Ali Ataie – Moses, Jesus, Muhammad One Core Message
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
I'd like to begin by telling you a
true story. Maybe some of you have heard
this story from me before. It's really interesting.
Kind of explains the
times we're living in. So a few years
ago, I was at a church in the
South Bay,
on one fine Sunday morning
And, I was in fellowship with the church
there and we were doing an interfaith dialogue.
And when they when I exited the church,
I found myself suddenly
surrounded or ambushed
by a group of fundamentalist
evangelical Christians.
And there was a certain older lady that
approached me. She was pulling her bible,
and she didn't like the idea that Muslims
and Christians were meeting in the church and
they were speaking about,
you know, God and Jesus and Mohammed, peace
be upon, both of them,
with respect and civility. So she approached me
and,
she proceeded to tell me or inform me
about how my prophets,
meaning the holy prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him, went into Europe and slaughtered all of
the Europeans.
Right?
So, you know, I said, I don't know
who you're thinking about.
I'm a Vlad the Impaler or someone.
Hitler.
And so the prophet did not leave the
Arabian Peninsula
in the 23 years of his prophetic career.
And she said, no. I think it's very
well documented.
So interesting.
And then she quoted a verse of the
Quran to me. Right? Which, ostensibly,
seems to advocate violence.
Right?
And she says, see, it's right here. It's
in your book and whatnot.
So, in order to demonstrate her erroneous methodology,
I quoted a verse from the bible back
to her that seems to advocate violence.
It was Luke 1927,
which Jesus says, those enemies that do not
accept me as their king,
bring them hither and slay them before me.
Right? Put their throats in my very presence.
Expecting her to say, well, you know, you're
not looking at the context.
And then I would say,
exactly.
That was my whole point,
but she didn't say that.
She made a very interesting comment. She said,
that is not
in my bible.
So I said, can I see your bible?
And she said, sure. And I showed her
the verse.
And I'll never forget this. She looked at
the verse, looked at me,
looked back at the verse,
looked at me again,
closed her book,
smiled a little bit, and said, quote,
I know who you are.
Satan?
And then she proceeded to do a live
exorcism on them.
Yeah. And she was, you know, she was
she was extracting the demons.
And, you know, there was a crowd gathering
and you know, I couldn't help myself, so
I was like
I was bugging
out, and I sold out to what I
need.
And then she said and then she helped
me back up, and she said, how do
you feel? And I said, I said, I
said, And she's like, ah. It didn't work.
There's another Coptic Christian lady who grabbed me
by my shirt one time, and she was
trying to extract the demon. So I'd like
to assure the Christians in the audience that,
I'm not demon possessed, at least not tonight.
So the point of that is that we
need to transcend this type of superficial
fundamentalist mentality of some of our co religious,
and truly try to understand each other. So,
the point you know, the point isn't to
agree, although I certainly won't be offended if
you agree with me by the end of
the night.
That's not the point. The point is
to truly understand.
Right?
To understand.
Because when you understand someone, you tend to
respect them. And that's the point, is to
gain respect.
So no sides. So sides are given an
evil an even platform, and no side is
made to look less than human because that's
how genocides
begin.
So,
I'm gonna begin by saying, hold on to
your hats,
and to your hijabs, and hair pieces.
Muslims believe
that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon
all of them,
are brothers in faith.
Muslims believe that they were all Muslim prophets.
Now, you're probably thinking if you're non Muslim,
I thought Islam started in Arabia 1400 years
ago.
Muslims don't actually believe that. Muslims believe that
the holy prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him,
perfected the religion
of Islam. Right? If I can even use
the word religion. I don't like that word
because Islam is a holistic way of living.
It's not just a religion.
So the final verse of the Quran revealed
to the holy prophet was.
This day, I have perfected your religion for
you and completed my favors upon you.
So the religion is perfectly complete, thus he
is the final messenger of God.
But Muslims believe that all of the prophets,
even from the first human being Adam,
was a Muslim.
Now I'll explain that further.
The word Islam is the infinitive construct of
the 4th verbal form in Arabic,
meaning submission or surrender.
Submission unto the will of God.
This is the essence
of the teaching of the great prophets. This
is the essence of the teaching.
Submission under the will of God.
The Quran says,
He says, the same religion has he established
for you as that which he enjoined on
Noah,
Moses, and Jesus. So, yes, they did have
tribal distinctions.
For example, Moses was a Levite. That was
his tribal distinction.
If the holy prophet Moses were to enter
into this
room right now and I had the honor
and privilege of speaking to him, I asked
him, oh, messenger of God, Are you a
Jew? Please shut that off. No. I'm just
kidding.
I'm so offended. You know what? I have
to actually turn my mouth. Thanks for the
reminder, actually.
Sorry.
Yeah. This is so annoying.
Anyway,
if he were to walk me to the
room and say, oh, Moses.
Are you a Jew? He would probably say,
no. I'm a Levite.
Why would he say that? Because he would
think that I was referring to a tribal
distinction.
Right? Because Moses is not from
from Judah. He's not a descendant of Judah.
He's from Levi.
Right? So if I said, oh, Moses, are
you a practitioner of Judaism?
He would probably not know what I was
talking about
because the word Yehudi
in Hebrew was not used as a spiritual
distinction
until the 8th century of the common era.
Before the common era, after the divide of
the kingdom and the Assyrians attacked
the northern kingdom of Israel and 10 of
the 12 tribes were extinguished
or wiped out or exiled. There's a theory
they went to Afghanistan.
God knows.
But the two tribes that were left,
Judah and Benjamin, Judah being the older brother
and the largest tribe, so the Jews became
known
as Jews as the name of a religion.
Now, if the holy prophet Jesus, peace be
upon him, were to enter into this room,
which is according to the Islamic Christology,
it's very possible because
Muslims believe in the second coming of Christ
and maybe go visit UCLA, I don't know,
a lot of other people. It's certainly possible.
And he would have come to this room
and I said, oh, Jesus. Oh, messiah. Oh,
Christ. Oh, messenger of
God. Are you a Christian?
He would not know what I was talking
about because there's a word he never heard
in his life. Oh, he wouldn't know, you
know, unless you believe that Jesus is God.
It's a separate issue.
But leaving the dogmatic aspect aside for now.
The the term Christian, according to the book
of Acts, was first used as a derogatory
statement for people who believed in Christ, and
the Jews were expelling them
in the synagogue.
So I would expect Jesus to say,
my religion is a religion
of submission unto the will of God.
And that's what Islam is. Now, Christians believe
that
Jesus also has a tribal distinction that he's,
he's a descendant of David, the tribe of
Judah,
which, according to Muslims is unsubstantiated.
Muslims don't believe he has a tribal distinction
at all, but that's a separate issue. We
can deal with that later if you like.
Now, if the holy prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him walked into this room and I
said, oh messenger of God,
aan'tam Muslim. Are you a Muslim?
I would expect him to say, alhamdulillah.
Praise be to God.
That's a spiritual distinction.
He does have a tribal distinction. He's from
a clan called Dani Hashan. He's from a
tribe called Quresh.
But those are tribal distinctions.
