It is very strange that many Muslims make this claim. Firstly they make the ugly accusation that Christians and the Jews corrupted their scriptures, which is in itself a serious claim that should not be taken lightly. Then they follow up by using these same scriptures to somehow prove that Muhummad is indeed prophesied within the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
So why bother with these 'corrupted' scriptures? There seem to be two reasons
Islam came into existence at around 570 AD, very much a ‘new’ religion in comparison to that of Judaism or Christianity. Even so it is claimed that Adam was a Muslim as was Noah, Abraham and so on, that Islam was in fact present at the time of the beginning of the world. In order to uphold this claim the Qur’an speaks of and recognizes the authority of the Judeo-Christian scriptures as being revelations from God and that the Qur’an is merely a continuation of these scriptures and not a new idea that originated within a predominantly pagan Arabia.
The Qur’an not only refers to the Judeo-Christian scriptures revealed of God but that they also mention the coming of the Prophet Muhummad
"Those who follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet whom they find mentioned in their own (Scriptures) in the Law and the Gospel." Surah 7:157 [2]
"I [Muhummad] am the messenger of Allah unto you, confirming that which that which was (revealed) before me in the Torah, and bringing good tidings of a messenger who cometh after me, whose name is the Praised One (ahmad)" Surah 61:6 [2]It is therefore no wonder that in order to maintain the integrity of the Quran as being revealed by God, many Muslim apologists scour the Jewish and Christian scriptures for signs of their prophet.
The Quran tells us that we should find the following
There have been numerous papers written by Muslim apologists, three of the most recent are by Akabrally Meherally and Misha al Khadi, that attempt to fulfill the above critereon.
"I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like unto the (Moses) and will put my words into his mouth and he shall speak to the all that I command him." Deuteronomy 18:18 [KJV]
Al-Kahdi’s strategy in this section is to use a well known Bible verse which predicts the coming of a prophet after and like Moses, and claim this Prophet is Muhammad. What Al-Kahdi like many other Muslim apologists tend to ignore when trying to reason from the Bible, is that the Bible actually describes the fulfillment of this prophecy by Jesus Christ.
Two verses that are often glossed over is an account from the book of Acts where the Apostle Peter is speaking to fellow Israelites in Jerusalem, about Jesus Christ.
"He [Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for all things to be made new as God announced through his Holy Prophets." Acts 2:21
Both Muslims and Christians both share the unique belief that Jesus now lives in Heaven and will return again to bring salvation to those who follow God’s will. Now let us move on to the following verse, remember in the previous verse Peter was speaking of Jesus and how he was spoken about through the prophets, and so he continues,
"For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God, will send you a prophet just as he sent me and he will be of your own people. You are to obey everything he tells you to do." Acts 2:22
So, the Apostle Peter was in fact quoting Deuteronomy 18:15 and claiming fulfillment of this prophecy by Jesus.
One of the attributes that Al-Kahdi sets aside for this prophet is that God’s words will be ‘put into his mouth’. Al-Kahdi’s reasoning like so many other Muslim apologists goes along the following lines.
The Quran is the ‘word of God’, Muhammad recited the Quran and so this description fits Muhammad. He then goes on to quote extensively from the Quran as proof.
Al-Kahdi makes a staggering assumption, that is Christians believe the Qur’an to be the word of God, they do not. So to argue the Christian side from an Islamic view point achieves nothing.
Even if Christians were for a moment, to take the Islamic viewpoint and assume the Qur’an was the Word of God we shall see that this description does not uniquely describe the prophet that Moses spoke of.
For God said to the prophet Jeremiah;
"Behold, I have put my words into your mouth" Jeremiah 1:9
Jesus is also identified with this special attribute,
"I have given them words from which thou [God] gavest me." John 17:8
So this attribute does not uniquely identify the prophet, let us consider the other attributes that Al Kahdi proposes.
