Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2005 Fall Issue -- A Glimpse into Islam

: Russell Lingerfelt lived in North Africa during the summer of 2005 where he studied the history and culture of Islam, the Qur’an, and the Arabic language. Below are portions of a speech he delivered upon his return. You can email him and request a free full copy of his speech at: .

Mohammed was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 570 AD. Paganism was everywhere. Every tribe had its own idol and there were 360 different idols worshipped across Arabia.

By the time Mohammed was twenty-five years old, he was a buyer and seller of goods (a merchant). As he traveled, he kept meeting men called Haneefs. The Haneefs were men who taught about the one true god, and recited scriptures and religious stories that had been handed down through the generations. They believed that the descendants of Ishmael had lost the religion of Abraham and they sought to restore it.

Mohammed befriended these Haneefs, especially those who knew the Tawrat (Arabic meaning for the Torah), the Zaboor (Arabic for the Psalms), and those who knew the Injil (which is the gospels of the Christ).

Alongside paganism, Christianity was also known in Arabia. But back then, Christianity in Arabia was distorted. A Christian sect who called themselves the Mariamites, believed and taught that the Trinity was God, Jesus, and Mary. They even had wooden carvings of Mary. Mohammed believed that this was Christianity. So when he developed the Qur’an, this was his perception of Christianity. Therefore, even Muslims today, who do not know the truth about Christianity, think that Christians worship God, Jesus the prophet, and Mary. They call us polytheists who do not worship the one true God. There is no concept of the Holy Spirit. When they hear the name, “Holy Spirit”, many think this is speaking of Gabriel.

Mohammed became a Haneef and so he traveled with the other Haneefs. They asked each other questions, and would often retreat together and spend long periods of time in solitude, sometimes even for days. And they loved it. They were all true seekers of the one God, the lost religion of Abraham. All the Haneefs, and even all Arab Muslims today, long to hear the voice of God directly, to be given the answers of life.

Mohammed would spend one month a year in the solitude of a cave, and there he would fast. And this was such a regular practice that his family began to worry about him. He would retreat and meditate and ask God for a revelation of the truth. Then in the year 610 AD, when Mohammed was forty years old, he was fasting in a cave called “Hirah.” And during the last ten days of the month of Ramadan, he claimed that he had a revelation from God, and the Qur’an is revealed.

He began having convulsions and Gabriel appeared to him, held and squeezed Mohammed saying, “Read. Recite this!”

Mohammed answered, ‘I am no reader.’ This is thought to mean that Mohammed could not read. Gabriel repeated these words to him three times and then Mohammed quoted the first chapter of the Qur’an. The first sentence in Islam, its birth, is “Recite! Recite in the name of God.”

You see, in Islam, every prophet had a miraculous gift. Mohammed’s gift was that he could not read or write, yet produced this book, the Qur’an. But today, Islamic scholars question whether or not Mohammed could read and write.

Now I want you to imagine what life was like in 6th century Arabia. All the various gods, all the various idols, had fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. This was a way for artists to make money off of people’s religious fervor.

“Don’t you know that this new figurine here is the daughter of your favorite god?”

So when Mohammed meets the Christians who call Jesus the son of God, and Jews are shouting that Jesus was just another prophet, how easy would it be for Mohammed to cry out against Jesus as being the son of God since such strange doctrines were so prevalent among the common day pagans?

You see, Mohammed never knew, he never had access to the truth about Christianity because the only Christianity he knew was represented by the Mariamites. And the things that Mohammed wrote (or had written), reflects these concepts. That is why uneducated Muslims today believe that Christians are pagans.

My Arab professor was once a Muslim but gave his life to Christ. He was my mentor and friend during my stay in North Africa. In closing, I would like to end with one of his quotes:

: “The Qur’an is a book in search of the way. It is not demonic or divine. There are too many gaps and something needs to fill it. It is not finished and that when you only have ½ the truth, and thinking that you have the full truth, this is an excellent prey for Satan. This is why there are so many controversies between Muslims.

We must build from there, not destroy. This is one of the failures of missionaries. It is much easier to say it is all wrong than to study and find out where to begin leading them to truth. To tell them they are living in something totally false is not only insulting them, but it is not true. The Qur’an can be used to lead them to Christ just like the OT does. The Emmaus Road is an excellent example where Jesus appeared to the two disciples and told them how the Messiah fulfills the Old Testament.

I hope that all people would see Muslims as a people in bondage rather than Islam being a wicked religion. I have seen Christians very sympathetic towards Muslims because they see them wandering, lost, looking for their home. The mission of Christians must be to lead their cousin, their brother Ishmael, back to the tent of Abraham.”

Russell Lingerfelt graduated from Auburn University and is currently pursuing a Masters in Divinity at Pepperdine University where he is involved in youth ministries and world mission efforts. Visit his webpage at http://www.jamesrussell.org.