Dear Reader,
A belated Ramadan Mubarak if you are participating in this holy month of fasting. May Allah azza wa-Jal accept all our fasts and prayers and bless us with success in this life and in the Hereafter. Ameen. As it is Ramadan, the month in which the Qur'an was first revealed to Prophet Muhammed (saw) [2:185] about 1443 years ago, I thought I'd write a series of blog-posts about my thoughts and contemplations on Qur'anic verses, as Allah (swt) asks as to think deeply about what He has revealed to us: "Indeed, in that are signs for those people who reflect." [30:21]
So you see, we as Muslims - people who submit to God, believe in all the Prophets including Moses and Jesus (AS), with the singular addition of Mohammed (SAW), the final Prophet. And we also believe that all these Prophets bought with them only 1 Message: there is no God but the One God, or in Arabic, La illah ha ilallah.
And as for looking different, I would in return pose a question: "Say you were walking down a street, and there was a nun and a women in full hijab/burka walking side-by-side in front of you. Would you be able to tell them apart from the back?" Most probably not, because the dress code of devout Christians and devout Muslims is rather similar. (Aside: I would have probably added devout Jews to this statement as well, but I am personally unsure of how devout Jewish women dress, and so I don't wish to make any assumptions.)
The only real difference here is, and I'm making a rather educated guess, that the number of Muslim women who chose to wear hijab or burka or niqab, far outnumber the number of Christian women in the entire world who are nuns.
A belated Ramadan Mubarak if you are participating in this holy month of fasting. May Allah azza wa-Jal accept all our fasts and prayers and bless us with success in this life and in the Hereafter. Ameen. As it is Ramadan, the month in which the Qur'an was first revealed to Prophet Muhammed (saw) [2:185] about 1443 years ago, I thought I'd write a series of blog-posts about my thoughts and contemplations on Qur'anic verses, as Allah (swt) asks as to think deeply about what He has revealed to us: "Indeed, in that are signs for those people who reflect." [30:21]
So on to today's topic: something to note when giving dawah. I've noticed that, often when talking to non-Muslims, especially Christians, they always seem to be surprised to hear that Islam is not a "new/isolated" religion but rather the further development/amendment of the ideals present by Judaism and Christianity. The "next evolutionary step" as some might put it. These three major religions actually stem from the same original source.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I can get into the true depths of this discussion, there are a few definitions that need to be clarified:
- Allah is the Arabic word for the One God, while illah (as in La illah ha) means God. If you, dear reader, were to read an Arabic translation of the Bible, you'll see that the word illah is used in the place of God. So when we talk about Allah, we are not referring to some "Islam-centric deity" but rather to the same God as the one that Christians and Jews believe in. (Aside: the language that the Bible was originally written in was Aramaic, the ancestral language to Arabic, in which the word for God is rather similar to illah - though I'll have to get back to you on what exactly that word is.)
- The word Islam means complete submission to God, i.e. submitting our will, our soul, our lives, our wealth, our everything to God. Therefore, Islam isn't just the name of a religion, but is a way of life.
- a Muslim is someone who submits to Allah. Therefore, in the Qur'an, the Prophets Abraham, Jacob and Joseph etc... are called Muslims, because they submitted their lives to God, and not because they were 'others' or belonged to this particular sect rather than another.
Now that that is all cleared up, we can go back to our surprised Christian friend who asks "How can Islam be a development of Christianity, when we look so different and believe such different things?" There are, in fact, several ways to answer this question. But the best way I think, is the one I found last night. In Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 136 where God, Allah (swt), has told us exactly what to say when asked something like that question:
Say: "We believe in God and what has been revealed to us and what has been revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and the Twelve Tribes of Israel; and what was given to Moses [the Torah] and Jesus [the Bible] and what was given to the Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are in submission to Him."
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| Click on the picture to read what it says. |
So you see, we as Muslims - people who submit to God, believe in all the Prophets including Moses and Jesus (AS), with the singular addition of Mohammed (SAW), the final Prophet. And we also believe that all these Prophets bought with them only 1 Message: there is no God but the One God, or in Arabic, La illah ha ilallah.
And as for looking different, I would in return pose a question: "Say you were walking down a street, and there was a nun and a women in full hijab/burka walking side-by-side in front of you. Would you be able to tell them apart from the back?" Most probably not, because the dress code of devout Christians and devout Muslims is rather similar. (Aside: I would have probably added devout Jews to this statement as well, but I am personally unsure of how devout Jewish women dress, and so I don't wish to make any assumptions.)The only real difference here is, and I'm making a rather educated guess, that the number of Muslim women who chose to wear hijab or burka or niqab, far outnumber the number of Christian women in the entire world who are nuns.
Nida
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