June 5, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Dr. David Wood on “Is Authentic Qur’anic Islam a Religion of Peace?”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Introducing David Wood and the Question of Authentic Qur’anic Islam

This is Chris Arnzen on the radio. This is Chris Arnzen on the radio. This is Chris Arnzen on the radio. I promise everybody I will not do that every day. I just had to do it because my dear friend David Wood is on today on Iron Sharpens Iron, and we are going to be seeking to address the question, is the Islamic religion, is authentic Quranic Islam a peaceful religion?

And our guest, as I said, is David Wood, who hosts Jesus or Muhammad on the Trinity Channel, which is not to be confused with the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which has quite a lot of heretical content on it.

This is the Trinity Channel, a completely different station. And David is also the operator of answeringmuslims .com. He's a member of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

He's a former atheist who came to Christ while investigating the biblical claims of the resurrection, and David Wood has contributed to such books as 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science, Defending the Resurrection, and True Reason, Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism.

David Wood has participated in over 40 public moderated debates with Muslims and atheists, and it's my honor and privilege to have you back again and for the first time on the all-new Iron Sharpens Iron, David Wood.

Hey, how's it going, Chris? It's going great. It's going much better now that you're on the air with us, and the reason why I said to David that I welcome him back is that back between 2006 and 2011, David Wood was probably my most frequently interviewed guest out of all the guests that I interviewed on Iron Sharpens Iron, and perhaps with Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries running up not far behind that, and Christian recording artist and apologist Steve Camp probably lagging not far behind Phil.

But it's always great to have you on the program, David. First of all, tell our listeners something about the Trinity Channel, where you host Jesus or Muhammad, and tell our listeners where they can view the Trinity Channel.

TrinityChannel .com. And tell us specifically about your program and what you discuss. I mean,.

Obviously, you're comparing the claims of Jesus and Muhammad on the show, but anything more in.

Detail you can tell us? Yeah, well, it's really all kinds of issues and eclipses like that. They stopped calling it, but... And you're going to be participating in a conference,.

If God, Why Evil? On Long Island, New York. Is that correct? Uh, yeah. That's next weekend. Next weekend. Do you have any more details on that? Um, I can't... I could tell our listeners to go to NewYorkApologetics .com.

That's a website that has all the details. And click on Upcoming Events. And David Wood is just one of the speakers. Uh, Philip Murray and Marie Wood, David's wife, is speaking, and some other folks. So you should go to NewYorkApologetics .com.

If God, Why Evil? The great question that has sparked debate over the many ages since the dawn of history. Any specific subject that you plan on addressing.

During this? I'm specifically addressing... And that website, once again, is NewYorkApologetics .com.

That's NewYorkApologetics .com. And look for Upcoming Events on that website. And David, we are, as I said at the outset, we are discussing the question, Is Islam a religion of peace? Is authentic, Quranic Islam a religion of peace?

And if anybody listening would like to email us with a question for David, the email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And this is a question that you have seen most of you, if not all of you, discussed and bantered about and debated in the media, especially ever since 9 -11.

And there are people who are advocates on both sides, both on the side that Islam is a true religion of peace, and that those who are violent and involved in terrorist activities are merely extremists who have hijacked the religion and they are practicing a false caricature or imitation of Islam.

And then, of course, you have those who insist that many of the terrorist activities that are taking place are really being perpetrated by authentic Muslims who are actually following their sacred writings, the Quran and the Hadith and the history of their own prophet.

Now, if you could elaborate on that, David, is Islam, authentic Quranic Islam, a religion of peace?

The only way to have four Muslims to follow, Muhammad settled almost every day, but when they're one or two percent, they're not in a defensive jihad. That's jihad. You fight, but it's only defensively.

It's when someone has attacked the Muslims, Muhammad, or made a mistake. Then you can fight, but even that's not the end. So my method, when CNN wants to figure out what Islam teaches, they go get a Muslim.

