Shaykh Hamza bring a very important point: notwithstanding what western christians from greek and latin tradition want to portray Islam as heresy to their belief sort of clash of civilization forceful encounter , middle eastern christianity notably from the syro-aramaic christian tradition portray Islam as a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.
..the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more Eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as “liberators” setting them free from Byzantine oppression.
This explain why the mass conversion of the christian and jews in the holy land: the promised Land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates are now overwhelmingly muslims .
Despite the Islamophobes and christian apologists effort to portray forced Islamic conversion to explain this phenomenon, this is far from the truth:
As Ira M. Lapidus is an Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic History, wrote
Only in subsequent centuries, with the development of the religious doctrine of Islam and with that the understanding of the Muslim ummah, did mass conversion take place. The new understanding by the religious and political leadership in many cases led to a weakening or breakdown of the social and religious structures of parallel religious communities such as Christians and Jews
Wow, what an amazing less than 5 minutes of youtube that is essential for all to hear.
Thanks to those who made the youtube, thanks to Paul for posting it, thanks to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf for articulating it so clearly, thanks to the Prophet for being who he is, thanks to God Almighty for making Prophet Muhammad, sending him to us, and providing us these clear prophecies.
I knew some of this before but some of this is news to me…for example that paraclete refers so clearly to the Prophet Muhammad and is beautifully connected to the name Ahmad of the Prophet on Day of Judgement.
Hamza Yusuf basically made two arguments:
– Muhammad is the Prophet mentioned in John 1:21. However, a bit later the text mentions that Philip says to Nathanael “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote‒Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Jesus also mentions that Moses wrote about Jesus (John 5:46) and in the next chapter the people say about Jesus: “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14).
– Muhammad is the Paraclete from John’s gospel. He argued that the Holy Spirit cannot be the Paraclete because he was already present. However, this is not denied the gospel. In fact Jesus says the following:
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper [i.e., the Paraclete], that he may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17).
How can Muhammad be the Paraclete when he was already with the disciples, and when Jesus says that he will be with them forever? Rather, John’s Gospel has Jesus explicitly saying that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). Furthermore, Jesus actually sends the Paraclete (John 15:26; 16:7), while I do not know of any Muslim who believes that Muhammad was sent by Jesus. And the whole argument becomes even more problematic when we read that the Paraclete “will glorify me, for he [the Paraclete] will take of mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:14-15). Can any Muslim really believe that all things of the Father belong to Jesus?
Of course, both of Mr. Yusuf’s arguments are based on the reliability of John Gospel, which is generally regarded as historically unreliable by Muslims. One cannot simply say that John Gospel is unreliable, except for the passages that may prophesise the coming of Muhammad (fallacy of cherry picking).
Furthermore, I would be really interested to find any Christian writings in the early Islamic Empire that argue that Muhammad was prophesised in the Bible. I know that John of Damascus actually argued agains the argument by Muslims that Muhammad was the Paraclete.
“Shaykh Hamza bring a very important point: notwithstanding what western christians from greek and latin tradition want to portray Islam as heresy to their belief sort of clash of civilization forceful encounter , middle eastern christianity notably from the syro-aramaic christian tradition portray Islam as a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.”
Could you please give me any evidence from the Syro-aramaic Christians that they regarded Islam as “a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.” The quote you provided only says that most Syriac Christians were glad that they were relieved from the oppressions of the Byzantines (who were Dyophysite, while in Syria Monophysitism was more popular). But that doesn’t mean that they believed that Islam was a genuine revelation. In fact, one of the first Christian refutations of Islam was written by the Syrian monk John of Damascus. And the Syriac Christians seem to have believed in the divinity of Jesus, the crucifixion and the resurrection. See for instance the works of Ephrem the Syrian.
You said;
Of course, both of Mr. Yusuf’s arguments are based on the reliability of John Gospel, which is generally regarded as historically unreliable by Muslims. One cannot simply say that John Gospel is unreliable, except for the passages that may prophesise the coming of Muhammad (fallacy of cherry picking).
I say;
I understand your frustration when it comes to cherry picking. Mr. Marcus, do not blame Muslims for cherry picking but blame the writers of your scriptures who added contradictions in the NT and OT to some extent.
Why?
1. Christians themselves are cherry picking from their scriptures and Dr. James White will cherry pick some verses he will not preach in his church. Is it not cherry picking by Christians?
2. The Jehovah Witness believed there are so many errors in the Bible and do not believe Jesus Christ is God. Is it not cherry picking by Christians(Modern day Arians and Ebionites)? The rejection of Jesus Christ is God by Christians started in the early development of Christianity.
3. According to the nature of NT which has so many contradictions like God is immortal and God does not change and Christians cherry pick some verses to say God died and God changed is also a fallacy of cherry picking by Christians themselves.
4. Christians themselves cherry pick which story of Jesus should be canonized and rejected the gospel of Thomas and more as heresy. Who said the gospel of Thomas is heresy? God? No. It is some Church Fathers and therefore it is cherry picking over there.
5. We have King James only Christians who do not believe in any Bible apart from the King James version. Did they not cherry pick God’s word?
6. The Catholics, Ethiopian Churches, Protestants and some other groups like the Yadzidis have different verses in their Bibles. Are they not cherry picking?
You said;
Furthermore, I would be really interested to find any Christian writings in the early Islamic Empire that argue that Muhammad was prophesised in the Bible. I know that John of Damascus actually argued agains the argument by Muslims that Muhammad was the Paraclete.
I say;
You want us to believe in the Christian sources which said John of Damascus argued against Muslims with regards to Paraclete but you will not believe in Islamic sources that said Salman the Persian a Christian, got information from his Christian sources that prophet Mohammed is a prophet and searched and travelled till he saw Prophet Mohammed and accepted Islam.
Furthermore, Muslims preserved their scriptures by memorization written and chain of Narrations which is absent in Christian history and most of their texts are lost and the evidence is finding some documents later which has some texts that cannot be found in the already known texts. You consider the gospel of Thomas and others as not gospels but not me or other Christians who used them, or some scholars who believed is also a story of Jesus like the canonized ones.
Is a matter of believe that the gospel of Thomas or canonical gospels contains some truths and lies but there is not evidence because the writers did not document their documents well with their full names, where the documents were written, their city, their relationship with Jesus, which language they wrote their document, when and were it was written etc.
In the absence of all these authentication and validations, all stories about Jesus be it canonized or rejected stories by some Christians(Church Fathers) remains a heresy. I think is this is fair analysis and therefore it remains a cherry picking document because of the contradictions and lack of proper documentations.
Quran: Verse (4:82)
Sahih International:
Then do they not reflect upon the Qur’an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction.
Furthermore, Muslims preserved their scriptures by memorization written and chain of Narrations which is absent in Christian history. Most of their(Christians) texts are lost and the evidence is finding some documents later which has some texts that cannot be found in the already known texts. You consider the gospel of Thomas and others as not gospels but not me or other Christians who used them, or some scholars who believed is also a story of Jesus like the canonized ones.
Eric,
Thanks for the link to the book by Michael Philip Penn on Envisioning Islam. I had linked to that in an earlier discussion we had.
The part you put up is out of context. I am glad people can at least go and look it up. Penn wrote that there are two camps of Syriac sources; and that the one you put up is one of the views of the early Arab conquests by the Syriac Christians. (the other is the clash of civilizations view) And he wrote that that part that you quoted is very incomplete. Here is the full sentence:
“Primarily dependent on a single sentence from a no longer extant ninth century chronicle, they suggest that the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as “liberators”, setting them free from Byzantine oppression.” read pages 8-9 – the author is saying that is one “camp” of views, and it only on one sentence of a no longer extant ninth century chronicle.
Hamza Yusuf’s video is really bad. He is usually more careful than that. He makes many mistakes!
It is ridiculous to think that the Paraclete is Muhammad, when it clearly says:
1. He will be in the disciples of Jesus. (Muhammad cannot be in anyone.)
2. He is the Holy Spirit. (Muhammad is human)
3. He will glorify Jesus and speak of Jesus. (Muhammad does not glorify Jesus as the Son of God or Deity of speak of the glory of the redemption/atonement, rather denies all these things.)
4. He will come after Jesus goes to heaven. (500 years later is too late)
5. He will be with the disciples of Jesus forever. Muhammad never came until 500 years later.
The NT says Jesus is the Shafi’e الشفیع or شفیع (intercessor, advocate, one who prays for us). Romans 8:32-35; 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24
The NT says the Holy Spirit also prays for believers in Jesus as Lord and Savior. (Romans 8:26)
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
Hamza Yusuf says “they were expecting a prophet” – no they were not; they all believed that revelation was finished with the apostles and the NT. Even though the Nestorians (Assyrian church of the east) and the Miaphysites (Monophysites, Jacobite-Syrians and Coptic Church in Egypt and Armenian Churches disagreed with the Byzantine Chalcedonians about the nature of Jesus, they all accepted the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. In fact the Mia-physites emphasized Jesus’ divine nature as the one (Greek has two words for “one” – “mia” and “mono”), they believed the human nature of Jesus was “swallowed up int the Divine nature.
The NT texts do not say “that prophet”, just “the prophet” (John 1:21; 1:25) and they mean the prophet of Deut. 18:15, 18, which Acts 3:22-26 tells us that it is the same as the Messiah. Jesus was that prophet, and the Messiah, and the Son of God, and the son of man.
John the Baptist did not “baptize with the Holy Ghost” (Hamze Yusuf) – He clearly said in every gospel (Matthew 3:11; John 1:26 and with 1:33; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16); and in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16, “I baptize in water, but one who is coming after me is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
H. Yusuf says that Jesus said He has to leave so that the Holy Ghost could come “does not make sense” since the Holy Ghost is already with Him. Yusuf’s explanation does not make sense, since Jesus is not talking about Himself being anointed with the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit coming and baptizing/anointing/abiding in the disciples!
There is no textual evidence, not even a little – of any change from a non-existent and imaginary and speculation and 600 – 700 year later anachronistic περικλυτος (periklutos) = “exalted one”, “praised one” as somehow in the original teaching of Jesus Al Masih, to παρακλητος (parakletos) = “comforter”, “helper”, “counselor”, “advocate”, the only word used in all Greek manuscript evidence that we have in many copies of the gospel of John.
The true word that Ibn Ishaq used is “Munahhemana”, and is more different than the word that Hamzeh Yusuf used. Seems he was trying to make it sound more like Muhammad in Arabic, but the word is not that at all.
Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).
Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as that.
Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.
You said;
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
I say;
The proof is against you. Go to Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Muslim majority countries and you will find indigenous Jews, Christians and others who stayed with their religion from centuries to centuries and never forced converted to Islam.
They are still there with their Churches and attending their Churches and never force converted by anyone. Israel paid money for the Jews to migrate to Israel, but there are still Jews in the Muslim majority countries today practising their religion.
You said;
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
I say;
Why are there still Jews and Christians today who are indigenous and natives of the Majority Muslims countries? If economic oppression will force someone to convert to other religion, why are there still Christians and Jews in the Majority Muslim lands?
They proved you wrong, in that the Jizya is a tax but not economic oppression and the Jews of olden Spain and old Palestine will not agree with you as they prospered under Muslim rule.
The Christians did not allow Jews to prosper but killed them until freedom of religion. The Muslims from the olden Turkey accepted the persecuted and repatriated Jews from Europe and these Jews prospered in Turkey.
CNN Jason Carol made a documentary where the Christians of the USA returned a ship load of persecuted Jews back to Europe and they end up dying in the holocaust.
Muslims accepts Jews and Christians to prosper, Christians killed and not accept Jews, Muslims and some Christians for them to die. The prove is there on CNN, History books, BBC, Christian science monitor, libraries, archives, documentaries etc.
Just few years ago, Roman Catholics were persecuted and will not allow to live in the USA by the protestant Christians and Mormons were beaten and the Muslim slaves were force converted and would not allow to worship in White Churches.
There is no black Mosque or White Mosque and the one who said the first call to Muslim prayers is a black former slave and Paul Williams took his name Bilal.
The proof is there that, the Christians kill, exterminated and force convert the Muslims and Jews from Spain because there was no native or indigenous Spanish Muslim or a Jew at a point in time until Europe fought for freedom of religion and emigration and later conversion.
The government of Spain, two years ago enacted laws to compensate Jews with citizenship to pacify the atrocities of the Christians to them(Jews). I can give you proof if you want.
It is a fact that Europe and America, before freedom of religion, no single Muslim lives there. He would have been executed like how John Calving executed Michael by ordering his head chopped and burned.
The evidence is there that most slaves to America where mostly from West Africa-Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Liberia, Guinea, etc. and most were Muslims. In the USA almost all were persecuted and force converted to Christianity and the evidence is that most African Americans were Christians until the abolishing of slavery and freedom of religion then some of them started converting back various religion. They are still majority Christians.
Go to Iran or Iraq and ask a Jew or a Christian there whether he was force converted by Muslims. Not now when the evangelical Christians voted for war in Iraq that cause isis the trouble the Christians there because of power vacuum and now pushing for war with Iran to force spread Christianity in refugee camps full of women and children. It will cause anger for some to attach the innocent Jews and Christians in Iran living happily in Iran and will not go to Israel even with money offered.
Intellect,
most of those countries that you named have only about 1-3 % Christians, except the Coptic Church in Eqypt. (12-13 %) Syria used to have about 6% Christian, but I am afraid that is no longer, based on what we have seen in the last few years there.
The ancestors of those that are still left were the ones that kept paying the Jiziyeh. the Jizyeh stopped in the 19-20 Century in different countries, especially with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, or possibly a little earlier than that in some of the other countries. The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
Because Islam is just an external ritual – law / legalistic religion, many Christians just gave up slowly over the centuries and became Muslims because of fear and economic oppression and a slow drip of not being full and equal citizens with opportunities.
You said;
The ancestors of those that are still left were the ones that kept paying the Jiziyeh. the Jizyeh stopped in the 19-20 Century in different countries, especially with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, or possibly a little earlier than that in some of the other countries. The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
If you are poor you can still be a Christian in a Muslim rule without paying Jizya and the Christians who continue to pay proved you wrong Ken, in that it is affordable and they are able to pay and survived till this day and it means those who converted this so on their will but not because of Jizya.
If some Christians can still pay Jizya and not convert, after the Jizya was abolished those that converted because of Jizya can revert back to Christianity. We never saw any conversion back to Christianity and so your theory is not true and not backed by any history. There is not history to back your claim that Christians converted to Islam because of Jizya. There is much more tax to pay as a Muslim than Jizya and Muslims pay percentage of their total wealth to charity and it is obligatory. They pay zakat at the end of Ramadan and Eidul Adha and it is obligatory. Muslims have to fast and contribute for others to fast and help the orphans. Muslims are encourage to give alms(Sadakat) and to help families and others. It does not make sense to join Islam as a Christian to be paying all these and claim you better pay these different charity including a percentage of your own wealth to avoid Jizya.
Jizya is a tax but not a percentage of your total wealth, but as a Muslim it is obligatory to calculate your total wealth including your Camels, Sheep or livestock, gold etc. and now your total money and property and pay a percentage to charity. The Jizya is minute as compared to the Muslim system of tax and charity and you need to learn it and stop talking about un-historic conversion of Christians to Islam because of Jizya- I swear that is not true and there is no evidence to that.
You said;
The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
No, now there is hardships and economic problems in third world countries and both Muslims and Christians and Jews are leaving their countries for economic reasons and it has nothing to do with religion for these non Muslims were there for centuries.
The Yadzidis were there for centuries until the evangelical Christian crusade let war by Bush and Blair to spread Christianity by force in refugee camps produced isis to trouble the Christians and Muslims as well. It is the evangelical Christians who vote for war in Iraq and now trying for a war in Iran that caused the vacuum for lawlessness to get bandits from any faith and in this case isis to harass others. It is not Islam but those who vote for war-evangelical Christians.
It is historical fact that Jews and Christians prospered under Muslim rule and especially the Jews prospered in Muslim Spain and it is recorded in history and the Jizya did not cripple them. If the convert to Islam, the will pay more by calculated a percentage of their total wealth and or property but Jizya is just a levy or tax that is no where near a percentage of total wealth a Muslim has to pay including other taxes and charity which are obligatory.
You said;
The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
There are Muslims who live in ghetto in the Muslim majority lands and there are Christians who live in upper class neighbourhood. It is a fact if you visit the Muslim majority lands and some Christians are more elite there than Muslims. Nothing prevents non Muslims to achieve a higher social status.
You see Christians in higher status among Arab Muslims like Tariq Aziz who is a Christian and vice president of Saddam Hussein, Butros Ghali an Egyptian Christian and a former UN secretary General, Christian legislators in the Palestinian Parliament, Egyptian Generals who are Christians etc. The opportunity is for everyone and if you can learn to become someone nothing prevents you as a Christian is Muslims Majority land.
Go to Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai, Turkey etc. and the Christians do not live in ghetto and are rich and have higher social status and members of government and parliament. A woman Christian was once the prime minister of Indonesia.
US or Britain will never allow a Muslims president and Obama has to come and say he is a Christians before he got the nod.
Dr. Ben Carson said he does not trust a Muslim to be a US president and within 24 hours he generated more than a million dollars from evangelical Christians. The money got finished and he needs more from evangelical conservative Christians and compared Muslims to rapid dog but this time it backfired and he got a lot of criticisms and was exposed by the liberal media and his polls comes down because he was exposed as a liar.
Christians in Egypt are about 20% and Syria has more than 10% and some of them are army generals and public servants just like their Muslim counterparts. Even 12-13 percent is not a small percentage at all.
Islam and Muslims are more tolerant than Christians but Ken will like to turn it the other way round. I provided the facts and evidence above and that Ken did not tell the truth.
Some Muslims are living ghetto right now in Indonesia while some Christians are living in first class neighbourhood.
Obama’s mother did not live in ghetto when she was in Indonesia and Christian are free to practice their religion but any Muslim will not allow his child to be taught how to worship man, God-Man, or 3 people because it is against the Torah.
Eric,
Thanks for the link to the book by Michael Philip Penn on Envisioning Islam. I had linked to that in an earlier discussion we had.
The part you put up is out of context. I am glad people can at least go and look it up. Penn wrote that there are two camps of Syriac sources; and that the one you put up is one of the views of the early Arab conquests by the Syriac Christians. (the other is the clash of civilizations view) And he wrote that that part that you quoted is very incomplete. Here is the full sentence:
Ken, yes I think he is a fine scholar.
I am not out of context , I am afraid you are the one who butcher the context of what Mr. Penn purpose for writing his book.
The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations.
I don’t think you has read Penn’s book, coz you obviously missed this important point from the description of his book.
I give you the full context of his book in which part I quote:
Challenging the Standard Narrative
Most modern discussions of Christian-Muslim interactions travel the same route that Heraclitus did. As soon as they reach the time of Muḥammad’s death, these modern narratives also quickly move westward and ignore those Christians who lived under Islam. They instead concentrate on frequent conflicts between theByzantine and Islamic Empires, which continued until 1453, when Islamic forces took Constantinople, or they concentrate on relations between Islam and the Latin West.
A much smaller number of modern narratives, however, do allude to Syriac Christians. When they do, their fleeting references usually fall into two camps. The first camp is particularly widespread among popular writings and explicitly supports a clash-of-civilizations narrative. Its proponents first comb the Qur’an and Islamic legal sources to find the most belligerent references to Christianity. They then use a small selection of Syriac sourcesto support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims. The second camp goes in the opposite direction. Primarily dependent on a single sentence from a no-longer-extant ninth-century chronicle, they suggest that the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more Eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as“liberators” setting them free from Byzantine oppression. What unites these otherwise opposing camps is a belief shared by almost all modern narratives of early Christianity and early Islam, the belief that early Christianity and early Islam were clearly distinguished entities.
(Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8)
Penn challengesstandard hostile narrative about Islam examining Syriac texts and the re-envisioning of early Christian-Muslim relations that theyenable might affect modern western images of Islam.
