The night before the debate was indeed rather sleepless for Jon, and not only because he and Shannon were celebrating God’s magnificent gift of marital love—itself a proof of his existence. He was also chagrined to realize that instead of fighting nervous concern over the forthcoming debate, his mind was focused on the ancient codex Shannon had discovered. It was almost as if he had told himself, “Let’s get this debate thing out of the way so I can finally read what’s in that document!”
Now, on the sun-drenched morning of September 3, while their motorcade wound its way to Hagia Sophia, he came to his senses. How selfish, how very solipsistic could he get? Millions across the world would be watching the debate—either live or later on DVD, and over the next hours he had to defend the faith as best he could rather than fixate on a dilapidated manuscript. The Crusaders were unable to succeed militarily against Islam eight centuries in the past; was he, perhaps, supposed to try making up for that intellectually? Then again, he was glad he had not ventilated such wild thoughts to Shannon, for she would have replied, “The faith will survive nicely without your success or failure, dear!” Shannon was God’s gift to Jon for many reasons, not least of which was to keep her husband humble. As the magnitude of the event finally registered with Jon, he wondered why it had taken him so long to invoke divine help. Although he was not in a private oratory but in the midst of urban bedlam, he offered up the most earnest silent prayer of his life.
It was difficult for them to get inside the basilica, since it was surrounded by a host of humanity even an hour before the debate was to begin at 9:30 a.m. The lovely park that extended between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque several blocks to the west had turned into a temporary parking lot for television and communications vans, each sprouting relay dishes aimed toward their counterparts outside the western upper gallery of the basilica.
Surrounded by Turkish gendarmes, Jon’s party made its way through the small west portal into Hagia Sophia. Overhead inside the passageway they saw a magnificent, semicircular mosaic of Constantine offering the city of Constantinople to the Virgin Mother and Jesus. To the right was Justinian, offering Hagia Sophia to the same pair—all against a gleaming background of golden mosaic. Jon offered up another quick prayer to the Christ who received these gifts to bless the debate.
Inside, they walked down a side aisle, under the vast dome overhead, and toward a dais erected at the southern end of the sanctuary. Several times Jon stopped at a given row, exchanging a glad hello with a friend from the States who had made the long trip to Istanbul. Shannon, in fact, had to shoo him on several times.
On the eastern side of the sanctuary, Abbas al-Rashid and his party were approaching the dais. It was the first time Jon had seen his debate partner in the flesh, but he answered well to the many photographs he had seen of the sheikh in the press and on television. He was a fair Islamic counterpart to Jon—the same solid, broad-shouldered frame, medium-tall height, and square-cut visage, but perhaps five years older and with dark hair and deep brown eyes. He was wearing a Western-style suit but with Islamic headdress, perhaps a compromise to please both extremes among his faithful seated in the eastern sector.
As they took their seats in the front row on the opposite side, Jon—almost instinctively and without forethought—got up and walked across the aisle to shake the sheikh’s hand. Abbas unleashed a broad smile and shook Jon’s hand with evident enthusiasm. Both sides of the audience erupted into applause. It was an unanticipated and pleasant touch.
At 9:33 a.m., three men emerged from somewhere in the apse and stepped up to the dais. One of them Jon had already seen emblazoned on the Turkish lira, no less than the president himself—all six feet of him and his trademark mustachioed face that resembled a latter-day Süleyman the Magnificent. He moved to a central microphone and opened in Turkish, then English: “In the name of the Republic of Turkey, it is my privilege to welcome you to Haya Sofya and this important debate between Imam Abbas al-Rashid, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and Dr. Jonathan P. Weber, professor of Near Eastern studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA. To my right is the Muslim mufti of Istanbul, His Excellency Mustafa Selim, who will be one of the moderators, and to my left is His All Holiness Bartholomew II, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Patriarch, who is the other moderator. May Allah-God guide all our proceedings here today.”
He then stepped down from the dais.
