The Qur'an Kills Again (Another Woman Dead Due to Surah 4:34)

As everyone who visits this blog knows, the Qur'an commands faithful Muslim men to beat their rebellious wives into submission:

Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great. (Qur'an 4:34)

If anyone has doubts about the meaning of this passage, I invite you to read Osama Abdallah's elegant description of situations where a Muslim man should not only beat his wife, but "beat the daylights out of her." Note that, according to Osama, a man should beat the daylights out of his wife for not taking care of her children properly.

What is the result of the Islamic position on wife-beating? Muslim women usually remain quiet about such beatings, since they're raised to believe that it's acceptable to beat women. But sometimes women die from the beatings.

Notice from the following case that the husband was beating his wife for refusing to breastfeed her child on command. Thus, he was completely within his Muslim rights to (as Osama likes to say) "beat the daylights out of her." Unfortunately, the beating killed her.

A woman was beaten by her husband after she refused to resume breastfeeding her baby, Dubai Criminal Court heard yesterday.

The defendant, MN, a 26-year-old Pakistani tailor, again ordered the woman, AF, to feed her baby, but she refused once more, put the baby on the bed and went onto the roof of their house.

There, she removed her headscarf, which annoyed her conservative Muslim husband. He then allegedlly slapped her and brought her back to her room.

When she left the room again and went back up to the roof, he allegedly hit her several times with a plastic pipe, and she fell to the ground. He lifted his wife up and lay her on the bed, but when her condition deteriorated, he took her to hospital. She passed away after a few days due to complications from an injury to her head. Read More.

For more on wife-beating in Islam, click here.

Pakistan: Twelve-Year-Old Christian Girl Raped and Killed by Muslim Employer

Lahore (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A 12-year-old Christian girl died on Friday as a result of physical violence inflicted by her employer, a rich and powerful Muslim lawyer in Lahore. The case has led to protests by the Christian community, which demonstrated before the provincial assembly of Punjab in Lahore. The authorities are trying to appease people and have pledged that justice shall be done. Pakistani President Zardari has also promised to pay compensation to the family.

A Protestant NGO, Sharing Life Ministry Life (SLMP), reported the case of Shazia Bashir, 12, who was employed for the past eight months as a domestic worker in the household of Chaudhry Muhammad Naeem, a lawyer and former president of the Lahore Bar Association.

Local Christians say that during that period the girl was the victim of constant harassment, and that she was raped and tortured before she was killed.

SLMP chief coordinator Sohail Johnson said the girl worked under constant stress and experienced emotional and psychological trauma. She was also denied the agreed salary (Rs 1,000 or about US$ 12 per month).

Shazia “would get insults whenever she raised the subject of payment,” the Christian activist said.

Three days before her death, her employer tortured her, he noted. Afterwards, he tried to have her treated at his home without informing the parents of her health situation. In the end, the medical care she did get proved inadequate and she had to go to Lahore’s Meo Hospital.

"Shazia's parents were not allowed to meet her. They did not know what she was going through," said Razia Bibi, the girl’s 44-year-old uncle.

Shazia died last Friday from her injuries.

Sohail Johnson said that her body showed signs of torture with at least 12 marks of injury. "Shazia was admitted to the hospital with a broken jaw," he said.

Initially, Chaudhry Muhammad Naeem’s family tried to pay off Shazia’s parents with Rs 20,000 (US$ 250) to stop them from filing a case against them. Eventually they fled, but were arrested yesterday under pressure from the federal government.

On Saturday, Christians demonstrated in front of the Punjab Provincial Assembly.

The Lahore Bar Association has instead sided with the powerful Muslim lawyer.

Local Christians have expressed scepticism about the impartiality and efficacy of the police investigation; however, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that outside interference would not be tolerated and that justice would be done.

Sohail Johnson (pictured with the girl’s body) said that 99 per cent of Christian girls from poor families are hired by wealthy Muslims, and are often physically, psychologically and sexually abused.

“In some cases, their employers marry them off to Muslim servants, and forcibly convert them to Islam,” he said.

“These vulnerable Christian girls do not have any state protection. We urge the government to ensure protection of these disadvantaged girls,” the SLMP coordinator said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has promised Rs 500,000 (US$ 6,000) in compensation to the girl’s family and urged the Punjab government to provide financial help as well. The money is expected to cover the cost of Shazia Bashir’s funeral, which is scheduled for today in Lahore. Source.

The Qur'an and the Seven Heavens: An Introduction to an upcoming Article

This is going to be a less detailed post with less references; the purpose being to introduce a very lengthy upcoming work.

I am currently preparing a lengthy article on the seven heavens in the Qur’an and the concept of the Greeks and Talmudic Jews on the seven heavens.

