Christian Muslim Dialogue, Part 1

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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I have been looking forward to this evening for a very, very long time. It has been my desire to engage in a dialogue like this and when the opportunity came that I'd be coming into this area,

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I contacted Dr. Cotty and I put out the call and the church here was so kind to respond and to join with us in providing a place for us to have our conversation this evening.

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I want you to understand what our motivations are this evening in coming together.

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This is not a debate. Some of you have seen debates that I have done around the world.

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This is not intended to be a debate. We are going to, of necessity, discuss differences that we have.

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The thing that makes this wonderful and the reason that I sought out Dr. Cotty, aside from the fact that I have learned so much from him over the years, that he's been a primary influence in my study of Islam.

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I am a student of Islam and I have learned much from him, but the reason I specifically sought him out is because I sense in him such a kindred spirit on the other side of the chasm that divides us in regards to our theology and our beliefs.

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He is a consistent Muslim. He believes what he says. He wants to seek for consistency amongst his people and his own practice.

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And so when you have two believing people, one Christian, one Muslim, come together and say, we need to discuss not only what divides us, but also where do we have similarities?

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How can we live in the same community? And the most important thing is this. If we do what

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I hope happens this evening, we're gonna do something absolutely unique. It hardly ever happens.

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And that is two communities where, unfortunately, there is a lot of fear on both sides.

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There is a lot of misunderstanding on both sides. And as a

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Christian, I want to see doors opened. As a Christian, I want you, as if you are a

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Christian here this evening, to not have fear of the Muslim people, but to have love for the

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Muslim people. I want the Muslim people to understand that we care and that we want to have dialogue and that we're not seeking this evening to sweep our differences under the rug and say they don't matter.

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Dr. Khadi cannot present an Islam that is just simply one view amongst many.

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I believe in divine revelation. He believes in divine revelation. So how do we get along?

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How do our communities talk to one another? The sad fact of the matter is that conversation isn't happening.

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And I want it to start tonight. And I want it to start here. So if you're a praying person, pray that we will have understanding, that if you're a

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Christian, I want you to hear what this man has to say. I want you to understand why he believes the things he does, what his life is like here in the

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United States as a Muslim. And I want you to hear, especially when he talks about what Islam is and what it is not and who speaks for Islam and all these types of things.

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I want you to hear so that we can have better communication with one another. That's why we're here this evening.

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I hope that's why you've come here this evening. Please, no audience reactions or participation.

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Let us do the conversation. We're gonna have the audience questions later on. But I very much appreciate you coming here.

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Dr. Khadi is a Muslim scholar. He has written books. I, for example, was very, very happy to receive from him a 16 -CD series called

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Light and Guidance. And it tremendously helped me to get a basic understanding of sort of get the lay of the land.

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He is an expert in Hadith. I think I've sort of scared him a little bit by telling him that sometimes in August in Phoenix, where I live,

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I have to ride at literally 2 .30, three o 'clock in the morning if you can even survive. And I have distinct memories at that time in the morning of riding my bike in the desert, listening to him lecture on Hadith sciences.

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I think even the Muslims will go, that is really weird, because I don't even think they do that.

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Can you get people? No, they don't. No, they don't do that. I didn't think so. That's really weird. But he is an expert in those areas.

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We're gonna be talking about a lot of these things. We're gonna be explaining what we're talking about. We want to bring everyone along.

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And hopefully at the end of this evening, when we go over there to have refreshments, the

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Christians and the Muslims together will be able to have conversation. And many of the misunderstandings that separate us right now will be laid aside.

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There won't be any compromise, because we both believe very firmly in what we believe and what we profess.

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So how in light of that do we get along? That's why we're here this evening. Dr. Khadi, sir, you honor us with your presence.

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Thank you very, very much for being with us. Thank you for inviting me. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here. I hope this is the first of many future dialogues.

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One of the main motivations for us to come here really was that, and I was expressing this to James, should

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I call you Mr. James, Reverend James? James is just fine. Okay, James, and you can call me Yasser. You don't have to be formal, the

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Dr. Khadi here. So I was expressing to James that in the interfaith dialogues that Muslims typically end up having, it's with people that I would consider a different type of Christians than the predominant strand here in Tennessee, if you get what

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I'm saying. In other words, most of the people that are engaged in interfaith are really not minding the fact that we have differences in theology.

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They don't really express any type of discomfort with us. They're very nice to us. The fact of the matter is that there is a segment of this population that has a lot of misconceptions and a lot of fears.

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And when we try to dialogue with them, we find that they're not really that interested to come to the dialogue table, to the interfaith events.

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They have these notions that translate into misunderstandings, translate into misconceptions, and it takes two hands to shake.

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You can't just shake a hand that's not extended to you. So it's very important that people understand we are committed, the both of us, to our faith traditions.

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Our commitments are not going to be watered down, but that doesn't mean that we can't get along and have genuine, genuine love and care and concern for one another right here and now.

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That doesn't mean that we can't live together as peaceful neighbors. That doesn't mean that our children, or I guess in my case, my children and his grandchildren, because you're talking about his grandchildren, that they can't get along and play together.

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Because you see, theology is one element, yes, but there are other elements as well to being a human.

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And for me and for James, theology is the most important. That's what I like. We're not going to water that down.

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We are very committed to our faith traditions. I passionately believe in my religion.

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And so does James. And I do not doubt his sincerity. I do not doubt his intentions.

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I do not doubt his commitment to his faith. And I know that he feels the same about me.

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So if we can get along and have a fruitful dialogue and conversation and show that, you know, it's okay to disagree, even if we disagree passionately,

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I don't have to hate him. I don't have to feel fear against him. I can wish for guidance for him and he can wish for guidance for me.

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One side of me can feel a sadness or remorse that he's not fully there yet, but I can still break bread with him.

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Like we did today for lunch. We had a great lunch together. He likes really spicy Mexican, by the way, just so you know.

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Ethnically, I'm Indian. I can't help liking spices. So it's like, we can break bread together.

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We can crack jokes together. We can watch Monty Python together. So it's, okay, sorry.

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Always look on the bright side of life. But it's, there is also quite a lot that conservative

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Muslims and conservative Christians have in common. So even as we understand and appreciate the differences, we don't water them down.

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Let us also look at the similarities so that at least, at least, we can remove the fear and distrust and hatred and suspicion of the other.

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Because it does no one any good if my heart is full of anger and fear and hatred of anyone else.

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It doesn't help me. It doesn't help him. It doesn't help our kids. It doesn't help our society. So really, that's the purpose of this dialogue is just to begin the building of bridges.

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And I hope that this is the first of many future dialogues to take place. So let's tackle one of the first things that causes the problem.

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When I speak in many places, I say, you know, one of the biggest problems I see amongst my fellow

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Christians when it comes to Islam is that most of their knowledge of Islam comes from Fox News. Or even worse,

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MSNBC. But you put the two of them together, it's really bad. And so they see pictures.

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They're bombarded with images every single day. There's been the truck in the Christmas thing in Germany, I think it was, and all the rest of this type of stuff.

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Gotta understand, what is Islam? And why is it that this evening, you right here in this area are one of the primary leaders of Islam.

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But there would be people who would say, well, you don't really speak for Islam. ISIS is more consistent, et cetera, et cetera.

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Help us to start understanding, because remember, you called me once. I think you emailed me once, and you were gonna be at an event.

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And you said, could you help me out? What's the difference between a Lutheran and a Presbyterian, or something along those lines?

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From your side of things, things look sort of confusing over here. Well, from our side of things, things look confusing as well.

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Help us to understand, what is Islam for you? So, the way that I feel a lot of times when

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I'm addressing audiences, the example that I give is, imagine somebody who's never been to America, never stepped foot in America, never met an

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American. And their only source of information about America is years and years of watching

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The Jerry Springer Show. Let that sink in. Yeah, yeah.

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Now, this person has never met or visited or seen, but they're consistently bombarded with a certain type of America.

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And The Jerry Springer Show is American in the end of the day, if you understand what I'm saying. And that's the only image they have.

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Now, if they meet an actual American, this uneducated foreigner will think that he knows everything about America because he's seen over and over and over and over again, years and years of episodes, right, of a show that portrays things that are atypical in America.

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But they are a part of the land known as America. That's the way I feel when I approach congregations or audiences or I lecture in college,

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I'm a professor, that we have to begin with this notion that obviously the primary source of information about a religion should be the broad mainstream people who follow that religion.

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So if you haven't visited a mosque, if you haven't socialized with a Muslim, then you really need to understand what you see on television is but the

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Jerry Springer equivalent. It is but one minuscule strand. And I don't even know how else to say this other than the

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Islam of ISIS or the Islam of terrorism is not an Islam that any one of us in this audience has grown up with.

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Honestly, we are just as shocked as you. That's not the Islam of my parents.

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That's not the Islam of my mosque. This is as alien to us as it is to you. Unfortunately, the problem comes that the perception is that this is the normative or this is the mainstream.

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And we're gonna come eventually in the questions, I guess, to some of the causes of why this is happening. But what exactly is

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Islam? Well, in a nutshell, very simply, very simply, Islam is the admittance and recognition that there is one supreme

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God in being who is almighty, all powerful, all loving, all knowledgeable. There is only one

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God. That is the God of Abraham, of Moses, of Jesus, of Muhammad, that that God is almighty, all powerful, and worthy of being worshipped and venerated.

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No other being is worthy of being worshipped. Islam tells us that God continued to send prophets to mankind with the same message.

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So for the Muslim, the Muslim is one who is following the religion of Islam. For the Muslim, Islam is not new.

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It's not an Arabian religion. It didn't begin with the prophet Muhammad. Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Adam, they're all teaching the same essential message with some fine tunings, but the message is the same.

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There's one God, love him with all your heart, worship him to the best of your ability, and praise

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God and follow the law. And if you do so, you shall live peacefully, at least your heart will be at peace in this world, and you shall attain

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God's kingdom and God's grace in the next world. This, in a nutshell, is Islam, that there is but one

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God. This God is worthy of veneration and worship, and to be a good person, you have to believe in him, worship him, follow the law, obey the commandments, and if you do so, there will be a life after death, and there is heaven or hell where there is accountability.

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In a nutshell, Islam is the same religion that Abraham and Moses, and from our perspective,

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I guess we'll come to this as well, Jesus and the prophet Muhammad taught. It's not something that began 1 ,500 years ago in Arabia.

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I guess I wanna talk a little bit about, as being a Muslim, there are certain things you have to do. There's rituals that are mandatory.

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I'll just mention three of them, and there's actually five, or I can actually mention very quickly the five.

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The first is the testimony of faith, and the testimony of faith is two sentences. I testify that there is no

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God worthy of worship other than the one true God. We call him in Arabic Allah. Allah is not a foreign

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God. Allah is the Semitic term for God. Christian Arabs use the term Allah. Jewish Arabs, and yes, there are

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Jewish Arabs, use the term Allah. Allah is a Semitic term, and in Aramaic and Hebrew, there are similar cognates that mention the name of God.

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Elohim is essentially Allah. So there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger.

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That's the first of the five pillars. The second pillar, a Muslim is required to pray five times a day, every single day.

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There are no exceptions. In fact, holy days, you do more prayers. Five times a day, at particular time intervals, you have to pray.

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The third pillar is charity. A Muslim is required to give charity to the poor annually.

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So once a year, Muslims have to calculate. There's a calculation, depending on what you own and whatnot, and you have to give to the poor.

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The fourth pillar is to fast the month of Ramadan. So the month of the Islamic calendar, from sunrise to sunset, you abstain from food and drink, and from intimacy with one's spouse if you're married.

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And that is done to appreciate God's blessings, and also with the food and drink aspect, to sympathize with the poor, to force yourself to recognize that food and drink is of the greatest blessings that God has given you.

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So that's done once a month. And then the fifth and final, for those who are financially and physically capable, they have to undertake a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca once in their lifetimes.

