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Americanism vs. Islamism: A personal perspective
Terrorism is simply a means to an end. The only way to defeat a tactic is either to defeat the source completely or to take away the dreams of the enablers.

Monday, January 28, 2008
By Zuhdi Jasser

My venturing into public discussions on the intersection between religion and politics is not something that I chose, but rather something I felt obliged to do after 9/11. Prior to then, I’d been dealing with many of the pathologies within the Muslim community, but as I began to see who was emerging as “spokespersons” for my faith after 9/11, I had to do something; hence the formation of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

More than six years after 9/11, we’re starting to figure out that terrorism is just a tactic. The tactic has a goal, a mission, and a dream. Terrorism is simply a means to an end. The only way to defeat a tactic is either to defeat the source completely or to take away the dreams of the enablers. Those dreams, when they are wedded to religion, become the biggest liability for those of us who are embarrassed even talking about religion and politics. What greater incendiary mechanism could there be to manipulate Western society than to cover a fascistic dream in a faith that is a spiritual path for over a billion people? And what better way to insulate itself from criticism than to cover itself in a spiritual guise?

Non-Muslim and Muslim alike, Americans, guided by the Constitution and First Amendment, have always been protective of our faith. One of my heroes growing up was Thomas Jefferson. The Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, engrained in our society a respect for the free practice of religion. Jefferson said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” This idea that a person’s relationship with God is his or her own and not the role of government to impose upon citizens is one of the main quarrels that the Islamists and those who ideologically feed the terrorists have with the West.

Unfortunately, many Americans have forgotten that America was founded by people who were escaping religious persecution. America is not just a flag, it’s not just our media, MTV, rock and roll, or blue jeans. It’s an idea of religious and political freedom and the freedom to be and achieve what you want, with equal access to everyone. That access is not dictated by wealth, religion, or any other immutable characteristic. That is what the Islamists fear the most.

“Islamist” does not necessarily mean only terrorists, and the simple condemnation of terror does not make someone necessarily compatible with American and Western ideals. Condemning terror—the targeting of women, children, noncombatants and non-uniformed people for the achievement of political ends—simply brings one to the table of humanity.

The root cause of terrorism is the dreams of the political Islamic state, and we need to understand what that state is. It can be either the fascistic state that believes in the totalitarian or authoritarian imposition of Islamic law throughout society or the democratic Islamic state, which believes in parliaments, elections, and discourse and debate. These two different types of government share the identification of being an Islamic state because the source of law is the same: the Quran and the tradition, or sunnah, of the Prophet.

The sunnah guide my personal life—my last will and testament, my marriage, our marital contract. But that’s something we chose in our own home. To transfer that into government gives clerics exclusive access to law, legislation, and public and legal discourse. If non-clerics want to gain access, they have to become schooled in sharia law. As important as the West’s initiative to democratize the Middle East is, we’re missing the boat if we think we’re going to solve the problems in the Middle East by simply getting those countries to have elections and parliaments. We need to bring forth the ideas of freedom, liberty, and respect for individuals, sometimes over the community. That last principle is one that came in the West’s Enlightenment.

Until Muslims understand that their faith is not threatened by the Enlightenment and respect for the individual, we cannot win this war.

Sometimes when we present these ideas, we present them behind the American flag. But being patriotic doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is looking out for the best interests of freedom and liberty in America. Islamic organizations that purport to represent Muslims may have a vision for America that simply takes our flag and adds a little crescent, turning it into an Islamic state. Some in the Muslim community may call this fear-mongering or exaggeration, but that Islamist community should not be allowed to circle the wagons and rally themselves behind victimization. Rather, they should be engaged on these ideas of the role of religious law in public life. For while the vast majority of Muslims have assimilated and reformed their own practices, by virtue of the way that they live in America, ideologically they have often been given the freedom but not the means, the task, and the challenge to understand what it is that they are living day to day.

As a result, most of the texts on Islamic bookshelves are pre-14th century. Most of the Islamic texts on law, penal codes, civil codes, etc., are based on 14th century law at best—it could be 11th or 12th century. Hence the corporal punishment, the severing of hands for theft, the stoning of women for violation of marital laws, that is still part of Saudi law. This to Westerners is barbaric, but the religious law hasn’t been reformed or advanced to bring it into the 21st century.

One of the primary problems with Islamic reformation issues is the clerical leadership and the imams. Most Muslim families would be dismayed if their son or daughter wanted to study to become a cleric or imam, which is not of the same value to a family as studying medicine, law, or engineering. So the hold upon religious, theological discussion of jurisprudence in faith has been given over to less than the intellectuals in society.

My own family escaped Syria to come to America for ideological, not economic, reasons. After the French pulled out in 1946, my grandfather had tried to be part of the democratization of Syria, which did have democracy for a few years. Then unfortunately, as we saw in many Middle Eastern countries, coup after coup occurred from the early 1950s until finally the last military coup led by the Baathists which ultimately brought Hafez al-Assad to power around 1970. The secular dictatorships are deeply wedded to radical Islam and the Islamist threat in the world. They may seem to be diametrically opposed entities, but the evolution and history of radical Islamist or theocratic movements has been an equal and opposite reaction to the dictatorships in the Middle East—- whether they are the monarchy in Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabis who came out of them, or the dictatorships in Egypt and Syria, for the Muslim Brotherhood, which also fed Hamas in Israel. This is what happened in Iran, with the Shah initially in power, which empowered the radical Islamist movement. All of this is very symmetrical, and that’s why we will not be able to bring Islam into modernity without the removal of many of these governments.

We do not have to do this militarily. We changed Eastern Europe without invading any of those countries and defeated communism without invading Russia. But we need to turn our attention to the dissidents, to those who believe in freedom and liberty, not only democracy. If we align ourselves only with democratic movements, we may end up ushering in parliaments based on Quranic law and facilitating the establishment of Islamic states that may in the short term be more peaceful to us from a strategic standpoint, but in the long term could end up dividing the world into a triangular fashion of China, Islamic states, and the secular Western states.

The conflict is over the correct source of law—Is it the Constitution and natural law or sharia; the lay individual or the clerics, or the individual vs. tribalism or Muslim collectivism?

I’ve tried to go to prayer every Friday, I attend the Ramadan holiday prayers and have probably 70-80 percent of the time found mosques that were not solely about spirituality or about teaching children morality and character, integrity, service, and humility, but rather about politics—domestic and foreign policy, issues that I believe have nothing to do with my relationship with God but rather concern things on this earth. My response in many of the debates I’ve tried to no avail to have with imams is to tell them that if God wanted us to discuss these things, the Quran would have been filled with injunctions about how to run government. But there’s nothing in the Quran about how we should run government. Yet they will take passages that do talk about war, for example, and transpose them out of context, which I believe is about history far more than it is about religion.

Back to my story. Once in the early 1990s, on leave from the military, I went to an Islamic medical association meeting. One of the only other Muslim medical officers was the head of endocrinology at Bethesda. He and I were going to present a paper on hormonal regulation and some endocrine issues at the Islamic Medical Association, which was being held in conjunction with the Islamic Society of North America annual conference. I had never been to a meeting of ISNA, the largest Muslim organization in America. Its annual meetings are attended by 15,000-30,000 Muslim activists. The keynote address was given by Siraj Wahhaj, Imam of Al-Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, New York, who was originally with the Nation of Islam and then converted to Sunni Islam. I was pulled into listening to this magnetic speaker, until he began talking about the constitution. He picked up the Quran and said “You know, I was on an airplane and imagine, a Jewish passenger sitting next to me asked me about the Quran I was reading—if Muslims became a majority in America, would we replace the U.S. constitution with the Quran.” He laughed and said, “Can you imagine someone wondering if a document made by humans would be superior to a document made by God?”

I got lightheaded, I sat down, and after he was done I went to the Q-and-A microphone and said, “I’m not sure if you understand American law, but you have just violated the Sedition Act as I understand it. You’re free to disagree with foreign and domestic policy, but you cannot talk about the overthrow of the U.S. constitution and its replacement by another document.” I encouraged other military personnel in the audience to leave, because they were violating their oath to this country. It was in some ways traumatic for me. I had just joined the Navy. But yet they felt that I was overreacting. I feel that it is not overreaction. There are certain things we have to know as a community and as a nation that take priority over other things.

