Dr. Jerald F. Dirks & Abdur-Rahman Abou Almajd in dialog about his interesting Islamic books.

Dr. Jerald F. Dirks.

Dr. Jerald F. Dirks (Abu Yahya) and Debra L. Dirks (Um Yahya) journeyed into Islam through many avenues and byways, saying Shahadah in 1993. Al-Hamdulillah! Their journey went through the Arabian horse and its history, Christian theology, Biblical studies, and ancient and modern history, and it continues to be an ongoing process still today. They consider themselves to be students of Islam and are always learning and sharing. Currently, Dr. and Mrs. Dirks are writing books, conducting workshops, and giving speeches around the globe.

Dr. Jerald has written several interesting books, including Abraham—The Friend of God, Understanding Islam, The Abrahamic Faiths, The Cross The Crescent, Letters to My Elders In Islam, and Muslims in American History, and he hasn’t finished his newest book called What You Weren’t Taught in Sunday School. In addition, he wrote five chapters in Easily Understand Islam, and Sr. Debra was the co-editor of Islam Our Choice.

I'm afraid it is our fault that only one of these books has been translated, i.e., The Cross and the Crescent was translated into Indonesian. We are so asha med that only one book has been translated, even though there is a huge shortage in Arabic library. Good news, Insha'Allah some great Arab Publishers are going to translate some of Dr. Dirks' books, it won't be long time till Dirks' books are translated, Insha'Allah.

The following interview was conducted with Dr. Dirks.

Abdur-Rahman: First, welcome back. When I asked about you last week, Um Yahya told me you were traveling to give some lectures. Could you tell us where you gave lectures and what they about?

Dr. Jerald: I delivered two lectures at Washington State University as part of their Muslim Student Association’s Islamic Awareness Week. One lecture was on the commonalities to be found among the three Abrahamic Faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The second lecture was a refutation of the erroneous claim that Islam’s concept of God is not that of a loving deity.

Q: How did you know Islam is the true religion?

Dr. Jerald: When someone asks me why I became a Muslim, I usually say that ther e is a long answer and a short answer. The long answer includes all of the factors you mentioned in your introduction, and it would far exceed the permissible length of this interview. The short answer is, I always say, “A good seminary education.” By that I mean that a good seminary education, the post baccalaureate educational program to become an ordained minister, includes a thorough grounding in:

(1) the Bible, its additions, deletions, its misleading translations, its internal contradictions, and the selection process that went into determining which books were and were not accepted within its pages; and (2) early Christian history and the machinations that went into formulating and codifying the various doctrines of Christianity, including the conflict that raged between Paul of Tarsus and the Jewish Christian church established by the actual disciples of Jesus (peace be upon him).

Such knowledge makes it nigh impossible to accept such basic Christian doctrines as the Trinity and the combined divinity and humanity of Jesus (peace be upon him). Al-Hamdulillah, I was fortunate enough to receive such an education in the course of obtaining my Master of Divinity degree from the Harvard Divinity School. Thereafter, although I was an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, I avoided the parish ministry in favor of becoming a practicing psychotherapist and considered myself to be an “atypical Christian,” i.e., one who did not believe in either the divinity of Jesus (peace be upon him) or in the Trinity.

When many years later I came into close social contact with several Muslim families in the Denver, Colorado, area, I began to study Islam. Within the pages of the Qur’an, I discovered knowledge of the Bible and of Judaeo-Christian prophetic history that simply could not have been known by an illiterate Arab in seventh-century Arabia.

Two brief examples can illustrate this. Firstly, the Qur’an consistently refers t o the Egyptian ruler of Joseph (peace be upon him) as Malik or king, while the Bible consistently refers to this ruler as Pharaoh. In contrast, both the Qur’an and the Bible refer to the Egyptian ruler of Moses (peace be upon him) as Pharaoh. This distinction is important in that the kings of Egypt did not adopt the title of pharaoh until after the time of Joseph (peace be upon him) but before the time of Moses (peace be upon him), a fact that was not known until archaeological discoveries many centuries after the time the Qur’an was revealed.

Secondly, the Qur’an includes a story not found in the Bible about Abraham (peace be upon him) reasoning to monotheism by naturalistic observation of the sun, the moon, and the star. This is important in that it wasn’t until the 20th-century excavations of Ur, the childhood home of Abraham (peace be upon him), that it was discovered that the temple in ancient Ur was dedicated to an astral triad consisting of the sun, the moon, and Venus (the evening and morning star).

Q: In your first book, The Cross and the Crescent, you explore some areas of interface, both similarities and differences, between Islam and Christianity. Would you elaborate on some of those differences?

Dr. Jerald: The main differences between Islam and modern Christianity can be boiled down into the following issues:

(1) The mission and ministry of Jesus (peace be upon him)—universal according to contemporary Christianity, and specific to the Children of Israel according to Islam.

