Answering Islam 7: Are There Historical Mistakes in the Qur'an?

Here's Episode 7 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "Are there historical mistakes in the Qur'an?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the full text of the video:

Are There Historical Mistakes in the Qur’an?

During the time of Muhammad, lots of stories were circulating in Arabia. Some of these stories were true, and some were false. Historians can often separate true stories from false stories by examining the evidence. They use the historical method. They ask, “What are our earliest sources for this story? Do we have multiple sources or just one? How reliable are these sources?” Things like that. But Muhammad didn’t know anything about historical investigation, and so he just couldn’t tell the difference between true stories and false stories. Let me give you a few examples to show you what I mean.

In Surah 18, Allah tells us that Alexander the Great traveled so far West, he found the place where the sun sets. Not only can I guarantee you that Alexander the Great never found the place where the sun sets, we know that this story was a popular story during Muhammad’s lifetime. The story was even circulating in a Syriac work titled “The Glorious Deeds of Alexander” towards the end of Muhammad’s life.

Earlier in Surah 18, we read about the “Companions of the Cave”—a group of people who supposedly went to sleep in a cave and woke up three hundred years later. This myth goes back to Bishop Stephen of Ephesus around the middle of the fifth century.

According to Surah 19, Jesus began preaching as soon as he came out of Mary’s womb. This story comes from the sixth-century Arabic Infancy Gospel.

The story of a bird teaching Cain how to bury his brother in Surah 5 comes from Mishnah Sanhedrin. The legend of Mary giving birth under a palm tree in Surah 19 comes from an apocryphal work called the History of the Nativity of Mary and the Savior’s Infancy, written in the early 600s. The account of Jesus giving life to clay birds in Surah 5 comes from a second-century work called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

It seems that Muhammad simply took the stories that were popular during his lifetime, gave them an Islamic twist, and included them in the Qur’an. What’s interesting is that even the pagans of Mecca were better at recognizing fiction than Muhammad was. Surah 6, verse 25 of the Qur’an says:

When they come to you to argue with you, the unbelievers say: These are nothing but fables of the men of old.

So according to the Qur’an itself, pagans were telling Muhammad that the stories in the Qur’an were known fables. They were myths. They were fairy tales.

From a Christian perspective, the most important historical error in the Qur’an is the claim that Jesus wasn’t killed and wasn’t crucified. In Surah 4, verses 157 to 158 we read:

They [“they” here are the Jews] said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah”—but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not. Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.

Now there are multiple historical problems with this passage.

According to the Qur’an, Jews were boasting that they had killed “the Christ.” “Christ” means “Messiah.” I’ve never heard a Jew boast about killing the Messiah. The only people who would boast about killing Jesus were people who regarded him as a false Messiah.

The verse also says that Jews were boasting about killing “the Messenger of Allah.” Here again, the only people who would boast about killing Jesus were people who regarded him as a false prophet, not people who regarded him as a messenger of God.

Then we have the claim that Jesus wasn’t killed and wasn’t crucified. This is an amazingly inaccurate claim, because historians and New Testament scholars agree that Jesus’ death by crucifixion is one of the best-established facts of ancient history. And I don’t just mean Christian scholars. Even atheist and agnostic historians are certain that Jesus died by crucifixion.

Atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann declares that “Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.” John Dominic Crossan, of the infamous Jesus Seminar, says that there is not the “slightest doubt about the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.” There are lots of Muslims nowadays who like to quote Bart Ehrman, because he criticizes the New Testament. But Ehrman writes: “One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.”

These scholars aren’t simply saying that Jesus may have died or that he probably died. They’re saying that Jesus’ death by crucifixion is indisputable, that there’s not the slightest doubt about the crucifixion, that it’s one of the most certain facts of history. And again, these aren’t even Christian scholars.

So the Qur’an clearly contains historical errors, not only because it denies Jesus’ death by crucifixion, but also because it contains numerous fables, even stories that were recognized as fables by the pagans of Muhammad’s time. This makes it very difficult to accept what the Qur’an says about history.

