A comparison of Islam with Scripture (The Bible)
¶ Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. Jude 1:3
It is one thing to take an inquirer who knows nothing of any religion and talk to him about God and His plan of salvation. But it is quite another thing to realize that many of the people that we will encounter are not like 'an unspoiled blank page'. As we 'contend' for the faith, we will come up against those who promote other religious beliefs. As a matter of fact, most people have some kind of a belief system already. We must be convinced that our way is the right way, the only way. We cannot contend for 'a faith' that we are not convinced is the only way.
The following scriptures represent a sample of just how 'narrow' genuine Christianity really is.
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. John 10:9
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13, 14
¶ Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Luke 13:23,24
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Mt 28:19, 20
The purpose of this study is to compare Islam against God's Word, the Bible. And having done the comparison, equip us to
a) Defend our own position, if we are called on to do so.
b) Share the true gospel with a Muslim who is willing to listen.
c) At the very least, understand where the Muslim is coming from and know where he or she has 'missed the mark' and be able to explain to other Christians why we do not say to them, “God bless you”1.
Looking at Islam, the religion of Muslims.
Muslim's beliefs follow this logical sequence:
Although the Muslims believe and teach that Adam was the first prophet of Islam, the religion got its beginning in the first century AD. (610)
The founder was Muhammad. He was the chief prophet of Islam and the source for the Qur'an. "Muhammad" - whose name means "highly praised" - was born in Mecca in 570 AD. His father died shortly before his birth, and he lost his mother at the age of six. Muhammad was then raised primarily by his uncle, for whom he worked as a shepherd. At age 9 (some sources say 12), he joined his uncle on a caravan to Syria. As a young man, Muhammad worked as a camel driver between Syria and Arabia. Soon he established a career managing caravans on behalf of merchants. Through his travel first with his uncle and later in his career, Muhammad came into contact with people of many nationalities and faiths, including Jews, Christians and pagans.
At age 25, Muhammad was employed by Khadija, a wealthy Meccan widow 15 years his senior. The two were married, and by all accounts had a loving and happy marriage. Early records state that "[Allah] comforted him through her, for she made his burden light." Although polygamy was common practice at the time, Muhammad took no other wife until her death 24 years later..2.
A second Source:
Call to be a prophet: Muhammad was born after his father's death in Mecca, Arabia, around 570. His grandfather and mother both died when he was a child. As a child, he was unable by Arab custom to inherit anything. He was therefore relatively poor until about 595, when a wealthy woman, Khadija, asked him to go to Syria as a steward (protector, manager) of her trading supplies. After the successful accomplishment of the mission, she offered him marriage. She was a rich widow fifteen years his senior. She and Muhammad had four daughters, and several infant sons who died. From this time onward Muhammad was wealthy, but he began to spend time in solitary reflection on the problems of Mecca, where religious principles were being degraded and general unrest was in the city.
During a period of solitude around the year 610, Muhammad heard a voice as he meditated. The voice said, "You are the Messenger of God". Muhammad later decided he had heard the archangel Gabriel3. He also found certain words "in his heart" (that is, his mind) as he meditated. Friends helped to convince him that he was called to convey messages from God to the Arabs as Moses and Jesus Christ had done to the Jews and Christians. He continued to receive such messages from time to time until his death. They were collected into chapters and make up the Koran (Qur’an). The Koran, though sent through Muhammad, is held by Muslims to come from God.
The mission of Prophet Muhammad was to restore the worship of the One True God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, as taught by Prophet Ibrahim and all Prophets of God and to demonstrate and complete the laws of moral, ethical, legal, and social conduct and all other matters of significance for the humanity at large.
The first few people who followed this message were: his cousin Ali, his servant Zayd ibn Harithah, his friend Abu Bakr and his wife and daughters. They accepted Islam by testifying that:
"There is no Deity, except Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Islam means peace by submission and obedience to the Will and Commandments of God and those who accept Islam are called Muslims, meaning those who have accepted the message of peace by submission to God.
