by Paul L Maier
For his part, Jon, with Shannon’s permission-it was her find, after all-cut off a small corner of one of the leaves, put it in a lead pouch, and air-expressed it to Professor Duncan Fraser at the radiocarbon labs of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Fraser and his TAMS apparatus-tandem accelerator mass spectrometer-had provided crucial assistance to Jon and Shannon several years earlier through his meticulous dating of a crucial manuscript by carbon-14 analysis.
And yes, Jon did have an ethical problem here. He should first have asked permission of the priest at Pella. But cui bono? To what good? If the priest had said yes, all was in order. If not, one of the best testing methods for an ancient manuscript would be denied. The chances that the priest would even notice a small cut from one corner-no writing whatsoever involved-were about one in a thousand. And even if he had an eagle eye and did notice it, he would quickly see that no damage had been done. It seemed a justified cut.
Jon and Shannon had a larger problem with his agreeing to Istanbul as the site for the debate. With Turkey 98 percent Muslim, she thought it was almost suicidal, especially in view of the fatwa still lingering over his head. Nor was the CIA, which quickly caught wind of it, especially pleased. If Jon would not change his mind, they wanted to review all security procedures in Istanbul and could not promise his safe return.
For his part, Jon defended his decision by pointing out that Turkey was Sunni, not Shiite, territory; he was debating the very person who had called for the lifting of his fatwa; and strict security measures would be employed. “It’s a done deal, Shannon,” he said, “a dead issue.”
Her voice quivered as she warned, “I hope your words aren’t prophetic!”
Jon just stood there, wondering if he might not have made a better choice of words. It was a bad moment.
Maybe things could be salvaged with a little levity. “Well, honey,” he said, “don’t forget that third reason I agreed to Istanbul: the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch begged me to come to Turkey, which wins me some points with him.”
“And why do you need those points?”
“I’m really desperate to get into his archives. Otherwise, he might have said no.”
Shannon merely flashed a wry smile and shook her head.
That, at least, was better than tears.
Jon was not too concerned about preparation for the debate. Although he had not debated often, he could draw on a professional lifetime acquaintance with the sources and histories of both Christianity and Islam, and he was well aware of the unprecedented importance of an encounter like this. No debate of this kind between Christianity and Islam had taken place for centuries. And of course, due to the modern media revolution, the audience for this encounter would dwarf anything previous.
Jon had not read the Qur’an in some years, so it was high time for a reread as cornerstone for whatever preparation he did. Doubtless, his opponent was doing the same with the Bible. Some years earlier, a devout Muslim, hoping to convert Jon, had sent him a beautifully illuminated copy of the Qur’an, along with instructions on how to use it. Read it, for goodness’ sake? Not so fast. First, the reader should always wash his hands before touching it. He should never hold it below his waist. He should never put anything on top of it.
For some reason, Jon had not exactly followed these rules. On the other hand, he had no reason to desecrate it but treated it like the Bible or any other book. A book was a book was a book. Claim more than that, and you’re on to fetishism. He recalled that, in fact, some Christians were also guilty of “bibliolatry,” worshiping the book itself or using it for other than reading as a good-luck charm or talisman against evil.
Or even for fortune-telling, like the fellow who used his Bible for divine guidance on career choices. Praying for revelation, he shut his eyes, opened the Bible, and pointed randomly to a passage. “And he went away and hanged himself.”
Couldn’t be, he thought. I’ll try again.
After repeating the procedure, he opened his eyes and read, “Go, and do thou likewise.”
Impossible! Third time’s a charm. This time he prayed harder, spun himself around three times, flipped through the pages, and pointed. Opening his eyes, he read: “What thou doest, do quickly!”
