The
Basis of Muslim Belief
By Gary Miller
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About Gary Miller, the author
Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) shows how we can establish true faith by setting
standards of truth. He illustrates a simple but effective method of
finding out the right direction in our search for truth.
G.R.. Miller is a
mathematician and a theologian. He was active in Christian
missionary work at a particular point of his life but he soon began to
discover many inconsistencies in the Bible. In 1978, he happened to read
the Qur'an expecting that it, too, would contain a
mixture of truth and falsehood.
He discovered to his
amazement that the message of the Qur'an was precisely the
same as the essence of truth that he had distilled from the Bible. He
became a Muslim and since then has been active in giving public
presentations on Islam including radio and television appearances. He is
also the author of several articles and publications about Islam.
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Dilemma of Applying Reason
Almost all of us
have been faced with the questioning of a child by repeating one word over and
over. He can be very frustrating to us as he asks, "WHY?" If you put
a knife beyond his reach, he wants to know "WHY?" When you explain it
is sharp, he asks "WHY?" And so you explain, "in order to cut
fruit," and he asks, "WHY?" And so it goes.
It illustrates the
dilemma of applying reason. What we have to do when we apply reason is first
set standards of proof. We decide for ourselves, "What will I be satisfied
with if I find such and such and so and so that constitutes for me a final
proof?" We have to decide on that first.
What happens though, is that on the really important issues, the
philosophical matters, thinkers set standards of proof and they take a look at
their subjects and eventually they may arrive at their standards. They may
arrive at the point which say would constitute a proof. But then they ask for a
proof of the proof.
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Setting Standards
The key to avoiding
this endless dissatisfaction is to satisfy ourselves about the standards first;
to satisfy ourselves that such and such are a list of criteria that constitute
proof, satisfying proof, and then we test the subjects that we examine. In
particular I will apply this to the Qur'an.
Ask a thoughtful
Christian why he is a Christian, and he will usually reply, "The miracle
of the Resurrection." The basis for his belief being
that about two thousand years ago a man died and he was raised from the dead.
That is his miracle, his 'touchstone', because all else depends on that.
Ask a Muslim,
"Well, what is your miracle? Why are you a Muslim? What is your miracle?
Why are you a Muslim? Where is your miracle?" and the Muslim can go over
and take his miracle off the shelf and hand it to you because his miracle is
still with us today. It is the Qur'an; it is his
'touchstone'.
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Sign of God
While all the
Prophets have their signs, Moses had the competition with the magicians and the
Pharaoh, Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead and so on, one Sign was
given to the last of the prophets. According to the Muslims, this is the Qur'an. And this one Sign is still with us. Does not that
after all seem fair, that if prophethood is to end
that the last prophet should bring something that stays with us so that, in
fact, a Muslim who takes his religion seriously suffers no disadvantage to
Muslims who lived fourteen centuries ago?
Those people who
kept company with the Prophet had access to no more of the necessary information
than we have today. They had the Qur'an. That was the
sign for them. It is still a sign to us today, the same miracle.
Well, let us test
the Qur'an. Suppose that if I say to a man, "I
know your father." Probably he is going to examine the situation and see
if it seems likely that I have met his father. If he is not convinced, he will
start asking me questions like: "You know my father, you say, is he a tall
man? Does he have curly hair? Does he wear glasses?,"
and so on. If I keep giving him the right answers to all these questions,
pretty soon he is going to be convinced. "Well, I guess this man did meet
my father like he said." You see the method.
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The Big Bang Theory
Verses
in the Qur'an claim that the author of Qur'an was present when the universe first appeared, when
life first began billions of years ago.
We have a right to
question this claim. We ask the author, "Well tell us something to prove
to us that YOU were there when they world began, life began."
In reply to our
challenge, the Qur'an contains a dumbfounding
statement. It reads,
"Have not the
disbelievers seen that the Heavens and the Earth were one piece and we parted
them? And We made every living thing from water. Will
they not then believe?" (
(in
the Qur'an, 'We' is used not to show plurality, that
several Gods exist but rather as a sign of respect)
There are 3 key
points in (
Coincidentally, the
universally accepted theory of 'the origin of the universe' is now the BIG BANG
THEORY. It maintains that at one time ALL OF HEAVENS AND THE EARTH were one
piece, the 'monoblock' as it is called. At a
particular point in time, this 'monoblock' burst and
it continues to expand. This is the origin of the universe we have today.
