Apostate prophet's fantasies; Muslims, Jews and Christians, all aboard the hellfire train?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

Sure Allah will fill hell with people, but not any, those that deserve it. The creation of man is a natural consequence of God's mercy. After detailing the divine law of retribution on a nation of rejectors and saying how Allah only destroys it after it has become utterly corrupt 11:116-7 the Quran says that God could prevent such doom by forcing mankind to be a single nation, united in truth. However, people will keep differing regarding the Truth 11:118 and that is because, as a natural consequence of freedom of choice

92:4"Your striving is most surely (directed to) various (ends)".

Allah then states that those who are united owe it to His mercy, and all mankind has been created for that goal: to receive God's mercy

11:119"and for this did He create them"

or as the Psalmist says in the HB

Ps144:9"The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are on all His works".

Mercy is a particular attribute of God, described as being "written" upon God's self 6:12,54. None of the other divine attributes have been described with this expression "kataba ala nafsihi". This statement is meant to emphasize that Allah is merciful but also that Allah made mercy a self imposed mandate upon himself. When something is written, it conveys the sense that it is well established and solid. God is the Creator and Owner, Sustainer of the universe. He makes it function in accordance with the laws He likes and these laws are rooted in His mercy. He in addition decided to inform His servants of that self imposed commitment, yet He owes them nothing. The prophet portrayed that notion by paralleling a mother's love for her baby to God's love for His creation. While the companions were looking at a woman frantically searching for her child, the prophet said

"Do you think that this lady can throw her son in the fire?" We replied, "No, if she has the power not to throw it (in the fire)." The Prophet then said, "Allah is more merciful to His slaves than this lady to her son".

Another hadith demonstrates how, if Allah were to create anything to make it enter into one of the abodes of the hereafter, it would be to make it enter paradise 

"The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "(The people will be thrown into Hell ( Fire) and it will keep on saying, 'Is there any more?' till the Lord of the worlds puts His Foot over it, whereupon its different sides will come close to each other, and it will say, 'Qad! Qad! (enough! enough!) By Your 'Izzat (Honor and Power) and Your Karam (Generosity)!' Paradise will remain spacious enough to accommodate more people until Allah will create a new creation and let them dwell in the superfluous space of Paradise". 

These new creation could be the dwellers of hell that will eventually be admitted to paradise, or something else known to Allah.   

Divine mercy is thus hardwired into the teachings of the prophet and the Quranic revelation, even in those passages most quoted by Islam critics attempting to cast it as an evil and wantonly violent religion. There is simply no plausible way to understand the Quran in a manner bereft of mercy and compassion. An interesting parallel can be made with a statement from the Tanakh

Psalms89:3"a world which manifests Your loving kindness, You did build".

Giving requires a receiver. So God created human beings to be the recipients of His bounty, as said earlier, the creation of man is a natural consequence of God's mercy. He has brought mankind into existence and established a system of moral accountability it is therefore natural that He makes all necessary arrangements for a just retribution

41:2"A revelation from the Beneficent, the Merciful Allah".

Spiritual guidance is a natural consequence of this Mercy, despite most men being unworthy of it

43:5"shall We then turn away the reminder from you altogether because you are an extravagant people?".. 

But since Allah's mercy is contingent on man's initial willingness and openness to guidance, all people do not receive it automatically as stated in

11:118"and if your Lord had pleased, He would have certainly made people a single nation".

This forceful submission to the truth would negate freewill, as stated in many other places

13:11"surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition"  

7:156"and My mercy encompasses all things; so I will ordain it (specially) for those who guard (against evil) and pay the poor-rate, and those who believe in Our communications",

11:119 is a confirmation of this law of causality, that men will by nature always differ regarding the truth 11:118, with perspectives and opinions as varied as the ever-changing patterns and meanders in the sky 51:7-9. As the prophet reportedly said

"if you did not sin, Allah would replace you with people who would sin and they would seek forgiveness from Allah and He would forgive them".

Humans, as volitional creatures, will always be prone to intellectual dissension, especially in religious matters which God has decreed will never be a compulsion 2:253, leaving each one to choose his path freely after guidance has been clearly conveyed 2:213,10:19,42:14,21. Consequently to that decree or "word" by Allah there will inevitably be dissensions, people choosing the right and others the wrong, and who will then have to go through Hell for a prescribed time. The HB contains the same concept when it states that

Prov16:4"The LORD has made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil".

God has thus pre-ordained that the wicked will be led to painful suffering, not that they were from the onset made wicked and consequently punished for it. This is a very important nuance which very often those approaching an intricate text only to enforce their paradigms and draw their hasty conclusions, rarely pay attention to.

That is thus the meaning of "the word" and its "fulfillment" referred to in 11:119 and elsewhere

36:7,40:5-6,41:25,46:18,38:84-5"The truth then is and the truth do I speak: That I will most certainly fill hell with you and with those among them who follow you, all".

Allah will, according to His pre-ordained plan of causality in which He is in full control, fill hell with those creatures endowed with freewill who choose misguidance over guidance

"and the Word of thy Lord shall be fulfilled: "I will fill Hell with jinns and men all together".

This law of causality to which humans and jinn have been subjected to and that may lead them to either punishment or reward obeys to a simple common sense logic referred to in many places such as in 32:15-20 or

7:179"And certainly We have created for hell many of the jinn and the men; they have hearts with which they do not understand, and they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear; they are as cattle, nay, they are in worse errors; these are the heedless ones".

As stated in the second part of the verse, the category of people that have been made for hell are those who are heedless to their spiritual senses, not that they have been made from birth with those characteristics, meaning their final destination is nothing but a natural consequence of the spiritual condition they have brought upon their own selves. Their destination is a consequence of the spiritual condition they have brought upon their own selves. God did not will this finality for them, rather God created mankind for the purpose of worshiping Him 51:56. He has however willed for that worship to be the result of freewill, hence the inevitability of finding people on both ends of the spectrum. A holistic understanding of the Quran and the traditions does not allow for a deterministic view of creation, only an isolate and dogmatic approach does. The Quran places great emphasis on guidance as being a mercy sent by the Most Merciful to bring mankind to spiritual awareness. This link between divine mercy, guidance and the creation of mankind is eloquently portrayed in the opening verses of surah rahman.

In summary we can see how the traditions and the Quran interconnect. Humans are born with a state of moral neutrality, and capacity to recognize the divine presence. Before coming to this world, God, by virtue of His omniscience knew who would be in paradise or hell. He has made them for their respective abodes, because it is according to His decreed law of causality that eachone will reach a destination in the hereafter corresponding to his level of spiritual awareness, or lack thereof. God has decreed this law of causality, He sustains it or interrupts it at any point in a person's life, as seen with the example of the boy slain by Khidr. That is why God in the Quran is the indirect cause of all things, maintaining every aspect of the functioning of the universe. But God has not made these people righteous or sinners from the onset. No tradition or Quranic verse states so, hence all dead infants belonging in paradise, they are dead in a state of moral neutrality, neither righteous nor sinners, although some were made for hell. This means, as stated in 7:179, they have been made for the destination they will choose for themselves, through a system of causality established and allowed by God

"We were with the Prophet in a funeral procession, and he started scraping the ground with a small stick and said, "There is none amongst you but has been assigned a place (either) in Paradise and (or) in the Hell-Fire." The people said (to him), "Should we not depend upon it?" He said: carry on doing (good) deeds, for everybody will find easy such deeds as will lead him to his destined place". 

