Was it all about Allah?

by Firpo Carr

July 22, 2010

Muslims from Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Dubai, Yemen and other parts of the world regularly read my Web site Sentinel articles now available in Arabic and over thirty other languages. (http://firpocarr.com/articles.html) I feel a kinship with Muslims, just as I do with people of all faiths. Michael Joseph Jackson felt the same way.

With both of us being raised as Christians-as Jehovah's Witnesses-we learned that all men are brothers. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in particular are identified as the monotheistic faiths started by Abraham the Hebrew. The God of the Hebrew Bible, Yehowah Elohim, is known to the Witnesses as Jehovah God, whose name in Arabic (the language of the Qur'an) is Yehowah Allah. How did the King of Pop, as a one-time Witness, view Islam?

The Bible or Qur'an?: MJ loved Muslims and greatly respected their faith. He did, however, view the Holy Bible as the exclusive infallible Word of God. Though Muslims believe that the Bible was God's Word prior to it being tampered with by men, they now believe the purity of God's message to mankind is encapsulated in the flawless Qur'an. The dichotomy intrigued Michael. He wondered how Almighty God was able to preserve the Qur'an, but was powerless to do the same with the most popular and most translated book in history-the number one bestseller, and most stolen book in the world-the Bible.

The Original Million Man March: Long before Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam called for a million Black men to peacefully descend upon our nation's capital, "Zerah the Ethiopian" led Black Africans, "a million men," into "battle formation" against Judah, whose capital was in Jerusalem. (2 Chr 14:9, 10, New World Translation) Because Judean King Asa sought the help of Almighty God, "Jehovah defeated the Ethiopians." (2 Chr 14:11-15; 16:8) As a Witness, Michael knew that neither Christians nor Muslims could rectify racism or defeat discrimination. God will provide the panacea.   

(Incidentally, prior to the Babylonians doing it around the sixth century before Christ, and over a thousand years before the Romans duplicated the event, several Black African countries led by Egyptian King Shishak defeated and subjugated Jerusalem. Jehovah said to Judean King Rehoboam "and the princes of Judah": "You, for your part, have left me, and I, too, for my part, have left you to the hand of Shishak."--2 Chr 12:1-12.)

Muslims and Witnesses have had good-natured discussions on the Bible and Qur'an. Muslim author Moazzam Begg, a one-time prisoner in the "War on Terror," wrote in his book Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (2006) that he ‘enjoyed debating,' but that his "most invigorating conversations" were "particularly [with] Jehovah's Witnesses." Michael knew that though Muslims have killed Muslims in war, this was also true of those professing Christianity.

 "Christian" Hypocrisy?: In his book, From the Hood to the Hill (2006), Dr. Berry Black wrote:  "Think of what it must have been like at the US Naval Academy during the Civil War. One day, midshipmen of the North and the South fell in at their last parade together. Each student was given a choice: loyalty to the Union or loyalty to the Confederacy. Many parted with tears. On April 24, 1861, those who chose Union loyalty boarded the USS Constitution and set sail for New York.

"They would later meet their Confederate friends and classmates at sea, and each would try to destroy the other. Nearly seven hundred thousand men, many of whom were black, died in this ‘just war.' The irony was not lost on President Lincoln. In his second inaugural address, he expressed it in these words: ‘Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other ... The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.'"