FROM: Brian Lucero
To: Servidor Esda
-----------------------
Servidor,
Thanks again for continuing the discussion. I will format my responses similar to last
time. Enjoy.
Forgiveness
I was pleasantly surprised that you decided to continue
pursuing this topic of assurance of forgiveness in Islam. In Christianity the believers are guaranteed
assurance of forgiveness. In Islam, the
best of believers still trembled at their deathbed, not knowing the promise of
forgiveness.
You respond to my request to bring a few Qur’anic passages
on forgiveness with this one below:
Alrighty then my signature is a great start. "Say: "O
my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy
of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
" Holy Quran 39:53
But you are still doing the same flawed mistake as last
email. Do you really believe Allah
forgives ALL sins, hands down, nothing more?
I’m sure even you will even clarify by continuing the aayat with a clarifying
“if” clause, or “except in cases of” etcetera.
Again, just because “Allah is Oft-Forgiving” does NOT mean he PROMISES
to forgive.
To bring this point closer to home, I would like you to
clearly answer this question about yourself, so that all muslims may see your
declaration: Do you personally have the
unequivocal assurance that when you die you will be forgiven? (YES or NO).
Neither Muhammad, Abu Bakr, nor any other great Muslim
forerunner believed in this “promise” of their forgiveness; but Servidor does.
Below will be found more hadith, quranic passages if you
don’t believe the hadith, and deathbed last words.
There is no assurance of forgiveness nor of eternal destiny
"I
heard the Messenger of Allah say - Verily the Almighty and Glorious Allah
caught one hold with His right hand and another with another hand, and said:
This is for this, and this is for this, and I don't care. I don't know in
which of the two holds I am".
Mishkat
III, p. 118
"Anas
reported that the Apostle of Allah used often to say: O Changer of hearts! make
my heart firm upon Thy religion. I said: O Prophet of Allah! I believe in
you and in what you have come with. Do you still fear for us? 'Yes' said he,
the hearts are between the two fingers [sic] Allah. He changes them as He likes".
Mishkat
III, p. 111
"'Say:
Nothing shall ever befall upon to us except what Allah has ordained for
us'[sic].Mujahid said 'Bifatanin, Bimudillin': You cannot make anyone go
astray except that whom Allah has written for to go to Hell [sic]".
Al-Bukhari -
"Al-Qadr", Chapt. 14
"'Never
could we have found guidance, were it not that Allah had guided us'.
'If
only Allah had guided me, I should indeed have been among the pious'".
Al-Bukhari -
"Al-Qadr", Chapt. 15
MUSLIMS CAN ONLY HOPE FOR FORGIVENESS,
NOTHING MORE.
Qur’an 17:57
Those whom they call upon do desire (for themselves) means
of access to their Lord, - even those who are nearest: they hope for His
Mercy and fear His Wrath: for the Wrath of thy Lord is something to take
heed of.
MUSLIMS ONLY MAY BE SAVED, NOTHING MORE.
There will be no one of you who will not enter it (Hell).
This was an inevitable decree of your Lord. Afterwards he MAY save
some of the pious, God-fearing Muslims out of the burning fire. S.
19:71-72
(The following is compiled at <
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Responses/Naik/quranclaims2.htm>)
In the Mishkat we are told:
"Ibn Masud said that the
Prophet of Islam said: All people shall enter hell. Then they will come out of
it according to their works. Those who will come out first will do so like a
flash of lightening, the next like a gaze of wind, then like a horse at full
speed, afterwards like a swift rider, then like a man springing, and, finally,
like the walk of a man." (Transmitted by Tirmidhi and Darimi)
And:
This verse [S. 19:71] condemns all
to Jahannam; both the righteous and unrighteous, pious and impious,
believers in one God and believers in many gods; and nothing is said about
coming out! [sic] Tabari has said in his commentary on this verse: "Not
one of you people there is, but he shall go down to Jahannam; it is a
judgment decreed from your Lord, Muhammad, to bring the down to it. He has
pronounced this and decreed it in the mother of the Book [namely, the original
text of the Book from which the Quran derives its revelation]." Al-Bukhari
and others (Tawhid 24; Muslim, Iman 302, 323; al-Darimi, Riqaq 89; Ahmad b.