The spiritual distinction
is Muslim. So Islam
Yeah. Transcends
tribe,
country, race, and blood. Right? There's no there's
no tribe called Muslim. There's no country called
Islam land.
Right?
And it's really interesting because I get people
all the time asking me, are they say,
are you Islam?
Are you from Islam?
You know?
And if you're not laughing at that, you're
probably one of the people I think might
say.
So
in in the gospel of Mark, now, you
know,
I was told not to quote the bible
too much, you know, kind of makes people
antsy.
But here's the thing, the Quran talks about
Ahlul Kitab. Right? The people of the book.
And the exigents of the Quran, they're called
Mufasilim.
They say Ahlid Kitab, people of the book,
are Jews and Christians. Which what Kitab? What
book? Alright. Katuv in Hebrew.
The kitabu muqaddes, the Holy Bible. Right? So,
the Quran mentions the people of the Bible.
And
with respect to the Quran,
there are three functions of the Quran,
when dealing with previous dispensations.
The Quran corrects those previous dispensations,
abrogates certain aspects
as well,
and confirms
certain aspects.
So, essentially, me quoting the Bible is
quoting from our scripture as well. There are
elements of truth in the Bible, and the
Koran says so.
So, you know, just to make my point
clear, in Mark chapter 3, right, it's the
earliest gospel according to the investment scholars, written
around 70, the common era. The crowd gathers,
they go to Christ, and they say, behold,
your mother and your brother, probably Mary and,
presumably, James the just.
And Jesus says, who are my mother and
my brother? Whoever does the will of God.
Right? And then he says, according to the
Greek, and Jesus probably
didn't speak Greek.
He spoke of Syriac,
which is,
the northern dialect of Syriac, the Galilean dialect
of Syria,
which is actually very close to Arabic,
by the way. There's a certain,
difference between them. It's also called late Aramaic.
But nonetheless, the New Testament isn't Greek. The
originals aren't Greek. So the New Testament, in
the Greek, he says, hrutas adelphoslu
kaiadelfei
kai maitil
estim. Whoever does the will of God is
my brother,
my sister,
and my mother.
Whoever does the will of God. Now that's
the definition of a Muslim.
Now in Matthew 59
right? So
I don't wanna get too technical, but there's
there's a hypothetical source document called q,
also called the sayings gospel. Now this is
the most widely held theory by New Testament
scholars is that Matthew and Luke had access
to it. Another source that Mark did not
have access to, this explains the so called
synoptic problem, why Matthew and Luke have material
in common that is missing from Mark.
So scholars believe that the q source material,
predates the Pauline letters and epistles. So it's
very early
and probably,
is the most representative of the authentic statements
of Christ. So in Matthew 59, right, this
is the Sermon on the Mount. Right? The
beatitudes. Jesus says, in the English translation,
blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of
God.
And the Greek word for peacemaker is a
compound word made up of ireni
and poeo, which mean peace and to doom,
respectively.
Now interestingly, I was able to get my
hands on,
a Peshitta translation
of the New Testament.
The Peshitta is
the translation of the Greek back into the
original language
of Christ. This was done in the 4th
century of the common era. It is the
authorized
Syriac translation of the New Testament, which replaced
Patience de Atesteron at the time.
What was that? Oh,
interesting.
I thought it was another cell phone.
Yes. 17.
So I looked up this verse, 59 in
the Peshta,
you know, to get a sense of what
Jesus probably would have said in his own
language.
And the verse reads,
blessed
are those who
who make
shalom or shalom or salam. Blessed are those
who make salam.
How you say that in Arabic? Muslim.
They shall be called the children of Allah
in the metaphorical sense, not in the literal
sense, obviously.
So the word for God,
in the in the dialect of Jesus, in
the northern,
Palestinian or Galilean
dialect of Aramaic is Allah.
And there are indications in the New Testament
as well, like in Matthew, you know, and
and Peter. They find out, this is a
disciple of Jesus, and they probably saw Peter
hanging around with Jesus.
Or it was because he just spoke and
they could recognize this man has
a an accent, a Northern Galilean accent. So
the Syriac is a little bit different.
But that's interesting.
So the word Muslim then is the active
participle of the 4th form. Now,
the corresponding Hebrew
verbal form is called the hifiel.
Right? And the word Muslim in Hebrew is
mashrim.
So,
Matthew 59 in Hebrew would have probably sounded
like Baruk Et Ha Mashlimim.
Right? Blessed are the Mashlimim.
Blessed are the Muslimim.
Right? Which is the plural of Muslim,
which is very interesting.
Now interestingly also, in in Luke and in
John,
when Jesus comes to his disciples,
right, he uses a very interesting greeting.
Right? He says, peace be with you, in
some translations,
or peace be upon you. Right? Shalom Aleichem.
This is a greeting that Muslims also use.
Muslims will say this is a greeting that
all the prophets use. Assalamu alaykum.
Right? There was a movie in 1992, a
Spike Lee movie called Malcolm x,
which kind of put this phrase into the
popular culture. Right? Assalamu alaykum. Right? That means
peace be upon you. Right? So the Quran
says,
When you come into contact
with those who believe in our sign, say
peace be upon thee.
Thy lord has inscribed upon his own self
the law the rule of mercy.
This is the Muslim greeting. There's, there's a
there's a hadith, there's a statement
of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
There's a great vast amount of literature,
eschatological
literature,
signs of the end of time and whatnot.
So the prophet said,
in a rigorously authenticated tradition, he said that
towards the end of time, the youth will
greet each other with insults.
Right? And not the greeting of peace.
And I go to high schools a lot,
you know. I just sit there and I
listen to some of the youth. What's up,
fool?
What's up, dog?
What's up, bee? What's going on, mo fo?
I'm like, what?
It's your friend?
Very, very interesting. I thought, you know, I'm
just a friend. If I went up to
like an Arab guide in Yemen, I said,
kifat had you call.
Probably wouldn't go over very well,
but, you know, it's like I said, it's
the sign of the times. Now, this may
come as a shock,
but one of the founding,
foundational,
I should say, principles of the Islamic tradition
is
love.
Wow.
Yes.
And now there's a lot of ignorance. Now
when I was growing up in the eighties,
before the Internet, you know, this is when
we were calling up for the Encyclopedia Britannica
and things like that.
People, most people, most Americans didn't know anything
about Islam. Right? So the cup was
empty. Right? But nowadays, because of this information
explosion,
people are suddenly experts because they went on
I hate Muslim dot com or something. Right?
So the cup is full, but it's full
of murky water.
So that's a problem.
To give you an example, when I was
an undergrad at Cal Poly, pre 9 11,
I don't want to give away my age
too much, but,
in 1999
or so.
One of my my roommate who's, a brother
from Afghanistan, he was, talking to a non
Muslim student in his finance class about the
MSA and, you know, that we do this
and that. And this and this non Muslim
student said, you know, I don't know anything
about Islam. Actually, I'll draw on the board
what I know about Islam.
And he wasn't trying to be funny or
anything. He was being very honest. So he
went to the board, and he drew a
camel,
and a pyramid,
and a bomb. TNT.
Right?
