The
Changes in Muhammad’s Life
Do Jews,
Christians and Muslims believe in the same God?
by Abd al-Masih
Within the
churches of Europe, the USA and Korea more and more questions arise concerning
the so-called one common God in the three monotheistic religions,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Even missionaries and churches in Islamic
countries increasingly ask these questions.
Those who
watch a Muslim pray can be impressed by his respectful devotion to Allah.
During his 5 daily times of prayer he throws himself to the ground up to 34
times as worship to Allah. He adores the Almighty Creator, the Sovereign Ruler
and the Righteous Judge (Sura 1:1-4).
He is
convinced he is delivering himself to the true God.
The Bible
reports that Ishmael, as a little boy about to die of thirst, cried to the God
of his father Abraham, and God granted his cry for mercy (Genesis 21:15-21).
The name Ishmael means, “God hears” (Genesis 16:11).
Cornelius,
the Roman centurion in Caesarea, sincerely prayed to God continually and gave
great generous gifts of charity. The Lord answered his prayers and sent Peter
to him. Peter had received a vision from the Holy Spirit showing him that
"God is not one to show partiality but in every nation the man who
fears Him and does what is right, is welcome to him.” (Acts
10:34-35) Italics added. God had
answered the sincere prayers of this impure gentile, Cornelius.
The Qur’an
goes a step further and claims:
Our God and your God is the same (Sura 29:46)
You have your religion, I have my
religion (Sura 109:6)
There is no restraint in questions
of religion (Sura 2:256)
Each of you has his law and his order…therefore compete (with each
other) in good deeds (Sura 5:48).
Why did Muhammad at first Tolerate and Idealize Jews
and Christians?
During the days of Muhammad (575-632 AD) searching for truth began among
the religious people in Mecca. The influence of the Jews and Christians was
beginning to impact the Animists of the Arabian Peninsula. Five men from Mecca
began the search for the truth: Waraqa b. Naufal, Ubaid Allah b. Jahsch, Usman
al-Huwairith and Zaid b. Amr.
Three of
them became Christians, one followed the religion of Abraham and Muhammad
created his own Islam. At first Jews and Christians were idealized by these men
because they had a Book that enumerated for them the secrets of the
past, the law for the present, and their hope for the future. Muhammad wanted
to possess such a book in the Arabian language.
Muhammad
asked Christian slaves from Syria and passing Jews and Copts from Ethiopia for their religious
beliefs and collected as many stories and religious laws as he could. The slave
Jabr in Mecca was one of his sources of information. The antagonists of
Muhammad among the merchants of his town mocked these two men and called Jabr
the holy spirit of Muhammad who inspired him. But Muhammad strictly denied that
(Sura 16:103).
It is most
probable that a Jewish-Christian version of the virgin birth story is what has
been included into the Qur’an (Sura Mariam 19:16-33). Muhammad declared the
birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary and repeated apocryphal stories of Jesus'
childhood. Two such stories include His ability to speak immediately after he
was born, and His forming a bird out of loam as a boy, then blowing into it,
the bird flew off! Muhammad believed more stories than many Christians
believed. He even accepted tales as reality. He was not a prophet who was able
to differentiate the truth from dreams. He was a seeker of the truth with a
great yearning for religious information. He accepted from the northern Yemen
the most important name of Allah in the Qur’an, al-Rahman, which was used by
the Christians there as the expression for the Father of Jesus Christ.
Likewise
Muhammad questioned the Jews as much as he could. Moses is mentioned 136 times
in the Qur’an; the name of Abraham (Ibrahim) appears 69 times. Also Aaron,
David, Solomon and other prophets belong to the firm components of the Qur’an.
The law of Moses at first stood as a guide to the regulations of Muhammad. Some
scientists of Islam point out that 60 percent of the Qur’an is derived from the
Old Testament and 5 to 8 percent from the background of the Gospels. In Medina
Muhammad even conceded to allow Jews to exercise their own judgements because
he believed the Torah contained the power of Allah (his law) and that guidance
and light was offered to the people of the covenant (Sura 5:43-45).
Muhammad
also granted the Christians to exercise their own judgements because he
believed the Son of Mary was sent by Allah to confirm the Torah and because He
had received the Gospel as a direct revelation from Allah (Sura 5:46-47).