A German judge recently gave a man the right to beat his wife because the husband maintained that it was out of his religious law that he is allowed to practice domestic abuse on his wife. That’s not the Islam I was taught, but if we become a society where once someone raises the flag of religion we stop critiquing it and stop holding him accountable to values that we share as a community, that is the day we begin down the slope of defeat.

As much as some Muslims could say I am mischaracterizing Islam or am too harsh, I think it is important to have the debate. Five years after the ISNA meeting, I met my wife and her family in Cleveland and told them that story. They said “We were there! We heard you say that.” Yet nobody did anything. Nobody stood up and agreed with me, nobody said “We may have a problem.” That same imam then became an alleged unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later, in 1995, testified in defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman.

There’s a tribal mentality; somehow individuals want to create and advance the ideas of the tribal leaders. The Islamic community has reverted back to pre-Islamic Arabia, to a tribalism that has lost its values. Any time you take an idea in which the ends justify the means, it is basically corruption. Alija Izetbegovic, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, said that he was never more Muslim than when he was in solitary confinement under Marshal Tito for 15 years. A Muslim can hear that and think “My rights and freedoms in society are not related to my being Muslim. I have more time to sit and talk to God and be closer to God when I have absolutely no rights and I’m sitting in solitary confinement. Therefore my religion and my piety are unrelated to this earth.”

Actually, the idea that we should be selling—not on the U.S. station Al Hurrah, which actually gets very low ratings in Iraq, but on Al Jazeera, on Syrian TV—is that the way for individuals to be closest to God is to live in freedom. When you live in an environment where people around you are not fasting in Ramadan, where they are not praying five times a day, where I choose to separate from the group and go pray on my own, not in the middle of a gate at the airport demanding for everyone to see me but actually on my own, that actually is more of a demonstration to the God of Abraham, that I’m choosing to do that of my own free will. Thus, the day of judgment, if you believe in a day of reckoning, has more meaning to God. That is to me the message of our founding fathers. The most pious nations and individuals are those who can freely decide whether to act or to practice their faith without coercion from government.

Muslims will say, this is ridiculous, you don’t want religion to inspire what we do? There’s this equivalency where they then give me ten other religious lobbies in America that supposedly mix religion and politics. I’ll say that there’s absolutely no comparison, there’s no moral equivalency between religiously inspired political groups and Islamist groups that have a constructive law as a goal— the nucleus of which is completely different from one based on a human document. The key is that we hold Muslims accountable to what they view the concept of law would be if they became a majority. One finds few or no Christian, Buddhist or Hindu groups who want to bring, e.g., canon law or religious jurisprudence into American jurisprudence. Yet they may be inspired and empowered by their faith, which is very different.

I would then remember de Tocqueville, who said that military dictatorships do not need God, but democracies and lands based on freedom do. Because as you know, in the Middle East, and we see this in Iraq, when countries have lost their values after decades of dictatorship and become corrupt, there’s such a loss of values that corruption has guided and taken over that society making freedom difficult to take hold.

As a result, you have wanton destruction and lawlessness. The only thing that would control that society is some form of martial law. So you need to transition states from oppression to freedom, but that transition needs to be inculcated with values.

At the end of the day, if we believe that those values they’re going to use to drive their ideas are going to be based on morality, that morality has to come from somewhere. If it’s not going to come from Islam, then we’re going to have to convert over 1 billion people to another faith, and that’s not going to work. So that source of values is going to have to be their faith of Islam, which we as Muslims believe is a message from the God of Abraham to Muslims. But that message has to be put in a way that’s consistent with modernity and pluralism.

What can we do as a Western society within our community and what can we do, especially for non-Muslims and other organizations, to help this process along and move it along faster than the five hundred years of stagnancy that we’ve been under?

First, in our own societies, we need to be cautious about permitting parallel societies, parallel courts such as sharia courts where Muslims are given the “freedom” to set up their own legal court system. They would become an incubator for radical Islamism. Canada tried this, and the most vocal voice against sharia courts were Muslim women, even though they were told by the non-Muslims in Canada that “You don’t have to, it’s voluntary.” Once you get swept into this, it’s like fighting domestic violence in our own country. We must prevent the establishment of institutions that cater to that and allow the incubation.

Second, we see many examples like the taxicab drivers in Minneapolis who wanted to be separate from the society, not to carry people who were carrying alcohol, to impose their values on the passengers they picked up. Some may say that making a lot out of these issues is an exaggeration—“you need to lighten up.” But every opportunity I have to highlight examples, of what in medicine we would call pathegnemonic symptoms, of the pathology of Islamism, I will exploit that. Because they are doing the same thing. They are exploiting victimization issues and politics to use what we have now been calling law-fare to get us distracted, to sue individuals who are the biggest threat to their ideas. So that we’re all so busy fighting lawsuits such as the flying imams case (the six imams who filed suit against U.S. Airways in March 2007 for having been removed from a flight in November 2006 after behavior that many have called provocative) to distract us, to continue to divide society between Muslim and non-Muslim and to allow the continued inculcation of this Islamist ideology via Muslim collectivism.

A good example is Carver Elementary School in San Diego, which because of the third of its students who are Muslim wanted to move the lunchtime from 12:30 to 1:30 pm so that they could have their prayers. I wrote a column and on CNN talked about the fact that many of us grew up in public elementary schools praying and doing our own practices of faith without asking for the entire school to change its time schedule. You can step away during a break and practice your faith. Certainly I would not want schools to prevent Muslims from praying, they should be given the space to pray if they need it. Because that’s a personal faith practice. But once that personal faith practice crosses the line into society and starts changing the schedule of the general society or changing the cost to general society to the taxpayers, as we saw with the footbath incidents where the University of Michigan was paying $30,000 to install footbaths, that crosses the line of the founding principles of America. I don’t have a problem with private funding for that if they need it, fine. But not from the taxpayers. For once it comes from the taxpayers, then they should have allotted $30,000 for every other faith group in that university at the same time.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, I don’t remember Muslims asking for any of these things. It has almost become a tool of self-segregation and separating Muslims from non-Muslims so that they can continue this issue of minority politics. It’s becoming very potent and we have allowed it to take over the debate. It soaks up the bandwidth of American attention instead of allowing us to fight for freedom.

Islamic organizations today have only come to notoriety because of America’s fear of terrorism. If terrorism disappeared tomorrow, nobody would care about footbaths, schedules in schools, etc. Focusing on those issues would be the same as if a patient came into my office with lung cancer and I spent my whole time focusing on their cholesterol, headaches, and every other issue except the cancer. The Muslim community for credibility needs to start focusing most of its resources on the root cause of terrorism as a tactic, which is political Islam.

The methods of reform are manifold. First, engage the Muslim community on these issues, get informed about the difference between sharia law and constitutional law, and start to have discussion panels, not the interfaith, “kumbiyah” discussions that legitimize most Muslim communities’ leaders.

I have Frank Gaffney, executive producer of the documentary Islam vs. Islamists, to thank for connecting me with Dr. John Templeton and others. After his film, originally scheduled as part of PBS’ “America at a Crossroads,” was pulled from that series, it was shown on Fox News a couple of weeks ago. Ahmed Shqeirat, the imam who’s one of my main Islamist adversaries in Phoenix, in that documentary alluded to me (though not by name), claiming that I’m a “liberal extremist”. He went on to say that “people like me think we can somehow separate religion and politics and don’t want to acknowledge that every Muslim wants to live in an Islamic state, under sharia law.”

After the showing of the film locally, one interfaith celebration I knew of was cancelled in Phoenix. So people are starting to understand that there is a veneer of moderation from the Islamists. They know how to play the game outside the mosque, but these organizations are lacking on civil rights within their community. It’s a corruption that needs to be exposed. Ultimately, these institutions will disappear quickly once they start to be exposed to the regular American community that pays attention to hypocrisy.

So second, the Muslim community needs to be held accountable to its concept of umma. Umma is a word that is very prevalent in the Quran. It means “nation” or “community.” When an imam talks about umma, in Arabic and in his sermons, it is a threatening concept, because you then wonder at what point does an American Muslim follow the needs of the Muslim nation vs. the needs of the American nation to which he or she is a citizen. The Muslim community needs to “de-ummatize” itself, to really restrict the mechanism by which the umma is invoked. I would personally limit it to our study of theology and learning about the Quran and scripture; to charity that obviously all of our faiths seek to give; to socialization, obviously marriage within the faith is something all of our faiths try to do; and then last facilitating our hajj, our pilgrimage, and other aspects of practice and spirituality including mosques and community worship.

