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March 24 - June 30, 2023
“The hadith elaborate and clarify what is found in the Quran, but they never contradict. There is no contradiction in Islam. If a hadith is found in any way to contradict the Quran, then it is inauthentic and must be disregarded. If no hadith can be found to clarify an issue, then we must turn to the third source of sharia: the ulema, Muslim scholars who are wise and experienced in Islam.” Uncle Faizan smiled courteously at the imam, on whom the flattery was not lost.
Ulema: Muslim religious scholars Mufti: A Muslim legal expert
“That is where sharia comes from, but where can we see it? We see it everywhere in a devout Muslim’s life. It is how we pray, when to fast, whom to marry, what foods to avoid. All these basic matters are issues of sharia. There are also far more detailed matters, like whether we must pay zakat on appreciated home values.” The elders chuckled and gave Uncle Faizan the signal to wrap up.
Fatwa: A decision or ruling by a Muslim authority
Differences aside, it is worth noting that a great deal of overlap exists between the majorities of Muslims. For example, all four major schools of Sunni thought and all three major schools of Shia thought teach that people who leave Islam must be killed for their apostasy, disagreeing only on the details of qualifying circumstances and implementation. Only outlying groups, such as liberal Muslims and Ahmadis, disagree with this time-honored practice.
“Some dreams you don’t share even in the daytime.” So this was the answer to the riddle. Abba had seen a dream. In our culture, dreams are carefully considered because, as a well-known hadith teaches, “The dreams of the faithful are prophetic.”13 In fact, dreams are the only means I know of by which the average Muslim expects to hear directly from God.
Dreams are the only means by which the average Muslim expects to hear directly from God.
Sadqa: A voluntary offering, often to prevent misfortune Alhamdolillah: A Muslim formula meaning, “All praise be to Allah”; it is the Islamic analogue of hallelujah
Ramadhan is the Muslim holy month. For thirty days, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, not allowing any food or water to pass through their lips. This practice is obligatory for all able-bodied Muslims, which is why it is the fourth pillar of Islam. At the end of the thirty days, Muslims celebrate one of their two main holidays, Eid al-Fitr.
Eid al-Fitr: One of two major Muslim holidays; it marks the end of Ramadhan
We usually woke up an hour before sunrise. After wudhu, we prayed up to eight rakaats of optional prayer before sitting down to eat. The meal before sunrise was called sehri, and it served the dual purposes of giving us energy for the day and starting our day in fellowship. Ammi would be singing in the kitchen while preparing our food, usually praise songs for Allah or Muhammad. She would have the table set with our food: yogurt and eggs were a sehri staple, but we could also expect chickpeas, lentils, chicken kebab, cereal, milk, juices, and whatever else Ammi felt would complement the
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Sehri: The meal Muslims eat before fasting
In the evening, our family would often go to iftar dinners at the homes of people from our mosque. Iftar is the breaking of the fast, and this is the time when the whole community gathers and celebrates. In books of hadith, it says that Muhammad used to open his fasts by first eating a date, so Muslims all around the world do the same thing. Of course, we usually ate our dates in the car on the way to the iftar, because we were running late.
Iftar: The meal Muslims eat after fasting, often in large gatherings Taraweeh: Voluntary prayers offered at night during Ramadhan Hafiz: A man who has memorized the entire Quran
After opening the fast with just a date, the community prays the maghrib prayer before eating the full meal in communion together. After some time for socializing, the adhan is then called again for isha prayer, and after isha, there is often a series of optional prayers that people pray during Ramadhan called taraweeh. Iftars at the local mosque usually have as the imam a hafiz, a man who has the entire Quran memorized. It is the goal of the imam to recite the entire Quran over the course of Ramadhan during these taraweeh prayers, and so these prayer sessions can sometimes last an hour or two
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My mind was being shaped to think critically, but that shape did not fit into our culture.
also realized that I asked far too many questions for my relatives’ tastes. In our culture, elders are simply to be obeyed. Obedience is what shows them that you respect them and, in certain contexts, love them. Questions are often seen as a challenge to authority. In school though, our teachers taught us critical thinking and that it was good to question everything.
People from Eastern Islamic cultures generally assess truth through lines of authority, not individual reasoning.
