Monday, June 15, 2009

Hamza Abdul Malik and David Wood on Iron Sharpens Iron

I'll post the MP3 later, but anyone who wants to listen live (or call in) can catch us here at 3:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time.

51 comments:

minoria said...

I read he is now a Koran only Muslim.You should ask him if he still holds to the idea the "farthest mosque" in Sura 17:1 means Jerusalem.Probably not,and better for that.But when will the great scholars of Al-Azhar and the Shia experts agree to it also?I will explain myself.

Chapter 17:1 says:"...who summoned his servant(Mohammed) during the night,from the Sacred Masjid(mosque)to the farthest mosque(aqsa masjid)..."The Sacred Masjid is the mosque in Mecca.

Many Muslims say masjid can also mean any place of prostration,which can be a building or the open countryside.No problem with that.So since there were some Jews in Jerusalem in the 600's AD theywould go to the place where the Temple used to be and pray(it became a masjid).

The problem is the word "farthest".By that definition of masjid the farthest mosque would be a synagogue in Spain.Remember,no Muslim would include a church as a masjid because Christians believe Jesus was God.

So the idea that Jerusalem is the place has no basis.All the idea of Jerusalem as the "third most holy city in Islam" because it was there that Mohammed landed has no basis.The Muslim scholars(like Jamal Badawi,Shabir Ally,etc)should say so.It is they who insist that Islam is the most reasonable of religions,then to show goodwill to the Jews,Muslims should let them rebuild their temple in Jerusalem,since Mohammed was never thereon Mt Zion.

Then where was the farthest masjid?Taking it as a building it was in Medina.At that time there were only 2 mosques or Muslim religious edifices,one in Meccan,one in Medina.

Radical Moderate said...

David
I was only able to listen to the last half hour of the broadcast. I dont know if this was covered. But I'm wondering if Quran onlyists use the Hadeeths and Sunnah for historical purposes.
The point is if they reject the haddeeths and the Sunnah as historical then there quran was reveealed in a vacume.

Anonymous said...

I am sorry I to have missed this program. I was a missionary in Iran with Operation Mobilization in the early 70s. I have followed the religious and political citation in ran now for over 30 years and have concluded that the Iranian can either have democracy or Islam; but they cannot have both. Of course, this would not be unique only to Iran it would apply to any Islamic nation. Muslims can either have democracy or Islam they cannot have both. Islam and democracy cannot co-exit - they are antithetical to one another

Looking forward to meeting many of you in Dearborn this week

Nakdimon said...

Minoria.

I admire your efforts to aquit the Quran from its errors. But I must be honest and point you to another error in the Quran. The Quran doesn't live up to its own standards. It's claims work against it.

It claims that there are no errors in it, yet it has.
It claims that it is pure arabic, yet it is not.
It claims that it explains its verses in detail, yet it doesnt.

It is the last line that I want to address here. The Quran says:

[Yusufali 6:114] Say: "Shall I seek for judge other than Allah? - when He it is Who hath sent unto you the Book, EXPLAINED IN DETAIL."

Yet the Quran has Muslims fishing for explanations on its verses. Surah 17:1 is a perfect example. Allah speaks about the "farthest mosque", yet he doesnt explain which mosque it is and where it is located. And there are numerous such examples, where details are left out. Another one: Who did Abraham almost offer up as a sacrifice? Ishmael or Isaac? What was Abraham's wife's name? How many wives did he have?

And we can go on to no end. But the problem with the Quran is obvious: It makes a lot of claims about itself and others, but when you investigate them, the opposite is true.

Peace,
Nakdimon

minoria said...

Hello Nakdimon:

You are right.For example chapter 17:1 is relatively obscure.It doesn't say why the night journey was done in the first place.The reader is left wondering.

Maybe you have read the famous True Furqan.It was a book written in classical Arabic imitating the Koran's suras.In the Koran the challenge is put to write a chapter like it and that you can't.

Somebody did.There are parts that have a Christian element in it (not a good idea)so those parts don't fool a Muslim.But other parts are just as good,and even better in literary quality than the Koranic suras.

Check out islam.exposed.org/furqan/contents.html. Michael Licona asked a professor of classical Arabic to read it.The professor knows the Koran also.He said The True Furqan was better written than the Koran.I suggest you read Sura 2 (Love) and sura 3 (Light) first of the True Furqan.You will see it is well-written.If you have trouble with that link,just type "the true furqan" on the internet and it should show various sites.

I would say the challenge has been met.And in Arabic.If the challenge were in any language then it was met a long time ago by Thomas Kempis' Imitation of Christ.It was written in Latin by a monk in Holland in the 1300's.But even in translation the chapters are very elegant,beautiful,well-written.Read it a bit.Wesley,the founder of the Methodist Church,and an early opponent of black slavery,was its great admirer.And the great Italian sculpter Bernini read it every day.

It is the most beloved religious book after the 4 gospels.And unlike the Koran,the 4 gospels and the Imitation of the Messiah is eloquent even in translation.You don't have to learn koine Greek and Latin to see its beauty.

nma said...

Minoria said...
In the Koran the challenge is put to write a chapter like it and that you can't.

Somebody did.


It's good to know somebody did it! The question is, how many muslims will accept it?

On the surface, the Quranic challenge is a difficult or unattainable problem, but in fact the challenge itself is quite meaningless. How can anyone write a chapter 'like' another in any book? What does 'like' mean? In what way the chapters need to be alike, syntactically, Grammatically, or Content-wise? Who will be the judge to determine whether the chapters are alike? Unless it is verbatim, even if someone writes a book or chapter 'like' another, someone else will find some fault with it. Look how clever Mohammed was when he made this challenge! He knew even if somebody somehow met that meaningless challenge, someone could find drawbacks in it.

Unknown said...

Oh my, I can not believe that you think that the True Furqan is equal to the literary standards of the Quran.

It is a piece of junk, the Arabic in it is not flowing at all, choppy, and even copies direct sentences from the Quran intself!!

Anthony Rogers said...

Muhammad said: "It [the True Furqan] is a piece of junk, the Arabic in it is not flowing at all, choppy, and even copies direct sentences from the Quran intself!!"

MoMo, somehow I don't think you meant to say that, but I like what you said anyway. It is hard to disagree with someone who says that something that copies direct sentences from the Qur'an "is not flowing at all," "a piece of junk", and "choppy".

Do you have any other thoughts on the Qur'an you would like to share with us?

