Interesting Article:

From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always "Westernized." Whether the product of naivety, arrogance, or downright disingenuousness, this phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam's more troublesome doctrines.

A typical seventh-grade textbook, for instance, teaches that "jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that are pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to be better people, reform society, or correct injustice."

Strictly speaking, this is by and large true. However, by not explaining what it means to be "better people, reform society, or correct injustice" — from a distinctly Islamic, as opposed to Western, perspective — the textbook abandons students to fall back on their own (misleading) interpretations.

Yet the facts remain: In Islam, killing certain "evil-doers," such as apostates or homosexuals, is a way of "correcting injustice"; overthrowing manmade constitutional orders (such as the United States) and replacing them with Sharia mandates, and subjugating women and non-Muslims, are ways of "reforming society." Those enforcing all this are, in fact, "better people" — indeed, according to the Koran, they are "the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong [3:110]," that is, ruling according to Sharia law.

So it is with the Muslim concept of zakat, a word often rendered into English as "charity." But is that all zakat is — mere Muslim benevolence by way of feeding and clothing the destitute of the world, as the word "charity" all too often connotes?

U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama seems to think so — or, given his background, is at least banking that others do — based on his recent proclamation to the Muslim world that "in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."

Thus does Obama conflate a decidedly Islamic concept, zakat, with the generic notion of charity. Is this justified? As with all things Islamic, one must first examine the legal aspects of zakat to truly appreciate its purport. Etymologically related to the notion of "purity," zakat — paying a portion of one's wealth to specifically designated recipients — is a way of purifying oneself, on par with prayers (see Koran 9:103).

The problem, however, has to do with who is eligible for this mandatory "charity." Most schools of Muslim jurisprudence are agreed to eight possible categories of recipients — one of these being those fighting "in the path of Allah," that is, jihadis, also known as "terrorists."

In fact, financially supporting jihadis is a recognized form of jihad — jihad al-mal; even the vast majority of militant verses in the Koran (e.g., 9:20, 9:41, 49:15, 61:10-11) prioritize the need to fund the jihad over merely fighting in it, as fighting with one's wealth often precedes fighting with one's self. Well-known Islamists — from international jihadi Osama bin Laden to authoritative cleric Sheikh Qaradawi — are well aware of this and regularly exhort Muslims to fund the jihad via zakat.

More revealing of the peculiarly Islamic nature of zakat is the fact that Muslims are actually forbidden from bestowing this "charity" onto non-Muslims (e.g., the vast majority of American infidels). "Charitable" Muslim organizations operating on American soil are therefore no mere equivalents to, say, the Salvation Army, a Christian charity organization whose "ministry extends to all, regardless of ages, sex, color, or creed." In Islam, creed is a major criterion for receiving "charity" — not to mention for receiving social equality.

From here, one can better understand Obama's lament that "in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation," a statement that unwittingly implies that American zakat has, in fact, been used to fund the jihad. After all, these irksome "rules" to which Obama alludes appear to be a reference to the presumably "excessive" scrutiny American Muslim "charities" are subject to by law enforcement. Yet this scrutiny is itself a direct byproduct of the fact that American Muslim "charities" have, indeed, been funding the jihad, both at home and abroad.

In light of all this, what truly remains to be seen is how, precisely, Obama plans on "working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."

Link: http://www.meforum.org/2438/zakat-muslim-charity-in-context

What I like about this is that all refferences are included XD.

"A good Muhhamadan Muslim is a Jihadi Muhhamadan Muslim, a bad one wants to get along with everyone."

Here I'll make this simple for everyone.

GOD is to big for ONE religion

And if you compared that learned person with what the Old and New Testament says:

http://www.bibleprobe.com/jesus-is-God.htm

You do see a lack of compatibility I mentioned.  You can go and end up saying these verses are wrong and selectively cherry pick, as the speaker did, but the point will be missed.  And how can a speaker who claims to be learned about Islam and Christianity use a verse that shows Jesus referring to God as his Father, when the Qu'ran says that God has no children?  Otr, shorthand, is it appropriate for a proper for a Muslim to call God "father"?  If not, then every reference Jesus has to God as his father is wrong, right down to the prayer he gave, "Our Father who is in Heaven".  Besides this,  it is NOT good form to end up selectively picking what someone says IN a book, when you ignore the narrative about the person who penned the book.  To say what Jesus says in John is valid, but to throw out what John 1 says, is not good for.

