In a recent post, I suggested that Muhammad created Allah as the Enforcer Muhammad needed to carry out his ambitions of greatness. Now I want to ask the question, "Is it time for this Allah to die?"
WARNING: this post is only to be read by non-Muslims and TM's.
No, TM does not mean a follower of transcendental meditation. A TM is a seriously Thinking Muslim, of whom I hope there are millions. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to decide whether or not you are one of them.
1. If you are determined to remain Muslim for the rest of your life, right or wrong true or false, just because you were born Muslim, you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
2. If you claim critics take verses of the Quran "out of context", when you yourself have no idea what the context of that ayah or surah really is, you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
3. If you accuse critics of lying about Muhammad when they present information about his life that you were unaware of because you have not studied the Sirah as well as they have, you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
3. If your immediate response to criticism of Muhammad or Islam is to assume the critic is "Islamophobic" (whatever that means) or "hates Muslims", you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
4. If you get really upset by a story of someone tugging on a Muslimah's hijab in a checkout line, but the news of a Muslim suicide bomber killing a dozen other Muslims in a mosque in Iraq leaves you cold, you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
5. If you think you understand Islam more correctly than Osama bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahiri and their Shariah advisers, but have not even completely read the Quran, Hadith, and Sirah for yourself, you are probably not a Thinking Muslim.
If you have concluded from these questions that you are indeed a seriously Thinking Muslim, here is one more question. If Muhammad created Allah to carry out his dreams of power and ambition, and if this Allah is not producing prosperity in Muslim countries, peace in Muslim relationships, or freedom for individual Muslims to believe whatever they want, marry whomever they choose, and live their lives however they want, isn't it time for him to die?
I listened to a fascinating exchange a few months ago between Wafa Sultan and host Rashid on the Arabic TV show Daring Question. Both ex-Muslims, Rashid now encourages people to become Christians but Wafa follows no organized religion. During the discussion he asked her, "If you are asking people to leave Muhammad and Allah behind, what are you offering as an alternative?"
Her response was, "Rashid, you are trying to persuade Muslims to put on a clean shirt. But what if they are terrified to take off the dirty shirt they are wearing? What is the advantage of offering someone 100 new shirts if they cannot take off the one dirty shirt they are wearing? When they find the courage to take off the old shirt, then you can offer then alternatives."
Perhaps the time has come to take off the shirt, now 1400 years old, of Muhammad and his Allah. Maybe it is time to write Allah's obituary. It could read like this:
Here lies Allah ibn Muhammad
(Allah the Son of Muhammad)
Born 610 - Died 2010
Succeeded by an ever-decreasing number of admirers
May He Rest In Peace
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Question Number 2: Did Muhammad Create Allah?
In a recent post I asked whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. By extension the same question asks, "If there is one true God, is it Allah?" My conclusion is No to both questions. If I'm correct, however, the next question is, "Where did Allah come from?"
I'm not talking about a pre-Muhammad historical study of the Allah who was probably one of the 360 idols in the Kaaba. I'm not interested in whether or not this Allah was the moon god worshipped by the Quraysh, although I do find it intriguing that the moon plays such a prominent role in Islam. I'm also not interested in a study of Allah's family, although again it is fascinating that he apparently had a female counterpart named Allat who was also one of the local gods (the letter "t" is used to feminize Arabic nouns, so Allat is the female Allah, perhaps even Mrs. Allah!). I'm not even talking about the possibility that Muhammad, longing for the father he never had, named his god after his father Abdallah, the servant of Allah. It is interesting to ponder, however, whether if Muhammad's father had been named after another local god, Abdalshams for example, the servant of the sun, the God of Islam might be Shams instead of Allah, and the sun might have the same significance in Islam that the moon does.
No, I'm not thinking about any of these local entities. I'm talking about the Allah of the Quran, of whom we know nothing except what Muhammad told us. Where did he come from?
According to historian Ibn Ishaq, the story of Muhammad does not begin with his birth, but several generations before when his ancestor Qusay married the daughter of the chief of the Quraysh in Mecca and subsequently assumed leadership of the tribe. Strategically located on the route that trade caravans took between Yemen and Syria, Mecca profited financially from these transiting caravans. Visiting merchants often visited the Kaaba that contained their idols with the result that Mecca, then as now, became a pilgrimage destination where people circumambulated the Kaaba, kissed its black stone, and proffered prayers and offerings to their gods.
Qusay's leadership passed to his son Abd al-Manaf and then to Hashim, Muhammad's great-grandfather. Hashim did much to develop the economy of Mecca and the Quraysh. He provided food to the pilgrims who visited the Kaaba and initiated both winter and summer trade caravans from Mecca instead of just once a year as had previously been the case. He married a woman from Medina, a city located a few hundred miles to the north. In contrast to Mecca which was largely inhabited by illiterate tribes that had emigrated from Yemen, Medina contained a flourishing educated Jewish population that had lived there for centuries. When Hashim's wife gave birth to a son, Hashim sent him to Medina to learn religion from the Jewish rabbis and horsemanship from his wife's family.
Hashim's young son learned several things from the rabbis that deeply influenced him and later his grandson Muhammad. One of these was that there was only one true God, and all the idols worshipped by the Arab tribes were an expression of ignorance and superstition. Another was that God approved leaders who ruled as both prophet and king. The prime example in Jewish history was King David, who was anointed and accepted by his tribe as prophet years before he was crowned king.
When Hashim died on a trade expedition to Gaza, his brother Mutalab was sent to bring the son back from Medina. As Mutalab and the young man entered Mecca with the son leading the camel on which his uncle was riding, people assumed he was a slave Mutalab had purchased in Medina and addressed him as Abd al-Mutalab, the slave of Mutalab. The name stayed with him the rest of his life.
Although he remained a monotheist, and with several friends formed a movement of like-minded people known as the Hanifs, Abd al-Mutalab recognized the financial value of the Kaaba and never destroyed its idols. He did however attempt to imitate the life of the Jewish prophet Abraham in numerous ways. As Abraham dug wells whenever he moved, Abd al-Mutalab claimed he had received revelation to redig the well it was believed Abraham had once dug in Mecca. And as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice a son, Abd al-Mutalab announced that if he was given ten sons he too would sacrifice one of them. When his tenth son was born, Abd al-Mutalab prepared to carry out his vow and was only stopped by shocked tribal members who persuaded him to sacrifice 100 camels instead. World history would probably be quite different if Abd al-Mutalab had made his original sacrifice, since the lots he cast to determine which son to kill fell on his young son Abdallah who later became the father of Muhammad.
Abd al-Mutalab loved his young grandson Muhammad, and several stories in Islamic history indicate that he recognized in the young boy signs of leadership. One of these stories is that Abd al-Mutalib would repeat to his children and grandchildren that if God ever chose to raise a leader of the Arabs, he would choose someone such as them. Another is that Muhammad was the only person who dared sit in Abd al-Mutalab's special chair in the Kaaba. When Abd al-Mutalab saw the young boy sitting there, he would pat him on the shoulder in affection rather than becoming upset.
Even though Abd al-Mutalab died when Muhammad was only eight years old, I believe his influence was great in Muhammad's life. The family had lost much of the power it held when Hashim ruled Mecca, and none of Abd al-Mutalab's nine surviving sons had the ability to gain it back. At the same time, many other Arab tribes were successful in forming local kingdoms. These included the kingdom of Hirah, the Ghassanid Kingdom, the Kingdom of Sheba, and numerous others. As their caravans crisscrossed Mecca, the young Muhammad would have heard stories of the accomplishments of their kings. Why was it only his tribe, the Quraysh, who were unable to form a powerful kingdom? Why were his people still locked in the ignorance of worshipping their flimsy idols, rather than a powerful god who could lead them to power and victory? And why couldn't he be the leader to do this?
But to accomplish his dream, he needed a model. What better example than that he had learned from his grandfather of a king named David who was a prophet before becoming a king? Why could not he, Muhammad, announce that he also was a prophet chosen to be a king? The god Allah was not merely the local idol the Quraysh believed him to be, he was the True and Mighty God who had chosen Muhammad to be his prophet and their ruler. Allah was the Enforcer, the Club, the Weapon that Muhammad needed to back his message. "I am a Prophet of Allah, and if you don't accept me Allah will be very angry at you. Your skins will roast in hell only to be replaced by other skins that will also burn off (Quran 4:56)!"
