Just got this book yesterday; have not read it word for word yet, but I am jumping around to get the overall feel and then I will be reading it slowly. It is excellent, from what I can tell. I pray that God will use this for His glory to equip many Christians to "be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within them"; remembering also to first, "sanctify Christ as Lord in their hearts" (1 Peter 3:15)
I also hope many Muslims will be open to reading this book, and give it a fair and respectful reading. I wish this book was around back in 1983 when I first started reaching out to Muslims by playing soccer (the true football) with them, visiting them in their homes, having them in our home, playing chess and backgammon, drinking hot tea, Arabic and Turkish coffee, eating shish kebabs, cucumber salads, hummus and pita bread, and roasted pumpkins seeds, Iranian Ghormeh Sabzi قرمه سبزی (stew made with five green vegetables, beef, kidney beans, onions, and the famous dried lemon from Oman), over hours of discussion about God, heaven and hell, judgment day, Jesus, the atonement of Christ, salvation, faith, sin, original sin, politics, history, the Bible and the Qur'an, and many other topics.
Most Muslims are fun people to reach out to! Christians need to crucify their fears. (Galatians 2:20; Luke 9:23; Galatians 6:14) They are very hospitable and most Muslims are not afraid to talk about spiritual things. O Fellow believers in Christ! - combine your study and growth in apologetics, theology, Bible and church history and historical theology knowledge with bold outreach of actually getting to know Muslims and spending time with them and listening to them. Witness, preach the gospel, and provide the context of "eating with sinners and tax-collectors", as Jesus did. (Luke 5:29-32; Mark 2:14-17; Luke 15:1-32)
Order from Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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4 comments:
Got mine. 50 pages in and liking it a lot.
It is rather amusing to me that people want to learn about the Quran from a Christian apologist who is neither a scholar nor a academician on Quranic studies and is pretty naive on it by all standards . It is like Muslims reading a book on Biblical textual criticism written by Ahmed Deedat or reading a book on historical Jesus studies by Zakir Naik !
According to me this is the problem Christian apologetics is facing today in their outreach to Islam , they hardly have any scholarly information on Islam , their major information on Islam comes from the internet or some books written by people like Ergun Carner , James White , Ibn Warraq etc none among them having any scholarly credentials . On the contrary Muslim apologetics is marching ahead from a similar situation in the past to really good scholarly approach , you will frequently find Muslim apologist quoting James Dunn, E.P Sanders , Richard Baukham , Bart Ehrman , D.C Parker , Eldon Epp , James Tabor , Dale Allison Paula Fredrickson , Geza Vermes etc , all top notch scholars among their respective fields .
So , according to me if Christians really want to reach out to Islam or understand Islam they should be reading good scholarly books and definetly not the one written by their apologists.
There are tons of academic work on the Quran , for a good overall scholarly view for the beginners i want to recommend
1) The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an by Jane Dammen McAuliffe
2) The Story of the Qur'an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life by
Ingrid Mattson
Kind regards
Ali Khan,
First thank you so much for actually posting a real comment! I get a few comments every day here from people whom I assume are Muslims who have been spamming this blog.
On to your comment: Have you read Dr. White's book?
No one needs to be a "scholar" to understand Islam. (That's like saying that one must understand the history and workings of the internal combustion engine in order to drive.)
But one must be familiar with how Muslims traditionally understand Islam. For that, plenty of Islamic sources are available to anyone with an internet connection and a little curiosity.
These include multiple versions of Qur'an (translated by Muslims), Tafsir Ibn Kathir (one of Islam's most-respected exegete's authoritative work), and a multitude of clerical opinions, fatwas, and Friday prayers.
Besides those, one can also acquire a copy of Sirat Rasul Allah to learn about Muhammad from the oldest and most-respected biographical source.
There's a fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam in the nature of, and need for, scholarly works.
With Christianity, some so-called "scholars" fabricate lies to undermine the catholic faith, while others labor to expose those lies.
With Islam, no one needs to undermine Qur'an, hadith, or sira to discredit Islam, since these "sacred" texts reveal Muhammad's preaching and practicing genocide, anti-Semitism, murder, pedophilia, rape, slavery, torture, mutilation, theft, vandalism, extortion, polygyny, wife-beating, sedition, treason, deceit, and blasphemy.
And Muslims are proud of it, since Muhammad is Islam's "Ideal Man," and a "beautiful pattern of conduct" for those who want to please Allah.
But they won't admit that to non-Muslims. They have to hide because no one in their right mind would think such a depraved wretch to be an apostle of a god. And that's the problem with Islamic works written for non-Muslims.
The only time a Muslim tells the truth about Muhammad is when confronted with those facts from those texts, and then even those beer-drinking, "fun-loving" soccer playmates show a different side. Even the apparently-apostate ones from Iran who've grown up here since childhood.
I doubt Ali will respond to this, but if he does, he'll most likely follow the Muslim Propagandist's Playbook, which involves ad hominems, name-calling, deflections, tu quoques, and other lies.
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