Sepher Shalom said...

nma said: "It's good to know somebody did it! The question is, how many muslims will accept it?"

and: "Look how clever Mohammed was when he made this challenge! He knew even if somebody somehow met that meaningless challenge, someone could find drawbacks in it."

Muhammad said: "Oh my, I can not believe that you think that the True Furqan is equal to the literary standards of the Quran. It is a piece of junk, the Arabic in it is not flowing at all, choppy, and even copies direct sentences from the Quran intself!!"

Just look at the comment from Muhammad right below your's, nma. Perfect example of exactly what you are talking about. It's a 100% subjective, meaningless challenge. The "Surah like it" challenge is akin to something an ill-mannered 10 year old says when he has run out of what little logic skills he has.

Unknown said...

nma:On the surface, the Quranic challenge is a difficult or unattainable problem, but in fact the challenge itself is quite meaningless.

No, the challenge is in fact quite rational. If the Quran is a miracle from God, then it cannot be imitated in any way.

To get a better understanding of this, consider the miracles performed by Moses before Pharaoh. Despite being experts of sorcery and magic, Pharaoh's magicians were unable to reproduce any of the things which Moses performed as evidence of his Divine mission. In a similar manner, none of the medical experts of Jesus' time were able to raise dead people or cure leprosy or blindness with mere touch, and so forth.

The pattern should be clear by now.
Messengers came with miracles according to the context of their time and place. If a Messenger came at a time when magic and sorcery was at its height, the miracles would be designed in such a way as to render incapable the best sorcerers and magicians.

Since the Quran was revealed in a place where poetry and rhetoric was at its highest, it follows that for the Quran to be a miracle it had to defeat the best Arab poets of Muhammad's time. And it did; otherwise, Islam wouldn't have come this far.

However, since the Quran is for all times, its challenge is relevant even today where besides rhetoric and poetry, other factors also play an important role. I'll get to the latter later. For now, I'll stick to its original challenge.

With respect to rhetoric and poetry, the challenge of the Quran is simple. As it claims insuperable eloquence, all a non-believer needs to do is point a single doggerel-any verse or passage in the Scripture that can be written more eloquently.

nma:Who will be the judge to determine whether the chapters are alike?

The same type of people who judged Moses' miracles. The experts!

Fernando said...

Ibn saide: «If the Quran is a miracle from allah, then it cannot be imitated in any way»... and how can we know thate it's a miracle from allah? Juste because he can't be immitated... hummm... do I see arounde here a circularie argument? Maybe not...

let's see: iff the Kamasutra (teh classical one; not the muslm's paradise imitation off thate one) is a miracle from God, he can't be imitated; since no one as eber (according to the expertes) managed to imitat itt, he's a miracle from God... uups... another circularie argument...

Another trie: iff Ib is a muslim he'll habe a biasis actitude toward the truthe; since he sais A is B, then we can be sure A is not B...

minoria said...

I know that the verses of the original Koran rhyme.At least in most chapters.So if you translate into another language they will not rhyme.And viceversa.If the Koran had been originally in English and rhymed then it would not rhyme.About the True Furqan I can only compare the translation with the translation of the Koran.The rhyming part does not show in the translation but the rest shows a good imitation.That is judging from the translation.

Sepher Shalom said...

minoria said: "The rhyming part does not show in the translation but the rest shows a good imitation.That is judging from the translation."

You have just highlighted one of the main absurdities of the challenge. Most [if not all] Muslims will insist that for the challenge to be met, it must be written in Arabic. What percentage of the world can fluently read Arabic? What percentage of Muslims can fluently read Arabic?

Ibn, your comparison to Moshe and Yeshua was meant as a joke, right? Bringing on plagues, parting the Red Sea, and raising the dead are all supernatural events. It is flat out not possible to do these things by human effort. Composing spoken poetry is not a supernatural event, no matter how good some people think it is.

Nakdimon said...

Ibn: No, the challenge is in fact quite rational. If the Quran is a miracle from God, then it cannot be imitated in any way.


[Shakir 108:1] Surely We have given you Kausar,
[Shakir 108:2] Therefore pray to your Lord and make a sacrifice.
[Shakir 108:3] Surely your enemy is the one who shall be without posterity.


Yeah sure. I'm sure that no one was able to produce such a lofty piece of literature. The only miracle of the Quran is that people still believe it.


nma said...

Ibn,

Will get back to you later about this.

nma said...

Hi Sepher,

It's a 100% subjective, meaningless challenge.

True. The Quranic challenge is like the question, "Can anyone write better than William Shakespeare?". Though this question is seemingly rational, it is quite meaningless because of the subjectivity of the question.

Like Mohammed's fans belive that the Quran is inimitable, Shakespeare's fans believe that his style is inimitable. The difference is, that Shakespeare's fans don't superstitiously claim that his works are miracles.

Hogan Elijah Hagbard said...

It surprised my yesterday conversing with a number of muslims on paltalk that the majority of muslim debaters do not visit Christian websites that contra attack islamic arguments or listen to Christian-Muslim debates in which islam looses. I just wonder if these muslims you meet on Paltalk and in general simply satisfy themselves by willingly remaining ignorant about the current direction in which islam, the qur'an and their prophet are being exposed.

Is this something anyone else has noticed lately?

Hogan Elijah Hagbard said...

Also, we are currently preparing a series of talks debunking modern science in the Qur'an. We will be assessing the matter from the islamic literature in the light of its contemporary non-muslim scientists and philosophers to establish whether or not the authors of the Qur'an merely plagiarized Greek, Roman and Talmudic science.

The first talk should be a week from now. Please keep this in your prayers. Details can be found on my personal blog.

The talks are primarily intended for the internet, where I hope the discussion will continue, we are therefore only inviting people who will benefit from it.

minoria said...

Hello Hogan:
You are doing a good job.There are certainly Muslims who listen to both sides.If one doesn't,how is one ever going know for sure?But as pointed out top Muslim debaters often are unscholarly.

Ibn said in essence the Koran is a literary masterpiece because it follows certain poetic rules in Arabic to perfection.But great poetry,truly great poetry is more than technicality.The phrase has to be wonderful using metaphor,etc.

The Koranic phrases don't have that.For example,citing great phrases from writers:"what matters is quality,not quantity","love conquers all","honesty is the best policy","I love and I hate.Why?I don't know,but I do and it's hell","there is no place like home".

The Koran should be full of such phrases,but its phrases are not above the ordinary.Another example:Israel ben Eliezer(1700-1760),called the Baal Shem Tov,founder of Hassidism was asked by a disciple:"The Torah says to love your neighbor like yourself.How is it possible?"

