Lesson 29, Muhammad, Show Us Proof!
Today we cover suras 14-17 .
Sura 14 is called "Abraham" but only mentions the patriarch at the end, as the author of a prayer that, per the Bible, he never prayed.
The chapter opens up with great promise, describing Koran as a book "we have sent down to you [Muhammad] that you may bring people out of the darkness into the light." That same paragraph ends, "So Allah leads astray whom he wills and guides whom he wills..." Not very light-producing after all. More judgment. More bad news.
When asked to produce authority for what he is saying in all these readings, Muhammad/Allah simply calls on the people to trust him, for "we do not have anything, except to depend on Allah." He follows up with promises of doom for the disobedient, but never gives the people, and consequently us, a reason to believe in what he is saying. Coupled to the fact of the documentary evidence which is so lacking, Islam strikes out.
Jesus could tell His followers to believe on Him because of the marvelous works He did. And it was not just talk. There were actually marvelous works to back up the words. The dead were raised, demons went for long vacations when they saw Him coming, the sick were not sick any more. He even spoke with authority, and not as the other religious rulers of His day. What's not to believe about Jesus? It was the obedience, the cost of discipleship, that made so many go away, sadly.
Muhammad calls people to come and fight for Allah with him, and talks of promises by and by, gardens and virgins and all the rest, then threatens constantly with damnation, but he offers no evidence that he is who he claims to be, a prophet of God.
Verse 24 is the Koran's attempt to sound like Psalm 1. About a tree with branches and roots etc. But soon comes the matching condemnation. About an evil tree. About roasting in hell. Your end is the fire. Such damning. Such fear is placed in the ears of his audience.
And fear is quite the motivator. For awhile. With Christ, the motivation is love. Perfect love. Perfect love that casts out fear. No condemnation to them that are in Christ. Good news.
I have to keep saying these light-producing things... it's dark in here!
Then that prayer of "Abraham": "Lord, make this country secure, and protect me and my children from worshiping the idols... surely you are forgiving, merciful." He goes on to ask God's blessing on his family and thank him for his blessings. Muhammad is showing here as elsewhere that he has insights into Biblical history that even Bible believers do not have.
Sura 15, "The Rock", is mainly repetition, the one point that stands out to me being that once more Muhammad is accused of being demon-possessed, and of offering no proof for his revelations. "Bring to us angels!" they insist. His only response is more of the same, affirmations that he is true, that Allah does great things, and that torment awaits the infidels.
The name for this chapter comes from what seems to be another invention of Muhammad, a people who lived among "the rocks", perhaps mountains, who rejected the messengers of Allah and were of course punished for it. As is my practice in this study, I will not dwell long on the obscure passages, but bring out the obvious issues that concern us as believers in Jesus.
That brings us to sura 16, "The bees." Both biology and astronomy take a hit in this chapter.
Verse 4 informs us that we were all created from "nutfah", a word, according to translator Dakdok, "which scholars claim to mean male and female sexual discharges." These fluids originate, respectively, in the male's backbone (semen), and the breasts of women. Yes, this seems to be verified in the Koran itself, 86:5-7. That's what it says.
As to the heavens and the earth, we find in verse 15 that the earth is stationary, held in place by "stabilizers."
Moving right along, in verse 24 yet another criticism of the readings is recorded. It could well be that Muhammad has sewn the seed of the Koran's own refutation by quoting the various objections of people he meets. For examples, his detractors call the Koran "fables of the ancients." Indeed, it is strongly believed by those who study these things that Muhammad has copied his materials from many extant documents.
Why the "bees"? In verse 68 Muhammad claims that Allah has told the bees to provide from their bellies a medicine that will be a "sign to people who reflect." Indeed, what a sign this would be. But do we have evidence that anything like this has ever happened? Surely Muhammad did not believe that honey comes from the belly of a bee?
In verse 101 Muhammad is called a forger because Allah is allowed to change his mind about verses he wrote. This is the doctrine of abrogation that we discussed much earlier. My point here is that once more the criticism from within the Koran itself is indeed a guide to us as to how we should look at it. Though Muhammad here affirms that these changes of words are actually from the "holy spirit", perhaps we need to see his words as a forgery of the signature of God. It is an awful charge, but what else are we to believe about a god who regularly changes his mind?
