Transcription
To Muslims, most of this back then—no Muslim you would talk to had any clue about any of this. Now you hear—now lots of Muslims are familiar with, like Muhammad and Aisha, because lots of critics kept bringing it up for the past couple decades. So now they're becoming aware of that. But your average Muslim—there's still so much about his prophet and his book that he doesn't know. That if you learn some of that and you share it with him, you're going to be the first person he's hearing this from. Wow.
And you're looking—you're looking for this kind of light switch moment. I've seen it over and over and over again. When the light switch flips, it's like this moment when they realize, "Wait a minute. I've been a Muslim all my life, in the mosque all my life. I've never heard any of this. Why am I hearing all this stuff from a Christian? Why am I not hearing it from them? Why am I hearing the truth about Muhammad from Christians and I'm not hearing it from my leaders?" And there's a—there's this light switch moment where the light goes on and they think, "Maybe I can't trust what they've been telling me all my life. Maybe I need to investigate this for myself." And as soon as they say, "I need to investigate this for myself," that's someone who's on his way out of Islam. Wow. Wow. Wow. That is wow. Wow. Wow. First off, wow. Uh, I—I think the fact that you know so much, and again, what you're doing is you're just—you're just quoting. I think that's a—a huge thing is you're not pulling out arguments from some professor. You're simply quoting the Quran and the Hadith, and like you're saying, most people didn't know this—that that it was in there. I think that's what's uh startling for a lot of us.
Um, here—here's a question I have for you. You know, in—in Scripture, in the New Testament, uh, God calls us that, you know, the children of God. Uh, Jesus is, you know, "I no longer call you servants, I call you friends." What is the ultimate relationship a human being can have with Allah? The only relationship you—I mean, the Quran says that no one comes—comes to Allah as anything other than a slave. So the—the greatest prophet, the lowliest—anything, it doesn't matter. You—we all come before Allah as slaves, and you're either a good slave or—or you're a bad slave. Um, and that's actually connected to so much more. That's connected to like ethics in Islam uh versus ethics in Christianity. You know, this—if you have a child, you sort of automatically love the child. The—the—the baby does not have to earn your love. You're not—you don't sit there and say, "Hey, you know, oh my—my son was just born, let me wait till he grows up and then I'll figure out if I love him or not based on how good he's being," right? No, you—you automatically love—you automatically love your son. Uh, and so in—in Christianity, if we are—if we are loved by God, and—and—and we're—we're children of God, and God is our heavenly Father, that's—that's describing a different kind of relationship where we're even told that—that God first loved us. We didn't start this—God first loved us. In Islam, it's flipped, because we are nothing but slaves to Allah. Keep in mind, if you were to buy a slave, you wouldn't automatically love that slave. You would—you would find out—you—you might come to love a slave. You might say, "Oh wow, you know, this slave's been with me 20 years, he's been such a—so good—uh, I really—really love this slave," you could. But that slave would have to earn your love. And so you have this—you have this completely different mindset in Islam where you have to earn Allah's love and respect—to show that you're a good slave. And if you show that you're a good slave, then Allah will love you. And that's straight out of the—the Quran. Over and over again, talks about all these different people that Allah doesn't love. He doesn't love the proud, he doesn't love the boastful, he doesn't love the mischief makers, he doesn't love the unbelievers. And think about that—we're told, "Love our enemies." Why? So that we can be like our Father. So wait a minute—Our Father in Heaven loves these people that we don't like. Okay, we have to love them too. Come on. In Islam, Allah does not love the unbelievers. He has no love for the unbelievers. And so why should you—why should you, as a Muslim, love unbelievers when Allah himself doesn't—doesn't love them? And so you—you have these—you have these things, and they're listed as—as doctrines. Like we all—we come to Allah as nothing but a slave.
Yeah. But once you—once you start connecting the dots, you find out how much—how many other things this is all connected to. What do you see as the viewpoint the Quran has of Jesus and of Christians? I think it's Surah 5:82, correct me if I'm wrong, that basically says that—that Christians are like super close homies with Muslims or something like that. Uh, that's—that's the—the—the modern version that I just made up, uh, but it sounds like in the Quran that, you know, Jesus—first off, Jesus is in the Quran. He's the Messiah, he was born of a Virgin Mary, he did Miracles. What would you say is the ultimate opinion of Christianity from an Islamic standpoint?
