 So I want to begin by talking about who is Allah, who is God. So this is obviously a major topic. But once in a while, you know, we turn on the television and we hear somebody say something like, you know, Muslims, they worship Allah, and Allah is the moon God. Very, very common type of polemic. There's a panel there and they say, well, what do you mean by that? They'll say, it's very simple. Muslims, they use a lunar calendar. Of course, Jews use a lunar calendar. I mean, they practice intercalation. They have a leap month every three or four years, but it's still a lunar calendar. So this type of thing. So instead of, you know, kind of listening to these caricatures, Muslim theologians actually have a working definition of Allah. Obviously there's no way to define Allah. There's no way to define God. God is infinite and language and articulation is finite. So it's impossible to be adequate in our description or definition of God. But for the sake of saying something, I'm going to have to say something, right? So they say that Allah is alamun ala that. A proper name denoting the essence. Al-wajib al-wujud. The one who has necessary existence. The necessary existent. Al-musta'iq li jameeel kamalat. The one who is deserving of every type of perfection. Al-muta'iq li jameeel naqais. And the one who is free or transcendent of every type of deficiency or weakness. Right? So this is who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is. And we say subhanahu wa ta'ala meaning transcendent and exalted is He. You know, it's really interesting because there's been a paradigm shift. In the first three centuries of the Christian era, there was a lot of propaganda spread about the Jews. There was a Christian bishop named Marcian, a Christian scholar, who said things like, you know, the Jews, they worship a different God. They worship a lesser God. The God of the Old Testament is a different God. He called him the Demiurge or Yalda Boath. And Marcianism, it was very popular. I mean, in Rome, it was very popular. It was so popular that Tertullian of Carthage, who was a second century Christian apologist, he actually wrote a five-volume refutation of Marcianism. Right? So that type of paradigm has now shifted, where we see elements within Judeo-Christianity now saying the same things about the God of Islam, about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that Muslims, they worship a different God. That Muslims have nothing to do with Judeo-Christian morals and ethics. Their theology is completely out of whack, this type of thing. So we have to recognize that. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah is the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. In Hebrew, it's pronounced eloh. So there's a verse in Deuteronomy 32-17. So this is the fifth book of the Torah. It's called the Devereem in Hebrew. In which it says, Yizbahu la shaydeem eloh eloh, that, describing pagans, that they sacrificed to shaydeem, shayyartin, to demons, and not to Allah or eloh. In Aramaic, it's pronounced Allah. This is according to the BDB, the Brown Driver Briggs, Hebrew-English lexicon, which is pretty much the standard at the graduate school level. What's interesting is there's a translation of the New Testament into Syriac. Now, Syriac, or also known as late Aramaic, was the language of the Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, whom we call Isa, alayhi salam. And so the New Testament originals are in Greek, but in the 4th century, Christian scholars translated the Greek manuscripts back into the language of Jesus, back into the vernacular of Jesus. It's called the Peshita, and this replaced the Tashin's Deotesseron. And Matthew 5.9. Jesus is reported to have said in his own language, Blessed are those who make peace, for they shall be called the children of Allah. And children of God is actually a very common expression in 1st century Palestine. It does not denote anything literal, right? This is something that's spiritual, like God is our Father, in the sense that he loves us, he takes care of us. Jesus in the Lord's Prayer, for example, which is from the Q-Source document, Matthew and Luke recorded, he says, All our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, all of us, right? So this type of thing. So he uses the word Allah for God, according to this 4th century Aramaic manuscript. Jesus is recorded in the Qur'an as saying, Inna allaha rabbi wa rabbukum sa'abuduh. Hathasiratu mustaqim. It is Allah who is my Lord and your Lord. Worship him, this is the straight path. You know, it's interesting, when we compare the first miracle of Jesus in the Qur'an and in the New Testament. The first miracle of Jesus recorded in the New Testament is in John 2. So obviously John was the last of the canonical Gospels to be written with the consensus of scholars. New Testament scholars. But chronologically, right at the outset of Jesus' ministry when he was 30 years old, he performs his first miracle. John 2 records it. He's in a place called Cana. It's a wedding and they're out of wine. So his mother comes to him, Mary, and says we're out of wine. And Jesus responds by saying, ti emo e kaisoi gunai. What is it to me or you woman? Which is a common expression in Hebrew? What does it have to do with me and you? Right? So then eventually he turns these water pots into wine and people drink the wine. That's his first miracle in the New Testament tradition. The first miracle of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, as recorded in the Qur'an, is when Mary brings the infant Christ into the sight of her family. And Muslims believe in the virgin birth, by the way. And at this point, Mary is maybe 11 or 12 or 13 years old. According to church tradition, according to documents that are outside the Christian canon, like the proto-gospel of James, Mary was 12 years old when she was married to Joseph the carpenter. According to Greek Orthodox tradition, Mary was 11 years old and Joseph was in his 90s. So he actually had, it's very strange for us today, but that was the culture back then. So he had grand children that were actually older than his wife. So she brings the infant Jesus within the sight of her family and they begin insinuating things about her. So you can imagine, I don't care how saintly you think your sister is, there's nothing she can say. That's going to exonerate her. I heard some voices and said, no, no, no, no. Something happened. You did something. So the Qur'an says, that she pointed to the baby. They say, how can we speak to one who is an infant, a child in the cradle and by a special miracle Jesus spoke. His words are recorded in the Qur'an. He says, indeed I am a servant of God. He has given me the book and has appointed me as a prophet and has made me blessed wheresoever I am and has adjoined on me prayer and charity as long as I live. This story is actually told in a chapter in the Qur'an called Surah Maryam chapter Mary. There's a chapter in the Qur'an named after the mother of Jesus Christ. Peace be upon both of them. Chapter 19. And what does the Qur'an say about Mary? God says in the third chapter of the Qur'an verse number 42 that, oh Mary, God has chosen thee and purified thee chosen thee above the women of all nations. Above