The prophet then recited sura 92 which encapsulates well the connection between willful causality and destination in the hereafter.

Apostate prophet incites the flames of hate; Abu lahab, who was it?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

The Quran has a clear pattern in its storytelling method. It only gives the information necessary in conveying its message. But its eloquence is such that, even if read in a complete vacuum, one can still derive most of the relevant side information, as was shown above and as can be seen in many passages such as the story of the youths in the cave.µ

As to Abu Lahab, the historical records have detailed how he misused his wealth, abused of his position when he was supposed to be in charge of the needy and what was his relation to the prophet.
He was a prominent personality in Meccan society, politically, ethnically and economically. He was in charge of the treasury of the Kaaba as implied in sura maun/107, which was called rifada. A greater part of the money received would go into his own pockets instead of being spent on orphans, the poor and the pilgrims. Especially through 4:2, the people are warned against mismanaging and abusing the property of the orphans under their care, because they would often substitute these orphans' properties for some worthless belongings. 

The calls of the prophet for lofty morals, and spiritual reform, the verses reestablishing the purpose of the Kaaba, reminding its custodians of their momentous responsibilities, all these admonitions directly threatened his interests. He inevitably rose to oppose the prophet in the most vicious way. Sura Humazah and some other suras portray his character. Just like Noah's son, Abraham's father and Lot's wife, Abu Lahab was mentionned to show that God's justice is not bound by race or lineage. Neither his being the prophet's uncle, nor his wealth 111:2 and social status will avail him anything in the Hereafter nor in this life when the prophecied punishement befalls him, as related in sura Lahab 111.

The idolators of Quraysh participated in the wars against the Muslims with great fervour but Abu Lahab's hostility and hatred towards Islam and Muhammad in particular were notoriously fierce. He is reported for example as having sent a man owing him money to confront the prophet in battle in exchange of his debt. However this scheme could not save him from death.

Many of his allies among the leaders of the Quraysh were killed in the battle of Badr, damaging his political influence. Then soon after, he was inflicted with small-pox and neither his associates nor his sons and other relatives would inquire after his health for fear of contagion. It was in this state of helplessness that he died and for many days his dead body rotted in the house. When his sons got tired of the taunts of people, they hired people to rid them of his corpse on Mecca's outskirts, covering it with stones and pebbles which were flung from a distance. Ironically, flinging stones at someone in those times was tantamount to cursing him.

The Quran says that in the Hereafter, every man's actions or sins will be made

17:13"to clinge to their necks".

These sins are pictured elsewhere like chains and shackles hanging by the necks 13:5,40:71 or fettered to the soul 6:70. This powerful image evokes man's sole and entire responsibility for the consequences of his deeds, bearing them with all of his body and soul as one inseperable unit. An interesting parallel can be drawn with similar HB statements, like in

Prov5:22"His iniquities shall trap the wicked man, and he shall be hanged with the ropes of his sin"

or again in

Lam1:14"My sins have been bound into a yoke; by his hands they were woven together. They have been hung on my neck".

Elsewhere the Quran uses the image of the sinner burdened with the heavy weight of his own sins

6:31,35:18"and if one weighed down by burden should cry for (another to carry) its burden, not aught of it shall be carried, even though he be near of kin".

Abu Lahab and his wife will not be spared such faith. The Quran mentions more particularly the case of those who, like Abu Lahab, misuse the wealth Allah granted them out of His grace, neglecting their duties towards the needy. They, like Abu Lahab, will have the weight of such sin to

3:180"clinge to their necks",

and Abu Lahab's wife who is said to be

111:4"the bearer of fuel"

ie the accomplice "fueling" the sin will also have, like her husband and every sinful human being

111:5"upon her neck a halter of strongly twisted rope".

Being the bearer of fuel also hints to the notion that in the hereafter, she will be fueling her own fire and that of her husband, feeding it and maintaining it.

Apostate prophet is a book critic; why naming Abu Lahab in the Quran?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

The most prominent evil personalities and groups of people, in the nations prophets and messengers were sent to, those whose behavior and rejection were most violent towards the prophetic message and the prophets themselves, were always pointed out by the prophets and scriptures of their specific time.

The prophets all of them, called for God's curse and punishement to be inflicted upon these people either in this world or the next, as well as the vindication of the righteous. The Quran sometimes mentions these opponents implicitly as in 44:47-50,74:11-27,91:12,96:9-19 or explicitly, as with Abu Lahab in Sura Lahab, but everytime, the exposition of their evil traits serves as a threat and warning to future people.

Among many Biblical similarities there is the case of the prophet David against Nabal and Doeg 1Sam25:39,Ps52, David's long-winded curse of Esau and his descendants

Ps109:8-15"May his days be few, and may someone else take his office of dignity. May his sons be orphans and his wife a widow. May his sons wander, and [people] should ask and search from their ruins..."

or the implicit mention of a group of people

Ps58:1-12"O God, smash their teeth in their mouth..Let them be rejected..The righteous man will rejoice because he saw revenge; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. And man will say, "Truly, the righteous man has reward; truly there is a God Who judges on earth".

Again a reference to a group of moral harassers and mockers upon whom David invokes God's curses Ps35:19-26. See also Ps63:9-12,69:22-29 or Ps137:8-9 in reference to the Babylonian oppressors

"Praiseworthy is he who will take and dash your infants against the rock"

or also Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar alternatively implied by the prophet Habakkuk who calls on God to destroy them throughout the chapter (Habakkuk2).

In the Quran, another instance of allusion to a contemporary of the prophet happens in 68:10-16, where an individual's evil, sinful traits are exposed. This teaches the audience and readers at all times, to be wary from such a person, whether those contemporaries to him who will recognize the depictions made of him or from anyone bearing those immoral characteristics

"Do not at all yield to any mean swearer of many oaths, who is a slanderer and a backbiter, a hinderer of good and a transgressor, utullin/(connoting bad tempered, vengeful, coarse in manners, and shameless), and above all zanim/(connoting one known for his ignobleness and meanness. It is also used for those whose descent is unknown, which doesnt apply in this case to ibn al Mughirah who is implied here), only because he has abundance of wealth and children. When Our Revelations are recited to him, he says, "These are tales of the ancient times." Soon We shall brand him on the snout".

