The Simple Truth: The Quran and The Bible Side-by-Side

The unthinkable becomes reality—the transcendent wholly other God who has existed from eternity is seen by human eyes, heard with human ears, and touched with human hands: Through the biblical witness one can both love the unseen Christ 1 Peter 1: It is You we worship; it is You we ask for help.

Guide us to the straight path: Exegetically this first koranic witness asserts that Allah is the sole source and sustainer of life. Allah alone is worthy of worship and praise. Allah is Lord of the cosmic drama from the beginning of time at the act of creation to the end of time on the Day of Judgment. This opening sura is foundational in that it sets a tone echoed elsewhere in the Koran where it asserts that Allah is one, and unlike any created thing or being Q.

The Koran repeatedly asserts that Allah is the creator of everything that exists and that all is dependent on Allah Q. In keeping with this theme, Allah is elsewhere called the sustainer of the whole universe Q. He did not create the universe or our world and then cease to be involved. This is nuanced in other suras , where it is implied that nothing exists without being in a relationship with the Allah as Creator Q. In particular, sura 2. There is no God save Him, the Alive, the Eternal.

Neither slumber nor sleep overtaketh Him. Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is he that intercedeth with Him save by His leave? He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge save what He will. His throne includeth the heavens and the earth, and He is never weary of preserving them. He is the Sublime, the Tremendous. Thus, Allah is the mighty, majestic, and merciful Creator.

To feel and share in compassion is to be like a mother who bears, nurtures, and protects her unborn child. It is a picture of divine compassion that gently holds us in being. Such repetition extends mercy as a personal and intimate attribute of Allah throughout the Koran as a whole. In doing so, it sets the theological and worship context for each subsequent sura: Allah is Lord of Mercy and Giver of Mercy.

Such repetition implies too that mercy is the very essence of Allah. Some titles for Allah connote mercy, but in some respects it is a redefined mercy compared to what one finds in the Bible. Allah is merciful because He did not kill or leave anyone in peril. This is in contrast to Yahweh, who is caring, loving, and an intimately involved Father. At least this is how the Koran appears to the casual reader. Even so, a more compassionate side of mercy can be intuited and nuanced from the Koran and surely by grace-hungry hearts of Muslim readers. Though some might construe this as fatalistic, i.

The phrase points rather to the simple yet profound reality of Allah over all. He is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. One need not read rigid predestination or matters of free will into the statement. On the opposite end of the Koran one finds the most basic creedal statement of Islamic theology, and that represents the essential understanding of Allah, i.

He is Allah, the One! Allah, the eternally Besought of all!

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He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him. Its simplicity and brevity defies the depth of meaning. It points to the absolute unity and sovereignty of Allah. The order of creation and the order of life both point to the existence of Allah. They are signs for those who believe Q. They are signs for reason to grasp, for one to know, become convinced of, and believe. He is wholly other. He is the Beneficent, Merciful. Glorified be Allah from all that they ascribe as partner unto Him. He is Allah, the Creator, the Shaper out of naught, the Fashioner.

His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifieth Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. In all the terms and titles of Allah, one does not encounter terms of intimacy. They are not read as a proper name in Islam. In the Islamic religious formulation, God has no personal name. For those who genuinely repent, God will change their evil deeds to good deeds Q. While the Koran may not provide concrete steps toward such an experience, or provide imagery for one to imagine it, it nevertheless nuances its possibility and the hope of experiencing it for oneself.

If ye love Allah, follow me [Mohammad]; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. To be sure, such images are far and few between. More is said about what Allah does not love than what He does love. Unfortunately, and unlike Psalm , any personal and existential implications of this sura are left for the reader to imagine. Yet the implications are there begging to be tapped. Muslim scholars assert that the Koran provides no discussion about Allah and His nature or existence. They posit rather that the Koran is only functional, i. The bottom line of Muslim confession about Allah is that Allah is absolute oneness and sovereignty.

For the most part, Allah is outside of time and space. This is true for Shiite tradition in particular, in which philosophically Allah is beyond space and time. Allah is beyond understanding and the ability to speak accurately about God. In contrast, the Sufi tradition exhibits a dramatic exception to this emphasis upon utter divine transcendence in Islam in its focus on the possibilities of a more personal relationship with Allah.

Allah is distant from creation and from human beings. Rather, he only revealed his will. It is a metaphysical impossibility to be in a personal relationship with Allah. Allah is distant and removed from creation and creatures and relates to them through his will and law. Muslims believe that God is one, sovereign, and ruler over all.

He has no partners. God is independent of his creation. He revealed his will and law through the angel Gabriel to his prophet Muhammad as well as to other select prophets. Allah is nowhere immediate and present in creation, although the Koran hints at the opposite. Again, this does not necessarily mean that Allah is not involved with human beings, but the true nature and attributes of Allah are well beyond human comprehension. This brings us to the question of the paucity of narrative and anthropomorphic language in the Koran in relation to the person and character of Allah.

