I want to talk about the most serious religious crisis of our time. It is the rift that certain fundamentalists–Christians, Jews and Muslims–are trying to open between Christianity and Islam, the two largest religions on the planet. Sadly, some people are seeking to foster hatred and religious war on both sides. The sort of misinformation that is being disseminated among Christians and Jews is quite alarming and distressing. Some of it is outright falsehood.

For example, one thing you may hear today is that Muslims do not worship God, they worship something else called Allah. But Allah is simply the Arabic word for “God.” It is closely related to the word for God, Alaha, in Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke, a language still spoken in a few areas in the Middle East. If you are an Arab Christian, or Arabic speaking Jew or Muslim, you pray to Allah. To question that is like arguing that French speakers don’t worship God, they worship something else called “Dieu”. Muslims worship the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, and anyone who opens an English translation of the Qur’an will see that.

Jerry Vines, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, has described the beloved Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, as a “demon-obsessed pedophile.” Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, who also gave the invocation at President Bush’s inauguration, describes Islam as “a very evil and false religion.” Jon Hanna, an evangelical minister from Ohio who edits Connection Magazine in that state, also describes Islam as “false.” He cited the 1st epistle of St John (2: 21): “The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is the liar. He is the Antichrist.” Mr Hanna then concluded: “The Muslim religion is an antichrist religion.”

Yet this is a barefaced lie. The Qur’an, or Recitation of the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, the holy book of Islam, always refers to Jesus as “the Messiah.” Christos or Christ is only a Greek translation of the Aramaic and Hebrew word, “messiah.” The Qur’an also refers to Jesus as the word of God and spirit from Him, born of the sinless virgin Mary, “purified above all women,” and it gives more space to Mary than the New Testament does. I have never heard, and never expect to hear, any Muslim insult the name of Jesus. It would be a rejection of what Islam has taught them, that he was the promised messiah, that he ascended to heaven, and that he will come again before the world ends.    »»» Misunderstanding Islam

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