They go get a Muslim down the street, something like that, and say, hey, come on here, tell us what Islam teaches. And so then you get that person's view of what Islam teaches. And it's the same thing with Islam.

You can ask Muslims what Islam teaches, and very often when I hear Muslims telling people what Islam teaches, it's completely false, not according to me, according to their prophet. How you interpret one, which is actually orthodox Islamic theology, is you go to the Muslim sources and whatever Allah says or whatever Muhammad says, that's what Islam is.

And whatever Allah and Muhammad didn't say, that's not what Islam is. Whereas over here, it's kind of, you know, whatever Muslims like and whatever, the reason that's a problem, what you get is not actually Islam being presented, but Islam is...

Now, of course, it's not just the ignorant pundits on television and commentators that are saying that Islam is a religion of peace. And of course, nearly every single politician, both Republican and Democrat, with some exception, have claimed that true Islam is a religion of peace.

And what we see on the news daily in regard to violence and terrorism is specifically and exclusively the hijacking of the religion by extremists. But both you and our mutual friend, Dr. James R. White, have debated conservative Muslims who are very devout in their religion and have studied the Quran and the Hadith in depth.

And they would also argue with you that Islam is a religion of peace, contrary to your claim. Why is that?

Dr. White. You can have a sort of spectrum of views, and you might get a Muslim who actually knows what Islam teaches and is willing to say it. But you can have Muslims who are telling you that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.

The problem is they could be telling you that for two very different reasons. Lots of Muslims, even lots of Muslim debaters, have been westernized Islam through western glasses. They go to the Quran, they pick out or cancel by later revelations commanding Muslims to fight.

But they'll go to peaceful verses of the Quran and then use those verses and say, this is what Islam teaches. And any other verse of the Quran which commands Muslims to fight on believers or slaughter people, well, it couldn't mean that because of all these peaceful verses.

So you have Muslims who actually believe that Islam is peaceful and tolerant, but it's because they're just reinterpreting the religion. The other problem is, if a Muslim is in the West, even if he knows what Islam teaches, he's supposed to proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.

This is the doctrine of taqiyya, unless it's the good Islam called to oppress and subjugate Jews and Christians and other non-believers. But if they're not in a position to do that, if they're actually in the minority, if they need to guard themselves against the unbelievers, then they're allowed to pretend to be friendly.

And the comments of Muhammad's companions on this verse are very interesting. This is where we get, we smile in their faces while cursing them in our hearts, right? You smile in the face of the unbeliever while you're cursing the unbeliever inwardly.

You're pretending to be friendly while longing for the day when you can subjugate him. When a Muslim says Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, unless you know that Muslim or not, he might be telling you the truth and he might actually believe that Islam is peaceful and tolerant, but he might know exactly what Islam teaches and be smiling in your face while cursing you in his heart.

And I understand that the reason why people who will defend Islam, not only Muslims, but perhaps even liberals who are calling for a tolerance of all religions, it seems that they call for a tolerance of all religions except Christianity typically, but they will cite passages from the Quran that appear very peaceful and loving and gentle and compassionate.

Now, I've heard that a lot of this has to do with the fact that Muhammad started out the religion, as most religions start out, as a tiny minority and it was a persecuted minority and therefore he did want tolerance and peace because they were outnumbered and being persecuted.

But then when they grew in number and strength and military might, that all radically changed. Is that accurate to say that. That's why there are Quranic passages that seem to contradict each.

Abrogation, Jihad, and the Shift from Meccan Peace to Medinan Warfare

Other on the issue of violence? You find the same pattern when they go to the Quran and that is that later on the rule, the status of Muslims in a society. So based on the number and strength of the Muslim community, that affects what you do.

And there's just, from the perspective of sources, there's no disputing this whatsoever. It's when Muhammad was a persecuted prophet, when he had about 100 followers and was totally outnumbered, that's when the peaceful verses of the Quran, to you be your religion and to me be my religion, things like that, that's when the peaceful verses of the Quran were in play.