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And from the Muslim perspective, Mecca is the city of Abraham and Ishmael. Mecca is the city where Abraham left

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Ishmael. The Bible mentions leaving Ishmael in the Valley of Paran. Well, for Muslims, the Valley of Paran is the

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Valley of Mecca, and the Islamic faith basically takes its heritage from the

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Ishmaelic side of the progeny of Abraham. The five pillars that you just mentioned, the first one is the shahada.

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And so for people to understand, I normally show a video of people saying the shahada so they can see.

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This is how a person becomes a Muslim. So anyone who has, and there are seven,

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I think seven requirements for a true shahada, would you still hold, because I heard you mention that.

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So the point is that the shahada, or the testimony of faith, it must be uttered with sincerity, with belief, with understanding, so these are the requirements.

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So the fact that I've said it in Arabic doesn't mean anything because it's not joined with those. If a professor of Arabic or Islamic studies utters the shahada to teach his students what it is, obviously that's not an embracement.

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It's not a magical thing, there has to be other things that go with it. But that is what makes you, there's nothing else beyond that.

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There is no baptism, even though Islamic law strongly encourages, but it's not mandatory, to take a bath and cleanse yourself before embracing

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Islam. But there is no baptism, there's no other ritual for a non -Muslim to become a Muslim. All they have to do is to verbalize the shahada.

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I testify there is no God but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Okay, now, where does this derive from?

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So the primary sources of Islam, now the five pillars, by the way, would the

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Shiites recognize the same five pillars? Oh yes, oh yes, yes. The five pillars are universal in all strands of Islam.

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Shiites have the shahada, the prayer, everything. It's exactly the same. So it is universal in all strands of Islam.

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That's non -negotiable. If someone denies any of the five, would you say that fundamentally would place them at least in a position of bidah, it's a heresy,

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I believe. There are no classical mainstream groups that deny the five pillars. I mean, now obviously there are people that are not committed to the five pillars, right?

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I mean, Muslims aren't allowed to drink. Well, unfortunately, some Muslims do drink. But if you were to see them and say, oh, aren't you not supposed to drink?

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Hopefully they'd say, this is a sin, may God forgive me. So they'd recognize that it's a sin, they're falling short.

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Obviously, not all Muslims pray five times a day, right? By the way, FYI, interesting point.

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Pew, you know, the polling thing, Pew. Pew did a survey two years ago about rituals as practiced by all the mainstream faith traditions of the world.

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And according to their statistics, the number one observed ritual across all religions and civilizations by far was the fast of Ramadan.

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Over 70 % of the Muslim world was faithful in observing the fast of Ramadan.

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The next statistic was like in the 30s or something, you know, so the fast of Ramadan, for some reason,

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I honestly don't know why myself, the fast of Ramadan seems to have a very powerful effect on the

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Muslim world. And anybody who's visited any Muslim land in Ramadan, you will see the social customs and the moors change, office hours change, street traffic changes.

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I mean, you cannot but notice that it is the month of Ramadan in any Muslim society across the world.

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And it's hard for us to keep up with it because it keeps moving 10 to 11 days up in our calendar because you use the lunar calendar instead of the solar.

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Yes, the Islamic calendar is lunar. And so what that means is that it's based on the sighting of the moon. And so the

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Islamic calendar consists of around 355 days. So every single year, the month of Ramadan is pushed back by 10 or 11 days.

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So this means, you know, 15 years ago, so right now Ramadan is in July. Try fasting from sunrise to sunset in July, not a drop of water, not a drop of water.

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From in Memphis, that's around 4 .30 a .m. to 8 .20

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p .m. Okay, so we wake up at around 3 .30 or so or there's something and have a somewhat too heavy of a breakfast but cut us some slack.

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And we observe complete fast up until 8 .20 or 8 .30 where we have somewhat of a lavish dinner, cut us another slack over there.

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But yeah, during the daytime, absolutely nothing. I've heard studies that say that on average, you take in more calories during Ramadan than you do.

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You don't need studies. You can ask me or any Muslim. On average,

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I gain like three to five pounds for Ramadan. I'll be honest here, why?

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Because I mean, it's human nature. It's not good and I'm ashamed to say this but you kind of overcompensate, you know, when you're hungry all day.

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So and another thing is in the month of Ramadan, the best dishes for some reason are always prepared, right?

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So every day is a festival. So in our mosque, it's free food every single day for anybody who walks in.

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We have on average, two, three, on weekends, five, 600 people coming and it's free. I mean, anybody can go.

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We all sponsor, everybody sponsors on different day. It's a very festive occasion, right? You barely, you rarely break the fast alone.

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Inevitably, you're invited to people's houses, you go to the mosque. So there is an environment of, and the point is nobody is supposed to go hungry.

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Now, once upon a time, the spirit of that was that the poor should partake along with the rich.

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Our wealth in this land is so much that everybody has a surplus of food, you know? So unfortunately, that spirit is kind of lost.

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But when I was in Saudi Arabia, that was the point that you go to the mosque and everybody, I mean,

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I remember clearly even the street cleaner would come and break fast with us, you know? We're all sitting together and eating the same food.

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That's the spirit. I would say there's a commercialized, you guys complained of the commercialization of Christmas, right?

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Well, we complained of the commercialization of Ramadan, especially in America. So you see, there's quite a lot of in common between Christians and Muslims here that we can actually agree upon.

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Unfortunately, I'd love to talk about Laylat al -Qadr and all sorts of other stuff, we just don't have time. The sources.

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Oh yes, the sources, my bad. That's where we were. My bad, yes. The sources, obviously first and primary is the

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Quran. Very briefly, what is the Quran to a Muslim? The Quran is the primary source of Islam for all

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Muslims. It is considered to be the divinely inspired word of God. It is in the Arabic language.

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It is always in the Arabic language. Any translation of the Quran is not considered to be the Quran. It's simply a translation of the

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Quran. And the Quran, there's only one Quran. There are no various versions or whatnot.

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It's one standard copy of the Quran across the Muslim world. And the Quran is a document, a book that is literally considered to be the word of God.

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Now, Western academics, and of course, there's always pros and cons with this. Western academics say that the way

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Christians view Jesus is somewhat analogous to the way Muslims view the Quran. Now, that's a very simplistic, and you and I both know this, but it's very common to find this comparison.

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Now, the Quran is eternal? The Quran is considered to be the speech of God. And so the speech of God is eternal.

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So it's uncreated? So the Quran, as the speech of God is created, but the book that I have in my hands, right, is simply a recording of that eternal speech.

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So it's recorded in heaven, and I believe it was sent down on the night of power to the angel

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Jibril. Muslims believe that, yes, the Quran was revealed in the month of Ramadan, the beginning of the

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Quran was revealed, and it was then revealed piecemeal, bit by bit, for the next 23 years. So passages were revealed here and there, and then put together in the lifetime of the prophet.

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And really, there's not been any variant versions of the Quran. The Quran is the

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Quran for all sects and schisms and groups of Islam. And it is, as you also know, a memorized document.

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Muslims memorize the entire book cover to cover in the Arabic language. Which you've done. Thank God, alhamdulillah,

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I have also memorized the Quran. But it is not just me. Here in Memphis, I would estimate at least, at least, what, 20, 30 people have also done it.

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And so wherever you are in the world, you always find people that have memorized the entire book cover to cover.

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Now, if I could just throw in some information here for people's, I'd be really interested, other than our Muslim guests, how many of you have read the

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Quran? That's what I always get. I just wait for someone to go, parts.

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Because that's very normal. For everyone's information, the

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Quran is, I believe, 54 % the length of the New Testament, and 14 % the length of the entire

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Bible. I wouldn't know the percentages, but I guess that's. Well, I broke down the number of words. That sounds about right. And so it's smaller in length than what we have in the

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Bible. And I hope you don't mind if I tell the story, because you found it to be interesting, and I think educational.

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But I was listening to Dr. Khadi lecturing once, and I could tell it was in the morning. He had made some comment about being in the morning.

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And he was quoting the text, as he normally does very quickly, both in Arabic and in English.

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And he came to one, and just, it happens. It just wouldn't come out.

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He couldn't remember where, he couldn't get it started. And so, and sort of in frustration, he said, well, it's in surah, it was one of the shorter surahs toward the end, because in the

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Quran, the surahs are arranged basically by size. I mean, the first surah is only seven verses, but then the second surah is hundreds of verses, and they get a little bit shorter, basically, as you go through, until you get, there are 114 of them, and you get toward the end, they're only like four verses long, or something along those lines.

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But he said, well, it's in such and such a surah, right -hand page at the top.

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Right -hand page at the top. Now, think about that for a moment. That was a valid reference for Muslims, because they all have the same

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Arabic Quran. And so, if you find the right surah, if it's the right -hand page at the top, there it is.

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We could never do that, because of the nature, and it really goes back to our view of what inspiration is, because what

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I wanted to ask was, from the Islamic perspective, there is nothing of the human touch to the words of the

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Quran. This is not Muhammad's reflections. Exactly, the Quran. There's nothing of him in it.

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Exactly, the word Quran linguistically means recitation, and it's viewed as being the recitation of God to Muhammad, or via the archangel

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Gabriel, because Gabriel plays a very prominent role in our religion as well, because it is the

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Abrahamic religion. So, Gabriel came with the recitation of God to the prophet. The prophet recited it to the people.

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So, essentially, we believe there's an unbroken chain of transmission to God himself, directly, and the

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Quran is viewed as being the recitation of God. So, when we look at our scriptures,

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Peter said that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So, we have Paul saying, bring me the cloaks and the parchments.

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We have that kind of personal statement that is coming from him, and yet, from our perspective, that's exactly what

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God intended to do. But that element of the human nature is nowhere in the

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Quranic. No, there's no invisible hand of God in the Quran, that's guided. No, Quran is the actual word of God, in Arabic only, and that's why we

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Muslims firmly believe that you have to recite the Quran in Arabic, and we also, all

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Muslims, take pride in the fact there is but one Quran. There's no variance of the Quran. So, it does quote other people a lot and things like that, but it is -

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Yes, but it is God reciting, yes. So, you have the Quran, but that's not the only source.

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That's not the only source. For the majority of Muslims, and here we have to begin a little bit of sectarianism, as with other groups and religions,

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Muslims are divided into various schisms and sects, and perhaps most of you have heard of the two most common sects of Islam, Shiites and Sunnis.

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Sunnis represent around 85 % of the Muslim world, and therefore, they are the majority. I, myself, am also from the

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Sunni background, and for Sunnis, there is a second source after the Quran, and that's where they get the name

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Sunni from, and that is the Sunnah, or - So, Sunnah is the concept.

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Sunni is the one who follows it. In Arabic, the E sound is the equivalent of the English apostrophe

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S, so you ascribe to. So, Sunni is somebody who follows the Sunnah. What is the

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Sunnah? The Sunnah are the sayings and teachings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. So, the second source of Islam are the sayings and teachings of the

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Prophet Muhammad as recorded by his disciples. We call them, in English, companions, as recorded by his companions, and later scholars after that.

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Now, the Sunnah, let's not mention Hadith, I guess it's the same thing. Well, Hadith and Sunnah are synonymous for our purposes.

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So, the Sunnah, we believe, has been preserved by humans, not directly by God.

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So, the sayings of the Prophet are found in different collections, and there are multiple attempts and multiple collections.

29:41

The equivalent of the Gospel according to, right? So, the Prophet's life and teachings according to, and we have a number of classical books that have attempted to record the sayings of the

29:52

Prophet, and we sift through them. We have Sunnah criticism, like some people have biblical criticism.

29:57

We have Sunnah criticism. We don't have Quran criticism, because we believe the word of God is separate.