THIS IS A
RECENT CONFIRMATION.
The Nobel Prize in
Physics was awarded only a few years ago to those who confirmed the Big Bang
Theory origin of the universe. It was only 200 years ago that Leeuwenhoek and
others perfected the microscope and discovered for the first time that LIVING
CELLS ARE COMPOSED OF 80% WATER.
The above
information which was scientifically confirmed only in the last 2 centuries, can be found in the Qur'an
which originated 14 centuries ago! Could it then have been written by an
ordinary man or can it only be the work of God?
The verse above, (
"Have not the
disbelievers seen that the Heavens and the Earth were one piece and we parted
them? And We made every living thing from water. Will
they not then believe?" (
Does this not prove
that the author of the Qur'an, has indeed met the challenge, "Was He there when the
universe began, when life began."
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Taking a Stand
Everyone must be
committed to something. You have to put your foot down some place. It is
impossible to be neutral at all times. There has been a point of reference in
the life of any thinking individual. You have to take a stand somewhere. The
question, of course, is to put your foot down in the right place. Since there
is no such thing as a proof of a proof and so on, in order to find the right
place to put one's foot down, to take a stand, we have to search and find that
place and it is by a method that I hope to illustrate here.
It is a question of
finding a point of convergence. You see, we search for truth in many places and
we begin to know that we are succeeding in finding the truth if all our
different paths start to converge; they start to come together at the same
point.
If we are examining
a book, looking for evidence of divine origin, and we are led to Islam, this is
one path. If at the same time, we examining the words of all those who were
called prophets and we find ourselves led to Islam, we have a firmly grounded
basis for belief. We started looking for truth in two different places and
found ourselves going down the path headed for the same destination.
No one ever proves
all things. We have to stop at some point being satisfied with our standards as
I have mentioned earlier. The point is, in order to take a stand and to be sure
it is in the right place, we want to examine all the evidence around us and see
where does it lead us and anticipate this point of
convergence; to say it looks like all things are pointing to this place. We go
to that place and then look at the data around us to see if it fits into place.
Does it now make sense? Are we standing in the right place?
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The Expanding Heavens
Let me first show
more of our examination of the Qur'an, and then an
examination of some words of prophets to find this point of convergence. In
Chapter 51, verse 47, it is mentioned that the heavens are expanding. As I
mentioned earlier, this is in connection with the 'Big Bang' origin of the
universe, as it is usually called, and it was in 1973 that the Nobel prize was awarded to three men who were confirming that,
after all, the universe is expanding.
The
comments of Muslims over the centuries on this verse which speaks of the
heavens doing exactly that is very interesting. The wisest among
them stated that the words are very clear, that the heavens are expanding, but
they could not imagine how that could be so. But they were content to leave the
words as they were, to say: "Allah knows best."
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The City of
The Qur'an mentions a city by the name of Iram
(89:7). The city of
In 1973, the
excavation in
Interestingly
enough, you will find the details in the National Geographic of 1978 which
confirms that in those tablets the city of
Those Muslims who may have offered their comments, trying to
explain away this reference that they were uncomfortable with, were outsmarted
by the author of the Qur'an. They were those who
would attempt to outsmart the author of the Qur'an.
Primarily, their activity would involve trying to produce the evidence that the
author of this book had a primitive understanding of the world around us.
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The Smallest Matter
For example, there
is a word which is translated today usually in Arabic as Zarrah.
This is usually translated as 'atom' and it is usually thought of in Arabic as
being the smallest item available at one time. Perhaps, the Arabs thought it
was an ant or a grain of dust. Today, the word is usually translated as 'atom'.