Penn also propose two tendencies among Syriac discussions of Islam that are particularly upsetting to a clash-of-civilisations model:
The first tendency is a much more positive Christian depiction of Islam than that of most Western sources. Under Muslim rule, Syriac churches expanded to form the most geographically extensive branch of Christianity the late ancient and early medieval world had ever seen. Under Islam, Syriac churches stretched from Asia Minor and throughout the Middle East through Iran,Afghanistan, and Turkestan into India, Tibet, and China. In the Islamic Empire, elite members of this expansive church held key government positions, attended the caliph’s court in Baghdad, collaborated with Muslim scholars to translate Greek science and philosophy into Arabic, accompanied Muslim leaders on their campaigns against the Byzantines, and helped fundmonasteries through donations from Muslims—including money from the caliph himself. Syriac Christians ate with Muslims, married Muslims, bequeathed estates to Muslim heirs, taughtMuslim children, and were soldiers in Muslim armies. Members of the Syriac churches had avery different experience of Islam than did most Greek and Latin Christians.
The second tendency that was prevalent among Syriac texts which mentionedthe Hagarenes (muslims) returning eucharistic elements to the local bishops. Their actions seem less surprising after one reads numerous Syriac references to Muslims requesting Christian exorcists, attending church, seeking healing from Christian holymen, visiting Christian shrines, and endowing Christian monasteries. There are also references to Christians attending Muslim festivals, becoming circumcised, referring to Muḥammad as God’smessenger, and draping their altar with a Muslim confession of faith. Jacob’s tale is just one of many Syriac accounts that expose a much greater continuum between the categories of early Christianity and early Islam than most modern scholarship acknowledges. Their portrayal of aworld of overlapping religious influence, fuzzy boundaries, and categorical ambiguity is even more devastating to a clashof-civilizations model. Syriac sources suggest that early Christianity and early Islam were too interconnected to be completely separate entities, to say nothing of clashing civilizations.
Thanks brother for providing a historical evidence of Christians living freely with Muslims and God bless and do keep it up. At least you learnt Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, English and you are showing your knowledge here and elsewhere.
I wish Nabeel, Wood, Jay etc. learn some Greek, Aramaic and Arabic or Hebrew before they can tell us what the Quran says because scripture needs careful study of its language.
I repeat and for your reminder, it is obligated for a Muslims to calculate the total assets he has including his capital, money, gold, livestock, and properties to pay a percentage of it to charity and also pay other taxes imposed by the government including other different charities and sadakat(Alms).
The Jizya is a minute tax to pay as compared to what Muslims are obligated to pay and therefore totally false and without any historical evidence to suggest Christians converted to Islam because Jizya has crippled them and yet you admitted the ancestors of Christians in the Muslim majority countries continue to pay the Jizya.
So, it is affordable and Christians were able to pay till its abolishment and those who converted to Islam has nothing to do with Jizya because some of their fellow Christians did not convert to Islam because of Jizya.
It is irrational to run away from Jizya which is a tax to contribute as a non Muslim rather than calculate your wealth and pay a percentage, and join Islam that requires you to calculate the total wealth you have and pay a percentage of that and pay a lot of taxes, zakat and other Sadakat.
It is irrational and not true and better stop that or provide us with prove that Christians joined Islam because of the Jizya.
Jizya is not to be paid by a poor non Muslims, so the Christians could have stayed poor Christians. If they join Islam it does not mean they will be rich Mr. Ken because there are poor Muslims as well.
Who tells you all the Muslims were/are rich and if the Christians join Islam they will be rich. Where did you get that information from? Who tells you that if the Christians join Islam, they will be rich? or be relieved from the economic situation? come on we need proof and not sweet talk to support your Christian evangelism.
The Christians would have better stay as Christians because joining Islam does not guarantee their economic problems, because there are poor Muslims as well. Who tells you there were not many poor Muslims under Muslim rule? and yet they pay their taxes, zakat, sadakat and other expenses imposed by the religion.
There is historical evidence that the Jews in Islamic Spain flourished and prospered and were rich business people and the Jizya did not stop them. Ken stop that illogical and un historical, un reliable and un founded attack of Islam. Christians did not convert to Islam because of Jizya.
Thanks Eric for more information on Penn’s book, Envisioning Islam.
Thanks for putting up more extended quote from pages 8-9 on that issue.
I don’t see the page number for the second section you have put up. (the second section that refutes the “clash of civilizations” model) What page or pages is that quote from?
I want to get the book, but right now it is too expensive for me. I was looking at the preview that is allowed on the Amazon limited preview, and some at the google book preview. I still want to get it and read the whole thing, because he seems to say contradictory things.
Still, you didn’t comment on the part that said that one sentence (that they welcomed the Arab invaders as liberators) was in a no longer extant text, and that got repeated a lot.
The second camp goes in the opposite direction. Primarily dependent on a single sentence from a no-longer-extant ninth-century chronicle, they suggest that the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more Eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as“liberators” setting them free from Byzantine oppression.
It is true that the Syriac/Assyrian Church of the East expanded from N. Syria and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) up north and east along the silk road to China. Yes, I knew that. They were in the North along the silk road, but not south toward the middle and southern Fars/Pars Iran part of Iran. (the heart of Persian peoples)
They were allowed because Islam was NOT dominant in those areas yet. But later the Mongolian Invasions (Gengis Khan, Timor Lang, etc.) wiped out all those churches along the silk road to China. Then when Islam gained those territories back, there was no missionary outreach or growth of Christianity.
“Intellect”
the pact of Umar 1 (Ibn Al Khattab – the second Caliph- 634-644 AD) and its later developed form (Umar 2 – 715 AD) (Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz) – if you read all of those, it definitely shows that the Christians suffered and could not do anything except stay in the churches and shut up. There was not only Jiziye but Khoms (another tax); it was all economically oppressive and the other rules for Dhimmis (in the 2 Umar Pacts) were socially oppressive.
I will concede that I need to get that book and study that issue more.
Nevertheless, all the other points on Hamza Yusuf’s totally inaccurate video stand:
Hamza Yusuf’s video is really bad. He is usually more careful than that. He makes many mistakes!
It is ridiculous to think that the Paraclete is Muhammad, when it clearly says:
1. He will be in the disciples of Jesus. (Muhammad cannot be in anyone.)
2. He is the Holy Spirit. (Muhammad is human)
3. He will glorify Jesus and speak of Jesus. (Muhammad does not glorify Jesus as the Son of God or Deity of speak of the glory of the redemption/atonement, rather denies all these things.)
4. He will come after Jesus goes to heaven. (500 years later is too late)
5. He will be with the disciples of Jesus forever. Muhammad never came until 500 years later.
The NT says Jesus is the Shafi’e الشفیع or شفیع (intercessor, advocate, one who prays for us). Romans 8:32-35; 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24
The NT says the Holy Spirit also prays for believers in Jesus as Lord and Savior. (Romans 8:26)
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
Hamza Yusuf says “they were expecting a prophet” – no they were not; they all believed that revelation was finished with the apostles and the NT. Even though the Nestorians (Assyrian church of the east) and the Miaphysites (Monophysites, Jacobite-Syrians and Coptic Church in Egypt and Armenian Churches disagreed with the Byzantine Chalcedonians about the nature of Jesus, they all accepted the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. In fact the Mia-physites emphasized Jesus’ divine nature as the one (Greek has two words for “one” – “mia” and “mono”), they believed the human nature of Jesus was “swallowed up int the Divine nature.
The NT texts do not say “that prophet”, just “the prophet” (John 1:21; 1:25) and they mean the prophet of Deut. 18:15, 18, which Acts 3:22-26 tells us that it is the same as the Messiah. Jesus was that prophet, and the Messiah, and the Son of God, and the son of man.
John the Baptist did not “baptize with the Holy Ghost” (Hamze Yusuf) – He clearly said in every gospel (Matthew 3:11; John 1:26 and with 1:33; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16); and in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16, “I baptize in water, but one who is coming after me is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
H. Yusuf says that Jesus said He has to leave so that the Holy Ghost could come “does not make sense” since the Holy Ghost is already with Him. Yusuf’s explanation does not make sense, since Jesus is not talking about Himself being anointed with the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit coming and baptizing/anointing/abiding in the disciples!
There is no textual evidence, not even a little – of any change from a non-existent and imaginary and speculation and 600 – 700 year later anachronistic περικλυτος (periklutos) = “exalted one”, “praised one” as somehow in the original teaching of Jesus Al Masih, to παρακλητος (parakletos) = “comforter”, “helper”, “counselor”, “advocate”, the only word used in all Greek manuscript evidence that we have in many copies of the gospel of John.
The true word that Ibn Ishaq used is “Munahhemana”, and is more different than the word that Hamzeh Yusuf used. Seems he was trying to make it sound more like Muhammad in Arabic, but the word is not that at all.
You said;
“Intellect”
the pact of Umar 1 (Ibn Al Khattab – the second Caliph- 634-644 AD) and its later developed form (Umar 2 – 715 AD) (Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz) – if you read all of those, it definitely shows that the Christians suffered and could not do anything except stay in the churches and shut up. There was not only Jiziye but Khoms (another tax); it was all economically oppressive and the other rules for Dhimmis (in the 2 Umar Pacts) were socially oppressive
I say;
I read all those and it is clear the Jews were liberated by Umar. Umar and later Salahudin allow the Christians and Jews to practice their religion freely.
I do not know about khoms. I swear by God Muslims are obligated to calculate all their wealth and pay a percentage of it as charity, and pay any government tax in addition, and pay zakat in addition and if a Muslim has children let say 10 he has to pay zakat for each of them and any dependant of his who cannot pay, the zakat are multiple and not only one zakat, Muslim must pay additional donations, sadakat, contribution that are lawful and also that are voluntary to people in need and there are so many monetary requirement for Muslims.
All these are not requirement for non Muslims under Muslim rule and they cannot be forced for what they do not believe but to pay Jizya tax for them to be protected and also help the society and it has become an attack on Muslims by Christian missionaries who add lies on the Jizya.
So, you do not want Christians to pay anything to help the society under Muslims? or do you want them to be forced to pay this multiple taxes and monies including a certain percentage of all their wealth? as Muslims do?
Christians to evangelize and discuss their religion with adult Muslims like what we are doing here but the Muslims will actually not allow any one to teach their children how to worship man or God Man or 3 Gods just like how you will not allow a Rastafarian to teach or to evangelize your child on how to worship Emperor Haile Selaissie I, Jah Rastafari, His Majesty and the conqueror of the lion of the tribe of Judah and his Imperial Majesty.
It seems that the Dhimmi system was developed out of the Pact of Umar I (Ibn Al Khattab, 2nd Caliph) to later Mujtahids and the Pact of Umar 2 (717-720 AD).
From the wikipedia article:
Other scholars “. . . believe the document was either the work of 9th century Mujtahids or was forged during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Umar II (717-720), with other clauses added later. Other scholars concluded that the document may have originated in immediate post-conquest milieu and was stylized by later historians.”
Most of this seems very oppressive, both economically and socially.
The Points: [1] [2] [9][10][11][12]
The ruler would provide security for the Christian believers who follow the rules of the pact.
Prohibition against building new churches, places of worship, monasteries, monks or a new cell. Hence it was also forbidden to build new synagogues, although it is known that new synagogues were built after the occupation of the Islam, for example in Jerusalem and Ramle. The law that prohibits to build new synagogues was not new for the Jews, it was applied also during the Byzantines. It was new for the Christians.
Prohibition against rebuilding destroyed churches, by day or night, in their own neighborhoods or those situated in the quarters of the Muslims.
Prohibition against hanging a cross on the Churches.
Muslims should be allowed to enter Churches (for shelter) in any time, both in day and night.
Prohibition against calling the prayer by a bell or a some kind of a Gong (Nakos).
Prohibition of Christians and Jews against raising their voices at prayer times.
Prohibition against teaching non-Muslim children the Qur’an.
Christians were forbidden to show their religion in public, or to be seen with Christian books or symbols in public, on the roads or in the markets of the Muslims.
Palm Sunday and Easter parades were banned.
Funerals should be conducted quietly.
Prohibition against burying non-Muslim dead near Muslims.
Prohibition against raising a pig next to a Muslims neighbor.
Christian were forbidden to sell Muslims alcoholic beverage.
Christians were forbidden to provide cover or shelter for spies.
Prohibition against telling a lie about Muslims.
Obligation to show deference toward Muslims. If a Muslim wishes to sit, non-Muslim should be rise from his seats and let the Muslim sit.
Prohibition against preaching Muslim to conversion out of Islam.
Prohibition against the conversion to Islam of some one who wants to convert.
The appearance of the non-Muslims has to be different from those of the Muslims: Prohibition against wearing Qalansuwa (kind of dome that was used to wear by Bedouin), Bedouin turban (Amamh), Muslims shoes, and Sash to their waists. As to their heads, it was forbidden to comb the hair sidewise as the Muslim custom, and they were forced to cut the hair in the front of the head. Also non-Muslim shall not imitate the Arab-Muslim way of speech nor shall adopt the kunyas (Arabic byname, such as “abu Khattib”).
Obligation to identify non-Muslims as such by clipping the heads’ forelocks and by always dressing in the same manner, wherever they go, with binding the zunar (a kind of belt) around the waists. Christians to wear blue belts or turbans, Jews to wear yellow belts or turbans, Zoroastrians to wear black belts or turbans, and Samaritans to wear red belts or turbans.
Prohibition against riding animals in the Muslim custom, and prohibition against riding with a saddle.
Prohibition against adopting a Muslim title of honor.
Prohibition against engraving Arabic inscriptions on signet seals.
Prohibition against any possession of weapons.
Prohibition against teaching children the Koran.
Non-Muslims must host a Muslim passerby for at least 3 days and feed him.
Non-Muslims prohibited from buying a Muslim prisoner.
Prohibition against taking slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.
Prohibition against non-Muslims to lead, govern or employ Muslims.
If a non-Muslim beats a Muslim, his Dhimmi is removed.
The worship places of non-Muslims must be lower in elevation than the lowest mosque in town.
The houses of non-Muslims must not be taller in elevation than the houses of Muslims.
Houses of the non-Muslims must be short so that each time that they would enter or exit their houses they would have to bend, in a way that it would remind them of their low status in the world.
The Christian world was worn down by all this oppression over the centuries.
The pact is not reliable. The reliable sources indicates that Umar and Salahudin(Later conqueror) allowed Christians to stay and practice their religion to their(Christians) shock why such a thing happened. Umar was not happy on how the Christians desecrated the Jewish synagogues and ordered all synagogues to be cleaned for Jews to practice their religion.
The history does not agree with some of the pacts if you read history. Why will Muslims not teach Quran to people? It is un Islamic to say Muslims must not teach the Quran to people and it is part of the pact.
It is just like the NT and the Gnostic gospels without author, date and a place when it was written and may contain some truths and lies in it.
The history shows Muslims showed mercy to Christians and Jews and any Jew will attest to that. All Jews including Zionist Jews acknowledge the tolerance of Muslims but will curse Christians for the planned annihilation of Jews and Muslims are their saviours.
Brother Eric has provide you with some evidence with regards to a scholarly research based on a book written by a researcher. Read it and so many history about Muslims and they are free online. Read also what Muslims must pay and how a Muslim must pay tax for his dependants who do not have the means.
I do not see why you as a Christian will have problem with Muslims when you exterminated every religion other than yours and exterminated and annihilated yourselves until the liberals in the West saved the situation and allow the rule of law, constitution and freedom of religion.
Christians of the USA sent Jewish ship escaping persecution back to Europe for them to die in holocaust. The history says it the head of the caliph in the ottoman empire charted ships to convey persecuted Jews from Europe into his empire and it is a fact.
The Christian intolerance continue till this moment when any Republican candidate who attacks all Muslims will get his poll goes high with raising over a million dollar from Dr. Carson for saying he does not want any Muslim to be the president of the USA.
Tariq Aziz was a vice president to Saddam and a woman Christian was once the head of state of Indonesia. Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria, Syria, Jordan has got Christians in prominent positions.
Of course, the attitudes of the Muslim rulers towards their Jewish and Christian (and other non-Muslim) subjects differed from time to time, but putting that aside it would seem to me that the dhimmi system as described by classical Muslim scholars does not exactly present an interfaith paradise. As Dr. Sidney Griffith writes:
“Earlier mention was made of the special poll tax (al-jizyah), which according to the Qurʾān is to be demanded of the “People of the Book” living among the Muslims, and of the appropriately submissive, low social profile Christians should assume in paying in (9:29). Historically, after the conquest and consolidation of Islamic rule in the conquered territories, over a period of time a legal instrument known as the Covenant of ʿUmar gradually came into being to govern this low social profile expected of the Christians, Jews, and others who paid the tax. The stipulations came originally from the treaties concluded between the Muslims and the cities and garrisons they conquered in the seventh century in the time of the second caliph, ʿUmar I (r. 634-644), hence the name of the compilation of these and later stipulations, the Covenant of ʿUmar. Over time, other considerations dictated a more ideal approach to the matter, and by the middle of the ninth century, when the Covenant seems to have reached its classical form, legal scholars had elaborated several theological schemes for the governance of non-Muslims in Islamic society, some of which included a whole series of stipulated civic and personal disabilities thought to be appropriate to the status of those who by then were being called the dhimmī populations.
Classically, the tax (al-jizyah) came to be considered the price to be paid by the “People of the Book” for the special “protection” or “covenant of protection” (adh-dimmah) the Islamic government would then assume for them. It was thought this kind of answerability, even responsibility for dependent persons on the part of the government, not without a note of dispraise in the verbal root of the Arabic word, which basically means “to affix blame” or “to find fault.” Persons in this situation are then described by the Arabic adjective dhimmī, meaning someone under the protection and responsibility of the Islamic government. In modern discourse on the subject, the neologism dhimmitude has come to express this theoretical, social condition of Jews, Christians, and others under Muslim rule. In classical Islamic times the dhimmī populations were to be governed through the offices of their own leaders, who were then held responsible for both the taxes and the good behavior of those under their care. In later Ottoman times, this arrangement came to be called the millet system, a term frequently used for it by modern scholars.
There is no doubt then that in view of the stipulations of the Covenant of ʿUmar the dhimmī populations of Christians in the Islamic world were what we would now call “second class citizens,” if the term “citizen” can even be meaningfully used of people whose presence in the body politic is merely tolerated. The legal disabilities that governed their lives required subservience, often accompanied by prescriptions to wear distinctive clothing and to cease from the public display of their religion, and, of course, to refrain from inviting converts from among the Muslims. Christian wealth, buildings, institutions, and properties were often object to seizure. As a consequence, over the course of time, the number of bishoprics, churches, monasteries, and schools gradually decreased, having fallen victim to the very conditions of the official establishment of Islam. These circumstances of a necessity put dhimmī groups such as the Christian communities at risk, in spite of their numbers they became sociological minorities, subaltern populations subject to discrimination, disability, and at times even persecution. In response, their disadvantaged situation in life under Muslim rule inevitably elicited from the subject Christians both a discourse of accommodation and a discourse of resistance. On the one hand they attempted to compose a philosophical or religious discourse in Arabic for the sake of a clearer and more effective, apologetic statement of their Christian faith in their Islamic circumstances, and on the other hand they also produced a Christian Arabic literature full of resistance and of martyrdom, with a more polemical intent.” (The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, p. 15-17)
Marcus and Ken have already made good points so I don’t want to repeat but… Since the 1st century, no Christian group whatsoever were waiting for “another prophet”. No Gnostics, no orthodox, no Syriac, no nothing. That is more than enough to show that no one ever interpreted Paraclete to mean another prophet or messenger.
The only group of people awaiting another prophet is the Jews, since they reject Jesus as messiah and they also reject Muhammad.
There is no “that” prophet, Jesus was “the” prophet the Jews asked John the Baptist about. This is confirmed in later passages as already quoted above by Marcus.
Muhammad never quotes from the gospels or the bible to say where he is mentioned. That’s why these arguments don’t work.
There is a book compilation called “seeing Islam as others saw it” by Robert Hoyland which shows historical sources of different points of views people had about Islam in their time and regions. John of Damascus, a Syrian, is one of them. He never converted to Islam. The idea that all the people in these revelation cities converted to Islam is false.
Muhammad thought he was mentioned in both the Torah and the Gospel because his uncle and maybe some other people told him so. He didn’t actually read it himself, otherwise he would have simply quoted where he is found. Or if he couldn’t read and write, his uncle could have quoted for him.