all nations Mary was chosen. In Arabic orthography which is like spelling conventions whenever a patronymic is written or a matronymic if the first name is not mentioned the guttural alif on the the phrase son of is retained. For example if I write the name Ibn Abbas in Arabic I'd write alif b'anun right? Three letters. But if I mention his first name Abdullah bin Abbas alif will drop. The guttural alif will drop. This is true in every single case except when the name of Jesus is mentioned. So Jesus in the Qur'an is called Isa Ibn Maryam Jesus the son of Mary. And the exegetes say this is for several reasons but one of the major reasons is to refute the idea that Jesus Christ peace be upon him is the literal or begotten son of God. The other reason is to emphasize as it were the absolute noun Mary that Jesus who is the son of Mary right? So Mary is not just great by virtue of her son but Jesus is also great by virtue of his mother that Mary has an exalted status in the Islamic tradition. In fact there's a story in the Qur'an the story of Zachariah who was a Kohane. He was a priest in the temple and he was the caretaker of Mary according to the Qur'an and the Qur'an says that every time he would walk into her prayer chamber he would notice there was food next to her and food that he did not give her right? So you'll read things like this as well in the proto-gospel of James again which is outside the Christian canon it's not in the New Testament but we have to remember that the canon at least in the Catholic tradition was not totally closed until the council of Trent which is like in the 15th century so this was written in the second century it's mentioned in the Gospel of James proto-gospel. So back to the Qur'an so he sees this food next to her and an exegete named Imamat Tabari he says that it was fruit out of season so he says O Mary, where did you get this from? She said this is from God God gives to those who ask without measure and Zechariah was like I said a priest he's considered to be a prophet according to our tradition and he was a very old man at the time so he has a wisdom of age he has the title of a Kohane and he has the office of prophecy and he was very old and after a time he wanted a son and after a time he kind of forsook his supplication God didn't give him a son but what does the Qur'an narrative tell us at this point that as soon as he heard those words from Mary who again is a 12 year old girl 13 years old at this time maybe younger immediately Zechariah turns in supplication one more time to God with this renewed sense of certitude that he learned from a 12 year old girl this is a priest and prophet he is an old man so he prays to God give me a good son or good progeny you are the one who hears supplications while he was yet standing in the prayer chamber the angels call out to him God gives the glad tidings of John the Baptist Yahya alayhi salam so this demonstrates the exalted status of Mary in our tradition now going back to the name Allah so the name Allah is very unique there is no natural gender so Arabic names also in Hebrew and in Greek although in Greek there is the neuter we don't have that in Arabic in Hebrew but nouns in Hebrew and in Arabic are genderfied each have a gender assigned to them sometimes it's based on its natural gender the word for boy in Arabic is walaad and walaad is going to be masculine because a boy is masculine but the word for girl bint a girl is feminine so it's natural gender the word is feminine but the word for the son for example Ashams what is the gender of Ashams does anyone know Muannath it's feminine there is nothing in the word to tell you there is no sign nothing like that there is no outward sign to tell you that this word for son is feminine you just have to know it there is no natural gender the son is not male or female but lexically it's female so when we say the name Allah and we say who Allah he is God we are talking about his lexical gender so and this name it cannot be made diminutive it cannot be made plural or dual as soon as you say the name your tongue will prostrate Allah your tongue prostrates I see some people practicing right now even your tongue will prostrate it's made up of four Arabic letters when you take off the first letter the alef it becomes lillahi for God when you take off the next letter the lamb it becomes lahu for him when you take off the next letter the lamb it becomes who him it's a very interesting word so in Hebrew the form is usually pluralized like in the Tanakh the Hebrew Bible you read adonai ilohainu the im is a plural it's a plural of respect like it says in Genesis 1 berishith in the beginning literally gods created the heavens so this does not denote a plurality of some sort in the God head or in the essence of God that's not how Semitic peoples understand it this is called a plural of majesty a royal plural like the queen of England will say we declare but the queen is only one person however the Quran the word Allah cannot be made plural it's very unique but there are pronouns in the Quran referring to Allah that are plural we are closer to man in the generic sense than his again in the generic sense jugular vein we are very close to the human being we but God is an absolute unity according to our tradition so this is called the royal plural and by the way anytime you see the word El in a name that's the name of God it's a theophoric name like the name of the prophet Ishmael is pronounced Yishmael in Hebrew which is an Arabic sized way of saying it but its origin is Hebrew Yishmael and unfortunately today we live in an age where if you go to the bookstore you'll find a lot of polemical literature that's and denigrating and insulting Arabs and Ishmaelites people that are claiming to have PhDs are saying Yishmael means this in Hebrew and it's something terrible no maybe they're just all these people just profligates just trying to get money and things like that but if they done the research Yishmael comes from Shamaa which means to hear like Samaa in Hebrew in Arabic the yod here is a prefix of the present tense Yishmaa he hears who hears Yishmael God hears God will hear this is a theophoric name so Muslims will look at that and say that God hears and will continue to hear the prayers of Ishmael and his progeny and of course the prophet Muhammad peace and blessings of God be upon him is from the progeny of Yishmael he is a direct descendant just as Jesus is a descendant of Isaac peace be upon both of them the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is a descendant of Yishmael or like the name Elijah my god is Yah my god is Adonai the lord Yah is a shortened form of the tetragrammaton in the Old Testament which is articulated by some Christians but there are Jews here so I'm not going to attempt to articulate it out of respect for the Jews that are here but they read Adonai instead of articulating the Yod He Vav He that's how I'll read it so Eliyahu my god is Adonai or like Gabriel Gabriel the name of God Mike L L Roy L Ron Hubbard no I'm just I apologize if there's any Scientologists I couldn't help myself El-Moh so now hold on to your hats and to your hijabs and your hairpieces when I say this next part is that Muslims believe that Moses, Jesus