Jon found the Qur’an about the same size as the New Testament, with a curious arrangement for its chapters: the longer ones first, the shorter last-rather than being placed in chronological order. Much of the historical material covered the same ground as the Bible, but by no means in the same way. There seemed to be dozens of differences, some minor, some major. As he read, Jon wrote down a list of the most important of these, along with locations in the Qur’an through its suras, followed by his own written comments: Noah’s flood did not take place until Moses’ day. (Sura 7:136; 7:59ff) Impossibly late. One of Noah’s sons was drowned because he wouldn’t come along with the rest of the family in the ark. (S 11:43) Nice lesson in obedience! Abraham’s father was not Terah but Azar. (S 6:74) Making him an Arab? Abraham tried to sacrifice not Isaac but Ishmael. (S 37:100ff) To be sure: Ishmael as patriarch of the Arabs. Baby Moses was adopted not by the daughter but by the wife of Pharaoh. (S 28:8ff) Augmenting Moses? Strange for Islam. God struck the Egyptians with not ten plagues but nine. (S 27:12) Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, was not struck dumb for nine months until the birth of John, but only for three days. (S 3:40-41) Interesting sympathy for the voiceless one. Mary gave birth to Jesus not in a cavern-stable but under a palm tree. (S 19:23) Christians believe in three gods: the Father, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. (S 5:116) Misunderstanding of the Trinity. Jesus did not die on the cross. Someone took his place. (S 4:157) Probably the most decisive difference between the Qur’an and the Bible.
Beyond these differences from Scripture, Jon found the Qur’an even contradicting itself. In Sura 7:54, for example, it took God six days to create the world, but in Sura 41:9, it took him two. And the most notorious, of course, were the so-called satanic verses, in which Muslims were to seek the divine intercession of two goddesses and one god in the Arab pantheon, though later Muhammad was told that this had been Satan interjecting a revelation and that it was thereby abrogated. Salman Rushdie had suffered enough on that one.
At times, Jon was ready to throw down his pen and mutter, “Why even bother debating when the Qur’an has many such problems and is so obviously derivative from prior, biblical sources?”
“Be careful!” Osman cautioned him when he vented such thoughts. “You have to treat the Qur’an very carefully in debate-unlike the Bible-since in Islam, it’s not only authoritative but unimpeachable as God’s only totally reliable and uncorrupted revelation. In that sense, you should compare it not to the Bible, but to Christ himself. Muslims even believe there’s a word-for-word copy of it in heaven-in the original Arabic, of course.”
Jon also noted that many of the prophetic passages in the Bible that predicted a future messiah were transferred from their fulfillment in Jesus and made to refer instead to Muhammad, especially Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”
Nay, more: Muslims even made Jesus himself prophesy the advent of Muhammad each time he referred to the coming Comforter, as in John 14:16: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter that he may be with you for ever.” And here Christians had always thought the Comforter was the Holy Spirit!
Some personal correspondence also took place between Jon and al-Rashid regarding ground rules for the debate. They both agreed not to politicize the exchange or try to make points in the West-versus-Middle East debate as was done so often in Christian-Muslim discussions across the years, since this was to be a purely religious exchange. In view of al-Qaeda and militant Islamic extremism, however, this would be very difficult to accomplish, but at least they could move beyond the “Is Islam a Religion of Peace or War?” question.
The answer to that one, of course,
was simply yes, since you could find both peace and war in the Qur’an. But the answer was yes also in Judeo-Christianity, Jon knew, since you could find both also in the Bible. For example, God’s orders through Samuel for Israel to annihilate the Amalekites-“Kill both man and woman, infant and suckling”-were hardly any waving of the olive branch. Still, there was this critically important difference: Jesus never preached violence; Muhammad did.
They also agreed not to use any cheap shots in trying to denigrate each other’s faith, since there were skeletons in both Christian and Muslim closets, primarily due to believers’ not living up to the ideals of their religions. Both traditions had their horror stories. If thoughtful Christians were embarrassed by the Spanish Inquisition, the medieval burning of heretics, or Galileo’s house arrest, thoughtful Muslims were similarly haunted by the Egyptian sultan Hakim’s destruction of Christian holy places in the eleventh century, the mass execution of Christian monks in Tunisia by the al-Muwahhids in the twelfth century, the betrayal and execution of the surrendered Christian garrison on Cyprus by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century despite promises of safe conduct, and the Turkish annihilation of Armenian Christians in the early twentieth century-not to mention all the suicide bombings across the world since.
