted the Dearborn Arab Festival in Michigan for proselytism.
At the 2009 Arab Festival, David Wood made a controversial, and some claim one sided video that received over a million hits on YouTube which showed them getting kicked out of the festival. They claim that they were just engaged in free speech, whereas security at the festival stated that they were insulting and harassing festival goers.
Other Evangelical Christians criticized Wood and his group as being agitators….
Read the rest of this perceptive piece at the excellent www.loonwatch.com
My Review of ‘Did the first Christians Worship Jesus?’ by James D.G. Dunn
Posted: June 5, 2010 Filed under: Christianity 7 Comments »
Did the first Christians Worship Jesus?‘ by James D.G. Dunn, published by SPCK 2010
Most Christians believe that Jesus is God and worship him as part of the Trinity. But what did the New Testament writers say about worshipping Jesus? Did they view him as God, as someone we should worship? Are Christians today guilty of what Dunn calls ‘Jesus-olatry‘?
In this new book by James D.G. Dunn, (Emeritus Professor of Divinity, Durham University and author of numerous ground-breaking works) he examines the key New Testament texts and the arguments of the most influential recent interpreters.
In somewhat dense academic prose Dunn articulates his ‘reservations’ concerning recent work by two senior scholars in Britain, Larry Hurtado (Edinburgh) and Richard Bauckham (St Andrews) who argue that Jesus was worshipped from the beginning of Palestinian Jewish Christianity as one who shared or was included in the identity of the one God of Israel (‘christological monotheism’, see Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, 2003, and Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 2008)
Dunn writes, ‘Bauckam argues that it does most justice to the New Testament texts and to the christology espoused by the first Christians to see them as identifying Jesus directly with the one God of Israel. In the light of our findings, it is appropriate to ask whether this new coinage of ‘divine identity’, and Bauckham’s thesis that the first Christians saw Jesus as sharing or included in the divine identity, is a helpful resolution to the tensions between the diverse ways in which Paul and the first Christians conceptualized the relationship of Jesus to God and to themselves. Bauckham offers this formula as a more satisfactory alternative to the standard distinction between a ‘functional’ and an ‘ontic’ christology, as providing a more satisfactory way of assessing the earliest christological reflection, within the matrix and traditions of Second Temple Judaism, than the explorations of its concepts of divine agents and heavenly intermediaries. But I have some reservations.’
Dunn’s first concern is with the language of ‘identity’. In traditional christology the concept of ‘person’ (God is three persons in one God) is highly problematic since our usual understanding of that term today is very different from the technical understanding of the Latin word persona, a term devised to provide a way of distinguishing between Father, Son and Spirit with in the Trinity. The Latin persona means basically a mask, as used by actors in a play which represented the character being played; and so by extension it came to denote the ‘character’ itself. Dunn thinks that ‘identity’ language runs the same risk.
Dunn asks, ‘what constitutes human/personal identity? Ethnic origin, country of birth and basic education, profession, family, friends hobbies…? If not ‘essence’ or ‘being’, then relationships. So how does that diversity in identity-composition work in relationship to Yahweh – the Creator, the Life-giver, the God of Israel, the Father and God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the final judge…?’
He concludes, ‘The New Testament writers are really quite careful at this point. Jesus is not the God of Israel. He is not the father. He is not Yahweh. An identification of Jesus with and as Yahweh was an early attempt to resolve the tensions indicated above; it was labelled ‘Modalism’, a form of ‘Monarchianism’ (the one God operating first as Father then as Son), and accounted a heresy.’ pp 141-142.
Dunn concludes his book with ‘The Answer‘,
‘If what has emerged in this inquiry is taken seriously, it soon becomes evident that Christian worship can deteriorate into what may be called Jesus-olatry.That is, not simply into worship of Jesus, but into a worship that falls short of the worship due to the one God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I use the term ‘Jesus-olatry’ as in an important sense parallel or even close to ‘idolatry’. As Israel’s prophets pointed out on several occasions, the calamity of idolatry is that the idol is in effect taken to be the God to be worshipped. So the idol substitutes for God, takes the place of God. The worship due to God is absorbed by the idol. The danger of Jesus-olatry is similar: that Jesus has been substituted for God, has taken the place of the one creator God; Jesus is absorbing the worship due to God alone.’ p 147.
So Dunn effectively takes issue with the great christological statements of the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon and joins the ranks of the unitarians in affirming a simple monotheistic theology. But his conclusions have far reaching implications for orthodox Christianity which stands condemned as promoting the serious sin of idolatry in its worship of Jesus as God.
The other great monotheist faiths, Judaism and Islam, have always claimed that the worship of Jesus constitutes a denial of Christianity’s claim to be a monotheistic religion, but Dunn in his conclusion seems reluctant to take on board the effectiveness of these critiques. I believe the only alternative religion that claims universality in its scope is Islam, which offers an appropriate evaluation of Jesus as Messiah, prophet, messenger and Word from God without falling into the errors of ‘Jesus-olatry’ (Christianity) or a denial of the divine mission of Jesus of Nazareth (Judaism).
All Christians should read this book, and Muslims too will find much to benefit their dawah.
Apostasy: WWJD?
Posted: April 15, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam 1 Comment »The subject of the punishment for apostasy in religion is guaranteed to provoke fierce passions in the West today. I intend to outline often overlooked and ignored evidence that suggests that all three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, later Christianity and Islam) in their original teaching, all required that the apostate face the most extreme penalty: death. The case of Islam is well known, so I will not discuss it in detail here. However the teaching of Jesus on the Law and his reported support for the implementation of the death penalty is commonly overlooked and ignored by those claiming to follow him today.
