Islam's Friend – Abdulahad

How did I decide that I should be called Abdulahad; Servant of the One? I did not decide that this name should be my Arabic name. GOD decided upon that name for me.

It was in the middle of the night around 1980, after my wife and I had returned from about six and a half years in the Middle East including over three years in a combination of Riyadh, Jeddah, and Taif Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, as I was soundly sleeping one night in our University District home in Seattle, the name Abdulahad was gently spoken to me. When I awoke, I knew just enough Arabic to figure out that the contraction of Abdul and Ahad was a name with the meaning of servant of the One, with the One being served, was GOD. I felt quite honored that GOD or one of His angels or His spirit had addressed me by that name since I was sincerely attempting to serve, especially the people of Arab Islam. I was attempting to help them understand that An-Nisa 4:157 and 4:158 should most appropriately and accurately be understood to mean that the One GOD's Messiah, Isa, did actually temporarily die. Then, three days later ALLAH used His own Wisdom and Might to raise him up alive. (Please see An-Nisa 4:158.)

But you know, when our family first felt called to the Mid-East and more specifically to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so that I could come to better understand Islam, there was some apprehensive and discouragement about whether I would even live to make this trip to the Middle East. This was due to one of my several Saudi college friends in Seattle, giving me a very threatening and direct warning about my desire to go to Saudi Arabia. This was due to both he and his friends unfairly distorting in their minds the actual reason that they had decided was my real intention for wanting to find work in their country. They had convinced themselves that I had not been honest about wanting to live in their nation in order to better understand Islam. So they had unfairly projected upon my motives a stereotypical missionary approach. Thus, they had convinced themselves that I actually desired to live in Saudi Arabia in order to convince Muslims to become Christians. Yet, that had truly never been any part of my intention and 38 years later, to convince Muslims to become Christians is still no part of my intention.

Because this small group of Saudi University of Washington friends had decided that manipulating sincere Saudi Muslims to become Christians was my intention in going to Saudi Arabia, they had unfairly projected upon me a deceptive mission that they had decided that I intended to carry out. Consequently, this one Saudi friend was appointed by several others of my Saudi friends to clearly warn me and actually threaten me that if I even attempted to go to Saudi Arabia, he and his friends would do whatever they needed to do to stop me. So put in these terms, I definitely took his words as a warning which meant that he and his several Muslim Saudi friends were willing to take my life in order to prevent me from going. Furthermore, it did not seem to actually bother them that killing me would leave my wife a widow and my five children without a father.

Despite the threat which we hoped was partially a bluff, we decided to depend on GOD's faithfulness not to allow these misguided students to carry out their potential threat against my life. So my wife and my decision was to trust GOD and also to trust the prayers of our friends, that our Risen Messiah would empower our family to eventually reach Saudi Arabia which was our ultimate goal with a stop over in a temporary school counselor position in Beirut Lebanon. That would be until a position opened up in Saudi Arabia, which it later rather miraculously did when the Civil war forced our family out of Beirut.

But that was not the end of the story regarding the threat. When the seven of us, (five children and my wife and I) arrived in Beirut, one of our passports did not get stamped at the crowded and busy Beirut airport. When I returned to the airport a couple of hours after our arrival, to take care of the passport problem, I actually had a walking collision with the person who had previously threatened me in Seattle. We were both surprised and said a quick "hello" when we turned around to apologize for bumping into each other. But we never saw each other again. Nor did I ever run into any of the many Arab friends that I had known in Seattle, while spending six and a half years in the Middle East.

But despite this initial threat by the five or six Saudis, I will say that during my whole time in the Middle East, whether in Lebanon, in Jordan, in prison in Syria for a car accident, in Bahrain, in Egypt, in Yemen, in Abu Dhabia, in Oman, in Jerusalem, and in the West Bank, every last Muslim or Christian which I encountered, always treated me with kindness and also treated my family quite warmly, except for minor exceptions for our daughters by immature teenage boys. Yet, all of these Muslim persons knew that we were some flavor of one of the many flavors of Christians. Therefore, I will generalize and say that from my observation, that even in pre-9/11 years, we were treated more warmly and with less suspicion in Saudi Arabia and in other mostly Muslim countries than most Muslim Arabs have been treated by supposedly Christians when they are our guests in the U.S. And of course in this post 9/11 era, Arab Muslims in the U.S. often experience even more suspicion from some Muslim phobic Americans who are regrettably often Christians.