Hanbal, III. 17, 25, VI. 110) have related: "People will go down to Jahannam
and they will go out of it by their works; some like a wink of an eye, some
like wind, some like a rider that is earnestly traveling, and still some like a
man that is walking vigorously" (see al-Qurtubi's commentary on this
verse). Al-Tabari said in his commentary: "Abu Kuraib told us that Ibn
Yaman said, on the strength of Ibn Maghul and Ibn Ishaq: 'Abu Maisara used to
say, while reclining to sleep: "I would that my mother had not given
birth to me." Thereupon he was asked: "Maisara, what makes you
cry?" He said: "[Muhammad] has told us that we will go down to it,
but has not told us that we will come out of it."'" Ibn Hamid
said: "Hakam told us, on the strength of Ishmael and Qais, 'Abdallah b.
Rawaha wept when he was taken ill, and his wife wept as well. He said:
"What makes you weep?" She said: "I saw you weeping, therefore I
wept also." Ibn Rawaha said: "I learned that I am going down to
hell, and do know whether I will be saved from it, or not"'" (see
the commentaries of al-Tabari, al-Qurtubi, and al-Zamakhashari on this verse).
Everyone, therefore is going to hell, and will come out later according to his
works. "Had your Lord willed, He would have made mankind one nation; but
they continue in their differences, except those whom your Lord has mercy. To
that end He created them, and perfectly is fulfilled the word of your Lord: 'I
shall surely fill Jahannam with jinn and men all together'" (Sura
Hud 11:118, 119). (The True Guidance—Comments on Quranic Verses [Light
of Life, P.O. Box 13, A-9503 Villach, Austria 1994], part 5, p. 208)
The following is taken from Dr. William Campbell's Book
TWO OF THE FIRST
MUSLIMS
Finally, to close this Chapter we shall look at the
attitude of two of the earliest and greatest Muslims, which shows how they were
feeling as death approached. Jens Christensen, after many years of Islamic studies,
wrote,
"One of the things that often surprised me
in my first studies of Islam was the note of despondency and insecurity that is
found in the deathbed utterances of so many of Islam's great men.
"Abu Bakr, for example, was a prince among
men, of sterling character and a true Muslim. Yet it is said of him that he was
so fearful of the future and labored so much under distress that his breath was
often as of a roasted liver. According to two traditions he is supposed to have
said to Aisha on the day of his death,
'Oh my daughter, this is the day of my release
and of obtaining of my desert:---if gladness it will be lasting; if
sorrow it will never cease.'[12]
"Do you see those two "ifs"?
Nothing in Islam can remove them; not even the fact that Abu Bakr was given the
title
'Atiq (Free) because Muhammad is supposed to
have told him: You are free (saved) from the fire."
T. P. Hughes quotes Omar as saying, "It had
gone hard with my soul, if I had not been a Muslim"[13], but in telling of
Omar's death Christensen writes,
"when Omar was lying on his deathbed, he is
reported to have said, '...I am not other than as a drowning man who sees a
possibility of escape with life, and hopes for it, but fears he may die and
lose it, and so plunges about with hands and feet. More desperate than the
drowning man is he who at the sight of heaven and hell is buried in the
vision...Had I the whole East and West, gladly would I give up all to be
delivered from this awful terror that is hanging over me. And finally touching
his face against the ground he cried aloud: 'Alas for Omar, and alas for the
mother of Omar, if it should not please the Lord to pardon me."
"Do you see Omar's difficulty? it is the
uncertainty expressed in the "if" of the last sentence. That
"if" does not express any feeling of uncertainty regarding Omar's
faith, Omar's belief in one God, Omar's trust and confidence in the prophet, or
Omar's lack of having lived a moral life. All of these things are in order as
far as a human being could do that which is right.