30:03

The word of the Prophet has been recorded by humans and is separate, and it's a human attempt, and human history and early

30:09

Islamic history is yet a third genre. So, the word of God, the words of the

30:15

Prophet, and what happened to the early Muslims are three separate genres. From the perspective of Muslims, and again,

30:23

I know this is from our perspective, the Bible is a mixture of all three. You have bits of the word of God, bits of the words of the

30:31

Prophets, and bits of human history. From the Islamic perspective, and again, this is obviously a biased perspective, we have these genres in separate books.

30:41

There's one book of God, there are many, many books of Sunnah, because these are human attempts, and there's even more books of history, because these are what people recorded of the early times.

30:51

So, we respect the Quran like no other book, because that is the one preserved book of God.

30:58

And the hadith, if our scholars have viewed it as authentic, the Sunnah, the Sunnah is viewed as authentic, we respect it as well, but we don't sanctify the

31:08

Arabic text. We don't recite the Arabic text as we recite the Quran. So, the words of the

31:13

Prophet are theology and law, but they're not recited. They're not said in prayer, they're not liturgy.

31:19

Whereas the Quran is liturgy, the Quran is recited, the Quran is a lived document. Every Muslim opens up the

31:26

Quran almost daily, the committed Muslims, and recites from it. You don't do that with the sayings of the Prophet. The sayings of the

31:31

Prophet are sources of theology and law, of etiquettes and morals, of manners. They're not read for blessings.

31:38

They're not read for just daily stuff. These are read by scholars. And of course, history is history.

31:44

But, wouldn't it be true though that the interpretation of the Quran is deeply influenced by the schools of jurisprudence, and that those depend on the interpretation of the

31:58

Sunnah? Yes. Different groups will emphasize different elements and that actually does end up impacting the interpretation of the

32:06

Quran. Well, true. When it comes to interpretation, humans are humans, and there's a spectrum of interpretation. And historically speaking, there's been a spectrum of acceptable interpretation, and these are the main schools of Islamic law.

32:19

And there's never been any type of sectarian warfare between these schools of Islamic law.

32:25

These are the minutiae of the law, the finer details of the law. I would dare say that the main gist of Islamic law is pretty much agreed upon by the majority of schools within Sunni Islam.

32:37

Of course, Shiites have a different theology and a different source and a different law, and that's a different topic altogether.

32:42

But within Sunnism, by and large, most of Islamic law is within a spectrum of interpretation.

32:50

You've mentioned the Muslim view of the prophets, that they were Muslims. And in fact, my understanding is that from the

32:57

Muslim perspective, God has always sent a prophet to each people group and that they're all united by monotheism.

33:05

By Allah, there is one God, right? Exactly. The way I phrase it, a bit of a theological joke, for God so loved the world, he continued to send prophets.

33:15

This is the way I phrase it. So we believe that God continues to send prophets to mankind with the exact same message.

33:23

Because from our perspective, theology does not change, God does not change. What might change are the finer details of the law.

33:30

Perhaps one prophet prohibited one food item and the other prophet allowed it. These types of things are negotiable, but theology does not change from prophet to prophet.

33:39

Moses and Adam and Noah and Solomon and David, the same God is the same God, and the same attributes are the same attributes.

33:47

Theology does not change. And so from our perspective, and again, this is important to note, and I say this with utmost respect, but we have to know our differences as well.

33:57

The fundamental difference between Muslims and Christians is obviously over the persona of Jesus Christ.

34:02

That is where, obviously, we have very different understandings. We kind of sort of agree on Abraham and Moses and Solomon and David.

34:11

Both of us view them as mighty messengers and prophets and people who came to spread monotheism to teach the law.

34:19

And these are names mentioned in the Quran. People are surprised to discover that the most common prophet mentioned in the

34:25

Quran is the prophet Abraham and the prophet Moses. These two are mentioned more than any other prophet.

34:32

Jesus is mentioned almost 25 times by name, Jesus, the son of Mary. The only woman ever mentioned in the

34:38

Quran, an entire chapter named after her, is Mary, the mother of Jesus. And the Quran is very explicit that God says to Mary through the angel

34:46

Gabriel that, oh, Mary, God has chosen you and sanctified you and blessed you over all the women of the entire world, meaning of the entire creation.

34:56

This is a verse in the Quran. I just quoted you the English translation. So we sanctify, well, not sanctify is an ambiguous term.

35:02

We respect is the better term. We respect all the prophets and we consider them to be role models.

35:08

And for our perspective, Jesus is a prophet of God whom

35:15

God sent with the same message that he sent all the previous prophets with.

35:21

And he was sent to the children of Israel and he was born of a virgin called Mary and he was to be the final prophet to the children of Israel because this is something

35:31

I think the New Testament and the Quran agree upon. The children of Israel were veering away from the law and they were disobeying the commandments and they were finding loopholes or whatnot.

35:41

And from the Islamic perspective, and I think the New Testament also mentions Jesus a bit irritated with some of the children of Israel.

35:48

You could put it that way. Yeah, just to be nice about this. Matthew chapter 23.

35:54

Yeah, irritation might be a proper term. Yeah, you get my point here that there seems to be a frustration that they're not following what they're supposed to follow.

36:02

So from our perspective, Jesus was sent as their final hope of salvation. Jesus is called in the

36:09

Quran two things, either Jesus the son of Mary or Jesus the Messiah because for us

36:15

Muslims, Jesus is the promised Messiah. He is the

36:20

Messiah sent to the children of Israel and he was born of the

36:26

Virgin Mary and he came with the exact same message and teachings as the previous prophets.

36:33

Monotheism, worship and love God with all your heart and obey and follow the law.

36:39

This is the fundamental difference that Christians and Muslims have that it is important to recognize. And I'm not here to convert, even though honestly speaking, we would be happy if conversion takes place because we have to be honest here.

36:52

We're not gonna mince our words. I'm not here to convert, but it is important we understand these differences.

36:58

From our perspective, Jesus is a monotheist. He is a

37:04

Jewish Messiah who followed the law, observed kosher, was circumcised, did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill and affirm the law.

37:18

And Jesus never ever taught any doctrine that gave him a sense of divinity alongside with or with or however you wanna phrase it.

37:29

Jesus taught that he was a mortal and a human. Now, when I mentioned this in churches, people get very surprised because never heard this, but to be a

37:38

Muslim, you have to believe in Jesus. You can't be a Muslim the way we believe obviously, meaning if somebody says,

37:44

I don't believe Jesus was born of a virgin, he's not a Muslim. If somebody says, I don't believe God sent Jesus, he's not a

37:50

Muslim. If somebody says, I don't believe Jesus was a mighty messenger, he's not a Muslim. You have to love

37:55

Jesus and respect Jesus as a prophet of God. And we assume or we understand, excuse me, we understand and obviously this is where we disagree.

38:06

We understand that notions such as redemption and abolishment of the law and the

38:11

Trinity and all of these - Crucifixion. Well, the crucifixion will come to an end. We understand all of these concepts as having been introduced by other people.

38:21

Muslim historians mentioned Paul, they mentioned Constantine, they mentioned the Council of Nicaea, they mentioned this and that.

38:27

That's besides the point. The Quran is very explicit that Jesus did not preach the

38:32

Trinity and he did not preach his own any type of divinity and he came to fulfill the law and preach to the children of Israel.

38:40

He wasn't really meant for the non -children of Israel. So the Quran, a number of times, primarily in Surahs four and five, specifically says, do not say three.

38:52

And it uses this specific Arabic word for three. It doesn't use the word for Trinity, it says three.

38:58

Would you interpret that word three as an attempt to specifically refer to the Trinity the way you were just explaining it?

39:04

Well, that is how it has been understood historically by exegesis of the Quran. And one of the main differences as well is that the

39:12

Quran, and this is really bizarre from a secular perspective. I mean, I have trained in a seminary and my

39:19

PhD is from Yale. So I have the religious side and I have the secular side. And it's interesting to compare and contrast to do which

39:25

I'm sure we've had discussions about this as well. From a secular perspective, people who don't believe in any religion, they're perturbed and intrigued by the

39:34

Islamic stance on the crucifixion because it seems very bizarre and atypical.

39:40

Like why would an Arabian man 500 years after Jesus hold these views about crucifixion?

39:45

And they don't really have a solid answer for that. The Quran - We didn't explain this. That's what I'm gonna say right now. Surah 4, verse 57.

39:52

Okay, all right, yeah. The Quran says that, do not say he was crucified.

39:59

They neither killed him, they meaning the children of Israel. They neither killed him nor crucified him, but rather, and this is really ambiguous, even in the

40:11

Arabic. It was made to appear to them so. I just translated the

40:17

Arabic. What does that mean? It was made to appear to them so. Now that's what the Quran says.

40:24

Muslim exegetes, and this is not from the Quran, this is their interpretation. So I don't consider their interpretation to be divine, but yes, we are sympathetic to it.

40:32

I am sympathetic to it. Muslim exegetes have interpreted that Jesus was not crucified nor even placed on the cross, but rather that God saved him.

40:45

Now this is an interpretation that is mainstream. And they claim, this is not from the

40:50

Quran, as I said, this is from later Muslim historians and theologians. They claim that Judas, the traitor, was punished by God to resemble

41:00

Jesus so that when the Roman soldiers entered the garden, they saw Judas, the traitor, and they assumed him to be

41:08

Jesus, and they killed and crucified him, and that's a befitting end to a traitor.

41:14

And so people assumed that Jesus had been crucified. And that's what the

41:19

Quran says. It was made to appear to them so. Muslims believe, now this is the shocker that every time

41:25

I say this, Christians are like, what, you guys believe this? Muslims believe, not only did Jesus not, was not killed nor was he crucified, he's still alive right now.

41:36

Muslims believe Jesus is alive, and he shall come back towards the end of times.

41:42

And his return is gonna signal one of the last great signs and the great

41:47

Armageddon, and Judgment Day will come after his coming back. Muslims are looking forward to Jesus' return.

41:56

Because when Jesus comes back, we believe his soldiers and his army will be us,

42:03

Muslims. We believe we will follow Jesus Christ, and we also believe, and this is in the

42:10

Hadith or the Sunnah of the Prophet, that every true Christian will then recognize that they were incorrect in the

42:18

Trinity and then follow Jesus as well. So we actually believe Muslims and Christians will not fight against one another in the

42:26

Armageddon, contrary to what some strands of Christianity are preaching. We believe that there's gonna be a pagan, or yeah,

42:32

Jews are a little bit advanced, I mean, a foreign or a paganistic groups of people with the

42:40

Antichrist behind them, and Muslims and Christians will be monotheists fighting behind Jesus Christ.

42:48

So this is the respect and honor we give Jesus. Jesus is of the mightiest prophets and messengers, but from the

42:54

Islamic perspective, he's not in any shape, fashion, or form divine. Now, really briefly, because I told you 90 minutes would go really fast, and we haven't even gotten close to where we're supposed to be.

43:06

I told you exactly how it happened. I told them, how are we gonna talk for 90 minutes on stage? And I said, it's gonna go so fast, you're not gonna believe it.

43:14

And we wanna get to some of the social issues and things like that. Very good, you're right. But I do want to just interact with you for a moment.

43:24

Obviously, from our perspective, with the Quran coming, or at least appearing historically, 600 years after the time of Christ, denial of the crucifixion, and especially in regards to its view of Jesus.

43:39

The specific thing that the Quran finds to be extremely offensive, literally, I mean, if you say the mountains fall down and the earth trembles when someone ascribes a son to God, I'm not sure what the surah on that is.

43:51

I'm sure you do. Surah Maryam, the last page on the left -hand side. See, there you go. And I don't know if any of the rest of you have been watching this, but you've been avoiding using the

44:01

Arabic, but it's harder for you to quote the English without doing the Arabic first. I've been watching this over here, going, he's going through the

44:08

Arabic first, okay, here comes the English. It's fascinating to watch. But the specific issue is ascribing a son to God.

44:16

And by the time the Quran was written, all the Christological controversies, historically, were already in the past.

