Islam and Christianity: A Qur'anic and Scientific Journey.

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Islam is the modern and scientific religion.It is preached after the Christianity.Islam declared tat Allah is is the owner of the Sovereignty .Christians seem to have an incredible ego, especially when it comes to other religions. Almost without exception, a Christian believes that his is the only true religion.Judaism have come along beforehand, but to the Christian, it was simply a preparation for the faith of Christianity.To his way of thinking, God made the Jews His Chosen people. This designation meant that the Jews were set aside by God, and it was to them, and them only, He sent His revelations and prophets. Therefore, the Christian feels he can only believe in Israelite prophets, and all others are impostors.

Islam presents another matter altogether for the Christian. Almost as soon as Islam burst out of Arabia following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the Christians began to carry on about the fact that a man from Arabia actually had the audacity to go around claiming he was a Messenger from God.

Even though Islam emphatically stated that it would be a denial of universal providence to God by saying that He would raise prophets in only one nation, the Christians still would not listen. Prophet Muhammad was not a Jew, therefore, in their eyes, he was a false prophet bearing false witness from a false god.

At first, the Christians reaction to Islam was simply that of low grumblings. When the Fatimid caliph Hakim destroyed the Christians shrines In Jerusalem in 1010, however, the grumbles developed into a roar. The Christians in Europe were already living in fear of a Muslim invasion, and this was the last straw. When Pope Urban 11 called for a Crusade in 1095 to liberate the Holy Land from the infidel, the hate campaign against Islam took off like a rocket, coming into its heyday in the twelfth century.

In their verbal assaults upon Islam, many vile and shameful things were foisted off by the so-called "learned people" of that time upon the people at large.

Prophet Muhammad was considered to be the Anti-Christ; a false prophet; a nationalistic charlatan a bombastic egotist; a tyrant; and a sensualist, among other things.

The Qur'an was said to be a collection of harangues, insane drivel, and "toilsome reading that is wearisome, confused jumble". In the eyes of the Mediveal Christians, the Qur'an could not possibly be the Word of God, since Muhammad was a false prophet, so it was said to be a forgery; they went on to say that it was nothing more than the result of epileptic seizures on the part of Muhammad which he then proceeded to pass off as divine revelation.

Islam, the religion, was seen as nothing more than an aberration--a heresy--of Christianity; it was viewed as the "religion of the sword", and was insultingly termed "Mohammedanism".

Muslims themselves did not escape the wrath of the Medieval Christians, who called them infidels, pagans, Saracens and Mohammedans.

Unable to accept Islam, the Christians became downright hostile. In their verbal assaults, the Church leaders made full use of techniques such as bias ands distortion, mispresentation, inventing details in order to attack them, etc. Time has not made things better, unfortunately; the time of the Crusades is long gone, but Christians still cannot accept Islam. For many modern Christians, however, a new approach is being taken to what they consider "the menace" of Islam.

The Missionary Efforts

The violence against the Muslims that marked the Crusades was also coupled with a missionary effort on the part of the Christians in order "to return the pagans to the Lord". These missionary efforts, however, met with very little success, despite all the time and money that has been spent over the many hundreds of years that it has been going on.

First efforts at converting Muslims utilized the same polemic that was used on the Christians themselves, and the Muslims, naturally, refused to listen to such talk. Time has shown the Christians that insults do not gain interest, so the modern Christian missionary effort to the Muslims has taken a whole new direction, in that the Christians are now "reaching out to Muslims with love".

In the United States, an organization called "Center for Ministry To Muslims" has put out quite an array of material aimed at presenting the message of Christianity to a Muslim. Polemics are not used, but methods are still unsavory as distortions, mis-translations and even fabrications are being used. The truth of Christianity is covered up under a sugary coating, and CMM targets those Muslims who are alone in this country, without the spiritual and moral support of family and friends.

One of the more interesting efforts on the part of the folks at CMM is a magazine entitled "Noor Ul Haq", or "Light of Truth". Printed in English and Arabic, its format gives all the appearance of it being an Islamic publication, yet it is really a Christian missionary magazine aimed at reaching Muslims. It makes use of Islamic terminology and Quranic revelations, but subtleness is the key here, as these things are distorted and interpreted out-of-context in order to give the impression to a Muslim that they back up Christian teachings. For a Muslim with limited knowledge, this sort of thing can lead to a good deal of confusion.

CMM is small-time, however, in the face of the Zwemer Institute For Muslim Studies. This California-based institution, which takes its name from a Dutch Reformed missionary who spent approximately fifty years in the early part of this century ministering to Muslims in the Middle East, trains Christians in the technique of ministering to Muslims. The students at this institute study Arabic, Islamic history, Islamic culture, and the state of Islamic faith and practice. These people really have their act together, and are not, by any means, ignorant when it comes to Islam.

Biased, yes; ignorant, no.

This is a very thorough effort: Student ministers and missionaries enrolled at the Institute take all sorts of regular classes on Islam; in addition to study carried out at the Institute itself, nine-hour seminars on Islam are available for interested church groups, and the Institute has a publishing center that churns out all manner of flyers, newsletters, brochures, pamphlets, books, and even films and videotapes.

It is all quite impressive for the Christian, but dangerous for the Muslim. The Christian missionaries who come out of this place no longer attempt to show that Islam is a "mass of errors". They now try to show that Islam contains "fragments of disjointed truths", and from there, they try to convince a Muslim that these fragments of truth are made whole in Christianity. Verbal assaults have now been set aside in favor of trying to establish doubt in the mind of a Muslim regarding his beliefs. The Christians hope that this doubt will lead to dissatisfaction, which will then lead to a switch from Islam to Christianity.

