Islam vs. Christianity: Every Major Question – Finally Answered in One Powerful Video!
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Islam is the faith of Jesus, and Christianity is the faith about the person of Jesus. Muhammad ﷺ, he never met Mary. She came 600 years before him. Then how can she be the only person mentioned in the Qur'an by name? Not only she is mentioned by name, she is shown as the most pious of all the ladies ever. 300 Bibles in my collection from different times in history, different languages and different versions. Every single one of them, they are different. Islamic belief is that there would be a second coming of Jesus. So he was not killed. He was not crucified. Jesus, peace be upon him, he was a monotheistic person, never drank alcohol, never ate pork, never had any blood.
You know, consumption of the blood because he was a practicing Muslim, a prophet. So if you love Jesus, follow the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus was Islam. Assalamu alaikum (Peace be upon you), Doctor Sabeel Ahmed. Thank you for coming and being with us today. We gather some questions about Christianity and we want to ask them to you. Alaikum salaam Warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Yes. Please go ahead. Starting with the first question, what kind of reactions do you get when you talk about the status of Mary in Islam? Maryam (AS). And what would you say if I ask you the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity?
Regarding Mary, peace be upon her, I have a one word answer for you. It is the word MARY. Okay, M. A. R. Y. So the word M stands for mentioned in the Qur’an as the only lady mentioned in the Qur’an. So one time I was having uh, I was on a flight from Chicago to Houston. I was at the window and then there were two ladies next to me from the Catholic background. We had a quiz between Islam and Christianity with them, right? A da'wah (Islamic call) quiz on the plane. I asked them this question, you know my dear sisters, who do you think is the only lady mentioned by name in the whole Qur’an? They said, you know, we know the answer. It is Mary the mother of Jesus. I said, wonderful.
Then I asked them the question, okay, how many times she's mentioned in the Qur’an? And they said, you know, we don't know. I said, 34 times. Then I asked them the question, okay, how many times she's mentioned in your Bible? They said, you know, obviously we don't know the answer. I said, she's mentioned 18 times. So if you compare to the Qur’an 34 times, compare to the Bible 18 times, I mentioned to them that Muslims love her more than you do, right? They cracked up. So M stands for mentioned in the Qur’an, only lady. M also stands for mentioned as the name of a chapter in the Qur’an, chapter number 19. All right? So that's M for Mary.
The second which is A, A stands for, Allah's worship, Allah's dedication, Allah was the focus of her life. Her modesty, her chastity, her dedication to Allah. The Qur’an, you know, so many times mentioned that. The R stands for the respect that Allah has given to Mary, peace be upon her. There is a chapter in the Qur’an, chapter number 3, verse number 42, in which an angel came to Mary and the angel is saying that you know, Mary, God has chosen you, God has purified you, and God has chosen you above all the women. Look at the honor, the respect that Allah has given to Mary. So what I say to my Christian friends is that, you know, Mohammed, peace be upon him, he never met Mary.
She came 600 years before him. Then how can she be the only person mentioned in the Qur’an by name. Not only she's mentioned by name, she's shown as the most pious of all the ladies ever. That distinction is not given to the mother, to the wife and the daughter of Mohammed, peace be upon him, but given to quote and quote a "Jewish lady" who he never met. That is an indication I say to the Christians, the Qur’an is not coming from the mind of the Prophet ﷺ, it is coming from the creator of humanity. So M A R. And the Y, right? We are left with Y. The Y stands for she was young and she was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. So that's Mary in Islam. So, what about Christianity?
Are there different differences between Islam and Christianity? So when it comes to the differences, see the, I would say the main difference would be that Mary is mentioned with the prestige and honor and respect and blessing in the Qur’an. But in the Bible, she's just seen another woman in the Bible, another mother in the Bible. Nothing special. She just randomly mentioned a few places, a few, you know, superficial interactions with Jesus and some other disciples, but not to the auspicious level that Islam has mentioned about her in the Qur’an. But the commonality would be, she was a virgin. She was young, unmarried, she was a virgin when Allah gave the miracle of Jesus inside her.
So what about the mention of the Prophet Mohammed ﷺ in the Bible? So Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, according to the Muslim theologians, he's mentioned in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Actually the Qur’an itself says in chapter number 7, verse number 157, that the mention of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, is in their scriptures. Means the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians. We see that in the Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse number 18, Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, he's apparently saying to his people that one day a Prophet is going to come after Moses and that Prophet is going to be like Moses.
And that Prophet is not going to speak of his own, whatever he hears, that's what he's going to speak. So what the Muslim theologians they say is the only Prophet who came, who was very similar to Prophet Moses, was Mohammed, peace be upon him. That's number one. Number two, there's a prophecy in the book of Isaiah, chapter 29, verse number 12, in which an angel comes to this person and the angel says read, and the person says I cannot read. And that's what happened to Mohammed, peace be upon him, when angel Gabriel came and then he requested Mohammed, peace be upon him, to read. In the in the Songs of Solomon, chapter 5, verse number 16, the word Mohammed is there, right?
The word Mohammed is there in the Hebrew language, by the way. So this is the Old Testament. When it comes to the New Testament, Muslim theologians they say many many prophecies. See the Jewish people they were waiting for a Prophet to come. As Moses he said, a Prophet is going to come after me, right? Who's going to be like me. So in the time of Jesus, the Christians they were still waiting for that Prophet. So they asked John the Baptist, are you that Prophet? John the Baptist he said, no. So then that Prophet, according to Jesus, he said in the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse number seven, that I, that it is important for you, means my disciples, that I go away.
If I do not go away, the Comforter will not be sent. But if I go away, he will be sent. Then Jesus said, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he comes, he's going to show you the whole truth. He will not speak of himself, whatever he hears, that's what he speaks. So the word male pronoun is used, not the word it for the Holy Spirit, the male pronoun is used, and Jesus is saying that he's, he will bring the whole truth. He will complete the faith. He will give comprehensive guidance. So Muslims they say that the comprehensive guidance was given by Allah through Mohammed, peace be upon him. So in briefly these are some of the prophecies.
What do Christians say to you when you give these examples to them? What do they say or how do they react? Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah. (There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger). -Really? -Some of them, right? But some of them, they give a push back. They say, you know what? These prophecies that you mentioned, especially in the New Testament, they have to do with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. They don't have to do with, you know, your Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. What we say to them is this. See Jesus, he's saying that Jesus has to go for that entity to come.
But then we say Holy Spirit was already there in the time of Jesus. So, you know, it just doesn't make sense. Jesus is saying that I have to leave for that entity to come. But if that entity is Holy Ghost, he's already there. Cannot be Holy Spirit. Second way that we can push back to the Christians would be that Jesus is saying that this entity is going to give you the whole truth, a comprehensive guidance. Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost did not do that. Number three, where we can say is that the male pronoun he is used seven times in these verses. That he will come, he will glorify me, he will show you the whole truth, right? Holy Spirit is an it. It's not a he, it's not a she.
One more thing we can say is that Jesus is saying in this passage that he's not going to speak of himself, whatever he hears, that's what he will speak. According to Christians, Holy Spirit is God. God is not going to wait for somebody else to say to him, right? What to say, what not to say. So it has to be a different person than the Holy Spirit. And we say that the only person who fits the description is Mohammed, peace be upon him. One of the things Christian are most curious about Islam is the status of Jesus in this religion. Because many of them are surprised to hear that Muslims also believe in Jesus. Do you have any memory about this?
Could you compare Jesus in Islam and Jesus in Christianity? All right, alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah). You know, one time we had a billboard in Chicago highway, and the billboard said, find Jesus in the Qur’an and find Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the Bible. People were curious, really? How can you find Jesus in the Qur’an and where is Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the Bible? Many people called to ask questions, many people called to debate, but many people they called to request a copy of the Qur’an. So if someone asks me the question, okay, who is Jesus in Islam? I have a simple one word answer for them. That one word answer, one word answer I'm saying, okay. It is JESUS. J. E. S.
U. S. And every single letter of the word Jesus now becomes a point for us to share with the Christians, who is Jesus in Islam. So the word J stands for Jesus was just a messenger. Becomes easy now. So the J stands for he was just a messenger. So in the Qur’an it says in chapter 5, verse number 75, that Jesus was just a messenger. Many messengers they passed away before him. So the, according to the Qur’an, Jesus was a messenger in the chain of messengership. Every single messenger they came to invite people to the worship of one God. So Jesus was a messenger. E stands for he was empowered by God to do the miracles.
Raising people from the dead, you know, giving eyesight to the blind, healing the sick and the lepers. So he did miracles, he was empowered by the creator to do the miracles. Where does it say that? In Surah (chapter of the Qur’an) number 3, verse number 49 of the Qur’an. But the amazing thing we want to share with the Christian friends is that every single miracle that was done by Jesus, peace be upon him, he was empowered by God. That means the, the power was coming from the creator, not from himself. So that is E, J E. S stands for the sole mission of Jesus was to invite humanity to the worship of one God.
So it says in the Qur’an, chapter 3, verse number 51, "Innallaha rabbee warabbukum faAAbudoohu hatha siratun mustaqeem" So Allah is quoting Jesus in the Qur’an and Jesus is saying that verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord. Worship Him alone and that is the straight path. So S is for the sole mission of Jesus. So J E S U. Interesting, right? What do you think U may stand for? U for uplifted by Allah. Not killed, not crucified, Allah uplifted him, he's up there without getting crucified. All right? J E S U. And the last S stands for second coming. Christians would be amazed, really? You guys believe in second coming?
So these are the ways that I explain Islam, easy to remember, it all goes in sequence, ending with the second coming. And that is Jesus in Islam. So he wasn't crucified, he wasn't killed. He was ascended to the skies. Yes, according to the Qur’an, Surah number 4, Surah An-Nisa (The Women), verse number 157. Allah is saying, just the translation, that they say, they boast that they killed Jesus, the son of Mary, the Messiah. They killed him not, neither they crucified him. It only made to appear to them. And then Allah says that Jesus was lifted up by Allah. Not crucified, neither killed. So that's one of the differences, but that is what Allah says about Jesus.
So why is he not killed but uplifted to the sky? Is he going to come again because of that? Right, so Islamic belief is that there would be a second coming of Jesus. So he was not killed, he was not crucified because according to the Christian theology, the death of Jesus on the cross is a means of salvation for the Christians. So since we don't believe that a person, his death or his living could be a way of salvation, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala (the Exalted) is saying, okay, you know what? He did not die. Even if he died for the sake of argument, that is not the way of salvation. But it so happened that Allah lifted Jesus up to himself.
He would be sent down again and then there would be a sequence of things that will happen once he comes down in the second coming. So on this note, what will happen when he comes? Will he be a messenger? So when Jesus when he comes back, obviously no one knows that what time, what day, which year he's going to come. But there are many authentic narrations in Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim's collection. So these are the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that Muslims of the past they collected. So there are close to 14 authentic narrations by Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, that describes in detail about the second coming of Jesus, peace be upon him, right?
So he'll be coming in the city of Damascus. it will be the time of the morning prayer. Muslims pray five times, so this is the first prayer of the day. He'll be descending from the sky. He will descend on the minaret of the white mosque in the east side of Damascus. He will come down and that will be the time for the Muslim prayer. And Muslims, they would be amazed, they would be surprised and they would be saying, you know, welcome Jesus, we were waiting for you. And they will say to him, Jesus, why don't you lead the prayer? And Jesus, he would say that, you know, your Imam who is there is going to lead the prayer.