And then, is it fitting that Jesus would call himself the Alpha and Omega?  That happens in Revelations 22. 

Well yes. Christianity, Judaism and Islam (among a couple other religions) are all Abrahamic religions.But that's pretty much where their similarities are, the teaching of both religions are completely different.

I mean, look at Galatians in the new testament. It states that if anyone teaches differently than their teachings than they shall be accursed (or something along those lines). 

If you take 'father' to be biological father, then you have problem. Because there are tons of 'son' of the God and who is their 'father'. Many Prophets are called 'son' by the God in the Bible. So, they are the sons of God too? Actually that is the style of saying in old times. Saying 'father' does not mean biological father.

What he quoted out of context? You show the context and prove him wrong. None of the Christian scholars could do that in the past. You may take a look at his debate with Dr. William Campbell on Bible and Quran in the light of science.

What does it mean by saying 'Alpha and Omega' (First and the Last)? Jesus is not the first because he was born in a stable in the womb of a woman and there were several Prophets before him. He is not the last because Prophets came after him.

This Dr. Zakir Naik is learned of both the scriptures. You have to listen to his lectures in full in order to understand why he does not consider some of the verses to be true. The very scholars of Christianity threw out few verses from the Bible for being corrupt, fabrication and adulteration. So, check out if John 1 is something like that or not.

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But from a Western perspective look at this. You call yourself an army. Adultery - kill. Gay - kill. Leave religion - kill. Blasphemy - kill. Sure it's wrong to kill without justification, but you find that justification in your religion, so don't wonder too much why it and its prophet aren't seen as peaceful.

What a misinterpretation. So, you can't give examples? I give example of Army, that does not mean I call Muslims an Army. Don't misinterpret.

You say, Adultery=kill, Gay=kill, Leave religion=kill, Blasphemy=kill is not peaceful; I wonder how peaceful the western secular or christian societies are. In rape- no. 1, in kill- no.1, in adultery- no.1, electricity failure for 1 minute- loot of shops, rape of women. Is that what you call peace? Surely, you don't consider these to be major crimes and just punish the offender with little.

Islam proclaims severe punishments for some offences but that does not mean it has to be implemented. Because Islam does not only provides punishment for a crime, it provides how you can avoid such crime. Adultery is prohibited, and there is capital punishment for it. But there are methodology provided for both men and women so they don't indulge in adultery. A man must guard his modesty and keep his eyes towards the ground, a woman should wear modest dress. Pornography is prohibited so man or woman will not get excited watching them. This way, they will keep themselves safe and only make love with their spouses.

If you don't make strict laws for the offences, you can't control the offenders. If you make a law today that punishment for murder is $100 fine, just imagine what would happen.

If blasphemy is not an offence to you, I wonder if one day, some of those blasphemous people abuse your parents in bad language which you can't describe, what would you do? At least you would try to beat him. Oh come on! if you say you will sit tight and don't say anything, I must say you have 'guts'.

Regardless of if Jesus or the bibles meant biological or otherwise, it is clear in the Quran that Allah has no children and that men do not share any associations with Allah aside from being a product of it's entropy.

What do you mean by 'man do not share any association with Allah'?

Quran and Bible do not say that God has begotten a son nor do the scriptures claim that the God has biological son.

erm...?

I'm guessing the Muslim version of the Bible doesn't say that. 

@SpartenOmega117 I think you have a very simplistic and optimistic look. You lack information. You need to read more, much more from different perspectives to have a clear look.

Yes, judaism, christianity and islam are related religions. Both christianity and islam in the early years of their formation were viewed as a sect of the previous and not as a new religions and most probably their creators view them as continuation of the old ones. So yes - jews, christians and muslims beleave in the same GOD and share prophets, ideas and religios books from the monoistic religions before them, mixed with some local traditions. I see that you got that.

"Muslims believe in the Bible and the Torah. Yes, you might not believe it, but there are 4 holy books. Torah, Zabur, Bible, and Quran. We consider these the 4 holy books of islam."

