Islam and the Jews: a Review, then, 40th Celebration Recap

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Tuesday, and the world's different than it was when the weekend started. And I don't know exactly how that's all going to play out right now. Obviously, many people are paying rather close attention to...

Well, that's just it. To what? What sources of information can almost anyone trust anymore? I mean, I've watched some of the worst videos that have been coming out of Israel. And of course, you see the drone footage of what looks like Berlin in 1945, already in Gaza, as Israel strikes back with air power.

We're sending two carrier groups now to be offshore. And of course, I just point out, we are a bankrupt nation. We are so many trillions of dollars in debt that it'll never get paid off. And isn't it fascinating?

I mentioned to some folks, isn't it? War is starting in the Middle East. But we're ready because we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been drained to the lowest level it's ever been at since it was set up by the current regime.

Only 17 days worth of supply. Out of all the rest of you, there are so many people that seem to think they have this all figured out. I don't think anybody has this figured out. None of it adds up. I'll be honest, a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing looks staged to me.

It really does. There's just a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit. And it doesn't make any sense. And people are saying they were warned, and then they're saying we had no idea. And I don't know. I don't know.

This happens right after the current regime that has taken over the United States. Stolen elections have consequences. Gives Iran $6 billion. Violates what we've done all along. Oh, and look, they're taking hostages.

Why would they be encouraged to do that? Who knows? I don't know. I think anyone who is claiming to know what's going on and to have all the answers is probably just very foolish. And I'm not saying that I'll ever have the answers, to be honest with you.

It's happening half a world away. It's terrible whatever it is. I certainly hope those people that were visiting Israel managed to get out. I've heard some stories about people getting out through other countries and stuff like that.

The big takeaway I took from my one visit to Israel in 2018 was how small it is. It's tiny. And you can get in a car on a three-lane highway and cover most of that country in a very short amount of time.

So, you know, they don't have much room to maneuver. And it is, of course, amazing to sit there and see some of these terrorists carrying our weapons that we donated to them when the regime did its tuck, tail, and run thing in Afghanistan.

Why Islam Keeps Reappearing in Times of Crisis

But anyway, all of that said, all of a sudden, people are talking about Islam again. We started talking about Islam seriously in late 2005, early 2006, probably late 2005, when I began preparing for my first debate with Shabir Ali at Biola University.

And we did, for the next five, six years, we did a lot. You go back to, you use the transcript function at aomin .org, and you will find a tremendous amount of information on the subject of Islam and the Quran, biblical responses, just all sorts of stuff.

And we were some of the only people doing that. And that, look, that is not, you know, right now, okay, there would be a brief, and I've seen it right after 9 -11, and then there would be a big, what happened on July 7th in London.

You'll have periods where people are all of a sudden all interested in Islam. And I better learn something about this. But it fades. It's not the kind of thing that really grabs people's attention, and certainly one of the things we've tried to do over the years was to communicate to Christians the fact that the main thing that the Muslim world needs are Christians who love them enough to tell them the truth, and to learn what they believe so as to be able to communicate with them.

Now, of course, that's not to say that every Muslim believes the same thing. We know there's Sunnis, we know there's Shiites, we know there's all sorts of divisions even within those broad categories, and obviously Islam as it exists in majority Muslim contexts is very different than Islam as it exists in the West, where Islam is normally the minority.

Now, obviously in Europe, and in Dearborn, Michigan, those things change once Islam reaches a certain percentage in the population. You come to understand why I've said for a long time, Islam is a religio-political system or a politico-religious system, depending on the number of people it has in a culture.

When it's a small minority, the emphasis is upon the religion. Once it reaches a particular number, so it depends on the country, population, things like that, but once it reaches a certain population level, the emphasis switches from the religion to the political, and that has great impact on many, many things.

The Quran, the Study Quran, and the Problem of Context

So, I started thinking over the past few days about everything we've done on Islam over the years. I mean, you can go online and, for example, down in New Orleans, a number of years ago I did a presentation called Islam A to Z over two nights that I know is still out there.

