Zwemer Center

Islamic History: The Crusades are Only One Link in the Chain – Part 1

How much of our knowledge of Islamic history is centered around the Crusades?  How does that affect us today?

RESOURCES:

Peter Riddell –Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Future

Peter Riddell –Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses

Peter Riddell –Angels and Demons: Perspectives and Practice in Diverse Religious Traditions

Peter Riddell & Brent J. Neely –Islam and the Last Day: Christian Perspectives on Islamic Eschatology

Peter Riddell & John Azumah –Islam and Christianity on the Edge: Talking Points in Christian-Muslim Relations Into the 21st Century

Paul Marshall (editor) & Peter Riddell (contributor) –Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharia Law

Peter Riddell –Islam: Essays on Scripture, Thought and Society : A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science)

Ira Lapidus –A History of Islamic Societies

Karen Armstrong –Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time

MUSIC:

Can You Be a Muslim and a Follower of Jesus? – Part 2

RESOURCES:

Following Jesus (Full Video)

 

Dudley Woodberry – Christianity Today Article: Muslim Missions – Then & Now

Joseph Cumming – Muslim Followers of Jesus? (Full Article)

John Travis (a pseudonym) – Response to Joseph Cumming Article – God is Doing Something New (Full Article)

Joshua Lingel –Chrislam: How Missionaries are Promoting an Islamized Gospel

Sadrach Radin Abas – Javanese Church Planter

Sutarman Soediman Partonadi –  Sadrach’s Community and its Contextual Roots: A Nineteenth Century Javanese Expressions of Christianity. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988).

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean

Interlude Music by: Chris Zabriskie – I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor, Fugacity Coefficient – Summer Ambient 9, Jahzzar – Be Nice

 

 

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Can You Be a Muslim and a Follower of Jesus? – Part 2:

 

 

Alright. So this is part 2 of our episode, can you be a Muslim and a follower of Jesus? If you didn’t listen to the first one, you can go back and download that and listen to that, but, here you go. Actually, if you just listen to the second half and then go back and listen to the first half, it’d be like, what is it, Quentin Tarantino film? Can you go backwards?

 

Memento. Don’t watch that. Just get it’ll yeah. Just try it and see what happens. Well, once again, Muslim terrorists.

 

A terrorist Islamic extremist now. These are the terrorists of the country. They’re brand of justice and brutal endeavors. Newsflash America. These is not irrelevant.

 

It is a warning. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast. The official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Some of the controversy, you know, Shahada.

 

Can you say Shahada? You know, if you’re doing all your prayers 17 times a day. What is Shahada? You’re affirming the pillar of Islam affirming there is no god but God. Muhammad is a messenger of God.

 

Okay. I mean, Muhammad would be a huge point of contention. Right? Yeah. So So is okay.

 

I get it. So you’re saying that you can’t really be a true Muslim in in in all of its forms because because there’s part of it that is is just not compatible, like Mohammed, of course. Well, that that would be the argument against insider movements. Now the insider and even the guy’s testimony, he says that he read an article a few years back that shows that there’s no contradiction in his faith. And what he’s talking about is the only reference in the Quran to the, idea of Jesus not dying on the cross is one that says that the Jews boast that they killed the Christ, but they killed him not.

 

Allah raised him up to himself, and he has reinterpreted that verse to coincide more with the early commentators of Islam that said this verse could mean that Jesus actually died on the cross and that God raised him from the dead. What? That’s what it says? That’s a possibility. That is one interpretation.

 

It’s not accepted now. No Muslim in the world now. But it’s there. Except that, but it is there in the earliest parts of Islam that that was a possibility. So if you wanna read that article, it’s written by Joseph Cumming.

 

We’ll put a link to that as well. Very good article, but it talks about the terminology that’s used, the Arabic terminology, and whether or not it’s possible to read that, ultimately, what was being said was that the Jews didn’t kill the Christ, but it was the lord’s will to smite him and that Christ was crucified and that God crushed him and actually raised him up afterwards. How big are the prophets would you say in terms of like, for instance, for us as Christians. Right? You know, what are the prophets that we usually quote?

 

Jeremiah, Isaiah. Yeah. You know? No. I don’t think that the that the Quran really is used that much in daily life for the vast majority of Muslims, but, you know, it might not be that way for the vast majority of Christians either.

 

I don’t know. I guess what I’m thinking is, you know, with like, let’s say there’s a, a Muslim who wants to stay a Muslim, follows Jesus, has no problem with believing in Mohammed. You know, believing that Mohammed was still a prophet of God and still being a Christian, is that a problem? So the way that it would be worded, from the insider perspective, and I’m not an insider. So I’m I’m trying to do my best here.

 

Is that Thank you for that. Is that Mohammed is seen as the same as an old testament prophet one that points people towards Christ. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you just take the chronology out of it, you would put Muhammad in line with the Old Testament prophets that are pointing towards Jesus.

 

And they would say that there’s no contradiction with the Quran and their following Jesus and that ultimately, Muhammad was pointing people towards understanding Jesus as the Son of God. I I look at Howard’s face and he’s like, yeah. I’m just like, really? The insider would think that. Yeah.

 

They would have to reinterpret parts of their faith that don’t coincide with Christian faith or they would have to reject them. Hey, ladies. I’m from, truth about Muslims podcast. Have you heard of it? Yes.

 

Okay. So we want you to read an ad for us. Can you do that? You’ll be famous, like, world famous. It’ll be amazing.

 

C I u? C I u. C I u. CIU. CIU.

 

I’m Kevin Kekaizan. Kevin. Yeah. I’m a wiz. Kevin.

 

Oh, wow. Nice. You just Luke Fain. Luke Fain. Luke.

 

Alright. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. You wanna read that again? No. You’re like, I’ll be so embarrassed maybe not mad.

 

So one of the verses that’s most often used by insider proponents is 2nd Kings 5 18, and that’s the the time where Naaman, his master sends him to the prophet of Israel, Elisha. And he, in essence, becomes, you know, a a follower of of Yahweh. And so Naaman, before he returns, he says, may the lord forgive, your servant for this one thing. When my master enters the temple of Ramon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm, I have to bow there also. When I bow down in the temple of Ramon, may the lord forgive your servant for this.

 

And Elijah says, go in peace. And so some have argued that, you know, continuing to go to the mosque, continuing to say Shahada, continuing to identify themselves as Muslim will be forgiven because they’re simply doing this to remain in their cultural context so they can be a witness to those people around them. Now the people that are against the insider movements are saying, nope. This is a compromise of the faith. They’re only doing this to avoid persecution.

 

They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. Christ did not come to bring peace but a sword. And so Right. There’s an entire book written called Chris Lomb that bashes the insider movements pretty pretty soundly. And that’s why I say that this issue is incredibly divisive because I think it’s unfair to say why someone’s doing something to make the assumption that they’re doing it to avoid persecution as opposed to be a witness to they would say they wanna remain in their context.

 

They wanna remain in the context of which they were saved, quoting, I believe, it’s Corinthians, but, obviously, Paul’s talking about marriage there. But, yeah, they they would argue from the insider perspective that they just want to be a witness, and they don’t wanna be excommunicated so that they have no witness with their families. Either way, what we have seen historically is that a Muslim comes to know Christ and they are extracted. They end up coming to the United States, going to American Bible College, and then pastoring a church here or leading a mission organization or teaching in a mission organization. Not saying you’re not talking about to stay in the context and be a witness.

 

And so I think a lot of this stems from a desire to be able to reach out to people, and be a light. Now, there are those that say that, hey, we call ourselves Muslim because that’s more truthful than to call ourselves Christian because in our community, if I say I’m a Christian, that means a, b, and c. Right. All these bag all these baggage that’s connected to it. And that has nothing to do with what they believe.

 

You know what I mean? Right. Going back to that prayer, Muslims pray 5 times a day. What do they say in English? In the prayer?

 

Uh-huh. There’s liturgies that they would go over Oh, it’s not the same thing every time? You know, that’s a good question. I’ve never actually looked into the raka about what’s said. Because I wonder if what they are saying goes against what they believe as Christians now, or as a Muslim Christian.

 

You know what I’m saying? Like, if they’re not saying anything that is, it’s not like like, you know, bowing down to Buddha. You know, it would be still in line with their faith if they believe that Allah is, you know, the father of Jesus. Right. You know what I’m saying?

 

Right. I’m not a 100% sure on what’s said, but I’m I’m quite certain the person leading the prayers, says something a little bit different during the during the prayer times, and so I don’t know you could say with assurance that everything that would be said you would agree with. But in the same sense, not everything that’s said often in the church is something that is always agreed with too. So Yeah. That’s true.

 

I don’t know. I mean, I just I think that we need to look at it with at least the most amount of charity that we can from those that are in the insider movements. And Right. One of the things that I thought was very helpful was, a research that was done by, partial and some others, where they went and they interviewed people that claimed to be C5 Muslims. What did they find?

 

The most, interesting statistic to me was 97% of them said that Jesus was the only savior. What percent? 97%. So it isn’t what people think that they’re not truly Christian? I think it’s unfair to question their their faith and to question whether or not, they’re Christian.

 

So what is in that book Chris Long? What are what are some of the things that that they say? Like to bash, is is it is it questioning their fate? Well, I think absolutely some people have gone so far as to say these people are not Christian, but, I don’t think I know many people that are comfortable going there. Right.

 

93% say that Allah loves and forgives them because, Jesus gave his life for them. Uh-huh. 100% said that they could be delivered from evil spirits, because of their faith in Christ. That’s funny. That’s a 100%.

 

Yeah. And 100% said that they felt the, peace of God whenever reading the NGO, the gospel. Oh. So there’s some other not so encouraging ones, like, for instance The branch of the inquiry. Yeah.

 

96% of them said there are 4 heavenly books. So the gospels, the Psalms, the Torah, and the Quran. So they continue to see the Quran as being revealed by God. Yeah. And not all of them meet regularly as, as a church.

 

Not all of them see or understand the trinity, the trinitarian nature of God or would accept Jesus as a son of God. So it’s it’s interesting. Right? But the the big question, and I always mention this to folks, is, how important is that understanding? You know?

 

Yeah. I mean, he I think it was John Piper when talking about this said something about he who has the son has life and he who does not have the son does not have life. But I think if I were to interview the vast majority of the youth groups here, in Columbia, I would find that very few of them could articulate what it means for Jesus to be the son of God. Yeah. And so, it almost it begs the question, are we placing a burden more so on the Muslim world than we would others?

 

You know, how many of our, how many listening could articulate the Trinitarian nature of God. Yeah. It’s a toughie, you know? But, it is important, obviously. I’m not minimizing the importance of doctrine.

 

Right. But, how important is doctrine? How much does a person need to have correct in their belief system in order for it to be, salvific or efficacious in their in their salvation? Do they need to understand what it means for Jesus to be the son of God, or can they simply accept Jesus as Lord and follow him? Is that enough?

 

Those are big questions. Yeah. I do find it amusing when I look back in my life. This is what causes me to be gracious. I think that in my past I have believed a lot of funny things.

 

You probably do now. Yeah. I was just It’s just that you’re in the present or future. You’re gonna look back to this day, baby. I’m so smart right now.

 

You know? No. But just, you know, I just look back and I’m just like, wow. You know, I’ve really as I’ve grown and learned, you know? I just think of the I just, you know, I’m thankful for the grace of God in my life and how he continues to reveal himself to me, you know?

