Understanding Islam A Guide for the Judaeo-Christian Reader

This monumental study examines issues of anthropomorphism in the three Abrahamic Faiths, as viewed through the texts of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur’an. Throughout history, Christianity and Judaism have tried to make sense of God. While juxtaposing the Islamic position against this, the author addresses the Judeo-Christian worldview and how each has chosen to framework its encounter with God, to what extent this has been the result of actual scripture and to what extent the product of theological debate, or church decrees of later centuries and absorption of Hellenistic philosophy. Shah also examines Islam’s heavily anti-anthropomorphic stance and Islamic theological discourse on Tawhid as well as the Ninety-Nine Names of God and what these have meant in relation to Muslim understanding of God and His attributes. Describing how these became the touchstone of Muslim discourse with Judaism and Christianity he critiques theological statements and perspectives that came to dilute if not counter strict monotheism. As secularism debates whether God is dead, the issue of anthropomorphism has become of immense importance. The quest for God, especially in this day and age, is partly one of intellectual longing. To Shah, anthropomorphic concepts and corporeal depictions of the Divine are perhaps among the leading factors of modern atheism. As such he ultimately draws the conclusion that the postmodern longing for God will not be quenched by pre-modern anthropomorphic and corporeal concepts of the Divine which have simply brought God down to this cosmos, with a precise historical function and a specified location, reducing the intellectual and spiritual force of what God is and represents, causing the soul to detract from a sense of the sacred and thereby belief in Him.

This is the thoroughly researched response to the Christian offensive against Islam in India. This book lucidly reviews the authenticity of the Bible and succinctly summarises the main errors, distortions, and contradictions in and between the Old and New Testaments of the King James Version. Furthermore, the doctrine of the Trinity is refuted; a doctrine that Isa (AS) never taught.

This book, internationally recognized as one of the most authoritative and objective studies of the Bible, was originally written in Arabic under the title Izhar-ul-Haq (Truth Revealed) by the distinguished 19th-century Indian scholar, Rahmatullah Kairanvi, and appeared in 1864. The book was subsequently translated into Urdu, and then from Urdu into English by Mohammad Wali Raazi.

This Book Contains among four Parts as Following:

Part 1

The Book of The Bible
Part 2

Contradictions and Errors in The Biblical Text
Part 3

Distortion and Abrogation in The Bible
The Trinity Refuted
Part 4

Proof of The Divine Origin of The Qur’an and The Authenticity of The Hadiths
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​Arabic Version of This Book is also available

Maulana Rahmatullah Kiranvi was born in India in 1818 CE. He was a great Sunni Hanafi scholar. He learned Arabic and Persian. Later he moved to Delhi where he studied different disciplines including mathematics and medicine. Working as a Mufti and Sharia teacher, he founded a religious school in Kariana.

In 1837 the Church Mission Society appointed Karl Gottlieb Pfander, described by Eugene Stock as “perhaps the greatest of all missionaries to Mohammedans”, to Agra in Northern India, where in 1854 he engaged in a famous public debate with leading Islamic scholars.

Maulana Kairanvi’s intention in his book (Izharul Haq) was first of all to show that the Bible cannot in any way be considered as a directly revealed book. He does this very effectively by means of his voluminous and authoritative knowledge of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. He demonstrates beyond doubt that the Books of the Old and New Testaments have been altered, almost beyond recognition, from their original forms. The work is even more notable in the light of subsequent Jewish and Christian scholarship and the various discoveries that have since been made in this field which all bear out the truth of Kairanvi’s thesis.

In the wake of the manifest inauthenticity of the Bible, Maulana Rahmatullah goes on to demonstrate by contrast the indisputable and absolute authenticity of the Qur’an and the Prophethood of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah, may peace and blessing of Allah be upon him.