Christians for Mohammad

I read ur heart felt testimony on ur conversion from islam to christianity...

As u might expect, i do disagree with u on some points...

1st of all, Islam never claimed that the crusifiction ( as a historical event) never took place...

Rather God explains that He " summoned" jesus to the heavnes before he was crsuified and that someone else was crusified in his place that the jews were lead to believe was jesus by a Decree from God..

This in turn explains the increadible status Islam bestows on Christ , the status of the ultimate and final saviour, the leader of the final battle between Good and evil before armegeddon..

As u might know as an ex muslim, Islam stipulates that it will be christ who will return to lead the final fight against the infidels and non believers, and that he ( christ) will lead ALL the believers ( which naturally includes jews christians and muslims) in their final fight against evil ....

This status was not bestowed on Mohammad or any other prophet of God for a very clear reason...

That reason is that as we speak, Christ has yet to DIED AND PERSICH like the human that Muslims believe he is...

in the light of that, he will come back 2 lead the fight and then die like all other men before him ...

I think u can agree with me that niether christianity nor juadism have been able 2 be as accomedating of figurs from other religions as islam is in this particular instance....

Furthermore, i would like 2 add that assuming that there is an inherint disparity between chrisanity and/or juadism on the one hand, and islam on the other is a huge fallacy...

The quran in terms that can not get any clearer explains that islam is but a continuation of what came before it, and that the message of Mohammad is nothing but a continuation on the messages of those who came before him...

The quran also clearly explains that should a muslim in any way try 2 negate the " older books and the older prophets" then he has indeed stepped outside the religion and is no more a muslim...

In very real ways, The torah and the bible are the " old testiment" of the quran....

the fact that Jews as well as muslims believe that Yehwah/ALLAH, is but 1 God, is a very strong indication ( in my mind) that somwhere along the lines, christians seem to have confused What jesus was....

I understand to a certain extent ( as much as i could logically understand) the christian idea of the trinity.

Having said that, i strongly believe that the trinity exists in ALL the 3 religions...

Mohammad was given revelation through a HOLLY spirit as the quran explains ( the angel Gabriel)...

Mohammad was the son of God, in the same way jesus was the son of God,in the same way I am the son of God and u r the son of God...in my humble openion that is...

and therfore there is a son , a father, and a holly spirit in islam as well...

its just not Son in the biological sense christians try 2 make jesus to be....

any how,

If u feel u have found peace away from islam , i doubt this is related to Islam ( as a religion ) in any way...

However, if thats what makes u happy ....

after all, its not my place ( or any one else's) 2 judge u for what u believe...

As God says in the quran, We all ultimatelly return to our creator, and it will be Him who ultimatelly judges all of us for what we believed on earth and how we spent our time on it...

God bless u ..

H.

http://hasous.spaces.live.com

"missiles, warships and nuclear weapons cannot establish security. Instead they destroy what peace and security build." Anwar Sadat

Brod pope, tnx for giving time to post a muslim testimony.

though his identity is questionable for us, a certain Abdulsaleeb?

allow me to share you a christian testimony w/ complete identity.

Professor Abdul-Ahad Dawud, B.D....the former Reverend David Benjamin Keldani, B.D., a Roman Catholic priest of the Uniate-chaldean sect. When asked how he came to Islam he wrote:

"My conversion to Islam cannot be attributed to any cause other than the gracious direction of the Almighty Allah. without this divine guidance all learning, search and other efforts to find the Truth may even lead one astray.

The moment I believed in the absoulute Unity of God, His Holy Apostle Muhammad became the pattern of my conduct and behaviour".

A short biographical sketch of Prof. Abdulahad Dawud B.D.

He was born in 1867 at Urmia in Persia; educated from his early infancy in that town. From 1886-89 (three years) he was on the teaching staff of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian(Nestorian) Christians at Urmia.