Answering Islam 6: What Are the Main Differences between Islam and Christianity?

Here's Episode 6 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "What are the main differences between Islam and Christianity?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the full text of the video:

What Are the Main Differences between Islam and Christianity?

Christians and Muslims agree on a number of issues. We agree that there is one God—all-powerful, all-knowing, and merciful. We agree that God has sent messengers into the world, and that people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David were mighty prophets. Concerning Jesus, we agree that he was born of a virgin, that he performed miracles, and that he is the Messiah.

But there are some fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity, and we can break these differences down into three categories: theology, ethics, and evidence.

Let’s start with theology. According to the Bible, God is a Trinity. The Bible calls the Father “God”; it calls Jesus “God”; and it calls the Holy Spirit “God.” And yet the Bible consistently affirms that there’s only one God. This is the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. The Qur’an declares that Allah is not a Trinity and that anyone who calls Allah a Trinity is a blasphemer.

In both the Old and New Testaments, believers (Jews and Christians) refer to God as their Father in heaven. The Qur’an repeatedly declares that Allah is a father to no one. This is why you don’t hear Muslims calling God “Father.” The highest relationship you can have with Allah, according to the Qur’an, is a slave to master relationship.

The Bible says that God loves everyone. The Qur’an says that Allah doesn’t love unbelievers; he doesn’t love the proud; he doesn’t love ungrateful sinners; he doesn’t love those who exceed his limits; he doesn’t love the extravagant; he doesn’t love mischief-makers. Allah doesn't love most people.

And this difference in God’s love leads to another important theological disagreement between Christians and Muslims. In Christianity, God loves us so much that he enters the world as Jesus of Nazareth to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins. When Muslims hear this, it makes no sense to them, because they have no concept of a God who loves people enough to do something like that.

Allah’s deficient love leads to the second category of disagreement between Christianity and Islam: the ethical disagreements.

Jesus commanded his followers: “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Notice, as Christians, we have to love others. Why? Because God loves them. But as we’ve seen, Allah doesn’t love unbelievers. So the command in Islam is not, “Love your enemies”; it’s “Fight those who do not believe in Allah.”

The emphasis on love in Christianity affects all our relationships. In Ephesians 5:25, the Apostle Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Jesus was crucified for the church, and Paul tells husbands to love our wives the same way. In Christianity, husbands are supposed to love our wives so much that we should be ready to be crucified for them. In Islam, Allah says that you can beat your wife into submission. Very different attitude towards wives, and this ultimately goes back to differences in God’s love in Christianity and Islam.

The third category is evidence. In Christianity, we have good evidence for what we believe. I grew up as an atheist. I started studying Christianity because I wanted to refute a Christian I knew. I understood from reading and discussions that the Apostles based their faith on Jesus’ resurrection, so I started studying the resurrection, in order to prove that Christianity was false. What I found was that every shred of evidence we have tells us that Jesus died by crucifixion. We know this from ancient Christian writers, ancient Jewish writers, and ancient Roman writers. And every shred of evidence we have tells us that Jesus was alive again later. He appeared to more than 500 people at one time. The historical facts just can’t be explained without a miracle.

But Jesus’ resurrection takes us even further. If Jesus was raised from the dead, he must have God’s stamp of approval. God confirmed Jesus’ message by raising him from the dead. So now we have to believe what Jesus claimed about himself, and Jesus claimed to be the divine Son of God who came into the world to die on the cross for the sins of others. I realized this as an atheist. I realized that if I wanted to go where the evidence pointed, I had to believe what Jesus said.

Islam just doesn’t have anything like this. The main argument offered by the Qur’an is that the Qur’an is so wonderfully written, it must come from God. And this is one of the strangest arguments ever offered by any religion. Even if the Qur’an were the most amazing book ever written, this wouldn’t make it the Word of God. It would just mean that the Qur’an had the best writer in history. But in fact, the Qur’an isn’t the most amazing book ever written. Far from it. Let me quote what the Iranian scholar Ali Dashti wrote in his book Twenty Three Years:

The Qur’an contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects. These and other such aberrations in the language have given scope to critics who deny the Qur’an’s eloquence.

