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Preface

“Verily!the likeness of Jesus with Allah(God) is as the likeness of Adam.He created him of dust, then He said unto him: Be! and he was.(This is) the truth from your Lord (O Muhammad), so be not youof those who waver. And whosoever disputes with you concerninghim, after the knowledge which has come unto you, say (unto him):Come! We will summon our sons and your sons, and our women andyour women, and ourselves and yourselves, then we will pray humbly(to our Lord) and (solemnly) invoke the curse of Allah upon thosewho lie. Verily! This is the true narrative. There is no god saveAllah, and verily! Allah is the Mighty, the Wise. And if theyturn away, then Verily! Allah is Aware of the corrupters. Say:O People of the Scripture. Come to a word that is just betweenus and you: that we shall worship none but Allah, and that weshall ascribe no partners unto Him, and that we shall not takeeach other for lords beside Allah. And if they turn away, thensay: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (untoHim) (literally: “we are Muslims”).”

The Qur’an, A’al-Umran(3):59-64.

“I have read in Moslem (sic) writings suchdeep and tender expressions of respect and reverence for Jesusthat for the time I almost forgot, I was not reading the wordsof a Christian writer. How different, it is sad to say, has beenthe way in which Christians have spoken and written of MuhammadLet us put it down to it’s true cause, ignorance”

Reverend R. Maxwell King

“The lies which well-meaning zeal has heapedround this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only”

Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History,Thomas Carlyle, p. 57

“The use of false evidence to attack Islamwas all but universal…”

Islam and the West, Norman Daniel, p. 267

In the name of God(Allah), most compassionate, mostmerciful. I give all thanks to God(Allah) for His bounties andknowledge and that He has guided me to Islam. I also ask AllahAlmighty that He bestow his peace and blessings upon Muhammadand grant him the highest rewards and exalted stations in Heaven.Further, I ask Allah Almighty that He grant His peace and blessingsupon all of His prophets from the beginning of time, includingAdam, Noah, Abraham, Moses,David, and Jesus, as well as all of the countless others, peacebe upon them all, may their names be held in the highest honorfor all time.

I feel that this book is best described as my ownhumble attempt at the compilation and collection of the life longworks of many famous and knowledgeable scholars and writers. Mycontribution to this book has probably been restricted to thecollection of these works in one publication. So, as they say,I hereby give credit where credit is due. Among these authorsare such luminaries as Shaik Rahmat-Allah ibn Khaleel al-Rahmanal-Hindi, Shaik Shams al-Deen ibn Kayyem Al-Jawziah, Shaik Taqiuddinibn Taymiyyah, Mr. Muhammad `Ata ur-Rahim, Shaik Ahmed Deedat,Mr. Akbarally Meherally, Dr. Jamal Badawi, Dr. Muhammad Ali Alkhuli,Mrs. Ulaft Aziz-us-Samad, Dr. Ahmad Dawood Al-Mizjaji, and Mr.M. A. Yusseff to name a few. To these individuals I dedicate thisbook. But first and foremost I dedicate this book to Allah Almightyand then to my mother who always taught me to have tolerance andan open mind, and to my father, who taught me to continually seekout knowledge as long as I may live.

Muslims are encouraged to study and gain knowledgeand to base their worship upon a combination of knowledge andfaith, and not faith alone. A companion of the prophet Muhammad(pbuh) by the name of Abu-Darda once narrated: I heard the messengerof Allah (pbuh) say:

“If anyone travels on a road in search ofknowledge, Allah/God will cause him to travel on one of the roadsof Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their greatpleasure with one who seeks knowledge. The inhabitants of theheavens and the Earth and the fish in the deep waters will askforgiveness for the learned man. The superiority of the learnedman over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night whenit is full, over the rest of the stars. The learned are the heirsof the Prophets, and the Prophets leave neither dinar nor dirham(kinds of currency), leaving only knowledge, and he who takesit takes an abundant portion.” (narratedby Abu Dawood).

Muslims are also encouraged to study other religionsand to compare them to Islam. They are commanded to never be amongthose who accept Islam on blind faith or in conformance to thecurrent trend in their society. Rather, they are commanded tomake up their own minds and to enter into Islam with their eyeswide open, after they have thoroughly tested it’s validity asthe command of God.