Story and narrative plot are less evident in the Koran than they are in the Bible. The Koran is assembled somewhat randomly with the longest suras at the beginning and the shortest ones toward the end. Suras from the Mecca and Medina periods are interspersed. The Koran, however, is an eschatological book with linear historical trajectory in that it directs readers toward the final judgment where Allah will be vindicated as God.

Yet narrative and anthropomorphism in relation to the character of God are negligible. Where biblical narratives are present in the Koran, it unfolds a dramatically divergent retelling of these stories and alternative interpretations of biblical figures and ideas. Surprisingly, Islam is more akin to Judaism in conceptualizing God than it is to Christianity. Anthropomorphisms in the Hebrew Scriptures created interpretive problems for both Jewish and Islamic exegetes—as if God is a human being writ large. As a result, Rabbinic and koranic hermeneutics and commentary on the being and character of God agree more with each other than they do with that of Christian commentary.

After all, what kind of God molds man out of the dirt like a potter? Or strolls through the Garden of Eden searching for Adam and Eve and engaging them personally? What kind of God talks to a serpent in a long and complicated interrogation? Or grieves and wonders if it were the right thing to have created humans in the first place? What kind of God eats food? What kind of God can be argued with toward changing His mind as did Abraham pleading with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? In the Book of Genesis alone there is material sharing between God and humans, there is fellowship, and there is conversation—even pleading.

Muslim theologians believe that it would be incorrect for God to have real emotions. For them, it would be demeaning to His greatness. In contrast, the Bible God unfolds as one who grieves, who rejoices, and who loves passionately, but not so in the Koran. The Koran reflects the milieu in which it was received, written, and assembled. This material, called Genesis Rabbah , provides an authoritative Jewish sourcebook of readings of the Genesis text by and for the Jewish community not only of two millennia ago but even of today.

Interestingly, what it demonstrates is that the differences between Genesis and the Koran are to some extent accounted for or at least softened a bit by the history of Jewish interpretation itself.

The biblical stories are edited such that God comes out looking very Godly: One Muslim writer notes how the Koran rescues humans from regarding God too anthropomorphically. The biblical Genesis narrative in particular is full of anthropomorphisms. Yet the Creation account, the fall of human beings, the Flood and Noah—God grieving, the surprise and sorrow attributed to God in Genesis 6: Muslim tradition has avoided the language that man was made in the image of God, because it could readily lead to the conclusion that God is a physical being and thus possesses an image that human beings could represent.

This tradition both reflects the Koran and how it is subsequently interpreted. The Koran however, does ascribe certain qualities to Allah that seem to soften somewhat its stance on the absolutely transcendent nature of Allah and possibly encourage perspectives of immanence and even anthropomorphisms. Allah comes stealthily Q. Allah has a face Q. Despite the possibilities that these anthropomorphisms might suggest, most Muslim scholars would assert that any resemblance between the attributes of a thing or person and some attributes of Allah is only apparent and superficial.

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The heavenly realm of Allah does not traffic in earthy things. Not even the angels eat, let alone God. It is important to note that koranic anthropomorphisms and traditional Muslim interpretations of them revolve around physical characteristics of God in relation to humans and their implications rather than to personal matters of divine being and character. Muslims will avoid such implications as verging on blasphemy in that it crosses the barrier between the Creator and the creature. To give Allah a face is to bring Him down to the human. In contrast, face in the biblical witness is full of existential, personhood, and conscience realities Gen.

Thus, face in the Koran is seen in terms of mere external realities and any correspondence with human face is avoided. Again, in contrast, the biblical anthropomorphisms are meant to engender deeper understanding. As a result, anthropomorphic language is not considered appropriate with reference to Allah.

Again, biblical anthropomorphisms are intended to engender understanding rather than misunderstanding or blasphemy. They bring humans upward to God rather than God downward to human beings. In the Bible, human qualities as per the image of God are in no way associated with inanimate images or idolatry.

These are important distinctions that ultimately determine how one reads both the Bible and the Koran and what view of God he or she will come away with. Allah has no point of reference in human concept, thought, or experience. Allah becomes like a word without an idea. Because anthropomorphic language in the Koran is either scant or sidestepped, Allah is often described in Islam more by what He is not than by what He is. Allah is so absolutely singular, so totally separate, that He cannot even be imagined. He has no body, no spirit. He needs nothing, wants nothing, feels nothing, and possesses nothing.

