الله

The greatest mind in the history of Islam — Averroes –

And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I used to say it, then Thou knewest it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower of Things Hidden?

In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.

Yet they make the jinns equals with Allah, though Allah did create the jinns; and they falsely, having no knowledge, attribute to Him sons and daughters. Praise and glory be to Him! (for He is) above what they attribute to Him! To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth: How can He have a son when He hath no consort? He created all things, and He hath full knowledge of all things.

- and -

And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!

Muslim denial of the Crucifixion:

Only a likeness of Jesus was crucified?

God plays such games?

Canonical Islam, but an abomination from a Christian perspective.

And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the messenger of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure. (S)

"... for their saying, 'We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God' -- yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown to them. Those who are at variance concerning him surely are in doubt regarding him; they have no knowledge of him, except the following of surmise; and they slew him not of a certainty ..." (A)

Luckily for all orthodox-catholic Christians, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other authoritative pronouncements have been sufficiently vague such that the enemies of the Church, the Fifth Column within Her, have not yet succeeded in undermining orthodoxy, though their struggle continues.

Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 841: "The Church's relationship with the Muslims. 'The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.'"

"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind." - from Lumen Gentium, but those quoting this central Vatican II document would do well to remember the rest of Paragraph 16 (and the entire document): "Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.(20*) She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator.(129) Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature",(130) the Church fosters the missions with care and attention."

Yes, The plan of salvation includes the Muslims: that they should and must accept and follow Christ as the Messiah of God, the Second Person of the Holy and Eternal Trinity, the only begotten Son of God and therefore also that they, the Muslims, abandon the patently erroneous notion that Muhammad is a man of God, much less His supreme, final and definitive prophet.   Muhammad was a charlatan and a fraud, a self-seeking, self-serving sensualist, a mercenary murderer, an arch deceiver.  Orthodox, Catholic and Oriental Orthodox patriarchs and saints, doctors of the Church, have been unanimous on this throughout the history of the Church.

Y: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book [People of the Book = Christians and Jews], until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!

P: Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture [Christians and Jews are meant] as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low. And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!

S: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book [Christians and Jews], until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!

A. Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden -- such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book [Christians and Jews]-- until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled. The Jews say, 'Ezra is the Son of God'; the Christians say, 'The Messiah is the Son of God.' That is the utterance of their mouths, conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they are perverted!

Evangelii Gaudium

Embrace Muslim (mass immigration) into the constituent countries of Christendom?!

Support, not Muslim conversions to Christianity, but Muslims being "joyfully grounded in their own identity"?!

"[a]uthentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence."

The Good Tsar - Bad Boyar crowd will shudder, as indeed does the present writer, but could any Christian leader possibly be more ill-informed and ignorant on this critical issue?

Violence against non-Muslims — violence against Christians, is the essence and epicenter of Islam. Time to actually read the Qur'an, Holy Father.

or to render the fuller name given to him,

Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Abd Allāh [or Abdullah or Abdallah] ibn Abd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim
Father of Qasim, Muhammad, servant of god, son of Muttalib, son of Hāshim

WHY?

Not why is it useful for these Muslim matters to be discussed, weighed, analyzed and exposed. That is obvious. But why is it appropriate to do so here, here on a website in support of a film about the unity of Christendom but much more so still about the re-unification of God's holy, orthodox, catholic, Orthodox-Catholic Church, The Church, the only Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic?

Comes the answer: Because the way in which this matter — understanding Islam — among others, has been and is being handled by many of the episcopal leaders of the Orthodox-Catholic Church itself becomes an obstacle, a new obstacle, a gratuitous obstacle, a foolish and unnecessary obstacle, to the re-unification of the human element of The Church.

— The Church in its Divine and Eternal aspect, the Church Triumphant, is, of course, always united and can never be divided and is in need of no healing —

For the avoidance of doubt, and without regard to the views of the reader of these paragraphs or indeed the views of the writer of these paragraphs, if the episcopal college of leaders of any of:

the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria,
the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch (including the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church in India),
the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (also called the Indian Orthodox Church),
the Armenian Apostolic Church,
the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (including the the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church),
the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople,
the Orthodox Church of Alexandria,
the Orthodox Church of Antioch,
the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem,
the Orthodox Church of Russia,
the Orthodox Church of Serbia,
the Orthodox Church of Romania,
the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria,
the Orthodox Church of Georgia,
the Orthodox Church of Cyprus,
the Orthodox Church of Greece,
the Orthodox Church of Poland,
the Orthodox Church of Albania, or
the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia,

is firmly and steadfastly resolved that the teachings of, by way of prime example, the Catholic Church dealing with understanding Islam is an impediment to re-unification, then indeed such is an impediment.

