Ali Ataie – The Bible Through a Muslim Lens
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Welcome back to another episode of the Ahmed
Khan podcast.
Here, we hope to convene conversations related to
religion,
politics,
science,
philosophy,
and the contemporary issues of our age.
Today, we have doctor Ali Al Ta'i joining
us, who is a scholar of biblical hermeneutics
with field specialties
in several languages.
He's a professor at Zaytuna College,
and he teaches classes such as credal theology,
comparative theology,
sciences of the Quran, and seminal ancient texts.
Related to our discussion today about looking at
the Bible through a Muslim lens,
doctor Ali has received his master's in biblical
studies from the Pacific School of Religion.
And in 2016,
he acquired his PhD in cultural and historical
studies in religion from the Graduate Theological
Union.
He is one of the most qualified, if
not the most qualified people, I feel,
on this subject.
So thank you for making time for us
today, doctor Ali.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Thank you. Thank you, doctor Ali. So just
jumping straight into the topic, looking at, you
know, you taught a course online, which was
called the Bible through a Muslim lens.
And
there's so much that we need to unpack
here. What is the Bible?
What are the books mentioned within the Bible?
And I think an excellent you know, just
starting point, if you could, if we could
begin here,
is, you know, the Bible is considered is
consists of both the Old Testament and the
New Testament.
So I was wondering if you could just
briefly speak upon both of them
and answering whether or not there is some
level of divinity within it. Were were these
revealed scriptures that Allah
has sent down?
Yeah.
So as you said,
the the Bible is, divided into,
2 broad parts, the Old Testament and the
New Testament. Of course, the term Old Testament
is is is Christian terminology.
Right? So the the Jews don't refer to
the
the Old Testament as the Old Testament,
because it, implies that it's it's no longer
valid or somehow superseded.
So they call it the Tanakh,
okay, which is an acronym.
So the the tau is for Torah. The
the nun is for nibim,
and the calf is for.
So you have the the the Torah. In
this and the word Torah
can mean different things. It's kind of, it
can be used as sort of a
very loosely.
But in the acronym Tanakh, Torah means basically
Chumash,
which is also known as the Septuagint, which
is the first five books,
of of the of the Bible. So here
we're looking at the books of Moses, books
that are attributed to Moses. So,
so traditional Christians and Jews believe that the
first five books, these are Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These are written by
Musa alaihi salaam. Okay? That's what they believe.
And then you have a set of books
known as the or the prophets.
Right? Is in Hebrew.
And these are basically books that are named
after prophets. So, again, traditional Jews and Christians
believe that prophets,
wrote these books like Jeremiah,
Isaiah, Ezekiel,
Amos, Micah,
etcetera.
And then you have the kittobim, which is
sometimes translated as the writings or the hagiography.
And these are also considered to be sacred
writings. So so so according to,
orthodox Judaism, there is a hierarchy of
of revelation, if you will. So the first
five books of Moses
is considered the highest type of revelation. It's,
you know, basically, like, ipsisima,
verba, the very words of God. Basically, what,
like, the traditional Muslim position is
regarding the Quran that that, you know, with
the Quran, we don't believe that these are
the words of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
I mean, he was the first human being
to utter them. Right?
But he did not choose the wording. The
wording itself is chosen by Allah Subhanahu wa
ta'ala. It's not chosen by Jibreel alaihi wasallam.
It's not chosen by the prophet sallallahu alaihi
salam. So this is similar to how
orthodox Jews view the first five books.
Okay. So,
these were revealed to Moses, the very words
of God spoken by Moses.
Then you have, like I said, the Nabiem.
Just quickly, doctor Ali.
Do do do orthodox Jews believe that there
were revelations
before the Torah, before the books of Musa?
Yeah. So, I mean, the in in the
book of Genesis,
we're told the flood story of Noah
beginning in Genesis chapter 6.
So, you know, Noah is commanded to,
take into the ark, pairs of clean and
unclean animals.
So a secular historian will look at that
and say, well, this is obviously there's a
problem here because,
you know, the Jews did not know what
was clean and unclean until the actual law
of Moses was revealed.
But
the the
the
confessional response would be no. There was actually
a law revealed prior to Noah,
peace be upon him.
So he actually received some sort of law
as well. And Abraham as well. The Abraham
received some sort of revelation,
from god, but
the the revelation given to Moses is considered
to be the highest and most authoritative,
type of revelation
that is good for all time. So there's
no there's no idea of abrogation,
of any of those 613
commandments given in the Torah.
Okay?
So they're immutable. They're
transhistorical.
They are the very words of God.
Okay. So this is a traditional Jewish belief.
Of course,
almost no secular historian,
takes the obviously, a secular historian is not
going to say that these are revealed words
of god because a secular historian does not
take miracles into consideration. Exactly. It's just not
it's just not part of their method.
But they'll also say that these words were
definitely not written by someone named Moses,
you know, 1500 years before the common era.
So there's a very wide gap between
what secular historians are saying, and this is
the general consensus,
is that,
the 5 books attributed to Moses are actually
a composite work.
So you basically had 4 different writers,
writing at different times in different places. And
then sometime
in the 5th century
before the common era, so something,
so post exilic after the Babylonian exile,
someone called the redactor. That's what Julius Wellhausen
refers to him as. Maybe Ezra, the scribe.
Somebody actually took these different
traditions,
and stitched them together, and now you have
the Pentateuch or the 5 books of Moses.
So
but, nonetheless,
orthodox rabbis believe that these books were written
by Moses on Mount Sinai,
something like 15 centuries before the common era,
over a 40 day and 40 night period.
And then the Nabiem,
it's a low a lower tier,
revelation. So Isaiah,
Ezekiel, Jeremiah, so on and so forth.
They're basically
being inspired by God, and they're articulating that
inspiration. So something similar to Hadith.
Right? Okay. So the so the Hadith of
the prophet
is still.
Right? The Quran says the prophet
never speaks from his own or caprice.
It is no less than inspiration.
Everything he says is wahi,
but the hadith of the prophet is
is is different. I mean, you read his
words you read the Quran, it's it's very
clearly different,
because the Quran has this idea of ijaz.
Sometimes it's,
referred to as a type of insuperability.
This this idea that it's impossible to imitate
the style of the Koran. Right.
Which is a topic, a big topic by
itself.
So it's basically it is impossible to imitate
the Koran. Many people have tried, but they
failed. And since the Koran is such a
mass transmitted,
living tradition ever since its inception. It's impossible
to to to fabricate the Quran. But hadith
have been fabricated.
People have write things, and they and they've
they've,
pawned them off as hadith, and they've invented
chains of transmission and things like that. So
you have to be very, very careful with
with Hadith and our scholars who've gone into
the corpus.
So just while on that topic, doctor Ali,
the Quran in in your,
in your,
in your in your Quran classes, you teach,
this theory about the Quran, which is known
as chiasm
or this ring theory.
It's it's it's it's interesting, and I'll I'll
have you explain what the ring theory is,
but I was recently reading an article,
research paper arguing that the ring theory is
also found within the book of Psalms,
which is within the Old Testament.
And so this this brings me to the
to the question as, what what things within
the old testament can we consider to be
divine? If we see something like that, if
we affirm something like, a ring theory is
true, and then it's that it that it
could only come from a divine source, does
that ultimately mean that the ring theories that
are found in the Old Testament
are also,
divine as well?
No. I don't I don't think so. It's,
so Semites would write in this way. Okay?
This is a a very common way.
A very common type of of Semitic rhetoric
is to write in a chiasmus or in
a ring structure or in parallel structures.
So you you find this in in,
certain places in the Pentateuch. You find in
the Psalms, as you said.
You you'll find it in the the epic
of Gilgamesh.
Right?
So so anything written by a Semite
tends to have these
these rhetorical,
devices. It doesn't make them divine revelation. The
thing about the Quran is that the ring
theory is on a different level. I mean,
if you read Raymond Farron's book, on Al
Baqarah,
he says the entire Surah is one big
chiasmus.
