The Anti-Christian Quran

Part 3

Muhammad's Changing Relationship with Christianity During His Lifetime

The first revelation of the God of Abraham

According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad’s revelations began in 610CE:

‘When the apostle reached the age of forty, the Angel Gabriel came to him in the month of Ramadan with the gift of God’s grace whilst he was praying in a cave on Mount Hira.’

The first revelation was from Al-Lah, the great nameless god of the Kabah, traditionally worshipped in Mecca by the Quraysh alongside three associated goddesses, Al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat.

This time, however, Allah revealed that He was the One True God, with no Partners, and that all the other gods and goddesses worshipped at the Kabah were nothing more than idols.

In this, Muhammad was following the faith of the hanif, four men of Mecca who Ibn Ishaq describes as having rejected the idolatry of their forefathers and who ‘had gone their ways in the lands, seeking the Hanifiya, the true Religion of Abraham.’

Muhammad blessed by Christian priest Waraqa

Ibn Ishaq relates how when the angel had departed, Muhammad hurried back to his wife Khadija. He was in great distress, and in need of reassurance that he was not ‘a crazed poet or madman’.

Khadija said that she believed he was ‘a prophet of this people’ and immediately consulted ‘her cousin Waraqa b. Naufal, (a hanif) who had become a Christian and read the Scripture and learned from those who follow the Torah and the Gospel.’

Waraqa then personally assured Muhammad that he had been visited by the ‘greatest Namus who came unto Moses aforetime.’

Waraqa died shortly after, but his words had inspired Muhammad both to identify the Arab god Allah with the God of the Bible and to see himself as the last prophet in a long line of prophets of the true Religion of Abraham.

Christian influences on Muhammad’s first teachings

Waraqa belonged to the heretical Ebionite or Nazarene sect of Jewish Christians who continued to observe the Law of Moses as laid out in the Torah, whilst following the Gospel of the Ebionites, thought to be an early Aramaic version of St Matthew’s Gospel. Their belief, that Jesus was the ‘Messiah’, but not the Son of God, was adopted by Muhammad and thus became a core belief of Islam.

In fact the Quranic concept of Hell as a ‘fiery furnace’ with Allah ‘sending His angels with a great sound of a trumpet’ whilst the wicked are ‘cast into the eternal fire’ is taken directly from Matthew Chapters 5.22, 18.8 and 25.41.

Under the influence of another Judeo-Christian sect, the Beni Hanifa, led by Maslama b. Habib, Muhammad also came to believe that Jesus had not actually been crucified by the Romans or the Jews, and that Jesus’s reported death on the cross had been some sort of mirage. Instead, God had simply taken Jesus up to heaven.

Muhammad’s Christian sources recognised by the Meccans

In fact, Muhammad’s description in the hadith of the Last Day and the descent of Jesus to fight the Dajjal (Anti-Christ) is so similar, in places almost word for word, to that of Matthew, Chapter 24, that from the very beginning of his ministry, the more educated leaders of the Quraysh realised that the illiterate Muhammad was not receiving revelations direct from Allah as he claimed, but was being ‘taught by others’ including ‘that man in al-Yamama called al-Rahman (Maslama b. Habib).’

Ibn Ishaq says, ‘They (the Quraysh) used to say, “The one who teaches Muhammad most of what he knows is Jabr the Christian, slave of the Beni al-Hadrami.”

In answer to this accusation, Muhammad retorted: ‘We well know what they say, “Only a mortal teaches him.” But that tongue is foreign, and this (Quran) is in clear Arabic speech.’ (Sura 16.103)

The first Muslim emigration - to Christian Abyssinia

In 613CE, Muhammad began to preach publicly in Mecca, saying ‘Woe betide the idolators who serve other gods beside Allah!’ and claiming he was a ‘Warner’ sent to: ‘Warn the unbelievers of the Day when the enemies of Allah will be herded into the Fire, a fitting punishment for those who deny Our Revelations.’ (Sura 41.19 & 28)

The Quraysh rejected his message, but still he persisted, until infuriated by his repeated attacks on the religion of their ancestors, they began to persecute his followers to such an extent that Muhammad was forced to arrange refuge for them with the Negus of of Abyssinia, a Nestorian Christian ruler sympathetic to the plight of those whom he thought belonged to a Christian sect similar to his own.