And many of them are so resolved.

This circumstance supplies the necessity for some treatment here of the topics of Muhammad, Islam and the Qur'an and for some rebuttal and rebuke to those Church leaders and other Christian leaders and non-Christian leaders within Christendom who have wilfully and culpably failed to understand Muhammad, Islam and the Qur'an, to the peril of Christendom, and Christian communities and families, though not of course of Christianity which is eternal. Indeed it is possible to conclude in some cases that such willful and culpable failure is so repeated, prolonged, obstinate and exorbitant as to call into question whether the leader in question possesses any wisdom, has achieved any holiness. But maybe not, maybe such a conclusion would go too far. Saints were often sinners. " ... [A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

99. Cf. Gen. 16.8. Sozomen also says that they were descended from Agar, but called themselves descendants of Sara to hide their servile origin (Ecclesiastical History 6.38, PG 67.1412AB).

100. The Arabic kabirun means ‘great,’ whether in size or in dignity. Herodotus mentions the Arabian cult of the ‘Heavenly Aphrodite’ but says that the Arabs called her Alilat (Herodotus 1.131)

101. This may be the Nestorian monk Bahira (George or Sergius) who met the boy Mohammed at Bostra in Syria and claimed to recognize in him the sign of a prophet.

102. Koran, Sura 112.

103. Sura 19; Sura 4.171. [The Koran explicitly denies The Trinity and the Godship of Christ Jesus, that He is the Begotten Son of The Father.]

104. Sura 4.156.

105. Sura 5.Il6tf.

106. The manuscripts do not have the adage, but Lequien suggests this one from Plato.

107. The Ka’ba, called ‘The House of God,’ is supposed to have been built by Abraham with the help of Ismael. It occupies the most sacred spot in the Mosque of Mecca. Incorporated in its wall is the stone here referred to, the famous Black Stone, which is obviously a relic of the idolatry of the pre-Islam Arabs.

108. Gen. 22.6.

109. Koran, Sura 4.

110. Cf. Sura 2225ff.

111. Sura 2.223.

112. Not in the Koran.

113. Sura 5.114,115.

114. Sura 2.

The Qur'an, also transliterated as Quran, Kuran and Koran, the "recitation", is the central religious text of Islam, purported by Muhammad and accepted by all Muslims to have been delivered in Arabic, exclusively and always privately, to Muhammad himself by Allah (god) through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), over a 23 year period beginning on 22 December 609 and continuing through Muhammad's death in 632. The Qur'an consists of 114 chapters ( Sura or Surah or Surat‎; plural Suwar ), divided into verses ( ayah; plural ayat ).

Y: None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?

P: Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?

S: Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?

A. And for whatever verse We abrogate or cast into oblivion, We bring a better or the like of it; knowest thou not that God is powerful over everything?

Self-identified specialists and assorted Islamophiles who fail to mention, early and often, this central-most concept in Quranic interpretation (including prominently those purporting to be Christians — even Catholic and, much less frequently, Orthodox Christians — that Fifth Column within the Church and Christendom) perform a good service for their readers. They in doing so identify themselves straight off as enemies of the truth.

Of course even the astute general reader, to say nothing of the unbiased specialist, will see at once the utterly incongruity theologically — and logically — of this foundational principle of Abrogation with another foundational proposition of Islam, that purporting that the Qur'an is god's final revelation, yes, but also the first book, recited to Muhammad from the eternal copy in heaven. Some Muslim scholars will even go further, claiming that the Qur'an is in fact uncreated.

Why four translations presented here?

"The Qur'an only exists in Arabic, the language of god and heaven and Muhammad. It can only be read and understood in Arabic."

Presenting Quranic versus in four English-language translations — excuse me, interpretations, as the Qur'an can not be translated — here, and also in the presentation of the entire_Qur'an on a sister webpage, will not refute the absurd claim in the minds of Muslims that the Qur'an can only be read with understanding in Arabic. In fact nothing will convince Muslims. They simply need to be excluded from Christendom or defeated when attacking her, excepting only the circumstance in which saintly Christians choose to undertake the rarely surmounted dangers and difficulties of evangelizing Muslims. Four translations are presented in order to aid the understanding of and strengthen the presentation for non-Muslims.