The Muslim moderator stood and approached the microphone, directing the audience, again in three languages, to don their headgear. From now on, there would be simultaneous translations of all speakers in the agreed-upon languages of Turkish, Arabic, English, Greek, Farsi, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese. The appropriate language would be transmitted via Bluetooth wireless technology to all earphones mounted on the thousands of heads in the audience. The expense for this arrangement—well into six figures—was the gift of a Saudi oil magnate.
Mustafa Selim announced the rules of the debate, which both sides had agreed upon weeks earlier. It would be a much freer exchange than U.S. presidential debates, in which the contest was merely “Who can answer the same question better?” rather than the rough-and-tumble of give-and-take. Next, Patriarch Bartholomew presented a brief commentary on the rules, promising that both moderators would intervene as little as possible and cautioning the audience against raucous responses of any kind, which would result in ejection by government police. Both parties in the debate were then invited to offer brief opening statements.
Abbas won the coin toss but elected to go first. He began with an air of confidence. “I am honored to have this discussion with one of the foremost Christian authorities in the world today, a man whose scholarship is admired by all, including Islamic scholars. But I will try to show him—and the world—that Islam has superseded both Judaism and Christianity as Allah’s, as God’s, greatest, fullest, and final revelation and that the prophet Muhammad—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!—is greater than the other prophets that we both respect, namely Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth.
“I will liken Judaism to the elementary school in our knowledge of Allah, Christianity to the secondary or high school, but Islam as the university. I will point out the impossibility that God could be three rather than one or marry a human woman and have a son by her. I will honor Jesus of Nazareth as a great prophet, to be sure, but not as God or the Son of God. Nor was he crucified, as claimed by the Christian Scriptures, which suffered errors early on in their transcription from the original authors.
“I will also demonstrate that Islam has higher moral standards than Christianity, and for that reason Allah has blessed his believers with greater territorial success and conversion rates than Christianity. And at the close of our debate, I hope that Professor Weber will recognize the truth of Allah’s revelations through his holy Prophet—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!—and perhaps even accept the one true religion as proclaimed in the Holy Qur’an.”
At that, Abbas sat down and received thunderous applause from the eastern side of Hagia Sophia.
Jon had taken in every syllable of al-Rashid’s opening statement, parts of which were predictable, others not, such as his opponent’s ingenuous hope for his conversion. Jon squeezed Shannon’s hand and walked to the dais.
Noting the contrast between the two halves of his attentive audience, he began. “I find it a privilege to dialogue with one of the great theologians of Islam. Grand Sheikh Abbas al-Rashid is known not only for his vast knowledge but also for his generosity and wisdom. If you’ll permit a personal reference, his was the major voice in averting great danger from me some months ago due to a mistranslation in one of my books. I remain in your debt, my friend.”
Spirited applause broke out from both sides of the sanctuary, which al-Rashid acknowledged with a gracious nod of appreciation to both Jon and the audience.
Jon resumed. “As a Christian, of course, I will have to maintain that all knowledge about Jesus Christ is far more reliable from contemporary and eyewitness sources rather than from a differing version that first arose six centuries later. I will have to correct some misinterpretations that Islam has about Christianity and its doctrine of the Trinity and affirm that Jesus did indeed die on a cross, and that he rose again as he and the prophets had predicted. I will have to challenge the claim that the Qur’an is God’s greatest revelation—” he heard murmuring from the eastern half of the sanctuary—“and that the Christian Scriptures suffered errors as they were recopied across the centuries.
“While I have great respect for the second largest religion on earth, I shall have to point out problems in the claims of Islam, while finding those of Christianity provable by a massive amount of outside evidence. In any case, I look forward to a fascinating interchange with the grand sheikh.”
As Jon left the podium, parallel applause broke out on the Christian side.
The debate then moved into the format they had agreed to, which was now announced by both moderators:
Islam’s problems with Christianity
Christianity’s defense
Christianity’s problems with Islam
Islam’s defense
(Both parties are limited to fifteen minutes each in the above segments)
A general exchange
Final summation: Christianity
Final summation: Islam
The moderators also announced the schedule: two morning sessions, separated by a break, and two similar afternoon sessions following an interim for lunch. “And lest anyone complain that this is too long,” Patriarch Bartholomew added in a genial touch, “debates in the past lasted for days, not hours. Martin Luther’s famous debate at Leipzig in 1519, for example, lasted eighteen days. We don’t intend to inflict that on you!” Laughter followed intermittently, depending on the varying speed of the translators.