 

And I think, I think about that passage where, Paul is saying that, you know, God is faithful to complete the work that he starts, you know. And, for a Muslim, you know, that comes to the Lord, whatever they are in c scale, you know, I believe that the Holy Spirit is efficacious, you know, and that He will follow through and continue. But that’s me. So Yeah. Well, I think one of the ultimate, tests is going to be, does it reproduce?

 

Does it last? Will it be multi generational? Were those children that are hearing the gospels read and the prayers in the evenings continue to follow Christ and have a church fellowship? Other issues such as baptism, communion, you know, sacraments of the church that have been important. The identification, you know, what about the term Christian?

 

I’ve heard some in the United States that don’t want to use the term Christian. They use follower of Jesus. I see that a lot more and more now. Yeah. I’m not a Christian.

 

I’m a follower of Jesus. It’s like, well, you know, there’s there’s, you know, there’s a history there. You know, do you wanna stand in a historical narrative that’s bigger than you, or do you wanna start a 21st century movement? Yeah. It’s there’s a lot of complicated questions that go with contextualization.

 

Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you like partnering with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. I wanna close with, looking at 1 guy, named Shadrach.

 

Really, his name is Raiden Aba Shadrach Suraparanta. So, I mean, how could you not wanna hear about that fella? Right. And I really wanna know how to spell that, but I’ll ask that later so I can put it in the show notes. Yeah.

 

And you can, there’s a doctoral thesis that was written on this guy. He was born in 18/35. He is a Javanese. And, from birth until age 17, he had the name Raiden, which meant, is a traditional Javanese name. And, that was quite normal to not have necessarily a Muslim name right then and there, but a Javanese name.

 

He was orphaned, but he’s eventually adopted by a guy named Kuriman, and Kuriman was what’s called a Guru Umu. I’m probably butchering that for all my Bahasa speaking friends out there. Sorry. But he was a teacher of the secret knowledge. You know, he’s a medicine man essentially.

 

So, Raiden eventually becomes, this himself. He apprentices under him. And at age 17, he sets out on his own, joins an Islamic boarding school, almost lives in, like, a a monastic lifestyle, and, adds, Abbas to his name. And, he adds this so that people would understand that he could be a Muslim teacher, that he had training in Islam. And so he began teaching in mosque and engaging in a lot of debate with Christians.

 

And so we have Raiden Abbas. Right? This is age 17 to, early thirties. Well, eventually, he reconnects with his adopted father who had become a Christian after losing a debate. So his father, his adopted father, loses a bait to a guy named Tung Guo Wolong, becomes a Christian, and then Raiden, Abbas, begins learning from this guy who he’s most impressed by because, 1, he beat his dad in a debate and, 2, he had the ability of being fully Javanese and fully Christian.

 

So you have to imagine at this point in time, all we have is the Dutch Reformed Church. Right. Right? We don’t have any sort of contextual churches. So, eventually, he becomes baptized and adds Shadrach to his name.

 

So now his name is Raiden Abbas Shadrach. He’s, eventually, you know, disillusioned by his father and also this guy that’s mentoring him, because one, his father becomes addicted to opium, and 2, his, mentor, the guy who converted his father, takes on another wife. So he got a little too Javanese. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yep.

 

And so he didn’t like at the same time. Right. And so, eventually, he doesn’t really follow their sort of teachings because he’s, you know, like I said, disillusioned by that. And, he sees that there’s really two extremes. There’s the Dutch Reformed Church, which has no Javanese flair flavor at all, And then he sees, a Javanese Christianity that’s almost unrecognizable as Christianity.

 

And so he wanted something that was fully Christian and fully Javanese. Faithful and above. Right. So he begins to engage in some contextual practices that today we would find fascinating. Now what I think is most interesting about this is this is truly an insider thing because there’s no outside influence happening.

 

He’s doing this. He’s doing this. So he comes up with a creed that’s put to a Javanese musical form. I believe that God is 1. There is no God but God.

 

Jesus Christ is the spirit of God whose power is over everything. There is no God but God, and Jesus Christ is the spirit of God. Now, why did he choose spirit of God? I’m assuming I don’t know. But I’m assuming because that is a title of Jesus in the Quran, the Ruhollah, the spirit of God.

 

And so this creed is recited with a soft voice and it gradually gets louder and is accompanied by hand clapping, head movements side to side, and sort of this emotionalism that, connects, and it fits very well with a Muslim sort of style of, Sufism. Yeah. Sufi prayers and and dhikr. So he took that on. He started having opening open debate with religious leaders.

 

He would go into a village and he would purchase a field, and the field would be the field that they thought was inhabited by the spirits and so nobody would do anything with that field. He would grow crops there and, they would see yeah. Power encounter, essentially. Jesus is bigger. Mhmm.

 

And so he does engages in rhythmic poetry. He puts the 10 commandments, the apostle’s creed, and the Lord’s prayer to rhythmic poetry and liturgy. He calls the church buildings a masjid, which is the same as a mosque or same term for a mosque. He does something strange. He puts he replaces the crescent on top of the mosque with a Hindu disc, which is a symbol for power.

 

And he also builds 3 domes instead of 1 to symbolize the trinity. Leaders are called imams or Muslim teachers. Nobody’s allowed to take a biblical name. Only he did. He thought that was bad?

 

Yeah. He thought what’s Javanese about that? You know, taking up the biblical name. And the Javanese, as I understand it, the Javanese that would convert to Christianity were only allowed to take Old Testament names. They weren’t allowed to take new testament names, so he just said no names.

 

They received, giving was called zakat, the Muslim word for giving. And then, yeah, they it just did a lot of things that were quite radical Yeah. Or would be considered quite radical. He used a drum to call people to prayer. I’m assuming that’s very Javanese.

 

Right? He would set the scripture on a table and a stand the same as they would do in the mosque. They would sit on floor mats, Javanese songs with Christian words, Javanese scripture using the terms Issa, and Allah. Yeah. Going back to the songs, they would write theirs their, they would take traditional Javanese songs and put Christian words to them.

 

Is that what you’re saying? Okay. And we’ve we’ve we’ve we’ve done things like that. Oh, yeah. So In Christian history.

 

Yep. Yeah. So the things that were prohibited was no fasting during Ramadan, no attending the mosque, no praying for ancestors, no offerings to spirits, no holidays associated with Mohammed. So there is a line. Oh, yeah.

 

You can draw a line between Javanese and, Muslim practices. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now the thing is is he was incredibly effective, and that’s what I think is so, interesting. It said that at Shadrach’s death, there was approximately 20,000 believers.

 

Wow. Now prior to Shadrach, there was virtually nothing. The Dutch Reformed Church had determined that they shouldn’t even try to reach the Muslim Javanese anymore. Because it’s not what was happening. Nothing was happening, and 2, it was causing political problems.

 

And so they end up sending a, a representative from the Dutch Reformed Church to meet Shadrach, and he spends a grand total of 1 hour with him and says that he has just created a new sect of Islam with a Christian color. Shadrach eventually goes to jail because he tells the communities to refuse the I believe it had to do with the inoculations. Oh, like vaccinations. Vaccinations. Yeah.

 

So, you know, and he’s persecuted for what he’s doing and and it’s kinda one of those missing parts of Christian history. This guy, Shadrach, that was probably one of the most, if not the most effective church planner, in Indonesia and what I find most interesting about Shadrach, this is why he’s one of my favorites, if you can ever find a person or a story or an individual or a text that lies at the center of the argument for and against that person you should look into. And I’m telling you that those that are anti insiders use Shadrach as their model. And those that are pro insiders use Shadrach as their model, and they just pick and choose which parts of Shadrach’s ministry and life they want to argue from. Because he did some things that were incredibly contextual and in my mind, borderline syncretistic.

 

Right. And then he did some other things that were proper contextualization and very, you know, docile. But he was all over the board. If you were to say, where was Shadrach on the c scale? Oh, my goodness.

 

Depends what day of the week it was. Right. What you looked at. I like Don McCreery. He’s like, all over it.

 

All over it. But needless to say, God used him in a magnificent way. I mean, 20,000 believers when nothing else was happening. You know? They prayed over their food in the same way that Muslims would, the bismillah over their food.

 

They would have halal. They practice male circumcision. They had, just a lot of things that were what were happening were quite Muslim in feel and flavor, and it it was effective. I I can’t help but feel, like, at the end of this this show, because we’re about to wrap up, is that, you know, we haven’t really answered, like, a direct question. It’s more like we really did just talk about a lot of the issues and what’s going on.

 

So I think as far as our listeners go, like, what they can do with this is, really use it as a as a catalyst for one to wanting to know where they stand, where they, you know, what they wanna know about, even their own faith and how they do things, especially evangelization and, missions, because I know a lot of you guys will go on short term mission trips and, have to start thinking about these kind of things, especially if you go to a place that doesn’t have the gospel, like anywhere in the 10:40 window, you know, without these churches. Or if you know missionaries that are going, like church planters and stuff, it’s it’s it’s interesting discussion, to have with these missionaries because I know that they’re probably thinking about it. Because I know we were when we were starting to send out teams and people were starting to go. Mhmm. Mhmm.

 

And what I think is really neat is that, contextualization, insider movements, this debate, it’s not new. Yep. I mean, this is for a long time. This is the the mid, he’s born in 18/35, and so you’re talking 19th century. This is going on, and, you know, one thing that I think is really neat is that we can rely and totally, believe that the Holy Spirit is capable of purifying and refining and preserving his church, which I think we tend to forget sometimes.

 

Right. We we we have to be the guys that guard it with, you know, everything we got. Yeah. And we have a history. Right?

 

I mean, there are parts of the world that really are not as interested as they once were in hearing our opinions. And the the thing is is that God’s doing some amazing things around the globe and raising up some theologians that are challenging some of our theology, and that’s that’s pretty neat. Right. Yeah. Body of Christ.

 

Global body of Christ. I was thinking about the Chinese church and their theologians Mhmm. That are coming and re identifying what we think that we knew already. Yeah. That’s right.

 

Right? They’re like, we have something to teach you about spirituality. And you’re like, okay. And then they start saying, like, hey. That’s actually pretty good.

 

What is that? Yeah. Yeah. So So stuff. Yeah.

 

We got a lot of resources, that I’m I’m placing on the show notes. Check them out, and pass this on to friends, especially missionaries that are going overseas so they can kinda tell what they’re they’re thinking too. Yeah. And be careful, guys, when you’re talking about insider movements and Chris Lom and all of those things. Be careful not to be too harsh, too judgmental, and not too divisive, but simply approach it with grace and humility and, rejoice in the fact that god is using and doing things, despite us.

 

And sometimes, maybe we don’t agree. Maybe we think they’re wrong, and God will reveal those in time. Right. I had this professor once in, at CIU named doctor Gentry, and he was reminded or he always told the class whenever you’re debating somebody, always give them the benefit of doubt. Like, be gracious.

 

Charity. Yeah. Have charity when you’re debating. And I thought that was really cool. I remember Joel Williams.

 

Remember? I’m okay with that. Yeah. He was one of our Oh, he was our Greek professor. I’m okay with that.

 

I’m okay with that. I’m like, you shouldn’t be. Yeah. We were always fired up, and you’re just calm as you can please. I’m okay with that.

 

I’ve become less quick to draw the sword these days. Which is saying a lot because if you knew Trevor back in the day Yeah. I’d have chopped a year off for a year. He was a gladiator. Spiritual gladiator.

 

Oh, man. Yeah. Thanks for listening, guys. We’ll see you next week.