I think we have it linked on our, if you go to our YouTube page, there's an Islam section because I've done, it's pretty close to even, but actually a few more debates with Muslims than with Roman Catholics.

It's very close. And so there's lots and lots of material there, but then there's these presentations that I've developed over the years that have been recorded at various churches, and we have those available to look at as well.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about the trying, it's difficult to get people to understand. You see some of the videos that were very difficult to watch. These Hamas fighters, these terrorists, desecrating the bodies of soldiers that they had already killed, or one was in his death throes and they're trying to chop his head off.

And you look at them and it's hard not to come to the conclusion they're demonized. I mean, the hatred and the anger, all while screaming, Allahu Akbar, God be praised in the highest. And it's hard to understand the motivations of these things.

And again, part of the primary reason for that is vast majority of Christians in the West have never read the Quran. There is, by the way, for those of you that are wondering right now, come on now, let go of it.

Stuck there for a second. Scrivener back there. I have what's called the study Quran. Hey, I just realized I could dye the pages of my study Quran now. In fact, I've got that very color. What? Jeffrey Rice didn't do this.

I didn't know Jeffrey Rice when I got this. So it has just plain old white pages and I'm going to keep this out. So I remember to grab my stuff and make this look much nicer than it is currently. This is just plain old white paper, so I'm going to make it look nice.

But I had this one bound, a fellow I just completely lost contact with. And anyway, I know it was the same year that I taught at RTS in Charlotte. That's the main thing I remember. Anyway, this is called the study Quran.

It draws from a wide variety of Islamic scholarship, but you can get it. And it's one of the few, it's the only Quran I've ever seen, where in most places the notes, the bottom of the page, are much larger than the text.

In other words, it looks like an ESV study Bible or a Reformation study Bible or something like that. As far as, I mean, there's just notes, notes, notes, notes, notes. And since it does draw from a wide variety, it's not going to be perfectly consistent.

And it's not going to represent the perspective on Islam that would motivate those Hamas terrorists. It's very westernized. But it will give you a lot of historical information if you want to track something like that down.

So I wanted to give you some quotes, some information today on the program to help you understand what's behind all this. Why is there such a detestation of the Jewish people amongst the Jews? Now, we've spent a lot of time before.

I want to remind you, I didn't queue it up. But if you listen to the prayers, if you listen to the call to prayer and then the prayers that are taking place in New York City at Times Square, for example, I didn't download the video, I should have, of the Muslim preacher man there in New York.

It would be good to go through what he had to say and refute all of it. And to challenge him to debate, that would be good. I'd go that far north or something like that. I'd wear a wig and drive a rental car.

Anyway, if you listen to those prayers, you will see, you will hear a certain phrase. It's from Surah Al-Fatiha, the opening surah of the Quran. And let me grab it here real quick. Oh goodness, I thought it had larger font than this.

Well, the actual text is actually readable. It's the notes that are rough. Man, look how many pages there are of notes on Surah Al-Fatiha. That's interesting. And it's not giving me the text, it's just giving me notes.

Come on now. The pages are a little thin, by the way. There it is. So here's, that's big enough to read. Here's the first surah. It's the opening prayer of the Quran. And just a reminder, there are 114 surahs in the Quran.

They are roughly in order of size. With the exception of the first one. Then Surah Tabakah, the cow, is longest. And then they get shorter and shorter. It's not exact. But what that means is, if you try to read the Quran, you will never be able to establish historical context.

Because you're not meant to. And in my book, Whatever Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, there is a table, I think it's around page 45, somewhere around there, that gives our best guess as to the order in which the surahs of the Quran were written.

And that way, if you actually want to read it and get some help, And this study Quran helps that too. Because they want to try to provide a context. When they can, sometimes we just don't know. But that's what makes the Quran difficult to read.

So Surah Tawfatihah, the opening, is very short in comparison to what's going to come afterwards. But it says, That's one weird thing about this study Quran, is it uses King James English. Which, when I first saw it, I'm like, Why?