So the main argument of the Qur’an fails miserably, and other arguments for Islam are even worse. This means that there’s no good evidence for Islam, but we have very good evidence for Christianity. And since Christians have proof for what we believe, this confirms our theology and our ethics whenever our theology and ethics disagree with Islam.

Answering Islam 5: What Are the Basics of the Islamic Worldview?

Here's Episode 5 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "What are the basics of the Islamic worldview?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the full text of the video:

“What Are the Basics of the Islamic Worldview?”

We can often learn something important about a religion just by examining its name. The name “Christianity,” for instance, draws attention to the importance of Christ in Christianity. Similarly, the word “Islam” tells us something about the religion preached by Muhammad. “Islam” is Arabic for “submission” or “surrender,” and, in its religious context, the term refers to submitting one’s will to “Allah” (the Arabic for “God”). The word “Muslim” means “one who submits” (to Allah).

So we can already tell that Islam’s going to have a lot to do with submitting to God. And Muslims who preach Islam in the West emphasize this when they preach. They say, “Islam just means submission to God. You want to submit to God, don’t you? Well, then, Islam is the religion for you.” Now if the message of Islam were simply, “Submit to God,” Christians and Jews would agree. We want to submit to God. But the message of Islam isn’t just that you must submit to God; it’s a message about how you must submit to God.

According to Islam, you submit to God by doing certain things and by believing certain things. And Islam has two convenient lists for us—a list of the most important deeds (called the “Five Pillars”) and a list of the most important beliefs (called the “Six Articles of Faith”).

The five pillars of Islam (the five most important practices) are shahada, salat, zakat, sawm, and hajj.

“Shahada” means “testimony.” To become a Muslim, all you have to do is recite the words “La ilaha illa Allah; Muhammadu rasul Allah.” (“There is no god but Allah; and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” By reciting this “testimony of faith,” or creed, a person formally submits to Allah and Muhammad.

“Salat” refers to prayer and worship. Muslims are required to pray five times per day. These prayers are memorized recitations in Arabic that are accompanied by specified bodily positions (standing, prostrating, and sitting). Muslims perform ceremonial washings called “ablutions” before prayers, and they pray facing the “Kaaba,” which is a cube-shaped shrine in Mecca.

“Zakat” refers to alms-giving, which is required of all Muslims except for those who are extremely poor. Muslims have to give 1/40 of any monetary wealth they’ve held for an entire year, along with various percentages of agricultural products, livestock, and other goods.

“Sawm” is Islamic fasting, which is especially associated with “Ramadan,” the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. When fasting, Muslims are required to abstain from food, beverages, and sexual intercourse during daylight hours (so, from dawn till sunset).

The “Hajj” is the pilgrimage to Mecca. Every Muslim who is physically and financially able must take a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in life. The communal Hajj takes place annually during the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims circle the Kaaba seven times, run or walk back and forth between the nearby hills of Safa and Marwah, pelt walls with pebbles to symbolize stoning the devil—things like that.

So Islam requires submission to Allah, and Muslims demonstrate their submission by performing these five deeds.

Muslims are also required to believe certain things. These are summarized in the Six Articles of Faith: belief in Allah, belief in angels, belief in inspired books, belief in prophets, belief in the day of judgment, and belief in predestination. And these beliefs aren’t just some kind of intellectual assent to the existence of God or the existence of angels—they require belief in what Islam teaches about God, angels, and so on.

So, belief in Allah isn’t just belief that God exists. It’s belief in the Islamic view of God—most importantly that Allah is one, with no division in essence or person. The oneness of Allah (a doctrine called “tawhid”) is so central to Islam that denying Allah’s oneness is the worst sin a person can commit in Islam. It’s the sin of “shirk”—associating partners with Allah.

