The Bible and the Quran Walk into a Bar

When’s the last time you turned in a paper for a class? Me: Just before lunch today! My wife and I, along with a couple other guys at church, are taking a course called Gateway that focuses on the Evangelical Free Church’s core doctrines. Today’s paper was about the Bible. 

It got us thinking about how Muslims and Christians think differently about the Quran and the Bible. 

Of course we both think our scriptures came from God. But how they got from God to us is different. Muslims believe the content of the Quran was given to Muhammad in a series of revelations from Allah through the angel Gabriel. 

The Bible on the other hand was God-breathed or inspired, meaning the Holy Spirit guided the Biblical writers to ensure what they wrote was the word of God while allowing for their individual personalities and writing styles.

The Quranic revelations reportedly came over the course of 23 years. While the Bible took, depending on how you look at it, between 250 and 1500 years! Along with the lengthy time line, we have a variety of authors, from many cultures, writing in a variety of genres and languages. 

Unlike the linguistic variety of the Bible authors, Muslims believe that God spoke the Quran only in Arabic. As a result, the Quran carries the most authority when it’s in Arabic. In contrast, thanks to God’s work through a vast cadre of dedicated and skilled workers, the whole Bible has been reliably translated into around 700 languages and the New Testament into 1500! 

Both Christians and Muslims believe God speaks to them through their holy books, guiding them to right living. Many Muslims further believe that the actual physical Quran has spiritual power and most give a great deal of respect to the actual book. 

Jesus shows up in both books: As a talking baby and a revered prophet in the Quran and as The Way, the Truth, and the Life in the Bible. 

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My Election Prediction

I have so many questions for you! (My answers in parentheses)

Are you going to vote? (Yes, once) Have you voted yet? (Nope) Who are you going to vote for? (Not sure yet) Who’s going to win? (Only God knows, and He’s not telling me!)

[If you’ve no concern for the upcoming U.S. election, please forgive this national-centric Muslim Connect.]

Since you’re a part of the Muslim Connect tribe, I can make three somewhat educated guesses about you: 1. You wish there were fewer abortions in our country. 2. You’re more concerned about immigrants as people than “immigration” as a political issue. 3. You’d like the Muslims you know and those you don’t, both here and abroad, to suffer less. 

If those guesses are even ballpark accurate, you may be wrestling with this election. If you are, guess what: You’re on the struggle bus with many Muslim Americans! 

Polls show Muslims not voting Democrat in the numbers they did in the previous election. 

• The mayor of Hamtramck, MI, the country’s only Muslim-majority city endorsed Trump

• This Reddit discussion shows some of the angst, the variety of perspectives and challenges Muslim voters face in next week’s election. 

Do you sense the challenge Muslims face? “If I vote for Harris, am I abandoning my brothers and sisters in Gaza and Lebanon?” “If I vote for Trump, am I asking for Travel Ban 2.0?” If I vote for Jill Stein, am I just wasting my time?” (These, of course, are just a sampling of the perplexing issues.)

It’s gut wrenching, isn’t it? May God give us all wisdom. And may Christ have mercy on us all. 

My election prediction? Whether we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or sit at a table in the presence of our enemies, God will continue his kingdom building work. Christ will have mercy on us all. 

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Food, Glorious Food 🌯

We got a dog. I wish you would have warned me! The dog is super cute and tons of fun, but ridiculously food-motivated. He’s lately taken to harvesting melons, peppers and tomatoes from our garden for himself! 

He reminds me of how food-motivated I can be. It’s possible I leaned into Muslim ministry rather than focusing on Hindus or Buddhists in part because I liked their food better! While that’s probably not the best reason, I stand by the validity of my choice. Here’s a rundown of my favorite foods from some of the Muslim places I’ve been:

Jordan: Shawarma and Kanafe

India: Boiled egg Biryani (Mock me, if you must!)

Turkey: Corba (soup) for breakfast and Adana Kebab

Morocco: Mint tea

Kazakstan: Beshbarmak

Holland: Turkish bread and Lahmacun

Malaysia: Satay

England: Samosas

Tunisia: Dates

France: Doner kebab

Sicily: Domeda

Got a favorite food from the Muslim world you’d care to share with me? I’ll drool with you!

