FAQ's from Christians

- Question: Do Muslims believe in the Bible?

- Answer: Not the way that you do. To us the only infallible and truly vital scripture is the Koran, which is, as I establish in a number of ways on this site’s “Bible and Koran” page, sort of a compressed revision of the Bible. Second to the Koran comes the hadith/sunnah, the recorded teachings and deeds of the blessed Muhammad; this scripture is fallible. Third comes the Bible, or to be more specific, the parts of the Bible which are connected to the Koran. The two of the four scriptures that the Koran says it confirms and also revises which can be found in the Bible are the Pentateuch and the Psalms of the blessed David. According to the Koran, the Pentateuch has been corrupted along with the rest of the Bible (2:75-79), yet still contains some substantial amount of guidance and light (5:44). Presumably the Psalms are like this too.

Occasionally there will be a story in the Koran which is paralleled in other parts of the Bible than the Pentateuch and Psalms, such as the narratives of King Saul, Samuel, the ark, the blessed David and Goliath, told in Koran 2:246-251 and alternately in 1 Samuel 9-17. This is rare. On the other hand, even though the Gospel the essence of which is contained in the Koran is not one of the four canonical Gospels, but instead a lost Gospel written or dictated by the blessed Jesus himself, the four Gospels must have a certain, respectable degree of accuracy in what they report. We Muslims can tell this because of the fact that there are countless parallels between the four Gospels and the Koran’s teachings and stories about the blessed Jesus. I list many of them in my article on the blessed Jesus in the Bible and in the Koran on this site’s “Bible and Koran” page. Some Muslims read from the four Gospels to learn about the teachings of our prophet the blessed Jesus.

It is also useful, I think, to read the biblical accounts about the prophets Enoch, Elisha, Isaac and Ezekiel, because in the Koran these four prophets are unique in that the Book merely describes positive qualities they had that we are to emulate rather than tell stories about them. For example, the Book describes the blessed Ezekiel (Zul-Kifl) as having constancy and patience: to learn about how he is said to have exhibited these qualities (which is not necessary, but can be useful), it would not be a bad idea for a Muslim to read the book of Ezekiel.

So the bottom line about whether Muslims “believe in the Bible” is that some of us use it as a tertiary scripture after the Koran and the hadith, but we don’t really need it, since the Koran is, in a way, what you might consider a final draft to the Bible’s rough draft, containing many of the Bible’s teachings and many of its characters and stories but correcting every corruption and error involved with them.

- Question: What reason could you possibly have for thinking that any scripture needs to come after the Bible, that the Bible doesn’t complete everything?

- Answer: The Bible is a compilation of scriptures, most of which are by authors who cannot be positively identified. It is not a holy text but a volume of holy texts, arbitrarily put together by committees who decided what scriptures would go in and what scriptures would not. In other words, the contents of the Bible ended up in there because of the decisions of fallible human beings--not even prophets or popes or apostles, but mere church fathers. It is also common knowledge in secular biblical scholarship that, as the Koran announced in the seventh century, long before modern scholarship existed, the Bible has been corrupted by copyists and editors.

The textual variants you see in notes at the bottom of almost each page in any Bible you pick up are proof of this--“some ancient authorities add”, “some ancient authorities delete”, “some ancient authorities read”. These variants are proof positive that people added, subtracted from and changed the text of pretty much every book in the Bible, and since the original manuscripts can never be found, nobody knows which variant version of any book of the Bible is correct (each manuscript being different). It is also a commonly held theory in secular biblical scholarship that the Pentateuch is not one text by one author (and certainly not entirely written by the blessed Moses, since it chronicles his death!), but four, alternating texts which the scholars mark E (Elohim), J (Jahweh), P (Priestly) and D (Deuteronomy).

- Question: Where does the Koran say that the Bible has been corrupted? I dare you to show me!

- Answer: Are you so eager that they should believe you, seeing there is a party of them that heard God’s word, and then tampered with it, and that after they had comprehended it, wittingly?....Woe to those who write the Book with their hands, then say, “This is from God,” that they may sell it for a little price; so woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for their earnings. (Surah 2, Verses 75-79)

The Koran uses the phrase “the Book” to refer either to itself or to the Bible (hence the title, “People of the Book”, or “People of the Bible, which means “Christians and Jews”). You can always tell which book is being referred to by the context, and this passage is in the context of talking about the hearts of the Jews that the blessed Moses preached to becoming hard, so it is obviously not referring to the Koran. “The Book” mentioned in this passage is and can only be the Bible.

- Question: But doesn’t the Koran say that the Bible is infallible?

- Answer: There is no such passage. The only justification Christians can make for that assertion is to refer to Koranic verses endorsing (not saying they’re infallible, but simply endorsing) “the Law” and “the Gospel”, and they assume without any actual reason that “the Law” means “the Old Testament” and “the Gospel” means “the New Testament”. For proof that this is wrong, see my article “Six Reasons Why ‘The Law’ and ‘the Gospel’ Are Not the Old And New Testaments” on the “Missionary Claims” page of this site. The four scriptures that the Koran says it confirms (and also corrects--see the article about the Bible and the Koran below for the references) are the four previous God-inspired scriptures which became corrupted and/or lost:

1. An unidentified scripture written by the blessed Abraham

2. The Pentateuch of the blessed Moses (called “the Law”, but obviously the whole Pentateuch, since the writings as a whole were revealed to him.

