Kindness to Parents
By Aisha Stacey
Description: Quranic injunctions on parents; the great respect Islam gives to mothers; and the good deeds one should keep doing after the death of their parents.
1. Duty and Devotion
Islam is a religion that stresses the qualities of mercy, tolerance and respect. God has ordained the good treatment of parents and warned us against treating them with disrespect. There are several verses in the Quran where kindness to parents is even coupled with the most important aspect of Islam, worshipping God alone. This indicates that being kind to parents, honouring and respecting them, is extremely important in the way of life that is Islam.
“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour.” [Al-Isra’, 17:23]
"And We have enjoined upon man goodness to parents…" [Al-Ankabut, 29:8 & Al-Ahqaf, 46:15]
No word of disrespect should be uttered toward a parent, nor even a look of resentment or contempt. Honouring parents can be considered a form of worship if the intention is to please Almighty God by respecting His commands.
God continues this verse by reminding us that parents are deserving of kindness because they raised their children with gentleness and often made great sacrifices for their wellbeing. His use of the word wing invokes the image of a mother bird tenderly shielding her young and calls to mind the gentleness that parents have for their children.
“And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: ‘My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small.’” [Al-Isra’, 17:24]
The love and mercy that emanates from the Most Merciful God is manifest in the kind treatment existing between parents and their children. God clearly prohibits the bad treatment of parents, and in another verse of the Quran He enjoins on us the need to show gratitude to Him, our Creator, as well as our parents. Again, God clearly links the rights owed to Him to the rights owed to parents.
“And We have enjoined on man (to be dutiful and good) to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship, and his weaning is in two years give thanks to Me and to your parents, unto Me is the final destination.” [Luqman, 31:14]
Prophet Muhammad SAW reinforced the duty to be kind to parents. A companion of the Prophet once asked him which of the many good deeds a man can do is the most loved by God. Prophet Muhammad SAW answered him by saying, “To offer the prayer in its proper time”. The companion then asked, “And what is next?” to which Prophet Muhammad replied, “To be good and dutiful to your parents…” [Sahih Al-Bukhari].
The responsibility to be kind and good to parents comes right after the greatest duty in Islam, the prayer.
More than Goodness
The Arabic word that is used in the Quran and the narrations of Prophet Muhammad SAW to denote this kindness to parents as bir, and more often than not, it is translated as goodness. However, as is the case with most Arabic words, a direct translation into English often fails to explain the true depth of meaning. Bir does not only mean goodness; it contains shades of meaning that indicate kindness, compassion, respect and even patience. Islam, the way of life, encompasses all these qualities, and Muslims must strive to model this behaviour in all dealings, particularly in the relationship between parents and children.
Parents care for and nurture their children their entire lives, but at one point this duty reverses, parents become old and feeble and in need of this care and nurturing themselves. The child is obligated to care for the parents by displaying all the qualities of bir and knowing that the reward for this is with God. The Prophet Muhammad SAW said, “If anyone possesses these three characteristics God will give him an easy death and bring him into His Paradise: gentleness towards the weak, affection towards parents, and kindness to slaves.”[Tirmidzi]
One Man’s Devotion
Abu Hurairah was a close companion of Prophet Muhammad SAW; he is credited with remembering and transmitting many of the Prophets’ sayings. The life of Abu Hurairah also contains many demonstrations of his love and devotion to his mother. When he first embraced Islam, no amount of pleading could convince his mother to do the same. Weeping and afraid, Abu Hurairah approached the Prophet SAW and begged him to make supplication to God asking that his mother be guided. Prophet Muhammad SAW complied with this request and within a very short period of time Abu Hurairah’s mother uttered the words, “There is no God but God and Muhammad is his slave and Messenger”, thus embracing Islam.
Throughout his life, Abu Hurairah remained kind and courteous to his mother. Whenever he wanted to leave home, he would stand at the door of her room and say, “Peace be on you mother, and the mercy and blessings of God.” She would reply, “And on you be peace, my son, and the mercy and blessings of God.” He would also say, “May God have mercy on you as you cared for me when I was small,” to which she would reply, “May God have mercy on you as you delivered me from error when I was old.”
Abu Hurairah always encouraged other people to be kind and good to their parents. One day he saw two men walking together and enquired of the younger one, “Who is this man to you?” to which the young man replied, “He is my father”. Abu Hurairah advised him by saying, “Do not call him by his name, do not walk in front of him, and do not seat yourself before he does”.
This gentleness and affection between Abu Hurairah and his mother teaches us that mutual respect and love is a duty. A Muslim is obliged to show respect towards parents even if they are non-Muslim, and the greatest love he can show towards them is to supplicate to God in hope that they will be guided to Islam. At the time of the Prophet, many of those who embraced Islam found that it conflicted with the beliefs and requests of their parents, but they were taught to be kind and to obey their parents, except if the parents demanded they disobey God.
“But if they (both) strive with you to make you join in worship with Me others that of which you have no knowledge, then obey them not, but behave with them in the world kindly, and follow the path of him who turns to Me in repentance and in obedience. Then to Me will be your return, and I shall tell you what you used to do.” [Luqman, 31:15]
Being dutiful to parents, obeying them and treating them with kindness is embedded in the teachings of Islam, however obedience to God is always the first and foremost duty in Islam.
2. The Value of Motherhood: Paradise is at Her Feet
In several verses of the Quran, God makes clear that duty, kindness and gratitude towards parents is an essential part of Islam. However, women in Islam, particularly mothers, have been singled out for the upmost respect and devotion. God Himself tells of the hardships involved in motherhood.
“And we have enjoined on man (to be dutiful and good) to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship...” [Luqman, 31:14]
In the time of Prophet Muhammad, a man asked permission to go on a military expedition. The Prophet asked the man if he had a mother, when he replied yes, Prophet Muhammad said, “Stay with her because Paradise lies beneath her feet”. [Ahmad, Al-Nasa’i] What wonderful imagery these words invoke: Mothers and children gazing at each other with love and gratitude. Tiny hands closed within larger hands. A touch to the face in times of stress and illness, or the warmth of a loving mother’s voice. Images of mothers nurturing and caring for their children, in health or sickness, in good times, or trying times. Paradise lies at the feet of mothers; but what exactly do these words mean? Simply, the gates of Paradise are open for those who cherish and respect their mothers.
The role of the mother in the Islamic family is as equally important if not more as the role of the father, who is the provider and protector of his family. Not only does she go through both the joys and difficulties of pregnancy and giving birth, she dedicates the whole of her life to nurturing and caring for her children. It is her responsibility to raise and to educate them to be righteous and pious human beings. She cooks, cleans, nurtures and educates, she is also responsible for their spiritual, emotional and physical health and well-being. In return, children owe their mothers care, love, affection, respect and dutifulness. The task God assigned to mothers is large and sometimes overwhelming. Accordingly, the reward for a righteous mother is nothing less than Paradise and in this life, she is esteemed and honoured.
Who is Most Worthy of Good Companionship?
In a hadith of Prophet Muhammad SAW, a man came to the Prophet SAW asking, ‘Who among the people is the most worthy of my good companionship? The Prophet SAW said, your mother. The man said, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said, then your mother. The man further asked, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said, then your mother. The man asked again, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet replied, then your father. [Sahih Al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim]
From only these two sayings of Prophet Muhammad SAW, we are able to understand the importance of mothers in Islam. However, in these days of materialism it is easy to forget that God obligated us to honour our parents, especially our mothers. Sometimes we find ourselves uttering words of contempt or complaining about our parents. This sort of behaviour is not from Islam.
God reminds us that Prophet John [Yahya] (known as the Baptist) was dutiful towards his parents both loving them and obeying them [Ibn Jarir al-Tabari]. He said:
“O John! Hold fast the Scripture. And We gave him wisdom while yet a child. And (made him) sympathetic to men as a mercy (or a grant) from Us, and pure from sins and he was righteous. And dutiful towards his parents, and he was neither an arrogant nor disobedient (to God or to his parents).” [Maryam, 19:12-14]
Additionally, in the Quran, we are able to hear the words of Jesus; he describes himself by coupling his obedience to God with his duties towards his mother Mary.
“Verily! I am a slave of God. He has given me the Scripture and made me a Prophet; and He has made me blessed wheresoever I be, and has enjoined on me prayer, and alms, as long as I live, and dutiful to my mother, and made me not arrogant, unblest.” [Maryam, 19:30-32]
As busy as our lives may be it is of great benefit to look back at the lives of the Prophets, and our righteous predecessors, to see how they treated their parents, particularly their mothers.
The Companions’ Behaviour.
Abdullah ibn Omar, a leading scholar from among Prophet Muhammad’s companions once saw a man carrying his mother on his back and going around the Holy House in Makkah [1]. He did not complain or show any signs of annoyance; rather he kept repeating a line of poetry comparing himself to a camel. He looked at Abdullah Ibn Omar and asked him whether by so doing he discharged his debt to his mother. Ibn Omar said, “No. You have not even paid back one twinge of the pain she felt when giving birth to you”.
Another companion from the early days of Islam, Dhibyan Ibn Ali Ath-Thowree also used to travel with his mother to Makkah. The journey was long and very hot; on the side of the road during their travels, he would dig a little pool and fill it with cool water. He would then turn to his mother and say, “Mother, sit in this water to cool yourself.”
Muslims who are obedient to God can never be unmindful or unkind to their parents. Great reward is offered to those who treat their parents, especially their mothers, with affection and gentleness, but a stern warning is also given. The danger of disrespect is illustrated in the following saying of Prophet Muhammad.
A man came to Prophet Muhammad SAW and said, “A young man is dying and people are asking him to say there is no god but God, but he is unable to do so. “The Prophet then asked, "Did this man offer prayers?” The answer was yes. The Prophet SAW then went to see the man and tried to encourage him to say there is no god but God. Still he was unable to pronounce the words. Prophet Muhammad SAW then called for the dying man’s mother. The mother he had persistently disobeyed.
When she appeared, the Prophet SAW asked, 'Respected lady, is he your son?” She replied yes. He then asked, “O respected lady, if we threaten to throw your son into a raging fire, would you recommend him to be forgiven?” The lady replied that she would definitely ask him to be forgiven. The Prophet SAW then said to her, “Then declare, making God and me your witnesses, that you are now pleased with him.” The old woman readily declared, "O God, you and your Prophet SAW are my witnesses that I am pleased with this beloved son of mine.” Then Prophet then turned to the dying man and asked him to recite, "There is no god but God, He is the One and has no partners and I witness that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger.” [At Tabarani, Ahmad]
Because of his mother’s forgiveness, the dying man was able to recite the words that, by the Grace and Mercy of God, may have allowed him to enter Paradise. The good treatment of parents can be the key to Paradise; on the other hand, bad behaviour towards them may result in a punishment in hellfire.
3. Even After Death
Islam is a religion of justice and compassion. It teaches morality and forbids bad conduct. Special status has been afforded to the elderly; they are treated with respect and dignity. Muslims are urged to honour them and this is especially true when it comes to the treatment of parents. Although death may take us at any age, parents are often elderly and as such require special care and attention. Even though the rigours of old age may cause parents to be demanding , impatient or petulant, a Muslim is still obligated to treat then with kindness and to look after them lovingly. God linked honouring parents to the command to believe in Him Alone.
“Worship God and join none with Him (in worship); and do good to parents…” [An-Nisa’, 4:36]
One of Prophet Muhammad’s companions asked about the deeds God loved most. The Prophet SAW replied, the prayer offered on time, honouring parents and struggling to please God. [Sahih Bukhari]
The traditions of Prophet Muhammad abound with words of wisdom about the obligation to be dutiful and kind to parents. He was once heard to say “May he perish, May he perish, may he perish”. Those around him immediately asked whom he was referring. Prophet Muhammad SAW replied, “He whose parents (one or both) attain old age in his life and he does not enter Paradise (because of his goodness towards them).” [Sahih Muslim]. Respect for parents is a key to the gates of Paradise. By upholding the commands of God and giving parents the affection and love due to them, we receive the reward of eternal bliss.
Beneficial Actions.
There are many ways a Muslim can continue to honour and respect his or her parents after their death. He may pray and make supplications for God to show mercy towards them; or pay any worldly debts they may have accumulated, or debts owed to God such as fasting or making the pilgrimage (Hajj), and he may also give charity in their name. Keeping the ties of kinship and friendship are also ways of continuing to show love and respect to parents after their death, and Islam carefully explains what actions on the part of the living may be beneficial. The Prophet SAW said, “When a person dies, all his deeds come to an end except three: ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge (which he has left behind), or a righteous child who will pray [do’a] for him.” [At Tirmidzi]
A man from among the companions asked Prophet Muhammad SAW “is there anything left from the goodness I owe my parents I should present to them after their death?” He replied, “Yes, four things: Pray and ask forgiveness for them. Fulfil their pledges. Be kind to their friends. And maintain the ties of kinship that come from only their direction”. [Ahmad, Abu Dawud &Ibn Majah] Thus, it is understood that the kindness and gratitude we are obliged to show our parents should be continued even after their death. Prophet Muhammad SAW also told us about a man raised to a very high station in Paradise. The man was surprised and asked how he achieved such a noble position. He was informed, “Because your son prayed for your forgiveness”. [Ibn Majah, Classified Sahih by Sheikh Al Albani]
The Keys to Paradise
Life in the 21st century is hectic, and we are often overwhelmed by worldly concerns; so much so, we tend forget that morals and manners are a large part of this way of life that is Islam. Kindness to parents is an obligation and we would do well to remember and to emulate the behaviour of our righteous predecessors. They held their parents in high esteem, they loved and cherished them by following the commandments of God and knew that paradise really did lie at the feet of mothers. These were not just words to our predecessors; they were the keys to paradise.
In the traditions of Prophet Muhammad SAW, we are able to observe the behaviour of Abdullah, the son of Omar Ibn Al Khattab. On the road to Makkah, Abdullah met a Bedouin. He greeted him with salam, made him ride on the donkey that he was riding and gave him the turban that he had been wearing on his head. One of Abdullah companions commented “May God guide you, they are just Bedouin and they are content with something simple.” Abdullah answered, “The father of this man was a close friend of my father and I heard the Messenger of God say, “The best way of honouring one’s parents is for the son to keep in touch with his father’s friends.”
Islam recognises the importance of the family unit, and a good and loving relationship between parents and children is essential. After God, our parents deserve our gratitude and obedience. A Muslim is obligated to show goodness and mercy to his or her parents. There is only one exception to this, if parents expect their children to associate anything with God or to disobey Him, then the child must not obey, however nothing removes the obligation to be kind and respectful.
Source: http://srikandeh.blogspot.com/2009/04/kindness-to-parents.html
Monday, April 13, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Jewels of Quran
Isa bin Muhammad (Alaihir Rahmah) says that I once saw Abu Bakr bin Mujahid (Alaihir Rahmah) after his death in a dream reading the Holy Quran. I asked, “You have died, how are you reciting,” upon which he said :
“After every Salah and finishing of the Quran, I would pray “O Allah, give me the Taufiq to recite the Quran in my grave” and that is why I am praying.” (Faizan-e-Sunnat)
Ahadith
The Holy Prophet said:
1) The best of you is he who learnt the Holy Quran and taught it to others. (Bukhari)
2) Undoubtedly, the heart gets rusted like metal gets rusted when water goes over it. The People asked, “How can they [hearts] be cleaned.” The Prophet replied, “To remember death in abundance and to recite the Holy Quran.” (Mishkat)
3) That chest which does not have any Quran in it is like an abandoned house. (Tirmizi, Darmi)
4) Whoever read the Quran and memorized it and belived its’ Halal to be Halal and its Haram to be Haram [i.e., accepted it commandments of Halal and Haraam], Allah will accept the intercession for such 10 people on from him whom Hell had already become Wajib. (Tirmizi, Ibn-e-Majah)
5) Whoever is an expert in reciting the Holy Quran is with the Kiraman Katebeen and whoever reads the Quran with pauses and it is difficult for him, that is, his tounge does not move easily and he recites with difficutly for him there are two rewards. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
6) The one who has memorized Quran will be told to read and climb and recite with Tarteel (clear and distinct recitation) like you used to read with Tarteel in the Dunya; your place will be where you read your last Ayat. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
7) Allah says, “Whoever was kept busy with the [recitation] of Quran from my Zikr and asking me, I will give him better than those who I give to those who ask” and the excellence of the Word of Allah over all the other words is like the excellence of Allah over all his creation.
Learn the Quran and read it because whoever learned the Quran and read it and did Qayam with it is like a bag filled with Musk whose fragrance is spread everywhere and whoever learned the Quran and slept that is he did not do Qiyamul Layl is like a bag which is filled with Musk and its mouth has been closed. (Tirmizi, Ibn-e-Majah, Nisaee)
9) Read the Quran when you heart feels affection and attachment and when your heart becomes bored stand up that is stop reciting the Quran. (Saheeh Bukhari and Muslim)
10) Decorate the Quran with your (good) voices. (Mishkat)
11) O People of the Quran, do not make the Quran a pillow, that is do not be lazy and be careless, and read the Quran in the day and night like it is the Haq of Recitation, and spread it, that is, read with good voices or do not take compensation for it, and whatever is in it, reflect upon itso that you may attain success, and do not hurry in its reward because the reward for it is great (which will be given in the Akhirah). (Bahiqi)
Rewards for certain Surahs and Ayahs
The Holy Prohpet said:
1) Surah Fatiha is a cure from every illness. (Darmi, Bahiqi)
2) Do not make your home a graveyard, the Shaitan runs from the home in which Surah Baqrah is recited. (Sahih Muslim)
3) Whoever memorized the first ten ayahs of Surah Kahf will be saved the Dajjal. (Sahih Muslim)
4) Whoever recites Surah Kahf on the day of Jummah, there will be a Nur brightened for him between two Jummahs.
