The Americans are coming!!
The July Muslim/Christian debate series
All three Abrahamic faiths claim to worship the same God, indeed the Pope recently affirmed that Islam worships the same God as Christianity. But as the rise of Christian fundamentalist evangelism continues in the US, and the continued War on/of Terror influencing Western populations into an ideological attack on Islam; the conception of the God worshipped by Muslims is once more brought into question, allegations of a warmongering Prophet spreading a barbaric law with the sword, have once more arisen and an intellectual assault on Islamic theology parallels the political assault on the Muslim world, leaving Muslims to defend their beliefs at their most fundamental level.
From the Islamic perspective, the once monotheistic – now turned Trinitarian polytheist, religion of Christianity is an aberration of the true teachings of Prophet Jesus. With the worship of Jesus being viewed as idolatry and neo-roman paganism by the worlds 1.7 billion Muslims, Christians are left to defend against the allegations of polytheism, double standards and crusader mentalities.
Muslim Debate Initiative is co-hosting a whole series of Muslim-Christian debates for July, featuring some of the top Evangelical Christian debaters from the USA! Venues and will be based up and down London, in Churches, Mosques and halls. This is an opportunity for all in the UK to experience the American side of Christianity, its perspectives, viewpoints and beliefs, especially in the current climate of the War on/of Terror and the rise of the American brand of Christian Evangelism. Attend the series and join in the debates!!
The American speakers:
Nabeel Qureishi is an Ex-Qadiyani, now turned Christian. He has a Masters in Christian Apologetics. He is an active member of Acts 17 apologetics. He has lectured on Christian Missionary approaches to Islam.
Dr David Wood is a Philosophy lecturer at Fordham University, New York. He is also head of Acts 17 Apologetics and writes, debates and lectures from an American Evangelical perspective of Islam.
The Muslims speakers:
Abdullah al Andalusi, is an ex-Anglican Christian, now turned Muslim. He is has been involved in Muslim apologetics and ‘Dawah’ for over 10 years. He regularly gives lectures, talks and debates topics ranging from rational proofs of Islam, to politics.
Paul Williams, is an ex-Evangelical Christian, now converted to Islam. He has studied theology and philosophy at Birkbeck and Heythrop Colleges at the University of London. He writes prolifically on Islam and the history of Christianity.
Yahya Hayder, is an ex-Catholic Christian, now Muslim. He currently studies Islamic Theology at the London Islamic Seminary. His studies specialise in the historicity of Islamic scriptural sources.
The Debate Line-up:
Sunday 12th July 2009
6:30pm-9:30
“Trading Faiths: Islam and Christianity: Why We Chose to Leave and Believe”
Paul Williams (Muslim ex-Christian) vs. Nabeel Qureshi (Christian ex-qadiayni)
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL (nearest [tube] station: Holborn)
Tuesday 14th July 2009
6:30pm-9:30pm
“Is Islam a Religion of Peace?”
Abdullah al-Andalusi & Yahya Hyder Seymour vs. Dr David Wood & Nabeel Qureshi
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (nearest [tube] station: Edgware Road)
Thursday 16th July 2009
6:30pm-9pm
“Is Christianity a Religion of Peace?”
David Wood vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
St Lawrence Church and church centre, London Rd, Morden, SM4 (nearest [tube] station: Morden, [Rail] Modern South)
Friday 17th July 2009
7:30pm-9:30pm
“Was Muhammad a True Prophet?”
Yahya Hayder Seymour vs. David Wood
Hyderi Islamic Centre, 26 Estreham Road, London SW16 5PQ (Nearest station, Streatham Common [Rail])
Saturday 18th July 2009
12:30pm-3:45pm
“Has the Qur’an Been Perfectly Preserved?”
Bassam Zawadi vs. Nabeel Qureshi
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (Nearest station: Edgware Road [tube])
5:15pm-8:30pm
The Debate Series Finale “The Concept of God in Islam and Christianity“
Abdullah al-Andalusi vs. David Wood
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London, (Nearest station: Edgware Road [tube])
For information, please visit the MDI website
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
The 1948 Israeli War of Independence involved one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred; and hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed. Denied for almost six dcades, had it happened today it could only have been called “ethnic cleansing”.
In his groundbreaking book renown Israeli historian Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population, a strategy that continues to the present day.
Ilan Pappe holds the Chair in History at the University of Exeter and is the author of a number of influential books on the Middle East
buy this important book here The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
My New Book
I am in the process of writing a book. It’s not the sort of book you start at page 1 and read through to the end. It’s more like a collection of articles about topics that interest me (and hopefully other people too).
I’m a fairly new Muslim convert from Christianity, and I like to explore what my new faith means to me and how I now look at the Christian faith I once defended so passionately.