Originally, if you consider the Greeks and also the elaboration of some of the early church fathers and the common concepts of their time, the seven heavens were considered as seven tracts, the the running structure of seven planets and their orbits. These seven planets consisted of the moon as the object nearest the earth, second the sun and further away the orbits of five other planets, which are today recognised as existing in our solar system.

I will post all the early quotes and reference of these when I have brought all the material together into one article.

But notice how the Qur’an is consisted with the early views; we read in Sura 71: 15:

"See ye not How Allah has created The seven heavens One above another, "And made the moon A light in their midst, and made the sun As a (Glorious) Lamp?" [Al-Qur?aan 71:15-16]

This passage does not refer to a miraculous prediction of anything, since the author of the Qur’an states that we see or observe that Allah has created seven heavens one above the other.

Hence this is not a divine miraculous prediction of modern science but an human observation; here the author of the Qur’an even reveals the ability of the early human community to engage in science and to correctly perceive and understand how nature and the universe is structured (even though in this case the scientific information which the early humans saw and which Allah confirms is wrong; but I will get back to that in another article).

Now ask yourself, how did the early human societies observe this structure of seven heavens?

The answer is: they had correctly discovered five of the solar-system planets in their orbits.

The fallacy of their theory was to view the sun and the moon as similar objects, all orbiting in parallel lines around the earth; yet this nevertheless postulated that seven interstellar objects were orbiting in seven tracts, which is consistent with the view of the Qur’anic author.

These orbits were by numerous early writers referred to as seven tracts and seven heavens (I shall give the references from the Qur’an and the pre-Islamic writers in an upcoming post).

This why the Qur’an says that the people of Muhammad’s time had even seen that Allah had created seven heavens, each above the other; these seven heavens marked the orbit of the seven planets (obviously we have yet to discover even the edge of the first heaven and the reference is to something that they could see, namely the seven planets and their orbits):

"See ye not How Allah has created The seven heavens One above another," (Sura 71: 15)

This is already presents a significant problem in terms of Qur'anic accuracy as our solar-system consists of eight planets and five dwarf planets, which already provides evidence that the Qur’an is not based upon divine knowledge but human knowledge; the knowledge that already flourished in Muhammad’s time.

Furthermore, we need to presume that since the Qur’an refers to seven planets it also follows the discoveries and ideas of its time, which viewed the sun and moon as included objects and excluded the earth. This is obvious from the Qur’an, which views the earth to have separated from the heavens and the interstellar matter and objects to derive on a later stage of the cosmological development (Sura 21: 10 and Sura 41: 9-12). In fact this is also consistent with the views flourishing in Muhammad’s time (but I shall get back to his in a future post).

That Sura 71: 15 is also elaborating on the centrality of the sun and moon as being in the midst of the seven orbits, which is also confirming that the Qur’an utilizes the science of antiquity. This was also the view of authors who predated Islam, and consists with the idea that the sun and the moon orbited closest to the earth in a orbit circle around the earth, which most ancient thinkers postulated; hence they were central and in the middle of this orbit and lighted up its entire structure.

The passage might even suggest that the sun and the moon light up all seven tracts and the other planets; this is what the ancient thinkers believed.

Except for the moon being an object attached to the earth, the early philosophers got this quite right. However, the Qur’an might also be in agreement with e.g. Plato that the sun lighted up not only the earth and planets but also the entire universe; take a look at sura 25: 61:

"Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies, And placed therein a Lamp And a Moon giving light."

Now, is this supposed to be modern science or prediction of modern science?

Brianman stated in a previous thread that the Qur’an ‘confirms’; that is an overstatement!

The Qur’an does certainly not confirm anything, it may certainly quote the early philosophers and their postulates, of which some ideas were fairly correct and others plainly wrong; just a pity that the Qur’an fails to differentiate between these.

The whole Qur’anic reference to seven heavens and that these were observed by the people of the time is nevertheless a fallacy far too serious to overlook and we will in future assess this matter in details.

New York: Copts Rally against Terrorism

Victory for Rifqa!

Praise the Lord for delivering our sister Rifqa from those who want to kill her. Today, Rifqa's parents agreed to leave her in the custody of the state of Ohio until she turns 18.

Debunking Qur'anic Science: Does the Qur'an Predict that the Moon Reflects Sun Light? Is this a Miracolous Prediction?

