Abdullah al Andalusi – How Jesus and Muhammed are Brothers in the same Faith

Before I invite to speak I'd like to give a brief introduction of

Lucy is an international speaker, a thinker and intellectual activist for Islam and Muslim affairs. He works in his work involves explaining and demonstrating by rational argument, the intellectual proofs for the Islamic belief system and promoting the Islamic way of life and in some solutions for contemporary problems. He embraced Islam at the age of 14 after a period of study that started when he was 10 years of age, and he has continued to study Islam ever since.

He has had a long experience of working with the Muslim community and his activities involve researching, writing and talking expensive extensively on Islamic revivalism, theology, philosophy, the physical sciences, sociology, psychology, and much more. He has also had the advantage of appearing or rather, he's had the privilege of appearing on numerous TV shows to represent Islam on various angles, including the BBC, ITV, BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera press, TV and many more. In 2009, he co founded the public discussion forum known as the Muslim debate initiative. This is a forum that promotes open dialogue and critical debate between thinkers, academics, politicians and public

speakers of all backgrounds, and in the near future, they will be holding many more debates and discussions of the like, for today. The topic of his talk is Jesus and brothers in faith. Without further delay, ladies and gentlemen, that invite brother Abdullah

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala Kitty, Mohammed

I agree to the Islamic greetings of peace of salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. May the peace and blessings of God be upon you all. I'd like to thank the University of Essex Student Union, Islamic Society for graciously inviting me here today to speak on a topic of to the most influential men that I think define the world today, Jesus and Mohammed sobre la la wa sallam the words that Allahu la salam, or the phrase means May God, grant them peace.

Now,

before we kind of begin this discussion, I wanted to maybe talk some more about the question, can we not live together? And it is an interesting question, because many people, unfortunately, today are having doubts about question, which I think there are centuries of evidence to show that we can live together people have lived together rather harmoniously. I mean, Take, for example, just the history of the Islamic civilization and its interactions with Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, and Hindus. What you'll find from the very beginning, the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu, wasallam, his first ever you could say public debate with Christians was a Christian delegation from a tribe of

natural and the proper having met them in in his mosque, which is the first ever prayer space for for Muslims ever. And in the mosque, the for the Prophet's mosque in Medina, he had a debate which last three days and two nights with the Christians, this this delegation, and at the end of it, the delegation, obviously, respectfully disagreed with the Prophet Mohammed is also them. And the problem is, this respectfully disagreed with Christian position. And you know what happened?

There was a acceptance of this disagreement, and that the because the Christians had to return back to their town, and it was some journey away, the prophet Mohammed offered the Christians that they'd like to pray their Christian prayers in the mosque before leaving on their journey. So you could say the mosque almost became a interfaith space, which was the first ever mosque in the enemies of Islam.

For our Islamic history, you see debates between Muslims and Christian theologians held in Islamic Baghdad in Islamic theory.

We see, for example, a Catholic saint saint john of Damascus. He wrote polemics against Islam. And when he published his polemics, while his by name, gave it away in Damascus, Islamic Damascus, he was publishing his critiques of Islam. And there was no one that censored him, he wasn't punished was for so on. So that kind of tolerance that you see between Islam and Christians and Jews, and certainly, Judaism flourished under Islamic rule. In fact, many Jewish academics and scholars today would say that if it wasn't for the Islamic civilizations protection of the Jewish community, in the Mediterranean, you Judaism will not survive today.

So it was actually due to Islamic protection of the Jewish community. Now, I wouldn't say that.

And I always tell people, Islam doesn't tell people to tolerate Christians or Jews, it tells people to accept Christian Jews, there's a difference between toleration and acceptance. toleration means that you just you stay your anger from that person, or you say your hatred from that person, because for some reason, whereas acceptance means that you actually recognize that person for their belief, and you treat them with acceptance, accepting that they are, and that this is how they've chosen to be. So toleration is outside the model of toleration, I say that the better solution is acceptance, if you want to create a truly pluralistic world. And of course, the teachings in the Quran are

numerous regards to accepting people's differences of belief. In fact, there's even a more fascinating verse that most people don't realize, but doesn't want you to get quoted. Usually people say, you know, like, carafa Dean, there's no compulsion in religion, people usually cite that. But there's a lot of us where

God is speaking to the Prophet Mohammed slaughter them, and tell them that have got so willed, He could have created the entire world upon one religion.

So obviously, the fact that he hasn't done this, then then the Quran continues, saying then so who are who is anyone who you to compel people to believe? Now what belief of people's hearts are only in the decision of gods of God is the one that decides whether people will accept or not have a belief or not, not for anyone to compel. So the interesting about this chronic verse is that it shows that the fact that there are different religions, is intended by God.

It's actually meant to be that way. Because God could have started out making the whole world one religion or one belief, which I think is the most powerful list.

Verse I think, in all the in all, our religious scripture, that that I've read, which advocates acceptance of the situation, acceptance of reality, acceptance of people having different beliefs, but

kind of taking this discussion back to the modern times. The intolerance you see in the world, has many causes, but the one cause that is not the basis for intolerance is religious interpretation.

In Islam, for 1400 years, you had the Muslim communities under three different dynasties of the of Caliphate of an Islamic caliphate, which was a Islamic ruling or governance, which is protected the oldest churches in the world. All these Jewish communities, oldest Christian communities, like in Egypt, for example. And the and the group that has come to public attention recently, due to them being persecuted the disease in North Iraq, they have been there for 1400 years, no massacres, no genocide, no attacks against them. And why was that?

