Prophet Muhammad

Love your Muslims

There have been several things pressing on my heart lately, but I think one of the most painful ones is the fact that a lot of people nowadays are afraid of Muslims. I am a follower of Jesus. I am NOT afraid of Muslims. I cannot give into fear. Allow me to elaborate.

If you happen to be reading this blog for the first time, I began writing in an attempt to speak my own mind into my own confusion. I enjoy writing down my thoughts, and I have logs for many things. I also wanted to document my spiritual journey.

While I began writing, I was  living in India, and I was best friends with a Muslim woman. I love that Muslim woman dearly, and I love her family. Not a single day passes without me thinking about them, and praying for them, but we are not in good terms with each other anymore.

I don’t believe Islam is true. There was a point last year, however, in which I could have probably become Muslim. For the first time in my life I was challenged to think outside my Westernized Christian bubble, and evaluate whether or not the Bible is reliable. Maybe it had been corrupted. I had to come face to face with questions, doubts and spiritual confusion. Did Jesus really died on the cross? Was He God incarnate or just a mere rasul (prophet)?

And all this confusion was easy to dismiss on a every day basis – at the beginning at least. I spent most of my time with my Muslim family. They became my family. Even tough there were Christians around, these Christians told me to stay away from the Muslims because they were gonna hurt my feelings. I was from the West. I did not know these people.

In the aftermath, they did hurt my feelings. But I hurt them, too. Unfortunately, we both hurt each other deeply.

So whenever I talk about Islam, Muslims, politics, and so on… I am very careful to remember that there are true stories and real people involved here. It is very easy to dismiss Muslims as our enemies, and to talk harshly about them when you don’t have a Muslim face that you can call your own – if that makes sense.

No. I am not an apologist for Islam. I believe Islam is a false religion. If Muhammad wanted to come up with a new religion of his own, then good for him. He would have not been the only one doing that. You also have Joseph Smith. But if he claimed to be a prophet in the line of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then Muhammad was a false prophet.

This freedom of speech cost me a friend.

I expressed my concerns about many practices allowed in Islam that I could not even begin to wrap my  mind around it. I called ISIS Islamic. My friends, of course, took offense. According to them, ISIS was not Islamic and Islam is a beautiful religion. So something “broke” between us. And that’s that.

There is a point to be done here. And it goes beyond my feelings, or even my friends’ feelings. I personally believe that the problem the West is facing is this: Nobody wants to confront the real issue.

If you confront the real issue, you are called a bigot. Most Westerns are ignorant about Islam.  We think that all people around the globe share our Judeo-Christian values (regardless of whether you are a Christian or not). And I also see ignorance in the Muslim world. I hope it is ignorance or denial because it would be so devastating if it is straight up lying.

Sunni Muslim, Raheel Raza published a video recently about the rise of Radical Islam. She is very boldly asking for an open, honest, fact-based conversation regarding these issues. She recognizes the fact that most acts of terrorism today involve Muslims in one way or another. So she calls for a discussion not about Islam, but about Radical Islam, and how it affects us all.

If you are following the news then I’m sure you’ve heard about the fact that the terrorist attack in San Bernardino could have been stopped. But the people who noticed suspicious activity never called the police because they didn’t want to be seen as racially profiling.

I hope you really watch the video first, because I’m writing about things that are said, and statistics that Mrs. Raza provides.

Mrs. Raza comments on the fact that she doesn’t need Ben Affleck – or any other celebrity – to defend her religion. I applaud that. It’s interesting to watch Ben Affleck saying that people who criticize Islam are racist. Islam is not a race. Not only that, tough, I seriously wonder if Ben has ever read a Quran in the first place.

In the other hand, Mrs. Raza does acknowledge an issue that not even the President of the United States can acknowledge: That ISIS is Islamic. She calls it Radical Islam. And she needs protection from the radicals in her own religion.

Now, she has a different perspective than that of my friends, of course. But the main issue here – in my own mind, anyway – is this: Why do Radical Muslims want to kill her?  Is it just because she is calling them radicals? Or is there anything that inherently goes against what these radicals are doing?

These are the circles presented in the video.

  1. Violent Jihadists wake up in the morning wanting to kill all non-Muslims. This is ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, etc. These are the people behind The Boston Marathon bombing, San Bernardino, Paris, and of course, 9/11. This amounts to the smallest circle.
  2. Islamists want many of the same things as the jihadists, but they won’t kill people. They use the political system for Islam to raise up to power. I think this is one of the issues happening in America right now. Mrs. Raza calls out CAIR as an organization that tries to politically and legally silence everyone who speaks against Radical Islam.
  3. Fundamentalists are the most disturbing circle, according to Mrs. Raza. These Muslims won’t kill people and won’t overthrow governments, but they do hold beliefs about human rights, women, and homosexuals (among others) that are deeply troubling.

Who are these fundamentalists?, Mrs. Raza asks. I personally think she opened a can of worms with that question.

She continues.

In 2013, a poll of Muslims in 39 countries revealed that 27% agree with the execution of apostates. That amounts to 237 million people. Do you think that is a radical belief? I personally know three people who have a story like this.  In the same poll, 39% of Muslims believe in honor killings – if your wife is an adulterer – which amounts to 345 million Muslims. That is A LOT of Muslims.

I want you to pay close attention to this, and I quote Mrs. Raza,

These numbers paint a picture about the Islamic world that is increasingly out of step with the modern world.

If this is true, if the Islamic world is out of step with the modern world, I am without words. Mrs. Raza talks about an Islam that will crumble at its foundation would the radicals Muslims think like she thinks.

Mrs. Raza basically is speaking against Allah and Muhammad. It may sound complicated – it was very confusing to me at the beginning. It was all the more confusing, of course, because I was studying Islam to see if I would join Islam. I was studying Islam very carefully. I learned about its claims, the application of those claims, its pillars, and so on.

The more I studied, the more I understood that the Quran is supposed to be the final, clearest revelation from God. Islam is a religion that has been perfected. Allah in the Quran is done with the Jews, and the Christians. Allah wants everybody to be Muslim. Muslims are the best of peoples. Of course, I believe with all my guts this is false, but these are the teachings of Islam. These are things that if you read the Quran, you can easily see for yourself.

Being a Muslim is not as simple as the Western Muslims claim to be. Yes, it is very easy, but it is not that simple. It is not only  a “Do good and hope for the best”- religion. Islam means submission.

Being a Muslim means that you submit to Allah. The more you dig, tough, the way in which you submit to Allah is by obeying his commands and Muhammad. Allah revealed the Quran (according to Muslims). The Quran then, it is NOT a revelation like Jews and Christians talk about the inspiration of the Bible.

For a Muslim, the Quran is the actual word from Allah. Allah dictated verbatim his words to Muhammad through an angel. So the Quran is NOT one more revelation, it is the final revelation. According to Islam, Jews and Christians corrupted everything and messed up everything, and so that’s why Allah had to send the Quran and Muhammad – to correct everything and everybody.

