ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Invitation to Islam: A Survival Guide Evidencing Islam with the Bible This book is a guide to presenting Islam to people from a background in which the Bible has had a particular religious role. Little has been said about people from other traditions, although much is also applicable throughout the world. There are points of commonality between Islam and the other classical written traditions, and these can be used to advantage.

There are practices in common as well as much evidence in favor of Islam in the classical texts of the many religions of the world. This final chapter examines some of the ways the Bible can be used by the Muslim engaged in da’wa, the invitation to Islam among those whose background is in a traditionally Christian country. The Bible contains what Muslims refer to as the Tawrat, Zabur, and Injil, and is the holy book of Christianity. It is comprised of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The New Testament is made up of four gospels, the book of Acts, some letters, and the book of Revelation. Other early writings, both letters and gospels, exist, but were not included in the New Testament by the Church fathers who decided what should be accepted and what not. The Old Testament is made up of the Jewish canon: the books of Moses (as), the prophets and the writings. There is some disagreement about the inclusion of another group of writings called the Apocrypha.

This whole collection may have been written over a period as great as 1600 years. It contains at least 68 distinct books, but altogether is called the Bible. There are several similarities and contrasts between the Bible and the Qur’an. Both are books of divine revelation, both contain the true faith, and both are easily accessible. For the most part, they are also consistent with one another. However, the Bible is different in several ways.

First of all, it is a collection from many writers, so that it cannot be evaluated as to its validity and genuineness as a whole. Each part has to be judged for itself. The habit of publishing these writings in one volume clouds the issue. It is as though the Qur’an, a collection of both weak and strong ahadith, and the Arabian Nights were published all in one volume. That would not detract from the validity of the Qur’an, but it would present some problems.

Those problems are the ones we meet in the Bible. Secondly, the Bible is uneven in transmission.