Allah is harder to imagine, know, experience. Ultimately, Jesus is the One through whom Allah judges the world and brings the eschatological banquet Q. Furthermore, Jesus is the Messiah, a word from Allah, one of those brought near to Allah, and righteous: Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near unto Allah. These titles and activities of Jesus have much significance in Christian theology as they relate to the divine character of Christ.

Many Christians have tried to read too much into them in their attempts to prove certain biblical doctrines from the text of the Koran. To the Muslim, however, they lack any content of Deity, and even the Koran states that at the eschatological judgment, Jesus will affirm that He did nothing to encourage the beliefs and behaviors of Christians that are inconsistent with Muslim teaching. If we want to do justice to the Koran, we need to let Islamic theology speak for itself in determining the significance of these titles for Jesus.

Likewise in Islamic theology, the concept of the messiah means someone who is prominent in this world and in the next as well as someone who is near God. Could the word spirit suggest imparting life, vitality, and energy? Could word and spirit denote two inseparable modes of outreaching from Allah toward creation? If so, it would suggest that perhaps the anthropomorphisms in the Koran are not in essence wrong and that their implications should be teased out more fully.

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Again, one would not need to read matters of deity into either in order for this to be so. The functional equivalent to the Koran for Christians is not so much the Bible as it is Jesus Christ. Though as it has been stated above that Allah Himself per se may not be revealed in the Koran—only His will—nevertheless the Koran itself bridges human beings to Allah.

One would think so even more when it is related to not as a written text but as an internalized reality that is recited. One naturally wonders at this point, Is there a difference between the koranic view of God and the interpreters who have come afterward? Though some would try to nuance or tease out personal spiritual aspects of God in relation to His being and character, most relegate such discussion to the level of the abstract and unknowable. It is hoped that this study will encourage the former, letting the Koran speak for itself. What are the moral and spiritual implications of this overlap and divergence for Christians and Muslims respectively?

What kind of spiritual experience do these divergent views create? Which view of God and reality ultimately satisfies the longing of the human soul? These ideas are expressed in chapters Fussilat and al-Anbiyaa:. It would seem that this intermediary creation corresponds to the modern discovery of bridges of matter which are present outside organized astronomical systems. In contrast, the successive phases of creation mentioned in the Biblical text are totally unacceptable. For example, in Genesis 1: It is a well known fact that our planet came from its own star, the sun.

Such a claim would mean that, of his own accord, he corrected the Biblical text to arrive at the correct concept concerning the formation of the Universe. Yet the correct concept was reached by scientists many centuries after his death. But, this is a mistaken idea resulting from an ignorance of history. The material on this subject is so vast that I can only provide a brief outline of it here. The moon is an inert body which reflects light, whereas the sun is a celestial body in a state of permanent combustion producing both light and heat.

It was much later discovered that stars are heavenly bodies producing their own light like the sun. Today, the laws governing the celestial systems are well known. Galaxies are balanced by the position of stars and planets in well-defined orbits, as well as the interplay of gravitational forces produced by their masses and the speed of their movements. In chapter al-Ambiyaa we find:. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion.

They are well known for the moon, but less widely known for the sun.

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The original meaning of the verb kis to coil a turban around the head. It is not until man landed on the moon and observed the earth spinning on its axis, that the dark half of the globe appeared to wind itself around the light and the light half appeared to wind itself around the dark. Modern astronomy confirms that the solar system is indeed moving in space at a rate of 12 miles per second towards a point situated in the constellation of Hercules alpha lyrae whose exact location has been precisely calculated.

Astronomers have even give it a name, the solar apex. The expansion of the universe was first suggested by the general theory of relativity and is supported by the calculations of astrophysics. The regular movement of the galactic light towards the red section of the spectrum is explained by the distancing of one galaxy from another.

The Quran and Modern Science

Thus, the size of the universe appears to be progressively increasing. You will not penetrate them except with authority. Authority to travel in space can only come from the Creator of the laws which govern movement and space. They deal, not only with the physical phenomena observed here on earth, but also with details concerning the living organisms that inhabit it.

At this point, we must ask ourselves the following question: How could an uneducated man in the middle of the desert accurately tackle so many and such varied subjects at a time when mythology and superstition reigned supreme? How could he so skillfully avoid every belief that was proven to be totally inaccurate many centuries later?

The verses dealing with the earthly systems are a case in point. This is a topic which is well known today. But if we consider the ideas prevalent at that time, they appear to be based more on myth and philosophical speculation than on observed fact, even though useful practical knowledge on soil irrigation was current at that period. Such notions seem quite natural to us today, but we should not forget that, not so long ago, they were not prevalent.