In the most very non secular area of the world, a non sequitur system for 1001 years. Why is that because it is part of the fundamentals of Islam, to show tolerance and acceptance. And I would dare say the problem the most in the world today is not fundamentalism. It is the lack of fundamentalism, or the violence You see, in the Middle East. You'll see everywhere else in the modern world. You'll see in Africa you'll see in South America, terrorism, death squads, massacres, genocides, fascism, look at, for example, India, you're having the rise of ultra nationalism in India and persecution of the Christian and Muslim minorities in India, after colonialism. These are questions that we have to

look into and I dare say that prior to

colonialism, many of these areas in the world didn't have the problems that they have. So what did cloning do to the world? As opposed to the question that we need to ask? And we'll probably find some interesting answers to that. But it's not religion. And it's not tradition. These are not the causes of these problems. So I'd like to make that very clear.

Now tying into the topic, which I've been asked to discuss, and it's always a pleasure to discuss and compare Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed instalado. Selim.

Also say the Prophet Jesus because we also believe he's a prophet.

Western culture may be very secular today, but it holds a very large basis in Christianity, or religion, about Jesus and His teachings. Many people in the West find Christianity and its trappings to be familiar, connected to their culture, values and art, affecting even the most secular Westerner, the finding the emotional symbolisms in their literature, and in the arts and culture like angels, saints, demons, redemption, sacrifice, pearly gates, clouds in Paradise, black throat, clergy, taboos on *, words, entering the names of things like college and colleges and street names like Trinity or St. John's or St. Mary's, or St. Bartholomew, and many biblical phrases which

have entered into all European languages which some of you might be surprised they're actually come from the Bible. For example, the blind leading the blind, it's from the Bible, by the dust. It's not from the Freddie Mercury song hits from the Bible, by the skin of your teeth, or broken heart fall from grace fly in the ointment. go the extra mile, the love of money is the root of all evil. The powers that be put words in one's mouth, Rise and shine, the root of the matter scapegoat sign of the times, there's nothing new under the sun wolves in sheep's clothing, sheep's clothing, and writing's on the wall. He's all biblical. These all actually came from the Bible, but we use it very

briefly now in the English language, and there are equivalents in other European languages. So Christianity has a very strong effect, certainly on Europe and its current culture.

People today live in this cultural heritage.

Being Christian or having Christian ancestry, is now viewed as being indigenous, with the exception of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which is viewed as being Russian or Slavic.

Of course, there is something that isn't indigenous to Western Europe. There is today a well known Middle Eastern religion that came to the shores by people bearing strange alien names, and who, whose converts adopt new names upon changing their religion, adapting them from Middle Eastern language. They worship a God that sounds alien to the religion of these lands and practice rituals and customs that were completely removed from the customs and practices of the original indigenous people living here. What religion am I talking about? Well, still Christianity.

If you look at what Christianity is, it's a Middle Eastern religion. It came from the Middle East, it was never created by or emerged from the Celts of uncles of Europe, it came afterwards, the original religion of Britain was different types of Celtic paganism, for example, Christianity came about 1400 years ago, was reintroduced into

the UK or into Britain by the Irish and Frankish, or French missionaries.

Their names were not the names which we have today. You see, if you probably notice, whenever you sign or write a government form, you're filling in a government form. You'll notice they will ask you for your Christian name. A white is asked is once a Christian name. That's because upon converting to Christianity, people took names which were Christian, but what makes it a name of Christian. These Christian names were usually defined as names which were either Greek or latinized versions of Hebrew names like James, David, Mark, Luke, john Solomon, Joshua is all originally Hebrew names, not native.

Celtic names of the British Isles. The names of the people in the British Isles, at that time would be words like Boudicca, Canute, DOS and eggplant. Those were the names of the people indigenous to this country. And of course, it might vary from other areas of the Western Europe.

So like, unlike Russia,

Trinity Islam also has an origin in the Middle East, and it was revealed in a Semitic language and is accepted as an Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism. Now, seeing as Christianity originated from the Middle East, and is based upon Semitic language, Hebrew, Aramaic dialect of Hebrew, and upon Semitic culture, we shouldn't view its other religions like Judaism and Islam as alien or foreign. Since upon closer inspection, what we see is that they share much more in common than people realize. In fact, you could describe Christianity and Islam as cousin religions, they're related.

And I think that if you actually study the Prophet Muhammad's teachings, and Jesus teachings, specifically, you will find that there are more than just cousins, but they are brothers in faith.

Now, understanding this could be the key to better coexistence and acceptance between people who follow these different belief traditions, or those whose culture have been deeply influenced by them.

So I think the first

area to investigate is, does the Prophet Mohammed slaughter them? And Jesus alehissalaam? Do they both worship the same God?

Now, you'll probably hear the God of Islam being introduced as a law. And you think it was a very strange name as a very strange person that doesn't sound anything like oh, my God, my mic God's name, or the name of the name of the Christian God, but first and foremost, the word God is a Germanic word from God. It's not actually a Hebrew word. If you look at the word that Jesus used for God, I think you'll find you'll be quite familiar with it. If you if you've seen, there was a film called passion for Christ's love anyone has watched that film, it was done in Aramaic, which was very was made it very different from other films which were about the life of Jesus and based on the

New Testament, and when you listen to Jesus, the lead the character, obviously portraying Jesus in this film, whenever they Jesus is saying the word God if you just listen out for for what he says, When you see the translations, that word God, he says Allah.

In the Semitic languages, God is Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah in Hebrew, so that Syriac, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic. And if you look at the spelling

of all those words, I've just said that it's always the same. lf or an H, we say lamb, l and H. Ha ha. Always that same spelling. The difference between the pronunciations his dialect is an accent and dialect of the of the languages, but they spell exactly the same.