Those who would
outsmart the author of the Qur'an have insisted that,
well, the atom is not after all the smallest piece of matter because in this
century it has been discovered that even the atom is made of still smaller
pieces of matter. Is it them possible to outsmart the author who chose to use
this word? Well, there is an interesting verse, in chapter 10, verse 61, which
speaks of items the size of a zarrah, (atom)
or smaller. There is no possibility that on this subject someone is going to
say a new discovery has outdated the words of the Qur'an
on the issue of the size of matter or the ultimate particles. The verse talks
about items the size of a zarrah (atom) or
smaller. [hence, it IS written in the Qur'an that an atom IS NOT the smallest particle!]
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Forgiveness
Speaking of
outsmarting the author of the Qur'an, the Islamic
point of view is that when a man embraces Islam, his past is forgiven from the
very beginning. This has been the invitation to Islam: come to Islam and all is
forgiven from the past.
But consider this.
There is only one enemy of Muhammad, peace be upon him, who is mentioned by
name in the Qur'an: one Abu Lahab.
In a short chapter of this book, he is condemned to punishment for his sins.
As it happens, the
man himself was alive for many years after this revelation. He could therefore
have finished Islam very easily. He needed only to go to the Muslims to announce
his conversion. They had in their hands the revelation which said that this man
is doomed to punishment. He could have gone to Muslims and say: "I accept
Islam, am I forgiven or not?"
He could have
confused them so much as to finish this small movement because he would have
been pointing out to them that they were now in confusion. The policy was
instant forgiveness of the past, but their own
revealed scripture announced that he was not forgiven. As it was, Abu Lahab died without accepting Islam.
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Predictions
In fact, the Qur'an confidently predicted a number of things only a few
years before they came to pass. The fall of the
When all the Muslims
in the world could meet in one room, the revelations were already discussing
their future successes. In confidence, they were planning for the day when they
would be in charge of the city where they were forced at that time to hide for
their very lives.
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Evidence of Divine
Origin
Some people may like
to find any number of things in the Qur'an. But an
honest method in examining this book, looking for evidence of the Divine
origin, is to take things at their value, to look for things that are clear and
to look in those places where we are invited to look. Remember the passage that
I quoted earlier: "Have not the disbelievers seen..." This a common
phrase of the Qur'an: "O Man, Have you not
seen." The invitation is to examine the evidence in these places. We are
doing the sensible thing if we examine the words used to look for the doubted
meaning and to find evidence of the Divine origin.
Each one of us is an
expert on something. One does not have to have a degree in a particular subject
to decide that now, "I can take my expertise to the Qur'an
and see what I can find." We all now something for some
from our own experience and life.
I heard a story,
several years ago in
We all know
something that we can be confident of and if we can turn to the Qur'an to read what it says about that subject, we are
asking for confirmation of our belief in the Divine origin of the book.
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The Two Phenomena
A friend of mine
from the
He suggested a
number od criteria as to
what constitutes an efficient discussion. He graphed the process; that is, he
achieved a measure of efficiency of all groups in their discussions according
to an index by his system. On his graph he indicated the progress made by the
discussion groups of various sizes.
The interesting
thing that happened which he did not expect to find when he began his project
was that, while there were some differences between the size of any given group
and how well they did in discussions, he was surprised to find that groups of
two were completely off his scale! In other words, when people sit down to
discuss something, they were so much more efficient than
any other size of group that it went completely off his scale of measurement.
When my friend heard
about this, something went on at the back of his mind. My friend, being a
Muslim, thought there was something familiar here about this idea. The psychology
researcher was not a Muslim. He was debating with himself on changing the topic
of his thesis. Should he call it 'The Phenomenon of Two' or 'The Two Phenomena?
He was SO surprised at his discovery.
Meanwhile, my friend
found that there is a verse in the Qur'an, and he
found it for himself on the same night, which speaks on discussions and the
size of groups and how efficient they are. And maybe we should not be surprised
to find that it is the groups that are two in numbers that do the best in
achieving results. The main verse in the Qur'an
reads, concerning discussion groups, that when discussing the Qur'an one should sit alone and reflect on its meaning or
discuss it in groups of two.
