A Study on Islam

2005-07-03

Introduction

Islam is a religion that has received much more attention in the west in most recent years. It is the fastest growing religion in the world. Studying Islam has shown me once again the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the Gospel message, and also has reaffirmed that only by trusting in Jesus Christ alone can we get to heaven and have fellowship with God. The following article is an attempt to honestly portray the Islamic faith and its differences with Christianity. I have attempted to study the Qur’an and not take any verses out of context, since we, as Christians, dislike it when one takes the Bible out of context. Do not be afraid to examine your beliefs; the Truth will stand under examination. This is a brief article to show the differences between the Christian and Islamic faiths, and to show how we cannot earn salvation to the theistic creator God in our own efforts. Again, let me stress that one cannot be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time, and you cannot say that the religions are equally valid because they contradict each other at almost every point.

As I established in the article Is Truth Relative?, first, the truth about reality is knowable, and second, that the opposite of true is false. Islam and Christianity have major contradictory teachings about Jesus, so they both cannot be true.

Differences between Christianity and Islam

The only major similarities between both Christianity and Islam are that they 1) are monotheistic, and 2) believe that their God created all things and is distinct from His creation (Genesis 1:1; Sura 2:117). Here are the major differences between Christianity and Islam:

Christianity:

Islam:

Many scholars and theologians, in an ecumenical attempt, try to say that all religions point to God, or that they are generally the same. But when one compares major themes of the Bible and the Qur’an, as I have demonstrated above, how can one say both of these religions are true? As I have shown in a previous article Is Truth Relative?, all non-theistic religions have been proven false (such as pantheism, panentheism and atheism). It is now between Christianity and Islam (Jewish law and prophecy are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, see an article entitled Israel Under the Nations and the Messianic Hope).

Islamic Monotheism

Most fundamental to Islamic monotheism is God’s “absolute and indivisible unity (tawhid)” (Geisler and Saleeb, 135; see Sura 112). He is self-sustaining and needs nothing, and is absolutely sovereign. In this respect, the Muslim sees the Deity of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, yet distinct from God the Father, as tri-theism, not understanding that there is one God in the Christian worldview (Deuteronomy 6:4; James 2:19). Jesus declared himself to be the eternal God, not a god (John 8:58). Yet this rigid unity of God according to Islam is not consistent in its own theological system. Geisler and Saleeb quote Yusuf K. Ibish in speaking of the Qur’an:

It [the Qur’an] is not a book in the ordinary sense, nor is it comparable to the Bible, either the Old or New Testaments. It is an expression of Divine Will. If you want to compare it with anything in Christianity, you must compare it with Christ Himself... Christ was the expression of the Divine among men, the revelation of the Divine Will. That is what the Qur’an is” (Geisler and Saleeb, 139).

In Sura 43:3-4 and 85:21, the original revelation of the Qur’an is eternal and with God in heaven. Considering this evidence, there is an eternal attribute of God (speech being an eternal attribute of God, Geisler and Saleeb, 140), which also has distinction from God Himself. This is contrary to the doctrine of tawhid.

Christianity is the opposite of Islam. The Christian faith begins with the fact that one must know God first, which is to trust in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. We must know and believe that He died for our sins and that He rose from the dead. In Christianity, obedience to God cannot precede knowledge, but obedience to God can begin with knowing Him. The essence of Islam is not to know God, but to submit to God’s will, hence the name of the religion (Geisler and Saleeb, 141). Therefore, the Qur’an states extraordinarily little about who God is. In the myriad of names of God, we see expressions of things He has done, not of who He is. Geisler and Saleeb quote the historian of Islam al-Ghazali, “the end result of the knowledge of the arifin [those who know] is their inability to know Him, and their knowledge is, in truth, that they do not know Him and that it is absolutely impossible for them to know Him” (Geisler and Saleeb, 141).

In Islam, God also has predestined everything, both good and evil, including every thought, word, and deed of every human being (cf. Sura 6:18, 7:178-183, 22:18, 37:96). As Geisler and Saleeb note (145-50), there are several problems with this type of determinism. I will summarize some of the consequences of the rigid determinism of God according to Islam.