Because he thought he was a man of high prestige, his nose has been called a snout, and

"branding him on the snout"

is a double disgrace, physical and psychological. The same idea is repeated elsewhere, addressing those to whom outward appearance is everything, and how the scorching wind of Hell destroys the skin, leaving nothing but ugliness on that most precious part of these people's selves. In the Hebrew Bible, with immense despise, God addresses Sennacherib of Assyria through the prophet Isaiah

2Kings19:28"I will place my ring in your nose and My bit in your lips".

See also Isa37:29 or Ps3:8 all speaking of severe and humiliating disfigurement of the wicked, a metonym for utter abasement.

The prophet, at the onset of his mission and later on had many opponents who took up arms against him and rejected him but none of them came close to Abu Lahab. It was his own uncle whose level of hatred did not spare neither the prophetic mission, its principles and the personality of the prophet himself which the rest of his enemies rarely attacked.

There is also an element of sarcasm in naming him. Abu Lahab is a nickname given to him in pre-Islamic times, to symbolize many positive and sought after traits of him; lahab is a beautiful red flickering flame and Abu Lahab was a handsome man who in addition had a reddish skin complexion. He was a wealthy, aristocratic celebrity who was the grandson of the Hashemites, the most prominent clan of Quraysh. His own wife, nicknamed umm jamil for her beauty, was likewise of high family nobility, being the granddaughter of Umaya, the other most important Qurayshi clan. Why does God call him by that nickname that evoked many positive aspects in his society? Simply to mean that just as he desired to be known after the fire, so shall his name primarily evoke fire until eternity, but not the fire of beauty, the fire of chastisement

"Perished both hands of Abu Lahab...he shall have to endure a fire fiercely glowing/LAHABIN". 

The meaning of the short sura is that Abu Lahab was an evil man, he and his wife, that they were influential in a harmful way as alluded with the "breaking" of the "hands". The hands are a metonym of power, deeds and their outcome, influence and even accomplices in Classical Arabic. The Quraysh elite were those accomplices, killed 2 years later in Badr, followed by Abu Lahab himself 2 weeks later from illness. In the same manner and sense, Ezekiel prophecied how the arms of Pharaoh will be "broken" while those of the king of Babylon will be "strengthened" Ezek30:22-5. David spoke of God's destroying the unrighteous' power with the following words

Ps37:17"the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord supports the righteous".

Abu Lahab and his wife amassed a lot of wealth hence the sura's association of their possessions with their inevitable doom. However we are told that this wealth will be useless to save them from the punishement in the hereafter. The sura is in short an illustration of the Quranic principle that no earthly power can upset God's plans and no bargaining with any kind of wealth will be possible to escape due justice.

Apostate prophet in no prophet's land; when do prophets prophecy?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

All of Muhammad, and any other prophet practices and utterances cannot be automatically assumed as divinely inspired, and the Quran itself sometimes disapproves of some of Muhammad's deeds and words 66:1,80:1-10. The same is the case of other prophets, including as eminent as Ibrahim who, despite of being an illustrious example to emulate, immitating him does not include all aspects of his life deeds 60:4. That is why the Quran repeatedly announces obedience to the messenger instead of 'Muhammad', albeit they are the same person. The 'message' remained connected to the 'messenger' and it was in this capacity of the 'messenger' that Muhammad needed to be obeyed. The Prophet forbade Muslims to write down anything other than the Quran. And effectively, the traditions weren't compilled until centuries following his death. The reason was that he used to make statements and deal with people in different ways that were the result of particular circumstances, which narrators might believe to be of universal and permanent bearing. From divine knowledge, the prophet Muhammad had only access to what His Lord granted him 6:50,7:203,72:26-7. That knowledge took the form of a divine scripture to

16:64"make clear to them that about which they differ, and (as) a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe".

Muhammad believed

7:158"in Allah and His words (the Quran)" this is why Allah tells us to "follow him so that you may be guided".

To follow Muhammad means to follow what was sent to him from signs and/or revelation

7:157"and follow the light which has been sent down with him".

This reflects in the hypothetical scenario of a people not having received a messenger, complaining that had they had one in their midst, then they would have followed God's signs, not necessarily the messenger

28:47,20:134"..O our Lord! Why did You not send to us a messenger so we would have followed YOUR SIGNS (not the messengers) before we were humiliated and disgraced?".

Again with the example of the qiblah, we are told to only follow Muhammad in what Allah has commanded him

2:143"and We did not make the Qiblah that you observed in the past except that We know who follows the messenger from the one who turns back upon his heels".

It is very compelling to read how the Quran says that it is itself the best hadith.

39:23"Allah has revealed the best HADITH, a book conformable in its various parts, repeating, whereat do shudder the skins of those who fear their Lord, then their skins and their hearts become pliant to the remembrance of Allah; this is Allah's guidance, He guides with it whom He pleases; and (as for) him whom Allah makes err, there is no guide for him"  

45:6"These are the communications of Allah which We recite to you with truth; then in what HADITH would they believe after Allah and His communications".

Anything besides that best hadith, Allah tells us that the rightly guided are those people who use their brains and reflect over them, following only the best and discarding what is inapplicable or that contradicts the Quran

39:18"Those who listen to the word (qawl or saying), then follow the best of it; those are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding".

The Quran contains such warning because

31:6"of men is he who takes instead frivolous hadith to lead astray from Allah's path without knowledge, and to take it for a mockery".

These verses warning to keep the best hadith and discard all frivolous and counterproductive talks, useless and misleading narratives, provide clear evidence that idle tales were even being disseminated at the Prophet's time. If this was then already a problem reaching such levels that the Quran had to correct it, then how much worse did the problem potentially manifest after the prophet's death? It further tells us to investigate thoroughly any information of importance related by an untrustworthy source 49:6. Muslims are not required to accept whatever rumor and report is disseminated about their prophet or on his behalf, no matter who the narrator is. If the Quran itself plainly corrects its messenger in every day life, besides the prophet himself admitting to making mistakes in common affairs, how much so should one be prudent when deciding on the truthfulness of a story? Neither does the Quran request the outright dismissal of the report based on the unreliability of the source. It simply advises caution in the authentication process of the narration itself which doesnt only include reliability of the transmitor but also of the information in light of certain established facts. For example all ahadith on a particular subject should be gathered together to form a better picture and establish a pattern, which will then become a criterion of authenticity.

That is just common sense for anyone with a slightest spark of intellectual honesty, seeking to interject into a discussion occuring centuries ago, reported differently, through various angles and people in each repetition within a vast corpus. This opens the way to the possibility that the source might be telling the truth despite its untrustworthiness. Hadith scholars mostly stress on scrutinizing the narrator and do not give much importance to scrutinizing the content of the report. It should also be noted, a few verses down in 49:12 it warns not to harbour ill thoughts of others who have not shown through their words or deeds any misapropriateness or imorality. People should first and foremost think well of one another, abandon the kind of outright suspicion and ill founded inquisitiveness (with harmful objectives).