5) Everything has a heart and the heart of the Quran is Surah Yaseen, whoever read Yaseen, Allah will write the reward of reading the Quran ten times from him. (Tirmizi and Darmi)
6) Whoever reads Surah Yaseen for the pleasure of Allah, his past sins will be forgiven so read this near your deceased. (Bahiqi)
7) (Reading) Qul hu WAllahu Ahad (Surah Ikhlas) is equal to [reading] one third of the Quran.
Whoever read Ayatul Kursi after every Fard Salah, he will be under the protection and security of Allah. (Dailmi on the Authority of Sayeduna Ali)
9) (On the Day of Judgement) a caller will say O Recitor of Surah Inaam, come to Jannat for loving Surah Inaam and its recitation.
10) Surah Tabarak (Surah Mulk) saves one from Hell.
11) Whatever task is not begun with Bismillahi Rahamni Raheen remains incomplete and unfinished.
Ettiquteets and Rules of Tilawat:
1) To memorize one Ayah of the Quran is Fard-e-Aeen on every Mukallaf Muslim; to memorize the entire Holy Quran is Fard-e-Kafyah; to memorize Surah Fatiha and a small Surah or something similar like three small Ayahs or one long Ayah is Wajib-e-Aeen. (Durre Mukhtar)
2) To read the Holy Quran while looking at it is better then reading without looking at it because in this case one touches the Holy Quran, sees the Holy Quran, and reads the Holy Quran and all this is Ibadat. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
3) To read the Holy Quran in the restroom and such places of impurity is not allowed (Na-Jaiz)
4) It is Haraam that everybody read the Holy Quran in a gathering loudly at once, however, it is necessary to read loudly enough so that one can hear what he/she is reading, that is, if there is no other distraction like noise. (Bhare-e-Shariat) Also, many children read together at once in a Madrsa loudly for learning purposes and this is okay.
5) It is better to read the Quran loudly that is if somebody praying, sleeping, or somebody ill will not be distracted. (Gunyah)
6) If somebody is reciting the Quran incorrectly then it is Wajib to tell him/her unless if one fears jealousy and hate. (Gunyah)
7) To memorize the Holy Quran and then to forget it is a sin.
8) It is from the ettiqutes of respecting the Holy Quran that one does not put their back towards the Quran or spread their legs towards the Quran or sit in a high place when the Quran is beneath. (Bahare Shariat)
9) During recitation reflect on what you are reading. For example, when reading about punishment, one should repent; when reading about paradise, one should rejoice and pray for Jannah.
10) The way to do Sajdah of Tilwat is as follows: If one hears or reads the Ayat of Sajdah then he should stand with the intention of performing the Sajdah of Tilawat and saying Allahu Akbar should go into Sajdah and should recite the Tasbeeh of Sajdah atleast three times. Then, saying Allahu Akbar, one should stand up. To say Allahu Akbar both times is Sunnah. Similarly, to stand before and after the Sajdah is Mustahab. (Durre Mukhtar)
Lastly,
Learn how to read the Quran in the company of a Qualified Alim [and mature sisters must go to a Qualified Sister] who can teach them how to read as this is necessary. At times, while reciting many brothers and sisters unknowingly make mistakes in recitation which change the meaning which breaks their Salah. Likewise, send your children to Madrsas where they may learn how to recite the Quran with correct pronunciation and Qirat. If there is not a Madrsa in your town, then establish one. Knowledge of Islam leads one to Love Allah and helps to build a good moral character within the Muslim community. By learning the Quran, a Muslim saves his Salah, his Iman, and his Akhirah. Learning the Quran is not limited to just learning how to recite the Holy Book, rather, it is a life long process of learning how to recite it and understand what the Quran says.
The noble Ulama have worked hard and written volumes of Tafseer which consists of Ahadith, Stories, and important points. After learning the Quran, we must practice it and spread the word into our family and community.
Source: http://islamgreatreligion.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/jewels-of-quran/
“After every Salah and finishing of the Quran, I would pray “O Allah, give me the Taufiq to recite the Quran in my grave” and that is why I am praying.” (Faizan-e-Sunnat)
Ahadith
The Holy Prophet said:
1) The best of you is he who learnt the Holy Quran and taught it to others. (Bukhari)
2) Undoubtedly, the heart gets rusted like metal gets rusted when water goes over it. The People asked, “How can they [hearts] be cleaned.” The Prophet replied, “To remember death in abundance and to recite the Holy Quran.” (Mishkat)
3) That chest which does not have any Quran in it is like an abandoned house. (Tirmizi, Darmi)
4) Whoever read the Quran and memorized it and belived its’ Halal to be Halal and its Haram to be Haram [i.e., accepted it commandments of Halal and Haraam], Allah will accept the intercession for such 10 people on from him whom Hell had already become Wajib. (Tirmizi, Ibn-e-Majah)
5) Whoever is an expert in reciting the Holy Quran is with the Kiraman Katebeen and whoever reads the Quran with pauses and it is difficult for him, that is, his tounge does not move easily and he recites with difficutly for him there are two rewards. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
6) The one who has memorized Quran will be told to read and climb and recite with Tarteel (clear and distinct recitation) like you used to read with Tarteel in the Dunya; your place will be where you read your last Ayat. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
7) Allah says, “Whoever was kept busy with the [recitation] of Quran from my Zikr and asking me, I will give him better than those who I give to those who ask” and the excellence of the Word of Allah over all the other words is like the excellence of Allah over all his creation.
Learn the Quran and read it because whoever learned the Quran and read it and did Qayam with it is like a bag filled with Musk whose fragrance is spread everywhere and whoever learned the Quran and slept that is he did not do Qiyamul Layl is like a bag which is filled with Musk and its mouth has been closed. (Tirmizi, Ibn-e-Majah, Nisaee)
9) Read the Quran when you heart feels affection and attachment and when your heart becomes bored stand up that is stop reciting the Quran. (Saheeh Bukhari and Muslim)
10) Decorate the Quran with your (good) voices. (Mishkat)
11) O People of the Quran, do not make the Quran a pillow, that is do not be lazy and be careless, and read the Quran in the day and night like it is the Haq of Recitation, and spread it, that is, read with good voices or do not take compensation for it, and whatever is in it, reflect upon itso that you may attain success, and do not hurry in its reward because the reward for it is great (which will be given in the Akhirah). (Bahiqi)
Rewards for certain Surahs and Ayahs
The Holy Prohpet said:
1) Surah Fatiha is a cure from every illness. (Darmi, Bahiqi)
2) Do not make your home a graveyard, the Shaitan runs from the home in which Surah Baqrah is recited. (Sahih Muslim)
3) Whoever memorized the first ten ayahs of Surah Kahf will be saved the Dajjal. (Sahih Muslim)
4) Whoever recites Surah Kahf on the day of Jummah, there will be a Nur brightened for him between two Jummahs.
5) Everything has a heart and the heart of the Quran is Surah Yaseen, whoever read Yaseen, Allah will write the reward of reading the Quran ten times from him. (Tirmizi and Darmi)
6) Whoever reads Surah Yaseen for the pleasure of Allah, his past sins will be forgiven so read this near your deceased. (Bahiqi)
7) (Reading) Qul hu WAllahu Ahad (Surah Ikhlas) is equal to [reading] one third of the Quran.
Whoever read Ayatul Kursi after every Fard Salah, he will be under the protection and security of Allah. (Dailmi on the Authority of Sayeduna Ali)
9) (On the Day of Judgement) a caller will say O Recitor of Surah Inaam, come to Jannat for loving Surah Inaam and its recitation.
10) Surah Tabarak (Surah Mulk) saves one from Hell.
11) Whatever task is not begun with Bismillahi Rahamni Raheen remains incomplete and unfinished.
Ettiquteets and Rules of Tilawat:
1) To memorize one Ayah of the Quran is Fard-e-Aeen on every Mukallaf Muslim; to memorize the entire Holy Quran is Fard-e-Kafyah; to memorize Surah Fatiha and a small Surah or something similar like three small Ayahs or one long Ayah is Wajib-e-Aeen. (Durre Mukhtar)
2) To read the Holy Quran while looking at it is better then reading without looking at it because in this case one touches the Holy Quran, sees the Holy Quran, and reads the Holy Quran and all this is Ibadat. (Bahar-e-Shariat)
3) To read the Holy Quran in the restroom and such places of impurity is not allowed (Na-Jaiz)
4) It is Haraam that everybody read the Holy Quran in a gathering loudly at once, however, it is necessary to read loudly enough so that one can hear what he/she is reading, that is, if there is no other distraction like noise. (Bhare-e-Shariat) Also, many children read together at once in a Madrsa loudly for learning purposes and this is okay.
5) It is better to read the Quran loudly that is if somebody praying, sleeping, or somebody ill will not be distracted. (Gunyah)
6) If somebody is reciting the Quran incorrectly then it is Wajib to tell him/her unless if one fears jealousy and hate. (Gunyah)
7) To memorize the Holy Quran and then to forget it is a sin.
8) It is from the ettiqutes of respecting the Holy Quran that one does not put their back towards the Quran or spread their legs towards the Quran or sit in a high place when the Quran is beneath. (Bahare Shariat)
9) During recitation reflect on what you are reading. For example, when reading about punishment, one should repent; when reading about paradise, one should rejoice and pray for Jannah.
10) The way to do Sajdah of Tilwat is as follows: If one hears or reads the Ayat of Sajdah then he should stand with the intention of performing the Sajdah of Tilawat and saying Allahu Akbar should go into Sajdah and should recite the Tasbeeh of Sajdah atleast three times. Then, saying Allahu Akbar, one should stand up. To say Allahu Akbar both times is Sunnah. Similarly, to stand before and after the Sajdah is Mustahab. (Durre Mukhtar)
Lastly,
Learn how to read the Quran in the company of a Qualified Alim [and mature sisters must go to a Qualified Sister] who can teach them how to read as this is necessary. At times, while reciting many brothers and sisters unknowingly make mistakes in recitation which change the meaning which breaks their Salah. Likewise, send your children to Madrsas where they may learn how to recite the Quran with correct pronunciation and Qirat. If there is not a Madrsa in your town, then establish one. Knowledge of Islam leads one to Love Allah and helps to build a good moral character within the Muslim community. By learning the Quran, a Muslim saves his Salah, his Iman, and his Akhirah. Learning the Quran is not limited to just learning how to recite the Holy Book, rather, it is a life long process of learning how to recite it and understand what the Quran says.
The noble Ulama have worked hard and written volumes of Tafseer which consists of Ahadith, Stories, and important points. After learning the Quran, we must practice it and spread the word into our family and community.
Source: http://islamgreatreligion.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/jewels-of-quran/
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The Quran and Modern Science
The Quran and Modern Science
In contrast to the Bible, statements about scientific phenomena made in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences, states French surgeon, Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Qur'an; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.
Misconceptions
As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Qur'an; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Qur'an simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.
This description of the origins of the Qur'anic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Qur'an! This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Qur'anic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.
In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Qur'anic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.
Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Qur'an of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations. This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilisations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Qur'an to the communication of the Qur'an to man.
Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Qur'an.
When this aspect of the Qur'an is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Qur'an which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.
This is a very judicious remark. Muslim - and indeed non-Muslim - translators who have produced a French version of the Qur'an are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading. A further point is that translators - especially those mentioned above - - may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge - nor indeed had anybody else at that time. They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Qur'an dealing with the same subject - a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Qur'an that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.
Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Qur'anic text in the original language.
Scientific Errors
On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible - such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Qur'an. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Qur'an since the time they first became apparent: well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Qur'an, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Qur'an (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes. Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.
In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.
As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Qur'an in quite a different fashion.
When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras(chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book: the Qur'an. The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Qur'an, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day.
Uncorrupted Nature of the Quran
In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Qur'an stems from the following factors:
First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Qur'an itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.) In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Qur'an is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Qur'an to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura. This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.) The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions.
Text of Quran Uncorrupted
After Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Qur'an did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire. Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (former U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.
Today's editions of the Qur'an are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Qur'an, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.
If the origin of the Qur'an had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certain opinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarised above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Qur'an.
But having said this, we should note that the Qur'an is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasise that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Qur'an has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Qur'an.
Unexpected Discoveries
It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Qur'an in the original that I realised the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding. With my basic ideas on the Qur'an - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.
Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Qur'an and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Qur'an any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.
In La Bible, le Coran et la Science (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academie de Médecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Qur'an; the title of the lecture was Données physiologiques et embryologiques du Coran (Physiological and Embryological Data in the Qur'an). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarise below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Qur'an:
• a concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe;
• statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies;
• a prediction of the conquest of space;
• notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.
All of these data are bound to amaze anyone who approaches them in an objective spirit. They add a much wider dimension to the problem studied in the present work. The basic point remains the same , however: we must surely be in the presence of facts which place a heavy strain on our natural propensity for explaining everything in materialistic terms, for the existence in the Qur'an of these scientific statements appears as a challenge to human explanations.
That does not mean to say, however, that the statements in the Qur'an - especially those concerning man - may all of them be examined in the light of the findings of modern science. The creation of man as described in both the Bible and the Qu'ran totally eludes scientific investigation of the event per se.
Similarly, when the New Testament or the Qur'an informs us that Jesus was not born of a father, in the biological sense of the term, we cannot counter this Scriptural statement by saying that there is no example in the human species of an individual having been formed without receiving the paternal chromosomes that make up one half of its genetic inheritance. Science does not explain miracles, for by definition miracles are inexplicable, thus, when we read in both the Qur'an and the Bible that man was moulded from the ground, we are in fact learning a fundamental religious principle: Man returns from where he came, for from the place he is buried, he will rise again on the judgment.
Side by side with the main religious aspect of such reflections on man, we find in the Qur'an statements on man that refer to strictly material facts. They are quite amazing when one approaches them for the first time. For example, the Qur'an describes the origins of life in general and devotes a great deal of space to the morphological transformation undergone by man, repeatedly emphasizing the fact that God fashioned him as He willed. We likewise discover statements on human reproduction that are expressed in precise terms that lend themselves to comparison with the secular knowledge we today possess on the subject.
Interest to Men of Science
The many statements in the Qur'an that may thus be compared with modern knowledge are by no means easy to find. In preparing the study published in 1976, I was unable to draw on any previous works known in the West, for there were none. All I could refer to were a few works in Arabic dealing with themes treated in the Qur'an that were of interest to men of science - there was, however, no overall study. Over and above this, research of this kind requires scientific knowledge covering many different disciplines. It is not easy, however, for Islamologists to acquire such knowledge, for they possess a mainly literary background. Indeed, such questions hardly seem to occupy a place in their field of classic Islamology, at least as far as the West is concerned. Only a scientist, thoroughly acquainted with Arabic literature, can draw comparisons between the Qur'anic text - for which he must be able to read Arabic - and the data supplied by modern knowledge.
There is another reason why such statements are not immediately apparent: Verses bearing on a single theme are scattered throughout the Qur'an. The book is indeed a juxtaposition of reflections on a wide variety of subjects referred to one after the other and taken up again later on, often several times over. The data on a precise theme must therefore be collected from all over the Book and brought together under a single heading. This requires many hours' work tracking down verses, in spite of the existence of thematic indexes provided by various translators, for such lists may perhaps be incomplete and indeed, in many cases, they often are.
________________________________________
Taken from The Origin of Man, by Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille is an eminent French surgeon, scientist, scholar and author of "THE BIBLE, THE QUR'AN AND SCIENCE" which contains the result of his research into the Judeo-Christian Revelation and the Qur'an. It is a unique contribution in the field of religion and science.
An outstanding scientist, he was selected to treat the mummy of Merneptah (Pharaoh) which he did. During his visit to Saudi Arabia he was shown the verses of the Qur'an in which God says that the dead body of the Pharaoh will be preserved as a "Sign" for posterity. An impartial scientist like Dr. Bucaille, who (being also a Christian) was conversant with the Biblical version of Pharaoh's story as being drowned in pursuit of Prophet Moses. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that unknown to the world till only of late, the Qur'an made definite prediction about the preservation of the body of that same Pharaoh of Moses' time. This led Dr. Bucaille to study the Qur'an thoroughly after learning the Arabic language. The final conclusion of his comparative study of Qur'an and the Bible is that the statements about scientific phenomena in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences whereas the Biblical narration's on the same subjects do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Source: http://www.islamfortoday.com/bucaille01.htm
In contrast to the Bible, statements about scientific phenomena made in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences, states French surgeon, Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Qur'an; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.
Misconceptions
As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Qur'an; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Qur'an simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.
This description of the origins of the Qur'anic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Qur'an! This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Qur'anic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.
In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Qur'anic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.
Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Qur'an of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations. This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilisations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Qur'an to the communication of the Qur'an to man.
Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Qur'an.
When this aspect of the Qur'an is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Qur'an which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.
This is a very judicious remark. Muslim - and indeed non-Muslim - translators who have produced a French version of the Qur'an are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading. A further point is that translators - especially those mentioned above - - may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge - nor indeed had anybody else at that time. They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Qur'an dealing with the same subject - a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Qur'an that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.
Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Qur'anic text in the original language.
Scientific Errors
On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible - such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Qur'an. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Qur'an since the time they first became apparent: well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Qur'an, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Qur'an (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes. Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.
In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.
As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Qur'an in quite a different fashion.
When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras(chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book: the Qur'an. The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Qur'an, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day.
Uncorrupted Nature of the Quran
In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Qur'an stems from the following factors:
First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Qur'an itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.) In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Qur'an is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Qur'an to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura. This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.) The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions.
Text of Quran Uncorrupted
After Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Qur'an did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire. Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (former U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.
Today's editions of the Qur'an are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Qur'an, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.
If the origin of the Qur'an had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certain opinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarised above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Qur'an.
But having said this, we should note that the Qur'an is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasise that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Qur'an has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Qur'an.
Unexpected Discoveries
It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Qur'an in the original that I realised the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding. With my basic ideas on the Qur'an - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.
Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Qur'an and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Qur'an any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.