The second article of faith is belief in angels. In Islam, angels are created from light and are incapable of disobeying Allah. So there are no fallen angels in Islam. “Iblis,” or Satan, is one of the “jinn.” Jinn are created from fire rather than from light and may rebel against Allah.

Then there’s belief in Allah’s revealed books. The Qur’an affirms the inspiration, preservation, and authority not only of the Qur’an but also of the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel.

Muslims have to believe in Allah’s prophets. Counting Muhammad, the Qur’an mentions 25 prophets by name, though there are numerous unnamed prophets as well. The most respected prophets in Islam are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Belief in the Day of Judgment includes belief in a general resurrection of the dead, followed by a final reckoning. After hearing their deeds read from a scroll, faithful Muslims will enter “Jannah” (the “Garden,” or Paradise), while unbelievers and hypocrites will be thrown into “Jahannum” (referring to hell).

Belief in Predestination is interesting. Some passages of the Qur’an suggest that human beings are ultimately responsible for their own actions. But passages indicating Allah’s complete control over human actions are clearer and more common. If you do right, it’s because Allah wanted you to do right. If you do wrong, it’s because Allah wanted you to do wrong. Allah controls everything we do.

So, those are the basics of Islam. There are a lot more beliefs and practices in the Muslim sources, but these are the beliefs and practices that are most significant.

Answering Islam 4: Did Muhammad Use Religion for His Own Interests?

Here's Episode 4 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "Did Muhammad use religion for his own interests?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the full text of the video:

Did Muhammad Use Religion for His Own Interests?

There are several different ways to view Muhammad. Muslims, of course, believe that he was a prophet of God. Among those of us who reject Muhammad, there are some who claim that Muhammad knew that he was deceiving people. They believe that he was an imposter who manipulated people into serving him. I happen to believe, along with many others, that Muhammad sincerely believed that he was a prophet. The general criterion I use here is the same whether I’m evaluating Christianity, or Islam, or any other worldview—it’s that, if a person is willing to die for what he’s saying, he probably believes it. In other words, liars make poor martyrs. There are lots of liars in this world. If you put a gun to someone’s head over a lie, they’re generally going to admit that it’s a lie. People who are willing to die for their claims are usually people who wholeheartedly believe in what they’re dying for.

Based on the number of battles Muhammad was in, and the various dangers he faced, I believe that he really thought he was a prophet. So I don’t believe that Muhammad was intentionally using Islam for his own interests.

However, there are a number of passages in the Qur’an and the Hadith, which prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Muhammad’s revelations were influenced by his desires. Let me give you four examples.

First, Surah 4, verse 3 of the Qur’an says that Muslims can marry up to four women. But we know from references in Bukhari and other sources that Muhammad had at least nine wives at one time. So why did Muhammad get more than four wives when the Qur’an says that Muslim men can only marry four women? Well, Muhammad received a special revelation, Surah 33, verse 50, which says that he, and he alone, could have as many wives as he wanted. Now I don’t know about you, but when the guy who’s receiving the revelations starts getting special moral privileges—namely, more sex partners than anyone else—I start getting awfully suspicious.

Second, Muhammad had an adopted son named Zaid, who was called Zaid bin Muhammad—Zaid, son of Muhammad. One day, Muhammad went to visit him and was greeted by Zaid’s wife, Zaynab, who was very beautiful, and who was wearing very little clothing at the time. When Muhammad saw her, he supposedly received some sort of revelation telling him that he was going to marry her, even though she was already married to his adopted son, and Muhammad walked away praising Allah. When Zaid found out that Muhammad was attracted to his wife, he divorced her, so that Muhammad could marry her. Muhammad was worried about what people might think if he married Zaynab, but then he began receiving revelations to justify the marriage. This is when he received Surah 33, verse 37 of the Qur’an, which says that it’s okay to marry the divorced wives of your adopted sons. I’ve never met a person who struggles with this problem. I’ve never met someone who struggles with whether he should marry the divorced wife of his own adopted son. So this verse has no purpose other than justifying what Muhammad did.