(2) The nature of Jesus (peace be upon him)—combined divinity and humanity according to contemporary Christianity, and humanity according to Islam.

(3) The crucifixion of Jesus (peace be upon him)—reality according to modern Christianity, and illusion or fiction according to Islam.

(4) The nature of God—Trinity according to modern Christianity, and Unity/Oneness according to Islam. Additional differences concern the role of the Bible as divine revelation, the role of the Qur’an as divine revelation, and the prophetic status of Muhammad (peace be upon him).

While contemporary Christianity differs from Islam on each of the four main points listed above, there were branches of ancient Christianity that agreed with Islam and disagreed with modern Christianity on each of these four points.

The Cross and the Crescent details this discrepancy between some branches of ancient Christianity and contemporary Christianity in some depth with regard to the first three issues noted above. In doing so, the actual text from early Christian writers and from the Bible is utilized in demonstrating how these ancient Christians agreed with the Islamic position on each of these three issues.

Q: What makes your second book, Abraham—The Friend of God, a unique biography of this prophet?

Dr. Jerald: In Abraham—The Friend of God, I have integrated information from the Qur’an, Sahih Ahadith, the Bible, and such ancient Jewish sources as Jubilees and Josephus’ first-century Jewish Antiquities to create as complete a biography as possible. The process of integration that I utilized gave first priority to the Qur’an and Sahih Ahadith and then filled in the gaps in the story with the other sources of information.

Q: In your third book, Understanding Islam—A Guide for the Judaeo-Christian Reader, you give a thorough introduction to Islam, including the concepts of Qur’an and Sunnah, for the reader coming from either a Jewish or a Christian affiliation. How has that book been received?

Dr. Jerald: Al-Hamdullilah, the book has sold a few thousand copies, and many of those sales have been to non-Muslims. I believe the book is a good introduction to Islam for Jews and Christians. It stresses the commonalities that we share in prophetic history, presents a brief biography of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and introduces the reader to the Qur’an, Sunnah, five pillars of practice of Islam, and the six pillars of belief of Islam. In addition, and quite importantly in the wake of 9/11, the book provides several chapters clearing up commonly held misconceptions about Jihad in Islam. Overall, the response from both Muslim and non-Muslim readers has been quite positive.

Q: Your fourth book, The Abrahamic Faiths, is a perfect follow-up book to Understanding Islam. In the sixth chapter of The Abrahamic Faiths, you recount the history and current status of Islamophobia in the Christian West. Please elaborate on this issue.

Dr. Jerald: Perhaps the best starting point for tracing Islamophobia in the Christian West is with Pope Urban II’s decidedly unchristian statement at the Council of Clermont on 11/25/1095, when he branded all Muslims as “an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God” and urged the assembled knights and noblemen to “exterminate this vile race (Muslims) from our lands.” In closing his rallying cry to annihilate all Muslims, which launched the First Crusade, he proclaimed, “Deus volt” (God wills it). Since Urban II’s call for genocide against all Muslims, Islamophobia has permeated the troubadour songs of 12th-century France, e.g., La Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland), and the writings of such stalwarts of Western Europe as Dante, Chaucer, and Voltaire. More recently, even before 9/11, but reaching a fever pitch after 9/11, some well-known ministers of the extreme Christian Right have turned Islam bashing and the slandering of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with the most outrageous of prevarications into what is practically a cottage industry. For example, on a 10/6/2002 broadcast of Sixty Minutes, Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a terrorist. Even more vitriolic was Rev. Jerry Vines statement that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a “demon-possessed pedophile.” At present, despite the efforts of mainstream Christian denominations to work for mutual understanding and respect with various Islamic organizations in interfaith dialogue, the anti-Islamic propaganda of the extreme Christian Right appears to be gaining ground.

Q: In your fifth book, Muslims in American History—A Forgotten Legacy, you note that there is a prominent myth that Muslims were Johnny-come-lately to the shores of America, arriving only in the latter half of the 20th century. In combating that myth, your book offers a number of proofs that Muslims have always been part and parcel of America. Would you give us a brief review of that information?

Dr. Jerald: Arabic records document that there were at least three voyages to America from Muslim Andalusia, the first of which was by Khashkhash ibn Saed ibn Aswad in 889, fully 600 years before Columbus landed on San Salvador on October 12, 1492. Additional voyages to the New World from Muslim Andalusia included that of Ibn Farrukh in 999 and of Al-Idrisi’s account of a ship with eight sailors. Further, Shaykh Zayn Al-Din ‘Ali ibn Fadhel al-Mazandarani sailed from Morocco to the Americas in 1291, and there were two voyages by the Muslim Mandinka from Mali to the Americas circa 1310. These latter two voyages comprised over 2,000 ships.