I really can hardly control the laughter which threatened to choke me when I read comments by some of our christian brothers here. Although I do not participate in blog debates, a few comments do deserve refutations.
To begin with, the reason for which the controversial prophet of deuteronomy was needed is explicitly stated. Deuteronomy 18v15 reads
‘Let me not hear the voice of the lord my God nor see this fire anymore… THAT I DIE NOT (else we die)’.
This alone seems to sufficiently destroy the christian argument. Standard trinitarian theology teaches that God did appear again (as Jesus) and spoke to the Israelites directly. Prophet Jesus puts it nicely himself ‘He who has seen me has seen the father’.
(Never mind that Israel did contradictorily hear the father again in matthew 3v16).
Jews expectedly understood things in the first sense. None prior to the christian era seem to understand them the way modern Christians are trying to portray. The new testament(John 1v21) in fact states that they expected: Elijah, the christ and the Prophet. Unlike Bro Marcus’ wishful thinking, the context of the verse does not provide room for the amalgamation of two titles. Jesus clearly wasn’t Elijah and hence could not have been the Prophet. This is further bolstered by John7v40-43 which state that division occurred in a crowd because they could not decide whether he’s the christ or the Prophet.
Philip and Nathaniel surely must be talking of a different verse. With christians boasting of several pro messiah prophecies in the pentateuch, it isn’t surprising that Jesus claimed to be foretold by moses. The context of deuteronomy 18v15-18 just rules him out.
I’m yet to research the arguments for and against the paracletos to my satisfaction. I hence will not comment about it. However, I’d recommend a video in which Zakir Hussain baptised James White while debating the same topic. He literally did a good job arguing against a holy spirit paracletos. He also took a few fantastic jabs at pathetic points such as mr Ken Temple ‘s.
You said;
Muhammad thought he was mentioned in both the Torah and the Gospel because his uncle and maybe some other people told him so. He didn’t actually read it himself, otherwise he would have simply quoted where he is found. Or if he couldn’t read and write, his uncle could have quoted for him.
I say;
Prophet Jesus spoke Aramaic and not Greek and at his time Aramaic is both spoken and written language, so during the time of prophet Mohammed there was no individual copies of any past scripture like we have it today,
Both Christians and Jewish scriptures were kept in monasteries and synagogues and was controlled by priests and Rabbis.
There were so many stories and scriptures about Jesus Christ and that is why the Church Fathers selected some gospels and rejected some gospels and now some rejected gospels have started surfacing and Christians call them gnostic.
Why do they call them gnostic? Because it was not selected and so it is not true at the time of our prophet it was only the canonical gospels that exists. No, there are more gospels and some are surfacing today.
The Quran only state the truth among all the gospels or stories about Jesus be it gnostic, canonical, lost or hidden.
The Quran considers the gnostic, canonical, lost or hidden as the same by giving the correct story about Jesus, Christians believe in the Church Fathers’ selection but you do not expect Muslims to believe the canonical, gnostic or the lost gospels to contain some errors.
The writers of the gospels just like the writers of Umar’s treaty with Christians did not properly document their documents and therefore not reliable.
Umar sat down with Christians and Jews to sign a pact with them shows Muslims want to liv with non Muslims as the Quran says and it is a sin to force convert anyone and in general Muslims never persecute anyone as a state except some people like isis at that time who will violate Muslim principles, but a Muslim state.
Jews and some Christians will attest to the tolerance of Muslims towards non Muslims and after the wars in the Holy Land by Umar and later Salahudeen, the Christians were surprised when the Muslims allow them to stay and practice their religion freely.
It is because of Muslims that is why there are still Christian Churches in the Holy Land today. The is a big evidence to buttress the Christian missionary lies. Palestinians have Jews, Christians and Muslims among them and the last ruler of Palestine was a Muslim Caliphate. The Churches are standing there, the Palestinian people are there as evidence with Christians, Jews and Muslims as Palestinians right now.
The evidence of Christian intolerance is to look at where the Christians ruled i.e. England, Rome, USA, Spain etc. and no single indigenous and native Muslims was allowed to live there at certain point in time, until the Christians were defeated by the liberals and forced constitution, rule of law and freedom of religion.
The European Jews were persecuted and lived in ghettos and refused admission in the USA by the Christain rulers but the head of the Ottoman Empire chartered shipis to go and convey persecuted Jews from Europe to the Ottoman Empire. Any Jew including Zionist Jews will express their gratitude to Muslims for saving them.
Christian brothers and sisters, the evidence is there very clear Muslims are tolerant as their scripture tells them but the Christians are intolerant, no matter how you try to twist history and facts.
Just in the 1900’s, Catholics were persecuted by other Christians in the USA and Mormons beaten and today at this moment a Republican conservative Christian presidential candidate will raise over 1 million dollars from Christians by attacking in his speech all Muslims.
This shows how intolerant Christians are, but they will criticise others who have multiple evidence that they are tolerant. If some one will criticize Muslims of intolerance, it must not be Christians because it will be a pot calling a kettle black.
Christians deal with your intolerance first, when it started, it still continues.
It is ridiculous to think that the Paraclete is Muhammad, when it clearly says:
1. He will be in the disciples of Jesus. (Muhammad cannot be in anyone.)
Does that mean that the second person of trinity is the disciple of Jesus (p)?
(Jh 15:26-27) Jesus Says the Paraclete Bear Witness to Him , prophet Muhamad bear witness to Jesus many many times
2. He is the Holy Spirit. (Muhammad is human)
paraklétos or מְנַחֵ֖ם menachem
means advocate (in court), comforter, helper . It is not “spirit”. The original designation of this term are for human not spirt.
3. He will glorify Jesus and speak of Jesus. (Muhammad does not glorify Jesus as the Son of God or Deity of speak of the glory of the redemption/atonement, rather denies all these things.)
Muhammad (p) speaks of Jesus many many times, He corrected false teaching attributed to him (Deity human sacrifice)
4. He will come after Jesus goes to heaven. (500 years later is too late)
According to Ken. Where does it say it is immediately after?
5. He will be with the disciples of Jesus forever. Muhammad never came until 500 years later.
Nothing Jh 14:15-27, two suggest what Jesus means when he said: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” are only those disciples present with him. He meant for future generation.
Prophet Muhammad came to correct the false teaching attributed to Jesus, blood atonement, crucifixion so that the believers must worship to the Father, the God who sent Jesus, and keep the law .
God keep His promise to send an advocate who will teach all things and will remind future generation of everything Jesus genuinely have taught.
Could you please give me any evidence from the Syro-aramaic Christians that they regarded Islam as “a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.” The quote you provided only says that most Syriac Christians were glad that they were relieved from the oppressions of the Byzantines (who were Dyophysite, while in Syria Monophysitism was more popular). But that doesn’t mean that they believed that Islam was a genuine revelation.
My position don’t rely on just from one scholar. At first I am fascinated how Islam appealed to early christian and jews in the holy land, not the christian from greek and latin tradition.The promised Land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates are now overwhelmingly muslims .
There must be something than usual portrayal by Islamophobes and christian apologists that it was forced conversion.
Prophet Muhammad see himself and the Qur’an revelation as the continuation to Jesus teachings. But Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. Where is the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus? only small citation here in there in the NT. General scholarly consensus this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel has lost.
When you read the Qur’an in Arabic you will find many of the Qur’anic terms parallel with some of the surviving gospel fragments preserved in christian Palestinian syro- aramaic dialects.
Scholarly approach which have now taken a direction to explain this phenomenon that the Qur’an milieu had a established common understanding of christianity specifically through the Aramaic sphere: the monotheistic literary genre which Qur’an having conversation with.
Please refer to Qur’an scholar Professor Emran El -Badawi works on this topic:
The Qur’an and the Aramaic Gospel traditions
I purchased and read his book and I am fascinated by his argument that the Qur’anic revelation is actually a dogmatic re-articulation as well as responses to audiences familiar with aramaic tradition in the arabian peninsula.
So this makes perfect sense to me, the majority syro-aramaic christians of the middle-east understood what the message of the Qur’an and then had accepted then assimilated into the new distinct “muslim” community of believer and had taken sister Arabic as their language. For me as a muslim this thesis strengthens Qur’an claim that it is indeed the continuation and the preserver or original semitic revelation from Abraham to Jesus.
Of course there were fractions opposing view like Ephrem the Syrian, and most christian polemicists are keen to bring that as evidences to delegitimise Islam ..but as Professor Michael P. Penn has put it , there are “small selection of Syriac sources to support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims” (Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8).
But as a whole he argue syriac texts arepositive Christian depiction of Islam than that of most Western greek/latin sources. Penn also shows Christians appreaciate Muhammad as a leader who taught monotheism and enforced laws, making him an admirable bringer of order to people who had once been polytheistic bandits and even thought him a prophet.
like someone who commented above “blog debates ” aren’t my style either, but one thing that’s always coming up is this Quran /muslim oppression /violence against the Bible / Christian violence / oppression, I think Christian apologists need to stop the hypocrisy, the Quran is not half as violent as the genocidal, infanticidal malevolent bully Biblical God and please spare me the sugar-candy prince of peace Jesus ,if he’s God according to Christian theology he once (at least ) ordered and supervised genocide… add to that the kids who got mauled by a bear cause of a childish joke!
and please stop attributing modern, secular, liberal concepts of freedom of worship, conscience, etc to the Bible or Christianity exclusively, it simply is shameful when you realised what criminals did in the name of the church… “kill them ALL…GOD knows his own” that’s even against Christian heretics,…. by the way I’ll have no problem in accepting we’ve had excesses, horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam and we’ve DENOUNCED it but for people like Ken et al the excesses of a few is representative of the whole, the hypocrisy shows when cornered with the excesses and horrors on his side, what’s his response “erh those were bad Christians! “…
in addition, please buy the book, READ the book before you start correcting someone who had read it, if we’ve going to be hypocritical let’s be knowledgeable about it.
Of course, the attitudes of the Muslim rulers towards their Jewish and Christian (and other non-Muslim) subjects differed from time to time, but putting that aside it would seem to me that the dhimmi system as described by classical Muslim scholars does not exactly present an interfaith paradise. As Dr. Sidney Griffith writes:
While I agree Sidney Griffith seems like a fine scholar he has his Catholic bias in seeing the dhimmi.
I think you and other christians commenters in this blog fall into the Islamophobic line by selectively use historical record to measure Islamic “intolerance”.
You fail to recognise that Islam has strict moral conduct with regard to how to treat the non-muslims . Of course the favour the muslims to some extent but it does not necessarily mean discriminatory , however by christian medieval standards, the Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians was very tolerant indeed.
Main characteristics of Islamic sharia is this: desire by the Muslim state to regulate social interaction between muslims and non-muslims so that non-muslims were allowed concessions. History has shown Muslims and non-Muslims interacted and intermingled relatively freely in the neighborhood, in the marketplace, and at court, and that compared to the treatment of non-Christians in Europe.
Religious minorities under Islamic rule fared much better.
It’s easy to talk about the intolerance of the Christian empires in the past and how tolerant the Muslim empires were (for the most part it is true).
But in our modern times, which nations have learnt from the past? It is the “Christian west” which is now very tolerant of all religions and people can freely practise their religion in places such as the U.S. And UK. Regardless of persecution which happens to people of nearly all faiths, we are free to practise our religions by law.
Compare that with modern day Muslim nations and you find the complete opposite. Non-Muslims are not free to practise their religions at all in these regions.
Now what’s the relevance of me mentioning this? The relevance is a Muslim on this blog will tell me that modern day Muslim nations are not properly implementing sharia or Quranic commands. If so, why can’t you then see that those past Christian empires were not properly implementing Jesus’ commands in the gospel?
It’s very easy to apply double standards, but it happens on both the Muslim and Christian sides. You’re all applying double standards when you can’t acknowledge the good side and the bad side of the different religious empires.
If history were to be studied without bias, perhaps more people would get along.
I didn’t see your comment until just a moment ago, so here I can only give a quick, initial response.
“Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).”
To begin with, Muhammad wasn’t raised up from among the Israelites.
Your point about not the Israelites not having to speak with God directly is quite good, and I would have to look further into this issue. Note, however, that Jesus says in the Gospel of John that he only speaks the words of his Father (7:16-17; 8:28; 14:24; 17:8). So I would say that we have in John’s Gospel not God speaking directly to the Israelites, but the Father speaking through the incarnate Son, who functions as the intermediator (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6). I would advise you, however, to see if there are any Christian scholars who have addressed this point.
And of course my main point was that the Gospel of John itself says that Jesus is the promised prophet, which makes Hamza Yusuf’s appeal to it rather strange.
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“Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as
that.”
This passage actually seems to go against that:
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, and you will testify also, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26-27)
But even that may be the case, but there are many more points I raised which argue against Muhammad being the Paraclete. If Jesus merely had to pray to the Father, there would have been no need for him to go away before the Paraclate could come.
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“Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.”
John 15:17 (“This I command you, that you love one another.”) says nothing about the Helper (i.e., Paraclete), but I think you mean John 14:17. But the Spirit here IS actually the Helper, as the whole passage (John 14:16-17) explicitly says. So if Muhammad is the Helper than that means that he is already with the disciples, which was obviously not the case.
Again John 16:9 (“concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;”) says nothing about the Helper arriving on earth. John 14:17 says the Helper “abides with you and WILL BE in you”. The Helper could only come to (i.e., in) the disciples (16:7) after Jesus was gone. Obviously that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t already present on earth, and furthermore Muhammad of course never was in Jesus’ disciples (or anyone other for that matter).
By the way, do you have anything to say on the fact that Hamza Yusuf here uses the Gospel of John, which no Muslim would believe as authentic since in many instances it directly goes against the Qur’an?
“I think you and other christians commenters in this blog fall into the Islamophobic line by selectively use historical record to measure Islamic “intolerance”.”
I actually never appealed to the how Jews and Christians were treated in history (as said, it varied), but my quote was to show the way how some Muslim scholars understood the dhimmi system.
I did read how according to one classical Muslim scholar a peace treaty between a Muslim ruler and his Christian subjects should look, and it (among other things) forbade use of “our idolatrous language about Jesus, son of Mary, or anyone else to any Muslim”. The Christians in this peace treaty also had to wear their sash outside of their clothing and were not allowed to take the high side of the road.
“You fail to recognise that Islam has strict moral conduct with regard to how to treat the non-muslims . Of course the favour the muslims to some extent but it does not necessarily mean discriminatory , however by christian medieval standards, the Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians was very tolerant indeed.”
Yes, it might be tolerant according to the standards of its time. But I hope you understand that when I read Hadith like Sahih Muslim 2167a (see here: http://sunnah.com/muslim/39/16 ) that doesn’t really make me want to live in an state where Islam would be the state religion. Although I do of course recognize that Muslims have the right to decide how they interpret their religious texts.
That being said, we should not demonise the history of Islam, but neither should we pretend that everywhere where Muslims ruled there was an interfaith paradise.
“Prophet Muhammad came to correct the false teaching attributed to Jesus, blood atonement, crucifixion so that the believers must worship to the Father, the God who sent Jesus, and keep the law .”
But Muhammad’s teachings go very much against Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of John, where the Paraclete is mentioned. So Muslims can’t say that Muhammad is the Paraclete without having to cherry pick the Gospel of John. The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, as John’s Gospel explicitly says (14:16-17; 14:26).
“Prophet Muhammad see himself and the Qur’an revelation as the continuation to Jesus teachings. But Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. Where is the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus? only small citation here in there in the NT. General scholarly consensus this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel has lost.”
General scholarly consensus actually goes against the idea that Jesus had some kind of book known as the Injil.
“When you read the Qur’an in Arabic you will find many of the Qur’anic terms parallel with some of the surviving gospel fragments preserved in christian Palestinian syro- aramaic dialects.”
To me this only suggests that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity, perhaps the Diatesseron or the Peshitta. There are also possible other influences from Syriac Christianity, such as the works of Ephrem the Syrian.
“Of course there were fractions opposing view like Ephrem the Syrian, and most christian polemicists are keen to bring that as evidences to delegitimise Islam ..but as Professor Michael P. Penn has put it , there are “small selection of Syriac sources to support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims” (Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8).”
Ephrem the Syrian never opposed Islam, since he died in 373 CE. I mentioned him to show that the Christians in Syria believed in the crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus.
Someone above mentioned John 7:40-43 to say that there was a distinction between the messiah and the prophet. Actually Jesus was both the messiah and the prophet that people were waiting for, as already quoted by people above.
Also, in regards to the Paraclete, it is the Spirit not a human being.
John 7:38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
This links to the future passages from John 14 onwards when Jesus begins to mention all of this to his disciples.
Gospel of John is a “compound unity”, more than one author, there are different strands of paraclete-traditions (prophet to come/spirit) woven into one.
“I wonder what the context of this Hadith was. To cherry pick hadiths disregarding context can be very misleading. “
If you would be so kind to tell me in what context this Hadith was spoken, I would be much obliged. Notice, however, that Mr. Yusuf in the video did nothing but cherry pick the Gospel of John.
“After all, there is a verse in the bible that says “…there is no God..””
For some reason this reminds me of a nice anecdote about the dangers of reading the Bible as Augustine once did, i.e., opening the Bible and reading the first thing you see. It goes like this:
A man opened his Bible and read: “And he [Judas] threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.” (Matthew 27:5). Rather confused, the man closed his Bible and opened it again, this time reading the words: “Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”” (Luke 10:37). The man tried a third time, now reading: “Why are we sitting still?” (Jeremiah 8:14)
“However, I’d recommend a video in which Zakir Hussain baptised James White while debating the same topic. He literally did a good job arguing against a holy spirit paracletos. He also took a few fantastic jabs at pathetic points such as mr Ken Temple ‘s.”
That debate can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1T7AuTbv3E. I find it fascinating that in his rebuttal Mr. Hussain has to appeal to apocryphal Gospels. Of course, all the apocryphal Gospels that we know of (1) were written after the canonical Gospels; (2) never prophecies the coming of Muhammad. And of course Mr. Hussain appeals to the textual criticism of the New Testament, of course never telling us how did would exactly help his argument that Muhammad is the Paraclete.
Mr. Hussain cites dr. Bruce Metzger, who made the following remarks in an interview with Lee Strobel.
“As we stood, I [Lee Strobel] thanked Dr. Metzger for his time and expertise. He smiled warmly and offered to walk me downstairs. I didn’t want to consume any more of his Saturday afternoon, but my curiosity wouldn’t let me leave Princeton without satisfying myself about one remaining issue.
“All these decades of scholarship, of study, of writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text-what has all this done to your personal faith?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, “it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient.”
“So,” I started to say, “scholarship has not diluted your faith-”
He jumped in before I could finish my sentence. “On the contrary,” he stressed, “it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed.”
He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, “Very well placed.”” (Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, p. )
“Jews expectedly understood things in the first sense. None prior to the christian era seem to understand them the way modern Christians are trying to portray. The new testament(John 1v21) in fact states that they expected: Elijah, the christ and the Prophet. Unlike Bro Marcus’ wishful thinking, the context of the verse does not provide room for the amalgamation of two titles. Jesus clearly wasn’t Elijah and hence could not have been the Prophet. This is further bolstered by John7v40-43 which state that division occurred in a crowd because they could not decide whether he’s the christ or the Prophet.”
No Christian actually argues that the Jews in John 1:21 or 7:40-43 were right about everything they believed. The Jews also believed that the Messiah would expel the Romans. The Essenes to whom Mr. Hussain appeals to in his debate expected two Messiahs: a priestly Messiah and a royal Messiah. So your point here is rather moot, unless you want to say that God can’t do everything unless it agrees with what the people expected. And John 1:21 actually doesn’t speak about Jesus, but about John the Baptist.
“My criticism is that citing hadiths without any historical context is very unwise and potentially intended tendentiously.”
I fear that you may be right in your critique here. It was wrong of me cite this Hadith without looking at the historical context (if we indeed know it), and I would like to offer my apologies.
You said;
I fear that you may be right in your critique here. It was wrong of me cite this Hadith without looking at the historical context (if we indeed know it), and I would like to offer my apologies.
I say;
Thanks. Actually some of the Hadith are not reliable even the sahih because it was selected by men, rigorously though.
