The sentence in our title is not ours. It is an instruction, given in the Quran, on how a believer is to speak to the people of the earlier scriptures:
"Do not argue with the people of the scripture (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) except in the nicest possible manner - unless they transgress - and say, 'We believe in what was revealed to us and in what was revealed to you, and our god and your god is one and the same; to Him we are submitters.'" (29:46)
Everything in this series follows from that sentence. If the god of the Jew, the Christian and the Muslim is one and the same, then the first thing to establish with any reader is not where we differ but where we already agree. And the Quran says the circle is wider than three communities.
One message, every community
The Quran does not present itself as the scripture of one people. It describes a single message delivered everywhere:
"We have sent a messenger to every community, saying, 'You shall worship GOD, and avoid idolatry.'" (16:36)
"We have sent you with the truth, a bearer of good news, as well as a warner. Every community must receive a warner." (35:24)
"We did not send any messenger before you except with the inspiration: 'There is no god except Me; you shall worship Me alone.'" (21:25)
The content of the message is the same in every place and age, and so is the religion: "He decreed for you the same religion decreed for Noah, and what we inspired to you, and what we decreed for Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: 'You shall uphold this one religion, and do not divide it.'" (42:13)
The Quran names about two dozen messengers, but it refuses to close the list: "We have sent messengers before you - some of them we mentioned to you, and some we did not mention to you." (40:78)
This is why the series can look at India, China, Persia, Greece and Africa without embarrassment. The Quran says every community received a warner and declines to name most of them. So we do not pronounce on whether Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius or Valluvar were among those warners; we neither claim them nor insult them. The honest answer, given by 40:78 itself, is "perhaps". What we can do is read what their communities preserved and ask whether the one message is still visible in it. Text by text, this series will show how often it is.
"The people used to be one community when GOD sent the prophets as bearers of good news, as well as warners." (2:213) Khalifa's footnote to 2:213 adds: "All worshipers of God ALONE, from all religions, are truly united."
What every reader already knows
The Quran goes further than saying every community was taught. It says every human being already knows:
"Recall that your Lord summoned all the descendants of Adam, and had them bear witness for themselves: 'Am I not your Lord?' They all said, 'Yes. We bear witness.' Thus, you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, 'We were not aware of this.'" (7:172)
"Therefore, you shall devote yourself to the religion of strict monotheism. Such is the natural instinct placed into the people by GOD. Such creation of GOD will never change. This is the perfect religion, but most people do not know." (30:30)
The Quran also observes that the idol-worshippers of Mecca believed in the Creator: "If you asked them who created them, they would say, 'GOD.' Why then did they deviate?" (43:87)
That verse sets the real question for the whole series. Belief in one Creator is nearly universal. Worship of Him alone, with nothing and no one set beside Him, is not. The distance between the two is exactly what the Quran asks the people of the scripture to close:
"Say, 'O followers of the scripture, let us come to a logical agreement between us and you: that we shall not worship except GOD; that we never set up any idols besides Him, nor set up any human beings as lords beside GOD.' If they turn away, say, 'Bear witness that we are submitters.'" (3:64)
Notice that 29:46 lists Muslims among the people of the scripture. The gap between believing in GOD and worshipping Him alone is not a charge brought against other religions. It is a test the Quran puts to everyone, including those who carry the Quran.
The method in three steps
The series works in a fixed order, and the order matters more than any single argument.
