Correspondence With A Muslimah
By Dallas M. Roark, Ph.D
From: Zizi Y
To: dialog...@answering-islam.de
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 10:12 AM
Subject: Oh, Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve!
Dear Zizi:
Thanks for your letter. It is not good to start a letter by insulting the receiver. But I forgive you.
She wrote:
I read half-way through your article below [which she did not identify] and skimmed the rest. It is grammatically well written, good on you :) Unfortunately, it does not merit much more than that. Can you please point out where in the Qur'an does it say that men and women will have their reproductive organs (naughty bits) in the hereafter? I will genuinely apologise to you if you find any passage in the Qur'an that says that Men and Women will have sexual relations in Paradise.
Reply: Your question is the type of question that is known to be impossible from the beginning. This is like asking if computers are mentioned in the Qur’an. Apart from genitals, the Qur’an certainly does mention the idea of sexual intercourse in paradise.
"Thus (shall it be), and We will wed them with Houris, pure, beautiful ones." (The Evident Smoke, 44:54 Shakir.) … They shall recline on couches lined with thick brocade, and within reach will hang the fruits of both gardens. … Therein are bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched (opening their hymens with sexual intercourse) before. … Virgins as fair as corals and rubies…. (The Beneficent, 55:54-58 Dawood) In each there shall be virgins chaste and fair. … Dark eyed virgins sheltered in their tents whom neither man nor jinnee would have touched before. They shall recline on green cushions and fine carpets. … (The Beneficent 55:70-77 Dawood) We created the Houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those of the right hand… That Which is Coming, (56:36 Dawood) As for the righteous, they shall surely triumph. Theirs shall be gardens and vineyards, and high-bosomed virgins for companions: a truly overflowing cup. (The Tidings, 78:31-33 Dawood; also reference 52:20, 56:22-24)
Where do the jihadists get the idea of 72 virgins daily in paradise? Where else than Islam? Having 72 virgins is not for house cleaning. Why do you think so many unmarried or married jihadists are willing to die so quickly and so irrationally for paradise if it were not for lots of sex?
She wrote:
Being a female, if I'm not going to have sex, why would I care if a man gets a houri for a companion?!
My reply: Why are you not going to have sex? There are several possibilities. Mohammed said that most women will be in hell. Another reason is that women are second class persons and their pleasures are irrelevant as proven by female circumcision of millions of girls.
She wrote:
Or why would even a man care for that matter? The only reason why I would care is if I was a sexually perverted person who lived for their own desires and passions? What you're saying is that I should become a Christian and worship God because I know He has guaranteed a male-angel for me in Heaven (if there was such an offer)... and that should be my main motivation to go to Heaven. I think if you are a Christian and want never-ending sexual activity with men other than your husband in Heaven, then you are going there for all the wrong reasons.
My reply: Sorry, there are no male angels for you or anyone. Jesus said that in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage. The jihadists are going to be hugely disappointed. It was for nothing that they died. Sex is a temporary creation for procreation, and there will be no babies in heaven.
She wrote:
Besides, we can't exactly justify and explain what goes on in Heaven while we are still on planet Earth, right? It is like saying Disneyland sucks when, really, you never went because you were denied entry. And since neither you nor I have visited Heaven, yet, and come back to recount our own version, we have no choice but trust in what our God has ordered and designed for us. For now, let us concentrate on how to get there, shall we?
My reply: If you would read the Gospels you will discover that Jesus came from heaven to earth and after the resurrection he returned to heaven. He does say something about heaven. So what I believe about heaven is what He said about it.
She wrote:
Another thing... put aside your prejudice and ponder on this...
My reply: I would ask the same of you in asking you to read the Gospels.
She wrote:
"The Qur'an is the truth because it does NOT deny Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and his second coming, to do so would be a sin against God.
My reply: There is a grave problem in your reasoning here. The Qur’an denies the really important issues about Jesus. Mohammed denied that Jesus was the Son of God, that he was crucified, and that he arose from the dead. If you will read the Gospels you will see that these are central truths. In denying them, the Qur’an does not give you truth. Moreover, the Qur’an incorporates myths, non-historical stories, bad science, wrong medicine, and other stuff. So, to affirm that Jesus was a prophet does not give the whole truth.
She wrote:
“In fact, Prophet Muhammad details Jesus' second coming in the Hadith and labels him as the Saviour of Mankind against the wicked Dajjal.”
My reply: There are over 500,000 hadiths and only about 2400 are regarded as credible by Muslim scholars. How do you pick and choose? If they are overwhelmingly false, how can you trust the ones you regard as truth?