Apostate prophet misunderstands revelation; God turns prophets into geniuses?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

The Quran never came to correct the prophet's worldviews in terms of knowledge of nature and general causality, neither of his contemporaries but rather guide him and the rest of humanity through him, to the most complete, advanced human spiritual knowledge

"The Messenger of Allah and I passed by some people who were at the top of their date palms. He said: “What are these people doing?” They said: “They are pollinating them, putting the male with the female so that it will be pollinated.” The Messenger of Allah said: “I do not think that it is of any use.” They were told about that, so they stopped doing it. The Messenger of Allah was told about that and he said: “If it benefits them, let them do it. I only expressed what I thought. Do not blame me for what I say based on my own thoughts, but if I narrate something to you from Allah, then follow it, for I will never tell lies about Allah, may He Glorified and Exalted is He.” He continued in another version "You know better about your worldly affairs".

The divine protection  therefore only pertained to the Quran which is the source of that perfect spiritual knowledge. The prophet was "uswa hasana" in his application of the Quran, just as following Jesus' way, as he is quoted saying in the NT, meant following his footsteps in his application of the Torah. This phrase in no way implies that he was a perfect creation. The prophet was not uswa hasana in how he ate, slept or saw the nature around him. Anyone is free to imitate his lifestyle and adopt his worldviews as found in extra Quranic writings, if one finds any personal benefits in doing so but that isn't a religious requirement nor relevant to it, and that is explicitly stated in the Quran itself.

With that in mind, when the prophet made deductions as related in the ahadith, pertaining to his natural environement, general causality and basic observation of certain phenomenon, it is only expected from him that they would fit what the ancients of his time would find "plausible". These views however, right or wrong, no matter how extraordinary they might seem in light of our current knowledge, have no bearing on the Quran itself, which is again, pledged to be fully protected. It would have been interesting to have had written records of how the previous prophets saw the world, as we have with Muhammad, and see who among them held the most "unscientific" personal views.

There are many examples to be extracted from the ahadith, most of them inappropriately derided and misunderstood by modern people, although none of them are falsifiable and even if proven wrong, as said above, have no bearing on the Quran itself.

As said above, just as Muhammad was uswa hasana, Ibrahim and the believers in his nations are called uswa hasana 60:4-6 and to follow the prophet 3:31 means to follow the revelation sent to him 6:106,33:2. Muhammad and the Muslims are told to follow the way of Ibrahim, this can only be achieved through the Quran which is the reminder of his way 16:123,4:125,3:95. It was indeed the Quran that guided Muhammad to the way of Ibrahim 6:161. The Quran also says to follow the pious, humble believers 31:15 and this again only means to follow them in their obedience to Allah's commands, in their belief in His revelation because

6:116"if you obey most of those in the earth, they will lead you astray from Allah's way; they follow but conjecture and they only lie".

The rules of salaat for example were handed down from the prophet orally and were not written in any book, this is the sunnah or inherited practice, his detailing of what is mentioned in general terms in the Quran

16:44"and We have revealed to you the Reminder that you may make clear to men what has been revealed to them".

  The prophetic sunna is thus the manner in which the prophet applied the timeless ordinances of the Quran in his own time and place. It does not necessarily include his personal likes and dislikes, or particular recommendations which in the vast majority of cases the prophet himself never claimed were inspired. He gently declined eating a roasted lizard out of personal taste, leaving those around him to freely eat as they wished.

Certain of his own standards of body hygiene, like trimming the mustache, letting the beard grow, using the toothstick, sniffing water into the nose, clipping the nails, washing the knuckles, removing hair from the underarms, shaving pubic hair, cleaning the private parts with water, rinsing the mouth etc, or the manner he slept, ate or dressed, all reflected the needs, culture and manners of a specific time in history.

Apostate prophet insists; Muhammad was a perfect creation?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

This youtuber wants to know, hes struggling and doesnt understand what is uswa hasana. This phrase in no way implies that the prophet was a perfect creation.

Many verses urge him and those with him to seek God's forgiveness for shortcomings and the prophet used to implore God daily to be protected from sins. The prophet was divinely protected, like all prophets before him in relation to the revelation he was to transmit faithfully. But in everyday affairs, the messengers, who are still humans endowed with freewill and thus the potential, if not to sin due to their heightened level of spiritual awareness, to make mistakes, they are left to their own devices in their everyday lives to fight off the assaults of evil forces. No prophet was in a constant state of communication with the divine realm.

The hadith and Quran itself speak of long periods where revelation had stopped, and the subsequent tauntings of his enemies on the issue, the questions of his followers and his anxious anticipation. The prophet is for instance reported, as a reflection of his all too often humble character, to have said

"I am only human like you; I forget as you forget. If I forget, then remind me".

This comes in the context of a mistake which he had done during prayer, inadvertently shortening it, apparently angry with himself as he suspected the mistake, then humbly accepting the correction from the attendance which confirmed his thought

"The Prophet (peace be upon him) meanwhile, stood by a piece of wood placed in the mosque, leaning against it, as if he was angry. So a man stood and said, 'O Messenger of Allah, have you forgotten or has the prayer been reduced?' So the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) said, 'I did not forget nor has it been reduced.' So the man said, 'Rather you have indeed forgotten.' So the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to the Companions, 'Is what he is saying true?' They said 'Yes' So the Prophet (peace be upon him) went forward and prayed what remained of the prayer, then he gave the salutation, then he prostrated twice, then he gave the salutation".

The prophet did not forget the Quran. He forgot, momentarily like any one with a memory lapse, certain passages. That is irrelevant to the issue of Quran preservation. When these memory lapses occured, the Quran had already been transmitted, in both oral and written form. Hence even regular members of the community, not even renouned memorizers, correcting the prophet's recital. As is explicit in the Quran, the divine protection of the carriers of the revelation pertains strictly to the revelation itself. But in everyday affairs, the messengers, who are still humans endowed with freewill and thus the potential, if not to sin due to their heightened level of spiritual awareness, to make mistakes, they are left to their own devices in their everyday lives to fight off the assaults of evil forces.

Apostate prophet defends Christians; who deceived them?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

4:157-158 then states that those who differ on what is stated in the verse about Jesus not having being killed are in shakkin/suspicion about that very statement. It then goes on to say why Christians entertain shakkin/suspicion about the Quranic statement that Jesus was not killed: they have formed a wrong conclusion about events that they themselves had no knowledge about and are following nothing but a conjecture, started by those Bani Israel contemporaries and enemies of Jesus. Some claimed to have killed him and others that they crucified him yet they had no body to prove their lies, no trace of Jesus was ever found.

This devastating defeat was retrospectively written as a divinely planned victory since before the universe's creation. IT was then put in writing by several unknown authors whom nobody knows, who attributed their works to Jesus' close disciples yet these disciples are reported to have fled the scene at Jesus' arrest. Add to this the fact that not even a single historian exists, attesting to the wonderful and cataclysmic events surrounding the crucifiction that were allegedly witnessed by an entire city. The NT itself testifies to the fact that his close circle, let alone the rest of his followers never approached the dead body and could not therefore burry it.