There are simply too many barriers for Muslim immigrants to understand Christians and the West by sheer circumstance. Only the exceptional blend of love, humility, hospitality, and persistence can overcome these barriers, and not enough people make the effort.
They did not categorize religion with belief but with cultural identity. The tragedy here is that no one has given them a reason to think otherwise. If they were to intimately know even one Christian who lived differently, their misconceptions might be corrected, and they might see Christianity in a virtuous light.
What, then, does it mean to be Muslim in the West? It can mean anything. If you really want to know what someone is like and what they believe, you have to get to know them and ask them personally. But the best we can do before getting to know someone is to determine whether he is an immigrant or a second-generation Muslim. This one factor often makes a huge difference.
Traditionally, Muslims and Christians have shared this understanding. Each believes in truth, not the least because they believe their faith is true. But their common perspective extends much farther. They have roughly analogous beliefs in monotheism, spiritual and physical realms, angels and demons, good and evil, a final judgment, heaven and hell, the inspiration of scriptures, and many more peripheral beliefs.
Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate, and this is a necessary belief for orthodox Christianity.16 Muslims believe that Jesus is no more than a prophet, and to consider him God incarnate would be blasphemy and would cause one to be condemned to hell eternally, according to the Quran.
Regarding Jesus, there are two issues on which Muslims particularly disagree with Christians: that Jesus died on the cross and that Jesus claimed to be God. The Quran specifically denies both of these beliefs.19
“I didn’t say the disciples took him down. It was Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Pilate couldn’t be seen working with the disciples, because that would make it obvious he was helping Jesus. So he worked with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Joseph took Jesus’ body and put it in the tomb, and Nicodemus brought one hundred pounds of aloe and other medicines, along with linen bandages, to heal Jesus. God used the medicines to heal Jesus while he was in the tomb for those three days.”
“Jesus himself says he was sent for the lost sheep of Israel. The lost sheep were the tribes of Jews who were scattered over Asia during the Jewish Diaspora. Allah saved Jesus from death on the cross so he could go to the lost sheep and reform Judaism there, as he did in Israel.”
The swoon theory is not the original Muslim explanation for Jesus’ apparent death, though, nor is it the majority view. Most Muslims believe “the substitution theory.” Early in Islamic history, it was argued that Jesus was substituted before being placed on the cross. Allah put Jesus’ face on someone else, and that person was crucified in Jesus’ place. This is how they interpreted the Quranic verse, “Jesus was neither killed nor crucified, but so it appeared.”21
The question naturally arises: Who was killed in Jesus’ place? Different people have been suggested. Some say it was a devout young volunteer who wanted the honor of dying for Jesus. Others say that when Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus, they crucified him instead. Yet others say that Allah put Jesus’ face on Judas’s body for poetic justice. The last view seems to be the most popular today.
“The purpose of religion is to make good people and a good society. If people can do whatever they want, they will indulge their sinful desires and society will fall apart. They have a blank check to sin. Even Hitler could go to heaven just by accepting Jesus.”
“Allah judges us based on our choices in this world. Everything we do is recorded by angels: one on our right shoulder recording our good deeds, and one on our left shoulder recording our bad deeds. When we stand before Allah, our deeds will be read aloud. No one will be able to intercede for us; not our family, not Jesus, not even Muhammad . Allah will weigh our good deeds and our bad, and if our good deeds are greater than our bad deeds, Allah will give us paradise.”
Doctrine of abrogation: The belief that teachings and verses of the Quran have been repealed, usually by later Quranic revelations
More than a billion Muslims joined me in adherence to traditions, whether praying about whom to marry, determining the appropriate length of a beard, or deciding whether to wear gold. But these traditions did not come from the Quran. They are found in hadith. From marital rites to martial restrictions, commercial laws to civil suits, the vast majority of sharia and the Islamic way of life is derived from the hadith. There is no overestimating the importance of hadith in the Islamic world.
“This one comes from Sahih Bukhari. What can you tell us about Sahih Bukhari?” “It is the most trustworthy book of hadith, compiled by Imam Bukhari. The hadith were not collected into books until a long time after Muhammad ’s death. Many false hadiths had been fabricated, and it was difficult to determine which ones were accurate. Imam Bukhari sifted through five hundred thousand hadith and picked out the five thousand most accurate.”