There was only one problem with Muhammad's plan; the Quraysh didn't buy it. His early followers were mostly slaves impressed by his promise that if they obeyed him he would give them the treasures of the Byzantine and Persian Empires. For the dream to come true, Muhammad had to find a tribe to accept him as their prophet. He tried to persuade other tribes, including those in the nearby city of Taif, but to no avail. Finally thirteen years later, he met some Arabs from Medina who were jealous of the prosperity of the Jews living there. They recognized that by accepting Muhammad as their leader and inviting him to Medina they might be able to gain the upper hand over their enemies. Muhammad gladly accepted their offer, naively assuming that these Jews would recognize him as the prophet of the One True God. He moved to Medina, the migration that marked the turning point of his life and Islamic history.
For the rest of his life, Muhammad continued to receive inspiration from the Allah he had created. The revelations progressed from the early warnings of hell file to detailed descriptions of how he was to engage in warfare. When Muhammad wanted to marry more women than the four he allowed his followers, his Allah came to his rescue. When he wanted his own son to divorce his wife so that he, the father-in-law, could add her to his list of sexual conquests, his Allah granted him permission. When he was unsure as to whether his wife Aisha had been unfaithful to him or not, his Allah assured him of her innocence. When the Jews of Medina did not accept him as their prophet, his Allah told him to expel and kill them all. When he promised his wife Hafsah he would not sleep with her slave Mary the Copt again, his Allah released him from the promise. The Allah created by the prophet served him well.
I'm not talking about a pre-Muhammad historical study of the Allah who was probably one of the 360 idols in the Kaaba. I'm not interested in whether or not this Allah was the moon god worshipped by the Quraysh, although I do find it intriguing that the moon plays such a prominent role in Islam. I'm also not interested in a study of Allah's family, although again it is fascinating that he apparently had a female counterpart named Allat who was also one of the local gods (the letter "t" is used to feminize Arabic nouns, so Allat is the female Allah, perhaps even Mrs. Allah!). I'm not even talking about the possibility that Muhammad, longing for the father he never had, named his god after his father Abdallah, the servant of Allah. It is interesting to ponder, however, whether if Muhammad's father had been named after another local god, Abdalshams for example, the servant of the sun, the God of Islam might be Shams instead of Allah, and the sun might have the same significance in Islam that the moon does.
No, I'm not thinking about any of these local entities. I'm talking about the Allah of the Quran, of whom we know nothing except what Muhammad told us. Where did he come from?
According to historian Ibn Ishaq, the story of Muhammad does not begin with his birth, but several generations before when his ancestor Qusay married the daughter of the chief of the Quraysh in Mecca and subsequently assumed leadership of the tribe. Strategically located on the route that trade caravans took between Yemen and Syria, Mecca profited financially from these transiting caravans. Visiting merchants often visited the Kaaba that contained their idols with the result that Mecca, then as now, became a pilgrimage destination where people circumambulated the Kaaba, kissed its black stone, and proffered prayers and offerings to their gods.
Qusay's leadership passed to his son Abd al-Manaf and then to Hashim, Muhammad's great-grandfather. Hashim did much to develop the economy of Mecca and the Quraysh. He provided food to the pilgrims who visited the Kaaba and initiated both winter and summer trade caravans from Mecca instead of just once a year as had previously been the case. He married a woman from Medina, a city located a few hundred miles to the north. In contrast to Mecca which was largely inhabited by illiterate tribes that had emigrated from Yemen, Medina contained a flourishing educated Jewish population that had lived there for centuries. When Hashim's wife gave birth to a son, Hashim sent him to Medina to learn religion from the Jewish rabbis and horsemanship from his wife's family.
Hashim's young son learned several things from the rabbis that deeply influenced him and later his grandson Muhammad. One of these was that there was only one true God, and all the idols worshipped by the Arab tribes were an expression of ignorance and superstition. Another was that God approved leaders who ruled as both prophet and king. The prime example in Jewish history was King David, who was anointed and accepted by his tribe as prophet years before he was crowned king.
When Hashim died on a trade expedition to Gaza, his brother Mutalab was sent to bring the son back from Medina. As Mutalab and the young man entered Mecca with the son leading the camel on which his uncle was riding, people assumed he was a slave Mutalab had purchased in Medina and addressed him as Abd al-Mutalab, the slave of Mutalab. The name stayed with him the rest of his life.
Although he remained a monotheist, and with several friends formed a movement of like-minded people known as the Hanifs, Abd al-Mutalab recognized the financial value of the Kaaba and never destroyed its idols. He did however attempt to imitate the life of the Jewish prophet Abraham in numerous ways. As Abraham dug wells whenever he moved, Abd al-Mutalab claimed he had received revelation to redig the well it was believed Abraham had once dug in Mecca. And as Abraham was prepared to sacrifice a son, Abd al-Mutalab announced that if he was given ten sons he too would sacrifice one of them. When his tenth son was born, Abd al-Mutalab prepared to carry out his vow and was only stopped by shocked tribal members who persuaded him to sacrifice 100 camels instead. World history would probably be quite different if Abd al-Mutalab had made his original sacrifice, since the lots he cast to determine which son to kill fell on his young son Abdallah who later became the father of Muhammad.
Abd al-Mutalab loved his young grandson Muhammad, and several stories in Islamic history indicate that he recognized in the young boy signs of leadership. One of these stories is that Abd al-Mutalib would repeat to his children and grandchildren that if God ever chose to raise a leader of the Arabs, he would choose someone such as them. Another is that Muhammad was the only person who dared sit in Abd al-Mutalab's special chair in the Kaaba. When Abd al-Mutalab saw the young boy sitting there, he would pat him on the shoulder in affection rather than becoming upset.
Even though Abd al-Mutalab died when Muhammad was only eight years old, I believe his influence was great in Muhammad's life. The family had lost much of the power it held when Hashim ruled Mecca, and none of Abd al-Mutalab's nine surviving sons had the ability to gain it back. At the same time, many other Arab tribes were successful in forming local kingdoms. These included the kingdom of Hirah, the Ghassanid Kingdom, the Kingdom of Sheba, and numerous others. As their caravans crisscrossed Mecca, the young Muhammad would have heard stories of the accomplishments of their kings. Why was it only his tribe, the Quraysh, who were unable to form a powerful kingdom? Why were his people still locked in the ignorance of worshipping their flimsy idols, rather than a powerful god who could lead them to power and victory? And why couldn't he be the leader to do this?
But to accomplish his dream, he needed a model. What better example than that he had learned from his grandfather of a king named David who was a prophet before becoming a king? Why could not he, Muhammad, announce that he also was a prophet chosen to be a king? The god Allah was not merely the local idol the Quraysh believed him to be, he was the True and Mighty God who had chosen Muhammad to be his prophet and their ruler. Allah was the Enforcer, the Club, the Weapon that Muhammad needed to back his message. "I am a Prophet of Allah, and if you don't accept me Allah will be very angry at you. Your skins will roast in hell only to be replaced by other skins that will also burn off (Quran 4:56)!"
There was only one problem with Muhammad's plan; the Quraysh didn't buy it. His early followers were mostly slaves impressed by his promise that if they obeyed him he would give them the treasures of the Byzantine and Persian Empires. For the dream to come true, Muhammad had to find a tribe to accept him as their prophet. He tried to persuade other tribes, including those in the nearby city of Taif, but to no avail. Finally thirteen years later, he met some Arabs from Medina who were jealous of the prosperity of the Jews living there. They recognized that by accepting Muhammad as their leader and inviting him to Medina they might be able to gain the upper hand over their enemies. Muhammad gladly accepted their offer, naively assuming that these Jews would recognize him as the prophet of the One True God. He moved to Medina, the migration that marked the turning point of his life and Islamic history.
For the rest of his life, Muhammad continued to receive inspiration from the Allah he had created. The revelations progressed from the early warnings of hell file to detailed descriptions of how he was to engage in warfare. When Muhammad wanted to marry more women than the four he allowed his followers, his Allah came to his rescue. When he wanted his own son to divorce his wife so that he, the father-in-law, could add her to his list of sexual conquests, his Allah granted him permission. When he was unsure as to whether his wife Aisha had been unfaithful to him or not, his Allah assured him of her innocence. When the Jews of Medina did not accept him as their prophet, his Allah told him to expel and kill them all. When he promised his wife Hafsah he would not sleep with her slave Mary the Copt again, his Allah released him from the promise. The Allah created by the prophet served him well.