This was done only a few years ago. Oh well. And if you'll listen to the prayers, you'll hear, especially in certain prayers, right toward the end of the recitation, They'll extend it out. Those are led astray.

That's the last phrase. And we have commentary. And again, we've gone through all this stuff, but it's been years. So if I'm explaining stuff that you already know, forgive me. If I'm explaining stuff that you didn't already know, then that'll help you.

The Hadith, the Ahadith, in Arabic, are the stories and sayings of Muhammad and his companions, collected 250 -300 years after the time of Muhammad. They are categorized as Hassan, Sahih. Sahih means sound.

Hassan means there's a problem in the narration chain. So it's a level of confidence. Even all of that, to be honest with you, is somewhat subjective. Hadith studies, I've spent hours and hours and hours and hours listening to scholars teaching on the science of Hadith.

And it's just obvious to me that you're dealing with a huge body. Sahih al-Bukhari is about seven volumes of Arabic-English. Muslim is like eight. Jami' al-Tirmidhi, you put it all together in the Sunni Hadith, many, many, many volumes.

I've read all of Bukhari, all of Muslim, most of Tirmidhi. And there are others beyond that. And it is not a consistent body of sayings. It isn't. And so the reason you have different groups within Islam is because people will emphasize certain aspects of this material over against others while others go the opposite direction.

And you can do that. I've told the story. I remember in the years when I was listening to all the Hadith while writing outdoors, 2012, 2013, those big, big... I think 2013 is my biggest year. I think 10 ,500 miles, that's a lot of time on the road.

I remember where I was. I remember I was on Happy Valley Road, westbound, coming up on 83rd Avenue. And the sun wasn't up yet. I had left very early that morning. And I was listening to the Hadith. And you had these narrations about who is to be killed in battle.

And I realized listening to them... And many of them are repetitive, by the way. That's one of the reasons I've remembered so many Hadith, is that they would be repeated in different forms over and over and over again.

So they sort of got crammed into your mind. But I remember thinking to myself even then, what was just said in the past few Hadith that I just heard narrated, it's not consistent. It's contradictory to itself.

And so some people are going to emphasize one aspect of that, some people the other. That's why you have these differences. But there is Hadith commentary on Surah Al-Fatihah, this one that I just read to you.

And allegedly when Moses was asked, who are those who incur wrath, and who are those who are led astray, his consistent response was that those who incur Allah's wrath, are the Jews. And those who have been led astray, are the Christians.

Now, Surah Al-Fatihah is included in all the daily prayers, and the prayers are done in Arabic. That's why we don't hear it. But again, every time you hear, you listen now and you hear that, that extension of that one vowel, those who are led astray, that's Christians.

That is a Muslim praying not to be you. That's a Muslim praying not to be you. So you can see why, when you seek to witness to the Muslim, why there are big barriers in the way, of you being able to do that.

Because from their perspective, you have been led astray. For most of them, they believe you are a mushrik, a person who commits the sin of shirk. Shirk is the unforgivable sin in Islam. But you need to understand, that you can't, when we think of an unforgivable sin, we think of a sin that cannot be forgiven in this life.

When the Muslim thinks of an unforgivable sin, they're talking about after this life. Because you can be forgiven of sin after this life. Allah can forgive any sin after this life, except the sin of shirk.

That's what the Quran says. Most Muslims believe that Christians are mushrikun, that we are idolaters, because we elevate a mere creature, Jesus, to the level of deity. The other big barriers, by the way, just in passing, other than calling them the shirk, which you're not, because Jesus has eternally been God.

Almost all Muslims universally now believe the Bible has been corrupted and changed. That was not the belief down through the history of Islam, but ever since a book called Itzhar ul Haqq, The Vindication of the Truth, was published in 1864, became wildly popular.

That has pretty much moved the entire Islamic world to believing that the Bible has been corrupted in its text. And then the other major stumbling block is Surah 4, verse 157, where in the Quran it is said that Jesus Christ was not crucified.