44:25

True. The nature of sonship. Would you agree that that's one of the key issues in the

44:32

Quran, that because of the idolatry in the Kaaba, against which

44:37

Muhammad was preaching as a minority prophet in those first years in Mecca, there were gods who had children, and so on and so forth.

44:46

Isn't the nature of what that sonship is one of the key issues between us? And especially when it comes to, could you briefly for us define the word shirk?

44:58

And because that's one of your areas, you've got a book on the subject.

45:04

Could you define what shirk is? And let's talk just briefly about whether what we as Christians do qualifies as shirk from your perspective.

45:17

Sure. The Arabic word shirk is spelled the same as the English word shirk, as in shirk your responsibilities, but obviously there's no correlation.

45:27

Shirk is defined as the cardinal sin in Islam. There's no sin greater than shirk.

45:34

And it essentially, well, to be very simplistic, it's polytheism, or to worship false gods. But the precise definition is to give the rights of God to other than God.

45:45

Okay, so that is the one unforgivable sin, to give the rights of God to other than God.

45:53

Only God has certain rights, the right of creation, the right to be worshiped, et cetera, et cetera.

45:58

If anybody says that, oh, that entity created us, or that being is worthy of being worshiped, then these are manifestations of shirk, or associating partners with God.

46:11

And this is the one unforgivable sin in Islam. Now - Unforgivable in the sense that you can - Very good point, very good point.

46:17

Unforgivable in the sense that if you die without having repented from it, repentance in Islam forgives all sins.

46:27

Repentance means you feel penitent, you turn to God, you ask for forgiveness. God forgives anybody who turns to him without exception.

46:35

But if you don't turn to God and you live your life of inequity, and especially in shirk, and you know that God is one, or you've heard the message that God is one, and you refuse to accept that message, and you continue to worship false gods or other than God, or give the powers of God to other than God, then in the

46:55

Islamic perspective, that is unforgivable. Now, the difficulty comes, and this is politically incorrect, but James wants us to talk about this, and I agree, that we do need to be frank here.

47:05

From the Islamic perspective, the mainstream Christian understanding of the

47:10

Trinity constitutes a type of shirk, not the worst type. It's not carving an idol and prostrating, because obviously

47:18

Christians, I should say Protestants don't do that, let's just leave it at that. But we don't, you know, there's no like actual images that you bow down to or something.

47:27

So it's not like the worst type of shirk, because the worst type of shirk, which I think Christians and Muslims and Jews would all agree to, is to take an idol and sacrifice something to the idol.

47:37

That is the worst, and that was the type of shirk that was prevalent in Arabia when the Prophet came.

47:43

And the Quran obviously completely abolished and eliminated that. But there are other types of shirk as well.

47:48

And from the Islamic perspective, to believe in any type of shared divinity amongst entities, you know, more than one.

47:57

So again, here's where we get technical, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God the Father. And I understand we're going to areas that are beginning the debate, which we should kind of hold back on.

48:07

But from the Islamic perspective, that is against monotheism. Let's just leave it at that.

48:14

Well, could I just? Sure, sure. You need to give your perspective. Yeah, let me just, let me just.

48:19

See, I learned my initial training in what shirk was, and the categories of it, rubabia, so on and so forth, comes from you.

48:30

Okay, so you're my mentor here. And I remember the first time listening to lecturing on that,

48:37

I was going, oh, how I would like to be able to say what, ask you the question.

48:44

See, from a biblical perspective, we believe that Jesus has eternally existed as a divine person.

48:52

And yet, the Father, the Son, the Spirit share the one being that we identify as Yahweh.

48:59

We believe that Jesus has eternally been identified as Yahweh. The New Testament identifies him in that way.

49:05

The Spirit's the Spirit of Yahweh. And so, we don't believe that we are giving worship to a created being who has not eternally been

49:14

God. We are not trying to divide worship. And in fact, one of the early church fathers said, my mind cannot contemplate the three without automatically being drawn back to the one, because we distinguish between being and person.

49:27

In light of that, I understand that there are some modern Islamic scholars here in the

49:33

United States that don't believe that we commit shirk. They accept our profession of monotheism.

49:40

One of the arguments they use is that the Quran would not allow Muslim men to marry Christian women if we were najis, if we were despicable in God's sight as idolaters and mushrikun generally are considered to be.

49:55

But just from a Christian theological perspective, I fully understand, we believe idolatry is a horrible thing, but in the strictest definition of shirk, don't you have to assume as part of that, not only one being of God, but only one person of God?

50:13

In other words, a Unitarian monotheism is assumed from the Islamic perspective.

50:19

And from our perspective, we believe in one being of God, but we believe that there are three persons that share that one being.

50:25

This is where, again, Christians and Muslims are gonna have to agree to disagree. Obviously, Christians as well view themselves as being monotheistic, and that's what you're referring to here.

50:35

And we understand that is the assumption that Christians have. From the

50:40

Islamic perspective - But how many Muslims really understand, because I'll be perfectly honest with you, if I, and I've said this many times, and those of you who've listened to my program know

50:49

I do this, if I were to give a quiz after the Sunday morning service at most

50:55

Protestant churches in the United States on the doctrine of the Trinity, I don't have much of a confidence that more than 25 % would pass it.

51:03

And so the probabilities that someone such as yourself has had in -depth dialogue with someone who would give you a truly accurate and historical and biblical understanding of what the doctrine of the

51:15

Trinity is, and say, the first thing we are afraid of is a division of God's glory, and a division of God's being, and so on and so forth.

51:22

We share with you. That's why when I'm hearing you just pounding away on Shirk, I'm going, I understand that.

51:29

This is where we acknowledge the differences. I'm not trying to debate them this evening, but I also wanna make sure that we understand really what the positions are.

51:38

Fair enough, these are our positions. They are definitely mutually exclusive. They're not both valid and correct.

51:44

And we're gonna have to - They can't both be correct at the same time. We're gonna have to agree to disagree at this point. We're running, my goodness, I cannot believe the time here.

51:51

But I wanna tell you a story and get your reaction to it. When I travel around and give presentations on Islam, and you know what?

52:00

I know you don't have time for this, but if you ever, and I don't want, I'm not wishing this on you, but if you ever get laid up for a while and you have to sit around and watch

52:08

YouTube videos, I would love to have you watch, because it's on YouTube all over the place, my presentation on Islam, and critique it, and also hopefully recognize there's someone who's really trying to accurately represent where we're coming from.

52:22

I've had many Muslims attend and go, thank you for trying to accurately represent us. But one of the things

52:28

I like to do is I like to show people the Arabic Quran, the very one you're referring to with the blue pages.

52:35

And I pass it around the audience and stuff like that. And so I normally put it, for obvious reasons, in my checked luggage, because as you know,

52:45

I made an incredible mistake about six months ago as I took on the plane to read an

52:52

Islamic book on the discussion of shirk. That was not a good idea. I'm sitting there hiding it down here like this, you know, and it needed to have a cover for it.

52:59

Some of you are going, why? Ask Dr. Khadi why that would be. But two times

53:06

I got to my hotel and I opened my checked luggage, and here's that little piece of paper that says we've checked your luggage.

53:15

And guess where it was? Two times. Right in the copy of the Quran. Right in the middle of the Arabic Quran.

53:22

Now when it happened the first time, I was just sort of like, but when it happened a second time, obviously someone is sending me a message, very clearly sending me a message.

53:35

Now I want every Christian in the room to imagine if you were in a minority position, religiously in a country, and you got to your hotel, and that inspection thing was inside your

53:48

Bible, what would you interpret that to mean? How would you understand that? So with that, what's it like to be a

53:58

Muslim in America post -9 -11? Where does one begin? Let me just tell you something that's still troubling me, and my wife just told me about it, and she's in the audience now.

54:11

It's been troubling me immensely, and I don't even know what to do about it. I just heard about it because it happened yesterday.

54:19

My daughter's basketball tournament, so she plays basketball for our school, the

54:24

Islamic School, Pleasant View School. And they play with other schools, and there's also a church that they play with as well.

54:32

You know the tournaments, you know the girl, she's 11 years old. She goes and plays around. Just happened, I just found out about it that the church that they're playing with, so this is the

54:41

Islamic School, and they're playing a basketball game with the church, and so the referee is a part of the church, and he says, let's all come together and pray, which

54:50

I don't mind, very good, okay, let's pray. So the Muslim girls, and they're on their hijab, and the Christian girls, they all come together, and these are 11, 10 -year -old girls.

54:59

And he says that, you know, he thanks God and prays

55:04

God, that's fine, and then he goes, the God of Christianity, that's the only true God, and anybody who doesn't believe in the

55:10

God of Christianity is gonna go to hell. Now, I understand theology is a passionate thing.

55:17

I understand that this person wants to somehow convey to people that they should embrace

55:23

Christianity. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem is to do it on a basketball court with 11 -year -old girls.

55:32

I mean, that's just not right. You're intimidating. The girls were like, did he just say that?

55:38

There's a time and a place to preach and teach, and you know, I love Jesus Christ, and I know all of you do.

55:44

I am sure that's not the way he would have taught whatever version of theology he had. So what we notice is that there is this fear, there's paranoia, this sense of we are the other, the assumptions are made about us as being a fifth column.

56:04

We're out here to destroy the country. Every Muslim is a potential terrorist, and there's no desire on the parts of many of these people to come and visit our mosques or interact with us.

56:13

Their presumptions are coming straight out of Fox News or the equivalent of the Jerry Springer show.

56:19

I don't even know where to begin. The amount of hate crimes that are taking place. I myself have experienced a number of things, security measures.

56:28

You are made to feel not even a dignified human being.

56:33

Forget an American. You are stripped of your dignity when people view you as somehow always being a potential threat or somebody who's full of evil or hatred.

56:43

And ironically, in attempting to fight bigotry and hatred, I feel the people that are doing that are expressing bigotry and hatred.

56:52

In their fear of Muslims being terrorists, they end up terrorizing

56:58

Muslims. Now, let's lay out something that I think is important for people to understand about you. Because many people are told that, well, see,

57:08

Muslim representatives are supposed to say these things. They're engaging in taqiyyah. They're giving you a story that's not really true.

57:15

And I cannot tell you how many people look at me and say, you just can't believe what these people are saying. Folks, what you need to understand is that a number of years ago,

57:24

Dr. Khadi was threatened, his life was threatened by ultra right -wing groups, not

57:30

Muslim groups. But that one of the reasons that I especially wanted to have him here this evening is when

57:35

ISIS began to become a tremendous news item,

57:41

I watched a presentation that he made in Norway where he gave a theological, maybe we'll be able to summarize just a few of the things about the

57:50

Karajites and things like that. But he gave an Islamic theological argument against ISIS.

57:58

And what was the name of the document that was? A letter to the Caliph, the Caliph al -Baghdadi, a letter to the leader of ISIS.

58:05

So a number, how many, a hundred and? 125 theologians from across the world drafted and signed.

58:13

And these are all very prominent, very mainstream theologians across the world drafted and signed a document which essentially critiqued

58:23

ISIS in a exhaustive Islamic manner. It was a legal document where we deconstructed their arguments and showed them that they're just being very, very shallow and not faithful to the teachings of our religion.

58:38

And you signed that? There were like four or five, four, I think, American clerics on that. And I was one of the American clerics that signed the document.

58:44

And as a result, twice now, ISIS in their magazine, if you haven't seen it, it's this slick online,

58:54

I imagine there's print versions of it too, but there's a slick online version of it and things like that, twice have printed

59:02

Dr. Khadi's picture and called for his assassination. And so there are obviously many places in the world where you probably would not want a vacation right now.

59:16

And when you put yourself on the line like that to say, this is not what

59:23

I believe, folks, this is what you need to understand. I have taken heat from people on my side because those of you who know me know

59:33

I have a mantra, consistency, consistency. For example, when

59:38

I interact with Muslims in debate, I do not use many of the arguments that are popular out there because I believe we have to have even scales.