“There is no compulsion in religion. Guidanceis henceforth distinct from misguidance”

The noble Qur’an, Al-Bakarah(2):256.

It was because of the above reasons that, upon myarrival in the United States in 1992, I decided to spend my sparetime researching Christianity. I did this in order to verify theaffirmations of the noble Qur’an with regard to mankind’s distortionof the Gospels and the Old Testament. If the Qur’an did indeedprove to have fabricated lies against the Bible then I would knowthat it was not the word of God. I therefore set about purchasingmany different versions of the Bible such as the New Revised StandardVersion (NRSV), the King James Version (KJV or Authorized version),and so forth. I also purchased many Christian Biblical referencesas well as some Islamic references. Armed with this cache of informationI set about my task and as the Bible puts it

“Prove all things, hold fast that which isgood.”

1 Thessalonians 5:21.

Before, during, and after all of this I was continuallybeing approached to “accept Jesus and be saved.” Atthe same time, others were asking me various questions about Islam.Although these attempts to obtain my conversion were well intendedand sincerely appreciated, still, their arguments were found wantingin that they were based in the most part upon a very serious lackof knowledge of even the most basic beliefs of Islam or at othertimes upon allegations which upon later joint study were foundto be incorrect.

Among these misconceptions is the popular Westernbelief that Islam is an “Arab” religion, and it’s adherentsare all “Mideasterners.” This, however, is far fromthe truth. The Bible has collected for us the stories of manyprophets of God throughout the ages, and while these prophetsmay differ from one-another in many aspects, there is one characteristicthat remains common to all of them, namely, they too were all”Mideasterners.”

Muslims believe in all of the prophets of the Bible.If we were to study the stories of the prophets of the Bible wewould find that they all came from the general area of Egypt,Palestine, Syria, and the surrounding regions. Muhammad (pbuh),the prophet of Islam, also came from this locale. He was bornin the Arabian peninsula and that is where the message of Islamfirst came into the world. However, just as the religion of Moseswas not an “Arab” religion simply because it came fromEgypt, and just as Christianity was not an “Arab” religionsimply because it came from Palestine, so too Islam is not anArab religion but the final message of God to all humanity. Infact, Arabs make up less than 20% of the estimated 1.2 billionMuslims in the world today.

In the Qur’an, we are told that the Gospel of Jesus(pbuh) underwent a series of major alterations after his departureuntil six hundred years later the changes to this gospel had becomeso severe as to necessitate God’s intervention. This is when thefinal message of God for all time, the message of Islam was sentdown upon Muhammad (pbuh). This book attempts to study this claimin as much detail as humanly possible within my limited abilitiesin order to test the truthfulness of this assertion.

Allah (God) Almighty commands us in the noble Qur’an:

“Verily, God commands you to render yourtrusts back to those unto whom they are due; And when you judgebetween humanity, that you judge with justice: Verily, how excellentis the advice which He gives you! Verily, God is All-Hearing,All-Seeing.”

The noble Qur’an, Al-Nissa(4):58.

In what follows I do not presume to claim that Iam an unbiased witness. However, I have attempted to do my bestto be as fair and just as the weakness of my humanity shall allowand to remember in all that I shall say in this matter the abovecommand of Allah, the Just.

The more one learns about Islam and Christianity,the more they begin to see the tremendous degree of similaritybetween the two religions. Both believe in a Omniscient, OmnipotentCreator of the heavens and the earth. The Christians call HimGod, the Muslims call Him Allah. Both believe in a long successionof prophets named in both the Bible as well as the Qur’an. Theseprophets include Noah, Moses, Abraham,Jesus, and many others. Both believe in Heaven and Hell as wellas a final judgment of God. Both religions believe that Jesuswas the Messiah/Christ. Both religions believe in the miraculousbirth of Jesus (pbuh) without a human father. Both religions believein the many miracles of Jesus. However, for all their similarities,the differences between them are substantial. When I first beganmy research into these issues, I had attempted to locate a comprehensivereference which dealt with such issues as the “Trinity,”the “incarnation,” the “atonement,”and the “original sin.” I was, however, surprised tofind none. The information is out there, however, it is distributedthroughout countless books, booklets, pamphlets and the like.Some of these references were written by Muslims, others by Christians.