So the point is Jesus is not going to come as a Prophet or as a new Prophet. He's going to come down as a follower of the Shari'ah (Islamic law) of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, right? And then there is more description what will happen. He will have his whole army which is going to fight against the Antichrist. By God's power, Antichrist would be defeated. Then Jesus is going to reign in the whole world for a few years. Everyone is going to be a Muslim at that time. Muslim means anyone who submits to the creator. Jesus is going to get married. He's going to, he's going to do the pilgrimage, the Hajj in Mecca. Then he's going to die a natural death.
How does the Islamic belief in life after death differ from Christianity? Heaven, hell, day of judgment, etc. Okay, very good. the concept of salvation, the concept of the hereafter, there are many similarities, but then many many differences. So one similarity is this. According to the Christians, there would be a day of resurrection and there would be a day of judgment. But in the day of judgment, it is not going to be, you know, God who will be judging people, it would be Jesus who would be judging people. But according to Islam, Allah is all knowing, he's all knowing, he's all seeing, he's all wise, he's all knowledgeable.
He is the only entity who's suitable to judge humanity, not Jesus. Because Jesus lacked knowledge, he was a Prophet, he was a human. He was not all knowing. So that's one of the main differences. The second main difference would be the description of paradise in the Qur’an compared to the Bible. See in the Bible, it does not describe in detail about the description of paradise. The Qur’an does, by the way. It does, it speaks about, you know, the palaces and the trees and the clothes and the food of the people, interaction of the people, right? It describes all the wonderful rewards and our spouses and the families.
The only thing Bible says would be that they would have a direct connection with God in paradise. But that's, you know, I mean, that leaves so many questions for us. What does it mean in eternity? You'll be just sitting up there and God would be up there, what would you be doing? Qur’an satisfies the answer to a person that what will happen, all the rewards in detail, right? So that's one difference. The second difference would be the concept of the hell. Some Christians believe in the literal hell, that there would be punishment and suffering. But most of the Christians they would say hell would be a place in which there is a separation between the creator and the creation.
So that separation is going to give hopelessness and despair and sadness to the people. But Islamic concept of hell is that it is a place of punishment to the people who rejected God. After many signs came to them, many, you know, warnings came to them, they still rejected God, they did the wrong things, they committed shirk (associating partners with God), right? They worshiped someone else besides the creator or someone else along with the creator. So that is a place for hell with description in the Qur’an. May Allah protect all of us from the hell and help us to go to eternal paradise. So do Christians believe that the Muslims will go to hell?
Well, according to the Christians, you know, just like Muslims have six fundamental beliefs and the five pillars and other obligations, if a person does not agree with the Islamic beliefs and does not do them, then there may be punishment for the person. Or a person who in humanity does not believe in Islam, despite the warnings, despite the knowledge, we say that, you know what? That is the criteria for a person to be landed into hell. According to the Christians, if a person does not agree that Jesus is God, son of God, or part of Trinity, or he did not die for humanity's, you know, salvation, if a person does not believe that concept of Jesus, that person would be going to hellfire.
So they say that Muslims are going to hellfire if you don't believe in Jesus and, you know, what he came for. Yes. So they, they do say that, yeah, Muslims are going to hell if you don't take Jesus to be as the Lord and the savior. But from the Bible itself, we can mention to them that what they're saying is not according to what Jesus said about salvation. I think this is one of the most important points. Is that according to Jesus, the way for salvation is a person has to have the right belief and doing good deeds. That's what Islam says.
In chapter 2 of the Qur’an, verse number 25, Allah is saying, and here is the translation, if a person has the right belief and doing good deeds, that Allah guarantees that person eternal paradise. So a person came to Jesus, this is according to the Bible, a person came to came to Jesus and he asked a really fundamental question. So this is in the New Testament, the first gospel, which is the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, verse number 16 and onwards. A person came to Jesus and asked him the question that oh good master, what should I do that I can go to paradise? See, direct answer, right? And Jesus, he said, why do you call me good? There is no one good except one who is God.
So Jesus cannot be God according to this passage because God is-- Jesus is saying there is a some other entity, he is all goodness, I am not all goodness. But then he came to the answer. Jesus said, if you want to have eternal life, if you want to go to paradise, obey the commandments. See, Jesus would have said that, you know what? Just wait a few days, a few weeks, a few months, I'm going to die, they will put me on the cross, believe that I died, then I would be resurrected and that's the way to paradise. He never said that. That theology they built it later on. But what Jesus said, he said that if you want to go to paradise, follow the commandments.
And this person he said, what kind of commandments? Jesus said the commandments of the old, means Old Testament. So he was alluding to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments says in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse number 3, worship and believe in only one God. And the rest of the nine commandments, they speak about good deeds. You know, do not blaspheme the name of God, respect your parents, you know, be good to your neighbors, do not lie, do not cheat, do not murder, the good actions. So when you have the Ten Commandments, the first commandment is believe in one God. The rest of the commandments, they speak about doing good deeds.
So according to Jesus, peace be upon him, even from the Bible, for a person to gain paradise, right belief along with good deeds. According to Christianity, Jesus sacrificed himself for the salvation and forgiveness of the sins of humanity. Why should this belief be wrong? Why shouldn't accepting Jesus as your savior be enough for one's salvation? You know, it is wrong in multiple levels, by the way. It is wrong from the logical point of view that why Jesus's death is going to give salvation to humanity. I drove from my home to here. Suppose if I were driving over the speed limit, I should be the one, the police should catch, and I should be the one to bear the consequences, the ticket.
Not my wife, not my neighbor, not my parents. So logically, if a person dies, believing in that person's death, how is that salvation to some other person? According to Islam, according to logic, what Islam says is that what you do is what you bear. That means if you do good, reward for you. If you do bad, there is forgiveness if you repent or there would be consequences. Islam's salvation is logical and rational. You know, every court system in the world, they apply the Islam's concept of self-accountability. What you do, if a criminal does something, he's the one to be punished, not somebody else. So from the logical point of view, Christian's concept of salvation does not make sense.
From a scriptural point of view, as I mentioned before, Jesus said the way for salvation, the way to go to paradise, doing having the right belief and doing good deeds. Which is in Matthew, chapter 19, verse number 16 and onwards. So from any which way that we look at it, even from the Old Testament, by the way, right? Even in the Old Testament it says whatever that you do, is what you bear. In the book of Ezekiel. So Old Testament says that, Jesus said that, the Qur’an says that, logic says that, every court system says the person who has done wrong should be punished, the person who have done right, he's the one should be rewarded.
So the concept of original sin doesn't make sense, do you think? Well, according to original sin, Adam and Eve, they committed the sin and they disobeyed God and they ate the apple or they went to the tree, and the punishment for that is that every progeny, every child of Adam and Eve, they will inherit that original sin. But from the logical point of view, you know, why should I be punished for the sin of my parents? You know, no court system agrees with that concept of children being punished for the father's sin. What Islam says is that Islam does not say original sin, Islam speaks about original goodness.
That every child, every baby, every person is born with a clean heart, with a clean slate, right? Innocent, pure, without any blemish. Until you reach the age of puberty, and once if you do right things, you'll be rewarded, if you do wrong things, there would be consequences. So according to the Islamic concept, after Adam and Eve when they did the wrong thing, when they, you know, made a, made the mistake, they both repented to God, that oh God, please forgive us. And God forgave them. End of story. And every child is born with original goodness.
I mentioned this answer many times, every single time in the masjid open houses when the Christians when they ask this question, every time they say, you know what Sabeel, what you mentioned about Islamic concept of salvation, it is logical, it makes sense. So Christians ask, so why did God then not protect the Bible? So why didn't Allah protected the Injil (Gospel) given to Jesus, Zabur (Psalms) given to David, the Tawrat (Torah) given to, you know, Moses, and the scrolls given to Abraham. God could protect it, we could have had the originals of them with us, right? God could do it, he's all powerful. He has the power to do it.
He didn't meant to do it because those revelations were only for those people and for that time. They only had limited guidance in there. They had limited, you know, Shari'ahin there. That Shari'ah would not be applicable for all the people and for all time. Shari'ah means guidance. All right? For example, let me give you this simple analogy. You have the constitution of Norway. Constitution of Norway was written only for Norwegians, for that 5 million people, geographically, based on their culture, in the context of their background. Constitution of Norway is not going to be fully applicable to the people of the US or the people of India, people of Africa.
Constitution of US is not going to be applicable for other countries because it's written in certain context. But imagine if there is a constitution which is applicable for the whole world, all the cultures, all the races, for all time. That is the analogy of the Qur’an compared to the constitution of the Norway and the US, which is analogous to the Bible, the Old and the New Testament. Even if God would have preserved the Injil (Gospel) or the revelation given by God to Jesus, it will not be enough for us for today, for all the solutions for the problems that we go through. So it was limited in scope, it was only for those people and only for that time.
For that reason, Allah in His wisdom did not took the, you know, the commitment to preserve it. But Qur’an is for all of humanity, for all time, for all solutions, for any problem, for any culture, any race for humanity, and it is the last revelation, so Allah took the commitment to preserve it. Muslims believe that Qur’an is preserved, but the Bibles were changed. So what is the reason for this? Can you prove this? It's a huge claim. It's a huge claim and huge claim should have huge evidence, correct? Let's come to the Qur’an quickly.
See, Allah has given the prophecy in the Qur’an, chapter 15, verse number nine, it is Allah who has sent this dhikr (remembrance), this message, he will preserve it, this revelation. So the way he's preserving it is two different ways. One in the memory, in the mind of the people. See, Mohammed, peace be upon him, when the revelation came to him, he became the very first memorizer of the whole Qur’an. His followers memorized the Qur’an and they taught it to the subsequent generation all the way to our generation. So in the memory, there have been multiple chains coming all throughout 1400 years without any gaps. Tens and thousands and millions of people in every generation they memorized it.
In our generation, in 2021, people would be amazed to find out there are close to 15 million memorizers of the Qur’an in the whole world. How many of the Bible? Original language? Zero. Original language I'm saying, right? In Aramaic language or in ancient classical Hebrew language, Old Testament. No memorizer of the Bible, but 15 million memorizers of the Qur’an. So that's one way the Qur’an we can say that it has been memorized, right? And we can do this experiment. A Christian can come who can know how to read the Qur’an, he can have the Qur’an open and my son who memorized the Qur’an, by the way, and masha'Allah (Allah willed it), right? He's very close to it, he's almost there.
So he can look the other way without any phone, without any gadget, with his memory he can start reciting. And the Christian who knows how to read the Arabic, he can look into the Qur’an, it will be exactly what my boy, my son Yusuf is going to recite. Simple experiment. All right. The second way the Qur’an has been preserved, from the very beginning, Mohammed, peace be upon him, he did not knew how to read and write. Anytime a revelation used to come to him, he used to have 55 to 77 scribes. They used to come to him, he used to request them, write down this verse, this chapter of the Qur’an in front of me.
They used to write down and then he used to request to them, you know, recite to me what you wrote down, just to make sure what they wrote down is what he said. So in that way, the whole Qur’an was written down and the whole Qur’an was memorized. In case if the scribes make any errors, you know, before the printing press, people used to just write with their hands, the copies, and people make mistake. If there is any error in the written manuscript of the Qur’an, the memorizers who are the huffaz (memorizers) of the Qur’an, if they catch the error in the manuscript, they will catch it, they will correct it, it will be exactly the same as the original.
So the Qur’an has a dual check and balance system no other book has. So that's the evidence the Qur’an has been preserved. And we have manuscripts of the Qur’an going back all the way to the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. One of them is the Birmingham Qur’an, by the way, that they discovered in the library in Birmingham. So that's how we can show to them that the Qur’an has been preserved. It's not just a blind faith, it has evidence behind it. What about the Bible, right? People may be thinking. You Muslims say the allegation that the Bible has been changed. Okay, what is the proof? Who changed it? When was it changed? Where are the changes?