and Muhammad peace be upon all of them were all Muslims what do I mean by that it's a misnomer to say that Muhammad peace be upon him founded Islam I believe that he perfected the religion of Islam so the word Muslim comes from salama meaning peace it's an active participle on the fourth form a causative form the one who causes there to be peace so the exact cognate in Hebrew is on a verbal stem called Hefeel it's Mashlim that's how you say Muslim in Hebrew so if we go back to in 1559 where Jesus says bless all the peacemakers is not a very good translation because in the original Greek it's one word, it's a participle literally a maker of peace but when they translated it into Syriac they said literally a maker of peace it's more of a phrase but if we translate this and I've seen a translation into Hebrew it says Baruch HaMashlimim the Muslimim which is the accusative plural so Muslims believe that Jesus actually uses this term and to demonstrate my point I hope I don't offend anyone with this it's good that we can have open and frank discourse that's part of the beauty of living in America right so if Moses were to walk into this Islamic center and I had the honor and privilege of speaking to Moses and I said oh Moses are you a Jew right he would say no I'm a Levite why would he say that because he never heard the word Jew in his life he never heard the word Jew except in reference to a descendant of Judah but Moses is not from Judah Moses is from Levi another son of Jacob so he would think that I was actually referring to a tribal distinction but I'm not talking about a tribe I'm talking about a religion a faith tradition but if I asked him further I said are you a practitioner of Judaism he would have no idea what I was talking about because the word Judaism wasn't coined as a faith tradition until 700 before the common era some 700 or 800 years after the death of Moses peace be upon him when Palestine was divided into the northern and southern kingdom and the Assyrians came and wiped out 10 of the 12 tribes the only two tribes that remained basically were Benjamin and Judah in the south Judah is the older brother so they called themselves Al-Yahud the Jews right now I would expect Moses to say that my religion is submission unto God I submit my entire being unto God and that's called Islam Shalom Islam if Jesus Christ peace be upon him were to walk into this Islamic center and Muslims believe in the second coming it's mentioned in our orthodox creedal articulations so it's very conceivable that he might actually in the future come into this Islamic center and I had the honor and privilege of asking him oh Jesus are you a Christian now if you believe Jesus has omniscience then he would know what I was talking about but Muslims don't believe that he's omniscient so he would say no because he's never heard of this the book of Acts tells us that believers in Christ were being expelled from the synagogues and this was actually used as a derogatory term for the disciples of Jesus initially because the first Christians were Ebyonites or Nazareans these were Jews that believed that Jesus was the Messiah according to history so I would expect him to say Ebyon is a religion of submission unto God this is what he says, whoever does the will of God is my mother, my brother, and my sister right so we would say that these prophets taught the same theology and they believed in the same theology and in a word that concept in Arabic is called tohed which comes from wahid, oneness oneness of God the uniqueness of God that God is radically transcendent there's a radical monotheism the Quran says there's nothing like the likes of God there's nothing even close to God who is a disciple of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, he said he said your inability to comprehend God is your comprehension of God and Augustine said the same thing if we comprehend something, it is not God Muslims will take it a step further Muslims according to our theology we assign God certain attributes there's a group of attributes known as asifatu salbiya, negating attributes these are things that negate anything that could potentially be unbecoming of his greatness and majesty so one of the negating attributes of God that he is completely and utterly dissimilar to his creation in every way completely dissimilar so Muslims will say that this is not a new idea or concept that this is something that's been taught for thousands of years from the ancient prophets the ancient Israelite prophets for example so if we look at the Decalogue the 10 words, the 10 commandments which are recorded in Exodus 20 in Deuteronomy 5 the text in Exodus seems to be the more ancient text, it's from the Esauce if you believe in the sources and that's a different debate but Exodus chapter 20 it begins by saying I am the Lord your God the one who brought you out from Egypt from the house of bondage he says you shall not have any other gods before me number three, very important he says you shall not make unto thyself the image or the likeness of anything in the heavens above the Asher or the earth below or the waters beneath the earth in other words God is nothing like His creation God is nothing like His creation God is not in His creation God is not in the temporal world God is not in the world of matter and substance God is not matter nor substance and this is the message also of Deutero Isaiah the Hebrew prophets I encourage you to read Deutero Isaiah which basically says that as soon as we bring God into the temporal world as soon as we bring him down into the temporal world we make an idol out of him that this is the actual definition of idolatry and when we do that his radical uniqueness and transcendence becomes compromise so obviously Muslims don't believe in things like divine incarnations divine avatars Subhanahu transcendent is God Muslims don't believe in this type of thing like the Hindus believe divine avatars Christians believe that Jesus is a divine incarnation I'm kind of a strange guy strange Muslim I like to listen to Christian preaching a lot so we flip him through the channels and I'll hear a preacher and I'll start watching and there was this one time my daughter who's 8 years old at the time she's sitting at the dinner table doing her homework I'm her father, I'm flipping channels and I'm flipping the channels and there's this Christian preacher he's an evangelical Christian preacher and he was talking about how God came to the earth and so on and so forth and I remember my daughter she was doing her homework and she looks over like this and she says God, earth, negative so like in Hosea 11 9 I am God and not a man so again obviously then Muslims don't believe for example the doctrine of the trinity the belief in a triune God the Quran addresses this directly don't say trinity is better for you your God is an absolute unity Muslims will actually say that the trinity is actually not the teaching of Jesus himself this is part of our belief about Jesus that Jesus did not teach this belief so just a few dates to run by you for the note takers 325 of the common era was the first ecumenical church synod at Nicaea and so this is the Greek Episcopate at the time was basically split in half there were