For these
reasons Jews and Christians who live in an Islamic state do not have to convert
to become Muslims because Allah had entrusted to them parts of the book of
Heaven.
Above all
the Christians impressed Muhammad and earned a place in the Qur'an because
during the increasing persecution of the Muslims in Mecca by the animistic
merchants, it was the Christians in Ethiopia who were ready to grant asylum to
83 Muslims. Since then Muhammad witnessed that the Christians had pity and mercy
on their enemies (Sura 57:27) and had sympathy for the Muslims (Sura 5:82).
Furthermore, they were not arrogant (Sura 5:82) and stood a class above all
unbelievers (Sura 3:55).
The Disappointment of Muhammad at the Attitude of the
Jews in Medina.
Muhammad's generous tolerance of the Jews and Christians in Mecca only
lasted as long as the Muslims were the minority within the population group and
were dependent on the sympathy and cooperation of other minorities. When
Muhammad emigrated to Medina in 622 AD, his attitude towards the Jews and
Christians increasingly changed.
At first
Muhammad set up a multicultural municipality, in which Muslims, Animists and
Christians worked together. There is an indication he intended to marry the
daughter of a Jewish chieftain in order to obtain recognition by the Jews.
He tried to
gain the Jews acceptance of his religion, describing Islam as a religion
similar to Judaism and a continuation of the faith of the Old Testament. At
first all Muslims had to pray in the direction of Jerusalem. On the Day of
Ashura (Yom Kippur) they fasted together with the Jews. Allah was named as the
God of Abraham (Sura 4:125). Muhammad adopted several orally transmitted
reports and laws from the Mishna and Talmud because he wanted to make his Islam
appealing to the sons of Jacob as a religion inspired by their God of the
Covenant. He allowed the Muslims to eat all the meals of the Jews because the
laws of food corresponded with each other. Furthermore they had the right to
marry Jewish women (Sura 5:5). The Jews, as the leading upper class in Medina,
were not called unclean as were the other people (Sura 9:28).
The Non-Acknowledgement of Muhammad as Prophet by the
Jews
The sons of Jacob recognized that their oral transmissions from the
Talmud and Mishna that they had passed on to Muhammad were not recited by him
and translated into the Arabic language without mistakes. Surely some Jews drew
Muhammad's attention to these discrepancies and hit his sensitive nerves.
Conceding that he had made mistakes would confirm that he was not a prophet.
Therefore he attacked the Jews head-on and accused them of forging the Torah
and the laws. He made his revelations the standard of truth. He could not and
would not allow his revelations to be corrected.
The Jews began to laugh and mock Muhammad. He had the
strongest critics killed.
Above all
Muhammad began to change Islamic public worship. From that time on the Muslims
were instructed to turn away from Jerusalem during their prayers and instead
pray in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. Fasting during the month of
Ramadan replaced the Jewish fasting of Yom Kippur. Abraham was called the first
Muslim, stating he was neither Jew nor Christian (Sura 3:67). His son Ishmael
is said to have built the Kaaba in which Abraham had lived alternately with his
slave Hagar and his free wife Sarah. At first Muhammad did not reject the God
of Abraham, but only changed the order of Islamic public worship. He also
distorted the historical background of his religion. By distorting Judaism,
Islam found its own identity.
Several Jews
in Medina were anxious about losing their dominance in money lending and arms
production; therefore they conspired against Muhammad. Muhammad openly took the
offensive against the Jews. He called them the worst enemies of the Islam (Sura
5:82). He cursed them ten times in the Qur’an (Sura 2:88,159; 4:46,47,52;
5:13,60,64,78; 13:25 et. al.). Muhammad claimed that Allah had transformed
several of them into apes and pigs (Sura 2:65-66; 5:60; 7:163-166), because
they had rebelled against the revelations of Allah in the Torah and had not
observed the Sabbath. Furthermore, all Jews who charged interest on loans were
given to madness by Satan (Sura 2:275).
