No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

  When lodging this criticism, a small minority of Muslims are envisioning insignificant biblical alterations that they perceive to be significant. To understand this, we again have to see through an Islamic lens. Muslims believe the Quran has to be perfectly preserved right down to the very letter because of the Quran’s mystical nature. But an altered letter is not a problem for Christians, because Christians are concerned with the preservation of the meaning of the Bible, and the same thing can be said in multiple ways in Greek without changing the meaning. For example, the words “Jesus loves Peter” can be written sixteen ways in Greek. The letters could be altered in sixteen different ways without affecting the meaning whatsoever. So this kind of accusation might be true, but it is insignificant from the Christian perspective.

  What most Muslims envision when they say the Bible has been corrupted, though, are wholesale omissions or insertions of New Testament teachings, intentional alterations by ruling powers. This sort of corruption of the biblical text simply never happened, nor could it have happened.

  As an example, let us consider the book of the Bible called 1 Peter. When the disciple Peter wrote this letter, he sent it to its recipients. They made copies of it and sent the copies to other churches in other cities. Those churches made copies of it and sent them out to yet other churches. Now let’s imagine that the church to which Peter sent it made five copies, and each church they sent a copy to made five more copies. Even at this early stage in the life of the letter, there are thirty-one extant copies. If someone wanted to effectively alter the text, they would have to recall all thirty-one copies. But nobody had the ability to do that. Nobody had ruling power over all of Christendom until the fourth century, three hundred years after Jesus. By that time, there were thousands of copies of the biblical texts, and even someone with authority over them would not have the practical ability to collect them all.

  Even if someone had the capacity to recall all the texts and edit them, there would certainly have been some record of such a massive recall. It is virtually impossible to envision every Christian calmly handing over sacred texts to be altered without some trace of resistance or complaint.

  So the only way the Bible could have been corrupted on such a grand scale is if someone early in Christian history had the authority and the power to recall all the texts, destroy them, and issue official copies, resulting in complaints and resistance. Yet no such person or record of events has ever existed. Interestingly, such a person and such a record do exist in the early history of the Quran.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE FIRST BURNING OF THE QURAN

  Muhammad’s third successor, the Caliph Uthman, had authority over the entire Muslim ummah from approximately AD 644–655. Already by his time, variant recitations of the Quran were causing dissension among Muslims, and Uthman decided he had to do something before the hostilities spread.

  Within about twenty years after Muhammad’s death, the leader of the Islamic Empire recalled all Quranic manuscripts, destroyed them by fire, and issued official, standardized copies. When this happened, devout companions of Muhammad strongly resisted the recall of their texts, and the records of their dissent remain with us today.

  So the Bible could not have been altered because there was no central control over it in early Christian history, and as such it was never recalled or edited. But there certainly was such control over the Quran in early Muslim history, and there was an exact time when it was recalled and edited. Islamic history makes no attempt to hide the official burning of all Qurans and the propagation of its officially standardized version.

  Apart from ignorance or bias, I am not sure how anyone can continue to accuse the Bible of corruption when the Quran would stand condemned under consistent scrutiny. Indeed, the history of the Quran was one of the factors that stopped me from accusing the Bible of corruption when I was a Muslim. On account of Uthman’s control over the Quran, there simply is no basis to accuse the Bible of large-scale corruption without condemning the Quran.

  THE DIVERSITY OF SCRIPTURE

  In addition to its more pristine textual history, the diversity of the Bible is a strength. It reflects God’s love for diversity. One language is not superior, one people are not superior, one mode of writing is not superior. Rather, God intends for humans to learn from history books, from law, from poetry, from proverbs, from apocalyptic literature, and more. He can teach through a fisherman like Peter, through a theologian like Paul, through a statesman like Moses, through a queen like Esther, and through his own incarnation. There is beauty and power in diversity, and the Bible reflects that.

  More to the point of trustworthiness, in order to accept the Quran, one has to first accept Muhammad, as he is the only one who received Quranic revelations from Gabriel. On the other hand, whole communities testified to the inspiration of the biblical Scriptures, and they did not come from the mouth of one person.1

  THE BIBLE SPEAKS TO THE HEART OF MAN

  As a Muslim, even though I had plenty of evidence to trust the Bible and had learned about Uthman’s recension of the Quran, the ultimate tipping point for me came when I asked God himself to lead me. At the end of my rope, completely distraught and emptied of tears, I asked God, whether Allah or Jesus, to guide me through his Scripture. I needed his comfort, and I was turning to him.

  I started by opening the Quran. This was my first time opening the Quran for personal guidance instead of simply reciting memorized portions of it or asking an imam for help. As I looked through its pages, I realized there was not a single verse in it designed to comfort me while I was hurting. Although there were certainly verses that promised Allah would reward me for doing the right thing, there was nothing that said Allah loves me for who I am or that sought to comfort me despite my failures.

