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Nabeel’s testimony about his conversion to Christianity may be read here. Recently, a convert to Islam named Allison wrote a response to Nabeel, which she sent to me. Since Westerners need to understand why people convert to Islam, I have posted Allison’s response.
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Dear Nabeel,
I am a Christian who became Muslim, so it is with great surprise and no small disappointment that I read your article.
When I was twelve years old, I attended church and heard a sermon on the "death of Jesus" (peace be upon him) on the cross. He asks for fish after his death. Why? Because he is dead? No, because he is alive and hungry. Read the whole chapter on John in the New Testament. At the age of twelve, I felt sure that Jesus was alive. This is also why Doubting Thomas is rebuked for doubting Jesus (a.s.), because Jesus was, in fact, alive.
How did Jesus, peace be upon him, greet everyone? He said "Peace." What religion says "Peace be unto you!" Islam, of course.
When I finally met Muslims, I was impressed by the fact that they always gave respect to Jesus, by following his name with "Alai Salam". It is a prayer for peace on his soul. How can Christianity be superior when the Muslims are the ones saying prayers for Jesus and the Christians don't say anything so respectful or prayerful...
I also became a Muslim based on one simple fact. Muslims pray five times a day. That is a very high standard. Christians attend church once a week. The math shows you who should be closer to God, because Allah has higher expectations for Muslims. If you bathe in a river five times a day versus once a week, who would be spiritually cleaner?
Jesus (a.s.) prayed like Muslims. Read the sermon on the mount. He presses his forehead to the earth. Who prays like that? We Muslims do. Christians do not.
Jesus (a.s.) did not eat pork. We know that because he was a Jew. Christians eat pork and their own language suggests that pork eaters are greedy people. The English language includes these expressions: "You hog!" "Don't be a hog" "Don't hog the road." "What a big pig" and "What a swine!" These are expressions of ultimate disgust. Are you eating pork now that you are a Christian?
You said in your article that you couldn't say that Mohamed (a.s.) "was bad." It seems that your Christian "friends" are pushing you to say that, but because you were Muslim, you couldn't give that disrespect. Thank God, you defended the Holy Prophet by saying that no prophets are bad. I hope you can see that the Christians would like you to say that Jesus (a.s.) is a superior prophet of God. Think about this. God can do whatever He likes. Consequently, you should ask yourself why there are more Hadith about the Holy Prophet than we have about Jesus (a.s.) And, most importantly, we have the Holy Prophet's example as a husband. Because of Christianity's lack of Jesus' (a.s.) example as a husband, the have monasticism, which resulted in all the gay priests committing atrocities with girls and boys.
The Holy Quran offers us very exact and beautiful prayers. (Moses: rabbay inee lay ma unzulta elaya min
I am sorry. I have three children and I have no more time to respond. I could say a lot more, but if you are not convinced by these arguments, I doubt anyone can persuade you to anything different.
Allah says "Certainly, Allah wrongs not men at all, but men wrong their own souls." (
You are free to do whatever you want.
My credo is "Love for All, Hatred for None." There is no superior motto in the world. It is sad that you could turn your back on The Promised Messiah (a.s.) AND the Holy Prophet (a.s.) and miss the highest spiritual leadership of this age. But Allah gave you the freedom to choose, so that He could test you and see what you chose.
My seven year old daughter is a waqfe nau. She saw the cross on your website. She said "La whola wula quita ila bila hila lee ulazeem" There is One God and only One God."
Keep praying for the truth. Sometimes you have to be very patient. I have had so many dreams about the truth of the Promised Messiah and the Holy Prophet that I could write a book, but I don't have time to share them with you. However, I will tell you that Allah showed me in a dream that there is still some gold in the bible, but it was less than a half--about a third--not the 95% that your friend David claims. The trick for the Christians is sticking to that one third!
Sincerely,
Allison
4 comments:
Allison,
I am pretty sure that this will do you no good but since there is always hope, I will try.
1. What is your definition of a Christian? You say you were a Christian but your, sad to say, ingnorance, of the faith is striking. One is not and Christian because they happen to be born into a Christian family. Christianity is unique in that it is in the main a voluntary religion. This means that there are levels of acceptance or maturity within it. As soon as one is capable of choice, one's Christianity depends on a person's choices. A mature Christian is one who daily makes the choice to be Christian and observes Christian discipline and devotion at all times and in all places.
2. I really don't know how to approach your literalism about the death of Jesus on the Cross but again I will try.
God created the universe from nothing. He made Adam from the dust and Eve from one of Adam's ribs. He will raise the dead on the last day. Those dead people will go from being truly dead to being truly alive at God's command.
This is just what the Bible is saying about Jesus. If you were to read it, you would see that Jesus is the first resurrection, a living sign in advance of the final resurrection of all the dead. His resurrection is living proof of the promise to us all.
