A Dialogue among Islam, Christianity and Judaism

Dr. Zaghlul al-Naggar traveled to America in 1977. He was on sabbatical, so he travelled to the University of California at Los Angeles as a visiting professor.

He arrived in Los Angeles in Ramadan, and one of the Muslims phoned him, saying that there was going to be a discussion that had been in planning for about three years. It was about Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

The one who was supposed to represent Islam was not able to attend, so they begged him to come and talk about Islam.

At first Dr. Zaghlul declined, for he thought the matter should be arranged more carefully. He decided not to attend the conference. Then, half an hour later, the professor of comparative religion (as they call it) phoned him to say that he had been heard about Dr. Zaghlul and he invited him to speak for Islam. He explained that the absence of an Islamic voice would reflect badly on the conference.

He implored Dr. Zaghlul to attend, even only to answer people’s questions. He would not have
to prepare a formal speech.

So, Dr. Zaghlul agreed to go and speak about Islam. When he arrived at the university, he found a huge crowd of people coming to attend the conference. About 4,000 or 5,000 people were there in support of Christianity—at least ten or fifteen people to represent each church— and there were representatives for about two hundred temples to speak for Jews. Dr. Zaghlul could barely imagine such a crowd. At the entrance to the university stood the person who contributed the printed speech for the Jews and the other for Christians, but for Muslims, there was no one.

A well-known figure in Christian issues in America came up to Dr. Zaghlul and introduced himself. He asked Dr. Zaghlul about his rank in Islam, a strange question indeed, but Dr. Zaghlul answered that he was a geologist, and in Islam, there are no such ranks as you imply. The Christian man was surprisingly and he wondered how that could be? As far as he understood, only ministers speak for Christianity and only rabbis speak for Jews.

This minister informed Dr. Zaghlul that they take turns speaking at the conference in chronological order. That meant that the Jew—a professor in comparative religion, as they say— would speak first about Judaism, then the minister about Christianity, and then Dr. Zaghlul would get a chance to speak about Islam.

Dr. Zaghlul thanked Allah that they would go in that order. He said to himself that at least it would be a good opportunity to listen to their speeches, which would help him to be able to discuss them.

As the Jew prepared to deliver his speech, he moved and sat on the left side. The Christian minister looked at Dr. Zaghlul and apologized, saying that, because they were already on camera, he would not be able to change the order. The arrangement had been changed against his will, and Dr. Zaghlul would now be the first to speak. He added that each of them would speak for about 20 minutes.

The doctor asked Allah's support and talked for the entire period of time. The topic of his impromptu speech was: Islam is not only Muhammad’s mission; rather that was its fulfillment. Islam has been the divine mission from Adam (peace be upon him) to Muhammad and until the Day of Resurrection.

We believe in all the previous messages and their prophets, but these previous messages in their original form have been lost. Belief cannot be formed on the basis of human imagination, taken from oral traditions handed down from one generation to the next.
There must be instructions that are recorded from pure revelation from Allah and are completely free of any human interference.

Taking a fresh look at the divine scriptures, the only one that meets these specifications is the Holy Quran. It still exists in the language it was first revealed in—with the same words, letters and symbols. That is because it has been protected by Allah Almighty.

If we study the Bible, however, we will find that the oldest Bible that could have been written down was in Ancient Greek, yet Jesus himself (peace be upon him) did not speak Greek. So how can we assume these are the real words of Jesus (peace be upon him)?

Biblical scholars can document that a Christian council was held in a village in the south of Turkey during the reign of the Byzantine Empire. At that location, more than 3,000 gospels were collected, yet only three or four of them were chosen as holy books; the rest
were declared heretical. The books chosen were based on Greek civilization—a civilization based on polytheism and a plurality of gods. This amalgamation produced the current Bible based on polytheism, plural gods, triangulation, the divinity of Jesus (peace be upon
him) and exaggerated reverence of his mother.

But God does not change, eat, drink, sleep, or act as other created beings do.

We entirely respect, regard and believe in Jesus (peace be upon him) just as we believe in the miracle of his birth, the miracle of his speech from the cradle, the miracles he performed during his life and the truth of his mission, but we completely deny the attribution of divinity to him.

We believe the same about Judaism: is it true Judaism? Jews today allege that they are God's children and favorites; other people are nothing to them but animals created only to serve them. Is that a religious message? Moses (peace be upon him) is entirely innocent of such claims. Could a religion be confined to just one race of people? On the contrary, religion is a message for all people.

A Jew has no religion. They are narrow-minded, racist and human lumps. They don’t profess any other people except themselves.

On this note, Dr. Zaghlul concluded his speech. The podium then passed to the minister to talk about Christianity. The issues Dr. Zaghlul spoke about had not been printed in the conference agenda, which is why the next two speakers were obliged to abandon their prepared speeches. 

Commenting on this situation, Dr. Zaghlul noted that the two professors, the minister and the Jewish rabbi, were both specialized in comparative religion (as they say), both had a Ph.D., and both of them enjoyed great prestige at his respective church or temple, yet the Christian minister was practically speechless. He did not speak for more than eight minutes because he could not answer any of the issues that Dr. Zaghlul posed. Then it was the turn of the Jewish rabbi, who spoke in defense of Judaism. He was an Israeli war veteran. He had played a role in the reconciliation between Egypt and Israel.  He was a sly old dog. He only spoke for about twelve minutes. He admitted that what his 'Muslim friend' said is true: Jews believe that God is only for Israel. At that point people began to leave, muttering words of discontent, for most of them were Christian.

The Jewish rabbi realized he made a great mistake, but when he attempted to correct the mistake, Allah willed that he make an even more horrible one. When the speeches were finished and they went to have tea, Dr. Zaghlul swore that he could not get to the place where the tea was due to the large crowd of people surrounding him to ask about Islam. The doctor added that if he had brought ten thousand copies of a translation of the Quran, he would have been able to distribute all of them.

Then the speakers returned to the podium to answer questions. The meeting went on until midnight, though it had been decided to end at ten o’clock. The doctor swore that the attendants did question any of the three visitors except him. They asked about Islam. They asked what the Quran says about Jesus (peace be upon him).

At the end of the conference they came to greet him saying, “We did not know that Islam speaks about Jesus with such respect. We did not know that Islam recognizes Jesus and believes in his miracles."

They asked him to broadcast the meeting on TV, and he agreed. This event was a great victory for Islam. After the program had been broadcast, Dr. Zaghlul stayed in America for a year. During that period, not a day passed without someone phoning to ask about Islam.

One day, an American woman who had declared her Islam visited him. She was working for the Pentagon, but she told him that she wanted to resign. When Dr. Zaghlul asked her why, she replied that she knew there would be a war between the Arabs and Israel, and because she worked for the U.S. Army, she would be obliged to assist in that war, perhaps by sending weapons or information. She could not, however, agree to fight her own people. She called Muslims her people and wondered how she could fight them.

Here you are: the testimony of intellectuals and distinguished figures in the western world. They say, “Despite all the amazing scientific and technological developments we have achieved and despite the huge economic trend, the financial and media domination of the western world— despite all of this, our civilization is gradually going to disintegrate. We suffer from spiritual laxity."

And they say about us: "Isn't it ironic that we find a contemporary civilization, beleaguered scientifically, technologically, economically, informationally, militarily and politically, and yet it maintains high spiritual values and strict, correct standards of moral behavior?"

We must realize that the value of this religion is so great that there can be no success or development in this life or the Next without it.