  The Bible, on the other hand, was overflowing with the comfort of God and his love for me. God spoke to me through Matthew 5:4, which says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (NIV). Here there is no condition, no requirement of performance; God comforts those who are mourning. Verse 6 amplified this: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (NIV). Not blessed are the righteous, but blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. As if written for someone like me, someone hurting and just reaching out to God, the Bible spoke to me of God’s love.

  It spoke to me. Not to Muhammad, not to seventh-century speakers of Arabic, but to me. And that is the power of God’s Word—it traverses the ages and resonates with all his people. There is no word like the Word of God.

  PART 5

  JIHAD OR THE CRUSADES?

  TWO DIFFERENT HOLY WARS

  CHAPTER 17

  THE FIRST CRUSADE

  In Clermont, France, on November 27, AD 1095, Pope Urban II issued the First Crusade. He goaded Christians into traveling from Western Europe to the Middle East, where Muslims had lived for over 450 years, in order to fight against the “infidels” and “barbarians,” “an accursed race wholly alienated from God.” He urged not only knights but even mercenaries and robbers to “obtain the eternal reward” by joining in the effort “to destroy that vile race from the lands.”1 Many were moved by the pope’s call to arms, and Europeans soon departed to carry the cross eastward into battle.

  In the spring of 1096, an army of crusaders advanced through the Rhineland led by Count Emicho, where it was believed that Jewish moneylenders kept hoards of wealth. Emicho’s army went from city to city slaughtering innocent Jews as “enemies of Christ,” plundering their wealth to finance the Crusade. His army killed thousands of Jews and forced others to convert or face the same fate.

  As the crusaders continued toward the Holy Land, their attacks against various cities delayed their arrival to Jerusalem until June 1099. After a few days’ siege, the crusaders were finally able to overcome the city’s defenses and fulfill their quest. A contemporary account, The Deeds of the Franks, chronicles the massacre from a soldier’s perspective. As
soon as one of the knights scaled the fortifications,

  all the defenders of the city quickly fled along the walls and through the city. Our men followed and pursued them, killing and hacking, as far as the temple of Solomon, and there was such a slaughter that our men were up to their ankles in the enemy’s blood . . . Entering the city, our pilgrims pursued and killed the Saracens up to the temple of Solomon. There the Saracens assembled and resisted fiercely all day, so that the whole temple flowed with their blood. At last the pagans were overcome and our men seized many men and women in the temple, killing them or keeping them alive as they saw fit . . . Then the crusaders scattered throughout the city, seizing gold and silver, horses and mules, and houses full of all sorts of goods. Afterwards our men went rejoicing and weeping for joy to adore the sepulchre of our Saviour Jesus and there discharged their debt to Him.2

  Shortly after this bloody conquest, the crusader lords wrote a letter to the pope, chronicling their journey and culminating in a description of how the Muslims suffered at their hands. “If you desire to know what was done with the enemy who were found there, know that in Solomon’s Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses.”3

  These are the records of history, and the nine hundred intervening years do nothing to blur the vivid images of the First Crusade in the collective memory of modern Muslims.

  AMERICAN MUSLIMS, THE CRUSADES, AND JIHAD

  I cannot speak for all American Muslims, but my family is very patriotic. My father served the US Navy faithfully for twenty-four years, starting as a seaman and retiring as a lieutenant commander in 2000. It was he who taught me, while I was visiting his naval base in Groton, Connecticut, to put my hand over my heart while reciting the national anthem. My mother, among other matters, impressed on me the importance of voting. On the day of a presidential election, I discovered that my parents were voting for opposing candidates. When I suggested to my mother that they should both just stay home that night since their votes would cancel out, she responded, “Son, it is our duty to vote.”

  In those years, we traveled often to New York City for vacation since it was a short two-hour drive from our home. My sister, a cosmopolitan at heart, developed a great love for the city. Her eyes always grew large when staring up at the skyscrapers, and she never left Manhattan willingly. Throughout her teen years, the most prominent decoration in her room was a large, framed image of the New York City skyline on her wall. It was still there on September 11, 2001, when our world crashed around us.

  I am convinced that the attack on the World Trade Center hit patriotic American Muslims harder than the average citizen. We reeled with the rest of the nation at the deaths of fellow Americans, but we were simultaneously hit with an identity crisis. The terrorists had killed our countrymen in the name of our God. As we were trying to come to grips with these opposing realities, most Americans had no dilemma because they could simply denounce Islam. We were forced to somehow stand up for our faith while also standing up for our country, all in light of the potential that people would demonize not just Islam but us Muslims as well.

