The Sunnah Page Stories |
Hamza Ali
In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the mostcompassionate "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is man's all. ForGod will bring every work into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good orevil." It is with these words that King Solomon ends the book of Ecclesiastesin the Christian Bible -- words which are crucial to man, and words which the church hasforgotten. First, though, the start of this story... I grew up in the United States,in a family that did not take religion very seriously. I did not receive much if any religious training as a child. Later, as I grew older, I started asking questions abdout life, the universe, andeverything. My search for the worship of the one true God eventually led me into the Chrisitan religion as a child. I listed to what Christians had to say and read a very small part of the Bible. It sounded good at the time, and for the better part of thirteen years I attemptedto serve God in the Christian religion. This continued until I reached a point in mylife where I could no longer engage in Christian worship because of the problemssurrounding the Bible and the teachings of the Christian church: <1> The Bibleturned out to be an unreliable book. Yes, the Bible and Torah were originallyrevelations of Allah. Yes, there are still today bits and pieces of the Bible whichcontain God's message -- the text at the beginning of this story is an outstanding summaryof Islam, don't you think? Unfortunately, the Bible has been corrupted by the verychurch that was to protect it. You can verify this for yourself quite easily. Go to your local Christian bookstore. Take a King James Bible, a NewInternational Bible, and a New Living Bible off the shelf and turn to the end of Mark. The King James states that Mark ends at Mark 16:20. The New InternationalBible states that no, the last 12 verses of Mark are a forgery or later addition, and thatit in fact ends at Mark 16:8. The New Living Bible states that we don't in factknow, and lists two alternative endings from which to choose. This was supposed to be aholy, perfect, revealed, incorruptible book? <2> Christianity had subdivided intothree conflicting streams of thought, none of which sought to put into practice Biblicalteaching. This is particularly critical for the Chrisitan religion, because the NewTestament states that Jesus said the "gates of hell would not prevail against hischurch." If you can then in fact determine that the entire Christian church hasfallen away from its own Bible, their entire house of cards crumbles. One form ofChristianity is the Baptistic/Reformed/Conservative stream of which I was a part. While their stated attempt is to be as true as possible to the modern bibles intheir teaching, this form of Christianity had abandoned all pretense of promotingsubmission to God. Instead, it had become a religion of substitutionary atonementwhere man's disobedience and sin was a given, and people relied of the goodness andsupposed sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to wipe away those sins. But Allah says toguard against a day when no soul can help another! The second form, even stranger, was thePentecostal/Word of Faith/Non-Denominational stream. This form of Christianity cameto dominate all forms of Christian thought and worship in my final years of involvement inChristianity, and was a tremendously destructive force. This brand of Christianity tradedin the worship of Allah for the worship of the Holy Spirit, and placed an inordinateamount of emphasis on "miracles" that were supposed to be able to be worked byChristians. You've heard of snake handling Christians? they come from this branch ofthe church, and their false ideas are based partly on that disputed section of the Biblein Mark's gospel! The more radical members of this group bark like dogs and moo likecows stating that this is a form of worship! Blasphemy! The final stream, and perhaps themost odious, was the Catholic/Episcopal/Methodist/Liberal stream. This form ofChristianity had totally abandoned any belief in God's moral law. In fact, todaythey are active supporters of homosexuality and other haram (forbidden) forms of behavior.Remember, the "gates of hell were not supposed to prevail" according to theBible. Yet, they had. So I set off in search of a true faith, one which rang true tothe words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes: "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for thisis man's all. For God will bring every work into judgement, including every secretthing, whether good or evil." In Islam, I found such a faith. For, "Is itnot time that the hearts of those who believe should be humbled to the Remembrance of Godand the Truth which He has sent down, and that they should not be as those to whom theBook was given aforetime, and the term seemed over long to them, so that their hearts havebecome hard, and many of them are ungodly? Know that God revives the earth after it wasdead. We have indeed made clear for you the signs, that haply you will understand"(The Holy Qur'an 57:1617). Now, I understand. I became a servant of Allah on the 3rdof Muharram, 1999, and began a lifelong journey of service to the Almighty, which will endonly when I am ushered into his glorious presence, Insha Allah.