1,400 years ago, Muhammad hijacked Jesus from the gospels, demoted him to prophet, and placed him in the Koran. Christianity was Islam’s main competition at the time, and Muhammad seems to have reasoned that it was better to co-opt Jesus than to denounce him.
Jump ahead 1400 years, and we find that some Muslims are still manipulating the figure of Jesus for political and religious purposes. For example, Muslims in the West Bank have for several years been proclaiming that Jesus was the “first Palestinian.” They claim, moreover, that when Israelis place restrictions on Palestinians, “Jesus is being crucified again.”
The latest twist on that story is that Jesus was also the first martyr for Islam. Tawfiq Tirawi, a senior member of the Palestinian Authority posted the following on his Facebook page: This is blessed Christmas, the birthday of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, the first Palestinian and the first Shahid (Islamic Martyr). How does one die as a martyr for a religion that didn’t exist when Christ walked this earth?
According to Islamic scholars, their religion began in 610 A.D. when the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad in the cave and recited to him the first verses of Surah Al-Alaq. Muhammad is thought to have continued to have revelations until his death in 632 A.D. The Koran, in its present form, was only compiled into book format under the third caliph Uthman some 12 to 24 years later.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of Islam should realize that Tirawi was either poorly informed about Islam or attempting to deceive many for propaganda purposes. The Koran denies that Jesus was crucified, claiming instead that someone who “looked like Jesus” was “mistakenly” crucified.
Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet who foretold of the coming of Muhammad. And while they may accept His virgin birth, they do not believe that He was the son of God. They believe that like Adam who was created without a father and mother, God created Jesus from Mary without a father. The Koran also claims that Jesus was a Muslim convert and His followers were called Muslims.
And, according to Reliance of the Traveller, Jesus will return at the end time but not as our Bible teaches – he will return as a follower of Islam and bear witness against Christians who have not converted to Islam.
So the next time you are driving down the road and see a billboard suggesting you can “Find Jesus in the Qur’an, Muhammad in the Bible,.” don’t be taken in. The ad campaign is sponsored by a Muslim group called GainPeace. Sabeel Ahmed, the executive director, claims that “the organizations main purpose is to build bridges and erase misconceptions.
The ad itself is misleading. While you will find Jesus’s name mentioned occasionally in the Koran it is not the Jesus Christians know. His name is usually found listed as another “Muslim prophet” who endorses Muhammad’s message. As for Muhammad, I’ve never found his name mentioned anywhere in our Christian bible.
GainPeace, by the way, operates under the umbrella of the Islamic Circle of North America which has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological forbearer of all radical Islamic movements, including Hamas and Al-Qaeda.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) was founded in September 1968 as the American affiliate of Jamaat-e-Islami, South Asia’s largest Islamist group whose militant wing, Hizbul Mujahideen, aka Hizb-ul Mujahedeen, owned the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden was living at the time of his death.
I might also mention that ICNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 likeminded “organizations of friends” that shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation.
The Koran directly attacks the major doctrines of Christianity. The teaching that is unique to the Christian faith is that there is one God who eternally manifests Himself in three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is known as the Godhead or the blessed Trinity. The second critical doctrine is that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God; therefore He is unique from everyone else. The third key doctrine is that the Lord Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for man’s sin and then rose from the dead. There are other important doctrines, but these three really comprise the very heart of the Christian faith.
The god of Islam has no relationship to the God of the Bible. The very origin of the Koran was to refute the authority of the Bible and reject the holy God of Israel. The Koran and Islam, at its very foundation, is hatred of Christianity.
Christians who hope to defend their faith will need to better inform themselves about Islam and not let themselves be misled by word and number games.
Source: hijacking Jesus by William Kilpatrick, Turning Point; The Koran Directly Attacks Christianity by John McTernan