On the Christian side, I had found that Christianreferences are split into two basic groups which could probablybe classified as “motivational” and “scholarly”texts. The “motivational” texts dealt mostly with theteaching of the established doctrines of Christianity and theinstillation with the reader of a basic faith in these doctrines.These texts are the ones found in the possession of the majorityof regular church goers.

The second category of Christian references, the”scholarly” references, go to the next level of Biblicalstudy. They usually deal with the intricate details of the Bibleand the Christian faith, going beyond faith and inspiration alonein order to include a broader study of the Bible and other ancientChristian documents. These books are written mostly by those whohave chosen to dedicate their entire existence to the detailedstudy of these documents in order to extract from them their mostprecious hidden secrets and the intricate details of the occurrencesto be found therein. These references deal with such issues aswhen these books were written, who wrote them, why they did so,what was the political social and economic situation of the worldin which they lived, how they dealt with all of these factorsand how they were influenced by them. The authors of these references,and the references themselves, are usually found in Western institutionsof higher learning such as the religion departments of many Westernuniversities.

At first I had expected my research to involve aslow and painful search through a sparse number of obscure ancientChristian documents. This did not prove to be the case. Once Ibegan to look for the truth I was practically overwhelmed by averitable avalanche of detailed Christian studies all leadingto the same conclusion: That mankind has taken great libertieswith the text of the Bible over the ages. They have freely changedwords which they felt inappropriate to their established beliefs,adding verses which were not found in the original text in orderto validate a given doctrine, and freely removing verses whenthey felt the need to do so. These Christian scholars have documentedfor us may of the details of these revisions to the text of theBible. They show us how this trend did not end with the comingof Muhammad (pbuh) and the message of Islam in the seventh century,however, these adaptations, corrections, and modifications continuedfor many centuries after the death of Muhammad almost up to ourpresent day. As we shall see later on in this book, only one singleexample of this tendency is the example of the most ancient copyof the Bible available to Christendom today, specifically, the”Codex Sinaiticus”(of the fourth century AD). This document alone has been shownby Christian scholars to have undergone over 14,800″corrections” over the ages by at least nine differentChristian “correctors.” Given that our modern Bibleshave been distilled from such source documents as these, is itnot befitting that we study the history of such preservation techniquesof the Bible in order to arrive at the original unmodified wordof Jesus (pbuh)?

During my research, it slowly became apparent tome that the more eminent the Christian author was, the more painfullyaware this author would be of the fact that our modern Biblesare the end result of countless unending revisions to the originaltext over the ages. Since many of these scholars were conservativesin the finest ancient tradition, therefore, they had usually triedtheir best to forgive those who had changed the Biblical textand to excuse their actions. However, having to continually makeexcuses for those who changed the word of God and to only thinkthe best of these people and their motives can eventually taxthe patience of even the most forgiving conservative and drivehim to frustration. As we shall see in chapter 2.1, this was indeedthe case with one of history’s most eminent conservative Christianscholars, Dr. Lobegott Tischendorf.

In the beginning I had striven to collect this informationinto a series of articles which were published on a very limitedscale inside the university I was studying in at the time. Afterhaving completed these articles I decided to collect them intoone handy reference with the core information having being collectedfrom external sources but having been reorganized into what Ibelieve to be a more intuitive and useful order. In some cases,I have found myself unable to improve upon the wording and layoutof other authors, so I have shamelessly copied their words almostverbatim. However, I believe that such straight copying has beenconfined to less than 5% of the content of this book and has,by Allah’s will, been clearly marked as appropriate. Once again,credit where credit is due.

Many hundreds of books have been published by Christianscholars on the topic of the various contradictions which haveresulted in the Bible as an end result of centuries of continuousrevision and correction. It has been my experience, however, thatmost of these books have gone one of two different extremes, specifically,they either try to:

1. Reconcile all discrepancies through abstractionand elaborate additional details not found in the Biblical text,and occasionally, when they are presented with two conflictingversions of one story in the Bible they simply choose the versionthey personally prefer and claim the other verses were a scribalerror, or
2. They claim that Jesus (pbuh) was no more thana legend and a myth, and that the Bible, the apostles, and evenJesus himself were only figments of someone’s imagination.