3. The Psalms of the blessed David. (Nobody else’s psalms were inspired.)

4. An unnamed Gospel which was revealed to the blessed Jesus himself and thus from his own point of view, unlike any of the Gospels we have copies of today.

- Question: What do Muslims think about Jesus?

- Answer: We believe that he was one of the most important prophets who ever lived, the Messiah of Israel, but no more than a prophet. In other words, he was neither God Incarnate nor Son of God, nor did he ever claim to be either. We also don’t believe that he “died for our sins” (whatever that means) and “rose to give us new life” (whatever that means). As a matter of fact, we believe he was not crucified at all, but instead God made it appear that he was being crucified when in fact the man on the cross was another man miraculously made to look like him (probably Judas Iscariot--see the “Evidence Against the Crucifixion” article on the “Christian Dogma” page of this site). We don’t believe that anyone has to be crucified in order for God to forgive us our sins. Instead, He simply decides to forgive us and forgives us, no torture or murder necessary. To us, the true Christians, the ones who practice Christianity as it was originally practiced before the innovations of the church fathers, simply follow the blessed Christ’s teachings and try to be like him in everything they do, and leave it at that.

Both Muslims and Christians believe that the blessed Jesus was infallible in his teachings and also sinless (although we Muslims believe the same about all of the prophets). We both believe that he was the Messiah that the Jews were expecting. We both believe in the miracles of the healing of the blind and leprous, the raising of the dead, and the feeding of the five thousand, although the Koran contains a couple of additional miracles which are not found in the Bible but instead an apocryphal Gospel called the Infancy of Thomas. We both believe that Mary was a virgin when she conceived the blessed Jesus, although quite obviously our respective religions have different ideas about the implications involved with this.

Finally, we Muslims also believe in a second coming, although it will not be for the blessed Jesus to judge people at Judgment Day, since he is not God, but instead that he will return just before Judgment Day, slay an international villain known as al-Dajjal, and rule the world for a time before the blessed Muhammad reappears from heaven to take things over from there, and God resurrects the dead and judges the nations. However, this particular doctrine comes from some much contested hadith and as such not all Muslims agree that it is true. The Koran itself says only that the blessed Jesus’s return will be a sign of the coming end of the world.

- Question: What do Muslims believe about Mary?

- Answer: The Koran says that God chose Mary above all women and purified her (Surah 3, Verse 42). It says that she was a just woman (Surah 5, Verse 75). It says that she was a sign (Surah 23, Verse 50), a woman who “confirmed the Words of her Lord and His Books, and became one of the obedient (Surah 66, Verse 12). And as I said above, we also believe that Mary miraculously conceived the blessed Jesus when no man had touched her (Surah 19, Verses 20-22).

- Question: Is Allah the same God as Jehovah?

- Answer: Yes, he is. “Allah” and “God” and “Jehovah” are just the same term in different languages. Proof that the God of the Bible and the God of the Koran are one and the same can be found in this quotation from the Koran: “Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah, He is the Messiah, son of Marium....” (Surah 5, Verse 72, M.H. Shakir’s translation) The only difference with us is that we deny that God is a Trinity. We also mean something entirely different by the phrase “Holy Spirit” from what you mean (see the question on this subject below). So in that case, you could say that “Allah” is a synonym for what you call “God the Father”.

- Question: Why do you call Jesus “Messiah” if you don’t believe in his divinity?

- Answer: The original meaning of the term was something like “chosen one”. The Jews thought (and still think) that the Messiah will be the man to come and lead them. At the time when he came, most Jews were expecting him to be a military leader who would free them from Roman control. As we both know, he was not concerned with this. Over the centuries Christians have changed the meaning of the word “Messiah”, redefining it so that it means “savior”. We use the term properly, in its original sense, the sense in which the Jews use it, and on that level we agree with you that the Messiah (or in Greek, the Christ) has already come and he was the blessed Jesus.

- Question: What all do the Bible and the Koran have in common?

- Answer: Well, to start with, our two books share twenty-two prophets. Here is the list, with the Koran’s Arabic transliterations of the names in parentheses after the biblical versions of the names: Adam (Adam), Enoch (Edhrees), Noah (Nuh), Abraham (Ibrahim), Lot (Lut), Ishmael (Ismail), Isaac (Ishak), Jacob (Yaqoub), Joseph (Yusuf), Moses (Musa), Aaron (Haroun), Job (Ayyub), Samuel (unnamed in the Koran), David (Dawood), Solomon (Sulaiman), Elias a.k.a. Elijah (Ilyas), Elisha (Al-Yasha), Jonah (Yunus), Ezekiel (Zul-Kifl), Zachariah (Zakariya), John the Baptist (Yahya) and Jesus (Eesa), peace be on them all.