Prophet Mohammed himself greeting Christians and Jews and invited them to his Mosque several times. He sent his companions to seek refuge with a Christian king in Abyssinia and also it is clearly stated in the Quran the Muslims must dialog with the people of the book.
If we cannot greet the people of the book how can we dialog with them?
The Hadith goes against Prophet Mohammed himself who greeted Jews and Christians. It must have a context which I do not know.
Muslims do greet Christians and Jews today and the Quran said a Muslim can marry a Christian woman. If you cannot greet your wife how can you marry her?
It is a law in Islam to never force convert anyone because it is not sincere but to live with non Muslims side by side and it is against this Hadith. How can we live side by side without greeting our neighbour?
We would have all been sinners because we do greet Jews and Christians everyday and it is not a sin but peace.
May be someone can help us here other wise it is not reliable.
While I do appreciate the zeal christians on the blog have shown, I feel frustrated to find them contradicting one another without batting an eyelid. **They remind of mr Shamoun who (finding himself cornered) told me that God paid himself a price to appease himself **
Who in the name of heavens am I to believe? While Ken Temple and Max believe the paracletos has not been given then, Marcus somehow disagrees and quotes John who said it was in the disciples. Luke compounds the contradiction and declared that it led Simeon to Jesus even before he assembled those same disciples. A tale of a ‘funny’ gospel indeed.
Anyway, it will appear several brothers are missing my point. Keith Thompson in a widely celebrated article argued that whenever the God of the old testament speaks, the trinity is actually the one talking (for God is unchangeable and has been triune from the beginning) . Claiming hence that Jesus is an intermediary does not really solve the puzzle. It will merely meant God served as an intermediary to God. Whichever direction you do try to go, it just is non-circumventable. God was speaking directly to Israel (a violation of deuteronomy 18v15-16). Bro Marcus’ attempt at a defence therefore remains what it is; a bare wishful thinking.
I reiterate that the contexts of john 1v21 and 7v40-43 do not permit the fusion of the titles ‘the christ’ and ‘the Prophet’. Although the Jews could have been wrong (as Bro Marcus argued), the fact that neither John the baptist nor Jesus corrected them begs the belief that they most probably were not. Jesus in fact strengthens this when he urged Jews to ‘listen to the pharisees but never act like them’ (an obvious testimony of their well grounded scriptural understanding). When he asked the apostles shortly after the ‘crowd – division’ incidence on who they think he is, one of them had replied ‘You are the CHRIST, Son of the living God’. Jesus was hence neither Elijah nor the Prophet.
I perhaps might have to concur with Bro Marcus’ anti-muhammadan interpretation of John 14 & 16 for (at least) the moment. Though his points are not convincing, that he now talks about the Essenes means things are going rather wider and deeper than I am willing to dig. Must have to postpone it till my research is concluded.
By the way, I find the Bruce metzeger’s theory amusing. It isn’t even uncommon to find such among scholars. Dr William Lane Craig afterall still believes in the inerrancy doctrine despite admitting the story of the rising saints of matthew was fabricated. No surprises at all.
You said;
By the way, I find the Bruce metzeger’s theory amusing. It isn’t even uncommon to find such among scholars. Dr William Lane Craig afterall still believes in the inerrancy doctrine despite admitting the story of the rising saints of matthew was fabricated. No surprises at all.
I say;
Thanks brother for the reminder. Dr. James White said he will not teach some of the verses in the Bible in his Church. I think it is cherry picking by Christians themselves but they will accuse Muslims of cherry picking from the Bible.
The gospels including the canonical, gnostic, lost, hidden etc. are the same with no first and last names, where it is written, when it was written, the writers birth place or city etc. to verify its authenticity and so there are so many contradiction like God is immortal and God does not change.
Christians will cherry pick a verse and claim the Almighty God died for their sins and he changed by incarnation and adding a man to his structure.
That cherry picked verses contradicts the other verses that says God is immortal and does not change. If a Christian is cornered on why can the Almighty God die and the Bible forbids anyone to say God died? then a Christian will say the man part of Jesus died which means he separated the structure of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand if you say Christian are worshiping man, they will say no, Jesus is God-Man. They will say they are not worshiping a man but God-Man i.e. combining Jesus’s structure.
Paul Williams will tell Ken Temple that God did not die for your sins but a man and it is a lie to say God died for your sins. Ken Temple will reply and say no the God-Man die and some Christians will say only the man died and will separate them and some Christians will combine the man being and the God being I,.e. two beings combined.
Every person is a being so Jesus as the God-Man has 2 beings not 2 nature. Human being is a being not nature. God is a being i.e. divine being not nature.
Is God a nature? to merit Christians saying he is a nature in Jesus. Is a man a nature? Even if God is a nature and man is a nature the man, person or God cannot escape being a “being” without consciousness and or occupying space and have weight i.e. substance.
“Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).
Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as that.
Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.”
The hadeeth you cited is applied in a certain context that does not exist today and its harm greater than its benefit.
I know may Islamophobes are quick to use this hadith in isolation to discredit Prophet Muhammad (p), here’s additional hadith which provide the context from Sahih Muslim Book 39, Hadith 13:
قَالَتْ أَتَى النَّبِيَّ صلى الله عليه وسلم أُنَاسٌ مِنَ الْيَهُودِ فَقَالُوا السَّامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا أَبَا الْقَاسِمِ قَالَ ” وَعَلَيْكُمْ ” . قَالَتْ عَائِشَةُ قُلْتُ بَلْ عَلَيْكُمُ السَّامُ وَالذَّامُ . فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ” يَا عَائِشَةُ لاَ تَكُونِي فَاحِشَةً ” . فَقَالَتْ مَا سَمِعْتَ مَا قَالُوا فَقَالَ ” أَوَلَيْسَ قَدْ رَدَدْتُ عَلَيْهِمُ الَّذِي قَالُوا قُلْتُ وَعَلَيْكُمْ ”
Some Jews came to Allah’s Apostle (ﷺ) and they said: O Abu’l-Qasim (the Kunya name of the Prophet Muhammad), as-Sam-u-‘Alaikum, (meaning Death upon you or literally poison upon you). The Prophet said: Wa ‘Alaikum.
A’isha reported: In response to these words of theirs, I said: But let there be death upon you and disgrace also, whereupon Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said: ‘A’isha, do not use harsh words. She said: Did you hear what they said? Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Did I not respond to them when they said that; I said to them: Wa ‘Alaikum (let it be upon you).
Forcing a jew or christian to go down the narrowest part of the road was initially a symbolic measure to show Muslims dignity despite their enmity against Islam and Muslims at that time.
“Prophet Muhammad came to correct the false teaching attributed to Jesus, blood atonement, crucifixion so that the believers must worship to the Father, the God who sent Jesus, and keep the law .”
But Muhammad’s teachings go very much against Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of John, where the Paraclete is mentioned. So Muslims can’t say that Muhammad is the Paraclete without having to cherry pick the Gospel of John. The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, as John’s Gospel explicitly says (14:16-17; 14:26).
I don’t think there is any muslims from any madzhab persuasion who take position on the wholesale rejection anything attributed to prophet Jesus in the Gospels.
What the Quran warns is that that people of the book (ie. jews and christians scibes) came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel ) and removed and added to them.
Therefore woe be unto those who write the Book with their hands and then say, “This is from Allah,” (Q 2:79)
So muslims consider the Bible like the Hadiths but with less stringent authenticated method. The Bible were written-collected by men, and are based on the sayings-teachings of the prophets just as the Hadiths are with the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
However Muslims do not consider those who transmitted or collected the sayings-teachings of the Bible were inspired by God. They were all human and prone to errors and mistakes. The Muslim Scholars took a great care to make sure that the collection of the sayings by those men were authentic teachings of the Prophet himself by always putting the Qur’an and authentic hadiths as the criterion sort of filter the truth and the false from it.
“When you read the Qur’an in Arabic you will find many of the Qur’anic terms parallel with some of the surviving gospel fragments preserved in christian Palestinian syro- aramaic dialects.”
To me this only suggests that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity, perhaps the Diatesseron or the Peshitta. There are also possible other influences from Syriac Christianity, such as the works of Ephrem the Syrian.
Thats one way to look past it but to me this makes a perfect sense to me why the Qur’an actually serves as the continuation of genuine monotheistic tradition from Jesus (p) in Aramaic.
Actually the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of NT into Aramaic. For one thing, it is Syriac, not Aramaic (different dialects although very close). There were older Syriac translations are not that almost certainly go back to the second century like the Diatessaron but those are greek translation.
Jesus (p) and his disciples native language was Aramaic, so we must have this genuine aramaic gospel the original utterance of Jesus. To me this must be the original Injil the Quran mention about.
This continue to fascinate me otherwise relying on the work of men the greek, roman christian texts is the breakaway of this semitic tradition.
To me that why Islam serve as the torch bearer of this authentic tradition because it faithfully preserve semitic traditions.
“Of course there were fractions opposing view like Ephrem the Syrian, and most christian polemicists are keen to bring that as evidences to delegitimise Islam ..but as Professor Michael P. Penn has put it , there are “small selection of Syriac sources to support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims” (Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8).”
Ephrem the Syrian never opposed Islam, since he died in 373 CE. I mentioned him to show that the Christians in Syria believed in the crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus.
I m sorry I misunderstood you, I haven’t researched into Ephram the Syrian works.
But we never know whether Ephrem the Syrian actually understood the correct teachings of Jesus, I believe his view may be just one surviving records among many other belief of Jesus in the middle east each of whom claim orthodoxy. The fact remains those region who used to be carrying the Aramaic gospel traditions now overwhelmingly muslims.
Since I haven’t read El-Badawi’s work, I feel rather hesistant to delve too much into this subject, but here is my response to some of what you have said.
“Actually the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of NT into Aramaic. For one thing, it is Syriac, not Aramaic (different dialects although very close). There were older Syriac translations are not that almost certainly go back to the second century like the Diatessaron but those are greek translation.”
Of course the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of the New Testament in Syriac (actually a dialect of Aramaic). But to me similarities between the Qur’an and Aramaic or Syriac only suggest that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity. Now I’ve not yet read El-Badawi’s work, but this seems to be his position as well, since he writes:
“The most potent scriptures in the “Qur’ān’s milieu”‒that is, the religious, cultural, political, and geographical within which the text was first articulated and soon codified‒and with which it had to contend were: Hebrew Scripture and Rabbinic commentary (al-tawrāh; Q 5:44‒perhaps due to Muḥammad’s exchange with Jewish interlocutors), and the Gospel traditions (al-injīl; Q 5:47‒including other New Testament books). The letter, which left an indelible mark on the Qur’ān’s worldview, doctrine, and language via different Aramaic intermediaries, is dubbed here the “Aramaic Gospel Traditions”. Specifically, these are the extant Gospel recensions preserved in the Syriac and Christian Palestianian Aramaic dialects.” (The Qur’ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions, p.5)
In an interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2u-qXUDiFk) I listened he also seems to say that he compares the Qur’an to Syriac and Aramaic Gospel traditions and other Christian works. The only extent Syriac and Aramaic Gospel tradition that I can think of is are the Diatesseron and the Peshitta, both of course translation of (most of) the New Testament. He said that the even the idea of Islam can be related to the ideas of contemporary Syriac Christian writers (at ca. 23 minutes in). See also this article by El-Badawi and Reynolds here: http://global.oup.com/obso/focus/focus_on_quran_and_syriac/. I do not wish to offend you but it seems to me that by trying to defend the Qur’an by using the work of dr. El-Badawi you are reading scholarship hat support my theory that the Qur’an was influenced by its cultural mileu.
We simply have no evidence of any supposed Aramaic Injil that was preserved for seven centuries by some Christians, but of course we know of later Christian works written in Syriac and Aramaic. It would make sense that the Qur’an is influenced by these since: “Arabic speaking Christians lived in a state of diglossia, wherein they used Arabic for common everyday purposes and Aramaic (probably Syriac) for liturgical and religious purposes. It is they who were the cultural agents, this study argues, absorbing various elements of the Aramaic Gospel Traditions into the oral tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia, elements that eventually entered into the Qur’ān’s milieu” (The Qur’ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions, p. 8). And Sebastian Brock writes that the “claims that the Peshitta Gospels represent the Aramaic original underlying the Greek Gospels are entirely without foundation; such views, which are not infrequently found in more popular literature, are rejected by all serious scholars.” (The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, p. 58)
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“Jesus (p) and his disciples native language was Aramaic, so we must have this genuine aramaic gospel the original utterance of Jesus. To me this must be the original Injil the Quran mention about.”
But the evidence from the first century suggests that Jesus’ disciples were in agreement with Paul, and I have never seen any first century evidence that Jesus had a book such as the Injil.
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“This continue to fascinate me otherwise relying on the work of men the greek, roman christian texts is the breakaway of this semitic tradition.
To me that why Islam serve as the torch bearer of this authentic tradition because it faithfully preserve semitic traditions.”
While the Gospels were written in Greek, we can still find their Jewish (and even Aramaic) influences.
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“What the Quran warns is that that people of the book (ie. jews and christians scibes) came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel ) and removed and added to them.”
But I reject the idea to use a seventh-century work to select what and what is not historical, unless one can prove that it has some kind of greater authority.
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“But we never know whether Ephrem the Syrian actually understood the correct teachings of Jesus, I believe his view may be just one surviving records among many other belief of Jesus in the middle east each of whom claim orthodoxy. The fact remains those region who used to be carrying the Aramaic gospel traditions now overwhelmingly muslims.”
But we know of no Christians in the Middle East around the time of Muhammad who for instance denied the crucifixion and resurrection but still believed in the virgin birth. All the evidence we have suggests that the Syriac and Arabic Christians of that time believed in for instance the divinity of Jesus (although of course there were differences with regards to how this should exactly be understood).
By the way, I would advise you to read Ephrem. I’ve read several of his hymns on Paradise and they are quite beautiful.
Since I don’t think it’s wise for me to say more about the subject without reading dr. El-Badawi’s work, it may be best for me at least now to let this be my last word on the subject of the Qur’an’s relation to Syriac and Aramaic texts.
“Actually the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of NT into Aramaic. For one thing, it is Syriac, not Aramaic (different dialects although very close). There were older Syriac translations are not that almost certainly go back to the second century like the Diatessaron but those are greek translation.”
Of course the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of the New Testament in Syriac (actually a dialect of Aramaic). But to me similarities between the Qur’an and Aramaic or Syriac only suggest that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity. Now I’ve not yet read El-Badawi’s work, but this seems to be his position as well, since he writes:
You can not just cherrypick scattered internet citations. Buy and read the book! , Badawi refutes any old school idea that the Qur’an borrowed or was influenced from Aramaic Gospel tradition what he meant by Aramaic Gospel tradition is not that original Aramaic gospel (p 30 ), rather he makes his clear in his assumption that his use of syriac sources are not in any way reflect ancient Aramaic substratum going back to Jesus original utterances. However he said it merit scholarly examination that all current syriac sources contain philological evidence for an ancient Aramaic substratum dating back to Jesus prophetic mission. (p31).
He argues strongly that the Qur’an never was “borrowing” from the Aramaic gospel tradition, the view like pseudo scholar Luxenberg, but rather the Qur’an contains a smart “dogmatic re-articulation” of elements from that tradition for an Arab audience.
In conclusion Badawi also argue that the Qur’an is a collection of divine revelation which conversed with Aramaic christian spheres and cleverly employ terminology from Christin Palestinian Aramaic and Jewish Aramaic into Arabic cognate accusative grammatical construction المَفْعُوْلُ المُطْلَقُ maf’ul mutual , that are the hallmark if the cryptic prophetic speech in the Qur’an understand classical Arabic construct (p 216-217). In other words the Qur’an revelation deliberately engage a disputation with the aramaic gospel traditions of antiquity.
I do not wish to offend you but it seems to me that by trying to defend the Qur’an by using the work of dr. El-Badawi you are reading scholarship hat support my theory that the Qur’an was influenced by its cultural mileu.
You don’t seems to caught up with the latest discussion on this field. The scholarship don’t settle the issue that Qur’an was influenced by Aramaic traditions but rather the Qur’an a deliberate divine revelation that was responding to Aramaic traditions.
I invite you as a christian to consider the implication, something which has puzzled me as a muslim almost as long as I live, While Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. but why christians do not have in their possession the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus??
Christians use greek texts as their basis for understanding their saviour. What we have only small citation here in there in the NT. Generally it is believed that this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel had been lost. To be honest with you this is a very sorry situation if I am a christian.
Now consider the possibility that the Qur’an actually a narration which had a established an understanding of christianity specifically through the Aramaic tradition going back to Jesus directly, as its milieu. Based on that the Qur’an could have very well been divine commission sought to correct the sectarian understanding of what actual jesus message in his worldview, doctrine and language which had been lost and drowned by non-semitic ie. greek and latin traditions.
The Qur’an could have been the key to unlock the actual message of Jesus.
You said;
I do not wish to offend you but it seems to me that by trying to defend the Qur’an by using the work of dr. El-Badawi you are reading scholarship hat support my theory that the Qur’an was influenced by its cultural mileu.
I say;
No, the Quran is a divine revelation to correct what is wrong but not influenced by any one.
Why?
Because;
1. In some culture at Prophet Mohammed’s time, the Jews believe Jesus is not the messiah. If the Prophet copied or listened to their stories and formed the Quran as some Christian missionaries claim he would not have categorically correct them and say Jesus is indeed the messiah.
2. In some culture like the Jewish culture, they believed Jesus is may God forbid a bastard. The Quran categorically corrects them and said Jesus had a miraculous birth by the command of God which is “be” and it is correcting the Christians as well who said in their scripture that “the spirit overshadowed Mary” and Christians think it is God who unites with human in the womb of Mary for 9 months through in vitro fertilization to produce God-Man as in Pagan Greek, Roman Latin concepts of God coming down to have sex with humans to produce God-Men.
3. From the beginning of Christianity till today, it is not every Christian who believed Jesus is God or Trinity. Ebionites, Arians were persecuted by other Christians for rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ and Trinity. Today we have Unitarian Christians on this blog who argues more forcefully than Muslims that Jesus Christ is not God and Trinity cannot be logical and therefore false, Jehovah Witness did not believe the has all Jesus words.
The Quran categorically settle the dispute by not influence by any one and clearly stated that “Jesus and his Mother ate food” and therefore cannot be God. Was the Quran influenced by Jehovah Witness? Arians or Ebionites? Unitarians? No. The Quran is divine and does not have influence from any one.
4. There were/are different types of Trinity permutations with different persons like Emperor Haile Selaissie and Mormon Trinitarians and the Quran corrected all of them without defining any one of them but warning forcefully for the people of scripture not to say 3. Who the cap fit let them wear it. As simple as that.
If the Quran has any influence, Prophet Mohammed may God forbid would have been another second person of Trinity but prophet Mohammed warned his followers not to ever in their mind things he is God. He warns them to worship only one God of Abraham who is the God of Jesus, Mohammed and anyone.
THE QURAN IS A DIVINE REVELATION AND HAS NO INFLUENCE FROM ANYONE. There are so many points to prove that and the above should rest the case.
You said;
But we know of no Christians in the Middle East around the time of Muhammad who for instance denied the crucifixion and resurrection but still believed in the virgin birth. All the evidence we have suggests that the Syriac and Arabic Christians of that time believed in for instance the divinity of Jesus (although of course there were differences with regards to how this should exactly be understood).
By the way, I would advise you to read Ephrem. I’ve read several of his hymns on Paradise and they are quite beautiful.
I say;
Who tells you this? or where did you get this from? There were so many gospels and stories of Jesus circulating during our prophets time and are written or oral. The gospels of Thomas, Judas, Mary etc. and the gospels that were not selected and rejected by the Church Fathers were all circulating and some Christians accuse the prophet of copying and influenced by these gospels and stories for instance the gospel of Thomas or infancy gospels.
The Quran corrected the infancy gospel but not copied from it. Why? there are weird stories about Jesus in it like some stories in the canonical gospels of ghosts coming from their graves in the NT and handling of snakes that killed so many pastors and other pastors will not teach it in their Churches.
The Quran only corrected the infancy gospels and said Jesus miracles includes making clay birds.