Throughout Jesus' ministry Allah defeated his enemies' conspiracies to allow him the fullfilment of his mission. Whether from the moment his remarkable prophetic experience began while still an infant, until he attained the peak of his physical maturity toward the end of his ministry, he was in Allah's protection

3:46,5:110"and when I withheld the children of Israel from you when you came to them with clear arguments".

The term kahl refers to a middle aged man whose hair is beginning to turn gray. It is used for what is believed to be the ideal physical age of a man, defined as anywhere between 30 and 50 years. The scholars of Christianity since very early times have given all sorts of ages for Jesus' lifespan, from 33 years to 50 years. This is mainly due to the many difficult and inconsistent historical data present in the Gospels.

When his time finally came and the transmission of his message fulfilled, Allah saved him from the hands of his enemies by lifting him up. Jesus was not sent on a suicide mission and neither did he want to purposefully die as a human offering, something God explicitly abhors in both the HB, which he upheld to the letter as well as his early followers after him, and the Quran.

According to Islam, Jesus therefore succeeded 100% in conveying the message he was meant to convey. His mission was deep, intricate, far reaching and much more elaborate, pertinent, consistent and beautiful than what is attributed to him by the Greek authors. By relating the essential landmarks of his prophetic mission as well as the basis of the message he was commanded to faithfully transmit, saved his honor both physically and spiritually. It clears him of all slanders by his contemporaries and those that followed, as well as from the false teachings attributed to him that corrupted his message. It is ironic that Christians see Jesus in Islam as a failed prophet or fabricated figure, when it is they that depict him as such; from his humiliating ending at the hands of his opponents, to his teachings that were misappropriated and assimilated into the religion of a pagan entity, or the fabricated events in his life that dont stand to historical scrutiny, and the theological implications of his mission that are irreconcilable with the HB which is supposed to foreshadow Christianity.

This painstaking, sketchy endeavour is the result of Christians attempting to reconstruct Jesus as a heroic figure after his death, just as pagans in those times deified their dead emperors or called the living ruler "son of god", creating events that did not happen; Jesus' pre-existence, his co-creation of the universe with God, his miraculous birth, miracles, arrest, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, post-resurrection appearances, and reunion with God his Father were all the inventions of story tellers trying to restrospectively fit Jesus within both the Jewish messianic tradition and the writers' own greco-roman religious background. Islam, the religion of all prophets is a religion of success. Unlike the meaningless, devastating, disgraceful, helpless death of the invented central figure of Christianity, neither Muhammad nor Jesus were failures.

Whether Jesus' message survived now or not is irrelevant. The success of a prophet's mission of being the faithful conveyor of his God's message is independant of whether his addressees hearken his calls, mend their ways, preserve his message or attempt to kill him. All prophets attest to this reality. Prophets are not sent to cause forceful spiritual reform. Their duty is only to deliver the warnings and glad tidings, as here stated by the prophet Hud

11:57"But if you turn back, then indeed I have delivered to you the message with which I have been sent to you, and my Lord will bring another people in your place, and you cannot do Him any harm; surely my Lord is the Preserver of all things". 

It is then up to the people themselves to hearken the calls and act accordingly. If they do it is for their own benefit, if not it is their own loss. Both outcomes have no bearing on the truthfulness of a prophet or the accomplishment of his mission.

Jesus was then honored and purified from the false charges of the disbelievers meaning his close entourage and few followers were informed of the truth about his last moments on earth, and his followers were later granted dominion over them

3:55"O Isa, I am going to terminate the period of your stay (mutawaffika) and cause you to ascend unto Me and purify you of those who disbelieve and make those who follow you above those who disbelieve to the day of resurrection; then to Me shall be your return, so I will decide between you concerning that in which you differed".

Apostate prophet investigates Christ's death; was he killed?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

The whole matter of Jesus' end in this world appeared as if the Jews had succeeded in their evil, murdering plots because, among other reasons, Jesus was missing, or as the Quran says God "tawaffa" him, purified him and made him ascend to Heaven. This instead prevented the humiliation that wouldve happened if his enemies got to the body. If they presented it to the people in a humiliated state, leading to a psychological victory for the Israelites 

4:158"Allah took him up to Himself". 

They couldnt even kill him, nor could they damage his body and God states He would raise him up to himself, meaning that not only his body wouldnt be humiliated but it would be honored by God instead.

God thus lifted Jesus up and did not leave a trace of him with them yet even without proof for their claims, the Israelites that wanted him dead managed to start a rumor that quickly spread and was believed. The resulting confusion was similar to that of the rumor of the prophet Muhammad's death during the battle of Uhud 3:144. Roman crucifixions occured daily and by the hundreds, of any agitators to the point that they would sometimes run out of wood for the crosses. The accusing Jews could easily pass off their boastful claims as fact in those circumstances, regardless of whether they truly believed their own claim or not. This rumor spread among both friends and foes. It is entirely possible at this point that not only the Jews were unaware of Jesus' true whereabouts, but neither were his followers. The confusing absence of a prophet has been a means of testing the followers left behind, whether they would remain on the clear path outlined by the prophet when he was in their midst, maintain his directives, or start innovating in the religion and go back to their sinful ways. This occured with Moses, as he retreated away from his people to receive revelation, just as it did with Muhammad when many fell into despair during the battle of Uhud, and later when he died 

3:144"And Muhammad is no more than a messenger; the messengers have already passed away before him; if then he dies or is killed will you turn back upon your heels?" 

The Nazarenes, like the calf-worshiping Jews thus failed the test of steadfastness in the absence of their prophet. As the rumours of Jesus' death started by his enemies became widespread, his disillusioned followers retrospectively painted the whole thing as a divine masterplan, with all the Christologies that ensued. Those among them that maintained Jewish law were sidelined by Paul's movement very early on, and within just 2 generations the little remnant of Judaism within the Jesus sect was erased. It was supplanted by a wave of converts from the greco-roman world who found in this transformed and readapted original Jewish sect, a favorable echo for their own beliefs, naming this new religion, Christianity. 

It is thus meaningless to argue that because the corruptions the Quran denounces were introduced early on, then it follows that these were original teachings of Jesus. Had Moses and Aaron not quickly and violently corrected the corruptions to their teachings, executing the guilty by the thousands, nothing would have prevented the same kind of falsehood to be passed off as "genuine teachings" of Moses, as was done with Jesus 

5:117"I said not to them except what You commanded me - to worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them as long as I was among them; but when You took me up, You were the Observer over them, and You are, over all things, Witness". 

Jesus did not have the occasion to do as Moses and Aaron did very early on so as to prevent the lies attributed to them from becoming "orthodoxy". However, if they escaped Jesus condemnation, it does not mean God was unaware of their evil doings.  