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Use and Mention of
Words
For myself, as I
said everyone knows something for sure or has an interest and experience in
life; my interest is in mathematics and logic. There is a verse in the Qur'an which says:
"This a scripture whose verses are perfected and then
expounded." (11:1)
Which
tells me that there are no wasted words in the Qur'an;
that each verse is perfected and then it is explained. It could not be in
a better form. One could not use fewer words to say the same thing or if one
uses more words one would only be adding superfluous information.
This directed my
attention to a particular mathematical subject, a logical subject, and I
examined the Qur'an to see if I could find something
of what I knew to be the case.
A revolution in
logic has occurred in the last one hundred years, primarily over the difference
between use and mention of words. A structure of logic seemed to be in danger
of collapsing about a hundred years ago because it came to the attention of the
people who studied these matters that the structure was not quite sound. The
issue involved 'self-reference' and the use and the mention of words which I
will explain briefly.
Aristotle's law of
the 'excluded middle' was the statement that every statement is either true
false. About a hundred years ago, somebody pointed out that the law of the
excluded middle is a statement and is therefore not a law after all. It could
just as well be false as well as true.
This was a tangled
knot for the logicians to untie until they came to understand the difference
between the use and the mention of a word.
When we use a word,
we consider its meaning. When we mention a word we are discussing the word
itself. If I said
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Jesus and Adam
Connecting these
ideas and the idea that the Qur'an composed of verses
that are perfected and then expounded for us, consider the verse which says:
"The likeness
of Jesus before Allah is as the likeness of Adam." (
It is very clear
that what we have in the statement is an equation. This verse goes on to
explain how that is true because they both came under unusual circumstances
rather than having a mother and a father in the usual human reproductive way.
But more than that, I got to consider the use of the mention of words.
The words are used
clearly enough. Jesus is like Adam and by Jesus and Adam, we mean those two
men. But what about the mention of the words? Was the
author aware of the fact that if we were considering the words as words
themselves, this sentence also read that 'Jesus' is something like 'Adam'. Well, they are not spelt with the same letters, how
can they be alike in this revelation? The only answer came to me fairly quickly
and I took a look at the index of the Qur'an.
The index of the Qur'an has been made available only since 1945. This book
was the result of years of work by a man and his students who assembled a book
which lists every word in the Qur'an and where it can
be found.
So, when we look up
the word Isa (Jesus), we find it in the Qur'an twenty-five times. When we look up Adam, we find it
in the Qur'an twenty-five times. The point is that
they are very much alike in this book. They are equated. So, following up on
this idea, I continued to examine the index looking for every case where
something was set up as an equation, where the likeness of something was said
to be the likeness of some other thing. And in every case, it works. You have
to example a verse which reads:
"The likeness
of this who reject our signs is as the likeness of the
dog." (7:176)
Well, the phrase is
Arabic for 'the people who reject our signs' could be found in the Qur'an exactly five times. And so is the Arabic word for
'the dog' (al-kalb). And there are several instances
of exactly the same occurrence.
It was some months
after I found this for myself that a friend of mine, who is continuing this
investigation with me, made a suggestion that there are also some places in the
Qur'an where one thing is said to be not like another
thing.
As soon as he
mentioned this up to me, we both went for the index and had a quick look at
several places where on thing is said to be not like another thing and counted
their occurrence in the Qur'an. We were surprise and
maybe should not have been to find that, after all, they do not match up. But
an interesting thing does happen. For example, the Qur'an
makes it very clear in the verse that trade is not like interest. The two words
will be found six times for on and seven for the other. And so it is in every
other case.
When
one thing is said to be not like another, they over for a difference of one
time. It would be five of one and four of the other, or seven of one
and eight of another.
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Good and Evil
There is one
interesting verse which, I felt, spoke directly to me from right off the page.
It mentions two words in Arabic, al-khabeeth
(the evil), and al-taib (the good). The verse
reads:
"Say, the evil
and the good are not comparable, even though the abundance of
evil will surprise you. So be mindful of your duty to Allah, O Man of understanding, that you may succeed." (5:100)
When I had a look at
those two words in Arabic, the evil and the good, and found it in the Qur'an that they both occur seven times. Yet the
verse here is saying that they are not comparable. I should NOT expect to find
that they occur the same number of times. BUT what
does the rest of this verse say?