  1. There is a logical problem. God leads the unbeliever astray, as mentioned above, but so also does the devil (Iblis), according to Sura 7:16-17.
  2. Creatures do not have a free choice at all; therefore, God is the author of evil (7:178-179).
  3. God therefore could have saved all people but intentionally did not (32:13). Human beings are removed of all responsibility for their disobedience, because God has done everything through them. Salvation is therefore arbitrary.

The Qur’an

I have mentioned above, Christianity and Islam are opposite theistic religions. Choose most any topic or doctrine, and they seem to teach extraordinarily different things. Consider the quote about the Qur’an I mentioned above:

It is not a book in the ordinary sense... It is an expression of Divine Will. If you want to compare it with anything in Christianity, you must compare it with Christ Himself... Christ was the expression of the Divine among men, the revelation of the Divine Will. That is what the Qur’an is (Geisler and Saleeb, 139).

Yet there is the doctrine of nasikh, which means that newer revelations in the Qur’an abrogate the former ones: “Whatever message WE abrogate or cause to be forgotten, WE bring one better than that or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that ALLAH has the power to do all that HE wills?” (2:107). Yet somehow the former and latter commands in the Qur’an have always existed simultaneously from eternity past. This is a difficult thing to reconcile. Not only that, but these newer revelations abrogate revelations that are no more than two decades old.

The Bible, plays a role in the revelation from Allah also: taurat (the Law), zabur (the psalms), and injil (gospel). Sura 10:95 says, “And if thou art in doubt concerning that which WE have sent down to thee, ask those who have been reading the Book before thee. Indeed the truth has come to thee from thy Lord; be not, therefore, of those who doubt.” Yet there is also the doctrine of tahrif, which says that throughout time the original Biblical texts became corrupted. The Qur’an says it also fulfills all previous scriptures (Sura 3:3-5). The Bible, it seems, is used when it is convenient to support the tenets of the Islamic faith. For example, Deuteronomy 18:15 is used as a prophecy of Muhammad, though it has been confirmed to be Jesus in the New Testament (John 7:40). Yet the Prophet could not be Muhammad, because it is written, “a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren.” The Prophet that was to come was to be a Hebrew. The Qur’an fulfills no prophecies, Biblical or otherwise.

Secondly, the Muslim believes that one should look to the Bible as a secondary scripture, as it says in Sura 10:95. How do we know what to trust in the taurat and the injil if they are corrupted? Once again, the Bible is used only when convenient.

Thirdly, Islamic scholars look to a medieval text known as the Gospel of Barnabas over the ancient texts of the New Testament. Internal evidence, along with archeological evidence and non-biblical texts, clearly shows the New Testament documents to be written within the same generation of Jesus Christ by eyewitnesses. This Gospel of Barnabas, from its internal evidence is clearly a medieval work (see Geisler and Saleeb, 303-307). It’s a matter of convenience to find evidence in some texts and not others to support the Qur’anic claims.

The Qur’an also declares itself to be a prophetic writing, prophesying of events that came to pass. Such an example is the prediction of the defeat of the Byzantines in 30:2-4. Such a short-range prediction of little more than a decade does not validate such as prophecy, but a “perceptive reading of the trends of time” (see discussion in Geisler and Saleeb, 200-201). There is no prophecy in the Qur’an such as in the Bible. For example, consider the birth of Jesus from a virgin centuries before it happened in Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14. There is nothing that compares to this in the Qur’an.

In An Open Letter to Muslims, the authors ask several questions, challenging the reader to investigate the history behind the teachings of the Qur’an. The Kabah, the five pillars, and other rituals and symbols such as the crescent moon are all of pre-Islamic, pagan origin. It is well known that the Kabah was filled with 360 idols when Muhammad received his calling. The god Allah was the chief god of a pantheon in pre-Islamic Mecca.

Muhammad as Prophet

An authentic prophet in the Old Testament is defined in this fashion: “And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

In the New Testament, Jesus is authenticated by miracles and His fulfillment of many prophecies, and especially His resurrection (though the Qur’an denies His death and resurrection). The New Testament is a first century recording from the eyewitnesses, and there are many other non-biblical and non-religious recordings of these events. Yet the prophet Muhammad never had any miracles or signs, except for the Qur’an itself (Sura 6:37-8, 11:12-18, 13:7-8), nor has any notable prophecy been fulfilled by him (see discussion above). Though various hadith may record certain miracles, the Qur’an defends Muhammad’s prophethood multiple times despite this lack of evidence.