Muhammad and
his followers increasingly attacked the caravans from the city of Mecca. After
this Muhammad began eliminating one Jewish tribe after the other in Medina. One
month after Muhammad fought the idolatrous Meccans in the battle at Badr the
Banu Qaynuqa’ were
besieged. The Jewish tribe was forced to move with drums beating and trumpets
sounding and was banned from returning. After the lost battle at Uhud, the Banu
an-Nadir tribe was encircled and condemned to emigrate or to work as quasi
slaves in the fortified oasis of Khaybar. When during the Battle of the Ditch
in Medina the Quraizha Jews conspired with the enemies of Muhammad, Jibril (the
angel Gabriel) is said to have instructed Muhammad to annihilate them. They had
to dig their own mass grave into which 600 to 800 of them fell beheaded. The
first mass grave in the bloody history of Islam and Muhammad, is located in
Medina.
By the
expulsion and annihilation of the Jews the Muslims became rich. They took
houses and land as booty and took the Jews' women and children as slaves.
When
Muhammad besieged by surprise the Jews oasis of Khaybar and took quarters with
a Jewish hostess, she poisoned the meat she offered to Muhammad and another
guest. The latter died at once but Muhammad spat out the meat. He swallowed a
little bit of the poison however so that he said: "The poison of the Jews
has broken my heart." Since then, according to the retaliation law, the
Muslims have vowed eternal vengeance against the Jews.
What was the Reason for Muhammad's Dislike of the
Christians?
When Muhammad strengthened his city-state in Medina, the responsible men
in the Christian kingdom of Najran in Northern Yemen heard of the growing power
of Islam. They wanted to find out what sort of a man Muhammad was and therefore
sent a delegation of 60 Christians under the leadership of their king al-Aqib
Abd al-Masih and their bishop Abu Haritha b. Alqama to Medina.
Muhammad
kindly welcomed the guests and conceded to them the privilege of discussing
Islam and Christianity for three days in the mosque in Medina in front of his
Muslim companions. The Islamic version and the summary of this first and
deciding dialogue between the two religions can be read in the Sura 3:33-64.
If you want
to enter into a conversation with Muslims, you should carefully study this
unilaterally written dialogue. In order to impress the Coptic orientated guest,
Mary was described in Muhammad's report as the best woman of all in this world
as also in the next world. Afterwards however, Mary was reduced to the role of
an ideal Muslim woman.
Mary is said
to have been directly inspired by Allah. He had blown some of his spirit into
her, and in her let his word become a person. The son of Mary was to be a real
human being and at the same time a spirit of Allah. But, according to Islam, he
was never the Son of God nor did he have a divine nature. He was simply created
in Mary by Allah. With this, Muhammad revealed himself, according to 1 John
2:22-23 and 4:1-5, as an anti-Christian Spirit, although he tried to describe
Islam as a religion similar to Christianity.
Muhammad
spoke of ten of Christ's miracles in the Qur’an as proof of his divine mission.
'Isa (Muhammad's name for Christ) himself was the greatest of all signs though
he was only a prophet and man but never Lord. Allah at all times required his
subjection, although according to the Qur’an Christ changed the Law of Moses
and demanded total obedience of the Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Muhammad
went so far as to let the apostles of 'Isa call themselves Muslims in an
attempt to convince the Christian delegation from Northern Yemen that
themselves were also Muslims (Sura 3:52-53; 5:111).
Muhammad did
everything to win the Christians over to his Islam. He described the death of
'Isa as a peaceful falling asleep and twice very clearly pointed out his
ascension to Allah (Sura 3:55; 4:158). According to Islamic thinking the son of
Mary is not dead, but is living near his Creator as one of the spirits of
Allah.
When the
delegation from Northern Yemen recognized that Muhammad was a false prophet,
they became silent. Muhammad however threatened them with the plague of Allah
in the next world when they would not accept his Islam. He also dictated
worldly sanctions on them (Sura 3:56).
The bishop
and the king had recognized that Muhammad either concealed the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit or he outright denied them. Allah of Islam is not a Father,
he has no Son, and the Holy Spirit only appears as Jibril. Jibril is as a
created Spirit of Allah and serves as mediator of revelations.
The
delegation more and more clearly recognized that Muhammad believed in a great
unknown Allah and denied the Holy Trinity. At the same time they understood
that Christ to the Muslims, in spite of an extensive study and more than 100
references in the Qur’an, was considered only a created prophet but never the
Son of God who died at the cross for our sins. Muhammad denied the crucifixion
of Christ as a fact of history and described Allah as the most able of all to
prevent the crucifixion of his prophet.
