The True History of Islam

Islam, the most modern religious manifestation from Judeo-Christian root, has emerged as an Arabic version of Judaism, retelling the story of the revelation of divine truth to man through Abraham, from the point of view of his Arab descent, i.e. from his bastard son Ishmael. According to the Islamic religion, Muhammad is God’s last messenger and the greatest of the prophets.. In the Koran, the Muslims sacred scriptures, Abraham's spiritual connection to the Jews is denied, and Muhammad asserts that Abraham is the patriarch of Islam, but not of Judaism, because he "surrendered himself to Allah." (1) The Bible however, clearly states the opposite, i.e.; through the genealogy presented by Matthew; Jesus, the Messiah, is presented as a descendant of Isaac, the legitimate son of Abraham.

Although sharing the same basic principles of faith of Judaism, and having as one of its core foundations the claim of being the last revelation from God to man; and despite Muhammad’s claiming to be the "seal of the prophets and his teachings being touted as the only to bear a universal character; the ethos of Islam is not the same as of Judaism. The ultimate end of the Islamic religion is to teach Islam, or the worship and allegiance of man to a single God, in the form of compliance with his statutes, as described in the Qur’an and in the Sunnah, which for Muslims comment and clarify the teachings of the Prophet, in a similar way to the Hebrew Talmud, which is a rabbinic commentary of the Torah . The teachings of Allah (the Arabic word for God) are contained in the Qur'an or Koran (Qur'an means "recitation"). Muslims believe Muhammad received these teachings from Allah through the Angel Gabriel (Jibreel) through revelations that occurred between 610 and 632 CE. The Qur'an is considered to be sacred only in its original version, in Arabic, although it has already been translated into multiple languages.
Islam acknowledges the legitimacy of the Hebrew Torah, although claiming that the loss of its original manuscripts has generated many distortions in the interpretation of its contents. The Christian New Testament, however is not recognized as legitimate spiritual Scriptural source because, according to Islamic scholars, the manuscripts in which their texts were based and the source of its testimonies are not reliable. According to Islam, the Qur'an alone would be the true foundation of the new Covenant between God and man; for having been revealed to a single Prophet, by being based on the original texts and for being written in a living language.

Only a few people however know the real history of Islam. Many few know, for example, that Allah was originally the name for the God of the Moon, one of the several deities worshiped by Arabs before the birth of Muhammad, who later became the generic name of God in the cultures of the Middle East. The symbol of the Crescent Moon found in mosques’ minarets and on the flags of some Arab emirates at the beginning of the 20th century, is a remnant of the polytheistic beliefs that characterized the religious life of these peoples. (2)

When Muhammad was living with his uncle, head of the Hashemite clan, Mecca was a city-State in the desert, a large commercial and religious center. Muhammad was sensitive to the frequent conflicts that occurred between the tribes, an usual aspect of the nomadic culture of his people, and also bemoaned the intense polytheism and animism to which they were spiritually bound.

He also loathed the materialistic culture that dominated the community, and the way the poor, the orphans and the widows were excluded from society. Reputed for his wisdom and for his ability in arbitrating disputes among tribal leaders, he was then called Al-Ameen ("trusted") due to his sense of Justice, often revealed in these disputes.

Muhammad was part of a religious faction existing in Mecca which, inspired by the Judeo-Christian principles, had withdrawn from the pagan cults practiced there, calling themselves hunafa, a term derived from the Syriac hanephe, meaning Gentile or Pagan (3). The hunafa claimed to believe in the one God of Abraham.

Muhammad knew the history of the Jewish people, he also knew the God of Abraham and noticed how the revelation of God to the Jews had brought up a deep cohesion and a sense of ethnic unity among them. As well as among the Jews, religion was the most significant cultural trace of the life of the Arab tribes of that time. Muhammad thus saw that this would be the path to unification and social development of his people. However, he did not devise the possibility of adopting neither Judaism nor Christianity as an Arab nation’s religion, due to disagreements he had with the Jews and also due to doctrinal conflicts existing between these religions.