On the other hand, when al-Rashid wanted even more safeguards, such as no criticisms or negative references whatsoever to either Muhammad or Jesus, Jon drew the line and, as diplomatically as he could, explained that they ought not let their exchange become too bland. He knew, of course, that he had no reason to worry about the personal record of Jesus Christ.
In the case of Muhammad, Jon felt it was high time to reexamine his life story in detail. Unfortunately this was more difficult than in the case of Jesus, since the first definitive biographies of Muhammad were not written until 150 years after his death. The Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus were written within a generation.
Another matter galled Jon. Some years previous, a self-appointed pundit had published a list of the greatest or most influential people who ever lived, at least in his opinion. Jon was chagrined to find that Muhammad, not Jesus, was number one. Why? Because Christianity was cofounded by Jesus and St. Paul, it was claimed. Jesus had to share the honors, whereas Muhammad was the single founder of Islam. Never mind that Christianity had-and has-twice the following.
Unquestionably, though, Muhammad was an extraordinary personality, and his life story was fully unique. Born in Mecca circa 570-though that date was disputed-Muhammad claimed to trace his lineage back to Abraham’s firstborn, Ishmael. Muhammad’s father died before he was born, and his mother when he was only six years old. The orphan shepherd boy was raised by an uncle and early developed attractive moral traits such as never telling a lie, caring for those in need, and managing fiscal accounts with total honesty and reliability. In directing caravan operations for a wealthy widow named Khadijah, he did so well that she ultimately married him, despite being fifteen years his senior.
Jon especially noted that Muhammad was also a meditative and mystic sort who left his family for days at a time for meditation in favorite caves near Mecca, where he experienced dreams and visions. Around 610, when Muhammad was about forty-so his final wife, Aisha, reported-Muhammad was sitting at the mouth of a cave named Hira when a luminous being-he later claimed it was the angel Gabriel-seized him by the throat and commanded him to read.
“I cannot read!” Muhammad replied, for indeed, he was illiterate.
“O Muhammad, read!” Gabriel said a second time.
Again Muhammad responded, “I cannot read!”
When this happened a third time, the angel embraced him so tightly that he could not breathe. Finally he released him and said, “O Muhammad, give utterance: Allah is God, and you are his Prophet!” Additional revelations followed.
Muhammad was understandably shocked, and he wondered if the revelations were genuine. He had his doubts and expressed them to Khadijah. What if an evil spirit or jinn had seized him and these were not the words of the Lord communicated through Gabriel? Worse yet, what if they were satanic? That the revelations ceased for a time only compounded the problem.
At that moment, Jon realized, the future of Islam-and much subsequent world history-hung in the balance. Had Khadijah sided with his doubts, Islam would never have existed. Instead, however, she firmed him up with the assurance that the revelations came from God himself, and that he should be obedient to them.
Muhammad was persuaded, and Islam was born. He preached this revelation on the streets of Mecca. Against the rampant polytheism of the many desert tribes in Arabia, the new Prophet announced that God was one -not many-and that Muhammad himself was the one he appointed to proclaim this message.
At first, few paid him any heed, not even relatives or members of his own Quraish tribe. He was called crazy, a liar, and a sorcerer, and once, while he was at prayer, dung and bloody camel intestines were dropped onto his back-until removed by his daughter Fatima. His small following was scorned by the wealthy merchants who controlled the city government at Mecca. They were particularly worried that Muhammad’s new teaching would undermine all the pilgrimages that took place to visit the great Kaaba situated at the center of Mecca. That black rock was home to the many desert spirits of Arab polytheism, and its sacredness would be doomed were people to believe Muhammad’s message.
Still, more and more people in Mecca were accepting Muhammad’s message, and so the merchants now decided on a violent solution. Warned in time, Muhammad and his companions, or disciples, fled from Mecca to Medina, some two hundred miles due north of Mecca. The flight, called the Hijirah, took place in 622, which became year one in the Muslim calendar.
