In the troubled times of terrorism and war in the Middle
East, Syria and Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Africa and troubles between Israel
and Hamas in Palestine region, and the escalating war like situation in Gulf of
Hormuz near Iran in Persian Gulf, it is necessary that we have an understanding
of Islam, in the name of which Muslims in these areas are fighting the West and
their allies in one way or the other. Is it a clash between Christianity and
Islam or just the avarice of the Western countries to exploit the oil reserves
in these areas or is it the desire of Muslims to be the leaders of the world,
ruling over every one? Whatever that may be, it is better that we know about
Islam.
Today as of 2015, Muslims are 24.1% of the world population,
1.8 billion of the 7.3 billion people; out of this 80%, 1.5 billion are Sunnis
and 20%, 340 million are Shia Muslims. Islam was founded by Prophet Muhammad,
an Arab and it spread to the world. Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, son
of Abraham from Hagar, the Egyptian maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah, whom he
married as Sarah as of that time was barren. When Ishmael was 12 years old,
Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the son of promise to Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael
were cast out as they were found to be antagonistic to Isaac.
The main tenets of Islam are there is one god, and his name
is Allah; Muhammad is his prophet. It is a strict monotheism, for God is no
Father, neither has he a Son. Allah is merciful and compassionate; he will
judge the people in the last day when all the dead will be resurrected, based
on the good deeds they have done on earth and they will either be sent to
heaven or consigned to hell. Islam encourages charity, especially to their own
community.
Muhammad, the founder of Islam was born in Mecca in 570 AD;
his father died even before his birth and his mother died when he was six years
old. He became an orphan and was brought up by his grandfather and uncle. As a
young teenage boy he used to accompany his uncle’s caravans to Syria on trade.
He earned a name as a good and hard working boy, honest in his dealings and
reliable. He started to work for a rich widow, Khadija, who observing his good
qualities, married him, though she was 15 years older than him. They had many
children but only one girl Fatima survived and she will later marry Ali,
Muhammad’s cousin.
Muhammad was in the habit of retiring to caves for
meditation. Once when he was in a cave in Mount Jabel al Nour, he was accosted
by a spirit, called Namus, which shook him and forced him to take down what the
spirit was saying. Muhammad was 40 years old at that time in AD 610, and in
fear and in confusion he tried to commit suicide. But he was stopped by the
spirit who assured him that he was Gabriel, the archangel. Thereon
intermittently the revelation continued, for the next 23 years, which is said
to constitute the Quran.
Growth of Islam in Arabia was phenomenal. The first to
believe Muhammad was his wife Khadija, his cousin Ali and friend Abu Baker.
Since AD 613 Muhammad started to preach his religion, preaching against
idolatry and polytheism. The tribal leaders in Mecca were afraid that their
livelihood will be endangered, for the town received regular pilgrims to
worship the black stone, Kaaba, which had some 360 idols attached to it. As
they planned to kill him, he ran away to Medina in AD 622. He got a following
in Medina and after series of battles with Mecca, the Medina people, the
followers of Muhammad won and he entered in triumph Mecca and demolished the
idols associated with Kaaba and cleared the area.
By AD 630, the whole of Arabia was consolidated under the
control of Muhammad. He is said to have fought some 56 battles around this
time. He died in AD 632, poisoned by a Jewish woman who had been taken as a
slave in one of his raids.
The story of Islam sweeping over the entire Middle East up to
Indonesia in the east and up to Spain in the west is remarkable. After the
death of Muhammad, the community elected Abu Baker as the next leader; but
others wished to have Ali as the leader since he was the closest kin of
Muhammad. Finally a group of four men were made to rule, Ali, Abu Baker, Uthman
and Umar. This arrangement lasted less than 30 years for in AD 661 Ali was
murdered and Umayyads took over the reign, with Syria as their capital. This
was the starting of the major split among Muslims, Ali’s followers being Shias
and the rest of them being Sunnis. By this time they had conquered Palestine,
Israel, Syria and other nearby areas.
In AD 750, Ummayads were toppled by Abbasids and they ruled
with Baghdad as the capital. The two major empires of the world at this time,
the Roman Empire and Persian Empire had fought each other for supremacy and
exhausted themselves and the Muslims almost walked over unopposed.
Byzantium survived till AD 1453, when Ottomans conquered them and ruled till
the First World War in AD 1915. Today Muslims are in majority in almost 50
countries of the world, the whole of Central Asia, Indonesia, Middle East,
Northern Africa are in their hands. In India a large population of Muslims
live.
Important pointers as far as Christianity is concerned,
Muslims respect Jesus Christ as a prophet of God, but not as Son of God or God.
The concept of Trinity they do not accept. Their arguments against Christianity
are threefold: God is not a Father; if Jesus is the Son, they ask where is
God’s wife? They are sure Jesus did not die on the cross nor did he resurrect
on the third day. Finally they argue that Jesus never claimed to be God.
Christians when they address Jesus Christ as Son of God do
not mean God married a wife and gave birth to a Son by biological means.
God exists in three forms, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
the Trinity. All the three are of the same substance but are three individual
beings.
That Jesus died on the cross as a substitute sacrifice for
the sins of all of us, and that he was buried and rose again on the third day
is the crux of Christian belief.