Question Number 1: Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?
We've all heard the argument and have perhaps used it ourselves, "Christians and Muslims worship the same God." After all, the first words of the Quran are "In the name of Allah", and the Arabic Bible begins with the phrase, "In the beginning Allah". Each of these monotheistic religions acknowledges a powerful spiritual being who created and maintains the universe. For many people, that's enough. "Of course," they say, "They all worship the same God."
Archeologists who study ancient civilizations include the religious beliefs of those societies, because their beliefs influenced their behavior. People who believed their gods required child sacrifices sacrificed their children, and people who believed their gods wanted their rulers buried in pyramids buried their rulers in pyramids. As the saying goes, "Tell me what you worship, and I will tell you who you are."
On January 6, 2010, Coptic Christians in the Egyptian town of Nag Hamada were exiting their church after a midnight Christmas Eve Mass when Muslims driving by opened fire into the crowd. Eight young people were killed and others critically injured. Is it possible, is it even logical, to claim that the Muslims who believed they were obeying Allah in their attack against the kuffar, the unbelieving infidels, actually worship the same deity as their victims? The Christians were celebrating their most holy night of the year, the night in which they believe God descended to earth and was born as a child. This, along with the belief that this child later died for the sins of the world, is the defining doctrine of Christianity. The same belief is considered "shirk", the greatest possible sin in Islam. If the central belief of one religion is the greatest offense in the other, how can anyone claim they both worship the same God? It's like arguing that the John Smith who is a policeman in Minneapolis must be the same person as the John Smith who drives a truck in Phoenix because, after all, they have the same name.
One of the ways to decide whether or not the God of Christianity and Islam really is the same entity is to look at his characteristics as understood by Christians and Muslims, and determine whether they really do represent the same person. To do this, we will look at three aspects of the Christian and Muslim God that each receive much emphasis in both the Quran and the Bible. These are his power, his mercy, and his love (and with my apology to all who might prefer it otherwise, since both faiths have traditionally and emphatically described their God as masculine in gender, male pronouns will be used throughout).
Both Islam and Christianity emphasize that God is all-powerful; he knows everything and has the power to do anything. In Christianity this is called his omnipotence; the Arabic equivalent is "ala kulli shain qadir". There is, however, a distinct difference in how each religion views God exercising his power. The first stories in the Bible show God not stopping evil, even when he could have, when this was in conflict with the ability he had given humans to exercise freedom of choice. God could have stopped Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, knowing it would have disastrous consequences, but he did not. He could have stopped their first son, Cain, from murdering his brother Abel, but he did not. In theological language, it was not God's "divine will" for the couple to eat the fruit or their son to kill his brother, but he allowed it to happen.
Parallel to this is the Biblical concept that God acts in the midst of evil to produce good. This is seen in the story of Joseph, a young man who was sold as a slave by his jealous brothers. While in slavery, Joseph was falsely accused of rape and thrown into prison. Many years later he became the Prime Minister and eventually saved his brothers from famine. His comment to them was, "You meant evil against me, but God turned it into good."
Islam sees God's power quite differently. Everything that happens is God's will, good or bad. When a planned terrorist operation goes bad, the jihadists interpret it as God's will they were not to succeed this time (which goes along with the Islamic concept of "sabr" or patience; that is, they try again until successful). If a woman's husband divorces her it was "maktoub", ordained by God to happen. Many drivers in Saudi Arabia refuse to carry vehicle insurance because insurance indicates a lack of faith in the God who determines if and when they will have a accident. I was talking to a Muslim friend a few weeks ago when he spilled some coffee on his slacks. His immediate, and serious, response was, "God wanted me to spill that coffeee on my pants."
In summary, both Allah in Islam and the Christian God have the power to do anything, but in Christianity God often allows humans to commit evil that is not his will. In Islam, all that happens is the will of Allah. Are these the same deity or not?
The next characterization is "rahmah", or mercy, which can be theologically defined as showing kindness to an offender when it is within one's power not to do so. God's mercy, "rahmat-Allah"" is a very important concept in Islam. Muslims who perform the required salat five times a day repeat "in the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful One" seventeen times. The phrase is repeated before meals and speeches, and is a regular part of daily conversation. It is the opening sentence of all but one of the Quran's 114 suras.
The Bible also places much emphasis on mercy. The prophet Micah instructed his audience that God required only three things of them: justice, humility, and mercy. Another prophet, Hosea, taught that God preferred mercy to sacrifice. Jesus said in the Beautitudes, which are the introductory sentences to his Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
There is a difference, however, in the emphasis. In the Bible, God's mercy is extended to everyone and Christians are to do likewise. The Golden Rule is to treat people as you would like them to treat you, not to give them what they deserve. Jesus told his followers to do good to those who hated them, and to forgive their enemies. In Islam, God's mercy to the world extends to giving people the choice to accept Islam. In surah 21 of the Quran, Al-Anbiya, Allah stated in ayah 108 that Muhammad was sent as "a mercy" to all mankind. In the following verses, Allah defined his mercy. Muhammad was to invite people to Islam and warn them against associating anything with Allah (this was a specific warning to the Christians not to believe that Jesus was God). If they did not accept the invitation, Muhammad was to pronounce a declaration of war.
I noted above that 113 of the 114 suras of the Quran begin with the verse, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful One." The only chapter that does not is chapter 9, Al-Taubah or Repentance, which contains Muhammad's final revelation before his death. This chapter contains the famous "Verses of the Sword" which give detailed instructions on how this war is to be carried out against those who refused the "invitation" to become Muslims.
Is the God in Christianity, who extends his mercy to everyone and asks those who believe in him to do likewise, the same deity as the Allah of Muhammad who expresses his mercy by giving people the opportunity to accept Islam or face warfare?
The final consideration is love. It is perhaps here that the difference between the Gods of Christianity and Islam is the most striking. The Bible not only uses the word "love" hundreds of time to describe the relationship between God and his people, it even insists that God is love. This in itself provides a theological problem to the Muslim purist, because to state that God is anything at all is impossible. Allah is above human knowledge and the Quran is an expression of Allah's will, not who Allah is.
The Arabic word for love "hubb" appears in the Quran numerous times, but usually in a negative sense. Quran 14:3 is one of a dozen verses that chastised people for "loving this world more than the world to come". Muslims hesitant to engage in armed jihad were warned in Quran 2:216 not to "love things" that were bad for them while turning away from warfare that was good for them. In Quran 3:119 Muslims were ordered to curse non-Muslims who pretended to love them while rejecting their faith. The Quran warned that God does not love sinners (Quran 2:190) and those who are corrupt (Quran 5:67). His greatest hatred, however, is reserved for all the kuffar, that is, Christians and Jews and everyone else, who did not accept the message and prophethood of Muhammad. Quran 3:32 is one of many verses that state Allah does not love those who do not obey his Apostle.
Muhammad's understanding of Allah's love is perhaps most clearly expressed in this Hadith recorded by Sahih Muslim (Book 032, Number 6373). Muhammad stated that when Allah decided to love someone, he would summon the angel Gabriel and say, "I love that particular person, and I want you to also love him." Gabriel would then begin to love that person and announce to all the angels of heaven, "Allah loves so-and-so, and all of you are to love him." The angels then, as the heavenly executors of Allah's will, would arrange matters so that honor was bestowed upon this person on earth and he or she would lead a blessed life.
If Allah, on the other hand, decided to hate someone, the same scenario would take place but with opposite results. God would tell Gabriel to hate that person, Gabriel would pass the message to the angels, and that person would be hated on the earth. Who knows, he might even be murdered in a remote Egyptian town as he walked out of a Christmas celebration on January 6, 2010.
The answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this article, "Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?", is pretty clear to me. According to the most elementary rule of Socratic Greek logic, "A" cannot equal "non-A". It's possible to argue that the true divinity is the God of Christianity, the Allah of Islam, or take the atheists approach and say both of them are equally false. But it's really hard to claim they are both the same.
Acknowledgement: Some material from this post was adopted from the Arabic TV shows Daring Question and Removing the Veil with host Rashid.
Archeologists who study ancient civilizations include the religious beliefs of those societies, because their beliefs influenced their behavior. People who believed their gods required child sacrifices sacrificed their children, and people who believed their gods wanted their rulers buried in pyramids buried their rulers in pyramids. As the saying goes, "Tell me what you worship, and I will tell you who you are."