Third, Muhammad's wife Hafsa once came home early and caught Muhammad in her bed with another woman—his slave-girl, Mary the Copt. Seeking to avoid further conflict, Muhammad promised that he would stop having sex with his slave-girl. But a little later, Muhammad started having sex with Mary again. How did he justify his sexual relationship with Mary when he had taken an oath to stop having sex with her? Well, he received a revelation. Surah 66, verses 1-2 of the Qur’an, where Allah says:

O Prophet! why do you forbid (yourself) that which Allah has made lawful for you; you seek to please your wives; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. Allah indeed has sanctioned for you the expiation of your oaths and Allah is your Protector, and He is the Knowing, the Wise.

Notice, Muhammad swears, “I’ll never have sex with my slave-girl again.” Then he starts having sex with her, because Allah told him to break his oath. Very interesting.

Fourth, one of Muhammad's wives was a woman named Sauda. As Sauda aged, she became unattractive and extremely overweight, and Muhammad decided to divorce her. Terrified of being abandoned in her old age, Sauda hatched a plan. She knew that Aisha was Muhammad's favorite wife, and that Muhammad would like to spend even more time with Aisha. So Sauda told Muhammad that, if he would keep her as his wife and not abandon her, she would give her sex night to Aisha. This arrangement would allow Muhammad to spend twice as much time with Aisha as he spent with any of his other wives. Muhammad was happy with the arrangement, and so was Allah. Allah praises Sauda, in Surah 4, verse 128, for coming up with this solution after fearing cruelty and desertion from Muhammad.

So Islam’s message to women is this: If your husband’s going to abandon you in your old age, just give up some of your rights and let him spend more time with his favorite wife. This will keep him from divorcing you and abandoning you.

Over and over again, Muhammad’s revelations are just too convenient. The Qur’an is supposed to exist eternally in heaven, and yet parts of it have more to do with satisfying Muhammad’s desires than with guiding humanity. Even Muhammad’s wife Aisha noticed this. In Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad receives one of his morally convenient revelations, and Aisha says to him, “I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”

So, I personally believe that Muhammad was sincerely convinced that he was a prophet. But the evidence is clear that his desires influenced the revelations he was receiving.

Answering Islam 3: Was Muhammad a Prophet?

Here's Episode 3 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "Was Muhammad a Prophet?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the full text of the video:

“Was Muhammad a Prophet?”

Lots of people down through history have claimed to be prophets. There are people in the world today who claim to be prophets. But their messages contradict each other, so they can’t all be speaking for God. This means that we have to examine their messages to see who’s really speaking for God. And there are three main possibilities we have to consider. First, the person might be getting revelations from his own mind. He might be deliberately inventing revelations, or he might be insane. But it’s clear that some so-called revelations have a purely human origin. Second, the person might be getting revelations from demonic sources. He’s actually receiving revelations, these revelations just don’t come from God. They come from somewhere else. Third, someone who claims to be a prophet may genuinely be receiving revelations from God, in which case we should believe him.

So it’s important to examine Muhammad’s claims in light of these three possibilities. Did his revelations come from his own mind? Did they come from demons? Did they come from God? Let’s think about the evidence.

When we ask ourselves what evidence there is that Muhammad was getting his revelations from his own mind, we find that Islam really seems like a religion that came from the mind of a seventh-century Arabian caravan trader, because Islam is basically a collection of teachings and practices that were present in Arabia during Muhammad’s time. Jewish monotheism had spread into many communities in Arabia, along with biblical and non-biblical stories about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Teachings about Jesus and Mary that were popular in certain Christian cults were being taught in Arabia, things like Jesus speaking at birth, Jesus giving life to clay birds, Mary giving birth under a palm tree, and so on. The Sabians, who are mentioned in the Qur’an, prayed at all five of the times Muslims pray during their daily prayers, and they recited a creed—“La illaha ilallah.” Muslims recite this creed today. Many of the polytheists of Arabia performed ablutions (these are ceremonial washings); they took an annual pilgrimage to Mecca; they circled the Ka’aba; they kissed the black stone that supposedly fell from heaven. All of these teachings and practices became a part of Islam, which means that Islam is exactly the sort of religion we would expect to arise in seventh-century Mecca. So we have good reasons to think that Islam had a human origin—the mind of a man deeply affected by the teachings and practices that surrounded him.

