Same God 2

Got hold of. That'll help get me through this section anyways. The insulin won't really kick in for about 20 minutes after that. I make no guarantees is the orthodoxy of anything I have to say. But anyway.

The Quran as a Creedal Statement and Why Christians Should Read It

Now, let's get back to it. We only have a certain amount of time and I do want to get to at least some questions. Hopefully I'll cover a lot of them. Sura 112 is about as close as you're gonna get in the Quran to a statement of a creed type, a creedal type statement.

Since most of you have not read the Quran, let me just mention, by the way, it's about 57 the length of the New Testament. So it's not a long book. It was allegedly written between 610 and 632 A .D.

So it comes over half a millennium after the Bible. And hence, after the time of Christ anyways. It makes reference to both the Old and New Testament and directly addresses you. We are called the al-al-kitab, the people of the book, or al-al-injil, the people of the gospel, in the text of the Quran.

And we will be looking at some of the things the Quran says to you and me here in the next few moments. By the way, if you ever choose to read the Quran, which I would recommend that you do if you're gonna be talking to Muslims.

Obviously, if you go to Utah to do missions, you need to read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants before your price. If you go to Brooklyn, you need to know something about Jehovah's Witnesses, read some of their literature.

If you could talk to Muslims, it is always very helpful to know something about what they believe and to have read some of their materials. Obviously, when someone approaches you and they want to talk to you, and you go, have you ever read the Bible?

And they've never read the Bible, their level of credibility of critique of your faith is much lower than it would be otherwise. Same thing in reverse. We can't expect them to give us much credit if we haven't taken the time to know what they believe.

When I talk to a Muslim, and I let them know that I've read the Quran multiple times, that I've actually translated portions of the Quran in Arabic, and that I have read Sahih Bukhari, almost finished the Sahih Muslim, the Muwatta of Malik, all the Hadith Qudsi, that's about, at that point, their jaws drop open because most of them have never done anything close to that.

Most of their Imams have not done that much reading. And so they're just like, you're kidding me. And that opens tremendous doors, because to them, they take that as a sign of respect, and it gives me at least some opportunity to say something.

So if you ever get a Quran, there are some bad translations of the Quran. In fact, I would say the most common translations are generally not the best. It's just because the Saudi Arabian government prints them by the millions.

But the most common one out there is by Yusuf Ali, not the best one to get. Probably the easiest one, the two that you can get that are easiest to get hold of, they're very conservative, are the Sahih translation and the Hilal-i-Khan translation.

You can get others like Piktal and others that are available in most of your bookstores. Just be aware that translations vary in their quality. Now, there's only 114 surahs. If you buy one, whatever you do, do not start with surah one, then read surah two, then read surah three, because you're gonna have no idea what in the world's going on.

Because the Quran is ordered, the surahs are put in the order of their length. So surah one, surah al-Fatiha is an opening prayer. Then surah two, surah al-Baqarah is the longest surah. Then surah three is a little bit shorter.

Surah four is a little bit shorter. So it gets shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter as it goes through the... But the problem was they weren't written in that order. So if you read it that way, you're bouncing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth from different periods in Muhammad's life.

And even if you know what the background is, you're not gonna be able to follow any type of context at all. So if you're gonna read it, pick up my book and write toward the front of the book somewhere.

Well, actually, maybe not toward the front of the book. I only wrote it. I don't know where anything is in it. Yeah, there it is. Oh, great. They split into two pages. Lovely. Here on two pages is a chart.

It is also on my website. If you look up the word chronological on my blog, this will come up. But this gives you the best guess we have of the chronological order of the 114 surahs. So at least if you read it following that, you're sort of following Muhammad's life a little bit, and it makes it a little bit easier to understand what's going on in the Quran itself at that particular point in time.

Surah 112 and the Denial of Sonship

So surah 112 is right at the end of the Quran, and you're seeing all of it. This is all of surah 112. Say he is Allah, the one and only, Allah, the eternal absolute. Lem yellid wa lem yulid. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten, and there is none like unto him.

Most Muslims who engage in apologetics, which they call dawah, can quote this in Arabic. I'm pretty close to being able to quote it in Arabic myself, but I frequently stumble on it, so I won't bother this morning.

But this is really as close as you'll get to a creedal statement. And as you're looking at it, you'll notice that we can agree with a lot of what it says. God is the one and only. God is the eternal absolute.