Jon and Abbas now took their seats, each at the end of a table on the dais so that they could face one other, while the two moderators sat in the middle. Both sides had agreed that only the person speaking at a given time would stand and use a lectern.
Abbas al-Rashid stood and opened with warm enthusiasm. “Thank you, people of all faiths, for joining us today for what we believe will be a very important discussion, which is long overdue. And yet this is not the first time Christians and Muslims have debated their respective beliefs. In fact, major discussions have taken place for the past fourteen centuries, and we are pleased to add our own efforts to that proud tradition.
“As for problems I find in Christianity, let me begin with simple logic and mathematics. The program began today at a specific time—not three different times. And so, if Christianity confesses one God—as do Jews and Muslims—they cannot also confess that God is three. This is not monotheism, but polytheism, specifically, tritheism: the worship of three different gods. To be sure, Christians try to speak of one divine essence and three personalities in what they call the Godhead, but this doctrine of the Trinity, so-called, fails all tests of logic. By no calculation does one equal three, or three equal one. This point alone, I believe, refutes Christianity as a viable religion for any who believe that God is one.”
Loud partisan applause again broke out, until silenced by the moderators. Jon was less than comfortable in realizing that Abbas had immediately attacked the one logical weak point of Christianity. Only the problem of evil was greater, but that was common to all three monotheistic religions. Jon looked at Osman Al-Ghazali to see if the Arabic translator was doing an accurate job. Much of Abbas’s Arabic Jon could understand, but he wanted to be sure. He had had a bitter enough experience with mistranslations! Each time that he heard “Allah” in Arabic, the translator rendered this as “God,” which was perfectly acceptable, since that was the generic term for God in Arabic.
Abbas seemed to press his lips together, perhaps to keep from smiling. He glanced quickly at his notes and then resumed. “We who follow the Prophet—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!—also find it nearly blasphemous that Christians should think that almighty God had a marital affair with a human woman in conceiving Jesus. The sovereign Lord is certainly beyond that sort of thing, unless you equate him with mythologies invented by the Greeks and Romans: Zeus and his many affairs with anyone in skirts in heaven or earth.” He paused briefly for the laughter greeting his remark. “We esteem Mary highly, of course, but we refuse to make her part of the Godhead. We also regard Jesus as a great prophet. Indeed, we believe that he was virgin-born and that he shall return, as he has promised. But to include him in what you call your Trinity? Never!
“And speaking of Jesus, whom we call Isa, we agree that he performed miracles and wonders, but he did so as God’s prophet—no more, no less—a holy man who was so favored by God that he never would have permitted him to suffer such a horrible death as crucifixion, as Christians claim. Never! Allah could not have done that to his faithful prophet. And this very point proves the greater reliability of the Holy Qur’an over the Bible. Your New Testament—all four Gospels—claim that Jesus died at Jerusalem, and he most certainly did not. Sad to say, errors intruded into the Gospels when the manuscripts were recopied across the decades and centuries since, which is why God had to correct the record by revealing to his holy Prophet what truly happened—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him.”
Shannon looked carefully at her husband. She noticed a slight tightening of his jaw muscles, although his face registered total neutrality. She knew that hers did not, since she was angry at what she thought a mistaken attack on her faith, and the murmuring behind her from the Christian audience showed that she was not alone in that respect. Osman, sitting to Shannon’s right, merely seemed fascinated by Abbas, while Richard Ferris, on her left, wore an eloquent frown.
Abbas swallowed a sip of water and continued. “And of course, there are many other teachings in Christianity that we cannot accept, such as the supposed resurrection of Jesus. That prophet died a normal, natural death, as did the blessed Muhammad—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him!—so no resurrection was needed for either of them. The story that Isa—Jesus—rose from the dead was merely what psychologists call ‘wish fulfillment’ by his partisans, perhaps grieving that he had somehow forsaken them. Furthermore, his supposed suffering and death had no redemptive quality, as the Christians claim, nor are they saved by faith in what never happened. What they call their ‘sacraments’ are fine—if they find comfort in them—but intrinsically they are useless. The water of their ‘baptism’ is just plain water, and if they feel cleaner afterwards, fine. The bread and wine in what they call their ‘Eucharist’ cannot have been ordained by God or Isa, since all strong drink is forbidden in the Holy Qur’an—just another example of how their Scriptures have been corrupted.