In order to support his case for Muhammad, Al-Kahdi draws upon several similarities between Moses and Muhammad in order to satisfy the pre-requisite that the prophet is ‘like unto thee (Moses)’. So Al-Kahdi lists off several attributes that are common to both Moses and Muhammad, such as the fact that they both had an earthly mother and father, they were both 40 years of age when they started their missions, they married and that they now reside in earthly graves. He then argues that because attributes do not apply to Jesus and so therefore Jesus is not the prophet spoken by Moses. It is true that Jesus did not posses such attributes, which are attributes associated with normal men, but the absence of these attributes go to illustrate how much more of a special position Jesus has over mankind and reveal something of his divinity.
Such attributes could be applied to many of the prophets (David, Solomon etc.), that followed on from Moses, they do not uniquely identify the particular single prophet that Moses was speaking of. In order for us to determine the prophet we need to use attributes that are distinct to Moses.
Another argument Al Kahdi puts forward is that the one promised by God, ‘cannot be a Jew’. He uses a verse from Deuteronomy to support this point, re-reading of the verse however, refutes this theory. First let us consider the argument put forward, from Deuteronomy 34:10
"There has never been a prophet in Israel like Moses." Deuteronomy 34:10
The first thing we notice about this verse is that it comes from the Book of Deuteronomy from the Torah written about 1450 years before the time of Christ. The second thing we notice is that the verse is not prophetic, rather a comment of the history up to that point in time, if it were a prophecy it would read something like
"There never WILL be a prophet in Israel like Moses."
When in fact the verse is simply making a historical comment about what had already passed hence
"There never HAS been a prophet in Israel like Moses." Deuteronomy 34:10
This is only a part of the verse we shall cover its entire meaning later on, in the section entitled ‘The real attributes of the prophet to follow Moses’.
"I will raise up from THEM a prophet like you from among their brethren" Deuteronomy 18:18
From this verse Al Kahdi goes onto state that ‘their brethren’ in the verse above in fact means the brethren of the Israelites as a nation, i.e. the Ishmaelites. He goes further to contend that Muhammad is a descendant of Ishmael and qualifies as being the prophet as he fits the criteria mentioned in the verse above. This is fine, but we are speaking of a Biblical prophecy and we need to ask more importantly, "who does the Bible say ‘their’ and who ‘their brethren’ are"?
The key to understanding what the verse is speaking about is to read it in context with the rest of the text, if we go to the beginning of chapter 18 we read the following;
"The priestly tribe of Levi is not to receive any share of the land in Israel.. they shall have no inheritance amongst their brethren." Deuteronomy 18:1
As we continue to read through the chapter we notice that the priestly tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of Israel is the main subject of what is being spoken of in this chapter. The brethren of the tribe of Levi would be in fact the other 11 tribes of Israel, in this case the other 11 tribes of Israel would receive a share of the land distribution.
Thus in context the verse of Deuteronomy 18:18 can only be logically and contextually interpreted as
"I will raise up for them (the Tribe of Levi) a prophet like you from among their brethren (the other 11 Tribes of Israel)"
The Bible often speaks of the brethren of a tribe being the other 11 tribes of Israel,
"But the Children of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brethren the Children of Israel" Judges 20.13
(Examples taken from Is Muhammad Foretold in the Bible - John Gilchrist)
So in fact we can conclude that there is no Biblical or logical basis for assuming that the brethren mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:18 refers to the Ishmaelites or descendants of Ishmael, rather a descendant from one of the other 11 tribes of Israel other than the tribe of Levi.
However, if we look at the genealogy of Jesus in the gospels we see that Jesus is a descendant from the Israelite tribe of Judah (Luke 3:33, Matt 1:2-3), the tribe of Judah qualifies as the brethren. So we can see that Jesus fits this criteria of the promised prophet not an Ishmaelite as the Muslim apologists would like us to believe.
We know that Moses grew up in Egypt as an exile from his own country, Jesus was also exiled into Egypt where he grew up, Luke 2:13-15. There seems to be no Muslim record or other sources of Muhammad ever having lived in Egypt
As a consequence of Moses’ birth the ruler of the day Pharaoh put out an edict to kill all baby boys, Exodus 1:16.