Right? So this is extraordinary for someone who's
not writing this down because the prophet
is not writing down the Quran.
And the the ayat of Surah Baqarah are
being revealed to him at different stages during
his life along with other ayat from other
suar. And for him to know exactly where
to put all of these things,
you know, sort of just in his head,
or to tell scribes where to write this
and that and to Mhmm. To have these
surahs come out. Even Al Maeda,
Michelle Kuipers had a wrote a tremendous book.
Michelle Kuipers, a Belgian priest, is not Muslim.
Merriman Farron is not Muslim. A lot of
this work is being done,
by non Muslims, and it's really extraordinary.
His book is called the thing. Doctor Ali,
can you give an example of ring theory?
So just so people have an idea of
what what exactly you're talking about about this
ring, this circle. Yeah. So at a very
basic level, right,
So and, right, the the the last
word of the first verse,
right, means abundance. And then the last the
last word of the the final verse, the
third verse means to be cut off. So
these are opposites.
Right? So these two verses sort of correspond.
These are textural units that are related in
what's known as an antithetic relationship. They seem
to be opposites.
So then what's in the middle, that's the
sort of,
the sort of highlighter, the the sort of,
sort of,
main point, I guess, you can say. The
focus of the Surah
is to worship and to sacrifice
for the sake of Allah.
Right?
So so ring theory also known as chiasma.
So it comes off you know, the letter
chi is an x.
Right? An x.
Right? So what you have at the top
of the x sort of matches what's down
at the bottom in some sort of,
some sort of relationship rhetorical relationship, either in
the sense of being antithetical. It's sort of
it's sort of the opposite or it's synonymic.
And then right in the middle of the
x, you know, the focus,
that that's that's that's where everything sort of
converges towards, and that's the most important part
or the highlight, the pivot.
Alright? It's called the, the Amud, like Islahi
and Farahi who are confessional Muslim scholars. They
they they actually
also,
bring this to light in their books as
well to the Quran, for example.
They call it the, which is like the
sort of, I guess, you could say the
center.
The center. The main thing. Yeah. So it's
a very simple example.
Okay. Like in like in, for example.
Yeah. Do you mind explaining the the ring
theory that's there? And then
Yeah. I mean, I'd have I'd have to
pull it up. I know we've we've we've
gone over that, in our class. So, like,
the first verse, it it it the Corresponds
with the last. It corresponds with the last
or sermon there's
similar terminology being used. Sometimes exactly the same
phraseology is being used. And then the second
part of the I matches the second to
last part, the third part, the third to
last part, and right in the middle. I
believe
is right in the middle stressing
the absolute,
omniscience of Allah
So it's very, very common. So, yeah, you'll
find this in different different writings. But what
the Quran does I mean, the Quran is
really just a a as one of my
teachers said, an ocean of
of rhetoric. Right?
Which is just, I mean, it's the it's
the first book ever written in Arabic.
It's absolutely unmatched,
by anything.
Nothing even comes close to the Quran. And,
and so it's it's really interesting, the prophet
as in nabeel ummi, which has different meanings,
gentile prophet, but it can also mean the
unlettered prophet.
Someone can write,
this type of of book
with all of these
rhetorical
devices,
and,
and consistently,
not contradict himself
and challenge. Right? The challenge is is is
an open challenge. It's called the.
Right? And,
you know, and we're gonna in our Quran
class, you haven't taken it yet, but we
actually
because some Christians have claimed to have answered
the challenge. So we actually review some of
their so called
that they've they've written.
You know, 1999, I think, Wine Press Publishing.
They put out a book called
Hak,
right, where they
basically wrote a counterfeit Quran in order to
answer the challenge. So, actually, in our class,
we actually go through these these, these so
called suar and demonstrate how they're nothing
like the Koran. And in many times they
plagiarize
wholesale
from the Quran. So so the challenge is
not to, you know
instead of saying you say
or something. You change a few words. No.
It's not
the challenge is not to take the Quran
and and change a few words. It's to
imitate the style of the Quran.
Mhmm. And that by itself requires,
you know, a separate lecture by itself, exactly
what what I mean by that.
But you just just while we're on that
topic, doctor Ali, I once came across,
I don't know
who wrote it, but there was some deviant
sect that tried to imitate the Quran. And,
I read one of their, surahs that they
wrote, and it was literally a copy and
paste of, Surat Nas
or Surat
Nas. And they just changed 1 or 2
words in it, and they said we've imitated
it. And I'm like, you basically just took
one word out and changed it.
Yeah. And that's,
yeah, that's what the Furqan Al Haq does.
There's also this lady. I think she was
I think a couple years ago,
I'm not sure, maybe in Tunisia
where she wrote this Surat Kofid. Right? The
Surah of COVID.
And if you read it, it actually sounds
to an untrained ear, it sounds like the
Quran, but the meanings are totally ridiculous.
Right?
So, you know, they came to Musa Le
Ma according to our tradition because Musa Le
Ma was claiming to be a prophet. And
and, apparently, he was actually a pretty good
poet.
But, you know, there's different types of miracles
in our tradition. Right? So there's, you know,
there's a which is a miracle given to
a prophet,
And then there's something called an,
which is given to someone who's claiming to
be a prophet,
which is a miracle. It's it's considered to
be a breach of of of natural occurrence.
But the purpose of it is to humiliate
a false prophet.
Mhmm. So, for example, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
salam in our tradition, he spat into a
well and the water overflowed, and this beautiful
smell of musk
came from the well. While Musayla Al Khabab,
he spat into a well and it dried
up in this pewter foul smell, which is
a which is a miracle. Right? You don't
you don't see that happening.
Right. So har kol adat. I mean, it's
a breach of natural law.
So, you know, they came to him and
said, you know, this man in Medina, he's
he's, you know, he's really reciting something beautiful.
And, you know, you know, and then he
he apparently made some ridiculous, you
know, or something. Something completely ridiculous, and they
laughed him, you know, to scorn. And,
but many have tried and, you know, the
the Arabs at that time, you know, this
was the height of their language, and they
would have taken this challenge very, very seriously.
You know?
And so they were completely
incapacitated by the they didn't even try to
do it.
Right? Which is which is a proof of
the, like, the sort of Sunni position as
opposed to the Martezedi position. The Martezedi position
is that
the human being has an internal capacity. There's
an ability to imitate the Quran, but Allah
simply will not allow that person to.
Right?
Whereas the the Sunni position is that it's
just not it's not possible for a human
being. He doesn't have the capacity,
to do that. And our position is strengthened
when we look at the history,
of,
of the Quran, the history,
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that the
the Arabs immediately recognized
that they could not imitate,
the Quran.
So so so so the Quran
employs these rhetorical devices at a at a
much, much
more advanced level.
Yeah. And even there are even some orientalists.
I mean, you know, the orientalist is supposed
to be, you know, objective. Right? So but
if if you read their books, they have,
like, vastly different opinions as to,
you
know, as to, you know, when the Quran
was codified and,
you know, so we would say the entire
Quran is written down at the time of
the prophet. Oh, I understand. The the committee
of Sayidna Uthman codified the text or standardized
the text. And this is more or less
a position of Theodore
Noldeke. This is standard western text,
in Islamic studies,
the German scholar, Theodore and Oldacre, the history
of the Quran. But you have other scholars
who say that I think it's,
you know, John Burton who said that the
prophet himself,
codified the Koran
all the way to John Wansbrough, who said
the Koran was probably written by a committee
in Iraq
in the 8th century
and there never was a prophet.
This type of radical revisionism.
Why is he saying that? Why why why
is he saying that a group of scribes
in Iraq wrote the Koran? Because it's for
him, he can see that it's impossible for
1 man,
who's unlettered living in living in Medina
to have written this incredible text. It must
have been a committee of people who knew
Jewish theology and Christian theology, and they they
knew these texts of the ancient
or or the late antique period. And,
you know, so that that's his conclusion. I
mean, nobody really takes him seriously anyway.
