Jeffrey Lang – Fundamentalism Quran and Modern Textual Criticism 202
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the confusion surrounding Christian fundamentalists and the importance of the Bible in modernity and political criticism. They emphasize the understanding of natural and spiritual events and the conservative side's lack of understanding of the Bible. They also discuss the use of "has" and "hasn't" in religion and the importance of unity among Muslims and political reasons. The speakers encourage people to spend a year on this topic and focus on issues that they agree with.
AI: Summary ©
I would like to request doctor Jeffrey Lang
to
come here and take his seat on the
podium.
Doctor
Jeffrey Lang.
Muslim brothers and sisters,
ladies and gentlemen,
welcome and thanks on behalf
of Muslim Community Association.
First, accept our apology for being a little
late. But as you know,
that our guest speaker just arrived from
Lawrence, Kansas.
So there are always few things to be
done before we can start our program.
Before introducing our guest speaker today,
I would like to make a couple of
very short announcements.
The first announcement is about the prayer, mother
prayer,
which will be offered in room number 205
after the lecture.
And
during that period,
when
we'll be offering Maghreb prayer,
you can see doctor Jeffrey Lang if you
have certain questions to ask him. And after
Maghreb prayer, we'll get together in this room
for the question answer station.
There are
copies
of Quran,
book of Allah,
available on outside style stall. So if some
of us
need a copy of Quran, they can go
sign their name on a list there
and take one copy of Quran.
There are some
drinks, soft drinks and coffee available
on the table behind this room.
And feel free
to
take 1.
Now come to the
main
item of this evening,
lecture of doctor Jeffrey Lang,
who is the professor of mathematics
at University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Doctor Jeffrey Lang
embraced Islam
10 years back.
And ever since, he has been very active
in trying to give
better understanding of religion of Islam
to the non Muslims
in the North America.
Today,
doctor Jeffrey Lang
is going to speak about
fundamentalism,
the Quran,
and modern textual criticism.
It will be a lecture of about
1 and half hour,
then we will have a break for Magalha
prayer, and then we can get together for
question, answer session.
So now I will request doctor Jeffrey Lang
to come and give his talk.
Doctor Jeffrey Lang.
Should I talk into this one?
In the name of God, the merciful, the
compassionate.
Well, if I walked up to the oh,
and by the way, I hope that it
doesn't run quite an hour and a half,
but
I said that would be the maximum length
of the of the talk.
If I walked up to the typical or
average American on the street,
and I said, let's play the word association
game.
And I said the word tree, you'd likely
to respond fundamentalism,
I'm
certain
that
more
often
than not, fundamentalism,
I'm certain that more often than not, the
reply would be Muslim or
Islamic.
As a matter of fact, the other day,
I was just watching Diane Sawyer,
interview the president of Egypt,
and she mentioned the word Muslim and connected
the word Muslim to fundamentalism
10 times,
at least.
And if you notice,
the Egyptian president
didn't say make the connection at all in
his entire,
dialogue with her.
To and the it's not just a that's
just not a coincidence.
The fact of the matter is, if you
go up to almost any Muslim,
layman or scholar,
and you ask
him, what is a Muslim fundamentalist?
Or are you a Muslim fundamentalist?
Or is this person a Muslim fundamentalist? Or
can you tell me what is a Muslim
fundamentalist? It's likely to be very, very surprised
and not really know how to answer that
question at all.
Probably plead ignorance on all 4.
Now why is that?
Well, the fact of the matter is is
that
the word fundamentalist
did not originate
in the context of Muslim culture or civilization
or religion.
It's not a term that's native
to Islam.
The word fundamentalism
associated with religion is a very new
term.
Its birth was in the beginning of the
century,
but it grew out of the Christian experience.
It's it was a term that first developed
inside of
Christianity, Protestant Christianity to be specific.
In around 1910
to 1915,
in this country, in America,
several booklets appeared
entitled
Fundamentals, The Fundamentals.
And essentially, it's the fundamentals of Christianity,
like,
what the booklets,
dealt with.
And it was put out by a certain,
Christian organization.
And that's where the word fundamentalism
comes. Then we slowly but surely start seeing
it more and more in print in the
early part of this century.
Now even if you go to a Christian
and ask him the same questions I just
asked the Muslim, he would also probably have
a difficult time defining exactly what is a
Christian fundamentalist,
or what is fundamentalist Christianity.
But if you go to an expert
or you go to the experts,
people who do study these sort of things
for a living, they will usually, again, not
be able to give you such a hard
and fast definition, but you'll see time and
time again, certain pronounced
characteristics
being mentioned.
And the 3 most frequently mentioned
descriptions of fundamentalists or things associated with Christian
fundamentalism
are these,
a strong emphasis
on the inerrancy
of the bible,
the belief that the bible contains
no errors of any sort or kind.
It's completely free of
of error. The second,
point that critics of fundamentalism
and people who accept
certain hostility to modern
theology, modern Christian theology.
You'll notice that they,
criticize.
The fundamentalist movement is quite critical of modern
theology and the modern theological theories that have
originated in the latter part of last century
and even more so in this century.
And finally,
a frequently mentioned,
description
not or even such descriptions don't work so
well. People are all sorts of shades and
types.
But the 3rd most frequently mentioned characteristic is
they believe that a fundamentalist feels that those
who do not share their point of view
or points of view
are nominal Christians,
are Christians only in name only, that they're
not really true Christians.
So Christians in name.
So when we use the word Muslim fundamentalist,
we should ask ourselves,
what legitimacy does this term have? I mean,
if
since it originated in Christianity, fine. That's okay.
Christians have a right to develop call a
certain part of their community
fundamentalist.
But does the term apply when we talk
about Muslims? If it does, it the there
should be a group of Muslims somewhere that
somehow
compare to
Christian fundamentalists,
or have the same sort of pronounced characteristics.
Now, if we look at this list here,
take, let me begin with b and c.
As a matter of fact, let me work
my way up from the bottom, c, b,
and a.
Because in some sense, there are some similarities.
In others, there are some key differences.
If we look at c,
are there a group of Muslims or a
movement among Muslims that believes that those who
do not share their point of view are
not true believers, are not really believers, but
are believers in name only?
Well,
Muslims may be critical of each other's behavior
or practices.
They may describe each other as weak Muslims
or Muslims that are somehow violating some
religious norm,
community norm.
But Muslims are extremely careful not to call
another Muslim a non believer.
There are there are so many stern warnings
about that in the sayings of prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, apart from the Quran.
And so many stern warnings about that even
in the Quran,
that Muslims have always been extremely shy when
push comes to shove,
of designating even the most
flagrant sinner
among their community as a non Muslim, or
a Muslim in name only.
They really will shy away very much from
making judgments about another person's position with God,
or standing with God,
or beliefs.
They're very careful about that.
And that's why I've seen many, on the
news, I've seen many people will say about
a certain tyrant in the Muslim world, I
won't mention his name, and they'll ask,
a Muslim they're interviewing. Well, do you consider
this
reporter will get very frustrated because the person
will not make
an
careful
about doing such a thing. So as far
as there existing a modern movement in the
Muslim world that would have this characteristic c,
there's certainly movements that feel that they are
the best movements. But but sharing this characteristic,
I can think of none, and I don't
think there ever will be.
And what about b,
Hostility to modern theology.
Theology, I guess, is the religious science in
Christianity.
It always has been.
So when Christianity was born, it was born
into a very philosophically charged atmosphere
and had to establish itself in that atmosphere.
Atmosphere. And theology and the related science of
philosophy,
philosophy is part of theology, where it was
an extremely important study in Christianity almost from
the beginning.
Islam began slightly differently
and it and it too affected
what were the most important sciences,
religious sciences in Islam.
And the Muslims found themselves
when and from their very birth, charged with
running a community.
They ex they went through a very fast
expansion, and they found themselves running a world
community.
And the chief religious science,
right from the start, was law,
Islamic law. It's not like just the type
of law we have here in the states.
It's much more comprehensive. It's really should be
called
behavior or correct behavior
or the way to behave.
Very little minor issues from a Western standpoint
maybe are covered by Islamic law. Even tiniest
details are covered by it. But that was
the principle
religious science, not theology
and not philosophy.
That's one thing. The second thing is, is
that the Muslim community has never had a
church. There's no church in Islam.
There's no church hierarchy or or clerical hierarchy.
There's no priesthood.
Any Muslim could suddenly be elected to the
leadership of the prayer, for example, in his
Masjid.
So the point I'm trying to make is
is that within the Muslim community, theology never
achieved the prominence it did in Christianity, number
1. Number 2, there was no institution
to decide theological questions once and for all.
These two factors together, I think, have helped
to produce the situation that exists today in
the Muslim world. That even today, in 20th
century, the chief religious science is hardly theology.
And so there's no strong theological movement within
Islam.
And for the and and so as a
consequence, there's no mention 1, and the others.
And they've had great philosophers, like, given just
to mention 1, and the others. And they've
had great philosophers like Ibn Sina or Avicenna
as they call them in western textbooks.
Abyros, Ibn Rushd. They had their philosophers, and
they had their theologians that contributed to the
development of these sciences. But still,
those the science of theology never reached the
position it did in Christianity.
And
throughout almost all of Muslim history, there's really
never been some sweeping powerful theological movement and
counter movement.
So certainly, we couldn't identify any community of
Muslims, any movement among Muslims right now that
would really you would characterize as in as
this way or that way, in either of
these two categories.
So what about a?
Well, this is,
I think we'd have to say, the pillar
of Christian fundamentalism,
the strong emphasis on the total inerrancy
of the Bible.
Now in this category,
I think that in a, we see a
strong similarity
with a certain segment of the Muslim community.
There is a segment among the Muslim community
that believes that the Quran
is
directly revealed,
revelation
from God.
That it was revealed in its words
to Muhammad, peace be upon him, which he
proclaimed to the community. The very text that
Muslims have before them in Arabic, they believe
is revelation from God and only revelation. And
it and it was revealed in the precise
wording of that
text. Not that they just believe that Muhammad,
peace be upon him, was inspired
with the with the kernel of an idea
and he developed it
through his own intellectual effort.
No. They believed
like the prophets of old, maybe described in
the old testament, the word of the of
God came to the prophet Hosea saying, and
then this was the revelation.
That's the way Muslims more or less believe
that Muhammad, peace be upon him, received his
revelation and that's what he proclaimed to his
community.
So and they believe that the Quran has
gone through no revision since then,
no editing since then, no addition since then.
They believe that the text is pure revelation.
The revelation
and nothing but that revelation, which was revealed
over a 23 year period.
So that does compare in many ways to
a, and that's a very strong comparison here.
I think the fundamentalist Christian fundamentalist position
with regard to their own bible would
feel somewhat very close to this.
The essential difference is, and this is the
essential difference,
is while this point of view is held
among Christians, a certain group of Christians,
and it's perhaps a minority movement.
Among Muslims, the point of view I just
described is held universally.
Muslims take it as part of a definition
of being Muslim.