“And finally, while many of Jesus’ teachings are noble and we Muslims can support many of them, they do not seem to have had the power of those taught by Muhammad—may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him—because look at how, generation after generation, century after century, Christians have failed to follow the high moral teachings of their master. If Jesus taught peace, then why did they go to war? If he taught giving to the poor, why did they steal and seek after riches? If he taught the commandments, why did they break them? If he taught purity, why did they indulge in impurity? If he taught humility, why did they prefer pride and adorn their highest officers with embellishments that would have embarrassed their founder?
“It is for these reasons that the teachings of Muhammad—may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him—clearly have had greater divine sanction than those of Jesus, which is why we regard him not only as greater than Jesus, but as Allah-God’s final revelation for all mankind. Thank you, Professor Weber and everyone here, for your kind attention.”
Thunderous applause erupted from the eastern half of Hagia Sophia, punctuated by cries of “Allahu Akbar!” “God is great!” While Christians sat on their hands, the ovation across the aisle was not only loud but apparently interminable. The clapping and shouting cascaded everywhere, reverberating up to the golden dome, then down across the galleries and reechoing over the entire audience.
Shannon looked pointedly at the moderators. Wasn’t this the sort of emotional display they were supposed to contain? Patriarch Bartholomew finally lifted his gavel and started pounding. His Muslim counterpart seemed hesitant but eventually did the same. The double pounding, augmented electronically, had its effect, and the vast sanctuary stilled to a hush.
She was relieved when Jon stood up to his lectern. Thank goodness they’d hear the truth now. He began, “Thank you, honored Sheikh, for your candor, which is clearly the product of honest conviction. You’ve presented the principal objections Islam finds in Christianity with eloquence, and I’m sure there are more.”
Following the ripple of laughter, he continued. “At this point in our debate, I am to respond to those objections, and the first is certainly of paramount importance, namely what you claim as ‘the mathematical impossibility of the Trinity.’ In fact, in many of the historic encounters between Muslims and Christians across the ages, this doctrine has prompted the most debate.
“I’m reminded of the celebrated discussion between Caliph Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi of the great Abbasid dynasty and Timothy I, patriarch of the Assyrian Church. This took place in 781, when the caliph opened the debate by asking, ‘If God is one, he is not three; and if he is three, he is not one. What is this contradiction?’ The Christian patriarch replied that the sun also has three dimensions—spherical shape, light, and heat—and yet it remains one sun. Similarly three golden denarii are three in number but one in essence: gold. The one does not contradict the other. But I would add to the patriarch’s explanation the fact that we cannot hope to know and understand the ultimate essence of God, who is so dimensionally different from his creation that the mystery of the Holy Trinity stands at the ultimate threshold of our attempt to understand God with this message: ‘Unless three equals one, thus far, and no further.’ For this very reason Augustine could say, ‘Credo ut absurdum est!’—‘I believe because it is absurd,’ in the sense that human logic alone could not have ‘invented God,’ as it were.”
Shannon tried to gauge the general reaction. Abbas was merely looking down at the table in front of him, apparently lost in thought. The reaction of the audience was similar. Time to move on, honey.
Jon continued. “As to whether God engaged in any marital act with the Virgin Mary, Christians absolutely agree with you that this would be demeaning to our Lord and certainly did not happen in human fashion. No, not at all. This was clearly spiritual, not physical, as you yourself would agree, since Islam believes that Jesus was born of a virgin. If the begetting of Jesus were physical, carnal, Mary would not have been a virgin.
