Seeking the Straight Path: Reflections of a New Muslim
How Could Everyone I Have Ever Known Be Wrong?
As a child growing up in America, my education about Islam was very
poor. There were one or two times when Islam was presented briefly in a
history book at school. What I remember from those readings is that
Muslims had a god called Allah and a warlike prophet named Muhammad and
that they prayed and dressed strangely and, finally, that Islam was an
Arab religion.
I guess that the rest of my education about Islam came from the media.
Islam was exotic, backward and evil. Muslims were uneducated, led by
tyrant rulers, and were cruel. Some of them thought it were good to blow
up babies on airplanes and to beat women and treat them like property.
I did not understand that there was any relationship between Islam and
Christianity or Judaism. As far as I knew, Christianity and Judaism were
the only two religions that dealt with the One God, the God of Moses and
Abraham (as). Islam was bunched with all the other religions like
Buddhism and Hinduism.
There was not much out there to make me want to learn about Islam. I
was sure that Christianity held the Truth, and had no inclination to
look at other religions, especially not one that was so obviously evil.
In those days, I could actually believe that an entire nation of people
was evil at heart, and that we (meaning the West, or America) were
surely the good guys. After all, how could everyone I had ever known be
wrong?
An obvious question, then, is what made me finally look at Islam. In
order to answer that fairly, it is necessary to first briefly explain my
religious life prior to that point. Mostly everyone I knew believed in
God and that Jesus (as) had died for our sins. Often, it didn’t go much
beyond that. People I knew had religious belief and tried to be moral
people, but they did not associate with a particular church or do
anything outlandishly different in their lives that marked them as
religious. Spirituality and religion were not the stuff of
conversations. God was not talked about at home or at school. Religion
was a private thing between the individual and God.
When I was little I was sent to a few Sunday Schools to gain a basic
acquaintance with religion. My parents very rarely went to church but
rather dropped my brother and I off at the Sunday School and then picked
us up when it was over. By the time I was in second or third grade our
religious training was over.
That was enough for me until I got to junior high school. Perhaps it
was then that I began to realize that the world was not a fair place and
question what was going on around me. I went through periods of
depression and low self-esteem. During this time, I began to question
religion. Where was the scientific proof of God? If He existed, why was
He hidden from us? Why did He allow bad things to happen? What made
something right, and another thing wrong? Did the universe and life on
Earth come about as a course of purely random events without a Creator?
Why did I exist?
For awhile I nearly convinced myself that God did not exist, but rather
that He was a fantasy created by humans. However, when I got into high
school I was searching for God again. I became very serious about
Christianity. I joined the Fellowship for Christian Athletes and I read
the Bible regularly. I found a magazine called The Plain Truth
advertised on a religious TV show and published by the Worldwide Church
of God, and I became interested in that particular church.
This group took the Bible literally. They did not celebrate Christmas
because it was not in the Bible. They did not celebrate birthdays, they
did not eat pork, and they observed the same holidays that Jesus (as)
was recorded as observing in the Bible. They kept the Sabbath on
Saturday based on what was written in the Bible. I was strongly
attracted to this group because it took God seriously, and it took the
Bible seriously. It did not regard religion as just a feel-good thing
like so many groups seemed to be doing. They seemed more logical than
other groups, and they were making religion a daily part of life instead
of an occasional one. The idea of religion as a way of life appealed to
me. I knew that God had something in mind when He made us, and I
believed that there ought to be a best way, or a most-correct way of
doing everything. So when I found this church, I was attracted. Yet, I
never went to their meetings because I thought my family would not
approve of me getting involved with such a radical group (one that I
later learned is often considered a cult) especially while I was in high
school. I put it in my mind that when I got older I would investigate
the group more closely.
In my freshman year of college I joined a Bible study group sponsored
by Campus Crusade for Christ. And, I finally went to the Church of God
after meeting someone at school who belonged to the church. They were
very nice people and very welcoming. However, after one visit I knew
that church was not what I was looking for. My host was telling me how
the church was in a state of chaos because of a major division among the
national leaders. It was splitting into two churches; one group cleaving
off because they felt the original church had become corrupted. This man
and his family were at odds to decide which side of the fence they were
on. Which of the two factions held the Truth?