I have never been a Muslim in my
life, and I'm sure I never will,
that would deny what I just said about
the Quran.
If Muslims do, they you or a person
born of Muslim parents does make such a
statement, and I did did meet one once
on my very own campus, and he also
though, added a disclaimer, but I'm not really
a Muslim,
you know, because of the point of view.
He realized that the point of view he
held took him outside of the religion.
So in any case, this point I'm trying
to make is is that there's definitely Muslims
that share a similar point of view, but
the fact of the matter is it's held
universally. It doesn't represent a movement. And so
if we were to characterize a movement among
Muslims as a Muslim fundamentalist movement, then we
would have to base it at least by,
on this sort of,
then we would have to base it, at
least by, on this sort of
model,
on a and a alone.
But then you immediately realize the difficulty
because then it doesn't distinguish between 1 Muslim
and another.
Whether he is modernist or conservative, whether he
is liberal or traditional, he still holds the
same point of view. And so to describe
someone as a Muslim fundamentalist, you may as
well be calling him a Muslim Muslim,
because it adds nothing it doesn't distinguish between
one Muslim and another.
Yes. That's,
I think I made that point.
Me see. Anything else I wanna say about
that?
So I would actually discourage Muslims
themselves,
and I noticed very few Muslims do, from
adopting this word, Muslim fundamentalist, or this description,
because it's very misleading.
Anyone who knows anything about Christian fundamentalism will
assume that there are Muslim fundamentalists
who hold a similar point of view to
Christian fundamentalists
when it comes to their scripture, and there
are Muslim non fundamentalists
who hold a position similar to non fundamentalist
Christians with regard to their scriptures. Very misleading.
And I think the media has a tendency
to do this a lot. Take something out
of the Western experience,
translate it into another,
context where it doesn't really belong, and inevitably
cause a great deal of confusion. If you
notice the way the word is used in
the media, it's often used in very contradictory
ways.
For example, I remember once reading in one
magazine that I think it was Time Magazine,
where in one article it said, the Muslim
Fundamentalist
Government of Saudi Arabia.
And then in another,
article in the same magazine mentioned that the
government of Saudi Arabia was ky quite concerned
with the fact that fundamentalist movement was threatening
something or other.
So it just shows you that there's really
a considerable amount of confusion over this issue,
and the reason is
is because
the definition really is not part of Muslim
history, it doesn't really belong there.
In any case, I wanna talk about a
though.
I mean, this is an important issue.
Why how can Muslims
as a community in the 20th century
hold a point of view about their scriptures
that at first glance seems very
traditional, very antiquated.
I mean, most religious communities that are scripturally
founded in the world,
now the majority of the believers and certainly
the majority of their scholars would no longer
insist
on a here.
So how can Muslims in the 20th century
take a position about their scripture
like this? I mean, how come their attitude
towards their scripture has not evolved?
This essential attitude has been preserved for 1400
years.
I have read some Western writers who have
touched on the subject, and various conjectures are
put forth. A, or one, is that perhaps
the Muslims just aren't modernized enough yet. Maybe
they haven't been exposed to as much
knowledge, as much of Western science or philosophy
or logic or mathematics or mathematics or whatever
as the rest of the world. Well, that
argument has several flaws. One reason is is
that argument may have worked well 50 years
ago. But today, when so many Muslims are
being educated in Western universities, in today, when
so many Muslims are being educated in Western
universities
in this land, just look at the audience
in front of you, and in their own
lands even,
universities are usually
based on the Western model, and they learn
many of the same subjects, just they push
them harder there. But if you if you
look at the majority of Muslim young people
in the world today,
the great majority have been exposed to Western
education,
modern scientific knowledge. I shouldn't say Western knowledge.
It's just
knowledge. Modern knowledge of all sorts.
The claim that most of them could speak
2 or 3 languages. The claim that they're
somehow an undereducated group
certainly doesn't hold water anymore.
Well, what about the other claim that
maybe it's the Muslim community just puts better
pressure on its adherents
than other religious communities.
But certainly,
you have to agree that from a historical
perspective,
perhaps no religion has put more pressure on
its adherents throughout history than Christianity,
and yet
the Protestant movement developed,
the fundamentalist
movement developed, the liberal theological
movement developed,
many, many movements developed, no matter how much
pressure was
exerted.
I don't think you can make a strong
case for the pressure
scenario, especially since the Muslim community doesn't have
any powerful institutional structure to finally
extricate people very easily from the community. Even
those type of issues have to be decided
very locally.
So in any case, I think that's not
that argument can't be made. You have to
look deeper.
And I think you have to look in
the most obvious place and that is the
Quran,
because it concerns the Muslim attitude towards the
Quran.
And that's what I'm going to talk about
today.
I'm going to
try to answer that question by considering the
Quran.
Now, as I mentioned,
when we look at the Muslim attitude towards
the Quran, we notice that within his own
community,
there has been no movement
that is similar to the liberal
scholarly biblical movement in Christianity.
There is has been no modern critical movement
or study of the Bible movement within
Islam.
So it's gonna be very hard to analyze
that question since no movement has arisen.
And you might say that it's an impossible
thing to analyze. Not quite.
Because although no movement has arisen within the
Muslim community, there has arisen such a movement
outside the Muslim community.
And what movement are am I speaking of?
Maybe some of you know. I'm talking about
the Orientalist movement.
The study of Oriental cultures, which essentially meant
was a science that flourished in the latter
part of last century and the beginning of
part of this century and still flourishes today,
except it's no usually no longer called orientalism.
It's called Middle Eastern Studies or Islamic Studies,
but essentially the study of the Islamic religion
and the Muslim peoples.
And now what happened in that movement was
in the latter part of last century, I
hope I'm not boring you to death with
this history lesson, and the early part of
this century,
and even to this day somewhat,
when this movement was critical higher critical movement
was taking place within Christianity,
scholars educated within that tradition
then took the same techniques they learned in
their critical study of the Bible and tried
to apply them to other Muslim
orientalists
would study many of the Muslim textual sources,
they would find, at least as far as
they were concerned from their own point of
view, many of the similar things.
If they studied hadith literature, that's the sayings
of the Prophet
outside of the Quran,
if they studied the biographies of Muhammad
if they studied
the various works,
historical works written by Muslims, especially about Hadith
translators in the early centuries, they would find
come up with many, many similar findings to
what they came up with in Christianity.
Muslims may accept some, reject others, but they
came up with volumes and volumes of research.
When they studied the Quran,
they came up with very little.
So if you read a book like h
a r Gibb, who was one of the
greatest orientalist scholars of the century, if you
read his book entitled Mohammedanism,
which is a very offensive title of Muslims,
but it was a very well written book
nonetheless.
If you read that book, you'll notice that
his section on the Quran is the shortest
section in the entire book.
The historical method produced very little.
If you read great,
Western writers
like,
Montgomery Watt, Kenneth Craig,
modern writers like Esposito,
and many others, you'll find that very little
is written about the Quran.
A great deal is written about Sufism.
A tremendous amount about Muslim history.
A tremendous amount even about Hadith science.
Tremendous amount about the Asma'aal Rijal,
the Hadith
science that a branch of Hadith science. Great
deal is written about here, but when it
comes to Quran,
very little was yielded.
But nonetheless,
something was yielded. They did come up with
some findings.
And I hope by discussing
the orientalist findings, the major ones,
the Muslim reaction to those, you could come
to appreciate
how the Muslims feel about their scripture. And
I think that'll help to answer the Christian
the question why Muslims haven't moved from their
traditional perspective about the Quran.
Are you with me? So that's the approach.
Now in the process,
I'm gonna need to talk about the West
higher critical methods,
how they work.
Now those methods were first born in the
study of the Bible. So I'm gonna have
to talk a little bit about the sort
of dialogue that takes place between
liberal biblical scholars and conservative
biblical scholars,
fundamentalist biblical scholars. I'm not taking sides when
I do this. I'm just mentioning
the discussion that takes place back and forth.
I'm not gonna add to it or contribute
to it or make a judgment
Christianity.
Muslims have their own discussions,
their own conflicts,
their own,
arguments about other things.
Every religion does, but they simply do not
have this type of argument about the Quran.
So I'm discussing that merely to put the
whole thing in its proper perspective and give
you solid examples of what Western criticism,
biblic higher criticism is.
Alright?
There are 4 main areas
that I need to discuss.
The modern
biblical scholar, the critical scholar, the liberal scholar,
I think I'm covering the right circle there,
has comes to find, when he studies the
Bible, what he believes
are certain types of inconsistencies.
He finds the 4 major ones
written about in modern liberal,
scholarly works are these. They find that there
are things in the Bible that are in
inconsistent
with
with the Bible.
That is there are inner
inconsistencies.
At least he they believe so. Fundamentalists
would deny
this. And I'm not telling I'm not claiming
that either one is right. I'm just describing
the fact.
Another type of inconsistency is they they'll claim
is there are certain inconsistencies with modern science,
and then they'll develop theories to explain these.
They'll say that there are certain inconsistencies
with historical
fact,
what they believe is historical fact.
And these are very this is a a
big topic of debate.
And finally,
there is inconsistencies
with sources.
That certain sections attributed to certain authors are
not really written by those authors, at least
from the liberal point of view. The conservative
point of view would deny most of these,
or
or well, I'll talk about that in a
moment. So what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna go down this list and talk about
each of these,
and talk about how when the orientalists
looked for similar things in the Quran,
what did they find? How did Muslims react
to that?
Okay. So that's the scenario.
You guys are gonna have to go pray
soon, so you might have to miss 1
or 2 or 3 of these, but but
I'm just gonna go down the list. K.
So what do I mean by inner inconsistencies?
Well, when the liberal scholars would study the
Bible, they felt that they found certain statements
in the Bible incompatible
with other statements in the Bible.
I know you're saying, what do you mean?
And by the way, most Muslims don't do
not know nothing about this. So for those
of you who know a lot about this,
just bear with me.
What do I mean?
When most Christians
talk about, say, the cleansing of the temple
by Jesus,
when Jesus went to the temple of Jerusalem
and kicked out the money changers and the
thieves and the so forth, the disrupt disreputable
people that were there, they talk about the
cleansing of the temple. They assume it was
a singular event.
Now if you look at the gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke and look up when
that happens, you could just look in a
concordance to the Bible and look up when
it happens, you'll very quickly find out that
it happens during Passion Week, the week before
the crucifixion,
the very end of the mission
of Jesus, peace be upon him.
If you look in the gospel of John,
it happens in the second chapter of John,
in the very beginning of
the mission of Jesus.
And so the modern the
modern scholar
One has it in the beginning of his
mission, the other ones have it at the
very end.
A similar example,
and these both these examples relate to the
study of the Quran. That's why I'm giving
harping on these 2.
A similar example
is,
for example, the ascension into heaven.
At exactly what stage
did the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him,
at least from the Christian point of view,
ascend into heaven?
Well, if you go to the gospel of
Luke,
you can't help but notice that happens on
Easter Sunday, the day he is raised from
the dead according to the Bible.