In 1892 he was sent by Cardinal Vaughan to Rome, where he underwent a course of philosophical and theological studies at the Propaganda Fide College, and 1895 was ordained priest. In 1892 Prof. Dawud contributed a series of articles to The Tablet on "Assyria, Rome and Canterbury"; and also to the Irish Record on the "Authenticity of the Pentateuch". He has several translations of the Ave Maria in different languages, published in the Illustrated Catholic Missions. While in Constantinople on his way to Persia in 1895, he contributed a long series of articles in English and French to the daily paper, published there under the name of The Levant Herald, on "Eastern Churches"

In 1895 he joined the French Lazarist Mission at Urmia, and published for the first time in the history of that Mission a periodical in the vernacular Syriac called "Qala La Shara", i.e. "The Voice of Truth"

In 1897 he was delegated by two Uniate-Chaldean Archbishops of Urmia and of Salmas to represent the Eastern Catholics at the Eucharistic Congress held at Paray-le-Monial in France under the presidency of Cardinal Perraud. This was of course, an official invitation.

In 1888, Father Benjamin (Prof Dawud) was back again in Persia. The next year he was sent by the Ecclesiastical authorities to take charge of the diocese of Salmas, where a sharp and scandalous conflict between the Unite Archbishops, Khudabash, and the Lazarist Fathers for a long time had been menacing a schism.

On the day of new year 1900, Father Benjamin(Prof. Dawud), preached his last and memorable sermon to a large congregation, including many non-Catholic Armenians and others in the Cathedral of St. George's Khorovabad, Salmas. The preachers subject was "New Century and New Men". He recalled the fact that the Nestorian Missionaries, before the appearance of Islam, had preached the Gospel in all Asia; that they have numerous establishments in India(especially at the Malabar Coast), In Tartary, China and Mongolia; and that they translated the Gospel to the Turkish Uighurs and in other languages; that the Catholic, American & Anglican Missions, in spite to the little good they had done to the Assyro-Chaldean nation in the way of preliminary education, had split the nation--already in handful--in Persia, Kurdistan, and Mesopotamia into numerous hostile sects; and that their efforts were destined to bring about the final collapse. Consequently he advised the natives to make some sacrifices inorder to stand upon their own legs like Men, and not to depend upon the foreign missions, etc. The preacher was perfectly right in principle; but his remarks were unfavourable to the interests of the Lord Missionaries.

A new Russian Mission had already been established in Urmia since 1899. The Nestorians were enthusiastically embracing the religion of the "holy" Tsar of All Russias!

Five big and ostentatious missions--Americans, Anglicans, French, Germans and Russians. But the Russians Mission soon outstripped to others, and it was this missionn which in 1915 pushed or forced the Assyrians of Persia, as well as the mountaineer tribes of Kurdistan, who had then immigrated into the plains of Salmas and Urmia, to take up arms against their respective Governments. The result was that half of his people perished in the war and the rest expelled from their native lands.

The great question which for a long time had been working its solution in the mind of this priest(Father Benjamin/Prof. Dawud)

was now approaching its climax.

"Was christianity, with all its multitudinous shapes and colours, and with its unauthentic, spurious and corrupted Scriptures, the TRUE Religion of God?"

In the summer of 1900, he retired to his small villa in the middle of vineyards near the celebrated fountain of Chali-Boulaghi in Digala, and there for a month spent his time in prayer and meditation, reading over and over the Scriptures in their ORIGINAL texts. The crisis ended in a formal resignation sent in to the Uniate Archbishop of Urmia, in which he frankly explained to Mar(Mngr.) Touma Audu the reasons for abandoning his sacerdotal functions. All attempts made by the ecclesiastical authorities to withdraw his decision were of no avail. There was no personal quarrel or dispute between Father Benjamin(Prof. Dawud) and his superiors; it was all question of conscience.

For several months Father Benjamin, or Mr. Dawud--as he was now called--was employed in Tabriz as Inspector in the Persian Service of Posts and Customs under the Belgian experts. Then he was taken into the service of the Crown Prince Muhammad Ali Mirza as teacher and translator.

It was in 1903 that he again visited England and there joined the Unitarian Community.

And in 1904 he was sent by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association to carry on an educational and enlightening work among his country people. On his way to Persia he visited Constantinople; and after several interviews with the Sheikhu'l-Islam Jemalu'd-Din Effendi and other Ulemas, HE EMBRACED THE HOLY RELIGION OF ISLAM.

http://www.everystudent.com/wires/abdul.html

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds..