  Thankfully, prominent Americans stood up to defend Muslims, not the least of whom was former president Bill Clinton. In a speech in Washington, DC, less than two months after the attack, Clinton said, “In the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they . . . proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the temple mound. The contemporaneous descriptions of the event describe soldiers walking on the temple mound, a holy place to Christians, with blood running up to their knees. I can tell you that that story is still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.”4

  President Clinton, who had always been popular with our Muslim community, was impressing upon his audience that Christians had been guilty of wanton violence in the name of their God. This sentiment resonated with Muslims more than Clinton may have realized, because it accorded with the narrative that we had inherited in the Islamic community: Islam had spread peacefully after the advent of Muhammad only to be opposed by violent crusaders in the East and the Spanish inquisition in the West. Christians were the aggressors, and Muslims were the victims. Jihad, so we had learned, was either a spiritual or a defensive enterprise.

  Along with Clinton’s admission, it seemed that others were coming to agree with this perspective. Most Americans I knew looked at the Crusades with shame. A scholar at Georgetown University, John Esposito, described the Crusades as the beginning of hostilities between Muslims and Christians: “Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to a centuries-long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust.” Sharing a similar understanding, Ridley Scott released a movie in 2005 called The Kingdom of Heaven, which depicted Christians as the aggressors against civil Muslims who simply desired peaceful coexistence. At that time, it seemed to me that jihad had been vindicated even in the eyes of the West and that no one could point a finger at Islam, given the atrocities of the Crusades.

  Still, I was convinced that no one should judge a religion by its followers. That’s why, as I was considering the truth of Christianity and Islam, I would not allow mujahideen—those who enact jihad—to impact my view of Islam, and I would not allow crusaders to impact my view of Christianity. In my mind, there were only two people whose behavior mattered: Muhammad and Jesus. I was convinced that neither crusaders nor mujahideen had anything to do with the original teachings of their religions.

  But that, as I found out, was a step too far.

  THE CRUSADES IN CONTEXT

  Many years after leaving Islam, while conversing with colleagues, I expressed my dismay at Christians who take the name of Christ but do not try to live according to his principles. When I used the Crusades as an example of such hypocrisy, a good friend challenged me with a very straightforward question: “Nabeel, have you ever investigated the history of the Crusades?” To my shame, I had to admit that I had not. I just assumed that everyone agreed the Crusades were an abomination and an inexcusable blight upon Christian history. Without condoning the atrocities, my colleague suggested I take a fresh look at the Crusades so I could have a well-rounded understanding.

  When I started investigating, it immediately became clear that neither party in these wars had clean hands. In 1268, Sultan Baybars I, a Muslim notoriously known as the Lion of Egypt, taunted a Christian ruler whose city had just been conquered in the latter’s absence. Baybars vividly describes what Count Bohemond VI would have seen had he been present in Antioch:

  Death . . . came among the besieged from all sides and by all roads: we killed all whom you appointed to guard the city or defend its entrances. If you had seen your knights trampled under the feet of horses, your provinces given up to pillage, your riches distributed by full measures, the wives of your subjects placed on the market for sale; if you had seen the altars and crosses overturned, the leaves of the Gospel torn and cast to the winds, and the sepulchers of your ancestors profaned; if you had seen your enemies, the Muslims, trampling upon the tabernacle and burning alive monks, priests, and deacons in the sanctuary; in short, if you had seen your palaces given up to the flames, the dead devoured by the fire of this world, the Church of St. Paul and that of St. Peter completely and entirely destroyed, certainly you would have cried out, “By Heaven, I wish that I had become dust!”5

  According to the records, Baybars torched Antioch and emptied the city of its inhabitants. Fourteen thousand Christians were killed, and a hundred thousand were taken into slavery. This is an atrocity on par with the First Crusade’s massacre in Jerusalem. I was not expecting this, as the narrative I had always heard was that the crusaders were the only ones perpetrating atrocities, not Muslims. It occurred to me that the only way to vindicate my inherited narrative was if this massacre was belated retribution for what the crusaders had done in 1099, so
I started studying the context of the battles, including the First Crusade. It was then that I discovered that the narrative I had inherited was lamentably misinformed.

  Just a few years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade, the Seljuq Turks had conquered Nicaea, the same city where, 750 years prior, Constantine had convened the church’s First Ecumenical Council. The Seljuq Turks were Sunni Muslims, and they had taken Nicaea from the Byzantine emperor, a Christian. It was he, the Byzantine emperor, who asked Pope Urban II for help defending his lands at the Council of Piacenza in 1095. In other words, Muslims were actively attacking and conquering Christians, and the First Crusade was a defensive effort.

  But what I learned next was even more shocking: The Seljuq army contained warriors called mamluks, slave children who were trained to ultimately become young professional fighters. These slave warriors were first used by Muslim caliphs in the ninth century, and for the next thousand years they were ubiquitous in Islamic lands. According to one scholar, sixteen of the seventeen preeminent Muslim dynasties in history systematically used slave warriors.6 These slave boys were often captured from places like Egypt, where Christian territories had been conquered by Muslims. This means Muslim rulers were capturing Christian boys and turning them into slave warriors to fight against other Christians.7