[BartSimpson]

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article. ... 11-bieszad

It's from a Catholic point of view and not neccessarily my own as I am not Catholic. - Bart

Andrew Bieszad Andrew Bieszad:

Muslims often claim that Islam is a misunderstood religion. This is partially true, insofar as many people do not understand the nature of Islam or what it teaches. Catholics are called to proclaim the Gospel to all people, including Muslims. However, it can be difficult to communicate Christ to a Muslim if one does not understand what the Muslim believes. The fact that Muslims have been aggressively proselytizing Catholics and other Christians has added to the confusion about Islamic theology. Let’s take a look at five common misconceptions about Islam among Catholics.


Misconception #1: The Bible & the Koran Are Basically the Same

Certain characters, stories, and sayings from the Bible can be found in the Koran, including the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Ishmael, and Jesus. The Koran also borrows passages from the Jewish Midrash, the Jewish Talmud, and heretical texts written primarily by Gnostics during the second and third centuries A.D., such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The Koran draws upon all these sources equally, but presents them as though they were unique to the Koran. In fact, Mohammed’s earliest detractors pointed out that the “prophecies” he uttered and the stories he told were little more than his own retelling of “fables of the ancients” from Christian and Jewish texts.

More important than the Koran’s plagiarism of biblical stories, however, are the different ways Muslims and Catholics view their sacred texts. The Church teaches that the Bible is the word of God composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” articulates this teaching thus:

Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit... In sacred Scripture, God speaks through men in human fashion.... Attention must be paid, inter alia, to “literary forms, for the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts,” and in other forms of literary expression. (nos. 9, 12)

Islam, on the other hand, teaches that the Koran is the literal word of Allah — the uncreated and eternal word of Allah. Islamic theology maintains that Mohammed was merely the vessel through which the Koran was transmitted to the world. This has been the unanimous consensus among mainstream Islamic theologians since the ninth century. The obvious problem with this theological position, which is often ignored by Muslim theologians, is that because the Koran is the uncreated and eternal word of Allah, it possesses the same eternal nature as Allah. This means that the Koran itself is divine and exists one in being with Allah. As much as Islam denounces the Holy Trinity in Christianity, it uses the same type of Trinitarian theology to explain the relationship between Allah, Mo­ham­med, and the Koran.

The final major difference between the Bible and the Koran can be found in their purposes. The Koran is self-defined as a “book of guidance sure to those who fear Allah” (2:2), which will lead Muslims along “the straight path” (1:6-7) toward obedience to Allah. In other words, the purpose of the Koran is to bring men to obedience; salvation is found in submission to the Koran’s teachings.

The Catholic faith, on the other hand, emphasizes that salvation is not found in absolute submission to a book’s teachings, but in a loving relationship with God Himself in Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, so that he who believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16).


Misconception #2: God & Allah Are One & the Same

The word “Allah” comes from two Arabic words put together: al (“the”) and ilah (“god”). Grammatically speaking, the word Allah is the equivalent of the Greek o Theos, which likewise means “the god,” and is used in the Greek New Testament to refer to God. From a grammatical perspective, it is appropriate to say that “Allah” means “God.”

The problem with equating Allah and the Christian God is not a grammatical one but a theological one. Arab-speaking Eastern Christians who have lived for long periods under Islamic rule are deeply aware of this. For this reason, they rarely, if ever, refer to God as Allah, either in daily life or in worship. Instead, they use the Arabic Rabb (“Lord”) or Rabbuna (“our Lord”). The reason for avoiding use of the word Allah is that the natures of the Christian God and the Islamic Allah are so foreign that they are essentially two separate deities.

Christianity teaches that God’s nature is love, as reflected in St. John’s first letter — “God is love” (4:8). Whatever is evil, sinful, or wrong is a corruption of what God had originally created to be good. Moreover, God never causes evil — it is contrary to His nature. God is, as described in the Bible, a loving Father who desires to bring His creation into a loving relationship with Him.

On the contrary, although Islam teaches extensively about Allah, and even uses a list of 99 names by which Allah is referred to, nowhere in Islam is Allah’s nature clearly defined. The closest Islam comes to defining Allah’s nature is to say that it is Allah’s will to act however he pleases. As the Koran says repeatedly, “Allah does as he wills.” This means that Islam’s concept of Allah is that of a deity with a limitless capacity to do what he wants, for whatever reason, and without any explanation. As a popular Islamic prayer of supplication says, following the words of the Koran (6:39), “Allah misguides whomever he wills, and Allah guides whomever he wills on the straight path.”

