THIRD OBJECTION

          The third objection often raised by Christians against the truth of the Holy Qur’an is centred around three concepts contained in the Holy Qur’an. The first is the Qur’anic claim that Allah is not only the Creator of guidance but that misguidance is also created by Him. The second is the fact that the Holy Qur’an contains descriptions of Paradise which include the presence of  houris, rivers and buildings. The third is that the Holy Qur’an contains the commandment to wage war  (jihad) against the disbelievers.

           Their main contention with regard to these things is that the word of God should be free from such unseemly concepts. This objection is considered by them to be the most convincing argument against the divine nature of the Qur’an. There is hardly any book written by the Christians on the subject that does not contain their strange elaborations on this aspect of the Holy Qur’an.

            We should, therefore, examine the validity of the above objection with regard to each of the above three aspects separately.

 Guidance and Misguidance from Allah

          One of the many answers to this aspect of the objection is that the holy books of the Christians also say the same thing in many places. According to this view the presence of such passages in them should be an argument against their being the word of God. We reproduce below some specific examples of such passages from their books

(1)   Exodus 4:21 says:

            And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

(2)   Exodus 7:3 also contains:

          And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

            (3)       The same book contains the following in 10:1:

       And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the hearts of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him.

            (4)       Exodus 10:20 says:

            But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the Children of Israel go.

            (5)       Also verse 27 of the same chapter has:

            But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.

            (6)       Exodus 11:10 has:

            And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

(7)       Deuteronomy 29:4 says:   

            Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

            (8)       Isaiah 6:10 contains

            Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their hearts... and convert, and be healed.

(9)               Epistle to the Romans 11:8 says:

            God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day.

(10)          The Gospel of John, chapter 12, [1]says:

            Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted.

       The above quotes from the Pentateuch, the book of Isaiah and the New Testament are explicit in implying that God blinded the eyes, stamped the ears and hardened the hearts of the Israelites so that they might not be converted to the truth and should not be healed from their disease of perversion. They are therefore unable to see the truth, to hear it or to understand it. The following Qur’anic description is in no way different from what we have read above:

      God hath set a seal (stamped) on their hearts and on their hearing, and on their eyes is a veil; And for them is great pun- ishment. [2]

            (11)     The Arabic translations of Isaiah printed 1671, 1831 and 1844 contain the following at 63:17:

      O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. [3]

         The Book of Ezekiel contains the following statement at 14:9:

       And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

      The book of Ezekiel ascribes the act of deceiving and the Book of Isaiah attributes the act of misguiding to God.

(13) I Kings 22:19-23 contains the following passage:

         “And he[4] said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.

       It is not difficult to see that the above description gives us to believe that God sits on His throne meeting with the host of heaven to seek their counsel for deceiving and misguiding people, then a lying spirit is deputed to misguide them.

(14) The Second Epistle to Thessalonians 2:11-12 says:

     And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The above statement of Paul is unambiguous in implying that God deludes people to prevent them from believing in truth.

 (15) The Gospel of Matthew [5] reports Jesus as saying the following after his crying woe to the unrepentant cities:  

       I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

(16) The book of Isaiah 45:7 says:

     I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

(17) The Lamentations of Jeremiah 3:38 contains:

        Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

         The above question implies nothing if not that God is the creator of both good and evil.

(18) The book of Micah 1:12 contains: 

       But evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.  

       The above is plain affirmation to the fact that just as God is the creator of good, so He is the creator of evil.

(19) The Epistle to the Romans 8:29 has:

      For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

(20) Also we read in 9:11-21 of the same Epistle:

            (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

      What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, not of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

        Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?

        The above statement of Paul is a clear affirmation of the belief in destiny and also an explicit indication that guidance and misguidance are both from God.

       The following statement of the Prophet Isaiah, 45:9:

            Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou or thy work, He hath no hands? [6]

            It was on the basis of such verses that Luther, the founder of the Protestant faith, was conspicuously inclined towards belief in the predestination of human fate. There are many statements of Luther that bring out his views on this concept. We produce two such statements from the  Catholic Herald vol. 9 page 277:

       Man and horse have been created alike. They obey their rider. If God rides man he obeys His commands and if Satan rides him he goes the way he is commanded by Satan. He does not possess free will to choose between the two riders, both the riders are always striving to get hold of him.

        The following statement has also appeared in the  Catholic Herald:

          Whenever you find a commandment in the holy books to do a certain act, be sure that this book is not asking you to do it, because you are not capable of doing it of your own will.

            The famous Catholic priest Thomas Inglis said in his book  Mira’atus Sidk printed 1851 on page 33:

          Their early ecclesiastics taught them the following absurd dogmas:

(1)               God is the Creator of sin.

(2)               Man has no power or free will to abstain from sins.

(3)               It is not possible to observe the Ten Commandments.

(4)               Sins, no matter how great and grave, do not demean a man in the eyes of God.

(5)               Only belief in God is enough for eternal salvation, because it is only on the basis of belief that man will be awarded or punished. This doctrine is very comforting and useful.