He said:"Just like you love yourself in spite of your defects then you should love others in spite of their defects." Again,great poetry is more than rules.The Koran should be full of such phrases and it is not.

Unknown said...

Semper Said, "MoMo, somehow I don't think you meant to say that, but I like what you said anyway. It is hard to disagree with someone who says that something that copies direct sentences from the Qur'an "is not flowing at all," "a piece of junk", and "choppy"."

Wow, you must think that you are clever?
It is obvious that is not what I meant, you understand fully what I meant, but decided to be Mr. Smart Guy, and say what you said.

I said, "And even", which means that I went away from the choppiness, and lack of flow aspect, and that I moved from a criticism to another, that it did not meet the challenge for these factors:

1. It is choppy.
2. It does not flow.
3. It is not eloquent.
4. It copies direct verses from the Qur'an, which by default makes it ineligible to be a possible response to the Quranic challenge.

Don't play with words, you know fully what I meant. I guess it is just a Christian thing that when they are refuted, they resort to word games.

Unknown said...

The scholars used to say, "It cannot be met for two reasons:
1. It would either not be as grammatically high as the Quran.
2. It would not be as eloquent as the Quran.
3. The verses would not be able to be understood as easy as the Quran.
4. OR IT WOULD BE SO SIMILAR THAT IT WAS THE QURAN."

That is exactly what the true Furqan incoporates!! All of the above.

Sepher Shalom said...

Muhammad said: "The scholars used to say, "It cannot be met for two reasons:
1. It would either not be as grammatically high as the Quran.
2. It would not be as eloquent as the Quran.
3. The verses would not be able to be understood as easy as the Quran.
4. OR IT WOULD BE SO SIMILAR THAT IT WAS THE QURAN."

That is exactly what the true Furqan incoporates!! All of the above."


You have highlighted yet another reason why the "Surah like it" challenge is one of the most ridiculous challenges in the history of literature.

What Muslims have done is; a) make the Quran the absolute standard of everything written in Arabic, b) rejected anything that is dissimilar from the Quran as "lower quality", c) rejected anything that is similar to the Quran [which is the only way to satisfy the challenge in the opinion of Muslims], and call it "copying".

So, even if the the challenge was meaningful and substantive, it can't be met anyway! The Muslims reject everything that doesn't sound just like the Quran as "inferior" and reject anything that does as "copying".

I guess in order to believe in Islam this is the type of tortured thinking you must force your mind to accept.

Radical Moderate said...

I just had an interesting conversation with a few Saudi women in paltalk. They were addressing their complaints about the Saudi government in a room totally dedicated to Saudi woman. While most of what they said was in Arabic, they still took the time to express to me in English their grievances.

Their main grievance is wealth. Their claim is that the majority of the wealth of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is owned by woman. For instance 70 percent of land ownership and money in bank accounts is owned by woman. However they have no control of this wealth. They can not invest, sell, or even withdraw a penny with out the express written permission from a male member of the family. Father, Husband, Brother, Uncle, Cousin or in the case of an orphan their male guardian, even if she is a grown woman.

Now I know this is paltalk, but with the events happening in Iran, where the internet is being used to spread decent. I don’t think that this can be overlooked.

What I find interesting is that the Quran does allow woman to posse’s property and have money. However with out the power to control wealth, possession of it is meaningless.

Radical Moderate said...

Will the dawn bring blood? I think we should all pray for the people of Iran.

Anthony Rogers said...

Muhammad said: Wow, you must think that you are clever? It is obvious that is not what I meant, you understand fully what I meant, but decided to be Mr. Smart Guy, and say what you said.

Mr. Clever here. I know you would prefer an eloquent response, but eloquence is with Allah, and I have not been sent with eloquence. The signs I have been given are sarcasm and wit. In order to refute me, all you have to do is produce a (sarcastic) reply like unto this one.

Don't worry, the challenge is relatively benign. You don't have to worry that if you best me in a game of wits that I will summon Ben, Sepher, Nakdimon, Hogan, Fernando, Fatman, or anyone else and ask: "Which one of you will rid me of this rascal Muhammad?"

Of course even if I did ask such a thing from them: they would not be willing to tell lies to do the dirty deed; if you pleaded, "But who will look after my children," none of them would retort - "Hell"; indeed, they wouldn't do anything to you at all, especially nothing like shoving a bow in your eye until it comes out your neck, or shoving a dagger in your belly and bearing down on it until it reaches your genitals, even though we all know that two goats wouldn't butt their heads about you. :p

Unknown said...

Semper:The signs I have been given are sarcasm and wit.

Really? I always thought you were blessed with profound foolishness and ignorance.

Semper:In order to refute me, all you have to do is produce a (sarcastic) reply like unto this one.

As the saying goes, the wise man can never defeat the fool. So you'll always remain undefeated, Semper.

Nakdimon said...

HMMMM. Spending the Shabat with family this weekend I told myself that I wouldn’t visit the answeringmuslims blog today, but I couldn’t resist. Y’all know me, right?

And then I came across this summary about the Quran’s uniqueness. Lets take a look at those claims and see if what our friend here says is in touch with reality:

1. It would either not be as grammatically high as the Quran

Sorry friend, but the Quran is a grammatical mess. Allah shifts from first person singular to third person singular to first plural in one sentence. It’s a grammatical disaster. If you let a Coptic Christian loose on the Quran, he will point you to all the grammatical errors in the Quran.

2. It would not be as eloquent as the Quran.

Eloquence is nothing. Why are muslims so hung up on eloquence. I’m sorry, but whenever I here the Quran being recited I get the chills and it annoys me to no end. If eloquence should persuade me as a non-believer, then the Quran fails miserably. Eloquence is not a criterion for divine revelation. Substance is! There is 100 times more substance in the book of Job than there is in the entire Quran. However, I think 50 Cent is quite an eloquent rapper. I doubt you would agree with me that 50 Cent is a prophet, right?

3. The verses would not be able to be understood as easy as the Quran.

The Quran must be the most incomprehensible booking existence.

The Quran claims it explains its verses in detail. But it doesn’t.
It claims that it is error free. But it isn’t.
It claims that it speaks truth. Yet it lies about others.
It claims that it is a confirmation of the previous revelations. But it’s not.
It claims that it knows the future. But it doesn’t even know history.
It claims that it has not contradictions. But it has them.