A whole range of Muslim apologists have claimed that the Qur’an is miraculous in its prediction of the moon reflecting sunlight; about this matter Zakir Naik writes:

THE LIGHT OF THE MOON IS REFLECTED LIGHT

It was believed by earlier civilizations that the moon emanates its own light. Science now tells us that the light of the moon is reflected light. However this fact was mentioned in the Qur?aan 1,400 years ago in the following verse:

"Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies, And placed therein a Lamp And a Moon giving light." [Al-Qur?aan 25:61]

Consider the following verses related to the nature of light from the sun and the moon: "It is He who made the sun To be a shining glory And the moon to be a light (Of beauty)." [Al-Qur?aan 10:5]

"See ye not How Allah has created The seven heavens One above another, "And made the moon A light in their midst, and made the sun As a (Glorious) Lamp?" [Al-Qur?aan 71:15-16]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18926563/Quran-and-Modern-Science-EnglishBy-Dr-Zakir-Naik

See also a youtube video debunking Zakir Naik’s speculation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIw_obd7a-k

Osama Abdallah has also made similar claims:

So why would Ibn Kathir come up with this statement, many centuries before man discovered that the earth was spherical and that the moon does indeed reflect the sun's light?

http://www.answering-christianity.com/ahmed_eldin/light_of_moon.htm

Notice that Osama Abdallah believes that Ibn Kathir came up with statements about this scientific accuracy only because the Qur’an makes such statements.

Firstly, I am not so sure whether Kathir got this idea from the Qur’an, I don’t think the passage from Kathir clarifies that.

See also two articles from Answering-Islam that refute the claim that the Qur’an even utters such claims:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Science/moonlight_wc.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Shabir-Ally/science10.htm

http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Osama/zaatari_moonlight.htm

However, let’s assume that the Qur’an does describe the moon reflecting sun-light; are Zakir Naik and Osama Abdallah then correct in their claims that these are miraculous statements, that these ideas were unknown prior to the revelation of the Qur’an?

The answer is no! This is yet again and example of the typical lies spread by modern Islamic apologists.

In fact the concept that the moon reflected sun-light was a very common concept even a thousand years prior to Islam.

Then why do individuals such as Zakir Naik and Osama Abdallah spread such lies to the masses?

There are three possibilities:

1) Either they knowingly spread such misconception and hence willingly deceive their readers and listeners.

2) Or they have simply not done their homework.

3) Or they are simply taken over by their emotionalism for Islam and are blinded from considering the related facts.

For example:

Anaxagoras (4-5 Century BC) indicated that within the ancient scientific of his time it was argued whether the moon shines by reflected light or emits its own light. Even in this era, even without divine revelation human thinkers got a number of ideas scientifically correct, such as Aristarchus (310-230 BC) whose ideas predicted the modern scientific discovery that the earth with the other planets orbits the sun and that the earth was in a constant rotation, and completed a full rotation once in every twenty-four hours (Russel, History of Western Philosophy, p.222-223).

Hence I wonder why Zakir Naik and Osama Abdallah not give up their faith in Islam and build a religion around Aristarchus, or include him as one of the greatest prophets ever; at least his ideas predict modern science and must therefore indicate divine revelation.

However, let’s look at how common this concept was prior to Muhammad and the rise of Islam:

Thales (585 BC):

The moon is lighted from the sun. 29; 360. Thales et al. agree with the mathematicians that the monthly phases of the moon show that it travels along with the sun and is lighted by it, and eclipses show that it comes into the shadow of the earth, the earth coming between the two heavenly bodies and blocking the light of the moon (Doxographi on Thales, Aet. ii. 1 ; Dox. 327) (6).

Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) considered the moon be to a false-shining star (255).

The Doxographist elaborate further on this:

The moon is below the sun and nearer us. The sun is larger than the Peloponnesos. The moon does not have its own light, but light from the sun (The Doxographists on Anaxagoras, Hipp. Phil. 8 ; Dox. 561) (260-1).

Empedocles (490-430):

As sunlight striking the broad circle of the moon. 154. A borrowed light, circular in form, it revolves about the earth, as if following the track of a chariot (Empedocles, translations of the fragments I) (177).

Ptolemy (90-168):

The Moon principally generates moisture; her proximity to the earth renders her highly capable of exciting damp vapours, and of thus operating sensibly upon animal bodies by relaxation and putrefaction. She has, however, also a moderate share in the production of heat, in consequence of the illumination she receives from the Sun (Ptolemy?s Tetrabiblos: Book the First: Chapter IV, The Influence of the Planetary Orbs) (13).

Lucretius (100-50 BC):

How then, if the sun is so small, can it give of such a flood of light (p.189)?

The moon, too, whether it sheds a borrowed light upon the landscape in its progress or emits a native radiance from its own body. What then of the moon? It may be that it shines only when the sun’s rays fall upon it. Then day by day, as it moves away from the sun’s orb, it turns more its illuminated surface towards our view till in its rising it gazes down face to face up the setting of the sun and beams with lustre at the full. Thereafter, it is bound to hide its light bit by bit behind it as it glides around heaven towards the solar fire from the opposite point of the zodiac (192-193) (Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe).