Jesus, peace be upon him, as he was mentioning about guidance, about one God, about salvation, nobody in that time wrote it down. No historian of the Bible says that, you know, the words of Jesus were written down in the time of Jesus. So after Jesus was gone, many many decades after him, people started to remember and they started to write down. So there was a gap of about 30 to 60 years from the time of Jesus leaving this earth. And according to the Christians, the people who wrote it down, the four gospels, they're not the original eyewitnesses. They are unknown authors. And even when they wrote down, they did not write down in the language of Jesus.
See, Jesus according to encyclopedia Britannica, he spoke Aramaic language. But the original writings of the New Testament, they are in the Greek language. See, for Muslims, Qur’an is written in Arabic, memorized in Arabic, revealed in Arabic, when we recite in the prayers, we recite in Arabic. For them, they don't have that. So the Bible was written down, the New Testament, in Greek, but the language of Jesus was Aramaic, right? So look at all the gaps that they have. Not written in the time of Jesus, written in a different language, written by people who are not disciples or eyewitnesses, and then there have been many many changes that took place.
And the reason it took place so many changes is this. Okay, just imagine this. You have one manuscript of the Bible, and then a person has to like write down scribe, copy this. Because there are no memorizers of the Bible, this person can make one mistake when he's copying. You know, because memory, because person may be tired, right? Not enough light. They may make a copy and this copy would not be the same as this because now this has one mistake in there. If someone is making a copy from this copy, they may incorporate this mistake and they may add more mistakes. So the more copies that they have, the mistakes keep on multiplying.
Now, one way we can also show to them that the Bible has been changed because I'm a collector of the Bibles. 300 Bibles in my collection. Yes. Come to my library one time. From different times in history, different languages and different versions. Every single one of them they are different. Example, right? You have the King James version of the Bible that was taken out in 1611 in the authorship in the supervision of King James of England. So that Bible was revised in 1881 to 1885 because it has errors and it was not copied from ancient manuscripts. So they revised it in England in 1881.
It also has some mistakes in it, so they started to revise again in 1901, called the American Standard Version. It also had mistakes in there because, you know, people started to discover new manuscripts. And the new manuscripts, they differ from this Bible, so they have to keep on updating the Bible. And I will give some examples, okay? So the 1901 version of the Bible, the American Standard Version, it has mistakes in it, so they revised it in 1952. That has mistakes in it, so they revised it again in 1971, NASB. It has mistakes, so they revised it in 1989, and then 2020, and then 2021, by the way. So you may be thinking, okay, brother Sabeel, what's going on here?
The thing is, okay, fine, you have like one Bible, but if they discover new manuscripts, they have to update this Bible, not the translation of it, but the contents of it. So what would be some of the actual, you know, verses that people have changed in the Bible? If you go to the King James version of the Bible, in the New Testament, in the second book, which is the Gospel of Mark, in chapter number 16, I'm giving so many things, I hope you are following. The New Testament, the second gospel, chapter number 16, it has 20 verses in there in King James version. So that's one Bible.
The Bible that I have, which is the 1952 version of the Bible, in the gospel of Mark, chapter 16, this one has 20 verses, this one only has eight verses. Wow. So if people may be thinking, you know what? Muslims, they may be confusing translations with the versions. No, translation we understand. Translation means translation from English to Turkish language, for example, right? That's translation. Version means you have changed in the actual words, you have changed in the actual passages. This version has more passages, this version has less passages. So that's one example, right? Easy example.
One more example can be in the Gospel of John, the fourth gospel, chapter number seven, verse number 53, it speaks about the prostitute and how people gathered around her to stone to her. And Jesus came on the scene and he said, okay, those who are without sin cast the first stone, right? You may have heard the story. That story is not there in the ancient manuscripts. King James version has it. The RSV version of the Bible says, you know, this story is added, this is not there in the ancient manuscripts. So somebody added that story to it. One more quick example.
In the first epistle of John, chapter 5, verse number seven, King James version says that in heaven there are three that bear witness, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. King James version says that. The new versions of the Bible, they took that out because they realized that somebody added that. So what I'm saying is all throughout centuries in the Greek manuscripts, people have added things, people have taken out things. For that reason, we say that the Bible has been changed. So here is the dilemma for the Christians.
They don't have the original Bible, they don't have any huffaz of the Bible, the memorizers, all they have is these manuscripts and every single manuscript is different. So they do their best from their mind, you know, taking the majority of the votes, what passage should go here, what passage should go there. That's how they make the Bibles. So Muslims when we make this statement, the Bibles have been changed, Qur’an has been preserved, we have ample, credible evidence for what we say. So are these only the four Bibles that were written and were there other Bibles that were also present in the time of Jesus?
So what happened was after Jesus he was lifted up around the year 33, nobody wrote any statement about his teachings. So many decades afterwards, people started to write many gospels. So the definition of a gospel is it is the biography of Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. So many people they wrote the biography of Prophet Jesus. Not only, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, apparently, but there were many many gospels that were written. People say 77 of them, people say 100, people say 200. So what happened was when the original disciples of Jesus and their progeny, they went to different parts of the world to teach the monotheistic faith that was preached by Jesus.
So these Christians or these original disciples, when they went to the Roman Empire, when they went to Persia, when they went to Egypt, when they went to, you know, subcontinent of India or to China, in those places, in that culture, Trinity, different shapes and forms of Trinity was really prevalent. So unfortunately, the monotheistic followers of Christ, they diluted monotheism and they incorporated Trinity in it. So what used to happen in the Roman Empire was, now there are two groups of Christians, Trinitarian Christians, and then you have monotheistic Christians or the or what you can call is as the Unitarian Christians, right? You have Trinitarians and the Unitarians.
There used to be a fight and the friction between them. So Constantine who is the emperor of Rome, he's a pagan emperor, by the way. So he said, you know what? There should be peace, there should be harmony, let's bring them together. So he brought all the Christian bishops together. He had a whole council, called as the Council of Nicaea. In there, they decided that Jesus is equal with the Father. Before that, that was not the case, by the way, right? Now it became an orthodox part. As that is being played around, the gospels that were there, many many of them, and the Christians they were not able to decide which one is the right, which one is wrong.
But now, you know, this orthodoxy of Trinity became orthodoxy. When they have to finalize what the Bible is, in the year 367. Look at how many years after Jesus. In the year 367, they incorporated the Trinitarian beliefs and they only selected those gospels that agreed with the Trinitarian belief of Christians. In the year 367, more than 300 years after Jesus. So those gospels that agreed with Trinity, they placed in the Bible. Those that disagreed with it, they threw it out.
So there were many many other gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, for example, or people say the Gospel of Barnabas or other gospels, that only says that Jesus was only a Prophet, there is only one God, Jesus did not die, right? The concept of salvation that Islam says. All of those gospels they were thrown away, they were blacklisted, they were banned, and only those gospels that align with Trinity, they got incorporated. So how did they come up with this Trinity then? Did it belong to other religions that they used to be a member of before Christianity? So Trinity, the concept of Trinity was really prevalent in different cultures. Not just Trinity, by the way, right?
Because you know, some cultures they diluted the concept of God to such an extent, they started to worship idols, humans, animals, you know, Trinitarian concept. like for Hindus for example, they still have Trinity right now. They have Brahma the creator, they have Vishnu, and then they have the Shiva, the preserver and the destroyer. So in Egyptian culture, they used to have a similar Trinity, Roman Empire, right, in Persia. So monotheism was diluted. You know, like in India for example, so I'm from India, right? I was born and raised in India. I used to actually see some Muslims going and circling the grave of dead people. These are Muslims. And they used to do sajdah (prostration), right?
Prostration to these dead people, and they claim that they are Muslims because they're not knowledgeable, they're doing innovation. In the same way, when these early followers of Christ, when they met these other cultures, they somehow got attracted towards those cultures, towards their way of life, towards their theology, and they diluted monotheism and they incorporated Trinitarian concepts. So initially in some cultures of the past, even in the Jewish culture, they used to call pious people as son of God, righteous people as son of God. Not in a literal way, but in a metaphorical way. But then the followers of Christ they came into the picture and they said, you know what?
In other cultures, they have sons of God, they have son of God. So they said, you know what? Maybe Jesus is also a son of God. So they gave a literal meaning when it was supposed to be a metaphorical meaning. So then once they gave a literal meaning that God has a son, then the son also has to be having the same attributes of God. That means son also has to be God. Then they gave one more entity called the Holy Spirit. You know, the Spirit of God is a metaphorical way, Spirit of God is God himself. But they made the Spirit of God as a separate person and gave divine attributes to it. So now they said, you know what?
If Father is God, Son also has attributes of God, and the Holy Spirit, you know, is also have attributes of God. Maybe just like in those cultures, God is also into three persons. So that's how the concept of Trinity, after many centuries after Jesus was gone, it became orthodox part of Trinity or orthodox part of the Christian faith. So, so these are really logical arguments, but many Christians say that I found spirituality in Christianity and I feel connection with God. So why do I change, why do I need to change my faith? I would say three reasons the person should change the faith from Christianity to Islam, all right? Three simple reasons, quickly.
First and foremost, just because a person feel, you know, better or spiritual or good about certain faith, is not the criteria for the truth of that faith. A Hindu may say the same thing when he goes to a temple, I feel spiritual, right? I feel good, I feel, I feel this is the right faith. Feelings are not facts as people say. A Buddhist may say the same thing, a Jew may say the same thing, right? Muslims say the same thing. Just because we say something does not make it right. Feelings, right? We all have feelings. So this is called as a subjective argument. Subjective, right? So feelings, we cannot go with feelings, we have to go with facts. Now let's come to facts, two things.
Number one, see one of the criteria of the right faith for us is that that faith should have the right concept of God. If the concept of God is right, everything falls into place. If the concept of God is wrong, nothing else matters. So the concept of God that Islam preaches, absolute oneness, there is only one creator, wonderful attributes, no partners, no Trinity, absolute oneness. That is the concept of God preached by every Prophet, every messenger, even in the Bible. I say to my Christian and the Jewish friends, if you take at Abraham, peace be upon him, Old Testament, he was monotheistic, he was not a Trinitarian.
Moses was not a Trinitarian, he preached monotheism, and the rest of the Prophets, even Jesus preached monotheism. Jesus was not a Trinitarian. So that's second reason the Christian should look into Islam because Islam revived again the monotheistic belief preached by Jesus and all the Prophets. And the third important reason is if I'm coming from a secular point of view, if I have Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, now I want to pick a faith, one of the criteria would be this. Humanity is going through many many problems. You have problems of racism, breakdown of the family structure, the moral values, you know, homicide, suicide, gambling, and the problems go on and on, the list.
What is the solution? So, so, so one of the criteria of the right faith is that that right faith, if it's coming from God, should give practical, workable, beneficial solutions to every single problem. So if you look into the New Testament, it does not speak about what are the comprehensive solutions regarding the economic system, political system, judiciary system, right? Family system, matrimonial system. New Testament, we need it, New Testament does not have it. Old Testament has to some degree, but they are only for the Jewish people, they are limited, time bound, people bound, only for specific people. We need it, they don't have it. In the Hindu Vedas, they don't have it.
In the Buddhist scriptures, they don't have it, right? Humanity, 8 billion people, we need solutions, we need guidance. Just from the human logical point of view, they don't have those solutions. Practical solutions, right? Not just, you know, love your neighbor, fine, what does it mean to love? It has to be detailed solutions. Islam has those solutions. In the Qur’an, which is the word of Allah for humanity, and in the practices in the Sunnah, the example of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. Humanity needs it, those solutions, they don't have it, Islam provides that. So for these three reasons, logical, rational point of view, Islam is the right faith.