59:50

And so, for example, there are orientalists who question even the existence of the historical

59:55

Muhammad or things like that. I will not utilize that kind of radical deconstructionist type argumentation, even though sometimes it's used against me.

01:00:06

I have to use the same standards in defending my faith that I use in disagreeing with someone else's position.

01:00:15

I think that's necessary for a Christian for the simple reason that we follow him who is the way, the truth, and the life.

01:00:22

Therefore, my arguments have to be what? Truthful. They have to be representative of what the other side is saying.

01:00:28

And so, in light of that, when we look at, how many billion

01:00:35

Muslims are there in the world? 1 .6 billion. Okay, 1 .6 billion people. We do not like it when we are all thrown into one big basket and people, for example, most of you know that I have dealt with the issue of homosexuality.

01:00:51

I've done debates on the subject of homosexuality for many years, all the way back to 2001. And yet, people will hold me accountable for the

01:00:58

Westboro Baptist Church people and things like that. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's not my life. That's not how I've approached people.

01:01:04

That's not my perspective. I do not want to be painted with that brush. I demand the right of self -definition of what my faith is.

01:01:13

We all demand that right. And yet, for many Christians, we refuse that right to Muslims.

01:01:20

And because there are Muslims who do bad things and give theological arguments from it and quote from the same sunnah that you quote from, because of that, then there are many

01:01:32

Christians that will say, they are the consistent Islam. This is the aberration.

01:01:37

And we need to treat them all in the same way. And I consider that to be hypocrisy.

01:01:43

We can't do that. I recognize the fact that there are different perspectives amongst the

01:01:48

Muslim people. And folks, from a Christian perspective, if we want to express the love of Christ to other people, then we have to listen to where they are and address them where they are and accept what they say is their faith and meet them where they are.

01:02:05

We can't demand that they hold to views that are not theirs in the first place. And so, when someone is willing to risk their lives to stand against what

01:02:15

ISIS is doing, the way that Dr. Khadi does, I have such a tremendous respect for that.

01:02:21

That's why I want you to hear what he's saying now as to what it's like to experience life.

01:02:28

And I want us to be people who recognize that and can therefore come alongside and can pray for individuals and can extend the hand of friendship.

01:02:40

Because, folks, in case you haven't noticed, our culture is becoming much more secular.

01:02:46

And I know we're down South. And you might say, well, Massachusetts, yeah, okay. Northern California, okay, no.

01:02:54

It's coming everywhere. And the fact of the matter is, we all may be facing being a religious minority.

01:03:05

How are we gonna get along in that situation? Are we gonna want someone to come alongside us?

01:03:11

Then we need to extend the hand now. And so I appreciate the fact that. Now, I do wanna say this.

01:03:18

What you need to do is there needs to be, here's what I would invite you to do if you ever have the time to do it.

01:03:27

My community needs to have someone with your ability to clearly present things.

01:03:34

Take what you've written about the Karajites, about these things, who speaks for Islam, and produce an hour -long

01:03:43

YouTube video that we can understand, that would say, this is how you know what the true

01:03:50

Islam is. These are our sources, and these are where these people have gone. Not a lot of people can do that.

01:03:56

And I'll be honest with you, some of the stuff that's out there is stultifyingly boring. And I mean, honestly,

01:04:03

I saw a cleric sitting there in a one -camera shoot, and I fell asleep after five minutes.

01:04:09

And at least I knew what he was saying. Someone with your ability to communicate with your passion, we need something like that.

01:04:18

We really, really do. Would you agree? Go ahead, it's all right. Thank you.

01:04:24

Thank you. Well, let me just add here, all you need to do to get an idea of what

01:04:31

Islam is and who speaks for Islam is to look at the mainstream normative tradition.

01:04:37

Visit a mosque, interact with local Muslims. So you look at ISIS, and you think that is

01:04:42

Islamic. ISIS at max, at max, has 15 to 20 ,000 people in that cult and that movement.

01:04:50

If you do the math, out of 1 .6 billion people, this crazy caliph has called the entire

01:04:56

Muslim world to come and said, join us, I am the true caliph. If out of 1 .6

01:05:02

billion, barely 15 ,000 have taken up that call, do the math, that's, and I did it, 0 .0003%.

01:05:10

You are gonna consider 0 .0003 % to be the normative. I mean,

01:05:15

I calculated in 1925, when the KKK was at its pinnacle, the

01:05:20

KKK represented around 5 % of America. Now, the

01:05:25

KKK is therefore 3 ,000 times more American than ISIS is

01:05:32

Islamic. Think about that. Let me play the devil's advocate on the basis of a YouTube video that's very popular out there.

01:05:38

Let's say, okay, yes, the specific numbers, the people there are very small, but when they do polls of Muslims, do you support what

01:05:48

ISIS is doing? Do you support the establishment of Sharia law, et cetera, et cetera? The numbers are much, much higher, and they say, see, that shows you that there are literally millions and millions and millions of people who, if they won't act on it, at least feel that these things are appropriate.

01:06:06

Those two questions are totally separate. They are, I agree. Support ISIS, no. The Gallup poll and ISPU, which is a think tank in Washington, has done a very exhaustive survey, some of the most exhaustive surveys done in 20

01:06:20

Muslim countries, and they have shown, demonstrated, this is a three -year -long survey done, that the positions that the

01:06:27

Muslim world has on almost all issues of violence and whatnot is similar, if not less, than in the

01:06:33

Western world. Now, the question, do you support Sharia? That is a very ambiguous question, that interpretations of what

01:06:43

Sharia is between Muslims and non -Muslims is so varied. Sharia has become a bogeyman.

01:06:50

Muslims, by definition, support Sharia, but what is Sharia? It's like asking a Christian, do you believe in Jesus?

01:06:56

It's like asking a Jew, do you believe in the Haram? It's like asking a Christian, do you believe that God's law is good? Do you believe that God's law is good?

01:07:02

For me, Sharia is being good to my parents, is giving to the poor. So what do you mean by Sharia?

01:07:08

It's become a bogeyman. It's become this vicious understanding that is alien to the mainstream

01:07:15

Muslim world. They see it as the establishment of what the Taliban does when they take over an area. That's what they see as Sharia.

01:07:21

The very fact that the Taliban is atypical is demonstrative of the fact that it's not the normative tradition of Islam.

01:07:29

The very fact that we have never seen in our 14 and a half centuries a cult like ISIS, we've never seen anything like this, is demonstrative of the fact that this is not typical.

01:07:41

And again, I encourage all of you to listen to my lectures that I've given and others, but I mean, I know my lectures online, about the rise of ISIS.

01:07:49

And I spoke here in Memphis two years ago about the rise of ISIS. And what I do, and I teach a class at Rhodes College, it's a semester long class, it's called

01:07:57

Modern Muslim Fundamentalist Movements. By the way, I joke when somebody says, what do you do? So I teach this class at Rhodes, what do you do?

01:08:03

I say, I teach jihad in Tennessee. So in reality, I do teach jihad in Tennessee, but at Rhodes College.

01:08:13

So I have explained in a lot of detail and in my university class, I can go into a lot more detail.

01:08:20

These movements are coming out of a particular social and political context.

01:08:26

It is simply unfair and unjust to ignore the context of those regions and to ignore the political, the systematic and endemic violence that has been sustained by those people.

01:08:42

I mean, Iraq and Syria have been at war, internally and externally. We invaded

01:08:47

Iraq twice and the Syrian regime right now. For the last 30 years, massacres upon massacres, from those mini

01:08:55

Armageddons, from those bloodshed bats that are continuing over and over again, it's not surprising that you get this bizarre, apocalyptic, messianic end of times movement that is responding in kind to what they've seen.

01:09:11

The very fact that the Muslim world has not seen anything like this. And a simple example, a simple reality,

01:09:17

Iraq and Syria had no radical and jihadist tendencies 20 years ago, 30 years ago, seven years ago, 100 years ago.

01:09:28

If there was any radicalism, it was in some pockets of Egypt, in some places in the 60s and 70s. Iraq had never seen a suicide bombing in its 2 ,000 or 1 ,500 plus year of Islamic history until the 2004

01:09:42

American invasion. Now, you cannot, you cannot ignore the political circumstances from within which this anger is coming.

01:09:52

I'm not justifying, I am contextualizing. So it's so easy to blame the religion.

01:09:58

It's so easy to say, oh, those Muslims, go read a few books, listen to some lectures, ask an

01:10:04

Iraqi, ask somebody who's been and seen there, and you will realize it's much more complicated than that.

01:10:11

And religion is using as a post facto justification. They do the deed, now they need to figure out how are we gonna justify it.

01:10:18

They turn to religion and the language of religion. Speaking of complicated, we only have 15 minutes before we take audience questions.

01:10:26

If you have questions, please utilize the URL up there. We'll try to look at our phones here and figure out what we're gonna do.

01:10:32

And I'm not sure how it's gonna work with the cards either. But speaking of complicated, our worldviews, you mentioned to me that one of your frustrations is that our worldviews share much more in common in regards to how they impact social issues, governmental issues, things like that, than many of the

01:10:55

Christians who are willing to talk with you and yet they have a very liberal, almost secular worldview when it comes to those things.

01:11:01

And that the very people that you should have the most in common with, there tends to be the greatest amount of distrust.

01:11:08

Where do our worldviews intersect? I mean, for example, one of the things I mentioned to you and I just mentioned moments ago is

01:11:15

I've done a fair amount, I've written a book called The Same -Sex Controversy. I've done a number of debates on the subject of homosexuality.

01:11:21

I understand that homosexuality is considered to be a grave sin within Islamic theology.

01:11:30

And from a Christian perspective, it is particularly grave because it is based upon a rebellion against God's right to define what is appropriate sexual behavior, what is a male, what is a female, the whole transgender movement is a rejection of God's right to say, this is male, this is female, this is what is good for male and female, et cetera, et cetera.

01:11:53

So we have, where are the areas of intersection? And does that mean that there's grounds for cooperation when people are trying to shove a particular worldview down our children's throats, basically?

01:12:10

Very good question. And this is really one of my main reasons for wanting to dialogue with Christians who are committed to the values of classical mainstream

01:12:21

Christianity. Because the fact of the matter is that, yes, we have a lot of disagreements, but we have a lot in common with one another.

01:12:28

In terms of morality, in terms of decency, in terms of family values, committed

01:12:33

Muslims and Christians really are seeing eye to eye. We both decry the liberalism, the secularization, the sexualization of our societies.

01:12:44

We both mourn over the loss of the family structure. We both want the man to be the man, the woman to be the woman.

01:12:50

In one of the verses of the Quran, God says, the man is not like the woman. And yet in another verse, it mentions that, praise

01:12:58

God who created you from a man and a woman. And from the two of them, he created multitudes of men and women.

01:13:03

There is no third gender or cisgender or transgender for us as Muslims and as many committed

01:13:08

Christians. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. And there is no competition between the two genders.

01:13:15

It's not as if there's any type of wrestling match going on and one has to prove the identity of the other.

01:13:21

God honored men and God honored women. And for a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman is their honor.

01:13:27

There is no competition against each other. A family unit is the building block of society.

01:13:34

And when family is preserved, society is preserved. So in Islam, yes, marriages are supposed to flourish and you're supposed to have a man and a woman, have children together.

01:13:45

We don't espouse or agree with these alternative ideologies and we do feel that they are simply not the norm that God created mankind upon.

01:13:54

We also were very sad at these changes that have taken place, the Supreme Court ruling and whatnot.

01:14:01

And I gave a sermon and lecture about this online. I don't know if you listened to it or not. And in it, we clearly said that even if it's politically incorrect to say, as a

01:14:10

Muslim, I have to say this, that I don't view this as being healthy for society, that these types of changes are going on and they're becoming normative and legal.

01:14:20

And if committed Christians and Muslims had come together, if we had joined hands and forces, maybe we could have effected a stronger change.