The Jewish Talmud gets this right:

Abraham once worshipped the moon and said: The light of the moon must be derived from the light of the sun (A Cohen, Everyman?s Talmud, London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd/NewYork: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc, 1949: 2).

Hence once again we have refuted Zakir Naik, Osama Abdallah and a number of modern Muslim apologists who claim that the moon reflecting sun-light was a concept unknown prior to the era of Muhammad and the Qur’an, that is of course only if the Qur’an truly makes this prediction in the first place; but that is stuff for another article.

I urge therefore Zakir Naik, Osama Abdallah, Harun Yahay and others to correct this error.

Saudi Arabia: 80-Year-Old Muslim Marries 11-Year-Old Child

Now where on earth would a Muslim get the idea that it's perfectly acceptable for an elderly man to have sex with a child?

News of a Saudi octogenarian marrying an eleven-year-old girl has outraged human rights activists amid calls on the government to regulate the marriage of underage girls, local media reported Saturday.

The Saudi National Human Rights Commission formed a committee to investigate the marriage, which activists consider a flagrant violation of human and children rights, the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh said.

The marriage registrar, who was widely criticized since he agreed to seal the marriage contract knowing the girl's age, absolved himself of any blame.

"There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," he told the paper. "Plus, I summoned the girl and she declared her consent and signed the contract." . . .

The groom expressed his surprise at how the media leveled harsh criticism against him and his family for marrying the girl.

"It is very simple. We didn’t do anything wrong. It is a valid contract that meets all the conditions for marriage. What's the point of all this fuss?"

The groom has three other wives, all much younger, and they all have kids. Read More.

Yahya Snow and the Debate Proposal

Yahya has put up a response to my debate challenge: here. All in all he was polite, a marked improvement upon some past discussions, and he basically accepted my challenge to debate, but several things beg for a response.

In the first place, I found it quite interesting that Yahya spoke so glowingly of my writing style but wanted to make sure that this was not mistaken as an endorsement of the truth of what I say vis-à-vis Christianity and Islam.

As far as my writing goes, I praise the Lord for the extent to which it may be "something to behold", recognizing that I have no gifts or graces that I have not received, and that every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from God in whom there is neither variableness nor shadow cast by turning.

As for the observation that my “beautiful speech”, if I may be permitted to call it such, is not proof that what I say is true, I couldn’t agree more. Solomon said, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver,” but it is also possible, as Yahya is implying, to beautifully communicate falsehood. It is sort of like an ugly woman in nice clothes. Or a Surah that says Allah is God. A beautiful package does not necessarily imply contents that are commensurately beautiful or true. Fortunately, the debate I have proposed will have the benefit of letting people look at both sides and see who is speaking the truth. At this point, even before the debate, we can all rejoice that Yahya has already taken a major step forward. Surely it is not insignificant to find a Muslim, who, for all intents and purposes, agrees with Paul (1 Corinthians 2:1ff.) over Muhammad (Surah 2:23-24).

I also found his rather parochial remark that Christians have recently taken up an interest in debating focal issues such as the Trinity to be somewhat interesting. Not only have I never known a day since my conversion when I was not interested in proclaiming the glory of God’s triune nature to guilt-ridden sinners, whether Muslims or atheists or Satanists and whoever else, but Christians have been pressing this great truth in their conversations with Muslims from the present day all the way back to the Christians of Najran. I think Yahya has been living too sheltered a life in the Ummah if he thinks Christians have been reticent to speak to this issue. He also may be laboring under the assumption that the doctrine of the Trinity is beset with logical problems that make it undesirable for a Christian to get into it. I can assure Yahya, the present writer labors under no such notion. Not only do I believe the doctrine of the Trinity to be logically defensible; I believe without faith in the Triune God as the creator and redeemer of the world, that logic itself collapses as arbitrary, just like things such as love and personality collapse on Yahya’s unitarian assumptions.

This brings me to the fact that Yahya says he would be interested in debating the Trinity with me, but, besides the fact that he is a little snowed in at the moment with other issues that he has to address first – and he is right, many of us are still waiting for his response to the issue of John 1:19ff, which is already a long time coming – he has some concerns about the specific debates I have in mind. Yahya says,

“I must add my slight concern regarding the topics Anthony suggested, surely a more encompassing topic should be chosen rather than limiting a discussion on the Trinity to a certain section of the Bible. I would suggest:

Did Jesus teach the Trinity?

This topic should not be limited to a certain Book; logic should be allowed to come into play as well as other sources.

Is Anthony up for this particular dialogue?”