When Jesus was born the ruler of the day, King Herod also put out an edict to kill all the baby boys, Matthew 1:16.
Moses left Egypt to follow God’s plan, "By faith he forsook Egypt" (Hebrews 11:27)
Jesus left Egypt to follow God’s will, "Out of Egypt I have called my Son" (Matthew 2:15)
Again there seems to be no Muslim or other source that records Muhammad as ever having faced the possibility of being killed at Birth because the ruler of the day had set out an edict to kill all baby boys. Neither do we record of Muhammad leaving Egypt to follow God’s plan for him.
Three more important points that distinguish the mission of Moses from the other prophets recorded in the Taurat can be identified as the following.
1. God spoke to Moses face to face, there was direct contact between Moses and God on a very close level.
"Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend" Exodus 3.11
The Quran also identifies this unique attribute with Moses
"...and Allah spoke directly unto Moses" Quran 4:164 [2]
If we consider Moses’ initial encounter with God the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses is recorded in the Taurat (Exodus chapter 3) and the Quran 20:9-12 [2].
There is no record in the Qur’an of Muhammad meeting God face to face.
2. God confirmed Moses’ prophet-hood by allowing him to perform great miracles and signs, such as the feeding of the people of Israel, and the spectacular parting of the Red Sea.
Although the Hadith may say otherwise, the Qur’an records Muhammad as not performing miracles or signs. In fact when tested by his opponents to produce such a sign his response is to say that if God had willed him to produce such signs he would have done so, but in fact God had not chosen to empower Muhammad with such attributes. It is interesting to note how one challenge even brings Moses into the equation
"Why are not (signs) sent to him, like those which were sent to Moses?" Quran 28:48 [2]
Muhammad did not receive direct revelation from God, rather the Qur’an it is claimed by Muslims was transmitted to Muhammad by the angel Jibril (Gabriel). The Qur’an also does not record Muhammad as mediating a covenant between God and the people of Israel.
These three criterion are summed up in three verses that were touch upon earlier.
"And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, for all the mighty power and all the great and terrible deeds which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel" Deuteronomy 34:10-12
So we now need to consider whether the distinguishing features of Moses’ prophet-hood apply to Jesus or not, and it is important to remember that all three have to present for this prophet to be ‘like unto Moses’.
1. He knew God face to face
The following verse from the Gospel reveals the following special attribute, in speaking of Jesus,
"No one has seen the Father, except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father." John 6:46
The following verse reveals a similar unique office,
"No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Matthew 11:27
This verse tells us not only that Jesus is the one who exclusively knows the Father but he also has the ability to reveal the Father to those that he chooses.
2. Performed miracles and signs to confirm his prophet-hood.
Moses was given powers to control the sea,
"Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind" Exodus 14:21
What do we read of Jesus? he was able to still the sea at Galilee and his disciples response was,
"What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" Matt 8:27
Another great sign that Moses performed was to feed the Israelite people whilst they were on exodus through the desert. Jesus also performed a similar miracle by feeding 5000 people with just five loaves of bread. Jesus was actually queried on this point knowing that Moses had performed such a feat the question was posed,
"What sign do you do that we may see and believe you?" John 6.30
Jesus replied,
"I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." John 6.48-51
3. The Mediator of a covenant between God and his people
The outstanding feature of Moses’ prophet-hood is that a covenant was established between God and his people. In speaking of the new prophet, a new covenant would be established,
After the time of Moses the prophet Jeremiah writes,
"Behold, the days are coming says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah." Jeremiah 31:31
In the book of Hebrews we read,
"Therefore Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant" Hebrews 9:15
The first covenant was sealed with blood,
"Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with these words." Exodus 24:8
In the same way the new covenant is also sealed with blood,
"This cup is the new covenant in my [Jesus’] blood" 1 Corinthians 11:25
After giving such an important prophecy given to Moses God tells the people of Israel one of the major criterion on which to identify the prophet. the warning comes directly after the prophecy,
"How shall we know that the LORD has not spoken?" Deuteronomy 18:20
The answer is in the following verse
"When the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the word does not occur or come true..." Deuteronomy 18:21
There are two criteria, the first one obviously being that the prophecy should come true, the second being that the prophet should speak in God's name.