01:14:32

I've never asked this question of a Muslim before, so I'd never even thought of it. So here we go, this could be dangerous.

01:14:37

But from my perspective, I believe that God's wrath abides upon a nation that flouts his law, that literally knowing what his law is, rejects that law and in essence, spits in his face.

01:14:54

From a Christian perspective, I think there's plenty of evidence in the Old Testament that God's wrath will come upon a people who consistently reject his way.

01:15:03

What's the Muslim perspective? Your understanding. James, you will get away with saying things that I can't get away saying.

01:15:11

Of course, you're right. You're right. You're right. Let me just leave it at that.

01:15:17

I hadn't even thought about that. I was not attempting. I have to think of my safety. I know,

01:15:23

I know. And my career. I hope you all understand what he's saying. Actually, actually,

01:15:28

I'm just semi kidding with you in the sense that I seek God's refuge from ever being a coward to speak the truth.

01:15:34

I'm just half joking with you. Half joking because there's an element of truth. There is an element of truth there.

01:15:39

But I seek God's refuge. You're right, I have more freedom to say that than you do. Yes, you do. There are certain privileges that come that would not come in my case.

01:15:47

It's because I have a goatee and not a full beard. Exactly, exactly, yes. We also have a similar sentiment in our faith tradition.

01:15:59

And we do believe that licentiousness and immorality damage society at large.

01:16:09

And it's just not healthy for people to, you know, in our tradition, in our tradition, our prophet said, there's a saying of the prophet,

01:16:18

God shall forgive all sinners except one category of them. I mean, sinners meaning those who repent because you have to repent in Islam.

01:16:26

God shall forgive all sinners except one category. They said, who's that category? So he said, those who flout their sins.

01:16:36

The ones who committed a sin at night and nobody saw them. And the next day they go and they tell people, oh, you know, last night

01:16:42

I did this, last night I did that. So you see, we as Muslims believe, you know, we're all sinners in the end of the day.

01:16:48

We are all sinners. But if I commit a sin, I should have a sense of shame in front of God and yes, in front of my fellow man to not flout it, to not put it on Facebook, to not normalize the sin.

01:16:59

Facebook, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Psalm 12, eight says the wicked strut about when that which is vile is honored amongst men.

01:17:07

Exactly. We don't want to publicize evil. If evil does take place, keep it under wraps because when you publicize evil, you encourage other people to commit those same offenses.

01:17:19

So we do believe that public decency on morality is a virtue and when that virtue is flouted, everybody suffers.

01:17:29

There are two other questions we had on the list. I noticed you never even looked at the list, but I had it up. So there are two questions

01:17:36

I want to make sure we got to and we have just enough time to do it toward the end. You and I spoke on the phone a number of years ago.

01:17:45

You hadn't finished your doctorate yet and I was trying to talk you into writing a book with me.

01:17:52

And so you were sort of going through the ideas and you said, okay, James, let's say we get to the end of the book and our theology says, okay,

01:18:04

I think you're going to hell and you think I'm going to hell. What do we do now? So in other words, we need to have a chapter on the fact that theologically,

01:18:15

Christians believe that the one way of salvation is in and through Jesus Christ. Muslims believe that we're committing shirk and that the one way of salvation is submission to Allah and you allow for some possibilities.

01:18:27

I'll let you expand upon that in a moment. But the reality is, for most people, this is where the conversation ends.

01:18:36

And you and I both are continuing the conversation and that's what makes us weird, evidently.

01:18:41

Okay, excellent. So firstly, I need to rephrase that statement to reflect mainstream

01:18:49

Islamic theology. Muslims do not ever assign anybody to heaven and hell, any individual to heaven and hell.

01:19:00

Muslims speak in generalities and in descriptions, not in individual people.

01:19:06

And no Muslim can ever say, I'm going to heaven and you, oh, non -Muslim, oh,

01:19:13

Christian or Jew or Buddhist is going to hell. No Muslim can ever say that. If they do, they're not theologians, they're not reflecting

01:19:19

Islamic theology, they're just lay people. This isn't Islamic theology, according to any mainstream

01:19:24

Sunni, even Shiite interpretation here. How Muslims speak is in descriptions, in adjectives.

01:19:31

A Muslim will say, and this is what I believe, that the path to heaven, the path to God is one path and that path is in submitting to God, which is

01:19:41

Islam. Islam means submission to Him. So monotheism, faithfulness, being good and kind, loving, caring rituals, that is the one path.

01:19:48

There is no other path to God. And anybody who rejects that path is not going to end up in the kingdom of heaven.

01:19:58

However, we also acknowledge that on judgment day, there will be people who are not on that path, but have legitimate excuses in front of God.

01:20:10

I do not have the right to consign them to hell. Only God is the one who judges heaven and hell.

01:20:17

Nobody judges heaven and hell other than God. I have no right to say, I'm gonna go to heaven because I don't know, what if there's something in my heart that God knows that is not righteousness?

01:20:27

What if there's arrogance? What if there's something that shouldn't be there? So I'm hopeful, I pray to God that I'm gonna go to heaven, but I cannot guarantee.

01:20:35

As well, a person outside of my faith tradition, maybe he'll come on judgment day and say, oh

01:20:41

God, and this is an Islamic excuse, which is explicit in the Hadith and the Sunnah. Oh God, I never heard of your message.

01:20:48

I lived a righteous life, I tried to be good, but I never heard of your prophet Muhammad.

01:20:54

I never heard of Islam. We actually believe that this person has a hope of salvation. We believe that this person has a hope of salvation because God does not punish the one who was not exposed to the message.

01:21:06

What if somebody says that, God, I never heard of the real religion of Islam, let's say semi facetiously,

01:21:12

I watched Fox News my entire life. That was my image of Islam. You know, I mean, honestly, as a jokes aside, maybe this person might be forgiven because if his image of Islam was

01:21:24

ISIS, that's all he thought of Islam, well, nobody wants to convert to ISIS. So maybe he's excused, maybe he is.

01:21:30

Who am I to assign heaven and hell? That's only God's right to do. So Muslims do not speak in terms of specifics.

01:21:39

Therefore, I do not believe you're going to hell. But that's not my prerogative to say.

01:21:44

What I will say, I believe that anybody who knowingly rejects, knowingly, that's the key term, who knowingly rejects

01:21:51

God's message through all the prophets, including the Prophet Muhammad, has decided his own faith.

01:21:57

But I cannot take that generic description and apply it to James or Thomas or Harry or Richard.

01:22:04

I can't do that. Because on Judgment Day, every one of us has to answer to God directly.

01:22:09

And you have the opportunity to defend yourself. And God, we believe is not just all just,

01:22:17

He's also all merciful. So perhaps, and we Muslims believe this, there will be people who are saved, who are not

01:22:24

Muslim. But we firmly say, and I will not mince my words here, just like you didn't mince your words. There is one path to God.

01:22:31

And if you're on that path, the chances to get to heaven are infinitely more. And all other paths don't lead to heaven.

01:22:40

You might end up there, but those are the exceptions and not the normative rule. That's how we would phrase it.

01:22:46

And so from your perspective, it wouldn't be wise to take the risk. Exactly, exactly. In any way.

01:22:51

And of course, from our perspective, one of the things I think is probably ringing in many people's ears right now is the term chances.

01:22:59

Because see, from the Christian perspective, the only reason that I can ever have peace with God or any confidence of entering into His presence is because I'm in possession of the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to me.

01:23:13

And that's why, I've talked to some Muslims and they sort of have the idea that, and I think there's an ayah in the

01:23:20

Quran that's sort of like - I was just thinking about that right now. The Christians say that only we are gonna get there. Say, do you have a treaty with God that He has given you?

01:23:28

And I think there's, that would be one of my problems is that, you see, the

01:23:34

Christian understanding of why only Christians go to heaven is because it's not, we don't view ourselves as a group that is somehow better than anybody else.

01:23:43

We believe that a Christian is a person who has fled to God for His mercy and recognize

01:23:49

He is the only one that God has given to where His righteousness is perfect in God's sight.

01:23:55

That's why it's not just a chance. I'm not taking a chance. I have a righteousness that is perfect in God's sight and that's why

01:24:01

I can have peace with Him. So again, this is one of the fundamental disagreements. We'll have to agree to disagree from our perspective.

01:24:07

From our perspective, it's an element of arrogance to say, I am going to enter heaven and I'm certain about it.

01:24:14

Rather, I am very hopeful. I'm very optimistic. I know God is loving.

01:24:20

I know God loves me. I know God will forgive me if I turn to Him. But there is a small element of fear.

01:24:26

What if I'm not sincere enough? What if something I did was displeasing to God? So I'm battling between fear and hope.

01:24:34

And do you see where we're not trying to say that we're being, we're not being arrogant because what we're saying is my hope is completely in the ability of another to save me.

01:24:45

I understand that and this is where we're gonna have to agree to disagree. But when we agree to disagree, can we still talk about those things amongst everybody else?

01:24:53

The way that I phrase this is very straightforward. Suppose you think

01:24:59

I am going to hell. That's your prerogative and your legal right to think. By the way, I don't think you're going to hell unconditionally.

01:25:06

Like I said, that's not the way we talk. But suppose I say the path that you have chosen is a path that is not leading to heaven.

01:25:13

Let's put it that way, okay? Or okay, there's a path that is leading to hell. The question is very simple.

01:25:19

Do we have to make this world a living hell because of that? That's the question.

01:25:25

Let God judge on judgment day. I honestly am not insulted when you say this to me.

01:25:31

I'm not, because I'm so confident in my faith in God that your confidence doesn't negate my confidence.

01:25:38

I am not insulted. Quite the contrary, a part of me admires you for your faithfulness to your tradition.

01:25:45

And I hope you feel the same about me. So the question is then if you feel this way about me and I feel that you're not correctly on guidance, but I still hope for forgiveness for you.

01:25:53

And I hope that God guides you in this world or forgives you in the next. I don't have a problem saying that theologically. But suppose even that I believe your path is incorrect.

01:26:03

Can't we be good neighbors together? Can't we work together for better schools to minimize crime, to fight against pornography and drugs, to affirm family values?

01:26:14

Why must we hate one another in a civil society where coming together will bring about so much potential good?

01:26:23

Why can't we look at what we have in common even as we understand and appreciate and are honest about our differences?

01:26:32

That is my goal for conversations with people. And obviously from the Christian perspective, any Christian in the room recognizes that when you have a relationship with someone based upon respect, recognizing in them, we use the term image of God.

01:26:47

I realize that's not a Muslim concept, but it's that we are created by God. When you recognize in someone else a fellow image bearer, obviously it is far easier to model the love of Jesus Christ and to have the opportunity of modeling the gospel in front of someone when you have a relationship with them that is based upon respect and kindness and everything else rather than,

01:27:12

I think the greatest barrier for Christians in reaching out to the Muslim people is fear.

01:27:17

We have fear in our hearts. It's based upon ignorance. It's based upon other things. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this.

01:27:22

And so the final question before we go to questions, we've actually gone three minutes over, but the last question we had in our little list is what we want for each other.

01:27:35

And we sort of just talked about that just a little bit, but we'll conclude with this. From a

01:27:41

Christian perspective, obviously, and this is why we can have these conversations,

01:27:47

I would be very uncomfortable just talking about our similarities if we weren't honest about what we really believe.

01:27:55

That's the kind of dialogue that I think a lot of people think we're doing, and it's not. Obviously the greatest thing that I can hope for any person, if the greatest thing

01:28:04

I can hope for my children is that they bow the knee in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ, and they receive a new heart, and they have eternal life, they have his righteousness, and they're going to have eternal life because of what

01:28:18

Christ has done. If that's the greatest thing I can hope for my children, then it's the greatest thing I can hope for anyone else. And so I can have friendships with Muslim people as long as we've had that conversation.

01:28:31

They know where I stand. They know what I'm praying for. But I know what

01:28:38

I'm gonna be doing and have been doing for years, and that is I pray for Yasir Qadhi.