“To begin with, Muhammad wasn’t raised up from among the Israelites.”
Deuteronomy 18:18 does not say that the prophet will be exclusively an Israelite prophet and note that Jesus was neither from any tribe of Israel, since he was born miraculously and had no father to determine his tribe-ship
You wrote:
“Note, however, that Jesus says in the Gospel of John that he only speaks the words of his Father (7:16-17; 8:28; 14:24; 17:8). So I would say that we have in John’s Gospel not God speaking directly to the Israelites, but the Father speaking through the incarnate Son, who functions as the intermediator (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6).”
Granting all of this, Jesus then cannot be God because the Israelites did not wanted God speaking to the directly. If Jesus is God, even if his the second person of the Trinity, then that is still God speaking to them directly. Also, Deuteronomy does not make this subtle distinction but it’s Christians reading into the texts.
You wrote:
” This passage actually seems to go against that:
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, and you will testify also, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26-27)”
I don’t see how the passage goes against what I wrote. Yes, Jesus will send the Helper but by what means? Jesus will pray and the Father in answers to Jesus’ prayer will send the Helper.
You wrote:
“If Jesus merely had to pray to the Father, there would have been no need for him to go away before the Paraclate could come.”
Part of Jesus’ prayers being answered and fulfilled is by Jesus going away for the Helper to be sent by God according to John 16:7
You wrote:
“By the way, do you have anything to say on the fact that Hamza Yusuf here uses the Gospel of John, which no Muslim would believe as authentic since in many instances it directly goes against the Qur’an?”
Yes, authentic but not 100% authentic but based on core information that originally came from Jesus’ historical ministry. It’s about becoming a detective and doing detective work.
Blogging Theology 
Shaykh Hamza bring a very important point: notwithstanding what western christians from greek and latin tradition want to portray Islam as heresy to their belief sort of clash of civilization forceful encounter , middle eastern christianity notably from the syro-aramaic christian tradition portray Islam as a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.
Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn; p9
This explain why the mass conversion of the christian and jews in the holy land: the promised Land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates are now overwhelmingly muslims .
Despite the Islamophobes and christian apologists effort to portray forced Islamic conversion to explain this phenomenon, this is far from the truth:
As Ira M. Lapidus is an Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic History, wrote
A History of Islamic Societies: Ira M. Lapidus
http://www.amazon.com/History-Islamic-Societies-Ira-Lapidus/dp/0521779332
So much for conversions by sword myth.
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Wow, what an amazing less than 5 minutes of youtube that is essential for all to hear.
Thanks to those who made the youtube, thanks to Paul for posting it, thanks to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf for articulating it so clearly, thanks to the Prophet for being who he is, thanks to God Almighty for making Prophet Muhammad, sending him to us, and providing us these clear prophecies.
I knew some of this before but some of this is news to me…for example that paraclete refers so clearly to the Prophet Muhammad and is beautifully connected to the name Ahmad of the Prophet on Day of Judgement.
God is the greatest.
Peace to all.
Thanks!
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Hamza Yusuf basically made two arguments:
– Muhammad is the Prophet mentioned in John 1:21. However, a bit later the text mentions that Philip says to Nathanael “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote‒Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Jesus also mentions that Moses wrote about Jesus (John 5:46) and in the next chapter the people say about Jesus: “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14).
– Muhammad is the Paraclete from John’s gospel. He argued that the Holy Spirit cannot be the Paraclete because he was already present. However, this is not denied the gospel. In fact Jesus says the following:
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper [i.e., the Paraclete], that he may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17).
How can Muhammad be the Paraclete when he was already with the disciples, and when Jesus says that he will be with them forever? Rather, John’s Gospel has Jesus explicitly saying that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). Furthermore, Jesus actually sends the Paraclete (John 15:26; 16:7), while I do not know of any Muslim who believes that Muhammad was sent by Jesus. And the whole argument becomes even more problematic when we read that the Paraclete “will glorify me, for he [the Paraclete] will take of mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:14-15). Can any Muslim really believe that all things of the Father belong to Jesus?
Of course, both of Mr. Yusuf’s arguments are based on the reliability of John Gospel, which is generally regarded as historically unreliable by Muslims. One cannot simply say that John Gospel is unreliable, except for the passages that may prophesise the coming of Muhammad (fallacy of cherry picking).
Furthermore, I would be really interested to find any Christian writings in the early Islamic Empire that argue that Muhammad was prophesised in the Bible. I know that John of Damascus actually argued agains the argument by Muslims that Muhammad was the Paraclete.
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Dear Eric, you made the following argument:
“Shaykh Hamza bring a very important point: notwithstanding what western christians from greek and latin tradition want to portray Islam as heresy to their belief sort of clash of civilization forceful encounter , middle eastern christianity notably from the syro-aramaic christian tradition portray Islam as a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.”
Could you please give me any evidence from the Syro-aramaic Christians that they regarded Islam as “a positive and genuine revelation, a continuation to their tradition.” The quote you provided only says that most Syriac Christians were glad that they were relieved from the oppressions of the Byzantines (who were Dyophysite, while in Syria Monophysitism was more popular). But that doesn’t mean that they believed that Islam was a genuine revelation. In fact, one of the first Christian refutations of Islam was written by the Syrian monk John of Damascus. And the Syriac Christians seem to have believed in the divinity of Jesus, the crucifixion and the resurrection. See for instance the works of Ephrem the Syrian.
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Marcus
You said;
Of course, both of Mr. Yusuf’s arguments are based on the reliability of John Gospel, which is generally regarded as historically unreliable by Muslims. One cannot simply say that John Gospel is unreliable, except for the passages that may prophesise the coming of Muhammad (fallacy of cherry picking).
I say;
I understand your frustration when it comes to cherry picking. Mr. Marcus, do not blame Muslims for cherry picking but blame the writers of your scriptures who added contradictions in the NT and OT to some extent.
Why?
1. Christians themselves are cherry picking from their scriptures and Dr. James White will cherry pick some verses he will not preach in his church. Is it not cherry picking by Christians?
2. The Jehovah Witness believed there are so many errors in the Bible and do not believe Jesus Christ is God. Is it not cherry picking by Christians(Modern day Arians and Ebionites)? The rejection of Jesus Christ is God by Christians started in the early development of Christianity.
3. According to the nature of NT which has so many contradictions like God is immortal and God does not change and Christians cherry pick some verses to say God died and God changed is also a fallacy of cherry picking by Christians themselves.
4. Christians themselves cherry pick which story of Jesus should be canonized and rejected the gospel of Thomas and more as heresy. Who said the gospel of Thomas is heresy? God? No. It is some Church Fathers and therefore it is cherry picking over there.
5. We have King James only Christians who do not believe in any Bible apart from the King James version. Did they not cherry pick God’s word?
6. The Catholics, Ethiopian Churches, Protestants and some other groups like the Yadzidis have different verses in their Bibles. Are they not cherry picking?
You said;
Furthermore, I would be really interested to find any Christian writings in the early Islamic Empire that argue that Muhammad was prophesised in the Bible. I know that John of Damascus actually argued agains the argument by Muslims that Muhammad was the Paraclete.
I say;
You want us to believe in the Christian sources which said John of Damascus argued against Muslims with regards to Paraclete but you will not believe in Islamic sources that said Salman the Persian a Christian, got information from his Christian sources that prophet Mohammed is a prophet and searched and travelled till he saw Prophet Mohammed and accepted Islam.
Furthermore, Muslims preserved their scriptures by memorization written and chain of Narrations which is absent in Christian history and most of their texts are lost and the evidence is finding some documents later which has some texts that cannot be found in the already known texts. You consider the gospel of Thomas and others as not gospels but not me or other Christians who used them, or some scholars who believed is also a story of Jesus like the canonized ones.
Is a matter of believe that the gospel of Thomas or canonical gospels contains some truths and lies but there is not evidence because the writers did not document their documents well with their full names, where the documents were written, their city, their relationship with Jesus, which language they wrote their document, when and were it was written etc.
In the absence of all these authentication and validations, all stories about Jesus be it canonized or rejected stories by some Christians(Church Fathers) remains a heresy. I think is this is fair analysis and therefore it remains a cherry picking document because of the contradictions and lack of proper documentations.
Quran: Verse (4:82)
Sahih International:
Then do they not reflect upon the Qur’an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction.
Thanks.
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corrections in the second paragraph.
Furthermore, Muslims preserved their scriptures by memorization written and chain of Narrations which is absent in Christian history. Most of their(Christians) texts are lost and the evidence is finding some documents later which has some texts that cannot be found in the already known texts. You consider the gospel of Thomas and others as not gospels but not me or other Christians who used them, or some scholars who believed is also a story of Jesus like the canonized ones.
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Eric,
Thanks for the link to the book by Michael Philip Penn on Envisioning Islam. I had linked to that in an earlier discussion we had.
The part you put up is out of context. I am glad people can at least go and look it up. Penn wrote that there are two camps of Syriac sources; and that the one you put up is one of the views of the early Arab conquests by the Syriac Christians. (the other is the clash of civilizations view) And he wrote that that part that you quoted is very incomplete. Here is the full sentence:
“Primarily dependent on a single sentence from a no longer extant ninth century chronicle, they suggest that the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as “liberators”, setting them free from Byzantine oppression.” read pages 8-9 – the author is saying that is one “camp” of views, and it only on one sentence of a no longer extant ninth century chronicle.
Hamza Yusuf’s video is really bad. He is usually more careful than that. He makes many mistakes!
It is ridiculous to think that the Paraclete is Muhammad, when it clearly says:
1. He will be in the disciples of Jesus. (Muhammad cannot be in anyone.)
2. He is the Holy Spirit. (Muhammad is human)
3. He will glorify Jesus and speak of Jesus. (Muhammad does not glorify Jesus as the Son of God or Deity of speak of the glory of the redemption/atonement, rather denies all these things.)
4. He will come after Jesus goes to heaven. (500 years later is too late)
5. He will be with the disciples of Jesus forever. Muhammad never came until 500 years later.
The NT says Jesus is the Shafi’e الشفیع or شفیع (intercessor, advocate, one who prays for us). Romans 8:32-35; 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24
The NT says the Holy Spirit also prays for believers in Jesus as Lord and Savior. (Romans 8:26)
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
Hamza Yusuf says “they were expecting a prophet” – no they were not; they all believed that revelation was finished with the apostles and the NT. Even though the Nestorians (Assyrian church of the east) and the Miaphysites (Monophysites, Jacobite-Syrians and Coptic Church in Egypt and Armenian Churches disagreed with the Byzantine Chalcedonians about the nature of Jesus, they all accepted the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. In fact the Mia-physites emphasized Jesus’ divine nature as the one (Greek has two words for “one” – “mia” and “mono”), they believed the human nature of Jesus was “swallowed up int the Divine nature.
The NT texts do not say “that prophet”, just “the prophet” (John 1:21; 1:25) and they mean the prophet of Deut. 18:15, 18, which Acts 3:22-26 tells us that it is the same as the Messiah. Jesus was that prophet, and the Messiah, and the Son of God, and the son of man.
John the Baptist did not “baptize with the Holy Ghost” (Hamze Yusuf) – He clearly said in every gospel (Matthew 3:11; John 1:26 and with 1:33; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16); and in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16, “I baptize in water, but one who is coming after me is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
H. Yusuf says that Jesus said He has to leave so that the Holy Ghost could come “does not make sense” since the Holy Ghost is already with Him. Yusuf’s explanation does not make sense, since Jesus is not talking about Himself being anointed with the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit coming and baptizing/anointing/abiding in the disciples!
There is no textual evidence, not even a little – of any change from a non-existent and imaginary and speculation and 600 – 700 year later anachronistic περικλυτος (periklutos) = “exalted one”, “praised one” as somehow in the original teaching of Jesus Al Masih, to παρακλητος (parakletos) = “comforter”, “helper”, “counselor”, “advocate”, the only word used in all Greek manuscript evidence that we have in many copies of the gospel of John.
The true word that Ibn Ishaq used is “Munahhemana”, and is more different than the word that Hamzeh Yusuf used. Seems he was trying to make it sound more like Muhammad in Arabic, but the word is not that at all.
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Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).
Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as that.
Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.
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Ken Temple
You said;
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
I say;
The proof is against you. Go to Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Muslim majority countries and you will find indigenous Jews, Christians and others who stayed with their religion from centuries to centuries and never forced converted to Islam.
They are still there with their Churches and attending their Churches and never force converted by anyone. Israel paid money for the Jews to migrate to Israel, but there are still Jews in the Muslim majority countries today practising their religion.
You said;
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
I say;
Why are there still Jews and Christians today who are indigenous and natives of the Majority Muslims countries? If economic oppression will force someone to convert to other religion, why are there still Christians and Jews in the Majority Muslim lands?
They proved you wrong, in that the Jizya is a tax but not economic oppression and the Jews of olden Spain and old Palestine will not agree with you as they prospered under Muslim rule.
The Christians did not allow Jews to prosper but killed them until freedom of religion. The Muslims from the olden Turkey accepted the persecuted and repatriated Jews from Europe and these Jews prospered in Turkey.
CNN Jason Carol made a documentary where the Christians of the USA returned a ship load of persecuted Jews back to Europe and they end up dying in the holocaust.
Muslims accepts Jews and Christians to prosper, Christians killed and not accept Jews, Muslims and some Christians for them to die. The prove is there on CNN, History books, BBC, Christian science monitor, libraries, archives, documentaries etc.
Just few years ago, Roman Catholics were persecuted and will not allow to live in the USA by the protestant Christians and Mormons were beaten and the Muslim slaves were force converted and would not allow to worship in White Churches.
There is no black Mosque or White Mosque and the one who said the first call to Muslim prayers is a black former slave and Paul Williams took his name Bilal.
The proof is there that, the Christians kill, exterminated and force convert the Muslims and Jews from Spain because there was no native or indigenous Spanish Muslim or a Jew at a point in time until Europe fought for freedom of religion and emigration and later conversion.
The government of Spain, two years ago enacted laws to compensate Jews with citizenship to pacify the atrocities of the Christians to them(Jews). I can give you proof if you want.
It is a fact that Europe and America, before freedom of religion, no single Muslim lives there. He would have been executed like how John Calving executed Michael by ordering his head chopped and burned.
The evidence is there that most slaves to America where mostly from West Africa-Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Liberia, Guinea, etc. and most were Muslims. In the USA almost all were persecuted and force converted to Christianity and the evidence is that most African Americans were Christians until the abolishing of slavery and freedom of religion then some of them started converting back various religion. They are still majority Christians.
Go to Iran or Iraq and ask a Jew or a Christian there whether he was force converted by Muslims. Not now when the evangelical Christians voted for war in Iraq that cause isis the trouble the Christians there because of power vacuum and now pushing for war with Iran to force spread Christianity in refugee camps full of women and children. It will cause anger for some to attach the innocent Jews and Christians in Iran living happily in Iran and will not go to Israel even with money offered.
Thanks.
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Intellect,
most of those countries that you named have only about 1-3 % Christians, except the Coptic Church in Eqypt. (12-13 %) Syria used to have about 6% Christian, but I am afraid that is no longer, based on what we have seen in the last few years there.
The ancestors of those that are still left were the ones that kept paying the Jiziyeh. the Jizyeh stopped in the 19-20 Century in different countries, especially with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, or possibly a little earlier than that in some of the other countries. The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
Because Islam is just an external ritual – law / legalistic religion, many Christians just gave up slowly over the centuries and became Muslims because of fear and economic oppression and a slow drip of not being full and equal citizens with opportunities.
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You said;
The ancestors of those that are still left were the ones that kept paying the Jiziyeh. the Jizyeh stopped in the 19-20 Century in different countries, especially with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, or possibly a little earlier than that in some of the other countries. The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
If you are poor you can still be a Christian in a Muslim rule without paying Jizya and the Christians who continue to pay proved you wrong Ken, in that it is affordable and they are able to pay and survived till this day and it means those who converted this so on their will but not because of Jizya.
If some Christians can still pay Jizya and not convert, after the Jizya was abolished those that converted because of Jizya can revert back to Christianity. We never saw any conversion back to Christianity and so your theory is not true and not backed by any history. There is not history to back your claim that Christians converted to Islam because of Jizya. There is much more tax to pay as a Muslim than Jizya and Muslims pay percentage of their total wealth to charity and it is obligatory. They pay zakat at the end of Ramadan and Eidul Adha and it is obligatory. Muslims have to fast and contribute for others to fast and help the orphans. Muslims are encourage to give alms(Sadakat) and to help families and others. It does not make sense to join Islam as a Christian to be paying all these and claim you better pay these different charity including a percentage of your own wealth to avoid Jizya.
Jizya is a tax but not a percentage of your total wealth, but as a Muslim it is obligatory to calculate your total wealth including your Camels, Sheep or livestock, gold etc. and now your total money and property and pay a percentage to charity. The Jizya is minute as compared to the Muslim system of tax and charity and you need to learn it and stop talking about un-historic conversion of Christians to Islam because of Jizya- I swear that is not true and there is no evidence to that.
You said;
The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
No, now there is hardships and economic problems in third world countries and both Muslims and Christians and Jews are leaving their countries for economic reasons and it has nothing to do with religion for these non Muslims were there for centuries.
The Yadzidis were there for centuries until the evangelical Christian crusade let war by Bush and Blair to spread Christianity by force in refugee camps produced isis to trouble the Christians and Muslims as well. It is the evangelical Christians who vote for war in Iraq and now trying for a war in Iran that caused the vacuum for lawlessness to get bandits from any faith and in this case isis to harass others. It is not Islam but those who vote for war-evangelical Christians.
It is historical fact that Jews and Christians prospered under Muslim rule and especially the Jews prospered in Muslim Spain and it is recorded in history and the Jizya did not cripple them. If the convert to Islam, the will pay more by calculated a percentage of their total wealth and or property but Jizya is just a levy or tax that is no where near a percentage of total wealth a Muslim has to pay including other taxes and charity which are obligatory.
Thanks.
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Ken Temple
You said;
The Christians and Jews today that still survive are not free to do evangelism and they exist in great poverty and ghetto type communities. Life is terrible for them and they keep leaving year after year.
I say;
There are Muslims who live in ghetto in the Muslim majority lands and there are Christians who live in upper class neighbourhood. It is a fact if you visit the Muslim majority lands and some Christians are more elite there than Muslims. Nothing prevents non Muslims to achieve a higher social status.
You see Christians in higher status among Arab Muslims like Tariq Aziz who is a Christian and vice president of Saddam Hussein, Butros Ghali an Egyptian Christian and a former UN secretary General, Christian legislators in the Palestinian Parliament, Egyptian Generals who are Christians etc. The opportunity is for everyone and if you can learn to become someone nothing prevents you as a Christian is Muslims Majority land.
Go to Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai, Turkey etc. and the Christians do not live in ghetto and are rich and have higher social status and members of government and parliament. A woman Christian was once the prime minister of Indonesia.
US or Britain will never allow a Muslims president and Obama has to come and say he is a Christians before he got the nod.
Dr. Ben Carson said he does not trust a Muslim to be a US president and within 24 hours he generated more than a million dollars from evangelical Christians. The money got finished and he needs more from evangelical conservative Christians and compared Muslims to rapid dog but this time it backfired and he got a lot of criticisms and was exposed by the liberal media and his polls comes down because he was exposed as a liar.
Christians in Egypt are about 20% and Syria has more than 10% and some of them are army generals and public servants just like their Muslim counterparts. Even 12-13 percent is not a small percentage at all.
Islam and Muslims are more tolerant than Christians but Ken will like to turn it the other way round. I provided the facts and evidence above and that Ken did not tell the truth.
Some Muslims are living ghetto right now in Indonesia while some Christians are living in first class neighbourhood.
Obama’s mother did not live in ghetto when she was in Indonesia and Christian are free to practice their religion but any Muslim will not allow his child to be taught how to worship man, God-Man, or 3 people because it is against the Torah.
Thanks.
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“Because Islam is just an external ritual – law / legalistic religion”
This shows just how ignorant you are about Islam Ken.
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With the Name of Allah the Gracious the Merciful
KT:
Ken, yes I think he is a fine scholar.
