Nabeel Qureshi wrote a couple of outstanding books to help those in the West better understand Islam (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus and Answering Jihad).
In Answering Jihad, Nabeel invests several chapters in looking at the differences between Christianity as displayed in the Bible and Islam as displayed in the Quran. Here are some of the more noteworthy quotes I pulled from this book. The references in parenthesis in these quotes are references to a chapter and verse in the Quran.
“Christians believe Jesus is God, but the Quran is so opposed to this belief that it condemns Jesus worshipers to hell (5:72).”
“According to Jesus, God is our Father, yet the Quran very specifically denies that God is a father (112:1-4).”
“Islam roundly condemns worship of the Trinity (5:73), establishing in contrast its own core principle of Tawhid, the absolute oneness of God. Tawhid emphatically denies the Trinity, so much so that it is safe to say the doctrine of God in Islam is antithetical to the doctrine of God and Christianity. … The Trinity teaches that God is not a person, but three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. To assert that the God of Islam is the same person as the God of Christianity becomes almost nonsensical at this point, as the Christian God is tripersonal, two persons of Islam specifically denies in the Quran.”
“The Trinity is an elaboration of Jewish theology, not a rejection. By contrast, Tawhid is a categorical rejection of the Trinity, Jesus’ deity, and the Fatherhood of God, doctrines that are grounded in the pages of the New Testament and firmly established centuries before the advent of Islam. The earliest Christians were all Jews, incorporating their encounter with Jesus into their Jewish theology. Nothing of the sort is true of Muhammad, who was neither a Jew nor a Christian. Islam did not elaborate on the Trinity but rejected and replaced it.”
“Christians worship the triune God: a Father Who loves unconditionally, a Son Who incarnates and Who is willing to die for us so that we may be forgiven, and an immanent Holy Spirit Who lives in us. This is not who the Muslim God is, and it is not what the Muslim God does. Truly, Tawhid is antithetical to the Trinity, fundamentally incompatible and only similar superficially and semantically. Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God.”
“The warfare the Quran commands is not due to any evil action, but rather due to the beliefs of non-Muslims, such as the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God (9:29, 30).”
“Warfare in the Old Testament is not about subjugating inferior peoples. Yahweh does not promise the Jews that they are the best of people and that their enemies are less than they are. He makes this quite clear in Deuteronomy 9:4-6. … The Quran, by contrast, envisions Muslims as the best people: ‘You are the best of all people, evolved for mankind’ (3:110). It teaches that Jews and Christians who do not convert to Islam are the worst of all creation: ‘Those who do not believe [in Islam] from among the Jews and Christians and the idolaters will go to hell. They are the worst of creatures’ (98:6; see 98:1-5 for context). This is why the Quran in 9:33 commands Muslims to fight Jews and Christians, so that Allah may cause Islam ‘to prevail over all religions.’”
“Muhammad’s life moved from peaceful to violent in a crescendo, reflecting the trajectory of the Quran, and he died just after conquering the Arabian Peninsula. His words in the canonical collections were, ‘I have been ordered by Allah to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s messenger. … [O]nly then will they save their lives and property from me’ (Sahih Bukhara 1.2.25). Muslims are commanded to follow Muhammad’s example, and his example was jihad.
“By contrast, the stories in the Old Testament do not enjoin Jews or Christians to fight today. Though commands to fight are recorded in the text, no Jew or Christian is commanded to memorialize these battles as ongoing conduct. They were a part of the history of Israel, certainly, not a mandate or continuing command going forward.”
“Violence has a very different place in Islam and Christianity’s theological frameworks. The final marching order of Islam is jihad. The final marching orders of Christians are grace and love.”
But I especially love this thought from Nabeel: “One can both love Muslims and insist that the God they worship is not the same as the Christian God.” Amen!
Other quotes from Answering Jihad are here and here.
Additional quotes from Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus are here.









9 Quotes From “Light And Truth in the Gospels”
September 23, 2015 — Craig T. Owens“Man’s love of man is according to merit, on expectation of response; God’s love of man has no reference to deserving or to return. Man’s love of man is contracted, exclusive, and grudging; God’s love to man is as boundless as it is free. He forgives without condition; He loves without reserve; He blesses without measure or end.”
“God takes man as he is, simply a sinner, ‘without strength,’ and without goodness. He does not ask man to meet Him halfway between earth and heaven; He comes down all the way to earth in the Person of His Incarnate Son. He does not resort to half-measures, nor is He content with half-payment. He comes down to man in absolute and unconditional love; without terms or bargains; Himself paying the whole price, and thus leaving nothing for the sinner but to except the frank forgiveness which His boundless love has brought.”
“Our giving depends much on the state of our minds at the moment. When depressed, we have no pleasure in giving; we either refuse, or we give merely to get quit of the applicant. Darkness of mind shrivels us up, makes us selfish, neglectful of others. When full of joy, giving seems our element—our joy overflows in this way; we cannot help giving; we delight in applications; we seek opportunities of giving. So with the blessed God. Being altogether happy, His delight is to give; His perfect blessedness flows out in giving. We can never come wrongly to such an infinitely happy Being.”
“From Genesis to Revelation we hear His voice. It is the voice of love. ‘Come unto Me’ is the burden of the Old Testament as well as of the New. It is not merely that each chapter speaks of Jesus; but in each chapter Jesus speaks to us. And each verse, He is lying in wait for us.”
“Poor wanderer, you need not then try to cover your rags, or to hide your filth, or to try to make yourself more like what you were in order to attract your Father. It is just that which you are which excites His compassion. … God comes up to the sinner with the fullness of reconciliation in His heart. He does not stay to be entreated, or pleaded with, or persuaded. He hastens up to us, and embraces us in the fullness of His heart.”
“We poor prodigals must be gloriously clad! Not sack cloth, nor cast-off raiment, nor a servant’s dress; not Adam’s nor an angels’ righteousness; but something better than all—the robe of Jesus! … The prodigal is not to go in search of it. It must be brought out to him. On the spot; just where he is and as he is, bring it out, bring it to him. … It is not, ‘Give it to him, and let him put it on himself’; but, ‘Put it on.’ He has but to stand still and allow himself to be thus clothed and blessed. He does nothing. He does not need to do anything. Love does it all. The Father does it all.”
“What is the meaning of God sending His own Son, if less than salvation was intended; if less than Incarnation will do, less than blood, less than death, less than resurrection? Oh let us understand the greatness of God’s provision for us, and in that greatness, read at once our death and our life, our condemnation and our deliverance.”
“Yes; any time, any place, will do for Jesus. His grace is not circumscribed by temple walls, nor tied to ceremonies, nor limited to hours. Samaria, Jericho, Tyre, Jerusalem are all the same to Him. The temple, the highway, the hill-side, the sea-beach, the synagogue, the house, the boat, the graveyard, are all alike to Him and to His grace.”
“Over all Scripture the quickening, life-giving fragrance of His name is defused. Christ and life; life in Christ; Christ our life—these form the very essence, the sum and burden, of the Scriptures. ‘These are they that testify of Me.’”
Check out my review of Light And Truth by clicking here.
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