Muhammad then built, through the Koran, a cultural transposition of Judaism - and, to some extent, of Christianity as well - to his people, having as a primary goal to establish the worship of the one and only God, and to establish the cultural foundations for the emergence of an Arab nation. (3) Muhammad was therefore a great social leader, and although being illiterate, he was also a gifted poet. The Koran is indeed a magnificent religious poetic work of oral tradition, comparable to the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Muhammad certainly was inspired to create this work, but this inspiration could hardly be considered a divine revelation, primarily because the God to whom it refers, is not the same Biblical God.

In the beginning of his ministry, Muhammad himself was not sure about being a true prophet, neither about the source of his revelations. According to Daniel Shayesteh, Arab poets believed that only could be considered authentic poets those who were possessed by a jinn or djnn, a spiritual being, that compelled them to recite the verses they inspired. The moral nature of these spirits was not important, as long as they helped the tribe to grow and prosper. The spiritual inspiration of Muhammad is highly controversial, as testify the so-called "Satanic Verses" (53: 19-20) of the Qur'an, which exalted the pagan gods al-Lott, al-Uzza and Manat. Muhammad told later that these verses had been inspired by Satan, with the permission of Allah, in order to confuse the men of hardened heart. But later on Muhammad himself removed this revelation, according to him, following the command of Allah. (2)

Muhammad was persuaded as to the legitimacy and nobility of his ministry by Khadijah, his first wife, and by her uncle, Nofel. Khadijah, a prosperous merchant and poet, has always been the strongest support of Muhammad in his ministry, and he probably would not have made it without her.

It is impossible to tell however to what extent the Koran was spiritually inspired or a mere fruit of Muhammad’s personal convictions and of his Judeo-Christian influences. Proof of the influence of Judeo-Christian Scriptures in the production of the Koran, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, is the fact that his verses (Ayat), "Unlike the highly refined poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs, presents in its structure rhymes and distinct rhythms, more similar to prophetic statements, marked by inspired discontinuities found typically in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity". (5)

Some Islamic rituals and Koran passages show also a strong influence of Zoroastrianism, a religion that Muhammad learned through a slave scholar called Salman Farsi. Muhammad was certainly inspired by the life of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and in his struggle to eradicate polytheism from the culture of the people of ancient Central Asia. (2)

The religion founded by Muhammad, who preached Islam or humility and submission, was well accepted by much of the population of Mecca. Muhammad's leadership however was rejected by the majority of the Arab tribes and he was forced to leave the city, in 622 C.E. and flee to Yathrib, later called Medina. There he lived among Jews and Christians, which he called “The People of the Book”, a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab or "the Book" and "the Scripture". These adherents mentioned in the Koran are the Jews, Sabians (Arabians) and Christians.

In Medina he amassed a significant number of followers, who fought by his side. Around 627 C.E., Muhammad had united all Medina under Islam, with the defeat of his closer enemies. The Bedouins, after a period of battles and negotiations, became allies of Muhammad and accepted his religion. In 630 C.E., after several battles, Muhammad succeeds, in taking over Mecca and in destroying all the pagan idols still remaining there.

Due to the increasing disagreements with Jews, Muhammad changed the Muslims prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca and legitimized the war against non-Muslims, which led to the expulsion and extermination of all Jews in Medina. Soon after, Muhammad rejected also the Christian principles he had at first accepted. He denied Jesus being the son of God, his divinity and also the Christian concept of the Trinity. (6) Some verses of the Koran, that praised Christians and Jews above all other people (Q.2:62; Q.3:55) were later changed to reflect his new political stand, as in Q.9:5; Q.4:171 and Q.9:31.

By the time of his death in 632 C.E, Muhammad had already become the most powerful political and religious leader of the Arabian Peninsula, having managed to establish, after several battles, alliances with most nomadic tribes there. When converting to his doctrine, the faithful became known as Muslims, i.e. those who submit to God.

Islam has several requirements for salvation, but basically it is accepted that man is saved by his faith in Allah and by abiding to his teachings, as established in the Koran.