Third, we need to change the dreams. The dreams of most Muslims today are still wedded, because they have come from oppression and dictatorships, to religion, because the mosque was the last institution where they had a little freedom of speech, as long as they didn’t speak against their own government. That’s why the Muslim Brotherhood took over the mosques in Syria, and why the Wahhabis were able to spread texts into most of the mosques in the world, at a cost of $80 billion that they spent on spreading the radical word of Wahhabism. They were able to inculcate this literature into a lot of mosques, under the guise of most of these dictatorships.

We need to change those dreams from dreams of the utopian caliphate or Islamic states that bring them supposedly Islamic freedom to dreams of Western, individual freedom, where access to government and society is open to all. Much of the leadership on this must come from Muslim business leaders, who can argue for the kind of education that is needed.

Next, help us establish institutions. The Western enlightenment happened with the establishment of enlightenment institutions, classically liberal institutions that queried the church and government and began to question authority.

Hold some litmus tests and standards for the Muslims you engage with organizationally. They need to recognize Israel as a state, to stand against radical Islamist groups by name, not by theory, tactic, or condemning terrorism, but by name—Hamas, Al Qaeda and other groups. If they don’t have the moral courage to name the Saudis, the Syrian government, as an oppressive dictatorship, then you have to wonder where their allegiances are. These types of litmus tests are not being done enough even by our own government and the people they attach themselves to.

We need help in what I would call a counter-jihad that is still in its earliest, mitotic cell divisions. There are so many factors affecting the ability of Muslims to really contribute and get involved. One is because of fear—moderates are actually the first to be attacked; because of tribalism, because of the lack of knowledge. There are probably more people in this room who understand sharia than in most of the Muslim groups I’ve spoken to. That’s sad. It’s because the reins of understanding intellectual theology in Islam are just given up by most Muslims.

I will conclude with another Jefferson quotation that talks about the patience with which revolutions happen. “The generation which commences a revolution rarely complete it. Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body and mind to their kings and priests, they are not qualified when called on to think and provide for themselves; and their inexperience, their ignorance and bigotry make them instruments often in the hands of the Bonapartes and Iturbides to defeat their own rights and purposes.” (Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1823)

Jefferson was talking about our country’s founding. He didn’t end slavery, but Lincoln, who did decades later, probably said it best: “America is the world’s last greatest hope for mankind.” We have to remember the ideas America stands for, that there are millions of Muslims who came here because of those ideas, and if we tell them that Islam is the problem, we will not win the war.

Dr. Jasser is founder and board chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, he served in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer from 1988–99. He finished his military service as a Lieutenant Commander with an Honorable Discharge in 1999 and is now in the private practice of internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona. This enote is based on his September 26 talk as the 12th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs. Published by FPRI.