This book, however, goes a different route, thatof Islam and the noble Qur’an. In this book it is demonstratedthat Jesus (pbuh) was indeed a true prophet of God but that hismessage was lost by those who came after him for various reasons.This book then goes on to strip away all of the layers of shroudingwhich mankind has placed about the original message of Jesus (pbuh)until all that is left is the original unchanged words of Jesus.However, in order to arrive at this original message of Jesusit shall be necessary for us to be willing to place the wordsof Jesus (pbuh) above those of all of mankind without exception.If we are willing to do only this, then and only then shall wehave truly opened our hearts and minds to him and accepted hismessage.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a manlove me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, andwe will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

John 14:23

I do not deceive myself. This book will never bethe definitive answer to all questions. However, I hope that thisbook will at least get people interested enough that they maygo out, read the Bible and the Qur’an carefully, and seek knowledgefor themselves. If I manage to accomplish this then I have donemy job. There are many other things I would like to say but Imust keep the size of this book under some semblance of control.I have therefore spent most of my efforts speaking about comparativereligion between Islam and Christianity in order to prove thetruthfulness of the affirmations of the Qur’an and that it wasindeed sent by the same God who sent Jesus (pbuh). If I couldadd one more chapter I would probably speak in a little more detailabout the Dead Sea Scrolls since this has proven to be a trulyintriguing endeavor. However, that task shall have to be leftfor another day (by the will of Allah).

I would also like to point out that the referencingsystem employed in this book still needs some serious work inorder to bring it in line with more accepted modern norms. However,that too will have to be left to another day. In any case, I believethat it’s current form is adequate for a first version, and byAllah’s will, this issue will be dealt with in the future.

I would like to make a couple of matters clear fromthe outset so that there will be no misunderstanding as to mybeliefs and/or intentions:

1) Muslims do not hate Christians nor harbor illwill against them. This is a common misconception in the Westabout Muslims. Muslims are told in the Qur’an:

“..and nearest among them (mankind) in loveto the believers (Muslims) will you find those who say ‘we areChristians’: because among these are men devoted to learning andmen who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant”

The noble Qur’an, Al-Maidah(5):82.

“The people of the book” (Jews are Christians)are also singled out by God in the Qur’an to receive the followingtreatment:

“And argue not with the people of the bookunless it be in [a way] which is better [than mere arguing], exceptwith such of them that do wrong, and say [to them]: ‘We believein that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, andour God and your God is One, and to Him we have submitted (literally:’We are Muslims’)”

The noble Qur’an, Al-Ankaboot(29):46.

Muslims simply wish for Christians the exact samething that Christians wish for Muslims: That we all be guidedto the truth of God and His ultimate reward.

By now it should be obvious that Islam is not, asthe stereotype would have one believe, an underground terroristgroup dedicated to the total destruction of civilized life aswe know it. Because of all of the above, I have striven to avoidin this book all statements which might be misunderstood to behateful, inflammatory, or disrespectful. However, the fundamentalgoals of this book make it necessary to exhibit many contradictorystatements in the New and Old Testaments in order to prove theQur’an’s claim: that mankind took great liberties with God’s scripturesafter the departure of their prophets and have changed His originalmessage to them. Muslims are told that these tampering fingershave left many contradictions for those who would simply lookfor them. The Bible itself gives us the deciding criteria:

“For many bare false witness against him(Jesus), but their witness agreed not together.”

Mark 14:56.

For this reason, I have attempted to keep my owncomments to a minimum and allow the Bible to speak for itselfas often as possible (see for example the table in chapter 2.2).Those people who have made up their minds beforehand that theywill hate me for this and will not see the contradictions andthe tampering fingerprints no matter how much evidence is presentedare kindly asked to stop reading now. This book is not for them.Those readers who are willing to keep an open mind are invitedto accompany us in our quest for the truth of God.

2) Some readers may misinterpret some of my statementsto be disrespectful of God Almighty, His prophets, His scriptures,or the original apostles of Jesus. This too is unintentional.Any one of these matters is considered a sin of the highest orderin Islam. The goal of this book is only to present the proof ofthat which Christian scholars the world over are now beginningto recognize as historical fact: That the alleged authors of theBible are not the true authors, and as a result of this, theyhave written therein matters regarding God/Allah, His prophets,and their apostles that were not inspired by either God nor hisprophets. All claims made in this book should be understood tobe against these “hidden” authors and not God, His prophets,His original scriptures, or the original disciples.