Other biblical figures who are spoken of in the Koran include Gabriel (Jibreel), Michael (Mikail), Eve (unnamed in the Koran), Cain and Abel (also unnamed), King Saul (Talut), Goliath (Jalut), Ezra (Uzair), the Queen of Sheba, Gog and Magog, Satan (Shaitan), Pharaoh (Firon), Amran (Imran), Elizabeth (unnamed in the Koran) and Mary (Marium).

- Question: Why do you consider the Trinity doctrine polytheistic? Don’t you understand that we believe in one God in three persons rather than three gods?

- Answer: The Arabic term for polytheism, “shirk”, is a word with many meanings. It can also mean “association of other things with God”, or translated more commonly, “idol worship”, or “paganism”, and probably even more meanings of which I’m not aware. To us the “polytheism” meaning of “shirk” is defined as “denial of God’s absolute and unmitigated oneness.” In other words, to deny that God is one through and through is to commit polytheism according to the Islamic point of view, and if there is any threeness involved, this is exactly what you are doing. If God exists in three persons, He is not one through and through; His oneness is mitigated and not absolute but containing a restriction or limitation. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is actually polytheistic on a number of levels, which I detail on the “Trinity” page of this site. Strange as it may see, you don’t have to be aware that you’re worshiping three beings instead of one to be doing it, as I demonstrate in those articles.

- Question: Why should I take the word of the Muslims about the Trinity when their book doesn’t even understand it? Koran 5:73-75 depicts the Trinity as consisting of God, Jesus and Mary!

- Answer: The passage does not say that the Trinity consists of God, Jesus and Mary. Instead, it declares it blasphemy to say that God is the third of three. A couple of sentences later it proclaims the mortality of the blessed Jesus and his mother. As such, your interpretation is only an inference of the passage, and an irrational one at that. The phrase is “God is the third of three”. Not “God the Father” but “God”, as in all of God. As such, Jesus and Mary are mentioned separately from God, meaning that they are outside of God’s entity, separate beings. The Trinity, on the other hand, speaks of the three alleged parts of God. There are many ways in which something can be third, such as being third in order of importance or third behind two other things. In this case, those other things are Mary and the blessed Jesus. It is Catholicism, not Trinitarianism, that this passage is about. See my refutation of Answering Islam’s article on the Trinity, on this site’s “Trinity” page, for proof that Catholicism, despite the denial of Catholics, idolizes Mary as well as the blessed Jesus.

- Question: If the Koran doesn’t condone the murder of innocents and the oppression of women, why do so many Islamic countries and terrorists do it?

- Answer: I can’t fathom why so many Christians ask me this, since the answer could not possibly be more obvious. Let me ask you: if Christianity doesn’t approve of invasion, enslavement and burning alive people who agree with you, why did so many people do it in the name of Christianity? And if Christianity doesn’t condone terrorism, why do the people in Northern Ireland frequently commit terrorist acts in the name of Catholicism? The answer with either religion is supremely simple: because as long as there is religion, there is going to be people who twist and corrupt it or ignore it altogether. Shorter

- Answer: because these people are ***holes. I have articles proving the real truth about women in Islam and whether Islam is a religion of peace on the “Criticisms on Islam” page of this site.

- Question: Why do you bow down to the Kabah? Doesn’t the Pentateuch which is supposed to have guidance and light say, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. (Exodus 20:4-5)

- Answer: Every man has his direction to which he turns; so be you forward in good works. Wherever you may be, God will bring you all together; surely God is powerful over everything. From whatsoever place thou issuest, turn thy face towards the Holy Mosque; it is the truth from thy Lord. God is not heedless of the things you do. (Koran 2:148-149)

So as you can see, we do not bow down to the Kabah in Mekka, but instead bow down to God while facing the Kabah. It’s there so we all are united in our ritual prayer by facing the same direction. If you think the Kabah is a graven image, then by all means, please tell me what you think it’s a graven image of. It doesn’t look like anything to me--it’s just a big, black cube.

- Question: How can you be saved without the redemptive shed blood of Christ? By empty works?

- Answer: The blessed Muhammad taught exactly the opposite. He said, “None amongst you would attain salvation purely because of his deeds.” When someone asked him if this applied to him too, he said, “Yes. Not even I, but that Allah wraps me in Mercy.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 39, Number 6760) We do not believe that anyone has to be tortured to death for God to forgive us. No, the matter of forgiveness is as simple as, “Please forgive me,” and, “I forgive you.”

- Question: Why do you call Gabriel “the Holy Spirit”? Especially when you think that John 14-17 is about Muhammad when it says it’s about the Holy Spirit?

- Answer: Koran 16:102 says that the Holy Spirit brought the Koran to the blessed Muhammad, and Koran 2:97 says that Gabriel did this. How do we know that they are one and the same? Because the Koran strictly denies that the Trinity exists (4:171), and so the only possible meaning of the phrase left would be “spirit that is holy”, this being a perfect description of an angel. Christians consider the phrase “the Spirit of God” to be a synonym of the phrase “the Holy Spirit”--see, for instance, the “Holy Spirit” supposedly descending in Matthew 3:16, the verse calling it “the Spirit of God”. But this phrase which you consider synonymous with “Holy Spirit” can also mean angel: compare Revelation 5:6 to Revelation 8:2.