In the name of having a more “encompassing” topic for debate, Yahya suggests we restrict the topic to whether or not Jesus taught the Trinity, which means narrowing our focus to the four Gospels and the book of Revelation, the latter of which also contains the words of Christ, rather than looking at the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. Of course I am more than willing to debate that topic, and I would even be willing to have an even more “encompassing” debate, such as whether or not the book of Jude, which is the equivalent of a single chapter in most other books of the Bible, teaches the deity of Christ, but I think I should at least be humored first with a debate on the less encompassing teaching of the Old Testament, even though it only consists of 39 books rather than four or five, and only covers the writings of prophets that span a millennia of time rather than a handful of years.

The fact is, in addition to the reasons that are discernible from my tongue-in-cheek remarks tucked away above, there are several good reasons for beginning our discussion on the Trinity with the Old Testament:

In the first place, God gave the Old Testament before the New Testament. I don’t presume, and I would like to think the same goes for Yahya, to have a better pedagogy than the all-wise God.

In the second place, our discussion is on the Trinity and not on the deity of Christ. During the Old Testament period, Jesus, according to the Christian position, was divine and not, as in the New Testament, both divine and human. There are of course many Old Testament anticipations of the incarnation, such as the many theophanies involving the Malakh Yahweh, i.e. the Messenger or Word of Yahweh, but nothing that would involve us in a discussion of the incarnation proper, complete with the state of affairs it brought about and that Muslims like to bring up in an effort to get others to share in their confusion.

Finally, it was mainly with respect to the debate between Sam and Farhan, which in Yahya’s editorial and censorious hands became a monologue, that I was stirred to issue this challenge. That debate was on the Trinity in the Old Testament. Our debate would rectify this little inequity of Yahya’s as it would require Yahya to link to my response. In fact, by refusing to debate this issue Yahya would be conceding my point that he edited that debate because he does not really believe such a position as was maintained by Farhan can successfully withstand refutation.

As for the other debates Yahya proposes, I would be more than happy to do those as well. I am prepared to meet Yahya at whatever level he wishes. First things first, however. Before graduating to a discussion of the Trinity in the New Testament, Yahya first has to go to the school of the prophets, those who prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, God’s Word made flesh. If Yahya does not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will He believe such things if He hears them directly from the Lord Jesus Himself.

I pray that the Lord Jesus will help those, like Yahya, who are slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. May our debate be a means to that end. I am looking forward to it.

Debunking Qur'anic Science: Was Everything Created in Pairs and do Plants have Gender? If so is this Another Miraculous Prediction in the Qur'an?

Harun Yahya has made the claim that the Qur’an predicts the modern concept of the universe, that every details within it are made in pairs; I am referring to this website below:

http://www.harunyahya.com/miracles_of_the_quran_p1_05.php

Here Harun Yahya writes:

‘DUALITY IN CREATION

Glory be to Him Who created all the pairs: from what the earth produces and from themselves and from things unknown to them (Qur’an 36: 36)

While "male and female" is equivalent to the concept of "pair," "things unknown to them," as expressed in the Qur'an, bears a broader meaning. Indeed, we encounter one of the meanings pointed to in the verse in the present day. The British physicist Paul Dirac, who discovered that matter was created in pairs, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933. This finding, known as "parity," revealed the duality known as matter and anti-matter. Anti-matter bears the opposite characteristics to matter. For instance, contrary to matter, anti-matter electrons are positive and protons negative. This fact is expressed in a scientific source as follows:

... every particle has its antiparticle of opposite charge… [T]he uncertainty relation tells us that pair creation and pair annihilation happen in the vacuum at all times, in all places.47

Indeed the Scientific claim of modern science might in a number of cases be correct. On the other hand the claim that everything is in pairs is not entirely correct; check out this article of Jochen Katz that refutes such misconceptions

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/qe015.html

Its a fact also as Jochen Katz points out that Harun’s interpretation might be reading fairly too much information into the passage than originally belongs there. Indeed Sura 36: 36 states that everything the earth produces derives in pairs, however the matters unknown to them does not necessarily refer to anything outside our earthly globe such as matter and anti-matter, unless the Qur’an specifically makes such a statement.

But lets assume here that Harun’s claim is correct and that every detail in the universe is based upon pairs and that the Qur’an refers to this cosmological system; are we then to perceive the Qur’an as miraculous in its prediction?

Interestingly sources that predate Islam, include this assumed prediction of modern scientists about the universe and its pairs; not only from what grows and lives on earth but as a system that encompasses the entire cosmological dimension; interestingly these sources are more explicit than the Qur’an.