In this book you will find chapters that are intended to be academic in style, such as my take on the apotheosis of Jesus, and others that are more light hearted, such as ‘A Muslim at Speaker’s Corner’.
I intend to get the book published soon (inshallah). Visit the work in progress here:
http://anewbook.wordpress.com/
As I write new pages you can read them by clicking on a chapter number on the right column under ‘The Pages’
“Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)”
So wrote a leading Orthodox American Rabbi recently. Rabbi Manis Friedman of the Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies, Minnesota, was responded to questions by a Jewish American magazine when he said, ” The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle). He also dismissed “Western” concepts of morality saying, “I don’t believe in western morality, ie, don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, and don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.”
source: www.muslimnews.co.uk
The Centre for Social Incohesion
—–Original Message—–
From: paulawilliams007@aol.com
To: pressoffice@socialcohesion.co.uk
Sent: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:57
Subject: FAO: Douglas Murray
Dear Douglas Murray
Re your article in today’s Daily Express
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/109641/Should-the-burkha-be-banned-
As a white English person I am alarmed and disgusted by your picking on a vulnerable minority in British society, ie the Muslim community. Ironically, your crusade against ‘religious extemists’ has all the characteristics of extremism itself and will produce nothing but more social incohesion.
Your views do not represent the educated tolerant majority of the British people but panders to xenophobia and hatred.
Please don’t make the same mistake that reactionaries made in Britain before: remember how the English treated the Roman Catholic Irish minority in the 19th century, and of course our treatment of the Jews is well documented. So don’t be a part of a 21st century witchhunt against this new minority that is trying to find a home in our country,
regards
Paul Williams
Maida Vale
London
Thus saith the Lord?
The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians speaks of Christians as people who ‘wait for [God's] son from heaven…who rescues us from the coming wrath’ (1 Thess 1.10). Later, Paul adds that ‘we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Thess 4.15). He does not say, ‘those who are alive (which could refer to some far future and as yet unknown group), but ‘we who are alive’, thus showing his expectation that the Lord will come before Paul’s death. Furthermore, Paul boldly claims that this is ‘the Lord’s own word’ (1 Thess 4.15).
The plain fact is that the end of the world simply did not come before Paul’s hearers had all died. Paul was writing in the 50’s AD and today’s date is 2009. So one can demonstrate empirically that Paul was mistaken. But why does this matter?
Paul said that his teaching was the ‘Lord’s own word’. But if this is the case then the Lord (presumably Jesus) made a mistake and mislead Paul about Jesus’ second coming. Paul therefore thought he had a true word from the Lord but the passing of historical time absolutely disproves this.
A more plausible explanation is that Paul, who had several visions of Jesus, was not in fact receiving truth from Jesus/God but was the victim of his own religious imagination. If this is the case (and the empirical evidence leads to this conclusion) then it puts in serious doubt the authenticity and veracity of Paul’s other visions of Jesus, above all the Damascus Road vision in Acts.
So this little problem passage has momentous consequences for Christian belief which rely heavily on the integrity and truthfulness of Paul’s testimony. If Paul was mistaken about the end of the world occurring in the first century then we cannot automatically trust his other claims to have received divine revelation in the rest of his letters.
Here are the verses in their immediate context:
13Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.
The Heart and the Acceptance of Islam
According to my understanding, the human heart and brain process information in different ways. The brain may sometimes reject many strong proofs and does not care about them. But the heart on the other hand may be impressed by a small incident and, all of a sudden, the whole life pattern may change. The matter of acceptance of Islam is related to the heart much more than the brain. The actual thing, which an Islamic preacher (da’ee) should know, is what are the things that touch the heart of non-believers. We have many mental proofs to testify the truth of Islam but we have very few ‘hearty proofs’….
In the acceptance of Islam, the heart is the actual thing. When the heart agrees on a change and it is convinced about a matter, then the whole body has no choice except to obey the heart.
Mohammad Iqbal, poet and Islamic philosopher.
The heart has its reasons the mind will never know. Those on whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convinced.
Blaise Pascal, French scientist and philosopher
Rumi: The Snake of Lust
Lust is that snake; How say you it is dead?
It is only frozen by the pangs of winter.
Beware, keep that snake in the frost of humiliation,
Draw it not forth into the sunshine of Iraq!
So long as that snake is frozen, it is well;
When it finds release from frost you become its prey.
Conquer it and save yourself from being conquered,
Pity it not, it is not one who bears affection.
For that warmth of the sun kindles its lust,
And that bat of vileness flaps its wings.
Slay it in sacred war and combat,
Like a valiant man will God requite you with union.