3) As mentioned above, I am not a scholar of religion,an “evangelist,” nor have I any official diplomas inreligious studies. I wrote this book in my spare time while pursuinggraduate degrees in the field of Engineering within the UnitedStates. My own feeble contribution in no way compares to thoseof Islam’s more learned and knowledgeable scholars. However, Isaw a void which in my opinion had yet to be filled, so I havedone my best to fill it. There are many more comprehensive anddetailed studies of this topic written in the Arabic language(e.g. “Al-Jawab Assahih”). However, until such a timeas more of these great works can be translated into English, Ihope that this book will serve as a temporary substitute.

4) When I speak about “Islam” in this book,I refer to the “Islam” taught by Muhammad (pbuh) andpracticed by his followers, as preserved for us within the writingsof hundreds of Islamic scholars and handed down to us throughan unbroken chain of authenticated narrators in the many booksof the “Shareea,” “Seerah,” and “Hadeeth.”This is the Islam which has been preserved in the Arabian peninsula(the home country of Muhammad pbuh) to this day. This Islam, theIslam of Muhammad (pbuh), does not attempt to promote specifichumans, or groups thereof, to higher levels of divine authorityand power than others, such as is preached by the leaders of thenewly established so-called “Nation of Islam” groupin the United States whose followers are told by Louis Farakhan,Elijah Poole, and W. D. Fard, that “Islam”preaches the superiority of a certain race or color and othersuch innovations. True Islam also does not follow the beliefsof the leaders of the “Shiite” groups of some Easterncountries (such as Iran) which also attribute to specific humanbeings boundless supernatural powers and the ability to hand outpasses to heaven and so forth.

5) How to read this book:

As mentioned previously, this book has been writtenwith the goal of being a little more comprehensive than most othersuch English publication which I have come across during my research.I have also done my utmost to ensure that it is as easy to readas possible. What I mean by this is not that I feel at all superiorto these great scholars, only that the English publications Ihave thus far come across did not convey the overall pictureof Islam, Christianity, and the relationship between them whichI wished to see in one English reference. The inevitableresult of making a book comprehensive is that it also becomeslarge. For this reason, an attempt has been made to divide thisbook into many sub-topics with each sub-topic spanning only afew pages, and thus, the book becomes easy to read a piece ata time. I strongly encourage the reader to read this book in theorder in which it was written. This is because the chapters willcomplement each other more completely if they are read in theirwritten order. However, an attempt has also been made to makethe chapters independent of one another for those readers whowish to jump directly to a specific topic of interest to them.For such readers a chart has been supplied to help them selectthe most relevant topic to them by asking the reader a few simplequestions. Start at the top of the chart and work your way downby answering the questions and following the resultant directions.

I would like to thank all of those who helped meto publish this book, including Shaik Ahmed Deedat, brother JohnSiedlidz, brother Ammar Amonette, brother Idris Palmer, brotherAli Al-Tamimi, brother Ismael Mujahid, brother Dawood Madan, Dr.Rafil Dhafir, brother Abdullah Firdous Abdulrazzak, brother SaadAl-Qasabi, brother Abdulaziz Al-Suhaibani, brother Mansor Matbouli,brother Abdulrahman Al-Ali, brother Sherif Muhammad, brother RezaScholten, brother Farid Adlouni, Dr. Bassem Khafagi, brother KamilMufti, brother Nader Salah, brother Khalifa (youknow who you are), and brother Ibraheem Pastuszak, who all contributedin one way or another in the completion of this book, either withsuggestions on modifications or corrections, in countless hoursproof-reading it, or in various other aspects such as generallyhelping out with their comments and suggestions whenever possible.For all of the countless others who have assisted in this projectbut who I have forgotten to mention here, I ask your forgivenessfor my weak memory, your efforts are very deeply appreciated.I would also like to thank all of the above authors for theirefforts which have made these matters clear for us. May AllahAlmighty guide us all unto his whole truth. Amen.

Misha’al ibn Abdullah

May 1996

Muslim-SA@acsu.buffalo.eduLast modified: Fri Nov 15 18:22:44 EST 1996