Yeah, uh, so you have a—you have a couple things there. Um, so you pointed out that there are times when uh Christians are spoken of favorably, and this is all part of this trajectory of Islam. At first—at first when Muhammad starts preaching in Mecca, the basic message is, "Hey, it's going to be Muslims, Christians, and Jews all united against the polytheists." So it's us—it's the monotheists versus the polytheists. And back then he was saying positive things about Jews and Christians. Later on, he moved to Medina where there were three Jewish tribes. He'd been saying the entire time he was in Mecca, he was—he'd been saying, "Hey, you guys are all pagans, you don't know any better," but the Jews—they'll know me because I'm in their scriptures. The Jews will recognize me. And so for—for—for over a decade in Mecca, he's telling his followers that the Jews are this source of authority on matters of who is and who isn't a prophet. And once—once he gets to—once he gets to the Jews, the Jews will confirm him. And so uh, he—the community—Muslim community eventually went to Medina, three Jewish tribes—they made fun of him quite a bit, uh, according to them he's basically like—like the most obvious false prophet in history. And so this changed Muhammad's view of Jews, and all of a sudden—all of a sudden it became, "It's going to be Muslim and Christians against Jews and polytheists." And in fact, the verse you're bringing up, 5:82, that—that verse also says uh that—that Jews are the most vehement in hostility towards the Believers. Now think about this—he was just saying nice stuff, and now it's switched—why? They rejected him. So you had this—you had this period where it became uh, you know, again, Jews and—and pagans versus uh Christians and Muslims and so on. Uh, later on, of course, the Christians rejected him as well when he encountered some Christians. So by the time you get to Surah 9, the last major chapter revealed, um, it's, "Fight those who do not believe in Allah," and it specifically refers to Jews and Christians as unbelievers. So yeah, it's—it's just interesting to me how Allah's opinion of Jews and Christians always changes. It always has to do with however Muhammad is feeling about them at—at some—some given point. So that's the issue with Christians. As far as Jesus, um, yeah, there's lots of things about Jesus in the Quran that Christians would agree with. Uh, this is—this is ultimately because Muhammad is copying lots of things from other religions. I mean, according to the Quran, Alexander the Great was a devout Muslim. And that's just so insane to anyone who knows about Alexander the Great. There's—you can't possibly be more pagan than Alexander the Great, and yet in the Quran he's a devout Muslim. So it looks like Muhammad just took everyone who was important who came before him and said, "Oh yeah, these are—these were devout Muslims." And the group he's talking to, they don't—they don't really know any better. But what's interesting from a Christian perspective is—one—this is—this is an area where, you know, the Muslims going to bring—bring this up. If you go to a dawah booth, the dawah booth very frequently has, "Jesus was a Muslim," written across it, because they're trying to draw Christians in for a discussion. So, you know, they're going to be bringing up Jesus, and, "Hey, we don't hate Jesus, we believe in Jesus too, we love Jesus." So it's going to come up as a topic. So if you know how to navigate that discussion, it could be—could be very—could be very interesting. But—but the one of the—one of the important points about Jesus in the Quran is it just makes no sense. It just makes no sense. Muhammad was adopting things—adopting ideas about Jesus, and they don't make any sense from an Islamic perspective. So um, according to—according to the Quran, Jesus is the word of Allah. No one else is called the word of Allah—just Jesus. He's called the word of Allah. We know where that comes from, right? He heard Christians saying that, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God," right? He doesn't know what it means—doesn't know what it means, but he hears Christians saying that—describing Jesus as the word. Uh, but anyway, Jesus is the word of Allah. He's a spirit from Allah, according to the Quran. He's born of a virgin—no one else is born of a virgin. He lives the most miraculous life in history. Muhammad is told that he has no miracles except for the Quran. Uh, he's the Messiah, he's all these things. He even—in the Quran—creates as Allah creates. Allah creates a man—Adam uh out of clay and breathes into him, and then Adam becomes uh man. But Jesus does the same thing in the Quran. He creates clay birds and breathes into them and creates—and gives them life. And it's like, "Why is Jesus creating in the same way Allah creates?" And the Quran will say, "Oh, he does it by Allah's permission." It's like, "Wait, why is Allah having this guy do these things that are making people around him think that he's God?" And so you look at this and say—you can ask your Muslim friend—you say, "Hey, explain to me why Jesus is so unique even in Islam—not just in Christianity—even in Islam. Why is he the one who's the word of Allah? Why is he the one who has the most miraculous life? Why is he the one who's born of a virgin? Why is he the only one who's sinless? Why—why is he so unique?" And there's no Muslim answer. It's just, "Allah knows best." And so you—what—what—what you actually want to do is go through that—get the Muslim to realize, "Yeah, there's no real reason to make Jesus so radically special in Islam." There's a—there's a reason for him to be radically special in Christianity. Why is he so radically special in Islam? And you move this into a discussion—was, "Well, can you blame us—can you blame us for thinking that Jesus is—is this special figure when even according to your religion he's—he's that—he's that special?" You know, you eventually want to get into comparing Jesus and Muhammad and to pointing out the areas that the Quran denies. Because here's—here's the ultimate takeaway—Jesus comes and he's preaching, and then you get to the book of Acts and you see, you know, he's just spent three years with his disciples teaching them all kinds of things. But when they go out and preach in the book of Acts, you see over and over again what they regard as the gospel—it's a message about Jesus' death for sins, his resurrection, and his divine nature. So he died on the cross for sins, he rose from the dead, he's Lord. They—they emphasize that wherever they want. And so we're also told in the—in the Bible that false prophets and false teachers are going to come. What are they going to do? They're going to lead people away from the truth of that message. And then all of a sudden you get to Muhammad centuries later, and Muhammad comes along—think about this—and Muhammad comes along, "Hey, you Christians, you believe in God, so do I. You believe in the prophets, so do I. Uh, about Jesus, you believe that he's the word of God, so do I. You believe that he's born of a virgin, so do I. You believe that he performed all these miracles, so do I. You believe that he's uh sinless, so do I. You believe that he's the Messiah, so do I. We agree on all these things—we agree on pretty much everything except these three little things—one, he didn't die on the cross for sins; two, he didn't rise from the dead; and three, he's not Lord." Now, if we could just get past that—if we could just get past that, then we're good to go. And the—the—the Christian response should have been, "My goodness, we've been waiting for you, cuz you are—you were like the perfect ultimate false prophet. You agree with us on everything else except the core of the gospel, and you declare like all-out assault on those core doctrines of the Gospel. My—we've been waiting for you." So anyway, that—that's the importance of understanding Jesus in the Quran. You can actually uh respond to Muslim objections about that, but you can actually show them some of the problems with their own—with their own system.