A Muslim Looks at Muhammad and Jesus

The story of Abdul Saleeb and what he

discovered about Islam and Christianity

My name is "Abdul Saleeb." I was born and raised in a Muslim country in the Middle East. Even though I lived in a very conservative Muslim society, I grew up in a somewhat of a liberal Muslim family. Furthermore, my Muslim upbringing was unique due to my mother's serious involvement in Islamic sufism. So I can honestly confess that I have had first-hand experience of every aspect of contemporary Islamic movements. I personally did not consider myself very religious. At one point I even turned to Marxist ideologies thinking that they could provide real solutions to my country's social ills. However, throughout all this time I never doubted the fundamentals of my religious faith. I thought of Islam as a faith with such high ideals that I did not consider myself worthy of the name Muslim but I wholeheartedly believed that Islam was God's last and most perfect religion for all mankind, based on God's final revelation, the Qur'an, and the prophet Muhammad, God's seal of prophethood. My view of other religions (especially Judaism and Christianity) was that although they were fundamentally the same since they had all been revealed by one God, they were all inferior to Islam because all of them had to various degrees corrupted the original message of their founding prophets, something that we as Muslims have not done.

My religious views were radically challenged when I left my country because of its civil turmoil and went to Europe for the continuation of my studies. By the providence of God and because of various circumstances, I ended up enrolling in an International Christian School.

A question I once asked my teacher revolutionized my worldview. I asked, "How come your word of God says one thing and our word of God says something different?" My teacher, not knowing much about Islam at all, gently asked, "How do you know the Qur'an is the word of God?" I was taken aback by that response. I had lived in a world in which everyone simply presupposed that the Qur'an was dictated word for word by God to the Prophet Muhammad and no one ever questioned that assumption. That brief encounter forced me to start on a journey, engage my Christian friends in hours of cordial discussion and debate about the truthfulness of the Christian faith.

Christianity and Islam

Like almost any other Muslim, my original reaction to the claims of Christians about Jesus Christ was that of utter shock. These claims not only seemed like plain blasphemy but also quite nonsensical. How could any rational being believe such things about an honored prophet of God? Despite my fundamental theological differences with my friends, there was something about their life and faith that impressed me a great deal. There was a sincerity in their relationship with God and with other people that I had not encountered. So I would often tell them that I did not want to deny their faith but I just wanted to find a compromise so that I could hold to the truth of Islam and they could continue to hold to their faith.

However, I was in no doubt that their belief about Jesus was based on statements that the prophet Jesus had never actually claimed for himself. My difficulty in understanding Christian belief was very much along the lines that have historically separated Islam from Christianity.

I did not grant in any way that the Bible, especially the New Testament documents, were reliable when it came to reporting the words of Christ. Anything in the Bible that disagreed with the Qur'an was automatically rejected as being a corrupt teaching in the Bible.

My spiritual journey went on for months. Oftentimes I did find comfort in the Qur'an, but I was encountering more questions in that book than answers. For example, the violent tone of many of the Qur'anic passages (especially against the unbelievers but also against the Jewish and Christian people) began to bother me, when compared with the emphasis on love in the New Testament. One particular passage that troubled me, especially in light of my good friendship with many Christians, was in Sura 5:51.

"O ye who believe! Take not Jews and Christians for your friends and protectors; they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust."

However, the most troubling section of the Qur'an had to do with the character of the prophet Muhammad himself. According to Sura 33:37, God sanctions Muhammad's desire to marry the divorced wife of his own stepson, "in order that (in future) there may be no difficulty to the believers in (the matter of) marriage with the wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have dissolved with the necessary (formality) (their marriage) with them. And God's command must be fulfilled."

I vivdly remember the first time that I came across that verse in my study of the Qur'an. I began to sob with great sorrow and shame. All my life I had been told that Muhammad was the most perfect and ideal moral example for mankind and yet the Qur'an had a good number of examples of how the "revelations" could be so self-serving to the prophet himself!

Christianity or Islam

I immediately wrote a letter to my mother back home with some of these troubling questions that I was encountering. The response that I received to my letter from one of the most prominent religious leaders in my country was that I should just continue my secular studies and not focus too much on religion. On the other hand, as my understanding of the Bible was increasing many of my questions were beginning to get answered. Even as a Muslim I came to believe that the crucifixion of Christ was an undisputable historical fact that no honest person that deals with evidences of history could deny.