It was not until the sixteenth century, with Bernard Palissy, that we gained the first coherent description of the water cycle. Prior to this, people believed that the waters of the oceans, under the effect of winds, were thrust towards the interior of the continents. In the seventeenth century, great thinkers such as Descartes still believed in this myth. Today, we know that it is the infiltration of rain water into the ground that is responsible for this. In geology, modern science has recently discovered the phenomenon of folding which formed the mountain ranges.

It has also been discovered that the stability of mountains is linked to the phenomenon of folding. Stakes awtaad , which are driven into the ground like those used to anchor a tent, are the deep foundations of geological folds.

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Here, as in the case of all the other topics presented, the objective observer cannot fail to notice the absence of any contradiction to modern knowledge. We should really devote much more time to this subject, but, due to the limited scope of this presentation, I can only give a few examples.

It is for this reason that scientists find some of their interpretations unacceptable. This is the case of a verse in chapter al-Ambiyaa, a part of which has already been quoted:. Will they still not believe? Progress in botany at the time of Muhammad S was not advanced enough in any country for scientists to know that plants have both male and female parts.

Nevertheless, we may read the following in the chapter Taa Haa:. Today we know that fruit comes from plants that have sexual characteristics even when they come from unfertilized flowers, like bananas. In the field of physiology, there is one verse which appears extremely significant to me.

To understand this verse, it must first be known that chemical reactions occur between food and enzymes in the mouth, the stomach and the intestines releasing nutrients in molecular form which are then absorbed into the circulatory system through countless microscopic projections of the intestinal wall called villi.

Blood in the circulatory system then transports the nutrients to all the organs of the body, among which are the milk-producing mammary glands. I give you drink from their insides, coming from a conjunction between the digested contents of the intestines and the blood, milk pure and pleasant for those who drink it. The constituents of milk are secreted by the mammary glands which are nourished by the product of food digestion brought to them by the bloodstream.

The initial event which sets the whole process in motion is the conjunction of the contents of the intestine and blood at the level of the intestinal wall itself. This very precise concept is the result of the discoveries made in the chemistry and physiology of the digestive system over one thousand years after the time of Prophet Muhammad S. It was impossible for a human being living in the early seventh century to have accurately expressed such ideas. There is nothing to indicate that people in the Middle-East and Arabia knew anything more about this subject than people living in Europe or anywhere else.

Your books on sex-education are a bit late on the scene! Let us now isolate, from all these verses, precise ideas concerning the complexity of the semen and the fact that an infinitely small quantity is required to ensure fertilization. The verse correctly implies that fertilization is performed by only a very small volume of liquid. On the other hand, mingled fluids amshaaj has been understood by early commentators to refer to the mixture of male and female discharges. Modern authors have corrected this view and note that the sperm is made up of various components.

This is the meaning of the following verse in chapter as-Sajdah:. In whatever way it is translated, it refers to part of a whole. Under normal conditions, only one single cell, spermatozoon, out of over 50 million ejaculated by a man during sexual intercourse will actually penetrate the ovule. Additionally, they may learn about each others holy books and help them to live together in peace and harmony.

Reading the bible and the quran side by side see inside. Gary miller introduction it should be stated at the outset of this work, that muslims do not seek to put down or desecrate the holy bible. Noahs flood in bible, quran and mesopotamian stories. Bible is the book of allah just like quran but it just changed by the people but quran is not changed at all, but thank you for sharing such a wonderful information with all muslims even people from other religion can learn from here too.

But details are different in islamic retellings of biblical narratives. Reading the bible and the quran side by side by michael lodahl in pdf form, then you have come on to right website. The words torture and punishment appear six times more often in the quran than in the new testament. Print, rotate, print side 2, then z fold both directions.

It has a youthful feel highlighting 60 topics in bullet point format and is complete with references. His theological interpretation of these sacred texts should help christians and muslims identify their theological similarities and differences. Holy bible holy koran almighty and all powerful side by side download holy bible holy koran almighty and all powerful side by side ebook pdf or read online books in pdf, epub, and mobi format.

Arabic english nt pdf for further reading, studying, and learning the bible, please refer to our new site it has an advanced search, audio, dictionary, commentaries, outlines and promises. Many bible characters noah, abraham, moses, jesus and doctrines creation, resurrection of the body are also found in the quran.

This video is to replace our 3 videos on islam flagged down by antichrists. This book is an anthology which includes all the stories shared by both the bible and the quran presented side by side, showing verse by verse the similarities and differences between the two. Sharing marybible and quran side by side pdf download.

Chronological progression of the bible is from violence to peace. In the philosophy of islam, on one side the production and consumption of addictive substances are strictly prohibited, while on the other side through moral education the use of addictive substances are discouraged. Holy bible holy koran almighty and all powerful side by side. A comparison between the bible and quran in the crucial issues.

The quaran, download the quran here in full length pdf. They are written as footnotes on the bottom of each page to allow for an easy comparative study.