Sometimes seen as a separate branch of Islam, Sufism is considered a form of mysticism which seeks to achieve a direct communion with God through a series of practices that generally include outer asceticism, i.e.; the ascetic life in mosques and mystical practices such as meditation and dance. Sufism gained adherents among a number of Muslims as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE).
The God of Islam is a God of justice, but not a God of love. He is, "as close as the jugular" to man (Q.50: 16), but at the same time he is so distant that no man can personally relate to him. It writes down the fate of men and may or may not change their destiny, according to the works of each, so that no Muslim has assured of their salvation, including Muhammad.

When a Muslim meets Christ, however, and Jesus reveals to him the true nature of the Father, then his spiritual eyes and ears open up, because he comes to know the one and true God. The greatest difference between God and Allah is the Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect manifestation of God’s love, justice and grace. The Muslims, like all men, find in Christ their redemption and the certainty of their salvation.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

1. Bard, Mitchell G. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. 3rd Edition. NY: Alpha Books, 2005.

2. Shayesteh, Daniel. The Difference is The Son. Daniel Shayesteh, 2004.

3. Grypeou, Emmanouela. The Encounter of Eastern Christianity With Early Islam. Edited by Mark n. Swanson, David Thomas Emmanouela Grypeou. Brill Academic Publishers, 2006.

4. According to the website Answering Islam: "He [Muhammad] set himself therefore to transplant into their minds some of the "knowledge" of things religious which those who dwelt in more enlightened lands possessed. His own acquaintance with that "knowledge" was limited enough; and the opposition of the Meccans to his fundamental doctrine of Monotheism gave a denunciatory cast to the bulk of his deliverances there. But a certain amount of positive teaching he had acquired and promulgated in the Koran before he migrated to Medina. For this he had looked to those who had been Monotheists before him, i. e., to Jews and Christians. It is almost impossible to decide in particulars whether he drew upon Jewish or Christian sources. Nor does it greatly matter. For he does not in the early stages appear to have distinguished between them. All religion was for him revealed religion, and the content of the revelation given by the one God must be one. In any case, he had been in the habit of looking to previous Monotheists as the source of his knowledge, and he naturally assumed that they would agree with him (Who Were the Hanifs? – http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Bell/hanifs.htm)

5. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. "Qur'an." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. March 15, 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487666/Quran.

6. As Daniel Shayesteh shows in The Difference is the Son (pp. 132-136) the Koran is contradictory concerning the teachings about the divinity of Christ. This is due to the fact that Muhammad initially borrowed from some Christian principles and merged those principles, out of their original context, with other sources, arranging them in the Koran in order to differentiate his message from the traditional biblical text. However, the very logic of the Koran does not deny the divinity of Christ, as evidenced in verses Q.3 :45-47, Q.4: 171b; Q.19: 17, Q.21: 91. Nonetheless, some verses accuse Christians of affirming that God had a carnal relationship with Mary to generate Jesus (Q.4: 171c; Q.6: 101 and Q.112 :1-4), which is a distorted concept of the virginal conception. Muhammad admits the possibility of God having a son in verse Q.39:4 of the Koran, which contradicts his basic teaching that God is unknowable and also contradicts his condemning of this statement by Jews and Christians, in verse Q.9:30.

The Boldness of Christ

"The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ,the Son of God."
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy."

Mathew 26:63-65

When Jesus said He was the "way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6) and that no one comes to God except through him, he was consciously setting off a relentless worldwide battle.

Although Jesus, who was also called the Prince of Peace, said He came to the world so that we might have life, and when leaving this world to meet the Father He has given his followers His peace (John 14:27), He has also made it clear in Matthew 10:35-37 that, in order to actually there be peace and life in the world, it was necessary first that a distinction between the children of God and the children of the world was done:

“For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Obviously Jesus was not here allowing His followers to declare a holy war against the infidels, or to set about any kind of persecution of their opponents. He said only that this distinction would happen naturally, through the freedom of choice of each man, because whoever does not take his cross and follow Him is not worthy of Him. (Matthew 10:38).

