My easily swayed opinion

I've come to the conclusion that my opinion is very easily swayed. After reading The Prophet & the Messiah : An Arab Christian's Perspective on Islam & Christianity, I've reverted from my previous Muslim-leaning to a Christian-leaning. Of course, that may also be because I really prefer to remain Christian so when I hear a convincing argument, I'm very willing to accept it.

The book actually was very good; it was nice to hear the perspective of a Christian Arab. Since Arabic is his native language, he grew up in a primarily Muslim country, and he studied Islam, he is able to offer a different perspective from the other Christian authors of American or European origin who only have academic experience with Islam. There were many instances where he offered translations of Quranic verses that were contrary to mainstream Muslim belief but he still manages to argue his stance quite well. I really wish I had taken note of them before returning the book to the library. One that I remember was his proposal that Mohammad's description of unlettered, which typically is interpreted to mean illiterate, could just as easily be interpreted as uneducated when it comes to Christianity and Judaism. He argues that the same Arabic word is used numerous times throughout the Quran but only in reference to him is it interpreted by mainstream Islam as meaning illiterate.

However, his arguments were not all simply semantic. He also did much historical analysis. In addition to his attempts to disprove Islam, he also had many arguments to attempt to prove the validity of Christianity. Overall, it was a very insightful book and, again, I really wish I had taken better note of his arguments (I tend to have a horrible memory).

Meanwhile, I continue to read my Bible at night. I've also started downloading and listening to two podcasts, one of Muslim khutbahs and one of generic Christian discussion. I haven't yet made a judgement of the Christian one but I think the Muslim one is good just to hear the Muslim perspective on things.

The man giving the khutbah of the most recent one I listened to made a very good point. The khutbah was about women in Islam. He argued that rather than constantly attempting to argue that the Muslim viewpoint is valid for whatever reasons and applies to modern society, one should simply say that God decreed it that way so that's how it is. Rather than waste your time arguing about trivial things like dress code, argue the big things like basic theology and the fundamentals of Islam. Anyway, I just wanted to add that.