Okay. But that's very interesting as well is
that
is that our narrative,
is is the is basically
about the sort of our narrative concerning the
codification
standardization of the Quran is is is basically
the general consensus
of the historical community.
Okay? Yeah. Whereas when we look at the
Torah, there's a big, big difference between what
confessional Jews are saying and what the historians
are saying. Big difference. 100 of years apart.
Mhmm. And the same as and with the
New Testament gospels.
Okay. So Christians, you know, traditional Christians believe
that, you know, Matthew wrote Matthew's gospel and
and Matthew was a disciple of Jesus.
And John, the son son of Zebedee, a
disciple of Jesus, wrote the gospel of John.
Almost no secular historian
takes this position,
you know, unless they're, you know, really hardcore
evangelical
scholars
Mhmm. Because it does it doesn't make sense.
You know, the gospel of John was written
probably
around 90 of the common era, and that's
to be generous. I mean, some put it
out
really late in the 2nd century. Mhmm. So
let's just say And and those
those gospels you're referring to are part of
the New Testament. Correct?
The New Testament. Yeah. So that's the second
major part of the Bible. You have the
Old Testament or Tanakh, and then you have
the New Testament. The New Testament begins
with these four gospels
that are supposed to be written by 2
disciples of Jesus and then 2 disciples of
disciples.
So so Luke is a a disciple of
Paul
according to the traditional attribution,
and Mark is a student of Peter.
What's interesting is there's a gospel of Peter
that was rejected by the church,
but the gospel of Mark, who's a student
of Peter, is accepted,
by the church.
The reason why the gospel of Peter was
not accepted by the church is is because,
during the resurrection
of Jesus, the cross actually comes out of
the tomb and begins to speak,
and they thought that was just ridiculous. Wow.
Interesting.
And also the in the gospel of Peter,
it says that Jesus on the cross, it
says that
that basically god,
took his soul, removed his soul.
So it almost seems like, he he didn't
die from his
from the actual ordeal of the crucifixion, that
he was sort of raptured up into heaven.
That's what sort of
the the sort of,
that's how one could read what the gospel
of Peter is actually saying. So if Jesus
doesn't die as god and doesn't die from
his
ordeal,
then there's no vicarious atonement for sin.
So so, doctor Ali, you keep mentioning,
the word gospel. Is this gospel you're referring
to the?
Well so,
yeah, I mean, the word gospel means
Right? So as Muslims, we believe that Isa
alaihis salam
was given a revelation.
Okay? And the Quran calls that revelation al
injil,
the gospel.
Okay? So if you read Matthew's gospel, for
example, in Matthew's gospel, it says that Jesus
would go to a certain place, and he
would teach the gospel.
So my question is, what is Jesus teaching?
Is he teaching Matthew's gospel?
Mhmm. No. Because Matthew's gospel was not written
yet.
Right? Is he teaching Luke's gospel? No. Not
written yet. Is he teaching
something written by Paul in Galatians or in
1st Corinthians?
No. These things are not written. So what
is Jesus teaching when Matthew says Jesus is
going to a certain certain place and he's
teaching the gospel? We believe in that gospel.
That's the proto gospel.
Now where is that gospel?
It probably was never written down. It was
probably a a the spoken message of Isa
alaihi salam. This is probably why he's called
Okay?
And then it probably means the word of
Allah. The word of Allah. A word from
Allah.
Yeah.
So I I think that eventually his words
were written down.
Some of those words are probably preserved in
the 4 Christian gospels,
but there were over 30 gospels. There was
there were several epistles
that did not make it into the New
Testament.
You know, the first Christian writer is Paul.
Okay. And
Paul is the 1st person in recorded history
to say that Jesus was crucified.
And he says this in the book of
Galatians.
And,
my question is, you know, why is Paul
why does it seem like Paul is the
only
Christian in the fifties
sixties that that's writing these letters and epistles?
Where are the letters and epistles of the
other disciples of Jesus? I mean, Paul was
not even a disciple of Jesus according
to according
to Christian admission. He was he was, commissioned
later,
when he was, you know, this sort of
what is it called? The
the Damascus roadside
conversion or whatever they call it.
You know, where where is the letter? Where
are the where are the authoritative
or the authentic letters of Peter and James?
A Christian would say they're in the New
Testament. There's something called 1st Peter and second
Peter, and there's something called
the epistle of James. Almost all historians view
those as forgeries.
They were written much later in the 2nd
century.
They were not written by James. They were
not written by James. They were not written
by Peter. The letter of Jude was not
written by Jude.
We don't have the authentic writings of the
actual disciples
of Esa, alaih salam.
Okay? And but do do we doctor Ali,
do we know what the teachings
of Isa, alayhis salam, were they akin to
something like Musa, alayhis salam, who brought a
set of laws with him, or something like
the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam, or was the
message of Isa alaihi sallam different?
Yeah. So,
the message of Isa alaihi wasalam from from
our perspective was was one of Tawhid.
Okay? So according to historians,
probably
the most
accurate Christology
of the disciples is represented by a group
called the the Ebionites.
Okay? And there were different groups of Ebionites,
and many early church fathers
write about the Ebionites. So that's e b
I o n, Ebion,
I t e s, the Ebionites.
So these were these were apparently, you know,
sort of Jewish Christians. So these were, you
know, believers in Jesus, but they continue to
follow,
the Jewish laws. They believed that
was
not God.
He was not a divine son of God.
He was a prophet messiah,
okay,
who taught them basically
the the spirit of the law. He confirmed,
the the commandments of Musa alaihis salam, but
he did make certain amendments and addendums
to the law because that's the that's the
prerogative of Urasul, and that's something that the
Quran actually says. The Quran quoting, Isa alaihis
salam, that I've come to make
lawful part of that which was made unlawful,
for you. Now if you ask a historian,
who was Jesus, you'll get different answers as
well. Right? But the dominant opinion among historians
so, for example, Albert Albert Schweitzer and, you
know, Bart Ehrman,
Dale
Martin,
Dale Allison.
They will say that Jesus was an apocalyptic
Jewish prophet,
okay,
who was,
who taught sort of a more liberal version
of the law of Moses
and prophesized someone to come after him called
the son of man. Interesting. Yeah.
And,
if you,
if you read the New Testament gospels,
Jesus refers to himself as the son of
man,
but very clearly, he's also talking about someone
to come after him at some point,
who is not him. Right? Whoever is ashamed
of me and my words, this evil and
adulterous generation,
of him shall the son of man be
ashamed when he shall come,
in his glory
and the glory of his father, he says,
with the angels.
So is that exactly what Jesus said? No.
I mean, this was written in Greek. It
was written by Mark around 70 of the
common era. Mark is highly influenced
by Pauline Christology.
He's highly influenced by,
I would say Middle Platonism.
I would say he's also influenced by Enochic,
tradition. I mean, there's we don't have to
go into these these terms, but,
it's it's sufficient to say that the 4
gospels are highly influenced by
by Greek metaphysics.
Okay? Interesting.
Yeah. So, like, even in the gospel of
gospel of John, you know, Jesus called the
logos.
Right? This is this is a this is
a Greek concept. It goes back to Heraclitus,
you know,
Hellenized Jewish philosophers
like like Philo
talk about the logos before John wrote the
gospel, and
and Philo is not considered to be,
you know, a
he's he's considered to be a a deviant
Jew. I mean, the the orthodox, you know,
they they sort of quote him on certain
things, but his theology is way off.
Philo believes in this idea of,
you know, the one,
the high god who emanates,
the logos from his very being in preternality,
and the logos is sort of a second
god. He actually refers to him as a
second god.
So so and my contention is that
Matthew in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Jesus is depicted as a divine being, but
he's not the divine being. He's not the
God.
He's a God.
So the 4 gospels,
and this is according to their context.
The 4 gospels were not written by trinitarians.
They didn't have that language. Right?