Shirk

One unforgivable sin in the Qur’an is the concept of shirk. Shirk is the “association, in particular the association of any other with God, so as to impugn his absolute uniqueness” (Geisler and Saleeb, 340). This is confirmed in many places in the Qur’an: 3:151-152, 4:48-49, 4:116-117, 5:72-74, 6:19-20, 6:151-152, and 17:39-41. Here I will discuss how this unforgivable sin shows how all people, everywhere, and at all times past, present, and future, are condemned under the Islamic religion according to the Qur’an.

The Christian faith and the Islamic religion, as stated above, agree in few places, but they both agree that God created the world ex nihilo, and that God is separate from His creation. God created the universe, and all things are subject to Him. Nothing of God’s creation, including people, can add to the power of God, or give Him something that He does not have, as if He were lacking something. Islam, as confirmed in many verses in the Qur’an, states that to be saved from the fires of Hell, one must not only be a Muslim, but his or her good deeds must outweigh their bad deeds (Sura 7:8-9, 21:47-48, 23:102-105). This is the attempt of all religious systems: for people to reach God by winning his favor and appeasing His wrath. Most people, religious and otherwise, believe this. The work of salvation is our responsibility, according to this view. If we try to do good works before God, and be accepted on our own merit, then God is in debt to us. In this model, we all commit shirk. We are partners and associates with God in the process of salvation under this model, and can expect Hell fires because we commit unforgivable sin.

Now, there is another model, contrary to the religious system of the world, where God recognizes that we cannot add anything to Him, nor reconcile ourselves to Him. In reality, we are in debt to God and we cannot repay Him. Even in the good deeds that we do, we have an ulterior motive to be seen by others or to win God over. We do not do good things just because we want to be good. When we are honest with ourselves, we know that we fall very short and need God’s grace. This impartial God sees through our motives to the things we do not normally see. We need His grace.

The Message of Jesus and Dispelling the Myths

The Christian faith is not American, Israeli, Zionist, or Crusader propaganda. Though the Crusades were planned out by alleged Christians, such was never a teaching of Jesus. Neither is Christianity a political faction, though there are those that try to make it one. Please divorce Western imperialism from Christianity and try to consider what I am saying. Jesus, contrary to what you may have been told, was a Prophet sent to all peoples of the world (Matthew 24:14). Yet He was more than a prophet. God knew that all men and women everywhere could not please Him or save themselves in their own strength. In the Old Testament, God gave His chosen people the Law to show them how sinful they were and how they must trust in Him to make them right with Him. At a time in history that He seemed fit, He Himself came in the form of a Man, Jesus Christ, and took the punishment of death we rightly deserved. Being God, the grave could never contain Him, and He rose from the dead, and was seen by hundreds of witnesses. Then He went up to Heaven until the appointed Last Day to judge the world. Those who trust in Him can be sure that they will escape God’s wrath because God Himself did the work of salvation, not us.

Jesus’ death and resurrection were not a hoax, but were seen by witnesses and written down within twenty years of His ascension. Within a short time, the Roman Empire from one end to the other was filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ enough that Nero was persecuting them in the mid A.D. 60’s. All of this happened without Christians turning to the sword.

Before His crucifixion, Jesus stated, “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:23-24). He also said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). The Gospel, as you probably have heard, refers to “good news,” that all we must do is trust in Christ alone for forgiveness and eternal life. The good news is that we do not have to live in fear whether or not we have done enough to please God. Our sins and mistakes were covered by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Christians have personally nothing to gain from sharing this hope we find in Jesus. Maybe there are those out there that try to profit from the message of the Gospel. But the motivation for the sharing of this message is twofold: that God may be glorified and that people will escape eternal damnation by trusting in Christ.

References

Ali, Maulvi Sher (trans.) and Malik Ghulam Farid (ed.). The Qur’an originally recited by Muhammad in Arabic. Available on Bookshop Classics [CD-ROM], Simply Media.

Geisler, Norman L. and Saleeb, Abdul. Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.

Truth Seekers. An Open Letter to Muslims.