Someone at Frontiers must share my (our?) malady because they recently released a 30-day series of prayer emails called Taste and See. Sign up here and a single, short email will begin dropping into your box each day. They feature a brief, food-oriented vignette from the Muslim world along with a “Hope for the Day” scripture and a couple of specific prayer requests. 

What a great idea. The first two emails feature dates and shawarma! I’m sold. 

Please join me in signing up and praying through this prayer guide. If you’ve got some other foodies in your life, maybe share this with them and encourage them to jump on board as well. 

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The Secrets of Friday Prayers

You know what’s the most annoying thing on Sunday morning at my church? No, not my preaching. It’s the noise made by people opening the hard candies we place in bowls in the middle of each table! Can you hear it in your head right now?! 

(I’m on a quest to find, or personally develop, quiet church candies. Let me know if you want to partner in this endeavor.)

Pondering this while a guest spoke last Sunday morning, I was reminded that things are a little tougher in a Muslim gathering. Did you know if you pass gas during salat (scheduled, collective prayers) you have to start over?! (“Khalid, why are you back to work late again from prayer time?” “Well, sir. . . .”)

Speaking of salat, have you ever wondered what actually happens at Friday prayers? This Muslim weekly gathering is the most analogous to Christians’ Sunday morning services. As with anything when describing Muslims, there are a lot of them! Expect variety and differences. Here’s a general run down:

  • Muslims gather on Friday because it’s deemed holy in the Quran and elsewhere.
  • A call to prayer (adman) is given between noon and three and men gather at the mosque, washing before entering the prayer area. Friday prayers are compulsory for men, ok for women. 
  • A sermon (Khutba) of around 30 minutes is delivered. It’s frowned upon to talk, read and eat (including candy) during the talk. In some situations, a pause for personal prayer is taken in the middle of the talk. 
  • According to a Hadith, the sermon should be shorter, so the prayer afterward can be longer. (I know someone who could stand to learn that! You?)
  • The topics of the sermons usually revolve around spiritual reminders, current events, social issues, and family.
  • Immediately following the sermon, worshipers participate in two brief rounds of corporate prayer. 

I’m not planning to switch up my order of service, but I am asking God to remind me when Fridays arrive to pray for fresh Jesus life for Muslims going to the mosque to do their best to please God and get their sins forgiven. 

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Woodberry: Wise, Winsome, World-changing

Hey, want a job? Someone needs to write a biography of Dudley Woodberry! Are you the one?! That guy’s life has been amazing! 

In case his name doesn’t ring a bell, Dr. Woodberry has loved Jesus and Muslims with more passion, variety and intellect than maybe any other American in the last two centuries. Here’s a super quick overview:

• Born in China in 1934 to missionary parents.

• Held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese army while a child!

• Studied at Union College in New York, Fuller Theological Seminary, the American University of Beirut, and Harvard University.

• Has lived in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and exotic Grand Rapids. (And probably visited the rest of the places!)

• Has written and taught extensively and now at 90 years old is mentoring students in his role as Dean Emeritus and Senior Professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Seminary!

Through all of this, Dr. Woodberry has projected a kind and peaceful demeanor, quick to listen, slow to speak, relying on and winsomely sharing Jesus. 

One of my favorite things he has written was an article for Christianity Today about why Muslims follow Jesus. He said the top five reasons are:

  1. the lifestyle of Christians
  2. the power of God in answered prayers and healing, [including] deliverance from demonic power
  3. dissatisfaction with the type of Islam they had experienced
  4. spiritual truth in the Bible
  5. the Bible’s teaching about the love of God

You and I would do well to emulate Dr. Woodberry as we interact with Muslims. Of his list of five, number one is up to each of us; number two just might be mediated through us; three is increasingly the situation in many places today; and four and five can be shared by us. Are you in?

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Coffee and a Question ☕️

Questions are the best, aren’t they? Sometimes I think I like them better than answers. My early, post-college training largely had to do with asking good questions in really cool places. Even today, I love asking questions and am impressed when people are good at it. 

Today I’ve got a question for you and a recommendation. 