Muhammad's Declaration of War against all Christians.
When Muhammad recognized that the Christians from the Wadi Najran and
from other countries could not or would not acknowledge him as a real prophet,
his appreciation for them turned into hatred. He began a psychological war
against them and forbade his followers to accept Jews and Christians as friends
or business partners (Sura 5:42,57).
Most of the
Muslims however were impressed by the exemplary Christians from Northern Yemen
because they did not lie, were content with only one wife, and treated
non-conformists with compassion.
To overcome
the resistance of his waning Muslims, Muhammad ordained, in the name of Allah,
open war against the Christians and the Jews in order to make sure that the
Christian culture would no longer be a temptation for his Muslims to renounce
Islam (Sura 9:28-29). This order of attack against the owners of the Book
definitely severed any ties between the three religions.
Muhammad
gave detailed reasons for his order to make an armed war against the owners of
the Book (Jews and Christians). Those who sympathize with Islam should
objectively study this final declaration of Muhammad, in order to dream no
longer of an agreement between the three monotheistic religions. The detailed
order of attack of Muhammad can destroy all illusions, because it reveals
clearly his anti-Biblical spirit.
In the
Qur’an we can read in Sura 9:29:
Stand
up (with arms) against those, who do not believe in Allah and the Doomsday and
do not declare as acceptable, that which Allah and his ambassador have declared
as forbidden
and
who do not belong to the right religion, from those, to whom the Book has been
entrusted, until they have paid with their own hands the minority tax (jiza) and confess that they (are small and )
become smaller.
This verse
does not tell of a national battle (kifah or jihad), but of a killing bloody
attack (qital) to defeat and subjugate the owners of the Book (the Bible).
They are
guilty of not believing in Allah as the Muslims do. Over a twenty-year period
Muhammad had recognized that the God of the Jews and the God of the Christians
is not the same God as Allah in Islam! The Jews believe in Yahweh, their
God of the Covenant; and the Christians believe in the Holy Trinity. The God of
the Jews and the God of the Christians is diametrically opposed to Allah in
Islam. Muhammad revoked his initial statement that Allah and the
Christian's God were the same. Only ignorant illusionists are of the opinion
that the original idea of Muhammad is still valid. Muhammad recognized and
confessed that Allah was not the Father of Jesus Christ. If the Christians do
not deny the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they must be opposed and
subjugated. The basis for a multicultural society was definitely destroyed in
Medina.
Muhammad
witnessed that the Jews and the Christians do not believe in Doomsday as the
Muslims do. They do not accept their good deeds as the means of their
salvation. They have no paradisiacal gardens with earthly delights, nor do they
expect the same terrible hell as Islam. They have sold themselves to a
spiritual hope for the future by the returning Messiah.
Not only is
the Islamic faith with its six articles of faith completely different from the
Jewish and Christian faith, but also the law of Moses and the law of Christ do
not correspond to the law of Muhammad. All Christians who try to find common
interest with the Muslims should stop trying. Muhammad openly proclaims that
the Christian faith and ethics are incompatible with Islam. Christians refuse
the polygamy of Islam, they do not allow lies, and do not break oaths as Islam
permits. They do not slaughter their meat in the name of Allah (basmallah),
rather they eat pork and drink alcohol, which means that they remain unclean
and break the law (Sura 2:173,219; 5:3-5,90; 6:145 et.al.).
Muhammad
drew the line between the well-meant dialogues with Jews and Christians. He
said, the owners of the Book do not belong to the right religion. They
are completely on the wrong track. As unbelievers they are three times
confounded! With this he annulled his former attempts of peacefully attracting
Jews and Christians to Islam.