After hearing him speak, I was disappointed. I felt this group was
closer to the Truth that I was looking for, but probably neither of the
two factions had it right. After all, they all were just humans and were
not gifted with perfect judgment. I wanted whatever it was that God had
originally sent and that was truly intended for us; not something
concocted by men. Not even by men with good intentions. So, I never went
back.
I had resigned myself to being one of those many religious people
without a church because I was convinced that all churches were flawed.
After all, they were all man-made. In my Bible study group, I often felt
uncomfortable. The other members seemed to have much greater joy in
their faith. When we would study a Bible verse, they had so many
different interpretations and they always seemed to see the verses
differently than me. I wondered what I was doing wrong and why things
did not make sense to me like it did to everyone else, but I was still
very devout. My friends talked about inviting Jesus (as) to live in
their hearts, and that when they did, he came in and their lives were
changed forever. I had made that invitation many times, but my life
never changed forever. I had done it when I had gone to church with
friends, I had done it when I watched the preachers on TV, and I had
done it on my own time. What did they mean by saying that he lived in
their hearts? Were they really changed so much by the experience, and if
so, why hadn’t I been? It wasn’t due to lack of sincerity, at least.
As I pondered these questions, my life began to change around me. That
year, I met a Muslim. When I met him, I didn’t know he was Muslim or
even that he was an Arab. In time, we became acquainted, and I learned
that he was a Muslim; I didn’t really know what that meant but it made
me worried about him because I had been taught that unless he believed
Jesus (as) died for his sins, he would go to hell. At least that is what
everyone in my Bible study said.
Could it be true that this guy would go to hell simply for not
believing Jesus (as) died for his sins, when in every other way he was
more pious and more humble before God than anyone I’d ever met? It did
not seem right. I told him about my fears and he was very concerned for
me instead of for himself. I even talked him into going to one of the
Campus Crusade meetings with me. That amazes me more today than it did
then because now I think of the name of the group – Campus Crusade – and
realize how offensive it really is. However, the meetings were not so
bad; we sang or listened to religious songs, had a guest speaker and met
with my Bible study leader.
I was hoping to save my friend, and at the same time I wanted the Bible
study leader to meet him because I really needed help to clear my
confusion. I had questions after I’d picked up a translation of the
Qur’an and was surprised by what I read. It talked about the very same
God of the Bible, the One whose Truth I was seeking. It talked about the
prophets (sa) I already knew, but it did not describe them as adulterers
and those who commit incest and other lewdness like the Bible did.
“We believe in Allah (the One True God) and that which is revealed unto
us, and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac,
and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and
that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction
between any of them.” (Qur’an, 2:136)
The only major thing that really bothered me about the Qur’an was what
it said about Jesus (as). But why? How did I know what I knew about
him -- that Jesus was in a three-part God and that he died for our sins?
I went back to the Bible and looked for those beliefs that were so
important to Christianity. I knew I had read them a hundred times so
they ought to have been easy to find, but they weren’t! I could find
verses that seemed to say those things, but they weren’t very clear. And
other verses seemed to say the opposite. Why, I pondered, if this belief
that Jesus is God and that he died for our sins -- why if it is the most
essential thing to believe, is it not absolutely clear?
I asked my Bible study friends, “Where does it say this?” They would
direct me to a verse and I would read it and I found that most of the
time it did not clearly say what I had asked for, but was open to
interpretation. Mark 10:18 reads, “ Why do you call me good?” Jesus
answered, “No one is good – except God alone.” That verse clearly seemed
to indicate that Jesus was not God. Other verses were interpreted by my
friends to indicate that he was God, although he never came right out
and said, “I am God.”
Some Christians would say that while Jesus was on Earth, he lived as a
man but was still God or a part or form thereof, yet being in the flesh
made him fully human, facing all the trials and temptations of human
life. I didn’t get it. I’d never really gotten it before, either, but I
had taken for granted that it was true anyway. I could not explain to
myself, nor could anyone else explain to me, how God could be a single
God and yet have three independent parts or forms. I could not
understand why the death of a sinless individual was necessary for
forgiveness of sins. Is not God all-powerful?