So g Allah is spelled the same as Allah. If you take the letters of the equivalent of all the Semitic language, and they all Semitic, they're from the same language tree. So the Word of God is the same. Christian Arabs use the word Allah when they refer to God. So don't be thrown off by the use of the word Allah, when Muslims refer to their God because it's no different to what Christian Arabs say. And it's no different to what Jesus most probably would have said, speaking Aramaic, speaking, a dialect of a Semitic language of which Arabic is intensely connected.

What about teachings? Did they teach different things? Now, people often

confuse different and try to compare, obviously, Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed in all aspects of their mission. Jesus never attained political power. He never ruled over a town or a city. Whereas what we see is that the Prophet Mohammed Salaam, after 12 to 13 years of his admission to the Arabs of Arabia, he did attain, people gave him rulership over the town of Medina, or Vishnu.

So the mission, the lives of the stories of Mohammed and Jesus, are not exactly the same. One could argue that Mohammed is more comparable to Moses, then to Jesus, Moses did obtain power over the 12 tribes of Israel and lead them away from a captivity and took them to land that they were promised.

But the teachings of Jesus and apart from AMISOM I would wager are very identical. And if Jesus had attained power, it would have been no different to teaching to the Prophet Mohammed when he attained power. So let's look at the very basic teachings, the belief in one God, Jesus called the belief in one God, he prayed he worshiped. And he obviously affirmed the the Jewish shamar, which is here, O Israel, the Lord your God is the God goddess one. So he affirmed this. And in Islam, we believe in the Shahada, which is declaration of faith, which basically says that there is no worthy of worship except God. And Muhammad is His Prophet, and messenger.

Of course, we also believe that Jesus is also God's Prophet and Messenger, and Moses is also God's Prophet, and messenger.

But let's look at a bit more substantive things. How are we saved? How do we get salvation from our sins? How do we find that we can be made right with God, so to speak,

both the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus taught that you should believe in the truth and you should do good actions,

faith and works as the Bible would call it. We see in the Quran, it says, Whoever does righteousness, whether male or female, while they are a believer, we will surely cause him to live a good life, and we will surely give them their reward, according to the best of what they used to do.

We see in the book of James, which is in the New Testament,

when I refer to different articles in the New Testament, New Testament could be unsuitability don't understand it as a collection of different works, as a collection of biographies has four main biographies called gospels, it has letters which were communications, by various theologians after the time of Jesus, and it has some discussions as to what happened at the time Jesus in the book of Acts, so it's a compilation of different works of the New Testament. It's not the Quran is, is, as we Muslims believe the dictated Word of God, which the Prophet Mohammed revealed to, to mankind through the angel Gabriel.

So in the book of James, it says, What good is it my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works can that faith save him was Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar, you see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was complete it by his works. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And he was called a friend of God, you see, that person is justified by works and not by faith alone. So we see this teaching the New Testament, that belief in God and good actions is what you get is what leads you to being saved.

We also see is a lead that Jesus said in the Gospel of john in the New Testament, he said, If anyone loves me, he will pay my teachings, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. We see in the Quran is an interesting parallel with this, that

narration. The Quran says say, if you love God, then obeyed. Obey the Prophet Muhammad, Allah will love you and forgive your sins. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

So it's very interesting. Both of these verses says, If you love God, and if you love his messenger, you should follow His commands, and God will love you. And he will forgive you your sense, the teachings are virtually identical. People might say, and just a small point, people might say, why does Jesus refer to God as his father? If you look at how he's explained this, this is a Semitic

saying,

lost in translation, unfortunately. So when it came to the Greeks who had been encountered teaching Jews afterwards, the Hebrews refer to God as their father. Because if you follow something, it is your father. And if you follow and if you don't follow it, then it's not your father and you if you are a follower of it, you are Son of it. In the Quran, we have the same kinds of Semitic sayings. For example, there's a word for the traveler called it been submitted, which means literally if you translated some of the road, but it means that they will, they are just a traveler, they're just going along the path. Even in the New Testament, Jesus is seen explaining it to his companions

saying if you follow God, then you are sons of God. And if you follow Satan, you are sons.

of Satan. So he explains this. And of course,

in the Old Testament as well, you'll see that God is referring to himself as the father of Israel and Israel is only begotten Son. So there is not a literal meaning of father and son here it's a it's a expressionism, a symmetric expressionism, which unfortunately is lost in translation once you go outside kind of Semitic language.

What about forgiveness?

We see that the beginning of every chapter in the Quran starts off with in the Name of God, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful. And we start off any action we do by inciting by reciting that opening.

We also see in the teachings of the Quran, most specific teachings of how God forgives mankind for sins. We see it says in the Quran, and let not those among you who are blessed with graces and wealth, swear not to give any sort of help to their kinsmen, or the poor, or those who have left their homes for God's sake. Let them pardon and forgive. Do you not love that God should forgive you? And God is often forgiving, Most Merciful.

We see that the Prophet Mohammed taught about forgiveness, a man came to the Prophet Mohammed, and asked, When will they have judgment? Come? The Prophet replied, what have you prepared for the day of judgment that you are so concerned for or Judgment Day brother, he replied, I do not have any good deeds in my account. But I have one thing, I love God and His Messenger, the prophet Mohammed responded, in that case, do not worry, you will be with those you love.

And this is what the prophet said, we also see that the Prophet Mohammed saw some of the rates.