 

Can You Be a Muslim and a Follower of Jesus? – Part 1

RESOURCES:

Following Jesus (Full Video)

Dudley Woodberry – Christianity Today Article: Muslim Missions – Then & Now

Joseph Cumming – Muslim Followers of Jesus? (Full Article)

John Travis (a pseudonym) – Response to Joseph Cumming Article – God is Doing Something New (Full Article)

Joshua Lingel –Chrislam: How Missionaries are Promoting an Islamized Gospel

Sadrach Radin Abas – Javanese Church Planter

Sutarman Soediman Partonadi –  Sadrach’s Community and its Contextual Roots: A Nineteenth Century Javanese Expressions of Christianity. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988).

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean

Interlude Music by:

Chris Zabriskie – I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor

Fugacity Coefficient – Summer Ambient 9

Jahzzar – Be Nice

Chrislam: How Missionaries are Promoting an Islamized Gospel

Is the God of Muhammed the Father of Jesus? – Part 2

The Fourth installment of the series called, the Basics of Islam, centers around one question… Do Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God? This is a 2 Part episode.

RESOURCES:

Sami Yusuf – Supplication Video

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Acts 10:23b-48 Cornelius comes to faith

Ida Glasser – The Bible and Other Faiths (Global Christian Library)

Don Richardson – Eternity in Their Hearts

David Bently – The 99 Beautiful Names Of God*: For All the People of the Book

James 1:26-27 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Google Search for “echad” in the Shema – Deuteronomy 6:4

30 Day Prayer Guide www.worldchristian.com

 

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean

Interlude Music by: Artificial Music – Humanism, Chris Zabriskie – Heliograph, Josh Woodard – Fight the Sea

 

 

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Is the God of Muhammed the Father of Jesus? – Part 2:

 

 

This is part 2 of the podcast, is the father of Mohammed It’s a tongue twister. The father of Mohammed. It’s not the father of Mohammed. It’s the god of Mohammed and the father of Jesus. Part 2.

 

Let’s do it. I’m releasing this one. Well, once again, Muslim terrorists, a terrorist lot of innocent people are extremist now. These are terrorists of country. Random terrorism is brutal and deadly.

 

Newsflash America. These Muslim extremists are are alive and well. They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media.

 

Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. But then you have another problem, which I think is the deeper problem, which is the nature of God. Yes. That’s the issue. Because we’re talking about meaning.

 

Because to be quite frank with you, Howard, when I hear the some Christians speak about the nature of God, I’m not sure we’re worshiping or talking about the same God. Oh. Do you know what I mean? Do you understand what I’m saying? Yeah.

 

I’m not saying that lightly. I’m I’m being serious. No. I’m being serious too. It it’s sad for me.

 

But go ahead. Yeah. So somebody that’s a a follower of Christ, and at least they would say they’re a follower of Christ, and and then you hear them talk about the nature of God, I’m thinking to myself, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same God. Right. Give us an example.

 

Well, I mean, the the hateful speech that I hear out of people, the desire for God to smite people and all this stuff, I’m thinking Yeah. Wow. That’s not the, the way that God has revealed himself through Christ in the new testament. Right. It is Or I’ve even heard some people say that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are 2 separate gods.

 

And I’m thinking Right. Where did you come up with this? This is heresy. Right. It kinda reminds me of the Westboro Baptist Church.

 

There you go. I wasn’t gonna go there. I think we’ve talked about them once before, but yeah. Right. Right.

 

But, in terms of the way they say vocally and actually go and behave, like boycotting or, picketing, right, it’s interesting just to to actually hear people on Facebook or social media that are, you know, spouting that same kinda hate but at the same time think they’re not as bad as Westboro. It’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

 

Because it’s, like, kind of in their heart. Maybe they’re not as vocal about it or behave the same way, but in the heart of hearts, the what what what was the term you used about, the the they believe that God is that way, the character of God? Yeah. The nature of God. The character attributes of God.

 

Right. So some have argued that this that these two gods cannot be the same god because the God of the bible, the God of Christianity, the father of Jesus is trinitarian in nature. Right. Right? That’s an argument that often comes up.

 

Well, to Muslims, they would say. Right. They would say the difference between Allah and the God of the bible is Right. The God of the bible is Trinitarian in nature and Allah is is a monad. That’s if that’s if they’re gracious.

 

Yeah. Well, yeah. If they’re willing to consider anything else. But then you have to deal with the fact that the God of the old testament, I don’t think that the Jews are going to see this Trinitarian nature of God. No.

 

Why would they? Right. It’s nonexistent. Now as a Christian, you can look back and try to say, you know, this is the Trinitarian nature of God and I won’t go into all the arguments. But if you wanna look it up, you can look up the term.

 

You can look up in the beginning where it says, let us create. But you know what? The Quran also uses that terminology, us, and it’s really more of a majestic terminology. Wait. Wait.

 

There is an Pause there. Explain that. Which part? The us is a majestic. Right.

 

So when in speaking in a kingly language like you’re speaking in the behalf of an office as opposed to, a relationship. You’ve never considered that before. Yeah. So there there is arguments that some Christians have made that there is Jesus in the trinity right there in the beginning. I think the Hebrew scholars that are Christian would say, you’re kinda stretching it there.

 

And they use the same thing with the term, which is really a unity speaking in a singularity. For instance, let Israel cry out with one voice. It’s multiple people, but it’s with one voice. Right. And that’s that term and what it means.

 

But I’ve asked the Hebrew scholars, and they they say and these are Christian Hebrew scholars that say, that’s a pretty weak argument and that’s not really what the Hebrew is saying, that Christians are really reading back a trinity into the Old Testament that’s not really there. Interesting. Yeah. So in that sense, if we make the trinitarian argument, we would probably have to go along the lines of saying that the Jews also don’t worship the same God, which would be fine for some people. For instance, Jesus in John, what is it, chapter 8 when he’s dealing with the Pharisees.

 

We’ve gotta we’ve gotta look that up, actually. It’s a pretty important verse in discussing this. Howard, look up John chapter 8 when he’s discussing with the Pharisees. And he says before Abraham was, I am. Abraham saw my day and he was glad in it and he calls them that they don’t know God.

 

He calls them sons of the devil, I believe. Yeah. Okay. So you what part do you want me to read? Just the part there when he’s talking about, Abraham before Abraham was.

 

So this is, the the Jews, questioning Jesus and, you know, like, claiming that he’s possessed by a demon. Jesus says, I’m not possessed by a demon. But I honor Can you imagine accusing Christ? The fullness of deity, like, resting in Jesus’ things. Right.

 

You were way old. This is verse 49 this is John 849. But I honor my father, and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.

 

Then he keeps going back. And then, finally, at the end, this is, verse 58. Very truly I tell you, this is Jesus, Jesus answered before Abraham was, I am exclamation point. At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself slipping away from them, from the temple grounds. Man, that’s a pretty intense situation.

 

But Right. But the terminology, I am. I mean Right. That’s pretty. Well, he the in in the Christians right.

 

Because he’s claiming deity there. But he says, also in that same passage, if I’m not mistaken let me look. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I obey his word.

 

Your father Abraham rejoiced and thought of seeing my day and he saw it and he was glad. So in essence, he’s saying they don’t actually know God. They don’t know the father. For if they had known the father, they would know him because the father had sent him. And so that’s the, that’s the big question is, and that’s a little bit up in the passage, right, when he talks about 54.

 

Right. So if, if the Jews had known God, they would have known Jesus is essentially what Jesus Jesus is saying. And so I could understand if somebody were to say, hey, listen. The God of the Jews is not the God of the Christians. Because the God of the Jews did not recognize Jesus and did not and Jesus seems to imply that they don’t actually know God.

 

Right. But from my own perspective, I wouldn’t go there. But I could see how if somebody was willing to say, hey, look. The God of Islam is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Jews is not the God of the Bible.

 

The only one true God has to come with Christ at the center because the fullness of deity deity rests in him. Apart from the cross and the life and the incarnation of Christ, you have no understanding of God. You have some understanding of God is what I would say. They may may say you have no understanding of God. Okay.

 

So here’s where it comes down to. Right? It comes down to the cross and it comes down to Christ. I would argue that in order to understand who God is and the nature of God, you have to have faith and understanding Yeah. I agree.

 

Of course, I agree. But I’m thinking in implications of how does that, how does that answer the question whether Allah and God are the same? Well, like I said from the very get go, I think it’s a silly question that people ask or a silly argument that they try to make because there is only one god. And the question I think really that they’re asking with that is how much do you have to have right about God in order for him to become God or how much wrong do you have to have about about God when he ceases to become God? Do you get what I’m saying here?

 

It’s almost like there’s there’s this divine spectrum. Right. And But it’s really like you’re sidestepping the question because I think the question leads you to think, okay, is the God of Islam the God in which the Muslims follow? The Quran, the Hadith, the, the character attributes of God. Is that the same as the Christian God with, you know, where we have Jesus, the trinity, holy spirit, rather than saying a semantics issue of is is this is there just one God and we all are at various levels of, revelation.

 

And I’ve obviously, the the the greatest revelation comes through Christ in our salvation and knowing him, leads us to the father. And that’s the only way to know the father. But in other terms, you know, like like the Jews have a various, a limited knowledge of the true revelation of God. Mhmm. Mhmm.

 

And then, of course, now we’re saying that possibly Muslims are in that same category. Well, I think Muslims understand quite a bit about God. So, for instance, I wanna I want everybody to kinda unless you’re driving a car, don’t close your eyes, Pull over. Close your eyes. Picture a gigantic circle.

 

Imagine a white piece of paper and I’m drawing a big circle on the white piece of paper. Now that would represent the total knowledge of God. I know it’s really not as impressive as you once thought it was, but on a white piece of paper we have to deal with this. One big circle, the total knowledge of God. Now with inside that one big circle, I want you to draw another circle that’s smaller.

 

So now you have one circle inside of a circle. That would be the revealed aspects of God. No one on the earth has total knowledge about God. There are things that we don’t know about God. However, there are revealed aspects of God.

 

Right. There’s some we do know. And the fullness, the fullest revelation whenever, you know, someone says, tell me about God, I tell them about Jesus because the fullness of deity dwelt with Jesus. He is God. K.

 

So at the center of that second circle, I would put a cross. Okay? K. Now I want you to think about it for a second. Do you know a friend that you would say this guy is an American?

 

He understands a lot about God, but he does not believe in the death and the resurrection of Christ. He certainly doesn’t believe Jesus was God, but he does believe, you know, God. There is a God. Yeah. God created everything.

 

Yeah. I know a lot of people. I mean, that’s the average American probably. Right. Right.

 

Right. Now, if you were to go down to your friend and begin talking to him about God, would you change the name? To what? Like secular human beings? Yahweh or Jehovah.

 

No, probably not. You would talk to him about God. Right. And you would try to get his, the things that he believed about God. You would try to bring imagine his circle would be some of the things he believes are outside of the revelation of God, outside of the revealed aspects of God I get it.

 

Yeah. And he’s missing the cross. He would try to bring that circle in so that he understood who Jesus was. Right. So his circle of understanding would be within the cross.

 

Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU. CIU educates people from a bib Biblical.

 

Biblical world review. Worldview. Real world review. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. Right.

 

Right. He’s missing the cross right now and you would want to bring him to the point where he understands God So through Christ. So, like, correcting the view his view of God. Yeah. His, what he knows in part right now as Paul says to the, Aropagas and and the Athenians in in Acts 17.

 

What you knew and worshiped in part now, I’m going to reveal to you in full. So this idea that I would argue that Muslims probably have more inside the circle of the revealed aspects of God than the average American. Woah. The average non Christian. Right.