4. OR IT WOULD BE SO SIMILAR THAT IT WAS THE QURAN."

This was already met. Namely, with the Satanic verses. Muhammad couldn’t even distinguish between Allah’s revelations and Satan’s revelations. And he was the one that was most familiar with Allah’s recitations. And don’t tell me that the Satanic Verses aren’t quthentic. Because they are. There are clear traces of it in the Quran and confirmations of it in Bukhari, the tafsirs talk about it and your earliest source explains the episode in detail.

So all in all there are is nothing in or about the Quran that is anything miraculous or divine.

nma said...

Ibn,

You said: ”In a similar manner, none of the medical experts of Jesus' time were able to raise dead people or cure leprosy or blindness with mere touch, and so forth.
The pattern should be clear by now.


There is no pattern here other than a far-fetched one though your example of Moses has a slight but irrelevant pattern. Besides, Moses and Jesus performed physical miracles, not verbal ones. There are no verbal miracles. No poem or book is a miracle because there cannot be anything supernatural in a poem or a book except in the stories they tell.
You said:No, the challenge is in fact quite rational. If the Quran is a miracle from God, then it cannot be imitated in any way.
What do you mean by 'imitation'? There are imitation watches and cars, but watches and cars are material things and imitations exactly duplicate the real things. There good imitations and bad imitation. Good imitation is an exact duplicate and bad imitation is anything less than that. So your assertion that the Quran is inimitable in any way fails because someone can make an exact duplicate of the Quran, which will be the best imitation.
Unlike science text books many of which are clear and eloquent, many verses in the Quran are vague at best. As the Persian physician, philosopher, and scholar Al-Razi put it, “By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: "Produce something like it"?! “(wikipedia).
You said:” it follows that for the Quran to be a miracle it had to defeat the best Arab poets of Muhammad's time. And it did; otherwise, Islam wouldn't have come this far.
If Mohammed was in the habit of killing good poets, how can any poet even try to meet the meaningless challenge in Mohammed’s time.? Maybe he killed them because they wrote something which he thought was similar to the Quran! Islam have come this far not because nobody could meet the challenge, but because of forcible conversions and the gullible people that take the challenge at its face value, besides the high Islamic birth rate.
You said:” As it claims insuperable eloquence, all a non-believer needs to do is point a single doggerel-any verse or passage in the Scripture that can be written more eloquently.
Well, this is not the Quranic challenge. The least one of the Quranic challenge is the verse 2:23. This verse does not say anything about grammar, eloquence, poetry etc. So the challenge is quite vague and meaningless.
Even if what you say about eloquence is correct, it still does not mean the Quran is from God because it could be that the eloquence of person(s) who wrote or recited the Quran is still unmatched as the genius of Einstein is unmatched.
You said:” The same type of people who judged Moses' miracles. The experts!”
As if the biased Islamic ‘experts’ could be trusted! Besides, the Moses’ miracles were objective ones, which experts could see with their own eyes but the Quranic challenge is so subjective and meaningless that the ‘experts’ can’t be trusted.

Like Mohammed's fans belive that the Quran is inimitable, Shakespeare's fans believe that his style is inimitable. The difference is, that Shakespeare's fans don't superstitiously claim that his works are miracles.

Fernando said...

Well saide brother nma!!! God bless you!!!

minoria said...

Hello Nadkimon:

You made a good point about how in the Koran Allah changes in the way he speaks.There is something extra I noticed.In chapter 7 there is the story of Moses as told by Allah.When we get to 7:155 we are still in the Moses story as told by Allah.In chapter 7:155-156 we have:

"Moses then selected 70 men....he(Moses) said:"My Lord,you could have....we repented to you."(end of Moses' conversation)

Said(God):"My retribution falls on who I will...follw the illiterate messenger(Mohamed) who they FIND (present tense) in the Torah and the Gospel..."(end of chapter 7:155-156).

What Allah says after what Moses said logically is in answer to Moses' conversation.Allah tells Moses that Mohammed is prophesized in the Torah and Gospel,that Moses can find Mohamed in the gospel.But there was no gospel till 1400 years later.

It should have been written as:Say(not said):"My retribution..."Whether the "said" is "I (God)said","He(God) said" or "We(God) said" is of no importance.The verb is in the past tense.That makes it logically part of the Moses story.

For a Muslim teacher to acknowledge it is to say the Koran has an error.Then in 7:158 we have:"Say(present tense)(you,Mohamed):"Oh people,I am Allah's messenger to all of you..."

I am sure others have noticed this.Here is a strong example of ambiguity and lack of clearness in the Koran.

Unknown said...

Nakdimon: "Sorry friend, but the Quran is a grammatical mess. Allah shifts from first person singular to third person singular to first plural in one sentence. It’s a grammatical disaster. If you let a Coptic Christian loose on the Quran, he will point you to all the grammatical errors in the Quran."

Lol. Firstly, I am, by no means, your friend. I don't even know who you are.
Secondly, do you speak Arabic? Thirdly, are you basing your (ridiculously dumbfounded) statement on the English Translation?
Fourthly, unlike many other things, the Arabic Grammar has rules and regulations that are agreed upon by every linguist. Same with the English. So it would be easy for someone to just present an article explaining the grammatical mistakes ... if there were any.
Could you, maybe base your grammatical critique on the words of the greatest linguist ever, Sibawaih? Of course not.

"Eloquence is nothing. Why are muslims so hung up on eloquence. I’m sorry, but whenever I here the Quran being recited I get the chills and it annoys me to no end. If eloquence should persuade me as a non-believer, then the Quran fails miserably. Eloquence is not a criterion for divine revelation. Substance is! There is 100 times more substance in the book of Job than there is in the entire Quran. However, I think 50 Cent is quite an eloquent rapper. I doubt you would agree with me that 50 Cent is a prophet, right?"

Lol, that is because you cannot understand a word that's being said, not in Arabic or in English. You may know the words in English, but you will never know what it means, because your heart has a block on it. Satan is "blessing" your heart by sealing it from understanding anything about Islam.
No 50 Cent is not eloquent, and anyway I don't listen to music I am Muslim.

"The Quran must be the most incomprehensible booking existence.

The Quran claims it explains its verses in detail. But it doesn’t.
It claims that it is error free. But it isn’t.
It claims that it speaks truth. Yet it lies about others.
It claims that it is a confirmation of the previous revelations. But it’s not.
It claims that it knows the future. But it doesn’t even know history.
It claims that it has not contradictions. But it has them. "

See there is a list of baseless claims that I was going to present to you! Amazing! Can you write an article or something proving anything you said? Of course not.