If you could sit down over coffee or tea with a chill, smart, English-speaking Muslim from anywhere in the world, where would you want them to be from and what are some of the questions you liked to ask?

For me today, I’d like to chat with a Persian Muslim from Isfahan. I’d ask how things were going and if he thought his life might be better if the Clerics were no longer running the show. 

If you’re intrigued by the question, please share with the rest of the tribe 

Now, here’s the recommendation: 

My friend James White recently released a charming, little book called “Answering 15 Honest Questions from Muslims.” As I write, it’s free for Kindle Unlimited and only 99 cents to buy on Kindle. 

Here are some of the questions: 

1. How can Isa be the Son of Allah?
2. How can Allah condescend to take on human form?
3. Have the Tawrat, Zabur and Injil been corrupted and changed so that we do not have the original Holy Book?
4. Do Christians worship three gods (Allah, Isa & Miriam)?
6. Does eating pork and drinking wine make Christians unclean?

James has lived among Muslims forever and probably forgotten more about them than I’ll ever know. Here’s an idea: Grab the Kindle version for $.99 and see if you like it. If you do, the paperback might be a good Christmas gift for a Muslim friend or a blessing for the Muslims you invite over for Thanksgiving! 

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Amazing Pre-Social Media Influencer!

Who’s your favorite social media influencer? I know, I know, I don’t have one either! 

Well, I didn’t until today! Now I’m really big on a Muslim influencer who lived in the late eighth century and among many other things, introduced a new and improved type of deodorant to Europe. 

Ali Ibn Nafi, better known as Ziryab, (The Blackbird) was born in 789 in Bagdad (or thereabouts). The biographical details may be fuzzy, but his impact on downstream culture was immense. 

Ziryab showed exceptional music chops early on. In fact, it seems that besting his teacher may have led to his high-tailing it west out of Bagdad. His intercontinental journey landed him in Cordoba (now Spain) where he soon became a favorite at open mic night in the court of Abd ar-Rahman II. 

With a royal salary of 200 gold dinars per month (Which I’m guessing was somewhere north of minimum wage.), Ziryab began to expand his influence on several aspects of Andalusian culture: 

Music: He brought the Oud, a Middle Eastern lyre, to Europe. By adding an extra pair of strings, he contributed to the evolution of the guitar and his music helped develop what eventually became Spanish Flamenco music. Further, he started the first music conservatory in Europe, welcoming men and women as students. 

Food: Ziryab also influenced the foodie culture of Cordoba, lifting the lowly asparagus from weed status to delicacy. He advocated crystal drink wear over heavy, metal cups, normalized tablecloths and established the basic pattern of three course meals: soup, entree, and dessert!

Fashion: The Blackbird brought bangs to Europe! He also advocated for seasonal clothing, bright colors for spring, white only in summer, and darker, heavier fabrics and colors for Fall. (He would have adored all things pumpkin spice!)

Hygiene: Ziryab may have been the basic inventor of deodorant! At least he advocated a new approach to combatting body odor along with creating toothpaste that actually tasted good. 

I tell you a bit of Ziryab’s story because he’s an amazing and relatively unknown guy, but also as a reminder of some of the good gifts of God that have come to us through Muslims. He loves them, uses them and desires for them to inherit his kingdom. May it be increasingly so! 

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Wanna Dance? 🕺🏽

Hey! Want to celebrate with me? This is Muslim Connect #400! Can you believe it? It’s hard for me to. 

Once a week for the past seven and a half years, by God’s grace, a Muslim Connect email has dropped and people like you have read it. 

Some of the Muslim Connect tribe has been here since the beginning, having set their eyes on the very first email, “She’s Not Gonna Blow Up the Walmart.” Give me a shout if you’ve been here since the start. You mean the world to me. 

Others have joined in after we met at a Perspectives class or maybe a church. Some of you may still wonder, “How’d I get on this list anyway?” 

To all of you reading this, thank you very much. As my friend Danny used to say in Jordan, “Shukron jiddah owie owie owie.” Which I’ve always taken to indicate extreme gratefulness. Such is what I feel for you. 