In La Bible, le Coran et la Science (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academie de Médecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Qur'an; the title of the lecture was Données physiologiques et embryologiques du Coran (Physiological and Embryological Data in the Qur'an). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarise below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Qur'an:
• a concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe;
• statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies;
• a prediction of the conquest of space;
• notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.
All of these data are bound to amaze anyone who approaches them in an objective spirit. They add a much wider dimension to the problem studied in the present work. The basic point remains the same , however: we must surely be in the presence of facts which place a heavy strain on our natural propensity for explaining everything in materialistic terms, for the existence in the Qur'an of these scientific statements appears as a challenge to human explanations.
That does not mean to say, however, that the statements in the Qur'an - especially those concerning man - may all of them be examined in the light of the findings of modern science. The creation of man as described in both the Bible and the Qu'ran totally eludes scientific investigation of the event per se.
Similarly, when the New Testament or the Qur'an informs us that Jesus was not born of a father, in the biological sense of the term, we cannot counter this Scriptural statement by saying that there is no example in the human species of an individual having been formed without receiving the paternal chromosomes that make up one half of its genetic inheritance. Science does not explain miracles, for by definition miracles are inexplicable, thus, when we read in both the Qur'an and the Bible that man was moulded from the ground, we are in fact learning a fundamental religious principle: Man returns from where he came, for from the place he is buried, he will rise again on the judgment.
Side by side with the main religious aspect of such reflections on man, we find in the Qur'an statements on man that refer to strictly material facts. They are quite amazing when one approaches them for the first time. For example, the Qur'an describes the origins of life in general and devotes a great deal of space to the morphological transformation undergone by man, repeatedly emphasizing the fact that God fashioned him as He willed. We likewise discover statements on human reproduction that are expressed in precise terms that lend themselves to comparison with the secular knowledge we today possess on the subject.
Interest to Men of Science
The many statements in the Qur'an that may thus be compared with modern knowledge are by no means easy to find. In preparing the study published in 1976, I was unable to draw on any previous works known in the West, for there were none. All I could refer to were a few works in Arabic dealing with themes treated in the Qur'an that were of interest to men of science - there was, however, no overall study. Over and above this, research of this kind requires scientific knowledge covering many different disciplines. It is not easy, however, for Islamologists to acquire such knowledge, for they possess a mainly literary background. Indeed, such questions hardly seem to occupy a place in their field of classic Islamology, at least as far as the West is concerned. Only a scientist, thoroughly acquainted with Arabic literature, can draw comparisons between the Qur'anic text - for which he must be able to read Arabic - and the data supplied by modern knowledge.
There is another reason why such statements are not immediately apparent: Verses bearing on a single theme are scattered throughout the Qur'an. The book is indeed a juxtaposition of reflections on a wide variety of subjects referred to one after the other and taken up again later on, often several times over. The data on a precise theme must therefore be collected from all over the Book and brought together under a single heading. This requires many hours' work tracking down verses, in spite of the existence of thematic indexes provided by various translators, for such lists may perhaps be incomplete and indeed, in many cases, they often are.
________________________________________
Taken from The Origin of Man, by Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille is an eminent French surgeon, scientist, scholar and author of "THE BIBLE, THE QUR'AN AND SCIENCE" which contains the result of his research into the Judeo-Christian Revelation and the Qur'an. It is a unique contribution in the field of religion and science.
An outstanding scientist, he was selected to treat the mummy of Merneptah (Pharaoh) which he did. During his visit to Saudi Arabia he was shown the verses of the Qur'an in which God says that the dead body of the Pharaoh will be preserved as a "Sign" for posterity. An impartial scientist like Dr. Bucaille, who (being also a Christian) was conversant with the Biblical version of Pharaoh's story as being drowned in pursuit of Prophet Moses. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that unknown to the world till only of late, the Qur'an made definite prediction about the preservation of the body of that same Pharaoh of Moses' time. This led Dr. Bucaille to study the Qur'an thoroughly after learning the Arabic language. The final conclusion of his comparative study of Qur'an and the Bible is that the statements about scientific phenomena in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences whereas the Biblical narration's on the same subjects do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Source: http://www.islamfortoday.com/bucaille01.htm
Monday, March 30, 2009
ALLAH s.w.t.
ALLAH
The concept of God (Allah) in Islam is enunciated by God Himself in His revelation, the Holy Qur'an. It is expanded upon by the Final Prophet of God, Muhammad [peace upon him and his household] and further clarified by the successor to the Prophet, the Imam Ali.
The Holy Qur'an
Chapter: The Unity
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Say: He, Allah, is One.
Allah is He on Whom all depend.
He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And none is like Him.
[Source: The Holy Qur'an, translated by M. H. Shakir, Chapter 112, verses 1-4]
Muhammad [pbuh], the Prophet of Islam
"Praise belongs to God, who in His firstness was solitary and in His beginninglessness was tremendously exalted through divinity and supremely great through His magnificence and power. He originated that which He produced and brought into being that which He created without a model preceding anything that He created. Our Lord, the eternal, unstitched (the heavens and the earth) through the subtlety of His lordship and the knowledge within His omniscience, created all that He created through the laws of His power, and split (the sky) through the light of dawn. So none changes His creation, none alters His handiwork, 'none repels His law' (XIII, 45) , none rejects His command. There is no place of rest away from His call, no cessation to His dominion and no interruption of His term. He is the truly existent from the first and the truly enduring forever. He is veiled from His creatures by His light in the high horizon, in the towering might, and in the lofty dominion. He is above all things and below all things. So He manifested Himself to His creation without being seen, and He transcends being gazed upon. He wanted to be distinguished by the profession of Unity when He withdrew behind the veil of His light, rose high in His exaltation and concealed Himself from His creation.
"He sent to them messengers so they might be His conclusive argument against His creatures and so His messengers to them might be witnesses against them. He sent among them prophets bearing good tidings and warning, 'that whosoever perished might perish by a clear sign, and by a clear sign he might live who lived' (VIII, 42) and that the servants might understand of their Lord that of which they had been ignorant, recognise Him in His Lordship after they had denied (it) and profess His Unity in His divinity after they had stubbornly resisted."
[Source: Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 4, pp. 287-8]
Ali [as], the first Imam, successor to the Prophet
"Praise belongs to God, who did not originate from anything, nor did He bring what exists into being from anything. His beginninglessness is attested to by the temporality of things, His power by the impotence with which He has branded them, and His everlastingness by the annihilation which He has forced upon them. No place is empty of Him that He might be perceived through localization, no object is like Him that He might be described by quality, nor is He absent from anything that He might be known through situation.
"He is distinct in attributes from all that He has originated, inaccessable to perception because of the changing essences He has created (in things), and outside of all domination by changing states because of grandeur and tremendousness. Forbidden is His delimitation to the penetrating acumen of sagacities, His description to the piercing profundities of thought and His representation to the searching probes of insight.
"Because of His tremendousness places encompass Him not, because of His majesty measures gauge Him not, and because of His grandeur standards judge Him not. Impossible is it for imaginations to fathom Him, understandings to comprehend Him or minds to imagine Him. Powers of reason with lofty aspiration despair of contriving to comprehend Him, oceans of knowledge run dry without alluding to Him in depth , and the subtleties of disputants fall from loftiness to pettiness in describing His power.
"He is One, not in terms of number; Everlasting, without duration; Standing, without supports. He is not of a kind that other kinds should be on a par with Him, nor an object that objects should be similar to Him, nor
like things that attributes should apply to Him. Powers of reason go astray in the waves of the current of perceiving Him, imaginations are bewildered at encompassing the mention of His beginninglessness, understandings are held back from becoming conscious of the description of His power, and minds are drowned in the depths of the heavens of His kingdom.
"He is Master over (giving) bounties, Inaccessable through Grandeur, and Sovereign over all things. Time makes Him not old, nor does description encompass Him. Humbled before Him are the firmest of obduracies in the limits of their constancy, and submitted to Him are the most unshakeable of the cords in the extremity of their towering regions .
"Witness to His Lordship is the totality of kinds, to His Power their incapacity, to His eternity their createdness, and to His permanence their passing into extinction. So they possess no place of refuge from His grasp of them, no exit from His encompassing them, no way of veiling themselves from His enumeration of them and no way of avoiding His power over them. Sufficient is the perfection of His making them as a sign, His compounding of their (natural) constitutions as a proof, the temporal origin of their natures as (a reason for His) eternity, and the creation's laws governing them as a lesson . No limit is attributed to Him, no similitude struck for Him and nothing veiled from Him. High indeed is He exalted above the striking of similitudes and above created attributes!
"And I testify that there is no god but He, having faith in His Lordship and opposing whoso denies Him; and I testify that Muhammad (PBUH) is His servant and messenger, residing in the best lodging-place, having passed from the noblest of loins and immaculate wombs, extracted in lineage from the noblest of mines and in origin from the most excellent of plantations, and (derived) from the most inaccessible of summits and the most glorious roots, from the tree from which God fashioned His prophets and chose His trusted ones: (a tree) of excellent wood, harmonious stature, lofty branches, flourishing limbs, ripened fruit, (and) noble interior, implanted in generosity and cultivated in a sacred precinct. There it put forth branches and fruit, became strong and unassailable, and then made him (the prophet Muhammad PBUH) tall and eminent, until God, the Mighty and Majestic, honoured him with the Faithful Spirit , the Illuminating Light , and the Manifest Book . He subjected to him Buraq and the angels greeted him. By means of him He terrified the devils, overthrew the idols and the gods (who were) worshipped apart from Him. His prophet's Wont (sunnah)is integrity, his conduct is justice and his decision is truth. He proclaimed that which was commanded by his Lord , and he delivered that with which he was charged until he made plain his mission through the profession of Unity and made manifest among the creatures that there is no god but God alone and that He has no associate; until His Oneness became pure and His lordship unmixed. God made manifest his argument through the profession of His Unity and He raised his degree with submission (al-islam). And God, the Mighty and Majestic, chose for His prophet what was with Him of repose, degree and means - upon him and upon his pure household be God's peace."
[Source: Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 4, pp. 221-3]
Source: http://www.al-islam.org/allah/main.html
The concept of God (Allah) in Islam is enunciated by God Himself in His revelation, the Holy Qur'an. It is expanded upon by the Final Prophet of God, Muhammad [peace upon him and his household] and further clarified by the successor to the Prophet, the Imam Ali.
The Holy Qur'an
Chapter: The Unity
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Say: He, Allah, is One.
Allah is He on Whom all depend.
He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And none is like Him.
[Source: The Holy Qur'an, translated by M. H. Shakir, Chapter 112, verses 1-4]
Muhammad [pbuh], the Prophet of Islam
"Praise belongs to God, who in His firstness was solitary and in His beginninglessness was tremendously exalted through divinity and supremely great through His magnificence and power. He originated that which He produced and brought into being that which He created without a model preceding anything that He created. Our Lord, the eternal, unstitched (the heavens and the earth) through the subtlety of His lordship and the knowledge within His omniscience, created all that He created through the laws of His power, and split (the sky) through the light of dawn. So none changes His creation, none alters His handiwork, 'none repels His law' (XIII, 45) , none rejects His command. There is no place of rest away from His call, no cessation to His dominion and no interruption of His term. He is the truly existent from the first and the truly enduring forever. He is veiled from His creatures by His light in the high horizon, in the towering might, and in the lofty dominion. He is above all things and below all things. So He manifested Himself to His creation without being seen, and He transcends being gazed upon. He wanted to be distinguished by the profession of Unity when He withdrew behind the veil of His light, rose high in His exaltation and concealed Himself from His creation.
"He sent to them messengers so they might be His conclusive argument against His creatures and so His messengers to them might be witnesses against them. He sent among them prophets bearing good tidings and warning, 'that whosoever perished might perish by a clear sign, and by a clear sign he might live who lived' (VIII, 42) and that the servants might understand of their Lord that of which they had been ignorant, recognise Him in His Lordship after they had denied (it) and profess His Unity in His divinity after they had stubbornly resisted."
[Source: Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 4, pp. 287-8]
Ali [as], the first Imam, successor to the Prophet
"Praise belongs to God, who did not originate from anything, nor did He bring what exists into being from anything. His beginninglessness is attested to by the temporality of things, His power by the impotence with which He has branded them, and His everlastingness by the annihilation which He has forced upon them. No place is empty of Him that He might be perceived through localization, no object is like Him that He might be described by quality, nor is He absent from anything that He might be known through situation.
"He is distinct in attributes from all that He has originated, inaccessable to perception because of the changing essences He has created (in things), and outside of all domination by changing states because of grandeur and tremendousness. Forbidden is His delimitation to the penetrating acumen of sagacities, His description to the piercing profundities of thought and His representation to the searching probes of insight.
"Because of His tremendousness places encompass Him not, because of His majesty measures gauge Him not, and because of His grandeur standards judge Him not. Impossible is it for imaginations to fathom Him, understandings to comprehend Him or minds to imagine Him. Powers of reason with lofty aspiration despair of contriving to comprehend Him, oceans of knowledge run dry without alluding to Him in depth , and the subtleties of disputants fall from loftiness to pettiness in describing His power.
"He is One, not in terms of number; Everlasting, without duration; Standing, without supports. He is not of a kind that other kinds should be on a par with Him, nor an object that objects should be similar to Him, nor
like things that attributes should apply to Him. Powers of reason go astray in the waves of the current of perceiving Him, imaginations are bewildered at encompassing the mention of His beginninglessness, understandings are held back from becoming conscious of the description of His power, and minds are drowned in the depths of the heavens of His kingdom.
"He is Master over (giving) bounties, Inaccessable through Grandeur, and Sovereign over all things. Time makes Him not old, nor does description encompass Him. Humbled before Him are the firmest of obduracies in the limits of their constancy, and submitted to Him are the most unshakeable of the cords in the extremity of their towering regions .
"Witness to His Lordship is the totality of kinds, to His Power their incapacity, to His eternity their createdness, and to His permanence their passing into extinction. So they possess no place of refuge from His grasp of them, no exit from His encompassing them, no way of veiling themselves from His enumeration of them and no way of avoiding His power over them. Sufficient is the perfection of His making them as a sign, His compounding of their (natural) constitutions as a proof, the temporal origin of their natures as (a reason for His) eternity, and the creation's laws governing them as a lesson . No limit is attributed to Him, no similitude struck for Him and nothing veiled from Him. High indeed is He exalted above the striking of similitudes and above created attributes!
"And I testify that there is no god but He, having faith in His Lordship and opposing whoso denies Him; and I testify that Muhammad (PBUH) is His servant and messenger, residing in the best lodging-place, having passed from the noblest of loins and immaculate wombs, extracted in lineage from the noblest of mines and in origin from the most excellent of plantations, and (derived) from the most inaccessible of summits and the most glorious roots, from the tree from which God fashioned His prophets and chose His trusted ones: (a tree) of excellent wood, harmonious stature, lofty branches, flourishing limbs, ripened fruit, (and) noble interior, implanted in generosity and cultivated in a sacred precinct. There it put forth branches and fruit, became strong and unassailable, and then made him (the prophet Muhammad PBUH) tall and eminent, until God, the Mighty and Majestic, honoured him with the Faithful Spirit , the Illuminating Light , and the Manifest Book . He subjected to him Buraq and the angels greeted him. By means of him He terrified the devils, overthrew the idols and the gods (who were) worshipped apart from Him. His prophet's Wont (sunnah)is integrity, his conduct is justice and his decision is truth. He proclaimed that which was commanded by his Lord , and he delivered that with which he was charged until he made plain his mission through the profession of Unity and made manifest among the creatures that there is no god but God alone and that He has no associate; until His Oneness became pure and His lordship unmixed. God made manifest his argument through the profession of His Unity and He raised his degree with submission (al-islam). And God, the Mighty and Majestic, chose for His prophet what was with Him of repose, degree and means - upon him and upon his pure household be God's peace."
[Source: Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 4, pp. 221-3]
Source: http://www.al-islam.org/allah/main.html
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
How Yusuf Estes & His Family Came to Islam?
Interviewer: "Can you tell us briefly, how did you, your father, wife, children and a Catholic priest all come to Islam?"
Imam Estes: "I would love to. And thanks for giving us the chance to share our story of how we came into Islam."
"To begin, let me mention a bit of my background. I was born in the Midwest to strong Christian parents. We moved to Texas in 1949 and by the time I was 12, I had joined the church and been baptized. Later as a teen, I began playing the accordion, piano and organ. I visited other churches and attended many sermons and played a lot of music.
As I grew older my father and I worked together in many business projects and made millions of dollars, but could not find the peace of mind that can only come through knowing the truth and finding the real plan of salvation.
Then one day in 1991, my dad began doing business with a man from Egypt (Mohamed Abdel Rahman) and told me that he wanted me to meet him. But I was shocked when my father mentioned that this man was a 'Moslem.'
I said, "Dad, these guys are terrorists, hijackers, kidnappers and who knows what else?
Dad assured me he was a very nice person and I had nothing to worry about. I agreed to meeting, but only on my terms. I had to be coming directly from church, on Sunday, with my Bible, cross and cap that said, "Jesus is Lord!" As soon as we were introduced, I asked Mohamed - "Do you believe in God?"
He said,"Yes." (Good!)
Then I said, "Do you believe in Adam and Eve?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "What about Abraham? You believe in him and how he tried to sacrifice his son for God?"
He said, "Yes."
Then I asked, "What about Moses?" "Ten Commandments?" "Parting the Red Sea?"
Again he said, "Yes."
I asked, "What about the other prophets, David, Solomon and John the Baptist?"
He said, "Yes."
I asked. "Do you believe in the Bible?"
Again, he said. "Yes."
So, now it was time for the big question:
"Do you believe in Jesus? That he was the Messiah (Christ) of God?"
Again he says, "Yes. I do."
Well, now! This was going to be easier than I had thought. He was about to be baptized only he didn't know it, yet. (And I was just the one to do it, too)
Then he said he would become a Christian, if my religion was better than his. But I would have to bring proof. I told him, "Religion is not about proof. It is about faith."