So you say that the previous Prophets, you say that the Prophets of the Old Testament gave the teaching of one God and believing in one God. And also you said Jesus said the same thing. So according to Christians, what will happen to those Prophets? Because they didn't believe in Jesus. Jesus came after them. So what will happen to those Prophets? How would people before Jesus, peace be upon him, what was their means of salvation? Their means of salvation was exactly the means of salvation, having the right belief, doing good deeds. If you fall short, repent to God for forgiveness.
And that makes sense because, you know, people at the time of Moses, peace be upon him, the immediate followers of Moses, we say that they are Muslims. They used to submit to God. So in Arabic, the word that we give to them is the word Muslim. So any person who used to believe in Moses as the Prophet and follow the Tawrat (Torah) given by God and do the best to follow, repent to God for forgiveness for the shortcomings, we say that person by Allah's mercy will go to paradise. People in the time of Moses and Abraham, Solomon, David, Ishmael, Isaac, right? All the Prophets.
Now, really important, even in the time of Jesus, we say that anyone who took Jesus to be as a Prophet and followed one God, submitted to one God, and followed the Injil (Gospel), the revelation gave by God to Jesus and his disciples, we say that person is a Muslim, the follower of Christ, and the way of salvation for them is to believe in God, take Jesus as a Prophet, and follow the Tawrat (Torah) or the Injil (Gospel). There is an amazing statement in the Bible, right? Why do I say it amazing? Okay, so for a person to become a Muslim, like now suppose if someone comes to the masjid and says, you know what? I read the Qur’an, I want to be a Muslim.
They have to recite the shahada (declaration of faith). Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah That I bear witness, no other God besides Allah, and Mohammed, peace be upon him, is the Prophet. In the time of Jesus, don't you think it is the same statement? That Jesus is the messenger of Allah, right? There is no other God besides one God, Allah, and Jesus is the messenger. You will find that in the Bible. So Jesus, he's saying that if you want to go to eternal life, if you want to go to paradise, know that you are the only true God, he's pointing to God, and Jesus sent by God as a messenger. Wow.
The shahada (declaration of faith) is there in the Bible and Jesus is saying that this is the way to go to paradise by knowing it and reciting that shahada (declaration of faith). Couldn't Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, have copied the Old and the New Testament and write the Qur’an? Okay, so the question is, you know, many people, they have this allegation that the Qur’an was copied from the Bible. There are many many ways that we can dispel or, you know, refute this allegation. The one thing we can say is that Qur’an was not copied from the Bible because Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, he did not knew how to read and write.
Even if he wanted to write it, he would not be able to read the Bible and then copy it. Number one. So the Qur’an says in chapter 7, verse number 157, that he was an ummi (unlettered) Prophet, he did not knew how to read and write. The second thing that what we can say is that there was no complete Bible translated into Arabic for him to look and copy. The very first translation of the Old Testament, it was completed around the year 900, that by a Jewish scholar named Sadiyya Gaon. So in the time of Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the 7th century, the Jewish Bible was not translated into Arabic. The New Testament was not translated overall, not until the 1600s.
So the whole Bible was not there in Arabic for the Prophet to copy to begin with, right? It was not there translated into Arabic. Number three thing that we can mention is that there are passages in the Bible that are not there in the Qur’an and vice versa. What do I mean by it? So in the Qur’an, it mentions about the story of Pharaoh. In the Bible, it speaks about the story of Pharaoh, but the Qur’an completes the picture. Example. So you have the biblical story in the book of Exodus, chapter number three, the Pharaoh and his army they are chasing Moses, and then they got drowned.
The Qur’an has the same story, but then the Qur’an says after the Pharaoh got drowned, his body would be preserved as a sign for people to come. So now we have discovered the body of Pharaoh and people have done the autopsy and they have said, you know what? This is the Pharaoh from the time of Moses. So you have, so Qur’an has extra information. So if the Prophet was copying from the Bible, who gave that extra information, the correct information that scholars in our time they now discovered it. Number two. The Qur’an speaks about what else? Noah. Noah and the flood. The Bible speaks about the flood, the Qur’an speaks about the flood. According to the Bible, it was a global flood.
In the book of Genesis, chapter 7, verse number 21 says, the whole world it was submerged in water. Everyone was destroyed except only the people in the ark. Chapter 7, verse 21 of the Bible, Old Testament says that, book of Genesis. The Qur’an speaks about the flood, but the Qur’an speaks about the local flood. Only the people who were, you know, against Noah, peace be upon him, and the teachings and mocking him and moved away from Allah, they are the ones who were punished by God. It was a local flood. Now you have Qur’an, biblical story and the Quranic story. Archaeologists now they support the Quranic story. Science supports the Quranic story, right?
Number three, so who gave that extra information to the Prophet, peace be upon him? Number three what we can say is the Qur’an has scientific facts in there. 500 plus scientific facts, zero mistakes. Bible does not have them, the Qur’an has them. So again, if Qur’an copied from the Bible, then who gave those extra Quranic facts, scientific facts in the Bible, in the Qur’an. So that's one more reason, right? So a simple analogy that I can give is, suppose you have two students. Student, you know, let's say David get D grade, Bill gets B grade, okay? Easy, right? Now, suppose in the final exam, David is sitting next to Bill and he's copying all the answers from Bill.
And Bill gets a B grade, let's say 80%. What do you think David will get? He's copying exactly all answers. A B grade, right? Because David is not only copying the right answers from Bill, he's also copying the wrong answers. So if the Qur’an copied from the Bible, Qur’an would have also taken out the mistakes in the Bible, the errors in the Bible, the inconsistencies in the Bible, but it did not. Qur’an has zero mistakes, Bible has many errors. So who only took out the right things, who added the right things, now science proves it.
So for that reason we say from a scientific point of view, archaeological point of view, scriptural point of view, historical point of view, Qur’an came independently and it was not copied from the Bible, right? But then some people may say, you know what? There are commonalities between the Qur’an and the Bible. For that reason, say it is copied. What I say to them is this. Bible is coming from the same source as the Qur’an, from Allah. But the Bible has been changed, some remnants of the originals are there, then Allah sent the final revelation and it also has some commonalities with the Bible. So not that one book copied from the other book, they have a common source.
Let's take it to the logical conclusion, right? If the if people say that the Qur’an was copied from the Bible, we can say, okay, fine, the New Testament has commonalities with the Old Testament, then do we say, do the Christians now do they agree that the Christian authors copied from the Jewish authors? Did they plagiarize from the Jewish authors? Why do we stop up there? Old Testament has commonalities with the Hindu Vedas. Can we say that, you know what? Old Testament authors they copied, they plagiarized from the Hindus? Why stop up there? The Hindu Vedas have commonalities with the Babylonian scriptures. So you see, where do we stop, right?
All we can say is Qur’an is coming independently from the same source, Allah, and Bible has remnants which is coming from the same source, Allah. Because the source is the same, you see commonalities, not because one person is copying from a second person. For centuries, the Jews have been waiting for Messiah, for Christ. But when Jesus came, they denied him. And the scriptures also mentioned the coming of Prophet Mohammed, their scripture. But when Christians deny him, deny Prophet Mohammed, aren't they behaving like those Jews? Yes, there would be some similarities.
Why Christians are denying Mohammed, peace be upon him, and why the Jews denied not only Jesus, by the way, also Mohammed, peace be upon him, right? You know, the Jewish scholars, they look for certain criteria in the Messiah. The Messiah would be the king like David. Messiah would be like a military leader. Messiah would be like ruling with military, right? With a vast empire. So when they saw in Jesus, a person who is, you know, "weak," he was being mocked by people, rejected by people, no army, no strength. So according to in their mind, they were thinking, you know what? This cannot be a Messiah because according to their Bible, they are thinking. Messiah has to have these criteria.
For that reason mainly, they reject Jesus, peace be upon him. Now, they also reject Mohammed, peace be upon him, the Jewish people is because sometimes of the arrogance. They may be thinking that, you know what? All the Prophets they came from the branch of Isaac, and they were thinking they are the chosen people. The books are given to them, the Prophets are given to them, they are the best of people. But when they saw Mohammed, peace be upon him, he was coming from the branch, from the from the progeny of Ishmael alayhissalam (peace be upon him) from the Arabs. So out of their arrogance, unfortunately, they denied. Even though they saw the signs in their own scriptures.
Some Jews they converted, by the way, but overall they rejected and they denied the way that they denied Jesus, peace be upon him. Now, the Christians they deny Mohammed, peace be upon him, because according to them, the Bible is complete, it's a full story, the salvation is, you know, neat up there according to them, Jesus came, he died, and that's the end of story. No new person, no new guide to come to add to the Bible's guidance. So for that reason, they say the Bible is sufficient, Jesus is sufficient, guidance is sufficient, so there is no need for a new messenger and new Prophet to come. So for that reason, they deny Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.
But as we mentioned before, there are so many signs, ample signs in the Old Testament and in the New Testament about the prophecies about Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. So if a sincere Jew or a sincere Christian look into those prophecies, they will find the one wonderful signs in the person of Mohammed, peace be upon him, and the guidance that Allah gave through him, the monotheism that Allah gave to him, insha'Allah (if Allah wills), if they are true and sincere, they will also accept him as a Prophet and follow the faith of Islam that was brought or given by Allah.
Finally, maybe a Christian is watching you and saying that, okay, Islam makes sense, but I don't like, I don't want to leave Jesus. I love Jesus so much, I don't want to abandon him. What will happen to my connection and my relationship with Jesus if I become a Muslim? If a Christian is saying that, you know what? Islam is good, it seems appealing, but do I need to lose Jesus? I love Jesus. I would say bring the Jesus that you have and add more to it. So you don't have to leave Jesus. You are now you are taking Jesus to be the way that he was. He was a mighty Prophet. The Bible says that he was a mighty Prophet many many times, right? Matthew 13:57, you know, John 4:44, Mark 6:4, Luke 13:33.
So if you love Jesus, follow what he says. He was a monotheistic person, you will bring that with you, right? And you will bring the fact that Jesus is a Prophet, the Qur’an says the same thing, and you will you will also bring in the way that Jesus used to dress. He used to have a beard, used to dress in modest clothes. You will also bring in with you the way that Jesus used to say peace be upon you to his disciples. Muslims say the same thing, you bring that in with you. You also bring the fact that Jesus used to fast for about 40 days, 40 nights, similar to what Muslims are fasting, you can bring that with you. And the best thing that you can bring the way that Jesus used to worship.
He used to prostrate himself and he used to pray to God. He used to be dependent on God. You bring that with you and because Muslims are doing exactly the same thing. So you're not losing Jesus, you're bringing Jesus, but you're adding something more, something better, something given by the creator. Jesus, peace be upon him, never drank alcohol, never ate pork, never had any blood, you know, consumption of the blood, because he was a practicing, what can I say, a Muslim, a Prophet, he used to practice the commandments that were given, guidance that was given by God to Prophet Moses.
So in the Old Testament it says, you know, do not consume pork in the book of Leviticus, in the Old Testament, do not consume blood, and so many commandments in there. And Jesus as a messenger of God, he said, he said in the in the New Testament, in the very first gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse number 17 and onwards, I came not to destroy the law or the Prophets, I came to fulfill. Anyone who takes away any portion of the Old Testament law, that person would be the least in the kingdom. But anyone who upholds the laws, they would be the highest in the kingdom. And one of those laws, do not eat pork, do not consume blood, right?
And the laws, the Shari'ah (Islamic law) laws that we follow, the halal laws. So if you love Jesus, you will abandon those because Muslims also have abandoned those. So if you love Jesus, follow the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus was Islam and we welcome you to the faith of Islam given to you and to all of humanity. Therein is the salvation and therein is the benefit for you. Jazakallahu khayran (May Allah reward you with goodness). Thank you for your answers, brother Sabeel Ahmed. So women in Islam, Shari'ah (Islamic law), jihad, and so on. We have many other questions that Christians ask most about Islam and it will be in the second video, insha'Allah (if Allah wills). Let's see if Dr.