If you go
to the Acts of the Apostles, in the
very first chapter,
written apparently or at least presumably by the
same Luke,
he describes quite explicitly that it happens 40
days after Easter Sunday.
So there seems to be a 40 day
discrepancy here.
This led,
modern
biblical scholars to assume that, for one thing,
the the writer of Luke and the writer
of the
Acts might not possibly be the same. And
then they would look for other evidence to
suggest the same, and they would build various
theories about different traditions coming into play and
being interwoven here.
For from their side, the fundamentalist would argue
many ways.
And remember, the fundamentalist is sort of trying
to conserve the traditional
opinion
that the Bible is a revelation from God
and it is
more or less inerrant. You know? If you
go back to the writings of Luther and
Calvin, they don't make quite that statement, but
they come close to it. In any case,
ascension, perhaps there were 2 ascensions into heaven.
And for that matter, 2
planets,
perhaps there were 2 ascensions into heaven,
and for that matter, 2 cleansing of the
temple. 1 in the beginning of Jesus' mission,
peace be upon him, one towards the end.
A more sophisticated argument that developed recently
is the argument that, fine, perhaps in the
text as we now have him, there are
certain minor discrepancy.
But if we could go back to the
original texts,
the original autographs,
which are no longer in existence,
we would find that there are no discrepancies.
So
the original revelation was perfect,
only as it has come down to us
now are there minor discrepancies.
A third argument, and it's probably the most
sophisticated and the most modern of all,
is the counterargument that
the fact that there are few discrepancies here
and there should not concern us. The fact
that there
a
few discrepancies, that'll happen any time different individuals
report on the same event.
If there are minor discrepancies,
that doesn't shouldn't bring questions to our mind.
The fact that they agree on certain main
points should tell us that there's a strong
witness
towards for this fact.
So the fact that they both, all authors,
agree that there was a cleansing of the
temple,
we can be assured that there was a
cleansing of the temple, there's a minor,
you know, mistake about when exactly it happened.
So we should be rather than be doubtful,
we should be more assured that different witnesses
are testifying to the same essential facts. So
those are sort of the counterarguments,
the main counterarguments that exist today.
In any case,
and I did that just to give you
some balance, give you some feel, sort
of discussion that takes place within Christian circles,
scholarly circles. But what about the Quran?
Well, when modern scholars,
orientalist scholars, would look at the Quran, and
many of them were very convicted Christians. Many
of them were clerics, actually.
Kenneth Craig was a bishop. Montgomery Watt was
a was a a
a cleric.
Several of the others were William Ware was
not a cleric, but he was a steadfast
Christian and very determined one, almost an evangelist.
But in any
case, when they studied the Quran, they were
naturally looking for the same type of
discrepancies.
Now the type that exists between Kings and
Chronicles,
where there are certain numerical reports that differ,
like one says there were 500 chariots, another
one says 5000 chariots.
Those type were never found in the Quran.
There's no sort of superficial numerical
discrepancies by Muslim or non Muslim scholar. You
might find it in some very cheap,
not cheap, but very, you know, sort of
shoddy,
missionary type literature that you see put out
in pamphlets where they show cartoons and everything
like that, but in scholarly work, no one
ever found any any numerical discrepancies.
In orientalist literature,
they actually never found the other kind either,
where 2 events are reported
slightly different ways.
No Western scholar ever found either one. You
could look at all of them, all of
the great ones,
except
for 1.
And this, though, the scholar that found this
was not even from the West.
He was actually from a Muslim nation, Egypt,
and he discovered these in the 19 fifties.
He was a master's degree student at the
University of Cairo.
And what he did was he studied the
Western critical method and then tried to apply
it to the Quran
and tried to develop certain theories for how
the verses how one should understand the verses.
And he found
a couple of cases that seem to be
similar to the couple examples I just get
had given you, the cleansing of the temple
and, what was the other one? The ascension
into heaven, for example.
I hope this isn't boring you all. This
is something I just love to study.
But
in any case, what were the two examples?
Well, the two examples and I found this
in a book by Haddad and Smith on
Islam and death and resurrection.
And,
they happen to mention it. It was the
only place I could ever find such a
example in all my reading, and trust me,
I did a lot of it. But in
any case,
this is the how the example goes. And
maybe, I don't know, maybe some Muslims are
aware of this, maybe they aren't. Anybody here
aware of this?
See?
Completely unaware.
In any case,
if you look at the story of Lot,
the prophet Lot,
peace be upon him, in the Quran,
you may ask yourself
when the angels who visit him tell Lot
that they are angels sent to destroy the
people of Lot.
If you look in one surah,
this happens
when they first meet Lot.
They come into his household, they inform him.
In another Sura, you notice that Lot is
being attacked by an angry mob of men
who want to
take advantage,
to put it mildly,
of these 2 beautiful men, actually angelic guests
that have visited him.
Lot, in his panic, yells out,
you know, if only I had some more
or less something close to this. If only
I had some help from God or a
strong support to rely on.
Then the angels tell him,
Lot, we are angels of the Lord sent
to destroy these people. By no means are
they gonna get near you.
So the Egyptian master's degree student in his
thesis said, what is happening here is both
these two announcements Surah is being told at
the beginning when they first meet him, and
another Surah later on when he's being rushed
later
on when he's
being rushed.
He's he doesn't even realize that he has
these angelic visitors next to him, and then
they have to inform him that they are.
So he sees this as a contradiction.
Relax.
The other one
the other one that they run into, that
he mentions is in the story of pharaoh.
Pharaoh,
justifying his inhumane and and tyrannical behavior towards
the the Egyptians,
tells his cronies, his powerful supporters, his rich
and powerful supporters,
he tells them, we have to do it
this way. Why? Because these people are gonna
drive us out. They're trying to drive us
out.
But in another place,
in another Sura,
his cronies tell Sarah seem to tell pharaoh
that we have to punish these people. We
have to be brutal to these people because
they'll try to drive us out.
So the master's degree student said in one
Sura,
it's pharaoh telling them,
giving this excuse in in another surah, another
chapter. It's his cronies telling pharaoh this.
Are you with me?
Well, needless to say,
the graduate committee
plunked the graduate student.
They they didn't pass the graduate student.
And the
authors of the book on death and resurrection
felt that the reason was because of the
emotional impact of what he had done. He
had challenged the Quran,
and because of the passionate counter reaction, they
just flunked him out of hand, or at
least that's seems to be what's presented
there. But actually, if you study what their
counterargument
was,
his committee just flunked him on what they
felt was
formal reasons,
And they went sort of like this. And
I am discussing this case because I happen
to find them in the literature, it's the
only case, such case I could find of
such a discrepancy being found in the Quran.
They phoned him for the following reason.
They said, first of all
first of all, he should have done a
search of the literature.
I mean, there were 1400
years of Koranic commentary
preceding
this kid's this young man's research. He should
have studied those commentaries to test his hypothesis
that these 2 are actually the same event.
Because they told him if he looked through
1400 years of Koranic commentary,
no commentator on the Quran ever believed that
there was a single
single excuse given by either pharaoh or his
cronies. They always assumed
that those were 2 separate incidents.
In other words, a natural reading
would never lead you to believe that there
was a single
single excuse given for the torture of the
Egyptian people.
They also said that in 1400 years, nobody
ever assumed that there was a conflict at
all in the story of Lot.
No one thought that there was a single
pronouncement by the angels that they were angels.
They said a natural reading of it
doesn't lead you to that conclusion.
The context is different, and the lesson behind
the the 2 different version the 2 different,
episodes is different.
For example, in the story of Lot, when
the angels come and make that description,
first instance.
The
the first instance.
The second lesson is, and this is how
Koranic commentators understood it,
was that we should never forget, no matter
how desperate a situation
comes, that God is always with us.
That God is always with us, and that
we have a strong tendency to forget
that. And they said this is the clearest
example because Lot, in the presence of its
angelic guest, when he's suddenly rushed by this
mob, panics and says, oh, I wish God
would help me. And they remind him, Lot,
truly we are angels of the Lord. They're
not gonna get near you.
And they said that's how it was understood
for 1400 years. A natural reading
wouldn't make you equate the 2 verses.
And their strongest evidence was that because in
1400 years, nobody thought that they were the
same.
And and they said a contextual reading wouldn't
make you equate the 2, or even the
lesson
gotten from both wouldn't make you equate the
2. They were they never they always saw
thought they were separate incidents, and nobody ever
assumed
otherwise.
And similarly with the story of pharaoh. As
a matter of fact, pharaoh several times
talking to Moses, talking to Moses and Aaron,
talking to his cronies, talking to other people,
talking to a crowd, says, these people are
gonna try to drive us out. There's not
just one occasion when pharaoh used that excuse.
The situation when pharaoh used that excuse, the
situation when pharaoh used that excuse,
the
occasion when pharaoh used that excuse.
The situation when pharaoh and his cronies get
together and the Quran says,
and they,
seems collectively, agreed that these people are gonna
try to drive them out.
Again, doesn't there's no conflict there. They said
there's there's no conflict whatsoever.
The the the moral of the story in
pharaoh's case is is that pharaoh, as a
tyrant,
justifies his tyranny
by, he feels, the threat of him losing
his power.
Powerful supporters of tyrants
feel the same threat,
and so they give similar excuses.
They too worry that they are gonna be
driven out of power.
And so once again, they said, the lessons
are entirely different.
The contexts are clearly
different.
Even from a grammatical point of view, the
story of his interpretation of pharaoh was forced,
but I won't get into
that. And from the historical point of view,
in 1400 years, no one ever felt that
there was a single excuse by either pharaoh
or his followers for their
inhumane behavior towards the children of Israel.
So they said that his hypothesis
there's no evidence either internal to the Quran
or in the history of a Quranic commentary
to indicate that it should be taken that
way. And so they said a natural reading
would not be taken that way. A forced
reading to force a theory where it doesn't
belong would, and so they rejected it.
And as a matter of fact, I think
that most even Western scholars that studied the
issue
accepted the
the the report of the graduate committee because
I I never you never see it appear
again in the literature.
Their argument was just too formal and too
strong,
so it wasn't accepted.
But that's the only case I know.
So in any case, the Muslim does not
believe that there are any verses in the
Quran that are incompatible with other verses in
the Quran. They find them quite compatible.
So let me talk
about science. Certain western scholars felt
that there were statements in the Bible that
were incompatible with scientific knowledge, modern scientific knowledge.
Let me think of an example.
Well, for example, if you if you look
in Genesis,
you see very careful descriptions
of genealogy.
This person,
being
the son of this person being the son
of this person,
that says that Adam, the first man, lived
for, oh, I forget, something like 800 years.
And when when he was a 130 years
old, he gave birth to his son. What
was his son? Seth, I think? I can't
remember. And then Seth lived several 100 years,
and when he was so and so years
old, he gave birth to his son, something
like Enosh, something. I I really don't remember
the names, to tell you the truth. But
it gives very explicit details.
