Muhammad: Espiritu ng Katotohanan sa Juan 16:13?

Mula sa blog ni Kapatid na Cenon Bibe: SAGOT SA BALIK-ISLAM

May mga Muslim na nagsasabi na ang Propeta Muhammad nila ang “Espiritu ng Katotohanan” sa Juan 16:13.

Ginagamit nila ito para sabihing mababasa sa Bibliya ang pagdating ng kanilang propeta. Gusto nilang palabasin na siya ang “Espiritu ng katotohanan na darating at gagabay sa inyo sa lahat ng katotohanan.”

Hindi totoo ang mga sinasabi nila. Simple lang ang mga dahilan:

1. Sinasabi sa Juan 16:13 na Espiritu ang darating. Ang propeta ng Islam ay hindi espiritu kundi isang tao.

2. Sa Juan 16:7 ay sinasabi ni Hesus na Siya ang magsusugo sa Espiritu, na tinatawag ding Advocate (Tagapagtanggol), Comforter (Mang-aaliw) o Paracletos. Hindi si Hesus ang nagsugo sa propeta ng Islam. Ni hindi sila nagkita. EspMatagal nang nakabalik sa langit si Hesus bago pa lumitaw ang propeta ng mga Muslim.

3. Sa Juan 14:26 ay malinaw na kinilala ang Tagapagtanggol, Mang-aalis o Paracletos bilang ang Espiritu Santo. Ang propeta ng Islam ay hindi ang Espiritu Santo. Tao siya – TAO.

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MALING SABI NG MUSLIM IPALIWANAG NATIN

ESPIRITU

 Una, maliwanag sa Juan 16:13 na ang darating ay ang “Espiritu.”

Ang espiritu ay walang laman, walang buto, walang dugo. Sa kabaliktaran, ang propeta ng Islam ay isang tao na may laman, may buto at may dugo.

Kaya malinaw na hindi totoo ang sinasabi ng mga Muslim na ang propeta nila ang “Espiritu” na ipinahayag sa Juan 16:13.

SI HESUS ANG MAGSUSUGO

Kung babasahin natin ang Juan 16:7, sinasabi ni Hesus na Siya ang magsusugo sa Espiritu, na tinatawag na Tagapagtanggol, Mang-aaliw o Paracletos.

Sinabi ni Hesus sa Juan 16:7, “Siya’y susuguin ko sa inyo.”

Itanong natin sa kahit na sinong Muslim kung si Hesus ang nagsugo sa propeta nila at baka mainsulto pa sila. Para kasi sa kanila ay propeta lang si Hesus, kaya sa isip nila ay paanong susuguin ng isang propeta (Hesus) ang isa pang propeta (Muhammad)?

Dahil diyan, muling makikita na mali ang sinasabi ng mga Muslim na ang Propeta Muhammad nila ang tinutukoy sa Juan 16:13.

ANG ESPIRITU AY ANG ESPIRITU SANTO

Walang duda na ang Espiritu sa Juan 16:13 ay ang Espiritu Santo dahil malinaw na sinasabi sa Juan 14:26 na ang Tagapagtanggol o Mang-aaliw o Paracletos ay ang Espiritu Santo.

JUAN 14:26

“Datapuw’t ang Mang-aaliw, samakatuwid baga’y ang ESPIRITU SANTO, na susuguin ng Ama sa aking pangalan, Siya ang magtuturo sa inyo ng lahat ng mga bagay, at magpapaalala ng lahat na sa inyo’y aking sinabi.”

Muli, malinaw na mali ang sinasabi ng mga Muslim na propeta Muhammad nila ang Espiritu na darating ayon sa Juan 16:13. Bagsak at wasak ang inaangkin nilang ito.

BAKIT NAGPIPILIT SA MALI ANG MUSLIM?

Desperado na ang ilang Muslim na maghanap ng patunay na sugo ng Diyos ang kanilang propeta.

