The Book of Mormon and Holy Quran

I have been pondering a spiritual phenomena of why my Muslim friends are so enthralled with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon when many have rejected conventional Christianity.

It seems that in the Muslim Faith, a Holy Work is considered of God if it meets certain very strict standards:

It must be written in the FIRST PERSON – Some have said that the first chapter of the Holy Quran was not written in first person and is suspect even to Muslims.

The B of M clearly begins with first person authorship, starting with “I”, denoting first person in English.

The second standard of those of the Muslim faith is that the book MUST CLEARLY STATE AUTHORSHIP. Muslim’s rejection of the Holy Bible is because of unknown authorship of some books and uncertainty as to just exactly who performed the translation of the Holy Text. Their ancient Prophets emphasized that God would give them a Holy or Sacred Book that would be written in FIRST PERSON and would clearly state authorship and the exact name of the translator.

The B of M starts with “I, Nephi”. Authors are clearly denoted all throughout the Book of Mormon.

The other sign that a text is to be considered Holy is that the person translating or dictating the Holy text is know to be illiterate or uneducated. The prophet Mohammad was well known to be illiterate yet the text that he dictated was said to be extremely complex and in perfect Arabic. JS was known to the “unlearned” yet the text he dictated was extremely complex and in perfect English.

They were also told by ancient prophets that an angel would appear unto a prophet and give the prophet the Holy Text. The Holy Text would not exist on this earth, the original copy was to be kept in Heaven. NO ORIGINAL COPY OF THE TEXT WAS TO EXIST ON EARTH.

The Book of Mormon meets all four of those criteria as does the Holy Quran.

The last prophesy of this “true Prophet of God”, is that he would be a man who would live the Abrahamic covenant of marriage. The Islamic peoples are direct descendants of Abraham and his plural wife, Hagar. The covenant between Abraham, Hagar and the Lord is the MOST sacred covenant in Islam. Plural marriage is considered a sign of submission to the God of Abraham, The ancient prophesy was that these “wives of the prophet” were to become the “mothers of the young church” and nurture the church of God so that it would grow. This would give women a direct role in bringing forth the “Kingdom of God on earth” just as the Virgin Mary had a direct role in bringing forth the Son of God from her womb. This covenant cannot be supplanted by any other – it is the most sacred of all. The Muslim men are very impressed that JS lived the ancient Abrahamic covenant of plural marriage because it is the sign to them that he is a true prophet of God.

I pondered that question, “what if JS would have rejected plural marriage”, the entire nations of Islam would have rejected the LDS faith. I recently read that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints is now on track to become a major world religion even among Islamic nations.

One of my closest Muslim friends converted to Christianity last year. As I came to work, he shouted to me from down the hall, “let me be the very first to wish you a Merry Christmas”. I cried.