Many Christians say that God is beyond our comprehension. He does not
have to make sense. I ultimately decided that I couldn’t accept that,
because then religion becomes purely a matter of faith without any room
for reason. A book claiming to be the Word of God could say absolutely
anything about Him, and no matter how ludicrous it was we could not
reject it if God doesn’t have to make sense. No, I realized, in order
for us to be able to tell right guidance from falsehood, God must make
sense in terms of human reason.
I approached my Bible study leader to talk about my questions. I had
learned that he had worked as a missionary to Muslims in Algeria. So, I
figured he would be able to help me understand the Qur’an, the Bible and
the fate of my Muslim friend. When I questioned him, he told me straight
away that my friend would go to hell. He told me that the Qur’an was
similar to the Bible because it was Satan’s trickery, and something
which appears close to the Bible is a better trick! Then, when I tried
to ask him a specific question about what the Qur’an said about Jesus
(as), he told me he had never read the Qur’an because when he tried it
made him ill. When he said that last thing, I was astounded, in tears,
and got out of that room as fast as I could.
How could he sit there and tell me the Qur’an was Satan’s trickery when
he himself had not read it? What kind of person does missionary work to
Muslims and does not bother to read the book of the Muslims? A voice in
my head screamed “He could not know! He cannot be trusted!” I believed
that God would not deceive those who read the book of another religion,
as long as they were seeking Truth. But he apparently believed
differently than me. My Bible study leader was only repeating what he
had been told, or else he was making it up as he went along. I was so
angry then, at him, and at all the church leaders who had treated Islam
as an absolute evil and yet they were more ignorant of Islam than a
college girl who’d picked up a Qur’an translation at the corner
bookstore.
And now I was deathly afraid. I was afraid because I could not trust
those people anymore. It was up to me, and only me, to decide what I
found to be true and what I found to be falsehood. No one could help me.
I felt a tremendous burden on my shoulders. And I was terrified of
making the wrong choice and spending eternity in hell because of it. I
pleaded with God to be a God who does not misguide one who seeks the
Truth, to be a God who could forgive one who has doubts and looks around
for the answers, and to be a God who would protect me from making the
wrong choice.
I didn’t know where to begin, so I began with the Bible and Qur’an, and
a few books of early Christian history. I learned much in reading the
early Christian history books and wondered why I’d never heard any of it
before. The beginnings of the religion were anything but unified and
clear. Some early Christians believed Jesus (as) was God, others did
not. Their practices and beliefs varied much more greatly than those of
Christians today.
The New Testament was not written until at least a generation after
Jesus’ (as) apparent death, and was written by many people. Their
stories often conflicted with each other, and there were hundreds of
gospels out there. It was only at the Council of Nicaea, more than three
centuries after the time of Christ that the New Testament as we know it
today began to take shape. The Council picked four out of the hundreds
of gospels that coincided with the Roman Emperor’s belief and made them
the official belief. The others were burned and destroyed, and those who
were found in possession of them were killed. Since then, most of the
other gospels have disappeared and the four official gospels have
modestly changed from time to time. Some versions of the gospels contain
verses that others do not, and of course some Bibles have entire books
that others do not. There is no “original” Bible in order to verify
there have not been changes. There are old manuscripts, but no
definitive “real” Bible.
To some people that is not a problem, but for me it was fast becoming a
problem. The modern Christian belief seemed to me to be comprised of
something of God’s message but also a lot of conjecture or
interpretation of phrases that are not totally clear. And it seemed to
be the conjecture parts that determined whether or not one went to hell!
Where does clearly Jesus (as) say that he will die for our sins and that
belief in that is compulsory? It is mere conjecture that the phrase “Son
of God” that is used so often in the Bible attests to Jesus’ (as)
divinity. In fact, the people who lived at the time of Jesus (as) did
not take it to mean that at all. According to leading Biblical
historians, the phrase “Son of God” did not mean something divine to the
writers of the Bible or those who witnessed Jesus (as). It indicated a
fully human being and was regularly used as a title for Jewish holy
men.
King David is referred to as a son of God in 2 Samuel 7:14:
“I [God] will be his father and he [David] will be my son.”
Job 1:6 and 2:7 in the NIV version of the Bible mention angels, with a
footnote that the Hebrew word translated as angels actually means “sons
of God”.
“One day the angels [sons of God in footnote] came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satan [accuser in footnote] also came
with them.”
“On another day the angels [sons of God] came to present themselves
before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before
him.”
