As if the intensifying worry of Islamophobia was not confounded enough by the acts of extremists, biased media narratives and political campaign-rhetoric, we have more fire to the fuel by some Christian apologists. Apologists use polemical positioning in doctrine to defend allegations against their theology or to win over converts. The poster-boy of Christian apologetics to Muslims has been Dr. Nabeel Qureshi owing to his own conversion to Christianity from Islam.
Dr. Qureshi’s apologist-narrative has consistently leveraged his personal account of apostasy from Islam as he grew perturbed with what he paints as the discovery of Quran’s (and Muhammad’s) call to violence and aggression. He and other apologists faithfully craft a caricature of Muhammad as a violent-radical by cherry-picking verses of the Quran and drawing an association with the violent acts of extremists.
However, in a recent blog Dr. Qureshi opened another dimension to the allegation in the form of end-times prophecy. According to him, Muhammad’s prophecy of the Messiah ‘breaking the cross and killing the swine’ reconciles with the Quran’s call for aggression—a perspective also faithfully pursued by ISIS.
However, by virtue of diligent analysis, rational thought and historical perspective in scripture as well as prophecy, we can arrive at a reasonable and historically consistent conclusion that debunks this narrative of the terrorists and apologists.
Muhammad and The Quran
Cherry-picking verses out of context and crafting them into memes is a practice so intellectually misgiven that it has been routinely called out by not just Muslims but Jewish intellectuals, Christian academics, the Pope and even atheists.
Sometimes the rebuttal to the allegation exists within the same verse such as the one Dr. Qureshi highlights: Fight those from among the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day… (9:29). Now we know that, generally, Jews and Christians believe in God and the Day of Judgement. So what does it mean in this verse to say those Jews and Christians who do not believe in God and the Day of Judgement? It would mean those who identified as Jews and Christians but their deeds reflected little or no value of the teachings of religion, and thus no true faith in God and a Day when mankind will face divine judgement. They unjustly opposed and sought the destruction of Islam and the fundamental freedoms and values it sought to establish.
This inference is affirmed by verse 2:63 of the Quran that states, Surely, the Believers, and the Jews, and the Christians and the Sabians, whichever party believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord. Now these Jews and Christians in 2:63 are stated as believers in God and His Judgement and thus behave accordingly with equity. Think of it as Christians defending fundamental freedoms against oppression by Nazi-Christians in WWII-- both are Christians that can draw the distinction given in the above verses of the Quran.
Selective reading to feed a given (apologist) narrative is a deplorable practice. Diligence demands that we take a wider view of legacy and history. It is here the anti-Islam apologists would encounter their greatest challenge.
The early Muslims fought hard for fundamental freedoms. The Constitution of Medina drafted by Muhammad is so profound on the freedom of conscience and rights of citizens that academics have inferred it may well have influenced the governance ideals of the American forefathers. Renaissance icon Napoleon Bonaparte said he hoped the wise the world over would one day unite under the principles enshrined in the Quran. Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps the most successful peaceful protester in history, remarked that it was not the sword but the scrupulous regard for pledges and the utter self-effacement of the Prophet that brought success to the early Muslims. Author Michael Hart particularly pointed out that he chose Muhammad as the most influential person in history because his (not just religious but) secular credentials.
And still, there is so much more.
End-Times Prophecy
With end-times prophecy, the problems of the apologists confound yet again. The central and common aspect of Islamic and Christian eschatology is the Second Coming of Christ; taken literally by traditionalists. However, Prophet Muhammad gave a critical qualifier to this end-times prophecy: “things will happen to my followers as did to the Israelites”—as we shall see, this offers key historical and academic perspective on this prophecy.
The rise of fanaticism and violence in Judaism during the times of Jesus was so intense that Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his legendary chronicle The Antiquities of The Jews, was compelled to call it the Fourth Philosophy-- in addition to the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. Driven by division and social grievances under the yoke of pagan Roman rule over Judea and the Hellenization of the Jewish aristocracy, the extreme Zealots took to a murderous rage that Josephus describes as an unfortunate aberration of Jewish tradition and a reign of terror. The Sicarii are thought to have been a splinter group of the Zealots known as dagger-men who wielded daggers to slit throats for a gruesome and terrifying effect— their target oft were the Jewish aristocracy they deemed apostates loyal to idolatrous Rome. The Bandits are thought to have been from the peasantry who channeled their grievances into horrific acts of violence pillaging and burning entire villages.
Yet Jesus, a true Messiah to the Israelites in the Islamic and Christian traditions, emphasized that revolution against Rome is not required to reach the kingdom of heaven.
Violent religious zealotry against Rome and the Jewish aristocracy in first century Jerusalem culminated in destruction and chaos
What is puzzling to many observers is that Dr. Nabeel Qureshi’s conversion was not from orthodox Islam, but from the Ahmadiyya sect rather whose founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1865-1908), claimed to be the symbolic Second Coming of Christ.
Ahmad’s emphatically condemned extremist violence in religion: Today’s Islamic scholars completely misunderstand jihad and misrepresent it to the general public...clerics who persist in propagating these blood-spattered doctrines are in fact responsible for murders…who know nothing of why Islam was forced to fight battles in its early history (British Government and Jihad).
Ahmad, in his book Jesus in India, admonishes both Muslims and Christians for the malice that would result from irrational and untenable interpretations of prophecy: I have written this book so that I might dispel the serious misconceptions which are current among Christians and Muslims…The dangerous consequences of these misconceptions have not only hijacked and destroyed the concept of Divine Unity, but their insidious and poisonous influence has long been noticed in the moral condition of Muslims in this country. It is these baseless myths and tales that result in spiritual maladies like immorality, malice, callousness and cruelty.
Ahmad exhorted his followers to wage an intellectual jihad of the pen with rational and plausible arguments, and through moral self-reformation and service to humanity embodied in the movement’s motto: Love for All Hatred for None— the theology of love as Dr. Qureshi would put it.
Yet the silence on Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Nabeel Qureshi’s writings is deafening for reasons he knows best. One can only infer that had Dr. Qureshi (and other like-minded apologists) been around during the time of Jesus, having witnessed the acts of terrorism by the Zealots and learning of the violence in the passages of the Old Testament, he would have rejected Jesus— a Jew who claimed to be the Messiah and affirmed the Jewish law.
Believed by millions to be the symbolic Second Coming of Christ foretold by Muhammad and Jesus
These interpretations of prophecy by extremists and anti-Islam Christian apologists are antithetical to their true meaning. Breaking the Cross, we believe, refers to the rational, coherent and cohesive theory of Jesus surviving the crucifixion and travelling to India to complete his mission by reaching the lost tribes of the Israelites.
It is illogical and irrational that the prophecy of Breaking the Cross could mean aggression against Christians while Muhammad issued a covenant that all Christians for all time to come are not to be harmed on the basis of their beliefs.
A prophecy of Muhammad that mentions swine has been a cause of concern for Muslims: Terror and dismay will appear among my followers, the people will turn to their scholars and find them to be like monkeys and swine. (Kanzul Ummal).
Likewise, a prophecy of Jesus has been a cause of worry for Christians that Dr. Qureshi and other apologists should pay grave heed to: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many great works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:22-23)
Cherry-picking verses and prophecy out of context and historical perspective, in rather un-Christ like manner, brews unfounded disposition, negative sentiments, and ultimately hate. That would not be the theology of Jesus Christ, nor the theology of love.