“As to Jesus’ crucifixion and death in Jerusalem, probably no fact in all of history is better attested to than this one. Not only are the Gospels, the entire New Testament, and all the earliest Christian writers in unanimous agreement on this point, but so is the witness of non-Christian writers, such as the Roman Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, the rabbinical traditions of Judaism, and such pagan philosophers who opposed Christianity as the Neoplatonist Celsus. The plain fact is that no one in the world denied that Jesus was crucified until a Gnostic heretic in Egypt named Basilides did. Whether or not the Prophet Muhammad knew of him is not the point here, but this is: Muhammad’s claim arrived six centuries after Jesus’ crucifixion. Accordingly, the burden of proof on this point must shift to Islam.”
Shannon glanced at the eastern half of the nave and heard a murmuring grumble.
“To the claim that errors intruded into the Christian Scriptures through recopying across the centuries,” Jon continued, “tiny variations in spelling and syntax did indeed occur in the surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Yet none of these dealt with any doctrines of Christianity or facts regarding the person and statements of Jesus, and not one of these denied that Jesus died on the cross—not one of the 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that have come down to us in whole or in part.
“Furthermore, any claim that the biblical documents were subject to error compounding error in recopying was disproven by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, in which two surviving Isaiah scrolls from circa 200 BC were compared with the oldest known manuscript of Isaiah at that time, from AD 1006. The text is 99 percent the same, showing that there was remarkable care and accuracy in recopying biblical manuscripts.
“My worthy opponent also concludes that the resurrection of Jesus never happened, nor was his work redemptive for believers. If, in fact, Jesus never died at Golgotha but lived on, as claimed by Islam, then indeed there was no necessity of any resurrection. But, again, Jesus’ death on the cross is as solid a fact of history as is, say, the hijirah, the flight of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina.”
Angry whispering erupted in the Muslim audience, which seemed to get louder, as if by contagion. Shannon shot a worried glance at her husband. He might have been wiser not to have used the sacred hijirah as a parallel. Speech was not as free in the Muslim world. Looking over to Abbas, she saw Jon’s scholarly opponent apparently unaffected by his statement, merely jotting down notes. When the moderators’ gavels brought silence, Jon resumed.
“As for questioning the resurrection, it is clear that Jesus either did or did not rise from the dead. If he did not, why was his body not found in Jerusalem still occupying the tomb in which he was buried? The authorities there who crucified him would certainly have pointed to his dead body in order to refute claims of his resurrection, if it were available. All the traditional claims of a ‘stolen body’ are worthless in terms both of motive and execution. That Jesus’ tomb was indeed empty is now a sober fact of history.
“My worthy opponent also questioned the efficacy of the church’s sacraments. Christians themselves have differing opinions on whether they are merely symbolic or very powerful means by which God penetrates the lives of believers, the clear majority of Christians favoring the latter interpretation. But I wonder why the grand sheikh claims that God in Christ could not have authorized the Holy Eucharist because wine was involved. The Qur’an claims that in paradise, there will be ‘rivers of wine’—Sura 47:15—and yet sharia law prescribes eighty lashes for one imbibing wine.
“Finally, the argument that Christians do not fully follow the high moral standards of their Founder is very true indeed, and I certainly agree! Unfortunately, however, every religious faith on earth has followers that fail to uphold the high teachings of their respective prophets or founders, and Islam is no exception. I find it strange that my worthy opponent should have accused Christians of making war when, in the present climate, it is the extremist followers of Islam who seem to be the world’s terrorists, inflicting death and destruction in New York City, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Madrid, Somalia, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
“Add to that the obvious cruelties Muslim jihadists have inflicted on their own kind, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan throwing acid onto the faces of schoolgirls trying to get an education, or mangling a young boy’s arm in Indonesia for stealing a loaf of bread, or the so-called honor killings in which families put to death their own innocent daughters who have been raped. And what about the Iranian who wanted to divorce his innocent wife, so he framed her for adultery and she was stoned to death?
“I hasten to add, however, that Dr. al-Rashid is as bitterly opposed to radical Islam as is the rest of the world, for which I am extremely grateful and will always call him my friend. But I note from the moderators that my time has expired. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention.”
Jon sat down to waves of powerful applause from the Christian side, along with cries of “Hear! Hear!” Shannon breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the first volleys had been exchanged with minimal bloodshed. Mercifully, it was also time for the first morning break. Black Turkish coffee only exacerbated the limitations of the human bladder.
