 I'd like to begin by telling you a true story. Maybe some of you have heard this story from me before. It's very interesting. Kind of explains the times we're living in. So a few years ago, I was at a church in the South Bay on one fine Sunday morning, and I was in fellowship with the church there, and we were doing an interfaith dialogue. And when I exited the church, I found myself suddenly surrounded or ambushed by a group of fundamentalist evangelical Christians. And there was a certain older lady that approached me. She told me her Bible. And she didn't like the idea that Muslims and Christians were meeting in the church, and they were speaking about God and Jesus and Muhammad, the peace be upon both of them, with respect and civility. So she approached me, and she proceeded to tell me, or inform me about how my prophet, meaning the holy prophet Muhammad, the peace be upon him, went into Europe and slaughtered all of the Europeans. Right? So, you know, I said, I don't know who you're thinking about me. I'm a Vladian paler or something. Hitler. So the prophet did not leave the Arabian Peninsula in the 23 years of his prophetic career. And she said, no, I think it's very well documented. So interesting. And then she quoted a verse of the Qur'an to me, which ostensibly seems to advocate violence. And she said, see, it's right here. It's in your book and whatnot. So in order to demonstrate her erroneous methodology, I quoted a verse from the Bible back to her. That seems to advocate violence. It was Luke 1927, which Jesus says, those enemies that do not accept me as their king, bring them hither and slay them before me. Cut their throats in my very presence. Expecting her to say, well, you know, you're not looking at the context. And then I would say, exactly. That was my whole point. But she didn't say that. She made a very interesting comment. She said, that is not in my Bible. So I said, can I see your Bible? And she said, sure. And I showed her the verse. And I'll never forget this. She looked at the verse, looked at me, looked back at the verse, looked at me again, closed her book, smiled a little bit and said, quote, I know who you are. Satan? And then she proceeded to do a live exorcism on me. Yeah. And she was, you know, she was extracting the demons. And, you know, there was a crowd gathering. And, you know, I couldn't help myself. So I was like, I was bugging out. And I fell down to one knee. And then she said, and then she helped me back up. And she said, how do you feel? And I said, I should have a lie. And she's like, ah. Didn't work. There's another of the Coptic Christian lady who grabbed me by my shirt one time. And she was trying to extract the demons. So I'd like to assure the Christians in the audience that I'm not demon possessed, at least not tonight. So the point of that is that we need to transcend this type of superficial fundamentalist mentality of some of our co-religionists and truly try to understand each other. So the point, you know, the point isn't to agree, although it certainly won't be offended if you agree with me by the end of the night. That's not the point. The point is to truly understand. Right? To understand. Because when you understand someone, you tend to respect them. And that's the point is to gain respect. So no sides. So sides are given an even platform and no side is made to look less than human because that's how genocides begin. So I'm going to begin by saying, hold on to your hats and to your hijabs and hairpieces. Muslims believe that Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon all of them, our brothers in faith, Muslims believe that they were all Muslim prophets. Now you're probably thinking if you're not Muslim, I thought Islam started in Arabia 1400 years ago. Muslims don't actually believe that. Muslims believe that the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, perfected the religion of Islam. If I can even use the word religion, I don't like that word, because Islam is a holistic way of living. It's not just a religion. So the final verse of the Qur'an revealed to the Holy Prophet was This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favors upon you. So the religion is perfectly complete. It is the final messenger of God. But Muslims believe that all of the prophets, even from the first human being Adam, was a Muslim. Now I'll explain that further. The word Islam is the infinitive construct of the fourth verbal form in Arabic, meaning submission or surrender. Submission unto the will of God. This is the essence of the teaching of the great prophets. This is the essence of the teaching. Submission unto the will of God. The Qur'an says He says the same religion has he established for you as that which he enjoined on Noah and that which we have sent by inspiration to thee. And that which we have enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus. So yes they did have tribal distinctions. For example, Moses was a Levite. He was a tribal distinction. If the Holy Prophet Moses were to enter into this room right now and I had the honor and privilege of speaking to him, I asked him, oh messenger of God, are you a Jew? Please shut that off. No, I'm just kidding. I'm so offended. You know what? I have to actually turn mine off. Thanks for the reminder actually. Sorry. Yeah, it's just so annoying. Anyway, if you were to walk into the room and I said, oh Moses, are you a Jew? He would probably say, no, I'm a Levite. Why would he say that? Because he would think that I was referring to a tribal distinction. Right? Because Moses is not from Judah. He's not a descendant of Judah. He's from Levi. Right? So if I said, oh Moses, are you a practitioner of Judaism? He would probably not know what I was talking about. Because the word Yehudi in Hebrew was not used as a spiritual distinction until the 8th century of the common era, before the common era, after the divide of the kingdom and the Assyrians attacked. The northern kingdom of Israel and 10 of the 12 tribes were extinguished or wiped out or exiled. There's a theory they went to Afghanistan. God knows. But the two tribes that were left, Judah and Benjamin, Judah being the older brother, the largest tribe, so the Jews became known as Jews as the name of the religion. Now if the Holy Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, were to enter into this room, which is according to the Islamic Christology, it's very possible because Muslims believe in the second coming of Christ and maybe to visit UCLA. I don't know. It's certainly possible. And he would come into this room and I said, oh Jesus, oh Messiah, oh Christ, oh messenger of God. Are you a Christian? He would not know what I was talking about because this word he never heard in his life. Oh, he wouldn't know unless you believe that Jesus is God. That's a separate issue. But leaving the dogmatic aspect aside for now. The term Christian according to the book of Acts was first used as a derogatory statement for people who believed in Christ when the Jews were expelling them, the synagogue. So I would expect Jesus to say, my religion is a religion of submission unto the will of God. And that's what Islam is. Now Christians believe that Jesus also has a tribal distinction, that he's a descendant of David and a tribe of Judah, which according to Muslims is unsubstantiated. Muslims don't believe he has a tribal distinction at