Sahih Bukhari: A classical collection of hadith, often considered by Sunnis as the most trustworthy accounts of Muhammad’s life
The chain of transmission was called the isnad, and it was immeasurably important to classical Muslim scholars. Islam arose in an authority-based society. When they asked the question, “Is this hadith authentic?” they answered by deferring to the authorities who transmitted it. Without the isnad, the hadith was considered worthless. Muslims put less stock into sirah literature than hadith specifically because sirah does not record isnad.
“I know Sunan Abu Daud, and I know that there are six that we consider authentic, and the rest are a mix of reliable and unreliable hadith. The six are called Sahih Sittah, and the first three are Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and Sunan Abu Daud.” Abba continued the list for me, “And the other three are Sunan Tirmidhi, Sunan Ibn Majah, and Sunan Nisai.30 These are the best six books of hadith, but among them, Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are the most trustworthy.”
Isnad: The chain of transmission for a particular hadith Sahih Sittah: The six books of hadith that Sunni Muslims consider most authentic
Abba interjected, “Of course! But still, Muhammad is not God. The Quran is the only uncorrupted, perfect book in the world. The books of hadith are more like the Bible because they are the works of men. There is divine truth there, but we have to be careful of corruption.
When my parents taught me to examine my beliefs, I was essentially expected to build a defense for what they had taught me. In TOK, we were ostensibly doing the same thing — examining our beliefs — but in practice, it was the exact opposite. We were critically probing our beliefs, challenging them, testing them for weak points, pliability, and boundaries. Some students were even replacing them.
This difference between Eastern and Western education can be traced to the disparity that divides Muslim immigrants from their children: Islamic cultures tend to establish people of high status as authorities, whereas the authority in Western culture is reason itself. These alternative seats of authority permeate the mind, determining the moral outlook of whole societies.
Islamic cultures tend to establish people of high status as authorities, whereas the authority in Western culture is reason itself.
Thus, positional authority yields a society that determines right and wrong based on honor and shame.
Rational authority creates a society that determines right and wrong based on innocence and guilt.
Of course, the matter is quite complex, and elements of both paradigms are present in the East and the West, but the honor-shame spectrum is the operative paradigm that drives the East, and it is hard for Westerners to understand.
In the West, Muslims are generally taught a very pacific version of Islam. Just like Baji and I, Western Muslims are taught that Muhammad fought only defensive battles and that violent verses in the Quran refer to specific, defensive contexts. Jihad is here defined as primarily a peaceful endeavor, an internal struggle against one’s baser desires. When asked about their religion, Western Muslims honestly report what they believe: Islam is a religion of peace. In the East, though, Muslims often have a less docile view of Islam. They are taught that Islam is superior to all other religions and
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The earliest historical records show that Muhammad launched offensive military campaigns31 and used violence at times to accomplish his purposes.32 He used the term jihad in both spiritual and physical contexts, but the physical jihad is the one Muhammad strongly emphasizes.33 The peaceful practice of Islam hinges on later, often Western, interpretations of Muhammad’s teachings, whereas the more violent variations of Islam are deeply rooted in orthodoxy and history.
Effective evangelism requires relationships. There are very few exceptions.
I could not say much more about David’s past when this book was first published for two reasons: (1) David hadn’t yet made his testimony available to the public at that time, and (2) his testimony is so powerful that had I shared the details myself, it would have derailed my story. I am thankful to say, though, that he has since gone public with his testimony, and at this point you’re too far into this book to be derailed! So please, buckle up and watch his testimony. It is one of the most powerful stories I know. You will find it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakEcY7Z5GU.
Breaking away from my suitcase, I collected my thoughts. “There have been times when Christians take out whole sections of the Bible that they don’t want anymore, and they add stuff that they wish were there.” “Like what?” “I don’t know the exact references, but I know that they added the Trinity into the Bible. Later, when they were called out, they removed it.” “Oh, I know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about first John five.” I had no idea what “first John five” meant, but I practically jumped him for admitting the flaw. “So you’ve known all along!” “I know what you’re referring
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“Well, it’s the same with the Bible. Most of the differences between Bible versions are just matters of translation, not the underlying Hebrew or Greek.”
