From: mughal@romeo.caltech.edu (ASIM M MUGHAL)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: THE CALL OF THE QUR'AN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
Date: 6 Oct 1992 06:10 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
Reply-To: Irfan Alan <irfan@apollo.ece.wisc.edu>
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Originator: Mughal@Romeo.Caltech.Edu (Asim Mughal -Moderator)
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(Especially for Christians)

STATEMENT OF INTENTION

"Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful instruction; 
and reason with them in ways that are best and most gracious:"  (Qur'an 16:125)
Allah says in Qur'an:   Say You: "We believe In Allah, and the revelation 
Given to us, and to Abraham, Ishmael , Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes,  and that
given to Moses and Jesus, that given to all prophets from their Lord:  We make
no difference Between one and another of them: And we bow to Allah (in Islam)  
So if they believe As you believe, they are indeed On the right path;  but if
they turn back, it is they who are in schism;  But Allah will suffice you as
against them,  and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.    (Q.2:136-137)

"Say: O People of the Book!  Come to common terms as between us and you: That
we worship none but Allah;  That we associate no partners with Him; That we
erect not, from among ourselves,  Lords and patrons other than Allah. If then
they turn back,   Say you: 'Bear witness that we at least are Muslims bowing to
Allah's Will'.  (Qur'an 2:64.)

This call of Qur'an has been propagating for more than 14 hundred years.  We,
Muslims, today, take great pleasures and fulfillment in our hearts when we see
that, finally, the People of the Book, especially the Christians, are breaking
the barriers of their largely enforced misconceptions, and coming out,
knowingly or not, to listen to and reason with the call of Qur'an.
What do Muslims understand when it is said the People of the Book?  At first,
People of the Book refers to the Christians who claim to follow the teachings
of Jesus (A.S.), Jews who claim to follow the teachings of Moses (A.S.).  Then,
it also refers to the people devoted to learning, the people of wisdom, the
people in quest for the truth, and those who renounced the world and
selfishness for their transience, and give up their arrogance (see Qur'an
5:82-86).  In meaning, the Qur'an asks the People of the Book:

"O People of the Truth!  Believe in Muhammad (ASM) and the Qur'an just as you
should also properly believe in the previous prophets and scriptures.  For they
all gave the glad tidings of the coming of the last prophet Muhammad (ASM), and
all that gives evidence to the truthfulness of them are truly, accurately, and
purely found in the Qur'an and Muhammad (ASM).  Affirm, then, that the Qur'an
is Allah's Word, and Muhammad (ASM) is His Last Messenger, for all the reasons
you believe in the previous scriptures and messengers.

O Christians and Jews!  There is no difficulty for you in accepting Islam if
only you would follow the pure teachings of your prophets; do not let it appear
hard to you.  For the Qur'an does not order you to abandon your faith on One
Almighty Creator.  It asks you, indeed, to complete and purify your affirmation
of the essentials of the religion.  This is because the Qur'an combines in
itself all the true virtues of all the previous books and the essentials of all
the previous revealed religions; it is thus a modifier, a purifier, and a
perfector over them.  

As for Islam having established a new final Law, this only concerns such
details which were subject to change and alteration (only by the Law Giver)
because of time and place.  This is not unreasonable at all.  With the change
of seasons, food and costumes need to be changed.  Also the methods for
educating a person change in accordance with his age.  A certain kind of
medicine may also be a fatal poison for one while it heals another.  So, too,
such details which harmonize human life and mind with the requirements of the
time are rightly and reasonably subject to change.  For this reason the Qur'an
has changed some details of the previous religions and prepared the humankind
for a new and final quest -a quest that of fulfilling the purpose of creation
in its full potential, that is, establishment of complete justice and answering
all the questions asked by the tongues of wisdom, reasoning, and sound
judgement."

A Muslim affirms the Existence of One Creator by sound judgement and
contentment coming from the certainty of knowledge of Allah's Attributes, and
thus fully submits to His Will.  A true declaration of faith in Allah is not
just to say 'There must be a God', and then divide up His sovereignty among
causes and nature, associate His absolute Attributes to the number causes and
intermediaries, to fail to perceive His Absolute Will and Knowledge as present
with all things; to refuse to acknowledge His Commands, to belittle or reject
the prophets He has sent, and not to make sincere repentance, seek pardon, and
feel genuine regret for every disobedience.

Not denying is one thing, believing and affirming is something completely
different.  The declaration of a Muslim by saying "There is no god but Allah,
and He has no partners" carries an affirmation by heart and mind in the way
taught by the Qur'an the Miraculous Exposition.
Actually, Jesus (AS) also encouraged his followers to have certainty in their
belief in the Creator through wisdom and contentment of the heart and the mind.
He facilitated understanding of his people by appealing to their wisdom and
thinking through many simple stories and examples.  

