Postby unity » Sat Apr 01, 2006 08:07 am
Brother you have quoted some verses and I appreciate that it mentions some of the commandments but I am afraid if that means abrogation of other commandments.
For me as I understand from following verse Jesus pbuh very categorically said
Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the prophets. I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill.”
Instead, he confirmed the teachings preceding him, which was the Law set by Prophet Moses (Peace and blessing be upon him). A guidance that is sanctioned by and is also analogous with that of Islam, having been anchored upon monotheism, its inherent bedrock which happens to be every other prophet's battlecry and message.
Further the verses you have provided clearly and categorically states that Jesus pbuh is not claiming divinity .rather he is pointing to the god in heaven ant himself and he is addressed as teacher and not god almighty.
16 And behold, one came to Him and said, "Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?" 17 And He said to him, "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you 45 in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous
Regarding your second misconception that islam does not prescribe good teachings.
If you may read then your misconception may be cleared god willing.
They are as follows:
I. BELIEF IN THE ONENESS OF GOD (ALLAH):
Jesus was very explicit in his words about the “Unity of God” instead of the “Holy Trinity” which he never said nor preached in his lifetime:
1. Matthew 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you Satan! it is written:” you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve”.
2. Mark 12:29 Jesus answered him. “The first of all the commandments is: Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one”.
3. Isiah 43:10-11 “Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no savior.”
4. John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and of Jesus Christ whom you have sent”.
II. GOOD DEEDS:
A. Carrying out Prayer (Prostration):
The only people in the whole world today who pray like Jesus (Peace and blessing be upon him), and all the other prophets are the Muslims:
1. Matthew 26:39 “He (Jesus) went a little farther and fell on his face, and prayed, O my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will”.
2. Psalm 55:17 “Evening and morning and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice”.
3. Numbers 20:6 “So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and they fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them”.
B. FASTING:
Islam obliges Muslims to fast just as Jesus and the prophets did during their tenure in the world:
1. Matthew 4:2 “And when he (Jesus) had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungry”.
2. Exodus 34: 28 “And he (Moses) was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water”.
3. Matthew 6:16 “Moreover when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, with a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward”.
C. CHARITY:
Islam obliges Muslims to pay charity, just as Jesus urged his constituents in his time:
1. Matthew 6:3-4 “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly.”
D. PILGRIMAGE TO MACA/BACA:
Muslims perform pilgrimage (Hajj) like the prophets before them to the first house of worship (Ka’bah) in Maca, also known as Baca, which was built by Abraham, the father of all the prophets and his son Ishmael.
1. Psalm 84:5-6 “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the valley of Baca, They make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools”.
E. GREETINGS:
Muslims greet each other by saying: Peace be with you (As-salam ‘Alaykum), the same way Jesus (Peace and blessing be upon him) greeted people during his ministry on earth:
1. Luke 24:36 “Now as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “Peace to you”.
2. John 20:19 “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you”.
There are many more things which followers of jesus pbuh should be doing like:
Abstaining from prohibited food
Al-Qur'an 5:5
Al-Qur'an 2:173, 5:3, 6:145, 16:115
Dead meat
Leviticus 17:15
Deuteronomy 14:21
Blood
Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:14, Deuteronomy 12:16,
I Samuel 14:33, Acts 15:29
Pork is prohibited
Leviticus 11:7-8
Deuteronomy 14:8
Isaiah 65:2-5
Food on which names beside Allah have been invoked
Acts 15:29; Revelation 2:14
Being Honest in your Business
Helping Neighbours
Al-Qur'an 107:1-7
Abstaining from Backbiting
Al-Qur'an 104:1-3
Al-Qur'an 49:11-12
Obeying and Respecting Parents
Al-Qur'an 17:23, 24
Celibacy or Monasticism is prohibited in Islam
Sahih Bukhari: Vol. 7 Book of Nikah, Chapter No. 3, Hadith No. 4
Loving, being Kind and Just to your Wife
Al-Qur'an 4:19
Abstaining from Adultery
Al-Qur'an 17:32
Dressing Modestly
Al-Qur'an 24:30
Mathew 5:27-28
Al-Qur'an 24:31
) (iii Timothy 2:9 e.g. of Mary
Corinthians 11:5-6
Circumcision
Acts 7:8
John 7:22
Luke 2:21
In short, every Muslim should follow all the Commandments of Allah (swt) and His Messenger Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and abstain from the things they have prohibited.