all. But that's a separate issue. We can deal with that later if you like. Now if the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him walked into this room and I said, oh messenger of God and to Muslim, are you a Muslim? I would expect him to say, Alhamdulillah, praise be to God. That's a spiritual distinction. He does have a tribal distinction. He's from a clan called Danny Hashan. He's from a tribe called Quresh. But those are tribal distinctions. The spiritual distinction is Muslim. So Islam transcends tribe, country, race and blood. There's no tribe called Muslim. There's no country called Islamland. And it's really interesting because I get people all the time asking me, they say, are you Islam? Are you from Islam? And if you're not laughing at that, you're probably one of the people I'm going to say. So in the Gospel of Mark, now I was told not to quote the Bible too much. Kind of makes people antsy. But here's the thing. The Quran talks about Ahlul Kitab, the people of the book. And the exegents of the Quran, they say Ahlul Kitab, people of the book, are Jews and Christians. What Kitab, what book? The Kitab ul Muqaddas, the holy Bible. The Quran mentions the people of the Bible. And with respect to the Quran, there are three functions of the Quran when dealing with previous dispensations. The Quran corrects those previous dispensations, abrogates certain aspects as well, and confirms certain aspects. So essentially, me quoting the Bible is quoting from our scripture as well. There are elements of truth in the Bible. Quran says so. So just to make my point clear, in Mark chapter 3, as early as Gospel, according to the investment scholars, written around 70 the Common Era, the crowd gathers, they go to Christ, and they say, behold your mother and your brother, probably Mary and presumably James the Just, and Jesus says, who are my mother and my brother? Whoever does the will of God, right? And then he says, according to the Greek, and Jesus probably didn't speak Greek, he spoke of Syriac, which is a northern dialect of Syriac, the Galilean dialect of Syriac, which is actually very close to Arabic, by the way, there's a certain difference between them. It's also called Late Aramaic. But nonetheless, the New Testament isn't Greek. The originals aren't Greek. So the New Testament in the Greek, he says, Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and my mother. Whoever does the will of God. Now that's the definition of a Muslim. Now in Matthew 5.9, right? So I don't want to get too technical, but there's a hypothetical source document called Q, also called the Sayings Gospel. Now this is the most widely held theory by New Testament scholars is that Matthew and Luke had access to another source that Mark did not have access to. This explains the so-called synoptic problem, why Matthew and Luke have material in common that is missing from Mark. So scholars believe that the Q source material predates the Pauline letters and epistles. So it's very early and probably is the most representative of the authentic statements of Christ. So in Matthew 5.9, right? This is the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. Jesus says in the English translation, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And the Greek word for peacemakers, a compound word made up of ireini and poeo, which mean peace and to do, respectively. Now interestingly, I was able to get my hands on a Peshita translation of the New Testament. The Peshita is the translation of the Greek back into the original language of Christ. This was done in the 4th century of the common era. It is the authorized Syriac translation of the New Testament, which replaced Titian's Deotesseron at the time. What is that? Oh, interesting. I thought it was another cell phone. So, I looked up this verse, 5.9 in the Peshita, to get a sense of what Jesus probably would have said in his own language. And the verse reads, Blessed are those who, who make shalom, or salam, blessed are those who make salam. How do you say that in Arabic? Muslim. They shall be called the children of Allah in the metaphorical sense, not in the literal sense, obviously. So, the word for God in the dialect of Jesus, in the northern Palestinian or Galilean dialect of Aramaic, is Allah. The indications in the New Testament as well, like in Matthew and Peter, they find out that this is a disciple of Jesus, and they probably saw Peter hanging around with Jesus, or it was because he just spoke, and they could recognize this man has an accent, an northern Galilean accent. So, the Syriac is a little bit different. But that's interesting. So, the word Muslim, then, is the active parable of the fourth form. Now, the corresponding Hebrew verbal form is called the Hefeel, right? So, the plural of Muslim in Hebrew is Meshlim. So, Matthew 5.9 in Hebrew would probably sound like Boruk et Ha Meshlimim, blessed are the Meshlimim, blessed are the Muslimim, which is the plural of Muslim, which is very interesting. Now, interestingly also, in Luke and in John, when Jesus comes to his disciples, he uses a very interesting greeting. He says, peace be with you in some translations, or peace be upon you, right? Shalom aleishem. This is a greeting that Muslims also use. Muslims will say this is a greeting that all the prophets use. As-salamu alaykum. There was a movie in 1992, a spikily movie called Malcolm X, which kind of put this phrase into the popular culture, right? As-salamu alaykum. That means peace be upon you. So, the full answer is if those who believe in our sign say peace be upon thee, thy lord has inspired upon his own self the rule of mercy. This is the Muslim greeting. There's a hadith, there's a statement of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. There's a great vast amount of literature, eschatological literature, there's a lot of literature, there's a lot of literature, there's a lot of literature, there's a lot of literature, eschatological literature, signs of the end of time and whatnot. So the Prophet said in a rigorously authenticated tradition he said that, towards the end of time the youth will greet each other with insults, right? And not the greeting of peace. And I go to high schools a lot. I just sit there and I listen to some of the youth. What's up, foo? What's up, dog? What's up, bee? What's going on, foo? I'm like, what? Are you a friend? Very, very interesting. And I thought, you know, if I wanted to do like an Arab guy in Yemen and I said, Keef, I've had ya, cald! Probably wouldn't go over very well. But, you know, like I said, it's the sign of the times. Now this may come as a shock, but one of the founding foundational, I should say, principles of the Islamic tradition is love. Love. Yes. Now there's a lot of ignorance. Now when I was growing up in the 80s before the internet, you know, this is when we were calling up for the encyclopedia Britannica and things like that. People, most people, most Americans didn't know anything about Islam, right? So the cup was empty, right? But nowadays, because of this information explosion, people are suddenly experts because they went on I hate muslim.com or something. So the cup was full, but it's full of murky water. So that's a problem. Give you an example, when I was a undergrad at Cal Poly, pre-911, I don't want to give away my age too much, but, um, thanks, 1999 or so. One of my, my roommate who was a brother