Now, before I continue, these allegations can be “easily” dealt with and proved false. I am passionate about the field of Muslim-Christian apologetics. But to understand ISIS, terrorism, and all the events happening around the world today, you need to understand that this is a war that began some four thousands years ago. It is mostly religious. Politics are thrown into it, of course, but at the core, religion is key.

Nobody seems to be addressing that – religion.

Our politicians do not want to talk about religion, and some presidential candidates are talking nonsense as if dropping bombs will stop this. More violence won’t solve the problem. I seriously wonder if sweet Ben Affleck understands this.

Mrs. Raza’s numbers reveal that 281 million Muslims in THE WESTERN WORLD approve of amputations, whippings, stonings, and corporal punishment. These Muslims believe Sharia Law should be the law of the land. Does that sound crazy to you? Does that sound radical?

Of course not all Muslims approve of this, and she makes that clear distinction. But I ask, of those who approve, why do they approve?

By silencing the debate on radical Islamist beliefs, we abandon our own core beliefs on truth, free speech and tolerance. And we abandon human rights in favor of political correcteness.

– Raheel Raza

Hats off to Mrs. Raza. I think she has started a much needed discussion.

I am a very curious person by nature. Maybe that’s why I got into college wanting to be a scientist. I was always fascinated by Chemistry, and atoms, and Biology and what not. I ask too many questions.

When I was in India and began asking my friends about Islam, they told me to read the Quran – they even bought me one big Yusuf Ali commentary. And when I began questioning about the Sunnah of Muhammad (the things he said and did), they were quick to say that I should not bother with that for now. They encouraged me to only read the Quran to see how beautiful Islam was.

I did read the Quran, and I didn’t think it was beautiful. I saw a god who claims to be the God of Abraham, but that god did not love like the God of Abraham. And I freaked out, of course, because now I was confused. Who was the God that I had submitted my life to? The God whom I had surrendered my life to was NOT the god of the Quran.

There are many technicalities about calling Him YHWH or Allah, but if you are a follower of Jesus, and have studied the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as I have, you can immediately recognize their personalities are very different. I saw similarities in both faiths, of course, but I got very curious at the differences. I had to learn about it. If I had been mislead into Christianity because of my upbringing -like my friends said- I needed to know.

I honestly wanted to follow after God. I was honestly confused. And after my friends told me the Bible was corrupted – which was very early into our relationship –  I got sucked into hundred of hours of studying and learning, both about Islam and Christianity. I had seen the light of Jesus, but I never actually asked for evidence. So I was seriously seeking for the truth. But the more I asked my friends, the more resistance I encountered. They never flipped, but at the same time, we never openly discussed things that troubled me deeply about Allah and Muhammad.

When we did talk about it, it was always superficial. She was so passionate about Islam that even when the evidence led me to Christianity, she got upset. She said I was never really looking for the truth. According to her, if I had, I would have become a Muslim. So our friendship ended on the basis of me attacking Islam in my blogs, and misleading people to Christianity.

If I didn’t respect Islam, I didn’t respect her.

This is why it is of utmost importance to know – as followers of Jesus – that Muslims are passionate people. They love their religion and they love Muhammad. They are very religious people. And even if they are not, it doesn’t matter. They love Muhammad. Deeply.

I am also very religious. Of course, Jesus is not a religion, but you know what I mean. In this life, my goal is to become Christ-like. I will never achieve it to perfection, but day by day, that’s my aim. In a similar fashion, a good devout Muslim wants to imitate Muhammad in all aspects – that’s their goal.

That is why, besides the Quran, Muslims are also guided in their religion by the Sunnah of  Muhammad. Islam, as a religious system, is based in these historical sources. Yes, the Quran is very important, but for a devout Muslim, Muhammad is as important. That is why the first pillar of Islam is the Shahada, the confession that There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. You are not a Muslim if you don’t believe this.

Interestingly, tough, my friends sometimes teased me about becoming a Muslim. And even when I told them I could not say it from the heart, they said it didn’t really matter. I could become a Muslim. The conviction would come later. Who knows? This happens all the time. Muslims in the Middle East are very attractive. Women are beautiful and men are handsome. Then you hear them speaking Arabic. You wanna marry these people! Who cares if you believe it from the heart? You just become a Muslim!

Devout Muslims, tough, do pray what Muhammad prayed before eating. They end up the fasting in Ramadan as he did it. The enter the bathroom as he did it. When Muslims want to grow in their faith, they are encouraged to actually study these traditions. They are encouraged to read the Sunnah and Sirah of the Prophet (his life), and all this literature that for the most part is available online.

I highly recommend you read the book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, by Nabeel Qureshi. It will give you a glimpse into the deep love and reverence that Muslims have for their prophet. Lots of feelings and emotions. Lots of passion. Zeal.

For me, a question was of main importance. And it seems that it is precisely the question that everyone seems to avoid. What kind of life did Muhammad live? I was considering becoming a Muslim so I needed to know what kind of beautiful pattern of conduct I needed to imitate. My friends always described me a Muhammad that was very similar to Jesus, and they told me about beautiful traditions. But I was never surprised by this. It was great that their prophet helped the poor, or the widows or the orphans. But I followed Jesus. I knew beautiful. I knew peaceful.

I hope you are following my train of thought.

Being curious as I am, I found another video by Mrs. Raheel Raza. She is interviewed about her opinion on what exactly drives radical Islam. She says that the short answer is an ideology that the radicals are using to hijack Islam. According to her, the radicals are turning Islam into a political ideology, and brainwashing people.

Hijacking means taking something that is not rightfully yours, and make it your own. Simple example, Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven“.

Hijacking Christianity would be killing people in the name of Jesus, as this contradicts exactly what Jesus said and what Jesus did. A sad example of this are the Crusades, and events that lead to the Holocaust. I am aware of my unfortunate Church history.

But when Mrs. Raza talks about radical Muslims hijacking Islam – making it into an ideology -who am I supposed to believe? What Muslim is telling me the truth? The radical Muslims who follow Muhammad to the iota – living their lives as he lived his life – or the moderate Muslims who tell me the violence Muhammad exercised was only for a period of time?

According to Islam’s most trusted traditions – Bukhari and Muslim – Muhammad died cursing the Jews and the Christians. Only for a period of time? Muhammad hated their guts until the moment he died. I won’t link you to anything. You can Google it very easily. This is the era of information – thank God.

In the video, Mrs. Raza assures her interviewer that the Quran doesn’t say anything about killing people.

Are we reading the same Quran, Mrs. Raza?

I don’t see compassion towards the People of the Book. I only see how Muslims are the best of peoples. And how Jews and Christians are the worst of creatures because we don’t follow Islam. Google it, seriously. And read a Quran.

You see, this is what I don’t understand. Is Mrs. Raza purposely lying or she just doesn’t know?

Radical Muslims are living the Islam Muhammad lived. Mrs. Raza talks about abandoning core values of free speech.  Free speech? There was no free speech in Muhammad’s time, Mrs. Raza! Muhammad had people murdered because they insulted him. Read about Asma.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Raza doesn’t know. Many Muslims don’t know. She talks about a political ideology that is like a cancer. Yes, it is like a cancer. The Islam Muhammad lived was a spiritual, political and militant cancer.