This sura is from Mecca. So you would expect the human response to unbelievers to be argument, not bloodshed. Thus the chapter ends, "Call to the way of your lord with wisdom and the good preaching, and dispute them by which is best." Had Islam been allowed to stay on this course, the Twin Towers would still be standing.
We call upon Muslims everywhere to approach Christians with argument, with documentation, with proof, with authority, and yes, if they have it, with the power of God, and no longer with terrorism, suicide bombers, and rocks. If Ba'al be god, or in this case, Allah, then of course we must follow him. But if the Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Son of the living God Jehovah, and if His word be true, and if the Spirit of God actually is resident within the people called Christian, then let Him be worshiped the world over.
Let truth prevail by itself, without a sword raised! Then we'll know!
Chapter 17, "The Night Journey", is also written from Mecca and begins with relating how Muhammad was taken to the "farthest mosque." This is the translation of Al-Aqsa, the name of the Mosque that sits on the site of Solomon's Temple to this day (The Dome of the Rock). From extra-Koranic materials such as the Hadiths, we find that the tradition is that Muhammad is in the Ka'aba when he is visited by Gabriel and taken to the holy site in Jerusalem. There he meets Adam, Moses, Jesus, and leads them in prayer. After that, he is whisked away to the heavenlies, where he meets those same Personages, after leaving Gabriel behind, as mere angels are unable to go where the prophet of Mecca can.
Well, lest we get too exasperated with stories such as these, recall that we have such stories too. I think of a certain mountain where Jesus and three very impressed apostles encountered Moses and Elijah! Difference: again, documentation. Jesus had witnesses. The witnesses wrote letters. Peter, for one, makes a point of telling us about his encounter in his epistle.
With Muhammad we have, well, Muhammad. And that is all. Once more we are left to fend for ourselves when it comes to trying to believe the man. Verse 59 even confirms again that this prophet had no signs of his authority. Why? "The ancients considered [signs to be] lies." So Allah says, no more signs, "except to make fear." Muhammad goes so far as to say in verse 93 that he is only human. This in response to audiences clamoring for proof of his apostleship. He has none. Only words.
This chapter ends with another Bible story. In the Koran, the story of the ten plagues of Egypt has become the nine plagues of Egypt, after which Pharaoh "desired to expel them out of the land, so we drowned him and all those who were with him." Was Pharaoh drowned because he wanted the people out, or because he tried so long to keep them in? And what about the story in that earlier sura where Pharaoh actually becomes a Muslim before drowning, a deathbed conversion, a second chance? Not in sura 17.
18 and following when we return..
Lesson 30, Jesus Born by a Palm Tree, Samaritans in the Wilderness
Now we cover suras 18 ,19, and 20
Sura 18 is "the cave," named after a story that, according to the translator, was copied from the fifth-century myth The Glory of the Martyrs by Gergerous. It is a story that sounds a little like a Rip Van Winkle tale, of men in a cave who are put to sleep and resurrected later. The point of the story is a bit vague, though.
This sura begins by announcing "good news," but in the next breath we find that that news is only for those who "do good deeds." Since there is "none righteous, no not one," according to Christian teaching, a salvation dependent on good deeds is not good news.
Better news is this, that while we were still in our sins, Christ died for the ungodly!
Muhammad agrees with Brother James of the Christian faith that we should never say we are going to do something unless we say, "if the Lord wills." That's verses 23-24. We agree.
A total reversal of Islamic theology is found in verse 29. I've been sharing with you how Muhammad says over and over that Allah is totally in charge, and he wills people to be saved and lost. Pure predetermination. But in the spirit of Arminius, or rather the apostle John in Revelation, I quote Muhammad in verse 29: "So whosoever wills, so let him believe, and whoever wills, so let him be an infidel."
So which is it? It's not a bad question for Christians to discuss, also.
Another switch in sura 18 is in regards to the "jinn." I discussed much earlier how Islam considers jinns to be antagonists of the faithful, but not demonic/angelic by nature. But in verse 50, the devil is said to be of the jinn. And a jinn that had "offspring." The Muslim idea of the supernatural world becomes very difficult to trace.