from Afghanistan, he was talking to a non-Muslim student in his finance class about the MSA, and you know, that we do this and that, and this and you know, I don't know anything about Islam. Actually, I'll draw on the board what I know about Islam. And he wasn't trying to be funny or anything, he was being very honest, so he went to the board and he drew a camel and a pyramid and a bomb, TNT, right? And that was his extent of Islamic knowledge, and most people are educated by the media, right? If you ask people, what do you know about? What do you know about Jesus Christ? Well, I watch Mel Gibson's movie, according to the movie, well, you know, Mel Gibson wrote his own gospel. That's what the gospel according to Mel Gibson. You can't combine all four gospels, they call it a biblical gospel. So that's problematic, and the media has a definite effect. There was a, one of my friends who's an Iranian brother, a nurse at a hospital, and he's been there for years, right? And another nurse, a non-Muslim nurse, finally worked up the courage to ask her, you know, you have an accent, where are you from? And she said, oh, I'm from Iran. And then the other nurse said, really? But you're such a nice person! Interesting. Well, here's something, maybe you've heard me tell this before, I was at a church sermon one time. The pastor was giving a talk called Why I Am Not a Muslim. And I wasn't slanderous, it was a little polemic older. Then he showed this video, right? It's a very interesting video. And the first frame of the video was the Trade Center towers burning, it was in black and white, it's in slow motion. And then it says, you know, this voice over. You know what the movie guy? He says, in the world, it said, they're amongst us. Right? And then it showed a Muslim woman with an ed scarf buying produce from the supermarket. And they go to our schools. And it showed a little tiny, like eight-year-old, remember my daughter, you know, with a little hijab, a headscarf, you had a little backpack door, they explore a backpack. She's walking by the crossing guard. They go to our schools. And then it said, they work in our cities. And it showed a guy, a Sikh in a turban driving a tab. And if you don't know the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim, you should be making videos about Islam. It's a Sunnah of the messenger. You know, the Levites were turbans. The Taurus is an Aaron were turban. But if you don't know the difference, then, there's something wrong there. So back to this issue of love, this foundational principle. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, Muhammad, peace be upon him said in a rigorously authenticated tradition, he said, None of you truly believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself. Now, the scholars of hadith have said that the word brother in this hadith does not just mean your Muslim brother, what your brother or sister in the children of Adam, because the male gender encapsulates the female gender. Like if I say, you know, mankind, I'm not just talking about men. You guys understand that? We've been the Greek word anthropoi, meaning men also means women. If I say, which is a second person plural, masculine, it includes women. So essentially the Prophet is saying none of you truly believe until you love for your brother or sister in the children of Adam what you love for yourself. So these two aspects of universality of love are absolutely foundational in the Islamic tradition. Absolutely foundational. We cannot ignore it. We cannot ignore it. One of the exalted titles of the Prophet in the Quran is Which means a mercy sent into all the worlds. He's a mercy sent into the cosmos, all the world. Another hadith of the Prophet, he said, None of you will enter paradise until you truly believe. And none of you would truly believe until you love one another. Shall I tell you of something that will increase your love? And they said yes. And he said, Spread peace amongst yourselves. Spread peace amongst yourselves. So this is important. And the Prophet had a deep concern for people. There's many examples of that. Now, this is something interesting. Muslim scholars have actually identified various typologies or prophecies of the Holy Prophet in the Biblical text. Just as many Christian scholars have also identified many typologies of Christ in the Bible as well. For example, in Proto-Isaiah, Emanuel or Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah, Micah 5 that a king shall come from Bethlehem Now, according to Justin Marder, he was probably the most famous early Christian apologists and heresiologists. He's also the father of the Logos theology. He said that fulfillment of prophecy is the strongest argument one can make to legitimize Jesus as the true Christ even more so than miracles. So, the Quran says that those to whom we gave the previous revelations they know the prophet like they know one of their own sons. In other words, the descriptions of the prophet given in the previous revelations, which includes the Bible are so succinct and perfect that they'll recognize the prophet like they know one of their own sons. The Quran also says that the Ummi which is usually translated as the unlettered prophet but Ummi is also the Arabic word for Gentile the Gentile prophet and this is interesting because in Deutero-Isaiah chapter 42 we have this description of this person called the the slave of God and my servant my chosen one and whom I sold the lights obviously is the word in Arabic meaning servant which is one of the titles of the Holy Prophet and in this passage he's called a covenant for all people a light for the Gentiles right? So, the Quran says that the Quran is prophesized by name in the Torah and in the Gospel Now, there's an interesting story when the prophet was coming into Medina for the Hijra his migration north there was a Jewish rabbi in the city who made an interesting comment when he saw the prophet for the first time he said to quote him directly he said he said and it's probably because the prophet had an honest face and he did it but it's also because he recognized the prophet peace be upon him physically now, this is interesting and I'll end with this and God willing what time was this? what time do you want me to show up? what time do you want me to show up? okay so there's there's a book in the Old Testament bear with me here it's called the Song of Songs okay in the King James Version it's called the Song of Solomon in the Roman Catholic Version it's called the Canticle of Canticles in the Hebrew it's called the Shiedah Hashireem so which means the Song of Songs because there's no superlative form in the Hebrew language like Arabic has a superlative in order to make something superlative in Hebrew you have to repeat it in the plural and precede it with a definite article for example the best king is the King of Kings the best book is the Book of Books the best song is the Song of Songs the Shiedah Hashireem scholars believe that this poem was penned some 3,000 years ago we're going to kind of use it as our anchor when looking at the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him so it begins Chapter 5 verse 10 if you have a Bible you can read along with me I'll be quoting the Hebrew because it's very interesting and it's very important that we study original languages so it says my beloved is white and red so one of the titles the