 

Right. Right. Right. I I get what you’re saying, but Because they’re going to say that they believe that God created everything from nothing with a spoken word. That’s that’s a very rare thought today in the secular humanist world.

 

No. I don’t I don’t agree. Say that the power of God spoke the world into existence. They’re gonna say that God created all of the animals of the earth. They’re gonna say that God created Adam and he created Eve and they’re gonna say that he created them out of dust and he breathed life into them.

 

But there’s even a historical Jesus. Right. That’s huge with most Lawrence today. And so and then they’re gonna argue that God sent prophets and messengers. He’s they’re gonna say there was a flood and that God preserved, his prophet and messenger and family through Noah.

 

And then they’re gonna argue about they’re going to find a lot in common with the nature of God, the character of God, and the history of the narrative of what Christians hold to. More so than the average quote unquote agnostic. Yeah. Wow. And so they’re gonna get all the way to the point where they get to Jesus and they’re gonna go one step further than the Jews and accept him as a prophet, but they’re not going to accept him as son of God.

 

Right. And so they understand actually part of the, role of Jesus, but they only understand 1 third of it. They don’t understand the priestly relationship of Jesus and his dying for the sin of mankind, and they don’t understand his kingly relationship with mankind as the part of the trinity. And so think about it in that sense. So now how would you share the gospel with your Muslim friend?

 

Are you gonna change the word from Allah to God when you talk about him? Or are you going to talk about him and the correct things that he believes about God and the nature and the character attributes of God and hopefully bring him for what he knows in part to what he knows in full? Yeah. You know, have you read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson? I have.

 

There’s the first chapter that that just got me off the bat, and he’s basically talking about contextualization when missions came to South Korea. Actually, it wasn’t North or South. It was just Korea. And the Catholics had, you know, tried to come and bring Christ to, the Koreas and, were failing miserably. But then the Protestants came over and then they heard about this story, this folklore called Hananim, which is basically Hanah means 1, nim, like a deity.

 

Right? Hananim. And so the Protestants decided, hey, we’re gonna take the stories, right, or the the folklore behind this and we’re going to use this to explain God, our God. And I’m assuming that Hananim was far less close to Yahweh than Allah is as he is. Absolutely.

 

Because they they asked, hey, you know, what do you know about Hananim? Because they wanted to know about the folklore. The folklore was basically, it’s been a while since I read this book, but it was basically, you know, if you do something wrong, like Hananim is watching kinda thing. Not a boogeyman, so but, like Nice. Like, you know elf on a shelf.

 

I I’m sorry. Like, I don’t know. All my Korean friends out there. Like like like, you know, somebody that is a higher power that’s, you know, like aware of what you’re doing and, you know, so the Protestants said, hey, you know, let me explain, you know, who Hananim is. And they start to go through, you know, and teach, you know, the Christian God through the name Hananim.

 

And Korea, I think, right now is like 20 some, 25% Christian. You know, Christianity start started to spread like wildfire, and then the, you know, I think the Catholics, took on the name Hananim too. And today, to this day, we call God Hananim. A lot of that comes down to bible translation, Howard, and that’s happening right now in South Asia because some of the earliest translations that were done by guys like William Carey, Henry Martin used the Hindu terms for deity as opposed to the Muslim terms for deity. And, of course, Muslims were not interested because they saw it as a conversion from, you know, the one god of Islam to the multiple gods of Hinduism and Christianity.

 

Yeah. But, you know That’s why I’m saying the word matters and also the meaning behind the word matters. Right. But I think, for all of those listeners that are probably flinching right now, I think it probably has to do more with the people that have abused it in the past and it’s not taking it too far. Absolutely.

 

I’ve heard that, hey, we’re all working towards the same God. Right. You know, there’s one God at the middle and we just have different spokes to get to him and Right. Right. Like a Universalism all the time.

 

Like a more complicated or, you know, better sounding version of Universalism, you know, the Right. The spokes of the wheel. Or I I’ve I’ve heard stories where in, India, where Jesus would have, like, 8 arms Mhmm. And be blue. It’s really interesting, like, just to hear.

 

And then, of course, with with Islam, the insider movements. Right? Right. We’re gonna do an episode on that, on insider movements. There’s a lot of lot of discussion going on about that.

 

We’re we’re running out of time, but let me get to the character attributes of God and Islam because there are some some glaring similarities and then there are some glaring differences. Okay. Some of the similarities, you do have the 99 names of God in Islam and I encourage Christians to pick up a book written by David Bentley who has written a book called 99 Names of God. And I think he I can’t remember the subtitle, but we’ll put it in the show notes. But he goes through and actually outlines how these 99 names of God are fulfilled in Christ Mhmm.

 

As a witness tool. So during Ramadan, this next month, when you see Muslims going around and they’re spinning their, prayer beads, there’ll be 33 beads on a you know, almost looks like a rosary and they’ll spin it 3 times and they’ll recite one name each time they spin it. The names are, you know, Ar Rahman, which would be the merciful, the Arraheem, the compassionate, the holy one. I’ll just go through these in English so we don’t confuse people, but the holy one, the peace, the omnipotent one or all powerful one, the creator of all things, the one who forgives and pardons, the all powerful, the avenger. No.

 

I had one student tell me. Yeah. But that that’s not right because god is not an avenger. I’m like, you gotta read 2nd Thessalonians, brother. Yeah.

 

I was gonna say, that’s not what the Bible says. Yeah. Vengeance is mine. The omniscient one, the one who settles all disputes, the meek, the lowly, the one who forgives sins, the one who expresses appreciation, the generous one. So it goes on and on.

 

I don’t wanna go through all 99 names but there’s 99 names of God. And I think that, most of these names, if not all of them, I would probably make the case that all of them are in line with the character attributes of God in the bible. And so, now there are obviously glaring differences. 1 in particular would be the love of God and in Islam God loves those who do the will of Allah. And I think that’s a significant difference between the God of the Bible and the God of Islam.

 

Explain that again. Allah loves the people that do the will. That do the will of Allah. Okay. And so it’s it’s a conditional love.

 

Oh, but that that doesn’t sound so conditional to me. I think there’s, there’s Christian texts that talk about, I was gonna say in James James 1. Like, the truce religion take, Oh, yeah. Take care of your faith. The widows and, you know yeah.

 

Yeah. Faith without works. Isaiah chapter, last chapter of Isaiah, what is it? 16 when it talks about the true fast. But back to the beginning of the question which was from our our listener there, the God of Molech.

 

It’s really interesting that that’s become a popular saying among Christians, the God of Molech being the God of Allah. I I really don’t see where they’re getting this because in some sense, the God in the Quran and the God of Islam, Allah, not only is not interested, in blood sacrifice, the God of the Bible certainly is. The God of Islam actually would make the case that the the blood sacrifice doesn’t even reach God. This is in the Quran. I’m trying to remember the passage here.

 

I think it’s in in Surah 2235. It says, the sacrifice of camels we have made for you among them as symbols from Allah. And then towards the end of this passage, it says, it is not their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah. It is your piety that reaches him. And so that’s right there in line with Isaiah as well that it’s not the sacrifice.

 

It’s the piety of the heart. And so there’s so much there that we can build on and help them to understand that Jesus ultimately is going to answer the question of that first singer, which is, what should I do with my shame? What should I do? They know their sins. They may not tell them to you, but they know that they’re going to approach the day of judgment alone, and they’re gonna be weighed and found wanting.

 

Right. So but don’t get stuck on the name. If a person is willing to, join you on 60% of what you believe or 70% on what you believe. I don’t think you need to obliterate that 70% and start from square 1. Yeah.

 

I, you know, I just I I guess for me, I’m just thinking honestly, that it’s just so hard, I think, to start from something that you know is a totally different religion. Like, it’s all your life, it’s been a different religion. And then to say, oh, yeah. They have 70%. Let’s move them forward.

 

Let’s get them to Christ. Not lambasting or destroying everything that they have known that is true about god. It’s interesting. And I think it also has to do with, you know, like, because Allah is a I mean, Allah, but, Islam is a little bit different situation than, like, let’s say, Hinduism or some of these animistic religions. Mhmm.

 

So much closer. I guess the more we just look at it, you’re right. I mean, there is so much so many similarities. So close and just missing the one thing that’s Right. You can’t have Islam with the crucifixion Right.

 

And the resurrection, and you can’t have Christianity without it. Right. And that’s a huge huge diversion between the 2. I wish it were not so, separate and so far. But in some ways, that chasm of the death and the resurrection is far more than we could ever realize.

 

It’s not something that we can just say, hey. We’re pretty much the same, you and I. And I think Muslims would argue that. Muslims would say, hey, our religion is pretty much the same. You know, we both believe in God.

 

We both believe and they would and, by the way, the question for a Muslim is not a hard one. Was there a God of Islam and the God of Christianity the same God? Of course. Easy question. I mean, look at the prophets.

 

Look at the messages. They need the Torah. They need the gospel in order to make sense of the Quran. And so they would say, yeah. Of course, it’s the same god.

 

Would you argue that Muslims are closer to God or to Christ than Jews are? I have no idea. I mean, you know, Howard, think about it in a sense of, Paul in the New Testament. Mhmm. I don’t think anybody would have argued that he was close to Christ.

 

Yeah. I could Do you know it? Do you know what I mean? Right. He was a Pharisee, a Pharisees, and a desire to to to snuff out all of Christianity.

 

Yet God saw fit to save him through blinding him on the road to Damascus. And so I think about the Muslims in the same way that I think about all of the non Jewish world or the pagan world or the gentile world, and that is they were once far off and they’ve been brought near. They’ve been brought near because the holy spirit is working and doing things, and we have no idea. And, like, what I can say is what we know from research and from church planning movements is that it’s you keep sharing the gospel. You keep testifying about Christ.

 

You keep being a witness, and, suddenly, one day, it just clicks. And it’s not like this sort of strategy or any one particular thing you did. It’s just fully understanding something. Yeah. But we gotta get we have to do another episode on contextualization and looking specifically at the debates going on right now within mission agencies about insider movements.

 

Right. That is that’s gonna be a lot of fun. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.

 

So if you wanna be a part of the show, you like partnering with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. Alright. So I think in wrapping it up, it’s a complicated question. I know I say that a lot and you you might, Howard, say I’m skirting the issue, but I think that it’s way more complex than simply saying yes or no. And I know a lot of Christians, probably the vast majority are gonna say, nope.

 

Totally different. And I would argue that in that same way, if I wanted to simplify it, I would say that I’d have to answer nope for some people that say they know Christ and said, say, I don’t know. Because I hear the way that they talk about God and the character attributes of God, and I think, we might be talking about 2 different gods. Yikes. I’m I’m more on the line of saying, I I really don’t know.

 

What I’m confident in is that there is only one God and there is only one Lord Jesus Christ and that, ultimately, in order to know that one God, you must know Christ. Right. But I do think that there are some people that know some things about God apart from Christ and that ultimately my goal as a believer is to help them to come to know God fully and experience reconciliation with God through Christ. Right. And I would not make the name Allah the hill to die on.

 

I would not make, you know, don’t make Allah the stumbling block to someone’s faith. That would be a tragedy if they were willing to accept Christ as, God and yet were unwilling to change the name, that that would just be silly to me. The name of God, in my opinion, is not nearly as important as the meaning behind it. And if you think differently, you probably need to reconsider the name that you call God on a daily basis. Right.