Jafar deceives the Negus into thinking that Islam is a Christian sect

Ibn Ishaq relates that in 615C, more than eighty Muslims and their families migrated to Abyssinia. When the Quraysh sent two envoys requesting the Negus to send the Muslims back to Mecca, he refused and with his bishops around him, he invited the leader of the Muslims, Muhammad’s own first cousin, Jafar b. Abu Talib, to explain their new religion of Islam.

Jafar said, “Allah has sent us an apostle renowned for his trustworthiness who has called on us to renounce our evil ways, and the stones and idols which our forefathers previously venerated, and has instructed us in prayer, fasting and almsgiving.”

The Negus asked Jafar if he had any scripture from Allah. Jafar, aware of the Nestorian belief (that Jesus had two distinct natures, human and divine, and that the Virgin Mary was merely the mortal mother of the human Christ), deliberately chose not to quote the Quran’s true opinion of Christianity:

‘Christians who worship Jesus as the Holy One, like infidels of yore are guilty of gross idolatry.’ (Sura 9.30)

Instead, Jafar recited a passage from Sura 19 about the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus in the desert. The Negus was so moved by this recital that he swore he would never give up the Muslims to the Quraysh.

The Negus is deceived by Jafar’s eloquence

The next morning, one of the Quraysh envoys told the Negus that the Muslims believed that Jesus was not divine but purely mortal. Again the Muslims were summoned. Jafar knew that the Quran teaches that Jesus was ‘a mortal man, born of a mortal mother.’

He also knew that ‘Those who claim that Jesus Christ is God, defy Allah and Hell shall be their home.’ (Sura 5.72)

Again Jafar skilfully deceived the Negus by saying, “We declare that Jesus is the servant of Allah, His apostle, His Spirit, and His Word, which he cast into Mary the Blessed Virgin.”

The Negus then picked up a stick from the ground, saying, “By God, Jesus Son of Mary does not exceed what you have said by the length of this stick!”

Ibn Ishaq says that ‘the generals who surrounded him snorted with derision.’ Jafar had succeeded in deceiving the Negus, but not his generals, hence their derisive snorts.

Medinan tribes acknowledge Muhammad as the Messiah

Jafar was to remain in Abyssinia for over thirteen years. Meanwhile, in Mecca, Muhammad preached his revelations from Allah, only to have them mocked by the more educated Meccan leaders as re-tellings of ‘stories of the ancients.’

At last, as Ibn Ishaq relates, ‘Whenever he could, Muhammad preached the word of Allah to the Arab tribes at the fairs, and (in 620CE), at al-Aqaba, he met some men of Medina who told him they were of the Khazraj tribe. They and the tribe of Aus lived alongside tribes of Jews, people with knowledge of the Scriptures, whilst they themselves were (ignorant and warring) idolaters.

When the tribesmen heard the apostle recite the Quran, they said to one another, “This is the very Prophet the Jews warned us about. Let us accept him before they do!” And they returned to Medina as believers and Ansar (Helpers), promising to meet up with Muhammad the following year.’

The Night Journey and Ascent to Heaven

From then on, Muhammad began to claim that the god Allah was the same god as in the Old Testament of Bible. Muhammad had always gone along with the Ebionite/Nazarene belief that Jesus, though miraculously born of the Virgin Mary, was merely a mortal man. Now, though, he claimed that he, Muhammad, and not Jesus, was the long-awaited prophet and Messiah foretold in the Jewish Scriptures.

Ibn Ishaq relates how, one morning, Muhammad rushed out of his cousin’s house and proclaimed publicly that he had flown overnight with the Angel Gabriel to the Temple of Jerusalem on Buraq, the winged magical beast, ‘half-mule, half-donkey, whose every stride carried it as far as its eye could reach.’

He claimed to have ascended through the Seven Heavens and seen Jesus (Isa) and John the Baptist (Yahyah) in the Second Heaven, with various Old Testament prophets in the Heavens above them, until ‘in the Last and Seventh Heaven a man was sitting at the gate of the Immortal Mansion. Never have I seen a man more like myself. This was my father Abraham who took me into Paradise.’

Abu Bakr arrived to testify to the truth of Muhammad’s description of Jerusalem, but many Muslims gave up Islam on the spot, only to be accused by Allah of falling into ‘heinous error.’ (Sura 17.60)

This supposed Night Journey and Ascent to Heaven have formed the basis of the Islamic claim to Jerusalem ever since.