On January 6, 2010, Coptic Christians in the Egyptian town of Nag Hamada were exiting their church after a midnight Christmas Eve Mass when Muslims driving by opened fire into the crowd. Eight young people were killed and others critically injured. Is it possible, is it even logical, to claim that the Muslims who believed they were obeying Allah in their attack against the kuffar, the unbelieving infidels, actually worship the same deity as their victims? The Christians were celebrating their most holy night of the year, the night in which they believe God descended to earth and was born as a child. This, along with the belief that this child later died for the sins of the world, is the defining doctrine of Christianity. The same belief is considered "shirk", the greatest possible sin in Islam. If the central belief of one religion is the greatest offense in the other, how can anyone claim they both worship the same God? It's like arguing that the John Smith who is a policeman in Minneapolis must be the same person as the John Smith who drives a truck in Phoenix because, after all, they have the same name.
One of the ways to decide whether or not the God of Christianity and Islam really is the same entity is to look at his characteristics as understood by Christians and Muslims, and determine whether they really do represent the same person. To do this, we will look at three aspects of the Christian and Muslim God that each receive much emphasis in both the Quran and the Bible. These are his power, his mercy, and his love (and with my apology to all who might prefer it otherwise, since both faiths have traditionally and emphatically described their God as masculine in gender, male pronouns will be used throughout).
Both Islam and Christianity emphasize that God is all-powerful; he knows everything and has the power to do anything. In Christianity this is called his omnipotence; the Arabic equivalent is "ala kulli shain qadir". There is, however, a distinct difference in how each religion views God exercising his power. The first stories in the Bible show God not stopping evil, even when he could have, when this was in conflict with the ability he had given humans to exercise freedom of choice. God could have stopped Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, knowing it would have disastrous consequences, but he did not. He could have stopped their first son, Cain, from murdering his brother Abel, but he did not. In theological language, it was not God's "divine will" for the couple to eat the fruit or their son to kill his brother, but he allowed it to happen.
Parallel to this is the Biblical concept that God acts in the midst of evil to produce good. This is seen in the story of Joseph, a young man who was sold as a slave by his jealous brothers. While in slavery, Joseph was falsely accused of rape and thrown into prison. Many years later he became the Prime Minister and eventually saved his brothers from famine. His comment to them was, "You meant evil against me, but God turned it into good."
Islam sees God's power quite differently. Everything that happens is God's will, good or bad. When a planned terrorist operation goes bad, the jihadists interpret it as God's will they were not to succeed this time (which goes along with the Islamic concept of "sabr" or patience; that is, they try again until successful). If a woman's husband divorces her it was "maktoub", ordained by God to happen. Many drivers in Saudi Arabia refuse to carry vehicle insurance because insurance indicates a lack of faith in the God who determines if and when they will have a accident. I was talking to a Muslim friend a few weeks ago when he spilled some coffee on his slacks. His immediate, and serious, response was, "God wanted me to spill that coffeee on my pants."
In summary, both Allah in Islam and the Christian God have the power to do anything, but in Christianity God often allows humans to commit evil that is not his will. In Islam, all that happens is the will of Allah. Are these the same deity or not?
The next characterization is "rahmah", or mercy, which can be theologically defined as showing kindness to an offender when it is within one's power not to do so. God's mercy, "rahmat-Allah"" is a very important concept in Islam. Muslims who perform the required salat five times a day repeat "in the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful One" seventeen times. The phrase is repeated before meals and speeches, and is a regular part of daily conversation. It is the opening sentence of all but one of the Quran's 114 suras.
The Bible also places much emphasis on mercy. The prophet Micah instructed his audience that God required only three things of them: justice, humility, and mercy. Another prophet, Hosea, taught that God preferred mercy to sacrifice. Jesus said in the Beautitudes, which are the introductory sentences to his Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
There is a difference, however, in the emphasis. In the Bible, God's mercy is extended to everyone and Christians are to do likewise. The Golden Rule is to treat people as you would like them to treat you, not to give them what they deserve. Jesus told his followers to do good to those who hated them, and to forgive their enemies. In Islam, God's mercy to the world extends to giving people the choice to accept Islam. In surah 21 of the Quran, Al-Anbiya, Allah stated in ayah 108 that Muhammad was sent as "a mercy" to all mankind. In the following verses, Allah defined his mercy. Muhammad was to invite people to Islam and warn them against associating anything with Allah (this was a specific warning to the Christians not to believe that Jesus was God). If they did not accept the invitation, Muhammad was to pronounce a declaration of war.
I noted above that 113 of the 114 suras of the Quran begin with the verse, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful One." The only chapter that does not is chapter 9, Al-Taubah or Repentance, which contains Muhammad's final revelation before his death. This chapter contains the famous "Verses of the Sword" which give detailed instructions on how this war is to be carried out against those who refused the "invitation" to become Muslims.
Is the God in Christianity, who extends his mercy to everyone and asks those who believe in him to do likewise, the same deity as the Allah of Muhammad who expresses his mercy by giving people the opportunity to accept Islam or face warfare?
The final consideration is love. It is perhaps here that the difference between the Gods of Christianity and Islam is the most striking. The Bible not only uses the word "love" hundreds of time to describe the relationship between God and his people, it even insists that God is love. This in itself provides a theological problem to the Muslim purist, because to state that God is anything at all is impossible. Allah is above human knowledge and the Quran is an expression of Allah's will, not who Allah is.
The Arabic word for love "hubb" appears in the Quran numerous times, but usually in a negative sense. Quran 14:3 is one of a dozen verses that chastised people for "loving this world more than the world to come". Muslims hesitant to engage in armed jihad were warned in Quran 2:216 not to "love things" that were bad for them while turning away from warfare that was good for them. In Quran 3:119 Muslims were ordered to curse non-Muslims who pretended to love them while rejecting their faith. The Quran warned that God does not love sinners (Quran 2:190) and those who are corrupt (Quran 5:67). His greatest hatred, however, is reserved for all the kuffar, that is, Christians and Jews and everyone else, who did not accept the message and prophethood of Muhammad. Quran 3:32 is one of many verses that state Allah does not love those who do not obey his Apostle.
Muhammad's understanding of Allah's love is perhaps most clearly expressed in this Hadith recorded by Sahih Muslim (Book 032, Number 6373). Muhammad stated that when Allah decided to love someone, he would summon the angel Gabriel and say, "I love that particular person, and I want you to also love him." Gabriel would then begin to love that person and announce to all the angels of heaven, "Allah loves so-and-so, and all of you are to love him." The angels then, as the heavenly executors of Allah's will, would arrange matters so that honor was bestowed upon this person on earth and he or she would lead a blessed life.
If Allah, on the other hand, decided to hate someone, the same scenario would take place but with opposite results. God would tell Gabriel to hate that person, Gabriel would pass the message to the angels, and that person would be hated on the earth. Who knows, he might even be murdered in a remote Egyptian town as he walked out of a Christmas celebration on January 6, 2010.
The answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this article, "Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?", is pretty clear to me. According to the most elementary rule of Socratic Greek logic, "A" cannot equal "non-A". It's possible to argue that the true divinity is the God of Christianity, the Allah of Islam, or take the atheists approach and say both of them are equally false. But it's really hard to claim they are both the same.
Acknowledgement: Some material from this post was adopted from the Arabic TV shows Daring Question and Removing the Veil with host Rashid.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Where are the Christian Suicide Bombers?
Today's guest on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman was Quratulain Bakteari, founder and director of the Institute for Development Studies and Practices headquartered in Quetta, Pakistan. When Amy asked if Quratulain expected a rise in suicide bombings in her country, she replied, "Yes, they will increase. What else does a young boy who has seen his family finished and everybody gone have to live for? There is nothing left for the people to live for if their near and dear ones are gone. They want to get back at the killer."
I hold nothing but admiration for Quratulain and many like her around the world who have dedicated their lives to improve the lives of the poor and weak. At the same time, I need to suggest that hers was a very Muslim answer. And Amy, like every other typical American journalist or interviewer, did not probe any deeper. I might have asked the question, "Why are all the suicide bombers Muslim?"