Marami nang Muslim ang umamin sa atin na hindi kailanman kinausap ng Diyos ang kanilang propeta. Aral kasi nila na hindi kailanman kinausap ng Diyos ang sino mang tao.

Ibig sabihin, kung hindi kinausap ng Diyos ang propeta nila ay hindi pwedeng sinugo mismo ng Diyos ang kanilang propeta. Hindi kinausap ng Diyos si Muhammad para suguin bilang propeta o mensahero sa sangkatauhan. Sa madaling salita ay hindi sinugo ng Diyos ang propeta ng Islam.

TUNAY NA PROPETA SINUGO MISMO NG DIYOS

Ikumpara natin ang propeta ng Islam sa mga propeta ng Diyos sa Bibliya.

Sa Bibliya ay Diyos mismo ang pumili, kumausap, tumawag at nagsugo sa mga propeta.

Halimbawa si Moises na personal na tinawag at kinausap ng Diyos sa Exodo 3:4. Sa Exodo 3:6 ay nagpakilala mismo ang Diyos kay Moises. At sa Exodo 3:10-15 ay personal na sinugo ng Diyos si Moises para hanguin ang bayan ng Diyos sa Ehipto.

Ganun din ang nangyari sa iba pang propeta tulad nina Samuel (1Sam 3:10), Elijah (1Kings 17:2-9), Isaiah (Isaiah 7:3), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-10), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:1-9) at iba pa.

Ayon sa mga Muslim, ang kanilang propeta ang “huling sugo.”

Ang problema nila ay paano nila masasabing “sugo” ang kanilang propeta kung aminado silang hindi ito tulad ng mga tunay na propeta sa Bibliya? Ang mga tunay na propeta ay kinausap at sinugo mismo ng Diyos. Ang propeta nila ay hindi man lang kinausap so paano susuguin?

MUSLIM DESPERADO NA

Dahil hindi man lang kinausap at hindi personal na sinugo ng Diyos ang kanilang propeta ay desperado ang ilang Muslim kung paano patutunayang tunay siyang sugo.

Ano ang silbi ng isang propeta kung hindi siya tunay na sugo o walang patunay na sugo nga ng Diyos?

Paano niya masasabing dala niya ang mga salita ng Diyos kung ni hindi niya narining ang mismong salita ng Diyos?

Paano madadala ng isang propeta ang mensahe ng Diyos kung siya mismo ay hindi narining ang mensahe mula sa Diyos? Lalabas na salita lang niya ang kanyang ipinahahayag. Hindi sa Diyos.

May maniniwala ba sa ganung uri ng propeta?

PROBLEMA NG MUSLIM

Iyan ang malaking problema ng mga Muslim kaya pilit silang naghahanap ng mga talata na susuporta sa kanilang propeta.

Kaya pilit nilang iniuugnay ang Juan 16:13 sa kanilang propeta. Ganun din ang ginagawa nila sa Exodo 18:18, Genesis 17:20, Isaiah 29:12, Awit ni Solomon 5:16 at iba pa.

Ang masaklap ay kinakailangan nilang baluktutin ang mga talatang iyan para lang mailapat sa propeta nilal.

HINDI PROBLEMANG KRISTIYANO

Lalong nagiging desperado ang ilang Muslim dahil hindi iyan problema ng mga Kristiyano.

Diyos mismo ang nagtatag sa Kristiyanismo. (Mateo 16:18, Mga Gawa 2:1-4)

Diyos mismo ang tumawag sa mga unang Kristiyano (Mateo 4:18-22) at Diyos mismo ang nagsugo sa kanila upang dalhin ang Kanyang mensahe sa sanlibutan. (Mt 28:19-20)

Diyos din mismo ang pumili ng mga pinuno ng Kanyang relihiyon. (Mt 16:18; John 21:15-17)

So, mauunawaan natin ang malaking problema ng mga Muslim kung bakit pilit silang naghahanap ng talata para isuporta sa propeta nila. 

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Iba pang mahahalagang basahin: 

Who is the Comforter? 

