Everyone who reads this explanation, please sign CHRISTIANE GRUBER’S petition to “REINSTATE THE PROFESSOR IN HIS CLASS” here: https://www.change.org/p/petition-in-support-of-the-dismissed-hamline-instructor-wrongly-accused-of-islamophobiaWhat was the professor’s crime? He dared to show a 14th century painting of Muhammad in his class on “Islamic Art”!Hamline University, a united Methodist affiliated school, in St. Paul, Minnesota, apologized to Muslim students after an adjunct professor showed a depiction of the prophet Muhammad in an ‘Islamic Art’ class on Oct. 6,2022.Aram Wedatalla, the president of the Muslim Student Association, complained to the administration, saying it was offensive and disrespectful to Muslims. She said “”I’m like, ‘This can’t be real. As a Muslim, and a Black person, I don’t feel like I belong, and I don’t think I’ll ever belong in a community where they don’t value me as a member, and they don’t show the same respect that I show them”.David Everett (Hamline’s associate vice president of inclusive excellence) emailed the staff on Nov. 7 and described the incident as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic…inlieu of this incident, it was decided it was best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community”.Mark Berkson, the professor of religion at Hamline wrote in defense of the professor, in the school newspaper, saying, “these students, like many religious people, do not know about some aspects of their own tradition. In this case, they do not realize how these images have been used in other parts of the Muslim world and are still used today. They have a particular perspective, and I honor that. But as an academic institution, one group’s prohibition cannot be extended to everyone else.”The Oracle removed his comments after 2 days.Fayneese Miller, the school president then said, “it is not our intent to place blame; rather, it is our intent to note that in the classroom incident, where an image forbidden for Muslims to look upon was projected on the screen and left for many minutes. Respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom. Many subjects contain controversial subject material but kindness for others was more important than academics. Academic freedom is very important, but it does not have to come at the expense of care, and indecency towards others”. If you disagree with her you can e-mail her at: President@hamline.eduThe School, supporting President Miller explained, “For those of us who have been entrusted with the responsibility of educating the next generation of leaders and engage citizens, it was important that our Muslim students, as well as all other students, feel safe, supported, and respected both in and out of the classrooms” So, what was the painting which caused so much offense? It is a 14th century painting by medieval Islamic scholar Rashid al-Din (1247-1318), and shows Muhammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. It is the property of the Edinburg university library.Ironically, the professor gave students both written and verbal notifications that the painting would be shown and allowed the students not to participate if they did not want to. The instructor was nonetheless, fired without due process.Muslims scholars have rushed to defend the painting. Ali Asan, Prof. of Islamic religion and culture at Harvard wrote, “The painting was intended to extol Muhammad, not to denigrate him. To make blanket statements that this is prohibited, especially the image in question, is absolutely wrong. It shows illiteracy about the Islamic religion”.Omid Safi (the professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at Duke University) wrote, “I tell students we’re going to be looking at Muslim devotional art. I know some students may not have seen these before, and some may have even been told it’s not done, but it’s a historical part of our tradition. And I certainly do not give students the choice to opt out”.Christiane Gruber, the professor of Islamic art at the University of Michigan, who has authored books on the subject, and so possibly the most capable to understand Islamic art said, “historic representations of the prophet Muhammad, his face sometimes veiled, sometimes not, can be viewed at the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Through conflation or confusion, Hamline has privileged an ultraconservative Muslim view on the subject that happens to coincide with the age old Western cliché that Muslims are banned from viewing images of the prophet”.She has now started a change.org petition to reinstate the instructor, which you can sign above. We must not allow uninformed students and staff to stop our “freedom of speech”© Pfander Centre for Apologetics – US, 2022(69,740) Music: “New Beginning” by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io

Do visit Mel’s YouTube site ‘Origins’ at: https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsofIslam/videosThe Qur’an contains a verse, Surah 5:116, where Allah seems to ask Isa (Jesus) whether it was true that he and “his mother” are worshiped alongside God.Most Christians have always assumed that this verse was questioning Jesus’ divinity and also the trinity, but that it had a glaring error in that it assumed that Mary was included within the Trinity, which she certainly is not, and historically has never been within Christianity.Mel, using the research of the french scholar, Edouard Marie Gallez, looks at this verse and comes up with another more interesting interpretation.To begin with, an interesting footnote by the Arab scholar Al Jallad who suggests that the name ‘Isa’ was possibly as ancient Arabic term which had the meaning “redeemer”, or “someone who pays”, which is the correct application for Jesus, who is our redeemer. Thus, the name is not a misnomer in the Qur’an but actually has a correct connotation.If that were the case, in this instance, the question god is asking of Isa also is possibly a correct question, in that he is not questioning the trinity itself, but asking ‘Isa’ whether he and “his mother” are two distinct and separate Gods besides the Father. But he isn’t suggesting the “his mother” has anything to do with Mary, but the Holy