David, that is so unbelievably helpful. You are, man, just—incredible. The way—able to just dissect such heady things and make it so easy to process. And—and I—we're going to have to have you back, cuz I—I—I—I love the way you're able to uh just inform us. Uh, but I do one last question before we let you go this time, which is this: Let's say we have someone like Nabil—used to be someone watching this—and they're a Muslim, or they live in the Middle East, or they're studying Islam, whatever it might be. And honestly, they're a little scared to be watching this one, because as we've talked about on—on many episodes of "Can the Bible and Islam," it is so interwoven with their identity, with respecting their family, with not bringing dishonor—that to even think about leaving Islam would be catastrophic, and is catastrophic in a lot of ways. But they're here—they're—they're watching this channel, they're watching this show, they're watching you, and something tugging at them—I would call that the Holy Spirit—is making them think. And you have this platform, you have this microphone for—for a couple more minutes, David. What would you say to someone watching this exact episode who's clicked on and they see you?
Yeah, the—the first thing would be—lots of Muslims think that if you criticize their beliefs or something, you're attacking them because you hate them. And I mean, there may be people who just—I know—there are people who just hate Muslims and so on. Uh, when we criticize your beliefs and we share the gospel with you, it's not out of hatred. If I—if I didn't love you, Muslims, would not I just let you go on serving the most obvious false prophet in history for the rest of your life? I mean, what—what worst thing can I possibly do? Um, so when we are criticizing Muhammad and the Quran, it's not because I look at—I look at you and I go, "Oh, I hate this person." It's because I look at you and I go, "Oh, this person has been led astray his entire life. I mean, he's been told by his sheikhs and imams that all these things about Muhammad are true, and that he needs to dedicate his entire life to this one 7th-century Arabian caravan robber." It's like, "No, no, you're made for some—you're made in the image of God. You're made for something better than that." So when I'm criticizing Muhammad, it's not because I hate you, it's because you've been misled about him, and Muhammad is actually an obstacle to you having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. So even if you think—even if you think we're wrong—even if you think we're wrong about this, at least be—at least understand our motives. At least understand our motives. We have your best interest—um, we have your best interest in mind. With that said, as far as the arguments that are used—used for Islam—the same arguments that you Muslims are told by your leaders about the scientific miracles and the perfect preservation—all these things about Muhammad—his character is so great—"My goodness, how do you listen to that and never—it never crosses your mind to do any bit of research about it?" I mean, any argument that—that I'm listening to from anyone, my first instinct is to say, "Okay, let me go look this up—let me go look this up and—and see if I can flesh this out and see if the evidence actually does support this." Uh, somehow it's—somehow in Islam it's, "Here's all the evidence, but don't ever question it." No, if you just—if you just research these things—like seriously—you find out—you find out that the people who are telling you all these reasons Islam is true, they have no problem deceiving you. And there's a reason I've tried to figure this out about the dawah guys—that the best—the best I can—the best I can understand them is they believe that it's actually good. In other words, "If I lie to you for your entire life, but it keeps you believing in Islam and you go to heaven, have I harmed you by lying to you all your life?" That's their—that's their mentality, whereas our mentality is the truth does not need an endless—endless series of lies to prop it up. If Islam were true, you wouldn't need all of those lies. And so that's kind of a sign that it's a false system. And so I would—I would encourage every Muslim watching—when your leaders are telling you something, you can ask them, "Hey, I want to see this—I want to see this evidence for myself." Look it up—try to look at—try to look at it from the perspective of someone who's actually uh seriously investigating this. And then start asking yourself why Jesus is always so different even in Islam. Start trying to figure out and understand why the Quran affirms the inspiration and the preservation and the authority of the Bible, which you believe is corrupted. Your God and your Prophet affirm it, and you believe it's corrupted—why? Because your leaders told you that's what the Quran says. Look that up—look up what the Quran actually says about the Bible. Then ask yourself, "Why are they making this up? Why is the Quran pointing me to the scriptures of the Jews and Christians? Why is the Quran pointing me to Jesus? Why does the Quran have all these problems?" And then just look into that and see—see where it goes. And if you're sincere, I know where you're going.
David, would my brother, thank you so—so very much. We're going to have to have you back. That was incredible. Uh, thanks again, my friend.