So yes. Radical Muslims are killing people in the name of Mrs. Raza’s religion. Why? They do it because Muhammad said that he had been commanded by Allah to fight all the people until everybody testified that There was no God but Allah and that Muhammad was his prophet.

Does this sound like the Shahada? It is the Shahada!

Putting it altogether, Islam teaches that the Quran is the final revelation of God. Islam is the perfect religion. The Quran is a revelation from God himself to all people for all times. The radicals want everybody to be Muslim because that is what Muhammad was commanded to do. Allah only loves good Muslims.

And I am not defending the radicals. I am just trying to understand what drives their ideology. They are not really hijacking anything. They are just following the Islam that Muhammad left the world with. And that’s the problem right there – the sources are not consistent.

Use ONLY some reliable sources and you can make Muhammad into a saint. Islam is beautiful.

Use ONLY some reliable sources – as reliable as the first ones – and you get ISIS.

You see the reason why I think that closing the borders to Muslims is nonsensical? I think it is too late for that. I agree with increasing security, of course.  But banning all Muslims – that’s too much. Everywhere I look there is a Muslim somewhere. And God forbid the moderate Muslims decide to take some authentic haddiths literally, because if they do, all of us are dead.

I am not being pessimistic. I think I am grounded in reality. And that is the problem. The elephant in the room that nobody seems to address is the religion itself. 

Mrs. Raza. is also asked if there is a place in the Islamic religion  where it says that Muslims should partake in these terrorist acts. She never replies with an absolute NO. She replies that not in her understanding of the Quran. But what about the sound traditions in which Muhammad says he had been made victorious with terror?

Unfortunately, the radical Muslims can always point theologically and historically to their own sources to kill civilians, to kill Jews, to kill children, to kill homosexuals, to kill apostates, to kill people who mock Muhammad.

So when a Muslim tells me that Islam is beautiful, I believe that. You can make Islam be that way. But then at what point are you – as a Muslim – thinking that you know better than Allah? If the Quran is the last, clearest revelation from Allah, and you are commanded to obey Muhammad, how can you pick and choose what you want to follow?

This is something that also applies to Christians, by the way. We pick and choose all the time. And when we do, we are in rebellion – we are hypocrites. Jesus speaks against that. The Quran also speaks against hypocrite Muslims, by the way.

So there have been articles about Islam needing a reform. I’ve been following them. You can read the article here. And you can read the actual Reformation Document here. I admire these people as a non-Muslim. But in my non-Muslim eyes, after the knowledge I have acquired – which is not extensive – I see this declaration, and I cannot see anything other than these Muslims contradicting very specific statements in the Quran and the Sunnah.

I am not saying these Muslims are not real Muslims. But when they demand rights and a reform that flies in the face of Allah’s specific commands in the Quran, and some of the things Muhammad did and say about women, criticism, human rights, inheritance, anti-Semitism, apostasy, among others… It all sounds beautiful to the Western world. But to the radicals it sounds like blasphemy. And that’s why they want to kill them – Mrs. Raza included.  These Muslims have been Westernized.  These Muslims want values that the Judeo-Christian West offers, but they are not the values of the Islam of Muhammad.

If people are serious about a religious reform, one thinks they would like to maintain some connection to their own religious traditions as a basis for that reform. That is actually what happened historically with the Protestant Movement and the Catholic Church. The Reformers went back to the original message that Christ preached. We went back to the Bible alone. We broke away from man-made-tradition, and the selling of indulgences, and what not. .

But the Muslim Reform Movement seems more interested in establishing a connection with the non-Muslim Western world as the basis for their reform. And this is the sad reason why there seems to be little, if any, support coming from the greater Muslim-American community for this small group of aspiring reformers.  It is only attention from the non-Muslim world that will sustain the Muslim Reform Movement. Sadly.

Going back to Mrs. Raza, and her question about the fundamentalists – who are the most disturbing – I read an excellent article by  Hussein Aboubakr.

Hussein was told in his childhood that every day that passes on the Islamic nation without a caliphate is a sin. That the failures and miseries of the Muslim world started the moment they gave up conquests and wars against the infidels. That their prosperity depends on conquering new lands, converting new believers, looting new resources and enslaving more women. He was taught that a Jew is essentially a demon in flesh and that it was their destiny as good Muslims to kill them all.

Where is this anti-Semitism coming from? Read the Quran, people!

Hussein talks about many parts of the Muslim world that are intolerant towards free speech, criticism and reform. Human rights are not observed in most of the Muslim world; women’s rights, homosexual rights, minority rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of belief… Execution of apostates, women who are not allowed to drive, sexual segregation, persecution of liberals and journalists, homosexual imprisonment, and persecution of non-Muslim minorities are all common themes almost in all Muslim countries. Many Muslim countries use public beheadings, hangings, lashings, stonings and chopping of limbs  as an accepted form of punishment.

This is not news for us, sadly. Hussein makes a point, tough. He says that while the vast majority of Muslims may frown upon ISIS and Al Qaeda and may be horrified by their acts, they will still approve of many human rights abuses. He is talking against the same things Mrs. Raza is speaking against.

He says the Muslim world is dominated by bad ideas and bad beliefs. He says the majority of Muslims have no principle objections to application of extreme violence, subjection of women and minorities, prosecuting if not killing homosexuals and confiscating personal freedoms.

And I ask again, and again… Where do the bad ideas and the bad beliefs come from? Why are people in positions of authority like Mrs. Raza so eager to deny or even hide that both – the great things in the Muslim world and the bad things in the Muslim world – all come from the same place?

Mrs. Raza says she is not a leader, but she is. She HAS a voice. People listen to her. Hey, nobody is interviewing me…

Do you see now how this is almost impossible to talk about? Everybody attacks the radicals, everybody says there is a problem, and that we need an honest, open discussion. But the moment you start asking questions and confronting the real issue all hell breaks loose. And people get hurt.

I lost a friend because she felt I should keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t. I loved her. My love for her demanded me to speak out. I cried asking her to stop feeling guilty over not being able to fast during Ramadan. I had feelings for these Muslims!

We label as moderate Muslims everyone who is not trying to kill us regardless of that person’s actual views. Moderate Muslims rush to warn about Islamophobia and unjust western prejudice against Muslims. Almost in every single occasion that Islamic terrorism is mentioned, Muslims’ first action is to defend their faith. They assert over and over how peaceful and beautiful Islam is. They are obsessed with their religion and care about it more than they care about stopping murder in its name. It should be clear that this kind of obsession is just another form of fundamentalism.

-Hussein Aboubakr

Remember that according to Mrs. Raza, the most disturbing circle was the fundamentalists. They won’t kill anybody, but they agree with the punishments, and in some ways, they justify them. I am afraid to say that I think the fundamentalists are for the most part the sweet, moderate Muslims.