“The Church's relationship with the Muslims. ‘The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.’ ”

“Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.” The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, “the first to hear the Word of God.” The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”, “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”

But wait, did not Verse 7:36 already have all people rejecting Muhammad in hell? (Sura 7 was 39th chronologically, so obviously much before Sura 2, which was 87th chronologically, and its Verse 2:62.) Muhammad's god, having Gabriel recite to Muhammad, who in turn is to recite to the universe of men, can not seem to make up his mind. And Islam would have it that the Qur'an is eternal, always existing in heaven. It is not an interactive response to facts unfolding on the ground. This is of course just another example from many why the Qur'an can not have been from God. This is clear. The bizarre thing is the percentage of humanity through 1405 years, or thereabouts, which has accepted that it was.

But back to the Muslim narrative:

Devout and righteous Monotheism, even that of Christianity, is not enough, Islam informs all humankind. Accept Muhammad or you go to hell! Plain, simple, unambiguous, taught by all religious authorities in Islam from its inception. (See also Qur'an verse 5:72.)

And this is the message that many Catholic priests and bishops and cardinals and popes want invited to have voice at Christian altars. This is the faith that promiennt Catholic professors of theology (well, one of them at least) assert(s) can produce saints!

The Verse of the Sword

9:5

Ayah As-Sayf

No where in the Qur'an or in Islam is this fundamental principle of Quranic interpretation — the principle of abrogation — more important than in the case of the Verse of the Sword, the supreme verse of the entire Qur'an which was never, and never can be abrogated, but which has abrogated so much that came before.

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due (Jizya), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

This is due both to the subject matter of the verse and to the chronological appearance of the verse. In principle a later verse (ayah) within the same chapter (sura) can abrogate an earlier verse of that chapter, but there are no Musliim scholars holding that any later verse of Sura-Chapter 9 abrogates its 5th Verse, the Verse of the Sword.

As far as later chapters, there is only one. Sura 9 is chronologically the 113th Sura of 114 total Suwar. (The final sura of the Qur'an chronologically, Sura 110, is very short, and it does not abrogate the Verse of the Sword or any other verse of the Qur'an. )

Verse 9:5, the Verse of the Sword, is the final word in Islam on this most seminal of Quranic subjects, violence toward non-Muslims. Jihad in the service of Muhammad's prophetship and the "divine revelation" that he alone received and recited is not restricted to the defensive and the reactive. Non-Muslims are to be sought out proactively, aggressively, violently, world-wide, always, until the Abode of Islam and the Abode of Peace — Dar al-Islam and Dar as-Salam — Muhammad's version of "peace" in which the moral code and religious law which is Sharia reign; everyone accepts Islam, that is, accepts Muhammad's prophetship, or among the dhimmis, the Christians and Jews or "People of the Book" if and only if they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued, that is, are submissive to life-long humiliation. - Quran 9:29.

In practice and across various schools of teaching, as across time and place, the situation could become more complicated and dhimmis status could be and was extended to people other than the monotheists, Hindus and Buddhists for example. As a practical matter, and nomadic raiders are an intensely practical lot, it was in the interests of Muslims and the prosperity of Islamic civilization that large swaths of conquered peoples not become Muslims but rather be heavily taxed and serve as a productive base from which extractions could be exacted. So too with the arts and other creative inputs. A very great deal of the fabled richness of Islamic culture was in fact the creative output and work product of subjugated Christians. Not an aside, by no means a detail to be ignored, this was the most essential feature of Muslim civilization. The greatness of the Islamic Empire was measured by the size and extent of the Christian populations it had subdued and could thereafter lord over and extract the productive surpluses from, or if necessary the essentials. Islam does not produce creative peoples, dynamic civilizations, but it is gloriously successful in producing ruthless overlords, and to be just also in the ability to recognize the value of the arts and sciences of others, appropriating such as their own. But more on this later.

Returning to Verse of the Sword and to the myriad of peaceful, tolerance-exhorting passages of the Qur'an — read, early-stage, temporary, tactical accommodations of Muhammad — which were abrogated and made forever thereafter null and void by this verse, the tally of verses abrogated by the Verse of the Sword is usually set at 124, and is never less than 113.