But here's what we know, even though Muhammad was telling people to you be your religion and to me be my religion, we know from Muslim sources, this is not me making this up, we know from Muslim sources that behind closed doors, he was telling people to join him so that he could go subjugate the world.

So when he's talking to pagans of his own tribe, he tells them, hey, just join me and we can rule over, we can rule over other people. So what even Muhammad in his peaceful phase is trying to build up an army so that he can ultimately subjugate unbelievers.

And what this means is, it's just outright deception, that to you be your religion and to me be my religion, but behind closed doors, hey, let's form an army so that we can go out and subjugate the unbelievers.

It's flat-out deception. So yes, and then of course later when Muhammad forms a majority, then we get the revelations, not chapter 929, for instance, fight those who do not believe in Allah. Notice it's not fight people in self-defense, it's not fight people who are attacking you, it's fight people who do not believe.

And so the command eventually becomes, we fight people based on their beliefs, even though when Muhammad's in the minority, it's to you be your religion and to me be my religion.

I'm going to repeat the email address if you have questions for David Wood, it's chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. This is a live broadcast, so these questions will only be answered by David Wood during this program today.

And I ask that you please give the city and state that you're emailing from, or the country, if outside the US, and also at least your first name. Unless you request to be anonymous, you can say specifically, I request to be anonymous.

Islam, Sharia, and the Spectrum of Muslim Responses to Terrorism

Do you think that the Muslims that you know, even the ones that are more towards the Quranically faithful group that are not whitewashing anything, do you think that most of those men, especially the ones that you've been involved with in debate in the academic realm and so on, would they be supportive of things like 9 -11, the terrorist attack on our soil against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon building, and the horrific atrocities that we see being carried out by ISIS and so on?

Have kind of a, here again, you have kind of a spectrum. You have Muslims who will support open, you know, 9 -11 style terrorist attacks. But just because, you know, a Muslim rejects 9 -11 style terrorist attacks does not mean these people, you have degrees.

So, you know, even Muslims who, you know, these kinds of terrorist attacks, many of them will still support Sharia and blasphemy laws and things like that. You kind of have to go on a Muslim by Muslim basis.

So, for instance, in Egypt, many Egyptians would not support 9 -11 style terrorist attacks, but it's somewhere around like 90 killing apostates and things. So, it's, you have sort of degrees of extremism.

You have Al Qaeda and so on. But even those, even, you know, those kinds of views doesn't mean they're, you know, peaceful and tolerant. And if you could define Sharia, please. Sharia is Islamic law, but it's Allah and Muhammad.

So, the things you're supposed to do and things you're not supposed to do, you lump all that together. Sharia means sort of a path to a watering hole in Arabic. And so, it's, and so, but, you know, unlike, you know, if you look at Jewish law in the old, if you look at the law of the Torah, that's for, that's for the land of Israel.

That's for, that's for, that's for the Jews. The Jews weren't told, oh, and, you know, by the way, go out and subjugate the entire world to this legal system. It's, if you're staying on this land, you're under this covenant, therefore, you have to follow these laws.

You know, the harshest penalty, you know, Christians could impose in the New Testament is, hey, if you don't want to act like a Christian, there's the door of the church. Go ahead, go, go out. And so, it's not, if you don't want to follow the teachings of Christianity, there's the door of the church right there.

In Islam, it's not. There are laws for believers. There's laws for unbelievers, and basically, everyone has to be following the law. Everyone has to be following Sharia, whether they like it or not, whether they're Muslim or not, in the whole world, and that's the goal.

Now, the reason you have some Muslims who support terrorism and others who don't could be all kinds of reasons, but I've talked to Muslims, I've talked to Muslims who don't support the open terrorist attacks, not because they're against violence, but because they don't believe that's going to be successful in getting Sharia, right?

