Making dawah to Christians

[DanyalSAC]

Asalaamu alaikum folks...

This is just a reminder that when we make dawah to Christians remember not all Christian groups are the same. This became evident to one of the brothers at my masjid, and I thought I should put it here as a caution.

This brother at my masjid is a student at a local city college. He was making dawah to a Christian fellow student. He told the Christian "in Islam we honor Mary as well". This offended the student & he walked off in a huff. Why? Because not all Christians agree with the way Mary is honored by other Christians. Catholics for example label Mary almost as the co-savior of Mankind. However to the other extreme, most Baptists know her name but that's about the limit of it.

Also, be careful with the term "Immaculate Conception". This is a Catholic term coined centuries ago to refer to the way MARY was conceived, not JESUS peace be upon him. I corrected a well-known Shaykh who said "In Islam, we believe in the Immaculate Conception..." No, we don't. Let me explain:

All Christians believe in the "Original Sin", and say that all Mankind is stained with this sin. Baptism erases that. However, in order for God to have been born as man and NOT be tainted with this "Original Sin", Mary had to have been cleansed of the Original Sin "retroactively" when she was conceived. Therefore, she was immaculately conceived and carried no original sin. Thus, the "Immaculate Conception". When I hear shuyuk say that we as Muslims believe in the "Immaculate Conception" I just cringe because that's them saying they believe that Mary was wiped free of the Original Sin - something not taught in Islam. The well-known Shaykh got very nasty when I corrected him and started arguing about the virgin birth of Isa, saying that that was an "immaculate conception" as well. My argument in return is that ANY child conceived in halal means by a husband and wife is "immaculate", as the act between a husband and wife is sanctified by Allah. The conception of Isa (peace be upon him) was miraculous, but not any more "immaculate" (in Islamic terms) than had Mary been legally wedded.

So with that being said... it would be best (at first) to avoid any mention of Mary when doing dawah to a Christian unless you know for certain that he or she is Catholic, or of one of the offshoots of Catholicism. Otherwise it may backfire like it did to my brother!

Allahu alim
D.

 

[BinteShafi]

:salam2:

Thanks for this information brother. It is certainly beneficial.

 

[gazkour]

Assalamo alikom wa rahmato Allah wa barakato

There are indeed different christian and catholic groups out there BUT I dont understand why would any christian of any kind get offended by just saying that we as muslims honour Mary. To honour someone is to pay great respect, not to worship whatsoever....so...why did this guy walked off after hearing that? I just don't get it.

May Allah guide us all.
Assalamo alikom wa rahamto Allah wa barakato

 

[DanyalSAC]

There are indeed different christian and catholic groups out there BUT I dont understand why would any christian of any kind get offended by just saying that we as muslims honour Mary. To honour someone is to pay great respect, not to worship whatsoever....so...why did this guy walked off after hearing that? I just don't get it.

May Allah guide us all.
Assalamo alikom wa rahamto Allah wa barakato

Because they don't honor Mary and think its a sin to do so. And when the brother tried to find that as a common ground, the Christian got offended.

 

[DanyalSAC]

Islam teaches that not only Mary was cleansed retroactively from the original sin, we all were, including Adam and Eve! We have all been immaculately conceived, per your explanation, when Adam and Eve apologized to God with the words God taught Adam and God forgave them.

What the brother and the Shaykh should have said is that Muslims believe in Mary's virgin conception of Jesus, peace be upon them.

Jazaaka Allaahu Khayran for the point you made about the diversity of views within Christianity. There are Christians, such as the Iglesia Ni Christo Church, who believe that Jesus is not divine and that God is not a trinity.

The notion of immaculate conception as you explained the Catholic definition of it is quite interesting and poses a dilemma: In order for Mary to be retroactively cleansed, her entire lineage had to be cleansed, right? Well, that goes back to Adam and Eve, doesn't it? So, for immaculate conception to occur, Adam and Eve had to be freed from the original sin, thus the original sin was erased! And there goes the theory of the savior out the window

Not quite. According to Pope Somethingorother (I forgot which one) Mary herself was cleansed from the Original Sin by her son's blood. For the rest of Mankind to be thus cleansed would, as you put it, destroy the need for a savior. So they made sure it didn't go that far

But that also brings to mind Pelagius, a 4th century Celtic monk who said that if Mankind were to be held to blame for the "sin of Adam" (aka the Original Sin) without ever actually sinning, then logically they should be held "saved" by Jesus without actually believing in him. Interesting concepts people come up with!