How is it possible however, in a world with such a cultural diversity, that one single religion can become so absolutely hegemonic among so many all others? If it is difficult to conceive of this hegemony within a single nation, how to expect that people with histories and cultures as essentially different from the history and culture of the Jewish people would be willing to recognize Christ as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world? How to accept the fact that God has singled a historically insignificant nation, born from long struggles against the enemy nations around her, out of so many greater nations of her time, to be the cradle of the spiritual redemption of the world?

The idea of facing a single valid choice can be daunting and unsettling for most people in our time, raised in a culture which main feature is the multiplicity of choices. However, God revealed himself to mankind only once, through Israel, and that is why Christianity is the only true expression of this revelation. Christianity is the first and only true spiritual teaching, revealed by God to the world. God spoke to the world through men, who wrote down His redemptive message under the inspiration of His Spirit, and not inspired by any philosophical ideas or by any spiritual beings, as happened with the world's religions.

There are two kinds of faith: the unstable, sterile and subjective human faith, and the genuine faith that produces conversion of life and salvation, which is freely given by God to those who sincerely seek Him. This true faith is available to all who humble themselves before God, acknowledging His sovereignty and perfect will, and their total dependence on Him:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)

Christianity has accomplished, over the centuries, the wondrous feat of becoming a universal religion, professed not only in Western countries, but in many countries of the East as well. Many would quickly attribute this hegemony initially to the political imposing of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine and, later, by the Roman Catholic Church, at the height of its power. Although this is partly true, and unarguably many "conversions" to Christianity were due to mere political reasons (as in the case of Constantine himself), or to social motives, as still happens today, it is also undeniable that Jesus’ Gospel has produced, since the dawn of Christianity, many significant conversions, motivated by a genuine expression of faith.

Most people are typically familiar only with the dark ages of the Roman Catholic Church, but not with the benefits bequeathed by Christianity to Western civilization. Thomas E. Woods, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M. Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University, retrieves this memory in his How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery, 2005). Woods reminds us that Christianity was responsible not only for most of the ethical foundations that shaped Western civilization, but also for the first steps of science and of the academic teaching institutions, for the fundamental principles of law and for the first charitable institutions. The merit of the hegemony achieved by Christianity throughout history however, should not be credited to the efforts of the Catholic Church, whose methods were often questionable, but to the power of truth inherent in the Christian doctrine.

Most people discuss religion the same way they talk about philosophy; that is, based only on superficial knowledge. Few people take the time to deepen their knowledge of the many religions of the world and of the history of Christianity. The spiritual ignorance of man leads him to instinctively reject the idea of the Christian hegemony. Regardless of the ideological conflict caused by the Christian Gospel, which points out the natural human tendencies, produced by self-centeredness and hedonism as forces in outright opposition to spiritual salvation, man has always rejected as absurd the notion of the existence of an absolute truth. Thus, the Christian exclusivity, intrinsic to his own doctrine, is always regarded with distaste by the followers of other religions and also by those who claim not to profess any religion.

However, this antipathy is largely misplaced, since at no time a true Christian or Christian church claims to be himself the "bearer of truth", but that the gospel of Christ and all the Scriptures are the expression of the absolute truth concerning the spiritual life, as revealed by God to his prophets. Understanding this truth is an ongoing enlightenment process that every Christian undertakes in their spiritual walk. On announcing the Gospel, the Christian is not being narrow-minded, arrogant, intolerant, he is only accomplishing the so-called "great commission" given by Christ to His disciples, as written in the Gospels of Matthew (28:19), Luke (24:47) and Mark (16:15): "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." What might be questionable, therefore, is the way this evangelistic mission is carried out, but not evangelism itself.

Furthermore, the natural man, still in his spiritual immaturity, is unable to grasp the fullness of the nature of the biblical God, which from a humanistic and materialistic worldview appears to him like an unjust, arrogant, inconsistent, discriminatory and cruel God. Anyway, how could a God who claims to love the world to destroy his own creation, condemning people to eternal suffering and deny salvation to those who have not heard of Christ? Even the mere idea of a personal God sounds narrow-minded for most educated individuals, who prefer the complex notion of God as present in Eastern religions; as an abstract Being, absolutely inaccessible to human reason, a kind of energy that permeates all the creation.

