Answering Islam

I am currently reading the book Answering Islam for my upcoming Theology of World Religions class. So far I am only through the presentation of what Islam believes. While I think that becoming a Christian is much more than praying a prayer, it appears that it just takes one affirmation to become a Muslim. Apparently, all one has to do is affirm, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the apostle of Allah." C'est tout!

I have found that there are many convenient things about how Islam views both Muhammad and the Qur'an. Muhammed had kind of a checkered history in getting his religion off the ground. What's convenient is that any persecution can be seen as the forces of evil at work rather than God telling you to stop it. The same goes for any Christian who claims to have some kind of direct revelation from God. Jesus certainly raised His share of rabble too, so the fact that Muhammed faced trouble is not that big of a deal. However, his stance on raiding caravans is kind of interesting.

What I find most fascinating is how the Qur'an evolved. It seems that later surah's can supercede earlier ones. That means that, while there appears to be internal contradictions, the faithul Muslim can get past this based on the rule of abrogation. Convenient, no?

I look forward to reading more of this book. I probably would not have got to it if it wasn't assigned for this class. Take a look at Amazon and note the ratings for the book. Think there is any bias?