Samiul Islam from Hong Kong posted a comment this morning to an earlier blog posting, “The History of Islam.” 

Here is Samiul’s letter:

u give me 1 answer.!!!!! u always said that jesus is a prince of peace. then how can he say the following things :Bible: OLD Testament:Jeremiah 6:11 “Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.”Hosea 5:10 The princes of Judah are like those who remove landmarks to steal their neighbor’s land. I will pour out my displeasure on them like a flood.Hosea 5:14 I will be like a lion to Israel and like a young lion to Judah. I will tear their nations to pieces, and then walk away. I will carry them off and no one will rescue them. They will be as good as dead.

Omitted/Secret Gospel Testament:

Thomas 16: Jesus says: “Men indeed think I have come to bring peace to the world. But they do not know that I have come to bring the world discord, fire, sword, war. Indeed, if there are five {people} in a house, they will become three against two and two against three – father against son and son against father – and they will be lifted up, being solitaries.”

Thomas 1: “Whoever penetrates the meaning of these words will not taste death!”

Thomas 2: “Let him who seeks cease not to seek until he finds: when he finds he will be astonished; and when he is astonished he will wonder, and will reign over the universe!”

Thomas 5: “Know what is before your face, and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For nothing hidden will fail to be revealed!”

Thomas 10: Jesus says: “I have cast a fire onto the world, and see, I watch over it until it blazes up!”

Thomas 17: Jesus says: “I will give you what eye has never seen, and what ear has never heard, and what hand has never touched, and what has never entered into the heart of man.”

Eternal Christendom:

Do you think you have heard it all before: Prince of Peace, you say!!!
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God – for they will see the Kingdom of God!” (Matthew 5:9).

Thomas 17: Jesus says: “I will give you what eye has never seen, and what ear has never heard, and what hand has never touched, and what has never entered into the heart of man.”

Thomas 5: “Know what is before your face, and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For nothing hidden will fail to be revealed!”

Thomas 10: Jesus says: “I have cast a fire onto the world, and see, I watch over it until it blazes up!”

The favorite books of the Pacifist: The Bible (at the present time REVELATIONS and the opened Book of Daniel), The Torah, The Koran, The Sutras.

Book of Revelation 5:5; “And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.”
now tell me y all of u observe the mary christmass as jesus birth day when its a peganic holiday of birth of sun god appolo.

My response:

Dear Samiul:

You raise some interesting points, and I think I understand the gist of your argument: how can Christians point a finger at the violence inherent in the Qur’an when similar themes are found in the Judeo-Christian Bible?

I want to commend you for not pointing to examples of violence perpetrated by Christ-followers, such as the Crusades or Northern Ireland.  However, since this is often a major point of contention, I think it is appropriate to acknowledge that Christians have, and probably will always justify acts of violence and bigotry in the name of Christ.  When they do, they have no justification for their actions from the life and teachings Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament.  In so doing, they betray the person they claim to follow and stand condemned by the very Gospel they claim to defend. On the other hand, Muslims who enage in violence and destruction of Islam’s opponents have ample justification for their actions from the life and sayings of prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an. They can legitimately claim they are following the example of their prophet since he encouraged the killing and intimidation of his enemies.  This was not just in self defense as it is commonly reported by Muslims, but in the promotion of the cause of God and the spread of Islam.

Most of the Bible passages you quoted are from what Christians refer to as the Old Testament.  These, and other Old Testament passages portray a vengeful God that may seem very similar to Islam’s Allah. However, the primary theme is of God’s holiness and his abhorrence of sin.  If you examine what God told Abraham hundreds of years before his descendants settled in Canaan, you will notice his emphasis on the sins of the people living in the land.  God intended Israel to be an instrument of His justice to purge the land of its sinfulness.  In like fashion, God later used the Assyrians and Babylonians as His instruments to cleanse the land by destroying the people of Israel when they in turn sinned grievously.  In striking contrast, the early accounts of Muhammad’s raids and wars had two focal points. 

  1. For those who lived: looting of their enemies and securing booty and the spoils of war. 
  2. For those who died: the hedonisitic pleasures of Paradise.

This is not a stereotypical charge against Islam. The most ancient Muslim biography of prophet Muhammad, written by Ibn Ishaq in the second century of the Islamic era (translated by A. Guillaume and published by Oxford University Press in 1955) unashamedly chronicles the violence in the actions of prophet Muhammad and his early followers.