So there's no crucifixion, there's no burial, there's no resurrection, there's no redemption. These are all topics that we have spent an extensive amount of time on down through the years. But all of that to take us back to to help explain the animosity.

When you read the Quran, you are reading material from different periods of Muhammad's life. And when Muhammad is a minority prophet under persecution in Mecca, before he goes to Medina, and the Islamic calendar begins, when he's a minority prophet, there's a whole lot more about religious freedom and things like that than what you get once he becomes the prophet at the head of an army in Medina, and eventually conquering Mecca.

So things change. And initially, he is looking to say to Jews and Christians, hey, we're all in the same group in the sense that Allah gave the Torah to Moses, he gave the Injil, the Gospel to Jesus, he's given the Quran to Muhammad, it's all one God, and you all have just ignored parts of your scriptures, you've twisted things, Christians have gone into excess in honoring a prophet who should be honored to the point of making him a god, and so you see change over time.

One of the really interesting aspects of this is that there is a strange and it's not completely consistent, there is a strange series of hadith, primarily in Sahih Muslim, and again, we're only primarily, I'm not even talking about the Shiites right here, because the Shiites actually have, because of how their movement started, a concept of substitutionary atonement.

They do have that, that's part of their theology, which is very different than Sunni Muslim, which doesn't, but in Sahih Muslim, which is Sunni Hadith, there's a section of sayings that plainly assume some idea where Allah can place someone else's sins upon somebody else.

Which most Muslims would say, no, but it's there. It's very interesting, so read you one here. Abu Musa reported that Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him, said when it will be the day of resurrection, Allah would deliver to every Muslim a Jew or a Christian and say that is your rescue from hellfire.

Abu Burda, next Hadith, Abu Burda reported on the authority of his father that Allah's apostle, may peace be upon him, said no Muslim would die, but Allah would admit in his stead a Jew or a Christian in hellfire.

Umar bin Abd al-Aziz took an oath by one besides whom there is no god but he, thrice, that his father had narrated that to him from Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him. Um, here's another one, Abu Burda reported Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him, is saying, there would come people amongst the Muslims on the day of resurrection with as heavy sins as a mountain, and Allah would forgive them and he would place in their stead the Jews and the Christians.

As far as I think, Abu Rab said, I do not know as to who is in doubt. Abu Burda said, I narrated to Umar bin Abd al-Aziz whereupon he said, was it your father who narrated to you from Allah's apostle, may peace be upon him, and I said yes.

Now, I recall doing a online radio internet type debate with Abdullah Kunda, where this subject came up, and Abdullah rejected these hadith on the basis that they had a single chain of narration. Now again, there are Muslims who would hold to one standard, or Muslims hold to another standard, this is a you can go to Saudi Arabia, you can go to Egypt, you can get master's degrees and doctorates in the study of hadith, and not come to conclusions on any of this stuff.

But, the point is here in a wide swath of older Islamic writing, considered to be sound, sahih by many within Islam, is the idea not only of substitution, but the attitude that that creates toward Jews and Christians.

The assumption is they're already going to hellfire. That's just all there is to it. So the Christian goes, so how can they be given the place of somebody else if they're already guilty? They're already going to hellfire.

That doesn't make any sense at all. That's why there's entire chapters on this in whatever Christian needs to know about the Quran. One of the last books I wrote, actually. I haven't written a book in a long time.

And there's entire chapters on this fully documented. If you really want to dig into these things, that's why we took the time to put all that work into these things. But, here's one other quotation. On the day of resurrection, my Ummah, nation, will be gathered into three groups.

One sort will enter Paradise without rendering an account of their deeds. Another sort will be reckoned an easy account and admitted into Paradise. Yet another sort will come bearing on their backs heaps of sins, like great mountains.

Allah will ask the angels, though he knows best about them, who are these people? They will reply, they are humble slaves of yours. He will say, unload the sins from them and put the same over the Jews and Christians.

Then let the humble slaves get into Paradise by virtue of my mercy. This hadith is sound and mentioned in the Mustradak of Hakeem. So, you have that kind of thinking and the Quran is not consistent because Muhammad went through different stages of his life.