Well,
it goes that those genealogies go right down
to Abraham.
So you could pretty much very easily calculate
the age of Abraham or how long man
lived on earth up to Abraham by just
adding up the numbers.
So and so, the the lengths between these
births of all these individuals.
And you come up with a couple of
1000 years, and then you could pretty accurately
predict when Abraham should have lived. There's lots
of evidence to
external and internal to the Bible to give
a fairly accurate prediction within, let's say, a
1000 years either way.
If you do that, you come up with
an estimate of several 1000 years. Man has
been on this earth several 1000 years as
modern man.
But
but
archaeologists,
scientists,
historians
will tell you from their study of other
evidence that without a doubt man, as modern
man has existed on this planet for tens
of thousands of years.
So they see a contradiction here,
an incompatibility with
science.
Any of the arguments I used before,
counterarguments by the fundamentalist, the conservative Christian point
of view, would still hold for this, would
apply equally well to this.
Another argument put forward was when it says
so and so is the son of so
and so in the Bible.
It's not to be taken always literally.
In the Middle East, people use the word
son, daughter, sister, brother,
and almost more often than not figuratively.
Most people, for example, call me Brother Jeffrey.
Matter of fact, my brothers don't call me
Brother Jeffrey, only the rest of the Muslim
community does.
You know?
They call my wife Sister
if you look in the New Testament
if you look in the New Testament, you'll
find Mary not Mary, Elizabeth referred to as
the daughter of Aaron.
But anybody who reads the New Testament knows
that that's not they're not assuming that Mary
is Aaron's contemporary.
And so they say when it says so
and so is the son of so and
so and this stuff about being son,
just simply means he's a descendant, a direct
descendant,
and that there could have been many generations
in between.
And so that's the counterargument,
more or less.
In any case, it was natural for Orientalists
to look for problems in the Quran when
it comes to science.
And here was an area that yield very
few results,
extremely few.
Now that's not to say that the Quran
doesn't contain many, many verses that have a
bearing on modern knowledge.
There are.
And some
have really caught Muslim Muslims' attention for many
many years and they couldn't even come to
a really come to a description or an
understanding of it. For example, the following verse.
I'm only gonna give 1 or 2 examples
of this type. There's a verse in the
Quran
that says, have not the unbelievers beheld?
Look, everybody knows what I'm going to say.
That the heavens and the earth were at
one time disjoined
and then we exploded them apart,
and that every living creature
is made from water.
This type of verse perplexed Muslim commentators for
centuries.
What's the heaven and the earth where 1
times 1 and then we're exploded apart and
every living creature is made from water?
Could imagine the reaction in 7th century Arabia
when Mohammed, peace be upon him, stood in
the desert climate
with he and his companions sweltering under the
desert sun, and he said, and every living
creature is made from water.
In
this verse that refers to nature,
than maybe Muslims have who've been befuddled by
this verse for many centuries.
Because today,
they don't insist on this interpretation, but at
least it makes more sense to them today.
Because today, they know that every living cell
is composed of at least 70% water. To
them, they the expression that every living creature
is made from water now makes sense,
or at least they can make sense of
it to themselves.
That the heavens and the earth were at
one time won
or joined and then were torn or ripped
apart or exploded apart.
Many Muslims have wondered, well, I mean, lots
of people nowadays believe that anyway.
Lots of scientists,
physicists,
they believe in this so called big bang.
Maybe that's a reference to that. Maybe we
finally understand what the meaning of this verse
is. And there are still a few references
in the Quran that Muslims are still befuddled
by,
still quite quite can't make sense
of. I was reading an article just the
other day, not an article, a book,
by a Christian author who was writing about,
and it was a very beautiful book, about
Christians in the Quran.
That was the topic. But he just happened
to mention in passing because he knew something
about embryology.
He says, Muhammad, peace be upon him. He
didn't write peace be upon him. He said,
Muhammad
seem
seem to have a fairly quite an accurate
knowledge of human embryology.
Because as he describes the development of the
fetus in the womb,
he gives an extremely accurate description
that it's quite compatible with 20th century knowledge.
So he seems I think he said the
Arabs
seem to have quite a good knowledge. But
if you study the history of Quran commentary
for several centuries, you could see that the
Arabs had extremely poor knowledge
about human embryology.
They really couldn't make sense of
a lot of that description.
When I was talking about this in Kansas
City, I was involved in a dialogue.
One of the members of the other panel
got quite upset
and he said, Yes. Okay, fine. But does
the Quran say that that all takes place
in the womb?
I knew what he was getting
at because lots of times people take their
scriptures and interpret their words out of context.
They pull an entire passage out of context,
assign to certain words meanings that are not
naturally there, and then find any theory they
like modern theory.
People do it all the time. And so
his question was perfectly legitimate.
I said, yes.
It does say this takes place in the
womb
explicitly in the 22nd Surah, from the 5th
verse on, I think.
But it does.
So that ended the discussion.
But in any case, the Quran does have
many, many verses that have a bearing on
modern knowledge. The signs of the Quran,
the natural signs
are repeated again and again and again in
so many Suras.
Many other examples I could think of, but
let's put that aside.
The point is, are there contradictions?
Muslims, in the 20th century, I've not found
any.
When this happened to come up in a
dialogue in Kansas City,
doctor Dudley Woodbury was on the other side.
He was from the Zweimer Institute, and he's
a very fine lecturer, by the way, a
brilliant
explainer of the Christian perspective. And I like
I have a great deal of respect for
him. But he felt pressed to be able
to produce a counterexample,
some example of a conflict with science.
And he thought and he thought and he
finally got up and he said,
there's a verse in the Koran
that says that God
brings life to the Egyptian farmer's soil by
the rains.
The rains bring life to the Egyptian soil.
I'm not quite sure of the reference he's
talking about, but that's what he said.
And he said it's not the rains that
brings life to the Egyptian farmers' crops and
soil. It's the annual floods
that take place along the Nile.
So the Koran has it wrong.
And I was sitting by but this shows
you the sort of arguments
that are put forth. This is the only
argument I ever heard of that nature. There
was one other that I heard. Maybe I
have a few seconds to tell you, but
that's what he said.
The reaction of, doctor Jamal Bedawi sitting right
next to me, who was from Egypt,
was a surprise.
He said, doctor Woodbury,
try telling an Egyptian farmer that he doesn't
need rain during the course of his growing
season. In a year of drought, there's no
crops.
And he said, by the way, if you
wanna be technical about it,
what produces the annual floods
but the inland rains?
In any case, that shows you
sort of how the dialogue takes place.
But in any case, honestly,
the only two criticisms I've ever known was
that one and one other that's of a
similar nature and easily ignored.
And so the Muslims really don't find that
there's any compatibility between the Quran and modern
knowledge, at least in these two spheres, inter
consistencies and science.
And I don't think they ever will.
Not trying to make an argument for Islam,
trying to make an argument about Muslim fundamentalism
and Muslim
feeling about the Quran.
Let me try to pick it up a
little, because you're probably getting tired. What time
do we start? Oh, 7:30?
Okay.
What about history?
What about history?
Well, you're a good audience anyway, you don't
look too exhausted yet.
What about history?
The modern western liberals, biblical scholars, I think
that covers it all.
When they studied the Bible, they felt that
there were certain things incompatible with modern history,
with historical
fact, they would say.
The type of things they would say is,
for example, look at the story about Noah
and the flood.
The Bible says that the entire globe was
covered with water.
All were destroyed in the flood
except for Noah and his family.
All
pairs of animals were put in the ark.
Everything?
Everything. How
could that be? Modern critical scholars will tell
you that, first of all, it could be
historically shown that in the last 55000
years, there's been no universal flood. There's always
been a thriving civilization at least one place
in the world.
Scientists will tell you that there would be
all sorts of scientific problems with a universal
flood.
It's inconceivable
scientifically.
Not only is it inconceivable,
it's
impossible
for other reasons. Not that it can't happen,
but if it did happen, something
much more catastrophic would have happened. The earth
as we know it would been completely destroyed
and all sorts of things. In any case,
they believe that there can have been no
universal flood. Many modern Muslim many modern fundamentalist
conservative Christian scholars will accept that. There was
no universal flood.
But they'll say that once again,
aside from the other arguments I mentioned, say
once again, you're forcing a literal interpretation where
the language could be figurative.
Because the Bible often uses the word awe
in a less than literal sense.
For example,
when Jesus meets the woman at the well,
peace be upon him, and the woman says,
you told me all I've ever done.
She doesn't mean everything I did since I
was born.
She means everything of consequence.
And so when you say
all was destroyed, doesn't necessarily mean all,
just means a lot,
you know. So it's probably a figurative expression.
Don't force a literal interpretation
where it could be figured. In any case,
case, that's another counterargument.
Doing it just so that you don't think
sometimes it sounds like the argument I'm giving
is very strong, and I wanna give the
other counterargument
Does
Does the Muslim does the Quran have any
contradiction with what history has been able to
establish? Of course, you know the Muslim answer,
no. They feel it doesn't, and they never
felt it had.
And
frankly, like I said, I could only think
of 2 examples
and all the right reading I've done of
Orientalist literature, 2 real examples that they're able
to come up with.
2
findings that contradict history. 1 is sort of
very weak, so let me just move time
limitations wise to the strongest of them.
The strongest contradiction, and this is mentioned by
his greatest scholar as Kenneth Craig,
Montgomery Watt mentions it,
especially the clerical Western scholars
mentioned this quite a bit.
The one that they felt they found
was
a report in the Quran a verse in
the Quran which has Mary's kinfolk saying to
her, Mary, the mother of Jesus, peace be
upon him,
has Mary's kinfolk saying to to her,
oh daughter no. Oh, sister
of Aaron.
How could you do such a thing?
Oh, sister of Aaron.
And Kenneth Craig and others said, see, there
is an anachronism because
if Mary is the sister of Mary is
certainly not the sister
of the prophet Aaron.
How could they the Quran is saying they're
contemporaries
and everyone knows they're not.
The Muslim reaction
was nothing less than
exasperation
and fury
when it would when writers would counter attack
with the things that or would read what
Kenneth Craig had had written. Because basically, they
have a good deal of respect for him,
but they felt that that type of thing
was below the belt and duplicitous
for the following reason.
They mentioned, as many a Christian will mention,
that the expressions sister, brother, daughter are used
very loosely in the Middle East, like son
of David,
children of Israel,
sons of man, etcetera,
things like that. No. They're usually not used
literally.
But the second thing, and this is what
got their dander up, was that, alright, fine.
If a person like an atheist made that
remark, they would tolerate it.
But it shouldn't have come from a Christian
or a
Jew or no. Let me put it this
way. Sir certainly not a Jew, but definitely
not a Christian.
And the reason is is because if if
you read the New Testament and you're open
to Luke,
you see Elizabeth,
Mary's cousin, as I mentioned a second ago,
being called the daughter of Aaron.
And Mary is her cousin.