So,
you know, the trinity did not become orthodox
Christianity until the 4th century of the common
era. And then they went back
into these gospels and said, oh, when Jesus
says this, he must be talking about some
concept reinterpreting it. Yeah. It's kind of a
retroactive,
hermeneutic using trinitarian nomenclature
before God. And while we're on that point,
doctor Adi,
a question I've been meaning to ask you
is, you know, when we look at the
New Testament,
we see that there's this terminology of the
father and the son.
That consistently that Jesus is talking about.
But when we look at the old testament,
we find that the same terminology is mentioned
there as well about the father and the
son. So, for example,
in Isaiah 60 chapter 64,
verse 16,
he he talked about this type of language.
In the Psalms chapter 82 verse 6, he
says,
quote, God says, you are the children of
the most high.
Yeah. And the passage in Isaiah is, you
are the Lord our father.
So why is it that that that classical
orthodox Jews interpreted,
the father and son relationship as being metaphorical,
whereas in the New Testament,
Christians have interpreted this as being literal, and
therefore, Jesus is the literal son of God.
Yeah. Again, I would I would chalk that
up to,
Hellenistic influence.
Okay. So so clearly clearly the language is
meant to be,
it it's it's majaz. Right? It's figurative. It's
Takrimi. Imam Al Razi says in his in
his tafsir that this type of language in
the biblical text is meant to be honorific.
Right?
The Quran says, rather, they are servants raised
to honor.
Right? So, and Imam Al Ghazali makes the
same point,
about the language in in the Tanakh, the
old testament.
So, like, Israel is my son, even my
firstborn.
You quoted Isaiah.
You are the lord our father.
And and there are times in the New
Testament as well where it's also used in
that metaphorical
sense. You know? So the Lord's prayer. Right?
Our father who art in heaven.
Right?
In in Syriac, it's
like our our father.
You know? So this is this is Jesus
teaching the lord's prayer to the Jews that
are there,
whoever is there. And Judas Iscariot apparently was
there as well, and he's teaching Judas this
is how to pray. The Mhmm.
Our father who art in heaven.
So so these are Hebraisms.
Right? These are these are terms that have
to be understood in the Jewish context.
Right? Mhmm. Okay. What the Christian what the
Christians did is that they took these basically
appropriate these appropriated these Jewish terms and then
redefined them through a trinitarian
lens.
Mhmm. Because because the early Christian movement led
by Paul, Hellenistic Christianity,
adopted many Hellenistic
motifs and themes. So it's all his whole
idea of
the logos, this whole idea of a dying
and rising savior, man, God.
This is totally anathema and foreign to Judaism.
This idea that that God becomes a human
being or God sends a divine being who's
supposed to be his son somehow
to die for the sins of humanity. Nothing
is more antithetical
to Judaism than such a belief.
This does not come from Judaism. Where does
this come from? This comes from,
Hellenistic metaphysics, Hellenistic mythology,
mythology.
This is something that's well documented.
A book that I that I recommend is
a book called Iesus Deus by doctor m
David Litwa,
where he goes into all of these similarities.
They all predate
Christianity. In fact, the early church the early
church fathers also, Justin Martyr,
the father of logos Christology,
he was so bothered by similarities
between,
events in the life of Jesus or,
what Paul says about Jesus or the New
Testament Jesus teaches about Jesus.
He was so bothered by the similarities between
his Christology
and
what the ancient pagans
were saying about Dionysus and Asclepius
and Hercules. And so he said that the
devil is trying to play a trick on
us. The devil sort of emulated these prophecies
of Jesus in order to to trick Christians
or deceive
deceive Christians. And that's how he sort of
explains it away. And I say this with
all due respect. Obviously, we have Christian friends.
We have Christian teachers and colleagues. And,
but I but I think this I think
this is the argument the Quran is making,
and I'm not going to apologize
for an argument that the Quran is making.
The Quran says that the that the Christians
say that Jesus is the son of god.
This is exactly what the pagans of old
used to say. Many of these,
many of these, ideas,
even, you know, the transfiguration.
So so
a very common
understanding of the gospels is that only in
John, Jesus is god, but in the previous
gospels called the Synoptics,
he's not god. I don't believe that. I
think he's a god
in all four gospels. Even in Mark's gospel,
he is a he is a divine son
of god
who dies for the sins of humanity. It's
very clear. He's going to judge humanity on
the day of judgment.
And you have this the the transfiguration
in in Mark chapter 9
where Jesus goes on a mountain, the Mark
in Jesus, not the real Jesus, the the
the the Jesus in the gospel of Mark.
And he's transfigured,
and then his disciples are scared,
and then they and then a voice is
heard. This is the son of god.
So so David Litwa in his book, Iasus
Deios, he shows that
this is exactly the sequence of events that
you find in pre Christian,
pagan myths about Demeter and about Dionysus.
You have this this kind of,
this kind of transfiguration
episode. There's an epiphany,
where
a a a man god,
you know, his flesh explodes into light,
and then his disciples are afraid, and then
they worship him, or he's identified as being
some sort of child,
or son of god. It's exactly, you know,
in an exact correspondence. We find this in
the gospel of Mark. So so,
And
And and the gospel of Mark is the
first gospel compiled. Correct? It's the first gospel
in the New Testament. Yes. It's the first
gospel in New Testament.
But like I said, there were many, many
other gospels, and
and reading Paul's letters is really interesting,
because,
the subtext of Paul's letters reveals a lot.
You know? In Galatians, you know, Paul is
very angry with with the Galatians. So Paul
went to a place called Galatia, which is
in Turkey.
Right? And he evangelized them with with his
gospel. And he actually says my gospel. He
uses that phrase three times.
This is my gospel. My gospel. My why
not the gospel?
My gospel. So he goes there, and he
and he gives them his gospel, and then
and then, and then he leaves the city.
And then according to the standard exegesis
of of Galatians,
Jewish Christians from Jerusalem,
you know, probably sent by James,
you know, who is the brother of Jesus,
the successor of Jesus. He's called Ya'akov
Hatzadeer,
James the just.
Do we do we as Muslims believe that
James is the brother of Risa?
I mean, there's no reason that
to reject that. I mean, there's there's nothing.
I mean Is is his mother Mariam?
Possibly.
So so for Catholics, it's a big no
no. So so Mariam,
she has to stay a virgin her entire
life in Catholicism.
In Protestantism,
there's no such,
doctrine of perpetual virginity.
So who is James? Probably
he's probably the stepbrother of Isa alaih sallam,
or he's the actual half brother of Isa
alaihi salam. It's possible that Mariam alaihi salam,
had children after
after Isa alaihi salam. But, nonetheless, James is
the he he is the successor of Jesus
in Jerusalem.
And according to the standard exegesis of Galatians,
he sends he sends apostles, men from James,
it says, into Galatia to correct Paul's deviant
teachings.
And Paul writes this, like, white hot letter
back to the Galatians where he just does
not hold back, and he says, oh, stupid
Galatians,
who has bewitched you?
Didn't I portray Jesus Christ as crucified?
Very interesting. What does he mean by that?
Did I not portray before your eyes, he
says, Jesus Christ clearly as crucified?
What were these Jamesonian apostles teaching? Maybe they
were teaching that Jesus wasn't crucified. And then
he says, why did you turn to a
different gospel?
And he actually uses that for he says,
right, a different gospel.
So there was a different gospel floating around
being,
being being preached by Jamesonian
apostles
who's a brother of Jesus.
So, you know, why should we give precedence,
to Paul
who who all throughout his letters is
I mean, his his most enemies
are not Jews or pagans. They're actually other
Christians.
They're Jewish Christians.
And And it's the Eiffel's, I believe, as
well. Right? There was a
antagonistic relationship with the 2. Yeah. He he,
you know, he brags about, you know, withstanding
Peter to his face, and he calls, you
know, Peter, James, and John so called pillars
and super apostles.