In addition to these pre-Columbian voyages by Muslims to the New World, it should be noted that when Columbus made his first voyage in 1492, he had with him at least one Muslim (an African named Pedro Alonso Nino) and three Moriscos. (Moriscos were Muslims or the immediate descendants of Muslims who had been forcibly converted to Christianity under pain of death or torture from the Spanish Inquisition. Typically, these conversions to Christianity were sham conversions.) The three Moriscos were the Pinzon brothers, two of whom captained two of Columbus’ three ships.

Muslims were also present with the Spanish Conquistadors as they explored and conquered parts of the Americas in the 16th century. Estevanico of Azamor, aka Mustafa Zemmouri, would be one such example of a Muslim serving with the Conquistadors. Additionally, Muslims were present in such 16th-century Spanish colonies in the Americas as Santa Elena, Cuba, Mexico, Florida, and the American Southwest. Not to be outdone by the Spanish, the British settled Turkish Muslims in Jamestown, Virginia, by at least 1631.

The largest early influx of Muslims to America came about as part of the infamous slave trade. Somewhere between four and six million Muslims from Africa were imported into the New World as slaves during the 16th through 19th centuries. These Muslim slaves helped build the agricultural base of the American South and left a Muslim residual that survived into the 20th century, although occasionally in distorted form.

Finally, it should be noted that Muslims such as Yusef bin ‘Ali fought in the American Revolutionary War to gain independence from Great Britain. Muslims such as Bilali Muhammad stood armed and ready to defend the American coastline from British invasion during the War of 1812. Muslims such as Muhammad ‘Ali ibn Said fought to preserve the American Union during the American Civil War of the 1860s. Muslims such as Hajji ‘Ali helped tame and settle the American Wild West in the latter half of the 19th century.

In depth information about all of the above Muslim contributions to American history is listed in Muslims in American History—A Forgotten Legacy.

Q: Tell us a bit about your sixth book, Letters to My Elders in Islam.

Dr. Jerald: This is a collection of letters addressed to the Islamic Ummah that was written over the course of several years. The letters focus on a variety of issues, including geopolitics and world events, American politics, the potentials and pitfalls of private Islamic education in America, and the faults, foibles, and shortcomings of the Muslim Ummah. Not all of the letters represent my own beliefs and perspectives, as I occasionally used this format to give voice to the concerns of other Muslim brothers and sisters, even when I disagreed with their position.

Q: In Islam Our Choice, the book co-edited by your wife, the lives of six different American women who converted to Islam are presented. The book chronicles their lives before accepting Islam, the reasons that led to their conversions, and their lives after accepting Islam. When can we look forward to a similar book detailing the lives of male converts?

Dr. Jerald: I’ve thought about doing such a book, but it is presently on the backburner. Currently, I’m finishing up a book that is tentatively titled What You Weren’t Taught in Sunday School, which contains seven essays. These essays cover such topics as:

(1) How was the Bible formed, and how many different Bibles are recognized by one or another branch of Christianity;

(2) The actual historical role of Paul in the formation of Christianity, and the nature of the conflict between Paul and the actual disciples of Jesus;

(3) The extent to which the concepts of Holy War and genocide are part and parcel of Biblical history;

(4) The non-Israelite Israelites;

(5) The actual location of Mt. Sinai;

(6) The story of Moses’ first wife;

(7) The fact that the Bible credits two different people with killing Goliath;

(8) The information that suggests that “Doubting” Thomas was the brother of Jesus (peace be upon him);

(9) An examination of who actually wrote the canonical gospels;

(10) The discrepant lists of Jesus’ 12 disciples given in the New Testament;

(11) The major additions to, deletions from, and misleading translations to be found in the Bible;

(12) How Jesus (peace be upon him) is portrayed in traditional Jewish and Islamic literature.

(13) A refutation of the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Insha’Allah, this book will be out in print late this year or early next year. After that book is finished, I have plans to write at least two other books before I can start on a book about American males who have converted to Islam.

Q: No doubt you have helped many American men and women to convert to Islam; the number is going up so quickly, could you tell us how many?

Dr. Jerald F. Dirks: I believe that conversion to Islam is something that occurs between an individual person and Allah (swt) and that no third party can claim credit for that conversion. Having said that, I have no way of knowing how many people may have been influenced by my books and lectures in deciding to accept Islam. I do know that about a year after The Cross and the Crescent was published a brother who worked full time in Da’wah told me that he had successfully used that book in obtaining around 200 Shahadahs in the prior year. In addition, I am occasionally contacted by brothers and sisters who tell me that one or another of my books was helpful to them in accepting Islam.

Abdur-Rahman: Allahu Akber, Thank you a lot; Jazaka Allahu Khairan.

Dr. Jerald F. Dirks: Thank you; it has been my pleasure.