 

And even just considering different languages of the world, don’t call everybody you know, everyone doesn’t call God God. Right? Like, Korean, That’s not God. It’s not the same word, you know. Dios.

 

Right. Yeah. Which would be much more close actually to Theos or Zeus or any other terminology. But I go back to the Psalm 148 and think to myself, all of these things that are being listed are things that mankind is consistently trying to give deification or godlike status to. And the psalmist right there says that all of these things are created and all of these things sing praise to him.

 

Right. And that’s who we’re talking about. Yes. The one true God. Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening.

 

Again, iTunes reviews help. I think we’re at the up to 30 right now. Oh, I think it was 31. We gotta read a couple of them on the air next week next week. And, yeah.

 

We we appreciate all of the the love that you guys, send us. And, if you think about it, pray for us too because, doing what we do, we wanna represent, Christ well. We wanna see Muslims come to know, Jesus Christ as lord and savior. And this is kind of part of our way of doing it. And, yeah, so any kind of prayers you throw our way would be, amazing.

 

And, yeah, keep listening. Check out the website that we use, zwemercenter.com, and that’s, you know, always, you can click on it on our show notes and, and check out the articles. We just released an article this week, about Ramadan, about, how Ramadan, is important for Christians, as an opportunity to pray for Muslims. Absolutely. Really encourage you guys to download or to purchase the 30 day prayer guide, through worldchristian.com.

 

It’s gonna give you a daily thing to pray, and this is something that goes across the whole global church to be praying for Muslims. And so take advantage of that opportunity to pray for the next 30 days for Muslims because it’s a real spiritually seeking time for a lot of folks and this is the time where God seems to do things, in and through the lives of Muslims. Right. And, something else that I just kinda popped in my head, was that, you know, like according to, like, Dave Cash and a lot of these other guys, because of what groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are doing, a lot of Muslims are questioning their faith, their religion, and more and more coming to Christ because of, I know that the atrocities are definitely unspeakable, but at the same time, people are coming to know the Lord, so, and this time would be a great time to pray, you know, that more and more Muslims would come to know the Lord. Mhmm.

 

Anyway, so thank you guys for listening.

Is the God of Muhammed the Father of Jesus? – Part 1

The Fourth installment of the series called, the Basics of Islam, centers around one question… Do Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God?

RESOURCES:

Sami Yusuf – Supplication Video

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Acts 10:23b-48 Cornelius comes to faith

Ida Glasser – The Bible and Other Faiths (Global Christian Library)

Don Richardson – Eternity in Their Hearts

David Bently – The 99 Beautiful Names Of God*: For All the People of the Book

 

James 1:26-27 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Google Search for “echad” in the Shema – Deuteronomy 6:4

30 Day Prayer Guide www.worldchristian.com

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean

Interlude Music by: Artificial Music – Humanism, Chris Zabriskie – Heliograph, Josh Woodard – Fight the Sea

 

 

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Is the God of Muhammed the Father of Jesus? – Part 1:

 

 

Alright. So some of you are probably wondering, is this another episode about is the God of Mohammed, the father of Jesus? And the answer is no. We actually are republishing this into a 2 part series because, quite frankly, 51 minutes is too long. We’ve we’ve learned.

 

We’ve learned. We wanna we wanna we wanna prefer you guys as the listener. I was just under the impression that you would go on a 51 minute run, listener, and have time to listen to it. But it is July, way too hot for 51 minutes. So we’re making it into 2 parts.

 

But don’t worry, we’re not gonna not publish an episode this week. We’re still committed to 1 episode a week. You’ll just see one more extra episode. That’s right. And so we’re gonna do that for the this episode.

 

Alright. We’ll see you next week. Alright. So this week on truth about Muslims, we’re gonna be talking about is the father of Jesus, the God of Mohammed. And, the reason we’re gonna talk about this is we have a listener who had an interaction this past weekend, and the question came up, who is the God of Islam?

 

Hello? Hey, Serenity. You are on the show. You are recorded live right now. Okay.

 

So we know that you had an interaction this past week, and the question came up, who is the God of Islam? And you heard, some perspectives that you hadn’t quite heard before. Could you share that story with us? Yes. I have, I have extended family with some, Jewish background and just from early on in my young life, heard a lot of pro Zionist beliefs and so, you know, Islam’s never been a favorite religion in my home.

 

When I went to visit the this family very recently, I kept just randomly hearing out of the blue how how Allah, not only was he not real, but also that he was actually the demon Moloch. And I kept going, wait. What? I mean, it was just, I well, I looked it up afterwards because when I after I left the visit because I had I knew what was in the Bible at some point and then as a as a god of another religion, And it turns out, I believe it’s the Canaanites, and and he’s this god this false god is famous for a required child sacrifice. I went to Bible college too and remember the horror stories of mothers, like, just dropping their babies into this pit.

 

And, I mean, I don’t know how I personally feel whether all false gods, as in the Moloch god, is an actual demon entity, but it was just, oh no, Allah is not real, Allah is this demon, Moloch, and if you looked at the history you would see that and I’m just like, what? And it would just be like we’d be talking about something completely else, and this person and I have a very fun debating relationship, so we’d be talking about politics, and I’m on one side and they’re on the other side, and then it’d be like, this would just get brought up again. That along with well, you know Islam is automatically a a violent religion. Like, they are just always violent and this is why because this demon is so is this way and I’m just sitting there going, but they’re not. Like, not everybody and I I even said it one time.

 

I said, you realize that the vast majority of Muslims are not fundamentalist. And they’re like, well, they worship this demon, so therefore they’re all gonna be like that. I mean, it’s heartbreaking to dehumanize people in the way that I felt like it was happening, but, you know. Well, once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist are are alive and well. They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant.

 

It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Hey. Welcome back to truth about Muslims podcast.

 

This is the 4th installment. Of Islam 101. Actually, this isn’t the 4th installment. Number 4 of 101 episodes. Well, we have 3.

 

Oh, okay. And then we had this half, like, what is the Kaaba? Which we didn’t know. So we’re probably not gonna release that one. No.

 

I wanna release it. Okay. I’m just saying it’s that it’s like a little mini, like, a fun, like, things to think about. Alright. Well, we have something probably a little bit more pertinent to think about this week.

 

Well, now that I say it, maybe we should got one. Hey. You know what? We’ll release it as a bonus. It was basically Howard and I sitting around going, I I have no idea.

 

Yeah. What is in there? Yeah. Like, what is inside the cobble? Right.

 

So but, anyway, I thought it was interesting enough. So you you I’ll post it anyway and we’ll we won’t make it an official episode. Okay? Is that cool? Yep.

 

That’s cool. It’ll be like a bonus episode. Bonus. Alright. So today charge 19.99.

 

3 easy installments. I don’t even know how that would break down. Alright. So what are we talking about today? Well, the question is, it’s a toughie and it causes a lot of division.

 

It’s making me concerned. Yeah. I’m actually sweating a little bit. It’s because our air conditioning is not on. That’s true.

 

It ruins the the sound quality. And so we were quality for you. And, the question is, is the God of Mohammed the father of Jesus? So is Allah God? Yes.

 

That wasn’t my answer. That was the question. Yes. That’s the question. Right.

 

That is the question. Everybody just turned it off right there. Like, he said yes. I feel the I feel the hate mail coming already. Alright.

 

So what do we need to say to kinda prep everybody? I say we prep it. I have this this video that’s, called supplication or prayer from Sami Yusuf who’s a a musician in the Muslim world. And there’s a little bit of Arabic there at the beginning, some singing, and then, some English. And I think it’s a good idea that we start there to kinda hear from a Muslim point of view sort of their prayer to God, their, supplication.

 

And it’s in English. Yeah. So you can understand it. Right. And then from there, we’ll kick it off.

 

Okay. So we’ll it’s about in a minute and a half clip. So if you’re not used to this, this is kind of a little bit out of our form. Just know it’s gonna be about a minute and a half and it’s worth listening to. Mhmm.

 

We, you know, condensed it so it’s not the whole track but, you know, I think you’re gonna enjoy it. Here it goes. Oh, my lord. My sins are like the highest mountain. Good deeds pour very few.

 

There like a small pebble. I turn to you. My heart full of shame. My eyes full of tears. Bestow your upon me.

 

Yeah. Prophet and his family and companions and people who follow him. The lyrics go, my sins are like the highest mountain. My good deeds are very few, like small pebbles. I turn to you, my heart full of shame, my eyes full of tears, bestow you for forgiveness and mercy upon me.

 

The thing that struck me is that sounds very Christian. Right. That’s not, there’s nothing said there, at least in that part, that would not be much different from a Christian prayer. Yeah. But, I remember us talking a couple podcasts back in this same series when we were talking about how how Muslims think and emphasize differently, than Christians would when they approach their God.

 

For example, we the Christian emphasizes sin a lot. Like, you know, like, you know, we will really want our sins to be forgiven. Whereas in Islam, it’s really what you said about, remembering, remembering Allah. So how do you, you know, how do you explain? I reconcile that with Sami Yusuf.

 

So Sami Yusuf is, by all means, more of a Sufi Muslim and is very much in in the line of thinking with the connection of their their sin and their closeness to God and their need for forgiveness. And so, like we’ve said in almost every episode we’ve ever produced, there’s no one Islam. There are Islams and there are many Muslims and they’re all following sort of different traditions and paths. And Sami Yusuf, would be along the lines of more of the Sufi Muslims. But what’s interesting is when you hear that song, it does beg the question, who is he praying to?

 

You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, that’s exactly what I was thinking. When you said he’s more, Sufi from when we were, oh, we haven’t gotten to this episode yet, but this is Dave when we interviewed Dave Cashin about Sufi, Muslims, it didn’t seem like it was as as, as widely accepted by by Muslims. So is is modern media changing that too?

 

Well, I mean, the Sufis are are quite popular in a sense of, Sami Yusuf anyway because he’s a musician. And he does some incredible, music in, you know, the more fundamentalist traditions and and more radical forms. Music is gonna be forbidden And so he’s done something a little bit interesting here and that he’s taken prayer and put it to music and it’s got more of a poetry sense. And so I don’t know. I’ve I’ve met some Muslims that I think to myself, wow.

 

They are absolutely dogmatic and fundamentalist and old school and traditionalist. And then all of a sudden, you bring up Sam Yousef, and you’re like, oh, I love Sam Yousef. Really? That’s so interesting. So he’s kinda penetrated all the, different sects of, Islam.

 

Okay. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know.

 

But, what what I find interesting about the song is that he he does beg the question, one, who is he praying to, which we’re gonna get into. And, do you think God hears the prayers of Muslims? You mean our God? Right. Yes.

 

Yeah. It’s go ahead. It it reminds me of, the passage, and I’d have to look it up because I’m not really good at addresses. But, where, you know, if you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. And I I don’t know.

 

I I just know the graciousness of God, at least in in my life and how he pursues people, in in Muslims. I know, the Muslims that I do know that are are devout are the ones that really do seek after God. Sure. I mean, we we’ve got you know, this week begins Ramadan here in about 7 7 or 8 days. Right.

 

And you’re going to have a whole gambit of Muslims. You’re gonna have those Muslims that don’t fast at all. And, you know, soon as they’re out from their home, they get a big jug of water and, hamburger and drive down the road and and eat. Do they really do that? Sure.

 

I’ve had oh, yeah. And then you’re gonna have those Muslims that are so devout that they will fast and then they will actually fast extra days beyond what’s required. And then even in the midst of Ramadan you have, a certain period of Ramadan which you’re looking for the, the night of power and they will stay up and pray and recite the whole Quran and so you have a a whole gambit of different participants. Wait. Wait.