"No. The "if" refers to Allah;
"if" it should not please the Lord to pardon him".
NO MAN CAN KNOW
"When Yazid was burying Omar his father, he
is quoted as saying: 'I will not magnify him before the Almighty in whose
presence he has gone to appear. If He forgives him it will be of His
mercy; if He takes vengeance on him, it will be for his transgressions.'
"Here again you have the two "ifs"
If Allah forgives...
If Allah takes vengeance...
"This remark of Yazid's seems to me to
epitomize the whole of Islam."[14]
"No man from Muhammad himself, right down
to the least educated non-Arabic speaking Muslim who knows only a few prayers,
would ever presume to know, or dare to predict what "if" will mean
for him."[15]
Or to put it another way, Allah demands complete
submission from each man, but He never commits Himself in any revealed way to
His servants as individuals. There is no way that a man can know whether he
will be saved or not.
This uncertainty is seen clearly in the middle
Meccan sura of the Poets (Al-Shu'ara') 26:82, where Abraham speaks
of,
"The Lord of the Worlds...Who
will cause me to die and then to live (Abraham believes this and is sure of
it); and Who, I hope (atma'u), will forgive me my sins on the day
of judgement." (For his forgiveness he can only say, "I hope
so")
In verse 52 of the same Sura, Moses and Aaron say
to Pharaoh,
"We hope (natma'u)
that our Lord will forgive us our sins."
And in 17:57, as we saw above
"even those (the angels and
prophets) who are nearest. They hope (yarjuna) for his mercy and fear
his wrath."
Finally three more verses from the Qur'an state
very clearly that even those who have done their best are given only a
"maybe" from Allah. In the late Meccan Sura of the Narration
(Al-Qasas) 28:67, Allah says to his believers,
"But as for him who shall repent and believe
and do right, perhaps ('asa an) he may be one of the
successful."
The same idea is repeated in the Sura of the Forbidding
(Al-Tahrim) 66:8 from 7 AH, where the believers are told, "O ye who
believe, Repent toward Allah with a sincere repentance. It may be ('asa
an) that your Lord will remit from you your evil deeds and admit you to
gardens beneath which rivers flow."
In the Sura of Repentance (Al-Tauba) 9:18
from 9 AH, almost the end of the Qur'an, Allah says,
"Those only shall worship in
the Mosques of Allah, who believe in Allah and the last day and observe proper
worship and give alms and fear none except Allah; and it might be ('asa
an) that these are of the rightly guided."
In the end, it is a very lonely choice. If a person
does not believe, then he is sure to go to hell; but even if he does believe,
on the day of judgement, he stands there all by himself in front of Allah. There
is no intercessor or friend, and he can only hope that maybe, perhaps, he might
be among the blessed. (Campbell, pp. 297-299)
Muhammad himself was uncertain of his salvation and feared the possibility
that he would fall from the favor of God. This fact is brought out in both the
Quran and the hadith:
And surely they had purposed to turn you away
from that which We have revealed to you, that you should forge against Us other
than that, and then they would certainly have taken you for a friend. And
had it not been that We had already established you, you would certainly
have been near to incline to them a little; In that case We would certainly
have made you to taste a double (punishment) in this life and a double
(punishment) after death, then you would not have found any helper against Us.