They believe it's actually going to incite other nations against Islam, and other nations are eventually going to crush the terrorists. And so, you can't do that. You can't do that in a situation where Muslims are not more powerful militarily than non-Muslims.

I've had Muslim friends who just sit down and tell me, of course I want Sharia, but these guys, these terrorists... Matter of fact, I had a friend who worked with Homeland Security, he worked with Homeland Security trying to find and locate Muslim terrorists.

When I talked to him, I was like, hey, given what the Muslim sources say, how can you justify trying to expose these other guys and get them caught and get them arrested? His response was, because these other Muslims are going to incite people against Islam, and they're going to prevent the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

So here's a guy working for Homeland Security, and his goal is a caliphate, a Muslim government, a sort of one-world Muslim government, which unites all Muslims under its banner. And that's what he wants, but even though he wants that, he doesn't believe terrorism is the way of achieving that, and so you've got to weed out the terrorists to get that obstacle out the way so that other Muslims can have time to sort of regroup and establish a Muslim government.

And so, yeah, that stuff. And of course, most of us.

That live at least in near urban areas, or we visit urban areas, or work in urban areas, we have come to know Muslims that are wonderful, gracious, kind, hospitable folks. And some of them, perhaps many of them even, are religious and attend services at their mosques and so on.

Would you say that these many, which from what I'm understanding from everything I hear about missionaries and people involved in the apologetics realm, that would be the vast majority of Muslims globally, is that they are not really following these violent tenets of the Quran and the Hadith?

Would you say that they're nominal Muslims? Are they just cultural Muslims? What explains this phenomenon that you have so many, perhaps even the majority of millions of Muslims.

Being wonderful, peaceful individuals? Talking about Muslims who go to the mosque every week, they do their prayers, you'll find they're not following full-fledged Islam, where you're actually obeying Muhammad's commands.

But part of the reason for that is, notice, they're doing exactly what they're doing, what they're supposed to do. Muslims in the West who are promoting peace and tolerance and saying Islam's a religion of peace and we just want to all get along, they're doing exactly what Islam commands.

Now, they're doing it for different reasons, they might actually believe that, whereas according to Islam, when you're in the minority, you're just supposed to pretend to be peaceful until you can, you know, get in a position where you can actually subjugate the unbelievers.

But I think what you have is the leaders, many of the leaders who know what Muhammad said, who know what Islam commands, who know that Islam calls for the violent subjugation of unbelievers, they still preach peace and tolerance in the mosque, even though they know it's not, and they want Western Muslims to be preaching peace and tolerance because that's what's in the best interest of the community.

So even many Muslim leaders who know that they ultimately want Sharia, they ultimately want the they want the people who are under them, the people who don't know what the Muslims, your nominal Muslims or your Muslims who are somewhat practicing but not really, haven't really studied the sources, they want these Muslims saying that Islam is peaceful and tolerant because that's what they're supposed to do, that's their role in a Western society is to preach Islam and to keep people believing that Islam is peaceful in order to lull them to sleep, you know, until the Muslim community is strong enough to actually to actually fight.

And so I think that's what you have.

Quran, Hadith, and Muhammad's Commands in Islamic Law

If you could just very as briefly as you can explain the difference between the major sources of Islamic teaching, the Quran and the Hadith.

People think, oh, you know, the Quran is supposed to be, it's not Muhammad's teachings, it's not claims that Muhammad invented, it was just revealed to Muhammad to give to his followers. So Muhammad, as far as the Quran is concerned, is just a mailman.

He received the revelation, he then passed it on, so he's like a mail carrier to the Quran. But the Quran also, in the Quran, in Allah's words, it tells Muslims, chapter 4, verse 65, that they have to obey all of Muhammad's decisions.

So the Quran is not Muhammad's decisions, these are, this is Allah's word. But the Quran commands Muslims to obey Muhammad's decisions, and in chapter 33, verse 21, to follow Muhammad's example. So notice what you have, you have Allah's words, that's, you know, that's something that Muslims have to believe in.