 

Wait. You said night of power. That sounds interesting. What is that? I think Warren Larson touched on it in his, podcast on spirit world, but that would be the night of which the revelation came down to Mohammed.

 

And so it’s sort of a, a night where if you’re found praying or performing any, you know, these, rituals, your forgiveness or the amount of forgiveness that’s bestowed upon you in the mercy of God is is multiplied multiplied by a lot. Interesting. So it’s it’s a personal power. It’s a power that affects you Mhmm. Rather than you actually have power.

 

Right. No. No. It’s, it’s really about the forgiveness and attaining forgiveness. We’re gonna do a whole another episode after this one on on sin and atonement and looking at that.

 

But for this one, we need to deal with this question of, you know, who is the God of Islam? Who is the God of Christianity? Does the God of Christianity are they different, same similarities? And then do Muslims when they pray, does God hear them? Now, what’s really funny is I asked that question, does the God of, does our God, God of the Bible, hear the prayers of Muslims?

 

I asked that question in a class and I got these blank stares and, you know, when someone kinda chews on the end of their glasses or someone is rubbing their beard thinking and Oh, so they’re all thinking. Yeah. They’re all academics and It wasn’t deer in the headlights. There were some deer in the headlights, but it’s for other reasons. Like, can we ask that question?

 

Yeah. But, I asked the question at a church and there was a young boy, probably, must have been 9 years old. And, I said, does God does our God hear the prayers of Muslims? And this 9 year old boy just shouts out, of course, he hears the prayers of Muslims. What does god not hear?

 

And I thought, there it is. Out of the mouth of babes. That’s right. Yeah. You’re getting, you’re getting to seminary, and all of a sudden, you start thinking about these things deeply.

 

Does God hear the prayers of a Muslim? How many angels spit on the end of a plane? That’s right. Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it? But but Alright.

 

I I imagine God up in heaven, like, if he has ears, like, covering his ears or, like, stuffing them with tissue so that he can’t hear the prayers of Muslims or something. He only hears the right kind of people. You know what I mean? And so, of course, God hears the prayers of of Muslims. And so, we think of Acts and, what is it?

 

Acts 10 with Cornelius. Is that right? Where Cornelius is a God fearing man, including God hears the prayers of Cornelius even though he wasn’t yet a believer in Christ. Right. But he didn’t need to hear the message of Christ in order to be saved.

 

But the idea of whether or not God hears people, yes, God hears people. So we we have to look at the question though who is you know, what is the difference? Are these gods the same? And I like Venn diagrams. So if you have, like, 2 circles and they overlap, do we worship the same god?

 

And and the answer is really, well, in some ways, yes. In some ways, no. It’s kind of a funny question because in my mind, Howard, there there is only one God, actually not in my mind. In Paul’s mind, there is only one God. Right.

 

I mean, that’s what Paul talks about in Corinthians to the Corinthian church. First Corinthians, what is it, verse 8 when he talks about food sacrificed to idols. Right. And, he he goes pretty clear into the idea. And I would even say that this is a very much a creedal statement of the early early church, 1st Corinthians, chapter 8 and then looking at verse verses 4 through 7.

 

You want me to read it? Yeah. If you got it there. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no god but 1. For although there may be so called gods in heaven or on earth as indeed there are many gods, lowercase g, and many lords, lowercase l, yet for us there is one God, the father from whom all, are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

 

Right. And I think of that as, being a very core statement of the Christian faith. There is only one God that’s right in line with Deuteronomy chapter 6. You know, the Lord your God is 1. Here Israel, the Lord your God is 1.

 

And right in line with, Christ being, at the center of that, he is the full image. All of deity dwells in him according to, the high Christology passages, particularly of Colossians. But let’s go back to the Psalms and look at Psalm 148 because I think Psalm 148, I was, speaking with Ida Glasser, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Oxford, and she has written a book about, Christianity and other religions. We’ll put it in the show notes. And she asked me, had I ever thought about what Psalm 148 has to do with other religions?

 

And I read it and I thought, I don’t get it. And so, Howard, let’s I know it’s a little bit long, but let’s read 148. I I did glance through it and I don’t know what that would be either. But I’m excited to find out. Here we go.

 

This is Psalm 148. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise him, all his angels.

 

Praise him, all his hosts. Praise him, sun and moon. Praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord for he commanded and they were created, and he established them forever and ever.

 

He gave a decree and it shall not pass away. Praise the lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind, fulfilling his word. Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds, kings of all of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is exalted. His majesty is above earth and heaven. He raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him.

 

Praise the lord. And then so the idea is what does this have to do with other religions or what does this have to do with other gods? And her point was basically what the psalmist is saying here is there is only one god. He has created all things. And when you look at the context of this passage and you think of ancient the ancient near east, a lot of these things were, quote, unquote, gods of the day.

 

You know, you had kings. You had princes. You had rulers of the earth. Right. Sun.

 

Sun. You had moon. You had the cedars. You had, cattle. You had I mean, a lot of these things you would see deified in the ancient near east.

 

Well, actually, in also animistic cultures and, of course, native American cultures and interesting. Yeah. And so what the psalmist is saying is God has created all of these things and all of these things praise him. Right. So even the the the god’s little g praise god.

 

Like, everything that has been created is pointed to him. Everything that has breath. Right? And even things that don’t have breath, uncreated or everything is created in a sense. So but we still have the question.

 

Is the God of Islam, Allah? Is that the father of Jesus? And here’s here’s the issue. You have it’s a complex. 1, you have a an issue of semantics or definitions.

 

Right. There is no other word in Arabic for God. Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU.

 

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CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. So there is no other word in Arabic for God other than Allah. And so the the real issue is that the word Allah is pre Islamic. Okay? Mohammed didn’t make up the word Allah.

 

Mohammed didn’t create the god Allah that So we’re talking about the word God. Right. You can’t No subtitles like you need to start calling God God as though that’s somehow the biblical term. And that’s the interesting thing. Right?

 

I mean, we as Christians here in the United States, we have no issue calling God God even though there’s no word in the Bible that is spelled god. God. Right? The the Greek word for God is not God. Right.

 

It’s theos which is actually the Greek term that’s also used for Zeus. Paul chose to use that word. So words are important, but what’s more important is the meaning behind the word Right. That it’s filled with the correct meaning. And so so far as I know, none of my Christian friends are praying to Yahweh or Jehovah.

 

When you pray, Howard, I’m assuming you don’t pray in the name of Yeshua, you pray in the name of Jesus, which is found nowhere in the scriptures. This idea of Jesus. This is a transliteration from the Greek word Iesous. Jesus’ actual name is Joshua, the Lord saves. Right.

 

But it’s okay for those of you that are, like, thinking, oh my gosh. I’ve been praying to the wrong name. You got God knows who you’re praying to. He’s he’s okay. He’s bigger than that.

 

But the idea of the word Jesus, not actually being the correct term, it’s really Joshua, but, you know, the word is really the important thing. It’s not the word itself, but the meaning underneath the word or the meaning that is filled into the word. And so for the word God that we use in the English terminology, it comes from the pagan deity, Gat, which is the word that the English translators chose to use to translate the word theos. And so in some sense, our terminology, our word that we use for God in the English language is actually far more pagan than the term Allah. Wow.

 

I think you’re stepping on some toes, man. Well, I’m not trying. I just not my I’m not the one stepping on anybody’s toes. This is just history and you know. That’s intense.

 

Yeah. But I mean, it’s okay. It’s not like, the God God is somehow receiving glory every Sunday morning in American churches because we’re praying to God. Right. Because the meaning behind it changes everything.

 

But, it’s not but still it’s still uncomfortable a little bit. Sure. I mean, it’s like in the old testament whenever Moses goes up onto the mountain, then he comes back down and there you have them they’ve they’ve created a golden calf. Mhmm. And who is it?

 

Aaron at that point? Right. It says, this is the Lord God who has led you out of Egypt. Was it? Right.

 

I mean, is it just because it has the correct name because I call it the Lord God or I call it Yahweh? Does it suddenly become Yahweh? Right. So in that sense, I just wanna say that as Muslims follow Christ, don’t expect them to change the name to suddenly God because they would probably not be comfortable with that nor should we expect them to do that. There’s nothing wrong with the term Allah.

 

And in some ways, it’s closer. Right? When Jesus is on the cross, he is crying out in the Aramaic, which has a very similar root, which is the, Aramaic term for for God. And so Allah, Elohim, El, Al, they’re they’re all coming from the same semantic root Wow. Of the Semitic language.

 

So we have to be careful that we just don’t all of a sudden we hear somebody say a law and suddenly our our the skin starts to crawl and the hair on the back of our neck stands up. You just gotta get that out of your head. Okay. So, fair, that’s the semantic problem. Right.

 

But then you have another problem, which I think is the deeper problem, which is the nature of God. Yes. That’s the issue. Because we’re talking about meaning. Because to be quite frank with you, Howard, when I hear the some Christians speak about the nature of God, I’m not sure we’re worshiping or talking about the same God.

 

Alright. We’re gonna have to make this into a 2 part series, and so join us again next week for the second part of Is the God of Muhammad, the father of Jesus?

Terrorist Turned Believer: Truth About Muslims Podcast Sample

Have friends that you’re trying to convince to listen to our show? Curious about what the show is about but don’t want to risk listening for 45 minutes? This is perfect for you… Take 3 minutes and give us a shot. Thanks for listening

 

 

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Terrorist Turned Believer: Truth About Muslims Podcast Sample:

 

 

I listened to Ahmed tell me his story. It was a fascinating story and I had several corroborators. Ahmed’s brother had gone for a job in one of the big cities there in Western South Asia and in the course of time, he met a couple of American missionaries who had shared the gospel with him, loved him, shared their life with him, led him to Christ. When Ahmed found out about this, he was determined to kill that missionary. He acts like he’s friendly with him.

 

So he can lure him into an ambush, takes him up on a dirt road up in the mountains, had 2 of his friends waiting there, gonna jump out and cut off his head. And then at the last second, Ahmed just has this change. He said, I put him on my motorcycle and drove away. But I told him, he said, you get out of here. Don’t ever come back.

 

Ahmed then is conscripted into the military. They they tell him, basically, you can go fight in the Afghan front or you can go fight up in Kashmir, but you’re now prepared to go and give your life for Allah. He chooses the Afghan front. He just does some horrible things, including wiping out an entire village. Everyone in it, they kill.

 

He talks about picking up this little one and a half year old little baby girl, holding her in his arms that already killed her parents, and how she held his finger in her hand as he stuck a knife, a poison knife into it and killed her. That was one of the things that began eating in his soul. Later, they captured a guy and they told, Ahmed, you’re gonna have to cut off his head. Got a bag over his head. They had him on his knees.

 

They had made a circle around there. They’re chanting, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar. They give him this long knife to cut off the head, and he just drops it. He says, I can’t do it. And they grab him.

 

They said, either you do it or we’re gonna cut off your head. And he says, and you’ll have to cut off my head. I can’t do it. And he runs away. He ends up going AWOL, finds his way by train all the way back to that city where the missionary who had, he had almost killed was living.

 

He said I spent the next few days sleeping on his couch. And, when I finally got over my extreme fatigue, I just started talking to him. Over the next few months, Achmed began reading the Bible. God began working in his heart. And finally, not only did he come to faith, he gathered his family together.