most exalted title of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and the Islamic tradition is Habibullah the Beloved of God just like Abraham is called a friend of God and Moses is called a Kalimullah the one who spoke with God Jesus is called a word from God the Prophet is called the Beloved of God now there's a genre of Islamic literature called Shamael and this genre deals with outward and inward aspects of the Holy Prophet peace be upon him very vast genre of literature probably the most famous work in this genre is called a Shamael and Nabawiyah by a scholar named Abu Musa At-Tirmidhi so in this work he describes the Prophet outwardly and inwardly physical description of the Prophet and also his character very, very, very vast genre of literature Islamic tradition and there's several hadith that mention that the Prophet's complexion or his skin that touch the wind and sun like for example one of his companions named Imam Ali Karamullah Wacha he said that the Prophet's skin was a white mixed with redness so the song of Solomon says here in chapter 5 verse 10 my beloved Sahwe Adon is white and red Da'gul Meravavah chief amongst 10,000 now this this is interesting because this this idea of him being chief amongst 10,000 is also found in various Jewish apocalyptic literature like the book of Enoch it's also mentioned in the book of Ganyel book of Deuteronomy mentioned someone coming from Mount Paran with 10,000 saints and a fiery law in his right hand so when the Prophet came into Mecca in the 10th year of the Hijrah so there's about 630 of the common era he came with 10,000 companions and he came into the city and this is a city that had thrown him out they had been actively fighting him for over 20 years trying to kill him and have killed successfully many of his companions and family members and he came into the city and they knew that he was well within his rights to take vengeance he called everyone out of their houses and he stood up and he said there's no blemish upon you today Yelp through the love of Allah God has forgiven all of you so the Prophet's character is magnanimous he forgives in a position of power if someone's about to kill you and you turn to your murderer I forgive you that's very noble but imagine someone's been trying to kill you for over 20 years and has been killing your family members and companions for over 20 years and now you're in a position to kill them and you forgive them so the Prophet has magnanimous character there was a battle in which the Prophet was participating in and during this battle the Prophet suffered injuries to his noble face and blood streaming down his face and the companions saw him having a thick of battle and his hands were raised so his companions thought that the Prophet is cursing his enemies and that he's calling down for the angels to come and so on and so forth and they heard what the Prophet actually said and the Prophet said and it's recorded Allahumma hadeeqalmi God guide my people for they don't know even in such circumstances the Prophet preferred the guidance of his people and this is something we hear a lot about Jesus father forgive them they know not what they do but we never hear that about the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him we always hear that he's a warlord or something like that why is that? we have to do our own research this is very interesting so then it continues we have a lot of time here it says back to the Hebrew his head is like gold his locks are wavy and black as a raven so again according to Shammadi literature the Prophet peace be upon him had neither straight nor curly hair but wavy it was very black even in his 60s this is how much they love the Prophet they would notice these tiny little things they counted 11 white hairs on his head and most of them were at his temples they would notice these really minute kind of details because that's a sign that you love someone you're not just writing down what someone said you want to know everything about your beloved everything about them and black as a raven interestingly the Hebrew word here for raven which is a raven is made up of three letters ayin, reish, and bait or ayin ra and ba which is Arab so the word raven in Hebrew is also the word for Arab so it can be translated although I've never seen a translation like this for obvious reasons it can be translated his head is like gold his locks are wavy and black as an Arab and then it continues and I'm running out of time but I want to get to some of the highlights here it's about seven verses long but we get down to verse 16 okay, 516 and the poet said and this is very interesting it says his mouth is most sweet he is all together lovely this word Muhammadim in Hebrew has a plural ending the im is a plural ending if you take off the plural of respect you're left with four Hebrew radicals which is the exact spelling of the name Muhammad so the translation in English every translation virtually says his mouth is most sweet he is all together lovely but when you drop the plural you have the name Muhammad this is the actual name of the Prophet peace be upon him in the Old Testament and the poet continues he concludes this is my beloved this is my friend this is my friend Dana Jerusalem oh daughters of Jerusalem so that's very interesting okay, 5 more minutes so how do Muslims account for you know it's one thing to say that Moses, Jesus and Muhammad peace be upon them are brothers in faith how do Muslims account for different theologies within these three religions Muslims believe that the theology of all three of these men was the same and that they believed in God as an absolute one entity they believed in radical monotheism so obviously Muslims don't confirm begotten sonship of Christ or belief in a triune deity which are obviously very important for Christians and Orthodoxy at least the evidence of this is when we go to the Torah the modern day Torah we have the great Shema you guys probably heard of the Shema Shema Israel Adonai Ilohinu Adonai Ichad He is the Lord our God the Lord is one now a scribe comes to Christ in the Gospel of Mark again which is the earliest Gospel and he says what is the greatest commandment and Jesus will repeat the Shema of course it's in the Greek but he probably quoted it in Hebrew Shema Israel Adonai Ilohinu Adonai Ichad now this word Ichad is also found in the Quran says he is God the one and only there is nothing comparable to God so in the Islamic tradition God is not only one but he is completely unique he is completely dissimilar to creation it's a radical monotheism he is completely transcendent but he is also imminent and this is ultimately God is a mystery what we know about God is only what he has chosen to reveal about himself and some might say well don't say himself say herself or itself but God uses a masculine most of us obviously don't believe that God is a man or a woman but that's how he has chosen to reveal about himself so God is also imminent this is very important the Quran speaks of this the Quran says that we are closer to man than his jugular vein many other indications of this and I'll end with this God willing and then we'll open it up after one of the battles there was this woman that was running around completely frantic because she had lost her infant son and this was the prophet was there and a group of companions were there and she was