In the first three years of his mission forty people (men and women) accepted Islam. This small group was comprised of youth as well as older people from a wide range of economic and social background. The Prophet was directed by a recent revelation to start preaching Islam to everyone. He then began to recite revelations to people in public and invite them to Islam. The Quraish, leaders of Makkah, took his preaching with hostility "
The Quraish (Leaders of Mecca) began to persecute Muslims by beating, torture and boycott of their businesses. Those who were weak, poor or slaves were publicly tortured. The first person to die by this means was a Muslim woman by the name Umm Ammar (the mother of Ammar Ibn Yasir). The Muslims from well-to-do families were physically restrained in their homes with the condition that if they recant they will be allowed freedom of movement. The Prophet was publicly ridiculed and humiliated including frequent throwing of filth on him in the street and while he prayed in the Ka’bah4. In spite of great hardships and no apparent support, the message of Islam kept all Muslims firm in their belief. The Prophet was asked by God to be patient and to preach the message of Qur’an. He advised Muslims to remain patient because he did not receive any revelation yet to retaliate against their persecutors.
When the persecution became unbearable for most Muslims, the Prophet advised them in the fifth year of his mission (615 CE) to emigrate to Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) where Ashabah (Negus, a Christian) was the ruler. Eighty people, not counting the small children, emigrated in small groups to avoid detection.5
It would seem that Mohammad, himself, remained in Mecca until 622.
To escape this persecution, Muhammad and his followers fled from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, where they were welcomed by the local Pagan and Jewish tribes there6.
Mohammad moves from 'preaching' to promoting the new religion (Islam) by taking physical action.
From his new base in Medina, Muhammad sent his followers out to raid the merchant caravans of the Pagan Arabs. In response, the Pagans began guarding their caravans with armed soldiers. In 624 AD the Muslims attacked and defeated a heavily guarded merchant caravan and took many of the pagans captive, this incident is known as the Battle of Badr and was the first major battle in the Muslim conquest of Arabia. (See map 1 – 624 AD).
Over the next few years Muhammad expanded his territorial control over the area to the north of Medina and waged war with a number of both Pagan and Jewish Arab tribes. (See map 2 – 628 AD) Muhammad promised his followers eternal paradise in the afterlife if they fought for his cause.(Quran 4:74) As Muhammad's power and influence grew, relations with the three Jewish tribes of Medina began to deteriorate, Muhammad solved this by expelling the first two tribes from Medina (the Banu Qaynuqa in 624 AD and the Banu Nadir in 625 AD) and then massacring the final tribe (the Banu Qurayza in 627 AD). In 630 AD, Muhammad conquered his home town of Mecca and over the next two years he sent his armies all over Western Arabia to conquer the remaining Pagan tribes. Muhammad demolished the Pagan temples of his defeated enemies and refused to accept their surrender until they agreed to convert to his new religion7. (see map 3 - 632 AD)
Muhammad died in 632 AD**. After his death, the Muslims were led by a series of Caliphs (Islamic leaders) know as the Rashidun (rightly guided) Caliphs. These men were the closest of Muhammad's companions. The policy of the Rashidun Caliphs was to continue Muhammad's aggressive territorial expansion. The first of these companions to be appointed Caliph was Abu Bakr, he was one of Muhammad's father in laws and had been the first man after Muhammad to convert to Islam. Abu Bakr's first task was to suppress a rebellion in Arabia that had been started by various Arab tribes that had renounced their conversion to Islam after the death of Muhammad, the suppression of these rebellions are known as the Wars of Apostasy. Once these wars were completed, Abu-Bakr began the invasion of the two major super powers of the region, the Byzantine Empire of the Mediterranean, and the Sassanid Empire of Persia. Both of these empires were in a weak state having been in almost continuous war with each other for an entire century and were unable to mount much effective resistance.