So why did they use one standard to
interpret the Quran and another standard to interpret
their own scripture? Well, the Christian would argue,
if you look throughout the rest of the
Bible, it's very clear that they're not contemporaries.
The Muslim would say the same thing about
the Quran. There's no indication in the Quran
that they're contemporaries,
quite the opposite.
The Muslim would argue that actually the description
in the Quran is even more accurate if
we just accept the description in the Bible.
Because if
Mary if Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, is a direct
descendant of Aaron, then she should probably be
called in the Middle East a daughter of
Aaron.
Mary is not a direct descendant. She's once
removed.
So she cannot be called a daughter of
Aaron. If the Quran called her a daughter
of Aaron, it would be a
mistake. At least if we accept the version
in the Bible because she's not a direct
descendant.
She's once removed.
She's a member of the family of Aaron,
to use a Middle Eastern terminology.
She should not be called a daughter. It's
more proper and more precise to call her
a sister of Aaron, a member of the
family, a descendant, but not a direct descendant.
In any case, the Muslims were
that remark. And that's the strongest one I've
ever come across with. Maybe
that remark. And that's the strongest one I've
ever come across with. Maybe you might know
some others.
Let me talk about sources,
then I'll close with that.
Are you exhausted?
Is it hot in here?
My wife told me not to take off
my jacket, so
I'm stuck. I always take it off. I'm
losing my tie.
What about sources?
Modern scholars would read the Bible.
And by the way these things were discovered
many centuries ago, but they didn't cause the
same problem as they did for modern biblical
scholars.
But in any case,
modern
older
older bible commentators would explain them differently.
The issue is not that these things were
discovered. It's how modern scholars approach them. That's
what the fundamentalists
reject.
But in any case, modern scholars would approach
the Bible,
and they would come to the certain
certain type of descriptions like here's an example.
They would read the story of Hagar and
Ishmael.
In one section, it seems to indicate
that
Ishmael
was born,
I mean, when,
Isaac was born, Ishmael was 16 years old.
You Ishmael Ishmael was born when, Abraham was
84.
Esauk was born when Abraham was
a 100, peace be upon. So there's a
16 year difference.
Hagar and Ishmael are sent into the desert,
sort of exile.
If you'll read that description,
you'll notice that Eshmael is on one shoulder
of Hagar,
and
a jug of water is on her other,
and she goes carrying them into the desert.
The heat gets too much for the boy.
She throws him under a bush
for shade.
He lies there kicking and crying on the
ground. She runs down and looks for water
for him.
The description seems to be of a mother
and a baby,
yet the other one seems to be of
someone 16, 18 years old.
If you saw the book the movie The
10 Commandments the other night, you noticed that
when they reported the story of Ishmael and
Hagar, they had Ishmael just a little baby
because that's how most people understood it when
they read that story. But yet, the other
description has him in his late teens, maybe
17, 18.
How could she be carrying an 18 year
old kid on her shoulder?
Well,
all the arguments I've used to counter that
so far could be applied again.
But in addition to that, another argument was
simply, once again, you're imposing a literal understanding
where the language could be very figurative.
Doesn't mean she literally put him on his
shoulder. It means that she shouldered him. She
being a desert woman probably had more stamina,
more experience in the desert heat. It's not
entirely unprobable that an 18 year old could
give out faster than his mother in a
situation like that. Certainly, she might throw him
under a bush. In his his thirst for
water, he might be kicking and screaming. Who
knows? Why is it so utterly impossible? This
was sort of the fundamentalist counter attack
with other attacks as well.
In any case, similar things were looked for
in the oh, the long and the short
of it was the modern critical scholars would
look at something like that and say, hey.
They would say,
here's one narrative that seems to contradict another
narrative
in the same story.
Perhaps these 2 have different sources.
This is from one tradition.
This is from another tradition. The 2 traditions
And and try to separate
one tradition from another tradition
that is woven together, and that would be
called source criticism. They would look for different
sources.
They would come up with certain conclusions like
the gospels
do not really belong to the authors they
claim.
The author of Luke and the author of
Acts
were probably not the same or at least
there were other authors involved.
Isaiah was written by at least 3
authors, none of which probably are the prophet
Isaiah.
Moses probably didn't proclaim Deuteronomy,
and so on. These were the type
of these are the type of modern critical
claims that are made.
And like I said, the conservative side certainly
rejects it.
But what about the Muslim position of outsourcing?
Well,
even certainly no Muslim
scholar doubts that the Quran was proclaimed by
anyone but Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
and that it went under no alterations.
Though they would certainly aren't gonna doubt that,
that the Quran as we have it today
is the proclamation as it was made.
There's strong historical reasons why they believe that.
Even modern scholars,
orientalist scholars never doubted that, or at least
most of them didn't. H. A. R. Gibb,
Montgomery Watt, Kenneth Craig, Esposito, Frederick Denny, just
about anybody you could think of. Even William
Muir
never doubted that. They all knew for sure.
They all say that for sure, the the
Quran, you could safely assume, are the proclamations
that Muhammad, peace be upon him, made under
what he either claimed or believed was inspiration.
Okay. They'll pretty much accept that. So the
question of the source of the Quran,
there really is none in the Muslim mind.
There's a couple of modern authors that disagree
with that. I remember a book called Hagerism
by Krone and Smith, I think. They they
bypassed the issue, but they just quickly say
they're not so sure about that and just
go on. But
certainly if they believe that, Muslims have no
reason to doubt it. I mean, Muslims, if
they could have believed it, the majority of
Western scholars, it's all the more reasons why,
you know, you could be sure that Muslims
are never gonna find any reason to doubt
that. The only claim you see at the
sometimes made against the Quran of a similar
vein, and I'll end with this,
is lots of times. You'll see especially in
the writings of about 1910, 1920,
1930, Christian scholars,
Christian orientalists
felt that Muhammad, peace be upon him, must
have had a Christian
or Jewish
helper
in composing the Quran.
They felt that an Arab of 7th century
was completely incapable
of producing anything like the the Quran. Not
a scripture that could affect a 1000000000 people
someday,
that be could become the one single unifying
factor in a in a faith system that
has no church or no clerical class or
anything like that. I mean, if this one
single powerful scripture,
unsurpassed in its beauty as far as Arabic
eloquence goes, if this one single scripture could
do what it has done, certainly,
it was beyond the ability of a 7th
century Arab,
one of the least cultured populations in all
the world. They pretty much accept that, and
they assume that he must have had help
from somebody from outside of that, sort of
sort of a Christian slave or a Jewish
slave, something like that. It's kind of a
strange theory.
They they built the theory on the following
perception,
that the best indicator
of the tensions
that were existed in the Muslim community and
in particular in the life of Muhammad peace
be upon him,
in the
at his time, the best indicator
would be the Quran.
Now the Quran doesn't discuss the life of
Muhammad, peace be upon him, or his community
very much, but there are certain allusions
to things that are going on.
In particular, there are many debates. You see
the Quran
arguing against many of its detractors.
And they said in those arguments
between the Quran and its disbelievers,
You could see what the intellectual tensions were,
what the debates were that existed between Muhammad
peace be upon him and his detractors.
And so they looked for support for their
theory in the Quran that Muhammad, peace be
upon him, must have helped.
Sure enough they found
him. The year
before the prophets, peace be upon him, is
exiled to Medina.
It a terrible year for the Muslim community.
They're under tremendous pressure and persecution.
A couple of lives were lost. Many had
to
run away to Ethiopia,
would later join the Muslim community in Medina.
They finally were kicked out and had to
rush for their lives to Medina
to escape.
That was a terrible year. It was the
year of the heaviest anti Quran
propaganda.
That's when they faced their stiffest intellectual challenge
where arguments were being put forth against the
Quran
all the time. And in the surahs that
were revealed that time, you'll see the Quran
arguing a lot against its detractors.
The 13th year of the Prophet's mission, peace
be upon him. There's a single reference there
to a claim made by the pagans
that Muhammad, peace be upon him, was being
helped by somebody.
And that around that verse,
this entire theory was built. It blew.
The Quran argues against that claim. It says
the person they claim did this,
can't even speak Arabic
because Arabic is very crude. It's not even
his natural tongue, and this is the most
eloquent Arabic.
But in any case, the argument seems to
have very quickly died out.
It was dropped
Because during the same period, that 1 year
period, you see up here several other times
another argument, another argument exclusively. And the argument
is
Mohammed is inventing it.
So this argument seems to be dropped because
throughout the same period, we noticed
clustered in that same period is several statements
that the pagans are saying that Mohammed has
invented it. They seem to have accepted the
fact that it was coming from Mohammed,
But they claimed, yes, it's coming from him,
but it's not coming from God. He's adventing
it.
So the evidence of the Quran in this
stage, and I agree with the Orientalist perception,
that the best indicator of what's affecting the
Quran is the Quran, or what arguments are
existing at a certain time is the Quran.
There's one reference to that. The Quran dismisses
it. It seems that the pagans dismiss it
as well because they never use it again.
Throughout the rest of the Quran, they'll continue
to claim Mohammed is inventing
it, which shows that they have quickly became
convinced
that it is coming from him,
only from him, and that he must be
inventing it in his own mind.
So the vast weight of arguments in the
Quran, Quran, that's the argument we'll see repeated
again and again and again throughout the rest
of Muhammad's mission.
He's inventing it, which shows that his detractors
became convinced
If we accept the oriental's claim that the
Quran is the best indicator of what
intellectual tensions there were,
his detractors became convinced that he was a
source,
but he they felt he was their only
source, not God,
but he and him, Muhammad,
peace be upon him, and he alone.
They then developed a theory that when he
went to Medina,
he was now in the presence of Jewish
tribes,
2 or 3 Jewish main Jewish tribes. And
he developed a theory that at this point,
he must have snuck around to the Jewish
tribes and picked up ideas here and there,
borrowed from the Jewish tribes, overheard things, and
incorporated them in his revelation.
But again, if you use the orientalist method
of looking for the indications of that in
the Quran,
you find quite the opposite indicated.
We see many arguments during the Medina period
between Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his
detractors among Jews and Christians that wouldn't that
didn't convert, and many of them didn't. They
didn't insist that they did.
And their arguments were them
say
You never see hear them say, and they
say he's borrowing. No. They that doesn't appear.
What do they say?
They their complaint was that what he was
revealing was different
than what they had.
That it differed in essential ways, many
quite
complaint was not that he was borrowing from
them, but that what he was telling was
quite different from what they were used to.
So the internal evidence of the Quran shows
that their claim against them was quite the
opposite of what the Orientalists theorized.
The argument was that what he was bringing
was quite different.
What was the Quran's argument against them?
Was simply this,
its argument was against them that what they
had
was not pure revelation.
Its argument was that what they had
may have begun with revelation, but it was
contaminated by human hands.
And in the heat of the argument,
the following verse was revealed
which said,
have they not considered this Quran?
Truly, if it is from other than God
or from people other than God or or
from people besides God or from other than
God, you would find it in many a
contradiction.
In any case, the argument went on.
