Jesus and Mohammed

Reality Macedonia ^ | December 24, 2004 | By Jason Miko

[Jane_N]

For much of the world, this Saturday, December 25, is Christmas Day. For many Orthodox Christians, however, Saturday, January 7 is Christmas Day. For me, this means I get to write two articles on Christmas with one on New Years in between. This is way cool, for I love Christmas.

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter if we celebrate Christmas on December 25 or January 7 so long as we are celebrating the birth of Jesus the Christ. I mean, that’s what Christmas is about after all, isn’t it? And since we are celebrating Christmas, I think it is worthwhile to take a look at the founder of Christianity, Jesus Himself, and compare Him to Mohammed, the founder of Islam, since there is so much in the news these days about a potential clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam.

Now, for the record and let me state upfront: I believe that most of our Muslim friends are sincere in their beliefs. But I also believe that they are sincerely wrong.

Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed were very different. Of course for starters, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and Mohammed claimed to be the last prophet of their god, Allah. And of course Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He lived, died and rose from the dead on the third day and that eternal salvation is attainted by believing in Him. This is the central tenant of Christianity. Islam, on the other hand, has a very different belief system.

Jesus, of course, said He was the Son of God and yet never tried to run for political office, never advocated the overthrow of the government, never wrote a book, never commanded an army and never acquired wealth of any sort. As a matter of fact, he said obey the government when he said "render to Caesar what is Caesar’s." And He died on a cross, the death of a criminal.

He chose 12 men to help Him spread his message and many of them died for their faith. It seemed that this faith He proclaimed might die with his followers and yet it didn’t. Not only did it not die, but it grew, especially under the persecution of the Roman Empire. And it grew to the point where today is 2004, because Jesus’ impact on the life of mankind was so great that our calendar is split into two, acknowledging the time before He was born and the time after He was born. The year on the cover of this paper is 2004, not 1424, the Muslim year.

Mohammed, on the other hand, was a very different character. He was born about AD 570 in Mecca, an important commercial city on the Arabian peninsula. His father, Abdullah died before Mohammed was born and he was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib.

In his middle years, it is said that he grew tired of the Arabs’ idolatry and paganism. When he was 40, he claimed to have received a revelation from the angel Gabriel, which he would have known about from reading the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians. The Koran, is, as Mohammed claimed, Allah’s revelation to mankind through him.

Now I make a distinction between the God of the Bible and the god of the Muslims, Allah, because I believe – and Muslims believe the same – that the two are completely different. For starters, Allah did not have a Son named Jesus. In fact, in Islam, to claim that Allah has any familial relations is heretical, punishable by death. Furthermore, it is important to note that al-ilah (the contraction from which we get Allah) means "the god," for Allah was the chief god among the pagan Arabs’ 360 different gods at the Kaaba, an idol temple in Mecca. Allah was simply the one god that Mohammed chose to elevate and make the only god when he started his new belief system.

And since we know how Jesus’ followers spread Christianity, let’s take a look at how Mohammed spread Islam.

If you visit the web site of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC (which should be an authoritative source on Islam), click on "Country Information," then "Islam," and then "The Rise of Islam." This short history of the beginnings of Islam simply states: "Summoned by its call, the faithful spread Islam across the Arabian Peninsula. Within a century, Islam had swept across the Middle East and North Africa."

Well, not exactly.

Islam spread in its first one hundred years by war. At first, the merchants of Mecca were angry with Mohammed for his doctrine of Allah and submission to him. His ideas upset their businesses and they opposed him. But he gathered his strength and eventually overtook them by the sword. In time, he used the sword effectively in defeating his enemies – pagans, Jews and Christians – giving them the opportunity to convert to Islam. Those who refused, of course, lost their heads.

On his deathbed, Mohammed told his heirs "Let there not be two religions in Arabia." Accordingly, his followers under his successor Caliph Umar waged war against the unbelievers. Within one hundred years of his death, Islam had spread to the borders of present-day France. It is ironic how it is retaking France now without the sword.