However Abu Bakr died in 634 AD, and leadership passed to the next Caliph: Umar, another early convert to Islam who had spent 17 years at Muhammad's side. During the Caliphate of Umar, Muslim armies conquered almost the entire Middle East, including the Levant, Egypt, and much of Persia, the rest of Persia was conquered under the reigns of the two subsequent Rashidun Caliphs (Uttman & Ali).(see map 4 - 661 AD)
Aftermath
Nevertheless, the expansion of Islam was astounding. In just 100 years since Muhammad first claimed prophethood, Islam had by force of arms, conquered all of Arabia and then expanded out and conquered as far west as Spain and as far east as Afghanistan. The Islamic Caliphate had become the largest empire the world had yet known, controlling some of the most important centers of civilization. Of the 5 Christian Patriarchates (the 5 great urban centers of Christianity in the 6th-7th centuries AD), 3 of them now fell under Islamic rule (Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch), with only Rome and Constantinople still under Christian rule. From this point on, much of Mediterranean history would be characterized by the struggles between the Christian and Islamic faiths, the Christians holding the north side of the Mediterranean and the Muslims the south side. The battlegrounds were to be Spain, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and the islands caught in the middle.
Comparing the Rise of Islam to the Rise of Christianity
It is tempting to compare the astounding spread of Christianity with that of Islam. Both faiths began as the teachings of a single man and both witnessed exponential, almost miraculous growth in just a few centuries. However the method by which the two faiths spread could not have been more different.
For the first three centuries AD, Christianity had spread by peaceful conversion. Then once it became adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century AD, Christians had sufficient power to dominate, intimidate, and supress other religions.
The followers of Islam on the other hand used military force from the very beginning of their history, even during the life of Muhammad himself. Towns were brought under Islamic rule by conquest, and their main churches and temples were usually converted to mosques. Christians and Jews were treated a little fairer than followers of other religions as they were considered Abrahamic Faiths and would be tolerated as long as they paid the Jizya, a special tax that Jews and Christians had to pay the Islamic state in order to practice their religion. In the first few centuries of Islamic rule, there is no evidence of forced conversion of Christians or Jews, nevertheless there were considerable economic and social pressures to convert to the ruling religion.
This history is admittedly brief but will suffice as a background to compare Islam with the Bible.
Muhammad's original motivation.
According to what we read, the serious, honest young Muhammad was troubled at the idolatry that existed in the religion he had grown up knowing. In his travels with his uncle he learned about Judaism (monotheism), pagan religions, and also about Christianity. Catholicism had really taken a foothold by that time, especially once it had been adopted as the official religion of the Roman empire.
I would like to conclude this session by looking at the 'Christian landscape' that Muhammad saw and comparing it with the 'Christian landscape' that history books paint for us ... and for the most part, we accept without questioning.
I am not saying that history books are wrong ... it's just that they are usually written by historians who do not necessarily have spiritual insight into God's word.
The assumption is that as the church grew, it eventually became Roman Catholic and remained so until the reformation. That is the 'Christian landscape' seen by historians and by many of us.
This view makes no allowance for a 'church' that did not become Catholic, remaining separate from them throughout history.
When Muslims look at Christians today, they accuse them of every error, heresy and atrocity that they read about in history. If we were to accuse a Muslim of 'evangelizing by means of force' they would be quick to remind us that we did the same thing .... i.e. Things like the Spanish inquisition, various crusades, and other dark marks in church history.
We have almost no one to speak out for the believers, who throughout the ages remained true to God and never got involved with the Roman Catholic church.
The bad seeds, the 'leaven' that resulted in the Catholic church, about which we read in church history, are mentioned in Scripture.
Churches in Bible times were identified by city. (The church at Jerusalem, at Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth. Etc.)
And yet church buildings did not exist until the middle of the third century. So what is the church? It definitely is not a building.
The first church grew very rapidly. From the 120 that were present in an upper room in Jerusalem it grew by 3000 on the day of Pentecost. The book of Acts tells us that they multiplied ... daily. Then it mentions an episode where Peter and John were going to the temple to pray. After the turmoil created when a lame man is healed and 4000 more come to Christ, Peter and John are imprisoned over night. When they are released, they go to 'report' on what had just happened. To whom did they report? To the twelve? To 'the church'?
Here is how it reads (in a literal translation)
¶ And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. Ac 4:23
In the 'mega church' of Jerusalem ... they had a company of believers that was 'their own'. The Jerusalem church did not come together all at the same time in the same place. They tried it for a while right at the very beginning but soon it became too large.