"The evil and
the good are not comparable. The abundance of the evil will surprise
you" - and it did for there were too many of them. But it continues...
"So be mindful
of your duty to Allah, O Man of understanding, that
you may succeed." - So press on. Use your understanding and you will
succeed. This is what the verse said to me. Well, I found the answer on one
verse further on...
"Allah
separates the evil from the good. The evil He piles one on top of the other,
heaping them all together." (
Here is the solution
to the difficulty. While we have seven occurrences of al-khabeeth
(the evil) which matches up with the occurrences of al-taib
(the good), according to the principle of the verse, evil is separated from
good and is piled one on top of the other and heaped altogether as one. Hence,
we do not count them as 7 separate instances.
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Occurrence of Words
A favourite difficulty, or supposed difficulty, which critics
like to cite concerning the Qur'an is that - the
author of this book was ignorant because he advised Muslims to follow the lunar
new year instead of the solar year.
The critics say the
author was unaware of the differences in the length of years, that if one
follows the twelve lunar months, one loses eleven days every year. However, the
author was well aware of the distinction between the length of the solar year
and lunar year.
In Chapter 18, Verse
9:
It mentions 300
years and gives their equivalent as 309 years. As it happens, 300 SOLAR years
is equal to 309 LUNAR years.
The arabic word for 'month', shahar will be found 12 times in the Qur'an. There are 12 months in a year. If we find twelve
months, how many days should we expect to find? The word in arabic is yaum, and
as it happens you will find that the word occurs 365 in the Qur'an.
The original issue
which had me interested in looking up the occurrence of months and days was
this distinction between solar year and the lunar year. Well, for 25 centuries,
it has been known that the relative positions of the sun, moon and earth
coincide every 19 years. This was discovered by a Greek by the name of Meton, and it is called the 'Metonic'
cycle.
Knowing this, I
looked again in the index of the word 'year', sanah
and found, sure enough, that is occurs in the Qur'an
19 times.
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Perfect balance of
Words
Now, what is the
point of this perfect balance of words? For myself, it
shows the author was well aware of the distinction between using words and
mentioning words, a fine logical point. But more than that, it indicates the
preservation of this book.
After giving a
lecture on the subject of the Qur'an , I touched on some of these subjects and a questionnaire
from the audience afterwards said: "How do we know we still have the
original Qur'an. Maybe pieces of it have been lost or
extra parts been added?" I pointed out to him that we had pretty well
covered that point because since these items, the perfect balance of words in
the Qur'an, have come to light only in this
generation, anybody who would have lost the portion of this book, hidden some
of it, or added some of their own would have been unaware of this carefully
hidden code in the book. They would have destroyed this perfect balance.
It is interesting to
note too that, well, such a thing might be possible to organize today by the
use of a computer to coordinate all words so that whatever thought you might
have as to a meaning of a sentence or however you might construe an equation
out of a sentence, you could check for yourself and the book will always have
the balance of words.
If that were
possible today, if it were possible fourteen centuries ago, why would it be
done and then left hidden and never drawn to the attention of those who first
saw this book? Why it would be left with the hope of the author who contrived
this, that maybe in many centuries someone will discover it and have a nice
surprise? It is a scheme that does not make sense.
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Best Explanation
We are told in the Qur'an that no questionnaire will come to the Muslims with
the question for which a good answer has not been provided, and the best
explanation for whatever his question. This verse says:
"For everything
they say we are given something to go back to them and reply." (25:33)
We looked again to
the index of the Qur'an and we found the word, qalu (they say), is found three hundred and thirty-two
times. Now, what would be the natural counterpart? The Arabic word, qul, which is the command 'say' and you will find at the
index it also occurs three hundred and thirty-two times.
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Origin of the Qur'an
An interesting
feature of the Qur'an is that it replies to critics
as to its origin. That is, no one has yet come up with suggestion as to where
this book came from which is not commented on within the book itself.