There is none like unto him. I mean, how many times has that said in Isaiah and Jeremiah and books like that in the Bible? It's said very frequently. But you'll notice the third ayah, by the way, the chapters of the Quran are called surahs.

That's why it says surah 112. And the verses are called ayah or ayat. Ayat is a plural. Look at the third ayah. He begetteth not, nor is he begotten. Lem yellid wa lem yulid. Now, Arabic is a Semitic language, hence it has the same roots as Hebrew.

One of the reasons I've survived with the minimal amount of Arabic training that I've actually received is because I've taught Hebrew in the past. And so my knowledge of Arabic is actually Arabic propped up by Hebrew since a lot of the grammar and the roots are very similar.

And when we have in Isaiah chapter nine, for example, a child will be born to us. The root there is yelad. A yellid will be yeladed to us. And here you have the same thing in surah three. Lem yellid wa lem yulid.

He begetteth not, nor is he begotten. And I took one of my classes to the mosque at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. And we met with the imam after the prayers. And I asked him, I said, would you think that the third ayah of surah al-Ikhlas, al-Ikhlas, by the way, means purity or sincerity.

The third ayah is in reference to the Christian belief that Jesus is the son of God. And he said, oh, there's no question about that. That's exactly what it's referring to. What's important about this is if this is about as close as you can get to a creedal statement defining Islam, then one quarter of this creedal statement is a denial of what you and I believe.

Islam comes after us, it interacts with us, and specifically identifies our belief in three, or the idea that God has a son, as a heinous sin. And so you need to understand that because it's one of the great barriers that we have in presenting the gospel.

For example, I mentioned to you earlier the sin of shirk. Shirk is association of anyone or anything with Allah. So in surah 31, 13, oh my son, do not associate anything with Allah. Indeed, association with him is great injustice.

The underlying text there is shirk. In surah 6, 1, all praise is due to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light. Then those who disbelieve, the kafirs, which is frequently what we're referred to, equate others with their Lord, the sin of shirk.

And so these are warned against, and one of the great barriers that you and I have in presenting the gospel to Muslims is that they believe that we are, in essence, because of our worship of Jesus Christ, calling them to commit the one sin that if they commit that sin, they can never be forgiven.

In fact, Muhammad asked Allah for the right to intercede for his parents. His parents died before he became a prophet in his youth, and so they died as mushrikim, committers of shirk, they're idolaters.

And so he asked Allah if he could pray for his parents, and Allah said, no, you cannot. You cannot pray for someone who dies on the sin of shirk. One exception was granted to him in the entirety of his lifetime.

His uncle, Abu Talib, protected him while he was a minority prophet in Mecca. From 610 to 622, he was preaching in Mecca, had a small number of followers, was a really unpopular guy because his family, the Quraish tribe, had control of the Kaaba, and a lot of their money came from the idol trade.

And so you come along preaching, there's only one god, the idols are not true gods, you're not exactly a popular guy. And so the story is that Muhammad was mistreated. There was once when he was bowing in prayer in prostration to Allah, and some of his enemies came along and dropped a she-camel uterus on his back and mocked him, and he just stayed in that position until his daughter Fatima came along and removed it from his back.

And of course, the story goes on to say that their bodies were all thrown into a well when they died at the Battle of Badr, so they all died for what they did. But anyway, there was mistreatment between 610 and 622.

Then in 622, you have the Hijra, where Muhammad leaves Mecca, goes to Medina, and that's where the Islamic calendar actually starts, is in the Hijra of 622. Anyway, during that first period of time, Abu Talib, his uncle, protects him.

But he does not become a Muslim, he does not say the shahada. And on his deathbed, Muhammad comes to him, and he says, say la ilaha illallah. You know that this is true, and yet the rest of the family is saying, don't you dare abandon the ancestral gods, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, he dies as a mushrik, he does not make profession of faith. But Allah does grant Muhammad the right to intercede for Abu Talib, only exception. The result of Muhammad's intercession for Abu Talib is that Abu Talib has the best spot in hell.

The best spot in hell. And you're all sitting here going, so what is the best spot in hell? Describe the garden spot of hell for us. Well, according to Muhammad's description, he is wearing a pair of sandals that are so hot his brains boil.