01:28:44

If I pray for Yasir Qadhi, I'm not changing God's heart. God's changing my heart.

01:28:52

He is making me to be the type of person that is gonna be concerned about your welfare, concerned about your health, concerned about your safety, concerned about your family.

01:29:03

He's changing me. We're not trying to convince God to be better. God's already good.

01:29:09

He's changing us. And so what would it mean if the

01:29:14

Muslim people in your neighborhood knew that you loved them, cared for them, prayed for them, and were willing to do anything for them?

01:29:21

It would change everything. But unfortunately, that's not generally how they view us. And so my desire, the final question was, what is our greatest desire for the other?

01:29:35

And I know that obviously I want your health and your happiness and all these things, but the greatest thing a

01:29:45

Christian wants for anyone is that they come to know Jesus Christ personally and bow the knee to him. And I would imagine from your perspective, you would love to see nothing more than for me to embrace

01:29:56

Islam and say the shahada and the whole nine yards. That would make me very happy, yes. I will not deny that.

01:30:02

Okay, and I'm glad that you wouldn't because there are some who would be afraid to say that, thinking that as long as that's in the back of the mind, then we can never truly have a good relationship and that's what we've gotta get past.

01:30:15

But see, let me just say this as well. From an Islamic perspective, my desire to see you guided doesn't at all infringe on my genuine, my genuine love and care and concern for you, regardless of whether you're guided or not.

01:30:32

I am commanded with my sharia, with my faith tradition to treat you with the utmost dignity and kindness and compassion and care.

01:30:41

And I would say that faithful Christians should view me in the same way. What I found unfortunately is that one segment of them don't do that.

01:30:49

They have nothing but mistrust and fear and hatred. And to me, that's not the image of Jesus Christ that I have amongst what should be happening.

01:30:59

So let's be honest with one another and let's say, you know what? We have some serious theological disagreements.

01:31:06

That's fine. In the meantime, until we meet our Lord and our

01:31:11

Lord will decide between us, one of the verse of the Quran literally says, you do your deeds, we will do our deeds and on judgment day,

01:31:19

God will judge between the both of us. That is the attitude of the Muslim. It doesn't perturb me that much that you've chosen a different way because I'm not the judge.

01:31:31

I'm not gonna, it's not my responsibility to judge you. My job is to convey what

01:31:36

I believe is the truth, which I think I've done. And after that, we are commanded to treat everybody with love and kindness and compassion and mercy.

01:31:44

I genuinely want to help you in any way possible. If you were my neighbor, hopefully you would see a side of compassion and love and care and helping and whatnot.

01:31:55

And I would expect the same from you. So can't we agree to disagree even with passion?

01:32:01

And in the meantime, until we meet our Lord, let's make this world as close to a, well, not a heaven, that's too big of a term, but as close to an ideal place and city as we can.

01:32:12

But we Christians will drive you nuts by bringing the subject up over and over again, if you don't mind. No, I actually don't mind.

01:32:17

Personally, I don't mind. But as long as you as well understand that we ain't converting, so.

01:32:24

Well, that does bring up the first question, which is rather interesting. What are the differences between the

01:32:30

Christian view of predestination and the Islamic view? You wanna ask this now, okay. No, it's on the audience.

01:32:36

It's one of the audience questions. Oh, this is what's writing here, okay. Yeah, it's one of the audience questions. I was gonna say, that's one of the very deep questions. Okay. Anonymous at 706 asked that question, so it's right off the bat, so.

01:32:46

Okay. That is interesting because I am a Reformed theologian. We were talking about this today.

01:32:54

And this is, you know, I was just thinking about the fact that I think a

01:32:59

Reformed Christian has a little bit of a different foundation for being able to have this type of relationship than a non -Reformed, and here's why.

01:33:09

If you do believe that God has a decree that he's working out in this world, and he has an elect people, then see, we have confidence that God is going to draw his people to himself in his own way, that the gospel is gonna go forth with power.

01:33:25

It has the power to change hearts and minds. If I thought it was up to me to debate you into the kingdom, it's not gonna happen.

01:33:36

But we don't believe that salvation is a matter of debating anyone into the kingdom. The description of salvation is a radical taking out of a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, of giving spiritual life.

01:33:47

It's something that God can do, and we believe that when he chooses to do so, there's no power in heaven and earth that can stop him.

01:33:55

And so I can have confidence in that, and therefore leave that to the Lord, be a faithful witness, and just simply be a servant to others in the hopes that that living out the gospel to others is a constant witness.

01:34:09

I would essentially agree with that 100%. We as well believe that God is the one in control.

01:34:18

God decrees, God decides. Perhaps maybe some caveat should be added, though. Sunni Muslims do believe in predestination.

01:34:25

Shiites don't, by the way. That's one of the differences between us. So we affirm God's power and God's will. And we do believe that nothing happens except with his power and will.

01:34:34

And so at some level, everything is predetermined. At the same time, the Quran is also clear that that doesn't mean we're robots.

01:34:41

That doesn't mean that we're just like leaves blowing in the wind. We do have human efficacy. There is an element that is still subordinate to God because humans can never outdo or outwit

01:34:55

God. But at some level, there is a free will that is subordinate to God's will.

01:35:01

So within that spectrum of free will, we are held accountable for our deeds.

01:35:08

And the Sunnah tells us, now this is not in the Quran, the Sunnah tells us that thinking too deeply about predestination will cause your mind to go in circles.

01:35:17

And I think every one of us agrees. It's like predestination is one of those things that the finite human mind can simply not comprehend the infinite power of God and the infinite knowledge of God.

01:35:28

But I think essentially we are on the same wavelength here with maybe some finer details. I don't control your heart, but my job is to be as good of a role model to you and preach to you as politely and as clearly as I can.

01:35:41

And I've done my job. And if God has decreed for you to be guided, then you will be guided. And there is an element of your own will in there as well.

01:35:49

And that's kind of, we'll leave it at that. Well, yeah, we would call that compatibilism. And I do need to add that the, as I understand it, one of the primary differences in the term that you all use is

01:36:02

Qadr, right? Qadr, yes. And one of the primary differences between us as to the mechanism of predestination is that in the

01:36:13

Christian perspective, that includes the very thing that is the fundamental difference between us, and that is the incarnation, that that is a part of God's decree.

01:36:22

And so God becomes, enters into his own creation in the person of his son.

01:36:28

And that that would be something that would not be contemplated whatsoever in the

01:36:33

Islamic vision of that. Obviously, yes. And I think that's important to understand. So did you see any questions that you wanted to grab?

01:36:39

The standard genre of questions that comes always deals with violence and decapacitation and Sharia law.

01:36:46

And again, I will answer some of these, I don't mind. But I really want you to understand that speak to the

01:36:53

Muslims in the audience. We did not grow up at all being exposed to these types of Islam.

01:37:01

And the image that many of you have, so are acts of terrorism in any form consistent with the

01:37:06

Quran? How do you interpret the verses of ISIS, kill the infidels where you find them? Have you noticed the time on all of them?

01:37:12

They're within the first 10 minutes. Oh, that's true, actually, okay. We didn't even get, we didn't even address, we didn't see that, okay.

01:37:18

So, I mean, go visit a mosque or visit your Muslim neighbor. It's literally like, imagine if a person incessantly asked you about,

01:37:28

I don't know, the Westboro Church or the KKK. It just gets a little bit frustrating. Like, that's not who

01:37:34

I am or the faith that I grew up with, or, you know, we have never seen anything like this,

01:37:40

ISIS. Never seen anything like this in our history. And I'm a theologian and a historian of my tradition.

01:37:46

This is the first time something as crazy, I mean, burning people alive in cages, you know, killing.

01:37:51

So a simple example I gave, you know, the Yazidis that they're killing and enslaving, right? The Yazidis are a minority, a sect that goes back to the

01:37:59

Gnostics, and they have been living in Iraq for 900 years. The actual caliphate, the bona fide caliphate of the

01:38:06

Abbasids and the Ottomans in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th centuries was, well, the Abbasids were based in Baghdad.

01:38:13

The Yazidis are a stone's throw away. The actual medieval caliphate did not harm the Yazidis. That's why they're still there.

01:38:20

So here's a guy coming, claiming to be a caliph, I'm talking about ISIS, and doing things that the actual caliphate did not do for a thousand years.

01:38:29

The very fact that there are Yazidis living in Iraq, and they've been there for a thousand years, is demonstrative proof that what

01:38:37

ISIS is doing is atypical. So the whole genre of questions of violence in Islam, it's not coming from the faith tradition.

01:38:46

There are socio -political realities that are beyond the scope of our dialogue, but I've spoken about them in a lot of detail.

01:38:53

Google my name online in ISIS, and you'll come across a lot of lectures that I've given about the reality of ISIS. Listen to them, and you will understand that the reason why this is taking place is not because Muslims are reading the

01:39:06

Quran for the first time and going crazy. The same Quran that ISIS is using has been around for at least in our world, at least for 14 centuries.

01:39:14

We believe it's eternal, but at least it was revealed 14 centuries ago, yet Muslims have never interpreted the verse, kill them wherever you find them, as meaning go and kill infidels wherever you are.

01:39:26

This was a specific verse to the Muslims of Medina and Mecca. Okay, here is the question I was gonna ask you.

01:39:32

It seems to be exactly that this is Surah 929, and that obviously is one of the key texts.

01:39:39

Do you have a video, a lecture, where you contextualize Surah 9 and you work through it?

01:39:46

Because I did a debate in Durban, South Africa, where we discussed violence in the

01:39:54

Bible and in the Quran. And one of the reasons I did it is I wanted people to understand that just as we have texts concerning the destruction of the

01:40:05

Amorites or something like that, we have to look at the Bible and go, well, there is a specific context here.

01:40:10

Exactly. This is the children of Israel going into the promised land. Obviously, we have the new covenant today.

01:40:18

There is a different situation today, et cetera, et cetera. We demand the right to be able to contextualize our text.

01:40:27

What is the context of Surah 9 that contextualizes that and delegitimizes the utilization of Al -Qaeda and ISIS?

01:40:36

Okay, so Al -Qaeda and ISIS are not primarily using this one verse, actually.

01:40:41

They have a whole series of justifications, most of which are political. Go listen to Bin Laden's videos on YouTube.

01:40:48

Listen to them directly. See what he's saying. You'll find that 90 % of it is political, 5%, 10 % religious language is used there.

01:40:56

Go listen to Zawahiri. Go listen to the people that have joined ISIS. In English, some of these are

01:41:01

English. Go listen to the seven summit bombers in England speaking with their British accents before they did their deeds.

01:41:07

And again, there is no justification. Please don't misunderstand me. But there is a contextualization.

01:41:13

Listen to what they're saying and you will see that 95 % are political issues that they have.

01:41:21

Now, as for this verse, it's a very easy, clear verse and that's why it's never been misunderstood this way.

01:41:28

And ISIS and Al -Qaeda does not use this verse primarily. This is actually a misunderstanding.

01:41:34

They barely use this verse at all. And that is because not a single person has ever been killed because of this verse in Islamic history, even when it came down.

01:41:42

The verse is one of the final verses ever revealed. And the

01:41:47

Surah, Surah 9, is essentially the proclamation that the holy city of Mecca, the city of Abraham and Ishmael can no longer house idolatry.

01:41:58

So the Surah begins, the chapter begins that announced to the pagans they have to leave the holy lands of Mecca.

01:42:05

They have to go to further regions. They're not allowed to be here. Announce that they have four months to decide what they wanna do.

01:42:13

Either convert to the faith or leave and go somewhere else, right? And if anybody wants safe passage and protection, make sure that you give them safe passage and protection till they get out of the holy sanctuary.

01:42:25

Mecca is a holy place that Abraham built according to the Islamic tradition and Ishmael built and it's a holy place.

01:42:32

There can be no idolatry. Once the four months go by, then tell them that they shall be killed wherever they are found.