followers of Athanasius of Alexandria and some followers of Arius of Alexandria so Arius and his adherents said Jesus is not equal to the father he is the best of creation but he is he is caused by the father therefore he cannot be equal to the father with Athanasius and his adherents said no Jesus shares an essence with God that's to put an orthodox position so they met at Nicaea in 325 and they voted on the issue very democratic process they voted and it came out to be that Jesus yes indeed is equal to the father that happened in 325 the common era at Nicaea modern day Turkey presided over by Constantine a few years later in 381 they met again at Constantinople presided over by Theodosius and they voted again and the Holy Spirit was also given the title of God shares an essence with the father and the son 421 at Ephesus many many many councils these are just a few of them because Theotokos is the mother of God 451 another vote Calcedon Jesus has a dual nature he is 100% God and 100% man so classical trinitarian theology wasn't defined until about this time 4th and 5th century not until Augustine of Hippo wrote Dei Trinitate not until the Cappadocian church fathers dealt with Arianism and articulated the trinity the ratification of the Nicio Constantinopolitan creed in 381 and so on and so forth so Muslims don't believe that this is a teaching of Christ now an interesting pericabee in the synoptic tradition is in Mark chapter 10 verse 18 and Luke 18 and Matthew 19 17 so it's in three gospels it's it's triply attested it's called the synoptic tradition so I'll quote from the one in Mark because Mark according to scholars is the more ancient of the gospels written around 70 of the common era so Muslims will actually use this verse as a proof text that a scribe comes to Jesus and he says good master didas kale agathe and this is the Greek again Jesus we don't know exactly Jesus peace be upon him said in his own language of syriac but this is what the Greek manuscript say that this man came and said good master Jesus says ti me legis agathan and the construction here in Greek is very interesting ti me legis agathan he brings the object before the verb to emphasize the object why me or do you call good as if to say how dare you call me good and then he says there's no one good and that is God so another verse in the Torah this is the sacred shema right so Deuteronomy 6 4 now in Mark 12 29 a scribe comes to Jesus and says what is the greatest commandment right what is the greatest commandment and Jesus actually will quote verbatim from the book of Deuteronomy he quotes verbatim the Quran says that Jesus said that I have come to confirm the mosaic laws with respect to theology I confirm that theology right so Jesus says to this scribe and then he continues and you shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart all thy soul and all thy strength right so Jesus confirms this message now the Quran says right this is something that our Imam may Allah bless him recited during the prayer just now say he is God the Moses uses and Jesus uses and Muhammad uses it's the same exact word Allah who samad God is samad which is hard to translate it basically means that God is an entity upon which every entity every other entity is dependent upon but he is totally independent of every other entity right he does not begat nor begotten in the literal sense there is nothing like unto God whatsoever this is the meaning of Ahad now a common polemic against Muslim theology Islamic theology is that the God of Islam is impersonal right he is too far removed he is not imminent you can't have a personal relationship with him you can't have a personal relationship with Allah so that's not our theology that's what the Neoplatonists believe that God is removed and there is emanation and collection and all these types of things and it was involuntary and Muslims don't believe that that's what the deists believe like the founding fathers of this country most of them were deists which basically is an offshoot of Neoplatonism which means that God was up there admiring himself and then there was this involuntary emanation or spillage that created the rest of the world but God doesn't really know what's going on in the world he just knows general ideas he doesn't know particulars and it's up to man to actually be like God on earth and to carry out things and so on and so forth Muslims don't believe that at all the Quran says I quoted this verse earlier that we are closer to the human being than his jugular vein in reality not in distance initially not in flesh and blood ultimately it's a mystery we can't comprehend it but definitely not physically close to us he's close, he's imminent in an essential type of way the Quran says when my servants ask you concerning me say I am very close the Hebrew cognate of this is in Hebrew means an internal organ what's closer to you than an internal organ that God is closer than your jugular vein, your life support than your heart and your lungs that's how close he is imminent he is close to us the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he used to pray at least a third of the night even into his 60s and it got to a point where his feet would be swollen red and his wife Aisha his wife Aisha in meaning, oh messenger of God why do you do this you're the beloved of God he said shall I not be a grateful servant in another transmission shall I not be a grateful loving servant the title of the Prophet is Habibullah in our tradition the beloved of God that's his title, that's what we call him the beloved of God without doubt the God of Islam who is the only God the God of Abraham is close to us, we have a personal relationship with God because Muslims emulate the practices of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him so he is transcendent but he's also imminent not physically in his knowledge in his mercy and in his love now get ready for another bomb bomb shell not a real bomb don't write something don't misquote me on that that Muslims love Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad more than our own selves more than our mothers more than our children and it's not just lip service we love these people real love so love for some people this is a strange concept that love is absolutely traditional in the Islamic tradition love one of the names of God in the Quran is al-Wadud the all loving and the Prophet peace be upon him he used different similitudes and analogies to demonstrate divine love one of the most powerful ones is during one of the military expeditions of the Prophet there was this woman that was running around after one of the battles and she had lost her young son who was a toddler and she's running around frantic and hysterical and they're trying to find her son and finally she sees her son and she picks him up, hugs him and kisses him and begins to breastfeed him and the Prophet said to the companions that were there can you imagine this woman throwing her son in a fire can you imagine that he said he said Allah is more merciful to his servants than this woman is just now to her son so this type of analogy this parental filial analogy if it's allegorical that's fine but when we start talking about things that are literal