Comparative Index to Islam

The Antichrist in Muhammad: Blaspheming Against the Holy Spirit
Mario Joseph: A Muslim Imam Converted to Christianity

The Holy Spirit

Summarizing Muhammad (محمد) Islam's Prophet!

Source: Answering Muslims

Muhammad in Arabic (Source: Answering Muslim)

Muhammad was born around 570 AD in an Arabian city called Mecca. His father Abdullah died before he was born, and his mother Amina died when he was six years old. After the death of his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, Muhammad was raised by his uncle Abu Talib, leader of the Banu Hashim clan. We may divide Muhammad’s life into three main periods.

• Pre-Prophetic Period (570-610 AD). While still young, Muhammad began work in the Meccan caravan trade, which put him in contact with diverse religious traditions. At 25 years old, he married a wealthy widow, Khadijah, who was 15 years his senior. With more leisure time, Muhammad developed the habit of retreating to a cave on Mount Hira for prayer and reflection, as was common for the polytheists of the Meccan Quraysh tribe.

• Meccan Prophetic Period (610-622). During one of his yearly retreats, Muhammad became convinced that a demonic spirit had ordered him to recite verses (now found in Qur’an 96:1-5). However, his wife Khadijah and her cousin Waraqah persuaded him that he was a prophet of Allah. Muhammad soon began preaching Islam to friends and family members, and later to the public. Due to his increasingly inflammatory condemnation of the religious beliefs of the polytheists of Mecca, Muhammad and his followers were persecuted. After his wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died, Muhammad decided to flee Mecca.

• Medinan Prophetic Period (622-632). Having formed alliances with various non-Muslim groups, Muhammad began robbing the Meccan caravans. These attacks eventually led to a series of battles with Mecca. As war booty poured in, so did new converts. The growing Muslim army allowed Muhammad to subdue not only Mecca, but the rest of Arabia as well. Muhammad suffered an agonizing death in 632 after being poisoned by a Jewish woman whose family had been slaughtered by Muslims.

Muslims believe that Muhammad is their highest moral example (Qur’an 33:21) and the final authority (along with Allah) in all decisions (Qur’an 33:36). According to the Qur’an (4:65), a person can have no faith without unquestioningly accepting Muhammad’s judgments.

QUESTIONS ABOUT MUHAMMAD

• "Why Did Muhammad Wear Women's Clothing?"

• "Why Did Muhammad Attempt Suicide?"

• "Was Muhammad a Pedophile?"

• "Who Killed Muhammad?"

MORE ON MUHAMMAD

• "50 Reasons Muhammad Was Not a Prophet"

• "Don't Make Fun of Muhammad" (VIDEO)

• "Eastwooding Muhammad" (VIDEO)

• "Jesus Owns Muhammad" (VIDEO)

Muslims Get Terrible News… Could Mean The Devestating End Of Their Religion

Photo Source: FoxNews (Questions swirl around ancient Koran, which may predate Muhammad)

Source: Conservative Tribune

Fragments of scripts, written on animal hides and hidden inside of a Quran, were tested to determine their age, and the results indicated a strong likelihood that they predated the Prophet Muhammad — which could mean all of Muhammad’s words were little more than political propaganda.

The manuscripts were part of the Suras — chapters 18-20 of the Quran — found in a manuscript at the University of Birmingham in July and carbon dated by experts at the University of Oxford.

Those tests determined that the Suras were written sometime between 568 and 645. Dates given for the Prophet Muhammad are usually between 570 and 632.

Tom Holland, a historian, said the find “destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Quran emerged — and that in turn has implications for the history of Muhammad and the Companions.”

Keith Small of the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library said that the manuscripts could devastate the religion.

“Muhammad and his early followers used a text that was already in existence and shaped it to fit their own political and theological agenda, rather than Muhammad receiving a revelation from heaven,” he suggested.

As expected, even though scientists used highly specialized equipment to carbon date the document, Muslim scholars around the world have disputed the claim and have designed their own convenient stories which attempt to counter the scientist’s test results.

