Why didn’t Allah send the Qur’aan in a Universal language?

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Muslims are often asked this question. If the Qur’aan is from God, why didn’t He send it in a language we can all understand. My response to that question would be, what language would you have wanted him to send it in? Everyone thinks one language or the other is easier to understand. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a universally spoken language. All language is learned and developed. Languages differ, they have variant language devices (metaphors, similes, rhetoric, emphases, etc ) and semantics (meaning), as well as syntax (sentence structure) constructs. There exists no such universal language, so even if God did send the Qur’aan to us in a universal language – we wouldn’t be able to make sense of it since we don’t know what one would look like and one currently doesn’t exist. What’s worse is that we’d all have to learn this new language. Considering that the point of this question is that you shouldn’t have to learn a new language, a universal language that you still have to learn, defeats its very purpose.

wa Allaahu ‘alam.

The sacrificial son: Isma’il or Isaac?

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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله وحده و الصلاة و السلام على من لا نبي بعده و على آله و أصحابه أجمعين

Allah had ordered Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) –peace be upon him- to sacrifice his son. Here, we will be looking in detail from the Torah, the Qur’an and early Islamic narrations for the identity of the sacrificial son. This piece is entirely based on the work [1] of Hamiduddin Farahi and can be considered as a summarized translation of his work.

Introduction

We know from the Torah itself that it is not in the original form that was revealed by Allah.

Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a strong man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and his holy words.The land is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land lies parched and the pastures in the wilderness are withered. The prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly.“Both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness,” declares the Lord.“Therefore their path will become slippery; they will be banished to darkness and there they will fall. I will bring disaster on them in the year they are punished,” declares the Lord.“Among the prophets of Samaria I saw this repulsive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray.And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that not one of them turns from their wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says concerning the prophets: “I will make them eat bitter food and drink poisoned water, because from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word?See, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked.The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he fully accomplishes the purposes of his heart. In days to come you will understand it clearly.I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.“Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away?Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord.“I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal worship. Let the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the Lord. “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?“Therefore,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me.Yes,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” declares the Lord. “They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least,” declares the Lord. “When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, ‘What is the message from the Lord?’ say to them, ‘What message? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’ If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is a message from the Lord,’ I will punish them and their household. This is what each of you keeps saying to your friends and other Israelites: ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ But you must not mention ‘a message from the Lord’ again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God.[2]

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Christian Commenter Discovers Quotation Marks

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This is no joke, while having a little back and forth on the authorship of Colossians, a zealous Christian commenter accused me of ‘plagiarizing’ the work of James Dunn. Why would he accuse me of such a thing? Well, he may be unfamiliar with what these are:

 

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I put words between quotation marks, you know, to indicate they were, errr – quotes? Sadly, this individual, who ironically calls himself Paul, decided to start 2014 with a bang. Apparently by using quotation marks, I was attributing the words between the quotation marks to myself and not actually quoting someone, which is what the purpose of quotation marks are – to use the words of others. The individual got upset when I chose not to approve his 500 word rant/ comment on his ignorance of what a quotation mark is or what a quote was, so he threatened to use screenshots of what he wrote. By all means, go ahead, let the world know that Paul, does not know what quotation marks are, it’d be splendid.

 

One Christian Scholar’s Dilemma with Christian “Logic”

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The following quote is from Professor Dale C. Allison Jr.’s, “The Theological Christ and the Historical Jesus” (Kindle Version). It pretty much sums up the Islamic problem with the New Testament. His articulation of this Christian scriptural issue is so well put, I just had to share it:

Ephesians and the Pastorials are after all probably pseudepigraphical, and why would anyone refuse to preach on a word dubiously ascribed to Jesus yet preach on a word dubiously ascribed to Paul? What, moreover, should those of us who cannot decide whether Paul wrote Colossians do when a passage from that epistle shows up in the lectionary? Should we expound the text or not? Above all, what happens to the Bible as a whole if history and authorship become a criteria for determining theological authority? What, for instance, should we do with the so-called “historical books” of the Old Testament, which contain so much that is not history? And what should we do with the paragraphs and chapters that come to us under the name of Isaiah or some other prophet but which, according to critical scholarship, were instead produced by persons forever unknown?

What should we do? That’s a question each and every Christian should ask. Professor Dale clearly demonstrates that Christians as a whole, need to reconsider the rationale, the logic, the theological concepts they construct to develop their faith, in light of all the historical evidences which clearly contradict the New and Old Testament’s many scriptural, authorship and historical problems.

Would any Christian like to respond to the Professor? Comments are open for all……

and Allaah knows best.

Samuel Green’s Appeal to Pseudo-Scholarship

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Pastor Samuel Green loves talking and writing about the history of the Qur’aan. He often quotes many persons and deems them to be ‘scholars of the Qur’aan’. In this discussion, I had posted a quote from a book I was reading at the time about the pseudopigraphical texts of the New Testament. The goodly Pastor then sought to question my use of Prof. Dale C. Allison as an authority, in like, I asked him to prove his use of a blind Egyptian secularist as a scholar of the Qur’aan, an authority on the Qur’aan. As the photo demonstrates, it’s been 5 months, we’re into a new year and the Pastor still can’t justify his claims:

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Hey Pastor, when will you remember to reply?

and God knows best.

Abrogation means Allah cannot make up His “mind”!

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Another common, yet silly claim. Before I explain the nature of abrogation in Islam, we can easily demonstrate that God also abrogated laws in the Bible.

  • In Genesis God commanded Adam and Eve’s children to intermarry.
  • Christians today consider a brother and sister’s sexual relations to be the sin of incest.