 

[BinteShafi]

SubhanAllah ..these christians' complicated concepts... original sin, trinity, etc make me always confused :angryred: :angryred: So hard to comprehend.


All praise to Allah SWT who made me MUSLIM

Wa alaikum salam wrwb,

 

[DanyalSAC]

But wouldn't that mean that Mary was not "clean", God forbid, when she gave birth to Jesus, because his "cleansing blood" was allegedly shed 33 years later? If so, then Jesus was not immaculately conceived! If he wasn't then he doesn't qualify as a savior! How do they get out of that quandary?

That's why they say retroactively. They say that her conception was without sin based on the FUTURE death of her son.

"In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary 'in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.' "

 

[icadams]

All Christians believe in the "Original Sin", and say that all Mankind is stained with this sin. Baptism erases that.

Actually, most Christians (non-Catholics) do not believe that. Protestants teach that baptism is a sign of obedience and has no sacramental effect on the Christian. It may mark the entrance of the Christian into the Church, if you are a paedo-baptist, or simply as a sign of obedience, if you are a credo-baptist. Most Christians believe that original sin is erased through the act of Justification that occurs when a Christian places his faith in Jesus Christ as lord and savior. They believe that original sin is only gone when one becomes 'born again'.

 

[BrotherInIslam7]

Jazakallah Khayran brother Danyal for sharing with us.. Would have never known about such diversity between them !...

 

[Hard Rock Moslem]

JazakhAllah khair for sharing this. Beneficial to me also as sometime I do tangle with some christians.

Yes, Christianity is very cofusing. I'm more confused with protestant actually. No wonder it is mentioned in the Newsweek for April 2000 edition that they are 33,800 denomination in Christianity which will include Catholic.

All praise and thanks to Allah alone, the Lord of all worlds, for guiding me into Islam.

 

[Fatima S.Ar]

Thanks - it's very useful for me .
do u know about Orthodox ?? what should I NOT to talk with them ?

As well as I wanna ask , every group of christianity has its own bible ? is it a right information ?

 

[icadams]

Thanks - it's very useful for me .
do u know about Orthodox ?? what should I NOT to talk with them ?

As well as I wanna ask , every group of christianity has its own bible ? is it a right information ?

Sister,
Orthodox Christianity is very familiar to Catholic Christianity. It looks a little different in the churches, but the beliefs are almost the same.

The major differences in the Bible are between the Catholic and Protestant versions. The Catholic church includes several extra books in the Old Testament that the Protestant churches rejected during the Reformation. The other difference lies in the various translations that are available. And yes, there are literally hundreds of different translations in English alone, though there are only about a dozen different major translations in common use. These translations fall into three main categories:

1. There are literal translations that attempt to translate the original Greek and Hebrew as precisely as possible.
2. There are semi-literal translations (called dynamic equivalent) that try to be accurate to the meaning, but are written to be more readable.
3. Finally, there are story-book translations where the Bible is completely rewritten like modern books. The stories are the same, but nothing like the original documents.

Another problem lies in which collections of original documents are used in the translations. Oh yeah, there are also comic book versions of the Bible for children.

 

[Fatima S.Ar]

Thank you so much !!

But I wonder , are the all translations have the same main ideas or not ? For e.g. I can write a sentences in many ways but in the end all of them have one idea .
I mean do these translations contradict themselves or not ?

And I really thank you for ur answer .

 

[icadams]

That is actually a difficult question to answer, partly because it depends on who you talk to. The easy answer is that all of the main ideas are the same, and that there are no major contradictions between the translations.
However, while the main ideas and stories are the same, the details can vary from translation to translation. Some of this is due to what are called textual variants, that is, differences between different copies of the original documents. The major differences come from the translators themselves. If a sentence can be worded in a different number of ways, than the translator tends to write the sentence in the way that reflects his own personal beliefs. Since Bible translations are usually done by large groups of people who share similar beliefs, than that particular translation tends to reflect the theological beliefs of that group.
The easiest differences to see are between Catholic and Protestant translations. Interestingly, most of the problems occur in the New Testament.

 

[Fatima S.Ar]

Thank you my brother for your answer

May Allah bless you