But Allah's word also tells Muslims that they have to obey Muhammad's decisions, and they have to follow Muhammad's example. Well, Muhammad's teachings and example aren't in the Quran, those are in a different source, and the main source Muslims would go to for Muhammad's example and teachings would be the hadith.

So basically, Muhammad died, his followers started passing on stories of everything they could remember about him, down to details about how he would go to the bathroom. Because if he's the pattern of conduct, then, you know, the better Muslim you are, the more you're going to be like him.

So if Muhammad stepped into the bathroom with his left foot first, then you as a Muslim want to do that as well. So the hadith were eventually written down, and you have massive collections of multi-volume stories.

They're not arranged like biographies, they're arranged like topically, so you'll have a section of a book of hadith that's, you know, marriage, and it'll be everything Muhammad said about marriage. You'll have another thing, you know, section on jihad, it'll have everything he said about jihad.

You have, those are the two basic sources that Muslims would go to. You go to the Quran, that's the word of Allah, and you go to the hadith for the teachings and pattern of conduct of Muhammad.

All right, we have to go to a break right now, and as I said, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for David Wood, the email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please include your first name at least, the city and state you're from, and the country if you're outside the U .S., and let us know if you want to remain anonymous as well. We'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

Transcribed by https://otter .ai.

Transcribed by https://otter .ai. Transcribed by https://otter .ai.

Transcribed by https://otter .ai.

Transcribed by https://otter .ai.

Listener Questions on Violence, Scripture, and Alleged Cherry-Picking

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, if you've just tuned us in to Iron Sharpens Iron. Our guest today is David Wood, who is an apologist that specializes in uh participating in debate with Muslims and Atheists.

David is actually a former Atheist himself, who came to Christ as a result of investigating the Biblical claims of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com if you have a question.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We already do have some questions from our listeners. The first one is from all the way in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Yusuf believes that you, David, have an atomistic interpretation of Scripture and engage in cherry-picking Scripture.

And the fact that you believe that God, Yahweh, Jesus, at some point in history, prescribed sanguinary warfare, mayhem, and mass murder, such as the Amalekite Massacre in 1 Samuel 15, 3. Rape, which is being prescribed in Numbers 31, 17.

And we have Deuteronomy, that a rapist should live with his victim for eternity. If you could comment on this listener's comments. It's really not a question there. But I can't really tell if this is a conservative or liberal Muslim.

I'm not really sure. But if you could comment on that.

Two claims there. One is that I'm, and these are really things like that, is I'm not cherry-picking. I'm not going to the Quran and saying, you know, let me pick out which verse I want to, you know, accuse Islam of being violent or something like that.

I'm saying, according to the methodology laid down by Muhammad and his followers, what are the final marching orders of Islam? And the final marching orders of Islam would be the commands that are the ones that abrogate other commands, but are not themselves abrogated by later commands.

And so here you would go to chapters like chapter 9 of the Quran, which is the last of the major chapters of the Quran to be revealed. There's only one chapter that came after that, and it was only a couple verses long, chapter 110.

But chapter 9, it's the last major chapter of the Quran to be revealed. That's where you get fight those who do not believe in Allah, fight the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness, strive against the unbelievers.

This is where you get these commands to subjugate, and these are the places where Muhammad actually had an army around him. He was actually able to fight. Now, you can go there, or if you want to go into the Hadith, Muhammad repeatedly says, I've been commanded to fight people until they say la ilaha illallah.

There's no god but Allah. So what do you have? You have Allah saying, fight those who do not believe in Allah. You have Muhammad saying, I've been commanded to fight people until they say there's no god but Allah.

The Quran claims over and over again to be clear in its commands, to be perfectly clear. If Allah didn't mean fight people who do not believe in Allah,.

What did he mean?

And if he meant something else, why in the world did he say that? So when I say, here's what Islam teaches, this is exactly what Ibn Kathir said Islam teaches. That's considered the greatest Muslim commentator of all time.