The Jewish Talmud states:

One the verse ‘Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one,’ the comment is made: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, ‘My children, everything that I created in the Universe is in pairs—e.g. heaven and earth, the sun and moon, Adam and Eve, this world and the World to Come; but I am one and alone in the Universe (Deut. R. II. 31)’ Dr. A. Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud, London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd: 1949: 4

Hence if the Qur’an is accurate in this matter, Harun fails to tell his readers that this was a common concept that existed among the Jews and other groups prior to Islam; hence the Qur’anic statement is not miraculous but merely a reference to the knowledge that existed in Muhammad’s time and prior to Islam.

But it does not end here, Harun Yahya continues by claiming that the Qur’an is miraculous in its statement about the pairs or sex of plants; he states:

Another example of duality in creation is plants. Botanists only discovered that there is a gender distinction in plants some 100 years ago.48 Yet, the fact that plants are created in pairs was revealed in the following verses of the Qur'an 1,400 years ago:

It is Allah Who created the heavens with no support-you can see them-and cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so that it would not move under you, and scattered about in it creatures of every kind. And We send down water from the sky and make every generous plant grow in it, in pairs. (Qur'an, 31:10)

It is He Who made the earth a cradle for you and threaded pathways for you through it and sent down water from the sky by which We have brought forth diverse pairs of plants. (Qur'an, 20:53)

Osama Abdallah elaborates enormously on this claim; he writes:

‘Previously, humans did not know that plants too have male and female gender distinctions. Botany states that every plant has a male and female gender’.

(I refrain from posting a link to this article of Osama as the McFee system on my computer recently warned me from accessing his website)

Again this claim is greatly exaggerated; I suggest that the reader reads another excellent article of Jochen Katz that refutes this claim:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/sexy_fruits.html

But let’s just assess this claim in the light of pre-Islamic concepts; firstly if the Muslim claim would be solely accurate would this render the Qur’anic statement miraculous? Secondly, is Osama correct in his claim that humans prior to the modern scientific discovery did not know about the male and female gender distinctions in plants?

In fact both statements are wrong:

I welcome you to the worlds of Anaxagoras and Empedocles:

http://history.han

De Plant. i.; 815 a 16. Anaxagoras and Empedokles say that plants are moved by desire, and assert that they have perception and feel pleasure and pain. . . .Empedokles thought that sex had been mixed in them. (Note 817 a 1, 10, and 36.) (p. 200)

over.edu/texts/presoc/emp.htm

And we continue:

‘Trees first of living beings sprang from the earth, before the sun was unfolded in the heavens and before day and night were separated; and by reason of the symmetry of their mixture they contain the principle of male and female; and they grow, being raised by the warmth that is in the earth (v. 26; 440) (p. 230)’.

Hence let it be declared, here and now that we have completely debunked these claims of Harun Yahya and Osama Abdallah.

The Qur’anic reference to pairs in the universe and plants were concepts that existed prior to Islam and hence the Qur’an does not reveal itself miraculous by conveying to its readers either of these concepts.

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/2010/01/debunking-quranic-science-was.html

Coptic Justice

Coptic Justice from John Abiskaron on Vimeo.

The next rally for Coptic justice will be in New York City on January 19th. Visit the Free Copts website for more information. (And let me know if you plan to attend. I'll be there.)

Not in the Name of Islam? (Majed Moughni and other Muslims Rally against Terrorism)

On January 8th, 2010, Muslims and their non-Muslim friends gathered in Detroit, Michigan, to protest terrorism in the name of Islam. Majed Moughni, the event's organizer, predicted that thousands of Muslims would join together and condemn violence committed by Muslim terrorists. Unfortunately, Muslims aren't quite that disturbed by terrorism.



Perhaps the Muslims who refused to condemn terrorism had some of the following Islamic passages in mind:

Qur’an 9:29—Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Qur’an 9:73—O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.

Qur’an 9:111—Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him in the Taurat and the Injeel and the Quran; and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Rejoice therefore in the pledge which you have made; and that is the mighty achievement.

Qur’an 9:123—O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).

Qur’an 47:35—Be not weary and fainthearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost: for Allah is with you, and will never put you in loss for your (good) deeds.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6924—Allah’s Messenger said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: La ilaha illallah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and whoever said La ilaha illahllah, Allah will save his property and his life from me.”

Sahih Muslim 30—It is reported on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right, and his affairs rest with Allah.

Sahih al-Bukhari 2785—Narrated Abu Hurairah: A man came to Allah’s Messenger and said, “Guide me to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” He replied, “I do not find such a deed.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 2787—Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid in His Case into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 2796—Narrated Anas: The Prophet said, “A single endeavor (of fighting) in Allah’s cause in the afternoon or in the forenoon is better than all the world and whatever is in it.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 2797—Narrated Abu Hurairah: The Prophet said, . . . “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is! I would love to be martyred in Allah’s Cause and then come back to life and then get martyred, and then come back to life again and then get martyred and then come back to life again and then get martyred.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 2810—Narrated Abu Musa: A man came to the Prophet and asked, “A man fights for war booty; another fights for fame and a third fights for showing off; which of them is in Allah’s Cause?” The Prophet said, “He who fights that Allah’s Word (i.e., Allah’s religion of Islamic Monotheism) be superior, is in Allah’s Cause.”