The Minority-Laws of Islam
Muhammad however was a calculating businessman. He left the Jews and the
Christians a way out. If the subjugated non-Muslims pay the minority tax
(jizya) they are allowed to live in an Islamic state as second class human
beings. The amount of the jizya is not fixed in the Qur’an, but remains the
choice of the respective ruler. The minority tax is imposed by Islamic jurists
as a penalty on those who did not accept Islam voluntarily. In addition they
had to show through their clothing that they were not Muslims (belt, hairstyle,
etc.). They were not allowed to study the Qur’an. They are not allowed to
hinder their relatives in becoming Muslims, and they are not allowed to build
new churches or to restore their old ones. As it seemed unthinkable that
members of a minority would give orders or instructions to a Muslim, leading
positions in military, police, and administration were excluded for them. They
have to pay the minority tax themselves in a humble attitude. If they behave
proudly a slap on the neck should help their humility.
From Libya
to Morocco and also in Turkey the contempt, oppression, and financial penalties
on the minorities has caused, over the years, 99 percent of the former
Christians to abandon the persecution and their faith to become Muslims. In
Egypt, Syria and Iraq 90 percent of all Christians became Muslims, whereas 10
percent silently endured the scorn of the cross of Christ for 50 generations
and still do today.
In Wadi
Najran similar things happened. Muhammad overcame the hesitance of his Muslim
companions who respected the Christians with a blow below the belt that finally
coerced them to raid the region. He stated in Sura 9:30:
The Jews
say, Ezra is the Son of God. The Christians say, Christ is the Son of God. This
they only pronounce with their mouth and imitate the gossip of those who were
unbelieving before them. Allah may kill them! What liars they became!
No hint can
be found that the Jews ever called Ezra a Son of God although he had led
the displaced Jews from the Babylonian captivity back into their own country
and founded a Jewish state around Jerusalem.
From this
verse and others it can be clearly seen that the Christians tried to convert
Muhammad and explained to him that Jesus was not procreated by Allah in Mary in
a natural way (walad) but that Christ was his legal and spiritual Son (Ibn).
This verse is the only passage in the Qur’an in which Muhammad rejected Jesus
as a legal son of Allah. The primitive reproach of the biological procreation
of Christ by Allah in Mary had been overcome. But the rejection of the divinity
of Christ by Muhammad remained radical and comprehensive. He called the
Christian's claims a repetitious echo of the babbling of the unbelievers from
former times.
Muhammad's
declaration of war against the Christians makes it clear that Muhammad had
opened himself to the anti-Christian ideas of fanatical Jews and by no means
accepted Christ as the Son of God. Allah was only one, a single one and never a
unity from three! Both the Jews and the Muslims
have concealed the idea of three monotheistic religions. Only syncretism-minded humanists
still try to revive these already concealed ideas. But they are either rebuked
or smiled at with pity by honest Semites.
Muhammad was
consistent in his rejection of the Christian witness and cursed everybody who
said, "Christ is the Son of God." He asked Allah to destroy every
Christian who adhered to Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He did not command
his Muslims to kill the Christians but requested Allah himself to annihilate
them by divine judgement.
As long as
the sentence, "Allah kill them!" is written in the Qur’an each
dialogue between the Muslims and the Christians is hypocrisy or self-deception.
There are obstinate scientists and theologians who think that the Muslims are
free to formulate their faith and to tolerate believers of other religions.
Muhammad eliminated this possibility and called everyone a liar who witnessed
the divinity of Christ.
Muhammad
also declared everyone unrealistic who confesses the death of Christ at the
cross. According to the Qur’an Christ was neither killed by the Jews nor
crucified. It only appeared to them to be so (Sura 4:157). The crucifixion of
Christ is like a fairy tale for the Muslims, not a historical fact. With this,
the spirit of Muhammad is definitely exposed. The cross of Jesus Christ is
foolishness or annoyance to those who are perishing, but to those who adhere to
the crucified Son of God, and who experience his righteousness, and witness him
as the crucified Savior, it is the wisdom and power of God (1 Corinthians
1:18-24).
The Tragic Fate of the Church of the Wadi Najran
The cavalrymen of Muhammad later overran the Christian kingdom in
Northern Yemen. Several Christians became Muslims. The majority however signed
a protective contract in which they had the right to live their Christian faith
in an Islamic state and keep their property as long as they paid the minority
tax in full. Muhammad signed this contract personally.
After
Muhammad's death in 632 AD his favorite wife, Aisha, confirmed that the dying
man had said, "in the Arabian Peninsula there cannot exist two different
religions!"