He said, "In Islam, we have both."
I said, "You mean you can prove God really exists?"
He said, "Yes. There is proof in Islam that God exists and that Islam is the way to worship Him."
I was amazed. He seemed so confident and sure of what he was saying. This was not what I was used to. Even preachers have said about many things, "Just have faith." Or they say, "Don't ask. It is a mystery."
I'm sure you have asked yourself the question; "Why did God create me?" or "What is it that God wants me to do?" or "Exactly who is God, anyway?" "Why do we believe in 'original sin?" and "Why would the sons of Adam be forced to accept his 'sins' and then as a result be punished forever. Right?"
"And then there is the concept of the 'Trinity.' If I would ask preachers or ministers to give me some sort of an idea how 'one' could figure out to become 'three'? Or how is it that God, Who can do anything He Wills to do, both in and outside of the universe as we know it, but He cannot just forgive people's sins unless there is blood sacrifice even if He wants to?
So, He has to come down on earth and become a human, and only then is He able to forgive by taking the sins of people by killing Himself on a cross? And keeping in mind that all along He is still God of the whole universe and does as He Wills to do?" All of these were questions I grew up with and didn't really belief in some of the answers.
At one point I recall asking him about the Quran and how many versions of it there were in the last 1,400 years. He told me that there was only ONE QURAN. And that it had never been changed. Yet he let me know that the Quran had been memorized by hundreds of thousands of people, in it's entirety and were scattered about the earth in many different countries. Over the centuries since the Quran was revealed millions have memorized it completely and have taught it to others who have memorized it completely, from cover to cover, letter perfect without mistakes. I came to know that the Muslims believed in the Bible. Again, I was shocked. How could this be?
I learned Islam teaches: "Allah" is the Name of God in Arabic and it is the same 'God' as the God of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, peace be upon them all.
Islam believes in Jesus as the "Christ" or "Messiah" and he is the Word of God Incarnate, he is the "Logos" (Greek for 'word')
But that's not all, they believe in Jesus as:
• A true messenger of God.
• A prophet of God.
• Miracle birth without human intervention.
• He was the 'Christ' or Messiah as predicted in the Bible.
• He is with God now
• He will be coming back in the Last Days to lead the believers against the 'Antichrist.'
- But he was not God, nor son of God. Rather, he was a mightily messenger and prophet of God with miracles to prove the way of salvation by sacrificing things of this life for a better life in the Hereafter.
I found all of this to be very interesting.
One day the priest asked the Mohamed if he might accompany him to the mosque to see what it was like there. A few more days went by and the Catholic priest asked Mohamed if he might join him again for a trip to the mosque which they did. When they arrived I said to him: "Pete? -- Did you become a 'Moslem?' He said that he had entered into Islam that very day. THE PRIEST BECAME A MUSLIM!! I was really shocked now.
I began to discuss this with my wife and suddenly she told me she wanted a divorce. I was confused and asked her, "Why?"
She said, "A Muslim can't be married to a Christian."
I replied, "I didn't say I want to be a Muslim - and besides, it is a Muslim lady who does not marry a Christian man."
She said, "That is what I am talking about! I want to be a Muslim, too!"
Shocked and confused, I went downstairs and woke up Mohamed and asked him to come outside with me for a discussion. We walked and talked that whole night through. He told me, "This is really about you and God. You need to go down deep into your heart and ask Him."
I went out back behind my father's house and right there I put my head down on the ground facing the direction do when they pray. Now then in that position, with my body stretched out on the plywood and my head on the ground, I asked: "O God. If you are there, guide me, guide me."
And then after a while I raised up my head and I noticed a change inside of me. I was aware now more than ever before that it was time that I really work at being an honest and upright man, doing what God wants and not so much what I want.
I knew now what I had to do. Around 11:00 A.M. that morning, I stood before two witnesses, one the ex-priest, formerly known as Father Peter Jacob's, and the other Mohamed Abel Rehman and announced my 'shahadah' (open testimony to the Oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon him).
A few minutes later, my wife followed along and gave the same testimony. But for her there were 3 witnesses (me being the third).
My father was more reserved on the subject and waited a few more months before he made his shahadah (public testimony). But he did finally commit to Islam and began offering prayers right along with me and the other Muslims in the local masjid (mosque).
Our whole house had become Muslim along with a Catholic priest. How? Only from the Guidance of Allah.
For the entire story with all the details Click Here. (http://islamalways.com/yusuf)
Source: http://islam.thetruecall.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=85
Imam Estes: "I would love to. And thanks for giving us the chance to share our story of how we came into Islam."
"To begin, let me mention a bit of my background. I was born in the Midwest to strong Christian parents. We moved to Texas in 1949 and by the time I was 12, I had joined the church and been baptized. Later as a teen, I began playing the accordion, piano and organ. I visited other churches and attended many sermons and played a lot of music.
As I grew older my father and I worked together in many business projects and made millions of dollars, but could not find the peace of mind that can only come through knowing the truth and finding the real plan of salvation.
Then one day in 1991, my dad began doing business with a man from Egypt (Mohamed Abdel Rahman) and told me that he wanted me to meet him. But I was shocked when my father mentioned that this man was a 'Moslem.'
I said, "Dad, these guys are terrorists, hijackers, kidnappers and who knows what else?
Dad assured me he was a very nice person and I had nothing to worry about. I agreed to meeting, but only on my terms. I had to be coming directly from church, on Sunday, with my Bible, cross and cap that said, "Jesus is Lord!" As soon as we were introduced, I asked Mohamed - "Do you believe in God?"
He said,"Yes." (Good!)
Then I said, "Do you believe in Adam and Eve?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "What about Abraham? You believe in him and how he tried to sacrifice his son for God?"
He said, "Yes."
Then I asked, "What about Moses?" "Ten Commandments?" "Parting the Red Sea?"
Again he said, "Yes."
I asked, "What about the other prophets, David, Solomon and John the Baptist?"
He said, "Yes."
I asked. "Do you believe in the Bible?"
Again, he said. "Yes."
So, now it was time for the big question:
"Do you believe in Jesus? That he was the Messiah (Christ) of God?"
Again he says, "Yes. I do."
Well, now! This was going to be easier than I had thought. He was about to be baptized only he didn't know it, yet. (And I was just the one to do it, too)
Then he said he would become a Christian, if my religion was better than his. But I would have to bring proof. I told him, "Religion is not about proof. It is about faith."
He said, "In Islam, we have both."
I said, "You mean you can prove God really exists?"
He said, "Yes. There is proof in Islam that God exists and that Islam is the way to worship Him."
I was amazed. He seemed so confident and sure of what he was saying. This was not what I was used to. Even preachers have said about many things, "Just have faith." Or they say, "Don't ask. It is a mystery."
I'm sure you have asked yourself the question; "Why did God create me?" or "What is it that God wants me to do?" or "Exactly who is God, anyway?" "Why do we believe in 'original sin?" and "Why would the sons of Adam be forced to accept his 'sins' and then as a result be punished forever. Right?"
"And then there is the concept of the 'Trinity.' If I would ask preachers or ministers to give me some sort of an idea how 'one' could figure out to become 'three'? Or how is it that God, Who can do anything He Wills to do, both in and outside of the universe as we know it, but He cannot just forgive people's sins unless there is blood sacrifice even if He wants to?
So, He has to come down on earth and become a human, and only then is He able to forgive by taking the sins of people by killing Himself on a cross? And keeping in mind that all along He is still God of the whole universe and does as He Wills to do?" All of these were questions I grew up with and didn't really belief in some of the answers.
At one point I recall asking him about the Quran and how many versions of it there were in the last 1,400 years. He told me that there was only ONE QURAN. And that it had never been changed. Yet he let me know that the Quran had been memorized by hundreds of thousands of people, in it's entirety and were scattered about the earth in many different countries. Over the centuries since the Quran was revealed millions have memorized it completely and have taught it to others who have memorized it completely, from cover to cover, letter perfect without mistakes. I came to know that the Muslims believed in the Bible. Again, I was shocked. How could this be?
I learned Islam teaches: "Allah" is the Name of God in Arabic and it is the same 'God' as the God of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, peace be upon them all.
Islam believes in Jesus as the "Christ" or "Messiah" and he is the Word of God Incarnate, he is the "Logos" (Greek for 'word')
But that's not all, they believe in Jesus as:
• A true messenger of God.
• A prophet of God.
• Miracle birth without human intervention.
• He was the 'Christ' or Messiah as predicted in the Bible.
• He is with God now
• He will be coming back in the Last Days to lead the believers against the 'Antichrist.'
- But he was not God, nor son of God. Rather, he was a mightily messenger and prophet of God with miracles to prove the way of salvation by sacrificing things of this life for a better life in the Hereafter.
I found all of this to be very interesting.
One day the priest asked the Mohamed if he might accompany him to the mosque to see what it was like there. A few more days went by and the Catholic priest asked Mohamed if he might join him again for a trip to the mosque which they did. When they arrived I said to him: "Pete? -- Did you become a 'Moslem?' He said that he had entered into Islam that very day. THE PRIEST BECAME A MUSLIM!! I was really shocked now.
I began to discuss this with my wife and suddenly she told me she wanted a divorce. I was confused and asked her, "Why?"
She said, "A Muslim can't be married to a Christian."
I replied, "I didn't say I want to be a Muslim - and besides, it is a Muslim lady who does not marry a Christian man."
She said, "That is what I am talking about! I want to be a Muslim, too!"
Shocked and confused, I went downstairs and woke up Mohamed and asked him to come outside with me for a discussion. We walked and talked that whole night through. He told me, "This is really about you and God. You need to go down deep into your heart and ask Him."
I went out back behind my father's house and right there I put my head down on the ground facing the direction do when they pray. Now then in that position, with my body stretched out on the plywood and my head on the ground, I asked: "O God. If you are there, guide me, guide me."
And then after a while I raised up my head and I noticed a change inside of me. I was aware now more than ever before that it was time that I really work at being an honest and upright man, doing what God wants and not so much what I want.
I knew now what I had to do. Around 11:00 A.M. that morning, I stood before two witnesses, one the ex-priest, formerly known as Father Peter Jacob's, and the other Mohamed Abel Rehman and announced my 'shahadah' (open testimony to the Oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon him).
A few minutes later, my wife followed along and gave the same testimony. But for her there were 3 witnesses (me being the third).
My father was more reserved on the subject and waited a few more months before he made his shahadah (public testimony). But he did finally commit to Islam and began offering prayers right along with me and the other Muslims in the local masjid (mosque).
Our whole house had become Muslim along with a Catholic priest. How? Only from the Guidance of Allah.
For the entire story with all the details Click Here. (http://islamalways.com/yusuf)
Source: http://islam.thetruecall.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=85
Friday, March 13, 2009
Bible Compared to Quran
Bible Compared to Quran
Based on transcripts of vairous lectures given by Yusuf Estes & Dr. Gary Miller
Introduction by Yusuf Estes -
It should be stated at the outset of this work, that Muslims do not seek to put down or desecrete the Holy Bible. It is a matter critical matter of faith for Muslims to believe in the original revelations that came down to Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, just as it is is important for Muslims to believe in the revelation of the Quran that came to Muhammad, peace be upon him. The key word here however, is "original." As we all know the origin of the Bible is clouded with centuries of copying, translating and passing down information, now long lost with only copies of manuscripts remaining to remind us of what once was the Bible.
Additionally, it should be noted that Muslims do not seek to destroy the Christians or Jews belief in the Word of God, rather it is an obligation for Muslims to call to what is right and to halt that which is evil. Certainly, causing the "People of the Book" (as the Quran refers to Christians and Jews) to fall into disbelief and leave off any faith in God at all, is the very opposite of the direction Muslims should take in presenting any comparison between Islam and what has come down in the past from the Almighty God. We only seek to bring about more light to the people seeking guidance and pray for all of us to be successful with our Lord in this life and in the Next life and we ask His Guidance and Support in doing so, ameen.
THE BIBLE
[Yusuf Estes]
Old Testament
There exists today a number of different versions in the ancient Hebrew language of the Jewish Book called the Torah [Law] and this is usually referred to in Christianity as The Old Testament. Naturally, there have been many different translations to a great number of languages over the centuries and one could not expect them to be identical in text or meaning. What we have in English today still remains somewhat similar to large amounts of these older documents.
New Testament
There are also different versions of the Gospel or what is commonly called The New Testament in the Koine Greek language and Latin and these also have many translations to even other langugaes. Even amongst the English translations there are great differences. To mention two very clear differences for example; the Catholic Bible [c. 325 A.D] contains 73 books in total, while the Protestant Bible contains only 66 books, and although the newer (Protestant version) was taken from the Catholic Bible even then these books do not match completely with each other. There is no common denominator for any of the many different versions of the Bible.
Dead Sea Scrolls
There have been a number of scrolls and parchments found in places surrounding what we call the "Holy Land" over the centuries, not the least of which are those often referred to as the "Dead Sea Scrolls" or as they are known to the scholars "Wadi Qumran Scrolls." These were discovered in the last century around 1930 and have been proven to be very ancient and could well be older than any other extant manuscripts. Much of what has been translated from these scrolls is similar to some of the oldest manuscripts, but there are still very important differences worthy of note. We would like to recommend some important reading on this topic at the end of this paper.
THE QURAN
[Yusuf Estes]
Quran Means "Recitation"
The word "Quran" means "that which is recited; or that which is dictated in memory form." As such, it is not a book, nor is it something that reaches us only in written form. The documentation in writting about the Quran has been preserved in museums thoughout the world, including the Topekopi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and also in England. Keep in mind also, the Quran is only considered "Quran" while it is in the recitation form, not in the written or the book form. The word for what is written and held in the hand to be read by the eye is called "mus-haf" (meaning script or that which is written down).
Only One Version - Arabic
There are no different versions of the Quran in the Arabic language, only different translations and of course, none of these would be considered to hold the value and authenticity of the original Arabic Recitation. The Quran is divided up into 30 equal parts, called "Juz'" (parts) in the Arabic language. These are learned by Muslims from their very early beginnings as children.
Memorized by Millions - Entirely
The important thing to keep in mind about the Quran is the memorization and transmission of the actual "Rectiation" just as it came to Muhammad, peace be upon him, from the Angel Gabriel and was learned and memorized by his companions and they in turn, passed it down to their followers and continued in this way until we see today, over 10,000,000 (ten million) Muslims who have committed the entire Quran to memory. This is not a small feat. After all, how many other works of literary value have been memorized and passed down through so many generations, in the original language, without a single change in even one sentence?
Each Muslim Has "Quran" Memorized
All Muslims have memorzied a portion of the Quran in the Arabic language, as this is an important part of their daily prayers. Many Muslims have memorized large portions of the Quran from one tenth to one half to all of the entire Quran, and all in the original Arabic language. It should be noted, there are over one and a half billion (1,500,000,000) Muslims worldwide and only about 10% are Arab, all the rest are learing the Quran in Arabic as a second language.
God Speaks in First Person to Mankind in Quran
The Quran contains clear statements from Almighty God (Allah) and it is Him speaking to all of us in the first person. He tells of us our own creation, the creation of all that is the universe and what has happened to those before us and what is to become of us if we do not take heed of the warnings clearly spelled out in His Revelation. He speaks also to Muhammad, peace be upon him, to show that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is not making this up himself and even chastises Muhammad, peace be upon him, for making human assumptions rather than waiting for revelation in matters (ie.; surah At-Tahreem and surah Abasa).
Quran Mentions Itself
The Quran refers to itself as "The Quran" (The Recitation) and mentions that it is to all mankind and jinn (another creation of Allah, similar to humans in that they could make choices as to whether or not they would obey God's Commandments, and they existed before humans).
Quran Describes God's Nature Exactly
The Quran is clear on who God is and who He is not. There is no room left for doubt after reading the Quran in the Arabic languge: God is One. He is the only Creator, Sustainer and Owner of the Universe. He has no partners. He has no relatives; wives, children or offspring. He is not like His creation and He does not need it for His existance, while all the time the creation is totally dependent on Him. His attributes are clearly spelled out as the epitome of each and every one. He is for instance, the All-Knowing; the All-Hearing; the All-Seeing; the All-Forgiving; the All- Loving; the All-Merciful; the Only One God. There is never a contradiction to this found anywhere in the Quran.
Quran Challanges Readers
The Quran makes the clear challange, that if you are in doubt about it - then bring a book like it. Also, to bring ten chapters like it and then finally, to bring one single chapter like it. 1,400 years - and no one has been able to duplicate it's beauty, recitation, miracles and ease of memorization. Another challange for the unbelievers to consider; "If this (Quran) were from other than Allah, you would find within it many contradictions." And yet, another challange offered by Allah in the Quran is for the unbelievers to look around for evidences. Allah says He will show them His signs within themselves and on the farthest horizons.
Scientific Miracles in Quran
The scientific miracles of the Quran could not have been understood at that time, yet today we take for granted the many things included in the revelation of the Quran. Some include mentioning: The formation of embryo in the womb of the mother (surah 98); deep seas partitions; waters that do not mix; clouds and how they make rain and how lightning is caused by ice crystals; formation of the earth's mountains deep underground; orbits of planets and stars and moons - and even the mention of space travel (surah 55:33).
[Watch videos of world's top scientists commenting on the "Miracle of Science in Quran"]
http://islamyesterday.com/videos/science/
- COMPARISON of BIBLE & QURAN-
[Dr. Gary Miller- with Commentary by Yusuf Estes]
Bible is Collection of Writings -
Quran is Recitation From God to Muhammad (p)
Whereas, The Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors, the Quran is a dictation (or recitation). The speaker in the Quran - in the first person - is God Almighty (Allah) talking directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing about history or personal exchanges of information to one another (ex: Epistle of John 3). The Bible in the English King James Version consists of 66 small books. About 18 of them begin by saying: This is the revelation God gave to so and so… The rest make no claim as to their origin. You have for example the beginning of the book of Jonah which begins by saying: The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Elmitaeh saying… quote and then it continues for two or three pages.
