Islam Converts

[Cara_Mia_Tu]

**

Interesting. You prayed to someone other than God. You did not understand that Jesus is God. I take it you have not read the Gospel of John ever. Its clear from your words that you have never been a convinced Christian, so okay, another muslim convert to Islam from her own confusion.

**

Interesting thought.
Do you think every convert who goes away from the church is “confused”?

 

[GraceDK]

All you all do, is post a lot of rhetoric based on fuzzy feelings.

Vickie

This is very true.

And Vickie, I have lived among the Palestinians for quite a while.
My dear friend who used to be a Muslim and who was the son of an iman, said to me: I could not apologise, because we learn never to say we are sorry or please forgive me, I just assumed you would reject me when I didnt show up for our appointment so I gave up in advance. Thats my culture". I also learned that they dont say thank you very much, because that too is seen as weakness.
In contemplatng this I thought about the New Testament words: “God’s weakness is Strength.” You see, Jesus loved, and He looked like a fool to the people because He loved soooo much. But He is now the most believed and honoured and worshipped person of all, precisely because of the weakness that He took upon Himself.
To be able to say: “I am sorry, forgive me. I need you. I love you. Thank you” is strength. We therein expose our heart. Thats why Christians have a heart made soft by God.

Among the Palestinians I saw what a culture is like when Christ is not listened to in any way. It was everyones battle against everyone else. It was about ones OWN honour, not God’s, ones own reputation … they backslandered and lied and cheated… and thus had no freedom. My friend became honest when he became free from Islam. Now I pray for him that He will have the true freedom in Christ

The Muslim testimonies here critizise the Bible, not realising that the Bible has not been corrupted. This is just another false claim of Islam, that is really both absurd, unscientific and unhistorical… We have whole Bibles, scrolls and fragments from hundreds of years before the time of Muhammad.

We also see the Muslims here are afraid to adress the real issues and to read the serious testimonies given from those who left Islam. Not one of them has dared to debate against it, because they dare not even read them…Wonder why?

Peace to you.

 

[GraceDK]

Interesting thought.
Do you think every convert who goes away from the church is “confused”?

No. But this person was confused about what Christianity is about at the heart. Its very evident in a few of the testimonies that confusion and ignorance about Christianity made them easy targets for Islamic prozelytisation.

There may be many reasons why people leave the Church. One of the reasons can be ignorance or confusion - these can be chosen or not according to circumstances - or it can be out of a psychological rebellion because the idividual does not live according to the Gospel teachings eg. about sin and thus chooses her/his sin over Christ to calm his/her conscience…There is some serious stuff in the Bible that we have to accept as Christians.
Then there are those who have met harshness at the hands of Christians and who thus leave. these I can understand pretty much, though I hope they will eventually look at Christ again.

I have met people who made a reflected decision to embrace full-scale atheism after having read a lot of things about religion. But I have never meet a serious Christian who had understood Christianity and had a personal relationship with Christ, who left Christ for Islam. Thats just a fact. I will keep my eyes open for one, but havent met him/her yet…

 

[GraceDK]

Vickie-
You are simply midreading violence in the Koran because in Arabic “violence” means “peace.” You just don’t see it because you are reading an English “translation.” It is not the Koran, it is the Qu’ran. Come to think of it, it can’t be the Qu’ran, because those are western letters. It is really **القرآن‎ **. Not sure if it matters what color the text is.

Do you think we should even be discussing this in English? Too much is lost in the translation.
.

This is indeed interesting. I have wondered how the serious Muslims on this thread has the audacity to quote the Koran in English on this fora… I am not kidding. I LOVE Arabic, and I love Aramaic and Hebrew too with special feelings for these latter two… but the concept of an solely arabic deity really has me wondering. It has me wondering because he only accepts arabic prayers… so its more important to him that they are arabic than that the sayer understands his own words… Very odd indeed.

 

[tomarin]

I LOVE Arabic, and I love Aramaic and Hebrew too with special feelings for these latter two… but the concept of an solely arabic deity really has me wondering. It has me wondering because he only accepts arabic prayers… so its more important to him that they are arabic than that the sayer understands his own words… Very odd indeed.

Just FYI – Arabic is also the liturgical language of one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, the Copts of Egypt.

 

[Cara_Mia_Tu]

No
I have met people who made a reflected decision to embrace full-scale atheism after having read a lot of things about religion. But I have never meet a serious Christian who had understood Christianity and had a personal relationship with Christ, who left Christ for Islam. Thats just a fact. I will keep my eyes open for one, but havent met him/her yet…

I know you from another forum.

