Mathematical Patterns In The Quran

In this debate, Jay Smith destroys the very old Muslim claim that the Quran is unchanged.  Jay asserts the Quran that we have today is from 1924 and produced in Cairo:

https://youtu.be/fWHV9VnOJtc

In a previous debate Shabir Ally was willing to defend the Quran manuscripts, but now he at least twice declines to defend the older editions of the Quran, and bypasses a discussion of how the 1924 Quran is related to what Mohammed recited.
Instead he talks about mathematical patters in the Quran of today:

[1]
https://youtu.be/fWHV9VnOJtc?t=16m0s

What we look at is, the Quran that we hold in our hands today, regardless of the history,
because we can discuss that in detail and sometimes we get lost in the detail.
But when we pick up a copy of the Quran today, what academics usually refer to as the Egyptian edition of the Quran
[16:28] that is widespread, printed in Median and circulated for free,
we find that things in this Quran are arranged in mathematical patterns...

[2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWHV9VnOJtc&feature=youtu.be&t=53m40s

I want to look at the Quran as we have it now...
and say that, regardless of all of the history that Jay has talked about,
which requires some discussion and investigation, let's look at this book itself,
and ask, is there anything in this book that indicates its divine origins...

Are these "patterns" really a miracle?

For at least as long as Muslims have had the "99 names of Allah", there was a culture of counting words in the Quran.  This is as old as the rosary-like prayer beads they use.

If Muslims were motivated to find the "mathematical patterns" in the Quran that Shabir Ally presented, then who is to say that they did not deliberately put them in in 1924?

The bottom line is that there is nothing in the Quran that was not capable of being constructed in 1924.

  If they were making claims about 20 digit prime numbers, that would be one thing, but all they are claiming is just simple arithmetic and science that was well-known at the time.


The Cairo edition is not a miracle by 1924 standards, and Jay Smith points out that it may not even be a miracle by any standard.
Here he shows that patters of this sort are commonly found with enough effort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWHV9VnOJtc&feature=youtu.be&t=1h50m40s

Also, it is a a good thing that Allah disguised the Quran as the sayings of someone who was ignorant of the Bible (5:116-117), lest the kuffars benefit from all the scientific insights in it and win all the Nobel prizes in science, rather than the Muslims.

http://simpleargumentsversusislam.blogspot.com/2014/08/islams-intellectual-contributions-to.html

Also, what was the evidence for the Quran before 1924?

Why were these gospels not written in the life of Jesus?

Why were these gospels not written in the life of Jesus?

Jesus is "the First and the Last, the One who was dead and came to life"
-- (Revelation 2:8).  Jesus is not Dead!  After he died on the cross, he rose again and kept right on ministering!

Jesus rose again and spoke to many people (1 Cor 15, Luke 24: 13)
The Book of Revelation was partly dictated to John, and partly revealed to John in a vision.

Why were they not written in Aramaic the language he and the people spoke and in which he preached?

How do you know what language Jesus spoke in? The LXX, which was the Bible that was used in his day was in Greek, and all the people in Jesus' day knew that language.  If the scriptures were read in Greek, then it is more likely that religious conversations would be in Greek.

In the Book of Revelation, mentioned above, Jesus describes himself like this:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
--Revelation 1:8.
The words Alpha and Omega are Greek distinctly words.

Why there are so many different gospels, every denomination has its own?

The word Gospel can refer to either the teaching about how Jesus paid the price for our sin, or it can refer to the four (books) biographies that were written about the life of Jesus.
All Christian denominations use the same four biographies of Jesus.

Why the gospel needs to be written and rewritten?

Every local church wanted to have copies of these gospels, so they copied them and gave them to each other.  Sometimes they translated them into their own language, like Latin or Syriac.  There are about 5,800 manuscripts in the Greek language that we have today, and with the translations we have around 24,000 manuscripts (these are the numbers that Josh McDowell commonly cites).  The Bible of today comes from careful study of these manuscripts.

Why the newer editions are written by human beings who use their bias in it. Why you don't see the way Christianity is today was not taught by Jesus.

We are able to  know around what year each of these manuscripts was written because every time period had subtle changes in script style.  If any human were to have put changes into any of their copies of their gospels, they would not have been able to make their changes appear in all the manuscripts everywhere.  Special scholars, called "textual critics", do nothing but study the small changes that exist between manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text.
At no time were all Bible manuscripts in the hands of one person or group.  Nobody would ever have been able to change the Bible.

How much adjustment to the text of the Bible comes from textual critic scholars?  The 1611 King James version (translation) was produced from about 12 manuscripts.  400+ years and 5788 manuscripts later, the King James version translation is still used by many people.