I could give a number of examples of how the early church assembled in that first century, but I will give just one more. The Corinthian church was 'laced' with problems. When you read about it and assume that any or all of these problems could pop up in any church service ... we would be assuming wrong.
Since the Corinthian church had no building, they met in homes. They multiplied by dividing. That is how all churches grew back then. And this how it is possible to have statements being made like “I follow Paul” and “We follow Peter” and “Apollos is our main guy” and “We just follow Jesus”. These were more than individuals. These were groups of house churches. There could have been fifteen “Paul house churches”
But seeds of the papacy were beginning to be sown. Some of the leaders sensed a need for all churches to come under one head.
Jesus calls this the "Doctrine of the Nicolaitans".
In the letters that Jesus sent to the churches of Asia, He said to the church (house churches) in Ephesus, "Some of you have left your first love ... come back to it or I will 'decommission you' as a church ... I will remove the lampstand. But at least you hate the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. (Nicos- to dominate, and Laos-people). But to the church(es) in the city of Pergamos He said, You ... have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate." Re 2:15
The trend toward Nicolaitanism (the papacy) continued. The church became polarized. Some (leaders) wanted the power. The others wanted what Jesus said,
But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. "Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant”. Mt 20:25,26
The church split ... and because those with 'the power' used it and abused it, they began to persecute those who were passive. The peace loving ones had to begin meeting in secret and doing their evangelism very carefully.
Do a Google search for Montanists, Waldenses, and Ana-baptists for a start. These met in secret all throughout the first centuries risking their lives. When they were caught by the officials of the Catholic church, the Priests would have them charged with heresy. Some may have recanted but many were tortured and put to death.
Read Martyrs Mirror online. http://homecomers.org/mirror/
Or Foxes book of Martyrs.
Muhammad's charges against the church ... were all against the visible church, the Catholic church. In fact, the Catholic church was no longer a church in God's eyes. They had long since been de-commissioned.
It will help you to know what a Muslim is talking about when they criticize Christianity. It will give you peace in knowing that almost all the ugly things they may bring up about the church in history does not apply to the Lord's church that remained faithful to him all through the dark ages. Stay true to God's Word as you speak to Muslims ... you may be called on to show them what a REAL Christian is.
Ac 20:30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
Jude 1:19 These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
3Jo 1:9 ¶ I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us.
1Jo 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
2Pe 2:1 ¶ But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
12Jo 1:10,11 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that bids him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (God speed = God bless you)
2http://www.religionfacts.com/muhammad
3 Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 301
There came to him the angel and said: Recite, to which he replied: I am not lettered. He took hold of me and pressed me, till I was hard pressed; thereafter he let me off and said: Recite. I said: I am not lettered. He then again took hold of me and pressed me for the second time till I was hard pressed and then let me off and said: Recite, to which I replied: I am not lettered. He took hold of me and pressed me for the third time, till I was hard pressed and then let me go and said: Recite in the name of your Lord Who created, created man from a clot of blood. Recite. And your most bountiful Lord is He Who taught the use of pen, taught man what he knew not . Then the Prophet returned therewith, his heart was trembling, and he went to Khadija and said: Wrap me up, wrap me up! So they wrapped him till the fear had left him. He then said to Khadija: O Khadija! what has happened to me? and he informed her of the happening, saying: I fear for myself.
4Ka'bah is Arabic for mosque. No doubt this mosque was used by the idolatrous religion to which Mohammad was opposed.
5http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Muhammad.html
6http://explorethemed.com/RiseIslam.asp
7 Sahih Bukhari Book 59, #641. Husayn, pg. 281
¶ Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. Jude 1:3
- Session 1 – A brief history of Islam
It is one thing to take an inquirer who knows nothing of any religion and talk to him about God and His plan of salvation. But it is quite another thing to realize that many of the people that we will encounter are not like 'an unspoiled blank page'. As we 'contend' for the faith, we will come up against those who promote other religious beliefs. As a matter of fact, most people have some kind of a belief system already. We must be convinced that our way is the right way, the only way. We cannot contend for 'a faith' that we are not convinced is the only way.