Compare this to the beginning of the Book of "Luke" begins by saying: “In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, (2) Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, (3) It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, (4) That you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.
We see the author of the Book of "Luke" saying essentially, "Many people have written about things, it seems fitting for me to do so too.” "Luke" says it seems to him that as long as others are taking in hand to write something about it, even though they were eye witnesses to the whole thing, he feels that even though he was not, he still has "perfect understanding of all things from the very first."
Therefore this is only a letter from one person to another, neither of whom knew Jesus, peace be upon him, nor were eyewitnesses to any of what had taken place. [Y. Estes]
If you compare that to one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus, Luke begins by saying: “many people have written about this man, it seems fitting for me to do so too”. That is all… no claim of saying “ these words were given to me by God here they are for you it is a revelation”, there is no mention of this.
"Bible" is NOT in the Bible
The Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word 'Bible' is not in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible talk about itself. Some scriptures are sometimes pointed to in the Bible, say: Here where it talks about itself, but we have to look closely. 2nd Timothy 3:16 is the favourite which reads: “All scripture is inspired of God” and there are those who would say, here is where the Bible it talks about itself, it says it is inspired of God, all of it. But if you read the whole sentence, you read that this was a letter wrote by Paul to Timothy and the entire sentence says to Timothy: “Since you were a young man you have studied the holy scriptures, all scriptures inspired by God” and so on… When Timothy was a young man the New Testament did not exist, the only thing that stems he was talking about are scriptures – which are only a portion of the Bible - from before that time. It could not have meant the whole Bible.
Bible Curses Church Fathers Who REMOVED Book of Revelations
There is at the end of the Bible a verse which says:
Rev 22:18 "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book (Revelations): if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book:
19. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, god shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. [Y. Estes]
“Let anyone who takes away from this book or adds to this book be cursed”. This to is sometimes pointed to me saying: Here is where it sums itself as a whole. But look again and you will see that when it says: Let no one change this book, it is talking about that last book, #66 (or is it #73 in the Catholic Bible?), the Book of Revelation. It has too, because any reference will tell you that the Book of Revelation was written before certain other parts of the Bible were written. It happens today to be stacked at the end, but there are other parts that came after, so it can not be referring to the entire book.
(Incidentally, according to different manuscripts much older than the King James Version, there are different words at the end of the Book of Revelation, so how would we resolve that matter? - Y.E.)
Note: The Book of Revelation was taken out of the Bible several times and then replaced and then taken out and replaced according to various Church Councils throughout Church history. Guess the Church Fathers didn't read the curse at the end of the book?
Whose Word Is It?
It is an extreme position held only by some Christian groups that the Bible – in its entirety - cover to cover is the revealed word of God in every word, but they do a clever thing when they mention this, or make this claim. They will say that the Bible in its entirety is the word of God; inerrant (no mistakes) in the original writings.
So if you go to the Bible and point out some mistakes that are in it you are going to be told: Those mistakes were not there in the original manuscript, they have crept in so that we see them there today.
They are going on problem in that position. There is a verse in the Bible Isaiah 40:8 which in fact is so well known that some Bibles printed it on the inside front cover as an introduction and it says : “ The grass weathers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever”. Here is a claim in the Bible that the word of God will stand forever, it will not be corrupted, it won't be lost. So if today you find a mistake in the Bible you have two choices. Either that promise was false that when God said my word wont fade away, he was mistaken, or the portion which has the mistake in it was not a part of the word of God in the first place, because the promise was that it would be safeguarded, it would not be corrupted.
Are There Mistakes?
I have suggested many times that there are mistakes in the Bible and the accusation comes back very quickly: Show me one. Well there are hundreds. If you want to be specific I can mention few. You have for example at 2nd Samuel 10:18 a description of a war fought by David saying that he killed 7000 men and that he also killed 40000 men on horsebacks. In 1st Chronicles 19 it mentions the same episode saying that he killed 70000 men and the 40000 men were not on horsebacks, they were on foot. The point be what is the difference between the pedestrian and not is very fundamental.
How Did Judas Die?
Matthew 27:5 says that Judas Iscariot when he died he hung himself. Acts 1 says that, no he jumped off a cliff head first. If you study Logic very soon you will come in your course to what they call an “undecidable propositions” or “meaningless sentences” or statements that can not be decided because there is no contextual false. One of the classic examples sited is something called the Effeminites paradox. This man was Cretan and he said “Cretans always lie”, now was that statement true or false? If he was a Cretan and he says that they always lie is he lying? If he is not lying then he is telling the truth then the Cretans don’t always lie ! You see it can not be true and it can not be false, the statement turns back on itself. It is like saying “What I am telling you right now is a lie” would you believe that or not? You see the statement has no true content. It can not be true and it can not be false. If it is true it is always false. If it is false it is also true.
Well in the Bible at Titus 1:12 the writer is Paul and he is talking about the Cretans. He says that one of their own men – a prophet - said “Cretans always lie” and he says that what this man says is true. It is a small mistake, but the point is that it is a human mistake, you don’t find that if you carefully examine the true content of that statement. It can not be a true statement.
Who is the Author?
Now I come back to the Quran, and as I mentioned the speaker in the Quran is - in the first person - is God. The book claims throughout that it is the word of God. It names itself 70 times as the Quran. It talks about its own contents. It has self-reference. The Quran states in the first Sura after Fatiha that “This is the book, there is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for those who are conscious of God” and so on and so on… It begins that way and continues that way stressing that. And there is one very amazing statement in the Quran when you come to the fourth Sura 82nd Ayah which says to those who say Quran is something else than the word of God. It challenges them saying: “Have they not considered the Quran, if it came from someone other than God they will find in it many mistakes”. Some of you are students, would you dare to hand in a paper after you completed a research work or something at the bottom you put down there “You wont find mistakes in this”. Would you dare to challenge your professor that way?. Well the Quran does that. It is telling: If you really think you know where this came from then starts looking for mistakes because you wont find any. Another interesting thing the Quran does is that it quotes all its critics. There has never - in hundreds of years - ever been some suggestion as to where that book came from but that the Quran does not already mention that objection and reply to it. Many times you will find the Ayah saying something like: Do they say such and such and so, say to them such and such and so. In every case there is a reply. More than that the Quran claims that the evidence of its origin is in itself, and that if you look at this book you will be convinced.
Difference of Authority
So the difference in Christianity and Islam comes down to a difference of authority and appeal to authority. The Christian wants to appeal to the Bible and the Muslim wants to appeal to the Quran. You can not stop by saying: This is true because me book say it is, and somebody else would say something else is true because my book says differently, you can not stop at that point, and the Quran does not. The Christians may point to some words that it is recorded Jesus said and say this proves my point. But the Muslim does not simply open his book and say: No, no the Quran says this, because the Quran does not simply deny something the Bible says and say something else instead. The Quran takes the form of a rebuttal, it is a guidance as the opening says (Huda lil mutakeen). So that for every suggestion that the Christian may say: My Bible say such and such, the Quran will not simply say: No that is not true, it will say: Do they say such and such then ask them such and such. You have for example the Ayah that compares Jesus and Adam. There are those who may say that Jesus must have been God (Son of God) because he had no father. He had a woman who was his mother, but there was no human father. It was God that gave him life, so he must have been God’s son. The Quran reminds the Christian in one short sentence to remember Adam - who was his father ? - and in fact, who was his mother ? He did not have a father either and in fact he did not have a mother, but what does that make him? So that the likeness of Adam is the likeness of Jesus, they were nothing and then they became something; that they worship God.
Quran Invites - Not Demands
So that the Quran does not demand belief - the Quran invites belief, and here is the fundamental difference. It is not simply delivered as: Here is what you are to believe, but throughout the Quran the statements are always: Have you O man thought of such and such, have you considered so and so. It is always an invitation for you to look at the evidence; now what do you believe ?
Special Pleading of the Bible
The citation of the Bible very often takes the form of what is called in Argumentation: Special Pleading. Special Pleading is when implications are not consistent. When you take something and you say: Well that must mean this, but you don’t use the same argument to apply it to something else. To give an example, I have seen it in publications many times, stating that Jesus must have been God because he worked miracles. In other hand we know very well that there is no miracle ever worked by Jesus that is not also recorded in the Old Testament as worked by one of the prophets. You had amongst others, Elijah, who is reported to have cured the leper, raise the dead boy to life and to have multiplied bread for the people to eat - three of the most favourite miracles cited by Jesus. If the miracles worked by Jesus proved he was God, why don’t they prove Elijah was God ? This is Special Pleading, if you see what I mean. The implications are not consistent. If this implies that then in that case it must also imply the same thing. We have those who would say Jesus was God because he was taken up in the heaven. But the Bible also says the a certain Einah did not die he was taken up into the heaven by God. Whether it is true or not, who knows, but the point is if Jesus being taken up proves he is God, why does not it prove Einah was God? The same thing happened to him.
Clear Parts & Difficult Parts of Bible
I wrote to a man one time, who wrote a book about Christianity and I had some of the objections I mentioned to you now. And his reply to me was that I am making matters difficult to myself, that there are portions in the Bible that are crystal clear and that there are portions that are difficult, and that my problem was that I am looking at the difficult part instead of the clear parts. The problem is that this is an exercise in self deception - why are some parts clear and some parts difficult? It is because somebody decided what this clearly means, now that makes this very difficult. To give you an example, John Chapter 14 a certain man said to Jesus: Show us God, and Jesus said: If you have seen me you have seen God. Now without reading on the Christian will say: See Jesus claimed to be God, he said if you have seen me you have seen God. If that is crystal clear then you have a difficult portion when you go back just a few pages to Chapter 5 when another man came to Jesus and said show us God and he said you have never seen God you have never heard his voice. Now what did he mean there if on the other occasion he meant that he was God? Obviously you have made matters difficult by deciding what the first one meant. If you read on in Chapter 14 you will see what he went on to say. He was saying the closest you are going to seeing God are the works you see me doing.
Bible Does Not Claim Jesus Claimed to Be Son of God
It is a fact that the words “son of God” are not found on the lips of Jesus anywhere in the first three Gospel accounts, he was always calling himself the Son of Man. And it is a curious form of reasoning that I have seen so often that it is established from Bible that he claimed to be God because - look how the Jews reacted. They will say for example he said such and such and the Jews said he is blaspheming, he claimed to be God and they tried to stone him. So they argue that he must have been claiming to be God because look ! - the Jews tried to kill him. They said that’s what he was claiming. But the interesting thing is that all the evidence is then built on the fact that a person is saying: I believed that Jesus was the son of God because the Jews who killed him said that’s what he used to say ! His enemies used to say that, so he must have said it, this is what it amounts to. In other hand we have the words of Jesus saying he would keep the law, the law of Moses and we have the statement in the Bible, why did the Jews kill him ? Because he broke the law of Moses. Obviously the Jews misunderstood him, if he promised he would keep the law, but they killed him because he broke the law, they must have misunderstood him, or lied about him.
Writers of Bible - Out of Context
When I talk about the Bible and quote various verses here and there I am often accused of putting things out of context, to say you have lifted something out of what it was talking about and given it a meaning. I don’t want to respond to the accusation as such, but it doesn’t seem to occur to many people that perhaps those who wrote portions of the Bible in the first place were guilty of the same thing. Maybe they – some of those writers - believed a certain thing and in order to prove it quoted from their scriptures – the Old Testament, the Hebrew writings - quoted out of context to prove their point. There are examples of that kind of thing. In Matthew 2 it said that a king wanted to kill the young child Jesus so he with his family went to Egypt, and they stayed there until that king died, and then they came back.
When the writer of Matthew, whoever he was, because the name Matthew won't be found in the book of Matthew; when he described this event saying that he came back out of Egypt, he said: “ This was to fulfil a prophecy which is written” and then he quotes Hosea Chapter 11 “Out of Egypt I called my Son”. So he said because Jesus went to Egypt and then came back out of Egypt and we have this passage in the Hebrew scriptures “out of Egypt I called my son” Jesus must have been the son of God. If you look and see what he was quoting, Hosea 11:1 he quotes the second half of a complete sentence, the complete sentence reads: “When Israel was young I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son”. Israel the nation was considered as the son of God. Moses was told to go to Pharaoh and say to him: If you touch that nation of people, you touch my son; warning him, warning Pharaoh: don’t touch that nation, calling the nation “the son of God”. So that this is the only thing talked about in Hosea 11:1. “Out of Egypt I called my son” can only refer to the nation of Israel. I mentioned this point some months ago here in another talk, to which a young lady with us objected that Israel is a symbolic name for Jesus. You will have a hard time finding that anywhere in the Bible because it isn’t there. You can take an index of the Bible and lookup the word “Israel” everywhere the word occurs and you will find no where in any place that you can connect the word Israel with Jesus. But never mind - suppose it is true, read on, the second verse says “and after that he kept on worshipping Bal”, because this is what the Israelites were guilty of, very often they kept falling back into Idol worshipping. So if that “Israel” really meant Jesus and it means that Jesus is the son of God that came out of Egypt they must also mean that Jesus from time to time used to bow down to that idol Bal. You have to be consistent, and follow through on what it says. So the point is whoever wrote Matthew and Chapter 2 was trying to prove a point by quoting something out of context, and he undid himself, because if you follow through on it, it can not be so.
Quran Has Internal Evidences
Now I can come back to the claim the Quran makes that it has internal evidence of its origin. There are many many ways that you can look at this. As one example, if I single out somebody here and say: You know, I know your father - he is going to doubt that, he has never seen me with his father. He would say, how does he look like, is he tall short does he wear glasses? and so on, and if I give him the right answers pretty soon he will get convinced, “Oh yes, you did meet him”. If you apply the same kind of thinking when you look at the Quran, here is a book that says it came from the one who was there when the universe began. So you should be asking that one: So tell me something that proves it. Tell me something that shows me you must have been there when the universe was beginning. You will find in two different Ayahs the statement that all the creation began from a single point, and from this point it is expanding. In 1978 they gave the Noble prize to two people who proved that thats the case. It is the big bang origin of the universe. It was determined by the large radio receivers that they have for the telephone companies which were sensitive enough to pick up the transmissions from satellites and it kept finding background noise that they could not account for. Until the only explanation came to be, it is the left over energy from that original explosion which fits in exactly as would be predicted by the mathematical calculation of what would be this thing if the universe began from a single point and exploded outwards. So they confirmed that, but in 1978. Centuries before that here is the Quran saying the heavens and the earth in the beginning they were one piece and split and says in another Ayah : “of the heavens we are expanding it”.
Quran Has Exact Accuracy
Let me tell you about a personal investigation, it occurred to me that there are a number of things you can find in the Quran that give evidence to its origin – internal evidence. If the Quran is dictated from a perfect individual; it originates with God, then there should not be any wasted space, it should be very meaningful. There should be nothing that we don’t need that you can cut off, and it should not be missing anything. And so that everything in there should really be there for a specific purpose. And I got to thinking about the Ayah which I mentioned before, it says, the likeness of Jesus is the likeness of Adam. It an equation, it uses the Arabic word (mithel), it says Jesus, Adam, equal. You go to the index of the Quran, you look up the name ISA it is in the Quran 25 times, you lookup the name Adam it is there 25 times. They are equal, through scattered references but 25 of each. Follow that through and you will find that in the Quran there are 8 places were an Ayah says something is like something else, using this (Mithel), you will find in every case and take both sides of it whatever that word is look it up in the index and it will be lets say 110 times and lookup the other word and it will be said to be equal to the same 110. That is quite a project of co-ordination if you try to write a book that way yourself. So that everywhere you happened to mention that such and such is like such and such that then you check your index, filing system, or your IBM punch cards or whatever, to make sure that in this whole book you mentioned them both the same number of times. But that’s what you will find in the Quran.
Quran Provides Reason
What I am talking about is built on a thing that is called in Logic: Use and Mention of a Word. When you use a word, you are using its meaning. When you mention a word, you are talking about the symbol without the meaning. For example, if I say Toronto is a big city - I used the word Toronto as I meant this place Toronto is a big city. But if I say to you Toronto has 7 letters, I am not talking about this place Toronto, I am talking about this word - Toronto. So, the revelation is above reasoning, but it is not above reason. That is to say we are more apt not to find in the Quran something that is unreasonable, but we may find something that we would have never figured out for ourselves.
Unique Word Refers to Itself in Quran
The author of this sentence said if this book came from someone besides God then you will find in it many Ikhtalafan (inconsistencies). The word Ikhtilaf is found many times in the Quran. But the word Ikhtalafan is only found once in the Quran. So there are not many Ikhtilafan in the Quran, there is only one - where the sentence is mentioned. So you see how things are put together perfectly. It has been suggested to mankind: Find a mistake. Man could not get hold of a mistake, and he is very clever, because this sentence could also mean: Find many Iktilafan and so he quickly goes to the index to see if he can find many of them and there is only one... Sorry clever person.
[end of Dr. Gary Miller and Yusuf Estes]
Bible And Quran - Originally Both From Allah
Conclusion: Both the Bible and the Quran have come to us by way of Almighty God, then through His angel Gabriel and then to the prophets, peace be upon them. However, when the next step comes into play (that of the human beings faithfully transmitting it on to others and future generations) we find out that Allah has only perserved His Last and Final Revelation for all times. And He certainly did not need the humans to do that.
Respect For Holy Books
Muslims should respect the Bible because it does still contain some of the original teachings of Allah. But there is no need to go to Bible classes or purchase one to read to try to learn about what our purpose is here in this life. The Quran makes it clear that Allah has indeed, perfected our "way of life" for us and has conferred on us His favor and has chosen for us to submit to Him in Islam.
We would like to suggest to the non-Muslims to consider obtaining a Quran (order one free through our site if you like) and then investigate for themsleves what the Quran is really all about and what it might mean to them in their lives.
