Third Objection

4 Pentateuch; and also those found between many other books of the Old

Testament. The above sufficiently proves our point that the objection raised by the Christians against the truth of the Qur’anic revelation based on Qur’anic disagreement with some of the descriptions of the Old and the New Testaments

is not valid and does not serve the intended purpose. This refers to the oral communication of Moses with God on Mount Sinai

described in Exodus.

Third Objection

The third objection often raised by Christians against the truth of the Holy Qur’an is centred around three concepts contained in the Holy Qur’an. The first is the Qur’anic claim that Allah is not only the Creator of guidance but that misguidance is also created by Him. The second is the fact that the Holy Qur’an contains descriptions of Paradise which include the presence of houris, rivers and buildings. The third is that the Holy Qur’an contains the commandment to

wage war (jihad) against the disbelievers. Their main contention with regard to these things is that the word of God should be free from such unseemly concepts. This objection is considered by them to be the most convincing argument against the divine nature of the Qur’an. There is hardly any book written by the Christians on the subject that

does not contain their strange elaborations on this aspect of the Holy Qur’an. We should, therefore, examine the validity of the above objection with

regard to each of the above three aspects separately.

Guidance and Misguidance from Allah

One of the many answers to this aspect of the objection is that the holy books of the Christians also say the same thing in many places. According to this view the presence of such passages in them should be an argument against their being the word of God. We reproduce below some specific examples of

such passages from their books

(1) Exodus 4:21 says:

And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thy

hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

(2) Exodus 7:3 also contains:

4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my

wonders in the land of Egypt.

(3) The same book contains the following in 10:1:

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the hearts of his servants, that I might shew these

my signs before him.

(4) Exodus 10:20 says:

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the

Children of Israel go.

(5) Also verse 27 of the same chapter has:

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.

(6) Exodus 11:10 has:

And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of

Israel go out of his land.

(7) Deuteronomy 29:4 says:

Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and

ears to hear, unto this day.

(8) Isaiah 6:10 contains

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut

their eyes; lest they see with their hearts… and convert, and be healed.

(9) Epistle to the Romans 11:8 says:

God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not

see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day.

(10) The Gospel of John, chapter 12 92, says:

92 John 12:39-40 4 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see

with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted.

The above quotes from the Pentateuch, the book of Isaiah and the New Testament are explicit in implying that God blinded the eyes, stamped the ears and hardened the hearts of the Israelites so that they might not be converted to the truth and should not be healed from their disease of perversion. They are therefore unable to see the truth, to hear it or to understand it. The following Qur’anic description is in no way different from

what we have read above:

God hath set a seal (stamped) on their hearts and on their hearing, and

on their eyes is a veil; And for them is great punishment 93.

(11) The Arabic translations of Isaiah printed 1671, 1831 and 1844 contain

the following at 63:17:

O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine

inheritance 94.

(12) The Book of Ezekiel contains the following statement at 14:9:

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon

him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

The book of Ezekiel ascribes the act of deceiving and the Book of Isaiah

attributes the act of misguiding to God.

(13) I Kings 22:19-23 contains the following passage:

“And he 95 said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord

93 Qur’an 2:7 94 The King James Version is identical to the Arabic, I have quoted the above verse from it. (Raazi). 95 That is, Micaiah 4 said unto him, Where with? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy

prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.

It is not difficult to see that the above description gives us to believe that God sits on His throne meeting with the host of heaven to seek their counsel for deceiving and misguiding people, then a lying spirit is deputed to

misguide them.

(14) The Second Epistle to Thessalonians 2:11-12 says:

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the

truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The above statement of Paul is unambiguous in implying that God

deludes people to prevent them from believing in truth.

(15) The Gospel of Matthew 96 reports Jesus as saying the following after

his crying woe to the unrepentant cities:

I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto

babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

(16) The book of Isaiah 45:7 says:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I

the Lord do all these things.

(17) The Lamentations of Jeremiah 3:38 contains:

Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

The above question implies nothing if not that God is the creator of both

good and evil.

(18) The book of Micah 1:12 contains:

96 Matt: 11:25-26 4 But evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.

The above is plain affirmation to the fact that just as God is the creator of

good, so He is the creator of evil.