The following scriptures represent a sample of just how 'narrow' genuine Christianity really is.
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. John 10:9
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13, 14
¶ Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Luke 13:23,24
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Mt 28:19, 20
The purpose of this study is to compare Islam against God's Word, the Bible. And having done the comparison, equip us to
a) Defend our own position, if we are called on to do so.
b) Share the true gospel with a Muslim who is willing to listen.
c) At the very least, understand where the Muslim is coming from and know where he or she has 'missed the mark' and be able to explain to other Christians why we do not say to them, “God bless you”1.
Looking at Islam, the religion of Muslims.
Muslim's beliefs follow this logical sequence:
- There is only one God. They refer to him as Allah, an Arabic word which translates as 'God'.
- They believe in a succession of prophets, the last of whom is Muhammad.
- They preach and follow the teachings of a book called the Qur'an,
- They believe Muhammad's claim that God (Allah) gave him the book, (the Qur'an, in a series of segments) orally.
- They believe the Qur'an is and has been protected by Allah from corruption and error.
- They have a few fundamental minimum requirements to be considered a Muslim
Each of the above points can be expanded and addressed as we proceed with this study.
- What was the origin of the Muslim religion? How and why did it come into being?
- Who was Muhammad?
- What is the Qur'an like and how does it differ from scripture?
- What are some of the 'outstanding' Muslim beliefs?
- Are there any variations of belief within Islam?
- Is Islam political?
- What does Islam (the Qur'an) say about Jesus? What does it teach about our Bible?
- What's wrong with Muslim basic beliefs ... biblically?
Although the Muslims believe and teach that Adam was the first prophet of Islam, the religion got its beginning in the first century AD. (610)
The founder was Muhammad. He was the chief prophet of Islam and the source for the Qur'an. "Muhammad" - whose name means "highly praised" - was born in Mecca in 570 AD. His father died shortly before his birth, and he lost his mother at the age of six. Muhammad was then raised primarily by his uncle, for whom he worked as a shepherd. At age 9 (some sources say 12), he joined his uncle on a caravan to Syria. As a young man, Muhammad worked as a camel driver between Syria and Arabia. Soon he established a career managing caravans on behalf of merchants. Through his travel first with his uncle and later in his career, Muhammad came into contact with people of many nationalities and faiths, including Jews, Christians and pagans.
At age 25, Muhammad was employed by Khadija, a wealthy Meccan widow 15 years his senior. The two were married, and by all accounts had a loving and happy marriage. Early records state that "[Allah] comforted him through her, for she made his burden light." Although polygamy was common practice at the time, Muhammad took no other wife until her death 24 years later..2.
A second Source:
Call to be a prophet: Muhammad was born after his father's death in Mecca, Arabia, around 570. His grandfather and mother both died when he was a child. As a child, he was unable by Arab custom to inherit anything. He was therefore relatively poor until about 595, when a wealthy woman, Khadija, asked him to go to Syria as a steward (protector, manager) of her trading supplies. After the successful accomplishment of the mission, she offered him marriage. She was a rich widow fifteen years his senior. She and Muhammad had four daughters, and several infant sons who died. From this time onward Muhammad was wealthy, but he began to spend time in solitary reflection on the problems of Mecca, where religious principles were being degraded and general unrest was in the city.
During a period of solitude around the year 610, Muhammad heard a voice as he meditated. The voice said, "You are the Messenger of God". Muhammad later decided he had heard the archangel Gabriel3. He also found certain words "in his heart" (that is, his mind) as he meditated. Friends helped to convince him that he was called to convey messages from God to the Arabs as Moses and Jesus Christ had done to the Jews and Christians. He continued to receive such messages from time to time until his death. They were collected into chapters and make up the Koran (Qur’an). The Koran, though sent through Muhammad, is held by Muslims to come from God.
The mission of Prophet Muhammad was to restore the worship of the One True God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, as taught by Prophet Ibrahim and all Prophets of God and to demonstrate and complete the laws of moral, ethical, legal, and social conduct and all other matters of significance for the humanity at large.
