Customer Reviews

Jesus: Prophet of Islam

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I had first heard of the Council of Nicea, in which belief in the Trinity was made Church doctrine, from a (former) Rome-trained priest in Catholic school. This book goes into much more detail, and is an easy read. All history is fascinating, but the history of religion is especially important. After all, religion is supposed to be the guiding force in the life of the adherent. The author really did his homework, and anyone who wishes to deny that just has to get some of the books mentioned in the bibliography. A good book for anyone interested in Jesus, even if they skipped over references to him in the Qur'an.

after many years of studying christianity, i feel that this book is very accurate and well researched. it is in agreement with nearly all aspects of christian academia and basically sums up the evolution of christianity using well documented facts and easy to follow explanations. as a person who has spent a considerable amount of time in the field of christian and islamic study, i must say that the author has summed so many years of my research in this excellent book. i recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning basic facts about the evolution of christianity and how it affected those who came in contact with it. jazakam Allahu khair brother rahim for your dedication.

I put a lot of care in to my last edit of this review yet it didn't get posted for some strange reason. I will try my best to replicate what I did in the last edit and hope it gets posted this time.

This book consists of 10 chapters which are mostly historical.

Chapter 1, "The Unitarian View and Christianity" argues that based on historical proof that Christianity was from its beginning just as monotheistic as Islam and Judaism. It also gets into how the belief in trinity was merely based on a historical decision in 325 A.D.

"A Historical Account of Jesus" is the title of the second chapter which gets into what Jesus actually looked like and anything else of interest that has been written about him. The chapter quotes The Bible, The Qur'aan and some Hadith.

The next chapter which is on "The Gospel of Barnabas" is a short survey on this Gospel which is said to be the only surviving Gospel written by a disciple of Jesus. Since the Gospel of Banabas contradicts The Qur'aan, I find it a little bit puzzling as to why so many Muslims try to use it in their arguments.

Another book of interest like the Gospel of Banabas is called "The Shepherd of Hermas" which is the topic of Chapter 4. The Shepherd was written between 88 and 97 AD and because of its affirmation of Divine Unity as opposed to trinity, all copies were ordered to be destroyed after the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.

Chapter 5 discusses "Barnabas and the Early Christians". This chapter quotes The Bible extensively and talks about how the earliest followers of Jesus and Barnabas were not much different.

The next chapter titled "Early Unitarians in Christianity" is a compilation of short bios of the earliest Unitarians from 130 A.D. to 336 A.D.

Chapter 7 ("Later Unitarians in Christianity") is in the same format as the previous chapter except that the bios are of Unitarians from 1511 - 1842.

"Christianity Today" basically discusses how destorted the Christianity has become today since the 325 A.D Council of Nicea.

Chapter 8 simply quotes various verses from The Qur'aan were Jesus is mentioned.

The last chapter is called Jesus in Hadith and Muslim traditions, yet not everything in this chapter is from authentic Muslim sources. Although not all of the Hadith mentioned may be strong, some of them are quite interesting and teach valuable lessons.

Get the new edition which includes information by Ahmad Thompson (Yellow cover book).

A very interesting book that walks you through religious history and keeps the reader mesmerized at every step. It traces the life of Jesus, his followers, his message and at the end using history relates it back to verses in the Quran. It's amazing how well the puzzle fits! Anyone who wants to know more about Jesus should attempt to trace the historic Jesus and will find history is not what we are taught today. In fact it has systematically been surpressed. So many have been tortured giving up their lives to uphold what they believed was true. No one wants to mention these facts today.

I encourage you to read "The Bible The Quran and Science" by Maurice Bucaille before reading this book. It really helps put the history described here in much better perspective.

This is one of the best books I've read on the history of christianity and the evolution of biblical literature. It refers extensively to scholarly research and is fairly unbiased with regard to the history of early christianity, contrary to the suggestion one might get by the title of the book. It could have been better titled as the History of Unitarian Christianity had it not been for the last chapter which quotes references to Jesus from the Islamic Literature. The Book is a must read for all Christians and Muslims alike to uncover the mysterious shroud surrounding the Life of Christ and the history of Christianity.

When I realized that this book was used in many other researches as a reference, I have decided to read it. Actually, I found it rational and accurate in listing true historical facts.Perhaps more details are needed in some places, but I think the writer intended not to fall in long historical stories. After reading this book, I have been motivated to read other valuable books mentioned in his bibliographie. I found him accuracte in quoting from those references.

This book clears all the questions,and confussions , not only about the nature and history of Christianity but also of Islam.It is amazing how,the truth has been corrupted and twisted by Romans(Council of Nicia)and how the true,teaching of Jesus and many other eye-witness accounts has been systematically destroyed. I found this book to be rational and accurate, and worth reading.It has solve for me all the mysteries surrouded with the life of Jesus and many more facts which was hidden till now.

I was born to a Catholic family, baptized as Catholic and graduated from a Catholic school. All the theology I learned I learned from books written by Catholic writers and theologians. That's where the problem lies. A Catholic writer or theologian cannot be critical to the theology set forth by Vatican under pain of excommunication. That is why I find this book by Muhammad 'Ata ur-Rahim very informative. In the same vein, if I were to research on theology that lies deep into the beliefs of Islam, I would prefer reading books written by an outsider to Islam.

This is truly an amazing account of how Christianity, which was essentially a monothiestic religion, preached by Jesus son of Maryam, came to include such things as Trinity and Original Sin etc. You'll learn how much common ground there is between Islam and Christianity and how much Muslims honor Jesus son of Maryam (peace be upon him).

Unless they study comparative religion, most Christians are unaware that Jesus and Mary feature in Islam. They may also assume that Christians have always believed in the theology of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism: belief in the Trinity and salvation by the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. All of these assumptions are incorrect.

The book starts with a historical account of Jesus and the early Christians. It discusses the relationship of St Paul with the disciples and the radical changes that St Paul made to the practices taught by Jesus. It then covers the theological disagreements between early Christians and how belief developed that a place in heaven came from redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus and not from living a good life in accordance with the laws of God as taught by Moses, the other prophets and Jesus. The book explains how the arguments between the early Christians were resolved through the exercise of state power by the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicaea. It also covers how the text of the New Testament was decided and two books excluded from it, The Gospel of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas.

Although well worth reading, the book could be improved. In this 1996 edition, Ahmad Thomson adds to the original written 1977 text of Muhammad `Ata'ur-Rahim. However the early part of the book contains some imperfect English, presumably because `Ata'ur-Rahim was not a native English speaker. There is extensive coverage of the history of Unitarianism in the middle of the second millennium which is interesting to read but not relevant to the title of the book. There is also no need to reprint verbatim all of the verses in the Quran which mention Jesus since they are readily available elsewhere. Instead the book should concentrate on the key Islamic messages and provide the Quranic authority for them; the same applies to the chapter on Hadith which mention Jesus. Overall, it would be a much better book if the length was reduced to about 50%-75% of the current version by rigorous editing.