Regarding your calling mohammad as a liar I will inshaallah post another matter to clear this misconception as well. But here I am producing just a extract of what a Christian historian says about him.
Prophet Muhammad - The Most Influential Man in History
from the book by Michael Hart
The following is from Michael Hart's book and lists Prophet Muhammad as the most influential man in History. A Citadel Press Book, published by Carol Publishing Group
Ranking of the twenty from the list of 100:
1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung
MUHAMMAD, No. 1
The 100, a Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History
by Michael H. Hart
My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive. The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time a backward area of the world, far from the centers of trade, art, and learning. Orphaned at age six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was illiterate. His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow. Nevertheless, as he approached forty, there was little outward indication that he was a remarkable person. Most Arabs at that time were pagans, who believed in many gods. There were, however, in Mecca, a small number of Jews and Christians; it was from them no doubt that Muhammad first learned of a single, omnipotent God who ruled the entire universe. When he was forty years old, Muhammad became convinced that this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him, and had chosen him to spread the true faith. For three years, Muhammad preached only to close friends and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in public. As he slowly gained converts, the Meccan authorities came to consider him a dangerous nuisance. In 622, fearing for his safety, Muhammad fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles north of Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable political power. This flight, called the Hegira, was the turning point of the Prophet's life. In Mecca, he had had few followers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence that made him a virtual dictator. During the next few years, while Muhammad's following grew rapidly, a series of battles were fought between Medina and Mecca. This was ended in 630 with Muhammad's triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror. The remaining two and one-half years of his life witnessed the rapid conversion of the Arab tribes to the new religion.
When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of southern Arabia. The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia had a reputation as fierce warriors. But their number was small; and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no match for the larger armies of the kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas to the north. However, unified by Muhammad for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief in the one true God, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of conquests in human history. To the northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents. On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By 642, Egypt had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend in 642. But even these enormous conquests, which were made under the leadership of Muhammad's close friends and immediate successors, Ali, Abu Bakr and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, did not mark the end of the Arab advance. By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean There they turned north and, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.
For a while, it must have seemed that the Moslems would overwhelm all of Christian Europe. However, in 732, at the famous Battle of Tours, a Moslem army, which had advanced into the center of France, was at last defeated by the Franks. Nevertheless, in a scant century of fighting, these Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the word of the Prophet, had carved out an empire stretching from the borders of India to the Atlantic Ocean-the largest empire that the world had yet seen. And everywhere that the armies conquered, large-scale conversion to the new faith eventually followed. Now, not all of these conquests proved permanent. The Persians, though they have remained faithful to the religion of the Prophet, have since regained their independence from the Arabs. And in Spain, more than seven centuries of warfare, finally resulted in the Christians reconquering the entire peninsula. However, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the two cradles of ancient civilization, have remained Moslem, as has the entire coast of North Africa. The new religion, of course, continued to spread, in the intervening centuries, far beyond the borders of the original Moslem conquests. Currently it has tens of millions of adherents in Africa and Central Asia and even more in Pakistan and northern India, and in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the new faith has been a unifying factor. In the Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict between Moslems and Hindus is still a major obstacle to unity.
How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of Muhammad on human history? Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism), St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament. Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles. In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Koran, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah. Most of these utterances were copied more or less faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime and were collected together in authoritative form not long after his death. The Koran therefore, closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words. No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived. Since the Koran is at least as important to Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the influence of Muhammad through the medium of the Koran has been enormous. It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity.
On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus. Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time. Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them. For example, the South American colonies would probably have won their independence from Spain even if Simon Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests. Nothing similar had occurred before Muhammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him. The only comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan. These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan. It is far different with the conquests of the Arabs. From Iraq to Morocco, there extends a whole chain of Moslem nations united not merely by their faith in Islam, but also by their Arabic language, history, and culture.
The centrality of the Koran in the Moslem religion and the fact that it is written in Arabic have probably prevented the Arab language from breaking up into mutually unintelligible dialects, which might otherwise have occurred in the intervening thirteen centuries. Differences and divisions between these Arab states exist, of course, and they are considerable, but the partial disunity should not blind us to the important elements of unity that have continued to exist. For instance, neither Iran nor Indonesia, both oil-producing states and both Islamic in religion joined in the oil embargo of the winter of 1973-74. It is no coincidence that all of the Arab states, and only the Arab states, participated in the embargo. We see, then, that the Arab conquests of the seventh century have continued to play an important role in human history, down to the present day. It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history.