completely hysterical she lost her little son she sees him and picks him up and hugs him and kisses him and breastfeeds him and the prophet said did you see that woman he said he said can you imagine this lady throwing her child in a fire after all that love that she showed to him and they said no by God and then he said peace be upon him peace be upon him God is more merciful to his servants than this woman was to her child so the prophet peace be upon him here is using a feminine image to demonstrate the love and mercy of God this is sound hadith this is very interesting in fact one of the names of God in the Quran is Ar-Rahman which means infinitely merciful and the womb of a mother called Ar-Raham Ar-Raham in Hebrew is from the same root word but it's a subtle analogy going on here the love of God so this idea this idea of filial love is also found in our tradition that God is like a parent like a father, like a mother but Muslims also believe that this idea that Jesus is begotten of God that he shares a pre-existent nature with God that God does not have an ontological precedent for priority over Christ this idea Muslims will believe was a later development in Christian history that was eventually made Christian orthodoxy so I think I've ruffled enough feathers and raised enough issues to have a discussion or a Q&A session like I said if I offended anyone it's certainly not our intention I'm sorry if I bored made you bored but I appreciate the opportunity to speak and I appreciate your show of respect thank you very much any questions or comments what time do you guys usually pray motherly so most of you receive no cards if you'd like to write down any questions and pass them to the side I can collect the questions the Quran says that God knows everything you've ever done and he's going to judge everything you've ever done so you don't know whether or not you're going to heaven or hell is that your question okay the Muslim doesn't the question is the Muslims don't know whether they're going to heaven or hell in other words Muslim doesn't have an assurance of salvation now there's various traditions that deal with this the prophet peace be upon him said whoever he said whoever whoever believes in the one Mr. God and in the prophethood of Muhammad peace be upon him will enter paradise so Muslims do have an assurance but Muslims don't like to talk about that because it puffs them up with pride it's self-righteousness we don't like to rub it in people's face and say you're going to hell aren't you but I'm going to heaven Muslims consider this behavior to be impious or demonstrating bad character but there is an assurance in our tradition now Muslims also believe that there is a possible purification process for people that were Calcutta and sinners punishment in the grave purification in fire and things like that we're dealing with a whole separate issue but the bottom line is that even the prophet himself when he was asked what will be your end right and he said the prophet said no one has entered in a paradise by their works so this is a very common misconception that now Muslims believe that Muslims believe that they can kind of work their way up to righteousness you do enough deeds and you're justified with God the prophet said no person has entered in the paradise by his or her deeds no person you can never justify yourself your deeds the prophet says that if anyone is saved on that day it's only from the mercy of God and the companion said not even you a messenger of God not even you who perfected worship who's the best of creation who's the master of the children of Adam he said not even me except that my Lord wraps me in mercy the prophet peace be upon him and this is out of his humility obviously Muslims believe that the prophet is in paradise obviously he's the best of creation and he's the beloved of God and there's various traditions that deal with this as well there's a tradition of the prophet in which he said a certain man was on an island and he had worshiped God for hundreds of years and he was a very pious person he never committed any sins and things like that on the day of judgment God told him enter a paradise by my mercy and the man said to know my Lord by my works go to paradise by my works and then the prophet said then God took his eyesight and put it on one side of the scale and all of his good works on the other side of the scale and the eyesight fell and his works were raised and God told the man that my blessing the ability to see is more than all of your good works would you like to continue this reckoning and the man said by your mercy enter paradise so this is not something that Muslims there are some people that have approached me many times you're going to burn in hell judge not unless you be judged so you are certain that you are not going to hell am I certain inshallah God willing God willing I have one question who can become a Muslim is Islam open for anyone everyone or there are someone who is the other part is how to become a Muslim if I meet someone and he wants to become Muslim what should he do say he believes to become Muslim Islam is a universal religion like we said anyone could be a Muslim it's not a people say it's a religion of a certain race or it's misconception in fact although 95% of Arabs are Muslims 85% of Muslims are not Arab in fact Indonesia has 200 million Muslims by itself outnumbers the entire Arab world put together it's a religion open to anyone what does one need to do to become a Muslim is to testify in the oneness of God and in the message of the holy prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and when they do that they're already accepting the previous revelations and dispensations and the prophethood of Jesus and Moses and Abraham and all of them as well but there are fundamental differences between Islam Christianity and Judaism it would not be fair to just give a lecture about our similarities without touching on those differences the point is to talk about them with respect and try to understand why those differences are there but yeah that's a religion that's open for everyone anyone can be a Muslim you're rich, poor, black, white the prophet peace be upon him actually is the first person in recorded history to equalize humanity based on skin color there's no statement prior to him he said a black man is not greater than a white man there were a white over a black nor an Arab over a non-Arab except in piety I mean Paul said there's neither Greek nor Jew or a one in Christ but image and skin color so the prophet peace be upon him is the first person in recorded history to equalize humanity based on skin color which is really important and the prophet like we said was very fair skin himself, he didn't have dark skin yes what does Islam say about trying to convert people what does Islam say about trying to convert people good question so we believe that Muslims are representatives of God on the earth in fact all people are representatives of God Muslims believe that Islam is something that benefits people it's something that's good for people so this is called the da'wah this is called Islamic propagation if you will and there's different ways of doing it people think that in order for you to talk to people about Islam in order for you to propagate Islam you have to stand up and give a speech or something but there are different ways of