Omar Ibn
al-Khattab, the second caliph (successor, supreme head of Muslim community)
after Muhammad, therefore summoned the Christians in the Wadi Najran to
immediately convert to Islam or leave their homes. They told the caliph that
they were in possession of a protective contract signed by Muhammad. It is
believed that Omar answered, "I did not sign it! I only follow the last
will of Muhammad; that is what must be executed."
Although the
Christians from Najran had a protective contract signed by the prophet of
Allah, they had to flee, poor and hated, from the Arabian Peninsula to
Ethiopia, Jordan, and Egypt. They preferred humiliation with Christ over the
wealth of Muhammad! Here the unreliability of contracts between Muslims and
non-Muslims can be seen. If Muslims believe that the other party to a contract
does not fully adhere to the contract, they have the right to break it.
The aim of
Muhammad to have a religious state revealed itself more and more. Islam is not
only a religion, as many think, but it always strives to become a religious
state in which the Shari’a will be executed. The law of Islam, Shari’a, needs
an executive to be able to function. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood, is said to have stated: “Those who pray, fast, and pay their
religion tax (zakat) are not yet Muslims. Only if they fight for the Shari’a in
their state are they real Muslims.”
The Islamic
calendar does not begin with the birth of Muhammad or with the beginning of the
so-called revelations to him or with the foundation of the first Islamic
congregation (Ummah). All this does not yet mean a complete Islam. The Islamic
calendar begins with the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina (622 AD),
because in Medina Islam became a city-state and Muhammad its ruler. All other
forms of appearance are only of embryonic character. The Qur’an repeatedly
requests Muslims to fight for an Islamic divine state that rules the whole
world (Sura 2:193; 8:39; 48:28; 61:9 et. al.).
How has Muhammad Changed?
Muhammad was a seeker turned idealist who collected words of God from
the Old and New Testament and changed them in an Islamic way. He fell into the
power of anti-Christian thinking Jews and Christian sectarians. He tolerated
the Jews and the Christians as long as he needed their help for the
organization of his religion and his city-state. As soon as he possessed power
he discontinued his tolerance. Jews and Christians were suppressed and
systematically eliminated from the Arabian Peninsula.
The image of
Allah in Islam changed with the transformation of his persecuted prophet in
Mecca to the autocrat his prophet became in Medina. Muhammad's original
conception of the same God in all three religions was based on belief in the
God of Abraham. It then developed into the rejection of the crucified Son of
God, the profaning of the Holy Spirit, and finally, the damnation of all those
who do not submit to Allah the same way that Muslims do.
In the
beginning Muhammad was tolerant because he needed the Jews and the Christians
because they were the people of the Book. But when he had power, all
revelations from Allah that recommended tolerance were null and void.
The last
trick of Muhammad is that both the valid and the abrogated verses still exist
side-by-side in the Qur’an. Many Muslims do not know which verses are still
valid and which are not. On the other hand, this kaleidoscope of colorful
truths gives every Muslim the chance to pick and choose Qur’anic verses from
Allah that best suits their position or argument. The Muslim refugees and
students in Europe, USA, Korea and Australia often speak of Islam as being
tolerant and as being worshippers of the same God as Christians in order to be
acknowledged as minorities.
After the
crash of the Indonesian economy, President Abdu r-Rahman Wahid, claimed again
and again that they foster a multicultural environment because the money of
China and the USA would not flow into an intolerant religious state. Pakistan
and Egypt sway between being a secular state and being complete in Islam under
Shari'a law. Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan and Afghanistan however are broken up by
years of bloody civil war because fundamentalist Muslims are fighting for a
"divine" state, fully established under Shari'a.
In Iran,
where the modernization of Shari’a is most advanced, the people elected without
hesitation the liberal reform movement during the spring 2000 elections to
resist the fundamentalists. The elections showed that the Muslims were tired of
the recession, oppression and the difficulties of normal life.
The
different appearances of Islam in the different Islamic countries have their
root in the Qur’an, which does not offer a uniform doctrine but reflects the
great change of Muhammad. In his world, absolute opposites can be justified by
so-called revelations. But of Jesus it is said, "And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 17 For the Law
was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus
Christ." (John 1:14,17)