The first few people who followed this message were: his cousin Ali, his servant Zayd ibn Harithah, his friend Abu Bakr and his wife and daughters. They accepted Islam by testifying that:
"There is no Deity, except Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Islam means peace by submission and obedience to the Will and Commandments of God and those who accept Islam are called Muslims, meaning those who have accepted the message of peace by submission to God.
In the first three years of his mission forty people (men and women) accepted Islam. This small group was comprised of youth as well as older people from a wide range of economic and social background. The Prophet was directed by a recent revelation to start preaching Islam to everyone. He then began to recite revelations to people in public and invite them to Islam. The Quraish, leaders of Makkah, took his preaching with hostility "
The Quraish (Leaders of Mecca) began to persecute Muslims by beating, torture and boycott of their businesses. Those who were weak, poor or slaves were publicly tortured. The first person to die by this means was a Muslim woman by the name Umm Ammar (the mother of Ammar Ibn Yasir). The Muslims from well-to-do families were physically restrained in their homes with the condition that if they recant they will be allowed freedom of movement. The Prophet was publicly ridiculed and humiliated including frequent throwing of filth on him in the street and while he prayed in the Ka’bah4. In spite of great hardships and no apparent support, the message of Islam kept all Muslims firm in their belief. The Prophet was asked by God to be patient and to preach the message of Qur’an. He advised Muslims to remain patient because he did not receive any revelation yet to retaliate against their persecutors.
When the persecution became unbearable for most Muslims, the Prophet advised them in the fifth year of his mission (615 CE) to emigrate to Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) where Ashabah (Negus, a Christian) was the ruler. Eighty people, not counting the small children, emigrated in small groups to avoid detection.5
It would seem that Mohammad, himself, remained in Mecca until 622.
To escape this persecution, Muhammad and his followers fled from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, where they were welcomed by the local Pagan and Jewish tribes there6.
Mohammad moves from 'preaching' to promoting the new religion (Islam) by taking physical action.
From his new base in Medina, Muhammad sent his followers out to raid the merchant caravans of the Pagan Arabs. In response, the Pagans began guarding their caravans with armed soldiers. In 624 AD the Muslims attacked and defeated a heavily guarded merchant caravan and took many of the pagans captive, this incident is known as the Battle of Badr and was the first major battle in the Muslim conquest of Arabia. (See map 1 – 624 AD).
Over the next few years Muhammad expanded his territorial control over the area to the north of Medina and waged war with a number of both Pagan and Jewish Arab tribes. (See map 2 – 628 AD) Muhammad promised his followers eternal paradise in the afterlife if they fought for his cause.(Quran 4:74) As Muhammad's power and influence grew, relations with the three Jewish tribes of Medina began to deteriorate, Muhammad solved this by expelling the first two tribes from Medina (the Banu Qaynuqa in 624 AD and the Banu Nadir in 625 AD) and then massacring the final tribe (the Banu Qurayza in 627 AD). In 630 AD, Muhammad conquered his home town of Mecca and over the next two years he sent his armies all over Western Arabia to conquer the remaining Pagan tribes. Muhammad demolished the Pagan temples of his defeated enemies and refused to accept their surrender until they agreed to convert to his new religion7. (see map 3 - 632 AD)
Muhammad died in 632 AD**. After his death, the Muslims were led by a series of Caliphs (Islamic leaders) know as the Rashidun (rightly guided) Caliphs. These men were the closest of Muhammad's companions. The policy of the Rashidun Caliphs was to continue Muhammad's aggressive territorial expansion. The first of these companions to be appointed Caliph was Abu Bakr, he was one of Muhammad's father in laws and had been the first man after Muhammad to convert to Islam. Abu Bakr's first task was to suppress a rebellion in Arabia that had been started by various Arab tribes that had renounced their conversion to Islam after the death of Muhammad, the suppression of these rebellions are known as the Wars of Apostasy. Once these wars were completed, Abu-Bakr began the invasion of the two major super powers of the region, the Byzantine Empire of the Mediterranean, and the Sassanid Empire of Persia. Both of these empires were in a weak state having been in almost continuous war with each other for an entire century and were unable to mount much effective resistance.