In Hosea 11:1, God calls all of Israel His son
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my
son.”
The use of capitals when calling Jesus (as) by that title is a choice
of the translators and is not indicated in the original Greek or
Hebrew.
It is also conjecture that Jesus (as) was the only Messiah, or that the
title “Messiah” has something to do with a return at the end time or
status as a savior. Messiah and Christ both mean, “anointed one”.
Anointed ones were the leaders of Israel, anointed in an ancient version
of an inauguration ceremony. In 1 Samuel 10:1 it says,
“Then Samuel took a flask of oil and kissed him, saying, “Has not the
Lord anointed your leader over his inheritance?”
The Hebrew root for anointed here is the very same that is translated
as Christ and Messiah in the New Testament.
In truth, Jesus (as) never asked or commanded people to pray to him or
to worship him. He told people to pray to God and to worship God. Yet,
how many Christians today pray to and worship God by name? It is far
more common that their prayer begins, “Dear Jesus” than “Dear God”. A
sincere Christian would do well to obey Jesus (as) and change his/her
prayers to be directed at “God” rather than “Jesus”.
Some things that are commonplace in Christian belief and practice today
do not have their origins in Jesus’ (as) teachings, but rather in a vote
by church authorities or papal decree. This of course includes the
celebrations of Christmas and Easter, as well as definition of the
Trinity, and permission to pray to the Mother of Jesus, Mary. The word
“trinity” does not exist in the Bible and yet it is an essential belief
of Christians. The trinity concept was invented by church leaders to
explain their beliefs; and even today the church leaders have votes and
decrees over the natures and functions of the different parts of their
Godhead. The faithful Christians trust that their leaders are
God-inspired and that the authors of the Bible were as well.
Most of the faithful believe that if they find the Bible unclear it is
because they, being human, possess limited understanding. God, they say
again, does not need to make sense. Or, if they find an apparent
contradiction in the Bible, it is because it is not the details that
matter, but the overall message of what is written. There are thousands
of examples of apparent contradiction within the Bible. Many of those
involve records of how many people were at a place or who exactly was
there. If one account of an event says that there were 100 men there,
and another says that there was 1000, the faithful Christians say that
this does not change the overall meaning of the passage. That may be
true, but why do the passages not agree? God surely knows what happened,
so why couldn’t the Bible get it right if it is indeed His book? Maybe a
monk or priest when transcribing the Bible made a mistake that stuck. Or
maybe he thought he was correcting a mistake that a previous transcriber
had made. Or maybe he thought a larger number made a better story.
In my experience, many Christians believe that either these errors are
not errors but only seem to be to our limited faculties, or else they
are errors but are very minor and that God has protected the “important”
part of His message in the Bible. However, I contend that any
contradiction or error is important because it indicates the work of men
rather than the work of God. When one mistake is found, how can we be
confident that another mistake that does indeed change the meaning of
the text has not occurred? For Christians, that is simply a matter of
faith. But should it be?
As an example of what I’ve been talking about, I provide the NIV
translation of the story of Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus (as), as
it is recorded in three of the gospels:
Matthew 28:1-7
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent
earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to
the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like
lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid
of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the
women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who
was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and
see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He
has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There
you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
Mark 16:1-8
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James,
and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.
Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were
on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the
stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they
saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they
entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting
on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said.
“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has
risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell
his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There
you will see him, just as I told you.’”
Luke 24:1-12
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took
the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone
rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the
body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly
two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In
their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but
the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was
still with you in Galilee. ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the
hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised
again.’” Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the
tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It
was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others
with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the
women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however,
got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw strips of linen lying
by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had
happened.
These are three accounts of the same event, obviously. This event is
very important to the belief that Jesus (as) was crucified and raised to
life after having died for the sins of all mankind. It establishes
witnesses to the absence of Jesus’ (as) body after an appointed time,
and holds testimony that he had come back to life as promised. But these
accounts differ considerably in the details as to what actually
happened. Take a minute to examine the three passages and try to answer
the following questions: Who went to the tomb with Mary Magdalene? How
many went altogether? Were the guards there or not? How many beings did
the women encounter at the tomb, and were they men or angels? Did Peter
go to the tomb or not? What did the being(s) say to the women? Did the
women prostrate themselves before the being(s) or not? Where were the
being(s), and did they come as the women watched or were they already
there? Was the stone rolled away as they watched, or was it already
rolled away when they arrived?