Apparently, instead of accepting the fact that they might possibly be inaccurate about the origins of their most sacred words, they’d rather choose to live blissfully ignorant and continue on as if nothing happened

PATHEOS: Carbon dating suggest Koran is older than Mohammed, because Islam is nonsense

Source: Patheos

In what seems like a regular occurrence in the modern world, more scientific evidence suggests that yet another religion is based on absolute nonsense.

Islamic scholars overwhelmingly claim that the Islamic Prophet Muhammad lived between 570 and 632 A.D. Yet carbon dating of a fragment from a Koran kept at a library in Birmingham suggests that the book was produced between 568 and 645 A.D.

That places the Koran as being written during Mohammed’s childhood or even before his birth. Throwing a huge wrench in the story that the Koran was dictated by Mohammed himself.

“According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam, between the years AD 610 and 632, the year of his death,” said Professor David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Interreligious Relations at the University of Birmingham.

“At this time, the divine message was not compiled into the book form in which it appears today. Instead, the revelations were preserved in ‘the memories of men.’ Parts of it had also been written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels,” Thomas said. “Caliph Abu Bakr, the first leader of the Muslim community after Muhammad, ordered the collection of all Qur’anic material in the form of a book. The final, authoritative written form was completed and fixed under the direction of the third leader, Caliph Uthman, in about AD 650.”

Of course, Islamic scholars and apologists are disputing the findings and claiming that carbon dating is not accurate enough. But not all scholars agree.

“It destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Koran emerged — and that in turn has implications for the historicity of Mohammed and the Companions [his followers],” said Tom Holland, the author of In The Shadow of the Sword.

Keith Small, of Oxford’s Bodleian Library says this finding lends evidence to what many believed to be true, that Mohammed and his followers pieced together the Koran from writings found around that time in order to push their political agenda.

“This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition and the history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised, somehow accounting for another book of scripture coming into existence 50 to 100 years before, and then also explaining how this was co-opted into what became the entity of Islam by around AD700,” Small said.

While the findings are sure to upset Muslims around the world, in reality it places the Koran next to the other fictional holy books of the world’s religions, by giving solid evidence that the story of Mohammed and the creation of the Koran is officially bullshit.

AINA NEWS: The '1,500' Year Old 'Bible' and Muslim Propaganda

We know how desperate Muslims are yet most of them haven't read the real Bible! -CD2000

By Peter BetBasoo and Ashur Giwargis

(AINA) -- Much has been made of the recent discovery in Turkey of a Bible purported to be written in the Aramaic language, 1,500 years ago. The Muslim media, as well as Western media outlets, quickly pounced on this, claiming this Bible contains verses attributed to Jesus Christ, in which Christ predicts the coming of Muhammad. No media outlet has published a facsimile of these verses.

This "Bible" is written on leather in gold letters. The picture of the front cover show inscriptions in Aramaic and a drawing of a cross.

For any native speaker of Modern Assyrian (also known as neo-Aramaic), and that would be your average Assyrian today, the inscription is easily read. The bottom inscription, which is the most clearly visible from the published photos, says the following:

Transliteration: b-shimmit maran paish kteewa aha ktawa al idateh d-rabbaneh d-dera illaya b-ninweh b'sheeta d-alpa w-khamshamma d-maran

Translation: In the name of our Lord, this book is written on the hands of the monks of the high monastery in Nineveh, in the 1,500th year of our Lord.

Nineveh is the ancient Assyrian capital and is located in present-day north Iraq, near Mosul.

There are spelling errors that are immediately noticeable.

The first word, b'shimmit maran ("in the name of our Lord"), is erroneously spelled with a 't' instead of a 'd'. The 'd' in Assyrian is the genitive, and it prefixes the word that follows. It should read b-shimma d-maran, not b-shimmit maran (note, the last word of the sentence is correctly spelled d-maran ("of our Lord")).