Sunan An-Nasa’i 3099—It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Prophet said: “Whoever dies without having fought or having thought of fighting, he dies on one of the branches of hypocrisy.”

Sunan Ibn Majah 2763—It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Allah said: “Whoever meets Allah with no mark on him (as a result of fighting) in His cause, he will meet Him with a deficiency.”

Sunan Ibn Majah 2794—It was narrated that Amr bin Abasah said: “I came to the Prophet and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, which Jihad is best?’ He said: ‘(That of a man) whose blood is shed and his horse is wounded.’”

Response to Brianman on the Qur'an and atoms: a case study of Muslim responses to polemics

I find it appropriate to post here Brianman’s reply to my post on the Qur’an and atoms: http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2010/01/debunking-claim-that-quran-predicts.html and assess it for a number of reasons.

I find it amazing that Muslims can simply read such argumentation and brush it a side as Brianman does. I respond to his reply here on a separate thread since the approach he takes and the arguments he raises are simply too typical of Muslim apologists; hence this becomes a case study.

Brianman wrote:

Who do I go to?

Someone like Nabeel who has just completed medical school?

Someone LIKE Hogan who refers to textbooks at best?

Hogan replies:

Your reply Brianman, completely fails to consider the content, context, details and purpose and simply jumps into the issue by throwing in to it a number of modern Muslim apologist jargon without considering its relevance to the actual topic I raised on this thread.

I don’t know all about Nabeel; he has indeed completed medical school, which indeed gives him a certain insight into a number of these matters such as embryology in the Qur’an; hence Brianman this comment of yours is slightly of the track. Furthermore, this thread was about the atoms hence there is not point to bring Nabeel’s education into this.

As for me using textbooks, I wish you could elaborate on that. The fact is: every scientist conveys his information either through text books or teaching, in any case, to become informed one has to resort to the text or teaching of the experts. However, to elaborate more on the text I utilized, then notice Brian, that I was not conferring with modern scientists about this matter at all (this was not the issue raised in the thread), you could have detected this if you read the original post on the thread properly.

I was looking backward into the science of the Greeks and the Romans prior to the Islamic era and elaborated on the views of these early scientists in comparison with the points raised by the human Qur’anic author. I was not considering modern science, hence you reference to consult with modern experts is also irrelevant.

Hence Your reference to me or Nabeel in terms of medical school or texts as a critical pointers are not matters of relevant to this thread.

But to your information, I did consult with the experts, such as Greek philosophers and in particular the Roman thinker Lucretius and even referred to the book of Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe, written 50 BC, how much more professional can this be done? These were the experts of the time!

Brianman wrote:

Anyone who claims that Muhammad pbuh plagiarised scientific works from the Greeks etc. when they have no evidence that Muhammad pbuh received it and viewed these works. Empty arguments from empty hearts.

Hogan replies:

This can easily be proven, I did write a article on that (do check it out):

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/2010/01/did-quranic-authors-borrow-information.html

Muhammad borrowed heavily from the Greeks and the Jews. North Arabia was in close proximity with Syria and South Arabia, both highly advanced cultures in those days, so were the Jews. All three cultures had great impact upon North Arabia. In fact several of Muhammad’s followers were from these cultures.

But do read my article.

Brianman wrote:

Or do I believe scientists on the very highest level of their specialisation who are the ones who are learned enough to even write books that some random Christian would try to refute?

Hogan replies:

Since the context of the thread focused on pre-Islamic science I did consult the ‘scientists of the very highest level of their specialisation’ of that time.

This is exactly what I did!

You stated above that I was in error when I referred to text books, now you refer to scientists who write books and you glorify these writings. Am I misunderstanding your previous points or do you contradict yourself?

Brianman wrote:

The scientists who have carried out independent investigations and in many cases, personal experiments? Scientists who work with many other scientists and get their work checked by other top scientists, whether they are Christian or not, before they say "This from the Qur'an, is a miracle"? They even convert to Islam.

Hogan replies:

The Qur’an reveals nothing new about modern science! What you recon as science in the Qur’an, such as embryology, atoms and sub-atomic particles, the supposed Big Bang in the Qur’an, just to mention a few examples were all discoveries made prior to Islam.

A few scientists may have converted to Islam, but so what? Scientists have also converted to Christianity, and theistic scientists have turned into atheism. Your argument here proves nothing!