The Christian community in Pakistan is perhaps the poorest in the country, and many of its almost three million population live on the margins of society. They have been traditionally mocked as "rice Christians" based upon the accusation that they accepted Christianity only to receive material benefits from the Western missionaries who worked in what was then part of India during the last two centuries. Websites such as this document the atrocities Christians have experienced at the hands of Muslim extremists. Why have no Christian young men slipped into a mosque in Pakistan wearing an explosive vest and blown themselves up taking as many Muslims with them as possible? It hardly even makes the news anymore when Sunni Muslims do that in Iraq in attacks against Shia fellow Muslims.
Speaking of Iraq, probably no community in the world has suffered for its faith in the past decade as much as Christians there. The Iraqi Chaldean and Armenian churches are among the oldest in the world, stretching back to the first decades after Christ. Since the beginning of the current Iraq war, the church has been almost decimated. Christian neighborhoods have been wiped out, churches bombed, and priests murdered in cold blood. If there is any group of people that has lost everything it had to live for, in the words of Quratulain Bakteari, it is the Iraqi Christians. And yet not a single one of them has retaliated by blowing himself up in the midst of a crowded market filled with Muslim shoppers. Where are the Iraqi Christian suicide bombers?
On January 6, Christmas Eve for the Orthodox Church, a group of Muslims in the Egyptian town of Nag Hamada opened fire on Christian worshippers exiting a Christmas celebration at their church. Seven young men were killed, and others seriously injured. This was the 160th documented attack by Muslims on Christians in Egypt during the last 40 years. The Copts have not responded in violence a single time. Last year the Egyptian government killed hundreds of thousands of hogs raised by Christians, claiming this was to prevent swine flu even though it has been medically demonstrated the pigs had nothing to do with the disease. Muslims are not allowed to eat pork under Islamic law, but Egypt had for centuries allowed the Christians to raise pigs for their own consumption. Killing them was just another form of Egyptian government oppression. Again, there has not been any kind of violent Christian response to any of this persecution. Where are the Egyptian Christian suicide bombers?
Included in the militant Palestinian resistance movements is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded and led until his recent death by the Christian George Habash. This largely Christian organization has been active in many armed attacks against Israel over the years, including the aircraft hijackings of the seventies (PFLP leaders, by the way, are "Christian" in the sense they are secular, Marxist-educated people from a Christian background; they are not the "love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" people that Jesus talked about). But even with their espoused violence, not a single Christian member of the PFLP has ever blown himself or herself up in a suicide bombing. Where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers?
It is true that Roman Catholic priests and other Christians have been known to publicly commit suicide in protest against government-sponsored persecution of their Christian communities. But they have never tried to take their enemies with them.
I conclude with the question I wish Amy Goodman would have asked her guest from Pakistan. If so many people in the world seem to have lost their reason for living, why are the suicide bombers overwhelmingly Muslim?
I hold nothing but admiration for Quratulain and many like her around the world who have dedicated their lives to improve the lives of the poor and weak. At the same time, I need to suggest that hers was a very Muslim answer. And Amy, like every other typical American journalist or interviewer, did not probe any deeper. I might have asked the question, "Why are all the suicide bombers Muslim?"
The Christian community in Pakistan is perhaps the poorest in the country, and many of its almost three million population live on the margins of society. They have been traditionally mocked as "rice Christians" based upon the accusation that they accepted Christianity only to receive material benefits from the Western missionaries who worked in what was then part of India during the last two centuries. Websites such as this document the atrocities Christians have experienced at the hands of Muslim extremists. Why have no Christian young men slipped into a mosque in Pakistan wearing an explosive vest and blown themselves up taking as many Muslims with them as possible? It hardly even makes the news anymore when Sunni Muslims do that in Iraq in attacks against Shia fellow Muslims.
Speaking of Iraq, probably no community in the world has suffered for its faith in the past decade as much as Christians there. The Iraqi Chaldean and Armenian churches are among the oldest in the world, stretching back to the first decades after Christ. Since the beginning of the current Iraq war, the church has been almost decimated. Christian neighborhoods have been wiped out, churches bombed, and priests murdered in cold blood. If there is any group of people that has lost everything it had to live for, in the words of Quratulain Bakteari, it is the Iraqi Christians. And yet not a single one of them has retaliated by blowing himself up in the midst of a crowded market filled with Muslim shoppers. Where are the Iraqi Christian suicide bombers?
On January 6, Christmas Eve for the Orthodox Church, a group of Muslims in the Egyptian town of Nag Hamada opened fire on Christian worshippers exiting a Christmas celebration at their church. Seven young men were killed, and others seriously injured. This was the 160th documented attack by Muslims on Christians in Egypt during the last 40 years. The Copts have not responded in violence a single time. Last year the Egyptian government killed hundreds of thousands of hogs raised by Christians, claiming this was to prevent swine flu even though it has been medically demonstrated the pigs had nothing to do with the disease. Muslims are not allowed to eat pork under Islamic law, but Egypt had for centuries allowed the Christians to raise pigs for their own consumption. Killing them was just another form of Egyptian government oppression. Again, there has not been any kind of violent Christian response to any of this persecution. Where are the Egyptian Christian suicide bombers?
Included in the militant Palestinian resistance movements is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded and led until his recent death by the Christian George Habash. This largely Christian organization has been active in many armed attacks against Israel over the years, including the aircraft hijackings of the seventies (PFLP leaders, by the way, are "Christian" in the sense they are secular, Marxist-educated people from a Christian background; they are not the "love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" people that Jesus talked about). But even with their espoused violence, not a single Christian member of the PFLP has ever blown himself or herself up in a suicide bombing. Where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers?
It is true that Roman Catholic priests and other Christians have been known to publicly commit suicide in protest against government-sponsored persecution of their Christian communities. But they have never tried to take their enemies with them.
I conclude with the question I wish Amy Goodman would have asked her guest from Pakistan. If so many people in the world seem to have lost their reason for living, why are the suicide bombers overwhelmingly Muslim?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Muslims and Others - A Little Respect
"Damn you! You're as stupid as a donkey! You bitch! You loser! You're like your mother the monkey - or is it your father the pig? You're the worst piece of crap on the face of the earth! Go to hell!"
Imagine a husband who used these words with his wife appearing as a guest on Dr. Phil's TV show and claiming that he respects her. The only problem in their marriage, according to this husband, is that she does not respect him!
Now imagine a self-proclaimed religious prophet using similar language in the book he left behind to describe the people who do not accept his message. Picture his followers 14 centuries later claiming that they respect the non-believers; the problem is these non-believers do not respect them!
Chances are your English translation of the Quran, with its toned-down language and notes written to impress Western readers, does not mention that Al-Fatihah, the first chapter of the Quran that is to be repeated by 1.5 billion Muslims 17 times a day, describes all the Christians of the world as wanderers who have lost their way and Jews as being under God's eternal anger. Any Arabic-speaking schoolboy from Morocco to Kuwait who has ever stepped inside a mosque knows exactly who his Prophet was talking about. The Hadith itself, as well as the leading Quranic commentators, leaves no question. One of several relevant Hadiths reads, "Ibn Masoud related that Anas reported that the associates of the Prophet said, Those who are under Allah's anger are the Jews, and those who have lost their way are the Christians."
Non-Muslims are not only whose who have lost their way and live under God's condemnation, they also are "the worst of all creatures". Surat al-Bayyinah, chapter 98 of the Quran, gives Allah's (read "Muhammad's" if you are not a Muslim) contrast between Muslims and everyone else. Those who disbelieve Muhammad and his message "will abide in the Fire of Hell and are the worst of creatures".
The worst of creatures...the scum of the earth...not worthy of respect or honor. And the Muslims? The following verse gives us Allah's answer: they are the best of creatures...and Allah will be well-pleased with them.
It's only a small step, of course, to move on to other perjorative language in describing "the worst of creatures". Al-Maidah, chapter 5 of the Quran, states in verse 60 that Allah changed some of the Jews into monkeys and pigs. Shaykhs argue to this day whether this transformation was physical or figurative, but what difference does it make? Simply using that language to describe a group of people clearly demonstrates your feelings toward them. Just to make sure the message is clear, the same metaphor is used to describe the Jews two additional times in the Quran.
If calling them pigs and monkeys is not enough to get the point across, how about dogs and donkeys? Quran 7, Al-Araf, describes the Jews in verse 176 as being like a dog lying around with its tongue hanging out. No matter what you do to the dog, it just continues to lay around. It is no wonder that a few verses earlier, in 167, Muhammad claimed that Allah would "send against the Jews those who will afflict them with a humiliating torment until Judgment Day". Al-Jumah (Quran 62) claims that the Jews are like a donkey carrying bags filled with books but understanding none of them (comment: this from the man whose own tribal society was largely illiterate).
