Bismika Alllahuma

4 Responses to “Learning Christianity in five minutes”

1. Denis Giron said on 7 November 2007:

   This struck me as being exceedingly hard to take seriously.

   For example, one premise of his argument seems to be that if a book was compiled 40 or more years after the time of Jesus, then that book is not a reliable text. Was not the traditional date for the composition for the Qur’an (significantly) more than 40 years after the time of Jesus? Would Mr. Yasin be willing to admit that this is a poor argument? Or would he prefer to merely special plead on behalf of the Qur’an?

   What is this bit about last names? Does every man on the planet even today, in the 21st century, have a first and last name? And what is that bit about all the Church Fathers agreeing that, perhaps, these were just pen name, because no man would only put his first name and “according to”? I am very confident that Mr. Yasin would not be able to list even one Church Father who stated such, unless he drastically altered the meaning of “Church Father”.

   And what serious authority, whether or Christian or not, actually believes that Paul authored all the books from Acts to the end of the New Testament? I cannot think of a single scholar, whether Christian or secular, who believes that Paul authored either of the two epistles attributed to Peter, the three epistles attributed to John, the epistles attributed to James, the epistle attributed to Jude, much less the Apocalypse attributed to John.

   He seems intent on setting up a dichotomy between what Jesus said, and what is said about Jesus in the New Testament. What is his methodology for separating the two? And, as he went through the litany of things those authors said about Jesus, why did he not include the virgin birth? Does the same sort of insinuated reasoning not apply?

   In short, and with all due respect to Mr. Yasin, I found this video to be filled with quite a few errors and instances of poor reasoning.

2. Musa said on 5 December 2007:

   Assalamu ‘alaykum

   I send to you two little debates about Jesus and his alleged divinity

   http://www.dailymotion.com/ivo.....s-god_news

   http://www.dailymotion.com/ivo.....ion_events

   I think, it’s interesting

3. Bassam Zawadi said on 18 February 2008:

   that khalid yasin speech left 22 australians converting to islam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

4. tariq said on 5 September 2008:

   Denis,

   There are a few issues with your response, let me explain the biggest one:
   The time of writing down of the Quran was in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Different companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) owned various parts of the written revelation. Also the Quran was MEMORIZED in its entirety during the time of the prophet by many people. When it was compiled during the caliphate of Uthman (RA) less than 30 years after the death of the Prophet (SAW), a committee of memorisers (Hafiz) of the Quran was formed (under the chairmanship of the scribe of the Prophet (SW)- Zaid (RA), who used to write down the Quran when it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW)), then those who had pieces of the revelation were called in, and after cross verification from all these sources, the Quran was compiled. No other religion has preserved revelation from God as Islam has!

   This is the essential difference (missed by many Christians) between what is the strength of Islam and the weakness of other religions. Islam has a strong “CHAIN of NARRATION” for every document. No other religion on the face of the earth has such a verification process. We KNOW who each of the people were in that committee which compiled the Qur’an, we know their antecedents and their lifestyles. We know the opinions of their contemporaries about them, they lived their lives in the full light of history to be verified by posterity.

   The same is true for the Hadith (sayings and actions of the Holy Prophet (SAW)). When Imam Bukhari wrote his famous treatise on Hadith (it was not the first by any means), and when he quotes a saying from the Prophet (SAW), there is a chain of narrators of each saying right upto the Prophet (SAW)… “So-and-so heard from so-and-so heard from so-and-so that the Holy Prophet (SAW) said… “. We know who each of these people in the chain were, we know if they really met the people they claimed to have narrated from, we know if they were truthful or not, we know if they were forgetful or not, we know who were their teachers and we know what their contemporaries and teachers thought of them.

   All this is made possible by the science of “Asma-war-Rijaal”, and thousands of scholars over hundreds of years dedicated their lives to this science. They painstakingly compiled biographies of each and every narrator of the Hadith and analyzed and debated them under a microscope, leaving out no detail of their life. The lives of 500,000 narrators were compiled this way. And all for verifying what ONE man, our beloved Prophet (may peace and blessings of Allah (SWT) be upon him) had said or did. The masters of Hadith travelled thousands of miles to collect one saying and to verify one chain of narration from him.

   In contrast now lets take Christianity, do we know who Mark was? Do we know who taught him about Isa - Jesus (PBUH)? Do we know anything about his character or truthfulness or piety or his forgetfulness and grasp of reality? Wait, do we even know his last name? No! And is this what we are supposed to base our ultimate salvation on?

   Index of Abbreviations-
   SAW- Sallallahu ‘alayhi wa-sallam: Peace and blessings of Allah (SWT) be upon him
   PBUH - Peace be upon Him

   I apologize if I hurt someone’s feelings with this, but the issue is larger than our feelings, it is salvation itself.

   Peace
   Your brother in humanity,
   Tariq

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