calling people to Islam just having good character is one of the most probably the most powerful of ways and the prophet said that I was only sent to perfect your character this is very important having good character is an extremely important prophetic attribute to have so being a good person having good character and calling people to truth because we have concerns for people not out of self-righteousness and it's a thin line it's very difficult for people sometimes to make the difference between them not to think that we're better than anyone else it's very important the prophet was extremely humble the prophet peace be upon him had great concern for people he constantly prayed for people so this type of thing we call people towards a certain path because we believe that it will benefit them and that's a duty of every Muslim in their own capacity offering someone your seat on the subway or the bar although I did that one time there was an old lady that came into the bar and I said you want to sit down I didn't know she was a feminist she said you think you're stronger than me you're a man she said no I'm just whatever don't put two words Salam Salam yeah Salam is a the words Salam and Islam do they mean different things the root word is the same Salam is a triliteral root so Salam is a noun means peace Islam is an infinitive it's what the must are in Arabic which means submission so the root word is the same so the Semitic languages are unique in the sense that all of the words are derived from triliteral and sometimes quadriliteral or exoliteral root words just like Hebrew as well there's several differences though in the definition but it's from the same root word yes sir when you're talking about the song of songs 5, 10, 2, 16 you mentioned that Muhammad is described there however I'm trying to figure out where your basis is that that's like the prophetic literature right there how do you know that it's talking about Muhammad great question great question now classical Christian theologians by origin of Alexandria have you heard of origin origin of probably most prolific of the pre-nicing fathers he wrote over a thousand books although he was eventually declared a heretic in 553 most of the early church fathers were actually declared heretics but Christianity is very much indebted to origin for his great works for his principles so origin believe that scripture has multiple levels of meaning right in fact he said infinite levels of meaning so there's an apparent meaning contextualized or historical meaning exoteric meaning or foreshadowings or typologies of future events this is classical Christian exegesis of the biblical text so for example origin would say that there's stories in the Old Testament that seem to indicate the coming of Christ now eventually origin was condemned for that belief but interestingly Matthew also believed that and Matthew is an evangelist who wrote a gospel but Christians are not about to condemn Matthew so Matthew will actually quote from the Old Testament and say look a virgin conceived and his name is Immanuel and this is a reference to Christ but if you go back to Isaiah chapter 7 and you read chapter 8 Immanuel is born in chapter 8 so the Jew would say to the Christian there's nothing to do with Jesus this is very contextualized it's dealing with a sign that Isaiah gave to King Ahaz and this child is born in chapter 8 and the Christian would retort and say however there are multiple esoteric meanings of scriptures that's what Matthew would have said who wrote a gospel so my contention is and maybe it's not a description of the prophet Muhammad but it's a very uncanny I think he would agree if you read the entire section and compare it to Shamiah literature it's very close to a description of the prophet so one would say for example this is a description of Solomon a woman describing her husband or that origin would say well that's the the exoteric context but there is a foreshadowing there's a Muhammadan typology in this type of thing as well so my basis for saying that is classical Christian exegesis and evangelists when Christians believe are inspired by God Christians believe Matthew is inspired by God and he believed that very same thing that scripture has multiple levels of meaning yes sir in Pakistan and in Syria I learned the greetings Salaam Alaikum and the response and I made some good friends now I find myself greatly confused do you believe and do any Muslims believe that a person who commits suicide or who murders others is able to enter paradise and depending what your answer is to that what should the rest of us feel how should we react what can you do about it great question part of the problem is that Muslims are not vocal enough these days Muslims in the West and Muslims are kind of allowing non-Muslims not just non-Muslims people who have agendas people who hate Islam to define our terminology they define our terminology that means holy war holy war is an oxymoron holy war is har muqattas in Arabic it makes sense it's like saying a straight homosexual jungle shrimp or four-sided triangle so we have to define our own terminology so the definition of a martyr a Shahid that we're given is that a Shahid is someone who kills himself and innocent people in the process that's not our definition of a Shahid that's not our definition that's their definition martyrdom is a noble thing Muslims believe that martyrdom is a noble thing but we have to be careful who we label martyrs now God knows best I'm not trying to judge anyone but this was extremely important amongst early Christians as well for example we're talking about Origen there's another early church father Tertelian of Carthage who was probably the greatest Christian apologist he's also declared a heretic though eventually but nonetheless he considered it a hallmark of Christian faith to give your life that's why if you read early Christian history martyrologies are a major important aspect of early Christian piety like the martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch Paulicarp of Samerna and the Colosseum the later legends about Peter being crucified upside down Paul being beheaded in Rome and Jesus according to Christians was a martyr giving your life for a noble cause right but if someone decides to become a vigilante and kill himself and innocent people in the process Muslims have to be vocal and condemning such things now again God is the ultimate judge I have no idea what people are going through if you go to Gaza right now it's worse than a concentration camp I mean it's just terrible, it's deplorable it's unbelievable what these people are going through and I hope upon none of us to be in that position but what would we actually do in that situation what else is there to do in that situation these people are completely desperate so I'm not judging anyone because I'd probably do much worse if I was in that situation may God never put us in a type of situation really amazing what's going on there really really deplorable but that's the main issue is that Muslims need to define their own terminology and it's interesting because people have an agenda you need to justify a war you have to justify the killing of 400,000 innocent Iraqis women and children, how do you do that this was sweeping under the rug and worried about what some guy in Pakistan did what some guy in Pakistan did forget about that