3 Questions Every Muslim Should Ask Their Leaders

Do we believe in the previous scriptures?

I've heard multiple times from Muslims that according to their religion, if they don't believe in what God has revealed previously, especially scriptures that are named explicitly in the Quran, such as the Torah, Psalms and the Gospel, they are not Muslim. The Quran itself commands Muslims to believe in the previous scriptures—Quran 29:46, and Allah even commands Muhammad that if he doubts, he should go to the previous scriptures so that his doubts can be erased—Quran 10:94. However, when I ask Muslims whether they believe in the Judeo-Christian scriptures today, the majority of them will say no because they've been corrupted. This of course raises the next question.

How can we believe in something that doesn't exist anymore?

If Muslims are right and the Judeo-Christian scriptures, especially those that are named by Allah in the Quran, such as the Torah, Psalms and the Gospel are corrupted and the original ones don't exist anymore, and that Muslims are commanded to believe in the original ones, how is that even going to be possible? In other words, how can someone claim to believe in something that doesn't exist anymore? How could Muhammad himself who was the founder of Islam obey Allah's command in Quran 10:94, if the Judeo-Christian scriptures didn't exist anymore? Now, even if such commands didn't exist in the Quran, another valid question can be raised.

Does God preserve His words?

If God doesn't preserve His words, then no religion that appeals to words written centuries ago can be true including Islam. If however God does preserve His words, then we should start with what has come first and work our way up. If Muslims can indeed come up with an interpretation of the Judeo-Christian scriptures that would agree with standard Islamic theology, I would be all ears and I'm sure I won't be alone. But I honestly won't be holding my breath; there are good reasons why the cheap "it's been corrupted" accusation is thrown at us. It's simply because there can't possibly exist an interpretation of the Judeo-Christian scriptures that would agree with standard Islamic theology or even any interpretation of the Quran.

Now let me address three common objections:

1. God never promised to preserve His words before the Quran. 

This is an even cheaper assertion than the cheap "it's been corrupted" accusation. First of all, how can a Muslim possibly know whether God has promised to preserve His words before the Quran or not? If what God has said previously is corrupted, then it follows that a Muslim can't possibly know such a thing without a blind leap of faith. Secondly, what if I quote passages from the Judeo-Christian scriptures such as Isaiah 40:8 and Matthew 24:35 to show that God did indeed promise to preserve His words long before the Quran came to exist? Will Muslims believe these verses in the Judeo-Christian scriptures?! If this isn't a viciously circular argument, I don't know what is!

2. The Quran is special and it hasn't changed unlike the Bible.

This is simply an assertion with no real evidence to back it up and it doesn't really prove anything even if it was true. Once asked how the Muslim knows that the Quran hasn't changed, the answer is that all the manuscripts are identical all the way down to the letter and dots unlike the Bible. Even though this claim is totally false and can be easily falsified by pointing the Muslim to the textual variants between the different manuscripts such as the Warsh manuscripts vs. the Hafs manuscripts, it doesn't prove anything. Even if all the existing manuscripts of the Quran today were exactly identical, the conclusion that the Quran hasn't changed is nothing more than an assertion. What if someone burned all the copies of the original Quran and replaced them with a new Quran? There is in fact evidence in the hadith that at the time of Uthman which was only two generations after Muhammad, there existed different versions of the Quran and Uthman issued a decree to burn all the different manuscripts and force everyone to only copy from his own manuscripts. This is according to the Islamic sources by the way; it's not something made up by anti-Islamists or anti-Muslims. You can read this story on https://sunnah.com/bukhari/66/9.

3. Quran was memorized first and then written down.

So what? That can be said and in fact is said about Christianity as well. The Gospel was first preached and then written down. In fact the simplicity of the Gospel makes memorizing it super-simple, unlike the complexity of the Quran. Oral tradition exists in all religions, however historians and skeptics prefer written evidence because they don't trust human memories, perhaps rightly so. As a result, the sooner there is written evidence about a particular faith after it's preached, the better. And the Christian message recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is believed by historians to have been written within a decade or even less than a decade after the crucifixion. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 clearly lays out the Gospel and shows that what Christians preach today is the same message that the earliest Christians were preaching. Not only that, there are also more copies of the New Testament than any other ancient texts including the Quran. One way to know whether an ancient text has changed or not or what and how much of it has changed is to cross reference all the different manuscripts and so the more manuscripts, the better. We don't have that many manuscripts when it comes to the Quran, thanks to Uthman for burning most of them!

To top it all off, I see a lot of Muslims take a few verses from the Bible out of context and misuse them in order to preach Islam in the West and those who are ignorant and don't know the Judeo-Christian scriptures well enough, can end up buying into the message of Islam. The truth is that anyone can do that with any book to preach any message. In fact, I can do that with the Quran in a much better and consistent way. Because I know for a fact that there are easy and rational answers and explanations for the verses that Muslims take out of the Bible. Some of them are so embarrassing that should make an intelligent Muslim question the sanity and honesty of these preachers. But I've never seen a rational response to any of the questions that are raised in the following video. If indeed cherry picking from a book or set of books and insisting on our own interpretation is the way to pin down the truth, then all non-Muslims have every right to reject the Quran based on the following video alone, without any shadow of doubt, regardless of how Muslims would respond to it. Because remember, we don't care about how Muslims read and interpret the Quran. As long as we can convince ourselves that Quran is self-contradictory and therefore not the Word of God, we're good!