They might agree out of fear, or out of conviction, but they do – for the most part – have radical ideas. They just don’t act on them. I was confronted face to face with hate for Jews and Christians because we are greedy for oil. I was told no Muslim would ever want to be my friend because I was gonna let them down. The conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the hate for the West and Israel are very real. And of course, Sharia Law is the answer for all the problems you see around the world – or at least in Pakistan.

And the funny thing is I never expected these things. I didn’t know any better. I had never been friends with any Muslim whatsoever. But Muslims are passionate people. I love her dearly. I don’t hate her. She is so zealous for Allah. Oh, my God, what I wouldn’t give for Christians to be as zealous for Jesus as she is for Muhammad… And I’m sure she loves me. I spent most of my time with them. I ran to their house whenever they needed me. I made life with them. My children miss her children, and they talk about them on a regular basis.

As a follower of Jesus, unless you don’t love these people for real, unless you don’t understand their feelings, their culture, and their way of thinking… unless you don’t put yourself out there to serve them and love them genuinely, there is little to talk about this world conflict that we see in the news. Muslims are in the news all the time, but they also just want to be left alone and live their lives. If you want to make a difference in their lives, you have to learn how to be able to relate to them.

Love them. Get to know them. And also understand this, the Christian love is not to be a silent, cushy-feeling. There is a minister who works with Muslims, and he says that Muslims on a regular basis are surprised at how confident he is. Muslims expect him to be weak, and silent, and not being able to defend his faith. These are ideas that Muslims honestly hold about Christians. Jesus was meek, but make no mistake. Meekness is not weakness. Jesus confronted people. Paul confronted people. Read the New Testament.

If you really care about a person, you eventually would like to share your faith, wouldn’t you? I would. And maybe this is just me, because this is my passion. You have to be prepared to defend your faith, tough. Always. But you also have to come to terms with the fact that opposition will come as a natural result of you preaching Jesus – specially to a Muslim. The Gospel offends Muslims. The Gospel is offensive by its own nature.

In a more practical way, what does it look like to love Muslims? I seriously believe that you do need to understand what they believe, and why they believe it.  You need to be willing to approach them in the first place. No fear of Muslims whatsoever. I highly doubt each one of them is carrying a bomb under their shirts, you know? And get to interact with them based on where they are coming from. Ask questions. Not every Muslim is the same – at all.

I was buying some things the other day, and a sweet young girl was helping me. She looked Middle-Eastern, you know. This is not racist, okay? People begin speaking Spanish to me when they see me at the stores. I look Hispanic. I am Hispanic – so what? So she was wearing a necklace with some words on it, and I asked her about it. She said it was in another language.

Then I asked directly, “Are you Muslim?”. And she looked so relieved, like a weight lifted up, and she began telling me how she had no idea what the prayer said. Her mom makes her wear it for protection. I told her it might well be a short Surah (Chapter), and she looked at me like I was this crazy person. She said she had no idea about the Arabic language, or about what the book said.  And then,  she also told me how she doesn’t like covering her head. She is an American girl. Born and raised in America by Pakistani parents.

She was beautiful. She could have been my younger sister. She just wants to work and go to college perhaps… what do I know? I am telling you, if you are a follower of Christ, you have nothing to fear. Reach out to them.

And be prepared. People are often afraid of what they do not know. You do have to know about Islam, I believe. Be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. At the same time, recognize that Muslims are like sheep without a shepherd. Be compassionate. And learn to defend your faith historically.

Here is where Apologetics plays a role. Of course, you can always love them and serve them. It is not your job to convince them of anything – that’s the Spirit of God’s job. But if they are zealous, they are gonna try to convert you before you try to convert them.

The world of Muslim-Christian apologetics is amazing. I love it. I wish I had more people around me to talk about it. My husband is sick of it – pretty much. I love building a case for the historical Jesus, and his death and Resurrection, and studying the claims about Islam. It is fascinating – to me anyways – the fact that Textual Criticism is a science that assures us of the reliability of Scriptures. The arguments can go back and forth forever, but at the end, it all points to making a personal decision based on the evidence you have.

Muslims, tough, for the most part, are lovely people. No kidding. I feel more comfortable now approaching a Muslim at the store, and having a conversation with them, than I am with an agnostic or even and atheist. Muslims have offered to cook for me, and they are nice to my children. And you know what? I miss my friend, but her words resonate constantly in my mind…

If only these people knew who I am, they wold probably not want to be my friends, because I am going to let them down. 

And I have to make a choice. Every day. I have to decide whom to listen to. Am I gonna listen to my friend, or am I gonna listen to the Ex-Muslims who tell me I should stop calling her my friend? They told me she was never my friend. She spotted me as a weak Christian and saw an opportunity to convert me. There are many blessings from Allah when you convert people, you know… or so they say.

But I choose not to listen to anybody but to Jesus. And He loves her. He died for her. He died for me, and for all the Muslims that I see around in my neighborhood. So I choose to have the mind of Christ, and I approach them anyway. Of course, I learned my lesson. I will keep it at chicken tandori, and masala chai for as long as I can 🙂

Also, there are great rewards to all these experiences. My children see me loving people. My four year-old is so funny. She asked me the other day at church if the pastor was an ex-Muslim (he had a long beard). And she has more theology in her little mind that what I had at age 30. She praises Jesus and calls Him YHWH, and on a regular basis, tells me I should stop praying for my Muslim friend.

Mommy, you hurt her. She hurt you. She will always be a Muslim. She cannot be a follower of Jesus because Momamad [Muhammad] told her. I just want to play with Muslims.

And I knew she was referring to my friend’s son. They were best friends at school. And my heart sank. But you know what? I actually ended up talking to my daughter about how God loves answering even the most impossible prayers. So, who knows? Maybe one day, she will leave Islam, Insha’Allah.

These interactions help me to teach my children about apologetics, ground them in the Christian faith, and my Savior Jesus. I am showing them what it looks like to follow Him will they choose to trust Him as their own Lord and Savior one day. These experiences are preparing them to go into the world ready to love people as Jesus loves people.

If you have Jesus as your Lord and Savior, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Seriously, the worst thing ISIS can do to you or to me is to kill your physical body, but your soul is secure. And I know not everybody feels as I do, but I only want to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone. It doesn’t have to be with Muslims, you know?

Just love people, and thank God for His gift of Salvation in Christ. Specially during this season.

Merry CHRISTmas! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Leftovers – INTERMISSION

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST. 

I don’t really know if people who read this blog actually click on the links that I have uploaded. In case you don’t, you might want to know that the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand is over in Mark 6:44. If all I wanted to talk about was Jesus feeding a ton of people, it would be over. But it is far from over. If you go back to The Leftovers – Part 2, you can recall Jesus making the disciples get into a boat.

When you open a Bible in the Book of Mark 6:30-44, that section is called Jesus feeds the Five Thousand. But the account of what happens to them in that boat continues in the next section called Jesus walks on water (Mark 6:45-56). I am expanding here because if you are not familiar with Bible reading, you might think that these two sections are completely separated, and that one has nothing to do with the other.