[Free Quran available at: http://islamtomorrow.com/free ]
Final comment from Yusuf Estes:
I would like to state that after years of studying the Bible and then learning the Arabic language to read the Quran as it was originally recited to Muhammad, peace be upon him, by the angel Gabriel, I have come to an amazing conclusion. It seems to me that the Bible and the Quran are most definitely from the exact same source and they compliment each other very nicely. In fact, it appears that the Bible does not contradict the Quran, except in the very same places where the Bible contradicts itself.
Source: http://islamtomorrow.com/articles/Bible_vs_Quran.asp
Based on transcripts of vairous lectures given by Yusuf Estes & Dr. Gary Miller
Introduction by Yusuf Estes -
It should be stated at the outset of this work, that Muslims do not seek to put down or desecrete the Holy Bible. It is a matter critical matter of faith for Muslims to believe in the original revelations that came down to Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, just as it is is important for Muslims to believe in the revelation of the Quran that came to Muhammad, peace be upon him. The key word here however, is "original." As we all know the origin of the Bible is clouded with centuries of copying, translating and passing down information, now long lost with only copies of manuscripts remaining to remind us of what once was the Bible.
Additionally, it should be noted that Muslims do not seek to destroy the Christians or Jews belief in the Word of God, rather it is an obligation for Muslims to call to what is right and to halt that which is evil. Certainly, causing the "People of the Book" (as the Quran refers to Christians and Jews) to fall into disbelief and leave off any faith in God at all, is the very opposite of the direction Muslims should take in presenting any comparison between Islam and what has come down in the past from the Almighty God. We only seek to bring about more light to the people seeking guidance and pray for all of us to be successful with our Lord in this life and in the Next life and we ask His Guidance and Support in doing so, ameen.
THE BIBLE
[Yusuf Estes]
Old Testament
There exists today a number of different versions in the ancient Hebrew language of the Jewish Book called the Torah [Law] and this is usually referred to in Christianity as The Old Testament. Naturally, there have been many different translations to a great number of languages over the centuries and one could not expect them to be identical in text or meaning. What we have in English today still remains somewhat similar to large amounts of these older documents.
New Testament
There are also different versions of the Gospel or what is commonly called The New Testament in the Koine Greek language and Latin and these also have many translations to even other langugaes. Even amongst the English translations there are great differences. To mention two very clear differences for example; the Catholic Bible [c. 325 A.D] contains 73 books in total, while the Protestant Bible contains only 66 books, and although the newer (Protestant version) was taken from the Catholic Bible even then these books do not match completely with each other. There is no common denominator for any of the many different versions of the Bible.
Dead Sea Scrolls
There have been a number of scrolls and parchments found in places surrounding what we call the "Holy Land" over the centuries, not the least of which are those often referred to as the "Dead Sea Scrolls" or as they are known to the scholars "Wadi Qumran Scrolls." These were discovered in the last century around 1930 and have been proven to be very ancient and could well be older than any other extant manuscripts. Much of what has been translated from these scrolls is similar to some of the oldest manuscripts, but there are still very important differences worthy of note. We would like to recommend some important reading on this topic at the end of this paper.
THE QURAN
[Yusuf Estes]
Quran Means "Recitation"
The word "Quran" means "that which is recited; or that which is dictated in memory form." As such, it is not a book, nor is it something that reaches us only in written form. The documentation in writting about the Quran has been preserved in museums thoughout the world, including the Topekopi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and also in England. Keep in mind also, the Quran is only considered "Quran" while it is in the recitation form, not in the written or the book form. The word for what is written and held in the hand to be read by the eye is called "mus-haf" (meaning script or that which is written down).
Only One Version - Arabic
There are no different versions of the Quran in the Arabic language, only different translations and of course, none of these would be considered to hold the value and authenticity of the original Arabic Recitation. The Quran is divided up into 30 equal parts, called "Juz'" (parts) in the Arabic language. These are learned by Muslims from their very early beginnings as children.
Memorized by Millions - Entirely
The important thing to keep in mind about the Quran is the memorization and transmission of the actual "Rectiation" just as it came to Muhammad, peace be upon him, from the Angel Gabriel and was learned and memorized by his companions and they in turn, passed it down to their followers and continued in this way until we see today, over 10,000,000 (ten million) Muslims who have committed the entire Quran to memory. This is not a small feat. After all, how many other works of literary value have been memorized and passed down through so many generations, in the original language, without a single change in even one sentence?
Each Muslim Has "Quran" Memorized
All Muslims have memorzied a portion of the Quran in the Arabic language, as this is an important part of their daily prayers. Many Muslims have memorized large portions of the Quran from one tenth to one half to all of the entire Quran, and all in the original Arabic language. It should be noted, there are over one and a half billion (1,500,000,000) Muslims worldwide and only about 10% are Arab, all the rest are learing the Quran in Arabic as a second language.
God Speaks in First Person to Mankind in Quran
The Quran contains clear statements from Almighty God (Allah) and it is Him speaking to all of us in the first person. He tells of us our own creation, the creation of all that is the universe and what has happened to those before us and what is to become of us if we do not take heed of the warnings clearly spelled out in His Revelation. He speaks also to Muhammad, peace be upon him, to show that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is not making this up himself and even chastises Muhammad, peace be upon him, for making human assumptions rather than waiting for revelation in matters (ie.; surah At-Tahreem and surah Abasa).
Quran Mentions Itself
The Quran refers to itself as "The Quran" (The Recitation) and mentions that it is to all mankind and jinn (another creation of Allah, similar to humans in that they could make choices as to whether or not they would obey God's Commandments, and they existed before humans).
Quran Describes God's Nature Exactly
The Quran is clear on who God is and who He is not. There is no room left for doubt after reading the Quran in the Arabic languge: God is One. He is the only Creator, Sustainer and Owner of the Universe. He has no partners. He has no relatives; wives, children or offspring. He is not like His creation and He does not need it for His existance, while all the time the creation is totally dependent on Him. His attributes are clearly spelled out as the epitome of each and every one. He is for instance, the All-Knowing; the All-Hearing; the All-Seeing; the All-Forgiving; the All- Loving; the All-Merciful; the Only One God. There is never a contradiction to this found anywhere in the Quran.
Quran Challanges Readers
The Quran makes the clear challange, that if you are in doubt about it - then bring a book like it. Also, to bring ten chapters like it and then finally, to bring one single chapter like it. 1,400 years - and no one has been able to duplicate it's beauty, recitation, miracles and ease of memorization. Another challange for the unbelievers to consider; "If this (Quran) were from other than Allah, you would find within it many contradictions." And yet, another challange offered by Allah in the Quran is for the unbelievers to look around for evidences. Allah says He will show them His signs within themselves and on the farthest horizons.
Scientific Miracles in Quran
The scientific miracles of the Quran could not have been understood at that time, yet today we take for granted the many things included in the revelation of the Quran. Some include mentioning: The formation of embryo in the womb of the mother (surah 98); deep seas partitions; waters that do not mix; clouds and how they make rain and how lightning is caused by ice crystals; formation of the earth's mountains deep underground; orbits of planets and stars and moons - and even the mention of space travel (surah 55:33).
[Watch videos of world's top scientists commenting on the "Miracle of Science in Quran"]
http://islamyesterday.com/videos/science/
- COMPARISON of BIBLE & QURAN-
[Dr. Gary Miller- with Commentary by Yusuf Estes]
Bible is Collection of Writings -
Quran is Recitation From God to Muhammad (p)
Whereas, The Bible is a collection of writings by many different authors, the Quran is a dictation (or recitation). The speaker in the Quran - in the first person - is God Almighty (Allah) talking directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and still in other places you have some men simply writing about history or personal exchanges of information to one another (ex: Epistle of John 3). The Bible in the English King James Version consists of 66 small books. About 18 of them begin by saying: This is the revelation God gave to so and so… The rest make no claim as to their origin. You have for example the beginning of the book of Jonah which begins by saying: The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Elmitaeh saying… quote and then it continues for two or three pages.
Compare this to the beginning of the Book of "Luke" begins by saying: “In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, (2) Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, (3) It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, (4) That you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.
We see the author of the Book of "Luke" saying essentially, "Many people have written about things, it seems fitting for me to do so too.” "Luke" says it seems to him that as long as others are taking in hand to write something about it, even though they were eye witnesses to the whole thing, he feels that even though he was not, he still has "perfect understanding of all things from the very first."
Therefore this is only a letter from one person to another, neither of whom knew Jesus, peace be upon him, nor were eyewitnesses to any of what had taken place. [Y. Estes]
If you compare that to one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus, Luke begins by saying: “many people have written about this man, it seems fitting for me to do so too”. That is all… no claim of saying “ these words were given to me by God here they are for you it is a revelation”, there is no mention of this.
"Bible" is NOT in the Bible
The Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word 'Bible' is not in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible talk about itself. Some scriptures are sometimes pointed to in the Bible, say: Here where it talks about itself, but we have to look closely. 2nd Timothy 3:16 is the favourite which reads: “All scripture is inspired of God” and there are those who would say, here is where the Bible it talks about itself, it says it is inspired of God, all of it. But if you read the whole sentence, you read that this was a letter wrote by Paul to Timothy and the entire sentence says to Timothy: “Since you were a young man you have studied the holy scriptures, all scriptures inspired by God” and so on… When Timothy was a young man the New Testament did not exist, the only thing that stems he was talking about are scriptures – which are only a portion of the Bible - from before that time. It could not have meant the whole Bible.
Bible Curses Church Fathers Who REMOVED Book of Revelations
There is at the end of the Bible a verse which says:
Rev 22:18 "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book (Revelations): if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book:
19. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, god shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. [Y. Estes]
“Let anyone who takes away from this book or adds to this book be cursed”. This to is sometimes pointed to me saying: Here is where it sums itself as a whole. But look again and you will see that when it says: Let no one change this book, it is talking about that last book, #66 (or is it #73 in the Catholic Bible?), the Book of Revelation. It has too, because any reference will tell you that the Book of Revelation was written before certain other parts of the Bible were written. It happens today to be stacked at the end, but there are other parts that came after, so it can not be referring to the entire book.
(Incidentally, according to different manuscripts much older than the King James Version, there are different words at the end of the Book of Revelation, so how would we resolve that matter? - Y.E.)
Note: The Book of Revelation was taken out of the Bible several times and then replaced and then taken out and replaced according to various Church Councils throughout Church history. Guess the Church Fathers didn't read the curse at the end of the book?
Whose Word Is It?
It is an extreme position held only by some Christian groups that the Bible – in its entirety - cover to cover is the revealed word of God in every word, but they do a clever thing when they mention this, or make this claim. They will say that the Bible in its entirety is the word of God; inerrant (no mistakes) in the original writings.
So if you go to the Bible and point out some mistakes that are in it you are going to be told: Those mistakes were not there in the original manuscript, they have crept in so that we see them there today.
They are going on problem in that position. There is a verse in the Bible Isaiah 40:8 which in fact is so well known that some Bibles printed it on the inside front cover as an introduction and it says : “ The grass weathers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever”. Here is a claim in the Bible that the word of God will stand forever, it will not be corrupted, it won't be lost. So if today you find a mistake in the Bible you have two choices. Either that promise was false that when God said my word wont fade away, he was mistaken, or the portion which has the mistake in it was not a part of the word of God in the first place, because the promise was that it would be safeguarded, it would not be corrupted.
Are There Mistakes?
I have suggested many times that there are mistakes in the Bible and the accusation comes back very quickly: Show me one. Well there are hundreds. If you want to be specific I can mention few. You have for example at 2nd Samuel 10:18 a description of a war fought by David saying that he killed 7000 men and that he also killed 40000 men on horsebacks. In 1st Chronicles 19 it mentions the same episode saying that he killed 70000 men and the 40000 men were not on horsebacks, they were on foot. The point be what is the difference between the pedestrian and not is very fundamental.
How Did Judas Die?
Matthew 27:5 says that Judas Iscariot when he died he hung himself. Acts 1 says that, no he jumped off a cliff head first. If you study Logic very soon you will come in your course to what they call an “undecidable propositions” or “meaningless sentences” or statements that can not be decided because there is no contextual false. One of the classic examples sited is something called the Effeminites paradox. This man was Cretan and he said “Cretans always lie”, now was that statement true or false? If he was a Cretan and he says that they always lie is he lying? If he is not lying then he is telling the truth then the Cretans don’t always lie ! You see it can not be true and it can not be false, the statement turns back on itself. It is like saying “What I am telling you right now is a lie” would you believe that or not? You see the statement has no true content. It can not be true and it can not be false. If it is true it is always false. If it is false it is also true.
Well in the Bible at Titus 1:12 the writer is Paul and he is talking about the Cretans. He says that one of their own men – a prophet - said “Cretans always lie” and he says that what this man says is true. It is a small mistake, but the point is that it is a human mistake, you don’t find that if you carefully examine the true content of that statement. It can not be a true statement.
Who is the Author?
Now I come back to the Quran, and as I mentioned the speaker in the Quran is - in the first person - is God. The book claims throughout that it is the word of God. It names itself 70 times as the Quran. It talks about its own contents. It has self-reference. The Quran states in the first Sura after Fatiha that “This is the book, there is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for those who are conscious of God” and so on and so on… It begins that way and continues that way stressing that. And there is one very amazing statement in the Quran when you come to the fourth Sura 82nd Ayah which says to those who say Quran is something else than the word of God. It challenges them saying: “Have they not considered the Quran, if it came from someone other than God they will find in it many mistakes”. Some of you are students, would you dare to hand in a paper after you completed a research work or something at the bottom you put down there “You wont find mistakes in this”. Would you dare to challenge your professor that way?. Well the Quran does that. It is telling: If you really think you know where this came from then starts looking for mistakes because you wont find any. Another interesting thing the Quran does is that it quotes all its critics. There has never - in hundreds of years - ever been some suggestion as to where that book came from but that the Quran does not already mention that objection and reply to it. Many times you will find the Ayah saying something like: Do they say such and such and so, say to them such and such and so. In every case there is a reply. More than that the Quran claims that the evidence of its origin is in itself, and that if you look at this book you will be convinced.
Difference of Authority
So the difference in Christianity and Islam comes down to a difference of authority and appeal to authority. The Christian wants to appeal to the Bible and the Muslim wants to appeal to the Quran. You can not stop by saying: This is true because me book say it is, and somebody else would say something else is true because my book says differently, you can not stop at that point, and the Quran does not. The Christians may point to some words that it is recorded Jesus said and say this proves my point. But the Muslim does not simply open his book and say: No, no the Quran says this, because the Quran does not simply deny something the Bible says and say something else instead. The Quran takes the form of a rebuttal, it is a guidance as the opening says (Huda lil mutakeen). So that for every suggestion that the Christian may say: My Bible say such and such, the Quran will not simply say: No that is not true, it will say: Do they say such and such then ask them such and such. You have for example the Ayah that compares Jesus and Adam. There are those who may say that Jesus must have been God (Son of God) because he had no father. He had a woman who was his mother, but there was no human father. It was God that gave him life, so he must have been God’s son. The Quran reminds the Christian in one short sentence to remember Adam - who was his father ? - and in fact, who was his mother ? He did not have a father either and in fact he did not have a mother, but what does that make him? So that the likeness of Adam is the likeness of Jesus, they were nothing and then they became something; that they worship God.
Quran Invites - Not Demands
So that the Quran does not demand belief - the Quran invites belief, and here is the fundamental difference. It is not simply delivered as: Here is what you are to believe, but throughout the Quran the statements are always: Have you O man thought of such and such, have you considered so and so. It is always an invitation for you to look at the evidence; now what do you believe ?
Special Pleading of the Bible
The citation of the Bible very often takes the form of what is called in Argumentation: Special Pleading. Special Pleading is when implications are not consistent. When you take something and you say: Well that must mean this, but you don’t use the same argument to apply it to something else. To give an example, I have seen it in publications many times, stating that Jesus must have been God because he worked miracles. In other hand we know very well that there is no miracle ever worked by Jesus that is not also recorded in the Old Testament as worked by one of the prophets. You had amongst others, Elijah, who is reported to have cured the leper, raise the dead boy to life and to have multiplied bread for the people to eat - three of the most favourite miracles cited by Jesus. If the miracles worked by Jesus proved he was God, why don’t they prove Elijah was God ? This is Special Pleading, if you see what I mean. The implications are not consistent. If this implies that then in that case it must also imply the same thing. We have those who would say Jesus was God because he was taken up in the heaven. But the Bible also says the a certain Einah did not die he was taken up into the heaven by God. Whether it is true or not, who knows, but the point is if Jesus being taken up proves he is God, why does not it prove Einah was God? The same thing happened to him.
Clear Parts & Difficult Parts of Bible
I wrote to a man one time, who wrote a book about Christianity and I had some of the objections I mentioned to you now. And his reply to me was that I am making matters difficult to myself, that there are portions in the Bible that are crystal clear and that there are portions that are difficult, and that my problem was that I am looking at the difficult part instead of the clear parts. The problem is that this is an exercise in self deception - why are some parts clear and some parts difficult? It is because somebody decided what this clearly means, now that makes this very difficult. To give you an example, John Chapter 14 a certain man said to Jesus: Show us God, and Jesus said: If you have seen me you have seen God. Now without reading on the Christian will say: See Jesus claimed to be God, he said if you have seen me you have seen God. If that is crystal clear then you have a difficult portion when you go back just a few pages to Chapter 5 when another man came to Jesus and said show us God and he said you have never seen God you have never heard his voice. Now what did he mean there if on the other occasion he meant that he was God? Obviously you have made matters difficult by deciding what the first one meant. If you read on in Chapter 14 you will see what he went on to say. He was saying the closest you are going to seeing God are the works you see me doing.