The problem with identifying Allah’s nature with his capricious will is that Allah is thus able to act both mercifully and maliciously at the same time. Allah can also save or condemn anybody, even a faithful Muslim, for no reason other than it pleases him.

The Christian God, on the other hand, never acts maliciously because His nature is love and, as St. Paul writes, “love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful” (1 Cor. 13:4-5). God always acts in accordance with His nature, which is love and mercy itself. Allah, however, has no clearly defined nature other than what his will happens to be at any given moment.


Misconception #3: Mohammed Was a Prophet

St. John writes in his first letter, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (2:22).

One of the basic tenets of Islamic theology is Mohammed’s explicit and repeated denial of Jesus’ divinity. Mohammed declared that the worst sin in Allah’s eyes is shirk, meaning “association” or “sharing” — an outright attack on the Holy Trinity. This is because Islam teaches that Christianity originally began as Islam, but became polytheistic when Christians elevated Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) to the level of god. As much as Christian theologians have repeatedly denied it, Muslim theologians claim that Christians believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three completely separate deities who were amalgamated into a man-made unit called the Trinity.

According to Muslim theology, Christians’ refusal to adhere to Islam is justification for their subjugation in this life and their eternal torment in the afterlife. As the Koran exhorts Muslims:

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor the day of judgment, nor forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, nor obey the religion of truth [Islam], from among the people of the book [Christians and Jews], until they pay a poll-tax submissively and are subdued. The Jews said that Ezra is the son of Allah and the Christians say that Jesus is the son of Allah. That is the saying of their mouths, and they imitate the saying of infidels before them. May Allah destroy them; how they have turned away! (9:29-30)

The official position of Islamic theology dating back to Mohammed is to deny Jesus’ divinity. If one were to acknowledge that Mohammed was or may have been a prophet, it would mean accepting his teachings as valid. Since Islamic teachings are inseparable from its theology, believing Mohammed to be a prophet would be to deny the divinity of Jesus. Add to this the Muslim belief that Christianity will be eliminated by Islam and that, on the Day of Judgment, Jesus Himself will eliminate Christianity from the earth — “The hour will not be established until the son of Mary descends among you and judges justly. He will break the cross, kill the pigs, abolish the poll-tax, and make money abundant so much that none will accept it” (Hadith from Sahih Al-Bukhari, no. 2476) — and it is clear that it is impossible to be a Catholic and claim that Mohammed was a prophet.

The assumptions that underlie Muslim and Christian beliefs are inherently and irreconcilably contradictory. Anybody who accepts Jesus as God by default testifies that Mohammed is a false prophet. Likewise, anybody who accepts Mohammed as a prophet accepts his teachings and, by default, denies Jesus and is therefore not a Christian.


Misconception #4: Islam Is a Religion of Peace

The word for “peace” in Arabic, the language of the Koran and the language of Islam, is salam. It is derived from the verb salama, meaning “to be peaceful.” It is related to the word Islam, but the meaning of Islam is not peace. A short explanation of Arabic grammar clears up this common misconception.

Arabic grammar works around a “root-word” system similar to Hebrew. Basically, each word is made of rarely more than three fixed consonants, whose positions never change, and around which additional words are formed by adding or deleting additional consonants and vowels but without ever changing the positions of the root consonants. Arabic uses different “forms” to modify these “root letters” to create new ideas and concepts with different shades of meaning.

The form that concerns us is what Arabic grammarians call “form IV.” Form IV usually indicates force in an action — something forces an action upon something else. It’s the equivalent of the English “to make somebody or something (insert action).” In form IV, salama becomes aslama, from which we get the verbal noun Islam. Literally translated, the verb aslama means “to force peace upon somebody or something.” The corresponding verbal noun Islam means “forcing peace,” or “imposing peace,” or, more succinctly, “submission,” which is the name of the religion Mohammed taught.

Theologically, Islam, or “submission,” has several meanings in addition to being the name of Mohammed’s religion. The first is that all creation has been made for the sole purpose of submission to Allah through the beliefs articulated by Mohammed in the Koran and in Moham­med’s actions in his lifetime. A second meaning of the word is that Islam has come to establish its dominion over all other religions, and thus all religions must submit to Islam either by converting to Islam or acknowledging Islam’s superiority. The third and final shade of meaning is that Islam has come to make all people submit to its religious beliefs, either by conversion or military conquest. All of these views can be summarized in Moham­med’s own words: “I have come to fight the people until they testify that ‘There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is Allah’s messenger’” (Hadith from Sahih Al-Bukhari, no. 25).