For example, see in Matthew 7:24-27.
"Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken
him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell
not: for it was founded upon a rock.  And every one that hears these sayings of
mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his
house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

How about what Paul -self-appointed apostle- says about wisdom?  We read in the
book he wrote (Corinthians 1:19):  "For it is written, I (God) will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the
prudent."  This is why the Church was so much allergic towards wisdom, and made
Christians approach their own wisdom as devilish.  We all know the historical
events which are witnesses to this.  It took for the Church 3 centuries to
accept its error in denouncing Galilee.  We, Muslims, are waiting patiently to
see how long more it will take for the Church to recognize the truth of the
Miraculous Qur'an and the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (ASM)!  Of course, such an
acceptance of the Church means its very end.

In exactly the same manner, at a time when the materialist ideologies came
exploiting and interpreting scientific knowledge, since today's Christianity is
more of a Pauline Doctrine, and since pure teachings of prophet Jesus (AS) are
largely distorted with many irrational (often paganish) ideas and rituals, and
since the Christian faith is often a mere imitation and acceptance of what the
clergy, or so-called godly men, dictates, many hearts and minds are lost to the
pressures of an increasingly harsh world and attacks of atheism.

Scorpion Example:
-----------------
We, Muslims, see our Christian friends as carrying a scorpion on their
shoulders.  When you face such a dangerous situation, you slap on your friends
shoulder immediately, instead of hugging him or scratching his back! 
Similarly, we do not waste time with beautiful words and gestures as signs of
our love towards them.  Our consideration of Christian friends comes from our
compassion towards them.  We, Muslims, do not love them with their current
dangerous status in regard to their blasphemy.  Since Islam does not give the
true ownership of virtues and qualities to people themselves or any effect to
causes, Muslims love other fellow human beings for the sake of Allah.  With no
expectation of benefit in return, we invite all peoples to the Straight Path in
Islam only out of compassion for them.   

Ship Example:
-------------
We, Muslims, are told by Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (ASM), that a time will
come when Christians will eventually join the ranks of Islam by purifying their
faith.  We are also told in the Most-Wise Qur'an that the closest people to
Muslims in friendship will be those Christians who are devoted to learning of
the truth, who are not arrogant, and who have denounced the world.  With these
information and guidance in mind, we regard our Christian friends as travelling
in a ship called "Christianity" in the dark, stormy waters of Western
materialist ideologies and atheism.  However, we see that this ship is sinking,
and groups of people are committing suicide by jumping out into those dark
waters.  The ship is sinking because some people inside have been opening up
holes in it out of their own various reasons, and because secular philosophies
outside have been torpedoing it harshly.  We, Muslims, do not want to sink the
ship, rather we want to patch up its holes, throw away all the poisonous
weights in it, and change its name to Islam, whose captain will be Jesus (AS)
himself, InsaAllah Teala!  . The Message of All Prophets were all same:  'There
is no god but Allah.'

If four people who have arrived via four different routes all speak of the same
event, it suggests, with a certainty born out of unanimity, that that event
definitely occurred.  Thus, although their ways, dispositions, abilities,
circumstances, and times were all completely different, all the prophets of
Allah, starting from the first human and prophet Adam (AS), up to the last
prophet Muhammad (ASM), including all the prophets sent to all nations
throughout the world, all authentic revelations and scriptures all give this
unique message:  "There is no god but Allah; He is One, He has no partner; His
is the dominion and His is the praise; He alone grants life and deals death,
and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, and He is powerful over
all things and with Him all things have their end." Know O Dear Friend!  To
discover a treasure which contains embellished and valuable variety of
jewellers, several people dive into the deep sea.  While searching, one of them
finds a long piece of a diamond.  He then comes to the conclusion that the
treasure completely consists of diamonds.  Later, when he hears from his
friends about other kinds of minerals, he would surmise that those minerals
found are the stones of the diamond that he found.  The other one finds a
spherical ruby, and another fellow finds some other kind, and so on.  Each of
them believes that the whole treasure consists of the kind that he found, and
other kinds found by his friends are superfluous and minor details of the
treasure.  After such conclusion is made, the balance is lost and the
proportion is diminished.  They eventually start making false explanation, and
forced interpretation in order to discover and understand the truth of the
matter based on  their own observation.  Even some of them ended up denying the
treasure altogether when their understanding did not suit the reality.  
Friend, the Miraculous Qur'an too dived into that sea to discover the treasure.
That treasure is the Names and Attributes of the Creator, Allah, and the
purpose of Creation.  However, the eyes of the All-Wise Qur'an is open, it sees
the treasure completely with an embracing view, and in a manner suitable to the
truth regarding the balance and proportion.  It presented the truth with
perfect order and regularity.  It preserved Tawheed (Oneness of the Creator)
with all its ranks as much as required and necessary.  It fulfilled the
requirements and proportions of the Beautiful names of Allah, taught them in a
harmony according to the Will of Allah.  Allah Subhanehu wa Teala makes the
High truths about His Names and Attributes known in the Qur'an in the perfect
way.  The Qur'an, therefore, teaches the Lord (Uluhiyyet), Sustainer, and
Cherisher Names (Rububiyat) in the most harmonious and effective way.