In Christianity we call a translation that was done by a committee a "version".  If one person does it, it is called a "translation".

ALSO: note that it is not true that Jesus did not bring his own book.  In fact, he did bring the book of Revelation to John his disciple.  John signed his name in it (it is not anonymous).
It is the only book in the New Testament that contains a blessing for the reader:

"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it."
--Revelation 1:3

Misinformation and lies by Yusuf Estes

This page shows various lies and disinformation by Yusuf Estes.
The last video on this page is absolutely devastating.

Can God have a Son? (Part 2 of 2) Former Christian Preacher Yusuf Estes
https://youtu.be/EkuZ1uW6Vq0?t=2m24s

First of all, and, this is very important to know, that their scriptures were not revealed in the English language,

so it's very unfair to have a dialogue talking about translations of something
that you know good and well there's no way that was it was ever in English language.
So you must immediately now go back to something that you translated from.
If you go back to the Latin, if you want to talk about the Latin translations,
or the translations to English from Latin you can immediately find serious problems
even if you all the way back to the time and Jerome when he did the Latin Vulgate
because this as good-- as an historical document is a fabulous thing-- but as far as being 100 percent accurate,
uh.. the Catholic Church themselves said we would never use this as the actual reference point for the Bible,
but it is a historical document, and a great document it is; there's no doubt about it.


What does the Latin Vulgate have to do with anything????

What we wanna say here now is that the Bible
as it came in the original form
doesn't exist today. Now, that should not be evidence for somebody to give up their faith and walk away.
I don't want that;
I've seen it happen to some of the scholars.
In fact most of the scholars, when they get to that point they just give up and say okay,
I'll be a Bible Scholar but I'm not going to be a Christian anymore. And one in
of the case in points that we've talked about in some of your other programs,
for those who didn't know it, Bart uh.. Eron is his name, was a
real born again --I guess-- Christian believing in the Bible as the absolute positive Word of God
and studied at The Moody Bible Institute here in Chicago
but then when he goes off to Princeton and learns from the archaeological..
finds the real manuscripts with a hands-on application
he says none of this is the real deal anymore we've been lied to!.....
[2:34]

Most Scholars, when they hear what Princeton teaches, stop being Christian?????


~~~~

Here David Wood shows how Yusuf Estes obfuscates on what the Quran teaches about killing Christians and Jews.

Yusuf Estes On violence and terrorism!
https://youtu.be/gQZN7Ikijo8


Yusuf Estes On violence and terrorism! 2
https://youtu.be/Fjz9ABNulY8

~~~~

In this video, Yusuf Estes either does not understand the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, or is misrepresenting it:

Does yusuf Estes know anything about Christianity?
https://youtu.be/KeIF9vli_To

~~~~

Dr. James White produced an amazing series of eight videos about misrepresentations of the Trinity by Yusuf Estes

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 1
https://youtu.be/b_hngrtfChI

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 2
https://youtu.be/8YamAD7Uhmc

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 3
https://youtu.be/2dRSpJAyrJA

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 4
https://youtu.be/ZWBk_XhFZfM

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 5
https://youtu.be/ZgISCRXECSw

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 6
https://youtu.be/PfANSmIw0mI

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 7
https://youtu.be/bFHl6wHjI6Q

Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 8 (Conclusion)
https://youtu.be/BWFStI16WQk


