Comparing religions

[skiguy]

This is mostly to satisfy curiosity. Is there any section of the Qur'an that has any similarities to Jesus's sermon on the mount? Or is it just a case of digging and finding particular verses/passages?
Thanks

[Danny]

No. No similar ideas or strictures.

[Sarajevo071]

The Last Sermon of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

After praising, and thanking God he said:

"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present here today.

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity. God has judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to Abbas ibn 'Abd'al Muttalib (Prophet's uncle) shall henceforth be waived...

Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.

All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.

Remember, one day you will appear before God and answer your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, no prophet or apostle will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Quran and my example, the Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people".

http://islamfortoday.com/lastsermon.htm

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The The Farewell Sermon (Arabic: خطبة الوداع, Khutbatul Wada), also known as the Prophet's final sermon, is a famous sermon by Muhammad, the final prophet of traditional Islam, delivered before his death, on the ninth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, 10 A.H. (632 CE), at the end of his first and final pilgrimage.
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[Danny]

Go back and re-read Matthew 5. This isn't even close.

[Sarajevo071]

First, I did not say it is same.

Second, have no intention reading Bible anymore. Once was enough to find holes and not to accept.

BTW, if you find the real one, original, the one that Vatican rejected since it was against Church centralize power and financial empire they created, tell me. That one I will read.

Last sermon of the Last Prophet have also deep meaning and good message for those who can read and wish to know:

All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.

[slapout9]

Hi Sarajevo, that is some interesting stuff about muslim beliefs on usury(interest rates) never new that was in there. Some of you may know if this is true or not, but isn't there a section of the bible that says every 50 years there was a year of jubilee and all debtors were released from their debts?

[Pat]

Sarajevo071

He asked if there was anything similar in the Qu'an, this last sermon is not in the Qu'an (or if it is give me the Surah.)

Skiguy

No, there is nothing in the Koran that is similar to the sermon on the mount. There are places where the rewards of charity are mentioned.

If you are looking for something more global, well whoever wrote the Koran had to have known something about the Torah and about Christian teachings. Examples are Jesus is mentioned and so is Joseph, and there are other examples of knowledge of the Torah.

[Sarajevo071]

You are right but how could be!? Bible was written after Jesus (saw) died and there was many different version and modifications, changes if you will. On the other hand, Kur'an was reviled and finished while Muhammad (saw) was still alive. No one heaved the right to changed or modified it. Any Prophet's sermon was regarded like message from God therefore have same importance like it is in the Kur'an.

Simple put, they can not be same, or similar, message in both Books since one Book was written by people who recorded Prophet's words and action before he died on the cross and then by they memories of him and other Book was written in order and ways how was reveled. And if you will, major difference would be that Bible was written BY people about extraordinary man and other was revealed TO the extraordinary man.

Second thing you mention is also simple... Jesus (Isa S.A.W.) and Abraham (S.A.W.), and Torah and early Bible scripts and well known and well respected people and Books. It is the SAME blood line of God's Prophets and ALL of them are loved and respected by Muslims. So it is normal that you can find elements of this or that in Kur'an (like you can find elements of Zoroastrianism in Bible). In the beginning of Kur'an is clearly said that that Kur'an and Islam is newest and final revalation of the SAME God's message. Same message that was revealed in Torah and Bible but people refused to listen and respect it.

Sorry for being this long but I just tried to explain what I tried to say with first post here.

[Sarajevo071]

Yes. That's also there. And many other things that would surprise you.

BTW, interest rates are major (some would say only major) difference between western and islamic banking/monetary systems.

[skiguy]

Sarajevo, thanks. Although not exactly the same as the sermon on the mount, their are many similarities.

[marct]

Hi Sarajevo,

BTW, if you find the real one, original, the one that Vatican rejected since it was against Church centralize power and financial empire they created, tell me. That one I will read.

Great posts - thanks. There actually is no "original bible, certainly not in the sense of the Qu'ran being "original". The earliest of he surviving gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, written probably about 10-15 years after Jesus death. There is a reconstructed "text", called the Q text, that is an attempt to reconstruct the original sayings upon which the Gospels were based.

You're actually wrong about how the current versions (there are two main versions and several minor variants) of the Bible came into existence. It wasn't with the church centralizing power, it was with the Emperor Constantine forcing a new state religion into existence by combining various strands of Christianity and Mithraism in the early 4th century. The Roman Church only started to really grab centralized power after the dissolution of the Western Empire in the 5th century and the creation of the fake Will of Constantine.

If you want to read some of the excluded books, most have been published in one form or another. The earliest is the Gospel of Thomas, while most of the rest are in the Nag Hamadi Library (a few may also be in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that is highly questionable).