The first step is common ground. We begin where the reader already stands. From the reader's own scripture, in a translation the reader's own community uses, we show that GOD is one, that He has no image and no partner, that His messengers were men, and that the same prayer, the same law and the same destiny were taught to them. For the Upanishads we use Radhakrishnan, a Hindu; for the Bible, the King James and Revised Standard versions; for the Sikh scripture, the Gurmukhi words themselves. At this stage the Quran is placed beside the other text, never above it. The Quran's own creed is the model:
"Say, 'We believe in GOD, and in what was sent down to us, and in what was sent down to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Patriarchs; and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and all the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them. To Him alone we are submitters.'" (2:136)
The second step is the chain of prophecy. The scriptures do not stand side by side as rivals. Each confirms what came before and announces what comes after. "Subsequent to them, we sent Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the previous scripture, the Torah." (5:46) And Jesus announced one to come: "Recall that Jesus, son of Mary, said, 'O Children of Israel, I am GOD's messenger to you, confirming the Torah and bringing good news of a messenger to come after me whose name will be even more praised (Ahmad).'" (61:6) Behind both stands a covenant: "GOD took a covenant from the prophets, saying, 'I will give you the scripture and wisdom. Afterwards, a messenger will come to confirm all existing scriptures. You shall believe in him and support him.'" (3:81)
The reader is invited to test the chain by the criteria of the reader's own book. Here the series will be slower than the popular literature, because one over-claimed prophecy costs more credibility than ten sound ones earn. Each prophecy text will carry its grade, and the weak ones will be named as weak.
The third step is the Final Testament and its proof. Only now do we point to the Quran as the criterion that confirms and sifts the earlier books: "Then we revealed to you this scripture, truthfully, confirming previous scriptures, and superseding them." (5:48) The same verse tells the communities what to do with their differences: "You shall compete in righteousness." (5:48)
A book that claims to supersede every other book must carry its own proof, and the Quran says it does: "Over it is nineteen." (74:30) The next verse states for whom that number was assigned: "to convince the Christians and Jews (that this is a divine scripture)" (74:31). The proof, in other words, was given for the very readers this series addresses. The series will present it in Khalifa's own published figures and add nothing of its own. For the reader with no scripture, the third step is the Quran's own arguments, which need no scripture: "If there were in them (the heavens and the earth) other gods beside GOD, there would have been chaos." (21:22)
The manner
The Quran fixes not only the order but the tone, and the series is bound by it.
"You shall invite to the path of your Lord with wisdom and kind enlightenment, and debate with them in the best possible manner." (16:125)
"Not equal is the good response and the bad response. You shall resort to the nicest possible response. Thus, the one who used to be your enemy, may become your best friend." (41:34)
"Do not curse the idols they set up beside GOD, lest they blaspheme and curse GOD, out of ignorance." (6:108)
So the series will never mock what a reader holds sacred, and never pretend that agreement can be forced: "There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way." (2:256) Our task is only to deliver: "You shall remind, for your mission is to deliver this reminder. You have no power over them." (88:21–22)
One more rule governs everything we say about other people. The Quran states who will be saved, and we will neither narrow that statement nor widen it:
"Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." (2:62)
"Some have said, 'No one will enter Paradise except Jews or Christians!' Such is their wishful thinking. Say, 'Show us your proof, if you are right.'" (2:111)
What you will find in the series
The fourteen articles follow the three steps in order. The first six establish common ground: the Vedas and Upanishads on the one GOD; the Shema of Moses and of Jesus beside the Quran's four-line creed; the Sikh Mul Mantra and Kabir; the ban on images from the Yajurveda to Exodus to the Quran, and what "avatar" can honestly mean; and the Gospel's own words about Jesus beside the Quran's. The seventh tests the chain of prophecy, graded line by line. The next five show one story, one prayer, one table, one family and one destiny. The last two turn to the Bible's testimony about itself with the Quran's answer, and to the Quran's questions for the person with no scripture.
- Our god and your god is one and the same
- One only, without a second
- Hear, O Israel
- Ik Onkar
- No likeness of Him
- Let Jesus speak
- A prophet like unto thee
- One story
- They fell on their faces
- The same table
- From the same male and female
- Once to die, then the judgement
- The Bible's own testimony — and the Quran's answer
- Were they created from nothing? — the Quran's questions for the person with no scripture
Alongside the familiar scriptures, the series draws on a resource of this project's own: Quran-aligned editions of thirteen older writings from six civilisations, read in the light of the Final Testament. Whatever in them agrees with the worship of GOD alone is kept; what cannot be corrected is left out; the unaltered originals stay in the library beside them. So the reader will meet the Greek Xenophanes, who said that "God is One, the greatest over all beings in heaven and on earth, like mortals neither in form nor in thought" (Quran-aligned edition); the Chinese Mozi on the Will of GOD; the Tamil Tirukkural, which opens with praise of GOD; the Mesopotamian flood story; Abraham and the idols; the scales of judgement. These are offered as confirmation, never as authority. The Quran judges them; they do not judge the Quran.