The people of Medina, not controlled by a merchant aristocracy, eagerly accepted Muhammad’s message, and the first mosque was built there. Now he could deal from a position of growing political strength. The pagan Quraish in Mecca tried to halt the spread of Islam by military action, and Islam’s first battle took place at Badr, an oasis halfway between Mecca and Medina. Although outnumbered 1,000 to 314, the Muslim forces were victorious. Further battles took place over the next eight years, until Muhammad was able to command an army of ten thousand, which advanced on Mecca. When the dust settled, the Meccans, tired of war, accepted Muhammad, especially in view of his promise to give the Kaaba a major future role in Islam.
He entered Mecca triumphantly in 630 and formally cleansed the Kaaba of its evil spirits. Then he made it an obligation for every Muslim at least once in a lifetime to make a pilgrimage to Mecca to visit the Kaaba, if physically and financially able. Jon knew that if he himself were a Muslim and made the hajj-the pilgrimage-he could thenceforth be known as Jonathan Hajji-Weber.
Muhammad issued a general amnesty to his opponents in Mecca, which only added to his reputation, and a firestorm of conversion to Islam swept across Arabia. The polytheistic desert tribes had been looking for something to unite them, and Muhammad now provided that.
But his own lifestyle seemed to go beyond his teachings, Jon noted. His male followers were limited to no more than four wives-actually making something of a women’s liberator of Muhammad, strange as that may seem, since previously there had been no limit to the number of wives a man might have. But did Muhammad limit himself to four? He was faithful to Khadijah for as long as she lived, but when she died, the Prophet married no fewer than eleven other wives. One of them, Zainab, had been the wife of an adopted son, who willingly stepped aside when he learned of the Prophet’s interest in her. Muhammad’s last wife-little Aisha-was just six years old when he married her, but nine when the marriage was consummated. And it was in her arms that the sixty-three-year-old Prophet died at Medina in 632, where he was also buried.
Jon now pondered a dilemma. How many of the questionable details in Muhammad’s life would be off-limits for discussion in the debate because, were they discussed, they could cause riots worldwide? In contrast, he thought wryly of all the current attacks on Jesus and the church tha
t he founded. In the world’s new double standard, evidently it was politically correct to attack only Christianity but no other religion on earth. Not fair. Not fair at all.
Imagine if a distorting book like The Da Vinci Code had targeted Muhammad instead of Jesus. The fatwa imposed on the author would have been far more lethal than was his, Jon knew-at least to date. In Christianity, at least, multiple targets-like Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, or Luke-helped cushion the attack. In Islam, there was only one person and one book: Muhammad and the Qur’an. Both were regarded by pious Muslims with sacrosanct awe and were barred to criticism of any kind. He was preparing for a debate with the cards stacked against him, Jon finally realized.
While Muhammad’s wives should have been fair game in the forthcoming debate, Jon wondered whether to play that card. He knew the Muslim response. The marriages were conducted for political and social reasons, such as to give protection for women in need of such; most of the women were nonvirgins-if that could be considered justification-and Henry VIII’s reason: Muhammad wished to have a son. And of course, al-Rashid would raise an even more obvious precedent: the polygamy among Old Testament leaders. Solomon, after all, made Muhammad look like a master of restraint when it came to wives.
Perhaps the Prophet’s wives, then, would have to be off-limits. Again, though, how superior was the analogous situation in Jesus’ case, who had no multiple-wife problem whatever-in fact, no wife at all, despite recurring attempts among sensationalist authors to get Jesus married off to Mary Magdalene.
And finally there was the question of whether or not to bring up Muhammad’s fabled night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. He claimed to have mounted a winged horselike creature and flown to Jerusalem, and thence to the seven heavens-all in one night. While in Jerusalem, he also claimed to have seen the Jewish Temple-a historical impossibility, since the temple had been destroyed by the Romans 550 years earlier. Even his beloved Aisha said that Muhammad was at home that night, and the whole thing was a vision. Since it was not mentioned in the Qur’an-only in the hadith, the traditions-Jon decided not to use it. After all, medieval Christianity also had its own collection of legends.