The Quran is not consistent in its view of Jews and Christians. When Muhammad is trying to woo them, it says one thing. Once he has given up on doing that, he has now become the general to have an army, different things.

It is said, for example, that those from the people of the book, which in places in the Quran refers to both Muslims, Jews and Christians, that those who do not believe are the worst of mankind. Well, what do you mean those who do not believe?

Do not believe their own scriptures or do not believe in the claims of Muhammad? Again, the Quran so often has no context, has insufficient context to be able to come to any kind of meaningful conclusion about these things.

But, obviously, Hamas leadership, when you had the Taliban and things like that, these groups will take these individual texts and they do not care about what kind of system of theology and law developed over centuries within Islam.

They are not concerned about that. They want to go back to the original sources and interpret them as they basically see fit. That is why many people basically argue that the moderate Muslims are the Roman Catholics with their body of tradition and the radical Muslims are like the Anabaptists of the Reformation.

Just throw it all out, start from scratch, basically. It is much more complicated than that and there are a lot of disconnects but that is how people argue those types of things. There is a basis there for animosity toward Jews and Christians and of course over the years that has just grown and grown and grown especially over the past 150 years and especially since the founding of Israel in 1948.

That animosity now, you look at what the PLL used to produce and Hamas has took them all out, just took their place there in Gaza. Their favorite Hadith is one that when you look at Hadith, there are what are called Mutawatir Hadith.

Mutawatir Hadith are universally accepted. In other words, they're generally Hadith that are found in all the major they're repeated in all the major collections. They'll be in Bukhari, they'll be in Muslim, they'll be in Jamiah Termini.

That's not to say that there are not I remember reading a book a number of years ago now there are Western Muslim scholars who the books that I read was basically making the point unless we can break with these Hadith and question the validity of this stuff that was gathered 250 -300 years after Muhammad we will never be able to see Islam make progress.

So obviously these are only people who live in the West. They wouldn't last long in Afghanistan, Pakistan Egypt, Saudi Arabia they live in London, places like that or the United States for that matter.

Because they recognize that there are things that are said even in these universally accepted Hadith that just force Islam into a constantly regressive perspective. One of those I remember specifically being addressed in that book I'd have to look up the title, I don't remember the title of the book it's in my Kindle collection, I could track it down but one of the Hadith was the Mutawatir universally accepted Hadith that Muhammad said that there are those who do the works of the people of Heaven, Jannah their entire lives until what is written of them overtakes them and they go into the Hellfire so there are people who do good works their entire lives but that doesn't matter it's what is written of them it is the decree Qadr that is that will determine it because from an Islamic perspective, whether you're going to Heaven or Hell it's determined for you 40 days after you're conceived that's just, that's all there is to it nothing you can do about it, it's fatalistic so you do good works your entire life until what is written for you overcomes you go to Hellfire and then it says there are those who do the deeds of Hellfire their entire life until what's written for them overcomes them and they go to Paradise so unlike Christianity where God's election is intended to create a holy people who are conformed to the image of Christ here it's like you can live your entire life doing right things and still end up in Hellfire and there ain't nothing you can do about it and you really can't know one way or the other.

That's why Jihad is so attractive to people because the only promise you have in the Quran is that if you die in the state of Jihad you get your ticket punched to Paradise, that's the only way to know for certain and I've used that illustration many times to explain what happened at the Glasgow airport for example two national health system physicians were the ones that drove a vehicle filled with gasoline into the doorway of the airport and set it on fire.

They thought it was going to explode and douse everybody and burn everybody and the only people that died were them. They died slowly and agonizingly but the point is the promise to them was this is how you know you will go to Paradise the only way to know because they don't have a mediator they don't have an atonement.

So these are important things. And so there are Muslims in the world that recognize that these Hadith and things like that are troubling at the very least but they are a very small minority and these radical groups they when you say radical they are much more representative of what Muhammad was doing in Muhammad's day than what develops hundreds of years later.