that's when the Muslim has to take a step back because the Prophet peace be upon him from love to parental love and what's also interesting is that two of the names of God in the Quran al-Rahman al-Raheem you see before a Muslim decides to do anything worth doing he or she will sanctify that action by pronouncing this sacred formula Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem in the name of God the infinitely good, the most merciful right? so this word, these two names of God al-Rahman al-Raheem which means mercy and this word comes from which means the womb of a mother in Hebrew so there's a subtleness that cannot escape us here we know that the purest type of love on earth is the love that a mother has for her child but God is al-Rahman he is infinitely more loving to his servants than this mother is to her child there's a hadith which is a prophetic tradition of a Bedouin who came to the Prophet and the Bedouin were kind of rough around the edges so the Bedouin would come and he'd grab the Prophet and call him by his first name and you know ask him all these questions and so on it's kind of rough around the edges so the Bedouin came to the Prophet and he said, Ya Muhammad peace be upon him one is the hour of judgment one is the hour, one is the day of judgment and our teaching teaches us that no one knows the day or the hour like when Gabriel came to the Prophet tell me about the hour the one being questioned knows no more than the questioner the Quran says they ask you about the hour when will it be established say to them, this knowledge is only my Lord Jesus says in three Gospels of that day, knoweth no man not the angels not even the Son but only the Father so anyone who gives you a date there's this guy in California I don't know if you've heard about this guy May 21st, I saw the billboard it's gonna happen October 21st in 1994 William Miller, 18, whatever it was whoever gives you a date is a con man hold on to your wallets and purses no one knows the hour Jesus doesn't know the hour so this better one says when is the hour and the Prophet, he asked him a question a better question what did you prepare for the hour nothing except his obligatory acts of worship he prays five times a day and he gives his charity very basic just the fara'id the obligations but then the better one said but I love God and his messenger and the Prophet said a person will be with those whom he loves so this is very interesting because again there's a very common misunderstanding that Muslims believe that they can work their way towards heaven right? you do enough good deeds to offset the bad deed 51 49 you just made it but if you're the other way 51 49 Muslims don't believe that that's what a group of Muslims that are not orthodox called the Mu'atezila that's what they believed and there was a very small group and they're gone but Sunni orthodoxy as well as Shia they don't believe that Muslims believe that in the case through mercy through the love of God even the Prophet said no one is justified by their works this sound hadith a sound tradition and they said not even you you've perfected Ibadah and Erbudiyah you've perfected worship and servitude not even you except that my Lord is the thing that saves mercy because the Quran talks about scales and things like that people are very literalist get the wrong idea the Mu'atezila believe that you can do some research on that the Mu'atezila were highly influenced by Aristotelian philosophy and Neoplatonism but Muslims believe is through grace through love of God so the Quran says whoever is averted from punishment on the day of judgment is only from the mercy of God let's go back to the concept of love the Prophet said in a sound hadith he said none of you believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself and a great hadith scholar he says that in this hadith the word for brother which is in Hebrew and Arabic it doesn't simply mean your Muslim brother it means your brother or sister because the male gender encapsulates the female gender in the Semitic languages your brother or sister in the children of Adam if we go back far enough for all brothers and sisters that's his interpretation and that's the normative interpretation of the verse none of you truly believe until he loves or she loves for his brother or sister in the children of Adam what he loves for himself the religion of Islam is a universal religion it's a cosmopolitan faith the Prophet is a universal messenger the Quran says this is kind of like our equivalent to John 3.16 we did not sent you to Muhammad except as a mercy and to all the worlds one out of four human beings on earth is Muslim people don't really realize this yeah it says in the pamphlet here there are 30 million Muslims in China there are actually 200 million Muslims in Indonesia 200 million Muslims not a single Muslim soldier ever stepped foot on the soil of Indonesia how do you get 200 million Muslims again you listen to the the war-mongering the profligates Islam is going to take over the world they conquer by the sword study history Indonesia 200 million Muslims the Arab world doesn't even equal 200 million people right but in Indonesia there's 200 million Muslims the majority of Albania these are people with blue eyes and blonde hair the majority religion is Islam 20,000 Americans every year become Muslim they give you your cousin your brother your co-worker and that's what we're saying is actually sit down and speak with these people if you see a Muslim ask them questions don't go turn on the boob tube right and listen to some we won't name drop Bill O'Reilly and listen to these guys Pat Robertson we're not going to name drop or anything and oh wow Muslims Abdullah works seems so nice wow he's really out to get me huh this type of thing one out of four human beings is Muslim so we have to realize but with that said Islam is not a monolith okay so it's another common misconception indeed there is a great cohesiveness with respect to our theology Muslims are very much united theologically but when it comes to cultural things to methodology politics the religion is very very very vast it's not a monolith I was in a church a few months ago and I was talking about love in Islam like I'm doing now and an older gentleman he stood up Caucasian gentleman it was in a Lutheran church and he said how do you explain sectarian violence in some city in South Pakistan the Sunnis and Shias are killing each other how do you explain it I said oh put me on the spot why would you even think I'm in a position to answer that question I don't even know what Muslims are doing in the next town over I don't even know why my wife is mad at me half the time how am I supposed to answer what Muslims in South Pakistan are doing I mean seriously he said well aren't you Muslim you know it's like the it's like that comedian Maz Drabani he's an Iranian comic have you heard of Maz Drabani it's a funny joke because he's from Iran and he's at work one day and he's sitting in his cubicle and he says that some of the non-Muslims that work with him they come to him and say what's going on with the gas prices so I don't know aren't you Iranian it's like there's some worldwide it's not a monolith I have no idea what's going on