Misconception #5: Muslims Never Convert to Christianity

It is important to acknowledge that there have been countless converts to Christianity from Islam over the centuries. Many of these converts are canonized saints in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East, which at times were under Islamic rule or were more frequently exposed to Islam than was the Catholic Church of the West. Many of what Eastern Orthodox Christians call “neo-martyrs” were converts from Islam who were slain by Muslims during the reign of the Ottoman Empire.

The Catholic Church has been geographically isolated from Islam, but she too has received many converts from Islam throughout history. The Catholic martyrs of Cordoba during the ninth century had either publicly criticized Islam or converted from Islam and preached against it before they were executed. One of the most famous Catholic converts from Islam was Kamal Ad-Din, the son of the infamous Muslim general Saladin, who was converted on his deathbed by St. Francis of Assisi.

In the twenty-first century there have been so many converts each year from Islam to the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and Protestant communions that Muslim missionaries have begun to take notice. The acclaimed Libyan Muslim missionary Ahmad Al-Qata’ni noted in a 2007 Al-Jazeera interview that, due to the work of Catholic missionaries, there are now more Catholics than Muslims in Africa, and that within a century Islam could become extinct from sub-Saharan Africa. Most notably, in 2008 Pope Benedict XVI baptized the well-known Egyptian editor of an Italian newspaper, and former Muslim, Magdi (now Christiano) Allam at the Easter vigil Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. There has been no shortage of conversions worldwide, despite Muslims’ claims to the contrary.

Of course, there are many reasons why Muslims don’t convert to Christianity. The primary reason is that Islam teaches an ingrained hatred of Christianity as a cornerstone of its very theological structure, something that is unique among all the religions of the world. Islam teaches that Christianity is a form of polytheistic worship, forgivable only upon conversion to Islam. All those who die believing in Christianity are doomed to the worst parts of Hell because they have rejected Islam. For this reason, most Muslims are afraid to study Christianity outside of distorted Islamic sources.


The Good News

The good news is that, despite its theological teachings, Islam can prevent neither human inquiry nor the influence of love. Many Muslim converts confess that it was the love they found in the Bible and lived out among Christians that prompted their conversion — a love they could not find in Islam, despite having looked for it diligently. They later realized that this love emanated from Christ and was therefore absent in Islam. This is another testament to why we Catholics must live our faith fervently and in true, heartfelt love: So that others might see our good works and give glory to our Father in Heaven (cf. Mt. 5:16), and so that eventually all people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, will come to know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that nobody comes to the Father except through Him (cf. Jn. 14:6).

[GreenTiger]

I found this interest in for a long time I would think of Allah and God as being the same thing, they aren't.

Muhammad (Piss be Upon him) was not a kindly man in the least. His history is written in savagery and pedophilia. People wonder why we fought the crusades, read bout Mohammed.

I'm glad that there are people turning away from Islam not a lot of room for love there.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Arab-speaking Eastern Christians who have lived for long periods under Islamic rule are deeply aware of this. For this reason, they rarely, if ever, refer to God as Allah, either in daily life or in worship. Instead, they use the Arabic Rabb (“Lord”) or Rabbuna (“our Lord”). The reason for avoiding use of the word Allah is that the natures of the Christian God and the Islamic Allah are so foreign that they are essentially two separate deities.

This is actually incorrect. Having been to Israel on numerous occasions, I can state that Arab Christians use the word Allah when referring to God. Linguists have also theorized that Allah and the Jewish names of God, Elohim and Ehjeh, are actually derived from the same semitic root word for God.

The rejection of Christ's divinity is understandable as the Jews too reject his divinity and the fact that he was even a prophet. The Jews do not believe that the messiah will be a manifestation of God, but that the messiah will be a man anointed by God. Many early Christians also didn't believe Christ was God and that Trinitarianism is verging on, if not actually crossing over into polytheism...something the Jews and Muslims both believe. If you are going to believe that the New Testament contains Christ's word, he clearly states that there was one God and that was his God. He clearly identified with God's creation, Man, referring to God as Our Father, not MY Father in the Lord's prayer.

