Understanding Islam

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.[1]

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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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.

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[1] Genesis 16:1, 2, 15; 21:3, 9, 10, 14

[2] Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the end of the Ancient World, 2012

[3] In today’s scientific development man is making babies outside the womb and cloning them as well! So is it very difficult for God to make a baby without a biological father? Funnily, Muslims accept virgin birth of Jesus!

[4] 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

[5] Mark 14:61-62, 63-64