But why do I take the trouble to emphasize that I am specifically and joyfully Islam's friend? Because somewhat similar to how I partially experienced some of the racism that some of my black University of Washington football playing friends experienced back in the late 1960's, I have also observed and even have personally experienced some of the racial and religious prejudice that Arab Muslims have experienced from even supposedly sincere Church attending Christians here in Seattle. And though my unpleasant negative experience has been previously treated thoroughly in two papers on this website, I will again mention that I have been twice excommunicated from the same evangelical Church for reasons directly relating to my commitment to thorough communication with Muslims about GOD's now Risen Messiah. So I have observed and personally experienced that it is one thing for the evangelical Church where my wife and I were married and where my now deceased wife's memorial took place, to want to influence over seas Arab Muslims regarding GOD's Risen Messiah. But it is quite another issue for large groups of Christians to consider Muslims who now love the Risen Messiah, but still identify themselves as Muslims, to potentially be accepted by Churches such as our former Seattle Church Community.

I definitely have come to realize that experiencing personal rejection up close for feeling so strongly about communicating with Arab Muslims about the Risen Messiah's love for them, has helped me even become more deeply convinced about two things. One, is that I feel even more deeply than ever about how strongly GOD desires all Muslims from every Muslim background to bond with His Risen Shepherd, Compassionate Messiah who was willing to pour out his life for each of them. The second issue about which I feel even more strongly than ever, is that it is not GOD's Will for me to allow the rigidity of certain Christian elders and my human desire to be accepted and approved by them, to modify one small fragment of what I sincerely am convinced that GOD has called me to do in order to communicate with and to bond with Arab Muslims. Yes, I am compelled by GOD's love to constantly reach out to Muslims for the sake of their better understanding of GOD's love for them through His own Messiah. And the means by which I am attempting to accomplish this is through my many website writings.

I have become more thoroughly convinced that whether it be Chechneyians in Russia, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Palestinians in the West Bank, Shiites in Iran, or the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or any other Muslim in the entire world, that all of Islam's mistaken conviction that GOD did not empower His Messiah to temporarily die and then victoriously raise him alive so that he is now living in their midst, has done even more harm to the cause of Arab Islam and to the welfare of Muslim children as they progress into adulthood, than even the unjust rejection and persecution by Israeli Jews of the abused, murdered, and stolen from Palestinians.

Admittedly, one verse out of the hundreds of verses in the Holy Quran, when understood superficially appears to teach that the Messiah was not temporarily killed. Nevertheless, after years of study of both this verse and other verses in the Quran which mention both the death of Isa and his being raised alive. I am absolutely convinced that I have adequately proven on this website that the Quran never truly intended that the Quran be understood in this wrong way that Isa did not temporarily die.

Furthermore, I am convinced that in more that one of my papers I have presented persuasive reasons that the Prophet Muhammad himself was absolutely convinced that the Messiah temporarily died, but had good reasons for not at that time correcting the common misunderstanding about the Messiah's temporary death and being subsequently raised up alive by GOD's own Wisdom and Might. (An-Nisa 4:158). But I am also absolutely convinced that the Prophet desired and expected Islam to accept the death and being raised alive by ALLAH of His Messiah in a future time when Islam became strong enough to not be pushed around by a strong Christianity. For he was apprehensive of a strong Christianity which would insist on forcing all of its Christian views on Islam which would finally welcome ALLAH's compassionate, death defeating Messiah into its midst. But the Prophet trusted in ALLAH that a time would finally come when Islam would be strong enough to develop its own leadership under the leadership of ALLAH's own Risen Messiah.

Yes, it brings me great joy to be 99.9% convinced that the dawn is quite near when many influential Muslims will victoriously remove their crippling blinders from their eyes and joyfully by faith see the now alive, risen Shepherd in their midst. So they will soon experience the new joy, vitality, and victory that this new vision of their loving, living Shepherd in their midst will bring to them.

In the U.S., many Arab Muslims would be delighted if many Christians would not be their enemies, similar to how so many supposed Christian voters are the actual enemies of the Black President Obama. But in contrast to these partially blind Christians, Abdulahad is not only not a threat or an enemy of Islam. But rather he is a committed friend to Islam. And he is exceedingly desirous of sharing with each Muslim in our world GOD's own matchless gift to them, His Risen, Loving, Living Shepherd Messiah. Yes, for three days the Messiah was in a Jerusalem tomb. But due to GOD's great Might and expansive Wisdom, (An-Nisa 4:158), he is now forever alive to be our compassionate friend as well as our Shepherd. Yes, he will abide with us and nourish us as a vine nourishes its branches and as a shepherd cares for his sheep. But it is up to us to freely choose to be one of his branches and to be one of his precious sheep.

Finally, I sincerely request that every thinking Muslim consider this profound and vital truth. Wisdom and the Rejection of GOD's previous Scriptures which the Holy Quran clearly states that the Quran confirms are not compatible. And this remains true about wisdom and rejection of truth being incompatible no matter what pretense is employed to wrongly claim that the Quran teaches that the previous Scriptures have been changed, which the Holy Quran does not teach. Therefore, now is the time for wise, ALLAH worshipping Muslims to welcome His Risen Messiah into their spiritual presence.