So the internal evidence of the Quran would
certainly not support the Orientalist theory. And I
don't see that theory anymore,
but it supports quite the opposite. As far
as the argument as far as the argument
of the pagan detractors that he invented it
is,
the Quran's argument to them was always consistent,
was simply this,
that
if
if they think that Mohammed
could, peace be upon him, could possibly produce
this, then let them all band together
and try to produce the like of it.
The like of it in power, the like
of it in its ability to motivate billions
of followers throughout the history of mankind.
Let them produce something as consistent, as clear,
as coherent.
The conjecture of the Quran is, is that
if they try to do it, they'd come
up with something just the opposite,
something fraught with difficulties,
something that would motivate virtually nobody, something that
would be contaminated by error,
and that was the argument against the against
the pagan detractors.
Eventually, we would win the day in Arabia.
Arabia eventually became a Muslim land.
But in any case,
this was not an argument, by the way,
for why Muslims
believe in the Quran, believe in the revelation
of the Quran.
I didn't take that point of view.
But I did want to point out why
they haven't revised that point of view. This
is a very ancient point of view and
I was trying to make, hopefully, with the
examples I was giving and I know it's
hard to do justice to this in a
short hour and 5 minutes that I've been
spending. But I was trying to point out
why Muslims or some indication of why Muslims
would never feel the need or have it
up to this stage for revising their traditional
point of view about the Quran. Their experience
with the Quran has been very different from
other people's experiences
in their religion with their scriptures.
So that's not an argument for why they
believe. It was an argument for why they
still believe as they always have believed.
Why do Muslims believe? I'll just say it
simply end like this. They probably
believe for a number of reasons.
One, is that's what they're taught to believe.
2, and perhaps more importantly, this is probably
similar to why people hold their usual beliefs
they do.
2, it's because of their experience of the
Quran.
Muslims recite some portion of the Quran 5
times a day, every day
in their 5 daily prayers. They live very
close to the Quran. It's really interwoven into
their lives.
Most Muslims read some portion of the Quran
at fixed times of the day every day.
I usually read some portion of it every
night before I go to sleep and then
sequentially, just keep on going through it. And
a Muslim may go through the Quran 20,
40, more likely 80 or a 100 times
in his life and even beyond that. It's
very much a consistent and continuous part of
his life. In his experience of the Quran,
he comes to experience
through and by it the love, the peace,
the power, the majesty of God in a
very real and very intimate way, and we
shouldn't expect less.
But nonetheless
nonetheless, I will say this,
that the human being seems to have something
built into
him, where he can't seem to but resist
to compare
truths that he holds here, things he believes
are true, with other things he believes in
true are true. And I think the we
do that with religion as well. We compare
things we hold to be religious truths with
other truths we've come to hold.
And whether that is human arrogance
or a divine safeguard,
we could argue, but it seems that we're
gonna do it anyway.
But for the Muslim,
the 20th century has been a century,
perhaps like no other people on earth, of
tremendous discovery,
of tremendous in gaining of insights.
But it's also been a century
that has
and I think almost like no other,
except for perhaps the very earliest times,
it's been a century that has confirmed
and strengthened his convictions
in the revelation of the Quran.
And so
that's my,
lecture. And thank you very much, and may
God's peace be upon you.
Thank you very much, doctor Jeffrey Lang, for
such an absorbing and interesting lecture.
And doctor Jeffrey Lang will remain here in
this room
if our guest have some questions to ask
him And certainly, our non Muslim guest
must have priority to ask questions.
In the meantime,
we have moved prayer room from 205
to sunflower room because the other room is
bigger.
So
our brothers who wants to
offer mother prayer can go to sunflower room.
And
floor is open for the questions. Doctor Jeffrey
Lang is here
to entertain the questions.
Come back next time. Alright.
Excuse me. Can I sit down?
Thanks.
It's hot. Yeah.
You're on the 2 for adjectives. I know.
Wow. How many stokes up that light over
there? Are you tired?
No. I only if you are ready for
a question.
I don't know what they're going to do
now. Maybe we should give them a couple
of minutes just to let them file out.
Why don't we start the question lose? Yeah.
I'm ready. I'm ready.
Maybe if we,
get the question and answer period going, I
could get out of here earlier.
No.
Not that I'm in a rush, but it's
a long drive back.
If if there's no questions, that's fine, by
the way.
Yes, sir.
I think he's gonna hand you a, microphone.
I I'm not sure. Are you saying that
that you are
a Muslim? Yeah. I've I've been a Muslim
for 10 years.
I made that clear in the beginning so
that people knew my perspective. I got here
I got here a couple minutes late. Alright.
Okay.
I am not a biblical scholar.
I'm a farmer
in the Manhattan area. I grew up on
a farm. Well, it's a pleasure to meet
you. I I have just one question to
ask you. Shoot.
It it's my understanding
that there is no way
to come
to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ
except by faith
that comes
Messiah.
He's the only one that claims resurrection.
No other religion in the world claims that.
Just He makes an offer
for all
who call upon his name,
right,
to simply
receive
if he
draws them. K?
Isn't that the only reasonable way instead of
trying to reason it through is to ask
the Lord to reveal himself
in his power, in his glory through his
son who he said was the only way.
See that that's that's what I don't understand.
Why all the confusion? Why all the argument?
Except that man wants to do everything he
can
to reject
a blood sacrifice
for our original sin.
Where where is it that that I have
missed the simplicity
of
of passing away, doing away with all of
the apologetics,
and simply coming to our knees
and saying, Lord,
we can't straighten it out. It's gone on
for 6000 1000 years.
Could you please come into our heart if
you're real?
See, that that's what I don't understand. Why
do we have to keep going through Bible,
science, history Yeah. Sources? What this the the
only source there is is Jesus Christ, isn't
it? Well And if it is, shouldn't we
simply ask, he says, anyone who will ask.
We don't have to study the Quran except
to live. You know, it it
fundamentally it's a it's a wonderful way to
live a life, isn't it? But in the
end if you die
and you haven't accepted Christ as your savior,
he says you'll not be with me.
That that's that's the claim.
Regardless of all the little picky stuff that
goes on that that that probably is more
trivia
and and excites our own intellect.
We're in a university setting where there's supposed
to be knowledge without bound almost.
What's going on?
I mean, where how did you come to
to believe in something that has no risen
savior with with a blood sacrifice for your
your original sin from Adam?
I was in Adam when when Adam
sinned.
So can you explain to me? Where would
you like me to begin?
No. I don't mean it lightly. I In
the beginning,
God Yeah. Created.
Alright. Let me let me try to
but you realize, of course, that
first of all, as far as the question,
why do biblical scholars bicker about these type
of things,
I don't know. I'm not a like I
said, I'm not a Christian. I don't know
why they bicker about them. The point of
my lecture was they do,
and and that doesn't bother me. I if
I was a Christian and I believe very
firmly as you do and
as you do, I probably wouldn't be concerned
with these at all.
But the fact is that these bickerings do
take place, this argument does take place, that
doesn't bother me. I wouldn't I wouldn't even
discuss it if the same
methods were not used to study the Quran.
And that was the point I was trying
to talk about. I was trying to say
that these methods
have been used to study the Quran. This
is where it comes from.
This is the Muslim reaction to it. In
the Muslims' reaction to it, you could come
to understand how Muslims
feel about their Quran, why they haven't gone
through sort of a liberal,
scholarly, critical movement of the Quran? Are you
see what I mean? Because when many writers
discuss
Muslims,
they say that the Muslims
are not quite the type of people you
were just talking about, university
scholars, study the religion of Islam, they say
these Muslim people must be quite simple minded
because they have not yet
been enlightened to the fact
that scriptures cannot be trusted entirely.
And Muslims,
in mass,
have full confidence
in their scripture,
and they have no literate,
higher critical
movement of their own scripture within their community.
And so they asked the question again and
again,
how can this be?
My lecture was essentially about that question.
So that explains why I
discussed
the con controversy here,
how it is projected over here, what's the
Muslim reaction about it. I thought I was
essentially
telling why there is really no real fundamentalist
movement within Islam.
That was the point of the lecture
And why there's no such thing as fundamentalism
or liberalism approach towards the Quran at all
in Islam. I was trying to explain that
a lot of times when we approach another
people's religion,
we look at it through our own experience
and eyes and assume that what we experience,
they must experience.
And when they don't seem to experience that,
we oftentimes assume that there's some defect in
them. It's trying to explain that when a
different people has a different history and a
different experience, you shouldn't expect to see the
same things in that community.
So that was the focus of my lecture.
As far as your position your own faith
commitment goes,
I think it's exactly that. I mean, I
know it's difficult for you to see why
another person might not share your faith, especially
because of the experiences that you have.
But you also have to realize that if
you asked almost any Muslim in the audience,
he would probably say the same thing to
any person that didn't believe in
his beliefs.
He would he would tell you that he
would tell you that clearly the Quran is
a revelation from God. Clearly, Muhammad, peace be
upon him, must have been the last messenger
of mankind, the last prophet, the seal of
the prophets.
Clearly, if you read the Quran, he's preaching
a powerful,
tremendous
god given message here.
A person cannot read that and see that
that's not true. I mean, he would say
almost
the exactly the exact same things as you
are saying
as far as in his own within his
own context. There are Muslims in this audience,
and I don't say this to
to put you down. I think you have
a very strong
and very firm conviction in what you believe
that have equally strong and firm convictions in
what they believe. So arguments you're giving me
sort of a subjective argument or or subjective
Excuse me. I I didn't mean to to
cause you to misunderstand
what
No. Go right ahead. I I didn't mean
to to
cause you to misunderstand
what I'm saying.
It it would not be right for for
anyone to impose
a belief as in an opinion
upon anyone else in this world,
not Muslim upon Christian, not Christian upon Muslim.
But the offer of of this particular text,
the Bible, okay,
I I would agree with you. It it
is, it is only inerrant
in its original writings. It was given to
man
by inspiration
of God. That's its claim. Okay?
That's pretty simple. It also says we do
not have all knowledge.
Right? Okay?
So if we do not have all knowledge,
why don't we try to pick apart and
argue about what we don't have? Okay? The
simple the simplest
way for all to solve a problem.
The as I understood, a a Muslim man
came to my home to buy a car.
He was interested in a BMW.
Okay?
I wasn't. I was trying to sell it.
Alright?
It was a good car, and and and
I I represented it to him honestly and
openly.
And in doing that, he recognized
my my
genuineness.
We talked a good deal about the Quran,
about
what the the the would you call it
a religion? Is is okay.
That
they, he said, they were told
and instructed to examine all other religions
that freedom to choose
the one
that gave life.
Okay?
Now Christianity
does make the claim it's the only one
of a messiah,
okay,
that gives life.
And in within each one of us, there's
a void. Obviously, we're arguing over a whole
bunch of stuff.
Okay?
To try to fill the void of misunderstanding,
we're searching for a relationship with a with
a loving eternal God who we want to
be with because He is kind, generous,
holy.
