Christianity vs. Islam on TV in Manhattan courtesy of the Israelite Church of God and

Almost at the start the host, Brother Wise, claimed that Muhammad was a Black Hebrew Israelite, and a prophet (though keep in mind that they mean "prophet" in a way that is quite different from the popular Islamic understanding of prophet - case in point, they consider all their own high priests today to be prophets as well), and then added that "the anti-Christ came and changed that up".

The information on Muhammad stopped cold there, and they decided to give the "truth" regarding what was Christianity first, before returning to the subject of Islam. Chaawashab cited Matthew 10:5-6 as proof that Jesus only came for Israel, and that his doctrine was only to be spread to Israelites (oddly, he makes a pbutting admission that the disciples "were not ready" to go to the other nations -in his mind, to find Israelites scattered abroad- which showed a consciousness of disciples in other parts of the Christian Bible doing precisely what Jesus said not to do: preaching to gentiles, going into the cities of the Samaritans, et cetera). He then cited Acts 11:26, saying that the disciples were first called Christians at antioch (and from there he concluded that this means that a true Christian is an Israelite who spreads the true teachings of Jesus to Israelites, whom he describes as "men and women of negro and indian descent").

Chaawashab went on to explain that all the popes before Pope Pius III were "Black Israelites," but then Pope Pius III changed everything, setting into motion a line of caucasian popes that continues to this day. He claimed that the Christian and Roman empires were ruled by Black Hebrew Israelites, starting with Septimus Severus in 193 AD (I kid you not), all the way until 1453, when caucasians (or "Edomites") seized power in Europe while the continent's black nobility fought amongst themselves. And so, according to Chaawashab, we got "Vatican II" again, I kid you not and the renaissance, which is where the new white-controlled Vatican hunted down and captured two reknowned Black Hebrew Israelite artists named MichelAngelo and Leonardo DaVinci, and forced them to white wash all the icons in the empire (i.e. they took all the icons which had images of a black Jesus, a black Mary, a black Peter, a black Paul, the line of black Popes, et cetera, and replaced them with new white versions). He then noted that in Europe and the Middle East there still exists some icons that depict the saints as black.

That covered the first 20 minutes of the show. From there they looked into the first chapter of Revelations. Chawaashab cited Rev 1:1 to note that the point of the book was to reveal the truth about Jesus Christ, and noted 1:9 to demonstrate that John was the author. From there Brother Wise, the host, interrupted to note that some truth was about to be dropped on the viewers, and then noted that whenever the Muslims or Farakhan wants to speak, the media gives them a platform, but they don't treat the ICGJC the same way (thus, in his mind, proving that "the devil" is trying to diseminate lies and suppress the truth). After that they returned to Revelations, and Chaawashab cited 1:14-15 to prove that Jesus was a Black Hebrew Israelite. When the text says that his head and hairs were white like wool, Chaawashab argued that the white symbolized wisdom, and the wool meant he was clearly a black man (he also argued that the "head" being white like wool was a reference to Jesus' beard being white as well). He further argued that the description of feet like brbutt burned in a furnace proved that his skin color was "like chocolate".

As far as they were concerned, that ended the debate - the Hebrew Israelites were black. Chaawashab then went on to note that other Biblical figures were black as well, and cited Solomon, whom he noted was an ancestor of Jesus. They cited Songs of Solomon as evidence that the book was written by Solomon, and then segued into a rant about how Hebrew isn't known by the other nations; rather what the heathens think is "Hebrew" is really Yiddish. Then he turned to Songs 1:5 which states (in the KJV) "I am black but comely," and correctly noted that the text is stating "I am black and beautiful". From there he claimed that "I am black" in "Yiddish" is "ani shachor". What he meant was that this is the Hebrew pronunciation of the text (separate from his Lashawan Qadash pronunciation). What he missed was that the text actually reads "ani shachorah" (i.e. the adjective is in the feminine, thus this is a woman rather than a man speaking!). After that Chaawashab confidently challenged skeptics to "check the Hebrew".