 

He said, you know, you put me you threw me into the madrasa because you wanted me to become an imam. You said, whatever I would do, you would follow me as your spiritual leader. I said, do you still feel that way? And they all said, yes. Whatever you say will do it.

 

And I said, well, I’m becoming a follower of Jesus. I want you to follow Jesus too. So the whole family joined him in following Jesus. That was a clip from truth about Muslims podcast, a new show where we educate you beyond the media, bringing you into Christian Muslim dialogue. New shows are released every week.

 

Check us out at Itunes or truthaboutmuslims.com.

Muhammed and the Hadith

This is our third installment in the Basics of Islam Series dealing with the Hadith and how it affects Muslim theology.

 

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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Muhammed and the Hadith:

 

 

So this is from Sahih Bukhari, volume 1, book 1, number 3, page 2. Truth came to him when he was in the cave of Hurah. An angel came to him and said, read. He, Mohammed said, I cannot read. Then he took me and he pressed me until I couldn’t stand it.

 

This happened again a second time. Then he took me and he pressed me a third time until I couldn’t take it. Then he let me go and said, read in the name of the lord who created man from a cloth, and your lord is the most generous. And that was the first revelation of the Quran. Cool.

 

Well, once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist Islamic extremists. These are the terrorists of the country. They’re random terrorists and brutal endeavors. Newsflash America. These Muslim extremists are, are alive and well.

 

They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Alright.

 

Welcome back to truth about Muslims podcast. Okay. Let’s do that one again. You always get tongue tied. I wanna No.

 

Flares. Alright, man. Alright. Welcome to truth about Muslims podcast. We’re back.

 

Yes. And today, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the Hadith and, Mohammed. Right. This is series, about what what do we name the series? I think we named it the basics of Islam because a lot of people were asking.

 

That’s a that’s a good title. Islam 101. Right. And this is the 3rd installment. That’s right.

 

Of a 100 part series. A 100 part series. That’s an exaggeration. Yeah. Seriously, if you can’t stand the first three, just give them and go to the next, podcast.

 

You don’t have to stop listening. We’re still here. We got like 30 other episodes. So, anyway, we we ended and I mentioned that we were gonna talk a little bit about this idea of hadith. I I say it’s the meat and potatoes of the religion because a lot of the practices that you see that Muslims engage in day to day don’t come from the Quran, but rather the Hadith.

 

Yeah. Right. Because I’ve read the Quran and, you know, like, bits and pieces done papers on it, and, it didn’t seem like it had all of the the rich, directives, I guess, that that I hear from Muslims. Right. Most of the the Quran has more to do with sort of the nature of God and judgment.

 

Mhmm. I would say is the overarching themes. But in the hadith, you have sort of the daily practices. And in the hadith, you have so many different things. Right there at the beginning, I recited a portion from the hadith that gives us the, inspiration behind the Quran.

 

So, Mohammed was there in the cave. He encountered the angel Gabriel. It pressed him and said read and did it 2 other times. And on the 3rd time, he finally recited something in it. What he recited is the first revelation 96, surah 96 1 through 5 recite in the name of the lord who created created man from a clot recite.

 

And your lord is most generous who taught you to write with the pen, taught man what he knew not. So that was the first revelation. Can we stop for a second? Mohammed. I have a question.

 

What is the Hadith? Well, it’s a collection of things that Mohammed did, and said and Not written by him? No. Mohammed never actually wrote anything. It’s believed, by Muslims that he was illiterate, and people have disputed that.

 

But so far as the Muslim accounts go, he was illiterate. Wait. But he introduced the Quran. Right. And the Quran is a recited text.

 

It’s not actually Oh, got it. Yeah. So others would read it. They well, they would he would recite it. Others would memorize it, and then they would recite it.

 

And so the Quran doesn’t actually get copied down until later. Some Oh, recited meaning, like, it wasn’t written down. Exactly. He spoke it. Exactly.

 

And it it’s not even so much like he’s reading a text. It’s like it’s it’s poetry, really. It’s the singing and it’s, we have that one, podcast with Peter Riddell. Listeners, if you wanna go back, there’s a a series there on the Quran and there’s even, playing of a recitation from a young Saudi. Right.

 

That was that was really cool. So with the Hadith, it’s more about what Mohammed, did. It’s reports really about what Mohammed did. So how much are you talking about? How many volumes are you talking about here?

 

Oh, man. You you have 6 what are called authentic or sahi hadith. So, sahi just means authentic legitimate Like verified. Verified hadith. And the reason they have to be verified now, what you have with hadith, I’ve heard it described as the telephone game and that is a terrible, terrible, unfair description.

 

What you have is the, accounts that people would hear. So you have the isnad which is chain of transmission, which would be like Trevor heard that Howard said, that Katie said, that Benjamin said, that Chloe said, that this person heard Mohammed say this. And the ISNAD is that chain, meaning Trevor, Howard, Katie, Benjamin, Chloe to that person. That’s the it’s not, the chain of transmission. Okay.

 

Now, some people would say, well, it’s like the telephone game. Let me explain. And they’ll do it with 5 people. And by the end, you’ve played the telephone game. Oh, right.

 

It’s completely different. Totally wrong. This isn’t an oral society. Telephone game is a really funny thing to see. Go to an oral society and try the telephone game and watch your jaw drop and go, wow.

 

Yeah. They actually and plus, you’re not whispering it in someone’s ear and trying to mess them up like you did in the telephone team. Right. You know, you people out there. That’s right.

 

I was one of them. So in oral society, meaning they would tell the stories or recite the Right. The passages exactly. Mhmm. And they would they would they would even recite the chain.

 

And so the chain of transmission. Now if there’s anyone in that chain that was known to be a liar, then they would throw it out and say, well, it’s an unreliable hadith. That person’s known to be a liar. Get rid of it. Wow.

 

So, like, for me in Brazilian jujitsu, you have to know who’s whose master is under your masters, you know. I mean, whose master’s over your masters. Yeah. If you just show up and wear a black belt and say I got this from a guy named, Right. You know, Tito.

 

Right. In in Venezuela, you know, that’s not gonna right. Okay. So I get it. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors.

 

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Zweimer Center. And what does the Zwehmer Center do? Talks about Muslims and and tells them on the computer that we love you. Very nice. The Swimmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims.

 

The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. Yeah. So, there’s a chain of tradition, a transmission, I mean, that goes on the hadith and then there’s also the matin or the content of the hadith. And so, the hadith content is filled with very interesting things and, I mean, everything you could ever want to know, like, the proper way that you should eat chicken. I mean, there would be details in there about how Mohammed ate, what Mohammed did, what Mohammed said.

 

Like I said, there’s more written about Mohammed, I would argue, volumes themselves. So, if I had Oh. All the authentic hadith standing here, they’d stack 6 volumes themselves. So if I had all the authentic hadith standing here, they’d stack as tall as me. So you’re saying, like, an encyclopedic Yes.

 

And it’s all about Mohammed. All about Mohammed and encounters things that he said or did. So time out. Is it, like, kinda like how we compile people’s sermons? Like, you know, like, people in the past that, you know, we like Tozer or, somebody like that where somebody has, like, sit down and transcribed or written down sermons and then published it?

 

So think about it from the instant sort of. But if you think about it from this perspective, a lot of Muslims are not presumptuous about the day of judgment and God’s mercy and so many people don’t understand why. But if you look at this one hadith from the hadith from the book of, it’s called Sahih Muslim, number 39, number 6,761. The prophet said there is no one who will be admitted to paradise based only on his deeds. A man said, not even you, oh messenger of Allah?

 

He said, not even me, except that Allah wraps me in mercy. So if you wanna know why Muslims are always talking about the mercy and the compassion of Allah, it’s not about deeds alone. They get it from this hadith. So if you walk into a mosque and an imam is teaching, would he be teaching other Quran or the hadith? Both.

 

Both. Wow. And I would I would argue that most of the teachings I’ve heard come from the hadith. There will usually be a recitation of the Quran, a brief explanation, and then a life principle that comes from the hadith. Is the hadith divine?

 

No. Not at all. So it’s not like the Quran No. In stature. It should not be held in that that same level of stature.

 

You use the Quran to interpret the hadith. So it’s almost like a tool, like a research Commentary maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Commentary or Right.

 

That’s interesting. And so it’s almost like a living commentary because it’s Mohammed’s life and how he lived out the principles of Islam and recorded in these Hadith. Okay. So but you had mentioned and I don’t know if I can say this. I might have to edit this.

 

But you had mentioned before that a lot of people don’t know that account of Mohammed when he heard, the call to read. Right. Because there’s a lot of debate about what actually happened there in that cave. In all the different hadith, you have this encounter with an angelic being. Muslims would argue that it’s the angel Gabriel, but you have Mohammed being afraid.

 

Some would argue terrified and these all come from the different hadiths and they would say when revelations comes upon Mohammed, that he would act strangely and Christians have used these hadith to argue that Muhammad was probably under some sort of spiritual possession from a demonic force. And I’ve always said, I don’t think you make any friends by arguing that Mohammed was under some sort of spiritual possession. Why don’t you just allow Muslims to, have their belief and talk with them about what you can talk about? Right. That would close down the conversation pretty fast.

 

It it would. And and to be quite frank, I think it’s just not loving. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, back to that 3rd great theology, loving someone as you love yourself. I would feel greatly offended and discouraged if somebody came along and said you believe a bunch of fairy tale nonsense when you look at the Bible.

 

That would that would not make me wanna hang out with that guy. Or Jesus is demon possessed. There you go. And and I’m pretty sure the Pharisees made that accusation. Alright.

 

Wow. That’s that’s cool. Okay. So keep going. Yeah.

 

So you have all of these hadith, and I’m telling you, like, if you can imagine, anything you would want to know is in the hadith. You know, how what what shoe you should put on first. I’m not exaggerating. Why there are more, demons active in the sunset rather than the rest of the day. What What you should walk yeah.

 

Everything you could imagine is in the hadith. So, like, if you’re let’s say, you know, for us as a Christian, we a lot of the more, I guess, academic academically minded, Christians would read a lot. They would do research, read articles, and such. Do Muslims that are devout look at the hadith by themselves? So you have training schools just like you have Christian bible colleges, you have seminaries.

 

And in the madrasas, in some of those areas, younger students are taught the Quran and the Hadith. Oh. And in their training seminaries, yes, you would definitely learn the hadith and you would memorize hadith. Really? But most of the hadith is just passed down.

 

Like, they don’t know why they do a certain thing. They just learn from their parents to do a certain thing. And if you tie it back, you can go and look and there’s a hadith that talks about it. Interesting. So there’s a website called search truth.

 

Uh-huh. And if you look at search truth, you can actually search all 6 authentic hadith and you can search by keyword. You can see all of the hadith that talk about, the strange and unusual things, if you wanna know rules or I’ve even had some Muslim friends ask me, hey, is there a hadith about this? And I’ll just look it up real quick and and tell them, yeah. There’s a hadith that mentions this.

 

You are traveling so you don’t have to fast because you’re going this many days, you know, by travel. It it it sounds really Oh, it’s comprehensive. Complicated. Well To know I mean, to know to know You could I don’t I don’t know that you could know. I don’t think you could know all of it.

 

But if you’re ever curious about why a Muslim does something, it’s probably in the Hadith, and it’s probably something Mohammed was doing. Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU.

 

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Real world review. Kids say. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. Now, are there groups of Muslims that, emphasize one hadith over another? You know, that’s a good question.

