The Antichrist in Muhammad: God the Father

12/14/2012

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we Christians know Him--at all.

Indeed, as Bernard Lewis observed in his book Islam: The Religion and the People, Islam rejects the fatherhood of God--something well-established within the Judaeo-Christian tradition (though Jews, of course, would not see it as descriptive of a unique relationship between God the Son, Jesus, and God the Father)--and considers it a blasphemy, redolent of shirk, the most grievous sin. It constitutes to Muslims what the unforgivable "sin against the Holy Spirit" is to Christians.

That folly of a judgment in Muhammad, of course, means that--in Muhammad's eyes, and (sadly) in the eyes of the Muslim who follows Muhammad's antichrist teaching--each time Jesus referred to God as "Father," Abba, he blasphemed God, and each time we pray an "Our Father" we are guilty of blasphemy.

It is a remarkable, one might speculate even demonic, feat for a supposed prophet of the most high God to proclaim, allegedly in the name of God, that prayer to God in the manner God taught us is a blasphemy to God.

A Roman Catholic's Pater noster is blasphemy. The Anglican's Our Father is blasphemy. A Greek Orthodox's Pater hemon is blasphemy. A Jew's Avinu is blasphemy. What kind of monstrous teaching is that?

Muhammad's rejection of the revelation of God as Father is found in two ways.

First, there is the rejection of the doctrine by its absence. Read the entire Qur'an cover-to-cover, from Al-Fatiha, the first surah, to An-Nas, the last surah, and you will find no mention of Allah as Father. None.

(Nor, interestingly, will you find any description of Allah as Love. But we will get to that issue when we discuss Muhammad and the Trinity.)

Second, there is the rejection of the doctrine by the rejection of any attribution to God of any "begetting" of a Son; thereby, implicitly rejecting God's Fatherhood. For example, "Say He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; and there is none like unto Him." (Qur'an 112:1-4) Or, as another example, "Allah forbid that He Himself should beget a son! When He decrees a thing He need only say "Be," and it is." (Qur'an 19:35)

According to Sahih Muslim 35.6475 (from Muslims' perspective, an authentic group of ahadith, or reports about Muhammad), Muhammad allegedly said: "There are ninety-nine names of Allah; he who commits them to memory would get into Paradise. Verily, Allah is Odd (He is one, and it is an odd number) and He loves odd number."

The Ninety-Nine Names of God, which are a recapitulation of all the names of Allah in the Qur'an and the Sunna, and therefore the legitimate or orthodox ways of a Muslim to invoke Allah, are quite beautiful. But one name of God is notable--one might say truly odd--by its absence. In these names, Allah is never invoked as Father!

There is a huge difference in understanding God as Ar-Rahman, the Compassionate, if that compassion is the compassion of a Father or the compassion of a Master. And that goes for any other of the remaining ninety-eight names.

Muhammad never prayed to Allah with anything remotely like filial love of Jesus, "Father! Pater! Glorify your name! Clarifica tuum nomen!" (John 12:28) Muhammad did not receive the "Spirit of sonship" by which Christians cry, "Abba, Father." (Cf. Rom. 8:15) And as a result such filial love of God has been unfortunately withheld from his followers. Since then, his followers have not seen themselves as "sons in the Son," filii in filio, and sons of God, but slaves of Allah, 'abdullahs.

In closing, we might profitably turn to the prophet Malachi. Malachi, considered generally the last prophet of Judaism (if one does not include St. John the Baptist as Christians would), is considered an authentic prophet by both Christian and Jew. (Incidentally, the Qur'an does not mention Malachi as a prophet, though other Old Testament prophets are mentioned in the Qur'an).

Malachi asked the Jews--and through the Jews all of humanity, including the Muslims:

"Have we not all one Father?" (Malachi 2:10)

The question is rhetorical. There is no answer but "Yes."

Unfortunately, the Muslim is forced, by the juggernaut of the misopatrist Qur'an, to answer the question with a "No."

Which brings us to the question the prophet Malachi then asked: "Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?" (Malachi 2:10) By rejecting God as Father, Muhammad broke faith with the Jew and the Christian, and therefore profaned the covenants of our fathers, both in the Old and the New Testaments.

By rejecting both God the Father and God the Son, Muhammad did more than break faith. He made himself antichrist: "Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist." (1 John 22)

And by his deceit he imperiled the souls of his followers: "If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life. I write you these things about those who would deceive you." (1 John 24-26).