He's very disrespectful. The Corinthians actually
demand from Paul,
a letter of recommendation, which is basically
an ejaza,
you know, because apparently,
in order to be a
a Christian missionary,
you have to have some sort of ejazah,
some sort of documentation from James
giving you authority to preach the gospel. So
the Corinthians, they come to Paul and they
ask him, where is your letter? And he
says, I don't need a letter
because
you are my letter, he says. You are
my letter. And then he and then basically,
he says,
you know, that you know, there's a, you
know, there's a messenger from Satan who comes
and he beats me,
and, you know, that's all the letter I
need. You know? This is very very stunning.
Thing?
This is a Paul.
Paul yeah. Paul says this in in his
letter to the Corinthians that
in Angala satan, he says, a messenger of
Satan
comes and he beats me and, and, in
order to keep me humble. And this was
a very tormented man. Okay?
So
so but he's he's
So so, doctor Ali, you're saying because this
is something I've never heard before. So you're
saying that when James was going and who's
a step stepbrother or,
you know, whatever relationship he has with Elisa,
al Islam, he's going out there with a
gospel.
And that gospel is making the argument that
Jesus was not crucified.
And when Paul finds out about that, he's
saying he's basically saying, like, you know, I
have the correct gospel. But you're saying
that where is that gospel?
And
perhaps, you know, some of the things that
it's articulating are hawk, are truth.
Yeah. It it I mean, you can read
that behind the subtext of Paul's like, what
does he what does he mean when he
says, did I not portray Jesus Christ
clearly before your eyes is crucified?
What does he mean by that? So
a a possible meaning of that is that
the Galatians were told by these Jamesonni apostles
that Jesus was not crucified
or that he was crucified,
but that the meaning of the crucifixion is
radically different than what how Paul is interpreting.
Because we don't know exactly, because we don't
have anything authentic from James.
All we have is from Paul.
Right?
So Paul is the first person in recorded
history to say Jesus was crucified. He's the
divine son of God. And then these four
gospels are highly influenced by Pauline Christology.
Okay? So that's just one trajectory.
The Ebionites, I mentioned them earlier, they considered
Paul an apostate. They hated Paul.
They thought he corrupted the gospel.
Okay?
And,
you know, they they they don't like him
at all.
Do we consider
do we consider the Abiyunites kind of on
the teachings of what Isa alaihis salaam,
like, what group would you say really embodied
the teachings of of Isa alai
in that early period?
Yeah. So the the early the earliest
Christians were called Nazarenes. They weren't called Christians.
They were called
Hanutz,
Hanutzriem.
So that's the Hebrew title,
because Isa alaihi salam came from Nazareth.
And the and the Quran uses this title
in Nasara for the Christians. The the Quran
does not call them or
something like that.
So the earliest the the earliest title of
the Christians is the Nazarenes. This they're called
this in the book of Acts as well,
all of the Christians. I think there was
a split. I think there was a split
between the
the, Pauline
Nazarenes
who adopted Hellenistic
ideas,
and the Jamesonian,
Nazarenes who were in the tradition of the
actual teachings of Isa alai Salam.
Unfortunately, the Pauline Nazarenes, they
became victor victorious
because Paul was able to basically integrate,
different elements of,
Greco Roman religion,
into the gospel.
And by doing so, it made it much
more
favorable, palatable for a Greco Roman audience to
accept his his version of the gospel.
Because, you know, Roman men Did he did
he do that? Didn't wanna circumcise
what's that?
They didn't wanna circumcise They don't wanna be.
Now that you brought that up, I'm gonna
go a little bit off tangent.
So,
because I think it's related. So when Napoleon
got to Egypt,
Napoleon used to sit with, the Azeri scholars.
And
they asked him, Napoleon, why don't you become
Muslim?
You know, if you become Muslim, the Ottomans
will join you.
And Napoleon said, there's 2 things that are
that are causing my men to deter from
Islam.
And the odelemass said, you know, okay. Let's
try to figure out what it is and
see if we can reconcile this. Because if
Napoleon becomes a Muslim,
what a victory it would be. And so
the first thing Napoleon told them is he
said, my men love wine, and there's no
way we could ever leave wine.
And the olema sat together and they published
the fatwa.
And they
said,
you can still be a Muslim,
you and your men, but it'll be a
sin for you guys to drink wine.
And Napoleon responded, and he said, we can
live with that.
But he said, there's something else that bothers
me and my man,
and we can never become Muslim. And the
ulama said, what? He said, circumcision.
Yeah.
So since since the early days, it's been
it's been a cause for deterrent,
from joining the faith.
Yeah. I mean, it's, in Judaism, I think
it's much more pronounced,
than in than in Islam, but it it
was a it was a sign of the
covenant that God made with Abraham.
So if if Acts 15, the book of
Acts I mean, I don't wanna get too
sort of,
detailed with with these citations. But in Acts
15, there was a Jerusalem council where
apparently,
the apostles met and because a lot of
Greeks were interested in becoming Christian. And so
and so, James declared that basically
someone can become a Christian if they follow
the Noahide laws. Right? The Noahide laws, which
are basically 7 laws. You know, God is
1. Don't blaspheme God.
Don't don't murder. Don't commit adultery.
Don't,
don't torture animals.
Establish,
courts for justice.
And and, there was one more.
And so circumcision was not among them.
Right?
So so
aloha, I don't know if this is you
know, there's obviously problems
with with the book of acts because it
really shows a more congenial relationship between Peter
and Paul. Whereas if you read the actual
letters of Paul,
he does not like Peter at all.
So I think there was a bit of
harmonization
kind of smoothing over happening here with the
with the book of, book of Acts. But
I think the expectation was that,
you know, to
become Christians, become followers of Jesus,
by following the Noahitic laws, and then it
was expected over time that they would adopt
other
commandments
of of the Torah to give people time
to grow in their faith. And that's the
the wisdom of a progressive revelation. That's why,
you know, as our mother Ayesha said, if,
you know, fornication,
if if adultery and wine were, you know,
if they were,
prohibited right away. Right away, very few people
would have become Muslim.
Right? Even fewer people because, you know, in
in Mecca, there were there weren't a lot
of you know, only
70 or so people made Hijra to Medina.
Right?
So then so,
you know, so there's there's a wisdom behind
this type of progressive revelation.
Okay. Yeah.
So so so, doctor Ali, we've talked about
the old testament,
which is what, you know, the,
what Jews follow, and they don't refer to
it as the Old Testament.
They refer to it as, as the testament.
And, you know, the the New Testament is
what Christians follow
and largely the first four gospels.
But when we look at the Old Testament,
we can see that there are some there's
more
at least what is commonly,
perceived is that the Old Testament has more
similarities
with the Quran than the New Testament. Is
that a statement that you agree with?
Yeah. Probably. Because of the stories,
the and the Quran, which is a major
a major theme, a compositional unit of the
Quran or is the of the Quran. So
the exodus narrative, is it the same as
in the book of Exodus? No. There there
there are differences.
Okay?
The the flood narrative,
you have that in the Quran as well.
Many of the prophets
that are mentioned in the Old Testament
are mentioned,
in the Quran as well. So so in
that in that in that sense, I would
say it's similar.
Okay.
But what about,
what about what about the crude
stories that are attributed to certain prophets within
the old testament? Is that something as Muslims
we believe?
No. Absolutely not. This is something that,
the are clear about, that prophets have,
which means which means that they're infallible. So
there's a difference between infallibility
and inerrancy.
A prophet is not inerrant. Inerrant means absolutely
perfect in the sense that cannot make any
type of mistake even in judgment.
The prophets, they can make errors in judgment.
They can become angry and things like that.
So inerrancy belongs only to Allah,
but they're infallible in the sense that they
cannot consciously disobey God.
Okay.
So you have in the Bible, in the
Old Testament, there are actually two versions of
the story of David. A lot of people
don't know that. There's, yeah, there's 1st and
second kings,
which,
you know, has includes these stories of, you
know, Dawud alaihis salam, you know, committing adultery
with
his his neighbor's wife and then killing him.
And,
and Suleiman alaihis salaam, you know,
dying on shirk and things like that. But
then 1st and second Chronicles
is also in the Tanakh written a little
bit later,
but a completely different narrative, a different version
of events, and none of those things are
mentioned. None of those things are mentioned by
the chronicler.