And that was his extent
of Islamic knowledge. And most people are educated
by the media. Right? If you ask people,
you know, what do you know about what
do you know about Jesus Christ? What do
you know about the 4 gospels? Why I
watch Mel Gibson's movie
according to the movie. Well, you know, Mel
Gibson wrote his own gospel.
That's what the gospel according to Mel Gibson.
You can't combine all of our gospels. They
call it a biblical gospel.
So that's that's problematic. And the media has
a definite effect.
There was, one of my friends, he's an
Iranian,
brother. His mother is a nurse at a
hospital.
And, she's been there for years. Right? And,
another nurse, a non Muslim nurse finally worked
up the courage to ask her, you know,
you have an accent.
Where are you from?
And, she said, oh, I'm from Iran.
And then the other nurse said, really?
But you're such a nice person.
Interesting.
Oh, here's something. Maybe you've heard me tell
this before. I was at a church sermon
one time.
The pastor was giving a talk called, Why
I am not a Muslim.
And, you know, it wasn't slanderous. It was
a little polemic over. Then he showed this
video. Right? It's a very interesting video. And,
the first frame of the video was the
trade center towers burning. It was in black
and white. It's in slow motion.
Right? And then, it says, you know, this
voice over. You know what the movie guy
says? In the world.
It said, they're amongst us.
Right? And then it's shown a Muslim woman
with a headscarf
buying produce
at a supermarket. And then it said, they
go to our schools and it showed a
little tiny, like, 8 year old, remind me
of my daughter, you know, with a little
hijab, a headscarf, she had a little backpack,
Dora the Explorer backpack.
She's walking by the crossing guard. They go
to our schools.
Right? And then it said, they work in
our cities. And it showed a guy, a
Sikh in a in a turban driving a
cab.
And if you don't know the difference in
a Sikh Muslim, you shouldn't be making videos
about Islam.
Right? I mean, yeah, Muslims wear turbans. It's
the sunnah of the messenger.
The Levites wore turbans. The the Torah says
that Aaron wore turbans.
But if you don't know the difference, then
there's something wrong there.
So back to this, issue of love, this
foundational principle. So the prophet, peace be upon
him, Mohammed, peace be upon him, said in
a rigorously authenticated tradition, he
said,
None of you truly believe until you love
for your brother
what you love for yourself.
Now
the scholars of hadith have said that the
word brother in this hadith does not just
mean you're a Muslim brother.
Right? But your brother or sister in the
children of Adam because the male gender encapsulates
the female gender.
Like, if I say, you know, mankind, I'm
not just talking about men.
Right? You get to understand that.
We've been the Greek word,
antropoi,
meaning men, also means women. Right? If I
say salam alaykum,
which is the second person plural,
masculine, it includes women. Right?
So, essentially, the prophet is saying none of
you truly believe
until you love for your brother or sister
in the children of Adam what you love
for yourself. So these two aspects of universality
and love are absolutely foundational
in the Islamic tradition. Absolutely foundational.
We cannot ignore it. We cannot ignore it.
One of the exalted titles of the prophet
in the Quran is rahmatililalamin,
which means a mercy sent unto all the
worlds. He's a mercy sent unto the cosmos,
all the world.
Another hadith of the prophet, he said, la
tadkulu jannatahattatut
minu walahattatut minu hatatahabbu.
None of you will enter paradise
until you truly believe, and none of you
would truly believe
until you love one another.
Shall I tell you of something that will
increase your love? And they said, yes. And
he said,
Spread peace amongst yourselves.
Spread peace amongst yourselves.
So this is important.
And the prophet had, you know, deep concern
for people. There's many examples of that.
Now, this is something interesting.
Muslim scholars have actually
identified various
typologies
or prophecies
of the holy prophet in the biblical text
just as many Christian scholars
have also identified
many typologies of Christ
in the bible as well.
For example, in, proto Isaiah,
Emmanuel, or,
suffering servant of Deuteronomy Isaiah, Micah chapter 5
verse 2, that a king shall come from
Bethlehem, and so on and so forth.
Now according to, Justin Martyr,
he was a, probably the most famous early
Christian apologist
and heresiologists.
He's also the father of the logos theology.
He said that fulfillment of prophecy is the
strongest
argument one can make,
to,
legitimize
Jesus as the true Christ, even more so
than miracles.
So the Quran
says
that
That those to whom we gave the previous
revelations,
they know the prophet like they know one
of their own sons.
In other words, the descriptions of the prophet
given in the previous revelations,
which includes the bible, are so succinct and
perfect
that they'll recognize the prophet like they know
one of their own sons. The Quran also
says that the nabeel ummi, which is usually
translated as,
the,
unlettered prophet. But Ummi is also the Arabic
word for gentile.
Right? The gentile prophet.
Right? And this is interesting because in pro
in Deuteronomy chapter 42,
you know, we have this, this,
description of this of this person called the
Ebed Adonai. Right? The the slave of God.
And Abdi Eth Mahbo B'Thani Rat Seta Nashi.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen
one, and whom my soul delights.
In evidence, obviously, is the, word abativ in
Arabic meaning servant, which is one of the
titles of the holy prophet.
And in this passage, he's called levrisamir
leur goyim, a covenant for all people, a
light for the gentiles.
Right?
So the Quran says that the gentile prophet,
Matkutuban
Enda Umfi Torahi war Injil, is prophesied by
name in the Torah
and in the gospel.
Now there's an interesting
story when the prophet was coming into Medina
for the Hijra,
his his migration north.
There was a Jewish rabbi in the city,
who made an interesting comment when he saw
the prophet for the first time. He said
to quote him directly, he narrates the hadith
himself.
He said, arafsu anawajjahu
leisaviwajikaddam.
He said, I knew that his face was
not the face of a liar. And it's
probably because the prophet had an honest face,
and he did it. But
it's also because he recognized
the prophet, peace be upon him, physically.
Now, this is this is interesting,
and I'll end with this in
God willing.
It's that one time, though. What time is
supposed to stop talking?
What time do you want me to show
up?
Okay.
So there's,
there's a book in the old testament.
Okay. Bear with me here. It's called the
Song of Songs.
Okay?
In
the King James version, it's called the Song
of Solomon.
In the Roman Catholic version, it's called the
tentacle of tentacles.
In Hebrew, it's called shirahashirim.
So,
which means the song of songs or the
best song because there's no superlative form in
the Hebrew language. Like, Arabic has a superlative.
In order to make something superlative in Hebrew,
you have to repeat it in the plural
and precede it with a definite article.
For example,
the best king
is the king of kings. Right? The best
book is the book of books.
The best song is the song of songs.
The Shirah Hashirim.
Scholars believe that this poem was penned
some 3000 years ago.
Right? We're gonna kinda use it as our
anchor,
when looking at the holy prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him.
So, it begins chapter 5 verse 10.
Okay? Song of Songs. If you have a
bible, you can read along with me.
But I'll be quoting the Hebrew because it's
very interesting and it's very important that we
study original languages.
So it says, dordisach
ve'adon.
My beloved
is white and red.
So one of the titles, the most exalted
title of the holy prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him, in the Islamic tradition
is Habibullah, the beloved of God.
Just like
Abraham is called a friend of God and
Moses is called the kanim Allah, the one
who spoke with God, Jesus is called a
word from God.
