Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross

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Summary: Answering Questions Muslims Often Have About Christianity
Review: What is the Trinity? How can three be one? Don't Christians believe in three gods? (to which the answer is "No") Don't Christians basically believe Mary is a goddess, Jesus her son, and God almighty her husband? (again, "No") Why did Christ have to pay for sins? Why can't God simply forgive without the cross? Isn't it a bad example of justice to have Christ die for the sins of another? These are just some of the actual questions a Muslim friend of mine challenged me on a number of years ago. If you are a Muslim or a Christian who has a Muslim friend with these questions, this book is an excellent, helpful one. When it comes to Islam-Christianity debate, unfortunately too often there's much misunderstanding and misrepresentation of beliefs (on both sides), but this book clears up a lot of them.

This book written by Dr. Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb (a former Muslim) is divided into three parts. The first part addresses the Muslim faith (Islamic monotheism, Muhammad, the Qur'an, and their views of endtimes and salvation). It's a general overview of Islam and therefore not necessary all the different sects of Islam believe and agree with the same thing. The second part answers those Muslim beliefs from the first section. The third part defends the Christians faith and answers those frequently asked questions regarding the Bible (answers the alleged contradictions or Bible passages often used by Muslims to challenge Christianity), the Deity of Christ (answers misunderstanding and questions on the virgin birth, Jesus' incarnation--God in human flesh, His possessing two natures--that of God and man), the Trinity (answers questions like "how can three be one?", what is the Trinity?), and salvation by the cross (what it means, why Christ's atonement was necessary, etc.).

The appendixes have information on the different Muslim sects and movements, their religious practices, the Gospel of Barnabas, and popular Muslim accusations against the New Testament (i.e. textual corruption, historical unreliability).

This book is pretty comprehensive in answering frequently asked questions about Christianity by a Muslim. It's also a practical resource to help the Christian share their faith with a Muslim by removing the intellectual thorns that may impede them from finding the truth path to God.

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Summary: Succinct, fair and fairly comprehensive
Review: I have found this book useful in supporting discussions with young Muslims - it is easy to dip into and seems well researched. Very good.

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Summary: Did not answer all the questions
Review: I read this book given to me by a friend thinking that I am a Moslem, which I am not. But I had my own questions about the teachings of Christianity, which I hope the author or someone will cover it in their next addition of the book.

1- why should we take the claim of a troubled young woman for having been impregnated by God seriously when there are down to earth explanations of what happened? A young woman engages in a forbidden love relationship, gets pregnant, is terrified by the prospect of facing a rigid and unforgiving "Law" and comes up with most creative explanation to save her own life and save her family from a total disgrace. Would any of us do anything different in her position?
2- Why would a " Loving", " Forgiving" God need to have "Blood" in order to forgive the sins of His people? Why can't He do what most of us do, simply Forgive when asked sincerely?
3- why would God want to punish His own son for sins he had nothing to do with, is this not a bad example of "Justice"? Jesus himself wondered about this when he asked, " If at all possible, let this cup pass". I think Jesus was rather polite; I would have put it differently.
4- If God did really impregnate her, did he get married first or was that an act of adultery?
5- since "she" was to be " Mother of God" and God having impregnated His own Mother, would that not be considered incest and forbidden?

These are questions that I have and none of it is meant as an insult but they are genuine

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Summary: Battle of Scorpians
Review: It makes me laugh to see how Christians are trying to gain a few followers, and hence potential money donators, especially after sept.11. One hears a lot of nonsense regarding how peaceful Christianity is vs. the mad Islam. Reality is, based on historical facts, that of all religions only Christianity has had more violence and blood on their hands than Islam has. They blame Islamic people for their holy war, apparently forgetting that they too have had centuries of holy wars on just about everyone who didn't agree with their religion. They have done more killings than all other religions combined. I really don't understand why these guys can't understand that a mother and son have played mind game with them for 2000 years. A young woman gets herself pregnant, being terrified by Jewish law for adultery, she come up with a very clever idea. She blames on Jewish God, He must have had a lonely night. His son plays along with this story to save her mother and her family from a crushing embarrassment and of course pays a heavy price for it. Perhaps Jewish God got offended by this lie and took revenge from both the mother and the son, from the mother by having her son killed in front of her eyes and the son by dying a painful death. One should never accuse God of "Rape" you never know how he reacts. What amazes me is that Muhammad actually bought into this non-sense as well. Now for past 600 hundred years these two scorpions have been at each other, a punishment of God on both for accusing God of becoming horny and raping a poor innocent girl and then on top of it killing His son for the crimes others committed. I tell you, this God is a bad hubby and a very bad father.

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Summary: Helpful response to a problem that isn't going away.
Review: ... political and Christian leadership have so far chosen not to address the source of the brutality, preferring to convince people that Muslims are REALLY a lot like, say, Methodists ("...another interfaith service, anyone?")

But false premises will eventually prevent correct action, providing secular governments with no basis for understanding what they are dealing with. Weeds will keep sprouting from roots.

The reality of Islam needs to be examined ... from its origins in visions Muhammad first thought came from demons until his wife convinced them they came from God, to their integration with incompletely understood aspects of Christianity Muhammad picked up here and there, adapting them to Arab nomadic paganism to the extent his human understanding allowed (for example, Arab fathers tend to be distant and harsh, thus a Muhammad not inspired by God could make no sense of God as a loving father figure who cared about His creation. So that was excised along with related understandings like "forgiveness" -- mercy not being the same thing). Islamic denial of the innate sinfulness of mankind, the uniform tendency of man to separate from God, leads to a reward/punishment system based on simple human deeds.