Isnt it surprising that the Lord's prayer taught by Jesus himself (as opposed to every other prayer that others taught to say in Jesus’ name), never mentioned Jesus, nor vicarious atonement, nor him as messiah, nor him as intermediary, nor any trinity, among anything else Christological? This foundational prayer is more anti-christian than any passage one may find in the entire Bible. 

We're not talking about the lack of Christological references in terms of labels, but in terms of concepts. The prayer is far removed from the ideas established by the Pauline movement, the creeds of the Church Fathers and later councils. Not only are those concepts absent but every sentence of the prayer clashes with mainstream Christian tenets. For example vicarious atonement, not only isnt it mentioned by name or implicitly as a concept, but in addition we have Jesus, who is supposed to be the embodiment of that notion, refuting it 

"forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us". 

No need for Jesus, forgiveness is attained through one's own efforts. The same is conveyed in the parable of the prodigal son Lk15. The unrighteous son is forgiven by his father simply for turning to God in sincere repentance. Not only is he forgiven but he is welcomed with a warm celebration. It is his state of contriteness that brought him back to life, not the blood on the cross "he was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found".

The idea of vicarious atonement stems from the notion of human depravity; none may claim righteousness on his own due to a sinful nature that pollutes every deed and thought. Yet Jesus undermines that notion too; temptation isnt the product of inherent human depravity and satanic influence. Rather it is God, who is perfectly righteous, whom the worshiper asks 

"not to lead us into temptation". 

Jesus teaches his followers to begin the prayer by calling upon "our" Father who is in heaven, not to the divine son who is on earth. Nothing distinguishes Jesus from a regular believer in terms of sonship to the Father. The same fatherhood that applies to him applies to the others. It is the Father's name only that is to be hallowed, His will is to be done, and He is the Sustainer of the devotees, including Jesus

 "Give us today our daily bread". 

These innovations might have initiated among Jesus' close circle, through re-interpretations of his teachings, or among the wave of new converts that supplanted them. To this new, outer circle, the claim that he was captured and killed resonated as closer to the truth and a more honest assessment of his disappearance.

His gruesome death became an attractive narrative of heroism and martyrdom not only for the sake of his followers but for the entire human race. 

Jesus is portrayed as fearing death and wanting to avoid it Jn7:1,11:54,Luke 22:42. He begged God (himself) 3 times, putting his forehead to the ground, to take his soul before experiencing suffering and death in Matt26:38. He does not want to experience what he was about to go through but nevertheless submits his will to that of the father, whether he decides to make him bear the cup of suffering or not 

"Yet not My will, but Yours be done". 

Clearly, had he been given the choice, he would have refused "dying for the sins of mankind" despite having supposed foreknowledge of the divine plan of salvation since the beginning of creation, a plan which he himself sketched together with his divine partners. It also shows one of the co-equal partners submitting his will to another. Yet we never see the reverse, with the Father obediently submitting his will to the Son or the Holyspirit. That "hesitation" from Jesus cannot be attributed to his human nature as he himself states that it is his soul that feared and doubted Matt26:38. Then, when on the cross Jesus grieves for God's abandoning him. Even Revelations5 which is sometimes quoted to defend the notion of a predetermined divine masterplan of salvation through Jesus, is in fact speaking in eschatological terms, just as the whole book does. It speaks of the salvation of some people after events of great tribulation, ie the end of times. Then we have Heb5:7 throwing in the ambiguous statement that Jesus' prayers were heard and accepted by God, and this includes the desperate cry to "let this cup pass from" him. The realization of his prayer, his inability to take on the full brunt of the "sins of mankind" came in the form of Simon of Cyrene who relieved Jesus from his cross and carried it half way till Golgotha Matt27:31-33. 

This embarrassing change to the divine master plan of salvation forced another author in Jn19:17-18 to have Jesus carrying his own cross, the symbol of mankind's sins, all the way until he reached Golgotha where he was crucified. The cross in fact was not a Christian symbol until the 6th century. Could the whole "Simon of Cyrene" tale be orthodoxy's early response to a story popularised by certain gnostics that it was not Jesus but Simon who had been nailed to the cross?

The predictions Jesus makes as regards his impending death on the other hand are portrayed as willful self-sacrifice. In these versions, we see other inconsistencies. When he tells his disciples, several times and explicitly how he would die, they are taken by complete surprise when the events unfold Matt16,17,20,Mk8,9,10,Lk9,18. Not once are they depicted, following his supposed death, as patiently waiting his predicted resurrection after just 3 days. Neither are they depicted recalling the secret miracle once it unfolds. Even when he appeals to prophecies at the third and last prediction of his death 

Lk18:34"The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about". 

Clearly, there was a general atmosphere of confusion as to Jesus' disappearance, a confusion which the writers could not deny as it corresponded to the reality they knew about and witnessed. But, because they were writing from the lens that he was crucified, they had to retrospectively paint this confusion as a misunderstanding by the disciples of Jesus' clear predictions. Between Jesus' desire to avoid death, his repeated predictions as to his willful execution, the misunderstandings of the disciples, the story line lacks consistency and seems muddled. We see the same pattern with other major themes retrospectively applied to Jesus, such as his messiahship, again painted as shrouded in obscurity due to the "misunderstanding" of his closest disciples. The simple reason is that the historical Jesus did not go around claiming to fulfil the messianic predictions of the HB. The claim was later made for him. If he did, people would have laughed their lungs off, including the Romans. The Gospel writers, writing at least 50 years after the events knew that what Jesus accomplished had nothing to do with the highly anticipated establishment of the kingdom of God. They were thus left with no option other than painting the whole matter as they did.

Prior to Jesus becoming God, the pagans scoffed at the notion of a human savior dying a cursed death then resurrecting. But the later introduction and spread of the deviant notion of Jesus' divinity made the Christian religion fit more easily into their paradigm. 

As the Quran says in the context of Jesus' supposed divine sonship 

9:30"they immitate the saying of those who disbelieved before".

Gentiles of the region believed in Mithraism, a religion already spread all throughout Europe and Asia minor centuries prior to the birth of Christianity. Among such beliefs is the death and resurrection of Osiris. Those ritually sharing in that death and resurrection through baptism had their sins remitted. The pagan Roman authorities thus welcomed the new religion seeing it was in congruence with centuries of tradition of dying and/or mutilated savior gods. 

As the early church father Justin Martyr conceded

"when we say...Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified, died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus".

Paul, who was at most a hellenezied Jew, was explaining Jesus teachings in ways that were unheard of by Jesus' disciples. Paul's letters were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were not written until 60-90 meaning Paul's theories were already established before the unknown writers of the gospels started their works and earlier Christian thought was quickly branded heretical. The church was so weak that within the same generation of the disciples, this Jewish sect of the Nazarenes, whose distinction from mainstream Judaism was only in the belief that Jesus was the messiah, turned upon its heels, abandoned Jewish law, adopted concepts unheard of anywhere in Judaism. There is a reason why the Gospel writers including Paul do not quote the Hebrew Bible but the Greek Septuagint which was hated by the rabbis as it represented the Hellenization of many Jews of the time. The early church thus became irrelevant very early on following Jesus' departure, due to Paul's efforts at supplanting it, dismissing Jewish law as obsolete, reinterpreting core semitic concepts of God so as to appeal to his pagan audience.