But we should also look to see if there might be something darker at work. Here we find plenty of evidence suggesting that forces beyond Muhammad were involved in his teachings.

We know from Muslim records that when Muhammad began receiving revelations, his first impression was that he was demon-possessed. We also know that after his experience in the cave, he became suicidal and tried to hurl himself off a cliff. According to the earliest Muslim sources, Muhammad was tricked into delivering a revelation from the devil; these are the so-called “Satanic Verses,” where Allah gave Muslims permission to pray to three pagan goddesses. Muhammad revealed these verses as part of the Qur’an, but he later came back and said that Satan had deceived him. We also know from Muslim sources that Muhammad claimed that he was a victim of black magic—a spell that gave him delusion thoughts and false beliefs.

So, Muhammad’s first impression of his revelations was that he was demon-possessed; his revelations made him suicidal; and even Muslim sources claim that he delivered a revelation from the devil and that he was a victim of black magic. It seems that we don’t just have evidence that Muhammad’s revelations had a human origin; we also have evidence of spiritual problems.

The question now is whether there’s any evidence that Muhammad’s revelations came from God. Now the Qur’an offers two main arguments for Muhammad’s status as a prophet. The first is what I call the “Argument from Literary Excellence.” The claim here, which we find over and over again in the Qur’an, is that the Qur’an is so wonderfully written, it must be from God. So Muhammad’s main argument is that the poetry he was delivering was so wonderful, it could only come from God. There are two main problems with this argument: One, even if something is wonderfully written—so wonderfully written that it can’t be imitated—this tells us absolutely nothing about whether it’s from God. If we can’t write poems like T. S. Eliot, or plays like Shakespeare, or books like Charles Dickens, this doesn’t mean that Eliot, and Shakespeare, and Dickens are prophets of God. It would only mean that they had unique literary styles. Two, I’ll go ahead and say it, the Qur’an is awful. I’m someone who reads a lot, and I’ve never read a book as awful and boring and disorganized as the Qur’an. I agree with the late philosopher Antony Flew who said: “To read the Qur’an is a penance rather than a pleasure.” He said that reading the Qur’an is penance; it’s a kind of punishment. So the Argument from Literary Excellence fails completely.

The second main argument for Islam is the “Argument from Biblical Prophecy.” The Qur’an claims that there are prophecies about Muhammad in the Torah and the Gospel. What’s the problem here? Well, according to both the Torah and the Gospel, Muhammad was a false prophet. The criteria for a true prophet laid down in both the Torah and the Gospel rule out Muhammad, so we can’t even take this argument seriously.

Other arguments for Islam are even weaker, which means we have no good evidence that Muhammad’s revelations come from God. But we do have good reasons to think that at least some of his revelations had a purely human origin, and that others may even be demonic. We can only conclude that Muhammad was a false prophet, and that anyone who wants to follow the truth will have to look somewhere other than Islam.

Answering Islam 2: Who Was Muhammad?

Here's Episode 2 of our "Answering Islam" series, where I answer the question: "Who was Muhammad?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the text of the video:

Who Was Muhammad?

It’s kind of difficult to be certain about most of the details of Muhammad’s life, because the historical sources are so late. Our earliest detailed biographical source on Muhammad’s life is Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, which was written more than a century after Muhammad died. And we don’t even have what Ibn Ishaq actually wrote. We only have an edited version by Ibn Hisham. And Muslims don’t even pay much attention to Ibn Ishaq. The sources they use to learn about Muhammad—their main Hadith collections—were written two to three centuries after he died. So we’re dealing with some very late material.