You have to you have to understand history to realize for an Islamic culture to even come into existence there had to be some reigning in of the spirit of Jihad or you just wouldn't be able to have an Islamic culture.

There is another Hadith oh wait a minute skipped over something so here is a this is the favorite Hadith that is remember most Muslims spend no time in the Quran at all our interaction with scripture and their interaction with the Quran are very very different very very different and so what most Muslims understand of their faith they are taught on Fridays in the mosque where again the sermons that are delivered are normally based upon interpretations from the Hadith not exegesis of the original language of the Quran or something like that.

And so pretty much every Muslim knows the Hadith. I am going to read for you now you can check these out for yourself. By the way I happened to discover over the past day there are some new websites available that make things a lot easier than they used to be.

I struggled starting in 2006 trying to track down computer programs with decent databases and searching and stuff like that. I had the Alim database or the CD-ROM for a while and stuff like that and I've had various programs, some of which don't even work anymore on a Mac, they've just not been supported but I found sunah .com and it has a pretty much fully searchable English database of the Sunni Hadith and I'm like, wow when did this come online?

So here is this one is from Bukhari. It's in Jamiat Termini, it's in Muslim so it's I believe it would. I have a volume in my library, I didn't grab it but I have a volume in my library that gives you all the Hadith that are in both Muslim and Bukhari because they have a special authority here's what it says and again, most vast majority of Muslims in the world know this one.

Allah's Apostle said the hour will not be established so end of time will not come until you fight with the Jews and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, oh Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.

Various versions of this with slight moderations and order of words or things like that but all pretty much the same thing that the end will not come until there is a great war against the Jews and Allah will be so much on the side of the Muslims that the rocks themselves will cry out, oh Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind him, kill him.

So almost every single person that you will talk to who is a Muslim, knows this. The question is, do they really believe that Allah said that and what kind of impact does that have upon them. That's Sahih al-Bukhari 2926 book 56, hadith 139, volume 4 book 52, hadith 177.

The problem is and this is the problem I had in writing the book. There is no one decided upon universal way of citing the hadith literature and so tracking stuff down can be problematic to put it mildly.

But anyway, let me read one other hadith to you that I think is very very interesting. I'll go ahead and read this one. I could narrate it in general one way or the other but this is actually coming from my book which I have in accordance by the way you can get that on Kindle.

You can get it on accordance. I think it might be in Lagos too. I'm not sure I'd have to double check. Narrated Abu Huraira some cooked meat was brought to Allah's apostle and the meat of a forearm was presented to him as he used to like it.

He ate a morsel of it and said I will be the chief of all the people on the day of resurrection. Do you know the reason for it? Allah will gather all the human beings of early generations as well as late generation on one plane so that the announcer will be able to make them all hear his voice and the watcher will be able to see all of them.

The sun will come so close to the people that they will suffer such distress and trouble as they will not be able to bear or stand. Then the people will say don't you see to what state you have reached?

Won't you look for someone who can intercede for you with your lord? Some people will say to some others go to Adam. So they will go to Adam and say to him you are the father of mankind. Allah created you with his own hand and breathed into you of his spirit meaning the spirit which he created for you and ordered the angels to prostrate before you.

So please intercede for us with your lord. Don't you see in what state we are? Don't you see what condition we have reached? Adam will say today my lord has become angry as he has never become before nor will ever become hereafter.

He forbade me to eat the fruit of the tree but I disobeyed him. Myself, myself, myself has more need go to someone else. Go to Noah. So they will go to Noah and say to him oh Noah, you are the first of Allah's messengers to the people of the earth and Allah has named you a thankful slave.

Please intercede for us with your lord. Don't you see in what state we are in? He will say today my lord has become angry as he has never become nor will ever become hereafter. I had in the world the right to make one definitely accepted invocation and I made it against my nation.

Myself, myself, myself go to someone else, go to Abraham. They will go to Abraham and say oh Abraham, you are Allah's apostle and his Khalil from among the people of the earth, so please intercede for us with your lord, don't you see in what state we are?