God's saying to his servants, to us, the creative service, and we are all servants of God. So God is saying, and makes a promise to his servants, if my servants come near me, by a span, I will go near to them by a qubit. And if they come near to me by qubit, I will come near to them by the span of outstretched arms. And if he comes to me walking, I go to him running. So what you see is that we don't, what was being taught that was not a distant God, we don't believe in a distant God, we believe in a God, you have a personal relationship with.

And we also see that this is with the Prophet Mohammed was the last and I'm also teaching to say that indeed, God is gentle, and he loves gentleness in all affairs. The Prophet Muhammad also said, Indeed, gentleness is not used in anything except that it beautifies it, and it is never removed from anything, except that it's both it. So the teaching of Mohammed kalasa was gentleness was mercy, was forgiving each other, if you love to be forgiven, and was a God that if you walk to him, he comes running to you. And if you go too close to him by a small saucepan, he'll come to you by outstretched arms. And we see that the Jesus teachings about God's forgiveness, about the

relationship with God was no different,

was the same.

We see a person approached Jesus and said, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He didn't says, Well, why do you call me good? No one is good, except God alone. You know the commandments, do not murder, did not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, and Honor your father and mother. Then the person says, teacher correcting himself not calling him good teacher. All these have kept since I was a boy, Jesus looked to him and loved him, and said, one thing you like, go and sell everything you have give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then follow me.

We also see that the teachings that Jesus talks about forgiveness, he talked about the parable of the king and the data.

I'm not going to call the entire story but give you synopsis. So there was this king, and someone that was under one of his subjects that owed him a lot of money, let's say in equivalent equivalent millions and millions. And so the king summons him to say, pay back what you owe. And the debtor says, Please give me more time I don't have the money. Please allow me to some more time some respect so I can pay it back. And instead, the king forgives that person of all the debt says go you've been forgiven of all your debt. However,

This person had someone who was a servant of his, and this servant owed him maybe a few 100 whatever denomination a few 100 gold coins, let's say, and this and this, this this the subject the king summoned his own servant and said, pay me what you owe. And the servant said, I don't have any money, please give me respect. Please give me more time.

And the subject the king said, No, I'm gonna put you in prison until you pay everything you owe me and you will not be allowed out until I get every last penny. When the king heard of this, according to the parable, home to the story, the King Salman the subject, and said,

when you were in millions of gold, in debt to me, I forgave it. But when this person, your own servant, owed you only a small handful of money, you didn't forgive it. Therefore, I'm going to punish you and put you in prison until you pay me back everything

that is owed. Because you didn't, you didn't show forgiveness to your servant, as you as I showed forgiveness to you. And then Jesus says it Jesus, then interjections in his parrot what it says, This is what my father will do to you if you do not forgive each other.

And this mirrors what the Quran says, forgive each other. If you would love God to forgive you, it's the same message that you will not get forgiveness unless you learn to forgive each other.

We also see that people who tend to go in repentance in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament, which is the Old Testament, or the Tanakh, is the Jewish holy book. And they get forgiven by God and the Prophet Mohammed taught, as we as we just heard the same doctrine, the same beliefs, we have the same belief about repentance, and the same belief about a forgiving God, who wants his subjects returned to him, in repentance, and he will forgive them.

And there are many other teachings which are parallel is parallel to amazingly, for example, the reassurance in the heart that God gives we see in gospel of john in New Testament, it says, Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God. Believe also, in May, Jesus is saying,

in the Quran, it says unquestionably, by the remembrance of God, hearts are assured of removed from trouble, gratitude. In the book of Psalms, it says, bless the Lord, oh, my soul and forget not all his benefits or his greatest to you. And the client says, And which of the famous of your Lord when you deny

what about fear that we should also fear God, because of our own failures and of our own sins, our own sinful actions that we've done the wrong we don't deserve, we should fake God in relation to what we have done the bad things that we have done. The Koran says obviously feared God as He should be feared. Again, New Testament, the same teaching, and do not say those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul rather fear Him who can destroy both the body and the soul. So Christians are also taught to fear God as well.

Or what about love.

The Quran says, as I mentioned before, tell it tell the Prophet Mohammed to say, save you love God, obey me, and God will love you and forgive you your sins. God is Forgiving and Merciful. In john, Jesus is narrated as saying, If anyone loves me, they will be my teaching, my Father will love him. These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the Father who said me.

What about being servants of God? People say, Islamic about submission.

And this is a very authoritarian, you know, teaching scripting, it is unfamiliar to ask questions, being servants to God or submitting. In fact, the word Muslim means to submit, we are submitted to God. But in an Old Testament, it says, This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousness is of me say of the Lord.

We also hear it said in the New Testament, in the book of PETA,

submit yourselves for the Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether to a king as an as to one in authority, or to governance as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and praise of those who do write, for such as the will of God, that by doing right, you may find ignorance of foolish men. act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as as being servants or slaves to God on all men, love the Brotherhood, fear God and honor the king. So you should be slaves to God in the New Testament, Christians should hold themselves

bondservants are as submitted to God. Again, in the book of James you also say, submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. So Christians are told to submit to God and be slaves to God to. We seen the Quran, God says to him submit whatever is in the heavens and the earth, everything submits to God. This is not a special derogatory title for humans, the entire universe of which was created by God, and of which is under the laws of God. Whether it's the laws of physics, or the commandments of Moses, everyone submits to God.

Or everyone is a servant of God, and will submit to God in this life or the next.

What about closeness to God?