Also in this most interesting chapter is what appears to be another made-up story. It's not a bad story at all, rather clever in fact. There's this man. He is taught by a servant of Allah to have patience. The servant leads the man into situations that are very negative, and the man immediately jumps to conclusions. The servant patiently shows him the intended outcome of the situation, and the man is very sorry for being so rash. This happens several times until the servant can't take it any longer and loses his patience teaching the man patience.
Only one real problem with the story. Muhammad insists that the "man" is Moses.
Next up, "Zu Alqarnain", the one with the two horns, known historically as Alexander the Great. He is mentioned in verses 83ff. Mentioned and praised, as his purposes of judging evil men seem to be in keeping with Allah's. By the way, Alexander's march takes him to the setting of the sun. "He found it set in a muddy spring..." Let us hope that Muhammad is here only being poetic.
Sura 19 is "Mary", and we are once more confronted with some very unusual twists to the Bible story. Mary is again called Miriam here, for reasons that are not as easy to understand as one might think. Miriam, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, as the Bible says, withdraws to a remote place, and gives birth near the trunk of a palm tree, which is not as the Bible says. Here the entire manger scene is re-written for reasons known only to Muhammad.
Now, Miriam will need this tree, you understand, because ripe dates will be shaken from it for her sustenance.
Another need she has as the unwed mother of Jesus, is moral support. This is supplied, not by an angel, not by her loving husband Joseph, but by Jesus Himself, suddenly a grown man in his tree-side cradle. He cries out in an adult voice to still the questioning crowd that has gathered to challenge Miriam's integrity, "Surely I am the servant of Allah; he gave me the book and made me a prophet..." There is much more, but you get the picture. We're sure the crowd got it too.
Interestingly enough, "Jesus" makes reference in this quote to the day that he dies. Usually we are told that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was caught up to Allah, and another, perhaps Judas, was made to look like Jesus, and died on the cross.
You know, the miracles of the Bible have always been easier to believe than the stories made up to refute the Bible.
But about Miriam. In the course of the charges made against her before her son spoke up on her behalf, one addresses her as the "sister of Aaron."
I actually tried to overlook this when we covered this story before, in the chapter about the family of Imran. But it wasn't a misprint after all. Muhammad has actually confused the Miriam of the Old Testament, the daughter of Amram and the sister of Aaron and Moses, with the Mary of the New Testament who was Jesus' mother.
Absolutely, totally incredible.
Allah picks up on his ongoing rage against the very idea of him having a son, in the following verses. At the end of the chapter he kicks it up a notch. "Indeed you have made a wicked assertion. The very heavens might almost be torn apart from it, and the earth splits, and the mountains fall to pieces because they ascribe a son to the merciful..."
If there is a statement anywhere in the Koran that separates the god of Islam from the God of the Bible, it is this one. My God had a Son. Now, if I were to have a son - and that would be a miracle for sure - he would be human, because I am human. But when God has a Son, that Son is Divine, because God is Divine.
Islam falls forever on this one fact alone. God, the true God, had a Son, and that Son is God.
In our rush to the end of the sura, we passed over Abraham's supposed confrontation with his father about his desire to follow the one true god. And the making of Ishmael into a prophet. And the fact that all the rebellious must go to hell, but those who fear the most will be delivered from it. And the accompanying fact that certain of the hell-bound will have their time extended in that place. In other words, Muhammad's hell here is more like the Catholic purgatory, a place he knew well from the Romanist culture of that day.
But all these details seem as nothing compared to the more serious charges above. Nevertheless, I have promised to bring to your attention all those things in which the Koran is clearly different from the Christian faith.
Sura number 20. "Taha." It is the first word of the chapter. Four Arabic letters. But not even the translator, who was brought up speaking Arabic in Egypt, knows what these letters mean. It's not the only untranslatable word in the book. So we move on.
Allah insists, "We did not send down on you the Qur'an that you become miserable." I shall leave that statement without comment.