The prophet is called the beloved
of God.
Now, there's a genre of,
Islamic literature called the Shamael,
and this
genre deals with outward and inward aspects
of the holy prophet, peace be upon him.
It's a very vast genre of literature.
Probably the most famous work in this genre
is called Agha, A Shamayil An Nabawiya
by a scholar named Abu Musa Iturbidi.
So in this, in this work, he describes
the prophet outwardly and inwardly. Physical description of
the prophet and also his character.
Very,
very, very vast genre of literature, Islamic tradition.
And there's several hadith
that mentioned that the prophet's complexion,
right, or his skin that touched the wind
and sun.
Like, for example, one of his companions named
Imam Ali, Karamullah Wacha.
He said that the prophet's skin was a
white mixed with redness.
So the son of Solomon says here in
chapter 5 verse 10, my
beloved sachd e Adon, is white and red,
dagol meravava,
chief amongst 10,000.
Now this,
this is interesting because this,
this idea of him being chief amongst 10,000
is also found
in,
various
Jewish,
apocalyptic literature
like the book of Enoch. It's also mentioned
in the book of Daniel.
Book of Deuteronomy mentions someone coming from Mount
Paran,
with 10,000 saints and a fiery law in
his right hand.
Right? So when the prophet came into
Mecca,
right, in the 10th year of the Hijra,
so it's about 6:30
of the common era. He came with 10,000
companions.
Right? And he came into the city and
this is a city that had thrown him
out. Right?
They had,
been actively
fighting him for over 20 years and tried
tried to kill him,
and have
killed successfully
many of his companions and family members. And
he came into the city, and they knew
that he was well within his rights to
take vengeance.
And he called everyone out of their houses,
and he stood up and he said,
There's no blemish upon you today.
God has forgiven all of you.
So the prophet's character is magnanimous.
He forgives in a position of power. If
someone's about to kill you
and you turn to your
your murderer and you say, I forgive you
or may God forgive you. That's very noble.
But, imagine someone's been trying to kill you
for over 20 years and has been killing
your family members and companions for over 20
years. And now you're in a position to
kill them, and you forgive them.
So the prophet has magnanimous character. There was
a battle in which the prophet was,
participating in kalghazwat or Hordid.
And,
during this battle, the prophet suffered injuries to
his noble face. There was blood streaming down
his face.
And the companion saw him in the in
I mean, in the thick of battle and
his hands were raised.
So his companions thought that the prophet is
cursing
his enemies and that he's calling down for
the angels to come and so on and
so forth. And they heard what the prophet
actually said. And the prophet said that it's
recorded.
God, guide my people for they don't know.
Even in such circumstances,
the prophet,
preferred the guidance of his people. Right? And
this is something we hear a lot about
Jesus. Father, forgive them. They know not what
they do. But we never hear that about
the prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him. We
always hear that he's a warlord or something
like that. Why why is that? Right? So
we have to we have to do our
own research, and these are this is very
interesting.
So then,
the,
it continues. I'm running out of time here.
I wanna leave some time for questions. It
says, Rosho Ketempaz,
back to the Hebrew word, the Shelah Hasherim.
His head is like gold,
gavut so Tav Tel Talym shochorukka orev.
His locks are wavy
and black as a raven. So, again, according
to Shamayi literature,
the prophet, peace be upon him, had neither
straight nor curly hair, but wavy.
It was very black.
Even in his sixties, the companions actually this
is how much they loved the prophet. They
actually
would notice these tiny little things. Right? They
counted 11 white hairs
on his head, and most of them were
at his temples.
And they would notice these really
minute kind of details because that's a sign
that you love someone. Right? You're not just
writing down what someone said. Right? You wanna
know everything about your beloved. Everything about them.
Right?
And black as a raven. Now interestingly, the
Hebrew word here,
for raven, which is a arev,
is made up of 3 letters.
Ayin, reish, and beit, or ahing,
and ra and ba, which is Arab.
So the word, raven in Hebrew is also
the word for arab.
So it can be translated,
although I've never seen a translation like this
for obvious reasons.
It can be translated, his head is like
gold, his locks are wavy and black as
an Arab.
And then it continues.
And I'm running out of time, but I
wanna get to the, some of the highlights
here. It's about 7 verses long.
But we get down
to verse 16.
Okay? 5 16.
And
the poet said, and this is very interesting.
It says, hekomumvakim.
It says, his mouth is most sweet, vikul
lo muhammadim.
He is altogether lovely.
Now this word Muhammadim
in Hebrew,
has a plural ending. The im is a
plural ending. If you take off the plural,
the plural of respect,
you're left with 4 Hebrew radicals,
memchez memdaled,
which is the exact spelling of the name
Mohammed.
So the translation in English, every translation
virtually says, his mouth is most sweet. He
is altogether lovely.
Right? But when you drop the plural, you
have the name Muhammad.
Right? This is very interesting. This is this
is the actual name of the prophet, peace
be upon him,
in the old testament, in the shirah Hasherim.
And the poet continues, he concludes,
zedodid.
This is my beloved,
b'zeheri.
This is my friend,
Danu Jerusalem,
oh daughters of Jerusalem.
So that's very interesting.
Okay. 5 more minutes.
So, how do Muslims
account for
you know, it's one thing to say that
Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon him,
are brothers in faith. How do Muslims account
for different theologies
within these three religions?
Muslims believe that the theology of all 3
of these men,
was the same.
Right?
And that they believed
in God
as an absolute,
one entity. They believed in radical monotheism. So,
obviously, Muslims don't confirm,
begotten sonship of Christ,
or,
belief in the triune deity, which are obviously
very important,
for Christians, orthodoxy at least.
The evidence of this is when we go
to the Torah, right, the modern day Torah,
we have the great Shema.
Right? You guys probably heard of the Shema.
Shema Israel Adonai Elohim Adonai Echad. Hear, O
Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is
1.
Now a scribe comes to Christ,
right, in the gospel of Mark again, which
is the earliest gospel,
and he says
he says, what is the greatest commandment?
And Jesus will repeat
Shema
verbatim.
Of course, it's in the Greek.
The New Testament's in Greek. But he probably
quoted it in the Hebrew,
Shema Israel Adonai Elohinu Adonai echad.
Now this word, echad, is also found in
the Quran.
Uhad.
Say, he is god the one and only.
There's nothing comparable unto god.
So in the Islamic tradition, god is not
only,
1,
but he's completely unique.
He is completely dissimilar
to creation.
It's a radical monotheism.
He's completely transcendent,
but he's also imminent.
And this is an ultimately, God is a
mystery.
What we know about God is only what
he has chosen to reveal about
himself. Right? And
some might say, well, don't say himself. Say
herself or itself.
Right? But God uses a masculine. Now, Muslims
obviously don't believe that God is a man
or a woman, but that's how he's chosen
to reveal about himself.
Right?
So God is also imminent. This is very
important. The Quran speaks of this. The Quran
says that we are closer to man than
his jugular vein.
And many other indications of this, and I'll
end with this.
Insha'Allah ta'ala, God willing, and then we'll open
it up.
After one of the battles, there was this
woman that was running around
completely frantic because she had lost her infant
son. And this was, the prophet was there
and a group of companions were there.