We see that in the Quran, it says, God is telling the Prophet Mohammed. And when my servants asked you about me, then surely I am near. I answered the prayer of the supplicant when he prays to me, so let them respond to my call, and believe and trust in me, so that they may be guided to spirit to spiritual intellectual excellence and right conduct. And the Koran says, oh, people love God with all your hearts for what he has given you from blessings. And we also see the same teachings in the New Testament. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. So again, the same teachings exactly the same.

What about moving away from the teaching? What about practices, practices of Jesus and the practices of the Prophet Mohammed? slawson,

take the prayer. Many of you who are not Muslim might have seen Muslims praying, praying with frustration, out or bowing or frustration on the ground. And you think, Oh, this is a very strange way to pray because we pray like this. And this is a very alien way of praying. But if you look in the New Testament, see how Jesus is described as by praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he frustrated on the ground, his face was on the ground.

Jewish prayer to this very day, many orthodox sects pray with bowing, and frustration. In the Old Testament, everyone bowed and everyone frustrated as part of worship. This was a well known Semitic tradition of how you pray. early Christians didn't actually even pray like this. It came in develop, it evolved over time, the the prayer, many biblical scholars, many Western scholars of Christian history, and the right that there are types of Christian prayer when they made supplication to God, which just involves holding the hands out like this, which is what Muslims do. When we supplicate to God. When you make a personal, a personal request to go to your making a specific prayer to God, you

hold your hands up like this. early Christians did this. Later on with the Catholic Church, it became

put into one hand like this. So this is Islam is no different to what early Christians were practicing. What about not eating pork? Or not eating meat sacrificed to idols as the US would put it and Otis does? And also what about hollow means people say I'm hollow sounds very alien to us. What does this mean? You see some, perhaps foreign individuals complaining about how Hello taking over suddenly, after all this time of eating meat themselves, they suddenly become concerned of the welfare of animals. And they say, oh, how animals being treated by a well actually they very, very humanely actually. But this is fear mongering that of the process of Hello slaughter of animals is

somehow

cruel to animals and so on. But they wouldn't care if they truly actually cared about it, they become vegan. But hey, that's a different discussion. So hello, and kosher, which Jews practice is virtually identical in concept. In fact, it's one of the 10 commandments, you're not allowed to eat carrion meat carrying meat is if an animal died of natural causes, or just died of disease or gets hit by a car, let's just say and all the blood is still in the veins, so to speak, is called it was described by the Jews in the Old Testament as carrying meat, you know, dead meat, you don't need that meat. In order for me to be able to be at and you have to drain the blood out before you cook

the meat. You can't cook that meat with the blood in it is carrying. It's one of the 10 commandments. Technically, technically, Christians should be following the 10 commandments, but as a whole, there's a debate amongst Christians regarding whether they follow that Seventh Day Adventists are a Christian sect that don't even don't eat pork, and don't eat carrion meat. They've actually

maintain that tradition. Jesus never had pork. And the Prophet Muhammad SAW said I've never had pork and they never taught that not to eat pork. We see that in

Acts 15, it was commanded that Gentiles are non Jews, although they will not going to be under the full restrictions of Jewish law in many areas. But they were prohibited from eating food sacrificed to idols, sexual immorality, and meat of strangled animals and from blood. So they will also prohibited from having meat that has blood in it, as well. So hello, if you couldn't, you could argue from the Bible, actually, that the hollow meat is actually a way that Christians can eat meat and kosher me as well is what that means you can eat meat fulfilling that commandments in the New Testament as well. So you're welcome.

Um, you probably hear most of them say a lot of Arabic phrases when we speak like inshallah, and Mashallah, and so on. So for you What is this, I know it will set at the beginning of this conference.

And that's very fun. It's very interesting. It's pretty fascinating because insha, Allah translates as if God wills. So if I say, I'll see you tomorrow, you have to say as Muslim if God wills because maybe, God forbid, you might go be hit by a bus struck down by lightning, a number of things can happen, you know, your site more prosaic might happen to you, you just get distracted or something else happens, and you have to do attend to something else. So you might not see that person. So it's always in God's will. So you have to say, as Muslims we say, if God wills inshallah, interestingly, in the book of James, which is in the New Testament, James, who is alleged to be the hot pepper,

Jesus tells the believers, the Christian believers, that if they are going to intend to do something, they should also say, they should, they should say rotten also, but say, if God wills as well.

So this is actually a Christian tradition, as well, that actually Muslims have kind of revived in the West, but it's not no longer Christians who no longer say that, and so on, it's a shame. But it is a Christian tradition.

So we see, there's actually quite a lot of commonalities, quite a lot of similarities. And our practices are, in many cases, virtually identical. In many areas. Islam looks alien, because it just appears to being an Arabic and Arabic language. But I would argue that if you were to get early Christian and bring them to this time period, and they will be speaking Aramaic that sounds equally alien, quote, unquote, as a Muslim speaking Arabic but doing the same actions and believing the same concepts. So don't do not be

misled by the fact that these traditions which Christians also believe in, I happen to have an Arabic face in terms of language. I, you can take it from me that question he didn't start off speaking Latin. And he did an insert install speaking modern English. This is something that obviously happened much later.

What did the Prophet Muhammad SAW some teach regarding Jesus? And what did the Quran say about you, the man make a distinction because the prophets teachings is him. Obviously, speaking to us, the cron he never alleged was actually his teachings, but was revealed to him. And what you'll find the cron is you'll find many versions of the cron job kind of highlight today, where the cron addresses the problem happened and speaks to him giving him a command or related to him something. So the cron is we believe a word of God, not a compilation of books by theologians that came later, or writers that came later, which happened with the New Testament, different Christian communities. After the

time, Jesus, maybe within 100 years of Jesus's death, they wrote a number of different literature's to describe their beliefs about Jesus. And then a few 100 years later, it was compiled by the Catholic Church into a Canon, which is now the New Testament. Of course, different Christian sects have different variations as to what articles they put inside the New Testament, but different discussion. But this is a crime we believe is the word of God.