Today the western world looks upon Islam as a hostile religion and Prof. Huntington even made out a case for clash of western and Islamic civilisations. All this after years of de-colonisation and acceptance by western powers of pluralism. The hostility against Islam continues to be a determining factor in western politics. The western scholars too continue to attack Islam and Muslims. If there is no democracy in Islamic countries they blame Islam for this, not the dictators and irony of it is that presidents of USA remain very friendly with these dictators except the ones who do not bow down before America like Saddam Hussain or Ghaddafi or President of Syria.
Mrs. Anie Besant, a theosophist and freedom lover and founder of Theosophist Society of India in nineteenth century India, when India was still a colony of Britain, had much appreciative view of Islam. It is because these politicians view Islam from their political interests rather than as a religion.
The Danish cartoonists have shown total insensitive to religious feelings. For them hurting religious sentiments is also a part of freedom of press. These cartoons are extremely offensive as they make fun of the Prophet of Islam rather than any Muslim politician as if the Prophet was responsible for all that Osama bin Laden or his followers in Al-Qaeda have been doing. Whose fun do we make? One who is dead 1400 years ago and has nothing to do with contemporary developments in the world of Islam?
On the contrary Mrs. Annie Besant who lived in nineteenth century when there was no democracy and much more prejudice among orientalists against Islam, writes with so much sympathy and understanding abut Islam. I will share some of the observations of Annie Besant on Islam with my readers so that they can understand the difference between those scholars and journalists who write with prejudice and those who write with understanding.
Mrs. Besant writes in the foreword of the booklet, which is very essential to understand a religion: "an attempt is made to distinguish the essential from no-essential in each religion, and to treat chiefly the former. For every religion, in the course of time, suffers from accretions due to ignorance, to wisdom; to blindness, not to vision." Then she continues, "within the brief compass of a lecture, it was not possible to distinguish in detail, or to point out all the numerous on-essentials. But the following tests may be used by anyone who desires to guide himself practically in discriminating between the permanent and the transitory elements in any religion."
Her tests are as follows: "Is it ancient? Is it to be found in ancient scriptures? Has it the authority of the founder of the religion, or the sages to whom the formulation of the particular religion is due? Is it universal, found under some form in all religions? As regards spiritual truths, any one of these tests is sufficient."
Generally these later accretions Annie Besant refers to, become more important than the universal spiritual truths of any religion. These accretions are derived from local cultures, customs and traditions and hence for people of that area, becomes more fundamental that original scriptural pronouncements. Then there are political needs and arrogance of power, which distorts essential truths and real spirit of that religion. Religion of the ruling class is the political power and it is political power, which determines its contours rather than religion determining the contours and legitimacy of power.
Most of the scholars and journalists have no such basic vision and whatever they see being practiced, take it as the real core of religion and than either start criticising or even ridiculing it. Mrs. Annie Besant, on the other hand, tries to comprehend the essential spiritual truth of Islam, or for that matter of any religion.
Mrs. Besant, in order to understand religion of Islam, tries to first understand he biographical background of the Prophet. After describing his birth, his becoming orphan at a tender age, she continues, " Twenty -four years passed. He has been trading on behalf of a kinswoman, Khadija, far older than himself. She finds him so faithful, so frugal, so trustworthy, that they become man and wife - Muhammad not yet the Prophet, Khadija not yet the first disciple. Young man and older woman they are, but they live together so happily that their union remains one of the ideal marriages of the world, until she leaves him a widower at fifty years of age after twenty-six years of blessed married life."
She describes the Prophet as kind man leading a quiet outward life but engaged in terrible inward struggle, not satisfied with what he sees around him, poverty, slavery, suffering of the weaker sections of society. His wise counsels are forever for the poor and the distressed. He always keeps his word and is known as al-ameen, the trustworthy, surely the most honourable title a man can win.
As for his prophethood, Annie Besant describes it as follows: "Thus the years pass - years of struggle that few can measure and then on one night of nights as he lies there on the ground in his agony, a light from heaven shines around him, and a glorious form stands before him: 'Rise, thou art the Prophet of God; go forth and cry in the name of thy Lord.' 'What shall I cry?' 'Cry,' the angel says; and then he teaches him how the worlds were made, and how man was created. He teaches him of the unity of God, and the mystery of angles. He tells him of the work that lies before him. He, the most solitary of men, is to go forth and cry in the name of his Lord."
This story of the prophet is known to most of the Muslims but what is important is how sympathetically Mrs. Annie Besant, a Christian herself, narrates it with great sympathy and understanding. She perfectly understands the inner spiritual struggle, which the Prophet had to undergo before attaining prophet hood. All those who are not satisfied with the given society and its condition undergo such inner struggle before in their quest for the truth. The Prophet also underwent such inner spiritual struggle and spent days and days in the cave of Hira reflecting over the spiritual and material condition of Meccan society and it was in this cave that Truth was revealed to him, as Muslims believe, through Archangel Jibraeel.
The Prophet (PBUH), on being revealed this truth proclaims it to his fellow humans in Mecca. Mrs. Besant observes, "Among the many creeds of man there is none that is more earnestly believed, more passionately followed, than that spoken by the mouth of the Arabian Prophet and if the proof of belief be in conduct, then watch his followers and see how his word rules still the actions of their lives."
Mrs. Besant thinks that if a person has disciples from among his near and dear ones, that is the best proof of his sincerity and truthfulness as who knows a person from close quarters than his wife or sons or parents or daughters. Thus Mrs. Besant observes, The Prophet's first disciple was his wife, his next disciples were is nearest relatives. That says something about the man. It is easy to gain disciples from among those who do not know you, who see you only on the platform, who hear you only in a set speech. But to a Prophet to your close relatives is to be a prophet indeed."
Another genuine test of the truth of a great soul is how people not only love him but are ready to sacrifice everything including their lives for the sake of that truth. Without genuine conviction about the truth of the message no will stand utmost tortures and all conceivable troubles and even court death for its sake. The Prophet of Islam and the truth proclaimed by him won hearts and souls of his followers who were ready to face all troubles to protect and promote brought by him.
Mrs. Besant thus observes, " Some more gather round him, touched by his inspired words. But now fierce persecution breaks out, and his followers are called upon to endure terrible torture. His followers are torn to pieces; they are thrust through with stakes; they are exposed on the burning sand with faces upturned to the Arabian sun and with heavy rocks upon their chests; they are bidden to deny God and his Prophet; but they die murmuring: There is but one God and Muhammad is his Prophet.'
The people would not bear all such tortures without strong conviction in the truth of the message of Prophet. A pretender, a man of selfishness and violence to achieve his self designated goals as many western scholars project Muhammad to be, can never inspire ones followers to stand such unimaginable hardships. Only when one finds the message genuine, one will bear such unprecedented hardships.
The chiefs of Mecca even conspired to kill the Prophet but he manages to escape through the window of his small house and his cousin Ali, is ready to sacrifice himself by sleeping in his bed. The Prophet and his companion Abu Bakr, who chooses to accompany the Prophet (PBUH), are pursued and price is put on the head of the Prophet. The enemy does not remain silent. It pursues the Prophet and engages him and his followers at the battle of Badr. Prophet's own band is small while enemy is in much larger number and overawing indeed. They thus confront each other in the battle of Badr. It is not the Prophet who chooses to inflict war, it is enemy who is keen to defeat the prophet once and for all. Prophet wants peace but is forced into war. A small band of truth seekers vis-�-vis a mighty horde of enemy bent upon protecting its powerful interests. They clash - truth with interests and Mrs. Besant continues: The Prophet cries, 'O Lord! If this little band were to perish, there will be none to offer unto Thee pure worship.'
"This is Muhammad's first bloodshed", observes Mrs. Besant and proceeds, 'repelling an attack. He had ever been tender, compassionate, 'the womanish', as his enemies called him. But now he is no longer a private individual free to forgive all wrongs done to himself; he is ruler of a State, the general of an army, with duties to his followers who trust him. The days are coming when crimes that as a man he would have forgiven, as a ruler he must punish, and Muhammad the Prophet is no weak sentimentalist."
Though Mrs. Beasant is defending the Prophet as a head of the State, if one reads the Qur'an, the moral dimension cannot be lost sight of. The Qur'an repeatedly asserts Allah is Forgiving, Allah is Compassionate and Allah is benevolent. Thus throughout Qur'an one finds a palpable tension between the real and moral, political and ethical. Qur'an always gives precedence to moral over real and provides a transcendent vision. Transcendence is most fundamental to Qur'an and Qur'anic ethics.
Thus Mrs. Besant points out that "After the victory of Badr only two men were executed and, contrary to Arab usage, the prisoners were, by the Prophet's order treated with the greatest kindness, the Muslims giving them bread and keeping only dates for themselves."
Thus as far as the Prophet (PBUH) is concerned he was very kind and compassionate to the suffering of others. He is described by the Qur'an also as Rahmat lil 'Alamin i.e. Mercy of the worlds. However, there was violence everywhere in Arabia. It was way of life. One tribe attacking the other and killing in revenge (qisas) was considered normal. It was the Qur'an which portrayed Allah as Merciful and Compassionate and made 'afw (pardon) as morally superior to qisas (revenge)
The Prophet was so sensitive to suffering that even at the time of his death he asks his followers to pardon him if he has done anything wrong to them or to take qisas for that. Thus Annie Besant says, "And so things went on for ten years, and ten comes the end. And when prayers were over, they lift him up in the mosque, too weak to stand, Ali and Fazl on either side to hold him up, and he raises his feeble voice and cries: 'Muslims! If I have wronged any one of you, here I am to answer for it; if I owe aught to anyone, all I may happened to possess belongs to you.' One man says that he owes him three Dirhams and the coins are paid, the last debt to be discharged on earth."
Then Annie Besant comments (on the death of the prophet) "A noble life, a marvellous life; verily a Prophet of the Lord. And yet so simple, frugal, humble, patching his own worn out cloak, mending his own shoes, when thousands were bowing to him as Prophet - and gentle all around. 'Ten years', said Anas his servant, 'was I about the prophet, and he never said so much as "uff" to me.'"
Can we then portray the Prophet a "terrorist" as the Danish cartoonist did in the name of freedom of opinion and press? Does it show ignorance or prejudice or both? It is unfortunate that entire west today is reproducing these offensive cartoons and justifying them in the name of freedom of press. It is not only the question of freedom but also of proper knowledge about a person you portray. Where is the conscience where there is no knowledge?
Anie Beasant also defends the Prophet against charges of needless violence and slaying of kafirs. She writes, "But, they say, he preached war and extermination, and brutal bloody slaying of the unbeliever. It has ever been held, and laid down by Muslim legislators that when there are two commands, one of which is absolute, such as: 'Slay the infidel when he attacks you and will not let you practise your religion', that the condition, the limitation, is to be added to every such absolute command. This ruling is borne out over and over again by the practice of the Prophet. Concerning the infidel he says: 'that if they desist from opposing thee, what is already past shall be forgiven them; but if they return to attack thee, the exemplary punishment of the former opposers of the Prophets is already past, and the like shall be inflicted on them. Therefore fight against them, until there be no opposition in favour of idolatry, and the religion be wholly God's. If they desist, verily God seeth which they do; but if they turn back, know that God is your patron; he is the best patron and the best helper."
She also quotes an important verse from the Qur'an from chapter 17 'invite men unto the way of thy Lord, by wisdom and mild exhortation; and dispute with them in the most condescending manner, for thy Lord well knoweth him who strayed from his path, and he well knoweth those who are rightly directed. If ye take vengeance on any, take a vengeance proportional to the wrong which hath been done to you; but if ye suffer wrong patiently, verily this will be better for the patient. Wherefore do thou bear opposition with patience, but thy patience shall not be practicable unless with God's assistance. And be not thou grieved on account of the unbelievers; neither be thou troubled for that which they subtly devise; for God is with those who fear him and are upright."
Mrs. Besant has quoted an important verse, which summarises Qur'anic ethics. If one takes revenge, if should be proportional to the wrong inflicted and if one bears with patience (instead of taking revenge) it is always better and patience can be observed only with the help of God. Here we see that Qur'an permits revenge only as a matter of given reality but provides a transcendent dimension by asserting significance of patience (sabr). Sabr is a superior quality to revenge. Thus sabr is always preferable but if one wishes to take revenge it should be strictly proportional to the injury inflicted, not more. Thus the Qur'an makes us aware of superiority of oral over real.
However, if some Muslim violates the Qur'anic injunction and resort to violence out of all proportion to real, it is these Muslims to be blamed not the Qur'anic teachings. But the ignorant or those bearing malice towards other religion, will express opinion not based on real teachings of that religion but on the conduct of some of its followers and that too in the name of freedom of _expression. Freedom of _expression is by all means fundamental, even sacred, but has to be exercised with utmost sense of responsibility. There is no freedom without responsibility.
Mrs. Annie Besant held the Prophet of Islam in very high esteem and was well informed about the Prophet and his teachings. Throwing light on the conduct of the Prophet (PBUH) she says, "And look at his own conduct as illustrating his teaching. Never a wrong done him that he did not forgive; never an injury that he was not ready to pardon. There are faults in every faith; there are errors in the practice of all men. Ignorant followers often act wrongly, where prophets speak the truth. Judge a religion by its noblest, not by its worst, then we shall learn to love one another as brothers, and not hate one another as bigots and as fanatics."
If only we could follow this advice of Annie Besant, world will be very different. The Danish cartoonists created worldwide problem because they kept the worst examples of few Muslims before them totally ignoring what is the best in Islamic teachings. Freedom of _expression does not always mean writing or drawing anything expressing ones worst prejudices in its name. Many hate campaigners do precisely this. And even then they want to defend their right to freedom.
Throwing light on the teachings of the Qur'an, she observes quoting the verse from chapter 5, 'Who is better in point of religion than he who resigneth himself unto God, and is a worker of righteousness, and followeth the law of Abraham for the orthodox? Since God took Abraham for his friend."
She then says, "In that sense only is Islam the one religion; all men of every faith who surrender themselves to God are truly children of Islam. It is not the fault of the Prophet if his followers have narrowed it in later days. I appeal to the Prophet against his followers; as I have often appealed to the Christ against the Christians, and to the rishi-s against the modern Hindus."
It is important to note that when we dispute with each other we are guided by human ego rather than divine light and higher purpose. Those who understand and have knowledge will never quarrel on inter-faith differences. They will, on the other hand, live with these differences with proper understanding as human beings and leave it to God to finally judge who is right and who is wrong. What is wrong is due to human ego and what is right is due to divine light and higher purpose in life. That should be our approach to inter-faith problems.
Annie Besant is not a Muslim but has truly understood the essence of Qur'an and Islam, more than many Muslims do.

