Judge not according to the appearance, but judge a righteous judgment. (John 7:24)
FFirst of all
What Do Muslims Believe about Jesus?
Muslims respect and revere Jesus (peace be upon him). They consider him one of the greatest of God’s messengers to mankind. The Quran confirms his virgin birth, and a chapter of the Quran is entitled ‘Maryam’ (Mary). The Quran describes the birth of Jesus as follows:
(Remember) when the angels said, “O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him (God), whose name is the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, revered in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near (to God). He will speak to the people from his cradle and as a man, and he is of the righteous.” She said, “My Lord, how can I have a child when no mortal has touched me?” He said, “So (it will be). God creates what He wills. If He decrees a thing, He says to it only, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Quran, 3:45-47)
Jesus was born miraculously by the command of God, the same command that had brought Adam into being with neither a father nor a mother. God has said:
The case of Jesus with God is like the case of Adam. He created him from dust, and then He said to him, “Be!” and he came into being. (Quran, 3:59)
During his prophetic mission, Jesus performed many miracles. God tells us that Jesus said:
“I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I make for you the shape of a bird out of clay, I breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God’s permission. I heal the blind from birth and the leper. And I bring the dead to life by God’s permission. And I tell you what you eat and what you store in your houses....” (Quran, 3:49)
Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified. It was the plan of Jesus’ enemies to crucify him, but God saved him and raised him up to Him. And the likeness of Jesus was put over another man. Jesus’ enemies took this man and crucified him, thinking that he was Jesus. God has said:
...They said, “We killed the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.” They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but the likeness of him was put on another man (and they killed that man)... (Quran, 4:157)
Neither Muhammad nor Jesus came to change the basic doctrine of the belief in one God, brought by earlier prophets, but rather to confirm and renew it.1
A MUSLIM / ISLAM/ MOHAMED REJECTS THE GOSPEL OF THE DEATH OF GOD'S SON FOR OUR SINS
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them
ISLAM ANOTHER BRANCH IN THE WORSHIP
OF SATAN
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Is Islam Violent? Forget the Koran, Let's Talk About Islam's PROVEN Historical Record
BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM AUGUST 3, 2016
Too often, the debate around Islamic violence centers around doctrine -- around what the Koran and other scriptures (such as the Hadith -- the words and deeds of Muhammad) really say and mean. Forgotten in this debate is that Islamic scriptures are unnecessary in determining whether Islam teaches violence and war against non-Muslims.
History suffices. Consider the facts, which have been attested to by both Muslim and non-Muslim primary historic sources.
A mere decade after the birth of Islam in the 7th century, the jihad burst out of Arabia. In just a few decades, Muslims had permanently conquered what was then two-thirds of the Christian world. The heart of the Muslim world today -- nations like Egypt, Syria, all of North Africa, Turkey and more later -- had been, in the 7th century, the heart of Christendom.
Thereafter, it was a continuous war on Christian Europe.
That “Religion of Peace”? Ask Obama: If Islam is peaceful, shouldn’t Islam have been peaceful during and immediately following its founding?
Less than three decades after the traditional date of Islam’s founding (622), three of the five original Christian centers (“sees”) founded by the apostles -- Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem -- were forever swallowed up by Islam. The fourth, Constantinople, valiantly resisted the Islamic onslaught for centuries, but was finally conquered in the name of Islam in 1453.
Though sacked and burned by Muslims as early as 846, only distant Rome -- the Vatican, fifth of the ancient Christian sees -- remained unconquered.
Among other nations and territories that were attacked and/or came under Muslim domination throughout the centuries are (to give them their modern names, and in no particular order):
Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, Albania, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Crete, Cyprus, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Belarus, Malta, Sardinia, Moldova, Slovakia, and Montenegro.
The few European regions that escaped direct Islamic occupation due to their northwest remoteness include Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany. This of course, does not mean that these regions were not attacked by Islam.
Indeed, in the furthest northwest land of Europe – Iceland -- Christians used to pray that God save them from the “terror of the Turk.” This was not mere paranoia. As late as 1627, Muslim corsairs raided Iceland.
They seized four hundred captives and sold them in the slave markets of Algiers.
Nor did America escape Islamic attack. A few years after the formation of the United States, in 1800, American trading ships in the Mediterranean were plundered and their sailors enslaved by Muslim corsairs.
The ambassador of Tripoli explained to Thomas Jefferson that it was a Muslim’s right and duty to make war upon non-Muslims wherever they could be found, and to enslave as many as they could take as prisoners.
There was no mystery, no politically correct debate about Islam in those days.
As early as the 8th century, the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes wrote in his Chrongraphia:
He [Muhammad] taught those who gave ear to him that the one slaying the enemy -- or being slain by the enemy -- entered into paradise [e.g., Koran 9:111]. And he said paradise was carnal and sensual -- orgies of eating, drinking, and women.
Also, there was a river of wine … and the woman were of another sort, and the duration of sex greatly prolonged and its pleasure long-enduring [e.g., 56: 7-40, 78:31, 55:70-77]. And all sorts of other nonsense.
Six hundred years later, in the 14th century, Byzantine emperor Paleologus II told a Muslim scholar:
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman -- such as the command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
Such was the honesty of interfaith dialogue in former times.