~~~~


Yusuf Estes and the lies about embryology
http://rationalislam.blogspot.com/2012/09/yusuf-estes-and-lies-about-embryology.html

~~~~

This shows deliberate lies and deception by Yusuf Estes (must watch!!!):

The Deen Show Deception 2 - Yusuf Estes lies about Muhammad's marriage to Aisha
https://youtu.be/eF7oUYsh7Vg

Can God Have a Son? +

Muslims object to of the phrase "son of God". This is because, in reading the Quran, you would think that Christians believe that Jesus is the Biological son of God the Father.  For example:

He neither begets nor is begotten.
--Surah 112:3

This may be the most popular of all Muslim objections to Christianity.  You need to be prepared for this.

Yes, Jesus is called the "Son of God".  In fact, he is the unique (monogenes) son of God (John 3:16).

The phrase "son of God" applies not just to Jesus, but to potentially anyone:

But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
--John 1:12

So the word, "son" is clearly intended as symbolic. Even the Quran admits that the word "son" can have symbolic meaning as 2:177 uses the phrase "son of the road" to mean someone who travels a lot.

Muhammed in the Bible: Did Jesus predict Muhammad? *

A common claim some  Muslims make is that the Comforter John 14:16 is a reference to Mohammed:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
--John 14:16 (KJV)

It takes a fairly knowledgeable  Muslim to be able to support this claim, and if they know that much, they should be smart enough to know that it is nonsense.  Jesus is not going to pray to the Father to send someone who will then deny the Gospel.  Christians won't find this convincing, so this claim is really for the benefit of  naïve Muslims.  So I suggest, from my experience, it is of no use to answer a Muslim who is making this argument, but for someone who has heard someone else say this it is a good opportunity for a mini-sermon.

The Holy Spirit is found throughout the Gospel of John from start to finish:

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
--John 1:32 (KJV)

(that is, as gently as a dove, not in the form of a dove).

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit
--John 3:8 (KJV)

(The word for spirit in Greek is pneuma, meaning wind, breath on spirit.)


Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
--John 4:21-26 (KJV)


On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
--John 7:37-39 (KJV)

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
--John 15:26-27 (KJV)

(If you can get the Muslim you are talking with to admit that Islam allows "Taqiyya", which is permitted lying, then Mohammed is not a Spirit of Truth.)

Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
--John 16:7 (KJV)

What about John 16:12-14?  Do they refer to Mohamed?

12 “I have yet many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 
13 However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming. 
14 He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.
--John 16:12-14  (KJV)


(In verse 13 we read "whatever he hears, that shall he speak".  This is sometimes used  to justify the claim that these verses apply to Mohammed.  However, it is also plausible that they are one of the few verses that explain some of the inner workings of the Holy Spirit.  He is not a rogue spirit, but submitted to the will of the Father, just as Jesus is:

"I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don't seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me."
--John 5:30   (KJV)

(After the resurrection, Jesus blew on his disciples to receive the Holy Ghost, as God had:
the LORD...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
--Gen 2:7)

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
--John 20:22   (KJV)

Jesus Said You Must Be Born Again

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

When Jesus spoke of "water" and "spirit", there is only one Old Testament passage that this could refer to.  When Nicodemus does not understand this, he gets this response:

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”

Here is the passage in Ezekiel chapter 36 that Jesus was referring to:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
--Ezekiel 36:25-27

Christian Prayer and Muslim Prayer

One of the five Pillars of Islam is to pray five times a day.

However in Christianity we are to be in constant communion with God:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
--1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Obama's Muslim Attacks on The Bible

Watch Obama speaking at the "Call To Renewal conference 2006:"

http://youtu.be/wVt59yd2W0U?t=12s

To the untrained eye, this may appear to be just normal anti-Bible rhetoric, but we recognize these as characteristically Muslim arguments.

Here are the points that Obama brings up, and how they appear in Muslim polemics:

Notice Obama asks "if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America..."
What Christian thinks like this?  A real Christian would ask, "what if everyone converted to Christianity in the United States."  Expelling is more part of the Muslim mindset:

It has been narrated by 'Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.
--Sahih Muslim Book 19 Number 4366

• Obama mentions Matthew Chapter 5, which mentions turning the other cheek.

Muslims are often embarrassed that their Quran is lacking in benevolence, so they like to claim that "turning  the other cheek" does not work.

Islam - The Religion of Peace and Love?
http://youtu.be/pXgs-txgl30?t=3m0s

• Obama says that Christians don't know their own Bible:

Here is Yousef Estes, a famous Muslim polemicist saying the same thing as Obama, that Christians don't know their own Bible:

https://youtu.be/3NB0n5nPP90?t=12m9s

Also, from the same video:

https://youtu.be/3NB0n5nPP90?t=26m2s

• Christians don't have a viable form of government

Muslims are proud of the fact that Islam is a complete way of life, as well as a political system.  There is nothing similar in Christianity. Muslims view this as an advantage.
