Showing posts with label Quran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quran. Show all posts

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Of Kings And Prophets a Biblically-themed network television

On Tuesday, March 8 at 10PM a Biblically-themed network television, called Of Kings And Prophets, debuted on ABC.

Thirty years after Ronald Reagan stated:
 “Religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.” 
 a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew found it time to join together to do what many in Hollywood deemed impossible: launch a Biblically-themed network television show about the collision of politics and religion that would appeal to both faith-based and secular audiences.

The makers of the show want to be faithful to the Bible and show people the Work of God. They say
In being faithful to the scriptures, we decided not to shy away from the sexuality and violence that is either implied or explicit in the text. To do so, would sanitize the reality of the biblical time and place, while at the same time bypassing important parallels that we still confront and struggle with today. We made this choice to open a conversation about how one reconciles faith with the realities of the world—whether in ancient Israel or in the contemporary U.S.
It seems there has to be some violence shown in the show.
We assumed we might be met with some resistance from Biblical literalists, as there is always the chance when dealing with religious material that faith-based audiences might negatively react to our interpretation of scriptural inconsistencies.
Surprisingly though, the most vitriolic criticism has not come from faith-based viewers, but from secular media outlets and bloggers, many of whom argued that the war, violence and brutality depicted in the show would alienate religious viewers. Clearly, these reviewers are unfamiliar with the Bible.
Today we hear also lots of people criticising the Koran and Muslims because they would keep to all sorts of cruel stories. But those complaining about those violent stories do forget or do not know that those same stories can be found in the Jewish as well as the Christian Bible.

People should be aware that
The world of the Old Testament, as described in the Bible, is often brutal and violent—a world where slavery and rape were the victor’s prerogative, and genocide was an accepted approach to foreign policy. The faithful know this better than anyone.
It are often the kafir or non-believers and those who do not know the religious texts who go in attack against one or the other religion. In Christendom we also have lots of people who have taken Jesus as their god instead of believing what Jesus and God say about each other. Many of those so called Christians do not know the other true Christians, who in Christianity proclaim only One True God, the God of Abraham, like the God of the Jews and the God of Muslims.
Often it our those Christians who keep to a three-headed god do not come to see Who the God is of the Holy Scriptures and do not realise how the whole world shall come to get to know the Only One True God, Allah, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, Who is One God of gods and Host of hosts, greater than and above all gods.

The makers of the show are devoted to their respective faiths, and passionate about their artistry. They say
That’s why we are convinced that if the entertainment industry fails to show faith-based programming, we will miss out on opportunities to explore and understand the rich values and moral complexities that exist at the heart of our religious texts.
And conclude:
It is our hope that secular critics will understand that it is vital to our fabric as a nation to explore our faith through art—to let our values, morals and faith serve as scaffolding for our creativity. That’s what we have tried to do with Of Kings And Prophets.
But after just two episodes ABC has decided to cancel its biblical drama Of Kings and Prophets.
The move came after the show received low ratings and sponsors were pressured to pull their advertising.
The show attempted to tell the story of King David’s ascent to the throne and King Saul’s demise. While an exciting premise, ABC failed to deliver a product that resonated with most viewers. Of Kings and Prophets downplayed religious themes in favor of sex, violence, and intrigue for entertainment value.
ABC also took plenty of artistic licenses and made some odd character choices. For example, the prophet Samuel was portrayed as a jealous, bloodthirsty, and senile old man who misrepresented the will of Elohim. Samuel ordered Saul to annihilate the Amalekites seemingly out of spite, not because God wanted it.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

Koran fragments found in UK library are among world's oldest, says university

The University of Birmingham in central England may be the proud owner of fragments of one of the world's oldest surviving copies a Koran manuscript which may even have been written by someone who knew Prophet Mohammad, researchers said on July 22nd.

Muslim tradition says the prophet received the revelations of the Koran  between 610 and 632 — but it wasn't written down immediately. The first leader of the community after Muhammad's death, Caliph Abu Bakr, ordered the book to be written and it was completed by the third leader, Caliph Uthman, in 650.

Radiocarbon dating indicated that the parchment folios were at least 1,370 years old, which would make them one of the earliest written forms of the Islamic holy book in existence.
UK university unearths ancient Quran fragments

The manuscript was part of the university's collection of 3,000 Middle Eastern documents which was acquired in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in Iraq.