Back to Bible stories. Remember when Moses was out walking by Horeb/Sinai and the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush? That was not a mountain. It was "the holy valley of Tuwa." In this same passage, verses 9ff, Allah asserts that he has made the earth flat. Enough said.
The truly remarkable mistake of chapter 20 finally leads us to say in frustration, hoping we will not be considered disrespectful, only observant of the truth: Muhammad did not know the Bible. At least, not very well.
Here in verses 85ff is the story of the golden calf in the wilderness. Cast of characters: God, Moses, Aaron, and the Samaritans. The Samaritans? What are the Samaritans doing in the wilderness? Those were the citizens of a city that became the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Hundreds of years after this incident. Who dragged them out of history and down to the base of the holy mountain of God?
Muhammad. Muhammad knew vaguely of the calf worship that would be going on in that city, the sin which Hosea decried in his prophecy, long after Israel had reached its heyday and was about to be destroyed. This was the 700's B.C. For him, one calf was as good as another, and suddenly the two stories have become one. Both Aaron and the Samaritan are blamed for the problem of the Israelites. This incident was in the 1400's B.C.
It just won't do for the Muslim to say that the Bible has been corrupted. All the evidence points the other way. Please pray for our Muslim friends. And today, thank God for your Bible.
Lesson 31, Personal Morality and Muhammad's Child Bride
Today we cover suras 21-24
Chapter 21 is known as "the prophets" because of its mention of many of them. The references to Bible and non-Bible men are a bit confused in this chapter, very difficult for the ordinary man to figure out.
I do note much repetition in the sura, such as the familiar railing against the Deity of Jesus, the misinformation about the solar system, the judgments on infidels, and the scales of justice. In regards to the latter, Allah promises that he is so very just that every detail, even if it were the weight of a tiny seed, will be placed on those scales. Man will get exactly what he deserves.
Unknown to Muslim thinking is the concept that a man who breaks even the least of God's laws is guilty of all. And that a man who claims and clings to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, purchased with His blood on Calvary, is innocent of all, forgiven of all. Islam, and all organized religions with it, seeks to create a system whereby one can earn what God has freely given.
Sura 22, "the Pilgrimage," takes us ahead once more to Medina. A biology lesson starts things out, letting us know that God created us first from dirt, then that semen/breastmilk fluid, then a clot, and then some flesh.
The Muslim belief in the resurrection of the body is in verse 7, a discussion that rapidly turns to "the torment of the fire" for those who disagree with Allah.
In verses 26 and following are the customs surrounding the supposed discovery of Mecca by Abraham . Dakdok suggests that these customs about pilgrimage to Mecca were already in use by the pagans, who had their own history of what Mecca was all about.
The text moves from there to dietary laws. You may know that in Leviticus 11:4, the camel is specifically forbidden for consumption by the people of God because of its "unclean" status. Evidently this is one of the many thousands of verses that were "corrupted", because in the Koran, camels are commanded to be offered for sacrifices, then eaten.
Before this series of verses is finished, we are back on the subject of warfare. This is after all Medina. "Permission is given to those who wage war because they were wronged, and surely Allah is capable to give them victory." He even boasts of the number of villages he has destroyed until now.
We understand that cursed nations were destroyed by God. We know that bloody vengeance is coming later. But God's people are on a special mission at present. Preach. Baptize. Teach. Cast out demons. Heal the sick. Raise the dead. This program of announcing the Kingdom of God began hundreds of years before Muhammad appeared, and will continue until Jesus returns. We know that God is not bringing us back to the days of Moses and Joshua and physical conquest of the world. Not now.
Again quoting translator Usama Dakdok, to whom I owe a great debt already, chapter 53 of the Koran contained at one time what were known as the "Satanic" verses. They were taken out, acknowledged to be false, and replaced with other verses. Here in sura 22 Muhammad wants it to be made known that God had a good reason for allowing Satan to mess with the text. You see, it helped to harden the hearts of those who were already opposed to Allah. The familiar judgments follow this explanation...
Once more is repeated the encouragement to the warring Muslims that God is going to provide wonderful things for martyrs of the faith.