None of the forgoing is the product of recent scholarship. Book shelves are and for centuries have been full of works outlining and analyzing both the principle of Abrogation in Quranic interpretation and that principle's application to the Verse of the Sword. Of course this circumstance has not prevented very nearly every head of state and head of goverment within European Christendom for many decades running, along with their chief ministers and advisers, from being, or wishing to appear, completely ignorant about all of this. Not-very-liberal Liberals and Conservatives who do not conserve much alike have been plucking out abrogated verses to read to tens of millions of low-information Descendants of European Christendom throughout our civilization. Anything to maintain the tenuous truce, kick the can down the road and keep themselves in really good jobs, all the while the enemy gets more numerous and stronger with each passing year and we get weaker. This is not to rule out the possibility, likely the probability, that some of these leaders lead our civilizational descent not out of incompetence and ignorance, but out of deliberate diabolical design.

"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things. "

— This Verse 2:256 from the Qur'an, quoted endlessly by Muslims and by confused or sinister non-Muslim Islamophiles, is supremely misleading. This is not only because the verse itself is abrogated, like so many others, by the omnipresent Verse 9:5, the Verse of the Sword, the final and definitive authoritative utterance of Islam.

At one level it is true that Islamic theology, law and practice have paid lip service to this dogma of no forced conversions throughout the history of Muhammad's movement. And it should also be added at the outset and then reiterated in countless contexts that the goal of Muhammad and the Muslims was not and is not, strickly speaking, the spread of the Islamic faith to and for all peoples, but the spread of Islamic political dominion and Sharia law. Indeed, were all conquered peoples to accept Islam — an impossibility under God — this would actually undermine the agenda of the conquering hordes. They would thereby lose the punative tax levied on non-Muslims, the Jizya, captured slave girls to be raped (and not counted against their allowable total of four wives) and generally the productivity of the much more scientifically, culturally and intellectually advanced Christian subjugated peoples. There would have been no foundation upon which the myth of the Golden Age of Islam could have been built.

Though this present short story on Islam includes a few quotations, a few case studies, a few pictures, its purpose will really not be very fully served unless it motivates the reader of these lines to take up one or a few of the book-length overviews written by Christian writers of integrity. For those wishing to expose, if only in their own minds, the liars within the Church and within the governments, universities and mass media of European Christendom, there simply will be no substitute for digesting hundreds of examples across fourteen centuries of time and over a vast swath of Earth's geography. Only such a study will give flesh to the simple skeletal synopsis that Muhammad's was a triple offer: (1) conversion to Islam, that is, acceptance of Muhammad's own authority to transmit divine doctrine; (2) acceptance of humiliating subjugation which could and did rise to a pitch to make life unbearable at any Muslim warlord's whim; or (3) death.

Even without extensive schooling in Muslim cynicism over centuries, one can readily see why conquering Muslim armies actually preferred that Option 2 would be selected en masse, leaving for some indefinite point in the far off future the spread of their actual faith.

John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States (and son of the 2nd), serving from 4 March 1825 to 4 March 1829, who some have posited is the most intelligent man to have served in the office:

— "In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [Muhammad, or as JQA transliterated, Mahomet], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus. (1830, emphasis in the original)" —

George Walker Bush, President of the "United" States of America from 20 January 2001 to 20 January 2009, speaking on 20 September 2001. George W. Bush was the son of a man who had been for 12 years the President or Vice President of the United States and who was earlier an Ambassador, Congressman and the CIA Director. This extreme privilege and access to knowledge and information notwithstanding, some have posited at George Bush is the ...

William Jefferson Clinton, President of the "United" States of America from 20 January 1992 to 20 January 2001, speaking on 20 August 1998:

— "I want you to understand, I want the world to understand, that our actions today were not aimed against Islam, the faith of hundreds of millions of good, peace-loving people all around the world, including the United States. No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women and children. But our actions were aimed at fanatics and killers who wrap murder in the cloak of righteousness; and in so doing, profane the great religion in whose name they claim to act. " —

For 78 days from 24 March 1999 through 10 June 1999 Slick Willy stood, well ... sat, at the head of a multination coalition which he had formed together with his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Jewess; his Secretary of Defense (of War) William Cohen, a Jew; their Army General Wesley Clark, a Jew, for the purpose of bombing Orthodox Christian Serbia, ostensibly to support the Kosovar Muslims in their centuries-long struggle with the Christian Serbs over, the Orthodox Christian cradle province of Kosovo. Kosovo had become overwhelmingly populated by Muslims as a result of many centuries of Turkish Muslim suzerainty thoughout the Balkans territories of European Christendom, followed by several decades of atheist-Jew inspired Communism. Clinton later married his only child to a Jew, but nope, there is no pattern here.