17:73-75 Shakir
These are very harsh words and seem to assert that Muhammad was uncertain
about his role at times. Zamakhshari comments on this passage:
(As the occasion for the proclamation of this
passage) the following is related: The (members of the tribe) Thaqif said to
the Prophet: 'We will not join your cause unless you grant to us conditions
which we can extol to (other) Arabs, namely, that the tithe not be demanded
from us, that we not be expelled (from our hereditary habitats), that we not be
required to throw ourselves down in prayer, that (in spite of prohibition
against usury) we be paid all interest on money borrowed from us but that all
interest be exempted for those to whom we are indebted, that you permit us to
continue to manage the shrine of (the goddess) al-Lat for one more year and
that after the year we not be required to destroy it with our own hands, and
that you assume protection against those who break into our valley Wajj to take
away the (sacred) trees. If the (other) Arabs ask you why you have made these
(concessions), then say: "God has commanded me to do it."' Now
they brought their document and Muhammad ordered to be written: 'In the name of
God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is a writing from Muhammad, the
Messenger of God, to (the tribe) Thaqif. The members of this tribe are not
required to pay the tithe and will not be expelled.' (As the scribe reached
this point) they said: '(Now continue)' "And they are not required to
prostrate themselves (at prayer)."' But the Messenger of God remained
silent (and did not continue to dictate), so they said to the scribe: 'Write:
"And they are not required to prostrate themselves (at prayer)!"' At
that, the scribe looked at the Messenger of God, and 'Umar ibn Khattab rose up
drawing his sword and said: 'Men of (the tribe) Thaqif you have set the heart
of the Prophet on fire!' But they replied: 'We are not speaking with you, but
with Muhammad.' Thereupon the present verses came down.
(Also) it is related that the (unbelieving members
of the tribe) Quraish said to Muhammad: 'Change a verse of mercy into a verse
of punishment and a verse of punishment into a verse of mercy in order that we
may believe in you!' Thereupon the present verses came down.
Indeed they were near to seducing thee:… The
meaning is: Those who were involved in the affair had almost deluded you,
that is, through misleading infatuation.
From that We for our part as a command and
prohibition a well as promise and warning revealed to thee, that thou
mightest forge against Us another: so that you would say something that
we have not said in a manner that will be falsely judged as against us.
What is meant is the change of promise which the (members of the tribe) of the
Quraish had demanded of Muhammad, and also the imperious proposal of the
(tribe) Thaqif that Muhammad should ascribe something to God which had not been
sent down upon him.
And then, that is, if you had complied with
their wish, they would surely have taken thee as a friend, and you would
have become their intimate friend (wali) and would have lost the
relationship of confidence with me.
And had We not confirmed thee: had not our
strengthening and protection ('isma) been with you.
Surely thou wert near to inclining unto them:
you had almost inclined towards their deception and cunning. Here God
gives to the Prophet encouragement and gracious strengthening, wherein lies an
act of mercy for the believers ... (Gätje, The Qur'an and Its Exegesis,
pp. 73-74)
Hence, we discover another time where Muhammad is seen compromising his
message in order to please the unbelieving Arabs.
Narrated Abu Huraira:
I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "The good
deeds of any person will not make him enter Paradise." (i.e., None can
enter Paradise through his good deeds.) They (the Prophet's companions) said,
'Not even you, O Allah's Apostle?' He said, "Not even myself, unless
Allah bestows His favor and mercy on me." So be moderate in your
religious deeds and do the deeds that are within your ability: and none of you
should wish for death, for if he is a good doer, he may increase his good
deeds, and if he is an evil doer, he may repent to Allah." (Sahih Bukhari,
Volume 7, Book 70, Number 577)
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "The deeds of anyone of
you will not save you (from the (Hell) Fire)." They said, "Even you
(will not be saved by your deeds), O Allah's Apostle?" He said, "No,
even I (will not be saved) unless and until Allah bestows His Mercy on me.