Inevitably, the break lasted longer than the appointed twenty minutes, but by 11 a.m., all had returned to their seats. It was now time for Jon to air what Christians found amiss in Islam, an area in which he knew he would have to thread his way very carefully across a field strewn with traps and mines. It wasn’t fair, of course. In the free West, anyone could say outrageous things about Christianity and not only be tolerated, but even be applauded for it, while in the Middle East—as Jon had learned from personal experience—one wrong phrase regarding Islam could set off riots, destruction, and even death. Still, the truth must come out, Jon decided, as he began.
“Some of the problems that Christians see in Islam have already been cited in my response to those that Islam finds in Christianity, so they need not be repeated here. Basically, we must question the revelations that Muhammad claims to have received from the angel Gabriel.” As he’d anticipated, this statement met with murmuring from the eastern contingent. “But in this we are only following the Prophet himself, who also questioned his early revelations until firmed up in his beliefs by his wife Khadijah.
“We also find difficulties in the life of Muhammad that we do not find in the life of Jesus. One of them involves wives, that is, those after the death of Khadijah, to whom Muhammad was always faithful. Jesus had no wives, but the Prophet had twelve. My distinguished opponent will point out that the patriarchs in the Old Testament also practiced polygamy, but the real point here is one of consistency. While the Prophet limited the number of wives a man might have to four, he himself chose twelve. Someone has well said, ‘No true prophet must ever exempt himself from his own mandates.’”
Again, murmuring—this time a bit louder than before.
“As for claims that the Holy Qur’an is God’s final and greatest revelation, Christians find that problematical because the book contains inconsistencies that seem incompatible with the perfection of God. In Sura 7:54, for example, we are told that the world was created in six days. Fine. Yet in Sura 41:9-12, we are told that it took God two days. Again, in Sura 2:256 we have the noble statement: ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ Excellent! Yet Sura 9:29 advises, ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah.’ And of course, when one of the most documented facts of history—the crucifixion and death of Jesus—is denied, then one must naturally question the source of such denial.”
At this point, the murmuring took on a distinctly angry tone.
“Your great Shahada—‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet’—is excellent in terms of leading people to one God, but it has also led to the belief that Muhammad is God’s only prophet or at least his greatest prophet. But please contrast Jesus and Muhammad. Christians believe that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead. Muhammad did neither. His immediate successor, Abu Bakr, said at the Prophet’s funeral in Mecca: ‘If you are worshipers of Muhammad, know that he is dead. If you are worshipers of God, know that God is alive and does not die.’
“Finally, Christians find the sharia law set forth in the Qur’an to be demeaning to women—placing them helplessly under male control with only half the rights of men. Punishments mandated in sharia also seem excessively brutal: cutting off a hand for stealing, stoning a woman to death for adultery, ‘honor killings’ to which I referred earlier, and, worst of all, the penalty for conversion from Islam is death.”
“AND YOU ALSO DESERVE TO DIE!” a voice shouted in plain English from nearby, Die . . . die . . . die echoing and reverberating across the marble walls of Hagia Sophia.
Now a young Muslim stood up in a row very near the dais. He clenched a fist held high and shouted, “You are a satanic infidel whom Allah will surely strike down, Weber, and then condemn you to hell where you belong! Your days are numbered, Web—”
The voice was instantly silenced when Turkish police rushed in, grabbed the man, and gagged him, then hustled him out of the basilica. But a great commotion had arisen as a result, which ended with the banging of two gavels.
“You may continue, Professor Weber,” Patriarch Bartholomew said.
“No, I’ve finished my response, honored moderators.” Jon sat down and looked to Shannon, but her lovely face was warped with concern. Osman and Richard on either side of her, however, were smiling and flashing Jon thumbs-up signals.
Abbas al-Rashid stood with an enormous frown and opened, “As for the terrible interruption just now, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard Islam at its worst! And yet this was not Islam at all, which is a religion of submission to Allah and respect for humanity, but a misguided fanatic who thought he was a Muslim. I apologize to you, Professor Weber!”