Yes, Jesus truly dies and was truly brought back to real life. The Gospels are extremely careful to bear witness to the reality of the resurrected life of Jesus ie that he was not a ghost or an illusion. For Christians, the testimony of him after he rose again are the most wonderful and delightful to us. He really was alive.
3. I have no idea where you went to church or even if you only went a few times, but real Christians (not just the secular people who happen to be born Christians) have been saying "peace" to each other since the beginning of our faith and we say it all the time to one another. We pray for peace to all that we meet. We greet each other with the kiss of peace at every worship service. We say, Peace of the Lord be always with you. And the response is And also with you. This is true of every Christian and every Christian church.
4. You were impressed by what is a formality among muslims of saying "Peace be upon" so and so. Formalities are not substantive. A person can say such a thing to keep up appearances of piety or out of habit. The prophets before Jesus are beloved of all Christians. Our habit is not to say so with much vain repetition. We honor the saints before us with our lives and God knows how much we love and honor them. We don't feel a need to make a constant and vain show of piety.
As for Mohammed, we dont say peace to him because we do not believe he was a prophet. Its that simple. It is not a lack of generosity or charity. We are being honest by not saying what we do not believe. We believe that Jesus was the Son of God and the Final and Perfect revelation of God. After him, there was nothing new left to say. All of those who came after him, only repeat what he said and they add nothing new of importance and they only add things which cause harm to the souls of others.
This does not mean that we consider a person like Mohammed to be a completely bad person or that his religion is all bad. Most Christians have no problem acknowledging that each religion and religious leader had some good qualities. We are just not dishonest to say that we believe these people were God's messengers.
Please note that many successful religions followed Islam. It is not hard to invent a successful man made religion. We Christians believe that Islam is a man made religion. We believe that what is great about it is not original and what is original to it is not great. We feel the same way about Bahaism, Mormanism and all the countless isms that have followed islam.
5. You say that Muslims pray five times a day and that Christians only pray once a week on Sunday. This alone proves to me that you were never really a Christian.
a)Christians pray individually all the time. We worship together as a group at a minimum of once a week on Sunday. There are countless churches that offer worship on the weekdays also and many that gather to worship as a group every day of the week. But in prayer the Christian is instructed by Holy Scripture to "pray constantly". The goal of Christians is to always be in communion with God through constant prayer every waking moment.
B) Christian prayer is very flexible and varied. That is how we can pray as we are about our daily tasks without pausing and yet also have formal prayer in church. There are all varieties of prayer postures all of which are acceptable, including praying prostrate. The Orthodox are well known for this position but many other Christians also practice it in their devotions. We had all of these positions before islam.
c) Many Christians pray what are called the Hours and were doing so long before islam came along. This is a several times a day formal prayers. Both monks and nuns as well as lay people practice these prayers daily.
d) Therefore Christians are saturated with prayer. We are always in the "river". We never leave it.
6) We actually don't know whether Jesus ever ate pork. The Bible doesnt say. We can assume that he didn't but he alsi broke many of the ritual cleanliness laws of the Jews on a regular basis. He associated with people who were considered unclean. He entered the houses of Gentiles which devout Jews of his time would never do. He and his disciples gathered wheat on the Sabbath.
He also said very clearly that what enters the body does not make one unclean because it passes out of the body. He said that what is in ones heart and comes out of ones mouth is what makes a person unclean. After the Ascension of Jesus, His apostle Peter received a vision from God saying that no animal was unclean. Christians are only restricted from eating animals that were killed by strangling or which were offered to idols. The means of the death is the guiding principle. No animal in itself is unclean.
This makes more sense than to say that any animal that God created is unclean or evil somehow. How can God create something bad? Or do you think that somehow Satan created the pig? But only God can create and what he creates is good.
Our language has bad things to say about the pig but that is a surface issue. We also have negative sayings about dogs and mules and birds and a host of other animals. We don't mistake a creative use of language for the whole reality of these animals. Those who know pigs know that they are very intelligent and that they have many good qualities. Some have pigs as pets and love them. Dogs are truly man's best friend in more ways than any reasonable person could ever count. Birds are beautiful. Donkeys and mules are very useful and hardy creatures. All animals have their good and bad qualities. This does not make them evil.
7) The example of Jesus not being married did lead to monasticism. But Christians didnt need to be taught by his example how to be married. He had many teachings on marriage and the value of women and the Jewish tradition already had an excellent understanding of marriage. Many people in the pagan world were amazed at the married life of the Jews before Christ and expressed their admiration. Many became "God-fearers" out of admiration. It was a well known tradition and Christians simply continued it.
Monasticism does not lead to pedophilia. For one thing, monks live apart from others and don't have contact with children in the first place. For another, monasticism for both men and women asserted the inherant value of the human being regardless of their marital status. A Christian does not have to be married to be a good Christian or to be a complete person. God loves us unconditionally single or married.
