Sitting in his shop this man started off with what he thought were the weaknesses of our faith. I had pulled up the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) on his computer, in Arabic, and told him to read it, which he did not want to do. And then he pointed out how our book is translated, while his book is the same all over the world (in Arabic). Time for some apologetic judo-using his argument against him: Yes, I said, praise be to God that our book is translatable and people in any place can read it in their own language and pray to him in their own language, whereas his deity understood only Arabic. "You speak Arabic and Hebrew, I speak three languages, and yet your god only hears prayers in Arabic." I responded (kindly, by the way).

He pointed out how we have four gospels, which to him was evidence that the original gospel (injiil) that Allah had given to the Son of Mary had been lost and corrupted. I responded, "How great is our God. We have four witnesses to the words and deeds of Messiah. You only have a man's testimony about himself. I much prefer to have four witnesses than one."

How is that we believe in three gods? He challenged. Do we really say that that little baby in his mother's womb is God? Yes, we do, and how glorious that is-that God is not far away from us but in his love he has come to be among us and with us.

And regarding the Trinity we believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are 'one God, co-equal in essence, and inseparable.' (I learned that from the Greek Orthodox liturgy, how often do you get that kind of theology on Sunday morning?) Because we believe in the divinity of Jesus, Christians are often accused of the great sin of 'association' or 'shirk'. I told him that we believe in one God with one essence, and that unfortunately Muslims are the ones who are guilty of this sin of association (shirk) because they believe the Qur'an is eternal with Allah, yet is not Allah himself. This is a most grave fault in Islam, I told my friend.

All of this took place completely in Arabic, of course. When I left he had my phone number and the entire Sermon on the Mount open on his computer (in Arabic). What will become of this? Who knows...but will you keep him in your prayers? I don't always enjoy these encounters (they are exhausting) but they are part of life and witness here. And sometimes it takes a short, sharp, shocking word to break through years of indoctrination.

I recall a Jewish teenage girl who accepted God's call on her life and there, in her womb, was conceived without the help of any man, a human being in whom were present the fullness of God and yet was human, like us, in every way, but without sin: God with us.

We do well to recall these things as we prepare ourselves for the celebration of his birth.

Abu Daoud's blog can be found here: islamdom.blogspot.com

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