"I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."
George Bernard Shaw, The Genuine Islam, vol. 1, no. 81936.
But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigour, a young man of four and twenty (24), married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years (26), at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men's lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection." - - Dr Annie Besant (Dr Annie Besant in 'The Life and Teachings of Mohammad,' Madras, 1932)
A noted British author has observed: "No great religious leader has been so maligned as Prophet Mohammed. Attacked in the past as a heretic, an impostor, or a sensualist, it is still possible to find him referred to as "the false prophet." A modern German writer accuses Prophet Mohammed of sensuality, surrounding himself with young women. This man was not married until he was twenty-five years of age, then he and his wife lived in happiness and fidelity for twenty-four years, until her death when he was fourty-nine. Only between the age of fifty and his death at sixty-two did Prophet Mohammed take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons. Certainly the Prophet's record was better than the head of the Church of England, Henry VIII." Geoffrey Parrinder, Mysticism in the World's Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, pg. 121)

Ibrahim Mahfouz

Your point 1 and 2 are countlessly answered EVEN on faith blogs, more often by Muslim women then men. Even CCNL can tell you about it.

For your easy ref check my post on "Islam & Voilence

I would like to revise my introductory statement in the previous post to make it more in line with what I meant.
Moody:
You believe that all what is in the Quran is the absolute truth becaue it is the word of Allah as conveyed to His Messenger. There is an underlying assumption that Mohammad has integrity. Integrity implies an unswerving principles which manifest itself by practicing what you teach. Let us examine the evidence
1.
2.

Moody:
You contend tha the Quran has the Truth because it is Allah's word as relayed to Mohammed. You further imply that the "Messenger of Allah" has integrity. Integrity means practicing what you preach.Did he have integrity? Let us find out.

(1) The Prophet had grudgingly allowed his male followers to marry up to four if they satisfy the condition of “treating their wives equally”, yet he married eleven (11)

(2) He tried to situate himself within the roaster of Jewish prophets by adopting many of Judaism’s dogmas, practices and rituals, such as strict monotheism, abstention from eating pork and praying while facing toward Jerusalem. When he realized, after one and a half years, that the Jews of Arabia would not fall for his claim to “prophethood” he changed the orientation of prostration from Jerusalem, which was then called Aelia Capitolina, to Mecca (Bukhari, vol. 6, book 65, no 4492).
(3) He criticized poets and poetry. He did this with a poem and further had a private poet by the name of Hassan ibn Thabet, a sort of a poet laureate, whose job was to praise him and his deeds in peace and war.
(4) The Prophet claimed that he was illiterate (Quran 7:157) yet Muslims claim he had exhorted the believers to “seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave”. If so why didn’t he learn to read and write? Is it not that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander? Or how did he memorize word for word those very long chapters that he claimed Gabriel had dictated him in one sitting?
(5) He had built his whole movement on the concept of one God, Allah, who was not born nor had children (Quran 119:1-4), then turned around and stated that sometimes “the three daughters of Allah; Allat, Uzza and Manat, could intercede to believers with Allah” (Hadith relayed by ibn Ishaq 165-166).
(6) He preached sustenance (Quran 104:1-9) yet he accumulated a vast personal wealth that included vast stretches of date groves the Muslims had expropriated mostly from the Jews of Khaibar and Yathrib.
(7) He prohibited his followers from destroying enemy trees then violated his own decree by torching the palm trees of the Banu Nadir Jewish tribe.
(8) He praised Christians and Jews a few times (Quran 2:26, 5:69, 5:82, 22:17 and 29:46), then turned around and condemned them a number of times (Quran 3:110 5:14, 5:31, 5:51, 5:64, and 9:30-35).
(9) He broke his covenant with his adversaries on many occasions. He, for example, broke a truce with the Quraish tribe that was to last for ten years the instant he felt strong enough to defeat them and capture Mecca (Hadith relayed by ibn Ishaq).
(10) He agreed to have one of his young followers, Mohammed ibn Maslama, lie to the poet Ka’ab ibn Ashraf in order that the young man get close enough to murder the poet. That is because the poet wrote few unflattering verses about some Muslim women that upset the Prophet (Hadith relayed by Tabari).
(11) The Prophet publicly and with much fanfare adopted a Syrian slave boy, named Zayd. Later he forced Zayd to divorce his beautiful young wife, Zainab bint Jahsh, so that he could marry his daughter-in law, since Allah, according to him, sanctioned the union (Quran 33:37). Zainab, to her credit, balked at being a part of this scandal and relented only after hearing the “divine revelation”. To reconcile this horrendous act with previous admonitions that he loudly voiced against the marriage of men to their fathers’ or sons’ wives, he denied his relation to Zayd.
(12) He promised his favorite wife, Aisha, to abstain from sleeping with his Egyptian concubine, Maria. Shortly afterwards, Hafsa, another one of his eleven wives, caught him in bed with Maria during the night allotted to Hafsa. Incensed by what she considered was an insult added to injury she informed Aisha, despite his fervent pleadings. This resulted, as would be expected, in an ugly confrontation. The next morning Mohammed showed the betrayed and sulking Aisha* and Hafsa* a letter from Allah “exonerating the Prophet”, sanctioning him to sleep with “whoever he desires” and threatening his insubordinate wives to be replaced by “young black-eyed virgin nymphs” from Paradise. Allah dictated this message, he claimed, to Archangel Gabriel who delivered it to the Messenger of Allah overnight (Quran 66:1-5).

Oops,

Make that http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/quran.htm and http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/islam.html

The address extensions were in error in the original commentary.

Moody, Moody, Moody,

You definitely are in a Three B funk, i.e. Bred, Born and Brainwashed in Islam.

After a few weeks of deep breaths, deeper reading, and "googling" (e.g. http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/quran.htmho and http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/islam.html) you should come to the following conclusion:

The "depth" of Islam is based on a "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" named Gabriel. Without "old Gabriel" (plagiarized from the NT and other ancient beliefs), there would be no Islam i.e. the depth of Islam is very shallow and revolves around a single "pwtff thingie".

Therefore contemporary Islam is a shallow cult based on oil profits, terror, fear of the sword, stoning, hand chopping and suicide bombers.

With respect to the "science" in the koran, it is simply more plagiarism of what was already speculated on mainly by the Greeks and Egyptians or simply just bad science. See added comments at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_relation_between_Islam_and_science

An excerpt:

"In complete contrast, others worry that the contemporary Muslim world suffers from a "profound lack of scientific understanding," and lament that, for example, in countries like Pakistan even post-graduate physics students have been known to blame earthquakes on "sinfulness, moral laxity, deviation from the Islamic true path," while "only a couple of muffled voices supported the scientific view that earthquakes are a natural phenomenon unaffected by human activity."[3]

CORRECTION:

CCNL:

I'm still awaiting any single reply???
Angel Gabriel (A.S) revealed Quran to Muhammed(p.b.u.h) send by Allah.

And below few examples out of whole is the PROOF of its PERFECTION, AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUE REVELATIONS...PROTECTED..UNCHANGED..VERIFIABLE BY ALL LOGICAL SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.