We’ve been through a bit together, haven’t we? Kudos for President Trump. Teddy bears for the young victims of the massive Turkey earthquake. A scolding for President Trump. The Corona virus and its impact on the Muslim world. All that and a faltering foray into YouTube video (I’m currently on hiatus until I get my act together, but I do love it when my kids tell their friends, “My dad’s a YouTuber!”)

Through it all, two questions have driven us: How can we think like God does about Muslims? And, how can we love Muslims like Jesus does? 

Those thoughts? Like the Psalmists says, those thoughts are precious and outnumber the grains of sand. And the love, well, the love is bigger than everything, right? Bigger than the cultural gulfs between us, bigger than all the sin, bigger than misguided wars and priorities.

May the goodness of the Godhead be known more fully in the each of our lives and throughout the Muslim world. 

I’m honored to continue to connect with you. 

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You’re Not the Boss of Me!

It’s innate, isn’t it? This desire to be over others, to dominate; to be known as better, stronger, above. In many young sibling groups the bossiness rolls down the ages like water, pooling frustratingly in the baby! 

Of course, whole peoples do this and whatever people you belong to, there’s probably some guilt there in the near or distant past. God knows how Americans have, and are exercising this desire for good and ill. 

In Islam, a particular form of the domination desire is codified in the Quran in Sura 9:29, “Fight those who do not believe in Allah nor in the Last Day, and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the jizya readily and are disgraced.”

The practice is called dhimmitude (those on whom it is practiced are called dhimmi) and it answers the tricky question of what to do with Jews and Christians who refuse to convert to Islam when their territory is conquered. As “People of the Book,” they’re God’s friends, so you probably shouldn’t kill them! Instead they are charged a special tax called jizya, but relieved of paying the religious tithe, zakat and fighting in wars. 

That might be a fair trade, but for the addition of “are disgraced.” In both historic and current application, Jews and Christians are treated as second class citizens.

Some of you know what it’s like to be treated as second class citizens. The closest I’ve come was being a non-athlete in high school. If the feelings I remember are any indication, the real thing really sucks. I’m sorry for whatever way I’ve contributed to that reality for you. 

So how might we respond to this dhimmitude reality?

1. We pray for Jews and Christians for whom this is life. We ask God for justice to prevail and for perseverance, grace and kingdom of God confidence for all who follow Jesus in challenging situations. And 2. We do our best not to participate in or allow any amateur dhimmitude where we live. We do our best to treat Muslims, and all others, as the creations of a loving God that they are, bearing his image and made for his glory. 

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The Magic of Movies 🎥

Welcome to the weekend! Got anything fun planned? Maybe a date with your sweetie?Maybe a movie? Our family watched a great one recently called The Boys in the Boat about a scrappy group of Depression-era, West Coast college students who defeated the Ivy League elites, the Nazis, as well as their own demons to win Olympic gold in Eight Man Crew. 

The dramatic tension of the film centers mostly around social differences. “We’re poor, but fiercely determined,” vs. “We’re rich and somewhat coddled,” and “We’re planning to capture the world for the Reich!” Although the ultimate conclusion was foregone, the racing suspense was super fun. 

Solid cinema should show us what is true about its characters and setting. I suspect, however, I often enjoy movies because they say and show what I already believe about stuff. 

I read recently about the inaugural Muslim International Film Festival in London. “Championing the narratives of international Muslim filmmakers and highlighting their compelling stories, MIFF. . . . has a mission to celebrate and amplify the diverse voices that explore the rich tapestry of Muslim experiences via the medium of film.”

If you’ve got a little weekend free time, go here and enjoy some of the trailers for the films shown at the festival. 

Filmmaker Warda Mohamed, whose short film Muna screened at the festival, said, “We need to have access to films that challenge stereotypes and reaffirm the norm of Muslim stories.”

That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? All of our brains harbor stereotypes of various people. Muslims, Hindus, Canadians, Mexicans, Republicans, Democrats, a variety of stripes of Christians. We often need Jesus to drop into the comments and say, “You don’t like those guys? That’s weird! I like them a lot. And, no offense, I know ‘em a lot better than you do!”

Cheeky Weekend Challenge: Watch a movie in which the good guys don’t look like you! I’d love to see your recommendations

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