This the Muslims deny. They have two theories to explain how Jesus did not die
on the cross. One, it only looked as if Jesus died on the cross, but God
replaced someone else in his place in the last minute and took Jesus away to
heaven before crucifixion. This is called the substitution theory. Why would
God play this substitution game and fool a major religion into believing a
fallacy as truth is known only to Muslims! God was offering Jesus as a Lamb of
sacrifice to save the sinners, and if that is how He has planned to save the
world, who are we to say that He did not do it?
The other theory claims Jesus only fainted on the cross and
did not die; when he was kept in the tomb, because of the cool atmosphere
inside and with the help of his disciples, he revived and walked away. This is
called the swoon theory. Is it possible for any man to walk away after the
whipping and nailing on the wrists and feet, and hanging on the cross for three
hours? This our Muslim friends alone know! Moreover where did he go after
reviving? That also Muslims alone know! This is a physical and medical
impossibility and moreover the tomb was sealed by the soldiers of Pilate, the
Governor of the time and there was no way Jesus’ disciples could have gone
anywhere near the tomb.
We must also remember that Islam came 600 years after
Christ’s death, and resurrection, which were recorded within 15-20 years of his
crucifixion by eyewitnesses. Which one do we believe, the narration of those
who personally saw the whole events and wrote about it within 15-20 years or
something written after 600 years? Our Muslim friends need to take a call on
that. Moreover after the second century AD, about almost 100 years after
crucifixion, such theories that Jesus did not die on the cross and God took him
away started to circulate. 500 years after that Muslims base their belief on
such heretical and spurious writings. People have to be wise here.
Jesus claimed that he is God when he made “I AM” statements
recorded in the Gospel of John. At the time of his trial the High Priest asked
Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered “I am. And
you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming
with the clouds of heaven.” Based on this the high priest declares that this is
blasphemy, and that he should be killed.
Early enough he tried not to spread this news, lest the authorities kill him
early on itself.
Muslims argue that Muhammad has been prophesied in the Bible!
They quote Deuteronomy 18:18-19 where Moses tells Israel people that God will
raise a Prophet like him from among their brethren and that they should listen
to him. This prophet that is mentioned is the Messiah, Christ who will arise
from among the Jews. It is definitely not Prophet Muhammad as claimed by
Muslims. Deuteronomy was written after the Hebrews, the twelve tribes of Jacob,
returned from slavery in Egypt and not in the time of Isaac and Ishmael. To
interpret it wrongly and twist its meaning is of no credit to the Muslims!
Secondly the Muslims claim that the Helper whom Jesus
promised to send once he leaves the earth, in John 16:7 is Muhammad! This is
cherry-picking from Bible, that too when Muslims do not believe the other
things written in the very same Bible! From John 14:16 on, John clarifies that
this Helper is the Holy Spirit, who will come and reside in the believers and
help them to live a life pleasing to the Lord. It is definitely not Muhammad.
The biography of Muhammad was written after almost 150 years
of his death by one Ibn Ishag, but was lost and edited twice before releasing.
Compare this with the Gospels written within 15-20 years of the crucifixion of
Christ! Quran itself was consolidated and written some 200 years after the
death of Muhammad. Some 80 odd versions of it were circulating when Utman, the
third Caliph in AD 644 recalled all these, burnt them and issued an official
standardised version of Quran. Such a thing never happened with New Testament
of the Bible, because for three centuries Christians were not under a single
person’s rule. Only when Constantine, the Roman Emperor, became a Christian in
AD 337, he could have done it, but there are no records of him or anybody else
doing it. The copies of the New Testament would have run into millions in the
three hundred years! Moreover the Quran as we have today was brought out only
in 1924!
Last few facts on Muhammad, the Prophet. He was helpful and
compassionate, especially to his own people, but was merciless in war. Once he
ordered the beheading of 900 captured men. He permitted his men to rape the
captured women, kill the men and teenage boys, but keep the women and small
children to be sold as slaves. He emphasised that to kill an ‘infidel,’ that is
‘unbeliever’ is pleasing to Allah and is the duty of every Muslim. Surah 9:5 says ‘fight and kill infidels
wherever you see them.’ Actually Islam is not a religion of peace, it means
“Submission,” submission to what is written in Quran, which itself is telling
them to kill all unbelievers, unless they convert or pay the special tax.
The sayings of Muhammad, hadith,
are again not from him in totality. In AD 830 one Al Bukhari collected some
6,00,000 supposed sayings of Prophet Muhammad that were circulating. He then
rejected all but 7275 and these he issued as the hadith, on which the Muslims rely as if it is God’s word.
Muhammad the Prophet in his personal life was not above
board. He had 18 wives and married the 9 year old Aisha when he was 52 years
old and consummated that marriage. He allowed temporary marriages, which is
nothing but prostitution. In India too we have heard rich Arab Muslims coming
and marrying girls for three months and then leaving them with a simple talak, talak, talak. In Iran, a
Muslim country, this practice is still prevalent. Where is the morality in all
these? Our Muslim friends need to think it over.
Jesus Christ in comparison was pure and never participated in
any war or killed people. He helped people, fed them, healed the blind and the
deaf, made the lame to walk, and raise the dead, when he lived on earth. He
offered himself to be killed voluntarily as a sacrifice to bear the sins of the
world. In doing so, he did not rule the world, but saved the world. Praise be to Him. Our Muslim friends will have
to assess and see who is truthful, Jesus or Muhammad and decide. These are the last
times we are living in. Not much time is left before Christ returns, when we will
have to give an account of our faith and deeds. We all need wisdom here.