Right. Do you understand what I'm saying? No.
And and if if if a way
for the Muslim to test Christianity
that Christianity
offers to it and that the Muslim religion
through the Quran, as I'm as I'm told,
you can correct me if I'm wrong, says
examine these things. If if if it simply
says, you pray to God, what, 5 times
a day, 7 times a day? Christians don't
do that. We can't get them to pray
5 minutes.
I mean, I applaud the Muslims for praying
that. They're praying to probably the one God,
same same as a Christian faith. Okay?
But but God says the only bridge because
of the sin that occurred originally
comes through my son. And if you'll call
on his name,
I'll make myself real to you. When I
received Christ as my savior, I didn't know
Sikham,
except that someone said that I had
an original sin and the only way that
I could have fellowship with God in eternity
was to accept Jesus Christ
and his blood atonement for that sin. And
when I did that,
He came into my heart. I knew nothing
about the Bible, the Quran, or anything else.
And it wasn't
an opinion.
It wasn't what I chose to believe. It
was God by the power of His Holy
Spirit. He came down, came into my heart
and changed my life.
Okay? The Quran didn't do that. It would
give me a good way to live life.
The Bible didn't do that. It would give
me a good way to live life. But
the spirit of the living God came into
my heart and and that's the difference. And
he he makes that claim. All who would
ask,
test, search, or whatever, can do the same
thing. And if he doesn't come into their
heart, then believe the Quran. I know. Believe
the Bible. That's a very You see? Yeah.
That's a very Christian
point of view, and a particular Christian point
of view.
So
I'm sure you understand why many Muslims don't
have it. They didn't grow up in a
Christian culture. They weren't taught that point of
view. It's natural that they wouldn't even consider
that point of view. Instead, the average Muslim
was taught something different. He grew up with
a Quran. He experienced the Quran. He read
the Quran. The Quran seemed
powerful and true to him. And through his
experience of his religion,
he went through he felt the love and
peace and power of God
to him in a way that no other
religion could possibly provide.
So that's I think, ultimately, what we're saying
is is that perhaps most people
most people, their convictions are based on their
experience.
And we can't and like you were saying
before, we can't project our experience onto another
person.
Why as far as why,
why do people bicker about their scriptures and
like I said, that and I think you
alluded to it. It might just be arrogance,
human arrogance,
why they
compare
truths outside their scripture
with statements or truths inside their scripture that
might be human arrogance, some people say.
Some scholars of all religions say that's a
divine safeguard
to help us from being misguided
by the human influences
that may be in a certain religion.
I don't know. It's not for me to
decide. I think human beings do it anyway.
The long and the short of it is
I think Muslims believe what they believe largely
because of what they're born into. So do
And through the experience of those religions, and
I think this goes for most believers, through
the experience of those religions, they become committed.
My own personal experience, which you just briefly
mentioned before, was quite different.
And I'll just mention it very quickly, and
this is not to put down Christianity.
It's just this is the way it happened.
I grew up in a Christian family, very
devout Christian family. I had certain questions on
my mind that plagued me. It's always sort
of
understand
I was one of these type of personalities.
I could not understand
why
God put us on this planet in the
first place. I was walking along with my
father along the beach one day when I
was about 14 years old, and he loved
to walk along cold,
rainy beaches for some strange reason. My father
was a slightly different type of guy, and
I loved him so much and admired him.
And I used to always ask to go
with him. We were walking along, and I
was walking with my father, and I said
to my father,
dad,
do you believe in heaven?
And My father, I loved him for it
because he when I asked him a question,
he thought about it deeply. This didn't say
yes, no, and then hit me with an
answer. He said, frankly, Jeffrey, I he walked
for a few you know, good quarter mile,
and I thought he just didn't hear me.
Then he said, frankly, Jeffrey, I really don't
know. I could certainly believe in *
because we have enough enough of that on
earth,
but I can't conceive of heaven,
to be honest with you. It was a
hard thing to for him to say because
he was a very religious man, but he
was just answering me from his heart.
But I under the answer that question and
that answer dogged me for the rest of
until I discovered Islam. The reason why it
dogged me was I agreed with my father.
I can conceive of *. This life is
*. But anytime I tried to conceive of
heaven,
I thought,
if heaven is this beautiful, this peaceful, this
perfect, why did God put us here in
the first place?
Why did he create us to make us
sin so that we could come down here
and suffer?
If he wanted to save us at any
time, why didn't he just pop us into
heaven,
save us the agony?
What was he possibly getting out of it?
Some people say, well, he's testing us. What's
he gonna learn that he doesn't
already know? You know, others would say, Well,
I mean, we did wrong, and so we
gotta just suffer it out. Well, who made
us to do wrong?
Why not just put us into heaven?
And I would argue with clergy. I would
argue with pastors. I would argue with clerics.
I would argue with everyone I see. I
just wanted to know the answer.
At 18 years old, I came up with
the answer that there is no answer.
And while the Vietnam War was going on
and people were suffering all over the world,
I just said, that's it. There's no God.
It's easier for me to live with the
idea of no God, and attribute this chaos
and suffering on this earth to no one
than to believe that there's a superhuman power
in heaven that's causing us to go through
this agony.
And then I became an atheist.
I was an atheist all my
life. And that question and many questions related
to it dogged me for the next 10
years. Because it's hard to grow up in
a religious family and a religious foundation and
then become an atheist. Don't think it's a
piece of cake. It's no cakewalk. It's utter
agony.
And it's hard as I kept on trying
to go back to the faith that that
I was born into, as hard as I
tried to find some derivative of that that
I could find peace and solace in, I
couldn't, because I couldn't shut down my reason.
That's the type of person I am.
I know some people can, and I don't
criticize them for it. But I always hoped
that they would understand me, and usually they
didn't.
I came and studied the Quran.
And the Quran,
for myself, I found the answers to those
questions, and I've given lectures on that around
this country.
I found the answers to that questions. I
was satisfied by those answers. I found power
in those answers. To me, Quran contained the
answer to the purpose of life. And not
only did I find that, but I found
these mental barriers stripped away. And as you
were saying,
I found life in the Quran. I found
beauty. I found love, and I
embraced Islam, and it's been
a beautiful experience ever since. I don't think
that proves anything.
I don't think that argues for my point
of view or for yours. I don't think
personal experiences prove anything.
But you asked the question, and so I
gave an answer. The long and the short
of it, I'm trying to say is is
that people are different.
Not everybody not everybody could accept the same
way of thinking.
We're a different being or human beings are
different.
Anybody else? Yes.
Very short comment for the gentleman.
Who I wouldn't,
agree with what you have said.
If you can convince me, if your child
have made a mistake,
so the best solution is to go and
punish yourself,
to show him
you how are you very kind to him,
I can then understand.
When God crucified himself
to forgive our sin,
he can just
say,
go, forgive him, and that's all.
So every religion religion
has his own faith, and we are not
here arguing arguing
between Christianity and the faith Christianity
and Islam.
So please don't let us go through this
whole mess. No. I I actually actually I
appreciated the question. I appreciated him sharing his
experience. I I thought it's I think it's
enlightening for people, Muslims, to understand
how Christians feel about it, and I think
it's important for for Christians to know how
Muslims feel
about it. Although we have differences,
I'm sure you saw in the man's answer,
this gentleman's answer, many commonalities of feeling,
many commonalities of commitment. I think that's extremely
important for us to realize also the things
we have in common, not just the things
that, are different.
I
didn't quite understand all that
my friend
said there. Okay?
I
tried.
Thank you for your question and
sharing.
You were trying to find a reason why
Muslims believe in the Quran, and the first
reason you mentioned was they were taught to
believe in it. The majority.
Not all, but the majority. Is a very
important issue is that it's mentioned in the
Quran
very strongly that you should I mean,
it's wrong to believe in just what your
fathers believed in. Sure. You should believe in
it yourself when you grow up and think
of it yourself. Yes. But I think, you
know, judging for my own children
and most children Muslim children, I meant.
When you ask them, is the Quran the
word of God? Is it a revelation from
God?
They'll say yes. And when you ask them,
why do you believe that, they'll say that's
what I was
told. You know, they're not at the same
time. Still children. I mean, I I know.
That's what I'm saying. I said initially, I
think people believe that because they're taught it.
I think it's just a fact. You know,
I said, finally, I think they believe it
because of other reasons as well, because of
their experience of it as they grow older.
And that's not all everybody's experience. Some people
really just believe what they are taught.
Maybe that's not the highest form of belief
or the most intellectual, but some people just
do. Excuse me. But if you
if you just
stick to it because your father has believed
in it and your father taught you to
believe in it, then you're not really an
actual Muslim. You should, when you grow up,
believe in it yourself, and that's what always
happens. You read the Quran, you study it
yourself, and you understand it, and then you're
a believer. Yeah. But I wouldn't call a
person that a Muslim that's born into a
Muslim family, who has tremendous admiration for his
father, his parents,
accepts the Quran as the word of God
because that's what he's taught, and good people
around him seem to be moved by it,
and trust the opinion of people that he
feels that are of superior and superior intelligence
to him. I I would say that's not
the best of reasons to believe it, but
I wouldn't say that, therefore, he's not a
true Muslim. I would say he's just not
using the the most, you know, the most
compelling reason to to believe what he believes.
But but there really are people like that.
Yes. There are.
Oh, go ahead. And by the way, if
you're out of questions, that's okay.
Islam is a message of unity.
God is 1, the book is 1 and
so many other things.
And, for many centuries,
we lived as a unit, as a Muslim
ummah, one nation
from one end to another. No Arabs, no
Iranians, all of them are 1 nation.
But nowadays we find so much disunity and
all sorts of even in the Arabs, we
find many nations.
So can this be explained or can by
with reference to our religion? And do you
think this problem will ever be solved? Or
we are different really different nations?
I'm not the person to answer that question.
I'm not even from that. I'm not even
originally from the Muslim world.
I think there are political reasons and historical
reasons how the Muslims ended up divided as
they are into separate nations.
Even if they are into separate nations, you'll
find a tremendous amount of camaraderie and and
unity among Muslim peoples from far different places.
When we all pray in the mosque, there's
it looks like the United Nations gathering together.
Muslims have remained as a religious community, as
a community in general, have remained
terribly unified throughout the centuries.
I think that's attributable to 2 things, regardless
of the fact that they've been cut up
in donations.
They still are tremendously unified.
You don't see too many sects or divisions
within Islam. Actually, you really see none. There's
the Sunni Shia disagreements, but still they consider
each other Muslims,
and, they they'll
make the pilgrimage together and perform the rituals
together nonetheless.
So, you know, some people call that as
2 different sects in Islam. That wouldn't be
correct. They still
worship together in many ways and
are together in many ways.
So how has it stayed unified? I think
one of 2 things.
My own and I know I'm sort of
dodging and answering your question at the same
time, dodging one issue but answering another. They've
stayed unified, I think 2 things I mentioned
already. 1 is they have no
church hierarchy. There's no church,
and there's no clergy.