But if we take the Muslim sources at face value, the story of Muhammad’s life goes something like this.

He was born around 570 AD in a city called Mecca, in what is now Saudi Arabia. His father, Abdullah, died before he was born, and his mother, Amina, died when he was six years old. After the death of his grandfather, Muhammad was raised by his uncle Abu Talib, leader of the Banu Hashim clan.

While he was still young, Muhammad began working in the Meccan caravan trade, which put him in contact with diverse religious traditions. When he was 25, he married a wealthy widow, Khadijah, who was 15 years older than he was. With more leisure time, Muhammad developed the habit of retreating to a cave on Mount Hira for prayer and reflection, as was common for the polytheists of the Meccan Quraish tribe. So it seems that Muhammad was very interested in religious matters long before anyone believed he was a prophet.

During one of his yearly retreats, Muhammad became convinced that a jinn or a demonic spirit had possessed him and had ordered him to recite some verses. The verses said:

Read! In the name of your Lord Who created, Who created man from a clot of blood. Read! And your Lord is Most Generous, Who taught by the pen, Taught man what he did not know.

These words are now found in the Qur’an, Chapter 96, verses 1 through 5. So this is when Muhammad started receiving revelations that would eventually become the Qur’an. But again, he didn’t think that they were revelations at this point; he thought that he was possessed by some sort of poetry demon. He was 40 years old at the time, and he was so embarrassed at the thought of being possessed by a jinn or a demon that he tried to hurl himself off a cliff. But whatever it was that gave him the verses stopped him from committing suicide.

Muhammad ran home to his wife Khadijah and her cousin Waraqah, and it was Khadijah and Waraqah who persuaded him that he wasn’t possessed—he was a prophet of Allah. Muhammad soon began preaching Islam to friends and family members, and later to the public. But his messages became increasingly inflammatory. He condemned of the religious beliefs of the polytheists of Mecca, and he mocked their gods. Not surprisingly, the Meccans eventually started persecuting Muhammad and his followers, and after his wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died, Muhammad decided to flee the city of Mecca.

His new city, Medina, was a little over 200 miles north of Mecca. After forming alliances with various non-Muslim groups, Muhammad began robbing the Meccan caravans. These attacks eventually led to a series of battles with Mecca—the Battle of Badr, the Battle of Uhud, and the Battle of the Trench. As war booty poured in, so did new converts. The growing Muslim army allowed Muhammad not only to subdue Mecca, but to subdue the rest of Arabia as well.

Unfortunately for Muhammad, after attacking a Jewish settlement at Khaybar, a Jewish woman whose family had been killed by Muslims offered to cook dinner for Muhammad and some of his companions, and the prophet of Islam accepted her offer. But the food she gave him was poisoned. Muhammad spit the food out, but according to Muslim sources, the poison caused some sort of internal damage, which led to severe pain and ongoing medical problems. Muhammad suffered an agonizing death a few years later in in 632.

So to put all of this together, we can divide Muhammad’s life into three main periods. There’s the time before he claimed to be a prophet; this would be 570-610. There’s his time in Mecca after he claimed to be a prophet; this is 610-622. And there’s his time in Medina as a prophet; this is 622 until his death in 632.

Answering Islam 1: Why Should We Learn about Islam?

Here's Episode 1 of "Answering Islam," where I answer the question: "Why should we learn about Islam?" For the rest of the series, click on the playlist.

Here's the text of the video:

“Why Should We Learn about Islam?”

Christians sometimes wonder, “Why should we learn about Islam?” There are lots of reasons that people in general, but especially Christians, should be learning about Islam. Let’s consider five of them.

First, numbers. Islam is the second-largest religion in history (after Christianity). There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. That’s over a fifth of the world’s population. There are currently more than 1200 mosques in the United States, and more than 6000 in Europe. And according to many sources, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. So Islam is big, and it’s getting bigger. When that many people believe something, it’s a good idea to learn what they believe.