He will say to them my lord has today become angry as he has never become before, nor will ever become hereafter. I told three lies. Abu Halyan, the sub narrator mentioned them in the hadith. Myself, myself, myself go to someone else, go to Moses.

The people will then go to Moses and say oh Moses, you are Allah's apostle and Allah gave you superiority above the others with this message and with his direct talk to you, please intercede for us with your lord, don't you see in what state we are?

Moses will say my lord has today become angry as he has never become before, nor will ever become thereafter, I killed a person whom I had not been ordered to kill. Myself, myself, myself go to someone else, go to Jesus.

They will go to Jesus and say oh Jesus, you are Allah's apostle and his word which he sent to Mary and a superior soul created by him and you talk to the people while still young in the cradle, story in the Quran by the way please intercede, by the way, and it came from a Gnostic gospel, that's a lengthy discussion in the book.

Please intercede intercede for us with your lord. Don't you see in what state we are? Jesus will say my lord has today become angry as he has never become before nor ever will become thereafter. Jesus will not mention any sin but will say myself, myself myself, go to someone else, go to Mohammed.

So they will come to me and say oh Mohammed, you are Allah's apostle and the last of the prophets. Allah forgave your early and late sins, please intercede for us to your lord. Don't you see in what state we are?

The prophet added then I will go beneath Allah's throne and fall in prostration before my lord and then Allah will guide me to such praises and glorification to him as he has never guided anybody else before me.

Then it will be said oh Mohammed raise your head, ask and it will be granted, intercede it, your intercession will be accepted. So I'll raise my head and say my followers oh my lord, my followers, oh my lord it will be said oh Mohammed, let those of your followers who have no accounts enter through such a gate such a gate of the gates of paradise as lies on the right and they will share the other gates of the people.

The prophet further said by him in whose hand my soul is the distance between every two gate posts of paradise is like the distance between Mecca and Busra in Sham. There's another version of it which toward the end has this then I shall intercede and he will set me a limit as to the number of people so I shall admit them into paradise then I shall return to him and when I see my lord I shall bow down as before then I shall intercede and he will set me a limit as to the number of people so I shall admit them into paradise then I shall return for a third time then a fourth and I shall say there remains in hellfire only those whom the Quran has confined and who must be there for eternity there shall come out of the hellfire he who has said there is no god but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing a barley corn then there shall come out of hellfire he who has said there is no god but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing a grain of wheat then there shall come out of the hellfire he who has said there is no god but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing an atom.

Now what what's that last one all about? Well the point is that in that version Muhammad doesn't deliver all the Muslims at once but he keeps having to come back and there's gradations. But what's the key?

Everyone comes out of hellfire who has said la ilaha illallah. There is no God but Allah. Worthy of worship. So anybody who has said the shahada will be delivered from hellfire even though they were in hellfire.

There's almost a purgatorial concept that is found in these these hadith where there is a punishment for a period of time but eventual deliverance into paradise through the intercession of Muhammad. And you will note that Jesus is included Abraham, Moses, etc.

But there is no understanding on Muhammad's part of atonement, the purpose of the atonement, mechanism of the atonement, nothing like that at all. It's just not found there. So these are the kind of stories, the hadith, that are narrated on, they're narrated and commented on.

And I've said when people have asked, well at G3 when I was on Way of the Master, and then immediately afterwards, interesting enough, when I was interviewed by G3, they'll always do these videos, they'll use them in the course of the year.

Both times the subject came up of witnessing to Muslims and I said in both contexts, I said one of the most effective ways I have found to open the door to talk to Muslims has been to narrate hadith. You know, have you heard the story, and then I narrate one of the most popular hadith, and they are amazed to encounter a Christian that has read their own materials well enough to be able to discuss those types of things with him.

You purchase for yourself the opportunity to then make application. I mean, think about that last hadith. There's a lot you could talk about there from a Christian perspective that take you straight, takes you straight into the gospel.