And what we see the teaching the Quran, because the Jesus it has a very fascinating story about Jesus, because it not really that much different and Christian, if you were to read and I would urge Christians in the audience to read what the Quran says about Jesus you'll find it eerily familiar.

So in the Quran, it reports Jesus as saying, I have come to confirm the truth of the Torah which preceded me and to make some things lawful to you which used to be forgiven, forbidden.

It also has been reported as saying, I am indeed a servant of God. He has given me revelation and made me a prophet.

And it also reports Jesus saying

Oh God, oh God saying that he will send as a messenger to the children of Israel.

Jesus, so Jesus will be sent as a messenger to the children of Israel. And Jesus teaching himself was that he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus actually never preached that, in his mind, in his, let's say, in the pre resin pre resurrection, pre crucifixion and part of the New Testament never preached that he was actually for anyone other than the children of Israel. He said, I've become not accepted the lost sheep of Israel is reported as being saying said in the New Testament,

but what you'll find is that the Quran comes to exonerate Jesus of whether there are differences. And there are some differences. And the differences are actually very minor. In comparison, if you were to look at just practices, you'll see the differences are very minor, only theological, as Muslims, we believe is a quite significant differences because your unsetting of God has to be, it really has to be clear as to what you're actually getting to God. So whereas as Muslims, we affirm that Jesus is a messenger of God, he's a prophet of God, and that he is the Messiah, we have firmness. In the New Testament, Jesus, he said that with your firm, I am the Messiah, you have

saved. So as Muslims, and as a Muslim myself, I affirm right now that Jesus is the Messiah, sent to Israel, and Muslims believe this, and we love Jesus as a vessel crime, which I'm going to read a bit later who else illustrate, we don't make distinction between one prophet another, we don't say the Prophet Mohammed is better, or higher profit and Jesus, we say all prophets are equal, and we love all of them equally. But the Prophet Mohammed just happened to be the last prophet that we can have, we have access to, and we have a lot of narratives about, but we make no distinctions between the prophets, we love all of them. Equally, we make no distinction.

But the differences are point in the Quran,

where it's and this is part of the debate and discussion that Kron has with with Christians, because the Islam sees itself as trying to set the record straight. When it comes to some variations which occurred, Jesus, Jesus never taught, we believe, in our opinion, that he himself was God, or that God exists in the form of a trinity. Now, people can disagree and still be accepting of each other. People don't have to accept everyone's beliefs or ideas in order in terms of to believe it themselves, in order for you to accept them.

misconceptions, Oh, don't talk about anything devices, because that will split people apart and say, No, we have to learn to disagree and still be living together, accepting each other helping each other working together. That is the key. Because if you're saying that the only way people can live together is if they all agree, then you are asking the majority of humanity to give up some of that a lot of their beliefs to fit in with a particular minority, or you're going to inform a uniformity in that society, and that is not healthy society. So you can just you can differ, you can disagree. And the current discourse to two questions on this matter is, it says the people the book, so it

refers to Christians and Jews very effectively as people of the book. They both are religions which are based, and they follow a particular book, not

something that just was just traditions which were inherited from a different area or culture, but there are people who base their worldview, on revealed scriptures in their belief. So people the book, do not go to access in your religion, and do not say anything about God except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus solid Mary was nothing more than a messenger of God, His word, directed to marry a spirit from him. So believe in God and His messengers, and don't speak of a trinity stop there is there for you, God is only one God, he is far above having a son, and everything in the heavens and the earth belong to Him, and He is the best one to trust. So this is really the difference of

opinion in this area. And the Quran. mandates that Muslims have a positive theological engagement with Christians to discuss this, but it's never one of harshness, it's never one of bitterness. So we see that the Quran tells Muslims and do not argue with the followers of the early revelation, except in a way that is best and except for those who commit injustice amongst them, and say, we believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you and our God and your God is one and the same and it is up to him.

We surrender ourselves to the corner saying,

We don't argue or bicker or have a go at people of the previous revelations, but rather only debate if you if we debate with them, we debate in a way that's best with good morality with good conduct with good

cordiality, and only argue if you witness anyone committing injustice. But of course, in the crime, it also says tells Muslims set up for justice, even against yourself. So even if we commit injustice, we have to stand up against that too.

But other than committing injustice, we simply part of the words, we believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you and our God and your God is one and the same. And it is up to him that we all surrender ourselves. So I say, let us all agree that we worshipped only one God, and that we all surrender ourselves to Him. And if you if you don't believe in the Prophet Muhammad as a prophet of God, that is your choice. However, if you look at their teachings, it is hard to deny that they are very least brothers in faith by sharing the same teachings, even if you do not believe in the divine origin of the Prophet Mohammed, and I think

it can help us to be brothers in humanity to each other. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that very interesting indeed. Talk, I'm sure many of the similarities between the two individuals were highlighted. And indeed, in the beginning, as we mentioned, it is the aim for us to have dialogue and discussion,

dialogue.

With that in mind that I would like to open the floor to dialogue. If you have any questions, please raise your hands. And the father will be very,

very happy to answer

any questions, one question at the back, we have a brother will just come to the microphone. Well, first of all, thank you very much for

the great talk, my person has done

many things from Bible

according to our belief,

put out a book which has not undergone any change and there will be no change around getting the day off.