After Jesus' death, Paul's main problem was to convince his Jewish audience that the messiah's death, without accomplishing any of the messianic criteria, instead of being a failure was actually a necessity. He did so by introducing the doctrine of total depravity, making all humans de facto sinners and therefore in need of an atoning sacrifice Rom7:14-25,Rom3:10-11,5:13,8:7-8,1Cor2:14,Eph2:1-3,Titus3:3. His addressees however already believed in the resurrection of the dead, in a just God who forgave the sins of a penitent heart. Nothing was missing in their system that Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection could fix. Paul's redeeming hero was a redundancy to them, so he was obviously met with fierce resistance wherever he preached his unscriptural ideas. This led him to eventually turn to the gentiles among whom he found a much more favourable audience. All this is evident from a cursory reading of the NT and the writings of Paul. That is how Christianity was shaped, using its target audience's sensitivities all the while toning down to the maximum its Jewish heritage.

The sect that "won" and became "orthodoxy" achieved victory by political rather than epistemic means. The dominant branch was but one among many early, conflicting Christian sects, as even reflected in Paul's letters and the desperate struggles he had with them to maintain control of his own congregations. The process was not a difficult one considering Mithraism's tendency to accommodate with other rival cults, throughout its vast geographical spread, before and after Christianity. Christianity of course wasnt that accommodating, doing everything to supplant it due to the disturbing similarities. Many Church Fathers (Justin, Origen, Tertullian) attempted rationalizing Mithraism's similarities with their religion; "satanic imitations" being the standard explanation. The fine details of those similarities are now lost due to the Christian destructions of all "mithraes" they could put their hands on as well as persecute its followers. The task of reconstructing which themes Mithraism absorbed from Christianity so as to embellish its own narrative, versus what actually pre-dated Christianity, becomes a speculative task. But the presence of such vehement defenses by church authorities reveals their major embarrassment, their discomfort at their opponents' accusations of plagiarism. Instead of engaging their critics in debate, these church fathers and other Christian "orthodox" writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries slandered their opponents with exaggerated or even false charges, shunned them or socially intimidated them. This pattern of engaging their critics is in itself revealing of their own insecurities.

Here are a few examples, it was in the 4th century that Pope Damasus I introduced the 25th of december as the birthday of Jesus (Christmas). He used the immensely popular  ancient mid-winter solstice Roman festival, which lasted for several days and culminated in the feast of 'Brumalia' on December 25th.

This major celebration among pagans caused agonies for the Church, and since the early Christians had absolutely no idea of the day, month or even year of Jesus' nativity, it was a relatively easy matter to superimpose a Christian festival on the pagan one. We can go on with other similar examples of assimilation of clearly pagan practices.

Apostate prophet concerned with Christians; Allah deceived them?

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

That misinformed youtuber starts off saying the Quran wrongfully accuses Jews for disliking Jesus. Well the Quran doesnt say anything as regards the Jews' resentment of Jesus, that the NT itself doesnt echo. The Quran speaks of the Jews contemporaries to Jesus, not those of later times. IT says they were adamant at having him killed, boasted of it and took the full responsibility of it.

Everything that is explicitly found in the NT, as anyone familiar with the descriptions of Jesus' trial and execution. As to deception, firstly, it is in the HB that one finds statements depicting God as literally being the creator of evil Deut30:15,Isa45:7,1Sam16:14. This isnt a Quranic concept. In the Quran, God is al rahman.

As to deceiving Christians, Firstly, It does not say that it was made to appear that Jesus died on the cross, in a purposeful divine plan to confuse his contemporaries. The Quran answers in 4:157-8 the Jews' mockeries about having succeeded in killing a supposed prophet of God. It refutes their arrogance and reiterates Allah's unchanging way concerning the prevailing of His messengers/rusul. According to this divine pattern, certain messengers sent with clear proofs for their arguments and warnings of destruction leads God to implement these threats upon the rejecters once the deadline is reached 58:20-21,48:22-23,36:26-32,40:51,77,43:42. The Messenger, along with those that are with the Messenger are saved, and those that are not perish or are forcefully subjugated. Among these messengers are Nuh, Hud, Ibrahim, Salih, Shuayb, Musa, Jesus and Muhammad.

The verses 4:157-8 declare that contrary to those Jews' boastful claims, Jesus was not crucified NOR KILLED. This rebellious attitude towards Jesus and assumed hatred of him to the point that they even sarcasticaly call him a prophet in their mocking self-conviction can easily be understood if one considers the depiction that is made of them in the NT. They bitterly rejected him vehement rejection of him, lobbied the Romans to crucify him without evidence. They even were ready to take the blame for murdering an innocent upon themselves and their own children, sarcastically refering to his kingship to the Jews Matt27.  There are several passages where the Quran reflects this cynicism, such as their sarcastic declaration of being hard-hearted to divine guidance 2:88,4:155.

Some have attempted saying that the Quran merely denies that the Jews killed Jesus, not that the crucifixion didnt happen at all, and that the purpose is to show that his death occurred by God's will. However, the verse would not deny both killing and crucifixion had the purpose been to show who was "really" behind Jesus' death. Neither does it at any point present Allah as the real "culprit". The wording denies the idea of Jesus dying in anyway shape or form, whoever makes the claim. If the verse wants to give "credit" to God instead of the Jews, then it still doesnt deny the physical reality of the matter, had Jesus truly been crucified; it doesn't present his execution as a reality at any point. The rabbis, as described in the NT instigated the Romans to have him crucified. Meaning the Jews quoted in the Quran are correct outwardly in their sarcastic self-conviction. The Quran would have been incorrect had it been shifting the blame from them, unto God. Besides, the Jews, being monotheists understand the deeper reality of God being the ultimate cause of all things. While making the statement, they understood that God is in control of causality at all moments and allowed them doing what they think they achieved in regards to Jesus.

The verses in the Quran however clearly dismiss whatever way the disbelievers attempted at Jesus' life, including their desire to crucify him as was common in those days, and they did attempt many ways 5:110 including stoning him. The object of the verses therefore isnt to deny the crucifixion specifically, nor to delve into the Christian, unbiblical dogmas surrounding it, such as it being the necessary atonement for mankind's supposed sins and inherited depravity from Adam.

These strange concepts are indirectly addressed and refuted in verses establishing the principles of non-transmission of sins and individual accountability. The object of these verses is rather to negate the idea that Jesus' opponents succeeded in murdering him by any means, just like they were now attempting with the Ishmaelite prophet. Should they have succeeded it would have defeated God's word and promise concerning the truthfulness of His prophets and their warnings. Jesus, the messenger sent with an undeniable manifestation of the Truth as well as clear warnings of destruction to befall his rejecters, was protected by Allah like others before him. 

