Christians: An Islamic Perspective.

One of the interesting things about Islam is that it is a religion that has "protected" itself from criticism by explicitly stating that the mere act of challenging the Koran (i.e. word of God) is a great sin in of itself. You are not supposed to "try to find loopholes" or "errors" in the Koran, since those kinds of things cannot exist, and that if you think for any reason that you have found a discrepancy, then it is simply Satan convincing you as such.

Having been raised as a devout Muslim for the first 17 years of my life, I of course, never questioned any Islamic teachings that I received. Every thing that was taught to me was the Truth, and if I didn't believe it, I would go to hell. Nice and simple.

Well, I guess it's time to sin. I have recently been analyzing the Koran more and more and finding some interesting things. Let's jump right into a simple question:

Assuming Islam is correct, will Christians go to Heaven or Hell when they die?

A simple word search on the text of the Koran for the word "Christians" brings up occurrences in 12 different aya(s) or verses:

(Search Results)

The weird part is that those 12 ayas are quite contradictory semantically. Take a look at aya 30 from chapter 9:

[9.30] 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!

That is clearly a negative statement about Christians. It doesn't get much shittier than "may Allah destroy them".

Here are a few more Christian-damning ayas:

[2.135] And they say: Be Jews or Christians, you will be on the right course. Say: Nay! (we follow) the religion of Ibrahim, the Hanif, and he was not one of the polytheists.

[5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

Now on the other hand, consider the following two ayas:

[2.62] Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.

[5.69] Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabians and the Christians whoever believes in Allah and the last day and does good-- they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.

Both ayas are very similar to each other and, more importantly, they both claim that it's ok to be Christian.

Then you have some ayas that are just confusing like this one:

[5.82] Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly.


What in Allah's name is going on here? Is this just some kind of Arabic-English translation error? A close look at the Arabic script for those ayas reveals that no, there isn't a translation error, and that the original Arabic Koranic text for those ayas does indeed have the same exact semantics as the English translations shown above.

What is even more scientifically frustrating is the fact that discussing such an obvious contradiction with Muslim friends or family results in an immediate panic over how angry Allah must be right now since we are challenging his words.

Hasn't this been seen by many people before me? Why hasn't anyone mentioned anything about this to me when I was growing up? Well, I am sure that people did come across this contradiction (amongst others), but decided that they only think it's a contradiction because Satan is playing with their heads, or because they are not worthy of understanding what Allah truly means.

Give me a break.

Until next time,
--Shafik