I think that very much contributes to its
unity, because nobody could say, I am the
authority. You're in. You're out.
These people are right. These people are wrong.
You got the wrong idea. You're outside the
pale of it. You know, it's very difficult
for there's no institution to make that final
decision. That's one thing.
Second thing is is that because of that,
the single unifying factor
in the religion that binds it all together
is the Quran,
which for Muslims is extremely powerful, and the
teachings of Muhammad, peace be upon him. This
is the single unifying factor. So it has
a unifying
power and magnet and focus there. I think
this is 2 of the biggest reasons why
the community has stayed unified throughout the centuries,
even through this division.
I would not be surprised.
I would not rule out the possibility.
As threatening as this is to certain
leaders in the United the West, I would
not rule out the possibility that someday you'll
see quite a few of the Muslim nations
reunited as
1. It's really the dream of many, many,
many hundreds of thousands of millions
and millions of Muslim young people and people
all throughout the world.
With so many people holding that dream,
I there's a good chance I believe it'll
become a reality.
As much as
the west certain Western governments seem threatened by
that, and I don't see the need that
they do, I think that might very well
become a reality. So I hope I kind
of answered your question.
I just received
a question from audience. It seems to be
an important question.
How does one explain the phenomenon
or concept of revelation
to non Muslims,
especially to people who are not people of
the book.
Let me read this again. How does one
who ask who ask this? No. Just joking.
Somebody asked it, so they didn't want to
be identified.
Stand up. No. I'm just joking.
How does one explain the phenomenon concept of
revelation to non Muslims,
especially to people who are not people of
the book, people of,
a religion that possesses a scripture like
Judaism and Christianity? Actually, to be specific,
how do you explain the concept of revelation
to non
Muslims, Jews, or Christians?
I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
Basically, I think you just begin by I
think you have to begin by explaining to
people
monotheism entails.
Then you should talk about man's revelation
to God.
I mean, man's relation to God.
Begin with those two things,
what you believe there.
Once you've explained that, then you could start
explaining further concepts like revelation, how you believe
that God, during certain
points in history,
chose very special individuals
to actually reveal
message
and inspire
men in a very direct way with revelation,
you know,
for their fellow man, and etcetera, I would
go through and I would sort of take
things step by step. That's a difficult question.
But
I would like for our Muslims when they
talk to people about their religion,
they only seem to talk from the bottom
up. You know what I mean?
Muslims, when they start to talk to people
about their religion, they always start talking about
why we can't eat pork or things like
that, sort of superficial peripheral issues.
I would prefer that Muslims, when they elect
when they talk to,
a non Muslim audience and this is what
generally I try to do, although I couldn't
do that very today is a follow-up of
a couple other lectures in a series.
But generally, I like to start off with
talking about how Muslims feel about God.
What is the Muslim concept of God?
And then I like to talk about
what what the Muslim concept of life is,
what's the purpose of life, what he feels
his purpose in life is, what the purpose
of life is in general.
And then after that, I start in the
process, I'll talk about and it says this
in the Quran, and we and we believe
the Quran is a revelation from God. Very
briefly mentioned what that is. But rather than
tell him so much what we mean a
revelation is, just use the verses to sort
it. He'll get the idea, ask you to
use the Quran to describe your beliefs. He'll
he'll slowly but surely get the idea. Almost
all people around the world have some concept
of revelation, by the way. I mean, Hindus
do, Buddhist do, Christians do, Jewish people do,
Muslims do,
and many, many,
peoples around the world, I'd say at least
95% of the humanity, have some sort of
concept. So I don't think that's such a
difficult issue. You're just explaining to them maybe
what's different about the Quran or what's special
about the Quran.
That might be
a good thing, a good place to start.
Thank you.
Question?
Please do, I'd much rather hear you than
me. I'm
a Muslim myself. I think it kind of
pains me
at times
that the way we kind of try to
deal with the superficial
things, rather than looking at the heart of
Islam.
So
about the question of the heart of the
Islam that you say, in Quran, I think
the Surah, I don't remember the exact Surah,
It's clear that God has sent representatives
in all the nations of the world.
That is an issue. That means that unity,
unity of religion,
Quran testifies
there is only one God and there is
only one religion.
And we as a believer,
we as
a Muslim,
we believe that this is where the perfection
was made.
There is no
scope for it really.
There are more common. I think misunderstanding that
is going on around the world,
and all the strife and tearing and then
mishappenings
that is being caused
because of this misunderstanding.
I think
apart from
the one area,
one area,
I think there are more common elements between
Christianity, Judaism and Islam, then there are differences.
So my comment that, to add with your
point, to agree with your point, that we
as a Muslim, I think we need to
criticize ourselves first.
We as a Muslim,
we should look at more substantive issues,
rather than looking at the superficial issues.
Okay, so
we encourage different questions, different discussions here, as
you have been
very generous in, you know, arguing and giving
your
the, lines of argument.
What are the differences between Christianity and what
are the differences that
we will disagree with many issues, but there
are many issues that we agree with.
So that is the comment I have. Thank
you. Thank you.
Yes.
This question
arises very oftentimes
among Muslims. Would it be alright if I
sat down, by the way? That's fine. I
know it's impolite, but I'm my legs are
tired.
It's a it's a question that
probably a lot of Muslims also ask themselves.
But, when we explain this to non Muslims,
you know,
they they find it quite hard to understand.
It's about the free will, and how much
is the free will of a person, human
being? How much is it limited
by Allah's will or God's will? And related
to that, how much is the
free will in Allah's plan?
And, you may probably emphasize on that.
I'm not sure I understand the question, but
let me just do deal with one of
those.
Any one of these, you could spend a
year talking about. Muslims
went back and forth on these issues for
centuries.
The issue of human free will.
I I think the best way to state
what I believe to be the
the general Muslim opinion because Muslims believe
that
as God's gift to humanity,
he gave human beings
free
will, but that does not mean he gave
him an independent will.
Are you following me? He gave man the
ability to make choices. Even in the story
of Adam, for example, he presented
Adam in that story with a choice.
Go not near this tree.
Don't approach this tree,
but any other you could have. He gave
him a choice.
And throughout the Quran, the Quran emphasizes that
you have choices to make. That's even part
of this earthly growth process, to make choices.
God does give you the right to make
choices. He's this is one of the divine
gifts he's given us. He's given us intelligence.
He's given us the ability to choose.
He's given us an environment of adversity where
we have to choose and struggle and strive,
and we grow therein.
He's given us all these things. So man
definitely has a certain
freedom of
choice. But the Muslim believes that that choice
is not independent
of God. The ability to make those choices,
to implement those choices,
to have those choices realized,
the assumed
conclusion.
All of that
is preserved
and maintained
by the divine will, like God.
And so if God were to interrupt that
at any moment, for example, like he will
on the day of judgment,
he shuts the system down,
then there's no more choices to be made.
We're well, we just wait for the judgment
to come.
So human beings have been given the ability
to make free choices,
but
to make those choices, the ability to make
those choices, to carry out those choices, to
realize them to their conclusion, for the expected
conclusion to occur,
that entire system
is maintained by God
and is never independent of God.
The Muslim believes that God pervades
all. His influence is constant and continuous,
and the entire system that we live in
is God
ordained? Is God made? Is God
nourished? Is God,
controlled?
Alright? So we believe I know it's a
brief answer. I'm trying to make them as
brief as possible so other people could ask
questions. The Muslim believes that then we have
the freedom to choose, we have free choice,
but that's never an independent will.
It's never independent of God's will. Like the
verse in the Quran says that some people
attribute
certain things to God and certain or, you
know, they attribute certain things to themselves, certain
they attribute
they attribute the good things that happened to
them to themselves and the evil to somebody
else. And the Quran says all things are
from God.
And the good you do, I forget how
it goes,
is from God, and the evil you do
is from yourself.
It's a perfect way to say it. You
know, all things come from God, but it
seems to be contradiction here.
But the evil you do is from yourself.
Isn't that a contradiction? No.
Because all things ultimately come from God,
even the ability to choose. But the choices
we make, the evil choices we make are
to us, and we'll bear the consequences of
them.
But the ability to make those choices and
to carry them out comes ultimately from God.
Are you following me at all? Okay.
Are we gonna make this the
last one?
Or Yeah. All night. How much? One more.
One more?
Or or else we if you'd like, I
could stop
at 9:30
and then go home. Okay? My wife.
Alright.
It is a basic question, actually. It came
to my mind several times.
And I love basic questions. Okay.
And I asked it, several Christian scholars also.
It may not be a good question for
you, but I'm asking because you have a
good background on bibles and those kind of
things.
The question is,
if we think that Jesus is the son
of God,
now the question, is Mary the wife of
God?
Well, I don't think, Or is there anything
in the Bible written on that context? No.
I'm not gonna speak for Christians or against
them, you know. I I think that's a
maybe it's best to ask a Christian scholar
that, but I do know for a fact
that Christians do not believe that Mary is
the mother of God, especially Protestant Christians.
Catholics have a prayer called the Hail Mary
where they say, Hail Mary, mother of God,
but the Protestants reject that. That. For a
long time, the Catholic church wanted to shove
that out, but they they they do not
believe Mary is the mother of God. They
believe that God breathed his word into Mary,
and through that, Mary has conceived Jesus, and
Jesus is the source the word made flesh,
the divine word revealed in the flesh, and
so on. But, no, they don't believe that,
Mary is the,
wife of god or mother of god. That
that would be a miss
a misunderstanding
of the entire concept.
So Okay. Thank you. Yes.
But generally, I don't like to, attack
or criticize Christian beliefs up here.
Frankly, I mean, because I think we Muslims
are extremely,
have an extremely strong tendency to criticize other
people's beliefs
and a very
weak tendency to explain our own.
And,
I noticed we love to have debates, and
we love to bring people in and attack
what they believe and to explain destroy this
belief of theirs or that belief of theirs.
I would rather my own point of view
is, if you really think you have something
great,
explain it to people.
If they recognize it as superior,
then they may choose it.
If they don't,
that's fine. At least they understand what you
believe.
But I would make the emphasis of our
dialogue with people who do not share our
beliefs,
our beliefs. I would explain
what we believe, invite them to explain what
they believe.
If for no other better reason than we
understand each other better.
And maybe in the process,
we could all improve our beliefs,
you know, so or improve our faith, gain
in faith. So in any case, I would,
but I wasn't criticizing your question.
Just I it just suddenly popped in my
mind, just a related thing.
No. I know it wasn't. I'm not claiming
that you did. Although I've seen you ask
those sort of questions, no. I'm just joking.
I'll take the liberty of asking the last
question of this Okay. Evening.
And actually, this is the question which is
usually
asked by,
my Christian colleagues or friends.
Allah sent
Moses,
Allah sent
Jesus,
Allah sent Mohammed.
Why Allah
had to send Muhammad?
Was the message was different,
or the people were different?
And if the people were different, what was
the difference?
Well, that's a very difficult question. You know,
anticipating
why God sent