(19) The Epistle to the Romans 8:29 has:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many

brethren.

(20) Also we read in 9:11-21 of the same Epistle:

(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, the elder shall serve

the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, not of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over clay, of the same lump to make one

vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?

The above statement of Paul is a clear affirmation of the belief in destiny and also an explicit indication that guidance and misguidance are both from

God.

The following statement of the Prophet Isaiah, 45:9:

Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What

makest thou or thy work, He hath no hands 97?

97 Our author has so far produced 21 specific examples to prove that God is the creator of evil also, and that guidance and misguidance are both from God. The Bible is replete with such 4 It was on the basis of such verses that Luther, the founder of the Protestant faith, was conspicuously inclined towards belief in the predestination of human fate. There are many statements of Luther that bring out his views on this concept. We produce two such statements from the Catholic Herald vol. 9 page

277:

Man and horse have been created alike. They obey their rider. If God rides man he obeys His commands and if Satan rides him he goes the way he is commanded by Satan. He does not possess free will to choose between the

two riders; both the riders are always striving to get hold of him.

The following statement has also appeared in the Catholic Herald:

Whenever you find a commandment in the holy books to do a certain act, be sure that this book is not asking you to do it, because you are not capable

of doing it of your own will.

The famous Catholic priest Thomas Inglis said in his book Mira’atus Sidk

printed 1851 on page 33:

Their early ecclesiastics taught them the following absurd dogmas:

(1) God is the Creator of sin. (2) Man has no power or free will to abstain from sins. (3) It is not possible to observe the Ten Commandments. (4) Sins, no matter how great and grave, do not demean a man in the

eyes of God. (5) Only belief in God is enough for eternal salvation, because it is only on the basis of belief that man will be awarded or punished. This

doctrine is very comforting and useful.

Luther, the father of the Reformation said:

Only believe and you will be redeemed. There is no necessity to bear the hardships of good acts like fasting, abstinence from sins, and humility of confession, be sure that without them and only for your true faith in Christ, you shall certainly get salvation equal to the salvation of Christ. No matter if you get involved in fornication and murder a thousand times a day, you are destined to reach salvation only for your true belief. I repeat only your belief

will get you redeemed.

statements. For more of such statements see Jeremiah 30:6, Romans 28:1, II Timothy 8:3, Titus 1:16, II Corinthians 5:13 4 The above is enough to show that the first contention of the Protestants that the divinity of the Holy Qur’an was dubious because it attributed the creation of evil to God is totally irrational and against reason. The creation of evil does not in any way require the evilness of the Creator, just as the creation of white and black does not mean that the Creator has to be black or white. The creation of Satan by God is a part of His divine wisdom; the same wisdom is present in the

creation of evil. Similarly God has created evil desires, jealousy and other negative forces in human nature, although it was in His eternal knowledge that negative forces would produce negative results. Everything created, good or bad, therefore,

owes its existence to God.

The Blessings of Paradise

As for their second point of contention regarding the presence of palaces, damsels and other material delights in Paradise, this too is not a valid objection. In any case the Muslims do not claim that the blessings and delights of Paradise are only physical, as is very often misstated by the Protestant theologians, but the Muslims believe - and this belief is strongly supported by Qur’anic verses and other authentic arguments - that the blessings and pleasures of Paradise are both, physical and spiritual, the latter being stronger and more prominent than

the former. The Holy Qur’an says 98:

Allah has promised to the believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, in which they shall dwell for ever; and beautiful mansions in the Gardens of Eden, but the greatest bliss is the pleasure of Allah. That is

the supreme felicity.

The “pleasure of Allah” in the above verse has been described as being the greatest of all the blessings of Paradise, qualitatively as well as quantitively. That is to say, this spiritual blessing of having the pleasure of Allah exceeds all the physical delights such as mansions, gardens and damsels etc. The same is

alsa indicated by the last phrase, “That is the supreme felicity.” Man has been created of two elements: spirit and matter. The supreme felicity of man or his ultimate success lies in the achievement of both physical and spiritual delights. He cannot be said to have achieved his ultimate salvation

if he is denied either of the two felicities.

98 Qur’an 9:72