The Koran refers to Jesus often as the Word of God and states Christ was the Messiah. Christ is also proclaimed as to have been born as an act of God, a worker of miracles, including raising the dead, and to be free of any sin. Not even Mohammed is accorded these traits. It also clearly states that Jesus will return to battle the anti Christ, with the assistance of the mahdi, establishing God's kingdom on earth and initiating judgment day before he dies.

Scholars say one of the reasons that Islam spread so easily through the ME, besides the sword was that there were so many conflicting versions of Christ's nature, and the different adherents were labeling each other as heretics. Islam's message wasn't that different from what the various versions of Christianity were saying and it was easily accepted.

[GreenTiger]

I know they refer to us The People of the Book are they talking about the bible? If they are how is that different from the Koran which as I am given to understand the feel is a direct reflection of Allah?

[ShepherdsDog]

They believe that Christians and Jews were both given revelations from God, but that humans corrupted the divine teachings. They think that a plagiarizing, kiddy diddling salesman would be a more believable source for God's uncorrupted word.

[GreenTiger]

It seems that Muhammad appealed to the worst in mankind.

[BartSimpson]

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

It seems that Muhammad appealed to the worst in mankind.

Old Mo gave license to the Arabs to engage in their base nature and to conquer, enslave, and kill their neighbors. Mo really did not challenge the nature of the Arabs. Jesus, on the other hand, told his followers some very revolutionary things and he had a lasting effect on Western culture:

1. Love your enemies.

2. Do even for the detestable as you would have them do for you.

3. Do not judge the faults of others when your faults are even greater.

4. Do what is right regardless of the law.

5. Do not hold a lesser debtor accountable to you while your far greater debts are forgiven. Likewise, forgive those who do you wrong the same way others forgive you when you do wrong.

and etc.

Now the thing about all of this is that while Jesus taught these things it took Christians an awful long time to actually put them into action. Slavery, for instance, continued on another 1800 years after Jesus before Christians realized that it was a hypocrisy. We're still dealing with our hypocrisies but at least we see them for what they are and we call them what they are.

[Choban]

The problem with religion isn't Faith itself, rather the leaders, writers, and teachers who interpret it and spread it to the masses.
When the tail wags the dog theres bound to be confusion, contradiction and conflict

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Choban Choban:

The problem with religion isn't Faith itself, rather the leaders, writers, and teachers who interpret it and spread it to the masses.
When the tail wags the dog theres bound to be confusion, contradiction and conflict

Well, being somewhat religious in that I believe in a particular Deity, I think there's such a thing as "too much" faith. When you curse someone to Hell because they won't "covert" to your way of thinking, or use the threat of Hell to coerce a coversion, you have "too much" faith.

When you wrap yourself in explosives to kill and maim as many of those "filthy infidels" as possible because your "God" is telling you to, you have "too much" faith.


Hmmm I smell a variation of the "You know you're a redneck when..." routine in there somewhere.

You know you're the reason they put the word "mental" into fundamental when....

[Zipperfish]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

They believe that Christians and Jews were both given revelations from God, but that humans corrupted the divine teachings. They think that a plagiarizing, kiddy diddling salesman would be a more believable source for God's uncorrupted word.

To bring up kiddy-diddling in any discussion invovling the Catholic Church fairly screams for rebuttal, for obvious reasons.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

To bring up kiddy-diddling in any discussion invovling the Catholic Church fairly screams for rebuttal, for obvious reasons.

[Proculation]

Misconception about Islam: they don't only use planes !

[GreenTiger]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

They believe that Christians and Jews were both given revelations from God, but that humans corrupted the divine teachings. They think that a plagiarizing, kiddy diddling salesman would be a more believable source for God's uncorrupted word.

To bring up kiddy-diddling in any discussion invovling the Catholic Church fairly screams for rebuttal, for obvious reasons.

Mohammed(Piss be upon him) had quite a sexual taste for very young girls so perhaps he has more in Common with the RC church than he would care to admit.

[ShepherdsDog]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

To bring up kiddy-diddling in any discussion invovling the Catholic Church fairly screams for rebuttal, for obvious reasons.

A very good point, but those pedo priests and nuns were violating the rules of their own religion by committing these acts. Mohammed used the excuse that he was a 'prophet' and this allowed him to engage in child molestation, rape and adultery. People who condemned his acts were chastised for not allowing the 'prophet' for not allowing their leader to screw anyone, including the wives of his followers, if he felt like it. Sounds like the Mormons took some lessons from this too.

[Arctic_Menace]

In a vain attempt to combat the bigotry, ignorance and bias in this thread.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18911_5- ... islam.html