"This was already met. Namely, with the Satanic verses. Muhammad couldn’t even distinguish between Allah’s revelations and Satan’s revelations. And he was the one that was most familiar with Allah’s recitations. And don’t tell me that the Satanic Verses aren’t quthentic. Because they are. There are clear traces of it in the Quran and confirmations of it in Bukhari, the tafsirs talk about it and your earliest source explains the episode in detail."

The Satanic Verses is NOT authentic. Prove it is. Please.
No, Bukhari does NOT have the Satanic verses in it, that is a blatant lie.
Who cares about earliest sources, I want authenticity, people, authenticity!!

Anthony Rogers said...

Oh look! To meet my challenge a helper was called in from among the jibnn (S. 17:88; 2:23)

Ibn said: Really? I always thought you were blessed with profound foolishness and ignorance.

Notwithstanding the false antithesis, I'm happy you noticed my other gifts; in fact, they reflect the side of me that Islam appeals to. Now that you can see that not all dummies have to be Muslims, what's to stop you from leaving Islam?

Ibn: As the saying goes, the wise man can never defeat the fool. So you'll always remain undefeated, Semper.

That explains a lot. Did you ever hear the one about the seventh century character who couldn't be defeated? It's a real side-splitter.

Unknown said...

The problem with debating nma is he has divorced himself from reason. I make an assertion and back it up with reason whereas he simply makes an assertion.

nma:There is no pattern here other than a far-fetched one though your example of Moses has a slight but irrelevant pattern. Besides, Moses and Jesus performed physical miracles, not verbal ones.

I didn't say Moses and Jesus performed verbal miracles, so for you to belabor on this is meaningless. What I did say was the miracles performed were relevant to the arts which excelled at that time. Since language, poetry and rhetoric was not flourishing in either Moses or Jesus' time, there was no need for verbal miracles.

However, Since Arabic poetry and rhetoric WAS flourishing during Muhammad's time, it follows that his miracle had to be one that was verbal in nature. What is so rationally objectionable about that?

nma:So your assertion that the Quran is inimitable in any way fails because someone can make an exact duplicate of the Quran, which will be the best imitation.

No, my assertion stands because to be inimitable doesn't necessitate duplication. You have assumed that the Quranic challenge is merely to duplicate a Surah; it's not. To get a clearer idea of what I am saying, consider the miracle of Jesus' virgin birth. Today, it is possible to imitate that. A virgin woman can be artificially inseminated, thereby giving birth to a child without having had sex herself.

nma:Unlike science text books many of which are clear and eloquent, many verses in the Quran are vague at best.

As I said, the challenge is for experts in "Balagh". Since you are no expert, much less an amateur, your assertion carries absolutely no weight.

nma:As the Persian physician, philosopher, and scholar Al-Razi put it, “By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: "Produce something like it"?! “(wikipedia).

Oh, Al Razi said it. Therefore, it's gotta be true!

nma:If Mohammed was in the habit of killing good poets, how can any poet even try to meet the meaningless challenge in Mohammed’s time.?

You fool! The Quranic challenges are contained in early Meccan Surahs when Muhammad(saw) was surrounded by gifted poets and had not yet made the Hijrah. There were plenty of poets to take up his challenge. All failed; some even converted.

nma:Maybe he killed them because they wrote something which he thought was similar to the Quran!

Actually, he had a few poets killed, while living in Medinah, because they were using poetry for the purpose of sedition. Not because he thought their poetry would supersede the Quran.

nma:Well, this is not the Quranic challenge. The least one of the Quranic challenge is the verse 2:23. This verse does not say anything about grammar, eloquence, poetry etc. So the challenge is quite vague and meaningless.

In other words, you can't meet the challenge. Of course you can't since you don't even know a lick of Arabic. Fool!

nma:Even if what you say about eloquence is correct, it still does not mean the Quran is from God because it could be that the eloquence of person(s) who wrote or recited the Quran is still unmatched as the genius of Einstein is unmatched.

How genius a person is is measured by his IQ. Are you suggesting that there has never been a man or a woman in history who has a higher IQ than Einstein?

nma:As if the biased Islamic ‘experts’ could be trusted! Besides, the Moses’ miracles were objective ones, which experts could see with their own eyes but the Quranic challenge is so subjective and meaningless that the ‘experts’ can’t be trusted.

I didn't say Islamic experts. Also, Moses' miracles are not verifiable today. (In fact, to a certain extent, they are even imitable.)You accept it on the basis of faith and that is subjective. Not so with the Quranic miracle. It is verifiable and therefore more objective.

Sepher Shalom said...

Muhammad said: "Satan is "blessing" your heart by sealing it from understanding anything about Islam."

I seem to recall the Quran says it is ALLAH that seals people's hearts. Why are you attributing Allah's actions to Satan, Muhammad?

Fernando said...

Muhammad saide: «anyway I don't listen to music I am Muslim»... OK, please: juste tell so to our other muslim friends around here who listen to musique: "hey, you're not muslims since you listen to music"... all the other words you wrote in your poste onlie reveal a person who clearlie cannot deal withe the truth... a common problem withe muslims I guess.

Muhammad and the always foonie Ibn are just obcessed with arabic... I hoppe they'll teach some arabic to the 90% off muslims around the worlde thate do not graps the meaning off a single worde off thate language... If a written worke losses his essential capacity off expressing it's own message in a translation, it shows, according to all moder linguistics (see Suzette Haden Elgin; Uriel Weinreich; Stephen Ullmann... strange no muslim in any book off this top science... maybe they are to bias with the anacronical mentality tought in the qur'an...), an intrinsique incapacity to deal with some off the moste nuclear propertie off any language. So, in other wordes, iff the qur'an "losts his message in translation", it is, in a linguistique evaluation, as poor as it can bee.

Even when I'm just burning with desire to say some things to Muhammad and Ibn, I'll leave to nma and Nakdimon the oportunity to give an utter answer to these two diletant muslim apologists...

Fernando said...

Bie the way... a good friende off mine, an ex-muslim like me butt from an arabic speaking muslm country, send me this hadith:

"وقال النبي ، نص القرآن يمكن قراءة أي لغة من الدول"...

so: Ibn and Muhammad: in whate do we stande? in the wordes off Muhamamd ore in youres?

Remenber: the qur'an is also a "clear book" (5:15) "easy to understand" (44:58 , 54:22 , 54:32, 54:40) "explained in detail" (6:114), "conveyed clearly", (5:16, 10:15) and with "no doubt" in it (2:1)... and the hadiths?

nma said...

Ibn,

PART 1

You said: I didn't say Moses and Jesus performed verbal miracles, so for you to belabor on this is meaningless.