From this sentance I can clearly view that you lack basic information about judaism and christianty and probably deep knowledge of islam. The Islamic holy books are - Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), the Injil (Gospel or New Testament), and the Qur'an. Bible contains the text of the Hebrew Bible, but arranged in a different order (Old Testament) and the Gospel (New Testament), so as you can see every new religion contains the local religios text of the previous ones, but only thouse that were created before the new one was formed, mixed with local pre-christina/islam traditions.

Now lets see what you didn't got right.

"The reason we don't believe in the current Bible is because Muslims beleive that the Bible has been changed quite a bit throughtout the years by the Pope, priests, etc. So we don't think it is original and has been changed dramatically. Otherwise we do believe in the Bible."

Both Gospel and Quran were not written by Jesus or Muhammad. They were collected and were standardised in today's version from many other writings and memories after Jesus and Muhammad were dead. According to the traditional muslim view initial revelations were memorize by Muhammad companions and later written on different sorts of parchments, tablets of stone, branches of date trees, other wood, leaves, leather and even bones. This items were scattered amongst many people as private possession. As time pass by many of the Muhammad companions who had memorised portions of the Qur'an were dying in battles or of old age. Consequently Zaid ibn Thabit, was assigned the duty of collecting all of the Qur'anic text by Abu Bakr. This was his reaction acording to hadith:
    "...By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an... So I started locating the Qur'anic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men."

The compilation was kept by the Caliph Abu Bakr, after his death by his successor, Caliph Umar, who on his deathbed gave them to Hafsa bint Umar. By the time of the third caliph Uthman ibn Affan, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, came to Uthman and urged him to save the Muslim ummah because differencies in various islamic centers became obvious. Based on Muslims sources, the differences were serious enough to cause muslims to be divided, as to cause one muslim group to call another group heretics.

"During the reign of Uthman, teachers were teaching this or that reading to their students. When the students met and disagreed about the reading, they reported the differences to their teachings. They would defend their readings, condemning the others as heretical."[Kitab al-Masahif]

Uthman obtained the manuscripts from Hafsah, then give a task to Zayd ibn Thabit to create a standart copy of Quran. When standard copies were made all other material was burnt.

According to Shia as well as some Sunni scholars Ali ibn Abu Talib compiled his own version of Quran right after the dead of Muhammad. When the volume was completed it was brought to Medina, where it was shown, but his version was rejected. Although his book differed from the Uthmanic codex, Ali accepted the standardized version.

There are some other variations of this story, such as that Uthman found that there are seven different qurans, and people are fighting because of that multitude of qurans, so he burned six of the seven qurans and preserved only one. Information from muslim sources about Mas’ud, who was asked to burn his version of the Qur’an.

"How can you order me to recite the reading of Zaid, when I recited from the very mouth of the Prophet some seventy Surahs?" "Am I, to abandon what I acquired from the very lips of the Prophet?"[Kitab al-Masahif]

Some western historians dispute the official view and think that is no early then 9 century that the final version of Quran was made, but I think you got the idea - the Quran was formed as you know it today after the dead of Muhammad by compilation of various collected scripts and memories as a political desition to keep the faith from branching. After the compilation was over all others were destroied. Some hadith attest that some verses could not be found any more in the standart version. A contemporary essay from John of Damascus describes a surah called the "Camel of God" which is no longer extant.

The history of Christian Bible is similar to the Quran. The Bible was formed as we know it today after the dead of Jesus by compilation of various collected scripts of what Jesus had said and done, as reported by his Apostles and Disciples. At some point there was a need to make a standart collection of scripts as a political desition to keep the faith from branching, because differencies in various christian centers became obvious. Some christian churches add more scripts then other, but in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books. The original texts were written beginning around A.D. 50 in Koine Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern part of the Roman Empire where they were composed. All of the works which would eventually be incorporated into the New Testament have been written no later than the mid-2nd century. Not all scripts were included - Gospel of Thomas for example. The Pope didn't wrote any gospels or change them. They can only add or remove from the collected old scripts.

This standartization of Bible and Quran doesn't keep Islam or Christianity from branching but at least form a single book for Islam and books with minor differences for Christianity.