His trips to acquire the manuscripts were funded by Quaker philanthropist Edward Cadbury, whose family made their fortune in chocolate, to raise the status of Birmingham as an intellectual centre for religious studies.
"The parts of the Koran that are contained in those fragments are very similar indeed to the Koran as we have it today,"
David Thomas, professor of Christianity and Islam, said.
 "This tends to support the view that the Koran that we now have is ... very close indeed to the Koran as it was brought together in the early years of Islam,"

"(These fragments) give us glimpses into potentially how something which we now call the Koran might have been used in this early period and how it might have been recorded,"

said Sajjad Rizvi, Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.


The leaves, held in the university's Mingana Collection, contain parts of chapters 18 to 20, written with ink in an early form of Arabic script known as Hijazi.

"This is indeed an exciting discovery,"

said Muhammad Isa Waley, lead curator for Persian and Turkish manuscripts at the British Library in London.
"A lot of people from Birmingham and all over the country will love to see it,"
said Muhammad Ali, the administrator at Birmingham Central Mosque.

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Tuesday 23 September 2014

Quran can convert to Christianity

That the holy Quran can convert people to Christianity has been said already previously by former Muslims who became Christian. Recently also a former Muslim imam convert to Christianity and believes that God protected him from death threats and torture at the hands of his family members.

Mario Joseph, a former imam who shared the story of his conversion and subsequent persecution with the HM Television program “Changing Tracks,” broadcast by the EUK Mamie Foundation run by the Home of the Mother religious community, got the English-language interview, first posted in April 2014, by now has more than 250,000 views on YouTube.

Mario Joseph got onto this world because his mother rejected doctors’ advice to abort him when she had an infected womb during pregnancy. After his birth she dedicated him to God. Studying the Quran, he noticed that the name of Jesus was mentioned more often than the name of Islam’s prophet Mohammed and that Mary, known in Arabic as Mariam, was the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran. In Islam, Mary is recognized as a perpetual virgin who was conceived without sin.

Mario Joseph decided to accept Jesus, which was not happily received by his parents, who found they had to punish him. He was bound and deprived of food and water for several days and his brother forced him to drink urine as a punishment. The lack of food and water affected him severely, he recalled, adding that after as many as 20 days, his father entered his cell, choked him and threatened him with a knife unless he renounced Jesus.

“I knew my dad well that he would kill me,”
Mario Joseph said.

“When I knew that it was my last moment… I thought, ‘Jesus died, but He came back. If I believe in Jesus and die, I too may get my life’.”

At that point he felt energized, pulled his father’s hand down, and cried out Jesus’ name. His father then fell down and was cut severely by his own knife, causing him to foam at the mouth, Mario Joseph said. When family members took his father to the hospital, they forgot to lock the room.

The young man then ran out and caught a taxi. The driver was a Christian and helped get him food and drink.

“That day, really I understood, my Jesus is alive even now. When I called him for my need, he saved me.”

Mario Joseph found a Catholic retreat center in India, where he could stay and give talks in various languages.

He took the name “Mario,” a male version of Mary in Italian. He also took the name Joseph for Mary’s spouse.

Mario Joseph said he did not expect that he would still be alive 18 years after his conversion. He said people are still trying to kill him, and his parents held a mock funeral ceremony for him to signify that he was an outcast. On the mock grave, they marked as his death date the date of his baptism.

Although he has had no contact with his family members, he prays for them and believes that “God can touch them within a moment.”

Even if they never accept Christianity, he explained,
 “I’m always saying ‘Jesus, please take them to heaven’.”

This imam former Muslim imam may have found Jesus, and found many things in Catholicism where he found himself at ease.

It is strange he came to accept the Trinity and even came to do worship of the human being Mary. For such conversions Muslims are very afraid, but if some of their Muslim brothers and sisters would come to see who Jesus really is, and what the Plan of God is with humanity, they should not be so much afraid.

I do invite Christians and Muslims to come and look at the Quran and Bible verses which are presented to come to understand both writings better and see the similarities and come to see where certain Quran  verses can lead tot and how certain teachers can twist the words of those holy books.

Come and have a look at the series Quran and Bible verses comparison:

Quran versus older Holy Writings of Divine Creator

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Quran quotes

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