So

many things wrong. But we also know that there are so many changes and

so on one side we we say that they have been changed in an environment and on the other side, we are putting so many things wrong.

So

it's a bit contradicting, what do you think? Thank you for that question. What I would say is, the Quran describes itself as Mohammed over the previous scriptures and the different translation of Mohammed is like

a kind of filter or criteria that affirms what has been preserved accurately in the previous scriptures, the teachings the Bible is not equivalent to the Quran in terms of how it we we have it today how we received it. I mean, Jesus never took dictation from it, you know, his his followers didn't write down what he said that we know of. And the four gospels in the New Testament

if you bring an equivalent in for Muslims will be Sierra. Right Sierra is the biographies, their biography, four different biographies. Each were meant to be self contained or independent of each of each other right so they weren't actually meant to be

be part of a bigger hole but only later on they were kind of gathered up to be part of a maintenance component to a bigger hole. So

the New Testament isn't the same because it's a compilation of different works so

so

so you could make a comparison but

where the the current uses of Mohammed on previous scriptures what you can do is you can certainly emphasize when there is teaching the past scriptures which agree with the Quran. In fact, there's very few teachings in the old scriptures or what we have today anyway, which disagree with what the Quran says. And the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed Salaam Salaam

But at the same time we can't as Muslims, we can't affirm that any particular scripture is 100% authentic, because I mean, Bible scholars are on earthing every day, almost

every day, but they are nerfing, constantly new texts with different variations and versions, early versions missing, and so on, so forth. I mean, the New Testament had a verse in it, which said that there are three witnesses and heaven three in these three are in a trinity, the father, son of the Holy Spirit. And then of course, it was discovered that this was actually not in the oldest version of the New Testament. So if we had believed that verse, it will then be disproven later on by Protestant, Protestant academics. Obviously, Catholics don't accept that change, and so on. So, as Muslims, our job is only to affirm the content of our beliefs. And I call the texts only to show

that these beliefs are rooted in the text that Christians hold to be authentic, whether those particular texts are authentic, or maybe someone else just paraphrase Jesus, not an exact quotation of Jesus. God knows best we don't know. And the Prophet Mohammed told us when it came when it came to the, to the the old texts of the Jews, the Christians, were not to disbelieve in any of them, or to believe in any of them, because we met, leaving something that was not accurate or original, we might end up displeasing something, which actually was accurate and original. So that's our policy towards the text of the Old Testament, say, Good, biblical criticism policy, as any Bible scholar

would probably have. So the crumbling of the hangman, it reaffirms the teachings that were preserved, the lessons, the ideas, which are accurate and worth teaching by Jesus, even if the text might not have been

a quotation of Jesus per se. Well, I mean, certainly like the book of James in the New Testament, isn't the teaching of Jesus, it's

allegedly a companion of Jesus, one of the Sahaba in Arabic, a companion to someone who was one of his disciples.

50% of the New Testament is just the writings of Paul or St. Paul's is called for sort of Tarsus was the original name, where he never even met Jesus, right, but maybe some of his writings might have, you know, preserved aspects of his teaching. So all Muslims, we don't delve into which Virtual Text is accurate or not. We simply affirm the teachings, which we believe are accurate and preserved, because they also mirrored by the Quranic teachings. And that's really what I'm trying to show today. When I was citing those teachings, I could say that Christians believe in forgiveness, for example, but let's say there might be someone in the audience that doesn't know nothing about

Christianity, and God, really, this is an assertion show me Show me where they get this, this text from. And in essence, in one way, someone says, Well, look, you could show that Christians believe something by citing one of their teachings of a theologian or an academic, right? That's no different to me, citing the New Testament, because the New Testament was written by Christians who were theologians, not Jesus. So all I do, what I mean by New Testament is to show that they have a basis for why they believe it is the same as what we believe and that's why

how

to believe in one God.

So that is the idea of

an idea.

It's been a long, long once required for that, but what I'll say is this, and I'm going to, I'm only going to present the Muslim view. And one could argue some political scholars, I don't mean to obviously offend any Christians by presenting a view that they might not necessarily believe in. But I'm just gonna present the Muslim view for those who are interested in knowing and also a view that shared by many biblical scholars who studied history.

The Trinity was finalized at the Council of Nicea, which came about 300 years after Jesus's time, there was a difference between amongst Christians Some believe that there was no Trinity This is just God, and Jesus is a creature, a created being, and all the Christians who wanted to believe that Jesus is God. And then how do you reconcile that Jesus being God, and He prayed to the father of the Father. So to reconcile these apparently contradictory

precepts, they came up with a model, a theoretical model to explain that called the Trinity in essence,

And then they became that became doctrine later on the Trinity whereby there are three persons, they share the same substance, but they are distinct, but the same while at the same time. And that's they came up with a theory, you could say, for this day to explain how they would like Jesus to be God. And at the same time to pray, Jesus himself had a God as well. So how can we explain that.