Sabeel Ahmed will be able to answer so easily again. So stay tuned until then and don't forget to subscribe. As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you).
You know, consumption of the blood because he was a practicing Muslim, a prophet. So if you love Jesus, follow the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus was Islam. Assalamu alaikum (Peace be upon you), Doctor Sabeel Ahmed. Thank you for coming and being with us today. We gather some questions about Christianity and we want to ask them to you. Alaikum salaam Warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Yes. Please go ahead. Starting with the first question, what kind of reactions do you get when you talk about the status of Mary in Islam? Maryam (AS). And what would you say if I ask you the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity?
Regarding Mary, peace be upon her, I have a one word answer for you. It is the word MARY. Okay, M. A. R. Y. So the word M stands for mentioned in the Qur’an as the only lady mentioned in the Qur’an. So one time I was having uh, I was on a flight from Chicago to Houston. I was at the window and then there were two ladies next to me from the Catholic background. We had a quiz between Islam and Christianity with them, right? A da'wah (Islamic call) quiz on the plane. I asked them this question, you know my dear sisters, who do you think is the only lady mentioned by name in the whole Qur’an? They said, you know, we know the answer. It is Mary the mother of Jesus. I said, wonderful.
Then I asked them the question, okay, how many times she's mentioned in the Qur’an? And they said, you know, we don't know. I said, 34 times. Then I asked them the question, okay, how many times she's mentioned in your Bible? They said, you know, obviously we don't know the answer. I said, she's mentioned 18 times. So if you compare to the Qur’an 34 times, compare to the Bible 18 times, I mentioned to them that Muslims love her more than you do, right? They cracked up. So M stands for mentioned in the Qur’an, only lady. M also stands for mentioned as the name of a chapter in the Qur’an, chapter number 19. All right? So that's M for Mary.
The second which is A, A stands for, Allah's worship, Allah's dedication, Allah was the focus of her life. Her modesty, her chastity, her dedication to Allah. The Qur’an, you know, so many times mentioned that. The R stands for the respect that Allah has given to Mary, peace be upon her. There is a chapter in the Qur’an, chapter number 3, verse number 42, in which an angel came to Mary and the angel is saying that you know, Mary, God has chosen you, God has purified you, and God has chosen you above all the women. Look at the honor, the respect that Allah has given to Mary. So what I say to my Christian friends is that, you know, Mohammed, peace be upon him, he never met Mary.
She came 600 years before him. Then how can she be the only person mentioned in the Qur’an by name. Not only she's mentioned by name, she's shown as the most pious of all the ladies ever. That distinction is not given to the mother, to the wife and the daughter of Mohammed, peace be upon him, but given to quote and quote a "Jewish lady" who he never met. That is an indication I say to the Christians, the Qur’an is not coming from the mind of the Prophet ﷺ, it is coming from the creator of humanity. So M A R. And the Y, right? We are left with Y. The Y stands for she was young and she was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. So that's Mary in Islam. So, what about Christianity?
Are there different differences between Islam and Christianity? So when it comes to the differences, see the, I would say the main difference would be that Mary is mentioned with the prestige and honor and respect and blessing in the Qur’an. But in the Bible, she's just seen another woman in the Bible, another mother in the Bible. Nothing special. She just randomly mentioned a few places, a few, you know, superficial interactions with Jesus and some other disciples, but not to the auspicious level that Islam has mentioned about her in the Qur’an. But the commonality would be, she was a virgin. She was young, unmarried, she was a virgin when Allah gave the miracle of Jesus inside her.
So what about the mention of the Prophet Mohammed ﷺ in the Bible? So Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, according to the Muslim theologians, he's mentioned in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Actually the Qur’an itself says in chapter number 7, verse number 157, that the mention of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, is in their scriptures. Means the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians. We see that in the Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse number 18, Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, he's apparently saying to his people that one day a Prophet is going to come after Moses and that Prophet is going to be like Moses.
And that Prophet is not going to speak of his own, whatever he hears, that's what he's going to speak. So what the Muslim theologians they say is the only Prophet who came, who was very similar to Prophet Moses, was Mohammed, peace be upon him. That's number one. Number two, there's a prophecy in the book of Isaiah, chapter 29, verse number 12, in which an angel comes to this person and the angel says read, and the person says I cannot read. And that's what happened to Mohammed, peace be upon him, when angel Gabriel came and then he requested Mohammed, peace be upon him, to read. In the in the Songs of Solomon, chapter 5, verse number 16, the word Mohammed is there, right?
The word Mohammed is there in the Hebrew language, by the way. So this is the Old Testament. When it comes to the New Testament, Muslim theologians they say many many prophecies. See the Jewish people they were waiting for a Prophet to come. As Moses he said, a Prophet is going to come after me, right? Who's going to be like me. So in the time of Jesus, the Christians they were still waiting for that Prophet. So they asked John the Baptist, are you that Prophet? John the Baptist he said, no. So then that Prophet, according to Jesus, he said in the Gospel of John, chapter 16, verse number seven, that I, that it is important for you, means my disciples, that I go away.
If I do not go away, the Comforter will not be sent. But if I go away, he will be sent. Then Jesus said, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he comes, he's going to show you the whole truth. He will not speak of himself, whatever he hears, that's what he speaks. So the word male pronoun is used, not the word it for the Holy Spirit, the male pronoun is used, and Jesus is saying that he's, he will bring the whole truth. He will complete the faith. He will give comprehensive guidance. So Muslims they say that the comprehensive guidance was given by Allah through Mohammed, peace be upon him. So in briefly these are some of the prophecies.
What do Christians say to you when you give these examples to them? What do they say or how do they react? Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah. (There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger). -Really? -Some of them, right? But some of them, they give a push back. They say, you know what? These prophecies that you mentioned, especially in the New Testament, they have to do with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. They don't have to do with, you know, your Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. What we say to them is this. See Jesus, he's saying that Jesus has to go for that entity to come.
But then we say Holy Spirit was already there in the time of Jesus. So, you know, it just doesn't make sense. Jesus is saying that I have to leave for that entity to come. But if that entity is Holy Ghost, he's already there. Cannot be Holy Spirit. Second way that we can push back to the Christians would be that Jesus is saying that this entity is going to give you the whole truth, a comprehensive guidance. Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost did not do that. Number three, where we can say is that the male pronoun he is used seven times in these verses. That he will come, he will glorify me, he will show you the whole truth, right? Holy Spirit is an it. It's not a he, it's not a she.
One more thing we can say is that Jesus is saying in this passage that he's not going to speak of himself, whatever he hears, that's what he will speak. According to Christians, Holy Spirit is God. God is not going to wait for somebody else to say to him, right? What to say, what not to say. So it has to be a different person than the Holy Spirit. And we say that the only person who fits the description is Mohammed, peace be upon him. One of the things Christian are most curious about Islam is the status of Jesus in this religion. Because many of them are surprised to hear that Muslims also believe in Jesus. Do you have any memory about this?
Could you compare Jesus in Islam and Jesus in Christianity? All right, alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah). You know, one time we had a billboard in Chicago highway, and the billboard said, find Jesus in the Qur’an and find Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the Bible. People were curious, really? How can you find Jesus in the Qur’an and where is Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the Bible? Many people called to ask questions, many people called to debate, but many people they called to request a copy of the Qur’an. So if someone asks me the question, okay, who is Jesus in Islam? I have a simple one word answer for them. That one word answer, one word answer I'm saying, okay. It is JESUS. J. E. S.
U. S. And every single letter of the word Jesus now becomes a point for us to share with the Christians, who is Jesus in Islam. So the word J stands for Jesus was just a messenger. Becomes easy now. So the J stands for he was just a messenger. So in the Qur’an it says in chapter 5, verse number 75, that Jesus was just a messenger. Many messengers they passed away before him. So the, according to the Qur’an, Jesus was a messenger in the chain of messengership. Every single messenger they came to invite people to the worship of one God. So Jesus was a messenger. E stands for he was empowered by God to do the miracles.
Raising people from the dead, you know, giving eyesight to the blind, healing the sick and the lepers. So he did miracles, he was empowered by the creator to do the miracles. Where does it say that? In Surah (chapter of the Qur’an) number 3, verse number 49 of the Qur’an. But the amazing thing we want to share with the Christian friends is that every single miracle that was done by Jesus, peace be upon him, he was empowered by God. That means the, the power was coming from the creator, not from himself. So that is E, J E. S stands for the sole mission of Jesus was to invite humanity to the worship of one God.
So it says in the Qur’an, chapter 3, verse number 51, "Innallaha rabbee warabbukum faAAbudoohu hatha siratun mustaqeem" So Allah is quoting Jesus in the Qur’an and Jesus is saying that verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord. Worship Him alone and that is the straight path. So S is for the sole mission of Jesus. So J E S U. Interesting, right? What do you think U may stand for? U for uplifted by Allah. Not killed, not crucified, Allah uplifted him, he's up there without getting crucified. All right? J E S U. And the last S stands for second coming. Christians would be amazed, really? You guys believe in second coming?
So these are the ways that I explain Islam, easy to remember, it all goes in sequence, ending with the second coming. And that is Jesus in Islam. So he wasn't crucified, he wasn't killed. He was ascended to the skies. Yes, according to the Qur’an, Surah number 4, Surah An-Nisa (The Women), verse number 157. Allah is saying, just the translation, that they say, they boast that they killed Jesus, the son of Mary, the Messiah. They killed him not, neither they crucified him. It only made to appear to them. And then Allah says that Jesus was lifted up by Allah. Not crucified, neither killed. So that's one of the differences, but that is what Allah says about Jesus.
So why is he not killed but uplifted to the sky? Is he going to come again because of that? Right, so Islamic belief is that there would be a second coming of Jesus. So he was not killed, he was not crucified because according to the Christian theology, the death of Jesus on the cross is a means of salvation for the Christians. So since we don't believe that a person, his death or his living could be a way of salvation, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala (the Exalted) is saying, okay, you know what? He did not die. Even if he died for the sake of argument, that is not the way of salvation. But it so happened that Allah lifted Jesus up to himself.
He would be sent down again and then there would be a sequence of things that will happen once he comes down in the second coming. So on this note, what will happen when he comes? Will he be a messenger? So when Jesus when he comes back, obviously no one knows that what time, what day, which year he's going to come. But there are many authentic narrations in Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim's collection. So these are the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that Muslims of the past they collected. So there are close to 14 authentic narrations by Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, that describes in detail about the second coming of Jesus, peace be upon him, right?
So he'll be coming in the city of Damascus. it will be the time of the morning prayer. Muslims pray five times, so this is the first prayer of the day. He'll be descending from the sky. He will descend on the minaret of the white mosque in the east side of Damascus. He will come down and that will be the time for the Muslim prayer. And Muslims, they would be amazed, they would be surprised and they would be saying, you know, welcome Jesus, we were waiting for you. And they will say to him, Jesus, why don't you lead the prayer? And Jesus, he would say that, you know, your Imam who is there is going to lead the prayer.
So the point is Jesus is not going to come as a Prophet or as a new Prophet. He's going to come down as a follower of the Shari'ah (Islamic law) of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, right? And then there is more description what will happen. He will have his whole army which is going to fight against the Antichrist. By God's power, Antichrist would be defeated. Then Jesus is going to reign in the whole world for a few years. Everyone is going to be a Muslim at that time. Muslim means anyone who submits to the creator. Jesus is going to get married. He's going to, he's going to do the pilgrimage, the Hajj in Mecca. Then he's going to die a natural death.