She wrote:
“When a Christian says God, Muslims understands that you refer to the one and only God, Creator of All, for which the Arabic name is Allah. Yet when a Muslim says Allah, narrow-minded Christians will mimick the name as though we worship a different or lesser God!
My reply:
There were 360 gods in Mecca when Mohammed lived there. He kept only one god. If Allah is one among others it is not possible that he can become supreme. A god has to be supreme to begin with, a being cannot gain supremacy. If Allah were supreme to begin with, why were 359 gods worshiped? If you read the Old Testament Yahweh would not allow his name to be associated with other gods that were worshiped. The reason for the judgement on Israel was their trying to make Yahweh a functional god and Baal an agricultural god. Yahweh forbade it all and allowed the Jews to be carried into captivity.
If you will read through the Old Testament it is a stretch of the imagination to think that Yahweh and Allah have the same character. Allah is capricious, Yahweh is not. Christians believe that God truly revealed Himself in the Incarnation in Jesus. Allah did not do that and Muslims deny that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
She wrote:
“Since the bible was not written by Jesus himself to attest to this; why do Christians insist that God takes the humanly form? If Jesus was in fact recreated in the image of God, tell me who on Earth saw God Almighty and brang back to Earth a sketch of Him?! Also, I believe the photo camera was invented centuries after Jesus. Putting up a picture of a man and declaring that he is Jesus or He is God, is bordering idolatry. Think on it.
My reply: Let’s do some thinking together. You need to read the Gospels to get the story straight. The Son of God took human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Why? We could not know God any other way. Do you know Allah? Do you have a relationship with Allah? Does Allah answer your prayers? You can pray to Jesus to confirm the truth of the Gospel to you. If you are searching for the truth, he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
The story of Jesus is that God loves you so much that He came to earth in the person of the Son of God to die for you, rise from the dead, to forgive your sins, to give you the Holy Spirit, to give you the promise of everlasting life in His presence. (Remember, no marriage in heaven.)
She wrote:
Besides, don't tell me that Christians are THAT narrow-minded that they are not able to grasp the possibility, the concept that no-one knows exactly what God looks like, and that His beauty is beyond human comprehension and He is unlike anything on this earth, including us humans? Why do you insist on flattering yourself so?
My reply: Why do you insist on insulting God’s love? The only way that we can know about God is for God to reveal Himself. This is what the Gospel is about. God, the unknowable, reveals Himself in a knowable way as the Son of God. If you want to know what God is like, read the story of Jesus.
She wrote:
“Since you yourself admit to appreciating the recountation of certain historical facts in the Qur'an as being 'accurate', consider this theory, for just a second, God is nothing like us humans, right? Just consider it. Now, find the passage, as I'm sure you'll have no trouble, where it says: 'GOD is One, the Eternal God. He begot none, nor was He begotten. None is equal to Him'.
My reply: “recountation of certain historical facts as accurate?? There are lots of inaccuracies in the Qur’an. The passage you mentioned is:
“In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Say: He is Allah, the One! Allah, the eternally Besought of all! He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him.” (112:1-4, Pickthall)
The problem with this passage is that Mohammed did not understand the Christian idea of God’s only begotten Son. This was not a sexual begetting but a way of talking about God becoming Incarnate in Jesus.
She wrote:
(Please email me the passage number and I'll tell you if its right). Now consider this passage:
"She who guarded her virginity, we breathed into her of our spirit and appointed her and her Son to be a sign to the worlds" (Sura al-Anbiya' 21:91).
We both know, who that is; Mary and her Son Jesus. If you do not trust God to breath unto Mary, and from a single breath create a Messiah, then who is the unbeliever?
You or Me? Or must you relate and think only in terms of things that you see on this Earth with your own eyes? You reduce Him to a human being, like yourself, with a son, like your own, but of course you acknowledge He has supernatural powers. If so, then change the Bible, and replace 'God' with Sorcerer!
My reply: You are the unbeliever because you reject Jesus as the Word, the Son of God. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. (John 1:14) In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1-2)
Your comment does not make sense to me since you are really the one reducing Him to a mere human being, a prophet. I worship Him as the Son of God. You claim to honor Jesus but you want to call him a Sorcerer because he did miracles. There are many, many miracles in the Gospels and they show his power to heal, to forgive, to give life to the dead, and they proclaim his person. Even the Qur’an declares that Jesus did miracles and it does not make him a sorcerer.