I didn’t say you said Jesus performed verbal miracles. What I meant was there were no comparable patterns between Jesus’ times and Mohammed’s times. And the patterns you mentioned are far-fetched and meaningless because medical arts or magical arts are not particular to Jesus’ or Moses’ times and there is no evidence such arts excelled during those times. So your assertion fails miserably.

You said: However, Since Arabic poetry and rhetoric WAS flourishing during Muhammad's time, it follows that his miracle had to be one that was verbal in nature. What is so rationally objectionable about that?


Again, there is no such thing as verbal miracles. Can you define a verbal miracle? Also, why Mohammed’s miracles ‘had’ to be verbal in nature, just because Arabic poetry and rethoric was flourishing during Mohammed’ s time? Please don’t talk about patterns, because there was no reasonable pattern as pointed out above. You make too many illogical assumptions.

You said: No, my assertion stands because to be inimitable doesn't necessitate duplication.


No, the best imitation is duplication. So your assertion does not stand.

You said: You have assumed that the Quranic challenge is merely to duplicate a Surah; it's not. To get a clearer idea of what I am saying, consider the miracle of Jesus' virgin birth. Today, it is possible to imitate that.


I did not say that the Quranic challenge is is merely to duplicate a Surah. I said the Quranic challenge is meaningless and absurd. When you talked about ‘Imitation’ (that the Quran is inimitable), I said duplication is the best imitation. As for Jesus birth, I don’t know you are talking about the process or the result. If God started with semen to fertilize Mary, artificial insemination is a duplication of the process. But Like I said before, whatever you do in a subjective matter like the Quranic challenge, someone can always find fault with the results. Like in the case of artificial insemination, someone could argue that God did not start with semen, but with an embryo. Or are you saying the result of Jesus birth is imitable? If so, since both are virgin births, whatever are the processes, one result is a duplicate of the original result.

You said: nma:Maybe he killed them because they wrote something which he thought was similar to the Quran!
Actually, he had a few poets killed, while living in Medinah, because they were using poetry for the purpose of sedition. Not because he thought their poetry would supersede the Quran.



That is what the biased Islamic scholars and historians wrote. You don’t know whether it is a lie or not. It is possible that he killed them because they wrote something which he thought was similar to the Quran!

nma said...

ibn,

PART 2

You said: nma:Well, this is not the Quranic challenge. The least one of the Quranic challenge is the verse 2:23. This verse does not say anything about grammar, eloquence, poetry etc. So the challenge is quite vague and meaningless.

In other words, you can't meet the challenge. Of course you can't since you don't even know a lick of Arabic. Fool!



Here your answer is quite meaningless since no one can meet an absurd, meaningless and stupid challenge.

You said:Oh, Al Razi said it. Therefore, it's gotta be true!


If I use words: Al-Razi was a Scholar and you are not. Since you are no scholar, much less an amateur, your assertion carries absolutely no weight.

You said: How genius a person is is measured by his IQ. Are you suggesting that there has never been a man or a woman in history who has a higher IQ than Einstein?


What I meant was nobody would have discovered what Einstein discovered. Also, it is not only IQ what makes a great genius like Einstein, but his or her imagination. Not all people with high IQ have great imagination. That is why we have only one Newton, one Einstein etc. They were very unique people.

You said: Moses' miracles are not verifiable today. (In fact, to a certain extent, they are even imitable.)You accept it on the basis of faith and that is subjective. Not so with the Quranic miracle. It is verifiable and therefore more objective.


Again, how can a meaningless, absurd and stupid challenge be verified?


Looks like you are blissfully unaware of it, but calling names does not make you any reasonable . Besides, you back up your assertions with meaningless, irrelevant and far-fetched nonsense.

Nakdimon said...

Muhammad: Lol. Firstly, I am, by no means, your friend. I don't even know who you are.
Secondly, do you speak Arabic? Thirdly, are you basing your (ridiculously dumbfounded) statement on the English Translation?


Well, sorry to have offended you for calling you friend, my foe! Second and third, I don’t know Arabic. But if the translation is right, the Arabic goes from 1st person singular to 3rd person singular to 1st person plural in one sentence too. That is grammatical nonsense in any language! You tell me how this grammar makes sense.

Fourthly, unlike many other things, the Arabic Grammar has rules and regulations that are agreed upon by every linguist. Same with the English. So it would be easy for someone to just present an article explaining the grammatical mistakes ... if there were any.
Could you, maybe base your grammatical critique on the words of the greatest linguist ever, Sibawaih? Of course not.


My point above stands untouched. And who might that “greatest linguist” actually be?

Lol, that is because you cannot understand a word that's being said, not in Arabic or in English. You may know the words in English, but you will never know what it means, because your heart has a block on it. Satan is "blessing" your heart by sealing it from understanding anything about Islam.
No 50 Cent is not eloquent, and anyway I don't listen to music I am Muslim.


That’s because the Quran is unpleasant to read and doesn’t make sense at all in any language. The Quran claims it is clear but its not. It’s whatever the scholars say it means, and even then there are differences amongst scholars. It isn’t Satan that is blessing my heart, it is the God of Heaven, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel that protects me from the Quran’s demonic cargo, unlike Allah, who couldn’t protect his “greatest messenger” from simple magic spells and Satan’s recital.

And how do you know that 50 Cent isn’t eloquent? You yourself don’t listen to music. And I can understand why Muhammad didn’t want people to listen to music. He didn’t want the competition. 50 Cent IS eloquent! Listen to him: His flow is amazing but his lyrics are dire. Just like the Quran.


See there is a list of baseless claims that I was going to present to you! Amazing! Can you write an article or something proving anything you said? Of course not.

Dude I am making a series of videos on all these things. I will ask the admins on this blog to post it here on the blog, to show you that there is ample proof for what I said.

The Satanic Verses is NOT authentic. Prove it is. Please.

It may not be on Islamic standards (which is just ludicrous), but on historical grounds its absolutely authentic. The most reliable methods confirm the SV, namely, earliest records and argument of embarrassment. We find both in the Quran and in Ibn Ishaq.

52. We did not send before you any messenger, nor a prophet, without having the devil interfere in his wishes. GOD then nullifies what the devil has done. GOD perfects His revelations. GOD is Omniscient, Most Wise.

So this is the verse that deals with Muhammads vindication after he recited Satans verses. If there were never prophets that spoke for Satan, then Muhammad is no exception to that rule. Now here is how Bukhari supports the Satanic Verses.

Nakdimon said...

No, Bukhari does NOT have the Satanic verses in it, that is a blatant lie.