Quite rightly Al-Kahdi picks up on this point, and in concluding Al-Kahdi makes a big issue about the ‘prophet’ Muhammad using God’s name. He concludes that because every chapter of the Quran (bar one) always begins with the words, "In the name of God..." (Bismillah) that the name of God is being used.
A glaring omission that Al Kahdi seems to make from his reasoning is to ask, what exactly is God’s name?
It was Moses who asked the question when first called by God before the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 3:13), that God revealed his name to be Yahweh (Exodus 3:14-15) sometimes transliterated as Jehovah and is usually written in Bible translations as LORD.
The name is used throughout the Bible up to 6,828 times. There is no record of Muhammad using the name of God within the Quran, so his claim to prophet-hood fails this attribute, and the claim to divine prophecy.
[1] The prophecy of Muhummad in Deuteronomy 18:18 Misha al Khadi
[2] The meaning of the glorious Qur’an - M.M.Pickthall
The Paper being rebutted to, can be referenced by following this link.
In order to understand the prophecies made by the Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of the comforter that he proclaims to follow him (John 14:15-31, 16:1-6), a fair and correct interpretation can only be obtained by noting similar references made with regards to this prophecy in the Bible. It is therefore amazing that our Muslim apologists such as Mr Meherally tend to gloss over biblical references that claim the fulfillment of the aforementioned prophecies of the Paraclete. Acts 1:7-9 and most notably the fulfillment Acts 2:1-4, 2:33, John 20:22, this reference allows for no other interpretation than that of the Holy Spirit being the Paraclete (or comforter) prophecied by Jesus. Any conjectures and twists of the Bible which suggest that these references concern Muhammad are therefore a pointless exercise.
From a Christian position there is no more cause for debate on this subject. We must then assume an Islamic position for this claim and consider the evidences that the Muslims bring forward to suggest that Muhammad was to follow Jesus and why indeed are Muslims so interested in the Biblical prophecies in John 14 & 16.
In order to answer the last point, we need to consider an important verse in the Quran
"Those who follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet whom they find mentioned in their own (Scriptures) in the Law and the Gospel." Surah 7:157 [2]
Islam claims to be the final and perfected religion that supersedes both Judaism and Christianity and so naturally follows on from these religions. The above verse or surah makes this point clear that both the Law or Taurat (Old Testament in the Christian Scriptures) and Gospel or Injil (New Testament in the Christian Scriptures) will bear witness to the primacy of the 'apostle' Muhammad and therefore the religion of Islam. The claim here is a very important one, the authority that Muhammad has been given is that he is continuing God's revealed plan, and that his claim to be a messenger of God is not based purely upon his own claims. It is no great surprise therefore that Muslim writers such as Mr Meherally search the Christian Scriptures in order to find these alleged predictions.
The central issue here for the writing of the paper can now be turned on it's head, rather than a Da'wah (outreach/invitation) to the Christians, Mr Meherally is now stating the case for it's defence as to whether Islam is a continuation of God's revelation to the Christians and the Jews or whether "nearly 1.2 billion Muslims" [1] are following the claims based on the authority of the new teaching of a single man.
Now let us consider the evidences that Mr Meherally proposes.