It deserves repeating, by the standards of historiography, that the aforementioned historical outline is unassailable, and attested to by both Muslim and European historians, from the traditional beginning of Islam till the modern era.
In short, regardless of what the Koran and other Islamic scriptures really “mean,” for roughly one millennium -- punctuated by a Crusader-rebuttal that the modern world is obsessed with demonizing -- Muslims waged unrelenting war on the West.
They did this, and continue doing this, in the name of Islam.
Muslims claim that they believe in the true Jesus Christ. Muslims praise Jesus as a prophet of God, as sinless, as “the Messiah,” as “illustrious in this world and the next,” as “the Word of Allah” and as “the Spirit of God.” (e.g. Sura 3:45) Muslims cite their Bible, the Koran, in confirmation of their belief in Jesus: ‘And we gave Jesus, Son of Mary, the clear signs, and confirmed Him with the Holy Spirit.”[1]
But whatever Islam claims, it does not believe in the biblical Jesus.
First, it asserts that Jesus was only one of God’ ‘s endless prophets or messengers, and not God’s only begotten Son. Muslims adamantly reject the idea that Jesus is the Son of God. The Koran repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus Christ is not the literal Son of God:
“They say, ‘God has taken to Him a son’… Say: ‘Those who forge against God falsehood shall not prosper.’ “[2]
“Praise belongs to God [Allah], who has not taken to Him a son….”[3]
“… Warn those who say, ‘God has taken to Himself a son’”… a monstrous word it is, issuing out of their mouths; they say nothing but a lie.”[4]
“But who does greater evil than he who forges against God a lie?”[5]
“They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s Son.’”[6]
Thus the Koran emphatically denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God—a teaching that Jesus Himself just as emphatically affirmed (John 3:16,18; 10:36-38). In conclusion, the Christian view of Jesus Christ as God’s literal Son is blasphemy to the Muslim.
Second, Muslims deny that Christ was God incarnate. Any Muslim who believes that Christ is God has committed “the one unforgivable sin”[7] called shirk—a sin that will send him to hell. Thus the Koran emphasizes that Jesus was only a man: “The Messiah, Jesus Son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God….” [8] Sura 43:59 asserts: “Jesus was no more than a mortal whom [Allah] favored and made an example to the Israelites.” [9]
But even though Jesus Himself claimed on many different occasions that He is God, the Koran has Jesus denying His own deity. When Allah himself supposedly asked Jesus if He was God, Jesus replied in the Koran, “It is not mine to say what I have no right to.” [10] In fact, even as a baby, Jesus allegedly claimed He was only a servant of Allah. According to Sura 19:20,34, Jesus praised his birth and then said, “I am the servant of Allah.” And Allah teaches, “It is not for God to take a son unto Him.”[11]
Third, Muslims do not believe that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross.
Fourth, Islam teaches that Muhammad was a superior prophet to Jesus because he brought God’s final revelations to man. Badru D. Kateregga, a former lecturer and head of the Islamic studies and comparative religion at Kenyatta University College, University of Nairobi, Kenya, exemplifies the common Muslim view of Jesus as an inferior prophet to Muhammad.
The truth that all the previous prophets have proclaimed to humanity was perfected by Prophet Muhammad…. The Qur’an, which is Allah’s final guidance to mankind, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad… the seal of all prophets, 600 years after the Prophet Isa (Jesus)… Muhammad… is the one prophet who fulfilled Allah’s mission during his lifetime.
Muslims believe in and respect all the prophets of God who preceded Muhammad…. They all brought a uniform message—Islam—from Allah. [But] Muhammad is the last in seal of prophethood. Through him, Islam was completed and perfected. As he brought the last and latest guidance for all mankind, it is he alone to whom Muslims turn for guidance.[12]
Thus “Muhammad… is the last prophet and messenger of Allah. His mission was for the whole world and for all times.”[13] In other words, Muslims must not turn to Jesus for spiritual guidance—only to Muhammad.
But Muslims are wrong. Jesus is far more than God’s mere messenger. Jesus Christ is God’s one and only Son (John 3:16-18). Further, He is the Second Person of the Trinity, God incarnate—God Himself (John 1:1,14; 5:18). Jesus claimed to be both “the Lord” and “God”’
“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am’, (John 13:13). ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father [God]” (John 14:9). “I and the Father [God] are one” (John 10:30).
When Muslims deny that Christ was crucified on the cross—and that God substituted someone else in His place—they deny the clearest teaching of the New Testament. Even Jesus prophesied—repeatedly—that He had to go to the cross and that this was God’s direct will for Him (Matthew 16:21; Luke 18:31-33; John 12:27). Innumerable eyewitnesses, both Jesus’ friends and enemies, saw Jesus die on the cross, and many of His apostles and friends were eyewitnesses to His resurrection from the dead (John 19:23-27,31-35).
In conclusion, both the Koran and the Muslim religion are in serious error concerning their teachings on the most important man of history, Jesus Christ. Islam claims that it honors and reverences Jesus even though it rejects what the Bible teaches about Him. It denies His divine nature when it teaches that He was only a servant of God, a mere man. It denies His mission when it teaches that Jesus never died on the cross. It denies Jesus’ own teaching concerning the reason He came into the world: “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
No one can deny that Muslims reject the biblical Jesus. Yet it was Jesus Himself who warned all men, “…if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins” (John 8:24).