The first word also contains another spelling error. The correct spelling for "name" in Assyrian is ashma, with the initial 'a' being silent. Therefore, when correctly spelled, 'in the name of our Lord" should be written as b-ashma d-maran.

The word idateh is misspelled, it should end with an 'a', idata. Also the phrase al idateh ("on the hands") is incorrect, it should read b-idata ("by the hands").

The bottom sentence uses the word ktawa ("book") to refer to the book, but in Assyrian the Bible is never referred to as a "book." One says awreta (Old Testament), khdatta (New Testament), or ktawa qaddeesha (holy book). Given this, since no one has seen the inside of this "Bible," we cannot be sure if it is in fact a Bible.

Most significantly, this writing is in Modern Assyrian, which was standardized in the 1840s. The first bible in Modern Assyrian was produced in 1848. If this book were written in 1500 A.D. it should have been written in Classical Assyrian.

It is highly unlikely for monks to make such elementary mistakes. It remains to be seen whether this book is a forgery, or even what kind of book it is.

The bottom inscription also says the book was written in 1500 A.D.. If the book does contain verses predicting the coming of Muhammad, it is no great accomplishment to predict something 870 years after the fact, since Muhammad founded Islam in 630 A.D..

Most media outlets, as well as Muslim and Christian outlets, lead the story with headlines pronouncing "1500 year old Bible predicts the coming of Muhammad" -- without any evidence to support this.

For Muslims, the implications of the headlines are desirable, that Jesus Christ is a Prophet, just like Muhammad, and not the Son of God. According to Al Bawaba, the Turkish culture and tourism minister, Ertugrul Gunay, said "In line with Islamic belief, the Gospel [this Bible] treats Jesus as a human being and not a God. It rejects the ideas of the Holy Trinity and the Crucifixion and reveals that Jesus predicted the coming of the Prophet Mohammed."

Commenting on the errors in the book, Al Bawaba says in another article:

For example, the book says that there are nine heavens and that the tenth is paradise while in Quran they are seven only and claims that Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus without any pain while the Quran story says she got labor pains. 

According to the gospel, Jesus said to Jewish priests that he is not the Messiah and that the Messiah is Mohammed. This means a denial of the existence of a Messiah, who is in fact Jesus Christ, and makes Jesus and Mohammed seem like they are one and the same person. 

The book also contains information that lack historical credibility like the presence of three armies, each made up of 200,000 soldiers, in Palestine whereas the entire population of Palestine 2,000 years ago did not even reach 200,000. In addition, Palestine was occupied by the Romans at the time and it is impossible that Palestine was allowed to have any army or armies of its own. 

The last sentence in chapter 217 says that 100 pounds of stones were placed on Christ's body. This confirms that the gospel was written quite recently because the first to use the pound as a unit of weight was the Ottomans in their experiments with Italy and Spain and it was never known during the time of Jesus. 

Chapter 20 also stated that the cities of Jerusalem and Nazareth are sea ports.

This same article ends with "According to many studies, the gospel attributed to St. Barnabas was written by a European Jew in the Middle Ages who was quite familiar with the Quran and the Gospels. He, thus, mixed facts from here and there and his intentions remain unknown."

But despite the availability of information on this "Bible," most media outlets, Muslims, liberal and secular organizations have portrayed this discovery as something that undermines Christianity, ignoring the many problems with this book and presenting it as virtual fact. In fact, in their zeal to support the anti-Christian narrative, they have withheld or suppressed information questioning the authenticity of this book. For these organizations and individuals, this is another tool in their arsenal for the attack on the foundations of Christian doctrine.