In fact, the new
Catholic Encyclopedia, under the heading Qur'an, mentions that over the centuries there has been many
theories as to where this book came from. There conclusion: today, no sensible
person believes any of these theories. This leaves the Christians in some
difficulty. You see, all the theories suggested so far ,
according to this encyclopedia, are not really acceptable to anyone sensible
today. They are too fantastic.
Where did the book
come from? Those who have not really examined the Qur'an
usually dismissed it as being, they say, a collection of proverbs or aphorisms,
saying that one man used to announce from time to time. They imagined that
there was a man who, from time to time during the day, will think of some witty
little saying and spit it out and those around him will quickly write it down
and eventually these were all collected and became the Qur'an.
Those who read the Qur'an will find that it is not anything like that at all.
The collection of things said by the Prophet is the subject and the content of
the Hadith. But the subjects and contents of the Qur'an are all in a form of a composition and explanation.
I site as an example the chapter, Yusuf, which is an
entire story in great detail about on e particular episode of one portion of
the life of one man. It is a composition.
It is for this
reason that virtually all those who have actually examined the Qur'an usually refer to it as being the product of the
authorship as attributed to Muhammad and his 'co-adjudicators'. These were
supposed to be people who would sit with him and composed the Qur'an. You see they imagined that the Qur'an
was composed by a committee.
They acknowledged
that there was too much information and it was too well composed for one man to
have assembled. So, they imagined that a committee of men used to meet
regularly, brought their various sources of information, composed something and
then handed to this man and told him, "Go to the people tomorrow, this is
your revelation." In other words, it was a fraud concocted by a group of
people. But what do we know about fraud? The Qur'an
reminds us as it says:
"Saw, now the
truth has come, and falsehood neither invents anything nor restores
anything." (34:49).
It is hard to
translate it into English precisely, but what this verse is telling us is that
falsehood is not the source of a new thing. A new and truthful thing cannot
come from falsehood and falsehood does not restore, to our minds, the facts.
Truth is in agreement with facts. Falsehood is something else. So falsehood is
empty. If something is born fraud, it will never bring us new information. It
will never endure; it will only collapse over a period of time.
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Challenge
Another interesting
verse is a challenge which is addressed to those non-believers. It reads:
"Have they not
considered the Qur'an, if it came, other than Allah,
surely they will find in it many inconsistencies."
(4:82)
Here is a challenge
to the reader. If you think you have an explanation where this book came from,
have another look at the book. Surely you will be able to uncover some
inconsistencies to support your case.
Imagine a student
submitting a term paper or a final exam and then writing at the bottom of the
page a not to his teacher: "You will find no mistakes in this paper. There
are no mistakes on this exam." Can you imagine the teacher letting that
rest? The teacher would probably not sleep until uncovering some inconsistency
after a challenge like that. It is not the way human beings speak. They do not
offer challenges like that. But here we have it in the Qur'an,
a direct challenge saying: "If you have a better idea as to where this
book came from, here's all you need to do. Find some inconsistencies."
There are critics
who make the attempt, critics who try to say the Qur'an
contains inconsistencies. A publication that came to my attention recently
suggested that the Qur'an was contradictory on the
subject of marriage, because in one place, it says: "don't marry more than
one wife unless you can provide for them all," and in another place it
says: "Don't marry more than four." They see this as a contradiction.
What they have is a counter-distinction. In one case, the qualification for
marrying more than one has been given. In the other case a limitation on how
many may be married is given. There is no contradiction.
Critics are too
quick to grab hold of something, give it an interpretation, and then offer it
as an excuse to escape the reality of this document.
For critics who would
attack the Qur'an and insist it contains mistakes, we
can use the same method as in our reply to Christians who claim that Jesus is
on record as claiming to be equal to God. Remember the three categories of
evidence offered. The evidence offered was insufficient, ambiguous or
impossible.
You see, if someone
cites a verse from the Qur'an, trying to show that it
is a mistake, we only need to show that the verse cited is insufficient to
establish that there is a mistake or we need to show that the verse cited
cannot possible have the interpretation which the critic is giving it. It will
always fall into one of these three categories.