 

I don’t know. I think that there probably are some hadith that are more upheld by some schools of thought than others, but I don’t know for sure about that. I know the the 2 that are most recognized by the majority of Muslims are Sahih Bukari, which is b h u k a r I Mhmm. And Sahih Muslim. Those are the 2 that are most often quoted and referenced.

 

And so when, when people start to look into the hadith, are there times where something will be emphasized that wasn’t emphasized before amongst, like, all Muslims because of somebody bringing it out to light? You know how Christians will have certain aspects of our theology that somebody will bring out, some preacher, pastor, and it’ll also, you know, go across Absolutely. I think probably the most controversial things that are happening right now in in the hadith have to do with, feminism and women’s rights because the hadith are incredibly misogynistic, negative towards women. And so there are some women scholars right now that are calling for a reinterpretation of hadith. So for instance, somebody may have heard, 3 things nullified prayer, a donkey, a dog, and a woman.

 

So that’s a hadith and it’s an authentic hadith. And so women have been oppressed by this hadith, but then there are other hadith where, for instance, one of Muhammad’s wife, Aisha, who’s one of my favorite characters in the Muslim tradition, Aisha would say that there were times where she would lay in between Muhammad and the qibla, the place to the direction of the prayer, and there was no issue. And so, she would argue that this hadith was probably unauthentic. And so, some Muslim scholars, particularly women, are arguing for a reinterpretation of what Trying to discredit some hadith that have been believed. Mhmm.

 

Wow. Yeah. There’s another hadith about women that’s incredibly negative that says that, that I believe it was Mohammed saw a vision of hell and, a majority of its inhabitants were women. Oh, man. And so you can see how these hadith would the women would feel that these need to be reinterpreted because they’re incredibly negative towards women.

 

The idea of the testimony of a woman only being worth, half the testimony of a man. You 2 women to testify against a man. Oh, I was gonna ask how does that work? Because they’re deficient in their religion. So when they call for a reinterpretation, who do they who do they call to?

 

Who do I? The scholars, the scholars, they’ll argue that there are other hadith that discredit this one person who has been discredited already in his other hadith and he should not be included in the authentic hadith. There’s a lady named Fatima Murnissi that’s a Moroccan sociologist who’s done some really interesting work. If you’re interested in studying about hadith and the reinterpretation, or reconsideration of authentic Hadith, she’s one that you should look at. And so, are there scholars that are coming on board?

 

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. See, that’s the thing. I mean, Islam is, an on it’s undergoing and it will be an ongoing sort of, of, you know, reformation for a 21st century interpretation.

 

There are those that are gonna be on the side that want to argue that, we need to reconsider these things to move forward Mhmm. In our religious aspirations. And then there are those that are gonna say, nope, Society might be moving forward, but we have the perfect thing that we need right here and we shouldn’t change at all. So when you talk about fundamentalism, fundamentalist Muslims, they are Is this a reaction to some of this kind of Yep. Moderate Sure.

 

Liberal ish, you know? Mhmm. Sure. Yeah. No.

 

There’s plenty of hadith that are quite negative and plenty of hadith that reference jihad and war and give just reason for war and these are the ones that more moderate Muslims would want to reinterpret and say, no, this was sufficient for the time, for this transitionary period, but we need to reinterpret these for the 21st century. You know, Islam isn’t under attack like this And a fundamentalist would say, no. Islam is under attack and we do need these hadith and this is how we’re gonna call for, most of the Muslim world to action. Yeah. But wouldn’t it, be, a disintegration of Muslim theology to fundamentalist to see women trying to call for a reinterpretation?

 

Well, see, that’s the thing. It’s often argued that women don’t have, a say in Islam and that this is a western thing. Right? Mhmm. But there is a hadith where Mohammed said 2 thirds of the religion can you take from the little ruddy one, which was actually Aisha’s nickname.

 

And that Aisha was not only did she give Hadith because she’s she gives quite a few Hadith. Like, people would say, I heard this person say that this person say that this person say that Aisha said that Mohammed said. And when Aisha said it, people listened because she was the closest to Muhammad. No. And so she gives hadith, and then she also discredits people’s hadith.

 

So there are hadith about her discrediting someone else’s hadith saying But they but they’re still in there. So they don’t, like, cut them out. They do. Once once somebody’s discredited, they will remove it. So if there’s a negative hadith and Aisha says, you know, that this person’s a liar or this person must have misheard, Some of those hadith can be removed and so the the the the hadith are not fixed, in other words.

 

And that’s what they’re arguing right now over what Hadith should and shouldn’t be in there. There there’s not a fixed set that will be forevermore. Right. So are you saying that there’s still, like, text in one of the hadith that will discredit another hadith, but they’re still in there at the time being because they haven’t been examined? Oh, I think so.

 

Yeah. Like, I mean, there’s like, I mentioned the the text about the dog woman and Right. A donkey and Aisha’s, essentially discrediting it, but both hadith are still present there in Bukhary. Interesting. Okay.

 

So a quick question about who writes these hadiths. The first people, they’re the ones that are very close to Mohammed? Well, you had to have heard him say it. So there’s the hadith where you say, I heard Mohammed say this, and that’s what most of the hadith are. There’s another type of hadith, I believe it’s called hadith Qudsi, which would be the I heard Muhammad say that God said this.

 

And it’s not the Quran, but it’s Mohammed saying that God says, Allah says this. So it’s like kinda adding Higher. Adding to the Quran, but it’s still in the hadith, so it’s not divine. Yeah. No.

 

It’s not adding to the Quran, but it’s it’s it’s held up there higher than just Mohammed saying something. It’s God’s Mohammed saying that God said something. So do they separate that? Do they is that in a separate hadith? No.

 

They’re all in the same Okay. Hadith. Hadith. So they’re just gonna intermingled in there? Right.

 

So these are people that are close to Mohammed enough that they have relationship with Mohammed? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You need to be a reliable source. So it’s not his son.

 

Some weird dude coming out. Yeah. Talking crazy. Right. Because I was wondering that would kinda ruin, the validity.

 

And there are a lot of hadith like that, but those are not the authentic ones. Like I said, there’s only 6 volumes of the authentic hadith, and then there’s plenty of hadith that have been just discredited or said that that’s a weak Hadith. Alright. So, this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where, if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.

 

So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. You had mentioned 2 hadiths that were popular, today, the most popular today. Why are they more popular than others? Which ones? The ones that you mentioned.

 

Do you remember what you said? The No. You you had said these are the 2 most most read or something like that. Oh, the the ones about jihad, probably. That’s what you’re saying.

 

And it’s interesting because See, see how I misrep I misrepresented what you had said. That’s right. This is dangerous. So jihad, actually, the the most, proper reading of jihad according to the hadith most often is is war. The hadith about the internal struggle is actually quite rare, but that’s the one that most Muslims cite.

 

So that’s one of those scenarios where even the most, kinda ambiguous hadith has actually taken precedence over the other hadith. Oh. So it’s a it’s a interesting part of the religion and I think most people don’t recognize that they think that it probably comes from the Quran, but it’s really the hadith. You’ll see people brushing their teeth a certain way with a little stick. It’s in the hadith.

 

I’m really I can’t over exaggerate how much is there. You know how we, in the west have been extremely influenced by, was it their time of the renaissance, where we were looking at sources, original sources? You know, like, we were reading the original texts. We wanted to get back and not just hear commentaries of. Do you find that with Muslims, there’s a sense of powerlessness because they don’t know the hadith?

 

There’s so much that could be said in the hadith that they didn’t know about and they’re doing something wrong? I I think so and that’s why I think there’s a kind of a battle between the reformers and the fundamentalist because they’re both reaching for the text that the vast majority don’t know and so they don’t know who to believe about the text. They’re reaching for the text to bolster their their side. Their argument. They’re they’re pulling things out of the text to argue for reformation.

 

They’re pulling things out of the text to argue for going backwards. I mean, for instance, I was just looking at this Hadith. It’s one that I think is, interesting. I I always say, you know, you could ask a Muslim, you know, do you have sin in your life and you might get the answer no. Well, there’s a hadith that was narrated by Abu Huraira who has a lot of hadith, by the way, that says the messenger of Allah said, right, all of my followers sins will be forgiven except those made public.

 

That is when a man commits a sin at night and then makes it known during the day even though Allah has screened him in the night. So when you go to a Muslim and you say do you have sin in your life, what you’re really asking him to do is something horrible, to bring something that is screened and shielded at night by the grace and mercy of Allah to public and shame himself publicly and also, you know, his family or whoever else. Wow. But that that’s a Hadith. That’s out of Bukhari.

 

That’s a honor shame paradigm thing that we’ve been talking about. Wow. That’s that’s amazing. So there’s there’s just filled with Hadith. You should go on search truth, type in some interesting words that you’d like to look up in the hadith.

 

If you’ve ever wondered why do Muslims sit this way when they pray or why do they hold their hands here when they pray, why do they eat this, why don’t they eat this, It’s all in the hadith. One of my favorite ones, I had a student recently who was taking a world religions course from another professor and he was teaching something on Islam. And so he came to me and he said that the professor had told him, if you could teach us something about Islam, if you could teach the professor something about Islam, he didn’t currently know that they would get an a on their presentation. So, of course, he comes to my office and he says, what could I say that he doesn’t already know? Now, this is this is Dave.

 

Right? Dave Cash. He’s like a walking encyclopedia. Yeah. He knows.

 

And so, I I was scoring through the hadith and I was like, oh, here we go. There’s one hadith that says that Mohammed is actually the brother of Jesus because they have the same father. And I said What? You need yeah. There’s a Hadith.

 

You guys look it up and search truth. This will force you to go to learn how to use the hadith search tool. It says that Mohammed and Jesus are brothers because they have the same father. Now, I’m not saying this is a case for Jesus being the son of God. I don’t think that’s what the hadith is saying at all.

 

I think he’s saying they have a spiritual connection with Allah. They’re both messengers of Allah. They’re prophets of Allah. That’s what the text means. So don’t use that as an evangelism tool.

 

But what I told the student to use it as is at the end of your presentation, you need to say to the professor that Mohammed and Jesus are 2 brothers from another mother and that’s something you didn’t know about Islam. And I don’t know if they did it or not. Oh, man. I still don’t know. I gotta ask.

 

We yeah. We need to hear the end of that story. It’s like a cliffhanger. Yeah. So that’s in the Hadith.

 

Wow. Okay. So, we got, how many more in this series? A 100? A 101.

 

Right. Yeah. We’ll probably do a little bit about, Islamic law. We really need to do the common ground, the nature of God. Do we worship the same God?

 

That’s a question that keeps coming up from people. And we get a lot of hits on articles whenever we publish stuff like that. Yeah. So we need to talk about the do Muslims and Christians worship the same God, the character and the nature of God according to Islam, the attributes of God. Yeah.

 

There’s a lot there’s a lot there. Okay. Maybe we’ll we’ll break it up with an interview or 2 as well. We’ve got, just to give you guys a heads up, we’ve got, Peter Riddell coming actually coming into the studio this time. Cool.

 

That’s gonna be coming up. And we’ve got, Matthew Stone who’s gonna be coming up. And then we’ve got 4 or 5 guys coming up here in the next month that are just gonna be stellar. So I’m excited. Yeah.

 

I’m really excited to meet actually Peter Riddell in person. Get that Australian accent going. Right. Right. Right.

 

So, yeah. I hope he doesn’t hear this. Anyway, give us a shout out on truth about Muslims. Good on you, mate. On the truthaboutmuslims.com and, zwemberscenter.com and Itunes reviews.

 

Alright? So thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you next week.