My analysis is inevitably controversial even shocking, but the historical evidence is, I believe, persuasive.
The Torah
Without further commentary I cite the well known passage in Deuteronomy which presents itself as the very words of God:
Deuteronomy 12:1
1 These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess — as long as you live in the land.
And this is one such law dealing with apostasy and its mandatory punishment:
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
The teaching of Jesus
There is no reported teaching by Jesus about apostasy or its punishment in the canonical gospels. This is where the investigation usually ends, but there are reported sayings of Jesus that suggest, for Jesus, there was to be no change in the applicability of the Deuteronomic law in the Kingdom of God. Consider these well known passages from the gospel of Matthew:
Chapter 5:17-20
17″Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Chapter 23:1-4
1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2″The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
As one of the world’s leading experts on the New Testament, professor James Dunn comments on these passages:
‘Whatever Jesus himself may have meant by any talk of fulfilling the law, he is not to be understood as superseding it, or leaving it behind. On the contrary, ‘fulfilment’ is defined by the antithesis with ‘destroy’: Jesus came not to abolish (the affirmation is repeated) but to fulfil – that is, presumably, to realize or complete the law and thus to establish it, set it on a firmer basis (5.17). The point is strengthened by linking the saying with v.18 by the explanatory ‘for’: Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfil, ‘for so long as heaven and earth endure, not one dot not one letter will disappear from the law until everything has happened’. That is to say, the law will remain inviolate, imperishable until the end of the age, or until the will of God has been fully accomplished. And what that means is clarified in turn by setting out v.19 as a corollary: ‘Therefore whoever relaxes (or sets aside) even the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven’ (note, not excluded from the kingdom, but definitely a second rate citizen); whereas ‘whoever keeps the commandments and teaches others so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven’. Here clearly the law as ‘realised’ by Jesus retains an unconditional validity for those who belong to the kingdom of heaven; and here too is a firm rebuke to other members of the kingdom (other Christians – Matt. 8.11) who were more liberal in their attitude to the law. A similar emphasis is evident in 23.3 – ‘Whatever the scribes and Pharisees tell you practice and observe’ (also 23.23).’
Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, pp 265-266
Therefore, in light of the above passages from Matthew it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus taught that the law in Deuteronomy 13:6-10 is still binding on the disciples of Jesus and apostasy is punishable by death.
There is another passage pertinent to the question of the death penalty and the continuing validity of the law. In the same gospel we read the following:
Matthew 15:1-9
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2″Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, ‘Honour your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6he is not to ‘honour his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8″ ‘These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
Jesus cites a law found in Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9: ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death’. He chastises those who ignore this teaching (‘the word of God’) for man-made teaching (‘your tradition’). Incidentally, miscreants were to be stoned to death for this crime.
The story of the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8 is sometimes believed to imply that Jesus abolished the death penalty. However, this story probably does not go back to Jesus as the most ancient manuscripts of the gospel lack this passage and it is almost certainly a scribal insertion into John’s narrative.
Later Catholic and Protestant teaching about apostasy and it’s punishment.
It will come as no surprise to the reader to discover that the death penalty for apostasy was advocated by the leading theologians of the Reformation and by the Roman Catholic Church.
The official teaching of the Catholic church was summarised by St Thomas Aquinas in his theological treatise the Summa Theologiae. Aquinas based his teaching on the New Testament and wrote this concerning the correct treatment of ‘disbelievers, heretics and apostates’:
‘In Luke we are told: ‘Go out into the country roads and lanes and compel people to come in, that my house may be full’. So some people are to be compelled to believe and enter the church. But only people who had once accepted the faith: pagans and Jews can’t be forced to believe since believing is a matter of will. The faithful if they have the power, may use it to stop such disbelievers hindering the faith by blasphemy or propaganda or openly persecuting it. This is the reason Christians frequently wage war on disbelievers: not to force them to believe but to stop them hindering the faith.
However, disbelievers who once accepted and professed the faith – heretics and apostates – can be compelled, even physically, to fulfill their promises and hold to do what they once professed. For even though making a vow is a voluntary matter, keeping it is an obligation. So adopting the faith is voluntary, but sticking to it once adopted is obligatory.
About heretics there are two things to say. Their sin deserves banishment not only from the church by excommunication but also from the world by death. But the church seeks with mercy to turn back those who go astray, and condemns them not immediately but only after a first or second warning. If, however, a heretic remains stubborn, the church, despairing of his conversion, takes care of the salvation of others, separates the heretic from the church with a sentence of excommunication and delivers him to the secular courts to be removed from the world by death.
from Summa Theologiae by St Thomas Aquinas (A Concise Translation by T. McDermott) pp339-340
The life and death of Michael Servetus (1511-1553) is well known to students of the Reformation.
He publicly rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and was subsequently executed by John Calvin in Geneva. This punishment was approved by the leading Reformers of the time. Melanchthon, the theological head of the Lutheran Church, supported the execution of Servetus. Afterwards he wrote to Calvin: “I have read your book, in which you dearly refuted the horrid blasphemies of Servetus …. To you the Church owes gratitude at the present moment, and will owe it to the latest posterity. I perfectly assent to your opinion. I affirm also that your. magistrates did right in punishing, after regular trial, this blasphemous man.”
In conclusion, we must ask why have the churches at the beginning of the 21st century abandoned the teaching of the Torah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Reformers?
Perhaps a consideration of the larger social context will suggest a possible solution.
Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar in his book The Quran and the Secular Mind (2008) comments provocatively:
‘We must note that there are now few authentically religious Jews and Christians in the West even among the clergy and the rabbinate. All intellectually sophisticated Jews and Christians are secularised and, in their attitudes towards domestic issues, as opposed to foreign policy, are typically humane capitalists whose religious beliefs serve as a decorative veneer on their underlying secularised religious humanism. All charges are variations on the stock Muslim accusation, rooted in the Qur’an, that Jews and Christians have achieved a cosy accommodation with the world – or with modern secularism, in our day – at the cost of being unfaithful to their dogmatic traditions. Modern versions of Christianity and Judaism appear to be carefully disguised variants of secular humanism. Predictably, therefore, many Jews and Christians, unlike virtually all Muslims, live conscientiously and comfortably within the arrangements of the liberal secular humanist state. Islam is now unique in its existential decision, though not intellectual capacity, to confront rather than accommodate the secularist world-view. It is a faith whose adherents are sounding a lone note of courageous defiance in the battle against secularism while other trumpets are blowing retreat. (Page 7)
————————————————————–
The phrase “What would Jesus do?” (often abbreviated to WWJD) became popular in the United States as a personal motto for thousands of Christians who used the phrase as a reminder of their belief that Jesus is the example to be followed in daily life, and to act in a manner of which Jesus would approve.
Copyright © Paul Williams 2010
Good Friday (Easter) Sermon by Shabir Ally
Posted: April 5, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, Videos Leave a comment »Some thoughts on how to respond to Evangelical Christians
Posted: March 29, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, Violent extremism 1 Comment »Debate: Islam or Christianity – Which religion can bring peace for today?
Posted: March 26, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates Leave a comment »Debate: Islam or Christianity – Which religion can bring peace for today?
Which is the true religion of peace for the world today – Islam or Christianity?
Date: 26th March 2010
Venue: Kingston College, University of London
Debate
Speakers:
Reverend Jay Smith
Abdullah al Andalusi
Instructive Parallels between the Early Church’s Hostility to the Jews and Contemporary Evangelical Attacks on Islam
Posted: March 16, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, Violent extremism Leave a comment »Why do so many Evangelical Christians expend so much effort disparaging Islam and Muslims? I am rereading From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus by Paula Fredriksen, Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. Unwittingly she provides a possible answer to this question by describing the persistent attraction of Judaism for Gentiles in the early centuries after Christ. Curiously, the early Church fathers most often expended their energies criticising Judaism (see example below), rather than the idolatry of the Roman Empire, or its brutal abuse of power. Fredriksen identifies the reason why: Judaism represented an attractive alternative to the new religion of Pauline Christianity. Similarly, for many thoughtful people in the West, Islam represents an attractive alternative to the illogicalities of Trinitarianism. Evangelicalism’s prime directive therefore is to eliminate its principal rival: Islam. An ironic goal, as followers of the latter religion believe in Jesus the Christ and the prophets sent to Israel as well.
She writes:
Judaism was more than a standard challenge to Christian identity; it was also a competitor for Gentile adherents. During this period [1st and 2nd centuries] and long after, Gentiles continued to attach themselves to the synagogue for the same reasons that had always drawn them before: Judaism’s monotheism, its antiquity, its articulated ethics and strong community, its claims to revelation, and its prestigious sacred text. The rise of the Gentile Christianity is itself the best evidence of Judaism’s appeal: the church, though it repudiated the synagogue, also used it socially and religiously as a model. Christianity thereby offered to Gentiles fewer of Judaism’s disadvantages (circumcision for adult males; association with a nationality implicated, after the bloody revolts of 66, 117, and 132, in anti-Roman activity) but many of the same attractions (strong community, revealed ethical guidelines, and the scriptures themselves – already available, thanks to the Hellenistic synagogue, in Greek).
But the churches competed for these Gentiles against a religious community both better established and more broadly recognised. Here Christianity again offers the best evidence of Judaism’s abiding appeal. Christian invective, from the gospels through the writings of the second-century fathers and beyond, most often and most energetically targeted Judaism. Why? If its goal were to wrest Gentiles from the errors of paganism, one would expect more attention to polemics against idolatry; if its goal were to condemn the unethical exercise of power, one would expect stronger criticism of the empire, which after all had executed the Saviour and continued, sporadically, to persecute his followers. Why expend so much effort disparaging a community ostensibly engaged in compatible activity, turning Gentiles from idolatry to the worship of the God revealed in scripture? Because, to those Gentiles drawn to such religions and such communities, Judaism represented an attractive alternative to the church.
pp 211-212
From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus by Paula Fredriksen, Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University
The new ‘anti-Semitism’
It may be illuminating by way of example to cite recent statements of what I call the new anti-semitism: disparaging rhetoric now emanating from evangelical circles about Islam. Notice how it parallels the toxic anti-Jewish rhetoric that was virtually ubiquitous in the early church.
Nabeel Qureshi is an outspoken member of the resurgent Christian anti-Islam movement in the United States. On the Answering Muslim website he recently wrote
“Muslim terrorists are just that, the embodiment of Islam” (blog entry February 2010).
Rev Franklin Graham (son of evangelist Billy Graham) told the press that “Islam as a very evil and wicked religion.” On a radio broadcast he said: “Islam is a terror organization.”
Televangelist Rev Pat Robertson on Muslims and their faith: “These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with.”
As is well documented, virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric has been the besetting sin of Christianity. Here are two representative examples from prominent and hugely influential Christians of the past.