That's the best place in hell. Other versions of that story is he's standing in fire only up to his ankles, but it's so hot that his brains boil, and that's the best place. So all the rest of us, a whole lot worse than that.

So that's how bad shirk is, just to give you an illustration from the life of Abu Talib. Surahs four, five, and six. Well, really, surahs two, three, four, five, and six. The longest and probably the most relevant to us as Christians, most lengthy conversations about us are found in these particular surahs, especially surahs four and five.

Why the Quran Says Christians Commit Shirk

Surah four, ayahs 47 and 48. Oh, you who were given the scripture, that is the Al-Kitab, the people of the book, believe in what we have sent down to Muhammad, confirming that which is with you, before we obliterate faces and turn them towards their backs or curse them as we curse the Sabbath breakers.

And ever is the decree of Allah accomplished. Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with him, but he forgives what is less than that for whom he wills. And he who associates others with Allah has certainly fabricated tremendous sin.

So there is the specific statement from the Quran, shirk will not be forgiven. Allah does not forgive association with him. So if a Muslim believes that you and I are mushriks, that we are mushrikim, then there is no hope for us unless we become Muslims.

If we die as Christians, there is absolutely no hope for us. That is what most Muslims believe, but not all. Hamza Yusuf, for example, one of the best known Muslim leaders in the United States, does not believe that Christians are mushrikim.

His argumentation is that because Muslim men are allowed to marry Christian women and a mushrik is najas, he or she is despicable to God, that would never be allowed to happen. So Christians can't be mushrikim.

But the vast majority of Muslims point out, yeah, but the Quran specifically teaches that to say three is to engage in shirk and it is kufr, it is unbelief. So there is, the majority of Muslims do believe that we are committing the sin of shirk and that therefore you are inviting them to commit the sin of shirk when you call them to faith in Jesus Christ.

Surah 4, 171 through 172 says, O people of the scripture, again, al-kitab, people of the book, do not commit excess, ta 'alu, in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. So you need to understand, the Quran says to us that we have committed excess.

We have been given the truth. The Torah contains light and guidance. The gospel contains light and guidance. It was natsal, it was sent down by Allah. It's divine revelation. But we have committed excess in our deen, in our religion.

And we are saying about Allah things other than the truth. We've gone beyond what we needed to say. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary was but a messenger of Allah. He was a rasool of Allah. And his word, which he directed to Mary and a soul created a command from him.

So believe in Allah and his messengers. So Muslims do believe that Jesus was virgin born. They believe that Allah simply said be and he was. In fact, Muslims believe that Jesus performed more miracles than you and I believe he did.

Because the Quran actually narrates miracles that Jesus did not perform in the canonical gospels, but that he did perform in the later Gnostic gospels. And so for example, the Quran repeats the story of Jesus forming little clay birds and then breathing on them and they become living birds and fly away.

Now that comes from the infancy gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic gospel that is not one of the canonical gospels and does not go to the actual timeframe of Jesus's life. But the Quran accepts that as a reality.

So they do believe, the vast majority of Muslims believe Jesus is sinless, that he was a prophet, that he committed miracles and all these things, but he was not the son of God and he was only the Jewish Messiah.

He was not a Messiah for anyone outside of the Jewish people themselves. So there you have 4 .171, it continues on. And do not say three. Now, one of the ways you can sort of test a translation, if you're looking at translation of the Quran, maybe you're in a bookstore or something like that, write this number down, sort of 4 .171, 172, and then look at it.

And if it says, do not say trinity, probably not a good translation. Now, I think it's what the Quran is talking about. It's trying to address the trinity, but the actual Arabic word is three. The specific word for three is not found.

Specific word for trinity is not found in the Quran, the word for three is. Do not say three. Desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Now, please note something. Anytime the Quran says something like three, within the next sentence, it will then say, Allah is but one God.

So if every time it says three, the next sentence is there's only one God, what is the author thinking the three is? Three gods. Very clearly. Do not say three, desist, it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God.

Exalted is he above having a son. Now, most Muslims believe that when we talk about Jesus as the son of God, we are actually saying that God got married and had a kid, because that's what clearly the Quran thinks it was, and that's what the relationship of God and his sons in the pagan religions were.

To him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and sufficient is the law as disposer of affairs. Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah, nor would the angels near to him, and whoever disdains his worship and is arrogant, he will gather them to himself altogether.