Second, Christians can’t communicate the Gospel clearly to Muslims without understanding what Muslims believe, because the Qur’an distorts the meaning of Christian claims. For instance, Christians claim that Jesus is the Son of God. But when we say, “Jesus is the Son of God,” Muslims think we’re claiming that God had sex with a woman and produced Jesus as an offspring. They believe this because the Qur’an says, “How can Allah have a son when he has no wife?” (Surah 6, verse 101). Now, when Christians call Jesus the Son of God, we’re not talking about God having sex and producing an offspring. No Christian has ever meant that. But that’s what Muslims think we mean, because the Qur’an says that’s what it means to call someone the Son of God.

There’s a similar problem when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity. According to the Qur’an (Surah 5, verse 116), Christians believe in a Trinity made up of God, Jesus, and Mary. Here again, no Christian has ever believed this. But there are Muslims who think we believe in a Trinity made up of God, Jesus, and Mary, because of how the Qur’an distorts Christian doctrines. So if we don’t know what Muslims believe, we won’t understand how they’re misinterpreting what we say when we preach the Gospel.

Third, Muslims are trained to challenge the core doctrines of Christianity. Jesus taught his followers lots of things, but when they preached the Gospel in the Book of Acts, they preached that Jesus is the divine Son of God, who died on the cross for sins and rose from the dead—deity, death, and resurrection. These are the three core teachings of the Christian Gospel. Islam denies all three of them, and so Muslims are taught to challenge Christians on these issues. Muslims are taught to attack Christianity where it matters most. If Christians don’t know about Islam, we won’t know how Muslims are going to challenge our beliefs, and we won’t know how to challenge their beliefs.

Fourth, many Muslims are so confident that Islam is true (because they’ve been told all their lives that it’s indisputably true) that they can’t seriously consider any alternatives to Islam. My best friend in college was a Muslim. That’s why I started studying Islam. We talked about Christianity for a couple of years, but he was so confident that Islam was true, he really wasn’t taking Christianity seriously. It was only after we began looking at some of the problems with Muhammad and the Qur’an that he realized, “Maybe what I’ve been told about Islam all my life isn’t true. Maybe I need think through all this more carefully.” He’s a Christian now. He’s one of the speakers for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. So giving Muslims some facts about Muhammad and the Qur’an is crucial, and we can’t give them these facts unless we know what the facts are.

Fifth, Islam thrives in an atmosphere of ignorance. I’ve met lots of converts to Islam over the years. But I’ve never met a single person who converted to Islam after carefully studying Islam. When I meet a convert to Islam, and I ask, “Why did you convert to Islam?” it’s almost always because the person was given some false information. The reason so many people fall for this false information is that there’s a general atmosphere of ignorance about Islam, which allows Muslim preachers to say pretty much whatever they want, because no one’s going to correct them. These preachers are then free to adapt their message to the values of their audience. In the West, we believe in women’s rights, so the Muslim preacher says, “You believe in women’s rights? Muhammad was a champion of women’s rights. He was probably the greatest defender of women who ever lived.” People in the West usually have a high respect for science, so the Muslim preacher says, “The Qur’an is filled with scientific claims that could only be verified centuries after Muhammad’s death. Science proves that Islam is the truth.” In an area where no one knows much about Islam, many people believe what they hear from these Muslim preachers, and they convert to Islam. The only way this is going to stop is if we get to a point where we know enough about Islam to refute false claims. When a Muslim preacher says, “Muhammad was a champion of women’s rights,” hands need to go up to question him about Qur’an verses that refute him.

So Islam is already a massive religion, and it’s growing rapidly; Muslims often don’t understand the Gospel because they’re misinterpreting our claims based on the Qur’an’s distortion of our claims; Muslims have been taught to criticize core Christian doctrines; many Muslims can’t take the Gospel seriously until their own beliefs have been challenged; and people are converting to Islam based on false information—all of these are reasons for Christians to learn about Islam.