John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), was an important early church Father. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches honour him as a saint and Doctor of the Church. Chrysostom preached: “The Jews … are worse than wild beasts … lower than the vilest animals. Debauchery and drunkenness had brought them to the level of the lusty goat and the pig. They know only … to satisfy their stomachs, to get drunk, to kill and beat each other up … I hate the Jews … I hate the Synagogue … it is the duty of all Christians to hate the Jews.
I quote a longer extract from the most famous of the Protestant Christians and Father of Protestantism, Martin Luther. I warn the reader that his words are extremely offensive. In 1543 he wrote:
“What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we can not tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and flames [of hell]. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice.
First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians.
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of incessantly before God with bitter wailing.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more…
Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor merchants, nor the like. Let them stay at home…If you princes and nobles do not close the road legally to such exploiters, then some troop ought to ride against them, for they will learn from this pamphlet what the Jews are and how to handle them and that they ought not to be protected. You ought not, you cannot protect them, unless in the eyes of God you want to share all their abomination…
To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden – the Jews… Let the government deal with them in this respect, as I have suggested. But whether the government acts or not, let everyone at least be guided by his own conscience and form for himself a definition or image of a Jew. When you lay eyes on or think of a Jew you must say to yourself: Alas, that mouth which I there behold has cursed and execrated and maligned every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with his precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians might be stabbed to death and perish miserably. And he himself would gladly do this if he were able, in order to appropriate our goods… Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews, who for these fourteen hundred years have been and still are our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune. I have read and heard many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ, namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnapped children, as related before. I have heard that one Jew sent another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood, together with a barrel of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead Jew was found. There are many other similar stories. For their kidnapping of children they have often been burned at the stake or banished (as we already heard). I am well aware that they deny all of this. However, it all coincides with the judgment of Christ which declares that they are venomous, bitter, vindictive, tricky serpents, assassins, and children of the devil, who sting and work harm stealthily wherever they cannot do it openly. For this reason, I would like to see them where there are no Christians. The Turks and other heathen do not tolerate what we Christians endure from these venomous serpents and young devils…next to the devil, a Christian has no more bitter and galling foe than a Jew. There is no other to whom we accord as many benefactions and from whom we suffer as much as we do from these base children of the devil, this brood of vipers.”
Translated by Martin H. Bertram, On The Jews and Their Lies, Luther’s Works, Volume 47; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
The question remains therefore: how can Muslims constructively respond to this resurgent ‘new anti-semitism’?
Firstly, there is the important Qur’anic principle of responding with what is better, and not being dragged into the abusive slanging matches so often seen on the Internet (and elsewhere). Secondly, despite the apparent predominance of evangelicalism in the world there are important points of discussion that can be had with committed Christians who do want to engage in respectful dialogue.
These points might include the fact that all religious traditions emphasise God’s love for the poor and outcast; the importance of understanding the Islamic belief that God’s love makes redemption available throughout history, not only during a defined period two thousand years ago; the urgent need to deconstruct the media stereotype often imposed upon Muslims (as on Jews in the past) as being violent and legalistic.
Our contribution as Muslims to this ongoing discussion is that we worship a God who while being the source of justice, is nevertheless absolutely free in His love and mercy to forgive whom He chooses. To Christians we say that this appears to us considerably less legalistic than a theology that considers mankind’s sinfulness a debt that He must collect. Finally, we ask evangelicals to acknowledge the ‘Judaeophobia’ to be found in the New Testament itself (see for example John 8: 44,47), and recognise how it has generated hatred towards the Jews throughout nearly two thousand years of Christian history. This acknowledgement (belatedly made by many non-evangelical Christian theologians) might lead to a greater evangelical sensitivity to how the early Christians demonised Jews and the Jewish faith, and lead, inshallah, to a much needed reappraisal of the current disparagement of Muslims and Islam.
© Paul Williams February 2010
Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross and Rise From the Dead?
Posted: March 13, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam, Videos Leave a comment »Debate: Women in Marriage: In the Quran and the Bible
Posted: March 5, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Islam, MDI, Videos, Women in Islam Leave a comment »MDI proudly presents the debate “ Women & Marriage in the Quran and the Bible ”
Speakers are:
Dr Tabassum Hussain – MDI Visiting speaker from Canada, experienced apologist and speaker on Biblical criticism and Women in Islamic Law.
Beth Grove – Member of CCi (Christians Confronting Islam), public speaker and experienced apologist in Evangelical ministries.
Hosted by MDI: 5th March , 2010
Venue: WestBourne Park Baptist Church, Porchester Road, London
Session was co-moderated by Abdullah Andalusi and co-moderator from
CCi.
The Trinity: a Muslim Perspective
Posted: February 27, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Islam 1 Comment »A number of difficulties will beset any presentation of Muslim understandings of the Trinity. Not the least of these is the fact that these Muslim understandings have been almost as diverse and as numerous as those obtaining among Christian scholars themselves. It is true that medieval Islam knew much more about Christian doctrine than the doctors of the Church did about Islam, for the obvious reason that Muslim societies contained literate minorities with whom one could debate, something which was normally not the case in Christendom. Muslim-Christian dialogue, a novelty in the West, has a long history in the Middle East, going back at least as far as the polite debates between St John of Damascus and the Muslim scholars of seventh-century Syria. And yet reading our theologians one usually concludes that most of them never quite ‘got’ the point about the Trinity. Their analysis can usually be faulted on grounds not of unsophistication, but of insufficient familiarity with the complexities of Scholastic or Eastern trinitarian thinking. Often they merely tilt at windmills.