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Related Very Helpful Articles:

• Answering Islam - "1500 Years Old Bible found in Turkey?"
• Catholic Answers - "Why the ‘Gospel of Barnabas’ is a Medieval Fake"
• Vatican Insider - "The Gospel of Barnabas ‘hoax’"
• Wikipedia - "The Gospel of Barnabas"

Anachronisms in the "Gospel of Barnabas"

Some readers have noted that the Gospel of Barnabas contains a number of apparent anachronisms and historical incongruities:

• It has Jesus sailing across the Sea of Galilee to Nazareth – which is actually inland; and thence going "up" to Capernaum – which is actually on the lakeside (chapters 20–21); though this is contested by Blackhirst, who says that the traditional location of Nazareth is itself questionable.
• Jesus is said to have been born during the rule of Pontius Pilate, which began after the year 26.
• Barnabas appears not to realize that "Christ" and "Messiah" are synonyms, "Christ" (khristos) being a Greek translation of the word messiah (mashiach), both having the meaning of "anointed". The Gospel of Barnabas thus errs in describing Jesus as "Jesus Christ" (lit. "Messiah Jesus" in Greek), yet claiming that 'Jesus confessed and said the truth, "I am not the Messiah"' (ch. 42).
• There is reference to a jubilee which is to be held every hundred years (Chapter 82), rather than every fifty years as described in Leviticus: 25. This anachronism appears to link the Gospel of Barnabas to the declaration of a Holy Year in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII; a Jubilee which he then decreed should be repeated every hundred years. In 1343 the interval between Holy Years was reduced by Pope Clement VI to fifty years.[16]
• Adam and Eve eat an apple (ch. 40); whereas the traditional association of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Book of Genesis 2:9,17; 3:5) with the apple rests on the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin, where both 'apple' and 'evil' are rendered as 'malum'.
• The Gospel talks of wine being stored in wooden casks (chapter 152). Wooden casks were a characteristic of Gaul and Northern Italy, and were not commonly used for wine in the Roman empire until after 300 CE; whereas wine in 1st century Palestine was always stored in wineskins and jars (amphorae). The Pedunculate or English Oak Quercus robur does not grow in Palestine; and the wood of other species is not sufficiently airtight to be used in wine casks,[56]
• In Chapter 91, the "Forty Days" is referred to as an annual fast.[36] This corresponds to the Christian tradition of fasting for forty days in Lent; a practice that is not witnessed earlier than the Council of Nicaea (325). Nor is there a forty days' fast in Judaism of the period (see Mishnah Tractate Ta'anit, "Days of Fasting").
• Where the Gospel of Barnabas includes quotations from the Old Testament, these correspond to readings as found in the Latin Vulgate rather than as found in either the Greek Septuagint, or the Hebrew Masoretic Text. The Latin Vulgate translation was a work that St. Jerome began in 382 AD, centuries after the death of Barnabas.
• In Chapter 54 it says: "For he would get in change a piece of gold must have sixty mites" (Italian minuti). In the New Testament period, the only golden coin, the aureus, was worth approximately 3,200 of the smallest bronze coin, the lepton (translated into Latin as minuti); while the Roman standard silver coin, the denarius, was worth 128 leptons. The rate of exchange of 1:60 implied in the Gospel of Barnabas was, however, a commonplace of late medieval interpretation of the counterpart passage in the canonical Gospels (Mark 12:42), arising from the standard medieval understanding of minuti as meaning 'a sixtieth part'.
• Chapter 91 records three contending Jewish armies 200,000 strong at Mizpeh, totaling 600,000 men, at a time when the Roman army across the entire Empire had a total strength estimated as 300,000.
• In Chapter 119 Jesus instances sugar and gold as substances of equivalent rarity and value. Although the properties of sugar had been known in India in antiquity, it was not traded as a sweetener until industrial-scale production developed in the 6th century. From the 11th to 15th centuries, the sugar trade into Europe was an Arab monopoly, and its value was often compared with gold. From the mid-15th century, however, large-scale sugar estates were established in the Canary Islands and the Azores, and sugar, although still a luxury item, ceased to be exceptionally rare.

A Messenger of God is EXPECTED to live a SAINTLY LIFE.. must have a SUPERIOR character

“One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur’an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way…"

- Statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam [from JihadWatch comment]

Muhammad in the Bible? Oh come on...