Muslims are vast so I asked this gentleman I said how do you explain Catholics and Protestants killing each other in the streets of Belfast Ireland a few years ago he said I'm not Irish okay there you go and I don't think it clicked with him immediately but I don't expect him to know so Christianity is very vast Islam is very vast there's a group of Christians and unfortunately they have a lot of influence in America that believe it is in fact their duty to tame the Ishmaelite right that they're about empire building they have imperialistic aspirations I encourage you to read a book an American Christian Chris Hedges called American fascism which he talks about these elements within Christianity it's by a Christian man, Chris Hedges Harvard Theological Seminary because Christians Jews and Muslims believe that God has a preferential aspect right that God is not with those who are dropping bombs on innocent civilians God is not with the one who is exerting a strong hand God is with the downtrodden God is with the poor God is with the subaltern not the one who's been rejected by the society there's a preferential aspect according to all three religions like when Jesus is in the synagogue in Luke chapter 4 when he announces his messiahship he reads from the scroll of Isaiah what does he say he says the spirit of God the spirit of the Lord is upon me in order to anoint in order to anoint the poor heal the broken hearted free the oppressed social justice the prophets were social reformers right so my point here is that every religion is vast and if you have one out of four on earth that are Muslim invariably you're going to have a few nut jobs one out of four human beings there's like two billion people right another hadith of the prophet he says very beautiful hadith none of you will enter paradise until you truly believe and none of you truly believe until you love one another shall I tell you of something that will increase your love they said yes spread peace amongst yourselves spread peace amongst yourselves I got invited a few months ago to an interfaith talk at a church and there was like 15 speakers so I was given five minutes I'm thinking what can I say in five minutes I just quoted this one statement of the prophet and the organizer of this event was a young woman she was a PhD student at a Christian seminary and right after the event she was crying and her arms were open she's running towards me to give me a hug she said I had no idea that you guys even believed in love this is almost a PhD in theology mind you if such are the pastors then God bless the congregation as they say right so she's running and she's giving me a hug and of course I can't touch her because there's you know so I'm trying to slip my way out I'm trying to find a sister I'm trying to give her a detour so it's very interesting because orthodox Jews they don't touch either it's called shomer nagaya the guard against the touch this is why I wanted to before I shook anyone tried to shake anyone's hand I wanted to give this talk that if I don't shake your hand it's because I respect you I can only touch like my wife my mother my daughter that's part of our tradition so this is something that is really it's been a puzzle for me for many many years because it's always almost offensive to people so I asked one of my teachers he's a rabbi rabbi mendel I said how do you do with the shomer nagaya what do you say to the woman who puts her hand out and then you have to tell her I can't shake your hand and she's embarrassed she's offended so he gave me advice he said do this put your hand over your heart and say I salute you from my heart so wow that's good so the first opportunity I got this girl put her hand out to me and I went like this and I said I salute you from my heart and she kind of giggled and I was like yes so then I went home and I told my wife I said look this is what happened I did that she giggled she said why are you flirting with her so concerning I'm running out of time I want to save some time for questions I'll probably take another five minutes inshallah concerning Jesus peace be upon him what does the Quran say the Quran says that he is a prophet of God legitimate prophet messenger he's the messiah what does it mean for him to be the messiah the messiah we can talk about that the Quran says that he performed miracles by the permission of God that he's the word of God is that the same as the logos like it says in John 1 1 NRK and Halaagos is it the same thing I would say no it's not the same thing what is the difference that's a dissertation in and of itself so this is what Muslims believe the Jewish view of Jesus is vast but generally I won't quote from the Talmud generally it's unfavorable but probably the most congenial opinion you'll get is that he was a very great rabbi but certainly not a prophet nor the messiah certainly not God Muslims say that he's a prophet he's a messiah he's a messenger of God he's a blessed man like the verse I quoted earlier that Jesus is quoted to have said and he has made me blessed wherever I am now interestingly this is another major difference of opinion and it's gonna be kind of a shock I think for people to hear but Muslims don't believe that Jesus was crucified Muslims don't believe that the Quran categorically rejects the crucifixion and we can also talk about that but what's also what's interesting about this is remember I was talking about the names of prophets there's certain mysteries and the names of prophets so Jesus's name according to Aramaic sources was Yeshua and it's interesting because this word Yeshua is from a triliteral root word like all Semitic words to save or to deliver however the scale of this name is passive it's a passive participle not active not save your but saved passive Yeshua means the one who is saved by God the Quran says I know it's kind of hard to hear sometimes that he was not killed or crucified but it was made to appear so unto his enemies that he was and just as Christians will use certain places in the Hebrew Bible like Psalm 22 Isaiah chapter 53 the suffering servant as proof text that Jesus was crucified the Muslims will say that this idea that Jesus wasn't crucified is actually more in line with pre-Christian messianic Jewish expectations like David writes in the Psalms it's very explicit Psalm 20 verse 6 he says in his own language in the Hebrew language he says I know that God the Lord saves his messiah Hushiaa is the active participle for the Lord saves who his messiah that God saves his messiah and in 1945 they discovered because for the longest time for 1300 years the only scripture that made this claim was the Quran the only religious tradition that made this claim that Jesus wasn't crucified were the Muslims but in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt they discovered Christian treatises and gospels and apocalypses like the second treatise of the great Seth the Coptic apocalypses of Peter the Acts of John was later discovered that actually state that there were indeed Christian denominations before the advent of the prophet Muhammad that denied the crucifixion this predates Islam this actually predates the formation of the New Testament canon alright and Ignatius of Antioch his letter