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is married with three children. He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum. You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.
- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Muhammad, antichrist, false prophet, Andrew M. Greenwell, God as Father

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Jorge
5 months ago
Joseph.. I am afraid you have again misinterpreted what this article says, and what my comments are all about. I have never said that muslims are all "terrorists", "mass-murderers","rapists"thieves", "thugs"..so on and so forth....I said and i STAND FIRM in saying that muhammad was all of those things and many more, all unflatering and immoral.You says the Catholic faith stands against "irrationality, anger, hatred, prejudice and bigotry" and I agree. The problems is all of those attributes belong strongly to islam, NOT to radical secularism. You say you are using "reason" by claiming such nonsense? that "secularism" is threatening the christian faith??Are you out of your mind? In what planet is that happening? secularism is a direct creation/concession OF our christian faith("Give to Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser, and to God what belongs to God").who is "ranting and "raving"?Who is instilling irrational fear against a secondary opponnet(secularim)? You are Joseph!I also believe your intentions are "noble" and "good" and I give back your sentence that "Hell is full of people with good intentions".Islam has killed more than 300 million innocetn human beings and keeps killing, brutalising more than 2 billion pelople, without any one daring to stop this genocide. christians in particular are brutally killed by muslims every day, and secularists don't care at all..in this you are right..but secularists are not doing this for themselves..islam is!
Joseph
5 months ago
To Anthony Greenwell re latest comment by Jorge. I think the ranting hysteria of hatred and venom from Jorge rather proves my point. No one disputes Islam has an extremely dark side but are we really saying that 1.5 billion islamics are all crazy, Satan-inspired murderers, killers, paedophiles, rapists etc. etc.... The tone of your articles is playing to the lowest common denominator in people: hatred of the 'other', as Pope Benedict refers to it. It is playing to the forces of irrationality, anger, hatred, prejudice and bigotry. Are not these demonic forces? And as for my main point, it still stands: our main enemy in this period of history is secular-relativism which is sweeping not just the USA but all Western countries, and threatens to obliterate Christianity. We therefore need, as a matter of the greatest urgency, to promote the focusing of all our energies on our main enemy, and to do so in a constructive and positive manner. Encouraging or inciting people to rant and rave, on the other hand, is the very antithesis of the Cathollic Faith, a Faith that has Reason as its primary virtue. I do not doubt for one moment that your intention is noble and good. But as we know from the entire course of human history, the road to Hell is paved with good and noble intentions.
Jorge
5 months ago
Joseph..once again you construct a spaggety sauce made out of nonsense, creamed with fallacious shameless manipulations, distortions; you just useevery kind of shameless LIEs to try to hide the obvious-that islam is indeed, a religion PURE EVIL.It teaches mass-murder, rape, stealing, kidnapping infidels,ln torturing them and then demanding ransoms from their relatives....any dirty satanic trick you can possibly imagine muhammad, the founder of islam believed in it, practiced it and so did his false pet god allah.muslims , at the least pious devout ones, will turn violent, ruthless,terrorists,pedophiles, rapists,theives, thugs, deceptive, nasty..emulating their prophet by reading the quran, the suras, the hadeeths..they all say the same. Here is a taste of PURE ISLAM for you(the many final decisive versicles that ab-rogate the previous few nice ones):
Ishaq:297 “When the Apostle saw them he cried, ‘Allah, they called me a liar. Destroy them!!!

Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam [Koran 5:33]
Qur’an 8:12 “I shall terrorize the infidels. So wound their bodies and incapacitate them because they oppose Allah and His Apostle.”

(Tabari IX:69) “Killing disbelievers is a small matter to us.”

(Tabari VIII:141) “The battle cry of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah that night was: ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’

(Ishaq:489) “Do the bastards think that we are not their equal in fighting? We are men who think that there is no shame in killing.”

(Qur'an 5:33) "The punishment for those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and perpetrate mischief [reject Islam or oppose its goals]
in the land, is to murder them, to hang them, to mutilate them, or banish them. Such is their disgrace. They will not escape the fire, suffering constantly."