He didn't agree with those stories,
those those stories that are attributed to David
and Solomon.
So it seems like even within
well, it is even within
ancient,
ancient,
Israelite tradition, you have different schools of thought
regarding their own history.
Mhmm. So so, yeah, we don't we don't
affirm those Okay. Those stories at all. Yeah.
And,
in the Old Testament, there is a book
called the book of Psalms.
Is this the zabur that the Quran talks
about?
Adam. We we I mean, we we can't
know for certain.
The book of Psalms is,
it's
a it's a I I think it's a
very beautiful
text.
There's very there's very little in that text
that I think a Muslim would find offensive.
Okay.
According to,
historians,
I think there's a 130
Psalms, but but only, like, the first I
don't I don't remember. I think it's the
first
40 or 50 are actually
attributed to Dawood alaihis salaam. So the other
ones are written by,
someone else.
Other people. Yeah.
It's it's interesting that, you know, there's there's
a hadith,
that says that Dawood,
or it's a saying in our tradition that
Dawood
used to sing the Psalms.
And you see, you know, the Psalms are
at least the ones that are portrayed in
the old testament are also ones that are
meant to be sung. So it's kind of
like there's a correlation between the 2.
Yeah. They're meant to be sung. Exactly. Yeah.
That's,
they're very beautiful. And they're they're, very poetic.
They're usually,
by member segments,
which is a type of, again, kind of
very familiar,
very common rhetorical device in Semitic rhetoric.
Mhmm.
So so they're very, very lyrical. They're very
beautiful.
So aloha Adam. You know? Okay. Alohaan.
Just just one more question related to this
topic. We in the Quran, we also have,
Surhan
Rahim, That Allah is saying that this message
is is mentioned in the scrolls of Musa
and Ibrahim.
Do we have any archaeological
evidence of any of these scrolls?
That's an interesting question. If you read the
Torah,
okay,
the the Torah
actually quotes from books that are missing.
Okay? So, like, in the book of in
the book of numbers, so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, the 4th book
of the Torah, the 4th book of the
Pentateuch is called numbers.
And in the book of numbers,
the author of the book of numbers
quotes something called the book of the wars
of the Lord.
Okay?
Something like
something like that. I don't remember the Hebrew
title, but but this book is lost. We
have no idea where that book is.
Okay? So so so the author of Numbers
is quoting a book that is lost. We
also find that with, well, not necessarily lost,
but in in the the New Testament book
of Jude, Jude quotes from first Enoch,
and we know what first Enoch is. So
Jude considered 1st Enoch apparently inspired scripture,
but it's not in the Christian canon, which
is interesting.
But the point is that
definitely, there were
books
that, or writings
or scriptures
that were given to ancient prophets that are
no longer extent.
Okay?
To Musa alayhis salaam, to Ibrahim alayhis salaam.
So, I mean, Joseph Smith,
the, the Mormon prophet,
yeah, he actually
claimed to have found
the book of Abraham.
Right? Oh. So he was living in Missouri
at the time, and some,
carnival
worker or something came through the city dressed
as an ancient Egyptian, and he actually had
a a a scroll.
And Joseph Smith, he looked at it, and
he said, this is the scroll of Abraham.
And so then he he translated it,
and it's considered to be scripture. It's in
doctrines. It's in the pearl. I think it's
in the pearl of great price. So the
Mormons have 3 major sets of texts that
are considered sacred sacred literature.
It's a book of Mormon, obviously, then you
have something called the the pearl of great
price,
And then you have the doctrines and covenants,
which is like sort of the hadith of
of Joseph Smith. But in the pearl of
great price, you have Joseph Smith's translation
of the book of Abraham.
Now
unfortunately for Joseph Smith,
you know,
at that time, no one could really falsify
his
his translation. There were no Egyptologists
living in Missouri at that time. Right?
But when Egypt Do you know do you
know some of the things that were mentioned
in there that he was writing?
Yeah. So Egyptologists
actually
went back and looked at the actual
scroll.
And and it's actually a 1st century
BCE,
funeral
scroll that has nothing to do with Abraham,
but is but is talking about sort of
the
the sort of beliefs about ancient Egyptian afterlife.
And the the main characters are, you know,
Isis and
and Horus. And
so it has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever
with Abraham. It it doesn't even it's not
even close to his time.
But Mormons today, they continue to
insist that
somehow,
you know, that this is that this is
accurate, and it's
and it's, it's,
the book of Abraham.
But,
you know, that's, so, you know, there's there's
cognitive dissonance. So that's what happens when
your beliefs are suddenly falsified. You have to
sort of it's like the
in the in the New Testament, it if
you if we take the New Testament gospels
and and Christians are not gonna they're not
gonna like what I'm about to say. But
if if you look at the New Testament
gospels at face value,
then Jesus is a false prophet according to
the New Testament.
Because in the New Testament, Jesus says
that
that the coming kingdom of god
will arrive
during during his generation.
Okay. There are some standing here that shall
not taste death
until they see the kingdom of God,
until they see the son of man coming.
He tells Caiaphas, the high priest, and you
shall see the son of man coming in
the clouds.
You know?
And you mentioned you mentioned in your your
your class that Paul would go around telling
people not to get married because, you know,
like, the Yeah. Day of judgment and stuff
was right about to come. Yeah. That's a
that's a signature Pauline motif. Paul believed that
the that the second covenant kingdom of God
is going to manifest at any moment.
Okay?
So, you know, Mark is writing around 70.
The temple has been destroyed or is about
to get destroyed. You know, the writing is
sort of on the wall. He believes it's
the end of the world. So for Mark,
the Jesus' second coming is imminent. It's any
time now.
So he puts into the he puts into
the mouth of Jesus
these false prophecies
because he believes, Mark believes, not Jesus,
that his second coming is going to manifest
at any time.
Okay?
And so and so there's
and so this obviously did not happen.
Right? So you have that cognitive dissonance. Now
it's interesting. There is a there is a
Christian eschatology
called Preterism
Preterism,
which basically spell that?
P r e t e r
I s m.
It's also called the 70 AD doctrine.
And they say that it did come true,
that the second coming of Jesus did happen
during his generation,
which is like 40 years. So Jesus said
this in 30 or something, and then the
temple was so they actually say the second
coming of Jesus
was
Jesus coming back as judgment
upon,
the Jews for rejecting him and so his
temple was destroyed. Destroying his yeah. So the
so so so this is how they interpret.
Because plainly, the click clearly, the Mark and
Jesus is saying that this is going to
happen within a generation.
So the way that they're approaching those texts
is correct. That's exactly what Jesus is saying.
Mhmm. But their but their conclusions are way
out of whack. So Jesus was talking about
judgment
coming upon and destroying the temple, and,
so,
so this is this is what happens when
you have cognitive dissonance. Right? It's like the
Yeah. That there was a false messiah
called Shabbetai Svi,
right, who who was a Turkish rabbi.
And I think this was in the 17th
century. He actually said he that he was
the messiah.
Right? And then,
and,
Nathan of Gaza, who was a great rabbi,
he actually endorsed him being the Messiah. And
this was a global movement. Jews from all
around the world,
right, believe that this man was the Messiah,
Shabbetai.
And they had their bags packed, and they
were expecting to be magically
transported
to Jerusalem. And and, and and then Shabbetai,
he he basically
started preaching that,
you know, the the the Ottoman Sultanate was
about to be overthrown
by by him,
which is which which is treachery. Right? This
is Guyana.
Right? So he was arrested.
He was arrested, and and he actually
he actually
ended up becoming Muslim.
Yeah. Yeah. But but still but still his
many of his followers, they said, oh, this
is, you know, this he's still the Messiah,
and this is what we're supposed to do.
He's he's not actually Muslim. He's actually faking
being a Muslim, so we have to outwardly
become Muslim. So to this day,
there there are Jews in Turkey that outwardly
look Muslim. They pray outwardly look Muslim. They
pray 5 times a day in the mosque,
but they're inwardly Jewish
because they're still followers of this false messiah,
Shabbatized feet. This is what you do when
there's cognitive dissidents. You have to radically reinterpret
your beliefs, or you have to abandon your
beliefs.