And,
she was completely hysterical. She lost her little
son.
And then she finally sees him and picks
him up and hugs him and kisses him
and breastfeeds him.
And the prophet said, did you see that
woman?
He said,
He said, can you imagine this lady throwing
her child in a fire
after all that love
that she showed to him?
And they said,
said, no. My God, no. Laulahu alahi. And
then he said, peace be upon him, Allahu'arhamu
alibadihi
minhadihi biwala diha. God is more merciful
to his
servants than this woman was to her child.
So the prophet, peace be upon him, here
is using a a feminine
image
to demonstrate the love and mercy of God.
This is sound Hadith.
Right?
And this is very interesting. It's like one
of the names of God in the bi
in the Quran
is Ar Rahman,
which means infinitely
merciful.
And, the word, for womb, the the womb
of a mother
called, aracham or rechem in Hebrew,
is from the same root word.
Right? But there's a subtle analogy going on
here. Right?
The love of God. So this idea this
this idea of of filial love is also
found in our tradition.
Right? That God is like a parent, like
a father, like a mother.
But, Muslims also believe
that,
this idea that Jesus is begotten of God,
the literal son of God,
that he shares a pre existent nature with
God, that God does not have an ontological
precedent or priority over Christ. This idea, Muslims
will believe, was a later development
in Christian history that was eventually made Christian
orthodoxy.
So, I think I've ruffled enough feathers and
raised enough issues,
to have a discussion or a Q and
A session.
Like I said, if I offended anyone, it's
certainly not our intention.
I'm sorry if I bored made you bored.
But,
I appreciate the,
opportunity to speak. And I appreciate your,
show of respect.
Thank you very much.
Any questions or comments?
What time do you guys usually pray?
Oh, there's one. Okay.
So,
so most of you, received note cards. So
if you'd like to, write down any questions
and pass them to the side, I can,
collect them.
I can collect the questions.
Questions.
You can just pass them to the end
of the row.
The Quran says that
god knows everything you've ever done,
and he's gonna judge everything you've ever done.
So you don't know whether or not you're
going to
heaven or
not.
Is that a question?
Yeah. Okay.
The Muslim,
doesn't Can I ask the question, please? Yeah.
The the question is,
the the the Muslims don't know whether they're
going to heaven or *. In other words,
Muslim doesn't have an assurance of
salvation.
Now,
there's various traditions that deal with this.
The prophet, peace be upon him, said,
he said, whoever,
Whoever believes in the oneness of God and
in the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon
him, will enter paradise.
So Muslims do have an assurance,
But Muslims don't like to talk about that
because it puffs them up with pride. You
know, it's it's it's self righteousness. We don't
like to rub it in people's face and
say, you're going to *, aren't you? But
I'm going to heaven.
Right?
Muslims deserve this behavior to be
impious or
with
demonstrating bad character.
But there is an assurance of our tradition.
Now, Muslims also believe that,
there is
a possible purification process for people that were
recalcitrant sinners.
Punishment in the grave, purification and fiber, and
things like that. This is dealing with a
whole separate issue.
But the bottom line is that even the
prophet himself when he was asked,
you know, what will be your end? Right?
And he said, no. They they asked him.
He said the prophet said, no one has
entered into paradise
by their works. So this is a very
common
misconception that non Muslims believe that Muslims believe
that they can kind of work their way
up to righteousness. You do enough deeds.
Right? And you're you're justified with God.
And the prophet said, no person has entered
into paradise
by his or her deeds.
No person. You can never justify yourself for
your deeds.
The Quran says
that,
if anyone is saved on that day, it's
only from the mercy of God.
And my companion said, not even you, a
messenger of God. Not even you who perfected
worship, who's the best of
creation, who's the master to children of Adam.
He said, not even me except that my
Lord wraps me in mercy.
Not even the prophet, peace be upon him.
And this is out of his out of
his, humility.
Right? Obviously, Muslims believe that,
the prophet is,
in paradise, obviously.
He's the best of creation, and he's the
beloved of God and things like that.
And there's various traditions that deal with this
as well. There's a tradition of the prophet
in which he said,
a certain man was on a, on an
island and he had worshiped God for 100
of years.
And he was a very pious person. He
never committed any,
sins and things like that. On the day
of judgment, God told him, enter paradise,
be rachmati, by my mercy.
And the man said, bad yar rabbi bi'amali.
He said, no, my lord, by my works.
Go to paradise by my works. And then
the prophet said, then God took his eyesight
and put it in one side of the
scale, and all of his good works on
the other side of the scale.
And the eyesight fell and his works were
raised.
And God told the man that my blessing
of giving you the ability to see is
more than all of your good works. Would
you like to continue
this reckoning?
And the man said, be your
mercy under paradise.
So this is not something that Muslims,
you know,
like, there are some people that have approached
me many times.
You're gonna burn in *.
You know? Judge not, unless you be judged.
Right? It's from Matthew.
So so you are certain that you are
not going to *?
Am I
certain?
God willing.
God willing.
Yes.
I have one question.
Who who can become a Muslim? I mean,
is Islam is open for anyone, everyone, or
there are someone who is and the
other part is how to become a Muslim.
Like, if I meet someone and he wants
to become Muslim, what should he do or
say
or believe to become Muslim?
Islam is a universal religion. Like we said,
anyone could be a Muslim.
It's not a, you know, people say it's
a, you know, it's a religion of a
certain race or infamous,
misconception.
In fact, you know, although, you know,
95% of Arabs are Muslims,
85% of Muslims
are non Arab. In fact, Indonesia,
right,
has 200,000,000 Muslims and by itself outnumbers the
entire Arab world,
put together.
So this is a religion open to anyone.
What does one need to do to become
a Muslim,
is to testify in the oneness of God,
and in the messengership
of the holy prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him. And when they do that, they're already
accepting the previous revelations and dispensations
and the the prophethood of Jesus and Moses
and Abraham and all of them as well.
But there are fundamental differences between Islam, Christianity,
and Judaism.
And, it would not be fair to just
give a lecture about our similarities without touching
on those differences. There are differences.
The point is to talk about them with
respect
and try to understand why those differences are
there.
But, yeah, it's a religion that's open for
everyone. Anyone can be a Muslim.
You're rich, poor, black, white.
The prophet, peace be upon him, actually is
the first person in recorded history
to equalize humanity based on skin color. There's
no statement prior to him. He said, a
black man is not greater than a white
man, nor a white over a black, nor
an Arab over a non Arab,
except in piety.
Right? I mean, Paul said, there's neither Greek
nor Jew or a one in Christ with
image and skin color.
Right?
So the prophet, peace be upon him, is
the first person in recorded history,
to equalize humanity based on skin color, which
is which is really important. And this prophet,
like we said, was very fair skinned
himself. He didn't have dark skin.
Yes? What does Islam say about trying to
convert people?
What does Islam say about trying to convert
people?
Good question.
So,
we believe that,
that Muslims are
representatives
of God on the Earth. In fact, all
people are representatives of God.
And
Muslims believe that Islam is something
that benefits people.
Right? It's something that's good for people.
Right?
So this is called the dawah. This is
called, you know, Islamic propagation, if you will.