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Attributing it to
the Devil
I had experience, on
one occasion, describing some of the contents in the Qur'an
to a man who did not know the book I was talking about. He sat next to me with
the cover turned over. I just told him about the book, what it contained and
told him it was not the Bible. His conclusion was, the
book was miraculous. This man was a minister in a Christian Church. He said,
"Yes, that book could not possible have originated with the man and
therefore it must come from the devil, because it's not the Bible."
The Qur'an comments on this suggestion in chapter twenty-six,
verse two-hundred and eleven, as to those who would suggest that the book came
from the devil. It points out that it does not quite suit him, does it? Is this
how the devil misleads people? He tells them, worship none but God, he insists that they fast, that they practice charity.
Is this how the devil misleads people?
Compare the attitude
of someone like this, to the attitude of the Jews who knew Jesus and opposed
him until the very end. There is an episode reported in the Bible where Jesus
raised a man from the dead, one Lazarus, who had been dead for four days. When
Lazarus came out of the tomb, alive again those Jews who were watching, what
did they do? Did they suddenly say that this man is a true prophet and become
believers? No, the Bible says they immediately discussed among themselves that
"since this man is working on his signs soon everyone will believe in him.
We've got to find a way to kill him," and they attributed his miraculous
powers to the devil. He raised that man by the power of the devil.
Now, the Christians
who read that episode will feel very sorry for those Jews who had clear
evidence right before their very eyes and attribute the miracles to the devil.
Does it not appear that they may be doing the same thing when we illustrate
what we have in the Qur'an and their final excuse is
only: "It originated with the devil."
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A Different Story
There are those who
insist that the Qur'an was copied, that it originated
in Christian and Jewish sources. As a matter of fact, a book published in
recent years called Worshipping the Wrong God has stated, as though it were a
fact, that after the first revelation of the Qur'an
came to Muhammad, peace be upon him, that his wife died and so he quickly
married a Jew and a Christian, and this is where he drew the rest of his
sources for his book.
Well, they have the
facts partly right. It was ten years after the first revelation of the Qur'an that his wife died, and it was another ten years
after that when the Qur'an was virtually completed
that he married a Jew and a Christian.
Did he copy from
Jewish and Christian sources? In the Qur'an, the
ruler of
As it happens, this
historical writings of Herodotus, the Greek historian, exist to this day, and
Herodotus comments on the ruler of
Did the book copy
from the Christians sources? The Qur'an insists that
Jesus was not crucified, that this was only an illusion, but that the Jews who
thought they crucified Jesus were mistaken because it was not really so.
Christians would have no part of that. As it happens, the idea that Jesus was
not really crucified is really very ancient and can be traced back to the first
century. But Christians who believed that were eliminated as
heretics within the first two-hundred years after the time of Jesus and they
were not teaching this doctrine anywhere around the
Could the author of
the Qur'an have been copying from Christian sources
when he says that Jesus spoke to man as a babe (
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House Cleaning
Now we go to the
words of the prophets themselves, which represent another path that leads to
Islam. In the Persian scriptures, which have been around for thousands of
years, we read:
"When the
Persians should sink so low in mortality, a man will be born in
The Muslims
recognize this very quickly because the Ka'bah, the
building which all Muslims face in prayers everyday, was at one time filled
with idols and it was part of the mission of Muhammad ,
peace be upon him, to purge the house of idols till today. It was in the next
generation, after the time of the Prophet that the wise men of
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A Prophet Like Moses
In the Bible, in
Deuteronomy chapter eighteen, we have the words of Moses who reports that God
told him that H would raise up a prophet, from among
the brothers of the Israelites, like Moses.
Christians wish to
apply this to Jesus, to say he was the prophet like Moses. It is uncomfortable
for them to recognize, however that Jesus was not very much like Moses and
Jesus had no father, no wife, no children; he did not die of old age, and he
did not lead a nation; all these things Moses had or did. But they say, well,
Jesus will return; he will return as a victorious person, and so he will be
more like Moses. Do they really expect he will return to also acquire a father
and a wife and children and then die of old age? Not usually. Moreover, Jesus
was an Israelite. The passage of scripture says that this prophet that was
foretold would be raised up among the brothers of the Israelites, not from the
Israelites.