Exactly.
And, so this brings me to, to to
another question.
Every year, there's some new archaeological
finding or so where they say we found
these new Dead Sea Scrolls.
What exactly are these scrolls that they're finding?
Are these, you know, backing up the New
Testament, Old Testament? Are these hidden texts? What
are they?
Yeah. So the the Dead Sea Scrolls are
basically
a group of texts that were
discovered in 19, 47.
It was actually discovered by a Muslim
Bedouin.
So the text is divided into so, basically,
it's the entire
Tanakh, the the Old Testament,
with the exception of the book of Esther.
And then there there there are some differences
also in in different books like the book
of Jeremiah.
But then they also have so the author
the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were
called the Essenes. So if people want to
do research on them,
the Essenes were one of the major Jewish
groups in the 1st century
that Josephus,
documents. So these were basically apocalyptists
that believe that the entire temple authority was
corrupt. So they went out, and they lived
in the wilderness by
Qumran, by the Dead Sea, and they and
they have these writings that are very apocalyptic
where they talk about a final sort of
battle between the forces of good and evil.
And there's a teacher of righteousness, and and
people are sort of there's a lot of
theories as to who they're talking about.
But
Dead Sea Scrolls really has nothing to do
with with Christian origins, I think. Okay. I
think this was a 1st century
before the common era or right around the
time of,
Jewish group,
that believed that the end of the world,
was
about to happen
because of some calculation they probably had concerning
the book of Daniel, but that's a whole
different
whole different topic.
But the Nag Hammadi library discovered in 1945
is really interesting, and these are Christian documents,
the Nag Hammadi Library.
So
they found documents,
like the the gospel of Thomas, probably the
most
famous of the Nag Hammadi documents,
which is,
usually dated to the 2nd century.
But the the gospel of Thomas does not
contain
a passion narrative,
a passion prediction. It's basically just a list
of the sayings of Jesus.
And statement number 12 of the gospel of
Thomas,
when I am gone, you must all go
to James the just, he says, for whose
sake heaven and earth came into being. So
here in the gospel of Thomas, Jesus actually
explicitly,
declares
James to be his his successor.
So what that means, according to scholars, is
any missionary has to report to James. They
have to. They have to be authorized by
James.
So when the, again, when the Corinthians came
to Paul and they said, you know,
we need a letter from James. Where is
it? I don't need one.
I I was given the gospel directly by
Christ.
Right?
Mhmm.
So It it it's it's interesting,
because, you know, just going back to the
Dead Sea Scrolls, because it seems like these
scrolls are coming out.
And I think one of the things Sheikh
Hamza, mentioned,
many years ago is that many of these
scrolls and these documents are being found,
but many of them are not being brought
to public light.
And the question that arises is, what do
you know, what is really in these scrolls?
What are they really talking about?
Yeah. I mean, the Dead Sea Scrolls wasn't,
it wasn't available for to in for independent
researchers for something like 35 years or something
like that.
So this, you know, this discovered in 1947,
I think, early nineties.
So the only two organizations
that had access to the scrolls were the
Catholic church and the Israeli government.
Mhmm. You know? So what did they find?
I don't you know,
maybe they found
an authentic letter of James
or authentic letter of Peter,
you know, the where they actually explain
their Christology
in light of what Paul is teaching. Because
everything we have to go upon is is
based on Paul,
or someone pretending to be James or Peter
written later in the 2nd century.
So, I mean, we'll see what people like,
right now, the preponderance of evidence I mean,
this is a whole different topic, but, you
know, was Jesus crucified or not? Historians say,
yeah. He was crucified because
Paul says he was, and then you have
the 4 gospels. And
but who knows? I mean, they might find
something
you know, archaeology has sort of been the
the the bugbear of of trinitarian
Christianity.
Interesting. They they might discover something,
that dates the 1st century that clearly says
that he wasn't crucified and an
alternate gospel or something like that or an
epistle written by an actual disciple where he
explains clearly his Christology,
or even like a a response to Paul's
letter of Galatians.
Mhmm. May maybe a Jamesonian,
apostle,
wrote a letter to Galatia,
and then Paul responded with his own letter.
Maybe that letter is floating around somewhere out
there.
Mhmm. Maybe maybe someday that'll that'll be discovered.
You know, I think the great tragedy, doctor
Ali, is with all these wars you're seeing
in the Middle East now. I I remember
I was reading a statistic showing,
like, in Iraq.
Iraq is an ancient civilization.
I I I know there's a debate, you
know, are your office is Persian.
And I say that because you're Persian.
You
have the Persian blood.
But, like, a lot of these texts have
really been destroyed,
with all these drone bombings. So it's it's
quite unfortunate that, you know, some of these
texts probably did exist, but because of these
because of these bombings, because of these wars,
we'll no longer have access
to these incredible texts. Yeah. It's,
you know, Iraq is,
you know, there's an there's an opinion that
the Garden of Eden was in Iraq. You
know? Wow. In in in the book of
Genesis, it it says that,
you know, that,
that these two rivers would flow out of
the garden, and these are the
the Tigris and the Euphrates.
You know? And, you know, Mesopotamia
literally means the land between the 2
the 2 rivers.
So and then, you know, so many prophets
are buried in that land. So many
are buried in in that land.
You know. So it's, it's unfortunate. So yeah.
I don't know what, you know, what they've
destroyed.
Mhmm. So
it's unfortunate.
Yeah. Just on a on a closing note,
doctor Arlie, for people who are interested in
studying Christianity,
interested in studying Judaism,
what recommendations you know, I know it's easy
to recommend, you know, books to people, but,
there's obviously a deeper level than one can
get to. What recommendations would you have?
Do you do you recommend to keep listening
to vlogging theology?
But where where do you think
where where do you think is a good
starting point for them?
So I think it's important to have,
so a lot of what I've said today
to you is very opinionated. It's my own
opinion that Christians will,
disagree with,
sometimes vehemently disagree with, and it'll have different
talking points, and we can go back and
forth. Right? So
I would say that
a good starting point for someone that wants
to learn these traditions is actually to
seek,
authentic knowledge
regarding these traditions.
Right? So so if someone comes to you
and says, I want to learn Islam, you
know, what would you recommend? You you have
to learn from
Muslims and Muslim text, Muslim scholars?
You know? So so
and and then we can form our own
opinions
later. So, you know, it's really important for
us to have accurate authentic knowledge,
accurate knowledge,
of these traditions before we can actually be
a bit
judgmental about them and compare them and ask
questions and be critical.
So
I would I would study these traditions in
their in their normative
tradition,
you know, learn learn Jewish theology, learn Christian
theology.
You have to know what is the trinity.
You know? What what do what do the
what do Christian theologians
say about the trinity? How do they how
do they explain the trinity? How do they
justify the trinity? We have to know these
things.
And then also learning, you know, language is
really important too. And this is, you know,
something that is difficult for a lot of
people and so but we have to know
if we're going to engage seriously with these
traditions,
we have to know something of Hebrew and
Syriac and and Greek
and in Latin.
You know?
Just as someone who is serious serious about
learning Islam, they have to know Arabic. They
have to know,
you know, maybe Farsi. You know? They have
to they have to know these languages.
So,
you know, the point here is not to,
you know, the point here is not is
not to, you know, stroke one's ego and
go out and debate and and,
you know,
and, you know because, you know, things like
that, you know, just
it's very difficult to debate. I used to
debate a lot of Christians, and I and
I kind of just left it because
because it's it's it's very difficult to take
your ego out of that equation.
And I was just very honest with myself
that,
yeah, that it's it's not good for me
to do that.
So I I present, I lecture, and things
like that, but I don't really engage in
much in much debate anymore.