forget about these innocent people that are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and what's going on in Gaza so this is a process of pseudo-speciation they're trying to make Muslims look less than humans so it's easy to kill them because they know these American soldiers who are right out of high school any of them they go to the Middle East, they kill people they kill innocent people, they come back and they're just gone psychologically they're gone they're just steady indoctrination that these people are our enemy these people want to threaten our way of life they're trying to usurp the government and take over and things like that these people are not even human so these things make headlines a lot in this country pseudo-speciation in order to justify a war there was a group of well a lot of people don't know this but up in GTO I hear about these things there was a group of Christian terrorists you guys hear about this? a few months ago in the Midwest a group of Christian terrorists you go on their website there's a cross and they're very well armed they're trained, trying to take over the government but most people never heard about it because they don't need to hear about that we're going to sweep that under the rug and worry about what some guy in Pakistan did so can I question ask Muslims believe that Christians and Jews are people with the book which traditions and Jews are those? there's a difference of opinion about that it's a question yes the question is when the Quran says people of the book the Christians and Jews that believe in a Bible which type of Christians and Jews are talking about there's an opinion that is referring to the Christians and Jews that were dominant at the time of the revelation of the Quran which were Trinitarian Christians and the Jews that were living at the time there's another opinion that is referring to Christians that believe that Jesus was not equal to God or to the Father which is closer to like ancient Ebianite Christology or Arianist Christology or Unitarian Christianity which is very much in the minority today but I think the dominant opinion is that Adityta refers to the dominant Christian denomination at the time which was Trinitarian Christianity yeah I want to compliment the one you said just a moment ago and then I want to add commentary to the point about the Christian then I would like to know how you reconcile with some modern creation one it's been said in certain circles when you're talking about definitions that people have said that Moses was the law Jesus was the mercy and that Islam or Muslims are the rat of God and that it's an explanation of its faith was done by the swore in terms of creating the first true theocracy in the world as far as a religion with the state Islam and Muhammad was the first creator of true theocracy in terms of world expansion the more is it so in Africa or anywhere also I want to quickly comment that the the original Christians during that time that she just mentioned was what she was saying the Trinitarians and that that big change in Christianity came about from the council of Nicaea I was wondering if you could speak to that based on commentary that the original Christians pretty much believed like Muslims in one God that there was no sun and so forth but at the council of Nicaea with Christians that changed and the Bible says that in Antioch there became no Christians it was like 500 years after Jesus but my point is how do Muslims reconcile their history of Islam being exported some say through war or through the sword when they went into other countries exporting to religion how do you guys reconcile that today the American perception is Islam is not a peaceful religion because it's history it's origin was even though I realized it was in self-defense because people were trying to kill Mohammed and he had to establish self-defense but they take it now as if you defend the fight back they're saying the Muslim religion is terrorist violent it was established in Spain it was established in other places so how do you reconcile that with peace that's a very good question definitely all of the military expeditions of the Prophet had a defensive aspect to them that's important to realize as well but it's interesting because Islam is a religion of the sword because the only Muslim policy in the history of Islam whose foreign policy was based on war booty that's their entire fiscal system it was basically called the Bani Umeya which lasted a few years and then it went out that was basically their policy they were Muslim Zionists they aim most to gain land so that was a sad part of our history actually but human beings are imperfect we don't believe that Muslims are perfect we believe Islam is perfect and certainly no one I don't claim I would never say that Christianity is a violent religion and that the aim of Christianity and that the teachings of Christ and Paul are the basis of world domination and imperialism and things like that but if you look through our Christian history 70,000 Muslims killed in one weekend in 1099 of a common era blood ran high to the horse that's a sad event of Christian history and the Muslim history and the world history so these types of things have happened over time Muslim Spain if you ask any Jewish scholar or Jewish Rabbi I asked him what was the greatest age of Judaism he said Muslim Spain very quickly Muslim Spain that was our golden age that's what he said what about David Solomon Muslim Spain was our golden age then how did Muslim Spain end 1492 when Columbus saw the ocean blue and they killed the Muslims and Jews it ended in genocide that's why many of the Jews they actually went down into Muslim countries when the Christians came and were slaughtering everyone and there was an inquisition and whatnot and obviously I don't believe those Christians represented the true teachings of Christ obviously not I'm not making that claim but it's very interesting because when a Muslim does something stupid immediately he's just following Islam that's what Islam says to do but when a Christian does something like that he's a deviant that's not what Christianity teaches he's a terrible Christian not even a Christian it's a very big double standard it's a very big double standard with regards to your question about Nicaea yeah there's a lot of misconceptions about what happened at the Synod in Nicaea in 325 Dan Brown in his book The Da Vinci Code he makes some claims that are unsubstantiated in his books I mean he's just an author but what did happen at Nicaea was that Jesus was officially declared equal with God they didn't even deal with the Holy Spirit that came in 381 that came at Constantinople under Theodosius they were just dealing with Christ who is Christ? and interestingly the only Christian bishops that were invited to Nicaea were proto-Orphodox bishops in other words bishops that already believed that Jesus was divine in some way so they're not going to invite Ebionite Christians or Nazarene Christians or Marcianite or Gnostic Christians or Patrick Passianists or anything like that they're not going to invite them, modalists because they weren't bishops, they didn't have the power so this was just a small group maybe the minority group because history teaches us but in 360 of the common era after Nicaea, the vast majority of Christian bishops were Ebionite Christology or Arianist