So here you're seeing the Quran arguing against what its author thinks is the doctrine of the Trinity. And the doctrine of the Trinity means that the Messiah would never have been a servant of Allah. Well, of course, we believe that the Messiah was a servant of Allah.

He's the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. It's not even an issue. Obviously, to me, one of the greatest evidences that the Quran is not the word of God is the fact that its author had no earthly idea what he was talking about when he criticized the doctrine of the Trinity.

And since Muslims believe that the Quran is the, the Quran are the very words of Allah. One of the really hard things to understand, and I'm going into way too much depth here, but let me just mention this to you in passing.

One of the things you gotta understand is from the Islamic perspective, Muhammad has nothing to do with the Quran. What Muhammad understood has nothing to do with Quran. These, the Quran is as eternal as Allah.

It's uncreated. It's his very words. And therefore, what Muhammad understood, didn't understand, grew an understanding of irrelevant. It's simply dictated by the angel Jabril to Muhammad, and he repeats it, and that's it.

His understanding has no place anywhere in the Quran. And so as a result, it's just unquestionable in their mind. You can't read it in chronological order and go, wow, it looks like Muhammad was developing this here.

No, no, no, no, no. Well, if that's the case, I have a simple question to ask of a Muslim. Did Allah know what the trinity was in 632 AD? Even if the trinity is false, Allah knew what it was. He could have criticized it devastatingly, but he doesn't.

He doesn't understand it, doesn't criticize it. So very clearly, the Quran cannot be the word of God, because its author clearly does not understand what it is he is addressing, because he misrepresents it.

And we'll see that even more so in just a moment here in Surah 5. Surah 5, ayahs 72 to 77 say, they have certainly disbelieved. They are coffers who say, Allah is the Messiah, the Son of Mary. Now, that's not how we talk, by the way.

We don't say God is Christ. We talk about the deity of Christ. But when you say Allah is Christ, you're sort of saying that all of God is the Messiah. No, the Father didn't become incarnate. The Spirit didn't become incarnate.

It was the Son who became incarnate. Allah is the Messiah, the Son of Mary. While the Messiah has said, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Now, before you start going to your concordance, try to find out where Jesus said that.

The name Jesus appears 25 times in the Quran. Jesus is quoted a number of times in the Quran. Ironically, only once in the Quran is Jesus ever quoted in a physical location. Other than that, he's just a disembodied voice that just sort of floats around and says he's not God and says Muhammad's a prophet, basically.

The one place that he speaks from an identifiable location is from his cradle. Another instance where you have a story that developed amongst Christians long after the Gospels is accepted by the Quran as if it was actually historical.

This is from the Arabic infancy gospel, which really wasn't even written until the fifth century. So this is a story that was only about 100, 200 years old at the time that the Quran picks it up and incorporates it uncritically.

So here you have Jesus saying, O children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Indeed, he who associates others with Allah, Shirk, Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire.

And there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. They have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is the third of three and there is no God except one God. So notice again, there is the word three and what's the very next sentence?

Only one God, only one God. Very clearly the author thinks that we believe that we are polytheists, we believe in multiple gods. And the vast majority of Muslims that I've talked to also believe that.

Now, obviously I talked to some of the best trained Muslims in the world who know other than that. But I also have done street ministry in London where we'll go out and we'll go to Leicester Square. Beautiful, beautiful place.

Anybody ever been to Leicester Square? Just amazing, an amazing place. And somebody will get up and start street preaching, the Muslims will flock to us and they send them over to me and we'll have these long conversations.

And the vast majority of those Muslims believe that we are polytheists, that we believe in three separate gods. But it is said here to be an act of disbelief to say Allah is the third of three. Well, does the Quran ever say who the three are?

Keep that in mind. Surah five continues on saying, if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment. So will they not repent to Allah and seek his forgiveness?

And Allah is forgiving and merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary was not but a messenger. Other messengers have passed on before him. And his mother was a supporter of truth. They both used to eat food. Look how we make clear to them the signs, then look how they are deluded.

Now, did you catch something? Why did Mary end up in there? Well, Mary is a supporter of truth. And in fact, Mary is the only woman name by name in the Quran. She has an entire chapter named after her, Surah 19, Surat Maryam.