[skiguy]

Don't know all that much about "original" OT translations, but Paul's letters are considered by many of the original church to be the "first" NT. (he wrote them long before the Catholic empire started and before churches became, to their detriment, large organizations)

[marct]

HiSkiguy,

Don't know all that much about "original" OT translations, but Paul's letters are considered by many of the original church to be the "first" NT. (he wrote them long before the Catholic empire started and before churches became, to their detriment, large organizations)

It depends on which of Paul's letters you are considering. Galatians was probably written around 52 or so, and most scholars would agree that at least 3, and maybe 5, of Paul's letters weren't written by him. It's also important to note that Jesus didn't write anything, so everything in the NT was written after his death. The general division is into Gospels, Letters and Other, crossed by which "Church" or lineage wrote them (e.g. Paul's stuff, which also includes the Gospel of John and the three Johanine Letters, the Lukan series, etc.).

As far as the "original" church is concerned, and by that I mean the Church in Jerusalem pre-Jewish Revolt, Paul was an interloper and upstart who had no "right" to preach what he did. Nowadays, many people do consider Paul to be a founder of the Church, but that certainly wasn't the attitude of most Christians in the first couple of centuries.

[skiguy]

I have to disagree, Marc. Most of the early (pre AD 60) churches, such as those in Ephesus, Thessalonica etc, did accept Paul as one of the messengers of the gospel. If there was any argument about Paul's authority, it was over whether or not the gospel was meant for the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
Yes, the Gospels (and the rest of the NT) were written after Jesus's death, but the gospel writers were all eye witnesses of His ministry. Speculation here, it wouldn't surpirse me if Luke (the Dr.) kept a journal, seeing how specific he was in his writing.

[marct]

I have to disagree, Marc. Most of the early (pre AD 60) churches, such as those in Ephesus, Thessalonica etc, did accept Paul as one of the messengers of the gospel. If there was any argument about Paul's authority, it was over whether or not the gospel was meant for the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

It's certainly open to debate. Most of Paul's churches weren't accepted by the Church in Jerusalem for exactly the reason you listed. I wouldn't call them "original" partly for that reason, and partly because Paul wasn't a first hand witness. I tend to think of them as a set of "first round expansion teams" to use a hockey analogy .

Yes, the Gospels (and the rest of the NT) were written after Jesus's death, but the gospel writers were all eye witnesses of His ministry. Speculation here, it wouldn't surpirse me if Luke (the Dr.) kept a journal, seeing how specific he was in his writing.

There is some really serious question about the Gospel of John beingn written by an eye witness. Most of the non-conservative theologians I know or have read tend to place it fairly late, say ~85-95, and generally conclude that it wasn't written by the disciple of that name. At least when I studied it, the general agreement was that the Johanine community derived from Paul's churches rather than from John. I'll agree with you on the synoptics, however.

[skiguy]

Yes, definitely debatable...as is most everything in the Bible. (the authorship and dating of the NT probably being one of the bigger debates)
I'll just leave it at this: there's a big difference between studying the bible (or any religious text) for scholarly purposes, and studying it because you believe it.

The original question was because I think there are a lot of moral similarities between the 2 religions, and those similarities can be used for peacekeeping. Just wondering if Sarajevo would agree.

[wm]

More to the point raised by Sarajevo is the divine nature of all the texts. The Gospel of John may have been written by Mary Magdalene's great grandson or some out-of-work wino sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem after the Bar Kochba revolt. I submit that the wielder of the writing instrument does not really matter. The important issue is whether the works are the revealed word of a supreme deity. This claim is differentially made for the Koran and for the elements of the Bible, including the Apocrypha and the so-called Gnostic gospels, among others. It is likewise made for the Book of Mormon and the Eleusian Mysteries, to list a very small sampling of a very long list of foundational religious texts. Can any of us refute these claims? The claims of faith are not usually subject to refutation using rational argumentation.

[marct]

Hi Wayne,

Can any of us refute these claims? The claims of faith are not usually subject to refutation using rational argumentation.

A good point. Of course, that still leaves open their refutation by irrational arguments - something that was certainly the case with many of these texts.

[wm]

Hey Marc,

. Of course, that still leaves open their refutation by irrational arguments - something that was certainly the case with many of these texts.

Irrational argument--isn't that an oxymoron? Or did you mean to use that as a polite euphemism for "knuckles" and associated exercises of brute force?

[marct]

Hi Wayne,

Hey Marc,
Irrational argument--isn't that an oxymoron? Or did you mean to use that as a polite euphemism for "knuckles" and associated exercises of brute force?

I was thinking more along the lines of "God says..." or "credo qua absurdam est", but the knuckle dusting refs will do as well .