One of the more meaningful conversations with my bunk mate

Quran : 16:125 Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance.

My friend was on his bed reading the bible, so I came to him and said “You are a devout Christian,” With eagerness he replied “YES!”

So I decided to initiate a conversation with him and I asked him what is it about Christianity that he can tell me. He started telling me about the tenets of the Christianity and all that and in return I shared with him the Muslim view of Jesus upon whom be peace. We managed to lay out similarities and the few major differences. I was really glad that we did this is the spirit of mutual understanding and respect. My friend was a nice guy, really, got to give that to him.

So our conversation went on and we somehow chatted about diet, I don’t know why but apparently one of the most interesting things about a muslim to a non-muslim is his diet.

My friend asked, why can’t muslims eat pork? I said it’s the law. And I told him in fact christians too ought to abstain from pork because there is a verse in the Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus, 11:7-8 that says do not eat pork for it is unclean. I told him my answer to that question is in your own book.

He said “No, no, it’s not like that, Christians now can eat pork already, Peter had a vision in which he saw God showing him all the dirty food and told him he has no right to say the food as dirty, hence eat all you want.” I wondered why and I found out that Peter acquitted Christians from the prohibition of consuming pork. First of all, if you ask me, I seriously want to question the authenticity and the legitimacy of Peter’s authority to alter the religion founded by one of the greatest Prophets of all time. What gives him the authority to change the Law of Jesus? That aside, now assuming that Jesus truly allowed pork, in any case, you will have to agree with me that eating of pork is never obligatory in Christianity. So you have a choice, to eat or not to eat. What I suggest is that Christians ought to, out of respect and sharing vigil with other monotheists such as Jews and Muslims, abstain from pork. You don’t have to do it as an obligation in Christianity but rather as a voluntary act. Can you do that? Well if you cant, then maybe this piece of information can motivate you, Jesus never once ate pork, if you truly love him.

This clearly illustrates how the past authentic religions have been slowly altered by the hands of men.



Having said that, we went to discuss about modern muslim affairs and somehow we talked about the beard issue. Kind of sensitive perhaps but let’s be frank. I told him I don’t like it when Christians look with scorn at muslims who keep beard because doing so makes them one of two; either a hypocrite or a bigot biased against muslims. It has to be either of these two cases only, it cant possibly ignorance, because all the many available portraits of Jesus depict him with a long flowing beard. If a Christian is biased against a muslim just because of his beard, then I, as a muslim will want to question his standing as a Christian. Rest assured, I’m all for unity and understanding between the two greatest world religion.

Another issue is about sujud, some Christians say we pray like horses. Tell him to refer to this Matthew 26:39 which reads : “Going a little further, he(Jesus) fell with his face on the ground and prayed”

Finally, I complained to him about youths our age who are overzealous about being Christian. I have seen my JC friends, especially the girls, going to church in skimpy clothing, mixing amongst guys with minimal discretion, flaunting their well adorned crosses studded with rubies, sapphires and what have you, around their neck. It’s almost as if the symbol of Christianity has become a fashion scapegoat. I told him if this thing were to happen to muslims, there’ll be serious objections. I also told him why can’t modern Christians today have some dress code out of respect for places of worship? In contrast, I told him as well, Christians in the Holy Land are more like muslims! They dress like muslims, speak the same language, eat the same diet, look so alike to the extent that you can’t differentiate arab muslims from arab Christians.

NEW testament 1 Corinthians 11:6 reads “ for if a woman did not veil herself, she should cut off her hair.but if it is disgraceful to have her hair shaved, she should wear a veil.”

There are indeed many other things which Jesus commanded which are so much in line with the tenets of Islam. Technically speaking, Christians should be like us, dress properly, remove shoes in Churches, abstain from pork, wine, fornication, wear the veil etc. but are we seeing this? All these obligations upon the Christians seem to be removed by a person who came after Jesus. Bear in mind that Jesus indirectly foretold that someone was going to change the law of God.

Matthew 5:18-19 “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

And here is the finishing blow
Quran 2:79 Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.


What I personally feel is that, most youths of today who are so proud about their Christian faith are just trying to copy the situation in the West. “oh, the west is Christian and America is Christian, oh so COOL to be a Christian!” why am I saying this? It’s because they know too little about their own religion and about how similar Christianity is to Islam and Judaism. Shameful you may say. Try asking them what is Jesus’s name in his own native language? Jesus is a name given to him by other people, not his real, birth name. I seriously find it shameful for Christians not to know who Yeshua or Isa is.

At the end of it, I was adamant about my stand as a muslim and I reiterated many times my veneration and respect for Christ the son of Mary and the Gospel and the religion he revealed. For I am not a muslim if I do not acknowledge all these. To end it off, my friend said, “ My Pastor told me Muslims are the hardest to convert, Chinese very easy, maybe because our religions very similar already,”

I smiled and in my heart I was saying “Ah, tau takpe”