Another important distinction should be noted: the divine command for the destruction of the few decadent cities of Canaan was for a specific people, time, place, and purpose.  This is not repeated anywhere else in the Old or New Testaments.  Israel was not commanded to attack other pagan nations, either as self-defense or to promote faith in the true God of heaven and earth.  In contrast, the Qur’an includes generalized commands to kill and destroy the enemies of Islam that are applicable for all times and places and people groups. It is beyond dispute that from the earliest times, immediately following the death of Muhammad, Muslim factions began fighting, killing and assassinating even each other, in the name of God. The entire 1,300 year history of Islam is filled with the appeals of Muslims to ever-applicable Qur’anic passages to destroy their enemies.

But what of the person of Jesus?  You take issue with the title “Prince of Peace.”  The examples of his pacifistic philosophy are many.  Jesus told his followers to pray for their enemies.  During the well-known occasion of his betrayal, a sword was drawn to defend him. He told one of his closest confidants to put it away and admonished him: “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” In sharp contrast, Muhammad personally supervised the beheading of hundreds of unarmed captives.  In my book, The Y Factor, one of my characters summarizes the difference in how we are to regard our enemies: The New Testament teaches us to love and pray; the Qur’an teaches Muslims to hate and slay. I know there are peaceful Muslims, but they are considered apostates becuase the ignore the clear mandate of the Qur’an to wreak violence upon all Kafirs (unbelievers).

If you wish to examine the stark contrast further, I refer you to Mark A. Gabriel’s book, Jesus and Muhammad. Dr. Gabriel is uniquely qualified to discuss the differences.  He holds a PhD in Islamic history and culture from Al-Azhar University and later taught on the same topic there.  He then became a follower of Jesus Christ and earned a PhD in Christian education.
Muslims generally believe that Islam is the final monotheistic religion, superior in every way to Judaism and Christianity.  Muslim children are taught that Judaism was like elementary school, Christianity equivalent to high school, and Islam is at the university level.  Although each religion was from God, each one became progressively higher and better.  I contend that the only way in which Islam supercedes its sister Abrahamic faiths is chronologically.

Regardless of the historical antecedents, Islamic violence must be confronted today.  If you object to the stereotype of violence, then I encourage you and other Muslims to speak out vigorously against the violence being perpetrated in the name of your shared faith.  Publicly denounce those who represent the face of Islam today and boldly declare them to be heretics based upon the Qur’an.  Declare a jihad against them and rid the earth of their influence.  Only then will Western civilization have confidence that we can peacefully coexist.

In closing, I encourage you to consider the character of Jesus in contrast to Allah, which is more appropriate than comparing Him to Muhammad.  Ultimately, I suspect you will not be persuaded with logic or biblical exegesis, for your argument  is not a matter of the intellect.  It is a struggle for your heart.  You may think you have an adequate understanding of Jesus because of what is said of him in the Qur’an.  But that is a caricature of reality, as is the discredited ‘Gospel’ of Thomas that you quote freely.  Again, I refer you to Dr. Gabriel’s book.  I believe you will find him to be very persuasive because of his Islamic upbringing. 

Samiul, if you can remain open-minded, you will find a quality in our God that is unknown in yours: He loves you and desires to have a relationship with you.  He knew you before the foundation of the world and desires that you accept His offer of redemption.  This is a profound difference and the invitation is open to all.

Other blog entries you may find interesting:

The New Dark Ages: A Long Eurabian Night
Hand-Wringing Diplomacy: Mideast Peace is an Impossible Goal
Islam: What the West Needs to Know
A Woman’s Place in Islam
Islamic Law Requires Breast Feeding of Male Co-workers
What is the Qur’an? Archaeological Find Invalidates Islam’s Holy Book
Love Your Enemies and Pray For Those Who Persecute You
Madrassah Schools: Why They Pose a Threat to Western Civilization
Violence in the Bible: 1st Response to a Muslim
Validity of Scripture: 2nd Response Presents The Bible as Superior to the Qur’an
The Historic Alliance of Christianity and Science
DNA and the Flood: The Biblical Account is Written in Our Genetic Code
Jihad.com: Islamofascists Are Recruiting Via the Internet
A Brief History of Islam
Submission: The Movie That Led a Muslim to Assassinate Theo Van Gogh
Honoring America’s Fallen Warriors
Profile of A Reluctant Hero: Why Christians Should Defend Themselves
The Enlightenment of Atheism