You confuse monasticism with the celibate priesthood of the Catholics. But this is one group of Christians among many. Christian ministers from the beginning have been married. Many of the disciples were married.
Yet even the celibacy of the priests is not to blame. The fact of the matter is that pedophiles are found in every profession which has regular contact with children. As a matter of fact, according to a recent study, it was discovered that the profession of teaching had a much higher incidence of pedophiles than the Catholic priesthood. There are thousands of good and faithful Catholic priests who have never harmed a child and millions more who lived in the past also did the same. These men are in the vast majority leading to the inevitable conclusion that there is no evidence whatsoever that celibacy creates pedophiles. This is your most ridiculous accusation.
8) As for Moses, we have his example and his words and his teachings and his prayers. We have the prayers of all the Hebrew prophets and the Psalms of David. We read them always and pray them continously. We lack no knowledge of Moses or any other prophet.
We also have the beautiful and humble prayer of Mary the Mother of Jesus "Be it done onto me according to Thy will" What more could anyone need?
9) You quote this saying "Allah says "Certainly, Allah wrongs not men at all, but men wrong their own souls." (10:45)
We also believe the same thing. we believe that God did not bring evil into the world. We also believe that we are responsible for the evil that is in the world. And for that reason, because we are always doing harm to ourselves on our own power, we need God to save us to intervene with his own power and goodness to heal the wounds that we inflict on ourselves and to restore our wholeness. Our wills cannot heal our souls any more than a person can heal themselves of blindness just by willing it.
This is what we believe that Jesus did. He willingly, get that? willingly accepted the consequences of the evil that we have done to ourselves in the world for all of time in order to intervene, that is, to get between us and the consequences of our sins.
Picture this. We humans are like the person who points gun at their head in despair. What loving person would refuse to intervene in this case? The loving person would try to wrest the gun away or otherwise interpose themselves between the bullet and their loved one.
This is what Jesus willingly did. Sin is like a bullet already fired from a gun heading towards our life. The natural consequence of firing the gun towards our life is death. But Jesus, being at one with the will of the Father, did not want us to die. He wanted to save us. And so he took the bullet for us. And each time a Christian accepts this his willing sacrifice of himself for our benefit, we are like the suicide who is shocked back to our senses by a loving intervention. We no longer want to do the things that lead us to want to kill our selves with sin and we are overjoyed that someone loved us so much that he was willing to die so that we could live. How we love that person from that moment on.
So no, we do not believe that our sins were dumped on Jesus. He took them voluntarily on his back. BTW, And he did this in the past tense. This act is already done. It will not be done at the judgement.
10) Your daughters comment is supposed to prove what? I know the techniques that muslims use to drill into their children from the earliest age the taboo and automatic habitual rejection of the Cross. She does not say that out of some purity of insight. She does it because she has been relentlessly and harshly trained to do so. I have witnessed muslim children in Koran reading class. The techniques are the same as brainwashing and the penalties for mistakes are to be struck or slapped.
11) You say that you have dreams but you assume that they are from Allah and it is only an assumption. They could also be the product of your obssession with Islam and against Christianity which you clearly do not begin to understand. We all have dreams. Just because they are religious in content means nothing. You should maybe read a book on logic and avoiding blind assumptions.
Finally, I would definitely argue with you that Mohammed is the supreme moral and spiritual example. He most defintely was not. Jesus far exceeded him. Perhaps next time I could deal with this claim of yours but I have said enough for one night and I also need to be doing other things now.
I think I have addressed all of your main arguments.
To the webmaster, please if you will, forward this post to Allison for her edification and to Nabeel for his encouragement. God Bless him. May God help Allison to realize how terribly she misunderstands Christianity and to accept Christ as her true Savior, Messiah and Lord.
Dear Peggy32,
Thank you for taking the time to post. I am happy for you that you are an observing Christian. I respect that. I am afraid that we are living in a world that is nominally Christian. The commercialism of Christianity means that we have easter bunnies, easter lilies, Christmas trees and easter egg hunts, but empty of worship. I can't tell you how many parents have complained about the commercialism after Christmas... Many people aspire to the lowest level of worship or not at all. A fellow teacher friend said that she went back to the church to find someone to marry, but she couldn't find anyone young in the church. It's a problem for believing Christians...
There is so much shopping going on here in the baptist South on Sunday, that the assumption of church worship is a thing of the past.
Regarding point number 2, Jesus (peace be upon him) says "reach your finger here; and look at my hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving but believing." (John 20:29) This is a very clear description of Jesus, peace be upon him, asking Doubting Thomas to touch him. If Jesus had already risen, then he should have been a spirit or a vision, not a physical body that Thomas could touch. Jesus feels disappointed that Thomas has to touch him to believe that he survived the crucifiction.