And there's different ways of doing it. You
know, people think that in order for you
to,
you know,
talk to people about Islam or in order
in order for you to propagate Islam, you
have stand up and give a speech or
something.
Right?
But there are different ways of calling people
to Islam. Just having good character is one
of the most,
probably the most powerful of ways.
Right? And the prophet said that I was
only sent to perfect your character.
This is very important.
Having good character is an extremely important prophetic
attribute to have.
So,
being a good person, having good character,
and calling people to truth because we have
concerns for people.
Not out of self righteousness. And it's a
thin line. It's very difficult for people sometimes
to make the difference between them. You know,
not to think that we're better than anyone
else. It's very important. The prophet was extremely
humble. The prophet, peace be upon him,
had great concern for people. He was he
constantly prayed for people.
So this type of thing is we call
people towards a certain path,
because we believe that it will benefit them.
And that's a duty of every Muslim
in their own capacity.
It might just be, you know, offering someone
your seat on the
on the subway or the BART or something.
Although, I did that one time. There's an
old lady that came into the BART
and I got up and I said, you
wanna sit down? And I didn't know she's
a feminist.
She said, what do you think? You're stronger
than me or something? You're
a man?
She said, no. I'm just whatever.
Yeah.
Okay. So question. Sorry.
Don't the two words salam and Islam mean
different things?
Yeah.
Salaam is a Can you repeat the question?
Yeah. The the word salaam and Islam, do
they mean different things? I mean, the root
word is the same.
Right? Salama is a trilateral root.
So salaam is a noun, means peace. Islam
is an infinitive. It's called Masdar in Arabic,
which means submission.
So the root word is the same.
So the Semitic languages are unique in the
sense that all of the words are derived
from triliterral and sometimes quadrilateral
or hexiliterral,
root words,
just like Hebrew as well. There's subtle differences
though in the definition, but it's in the
same root word.
Yes, sir? Okay.
When you're talking about Song of Songs,
5, 10 through 16,
you mentioned
that Mohammed
is described there. However, I'm trying to figure
out,
where your basis is that that's, like, the
prophetic
literature right there? Like,
how do you know that it's talking about
Mohammed?
Great question.
Great question.
Now
classical Christian theologians,
like Origen of Alexandria, have you heard of
Origen?
Origen of probably
most prolific of the pre Nicene fathers. He
wrote over a 1000 books,
although he was eventually declared a heretic,
in 553.
Most of the early church fathers were actually
declared heretics, but Christianity is very much indebted
to Origen for his great works,
on first principles.
So Origen believed that scripture has multiple levels
of meaning.
Right?
In fact, he said
infinite levels of meaning. So there's an apparent
meaning to contextualize
or historical meaning, an exoteric meaning, and then
there are esoteric meanings,
or foreshadowings,
or typologies of future events. This is classical
Christian,
exegesis of the biblical text.
So for example,
Origen would say that,
you know, there's there's stories in the old
testament that seem to indicate the coming of
Christ.
Now eventually, Origen was condemned
for that belief.
But interestingly,
Matthew also believed that. And Matthew is an
evangelist who wrote a gospel,
but Christians are not about to condemn Matthew.
So Matthew will actually quote from the old
testament and say, look,
a virgin conceived and his name is Emmanuel.
And this is a reference to Christ.
But if you go back to Isaiah,
right, chapter 7
and you read chapter 8, Emmanuel is born,
in chapter 8. So the Jew would say
to the Christian, what are you talking about?
This has nothing to do with Jesus.
This is very contextualized. It's dealing with a
sign that Isaiah gave to king Ahaz,
and this child is born in chapter 8.
And then the Christian would retort and say,
however,
there are multiple
esoteric meanings of scripture.
That's what Matthew would have said, who wrote
a gospel.
So my contention is and maybe it's not
a description of the prophet Muhammad, but it's
very uncanny.
I think you would agree if you read
the entire section and then compared it to,
Shamayya literature.
It's it's it's very close to a description
of the prophet. So one would say, for
example, this is a description of
Solomon.
A woman describing her husband or what that
origin would say, well, that's the the exoteric
context.
But there is a foreshadowing. There's a Mohammedan
typology in this type of thing as well.
So my basis for saying that is classical
Christian exigence
and evangelists, whom Christians believe are inspired by
God. Christians believe Matthew is inspired by God.
And he believed that very same thing.
That scripture has multiple levels of meaning.
Yes, sir?
In Pakistan and in Syria
Mhmm. I learned the greetings,
and the response,
and
I made some good friends.
Now I find myself
greatly confused.
Do you believe
and do
any Muslims believe
that a person who commits suicide
or who murders others
is able to enter paradise?
And
depending what your answer is to that,
what should the rest of us feel? What
how should we react?
What can you do about it?
Great question.
Part of the problem
is that
Muslims are not vocal enough these days.
Muslims in the West.
And Muslims are kind of allowing
non Muslims, not just non Muslims, people who
have agendas,
people who hate Islam,
to define our terminology.
They define our terminology. Like they say that
jihad means holy war.
Holy war is an oxymoron.
Jihad doesn't mean holy war. Holy war
is. Arabic doesn't make any sense. It's like
saying a straight homosexual,
jungle shrimp or 4 sided triangle.
So we have to we have to
define our own terminology.
So the the definition of a martyr, right,
a shahid that we're given is that a
shahid is someone who kills himself and innocent
people in the process.
That's not our definition
of a shahid. That's not our definition. That's
their definition.
Martyrdom is a noble thing. Muslims believe that
martyrdom is a noble thing.
But we have to be careful who we
label martyrs. Now, God knows best. I'm not
trying to judge anyone.
But this was extremely important amongst early Christians
as well. For example, let's talk about Origen.
There's another early church father named Tertullian of
Carthage,
who was probably the greatest Christian apologist of
the pre nicene era. He's also declared a
heretic though,
eventually.
But nonetheless,
he considered it a hallmark of Christian faith
to give your life.
That's why if you read early Christian history,
martyrologies
are a major important,
aspect of early Christian piety.
Like the martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp
of Smyrna, and the Colosseum.
The later legends about Peter being crucified upside
down, Paul being beheaded in Rome, and Jesus
according to Christians was a martyr,
giving your life for a noble cause. Yeah.
Right? But if someone,
you know, decides to
become a vigilante and kill himself and innocent
people in the process,
Muslims have to be vocal
in in condemning such things. Now, again,
God is the ultimate judge. I have no
idea what people are going. If you go
to to Gaza right now, I mean, it's
worse than it's like a concentration camp. And
it's just terrible. It's deplorable. It's unbelievable
what these people are going through. And I
hope,
upon none of us to be in that
position. But what would we actually do in
that situation? What else is there to do
in that situation? These people are completely desperate.
So I'm not judging anyone. Right? Because I'd
probably do much worse if I was in
that situation. May God never put us in
that type of situation. Really amazing
what's going on there. Really, really deplorable.
But, that's that's the main issue is that
Muslims need
to define their own
terminology. And it's interesting because, you know, again,
people have an agenda. You need to justify
a war. You have to justify the killing
of 400,000 innocent Iraqis,
women and children. How do you do that?