Did God command Adam and Eve to do a sin? No, according to Christian (and Jewish) beliefs, sexual relations between a brother and sister only became a sin known as incest due to the 7 Noahide Laws. Another easy example is:

Lastly, anyone can read where Christ alters several of God’s laws (God changing God’s laws!?)  in Matthew 5. From this, we ask the Christian, can’t your God make up His mind as well? Surely they are being hypocritical in their speaking. However, from the Islamic perspective, Allah says in the Qur’aan:

We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent? – Qur’an 2:106.

Before the revelation of the Qur’aan, each message sent with a Prophet was specific to each peoples the Prophet was sent to. For example, the Torah was sent to the Children of Israel during Moses’ time, whereas the Injeel was sent to the Children of Israel during Christ’s time. This is simple to understand, each people had different cultures and so God sent commandments to deal with the people of each culture. By this, we can understand that it isn’t that God kept changing His “mind” over the laws, rather He sent different laws to deal with the beliefs, attitudes, actions (habits) and culture (norms and values) of each tribe, nation of peoples. However, with the revelation of the Qur’aan, God has sent a law for all of mankind.

Unlike previous nations were entire groups of peoples existed without communicating with each other or knowing of each other’s existence, today I can call Japan and speak to a Geisha, or go on YouTube and see angry Christian missionaries screaming about Muslims, in this age of globalization, there is no need for a revelation to be sent to each and every nation individually, rather one message can now reach all nations of the earth with the click of a finger – one message for all of mankind.

In conclusion, it is not that God changed His mind about anything, rather it is that God sent a laws to cater to each tribe/ group/ nation of peoples according to the state of belief they were in, so that they may be guided. One common example is the prohibition of alcohol in Islam. Gradually alcohol was prohibited, rather than one command prohibiting it completely – in this way, the people developed the habit of consuming less alcohol and thus stopping consumption of it became drastically easier for them.

and Allaah knows best.

If Allah is so powerful, why can’t He become a man?

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At first glance, this seems like a pretty strong argument. God in both Christianity and Islam is defined to be all powerful. So if God is all powerful, why does Christianity say He can become a man and Islam say He cannot? The Christian’s argument does not include a deep study on the nature of God and due to this, it is very simple to debunk this argument.

Defining God

Both Muslims and Christians believe that God is an all powerful being.

God’s Nature is Absolute

Both Muslims and Christians believe that God’s nature does not change, He was all powerful, is all powerful and will always be all powerful.

Man’s Nature Differs 

Both Muslims and Christians believe that mankind is not all powerful.

Muslim Response

If God is all powerful and man is not all powerful, can God’s nature of being all powerful, change to becoming not all powerful? How can an all powerful God become less powerful?

Conclusion

  • God is all powerful.
  • If God gains power, then by definition He was not all powerful before and thus cannot be considered a God.
  • If God loses power, then by definition He is not all powerful and thus cannot be considered a God.

Since a Christian believes that a God can become a man, and a man is not all powerful, how can God remain all powerful yet be unable to defend himself (Christ was allegedly subject to Roman torture) and unable to eat (so hungry he cursed a fig tree)? If God is all powerful, no being should be able to overcome him, since Christ was overcome, then he clearly was not a God. So the simple answer is: Whereas God is always all powerful, man is not.

A Christian apologist may argue Jesus ‘chose’ to take all of these things unto himself, that would still not change the fact that he chose to take on an attribute of weakness by becoming a man, thus meaning he cannot be God because God is always all powerful, and does not change. So by no longer being all powerful, he is no longer God, and the very fact he changed and took on a new nature, when God does not change and always is, also again means he can’t be God.

and Allaah knows best.

[Updated: More Conversions] 125 Filipino Christians Convert to Islam

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Great news, Br. Ismael Espanol (pictured with the group below) has announced that 125 Christians from the Philippines have converted to Islam and have left Christianity behind:

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God has certainly guided the Filipino people who are accepting Islam in great numbers, freeing them from the Cross, and delivering them with freedom in Monotheism to worship the Creator as He should be worshipped.

Update:

Br. Tariq Aziz has posted photos of another mass conversion of Filipinos:

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wa Allaahu ‘Alam.

Christians Commit Genocide Against Christians in South Sudan

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South Sudan Christians Under Watch of the Army

According to several internationally reputed sources, Christians are massacring each other over power and control of the new country in South Sudan. Pictured above, South Sudan is known to be a majority Christian nation which ceded from the populous north earlier this year.

Several sources have condemned the Christian populous nation for its infighting during the last week, the BBC UK reports:

World Christian leaders have called for a ceasefire in South Sudan, where the population is mainly animist or Christian.

The Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, issued a joint statement calling for the country’s weak and poor to be “spared the trauma of conflict”. “Let us not yield to fratricidal tendencies in the name of our ethnic differences (which is what God created us to be),” they said.

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Rebel Christians Destroy Village in South Sudan

The UN according to another article by the BBC UK, has declared that thousands may already be dead due to the violence:

Thousands of people must have been killed in the past week of violence in South Sudan, the top UN humanitarian co-ordinator there has told the BBC. Toby Lanzer, who is in Bentiu in northern Unity state, said it had been “a devastating week for South Sudan”.

The UN also said on Tuesday that it had reports of at least three mass graves. One was in Bentiu in the north, and two in the capital, Juba. Mr Lanzer told the BBC’s Newshour programme: “I think it’s undeniable at this stage that there must have been thousands of people who have lost their lives.

“When I’ve looked at the hospitals in key towns and I’ve looked at the hospitals in the capital itself, the range of injuries, this is no longer a situation where we can merely say it’s hundreds of people who’ve lost their lives.” Mr Lanzer also said that the number of people seeking shelter from the fighting was “tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands”.

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Armed South Sudan Christians

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