How does the Islamic belief in life after death differ from Christianity? Heaven, hell, day of judgment, etc. Okay, very good. the concept of salvation, the concept of the hereafter, there are many similarities, but then many many differences. So one similarity is this. According to the Christians, there would be a day of resurrection and there would be a day of judgment. But in the day of judgment, it is not going to be, you know, God who will be judging people, it would be Jesus who would be judging people. But according to Islam, Allah is all knowing, he's all knowing, he's all seeing, he's all wise, he's all knowledgeable.
He is the only entity who's suitable to judge humanity, not Jesus. Because Jesus lacked knowledge, he was a Prophet, he was a human. He was not all knowing. So that's one of the main differences. The second main difference would be the description of paradise in the Qur’an compared to the Bible. See in the Bible, it does not describe in detail about the description of paradise. The Qur’an does, by the way. It does, it speaks about, you know, the palaces and the trees and the clothes and the food of the people, interaction of the people, right? It describes all the wonderful rewards and our spouses and the families.
The only thing Bible says would be that they would have a direct connection with God in paradise. But that's, you know, I mean, that leaves so many questions for us. What does it mean in eternity? You'll be just sitting up there and God would be up there, what would you be doing? Qur’an satisfies the answer to a person that what will happen, all the rewards in detail, right? So that's one difference. The second difference would be the concept of the hell. Some Christians believe in the literal hell, that there would be punishment and suffering. But most of the Christians they would say hell would be a place in which there is a separation between the creator and the creation.
So that separation is going to give hopelessness and despair and sadness to the people. But Islamic concept of hell is that it is a place of punishment to the people who rejected God. After many signs came to them, many, you know, warnings came to them, they still rejected God, they did the wrong things, they committed shirk (associating partners with God), right? They worshiped someone else besides the creator or someone else along with the creator. So that is a place for hell with description in the Qur’an. May Allah protect all of us from the hell and help us to go to eternal paradise. So do Christians believe that the Muslims will go to hell?
Well, according to the Christians, you know, just like Muslims have six fundamental beliefs and the five pillars and other obligations, if a person does not agree with the Islamic beliefs and does not do them, then there may be punishment for the person. Or a person who in humanity does not believe in Islam, despite the warnings, despite the knowledge, we say that, you know what? That is the criteria for a person to be landed into hell. According to the Christians, if a person does not agree that Jesus is God, son of God, or part of Trinity, or he did not die for humanity's, you know, salvation, if a person does not believe that concept of Jesus, that person would be going to hellfire.
So they say that Muslims are going to hellfire if you don't believe in Jesus and, you know, what he came for. Yes. So they, they do say that, yeah, Muslims are going to hell if you don't take Jesus to be as the Lord and the savior. But from the Bible itself, we can mention to them that what they're saying is not according to what Jesus said about salvation. I think this is one of the most important points. Is that according to Jesus, the way for salvation is a person has to have the right belief and doing good deeds. That's what Islam says.
In chapter 2 of the Qur’an, verse number 25, Allah is saying, and here is the translation, if a person has the right belief and doing good deeds, that Allah guarantees that person eternal paradise. So a person came to Jesus, this is according to the Bible, a person came to came to Jesus and he asked a really fundamental question. So this is in the New Testament, the first gospel, which is the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, verse number 16 and onwards. A person came to Jesus and asked him the question that oh good master, what should I do that I can go to paradise? See, direct answer, right? And Jesus, he said, why do you call me good? There is no one good except one who is God.
So Jesus cannot be God according to this passage because God is-- Jesus is saying there is a some other entity, he is all goodness, I am not all goodness. But then he came to the answer. Jesus said, if you want to have eternal life, if you want to go to paradise, obey the commandments. See, Jesus would have said that, you know what? Just wait a few days, a few weeks, a few months, I'm going to die, they will put me on the cross, believe that I died, then I would be resurrected and that's the way to paradise. He never said that. That theology they built it later on. But what Jesus said, he said that if you want to go to paradise, follow the commandments.
And this person he said, what kind of commandments? Jesus said the commandments of the old, means Old Testament. So he was alluding to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments says in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse number 3, worship and believe in only one God. And the rest of the nine commandments, they speak about good deeds. You know, do not blaspheme the name of God, respect your parents, you know, be good to your neighbors, do not lie, do not cheat, do not murder, the good actions. So when you have the Ten Commandments, the first commandment is believe in one God. The rest of the commandments, they speak about doing good deeds.
So according to Jesus, peace be upon him, even from the Bible, for a person to gain paradise, right belief along with good deeds. According to Christianity, Jesus sacrificed himself for the salvation and forgiveness of the sins of humanity. Why should this belief be wrong? Why shouldn't accepting Jesus as your savior be enough for one's salvation? You know, it is wrong in multiple levels, by the way. It is wrong from the logical point of view that why Jesus's death is going to give salvation to humanity. I drove from my home to here. Suppose if I were driving over the speed limit, I should be the one, the police should catch, and I should be the one to bear the consequences, the ticket.
Not my wife, not my neighbor, not my parents. So logically, if a person dies, believing in that person's death, how is that salvation to some other person? According to Islam, according to logic, what Islam says is that what you do is what you bear. That means if you do good, reward for you. If you do bad, there is forgiveness if you repent or there would be consequences. Islam's salvation is logical and rational. You know, every court system in the world, they apply the Islam's concept of self-accountability. What you do, if a criminal does something, he's the one to be punished, not somebody else. So from the logical point of view, Christian's concept of salvation does not make sense.
From a scriptural point of view, as I mentioned before, Jesus said the way for salvation, the way to go to paradise, doing having the right belief and doing good deeds. Which is in Matthew, chapter 19, verse number 16 and onwards. So from any which way that we look at it, even from the Old Testament, by the way, right? Even in the Old Testament it says whatever that you do, is what you bear. In the book of Ezekiel. So Old Testament says that, Jesus said that, the Qur’an says that, logic says that, every court system says the person who has done wrong should be punished, the person who have done right, he's the one should be rewarded.
So the concept of original sin doesn't make sense, do you think? Well, according to original sin, Adam and Eve, they committed the sin and they disobeyed God and they ate the apple or they went to the tree, and the punishment for that is that every progeny, every child of Adam and Eve, they will inherit that original sin. But from the logical point of view, you know, why should I be punished for the sin of my parents? You know, no court system agrees with that concept of children being punished for the father's sin. What Islam says is that Islam does not say original sin, Islam speaks about original goodness.
That every child, every baby, every person is born with a clean heart, with a clean slate, right? Innocent, pure, without any blemish. Until you reach the age of puberty, and once if you do right things, you'll be rewarded, if you do wrong things, there would be consequences. So according to the Islamic concept, after Adam and Eve when they did the wrong thing, when they, you know, made a, made the mistake, they both repented to God, that oh God, please forgive us. And God forgave them. End of story. And every child is born with original goodness.
I mentioned this answer many times, every single time in the masjid open houses when the Christians when they ask this question, every time they say, you know what Sabeel, what you mentioned about Islamic concept of salvation, it is logical, it makes sense. So Christians ask, so why did God then not protect the Bible? So why didn't Allah protected the Injil (Gospel) given to Jesus, Zabur (Psalms) given to David, the Tawrat (Torah) given to, you know, Moses, and the scrolls given to Abraham. God could protect it, we could have had the originals of them with us, right? God could do it, he's all powerful. He has the power to do it.
He didn't meant to do it because those revelations were only for those people and for that time. They only had limited guidance in there. They had limited, you know, Shari'ahin there. That Shari'ah would not be applicable for all the people and for all time. Shari'ah means guidance. All right? For example, let me give you this simple analogy. You have the constitution of Norway. Constitution of Norway was written only for Norwegians, for that 5 million people, geographically, based on their culture, in the context of their background. Constitution of Norway is not going to be fully applicable to the people of the US or the people of India, people of Africa.
Constitution of US is not going to be applicable for other countries because it's written in certain context. But imagine if there is a constitution which is applicable for the whole world, all the cultures, all the races, for all time. That is the analogy of the Qur’an compared to the constitution of the Norway and the US, which is analogous to the Bible, the Old and the New Testament. Even if God would have preserved the Injil (Gospel) or the revelation given by God to Jesus, it will not be enough for us for today, for all the solutions for the problems that we go through. So it was limited in scope, it was only for those people and only for that time.
For that reason, Allah in His wisdom did not took the, you know, the commitment to preserve it. But Qur’an is for all of humanity, for all time, for all solutions, for any problem, for any culture, any race for humanity, and it is the last revelation, so Allah took the commitment to preserve it. Muslims believe that Qur’an is preserved, but the Bibles were changed. So what is the reason for this? Can you prove this? It's a huge claim. It's a huge claim and huge claim should have huge evidence, correct? Let's come to the Qur’an quickly.
See, Allah has given the prophecy in the Qur’an, chapter 15, verse number nine, it is Allah who has sent this dhikr (remembrance), this message, he will preserve it, this revelation. So the way he's preserving it is two different ways. One in the memory, in the mind of the people. See, Mohammed, peace be upon him, when the revelation came to him, he became the very first memorizer of the whole Qur’an. His followers memorized the Qur’an and they taught it to the subsequent generation all the way to our generation. So in the memory, there have been multiple chains coming all throughout 1400 years without any gaps. Tens and thousands and millions of people in every generation they memorized it.
In our generation, in 2021, people would be amazed to find out there are close to 15 million memorizers of the Qur’an in the whole world. How many of the Bible? Original language? Zero. Original language I'm saying, right? In Aramaic language or in ancient classical Hebrew language, Old Testament. No memorizer of the Bible, but 15 million memorizers of the Qur’an. So that's one way the Qur’an we can say that it has been memorized, right? And we can do this experiment. A Christian can come who can know how to read the Qur’an, he can have the Qur’an open and my son who memorized the Qur’an, by the way, and masha'Allah (Allah willed it), right? He's very close to it, he's almost there.
So he can look the other way without any phone, without any gadget, with his memory he can start reciting. And the Christian who knows how to read the Arabic, he can look into the Qur’an, it will be exactly what my boy, my son Yusuf is going to recite. Simple experiment. All right. The second way the Qur’an has been preserved, from the very beginning, Mohammed, peace be upon him, he did not knew how to read and write. Anytime a revelation used to come to him, he used to have 55 to 77 scribes. They used to come to him, he used to request them, write down this verse, this chapter of the Qur’an in front of me.
They used to write down and then he used to request to them, you know, recite to me what you wrote down, just to make sure what they wrote down is what he said. So in that way, the whole Qur’an was written down and the whole Qur’an was memorized. In case if the scribes make any errors, you know, before the printing press, people used to just write with their hands, the copies, and people make mistake. If there is any error in the written manuscript of the Qur’an, the memorizers who are the huffaz (memorizers) of the Qur’an, if they catch the error in the manuscript, they will catch it, they will correct it, it will be exactly the same as the original.
So the Qur’an has a dual check and balance system no other book has. So that's the evidence the Qur’an has been preserved. And we have manuscripts of the Qur’an going back all the way to the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. One of them is the Birmingham Qur’an, by the way, that they discovered in the library in Birmingham. So that's how we can show to them that the Qur’an has been preserved. It's not just a blind faith, it has evidence behind it. What about the Bible, right? People may be thinking. You Muslims say the allegation that the Bible has been changed. Okay, what is the proof? Who changed it? When was it changed? Where are the changes?
Jesus, peace be upon him, as he was mentioning about guidance, about one God, about salvation, nobody in that time wrote it down. No historian of the Bible says that, you know, the words of Jesus were written down in the time of Jesus. So after Jesus was gone, many many decades after him, people started to remember and they started to write down. So there was a gap of about 30 to 60 years from the time of Jesus leaving this earth. And according to the Christians, the people who wrote it down, the four gospels, they're not the original eyewitnesses. They are unknown authors. And even when they wrote down, they did not write down in the language of Jesus.