There were, I think, two reasons for this. Firstly, the doctrine of Trinity was the most notorious point at issue between Christianity and Islam, and hence was freighted with fierce passions. For the pre-modern Muslim mind, Christian invaders, crusaders, inquisitors and the rest were primarily obsessed with forcing the doctrine of Trinity on their hapless Muslim enemies. It is recalled even today among Muslims in Russia that when Ivan the Terrible captured Kazan, capital of the Volga Muslims, he told its people that they could escape the sword by ‘praising with us the Most Blessed Trinity for generation unto generation.’ Even today in Bosnia, Serb irregulars use the three-fingered Trinity salute as a gesture of defiance against their Muslim enemies. And so on. Much Muslim theologising about the Trinity has hence been set in a bitterly polemical context of fear and often outright hatred: the Trinity as the very symbol of the unknown but violent other lurking on the barbarous northern shores of the Mediterranean, scene of every kind of demonic wickedness and cruelty.
To this distortion one has to add, I think, some problems posed by the doctrine of the Trinity itself. Islam, while it has produced great thinkers, has nonetheless put fewer of its epistemological eggs in the theological basket than has Christianity. Reading Muslim presentations of the Trinity one cannot help but detect a sense of impatience. One of the virtues of the Semitic type of consciousness is the conviction that ultimate reality must be ultimately simple, and that the Nicene talk of a deity with three persons, one of whom has two natures, but who are all somehow reducible to authentic unity, quite apart from being rationally dubious, seems intuitively wrong. God, the final ground of all being, surely does not need to be so complicated.
These two obstacles to a correct understanding of the Trinity do to some extent persist even today. But a new obstacle has in the past century or so presented itself inasmuch as the old Western Christian consensus on what the Trinity meant, which was always a fragile consensus, no longer seems to obtain among many serious Christian scholars. Surveying the astonishing bulk and vigour of Christian theological output, Muslims can find it difficult to know precisely how most Christians understand the Trinity. It is also our experience that Christians are usually keener to debate other topics; and we tend to conclude that this is because they themselves are uncomfortable with aspects of their Trinitarian theology.
What I will try to do, then, is to set out my own understanding, as a Muslim, of the Trinitarian doctrine. I would start by making the obvious point that I recognise that a lot is at stake here for historic Christian orthodoxy. The fundamental doctrine of Trinity makes no sense unless the doctrines of incarnation and atonement are also accepted. St Anselm, in his Cur Deus Homo, showed that the concept of atonement demanded that Christ had to be God, since only an infinite sacrifice could atone for the limitless evil of humanity, which was, in Augustine’s words, a massa damnata – a damned mass because of Adam’s original sin. Jesus of Nazareth was hence God incarnate walking on earth, distinct from God the Father dwelling in heaven and hearing our prayers. It thus became necessary to think of God as at least two in one, who were at least for a while existing in heaven and on earth, as distinct entities. In early Christianity, the Logos which was the Christ-spirit believed to be active as a divine presence in human life, in time became hypostatized as a third person, and so the Trinity was born. No doubt this process was shaped by the triadic beliefs which hovered in the Near Eastern air of the time, many of which included the belief in a divine atonement figure.
Now, looking at the evidence for this process, I have to confess I am not a Biblical scholar, armed with the dazzling array of philological qualifications deployed by so many others. But it does seem to me that a consensus has been emerging among serious historians, pre-eminent among whom are figures such as Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford, that Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity. We know that he was intensely conscious of God as a divine and loving Father, and that he dedicated his ministry to proclaiming the imminence of God’s kingdom, and to explaining how human creatures could transform themselves in preparation for that momentous time. He believed himself to be the Messiah, and the ’son of man’ foretold by the prophets. We know from the study of first-century Judaism, recently made accessible by the Qumran discoveries, that neither of these terms would have been understood as implying divinity: they merely denoted purified servants of God.
The term ’son of God’, frequently invoked in patristic and medieval thinking to prop up the doctrine of Jesus’s divinity, was in fact similarly unpersuasive: in the Old Testament and in wider Near Eastern usage it can be applied to kings, pharoahs, miracle workers and others. Yet when St Paul carried his version of the Christian message beyond Jewish boundaries into the wider gentile world, this image of Christ’s sonship was interpreted not metaphorically, but metaphysically. The resultant tale of controversies, anathemas and political interventions is complex; but what is clear is that the Hellenized Christ, who in one nature was of one substance with God, and in another nature was of one substance with humanity, bore no significant resemblance to the ascetic prophet who had walked the roads of Galilee some three centuries before.
From the Muslim viewpoint, this desemiticising of Jesus was a catastrophe. Three centuries after Nicea, the Quran stated:
‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger, messengers the like of whom had passed away before him . . . O people of the Book – stress not in your religion other than the truth, and follow not the vain desires of a people who went astray before you.’ (Surat al-Ma’ida, 75)
And again:
‘O people of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion, nor utter anything concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and do not say ‘Three’. Desist, it will be better for you. God is only One God. . . . The Messiah would never have scorned to be a slave of God.’ (Surat al-Nisa, 171-2)
The Qur’anic term for ‘exaggeration’ used here, ghuluww, became a standard term in Muslim heresiography for any tendency, Muslim or otherwise, which attributed divinity to a revered and charismatic figure. We are told that during the life of the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali, a few of his devoted followers from Iraq, where Hellenistic and pagan cultures formed the background of many converts, described him as God, or the vehicle of a Divine incarnation – hulul. The claim of course irritated Ali profoundly, and he banished those who made it from his sight; but even today marginal Islamic sectaries like the Kizilbash of Turkey, or the Alawites of the Syrian mountains, maintain an esoteric cosmology which asserts that God became incarnate in Ali, and then in the succession of Imams who descended from him.