Allah and the Bible agree in verse 66: "Surely the human is infidel." Yes, God has included all under sin. Including all Muslims, Muhammad, everyone. But the remedy for this awful state of affairs is not given in the Koran.
The last statement of this sura is a reminder that Abraham has named all of God's people, "Muslims."
Sura 23, "the believers", moves us back to Mecca. "Believers" are given first some specifics about their sexual purity. Private parts of the body are only for spouses. Or slaves. Or concubines. If single, just for slaves or concubines.
A Bible story: It's back to Brother Noah. He is told (in verse 27) that Allah will give a command, and the storms will come and "boil up" like froth on milk. At that point, Noah is to enter the ark with all the animals. True or false? The Biblical account has Noah gathering animals well in advance of the flood. Seven days then pass after all are settled in. Then the rain.
Jesus. We are here finally given a reason why God has no son, and that son is not God, and why there cannot be multiple gods etc. The fact is, more than one God would mean strife between them, and chaos in the heavenlies.
Muhammad thinks as a man. Rightly so, and we understand. Men fight. Two or three men cannot properly rule anything together. Won't work. Three Gods would be an awful thing. We Christians believe in one God manifested in three Persons, Who are in perfect harmony. The Father and the Son and the Spirit think as One. Jesus never did anything He did not see the Father doing. The Spirit speaks only what He hears from Heaven. There is no strife. No chaos.
Muhammad's concept of god was just too small.
Need I say it? The sura ends with more threats of torment: "The fire will scorch their faces, and they will shrivel in it."
Sura 24 is called "the light," but it is not. We are again in Medina and the sura begins as the last one did, with sexual issues.
First, 100 stripes for those caught in fornication. No mention is made of forgiveness for repentants. Once more I refer to Usama Dakdok's comment. He says that this practice has now switched to stoning, because originally the verse that says stoning was part of the recitation of Muhammad. But that verse was eaten by a goat. Now we must just take the word of the Muslim scholar that such is the case.
The guilty party has more problems. He is not to have intimate relations with anyone except one guilty like himself. Or maybe with a polytheist, which includes Christians.
In a related situation, if anyone dares to accuse a chaste woman of something and cannot bring four witnesses, he is to be given eighty stripes and he is never to be believed again. Repentance is allowed here, however.
Further, if a man accuses his own wife of some sin, and there are no witnesses at all, then husband or wife need only to swear by Allah four times, and they will be believed.
All of this seems odd to us until we read on about the "slander" of Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha. Three witnesses had accused her of adultery. That was the required number until then, according to the translator Dakdok. It seems that this new law was created specifically for this situation. Now there had to be four witnesses. Aisha was spared.
By the way, Aisha was 6 years old and Muhammad 52 when they were married. It's a bit young, but he waited until she was 9 before there was any intimacy in their marriage...
Anyway, horrific judgments, as you might imagine, are then leveled on all those who partook in the slander.
Next comes a call to modesty and complete covering of the woman. However, she is allowed to be seen in more casual attire to a whole host of family members, slaves, young children, effeminate males. But there is debate about just how casual is casual. Since effeminate males and "children who have not looked upon a woman's private parts" are some of the exceptions to the covering rule, just what is Muhammad saying?
Next, those who cannot afford to marry are to keep themselves chaste. However if you own a slave, he/she is to be chaste only if so desired. Otherwise they may be used in prostitution. If they were compelled to do this against their will, they should remember that Allah is forgiving.
There follows a lengthy praise of Allah as "the light of the heavens and the earth..." Yes, after all the darkness of these precepts, he proclaims himself to be light.
Then Muhammad talks of how all animals were created from the water, though Genesis mentions a whole class of animals that came from the earth.
And a curious section regarding the rules of privacy. Three times a day a man's privacy is to be strictly observed. Morning, noon, and evening. During these three times it is quite possible that they might be clothed rather skimpily, or not at all. During those times, slaves and children must ask permission to come into the tent. At any other time, they do not have to "knock" and will not have sinned if you happen to be unprepared for their visit.
Thus ends chapter 24. Only 90 chapters to go! But soon those chapters will be a page long, and even 3-4 suras to a page. So, actually, only a few more lessons to go. Stay with it!
