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on 12-08-2002 17:31
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Unveiling Islam: An Inside look at Muslim Life and Beliefs
By Ergun Mehmet Canner
Emir Fethe Canner
Krergal Publications
$11.99
251 pp.
Reviewed By Khalil Abdel Alim
Since the violence in recent years among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, many books have been written attempting to explain Islam. Some of them have been polemical, written by those who wish to discredit Islam and show that their religion is superior.
Others have written of Islam as though it is a political philosophy, others have sought to show Islam to be violent and inimical to the West. Two brothers who became Christians as teenagers through emotional acceptance of the personal appeals of Christians rather than rational conviction write this book. They were born and reared as Muslims by their father, a Turkish Muslim. They could be said to be apostates but their adherence to Islam was obedience to the will of their father not a rational conviction of faith. As they write, “Our devotion was not an act of love, but of fear.”
Their authority on Islam is shattered in the introduction of the book when they quote from published reputed transcripts of a meeting of Usmah bin Laden reportedly bragging about the attacks of September 11, 2001 as an authentic source of Islamic teaching. While anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, knows that Usma bin Laden’s Wahabi perspective does not represent the authentic Islam of the majority more than 1 billion Muslims in the world.
In their attempt to prove Islam inferior to Christianity, the authors make many errors and contradictions of facts. On one page they declare that God in Islam does not proclaim love for mankind and on the next page they quote a verse from the Quran that states God’s love for His believers. The arguments for Christianity are all emotional and do not present the rational teachings of Jesus Christ found in the Bible and Holy Quran to demonstrate the correctness of his teachings and the real benefit of his leadership. Jesus said, ”You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Not sanctimonious emotions.
The authors, both who are teachers of religion and church history, are disingenuous at times and at others plainly ignorant. They attempt to portray Prophet Muhammad’s reluctance at his call from God as being unique among the Prophets of the Bible, while it is common knowledge that Moses sought to decline God’s commision, Jonah fled from his call and even Jesus Christ before his crucifixion asked “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; however, he demurs and adds, “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou will.” Matthew 26:39. All of the prophets did likewise when they realized that what was being asked of them was of God-including Prophet Muhammad.
These preachers enthusiasm for discrediting Islam even causes them to deny their own knowledge of the Quran. They falsely state,”…Islamic theology asserts that women are intellectually inferior to men.” When they and any reader of the Quran know that the equality of men and women is stated in many places in that book.
One salient historical fact that they fail to report is that the one who first confirmed Prophet Muhammad’s mission and reciept of revelation was his wife. Khadijah’s cousin, Waraqa, who they quote as telling Muhammad, ”They will call thee a liar. They will banish thee, and they will fight against thee.” What they don’t report is that same tradition has him saying that he wished that he would live to see Muhammad’s triumph-nor do they report that he was a Christian.
The authors make the charge that not even the most inveterate foe of Islam would make-that Prophet Muhammad changed the revelation that he received-all authorities agree that the Holy Quran is today as it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad more than 1400 years ago. Though the authors appear to recite a chronological history of Prophet Muhamamad’s life, before prophethood, during his call and the establishment of Islam, they very conveniently leave out the fact that when he and his followers were persecuted in Mecca by his own tribe he allowed several of his followers to seek refuge in Ethiopia among Christians. They were given asylum by the Christian king when the Muslims recited from the Quran the Islamic teachings on Jesus Christ and his mother Mary and that Christian king eventually became a Muslim-today Ethiopia is about half Christian and half Muslim. Christians in Lebanon and Palestine respect and intermarry with Muslims.
The authors totally misrepresent the concept of Jihad-struggle in Islam. They claim that Prophet Muhammad and his followers fought wars for financial gain to force acceptance of Islam. Many non-Muslim scholars accurately report the history of Islam and that those wars were fought to defend the religion from pagan enemies. Prophet Muhammad said that the greatest Jihad is stuggle against your own self. Writers like Karan Armstrong give a clear unbiased report of Islamic history. The book The Ornament of the World, by Maria Rosa Menocal gives a historical view of the tolerance of Islam in Medieval Spain. Both are non-Muslim. Professor Armstrong a former nun.
It is painful to read and review this book that is almost illiterate in its scholarship and research. It is full of emotional unfounded religious bias.
The authors seek to malign a man that even secular history shows to have been one of the greatest men in history. In his book, The 100:A Ranking of The Most Influential Persons in History, author Michael H. Hart lists Muhammad as number one and he justifies his choice because: ”He was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels.” “Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive.” He lists the second successor to Muhammad the second Caliph Umar ibn al-Khatattb as number 51.
To respond to all of the untruths, misrepresentations, quoting out of context of scripture, distortions, and emotionalism would require a book much larger than their original. I would not want to call religious scholars and preachers liars, but suffice it to say they are very disingenuous. The book totally contradicts their stated motive to:”present a practical strategy Christians can use to open a productive dialogue with Muslims.” I don’t think so.
This book attempts to explain and define Islam, to report its history, and describe the various sects all done with the obvious religious bias of the Christian authors. For an objective scholarly account of Islamic History and the life of Prophet Muhammad, one should read Bernard Lewis or Islam: A short History and Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet by Karen Armstrong.
In this book, the Canner brothers wrestle with their Christian emotionalism and their rational knowledge of Islam and the Quran. They seem to be trying to rationalize and justify their apostasy from the religion of their father and their heritage. They write things that fly in the face of their knowledge of the Quran. For instance, they know that the Quran speaks highly of Jesus and his mother Mary and that a chapter of the Quran is named for her. They also know that the Quran says that the people closest to Muslims are those who call themselves Christians. That Muslims are allowed to marry them and Jews; how closer a relationship can there be? They also fail to point out that Prophet Muhammad was married to an Egyptian Coptic Christian woman-Maria.
These authors, like too many religious people including some Muslims, feel that to advance their own religion they must put down others.
The authors attempt to discredit Islam by the crimes committed by some Muslims. They in effect admit this by citing some of the crimes committed by some Christians and those of other religions.
If one believes in the omnipotence of God, one cannot believe that if He did not want the mulitiplicity of approaches to Him they would not exist. The authors and others of like minds should read the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ notably John 10:16, ”And other sheep are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” Or Isaiah 56:8: ”Yet will I gather others to him, beside those who are gathered unto him.”
The authors would do well to study their religion and preach the truth of it and allow Muslims who believe in and live by Islam to explain it.
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Last update : 12-08-2002 17:31
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