If these were from the unaltered Word of God, there should be no
contradictions between these three accounts. One might leave out a
detail that another has included, but there should be no disagreement as
to who was there, what they saw, or what they heard. Eyewitness accounts
can have conflicting results, as can stories told over and over and not
written down until a generation or two later -- but not the Word of God.
If we cannot accurately establish what happened, then what must one
believe? It is not unlikely that something did happen that led to the
existence of this story, but we simply do not have the means to
determine what really happened. One of these accounts may be true while
the others are false, or all may be false, and that is the full extent
of what we can say about it.
I have given but one example of the difficulties in the Bible, but
there are many, many more. The Bible is simply unclear and
self-contradictory, and further it is in contradiction with established
science. I do not wish to spend too much time on the Bible’s problems
with science because they are rather commonly known and readily apparent
even to a casual reader. For example it is well known that using
evidence in the Bible, the Earth is less than 6000 years old. Staunch
believers of the Bible hold this to be true even today and claim that
scientific evidence dating human remains back at least ten thousand
years and dating rock back at least 4.5 billion years is a deception of
Satan.
For years, I had believed I could not understand the Bible because
something was wrong with me or because it had just not been made
understandable by God’s will. But after comparing it to the Qur’an, I
understood that it is okay to expect logic and clarity in the Word of
God. I realized that the Bible itself is flawed.
I could not satisfy myself with believing in something that relied on a
flawed book. If I wanted to find God’s Truth from the Bible, how could I
do it? How could I know which, if any, of the three accounts I related
earlier are factual? If I could not determine which of those to trust,
how could I decide about the rest of what those three authors wrote? How
could I trust anything in the Bible at all when I could not determine
what was man-made and what was God-made? And, now the big question,
without the Bible to rely on, where does Christianity find itself?
But that is only half the story. I had concluded that Christianity was
flawed, but I had not determined that Islam was not flawed also. I had
to examine the Qur’an with the same scrutiny that I had applied to the
Bible.
So, I asked, “Where does the Qur’an contradict itself? Where does it
contradict known science?” After months of searching, I realized the
answer to both questions is that it simply does not. It is superior to
the Bible in this regard and thus presents itself as more trustworthy.
Further, it contains scientific data that were completely unknown to man
when it was revealed. The fact that bees’ honey comes from their
stomachs is a modern scientific discovery, yet it is in the Qur’an
(16:49) that was revealed in the 7th century CE. The manner in which a
baby forms in the womb is a discovery of this century, and yet it is
explained accurately in the Qur’an in several places (22:05, 23:14,
40:67, 75:38, and 96:02). I found in Qur’an the original, true religion
that God sent to mankind and am to this day still wonderstruck at the
Mercy and guidance of Allah (swt).
“Abraham was not a Jew nor yet a Christian; but he was true in faith,
and bowed his will to God’s (which is Islam), and he joined not gods
with God.” Qur’an 3:67
*** ***
What objection could I have to following the religion of Abraham, the
religion of submitting to the will of the One God - the God of the Jews,
Christians, Muslims and Creator of the universe? I am certainly not the
only Christian to have reached this conclusion. The Qur’an itself talks
about Christians converting Islam with tears in their eyes upon
recognizing its truth:
“And nearest among them in love to the Believers wilt thou find those
who say, ‘We are Christians’ because amongst these are men devoted to
learning and priests and monks, and they are not arrogant. And when they
listen to the revelation received by the Apostle [Muhammad], thou wilt
see their eyes overflowing with tears, for they recognize the truth.
They pray, ‘Our Lord! We believe; write us down among the witnesses.’”