She's the only woman named in the Quran. But why say they both used to eat food? It should sound familiar. This is the fiqh to the argument, which we heard earlier and saw briefly once I got the video fixed.

This is where the guy from the other country got the argument. They both used to eat food. If you eat food, you're not a God, but it mentions Mary. Now, I recognize Roman Catholicism has exalted Mary a long ways, but even Rome will say, well, she's not God.

Keep that in mind because I think it's important. We'll see in a moment. And notice it says that we are deluded. I mean, it's amazing how many times I hear people saying, well, you shouldn't, you shouldn't preach anything that would offend the Muslims.

Well, have you read the Quran recently? You know, I mean, deluded, going to hell, hmm, okay. Say, do you worship besides Allah that which holds for you no power of harm or benefit while it is Allah who is the hearing and knowing?

Say, O people of the scripture, again, that's us, do not exceed limits in your religion, do not commit excess beyond the truth, and do not follow the inclinations of a people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way.

The opening prayer of the Quran is repeated so often because it's a part of the regular prayers that my Arabic tutor could quote it, even though he's always raised as a Christian. And at the end of Surah Al-Fatiha, it says, it's a prayer to God to be led in the path of those who've earned your grace, not those who have earned your anger or those who have gone astray.

And when Muhammad was asked in the Hadith, who has earned Allah's anger and who has gone astray? His consistent answer was, those who've earned God's anger are the Jews, those who've earned, who have gone astray from God are the Christians.

So every Muslim every day, multiple times prays, don't let me be a Jew or a Christian. Sort of another barrier of things. Notice here, inclinations of people who had gone astray before and misled many and have strayed from the soundness of the way, that's describing us.

We have committed excess by exalting Jesus. And that is clearly the perspective of the Quran. Now, notice what the Quran says in a number of different places, then we're gonna tie this together and I'm gonna have to speed up even more.

Had Allah wished to take himself a son, he could have chosen whom he pleased out of those whom he created, but glory be to him, he is above such things, he is Allah, the one, the irresistible. Had Allah wished to take to himself a son, what's the relationship here in the mind of the author of the Quran?

Well, Surah 6, 101 says, to him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth. How can he have a son when he hath no consort? I asked my Arabic tutor, consort, we looked at the term. He says, well, in modern Arabic, that's sort of the woman on the side.

But obviously the idea is of some type of a mate, a wife. So we go back to Surah 5 and notice what it says in Surah 5, 116. And beware of the day, this is the day of judgment, when Allah will say, oh, Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to the people, take me and my mother as deities besides Allah.

He will say, exalted are you, it was not for me to say that to which I have no right. If I had said it, you would have known it. You know what is within myself and I do not know what is within yourself.

Indeed, it is you who is the knower of the unseen. This is the only place in the Quran where the three are identified. Did you say to the people, take me, so did you say to people, take me, there's one, and my mother, two, as deities besides Allah, three.

There's your three. Allah marries Mary and they have a kid named Jesus. Now that ain't the Trinity. And God knew that in the seventh century. But Muhammad, how would he know? I mean, he's raised in Mecca.

There's almost no Christian representation there at all. And he's part of the Quraysh tribe. And they're in charge of the Kaaba. He may have gone, he went on caravan up into Syria. He may have looked into a small Christian church in a village in Syria.

What would he have seen around the year 600, 590 in a small church in Syria? He would have seen statuary, maybe of God as creator. Would have seen crucifixes, Jesus on a cross. He might have seen a dove, but would that have struck him as a sign of deity?

No. But what else would he have seen? He would have seen a woman. A woman with a baby in her arms. So you've got God the creator, you've got a woman with a baby, and then you got Jesus on the cross. Must be what the trinity is.

Ends up in the Quran. Now, when Jesus is forced to say, if I had said it, you would have known it. You know what is within myself, and I do not know what is within yourself. That's offensive to me. It's offensive to me.

That's not what my Jesus said. And I wish at some point in his life, someone had explained to Muhammad, at least earlier in his life, what Jesus did say in Matthew 11, 27. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

Now, that goes back to the first century, not to the sixth century, like Muhammad's views do. We need to keep that in mind. Now, very quickly, the three barriers you have to get over in talking to Muslims, we've already seen the first one is shirk.

The second one, we're not gonna have time to really get into, but I do spend a lot of time discussing in the book, which we have none of them for you to purchase, is you can get them from Alpha and Omega.