What to show first
Begin with 29:46 and 3:64, so the listener hears at once that the aim is agreement, not victory. Then show 16:36 and 40:78: every community received a messenger, and the Quran does not claim to know all their names. Then open the listener's own scripture, in the listener's own translation, and read its clearest statement that GOD is one. Only after that read the Quran's matching verse beside it, and let the listener notice the match. Save the chain of prophecy and the proof of 74:30 for later meetings; they rest on the common ground, and they fall if it is skipped.
Where the evidence is strong, and where it is not
A series is only as trustworthy as its weakest claim, and the Quran's rule is strict: "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself." (17:36) We therefore graded every parallel in the project's master document before writing. A parallel is STRONG when the cited text plainly says what we say it says; MODERATE when it needs a reading that we must state out loud; WEAK when it rests on strained etymology, a late or obscure text, a contested translation, or on tradition rather than scripture. The articles use only STRONG and MODERATE material as evidence. A WEAK claim appears only to be named as weak, with the reason.
Readers who know the popular literature will notice what is missing. We do not claim that the Song of Songs names Muhammad; the Hebrew word there is an ordinary noun. We do not cite the Bhavishya Purana, a late and open text. We do not say that John's Gospel once read "Periclytos"; no manuscript does. We do not build on ninety-nine names, or one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets, or the Second Coming, because these come from Hadith, and the Quran asks: "In which Hadith other than GOD and His revelations do they believe?" (45:6) We present no word-count "miracles" and no new findings in the number nineteen; the project reproduces Khalifa's published figures only. We do not treat scientific statements in the Quran as proof; they are illustrations at most, and the proof is the code.
On the crucifixion we use the Quran's words and no theory of our own: "In fact, they never killed him, they never crucified him - they were made to think that they did." (4:157) "Instead, GOD raised him to Him; GOD is Almighty, Most Wise." (4:158) To Jesus GOD said: "O Jesus, I am terminating your life, raising you to Me, and ridding you of the disbelievers." (3:55) Khalifa's footnote to 4:157–158 states the project's position: "Jesus, the real person, the soul, was raised in the same manner as in the death of any righteous person. Subsequently, his enemies arrested, tortured, and crucified his living, but empty, body." The popular "swoon" and "substitution" theories are not the project's position and will not appear in these pages.
Finally, a word about footnotes. Where a Quran verse above carries an asterisk, the printed Authorized English Version attaches a footnote there. Some of those footnotes, such as the one on 35:24, read the verse through the mathematical code and the name of the Messenger of the Covenant. The series reports a footnote as a footnote and never as verse text. The verse itself stands on its own: "Every community must receive a warner." (35:24)
The next article, One only, without a second, reads the Vedas and Upanishads, in a Hindu's translation, beside the four lines of Sura 112.
Sources
- The Final Testament, Authorized English Version (Rashad Khalifa): every Quran quotation is verbatim; "God" is printed GOD as in the printed edition; an asterisk marks an AEV footnote.
- The Sayings of Xenophanes, Quran-aligned edition (Theory of Everything project, from A. Fairbanks 1898), fragment 1.
- The project's master document, One Message, Many Witnesses: §0 (spine and method), ledger rows 0 and 1.38, §12 corrections C2, C3, C10, C14, C16, §13, and the article plan.
- The project's Methodology Document, rules R1–R7, R16, R19–R23, R33–R37.
- Popular presentations consulted: Zakir Naik (IRF), Ahmed Deedat (IPCI), the Submitters' tables.