When Muhammad linked the name of Allah to the religious histories of Judaism and Christianity, this was a way to claim them for himself, and for Islam. In the light of later events, the notion that Islam was the original religion, and that all preceding prophets were Muslims, can be understood as an attempt to appropriate the histories of other religions to himself. This was a political move, and its purpose was to rob Christianity and Judaism of their own histories.

To this day many Biblical sites, such as the tombs of the Hebrew Patriarchs and the Temple Mount, are claimed by Islam as Muslim sites, not Jewish or Christian ones. After all, the Quran tells us that Abraham was "a Muslim'. Under Islamic rule all Jews and Christians were banned from such sites. For example the tomb of Abraham was off limits to non-Muslims right up until modern times. The first non-Muslim to be admitted to this tomb since the Crusaders was the Prince of Wales, as late as the nineteenth century.

The place of the Jewish scriptures in Christianity is completely different from the place of the Bible in Islam

There is a fundamental difference between Christian attitudes to the Jewish scriptures and Islamic attitudes to the Bible. Christians accept the Hebrew scriptures. They were the scriptures of Jesus and the apostles. They were the scriptures of the early church. The whole of Christian belief and practice rests upon them. Core Christian concepts such as "Messiah' (Greek Christos), "Spirit of God', "Kingdom of God', "gospel' and "salvation' are deeply rooted in the Hebrew Biblical traditions.

We note also that Christian seminaries devote considerable effort to studying the Hebrew scriptures. This is an integral part of training for Christian ministry. The Hebrew scriptures are read (in translation) every Sunday in churches all around the world.

In contrast the traditional mainstream Islamic treatment of the Bible is one of complete disregard. The Bible is not a part of the traditional curriculum of imams. Although the Quran purports to "verify' all earlier prophetic revelation, it is oblivious to the real contents of the Bible. The claim that Christians and Jews deliberately corrupted their scriptures is made without evidence, and this only serves to cover up the Quran's historical inadequacies.

Some contemporary Muslim voices on Jesus

Muslim leaders and writers today continue to teach and preach the Islamic Jesus:

"¢ Yasser Arafat, addressing a press conference at the United Nations in 1983, called Jesus "the first Palestinian fedayeen who carried his sword' i.e. Jesus was a "freedom fighter' or jihadist for Islam!

"¢ Shaikh Ibrahim Madhi, employee of the Palestinian Authority, broadcast live in April 2002 on Palestinian Authority television:

"The Jews await the false Jewish Messiah, while we await, with Allah's help" Jesus, peace be upon him. Jesus's pure hands will murder the false Jewish Messiah. Where? In the city of Lod, in Palestine.'

This passage is especially ironic in its symbolism. It has the "true' Muslim messiah murdering the "false' Jewish messiah, who is to be the anti-Christ figure. In fact it is the truly Jewish Jesus of Nazareth whose identity and message is supplanted by the Islamic Isa of the Quran, the destroyer of Christianity.

"¢ Author Shamim A. Siddiqi of Flushing, New York put the classical position of Islam towards Christianity clearly in a letter to Daniel Pipes, New York Post columnist:

Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were all prophets of Islam. Islam is the common heritage of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim community of America, and establishing the Kingdom of God is the joint responsibility of all three Abrahamic faiths. Islam was the din (faith, way of life) of both Jews and Christians, who later lost it through human innovations. Now the Muslims want to remind their Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters of their original din. These are the facts of history.

This historical negationism " appearing to affirm Christianity and Judaism whilst in fact rejecting and supplanting them " is a linchpin of Muslim apologetics. What is being affirmed is in fact neither Christianity nor Judaism, but Jesus as a prophet of Islam, Abraham as a Muslim, Moses as a Muslim etc. This is intended to lead to "reversion' of Christians and Jews to Islam, which is what Siddiqi refers to when he speaks of "the joint responsibility' of Jews and Christians to establish "the Kingdom of God'. By this he is asserting that American Christians and Jews should embrace Islam and work together to establish sharia law and the dominance of Islam in the United States.

A different gospel

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, warns believers of the danger of abandoning the gospel of Jesus Christ:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel " which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:6"8)

It is quite clear that the Injil, as described by the Quran, is nothing but a "different gospel'. The prophet Isa (Jesus) of the Quran is a product of fable, imagination and ignorance. When Muslims venerate this Isa, they are far removed from Yeshua, the Jesus of the Bible and of history. The legend of Isa of the Quran is based on no recognized form of historical evidence, but on fables current in seventh century Arabia at the time of Muhammad, and on Muhammad's own desire to co-opt the Bible to support his new creed.

For most faithful Muslims Isa is the only Jesus they know. But if you accept this Muslim "Jesus', and his "gospel', then you also accept the Quran, and you accept Islam. Belief in this Isa is won at the cost of the libel that Jews and Christians have corrupted their scriptures, a charge that is without historical support. Belief in this Isa implies that much of Christian and Jewish history is in fact Islamic history.

The Jesus of history " the Jesus of the Gospels " is the foundation upon which Christianity developed. By Islamicising him, and making of him a Muslim prophet who preached the Quran, Islamic orthodoxy would destroy Christianity and take over its history. It does the same to Judaism.

In the end times as described by Muhammad, Isa the Muslim Jesus becomes a warrior who will return with his bloody sword and lance. He will destroy the Christian religion and make Islam the only religion in all the world. Finally, at the last judgement, he will condemn Christians to hell for believing in the crucifixion and the incarnation.

These final acts of the Muslim Isa reflect Islam's traditional apologetic strategy in relation to Christianity, which is to deny the Yeshua of history, and replace him with a facsimile of Muhammad, so that nothing remains but Muhammad's Islam.  Bat Ye'or summarizes this strategy in her Islam and Dhimmitude:

The Muslim supersessionist current claims that the whole biblical history of Israel and Christianity is Islamic history, that all the Prophets, Kings of Israel and Judea, and Jesus were Muslims. That the People of the Book should dare to challenge this statement is intolerable arrogance for an Islamic theologian. Jews and Christians are thus deprived of their Holy Scriptures and of their salvific value.