The Christian missionaries look with great interest at the tensions within the Muslim world today. The Zwemer Institute tells its people:

"Such displacement of peoples and disruption of normal lives has shaken old traditions and brought new openness among many Muslims to hear the good news of Jesus Christ...the myth of an impregnable Islam is no longer valid."[31]

The figures given by the Zwemer Institute for converts are no doubt "enhanced"--after all, small numbers won't keep the students and the money coming in--but the fact does remain that this Christian "tree" IS bearing fruit.

Muslims are being enticed to leave Islam for Christianity.

As Islam continues to grow, organizations like CMM and the Zwemer Institute are getting stronger and more adept themselves at what they do. No longer can the Muslim sit back and ignore this; it will come knocking on his door sooner or later, and he must be prepared. He must be strong in his faith, and he must know about "the other guy" in order to stand up to it.

The Anti-Hate Campaign

Although organizations such as CMM and the Zwemer Institute are chugging along quite nicely with their "reach out to Muslims with love" campaign, in the background lurks the other method Christians use even frequently to deal with Islam; it is the one that began during the time of the Crusades, and one which never fully died out. Dubbed "the Crusades Mentality", these verbal assaults on Islam are simply a continuation of activities that began over 900 years ago when Pope Urban II whipped up the crowds at Clermont regarding the infidels in the East.

Evidence that this hate campaign still continues to rear its ugly head can be seen in bookstores--particularly the Christian ones--and on the shelves of public libraries.

So-called "orientalists" in the nineteenth and twentieth century have written some pretty disgusting things on the Islamic world: examples can be found in Durant's "Story of Civilization", Gibbons' "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Gunther's "Inside Asia", H.G. Wells' "The Outline of History" --all of which are considered to be "classics" in the world of history. Bias and hostility shine through in all cases, and one can only wonder why these men would choose, as their life's work, to study a region of the world for which they feel so much hatred. Even Albert Hourani's recent and celebrated "A History of the Arab Peoples" is replete with bias and hostility.

But the anti-hate material really comes its own in the hands of the fundamentalist Christians: take the book "Islam Revealed", written by an Arab Christian in 1988. On its back cover, it promises to give its readers "an eye opening look at the deadly beliefs of every one in five people on earth".

American author Robert Morey, an "internationally acclaimed scholar" in the field of comparative religions--and a fundamentalist Christian to boot--recently came out with a book entitled "Islam Unveiled: The True Desert Storm" (1991) which claims, on its back cover, to "prove" that all the rituals and beliefs of Islam can be traced to pre-Islamic pagan origins. Dr. Morey also has a radio show in which he regularly blasts Islam; in a recent show, he actually came out and said:

"...if Muhammad were alive today, he most likely would be diagnosed as a psychotic serial-killer mass-murderer and child-molester. " Material such as this, just a representation of the considerable volume of hate material being produced today, is despicable. It merely serves to strengthen and expand the stereotypes of Islam held by Christians, and to increase the levels of distrust and hostility between members of the two faiths. How is it possible to approach one another on a friendly basis when garbage like this is permeating one's mind?

As Islam continues to grow and spread, these attacks will increase. The Christians are afraid, and this is one way they have chosen to deal with that fear. It is a method that has been around for hundreds of years, and they are most comfortable with it. Rather than try to open the doors of dialogue, they lash out in vitriolic fury.

Portrayal In Other Forms of Media

Besides the books, pamphlets, radio shows, etc., that are aimed directly at Islam, there are the more subtle attacks made by Christians through main-stream works of fiction and non-fiction, along with television and movie portrayals of Islam and Muslims as a seething mass of terrorism and terrorists.

Books include such works as "The Source" by James Mitchner and the recent "The Sum of All Fears" by Tom Clancy; then there are the stereo-typing titles such as "Jihad", "The Holy Sword", and "Sacred Rage". One quite disturbing novel, "Holy of Holies", tells the story of how several Frenchmen, with Soviet backing and Israeli support, level the Grand Mosque during hajj. And of course, forget Salman Rushdie's infamous novel "The Satanic Verses"; he has said time and time again that insulting Islam was not his purpose, but the names and places he has used in his book are just too coincidental to believe what he says.

Attacks made through television are interesting. In the summer of 1991, for instance, a series of debates were held between two Muslims and two Christians on matters of difference between the two religions. The six debates were televised on a Christian gospel show over several weeks, and the Muslims did a very good job of representing their faith, even in the light of outright hostility from all sides, including the moderator, the two Christian debaters, and even the predominately Christian audience.

The people from the television show, however, managed to get "the last laugh". first of all, they "edited" the broadcast tapes in order to cast the Muslims in a particularly bad light, and secondary, they issued a booklet in conjunction with the debate series for home viewers that was entitled "The Facts On Islam". A more appropriate title for the booklet would have been "The Fallacies of Islam", since one finds very little truth therein, but a lot of distortion, misrepresentation and outright lies.

As for films, there is "Black Sunday", where Palestinian "Terrorists" plot to annihilate all those attending the Superbowl (annual professional football championship game), along with the movie "Not Without My Daughter", which paints a truly terrible picture of relationships within Muslim families.

Stereotypes are fostered and continued by things such as this; as long as such continues, Islam will have a difficult time being seen in anything but an unfavorable light.

 Conclusion:

As Muslim, we must be strong when it comes to attacks such as this upon our faith--be it by "methods of love", or outright venom. God tells us in the Qur'an:

"Ye Shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions and in yourselves; and ye shall certainly hear much that will grieve you, from those who received the Book before you and from those who worship partners besides Allah. But if ye persevers patiently, and guard against evil, --then that indeed is a matter of great resolution." (3:186)