01:42:42

This is meaning in the city of Mecca, right? Which unbelievers can't go into. Which unbelievers still cannot go into, yeah.

01:42:48

So the city of Mecca is a holy city. Nobody's ever been killed for going into Mecca. I mean, people have gone to Mecca.

01:42:53

They have been travelers who disguised themselves. They wrote travelogues about it. Google them. There's like a whole genre of Western travelers throughout the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries that pretended to be

01:43:03

Muslims, disguised themselves and went. And some people were discovered. Nobody was killed because it's not meant to be effective in the future.

01:43:10

It is essentially a threat to the local pagans that you have four months. After that, no holes barred.

01:43:18

And it is a very harsh threat, no denying that. But it was never effected. Nothing actually happened.

01:43:23

Nobody was actually killed as a result of this verse. So this verse does not in any sense or fashion or form provide a carte blanche ruling to kill all infidels.

01:43:34

It is nonsensical that somebody even believes this because Islamic law has very detailed tomes dedicated to the rights of non -Muslims and the status of non -Muslims.

01:43:47

Look at Egypt, classic example. The Muslims conquered Egypt in the first Islamic century.

01:43:53

Egypt was essentially 100 % Christian, Coptic Christian. 100 % Coptic Christian. And a lot of research has been done on Egypt.

01:44:00

Currently, 2016, 2017, Egypt is 90 % Muslim, 10 %

01:44:06

Coptic Christian. So in 1 ,450 years, from 100 %

01:44:12

Christian to 10 % Christian, a lot of research has been done on Egypt. In the entire history of Egypt, there was never one generation where there was a spike of converts.

01:44:24

Rather, it's a steady but slowly, surely you're just going up until you get to a tapered off at around 70, 80 years ago.

01:44:32

After that, not much conversion has taken place. There was never any massive amount of conversion.

01:44:38

It was slow, it was organic, and people converted. The very fact that one out of 10 Egyptians is still a

01:44:44

Copt and Egypt has been under Muslim rule for 1 ,450 years, it dispels this myth or this notion that Islam is gonna kill the infidel wherever they find them.

01:44:57

Now, does Islamic law have different treatment of non -Muslims? I'm not gonna sugarcoat. Yes, it does.

01:45:03

But one needs to understand that Islamic politics was very different than modern secularism.

01:45:09

Just like American law has different statuses for people that are not American. If you're on an

01:45:14

H1, a J1, a K1, a T1 visa, you don't have the same rights and privileges as somebody,

01:45:19

I mean, let's get practical here. To be the president, your mother has to give birth to you in America.

01:45:26

The controversy over Barack Obama, sorry to get political here, but the controversy of where he was born. Why? I mean, somebody can ask, what's the big deal?

01:45:33

Because from the perspective of American law, where you were born gives you certain privileges.

01:45:38

So the nation state views itself with a particular hierarchy. And that's fine.

01:45:44

Well, Islamic law viewed itself with a particular hierarchy. And there was a hierarchy. Nobody's gonna deny that.

01:45:50

At the same time, does that hierarchy have to be imported and updated? That's the question for debate now.

01:45:56

And Muslim theologians are talking about that now. Obviously, that can be abused.

01:46:02

There are times when Christian minorities have, there've been bad

01:46:09

Muslim rulers and things like that. You're talking about in a general sense here in regards to what that particular Surah was talking about.

01:46:15

And that's the context of it. So you would limit it primarily to that, only that time period. Right after -

01:46:21

It's not just me. This is the consensus of the exegetes that, I mean, go read, you don't even have to have a background knowledge.

01:46:28

Read the beginning of chapter nine. It is so explicit. Announce to the pagans they have to depart from the holy lands, give them four months.

01:46:37

If anybody requests safe passage, guarantee them safe passage. Once the four months have gone by, once the holy months have gone by, then announce that no hole's barred, they will be slayed wherever they are found.

01:46:49

It's very clear. There's no ambiguity in it. There's a question to me that you might find is, I'm not sure if you scrolled down to far enough to see this one.

01:46:58

Question to James, solidarity with Muslims regarding Muslim registry. In the advent of latest administration, there might be draconic laws geared against Muslims to register them.

01:47:11

If these laws come into effect, can we expect any solidarity with our fellow Christians? Have you thought about that?

01:47:19

Now, I cannot possibly see that happening, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't care who

01:47:26

President Trump thinks that he is. There are limits to presidential power. We would hope.

01:47:33

And I can't possibly see the courts allowing anything like that to happen.

01:47:39

But I will answer it along these lines. I have been very concerned by the fact that a lot of my fellow

01:47:45

Christians have bought into the idea that we should buy into religious restrictions of,

01:47:53

I'm sorry, restrictions of religious liberty. Don't you realize that if you give the government power to limit the religious rights of one group, look at this government, look what they're doing.

01:48:09

How long is it gonna be before they turn that on us and apply these things to us?

01:48:16

So even just on a selfish basis, even if you aren't even concerned about somebody else, you should realize, my goodness, this is a foolish path to go down to give the government the power to engage in this kind of thing.

01:48:30

And I do not want, I do not want this government to be applying religious tests to us.

01:48:36

Do you want an official government translation of the Bible, for example? I mean, can you imagine that? Do you want them examining our theology to see if you're a real

01:48:45

Christian or you're not a real Christian? Haven't we seen this before in other lands?

01:48:51

This is dangerous. And so I would hope that there would be a major outcry against any such thing, because it is just such a complete overthrow of the vision of religious liberty in this land that if it's gonna, remember what happened with the

01:49:11

Jews in Nazi Germany? They started small and expanded from there. And it would be a horrific thing.

01:49:19

So certainly from my perspective, you would. I can't even begin to predict what kind of percentage of people, but there would be an outcry.

01:49:30

So religious and conservative Christians need to realize, and you all know this, you and us are both minorities in this land.

01:49:38

Yeah. If you're gonna give the government powers to go after one minority, you're going to give them powers to go after every minority.

01:49:47

And that's not what this country was founded on. That's not the vision of our founding fathers. Our founding fathers, whatever you wanna believe about their personal lives and their versions of Christianity, it's very clear they understood the dangers of giving any one sect power over others.

01:50:03

These days, it's not even Christian sect. It is people that don't believe in any religion. You're gonna give them powers.

01:50:09

I do have to mention one question, by the way, I'm going back here. And this question is very troubling to me, and that's why I wanna say it very explicitly.

01:50:16

It's the one asked at 7 .32 p .m. He's saying he's a devout Muslim. That means he's taught to hate the infidels.

01:50:23

The Quran is the word of God. That means he's lying to us all. We believe our Bible and are faithful.

01:50:29

Muslims believe theirs, so he is lying. See, this sentiment, it's not even insulting, it's frustrating.

01:50:40

Why would you not believe me when I've just said that I think that a person who believes in a trinity has the potential to go to hell?

01:50:47

Where am I lying here? I've been as honest as I possibly can. Why would you doubt me when

01:50:54

I say that I believe in Islam, I believe that the God of Abraham is the God of Muhammad, I don't believe

01:51:00

Jesus preached the trinity? Where do you see any ambiguity? When I tell you that my religion does not teach me to hate the infidel, why then do you doubt this?

01:51:11

You are willing to believe a stranger over everybody here that's a Muslim? How can

01:51:17

I get across to you that that's dangerous? You're building these walls and barriers that don't need to exist.

01:51:26

I do not hate you. I genuinely wish good for you. And I believe theologically you are not on the same wavelength as I am, so you're incorrect.

01:51:35

And I don't have a problem you feel the same about me. But for you to assume that I am lying because the

01:51:42

Quran preaches hatred, do you think you know the Quran better than all of us Muslims?

01:51:48

Do you think that all Muslims, 1 .6 billion of them, have this secret code that they communicate to one another that they're all gonna come together and lie?

01:51:57

Takiyah, that's the point, you know? Please, please, I hope you'll know there are 11 thumbs down on that one, just so you know.

01:52:05

There's been a lot of other people going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But the fact that somebody in this audience, after you've heard us and after you,

01:52:15

I mean, it's still, it kind of - Well, it was at 7 .30, so we have covered a lot of that since then. One would hope.

01:52:22

I would really hope. I would really hope. There's just one really quickly, there's one more addressed to me and I just wanted to cover it quickly and we're out of time.

01:52:29

There was a quick question up here, and I'm really sorry, folks. This is a really cool question. I have to admit.

01:52:36

Yeah, it is. And I wish there was some, if the tech guys can let us know, I'd like to know if there's some way to save these because I'd like to be able to see them.

01:52:44

If there's some way to save them to a text file or something, let me know because that would be neat. But there was a question, here it is.

01:52:51

At 7 .14, why did Jesus, and we know which side this came from because nobody from this church would put

01:52:58

P -B -U -H after Jesus, so we know where that's coming from. Peace be upon him. Not mention salvation through death on the cross in Matthew 16, 19 through 22.

01:53:08

If Jesus is sitting here amongst us, would his answer change? And what's interesting is in Matthew chapter 16, you do have his saying to Peter when he announces that he's going to Jerusalem and he's going to be crucified.

01:53:23

And Peter says, may it never be because that was not what the Jews were expecting of the Messiah. Jesus' response was,

01:53:29

Peter, get behind me. You're minding the things of man, not of God. Satan, get away from me. So it is there, and it was very central to his message, even beginning at that time, that he was going to Jerusalem and it was necessary that he be crucified.

01:53:45

So I wasn't sure, maybe it was just a different, the wrong reference or something like that, but that's exactly what

01:53:50

Matthew 16's talking about. So I'm not sure if Jesus is sitting here amongst us, would his answer change?

01:53:56

Well, obviously we don't believe that his answer would change because we believe that the New Testament accurately represents what he said.

01:54:02

So it's exactly nine o 'clock. Let me just, I need to make two quick things before we conclude.

01:54:08

Firstly, tomorrow, James and I will be having a discussion in our mosque, the

01:54:14

Memphis Islamic Center. So that's in Cordova, so just Google it, the Memphis Islamic Center, MIC.

01:54:21

So if you wanna come, there'll be like a, not necessarily a round two, but I mean, just a further discussion.

01:54:27

I may end up talking more. Okay, yes, James will end up talking more. So that's gonna be at 7 .30 p .m.

01:54:33

tomorrow at the Memphis Islamic Center, which is in Cordova. And secondly, on, is it

01:54:39

March 4th? The March 4th, on March 4th, all mosques in Memphis will be having an open day, okay?

01:54:46

So just any mosque that's closest to you, there's like five mosques in Memphis that are purpose -built, constructed mosques.

01:54:53

And one of the largest one is the one I'm with, Memphis Islamic Center, but there's Masjid Rahman, Masjid Noor, there's other mosques here as well.

01:54:59

Just Google, you know, mosque, and then see the closest one to you. And if you wanna come to the

01:55:05

Memphis Islamic Center, where I'll be, that'll be that on March 4th, it'll be open mosque day across the city of Memphis.

01:55:11

And March is actually Muslims in Memphis month declared by the mayor, so we have a lot of activities going on in the month of March.

01:55:18

Let me just make those two announcements. Okay, before we close, I would like, I just started a tradition when

01:55:25

I had my first debate with Shabir Ali at Biola University to give my dialogue partner a gift.

01:55:35

And so I have, you can understand what the first gift I would give to someone would be.

01:55:40

I've actually, you have a number of my books already, I think, but I got you, now some of you know what this is.

01:55:47

This is the New American Standard Bible, which I was a critical consultant on. I've got somewhat of an attachment there.

01:55:55

But this is made by Cambridge, and it's called a Pitt Minion. And some of you know, the

01:56:00

Pitt Minion is a very nicely made, very nicely made Bible.

01:56:06

And so I wanted you to have this, and thanks for your being here this evening.

01:56:11

I think it's been a very useful time together. And once again, very honored to have the opportunity of speaking with you.