 

[GraceDK]

I know you from another forum.

That is likely. Thanks for your interest and God bless you too.

 

[qui_est_ce]

This is indeed interesting. I have wondered how the serious Muslims on this thread has the audacity to quote the Koran in English on this fora… I am not kidding. I LOVE Arabic, and I love Aramaic and Hebrew too with special feelings for these latter two… but the concept of an solely arabic deity really has me wondering. It has me wondering because he only accepts arabic prayers… so its more important to him that they are arabic than that the sayer understands his own words… Very odd indeed.

Just FYI – Arabic is also the liturgical language of one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, the Copts of Egypt.

And the Maronite Rite.

My point was not that Allah is Arabic, but that Sister Amy was choosing which renderings she liked. She did not base it on an objectively correct translation. She in fact stated there is no such thing as a translation, so we were all misinterpreting the Koran if we were reading it in English. :hypno:

This is why I wondered if it was even correct to discuss it in English.

 

[tomarin]

My point was not that Allah is Arabic, but that Sister Amy was choosing which renderings she liked. She did not base it on an objectively correct translation. She in fact stated there is no such thing as a translation, so we were all misinterpreting the Koran if we were reading it in English.

Can you direct me to the appropriate post?

Added: nevermind, I think I found the one you were referring to, number 93. I’m not sure she’s saying what you think she’s saying. Anyway, rather than speculate, I’ll let her clarify her meaning, if she choses to.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Can you direct me to the appropriate post?

Added: nevermind, I think I found the one you were referring to, number 93. I’m not sure she’s saying what you think she’s saying. Anyway, rather than speculate, I’ll let her clarify her meaning, if she choses to.

Yes, love is hate. There is only one Qu’ran, it is Arabic.

She clearly states that the English versions she prefers “do not presume to be translations.” The Koran is Arabic.
Originally Posted by Sister Amy:

There’s only one Qur’an, it’s in Arabic. I don’t think I’d ever pick up a book called the ‘Noble Koran’ which is something clearly written for Westerners, the editors of which couldn’t even be bothered to faithfully transliterate the word Qur’an.

I have one called ‘The interpretation of the meaning of The Noble Qur’an in the English Language’ by Dr. Hilali & Muhsin Khan which has been **my favorite english rendition **lately, and then another called simply 'The Qur’an: Arabic Text with Corresponding English Meanings" which is published by Saheeh International. Notice how none of them even presume to actually be the Qur’an but humbly own up to what they are: an attempt to render the meaning of the Qur’an into the english language

 

[tomarin]

Yes, love is hate.

Beg pardon?

There is only one Qu’ran, it is Arabic.

That’s in keeping with what muslims believe. But it doesn’t follow that translations are not allowed. How many people, even how many muslims, speak Arabic or are willing to learn it?

She clearly states that the English versions she prefers “do not presume to be translations.” The Koran is Arabic.

Yeah, but how you got from that that we can’t discuss it in English translation is beyond me.

I think you’re taking her words out of context – she was responding to a poster who claimed the Qur’an was full of exhortations to violence, to which she responded, your translation doesn’t seem like a very reliable one. I don’t think she was saying the Qur’an shouldn’t be translated.

 

[GraceDK]

Beg pardon?

That’s in keeping with what muslims believe. But it doesn’t follow that translations are not allowed. How many people, even how many muslims, speak Arabic or are willing to learn it?

Yeah, but how you got from that that we can’t discuss it in English translation is beyond me.

I think you’re taking her words out of context – she was responding to a poster who claimed the Qur’an was full of exhortations to violence, to which she responded, your translation doesn’t seem like a very reliable one. I don’t think she was saying the Qur’an shouldn’t be translated.

Tomarin.
You are thinking logically. But it is really so. The Koran is called the “uncreated word of god” (which I think is problematic from a monotheistic viewpoint since the Koran then is like a million little pieces of the deity), and allah himself said he wants in in Arabic only.
This I have been told by former muslims and even current muslims who delight in critizising what they refer to as Bible-translation-chaos… .

 

[qui_est_ce]

That’s in keeping with what muslims believe. But it doesn’t follow that translations are not allowed. How many people, even how many muslims, speak Arabic or are willing to learn it?

Prayers to Allah must be in Arabic.
As’salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatu Allah Wa Barakatuh (May GOD’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you)

Yeah, but how you got from that that we can’t discuss it in English translation is beyond me.