This book covers the history and theology of Islam at a fairly scholarly yet readable and accessible level. The first 130 pages describe the basic beliefs of orthodox Islam concerning God, creation, prophets, Muhammad, the Qu'ran and salvation. This is drawn mostly from Muslim sources like the Qu'ran, Muslim tradition (the Hadith), and Islamic commentators.

The next 76 pages are a Christian analysis of those beliefs and various criticisms that have been suggested, with the goal of reaching conclusions on the level of support and validity of Islamic claims. A great deal of attention is paid to the factual basis for and internal consistency of the claims.

This is followed by 80 pages of response to common Islamic depictions of Christianity; the evidence for the Christian counter-claim. 24 pages of appendices provide supplementary material on Islam such as Muslim sects, religious practices, and Muslim use of modern biblical criticism methods.

There is no pointless vitriol, just eyes-open examination. Another good book that adds a little more is "Islam Revealed" by Dr. Anis A. Shorrosh.

It's not likely Christian leadership in the U.S., to the extent it exists, will soon drop its embrace of Islam as an equal. Modern seminaries and theological departments tend to produce secular humanists who want the moral authority to advance agendas regarding racism, gay rights and so on, along with the resulting approval of a secular culture, more than anything, so end up squeezing God out. They are hesitant to speak the truth because they don't think there is such a thing (incoherent, since the lack of truth would itself be a truth, thus is a contradiction); they don't want Islam exposed because they think they will be exposed. This is only their failure; Christianity will thrive with honest scrutiny. Islam cannot. This is one reason Christianity gave birth to liberal democracies while Islamic countries execute missionaries.

Only conversion of Islam to Christianity will solve the problem we face, not eliminating terrorist networks. Of course, that means you first have to understand Christianity. One excellent aid here is "How Now Shall we Live" by C. Colson and "Nothing but the Truth" by B. Edwards

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Summary: Like a distorted version of reality? Then buy this.
Review: This is nothing more then christian propoganda. Abdul Saleeb claims to have been a practicing muslim who converted to christianity. First of all, much like christianity, you don't need to pass a class to call yourself a muslim. The fact that you can have very little knowledge of Islam and still call yourself a former muslim anyway is very apperent in Abdul Saleeb's book. Most of what is said in this book, as well as radio interviews I have heard him on, is utterly false. The few things that are not complete lies are usually extremely mis-interpreted. The Quran and Hadith are very easy to understand and I find it hard to believe that Abdul Saleeb accidently presented false information. This is nothing more than a "christians" attempt to completely bastardize an entire religion so that those who are curious will be misguided away from a remarkable religion. If you want to put blinders on to what other ideas are out there then by all means by this book. Otherwise, if you want a true idea of what Islam is . . . buy a book written by a muslim. Think about it . . . you wouldn't buy a diamond ring from a tractor salesman. Don't buy what it means to be a muslim from a christian.

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Summary: Theologically Rich
Review: Answering Islam is indeed a very good book for those who are looking for a better understanding of Islam, Muslim views on Christianity, and how to present the Gospel to a Muslim person. The book has added credibility in that the co-author, Abdul Saleeb, is himself a former Muslim. The book is valuable in light of the current world events because, while it does not praise Islam, it also does not attack, and rather presents a balanced view of the religion. There are negative aspects to the book, however. For one thing, it is theologically deep, especially in the last third, and may be difficult for the layman to get into. Second, it reads like a textbook and is not user friendly. However, if you can get past those two points, it is well worth the read.

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Summary: A concise manual for addressing the key issues
Review: Geisler and Saleeb have written a very practical and concise guide for understanding the points of conflict between Christianity and Islam. The particular focus of the book is how Christianity answers Muslim accusations and objections against it. While it is in no way comprehensive, each section is well written and contains information which would be immediately practical to anyone interested in the subject.

The most valuable contribution that this book makes is in its positive defense of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and the authenticity of the Bible. These sections are written with Muslim objections in mind, making them very useful.

This is a meaty book which is a good read and then a great reference for anyone who is interested in Christian/Muslim apologetics. Geisler is certainly a trusted name in aplogetics, and his partnering with a former Muslim for this book makes it twice as valuable.

While this book does spend some time giving a background to Islam, it is from a decidedly Christian perspective. In order to understand Islam and Muslims first hand sources are obviously indispensable. There are countless books written from a Muslim perspective about Islam. Any one of them would be an excellent companion to this great book.

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Summary: Good but not great
Review: The introduction to Islam makes this book worth the money. In fact, one Muslim I know of said that Abdul Saleeb (pseudonym meaning, "Servant of the Cross") was obviously a current Muslim, not a former Muslim, since no one else could show such understanding of Islam. Therefore, he claimed, the publishing company must have approached a Muslim and lied about the project to get him to write the intro. :)

There are a fairly large number of typos in this book. The biggest flaw, though, is Geisler's tendency to "shoot from the hip" and repeat himself. He will often say, "The noted Muslim Scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali..." and then say the same thing on the next page, word for word. He uses quotes several times as those unaware of it, and he generalizes far too much.

This book, though good, should only be used if you have a fair amount of knowledge of apologetics already.

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Summary: Hear, Hear its an excellent,intelligent and scholarly Reply!
Review: I fully agree with the reviewer from Davis, CA, below on Answering Islam's objectivity. Those who claim about so-called 'scripture-twisting' or misrepresentation are just not able to handle their own religious incongruencies and proven anomalies, and upset or distraught at the expose` they, as usual merely give the typical 'knee-jerk' responses observable from below. Doubtless we can expect more similar reactionary statements from them in the future, unless they are able to bring clear and rational explanations on these anomalies comparable to the level-headed, factual and clear elucidations found in Geisler's and Abdul Saleeb's Answering Islam. Kudos indeed and FIVE Stars rating to Answering Islam !