God would console his messenger, just as was done with his predecessors, those sent with an undeniable manifestation of the Truth, that they will be protected. Just as Jesus and Ibrahim were preserved from any harm and humiliation when seized by their opponents 5:110,21:68-71,29:24,37:97-8, Muhammad was rescued from the harm and the constant plotting of his enemies 5:67,8:30,33:37 like Salih before him 27:47-53. Allah promised Moses and his brother Aaron, reassuring them prior to their encounter with the greatest tyrant of the earth 

40:45,28:35"We will strengthen your arm through your brother and grant you both supremacy so they will not reach you. [It will be] through Our signs; you and those who follow you will be the predominant".

All of them were raised and honoured, and their opponents brought low when the promised divine chastisement came to fruition. See similar passages in the HB Isa49:2,Jer11:18-23,15:20-21,20:11. An important thing to note is that truth ultimately prevails and the will of God established. Believers are eventually made to prevail over the oppressors and disbelievers. This might happen in their lifetime or in the hereafter, in or outside the time of a prophet. The Quran has enshrined this principle in sura Buruj, as it begins by relating the story of those martyred for their faith in God in a pit of fire, and then follows with the destroyed nations to whom prophets were sent. Allah assures us that He does what He intends, and that what matters is the grand scheme of things in which His will reigns supreme 

85:1-16"Indeed, the vengeance of your Lord is severe".

Something worthy to note at this point is that the prophet Muhammad, had he been the Quran's author, had nothing to gain and everything to lose in terms of credibility and hope of acceptance among the Christians by making such a claim. Every Christian around him and beyond believed he was crucified, and every Jew, as is depicted from their self-convicting sarcasm, were more than ready to take upon themselves the guilt of his execution. It was to them a kind of cynical slap in the face of their Christian age-long oppressors. The Quran here, in a matter of paramount significance to its audience, as it does in other places, does not seek to accomodate any group of people at the expense of the Truth.

Apostate prophet is adamant; do not become Allah's slaves!

In answer to the video "Allah is Merciless"

Before getting to the core issue bothering this youtuber, from a more materialistic perspective, the Quran never places the aqcuisition of slaves as a demand of religion. This means that when the institution of slavery is absent altogether from Muslim society, the divine law remains complete. Secondly it limits the aqcuisition of slaves by confining it to the war prisonners in the defensive war campaigns, specifically those that could not be ransomed, thus forbidding the enslavement of a free person.

On a more spiritual note, servitude to God is what each believer seeks.

51:56"And I have not created the jinn and the men except that they should serve Me/yaabuduni".

The root is Ain-B-D and it means slave or servant. Being a 'abd/slave of God is what each pious Muslim strives for and previous prophets all throughout the Hebrew Bible were refered to as God servants, including Moses or David. God Himself calls them

Jer29:19,2Kings17:13"My servants, the prophets". 

The original Hebrew says abadi/my slaves and the Arabic rendition Ketab El Hayat (NAV) uses the same word ibaadi/slaves.

Any regular person who is pious and humble before God, considers himself a slave to the Almighty, and this notion isnt specific to Islam or the Quran, see the Hebrew Bible in 1Sam1:11,3:9-10,23:10,2Sam3:18,7:20. Again, the Arabic Bible uses 'abd/slave, just as the original Hebrew says abdi/my slave or abdika/your slave. 

The reason Moses was sent to free the enslaved Israelites was because their servitude was only God's prerogative "Let My people go, so that they may serve Me" as is stressed in 

Lev25"It is to Me that the Israelites are slaves: they are My slaves, whom I freed from the land of Egypt". 

As the prophet king Solomon is reported to have stated in his last words with which he concludes his book of

Ecclesiastes12:13-14"Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole purpose of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil".

The whole purpose of man is therefore to remain in fear of God, His judgement, and keep His entire commands which obviously is synonimous with worshiping Him with awe.

As to the Quran, the word aAABUDA, the form of ain-b-d used in 51:56, is the action of making oneself slave. Conceptually, the term of "making oneself a slave" suggests becoming a slave voluntarily to an entity. That is the term used for worship since to make oneself a slave of an entity, voluntarily, is through love of that entity and through being in awe of that entity. That reality is captured in the opening sura, sura fatiha which expresses the believer's yearning to making himself God's slave. God's relationship with His slave isnt that of a cruel master, but that of a compassionate, forgiving, sustaining, and merciful one 39:53. He is al rahman and al rahim, as stated in sura fatiha where the person seeks servitude of the rahman and rahim, 2 words comprehensively containing all aspects of caring and goodness.

Ibada isnt simply the performance of religious rituals, or merely "worship". It denotes an unceasing mindframe in every deed

6:162"Say. Surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the worlds".

In 22:77 the ritual acts of ‘bowing’ and ‘prostration’ are mentioned beside the word a‘budu/worship, showing that the word encompasses a larger scope than the ritual, worshiping aspect. Ibada is basically a way of life, the acceptance that in our relationship with God, we are the lowest and He is the Highest. The Quran instructs mankind to manifest this ibada in 2 ways, servitude to God through ritual worship, and servitude to the humans through acts of empathy and compassion, as God commands us to do

"And that you should keep up prayer and be careful of (your duty to)
Him".

The Quran delves at great lengths upon the concept that worship of God is tied to goodness towards fellow men, placing it in some cases, as of equal importance to ritual worship. So important it is in fact that when defining Himself as the rahman/the most merciful, Allah places that characteristic as being the chief evidence by which His humble servants are recognizable in this world 25:60-77. Ibada is thus not merely ritual worship, but rather something that covers it, as well as other intricacies. God addresses Moses in a way that reflects that notion. As he was about to be imparted with divine wisdom, prophecy, miracles, Moses is told

20:14"Surely I am Allah, there is no god but I, therefore aAAbudni/enslave yourself to me, and keep up prayer for My remembrance.."

Again, we see that ibada is made distinct from worship. In another place, the concept of ibada is eloquently depicted as a manifestation of the dye/sibgha of Allah 2:138. It is as if the servant of is immersed inside/out, by Allah with the religion of Islam.

Ibada is such a high level of God-awareness, submissiveness and humility that it must be exclusively aimed at Allah, the true Sustainer to whom one owes everything or it will lead to destruction. On the day of judgement those who submitted to anything other than Allah, selling their intellect and spirituality to evil entities will be told

36:60"Did I not charge you, O children of Adam ! that you should not serve ('ibadah) the Shaitan? Surely he is your open enemy. And that you should serve ('ibadah) Me; this is the right way".

By now, it has been made clear, "worship" doesnt capture the entire dimension of the word. Making oneself a slave is a timeless and unlimited condition, while worship is restricted in time.

As an interesting linguistic observation, there are 2 forms steming from the same ain-b-d, which can be used when referring to the servants/slaves of God. The Quran uses AAabeed for all of God's slaves, and AAibaad for the select from among them. They are described in 25:63-77.