Bukhari Volume 2, Book 19, Number 177: Narrated Ibn Abbas: The Prophet I prostrated while reciting An-Najm and with him prostrated the Muslims, the pagans, the jinns, and all human beings.

Bukhari talks about An-Najm and obviously is referring to the “Garanique” verses. But he leaves out all the juicy details. However, this narration is clear enough in its premise without mentioning the SV. The question that pops up is: Why on earth would the pagans bow down with the Muslims after Muhammads recitals, seeing they had been rejecting his recitals for years by then and would continue to reject is for years to come? It was Muhammads recitals that caused strive and division among the Pagans in the first place. This cannot be explained apart from the SV! It was the SV that made the pagans bow down with the Muslims. Nothing more and nothing less. So, yes, Bukhari confirms the SV!

Who cares about earliest sources, I want authenticity, people, authenticity!!

If you want authenticity, you will need Ibn Ishaq. But you don’t like Ishaq, because he portrays Muhammad as a pirate instead of a prophet. But it is inconceivable to me, that if Muhammad was this kind and gentle man with impeccable behaviour that Muslims claim, that people would refer to Ishaq and Tabari. We would expect to see the offense and outrage of the Muslims in the generations of Ishaq and Tabari (because of what they had to say about Muhammad) that we see today when people make these same claims about Muhammad. If anyone professing to be a Christian claimed that Yeshua bought people’s loyalty to join him in his raids to subjugate others, while that is just not true, those people would be anathemized and totally stripped of any reliability in all their works. But we don’t see that in Islam. Ibn Ishaq and Tabari are referenced as reliable sources by other major scholars such as Bukhari, Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir, etc. This means that these were considered reliable people doing good work in Islamic theology and exegesis. So to disregard their testimonies, especially that of Ibn Ishaq, as irrelevant and an inaccurate depiction of Muhammad. This is indefensible. There is no way what Muslims will not condemn somebody that maims the character of Muhammad into the pirate that Ibn Ishaq and Tabari describe him to be, unless that is the character of Muhammad that people were commonly familiar with.

Nakdimon

Fernando said...

Nakdimon saide to muhammad: «how do you know that 50 Cent isn’t eloquent? You yourself don’t listen to music»... man... It's easier to cathc a muslim lying thane a quadraplegic running... Nevertheless, perhaps he was acostumed to listen to 50c beffore he becama a muslim... hummm... is thate so? Onlie he can tell us...

Fernando said...

muhammad saide, in an epithomy off inconsistency: «Who cares about earliest sources, I want authenticity»... I was writting an extended answer to his claimes, butt when I reached this pointe I erased everything... I coulde
habe nott find, in a million years (eben unsertanding muslim argumentation), a butter proof off his totally inhability to deal withe the truth... so: I'm done...

nma said...

Hi Fernando,

Even when I'm just burning with desire to say some things to Muhammad and Ibn, I'll leave to nma and Nakdimon the oportunity to give an utter answer to these two diletant muslim apologists...


Thanks, Frenando. I wish I could write as eloquently as you guys do!

Unknown said...

Here we go again.

Nma: And the patterns you mentioned are far-fetched and meaningless because medical arts or magical arts are not particular to Jesus’ or Moses’ times and there is no evidence such arts excelled during those times. So your assertion fails miserably.

If there are no patterns, then how come Moses didn’t raise the dead, heal the blind and leper and perform other miracles that involved curing ailments? This indicates that there was something about the context that was necessary to the nature of these miracles. Hence, my assertion stands.

Nma: Again, there is no such thing as verbal miracles. Can you define a verbal miracle? Also, why Mohammed’s miracles ‘had’ to be verbal in nature, just because Arabic poetry and rethoric was flourishing during Mohammed’ s time? Please don’t talk about patterns, because there was no reasonable pattern as pointed out above. You make too many illogical assumptions.

Muhammad’s miracle had to be oral since language was the only thing capable of exerting a significant impact on his contemporaries. They wouldn’t have been convinced by physical miracles because Jinn possessed people were performing them all the time.

Nma: No, the best imitation is duplication. So your assertion does not stand……I did not say that the Quranic challenge is is merely to duplicate a Surah.

If the Quranic challenge is not to duplicate a Surah, then your argument fails since you said “……someone can make an exact duplicate of the Quran”, though you deny saying it now. Hence, the challenge remains unmet.

Nma: Or are you saying the result of Jesus birth is imitable? If so, since both are virgin births, whatever are the processes, one result is a duplicate of the original result.

Not really. Miracles are not reproducible since if they were, they wouldn’t be miracles. To the extent that Jesus’ birth can be reproduced by the process of artificial insemination, it is not a miracle.

Nma: That is what the biased Islamic scholars and historians wrote.

That’s a genetic fallacy-to reject or accept something merely on the basis of its origin.

Nma: If I use words: Al-Razi was a Scholar and you are not. Since you are no scholar, much less an amateur, your assertion carries absolutely no weight.

Razi was not a scholar of “Balagh”, you imbecile.

Nma: What I meant was nobody would have discovered what Einstein discovered. Also, it is not only IQ what makes a great genius like Einstein, but his or her imagination. Not all people with high IQ have great imagination. That is why we have only one Newton, one Einstein etc. They were very unique people.

If imagination is the criterion of greatness, you might as well regard the creators of Spongebob Squarepants as geniuses! Clearly IQ is a more objective measure of intelligence.

Nma: Again, how can a meaningless, absurd and stupid challenge be verified?

I already told you what the challenge is. Find a single verse in the Quran that can be written more eloquently.

Anthony Rogers said...

Fibn said: If there are no patterns, then how come Moses didn’t raise the dead, heal the blind and leper and perform other miracles that involved curing ailments? This indicates that there was something about the context that was necessary to the nature of these miracles. Hence, my assertion stands.

Such miracles did take place under Moses, Fibn. Even as Moses was given the sign of a hand cured of leprosy, so his sister became leprous but was healed. When the people were bitten by venomous snakes, Moses lifted a brazen serpent on a pole that anyone could look up to and be saved.

Nevertheless, you are right: the miracles of Christ excelled Moses in regard to healing. As Yusuf Ali said: "There is no story more full of miracles than the story of Jesus."

Moreover, the ministry and miracles of Moses even pointed to Christ, for as Jesus said: "12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Anthony Rogers said...

Fibn said: Muhammad’s miracle had to be oral since language was the only thing capable of exerting a significant impact on his contemporaries. They wouldn’t have been convinced by physical miracles because Jinn possessed people were performing them all the time.