It's little wonder that the Quran concludes in 9:28 that all these non-believers are "filthy" and thus not allowed to enter Muslim mosques. Can you imagine a sign outside every church and temple telling Muslims they are not allowed to enter because they are unclean?
Millions of Muslims every week are led by their Imams in the "Prayer of Piety" following the Friday sermon. Following is this prayer as given by Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, probably Sunni Islam's best-known scholar:
"Oh you defeater of sects, defeat your enemies, the enemies of Islam. May Allah give us victory over the enemies of Islam. May God give us victory over the Jews, those infidels who are without faith. May God give us victory over the Christians, those filled with envy who plot against us. May God give us victory over the heathen, and over all those who refuse your Shariah."
Muslims were greatly offended when the Swiss recently voted to not allow new minarets in Switzerland. Swiss citizen Tariq Ramadan said he was "shocked", and Shaykh Qaradawi protested the ruling against this "beautiful symbol of Islam".
But none of them protested the fact that the one church recently built in Qatar for the hundreds of thousands of Christians working there has no steeple, no cross, nothing at all to indicate it is a house of worship. To not allow minarets is seen by Muslims as a lack of respect; to not allow a cross is to them completely natural (comment: I suspect that Qaradawi was not at all happy this church was even built, as it was Muhammad who first said Islam was to be the only religion allowed throughout Arabia. Since Qaradawi, who is Egyptian, lives in Qatar as an expatriate guest, I imagine he would be slow to criticize the decision taken by the government to allow the building of a church. Even Shaykh Qaradawi knows one does not bite the hand that feeds him!).
I wonder how many Muslims secretly suspect that the problem is not that others do not respect them, it is that their own texts and traditions do not allow them to respect others. I'm sure there are some.
Acknowledgement: some of the material above was adopted from the Arabic TV program "Removing the Veil" with host Rashid.
Imagine a husband who used these words with his wife appearing as a guest on Dr. Phil's TV show and claiming that he respects her. The only problem in their marriage, according to this husband, is that she does not respect him!
Now imagine a self-proclaimed religious prophet using similar language in the book he left behind to describe the people who do not accept his message. Picture his followers 14 centuries later claiming that they respect the non-believers; the problem is these non-believers do not respect them!
Chances are your English translation of the Quran, with its toned-down language and notes written to impress Western readers, does not mention that Al-Fatihah, the first chapter of the Quran that is to be repeated by 1.5 billion Muslims 17 times a day, describes all the Christians of the world as wanderers who have lost their way and Jews as being under God's eternal anger. Any Arabic-speaking schoolboy from Morocco to Kuwait who has ever stepped inside a mosque knows exactly who his Prophet was talking about. The Hadith itself, as well as the leading Quranic commentators, leaves no question. One of several relevant Hadiths reads, "Ibn Masoud related that Anas reported that the associates of the Prophet said, Those who are under Allah's anger are the Jews, and those who have lost their way are the Christians."
Non-Muslims are not only whose who have lost their way and live under God's condemnation, they also are "the worst of all creatures". Surat al-Bayyinah, chapter 98 of the Quran, gives Allah's (read "Muhammad's" if you are not a Muslim) contrast between Muslims and everyone else. Those who disbelieve Muhammad and his message "will abide in the Fire of Hell and are the worst of creatures".
The worst of creatures...the scum of the earth...not worthy of respect or honor. And the Muslims? The following verse gives us Allah's answer: they are the best of creatures...and Allah will be well-pleased with them.
It's only a small step, of course, to move on to other perjorative language in describing "the worst of creatures". Al-Maidah, chapter 5 of the Quran, states in verse 60 that Allah changed some of the Jews into monkeys and pigs. Shaykhs argue to this day whether this transformation was physical or figurative, but what difference does it make? Simply using that language to describe a group of people clearly demonstrates your feelings toward them. Just to make sure the message is clear, the same metaphor is used to describe the Jews two additional times in the Quran.
If calling them pigs and monkeys is not enough to get the point across, how about dogs and donkeys? Quran 7, Al-Araf, describes the Jews in verse 176 as being like a dog lying around with its tongue hanging out. No matter what you do to the dog, it just continues to lay around. It is no wonder that a few verses earlier, in 167, Muhammad claimed that Allah would "send against the Jews those who will afflict them with a humiliating torment until Judgment Day". Al-Jumah (Quran 62) claims that the Jews are like a donkey carrying bags filled with books but understanding none of them (comment: this from the man whose own tribal society was largely illiterate).
It's little wonder that the Quran concludes in 9:28 that all these non-believers are "filthy" and thus not allowed to enter Muslim mosques. Can you imagine a sign outside every church and temple telling Muslims they are not allowed to enter because they are unclean?
Millions of Muslims every week are led by their Imams in the "Prayer of Piety" following the Friday sermon. Following is this prayer as given by Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, probably Sunni Islam's best-known scholar:
"Oh you defeater of sects, defeat your enemies, the enemies of Islam. May Allah give us victory over the enemies of Islam. May God give us victory over the Jews, those infidels who are without faith. May God give us victory over the Christians, those filled with envy who plot against us. May God give us victory over the heathen, and over all those who refuse your Shariah."
Muslims were greatly offended when the Swiss recently voted to not allow new minarets in Switzerland. Swiss citizen Tariq Ramadan said he was "shocked", and Shaykh Qaradawi protested the ruling against this "beautiful symbol of Islam".
But none of them protested the fact that the one church recently built in Qatar for the hundreds of thousands of Christians working there has no steeple, no cross, nothing at all to indicate it is a house of worship. To not allow minarets is seen by Muslims as a lack of respect; to not allow a cross is to them completely natural (comment: I suspect that Qaradawi was not at all happy this church was even built, as it was Muhammad who first said Islam was to be the only religion allowed throughout Arabia. Since Qaradawi, who is Egyptian, lives in Qatar as an expatriate guest, I imagine he would be slow to criticize the decision taken by the government to allow the building of a church. Even Shaykh Qaradawi knows one does not bite the hand that feeds him!).
I wonder how many Muslims secretly suspect that the problem is not that others do not respect them, it is that their own texts and traditions do not allow them to respect others. I'm sure there are some.
Acknowledgement: some of the material above was adopted from the Arabic TV program "Removing the Veil" with host Rashid.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Yusuf Estes - Stump the Christian!
I was pushing my way through the crowd at the Batha Souq in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, known locally as the Filipino Souq, headed for Manila Plaza to buy a pair of jeans when my attention was drawn to a khutbah, or Muslim sermon, blaring out in English over loudspeakers from the Dawah Center strategically placed on the corner of the main street where thousands of TCN's (Third Country Nationals) from countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Pakistan pass by to do their afternoon shopping. I decided to stop in for a visit, and was greeted by a smiling young man from Indonesia who informed me his name was Yusuf; it had been Joseph before he converted from Catholicism to Islam eight years before. Before I knew it I had a shopping bag full of gifts including a free Quran, books with titles such as "Islam is your Birthright", and a DVD containing a sermon by "Former Christian Minister from Texas USA Sheikh Yusuf Estes".
As soon as I got back to my house I put the DVD in the player and settled back on the couch to watch. It was recorded in the same Dawah Center I had just visited when Yusuf had himself been in Riyadh. Like most American converts to Islam, he opened his sermon with a few ringing accented Arabic phrases. Assalam alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatahu! Bismallah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Rubb al-Aalameen! As soon as his Arabic ran out he switched to English for the rest of his sermon punctuated periodically with a Ma Sha Allah or Subhan Allah At-Ta'alah!
It was probably good that he spoke in English, because the young men listening to him likely did not know much more Arabic than he did. They were among the thousands of migrant workers who find their way to Saudi Arabia to do the menial jobs the Saudis are unwilling or unable to do. Often separated for years from their families, they work long days to send a hundred dollars or so each month to even poorer families in the countries they come from. Many of them are Muslim, but others are also from Hindu and Christian backgrounds - hence the Dawah or Muslim Evangelization Center.
Yusuf began his sermon by giving the Muslims a question to ask their Christian friends. The question was, "How many sons does God has?" If the unsuspecting Christian replied that God had one Son, Yusuf quoted a few verses from the Bible describing God as having "many sons" and - voila! - the Muslim had stumped the Christian.
