<a href="https://biblicalmissiology.org/blog/author/ayman-ibrahim/" target="_self">Ayman Ibrahim</a>

Ayman Ibrahim

Ayman S. Ibrahim, Ph.D., was born and raised in Egypt. He recently completed his second Ph.D. in Islamic History at the University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, examining conversions to Islam in the earliest Muslim period. He is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Seminary and director of the Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam. His publications include The Stated Motivations for the Early Islamic Expansion and Muslim Conversions to Christ.

2 Comments

  1. David Irvine

    It is sad and naive that many Christians are falling for what is in essence an “easy believism” applied to a romanticized and Christianized Islam. Thabiti Anyabwile, of The Gospel Coalition, is promoting this in his recent article “How to Use the Qur’an to Get to the Gospel.”

    Ayman Ibrahim brings out crucial points on how this approach to sharing the Gospel in reality denigrates it. It proves to Muslims that their book and traditions are authoritative and muddles a clear presentation of judgement, of the Gospel, and of who Jesus, The Son of God, is. Ayman also clearly points out how this approach insults Muslims, the Qur’an, and their traditions.

    In order to put this “approach” into a context more easily understood apply it to sharing with your Mormon friends. Mormonism, like Islam, came centuries after Christianity and says that Christianity got it all wrong; about God, about Jesus, about revelation and about judgement and salvation. Would you use the book of Mormon as an authoritative starting point to share the Gospel? Would you say that they have “very much the same definition of a prophet” as the Bible teaches? Would you say that only “some [Mormons] misunderstand Christian teaching regarding the trinity”?

    Now as a Christian imagine a Muslim or Mormon, coming to you, condescendingly saying that you sort of got things right but need them to “help” you to understand the “truth,”, starting in your Bible, then moving on to their more recent revelations, books and traditions. Would that be endearing to you? Would that make you trust their worldview? As Ayman says, this approach is manipulation of both Islam and Christianity. It is manipulation of the Qur’an and the Bible. God’s Word does not need manipulation for it to produce true faith.

  2. Adam Simnowitz

    I want to thank you for this excellent article because it is only the truth that sets us free which alone is found in Jesus’ Word (i.e. the Bible) which reveals that He is the Son (John 8:31-36). I really appreciate the encouragement and exhortation to use the Bible from the start with Muslims. In spite of their belief that we have corrupted Scripture, the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and is the only thing that exposes what is in our hearts (Hebrews 4:12-13). Because the heart is deceitful above all things, rendering us unable to see our true condition before God (Jeremiah 17:9), it is God’s inspired (or, Spirit-breathed) Word alone that is the only mirror that can accurately reflect who we are (James 1:21-24).

    I am surprised and disappointed by what Anyabwile wrote. At a time when the false teachings of: “Common Ground” conferences (formerly related to the Navigators but continues to be carried on by Jeff Hayes); “Jesus and the Qur’an” (formerly, “Jesus in the Qur’an”) seminars run by Jaime Winship; the training of Frontiers (especially Nathan Lutz’s, Training Ordinary Apprentices to Go, or TOAG); the teachings of the Perspectives course; the articles in the International Journal of Frontier Missiology (formerly, International Journal of Frontier Missions), better known as IJFM; the books published by William Carey Library; the classes taught at Fuller Theological Seminary (especially those taught by Charles Kraft, Dudley Woodberry, Jay Muller – a.k.a. John Travis- , et. al.); the instruction given at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (G.I.A.L.), which is the main training center for SIL translators (which is the organization for which Wycliffe Bible Translators was created) especially through their Abraham Center where professors Kurt Anders Richardson and Mark Harlan (a.k.a. Harley Talman, Mack Harling, etc,); the teachings in Encountering the World of Islam by Keith Swartley; the teachings of CAMEL by Kevin Greeson and promoted by David Garrison; the metastasized spread of “Muslim Idiom Translation” (MIT) in which professing Evangelicals have changed the Bible in far greater ways than have done Jehovah’s Witnesses in their “New World Translation” so that YouVersion (www.bible.com) brazenly has 3 versions in Arabic that contain the first part of the shahada, or Islamic confession of faith (“there is no god but Allah) which rendering cannot be justified on any linguistic grounds much less theological grounds; the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) has allowed Jeff Hayes to Islamize its Arabic webpage who claims that they now see 12-15 Muslims becoming “believers” on a daily basis; ad nauseum, Anyabwile’s article does nothing but stoke the fires of an already out-of-control situation (i.e. humanly speaking).

    Love rejoices with truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). To compromise the truth is to be unloving.

    For more information about the “Insider Movement” which is based on the premise of reinterpreting the Qur’an and Islam see:

    Missiological Models in Ministry to Muslims by Sam Schlorff
    Chrislam: How Missionaries Are Promoting an Islamized Gospel, Joshua Lingel, Jeffery J. Morton, and Bill Nikides, eds.
    Muslim Conversions to Christ: A Critique of Insider Movements in Islamic Contexts by Ant Greenham (Editor), Ayman S. Ibrahim

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