Common Misconceptions About Muslims and Islam

1. Muslims do not believe in Muhammad(P) as God or venerate and worship him as God. We believe that he is a Messenger of God, just like Moses(P) and Jesus(P), and that he brought God’s Words to us. He neither conceived his own conception of God nor did he told Muslims to establish Islam with force.

2. Muslims do not believe that Muhammad(P) is the Messiah. We believe that Jesus(P) is the Messiah. The only thing that we do not agree about him with Christians is that Jesus(P) is a Living God and/or a part of the Trinity along with God (The “Father”) and the Holy Spirit.

3. Muslims do believe that the “real” Torah (Taurat) did predict the coming of Jesus(P) as well as Muhammad(P).

4. Muslims do believe that Jesus(P) did predict the coming of Prophet Muhammad(P) and it was written in his Gospel (Injeel).

5 — Muslims do not believe in worshipping idols or moon gods. No Muslim believes that the reason why the Cresent is the Muslims’ symbol on their flag is because Muhammad(P) had taken the religion of the moon god and call it “Islam”. That is a fabricated lie about Muhammad(P) and the origins of Islam. The reason why the Cresent is the symbol on our flag is because we start our fasting month of Ramadhan when the Cresent appears, and we end that month when the full moon appears after 30 or 31 days of the Crescent’s appearance. The Crescent is not a “holy symbol”.

6. Muslims do not believe that Jesus(P) was a false Prophet. We believe that Jesus(P) was a Messenger of God who came down to earth and revealed God’s words to the people of Israel he was sent to, just like Moses(P) did, and he was born to Mary, created with the Word and Spirit from God with no mortal father whatsoever. We believe that Christians misconceive the notion of Jesus(P) being God in flesh when he said he was the son of God.

7. Muslims do not view Muhammad(P) as a Holy Figure that they worship. Muslims only worship and prostrate before All?Almighty (God) and no one and nothing else. ¹⁄₃ of the entire Holy Qur’an talks about the Oneness of God and how God will punish those who worship multiple Gods and idols.

8. Muslims do not view the Bible as a man-made lie. We (Muslims) view the current Bibles of today as modified books, originally written by disciples of Jesus(P) that can now no longer be trusted. The Bibles of today had been tampered with and cannot be traced back to its original authors. We also believe that the Gospels that Christians currently have is not the one given by God to Jesus(P) in the first place.

9. The Holy Qur’an does not tell us Muslims to fight “Holy Wars” against non-Muslims to force them to accept Islam. Muslims are only allowed to fight in defence of Islam if we are persecuted with force and to retaliate with the equal amount used against us. In the Qur’? we read that :

“Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits ; for All?loveth not transgressors” (Qur’an, 2:190)

Similarly :

“And if you take your turn, then retaliate with the like of that with which you were afflicted ; But if ye endure patiently, verily it is better for the patient.” (Qur’an, 16 : 126)

10 — The Arabic word JIHAD is often mistranslated as “Holy War”. There is no such thing as a “Holy War” in Islam, nor does such a term exists in the Qur’an the authentic Hadith collections or in the early Muslim writings. JIHAD is actually literally translated as “struggle”. The word for “war” in Arabic is HARB.

11 — We Muslims believe in the Glorious Qur’an as the Revelation from Allah (God) given to his Last Prophet Muhammad(P). The validity and the authenticity of the Qur’an also do not depend on the confirmation of modern science or any of its human exponents in it. What is human is fallible while the Qur’an being the word of God is infallible and eternal. Thus, even if the findings of scientific facts in the Qur’an are invalidated, that does not detract from the beauty and rare force of this Divine Book, for a reader of the original in Arabic immediately experiences its beauty, power and grandeur without resorting to the use of rational analysis.