Jay Smith mentions this in a video:

Jay Smith - 7 Areas Christianity Always Wins
https://youtu.be/fbL5O0u_xbk?t=1h3m41s

Intro: What makes this Blog Different? *

Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.
--1 Peter 3:15

I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
--1 Cor 2:22

 Saul dressed David with his clothing. He put a helmet of brass on his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. 
...
David said to Saul, “I can’t go with these; for I have not tested them.” Then David took them off.
--1 Sam 17:38-39

In this blog I am showing you my way of sharing the  Gospel with Muslims.  I have selected and designed  this material to be easy for you to learn, and yet very effective.

If you learn this, you should be able to give a reasonable defense of your Christian faith against even the toughest Muslims you will encounter.

What motivates my approach is that many Muslims have rejected the Gospel because they have heard many carefully crafted lies, distortions, and half-truths about Christianity.  I have spent much time collecting the objections that Muslims have heard, and providing you with answers to these.

There are so many positive reasons to believe the Gospel that by articulating these reasons, and by answering the disinformation Muslims have learned, you should be able to present a persuasive case to just about any Muslim you may encounter.

In contrast, a lot of the other material on I see out there suffers from one or more of these drawbacks:

Too complicated.
Most material I seem to come across is by top apologists, for other top apologists (not for lay people).  They quote extensively from the Quran and Hadith (Muslim traditions).  My material here has a MUCH more shallow "learning curve", but is still very effective

Too ecumenical or "Interfaith":
There is a lot more to evangelism than just inviting your Muslim friend to a bible study.  Unless you are equipped to talk to Muslims, you will just have a useless clash of prejudices, with much heat and noise generated.  If the Muslim you invited is well-trained, you can end up worse off in your beliefs, not him.
One "ministry" is disseminating material that is so weak that they may as well be sponsored by the Saudis.  I believe they are on the whole counterproductive, on top of the fact that they are consuming donations from believers that could be going to useful causes.

Teaches too much about Islam:

There is much to learn so you can talk to Muslims effectively, but learning about Islam itself is not very helpful.  Instead, I show you what Muslims believe about Christianity and I will show you how these beliefs may be grounded in Islam along the way.

Too "Hateful" about Islam:

There are many passages in the Quran and Hadith that most people would find disturbing.
It is certainly  possible to learn to quote passages from Quran, and to be able to do this so well that you can handle the Muslims' well-prepared responses.  I have seen people do this and get good results.  However, it only seems that the training needed to answer Muslims who are well-prepared is not easily available.  Even then, you need to overcome the perception that you are being hateful.  Some of the earliest material like this that I encountered was by Silas on Answering-Islam.org

Too Negative about Islam:

Similarly, you can study about the problems with the Quran, like contradictions and scientific errors.  Keep in mind, however that  if your Muslim friend detects that the foundation of his worldview is threatened, he may respond by erecting mental barriers of prejudice and/or just walk away.  Winning the argent is not the same as persuasion.  Alternatively, you may find that your conversations degenerate into a "tit-for-tat" shouting match that is useless.

My approach:
Leads to friendly, productive and  meaningful conversations using what you already know know, but reconfigured to answer Muslims.

Pastors and teachers who live in areas where Muslims are well-represented can incorporate the material found here in their sermons without any mention of Islam in order to better equip their congregation to answer Muslims they encounter.

For example, rather than proclaiming how Quran verses that show the Quran advocates violence, you can teach like this:

"Love your Neighbor as yourself" 
--Mark 12:30
Jesus said this is the greatest commandment.  Jesus is our greatest prophet and this is the greatest commandment, so nothing can supersede this.  Christianity always has the high moral ground.

How did this blog come about?

All the  polemics here I have actually heard Muslims actually use.  I set out to document these along with effective and simple responses.

Is this effective?  

David did not defeat Goliath with the best weapons that were available at the time, but instead he used what he knew.  In the same way, you can learn to provide good answers to Muslims using what you already know from Church.

Why does this work?

I would like to point you to a video in which Jay Smith talks to John Gilchrist about his experiences countering the polemics of Ahmed Deedat, in South Africa in the 1980's.  Ahmed Deedat is the person who single-hadedly infused into the Muslim culture the set of anti-Christian arguments that are still in use to this day, largely unchanged.  It is hard to overstate his influence on Islam.  He  left many Muslims believing that Christianity could be defeated with the arguments he championed.

However as Gilchrist shows, when the church learned to answer the arguments in that time and place where Deedat taught Muslims, the Muslims soon found that his material was having a counter-producive effect. Christians could answer Deedat's overstated arguments and they gained an avenue to share and discuss the Gospel who brought them up.

Unfortunately, the church everywhere else has come to accept the spread of Islam as inevitable, rather than learning to resist it.

I am inviting you, dear reader to not "roll over and play dead", but answer the Muslim polemics like the church did in South Africa in this video:

John Gilchrist and His debate legacy:
https://youtu.be/12qAj5qdLqs


People who are familiar with books like "Kingdom of the Cults" may have the expectation that to disprove Islam, you need to talk about is wrong with it.  As mentioned above, this can be done, but it takes more time to learn to do this than most Christians will realistically be able to do.  The other way to way to respond to Islam is to show that Christianity is reasonable.  This renders Islam redundant because it sees itself as a correction to Christianity.

Muslims: Armed and Dangerous

Anyone who has been a Muslim for any length of time has been exposed to a lot of anti-Christian polemics that seem convincing.  while some of them just keep this in mind,  others become full-blown anti-Christian "Missionaries" in their community or with wider influence.  Either way, it is the goal of this blog to equip you to turn their polemics into opportunities to share the truth of the Gospel with them and everyone around them, so that in the end the polemics would be dangerous to their own faith.


An apology

Any of the topics covered here could be could fill an entire book by itself, but the purpose of this blog is to be able to give a reasonable defense to the typical Muslim you may encounter.
 Usually you don't need to quote more than two or three verses to show your point.

An appeal

From my personal experience, the material in this blog is useful and effective for explaining and defending the gospel.  And it does it very simply.

If you know any Christians who live in areas where Muslims are well-represented, then please encourage them to read this book.  Anyone going to college will definitely encounter Muslim recruiters, so they need to read this.  If you have opportunity to start a Bible study, you can discuss the material in here and watch the videos cited together.

What Bible Translation am I using?

Unless otherwise indicated, I am quoting from the World English Bible, which is not copyrighted.

However, it turns out that in some ways the field of  Muslim apologetics is tied to the KJV  more than you would expect, because Ahmed Deedat used it.  If you find yourself talking to a Sheikh who says he uses the KJV, then he may be a disciple of Deedat.

What is a Radical Muslim? -

The origin of the word "radical", as well as its primary dictionary definition, refer to the "root" of something:

adjective
1.
of or going to the root or origin; fundamental:

If "radical" Muslims behave in a certain way, that means that they are acting in accordance with the "roots" of Islam.


[This article is in progress]

Trinity: Do Christianity and Islam Have the Same God? *

Does it matter if you believe the Bible or the Quran? Don't all paths lead to God?

This would be nice, but neither Christians nor Muslims believe this.
We believe that Jesus is essential to our salvation.

Jesus said,
 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
--John 14:6

Paul also says there is no other gospel than what he preached:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!

...

As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
--Gal 1:6-9

These are some of the harshest words in the New Testament.

Shouldn't Christians be suspicious if someone claims he received a different gospel from an angel?  But this is how Allah revealed  the Quran!


Question for Muslims:  If the New Testament strongly warns of a different gospel from angels, shouldn't the Quran at least address this point.  As it is, one would think the author of the Quran had no knowledge at of this.

Do Christians and Muslims have the same God?

Some Muslims may claim that we worship the same God as them.  This makes Islam seem closer to our faith, so less of a change from where we are now.  However, the answer is no, and here is why:

Question for Muslims: Is God your Father?

In these well-known verses, Jesus calls God "Father"

Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven.
--Matt 23:9

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...
--Matt 6:9 (KJV)

Jesus' preferred description of God is as a father, used, I am told, about 165 times, and it also occurs in the Old Testament several times.  Jesus even taught is disciples to pray to God as "our Father".

You will not be able to get a Muslim to acquiesce to this description of God as "Father".  Their god is not so personal, and more importantly it brings to mind the idea, motivated by some verses in the Quran, that God begat Jesus by a physical union.

Was Jesus begotten?

Luke writes:
The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.
--Luke 1:35

Even though there has never been any widespread heresy that God "knew" Mary (individuals may believe anything and everything), Muslims have used this verse and "Only begotten" in John 3:16 the KJV to impose this belief into Christianity.  Surprisingly many Muslims believe it,  even those who have lived in the West for many years.

What Is The Mysterious Black Rock In The Muslim Kaba?

Acts 19:23-36 records how Ephesus was the center of Worship of Diana, also known as Artemis.

At last the mayor was able to quiet them down enough to speak. “Citizens of Ephesus,” he said. “Everyone knows that Ephesus is the official guardian of the temple of the great Artemis, whose image fell down to us from heaven. Since this is an undeniable fact, you should stay calm and not do anything rash.

The stone in the Kaba is almost certainly a meteorite, as was the image of Artemis.

A False Statement by Zakir Niak

To a western audience he excuses suppression of the Gospel in Islamic countries, while in to a Muslim audience he justifies it.



Zakir Naik Exposed as a Deceiver:
http://youtu.be/eV96bGZKVTQ

Naik - 25 mistakes in 5 min (6.2)
This presentation by Zakir Niak is full of errors:
http://youtu.be/bk5q9TeGo14

More errors from Zakir Niak
Zakir Naik got caught while telling lie 1:
http://youtu.be/-vs01mWf5Q4


Zakir Naik lies to get people become muslim:
http://youtu.be/cuvOs35PRa8