She wrote:
“It is the logic to learn from your errors in the past. We would not want to step backward when progression is the natural order of things.
This leads me to my next point, if I were given the opportunity to be transported back to an era where women were burnt at the stake because they were thought to be witches, when, really they were in fact herbalists... would I go? No. I most definitely would not!
Would we ever go back to witch-hunting or witch-burning? No, we wouldn't. The very idea is preposterous! Why? Because, we have learned from our mistakes, so to speak, we no longer fear women who practice in naturopathy! It was only the fear of the unkown that fed the ignorance of the Christians who committed those terrible crimes against those women.
So, why do Christians exempt this logic to moving forward and progessing onto Islam? Why does progression into the future not apply to religion? Would i go back to using a type-writer? Would a German re-enact the Holocaust again? If we wanted to get there real fast would we journey to the other side of the earth with a ship? Think about it, Islam is Christianity but accurate, richer and better, the Qur'an: unspoiled by human hands.
My reply: Where have you been in the Muslim world? Islam wants to return to the 7th century and the jihadists are trying to get you there. Islam has not made progress. It is still calling for death to the infidels, it is still justifying honor killing of women for whatever reason, and there are thousands of them going on all the time. Islam supports the circumcision of young girls so that they will never know sexual pleasure, Islam still supports the second class position of women, less education and in some places, no education, little or no freedom for women and when all is said and done, according to Mohammed, they will end up in hell. This is progress? This is progressive? Unspoiled by human hands?
You should check out some websites like http://www.exmuslim.com/, where Ex-Muslims tell why they left Islam, they are on videos. Also check out the following. http://bibleprobe.com/islamapostates.htm, http://www.faithfreedom.org/Testimonials/ali1940.htm. You can then decide if Islam is the religion of progression.
She wrote:
“Are you scared of Islam, Mr Roark? Can I liken your line of work to modern-day passive witch-hunting?”
My reply: People need to know about the issues in Islam. If you would read the history of Islam it is the story of death, destruction, and dhimmitude. Millions have died at the hands of Islam. Muslims remember the Crusades which were a drop in the bucket in comparison to the killing and enslavement of the people who were conquered by Islam. Islam is a great threat to freedom, progress, and safety.
She wrote:
Where it says in the Bible to abstain from pre-marital affairs, so-called Christians and the Church are willing to compromise on that, prepared to be lenient on that, to forgive. Exactly, who gave the Church and priests authority to absorb/absolve humans of their sins? Just think; a human forgiving a human for a law created by God. I'll explain in terms you'll understand. We all agree that God gave us life, and only God can take life away... Now I will rephrase: God made the laws and only God can nullify the law. I hope that helps. Please, let's not forget sam-sex marriages...
My reply: When a Christian sins, that does not abrogate the command against fornication, and adultery. Now what to do? Is there any forgiveness? Jesus was surrounded by men accusing a women caught in adultery. He said that any man without sin could cast the first stone. Little by little they left here, and He said, Go and sin no more. (John 8:1-11) By contrast, in Islam a woman, or girl suspected of talking with a man, a stranger, or a boy friend may be killed as part of honor killing. Young girls are killed by their parents on the suspicious of sexual activity have been shown to be innocent by medical examinations. There are thousands of these that go on every year. Jesus said, if you do not forgive, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you. Check out the Gospels, you will be surprised at what you discover.
She wrote:
“PS. Do you know that a report on Purity Pledges in America, found that 9 out of 10 young girls who swore a Christian Oath to God and pledged to their fathers to remain virgins until they married, broke their Oath to God and had sex... Next time you decide to discredit the Qur'an, think of this fact.”
My reply: You are talking apples and oranges. The fact that young girls break their pledge does not make the Gospel false, nor the Qur’an true. I also have sorrow over young people sinning against God and their own bodies. It is also sad to know that in Islamic cultures honor and shame are so strong that girls are killed for little reason, suspected actions, and normal actions.
She wrote:
“Perhaps, it will be a reminder of how loyal Christians are... and perhaps it is because of this demonstrated loyalty that you do this as a hobby. Otherwise, God forbid, one would think that you spend your time trying to discredit the Qur'an and Islam out of fear and anxiety!”
My reply: The issue is truth. The love of God is more important that fear and anxiety. Perfect love casts out fear. Remember God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, loves you. He came to let you know that. You will not hear that Allah loves you because you cannot know him, but you can know Jesus, God in the flesh, and have a personal relationship with him NOW. Simply pray, asking Him to show you Who He is. Blessings. Dallas