Mohammed(PBUH) had no reason to lie,
other wise there would have been more than 50000 scientific, mathematical, logical, mythical mistakes, obscene pornography INCEST in Quran AS WELL like in your almost 200 KEEP ON CHANGING versions of Bible.

BUT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE SCIENTIFIC MISTAKE OR CONTRADICTION.

But there are things which are not yet scientifically discovered or proved. So it is not correct evaluating some thing that science does not APPROVE OR DISAPROVE ?
We humans know that there are countless entities which are yet to discover and beyond our present available knowledge OR OBSERVALBE BY OUR SIX SENSES.

AND IF MOHAMMED (PBUH) SAYS ALL THAT SCIENCE WHICH WAS HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL RECENT TIMES
IS REVEALED TO HIM BY GABREIL (A.S.) WHERE HE EVEN DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ OR WRITE,

THEN

WEEE BELIEVE !!!! He had no reason to lie.

Dave, Deb, BPC, CCNL, Kafir and all non believers you keep your commentary on all the time criticizing Islam BUT never answer a single direct question raised by any Muslim OR reply DIRECTLY on there comments to your posts.

IF YOU GUYS ARE REALLY HONEST, NOT WITH MUSLIMS BUT ATLEAST WITH YOUR OWN SELVES,

THEN DARE TO ANSWER BELOW:

You can close your eyes or do not accept for what ever reasons you have….twist or lie
BUT YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH:
THAT EVERY RATIONAL INTELLIGENT LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE & SICENCE IS TESTIFYING FOR QURAN....AFTER EVERY NEXT DISCOVERY AND AWARENESS!

MODREN SCIENCE AND QURAN (ISLAMIC DIVINE BOOK)

Quran is not a book of science BUT a book of signs. It has more than 6000 verses out of which more than 1000 verses giving CLEAR signs about the modern scientific proven facts in recent couple of hundred years. (THIS BY ANY POSSIBLE MEANS CANNOT BE SAID BY US HUMANS 1400 YEARS BACK. THE ONLY LOGIC IS THAT IT’S FROM SOMEONE WHO IS COMMUNICATING TO A HUMAN AND KNOWS BETTER THAN HUMANS)

- For some people ONE sign is enough to believe.
- For some people 10 signs are enough.
- But some people don't come to believe even after more than 1000 miraculous signs.

Verses about:

1- Big bang theory (in a nut shell).
2- Geo spherical Ostrich egg shaped earth (spherical which is the exact shape)
3- Cosmic dust (referred more perfectly as smoke).
4- How water seep into the earth and rain cycle through AIR.
5- Sweet and salt water of oceans and barrier between them.
6-Expanding sun, solar system and universe for given period of time
7- Earth, sun and stars revolving on their axis and path (orbits).
8- Sun and moon have different paths (orbits).
9- Sun and stars consuming there energy.
10- Reflected sun light of moon. In Arabic mooneer (moon) it self means reflected light.
11- Upper thin layer of earth, which is hold by mountains as nails (bigger in size deep in earth) from shacking.
12- Perfect shape and stages of human embryo.
13- All living being made out of water.
14- All plants and even fruits have male and female attributes.
15- The exact way of plants and animal’s behavior and how they communicate.

AND MANY MORE............

THESE ARE ALL RECENT DISCOVERIES AND SIGN FOR THOSE SINCERELY SEEKING TRUTH!!!!!! AND REMEMBER THAT IS NOT WHAT QURAN IS ALL ABOUT... THESE ARE JUST TESTIFYING SIGNS WITHOUT ANY FLAW OR FAULT.

CCNL:

I'm still awaiting any single reply???
Angel Gabreil (A.S) revealed Quran to Muhammed(p.b.u.h) send by Allah.

And below few examples out of whole is the PROOF of its PERFECTION, AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUE REVELATIONS...PROTECTED..UNCHANGED..VERIFIABLE BY ALL LOGICAL SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.

Mohammed(PBUH) had no reason to lie, other wise there would have been more than 50000 scientific, mathematical, logical, mythical mistakes, obsene pornography INCEST in Quran AS WELL like in your almost 200 versions of Bible. BUT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE ONE.

AND IF MOHAMMED (PBUH) SAYS ALL THAT SCIENCE HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL RECENT TIMES
IS REVEALED TO HIM BY GABREIL(A.S.) WHERE HE EVEN DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ OR WRITE, THEN

WEEEEEEEEEEEE BELIEVEEEEEEEEEE !!!!
He had no reason to lie.

We humans know that there are countless entities which are yet to discover and beyound our present available knowledge.

Dave, Deb, BPC, CCNL, Kafir and all non believers you keep your commentary on all the time criticizing Islam BUT never answer a single direct question raised by any Muslim OR reply DIRECTLY on there comments to your posts.

IF YOU GUYS ARE REALLY HONEST, NOT WITH MUSLIMS BUT ATLEAST WITH YOUR OWN SELVES,

THEN DARE TO ANSWER BELOW:

You can close your eyes or do not accept for what ever reasons you have….twist or lie
BUT YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH:
THAT EVERY RATIONAL INTELLIGENT LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE & SICENCE IS TESTIFYING FOR QURAN....AFTER EVERY NEXT DISCOVERY AND AWARENESS!

MODREN SCIENCE AND QURAN (ISLAMIC DIVINE BOOK)

Quran is not a book of science BUT a book of signs. It has more than 6000 verses out of which more than 1000 verses giving CLEAR signs about the modern scientific proven facts in recent couple of hundred years. (THIS BY ANY POSSIBLE MEANS CANNOT BE SAID BY US HUMANS 1400 YEARS BACK. THE ONLY LOGIC IS THAT IT’S FROM SOMEONE WHO IS COMMUNICATING TO A HUMAN AND KNOWS BETTER THAN HUMANS)

- For some people ONE sign is enough to believe.
- For some people 10 signs are enough.
- But some people don't come to believe even after more than 1000 miraculous signs.

Verses about:

1- Big bang theory (in a nut shell).
2- Geo spherical Ostrich egg shaped earth (spherical which is the exact shape)
3- Cosmic dust (referred more perfectly as smoke).
4- How water seep into the earth and rain cycle through AIR.
5- Sweet and salt water of oceans and barrier between them.
6-Expanding sun, solar system and universe for given period of time
7- Earth, sun and stars revolving on their axis and path (orbits).
8- Sun and moon have different paths (orbits).
9- Sun and stars consuming there energy.
10- Reflected sun light of moon. In Arabic mooneer (moon) it self means reflected light.
11- Upper thin layer of earth, which is hold by mountains as nails (bigger in size deep in earth) from shacking.
12- Perfect shape and stages of human embryo.
13- All living being made out of water.
14- All plants and even fruits have male and female attributes.
15- The exact way of plants and animal’s behavior and how they communicate.

AND MANY MORE............

THESE ARE ALL RECENT DISCOVERIES AND SIGN FOR THOSE SINCERELY SEEKING TRUTH!!!!!! AND REMEMBER THAT IS NOT WHAT QURAN IS ALL ABOUT... THESE ARE JUST TESTIFYING SIGNS WITHOUT ANY FLAW OR FAULT.

Moody, Moody, Moody,

Hmmm, lets start with just one of the flaws in the koran as noted by Ibrahim:

"The angel Gabriel had 600 wings. (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 455)"

"Google" this passage first to see a number of critiques. When finished reading these, proceed to the following:

Conclusion-

The "depth" of Islam is based on a "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" named Gabriel. Without "old Gabriel" there would be no Islam i.e. the depth of Islam is very shallow and revolves around a single "pwtff thingie".

With the "pwfft" i.e. Gabriel and the "warmongering, womanizing, "holey not holy hallucinator" aka Mohammed what does one conclude about Islam?

A cult based on oil profits, terror, fear of the sword, stoning, hand chopping and suicide bombers.

More about "pretty thingies" and their ugly counterparts:

Mohammed had his Gabriel (this "tinkerer" got around).

Joe Smith had his Moroni.

Jehovah Witnesses have their Jesus /Michael the archangel, the first angelic being created by God;

Jesus and his family had Michael, Gabriel, and Satan, the latter being a modern day demon of the demented.

The Abraham-Moses myths had their Angel of Death and other "no-namers" to do their dirty work or other assorted duties.