These division of Chapters, Verses and Sections DO NOT exist in the oldest Hebrew Bible and New Testament Greek manuscripts. Actually, the examination of these texts reveals only upper-case letters, no spaces between words while writing, and no punctuation. Sometimes an occasional blank line was inserted to mark the end of a major section, but this was not always done. This constitutes the scripto continua fashion that is typical of non-Biblical manuscripts as well.

Why ancient Greek is written like this, I have no idea, but we have to consider that papyrus was greatly used back then. It was not very expensive so it was a top choice. However, papyrus was also very scarce outside Egypt due to climate destruction, so it makes sense that these manuscripts were written scripto continua to save on papyrus. You would like to squeeze as much text as you could. Manuscripts were copied, by hand, tens of thousands of times, long after the original manuscript had been destroyed. Imagine trying to do that when the words are written in all upper-case letters, with no spaces between words, and no punctuation. If that’s not enough, you’re writing on poor-quality paper with a scratchy reed pen, and using ink you made yourself.

As you can already realize, New Testament scribes DID NOT copy Bible verses, since there was no Bible to start with. What scribes copied were HUMONGOUS amounts of information. They copied strings of letters, one after another, one after another. After a few centuries of that, it’s easy to imagine that the text of the New Testament would no longer bear any relationship to the original. But the fact that copies were being made constantly, by intent scribes under the supervision of careful proofreaders, meant that the text remained fairly fixed. Welcome to the Science of Textual Criticism.

I applaud the division of the Bible into sections, chapters and verses, as it is very helpful for Bible Study and memorization of Scripture. It is definitely easier to ask someone to read John 3:16, than to ask him to open his Bible and find For God so agape-loved the world that…

This New Testament division was developed around A.D. 1227 by Archbishop Stephen Langton, followed later by Jewish Rabbi Nathan in A.D. 1448 for the Hebrew Bible. Beginning with the Geneva Bible in 1555, the chapter and verse divisions have been accepted into nearly all the Bible versions. It is helpful, but it can be devastating, because sometimes you can focus on one single Bible verse without taking into account the whole context of the teaching.

The placement of the chapters and verses were done in a complete ARBITRARY manner. The divisions DO NOT follow any logical or consistent method, DO NOT represent literary units, and DO NOT define the author’s unit of thought. In a word, focusing ONLY in Bible verses rather than whole units within a context can mess up our understanding of the text. A single Bible verse can be manipulated into agreeing with what people want to believe.

 Context is everything.

One cannot single out one verse and discard the other.

Either take it all, or discard it all.  

Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors. And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

– Quran 2:190-191

“Oh, no! You are taking it out of context”, say the Muslims. Of course. Because context is everything, you see.

Dr. Maher Hathout  explains that these verses were applicable to a particular situation. After the migration to Medina and the establishment of the Islamic state, Muslims were concerned with how to defend themselves against aggression from their enemies. The verses mentioned were revealed by Allah to enable them to protect the newly formed state by fighting in self-defense against those who fought them. And that’s it. That verse ONLY applied to that historical context, but unfortunately it is misused by the media when talking about jihad.

Why am I going to great lengths to study these divisions and contexts? Because it relates to the concept of Bible Corruption that Muslims love to bring about. I will focus on five Bible verses for now, but then I will expand from there. Let us take, for example, John 14, verses 13 and 14.

And I [Jesus] will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

– John 14:13-14

These verses, according to Muslim interpretation, are a good example of the corruption the real gospel of Jesus – the Injil – underwent. When was it corrupted? They don’t know. Who corrupted it? They don’t know. The Christians did it – in general. The logic behind the subject of corruption is that these verses contradict the Quran. Why are they in contradiction with the Quran? It you read carefully, it is clear that Jesus is telling His disciples that they can pray TO Him, and that He himself will answer those prayers.

In the original language of the manuscripts, Jesus is saying something like this:

Whatever you might ask in the name of ME, this I will do (verse 13). If anything you ask ME, in the name of ME, I [from greek EGO→First person pronoun] will do it (verse 14).

– Jesus (John 14:13-14)

Jewish Jesus is elevating himself  to God-like status. His disciples can actually pray TO Him and He will answer those prayers. But Muslim Jesus would never do such a thing. Muslims will never dare to pray TO anybody other than Allah. They definitely do not pray to Prophet Muhammad. Praying TO Jesus, TO Mary, TO an ancestor or TO an idol is considered shirk, the unforgivable sin in Islam. You are associating partners with Allah. Once we grasp this, it makes sense now why Muslims consider Christians to be polytheists. The Theology of The Trinity presents a challenge to the Theology of Tawhid (where God is ONLY One). The Theology of the Trinity basically explains how God is God, how Jesus is God, and how the Holy Spirit is God. But Muslims interpret that as 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 gods.

I personally worship One and Only One God. One day I will get to the Trinity – God willing. You might be surprised to know, though, that there are Muslims who are all about Jesus is God. That affirmation does not freak them out as much as saying God is Jesus. Believe me, it is not the same. But as far as verses 13 and 14, they cannot be accepted by a Muslim as authentic. Let’s explore the verses that follow after that.

If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

– John 14:15-17

I had already mentioned before that this Advocate, according to Muslims, is Prophet Mohammad. The world definitely saw and knew Prophet Muhammad. Muslims say he lives with them through Quran, Sunnah and hadith. I wonder if they will say Prophet Muhammad lives in them. Actually, the preposition for in, is ἐν, and it can be translated as on, in or among. So I guess I have to be fair to Prophet Muhammad as He could be that Messenger. But then, I also have to be fair to Jesus, as He can also live IN through the Holy Spirit.  Mostly, as of right now, I have to be fair to my God-given intelligence.

The Bible was not intended to be read in bits and pieces. You cannot pick and choose the verses you like. At least not if you want to be consistent. These five verses (John 14:13-17) are contained within the Upper Room Speech (John 14-John 17) – a series of instructions and comforting words Jesus spoke to His disciples before He gets arrested.

I have heard Zakir Naik agreeing with Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). All within the same context of the Upper Room. And Zakir loves context. But then, he twists that context into saying that Moses was also the way, the truth, and the life in Moses’ time. Muslims not only agree, but also believe that Prophet Muhammad is the way, the truth and the life for this generation. Muslims believe that following Prophet Muhammad will grant them paradise.

What happened then to the scale of good deeds versus bad deeds? Why is it unfair of me to think that Jesus can give me salvation? Is it not unfair of them to think that Prophet Muhammad can give them salvation as well?

It is beyond question that the Christian Western societies thrive on sex. The Jews and Christians in the West have caused so much mischief and misled so many innocent and pure Believers into grave sins. Their life styles and core beliefs are far more dangerous than all of the porn sites combined out there.  The bikinis that their women wear in the summer on the beaches, the virginity that they lose at early teenage years, the open sex between “boy friends and girl friends” without marriage, the inappropriate cloths that both their men and women wear, the ridiculous daily songs and the foul words that they contain, the liquor and getting drunk that they thrive on, all combined build nothing but an evil satan-worshiping society. 