Amazon isn't even shipping yet. We actually have them, so Amazon isn't shipping yet. The second one is the fact they believe that our scriptures are corrupted. And the third is this denial of the crucifixion.

The Crucifixion Denied in Surah 4:157

Surah 4, 157. Surah 4, 157. And for they're saying, indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah. They did not kill him, nor they crucify him, but it was made to appear to them.

And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption, and they did not kill him for certain. The next ayah says, rather, Allah raised him up, Rafa' who?

To himself, and ever is Allah exalted in might and wise. So there is the one ayah in all of the Quran that denies the crucifixion. If that wasn't in the Quran, there are other references, Surah 3 to 5, Surah 19, 33, that would naturally refer to the death of Jesus.

But because of these 40 Arabic words, anyone seen the video that we co-produced with Ivy? Ivy, it's a spoken word video called 40 Arabic words. We actually, it's not rap, but it's called spoken word, which is sort of similar to, but a little bit different from.

We actually produced this, I co-wrote the words called 40 Arabic words, where we talk about this section and compare it with Galatians chapter two. And maybe we can play that later on or something, and you'll find it rather interesting.

We've actually done a few music videos like that. Anyway, for the vast majority of Muslims in the world, outside of westernized Muslims, this is what they believe this text is saying. They did not kill him.

This is talking about the Jews, by the way. They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear to them, shabihallahum. They understand that to mean that someone else was made to look like Jesus, and someone else then was put on the cross.

Now, who would be the most logical culprit? Judas. So most Muslims in the world think that Judas was the one who was put on the cross, that Jesus was taken up by Allah to heaven, and Judas was crucified, which was a proper punishment for his betrayal of Jesus.

And I had a Muslim send me a big, long article once, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt with bold, underlined words in blue and red, which proves things, by the way. If you ever really wanna prove things, you bold words and underline them and put them in blue and red, and that just means you've got the truth.

There's just no question about it. At least on the internet, that's how it works. But prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Simon the Cyrene was the one who was crucified, but Jesus was not. I had a friend who went on a missions trip to Uganda, and had people coming out of huts in the jungles of Uganda going, I just understand why you Christians believe that Allah would allow one of his greatest messengers and most beloved prophets to die in such an ignoble way.

That's why you have to emphasize, have to emphasize the voluntary nature of the sacrifice of Christ when talking to Muslims. You just have to do it, just have to do it. Now, I know, as I said, this is primarily amongst non-Westernized Muslims.

Here in the United States, if Muslims have been here for a little while, frequently they'll go, allahu alim. Allahu alim in Arabic means God knows. The majority believe it was called substitution theory that someone was substituted for Jesus.

But here in the United States and in Western countries, they're not so quick to assert that. Why? Well, think about it for just a second. If Allah substituted somebody for Jesus, then in reality, Allah started Christianity by mistake.

I mean, he did such a good job that even Jesus' followers went out and started proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and started Christianity. So Christianity then results in all this shirk.

And so Allah did such a great job that he started Christianity by mistake. And so they'll go, allahu alim, God knows. Rather than actually asserting the concept of substitution. Now, Yusuf Ali in his commentary on the Quran says, the Orthodox Christian churches make it a cardinal point of their doctrine that his life was taken on the cross, that he died and was buried.

On the third day, he rose into body with his wounds intact and walked about and conversed and ate with his disciples and was afterwards taken up bodily to heaven. This is necessary for the theological doctrine of blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement for sins, which is rejected by Islam.

You need to understand that the Muslims reject the concept of the necessity of sacrifice and forgiveness of sins. Allah can simply say, it's forgiven, that's it. There is no need for vicarious atonement.

The Quranic teaching is that Christ was not crucified nor killed by the Jews. I love this phraseology. Notwithstanding certain apparent circumstances which produced that illusion in the minds of some of his enemies.

Yeah, and all of his friends too. I just recently debated last September in London, a Muslim on the subject of Surah 4 and the crucifixion of Jesus. It's available on YouTube if you want to take a look at that.

A Hadith About Women, Repentance, and the Arbitrariness of Salvation

Now, let me narrate to you one Hadith and then we'll close. First of all, just for the ladies in the room, I wanted to show you this Hadith. I was shown the hellfire and that the majority of its dwellers are women.