I am not out of context , I am afraid you are the one who butcher the context of what Mr. Penn purpose for writing his book.
The description of Envisioning Islam reads as follows:
I don’t think you has read Penn’s book, coz you obviously missed this important point from the description of his book.
I give you the full context of his book in which part I quote:
Penn challenges standard hostile narrative about Islam examining Syriac texts and the re-envisioning of early Christian-Muslim relations that they enable might affect modern western images of Islam.
Penn also propose two tendencies among Syriac discussions of Islam that are particularly upsetting to a clash-of-civilisations model:
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Ken, let’s see your reply to that!
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Eric bin Kisam
Thanks brother for providing a historical evidence of Christians living freely with Muslims and God bless and do keep it up. At least you learnt Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, English and you are showing your knowledge here and elsewhere.
I wish Nabeel, Wood, Jay etc. learn some Greek, Aramaic and Arabic or Hebrew before they can tell us what the Quran says because scripture needs careful study of its language.
Thanks.
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Ken Temple
I repeat and for your reminder, it is obligated for a Muslims to calculate the total assets he has including his capital, money, gold, livestock, and properties to pay a percentage of it to charity and also pay other taxes imposed by the government including other different charities and sadakat(Alms).
The Jizya is a minute tax to pay as compared to what Muslims are obligated to pay and therefore totally false and without any historical evidence to suggest Christians converted to Islam because Jizya has crippled them and yet you admitted the ancestors of Christians in the Muslim majority countries continue to pay the Jizya.
So, it is affordable and Christians were able to pay till its abolishment and those who converted to Islam has nothing to do with Jizya because some of their fellow Christians did not convert to Islam because of Jizya.
It is irrational to run away from Jizya which is a tax to contribute as a non Muslim rather than calculate your wealth and pay a percentage, and join Islam that requires you to calculate the total wealth you have and pay a percentage of that and pay a lot of taxes, zakat and other Sadakat.
It is irrational and not true and better stop that or provide us with prove that Christians joined Islam because of the Jizya.
Jizya is not to be paid by a poor non Muslims, so the Christians could have stayed poor Christians. If they join Islam it does not mean they will be rich Mr. Ken because there are poor Muslims as well.
Who tells you all the Muslims were/are rich and if the Christians join Islam they will be rich. Where did you get that information from? Who tells you that if the Christians join Islam, they will be rich? or be relieved from the economic situation? come on we need proof and not sweet talk to support your Christian evangelism.
The Christians would have better stay as Christians because joining Islam does not guarantee their economic problems, because there are poor Muslims as well. Who tells you there were not many poor Muslims under Muslim rule? and yet they pay their taxes, zakat, sadakat and other expenses imposed by the religion.
There is historical evidence that the Jews in Islamic Spain flourished and prospered and were rich business people and the Jizya did not stop them. Ken stop that illogical and un historical, un reliable and un founded attack of Islam. Christians did not convert to Islam because of Jizya.
Thanks.
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Thanks Eric for more information on Penn’s book, Envisioning Islam.
Thanks for putting up more extended quote from pages 8-9 on that issue.
I don’t see the page number for the second section you have put up. (the second section that refutes the “clash of civilizations” model) What page or pages is that quote from?
I want to get the book, but right now it is too expensive for me. I was looking at the preview that is allowed on the Amazon limited preview, and some at the google book preview. I still want to get it and read the whole thing, because he seems to say contradictory things.
Still, you didn’t comment on the part that said that one sentence (that they welcomed the Arab invaders as liberators) was in a no longer extant text, and that got repeated a lot.
The second camp goes in the opposite direction. Primarily dependent on a single sentence from a no-longer-extant ninth-century chronicle, they suggest that the Christological divisions between Byzantine and more Eastern Christians caused most Syriac Christians to be “relieved” at the conquests and to see the Arabs as“liberators” setting them free from Byzantine oppression.
It is true that the Syriac/Assyrian Church of the East expanded from N. Syria and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) up north and east along the silk road to China. Yes, I knew that. They were in the North along the silk road, but not south toward the middle and southern Fars/Pars Iran part of Iran. (the heart of Persian peoples)
They were allowed because Islam was NOT dominant in those areas yet. But later the Mongolian Invasions (Gengis Khan, Timor Lang, etc.) wiped out all those churches along the silk road to China. Then when Islam gained those territories back, there was no missionary outreach or growth of Christianity.
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“Intellect”
the pact of Umar 1 (Ibn Al Khattab – the second Caliph- 634-644 AD) and its later developed form (Umar 2 – 715 AD) (Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz) – if you read all of those, it definitely shows that the Christians suffered and could not do anything except stay in the churches and shut up. There was not only Jiziye but Khoms (another tax); it was all economically oppressive and the other rules for Dhimmis (in the 2 Umar Pacts) were socially oppressive.
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I will concede that I need to get that book and study that issue more.
Nevertheless, all the other points on Hamza Yusuf’s totally inaccurate video stand:
Hamza Yusuf’s video is really bad. He is usually more careful than that. He makes many mistakes!
It is ridiculous to think that the Paraclete is Muhammad, when it clearly says:
1. He will be in the disciples of Jesus. (Muhammad cannot be in anyone.)
2. He is the Holy Spirit. (Muhammad is human)
3. He will glorify Jesus and speak of Jesus. (Muhammad does not glorify Jesus as the Son of God or Deity of speak of the glory of the redemption/atonement, rather denies all these things.)
4. He will come after Jesus goes to heaven. (500 years later is too late)
5. He will be with the disciples of Jesus forever. Muhammad never came until 500 years later.
The NT says Jesus is the Shafi’e الشفیع or شفیع (intercessor, advocate, one who prays for us). Romans 8:32-35; 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24
The NT says the Holy Spirit also prays for believers in Jesus as Lord and Savior. (Romans 8:26)
The seven cities/church in Revelation 2-3 were SOME of the centers of Christianity but NOT ALL of them; and they became Muslim only after the Seljuk Turks attacked from 1071 AD onward and then the Ottomans conquered all of that land in 1453. They became Muslim by force and Jihad.
The earlier Byzantine area became Muslims by force, Jihad, and mostly by economic oppression by having to pay the Jiziye (Surah 9:28-30). They were slowly worn down by economic oppression for centuries.
Hamza Yusuf says “they were expecting a prophet” – no they were not; they all believed that revelation was finished with the apostles and the NT. Even though the Nestorians (Assyrian church of the east) and the Miaphysites (Monophysites, Jacobite-Syrians and Coptic Church in Egypt and Armenian Churches disagreed with the Byzantine Chalcedonians about the nature of Jesus, they all accepted the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. In fact the Mia-physites emphasized Jesus’ divine nature as the one (Greek has two words for “one” – “mia” and “mono”), they believed the human nature of Jesus was “swallowed up int the Divine nature.
The NT texts do not say “that prophet”, just “the prophet” (John 1:21; 1:25) and they mean the prophet of Deut. 18:15, 18, which Acts 3:22-26 tells us that it is the same as the Messiah. Jesus was that prophet, and the Messiah, and the Son of God, and the son of man.
John the Baptist did not “baptize with the Holy Ghost” (Hamze Yusuf) – He clearly said in every gospel (Matthew 3:11; John 1:26 and with 1:33; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16); and in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16, “I baptize in water, but one who is coming after me is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
H. Yusuf says that Jesus said He has to leave so that the Holy Ghost could come “does not make sense” since the Holy Ghost is already with Him. Yusuf’s explanation does not make sense, since Jesus is not talking about Himself being anointed with the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit coming and baptizing/anointing/abiding in the disciples!
There is no textual evidence, not even a little – of any change from a non-existent and imaginary and speculation and 600 – 700 year later anachronistic περικλυτος (periklutos) = “exalted one”, “praised one” as somehow in the original teaching of Jesus Al Masih, to παρακλητος (parakletos) = “comforter”, “helper”, “counselor”, “advocate”, the only word used in all Greek manuscript evidence that we have in many copies of the gospel of John.
The true word that Ibn Ishaq used is “Munahhemana”, and is more different than the word that Hamzeh Yusuf used. Seems he was trying to make it sound more like Muhammad in Arabic, but the word is not that at all.
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Ken Temple
You said;
“Intellect”
the pact of Umar 1 (Ibn Al Khattab – the second Caliph- 634-644 AD) and its later developed form (Umar 2 – 715 AD) (Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz) – if you read all of those, it definitely shows that the Christians suffered and could not do anything except stay in the churches and shut up. There was not only Jiziye but Khoms (another tax); it was all economically oppressive and the other rules for Dhimmis (in the 2 Umar Pacts) were socially oppressive
I say;
I read all those and it is clear the Jews were liberated by Umar. Umar and later Salahudin allow the Christians and Jews to practice their religion freely.
I do not know about khoms. I swear by God Muslims are obligated to calculate all their wealth and pay a percentage of it as charity, and pay any government tax in addition, and pay zakat in addition and if a Muslim has children let say 10 he has to pay zakat for each of them and any dependant of his who cannot pay, the zakat are multiple and not only one zakat, Muslim must pay additional donations, sadakat, contribution that are lawful and also that are voluntary to people in need and there are so many monetary requirement for Muslims.
All these are not requirement for non Muslims under Muslim rule and they cannot be forced for what they do not believe but to pay Jizya tax for them to be protected and also help the society and it has become an attack on Muslims by Christian missionaries who add lies on the Jizya.
So, you do not want Christians to pay anything to help the society under Muslims? or do you want them to be forced to pay this multiple taxes and monies including a certain percentage of all their wealth? as Muslims do?
Christians to evangelize and discuss their religion with adult Muslims like what we are doing here but the Muslims will actually not allow any one to teach their children how to worship man or God Man or 3 Gods just like how you will not allow a Rastafarian to teach or to evangelize your child on how to worship Emperor Haile Selaissie I, Jah Rastafari, His Majesty and the conqueror of the lion of the tribe of Judah and his Imperial Majesty.
Thanks.
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It seems that the Dhimmi system was developed out of the Pact of Umar I (Ibn Al Khattab, 2nd Caliph) to later Mujtahids and the Pact of Umar 2 (717-720 AD).
From the wikipedia article:
Other scholars “. . . believe the document was either the work of 9th century Mujtahids or was forged during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Umar II (717-720), with other clauses added later. Other scholars concluded that the document may have originated in immediate post-conquest milieu and was stylized by later historians.”
Most of this seems very oppressive, both economically and socially.
The Points: [1] [2] [9][10][11][12]
The ruler would provide security for the Christian believers who follow the rules of the pact.
Prohibition against building new churches, places of worship, monasteries, monks or a new cell. Hence it was also forbidden to build new synagogues, although it is known that new synagogues were built after the occupation of the Islam, for example in Jerusalem and Ramle. The law that prohibits to build new synagogues was not new for the Jews, it was applied also during the Byzantines. It was new for the Christians.
Prohibition against rebuilding destroyed churches, by day or night, in their own neighborhoods or those situated in the quarters of the Muslims.
Prohibition against hanging a cross on the Churches.
Muslims should be allowed to enter Churches (for shelter) in any time, both in day and night.
Prohibition against calling the prayer by a bell or a some kind of a Gong (Nakos).
Prohibition of Christians and Jews against raising their voices at prayer times.
Prohibition against teaching non-Muslim children the Qur’an.
Christians were forbidden to show their religion in public, or to be seen with Christian books or symbols in public, on the roads or in the markets of the Muslims.
Palm Sunday and Easter parades were banned.
Funerals should be conducted quietly.
Prohibition against burying non-Muslim dead near Muslims.
Prohibition against raising a pig next to a Muslims neighbor.
Christian were forbidden to sell Muslims alcoholic beverage.
Christians were forbidden to provide cover or shelter for spies.
Prohibition against telling a lie about Muslims.
Obligation to show deference toward Muslims. If a Muslim wishes to sit, non-Muslim should be rise from his seats and let the Muslim sit.
Prohibition against preaching Muslim to conversion out of Islam.
Prohibition against the conversion to Islam of some one who wants to convert.
The appearance of the non-Muslims has to be different from those of the Muslims: Prohibition against wearing Qalansuwa (kind of dome that was used to wear by Bedouin), Bedouin turban (Amamh), Muslims shoes, and Sash to their waists. As to their heads, it was forbidden to comb the hair sidewise as the Muslim custom, and they were forced to cut the hair in the front of the head. Also non-Muslim shall not imitate the Arab-Muslim way of speech nor shall adopt the kunyas (Arabic byname, such as “abu Khattib”).
Obligation to identify non-Muslims as such by clipping the heads’ forelocks and by always dressing in the same manner, wherever they go, with binding the zunar (a kind of belt) around the waists. Christians to wear blue belts or turbans, Jews to wear yellow belts or turbans, Zoroastrians to wear black belts or turbans, and Samaritans to wear red belts or turbans.
Prohibition against riding animals in the Muslim custom, and prohibition against riding with a saddle.
Prohibition against adopting a Muslim title of honor.
Prohibition against engraving Arabic inscriptions on signet seals.
Prohibition against any possession of weapons.
Prohibition against teaching children the Koran.
Non-Muslims must host a Muslim passerby for at least 3 days and feed him.
Non-Muslims prohibited from buying a Muslim prisoner.
Prohibition against taking slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.
Prohibition against non-Muslims to lead, govern or employ Muslims.
If a non-Muslim beats a Muslim, his Dhimmi is removed.
The worship places of non-Muslims must be lower in elevation than the lowest mosque in town.
The houses of non-Muslims must not be taller in elevation than the houses of Muslims.
Houses of the non-Muslims must be short so that each time that they would enter or exit their houses they would have to bend, in a way that it would remind them of their low status in the world.
The Christian world was worn down by all this oppression over the centuries.
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“…. just like how you will not allow a Rastafarian to teach or to evangelize your child on how to worship Emperor Haile Selaissie I,…”
Unfortunately, Christians teach their children about Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny on the same level as “Jesus” …
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Ken Temple
The pact is not reliable. The reliable sources indicates that Umar and Salahudin(Later conqueror) allowed Christians to stay and practice their religion to their(Christians) shock why such a thing happened. Umar was not happy on how the Christians desecrated the Jewish synagogues and ordered all synagogues to be cleaned for Jews to practice their religion.
The history does not agree with some of the pacts if you read history. Why will Muslims not teach Quran to people? It is un Islamic to say Muslims must not teach the Quran to people and it is part of the pact.
It is just like the NT and the Gnostic gospels without author, date and a place when it was written and may contain some truths and lies in it.
The history shows Muslims showed mercy to Christians and Jews and any Jew will attest to that. All Jews including Zionist Jews acknowledge the tolerance of Muslims but will curse Christians for the planned annihilation of Jews and Muslims are their saviours.
Brother Eric has provide you with some evidence with regards to a scholarly research based on a book written by a researcher. Read it and so many history about Muslims and they are free online. Read also what Muslims must pay and how a Muslim must pay tax for his dependants who do not have the means.
I do not see why you as a Christian will have problem with Muslims when you exterminated every religion other than yours and exterminated and annihilated yourselves until the liberals in the West saved the situation and allow the rule of law, constitution and freedom of religion.
Christians of the USA sent Jewish ship escaping persecution back to Europe for them to die in holocaust. The history says it the head of the caliph in the ottoman empire charted ships to convey persecuted Jews from Europe into his empire and it is a fact.
The Christian intolerance continue till this moment when any Republican candidate who attacks all Muslims will get his poll goes high with raising over a million dollar from Dr. Carson for saying he does not want any Muslim to be the president of the USA.
Tariq Aziz was a vice president to Saddam and a woman Christian was once the head of state of Indonesia. Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria, Syria, Jordan has got Christians in prominent positions.
Thanks.
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Of course, the attitudes of the Muslim rulers towards their Jewish and Christian (and other non-Muslim) subjects differed from time to time, but putting that aside it would seem to me that the dhimmi system as described by classical Muslim scholars does not exactly present an interfaith paradise. As Dr. Sidney Griffith writes:
“Earlier mention was made of the special poll tax (al-jizyah), which according to the Qurʾān is to be demanded of the “People of the Book” living among the Muslims, and of the appropriately submissive, low social profile Christians should assume in paying in (9:29). Historically, after the conquest and consolidation of Islamic rule in the conquered territories, over a period of time a legal instrument known as the Covenant of ʿUmar gradually came into being to govern this low social profile expected of the Christians, Jews, and others who paid the tax. The stipulations came originally from the treaties concluded between the Muslims and the cities and garrisons they conquered in the seventh century in the time of the second caliph, ʿUmar I (r. 634-644), hence the name of the compilation of these and later stipulations, the Covenant of ʿUmar. Over time, other considerations dictated a more ideal approach to the matter, and by the middle of the ninth century, when the Covenant seems to have reached its classical form, legal scholars had elaborated several theological schemes for the governance of non-Muslims in Islamic society, some of which included a whole series of stipulated civic and personal disabilities thought to be appropriate to the status of those who by then were being called the dhimmī populations.
Classically, the tax (al-jizyah) came to be considered the price to be paid by the “People of the Book” for the special “protection” or “covenant of protection” (adh-dimmah) the Islamic government would then assume for them. It was thought this kind of answerability, even responsibility for dependent persons on the part of the government, not without a note of dispraise in the verbal root of the Arabic word, which basically means “to affix blame” or “to find fault.” Persons in this situation are then described by the Arabic adjective dhimmī, meaning someone under the protection and responsibility of the Islamic government. In modern discourse on the subject, the neologism dhimmitude has come to express this theoretical, social condition of Jews, Christians, and others under Muslim rule. In classical Islamic times the dhimmī populations were to be governed through the offices of their own leaders, who were then held responsible for both the taxes and the good behavior of those under their care. In later Ottoman times, this arrangement came to be called the millet system, a term frequently used for it by modern scholars.
There is no doubt then that in view of the stipulations of the Covenant of ʿUmar the dhimmī populations of Christians in the Islamic world were what we would now call “second class citizens,” if the term “citizen” can even be meaningfully used of people whose presence in the body politic is merely tolerated. The legal disabilities that governed their lives required subservience, often accompanied by prescriptions to wear distinctive clothing and to cease from the public display of their religion, and, of course, to refrain from inviting converts from among the Muslims. Christian wealth, buildings, institutions, and properties were often object to seizure. As a consequence, over the course of time, the number of bishoprics, churches, monasteries, and schools gradually decreased, having fallen victim to the very conditions of the official establishment of Islam. These circumstances of a necessity put dhimmī groups such as the Christian communities at risk, in spite of their numbers they became sociological minorities, subaltern populations subject to discrimination, disability, and at times even persecution. In response, their disadvantaged situation in life under Muslim rule inevitably elicited from the subject Christians both a discourse of accommodation and a discourse of resistance. On the one hand they attempted to compose a philosophical or religious discourse in Arabic for the sake of a clearer and more effective, apologetic statement of their Christian faith in their Islamic circumstances, and on the other hand they also produced a Christian Arabic literature full of resistance and of martyrdom, with a more polemical intent.” (The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, p. 15-17)
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Marcus and Ken have already made good points so I don’t want to repeat but… Since the 1st century, no Christian group whatsoever were waiting for “another prophet”. No Gnostics, no orthodox, no Syriac, no nothing. That is more than enough to show that no one ever interpreted Paraclete to mean another prophet or messenger.
The only group of people awaiting another prophet is the Jews, since they reject Jesus as messiah and they also reject Muhammad.
There is no “that” prophet, Jesus was “the” prophet the Jews asked John the Baptist about. This is confirmed in later passages as already quoted above by Marcus.
Muhammad never quotes from the gospels or the bible to say where he is mentioned. That’s why these arguments don’t work.
There is a book compilation called “seeing Islam as others saw it” by Robert Hoyland which shows historical sources of different points of views people had about Islam in their time and regions. John of Damascus, a Syrian, is one of them. He never converted to Islam. The idea that all the people in these revelation cities converted to Islam is false.
Muhammad thought he was mentioned in both the Torah and the Gospel because his uncle and maybe some other people told him so. He didn’t actually read it himself, otherwise he would have simply quoted where he is found. Or if he couldn’t read and write, his uncle could have quoted for him.
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By the way Intellect,
Muslims annihilated Zoroastrianism when they rose in power…
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I really can hardly control the laughter which threatened to choke me when I read comments by some of our christian brothers here. Although I do not participate in blog debates, a few comments do deserve refutations.
