No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity

The gospel is not just an answer that works; it is the only answer that will work.

it is the life of Muhammad to which Islamists appeal in order to justify their terrorism.

the Crusades were launched in defense of the Byzantine Empire after two-thirds of the Christian world had been conquered by centuries of Muslim attacks. Muslims

Islam diagnoses the world with ignorance and offers the remedy of sharia, a law to follow. Christianity diagnoses the world with brokenness and offers the remedy of God himself, a relationship with him that leads to heart transformation.

Islam requires us to believe that Jesus was so incompetent as a teacher and prophet that he was not able to instill this most simple fact in his followers’ minds: that he was merely a human. Given that Islam’s central proclamation is tawhid, this means Jesus was an abject failure. In fact, he was worse than a total failure, since he left his disciples believing the exact opposite of tawhid.

As a Muslim, I had been taught from childhood that the doctrine of the Trinity was not possible because it was too complex and even self-contradictory. But the more mankind probes the universe, the more we discover its dazzling complexity. As my eyes opened to the deeper truths of the world, I accepted that complexity does not somehow invalidate the Trinity. Why must we assume the Creator is any simpler, any easier to understand, than his creation?

The only option that accounted for the historical evidence was that the disciples simply got the facts wrong; but upon consideration, this posed a serious problem for my Islamic belief. If Allah saved Jesus from the cross while making it look like Jesus died, as most Muslims believe, then Allah is responsible for the disciples’ proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Therefore, Allah started Christianity, a false religion that has kept billions away from Islam. Worse, Christians believe Jesus is God because of their faith in his resurrection, yet the Quran tells us that people who believe Jesus is God will go to hell (5.72). Could I really believe that, just to save Jesus from the cross, God deceived the disciples, letting them proclaim that Jesus is the risen Lord and thereby sending billions of people to hell?

After studying the historical origins of the Christian faith, I came to these conclusions: that Jesus died on the cross is as certain as anything historical can be; that he rose from the dead is by far the best explanation of the events surrounding his death; and that Jesus claimed to be God is the best explanation for the immediate Christian proclamation of Jesus’ deity.

Jesus is worthy of the honor due to God (5:23); he asks people to have faith in him as they have faith in God (14:1); he claims to be the enabler of salvation (5:21) and the earthly manifestation of God (14:8); he is the king of another world (18:36–37); he assumes dominion over all things (3:35); and he claims to be able to do whatever people ask in his name after he is gone, more or less implying that he has omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence (14:13).

But the importance of the resurrection is perhaps stated most clearly by Paul, who says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (NIV). Christian preaching and Christian faith are useless if Jesus remains dead and was not raised. If he did not overcome death, neither will we.

probable; it is the obvious explanation. Regarding the biblical verses cited as subtle traces of God’s divine plan, it needs to be pointed out that these verses occur in the context of four Gospels that repeatedly proclaim Jesus prophesied his death and that he did die. To extract verses from their context and say they assert the exact opposite of their context is a poor handling of texts, unless there is good reason to do so. In this case, not only is there no good reason to do so, but also there is a good reason not to: The verses prophesying and proclaiming Jesus’ death are abundant and clear, whereas these “subtle traces” are often solitary and require an unlikely interpretation. One of the basic rules of proper hermeneutics, whether Quranic or biblical or secular, is to interpret unclear statements in light of clear ones, not the other way around. To ignore the clear statements of Jesus’ death, and to point to these verses as hints that God saved him, is a poor method of investigation.

that defending victims with violence is a natural reflex. But throughout the Gospels, Jesus teaches us to forsake our natural inclinations for his otherworldly teachings.

When Jesus says he has come to bring a sword, he tells us exactly what he means by that statement: His advent will divide families.

And that is the power of God’s Word—it traverses the ages and resonates with all his people.

If you, being a human, love your daughter so much that you are willing to lay aside your dignity to save her, how much more can we expect God, if he is our perfectly loving Father, to lay aside his majesty to save us?

Unless one believes in a transcendent basis for altruism, one’s desire to care for people is unanchored and ephemeral, little more than a whim. According to this amoral worldview, nothing behooves a person to be kind. Even though someone might wish to be altruistic, in the next moment it would be entirely consistent with their worldview if they chose to be selfish.

Mankind seems incapable of saving itself. In our natural selves, we perpetuate cycles of destruction.

obedience under the shadow of threat is hardly obedience at all, but compulsion. Christian obedience, devoid of threat and rooted in love, is what God truly wants.

Regarding the nature of God, we need to remember that he loves us absolutely. Just as a perfect father would love his child no matter what the child does, so our heavenly Father loves us no matter what we have done. As an example, a father would love his son even if he were a thief. He might even turn his son over to the authorities to face the consequences of his crime, but it would be out of love and desire for ultimate rehabilitation. In the same way, God loves his children despite their sins, though he does allow them to endure the consequences of their actions on earth so that they might repent and change their ways. In all this he always loves us, because he is our perfect Father, and he is love.

When we realize the depravity of our sins and the depths of our rebellion against God, it exceeds the mind’s capacity to grasp this grace. What could we do to deserve such forgiveness? Nothing at all! He engulfs us with his infinite love and absolute mercy, though we cannot earn it.

It is into that overwhelming flood of grace that our hearts release their poison. When we have been forgiven so much, how can we hold our fellow man accountable for so little?

The way of the Messiah is purer than the way of the Messenger, and there is a great difference between them!

Both Islam and Christianity are monotheistic, believing there is “no God but one,” but they differ fundamentally on who that God is: Allah or Jesus.

few Muslims realize that only one hundred years before, there were about eighty different readings of the Quran in the Muslim world, and that there are significant differences in Qurans even today.

Allah, having predestined the universe, made mankind with the express purpose of worshiping him (Quran 51.56). To

It was not until Christians were a thousand years removed from Jesus that they believed holy war could purge sin, whereas Muhammad himself taught Muslims that fighting in jihad can forgive sin, and indeed is the best thing in the world.

The Muslims looked back on the Crusades with indifference and complacency. In their eyes, they had been the outright winners .