Mainstream Islam, however, despite its rapid spread over non-Semitic populations, never succumbed to this temptation. The best-known of all devotional poems about the Blessed Prophet Muhammad: the famous Mantle Ode of al-Busairi, defines the frontier of acceptable veneration:
‘Renounce what the Christians claim concerning their prophet,
Then praise him as you will, and with all your heart.
For although he was of human nature,
He was the best of humanity without exception.’
A few years previously, the twelfth-century theologian Al-Ghazali had summed up the dangers of ghuluww when he wrote that the Christians had been so dazzled by the divine light reflected in the mirror like heart of Jesus, that they mistook the mirror for the light itself, and worshipped it. But what was happening to Jesus was not categorically distinct from what happened, and may continue to happen, to any purified human soul that has attained the rank of sainthood. The presence of divine light in Jesus’ heart does not logically entail a doctrine of Jesus’ primordial existence as a hypostasis in a divine trinity.
There are other implications of Trinitarian doctrine which concern Muslims. Perhaps one should briefly mention our worries about the doctrine of Atonement, which implies that God is only capable of really forgiving us when Jesus has borne our just punishment by dying on the cross. John Hick has remarked that ‘a forgiveness that has to be bought by full payment of the moral debt is not in fact forgiveness at all.’ More coherent, surely, is the teaching of Jesus himself in the parable of the prodigal son, who is fully forgiven by his father despite the absence of a blood sacrifice to appease his sense of justice. The Lord’s Prayer, that superb petition for forgiveness, nowhere implies the need for atonement or redemption.
Jesus’ own doctrine of God’s forgiveness as recorded in the Gospels is in fact entirely intelligible in terms of Old Testament and Islamic conceptions. ‘God can forgive all sins’, says the Quran. And in a well-known hadith of the Prophet we are told:
On the Day of Judgement, a herald angel shall cry out [God's word] from beneath the Throne, saying: ‘O nation of Muhammad! All that was due to me from you I forgive you now, and only the rights which you owed one another remain. Thus forgive one another, and enter Heaven through My Mercy.’
And in a famous incident:
It is related that a boy was standing under the sun on a hot summer’s day. He was seen by a woman concealed among the people, who made her way forwards vigorously until she took up the child and clutched him to her breast. Then she turned her back to the valley to keep the heat away from him, saying, ‘My son! My son!’ At this the people wept, and were distracted from everything that they were doing. Then the Messenger of God, upon whom be peace, came up. They told him of what had happened, when he was delighted to see their their compassion. Then he gave them glad news, saying: ‘Marvel you at this woman’s compassion for her son?’ and they said that they did. And he declared, ‘Truly, the Exalted God shall be even more compassionate towards you than is this woman towards her son.’ At this, the Muslims went their ways in the greatest rapture and joy.
This same hadith presents an interesting feature of Muslim assumptions about the divine forgiveness: its apparently ‘maternal’ aspect. The term for the Compassionate and Loving God used in these reports, al-Rahman, was said by the Prophet himself to derive from rahim, meaning a womb. Some recent Muslim reflection has seen in this, more or less rightly I think, a reminder that God has attributes which may metaphorically be associated with a ‘feminine, maternal’ character, as well as the more ‘masculine’ predicates such as strength and implacable justice. This point is just beginning to be picked up by our theologians. There is not time to explore the matter fully, but there is a definite and interesting convergence between the Christology of feminist theologians such as Rosemary Reuther, and that of Muslims.
In a recent work, the Jordanian theologian Hasan al-Saqqaf reaffirms the orthodox belief that God transcends gender, and cannot be spoken of as male or female, although His attributes manifest either male or female properties, with neither appearing to be preponderant. This gender-neutral understanding of the Godhead has figured largely in Karen Armstrong’s various appreciations of Islam, and is beginning to be realised by other feminist thinkers as well. For instance, Maura O’Neill in a recent book observes that ‘Muslims do not use a masculine God as either a conscious or unconscious tool in the construction of gender roles.’
One of Reuther’s own main objections to the Trinity, apart from its historically and Biblically sketchy foundations, is its emphatic attribution of masculine gender to God. She may or may not be exaggerating when she blames this attribution for the indignities suffered by Christian women down the ages. But she is surely being reasonable when she suggests that the male-dominated Trinity is marginalising to women, as it suggests that it was man who was made in the image of God, with woman as a revised and less theomorphic model of himself.
Partly under her influence, American Protestant liturgy has increasingly tried to de-masculinise the Trinity. Inclusive language lectionaries now refer to God as ‘Father and Mother’. The word for Christ’s relationship to God is now not ’son’ but ‘child’. And so on, often to the point of absurdity or straightforward doctrinal mutilation.
Here in Britain, the feminist bull was grasped by the horns when the BCC Study Commission on Trinitarian Doctrine Today issued its report in 1989. The Commission’s response here was as follows:
‘The word Father is to be construed apophatically, that is, by means of a determined ‘thinking away’ of the inappropriate – and in this context that means masculine – connotations of the term. What will remain will be an orientation to personhood, to being in relation involving origination in a personal sense, not maleness.’
Now, one has to say that this is unsatisfactory. The concept of fatherhood, stripped of everything which has male associations, is not fatherhood at all. It is not even parenthood, since parenthood has only two modalities. The Commissioners are simply engaging in the latest exegetical manoeuvres required by the impossible Trinitarian doctrine, which are, as John Biddle, the father of Unitarianism put it, ‘fitter for conjurers than for Christians.’