Islam's 'Purpose Driven' Jihad

Read the PART I Introduction of this article from Facing Islam

The Purpose of Islam

Order the Book

One of the most telling aspects of Islam concerns its calendar, which begins from a pivotal event in the life of its founder, Muhammad. Born circa 570 A.D., Muhammad, according to classical Muslim sources, began having revelations at about the age of forty, in a cave near Mecca, where he used to retreat in prayer to Allah. These powerful experiences, during which he was told by a spirit being (later to be identified as the angel Gabriel) to “Read and Recite” were frightening, yet compelling: “He pressed upon me so tightly I thought it was death!” [1]

Yet neither Muhammad’s birth nor the beginning of his self-proclaimed prophethood mark the start date of the Islamic calendar. It is not merely the message, nor the messenger, which defines Islam’s purpose.

Muhammad’s initial message of Allah as the only true God, and submission (“islam”) to him the only true way, did not attract many followers in Mecca, and he fled north to Medina (Yathrib) in 622 A.D. to escape persecution. This migration is called the Hijra, and it is the pivotal event in Islamic history, and in its self-understanding.

Following the Hijra, Muhammad won a series of battles against various Jewish and Arab tribes, consolidating his power and expanding his forces until returning to take Mecca in 632 A.D. These victories were taken by Muslims as divine validation of the truth of Islam and of its very purpose; Muhammad’s life became The Example for all Muslims, and the story of his victory over southern Arabia as the prototype for Islam’s goal of eventual victory over the whole world.

This new purpose may be seen in the Quran itself, as during the ten year Medinan period, Muhammad’s revelations took on a distinctly warlike, supremacist tone, with strident anti-Christian and anti-Jewish messages, and commands to wage jihad against the unbelievers until the whole world had submitted to Allah’s rule, as can be seen from these Medinan verses:

9:5. Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat [the Islamic ritual prayers], and give Zakat [alms], then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

8:39. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah] and the religion will all be for Allah Alone. But if they cease [worshipping others besides Allah], then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.

9:29. Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam] among the people of the Scripture [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya [the poll tax for non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Islamic tradition combines the revelations of the Quran (literally, the “recitations”), together with the Hadiths (traditions about Muhammad) and the Sira (the Life of Muhammad, the most significant written by Ibn Ishaq in the mid-eight century). The Quran cannot be understood properly without the Hadiths and Sira, which form the Sunnah (or ‘Way’) of the Prophet for Muslims. The two most revered collections of Hadiths (Bukhari and Muslim) recount Muhammad as saying:

I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah. (Sahih Bukhari 8:387, Sahih Muslim 1:33)

Thus the full weight of Islamic tradition set up an ultimate purpose for Muslims to fight, to wage jihad to spread Islam. Also according to Muhammad’s example, the Muslims were permitted to take spoils of war (“booty”) from their victories, thus adding a temporal incentive to the call to jihad. Though very little of Islamic tradition was codified in the first decades after Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D., the purpose to wage jihad and conquer in the name of Islam were clearly embraced by his followers, as the Muslim armies swept forth from southern Arabia, in less than a century conquering a vast area stretching from the Iberian peninsula in the west, to central Asia in the east. Raymond Ibrahim has concisely written about the historical reality of these early Muslim conquests elsewhere.

Thus it is Muhammad’s flight to Medina (the Hijra) and the events surrounding it which herald the transformation of Islam from a marginal religious movement into a religious-political-military community (the ‘Umma’), which soon established itself as the dominant force in the Arabian Peninsula and the world of its time. And it is from this date of the Hijra that the Muslim Calendar begins.

The calendar emphasis, which rests not on Muhammad’s birth, nor on the beginning of his so-called revelations, but on Islam’s reinvention with force, victory, wealth and dominion defines Islam’s self-awareness and its purpose. Writ large, Islam sees its purpose as bringing the whole world under submission to Allah and Islam through the practice of jihad.

(Read PART 11)... PART III to be continued by the Author.

[1] Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. by A. Guillaume (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 106.