If there is no suitable translation for the Arabic, how can it be discussed in any other language?

I think you’re taking her words out of context – she was responding to a poster who claimed the Qur’an was full of exhortations to violence, to which she responded, your translation doesn’t seem like a very reliable one. I don’t think she was saying the Qur’an shouldn’t be translated.

If a persons state that the best English version of the Koran is NOT a translation but is an explanation, and that this best version would not PRESUME to be a translation, that tells me that translations are not possible (in her mind).

“Peace and blessings, Allah is great,”

 

[Jimzz12]

There’s not really much to Islam. I’ve discovered it to be a mix of several forms of proto-Semetic religions and heavily influenced by the gnostic texts.

The real shame is that it doesn’t allow for the love of God in due part to it’s gnostic tendencies. The integral value of the individual human being is not stressed as evidence of a divine love from the Father.

This is not to say that we men and women and children do not love each other, and that our love for one another is pure. My major complaint with Islam was that to often I have heard men claim that their love for their wives and children comes not from God but as a temptation from the devil. What I love about the Catholic view is that it recognizes that this love is a gift from God and not a curse.

You can protest my viewpoint, but unless you have lived in a place like I have (Kabul) you’re protest is not justified. I am struggling to resolve this issue. Why does the God of the Koran not love me? Also, how is it that we teach in Islam that Jesus and Mary are free from the stain of sin? God must have loved them. He kept them from sin. And, he did indeed then I think it is fair to say that they have some special relationship with God that Mohammed did not have.

 

[Muslim_Woman]

In the name of Allah , Most Gracious, Most Merciful

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

"I must remind the Christians that unless they believe in the absolute unity of God, and renounce the belief in the three persons, they are certainly unbelievers in the true God …

The Old Testament and the Qur’an condemn the doctrine of three persons in God; the New Testament does not expressly hold or defend it, but even if it contains hints and traces concerning the Trinity, it is no authority at all, because it was neither seen nor written by Christ himself, nor in the language he spoke, nor did it exist in its present form and contents for - at least - the - the first two centuries after him."

Before he became a Muslim and changed his name to Abdul-Ahad Dawud, Rev. David Benjamin Keldani, B.D. was a Roman Catholic priest of the Uniate-Chaldean sect

Taken from Abdul-Ahad Dawud, “Muhammad in the Bible”, Pustaka Antara, Kuala Lumpur, 1969 (edited). Courtesy of Pustaka Antara.

welcome-back.org/profile/david_keldani_bio.shtml

 

[dzheremi]

And we must remind YOU, Muslim Woman and Mr. Dawud, that you don’t know what the heck you are talking about!

1.) Jesus was not given a book.

2.) He did not write one, either.

3.) The Chaldeans are not Roman Catholics! (This makes me wonder just what the authors of that site thought that Mr. Dawud was converting from…)

4.) Muhammad is NOT in the Bible.

Trying to force Christianity to fit flawed Islamic epistemology does not invalidate the faith one bit. It does, however, prove the poverty of your methods of argumentation.

There are plenty of questions I could likewise ask you about Islam, based on the lines of argumentation regretfully parrotted by Mr. Dawud. If the Bible is not to be considered trustworthy because portions of it were not written in the native tongue of Christ, then what can we make of the Qur’an? Do any among you now speak Qur’anic Arabic as a mother tongue? No. Does that cause you to doubt the authenticity of the Qur’an? Of course not! So why should it be any different for us? On the contrary, it makes more sense that the New Testament would be written in Greek, because that was the common language of the Eastern Roman Empire at the time of the writings. It does not signal any problem for the Bible, since unlike the Qur’an noone believes that the Bible came to one man over the course of 20+ years, but to several who were divinely inspired, over a much greater span of years. This is why Islamic epistemology is absolutely null and void when presenting textual criticism of this kind. (WHICH, BY THE WAY, YOU OUGHT TO TRY ON YOUR OWN BOOK SOMETIME AND LEAVE OURS THE HECK ALONE FOR ONCE.)

 

[Benjamin8o8]

This is very true.

And Vickie, I have lived among the Palestinians for quite a while.
My dear friend who used to be a Muslim and who was the son of an iman, said to me: I could not apologise, because we learn never to say we are sorry or please forgive me, I just assumed you would reject me when I didnt show up for our appointment so I gave up in advance. Thats my culture". I also learned that they dont say thank you very much, because that too is seen as weakness.
In contemplatng this I thought about the New Testament words: “God’s weakness is Strength.” You see, Jesus loved, and He looked like a fool to the people because He loved soooo much. But He is now the most believed and honoured and worshipped person of all, precisely because of the weakness that He took upon Himself.
To be able to say: “I am sorry, forgive me. I need you. I love you. Thank you” is strength. We therein expose our heart. Thats why Christians have a heart made soft by God.