A humble bow accompanied his words, but Jon shook his head, held up his hands, and said, “It is nothing!”
Abbas’s features relaxed into a warm smile as he took up the defense of Islam against points that Jon had raised. “My worthy opponent questions the revelations given to the Prophet—may his name be blessed—because Muhammad himself questioned them at first. But of course he did, which is exactly what one would expect of a very rational person not given to delusions. The very questioning proves his rationality, and I am grateful for it. Clearly, Allah provided his wife Khadijah to reassure the Prophet—may his name be blessed—perhaps much as he sent Aaron along with Moses to confront the pharaoh of Egypt.
“Now, regarding wives, the Hebrew Bible—which Christians call the Old Testament—does indeed provide us precedents. With David having ten wives and Solomon supposedly a thousand, one need not quarrel over just twelve for the final prophet in their line.”
Jon squirmed as the audience laughed, regretting that he had ever raised the wives issue against his earlier intentions. Never mind that Abbas had deftly dodged his main argument—the issue of Muhammad’s inconsistency—he had evoked laughter, which would endear the audience and win points while making Jon look foolish. Abbas was shrewd, no doubt about it!
He continued. “My worthy colleague questions the Holy Qur’an because of ‘inconsistencies’ he claims to find in its pages. Well, so be it. There are contradictions also in the Bible, as in every literary work, whether written by man or God. But this is no problem whatever, since Islam alone provides the solution.”
Abbas reached for a copy of the Qur’an lying on the table, picked it up, and said, “I read from Sura—that is, chapter 2, verse 106: ‘Whatever communications we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, we bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?’ Clearly, then, the later statements of Allah in the Qur’an replace the earlier statements in every point of perceived disagreement.”
Applause broke out in the eastern half of the sanctuary, which was promptly silenced by the moderators.
“However, there is no disagreement in the Holy Qur’an that Jesus escaped death on the cross. No, not at all. Again I read, this time from Sura 4:57: ‘They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge . . . for of a surety they killed him not.’ Do you see, Professor Weber, the historical references that you cite thought Jesus had been crucified—‘so it was made to appear to them.’ Allah would never have permitted his faithful servant Isa to endure this. God would not allow any of his prophets to be killed.
“And now to Jesus and Muhammad—two great prophets. You seemed to deny that Muhammad could perform miracles. But our hadith—our traditions—tell us that once when the Prophet was asked, ‘Why don’t you do miracles as did Jesus?’ he responded by holding his thumb and index finger around the full moon, then passing his other index finger through the middle of the orb, and half the moon fell east of Mecca, and the other half fell to the west. No, I don’t believe that this physically happened, but the miracle is that bystanders saw exactly that—which is a miracle. And what of the Prophet’s miraculous midnight ride from Mecca to Jerusalem and up to heaven and back?”
Good heavens! Jon thought to himself. Can Abbas really believe all that—this rare voice of Muslim moderation? And yet if I poke fun at such credulity, the place will go up in flames. He must just be trying to please his own right wing. That, in fact, seemed to be the case, since Abbas hurried on to the next point. “How shall I respond to my colleague’s concerns as to how sharia law is being applied today and how women have been treated in Islam? I would ask you all to prepare for a shock. . . . I agree with him! Yes, I agree with him!”
Amid rumblings of surprise, he declared, “The words of the Prophet—may his name be blessed—have been followed too literally by some in the world of Islam, who forget that he was often speaking to followers in very difficult military situations, rather than laying down rules to be observed at all times and places. This is no more and no less than the same problems Christians have with how they interpret some of the words of Jesus, who also often spoke harshly. He said, for example, ‘If your eye offend you, pluck it out!’ I sincerely hope that no Christian would be insane enough to take that advice literally.
“And so, I would like to close this phase of our discussion on an irenic note: Professor Weber and I have much in common, since we both oppose any hateful fanaticism in religion that would lead believers to think that violence is obedience to Allah’s, to God’s, commands. It is not!
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
Both sides of the sanctuary now joined in spirited applause, which grew even louder after Jon and Abbas shook hands.
It was now noon, and time for lunch.