“Allah is the best of schemers.” —Quran 3:54

“War is deceit.” —Muhammad; Hadith, Bukhari 52:268; Narrated Abu Huraira

Qu'ran: Unbelievers will be tormented forever with fire. When their skin
is burned off, a fresh skin will be provided. 56

Allah will bestow a vast reward on those who fight in religious
wars. 74

Believers fight for Allah; disbelievers fight for the devil. So
fight the minions of the devil. 76

Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you
find them. 89

If the unbelievers do not offer you peace, kill them wherever you
find them. Against such you are given clear warrant. 91 ( Offering
peace in Islam means surrendering,ie, converting to islam "peacefully" after receiving the "invitation" or by force, under the threat of violence and death, or accepting dhimminitude/slave condition but ONLY for jews and chrisitans.Islam condemns to utter destruction all the other religions by all means necessary).
JayKaye
5 months ago
This new article was a very nice addition to the one several months ago on the same topic. The doctrine created may have been Mohammad's attempt for notoriety, in mimicking the works of the Bible on his own, with his unaccounted for changes to scripture, in a take or dismiss like manner that created the Koran.

The acts of non-tolerance towards Christianity (and other faiths) are not condoned in any worldwide religion, except some of the Muslim sectors. While most others attempt to "convert", the Muslim communities attempt to wipe out the others. We here in the U.S. stand back and watch our government try to accommodate refuges into the U.S. and pump trillions of dollars into Muslim nations that laugh at our efforts and murder our people attempting to help them become democratic societies. When our governing authorities recognize that democracy does not work in Muslim society. Democracy is based on people living a "God fearing" existence. We find countries such as Iraq, Syria, or other Middle Easterners taking the cash we use to persuade them free of any demise, then to abuse and reconstruct their philosophy towards their own and differing peoples. Time and time again, we are bilked and lose our objective as a country, due to regime changes that were set-up through U.S. persuasions and lost hundreds of billions of dollars.

It is time the U.S. began fighting a new type of war against these misunderstood kingdoms. Maybe to sanction money and technology instead of trying to make allies could in turn cause at least some of these kingdoms to bend if to remain beneficiaries of our cultures advantages. The free handouts would stop and our deficit ($6 -800 million per second) would lessen. Within our boundaries, we need to keep the freedom to worship free, unless they begin preaching lawlessness we so often find coming from the Muslim sects that believe it. These are the elements that must be taken out of the "free" rights and to do so, at any cost, before further tragedy(s) fill the front-page news again. Only when they see not so much their own people, but their own regime losing progress and status, will they listen to our intent civilly and in an honest attempt to live in harmony with the West.
Joseph
5 months ago
Once again the substance of the argument is generally sound but too often betrayed by the tone - a tone that is needlessly emotive, at times oddly personal, and at other times gratuitously aggressive. Adopting this approach is tantamount to saying that every human being who does not accept Jesus as the Son of God is Antichrist. From the 16 year old who is simply passing through a phase of typical adolescent rebellion to the man who hasn't really ever thought about it one way or the other, to the reasoned and reasonable agnostic, to the fanatical islamic suicide bomber - all end up in the same category, all are subject to the full weight of this massive condemnation - for there is none greater in Christendom - regardless of the degree of their non-belief/rejection (and yes, there are degrees of rejection, just as there are degrees of acceptance). An approach of this sort lacks, above all, discernment, a key Catholic concept. It muddies the distinction between quantitative and qualitative differences, and seeks to explore and define profound truths using a sledgehammer instead of a surgeon's scalpel. ‘Antichrist’ is a term that should be used sparingly, reluctantly and with great humility. St. John certainly has every right to use it. So too could the Pope, if he so chose, in line with the Magisterium, and, I am sure, after long and great and heart-searching deliberation. As for the rest of us mere mortals, which of us is not in need, every day of our lives, of a healthy dose of humility?
Joel Richardson
5 months ago
Another excellent article sir. It should also be highlighted that the Qur'an, as a direct result of its deeply anti-Paternal view of God, forbids adoption. While it does encourage taking in the children of those whose parents were lost during jihad, it forbids those children to ever adopt the family name or share in the family inheritance. In fact, those children are even allowed to marry their "brothers or sisters". as if they were just like any other outsider.

"...Nor has He made your adopted sons your (biological) sons. Such is only the manner of speech by your mouths. But Allah tells the Truth, and He shows the right Way. Call them by (the names of) their fathers; that is juster in the sight of Allah..." - Surah 33:4-5
Kris
5 months ago
As quoted in the article, Mr. Lewis' comparison of 'shirk' to the sin against the Holy Spirit is illustrative of the many misrepresentations of Christian dogma by Islamists. To put these two alongside each other is a grave (if not intended) oversimplification.

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists in impenitence which is the result of denying the very existence of sin - so you can't be forgiven a transgression you don't recognize; and you come to recognize it through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

And as for the blasphemy against Allah, it suffices one to be a Christian!

Apart from the absence of this clarification, congrats and thank you for the series!

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