However Abu Bakr died in 634 AD, and leadership passed to the next Caliph: Umar, another early convert to Islam who had spent 17 years at Muhammad's side. During the Caliphate of Umar, Muslim armies conquered almost the entire Middle East, including the Levant, Egypt, and much of Persia, the rest of Persia was conquered under the reigns of the two subsequent Rashidun Caliphs (Uttman & Ali).(see map 4 - 661 AD)
Aftermath
Nevertheless, the expansion of Islam was astounding. In just 100 years since Muhammad first claimed prophethood, Islam had by force of arms, conquered all of Arabia and then expanded out and conquered as far west as Spain and as far east as Afghanistan. The Islamic Caliphate had become the largest empire the world had yet known, controlling some of the most important centers of civilization. Of the 5 Christian Patriarchates (the 5 great urban centers of Christianity in the 6th-7th centuries AD), 3 of them now fell under Islamic rule (Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch), with only Rome and Constantinople still under Christian rule. From this point on, much of Mediterranean history would be characterized by the struggles between the Christian and Islamic faiths, the Christians holding the north side of the Mediterranean and the Muslims the south side. The battlegrounds were to be Spain, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and the islands caught in the middle.
Comparing the Rise of Islam to the Rise of Christianity
It is tempting to compare the astounding spread of Christianity with that of Islam. Both faiths began as the teachings of a single man and both witnessed exponential, almost miraculous growth in just a few centuries. However the method by which the two faiths spread could not have been more different.
For the first three centuries AD, Christianity had spread by peaceful conversion. Then once it became adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century AD, Christians had sufficient power to dominate, intimidate, and supress other religions.
The followers of Islam on the other hand used military force from the very beginning of their history, even during the life of Muhammad himself. Towns were brought under Islamic rule by conquest, and their main churches and temples were usually converted to mosques. Christians and Jews were treated a little fairer than followers of other religions as they were considered Abrahamic Faiths and would be tolerated as long as they paid the Jizya, a special tax that Jews and Christians had to pay the Islamic state in order to practice their religion. In the first few centuries of Islamic rule, there is no evidence of forced conversion of Christians or Jews, nevertheless there were considerable economic and social pressures to convert to the ruling religion.
This history is admittedly brief but will suffice as a background to compare Islam with the Bible.
Muhammad's original motivation.
According to what we read, the serious, honest young Muhammad was troubled at the idolatry that existed in the religion he had grown up knowing. In his travels with his uncle he learned about Judaism (monotheism), pagan religions, and also about Christianity. Catholicism had really taken a foothold by that time, especially once it had been adopted as the official religion of the Roman empire.
I would like to conclude this session by looking at the 'Christian landscape' that Muhammad saw and comparing it with the 'Christian landscape' that history books paint for us ... and for the most part, we accept without questioning.
I am not saying that history books are wrong ... it's just that they are usually written by historians who do not necessarily have spiritual insight into God's word.
The assumption is that as the church grew, it eventually became Roman Catholic and remained so until the reformation. That is the 'Christian landscape' seen by historians and by many of us.
This view makes no allowance for a 'church' that did not become Catholic, remaining separate from them throughout history.
When Muslims look at Christians today, they accuse them of every error, heresy and atrocity that they read about in history. If we were to accuse a Muslim of 'evangelizing by means of force' they would be quick to remind us that we did the same thing .... i.e. Things like the Spanish inquisition, various crusades, and other dark marks in church history.
We have almost no one to speak out for the believers, who throughout the ages remained true to God and never got involved with the Roman Catholic church.
The bad seeds, the 'leaven' that resulted in the Catholic church, about which we read in church history, are mentioned in Scripture.
Churches in Bible times were identified by city. (The church at Jerusalem, at Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth. Etc.)
And yet church buildings did not exist until the middle of the third century. So what is the church? It definitely is not a building.