See, Jesus according to encyclopedia Britannica, he spoke Aramaic language. But the original writings of the New Testament, they are in the Greek language. See, for Muslims, Qur’an is written in Arabic, memorized in Arabic, revealed in Arabic, when we recite in the prayers, we recite in Arabic. For them, they don't have that. So the Bible was written down, the New Testament, in Greek, but the language of Jesus was Aramaic, right? So look at all the gaps that they have. Not written in the time of Jesus, written in a different language, written by people who are not disciples or eyewitnesses, and then there have been many many changes that took place.
And the reason it took place so many changes is this. Okay, just imagine this. You have one manuscript of the Bible, and then a person has to like write down scribe, copy this. Because there are no memorizers of the Bible, this person can make one mistake when he's copying. You know, because memory, because person may be tired, right? Not enough light. They may make a copy and this copy would not be the same as this because now this has one mistake in there. If someone is making a copy from this copy, they may incorporate this mistake and they may add more mistakes. So the more copies that they have, the mistakes keep on multiplying.
Now, one way we can also show to them that the Bible has been changed because I'm a collector of the Bibles. 300 Bibles in my collection. Yes. Come to my library one time. From different times in history, different languages and different versions. Every single one of them they are different. Example, right? You have the King James version of the Bible that was taken out in 1611 in the authorship in the supervision of King James of England. So that Bible was revised in 1881 to 1885 because it has errors and it was not copied from ancient manuscripts. So they revised it in England in 1881.
It also has some mistakes in it, so they started to revise again in 1901, called the American Standard Version. It also had mistakes in there because, you know, people started to discover new manuscripts. And the new manuscripts, they differ from this Bible, so they have to keep on updating the Bible. And I will give some examples, okay? So the 1901 version of the Bible, the American Standard Version, it has mistakes in it, so they revised it in 1952. That has mistakes in it, so they revised it again in 1971, NASB. It has mistakes, so they revised it in 1989, and then 2020, and then 2021, by the way. So you may be thinking, okay, brother Sabeel, what's going on here?
The thing is, okay, fine, you have like one Bible, but if they discover new manuscripts, they have to update this Bible, not the translation of it, but the contents of it. So what would be some of the actual, you know, verses that people have changed in the Bible? If you go to the King James version of the Bible, in the New Testament, in the second book, which is the Gospel of Mark, in chapter number 16, I'm giving so many things, I hope you are following. The New Testament, the second gospel, chapter number 16, it has 20 verses in there in King James version. So that's one Bible.
The Bible that I have, which is the 1952 version of the Bible, in the gospel of Mark, chapter 16, this one has 20 verses, this one only has eight verses. Wow. So if people may be thinking, you know what? Muslims, they may be confusing translations with the versions. No, translation we understand. Translation means translation from English to Turkish language, for example, right? That's translation. Version means you have changed in the actual words, you have changed in the actual passages. This version has more passages, this version has less passages. So that's one example, right? Easy example.
One more example can be in the Gospel of John, the fourth gospel, chapter number seven, verse number 53, it speaks about the prostitute and how people gathered around her to stone to her. And Jesus came on the scene and he said, okay, those who are without sin cast the first stone, right? You may have heard the story. That story is not there in the ancient manuscripts. King James version has it. The RSV version of the Bible says, you know, this story is added, this is not there in the ancient manuscripts. So somebody added that story to it. One more quick example.
In the first epistle of John, chapter 5, verse number seven, King James version says that in heaven there are three that bear witness, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. King James version says that. The new versions of the Bible, they took that out because they realized that somebody added that. So what I'm saying is all throughout centuries in the Greek manuscripts, people have added things, people have taken out things. For that reason, we say that the Bible has been changed. So here is the dilemma for the Christians.
They don't have the original Bible, they don't have any huffaz of the Bible, the memorizers, all they have is these manuscripts and every single manuscript is different. So they do their best from their mind, you know, taking the majority of the votes, what passage should go here, what passage should go there. That's how they make the Bibles. So Muslims when we make this statement, the Bibles have been changed, Qur’an has been preserved, we have ample, credible evidence for what we say. So are these only the four Bibles that were written and were there other Bibles that were also present in the time of Jesus?
So what happened was after Jesus he was lifted up around the year 33, nobody wrote any statement about his teachings. So many decades afterwards, people started to write many gospels. So the definition of a gospel is it is the biography of Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. So many people they wrote the biography of Prophet Jesus. Not only, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, apparently, but there were many many gospels that were written. People say 77 of them, people say 100, people say 200. So what happened was when the original disciples of Jesus and their progeny, they went to different parts of the world to teach the monotheistic faith that was preached by Jesus.
So these Christians or these original disciples, when they went to the Roman Empire, when they went to Persia, when they went to Egypt, when they went to, you know, subcontinent of India or to China, in those places, in that culture, Trinity, different shapes and forms of Trinity was really prevalent. So unfortunately, the monotheistic followers of Christ, they diluted monotheism and they incorporated Trinity in it. So what used to happen in the Roman Empire was, now there are two groups of Christians, Trinitarian Christians, and then you have monotheistic Christians or the or what you can call is as the Unitarian Christians, right? You have Trinitarians and the Unitarians.
There used to be a fight and the friction between them. So Constantine who is the emperor of Rome, he's a pagan emperor, by the way. So he said, you know what? There should be peace, there should be harmony, let's bring them together. So he brought all the Christian bishops together. He had a whole council, called as the Council of Nicaea. In there, they decided that Jesus is equal with the Father. Before that, that was not the case, by the way, right? Now it became an orthodox part. As that is being played around, the gospels that were there, many many of them, and the Christians they were not able to decide which one is the right, which one is wrong.
But now, you know, this orthodoxy of Trinity became orthodoxy. When they have to finalize what the Bible is, in the year 367. Look at how many years after Jesus. In the year 367, they incorporated the Trinitarian beliefs and they only selected those gospels that agreed with the Trinitarian belief of Christians. In the year 367, more than 300 years after Jesus. So those gospels that agreed with Trinity, they placed in the Bible. Those that disagreed with it, they threw it out.
So there were many many other gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, for example, or people say the Gospel of Barnabas or other gospels, that only says that Jesus was only a Prophet, there is only one God, Jesus did not die, right? The concept of salvation that Islam says. All of those gospels they were thrown away, they were blacklisted, they were banned, and only those gospels that align with Trinity, they got incorporated. So how did they come up with this Trinity then? Did it belong to other religions that they used to be a member of before Christianity? So Trinity, the concept of Trinity was really prevalent in different cultures. Not just Trinity, by the way, right?
Because you know, some cultures they diluted the concept of God to such an extent, they started to worship idols, humans, animals, you know, Trinitarian concept. like for Hindus for example, they still have Trinity right now. They have Brahma the creator, they have Vishnu, and then they have the Shiva, the preserver and the destroyer. So in Egyptian culture, they used to have a similar Trinity, Roman Empire, right, in Persia. So monotheism was diluted. You know, like in India for example, so I'm from India, right? I was born and raised in India. I used to actually see some Muslims going and circling the grave of dead people. These are Muslims. And they used to do sajdah (prostration), right?
Prostration to these dead people, and they claim that they are Muslims because they're not knowledgeable, they're doing innovation. In the same way, when these early followers of Christ, when they met these other cultures, they somehow got attracted towards those cultures, towards their way of life, towards their theology, and they diluted monotheism and they incorporated Trinitarian concepts. So initially in some cultures of the past, even in the Jewish culture, they used to call pious people as son of God, righteous people as son of God. Not in a literal way, but in a metaphorical way. But then the followers of Christ they came into the picture and they said, you know what?
In other cultures, they have sons of God, they have son of God. So they said, you know what? Maybe Jesus is also a son of God. So they gave a literal meaning when it was supposed to be a metaphorical meaning. So then once they gave a literal meaning that God has a son, then the son also has to be having the same attributes of God. That means son also has to be God. Then they gave one more entity called the Holy Spirit. You know, the Spirit of God is a metaphorical way, Spirit of God is God himself. But they made the Spirit of God as a separate person and gave divine attributes to it. So now they said, you know what?
If Father is God, Son also has attributes of God, and the Holy Spirit, you know, is also have attributes of God. Maybe just like in those cultures, God is also into three persons. So that's how the concept of Trinity, after many centuries after Jesus was gone, it became orthodox part of Trinity or orthodox part of the Christian faith. So, so these are really logical arguments, but many Christians say that I found spirituality in Christianity and I feel connection with God. So why do I change, why do I need to change my faith? I would say three reasons the person should change the faith from Christianity to Islam, all right? Three simple reasons, quickly.
First and foremost, just because a person feel, you know, better or spiritual or good about certain faith, is not the criteria for the truth of that faith. A Hindu may say the same thing when he goes to a temple, I feel spiritual, right? I feel good, I feel, I feel this is the right faith. Feelings are not facts as people say. A Buddhist may say the same thing, a Jew may say the same thing, right? Muslims say the same thing. Just because we say something does not make it right. Feelings, right? We all have feelings. So this is called as a subjective argument. Subjective, right? So feelings, we cannot go with feelings, we have to go with facts. Now let's come to facts, two things.
Number one, see one of the criteria of the right faith for us is that that faith should have the right concept of God. If the concept of God is right, everything falls into place. If the concept of God is wrong, nothing else matters. So the concept of God that Islam preaches, absolute oneness, there is only one creator, wonderful attributes, no partners, no Trinity, absolute oneness. That is the concept of God preached by every Prophet, every messenger, even in the Bible. I say to my Christian and the Jewish friends, if you take at Abraham, peace be upon him, Old Testament, he was monotheistic, he was not a Trinitarian.
Moses was not a Trinitarian, he preached monotheism, and the rest of the Prophets, even Jesus preached monotheism. Jesus was not a Trinitarian. So that's second reason the Christian should look into Islam because Islam revived again the monotheistic belief preached by Jesus and all the Prophets. And the third important reason is if I'm coming from a secular point of view, if I have Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, now I want to pick a faith, one of the criteria would be this. Humanity is going through many many problems. You have problems of racism, breakdown of the family structure, the moral values, you know, homicide, suicide, gambling, and the problems go on and on, the list.
What is the solution? So, so, so one of the criteria of the right faith is that that right faith, if it's coming from God, should give practical, workable, beneficial solutions to every single problem. So if you look into the New Testament, it does not speak about what are the comprehensive solutions regarding the economic system, political system, judiciary system, right? Family system, matrimonial system. New Testament, we need it, New Testament does not have it. Old Testament has to some degree, but they are only for the Jewish people, they are limited, time bound, people bound, only for specific people. We need it, they don't have it. In the Hindu Vedas, they don't have it.
In the Buddhist scriptures, they don't have it, right? Humanity, 8 billion people, we need solutions, we need guidance. Just from the human logical point of view, they don't have those solutions. Practical solutions, right? Not just, you know, love your neighbor, fine, what does it mean to love? It has to be detailed solutions. Islam has those solutions. In the Qur’an, which is the word of Allah for humanity, and in the practices in the Sunnah, the example of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. Humanity needs it, those solutions, they don't have it, Islam provides that. So for these three reasons, logical, rational point of view, Islam is the right faith.
So you say that the previous Prophets, you say that the Prophets of the Old Testament gave the teaching of one God and believing in one God. And also you said Jesus said the same thing. So according to Christians, what will happen to those Prophets? Because they didn't believe in Jesus. Jesus came after them. So what will happen to those Prophets? How would people before Jesus, peace be upon him, what was their means of salvation? Their means of salvation was exactly the means of salvation, having the right belief, doing good deeds. If you fall short, repent to God for forgiveness.