According to those religions, Christ was just one of the many high spiritual masters who came to the world to teach men one single and same path of spiritual fulfillment. Well, this is absolutely not true. The path Jesus pointed out to men is essentially different from all other spiritual paths taught by the spiritual mentors of the religions of the world. Actually, Jesus did not teach a spiritual path, but he said He was himself the path and that no man could reach God unless he was led by Him (John 14:6). This means that even if one of the great spiritual masters had taught exactly the same teachings of Jesus, yet these teachings could not save a single one of his disciples. Only Jesus had the power not only to teach, to heal and to set the people free from the bondage of evil; but above all, the power to forgive sins and to save the broken, because only He is the Savior.
The human-centeredness and pride prevent those who abhor the one true God, revealed to man through Israel, of recognizing that it is because of the hardness of their heart that they have become unable of understand the nature of God and his truth, revealed to man through the Scriptures. The same human pride, which prevented the Jews from recognizing Christ as the so long awaited Messiah, has always been, after sin, the greatest barrier between man and God. As Paul said:

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Most people see Christianity through the facades of their churches, and judge it by what they see behind them. However, the thousands of existing Christian denominations are not the true expression of Christianity. The true Church of Christ on Earth is formed by his approved disciples, which are scattered amid those denominations, in the midst of false Christians. Even if a particular church were composed only of authentic Disciples of Christ, it would not be perfect. It would still have many flaws, for the simple fact that it would still be composed of human beings. The Christian is not sanctified in a single day. Just like the understanding of the message of God in Scripture, which is a continual learning, thus preventing any particular Christian denomination of claiming to have reached the full understanding of Truth; the sanctification of every Christian is also an ongoing process, which will only be completed in the spiritual world, when they can reach the full stature of Christ.

Christianity is an entirely different path in its essence, from the other spiritual paths shown by the religions of the world. There are three basic concepts in Christianity, among others, which make it a doctrine absolutely unique and distinct from all other spiritual doctrines: the principle of the spiritual fall of man, the principle of sin and the principle of one single life for every individual. These principles essentially contradict the teachings of other religions, that mankind is not irreparably doomed to spiritual death because of sin, but only separated from the Unity or from the Dao, to which they must return. Christianity also states, contrarily to the other doctrines, that every man lives a single life, after which comes the judgment of his works and his resurrection, and not an indeterminate cycle of existences, along which he would eventually evolve to perfection.

Christ says that only who believes in Him can be saved. This means that we can not, by our own means, to achieve our spiritual fulfillment, but only by God's grace through the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus, we receive salvation and take hold of the eternal life that only Him can give. This is a completely strange concept to all other religions, who claim that the individual must build, through his works and the devotion to their gods, the path of his own spiritual freedom. It is clear therefore that the common idea that all paths lead to God is absurd. Either is Christ who reconciles man with the Creator or are the world's religions that lead man to God. This is a realization that brings in a high existential, cultural and even political stress, and therefore the human ideology that rules the world prefers to ignore it, insisting on the isonomy of all religious creeds.

This ecumenical, universalistic and conciliatory attitude however, will not stand for long. Christ demands of every man to decide on a position with respect to their spiritual life. There are no uncompromising positions, the choice is clear: with or against Christ, as He said: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." (Matthew 12:30). To believe that Jesus is the only way to God means believing in the whole Bible. One cannot believe some things in it that we like but not in others, which we dislike. One cannot mutilate the Gospel as do many spiritual and ecumenical doctrines. Either we believe God is powerful enough to preserve the integrity of his message throughout the centuries, in spite of human interference, or we become atheists, agnostics or even worse, take false spiritual paths or still, as many do, make up our own God and our own customized religion.

The Kingdom of God has already come to the world and in the end times the angel of the Lord will harvest the fields and set apart the weeds and the wheat. The citizens of the Kingdom of God will reign with Christ, but the citizens of the world will perish by their own choice, with the Prince of this world.