Therefore, do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and worship Allah
in the forenoon and in the afternoon and during a part of the night, and always
adopt a middle, moderate, regular course whereby you will reach your target
(Paradise)." (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 470)
Narrated 'Um al-'Ala:
An Ansari woman who gave the pledge of allegiance
to the Prophet that the Ansar drew lots concerning the dwelling of the
Emigrants. 'Uthman bin Maz'un was decided to dwell with them (i.e. Um al-'Ala's
family), 'Uthman fell ill and I nursed him till he died, and we covered him
with his clothes. Then the Prophet came to us and I (addressing the dead body)
said, "O Abu As-Sa'ib, may Allah's Mercy be on you! I bear witness that
Allah has honored you." On that the Prophet said, "How do you know
that Allah has honored him?" I replied, "I do not know. May my father
and my mother be sacrificed for you, O Allah's Apostle! But who else is worthy
of it (if not 'Uthman)?" He said, "As to him, by Allah, death has
overtaken him, and I hope the best for him. By Allah, though I am the Apostle
of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me," By Allah, I
will never assert the piety of anyone after him. That made me sad, and when I
slept I saw in a dream a flowing stream for 'Uthman bin Maz'un. I went to
Allah' s Apostle and told him of it. He remarked, "That symbolizes his
(good) deeds." (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 58, Number 266)
Narrated Abu Huraira:
When Allah revealed the Verse: "Warn your
nearest kinsmen," Allah's Apostle got up and said, "O people of
Quraish (or said similar words)! Buy (i.e. save) yourselves (from the Hellfire)
as I cannot save you from Allah's Punishment; O Bani Abd Manaf! I
cannot save you from Allah's Punishment, O Safiya, the Aunt of Allah's
Apostle! I cannot save you from Allah's Punishment; O Fatima bint Muhammad!
Ask me anything from my wealth, but I cannot save you from Allah's
Punishment." (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 51, Number 16)
In fact, Muslims are commanded to pray for their prophet's peace and
well-being:
"Lo! Allah and his angels pray (Arabic- yasalluuna)
for the Prophet. O ye that believe! Pray for him (salluu alayhi) and
salute him with all respect (sallimuu tasliimaa)." S. 33:56
Forgiveness, and
continuing Sin
On the same subject
of forgiveness, Servidor, you commented that forgiveness is granted IF “the
person does not persist” in his sin. I
am curious then, do YOU have any sin that you are still committing? And if so, doesn’t that mean that you will
not be forgiven? At what point does the
sinner have to stop sinning to be able to be forgiven? If he gets it down to only once day, once a
week, once a month?
Perfection
You said:
Answer 23
I said:
"Then what is the purpose of
forgiveness? If God did not require perfection, then He would not require that
we be forgiven. The fact that we need to be forgiven proves that God requires
perfection."
You responded:
It does
no such thing on the extreme opposite. It implies the fact that Almighty God
has Blessed us with Free Will as life (in Islam) is a test. When you take a
test at Unversity does the fact that the Teacher can correct your work later on
imply you need perfection to pass? If so you need a new Unversity choice 
My
response
Comparing God’s holiness to a
university’s grading is your flaw.
It is most accurate to compare
God’s grading to a meticulously detailed set of engineering design plans. After the amateur structural engineer
finishes his calculations after many months designing to code all the safety
factors, he submits them to the supervising senior engineer for approval. If the plans don’t meet the specs and safety
design standards in EVERY respect, they are failed and need to be re-done.
When so much is at risk, so little is let
by. You can go on, Servidor, and keep
getting C’s and D’s in your Physics and
engineering classes, shooting only for a PASSING grade, but no one will ever
trust you with REAL engineering situations.
God trusts that we will obey ALL His rules, and fulfill all requirements
necessary. He is Just and Holy,
remember. He’s not a slacking judge as
you make Him out to be.
Sacrifice
and Justice
I said
Yes. God CAN forgive sins without being just. But then God
wouldn't be just, meaning God wouldn't be God according to the Bible. I'm not
sure about what virtues the god of Islam is said to possess, but the Christian
God is committed to justice, all the while granting mercy.
That is one of the chief arguments in the paper in case, that offending God
does not come without a price. God is holy, and man is everything but. I am a
bit surprised that even you, a self-proclaimed guru of the Bible, correcting
Christian's in their own theology, does not understand the magnitude of sin's
consequence and the necessary steps of its remediation as laid out clearly down
through the repeated drum of the line of prophets."
You resond:
The idea
that Almighty God killing somebody is Just is absolutely repugnant and does not
imply Mercy not by the Tanakh nor the Holy Quran nor is it even needed.