– An angry Muslim

It is sad this is what the average Muslim on the web might think of me. But you see, I cannot pick and choose what Quran or Bible verses I like, or what hadiths I like, and discard the rest. If I become a Muslim, I take all that Quran says, and all that Prophet Muhammad said, or else, I’d better not become a Muslim.  

In John 15:12–13, Jesus said, “My command is this: [Agape] Love each other as I have [agape] loved you. Greater [agape] love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. And how did Jesus love? He gave His life. But once again, this is corrupted. When it comes again to the Advocate in John 15:26, it is not corrupted. Prophet Muhammad actually has all the verses in John 16:7-15 talking about Him as the Advocate again. But John 16:23–24, where Jesus tells the disciples AGAIN that they can pray in His name, is corrupted.

But you see, all these verses and divisions are ALL within the SAME CONTEXT: The Upper Room Speech.

I have to take either the whole speech as TRUE or the whole speech as FALSE – I cannot twist the speech to my satisfaction. If the whole speech is false, then I cannot pray TO Jesus, and Prophet Muhammad is NOT the messenger. If the whole speech is true, then I can pray TO Jesus, and the Spirit of Truth is Prophet Muhammad. But those are conflicting arguments. Either Jesus is encouraging me to commit shirk by praying to Him OR Prophet Muhammad is a false prophet/teacher like the ones Jesus warned about.

If I were a Muslim scholar, I would take the whole speech unit as false rather than coming up with conspiracy theories on scribes foreshadowing exactly what strings of letters they had to corrupt in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Are Muslim scholars asking me to logically consider the possibility that all the scribes knew exactly what to corrupt? Are they seriously implying that after those scribes were dead, or replaced, the scribes who kept on producing more copies of the same manuscripts also knew exactly what to corrupt? They were the same manuscripts, but still, more people copying might mean more corruption. And what about the manuscripts in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and other languages? Did the scribes get in touch with each other to organize the corruption of the same string of letters at the same time? What about the scribes in different cities? Did they travel for miles on foot in order to plot all this?

Almost all Biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the First Century. If Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30. (let’s say He didn’t die, and Allah placed Judas on the cross as Muslims say) that means the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were written – people who could have objected the corruption. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, there were plenty of good Muslims who would have pointed out that these copies were in contradiction with the original Injil that God gave Jesus. They would have started a revolution because scribes were altering the actual message of Islam Jesus preached.

If I were a Muslim, how could I ever trust any Bible prophecy about Prophet Muhammad if I cannot even trust the whole paragraph? If I cannot trust a whole division, and the divisions that constitute whole teachings of Jesus, why would I trust a single Bible verse?

I am not buying the corruption conspiracy. As Zakir said, context is everything. One cannot single one verse out and discard the other. Either take it all, or discard it all. If Muslims want to read the New Testament, I would encourage them to do it. Start with the Book of Mark – the least corrupted, according to Shabir Ally. After all, I did open a Quran (which I am still reading) because I love my Muslims.

If you, as a Muslim, are really submitting to Allah’s will, then you have definitely nothing to lose and absolutely nothing to fear. But please, be consistent in your thinking. Allah will guide us all, In shaa Allah.

And Allah knows best.

The leftovers – Introduction

I think I have been investing so much of my time learning about Islam, that I have tossed Jesus out of the window. The Jesus I know. The One who offered me hope eight years ago. I miss Him. Sometimes I cry mourning for Him, like when someone you deeply love has passed away. Other times, though, I feel so strongly about my relationship with Him, that somehow I think that documenting my faith journey doesn’t really matter in the scope of time.

I have a very clumsy brain. For the most part, I have tried to change that part of me, as it gets me in a lot of trouble with my husband. I haven’t succeeded so far, at least not to his satisfaction. He is a very organized, almost OCD-like person. Sometimes I think he doesn’t share things with me, but he does. It is me who usually forgets about what he said. I guess that’s what got me into writing. So I need to write down some events that have happened in the last two weeks. I do not want to forget.

To start with, I want to talk about how Jesus fed the five thousand in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 6:30-52. Before that, though, I need to make sure all of us – Christians and Muslims reading – are on the same page. In case you didn’t know, Muslims do agree with some teachings of Jesus as long as they don’t contradict the Quran. At least the Muslims I’ve watched on YouTube.

There is a lot of chit chat on the subject of how the gospels have evolved from Mark to John. According to Muslim apologist Shabir Ally, the Bible has changed over time. Here are a few examples:

  • In Mark 9:5, Peter addresses Jesus as Rabbi, but in Matthew 17:4, he addresses Him as Lord.
  • In Mark 13:35, Jesus describes the owner of a house, but in Matthew 24:42, the Lord will come.
  • In Mark, you have Jesus praying in the Garden so that God would take away the cup that awaited Him, but in John Jesus is even willing to die.

I love Shabir, by the way. It would be awesome to meet him one day. I guess you get to really like people by spending countless hours watching their YouTube videos. I have some sweet Muslim connections in Canada, but they are not in Toronto where Shabir is. Anyways, if you know Shabir, I would love if you could arrange a meeting. I am not kidding.

So the Gospel of Mark is the first one that was written (between A.D. 55-65) and the Gospel of John is the last one (between A.D. 85-90). One day I will talk about why the gospels are so different. People, however, need to know that Christians have never claimed the Gospels are THE WORDS of God. The Gospels were written by men, and were inspired by God. But I just need to say three things:

1. It is very double-minded of Muslims to refer to the Gospel of John as the most corrupted and the most unreliable one since John has made Jesus into God. Yet at the same time, it is EXACTLY the Gospel of John the one that Muslims LOVE to quote to find a prophecy for Prophet Muhammad from the own lips Jesus. The Counselor, the Helper, the Advocate who Jesus promised to send in John 14:26 is NOT the Holy Spirit. According to Muslims, it is Prophet Muhammad. If you are a Christian, your jaw must have dropped. Mine dropped for sure when I first heard of this.

I’ve got to ask… if Christians corrupted the Gospels so successfully (changing thousands of manuscripts in many different languages), isn’t it really dumb of them to leave Prophet Mohammad right there in the open in ALL the manuscripts? If they really wanted to corrupt the whole thing, you make sure to erase ANY prophecy of ANY other person after Jesus. That is the only way of making Christianity a sure hit. Muslims, though, seem to accuse God of not being able to protect His words as He said He would (Quran 18:27). Many Muslims will say that this verse refers to the Quran. I agree. But Quran 6:115 also says NONE can alter Allah’s WORDS. Sometimes the Quran refers as the Torah and the Gospel as Allah’s Words. So, did Allah or didn’t Allah protect His Words?