Contemporary biblical and religious scholars have relegated these "pretty wingie thingies" to the myth pile. We should do the same to include deleting all references to them in our religious operating manuals. Doing this will eliminate the prophet/profit/prophecy status of these founders and put them where they belong as simple humans just like the rest of us.

Some added references to "tinker bells".

"Latter-day Saints also believe that Michael the Archangel was Adam (the first man) when he was mortal, and Gabriel lived on the earth as Noah."

Apparently hallucinations did not stop with Joe Smith.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07049c.htm

"This belief in guardian angels can be traced throughout all antiquity; pagans, like Menander and Plutarch (cf. Euseb., "Praep. Evang.", xii), and Neo-Platonists, like Plotinus, held it. It was also the belief of the Babylonians and Assyrians, as their monuments testify, for a figure of a guardian angel now in the British Museum once decorated an Assyrian palace, and might well serve for a modern representation; while Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, says: "He (Marduk) sent a tutelary deity (cherub) of grace to go at my side; in everything that I did, he made my work to succeed."

Catholic monks and Dark Age theologians also did their share of hallucinating:

"TUBUAS-A member of the group of angels who were removed from the ranks of officially recognized celestial hierarchy in 745 by a council in Rome under Pope Zachary. He was joined by Uriel, Adimus, Sabaoth, Simiel, and Raguel."

And tinker bells go way, way back:

"In Zoroastrianism there are different angel like creatures. For example each person has a guardian angel caled Fravashi. They patronize human being and other creatures and also manifest god’s energy. Also, the Amesha Spentas have often been regarded as angels, but they don't convey messages, but are rather emanations of Ahura Mazda ("Wise Lord", God); they appear in an abstract fashion in the religious thought of Zarathustra and then later (during the Achaemenid period of Zoroastrianism) became personalized, associated with an aspect of the divine creation (fire, plants, water...)."

"The beginnings of the biblical belief in angels must be sought in very early folklore. The gods of the Hittites and Canaanites had their supernatural messengers, and parallels to the Old Testament stories of angels are found in Near Eastern literature. "

"The 'Magic Papyri' contain many spells to secure just such help and protection of angels. From magic traditions arose the concept of the guardian angel. "

For added information see the review at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel

Walakum-a-salam, Victoria!

Still no body have given SINGLE answer to the questions raised in my posts.

Instead adopted side track approach of NOT ADDRESSING THE MAIN ISSUE but criticized based on misinterpretations, wrong translations OR wrong approach of understanding.

TYPICAL MISSIONARY APPROACH!!!!

But on the contrary Islam or any Muslim doesn't back out or SNEAK AWAY.
We are there to answer every question!

We challenge there is NOT A SINGLE CONTRADICTION IN QURAN.

For kids primary education and simple understanding you can read Dr. Zakir Naik

"Quran in the Light of Modern Science"

This will answer most of your problems in your troubled minds!!!

Moody, Moody, Moody,

Hmmm, let us hear your specific comments about all the flaws in the koran as listed by Ibrahim. And by all means cite pages and give excerpts from Professor Naik's book to support your comments.

Start with koranic references about the "pretty wingie thingie" aka Gabriel and the fact you are required to believe in these "thingies" by koranic statutes. Be aware of course that such belief makes Islam simply a religion based on hallucinations and myth.

a salaamu alaikum moody-
you didnt post a link-
is this it?

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=islam+and+christianity+in+the+light+of+science+campbell+&search=Search

And again I meant to say Dr. William Campbell was publically embarrassed by Dr. Zakir Naik, who answered his every twisted interpretation and wrong translation in a very scientific logical fashion.
Where Mr. Campbell fail to reply a hardly any.

You can also read Dr. Zakir Naiks book.

"Quran in the light of Modern Sciences".

This will answer all your reservations, even if you think they are more than 60%.

HOPEFULLY IT WILL HELP TO CALIBRATE YOUR CONFUSED INTELLIEGENT APPROACH!

Ibrahim Mahfouz:

Dr. Campbell had an open debate with Dr. Zakir Naik and was saviorly embarrassed by Dr. Zakir Naik in April 2001 in there open debate in USA.

"Islam & Christianity in the Light of Science".

Go and watch the above video.

ALL OF YOUR MISITERPRETATIONS are answered there.

And Dr. Campbell’s book's sell is gone down to more than 80% since then.

Ibrahim Mahfouz:

My goodness, I knew of some of the problems with koran, but your analyses surely added to my education and hopefully will enlighten everyone especially Moody.

Moody
Continued; Internal contradictions

.
In Sura 22:47 and 32:5 Allah's day is equal to 1,000 human years. Allah's day is equal to how many human years?

In Sura 70:4, Allah's day is equal to 50,000 human years.

In Sura 41:30 and 57:21 there is said to be only one garden in Paradise. How many garden's are there in paradise?
In Sura 18:31, 22:23, 25:33, and 78:32 there are many gardens in Paradise.

Sura 56:7 says there will be three distinct groups of people at the Last Judgment. How many groups will there be at the last judgement?

Sura 90:18-19 and 99:6-8 say there will be two distinct groups at the Last Judgment.
Sura 32:11 The angel of death
Sura 47:27 The angels (plural)

Who takes people's souls at death?

Sura 39:42 "It is Allah that takes the souls at death"
Sura 35:1 Angels have 2, 3, or 4 pairs of wings How many wings do angels have?

The angel Gabriel had 600 wings. (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 455)

Sura 54:19 - One day How many days did Allah need to destroy the people of Aad?

Sura 41:16 & 69:6,7 - several days

Sura 7:54, 10:3, 11:7, and 25:59 all clearly state that God created "the heavens and the earth" in six days. How many days did creation take?

Sura 41:9-12, the detailed description of the creation procedure, add up to eight days.

Sura 2:29 says the earth was created first and then heaven. Which was created first, the heavens or the earth?

Sura 49:27-30 says the heaven was created first and then the earth was created.
Sura 41:11 states that in the process of creation heaven and earth were first apart and are called to come together. Heaven and earth ripped apart or called together?

Sura 21:30 states that they were originally one piece and then ripped apart.

Does Allah forgive shirk? Sura 4:153, 25:68-71
Yes
Sura 4:48, 116
No

Jesus was born more than 1,000 years after Moses Moses and the Injil Sura 7:157 Allah speaks to Moses about what is written in the Injil (the book given to Jesus)
Sura 2:97 - The Angel Gabriel Who brings the revelation from Allah to Muhammad? Sura 16:102 - The Holy Spirit

Surah 18:89-98 says Alexander the Great was a devout Muslim and lived to a ripe old age. Alexander the Great Historical records show that Alexander the Great died young at 33 years of age. He believed he was divine and forced others to recognize him as such. In India on the Hyphasis River Alexander erected twelve altars to twelve Olympian gods.

Surah 9:30 says the Jews believe that Ezra is the Son of God - the Messiah Ezra the son of God This has never been a tenet of Judaism.

Surah 20:90-100 says a Samaritan helped the Israelites build the golden calf, and it mooed after coming out of the fire. The Golden Calf Samaritans did not exist as a people until at least 1000 years after the time of Moses and the Israelite exodus from Egypt.

Moody:
You should not have challenged anybody about "the truth of Quran". How could it be true if over 69% of it is balatant contradictions. Below are a sample of the "true knowledge" found in that book.

External Contradictions:

Introductory question
Science:

Solomon listening to ants? In Sura 27:18-19 Solomon overhears a "conversation of ants".
Is this possible based on our knowledge about the mode and complexity of ant communication?
The stars and the moon The Qur'an teaches that there are seven heavens one above the other [67:3, 71:15], and that the stars are in the lower heaven [67:5, 37:6, 41:12], but the moon is depicted as being in/inside the seven heavens [71:16], even though in reality the stars are much further away from the earth than the moon.
Qur'an and Science: Section Four in Dr. Campbell's book
Qur'an and Embryology
Can non-living matter think, feel and have a will?
The human embryonic development
The place of Sun rise and Sun set
The Seven Earths
Stars created to be thrown at devils?
Sun and moon are subject to man?
Mountains and Earthquakes
The impossible conversation
Solomon and the animals...
Shaking the trunk of the palm tree?
Thinking with the breasts?
All things are made in pairs? Sura 51:49 claims that everything is created in pairs. But this is not true! There are quite a number of things that have no counterpart and species where only one gender exists.