Considering Almighty God can do anything it is a mystery as to why Christians
think He would need to kill. Since He can do anything He can forgive without
killing if this is True then the crux of Christian theology is the extreme
opposite of Mercy i.e Almighty God (God Forbid) wants to kill.
What is the Price? Shouldnt the shop owner choose? You tell me what you will
say when the local 7/11 guy says "Okay that will be one sinless man and
16,00 years of sacrificed lamb". Indeed there is a price and according to
Judaism and Islam it is prayer, repentance, good deeds, and trying not to do
bad deeds very simple, very just, and most of all logical.
My response:
You’re right, the shop owner should
choose. And if you know anything about
Judaism, you would see what God chose – innocent blood. Yeah, it might seem illogical to you, just
like prison seems illogical to the car thief, and probation for the
child-molester. That is the humorous
thing, Islam claims to be the continuation of Judaism and Christianity, but it
understands nothing of either. Islam
has no knowledge of SIN and SACRIFICE.
Islam can claim what it wants, but don’t claim to be worshipping the
same God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Furthermore, you’re right again, the
shopkeeper at 7/11 probably wouldn’t require the sacrifice of a man to pay for
gas. He would require what is EQUAL
with what you’re indebted to him for, 20 bucks for gas. But if you’re not trying to get gas, but
instead want the life of his wife, he will surely want EQUAL payment. He and the judge would require for you to
pay with capital punishment – life for a life.
The same concept applies with our sin
situation. You agree that the PAYMENT
for sin is hell. Hell is like
death. You not living with God in
paradise, but instead are dying with evil in hell. Your punishment is spiritual capital punishment. In order to release you from this duty, a
payment of equal value is needed, an innocent life. And this is what Jesus won for us on the cross, dying for OUR
sins so that we would NOT have to PAY for them.
Trinity
I said:
He then said on Trinity "So because it is confusing
to Servidor, it means it is not true. I'm picturing Servidor in an E&M
Physics class raising his hand to the professor and when called upon says,
"now, Prof, what you teach does not make sense to me, and what the books
teaches is totally wack. Therefore It CANNOT be true." I think the whole
class would be laughing at him by now, just as anyone reading his great response
above. Even the Qur'an says that no one will understand God's writings fully
but God Himself. To claim that God is supposed to fit inside Servidor's head is
blasphemy."
Servidor said:
Trinity
is not being able to understand Almighty God that is not what I meant I simply
mean that the scripture never implies it nor is it logical by Almighty Gods
Nature. Sure we cannot understand Him in His entirety but surely He would not
confuse mankind once again that is not Just nor is it Merciful and you missed the
crux of my Biblical quote:
"For
God is NOT the author of confusion . ." I CORINTHIANS 14:33 That does not mean we
can understand each and every detail about Him however it strongly implies that
He does not confuse mankind. Any single human who has learnt 2nd Grade
Mathematics and read only the Tanakh would laugh at the Trinity Doctrine it is
confusing to the point of no return.such we need not be confused on the concept
of whether Almighty God forgives or not.
My response:
That is exactly
what you said: “Also the names are indeed confusing one guy three names I am
very confused should God be confusing me?” To prove the trinity wrong, you appealed to nothing more than
that you did not understand it. You
said nothing of the sort that “the scritpure never implies it”. If that is what you want to say now, that is
great. Let us venture down that path
and really test out whether scripture implies the trinity.
I will take the passive stance and
first let you try to show me why scripture DOES NOT imply the trinity. I will await your evidence.
Theologians
You said:
And by the way I did not correct Christian
Theology I pointed out that you and your missionarie buddies doctrine is not in
concordance with it. I studied your theologians you obviously dont because the
implications that you express in regards to the Trinity are the absolute
opposite of what they say.
My response:
I would like to know point by point what part of me and
my “buddies doctrine is not in concordance with” Christian Theology, with references. Thanks.
I look forward to reading your responses.
For the Glory of Christ,