The following is from Michael Hart's book and lists Prophet Muhammad as the most influential man in History. A Citadel Press Book, published by Carol Publishing Group
Ranking, list of 100 most influential persons in history:
1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung
21. Genghis Khan
22. Euclid
23. Martin Luther
24. Nicolaus Copernicus
25. James Watt
26. Constantine the Great
27. George Washington
28. Michael Faraday
29. James Clerk Maxwell
30. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright
31. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
32. Sigmund Freud
33. Alexander the Great
34. Napoleon Bonaparte
35. Adolf Hitler
36. William Shakespeare
37. Adam Smith
38. Thomas Edison
39. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek
40. Plato
41. Guglielmo Marconi
42. Ludwig van Beethoven
43. Werner Heisenberb
44. Alexander Graham Bell
45. Alexander Fleming
46. Simon Bolivar
47. Oliver Cromwell
48. John Locke
49. Michelangelo
50. Pope Urban II
51. Umar ibn al-Khattab
52. Asoka
53. St. Augustine
54. Max Planck
55. John Calvin
56. William T.G. Morton
57. William Harvey
58. Antoine Henri Becquerel
59. Gregor Mendel
60. Joseph Lister
61. Nikolaus August Otto
62. Louis Daguerre
63. Joseph Stalin
64. Rene Descartes
65. Julius Caesar
66. Francisco Pizarro
67. Hernando Cortes
68. Queen Isabella I
69. William the Conqueror
70. Thomas Jefferson
71. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
72. Edward Jenner
73. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen
74. Hohann Sebastian Bach
75. Lao Tzu
76. Enrico Fermi
77. Thomas Malthus
78. Francis Bacon
79. Voltaire
80. John F. Kennedy
81. Gregory Pincus
82. Sui Wen Ti
83. Mani
84. Vasco da Gama
85. Charlemagne
86. Cyprus the Great
87. Leonhard Euler
88. Niccolo Machiavelli
89. Zoroaster
90. Menes
91. Peter the Great
92. Mencius
93. John Dalton
94. Homer
95. Queen Elizabeth
96. Justinian I
97. fJohannes Kepler
98. Pablo Picasso
99. Mahavira
100. Niels Bohr
Honorable Mentions and Interesting Misses:
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Archimedes
• Charles Babbage
• Cheops
• Marie Curie
• Benjamin Franklin
• Gandhi
• Abraham Lincoln
• Ferdinand Magellan
• Leonardo da Vinci
The non-Muslim verdict on Muhammad (PBUH) If a man like Muhamed were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness.
George Bernard Shaw
People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius, on one hand, and Alexander, Caesar and Hitler on the other, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third sense. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone. Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Mohammed, who combined all three functions. To a lesser degree, Moses did the same.
Professor Jules Masserman
Head of the State as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but, he was Pope without the Pope's pretensions, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a police force, without a fixed revenue. If ever a man had the right to say that he ruled by a right divine, it was Muhummed, for he had all the powers without their supports. He cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life.
Rev. R. Bosworth-Smith
Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him.
Diwan Chand Sharma, The Prophets of the East, Calcutta 1935, p. l 22.
Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia the man who, of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race . . . Mohammed . . .
John William Draper, M.D., L.L.D., A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875, Vol. 1, pp. 329-330
In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal rule of Medina, with his hands on the lever that was to shake the world.
John Austin, "Muhammad the Prophet of Allah," in T.P. 's and Cassel's Weekly for 24th September 1927.
Philosopher, Orator, Apostle, Legislator, Warrior, Conqueror of ideas Restorer of rational beliefs, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammed. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?
Lamartine, Historie de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol. 11 pp. 276-2727
It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new way of admiration, a new of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.
Annie Besant, The Life and Teachings of Muhammad, Madras 1932, p. 4
Muhummed is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities.
Encyclopedia Britannica
I have studied him - the wonderful man - and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ he must be called the saviour of humanity.
George Bernard Shaw in "The Genuine Islam"
By a fortune absolutely unique in history, Mohammed is a threefold founder of a nation, of an empire, and of a religion.
Rev. R. Bosworth-Smith in "Mohammed and Mohammedanism 1946."
I hope THIS MAY CLEAR MISCONCEPTION ABOUT messengers of god .
Thanks