The character of Christ himself, as manifested for example in his beautiful Sermon on the Mount, was gradually making a great impression on me. But for me the most impressive factor about Christ was the multitude of Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Some of these prophecies were so specific and they were fulfilled in the life of Jesus to such a detail that it amazed me to see how God had taken hundreds of years of Jewish history to prepare the coming of the Messiah; prophecies ranging from Messiah's ancestery, his manner and place of birth, his life and ministry to the circumstances surrounding his death by crucifixion. I was very attracted to Christ and yet I could not deny my own tradition and past. Becoming Christian seemed a definite betrayal of my own family and Islamic heritage. The tension in my life was so strong that I felt torn asunder between these two faiths.

But I still could not bring myself to accept that Jesus was anything more than a human being. Since he had never explicitly said, "I am God and you must worship me," the Christian claim about Jesus was based on speculation and historically unreliable Gospels. Surely the incredible statements attributed to Jesus were invented by later Christians and put in the mouth of Jesus.

A Muslim Converts

In the midst of all this anxiety of thought, I woke up one morning and was suddenly struck by the meaning of a verse written by the prophet Isaiah in his ninth chapter. I had read this verse several weeks prior to that morning, but I had never understood its meaning. In Isaiah 7:14 we read,

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."

Isaiah then goes on to write in chapter 9,

"[...] in the future he (God) will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan the people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned [...] For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne [...] from that time on and forever."

I could not believe it! The fact that the Messiah was not going to be just a prophet but Mighty God himself, was therefore a truth that had been prophesied seven hundred years before Christ in the Old Testament, and not something that had been made up by Christians many years or centuries after Christ! It was God's own promise that he will come in flesh (Immanuel = God with us) and will establish a kingdom that will last forever.

I came to trust in Christ, the next day on January 20, 1985. I cried uncontrollably as I was praying and turning to Christ in faith. I did not know why, and though I had never felt much burden of guilt, I was feeling a great sense of peace and relief from the burden of my sins. A greater satisfaction was the sense of rest in finally finding the truth about God and His revelation of love to mankind in Jesus Christ. A book that helped me (and several other Muslim friends of mine who became Christians around the same time that I did) tremendously in answering many of my questions about the deity of Christ and the reliability of the New Testament documents was Josh McDowell's "Evidence That Demands A Verdict." I highly recommend it.

Soon after my own conversion, I decided to dedicate my entire life to promoting the Good News of Christ among Muslims and especially the people of my own country. I later came to the United States and received my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biblical and Theological Studies. I also co-authored a book called Answering Islam: The Crescent in the Light of the Cross.

Abdul Saleeb, Ramadan of 1996

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds..

Cool space hussam...makes me a bit homesick....lili.

Hey, Don!

It's cool your in the 36-45 (senile section)category....

We're cooool!!.lili.

Well, that's a relief!

To be honest, understanding life can be a huge burden and the more you know (sometimes) the more you feel wieghed down with the knowledge....

BUT......as they say ...with knowledge comes power and with certain knowledge comes great releif......

Tell me.....have you seen any new movies lately?

Who do you like to watch?

It's a shame movies come here so late, especially arabic ones....lili.

Lilipink, i am just practical, i really dont waste a second of time on trying to understand life and all what comes with it, i take it as it is, but i do enjoy it a lot. by the way, i did like your profile and we share the love for movies, and the fact that you are chearfull and outgoing cause that's all we need.

I always tell the truth, even when I lie

Lilipink, i am just so practical, i relly dont waste a second of time on trying to understand life and all what comes with it, i take it as it is, but i do enjoy it a lot. by the way, i did like your profile and we share the love for movies.

I always tell the truth, even when I lie

If anything is done in the right spirit and enough effort, it is bound to suceed. Keep up the good work.

Don, you seem like a very cheerful guy!lol

Read you profile.........What are your interests: none!

Tell us about yourself: no!

Spoken like a real godfather! .lili.

Forget about it man, why waste your time, its been going on for 1500 years and it will keep on going for at least a 1000 more. so just enjoy life and religion is something we practice on our own. it's humanity that should bring us together, but actually i dont beleive my own words, i am a practical guy and at the end all this will bring distruction to man kind, and maybe then we will be able to understand each other.

I always tell the truth, even when I lie

Where's the URL??

This should be a very interesting/informative forum....

Can't wait to read the imput.

I should start researching now.

(o.k, o.k I just discovered the URL in your profile!!)

(Great to see so many Egyptians blogging in qatarliving!).

lili.