You see, everyone considered the death by the cross an ACCURSED DEATH, so the Jews believed that they could knock this prophet, Jesus, out of their sphere of influence if they could just get him on the cross. They didn't get him on the cross for more than a few hours, because no one was left hanging on the crosses for the Sabbath--Saturday.
But God planned a bigger plan. He sent Pontias Pilate's wife a dream. She told him that Jesus was a truthful man, so Pontias Pilate became the defender of Jesus.
I didn't go into explanations about the death of Jesus, because Nabeel and I are from the same sect--Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. Jesus promises to go teach to the lost tribes of Israel. Where are they? You will see documentaries by the Jews but you won't see any conclusion. They are in Afghanistan, SriNager and they speak Pashtu in the north of Pakistan. What do they all have in common? They became Muslim. Then, some of them accepted the latest prophet--the Promised Messiah.
My husband is from the lost tribe of Israel. He looks Jewish, so when we lived in Brooklyn, the Jewish people would say Shalom to him.
Re: my Christian background, which you find highly questionable, I attended the Lowville United Church in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Alhumdoolilah, my Scottish grandparents were very good Christians. On my mother's side, my grandfather was a missionary who tried to convert the Turkish to Christianity, but he was not successful. He was a very sweet man. I have recorded his letters for posterity. Some Muslim Missionaries have given great weight to his prayers and feel I might have become Muslim because of him.
I will admit freely that I am a better Muslim than I was a Christian. The reason is that Islam is very clear as to what earns God's pleasure: prayer, fasting and charity. If you visit www.HumanityFirst.org you can see what kind of charity work we do in the world.
Paul is the reason you won't see any mention of pork being forbidden. The problem he encountered as a Jew was that the Greeks wouldn't leave pork to accept his teaching, so he allowed it. Jesus said, "why should I cast my pearls before swine?"
I'm sorry, Peggy, you seem like a genuinely nice Christian. I asked David Wood if he would allow me to write an essay explaining more fully. If you read it, you will see better where I am coming from.
If you have time, you could learn more about Ahmadis who believe in the Promised Messiah (the second coming of Jesus) by going to www.alislam.org
Again, thank you for your time. It is a precious commodity. My family is still Christian. I still love them and pray for them. Please pray for my family that they should reach the highest nearest to God on earth.
Allison,
You said: "If Jesus had already risen, then he should have been a spirit or a vision, not a physical body that Thomas could touch."
This is not the Christian or Jewish view of resurrection. The idea that people rise as spirits is a Greek idea. The early Christians proclaimed Jesus' resurrection, which meant that his physical body had been raised.
In fact, if Jesus had appeared to the disciples as a spirit, they would have never used the word "resurrection." But they did. Hence, they were convinced that he had been raised from death by God.
What do you think caused the disciples to believe that Jesus had been resurrected?
Allison,
>> He asks for fish after his death. Why? Because he is dead? No, because he is alive and hungry. Read the whole chapter on John in the New Testament. At the age of twelve, I felt sure that Jesus was alive. This is also why Doubting Thomas is rebuked for doubting Jesus (a.s.), because Jesus was, in fact, alive.
Thomas was doubting about the resurrection of Jesus (having seen the crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus). That the crucifixion was a grand public delusion enacted by God is not a justifiable belief and would imply that God had deceived the disciples (and went contrary to Jesus' proclamation to the disciples and their post-crucifixion and post-resurrection mission). Are the post-resurrection appearances a delusion too? It is on the very basis of Jesus' crucifixion that the disciples/apostles who were anointed by Jesus carried out the post-resurrection mission and established the early church (under persecution, and became martyrs). If the crucifixion is a deliberate delusion of God, then anything else (including giving of Quran to Muhammad) might well be a delusion enacted by God?
>> I also became a Muslim based on one simple fact. Muslims pray five times a day. That is a very high standard. Christians attend church once a week. The math shows you who should be closer to God, because Allah has higher expectations for Muslims.
The rituals such as praying a certain number of times in a day etc belonged to the OT era. In the NT era, it is a constant communion/relationship with God - "pray without ceasing". Your attraction to rituals and legalism is amusing.
>> You said in your article that you couldn't say that Mohamed (a.s.) "was bad." It seems that your Christian "friends" are pushing you to say that, but because you were Muslim, you couldn't give that disrespect. Thank God, you defended the Holy Prophet by saying that no prophets are bad. I hope you can see that the Christians would like you to say that Jesus (a.s.) is a superior prophet of God.
The issue is not about a "superior prophet of God". The issue is whether Muhammad is a prophet at all or not. Muhammad's actions/teachings/prescriptions violate almost every single moral/doctrinal teachings/message/principles laid out by Jesus in all aspects (about women, eye-for-eye, use of sword, violence, what constitutes kingdom of God, basis of Judgment at coming of Jesus, legalistic ritualism etc).
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