What had stirred the whole story was the fact that a group of Arab Evangelical Christians from Israel and missionaries from abroad had distributed Bibles and Christian literature in Arab Muslim villages in Galilee during Easter. These books were taken from Emmaus Bible school in Arabic (including "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell) and the "Jesus Film"

The Islamic movement (a Fundamentalist Radical Islamist group led by the Sheikh Raed Salah from Um-El-Fahim in the Triangle) claims that this group of Evangelical Christians distributed among their literature a book that makes a comparison between Islam's prophet Muhammad and the Lord Jesus ,showing the superiority of the latter.

The book claims that Muhammad suffered from Epilepsy and insanity and not divine inspiration. It also describes Muhammad as a manipulator and a fierce and violent man who would do everything to achieve his goals, while Jesus used the merciful and peaceful way. The book also describes Muhammad's marital life as unbalanced for he had married a women (Khdeeja) that was older than him by 15 years and then married Ai'sha who was 9 years of Age.The book notes that according to Islamic sources, Muhammad used to have daily intercourse with his 9 or 11 wives both at 1 AM and 1 PM, while Jesus was far from any flesh lusts.

Emmaus Bible school is a small Evangelical Bible school by correspondence affiliated with the open Brethren Church and operating since 27 years in Nazareth .They deny the accusation that they had distributed the book ,but claim that a Muslim young man came to the director of the Bible school Mr. George Khalil pretending that he had interest in the Christian faith and then picking up without permission some books from the school including the mentioned book.

The deputy for the head of the Islamic movement in Israel (Sheikh Kamal Khatib from Cana of Galilee where Jesus performed His first Miracle) wrote a large article on a full page in "As-Sennara", the leading weekly among the Arabs in Israel owned and edited by a nominal Christian. In his article he gave a comprehensive review of the comparison made in the book between Jesus and Muhammad but did not to try to tackle the claims but instead used bad language against Emmaus, Christian Zionists and Mr. Khalil.

The Sheikh claimed that the book was distributed in Islamic villages but that he had sent this young Muslim to Emmaus Bible school to "be sure" that it was them that were behind distributing this book. Sheikh Khatib published in his article the phone numbers of Mr. Khalil (cellular and work numbers) and also the email and regular mail of the Bible school , so people could call "to express their protest". To make sure that the mob would get the message, the competing Arab paper "Kul Al-Arab" published a photo of the Emmaus school and by this endangering Mr. Khalil. As a result of this information, Mr. Khalil got hundreds of threatening, swearing and cursing calls from different people.

Several Catholic and Orthodox figures that were approached by the Islamic movements and by the papers that wrote about this issue hastened to attack the director of the Bible school fiercely, although they had not heard his full version of the story.

"Come and see" received the statement that Emmaus Bible school has issued on Monday the 5th of May. In it they clarify that the book was issued and printed by "Light of Life"- Austria and was not distributed by the group mentioned above.

Emmaus emphasized that it's director had not knew the content of the book and that Emmaus does not distribute materiel that was offending to other religions and that their sole purpose was to "glorify God and to bless the people that Jesus died for".



Related Links

Al-Sennara Article (Arabic)

Kul Al-Arab article (Arabic)

Emmuas Press Release (Arabic)

Emmaus Bible school (Arabic & English)

George Khalil's email


Update, May 10: Burning bottles thrown at Brethren Church in Nazareth