Peace to you.

I love reading your posts, they are very touching.

May God Bless you and your whole family

 

[emarc]

hi vickie - this quote you gave is loaded. do you have this guy’s site? thx for sharing.
God bless.

***“When I examined the Koran, the hadith, and the Islamic books under a microscope, I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible – impossible! – for any human being to read the biography of Muhammad and believe in it, and yet emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.” *Wafa Sultan

 

[Sister_Amy]

No. I do know that before a murder is beheaded in Saudi Arabia the execution can be stopped if the victims family requests it. I am not sure who the victim would be in adultery, especially if the woman was rapped (which is considered adultery and a crime of the woman in some muslim countries).

I would like to point out that in Islam rape is a crime for which only the man is punished, and the punishment for the man is equal to the punishment as if he were committing adultery, which is the most fiercely punished crime in Islam. The woman isn’t punished at all. Not at all, not according to Islam.

 

[Sister_Amy]

Sister Amy; I converted to Islam about 4 years ago. Alhamdulillah.
I love Islam. I really do. I think I put that in my signature.

… And the matter of Jesus–why it confused me to pray to someone other than God.

Interesting. You prayed to someone other than God. You did not understand that Jesus is God. I take it you have not read the Gospel of John ever. Its clear from your words that you have never been a convinced Christian, so okay, another muslim convert to Islam from her own confusion.

I was baptised–I didn’t just go along to church with my family, I absolutely believed in the religion. I believed in God, and I believed that the teachings of Jesus were true. I certainly did read the Gospel of John. In fact, let me share with you a parable in the Gospel of John, where Jesus describes the vine, branches, and the Gardener. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches (or his followers were), and God is the gardener. Notice the amazing distinction between the vine and the gardener? The Vine is more like the branches. The Gardener is altogether different.

**God says in the Qur’an, to Christians, “Don’t say three.” Getting over that obstacle that Christianity seems to have erected in its history made obeying God, and worshiping God, so much simpler, so much more fulfilling. **

Can I ask you something. The Koran is litterally the divine word of Allah, right? Allah is al-powerful and all-knowing, right?

Literally.

So please, no one has yet been willing to answer me on this:
How can it be that Allah misunderstood the Christian teaching of the Trinity??

Allah didn’t misunderstand it. Rather, you have misunderstood what the Qur’an actually says.

Never has a Christian anywhere worshipped three gods. We know we worship One God, One substance, an absolute unity and oneness of Three Persons. Here comes the important point: These three Persons are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My question then is: How come your Allah thought that Christians believe in three gods: Mary, Jesus and Allah??? Can you see? alone through this one proof I have given you, I have undermined the whole Koran in its self-understanding. The true God would never have made such a mistake.

It seems that in someone’s zeal he imagined that the Qur’an was saying something it doesn’t say, perhaps… or maybe misunderstood its meaning.

The spirit that revealed himself in Islam (or shall we just say Muhamad’s spirit) didn’t know the basic tenets about other religions, neither Judaism or Christianity. He had half truths and big areas of ignorance and error that he passed on to his allah.

This is very confusing to read. I wonder if you know what the basic tenets of Islam are? Seems like an awfully bold statement you’ve made, confusing though it is.

This reason alone is enough that I and every logical human being can never become a Muslim. And I also expect that such extremely evident errors are the reason why Islam does not allow religious critizism, or for other coherent faith-systems such as Christianity and Judaism, to be seen in the muslim society.

I know quite many logical human beings who are Muslim. It’s a bold thing to say that nobody who is logical could become Muslim, considering over a billion people consider themselves to be Muslim.

What can I say, I love Islam.

You should strive to love God because of WHO He is… okay?.. ask yourself what defines a trustworthy and praiseworthy person… I assure you that your allah and his island-prophet does not meet the criteria of earned respect. Sorry if this sounds harsh. I am sure my Lord sees your good intentions… but He also wants you to come to Him and so you have the real and true life in Him and He will be your personal companion and help you in all things.

Salaam

Oh I do love God. and the beauty of Islam is that it allows me to express that love through submitting to Him. I believe in my Lord, who has sent down revelation, and I believe in what He has sent down.

One day you will also.