Is Baptizing in the Name of Jesus Christ Biblical?

One of the questions that new believers might have is whether they should be baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit as Jesus states in Matthew 28:19 or whether they should be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, as the apostles do in Acts 8:16, Acts 10:48 and Acts 19:5. I think in addressing this, the first question that we should be asking ourselves is if there is a difference and if there is, does that mean that the apostles disobeyed the commandment of Jesus in Matthew 28:19? I'm going to argue that this is a false dichotomy and therefore, the accusation that the apostles didn't follow through the commandment of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:19 will be falsified by the end of this article. In Matthew 28:19, we read that after the resurrection Jesus says to the apostles, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in THE Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." The reason I capitalized "THE Name" in this verse is to emphasize the fact that Jesus is claiming that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all share the same name! I'm not the first person to catch this by the way. In fact, Matthew 28:19 is one of the most favorite verses that is used by Trinitarians to point out that the three persons in the Godhead share the same name and therefore, they must be united in essence!

The next question that arises is what is this name and why didn't Jesus explicitly mention this name? The answer to this question is quite simple to be honest. The reason Jesus didn't explicitly mention the name is because names can be claimed by other people which would ruin the commandment in a sense. So what Jesus did instead was make an implicit statement which would not only demonstrate the Triune nature of God, but also give us some sort of freedom in terms of baptism as long as we make it clear to the disciples we make, who Jesus of Nazareth really is. Now, it is almost undeniable that God has many different names in the Jewish Bible(Tanakh), however it is also almost undeniable that the most unique name that is used to refer to God in the Tanakh is YHWH, or Yahweh and some would even translate it into Jehovah. There are also other Hebrew terms used to refer to God in the Tanakh such as Elohim and Adonai which are believed to be more common compared to YHWH and are therefore translated into God and Lord in English. Most English translations that we have today translate Yahweh into LORD(all capital) rather than God or Lord in order to distinguish between the unique name of God in the Tanakh as opposed to more common ones such as Elohim and Adonai.

Interestingly enough, the unique name of God in the Jewish Bible(Tanakh), YHWH, or Yahweh is quoted in the New Testament multiple times and is applied to Jesus Christ. For example, Mark 1:3 quotes from Isaiah 40:3 and claims that prophet Isaiah has prophesied the coming of Yahweh even though the author is clearly referring to the coming of Jesus! Another example which is one of my favorites in the New Testament is where Jesus Himself in Matthew 21:16-17 clearly claims to be Yahweh! We read that children are praising Jesus as the Jewish Messiah(Son of David) in the temple; a place where only Yahweh is to be praised! Teachers of the Law become indignant and ask Jesus, "DO YOU HEAR WHAT THESE CHILDREN ARE SAYING?" Jesus not only doesn't rebuke the children at the temple, but rather responds by asking a rhetorical question that includes quoting from Psalm 8:2 which talks about Yahweh receiving praise from the mouths of infants and children! Having said that, it might be noteworthy to say that we know from Matthew 22:42 or Luke 20:41 that "Son of David" was a title that people at that time used to refer to Jesus because they believed that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. A title that Jesus took issue with by questioning them after quoting from Psalm 110:1 and asking them why David refers to the Messiah as his Lord rather than his Son! A question that leaves the people speechless afterwards according to Matthew 22:46.

So I think there is enough evidence in the New Testament for us to conclude that Jesus is clearly claiming to be YHWH, or Yahweh! However, since God is introduced more intimately to mankind through incarnation in the person of Jesus, born of virgin Mary, it seems very clear that the name Jesus takes precedence over the name Yahweh! There is clear evidence for this in Philippians 2:9. In fact, the very next verses claim that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is while we read in the Tanakh, in Isaiah 45:23, that every knee will bow before Yahweh and every tongue will swear by Yahweh! Further evidence is found in Acts 4:10-12 where Peter claims that there is no name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved, other than the name of Jesus Christ! This is again while we read in the Tanakh, that Yahweh is the only Savior! Is there then any question why we read in Acts 8:16, Acts 10:48 and Acts 19:5 that the apostles were baptizing the believers in the name of Jesus Christ?

Now I understand that most people are simply baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit rather than the Name of Jesus Christ or Yahweh. I personally don't have any issues with that because let's not forget that anyone can be named Jesus or even Yahweh which is most definitely why Jesus Christ didn't explicitly mention any names in the commandment that He gave to His followers in Matthew 28:19. Having said that, from context in the book of Acts, we know that the name of the Lord Jesus or the name of Jesus Christ refers to the Son of God who died on the Cross for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. In Acts 19:13 we read for example, that some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. The author says that these Jews would say, "In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." In other words, they would make it clear to the demons which Jesus they're referring to! I think we need to do the same today, because many false prophets have gone into the world and have deceived many. I believe as long as we're clear that we're referring to the Jesus spoken of in the New Testament rather than the Jesus spoken of in the Quran for example, we're good. To recap, I would say that what's in our hearts matters more than our words; as apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:10, "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved."