I thought it was rather silly. The New Testament uses many metaphors to describe Jesus - he is the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, etc. How many lights does God have? How much bread? How many shepherds? Gotcha!
Yusuf then moved on to his next point, which is that Islam is an easy religion. God did not want to burden mankind with multiplied regulations that were impossible to keep, so he kept it simple. All he requires is that we repeat the same prayer five times a day in a language most Muslims don't understand, spend one month of the year eating all night instead of during the day, give some of our money to feed the poor, and fly to Mecca once during our lives. Gone forever are the much harder challenges to love your enemies, treat everyone else the way you would like them to treat you, and not even bother to say your prayers if you have an unresolved conflict with another person that you have not tried to settle.
At the end of his sermon, Yusuf reached his moment of glory - he himself would initiate a Christian into Islam! Just like the old-time evangelists he must have seen in Texas during his youth - and for all I know was one himself - Yusuf called a young man to the front of the audience to "repeat this prayer after me". It's just that the words were different. Instead of repeating, "Jesus, forgive my sins and come into my heart", the new message was, "I testify there is no God but God and Muhammad is his Apostle".
As I watched this, I felt extremely sad. I compared it with the many stories I had heard and read of the intense spiritual struggle Muslims go through when they decide to leave Islam. The decision often costs them their jobs and families, and many are forced to leave their countries for the safety of their own lives. To watch the reverse seemed shallow to me.
Yusuf did say one thing that made me smile. He warned his audience to stay away from the chat room Paltalk. That's the site where Father Zakariya Boutros and his associates have led an untold number of people away from Islam. I can understand Yusuf wanting his admirers to avoid that site!
A few days later I was in a car with one of the drivers for the company I was working with, a Christian from the Philippines. I asked him if he knew any Filipinos who had converted to Islam in Saudi Arabia, and why they did it. He replied that life was much easier in that country if one converted. Money was given, apartments were found, jobs were secured, and brides were available. I asked him if he had ever thought of converting. "How could I leave Jesus?" was his reply.
I asked the same question to another of our drivers, a Hindu from India. He said when he first came to Saudi Arabia he had worked for several years for the same Saudi employer. The day after a Hindu-Muslim confrontation in India resulted in loss of life, his employer told him he was fired. He could have kept his job if he had converted to Islam, but he also had too much character to do that.
I would imagine that Yusuf Estes is quite pleased with the number of people he has persuaded to become Muslims, and would claim that these conversions were all based upon a sincere conviction that Islam is true and Muhammad is indeed a Prophet of God. Personally, I'm not so convinced.
As soon as I got back to my house I put the DVD in the player and settled back on the couch to watch. It was recorded in the same Dawah Center I had just visited when Yusuf had himself been in Riyadh. Like most American converts to Islam, he opened his sermon with a few ringing accented Arabic phrases. Assalam alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatahu! Bismallah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Rubb al-Aalameen! As soon as his Arabic ran out he switched to English for the rest of his sermon punctuated periodically with a Ma Sha Allah or Subhan Allah At-Ta'alah!
It was probably good that he spoke in English, because the young men listening to him likely did not know much more Arabic than he did. They were among the thousands of migrant workers who find their way to Saudi Arabia to do the menial jobs the Saudis are unwilling or unable to do. Often separated for years from their families, they work long days to send a hundred dollars or so each month to even poorer families in the countries they come from. Many of them are Muslim, but others are also from Hindu and Christian backgrounds - hence the Dawah or Muslim Evangelization Center.
Yusuf began his sermon by giving the Muslims a question to ask their Christian friends. The question was, "How many sons does God has?" If the unsuspecting Christian replied that God had one Son, Yusuf quoted a few verses from the Bible describing God as having "many sons" and - voila! - the Muslim had stumped the Christian.
I thought it was rather silly. The New Testament uses many metaphors to describe Jesus - he is the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, etc. How many lights does God have? How much bread? How many shepherds? Gotcha!
Yusuf then moved on to his next point, which is that Islam is an easy religion. God did not want to burden mankind with multiplied regulations that were impossible to keep, so he kept it simple. All he requires is that we repeat the same prayer five times a day in a language most Muslims don't understand, spend one month of the year eating all night instead of during the day, give some of our money to feed the poor, and fly to Mecca once during our lives. Gone forever are the much harder challenges to love your enemies, treat everyone else the way you would like them to treat you, and not even bother to say your prayers if you have an unresolved conflict with another person that you have not tried to settle.
At the end of his sermon, Yusuf reached his moment of glory - he himself would initiate a Christian into Islam! Just like the old-time evangelists he must have seen in Texas during his youth - and for all I know was one himself - Yusuf called a young man to the front of the audience to "repeat this prayer after me". It's just that the words were different. Instead of repeating, "Jesus, forgive my sins and come into my heart", the new message was, "I testify there is no God but God and Muhammad is his Apostle".
As I watched this, I felt extremely sad. I compared it with the many stories I had heard and read of the intense spiritual struggle Muslims go through when they decide to leave Islam. The decision often costs them their jobs and families, and many are forced to leave their countries for the safety of their own lives. To watch the reverse seemed shallow to me.
Yusuf did say one thing that made me smile. He warned his audience to stay away from the chat room Paltalk. That's the site where Father Zakariya Boutros and his associates have led an untold number of people away from Islam. I can understand Yusuf wanting his admirers to avoid that site!
A few days later I was in a car with one of the drivers for the company I was working with, a Christian from the Philippines. I asked him if he knew any Filipinos who had converted to Islam in Saudi Arabia, and why they did it. He replied that life was much easier in that country if one converted. Money was given, apartments were found, jobs were secured, and brides were available. I asked him if he had ever thought of converting. "How could I leave Jesus?" was his reply.
I asked the same question to another of our drivers, a Hindu from India. He said when he first came to Saudi Arabia he had worked for several years for the same Saudi employer. The day after a Hindu-Muslim confrontation in India resulted in loss of life, his employer told him he was fired. He could have kept his job if he had converted to Islam, but he also had too much character to do that.
I would imagine that Yusuf Estes is quite pleased with the number of people he has persuaded to become Muslims, and would claim that these conversions were all based upon a sincere conviction that Islam is true and Muhammad is indeed a Prophet of God. Personally, I'm not so convinced.
Rashid's Daring Question: Shia Christian Convert Ali Bazzi
The guest on this week's Arabic TV show Daring Question was Ali Bazzi, a Muslim convert to Christianity from Lebanon, and host Rashid commented this was his first Shia Christian visitor. When asked about his background, Ali said he grew up in a religious family, and was encouraged by his father to memorize the Quran and the Hadith. He had a desire even as a child to be close to God, and when his father wanted to find him he was often in the local mosque. Ali was especially close to an uncle named Muhammad who taught him much about his faith and the emphases of Shia Islam.
Noting that Lebanon is unique with its 17 official religious denominations, Ali grew up realizing they all needed to live together. Nevertheless as a Shia he felt superior to all the others. When Rashid asked why, Ali commented it was perhaps because they were a minority. He felt superior to the Sunnis because of the Shia affection for Muhammad's nephew Ali bin Abu Talib, and he considered the Christians dirty, impure, idolaters, and infidels (comment: this was not just his description; his words "najiseen, ghair tahireen, mushrikeen, and kuffar" are the words the Quran and Islam have always used to describe Christians). All he knew of Christians was what he learned from Islam; they were unclean, had corrupted their Holy Book, and would go to hell because "the only religion God accepts is Islam" (Quran 5:3).
Two significant events then took place in Ali's life. His father left his mother for a younger woman, leaving Ali responsible for his mother and four siblings. He wondered how Islam could allow a man, in a moment of anger or lust, to simply repeat three times the phrase "You are divorced" and tear apart a family? His sister next took the rebellious step of marrying a Christian, and Ali gradually became friends with the person who was the best man at her wedding. This man was serious about his faith, in contrast to other nonpracticing Christians Ali knew, and following one conversation showed Ali the first copy of the New Testament he had ever seen. The friend encouraged Ali to read it and Ali responded, "This is called the New Testament, so there must be an Old Testament. You want me to read the New Testament, not the Old, so the New must be better than the Old. But we have the Quran, which came later and is the best of all!" Ali left the conversation feeling he had won that round, but they continued their discussions with the friend emphasizing that Jesus had come to the world as a Savior. Ali was attracted to Jesus but argued that the New Testament had been corrupted from its true copy, which contained the same message as the Quran. When the friend asked for evidence of this corruption, Ali's only answer was that was what he had learned from Islam.