So when I say this is what Islam teaches, I'm telling you what Allah says, what Muhammad says, what Islam's greatest commentators say it teaches, what the Quran says, what the Hadiths say. I'm telling you exactly what the final marching orders of Islam are.

So if you think Islam teaches something else, all you have to do is say, no, 929, that doesn't apply, David, because this other chapter came later and said, don't do that anymore. That's all you have to do.

But you can't do that as a Muslim because I'm right here. I'm right. And any Muslim who really knows the sources will have to acknowledge that. So as far as cherry picking and things like that, I'm not.

It's actually when Western Muslims quote a peaceful verse of the Quran to say this is what Islam teaches. They're the ones that are cherry picking, because according to their own prophet, according to their own god, according to their own prophet's companions, and according to the greatest Muslim scholars in history, those peaceful verses are abrogated or cancelled by later revelations, and they could only apply in situations where Muslims are just completely outnumbered.

That's not what Islam teaches. It's what Islam commands you to do in certain situations in order to deceive unbelievers. So I'm not the one cherry picking. It's people like Yusuf there who are cherry picking.

The other charge is inconsistency, that there's violence in the Old Testament. Now, notice right here, right here, right off the bat, there's a huge problem for him for claiming this, because if you're pointing to the Old Testament, if you're saying, ah, look at numbers, look at this, look at that, look at the wars, if you're complaining about the Old Testament, guess what?

Islam affirms that the Old Testament, that the Torah, that the scriptures of the Jews are the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God. Chapter 5, verse 43 of the Quran, some Jews come to Muhammad to, because he's the leader now, some Jews come to Muhammad to pass judgment, and Allah commands Muhammad, chapter 5, verse 43, he says, why do they come to you when they have the Torah?

Think about this. He's saying, these Jews don't need you, they have the Torah. Well, guess what? What's that doing? It's saying Jews need to judge by the Torah. According to chapter 3, verses 3 to 4 of the Quran, Allah inspired the Torah.

Right there in chapter 5, verse 43, he says that the Jews still have it. And what's interesting is that Muhammad himself, Muhammad himself was subject to the Torah, to the teachings of the Torah. Chapter 10, verse 94, Allah tells Muhammad, if you are in doubt as to what we have revealed to you, ask the people who read the book before you, talking about Jews and Christians.

So Muhammad, he is supposed to subject his revelations to the authority of the Christian and Jewish scriptures. So this Muslim, by attacking and criticizing the teachings of the Bible, actually just condemned his own prophet.

Now, apart from that, we would have to say a lot of what he just said is nonsense, that these chapters aren't advocating rape. You had, after battle, there would be women whose families are dead, but notice in the Muslim sources, you take those women, you sell them at the next town, right?

There's no mercy here. It's these are the women who survived. Their husbands are dead. You rape them, and then you sell them at the next town. We even have Muslim sources saying these men would practice what they called Azl.

It's also called coitus interruptus, where you don't finish the sex act so that you get the woman pregnant. And the reason they don't want to finish was because they didn't want to get them pregnant because they wanted to sell them in the next town.

You're not going to sell a pregnant woman for very much. So in the Muslim sources, you had a sad reality of war, that there are women who their husbands have been killed. But in Islam, you could take these women, rape them, sell them in the next town.

And even according to chapter four, verse 24 of the Quran, even if they're married, so even if their husbands aren't dead, you capture the husbands and their wives, you can still rape their wives and sell them in the next town, even though they're still alive.

What you have in the Torah, what you have in the Torah is a much more humane practice in that there's a battle, a group gets wiped out, there are still women who have survived. If you wanted to take one of those women, you had to marry her, right?

She was given the status of a free woman now because she's marrying you. You had to give her a full month to mourn for the loss of her husband who died in battle or her father, whoever died in battle.

You had to give them a month to mourn. Then they become full wives. And what else would they do? These women would have just starved to death on the desert. So this is actually a mercy to them. And if things don't work out with the marriage, you set them free as free women.