Christology which is an adoptionist Christology so Arianist said that Jesus is Ketismatileon, he's the best of creation and he's not equal with the Father this was the dominant Christology after Nicaea so this was a minority group of Christians that were very well-funded, very influential that Constantin invited to Nicaea and they voted and based on the vote Jesus now is co-equal, co-substantial and co-eternal that was the father and that's the father and son although the father has causal priority over the son, whatever that means he does not have ontological or temporal priority I don't mean to be glib about it I'm just trying to quote what the actual Creed actually says the findings of the Synod yeah so this was a much later development historians will say like Bart Ehrman will say that the original Christology the original Christians was very much Muslim that worshipped in the synagogues they simply believed that Jesus was the Messiah that that was it there was no difference they considered themselves to be a sect of Judaism, they called themselves the Way, Asirat, the Teripat they didn't consider themselves a different or distinct religion this is from a historical standpoint not my opinion, this is what historians are saying yes sir could you verify on those who were acquired a special Muslim very good question the question is about attacks that non-Muslims are required to pay it's called the jizya attacks when living in a Muslim state interestingly there's a book called Answering Islam I think that was a website but in 1993 there was a man named Norman Geisler and another man named Abdul Salee which means slave to the cross he's supposed to be a Muslim apostate probably doesn't exist but he wrote a book called Answering Islam and in that book he says in that book many of the Christians in North Africa willingly accepted Islam because of its low taxes and stress on brotherhood that's what Norman Geisler says in Answering Islam now obviously he's not going to come out and say they actually believed in Islam that can't be true but there must have been low taxes so the Romans at the time this is Byzantium the Christian Roman Empire they were charging unbelievable taxes on the Christians everyone has to pay taxes what did Mark Twain say there's only two certain things death and taxes Muslims are required to pay zakat Muslims have to pay 2.5% of their income that goes to the poor if they can afford it the jizya attacks non-Muslims don't have to pay zakat obviously but they have to pay jizya tax for the Muslim government in exchange for protection from the state and the jizya tax is much lower than the zakat and it's only for Christians and Jews that can't afford it and you don't have to pay it obviously and it's not demanded in exchange for protection for example if a group of Jews in Muslim Spain was paying the jizya tax to the Muslim government and then a group of rogue Muslims decide we're going to go and attack this Jewish village then it is incumbent upon the Muslim polity to fight that Muslim group that's attacking the Jews because they're paying the jizya tax they have protection they're guaranteed protection by paying that tax everyone has to pay taxes I have to pay taxes yes ma'am how many versions of the Quran are there versions of Quran there is one version but many translations there's one version, it's in Arabic now there are different spelling conventions of the Quran in Arabic different ways of spelling words so they found some masahif or some codices in Yemen that left out the alif in the name Ibrahim that's not a different version of the Quran it's a spelling convention right so there's one version in the Arabic language different ways of spelling things sometimes different ways of pronouncing things but many translations hope that clarifies yes sir so from a Muslim perspective what is the one message good question from a Muslim perspective what is the message of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad I would say that it is the commandments of Moses, Jesus in the Torah that you'll love the Lord thy God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and love thy neighbor as thyself and before that hero Israel or hero world the Lord our God the Lord is one so this is a message that is rooted in love and mercy and in piety towards God I would say that those three concepts are absolutely foundational in the message of these three great luminaries what is the Muslim understanding of evil in the world great question why is there evil in the world Muslims don't believe that creation has fallen like Christians believe Muslims don't believe in original sin that we inherited the sin of our father Adam Muslims believe there's evil in the world because it's a byproduct of limited free will of human beings so the human being has limited free will not absolute free will and we don't believe in a rigid determinism either God knows everything obviously and he knows what's going to happen because he's God if he didn't know that then he wouldn't be God and we have to remember that this is something that we can't conceive of this but God is outside of time God is outside of time, space and direction transcends that it's not Thursday night, May 2010 for God God is outside of time so if we looked at this whole thing from God's perspective which is impossible we would understand that but ultimately we won't understand but God knows what we will do but Muslims believe that there's a limited free will of the human being where he makes or she makes choices and they're taken to account for those choices this is a doctrine called acquisition so the reason why there's evil in the world is because of a misuse of free will, of limited free will and the human being is taken to account for that even though God knows what the person will do that's because he's God and he's expected to know because he's all powerful and he's all knowing and if he did not know that then he wouldn't be God this is why a misuse of free will so Muslims actually believe that if there were no human beings on earth then there would be no evil on earth because Muslims don't believe that nature is evil Muslims don't believe that creation is evil inherently or naturally that when a lion attacks a zebra and goes for the jugular that's based on instinct, that's based on nature that's not an evil act but when a guy shoots another person in the head and robs him that's a demonstration of a misuse of free will and therefore evil so God created evil in the Islamic tradition that human beings acquire them and the book of Isaiah also in response to Zoroastrian elements that are crept into Judaism in Isaiah chapter 45 I believe God says we made the light and darkness we created evil and peace so the Lord does all of these things as Isaiah says so God did create evil because if he didn't create something then again he can't be God he's a creator of everything so we believe that God created evil or the capacity in the human being to engage in evil action and that's out of his mercy that's actually in mercy that God gave us their limited free will to make a choice but it is the human beings misuse of that free will that leads to evil in the world the prophet actually said that everyone is born into a natural state of purity it's a hadith of the prophet and it is only parents in society and different types of religions and beliefs and so on and so forth