Muhammad’s rejection by the Jews of Medina.

After this episode, and in preparation for the Flight to Medina to join his armed supporters who had made the Pledge of War to him in 622CE, Muhammad changed the Muslim qibla (direction of prayer) from the Kabah to Jerusalem in expectation of being hailed by the Jews of Medina as the long-awaited Messiah and Prophet foretold in their Scriptures.

However, the leaders and rabbis of the three largest tribes of Jews of Medina, the Beni Qaynuka, the Beni al-Nadir, and the Beni Qurayza refused to believe in Muhammad’s claims of prophethood, saying that ‘he brought them nothing that they recognised.’

Muhammad became particularly angry when, like the leaders of the Quraysh before them, the Jews of Medina mocked him for being illiterate. The Jews also refused to allow Muhammad’s followers even to have a look at their Scriptures. Muhammad was eventually to get his revenge on the Jews for their unbelief.

He changed the qibla back to the Kabah in 624CE and within three years, these three Jewish tribes no longer existed in Medina, having been exiled or massacred by the Muslims.

Muhammad summons foreign rulers to Islam

Jafar stayed in Abyssinia until Muhammad’s Treaty of Hudaybiya with the Quraysh in 628CE. By then, many Arab tribes were under Islamic rule, and Muhammad had no further need for protection from the Negus. Instead, he had thousands of fanatical Muslim warriors under his command, ready to wage jihad on Christian Syria and Zoroastrian Persia.

In his triumph, he sent out envoys to rulers of neighbouring countries with letters announcing his supremacy as the Prophet of Allah and summoning them ‘to submit to the rule of Islam, pay tribute, or face the consequences (violent attack).’

Muhammad even claimed to be superior to Jesus and his apostles, telling his envoys that ‘Allah had sent him as a mercy to mankind,’ and that they were not to ‘hang back on him as the disciples had hung back from Jesus, son of Maryam, who had ordered them to a similar task, and those who had to go on a short journey were pleased and accepted, but those who had a long journey were displeased, and Jesus complained of them to Allah.’ (Ibn Ishaq, p653)

Muhammad then sent out many envoys including nine principal envoys to al-Yamama, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Egypt, Abyssinia, Bosra in Syria and most notably to the Byzantine Christian Emperor Heraclius, and the Shah of Persia, Chosroes II.

The Battle of Muta, Muhammad’s first major attack on Syria

In 629CE, Muhammad’s envoy to Bosra was passing through the small Syrian town of Muta with his letter summoning them ‘to submit to the rule of Islam, pay tribute, or face the consequences’ when he was imprisoned and executed by a local Ghassanid Christian chieftain.

Muhammad then ordered a punitive attack on Muta. Confident of victory, he chose his closest associates, his adopted son Zayd b. Haritha and his beloved cousin Jafar, newly returned from Christian Abyssinia, as commanders of a 3000-strong army. When both Zayd and Jafar were killed in battle, and the Muslim army completely routed, Muhammad was inconsolable. He became obsessed with revenge.

The Raid on Tabuk, Muhammad’s second major attack on Syria

Just over a year later, by October 630CE, with the Conquest of Mecca, and the defeat of the Hawazin at the Battle of Hunayn under his belt, Muhammad had accumulated an army of over 30,000 men under his own command and at last was in a position to launch a second attack on the Byzantines and to secure the strategic trade route between Medina and Damascus.

New Quranic ‘revelations’ came down to urge all Muslims to join the holy war on Syria: ‘Fight those People of the Book who believe in neither Allah nor the Last Day, and who do not forbid what Allah and His apostle have forbidden, and who do not follow the Religion of Truth, until they make complete submission and pay the jizyah.’ (Sura 9.29)

They have taken as Lords beside Allah their rabbis and their priests, and Christ the son of Mary, when they were command to serve only one God. There is no God but Him. Exalted be He far above those they deify besides Him!’ (Sura 9.31)

As Ibn Ishaq says, ‘This time the prophet said openly that he was making for Syria, to prepare the men for a long and arduous journey in the hot season against a powerful enemy.’ Men reluctant to fight a war in the heat were urged on by harsh admonitions from the Quran: ‘The heat of hell-fire is fiercer, if only they understood!’ (Sura 9.81)

In fact, Muhammad subjected his men to such thirst and suffering that the expedition became known as Jaysh al-Usrah (The Brigade of Distress).

