Journal of Discourses 3:30-32; “About six hundred years after Christ a prophet rose in Arabia, by the name of Mahomet… p 31 Mahomet
continued preaching; there was nothing in his religion to license iniquity or corruption; he preached the moral doctrines which the Savior taught; viz., to do as they would be done by; and not to do violence to any man, nor to render evil for evil; and to worship one God… p 32 Now this man descended from Abraham and was no doubt raised up by God on purpose to scourge the world for their idolatry.” – George A. Smith, Salt Lake City, September 23, 1855
Matthew 24:23-27; “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 25 Behold, I have told you before. 26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. 27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
We mustn’t ever take our eyes, focus or hearts off the biblical passage today. To do so would be anathema for each and every one of us. Even though we have hectic and crazy lives nowadays, we can’t allow side items of social angst’s to trip us up. We see this tragedy lived out all around us and perhaps no other time in history has provided mankind such a menagerie of messes.
While the folks back in George Smith’s day probably weren’t privy to the info we have today, common sense would tell them what Smith claimed was a lie. The Church claims there was a complete and total apostasy after the last apostle died so how could a prophet in the 7th century be teaching truth?
Furthermore, if Mohammed was all that great of a guy, why didn’t the Church elaborate more, or provide info on his teachings?
Your comments also make no sense. If I was to use the same argument then I could say that much of the four gospels don’t make sense. The information of today does nothing to the teachings of Joseph Smith. It is because of the use of common sense that people lack faith.
George Albert Smith never acknowledged Mohammed as a prophet of God but was identifying Mohammed by his known title. Plus, some of the teachings of islam reflect Christian teaching of today.
There is not a lot of time or space to completely go into details on the Mormonism-Islam comparisons here. There are a few other articles in the sidebar topic on this. You can read an in-depth study with references in this book:
The American Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Founder of Mormonism; Pub. 2013 by Concordia Pub. House.
ISBN 13: 978-0-77586-4029-1
ISBN 10: 0-7586-4029-3
From the book:
‘…Yet Smith made the most remarkable confirmation when he declared himself to be “The American Mohamet.” With that he drew a voluntary parallel between Mormonism and Islam.’ (page x)
God doesn’t “raise up” false prophets; both Joseph Smith and Mohammed are self-proclaimed prophets. There is nothing about Islam that is comparable to Christianity; it only appears to have some of the same things. Both Mormonism and Islam are work-righteous religions.