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14 - The Facts on Islam
SECTION IV
A General Critique
14. What basic problem does the Koran
present to Muslims?
As we have indicated, the
Koran teaches that Muslims are to accept both the Bible and the Koran:
Say: "We believe in God, and that which has been
sent down on us, and sent down on Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, and the
[Jewish] Tribes, and in that which was given to Moses and Jesus, and the
Prophets, of their Lord; we make no division between any of them . . . "
The Koran claims that Allah
is the God who inspired the Old Testament and the New Testament: " . . . We gave
to Moses the Book and the Salvation, that haply you should be guided." Muslims
are commanded, "Observe the Torah and the Gospel . . . what is revealed to them
from Allah."
Elsewhere Muslims are told:
O believe, believe in God and his Messenger
[Muhammad] and the Book He has sent down on His Messenger [the Koran] and the
Book which He sent down before [the Bible]. Whose disbelieves in God and His
angels and His Books, and His Messengers, and the Last Day, has surely gone
astray into far error . . . God will gather the hypocrites and the unbelievers
all in Gehenna.
In the above verses we see
that those who reject God's Books (plural) and Messengers (plural) are
said to be unbelievers! Muslims are thus forbidden by Allah to accept only part
of God's revelations. But here is a keen dilemma. If Muslims accept what the
Koran teaches, they must then accept what the Bible teaches - which rejects what
the Koran teaches.
But if a Muslim truly accepts the Bible and rejects what the
Koran teaches, he can no longer remain a Muslim and should become a Christian.
So how can a Muslim trust what the Koran teaches when it simultaneously
undermines its own authority? How does the Muslim circumvent this difficulty? By
claiming the Bible's teachings have been corrupted and are, therefore,
untrustworthy.
John Ankerberg & John Weldon
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