To begin with, the reason for which the controversial prophet of deuteronomy was needed is explicitly stated. Deuteronomy 18v15 reads
‘Let me not hear the voice of the lord my God nor see this fire anymore… THAT I DIE NOT (else we die)’.
This alone seems to sufficiently destroy the christian argument. Standard trinitarian theology teaches that God did appear again (as Jesus) and spoke to the Israelites directly. Prophet Jesus puts it nicely himself ‘He who has seen me has seen the father’.
(Never mind that Israel did contradictorily hear the father again in matthew 3v16).
Jews expectedly understood things in the first sense. None prior to the christian era seem to understand them the way modern Christians are trying to portray. The new testament(John 1v21) in fact states that they expected: Elijah, the christ and the Prophet. Unlike Bro Marcus’ wishful thinking, the context of the verse does not provide room for the amalgamation of two titles. Jesus clearly wasn’t Elijah and hence could not have been the Prophet. This is further bolstered by John7v40-43 which state that division occurred in a crowd because they could not decide whether he’s the christ or the Prophet.
Philip and Nathaniel surely must be talking of a different verse. With christians boasting of several pro messiah prophecies in the pentateuch, it isn’t surprising that Jesus claimed to be foretold by moses. The context of deuteronomy 18v15-18 just rules him out.
I’m yet to research the arguments for and against the paracletos to my satisfaction. I hence will not comment about it. However, I’d recommend a video in which Zakir Hussain baptised James White while debating the same topic. He literally did a good job arguing against a holy spirit paracletos. He also took a few fantastic jabs at pathetic points such as mr Ken Temple ‘s.
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Max
You said;
Muhammad thought he was mentioned in both the Torah and the Gospel because his uncle and maybe some other people told him so. He didn’t actually read it himself, otherwise he would have simply quoted where he is found. Or if he couldn’t read and write, his uncle could have quoted for him.
I say;
Prophet Jesus spoke Aramaic and not Greek and at his time Aramaic is both spoken and written language, so during the time of prophet Mohammed there was no individual copies of any past scripture like we have it today,
Both Christians and Jewish scriptures were kept in monasteries and synagogues and was controlled by priests and Rabbis.
There were so many stories and scriptures about Jesus Christ and that is why the Church Fathers selected some gospels and rejected some gospels and now some rejected gospels have started surfacing and Christians call them gnostic.
Why do they call them gnostic? Because it was not selected and so it is not true at the time of our prophet it was only the canonical gospels that exists. No, there are more gospels and some are surfacing today.
The Quran only state the truth among all the gospels or stories about Jesus be it gnostic, canonical, lost or hidden.
The Quran considers the gnostic, canonical, lost or hidden as the same by giving the correct story about Jesus, Christians believe in the Church Fathers’ selection but you do not expect Muslims to believe the canonical, gnostic or the lost gospels to contain some errors.
The writers of the gospels just like the writers of Umar’s treaty with Christians did not properly document their documents and therefore not reliable.
Umar sat down with Christians and Jews to sign a pact with them shows Muslims want to liv with non Muslims as the Quran says and it is a sin to force convert anyone and in general Muslims never persecute anyone as a state except some people like isis at that time who will violate Muslim principles, but a Muslim state.
Jews and some Christians will attest to the tolerance of Muslims towards non Muslims and after the wars in the Holy Land by Umar and later Salahudeen, the Christians were surprised when the Muslims allow them to stay and practice their religion freely.
It is because of Muslims that is why there are still Christian Churches in the Holy Land today. The is a big evidence to buttress the Christian missionary lies. Palestinians have Jews, Christians and Muslims among them and the last ruler of Palestine was a Muslim Caliphate. The Churches are standing there, the Palestinian people are there as evidence with Christians, Jews and Muslims as Palestinians right now.
The evidence of Christian intolerance is to look at where the Christians ruled i.e. England, Rome, USA, Spain etc. and no single indigenous and native Muslims was allowed to live there at certain point in time, until the Christians were defeated by the liberals and forced constitution, rule of law and freedom of religion.
The European Jews were persecuted and lived in ghettos and refused admission in the USA by the Christain rulers but the head of the Ottoman Empire chartered shipis to go and convey persecuted Jews from Europe to the Ottoman Empire. Any Jew including Zionist Jews will express their gratitude to Muslims for saving them.
Christian brothers and sisters, the evidence is there very clear Muslims are tolerant as their scripture tells them but the Christians are intolerant, no matter how you try to twist history and facts.
Just in the 1900’s, Catholics were persecuted by other Christians in the USA and Mormons beaten and today at this moment a Republican conservative Christian presidential candidate will raise over 1 million dollars from Christians by attacking in his speech all Muslims.
This shows how intolerant Christians are, but they will criticise others who have multiple evidence that they are tolerant. If some one will criticize Muslims of intolerance, it must not be Christians because it will be a pot calling a kettle black.
Christians deal with your intolerance first, when it started, it still continues.
Thanks.
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With the name of Allah:
KT wrote:
Does that mean that the second person of trinity is the disciple of Jesus (p)?
(Jh 15:26-27) Jesus Says the Paraclete Bear Witness to Him , prophet Muhamad bear witness to Jesus many many times
paraklétos or מְנַחֵ֖ם menachem
means advocate (in court), comforter, helper . It is not “spirit”. The original designation of this term are for human not spirt.
Muhammad (p) speaks of Jesus many many times, He corrected false teaching attributed to him (Deity human sacrifice)
According to Ken. Where does it say it is immediately after?
Nothing Jh 14:15-27, two suggest what Jesus means when he said: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” are only those disciples present with him. He meant for future generation.
Prophet Muhammad came to correct the false teaching attributed to Jesus, blood atonement, crucifixion so that the believers must worship to the Father, the God who sent Jesus, and keep the law .
God keep His promise to send an advocate who will teach all things and will remind future generation of everything Jesus genuinely have taught.
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With the name of Allah
Hi Marcus,
You wrote:
My position don’t rely on just from one scholar. At first I am fascinated how Islam appealed to early christian and jews in the holy land, not the christian from greek and latin tradition.The promised Land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates are now overwhelmingly muslims .
There must be something than usual portrayal by Islamophobes and christian apologists that it was forced conversion.
Prophet Muhammad see himself and the Qur’an revelation as the continuation to Jesus teachings. But Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. Where is the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus? only small citation here in there in the NT. General scholarly consensus this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel has lost.
When you read the Qur’an in Arabic you will find many of the Qur’anic terms parallel with some of the surviving gospel fragments preserved in christian Palestinian syro- aramaic dialects.
Scholarly approach which have now taken a direction to explain this phenomenon that the Qur’an milieu had a established common understanding of christianity specifically through the Aramaic sphere: the monotheistic literary genre which Qur’an having conversation with.
Please refer to Qur’an scholar Professor Emran El -Badawi works on this topic:
The Qur’an and the Aramaic Gospel traditions
I purchased and read his book and I am fascinated by his argument that the Qur’anic revelation is actually a dogmatic re-articulation as well as responses to audiences familiar with aramaic tradition in the arabian peninsula.
So this makes perfect sense to me, the majority syro-aramaic christians of the middle-east understood what the message of the Qur’an and then had accepted then assimilated into the new distinct “muslim” community of believer and had taken sister Arabic as their language. For me as a muslim this thesis strengthens Qur’an claim that it is indeed the continuation and the preserver or original semitic revelation from Abraham to Jesus.
Of course there were fractions opposing view like Ephrem the Syrian, and most christian polemicists are keen to bring that as evidences to delegitimise Islam ..but as Professor Michael P. Penn has put it , there are “small selection of Syriac sources to support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims” (Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8).
But as a whole he argue syriac texts are positive Christian depiction of Islam than that of most Western greek/latin sources. Penn also shows Christians appreaciate Muhammad as a leader who taught monotheism and enforced laws, making him an admirable bringer of order to people who had once been polytheistic bandits and even thought him a prophet.
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like someone who commented above “blog debates ” aren’t my style either, but one thing that’s always coming up is this Quran /muslim oppression /violence against the Bible / Christian violence / oppression, I think Christian apologists need to stop the hypocrisy, the Quran is not half as violent as the genocidal, infanticidal malevolent bully Biblical God and please spare me the sugar-candy prince of peace Jesus ,if he’s God according to Christian theology he once (at least ) ordered and supervised genocide… add to that the kids who got mauled by a bear cause of a childish joke!
and please stop attributing modern, secular, liberal concepts of freedom of worship, conscience, etc to the Bible or Christianity exclusively, it simply is shameful when you realised what criminals did in the name of the church… “kill them ALL…GOD knows his own” that’s even against Christian heretics,…. by the way I’ll have no problem in accepting we’ve had excesses, horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam and we’ve DENOUNCED it but for people like Ken et al the excesses of a few is representative of the whole, the hypocrisy shows when cornered with the excesses and horrors on his side, what’s his response “erh those were bad Christians! “…
in addition, please buy the book, READ the book before you start correcting someone who had read it, if we’ve going to be hypocritical let’s be knowledgeable about it.
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Marcus you wrote
While I agree Sidney Griffith seems like a fine scholar he has his Catholic bias in seeing the dhimmi.
I think you and other christians commenters in this blog fall into the Islamophobic line by selectively use historical record to measure Islamic “intolerance”.
You fail to recognise that Islam has strict moral conduct with regard to how to treat the non-muslims . Of course the favour the muslims to some extent but it does not necessarily mean discriminatory , however by christian medieval standards, the Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians was very tolerant indeed.
Main characteristics of Islamic sharia is this: desire by the Muslim state to regulate social interaction between muslims and non-muslims so that non-muslims were allowed concessions. History has shown Muslims and non-Muslims interacted and intermingled relatively freely in the neighborhood, in the marketplace, and at court, and that compared to the treatment of non-Christians in Europe.
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It’s easy to talk about the intolerance of the Christian empires in the past and how tolerant the Muslim empires were (for the most part it is true).
But in our modern times, which nations have learnt from the past? It is the “Christian west” which is now very tolerant of all religions and people can freely practise their religion in places such as the U.S. And UK. Regardless of persecution which happens to people of nearly all faiths, we are free to practise our religions by law.
Compare that with modern day Muslim nations and you find the complete opposite. Non-Muslims are not free to practise their religions at all in these regions.
Now what’s the relevance of me mentioning this? The relevance is a Muslim on this blog will tell me that modern day Muslim nations are not properly implementing sharia or Quranic commands. If so, why can’t you then see that those past Christian empires were not properly implementing Jesus’ commands in the gospel?
It’s very easy to apply double standards, but it happens on both the Muslim and Christian sides. You’re all applying double standards when you can’t acknowledge the good side and the bad side of the different religious empires.
If history were to be studied without bias, perhaps more people would get along.
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Dear Mr. Guffoor
I didn’t see your comment until just a moment ago, so here I can only give a quick, initial response.
“Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).”
To begin with, Muhammad wasn’t raised up from among the Israelites.
Your point about not the Israelites not having to speak with God directly is quite good, and I would have to look further into this issue. Note, however, that Jesus says in the Gospel of John that he only speaks the words of his Father (7:16-17; 8:28; 14:24; 17:8). So I would say that we have in John’s Gospel not God speaking directly to the Israelites, but the Father speaking through the incarnate Son, who functions as the intermediator (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6). I would advise you, however, to see if there are any Christian scholars who have addressed this point.
And of course my main point was that the Gospel of John itself says that Jesus is the promised prophet, which makes Hamza Yusuf’s appeal to it rather strange.
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“Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as
that.”
This passage actually seems to go against that:
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, and you will testify also, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26-27)
But even that may be the case, but there are many more points I raised which argue against Muhammad being the Paraclete. If Jesus merely had to pray to the Father, there would have been no need for him to go away before the Paraclate could come.
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“Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.”
John 15:17 (“This I command you, that you love one another.”) says nothing about the Helper (i.e., Paraclete), but I think you mean John 14:17. But the Spirit here IS actually the Helper, as the whole passage (John 14:16-17) explicitly says. So if Muhammad is the Helper than that means that he is already with the disciples, which was obviously not the case.
Again John 16:9 (“concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;”) says nothing about the Helper arriving on earth. John 14:17 says the Helper “abides with you and WILL BE in you”. The Helper could only come to (i.e., in) the disciples (16:7) after Jesus was gone. Obviously that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t already present on earth, and furthermore Muhammad of course never was in Jesus’ disciples (or anyone other for that matter).
By the way, do you have anything to say on the fact that Hamza Yusuf here uses the Gospel of John, which no Muslim would believe as authentic since in many instances it directly goes against the Qur’an?
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Dear Eric
“I think you and other christians commenters in this blog fall into the Islamophobic line by selectively use historical record to measure Islamic “intolerance”.”
I actually never appealed to the how Jews and Christians were treated in history (as said, it varied), but my quote was to show the way how some Muslim scholars understood the dhimmi system.
I did read how according to one classical Muslim scholar a peace treaty between a Muslim ruler and his Christian subjects should look, and it (among other things) forbade use of “our idolatrous language about Jesus, son of Mary, or anyone else to any Muslim”. The Christians in this peace treaty also had to wear their sash outside of their clothing and were not allowed to take the high side of the road.
“You fail to recognise that Islam has strict moral conduct with regard to how to treat the non-muslims . Of course the favour the muslims to some extent but it does not necessarily mean discriminatory , however by christian medieval standards, the Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians was very tolerant indeed.”
Yes, it might be tolerant according to the standards of its time. But I hope you understand that when I read Hadith like Sahih Muslim 2167a (see here: http://sunnah.com/muslim/39/16 ) that doesn’t really make me want to live in an state where Islam would be the state religion. Although I do of course recognize that Muslims have the right to decide how they interpret their religious texts.
That being said, we should not demonise the history of Islam, but neither should we pretend that everywhere where Muslims ruled there was an interfaith paradise.
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I wonder what the context of this Hadith was. To cherry pick hadiths disregarding context can be very misleading.
After all, there is a verse in the bible that says “…there is no God..”
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Dear Eric
“Prophet Muhammad came to correct the false teaching attributed to Jesus, blood atonement, crucifixion so that the believers must worship to the Father, the God who sent Jesus, and keep the law .”
But Muhammad’s teachings go very much against Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of John, where the Paraclete is mentioned. So Muslims can’t say that Muhammad is the Paraclete without having to cherry pick the Gospel of John. The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, as John’s Gospel explicitly says (14:16-17; 14:26).
“Prophet Muhammad see himself and the Qur’an revelation as the continuation to Jesus teachings. But Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. Where is the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus? only small citation here in there in the NT. General scholarly consensus this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel has lost.”
General scholarly consensus actually goes against the idea that Jesus had some kind of book known as the Injil.
“When you read the Qur’an in Arabic you will find many of the Qur’anic terms parallel with some of the surviving gospel fragments preserved in christian Palestinian syro- aramaic dialects.”
To me this only suggests that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity, perhaps the Diatesseron or the Peshitta. There are also possible other influences from Syriac Christianity, such as the works of Ephrem the Syrian.
“Of course there were fractions opposing view like Ephrem the Syrian, and most christian polemicists are keen to bring that as evidences to delegitimise Islam ..but as Professor Michael P. Penn has put it , there are “small selection of Syriac sources to support this image of unmitigated hostility between Christians and Muslims” (Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christianity and Early Muslim World By Michael Philip Penn ; Introduction p8).”
Ephrem the Syrian never opposed Islam, since he died in 373 CE. I mentioned him to show that the Christians in Syria believed in the crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus.
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Someone above mentioned John 7:40-43 to say that there was a distinction between the messiah and the prophet. Actually Jesus was both the messiah and the prophet that people were waiting for, as already quoted by people above.
Also, in regards to the Paraclete, it is the Spirit not a human being.
John 7:38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
This links to the future passages from John 14 onwards when Jesus begins to mention all of this to his disciples.
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Gospel of John is a “compound unity”, more than one author, there are different strands of paraclete-traditions (prophet to come/spirit) woven into one.
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Mr. Williams
“I wonder what the context of this Hadith was. To cherry pick hadiths disregarding context can be very misleading. “
If you would be so kind to tell me in what context this Hadith was spoken, I would be much obliged. Notice, however, that Mr. Yusuf in the video did nothing but cherry pick the Gospel of John.
“After all, there is a verse in the bible that says “…there is no God..””
For some reason this reminds me of a nice anecdote about the dangers of reading the Bible as Augustine once did, i.e., opening the Bible and reading the first thing you see. It goes like this:
A man opened his Bible and read: “And he [Judas] threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.” (Matthew 27:5). Rather confused, the man closed his Bible and opened it again, this time reading the words: “Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”” (Luke 10:37). The man tried a third time, now reading: “Why are we sitting still?” (Jeremiah 8:14)
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Marcus I asked YOU to provide context. You cited it.
My criticism is that citing hadiths without any historical context is very unwise and potentially intended tendentiously.
As I said I can quote the bible out of context too where the psalmist says ‘there is no God’ lol
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“However, I’d recommend a video in which Zakir Hussain baptised James White while debating the same topic. He literally did a good job arguing against a holy spirit paracletos. He also took a few fantastic jabs at pathetic points such as mr Ken Temple ‘s.”
That debate can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1T7AuTbv3E. I find it fascinating that in his rebuttal Mr. Hussain has to appeal to apocryphal Gospels. Of course, all the apocryphal Gospels that we know of (1) were written after the canonical Gospels; (2) never prophecies the coming of Muhammad. And of course Mr. Hussain appeals to the textual criticism of the New Testament, of course never telling us how did would exactly help his argument that Muhammad is the Paraclete.
Mr. Hussain cites dr. Bruce Metzger, who made the following remarks in an interview with Lee Strobel.
“As we stood, I [Lee Strobel] thanked Dr. Metzger for his time and expertise. He smiled warmly and offered to walk me downstairs. I didn’t want to consume any more of his Saturday afternoon, but my curiosity wouldn’t let me leave Princeton without satisfying myself about one remaining issue.
“All these decades of scholarship, of study, of writing textbooks, of delving into the minutiae of the New Testament text-what has all this done to your personal faith?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, “it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient.”
“So,” I started to say, “scholarship has not diluted your faith-”
He jumped in before I could finish my sentence. “On the contrary,” he stressed, “it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed.”
He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, “Very well placed.”” (Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, p. )
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“Jews expectedly understood things in the first sense. None prior to the christian era seem to understand them the way modern Christians are trying to portray. The new testament(John 1v21) in fact states that they expected: Elijah, the christ and the Prophet. Unlike Bro Marcus’ wishful thinking, the context of the verse does not provide room for the amalgamation of two titles. Jesus clearly wasn’t Elijah and hence could not have been the Prophet. This is further bolstered by John7v40-43 which state that division occurred in a crowd because they could not decide whether he’s the christ or the Prophet.”
No Christian actually argues that the Jews in John 1:21 or 7:40-43 were right about everything they believed. The Jews also believed that the Messiah would expel the Romans. The Essenes to whom Mr. Hussain appeals to in his debate expected two Messiahs: a priestly Messiah and a royal Messiah. So your point here is rather moot, unless you want to say that God can’t do everything unless it agrees with what the people expected. And John 1:21 actually doesn’t speak about Jesus, but about John the Baptist.
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Mr. Williams, you wrote the following:
“My criticism is that citing hadiths without any historical context is very unwise and potentially intended tendentiously.”
I fear that you may be right in your critique here. It was wrong of me cite this Hadith without looking at the historical context (if we indeed know it), and I would like to offer my apologies.
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Marcus
You said;
I fear that you may be right in your critique here. It was wrong of me cite this Hadith without looking at the historical context (if we indeed know it), and I would like to offer my apologies.
I say;
Thanks. Actually some of the Hadith are not reliable even the sahih because it was selected by men, rigorously though.
Prophet Mohammed himself greeting Christians and Jews and invited them to his Mosque several times. He sent his companions to seek refuge with a Christian king in Abyssinia and also it is clearly stated in the Quran the Muslims must dialog with the people of the book.
If we cannot greet the people of the book how can we dialog with them?
The Hadith goes against Prophet Mohammed himself who greeted Jews and Christians. It must have a context which I do not know.