You know, let's just sweep it on the
rug and worry about what some guy in
Pakistan did. What some guy in Pakistan did.
Let's let's worry about that,
and, forget about these innocent people that are
being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and what's
going on in Gaza.
So this is a this is a process
of pseudo speciation. They're trying to make Muslims
look less than humans, so it's easy to
kill them. Because they know these American soldiers,
you know, who are right out of high
school, any of them. They go to the
Middle East. They kill people. They kill innocent
people. They come back, and they're just gone.
They're they're they're
psychology
psychologically, they're gone.
So there there has to be a steady
indoctrination that these people are our enemy. These
people wanna
wanna threaten our way of life. They're trying
to usurp the government and take over and
things like that. These people are not even
human.
So these things make headlines a lot in
this country. Right? Pseudo speciation in order to
justify a war. There was a a group
of,
a lot of people don't know this, but,
you know, up in GTU, I hear about
these things. There was a group of Christian
terrorists. You guys hear about this? The the
Houthatis?
You guys know about them?
People don't know about this. A few months
ago in the Midwest, a group of Christian
terrorists, you'd go on their website, there's a
cross and, you know, and, you know, they're
very well armed. They're trained trying to take
over the government,
and most people never heard about it. Right?
Because, yeah, they don't need to hear about
that. We're gonna sweep that under the rug
and worry about what some guy in Pakistan
did.
Yes?
So,
are complete the book. Which of Christians and
Jews are the most?
Yes.
There's a difference of opinion about that amongst
Is this a question? Yes. The the question
is,
when the Quran says people of the book,
the Christians and Jews that believe in the
bible, which type of Christians and Jews are
they talking about?
There's an opinion that it's referring to,
the Christians and Jews that were dominant at
the time of the revelation of the Quran,
which were Trinitarian
Christians,
and the Jews that were living at the
time.
There's another opinion that is referring to
Christians that,
believe that Jesus,
was not equal to God or to the
father,
which is,
closer to, like, ancient Ebionite Christology or Arianist
Christology,
or Unitarian
Christianity, which is very very much in the
minority today. But I think the dominant opinion
is that Adientes
refers to
the dominant
Christian denomination at the time, which is Trinitarian
Christianity.
Yeah. I wanna I wanna compliment the one
thing you said just a moment ago, and
then I wanna,
add commentary to your point about the Christian.
Then I would like to know how you
reconcile this modern
creation.
One, it's been said in certain circles when
you're talking about definitions that people have said
that, Moses
was the law,
Jesus was the mercy,
and that Islam or Muslims are the wrath
of God.
And that,
it's
explanation of its faith was done by the
sword in terms of creating the first true
theocracy
in the world as far as a religion
with the state. Islam, Mohammed, was the first
creator of a true theocracy
theocracy
in terms of
world expansion,
Spain, the borders, and so on. Africa,
Arabia,
varying place of the world.
Also,
I want to certainly quick comment that,
the,
the original Christians
during that time that you just mentioned
was what you were saying, the Trinitarians,
and that that big change in Christianity
came about from the Council of Nicaea. I
was wondering if you could speak to that,
maybe a commentary
that the original Christians
pretty much believed like like Muslims in in
one God and one.
That there was no sun, so on and
so forth. But at the Council of Nicaea,
with Christians, that changed. And the Bible says
that in Antioch, they became known as Christians.
It was like 5 years after the deal.
But my point is, how do Muslims reconcile
their history,
of,
Islam being exported?
Some say through war or through the sword
when they went into other countries
exporting the religion. How do you guys reconcile
that today when
the American perception is
Islam is not a peaceful religion because its
history, its origin
was
Even though I realized it was in self
defense because people were trying to kill Mohammed
bin Becca and Medina,
and he had to establish self defense. But
they take it now as you defend or
fight back,
they're saying the Muslim religion is
terroristic,
violent, you know, that we established in Spain,
those establishments, other places. How do you reconcile
that with peace?
Yes.
Very good question.
Yeah. Definitely. All of the military expeditions of
the Prophet had a defensive aspect to them.
That's important to realize as well.
But, you know, it's interesting because, you know,
Islam, the religion has soared because,
the only Muslim policy in the history of
Islam that,
whose foreign policy was based on war booty.
That's their entire fiscal system was a a
Muslim policy called the Bani Umayyah, which lasted
a few years and then it went out.
And,
that's that that was basically their policy. They
were Muslim Zionists.
They're Amos to gain land.
Right?
So that's that was a sad part of
our history, actually.
But, you know, human beings are imperfect. We
don't believe that Muslims are perfect. We believe
Islam is perfect. And certainly,
no one I don't claim, I would never
say that Christianity is a violent religion, and
that the aim of Christianity is world *,
and that,
the teachings of Christ and and and and
Paul are
are are these the the basis of world
* and imperialism and things like that. But
if you look through our Christian history,
you know, 70,000
Muslims killed in one weekend in 10/99 of
the common era. Blood ran knee high to
the horse,
that's a sad event of Christian history and
of Muslim history and world history.
So these types of things have happened over
time.
Muslim Spain, Al Andalusia, if you ask any
Jewish scholar, I had a Jewish rabbi professor
at GQ. I asked him, you know, what
was the greatest age of Judaism? He said,
Muslims fame.
Very quickly, Muslims fame. Al Andalusia.
That was our golden age. That's what he
says. That was our golden age. What about
David Solomon? And then no. No. No. Muslim
Spain was our golden age. Age. And how
did Muslim Spain end?
1492.
And Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and they
killed the Muslims and Jews.
It ended in genocide. That's why many of
the Jews, they actually went down into Muslim
countries when the Christians came and were slaughtering
everyone. And there was an inquisition and whatnot.
And obviously, I don't believe those Christians represented
the true,
teachings of Christ. Obviously not. I'm not making
that claim. But it's very interesting because,
when a Muslim does something stupid immediately, it's
all he's just following Islam. That's what Islam
says to do. But when a Christian does
something like that, oh, he's, you know, he's
he's he's a deviant.
Right? That's that's not that's not that's not
Christianity teaches. He's a he's a terrible Christian.
Not even a Christian. Right? This type is
a very big double standard.
It's a very big double standard.
With regards to your question about NICEA,
yeah. I mean, there's a lot of misconceptions
about what happened at the synod of NICEA
in 325.
Dan Brown in his book, The Da Vinci
Code, he makes some claims that are unsubstantiated.
He's kinda sell books. I mean, he's just
an author. But what did happen in Nicaea
was that Jesus was officially declared equal with
God.
They didn't even deal with the Holy Spirit
that came in 381, that came at
Constantinople
under Theodosius.
They were just dealing with Christ. Who is
Christ? And interestingly, the only Christian bishops that
were invited
to Nicaea were proto orthodox bishops.
In other words,
bishops that already believed that Jesus was divine
in some way.
So they're not gonna invite, you know, Edbianite
Christians or Nazarene Christians or Marcionite or Gnostic
Christians or,
Patriopasianists
or anything like that. They're not gonna invite
them, modalist, you know,
because they weren't bishops. They didn't have the
power.
So this was just a small group, maybe
the minority group.