to the Traleons he also mentions that there are Christians who deny the crucifixion so this was this was my my master's thesis was on topics like this in particular the book of Galatians in the New Testament so you know Paul wrote the book of Galatians and he accuses the Galatians of believing in Heteron Ewangilion another gospel right and according to Christian exegetes like F. C. Bauer which is the standard opinion when it comes to Galatians Paul's enemies that he's denouncing are actually missionaries sent from James from Jerusalem these are disciples of Jesus that are being sent into Jerusalem to correct what they consider to be Paul's deviant teachings so Paul unleashes on them he calls them false apostles super apostles sarcastically he calls them dogs enemies of the cross right things of this nature he's vehemently opposed to them I mean there's a fundamental difference of opinion between these missionaries from James who are Syriac speaking Nazarean Christians we would say that there were Muslims who believed that Jesus was the Messiah that you follow the sacred law and that they believed in our theology which is to heed the absolute transcendence of God what's also interesting is that James the letter of James which was not liked by Martin Luther for obvious reasons he called it a letter of straw he actually proposed that we remove it from the canon right James who is a successor of Jesus according to history the book of Acts he has one book out of 27 in the New Testament because Paul has 14 more than half of the New Testament right James' name in Hebrew is Yaakuv had Sadiq Yaakuv had Sadiq which is very interesting because the successor the name of the successor of the prophet Muhammad was also had Sadiq Abu Bakr as Sadiq the truthful one the trustworthy one right so it's interesting because after the vote at Nica in 325 history tells us by 360 360 which is a few years after Nica the majority of the bishops in the empire they believed in Ebonite theology they believed that Jesus was not God that he was a created entity then Paul talks about in Galatians the Ishmaelites and he denigrates the Ishmaelites he denigrates Hagar the mother of Ishmael you know this type of propaganda he denigrates them and then he says that I came from Arabia this is what Paul says it's very interesting why is he saying that why is he talking about the Ishmaelites why is he talking about Arabia I'll be done in one minute inshallah my contention is that these missionaries from James they told the Galatians that the final messenger of God would come from Arabia and that he would be an Ishmaelite and the Quran quotes Jesus as saying Jesus says oh children of Israel I am the messenger of God sent to you confirming the Torah which came before me and to give you glad tidings of a messenger to come after me whose name is Ahmed which is the superlative form of the name Muhammad so they're giving me the the stop sign here so at this point I have a few more things I wanted to say there's some prophecies in the Bible that I wanted to quote that I believe referred to the prophet peace be upon him but maybe next time when I come inshallah ta'ala I'll have to ask Dr. Zaki if I'm welcome to back I hope no one was offended it's very important that we have this kind of Socratic speech this is America this is not some fascist country this is America a freedom of speech we should be able to listen and disagree and to have a discourse so I thank you for your lack of outbursts and your lack of throwing food at me and I hope I just gave you something to think about a little bit we have to keep thinking we can't live in a bubble we have to sort of broaden our horizons there's a whole other world out there we have to keep learning complacency is something that is a terrible thing don't be satisfied with yourself keep striving to learn to broaden your mind to learn a different culture whatever it is so that was the point of my talk I hope it was beneficial for you peace be upon him peace be upon him and I'd like to entertain any comments or questions that you may have we have five minutes to get the question answered anybody has a question? that means they all agree and they understood everything I said I did a great job please ask a question thank you for a very lovely talk I'm here from the Jewish community and I appreciate it very much you're pointing out so many of the similarities and of course between Hebrew and Aramaic and Arabic we share much in terms of language as well I'm wondering if you can address a little bit and I understand that the Koran like the Jewish texts are very wide and have very wide-ranging views on a lot of things but can you talk a little bit about the existence in the Koran of the idea of the Dimi of the status that is given to Jews and Christians in Muslim society yes so that's a very good question Aramaic this is not a question this is just looking into King James Bimo James chapter 4 verse 7 when I go and speak in churches I say but this is telling you to submit it says submit yourself therefore to God and reject the devil so when we say Islam we say submission and that's what Muslims do just submit yourself he's created us all and he does not need anything from us more than for us to obey him respect him and submit ourselves and here Jesus peace be upon him saying submit yourself therefore to God and reject the devil and this is if you want to remember James chapter 4 verse 7 I do when I speak in churches I bring that out and many people because you read the bible you'll see that submission is the word okay so let me answer the sisters question before we take any more questions please she asked about the status of a Dimi which is a protected non-Muslim living in a Muslim country so the Quran addresses in its sacred law different types of faith based communities the Quran allows for religious pluralism if you study the history again I mean if you look at the world today you have a bunch of postcolonial puppets and it's really easy to get confused but if you study history Muslim Spain the golden age of Judaism where Islamic Sharia and Christian common law and Jewish Halakal law were all practiced freely as long as it did not contradict the laws of the empire it's fine you look at some place like the city of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in Medina there were several Jewish tribes living in Medina and his first order of business was to construct or formulate the Medina constitution which stipulates very clearly because again you'll hear from the prophet the Muslim hater, the bigot that the prophet he didn't like the Jews and he killed all the Jews he exiled the Jews his first order of business in the Medina constitution he says the Jews shall have access to their temples and they shall worship God being molested or harmed in any way that's what he says in the actual document so there's a verse in the Quran Surah al-Hajj, ayah number chapter 22 verse 38 in which it says 39 permission is given to those permission has been given to those to fight against whom war is made so there's always a defensive aspect this is in the passive voice because you'll hear different translators that are orientalists say that this is an active voice that go fight people that if