Imam Found Jesus by Studying the Koran, Paid a Price for Rejecting Islam

During his mother's pregnancy doctors wanted to abort him due to an infection in his mother's womb, but as a devout Muslim she refused.

"The doctors compelled my mother to kill the child (me), but she is a very good devotee of Allah, God. So she did not accept their advice," Mario Joseph explained on HM Television.

At the time of his mother's pregnancy crisis she prayed: "Allah, life belongs to you so I know you can give life. If you give life to this baby I will surrender this baby to you."

Joseph was led to believe his birth was miraculous, but his mother's vow of dedication to Islam carried unwanted consequences. "Because I had been dedicated to God, my parents did not send me to school. My childhood was very bad," he recounted.

At eight-years-old they sent him to a Muslim-Arabic college so he could prepare to become an imam. Remarkably, after 10 years of study, he completed the goal.

Working as a parish priest, he preached that Jesus Christ is not God. "For me, God was only Allah and I believed that Allah never got married, so no sons for Allah. So I preached that Jesus is not God."

While he was certain Jesus was not God, he wasn't quite sure how to answer the question.

He studied the Koran exhaustively for an answer. "When I read it, the name of the Prophet Mohammad I found in the Koran in four places, but the name of Jesus I found in 25 places," he told HM Television.

He began to wonder, Why does the Koran give more preference to (the name of) Jesus?

Even stranger, the only name of a woman he found in the Koran is Mariam, the mother of Jesus – no other woman's name.

In other places in the Koran he found Jesus referred to as the "Word of God" and the "Spirit of God."

"The Koran says that Jesus cured a man born blind and a man with leprosy. Curiously, the Koran says that Jesus gave life to dead people, Jesus went to heaven, he is still alive and he will come again."

He realized that Mohammad never cured any sick people and never raised the dead. "He himself died. And according to Islam he is not alive and he will not come back."

See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam

Jesus, is understood to be the penultimate prophet and messenger of God (Allah) and al-Masih, the Arabic term for Messiah (Christ), sent to guide the Children of Israel with a new revelation: al-Injil (Arabic for “the Gospel”).

Jesus is believed to be a prophet who neither married nor had any children and is reflected as a significant figure, being found in the Quran in 93 verses with various titles attached such as “Son of Mary” and other relational terms, mentioned directly and indirectly, over 187 times.

He is thus the most mentioned person in the Quran by reference; 25 times by the name Isa, third-person 48 times, first-person 35 times, and the rest as titles and attributes.

And see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_in_the_Quran

The name “Muhammad” is mentioned four times in the Quran and the name “Ahmad” (another variant of the name of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad) is mentioned one time

Yes, Jesus is mentioned 25 times and the TITLE Muhammad is mentioned just 6 times

Remember that Muhammad (the praiseworthy one) was originally a TITLE, not a name. There was nosuch person as Muhammad

I've been reading

Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origin

and

What the Modern Martyr Should Know: 72 Grapes and not a single virgin.

and

No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (with Bonus Content): A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity

and

The Impact of Islam

And for fellow Freepers who know me, I'm an amateur historian.

The information in these books blew my mind.

To summarise:

The Arab empires in the 7th and 8th centuries do not mention any prophet, leave alone a prophet Muhammad.
The Buddhists, Christians, Zoroastrians do not mention anything about a prophet Muhamad or Islam or Muslims or the Quran.
Mecca itself is not mentioned in the Quran.
"Muhammad" is a title -- a title used in the Quran to refer to Jesus.
1. Jesus is mentioned many times in the Qur'an but Muhammad is mentioend only 4 times
Muhammad means "the chosen one" -- no parent will give their child such a name and there was no usage of the name Muhamad before the 6th century.
Nabatea and ARabia were outside the realms of the roman empire (where orthodoxy christianity reigned) and you had Ebionite Christians (a jewish sect of christianity who believed that christians should become jews first and that jesus was a prophet of Yahweh) and Gnostics (people who believed the world was an illusion and that jesus never died on the cross
the name Jesus is in hebrew Yehoshua, the same name as the English Joshua -- remember that Joshua was a great warrior who killed many Canaanites in the OT
The Qur'an was not written down until many decades after Muhamad allegedly lived -- and the Sahih bukhara states that they had to get it from different people's heads.
The Hadiths and Sirah (actions and life of M) were not written until over a century after M allegedly died -- and even then there were so many thousands that there are still disputes over what was really said and what wasn't
The Arabs supposedly conquered the two superpowers - Byzantium and Sassanid Persia -- kind of like saying that in 1980 Afghanistan would conquer both the USSR and half the USA.
The entire area was heavily literate and had been writing and minting coins for thousands of years. YET for the first 100 years you don't see ANY coins with the name Muhamad or any of the first 3 Caliphs, you don't see any reference to the Qur'an -- strange right, if the Arabs conquered these peoples.
The Persians in 611 conquered Jerusalem and held it for a long time until the Byzantines supposedly reconquered it and then they lose it shortly to the ARabs (supposedly)
Yet the first "Muslim Empire" coins have the faces of Khurso II of Persia and his son -- quite strange considering the Islamic injunct against depictions of people
Khusro's favorite wife was a Nestorian (or more likely Ebionite) christian.
a real killer -- for the first few decades after Muhammad's alleged death, Muslims BOW TO JERUSALEM for prayers NOT TO MECCA. Then for some time they bow to Petra and ultimately to Mecca.
It seems that what happened was:
a. The Persian king converted to Ebionite religion -- not too hard considering the Persian capital was Ctesiphon, near what is now Baghdad.
b. He defeated the Byzantines and took over much of their land
c. He was soundly helped by his Arab (Lakhmid) and then ARab Ghassanid allies. He was probably also helped by Jews who saw his version of monotheism as probably closer to their and they probably thought he would not persecute them as the Byzantines did. His Semitic allies were welcomed by the Coptic Patriarch of Egypt (kinda stupid in hindsight) - which makes sense if they were "known" people as opposed to the Greek speaking Byzantines
d. But after a few decades the Arab generals overthrew Khushro's son and moved the center of worship to Petra.
e. But to justify their coup d'etat, they used the Qur'an reference to the "chosen one" Muhamad and instead of it refering to Jesus (or rather the Ebionite version of Jesus), they fabricated a whole new person, an Arab person.
f. They then put the stories of the OT to favor them, like Abraham about to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac.
g. They take the Gnostic idea that Jesus didn't die on the Cross and use it
h. They then mix up Jesus and Joshua and use the tale of the warlord Joshua to aspects of Muhammad -- and add in details of other Arab warlords, so you have the stories of the warlord that goes into excruciating yet contradictory detail.

Inscription by the Caliph Muawiyah in 662 AD

Note that it

starts with a cross
The translation is
In the days of the servant of God Muʿāwiya (abdalla Maavia), the commander of the faithful (amēra almoumenēn) the hot baths of the people there were saved and rebuilt by ʿAbd Allāh son of Abū Hāshim (Abouasemou), the governor, on the fifth of the month of December, on the second day (of the week), in the 6th year of the indiction, in the year 726 of the colony, according to the Arabs (kata Arabas) the 42nd year, for the healing of the sick, under the care of Ioannes, the official of Gadara.
Muawiyah is not called Caliph (Khalifat) but comander of the faithful -- only later do Muslims call him Caliph
There is no mention of Muslims, the Qur'an or Muhammad! Otherwise every Muslim monument refers to "In the name of Muhammad"

Early Islamic coins

Note that they have a Cross on them! Yet the Qur'an says They did not slay him, neither crucified him" (Qur’an 4:157)

Muslims do not believe that Christ died (he was "replaced") or rose from the death.

Yet these coins also have the word muhammad so "Let him be praised in the name of God"

Thanks Cronos.

Did Muhammad Ever Really Live? by Perdogg -- "A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived. Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the debate and the historical person of the Prophet." [2008]
Zul-Qarnain - What is the argument?by Jochen Katz (not on FR) -- [snip]I have never claimed that Zul-Qarnain *is* the historical Alexander the Great. I don't know why your move to agree with me in this is considered a rebuttal... The argument is then that the Qur'anic story is clearly taken from the legends about Alexander. There are many many details of the Qur'an account which are nearly verbatim to be found in the Alexander legends. Conclusion: Zul-Qarnain clearly is the Alexander the Great of the legend stories. And because the Qur'an presents the material from the legends as if this were history, it shows that Muhammad could not distinguish between legends and history when he incorporated this material in the Qur'an. This is evidence that the Qur'an is not of divine origin.[/snip]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.