First, the other pagans of Muhammad's time, i.e. the non-Muslim one's, weren't especially interested in Muhammad's self-flattering claims to eloquence. Muhammad's response was often spoken in reference to their challenge to produce a miracle like Moses did. They wanted plain, old-fashioned miracles...not rage-filled messages in flowery language.

Second, you have now had a falling out with yourself. Originally you said the Qur'anic challenge to produce a Surah like it was a rational one because it was analogous to what Moses did when he trounced the sorcerer's of his time. Accordingly, if Jinn possessed people (which are analogous to Pharaoh's magicians) were "performing miracles all the time," Muhammad should have been able to excel them just like Moses did.

The pattern is clear: Moses and Jesus both came with miracles. Muhammad came with fine sounding rhetoric (or so we are told)

As the blessed aposlte said:

"1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with 'eloquence' or superior 'wisdom' as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

Anthony Rogers said...

Fibn said: If imagination is the criterion of greatness, you might as well regard the creators of Spongebob Squarepants as geniuses!

Let's not forget Muhammad, the creator and/or borrower of such tall-tales as: She-Camel Big-Hump. (I heard he also had a hand in at least inspiring the work, 1001 Arabian Fights and "Muhammad (aka Aladdin) and the King of Theives".)

ben malik said...

If there are no patterns, then how come Moses didn’t raise the dead, heal the blind and leper and perform other miracles that involved curing ailments? This indicates that there was something about the context that was necessary to the nature of these miracles. Hence, my assertion stands.

Ibn fibn’s statements exposes his ignorance of the Torah which has laws governing leprosy, showing that it was a problem back then. We would expect that per ibn fibn’s position Moses would have cured some lepers, which he didn’t.

He is also unlearned when it comes to the Quran since Allah raised countless number of dead people during Moses' time.

And (remember) when you said: "O Musa (Moses)! We shall never believe in you till we see Allah plainly." But you were seized with a thunderbolt (lightning) while you were looking. Then We raised you up after your death, so that you might be grateful. S. 2:55-56

And didn't Abraham ask Allah to show him how he could raise the dead since he wanted to have his faith strengthened?

And (remember) when Ibrahim (Abraham) said, "My Lord! Show me how You give life to the dead." He (Allah) said: "Do you not believe?" He [Ibrahim (Abraham)] said: "Yes (I believe), but to be stronger in Faith." He said: "Take four birds, then cause them to incline towards you (then slaughter them, cut them into pieces), and then put a portion of them on every hill, and call them, they will come to you in haste. And know that Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise." S. 2:260

Now watch Ibn try to back out of this by coming up with some absurd explanation such as that these miracles weren't done before Pharaoh and his company since they weren’t required for them. That would be a non-answer since the argument that magical arts were the thing back then isn't limited to the Egyptians but to people at that time, including the Israelites who were predisposed to Egypt's magic. If this were the case then all Moses had to do was perform some miracles before the Israelites which surpassed the tricks of the Egyptian magicians.

Besides all this, why did Muhammad's contemporaries constantly ask for signs and wonders if the Quran was such a masterpiece, surpassing the eloquence of all the Arabs during that time? Why would they even require miracles if the Quran's eloquence would have been sufficient for them to prove that it was from a higher source?

Anthony Rogers said...

edit: "king of thieves"

nma said...

Ibn:

Part 1

This in addition to the points made by Ben Malik and Semper Pratus:

You said:If there are no patterns, then how come Moses didn’t raise the dead, heal the blind and leper and perform other miracles that involved curing ailments? This indicates that there was something about the context that was necessary to the nature of these miracles. Hence, my assertion stands.

In the context of his contest with the magicians, even though Moses defeated the magicians, Pharaoh still did not have faith. So it took direct intervention from God, who sent the plagues, to change the Pharaoh’s mind. So the context here is not that of magic or magicians. Magic and magicians were only parts of the broad context in which Moses performed the miracles (At first I thought there was a slight but irrelevant pattern).

Jesus performed His miracles not to defeat the medical artists of that time and not in a context in which the medical arts were at their height. Healing people and raising the dead are timeless miracles and could be effective during any period of time. And you forget that the medical miracles were only a few among the numerous miracles performed by Jesus. Also, they were performed in a broad context that was not medical. So there were no patterns involved and your assertion fails.

You said: Muhammad’s miracle had to be oral since language was the only thing capable of exerting a significant impact on his contemporaries. They wouldn’t have been convinced by physical miracles because Jinn possessed people were performing them all the time.

How do you know that the language was the only thing capable of exerting a significant impact on Mohammed’s contemporaries? If Mohammed was chosen by God, he could have performed medical miracles to convince his contemporaries since medical miracles are timeless. And how many people were raised up from the dead by the Jinn possessed people during Mohammed’s time? Please write sense.

You said:If the Quranic challenge is not to duplicate a Surah, then your argument fails since you said “……someone can make an exact duplicate of the Quran”, though you deny saying it now. Hence, the challenge remains unmet.

You are quoting out of context. I said, “So your assertion that the Quran is inimitable in any way fails because someone can make an exact duplicate of the Quran, which will be the best imitation.” The key word is ‘any way’ and duplication is one way.

nma said...

Ibn:

Part 2

You said: Miracles are not reproducible since if they were, they wouldn’t be miracles. To the extent that Jesus’ birth can be reproduced by the process of artificial insemination, it is not a miracle.

Not true. You need to look at the context and time in which the miracles are performed. If someone invents a pair of shoes with which you can walk on the water, it still does not nullify Jesus’ walking on the water. Also, that nowadays lepers are healed by modern medicine does not mean that Jesus’ healing of the leapers was not a miracle.

You said: That’s a genetic fallacy-to reject or accept something merely on the basis of its origin.

Nope. Bias is a reasonable criterion for rejecting or accepting something. For example, a gambler will not accept biased dices.

You said: Razi was not a scholar of “Balagh”, you imbecile.

I was using your logic, you i(m)bn(ecile).

You said: If imagination is the criterion of greatness, you might as well regard the creators of Spongebob Squarepants as geniuses! Clearly IQ is a more objective measure of intelligence.

You are a master of misunderstanding! What I meant was Einstein had high IQ plus imagination. That is what made what he was. IQ alone won’t make a genius of Einstein’s stature.

You said: I already told you what the challenge is. Find a single verse in the Quran that can be written more eloquently.

Same old, same old. The Quranic challenge does say anything about eloquence, but it challenges to write a “Surah like this”. It is vague and could mean anything. That is one reason why the Quranic challenge is meaningless, absurd and stupid.