The final point that occurs to me is that the Trinity, mapped out in awesome detail in the several volumes devoted to it by Aquinas, attempts to presume too much about the inner nature of God. I mentioned earlier that Islam has historically been more sceptical of philosophical theology as a path to God than has Christianity, and in fact the divine unity has been affirmed by Muslims on the basis of two supra-rational sources: the revelation of the Quran, and the unitive experience of the mystics and the saints. That God is ultimately One, and indivisible, is the conclusion of all higher mysticism, and Islam, as a religion of the divine unity par excellence, has linked faith with mystical experience very closely. An eighteenth century Bosnian mystic, Hasan Kaimi, expressed this in a poem which even today is chanted and loved by the people of Sarajevo:
O seeker of truth, it is your heart’s eye you must open.
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.
If you object: ‘I am waiting for my mind to grasp His nature’,
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.
Should you wish to behold the visage of God,
Surrender to Him, and invoke His names,
When your soul is clear a light of true joy shall shine.
Know the Divine Unity today, through the path of love for Him.
Abdal-Hakim Murad 1996
Debate: The Big Trinity Debate – Examining Islamic Contentions to Christian Theology
Posted: February 22, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Videos 1 Comment »MDI proudly presents the debate “ The Big Trinity Debate – Examining Islamic Contentions to Christian Theology”
Speakers are: Dr James White, and Abdullah al Andalusi.
Debate was held on 22nd February 2010, at the Trinity road Chapel, London.
Part 1 – Opening Statements
Part 2 – Rebuttals
Part 3 – Conclusion
Hunting for Jesus
Posted: January 19, 2010 Filed under: Christianity, The News 1 Comment »Everyone knows that the majority of American soldiers occupying and invading Afghanistan and Iraq are Christian soldiers. Here is a good insight into some of the Christian soldiers and what they do in the Muslim countries they invade:
You do have to love the irony when you hear Christians opening their mouths about the supposed Muslim threat, when the reality from the ground shows that it is Muslim countries that are being invaded by Christian soldiers, who go into Muslim countries, kill thousands of civillians, and then top it off by preaching about their bankrupt faith that is called Christianity. Off course the bigger irony to this is that many Christians (not all) will not have a problem with this, they will not view such acts as aggression and terrorism, nay, they actually support such things!
So the next time any Christian tries to play victim and talk about supposed Christian’s being oppressed by Muslims, be sure to remind them that their millitaries occupy and invade two Muslim countries, while shipping many other Muslims around secret prisons where they are tortured and humiliated, don’t ever let the Christians try and take the high moral ground, because they never did, nor shall they ever have it.
Can the Bible be Trusted?
Posted: January 9, 2010 Filed under: Christianity 2 Comments »Leave your biasness at the door thank you.
Another look at those Judeo-Christian values: John Calivin
Posted: January 3, 2010 Filed under: Christianity Leave a comment »John Calvin (born 1509 in France) was the greatest systematic theologian of the Reformation. His best known work is the Institutes of the Christian Religion which is still the basis for ‘Reformed’ (evangelical) churches, which are very strong in many parts of the world today.
The law of a Christian state, according to Calvin, is the Bible. The task of the clergy is to interpret and teach that law, while the task of the state is to enforce it. Calvin held enormous authority over the government of Geneva and all aspects of civil as well as religious life.
In Geneva Calivin enforced attendance at weekly sermons; prohibited gambling, drunkenness, dancing, profane songs, and immodest dress; forbade all forms of the theatre. The colours of clothing, hair styles, and amounts of food permissible at the table were regulated. It was a criminal offence to speak ill of Calvin or the rest of the clergy. The press was severely censored, with writings judged to be immoral and books devoted to Catholicism or other false teaching forbidden. Punishment for first offences was usually a fine and for repetition of minor crimes, banishment. Fornication was punishable by exile, and adultery, blasphemy, and idolatry by death.
Michael Servetus, a fugitive from ecclesiastical authorities, appeared in Geneva on 13 August 1553. Servetus was a Spaniard who boldly criticised Christian dogma. In particular, he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. He had been in contact with Muslims and Jews and had been impressed by their persuasive arguments.
Calvin had Servetus arrested and during the earlier stages of the trial Calvin advocated the death penalty, basing his argument mainly on the Mosaic law, which was, “He that blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death,” Lev. 24:16 a law which Calvin considered as binding as the decalogue and applicable to heresy as well.
Calvin’s decision to kill Servetus was fully approved by ALL the leading Reformers of the time. Melanchthon, the theological head of the Lutheran Church, fully and repeatedly justified Calvin’s killing of Servetus and even held it up as a model for imitation. Nearly a year after the death of Servetus he wrote to Calvin: “I have read your book, in which you dearly refuted the horrid blasphemies of Servetus …. To you the Church owes gratitude at the present moment, and will owe it to the latest posterity. I perfectly assent to your opinion. I affirm also that your magistrates did right in punishing, after regular trial, this blasphemous man.” Luther and the theologians of Wittenberg had approved of death sentences for some Anabaptists in Germany whom they considered dangerous heretics, adding that it was cruel to punish them, ‘but more cruel to allow them to damn the ministry of the Word and destroy the kingdom of the world’ and Zwingli had not objected to a death sentence against a group of six Anabaptists in Switzerland.
A modern apologist for Calvin states ‘Public opinion has undergone a great change in regard to this event, and the execution of Servetus which was fully approved by the best men in the sixteenth century is entirely out of harmony with our twentieth century ideas.’
A contemporary of Calvin wrote of the ‘best men in the sixteenth century’:
‘the Genevan authorities put half-green wood around the feet of Servetus and a wreath strewn with sulfur on his head. It took over thirty minutes to render him lifeless in such a fire, while the people of Geneva stood around to watch him suffer and slowly die.’