When that man cherished that snake,
That stubborn brute was happy in the luxury of warmth;
And of necessity worked destruction, O friend;
Yea, many more mischiefs than I have told.
If you wish to keep that snake tied up
Without trouble, be faithful, be faithful!
By Rumi (1207-1273) trans. E.H. Whinfield
Islamic Spirituality: the forgotten revolution
THE POVERTY OF FANATICISM
© Abdal-Hakim Murad
‘Blood is no argument’, as Shakespeare observed. Sadly, Muslim ranks are today swollen with those who disagree. The World Trade Centre, yesterday’s symbol of global finance, has today become a monument to the failure of global Islam to control those who believe that the West can be bullied into changing its wayward ways towards the East. There is no real excuse to hand. It is simply not enough to clamour, as many have done, about ‘chickens coming home to roost’, and to protest that Washington’s acquiescence in Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing is the inevitable generator of such hate. It is of course true – as Shabbir Akhtar has noted – that powerlessness can corrupt as insistently as does power. But to comprehend is not to sanction or even to empathize. To take innocent life to achieve a goal is the hallmark of the most extreme secular utilitarian ethic, and stands at the opposite pole of the absolute moral constraints required by religion.
There was a time, not long ago, when the ‘ultras’ were few, forming only a tiny wart on the face of the worldwide attempt to revivify Islam. Sadly, we can no longer enjoy the luxury of ignoring them. The extreme has broadened, and the middle ground, giving way, is everywhere dislocated and confused. And this enfeeblement of the middle ground, was what was enjoined by the Prophetic example, is in turn accelerated by the opprobrium which the extremists bring not simply upon themselves, but upon committed Muslims everywhere. For here, as elsewhere, the preferences of the media work firmly against us. David Koresh could broadcast his fringe Biblical message from Ranch Apocalypse without the image of Christianity, or even its Adventist wing, being in any way besmirched. But when a fringe Islamic group bombs Swedish tourists in Cairo, the muck is instantly spread over ‘militant Muslims’ everywhere.
read the remainder of the article here
Veiling one’s wrongdoing
We must remember that if a person has done wrong his spiritual path is not severed. There is recourse. One seeks repentance with God. One should not confess or broadcast what one has done. If God has veiled one’s wrongdoing, do not tear the veil down.
There is a hadith in which a man came to the Prophet (upon whom be peace) and said “I committed a sin,” and he meant adultery. “So punish me.” But the Prophet (pbuh) turned and walked away. The man pursued the Prophet (pbuh) and told him again that he wanted to be punished for his sin. The Prophet (pbuh) finally looked at him and asked him if he made ablution and prayed. He was telling him that Islam purifies. The Prophet (pbuh) said, “Whoever does indecency, let him veil his acts with the veiling of God and let him make repentance.” He also said, “Whoever comes to our faces and admits them, then we will punish them.”
from Purification of the Heart by Hamza Yusuf
Why a Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing
A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir’d at first Sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts,
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc’d, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas’d at first, the towring Alps we try,
Mount o’er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky;
Th’ Eternal Snows appear already past,
And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last:
But those attain’d, we tremble to survey
The growing Labours of the lengthen’d Way,
Th’ increasing Prospect tires our wandering Eyes,
Hills peep o’er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
from An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope
Death
Somewhere on earth there is a door reserved for each soul, and one day each of us will walk through that door never to return to this life again. Where that door is and when we will walk through it are unknowns that we must live with. Upon death, suddenly all of this – this whole world and all of its charms and occupations – will become as if it were all a dream: And you will think that you tarried on earth only for a short while (Quran 17:52). Even those who are spiritually blind will see in the new order of existence the ultimate truth about God and our purpose in His creation. And when we climb out of our graves for the mighty Gathering in the Hereafter, it will seem to us that we had stayed in our graves for only a day, or part of a day, as the Quran states. This world, when one is confronted with eternity and its iron-clad reality, will suddenly seem like it was the most ephemeral of existences. This once overwhelming alluring life on earth will be of no value to anyone.
****
Hour after hour, day after day, month after month and year after year, time goes by and death will come to you sooner or later, for you are powerless to escape it. Death has you under its constant surveillance, but you do not have a clue. You are too absentminded to notice, yet it is standing there staring you straight in the face. The moment is now very near at hand when one of you will be left abandoned in a field, namely, the field of the consequences you have earned and the life you have led.
Al-Jilani
* * *
The prophet (upon whom be peace) said, “Death is closer to any of you than the strap on your sandals.”
“The intelligent man is he who contemplates his self and acts for what is after death; and he is the weak man who makes his soul follow his lust.”
“Men are asleep, and when they die, they wake up.”
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