JESUS AND MUHAMMAD [Paperback]

 

 

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This remarkable book compares the Islamic view of Muhammad and the Christian view of Jesus placing the two side by side on various issues including women, prayer, love, war, healings, teachings and the end times among other things. The results that emerge are illuminating and credible in part because of what happened to him.

As the author makes his comparisons he weaves in his own dramatic story: he was a "Muslim's Muslim" with a profound devotion to Allah, whom he pursued tenaciously. He memorized the entire Quran in classical Arabic by the time he was 12 years old!

The author attended Al-Azhar from primary through graduate school getting a rigorous Islamic education. He studied Islamic history and culture learning more about the patience, courage and commitment of Muhammad and his companions whom he greatly admired. He excelled at his studies, graduating second out of a class of 6,000! His Master's thesis caused such excitement it was broadcast on national radio throughout Egypt. He was so impressive and accomplished that Al-Azhar University offered him a professorship. He also led prayers and preached at a Mosque in Cairo.

He loved meditating on the meaning of Allah as presented in the Holy Islamic writings: the Quran and the Hadith. His passion for Islam prompted him to ask all kinds of questions: "Why did the Prophet Muhammad first tell us to get along with Christians and then to kill them?" And "why was the Prophet Muhammad permitted to marry 13 wives and we are permitted to marry no more than four?" [The answers are quite something.] When he taught he encouraged his students to ask difficult questions and debate core issues in a kind of Socratic way never dreaming that such freedom of thought would land him in deep trouble.

Eventually his inquisitive nature became unbearable for the powers-that-be at Al-Azhar University. "I didn't betray Islam," he writes, "I am an academic. I am a thinker. I have a right to discuss any subject of Islam. Islam-it is my blood, my culture, my language, my family, my life." He was nevertheless forced out of the University.

After a painful and frightening "dark night of the soul" he became a Christian and experienced a miraculous physical healing. Feeling exhilaration he spontaneously declared his new found faith to his father who responded by drawing a pistol and shooting at him five times! He fled Egypt and his family to save his life and eventually became-of all things-an Evangelical pastor.

My only complaints about the book are that it is too short and doesn't go into enough detail. Since the author appears to be something of a maverick, I also wondered if he ever got in trouble for asking difficult questions about Christianity? If so, how was he treated?

The book presents some Muslims as so devout that Western Christians may feel intimidated, but this should not prevent them from reading it. They can learn a lot from the spiritual journeys and issues that people in the Middle East experience-especially such accomplished Muslims.

Muslims-even those who expect to disagree with the author-should not avoid reading the book even though they may feel uneasy about his ultimate conversion. He always demonstrates a profound respect and love of his devout Islamic upbringing and is never disrespectful or angry. Readers can learn something about the inner questions many Muslims face.

Perhaps there are more scholarly books that compare Islam and Christianity (see, for example, Alvin J. Schmidt and some of what he has written), but this man's learning, sincerity, and dramatic sacrifice assure him an honored voice in the discussion. I'm sure we'll hear more from him in the future.

The author hugely oversimplifies the issues at hand in this book. I am familiar with more professional histories by solid authors like Karen Armstrong. If you are a Christian and need a story that reaffirms the traditional stereotypes and prejudices that help to create Islam as an alien and inherently barbaric creation then this your book. The author creates a narrative in which he essentially becomes indoctrinated from birth by islamic culture, is educated in a non-questioning and uncritical religious schooling tradition and then miraculously one day at Al-Azar goes beyond this and discovers the fundamental truth having practiced as a devout Muslim for his entire life - that truth, as he describes, is that islam is spread by the sword, is unjust, intolerant and so on, and that Jesus is the divine son of God.

This book should not be considered a piece of academic comparative analysis but a sermon from a man who has clearly experienced a great deal of tumult in his life. As a convert to Christianity he naturally holds a great bias with regards to the subject matter. The story of this transition is infinitely more interesting than his attempts to anaylse the differences and similarities between these two historic figures.

Borrow this one from the library, I wouldn't buy it.

I am a Muslim, and i know my opinion is also biased, but i must say here that, for someone to read this with out any prior knowledge to either issues they would be getting a biased view.

I am not a fanatic, the views of the author are very extreme and distorted simply because he has experienced a difficult life altering decision, which i respect, but to come and incite hatred amongst Christians and Muslims. I read this book hoping to give a more detailed opinion of a non Muslims perspective of Islam, but i found a hateful and disrespectful tone.

The book is only for those who want to read a Christianized and unjust opinion of the Issue Jesus and Muhammad.

I was extremely disappointed by this and i would not recommend this to a open minded reader.


DO NOT BUY - :(

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3.0 out of 5 stars On history
The writer is fine but the theme is tired. I am in slight agreement with E. Robb but the nature of the enquiry - historie, from the Greek - has to be a full and impartial... Read more

Published on 13 July 2006 by Anpu

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