Muslims do greet Christians and Jews today and the Quran said a Muslim can marry a Christian woman. If you cannot greet your wife how can you marry her?
It is a law in Islam to never force convert anyone because it is not sincere but to live with non Muslims side by side and it is against this Hadith. How can we live side by side without greeting our neighbour?
We would have all been sinners because we do greet Jews and Christians everyday and it is not a sin but peace.
May be someone can help us here other wise it is not reliable.
Thanks.
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While I do appreciate the zeal christians on the blog have shown, I feel frustrated to find them contradicting one another without batting an eyelid. **They remind of mr Shamoun who (finding himself cornered) told me that God paid himself a price to appease himself **
Who in the name of heavens am I to believe? While Ken Temple and Max believe the paracletos has not been given then, Marcus somehow disagrees and quotes John who said it was in the disciples. Luke compounds the contradiction and declared that it led Simeon to Jesus even before he assembled those same disciples. A tale of a ‘funny’ gospel indeed.
Anyway, it will appear several brothers are missing my point. Keith Thompson in a widely celebrated article argued that whenever the God of the old testament speaks, the trinity is actually the one talking (for God is unchangeable and has been triune from the beginning) . Claiming hence that Jesus is an intermediary does not really solve the puzzle. It will merely meant God served as an intermediary to God. Whichever direction you do try to go, it just is non-circumventable. God was speaking directly to Israel (a violation of deuteronomy 18v15-16). Bro Marcus’ attempt at a defence therefore remains what it is; a bare wishful thinking.
I reiterate that the contexts of john 1v21 and 7v40-43 do not permit the fusion of the titles ‘the christ’ and ‘the Prophet’. Although the Jews could have been wrong (as Bro Marcus argued), the fact that neither John the baptist nor Jesus corrected them begs the belief that they most probably were not. Jesus in fact strengthens this when he urged Jews to ‘listen to the pharisees but never act like them’ (an obvious testimony of their well grounded scriptural understanding). When he asked the apostles shortly after the ‘crowd – division’ incidence on who they think he is, one of them had replied ‘You are the CHRIST, Son of the living God’. Jesus was hence neither Elijah nor the Prophet.
I perhaps might have to concur with Bro Marcus’ anti-muhammadan interpretation of John 14 & 16 for (at least) the moment. Though his points are not convincing, that he now talks about the Essenes means things are going rather wider and deeper than I am willing to dig. Must have to postpone it till my research is concluded.
By the way, I find the Bruce metzeger’s theory amusing. It isn’t even uncommon to find such among scholars. Dr William Lane Craig afterall still believes in the inerrancy doctrine despite admitting the story of the rising saints of matthew was fabricated. No surprises at all.
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By the way , I think I like the manner Marcus argues!
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Kabir
Marcus seems and sounds honest.
Thanks.
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Chocoboy
You said;
By the way, I find the Bruce metzeger’s theory amusing. It isn’t even uncommon to find such among scholars. Dr William Lane Craig afterall still believes in the inerrancy doctrine despite admitting the story of the rising saints of matthew was fabricated. No surprises at all.
I say;
Thanks brother for the reminder. Dr. James White said he will not teach some of the verses in the Bible in his Church. I think it is cherry picking by Christians themselves but they will accuse Muslims of cherry picking from the Bible.
The gospels including the canonical, gnostic, lost, hidden etc. are the same with no first and last names, where it is written, when it was written, the writers birth place or city etc. to verify its authenticity and so there are so many contradiction like God is immortal and God does not change.
Christians will cherry pick a verse and claim the Almighty God died for their sins and he changed by incarnation and adding a man to his structure.
That cherry picked verses contradicts the other verses that says God is immortal and does not change. If a Christian is cornered on why can the Almighty God die and the Bible forbids anyone to say God died? then a Christian will say the man part of Jesus died which means he separated the structure of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand if you say Christian are worshiping man, they will say no, Jesus is God-Man. They will say they are not worshiping a man but God-Man i.e. combining Jesus’s structure.
Paul Williams will tell Ken Temple that God did not die for your sins but a man and it is a lie to say God died for your sins. Ken Temple will reply and say no the God-Man die and some Christians will say only the man died and will separate them and some Christians will combine the man being and the God being I,.e. two beings combined.
Every person is a being so Jesus as the God-Man has 2 beings not 2 nature. Human being is a being not nature. God is a being i.e. divine being not nature.
Is God a nature? to merit Christians saying he is a nature in Jesus. Is a man a nature? Even if God is a nature and man is a nature the man, person or God cannot escape being a “being” without consciousness and or occupying space and have weight i.e. substance.
Thanks Mr. Chocoboy you raised important points.
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Nazam,
“Marcus, if the prophet of Deuteronomy was to be Jesus then that would defeat the purpose of God raising up a prophet, since according to Christian believes Jesus is God. Whereas, the Prophet like Moses would God’s spokesman hence the reason for God sending to them prophets in the first place so that the Israelites would not have to speak to God directly, (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).
Jesus will send the Paraclete but how will Jesus send the Paraclete according to the fourth gospel? He will pray to the Father and the Father will send him in answers to Jesus’ prayers. It is as simple as that.
Furthermore, Jesus said that the spirit had already been with the disciples and in them (John 15:17) but when Jesus spoke about the Paraclete it is a future event and the condition is that Jesus goes away or the future Paraclete would not arrive on the earth (16:9), hence his reasons for no longer being present in the world.”
There are excellent points you are making.
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With the Name of Allah the Gracious the Merciful
Dear Marcus.
The hadeeth you cited is applied in a certain context that does not exist today and its harm greater than its benefit.
I know may Islamophobes are quick to use this hadith in isolation to discredit Prophet Muhammad (p), here’s additional hadith which provide the context from Sahih Muslim Book 39, Hadith 13:
Some Jews came to Allah’s Apostle (ﷺ) and they said: O Abu’l-Qasim (the Kunya name of the Prophet Muhammad), as-Sam-u-‘Alaikum, (meaning Death upon you or literally poison upon you). The Prophet said: Wa ‘Alaikum.
A’isha reported: In response to these words of theirs, I said: But let there be death upon you and disgrace also, whereupon Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said: ‘A’isha, do not use harsh words. She said: Did you hear what they said? Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Did I not respond to them when they said that; I said to them: Wa ‘Alaikum (let it be upon you).
Forcing a jew or christian to go down the narrowest part of the road was initially a symbolic measure to show Muslims dignity despite their enmity against Islam and Muslims at that time.
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With the Name of Allah the Gracious the Merciful
Dear Marcus
I don’t think there is any muslims from any madzhab persuasion who take position on the wholesale rejection anything attributed to prophet Jesus in the Gospels.
What the Quran warns is that that people of the book (ie. jews and christians scibes) came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel ) and removed and added to them.
Therefore woe be unto those who write the Book with their hands and then say, “This is from Allah,” (Q 2:79)
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With the Name of Allah the Gracious the Merciful
Dear Marcus
Thats one way to look past it but to me this makes a perfect sense to me why the Qur’an actually serves as the continuation of genuine monotheistic tradition from Jesus (p) in Aramaic.
Actually the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of NT into Aramaic. For one thing, it is Syriac, not Aramaic (different dialects although very close). There were older Syriac translations are not that almost certainly go back to the second century like the Diatessaron but those are greek translation.
Jesus (p) and his disciples native language was Aramaic, so we must have this genuine aramaic gospel the original utterance of Jesus. To me this must be the original Injil the Quran mention about.
This continue to fascinate me otherwise relying on the work of men the greek, roman christian texts is the breakaway of this semitic tradition.
To me that why Islam serve as the torch bearer of this authentic tradition because it faithfully preserve semitic traditions.
I m sorry I misunderstood you, I haven’t researched into Ephram the Syrian works.
But we never know whether Ephrem the Syrian actually understood the correct teachings of Jesus, I believe his view may be just one surviving records among many other belief of Jesus in the middle east each of whom claim orthodoxy. The fact remains those region who used to be carrying the Aramaic gospel traditions now overwhelmingly muslims.
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Dear Eric,
Since I haven’t read El-Badawi’s work, I feel rather hesistant to delve too much into this subject, but here is my response to some of what you have said.
“Actually the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of NT into Aramaic. For one thing, it is Syriac, not Aramaic (different dialects although very close). There were older Syriac translations are not that almost certainly go back to the second century like the Diatessaron but those are greek translation.”
Of course the Peshitta is not the oldest translation of the New Testament in Syriac (actually a dialect of Aramaic). But to me similarities between the Qur’an and Aramaic or Syriac only suggest that the Qur’an was influenced by Syriac Christianity. Now I’ve not yet read El-Badawi’s work, but this seems to be his position as well, since he writes:
“The most potent scriptures in the “Qur’ān’s milieu”‒that is, the religious, cultural, political, and geographical within which the text was first articulated and soon codified‒and with which it had to contend were: Hebrew Scripture and Rabbinic commentary (al-tawrāh; Q 5:44‒perhaps due to Muḥammad’s exchange with Jewish interlocutors), and the Gospel traditions (al-injīl; Q 5:47‒including other New Testament books). The letter, which left an indelible mark on the Qur’ān’s worldview, doctrine, and language via different Aramaic intermediaries, is dubbed here the “Aramaic Gospel Traditions”. Specifically, these are the extant Gospel recensions preserved in the Syriac and Christian Palestianian Aramaic dialects.” (The Qur’ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions, p.5)
In an interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2u-qXUDiFk) I listened he also seems to say that he compares the Qur’an to Syriac and Aramaic Gospel traditions and other Christian works. The only extent Syriac and Aramaic Gospel tradition that I can think of is are the Diatesseron and the Peshitta, both of course translation of (most of) the New Testament. He said that the even the idea of Islam can be related to the ideas of contemporary Syriac Christian writers (at ca. 23 minutes in). See also this article by El-Badawi and Reynolds here: http://global.oup.com/obso/focus/focus_on_quran_and_syriac/. I do not wish to offend you but it seems to me that by trying to defend the Qur’an by using the work of dr. El-Badawi you are reading scholarship hat support my theory that the Qur’an was influenced by its cultural mileu.
We simply have no evidence of any supposed Aramaic Injil that was preserved for seven centuries by some Christians, but of course we know of later Christian works written in Syriac and Aramaic. It would make sense that the Qur’an is influenced by these since: “Arabic speaking Christians lived in a state of diglossia, wherein they used Arabic for common everyday purposes and Aramaic (probably Syriac) for liturgical and religious purposes. It is they who were the cultural agents, this study argues, absorbing various elements of the Aramaic Gospel Traditions into the oral tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia, elements that eventually entered into the Qur’ān’s milieu” (The Qur’ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions, p. 8). And Sebastian Brock writes that the “claims that the Peshitta Gospels represent the Aramaic original underlying the Greek Gospels are entirely without foundation; such views, which are not infrequently found in more popular literature, are rejected by all serious scholars.” (The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, p. 58)
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“Jesus (p) and his disciples native language was Aramaic, so we must have this genuine aramaic gospel the original utterance of Jesus. To me this must be the original Injil the Quran mention about.”
But the evidence from the first century suggests that Jesus’ disciples were in agreement with Paul, and I have never seen any first century evidence that Jesus had a book such as the Injil.
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“This continue to fascinate me otherwise relying on the work of men the greek, roman christian texts is the breakaway of this semitic tradition.
To me that why Islam serve as the torch bearer of this authentic tradition because it faithfully preserve semitic traditions.”
While the Gospels were written in Greek, we can still find their Jewish (and even Aramaic) influences.
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“What the Quran warns is that that people of the book (ie. jews and christians scibes) came and wrote things from their own and claimed that it was from God. They then went and mixed their own writings with the original revelations (Torah and Gospel ) and removed and added to them.”
But I reject the idea to use a seventh-century work to select what and what is not historical, unless one can prove that it has some kind of greater authority.
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“But we never know whether Ephrem the Syrian actually understood the correct teachings of Jesus, I believe his view may be just one surviving records among many other belief of Jesus in the middle east each of whom claim orthodoxy. The fact remains those region who used to be carrying the Aramaic gospel traditions now overwhelmingly muslims.”
But we know of no Christians in the Middle East around the time of Muhammad who for instance denied the crucifixion and resurrection but still believed in the virgin birth. All the evidence we have suggests that the Syriac and Arabic Christians of that time believed in for instance the divinity of Jesus (although of course there were differences with regards to how this should exactly be understood).
By the way, I would advise you to read Ephrem. I’ve read several of his hymns on Paradise and they are quite beautiful.
Since I don’t think it’s wise for me to say more about the subject without reading dr. El-Badawi’s work, it may be best for me at least now to let this be my last word on the subject of the Qur’an’s relation to Syriac and Aramaic texts.
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With the name of Allah the Gracious the Merciful
Dear Marcus
You can not just cherrypick scattered internet citations. Buy and read the book! , Badawi refutes any old school idea that the Qur’an borrowed or was influenced from Aramaic Gospel tradition what he meant by Aramaic Gospel tradition is not that original Aramaic gospel (p 30 ), rather he makes his clear in his assumption that his use of syriac sources are not in any way reflect ancient Aramaic substratum going back to Jesus original utterances. However he said it merit scholarly examination that all current syriac sources contain philological evidence for an ancient Aramaic substratum dating back to Jesus prophetic mission. (p31).
He argues strongly that the Qur’an never was “borrowing” from the Aramaic gospel tradition, the view like pseudo scholar Luxenberg, but rather the Qur’an contains a smart “dogmatic re-articulation” of elements from that tradition for an Arab audience.
In conclusion Badawi also argue that the Qur’an is a collection of divine revelation which conversed with Aramaic christian spheres and cleverly employ terminology from Christin Palestinian Aramaic and Jewish Aramaic into Arabic cognate accusative grammatical construction المَفْعُوْلُ المُطْلَقُ maf’ul mutual , that are the hallmark if the cryptic prophetic speech in the Qur’an understand classical Arabic construct (p 216-217). In other words the Qur’an revelation deliberately engage a disputation with the aramaic gospel traditions of antiquity.
You don’t seems to caught up with the latest discussion on this field. The scholarship don’t settle the issue that Qur’an was influenced by Aramaic traditions but rather the Qur’an a deliberate divine revelation that was responding to Aramaic traditions.
I invite you as a christian to consider the implication, something which has puzzled me as a muslim almost as long as I live, While Jesus and his contemporaries would have been Aramaic speaking peasants. but why christians do not have in their possession the original Aramaic utterance of Jesus??
Christians use greek texts as their basis for understanding their saviour. What we have only small citation here in there in the NT. Generally it is believed that this aramaic corpus of Jesus original gospel had been lost. To be honest with you this is a very sorry situation if I am a christian.
Now consider the possibility that the Qur’an actually a narration which had a established an understanding of christianity specifically through the Aramaic tradition going back to Jesus directly, as its milieu. Based on that the Qur’an could have very well been divine commission sought to correct the sectarian understanding of what actual jesus message in his worldview, doctrine and language which had been lost and drowned by non-semitic ie. greek and latin traditions.
The Qur’an could have been the key to unlock the actual message of Jesus.
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Marcus
You said;
I do not wish to offend you but it seems to me that by trying to defend the Qur’an by using the work of dr. El-Badawi you are reading scholarship hat support my theory that the Qur’an was influenced by its cultural mileu.
I say;
No, the Quran is a divine revelation to correct what is wrong but not influenced by any one.
Why?
Because;
1. In some culture at Prophet Mohammed’s time, the Jews believe Jesus is not the messiah. If the Prophet copied or listened to their stories and formed the Quran as some Christian missionaries claim he would not have categorically correct them and say Jesus is indeed the messiah.
2. In some culture like the Jewish culture, they believed Jesus is may God forbid a bastard. The Quran categorically corrects them and said Jesus had a miraculous birth by the command of God which is “be” and it is correcting the Christians as well who said in their scripture that “the spirit overshadowed Mary” and Christians think it is God who unites with human in the womb of Mary for 9 months through in vitro fertilization to produce God-Man as in Pagan Greek, Roman Latin concepts of God coming down to have sex with humans to produce God-Men.
3. From the beginning of Christianity till today, it is not every Christian who believed Jesus is God or Trinity. Ebionites, Arians were persecuted by other Christians for rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ and Trinity. Today we have Unitarian Christians on this blog who argues more forcefully than Muslims that Jesus Christ is not God and Trinity cannot be logical and therefore false, Jehovah Witness did not believe the has all Jesus words.
The Quran categorically settle the dispute by not influence by any one and clearly stated that “Jesus and his Mother ate food” and therefore cannot be God. Was the Quran influenced by Jehovah Witness? Arians or Ebionites? Unitarians? No. The Quran is divine and does not have influence from any one.
4. There were/are different types of Trinity permutations with different persons like Emperor Haile Selaissie and Mormon Trinitarians and the Quran corrected all of them without defining any one of them but warning forcefully for the people of scripture not to say 3. Who the cap fit let them wear it. As simple as that.
If the Quran has any influence, Prophet Mohammed may God forbid would have been another second person of Trinity but prophet Mohammed warned his followers not to ever in their mind things he is God. He warns them to worship only one God of Abraham who is the God of Jesus, Mohammed and anyone.
THE QURAN IS A DIVINE REVELATION AND HAS NO INFLUENCE FROM ANYONE. There are so many points to prove that and the above should rest the case.
You said;
But we know of no Christians in the Middle East around the time of Muhammad who for instance denied the crucifixion and resurrection but still believed in the virgin birth. All the evidence we have suggests that the Syriac and Arabic Christians of that time believed in for instance the divinity of Jesus (although of course there were differences with regards to how this should exactly be understood).
By the way, I would advise you to read Ephrem. I’ve read several of his hymns on Paradise and they are quite beautiful.
I say;
Who tells you this? or where did you get this from? There were so many gospels and stories of Jesus circulating during our prophets time and are written or oral. The gospels of Thomas, Judas, Mary etc. and the gospels that were not selected and rejected by the Church Fathers were all circulating and some Christians accuse the prophet of copying and influenced by these gospels and stories for instance the gospel of Thomas or infancy gospels.
The Quran corrected the infancy gospel but not copied from it. Why? there are weird stories about Jesus in it like some stories in the canonical gospels of ghosts coming from their graves in the NT and handling of snakes that killed so many pastors and other pastors will not teach it in their Churches.
The Quran only corrected the infancy gospels and said Jesus miracles includes making clay birds.
Thanks.
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corrections
………Jehovah Witness did not believe the Bible has all Jesus’s words.
…….prophet Mohammed warned his followers not to ever in their mind thinks he is God.
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Marcus,
Sorry for the late reply.
Your wrote;
“To begin with, Muhammad wasn’t raised up from among the Israelites.”
Deuteronomy 18:18 does not say that the prophet will be exclusively an Israelite prophet and note that Jesus was neither from any tribe of Israel, since he was born miraculously and had no father to determine his tribe-ship
You wrote:
“Note, however, that Jesus says in the Gospel of John that he only speaks the words of his Father (7:16-17; 8:28; 14:24; 17:8). So I would say that we have in John’s Gospel not God speaking directly to the Israelites, but the Father speaking through the incarnate Son, who functions as the intermediator (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6).”
Granting all of this, Jesus then cannot be God because the Israelites did not wanted God speaking to the directly. If Jesus is God, even if his the second person of the Trinity, then that is still God speaking to them directly. Also, Deuteronomy does not make this subtle distinction but it’s Christians reading into the texts.
You wrote:
” This passage actually seems to go against that:
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, and you will testify also, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26-27)”
I don’t see how the passage goes against what I wrote. Yes, Jesus will send the Helper but by what means? Jesus will pray and the Father in answers to Jesus’ prayer will send the Helper.
You wrote:
“If Jesus merely had to pray to the Father, there would have been no need for him to go away before the Paraclate could come.”
Part of Jesus’ prayers being answered and fulfilled is by Jesus going away for the Helper to be sent by God according to John 16:7
You wrote:
“By the way, do you have anything to say on the fact that Hamza Yusuf here uses the Gospel of John, which no Muslim would believe as authentic since in many instances it directly goes against the Qur’an?”
Yes, authentic but not 100% authentic but based on core information that originally came from Jesus’ historical ministry. It’s about becoming a detective and doing detective work.
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