And that makes sense because, you know, people at the time of Moses, peace be upon him, the immediate followers of Moses, we say that they are Muslims. They used to submit to God. So in Arabic, the word that we give to them is the word Muslim. So any person who used to believe in Moses as the Prophet and follow the Tawrat (Torah) given by God and do the best to follow, repent to God for forgiveness for the shortcomings, we say that person by Allah's mercy will go to paradise. People in the time of Moses and Abraham, Solomon, David, Ishmael, Isaac, right? All the Prophets.
Now, really important, even in the time of Jesus, we say that anyone who took Jesus to be as a Prophet and followed one God, submitted to one God, and followed the Injil (Gospel), the revelation gave by God to Jesus and his disciples, we say that person is a Muslim, the follower of Christ, and the way of salvation for them is to believe in God, take Jesus as a Prophet, and follow the Tawrat (Torah) or the Injil (Gospel). There is an amazing statement in the Bible, right? Why do I say it amazing? Okay, so for a person to become a Muslim, like now suppose if someone comes to the masjid and says, you know what? I read the Qur’an, I want to be a Muslim.
They have to recite the shahada (declaration of faith). Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah That I bear witness, no other God besides Allah, and Mohammed, peace be upon him, is the Prophet. In the time of Jesus, don't you think it is the same statement? That Jesus is the messenger of Allah, right? There is no other God besides one God, Allah, and Jesus is the messenger. You will find that in the Bible. So Jesus, he's saying that if you want to go to eternal life, if you want to go to paradise, know that you are the only true God, he's pointing to God, and Jesus sent by God as a messenger. Wow.
The shahada (declaration of faith) is there in the Bible and Jesus is saying that this is the way to go to paradise by knowing it and reciting that shahada (declaration of faith). Couldn't Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, have copied the Old and the New Testament and write the Qur’an? Okay, so the question is, you know, many people, they have this allegation that the Qur’an was copied from the Bible. There are many many ways that we can dispel or, you know, refute this allegation. The one thing we can say is that Qur’an was not copied from the Bible because Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, he did not knew how to read and write.
Even if he wanted to write it, he would not be able to read the Bible and then copy it. Number one. So the Qur’an says in chapter 7, verse number 157, that he was an ummi (unlettered) Prophet, he did not knew how to read and write. The second thing that what we can say is that there was no complete Bible translated into Arabic for him to look and copy. The very first translation of the Old Testament, it was completed around the year 900, that by a Jewish scholar named Sadiyya Gaon. So in the time of Mohammed, peace be upon him, in the 7th century, the Jewish Bible was not translated into Arabic. The New Testament was not translated overall, not until the 1600s.
So the whole Bible was not there in Arabic for the Prophet to copy to begin with, right? It was not there translated into Arabic. Number three thing that we can mention is that there are passages in the Bible that are not there in the Qur’an and vice versa. What do I mean by it? So in the Qur’an, it mentions about the story of Pharaoh. In the Bible, it speaks about the story of Pharaoh, but the Qur’an completes the picture. Example. So you have the biblical story in the book of Exodus, chapter number three, the Pharaoh and his army they are chasing Moses, and then they got drowned.
The Qur’an has the same story, but then the Qur’an says after the Pharaoh got drowned, his body would be preserved as a sign for people to come. So now we have discovered the body of Pharaoh and people have done the autopsy and they have said, you know what? This is the Pharaoh from the time of Moses. So you have, so Qur’an has extra information. So if the Prophet was copying from the Bible, who gave that extra information, the correct information that scholars in our time they now discovered it. Number two. The Qur’an speaks about what else? Noah. Noah and the flood. The Bible speaks about the flood, the Qur’an speaks about the flood. According to the Bible, it was a global flood.
In the book of Genesis, chapter 7, verse number 21 says, the whole world it was submerged in water. Everyone was destroyed except only the people in the ark. Chapter 7, verse 21 of the Bible, Old Testament says that, book of Genesis. The Qur’an speaks about the flood, but the Qur’an speaks about the local flood. Only the people who were, you know, against Noah, peace be upon him, and the teachings and mocking him and moved away from Allah, they are the ones who were punished by God. It was a local flood. Now you have Qur’an, biblical story and the Quranic story. Archaeologists now they support the Quranic story. Science supports the Quranic story, right?
Number three, so who gave that extra information to the Prophet, peace be upon him? Number three what we can say is the Qur’an has scientific facts in there. 500 plus scientific facts, zero mistakes. Bible does not have them, the Qur’an has them. So again, if Qur’an copied from the Bible, then who gave those extra Quranic facts, scientific facts in the Bible, in the Qur’an. So that's one more reason, right? So a simple analogy that I can give is, suppose you have two students. Student, you know, let's say David get D grade, Bill gets B grade, okay? Easy, right? Now, suppose in the final exam, David is sitting next to Bill and he's copying all the answers from Bill.
And Bill gets a B grade, let's say 80%. What do you think David will get? He's copying exactly all answers. A B grade, right? Because David is not only copying the right answers from Bill, he's also copying the wrong answers. So if the Qur’an copied from the Bible, Qur’an would have also taken out the mistakes in the Bible, the errors in the Bible, the inconsistencies in the Bible, but it did not. Qur’an has zero mistakes, Bible has many errors. So who only took out the right things, who added the right things, now science proves it.
So for that reason we say from a scientific point of view, archaeological point of view, scriptural point of view, historical point of view, Qur’an came independently and it was not copied from the Bible, right? But then some people may say, you know what? There are commonalities between the Qur’an and the Bible. For that reason, say it is copied. What I say to them is this. Bible is coming from the same source as the Qur’an, from Allah. But the Bible has been changed, some remnants of the originals are there, then Allah sent the final revelation and it also has some commonalities with the Bible. So not that one book copied from the other book, they have a common source.
Let's take it to the logical conclusion, right? If the if people say that the Qur’an was copied from the Bible, we can say, okay, fine, the New Testament has commonalities with the Old Testament, then do we say, do the Christians now do they agree that the Christian authors copied from the Jewish authors? Did they plagiarize from the Jewish authors? Why do we stop up there? Old Testament has commonalities with the Hindu Vedas. Can we say that, you know what? Old Testament authors they copied, they plagiarized from the Hindus? Why stop up there? The Hindu Vedas have commonalities with the Babylonian scriptures. So you see, where do we stop, right?
All we can say is Qur’an is coming independently from the same source, Allah, and Bible has remnants which is coming from the same source, Allah. Because the source is the same, you see commonalities, not because one person is copying from a second person. For centuries, the Jews have been waiting for Messiah, for Christ. But when Jesus came, they denied him. And the scriptures also mentioned the coming of Prophet Mohammed, their scripture. But when Christians deny him, deny Prophet Mohammed, aren't they behaving like those Jews? Yes, there would be some similarities.
Why Christians are denying Mohammed, peace be upon him, and why the Jews denied not only Jesus, by the way, also Mohammed, peace be upon him, right? You know, the Jewish scholars, they look for certain criteria in the Messiah. The Messiah would be the king like David. Messiah would be like a military leader. Messiah would be like ruling with military, right? With a vast empire. So when they saw in Jesus, a person who is, you know, "weak," he was being mocked by people, rejected by people, no army, no strength. So according to in their mind, they were thinking, you know what? This cannot be a Messiah because according to their Bible, they are thinking. Messiah has to have these criteria.
For that reason mainly, they reject Jesus, peace be upon him. Now, they also reject Mohammed, peace be upon him, the Jewish people is because sometimes of the arrogance. They may be thinking that, you know what? All the Prophets they came from the branch of Isaac, and they were thinking they are the chosen people. The books are given to them, the Prophets are given to them, they are the best of people. But when they saw Mohammed, peace be upon him, he was coming from the branch, from the from the progeny of Ishmael alayhissalam (peace be upon him) from the Arabs. So out of their arrogance, unfortunately, they denied. Even though they saw the signs in their own scriptures.
Some Jews they converted, by the way, but overall they rejected and they denied the way that they denied Jesus, peace be upon him. Now, the Christians they deny Mohammed, peace be upon him, because according to them, the Bible is complete, it's a full story, the salvation is, you know, neat up there according to them, Jesus came, he died, and that's the end of story. No new person, no new guide to come to add to the Bible's guidance. So for that reason, they say the Bible is sufficient, Jesus is sufficient, guidance is sufficient, so there is no need for a new messenger and new Prophet to come. So for that reason, they deny Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.
But as we mentioned before, there are so many signs, ample signs in the Old Testament and in the New Testament about the prophecies about Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. So if a sincere Jew or a sincere Christian look into those prophecies, they will find the one wonderful signs in the person of Mohammed, peace be upon him, and the guidance that Allah gave through him, the monotheism that Allah gave to him, insha'Allah (if Allah wills), if they are true and sincere, they will also accept him as a Prophet and follow the faith of Islam that was brought or given by Allah.
Finally, maybe a Christian is watching you and saying that, okay, Islam makes sense, but I don't like, I don't want to leave Jesus. I love Jesus so much, I don't want to abandon him. What will happen to my connection and my relationship with Jesus if I become a Muslim? If a Christian is saying that, you know what? Islam is good, it seems appealing, but do I need to lose Jesus? I love Jesus. I would say bring the Jesus that you have and add more to it. So you don't have to leave Jesus. You are now you are taking Jesus to be the way that he was. He was a mighty Prophet. The Bible says that he was a mighty Prophet many many times, right? Matthew 13:57, you know, John 4:44, Mark 6:4, Luke 13:33.
So if you love Jesus, follow what he says. He was a monotheistic person, you will bring that with you, right? And you will bring the fact that Jesus is a Prophet, the Qur’an says the same thing, and you will you will also bring in the way that Jesus used to dress. He used to have a beard, used to dress in modest clothes. You will also bring in with you the way that Jesus used to say peace be upon you to his disciples. Muslims say the same thing, you bring that in with you. You also bring the fact that Jesus used to fast for about 40 days, 40 nights, similar to what Muslims are fasting, you can bring that with you. And the best thing that you can bring the way that Jesus used to worship.
He used to prostrate himself and he used to pray to God. He used to be dependent on God. You bring that with you and because Muslims are doing exactly the same thing. So you're not losing Jesus, you're bringing Jesus, but you're adding something more, something better, something given by the creator. Jesus, peace be upon him, never drank alcohol, never ate pork, never had any blood, you know, consumption of the blood, because he was a practicing, what can I say, a Muslim, a Prophet, he used to practice the commandments that were given, guidance that was given by God to Prophet Moses.
So in the Old Testament it says, you know, do not consume pork in the book of Leviticus, in the Old Testament, do not consume blood, and so many commandments in there. And Jesus as a messenger of God, he said, he said in the in the New Testament, in the very first gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse number 17 and onwards, I came not to destroy the law or the Prophets, I came to fulfill. Anyone who takes away any portion of the Old Testament law, that person would be the least in the kingdom. But anyone who upholds the laws, they would be the highest in the kingdom. And one of those laws, do not eat pork, do not consume blood, right?
And the laws, the Shari'ah (Islamic law) laws that we follow, the halal laws. So if you love Jesus, you will abandon those because Muslims also have abandoned those. So if you love Jesus, follow the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus was Islam and we welcome you to the faith of Islam given to you and to all of humanity. Therein is the salvation and therein is the benefit for you. Jazakallahu khayran (May Allah reward you with goodness). Thank you for your answers, brother Sabeel Ahmed. So women in Islam, Shari'ah (Islamic law), jihad, and so on. We have many other questions that Christians ask most about Islam and it will be in the second video, insha'Allah (if Allah wills). Let's see if Dr.
Sabeel Ahmed will be able to answer so easily again. So stay tuned until then and don't forget to subscribe. As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you).