His friend did not argue with him, but continued to present the person and message of Jesus as described in the New Testament. Ali's attraction to Jesus continued, but he entered what he described as "the great problem for all Muslims; how to believe that God took on the person of a human being". He began to find it difficult to repeat the Muslim prayers, but at the same time felt that if he left Islam the entire world would be pulled out from under his feet.
Ali next began to read the New Testament himself for the first time, skimming from one book to the next in a search for any contradiction that would enable him to leave it all behind and continue life as a Muslim. He reached John 14:8, where one of Jesus' disciples asked him, "Show us who God is, and we'll be satisified." Ali says, "I said to myself, Here is someone who had the same problem that I have. I closed the book immediately, went to my friend and told him he had failed in his mission. When he asked why, I asked him how much time this disciple had spent with Jesus. He replied it was about three years, and I told him that if this person had been with Jesus all that time and still did not know who God was, how was I supposed to know? My friend asked if I had read Jesus' response, and I replied I had not. I then read Jesus' reply, 'Have you been with me all this time, and you still don't know who God is? Anyone who has seen me has seen God.' When I read that verse, something calmed inside me and I felt as if all my questions had been answered."
Ali described to Rashid the internal struggle that he next experienced. Was he prepared to leave his life, his community, his family for Jesus? Wouldn't it be easier to just remain a Muslim, especially since Islam taught him that no matter how he lived his life he would be forgiven by God if he simply repeated the Shahadah, or statement of faith that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah, two times before he died? Ali finally concluded he wanted to publicly follow Jesus and was baptized in a local Lebanese Christian church.
As usual, Rashid interspersed Ali's story with the comments of viewers who called in to the program. When one viewer asked about the Shia practice of self flagellation during the month of Ashura, Ali compared his former and present faiths by noting that Muslims place great emphasis on trying to "irda Allah", or satisfy God, whereas the message of Christianity is that God has reached out to us.
Another viewer asked about the response of Ali's family after he left Islam. Ali replied that his uncle Muhammad, the man who had taught him Islam as a child, was extremely angry and stated that he could issue a fatwa ordering Ali's death because he was now a murtadd, or apostate (comment: Muslim leaders in the West often deny that Islam allows death for apostasy, but many converts from Muslim contries have shared Ali's experience). Ali informed his uncle that God, not the uncle or his fatwas, would determine his future. Ali noted that after becoming a Christian, it became impossible for him to even hold conversations with religious family members. The simple fact he had left Islam made him no longer worthy of their respect. Soon afterwards, Ali and some family members who followed him in his faith emigrated from Lebanon to Australia.
Other viewers called from countries such as Kuwait and Yemen to say they had also left Islam to follow Jesus. One young Kuwaiti said she had gone to another country to be baptized, and then returned to Kuwait. Rashid's programs often include many callers who phone in merely to argue or criticize, but this one was unique in that hardly anyone called for that purpose. Most people seemed to be sincerely moved by Ali's story. I know I was.
At the end of the program, Ali commented there are three types of Muslims. First are those determined to remain Muslim until they die, no matter what. Second are those who begin to doubt Islam and eventually leave it, but also lose all faith in the Divine and live as atheists or agnostics. Third are those who also question Islam, but are looking for a belief system to replace it. For those, both he and Rashid offer their own experience.
Noting that Lebanon is unique with its 17 official religious denominations, Ali grew up realizing they all needed to live together. Nevertheless as a Shia he felt superior to all the others. When Rashid asked why, Ali commented it was perhaps because they were a minority. He felt superior to the Sunnis because of the Shia affection for Muhammad's nephew Ali bin Abu Talib, and he considered the Christians dirty, impure, idolaters, and infidels (comment: this was not just his description; his words "najiseen, ghair tahireen, mushrikeen, and kuffar" are the words the Quran and Islam have always used to describe Christians). All he knew of Christians was what he learned from Islam; they were unclean, had corrupted their Holy Book, and would go to hell because "the only religion God accepts is Islam" (Quran 5:3).
Two significant events then took place in Ali's life. His father left his mother for a younger woman, leaving Ali responsible for his mother and four siblings. He wondered how Islam could allow a man, in a moment of anger or lust, to simply repeat three times the phrase "You are divorced" and tear apart a family? His sister next took the rebellious step of marrying a Christian, and Ali gradually became friends with the person who was the best man at her wedding. This man was serious about his faith, in contrast to other nonpracticing Christians Ali knew, and following one conversation showed Ali the first copy of the New Testament he had ever seen. The friend encouraged Ali to read it and Ali responded, "This is called the New Testament, so there must be an Old Testament. You want me to read the New Testament, not the Old, so the New must be better than the Old. But we have the Quran, which came later and is the best of all!" Ali left the conversation feeling he had won that round, but they continued their discussions with the friend emphasizing that Jesus had come to the world as a Savior. Ali was attracted to Jesus but argued that the New Testament had been corrupted from its true copy, which contained the same message as the Quran. When the friend asked for evidence of this corruption, Ali's only answer was that was what he had learned from Islam.
His friend did not argue with him, but continued to present the person and message of Jesus as described in the New Testament. Ali's attraction to Jesus continued, but he entered what he described as "the great problem for all Muslims; how to believe that God took on the person of a human being". He began to find it difficult to repeat the Muslim prayers, but at the same time felt that if he left Islam the entire world would be pulled out from under his feet.
Ali next began to read the New Testament himself for the first time, skimming from one book to the next in a search for any contradiction that would enable him to leave it all behind and continue life as a Muslim. He reached John 14:8, where one of Jesus' disciples asked him, "Show us who God is, and we'll be satisified." Ali says, "I said to myself, Here is someone who had the same problem that I have. I closed the book immediately, went to my friend and told him he had failed in his mission. When he asked why, I asked him how much time this disciple had spent with Jesus. He replied it was about three years, and I told him that if this person had been with Jesus all that time and still did not know who God was, how was I supposed to know? My friend asked if I had read Jesus' response, and I replied I had not. I then read Jesus' reply, 'Have you been with me all this time, and you still don't know who God is? Anyone who has seen me has seen God.' When I read that verse, something calmed inside me and I felt as if all my questions had been answered."
Ali described to Rashid the internal struggle that he next experienced. Was he prepared to leave his life, his community, his family for Jesus? Wouldn't it be easier to just remain a Muslim, especially since Islam taught him that no matter how he lived his life he would be forgiven by God if he simply repeated the Shahadah, or statement of faith that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah, two times before he died? Ali finally concluded he wanted to publicly follow Jesus and was baptized in a local Lebanese Christian church.
As usual, Rashid interspersed Ali's story with the comments of viewers who called in to the program. When one viewer asked about the Shia practice of self flagellation during the month of Ashura, Ali compared his former and present faiths by noting that Muslims place great emphasis on trying to "irda Allah", or satisfy God, whereas the message of Christianity is that God has reached out to us.
Another viewer asked about the response of Ali's family after he left Islam. Ali replied that his uncle Muhammad, the man who had taught him Islam as a child, was extremely angry and stated that he could issue a fatwa ordering Ali's death because he was now a murtadd, or apostate (comment: Muslim leaders in the West often deny that Islam allows death for apostasy, but many converts from Muslim contries have shared Ali's experience). Ali informed his uncle that God, not the uncle or his fatwas, would determine his future. Ali noted that after becoming a Christian, it became impossible for him to even hold conversations with religious family members. The simple fact he had left Islam made him no longer worthy of their respect. Soon afterwards, Ali and some family members who followed him in his faith emigrated from Lebanon to Australia.
Other viewers called from countries such as Kuwait and Yemen to say they had also left Islam to follow Jesus. One young Kuwaiti said she had gone to another country to be baptized, and then returned to Kuwait. Rashid's programs often include many callers who phone in merely to argue or criticize, but this one was unique in that hardly anyone called for that purpose. Most people seemed to be sincerely moved by Ali's story. I know I was.
At the end of the program, Ali commented there are three types of Muslims. First are those determined to remain Muslim until they die, no matter what. Second are those who begin to doubt Islam and eventually leave it, but also lose all faith in the Divine and live as atheists or agnostics. Third are those who also question Islam, but are looking for a belief system to replace it. For those, both he and Rashid offer their own experience.
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