Brianman wrote:
Scientific accounts before Qur'an have some falsehood's inside it, i.e. Galen's work does contain falsehood. How comes the Qur'an sieves the falsehoods from the truths that modern TOP non-political scientists agree on?

Hogan replies:

Qur’anic embryology is not without error, it resembles Galen. In fact there were a number of embryologist schools in Muhammad’s time; unfortunately we do not even have access to all the ideas a theories the author of the Qur’an had access to at that time. Funny also that the Syriac Christians were particularly into Galen and embryology and these were the Christians who had a major impact upon North Arabia, its society and Muhammad.

I guess you are referring to Keith Moore when you refer to top scientists. Keith Moore as far as I am told has taken his few references on the Qur’an back. Some say he was paid to make such references, I can’t say that is true, yet we know that Western scientists have been bribed to comment on passages in the Qur’an and some have even refused such cheap misuse of science and exposed the attempt of these Islamic scientist fraud movements. Indeed I know that Keith Moore utterly regrets his previous connection with the Qur’an in this day and age.

Maurice Bucaille who originally began this movement, is not even a Muslim! Why? Because he knows the entire enterprise originally was inaugurated for the sake of hugs sums of money. He tricked the Muslim world with a book that is nothing but fiction. The Muslim world ate these ideas raw and continued in his steps. Only two things have come out of it 1) all the Muslims who remain Muslims by their conviction that these ideas and interpretations of the Qur’an are factual; 2) the laughter of the non-Muslim community.

Brianman wrote:
There is nothing for me to say, no need for me to respond to this thread.

Hogan replies:

There is indeed much more to say: you have not considered the focus or context of the article; you have resorted to irrelevant arguments; and you glorify the deceitful tactics of modern Muslim organisations who bribe scientists and read modern science into a book that originally was depended upon the science of its time.

An Open Debate Challenge to Yahya Snow

Muslim Yahya Snow promotes several videos on his site that attack the Trinity and the deity of Christ. He also finds occasion to attack these doctrines when the subject at hand has nothing to do with them. These are sufficient reasons by themselves to openly challenge Yahya to a written debate on either one or both of these topics.

A further reason for such a challenge arises from the fact that Yahya thinks it is appropriate to censor people’s comments, as in the following post (*), even though I did little more in the combox than direct people to a link where they could view the entire debate on the Trinity in the Old Testament between brother Sam Shamoun and Muslim Farhan Qureshi, a debate that Yahya provides a severely edited version of on his blog. This edited version consists only of Farhan’s opening statement and completely excises what Brother Sam said in that debate. Yahya also only provides Farhan’s opening presentation in his debate on the deity of Christ with brother Nabeel Qureshi (*). (Nota Bene: Yahya’s actions should not be thought of as reflecting negatively on Farhan Qureshi.)

By accepting this debate challenge Yahya will have the opportunity to prove that he believes in the public defensibility of his (anti-)position, something his actions heretofore do not evince. It will give him the opportunity of demonstrating that the Trinity and deity of Christ are not taught in the Old Testament, and that such a demonstration does not require making sure that the Muslim side is the only one being heard.

Accordingly, here is my proposal for these two topics, both in the form of an interrogative:

Is the Trinity Taught in the Old Testament?

2,500 word opening statements
2,000 word rebuttals
1,500 word counter-rebuttals
1,000 word closing statements

Is the Deity of Christ Taught in the Old Testament?

2,500 word opening statements
2,000 word rebuttals
1,500 word counter-rebuttals
1,000 word closing statements

Should Yahya accept this challenge:

1) Each installment shall be posted on our respective blogs, mine on Answering Muslims and Yahya’s on The Facts About Islam.

2) Each installment shall be posted at a pre-agreed time that is convenient to both of us (i.e. not before or after). For example:

Opening Statements: 8pm on 1/15/10
Rebuttals: 8pm on 2/1/10
Counter Rebuttals: 8pm 2/15/10
Final Remarks: 8pm 3/1/10

3) Each installment shall include a link to the opening, rebuttal, counter-rebuttal, and final remarks of the other.

4) Each installment shall be limited to the agreed upon word-limit, which shall include footnotes.

Any violation of these rules will constitute a breach of the debate agreement and will result in forfeiture. For example, if one or the other of us fail to provide a link, do not post at the pre-agreed time, or go beyond the word limit, then such will be deemed an act of self-disqualification. The same would go of course if either one of us fail to respond at all.

Since Yahya has been banned from this blog for reason of bad conduct, he can post his acceptance at his blog. Exact details can be worked out in the comments section.

***It has come to my attention that the ban on Yahya may have been lifted. Since I have been busy the past little while and have only popped in periodically, I do not know. If that is the case, the details can be worked out right here.***