 Luther, the father of the Reformation said:

            Only believe and you will be redeemed. There is no necessity to bear the hardships of good acts like fasting, abstinence from sins, and humility of confession, be sure that without them and only for your true faith in Christ, you shall certainly get salvation equal to the salvation of Christ. No matter if you get involved in fornication and murder a thousand times a day, you are destined to reach salvation only for your true belief. I repeat only your belief will get you redeemed.

       The above is enough to show that the first contention of the Protestants that the divinity of the Holy Qur’an was dubious because it attributed the creation of evil to God is totally irrational and against reason. The creation of evil does not in any way require the evilness of the Creator, just as the creation of white and black does not mean that the Creator has to be black or white. The creation of Satan by God is a part of His divine wisdom; the same wisdom is present in the creation of evil.

     Similarly God has created evil desires, jealousy and other negative forces in human nature, although it was in His eternal knowledge that negative forces would produce negative results. Everything created, good or bad, therefore, owes its existence to God.

 The Blessings of Paradise

    As for their second point of contention regarding the presence of palaces, damsels and other material delights in Paradise, this too is not a valid objection. In any case the Muslims do not claim that the blessings and delights of Paradise are only physical, as is very often misstated by the Protestant theologians, but the Muslims believe - and this belief is strongly supported by Qur’anic verses and other authentic arguments - that the blessings and pleasures of Paradise are both, physical and spiritual, the latter being stronger and more prominent than the former. The Holy Qur’an says:[7]

     Allah has promised to the believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, in which they shall dwell for ever; and beautiful mansions in the Gardens of Eden, but the  greatest bliss is the pleasure of Allah. That is the supreme felicity.

             The “pleasure of Allah” in the above verse has been described as being the greatest of all the blessings of Paradise, qualitatively as well as quantitively. That is to say, this spiritual blessing of having the pleasure of Allah exceeds all the physical delights such as mansions, gardens and damsels etc. The same is alsa indicated by the last phrase, “That is the supreme felicity.”

            Man has been created of two elements: spirit and matter. The supreme felicity of man or his ultimate success lies in the achievement of both physical and spiritual delights. He cannot be said to have achieved his ultimate salvation if he is denied either of the two felicities.

 The Christian Concept of Paradise

    It has already been elucidated earlier[8] that to the Muslims the Evangel strictly means the book that was originally revealed to the Prophet Jesus. Now if any of the statements of Jesus is found to be in contradiction with any Qur’anic injunction, effort should be made to explain away the discrepancy. According to the Christian scriptures, the comparison of the dwellers of Paradise with the angels does not negate their eating and drinking there. Have they not read in Genesis chapter 18 that the angels who visited Abraham were presented with “dressed calf, butter and milk, which they did eat”?[9] Similarly the angels who appeared to Lot ate the bread and other food that Lot prepared for them, which is clearly written in chapter 19 of the book of Genesis.

      It is surprising that the Christians believe in the physical resurrection of human beings on the Day of Judgment and yet insist on denying physical delights for them in Paradise! It would have been less objectionable if they totally denied the resurrection of man as did the associators of Arabia, or believed only in spiritual resurrection as was believed by the followers of Aristotle.

       Physical attributes, like eating and drinking, are ascribed to God by the Christians because they believe that Jesus was God incarnate. On the other hand we are made to understand that Jesus was not as abstinent and ascetic as was John the Baptist. Christ’s opponents even accuse him of being, “gluttonous and winebibber”,[10] though we Muslims totally deny this accusation and firmly believe that he was totally free from such defects.

      We unhesitatingly claim that the Prophet Jesus was purely human. Now, when physical pleasures like eating and drinking could not pre- vent him experiencing spiritual delights and as he enjoyed the spiritual blessings more than the physical ones in this life, so the physical pleasures in Paradise will not deprive people of their spiritual delights.

        In fact, the Protestant claim that there will be no physical pleasure in Paradise is clearly denied by innumerable statements appearing in the Bible. We produce a few examples of such statements below:  

       And the Lord God commanded the man (Adam) saying, Of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat.”[11]  

       This clearly indicates that there are many trees in Paradise bearing fruit to eat. In this context they contend that Adam’s Paradise was on the earth while the Paradise of the Hereafter is in the heavens and that the former was different from the latter. Firstly, their claim of Adam’s Paradise being on earth is not supported by any statement of their sacred books; secondly, if we assume it to be true, they have no argument to support that this Paradise was different from the one in heavens. On the contrary the Gospels make us believe that there will be physical pleasures in the Paradise of the Hereafter. The Prophet Jesus is reported to have said itto his apostles:

            But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.[12]

              Also see Mark 14:25, Luke 22:18. Similarly we read the following under the description of the Hereafter in Luke 13:29:  

            And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.

        It is on the basis of such statements that the ancient Christians believed in both physical and spiritual pleasures in Paradise. Saint Augustine also said that he liked the opinion that Paradise consisted of physical as well as spiritual pleasures. Saint Thomas Aquinas has also refuted those who deny physical pleasures in Paradise.

       The third contention with regard to  Jihad (Religious War) will be discussed later in this book. This is regarded by the Christians as their strongest point against the Holy Prophet and we intend to discuss it in depth.