Bible Does Not Claim Jesus Claimed to Be Son of God
It is a fact that the words “son of God” are not found on the lips of Jesus anywhere in the first three Gospel accounts, he was always calling himself the Son of Man. And it is a curious form of reasoning that I have seen so often that it is established from Bible that he claimed to be God because - look how the Jews reacted. They will say for example he said such and such and the Jews said he is blaspheming, he claimed to be God and they tried to stone him. So they argue that he must have been claiming to be God because look ! - the Jews tried to kill him. They said that’s what he was claiming. But the interesting thing is that all the evidence is then built on the fact that a person is saying: I believed that Jesus was the son of God because the Jews who killed him said that’s what he used to say ! His enemies used to say that, so he must have said it, this is what it amounts to. In other hand we have the words of Jesus saying he would keep the law, the law of Moses and we have the statement in the Bible, why did the Jews kill him ? Because he broke the law of Moses. Obviously the Jews misunderstood him, if he promised he would keep the law, but they killed him because he broke the law, they must have misunderstood him, or lied about him.
Writers of Bible - Out of Context
When I talk about the Bible and quote various verses here and there I am often accused of putting things out of context, to say you have lifted something out of what it was talking about and given it a meaning. I don’t want to respond to the accusation as such, but it doesn’t seem to occur to many people that perhaps those who wrote portions of the Bible in the first place were guilty of the same thing. Maybe they – some of those writers - believed a certain thing and in order to prove it quoted from their scriptures – the Old Testament, the Hebrew writings - quoted out of context to prove their point. There are examples of that kind of thing. In Matthew 2 it said that a king wanted to kill the young child Jesus so he with his family went to Egypt, and they stayed there until that king died, and then they came back.
When the writer of Matthew, whoever he was, because the name Matthew won't be found in the book of Matthew; when he described this event saying that he came back out of Egypt, he said: “ This was to fulfil a prophecy which is written” and then he quotes Hosea Chapter 11 “Out of Egypt I called my Son”. So he said because Jesus went to Egypt and then came back out of Egypt and we have this passage in the Hebrew scriptures “out of Egypt I called my son” Jesus must have been the son of God. If you look and see what he was quoting, Hosea 11:1 he quotes the second half of a complete sentence, the complete sentence reads: “When Israel was young I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son”. Israel the nation was considered as the son of God. Moses was told to go to Pharaoh and say to him: If you touch that nation of people, you touch my son; warning him, warning Pharaoh: don’t touch that nation, calling the nation “the son of God”. So that this is the only thing talked about in Hosea 11:1. “Out of Egypt I called my son” can only refer to the nation of Israel. I mentioned this point some months ago here in another talk, to which a young lady with us objected that Israel is a symbolic name for Jesus. You will have a hard time finding that anywhere in the Bible because it isn’t there. You can take an index of the Bible and lookup the word “Israel” everywhere the word occurs and you will find no where in any place that you can connect the word Israel with Jesus. But never mind - suppose it is true, read on, the second verse says “and after that he kept on worshipping Bal”, because this is what the Israelites were guilty of, very often they kept falling back into Idol worshipping. So if that “Israel” really meant Jesus and it means that Jesus is the son of God that came out of Egypt they must also mean that Jesus from time to time used to bow down to that idol Bal. You have to be consistent, and follow through on what it says. So the point is whoever wrote Matthew and Chapter 2 was trying to prove a point by quoting something out of context, and he undid himself, because if you follow through on it, it can not be so.
Quran Has Internal Evidences
Now I can come back to the claim the Quran makes that it has internal evidence of its origin. There are many many ways that you can look at this. As one example, if I single out somebody here and say: You know, I know your father - he is going to doubt that, he has never seen me with his father. He would say, how does he look like, is he tall short does he wear glasses? and so on, and if I give him the right answers pretty soon he will get convinced, “Oh yes, you did meet him”. If you apply the same kind of thinking when you look at the Quran, here is a book that says it came from the one who was there when the universe began. So you should be asking that one: So tell me something that proves it. Tell me something that shows me you must have been there when the universe was beginning. You will find in two different Ayahs the statement that all the creation began from a single point, and from this point it is expanding. In 1978 they gave the Noble prize to two people who proved that thats the case. It is the big bang origin of the universe. It was determined by the large radio receivers that they have for the telephone companies which were sensitive enough to pick up the transmissions from satellites and it kept finding background noise that they could not account for. Until the only explanation came to be, it is the left over energy from that original explosion which fits in exactly as would be predicted by the mathematical calculation of what would be this thing if the universe began from a single point and exploded outwards. So they confirmed that, but in 1978. Centuries before that here is the Quran saying the heavens and the earth in the beginning they were one piece and split and says in another Ayah : “of the heavens we are expanding it”.
Quran Has Exact Accuracy
Let me tell you about a personal investigation, it occurred to me that there are a number of things you can find in the Quran that give evidence to its origin – internal evidence. If the Quran is dictated from a perfect individual; it originates with God, then there should not be any wasted space, it should be very meaningful. There should be nothing that we don’t need that you can cut off, and it should not be missing anything. And so that everything in there should really be there for a specific purpose. And I got to thinking about the Ayah which I mentioned before, it says, the likeness of Jesus is the likeness of Adam. It an equation, it uses the Arabic word (mithel), it says Jesus, Adam, equal. You go to the index of the Quran, you look up the name ISA it is in the Quran 25 times, you lookup the name Adam it is there 25 times. They are equal, through scattered references but 25 of each. Follow that through and you will find that in the Quran there are 8 places were an Ayah says something is like something else, using this (Mithel), you will find in every case and take both sides of it whatever that word is look it up in the index and it will be lets say 110 times and lookup the other word and it will be said to be equal to the same 110. That is quite a project of co-ordination if you try to write a book that way yourself. So that everywhere you happened to mention that such and such is like such and such that then you check your index, filing system, or your IBM punch cards or whatever, to make sure that in this whole book you mentioned them both the same number of times. But that’s what you will find in the Quran.
Quran Provides Reason
What I am talking about is built on a thing that is called in Logic: Use and Mention of a Word. When you use a word, you are using its meaning. When you mention a word, you are talking about the symbol without the meaning. For example, if I say Toronto is a big city - I used the word Toronto as I meant this place Toronto is a big city. But if I say to you Toronto has 7 letters, I am not talking about this place Toronto, I am talking about this word - Toronto. So, the revelation is above reasoning, but it is not above reason. That is to say we are more apt not to find in the Quran something that is unreasonable, but we may find something that we would have never figured out for ourselves.
Unique Word Refers to Itself in Quran
The author of this sentence said if this book came from someone besides God then you will find in it many Ikhtalafan (inconsistencies). The word Ikhtilaf is found many times in the Quran. But the word Ikhtalafan is only found once in the Quran. So there are not many Ikhtilafan in the Quran, there is only one - where the sentence is mentioned. So you see how things are put together perfectly. It has been suggested to mankind: Find a mistake. Man could not get hold of a mistake, and he is very clever, because this sentence could also mean: Find many Iktilafan and so he quickly goes to the index to see if he can find many of them and there is only one... Sorry clever person.
[end of Dr. Gary Miller and Yusuf Estes]
Bible And Quran - Originally Both From Allah
Conclusion: Both the Bible and the Quran have come to us by way of Almighty God, then through His angel Gabriel and then to the prophets, peace be upon them. However, when the next step comes into play (that of the human beings faithfully transmitting it on to others and future generations) we find out that Allah has only perserved His Last and Final Revelation for all times. And He certainly did not need the humans to do that.
Respect For Holy Books
Muslims should respect the Bible because it does still contain some of the original teachings of Allah. But there is no need to go to Bible classes or purchase one to read to try to learn about what our purpose is here in this life. The Quran makes it clear that Allah has indeed, perfected our "way of life" for us and has conferred on us His favor and has chosen for us to submit to Him in Islam.
We would like to suggest to the non-Muslims to consider obtaining a Quran (order one free through our site if you like) and then investigate for themsleves what the Quran is really all about and what it might mean to them in their lives.
[Free Quran available at: http://islamtomorrow.com/free ]
Final comment from Yusuf Estes:
I would like to state that after years of studying the Bible and then learning the Arabic language to read the Quran as it was originally recited to Muhammad, peace be upon him, by the angel Gabriel, I have come to an amazing conclusion. It seems to me that the Bible and the Quran are most definitely from the exact same source and they compliment each other very nicely. In fact, it appears that the Bible does not contradict the Quran, except in the very same places where the Bible contradicts itself.
Source: http://islamtomorrow.com/articles/Bible_vs_Quran.asp
Sunday, March 1, 2009
How We Came To Embrace Islam
How We Came To Embrace Islam
American, Khadija Evans, who experimented with umpteen Christian denominations, atheism and even Wicca tells how her post-September 11 investigations of Islam led first herself then her husband to their final spiritual home.
My name is Khadija Evans and this is the story of how my husband and I came to embrace Islam.
I can remember standing in the kitchen of the house I lived in when I was just 7 or 8 years old and looking towards the door that went outside. I prayed to a god whom I wasn't sure existed and I begged Him to show himself to me if He was really there. Nothing happened.
I can remember being 9 or 10 years old and writing a letter to God and hiding it in the heat register in my bedroom, thinking that God, if He existed, would come and retrieve it and answer my prayers. But the next day, the letter was still there.
I had always had a hard time accepting the existence of God, and of understanding the beliefs taught in Christian churches. Even though my parents weren't very religious, and rarely went to church, they thought it was best that my two brothers and I go. We were allowed to choose our religion when we very young. I think I was about 6 or 7, and my brothers were 1 and 2 years older then I. I chose a Methodist church for no other reason then it was a few blocks away from our house, and my brother's chose a Lutheran church because it was also close, and I hadn't chosen it.
I went to the church until I was 13 years old. I was baptized and confirmed there when I was 11. I went along with the baptism and confirmation because all children who were 11 received confirmation, and if they hadn't already been baptized, that was done at the same time. Even then I knew that doubts I had about God and Christian teachings were things best kept to myself.
When I was 13 my family moved to another town with no churches within walking distance, and my parents weren't eager to get up early and drive us kids to church, and so our religious training stopped until I was 15 and my mom suddenly found religion. She began attending an Assembly of God church, occasionally dragging my dad along. I went willingly. I had already begun a search for God that wouldn't end until I was 42 years old.
I remember being "born again". Caught up in the fervor of the hell and damnation that the minister preached at the Assembly of God church. I became "high on religion" thinking I had finally found "Him." Little did I know, but the high would be short lived, as I again began to have doubts and unanswered questions.
When I was 17 I met the daughter of an assistant Baptist minister and began going to their church. My dad from the time I was at least 6 years old had sexually abused me and I told the assistant minister about it. He arranged with my parents to let me live with him and his family in a type of "private foster care." My dad paid him $100 a week. My parents also attended the church for a brief time, until the minister announced from the pulpit that my dad was a child molester. Before that day though, my mom, dad and I were each baptized at the church.
One day after spending the day with my parents I returned to my foster home only to find the house empty. Cleaned out. Not a stick of furniture. We found out that the minister had been caught embezzling from the church and he and his family had left town in a hurry. I returned to my parent’s home and the abuse.
As a result of what that minister had done, what little belief I had in God was totally lost and I became an atheist. For the next 25 years I would fluctuate between believing, Agnosticism, and Atheism.
When I was 26 I went to 3 months of Rights of Initiation for Catholic Adults and then was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. I had been allowed to by-pass the full year of classes because I hadn't called the church to inquire about converting until 3 months before the Easter Vigil Mass when confirmation for adults was held.
I had entered the Catholic religion with the same philosophy that I had once heard Alcoholics Anonymous has, "Bring your body, your mind will follow." I didn't really believe in God, or in the core teachings of the Catholic Church, but I wanted so badly to believe in a power higher then myself, that I went faithfully to Mass 7 days a week, hoping that somehow I would start to believe. But after several months, I began to realize that it wasn't going to happen, and my Mass attendance became a once a week thing, then once a month, until when I was 30 and met the man who today is my husband and who wasn't Catholic, and I stopped attending Mass altogether.
I had never told anyone before my husband that I didn't believe in God. I don't think he took me seriously at first. I don't think he had ever known an Atheist. And he couldn't understand why I would have been going to church if I didn't believe in God.
My husband is 29 years older then I. We've had a wonderful marriage for these last 10 years. When we first met, I still desperately wanted to believe, and kept making him promise me, "When you get to Heaven" he would ask God to give me the strength to believe, and if at all possible, he would give me a sign, one that I couldn't chalk up to my imagination, so I would know there really was a god. He always promised me he would.
We were living in rural Alabama when I was 32 years old. I developed ulcerations on both corneas and when they healed, I was legally blind. Because of damage from infection that had been done to the tissue that donated corneas would have to adhere to, I couldn't find an eye surgeon who believed that transplanted corneas wouldn't be rejected.
I was still searching for God. I was searching for hope of something better then what this world had to offer. Some kind of evidence of the chance for existence after death. Some way to achieve it.
As a teenager I had watched Pat Robertson on the 700 Club, and as a young adult I listened faithfully to televangelist Rev. Jimmy Swaggert. In my 30's I watched programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. All the while hoping that one of the ministers would say something that would click in my mind, and I would finally know, "Yes, there really is a god!" None of them ever said anything that caused that connection to happen, though many said things that confused me even more.
During the first 10 years after I became legally blind, I tried attending different churches, Baptist again, Assembly of God again, non-Denominational, Church of God, Mormon, and even studied up on Wicca. But I always lost interest after just a few months. Things the religions taught just didn't add up. There were just too many things left to faith. Things that had no proof other then one's faith. I couldn't believe something when the only proof was some words in a book that in large part didn't make sense.
I remember one night when I was about 35 years old, lying in bed and praying to God, whom I still wasn't sure existed, and asking Him that if He did exist to lead me to someone who could help me to believe. But I found no one.
At age 36 I acquired a Braille Bible and started reading it, once again hoping to find proof of God's existence. But with the Bible being so hard to understand, with so much of it not really being explainable, I lost interest after reading just a few of its books. At about that time, although still wanting to find God, I gave up my search. I had become completely disillusioned with religion.
On September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my computer. It was before 9 a.m. and as usual the television, which was sitting to my right, was turned on for background noise. I heard the sound that is made to notify viewers of an important news announcement. I stopped and turned towards the TV. A reporter began talking and one of the towers of the World Trade Center showed in the background. He said an accident had happened. A small plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I'm legally blind, but I could see well enough to know that it wasn't a small plane that had hit the tower. The hole was massive. And I didn't think it was possible to accidentally hit something so big.
As I watched, another plane flew into the other tower. I couldn't see the plane itself, it was too small for me to see even during the instant replays with my face practically pressed up against the screen, but I saw the fireball that exploded away from the building.
I jumped up and ran into the bedroom and told my husband to hurry and get up because terrorists were flying planes into the World Trade Center buildings! He immediately got out of bed and came in to the living room and sat in his recliner and began to watch. It was about 9 a.m.
As time went by it was announced that a plane had been flown into the Pentagon and another hijacked plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. I wondered when it would end? And what in the world was going on???
At one point the reporter said it looked like "debris" was falling from the buildings. My husband said it was people jumping. Something he has never been able to forget. I was grateful that my vision was too bad for me to be able to make out what even looked like "debris."
The reporter said a part of the first tower had fallen away from the building. He spoke in a kind of hesitant voice. Now I wonder if he was unsure of what he was seeing. Because we later found out that a part of the building hadn't fallen away. The building had completely collapsed.
A female reporter was crying and a male reporter hugged her. I was crying too. And my husband hugged me.
For weeks afterward I would start crying for no apparent reason. I'd be riding on the bus and have to turn my head towards the window and pretend I was looking out so that other riders wouldn't see the tears escaping my eyes.
When we were in a restaurant, I'd have to use my napkin to dab the tears welling up in my eyes before the other diners noticed and wondered if I was some kind of a nut.
I was Christian then and I cared. And I was devastated. I couldn't understand how a religion could promote such violence, as the media was saying Islam did. It made no sense to me. So I decided to find out for myself. One way or another I wanted to know the truth.
Because of my partial blindness I was limited to information from the Internet. Finding books about Islam in Braille or ink print that was large enough for me to read was impossible. I was able to use a computer because I had magnification software installed so I could enlarge the font on the screen to a size that I could read.
I did searches and I began to read about Islam. I went to web sites that taught the basics of Islam, and I joined Muslim women's e-groups where I was able to ask and get answers that I confirmed through further research.
I've always been a sceptic. It's always been hard for me to believe something that I didn't understand. I was never one to believe something simply because someone said it was so. I had to know it in my mind as well as in my heart.
While studying Islam I learned that the God Muslims worship is the same God as that of Christians and Jews. The God of Abraham and Moses. I found that Islam doesn't promote or condone hatred of non-Muslims, nor does it condone the killing of innocent people.
By studying Islam I found the answers that the media wasn't telling us and I came to know that Islam is the True Religion. Alhumdulilah! I read a lot of convincing evidence, but the things that proved to me that there is a god, and that Islam is the True Religion and that that the Qu'ran is the Word of God, were those in the Qu'ran itself. The things that are of a scientific nature. Things that have been discovered by scientists only in the last 100 years. The only one who could have known those things 1400 years ago was God.
For example, one day I was at a web site that was about some of the scientific proofs in the Qur'an. One of the verses in the Qur'an tells about the death of our own solar system.
Al-Rahman 37-38 "When the sky is torn apart, so it was (like) a red rose like ointment. Then which of the favors of your lord will you deny?"
There was a link that went to the NASA web site.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991031.html
When I clicked the link I had no idea what was going to be on the next page, but what I saw took my breath away. Tears came to my eyes. I knew - if I had had any doubts left - I knew at the moment, that Islam is the True Religion of God. Mash'allah!
The page the link took me to showed what looked like a red rose. It was the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Which was an exploding star 3000 light years away. It had been photographed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists say that it is the same fate that awaits our own solar system. Muslims refer to it as the "Rose Nebula." It had been described in the Qur'an 1400 years ago. People back then had no way of knowing about it. Only God could have known.