The first point made was with regards to the following scripture
"And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever" John 14:16
Meherally suggests that the use of the literal translation of the ending would be "to be with you into the age". I am not a scholar of Greek and would accept the statement, but Meherally does not give a reason for making this point, so whatever argument there is, is not made clear and so cannot be addressed. One factor we do need to consider is why do translators consider the ending, "to be with you forever" a worthy translation. Let us consider the following question asked to Jesus by one of his disciples
"when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?" Matthew 24:13
It is very clear the 'end of the Age' is synonymous with the second coming of Jesus, later in the passage we read,
"They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory." Matthew 24:30
It is therefore abundantly clear that the Paraclete will therefore abide with us who are baptised until the second coming of Jesus ("into the age" = 'to be with you until my [Jesus] second coming'). It would be inconceivable to consider the prophecy applying to Muhammad, as he as well as every other human being does not have such a long life span. The Holy Spirit on the other hand is a person who has never died and abides with those today who are in communion with him.
Meherally then goes onto state that this verse coupled with the Old Testament (Law or Taurat) reading of Deuteronomy 18:18 speaks of "another male figure" [1], again Meherally provides no reasoning or reliable basis for this conjecture. The great prophecy made by Moses in this passage simply mentions the coming of his successor, I would assume that Meherally is somehow trying to somehow support his view of the Paraclete by simply quoting this reference and again missing out any detail of the prophecy and how it hangs in context with the Biblical message.
Let us consider what the Bible has to say on the prophecy made in Deuteronomy 18:18
"He [Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes... ...for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people." Acts 3:21-22
This passage makes it clear that the one spoken of in the Deuteronomy 18:18 prophecy is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Meherally's next point seeks to negate the concept of the Holy Spirit by quoting the following verse,
"the Paraclete shall not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you." John 16:7
Meherally then goes onto reason that the Holy Spirit was already in existence (Genesis 1:2) and therefore asks how could this therefore be the same Holy Spirit that Jesus was to send. Mr Meherally needs to re-read the verse and understand what is being said and what is not being said. The Lord Jesus Christ stated that if he did not go away (ascend to heaven), then "the Paraclete SHALL NOT COME TO YOU" John 16:17 (emphasis mine). This statement does not negate the pre-existence of the Holy Spirit, rather Jesus is speaking of sending the Holy Spirit onto the people and he will make a dwelling with them into the age, not that Jesus is somehow bringing about the existence of the Holy Spirit.
The next point is drawn from John 15:26 in that it refers to two independent entities, because the Paraclete is referred to as the Spirit of Truth as it takes the pronoun "he" and the Holy Spirit takes the pronoun "it". Firstly the claim is not substantiated, there are a number of passages where the Holy Spirit is referred to with the pronoun "he",
"The Holy Spirit also testifies about this. First he says...." Hebrews 10:15
"But the Spirit himself intercedes for us..." Romans 8:26
In reference to Meherally's comment on the following verse
"But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit" John 14:26
Meherally makes a great fuss about the fact that in the Codex Syriacus refers to this verse as "But the Paraclete, the Spirit" again the point is not clearly made, but Meherally somehow assumes that this disqualifies the Holy Spirit as being the object of reference without stating how. So why is it translated as "Holy Spirit" ? It is of even greater interest to realise that their are manuscripts of the Gospel of John that predate the aforementioned Codex, these manuscripts contain the text "Holy Spirit" ,this also ties in with later on in the gospel of John when Jesus tells the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit John 20:22. This fact rules out any confusion made by Meherally to question the identity of the Paraclete as so clearly presented in John 14:26.
From the following passage,
"This, then is how we can tell the difference between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." 1 John 4:6
Meherally goes on to claim that both spirits are human beings, again the point is short and provides no evidence for the reasoning. Meherally would benefit from re-reading the verse carefully before jumping to any conclusions, and more importantly to read the verse in the context of the entire passage.
Let us consider the following preceding verse,
"the Spirit who IS IN YOU is more powerful than the spirit IN THOSE who belong to the world." 1 John 4:4
the text clearly speaks of the spirits being something that dwells within a human being, by Meherally's reasoning a human being can therefore dwell within another human being, this is of course is complete nonsense. The point we have to realise is that a spirit is very distinct from a human being and are not one and the same thing (John 3:3-8), the verse refers of course to a spirit indwelling within a person.