And only God knows best ! Endmark

Published:

September 16, 2005

Islam

Author:

Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

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One response to “Common Misconceptions About Muslims and Islam”

shery

October 16, 2006

The “Trinity”:
Now let us study the “Trinity” and its roots in ancient pagan worship. The “Trinity” of Christendom, as defined in the creed of Nicea, is a merging of three distinct entities into one single entity, while remaining three distinct entities. We are told to speak of the three gods as one god, and never as three gods which would be considered heresy (Isaiah 43:10). They are considered to be co-eternal, co-substantial, and co-equal. However, only the first was self existent. The others preceded from the first. This Neo-Platonic philosophical doctrine has its roots not in the inspiration of God, but in ancient paganism. Most ancient religions were built upon some sort of threefold distinction. Deities were always trinities of some kind or consisted of successive emanation in threes.
In India we find the doctrine of the divine trinity called “Tri-murti” (Three-forms) consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. It is an inseparable unity though three in form. Worshipers are told to worship them as one deity. Such concepts posed no problem to the logic of a Hindu worshipper since they were already used to worshipping gods with the body of a man and the head of an elephant(Ganesh), or monkey-faced gods (Hanuman), or gods with six arms, and so forth. Remember, classical Hinduism dates back to at least 500BC, with roots extending as far back as 2000BC.
The Brahmas also have their trinity. In their trinity, Vajrapani, Manjusri, and Avalokitesvara form a divine union of three gods into one god called “Buddha.” The citizens of China and Japan also worship Buddha, but they know him as “Fo.” When they worship him they say “Fo, is one god but has three forms.”
Sir William Jones says :
“Very respectable natives have assured me, that one or two missionaries have been absurd enough to in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge that the Hindoos were even now almost Christians ; because their Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa (Siva), were no other than the Christian Trinity.”
Bible myths and their parallels in other religions, p. 370.
The ancient Egyptians also worshipped a trinity. Their symbol of a wing, a globe, and a serpent is supposed to have stood for the different attributes of their god.
The Greeks also had their trinities. When making their sacrifices to their gods, they would sprinkle holy water on the altar three times, they would then sprinkle the people three times also. Frankincense was then taken with three fingers and strewed upon the alter three times. All of this was done because the oracle had proclaimed that all sacred things ought to be in threes. Remember that the philosophy of these people (The Greeks) is what was primarily responsible for defining the Christian “Trinitarian” nature of God. This was done through the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato regarding his “Logos” (“word”). Further, remember that the Gospels of the Bible were named the “Greek Gospels” for a reason : they were written in their language and based upon their philosophy.
As mentioned previously, T. W. Doane says :
“The works of Plato were extensively studied by the Church Fathers, one of whom joyfully recognizes in the great teacher, the schoolmaster who, in the fullness of time, was destined to educate the heathen for Christ, as Moses did the Jews. The celebrated passage : “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word Was God” is a fragment of some Pagan treatise on the Platonic philosophy, evidently written by Irenaeus. It is quoted by Amelius, a Pagan philosopher as strictly applicable to the Logos, or Mercury, the Word, apparently as an honorable testimony borne to the Pagan deity by a barbarian.….…We see then that the title “Word” or “Logos,” being applied to Jesus, is another piece of Pagan amalgamation with Christianity. It did not receive its authorized Christian form until the middle of the second century after Christ. The ancient pagan Romans worshipped a Trinity. An oracle is said to have declared that there was ‘First God, then the Word, and with them the Spirit’. Here we see the distinctly enumerated, God, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, in ancient Rome, where the most celebrated temple of this capital — that of Jupiter Capitolinus — was dedicated to three deities, which three deities were honored with joint worship.”
Bible Myths and their parallels in other religions, pp. 375 – 376.
Trinities were not confined to these groups alone, but the Persians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Scandinavians, the Druids, the inhabitants of Siberia, the ancient Mexicans, the Peruvians, and many others, all worshipped “Trinitarian” pagan deities (among a great multitude of other gods) long before the council of Nicea of 325 C.E officially recognized this to be God’s “true” nature.

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Com­mon Mis­con­cep­tions About Mus­lims and Islam

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