On September 12, 2002, the day of my birthday, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope found a second Rose Nebula. A gift from God to all mankind. This time the scientists called it by its rightful name, "The Rose Nebula."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/09/12/hubble.rose/
After accepting in my mind as well as in my heart that Islam is the True Religion, I knew that I was already a Muslim and the only thing left to do was to profess my faith.
I looked in an Internet directory for mosques in my community. I called the one in the next town and told the person who answered the phone that I wanted to convert to Islam, and asked him when I could make my Shahada (Profession of Faith). He told me to be there at 4 p.m. on Saturday when the Imam would also be there. I told him that I ride the bus everywhere and it wouldn't be running late enough for me to be able to get back home and so could I come earlier? He said not to worry; someone would give me a ride home. I arrived as scheduled, and as God had scheduled, I began my new life. Mash'allah!
I have since come to realize that on that day, the greatest event of my life occurred. I had always thought that the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me was the day that I married my husband. But I now know it wasn't. The most important day of my life was the day I made my Shahada and accepted Islam as the way of life God intended me to live. It was the day I acknowledged that Islam is the way to salvation, to Heaven, and I made a choice to practice it.
I can't say my converting to Islam thrilled my husband. He believed what the media was saying about Muslims and the religion. He didn't like it that I went to the masjid [mosque] several evenings a week and left him home alone to be bored. One night after he was finished complaining about me going to the masjid yet again I sat down a few feet away from him and I calmly told him, "I will never ask you to practice a religion you don't believe in. I love you too much to try and force that on you. But I do want you to learn about Islam so that you will at least understand what it is that I believe." I then stood up and went into the bedroom and finished dressing to go to the masjid. I kissed him goodbye and I left.
When I returned home I found his whole attitude had changed. He was bright and cheerful. That night, before going to bed, he began to learn about the beautiful religion of Islam.
My husband began going to the masjid with me. While I studied with the women, he would talk with a man and ask him questions. At home he read things on the Internet, and books that he had borrowed from the masjid. We would discuss different things he was learning, and when a reporter on television would relate the latest lie or myth about Islam I would point it out to him and explain the truth.
When the day came and he told me about how some aspect of Islam was to be practiced, in a "know it all" tone of voice, as if it were a fact, something that I myself didn't know about, I asked him to tell me "How do you know that???" and he replied, "Because it's in the Qu'ran!!" I was stunned! He believed! Alhumdulilah! He knew that Islam was True! Mash'allah! If it was in the Qur'an, as far as he was concerned it was true! Thirty-six days after I publicly professed my faith in God and His messenger, Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), my husband professed his. Mash'allah! We had an Islamic marriage ceremony the same evening. I cried when my husband made his Shahada. I knew we would be in Eternity together!
A month before, a man at the mosque had asked me what I thought the chances of my husband converting were. I didn't want this man getting his hopes up, or expecting more of me then I could deliver and so I bluntly told him, "Zero." I said, "I can't imagine someone so dramatically changing their beliefs after having believed something else for 70 years." But 14 days before his 71st birthday he embraced Islam as his religion and his way of life. Alhumdulilah!
In the Muslim community we have found another family. We have found friendship, love and acceptance that were taught in the Christian religions we practiced at different points in our lives, but that we felt never actually existed among most of the members of the churches we went to.
Most of the Muslims in our area are immigrants, but we have found no intolerance of Americans whether they are Muslim or not. We were both welcomed into the family of Islam the very first time each of us went to the masjid. We've always felt welcome and accepted.
Since embracing Islam We have found direction and purpose for our lives. We have found the meaning for our existence. We have come to realize that we really are here only for a short time and that what comes afterwards is far better then the fleeting pleasures that this world has to offer us.
I have found a sense of security concerning life after death that I had never known before. We have both come to see the problems that we once saw as being major as actually being opportunities to grow. We thank God for what we have, as well for what we don't. God knows best.
Today we are Muslim. We still care about 9/11. I still cry when I think a little too much about the events of that day. My husband still remembers the people jumping from the buildings. We wish all we could say about that day was where we had been when we "heard" that the WTC had been attacked. But we did see it happen, and it was the most devastating thing to ever happen in our lives. But from tragedy came victory. From death has come the knowledge that we will have life after our death. And it will be spent together.
Khadija Evans -
Source: http://www.islamfortoday.com/evans01.htm
American, Khadija Evans, who experimented with umpteen Christian denominations, atheism and even Wicca tells how her post-September 11 investigations of Islam led first herself then her husband to their final spiritual home.
My name is Khadija Evans and this is the story of how my husband and I came to embrace Islam.
I can remember standing in the kitchen of the house I lived in when I was just 7 or 8 years old and looking towards the door that went outside. I prayed to a god whom I wasn't sure existed and I begged Him to show himself to me if He was really there. Nothing happened.
I can remember being 9 or 10 years old and writing a letter to God and hiding it in the heat register in my bedroom, thinking that God, if He existed, would come and retrieve it and answer my prayers. But the next day, the letter was still there.
I had always had a hard time accepting the existence of God, and of understanding the beliefs taught in Christian churches. Even though my parents weren't very religious, and rarely went to church, they thought it was best that my two brothers and I go. We were allowed to choose our religion when we very young. I think I was about 6 or 7, and my brothers were 1 and 2 years older then I. I chose a Methodist church for no other reason then it was a few blocks away from our house, and my brother's chose a Lutheran church because it was also close, and I hadn't chosen it.
I went to the church until I was 13 years old. I was baptized and confirmed there when I was 11. I went along with the baptism and confirmation because all children who were 11 received confirmation, and if they hadn't already been baptized, that was done at the same time. Even then I knew that doubts I had about God and Christian teachings were things best kept to myself.
When I was 13 my family moved to another town with no churches within walking distance, and my parents weren't eager to get up early and drive us kids to church, and so our religious training stopped until I was 15 and my mom suddenly found religion. She began attending an Assembly of God church, occasionally dragging my dad along. I went willingly. I had already begun a search for God that wouldn't end until I was 42 years old.
I remember being "born again". Caught up in the fervor of the hell and damnation that the minister preached at the Assembly of God church. I became "high on religion" thinking I had finally found "Him." Little did I know, but the high would be short lived, as I again began to have doubts and unanswered questions.
When I was 17 I met the daughter of an assistant Baptist minister and began going to their church. My dad from the time I was at least 6 years old had sexually abused me and I told the assistant minister about it. He arranged with my parents to let me live with him and his family in a type of "private foster care." My dad paid him $100 a week. My parents also attended the church for a brief time, until the minister announced from the pulpit that my dad was a child molester. Before that day though, my mom, dad and I were each baptized at the church.
One day after spending the day with my parents I returned to my foster home only to find the house empty. Cleaned out. Not a stick of furniture. We found out that the minister had been caught embezzling from the church and he and his family had left town in a hurry. I returned to my parent’s home and the abuse.
As a result of what that minister had done, what little belief I had in God was totally lost and I became an atheist. For the next 25 years I would fluctuate between believing, Agnosticism, and Atheism.
When I was 26 I went to 3 months of Rights of Initiation for Catholic Adults and then was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. I had been allowed to by-pass the full year of classes because I hadn't called the church to inquire about converting until 3 months before the Easter Vigil Mass when confirmation for adults was held.
I had entered the Catholic religion with the same philosophy that I had once heard Alcoholics Anonymous has, "Bring your body, your mind will follow." I didn't really believe in God, or in the core teachings of the Catholic Church, but I wanted so badly to believe in a power higher then myself, that I went faithfully to Mass 7 days a week, hoping that somehow I would start to believe. But after several months, I began to realize that it wasn't going to happen, and my Mass attendance became a once a week thing, then once a month, until when I was 30 and met the man who today is my husband and who wasn't Catholic, and I stopped attending Mass altogether.
I had never told anyone before my husband that I didn't believe in God. I don't think he took me seriously at first. I don't think he had ever known an Atheist. And he couldn't understand why I would have been going to church if I didn't believe in God.
My husband is 29 years older then I. We've had a wonderful marriage for these last 10 years. When we first met, I still desperately wanted to believe, and kept making him promise me, "When you get to Heaven" he would ask God to give me the strength to believe, and if at all possible, he would give me a sign, one that I couldn't chalk up to my imagination, so I would know there really was a god. He always promised me he would.
We were living in rural Alabama when I was 32 years old. I developed ulcerations on both corneas and when they healed, I was legally blind. Because of damage from infection that had been done to the tissue that donated corneas would have to adhere to, I couldn't find an eye surgeon who believed that transplanted corneas wouldn't be rejected.
I was still searching for God. I was searching for hope of something better then what this world had to offer. Some kind of evidence of the chance for existence after death. Some way to achieve it.
As a teenager I had watched Pat Robertson on the 700 Club, and as a young adult I listened faithfully to televangelist Rev. Jimmy Swaggert. In my 30's I watched programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. All the while hoping that one of the ministers would say something that would click in my mind, and I would finally know, "Yes, there really is a god!" None of them ever said anything that caused that connection to happen, though many said things that confused me even more.
During the first 10 years after I became legally blind, I tried attending different churches, Baptist again, Assembly of God again, non-Denominational, Church of God, Mormon, and even studied up on Wicca. But I always lost interest after just a few months. Things the religions taught just didn't add up. There were just too many things left to faith. Things that had no proof other then one's faith. I couldn't believe something when the only proof was some words in a book that in large part didn't make sense.
I remember one night when I was about 35 years old, lying in bed and praying to God, whom I still wasn't sure existed, and asking Him that if He did exist to lead me to someone who could help me to believe. But I found no one.
At age 36 I acquired a Braille Bible and started reading it, once again hoping to find proof of God's existence. But with the Bible being so hard to understand, with so much of it not really being explainable, I lost interest after reading just a few of its books. At about that time, although still wanting to find God, I gave up my search. I had become completely disillusioned with religion.
On September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my computer. It was before 9 a.m. and as usual the television, which was sitting to my right, was turned on for background noise. I heard the sound that is made to notify viewers of an important news announcement. I stopped and turned towards the TV. A reporter began talking and one of the towers of the World Trade Center showed in the background. He said an accident had happened. A small plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I'm legally blind, but I could see well enough to know that it wasn't a small plane that had hit the tower. The hole was massive. And I didn't think it was possible to accidentally hit something so big.
As I watched, another plane flew into the other tower. I couldn't see the plane itself, it was too small for me to see even during the instant replays with my face practically pressed up against the screen, but I saw the fireball that exploded away from the building.
I jumped up and ran into the bedroom and told my husband to hurry and get up because terrorists were flying planes into the World Trade Center buildings! He immediately got out of bed and came in to the living room and sat in his recliner and began to watch. It was about 9 a.m.
As time went by it was announced that a plane had been flown into the Pentagon and another hijacked plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. I wondered when it would end? And what in the world was going on???
At one point the reporter said it looked like "debris" was falling from the buildings. My husband said it was people jumping. Something he has never been able to forget. I was grateful that my vision was too bad for me to be able to make out what even looked like "debris."
The reporter said a part of the first tower had fallen away from the building. He spoke in a kind of hesitant voice. Now I wonder if he was unsure of what he was seeing. Because we later found out that a part of the building hadn't fallen away. The building had completely collapsed.
A female reporter was crying and a male reporter hugged her. I was crying too. And my husband hugged me.
For weeks afterward I would start crying for no apparent reason. I'd be riding on the bus and have to turn my head towards the window and pretend I was looking out so that other riders wouldn't see the tears escaping my eyes.
When we were in a restaurant, I'd have to use my napkin to dab the tears welling up in my eyes before the other diners noticed and wondered if I was some kind of a nut.
I was Christian then and I cared. And I was devastated. I couldn't understand how a religion could promote such violence, as the media was saying Islam did. It made no sense to me. So I decided to find out for myself. One way or another I wanted to know the truth.
Because of my partial blindness I was limited to information from the Internet. Finding books about Islam in Braille or ink print that was large enough for me to read was impossible. I was able to use a computer because I had magnification software installed so I could enlarge the font on the screen to a size that I could read.
I did searches and I began to read about Islam. I went to web sites that taught the basics of Islam, and I joined Muslim women's e-groups where I was able to ask and get answers that I confirmed through further research.
I've always been a sceptic. It's always been hard for me to believe something that I didn't understand. I was never one to believe something simply because someone said it was so. I had to know it in my mind as well as in my heart.
While studying Islam I learned that the God Muslims worship is the same God as that of Christians and Jews. The God of Abraham and Moses. I found that Islam doesn't promote or condone hatred of non-Muslims, nor does it condone the killing of innocent people.
By studying Islam I found the answers that the media wasn't telling us and I came to know that Islam is the True Religion. Alhumdulilah! I read a lot of convincing evidence, but the things that proved to me that there is a god, and that Islam is the True Religion and that that the Qu'ran is the Word of God, were those in the Qu'ran itself. The things that are of a scientific nature. Things that have been discovered by scientists only in the last 100 years. The only one who could have known those things 1400 years ago was God.
For example, one day I was at a web site that was about some of the scientific proofs in the Qur'an. One of the verses in the Qur'an tells about the death of our own solar system.
Al-Rahman 37-38 "When the sky is torn apart, so it was (like) a red rose like ointment. Then which of the favors of your lord will you deny?"
There was a link that went to the NASA web site.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991031.html
When I clicked the link I had no idea what was going to be on the next page, but what I saw took my breath away. Tears came to my eyes. I knew - if I had had any doubts left - I knew at the moment, that Islam is the True Religion of God. Mash'allah!
The page the link took me to showed what looked like a red rose. It was the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Which was an exploding star 3000 light years away. It had been photographed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists say that it is the same fate that awaits our own solar system. Muslims refer to it as the "Rose Nebula." It had been described in the Qur'an 1400 years ago. People back then had no way of knowing about it. Only God could have known.
On September 12, 2002, the day of my birthday, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope found a second Rose Nebula. A gift from God to all mankind. This time the scientists called it by its rightful name, "The Rose Nebula."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/09/12/hubble.rose/
After accepting in my mind as well as in my heart that Islam is the True Religion, I knew that I was already a Muslim and the only thing left to do was to profess my faith.
I looked in an Internet directory for mosques in my community. I called the one in the next town and told the person who answered the phone that I wanted to convert to Islam, and asked him when I could make my Shahada (Profession of Faith). He told me to be there at 4 p.m. on Saturday when the Imam would also be there. I told him that I ride the bus everywhere and it wouldn't be running late enough for me to be able to get back home and so could I come earlier? He said not to worry; someone would give me a ride home. I arrived as scheduled, and as God had scheduled, I began my new life. Mash'allah!
I have since come to realize that on that day, the greatest event of my life occurred. I had always thought that the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me was the day that I married my husband. But I now know it wasn't. The most important day of my life was the day I made my Shahada and accepted Islam as the way of life God intended me to live. It was the day I acknowledged that Islam is the way to salvation, to Heaven, and I made a choice to practice it.
I can't say my converting to Islam thrilled my husband. He believed what the media was saying about Muslims and the religion. He didn't like it that I went to the masjid [mosque] several evenings a week and left him home alone to be bored. One night after he was finished complaining about me going to the masjid yet again I sat down a few feet away from him and I calmly told him, "I will never ask you to practice a religion you don't believe in. I love you too much to try and force that on you. But I do want you to learn about Islam so that you will at least understand what it is that I believe." I then stood up and went into the bedroom and finished dressing to go to the masjid. I kissed him goodbye and I left.
When I returned home I found his whole attitude had changed. He was bright and cheerful. That night, before going to bed, he began to learn about the beautiful religion of Islam.
My husband began going to the masjid with me. While I studied with the women, he would talk with a man and ask him questions. At home he read things on the Internet, and books that he had borrowed from the masjid. We would discuss different things he was learning, and when a reporter on television would relate the latest lie or myth about Islam I would point it out to him and explain the truth.
When the day came and he told me about how some aspect of Islam was to be practiced, in a "know it all" tone of voice, as if it were a fact, something that I myself didn't know about, I asked him to tell me "How do you know that???" and he replied, "Because it's in the Qu'ran!!" I was stunned! He believed! Alhumdulilah! He knew that Islam was True! Mash'allah! If it was in the Qur'an, as far as he was concerned it was true! Thirty-six days after I publicly professed my faith in God and His messenger, Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), my husband professed his. Mash'allah! We had an Islamic marriage ceremony the same evening. I cried when my husband made his Shahada. I knew we would be in Eternity together!
A month before, a man at the mosque had asked me what I thought the chances of my husband converting were. I didn't want this man getting his hopes up, or expecting more of me then I could deliver and so I bluntly told him, "Zero." I said, "I can't imagine someone so dramatically changing their beliefs after having believed something else for 70 years." But 14 days before his 71st birthday he embraced Islam as his religion and his way of life. Alhumdulilah!
In the Muslim community we have found another family. We have found friendship, love and acceptance that were taught in the Christian religions we practiced at different points in our lives, but that we felt never actually existed among most of the members of the churches we went to.
Most of the Muslims in our area are immigrants, but we have found no intolerance of Americans whether they are Muslim or not. We were both welcomed into the family of Islam the very first time each of us went to the masjid. We've always felt welcome and accepted.
Since embracing Islam We have found direction and purpose for our lives. We have found the meaning for our existence. We have come to realize that we really are here only for a short time and that what comes afterwards is far better then the fleeting pleasures that this world has to offer us.
I have found a sense of security concerning life after death that I had never known before. We have both come to see the problems that we once saw as being major as actually being opportunities to grow. We thank God for what we have, as well for what we don't. God knows best.
Today we are Muslim. We still care about 9/11. I still cry when I think a little too much about the events of that day. My husband still remembers the people jumping from the buildings. We wish all we could say about that day was where we had been when we "heard" that the WTC had been attacked. But we did see it happen, and it was the most devastating thing to ever happen in our lives. But from tragedy came victory. From death has come the knowledge that we will have life after our death. And it will be spent together.
Khadija Evans -
Source: http://www.islamfortoday.com/evans01.htm
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