Christians attacked and forced to pay tribute

When the Muslim army reached Tabuk, the Christian Governor of Aqaba, John of Ayla, was forced to pay jizyah (tribute) in return for a document that ‘guaranteed the people of Ayla the protection of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad for their ships and their caravans by land and sea.’

Muhammad also sent warrior Khalid b. al-Walid to capture and subdue Ukaydir, the Christian King of the border town of Dumat al-Jandal. When Khalid’s cavalry attacked at night, Ukaydir’s brother, Hassan, was killed, the town was forced to surrender, and the booty amounted to 2000 camels, 800 sheep, 400 coats of mail and 400 spears. Ukaydir himself was taken in chains to Medina where Muhammad spared his life on condition that the people of Duma also paid jizyah to the nascent Islamic State.

All pagan unbelievers to convert or be killed

Following the success of his enterprise of Tabuk, Muhammad sent Ali to Mecca in 631CE to proclaim the Discharge of all Obligations to Unbelievers, cancelling all previous treaties made with idolators, and giving them four months to submit to Islam or be hunted down and killed.

Muhammad said, “I have been ordered to fight the people until they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and they establish prayer and pay zakat (the poor tax). If they do, their blood and wealth are protected from me save by the rights of Islam. Their reckoning will be with Allah.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1, Bk 2, Hadith 240)

Muhammad’s demand for submission sent to the Christians of Najran

Deputations then came from the tribes of Arabia to pledge allegiance to Islam. In his triumph, Muhammad sent one of his threatening letters to the Bishop of Najran demanding his submission to Islam:

“In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, this letter is from Muhammad, the Prophet and Messenger of Allah to the Bishop of Najran. I invite you to worship Allah instead of worshipping His servant (Jesus). If you do not accept this invitation, you must pay jizyah to the Islamic State, failing which, you are hereby warned of dangerous consequences.”

The Christian rulers of Najran then sent a large deputation headed by the Bishop of Najran to Muhammad.

‘Muhammad invited them to submit to Allah, but they said they had already submitted. He said, “You lie! Your assertion that God has a Son, your worship of the Cross, and your eating pork hold you back from submission (Islam).”(Ibn Ishaq, p272)

Muhammad recited the Quran in order to refute the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, to refute the divinity of Christ, to deny the crucifixion and to proclaim the Oneness of Allah. Muhammad then accused the Christians of Najran of being idolators and infidels who would burn in hell forever. He claimed that he had been ‘commanded by Allah to resort to the mutual invocation of a mubahala (prayer curse), and he summoned them to begin.’(Sura 3.61)

The Mubahala

The next day, when the Christians of Najran came to the place of the mubahala, they found that Muhammad was waiting for them with just four members of his household: his daughter Fatima, his son-in-law, Ali, and his two little grandsons Hassan and Husayn.

On seeing this, the noble Bishop of Najran, whose people had already suffered years of persecution for their beliefs, said ‘that they had decided not to resort to mutual cursing, but to leave him in his religion and return home.’

And having seen for himself the military might of the Prophet, and the fanaticism of his warriors, the Bishop agreed to sign a Treaty of Protection and pay jizyah (protection money) to Muhammad’s new Islamic State.

Afterwards, a triumphant Muhammad said, “If they had entered into malediction, they would have been changed into monkeys and pigs, and they would have been engulfed in flames!” The Festival of Mubahala is still celebrated by Shia Muslims today as the ultimate ‘Victory of the Truth of Islam over Christianity.’

Christians - protectors who became victims of Islamic violence

It is clear that at the time of Muhammad’s first revelation in 610CE, Muhammad and his followers received the advice and protection of devout Christians around him.

Two decades later, however, by 630CE, Muhammad had realized that they would never follow him instead of Jesus, or convert to Islam, and he had begun vilifying them as infidels and idolators and had led an army of 30,000 men to Tabuk in a surprise attack on Christian Syria.

On his deathbed, in 632CE, Muhammad ordered Osama son of Zayd to lay waste to Ubna in Syria in revenge for his father’s death at Muta. It was a precursor of the violence to come in 633CE when the Muslim hordes would spill out of Arabia screaming ‘Allah akhbar! We love death more than you love life!’ laying waste to Palestine and massacring the Christian Byzantine army at the Battle of Yarmuk before taking Jerusalem in 637CE.