Spirit.How do we know this is what this verse meant? By simply returning to the historical context of that time and that place; namely, the 6th to 7th centuries, and to the Syriac Gnostic environment where this verse was most likely borrowed from.In the Nag Hammadi gospels, which were Greek/Coptic Gnostic texts from the 2nd – 4th centuries, we find the “Acts of Thomas”, verse 39, which at the end says “thine holy spirit, the mother of all creation”, suggesting that the holy spirit was feminine and referred to as a ‘mother’.This is not unique. There are other references in earlier Gnostic, Christian, and even Muslim texts, written in both Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic where the Holy Spirit is considered female, and referred to as a ‘mother’.1) The Gnostic “Odes of Solomon” does2) Origin in Alexandria (185-253 AD) refers to the Holy Spirit as feminine3) Aphradate in Mosul (280-345 AD) also refers to the Holy Spirit as feminine4) Jerome in Jerusalem (342-420 AD), quoting Origin, does likewise5) At Tabari, Al Baydawi, Zamakshari and al Jalalayn all refer to the Holy Spirit as feminine.Gallez, therefore, suggests that this reference in Surah 5:116 is nothing more than an early 7th century (616 AD) internecine dispute between Christians living in Alexandria (Egypt today), where the Trinitarian position is the orthodox view, against other Christians living further north in Antioch (Turkey today), who took a more ‘tri-theistic’ view, emphasizing the 3 separate and distinct natures of the godhead.Thus, it was a question, or a sort of mocking, posed by the Alexandrians to those in Antioch, questioning whether they believed that Jesus and the Holy Spirit (his mother) were both worshiped distinct from the Father.Ironically, if this were true, and this verse was not referring to Mary the mother of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit himself, than the question we find in Surah 5:116 is the same we as Christians today would pose as well.What is important, however, is that when we look at verses like these, we need to try and exegete them correctly, which means rather than imposing our own views onto them, we need to try instead find out what the author of the text was trying to say.A verse like this one can really only be understood once we note where it was borrowed from, which in this case was much further north, in what is today Egypt and Turkey.Interestingly, by putting this verse into its proper 7th century context, it proves once again what we have been intimating for quite some time, that much of the Qur’an was created much further north, and in a context of debates and polemical discussions which were happening between different sects and groups within Christianity, but were then later incorporated into what eventually became Islam by the Abbasids, sometime in the later 8th – 9th centuries.© Pfander Centre for Apologetics – US, 2022(69,710) Music: “New Beginning” by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io

Do visit Mel’s YouTube site ‘Origins’ at: https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsofIslam/videosMel asks the question concerning why today have Muslims elevated Muhammad so high that he even seems to be greater than their god, Allah?It’s clear in both Christianity and Islam that God is ONE, and that no one else is equal with him.In the Bible, in Matthew 6:33 Jesus says “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”Later, in Matthew 22:37 Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”This comes originally from Deuteronomy 6:5, and so represents what both Jews and Christians believe.If God must come first, then whatever we put first in place of him is an idol. The Qur’an agrees with this high view of god.In Surah 29:98 it is clear that those who equate anything or anyone with Allah are “fuel for hell”In Surah 5:72 it agrees that those who equate anyone with Allah will go to hell.In Surah 5:116 Allah suggests clearly that Isa would be committing ‘Shirk’ (equating someone with god) if he and his mother are worshiped as gods.In Surah 71:23-24 it states that those who worship idols above Allah are condemned.So, to equate anyone with God is condemned by both Christianity and Islam.Yet, this is exactly what Muslims have done with Muhammad.Mel goes through 5 areas where this has been the case historically.1) Muhammad is placed in a statue earlier on with a purple tunic, which depicts royalty.2) When we look at Islamic art we find the earliest paintings of Muhammad have his face clearly visible and recognizable, at least until the 16th century, and then afterwards we begin to find Muhammad’s face covered, out of respect for his holiness.3) In the 1300s Ibn Taymiyyah dictates that the penalty for insulting Muhammad is death, even if the person tries to repent later on.4) In modern times, when U.S. Muslims were poled on the matter 72% of them felt that the love of Muhammad was the most important premise for their faith, while only 59% of them considered the Qur’an and the Sunnah as important to their faith.5) When one looks at the names of Muhammad, they will find that there are the same number of names for him, 99, as their are for Allah, and that 40% of them are the same or similar names. 18 of them are directly the same, while 22 are similar. For instance the 50th name is that of ‘Nazareth’, the town of Jesus. The 76th and 77th names for Muhammad are “the first and the last”, the same given to Jesus in Rev.1:8, which delineate his divinity!So, why have Muslims elevated Muhammad so high, even making him above that of Allah?Jay thinks it’s because they want what we have in Christianity, a God who comes to earth, and who can relate to us face-to-face, like Jesus can and did, and continues to do so through the Holy Spirit.They have no one like Jesus, so they have elevated Muhammad over the centuries to compete with Jesus. Yet, it would be more simple to just give up Muhammad, and come home to Jesus, the only God who has come to earth, to love us and to die for us.It turns out that we have what all Muslims want, and His name is Jesus.© Pfander Centre for Apologetics – US, 2022(69,630) Music: “New Beginning” by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io