You don't go and sell them in the next town. So even this guy saying, here's what the Bible teaches, for someone who's trying to accuse me of distorting scripture, this guy's doing a phenomenal job of it.

If you actually read what the passages say, yes, there are bad things that happened in war. And back in those days, it's much worse than it is today where you have organizations that can often help after battles and so on.

Back then, yes, it's a sad reality. There's a war. Women, children, they can't fend for themselves, are going to die. But you can see a much more humane practice of now take them in as your own family versus rape them and sell them at the next town to buy more weapons so that you can go out and do the same thing.

So I'd have to reject both those claims against me.

Well, of course you would. And we have another listener, Dorothy in Boulder, Colorado wants to know if Muslims believe they will ever have peace in this life on earth while they are still alive.

Well, you can have individual, you have plenty who do. I'm assuming she's asking, you know, Islamic theology, is there going to be peace? And I think there's, I haven't been able to make sense of what the Muslim sources teach because Muhammad, there are passages where Muhammad says that he's been shown the entire world in a vision from Allah and that he saw Islam ruled over the entire world.

So Sharia was enforced all over the entire world. And so Muhammad believed that the time was coming, that Islam was going to dominate the entire world. But he also says things like, you know, as history progresses, that more and more people are going to leave Islam and that people are going to be fleeing from Islam, like, you know, as fast as an arrow shoots out of a bow.

And so it's kind of inconsistent there, but if we just, passages where Muhammad says that Sharia is going to rule over everything, I guess you could say that. Now, after Jesus returns, you could say that he's going to kill all the Jews, going to kill all the Christians.

That's the Jesus of Islam. Muslims believe in a second coming of Christ, but he's going to come back. He's going to destroy Jews and Christians and only, you know, only Muslims are going to be left. Now the problem, now the problem with all of that, with any scenario of ever achieving peace in this world is that given the pattern that you find laid down in the life of Muhammad, it's you solve problems, you solve any difficulties that come along through violence.

Muhammad said that the best generation of Muslims would be the first generation. So according to Muhammad, the best generation, he's asked, what's the best generation of Muslims? Is it going to be like the first generation?

Is it going to be the last generation? What? He says the first generation of Muslims is the best. And what's amazing is the first generation of Muslims almost annihilated itself with violence after he died for all these battles over leadership.

And eventually you had Aisha, it's Muhammad's child bride, who eventually led an army against Ali and his supporters. And about 10 ,000 Muslims died in battle. And so you have Muslims who were on, who were some of Muhammad's closest companions and they're out there killing and slaughtering each other over a leadership dispute of how Ali handled the, dealt with the people who had killed the last Muslim leader.

And so you had the best generation of Muslims is a generation that almost annihilated itself through fighting. And this is the pattern of... By the way, if people want to know, hey, why are Muslims in Iraq blowing up each other's mosques and so on?

Because that's what the best generation of Muslims did. If you say, no, that's bad, that's evil, you're condemning the best generation of Muslims. So if you're a Muslim and you want to know what you're supposed to do, that would have Muhammad's approval, you'd have to say, well, we need to live like that first generation.

Well, that means if you're a Sunni, you go and kill Shias. If you're a Shia, you go and kill Sunnis. And so as far as realistically, is there ever any sort of path to peace apart from some sort of divine intervention?

It looks like it's going to be endless bloodshed until one small group manages to take over the entire world. And if that were to happen, I think that one small group would then find something to fight over.

We have to take our final break. It's just one commercial. We'll be right back after these messages. So don't go away. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you've just tuned us in, this is the Iron Sharpens Iron broadcast.

And our guest is David Wood, who is a Christian apologist. And he has a special focus in his ministry on Islam. And he has debated over 40 Muslim clerics and scholars and atheists. And we are discussing the theme, Is Islam Genuine, Authentic, Quranic Islam a Religion of Peace?