But I would say that some people have argued some historians and the Muslim position would probably be similar, would be that you had a Semitic religion. So Jesus was teaching Judaism, he was a, he was a practicing Jew, he was a devout Jew, he didn't teach anything that was different to Judaism, I love you. He was kind of reviving

the practice of Judaism that become stale and reviving the understanding of Judaism that had become stale. But he said, he is a legend. He said, in the New Testament, I've come not to abolish the law of Moses, basically, but to fulfill his right to, but when,

when his teachings, you could say, reached the Greeks, and the Mediterranean was, you know, the Roman Empire, Greek speakers, mostly, non Jewish individuals, mostly, of course, and we have Latin speakers as well, with their own culture, their own philosophies, they had believed that God could come down Gods come down from heaven and become human, and they could have children and that's, that's their religion. So some people have speculated that this, that the teachings of Jesus got lost in translation, and it stopped being about the religion of Jesus and became the region about Jesus, and that Jesus got portrayed as someone something now superhuman, because the Greeks and

obviously, the Romans were used to religious beliefs, whereby the son of Zeus, or the son of Jupiter, was super Cuban, it was special, was divine. Now, this is just a historian. Some historians say this, many historians say this as an explanation. And certainly as Muslims, we believe that

Jesus God or the Trinity is a later corruption of the teachings of Jesus just our position on the matter.

But that's how it happened historically was, it got lost in translation, as it became, as the became translated into Greek, the Greeks when they read it, when the Greeks, ancient Greek speaker would read a verse that says, you know, Jesus, referring to himself as the Son of God, they took literally,

whereas all the Jews would read that go, I mean, metaphorically, means his expression of a Hebrew expression that we have that.

And I think that's probably what that's probably what happened. And that's just my opinion. You know, as a Christian audience, you are free to disagree with me and dissent. And I respect that, but the both asking me for my own position as a Muslim, so that's just our position on the matter. And the mission of Islam is to kind of recenter the religion of Jesus around God, not on Jesus, because we believe that it's not the messenger that should be focused on but the message itself, and the origin, the author of that message, just got alone. So if anyone else has any questions, I'd request you to save them.

And

is it possible to have one smooth last question anyone who might want to have any contention or even

like to challenge any of the points, I always, I always think it's very important that people should be allowed to challenge things have been said as well if they want to anyone that disagrees or wants to

issue different points of view

came up with the debate initiative. So

in any case, if you are, if you would like to come personally and speak with the

show,

so learn from anyone

final question right now and then we

took

So to what extent would you say

Muslims shouldn't be friend non Muslims, because there is a concept in religion. Not that we know we know we don't be friend, you know, non Muslims, but that we should close company with those who will help us with our religion and help us to God. So when we're, you know, in an interfaith community in which I

to, you know, be close with people or

gt was

to, you know, have a good relationship with them, but just to what extent do we have that relationship into our our relationship with people in the same religion business?

Okay, well,

if we just go looking at the Prophet Mohammed Salaam, example.

So he had neighbors who were Jewish, he had neighbors in Mecca who were pagan, so they were not, not Jewish at all. And he also famously had a debate which I saw at the beginning of my talk with Christians in the Prophet's mosque. So in the first ever mosque, Christians came in, challenge the Prophet Mohammed, were totally invited to do so. disagree with him after three days, and were invited to pray before going back to the journey was a long journey. So they could pray their Christian prayers before going back to

that town.

as Muslims, the Chronicle commanded us to cooperate in the good.

So we cooperate with everyone, anyone for good causes, good purposes, good reasons. We help the poll, whoever the poll is, whichever region they believe,

we give good advice to anyone who needs it, whoever whichever one they are, in fact, Muslim, we should be known for being given good advice. And

he has that as the as

the religion is good advice with advice, basically. So we should be known to be good advisors, sincere counselors, friends, helpers, people who can be trusted, and who you can always turn to, if you need if you need help.

But in terms of, for example, friendship, if a

if someone invites most of the say, Come, let's go and let's go together and pray to Jesus, for example, or let's pray to, I don't know, Krishna said, Well, we disagree on that, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. But I don't have to do that in order to, you know, be someone that helps you be a good friend in your life, I don't have to join in on your particular rituals of religions, and neither will be accepted, we will be inviting up to it with us, unless we are inviting them to consider Islam and embrace Islamic ideas. So that's the limit patient, we don't cooperate things of which, obviously, we morally disagree, you know, so if someone wants to go and do something for

bank, as they come help me out, no, I'm not going to help you out. So that, you know, it's all about my friend, well, I am, but you shouldn't be doing this, as a friend, I advise you, you shouldn't be doing this. But that's how and I think that's why most people kind of cooperate and keep the company.

In fact, keeping company with Christians and Jews or Hindus, or Buddhists have never, we often forget that. And this is our mission here, to rub off on them give, show good morals and good behavior, and help improve other people's good morals and good behavior and so on, not just them specifically, but also for Muslims as well. And our whole point is that we're meant to be encouraging people to,

to improve themselves. Now, the problem is, of course, if someone is someone who is vulnerable to other people's persuasions, and these, they are with someone who has bad morals, bad behavior, they do bad things, you should stay away from that person. But that counts toward that person religion, if there was a Muslim who is into really bad things, I don't know drugs and gangster stuff, activities, we say, you shouldn't be hanging around that person, other than to advise them to stop doing them to help perform themselves. But if they're not doing that, and they're adamant on it, you shouldn't be keeping their company because eventually they're going to persuade you to join them in

that. So again, religions really figure into it. It's the actual the person themselves, which matters. So I think that's how we should approach it as Muslims, we should cooperate, but in fact, actually we should, as the contest, in addition, compete in the good, right. So if we're seeing if you're seeing a Christian, give the charity we should be aiming to outdo that person, then again, we see a Muslim human charity, we should be able to outdo that person as well. So we should be competing in the good because that is the best way to compete with your fellow human being is in the good things try to outdo me do me good not to be but not to show off and not to do publicly anyway,

but to do it, because by doing so, we keep pushing each other, helping to be fortunate to be better people together. So that's how we've been

The advice I think, which it would be based on the Prophet Mohammed example