So when Sami says ‘the next time you hear about those Judeo-Christian values, just remember that that’s a lie, it’s really Liberal modern western values’ he couldn’t be more spot on…
Just what are Judeo-Christian values?
Posted: January 3, 2010 Filed under: Christianity 5 Comments »You often hear Christians and Jews talking about their Judeo-Christian values, but what I find interesting is that most people never decide to determine what those values really are, they just pick a few of them and that’s that. Here are a list of things that are part of Judeo-Christian values:
-Stoning Adulterers
-Stoning Blasphemers
-Stoning Bad children
-Stoning magicians
-Stoning animals
-Killing homosexuals
-Killing lesbians
-Punishing cross dressers
-Lashing and Flogging bad people, in some cases amputations
-Making the rape victim marry the rapist
-Not inviting none-believers into your homes or to wish them well
-Not befriending or marrying none-believers
-Slaughtering entire cities and towns
All of the above are just some of the Judeo-Christian values, and all of those values can be found within the Bible, yet we never hear of these things. Why is that? What happened to the great Judeo-Christian values that Christians and Jews have to hide and deny many aspects of it? Most Jews and Christians don’t even follow any of the above, so why do they claim to follow and uphold Judeo-Christian values when they don’t?
Welcome to the world of inconsistency, and the world of picking and choosing what you like, and then branding it as your true religion.
Go read the Bible people, what you will find there is far from a western secularized liberal philosophy, you will find something much different. Put it this way, in totality, the Bible would never have a place in a modern western society, it would probably be arrested and thrown into jail for being a radical extremist.
So the next time you hear about those Judeo-Christian values, just remember that that’s a lie, it’s really Liberal modern western values. The early Church Fathers and Israelites would go mad if they heard Christians saying being Gay is okay, yet many modern day Christians say that stuff, and it isn’t from the Bible, no, it is a Liberal Western Philosophy that has made Christians think like that, and then these Christians have the audacity to label it as a Biblical value! It’s not a Judeo-Christian value! It’s a Liberal value!
Facts about Jesus (Gospel Facts)
Posted: January 2, 2010 Filed under: Christianity 2 Comments »-Jesus never called himself God
-Jesus never called himself God the Son
-Jesus never called himself the One and Only True God who deserves Worship
-Jesus never claimed to be fully man and fully God
-Jesus never claimed that God is a Trinity, or Three in One
-Jesus claimed that God is One
-Jesus claimed he was a servant of God
-Jesus claimed he was the Messiah
-Jesus claimed that the ONLY true God was the Father
-Jesus claimed that he had a God
-Jesus claimed that God had sent him
-Jesus claimed that God had given him power and authority
-Jesus worshiped and prayed to God
So what are we debating about? Beats me!
Can God Become Satan?
Posted: December 31, 2009 Filed under: Christianity, Videos 2 Comments »Something for Christians to think about, that is if you are a Christian who believes that God can literally do anything and everything.
To our Christian friends: Why Attack the Prophet of Islam, Have you read the Bible?
Posted: December 30, 2009 Filed under: Christianity, Videos 1 Comment »Mecca for Muslims Only
Posted: December 30, 2009 Filed under: Christianity 38 Comments »Christians often complain about the Law that bans any none-Muslim from the holy city of Mecca, they have a problem with the fact that only Muslims are allowed into this city, and hence they claim that this is discrimination and unfair. How about we spin that same logic back on the Christians?
Why is it that according to the Bible, only true believers shall be allowed into the Kingdom of God, while the none-believers will be cast out and thrown into hell? By the same logic that too is discriminatory! Are Muslims allowed into the Christian Kingdom of God? What about Atheists? Satanists? Gays? Or even Lesbians? None of these groups of people will be allowed into the Kingdom of God, only true Christian believers shall be allowed inside. (That is according to the Bible as well, I know some very few liberal Christians will say that yes anyone is allowed to enter the kingdom of God, this liberal view does indeed exist, but it’s a very fringe opinion and not followed by the majority of Christians.)
So here is the Q, why do Christians have a problem with none-Muslims being barred from Mecca, but have no problem with none-Christian believers being barred from the Kingdom of God? There’s something for our Christian friends to think about.
MDI Debate: Jihad on Trial: Is Jihad Justifiable?
Posted: October 26, 2009 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, Islam, MDI, Violent extremism 13 Comments »MDI proudly presents a MDI hosted debate on the topic “Jihad on Trial: Is Jihad Justifiable?”
Public Debate: Is Jihad Justifiable? Sami Zaatari vs Alan Craig
by Muslim Debate Initiative (www.thedebateinitiative.com)
In the current political climate, with the war going on in Afghanistan, political instability in the middle East, and multiple insurgencies against occupation and oppression on-going throughout the Muslim world, what is the correct response to this for Muslims who affirm belief in the Quran?
Does Islam command a blindly violent approach, or does it command passivity? Are there only two options? Is the Quranic concept of Jihad the reason for the suffering and predicament of the Muslim world, as some western critics have claimed, or is it Western materialist foreign policy? Is there another explanation altogether?
Muslim Debate Intiative, proudly presents, a debate between International Muslim speaker, Sami Zaatari, and London Councillor & the Head of the Christian Alliance Party, Alan Craig – on the topic ‘Jihad on Trial – Is Jihad justifiable?’.
Date: 26th October 2009
Time: 6:15pm
Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London
Part 1: Opening Statement
Part 2: Questions and Answers