Because history teaches us that in 360 of
the common era, this is after Nicea,
360 of the common era, the vast majority
of Christian bishops
preached Ebionite Christology,
or Arianist Christology,
which is an adoptionist Christology. So Arianist said
that Jesus is katishma te leon. He's the
best of creation, and he's not equal to
with the father.
This was the dominant Christology
after Nicaea.
So this was a minority group of Christians
that were very well fund, very influential
that Constantine invited to Nicea, and they voted.
And based on the vote, Jesus now is
coequal, co substantial, and co eternal with the
father.
And that's the father and son,
Although the father has causal priority over the
son, whatever that means, he does not have
ontological or,
temporal priority. I don't mean to be glib
about it. I'm just trying to quote what
the actual,
creed actually says. The findings of the synod.
Yeah. So this was a much later development.
Historians will say, like Bart Ehrman will say
that. The original Christology, the original Christians was
very much Muslim.
They were Jews that practiced the Torah, that
worshiped in the synagogues.
They simply believed that Jesus was the messiah.
But that was it. That was no no
different.
They they considered themselves to be a sect
of Judaism. They call themselves the Baway,
Asirat,
Atariyapath.
Right?
They didn't consider themselves a different or distinct
religion. This is from a historical standpoint. It's
not my opinion. This is what historians are
saying. Yes, sir.
Could you,
verify
why
non Muslims were required
to pay a special tax,
they were living
in the area of Muslims.
Very good question. The question is about a
a tax that non Muslims are required to
pay. It's called the jizya tax,
when living in a Muslim state.
Interestingly, there's a book there's a book called
Answering Islam. Okay. Now there's a website, but
in 1993, there's a man named Norman Geisler
and another man named Abdul Salih, which means
slave in the cross. He's supposed to be
Muslim apostrophe. Probably doesn't exist though.
I'll be a figment of Geissler's imagination. Anyway,
he wrote a book called Answering Islam. Right?
And in that book, he says in that
book, he says that many of the Christians
in North Africa willingly accepted Islam
because of its low taxes
and stress on brotherhood.
That's what Norman Geissler says in answering Islam.
Now obviously, I mean, he's not going to
come out and say they actually believed in
Islam and that can't be true.
But it must have been low taxes. So
the Romans at the time. Right? This is
this is this is Byzantium. This is the
the Christian Roman Empire.
They were charging unbelievable taxes on the Christians.
Right? Everyone has to pay taxes. What did
Mark Twain say? There's only 2 certain things.
Death and taxes.
Right? So Muslims are required to pay zakat.
Muslims have to pay 2.5 at least percent
of their income
that goes to the poor if they can
afford it.
Right?
The Jizya tax
So non Muslims don't have to pay zakat,
obviously, but they have to pay Jizya tax
for the Muslim government in exchange for protection
from the state. And the Jizya tax is
much lower than the zakat.
And it's only for Christians and Jews that
can afford it. If you can't afford it,
then you don't have to pay it obviously,
and it's not demanded
in exchange for,
for protection.
For example, if a group of Jews in
Muslim Spain was paying the Jitsi attacks to
the Muslim government,
and then a group of rogue Muslims decide
we're gonna go and we're gonna attack this
Jewish village.
Then it is incumbent upon the Muslim polity
to fight that Muslim group that's attacking the
Jews because they're paying the Jews the tax.
They have protection.
They're they're guaranteed protection
by paying that tax.
But everyone has to pay taxes. I have
to pay taxes. You have to pay taxes.
You know?
Yes, ma'am? How many versions of the Quran
are there?
Versions of Quran.
There is one version, but many translations.
There's one version. It's in Arabic.
Now there are different spelling conventions of the
Quran in Arabic. Different ways of spelling words.
Right?
So they found, you know, some masahif or
some codices in Yemen
that left out the alif
in the name Ibrahim, for example. That's not
a different version of the Quran. That's a
spelling convention.
Right?
So there's one version, and it's in the
Arabic language. Different ways of spelling things, sometimes
different ways of pronouncing things,
but many translations.
Hope that clarifies.
Yes, sir.
So from a Muslim perspective, what is the
one message
for Moses?
Good question. From Muslim perspective, what is the
message of Moses, Jesus,
and Mohammed?
I would say,
that it is the
the commandments of Moses, Jesus,
in the in that in the Torah.
You shall love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and
love thy neighbor as thyself. And before that,
hear, oh Israel, or hear, oh, world, the
lord our god, the lord is 1.
So this is a message that is rooted
in love and mercy and in piety towards
god.
I would say that those three concepts are
absolutely foundational
in the message of these 3 great luminaries.
Yes. What is the Muslim understanding of evil
in the world? How that got into a
world created by itself? Great question. Why is
there evil in the world? Muslims don't believe
that creation has fallen like Christian belief.
Muslims don't believe in,
it's called
original sin that we inherited the sin of
our father, Adam.
Muslims believe there's evil in the world because
it's a byproduct of limited free will of
human beings.
So the human being has
limited free will, not absolute free will,
and we don't believe in in a rigid
determinism either.
God knows everything, obviously. And he knows what's
gonna happen because he's God. If he didn't
know that, then he wouldn't be God. And
we have to remember that
this is something that we can't conceive of
this. But God is outside of time. God
is outside of time, space, and direction. He
transcends that. You know, it's not, you know,
it's not was it Thursday night,
May, whatever, 2010 forgot? God is outside of
time. Right?
So if we looked at this whole thing
from God's perspective, which is impossible,
we would understand that. But, ultimately, we won't
understand. But God knows what we will do,
but Muslims believe that there's a, there's a
limited free will of the human being,
where he makes or she makes choices.
And they're taken to account for those choices.
This is a doctrine called acquisition.
So the reason why there's evil in the
world is because of a misuse of free
will, of limited free will. And a human
being can take into account for that. Even
though God knows what the person will do,
that's because he's God, and he's expected to
know. Because he's all powerful, and he's all
knowing. And if he did not know that,
then he wouldn't be God.
This is why. A misuse of free will.
So Muslims actually believe that if there if
there were no human beings on Earth, then
there would be no evil on earth
because Muslims don't believe that nature is evil.
Muslims don't believe that creation is evil inherently
or naturally.
That when a lion attacks a zebra and
goes for the jugular, that's based on instinct,
that's based on nature. That's not an evil
act. But when a guy shoots another person
in the head and robs him, that's a
demonstration
of a misuse of free will and therefore
evil. So God created evil
in the Islamic tradition. God created evil and
created evil actions, but human beings acquire them.
Right? And the book of Isaiah also in
response to Zoroastrian elements
that had crept into
Judaism. In Isaiah chapter 45, I believe,
God says,
we made the light and darkness. We created
evil and peace.
Right? So the Lord does all of these
things as Isaiah says. But God did create
evil because if he didn't create something, then
again, he can't be God. He's the creator
of everything.
So Muslim believe that God created evil or
the capacity
in the human being to engage in evil
action,
and that's out of his mercy. That's actually
a mercy. And God gave us the limited
free will to make a choice.
But it is the human beings
misuse of that free will that leads to
evil in the world.
The prophet actually said that everyone is born,
into a natural state of purity. It's a
hadith of the prophet. And it is only
parents in society that make him different types
of religions and beliefs and so on and
so forth.