And If you are going to tell me that the original Gospel, the Injil, that Allah gave Jesus got lost or somehow Christians corrupted it, and that it was that Injil the one that the Quran talks about, then I still have the same question. Why couldn’t Allah protect it? Sure, I do not know what I am talking about because I do not understand Arabic. I am getting tired of listening to that. I want to get closer to God, but I refuse to embrace the idea that God would only be known in Arabic. People worldwide are hungry for God. If Islam is the religion for all mankind, I should be able to understand it in plain English, right? Or Spanish. I am also fluent in Spanish. I also read French. Still, it breaks my heart to ponder over the idea of Allah not loving me in French.

Dis: “Si vous aimez vraiment Allah, suivez-moi, Allah vous aimera alors et vous pardonnera vos péchés. Allah est Pardonneur et Miséricordieux. Dis: «Obéissez à Allah et au Messager. Et si vous tournez le dos… alors Allah n’aime pas les infidèles!

– Le Saint Quran 3:31-32

2. I could never live in limbo like some Muslims live. If I go for Islam, I will go full throttle. I will not put my foot in some parts of the gospels as revelations that Allah was able to protect. I just couldn’t live with the doubt, you know. Because if some parts are corrupted, who is to assure me which parts are not? If they are corrupted, then tell me who corrupted them, and when. My conscience would not let me live in peace having the best of both faiths as far as Jesus is concerned. Even my Muslim and I have had conversations about what Prophet Muhammad said, and most of the time I end up telling him, “Yep, that’s in the Bible” or “Yep, Jesus said that”. But how do I know those teachings have not been corrupted?

Oh! They are not corrupted, because they confirm the Quran!

Of course they do. And that is a very convenient, but not a very consistent way on how Muslims or any person regarding of his religious background should approach the Gospels. I have a brain, a very clumsy brain, but I dare not misuse my intelligence. My Muslimah told me once that Islam was a religion that made sense. Even the Quran promotes logical thinking and reasoning. Some websites even call Islam a religion for grownups. But it is impossible to have such a conspiracy to change or alter the Word of God in all of these Bible manuscripts without missing any copy. Such a conspiracy will not be logical or even attainable. It doesn’t make any sense.  And so my brain and my soul will have to forfeit the Jesus of the Bible, ALL of Him, if I embrace Islam. I just couldn’t live with myself to have it otherwise.

3. Muslims don’t like John, and they pick and choose from Luke and Matthew. Oh, well… I guess Mark will do for now. I will talk about my life and the feeding of the five thousand in the next post 🙂

TO BE CONTINUED…

Not fair...

Not fair – Part 3

While on vacation, several things happened regarding my faith journey. I was asked by a waiter if I was a Muslim. I couldn’t but laugh nervously. Apparently he saw my daughter eating enormous amounts of bacon with her pancakes.

No, I am not a Muslim. Why do you ask me that, Abdullah? [Points at the bacon] Oh, the bacon, of course. Nope. I am not a Muslim, but I know about the bacon. I’m reading your Quran. My best friends in Chennai are Muslims, and I always tell them how a terrible Muslim I would make because I like beer. Are you married, Abdullah?  

Abdullah is married, but he sees his daughter -who is 18 months old- only a few days every six months. He also told me that a lot of Muslims eat bacon because they don’t even know they are not supposed to eat it. This is in a country where alcohol and pork are banned from consumption (except at the resorts), and importing anti-Islamic materials (including idols for worship and Bibles) is an offence. Abdullah was nothing but nice to me. I did not take any offense in him asking me whether I was a Muslim or not. My husband, of course, thought that was none of his business.

But I actually thought it was really sweet that Abdullah would care for my daughter and for me not sinning in case we were Muslims. My daughter has a free pass on sins until she reaches puberty, but not me. He was not telling me it is wrong to eat pork. He was not holding me accountable to his beliefs. He was holding me accountable to my sin only if I was a Muslim. That is why he asked first. And I think that was a beautiful Muslim parallel example of the accountability I explained in my last post Christians – Part 2.

Another thing that happened is that I was asked by a young woman [Sherry] which religion I followed. She explained she was Catholic, but she did not understand why the priests were so controlling to the people in her native country, and why her Muslims friends at the resort were telling her that Jesus was not God. I seriously felt like hugging her and asking her, “Have they told you yet that the Bible is corrupted?” 

She asked me if I could explain the Trinity for her. I gave it a shot, and I explained it to her – as much as I grasp it. The Trinity belongs to another post, tough. I just want to make clear that The Trinity mentioned in the Quran is indeed a blatant blasphemy for me as a Christian.

They have certainly disbelieved who say, ” Allah is the third of three.” And there is no god except one God.

-Quran 5:73

And [beware the Day] when Allah will say, “‘O Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah ?'” He will say, “Exalted are You! It was not for me to say that to which I have no right. If I had said it, You would have known it.

– Quran 5:116

After reading these two verses together the question begs to be asked… Is it reasonable for me to think that Prophet Muhammad thought that the Trinity of Christianity consisted of Jesus, Mary and Allah? I say maybe. Many Muslims on the web wrongly assert this is what Christians believe. My own Muslim confronted me one morning on why I prayed TO Mary. Who told him that? Other Christians? I don’t think so. I will have to ask him, but he definitely read it in the Quran. Maybe Prophet Muhammad was referring to a smaller group of Christians who seemed to have a heretical emphasis on praying TO Mary.

But it is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Catholics do not pray TO saints or Mary, but rather that Catholics can ask saints or Mary to pray FOR them. Whether this practice is biblical or not, my Catholic Brothers and Sisters in Christ worship GOD ALONE. We may have differences in understanding, but Catholics will never tell you Mary is part of the Trinity. I was raised Catholic, FYI.

Anyway… Sherry was very sweet. There are people hungry for God. There are people who have questions about God. I knew there were people actively looking for God, and maybe this was God’s way to show me. This morning, on the other hand, my children and I were surrounded by five Muslim women all wearing black from top to bottom – abaya, hijab and all. They were all smiling and shaking my hand as my landlord introduced them as his wife and his four daughters. What is God trying to tell me? My Muslimah thinks Allah is trying to open my eyes to the truth of Islam. Sure. Why not?

BUT IT IS NOT FAIR.

It is not fair that I have to become a Muslim for God to love me. Being a Muslim is not as easy as believing in One and Only One God and submitting to Him. One cannot be a Muslim until one recites the Shahada, the First Pillar of Islam, with sincerity and conviction: I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the  Messenger of Allah.

Say, [O Muhammad], “If you should love Allah , then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Obey Allah and His messenger [Muhammad], but if they turn back, Allah does not love the unbelievers.

– Quran 3:31-32

Whoever disbelieves, he shall be responsible for his disbelief, and whoever does good, they prepare (good) for their own souls, that He may reward those who believe and do good out of His grace; surely He [Allah] does not love the unbelievers.
– Quran 30:44-45

God’s love for me is contingent on whether or not I believe in Muhammad. As of right now, I am an unbeliever. I cannot recite the Shahada from the heart. And if I do not believe in God AND Muhammad:

  • As I enter hell and my skin is burned, it will be exchanged for other skin so that I taste the punishment (Quran 4:56).
  • The angels will smite my face and my back so that I taste the punishment of burning (Quran 8:50).
  • I am also the vilest of animals (Quran 8:55).
  • I have burning fire awaiting for me (Quran 48:13).
  • I will also have an entertainment of boiling water (Quran 56:91-93).
  • I will also burn in hell (Quran 56:94), but that I already knew.