History:

The Qur'an Attacks ... Christianity?
Moses and the Samaritan?
The farthest Mosque?
Alexander the Great, a Muslim?
None else was named "John" before John the Baptist?
Two Pharaohs who crucified?
Burnt bricks in Egypt?
Were they utterly destroyed?
Jesus was not crucified?
The anachronistic title al-`Aziz given to Potiphar [with special gratitude to Islamic Awareness for making such a big deal about a minor point on a defunct web page, and forcing the issue into public attention.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Qur'an in Contradiction to the Earlier Revelations:

Ultimately, the strongest, most serious problem of the Qur'an is that it affirms the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians as authentic and true revelation from God (cf. what the Qur'an says about the Bible), while radically denying central aspects of their message, e.g. the core themes of sacrifice and atonement in the Torah, the crucifixion of Jesus, the deity of Jesus and even the mere messianic title "Son of God" for Jesus, the very nature of God, the fall and the sinfulness of man (*, *), necessity and means of salvation, etc. For this reason Muslims had to invent the unwarranted theory of corruption of the earlier scriptures, even against the clear testimony of the Qur'an itself.

In the following some smaller discrepancies between the Qur'an and the scriptures it supposedly confirms.

Historical Compressions:
Saul, David, Gideon and Goliath
A Samaritan tempting the Israelites in Moses time?
Prophets and Kings in Israel before the time of Moses?
Moses and the Gospel?
Punishment for future disobedience?
Mary, the sister of Aaron?
Pharaoh and Haman?
Did Joseph's parents go to Egypt?
Abraham's name
Abraham and Solomon
Other contradictions in comparison to the Bible:

Introductory remark

Did God teach Adam the names of the animals?
Were Believers Really Called Muslims Before the Time of Muhammad?
The Quran’s Mistakes regarding the Biblical Patriarchs
Who Adopted Moses: Pharaoh’s Daughter or Pharaoh’s Wife?
A Flood in the time of Moses?
The Quran, Moses and the Tablets of Stone
Solomon Working with Demons
Israel's Response to the Covenant: ‘We Obey’ or ‘We Disobey’?
Where is the Blood?
Animal sacrifices for Christians?
How many messengers at Noah's time?
Why did the Queen of Sheba come to Solomon?
Ezra the Son of God?
Jesus reached old age?
Did the golden calf say 'Moo'?
Did disobedience result in extra commandments?
How many messengers were sent to Noah's people?
The Progeny of Abraham?
Two young men?

Moody, Moody, Moody,

What is that you do not understand about the following:

1. Abraham was a mythical character invented by the Jewish scribes to give a father/god-head to their foundations.

2. As with Abraham's legend, most of the OT is myth and embellishment.

CCNL,

YOU OR ANY BODY ELSE STILL HAVEN'T ANSWER A SINGLE QUESTION OUT OF ALL I ASKED?????

Could you ever be able to think for a moment that, WHY in according to what you call "plagiarized koran" only the correct information is included AND NOT THE WRONG ONE?

Who was 1400 years back choosing/screening the correct information???

And what about all the ADDITIONAL KNOWLEDGE THAT IS NOT PRESENT IN YOUR RECOMMENDED HISTORY??????

Your recommended history about,
-Flat Earth
-Incest (Prophets sleeping with daughters & mothers),short commings 13% present USA is incested today.
-Subjugation of women to men.
-Universe made in exactly six days and six nights.
-First earth and greenry was made and then light.
-Approval of slavery.
-Eye for an eye
-Creator became creature to make begotten son nonsense.
-Universe is only 10000 years old.
-AND MORE THAN 50000 ABOVE LIKE INCORRECT INFORMATION IN YOUR Biblical history and believes.

QUESTION: WHY A SINGLE WRONG & INCORRECT INFORMATION IS NOT "plagiarized"(COPIED) FROM YOUR HISTORY IN QUR'AN??

Will your brain EVER BE ABLE to figure it out??

Moody:
Below is brief history of Ka'aba that should debunk any claim of a relation between this structure and the Patriarch Abraham.
"This structure is a relic from Pre-Islamic times when it was used very much like today as a pilgrimage destination for the different Arab tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. The only difference is that before Islam it housed many of the idols of the different Arab deities. The Arab prophet, Mohammad, wanted at first to do away with this institution, but met a stiff opposition from his own tribe, Quraish, mainly on economical grounds. He compromised by incorporating it in his belief system. The people of Mecca were mostly merchants who looked at the Ka’ba as a tourist attraction that brought in business that was the sole source of income to that community and remained as such till the discovery of oil in the early 20th Century.

The Muslims further enhanced its appeal to the fast increasing Muslim population of the world by building a mythology around it very much like people do today with their tourist attractions. The Muslims claim that it was built by the Old Testament figure, the Patriarch Abraham, who is traditionally believed to be the father of Isaac and Ishmael, the fathers of the Jews and Arabs of Arabia, respectively. Furthermore God protected the structure from destruction in 570AD from an invading Ethiopian army by sending a flock of birds that showered the invading army with molten pebbles. Historians, on the other hand, explain the retreat of the Ethiopian army to the spread of an epidemic of small pox among the troops. Besides, Mohammad made the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba as one of the five pillars of his religion and further sweetened the pot by claiming a visit to that structure would erase all sins. The rituals that Muslims perform today around the Ka’ba during their pilgrimage, such as circumambulating around it in a counterclockwise direction for seven times, kissing the black stone, etc. are the same exact rituals performed by the Arab tribes in Pre-Islamic times.

The Patriarch, Abraham, could not have built that structure for many reasons. First he was never beyond the Egyptian delta. His descendents, the Ishmaelite Arab tribes, resided mostly in northern Sinai and the Syrian desert during Moses time in about 1500 BC. i.e. 500 years after Abraham’s time, and their holy place to which they did their pilgrimage was a place in the vicinity of Beer Sheba in Northern Sinai. Eratosthenes (6th Century BC), Herodotus (5th Century BC), Hristopoulos (4th Century BC) and Agatharcides (Second Century BC) visited the area and none mentioned Mecca. As late as 30 BC the geographer Strabo who visited the whole area between Sinai and Yemen and who wrote an exhaustive description of the region, including names of places and tribes, never mentioned Mecca, even though he mentioned names of tiny hamlets in the vicinity of present day Mecca. The first known mention of Mecca was in the 4th Century AD i.e. 2500 years from Abraham‘s time. Secondly there were at least twenty three similar structures in Arabia at the time of Mohammad. It seemed that each tribe built its own Ka’ba to house its idols. The Mecca Ka’ba had in addition to the many pagan statues, an inscription of Mary and Jesus on its walls which indicates that the Meccans used the place to attract as many of the Arab tribes as possible".

Moody, Moody, Moody,

First, the lack of evidence that Abraham even existed puts his notes anywhere to include any notes on any black rocks anywhere in the world in the legend/myth pile.

Second, again anything of a scientific nature or actually anything other than the death to infidel passages were plagiarized from the ancients i.e. Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer, NT and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. Heck, Mo's scribes even "borrowed" much of what St. Paul and the pseudo Pauls had to say about women.

Like I said before, the koran is in need of a second edition but this time proper references should be given.

CCNL:

You didn't answere my questions????

Just for your info. one evidence the Isle made by Abraham to worship One God still exists. It is the oldest building on the face of the earth.
Today it is called "Kabah" in Mecca.

And histroy is still preserved on the earth if you bother to seek TRUTHFULLY!

And once again dare to answer my questions and try to find One Single Scientific/ rational mistake in Holy Qur'an????

Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace

Hmmm, you noted: " I think you, Concerned, still labor under a need to believe that there must be an 'unflawed and eternal' revealed authority, (even if you pretty much attack everyone but Christians for not having one while claiming not to be Christian) ...and this misses the point of having a civilization. "

First, it would be nice if there were some "unflawed and eternal" singularity out there but I do not need one to keep my sanity.

And "Attack"? Not really, just noting the flaws in the founders and foundations of the major religions as determined by many contemporary religion scholars.

And the synopsis of the flaws in the founders and foundations of Christianity as noted many times to include the first commentary of this thread is hardly a "flaw free pass" for Christianity:

"1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions (to include Christianity) was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.