(Qur’an, 5:82-83)
There are many verses in Qur’an about Jesus (as):
Birth of Mary – (3:34-40, 19:2-15)
Status of Mary in Islam – (3:41-46)
Who Was Jesus – (2:87, 6:85-87, 3:83, 33:7-8, 42:13, 5:46)
Birth of Jesus – (19:16-36)
Miracles of Jesus – (5:110-115)
Teachings of Jesus – (3:49-52, 43:57-59, 57:27, 42:63-64, 5:111)
Jesus sent for children of Israel – (3:48, 5:72, 61:6)
Is Jesus Son of God? – (3:58, 2:116-117, 21:26-29)
Is Jesus God? – (5:117, 5:72-75)
Was Jesus Crucified? – (4:157-158, 3:54-56)
Dialogue between God and Jesus – (5:116-118)
His Last Message – (61:6)
Message to Believers – (61:14)
This is what the Qur’an has to say on the matter of Jesus’ (as)
crucifixion (4:157-158):
And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah Jesus son of Mary,
Allah’s messenger – They slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so
unto them; and lo! Those who disagree concerning it are in doubt
thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture;
they slew him not for certain: But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah
is ever Mighty, Wise.”
This saying does not deny that something happened that led to those
stories we find in the Bible. It claims, however, that Christians were
not given any proof that Jesus (as) was crucified, but rather made the
conjecture that it had happened. In other words, Christians have based
their religion upon something that is not fact, but is merely supposed.
The people who supposed it might have been well-intentioned individuals,
but that is beside the point. Obviously, a Christian will be irked on
reading that verse of Qur’an. My reaction on reading it the first time
was to want to throw the book down. It did not agree with what I had
been taught. If I believed what the Qur’an was saying, I would have to
believe that my mother, my father, my teachers, my preachers, my
neighbors, my political leaders, my friends, indeed, everyone I had ever
known, had gotten it wrong. How could it be possible that so many people
who were so sure in their belief and who seemed so favored by God living
in the world’s most prosperous country, were wrong?
But then I had to ask myself, would not a girl living on the other side
of the world immersed in another religion have a similar question? For
one of us, at least, the answer indeed had to be that all that we had
known was wrong. Truly, this was a terrifying concept. My whole world
was crashing down around me and I was left with nothing that I could
trust. I had no choice but to build my world up again, to examine
everything I had ever believed all over again and create a new framework
from which to view the world. In the end, the Qur’an convinced me. And
the Bible convinced me, too, because I did not find in it the perfection
I demanded from the Word of God. Although it is flawed, some truth
remains in it and some good can be gained from reading the Bible if it
is read with a critical eye. In fact, I benefited from discovering that
the Bible contains likely prophecies of Muhammad’s (saw) prophethood,
Deuteronomy 18:18 being among the more noted possibilities:
“I will raise up for them a prophet like you [Moses] from among their
brothers; I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them
everything I command him.”
Christians generally presume this verse refers to Jesus (as), but
Muslims find it more likely that it refers to the Prophet Muhammad
(saw). First, Muhammad (saw) is more like Moses (as) than Jesus (as).
Like Moses, Muhammad (saw) married and had a divinely appointed
successor in terms of leadership of the people (Aaron for Moses and ‘Ali
for Muhammad (sa)). Moses and Muhammad (saw) were both born of both
mother and father and came with new religious law. On the other hand,
Jesus (sa) was apparently unmarried, was born of mother only and did not
bring new law. Secondly, the verse says that the prophet will come from
“their brothers”, which in context refers to the brothers of the
Israelites. Jesus (as) is directly descended from Abraham’s second-born
son, Isaac (sa), just like the Israelites, and thus is an Israelite
himself and not the brother of the Israelites. Muhammad (saw) is the
only one with a valid claim to prophethood who is descended from
Abraham’s first-born son, Ishmael (sa), making him a brother of the
Israelites and not an Israelite himself. Finally, Muhammad (saw) fits
the final portion of this verse exactly, and certainly better than Jesus
(sa), as testified to in the Qur’an:
“Nor doth he speak of (his own) desire. It is naught save an
inspiration that is inspired….” (53:3-4)
Muhammad (saw) is the only prophet with a scriptural record that he
speaks only that which Allah (swt) has commanded or inspired, matching
the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:18.
So, that is a small sample of my study before I converted to Islam. The
Qur’an stands as a true testament to what it is and what it contains.
All evidence indicated that it is what it claims to be:
“This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto
those who ward off (evil)….” (2:1)
“And this Qur’an is not such as could ever be invented despite of Allah
[swt]; but it is a confirmation of that which was before it and an
exposition of that which is decreed for mankind – Therein is no doubt –
from the Lord of the Worlds.” (10:37)