And oftentimes,
debates that you watch on YouTube and things
like that, they sort of spiral
way out of,
you know, control, and it becomes basically 2
people just kind of mocking each other. And
so I'm not really interested in in all
that. So my advice is learn these traditions
in their normative,
what's the word of Understandings.
Understandings. Exactly. Yeah. Because it's an excellent point
because some people will just brush off you
know, they'll they'll pick up one book on
a religion, and they'll say, you know, I
understand it completely.
But just the way I like to look
at it is, you know, imagine
they were in, your shoes doing it with
Islam, and they picked up a book, Islam
101.
And they said, oh, I know everything about
the religion here as a contradiction.
Right? It's it's the same thing. And I
think, especially with Christianity and the Trinity,
it's very easy to say, oh, look. It's
a contradiction. But
like you've mentioned,
going deep into their philosophy, into theology, you
can see that it's a little bit more
deeper than that.
Oh, yeah. It's it's a very deep tradition.
You know? So so the point is, is
it justifiable to believe in the trinity? Is
it is it, theologically
consistent
with what we find
in the Tanakh to believe in the trinity
because there has to be a theological consistency.
And if it's not consistent, then why is
it not consistent?
So these are the questions we need to
ask. And it takes, you know,
a a a, you know, a serious student
of knowledge.
Lifetime.
Yeah. Exactly.
Takes a lifetime.
But thank you. Thank you, doctor Eilif, for
those words. That's all good. I think now,
you know, a lot of people have the
tools they need to go into
these,
you know, the old and new testaments if
they're interested. And, obviously,
the first most priority is given to the
Quran because,
who are we to even be delving into
other religions when we have just a basic
understanding of our own? Yeah.
Right? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, if if
we're not praying
if we're not praying 5 times a day,
we have no business
cracking open a bible. You know? It's just,
ridiculous to do that. We need to establish
the. Okay? And then, you know, Dawa is
you know, what the Quran tells us.
You know, with with wisdom and with beautiful
preaching. And the that
the meaning of that is with,
with proofs, rational proofs, scriptural proofs, and with
good comportment,
you know, with with a good attitude. You
have a logos and you have ethos.
You know? So it's it's not easy. It's
a difficult thing. You know? It's, and,
so
so we should start with ourselves and and
be very, very self critical. But at the
same time, we also have to make dawah,
but we have to be careful that we
do it in a in a prophetic way,
you know,
in in a way that is befitting of
a Muslim. And that doesn't mean that you
can't question. You can't be critical. I was
very critical
today. You know, there are things that I
said that I'm sure Christians would find offensive,
but I can't help that. If they read
the Quran, they will be offended. The Quran
says Jesus is not God, and he's and
he was not crucified. Mhmm. So I would
argue that the Quran is by its nature
offensive to Christians. It's just how are you
going to deal with that offense? You can
be immature about it
and, you know, stop it stomp your feet
and and become a victim and call it
a microaggression.
Or you can ignore it, or you can
try to respond to it.
You know?
It seems like everything today can just be
blamed to microaggressions. You know, you just Yeah.
I was I was watching, Dave Chappelle earlier
today, and he's like, you know, you can't
say anything.
He
gave an analogy. He said, he said, Who
am I imitating?
And then he did this voice. This was
on his, Sticks and Stones, documentary. And he
said,
he was imitating someone saying, oh, you can't
say that. Oh, you know, we have to
ban you. And he asked, like, the audience,
who am I speaking about? And the audience
said, Donald Trump.
He said, no. I'm talking about you.
This is how you act. You know, you
nobody can open up their mouth today without
some form of microaggression
or some sort of trigger.
Right? So I think we're getting into, discussions
like these are you know, you're you're bound
to have certain people who are going to
get triggered.
You know, if you talk about gender in
today's discourse, some people will get triggered, and
they'll boycott you. But,
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And that's the thing is language is,
you know, man means woman and up means
down and black means white and, you know
you know, if we if we ignore definitions
I mean, a definition
is supposed to delimit,
to demarcate
something.
Right?
But if if a word can mean whatever
you want it to mean,
then
anything can mean anything, and so we might
as well stop talking.
But if we stop talking, you know, they
say that if if dialogue becomes
impossible, then violence becomes inevitable.
Right? So we need to keep talking and
we shouldn't be afraid that we're going to
obviously, we use tact. We try to be
civil.
You know, we, we we don't go out
of our way to disrespect people, but we
have a tradition.
And we we believe that tradition to be
true, and we believe that tradition to be
beneficial for humanity.
So, you know,
we should be courageous,
and and and,
uphold that tradition.
And, again, like you mentioned, we have to
have wisdom.
You know, the the 2 the 2 things
we have to have are are principles. And
and, you know, another thing I'll mention from
Dave Chappelle
is, you know, he put down $50,000,000
He declined $50,000,000
just on because of his moral beliefs.
And, you know, I was I was watching
he has a new podcast called, The Midnight
Miracle. And in one of the episodes, he
plays an audio clip from Sheikh Hamza.
And, throughout the podcast, him and his friends
are praising Sheikh Hamza as well and quoting
him. So,
it's a beautiful thing to see. But one
of the things Dave Chappelle said is, you
know, he got to the he got to
his, room, you know, his room where they
were gonna dress him up, and they had
a dress there.
And they said, wouldn't it be so funny
if you were to wear this dress,
and you would be like this pixie?
And
he realized he said, I he's like, *
no. There's no way I'm gonna stand in
front of a crowd in a pixie dress,
$50,000,000.
And, you know, everybody,
you know, everybody looked at him and said
he was crazy. He declined 50,000,000,
but it was because he held on to
his principles.
And later on, Netflix gave him 60,000,000.
So, you know, I think I think the
proof is, you know, if you hold on
to your beliefs, ultimately, you'll be vindicated, and
the reward will come.
Yeah. Exactly. I had a I had a
and we'll we'll end with this because, it's
getting a bit late for me. I'm actually
in my daughter's room, and she she needs
to go to bed.
But it's the only room in the house
I could use. But, there was a years
ago, there was a young man, Muslim man,
who came up to me and he said
he said,
I got hired by a company and they
wanna take me out to lunch, and it's
Ramadan, but I'm going to eat.
And I said, no. Don't eat.
And, he said, no. They're gonna think, you
know, I'm weird and this and that. And,
you know, I said, you know then I
told him a story. I used to be
an accountant,
right,
way back back in the day.
Days. Exactly. Well, during the debating days. And,
which tells you something.
And,
anyway, so they so I got hired as
an accountant, and they also hired a CEO
the same week they hired me as a
staff accountant.
So they took both of us out to
lunch.
Okay? And it was Ramadan.
Okay? So we go out and,
and so I say, well, I'm I'm fasting.
And the CEO
was a Jewish man,
and it was Passover week.
And so he actually brought his own lunch.
He had these crackers, and
and we just hit it off right there
at that lunch. This is the CEO of
the company, and I'm a lowly staff accountant.
I'm a 22,
23 year old staff accountant.
And we just started talking. And for the
next you know, the whole 3 years that
I worked there, we had this incredible relationship.
Wow. You know, this with the c I
would go into his office, just sit down
and talk to him, and everyone's looking, what's
this guy doing in the
and then when I when I left that
job, he actually told me. He said, if
you ever wanna come back, just let me
know.
You know?
So you're right. Exactly. If, you know, we
have principles, uphold trust in Allah
Who's in charge of everything?
You know? It's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
You know? We need to follow our principles
and put our trust in Allah. That's the
real meaning of tawakkul. Tawakkul is not to
be heedless.
You know, it's it's not to, you know,
throw caution to the wind and, you know,
get in your car and drive it 90
miles an hour without a seat belt. That's
not Tawakkul.
Is to follow your principles, to follow the
sunnah, to take precautions. And then but as
the Quran says,
When you have resolved to do something, then
place your trust.
And I think that's a beautiful reminder turned
off on. So,
and doctor Ali, we appreciate your time, and
we look forward to future podcasts with you
on a number of topics.
Let's let's do it, inshallah.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Take care. Assalamu alaikum. Warahmatullahi.