In the third chapter
of Acts, the disciple Peter speaks to a crowd of people and explains that Jesus
has been take up and he is in heaven. He will remain
in Heaven and he cannot return until all the things that were promised but God
come to pass. So what are we still waiting for, does he tell the crowd? He
quotes this very saying of Moses saying:
"For God will raise up a prophet from among the brothers of the Israelites
like Moses..."
The point is very
clear. Christians like to see this prophet as being Jesus. But read carefully
Acts chapter three, what it says is that Jesus awaits a return. He cannot
return until the fulfillment of this prophecy, that
another prophet has to come. Jesus spoke of it himself and the words survived,
just barely, but they survived in the bible. Jesus spoke of God sending another
'Paraclete'.
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Paraclete
There is a lot of
argument over the meaning of this word 'Paraclete'. For now we can leave that aside. What is a 'Paraclete'? It does not matter. The first letter of John
shows that Jesus was a 'Paraclete'. He is called a 'Paraclete' and we have Jesus promising another 'Paraclete' is going to be sent. We lose a lot by this word
'another' in English because it is ambiguous. If someone's car breaks down, and
it is a Toyota, and I say, '" I'll go get you another car," maybe I
mean, "I'll go and get you another Toyota because this one you have is
broken," or maybe I mean, "Forget Toyota, they're no good; I'll go
and get you a Datsun." It is an ambiguous word.
But the Greeks had a word for it. When they meant 'another' of the same kind,
they said aloes. When they meant another of a different kind, they said heteroes. The important thing there is that when Jesus, who
was himself a Paraclete, said "God will send you
another Paraclete" he used the word aloes, not heteroes.
Christians want to
say that this other 'Paraclete' that has been sent
was different from Jesus. It was not a man, it was a spirit. What Jesus said
was: God will send you another one like me, another man." Muslims believe
that Muhammad is the fulfillment of this prophecy by Jesus. The Qur'an says that this man is mentioned in the scriptures of
the Jews and the Christians (see7:157).
Christians came to
expect that the return of Jesus because of a Jewish misunderstanding. 'Messiah'
and 'Son of Man' have been given special significance by the Jews, even though may people were called by this same name as in the Bible.
The Jews came to expect a victorious leader. When Jesus did not turn out to be
quite what many expected, they hatched the idea that he would return some day
and fulfill all these prophecies.
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Follower of Jesus
Suppose that someone
observed Jesus two-thousand years ago, and he left this planet, or he went to
sleep for two-thousand years an returned today to look
for the followers of Jesus, who would he find? Who would he recognize?
Christians? I conclude with just this food for thought: the Bible says very
clearly that Jesus used to fast. Do Christians fast? Muslims fast; it is
obligatory on month every year. The Bible says that Jesus prayed by touching
his forehead to the ground. Do Christians pray in this manner? Muslims do. It
is characteristic of their prayer and no one on earth is probably ignorant of
that fact.
According to Jesus,
he told his disciples to greet one another with the expression, "Peace be with you." Do the Christians do that? Muslims do,
universally, whether they speak Arabic of not. The greeting for one to another
is Assalamu' alaikum (peace
be with you).
The brother of Jesus
in the Book of James, stated that no man should suggest what he is about to do
of highlight his plans for the next few days in anyway without adding the phrase
"if God wills." Do not say "I will go here and there do this and
that" without adding the phrase "if God wills." Do Christians do
that? Muslims do, whether they speak Arabic or not. If they so much as suggest
they are going downtown to pick up some groceries, they will add Insha-Allah, which in Arabic means, "If God
wills."
These conclude my
thoughts on this subject. May Allah guide us always closer to the truth.
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This booklet is
published all over the world and you can get your hands on it pretty easily. My
copy was published by:
The Muslims
Converts' Association of
Darul Arqam
32 Onan Road
The Galaxy
Tel: 3488344
Fax:
344 6891
The following is
stated: NO COPYRIGHT. Any organisation or
individual wishing to reprint this booklet may do so freely. An acknowledgment
will be appreciated.