There are more verses, but those are enough for me. After doing all this reading, not a single Muslim can sincerely tell me that Christianity is too narrow. No way. Islam is as narrow. I don’t have a problem with the doors being narrow, you see, because I do want to choose a door. My doors are either the Jesus of the Bible OR Muhammad [and the Jesus in the Quran]. I cannot have both. Christianity and Islam are mutually exclusive.

But I have experienced that God is loving. I know God is just. And I know God is fair. Our human understanding of His justice is what makes us question His love and His fairness. But God’s ways are not our ways, neither His thoughts are our thoughts. His ways and His thoughts are higher [Isaiah 55:8-9].

As I read my Quran, I constantly ask God with an open heart, IS THIS TRUE?

Not fair...

Not fair – Part 2

“Aren’t you afraid?”, I asked my husband. “I know you are sick of me with all this, but I need to hear from you. What do you think? Don’t you care about going to hell?”

Sweetheart, you are looking for something that you will NOT find. You are looking for proof that what you believe is true. You won’t find that. The only thing you will find is information that will enable you to make a decision – a sensible choice. I made a choice a long time ago to follow Jesus. I read and I chose. Can I prove it? No, but I still choose to believe it. That’s faith. Go running, it will help you clear your mind…

He is right, you know. I don’t know how it happened but I have committed so much of my time to find information about Islam and Christianity for the last six months. It probably started after the Bible-corruption talk I had with my Muslims. They are my Muslims and they will always be. But my husband is right. I will never be certain of anything. These things are not very likely to be settled scientifically. All I can do then is to make an informed decision. If I end up going to hell, I cannot blame anybody but me, I guess.

A Muslim is a person who submits to God. Any human can be a Muslim if he believes in one and only one God AND he leads a good life by submitting to that one God.

A non-Muslim, by definition, is a person who does not recognize God as a Sovereign Law giver Who rewards the good and punishes the bad.

OnIslam.net

The duty of Muslims is to do more good deeds and minimize evil deeds. That’s how they hope to attain salvation. Again, bear in mind, only in general terms. So on the Day of Judgment, Allah will judge them and ask them about each single deed that they did in this world. If the scale of good deeds exceeds the bad deeds, by Allah’s mercy they will enter Paradise.

Allah has written down the good deeds and the bad ones. He who has intended a good deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a full good deed, but if he has intended it and has done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times, or many times over. But if he has intended a bad deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a full good deed, but if he has intended it and has done it, Allah writes it down as one bad deed

– Prophet Muhammad

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim

In Islam actions are judged on the basis of intentions. Bad actions are not necessarily bad. Actually, good intentions in themselves have become good because they are based on the right philosophy or the right belief. Personally, I don’t think that would fly with the Jesus of the Bible. They might fly with the Muslim Jesus in the Quran, but not with my Jewish Husband. I have been so angry with my children that I have felt like throwing them out of the window. That is murder according to the Jewish Jesus.

When Jesus walked on this earth, He elevated the standard of morality to a higher level than The Law of Moses. In Matthew 5:22, Jesus says that you shall be subjected to penalty (bound, guilty) if you get the kind of anger (irritation) that focuses on punishing your offender rather than punishing the moral content of the offense (that’s me with my children). Not only that, if in contempt you call someone a moron, a fool, a stupid idiot – anything that puts into question his “brains” – you are risking going to gehenna (hell). Keep in mind that Jesus is talking to his twelve closest men, and to a whole crowd of people.

I am telling you people, following Jesus is creeping me out. This is a Jesus I had never seen in these eight years. This man is NOT a pushover. But then He forgives, and says that there is no greater love but to give your life for your friends, and He dies willingly. So Jesus calls you out when you sin, but then He dies for it. I think trying to explain how He embodied grace AND truth is impossible for me as a human being.

According to Islam, though, even if I felt like killing and thought about it many times, it doesn’t count as a bad deed. It actually counts as a good one because I didn’t follow through with the murder. Of course I was confused, so I asked my friends. They told me to read the Quran first, and to stop messing with the hadiths. Haven’t they realized they got me into this to start with?

 So to make things clearer: Muslims follow the Quran, the Sunnah and the hadiths.

  1. The Quran is their Holy Book.
  2. The Sunnah are the religious practices that were established by the Prophet among his companions, and have passed to them by the consensus of generations.
  3. The hadiths are narrations that are attributed to the companions of the Prophet who narrate a statement or a story about Muhammad or related to him.

According to some Muslims, the Quran and the Sunnah remain as their primary sources to understand Islam. But there are other Muslims who only follow the Quran and disregard the Sunnah, so you see them arguing on the web about this. These arguments do not even include the hadiths. There is a whole process for determining if the hadith is authentic or not. But a good rule of thumb is to go with Sahih al-Bukhari since it is recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world to be the most authentic collection of sayings of Prophet Muhammad. After that, Sahih Muslim is the second best collection. So for now, I’m sticking to those.

He who obeys the Messenger [Mohammad] has obeyed Allah

– Quran 4:80

Were am I going with all this? Well, it has actually crossed my mind the idea that if Islam is the true religion, I have to dump Jesus as my Savior, acknowledge Him only as a prophet, and embrace the Seal of the Prophets: Muhammad. If I am going to be a Muslimah, I’m gonna have to give it my best shot because No Savior means it all depends on me. My salvation rests on my shoulders, and of course, Allah’s mercy.

As I’ve seen, though, there is no consistency in how Allah punishes sin. Sometimes He wipes it all away, sometimes He does keep track of your wrong doings. This, of course, has me all confused because Allah in the Quran does not display the same character that Allah in the Bible displays (which has given me headaches for the last 6+ months). Seriously, it is hard to keep track of my children on an everyday basis, how am I supposed to keep track of my deeds with God?

Whoever says, ‘Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi,’ one hundred times a day, will be forgiven all his sins even if they were as much as the foam of the sea.

Sahih al-Bukhari

Whoever says, ‘La ilaha illal-lah wahdahu la sharika lahu, lahu-l-mulk wa lahul- hamd wa huwa ‘ala kulli shai’in qadir,’ one hundred times will get the same reward as given for manumitting ten slaves; and one hundred good deeds will be written in his accounts, and one hundred sins will be deducted from his accounts

Sahih al-Bukhari

Allah can do whatever He wants because He is God. God is God. The One and Only True God that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship according to Quran 29:46. So I think I owe it to myself to learn from Prophet Muhammad. It only makes sense that if he is a beautiful pattern of conduct (Quran 33:21) then I have to evaluate whether or not I want to sign up for Islam.

I am questioning things. I have to dissect the Jewish Jesus, the Muslim Jesus, Christianity, Islam, Muhammad, even Judaism and reincarnation. Anything goes in my search for truth, and I am telling you, it is NOT fair.

TO BE CONTINUED…