Finally, after all that, which totalled more than 45 minutes (including the show's intro), they got to Islam. Chaawashab claimed that the Islam preached by Muhammad was originally all about Christ and the Israelites (and what he meant was that Muhammad's original doctrine was not significantly different from that of the ICGJC), but that the anti-Christ changed all that after Muhammad's rest. They promised to give clips from the movie "The Message," which they claimed would prove this (and Chaawashab added that "this movie has been approved by the caliphs and scholars of Islam"). Humorously, Brother Wise stepped in and noted that he himself used to be a Muslim before finding "the Truth" (i.e. ICGJC doctrine). He said that Muhammad preached belief in one God, but then Islam teaches that Muhammad set up the Kaaba where Muslims go to worship 360 gods. He actually said this, and claimed that when he was a Muslim, this was one of the contradictions he was unable to reconcile, where Muhammad taught belief in one God, but Muslims go to the Kaaba to worship 360 gods(!!!). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Brother Wise was never actually a Muslim - rather this was, at best, a pious fib. Chaawashab then attempted to gently (and subtly) correct Brother Wise, stating that the Kaaba had 360 gods, and Muhammad removed them, replacing them with a Monotheist doctrine. While it seemed like a good save, from there Chaawashab claimed that Muslims today worship the Kaaba, and that this represents one of the many changes made to Islam after Muhammad's rest.

Moving on, Chaawashab set out to prove that Muhammad was an Israelite. He stated that Muhammad was from a people known as the Bani Hashem, and claimed this means "sons of God". He went on to claim that "Hashem" means "the name" and is a reference to God. This glaring error is rooted in the fact that Orthodox Jews employ the Hebrew phrase "ha-shem" in place of YHWH. The word (though spelled similarly) in Arabic does not mean 'the name' (for example, the "ha" in the Hebrew phrase is the definite article, while the definite article in Arabic is "al" alif-lam). The Arabic word he has in mind is haashim, which also today refers to Hashemites, and comes from the haa-sheen-mim triliteral root, meaning "destroy" (among various other things). It does not mean "God" or "the name" any more than the Arabic word "salam" refers to a type of deli meat or than the Arabic word "rum" refers to a type of hard liquor.

Chaawashab then notes that Muhammad was visited by the archangel Gabriel, whom he claimed is mentioned all through the Bible and is only sent to Israelites. He then noted that Gabriel's first words to Muhammad were "read," which Chaawashab claimed was proof Muhammad was not illiterate. Then he asked what Muhammad was supposed to read, since the Qur'an did not exist yet. He claimed the Qur'an was compiled years after Muhammad had died, and it mixed a few of Muhammad's sayings with lots of lies. Chaawashab went on to note that the Bible had been completed by then, and was all over the world, thus the implication was that the same Bible that he held in his hand was also in Arabia, hence answering the question that was, in his mind, rhetorical: what was Muhammad supposed to read? The Bible obviously!

To end it off, Chaawashab and Brother Wise noted that Muslims always claim "Islam is a way of life". So then Chaawashab asked "but where did they get that from?" He turned to Rapaya'ahla and said "give me John 14:6... read!" From there they argued that this demonstrated that Muhammad's original doctrine was strictly about Jesus Christ (the implication being their understanding of Jesus and the Bible), because if Islam is a way of life, and Jesus is the way, then obviously Islam (at least "true Islam") is about Jesus Christ. Muhammad was merely spreading their doctrine to Israelites scattered amongst the Arabs.

Thus completed the first part of the show on Christianity vs Islam, and Brother Wise invited viewers to catch the 2nd part, which will air on May 10th, at 4:00 on the same Manhattan Cable station. Hopefully part 2 will be better than part 1.

That being noted, I would like to offer some articles dealing with various doctrines of the ICGJC:

This article examines some of their attempts to prove that Edomites are white people and how their specific brand of exegesis is rather problematic.

This article serves as a companion piece to the article above, and takes a look at how ancient Israelites themselves understood Genesis 25:25.

This article examines a verse that these Israelites love to cite when attempting to prove that the Israelites were black.

This article examines their spurious brand of Hebrew which they claim is the true tongue.

This article gets into the issue of the cry attributed to Jesus on the cross, and how this relates to the "Lashawan Qadash" issue.