The first church grew very rapidly. From the 120 that were present in an upper room in Jerusalem it grew by 3000 on the day of Pentecost. The book of Acts tells us that they multiplied ... daily. Then it mentions an episode where Peter and John were going to the temple to pray. After the turmoil created when a lame man is healed and 4000 more come to Christ, Peter and John are imprisoned over night. When they are released, they go to 'report' on what had just happened. To whom did they report? To the twelve? To 'the church'?
Here is how it reads (in a literal translation)
¶ And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. Ac 4:23
In the 'mega church' of Jerusalem ... they had a company of believers that was 'their own'. The Jerusalem church did not come together all at the same time in the same place. They tried it for a while right at the very beginning but soon it became too large.
I could give a number of examples of how the early church assembled in that first century, but I will give just one more. The Corinthian church was 'laced' with problems. When you read about it and assume that any or all of these problems could pop up in any church service ... we would be assuming wrong.
Since the Corinthian church had no building, they met in homes. They multiplied by dividing. That is how all churches grew back then. And this how it is possible to have statements being made like “I follow Paul” and “We follow Peter” and “Apollos is our main guy” and “We just follow Jesus”. These were more than individuals. These were groups of house churches. There could have been fifteen “Paul house churches”
But seeds of the papacy were beginning to be sown. Some of the leaders sensed a need for all churches to come under one head.
Jesus calls this the "Doctrine of the Nicolaitans".
In the letters that Jesus sent to the churches of Asia, He said to the church (house churches) in Ephesus, "Some of you have left your first love ... come back to it or I will 'decommission you' as a church ... I will remove the lampstand. But at least you hate the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. (Nicos- to dominate, and Laos-people). But to the church(es) in the city of Pergamos He said, You ... have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate." Re 2:15
The trend toward Nicolaitanism (the papacy) continued. The church became polarized. Some (leaders) wanted the power. The others wanted what Jesus said,
But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. "Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant”. Mt 20:25,26
The church split ... and because those with 'the power' used it and abused it, they began to persecute those who were passive. The peace loving ones had to begin meeting in secret and doing their evangelism very carefully.
Do a Google search for Montanists, Waldenses, and Ana-baptists for a start. These met in secret all throughout the first centuries risking their lives. When they were caught by the officials of the Catholic church, the Priests would have them charged with heresy. Some may have recanted but many were tortured and put to death.
Read Martyrs Mirror online. http://homecomers.org/mirror/
Or Foxes book of Martyrs.
Muhammad's charges against the church ... were all against the visible church, the Catholic church. In fact, the Catholic church was no longer a church in God's eyes. They had long since been de-commissioned.
It will help you to know what a Muslim is talking about when they criticize Christianity. It will give you peace in knowing that almost all the ugly things they may bring up about the church in history does not apply to the Lord's church that remained faithful to him all through the dark ages. Stay true to God's Word as you speak to Muslims ... you may be called on to show them what a REAL Christian is.
Ac 20:30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
Jude 1:19 These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
3Jo 1:9 ¶ I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us.
1Jo 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
2Pe 2:1 ¶ But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
12Jo 1:10,11 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that bids him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (God speed = God bless you)
2http://www.religionfacts.com/muhammad
3 Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 301
There came to him the angel and said: Recite, to which he replied: I am not lettered. He took hold of me and pressed me, till I was hard pressed; thereafter he let me off and said: Recite. I said: I am not lettered. He then again took hold of me and pressed me for the second time till I was hard pressed and then let me off and said: Recite, to which I replied: I am not lettered. He took hold of me and pressed me for the third time, till I was hard pressed and then let me go and said: Recite in the name of your Lord Who created, created man from a clot of blood. Recite. And your most bountiful Lord is He Who taught the use of pen, taught man what he knew not . Then the Prophet returned therewith, his heart was trembling, and he went to Khadija and said: Wrap me up, wrap me up! So they wrapped him till the fear had left him. He then said to Khadija: O Khadija! what has happened to me? and he informed her of the happening, saying: I fear for myself.
4Ka'bah is Arabic for mosque. No doubt this mosque was used by the idolatrous religion to which Mohammad was opposed.
5http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Muhammad.html
6http://explorethemed.com/RiseIslam.asp
7 Sahih Bukhari Book 59, #641. Husayn, pg. 281