Putting God into a Box

How can we know anything about God? The answer to this question depends on the person you ask it from, but the most cliché answer is often quotations or references from ancient books like the Bible, Quran, etc. But how do we know what those books claim about God are true? Now you get into endless arguments, back and forth which surprisingly seems not to change anyone's mind, as at the end of the day, the Muslim remains a Muslim and the Christian remains a Christian and so on and so forth. Now of course you'll have a few converts here and there, but generally speaking, people seem to stick to the religion of their parents which should ring a bell because it's a massive red flag to those who are seriously and desperately seeking the truth. The question should be raised that why is that really the case? Is it really because most people can't think critically? Or is it because most people hate to acknowledge the truth? Or is the truth really that difficult to discern? Maybe it's a combination of these or could there be another reason? Could it be that all these religions are false? A conclusion that is the main driver behind new atheism? But of course that's not what I think and I reckon that this conclusion is more like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and I've written an article on refuting atheism which you can read HERE. So what is it? Why is it that most people stick to the religion of their parents and how can we truly know for sure beyond any doubt that we have put our faith in the right god, religion and/or theology? I'll tell you how I can, but you need to bear with me a bit.

As you may know, I was raised a Muslim and I am now a Christian. I could sit back and argue with you all day long. Give you reasons one after another as to why the ultimate truth is found in Christianity and so on and on. But can I convince you, the same way that I've been convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that I've got the truth? No. Why? Because that is not how I know what I know beyond a shadow of any doubt. You see, arguments played a significant role in helping me think outside of the box I was raised to think in but they didn't convince me beyond any doubt that the ultimate truth is found in Christianity or that Jesus is indeed the Son of the living God. I was raised and programmed to believe that there is no god but Allah, and that Christians are blaspheming Allah because they claim that Allah has a son but far be it from Allah to have a son. I was programmed to believe that all previous religious texts are corrupted while the Quran has been perfectly and miraculously preserved down to the letter and that is the most miraculous thing in the world today, and so anyone who does not believe in Islam, is not being honest with the evidence that proves Islam and causes it to shine above all the other world religions. This in a nutshell is the box I was raised in.

I eventually broke out of this box and started to think outside of this box known as standard Islamic theology. I became a deist for a while but I knew deep down that if there is a god, then there must be some kind of historical evidence, some type of prophet, messenger, etc otherwise this god that I believe in is most likely just a figment of my imagination! I even came close to becoming an atheist by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You see, even though I broke out of the box I was raised in but I was still thinking in a box; another box which was way bigger than the previous one. I was still trying to reason to God all by myself, not knowing that because I've been fallible in the past, it's very likely that I'm going to make mistakes again and I wasn't really getting anywhere. I can't really tell you when this simple truth hit me but when it did, I realized that I can't really know the truth beyond any shadow of doubt unless I receive a direct revelation or confirmation from God myself. I didn't want to trust anyone anymore and neither did I trust myself because I too had been wrong in the past. But at that moment I did wholeheartedly believe and trust in God. I knew there is a Creator. I knew this world I'm experiencing can't be an accident; so I fell on my face and called out to this Creator as sincere and as genuine as I could with all my heart, mind and soul and He spoke to me and showed me the truth.

I can tell you that when God speaks to you, He will make sure that you hear Him right and correctly. But you have to give Him the opportunity to do that. You can't do that by putting Him into a box. You can't do that by limiting Him either. If you're stuck in a religion like Islam which says Muhammad was the last Messenger of God and that God doesn't speak to people anymore, then you're limitting God and you're putting Him into a box. You can't blame God at the day of judgement, because you alone are responsible for remaining in this deception. You can't blame God because you didn't let God correct you. If you're stuck in a religion that teaches that God randomly guides some people and misguides others and you happen to be one of the lucky people God has decided to guide, then you're not only putting God into a box but also putting yourself into a box. You're not allowing God to guide you; you're only deluding yourself and you deserve to remain deluded. You deserve it because you're putting the Almighty God, the Creator of this magnificent world, the Creator of your very senses and cognitive faculties into a box.

So that is why most people stick to the religion of their parents. It's because they either put the Creator of their very senses and cognitive faculties into a box or they put themselves into a box or they do both! Instead of going to God for answers, they're trying to reason to this God as if they're not going to be fallible in the process of their reasoning at all. Instead of calling out to God and trusting Him with all their heart, mind, and soul, and in most cases instead of letting go of dogmatic beliefs that they have inherited from their culture, parents or society, they choose to fight for their zeal; zeal that is not based on knowledge but rather on blind faith. Yes if you yourself do not have direct revelation or confirmation from the Creator of this world, then your beliefs are indeed based on blind faith in others. That is exactly what the Devil wants people to do and unfortunately most people either do it or are programmed to do it. If you're one of those people and if I have been able to ring a bell in your ears, then please take action NOW and ask God, and expect answers. I promise you that God will speak to you and you will hear His voice.