you're being fought you have the permission to defend yourself and this is what Thomas Aquinas said this is the just war theory of Augustine of Hippo this is nothing new to to Jewish Judeo-Christian tradition and then he says they are those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right for no other reason that they said our Lord is God did not God people by means of another they would surely have been pulled down and destroyed monasteries churches, synagogues and mosques in which the name of God is commemorated this is the most ecumenical verse I've ever come across so a them meat, a non-Muslim living in a Muslim land is protected by the Muslim polity that's how it's supposed to be I don't know what's going on in the world today it's a big mess like that man who asked me about South Pakistan I don't know I know how what the Sharia says what the sacred law says that a non-Muslim is protected in a Muslim country to the point where if a group of Muslims in that country decide to attack that Christian or Jewish community it is upon the Muslim government to attack those Muslims who are trying to attack the Jewish and Christian community this is according to our sacred law this is what our law says the prophet peace be upon him says the prophet says whoever kills a them meat, a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country or a them meat can also mean a non-Muslim living in a non-Muslim country between which there is a peace treaty whoever kills that them meat won't even get the whiff of paradise won't even get a scent or smell of paradise so even people like Norman Geisler who wrote this book called Answering Islam now it's a big website in 1993 he wrote a book called Answering Islam he actually says that because he's addressing this issue of spread by the sword that he said if you look in North Africa he says you look in North Africa he said the majority of people in North Africa became Muslim willingly because of Islam's low taxes and it's stress on brotherhood that's what Norman Geisler says he says this sword thing is a myth obviously it's happened from time to time one out of four human beings on earth again you're gonna have a nut job you're gonna have a nut job every so often that's how it is but that's not what the religion teaches so he actually says that in his book Answering Islam he says because of the low taxes because the Byzantium Empire were charging their Christian subjects it was available when it came to taxes but that's what Norman Geisler says he's not willing to entertain that these people actually believed in Islam that can't be the reason why there must be some monetary incentive of some sort but that's what it is in a nutshell obviously this is a major topic but the Quran is an ecumenical scripture it recognizes the rights of non-Muslims living in a Muslim country and codifies those rights and the thing about Sharia when I want to mention because we heard the word Sharia law they want to implement Sharia we hear that all the time the fear mongering Sharia linguistically means a path towards cold water every Muslim follows Sharia it's indispensable part of the Muslim identity what is Sharia that's the point we have to define our own terminology when we let others define our terminology and speak our narrative that's very dangerous that's the most powerful form of imperialism is when you define the other if your definition of Sharia is a draconian law code a draconian penal system then if that's accepted then there cannot be a single Muslim in America if that's accepted there cannot be a single Muslim in America and that's not America that's something else because when a Muslim prays he's following Sharia when a Muslim smiles at someone he's following Sharia when a Muslim goes to the mosque when he gives charity it's an indispensable aspect of a Muslim's identity so it's very important for Muslims to speak their own narrative I hope I've answered the question I mean if you look at the Muslim world historically there's churches in Egypt that claim to have the Christians in Egypt claim that their church was founded by Mark the evangelist when Islam came to Egypt it did not do away with the church there are 20 million Catholic Christians that have no regard for non-Muslims and believes in the indiscriminate killing perpetual state of warfare which less than 1% of 1% of scholars have ever endorsed in our tradition then these churches will not be standing the Assyrian church in Iraq founded by Thadeus a disciple of Jesus according to those Christians almost every single Muslim country you'll find a every single Muslim country you'll find a church except for Saudi Arabia but here's my contention with that will you find a Protestant church in the Vatican will you find a mosque in the Vatican? No because that's considered sacred land and so on and so forth so we have to sort of put things in perspective I'm getting this sign again he's directing me like I'm a a Boeing so Insha'Allah can we just take one, I only answered one question can we take one more question if there's a pressing issue what's that? creation without the Jesus that's a good question there's a comment speaking of the creation of Adam with respect to Jesus or comparing the creation so the Quran says the similitude of Jesus with God is like that of Adam we created him he created him from dust and then he said to him and there he was so this idea that Jesus is the literal or begotten Son of God Muslims do not accept I mean I guess someone has to sort of explain to me what that means because you'll hear this a lot Christians that Jesus is the Son of God the Son of the Virgin birth so the Muslims they're hesitant to comment about that the Muslims will say that the creation of Jesus was a miracle that Jesus is a prophet and it was one of the signs from the miracles that God gave to Jesus a sign that he's a prophet of God and the Quran makes mention of Adam in the same vein that Adam didn't have a mother or a father isn't that greater but it's all the same to God creation is easy for God God can create fire he can make ice burn he can make fire cold he can do anything that's conceivable then we get into a theological discussion again can he warm up a burrito that's too hard for him to eat we won't get into that issue but the virgin birth of Jesus was sent from God not that he's the literal or begotten Son of God because in the Old Testament Israel is my son even the firstborn David this day I have begotten you in the New Testament Adam Luke in the genealogy says Adam is the Son of God in 1st John it says whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is the Son of God Paul says in Romans chapter 8 the spirit of God is the Son of God this is obviously metaphorical that means they're beloved of God that's what that means in the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him used the same analogy to show the love of God but we start talking about Jesus as the literal Son of God begotten not made this type of language that's when the Muslims say no we don't speak about God like that the similitude of Jesus is like that of Adam God created everything from dust and then he said to him be and there he was so it's just another miracle we're out of time peace be upon you