There is so much more to this story but the important thing to point out here is this: Islam divides the world into two, Dar al Islam, or the House of Islam, and Dar al Harb, the House of War, which is everyone outside of Islam. The goal of the House of Islam is to defeat and overtake the House of War, either through conquest or conversion. This, they have been doing since Mohammed. And this will be the clash of civilizations.

Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed of Mecca were two very different men with two very different beliefs. The question for the world today is, will you give your life to Jesus, or will you give your life to jihad?

Jason Miko is a free thinker and the views expressed herein are wholly his own. He can be reached at janos@earthlink.net.

[papertyger]

Hi Weenie! And a very merry Christmas to you too!

[weenie]

Can you guess who this is...it's not you and it's not me, but I think he's on this thread..?

[papertyger]

Now it's your turn to answer your question.

Shouldn't my turn come after you have fulfilled yours?

What does the Scripture mean?

[patriot_wes]

Excellent read! Thanks for posting. I just finished reading Lee Strobel's "The Case For Christ" another superb book by a former atheist investigative reporter turned believer. I would recommend every believer in Messiah to add it to your library. It answers many of those pesky atheist questions. The only drawback is the author still can't figure out why worship was changed from 7th day to Sunday. But hey, he'll discover it soon:^)

[maestro]

......And of course Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He lived... (God came in the FLESH...God Incarnate!)(Bethleham's MANGER held God Jesus, and was Worshipped by Angels, Shepherds, Wise Men, et al), died and rose from the dead on the third day and that eternal salvation is attainted by believing in Him........

.....the Manger Scene is that which BEHOLDS God Jesus in the FLESH, and it is NOT idolatry to Worship Him!

Merry Christmas.......................Micah 5:2...................GPS positioning!

[mrsmith]

I disn't take time out today to make fun of fear and ignorance just to be mean.

[Phsstpok]

The sword will always triumph in confined areas.

A nice compact 12 gauge can maneuver better in confined areas than a sword, at least if you want to use the edge, as the Jihadi horde's preferred weapon, the scimitar, was intended. You gotta have room to swing one of those suckers.

Now, an Arkansas toothipick offers a good choice for confined spaces. You can use edge or point, and you don't need lots of room to swing it around. yet it is still able to be used to block other edged weapons.

But all you do with a shotgun is point and pull the trigger.

It'll ruin a Jihadi's whole day.

 

[M Kehoe]

Jason Miko better watch his six. Telling the truth about Islam will get you a fatwa.

Ol' Mc Abul had a farm, e i e i o. And on his farm he had a fatwa, e i e i o. A fatwa here and a fatwa there...

5.56mm

[GATECH]

I think it is important to know how each died. While Jesus was crucified by man spreading peace, love and truth to the world, Muhammed died of a 14 day illness spouting hate and inciting war for the people who did not believe him.

[Jmouse007]

All you need to know about Jesus and Mohammed:

Jesus loves you, and Mohammed wants you dead!

[papertyger]

Do you have any intention of answering my question?

[MissAmericanPie]

Satan cannot create he can only imitate. Islam is an imitation, a distortion, of the word of God. Allah is Islams distorted imitation of the One that Jews and Christians worship.

For the orthodox Jew, Christianity petty much does the same with the Torah, the Old Testament. To them we are messing with their history.

I was invited to a chat room once and honored to answer the questions of some Rabbis, not that they spoke directly to me, but they would make a counter point or ask a question of a third party and I would answer.

I attempted to make it understood that we believe every world in the Torah, the Old Testament to be the exact history of the Jewish people and what it means to be the chosen people, and how well they had kept that duty.

But that Christians, having received the Holy Spirit also read it with spiritual eyes, and not only as a history book. I believe that it is the Christians responsibility, and honor, to bless the Jews and the nation of Israel, even unto death. The orthodox may not be able to return those same feelings but that is not the point, and they may actually think that to embrace our devotion to them may lead to a failure of their duty to the order given them by the Almighty to protect every jot of the Torah. The way I feel about it is that they have their job to do, and we have ours which is to protect them with all the might at our disposal.